337 replies to this topic

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

Ecliptor, on 19 September 2014 - 08:24 PM, said:

i miss 8v8 but i enjoy 12v12. i would like it to be random drops where some maps are 4v4 some 8v8 and some 12v12. might even be cool for cw to allow 4v4 for smaller merc corps that want to be able to play as well

Random drops would make sense given that our dropships land on planets like this:

http://youtu.be/oWoPdZ986oo

http://youtu.be/FpgyrIlhoyw

Although worse being that theyre round and not saucer shaped.

IE we cant choose where we land and therefore crash upon landing. Unless in private matches, yes I know that, but is CW going to be based in private matches?

[Ultimax]

Mech survivability feels fine to me.

Focus fire will kill you fast = WAI

Use cover
Spread damage
Don't stop moving
Push as a team and absorb damage as a team

Seriously, don't stop moving.

Edited by Ultimatum X, 21 September 2014 - 06:06 PM.

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

Ultimatum X, on 21 September 2014 - 06:04 PM, said:

Mech survivability feels fine to me.

Focus fire will kill you fast = WAI

Use cover
Spread damage
Don't stop moving
Push as a team and absorb damage as a team

Seriously, don't stop moving.

Sounds like a counter to LRMs too

[Quxudica]

Ultimatum X, on 21 September 2014 - 06:04 PM, said:

Mech survivability feels fine to me.

Focus fire will kill you fast = WAI

Use cover
Spread damage
Don't stop movingmoving
Push as a team and absorb damage as a team

Seriously, don't stop moving.

Spreading damage is much less effective when you can be taking 50-75 point alphas all in one location at roughly the same time. You may spread some of it, but more then enough of that is going to hit in one spot and cause serious if not crippling damage.

[Adiuvo]

TTK is fine so long as you don't position stupidly and know how to torso twist.

TTK is not fine if you stare at an enemy and poke in and out against 5 others mechs. Then again, you deserve to die if you do that.

[Mystere]

Battlecruiser, on 21 September 2014 - 03:42 PM, said:

in fact, as realistic as I'm willing to tolerate at all is physics. That's it.

That's really good to know.

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

Adiuvo, on 21 September 2014 - 06:15 PM, said:

TTK is fine so long as you don't position stupidly and know how to torso twist.

TTK is not fine if you stare at an enemy and poke in and out against 5 others mechs. Then again, you deserve to die if you do that.

Wow this all really applies to LRMs lol

[Quxudica]

Adiuvo, on 21 September 2014 - 06:15 PM, said:

TTK is fine so long as you don't position stupidly and know how to torso twist.

TTK is not fine if you stare at an enemy and poke in and out against 5 others mechs. Then again, you deserve to die if you do that.

I can unload 58 points of alpha in my medium mech and pinpoint it easily in cose range. when a medium can rip the side off a 100 ton atlas with minium effort, something is very very wrong.

TTK isn't the only issue, the entire general toughness of mechs are the problem. In some cases mechs live no longer than a solider in BF or CoD and at that point you aren't even driving a walking tank - you are just a generic MMS grunt with bad joints.

[Adiuvo]

Quxudica, on 21 September 2014 - 06:19 PM, said:

I can unload 58 points of alpha in my medium mech and pinpoint it easily in cose range. when a medium can rip the side off a 100 ton atlas with minium effort, something is very very wrong.

TTK isn't the only issue, the entire general toughness of mechs are the problem. In some cases mechs live no longer than a solider in BF or CoD and at that point you aren't even driving a walking tank - you are just a generic MMS grunt with bad joints.

SRM6s aren't pinpoint at all, even under 100m. Your SRM medium will, at minimum, require 3 shots to blow a side off an Atlas and if that Atlas is at all good, you're likely to blow off his arm before his ST. Or more likely, since you're right next to an Atlas, you'll die first.

[Quxudica]

Adiuvo, on 21 September 2014 - 06:33 PM, said:

SRM6s aren't pinpoint at all, even under 100m. Your SRM medium will, at minimum, require 3 shots to blow a side off an Atlas and if that Atlas is at all good, you're likely to blow off his arm before his ST. Or more likely, since you're right next to an Atlas, you'll die first.

I've not lost a 1v1 with an Atlas in a very very long time, that mech actually needs a lot of help and it's puny arms do little to help it. It's sides are massive, It's Ballistic cannon sticks out past it's arms, it's easy to strip and twisting does little to increase it's longevity. A Pure brawler Atlas can sport enough of an alpha to be dangerous sure but I'm more afraid of some heavy mechs than I am an Atlas. I really haven't been overly worried about running into Atlas's in a long time - even in furballs, I strip their primary side torso and then ignore them.

Besides that though, I think you illustrated my point in your comment. A medium should not be able to cripple a 100 ton assault in three Alpha's, that's roughly 12 seconds refire.. maybe 20 seconds total if I'm generous in how slow I'm firing. SRM's are plenty accurate at brawling range and reasonably accurate up to 200 M, without Artemis. But SRM's aren't the only way to get this result, ballistics and lasers can achieve the same results at greater ranges depending on the chassis.

