174 replies to this topic

[Túatha Dé Danann]

Okay, lets start with a reasonable approach, shall we?

Lights:
A single Jump Jet should make it possible for them to gain the height of another light while they burn long enough to pass a cliff. Try it on Canyon network, go full speed with a light and they should be able to jump from on side to another. Thats about the balance for 1 JJ.

2JJ:
Instead of just "hovering", you do get a real thrust upwards now. While a single JJ was just able to hold the mech slightly upwards the ground, the second one will now lift you up. You can easily jump over enemy assault now.

3JJ:
Oh yeah, you JJ now give you the ability to use them as a real option to use the third dimension as movement-zone. While you are still far away from flying through the air, it becomes easy to jump on the top of a building.

... and so on

Mediums:
1 JJ:
Welcome to the world of getting over obstacles, like small cliffs and short gaps in front of you. You will be able to handle most map obstacles and can jump over all the things, where you otherwise had to move around.

2JJ:
Nice going! you reach the roof-top of the first level of the citadel on River City - from the waterside. No problems with any other stuff. You jump over mechs and can make use of advanced maneuvers.

3 JJ:
You can reach the roof-Top of a building

Heavies:
1JJ: You are barely able to get though all small obstacles on the map. You can get over cliffs, where you normally would need a real entrance. On Canyon network, you can get on top of the maximum level, but it takes quite some time. It is still faster than going around.

2JJ:
You can use you jump jets to get over an enemy mech

3 JJ: Now you feel nimble. You have a good reserve on thrust and can go through the whole map without fearing fall-damage at all.

Assaults:
1 JJ:
Try again. You will not really lift up. You may get over some small obstacles, but you do not really feel getting up.

2JJ:
Now you can manage all map obstacles and can even get over medium sized mechs. Cliffs do not stop you anymore, but you still need quite some time to get up. You are easy to hit, as you "fly" rather slow.

3JJ: You get into the region, where you can follow other mechs and do not fear any map obstacle anymore.

...

Thats how I imagine things to be. So, how do we balance it out?

Well, first, the mass of a mech is a negative number and the thrust of a JJ will be counted against it. We should get something, where a single JJ is just barely able to get beyond that number. Another JJ on the other hand feels like getting a full bonus. So while we could still apply a linear "thrust" increase, you would need a minimal thrust to get up. Esp, on heavy and assaults, you feel that negative impact if you equip only one JJ. While you are still able to get over all the tiny cliffs, you would really need 2 JJ on an assault to manage all the stuff without problems.

So, a single JJ should only be viable on Lights and Mediums.

A small outbalance goes with the reactor. While it does not increase the thrust per se, it increases the fuel you carry with you. So you would still slow-poke through the air with a single JJ, but you may be able to get over the cliffs that are about 45° - 60° in front of you. You will still not be able to use the JJ to "Jump Snipe" - at least not without getting easily hit back, because you are so slow in the air.

[Habu55]

So it's day 2 of the new patch and Jump Jets are still Fcked up....whats the ETA and restoring lift fuctionality to them? Currently Assaults that use JJ's have 50-60% less lift in my case.

Kinda important for those of us who use them on a consistent basis.

[Ancient Demise]

A single jump jet should have a fixed thrust value to it, scaled either by jj class or mech weight. 2 jump jets would double this, and so on.
The thrust required is calculated from the mass of the mech and the gravitational acceleration. Any constant force that can overcome this will accelerate the mech upwards. A horizontal component will obviously accelerate it forward or in a different direction. In order for a mech to hover, the thrust would have to decrease until it balances the gravitational force once the mech is off the ground. The only reason a mech should hover instead of lift off I can possibly think of is if the directional components propell it in another direction while it is in midair. Honestly all I want is a decent forward trajectory with a reasonably scaled thrust, not hovering like mech 2 and not pop tart central.

Edited by Ancient Demise, 16 July 2014 - 07:10 PM.

[Postumus]

I personally never understood why the developers did not allow for jump jets as a HORIZONTAL mobility aid. The Battletech game had dozens of mechs that, while not particularly fast on the ground for their weight class, were able to use their jump jets to obtain spurts of horizontal speed (I.E., a light that can only move 6 hexes running could jump 11 hexes). This doesn't make the mech OP by any means - can you imagine trying to aim while flying forward in a ballistic trajectory with JJ shake at high speed? What it would do is change the mobility dynamic for smaller (medium and light) mechs with a traditionally large jump distance. Instand of all light mechs being practically required to go 120 km/h or above in order to survive, you could see 85-100 km/h lights, or 65-85 km/h mediums with burst mobility.

