Forget Power Creep, Looks Like A Full Fledged Power Sprint. Is It Time To Hit Reset On Quirks?
#141
Posted 21 April 2015 - 10:20 AM
Do not lose track of why quirks were implemented in the first place.
Re-adjusting quirks as you go, reducing or changing what's available as you balance clans, makes more sense.
#142
Posted 21 April 2015 - 10:26 AM
Mikros04, on 21 April 2015 - 09:04 AM, said:
nahh, what I want is a compromise that makes more of us happy. I was just expanding on your 1N adjustment I wouldn't mind them making a pass on all of the mechs and doing something akin to what you just did for the Dragon, I wouldn't mind having that instead of quirks. I'm just not as against quirks as some.
What I did for the Dragon was give it quirks based on it's actual TRO description and how it was meant to be used. All the Mechs can be done in the same manner and you'll end up with few having actual weapon quirks.
That is the real problem with quirks currently, they are weapon boosting quirks that exceed anything they should be doing.
When an IS LL has greater range, fires faster and runs cooler than a Clan ERLL, something is fundamentally broken.
FupDup, on 21 April 2015 - 10:13 AM, said:
Why? Why must it be justified against other Mechs that can perform the same function better than it? Just because...reasons? You are heading down the 'all Mechs must be equal' path with that statement, you do realize that don't you? And that leads to only 1 place, 1 Mech, 1 weapon loadout for everyone, no variety, no customization, stagnation and death of the game post haste.
Water Bear, sorry but the quirk system wasn't meant to make IS Mechs equal to Clan Mechs, and it's not even doing that currently, it's making IS Mechs BETTER than Clan Mechs.
#143
Posted 21 April 2015 - 10:26 AM
FupDup, on 21 April 2015 - 10:13 AM, said:
No it doesn't. it's place is Recon in a game without a need for intelligence. With no enemy lines to harass the spider has no place. Every Mech we rub on a Spider's chassis is not a spider. It's something else.
I know what you are trying to say. I understand what you mean, But I do not agree with it. A Mech only needs to be as viable as the pilot using it. I am terrible in them. All of them. So does a Spider have to be made so I can run it, or just a select few who have synergy with it? I am all for Spiders NOT being made something they are not and let those who like them for what they are use em. Including teh 5V
#144
Posted 21 April 2015 - 10:28 AM
Bishop Steiner, on 20 April 2015 - 10:25 PM, said:
Lately we've seen more armor/structure/agility focus and less weapon quirks. To me this seems to mean the problem is hit reg and hitboxes more than weapons. The Nova certainly doesn't feel super beefy despite the quirks. Weapons do need a pass too though.
Also, please make a comment about Highlander armor. They are better Atlases than the Atlas right now.
Edited by Fate 6, 21 April 2015 - 10:29 AM.
#145
Posted 21 April 2015 - 10:31 AM
Kristov Kerensky, on 21 April 2015 - 10:26 AM, said:
Let's take it to the opposite extreme. Do you really think that having one mech being superior to all others would create gameplay variety?
We've already played that out numerous times with lagshield Ravens, 4 PPC Stalkers, poptarting Cataphracts/Highlanders, Timberwolves, Stormcrows, and so on. Past experience shows that having certain things be outright superior does not create variety, and in fact kills it hard. We have actual experimental proof of this.
Joseph Mallan, on 21 April 2015 - 10:26 AM, said:
You can do recon with other mechs you know. Other mechs that are better.
Joseph Mallan, on 21 April 2015 - 10:26 AM, said:
That's a silly argument, because any pilot can use any mech that they choose to. If somebody takes the time to git gud with a 5V, they can put just as much time into some other light and do better.
Edited by FupDup, 21 April 2015 - 10:33 AM.
#146
Posted 21 April 2015 - 10:32 AM
#147
Posted 21 April 2015 - 10:33 AM
Fate 6, on 21 April 2015 - 10:28 AM, said:
Also, please make a comment about Highlander armor. They are better Atlases than the Atlas right now.
Hadn't actually looked at the HGN yet....traumatic reflex from all the pain associated with how fun my Highlanders used to be. But not surprised, since the Zeus seems to have pretty much the same armor as an Atlas.
Nova will still have the it's main weakness no matter the quirks.... pick a body part hitboxes. Buff the arms? OK, I'll shoot your laughably weaker STs then. Not like hitting any part you want on the Nova is hard.
