337 replies to this topic

[stjobe]

Bishop Steiner, on 20 September 2014 - 10:09 AM, said:

4x Armor is hardly "welcome to Battletech".

I think he was referring to the fact that 'mechs in BT have a very annoying tendency to run out of ammo, and therefore energy weapons are quite popular.

[Bishop Steiner]

stjobe, on 20 September 2014 - 10:23 AM, said:

I think he was referring to the fact that 'mechs in BT have a very annoying tendency to run out of ammo, and therefore energy weapons are quite popular.

possible, though the running out of ammo call was in response to doubling armor...again.

Also, thanks for spelling out that part on CoF again.

It's amazing that most people seem to miss that having limited, conditional CoF actually requires more skill than our current pick-a-pixel targeting. Because one has to gauge when they can realistically make a shot where it counts. Gradually expanding CoFs the faster you go over a mechs "cruising speed", while jumping, shooting beyond optimal range or when riding high heat, all make perfect sense, would add to TTK and force people to broaden their skill set. Or one could simply go slow for a moment, and not deal with one at all, unless taking a real long shot.

Add more immersion and fix the game far more surely than doubling armor again and making every weapon deal papercuts, essentially, would.

Edited by Bishop Steiner, 20 September 2014 - 10:28 AM.

[Rebas Kradd]

EvilCow, on 20 September 2014 - 10:18 AM, said:

Your opinion, not a fact.

You and Bishop might notice that I never once advocated doubling armor. You're right, it's a bad move. Somewhat stronger internals might help as long as they don't outlast the armor like MWLL. My personal preference is to raise TTK by revisiting map design and forcing smaller, longer battles.

I like how you just dismissed my opinion because it's an opinion. OF COURSE it's an opinion. So is yours. The point of debate is to determine which opinion is closer to fact, and mine is one I feel pretty strongly about.

Edited by Rebas Kradd, 20 September 2014 - 10:31 AM.

[stjobe]

Bishop Steiner, on 20 September 2014 - 10:24 AM, said:

possible, though the running out of ammo call was in response to doubling armor...again.

Aye.

Another way to address the problem of TTK is of course to attack the other side of the main problem - rate of fire. Slow RoF down, and TTK goes up proportionally (perhaps not by the same fraction, but proportionally).

I've said before that I wouldn't mind at least trying the 10-second cooldown on every weapon, given that it was individual. If I have four medium lasers I can then either fire all four at the same time and not fire them again for 10 seconds, or I could fire one every 2.5 seconds until I run into heat issues.

That would slow TTK right down, don't you think?

(note: I'm not saying it's a good system, or that we should actually have PGI implement it, I'm just saying that it's an interesting gedankenexperiment; what happens if you have a 10-second individual CD on all weapons?)

[Bishop Steiner]

stjobe, on 20 September 2014 - 10:30 AM, said:

Aye.

Another way to address the problem of TTK is of course to attack the other side of the main problem - rate of fire. Slow RoF down, and TTK goes up proportionally (perhaps not by the same fraction, but proportionally).

I've said before that I wouldn't mind at least trying the 10-second cooldown on every weapon, given that it was individual. If I have four medium lasers I can then either fire all four at the same time and not fire them again for 10 seconds, or I could fire one every 2.5 seconds until I run into heat issues.

That would slow TTK right down, don't you think?

(note: I'm not saying it's a good system, or that we should actually have PGI implement it, I'm just saying that it's an interesting gedankenexperiment; what happens if you have a 10-second individual CD on all weapons?)

Another option I am a huge proponent of.

Gauss around 7 second cooldown, Ac20s and PPC around 5-6. Slow the ac10 about 1 second, etc. Give LB-X versions of ACs a slightly higher RoF to comp for spread mechanic. IDK if lasers need the bat on that, since they already are second fiddle to FLD.

I would never go for the 1 shot per 10 seconds, but I did think MW4 got weapon cooldowns pretty decent in many cases.

[EvilCow]

Rebas Kradd, on 20 September 2014 - 10:28 AM, said:

I like how you just dismissed it because it's an opinion. OF COURSE it's an opinion

English is not my fist language but I believe you should use "probably, may be, I think, it is possible, could, should etc" in order to state an opinion, I don't see any of that.

Said that, I am not dismissing your opinion as such, I was disagreeing.

[IceSerpent]

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.

