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The big thing I would like to talk about is heat scale, unsurprisingly. Russ mentions that the vibe from the community at the time heat scale was implemented was "I should never be shot by 6 PPC mechs, ever." I think that this is still the case, and I think that the heat scale system is actually decent, except for some tuning issues (mlasers should really be brought up to 8 per alpha, stock Novas overheating the way they do is just unacceptable) The issue is that we still often see people complaining about one-shot kills. Just yesterday, I saw someone complaining about how he was one-shot killed in his Kit Fox. Honestly, now, the kit fox has something like 25-30 center torso armor, am I right? Even my BJ-1 with 2 AC/2s and 4 med lasers has a 24 pt alpha potential. Without spreading damage around and moving constantly you're bound to get one-shotted. The only reasonable and fairly easy way for that to change, that I could think of, would be to double armor ratings. Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't armor values already doubled once? Doesn't it seem like a little much? Certainly something that could be thrown on the test server without much trouble, I would think. The other, less direct, more difficult solution (possibly along with quadrupled armor) is to add penalties for high heat. While I want real heat penalties as much as the next guy, it really is a question of accessibility and fun. I would have a blast with heat penalties, and I think a lot of us would. But many players I see hardly have the discipline to keep themselves from shutting down, let alone stay below 50-70% heat. I imagine games where everyone has whatever penalties heat adds, nearly all the time. That might not be a bad thing, if the penalties aren't unbearable, but with most people ignoring / just dealing with the heat penalties the problem might just remain.
On a side note, I agree that more people would complain about cone of fire mechanics than be happy with them... While some people feel very strongly on the issue, I think most people don't mention it because if anything we're happy to see a game that boils down to skill, not Call of Duty - esque spray and pray.
Public test servers, people! They're grrrrrrreat!
I totally agree with Russ' assessment of arm lock. It may be nice for new players, but the advantages it adds for pinpoint damage are way too high to be acceptable. Either do something like allowing it for the first 50 matches, or more radically, if your concept of smaller matches for new players was implemented, only allow arm lock in those specific "tutorial" games. Speaking of which, perhaps that concept could become the new Training Grounds? (PLEASE BE AWARE THAT I TOTALLY UNDERSTAND THAT THIS CONCEPT IS NOTHING BUT A STRAY THOUGHT, CERTAINLY NOT A PROMISE.)
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Quirks. Like everyone, I'm super exited for the diversity that truly significant, specific quirks will bring. But I have a significant fear. Russ mentions some mechs getting range buffs for certain weapons. One of the major learning curve points of MWO in my opinion is learning, at least roughly, how far away your enemies can attack you effectively from. If some mechs get range buffs similar to the near medium-laser range you are suggesting for some locusts, It would severely complicate the process of learning those ranges - if a small laser doesn't always have the range of a normal small laser, it could cause new players to have no trust in the idea that they are safe from those mechs at 200 meters away. It would severely hamper communication of basic, fairly core game concepts, and unlike heat scale I don't think there is any good way to communicate that information simply on the battlefield. Information Warfare is partially based on the idea that if you know you're enemy you can beat them, but I think range buffs make it far too difficult to know you're enemy from a tactical perspective.
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I liked Russ' honesty on his explanation of not giving us the ability to save loadouts, and I'm perfectly fine with the idea that it's just good buisness to not allow it. But beyond that, I personally think it adds to the idea that re-purposing a mech is a difficult, lengthy, and costly process. Perhaps a compromise would be giving Omni-mech the ability to save load-outs, specifically? But that's just a dream, really. I don't expect it to happen.
I'm not going to bother discussing ECM at the moment, as Russ said it's an extremely complex issue and really deserves it's own time and discussion.
Maps! I love maps! More specifically, I'm very interested In what I'm hearing in regards to how CW maps will be created. As far as I can tell, if new "asset packs" are created there will be an Assault / Conquest style map to release them, and then those asset packs can be reused and spammed into new CW maps. Sounds like a good way to get maps out quickly, which is really the main concern IMHO. Reusing assets worked wonderfully for Battlefield Bad Company, and it should work fairly well here. While it's a bit premature to suggest, perhaps instead of community created maps you could allow people to submit their own assets and asset packs to diversify the visual style of the game as it grows.
In no way am I saying my word is gospel. I'm just an average, or slightly below average player offering his opinions. Everyone else is invited to do the same as long as we stick to to topics I've already mentioned. I don't want this thread to run away like some do, I'm hoping for actual constructive ideas.
Edit: Sorry for any formatting errors, this took a while to write and I got logged out before I finished. HTML tags ended up everywhere, tried to remove them all.
Edited by Colby Boucher, 03 October 2014 - 08:42 AM.
