55 replies to this topic

[badaa]

PurpleNinja, on 10 January 2015 - 03:51 PM, said:

Canon.

and fix pinpoint

[Zerstorer Stallin]

You want to fix all the mechs? ITS EASY!
1. DITCH THE MECH LAB
2. Offer variants of mechs with upgrades you control! large lase in arm? ER Large laser is the upgrade. normal HS, DHS! ect.
3. SLOW THEM ALL DOWN ( torso twist ) give meds a job ie watch the backs of Assaults.
4. PROFIT.

worst case assign size to weapons L M S and only allow the same size weapons and types to replace weapons. No more 4 ppc anything, no more 3 LRG PULSE, 4 ULTRA AC anything... its not hard. The insanity will always just move to a new mech till some serious changes are made. Oh and pre assign fire groups....

[cSand]

Black Arachne, on 10 January 2015 - 05:41 PM, said:

PGI messed with a system that has been going on 30 years....and this is what we got

yea rolling dice with paper and pens will translate awesomely to a first person shooter

[fleshwoundNPG]

darkkterror, on 10 January 2015 - 03:56 PM, said:

Fire them out of a cannon? Sounds awesome, let's do it!

Urbanmechs make for nice smooth bore slugs

Edited by fleshwoundNPG, 10 January 2015 - 09:16 PM.

[darkchylde]

FupDup, on 10 January 2015 - 08:33 PM, said:

Those problems being:

1. Some mechs having better hitboxes/geometry than others.

2. Some mechs having more tonnage than others.

3. Some mechs having better engine limits than others.

4. Some mechs having better hardpoints than others.

5. The gap between IS tech and Clan tech.


How many of those can be fixed without making all mechs have identical hitboxes and giving every single mech high-mounted asymmetric hardpoints?


It's completely valid to debate the specific quirks that should have been used, but the idea of the quirks system as a whole is very good. It's one of the best things to ever happen to this game.

As I said "not really" Quirks created to address issues that PGI created are not a fix.

1. Some models are too large and PGI has been made aware of which ones - if they chose to not fix them that is their failing. If by geometry, your referring to the placement of mounts - weapons in the torso can be raised higher - higher arm weapon mounts on mechs tend to because the mech doesn't have a lower arm actuator which should be a detriment and is also affected by the overall height of the mech.

2. This is dependent on the player and the restrictions on the chassis implemented by PGI.

3. Remove the engine limits.

4. Improve the hardpoints on the mechs that have poor ones - and if their poor because they favor too many energy weapons this is problem that PGI created with 1.4 DHS/Ghost heat.

5. It's supposed to have a gap - and if the plan is too quirk each IS mech to clan level - then why nerf them? We also have new games using the same ideology that one side is stronger and the other side has to work together to overcome them

Edited by darkchylde, 10 January 2015 - 09:56 PM.

[EgoSlayer]

Black Arachne, on 10 January 2015 - 05:41 PM, said:

PGI messed with a system that has been going on 30 years....and this is what we got

And as soon as we are rolling dice and having ten second turns in MWO all the core rules will apply...

[Brody319]

Yea Lets lock everything in stock. I'm sure nothing ever would dominate. perfectly balanced.

Wait...do you hear that? It sounds like the clicking of crab claws...

[Black Arachne]

Zerstorer Stallin, on 10 January 2015 - 09:10 PM, said:

You want to fix all the mechs? ITS EASY!
1. DITCH THE MECH LAB
2. Offer variants of mechs with upgrades you control! large lase in arm? ER Large laser is the upgrade. normal HS, DHS! ect.
3. SLOW THEM ALL DOWN ( torso twist ) give meds a job ie watch the backs of Assaults.
4. PROFIT.

worst case assign size to weapons L M S and only allow the same size weapons and types to replace weapons. No more 4 ppc anything, no more 3 LRG PULSE, 4 ULTRA AC anything... its not hard. The insanity will always just move to a new mech till some serious changes are made. Oh and pre assign fire groups....

