180 replies to this topic

[Blaze32]

John Hartson, on 27 June 2012 - 11:38 PM, said:

... but what has been seen cannot be unseen and I think we all saw the leaked beta videos.

Damn i heard about them but never saw them wish i did... are they still posted or did they get removed by the "once was" beta player that got threatened by Piranha Games?

[mattkachu]

best solution to this dilemma:
Leave ammo how it is
Leave armour how it is
Leave dmg how it is
Kick out 20k more beta keys

[Farangu]

One small thing that keeps coming to mind when I read people who say "this is a beta, be patient": Right now, this is definitely a period the developers are using to search for bugs and fine tune balance.

This is also a product that many people have put as much, if not more money than is asked of a fully finished, tested, polished game. In my mind, as soon as they said that people could actually spend money on the product, it stopped becoming a beta.

[QuantumStorm]

As an AC/20 Guass jockey this also concerns me.

I break it down pretty simply

1 AC/20 or Guass + 1 Ton Ammo (5 shots) + 5 Head Shots (100% Hit Rate) = 5 Kills

Now I don't care how the balance it as long as the equation stays the same

1 AC/20 or Guass + 1 Ton of Ammo (X shots) + X Head Shots (100% Hit Rate) = 5 Kills

Substitute any number for X you like as long as the equation stays true I am happy

Make the equation not true and you fail to balance the game right and lazer boats here we come.

[Skadi]

Heres a thought, even though the armor is double, maybe the damage of the weapons is double...

Edited by Skadi, 28 June 2012 - 10:08 PM.

[Voyager I]

Skadi, on 28 June 2012 - 10:07 PM, said:

Heres a thought, even though the armor is double, maybe the damage of the weapons is double...

I doubt that, given that it would make the entire exercise utterly pointless and we know they're trying to make mechs more durable so fights aren't routinely decided by a single alpha strike from someone boating AC/20's.

[Phasics]

Blaze32, on 28 June 2012 - 06:07 PM, said:

fast enough that you will only be able to kill one mech (if at all) then you will just be 2 med lazers (because 2 are rear facing).

And you know this how ?

[Phasics]

Jaxwen, on 28 June 2012 - 08:34 PM, said:

If you believe it is pointless to have this discussion, why are you trolling the posts of those that have an interest in the topic?

Because this discussion is talking specifics without specific information and is thus pointless.

discussing the premise that Mechs need enough ammo not to run out before they kill something is a reasonable discussion becasue I agree mechs should be able to kill things before running out of ammo.

But flatly claiming ammo should be doubled without any specific details of how doubling armor is actually effecting current beta gameplay is pointless.

[csebal]

I think I might shed some light on that.

If you look at the TT rules, the hit locations in that one are pretty much based on the roll of a die, so even though you might have a hunchback capable of blowing holes into the enemy mech, unless you are lucky, you will hit his left leg, his right leg, his center torso, his left torso, his right torso, and even though any two hits on the same section would cripple that section, after 5 shots you still only managed to strip him of his armor.

Now in a sim game, like the previous MW titles, or like this one will be, you actually can aim your shots. So if you do that, then as per standard armor rules, two hits from an AC20 on the center torso of any medium or smaller mech (or even some weaker heavies) would pretty much blow a hole through the poor guy (as it should be i might add) and that from the front. From the back, things look even worse.

Same goes for all energy weapons as well, although those do not use ammo and you have to keep them on target for the whole length of the pulse, so their damage will more likely be spread across multiple sections.

Anyway.. original TT armor levels were based on the assumption, that most shots will hit randomly. Piranha has to account for the fact that we will aim our shots and will most probably aim them well.

Does that mean, that the 10 ammo on a stock hunchback will not be enough to last a fight? Well.. it depends on how you use it, but I guess that would be hard to tell until we actually see the game play with these levels. If they feel that ammo using weapons are at a disadvantage, they can always just increase the ammo capacity of weapons by some percentage. My guess would be a 25-75% increase over the board, with missiles getting a bigger boost due to the lack of pilot influence in where they will hit, but this is just that.. a guess.

Increased armor will result in longer fights and that - in my book - is not necessarily a bad thing.

[Lycan]

Phasics, on 28 June 2012 - 02:52 PM, said:

And yet the devs have already clearly stated they're not interested in such comparisons and interpretations to TT and since I assume some of you hope the devs take your ideas on board your arguing in a way they said they're not going to listen to.

Funny, I could've sworn I saw a post from one of the developers stating that they were, in fact, sticking as close to the TT rules as possible. Deviating from them only where the TT ruling didn't make any sense (IE: Minimum ranges on AC's) and/or would not be conducive to a real time video game.

