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But I struggle to love Mechwarrior: Online; and can see why the game frustrates so many long-time fans like myself as well as veteran players - and fails to attract and keep new players.
I've thought about many of the game's persistent problems over the last few years, and I feel I've come up with solutions to some that might make the community happy. In this topic, I will write about a few of those solutions in the hope to start a dialog or garner support over those changes.
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Problem: "Boating" as a constant feature of the Meta (spamming a single weapon type as the most viable method of play)
Why it's an issue: Stock mech builds show an amazing array of weapons and configurations, but are not optimized for real-time play against other players in the fashion of MWO. In an effort to maximize the effectiveness of a given chassis, player builds tend to fall into certain "metas" as determined by play testing - but more often strict examinations of the current balancing of the game. Metas are harmful to diversity and balance in any game.
Many gameplay factors have been introduced to encourage diversity and discourage meta builds, but do little more than to harm non-meta builds or merely shift to a new meta. One of the arguably worst and least-liked failings in MWO balance is the ghost heat and quirk systems, which in combination are extremely undesirable. The quirk system, while going to extremes to combat meta, is inherently sound in encouraging build diversity, but should not be used to encourage balance. Ghost heat, however, does not directly address the issue it's meant to fix, and creates other unnecessary headaches on its own.
Solution - Quirks: Introduce only positive quirks (less structural or armor quirks to overcome damage distribution issues). Limit quirks to those that highlight and encourage use of a chassis' particular strengths, as opposed to those intended to nerf an individual chassis for balance purposes. Balance the meta, not the mech.
Solution - Ghost Heat: Remove the Ghost Heat system outright. Replace with a system that is design to limit "spamming" of a given weapon type based on the needs of that weapon type:
Missiles: Move from a system based on the number of launchers fired (current system) to the number of missile tubes fired simultaneously. Determine a baseline of the number of acceptable tubes fired per weight class before penalties occur to set balance points. For instance, lights could be limited to 12 tubes fired (eg. 2x SRM-6 or 1x LRM-10, etc) before penalties occur. Mediums could be bumped to 20 (eg. 4x SRM-4 or 2x LRM-10), heavies to 30 (eg. or 5x SRM-6 or 2x LRM-15), and assaults would have no limit (assaults are limited relative to other weights by the number of slots available).
Introduce a penalty system that takes effect if more than the acceptable number of tubes is fired. Never use heat as a penalty. Instead, perhaps, use an increase in cooldown for all launchers fired, ensuring you can fire a lot of missiles at once, but you'll take longer to be able to fire again. This naturally limits the damage output over time on boated launchers without having to attempt to do so artificially by adding phantom heat.
This also fits in more realistically, as firing a large number of missiles at once should tax the mech's reloading systems for those tubes more than if only a few missiles were fired.
Alternative: Given all launchers fired in excess a percent chance to jam (like UACs) during cooldown.
Ballistics: I don't believe a penalty system is necessary for ballistic weapons. The weight-to-output ratios of ballistic weapons are already significantly prohibitive relative to other weapons types. Further penalizing a focus on ballistic weapons isn't necessary.
Alternative: If a penalty system is desired, give any ballistics fired in excess a percent chance to jam (like UACs) during cooldown.
Energy weapons: Move from a system based on the number of a specific type of weapon fired at once to the total damage output fired at one time.
Mechs are powered by a fusion engine that will have a specific output capacity at any given time. Much of this capacity is dedicated to moving the mech around, as well as control systems. A set amount is available to power weapons. A mech simply wouldn't have the available energy to fire too many energy weapons at once. Presumably the energy usage rating of a given weapon translates directly to its range and damage output. Thus we can correlate damage output to energy usage as a means of penalizing boating.
Determine the baseline for an acceptable amount of damage output that can occur simultaneously before penalties occur. This could be uniform across all weight classes, or may require individual output values for each weight class. The balance point might take some effort, as some lighter mechs become laser-focused and could be penalized excessively, or assault mechs not enough, if the value was the same. A good starting point would be to limit damage output to the equivelant of 2x Large Pulse lasers for both IS and clan mechs, and work from there to find the sweet spot.
