12 replies to this topic

[Tarys]

Greetings,
before you think here is another "reduce/buff damage on weapon x" thread ... nope, sorry. Instead i would like opinions about a mechanic which i first encountered in Mechcommander 2. There the best fightingrange was determined by the amount of equipped weapons from one range. So my thoughts go into something like that to bring back some "useless" weapons that only shine with a mech having quirks for it. As well some FOTM-Loadouts would lose their edge because they would become helpless (or at least they have to go for headshots) as soon as someone aint in their optimum fire range. Of course the downside would be that almost all current loadouts as well as the new quirks would become obsolete and most weaponranges would need a revamp.

To get something like the MC2 system in MWO i would change the current system into something like:
[minimum range if needed (f.e. LRM)] - [below optimum range] - [optimum range] - [above optimum range (also meaning maximum range]

Minimum range: no damage when shooting (or as good as nothing -> clan LRM)
Below optimum: either fix % of reduced damage or % reduction depending how far away you are from your optimum range (f.e. 100 meter 10%; 200% meter 20% and so on)
Optimum range: full damage when shooting
Above optimum: same as below optimum

To allow some kind of variety some weapons have crossranges. This would encourage players not to boat just one or two weapons or give them even more specialised roles to fill out. The first type would be the jack of all trades while the second could shine in teammatches as long as he manages to keep his distance and has mates who fill out the other roles/ranges.

My first idea of the ranges:
- Ballistic: MG -> AC/LBX 20 -> AC/LBX 10 -> AC/LBX 5 -> AC/LBX 2 -> Gauss
- Energy: Flamer -> small pulse -> small laser -> medium pulse -> medium laser -> large pulse-> large laser -> PPC (ER variants could be placed above their basic version; PPC would stay the same range but just like now ER has no minum range)
- Missile: (S)SRM -> MRM (needs to be implemented) -> LRM

While my idea would bring back a purpose for f.e. small lasers the missile variants would still lack some use ... so i guess they need a bonus to make them worthwhile. I have to admit i have no real idea what that could be without making it OP but ... maybe give SRM2 with every 5th shot a tracking missile -> you shoot it and the following shots hit the same spot as long as you manage to aim near your first hit (shooting the air while keeping lock with your arm wouldnt work). SSRM2 could get a small ae damage or maybe a little ecm effect with f.e. every 5th shot which causes to lose its current lock.

Thanks a lot for reading till the end. If i miss out a huge disadvantage of my idea please tell me.

Edited by Tarys, 14 November 2014 - 12:58 PM.

[Telmasa]

On the one hand...neat concept....


On the other, I think it would wind up being over-complex for most people's tastes (in an already complex game), plus it's not particularly true to Battletech rules.

[Tarys]

As far as i can see the rules have already been stretched so far that as good as everything is able to fit in.
Gauss have no minimum range, LRMs can fire on targets out of LOS without the use of C3, TAG or NARC, you can mount every weapon into a slot as long as the amount of needed slots fits and so on.

I think even one of the DEVs stated that lore/rules are good but in the end balance counts over all (i think it was stated regarding Clan-Mech balances). And i think Mechwarrior should be complex because it aint made for being a simple shooter like CS, COD or BF ^^

[The Strange]

Tarys, on 14 November 2014 - 10:40 PM, said:

As far as i can see the rules have already been stretched so far that as good as everything is able to fit in.
Gauss have no minimum range, LRMs can fire on targets out of LOS without the use of C3, TAG or NARC, you can mount every weapon into a slot as long as the amount of needed slots fits and so on.

I think even one of the DEVs stated that lore/rules are good but in the end balance counts over all (i think it was stated regarding Clan-Mech balances). And i think Mechwarrior should be complex because it aint made for being a simple shooter like CS, COD or BF ^^

Actually, this game is right on par with titles like BF. This is a twitch shooter, nothing more. I see all over that this is supposed to be a "simulator" yet there is no simulation in it at all. Want to see a good simulator? Falcon4 AF was a great one.

Imagine if you had to start your Mech up, load nav data, toggle your weapons off safe, etc. That's a sim, this is no where close.

[Heffey]

I'm probably too tired but nothing the OP said made any sense to me.

[Krivvan]

The Strange, on 15 November 2014 - 12:54 AM, said:

Imagine if you had to start your Mech up, load nav data, toggle your weapons off safe, etc. That's a sim,

And frankly this game shouldn't be a sim, which is an extremely ill-defined concept anyways for something sci-fi.

