122 replies to this topic

[Last Of The Brunnen-G]

Engine size should only matter for the energy capacity and regeneration. Legs and Leg upgrades should matter for the Speed, Acceleration and turn speed. The rest (twist speeds and arm movements) should be fixed for every single mech.

The bigger the engine the more energy you have to use. Moveing consumes energy, shooting consumes energy and cooling consumes energy. So the faster you move, the less weapons you can fire. The hotter you are, the less energy you have for everything else...

You can remove ghostheat because, every energyweapon drains your energy. The less energy for the weapons, the less power they have. "This also stops the laser vomit a bit."


Just a few thoughts...

[1453 R]

Mcgral18, on 31 July 2015 - 04:55 PM, said:

EXACTLY, a chassis to chassis basis, not weight class.



YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE saying ALL 50 tonners have the same agility. While the Blitzkrieg could have better agility, the Cent would have better armour quirks.

A'ight then.

The CN9-D can take a 350-rated engine - the exact same engine, in MWO terms, as would occupy the belly of the Blitzkrieg, a 'Mech you have agreed would warrant considerably greater agility than the Centurion. Why, then, does the CN9-D w/350XL - a 50-ton 'Mech which pays the exact same exorbitant proportional cost for that engine as the Blitzkrieg does - not derive any benefit from that engine?

If a 50-ton Inner Sphere 'Mech with a 350-rated engine is expected to be significantly more agile than a 50-ton Inner Sphere 'Mech with a 200-rated engine, why does it freaking matter which exact fifty-ton 'Mech the 350-rated engine is shoehorned into?

This system of automatically locking all 'Mechs at some arbitrarily low mobility point and eliminating any ability to improve it means we go straight back to the days when sixty klicks was considered as fast as any 'Mech, of any weight class, needed to go. Why do we want those days back? They were awful. Did anyone whatsoever enjoy piloting 250STD Shadow Hawks?

[El Bandito]

1453 R, on 31 July 2015 - 03:51 PM, said:

I'm honestly a little curious how many people are really prepared for that sort of change.

Remove the engine's ability to affect the performance of the 'Mech and you lose much of the purpose anyone has to run anything bigger than a 250 in their whatever-they-drive. I get that TT engines didn't affect anything except footspeed, but then again footspeed actually mattered in TT. I remember a time when 65 klicks was considered perfectly acceptable for anything in the game to hit, and assaults were excused for going sub-fifty. Every single possible spare ounce was devoted to bringing as absolutely stupidiculously large an arsenal as one could fit on a 'Mech - and also one jump jet.

It sucked. It sucked tremendously hard, and whatever else people say about the current energy-centric meta, at least it moves around the battlefield.

But if you take away an engine's ability to allow a 'Mech to maneuver better, are we going to end up falling back to putting 250s in everything and just flat-out ignoring mobility as an advantage? I can see pros and cons to the situation, but certain 'Mechs in this game were built, even in TT, as high-mobility platforms designed for raiding or skirmishing. Telling a Summoner it now gets to have the same torso agility as a Dire Whale seems...harsh. I mean, people have a hard enough time justifying Summoners in their drops as it is before we tell everyone we're going to the TT system of a universal 45-degree twist and identical twist speeds across all weight classes.

I'unno...maybe it's just me, but I'd be pretty bothered by that notion.

EDIT:: Also! You think Whales are bad now, when everything else in the game can outmaneuver them with ludicrous ease? How horrific do you think they're going to be when every other 'Mech in the game is restricted to the same torso twist arcs/speed as the Whale itself, and nobody can turn faster than it can, either?

1. Relax. It will only affect twist speed, not turn speed. Whale can still be out maneuvered.

2. Movespeed is still important to many Lights and Mediums. This change will allow them to finally perform better since Heavies and Assaults will not be able to twist after them as well as before.

3. This change will also allow Std engine to become more useful, since some people will dial back their engine size. Currently, even with the threat of instant death, larger IS XL engine is preferred precisely because of the twist speed.

Edited by El Bandito, 31 July 2015 - 05:06 PM.

[Mcgral18]

1453 R, on 31 July 2015 - 05:01 PM, said:

A'ight then.