[Crankey]

John Hartson, on 27 June 2012 - 04:52 AM, said:

I started this topic not only because I saw the leaked beta footage. It is something that already came to my mind when i saw the Mechlab-Video which was released by PGI.

The Hunchback in the video has 320 points of armor. A Hunchback has only 160 points of armor in the Table Top game.

For one ton of AC/20 Ammo the Hunchback got 5 rounds in the video. It is the same amount in the Table Top game.

So you're supposed shoot off the double amount of armor with the standard amount of ammo.

Same problem for a Catapult. You can no longer do your job as a support mech after firing 8 volleys with your LRMs. You don't know if your missiles hit anything and if they hit someone you have to punch through double armor.

Tell me what you think! Less Armor? More Ammo? No changes?

How do we know that MWO isn't going to do double damage per shot/ammo to tabletop/previous mechwarrior titles ? or perhaps its the dev's way of making combat last longer.

I imagine lots of stat based parts of the game damage and armour are still being monitored and potentially nerfed/tweaked before release in order to make sure the game is balanced.

Maybe these concerns are more valid when the game reaches open beta which will be much closer to the end product

[Phasics]

Lycan, on 29 June 2012 - 01:02 AM, said:

Funny, I could've sworn I saw a post from one of the developers stating that they were, in fact, sticking as close to the TT rules as possible. Deviating from them only where the TT ruling didn't make any sense (IE: Minimum ranges on AC's) and/or would not be conducive to a real time video game.

They're sticking to their interpretations of the TT rules , not ours

[Urulf]

Even with double ammo per double armor, ammo based weapons have been diminished in potency, since you will have to Hit and DMG the target double times to do the same DMG as if there weren't doubled.
If you miss half the shots with a ballistic or missile weapon hits (hipoteticaly), you have halved the dmg delivered from the natural damage of the weapon (not counting the bad aiming, or how well the targets move or cover itself).

[Cid]

Farangu, on 28 June 2012 - 09:52 PM, said:

One small thing that keeps coming to mind when I read people who say "this is a beta, be patient": Right now, this is definitely a period the developers are using to search for bugs and fine tune balance.

This is also a product that many people have put as much, if not more money than is asked of a fully finished, tested, polished game. In my mind, as soon as they said that people could actually spend money on the product, it stopped becoming a beta.

very good statement.

and Phasics, stop trolling please.
devs generally appreciate feedback, even if it is highly theoretical. and there is enough detailed info for voicing valid concerns.

armor has been doubled, ammo per ton is the same as per TT. increasing ammo-based weapon damage would defeat the purpose of making the fights last longer.
ergo, in order to make fights last longer without nerfing ammo-based weapons too hard the ammo per ton needs to be increased significantly, maybe even doubled.
if this is not changed, i am pretty sure we will see a lot energy weapon stacking in medlab.

and no, i don't want to hear that "they know what they are doing, give them time, it is still beta" argument again. devs need to know and understand what the community wants or is concerned about.
i am not saying the devs are doing a bad job, but voicing our opinions and concerns should help them doing an even better job!

[Phasics]

Cid, on 29 June 2012 - 03:02 AM, said:

very good statement.

and Phasics, stop trolling please.
devs generally appreciate feedback, even if it is highly theoretical. and there is enough detailed info for voicing valid concerns.

Who do you think is in the better position to comment and give feedback on the specific effects of doubling armor ? us or the beta testers actually playing the game with the changes ? I'm going to go with them.

Now if you want to discuss the general concept of how mechs should not run out of ammo before they could realistically down opponents mechs I've got no problem with that, but talking specific of what the devs should or should be doing e.g. double ammo , just makes no sense that is the prevue of beta testers.

[Phasics]

When you start repeating yourself it's probably time to bail out of a thread , So I shall leave you to your discussions.

o/

[Cid]

listen carefully, when changing one variable of the TT without regarding the other factors that are involved it becomes pretty obvious something is unbalanced.
in this case that ammo/ton won't be enough, so the discussion is the same ("concept of how mechs should not run out of ammo before they could realistically down opponents mechs"), and the question if i am a betatester or not doesn't change the validity of the statement.

[Reoh]

Jaxwen, on 28 June 2012 - 02:25 PM, said:

Why do you think that in MWO we will hit more than in TT?

TT is based off a Gunnery rating "base" that is adjusted by a number of factors. I hit often in TT because of my tactics. Having a good Gunnery rating makes it all the more likely.