Allow a mech to fire any combination of lasers with an output up to the specified damage limit - and exceeding that limit will cause penalties to occur. The penalty options for energy weapons can include any one or a combination of the following:
- Duration - require that all lasers fired excessively fire for longer to do the same amount of damage. Duration ratios will not be directly proportional to output (it will not take twice as long if firing lasers whose outputs are twice as high as the limit) but will be relatively proportional to the amount over the limit. Penalizes "deathstars" greatly while impacting lower-level infractions very little. Limits damage output by requiring more "face time" to do same amount of damage - thus how the lasers are used, not what they are. Somewhat less desirable universally because it does not apply to PPCs, but can be used to penalize ONLY lasers.
- Cooldown - require that all lasers fired excessively take longer to recharge. Limits damage output over time overall, but does not impact how they are used. This can also apply universally to PPCs.
- Range - reduce range output on all excessively-fired lasers. Range reductions will be proportional to amount over limit exceeded. This will have minor impact to small infractions, but could have the effect of limiting medium lasers to the range of small lasers if fired in groups of 8 (as example). Penalizes larger mechs boating larger weapons relative to smaller mechs/weapons. Limits damage potential by reducing the range advantage of larger lasers, forcing mechs to maintain closer ranges for optimal damage. Effects sniping more than brawling. This can also apply universally to PPCs.
- Damage rating - reduce the actual damage output of all lasers fired excessively. Damage reductions will occur relative to amount of output exceeded over limit, but will not be directly proportional. The more lasers you fire, the greater the proportional penalty. Limits damage output over time directly - no impact on use or tactics. Encourages volley fire, and greatly discourages spamming most directly. This can universally apply to PPCs.
- Movement - institute penalties to mech movement during the weapon cooldown period if excessive lasers are used. This represents a significant loss of energy to power the mech as the weapons recharge and can result in large penalties to movement speed, acceleration, turning speed, etc. This penalizes tactics more than damage output, as it would be more difficult to pop out of cover to spam lasers and return safely to cover before receiving return fire. Fire too many lasers at once and you might find yourself a sitting duck. Encourages straight-up fighting over hit-and-run tactics. Also, penalties effect lighter mechs more proportional to heavier mechs, making light mechs easier targets if they exceed damage output. This can universally apply to PPCs.
Alternative: Give all energy weapons fired in excess a percent chance to jam (like UACs) during cooldown. Display the failure as a charging system overload.
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Next, weapon specific changes...
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Problem: Build and tactics diversity is hampered when certain weapons and build types rise above the others and leads to a specific meta.
Why it's an issue: A lack of diversity reduces build and tactical creativity. It leads to specific ways of building trumping otherwise acceptable builds and personal preferences for builds and playstyle. That, in turn, causes matches to become uninteresting for all, and frustrating for those who do not build or play to the meta.
What causes it: There are common focuses in all metas that creep up in the game - among these being a desire to maximize damage output per ton, to decrease ratio of damage output to exposure time (reduce the potential for incoming damage relative to damage output), maximize profits (xp and c-bills) per match - and other such tactical and personal considerations. As such, the desire is always to hurt the enemy as much as possible without exposing yourself to enemy fire. This leads to the ubiquitous scenario of two teams hiding from each other behind cover for the bulk of a match, and individual team members refusing to risk damage to engage in an attack.
Metas encourage a specific style of build and play as being better than others, largely as a result of certain weapon types being statistically favorable to others, and builds using those weapon types favoring a certain style of play. The best possible way to break the endless meta cycle is to ensure all weapon types are sufficiently desirable as to encourage their use.
Currently, there are 3 weapon types that stand out as having significant deficiencies as to make them undesirable for use relative to other weapon types - PPCs, gauss rifles, and clan auto-cannons. I will not discuss clan auto-cannons, as the problem with those weapons is inherent to their poor gameplay design, which is something that will have to be addressed by the design team directly to change how they work, or institute a series of perks that provides significant increases to utility to combat their poor design. Gauss rifles are still used somewhat by clan builds - not because those weapons are favorable on their own merits, but merely because they don't suck AS MUCH as auto-cannons. This is not a ringing endorsement for the weapon type, and it must be addressed.
