282 replies to this topic

[Screech]

We are living in the age of THE QUIRKENING.

There can be only one.

[blood4blood]

I like the concept of quirks to give each mech variant some unique traits and perhaps for minor balancing, but I have to agree they've been used too much to compensate for more fundamental errors in weapon balance, mech scaling, hit box/hit reg issues for certain mechs, and other problems.

Also, too often the quirks implemented simply don't work as intended. Since Nova's were mentioned in the first post - well, it's still easy to strip them by hitting side torsos even with the increased armor/structure, many variants still run too hot, their arms are still too low, the overall mech model is still too big, and JJ still don't help it much because JJ's are still borked generally.

[Bishop Steiner]

Ultimatum X, on 21 April 2015 - 07:29 AM, said:

I didn't take anything out of context.

I am asking you flat out if you now think those numbers that you suggested are too big.



I can't give an in-depth post if don't know where you stand on your own back and forth wanting mega-quirks for the Summoner while also wanting to tone down other mechs.






Could you have made any more of a knee jerk reaction response?




I'm asking you if you now think those numbers you suggested would be too large.


You could have answered it calmly, or you could flip out and attack me personally.



Why did you choose the latter?

Yes, you did take things out of context as usual.

IN THE CURRENT GAME AS IMPLEMENTED TODAY THOSE NUMBER ARE NOT TOO BIG.
Which is the point of that post and OP.

THE FACT IS QUIRKS ARE OVERBOARD AND BORDERLINE BROKEN IN TODAYS GAME AND NEED TO BE OVERHAULED.
Is the point of this post.

One deals with reality as is, obviously. One points out the fact that the current reality needs work. And thus if they ever fixed quirks, those numbers would be too big.

Any amount of critical thinking would figure that out, and not be confused by two totally separate arguments addressing two separate issues. Unless one is, as is your want, trying to mix things up to obfuscate things and push their own agenda. Which you consistently do on my posts.

So yes, I treat your posts as the hostile attacks in sheep clothing they tend to be.

[SaltBeef]

Firing ballistics would not be affected by recoil much due to gyro stabilizers and neurological hemet blanced by pilots own sense of balance. LASERS MAY BE HINDERED by a heat wave ripple to naked eye vision but would not affect thermals or night vision. Naked eye PPC at night would blind you temporarily, would make night vision studder, but not affect thermal imaging.

Edited by SaltBeef, 21 April 2015 - 07:40 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Summon3r, on 21 April 2015 - 07:32 AM, said:

oh and more thing, agree with all the convergence people it is single largest issue within the game.

partial solution to me would be to have some recoil from certain weapons. not exactly sure the solution laser vomit

TT Style Heat Effects as one creeps up the heat scale. The hard locked heat cap some propose not only really doesn't make a lot of sense, it's not "lore" either. Because the way cooling in lore worked, your heat sinks effectively DID add to the cap, since it was all factored together end of turn.

at 16% on your heat bar, you see minor speed reduction. by about 30% you see a minor flickering to your HUD and reticle, maybe a 1/10th second longer lock time. By around 40%, your speed is further reduced, and your HUD issues are worse. You start running into possible overheats and if you maintain your heat over 50%, you start risking potential ammo cook offs, etc.

Mind you, I would say you would need to modify and condense it, so that the Basic heat effect scale doesn't actually start til say 50% is reached, and the first minor effects start at like 55%, and scale from there, but the basic idea is sound, I believe.

Basically instead of "Run Hot or Die", you get back to the Battletech Maxim of "Run Hot AND Die". It would certainly put a damper in rampant alphas and such.

[CDLord HHGD]

I think there's an inherent issue in the way they classified the variants into their performance tiers which relied (imo) on data from using the most meta loadout for that variant. Fewer quirks for T1 and more for T5 with newer mechs immediately placed into tiers without any performance data.....

I don't want to say it's a bad design because I don't have an alternative without beating my ghost heat and sized hardpoints drum again. I will say it's a questionable implementation.

Perhaps quirks should ONLY reflect the stock loadout of said variant and have limitations, IE AC5 quirk would ONLY apply to the number of AC5's in the stock loadout. If you add more, they are not included...

[Kristov Kerensky]

I agree with you Bishop, mostly, on the quirks and we've both brought this subject up before multiple times.

Quirks should affect the MECH, not the weapons unless there is a specific fluff/lore piece that would give a weapon a buff/boost/nerf(not all lore gives good things!), and if the fluff/lore covers a weapon it should ONLY be that specific weapon and it should be in the manner the fluff/lore indicates, ie - lower heat, faster reload, higher jamming chance, etc.