MWO is based off a Players "IRL skill" of coordination & accuracy, also adjusted by a number of factors. A good player will use tactics to increase their chance of hitting but I fail to see how there is a major difference in the likelihood of getting a hit unless it is a players eye/hand coordination that is the differing factor. Which won't make enough difference if their teamwork and individual tactics are poor.

While tactics has a hand in the success of a team or not, i don't see how that's particularly relevant on whether a ballistics weapon can hit more reliably than a random roll from TableTop as whatever effects they add are still valid in MWO. If you choose wise tactics in either, you're going to get those benefits. About the only thing we're losing (other than random chance) is initiative, although one might argue that players can still out-manouvre their opponents given enough patience, speed, or as you say tactics.

The difference between hitting somewhere randomly in the TT game and being able to selectively choose your target area and then to keep hitting it seems apparent to me, I'm not following what part of that you're unable to fathom. If what you mean is actual player skill to achieve that, well that's comparable to TT skill because if you can't hit your target its like having a poor gunnery skill in TT. The reason why I believe it's easier, is because all I have to do is point and click. I trust my own ability more than random dice. But if you'd like to take a test try visiting THIS random number generator, leave the min as 1 and set the max to 2, then click generate a thousand times. Let us know if you'll miss the button more than it randomly rolls a 2. While that's the obvious equivalent of a stationary target, most of the mechs I've seen in the gameplay clips aren't moving fast enought that I might miss (with more reliability for the area) except perhaps lights, which is exactly why they can move that fast and they'd also be a lot harder to hit on TT too so that sounds like balance to me.

...

And with that i'll bid you all adiue, I think we've collectively ascertained that increasing armor on the battlemechs has an affect on ammo levels, and that being able to FPS target negates that to some extent for ballistic weapons compared to completely random chance dice rolls. At this point we've reached an area where we need actual data which we cannot obtain currently due to the NDA to descide whether this is an issue in game; as well as its extent if so and any appropriate adjustments. Missiles provide a particular conundrum because if they cannot strike a particular spot and swarm all over a 'mech then they're most likely to require increased damage (as compared to TT) without causing larger explosions when struck by a critical hit.

I'm sure that PGI is aware of our concerns, they're not unreasonable. They've probably got metrics from the games on how frequently ballistics strike, how long their ammo lasts, and how they fair in battle. Until we get a hands on feel and data, the majority of us just won't know for sure. They may also be testing different settings (It is a Beta), to figure out the correct ammo amounts, so screencaps right now aren't the whole story as they could just be a test setting and change before launch. I respect that players (including myself) wish to discuss concerns but I think we'll have to postpone until after the NDA. At that time I'll be happy to continue the discussion with some actual data to work with.

Edited by Reoh, 29 June 2012 - 05:53 AM.

[Lycan]

Phasics, on 29 June 2012 - 02:27 AM, said:

They're sticking to their interpretations of the TT rules , not ours

Which, oddly enough, corresponds with most of our interpretations . . .. but YMMV.

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

Blaze32, on 28 June 2012 - 09:10 PM, said:

the lazers blow up? really? where is this topic or vid? Give me a link please i'm curious now.

question about a different post...
is there rear facing weapons at all?

I dont think its blow up like that as much as getting overheated and dying lol
It was a side comment I dont remember where but they said they were having fun getting blowed up in their swaybacks

Farangu, on 28 June 2012 - 09:52 PM, said:

One small thing that keeps coming to mind when I read people who say "this is a beta, be patient": Right now, this is definitely a period the developers are using to search for bugs and fine tune balance.

This is also a product that many people have put as much, if not more money than is asked of a fully finished, tested, polished game. In my mind, as soon as they said that people could actually spend money on the product, it stopped becoming a beta.

When the game launches, officially, THEN there will be no longer the ability to say "its in beta"

no when they opened up for pre orders is didnt launch.
never bought a pre-order before? Theyre fairly common now a days, especially at Gamestop.
And yes, you can usually get them for games still in beta, and no, that doesnt make them no longer beta at the point the pre orders become available.

Skadi, on 28 June 2012 - 10:07 PM, said:

Heres a thought, even though the armor is double, maybe the damage of the weapons is double...

Doubt that, it would make doubling the armor pointless.

Lycan, on 29 June 2012 - 01:02 AM, said:

Funny, I could've sworn I saw a post from one of the developers stating that they were, in fact, sticking as close to the TT rules as possible. Deviating from them only where the TT ruling didn't make any sense (IE: Minimum ranges on AC's) and/or would not be conducive to a real time video game.

Cant quote it (As I dont know the exact post here that its from) but Ive seen them say that TT armor "isnt fun" in a game like this.

Edited by 514yer, 30 June 2012 - 09:05 PM.