As far as the current level of thrust provided by JJs for light mechs, I don't get it. What is game breaking about a light mech flying through the air? Now that leg damage has been properly modelled, as long as it takes at least 5 JJs for a light to really "fly", and as long as they cannot do it continously, I don't see any reason why you shouldn't be able to launch your spider or jenner way the hell up there. JJs right now just feel lethargic, underpowered, and unresponsive, even with the maximum amount.

[Karamarka]

Nova feels so bad

Summoner feels so bad

TBR is fine even with 2jj

Way too low height, i hate rubbing against mountains just to get over them....

[Kmieciu]

Postumus, on 16 July 2014 - 09:18 PM, said:

The Battletech game had dozens of mechs that, while not particularly fast on the ground for their weight class, were able to use their jump jets to obtain spurts of horizontal speed (I.E., a light that can only move 6 hexes running could jump 11 hexes). This doesn't make the mech OP by any means - can you imagine trying to aim while flying forward in a ballistic trajectory with JJ shake at high speed? What it would do is change the mobility dynamic for smaller (medium and light) mechs with a traditionally large jump distance. Instand of all light mechs being practically required to go 120 km/h or above in order to survive, you could see 85-100 km/h lights, or 65-85 km/h mediums with burst mobility.

I fully support this idea. Jump jets should give you more forward momentum so you could even exceed your maximum speed. The idea that you could downgrade your engine in order to gain bursts of mobility with JJ is nicely balanced. Now, the Jump Jets actually slow you down.

PGI should fix the JJ exploits while they're at it. Even with 1 JJ any mech can climb almost any hill. Just tap the JJ button instead of holding it and it and you're golden. "Bunny hopping" is another exploit. It messes up the HSR and completely breaks immersion. It's like playing the original Counter Strike again!

[Jalik]

I like the changes so far. It was not meant to get rid of poptarting and it didn't. It simply made sure that IF you want to poptart you'll have to invest in tonnage and heat. If you simply want to be more maneuverable, one JJ might do the job. If you want to do more, you gonna have to pay the price. That's reasonable. A 4 JJ poptart build therefore might still be viable but 1 JJ builds possibly need to be modified.
that's exactly how it should be! Thnx PGI!

[DeathlyEyes]

A complete swing and miss. None of the recent changes have affected jump sniping more than other styles of play. The most recent batch of changes just made it even harder for close range mechs to get in close. Furthermore the mech I thought would be the most impaired seems to work just fine. I had similar results using my dragon slayer and cataphract today as well. These games were all in a row. Bare in mind this was done with a traditional 1 jump jet timbertart.


The changes made to fall damage meant that mechs without jump jets just have an even harder time navigating a map. Not only do they have to worry about getting up steep hills and walls, they now need to worry about getting down them. Jump jet mechs were entirely unaffected. Jump snipers aren't affected since they barely take any damage from falling because they can slow their fall if they jump too high and for the most part barely jump high enough to suffer from fall damage in the first place.




The changes made to the jump jet height is another instance where changes fail to significantly affect jump snipers while drastically affecting other styles of game play. Good jump snipers barely clear hills and barely need to jump. While slowing the ascent has negatively impacted jump brawlers since it is now nearly impossible to jump out of another mechs arc of fire. This change has also made it more difficult for brawlers to quickly access harder to reach places, often a jump sniper nest.

The changes made to jump heat have only affected jump brawlers since they can no longer cool down while jumping. Jump snipers are just minorly affected since they only have to wait an extra second or so for their heat to cool down after taking a jump shot.

Stop beating around the bush. The prevalence of jump sniping is a mixture of three things.

1. Poor in game communication. This means doing a push with brawlers is near on impossible without using a 3rd party program such as teamspeak. The team sitting back will always have the advantage since the enemies will flow in rather than move in together.

2. Poor map design. Most of the maps cater to jump sniping as they lack proper paths through them for brawlers. The maps are also often too small to sneak up on a group of jump snipers. Often times sniper nests are near the one "sneaky" way around them. For example the "sneaky" way to get behind a team on forest colony is through the cave. Unfortunately the sniper nests are right near it and any movement can quickly be noticed by a mech using seismic sensor and appropriate measures can be taken to wipe out any push through the cave.

3. Terrible terrain movement mechanics. Currently the hills steep enough to use as cover from LRM boats cannot be climbed. This means a mech cannot pop in and out of cover by "humping the hill." This also limits brawlers since brawlers have to often take longer paths to avoid a hill that mechs should probably be able to climb. Increasing the pitch a hill a mech can climb to 60% would go a long way to solving this issue.

A further issue could be argued that mechs die too easily to pinpoint fire and can't close to a jump sniper. A solution better than simply creating some element of randomness with a cone of fire would be to buff armor values by about 30%. This will allow fast brawlers to close quicker and when they get in close their DPS advantage can be used to quickly destroy a sniper.