The point was more the absurdity when we are using quirks that double armor, for instance, to compensate for poor design (in the Nova's case being egregiously oversized)
#148
Posted 21 April 2015 - 10:35 AM
At this point they seem to have really become a crutch for PGI that they use to duct tape problems rather than addressing the real issues beneath them. That's not a good thing.
#149
Posted 21 April 2015 - 10:38 AM
Quirks are a band aid and much like ecm trying to resolve inherent issues in an absolute **** mechanic like indirect primary fire in a fps it does and will create issues on its own.
The reality is that we're seeing the beginning of bigger issues now. In the long run a better solution is to fix underlying issues but that isn't going to happen.
So instead we need to look at what the least bad quirk solution is.
#150
Posted 21 April 2015 - 10:39 AM
Bishop Steiner, on 21 April 2015 - 07:40 AM, said:
No.
No no no no no.
For the love of- how you of all people can have missed out on understanding this, I will never fathom.
I don't even care if it's thread derailment, I have to see that this is understood.
In tabletop Battletech, heat sinks have no effect on heat capacity. We know this because no matter how much heat you generate or dissipate, if you generate five more heat than you dissipate in a given time period you will overheat to 30 in six of that time period and be forced to shut down.
It doesn't matter how much heat you generate in a turn. I could assemble a 'mech that has thirteen small lasers and ten standard heat sinks, have it run and shoot all weapons for six turns and it would shut down from generating a total of 30 more heat than it could sink in the time period. I could assemble a 'mech that has three ER PPCs and twenty-one double heat sinks, have it run and shoot all weapons for six turns, and it would still shut down from generating a total of 30 more heat than it could sink in the time period.
Generate 30 more heat than you sink in a given time period, regardless what that time period is, shut down. Hey, presto, no change to capacity.
If I have a ten-gallon water tank and I add water at a rate of two gallons per minute and drain it at one gallon per minute, it overflows when I have more than ten gallons in it- ten minutes.
If I have a ten-gallon water tank and I add water at a rate of one gallon per minute and don't drain any, it overflows when I have more than ten gallons in it- ten minutes.
If I have a ten gallon water tank and I add water to it at a rate of five gallons per minute and drain it at four gallons per minute, it overflows when I have more than ten gallons in it- ten minutes.
No matter how fast I add and drain water to/from the tank, as long as the speeds remain separated by one gallon per minute, it overflows in ten minutes. The water capacity never changes.
No matter how fast you generate heat in tabletop, as long as you generate the same number more heat than you dissipate, you overheat in the same amount of time. The heat cap never changes.
This is how math works, this is how reality works.
In the original game, adding heat sinks does nothing to your heat capacity.
Edited by Quickdraw Crobat, 21 April 2015 - 10:43 AM.
#151
Posted 21 April 2015 - 10:44 AM
Quickdraw Crobat, on 21 April 2015 - 10:39 AM, said:
No.
No no no no no.
For the love of- how you of all people can have missed out on understanding this, I will never fathom.
I don't even care if it's thread derailment, I have to see that this is understood.
In tabletop Battletech, heat sinks have no effect on heat capacity. We know this because no matter how much heat you generate or dissipate, if you generate five more heat than you dissipate in a given time period you will overheat to 30 in six of that time period and be forced to shut down.
It doesn't matter how much heat you generate in a turn. I could assemble a 'mech that has thirteen small lasers and ten standard heat sinks, have it run and shoot all weapons for six turns and it would shut down from generating a total of 30 more heat than it could sink in the time period. I could assemble a 'mech that has three ER PPCs and twenty-four double heat sinks, have it run and shoot all weapons for six turns, and it would still shut down from generating a total of 30 more heat than it could sink in the time period.
Generate 30 more heat than you sink in a given time period, regardless what that time period is, shut down. Hey, presto, no change to capacity.
If I have a ten-gallon water tank and I add water at a rate of two gallons per minute and drain it at one gallon per minute, it overflows when I have more than ten gallons in it- ten minutes.
If I have a ten-gallon water tank and I add water at a rate of one gallon per minute and don't drain any, it overflows when I have more than ten gallons in it- ten minutes.
If I have a ten gallon water tank and I add water to it at a rate of five gallons per minute and drain it at four gallons per minute, it overflows when I have more than ten gallons in it- ten minutes.
This is how math works, this is how reality works.
In the original game, adding heat sinks does nothing to your heat capacity.
Simple Math.