Let us take the Dragon 1N as an example, any Dragon really, because the only problem with the Dragon is that huge center torso sticking out so far that it makes Cisero feel inadeqate. So, to fix this via quirks, you would give the CT more armor and structure for starters. Then you would give a boost to twist range and twist speed so that spreading damage becomes a real option. Hip actuators are actually a problem for the Dragon according to the fluff, so accel should probably get a negative quirk due to that, or perhaps turning speed, but only 1 of those should be applied. There are no weapon based quirks because the fluff/lore mentions none. It IS a good brawler but that is not due to it's weapons but instead due to it's physical attacks, the AC5 having a heavy shroud to protect it from damage during melee, so give the arms extra armor.

There, just made the Dragon 1N more viable and didn't have to give it any weapon buffs that are beyond stupidly OP.

Go through all the Mechs in MWO, the quirks present themselves rather quickly, and rarely are they weapon based.

Yes, this means some Mechs will not be great or even ok, some will just be bad, welcome to a MechWarrior video game based on the TT BattleTech game, comes with the territory.

Other factors, such as convergence and so on, that's fodder for another topic methinks.

[SaltBeef]

Quirks should be structure and agility only. Weapon quirks should go bye bye imho. The Awsome and warhawk , Nova, Laserback hunchy, should be able to rock thier stock loadout for a while before overwhelmed by heat. Heat sink buffs for those mechs.

Edited by SaltBeef, 21 April 2015 - 07:49 AM.

[Revis Volek]

A great example of this is the WHK-Prime....

They ave given it a 4% per pod reduction in ERPPC heat so 8% with both. But they also gave it some velocity increase which coupled with a TC 4 or larger give you a 25% increase in velocity for the ERPPC's. Once they did this i have a hard time getting under 650 dmg in this a game. It has a ceiling due to not being able to fire very fast but 700 dmg ceiling is nothing to complain about.

But my point is it isnt the heat that made the ERPPC's unusable persay (its not great) but the veloctiy. So seeing this I think all PPC's need a 25% velocity boost. Not just the mechs that are SUPPOSE to bring them because they still suck for everything else and im beginning to see that the velocity is what really hurt them not so much the heat.

So again, this shows me someone did not understand the issue with PPC's to begin with and just rolled everything up because they could not find the problem. Heat isnt an issue it was the speed (and still is because now they are too slow AND HOT) at which the projectile traveled IMO and with a little testing i think this could have been discovered rather then applying blanket nerfs to problem weapons or mechs.

knee jerk reactions to poptart and meta they disliked....sucks.

[LordNothing]

i decided awhile back not to let quirks dictate my playstyle. evety time i pick weapons that look good on paper (exploiting quirks and max alpha) i am disappointed. these days i just equip weapons i like, and if quirks line up so much the better.

Edited by LordNothing, 21 April 2015 - 08:02 AM.

[kapusta11]

Bishop Steiner, on 21 April 2015 - 07:40 AM, said:

TT Style Heat Effects as one creeps up the heat scale. The hard locked heat cap some propose not only really doesn't make a lot of sense, it's not "lore" either. Because the way cooling in lore worked, your heat sinks effectively DID add to the cap, since it was all factored together end of turn.

at 16% on your heat bar, you see minor speed reduction. by about 30% you see a minor flickering to your HUD and reticle, maybe a 1/10th second longer lock time. By around 40%, your speed is further reduced, and your HUD issues are worse. You start running into possible overheats and if you maintain your heat over 50%, you start risking potential ammo cook offs, etc.

Mind you, I would say you would need to modify and condense it, so that the Basic heat effect scale doesn't actually start til say 50% is reached, and the first minor effects start at like 55%, and scale from there, but the basic idea is sound, I believe.

Basically instead of "Run Hot or Die", you get back to the Battletech Maxim of "Run Hot AND Die". It would certainly put a damper in rampant alphas and such.

It's not the way heat system worked in TT, at least not what I've read. In TT you fire 2xCLPL+4CERML, generate 40 (44 in MWO) heat, then dissipate 48 with 24 DHS and left with zero excess heat, no penalty would be applied. Heat bar would be divided in two zones, one being the size equal to amount of DHS x2 where nothing happens and the other being the actual heat scale you've shown added on top of whatever you have based on the amount of heat sinks you carry. -1 movement penalty would look like an engine performance loss equal to mech's tonnage as mech's total MP are equal to engine rating divided by tonnage, it's not just a small penalty unless you had no need to move and thus generate heat, to hit penalty is quite severe as well. Heat system done right in MWO would only mean equal potential (as long as you have enough DHS) DPS for ballistics and energy weapons. Heat system is indeed flawed in MWO but fixing it would not magically solve issues that have different origin.