The problem, as has been stated so very many times, is universal convergence and the zero-penalty heat system encouraging Alpha strike stacking as the primary means of combat. No two weapons should have perfect convergence, the more weapons you fire at the same time the lower your overall accuracy should be. Arm and Torso HP's should have different convergence characteristics and Energy/Ballistic/Missile weapons should all behave differently when ti comes to converging. Firing a bunch of weapons at once should result in bathing most of a mech with fire, not plaster two or three locations with most damage centralized in one.

High damage Alpha's are a detriment to the game in the way it currently works. It should be a finisher or an act of desperation, not the standard way we fight.

[wanderer]

Wolfways, on 20 September 2014 - 09:54 AM, said:

What do you mean? TT was every weapon can fire once every 10 seconds. There were no recharge times AFAIK...unless you mean Mechwarrior and not BattleTech?

Bishop Steiner, on 20 September 2014 - 10:00 AM, said:

Solaris Dueling Rules, mebbe?

Bingo. Remember, Battletech is scaled. At larger scales (BattleForce) a turn is a full minute- in which everyone fires their units once. The same units that in BattleTech fire them all in ten seconds- and in the closest to 1:1 (Solaris VII), weapons actually recharge/reload often over multiple 2.5 second turns, although some smaller ones can still manage a shot every turn (like MGs). Gauss rifles take 3 Solaris VII turns (7.5 seconds) to be ready to fire again. You want an idea on how much actual reload time MWO weapons might manage, Solaris is the one to look at.

[Tombstoner]

Bishop Steiner, on 21 September 2014 - 12:22 PM, said:

Not actually, just putting up the caution that really, one needs to be careful how far one strays from the source material, and be sure it really is needed, because pretty soon, one can end up with Generic Mech Game, ala Hawken.

Nothing wrong with those games, but they already exist. In droves. This is a pretty storied IP. Like Star wars, etc (though not as huge, obviously). With a pretty rabid fan base, with some modicum of expectations. Basically, if we are going to change things so much, it remains MechWarrior in name only, then the people requesting that, should play one of the other generic games.

It's a matter of respecting the IP, but the happy medium I mention is knowing that one will have to make concessions to the fact it is not a turn based TT iteration of it. and thus things do have to change. But one has to be careful not to change it so much as to lose the identity of the game. MWO has long has issues deciding who it want to appeal to, and who it's core is.

But the development history does allow for a modest correction in armor values. I realize you don't like that idea. but when fire rates moved from 1/10 seconds to 1/4 seconds you got a 2.5X increase in damage output. That was later compensated via a 2x in armor... That was a fun week..... we are still missing armor just to be equivalent with TT.

What i would like to see is more freedom to add more armor to the CT or RT/LT but if think it may do more harm then good.

Fundamentally the games needs armor cofactors to compensate for mech size due to subjective scaling of the art work and how mech speed interacts with armor to produce survivability that is not in any way linear with increasing tonnage.

The atlas and DW are flat our screwed by skill based targeting and pin point alphas. Along with many other mechs with cool art but easy to hit CT: Awesome comes to mind.

Over all armor, speed interactions with art work is badly needed. 19 tones of armor is just not the protection and aassalt mech needs. i might be convinced to remove or at least increase max armor from 10% of the mechs weight to 15 or 20%
standard load out is to make armor and min max the head and legs.

[Túatha Dé Danann]

I agree that geometry is a factor that has yet to be taken into balance perspective. When a Spider with 1/40 of the Volume of an Atlas, but with 1/3 the tonnage runs around with still broken hitboxes, you can either:
- Scale up Light battlemechs to have an appropriate size based on volume/tonnage
- Scale up the armor rating of larger battlemechs in a non-linear function up to x3 instead of x2 from light to assault battlemechs

Point 2 would be:
20 tons: Armor rating of 2.2 of TT rules
25 tons: 2.25
30 tons: 2.3
35 tons: 2.35
40 tons: 2.4
45 tons: 2.45
50 tons: 2.5
55 tons: 2.55
60 tons: 2.6
65 tons: 2.65
70 tons: 2.7
75 tons: 2.75
80 tons: 2.8
85 tons: 2.85
90 tons: 2.9
95 tons: 2.95
100 tons: 3.0

The addition would be a "free" multiplicator, meaning that a 100 ton balltemech would still use 19t of armor, but would get 3x the armor rating out of those 19 tons instead of the base-line 2x multiplicator.

The advantage would be, that you balance out the larger size AND the lower speed of assault battlemechs with armor - real armor that you feel and not just a mere 3 or 4 points more per 5 ton increment. Thus, an Atlas would become a real tank.

Then you can disregard all the armor Quirks that are just a cheap shortcut to outbalance broken mechanics and still do not account for the real problems.