Stock fights are a blast

[Mcgral18]

cSand, on 10 January 2015 - 09:14 PM, said:

yea rolling dice with paper and pens will translate awesomely to a first person shooter

Well, you could also say that it might also be the Dragon that mounts a pair of AC90s which both hit the same pixel when fired could also attribute to a few problems. (other DPS monsters are available)

Or the deathstar lasers, which also hit the same pixel.


Lack of heat concerns also pretty big.


There were many things ignored, or straight up butchered in PGIs implementation. They've simply integrated them into the game, though.

[Black Arachne]

EgoSlayer, on 10 January 2015 - 09:57 PM, said:

And as soon as we are rolling dice and having ten second turns in MWO all the core rules will apply...

Lot of systems use dice and can be implemented here as well - like for example having a working critical hit system that takes into account all the mech components and penalties associated if those are critically hit. Makes a game much more tactical when you have to take into account how they will affect your mechs performance and where to target the enemy other than the ct.

[cSand]

Mcgral18, on 10 January 2015 - 10:04 PM, said:

Well, you could also say that it might also be the Dragon that mounts a pair of AC90s which both hit the same pixel when fired could also attribute to a few problems. (other DPS monsters are available)

Or the deathstar lasers, which also hit the same pixel.


Lack of heat concerns also pretty big.


There were many things ignored, or straight up butchered in PGIs implementation. They've simply integrated them into the game, though.

well, I guess none of that really bothers me

[EgoSlayer]

Black Arachne, on 10 January 2015 - 10:04 PM, said:

Lot of systems use dice and can be implemented here as well - like for example having a working critical hit system that takes into account all the mech components and penalties associated if those are critically hit. Makes a game much more tactical when you have to take into account how they will affect your mechs performance and where to target the enemy other than the ct.

We do have a working crit system, and it's the only RNG section of weapons systems in the game. It's just limited to ammo explosions and component destruction. And anyone worth their salt is already using the enemy paper doll and mech knowledge to target areas other than CT.

Adding more critical hit areas, and other heat scale penalties doesn't 'fix all the mechs'.

Edited by EgoSlayer, 10 January 2015 - 10:13 PM.

[Mcgral18]

EgoSlayer, on 10 January 2015 - 10:11 PM, said:

We do have a working crit system, and it's the only RNG section of weapons systems in the game. It's just limited to ammo explosions and component destruction. And anyone worth their salt is already using the enemy paper doll and mech knowledge to target areas other than CT.

Adding more critical hit areas, and other heat scale penalties doesn't 'fix all the mechs'.

Along with missile spread, LBx spread, and machine gun CoF. There are some random weapon systems.

(Although I've heard missile and LBx spread is a random choice of predetermined spread patterns)

Edited by Mcgral18, 10 January 2015 - 10:16 PM.

[Serpieri]

EgoSlayer, on 10 January 2015 - 10:11 PM, said:

We do have a working crit system, and it's the only RNG section of weapons systems in the game. It's just limited to ammo explosions and component destruction. And anyone worth their salt is already using the enemy paper doll and mech knowledge to target areas other than CT.

Adding more critical hit areas, and other heat scale penalties doesn't 'fix all the mechs'.

Would kill for a proper crit system - only reason to take a LT or RT if they have an XL - aim center mass - mech dies - cept for the pesky lights

[FupDup]

darkchylde, on 10 January 2015 - 09:55 PM, said:

As I said "not really" Quirks created to address issues that PGI created are not a fix.

1. Some models are too large and PGI has been made aware of which ones - if they chose to not fix them that is their failing. If by geometry, your referring to the placement of mounts - weapons in the torso can be raised higher - higher arm weapon mounts on mechs tend to because the mech doesn't have a lower arm actuator which should be a detriment and is also affected by the overall height of the mech.

