75 replies to this topic

[DrxAbstract]

Quxudica, on 14 November 2014 - 06:05 PM, said:

If weapons and equipment had actual size requirements. I don't mean critical slots, but actual set dimensions. What if an SRM six was to big to fit in a Raven, an LRM20 to large to drop in a Stormcrow or a Gauss Rifle to big to fit in a K2? What if a PPC cannon, that is the size of a Spiders torso on a K2, couldn't just be dropped into a Spiders energy arm?

What if you weren't able to jam any weapon into any chassis that had enough vaguely defined "critical slots"? How would the game play If the heaviest weapons could only be carried by the heaviest chassis, or special lighter chassis designed specifically to hoist and support a vastly over sized gun?

What would the game be like if weapons didn't exist in a vacuum? If slotting a large laser into a chassis only worked if that chassis had the power infrastructure to support such weapon? Or slotting an AC20 only worked if the ballistic slot had the mechanics to accommodate it?

How would the game play if ammunition had to be placed in logical locations, and you couldn't magically pull AC20 shells from your left foot to a gun mounted in your right arm? or siphon high explosive missiles from under your pilots seat?

Scifi isn't reality and video games don't need to be realistic, but would the game be improved if it swayed further toward the sim side of things?

I enjoy the customization aspect of the game. But sometimes limitations are good things.

I don't know if it's lore accurate, I don't know if it would actually be better. But part of me would be rather interested in playing the game this way.

It's entirely within canon for ammo feed belts to span from one side of a Mech to the other. It's even caused problems, lore wise, in some Mech redesigns/modernizing.

Most of the Mechs, according to canon factory specs, can carry the weapons we're seeing on them in the game.

As Satan has already stated, it would arbitrarily nerf some of them. Small guns arent just for small Mechs and big guns arent just for big Mechs.

[Daneiel]

El Bandito, on 14 November 2014 - 11:45 PM, said:

Cause Small Laser Firestarters are still kicking ass? Same deal with SRM Griffins and AC20 Hunchies. Doomcrow is still gonna doom everyone. Besides, the new rewards are making Light and Medium mechs just as rich, if not richer than Assaults, by purely scouting, TAG/NARCing, hit-n-run, and brawling.

And don't forget that would see much more Adders wreking medium and heavies , Centurions would hold their ground agains almost any mech , jeners still would live with the moto " Cry "Havok" and let slip the dogs of war" .

[Mystere]

Whether I agree with the OP or not, such a change is too late to even contemplate. That is an extremely major overhaul that PGI does not have the time and resources for. And as already mentioned, the whine will be so legendary the game will die an instant death.

Here is a question: Assuming PGI does make an announcement on such a change, how long can the game, and PGI, survive with a ghost town of a player base while they make the changes?

[oldradagast]

R Razor, on 14 November 2014 - 06:11 PM, said:

I'd love to see it evolve to that level, don't think it ever will though, the whine would be legendary and PGI listens to that above all else.

Not the right way to look at it, IMHO.

Sized hardpoints are not a bad idea, but it is way, WAY too late to introduce them into the game. They would have to refund everyone almost everything since all of a sudden, your favorite builds would no longer be possible on many mechs you bought. It would be a PR disaster.

Had they done this from the start, it probably would have worked and may have avoided the creation of Ghost Heat.

[Maggiman]

Jeah it will never happen, but what if it would?
Well i think assaults would reign supreme, because the are the only mechs that can take any loadout (Also, bazillion MLs on them). Not that it mind though, i think there are other approaches than "Every mech is equally strong".
And the mechlab would become incredibly complex...which i like too

[Shredhead]

It would only serve to further remove variety from the game. I come to believe some here think that Battletech is a balanced game. It's not.

[Walluh]

I'd take ghostheat over sized hardpoints any day. All it would do is gut customization, and nerf most lights and mediums, and succeed in getting rid of..stupid jager and catapult builds. Yay?