The CN9-D can take a 350-rated engine - the exact same engine, in MWO terms, as would occupy the belly of the Blitzkrieg, a 'Mech you have agreed would warrant considerably greater agility than the Centurion. Why, then, does the CN9-D w/350XL - a 50-ton 'Mech which pays the exact same exorbitant proportional cost for that engine as the Blitzkrieg does - not derive any benefit from that engine?

If a 50-ton Inner Sphere 'Mech with a 350-rated engine is expected to be significantly more agile than a 50-ton Inner Sphere 'Mech with a 200-rated engine, why does it freaking matter which exact fifty-ton 'Mech the 350-rated engine is shoehorned into?

This system of automatically locking all 'Mechs at some arbitrarily low mobility point and eliminating any ability to improve it means we go straight back to the days when sixty klicks was considered as fast as any 'Mech, of any weight class, needed to go. Why do we want those days back? They were awful. Did anyone whatsoever enjoy piloting 250STD Shadow Hawks?

Who says they start sluggish?


You. You again, only you.



Keep them near whichever baseline a Medium mech should be at. Keep the "Slow" (200) ones around that. Make that faster than most Heavies.


The slow ones aren't designed to go that fast, thus don't get as many benefits. Same land speed, but cannot change out all the myomers and actuators to make use of the higher capacity, thus lower agility than the mech that comes fast.

Edited by Mcgral18, 31 July 2015 - 05:08 PM.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

I'd love to have the HBK-4G rock a 200 engine with a Twist Speed of 60°/s (like having a 265 in there).

Currently it would sit at 45°/s since that is locked to the 200 rated engine.

[1453 R]

Mcgral18, on 31 July 2015 - 05:06 PM, said:

Who says they start sluggish?


You. You again, only you.



Keep them near whichever baseline a Medium mech should be at. Keep the "Slow" (200) ones around that. Make that faster than most Heavies.


The slow ones aren't designed to go that fast, thus don't get as many benefits. Same land speed, but cannot change out all the myomers and actuators to make use of the higher capacity.

Put that last bit another way: "all 'Mechs designed by intelligent pilots are restricted to their stock engine, a'la OmniMechs, or lower, as increasing engine rating provides no appreciable benefit despite steep cost."

After all, if you could spend eighteen tons to stuff a 400XL in a Dire Whale, thereby increasing its footspeed to 71.3kph w/Tweak, but offering it zero benefit whatsoever to its ponderous agility...would anyone do that? Legitimate question - if the Whale could reduce its payload from "Terrifying All-Devouring Murder Monster" to "XL Victor", in exchange for twenty klicks of groundspeed and the exact same lack-of torso twist or turnspeed as a stock Whale, would anyone in the game take that deal?

I'm betting that a majority of Whale pilots would not take that deal. That's a Gauss Rifle and a half they're no longer able to bring to the fight, and they are no more maneuverable than they are with the 300cXL. Realistically now, McGral - would you pay eighteen tons for a second Speed Tweak?

On anything?

Praetor Knight, on 31 July 2015 - 05:08 PM, said:

I'd love to have the HBK-4G rock a 200 engine with a Twist Speed of 60°/s (like having a 265 in there).

Currently it would sit at 45°/s since that is locked to the 200 rated engine.

What makes the HBK special, then? Why does this particular 200-rated 50-ton medium get extra agility quirks, and not the Centurion? or the Blitzkrieg? Or the Legionnaire? Or the Trebuchet? or any of the other 50-ton 'Mechs in the game that carry a bigger engine and are specifically designed to be more mobile and agile than a 'Mech which is intended as a sturdy city fighter which does not need any extra agility to do its job?

Edited by 1453 R, 31 July 2015 - 05:17 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Alright, time to fully explain why this is a bad thing to some that aren't completely getting it.

The problem is because currently, the dominating chassis have a serious advantage of having more armor/firepower while maintaining the speed of lighter/lesser mechs.

Example: Ebon Jaguar and Timber Wolf both have the exact same turn/twist speed. Now of course you may be thinking that these are balanced by other factors but when you take into account that typically this hinders any smaller chassis from being to compete with something like a Stormcrow which is optimized almost perfectly because it has equivalent firepower.