Model rescaling is definitely a huge problem but even some well-scaled mechs just don't have very great hitboxes. Hitboxes tend to be more about shape/distribution/ratios rather than the overall actual size...

darkchylde, on 10 January 2015 - 09:55 PM, said:

2. This is dependent on the player and the restrictions on the chassis implemented by PGI.

It's mostly dependent on the BT construction rules, for example that a 55 ton mech from TT is basically always superior to a 50 ton mech, assuming similar role specifications and tech level.

darkchylde, on 10 January 2015 - 09:55 PM, said:

3. Remove the engine limits.

That would reduce the "personality" of mechs. Having different engine limits is similar to hardpoints, in that it emphasizes certain strengths or weaknesses. It's a flavor thing.

darkchylde, on 10 January 2015 - 09:55 PM, said:

4. Improve the hardpoints on the mechs that have poor ones - and if their poor because they favor too many energy weapons this is problem that PGI created with 1.4 DHS/Ghost heat.

Energy is actually doing quite well for the most part these days, baring the IS Small Laser.

As for hardpoints, so far those are based on the stock loadouts with some inflation added. For example, the Atlas doesn't mount any arm ballistics because none of the variants we have mount an arm ballistic. If we just gave mechs any hardpoints in any location, they'd become boring gunbags with less personality. Not all mechs should have high-mounted hardpoints, not all mechs should have asymmetric hardpoints. All mechs having them in the same spots would be boring.

darkchylde, on 10 January 2015 - 09:55 PM, said:

5. It's supposed to have a gap - and if the plan is too quirk each IS mech to clan level - then why nerf them? We also have new games using the same ideology that one side is stronger and the other side has to work together to overcome them

Except that doesn't work when most of the players choose to be that one side which is stronger, because of playing to win. So they'd have fewer players are worse equipment. People don't wanna be cannon fodder.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

EgoSlayer, on 10 January 2015 - 09:57 PM, said:

And as soon as we are rolling dice and having ten second turns in MWO all the core rules will apply...

IMHO, that is a cop-out.

There are ways to incorporate the original details of the P&P TT game into MWO and provide for aspects that would not be random when using those details.

The issue is that some aspects have been translated fine, while other aspects have not, leading to various balance issues.

For example, the fact that stock builds would often not work are symptoms of how weapons' rate of fire is much faster than what the heat system is set for. In other words the scaling between the systems is off. Sure players can learn to adapt (such as slap DHS on everything), but that still leaves flaws in place, with heat quirks being one newer way to indirectly address the issue adding to the long standing Cool Run and Heat Containment perks that double with gaining Elite on a mech.

Another related issue is how the original game used a system to spread damage from weapons fire, where in MWO every shot is an aimed shot based on player skill.

And due to how weapons can be fired together, we then got doubled armor to also deal with our rate of fire with grouped weapons. And that lead to other issues in how other systems got balanced after that, with added systems like Heat Scale (Ghost Heat) added in trying to lower grouped weapon damage some.

[Davers]

Of course, if we followed heat rules and firing/damage from TT, everyone would just make completely heat efficient mechs that would be immune to heat penalties. Not to mention mechs that could throw out FAR more alpha strikes than we currently have in game. Such as a stationary Awesome doing 5 Alpha strikes before getting a penalty to hit, 7 before possibly shutting down. Plus, plenty of Clan mechs were heat neutral as well.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

Davers, on 10 January 2015 - 10:26 PM, said:

Of course, if we followed heat rules and firing/damage from TT, everyone would just make completely heat efficient mechs that would be immune to heat penalties. Not to mention mechs that could throw out FAR more alpha strikes than we currently have in game. Such as a stationary Awesome doing 5 Alpha strikes before getting a penalty to hit, 7 before possibly shutting down. Plus, plenty of Clan mechs were heat neutral as well.

Well yeah, however if the original scaling was kept consistent where the damage value was the max damage over 10 seconds along with heat, we would see a different scaling from weapons.

For example, if the AWS-8Q would fire three PPCs instead of having them deal 10 damage every four seconds, what if they dealt 4 damage for 4 heat every four seconds?

If we keep the current convergence, we are seeing 12 damage and 12 heat that 28 SHS can handle dissipating about ~12 heat every ~4.23 seconds.

