43 replies to this topic

[Rufus Ingram]

Time To Kill is not of great concern to me because my personal experiences varies from first minute to last, but it finally occured to me that in light of being based on BT our time to kill is probably very long.

With Battletech turns lasting 10 seconds and MWO match length averaging over 5 minutes (I think, which I know is separate from TTK, but its useful) that is around 30 turns in BT. For those who've not played it, 30 turns in BT is an eternity, even for 12v12. That said, MWO rate of fire is at least twice as fast, we have twice the armor, and more control over hit location, and once we are in contact it is harder to extract ourselves from combat than BT. Focus fire in BT drops mechs as fast, and potentially faster than MWO. I think its amazing we have the TTK we do. I'm open to it changing, just impressed it is what it is deriving from tabletop.

Edited by Rufus Ingram, 20 November 2014 - 10:32 AM.

[Blakkstar]

TTK is fine. You wander into the open by yourself in any shooting game and you will die in seconds. Plenty of Locusts and Commandos survive lots of matches by being smart.

Look at a replay of any 12v12 team play at a high level and TTK will not be an issue. Players making bad decisions is the problem.

[Zetrein]

Compared to tabletop Battletech? Yes, TTK in MWO is very long.

Last month me and my group had a three-way battle, one lance each. While the game itself took over five hours, it would have been only around a minute of combat, and most the mechs on the field were pretty far gone. Those that still had armor were often in what would be the red in MWO, and only two mechs were actually destroyed, both by lucky hits.

Said lucky hits involved a gauss cannon and an XL engine, and my Jenner losing a leg 20 seconds in.

[Monkey Lover]

Russ doesn't see a problem with ttk. He said games are only shorter now by a few seconds. Dont plan on anything getting better.

[Kiiyor]

Rufus Ingram, on 19 November 2014 - 12:12 PM, said:

Time To Kill is not of great concern to me because my personal experiences varies from first minute to last, but it finally occured to me that in light of being based on BT our time to kill is probably very long.

With Battletech turns lasting 10 seconds and MWO match length averaging over 5 minutes (I think, which I know is separate from TTK, but its useful) that is around 30 turns in BT. For those who've not played it, 30 turns in BT is an eternity, even for 12v12. That said, MWO rate of fire is at least twice as fast, we have twice the armor, and more control over hit location, and once we are in contact it is harder to extract ourselves from combat than BT. Focus fire in BT drops mechs as fast, and potentially faster than MWO. I think its amazing we have the TTK we do. I'm open to it changing, just impressed it is what is deriving from tabletop.

That's TT though, and I'd say that most of us are basing our conception of TTK on other media, like the novels.

All the BT literature paints the BattleMech as a near-unstoppable behemoth that falls due to attrition rather than lucky enemy shots.

Having an Atlas walk around a corner and turn into vapor kind of flies in the face of this.

[Davers]

Kiiyor, on 19 November 2014 - 12:45 PM, said:

That's TT though, and I'd say that most of us are basing our conception of TTK on other media, like the novels.

All the BT literature paints the BattleMech as a near-unstoppable behemoth that falls due to attrition rather than lucky enemy shots.

Having an Atlas walk around a corner and turn into vapor kind of flies in the face of this.

Then it's the writer's fault for not being true to the source material. Lucky hits/critical hits are the number one cause of mech destruction. Hell, an ammo carrying medium is running around with 3-4 points of rear armour protecting all those AC rounds. Once you get behind them, the ammo gets popped real quick by even one medium laser.

[Tombstoner]

Personally i find TTK to be excessively short. i find games with movement, repositioning and flanking to be far more satisfying then a death ball.

This is something you can't do with LRMs & ballistic shake the way it is. why cant lasers hits from the front inflict glare blinding the pilot. you stuck to cover all the time.

[Lefty Lucy]

Kiiyor, on 19 November 2014 - 12:45 PM, said:

That's TT though, and I'd say that most of us are basing our conception of TTK on other media, like the novels.

All the BT literature paints the BattleMech as a near-unstoppable behemoth that falls due to attrition rather than lucky enemy shots.