Edited by kapusta11, 21 April 2015 - 08:08 AM.

[Stoned Prophet]

Bishop Steiner, on 20 April 2015 - 10:15 PM, said:

making the game unrecognizable as "A Battletech Game".

How?

Edited by Stoned Prophet, 21 April 2015 - 08:03 AM.

[Summon3r]

Bishop Steiner, on 21 April 2015 - 07:40 AM, said:

TT Style Heat Effects as one creeps up the heat scale. The hard locked heat cap some propose not only really doesn't make a lot of sense, it's not "lore" either. Because the way cooling in lore worked, your heat sinks effectively DID add to the cap, since it was all factored together end of turn.

at 16% on your heat bar, you see minor speed reduction. by about 30% you see a minor flickering to your HUD and reticle, maybe a 1/10th second longer lock time. By around 40%, your speed is further reduced, and your HUD issues are worse. You start running into possible overheats and if you maintain your heat over 50%, you start risking potential ammo cook offs, etc.

Mind you, I would say you would need to modify and condense it, so that the Basic heat effect scale doesn't actually start til say 50% is reached, and the first minor effects start at like 55%, and scale from there, but the basic idea is sound, I believe.

Basically instead of "Run Hot or Die", you get back to the Battletech Maxim of "Run Hot AND Die". It would certainly put a damper in rampant alphas and such.

omg the thoughts of an actual fun mechwarrior game with some depth and skill needed play are creeping into my mind... shame we will never ever see anything along these lines in pgi-tech universe

[Joseph Mallan]

Bishop Steiner, on 21 April 2015 - 06:33 AM, said:

Not entirely true. There are instances, such as the Dragon or Awesome, where quirks come in to help fix where TT Design meets FPS reality. Those mechs, for instance simply have horrible Geometry, and went from being respectively amongst the toughest in their classes, to being glass eggs. Short of redesigning said mechs physically so they no longer even resemble the source material, that's a pretty inescapable issue. So using a quirk system to buff them up to be able to overcome their geometry actually makes a heck of a lot of sense.

Things like 50% extra range, 50% cooldown (pre modules even, which let's face it..the modules are a pretty crap idea, the way done, too) and 40-50% heat reduction make no sense at all. But instead of using Heat Reduction on PPCs to short circuit GH, IDK why they couldn't layer the GH parameters onto the chassis (aside from it being a fair chunk of time), and then be able to weak them, so that for instance, the AWS could fire 3 PPC/ER PPC without triggering GH.

Pre Quirks, all most people asked for was the AWS to be able to unleash it's famed and fearsome alpha. Without the quirk system, it wouldn't be enough t make it tier 1, but It would have made it a lot more popular.

It's almost like they are using the "nimble programming" model on things like balance decisions, where half the time the decisions are being made myopically on Group B, without even really looking Groups A or C, and the total picture.

The Dragon was always a mediocre Mech, it was quick with some fire power but was never a good design. The Awesome got Screwed by PGIs interpretation of how Heat works. If it could fire on a 3/2 cyclic as it can on TT it would be a true Awesome. So I blame this games' heat mechanics for the demise of the Awesome more than its hitboxes.

That is however my opinion.

[Bishop Steiner]

kapusta11, on 21 April 2015 - 08:02 AM, said:

It's not the way heat system works in TT, at least not what I've read. In TT you fire 2xCLPL+4CERML, generate 40 (44 in MWO) heat, then dissipate 48 with 24 DHS and left with zero excess heat, no penalty would be applied. Heat bar would be divided in two zones, one being the size equal to amount of DHS x2 where nothing happens and the other being the actual heat scale. -1 movement penalty would look like an engine performance loss equal to mech's tonnage as mech's total MP are equal to engine rating divided by tonnage. Heat system done right in MWO would only mean equal potential (as long as you have enough DHS) DPS for ballistics and energy weapons. I't indeed flawed in MWO but would not magically solve anything.

TT is also not a live action FPS environment, and you only fire each weapon once every 10 seconds.

Kinda obvious it can't be a literal translation, which is one reason I would not start it til 50% on the heat scale.