It is a shooter, but nowhere close to a twitch shooter. Counter Strike is far closer to a twitch shooter, but there a shooters more twitchy than even that. This game does not reward reaction time as much as many other shooters, and being shot once frequently does not lead to instant death (in fact, it's a relatively rare occurrence to be shot at and killed instantly unless you do some truly dumb moves).

By the way, I'm not so sure your concept would actually encourage people to take diverse loadouts. Stock mechs with diverse loadouts are really bad mainly for a couple reasons. For one, unlike in tabletop, weapons have different travel times and it is completely insane to have, for example, an ERLL and an LRM when they accomplish the same thing as having 2 ERLL except for the 2 ERLL being more effective.

The other issue is that the very concept of a jack of all trades mech is flawed. Why be bad at all ranges and never have a situation where you can come out on top when you can specialize and have a goal for a situation where you will come out on top? Let's say you're trading in cover with an enemy. Do you want to move up closer to them? Or move back to a better position? It doesn't matter either way because you're weak at any range with your single SRM 2, single LRM 5, single small laser, and single large laser.

I don't see any point of the OP's suggestion when a soft version of this already exists in game. ERLL can be used in close quarters, but they aren't very good in close quarters. Teams like CSJ (before they sorta blew up) that boated nothing but ERLL across their entire team were very weak to being rushed quickly in close range. Mechs like the FS9-A can deal ridiculously huge damage for a light in close range, but they are useless at medium and long range which is what limits them from being too good.

Why make these limits even more strict when all that does is make the game more frustrating and unfun?

Edited by Krivvan, 15 November 2014 - 02:14 AM.

[Tarys]

So you wanna say why use some of the smaller weapons (that were made for close combat regarding to most Infos on sama) if the big ones made for range combat are dominating? Why change the often hated Direwolf build with 2 gauss and 2 ppc to your face while both weapons are clearly made for long range fighting? Why do something against the no-fun LRM spam in most pug matches as long as some people still think they are totally fine and you can avoid them so easily on every map, in every mech and from every position?

I think most people clearly see that balancing this game is a huge problem and most of the problems come from boating certain types of weapons and them being way better in terms of range and damage than the weapons that were made for shorter ranges. By the way no one forces you to mix your missile slots this way. Like most people you can use f.e. your missiles for long range and back them up with energy for medium or close range. By bringing in optimum fire ranges for weapons you have to decide if you prefer fighting from the end of the map, in the front line or from every spot. Nothing would change because right now a lot of mechs suffer from the same problems that you are talking about. They have trouble when not fighting from a certain range (a lot of light mechs are made for close range combat, other mechs more for range). Heck the devs could even give a bonus for staying near a mech that is having the opposit range of your mech -> being a bodyguard like kitfoxes who often stick to assaults. There is even a chance that people would work together and are grateful if someone shoots down an enemy while they are fighting ...

And to avoid misunderstandings ... i dont want zero damage when shooting out of the optimum range. I want reduced damage that maybe even goes so far as you are forced to aim for weak spots/damage parts when you aint using/having weapons that can do full damage. Of course it would be a huge Change for both sides but i dont see a better way to make all weapons useful again. Quirks are nice things but just because a Firestarter does some great things with small pulse you wouldnt put them on your Atlas if you aint have a great quirk for it ... Maybe some nerfed weapons could be changed back the way they were before when using my idea.

[Krivvan]

Tarys, on 15 November 2014 - 02:56 PM, said:

And to avoid misunderstandings ... i dont want zero damage when shooting out of the optimum range. I want reduced damage that maybe even goes so far as you are forced to aim for weak spots/damage parts when you aint using/having weapons that can do full damage. Of course it would be a huge Change for both sides but i dont see a better way to make all weapons useful again. Quirks are nice things but just because a Firestarter does some great things with small pulse you wouldnt put them on your Atlas if you aint have a great quirk for it ... Maybe some nerfed weapons could be changed back the way they were before when using my idea.

Except you're seeing almost every weapon in the game be used for something now. Small pulses, as you say, are good on specialized Lights. Medium lasers are on most lights and are a given. Large lasers are frequently used. Medium pulses are even used now on certain boats and some lights. Dire wolves run Gauss, UACs, and Large Pulses. ERPPCs and PPCs still aren't very good in my eyes, but a lot of people still run them.

The only, only weapons in the game that I can think of that aren't really used to any degree are SRM2s, Flamers, and Small Lasers. You're saying to change the mechanics of the entire game significantly just so more people will use SRM2s, Flamers (which still wouldn't even be used with your changes), and small lasers.