Basically quirks act as bandaids for mechs like the Adder and Kit Fox which DONT have optimized engines and suffer greatly in the agility department due to agility relying on the engine rating and weight (ergo, speed). If agility was strictly tied to weight and adjusted on a chassis or variant basis through quirks then things wouldn't require as many bandaids for being restricted to slow speed on top of poor dubs (for lighter end mechs).

A more hypothetical example, if the Warhawk could be the same tonnage as the Executioner, it would actually gain a half ton, plus more armor/internals/crits and all at no expense to agility or speed. That is a flawed system, there is no trade-off. Sure there are more factors than that in mech balance, but why would you create more work for yourself by continuing a flawed system that requires quirks in some cases to help cover up.

Edited by WM Quicksilver, 31 July 2015 - 05:23 PM.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

1453 R, on 31 July 2015 - 05:15 PM, said:

What makes the HBK special, then? Why does this particular 200-rated 50-ton medium get extra agility quirks, and not the Centurion? or the Blitzkrieg? Or the Legionnaire? Or the Trebuchet? or any of the other 50-ton 'Mechs in the game that carry a bigger engine and are specifically designed to be more mobile and agile than a 'Mech which is intended as a sturdy city fighter which does not need any extra agility to do its job?

Only because I didn't feel like looking up other mechs and doing a full write up!

---

Seriously though, disconnecting Twist Speed from Engine Rating would require setting a fixed Twist Speed for all mechs, and I only gave one example.

Edited by Praetor Knight, 31 July 2015 - 05:26 PM.

[1453 R]

WM Quicksilver, on 31 July 2015 - 05:18 PM, said:

Alright, time to fully explain why this is a bad thing to some that aren't completely getting it.

The problem is because currently, the dominating chassis have a serious advantage of having more armor/firepower while maintaining the speed of lighter/lesser mechs.

Example: Ebon Jaguar and Timber Wolf both have the exact same turn/twist speed. Now of course you may be thinking that these are balanced by other factors but when you take into account that typically this hinders any smaller chassis from being to compete with something like a Stormcrow which is optimized almost perfectly because it has equivalent firepower.

Basically quirks act as bandaids for mechs like the Adder and Kit Fox which DONT have optimized engines and suffer greatly in the agility department due to agility relying on the engine rating and weight. If agility was strictly tied to weight and adjusted on a chassis or variant basis through quirks then things wouldn't require as many bandaids for being restricted to slow speed on top of poor dubs (for lighter end mechs).

A more hypothetical example, if the Warhawk could be the same tonnage as the Executioner, it would actually gain a half ton, plus more armor/internals/crits and all at no expense to agility or speed. That is a flawed system.

And a system in which the Centurion - or the Hunchback - is every last single bit as agile as the Blitzkrieg is equally flawed. What possible earthly reason would anyone have to choose a Blitz over a Cent or Hunchcrack if the Blitz is not a single drop more maneuverable than either of those 'Mechs, while still losing out enormously on firepower and durability due to the extravagant weight of its engine?

What the hell does a 350 buy a 50-ton 'Mech, if not the ability to outmaneuver 50-ton 'Mechs with 200s?

Why does the Timber Wolf spend a massive chunk of tonnage on a 375, if it's going to be just as uselessly ponderous as an Orion - or a theoretical 75-tonner with a 225? Or a 75-tonner with a 150 Why bother putting all that massive weight of engine in the TImber Wolf if the Timber Wolf gains nothing from said engine except a convenient shelf for some dubs and a significant weight debt it has to make up for in reduced gear?

Who, in this game, would not outfit every 'Mech they owned with a 250 the instant this change went live? Even the 250 is only to conserve critical space and ensure a proper set of ten TruDubs. Pilots like me who greatly enjoy mobility, agile 'Mechs, and running battles get to not have any of those things anymore because everything in the game now moves like someone smeared three tons of peanut butter throughout every joint. Larger engines are strictly and solely a drawback, and a harsh one, something you do only because you have no other option for using the weight.