It won't fix anything. Let's say I can take you out in 2 alphas with meta build and you need 4 alphas to take me out with a non-meta build. We double armor and hp, now I can take you out in 4 alphas and you need 8 - my meta build is still twice as good as your non-meta one.

[Bishop Steiner]

Rebas Kradd, on 20 September 2014 - 10:28 AM, said:

You and Bishop might notice that I never once advocated doubling armor. You're right, it's a bad move. Somewhat stronger internals might help as long as they don't outlast the armor like MWLL. My personal preference is to raise TTK by revisiting map design and forcing smaller, longer battles.

I like how you just dismissed my opinion because it's an opinion. OF COURSE it's an opinion. So is yours. The point of debate is to determine which opinion is closer to fact, and mine is one I feel pretty strongly about.

apologies, I added context based off the post you were responding to, or rather what that post was responding to. Third hand context probably is a bad thing, though hard to avoid sometimes.

[Rebas Kradd]

IceSerpent, on 20 September 2014 - 10:37 AM, said:

It won't fix anything. Let's say I can take you out in 2 alphas with meta build and you need 4 alphas to take me out with a non-meta build. We double armor and hp, now I can take you out in 4 alphas and you need 8 - my meta build is still twice as good as your non-meta one.

What is your meta build these days? Out of curiosity, cuz I've seen a lot more diversity in builds lately.

Bishop Steiner, on 20 September 2014 - 10:39 AM, said:

apologies, I added context based off the post you were responding to, or rather what that post was responding to. Third hand context probably is a bad thing, though hard to avoid sometimes.

I could have been more clear on that myself.

Edited by Rebas Kradd, 20 September 2014 - 10:43 AM.

[Sudden]

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.

as it is you cant alpha all day any way. I don't like this idea. when will it stop.

[The Mechromancer]

I'd be all for testing a 50% increase.

Edited by The Mechromancer, 20 September 2014 - 10:54 AM.

[stjobe]

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.

Instead of doubling armour to increase "heat management skills", how about we actually change the heat system?

* Lower the heat capacity
* Increase heat dissipation
* Implement heat penalties starting at somewhere around 30-50% heat.

That would also slow TTK way down, and add a conspicuously missing aspect of BattleTech to the game.

Edit: I mean, there's so many ways to slow TTK down that doubling armour is just about the worst way to go about it.

Edited by stjobe, 20 September 2014 - 10:56 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

stjobe, on 20 September 2014 - 10:55 AM, said:

Instead of doubling armour to increase "heat management skills", how about we actually change the heat system?

* Lower the heat capacity
* Increase heat dissipation
* Implement heat penalties starting at somewhere around 30-50% heat.

That would also slow TTK way down, and add a conspicuously missing aspect of BattleTech to the game.

even though I have constantly fought with Koniving over his concept of threshold (because megamek uses some optional rule) it would be a far better place to start still then the drive form more armor.

Whole point being, we have several flawed "foundations" that should be looked at, before we continue with the "easy" but horribly flawed president of continuously upping armor.

[IceSerpent]

Rebas Kradd, on 20 September 2014 - 10:43 AM, said:

What is your meta build these days? Out of curiosity, cuz I've seen a lot more diversity in builds lately.

I was not referring to any specific one - more along the lines of "spike damage" from OP vs. "non-spike damage". My point is basically that increasing armor and hp only increases overall TTK. It has no effect on game balance aside from requiring ammo-based builds to carry more ammo (and I am not convinced that it would do us any good).

[-Natural Selection-]

I say double it!

Greatly reduces people from boating some weapons. Slows the lynch mob style strats.

[Koniving]

Russ Bullock, on 19 September 2014 - 10:11 PM, said:

It is a scenario that could be likely. However we are getting close to releasing the full IS Quirk pass and it will put some more armor and Internals on mechs in the right places so I need to see how that plays first. I am hoping we can accomplish it this way instead of a blanket increase.

I'm sure there are many who would like to live longer. But I'm also hoping that doubling armor and structure values again won't be necessary. I'd happily wait for those.

Since this is related to a time to kill factor.

I'd prefer that the heat thresholds which allow such frequent and constant almost non-stop fire would be changed as had been asked for since closed beta. A locked threshold of a reasonably low limit to be set by you or Paul would both limit alpha strike ability, require more time spent not firing to cool down, considerably more heat management, and as my personal hope would end the "fire all the weapons" mentality that is going on.

