588 replies to this topic

[Dark DeLaurel]

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Greetings MechWarriors,

The Dev Team has heard out your concerns regarding the over-use of Artillery and Air Strikes. With your feedback in mind the following changes are to be implemented within the next 2 patches.

Some have indicated that it is silly for Clans to have access to artillery in the first place, given their philosophical beliefs regarding that weapon system.
With that in mind, Clans will only be able to use Air Strikes.

To balance the Inner Sphere: MechWarriors will have the option to use both Air Strikes and Artillery, but will only be able to field one or the other on each Mech.

Please let us know what you think and update us on how this change will affect your overall impression of the module changes.

Do the devs realize that there are some Clans that actually used Artillery? Clan Hell's Horses being one that i know of off the top of my head. So now all Clans cant use them because of poor design choices?

[Kill Dozer]

Sledge Hammer Balancing?

You don't say.

[Sandslice]

Dark DeLaurel, on 30 July 2014 - 07:06 PM, said:

Do the devs realize that there are some Clans that actually used Artillery? Clan Hell's Horses being one that i know of off the top of my head. So now all Clans cant use them because of poor design choices?

CHH isn't an Invading or Reserve Clan; and they're particularly known for using combined arms, more than other Clans that tend to limit their CAS to Omnis + Elemental Points.

Clan Wolf had the Naga, but only fielded it in the Invasion during the battle of Tukayyid, since they didn't drink as much of the Kerensky-Cola as other Clans and opted to fight more like their Inner Sphere opponents. Of course, having Natasha Kerensky and Phelan Kell as tactical advisors didn't hurt...

[OznerpaG]

better idea - let IS lights/mediums have both arty/airstrike

they need something to make them more desirable, and this is at least something

[SVK Puskin]

Kraven Kor, on 30 July 2014 - 05:36 PM, said:

Well, we can't have, and don't want

Can not? Do not want? Speak for yourself!

[Demoulius]

Well tbh theres several ways of balancing arty/air strikes without limiting 1 per mech (which is still 12 per side...)

Tbh once community warfare hits you guys got the perfect way to balance it. A side needs air superiority for air strikes and actual artillary pieces for arty strikes.

Make air bases and/or dropship landings a thing in community warfare when attacking and defending a planet. It fits and balances out depending on what situation a planet is on.

Attacking a fully owned planet from your opponent? No arty and air strike for you while your opponent has got acces to both. Attacked a planet and took over an airbase? Grats you now got air strikes while taking it away from your opponent. You took a drop ship landing site instead of the air base? Artillary strikes gained instead of air strikes.

Without CW, yea...sure I can see why many people think its to many but in CW it has its place imho

[damonwolf]

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Some have indicated that it is silly for Clans to have access to artillery in the first place, given their philosophical beliefs regarding that weapon system.
With that in mind, Clans will only be able to use Air Strikes

When has Lore ever stopped you guys from implementing anything? The Clan wouldn't have used the $#%^ing Warhorns, but you shoved those down our throats anyway (BTW, still waiting for a mute button for them).
I can live with limiting the number of strikes to just 1. BUT, please don't punish the Clans and limit them to just Air...that's just making the problem, and community anger/frustration worse. Discriminating and screwing Clan pilots (who just paid your paychecks BTW) to appease a few IS pilots will just be pouring gasoline on the fire. Ask yourselves if you really want to make things in this area worse...

My idea for modules:
1) Best/Easiest solution: Leave each Mech with the modules they currently have. Only change the weapon module to a weapon/Mech module where either can be equipped. That would give real choice instead of being forced to equip a weapon module only.

2) Second solution: Give all Mechs 1 Consumable slot and 2 Mech module slots to start, with the 3rd combo Mech/weapon module unlocked though the trees. Let the pilot choose whether to put a Mech or a weapon module into the 3rd slot.

-Make the weapon modules actually add something to the weapon. Right now they are complete crap, and add little other than heat (which IMO is punishing a pilot for equipping a weapon module).
-Don't discriminate against weapons, have Weapon module slots for ALL weapons, not just a few select ones. Example: no LRM module).
-Make Arty/Air strikes only usable by Mechs that equip a Command Console (IS or Clan). Make the Console 3 tons.
-When you finalize the new system, perform a complete reset of the module system with refund of all GXP and CBills for modules.

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If you make things like Seismic, and Target Decay (and other sensor things) weapon modules instead of mech modules, that might change.

I do like this idea as well.

Edited by damonwolf, 31 July 2014 - 01:23 AM.

