217 replies to this topic

[wanderer]

Whelp, they went ahead and did it. They made the slowest 'Mech in Battletech into:

Quote

Russ Bullock ‏@russ_bullock
@FupDup 180-210 - will finalize this week - best I can do for now

That's right, kids. 180+ engine rating, meaning it's Kit Fox speed or better.

For a 'Mech that defines "slow". That could have been built to be the loveable, tottering trashcan we expected and quirked up to be an alternative to the usual.

Nope. We're gonna get a 'Mech that neatly covers the same space as the Spider. Only clumsier.

PGI, I am seriously disappoint. 125 would have been plenty. You've just managed the first 'Mech to be able to -triple- it's stock engine rating. Excellent timing on bringing it up after the wonderful "it's official!" announcement.

[FupDup]

A 125 engine gives it a top speed of 74.2 kph. That's basically a Warhawk, but without Warhawk armor or Warhawk firepower. You'd have to gigaquirk the living bejesus out of it to K-town and back at least several times to make up for that. It's 30 tons at the end of the day, with all the pros/cons that come with that.

No, Tier 5 quirks wouldn't be good enough to accomplish that, not even remotely good enough. You'd need at least Tier 8 or worse quirks. It would basically have to be a repeat of the Thunderbolt 9S, but even more extreme to the point of sheer hilarity. We'd have to literally make it have the same durability and damage output as most heavies if it had the speed of most heavies. I'm talking about massive things like +100% cooldown for certain guns and at least +30 armor points per body part (not 30% more armor, 30 points more armor).

Are you okay with gigaquirks like that?

[Kilo 40]

This is just further evidence that people here will complain about anything.

[El Bandito]

FupDup, on 26 January 2015 - 06:16 PM, said:

A 125 engine gives it a top speed of 74.2 kph. That's basically a Warhawk, but without Warhawk armor or Warhawk firepower. You'd have to gigaquirk the living bejesus out of it to K-town and back at least several times to make up for that. It's 30 tons at the end of the day, with all the pros/cons that come with that.

No, Tier 5 quirks wouldn't be good enough to accomplish that, not even remotely good enough. You'd need at least Tier 8 or worse quirks. It would basically have to be a repeat of the Thunderbolt 9S, but even more extreme to the point of sheer hilarity. We'd have to literally make it have the same durability and damage output as most heavies if it had the speed of most heavies. I'm talking about massive things like +100% cooldown for certain guns and at least +30 armor points per body part (not 30% more armor, 30 points more armor).

Are you okay with gigaquirks like that?

Yes. I personally had proposed 50% AC10 cooldown, velocity, and range for the Urbie with half bonus for other ballistics, some armor quirks, and 50% acceleration/deceleration quirk but Goddammit, do not make it go fast.

125 kph trash can is blasphemy in the eyes of BT lover like me.

Edited by El Bandito, 27 January 2015 - 05:05 AM.

[Xetelian]

Well I didn't want a 255 in mine as badly as Bishop wanted a 180-210, I concede.

[FupDup]

El Bandito, on 26 January 2015 - 06:19 PM, said:

Yes. I personally had proposed 50% AC10 cooldown, 50% AC10 velocity, 50% AC10 Range for the Urbie, but Goddamit do not make it go fast.

Even those might not be enough for a 30 ton robot going at 85 ton robot speeds, without the other benefits of being an 85 ton robot...

We'd basically have to make the Thunderbolt 9S cry with how hard these quirks would need to be.

Edited by FupDup, 26 January 2015 - 06:21 PM.

[wanderer]

FupDup, on 26 January 2015 - 06:16 PM, said:

Are you okay with gigaquirks like that?

Why yes. Yes I am.

Kilo 40, on 26 January 2015 - 06:17 PM, said:

This is just further evidence that people here will complain about anything.

We had wanna-be Urbies before. I was looking forward to the real thing.

Not something that moves like a stock Commando or Kit Fox or Firestarter. Because that's what'll happen. Zippy (by Urbie standards) little lights that will be quirked appropriately to a middling light.

I wanted to see what it took to make a slow, heavy-speed-at-best light 'Mech into something that PGI considered combat worthy. Yes, with a low engine speed that might be the world's first Tier 6 'Mech.

That'd be absolutely cool by me.

[FupDup]

wanderer, on 26 January 2015 - 06:21 PM, said:

Why yes. Yes I am.


We had wanna-be Urbies before. I was looking forward to the real thing.