Having an Atlas walk around a corner and turn into vapor kind of flies in the face of this.

In almost all of the BT literature I've read (mostly short stories rather than novels) mechs take critical damage from almost any fire. Like, sure, they can be operable with said critical damage, but they don't just shrug off hits with no loss of function, as is the case in MWO under anything less than overwhelming combined fire.

Tombstoner, on 19 November 2014 - 01:36 PM, said:

Personally i find TTK to be excessively short. i find games with movement, repositioning and flanking to be far more satisfying then a death ball.

This is something you can't do with LRMs & ballistic shake the way it is. why cant lasers hits from the front inflict glare blinding the pilot. you stuck to cover all the time.

The death ball is a result of MWO's relatively (compared to most other shooters) long TTK. 1 v 1 TTK in MWO is orders of magnitude longer than other shooters, so people "death ball" because the only way you efficiently remove enemy firepower from the field is by combining your own firepower.

[FupDup]

Outside of a few outlier cases like everybody's favorite 2 ERPPC + 2 Gauss Dire Whales or some specific mechs that got uber-duber-quirked, I think TTK is "mostly" fine.

[Lefty Lucy]

FupDup, on 19 November 2014 - 02:14 PM, said:

Outside of a few outlier cases like everybody's favorite 2 ERPPC + 2 Gauss Dire Whales or some specific mechs that got uber-duber-quirked, I think TTK is "mostly" fine.

Even then a 2 ERPPC/2Gauss dire wolf is a loadout that would work fine on TT, and potentially kill many mechs in a round or two of fire as well.

[KraftySOT]

I disagree. Either youre all some bad BT players, or youre using slow lights. Moved 10+ hexes +4

There are rare circumstances where this doesnt matter...but...an 8 to-hit native means you dont get hit.

And of course total warfare added: Moved 18-24 hexes +5 Moved 25+ hexes +6

[FupDup]

Lefty Lucy, on 19 November 2014 - 02:20 PM, said:

Even then a 2 ERPPC/2Gauss dire wolf is a loadout that would work fine on TT, and potentially kill many mechs in a round or two of fire as well.

The glorious TT PPC/Gauss master race™.

Slight derailment: I'd probably rather use a Hellstar in place of that Whale build. Faster movement, no ammo worries, no Gauss explosions, with the same damage output (4 CERPPCs), while still being stupidly heat efficient, with only 0.5 tons less armor.

[Tombstoner]

Lefty Lucy, on 19 November 2014 - 02:14 PM, said:

In almost all of the BT literature I've read (mostly short stories rather than novels) mechs take critical damage from almost any fire. Like, sure, they can be operable with said critical damage, but they don't just shrug off hits with no loss of function, as is the case in MWO under anything less than overwhelming combined fire.



The death ball is a result of MWO's relatively (compared to most other shooters) long TTK. 1 v 1 TTK in MWO is orders of magnitude longer than other shooters, so people "death ball" because the only way you efficiently remove enemy firepower from the field is by combining your own firepower.

I'm completely ok with formation movement in groups of 4. i think thats how its supposed to be played. its the ball of 12 thats kinda meh.....

[Davers]

Tombstoner, on 19 November 2014 - 03:03 PM, said:

I'm completely ok with formation movement in groups of 4. i think thats how its supposed to be played. its the ball of 12 thats kinda meh.....

Unfortunately the Devs have yet to give real reasons for a group to split up. TT forces it, by not allowing multiple mechs to be in the same hex. Starfleet Battles doesn't, so you get the 'super stack' where all your forces are in the same hex. Without a need to split your forces (mission objectives) there is no real benefit to it. Much better to have all your units targeting the same side than dividing fire between L and R sides (or shield facings in SFB). You end up with half the firepower divided into 2 directions, so like a quarter of the effective firepower compared to the murderball. We need secondary objectives that really matter very badly if we want to change this.