In TT, I have a Excess HEat Scale of 30 pts. I have 22 SHS on my Grasshopper. Barring RNG from the DIce gods, I can go to 52 pts heat generated that turn before automatically shutting down. If I am in a Rifleman with 10 SHS, I can generate a Maximum of 40 heat before automatically shutting down.
That Grasshopper was able to generate 12 more points of heat than the Rifleman. So how exactly did that not raise it's cap? Heat effects are calculated AFTER dissipation, during the same phase. For them not to affect the "cap" would require affects to happen before dissipation.
#152
Posted 21 April 2015 - 10:47 AM
FupDup, on 21 April 2015 - 10:31 AM, said:
We've already played that out numerous times with lagshield Ravens, 4 PPC Stalkers, poptarting Cataphracts/Highlanders, Timberwolves, Stormcrows, and so on. Past experience shows that having certain things be outright superior does not create variety, and in fact kills it hard. We have actual experimental proof of this.
Yes, we do, and it won't change no matter WHAT gets done, as the top comp players will always find the BEST toys in any game to win with, and that is what you'll see being used by them and that's all they'll use. See the videos of the previous tourneys for exactly how varied the top comp Mechs and weapon loadouts are, ie - they aren't varied at all.
Stock configs only, only specific Mechs will be used due to them being superior. Totally free customization leads to exactly the same thing, only specific Mechs will be used due to them being superior. Currently we have only specific Mechs being used by the top/tryhards because they are superior, the 'metaMechs'. With the current system of some Mechs being great, some being good, some being ok and some being meh, outside of top/tryhards, you DO see a variety of Mechs being used. Non-CW drops with PUGs and groups, you see a variety. CW PUG you see a lot of variety, even on the Clan side, and even on CW group you'll see variety as some of the Clan teams aren't all up in the 'metaMech' and just want to have fun with Mechs they enjoy using, despite them not being the Holy Trinity.
Part of the fun in this game is taking a Mech that most consider to be a trashcan and running roughshod over people with it, it's a blast to show people that not all Mechs need to be Tier 1 to be useful, fun and competitive. And some people just love the Underdog, think that's probably more of an American thing, but I know some Europeans, Aussies and Kiwis who feel that way too.
#153
Posted 21 April 2015 - 10:47 AM
TLBFestus, on 21 April 2015 - 10:35 AM, said:
At this point they seem to have really become a crutch for PGI that they use to duct tape problems rather than addressing the real issues beneath them. That's not a good thing.
And what "real issue" might that be? That not all Mechs, in the same weight class, are created the same? Perhaps you have a FIX for that you wish to share?
#154
Posted 21 April 2015 - 10:47 AM
Alistair Winter, on 21 April 2015 - 06:05 AM, said:
I fear PGI has put so much time into the quirks that they're reluctant to revisit them. I think Russ is pretty pleased with where the meta is at, with a few minor exceptions, like Clan ACs.
Sadly this.
You know how long it must have took to type in all those quirks and numbers into a database?
And now do it ALL OVER AGAIN?
MADNESS!
/s
Seriously, I would cut down all quirks to 50% or even less.
Edited by TexAss, 21 April 2015 - 10:48 AM.
#155
Posted 21 April 2015 - 10:48 AM
Stefka Kerensky, on 20 April 2015 - 11:18 PM, said:
And Jesus Box has been a game breaker, since with it we have a no brainer FPS, imo.
ECM is a challenge for the enemy, and as such is not a "no brainer" to overcome, which is fine for me in what is supposed to be a "thinking person's shooter".
Just a thought from a "glass half full" person, while at the same time admitting that 99.9999% of the player base is lacking on the "brains" department.
#156
Posted 21 April 2015 - 10:51 AM
Bishop Steiner, on 20 April 2015 - 10:15 PM, said:
Yet more and more, Mechs aren't being "helped" by Quirks, but defined by them. and it's not "1 quirk per tier" anymore, but crazy stuff like the Zeus's armor....or literally doubling the armor on the arms of the Nova-C. (The Locust and Mist Lynx are pretty crazy too, IMO, in those regards)
At no point should a mech need a 40-50% boost to ANYTHING to make it "viable". The LB-X on the CN9-D sort of does, one could say...but does it? Or does the LB-X need to simply not SUCK as a weapon? Does the LCT-1V really need that kind of cooldown on it's ERLL? Or the DRG-1N?