Or because you're too damn stubborn to Go Meta and drop down to 250s in everything and continue to pine for the days when strike 'Mechs moved like strike 'Mechs and not Succession Wars-era broken-legged troopers, I suppose. Blagh.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

1453 R, on 31 July 2015 - 05:29 PM, said:

And a system in which the Centurion - or the Hunchback - is every last single bit as agile as the Blitzkrieg is equally flawed.

Why? Speed is still an advantage, especially for a brawler, and especially if they hadn't boosted the engine cap of the Cent and Hunchback because of how important larger engines have been in this game. There is a reason BESM has been the dominant meta pretty much throughout MWO, and it is something that needs to change.

Not to mention, that was the original point of quirks, to add flavor to mechs like the Blitzkrieg to make it more agile in a trade-off for making the Cent or Hunch be forced into slower speeds (like returning them to the 260 cap) but with the benefit of being sturdier.

Btw, I'm not suggesting agility would change on mechs that are the smallest of their class, like Dragons, Quickdraws, Cicadas, Victors, or Locusts; just that mechs on the upper end of the weight class be dropped down when running equivalent speed so that an Awesome with a 240 engine is as sluggish as a Whale (which in that case, the Whale would be left untouched and the Awesome's agility be brought up).

Edited by WM Quicksilver, 31 July 2015 - 05:43 PM.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

Engines currently influence:
Speed
Turn Speed
Twist Speed
Arm Yaw Speed
Arm Pitch Speed
Torso Yaw Speed
Torso Pitch Speed

What features that are unaffected are:
Torso Yaw (also changed by Twist X)
Torso Pitch
Arm Yaw
Arm Pitch (Hopefully, I'm not overlooking something, and I know that I'm not factoring in the various quirks all over the place).

So having Engines modify fewer variables can also allow for those fixed values to be areas that can be used for balancing against different variants and so on.

---

Currently the Timberwolf benefits from its 375 engine with these values:
81.0 kph (89.1 kph) Speed
57.32 °/s 6.28 s Turn Speed
57°/s Twist Speed
225°/s Arm Yaw Speed
225°/s Arm Pitch Speed
100°/s Torso Yaw Speed
56°/s Torso Pitch Speed

And Orion with a 300 rating has (it also currently cannot mount beyond 360 and is not really XL friendly anyway):
64.8 kph (71.3 kph) Speed
45.86 °/s 7.85 s Turn Speed
45°/s Twist Speed
180°/s Arm Yaw Speed
180°/s Arm Pitch Speed
80°/s Torso Yaw Speed
45°/s Torso Pitch Speed

What if some of these values were disconnected from the Engine rating so that maybe the Timberwolf might see a reduction in Arm Speeds or the Orion gets some boosts to its base stats instead of slapping on a bunch of agility quirks?



And so if only Twist Speed is changed, I don't see how it would be that big of a problem.

[1453 R]

WM Quicksilver, on 31 July 2015 - 05:38 PM, said:

Why? Speed is still an advantage, especially for a brawler, and especially if they hadn't boosted the engine cap of the Cent and Hunchback because of how important larger engines have been in this game. There is a reason BESM has been the dominant meta pretty much throughout MWO, and it is something that needs to change.

Not to mention, that was the original point of quirks, to add flavor to mechs like the Blitzkrieg to make it more agile in a trade-off for making the Cent or Hunch be forced into slower speeds (like returning them to the 260 cap) but with the benefit of being sturdier.

You can't rely on quirks. Disregarding them in a discussion of which of two or more 'Mechs can do a job at any given point in time is folly, of course, but quirks change weekly. They're far too unstable and unpredictable to be taken into consideration in a Future Stuff Discussion like this, especially given that Piranha is flushing every single one of them down the toilet and starting over from scratch any ol' time now.

Telling Blitzkrieg pilots - assuming, for the moment, that Blitzkrieg pilots were actually a thing - that their Blitzkriegs are as ponderous and clumsy as a stock Centurion would make Blitzkrieg pilots sad pilots. Telling an Ice Ferret pilot that his Ice Ferret, which sacrifices literally everything for a monumental-for-its-weight 360 engine, is now as mobile and striker-y as a stock Blackjack will...well, the seven Ferret pilots left in MWO will pretty much outright revolt.