[R Razor]

Shredhead, on 15 November 2014 - 07:02 AM, said:

It would only serve to further remove variety from the game. I come to believe some here think that Battletech is a balanced game. It's not.

I'm impressed that you can claim there is currently variety in the game to be removed with a straight face.

The mere fact that PGI has seen fit to allow near unlimited customization has killed variety, not encouraged it........as soon as a build is shown to work that is the build you see on well over 90% of that particular mech. This is a direct result of poor game mechanics, bad balancing and poor implementation of the hard point system.

To their credit, they are trying a band aid fix (quirks) and it has seemed to help some, but there is still a definite lack of variety in this game.

[Burktross]

Well... you say not critical space.... but that's exactly what critical space is...

[Walluh]

There's a lot more variety in this game than the majority of online games. I get the feeling a lot of people haven't played more than MWO on this forum, given how they act like this game is some sort of wasteland of horrible balancing.

[R Razor]

Played plenty, some better, some worse, but this forum and thread is about this game, not the others.

This game is not where it could or should be. Being forced to run a cookie cutter build to be competitive is not the way it should be nor does it have to be this way. Unfortunately, that is the way it is at the moment.

There are exceptions to every rule, so posting some pointless example of how you do fine in xyz mech doesn't mean a thing, the trend is what counts, and the trend is cookie cutter. Gauss-PPC DW, Laser Boat Crow, the list is long and cheesy and includes plenty of IS mechs from pre-clan times as well.

Bottom line is that too much customization capability can be just as bad (or worse) than too little.

As Radagast pointed out though, no way it will change now, the whining from those that paid money to gain that tiny advantage would be out of this world and very likely would bring about the collapse of the game. A bad decision some 3+ years ago has stuck us with what we have.

One day, maybe, if we're REALLY lucky, another Mechwarrior / Battletech game will come along that was better designed from the beginning........until then, this is the only game in town so most of us will continue to play it.

[Walluh]

I don't think you understand the fact that sized hardpoints aren't going to ~magically~ fix variety. If everyone wants gauss and ppc, they're just going to take what mechs can hold the combination. It's just that there will be significantly less options to actually do it with now. It's not going to shoo everyone away from cookie cutting like some miraculous exodus from the generic into true variety.

Not to mention this game's meta is one of the least set in stone. You could say Gauss/PPC, I could say it's laservomit, and PGI could say it's MLAS/SRM brawlers. Because there's a great deal of viable configurations, even moreso with quirks buffing specific loadout types and specific previously worthless chassis. It's doing a HELL of a lot better at the variety game than sized hardpoints ever will.

[R Razor]

Walluh, on 15 November 2014 - 02:17 PM, said:

I don't think you understand the fact that sized hardpoints aren't going to ~magically~ fix variety. If everyone wants gauss and ppc, they're just going to take what mechs can hold the combination. It's just that there will be significantly less options to actually do it with now. It's not going to shoo everyone away from cookie cutting like some miraculous exodus from the generic into true variety.

Not to mention this game's meta is one of the least set in stone. You could say Gauss/PPC, I could say it's laservomit, and PGI could say it's MLAS/SRM brawlers. Because there's a great deal of viable configurations, even moreso with quirks buffing specific loadout types and specific previously worthless chassis. It's doing a HELL of a lot better at the variety game than sized hardpoints ever will.

So, in your considered opinion, having 4 or 5 different mechs used consistently constitutes variety. Ok, got it.

With the tonnage restrictions that are slated for CW it's quite unlikely that everyone could jump into the "gauss/ppc" mech flavor of the day. Invalid point is invalid.

Doing something with hard points in conjunction with other changes, tonnage restrictions, a battle value implementation, etc.....could and would bring more variety to the game than it currently has.

The reason it won't happen is because there are a lot of people that think like you, and a lot of people that would, as stated before, whine like never before, maybe even quit the game altogether, and PGI can't, justifiably from an economic standpoint, take that chance.

