23 replies to this topic

[UiA]

I Zeratul I, on 11 July 2014 - 05:38 PM, said:

12. Old heat vision modes were... "too useful"? lol wat

Yep pretty much. It was almost mandatory to run around the entire match with heatvision on (if you wanted to do well and not get snipe-ganked by someone else using HV) and it made the whole gameplay experience pretty fugly looking. One of the best changes they made was to nerf the range/change to monochrome

[Deathlike]

I Zeratul I, on 11 July 2014 - 06:23 PM, said:

Let's say you're in a medium, heavy or assault mech that doesn't go faster than 100 kph.

You're trying to get within 120 meters of an ECM cicada or ECM raven moving at 130 kph to achieve BAP lock. You would never be able to run them down & get inside 120 m to where your streaks were useful.

Even if they run to where they're within 120 meters of you, it can be tough (if not impossible) to hold your crosshairs on them long enough to get lock while they're constantly circling you.

You could lock on with a TAG laser. TAG weighs only 1.0 tons consuming 1 slot, whereas BAP weighs 1.5 tons and takes up 2 slots. Should BAP do more considering it weighs more than a TAG and consumes more slot space? Yes, it should.

Streaks have a range of 270 meters. BAP makes streaks useful against ECM at less than half of its full range.

Being within 120 meters of an ECM mech isn't always an option. In some fights you'll never get close enough and streaks with BAP won't amount to more than dead weight.

You are referring to an overheated Light mech. Last I checked, those die.

Edited by Deathlike, 11 July 2014 - 06:25 PM.

[XxXAbsolutZeroXxX]

Deathlike, on 11 July 2014 - 06:25 PM, said:

You are referring to an overheated Light mech. Last I checked, those die.

If they overheated from you at a distance of 270 meters, by the time you closed the distance to 120 meters to lock on with streak SRM's they probably wouldn't be overheated anymore.

= BAP is underpowered & could use a buff.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

[Editorial Note: The forums are being uppity so I could not use the quote function to source this list properly, nor to make it obvious which lines are from the OP and which my responses. In lieu of proper quotes, I'm going to Italicize my responses to make them stand out.]

#1 Streak SRM's could use a *manual fire option* for instances when an enemy mech overheats, shuts down, and becomes untargetable.

If you aren't bringing a BAP with your SSRMs you're doing it wrong, and BAP already allows you to target shut down mechs. Unnecessary.

#2 An off & on toggle option for tag could be useful. That way you wouldn't need to constantly hold the button down.

This has been needed since forever.

#3 BAP could use a buff against ECM. In its current implementation, BAP does too little. On a pound for pound basis, guardian ECM weighs 1.5 tons. BAP weighs 1.5 tons. ECM does far more than BAP does in terms of scope and functionality. Circumstances may be unbalanced there, at close ranges inside 200-300 m.

Not the correct ECM fix. Instead, rework ECM, BAP, TAG, NARC, Artemis IV, etc., and move away from the current hard counter system. Switch to a soft counter system, replacing the toxic on/off interactions with healthy buff/penalty interactions.

#4 Smoke grenades / ammunition. Since we have infrared heat vision, the next progression may be to incorporate weaponry that obscures normal visuals forcing players to switch to heat vision on-the-fly to successfully view their surroundings.

Smoke as a module would work just fine. It doesn't need to be an ammo type. I could see Thermal Smoke (obscures an area in heat vision), Dense Smoke (obscures an area in normal and night vision), and Bluff Smoke (red air/arty-style smoke to play games with your enemy) as options.

#5 AC-2 range buff. I can't justify it, its a personal preference.

Nah. Simply remove the Ghost Heat limit. AC2s are best when boated, just like in the TT. Allow us to boat them again (but lower the impulse first).

#6 NARC buff. HUD and GUI icons to designate an enemy mech is NARC'ed.