And how the bloody hell do you expect people to deal with the fact that Cheetahs, Spiders, and Kit Foxes are all bound by the freaking URBANMECH'S movement profile? Are we just going to give the UrbanMech across-the-board 80% reductions? How do you even deal with that?

It's ludicrous idea piled on top off ludicrous idea. The system removes fast 'Mechs from contention because for all their footspeed, they still can't actually outmaneuver slow 'Mechs which carry drastically more armor/weaponry than fast 'Mechs. Raw straightline footspeed has never been as important as agility and everyone knows it - so why destroy agility as a thing that can be selected for?

If 'Mech A gets 10 tons of armor, 20 tons of weapons, and Accel/decel/twist/turn (Hereby A/D/T/T/) profile A, while 'Mech B gets 10 tons of armor, 8 tons of weapons, and XL vulnerability, and also gets A/D/T/T/ profile A, but gains the 'benefit' of an extra Speed Tweak...

Well. I know which of those two 'Mechs is going to win a fight between them.

[Koujo]

Been away awhile. Where can I read more on this "rebalancing"? Quit playing because mediums are so useless. Maybe this changes that?

[Quicksilver Aberration]

1453 R, on 31 July 2015 - 05:51 PM, said:

that their Blitzkriegs are as ponderous and clumsy as a stock Centurion would make Blitzkrieg pilots sad pilots.

Here is your problem, right here.

You are assuming we are talking like the Centurion/Hunchback would be ponderous and clumsy.
What if both had the agility of a stock CN9-D? Your assumption is solely based on the lowest common denominator of each weight, which is not how it would/should work.

Not to mention you are assuming the Ice Ferret wouldn't suffer miserably when it is only 5 tons above a Cicada, meaning it wouldn't be hurt that bad with this sort of change and would probably even the odds between it and the Shadow Cat.

Edited by WM Quicksilver, 31 July 2015 - 06:01 PM.

[Deathlike]

The best example AFAIK is MW4, that did this correctly... in a sense.

There's nothing actually tied to the engine. You can increase top speed through more committed tonnage, but the actual accel/decel/torso twist speeds were COMPLETELY independent on the chassis/weight class. It allowed for each mech to be unique in the control/movement... so something like the Summoner (70 ton Clan) wasn't "the same" as the Thanatos (75 ton IS) despite them having epic awesome 360 degree torso twist. I mean, the hardpoints were different and all, and obviously the tonnage was different.. but they play differently (just like the Timberwolf/Madcat in that game).

It made sense then, and it makes a lot of sense to apply that in this game just as well. Having the Centurion, Hunchback, and Trebuchet have the same effective stats, assuming all quirks are removed while running the same engine is not exactly what anyone would call "distinct" outside of their hardpoints. That's kinda what is referenced in terms of a "different gunbag" in more blunt terms and doesn't really help out bad some of the mechs are due to that distinction (it's all about finding the optimal mech that does everything and then some in MWO).

If the Timberwolf were independently slower than the already-struggling Orion (because, the Orion would never be as agile as the Timberwolf in the current system w/o overnerfing the Timberwolf and/or overbuffing the Orion), then not as many people would complain.

Noone likes their mechs with "the red quirks" after all.

Edited by Deathlike, 31 July 2015 - 06:11 PM.

[Poisoner]

1453 R, on 31 July 2015 - 05:51 PM, said:

You can't rely on quirks. Disregarding them in a discussion of which of two or more 'Mechs can do a job at any given point in time is folly, of course, but quirks change weekly. They're far too unstable and unpredictable to be taken into consideration in a Future Stuff Discussion like this, especially given that Piranha is flushing every single one of them down the toilet and starting over from scratch any ol' time now.

Telling Blitzkrieg pilots - assuming, for the moment, that Blitzkrieg pilots were actually a thing - that their Blitzkriegs are as ponderous and clumsy as a stock Centurion would make Blitzkrieg pilots sad pilots. Telling an Ice Ferret pilot that his Ice Ferret, which sacrifices literally everything for a monumental-for-its-weight 360 engine, is now as mobile and striker-y as a stock Blackjack will...well, the seven Ferret pilots left in MWO will pretty much outright revolt.