Not something that moves like a stock Commando or Kit Fox or Firestarter. Because that's what'll happen. Zippy (by Urbie standards) little lights that will be quirked appropriately to a middling light.

I wanted to see what it took to make a slow, heavy-speed-at-best light 'Mech into something that PGI considered combat worthy. Yes, with a low engine speed that might be the world's first Tier 6 'Mech.

That'd be absolutely cool by me.

The first Tier 6 mech was the Spider 5V, actually.


An unquirked 74.2 kph 30 tonner would be somewhere around Tier 8 or lower, more likely.

[wanderer]

Even better then. To whit, I want to see what it would take to compensate for a light 'Mech so utterly non-MWO-lightish in order for PGI to consider it balanced with the rest. Tier 6, 7, whatever. Do that. We need an Urbie, not Herbie the Love Bug.

A 180+ engine rating just leaves it firmly in the mediocre range. Just slow enough to be barely slower than everyone else. It's slowness should be considered and compensated for to produce a light 'Mech like no other. A unique concept in MWO design. Something that pushes the limits of all common sense in light 'Mechs and kicks it to the curb in favor of a 'Mech that embraces what an Urbanmech is, rather than making it a faux trashcan.

[Kilo 40]

You can have the real thing. Just don't upgrade it and keep the stock engine.

[wanderer]

Kilo 40, on 26 January 2015 - 06:29 PM, said:

You can have the real thing. Just don't upgrade it and keep the stock engine.

The higher the engine maximum, the less quirks it gets to compensate for having a lower maximum than anyone else- and at 180, odds are any compensation will be slim to non-existent. In other words, build the Urbanmech with these maximum engine specs and it'll be assuming that people will. Like they do with virtually all light 'Mechs.

[Ratpoison]

180 is perfect, stop the ridiculous crying already. How you excuse the idea of giving it OBSCENELY STRONG quirks yet not being okay with an engine cap that would be reasonable for this game(once again, this is not tabletop) is completely beyond me. Your only goal seems to be to break the hell out of it and make it completely unable to be properly balanced.

And comparing it to STOCK mechs only shows how little logic you actually bothered to use before deciding you needed to cry on the internet.

[Ultimax]

wanderer, on 26 January 2015 - 06:32 PM, said:

The higher the engine maximum, the less quirks it gets to compensate for having a lower maximum than anyone else- and at 180, odds are any compensation will be slim to non-existent. In other words, build the Urbanmech with these maximum engine specs and it'll be assuming that people will. Like they do with virtually all light 'Mechs.

Dude it's going to get quirked.

If it doesn't it will be the same or worse type of joke mech like clan lights.


No amount of realistic quirks could possibly save a 30T mech traveling 20 kph SLOWER than a Dire Wolf from being the worst mech this game has ever seen.



You will still have to try pretty hard at 106kph, I promise.

Edited by Ultimatum X, 26 January 2015 - 06:37 PM.

[wanderer]

Ultimatum X, on 26 January 2015 - 06:36 PM, said:

Dude it's going to get quirked.

If it doesn't it will be the same or worse type of joke mech like clan lights.


No amount of realistic quirks could possibly save a 30T mech traveling 20 kph SLOWER than a Dire Wolf from being the worst mech this game has ever seen.

You will still have to try pretty hard at 106kph, I promise.

Basically, it means the Urbie as the Urbie is (big gun, backup laser) will be a dead concept from day 1.

I'll give you a clue. Medium lasers and machineguns. That's what you're going to see a lot of- a middling wannabe version of the big 35 tonners, because there will be no viable slowgun. You could have slapped in Dragon-1N style quirks for it's autocannon. Made it tougher structured like the Hunchback. It's a walking turret in TT. It could have been quirked into a walking turret in MWO.

Now it won't. Because instead, we're going to make it into another generic light 'Mech with a 360 torso twist for flavor.

[oldradagast]

So, to summarize - some people are upset that they purchased a mech with real money that can be made useful (if so desired) and would have rather seen the mech be given broken quirks vs. a half-way decent engine size because that is somehow more "Lore friendly" - even though mechs in Lore would never have the level of absurd quirks being recommended here.

Wow... May I recommend just leaving the standard engine in place if you want a useless, Lore-accurate urbanmech? Or, perhaps just burning one's hard-earned cash instead of trading it for a mech that one desires to be useless.

Edited by oldradagast, 26 January 2015 - 06:46 PM.