12 damage against non-doubled armor would still be devastating but would fit with the existing dissipation rates without looking at the various added modifiers and would eventually gain excess heat.

The same with the Warhawk Prime, say each ERPPC would be 6 damage and 6 heat every 4 seconds. Its 20 DHS could dissipate 4 heat a second so firing three would be a heat spike of 18 and would take ~4.5 seconds to dissipate.

18 damage against BT armor values would still be devastating as in the original.

One question though would be what would be the max allowable heat spike? For example we could then have say a free heat amount of maybe 12 or go with 14 and anything above would register on the excess heat table.

So if the AWS-8Q would be running and firing three PPCs it would hit a 2 on the scale or neutral, while a running Warhawk would hit a 6, or hit 4, on the excess heat table; both values being well within the first shutdown of 14.

[wanderer]

Davers, on 10 January 2015 - 10:26 PM, said:

Of course, if we followed heat rules and firing/damage from TT, everyone would just make completely heat efficient mechs that would be immune to heat penalties. Not to mention mechs that could throw out FAR more alpha strikes than we currently have in game. Such as a stationary Awesome doing 5 Alpha strikes before getting a penalty to hit, 7 before possibly shutting down. Plus, plenty of Clan mechs were heat neutral as well.

Only if you're using the simplified rules that are tournament-standard.

"Heat-neutral" becomes a ruder situation when you actually track heat effects in anything except 10-second bites. In 2.5 second bites with the appropriate x4 (that is, autoshutdown is 120 points):

Awesome fires triple PPC blast. Accumulates 120 heat points. Dumps 28. 'Mech heat level rises to 92 (standard heat scale equivalent of 23). The Mech has a chance to shut down (avoid on 8+ on 2d6), is reduced to 1 movement point (-4 MP, actually but it's always allowed at least 1MP), and has a +3 to hit heat penalty. If it does shut down, it'll need a 4+ to restart the next turn and automatically restart the turn after that. Oh, and the PPCs will take 3 turns to recharge. Least you'll be cooled down and certainly restarted by then...

It'd be even more interesting with MWO, seeing as it checks heat effects every second or so. Heat actually is much tougher to manage when you don't get to ignore the effects for long enough to let your sinks get rid of it all.

Why doesn't TT tournament rules track heat like this normally? Cause it'd make a game so complex you'd need a computer to do all the calculations for, oh...a 12v12 match or it'd take hours per turn.

Edited by wanderer, 10 January 2015 - 10:56 PM.

[Davers]

Praetor Knight, on 10 January 2015 - 10:50 PM, said:

Well yeah, however if the original scaling was kept consistent where the damage value was the max damage over 10 seconds along with heat, we would see a different scaling from weapons.

For example, if the AWS-8Q would fire three PPCs instead of having them deal 10 damage every four seconds, what if they dealt 4 damage for 4 heat every four seconds?

If we keep the current convergence, we are seeing 12 damage and 12 heat that 28 SHS can handle dissipating about ~12 heat every ~4.23 seconds.

12 damage against non-doubled armor would still be devastating but would fit with the existing dissipation rates without looking at the various added modifiers and would eventually gain excess heat.

The same with the Warhawk Prime, say each ERPPC would be 6 damage and 6 heat every 4 seconds. Its 20 DHS could dissipate 4 heat a second so firing three would be a heat spike of 18 and would take ~4.5 seconds to dissipate.

18 damage against BT armor values would still be devastating as in the original.

One question though would be what would be the max allowable heat spike? For example we could then have say a free heat amount of maybe 12 or go with 14 and anything above would register on the excess heat table.

So if the AWS-8Q would be running and firing three PPCs it would hit a 2 on the scale or neutral, while a running Warhawk would hit a 6, or hit 4, on the excess heat table; both values being well within the first shutdown of 14.

It would still be 210 damage before any real threat of penalties came in. That is a lot of damage even with doubled armor. With single heat sinks too mind you. Put in true DHS and it gets, well, twice as bad. (Well, not twice as bad as DHS take up more space.)

Based on TT, your max allowable heat spike would be equal to your heatsinks.