Targets already have an icon when NARCed, so this is unnecessary. If anything, people need a symbol on their HUD to show when they have been NARCed, as currently there's no sure way to tell unless you're on comms with someone who cares to tell you.

#7 HUD display settings. Not sure what the default HUD scale is. It may be something like 1,000 meters? Being able to toggle between (for example) 1,000 meters, 700 meters, 500 meters and 300 meters could be useful in some scenarios. Sometimes, its difficult to tell if an enemy is in front of you or behind you if they're really close. Switching to a smaller scale HUD would make brawling at short ranges easier. It would be easier to tell where someone is.

Do you mean the radar? A scaling radar would be handy. As for general HUD settings, alternate colors and such would be hugely welcome, especially for the mutants among us (the Emperor hates colorblindness).

#8 A map with no cover anywhere. Nothing but flat surface. Map objects like tunnels, basements and hills are a distraction at times, lending people a false sense of security. A map where people had no illusions about hiding or escaping. And no elbow room to do anything other than duke it out with the other team would make for a nice change of pace. It would facilitate players learning the basic fundamentals of team play. Something that may be lacking in the status quo.

This would be terrible. Even subtle folds in the terrain would be necessary to make a map work, or else whoever happened to take a sniper build, LRMs, or a Clan mech would get a free ticket to the turkey shoot.

#9 An option to map 100% reverse throttle to a keyboard / joystick button. AFAIK, no one uses the 10%, 20%, 30% forward throttle options. The only ones used are 100% forward, throttle up, throttle down, full stop (brake) and reverse throttle. Reverse throttle doesn't work too well as it cycles from 100% forward down to 0% forward. Then, it works its way up to 100% reverse. An option to shortcut past the throttle cycling and move directly to 100% reverse would be nice.

Sounds more like a bug with reverse throttle than anything else, as according to you it's essentially duplicating the full stop button (at least for the first button press). Try sending in a bug report.

#10 An option to map *torso twist right*, *torso twist left*, *elevate torso up* and *depress torso down* to keyboard buttons. Its possible to torso twist and elevate / depress with a mouse, but there is no keyboard button equivalent for non mouse or non touchpad based play. I think some old school players actually prefer aswd keys for torso twisting and elevating / depressing. It may be better to map a keyboard button to torso twisting, sometimes. With a mouse you can click and drag repeatedly to torso twist. There can be a brief hesitation inbetween click and drag cycles where your torso doesn't move. Mapping torso twist to a keyboard button can offer an advantage in not having to click and drag & ensuring your torso stays in constant motion.

Eh, why not?

#11 An option to toggle AMS off & on. Sometimes, if you're trying to hide or move undetected your position will be given away by your AMS firing at LRM's that aren't aimed at you. Other times, if you're in a tunnel or basement your AMS ammo will be wasted on LRM's that have zero chance of connecting. An option to toggle AMS *off* could help with stealth and ammo conservation.

This has been needed since forever, and is on PGI's radar as one of the things they're looking at doing in their spare time (there's a whole list that people could vote on; I'm not sure if voting is closed or not).

#12 Heat vision and night vision are both limited in terms of reducing your range of vision. You can't see as far in night vision or heat vision as you can in the normal visual mode. Not sure if that's something that needs to be fixed.

It's intentional, because otherwise Heat Vision would be the default on most maps. It's supposed to force pilots to make decisions about which mode to use, and in my opinion it does a decent job of it (unless you crank up your gamma and brightness so you don't need anything but normal vision).

#13 An option to reduce mouse sensitivity and acceleration while in visual zoom mode. It seems like a mech torso twists at the same speed zoomed in at 4.4x maximum as it does while at normal 1:1x zoom. It makes the zoomed visual modes feel sketchy and unstable. While zoomed in, it might be better if a mech torso twisted at a slower rate than it did at normal zoom. That could make it feel less skittish and inaccurate.

Anything that adds macro or programmable mouse functions to the base game as configurable commands is a good thing.