Edited by SLDF DeathlyEyes, 17 July 2014 - 03:37 AM.

[Kmieciu]

SLDF DeathlyEyes, on 17 July 2014 - 03:30 AM, said:

A further issue could be argued that mechs die too easily to pinpoint fire and can't close to a jump sniper. A solution better than simply creating some element of randomness with a cone of fire would be to buff armor values by about 30%. This will allow fast brawlers to close quicker and when they get in close their DPS advantage can be used to quickly destroy a sniper.

I agree with everything you've said except armor buffing. The easiest solution is to decrease PPC\ERPPC\cERPPC DPS by increasing the cooldown. PPC has the same cooldown as a Medium Laser (if you add the beam time). This has got to change. I vote for 1 second longer cooldown - a 25% decrease in DPS.

[Ancient Demise]

Shlkt, on 16 July 2014 - 07:10 AM, said:

Please explain this to me...
The Victor, which uses Class II jump jets, has better thrust per JJ and better initial jump velocity than any other mech in the game (check the raw data if you don't believe me, look for JumpJets_ClassII: http://static.mwomer.../list/full.json)

The biggest, baddest, most abusive pop-tarter in the game gets the best jump jets. It was the best in the previous patch, and it's still the best in the new patch (although not as good as it was). The balance seems rather inverted from what it should be.

Class   V: 1.1 m/s + 18.5J m/s^2 (lights)
Class  IV: 1.2 m/s + 22.5J m/s^2 (mediums)
Class III: 2.0 m/s + 22.5J m/s^2 (heavies)
Class  II: 2.0 m/s + 34.0J m/s^2 (victor)
Class   I: 1.5 m/s + 16.5J m/s^2 (highlander)

(Table shows initial jump velocity + acceleration per jump jet per second)

Wait is this seriously correct? I'm not sure if it is me or pgi that is awful at basic physics but by my math with this acceleration and initial velocity, a max height of 33 meters, and a jump length of 4.1 meters and a 3.5 second burn time, the gravity for the highlander would have to be about 12.5-12.6 m/s2 (earth standard is 9.81). I have not calculated the others yet but i cannot imagine they use the same gravity.

[tayhimself]

Sadly it is correct. Look at trajectories here. http://imgur.com/a/IYSX0

[Summon3r]

something needs to be done for mechs like the summoner that live off there mobility, if we are truely trying to curb poptarting consider not allowing ballistics to be fired while jumping at all and if they are there are very negative results? only weapon fire that should have no recoil should be able to be fired while in the air?

anyhow be really nice if the Summoner was more mobile.... ALOT more mobile, as it should be and always has been

[ResidentCrow]

just my two cents, but the jump jet nerf:
-removes a dimension to fights (they aren't worth it in brawling now)
-isn't fun (slowly climbing 10feet then hitting the face of a low building, or pebble, wee....)

It might be slightly more balanced, but at the cost of gameplay variety and enjoyability

[Xarian]

The thrust increase for additional jets is minor. A Summoner with maxed jets can barely jump more than a Timberwolf with 1 jet - that is, barely at all!

JJs are essentially dead as a fighting tool, and nearly dead as a mobility tool (it takes you 10 seconds to get over a small ledge with 4 JJs). If PGI wants to make a "linear increase of thrust", then they need to adjust the coefficients a lot higher, so that 2.5 JJs is equal to double 1 JJ - currently, it takes about 6 JJs to have twice the thrust of a single JJ.

Currently the only people who can afford to use JJs are the people who have time to sit in the back and slowly thrust over terrain... which is the "poptart" people.

[Ancient Demise]

Okay, I've done the math a few times and the results are disturbing... Either the values for the displacements we are seeing are wrong (I got them from smurfy and they have not misled me yet) or unless I really messed up somewhere, GRAVITY AFFECTS MECHS DIFFERENTLY. Well, a more accurate statement is gravity affects jump jet classes differently but you get the idea.

I get 12.58m/s2 for class 1 and 14m/s2 for class 5. Since I am working with multiple unknowns here (time to vertex, gravity) this is a lot of guess and check. I could have written something to work it out automatically based on all the constraints but i am not getting paid to do this so :/ Accuracy is about +/-0.1.

If the values in smurfy are the distances traveled while the jump jets are active (not vertex and total jump displacement) the gravity is still different - 11.3 and 12.6 for class 1 and 5, respectively. Unless of course these jump arcs really don't follow a proper trajectory so who knows.

Can anyone confirm this independently?