Or are they lazy bandages covering over bigger problems, like poorly implemented and balanced weapons, and chassis that are poorly thought out, balanced and victims of atrocious scaling issues?
And this isn't because the Clan Mechs are finally getting decent Quirks in some instances. In the current environment, they NEED them, in most cases not named StormCrow or TimberWolf. And most still need MORE, in the current environment.
But what we got is a Quirks Arms Race going on, where they are not only being used as cure alls, for whatever ails a design, but are starting to define the Metas in and of themselves. Quirks were supposed to be a "boost" to give underperformers a shot. 10% here, 20, even 25% on the truly bad mechs, here and there, I could see and agree with.
But it's really gone too far. Quirks are going form a potential saviour of underperforming mechs to making the game unrecognizable as "A Battletech Game".
I think it's really time to stop and really look at just how nuts the quickening has gotten. And to start over with them yet again. And maybe, it's time to hold a little more Dev accountability to actually provide minimally viable products on the in game models and weapons balance.
I still enjoy this game, but with each new list of quirks released, I recognize the game less and less. Truth be told, I am actually almost missing the "Time Before Quirks", even though many of my favorite chassis were all but DoA then.
Well said. There were a lot of underlying problems that needed to be addressed even before Clans came out.
The biggest train I think that was missed was having pure balance of IS mechs and viability in general. This should have been tackled well before a clan mech was released, because you don't have a baseline for balance at all... having a baseline is the whole point, and why things are duct taped, band-aided, and tweaked to the point of near silliness.
#157
Posted 21 April 2015 - 10:54 AM
Bishop Steiner, on 21 April 2015 - 10:44 AM, said:
In TT, I have a Excess HEat Scale of 30 pts. I have 22 SHS on my Grasshopper. Barring RNG from the DIce gods, I can go to 52 pts heat generated that turn before automatically shutting down. If I am in a Rifleman with 10 SHS, I can generate a Maximum of 40 heat before automatically shutting down.
That Grasshopper was able to generate 12 more points of heat than the Rifleman. So how exactly did that not raise it's cap? Heat effects are calculated AFTER dissipation, during the same phase. For them not to affect the "cap" would require affects to happen before dissipation.
Yes, exactly this - the best** real time simulation of this would be for all weapons to have a 10 second cooldown and have the heat cap be 30 (the auto shutdown level) + amount of heat you can sink in 10s, which is SHSx1 or DHSx2. We have an altered version of this with less disipation and cap (due to DHS 1.4) and greater heat generation (due to enormously reduced cooldowns). Heat is considerably MORE punishing in MWO for any given loadout than it would be in TT. What they should do, imo, is to increase DHS to 2.0 all the way, and then have 2 heat bars. one with a value of simply DHSx2 which has no effect on you, and the other with a value of 30 with increasing negative effects (not identical to TT because RNG is bad, but some version of it) as you fill the 2nd bar.
**not actually best, that would be boring as hell to play
#158
Posted 21 April 2015 - 10:58 AM
Kristov Kerensky, on 21 April 2015 - 10:47 AM, said:
Stock configs only, only specific Mechs will be used due to them being superior. Totally free customization leads to exactly the same thing, only specific Mechs will be used due to them being superior. Currently we have only specific Mechs being used by the top/tryhards because they are superior, the 'metaMechs'. With the current system of some Mechs being great, some being good, some being ok and some being meh, outside of top/tryhards, you DO see a variety of Mechs being used. Non-CW drops with PUGs and groups, you see a variety. CW PUG you see a lot of variety, even on the Clan side, and even on CW group you'll see variety as some of the Clan teams aren't all up in the 'metaMech' and just want to have fun with Mechs they enjoy using, despite them not being the Holy Trinity.
The reason we're seeing Puglandia players use more than 1 mech is because PGI has made some modest attempts at balancing the mechs, even if some cases went too far or not far enough.
Even with all of the flaws in PGI's specific choice of quirks, they at least made most of the formerly Tier 5 mechs playable to the point of not automatically losing if somebody on your team chose a Trebuchet instead of a Shadow Hawk. I don't like feeling that my team will lose just because we didn't have enough Mad Cats, I don't want to go back to those days.
Kristov Kerensky, on 21 April 2015 - 10:47 AM, said:
This has been argued to death on these forums and still nobody gets it... People try to use the "pilots" scapegoat all the time, saying things like "Oh, but a really good player in a Commando can beat a really bad player in a Timber Wolf!" The flaw with that line of reasoning is that good players and good mechs aren't mutually exclusive (sometimes there's even a direct correlation, at least at the really high levels).