[CHH Badkarma]

Nikolai Lubkiewicz, on 30 July 2014 - 07:43 PM, said:

Hell's Horses have a dignified place in the storyarch, but we have already mentioned that only the first 4 invading clans will be represented at this stage of the game.

You attempt to manufacture points about as well as you continue to manufacture different timelines.
Maybe we should just depart with the rest of the departing long time players.

That being said, setting up yet another flawed approach to sooth the aching backsides of poor players who get killed by a 30/40 point alpha, or an arty strike (omg, the huge manatee) is only going to hurt the game. Any mech damaged enough, and poorly positioned enough to get dropped by 30/40 points from land or air is a damn fool and not doing their part

Edited by CHH Badkarma, 30 July 2014 - 09:26 PM.

[5th Fedcom Rat]

damonwolf, on 30 July 2014 - 08:20 PM, said:

BUT, please don't punish the Clans and limit them to just Arty...that's just making the problem, and community anger/frustration worse. Discriminating and screwing Clan pilots (who just paid your paychecks BTW) to appease a few IS pilots will just be pouring gasoline on the fire. A

Oh poor maligned Clan pilots, I weep for you. You truly needed your canon/fiction/lore violating artillery to have any chance of standing up to those big, mean Inner Sphere bullies and their overpowered 450m range large lasers.
.

Edited by 5th Fedcom Rat, 30 July 2014 - 09:01 PM.

[CHH Badkarma]

5th Fedcom Rat, on 30 July 2014 - 08:53 PM, said:

Oh poor maligned Clan pilots, I weep for you. You truly needed your canon/fiction/lore violating artillery to have any chance of standing up to those big, mean Inner Sphere bullies and their overpowered 450m range large lasers.

Keyboard warriors and their constructive posts.....

[5th Fedcom Rat]

CHH Badkarma, on 30 July 2014 - 08:57 PM, said:

Keyboard warriors and their constructive posts.....

In all seriousness, I think preventing Clan artillery use is an excellent balancing decision that will enrich both the lore and distinctive gameplay choices in MWO.

Bravo PGI, bravo (slow clap).

Other than that, a simple solution to this whole module mess would be the following:

-All mechs get one, and only one, consumable slot
-All mechs get 2 weapon module slots
-All mechs get 3-5 mech module slots, depending on the variant and whether they are mastered


.

Edited by 5th Fedcom Rat, 30 July 2014 - 09:04 PM.

[Sneakypoop]

OoooooOOoh ! I get it.
You want to follow the KISS!

"Role warfare" sure is a good idea, although maybe not too easy for the developers.
Modules were poorly designed (from day 1) to answer "Role warfare".

Removing the possibilities we had (do the math) is a way to make that a "One role" warfare.

My dear, dear Nikolaï, you should inform the team : this is not what KISS is about !
They got it ALL wrong !
It's about making the SOLUTION simple, not about changing the PROBLEM WORDING !


Anyway : besides that, again, I'm PISSED off by PGI's work :

1/ You removed the possibility to modify my mech module settings in the "mech select" window, once again forcing me in going in the mechlab. I call that a "Yet another regression" , like every patch that modifies whatever something new in the UI. I too am sick with all this UI incompetence.

2/ Freaking test your UI modifications before you deliver them. Once again it is bugged !
Modules do not appear to be back in the inventory when a mech is stripped of its modules.
Yes it is a visual bug. But still is a bug. Crap that was NOT tested !
It's no beta anymore, is it ?

It's been like that for a while now :
1 new feature / 1 UI regression / a couple new bugs / and very few fixes.

We still have the freaking lag / deco / freeze issues, the reconnect added a "Let's wait untill we find the last deco" for 5 minutes each single match. I did not see it change but by one single death the issue of the mach on single time since the patch is online. Not ONCE.

24 x 5 = 2h on customers time lost every 15 minutes spent in game.

Fix your issues, and yet remove those that are useless and painful for the customers !

STOP WAISTING OUR TIME !


PGI, you are doing hell of a really bad work here.

[L3GR0DANCER]

Sneakypop, on 30 July 2014 - 09:18 PM, said:

STOP WAISTING OUR TIME !

LOL, so PGI's newest project is a girdle made out of the precious time of their customers? Sounds about right. And here I thought they could only mismanage all the money we threw at them. Way to raise the bar, guys!

[damonwolf]

5th Fedcom Rat, on 30 July 2014 - 08:53 PM, said:

Oh poor maligned Clan pilots, I weep for you. You truly needed your canon/fiction/lore violating artillery to have any chance of standing up to those big, mean Inner Sphere bullies and their overpowered 450m range large lasers.
.