Other than that, we also have the issue of pinpoint vs. not-pinpoint. On this manner, I just say that you can outbalance it with DPS. So weapons like the Gauss would take for example 8 seconds for a reload, so that the AC/20 really becomes a close ranged brsawler weapon, while the 'Gauss will be a low DPS but high range and pinpoint accuracy Sniper weapon. Right now, the Gauss is more efficient in a bhrawl than an AC/20, because of its speed, low heat and fewer Slots,.which is important for Heavy and Assault battlemechs.

So again: Give weapons a better role to play. The higher the distinct difference, the better is the role warfare and the better is the variety of gameplay-approaches.

[Joseph Mallan]

Sable, on 19 September 2014 - 08:05 PM, said:

Title says it all. The spike damage nonsense wouldn't be such a problem if it took a whole lot more effort to bring down a mech. Heat management skills would be more valuable since you wouldn't be able to alpha all day long. Maybe it's just tonight but MWO is not fun right now.

No. Please no.

[Magna Canus]

Sable, on 20 September 2014 - 06:01 AM, said:

Wow go to bed and Russ responds to my thread.

I brought up the increased armor and hp idea because it had been mentioned before. The quirk for 10% extra armor on the hunchback sounds nice but when you think about it that's only 5 extra points. One medium laser's worth of extra armor. Every little bit helps but is it enough to be noticeable?

I was a little frustrated last night because i was puging a lot of games in my Timberwolf and most teams still seem to be afraid to step out of cover, the few times i did to try and spot the team i would almost instantly have red armor on half my mech. Was just a thought but if mechs could take a bigger beating maybe people would be willing to engage more openly.

While that is a nice idea, more armor/internals will not change the play style of our population significantly. What you just stated as your issue is good and simple tactics. In every "team" you are going to have your noobs, hot heads, etc. that want to rush off and close the distance without really knowing where the enemy is. In any kind of a fight, real or game, this is going to get you killed. People in MWO know this and at the start of the game they are going to wait around and focus the first mole to pop his head out. The other guys on your team know that so they are keeping their heads down. The first guys to make contact is usually a light with the speed to dodge the enemies fire and the squirrel qualities to break away a few enemies into bite sized chunks.

but I figure you know this already. Having guys afraid to move is a PUG issue and no amount of armor is going to change this. Personally, I know I can not honestly expect 11 random guys to play in a way I would call smart. In the group que you can, but in PUGs you get what you get and try to live with it.

Some of the other stuff is also to be considered like lights getting an even shorter end of the stick, or the need to correct stupidity less necessary, of boating and PPA becoming even more "necessary", etc. After another doubling of armor you will have people complaining that matches take too long and make "the grind" even longer.

Run in the group que with guys you fight well with, take charge in PUGs if they listen to you, and shrug off "those matches" where you know from the beginning it is a lost cause (ELO is out to get your W/L ratio).

[Joseph Mallan]

wanderer, on 21 September 2014 - 09:21 PM, said:

Bingo. Remember, Battletech is scaled. At larger scales (BattleForce) a turn is a full minute- in which everyone fires their units once. The same units that in BattleTech fire them all in ten seconds- and in the closest to 1:1 (Solaris VII), weapons actually recharge/reload often over multiple 2.5 second turns, although some smaller ones can still manage a shot every turn (like MGs). Gauss rifles take 3 Solaris VII turns (7.5 seconds) to be ready to fire again. You want an idea on how much actual reload time MWO weapons might manage, Solaris is the one to look at.

That would be 1 minute for the full BattleForce unit to fire. You are talking a Battalion or larger force. It could explain the extra length in handwavium time.

[Ghogiel]

Quxudica, on 21 September 2014 - 07:02 PM, said:

A medium should not be able to cripple a 100 ton assault in three Alpha's,

Why not when the assault can cripple the medium in 1 alpha? I guess you don't like the concept of role warfare..

[Joseph Mallan]

Ghogiel, on 22 September 2014 - 05:34 AM, said:

Why not when the assault can cripple the medium in 1 alpha? I guess you don't like the concept of role warfare..

I have to agree with this. A Hunchback CAN cripple an Atlas on TT with three good hits!

[Bishop Steiner]

Tombstoner, on 22 September 2014 - 04:50 AM, said:

The atlas and DW are flat out screwed by reflex based targeting and pin point alphas. Along with many other mechs with cool art but easy to hit CT: Awesome comes to mind.

FTFY.

We really need to stop using the term skill that way.

[Bishop Steiner]

Joseph Mallan, on 22 September 2014 - 05:30 AM, said:

That would be 1 minute for the full BattleForce unit to fire. You are talking a Battalion or larger force. It could explain the extra length in handwavium time.

I think the more important part is the 7.5 second Gauss cooldown. Solaris Dueling rules had some things in them we should be using here, to mitigate and balance the effectiveness of PP-FLD and perfect, instant multiweapon conference.

I would much rather look into this FIRST, and touch armor and or reducing damage values/removing FLD if that fails.