16 replies to this topic

[Christof Romulus]

Low mounted hardpoints (relative to cockpit) - Introduce the Torso Cockpit (3044) - Many mechs have proven that regardless of the actual height of the hardpoint, the largest factor of effectiveness is a hardpoint's location in relation to cockpit. For those of us willing to drop the weight and possibly swap some critical locations around, this could outright solve many issues with many mechs, such as the Black Knight. Heck, you could even have an awesome start-up animation of the pilot being lowered into the torso, and head damage could turn off his screens.

PPC Balance - Introduce the Blue shield (3051) - The game has already figured out MASC for activating and deactivating items for internal damage. With this as a mitigation in game PPCs could be changed to be intrinsically good weapons instead of a niche for only the mechs touched by the quirk gods.

TTK - Introduce Reinforced Structure (3055) and Hardened Armor (3045) - Yes, we already have doubled armor and doubled structure, but TTK is still "too low". Instead of an arbitrary quirk system, how about we just release the fix? This allows us to pay for what we want, instead of it being decided for us.

Laser Vomit, UAC Spam, Dual/Tripple Gauss, Lurmpocolypse - Introduce Laser Reflective Armor (3058), Reactive Armor (3063), and Ballistic-Reinforced Armor (3131) - Give people the ability to choose the meta, instead of being slaves to it. Though it would be quite a timeline stretch to get to Ballistic-Reinforced.

Almost every one of these fixes is within arms reach of the year that we are supposedly in. Every mechanic has already been coded in some way already (Reduced damage coming from hitting destroyed components, activating / deactivating items, increasing structure and armor values, and moving points of view). I, for one, find it silly that these choices are less appealing than quirks - which are arbitrary values of how bad we 'feel' a mech is.

[Victorion]

Mmm, I like the ideas, but unfortunately, this would be adding like 6 more cogs to a machine that already has a lot of spinning wheels, and some of those wheels are well lubricated and spinning well, and others and grinding and gumming up the works.

While these ideas do have the potential to fix the problems with the balance in the game, they also have the very real possibility of simply adding in even more broken/bad/good/meta/"useless" things for the developers to have to worry about.

I'd like to see where we stand after this huge balance initiative is actually finalized and complete before making any suggestions with what to add next.

[MechWarrior5152251]

Funny.... assuming he is being sarcastic...

[FupDup]

The timeline is one of the main rocks tied to our feet holding us back from having nice things.

Edited by FupDup, 28 September 2015 - 01:17 PM.

[Christof Romulus]

FupDup, on 28 September 2015 - 01:17 PM, said:

The timeline is one of the main rocks tied to our feet holding us back from having nice things.

Is it?

What year is it?

The game started at 3050, and we did have the first Battle of Tukayyid which was 3052. I assume we've been rewound back to 3050 again, but the Torso cockpit and Hardened armor should currently be in the game even in 3050. Before the Battle of Tukayyid Blue Shield should have also been available.

[FupDup]

Christof Romulus, on 28 September 2015 - 01:29 PM, said:

Is it?

What year is it?

The game started at 3050, and we did have the first Battle of Tukayyid which was 3052. I assume we've been rewound back to 3050 again, but the Torso cockpit and Hardened armor should currently be in the game even in 3050. Before the Battle of Tukayyid Blue Shield should have also been available.

The game is currently in 3052.

Torso cockpit is actually impossible with our current mechlab because cockpit tonnage is rolled into the engine instead of being an independent item...for anything else like Blazers and Hardened Armor it's "Because of Reasons."

[TLBFestus]

Kinda funny when you think about it.

PGI tries to rigidly stick to the timeline, while at various points in development they cast aside 3rd person view and a lot of other pillars that they started with.

As for myself, I don't give a darn about "timeline". I care about game play and enjoyment value far, far more so I say "Bring it on!".

[CDLord HHGD]

I really like your Lore solutions. We really should go back to the lore they already abandoned first. Many issues can be fixed if they went back to the lore they already left.

[Lyoto Machida]

I'd love more options like this but imagine the coding PGI would have to do (and do correctly).

[Karl Marlow]

FupDup, on 28 September 2015 - 01:17 PM, said:

The timeline is one of the main rocks tied to our feet holding us back from having nice things.

Mech customization is the other. No other MOBA lets you completely rebuild the characters and thus some semblance of balancing can be done to match characters against each other.,

[Xetelian]

While not everything you mention is what I agree with, I certainly would love to see different armor upgrades than ferofib.

[FupDup]

ThomasMarik, on 28 September 2015 - 02:04 PM, said:

Mech customization is the other. No other MOBA lets you completely rebuild the characters and thus some semblance of balancing can be done to match characters against each other.,

I don't think the MOBA comparison is accurate here because of the Battlemech Construction System (BCS).

