174 replies to this topic

[DeathlyEyes]

Kmieciu, on 17 July 2014 - 03:43 AM, said:

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.

This won't solve the pin point alpha problem from the direwolf and 1 shot legging wtih 2 er ppc 1 gauss. Not to say increasing recycle time by 1 second is a bad idea. That would be useful as well.

Edited by SLDF DeathlyEyes, 17 July 2014 - 05:31 PM.

[101011]

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).

Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that the limit of jumpjets a 'Mech could mount was the same as the walking speed of said 'Mech, quiaff? For example, the Nova, moving 5/8, could mount a maximum of 5 jumpjets moving it the same distance as if it walked those 5 hexes. How could there be a light walking 6 but jumping 11?

[Ancient Demise]

Skull Leader2, on 17 July 2014 - 04:28 PM, said:

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.

It is fine that it is an okay strategy, but it should not be the only strategy available for people with jump jets. Jump turning is but one aspect of mobility a JJ system should give me. For example, using the same thrust, despite the differing gravities, one could make a pretty good leap with the right thrust vector. There are a lot of things that need to be fixed here so this is only a start.

[XX Sulla XX]

Any talk of adjusting jump jets just a bit to bring the jump height back to being a bit more usefull. Even 15% would help.

[Darth Futuza]

My Jenner needs to be able to jump higher with one jump jet. Now he can barely jump, the poor guy is gimped.

[Postumus]

101011, on 17 July 2014 - 04:52 PM, said:

Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that the limit of jumpjets a 'Mech could mount was the same as the walking speed of said 'Mech, quiaff? For example, the Nova, moving 5/8, could mount a maximum of 5 jumpjets moving it the same distance as if it walked those 5 hexes. How could there be a light walking 6 but jumping 11?

You're totally correct, movement points are the same for walking and jumping with standard jumpjets, I was thinking improved JJs, which do let you jump farther than you can walk. That said, in game right now horizontal thrust is next to nothing, and you bleed off momentum from whatever direction you were moving in at an insane rate. There isn't really a reason for limiting horizontal mobility with jumpjets like this, since horizontal jumping doesn't confer any extra advantage beyond moving the same speed on the ground.

I would just like to see jumpjets that allow speedy horizontal movement, more conservation of momentum, and certainly more height than what is possible now. There are way better ways to fix jump sniping or make it harder to do without ruining jump jets.

Edited by Postumus, 17 July 2014 - 09:17 PM.

[Tannhauser Gate]

-1, not a fan of the JJ changes.

I totally support the goal of reducing poptarting and excessive hang time but I find myself annoyed and frustrated in game by the JJ changes. Im not a poptarter but I do like to use JJs to climb, manoeuver in combat, and jj-break my falls with a med or even a heavy. The JJ changes are excessive imo. I feel like Im slogging through mud even after adding more JJs.

[Gas Guzzler]

Highlander really got shafted on this one, it could really use an adjustment. 8 tons of Jump Jets are far too weak to justify the tonnage investment.

[John80sk]

After playing for a few days I've found that jumpjets are now only good for three things.
1) Poptarting
2) Clearing small pieces of terrain that my mech should be able to walk over anyways
3) Exploiting hit registration

On top of that you still only really one or two jumpjets to accomplish any of these tasks. You can also facehump hills until you get up them with pretty much the same effect whether you have one jet or more.

[Kmieciu]

Crosshair shake for the whole duration of the jump would fix all the problems. You would be able to jump and shoot, but it would only be effective at close range.

In my opinion the table top is actually a good reference for jump jet performance. A Highlander equipped with 3 JJ should be able to leap 90 meters horizontally and reach the height of 18 meters (3 elevation levels). According to MWO mechlab, it can reach 19.80m. Back to table top: "a BattleMech standing behind Level 2 terrain is completely hidden". That would translate that the tallest mech in MWO should have no more than 12 meters.

Therefore, a stock Hignlander should be able to leap over an Atlas with using only 2/3 of it's fuel. That way, if we ever get true collisions, it will be able to perform DFA maneuver.

Edited by Kmieciu, 18 July 2014 - 03:40 AM.

[reaverOfCheesecake]

Right... JJ are clearly broken now. the end goal of what they are trying to achieve might work on paper but the formula they are using clearly doesn't work in code. There might not be so many problems if the changes that were written in the update log, actually reflected what occurs in game. I run a raven with a max speed of 142KPH and two JJ. if i stand still then i can now jump 1.5 times my height when expending all my fuel... i hit the ground at around 28fps at that height, so not even enough lift to reach a height that gives me leg damage... I would expect this height from a single JJ not two so this is a little under powered in my opinion... but it is not the main gripe i have with the changes.

The main problem i have is when i run at 142KPH on a flat surface... a full tank of fuel lifts me around 1 foot of the ground... how is that even correct when the thrusters are pointing straight down. why is the forward velocity of my mech even contributing to my jump height, surely that defy's the laws of physics (although i am not an expert in that field by any means)... i think that there is a screwup in the application of the code.

[VXJaeger]

Poptarter's tears are sweeter than honey

[Jalik]

I used 3 JJ in my BJ1 for brawling before the changes. Now, I updated the build from 3 JJ to 4 JJ and it still works great for brawling. And haven't tested it on heavier mechs yet, but I don't subscribe to the notion that JJs are useless for brawling builds now. I'm sure ppl will adapt soon. If there something wrong with the thrust per jumpjet it needs to be fixed tho.