[Sandpit]

Davers, on 19 November 2014 - 03:17 PM, said:

Unfortunately the Devs have yet to give real reasons for a group to split up. TT forces it, by not allowing multiple mechs to be in the same hex. Starfleet Battles doesn't, so you get the 'super stack' where all your forces are in the same hex. Without a need to split your forces (mission objectives) there is no real benefit to it. Much better to have all your units targeting the same side than dividing fire between L and R sides (or shield facings in SFB). You end up with half the firepower divided into 2 directions, so like a quarter of the effective firepower compared to the murderball. We need secondary objectives that really matter very badly if we want to change this.

Larger maps would help this. Imagine if we had maps 2-3 times larger than we do now. Role warfare would have more meaning. Scouts would serve an actual purpose if you didn't see the enemy force within 30 seconds of spawning.

[Lefty Lucy]

FupDup, on 19 November 2014 - 02:24 PM, said:

The glorious TT PPC/Gauss master race™.

Slight derailment: I'd probably rather use a Hellstar in place of that Whale build. Faster movement, no ammo worries, no Gauss explosions, with the same damage output (4 CERPPCs), while still being stupidly heat efficient, with only 0.5 tons less armor.

Yes, that's one of the ways that MWO balance is waaaay better than TT: a wider variety of weapons actually have a purpose.

[Davers]

Sandpit, on 19 November 2014 - 03:44 PM, said:

Larger maps would help this. Imagine if we had maps 2-3 times larger than we do now. Role warfare would have more meaning. Scouts would serve an actual purpose if you didn't see the enemy force within 30 seconds of spawning.

We have large maps, and they don't encourage it either. There is just really NO REASON to split off from the main group. We need large maps with important things to do spread out all over them. Things that are fun to do and fight over, not more cap points.

[Tombstoner]

Sandpit, on 19 November 2014 - 03:44 PM, said:

Larger maps would help this. Imagine if we had maps 2-3 times larger than we do now. Role warfare would have more meaning. Scouts would serve an actual purpose if you didn't see the enemy force within 30 seconds of spawning.

I think that might make it worse actually. as it stand now the team that doesn't link up asap is at a severe disadvantage as your assaults are mobbed by fast mechs...... if your not a max speed scout your at the Mersey of two that are.

I was thinking of a something that links the commanders orders and unit placement. a line that tells you roughly where to go and rewards players who follow unit commands. a beckon perhaps that only our team can see red blue green for alpha beta , gamma lances.

[Lefty Lucy]

Tombstoner, on 19 November 2014 - 03:57 PM, said:

I think that might make it worse actually. as it stand now the team that doesn't link up asap is at a severe disadvantage as your assaults are mobbed by fast mechs...... if your not a max speed scout your at the Mersey of two that are.

I was thinking of a something that links the commanders orders and unit placement. a line that tells you roughly where to go and rewards players who follow unit commands. a beckon perhaps that only our team can see red blue green for alpha beta , gamma lances.

Yeah, but there's still no reason for the commander to order a team to split.

[Sandpit]

Davers, on 19 November 2014 - 03:51 PM, said:

We have large maps, and they don't encourage it either. There is just really NO REASON to split off from the main group. We need large maps with important things to do spread out all over them. Things that are fun to do and fight over, not more cap points.

I said largER not what PGI currently considers larger

I never said anything about more cap points either. Larger maps would give purpose to those scout and recon builds. It would give more opportunity to use strategies other than "deathball" to point A.

It would give more strategy than "I just spawned and within 10 seconds I'm already under fire from enemy forces".

There's not much point when you can see across the map and spot the entire enemy force right after spawning.

Tombstoner, on 19 November 2014 - 03:57 PM, said:

I think that might make it worse actually. as it stand now the team that doesn't link up asap is at a severe disadvantage as your assaults are mobbed by fast mechs...... if your not a max speed scout your at the Mersey of two that are.

I was thinking of a something that links the commanders orders and unit placement. a line that tells you roughly where to go and rewards players who follow unit commands. a beckon perhaps that only our team can see red blue green for alpha beta , gamma lances.

That happens because you're spawning so close to enemy forces and know exactly where they're at before you even enter the map. I'd also add in a more random spawn mechanic instead of set spawn points. You don't get swarmed by enemy mechs when you're not within range of enemy weapons after 10 seconds of spawning which is the case on a few of the current maps.