I see you have some deep emotional issues with Clan Mechs...
But, you missed my point. Right now, the community is up in arms and pissed off at PGI for their ill-advised, and poorly thought out module changes. Applying a fix that benefits the IS and gimps the Clans (Arty is more effective than Air) and pisses the Clan pilots off is NOT the way to fix the problems. It will only exacerbate it.
PGI is missing the points that the community is telling them loud and clear...AGAIN. The problem is the fact that they poorly planned and implemented changes they knew were bad and would upset the community.
Now they want to add some kind of invented restrictive balance that makes no $#%$ing sense and actually adds imbalance to the module system?
WHY?
THAT is my point...why would they even go there? It doesn't fix the problem, only adds imbalance and more anger/frustration to a volatile subject. Then labeling it as following lore when they routinely ignore lore for their own purposes is insulting to intelligent people.

Edited by damonwolf, 30 July 2014 - 09:49 PM.

[Dark DeLaurel]

Nikolai Lubkiewicz, on 30 July 2014 - 07:43 PM, said:

Hell's Horses have a dignified place in the storyarch, but we have already mentioned that only the first 4 invading clans will be represented at this stage of the game.

PGI/IGP has already thrown the source out the window for the most part, In the end almost all Clan's field combat vehicles of some sort and a lot of them are LRM variants that can easily mount Swarm LRMs. Hell there is only a one Inner Sphere tank that mounts Long Toms and it isn't even in production anymore from what I can tell.

So please again tell me why Clans are getting left out with artillery strikes. There has yet to be any explanations of why things are happening with the game.

[L Y N X]

Many people over dramatize the effects of game play changes. They will blame others, and thus water down and lose the real message that is needed to be heard at PGI. Please stop pointing fingers, please start taking responsibility for wasting your own time. No one wastes your time but yourself. It is folly and irresponsible to think otherwise.

PGI is supposed to be hard at work on Team Association, and Community Warfare. Yes its shameful, the wasted effort on PGI's part for the module update, but it is done, and over. PGI does not even have many of the weapons modules for the weapons in the game, especially the more popular weapons. It really does not matter if the benefit are too small to not be worth using if said modules do not yet exist. Whatever, move along, nothing to see here. Lets get back on track to CW please. Let us see how badly that can be muffed up. I blame myself for being a mech-head.

[JayKay17]

While the argument for the clans not to use artillery is weak, they scorned artillery in the fight vs. their brethren of other clan front line units. There Zellbriggen was enforced, so artillery was a no go.
When fighting bandits, dark caste, mercenaries or other dezgra, the clans didn't hold back on artillery, airstrikes or even orbital bombardment with their warships.

The idea to limit the use of artillery and air strikes by limiting the usage in game to one strike wether air or artillery per mech is a valid option, not the best one but definitively better than the situation at hand.

[Appogee]

The new limitations will be a start, but they don't go nearly far enough. There's still the potential for 48 strikes per match (IS Mechs only), or 36 strikes in a mixed match. In practice, I believe we'll still see 20 or so.

In last night's matches in the group queue, large groups were constantly being spamming them. It was just embarassing to see how badly they were being abused.

I signed up to play MechWarrior Online, not StrikeSpammer Online.

The root problem continues to be that PGI's vision for modules is the direct opposite of role warfare they claim to aspire to. Their original design from 2012, abandoned for some reason, would have been far better. And there are several excellent alternative implementations listed in this thread.

[Monkeystador]

Since the damage reduction and spread increase in both strike modules the general use went down IMHO. PGI should have numbers on that.

I dont care about strikes anymore since the patch, price damage ratio is not so good anymore.
Now that we are kinda forced to use consumeables if we want to enjoy as much benefits as with 3 mech modules equipped it might have changed.

Honestly i think it would be good to half the price of the AIR/ARTY now and half the damage. We get more strikes but these wont be as damaging anymore.
It will change the game a bit:
1.halfs the damage potential of strikes carried to the field.
2.reduce the effectiveness of striking single targets dramatically.
3.reduce the damage impact when strikes are launched on death balls individual members but still facilitate a breakup.
4.more drama on the battlefield when strikes explode left right and center equals more action and adrenalin.

Edited by Monkeystador, 30 July 2014 - 11:00 PM.

[CHH Badkarma]

Want to cut down on air and arty? Make them all sell for MC only. It will make the people that stand in the open and get hit happy, as it will likely be cut down in use. It will also make PGI happy because people will have to spend money to get MC.

Edited by CHH Badkarma, 30 July 2014 - 11:04 PM.