83 replies to this topic

[STEF_]

I love to pilot a cent nearly stock and engage at whatever range.
A perfect support medium for who really like the "team game" concept

[Alistair Winter]

If you follow PGI's history of balancing this game, you'll notice two striking tendencies

• A reluctance to go back and modify core features
  
• A preference to add complex mechanics to fix major issues

There are many examples, and while Ghost Heat and ECM come to mind first, one could also bring up Poptarts and 3-3-3-3.

Quirks is the latest example of this tendency, and much like all the other solutions, Quirks offer some advantages and some disadvantage. One advantage is that you avoid major errors when you're just making small changes based on the status quo. It all works right now. But one disadvantage is that you're basically building a house of cards, and making a few changes later can make it all collapse.

For example, instead of fixing pulse lasers, PGI has decided to give certain mechs really considerable pulse laser buffs. This means pulse lasers will be viable or almost viable on a few specific builds, instead of being as common as the normal medium and large laser. However, it also means that if PGI were to buff the medium and large pulse lasers, it would cause a balance problem for the quirks that were based on the fact that pulse lasers are currently underpowered.

Similarly, if they give the AWS-8Q a big PPC buff, based on the fact that the PPC currently moves with the speed of an average African mule, then they can't really change the PPC projectile speed later without making the AWS-8Q extraproportionally more powerful.

In other words, adding all these convoluted rules makes it increasingly harder for PGI to fix basic problems. A lot of people were hoping for extensive changes for LRMs and SSRMs based on a new mechanic for ECM and radar, but you have to realize that PGI just made such changes a LOT harder to implement, because it involves a second look at quirks for all mechs with missile hardpoints.

So... I hope you guys love the status quo. It's not going anywhere.

[The Boz]

Krivvan, on 29 October 2014 - 05:41 PM, said:

Traditional TT roles are sometimes really dumb. Like LRMs on Centurions.

Hey! LRM 15 and ERLL is my most successful Centurion build!

[Walluh]

Quirks are one of the veeeery few ways to actually balance specific mechs, since the only things unique to a chassis and it's variants are hitboxes, hardpoint numbers and locations, and how much tonnage they have to work with. Before, any balance changes would affect, well, EVERY mech.

[TheLuc]

Mech are like cars, you buy a mustang, you wont be able to make a ferrari out of it. The quirk system is ok. I see they try hard to translate TT in the game but the way they apply it makes me wonder if they did play TT and if they play the online game themselves.

[Koniving]

Krivvan, on 29 October 2014 - 05:41 PM, said:

Traditional TT roles are sometimes really dumb. Like LRMs on Centurions.

If used along their role, that actually isn't dumb at all (to have LRMs on Centurions).

Centurions escort Trebuchets, both LRM the living crap out of their enemies, and you can use your LRMs at less than 6 hexes. You have a penalty to accuracy for doing so due to the short range, but a pilot with enough of a gunnery skill will nail almost every hit and be able to use LRMs as a brawling weapon.

I should also note that Centurions didn't brawl too well with weapons due to their energy weapons being split front and back, though if you got into melee, a Centurion can take hellacious abuse and keep smacking the crap out of the enemy while shooting lasers at the enemy behind it.

[Logan Hawke]

So they're not even doing the half and half quirks now? God it's frustrating how the loudest individuals seem to always get their way.
This is actually enough of a departure from what was originally a unique, lore friendly, and interesting concept to sour the whole shebang for me. That heavy gear assault game is looking mighty mighty fine right now.

Edited by Logan Hawke, 30 October 2014 - 04:09 AM.

[Koniving]

Stefka Kerensky, on 29 October 2014 - 11:30 PM, said:

I love to pilot a cent nearly stock and engage at whatever range.
A perfect support medium for who really like the "team game" concept

Indeed.

[Koniving]

Logan Hawke, on 30 October 2014 - 04:09 AM, said:

So they're not even doing the half and half quirks now? God it's frustrating how the loudest individuals seem to always get their way.
This is actually enough of a departure from what was originally a unique, lore friendly, and interesting concept to sour the whole shebang for me. That heavy gear assault game is looking mighty mighty fine right now.

They are doing the half and half.

Example: +15% energy weapons range.
+15% medium pulse range.
Combine and you get +30%.

But in the case of the Spider 5K, it's pushing the Large Laser / ER Large Laser meta rather than its stock medium laser. Personally I'd prefer an ML + MGs because then I can run a standard engine and really annoy the living crap out of you in my Spider.
but now I gotta do this meta crap (see the Spider here) for the full potential of the buff.

And that isn't really fun at all to do. At least not for me.

[Logan Hawke]

Koniving, on 30 October 2014 - 04:15 AM, said:

-snip-

Back when the compies originally threw a fit they changed it to half and half as in for the hunchback 4G it had +12.5% ballistic cooldown and +12.5% AC/20 cooldown which stacked together. Does it still have that?