[Ultimax]

wanderer, on 26 January 2015 - 06:44 PM, said:

Basically, it means the Urbie as the Urbie is (big gun, backup laser) will be a dead concept from day 1.

People have done that on mechs like Spiders and Ravens and travel faster with the same big gun.


It's been a dead concept, for a long, long time.



Feel free to run yours with a 60 engine.

[FupDup]

wanderer, on 26 January 2015 - 06:44 PM, said:

Basically, it means the Urbie as the Urbie is (big gun, backup laser) will be a dead concept from day 1.

I'll give you a clue. Medium lasers and machineguns. That's what you're going to see a lot of- a middling wannabe version of the big 35 tonners, because there will be no viable slowgun. You could have slapped in Dragon-1N style quirks for it's autocannon. Made it tougher structured like the Hunchback. It's a walking turret in TT. It could have been quirked into a walking turret in MWO.

Now it won't. Because instead, we're going to make it into another generic light 'Mech with a 360 torso twist for flavor.

If Russ does go forward with the 180 engine cap, there are still some loadouts other than ML + MG spam. If you tried that you'd have too much spare tonnage anyways.

The ones I can currently think of are AC/5 + 4 SL, AC/2 + 4 ML, and 2 ERLL + 4 MGs. None of those mimic an exact stock loadout, but they do at least follow the more broad idea of a light trying to use bigger guns while not being as fast as a "true" light.

[wanderer]

oldradagast, on 26 January 2015 - 06:44 PM, said:

Wow... May I recommend just leaving the standard engine in place if you want a useless mech? Or, perhaps just burning one's hard-earned cash instead of trading for a mech that one desires to be useless...

Or simply getting a refund. If I wanted an inferior Spider-5K (and that takes a lot of saying), I'd have asked for one. Not an Urbanmech.

[Wintersdark]

Ultimatum X, on 26 January 2015 - 06:36 PM, said:

Dude it's going to get quirked.

If it doesn't it will be the same or worse type of joke mech like clan lights.


No amount of realistic quirks could possibly save a 30T mech traveling 20 kph SLOWER than a Dire Wolf from being the worst mech this game has ever seen.



You will still have to try pretty hard at 106kph, I promise.

This. I've been saying this all along, the only way you'd make a 30t mech at Assault speeds viable in MWO is with:

A: TDR9S style offensive buffs
*AND*
B: Something to the tune of a flat 70% damage reduction (to armor and structure). This, because a 75kph light won't be missed by anyone, and pinpoint alphas of 30 points are enormously common, and up over 100 happen. A 30t light has so little armor in it's ST's, and the tonnage saved going down that far in engine rating is almost completely irrelevant so it's not gaining significantly in usable tonnage.

But quirks of that magnitude are ridiculous beyond "omg it's a fast urbie" (which, incidentally, could happen in TT with mech modification rules). They're ridiculous. When you can hit an Urbanmech CT with two PPC's, an AC20 and it laughs? That's just not good gameplay. It's as bad as the broken-hitboxes issues we've had with other lights (remember when the Spider took zero damage from hits to certain locations on it's torso?)

I like quirks, I think they make mechs flavorfull. But to be even viable (that is, not competitive, or optimal, just viable in normal pug play) you'd need quirks of such ridiculous power they'd basically just throw all the game mechanics in the trash.

It wouldn't be fun to play with or against it.

Even at 100-125 KPH, it's tremendously slow for a light. Ask Kitfox and Adder pilots how well that speed works for them, and that's while they can bring both Clan XL's(so they don't explode the moment someone hits them in a ST, unlike said urbie) *and* can bring lighter clan weapons to pack a surprisingly heavy ordinance into their tiny little frames. The Urbie will have neither.

It's going to need fairly significant quirks even at that speed, and even then, it's unlikely to be anything more than just viable for regular pug play.

It will be absolutely no competition to 150kph w/ECM or 173kph lights.

But at least it's awesome

[wanderer]

Ultimatum X, on 26 January 2015 - 06:48 PM, said:

People have done that on mechs like Spiders and Ravens and travel faster with the same big gun.

Of course they have. And none of those 'Mechs are quirked around the concept in the first place. They're given quirks based on, among other things their ability to get to speeds that are considered normal for an MWO light 'Mech.

And if Urbanmechs follow that same road, they'll be quirked the same way. Because they can hit "normal" speeds for a light 'Mech, meaning any benefits they get will be relatively trivial.