(For threshold comparisons: 30 BT, 30 MW3, 40 MW2, 60 MW4 - where it was considered worst, 40 in the MW3-pirate's moon expansion pack, and finally MWO's current for a 15 DHS elited battlemech: Heat Threshold : 73.44 on Forest Colony)

(I might add reducing the heat on the high damage large class long range weapons like the ER LLs and LPLs has only made worse; ER LLs were 12 heat for a reason; the 5 LL build I used to run with never would have worked even without ghost heat with a 30 threshold or the original 8 heat).

Another mentionable merit: No matter how you look at it, because of how the canon heat design is for Clan mechs, with a locked threshold regardless of heatsink count the Clans would never be able to alpha strike as much firepower as the IS even with pure canon values.

Example:
IS ML: 9 fired. 27 heat. 45 damage.
Clan ER ML: 5 fired. 25 heat. 35 damage.

IS LL: 3 fired. 24 heat. 24 damage.
IS ER LL: 2 fired. 24 heat. 16 damage.
Clan ER LL: 2 fired. 20 heat. 20 damage.

No matter what, without cutting into a shutdown, Clan energy weapons can't boat as well as IS mechs for that one time alpha strike. Then in thermal endurance, IS mechs would have Clan mechs beat in any build with equal heatsinks, and to have more heatsinks Clans need to sacrifice more weapons, more ammo, etc.

But for any of this to work, the Clan advantage in MWO's rising threshold system needs to go as no matter what, the Clans can always hold more DHS than IS and thus will always have more threshold.

Ultimately increasing the time to kill without screwing with health and structure values.
It'd almost assuredly need to be followed with an IS AC redesign, however.

Edited by Koniving, 20 September 2014 - 11:17 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Mickey Knoxx, on 20 September 2014 - 11:08 AM, said:

I say double it!

Greatly reduces people from boating some weapons. Slows the lynch mob style strats.

how in any way would it reduce people voting weapons, or focusing fire? If anything it will force more people to do it to have any chance of bringing someone down.


Gezz, sometimes I wonder if people are even playing the same game.

I drive Medium Mechs, and usually in a flanker, harasser or brawler build (not a sniper or LRM boat) the WORST for TTK because they don't have the armor and guns of the big boys, or squirrel speed. I PUG, I team play, I even occasionally have the "joy" of Comp Play. And barring a SJR or HoL provided facerolling, seldom have issues with being killed off superfast.

And the only difference in those face rolls would be that the match would take 4 minutes to end, not 3. If anything, I'd rather get those over with sooner, thx.

[Wolfways]

stjobe, on 20 September 2014 - 10:55 AM, said:

Instead of doubling armour to increase "heat management skills", how about we actually change the heat system?

* Lower the heat capacity
* Increase heat dissipation
* Implement heat penalties starting at somewhere around 30-50% heat.

That would also slow TTK way down, and add a conspicuously missing aspect of BattleTech to the game.

Edit: I mean, there's so many ways to slow TTK down that doubling armour is just about the worst way to go about it.

While I'd like a lower heat capacity and increased dissipation (or preferably a slower weapon ROF) and I'd love to see a heat scale (BT's heat scale) my concern is that BT is heat over time while MWO is heat spikes. Having a heat scale at about 30% would seriously hurt high heat weapons like the (already bad imo, even before the speed nerf) ER/PPC's. you couldn't fire without constantly being affected by heat. The Nova would be useless!

Edited by Wolfways, 20 September 2014 - 11:16 AM.

[stjobe]

Mickey Knoxx, on 20 September 2014 - 11:08 AM, said:

I say double it!

Greatly reduces people from boating some weapons.

No, quite the opposite, it's encourages even more boating.

Remember, doubling armour is the same as halving weapon damage - meaning single weapons get even more inefficient than they already are, and the only way of getting anything done is to boat weapons in as large numbers as you can get away with.

[Bishop Steiner]

Wolfways, on 20 September 2014 - 11:15 AM, said:

While I'd like a lower heat capacity and increased dissipation (or slower weapon ROF) and I'd love to see a heat scale (BT's heat scale) my concern is that BT is heat over time while MWO is heat spikes. Having a heat scale at about 30% would seriously hurt high heat weapons like the (already bad imo, even before the speed nerf) ER/PPC's. you couldn't fire without constantly being affected by heat. The Nova would be useless!

agreed.

But, IMO, having ones that start at say 60-75% heat, and increase would reasonably mimic the TT heatscale to some extent. Since that would account for the "instant threshold" boost that TT combat turn system has.