[Mangonel TwoSix]

Agent 0 Fortune, on 29 October 2014 - 05:51 PM, said:

Please elaborate.
Many TT mech designs are not optimal even for TT, but the LRM on a Centurion not one of them, it's primary weapon is an AC10, and its backup weapons are Medium lasers for close range, and LRM10 for longer ranges. I am not sure I understand why do think that is dumb.

So if you were going to replace that LRM, what would you put in its place?

It comes down to comparing apples to oranges. We can't compare a turn based, dice rolling, table top game, to a real time 'shooter/sim'.

In the team environment specialists tend to rule the day over generalists. Why bring one LRM10? Thats not really going to do much as missile support. Bring a mech for that role that is carrying more missiles, so it spends most of its time in its effective weapons envelope, doing its job.

I'm sure that improvements can be made to the quirk system, but some buffs are better than none. So what if they buff the AC20 on a mech and not the AC10. At least we are still getting the partial buff to ballistics for that chassis. Sure the AC20 in that example gets more of a buff than the AC10, but you use the two weapon systems for different playstyles. No one is making you equip the specific quirked weapon for that chassis.

The quirks are not making weapons worse. They are not forcing you to put an SRM4 instead of a SRM6 on a mech because the SRM4 got the specific bonuses. You can still run that 6 and get 1/2 the bonus.

[Belorion]

Are there specific quirks being argued about here or in general, because in general they seem to be following stock load outs.

Areas where they have diverged haven't been too far off the mark.

For the person that mentioned the K2... that one actually does fit the Stock load out. What is stock again? 2PPCs, 2MLs. and 2MGs. The quirks are buffing all the stock weapons.

[Tastian]

Agent 0 Fortune, on 29 October 2014 - 10:13 PM, said:

The beauty of giving quirks based on TT loadouts is that the TT builds are rarely the competitive builds, so you can afford to give Quirks to the Tier 1 mechs (in some cases). For example the Cataphact 3D will not receive any buffs because it is ranked T1, But is only T1 on a few select builds. Why not throw it a LB10x and UAC5 buff, and medium lasers. Buffing those weapons will have no effect on the Meta builds, but will open other options for the chassis.

I have mentioned the Centurion several times because it is the biggest offender.
The TT centurion does not carry SRMs, however the Kintaro-18 is a stock SRM boat.
Who screwed up so badly that these mechs cannot be assigned to their default roles? And the Kintaro-18 as an LRM5 boat is just a gimmick due to the poor design of the LRM5; an issue that will be addressed in an upcoming patch, which will ultimately render the mech unusable in any role.

The lunacy of the current quirk pass is that PGI is enforcing existing meta builds, which is horrible idea from a game stagnation perspective, and topic deserving its own thread.

This. I've been griping about the Kintaro-18 LRM5 quirk buff since I first saw it. I remember when the Kintaro was the #1 light killer cause it could go fast with so many streaks. And it was successful as a SRM boat (would probably be more successful now).

And great point about the Cataphracts. Tier 1 mechs can still receive quirks that boost their stock loadouts but not their meta builds.

[Alistair Winter]

Tastian, on 30 October 2014 - 05:35 AM, said:

This. I've been griping about the Kintaro-18 LRM5 quirk buff since I first saw it. I remember when the Kintaro was the #1 light killer cause it could go fast with so many streaks.

You're actually saying that like it was a good thing? The Kintaro was basically light mech kryptonite. As a light mech pilot, you could basically just disconnect if you saw a Kintaro boating SSRMs with BAP. Fighting was pointless, and running only delayed the inevitable. It was plain ridiculous.

If there's one thing I don't miss from the old MWO days, it's the streak boats. Especially in a game where the lock-on mechanism is so easy that you're basically removing aiming skills from the equation.

[Tastian]

Alistair Winter, on 30 October 2014 - 05:51 AM, said:

You're actually saying that like it was a good thing? The Kintaro was basically light mech kryptonite. As a light mech pilot, you could basically just disconnect if you saw a Kintaro boating SSRMs with BAP. Fighting was pointless, and running only delayed the inevitable. It was plain ridiculous.

If there's one thing I don't miss from the old MWO days, it's the streak boats. Especially in a game where the lock-on mechanism is so easy that you're basically removing aiming skills from the equation.

The Kintaro streak boat can't even come close to the Stormcrow streak boats. But with only a single LRM5 on the stock Kintaro 18 it seems an odd choice to quirk. Also with ghost heat added to LRM5s its hard to tell if they are encouraging LRM5 boating or discouraging it. And Streak 2's are pretty tame nowadays.

[STEF_]

Koniving, on 30 October 2014 - 04:08 AM, said:

If used along their role, that actually isn't dumb at all (to have LRMs on Centurions).

