43 replies to this topic

[Yosharian]

You're living in a dream world if you think you can force people not to boat weaponry, using quirks or any other system.

[Juodas Varnas]

Yosharian, on 03 May 2015 - 12:49 AM, said:

You're living in a dream world if you think you can force people not to boat weaponry, using quirks or any other system.

Even if you can't force people not to boat. You can encourage them not to boat. (as opposed to trying to discourage from boating via ghost heat, which didn't help, at all)

Edited by Juodas Varnas, 03 May 2015 - 12:53 AM.

[Yosharian]

Juodas Varnas, on 03 May 2015 - 12:52 AM, said:

Even if you can't force people not to boat. You can encourage them not to boat. (as opposed to trying to discourage from boating via ghost heat, which didn't help, at all)

You're not going to stop people boating using quirks. It won't work. A variety of quirks on a mech isn't going to stop people boating, they'll just continue to boat the most effective weapon system for their desired role. The only way to encourage all-rounder builds would be to penalize people who boat weaponry even more than they already are.

[stjobe]

Yosharian, on 03 May 2015 - 01:24 AM, said:

The only way to encourage all-rounder builds would be to penalize people who boat weaponry even more than they already are.

Or by seriously restricting customization, e.g. by using the Field Refit rules instead of the BattleMech Construction Rules.

We're not a 'mech factory, are we? Why then should we be allowed to change our 'mechs in a way that only a 'mech factory can?

Edited by stjobe, 03 May 2015 - 01:35 AM.

[Yosharian]

stjobe, on 03 May 2015 - 01:34 AM, said:

Or by seriously restricting customization, e.g. by using the Field Refit rules instead of the BattleMech Construction Rules.

We're not a 'mech factory, are we? Why then should we be allowed to change our 'mechs in a way that only a 'mech factory can?

Perhaps, but one of the things that makes MWO a fun game to play is the ability to bring customized mechs to the battlefield. If everyone has to run restricted builds, then the game loses a lot of its appeal.

[stjobe]

Yosharian, on 03 May 2015 - 01:38 AM, said:

Perhaps, but one of the things that makes MWO a fun game to play is the ability to bring customized mechs to the battlefield. If everyone has to run restricted builds, then the game loses a lot of its appeal.

The Field Refit rules do allow for customization; just not as much as the BattleMech Construction Rules.

[Yosharian]

stjobe, on 03 May 2015 - 01:48 AM, said:

The Field Refit rules do allow for customization; just not as much as the BattleMech Construction Rules.

That doesn't really rebut my point.

[Khobai]

Quote

You're not going to stop people boating using quirks. It won't work. A variety of quirks on a mech isn't going to stop people boating, they'll just continue to boat the most effective weapon system for their desired role. The only way to encourage all-rounder builds would be to penalize people who boat weaponry even more than they already are.

wrong.

players arn't fixated on boating. theyre fixated on doing damage and getting kills. and whatever helps them achieve that is what theyll gravitate towards.

right now that happens to be boating. but if mixed loadouts were stronger than boated loadouts you would see the meta shift to mixed loadouts.

[ROSS-128]

Khobai, on 03 May 2015 - 02:05 AM, said:

wrong.

players arn't fixated on boating. theyre fixated on doing damage and getting kills. and whatever helps them achieve that is what theyll gravitate towards.

right now that happens to be boating. but if mixed loadouts were stronger than boated loadouts you would see the meta shift to mixed loadouts.

When the difference between a "mixed loadout" and a "boat" is just one missile hardpoint though, you're not likely to achieve that. Unless you make that missile launcher and its ammo take up zero weight and no crits or something like that, then what the heck, free stuff is free stuff.

A mech will generally only run a mixed loadout if its hardpoints, weight, and crit space all align to make it possible. And generally that mix is "lasers+ballistics" because missiles (other than Clan SRMs) are having a hard time pulling their weight right now. And generally the pilot will pick those lasers and ballistics to perform optimally at about the same range, because only being able to use half your guns at any one time means you're piloting half a mech.

