IraqiWalker, on 26 May 2015 - 12:03 PM, said:
Mercules, while I love your posts in general. On this one, I am of the opinion that TT should be no more than a guide line. A real time game does not work the same way as a turn based one. It just can't. So we need to stray from TT on a lot of things. Mostly because the format isn't the same.
True, and I agree to a point. The issue is that PGI has thrown out the tried and true TT things that actually balance things out, like a working heat scale. They also kept the numerical value of all the weapons... but then didn't stop and consider that is the weapon firing over a ten second turn and then adjust for whatever rate of fire they gave them and so increased damage and heat production by over double. Then they had to go back and break another TT system and double armor. Since they don't use the normal heat scale they have had to invent incentives to not alpha strike(which normally would mean bad things happening on the heat scale) like stupid Ghost Heat. If JJs blasted the person the distance they are supposed to in TT and made aiming actually difficult then they wouldn't have had to reduce them to hover jets for most mechs.
There is just example after example of where PGI stepped away from the TT interpretation of mech combat and had to reinvent systems that are even worse. ECM???? Shall we talk about ECM and the slew of things it cancels that instead cancel it?
Darwins Dog, on 27 May 2015 - 03:54 AM, said:
Some of the best parts of MWO also come from moving away from TT rules such as Not having to wait your turn to move, not being bound to hexes, using skill to hit a specific location instead of relying on luck, and not having to roll on table after table to resolve a single shot. This is a different game than battletech, and rules for a boardgame do not translate. When you move away from one (like turns) then you have to compensate with things like rate of fire. 10 seconds (again, an arbitrary number) is a long time in a shooter/simulator. Do you really want to have to hold an AC/5 on target for 10 seconds to deliver 5 damage?
I do something very similar when I play Clan mechs with ACs.
I'll point at what I wrote above. PGI KEPT part of the values and ignored that this was over a ten second stretch. They could have adjusted by cooldown+rate of fire and spread the damage out. Results would have been less up front pinpoint damage, no need to double armor, and aiming would matter more and snapshotting less. The pinpoint convergence would have been less of a problem.
See, the armor system is NOT designed for you being to able to easily apply 30-40 points of damage to one specific section in a very short time. Yet they retained the armor system mostly intact but not the DPS or the more or less "Not hit exact section over and over" mechanics.
It's great that our aim is a skill we can bring. It sucks that it is nearly the only skill you need to do okay in this game.
Darwins Dog, on 27 May 2015 - 03:54 AM, said:
You are also confusing the fluff description of ACs with the way they actually worked in TT. They were described as burst fire like giant machine guns, but they all rolled once to hit and did all of their damage to one location. So which is it? Do we stick to fluff descriptions, or TT rules for balancing this game? I'd vote for option C, that we do what's best for this game, even if it doesn't conform to 30 year old books about a boardgame.
The rules and fluff are not mutually exclusive. As stated in the fluff they rapidly fire a series of shells that go more or less to the same section of the mech. In the abstract that is TT combat that means it does it's damage to one section. Current Clan implementation is close to how ACs should work according to rules and fluff they just need a bit less gap between each shell.
Instead of "Boom! Whir... Clink!" it should be "Thud! Thud! Thud! Whir... Clink."
See, all you need to do is remember the TT rules are an abstraction already of the combat, not an exacting AC5 fires one single round of ammo. The ammo counter is how many "bursts" of fire you have. You will notice that mechs that lose a weapon earlier in the turn still get to fire said weapon that turn... why? because it isn't fully a "My side goes, your side goes" and we only do that so that we can track things easier. Over those 10 seconds they had time to fire that weapon before it was destroyed...
This game could benefit from a working Heat Scale(and elimination of Ghost Heat), lower weapon damage across the board(and maybe removal of the doubled armor), better JJs, and more. We will still need quirks for certain mechs who's geometry makes them more vulnerable, but maybe not to the extremes we are currently going.
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