The way to determine the effectiveness of something is to imagine two clones of each other who have the same skills, reflexes, aim, awareness, etc. and pit them against each other (or have two teams of those clones duke it out). Pitting the theoretical mech against a player of drastically lower skill doesn't really prove much, just like why a grown adult shouldn't brag about punching out a toddler.
Edited by FupDup, 21 April 2015 - 11:01 AM.
#159
Posted 21 April 2015 - 11:00 AM
Bishop Steiner, on 21 April 2015 - 10:44 AM, said:
In TT, I have a Excess HEat Scale of 30 pts. I have 22 SHS on my Grasshopper. Barring RNG from the DIce gods, I can go to 52 pts heat generated that turn before automatically shutting down. If I am in a Rifleman with 10 SHS, I can generate a Maximum of 40 heat before automatically shutting down.
That Grasshopper was able to generate 12 more points of heat than the Rifleman. So how exactly did that not raise it's cap? Heat effects are calculated AFTER dissipation, during the same phase. For them not to affect the "cap" would require affects to happen before dissipation.
Assuming that the calculation represents the actual time things are happening (that somehow you're firing all the weapons simultaneously every turn, and the heat sinks each flush their amount of heat all at once immediately after that) you would be correct.... if and only if you calculated penalties BEFORE flushing heat.
This is not what's happening.
Each turn is ten seconds. The heat sinks dissipate their energy across that -entire- span of time, and the weapons generate their heat throughout that span of time.
The best illustration of this is the Solaris rules, which use turns 1/4 the length. This means four times as many heat dissipation phases, and to keep weapon firing rates from accelerating, these rules (the 'Mech Duel Rules, officially named, though they're usually called Solaris) multiply weapon heat by four. This keeps the dissipation and generation of heat in tandem with each other, particularly with the four movement phases also quadrupling movement heat. You still overheat at 30 excess heat in these rules, because your capacity is still 30, despite the rate of everything being increased by four.
The reason your GHR generates 52 heat before shutting down is that while it's generating 52 heat, it's also dissipating 22 at the same time. This is why you calculate penalties after dissipation.
The amount of excess heat needed to overheat remains the same no matter how many heat sinks you have. In both cases, you have exceeded your dissipation over time by 30.
If, as you asserted, the 22 heat sinks added more capacity than the 10, you would need to exceed your dissipation by more than 30 in order to overheat.
Edited by Quickdraw Crobat, 21 April 2015 - 11:04 AM.
#160
Posted 21 April 2015 - 11:10 AM
#stillmad
Anyways. The execution of the quirks system has been very nearly a complete travesty. We did manage to get split quirks, which was moderately helpful but did not have the hoped-for intent of enabling off-quirk builds to some degree. And furthermore, the only things that ever get quirked are durability (armor/structure) or weapon values.
No sensor quirks.
Few mobility quirks/one speed quirk (Summoner)
No jump jet quirks
No oddball, character-building quirks a'la 90% of the quirks system from tabletop.
All you get is a gigantic pile of various weapon buffs, many of them stupidly overdone, and almost random toughness fixes. The quirks don't really add to the character or flavor of an individual 'Mech, and in the worst cases they somehow manage to not add to the character/flavor of the 'Mech while still defining the 'Mech's entire existence.
Does a DRG-1N feel more like a Dragon because it has 67% increased refire rate on its AC/5s (let's not be dense and just factor in Fast Fire and refire module like sane people, shall we?), or does it feel more like, say...an Argus, or something else with rotary autocannons fifty years into the future?
Do Thunderbolts feel more like Thunderbolts because they can fire skyhook PPCs basically for free, or do the Penetrator's job with medium pulse lasers?
Does the Stalker 4N feel more like a Stalker when it's lugging around six large lasers? Or does it feel like something of a travesty only tolerated because people are heap big buttmad over the Clans?
I'd wager the answer is 'no' to all of the above. None of these 'Mechs feel more like what they're supposed to feel like because they get crazed insanity-level weapons quirks. What they do feel like is bad busted cheating, and I say this as someone who's played both sides of the tech divide.
We need to step back and re-examine the entire system, and if that means some further Clan downtweaks so that Spheroid pilots stop flipping schittz every time someone mentions that maybe 40+% quirks are bad for MWO, then a'ight, do that too.
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