[AntiCitizenJuan]

As someone who has piloted my BNC 3S a lot, youre not going to get me using a single SRM6 unless its cooldown is reduced by like 50% or something really obscene like that. It's just not viable on the robot, like a lot of single hardpoints are not on a lot of mechs.

[Clint Steel]

You don't want to see hyper quirked Mechs like the Dragon, but suggest that they quirk the lower number hardpoints. There could be something to this, IF they didn't try and quirk based on some arbitrary ranking system, that says this Mech gets 4 quirks and this one gets 1.
The problem is no one wants to see a quirk wasted on something that won't make the Mech more competitive. To do this they need to get out of the box they made with the tier system, and how it distributes the quantity of quirks, so a Mech isn't penalised because its a jack of all trades, and has a quirk on its single missile hardpoint.

I really like the quirks, in that they have brought Mechs into play that were otherwise useless. I would like to see them go even further with this, by diversifying the varients more (Why are there 2 BJ's with AC2 quirks and none with AC20?). This would make leveling them up more interesting, and would make the battlefield more diverse as well.

Quirks can be taken too far. Part of this is an issue with the weapon system to begin with, like the ERPPCs, as they are nearly useless unless quirked heavily. So first a weapon system should be balanced as well as possible, before adding quirks to a Mech using it.

I think everyone agrees the Atlas needs more armor/internals.

Over all I feel that the biggest issue with quirks is their need to put them in the the "Tier Box." How do you judge a Mech to be Tier 1? Do you look at PUG play, group play, or CW? Personally, I think they should just keep focusing on the least played Mechs. Do what they can to make them viable and people will play them, and then they can work on the new least played Mechs, until the difference between the least and most played Mech is small. There should also be some work bringing the top Mechs into line as well, this would keep power creep and TTK down.

[Alistair Winter]

Yosharian, on 03 May 2015 - 12:49 AM, said:

You're living in a dream world if you think you can force people not to boat weaponry, using quirks or any other system.

Ace Selin, on 02 May 2015 - 10:22 PM, said:

People will always boat because often its most effective. Changing quirks the way OP lists wont change that people boat.. it will make many mechs less effective & then they will not be played at all (large quirks will then need to be re-added to aid these mechs). People will find new mechs to boat and boat mechs without quirks.

I simply don't believe that. People used to say that pinpoint damage would always be king, because lasers spread damage while multiple PPCs / large ballistics can do so much damage to a single component. Well, the meta changed, even though Clan mechs have longer laser duration than we used to have during the poptart meta. Some of the builds that people said would never be viable are now viable thanks to quirks.

Obviously it's not an absolute truth that you can't stop boating. Because if the Thunderbolt had 90% heat reduction and 90% cooldown reduction for SRM4's, then everyone would use them. It's a silly example, but it just illustrates that the "You can never stop boating" argument and the argument that it's always a bad choice to mount one or two missile launchers are both clearly wrong. The word 'always' doesn't apply here. It's simply a matter of finding the balance.

Not only do I find it more enjoyable to try to find solutions, but I also honestly don't believe that PGI is powerless to stop boating. It just seems like that because they haven't been able to figure it out. But I wouldn't go as far as saying that if the devs at PGI can't figure it out, then no one can.

E Rommel, on 03 May 2015 - 05:37 AM, said:

When the difference between a "mixed loadout" and a "boat" is just one missile hardpoint though, you're not likely to achieve that. Unless you make that missile launcher and its ammo take up zero weight and no crits or something like that, then what the heck, free stuff is free stuff.

I don't think you have to go that far. Even at 50% heat reduction, 50% cooldown bonus and 50% extra range, it's silly to say that people wouldn't take a single SRM6 or LRM15. At some point, the positives outweigh the negatives.