Characters in a MOBA don't share "ingredients" amongst each other, they are each unique entities in and of themselves. Each one can have any stats and abilities that the developers desire, with only some basic similarities like having a certain number of abilities (e.g. Heroes of the Storm characters need a Q, W, E, R, and T ability).

Battlemechs in Battletech, however, are not unique entities. They all share the same parts. They might as well be built from Legos. One ton of armor on an Atlas is identical to one ton of armor on a Locust. A heatsink on an Awesome is identical to a heatsink on a Vindicator. All that changes between each stock mech is the specific combo of ingredients. An XL325 in a Cauldron Born is identical to an XL325 in a Hellbringer. Etc.

The outcome of this global construction system is that balancing on a per-character basis becomes pretty damn hard, because it ripples out to hit any other mech that uses that ingredient. Quirks are an external sort of a "solution" to this, but they don't fix it entirely and PGI is very gun-shy when it comes to giving mechs quirks that actually matter a damn (the forumbase also seems to hate quirks, or at least most of them).


Another issue is that MOBAs tend to be balanced such that each of your team's 5 characters have a similar level of contribution to the team's victory. Meanwhile, mechs and equipment in Battletech were designed such that some were inherently, 100% superior in a direct comparison at all times. For example, a stock Shadow Hawk 5M is always superior compared to a stock Shadow Hawk 2H, with no direct disadvantages whatsoever.

The attempt at counter-balancing that was through systems like BattleValue and non-fixed team sizes (e.g. more mechs on blue team than red team, but each individual mech is weaker on blue team), which is a concept that the MOBA/FPS design is incompatible with (such systems tend to work out better in RTS or turn-based strategy games).

Edited by FupDup, 28 September 2015 - 02:25 PM.

[bad arcade kitty]

Christof Romulus, on 28 September 2015 - 12:01 PM, said:

Low mounted hardpoints (relative to cockpit) - Introduce the Torso Cockpit (3044) - Many mechs have proven that regardless of the actual height of the hardpoint, the largest factor of effectiveness is a hardpoint's location in relation to cockpit.

yeah, it's true

crow proves it pretty well

thinking of it, it means that that low hardpoints problem is largely psychological, let's compare stormcrow and mad dog, they both have similarly slung arms, crow can shoot basically as soon as she sees you, mad dog cannot... but they both expose the same amount of their torso to be able to shoot, for crow it's her hump/hoody, for mad dog it's his chest. it's obviously much harder to realize for the dog when you have a clear shot and also it's psychologically harder to expose more of your chest when you spot the enemy, exposing your hump above the cockpit which you don't see at all is psychologically easy :3

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

Regarding hardpoint height, the issue isn't so much relation to the cockpit as it is relation to the hitboxes. Take the Black Knight or Grasshopper, for instance. Both have most of their hardpoints significantly lower than their rather prominant upper parts, shoulders, heads, and such. Compare that to a Vulture, where the thing barely exposes anything to fire its missiles, and hardly more than that to bring its lasers into play. In the case of the two IS examples, the griping is justified. In the case of the Clan example, it's pretty much psychological.

Regarding the Torso Cockpit, PGI needs to have it in before we get the Cyclops, but that said, I can see them restricting it due to modeling and skin issues.

Regarding Blue Shield, it's sort of dumb and and adding it would be more about treating a symptom than about curing a disease. I say, skip it and work on actual weapon balance.

All the structure and armor options are fine and would add a good bit to the gameplay. However, they're not a TtK panacea. There are several other things that should be done to fix the persistent TtK issue, and these bits of kit are not it. Some kind of precision reduction mechanic would go a long way (heat- or movement-based make the most sense, either adding randomized cone of fire or predictable, fixed precision drift based on hardpoint locations). Also, increasing cooldowns for the harder hitting and longer ranged weapon options, especially the ones most abused currently (like cERPPCs, all Gauss options, and cLPLs/cERLLs/cERMLs/cMPLs and such), would make shorter-range builds much more competitive inside their preferred range brackets, while making the longer ranged maneuver game much less decisive (while still leaving those weapons dangerous, especially to skilled pilots who can control the engagement range).

Given the timeline, it'd be great to see IS post-Invasion weapons start arriving (other UAC and LB-AC lines, as well as the rest of the ER weapons), plus all the special ammo for standard ACs. Put special ammo in and PGI can make LB-ACs actually good without making standard ACs redundant, while also making it possible to put the full UAC line in-game for the IS. Plus, it'd give the IS some toys that the Clans wouldn't have, which would be a nice twist on the tech meta.