[reaverOfCheesecake]

Gallowglas, on 16 July 2014 - 08:09 AM, said:

After some pretty extensive testing last night, I can pretty conclusively say that the new implementation is problematic. I think the idea of making the ascent slower and freezing weapon cooldowns is well-conceived. What is NOT working is the jump height. Unless you're running massive numbers of JJ's, you're not even really able to do much navigating, which is what you're trying to isolate JJ usage to with these changes. With 3 JJ's on a Cataphract, I was barely able to get on top of the lowest buildings on Frozen City. Getting on top of the ridges on Canyon was out of the question without multiple jumps. Right now JJ's just seem like complete dead weight on anything except light mechs.

My assessment: keep slower ascent times (maybe not as slow as current, but slower is fine), heat, and weapon cooldowns, but increase the JJ burn time so that mechs can still use them to actually navigate.

This sounds great... why wasn't this considered by PGI. I still can't understand how they justified shoddy physics where forward momentum makes your mech unable to lift at all, regardless of how much fuel is used. I know they are trying to balance JJ and i am not unsympathetic to it, but surely in testing it would have flagged the physics issue. It feels that this this been thrown into the live code with no testing whatsoever. It seems to be some last second change to the initial values to meet a quota. The JJ needs to be rolled back and then changes need to be properly tested before releasing the code again.

[Cpt Zaepp]

After a few days testing with medium and heavy 'Mechs my verdict on the recent changes for JJs:

Sad. Underwhelming. Lame. Lackluster. Despicable. Pathetic. No fun.

Suggestion:

I think it is a good thing that the performance for using just one or two JJs was severely reduced.

But sadly, JJ-performance scales not very good with the number of JJs equipped.

Therefore, increase the performance rather exponentially than linear for each additional JJ, so that pilots who fully commit to using JJs get more out of their investment. For using max JJs a performance at least equal to pre-nerf would be appropriate. Also, I don't like the new trajectory, just roll it back.

The decreased heat-dissipation while using JJs is barely noticeable in most situations.

Edited by zaepp, 18 July 2014 - 06:34 AM.

[101011]

Postumus, on 17 July 2014 - 09:17 PM, said:

You're totally correct, movement points are the same for walking and jumping with standard jumpjets, I was thinking improved JJs, which do let you jump farther than you can walk. That said, in game right now horizontal thrust is next to nothing, and you bleed off momentum from whatever direction you were moving in at an insane rate. There isn't really a reason for limiting horizontal mobility with jumpjets like this, since horizontal jumping doesn't confer any extra advantage beyond moving the same speed on the ground.

I would just like to see jumpjets that allow speedy horizontal movement, more conservation of momentum, and certainly more height than what is possible now. There are way better ways to fix jump sniping or make it harder to do without ruining jump jets.

Ah, yes, I had forgotten about those. I also agree completely with what you are saying. It bothers me a great deal that my supposedly-nimble Summoner struggles to get up a canyon wall.

[dimachaerus]

So, after playing for most of the week, my take on the JJ changes is this:

What are you guys smoking? This made jets much less effective for actual navigation, and relegated them even more to the instant pastry camp. Yes, the numbers for many mechs grew, especially since when I have JJ capable machines I tend to run max jets (Yes, I am very un-meta), but in actual play, the numbers are an outright lie.

My poor Nova for instance, is hard mounted with five jets, it used to be pretty nimble for such a massive (seriously, it must be made out of carbon fiber and helium, it's as big as a Dire Wolf!) medium mech, able to get to rooftops and hop canyons smoothly. Now I have to burn over half my fuel just to hop over another nova. Half jump fuel, to clear an obstacle the same height as my mech? That is just mentally challenged.

My Griffin, the paragon of medium mech mobility? Feels like someone clamped a "gravitically enhanced" anchor to each leg. This doesn't even begin to touch the things it has done to my poor Quickdraw and Summoner. Yes, Piggy has stated that they're not trying to do anything to the most totally legit tactic in the entire game, and they succeeded, partially. Their "success" only makes that very same tactic even MORE relevant now than ever.

GG PGI, Instant-Pastry-Warrior-Online has taken one giant leap... I mean, "hobbling stumble", forward.

[ImperialKnight]

This JJ "fix" has hurt weaker mech FAR more than poptarts. the CTF-3D and Dragon Slayer can still poptart with a couple more JJs at little cost since they have the spare tonnage.

Lights and Mediums are hurting terribly and already, no one plays these classes.

restore JJs to the previous heights but make it a burst on the first jump. meaning hitting spacebar will boost the mech at a 45 degree angle to a fixed height based on JJs equipped. then allow the mech to feather the jets on the way down

At the least, Class I and II JJs should provide far more lift so as to not penalise light and medium mechs

[TheAtomiser]

I think you've nailed the thrust and the heat but I think that the amount of the fuel needs to be increased across the whole board so we can get some decent height and manage the fall.

[Postumus]

Would it be so hard to implement something like increased cone of fire for weapons fired while jumping? Finding a way to reduce the accuracy of weapons fire while jumping would not only cut down on jump sniping, it would allow the devs to reverse the current trend of decreasing power, acceleration, and responsiveness for jump jets.

Jump jets right now are slow, boring, and low utility. Pretty much the only thing they ARE good for is to jump snipe, because most of the time jump sniping requires much less height and speed than using jumpjets for navigation and mobility. There is no sweet spot for jump jets where they aren't powerful enough for jump sniping, but are powerful enough for navigation.

Quit nerfing jump jets, because it hurts people who use them for their intended purpose more than it hurts poptarts. Find a better way to make jump sniping more difficult.

Edited by Postumus, 18 July 2014 - 07:34 PM.