E Rommel, on 03 May 2015 - 05:37 AM, said:

A mech will generally only run a mixed loadout if its hardpoints, weight, and crit space all align to make it possible. And generally that mix is "lasers+ballistics" because missiles (other than Clan SRMs) are having a hard time pulling their weight right now. And generally the pilot will pick those lasers and ballistics to perform optimally at about the same range, because only being able to use half your guns at any one time means you're piloting half a mech.

Hence the talk about "high risk, high reward". Besides, the range overlap between weapons in MWO is pretty huge. If we look away from small lasers and SPLs, which generally aren't used for mechs with mixed loadouts anyway, then you'll have a hard time finding a build with a narrow band of optimal efficiency. There's a big group of weapons that are effective at 0-250 meters (MLs, MPLs, SRMs, AC20) and a bigger group of weapons that are effective at longer ranges. LRMs can be combined pretty well with the latter group. Furthermore, range quirks for weapons in the first group would make it even easier to combine different weapons.

AntiCitizenJuan, on 03 May 2015 - 05:44 AM, said:

As someone who has piloted my BNC 3S a lot, youre not going to get me using a single SRM6 unless its cooldown is reduced by like 50% or something really obscene like that. It's just not viable on the robot, like a lot of single hardpoints are not on a lot of mechs.

I don't think 50% is really necessary, but I would personally prefer to see mechs with obscenely quirked single hardpoints instead of seeing battlefields where 80% of the mechs on one side are Thunderbolts with MPLs and 80% of the mechs on the other side are Storm Crows boating CERMLs.

E Rommel, on 02 May 2015 - 10:00 PM, said:

It's a good example for the Banshee though, because that's exactly why people take the SRM-6 off it. It gets you the tonnage you need for the /20, and why would you ever sacrifice the /20 for an SRM-6?

That's a false dichotomy. You can put an AC20 with 4 tons of ammo, SRM6 with 2 tons of ammo, STD300 engine and almost full armour on a Banshee, and still have 24 tons left over for lasers, heat sinks and whatever else.

It's more a question of whether you want to take the SRM6 off for extra lasers and heatsinks. In the current state of the game, it makes sense to sacrifice the SRM6 to get that extra heatsink in, or to swap an LL with an LPL, for example. But that trade-off is not inherent to the system, it's just a result of the current weapon balance and the current quirks.

[Yosharian]

So your arguments are that you can stop boating if you make unused weapon systems absurdly powerful. People will just boat those weapon systems instead. And if you are boosting a weapon system you cannot boat, such as giving 50% cd reduction for missiles on a mech with a single missile hardpoint, for example, then people might bring that weapon system, but they still might not, and in any case it's a redundant point because PGI will never quirk things in that way since they have a 'tiered' quirk system which doesn't allow it.

Edited by Yosharian, 03 May 2015 - 07:21 AM.

[AntiCitizenJuan]

Yosharian, on 03 May 2015 - 07:21 AM, said:

So your arguments are that you can stop boating if you make unused weapon systems absurdly powerful. People will just boat those weapon systems instead. And if you are boosting a weapon system you cannot boat, such as giving 50% cd reduction for missiles on a mech with a single missile hardpoint, for example, then people might bring that weapon system, but they still might not, and in any case it's a redundant point because PGI will never quirk things in that way since they have a 'tiered' quirk system which doesn't allow it.

I know if my 3S packed a really good SRM quirk I would run an SRM6. Now it's just a waste of tonnage

[Quaamik]

Impressive analysis and while I don't agree with all of the OPs specific quirks they propose, I agree with the general drive.

That said, a couple things have to be kept in perspective: BattleTech was a turn based table top game. You could have 15 different weapons with different firing dynamics, ranges and such and just pick what you wanted to use each turn. MWO is a first person shooter, where you need to slave individual weapons or groups of weapons to buttons for firing. There are a limited number of buttons available. The standard mouse has 2, and 3 button mice are common. Mice and joysticks with more buttons are available but not as common. Which is part of the reason that alpha strikes and boating become popular. Quircking for an intended build has to take that into account.