[Smith Gibson]

FupDup, on 28 September 2015 - 01:17 PM, said:

The timeline is one of the main rocks tied to our feet holding us back from having nice things.

That's exactly the opinion I had about smartphones and tablets when I was a kid in the '70's... If only we could have the cool stuff without having to wait for time to pass.

[Vellron2005]

I LOVE the idea of choosing the meta, instead of it beeing decided for me with quirks.. LORE is a good solution..

Also, some of these issues could still be solved with quirks, but I would prefer it if we had to EARN the quirks through the skill tree..

That way, one would get a whole new level of customisation... and not every mech would be the same-quirked.. you would specialise your mech for what YOU want it to do..

[Christof Romulus]

bad arcade kitty, on 28 September 2015 - 03:25 PM, said:

yeah, it's true

crow proves it pretty well

thinking of it, it means that that low hardpoints problem is largely psychological, let's compare stormcrow and mad dog, they both have similarly slung arms, crow can shoot basically as soon as she sees you, mad dog cannot... but they both expose the same amount of their torso to be able to shoot, for crow it's her hump/hoody, for mad dog it's his chest. it's obviously much harder to realize for the dog when you have a clear shot and also it's psychologically harder to expose more of your chest when you spot the enemy, exposing your hump above the cockpit which you don't see at all is psychologically easy :3

Levi Porphyrogenitus, on 28 September 2015 - 04:34 PM, said:

Regarding hardpoint height, the issue isn't so much relation to the cockpit as it is relation to the hitboxes. Take the Black Knight or Grasshopper, for instance. Both have most of their hardpoints significantly lower than their rather prominant upper parts, shoulders, heads, and such. Compare that to a Vulture, where the thing barely exposes anything to fire its missiles, and hardly more than that to bring its lasers into play. In the case of the two IS examples, the griping is justified. In the case of the Clan example, it's pretty much psychological.

Regarding the Torso Cockpit, PGI needs to have it in before we get the Cyclops, but that said, I can see them restricting it due to modeling and skin issues.

Regarding Blue Shield, it's sort of dumb and and adding it would be more about treating a symptom than about curing a disease. I say, skip it and work on actual weapon balance.

All the structure and armor options are fine and would add a good bit to the gameplay. However, they're not a TtK panacea. There are several other things that should be done to fix the persistent TtK issue, and these bits of kit are not it. Some kind of precision reduction mechanic would go a long way (heat- or movement-based make the most sense, either adding randomized cone of fire or predictable, fixed precision drift based on hardpoint locations). Also, increasing cooldowns for the harder hitting and longer ranged weapon options, especially the ones most abused currently (like cERPPCs, all Gauss options, and cLPLs/cERLLs/cERMLs/cMPLs and such), would make shorter-range builds much more competitive inside their preferred range brackets, while making the longer ranged maneuver game much less decisive (while still leaving those weapons dangerous, especially to skilled pilots who can control the engagement range).

Given the timeline, it'd be great to see IS post-Invasion weapons start arriving (other UAC and LB-AC lines, as well as the rest of the ER weapons), plus all the special ammo for standard ACs. Put special ammo in and PGI can make LB-ACs actually good without making standard ACs redundant, while also making it possible to put the full UAC line in-game for the IS. Plus, it'd give the IS some toys that the Clans wouldn't have, which would be a nice twist on the tech meta.

It isn't merely psychological.

The long and short of it is, in a video game, if you can see it, you want to be able to shoot it. Mechs whose cockpits are higher than their weapon mounts are able to visually see a target, and thus have a clear line of sight to it, but their weapons are completely obstructed - and there is no way for them to know.

The King Crab works surprisingly well because even though it has broad hardpoints, they are nearly at cockpit height. The same goes for the Dire Wolf. If you can see it, you can shoot it (unless an ally is standing to your side...)

Weapons converge on what you can see from your cockpit - regardless of intervening terrain. The Black Knight (and other mechs with low hardpoints) using a torso cockpit would immediately be playable, as well as slightly more survivable.

Vellron2005, on 29 September 2015 - 01:50 AM, said:

I LOVE the idea of choosing the meta, instead of it beeing decided for me with quirks.. LORE is a good solution..

Also, some of these issues could still be solved with quirks, but I would prefer it if we had to EARN the quirks through the skill tree..

That way, one would get a whole new level of customisation... and not every mech would be the same-quirked.. you would specialise your mech for what YOU want it to do..

I know, right?! And the best part is, it would create an evolving meta that is constantly changing. When everyone picks up energy resistance armor people will develop ballistic builds. When people move to ballistic armor they will go back to energy. Eventually a missile build will surface, and possibly mechs with multiple different kinds of hardpoints will have an increased value - able to bring weapons that get past the armor type of their enemies.

So much potential...