MilesTeg1982, on 19 August 2014 - 01:06 PM, said:
vote no because its just not neccessary!
1. if you loose a side torso in a clan (same of IS) mech your in big trouble allready because that means usually half of your weapons are gone too - and since most people don't hit the side torso only you will have at least damaged armor on other parts of your mech too. In other words - your chances of survival at that point are pretty low anyway - not need to punish players further.
2. Clan Mechs are nerfed in several ways in Order to balance them to IS-Mechs allready - enough is enough! espeacially since the last nerf which made cERL useless.
3. I'm just curious - how is it possible to transfer rules from a turn based game (TT) to a shooter which is real time? A game where factors like reaction time, targeting skill, etc. influence the outcome? well imho. every time someone comes up with tome TT reference its either to justify a nerf because they think something (they don't use) is OP (and therefore want to punish everyone else using it) or to buff something they are using (in other words they want an i-Win-Button without thinking how that would influence the rest of the game).
Re. (1): If an IS mech in a STD engine build loses a ST, it loses everything in that side torso and the arm. If a Clan mech with a cXL loses a side torso, it loses everything in that side torso and the arm. If an IS mech with an XL loses a side torso, it flat-out dies.
If an IS mech with a STD engine build loses both STs, it is pretty much safe to ignore it and move on. Even zombie builds are generally ignorable once both STs are blown. The fact that a Clan mech dies if both STs get blown is only a minimal disadvantage, especially with no penalty for dying. If repair costs were a factor, STD engines would be huge from a playability standpoint, and nobody would be able to afford Clan tech.
Re. (2): The cERLL is hardly useless. It is just a little bit harder to use (and incidentally the cLPL now isn't redundant anymore). In general PGI needs to do a full pass on Clan lasers, since there are several outliers and several pointless lasers. However, just because one area of Clan tech got a slight nerf to a single weapon system that was hugely powerful as it was, doesn't mean that the primary underlying cause of much of the raw power offered by Clan tech could use some minor, and entirely canon, downside.
Re. (3): Aside from a few things that were thrown out either due to complexity or due to lack of player understanding (see Koniving's post above), and aside from some changes made to "enhance" gameplay (say, huge across-the-board rate of fire buffs), the vast majority of MWO's gameplay is very close to TT functionality. The argument against adapting a TT turn-based game into a real-time combat sim while remaining relatively faithful to the core mechanics is an old one on these forums, and is usually just as specious as your claims about "every time someone comes up with tome [sic] TT reference" being to justify something in their own narrow self-interest.
Take weapon cooldown times. PGI hugely reduced those, resulting in between 2 and 20 times the firepower of a weapon system from TT (the old AC2 fired roughly 20 times over 10s, instead of just once, and now it's more like 14 times, so still hugely buffed). If PGI had kept the 10s damage ratings of each weapon while still increasing rates of fire, they could have reduced damage and heat output per-shot (and increased ammo counts appropriately) to match TT performance while still making gameplay fast-paced and exciting (which admittedly 10s cooldowns on every weapon probably wouldn't be).
As for the whole pilot skill factor, most of the skill in current MWO gameplay is one of two kinds: reflexive (non-cerebral, based on twitch capability and unconscious action) and reflective (timing, conscious decision-making, etc.). The former is why the PPFLD playstyle has become dominant, because it's much easier to become passably skilled at twitch gaming than it is to get a true feel for the tactical flow of a battle and to learn timing and make judgment calls in the heat of the moment.
If PGI implemented some kind of dynamic precision reduction system (I must have a thread regarding that floating around somewhere; I know I've posted my basic idea in countless places), they could retain most of the reflexive skill while promoting those reflective skills that truly separate battlefield Mechwarriors from Solaris duelists. However, since DPR is not the topic of this thread, I will not go into further detail regarding it. I merely bring it up as an example of applying underlying principles drawn from the TT game to inspire improved gameplay mechanics (note, not slavishly adhering to TT rules as written).
As for cXLs specifically, the mere fact that a Clan mech can run a cXL without dying upon losing the first ST means that Clan mechs will have in some cases up to double the payload of a comparable IS mech. This is amplified by the impact of generally lighter Clan weapons and the smaller cDHS. Sure, that firepower is largely more spread out on a target, but when you have double the payload with essentially the same useful lifespan, it can become a problem, and there's only so much that long beam times, burst-fire ACs, and streamed LRMs can do to mitigate it. For an IS mech to even begin to approach the same relative firepower, it has to sacrifice a vast amount of survivability, and for an IS mech to gain that same level of survivability, it has to sacrifice a huge quantity of firepower.
Finally, what about the very nature of game balance itself? Balance is generally maintained by using tradeoffs. You gain an advantage in one area, but take a penalty in another. Look at cACs and lasers. You gain an edge in range, weight, and space, but you lose damage concentration (burst fire cACs and much longer burn times on lasers). Look at cLRMs: you gain damage inside the minimum range, as well as sizable weight and space savings, but you lose concentrated volleys and suffer increased AMS vulnerability.
What about cXLs? You gain a huge weight savings over STD engines, and a huge survivability savings over XLs. What do you lose? You die if both STs get popped. In the vast majority of mechs, if you lose both STs you are unarmed anyway. A very few can mount zombie weapons (Head and CT weapon slots). However, the weapons that an IS mech can mount in those hardpoints are decidedly limited (the odd LPL or ERLL, or 1-3 MLs or MPLs, depending on the hardpoints). Sure, a LPL can hurt, as can a few MLs, but that's nothing compared to the firepower of the mech if it has already lost both STs (and the vast majority of its payload). What is the Clan player really losing by dying when the second ST blows out? Not much, especially since very few Clan Omnimechs include meaningful CT and Head weapons (Puma Flamers are not worth living for).
So again, what is the cXL really giving up for the two huge advantages it gives you? The ability to change engine types is not a function of engine, but of build philosophy. Omnimechs, IS or Clan, are stuck with what they have. Battlemechs, IS or Clan, can swap engines. The mere fact that all IS mechs are currently Battlemechs and all Clan mechs are currently Omnimechs is simply the vagaries of fate (and PGI's decision-making). cXLs have nothing to do with it.
The implementation of some kind of penalty for losing a ST when running a cXL (and later an IS Light Engine) is simply an attempt to provide some kind of drawback at least to begin to balance the two huge advantages that the engine type brings.
In short, most of the arguments against having some kind of penalty when you lose a side torso with a cXL are spurious or disingenuous, at best. Meanwhile, the arguments for having said penalty, whatever it may be, have the backing of lore, TT, and healthy game balance.
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I've been one-shot on numerous occasions, especially back during the 40 damage PPFLD meta. Drive a Locust and complain about PPC instant kills, lol.