As an example the OP used: The BNC-3S has 8 energy hardpoints, 1 ballistic hardpoints, 1 missile hardpoint.
Stock armament is 2xPPC, AC10, 4xML, 2xSL, and SRM6. That's 5 different weapons ranges, 5 different cool down times and 4 different projectile speeds. It does not divide into groups of 2 or 3 similar weapons well. So most players (as the average player doesn't have a 5 - 7 button mouse or a joystick) will boil it down to 2 or 3 groups of identical weapons (or less). 8 lasers, 1 ballistic and 1 missile is the best variety you can reasonably hope for. Since the damage from 8 lasers is impressive with current convergence, but the heat atrocious, boating lasers and ignoring the others in favor of heat sinks is the obvious solution.

Sticking with the quirks only, the only way to break that tendency that I see is to ALLOW it, but make it too hard to alpha them (requiring chain fire). Something like a negative heat quirk if more than 2 lasers are fired together.

Going outside the quirks, into game mechanics, allowing you to gang 2 weapons together, then chain to the next 2, would make chain firing more appealing. In this boating case, allowing you to chain fire through 4 pairs of 2 lasers each, all off of one button.


In the end, as the hardware restriction on firing buttons exists for most players, boating is going to happen.

[Alistair Winter]

Yosharian, on 03 May 2015 - 07:21 AM, said:

So your arguments are that you can stop boating if you make unused weapon systems absurdly powerful. People will just boat those weapon systems instead. And if you are boosting a weapon system you cannot boat, such as giving 50% cd reduction for missiles on a mech with a single missile hardpoint, for example, then people might bring that weapon system, but they still might not, and in any case it's a redundant point because PGI will never quirk things in that way since they have a 'tiered' quirk system which doesn't allow it.

I find it odd that people say that a single SRM6 will always be useless, but if you make it "absurdly powerful" then people might bring it. If people are barely willing to use it, how is it absurdly powerful?

Anyway. What PGI will and won't do is irrelevant. This entire thread is entirely academic, because I know quite well that PGI doesn't care about my opinion. The forum archives is full of good ideas that have been ignored. So even if my idea is a good one, I have no illusion that it will make a difference.

It's just an intellectual exercise. And at least I can just link to this thread any time people ask my about my views on quirks. I think I've explained my view a hundred times over in different threads already.

[Yosharian]

Alistair Winter, on 03 May 2015 - 07:29 AM, said:

I find it odd that people say that a single SRM6 will always be useless, but if you make it "absurdly powerful" then people might bring it. If people are barely willing to use it, how is it absurdly powerful?

Anyway. What PGI will and won't do is irrelevant. This entire thread is entirely academic, because I know quite well that PGI doesn't care about my opinion. The forum archives is full of good ideas that have been ignored. So even if my idea is a good one, I have no illusion that it will make a difference.

It's just an intellectual exercise. And at least I can just link to this thread any time people ask my about my views on quirks. I think I've explained my view a hundred times over in different threads already.

If what PGI will and won't do is irrelevant then there are a thousand different ways we could fix the game.

It doesn't seem useful to speculate what might happen in an imaginary world where PGI actually listens to us.

[Alistair Winter]

Quaamik, on 03 May 2015 - 07:26 AM, said:

That said, a couple things have to be kept in perspective: BattleTech was a turn based table top game. You could have 15 different weapons with different firing dynamics, ranges and such and just pick what you wanted to use each turn. MWO is a first person shooter, where you need to slave individual weapons or groups of weapons to buttons for firing. There are a limited number of buttons available. The standard mouse has 2, and 3 button mice are common. Mice and joysticks with more buttons are available but not as common. Which is part of the reason that alpha strikes and boating become popular. Quircking for an intended build has to take that into account.