And how the bloody hell do you expect people to deal with the fact that Cheetahs, Spiders, and Kit Foxes are all bound by the freaking URBANMECH'S movement profile? Are we just going to give the UrbanMech across-the-board 80% reductions? How do you even deal with that?

It's ludicrous idea piled on top off ludicrous idea. The system removes fast 'Mechs from contention because for all their footspeed, they still can't actually outmaneuver slow 'Mechs which carry drastically more armor/weaponry than fast 'Mechs. Raw straightline footspeed has never been as important as agility and everyone knows it - so why destroy agility as a thing that can be selected for?

If 'Mech A gets 10 tons of armor, 20 tons of weapons, and Accel/decel/twist/turn (Hereby A/D/T/T/) profile A, while 'Mech B gets 10 tons of armor, 8 tons of weapons, and XL vulnerability, and also gets A/D/T/T/ profile A, but gains the 'benefit' of an extra Speed Tweak...

Well. I know which of those two 'Mechs is going to win a fight between them.

You just don't get it.

each chassis would have different turn rate, etc. so your blitzkrieg and centurion would more maneuverable than a direwolf.

im not sure what you did or did not take, but you are going flipping mad over this.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

Koujo, on 31 July 2015 - 05:58 PM, said:

Been away awhile. Where can I read more on this "rebalancing"? Quit playing because mediums are so useless. Maybe this changes that?

The last Town Hall has a mention. We'll be getting more details in the future.

[Slow and Decrepit]

Dam people! Can't remember what happened to the Victor? Am I right that they want to do this **** again (Sort of speak)? This is the most stupid idea in the universe! Just ask the remaining few Victor pilots that Russ and Paul haven't run off yet, and they will tell you what it feels like to have your twist speed turned into a big pile of horse dung! Who came up with this pea brained idea?

[Deathlike]

beleneagle, on 31 July 2015 - 06:24 PM, said:

Dam people! Can't remember what happened to the Victor? Am I right that they want to do this **** again (Sort of speak)? This is the most stupid idea in the universe! Just ask the remaining few Victor pilots that Russ and Paul haven't run off yet, and they will tell you what it feels like to have your twist speed turned into a big pile of horse dung! Who came up with this pea brained idea?

I don't think you remember what exactly happened to the Victor.

Due to a certain Paulconomist, they got overnerfed... they had the "effectiveness" of an Atlas.

The thing was that they were considered "too effective" (this was more relative to the meta @ the time, not so much the mech itself).

Most builds used a large XL engine... when you considered how the engine system works in MWO, it translated into significant agility gains.

In the request to "decouple" the engine from all the relevant stats... they would have the same capability REGARDLESS of the engine.. thus reducing the need to keep upping the engine (although, I'm sure the tonnage would be used for something else instead).

Besides, anyone with a brain knows that making Victors as "mobile" as an Atlas is a terrible idea, and the person most responsible should feel terrible.

[Andi Nagasia]

Deathlike, on 31 July 2015 - 06:35 PM, said:

I don't think you remember what exactly happened to the Victor.

Due to a certain Paulconomist, they got overnerfed... they had the "effectiveness" of an Atlas.

The thing was that they were considered "too effective" (this was more relative to the meta @ the time, not so much the mech itself).

Most builds used a large XL engine... when you considered how the engine system works in MWO, it translated into significant agility gains.

In the request to "decouple" the engine from all the relevant stats... they would have the same capability REGARDLESS of the engine.. thus reducing the need to keep upping the engine (although, I'm sure the tonnage would be used for something else instead).

Besides, anyone with a brain knows that making Victors as "mobile" as an Atlas is a terrible idea, and the person most responsible should feel terrible.

this also if decoupled from the Engine an under-preforming Mech could get better Turning/Ect,
to make it more desirable or balanced to other Mechs, i think it would help alot,
Edit-

Edited by Andi Nagasia, 31 July 2015 - 06:42 PM.