Mizeur, on 11 March 2015 - 06:11 AM, said:
While I recognize that video games have their own vocab, gimmick is a word that exists in real life. The rest of the world thinks that a gimmick is "a trick or device intended to attract attention, publicity, or business."
So I'm saying that quirks, the other things I already highlighted, and your suggestion are mechanics intended to attract business to (use of) mechs that are made crappy by poor implementation of core game mechanics.
Gimmick also tends to mean something that is useless or its feature is rather unimportant. Quirks are far from unimportant, if you want a gimmick, look no further than all the pack "unique" geometry/camo or the golden mechs. Quirks are not a gimmick anymore than this being a "Mecha" game is.
You also seem to think that profiles and hitboxes could be fixed so each mech could be balanced simply through pretty much remodeling all the mechs. While scaling the mechs is definitely needed, it is far from a fix for a problem that just comes with the territory.
Mizeur, on 11 March 2015 - 06:11 AM, said:
All mechs got doubled armor even before the introduction of Clans. This is because of the original poor implementation of core game mechanics that allows us to do more damage more quickly and more accurately than in Table Top. PGI also removed the original flavor of mechs by making it possible for every mech of the same weight to carry the same amount of armor. But at least that could be justified by requiring the mech to sacrifice slots, take a smaller engine, fewer heat sinks, or less payload. Weightless armor/IS quirks are a bad job of re-implementing that variety.
Yes, Clans exacerbated the original bad decisions. But instead of adhering to BattleTech powercreep, they could have gone another route. Like making Clans hit hard but infrequently with better range while I.S. mechs do better DPS with smaller alphas.
Im gonna stop you right there, PGI didn't remove any flavor with regards to armor. Every mech had the opportunity to mount the same amount of armor as any other mech of the same tonnage. It is just that many mechs were designed bad because the guys at battletech adhered to some sort of jedi curve. Just like magic has bad cards, so to does Battletech when it comes to mechs. It is up to PGI to fix that problem, and while they havn't done the best, saying that they ruined flavor because of it is just silly. You think anyone would play the Kit Fox or Hellbringer if they were forced to take less armor than they could mount?
Mizeur, on 11 March 2015 - 06:11 AM, said:
But at least that could be justified by requiring the mech to sacrifice slots, take a smaller engine, fewer heat sinks, or less payload. Weightless armor/IS quirks are a bad job of re-implementing that variety.
Yes, Clans exacerbated the original bad decisions. But instead of adhering to BattleTech powercreep, they could have gone another route. Like making Clans hit hard but infrequently with better range while I.S. mechs do better DPS with smaller alphas.
IS Quirks originally had nothing to do with BT canon and more to do with helping mechs that just had designs that don't do well when you target and dump 40+ damage into one section. Not sure where you get that this is meant to replace bad designs within Battletech in the first place. Not to mention most mechs after 3050 come with near full armor, the only reason most of the variants we have now come with so little is because most are Tech I designs, and that era was a whole different ballgame.
I dont know whether you read their posts about their plan for Clan tech when they first revealed them, but their idea was to make Clans play differently than the IS, thus why they had longer beam durations and ACs that fire in burst mode. This is also just coming from a meta where PPFLD was king so rather than try to balance Clans as a PPFLD design considering the amount of firepower they can mount, they went the DPS route, which is what they should've done because of how much better Clan tech tends to be in all aspects.
Mizeur, on 11 March 2015 - 07:22 AM, said:
This game has the most arcade, least simulator feel of any of them.
This is about fixing the implementation at the core of the game rather than treating the symptoms with things like ghost heat. But thanks for telling me to find another game instead of suggest ways to improve the one I like and have invested time and money in. I appreciate you looking out for me.
Surely you jest, MW4 felt more like an arcade game stock than any other, and I freaking love MW4. MW4 allowed for higher alphas, had a simplified mechlab and sensor mechanics (though both of which are good things) not to mention blimp jets and the fact all mechs got more tonnage to play with than they did in BT meaning room for more weapons.
Mizeur, on 11 March 2015 - 07:22 AM, said:
Or the core heat system could be adjusted to reduce the size and frequency of alpha strikes, but that's just going to push everyone to Gauss or heat-neutral AC5s. Which still means cooldowns are a problem.
Or maybe there is a fundamental problem with heat neutral weapons in an environment where heat management is forced upon us. Not to say I'm against a lower max heat to stop high heat alphas which have always been a bane in the MW4 games, but Gauss has been the best ballistic weapon for ages now even with the charge mechanic and is partly because of how good statistically it is. AC5 are always the standout AC because it just has the best damage per ton, damage to heat ratio, and range per ton.
The chances of any of that happening is very low though because PGI seems resistant to doing any sort of change like this, hell ECM and Missiles still have yet to be reworked even though they need it.
Edited by WM Quicksilver, 11 March 2015 - 09:24 AM.