[DAEDALOS513]

SLDF DeathlyEyes, on 17 July 2014 - 03:30 AM, said:

A complete swing and miss. None of the recent changes have affected jump sniping more than other styles of play. The most recent batch of changes just made it even harder for close range mechs to get in close. Furthermore the mech I thought would be the most impaired seems to work just fine. I had similar results using my dragon slayer and cataphract today as well. These games were all in a row. Bare in mind this was done with a traditional 1 jump jet timbertart. The changes made to fall damage meant that mechs without jump jets just have an even harder time navigating a map. Not only do they have to worry about getting up steep hills and walls, they now need to worry about getting down them. Jump jet mechs were entirely unaffected. Jump snipers aren't affected since they barely take any damage from falling because they can slow their fall if they jump too high and for the most part barely jump high enough to suffer from fall damage in the first place.The changes made to the jump jet height is another instance where changes fail to significantly affect jump snipers while drastically affecting other styles of game play. Good jump snipers barely clear hills and barely need to jump. While slowing the ascent has negatively impacted jump brawlers since it is now nearly impossible to jump out of another mechs arc of fire. This change has also made it more difficult for brawlers to quickly access harder to reach places, often a jump sniper nest. The changes made to jump heat have only affected jump brawlers since they can no longer cool down while jumping. Jump snipers are just minorly affected since they only have to wait an extra second or so for their heat to cool down after taking a jump shot. Stop beating around the bush. The prevalence of jump sniping is a mixture of three things. 1. Poor in game communication. This means doing a push with brawlers is near on impossible without using a 3rd party program such as teamspeak. The team sitting back will always have the advantage since the enemies will flow in rather than move in together. 2. Poor map design. Most of the maps cater to jump sniping as they lack proper paths through them for brawlers. The maps are also often too small to sneak up on a group of jump snipers. Often times sniper nests are near the one "sneaky" way around them. For example the "sneaky" way to get behind a team on forest colony is through the cave. Unfortunately the sniper nests are right near it and any movement can quickly be noticed by a mech using seismic sensor and appropriate measures can be taken to wipe out any push through the cave. 3. Terrible terrain movement mechanics. Currently the hills steep enough to use as cover from LRM boats cannot be climbed. This means a mech cannot pop in and out of cover by "humping the hill." This also limits brawlers since brawlers have to often take longer paths to avoid a hill that mechs should probably be able to climb. Increasing the pitch a hill a mech can climb to 60% would go a long way to solving this issue. A further issue could be argued that mechs die too easily to pinpoint fire and can't close to a jump sniper. A solution better than simply creating some element of randomness with a cone of fire would be to buff armor values by about 30%. This will allow fast brawlers to close quicker and when they get in close their DPS advantage can be used to quickly destroy a sniper.

WOW, you know your sh*t. Listen to every word this man has to say PGI!

Edited by DAEDALOS513, 17 July 2014 - 12:07 PM.

[DAEDALOS513]

Xarian, on 17 July 2014 - 09:16 AM, said:

- currently, it takes about 6 JJs to have twice the thrust of a single JJ.

I thought it was bad but not THAT bad.. damn.

Xarian, on 17 July 2014 - 09:16 AM, said:

Currently the only people who can afford to use JJs are the people who have time to sit in the back and slowly thrust over terrain... which is the "poptart" people.

How ironic

Ancient Demise, on 17 July 2014 - 11:52 AM, said:

Okay, I've done the math a few times and the results are disturbing... Either the values for the displacements we are seeing are wrong (I got them from smurfy and they have not misled me yet) or unless I really messed up somewhere, GRAVITY AFFECTS MECHS DIFFERENTLY. Well, a more accurate statement is gravity affects jump jet classes differently but you get the idea.

I get 12.58m/s2 for class 1 and 14m/s2 for class 5. Since I am working with multiple unknowns here (time to vertex, gravity) this is a lot of guess and check. I could have written something to work it out automatically based on all the constraints but i am not getting paid to do this so :/ Accuracy is about +/-0.1.

If the values in smurfy are the distances traveled while the jump jets are active (not vertex and total jump displacement) the gravity is still different - 11.3 and 12.6 for class 1 and 5, respectively. Unless of course these jump arcs really don't follow a proper trajectory so who knows.

Can anyone confirm this independently?

Umm try Einstein?

[JimboFBX]

class 1 jump jets have much larger amounts of fuel. It's like 3x larger or so.

[L A V A]

Every time you guys try to "fix" something the lights pay the price.

No wonder they are becoming an endangered species.

[Skull Leader2]

One thing people need to stop talking about is that this was a fix for pop-tarting. They were very clear with announcing this upcoming change that they were NOT trying to "fix" pop tarting and they believe it to be an ok strategy.