[Tarys]

I dont know if people would use those weapons more or just live with the reduced damage part and run the same loadout as now. But i think it would give people a reason to use These weapons even if their mech has no quirk to boost them. And of course i am trying to reduce some problem builds which are often causing patches without touching heat, duration or the damage as a whole.
Just like in other games sniper loadouts should shine on long range and suck in close combat - here f.e. the Direwolf doesnt care if the target is 800m away or 50m in front of you. Same goes for LRM-boats ... watch for the minimum distance and then roll your head over the buttons for LRM-spam. From my point of view 180m aint counting as Long Range Missile ... heck that even is in the distance of SRMs.

And i am with you; flamers would need another buff to make them useful. Just like the little missile variants where i already tried to make a suggestion but had problems coming up with some decent buff.

[Quaamik]

Honestly the idea seems an overly complex way to fix a simple problem that has a simple solution.

To address two things:

1) The idea of a "jack of all trades" mech: The concept is valid, but was poorly executed and then butchered by the game mechanics. Initial concept - those are the load outs from BT-Tabletop. In BT-Tabletop / lore, the IS mechs could not reconfigure their load outs, especially not on board a drop ship or "in theater". So they had to have a mix that was effective no matter where they went. And the "lore" was a real life fight, where you died if you brought a short range mech to a long range battlefield - you didn't just drop to a new match 15 minutes later.

So, the initial concept was to not let you pick maps which encourages mixed load. The flaw is that to make IS competitive vs clan, and keep people interested, you had to be able to re-configure load outs. The second flaw is that since you go to a new game every 15 minutes, there is no real down side to optimizing your mech for the range you like, even if it makes it uncompetitive in certain situations / maps. Note that community warfare, as planned, will mitigate this by tying rewards to performance and spawning you in one of several mechs over and over. You won't want a bunch of mechs in your lineup that all suck n a certain range, as you could wind up dying over and over and over.

2) As to the "simple problem / solution" I alluded to:

The problem as I see it is that some weapons (such as SL, SPL) are underused and nearly useless.

The simple solution is to limit the available number of slots on smaller mechs (which would break some builds) and give them more hard points. This could be cascaded up the weight ranges. While not cannon, with enough hard points, the lower heat of a small laser or SPL would suddenly be attractive if a small mech could boat 6 - 10 of them. The problem would b keeping them from becoming 2 overpowered (imagine a spider with 8 SPLs - <shudder>)

[Tarys]

Regarding 2) Shouldnt that happen to the bigger mechs? Or do you really wanna force every smaller mech into closerange fights while the big ones bring on their large weapons that are made for long range but in MWO are also extrem powerful while engaging in close range?

Beside that am i thinking correct that in TT f.e. the large laser was made for long range attack and if the enemy moved closer you would no longer use it and switch to a medium or even small laser? If not the little unused (or seldom used) weapons could be kicked out of the game. The devs would no longer need to invest time and money into patching them and could spent their resources with the more popular ones. To avoid loadout problems for smaller mechs they could invent some quirks like reduced weight when mounted on mech xy.

And somehow your version reminds me of the hardpoint sizes that the devs dont want because some builds wouldnt be possible if they change that (at least i would be happy if some builds would vanish but ... nevermind ^^)

[Quaamik]

Another possible solution (again, not cannon) would be to make small lasers and SPLs take up 1/2 a slot instead of a full slot, then let 2 share a single hard point and fife together. However, that might make for some interesting and possibly overpowered builds. Imagine a Nova with 24 small pulse lasers........

[Quaamik]

I envisioned it happening across the board. For example, make a variant of each small mech with 6 - 10 energy hard points. Just make sure that with the available space / weight / cooling it could not mount 6 - 10 medium lasers effectively. In larger mechs a variant with more energy slots could easily mount many f the small lasers, but would still favor (for most players) going with weapons that packed more punch and range, but fired slower.

There would be very limited advantage to a heavy mech carrying 8 - 10 SLs over a heavy mech carrying 4 - 6 MLs or 2 - 4 LLs.

The small mechs wouldn't be forced to carry small lasers, just restricted on some hard points. So a Kit Fox for example could carry 2 large lasers, or 4 mediums, but might be able to carry 8 small lasers. Weight and hardpoint size restrictions could both be brought into play. Weight alone would limit clan mechs (because the engine cannot be changed). IS mechs would need some hard point restrictions. Such as putting 2 unrestricted energy hard points, 2 restricted to 1 slot only, and 4 more restricted to 1 slot and a 1/2 ton each on a given mech (some clan chassis might need the same treatment)..