No need to get your feathers ruffled, your cookie cutter game is safe for now.

[Butane9000]

One argument would be "sized hard points"

basically:

Small Energy Hard Points: Small Laser, Medium Lasers, SPL, MPL, CERML, CERSML, TAG, CSPL, CMPL

Large Energy Hard Points: Large Laser, ERLL, PPC, ERPPC, LPL, CERLL, CERPPC, CLPL

Small Ballistic Hard Points: Machine Guns, AC2, AC5, UAC5, CUAC2, CUAC5, CLBX2, CLBX5

Large Ballistic Hard Points: AC10, AC20, LBX10, Gauss Rifle, CUAC10, CUAC20, CLBX10, CLBX20, C-Gauss

Small Missile Hard Points: SRM2, SRM4, SRM6, NARC, SSRM2, CSRM2, CSRM4, CSRM6, CSSRM2, CSSRM4, CSSRM6, LRM5, CLRM5

Large Missile Hard Points: LRM10, LRM15, LRM20, CLRM10, CLRM15, CLRM20

Rule: Small hard point weapons can fit into a large hard point slot but large hard point weapons cannot fit into small hard point slots.

[Alistair Winter]

I would love it.

Never gonna happen, but I would love it.

[SuomiWarder]

It would be MechWarrior 4 - which worked fine for me by the way. And a bunch of other people. Hard points had a size of 1 to 4 or so and weapons did too. Omni pods could take any weapon - which would not work for the current Clan mech system but they don't have to have that kind of Omni pod.

It would make chassis different within a line and allow PGI to affect meta builds by not making the possible. Six one slot ballistics is way different than Three two lots or one huge six slot one.

The downside is that ballistic mechs meant to house AC-20s and Gauss can all be multi-machine gun mechs as you can stuff a lot of MGs into one big ballistic mount. Four AC-2 and AC-5 set ups might become prominent. Although a lot of Clan mechs run this set up now as it is. Same deal for LRM 5 spamming.

[Walluh]

R Razor, on 15 November 2014 - 02:25 PM, said:

So, in your considered opinion, having 4 or 5 different mechs used consistently constitutes variety. Ok, got it.

With the tonnage restrictions that are slated for CW it's quite unlikely that everyone could jump into the "gauss/ppc" mech flavor of the day. Invalid point is invalid.

Doing something with hard points in conjunction with other changes, tonnage restrictions, a battle value implementation, etc.....could and would bring more variety to the game than it currently has.

The reason it won't happen is because there are a lot of people that think like you, and a lot of people that would, as stated before, whine like never before, maybe even quit the game altogether, and PGI can't, justifiably from an economic standpoint, take that chance.

No need to get your feathers ruffled, your cookie cutter game is safe for now.

Your argument is there are 4 or 5 mechs used consistently. Unless you're playing at the tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiippy top ultra tryhard competitive scene, that's a ton of BS, and we aren't playing the same game. My experience says entirely differently, sooo..

Invalid point is invalid?

[Sandpit]

It would deviate completely from the source material. This is why you have crit slots. Crist slots already gives you exactly what you're asking for. You're not asking for a "new" mechanic, you're asking for crit sizes to be increased.

[Mercules]

Quxudica, on 14 November 2014 - 06:05 PM, said:

I don't know if it's lore accurate, I don't know if it would actually be better. But part of me would be rather interested in playing the game this way.

It kinda would be Lore Accurate. The Hollander was specifically built the way it was to mount a Gauss Rifle. Note it's appearance.


Basically what you are calling for is Stock Mechs with some sort of very limited customization available.

Edited by Mercules, 15 November 2014 - 03:11 PM.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Lol, somehow the Kitfox is able to carry a Gauss Rifle......but I think that has more to do with Clans and thier Omnipods, which makes mechs more customizable, not less so.