Centurions escort Trebuchets, both LRM the living crap out of their enemies, and you can use your LRMs at less than 6 hexes. You have a penalty to accuracy for doing so due to the short range, but a pilot with enough of a gunnery skill will nail almost every hit and be able to use LRMs as a brawling weapon.

I should also note that Centurions didn't brawl too well with weapons due to their energy weapons being split front and back, though if you got into melee, a Centurion can take hellacious abuse and keep smacking the crap out of the enemy while shooting lasers at the enemy behind it.

Awesome.
Cents and Atlas are the mechs that make me feel as I were piloting a mech inside a TT hex grid.
It's an awesome sensation.
I think it's a state of mind, but it is effective in gameplay.
Community need more TT players and less meta heroes, imo. MWO can still be an awesome BT related game.

[Yosharian]

The problem with applying TT logic to this game is that a) an FPS shooter works differently to an RTS game (which is essentially what TT is) and there are already too many differences to make a comparison meaningful, such as ECM.

On the viability of casual LRMs:

1) You often you only get short periods of time within which to deal damage, e.g. someone pops up and then retreats, or moves between cover. A direct fire system could deal damage here, but not a delayed damage system like LRM. In lower ELO brackets this is not a problem but in higher brackets when you are facing against highly competent enemies, LRMs are definitely not overpowered, and might even be underpowered. Related: this is why Gauss is unusable unless you bring 2 (too little damage for too much effort).

2) Ammo requirements for LRM are significant, considering all games are fought 12v12. This means using LRM requires significant ammo investment in order to not run out mid-match. Ballistics have this problem too, but are direct fire more or less, so ammo expenditure is almost guaranteed damage (dependent on aim only), whereas LRM fire is rarely guaranteed damage due to a variety of reasons.

3) The nature of ECM in MWO means LRMs become paperweights without TAG or NARC to assist them, and occasionally BAP is useful (but not a requirement). I take TAG as a minimum on all mechs which equip LRMs. This means extra tonnage/space investment simply to use your LRMs at all (i.e. to avoid being hard-countered).

Conclusion: casual LRMs are simply not worth the tonnage in the majority of cases.

Edited by Yosharian, 30 October 2014 - 06:52 AM.

[MountainCopper]

The part I don't understand about the new quirk system for IS Mechs, is that it is very specific in terms of weapons required...
Designed to make IS Mechs more competitive against Clan Mechs, the IS fraction has to choose from the a very limited pool of loadouts to counter Clan Mechs with no limits of any kind besides ghost heat?

You explained the design to be made with CW in mind, a feature / game environment of which, even at this point, very little is known on how it will work.

Edited by GoldenFleece, 30 October 2014 - 09:05 AM.

[Koniving]

Stefka Kerensky, on 30 October 2014 - 06:17 AM, said:

Community need more TT players and less meta heroes, imo. MWO can still be an awesome BT related game.

Problem is, meta mechs are worthless in TT, and easily beaten by stock mechs.
There's an obvious design flaw in the translation. Even if you apply pinpoint damage so that every weapon hits the same body part, stock mechs still generally win over meta mechs.

But neverminding that, I'm making a security mech because the history of the Copper is conflicted, (states 2617 and 3078 as its creation date even on the same source!)

It is 20 tons. Humanoid class. It features:
40 ICE engine.
2 MGs (right arm)
0.5 tons of MG ammo (100 magazines/uses).
Spot Wielder (for cutting through walls or creating barriers with finesse).
Two hands.
Vehicle Grenade Launcher (with smoke rounds for tear gas) equipped on the right torso.
0.5 tons of cargo room, for hauling things like criminals.
Small cockpit, allowing 2 headslots.
Recon camera (HD, the mech does not transplast transparent metal cockpit "glass", though the pilot can elevate his seat so that his head sticks out the top if necessary).
Remote Sensor Dispenser (LT).
Mounted Search Light (HD)
2 heatsinks (1 engine, 1 mounted CT), though it generates 2.25 heat in the worst case scenario.
2.5 tons commercial grade armor.
Ejection Seat.

Only problem is I don't know what to call it.
But it is an industrial/agriculture grade SecurityMech. Diesel engine.

[Alexander MacTaggart]

Roknari, on 30 October 2014 - 04:54 AM, said:

Why bring one LRM10? Thats not really going to do much as missile support. Bring a mech for that role that is carrying more missiles, so it spends most of its time in its effective weapons envelope, doing its job.

Because you don't have just one mech bringing an LRM10, you have 8-10 of your 12 mechs bringing an LRM5/10/20, and all those mechs also have other weaponry to brawl.skirmish with.

Instead of having one Catapult in the back tossling out 50 LRMs at once but with basically no backup weapons you have 60+ LRMs being fired between the whole group, while every mech in the group also has the capability of mounting heavy individual firepower for use when the LRMs aren't called for.

This is why so many mechs in tabletop carry a single smallish LRM rack, and why it's still a good idea to do so in MWO (assuming you're group dropping and can coordinate with teammates).