[Bishop Steiner]

Stoned Prophet, on 21 April 2015 - 08:02 AM, said:

How?

If I have to explain that bro, you need to Battletech more.

Mechs in this game end up being the TT mech sin name only. Instead we have barely jump capable sword and board, lopsided sniper mechs, with insanely out of character quirks, like (for a time) the TDR-9S becoming the premiere ER PPC sniper? Really, on a mech that packed a single ER PPC? Better than the AWS which was supposed to pack 3 PPC/ER PPC? Large laser locusts firing that laser every 2 seconds? Doubled armor, no mech remotely fulfilling the roles they were meant to fulfill, due to minmax mechlab metas, etc?

Obviously things have to be adapted by environment, as noted above on my heatscale comment to Kapusta. But you change stuff enough, get too far from the source material, and you are "(insert popular IP name here)" in name only.

MWO is not that far from getting ther.e

[Feetwet]

How the heck do we even begin to make sound weapon/mech balance decisions when we have no idea how fair of a match we were just in. I know that Elo attempts to give us the best match up of pilot skill and mech balance but with the safety valves in place the results seem to swing wildly.

I can't speak for the solo queue since all I play is groups but it is becoming astounding how many 100 ton mechs are on the battle field. You just pray they are evenly distributed...but some times they aren't. But that is another discussion on power creep.

So it comes down to, did I just get beat by a vastly superior opponent? Did I just get beat by battlefield attrition? Beyond that, was I just defeated by vastly superior organization?

Most times it is hard to answer these questions. If I can't answer these, how the heck do I answer the question, was his mech/weapons vastly superior to mine?

I know I have run into situations where I am running my laser vomit stormcrow (META) and been torn apart in a matter of seconds...over and over and over again. Then the next evening I will run my LBX, 3 srm 4 shadowhawk and dominate. Did I get better overnight...not to that extent. Is this shadowhawk OP...not very likely. But if you compare the 2 it seems that one is much better than the other completely due to my luck with the MM lottery.

TLDR: We cannot make very accurate estimations of weapon effectiveness until we can consistently and measurably drop against opponents of the same skill level.

S

[Bishop Steiner]

Joseph Mallan, on 21 April 2015 - 08:03 AM, said:

The Dragon was always a mediocre Mech, it was quick with some fire power but was never a good design. The Awesome got Screwed by PGIs interpretation of how Heat works. If it could fire on a 3/2 cyclic as it can on TT it would be a true Awesome. So I blame this games' heat mechanics for the demise of the Awesome more than its hitboxes.

That is however my opinion.

in it's era, the DRG worked fine. The Grand Dragon was actually a 60 ton beast. Real shame they won't just add it as a variant of the DRG.

[Stoned Prophet]

Bishop Steiner, on 21 April 2015 - 08:08 AM, said:

If I have to explain that bro, you need to Battletech more.

Mechs in this game end up being the TT mech sin name only. Instead we have barely jump capable sword and board, lopsided sniper mechs, with insanely out of character quirks, like (for a time) the TDR-9S becoming the premiere ER PPC sniper? Really, on a mech that packed a single ER PPC? Better than the AWS which was supposed to pack 3 PPC/ER PPC? Large laser locusts firing that laser every 2 seconds? Doubled armor, no mech remotely fulfilling the roles they were meant to fulfill, due to minmax mechlab metas, etc?

Obviously things have to be adapted by environment, as noted above on my heatscale comment to Kapusta. But you change stuff enough, get too far from the source material, and you are "(insert popular IP name here)" in name only.

MWO is not that far from getting ther.e

None of those things are caused by quirks. People did ALL those things LONG before quirks. So no, quirks are not the culprit of making this game "less BT like".
Way to cop out. No, i think you know you used wild hyperbole and are to proud to admit it.
Let me list the ways you (probably) think it changes things based on quirks:
1. Cooldown: Doesnt matter, as TT is 10 sec turns.
2. Range: Really? Oh no they can go farther! No.
3. Heat: If we already had a TT like heat scale, maybe, but since we dont, nope.
4. Armor/Structure buff: This actually makes the game MORE like TT, as it increases time to kill.

If you have any others youd like me to shoot down, hit me with em. Too bored to go through every quirk and prove your hillary level of hyperbole.

Edited by Stoned Prophet, 21 April 2015 - 08:13 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Stoned Prophet, on 21 April 2015 - 08:12 AM, said:

If you have any others youd like me to shoot down, hit me with em. Too bored to go through every quirk and prove your hillary level of hyperbole.

now who's copping out?