That's a fair point. The BNC-3S is an extreme example, and most mechs don't have so many different weapons. Now, I don't know how other people deal with using complex weapon combinations, like different weapon types distributed between arms and torso. But if I have a mech like the Hellbringer, with 2xERPPC in the arms, SSRM6 in the torso, 3 lasers in the torso and 2 MGs in the torso, then I'll generally try to combine two weapon types in the torso in a single group. For example, I'll combine 3xCERSL with 2xMG, because I rarely want to fire one without the other. This gives me 3 weapon groups:
1] CERPPCs
2] SSRM6
3] CERSL+MG

Doesn't always work, of course. It's tricky for mechs like the Banshee, but if you could at least get most people to use 3 different weapon types, that's a lot better than the current standard of 1 or 2. I really wouldn't mind it too much if MWO gave an unfair advantage to players with a good 4-button mouse. A good mouse doesn't have to be that expensive, so it's not anything like giving an unfair advantage to Occulus Rift, which is really expensive.

Yosharian, on 03 May 2015 - 07:38 AM, said:

If what PGI will and won't do is irrelevant then there are a thousand different ways we could fix the game.

It doesn't seem useful to speculate what might happen in an imaginary world where PGI actually listens to us.

At the risk of sounding jaded... that's pretty much all that goes on around here.

One can always use Twitter though. I'm just not sure how I would communicate my idea in 140 characters.

[Quaamik]

Levi Porphyrogenitus, on 02 May 2015 - 09:00 PM, said:

Really, if there's anything I disagree with, it's more a matter of ommission. I'd like to see PGI add maneuverability and agility quirks, and ramp up the spread quirks and other things that buff some weapon types without directly impacting damage output.

Absolutely agreed.

Quirks I have not seen, but think should be included on the table (all on specific mechs, not across the board).
- minimum range reduction for LRMs and PPCs.
- maximum range increases for LRM.
- hill climb increases (like changing the movement arch type).
- heat / movement quirks for significantly oversized or undersized engines.
- maximum range increase for SRMs / Streaks (especially on single hard point variants)
- sensor range and lock speed quirks
- negative quirks for weapons well outside what it was intended to carry. Example, a large AC on a Raven.
- ECM quirks.
-- ECM reductions for mechs where ECM is more intended to cover itself only.
-- ECM disrupt range increases for mechs intended to detect enemy ECM
-- ECM range increases for mechs intended to shield groups, possibly tied to when they only had certain weapons making them less a threat offensively. Such as the Raven-3L, but only when it had no more than 2 lasers and 1 SRM / SSRM (not counting TAG and Narc) {stock is 2 ML, 1 SRM 6, 1 TAG, 1 Narc, 1 BAP and ECM}

[Yokaiko]

Alistair Winter, on 02 May 2015 - 07:49 PM, said:

Let me just start off by saying:

• I think the quirks in this game play a much larger role than they should. Quirks should be a minor factor, after all other variables have been adjusted to buff or nerf mechs as necessary. (Engine cap, torso twist, number of hardpoints, etc)
  
• The primary purpose of quirks, in my mind, is to promote variety, give a slight boost to underperformers and reward challenging builds. High risk, high reward.

In conclusion... I want quirks to promote variety, stop excessive boating and reward players who are able to make many different weapons work together, something which requires more skill.

The issue with that approach is that natural boats exist, and PGI has more than proven that they can't balance numbers well.

So, so for every ten mechs that have focused quirks on a off weapon groups (that single SRM launcher on Banshee for example) you have mechs like Jager (all ballistic) and Hunchback -4P) they either get quirked to god-mode or flat left behind.

Remember, this is PGI, Highlander, Victor, Cataphact and Shadow Hawk are STILL suffering from a meta that is a year gone.....and mechanically invalid.

....and FFS LEAVE OFF THE NERF CLAN CRAP, they aren't all that.