Solutions - PPCs: Though PPCs feature prominently as a primary weapon on many stock builds, they're used very little by comparison to lasers on player builds. The primary reason is heat build-up relative to damage output and overall weight in comparison to lasers. The advantages of slightly increased range and ballistic-like performance is not enough to overcome the heat and weight issues of the weapon type for most players.
Statistically speaking, PPCs are where they should be in accordance with table-top rules, but in MWO lack the bite they have in table top (where PPCs are very lethal) and lack situational versatility compared to other weapon types that survive the real-time conversion better (lasers). Given the nature of how weapon stats are created for MWO directly from the table top game, it would not be desirable to merely change the stats for the better. It would also serve to remove some of the uniqueness from the weapon. Instead, there is opportunity to add non-stat-driven perks to PPCs to add utility that offset the negatives of the weapon type. Some examples of those perks follow:
- Add visual impairment effects to PPC hits - Specifically add an effect where the HUD fizzles out and disappears briefly after being struck by a PPC bolt. This puts a PPC strike in line with the impairment effect of an auto-cannon strike. This should add some similar effectiveness of those weapons at brawling.
- Add heat to PPC hits - increase the heat level or reduce heat threshhold slightly for any mech hit by a PPC. This would be very minor and would require several PPC hits to have a significant impact.
- Add further electronic disruption to PPC hits - PPCs already counteract the effects of ECM. That effect should be expanded to all active electronics, to include active probes, targeting computers, and command modules. This merely expands existing functionality, and should have minimal effect on all mech builds.
- Have PPC hits reset target acquisition - When a PPC hits, in addition to temporarily fizzling out the HUD and jamming active electronics, it should also reset the hit mech's target lock. This will have minimal effect on most mechs in most scenarios, but can provide a unique ability to counteract scouting or LRM mechs out in the open, or provide an escape tool for scout mechs.
- Remove minimum range on standard IS PPC - exchange the hard minimum range for a scaled minimum (like LRMs), where damage drops off precipitously if fired at below minimum range, to a minimum of say... 3 damage. No direct-fire weapon should ever do NO damage within the effective maximum range of the weapon.
- Add increased functionality for ER-PPCs - in addition to the other perks mentioned, ER-PPCs should have additional functionality to offset the 50% increase in heat output. My suggestion would be to give the weapon further anti-electronics capability by allowing ER-PPCs a relatively high-percent chance to land a critical hit on any active electronic system (ecm, targeting computer, active probe, or command module) installed anywhere on the mech if the ER-PPC strikes any component with no armor. Also increase the duration of standard PPC disruption effects.
Solutions - Gauss Rifles: The problems with gauss rifles stem from efforts meant to "balance" them in MWO's gameplay systems conflicting greatly with the intent of these weapons and their balancing in the table-top rules. Gauss rifles have good range relative to damage output compared to other ballistic weapons, maintaining appropriate weight for output. This is offset by vulnerability - the weapon has significantly higher crit chance and will explode when hit.
However, in the table-top gauss rifles fired like any auto-cannon and were ready to fire as soon as the previous cooldown was up - no charging... or another way, the weapon was always charged, which is why it could explode. For MWO's systems, not only do players have an increased "cooldown" period due to the need to charge the weapon, but charging and firing the weapon require skill and timing on a level that no other weapon in the game requires. All of these factors make the weapon undesirable and dangerous to wield compared to auto-cannons. Their use on clan mechs only highlights how bad clan auto-cannons are.
The gauss rifle can be improved for gameplay without statistical inbalance by alterating how the weapon is used - creating a system that is a hybrid of table-top and current MWO gameplay.
- Keep the charging - maintain the process that requires players to charge the gauss rifle prior to firing.
- Keep the explosions - maintain the increased crit chance and explode if critted features of the gauss rifle.
- Add pre-charge/charge storage - change the charging and firing systems to keep the existing functionality of firing the weapon immediately once the weapon is charged by released in fire key ( as it is done now), but to then add a feature to store the charge if the key is held down after that, rather than releasing it. Press the fire key again to fire the gauss with the stored charge. There will need to be a visual representation on the HUD showing the player that he's walking around with a charged rifle.
- Change the way explosions work - modify the existing system so that only a charged gauss rifle will explode.
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Edited by ScarecrowES, 23 May 2015 - 11:59 AM.
