124 replies to this topic

[Alek Ituin]

TheMadTypist, on 04 October 2015 - 08:49 PM, said:

Not saying the changes were bad, just saying they exist.

The point being, if the presence of changes alone is reason to throw all the toys out of the pram, the changes are upon us already, numerous and all-pervading. If it makes the game better, and doesn't take away the core, lore-bound functionality, what does it matter? If the old guard really are willing to get upset about that, then they're free to do what I do about modules and pretend it doesn't exist.

Oh, I get where you were coming from now.


I do agree, though. Changes need to be made. Battletech core rules are nice, but they've been translated poorly in to an FPS, and were never all that balanced to begin with.

Edited by Alek Ituin, 04 October 2015 - 09:04 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

Homeskilit, on 04 October 2015 - 08:39 PM, said:

Sorry, I was distracted and was not very clear with that response, total cop out from PGI. To me that statement says that they are not capable of making those kinds of changes so they are not going to bother. It does make me wonder if it is a technical issue or a philosophical issue though.

Well, the mission of this game was to make it "A BattleTech® Game." PGI's interpretation of that was, essentially, take the Table Top game and have it live in real-time. While they quickly discovered that didn't quite work and have been applying band-aid after band-aid to try and make it work, they haven't ever wavered from the concept and show no signs of doing so. Ergo, I wouldn't call it a cop-out, but I would say that it shows a lack of imagination. Hell, even being as similar as it is to the TT game and the TROs is rather unimaginative; they should've pulled a Battlestar Galactica and re-imagined the game in spirit. What makes BattleTech into BattleTech are the names, places, and looks...not the numbers in the rule-book.

But, again like I said, I believe there are ways to make the equipment in the game work within the limits PGI has set.

[Homeskilit]

Lord Scarlett Johan, on 04 October 2015 - 08:58 PM, said:

I've suggested before to give ferro a fixed % armor boost and standard internals a fixed % structure boost.

Yeah, I read through some of the posts suggesting this and initially agreed with it. After thinking about it for a while though I came to the conclusion that there was not enough trade offs for what you gain.

With this system, FF is still serves the same purpose of increasing durability only it does this through additional points at the cost of weight. It also retains its purpose of being weight saving, it just uses this saved weight to add defense rather than offense (armor vs free weight for heat sinks, weapons, ammunition).

Yeonne Greene, on 04 October 2015 - 09:13 PM, said:

Well, the mission of this game was to make it "A BattleTech® Game." PGI's interpretation of that was, essentially, take the Table Top game and have it live in real-time. While they quickly discovered that didn't quite work and have been applying band-aid after band-aid to try and make it work, they haven't ever wavered from the concept and show no signs of doing so. Ergo, I wouldn't call it a cop-out, but I would say that it shows a lack of imagination. Hell, even being as similar as it is to the TT game and the TROs is rather unimaginative; they should've pulled a Battlestar Galactica and re-imagined the game in spirit. What makes BattleTech into BattleTech are the names, places, and looks...not the numbers in the rule-book.

But, again like I said, I believe there are ways to make the equipment in the game work within the limits PGI has set.

So it is a philosophical issue then, that makes me feel a bit better, and maybe 'cop out' was a bit harsh. While i applaud them for sticking to their guns for so long, I can only hope that at some point they realize it might be a futile goal. The nice thing about making changes is that if they do not work you can always undue them, it never hurts to try. If any of these types of threads gives someone a good idea then I would call them successful.

Edited by Homeskilit, 04 October 2015 - 09:21 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

Homeskilit, on 04 October 2015 - 09:20 PM, said:

So it is a philosophical issue then, that makes me feel a bit better, and maybe 'cop out' was a bit harsh. While i applaud them for sticking to their guns for so long, I can only hope that at some point they realize it might be a futile goal. The nice thing about making changes is that if they do not work you can always undue them, it never hurts to try. If any of these types of threads gives someone a good idea then I would call them successful.

Well, we aren't sure how much PGI actually reads these forums. Twitter, yes, forums...eeeeeh.

Also, the people in charge of balance have not ever really been too receptive to player feedback. They nod and smile, and then do their own thing which tends to be crude, narrow in scope, unintuitive, and often ineffective. That's why that last PTS was so outrageous. It's why ghost heat is outrageous. It's why quirks are outrageous. And when they do something the community has been begging for, literally, years? It takes them a whole extra year to even start on it.

Basically, PGI doesn't seem to treat the game components as a system of interdependent parts. They are understaffed and, by all appearances, mismanaged.

[Homeskilit]

Yeonne Greene, on 04 October 2015 - 09:27 PM, said:

Well, we aren't sure how much PGI actually reads these forums. Twitter, yes, forums...eeeeeh.

Also, the people in charge of balance have not ever really been too receptive to player feedback. They nod and smile, and then do their own thing which tends to be crude, narrow in scope, unintuitive, and often ineffective. That's why that last PTS was so outrageous. It's why ghost heat is outrageous. It's why quirks are outrageous. And when they do something the community has been begging for, literally, years? It takes them a whole extra year to even start on it.

Basically, PGI doesn't seem to treat the game components as a system of interdependent parts. They are understaffed and, by all appearances, mismanaged.

Careful, they might be listening, I mean watching. Also that last part is becoming more and more apparent to me and is unfortunate.

Edited by Homeskilit, 04 October 2015 - 09:35 PM.

[Escef]

Homeskilit, on 04 October 2015 - 06:43 PM, said:

Which stock mech has FF but not Endo?

King Crab 000 and 000b; HIghlander 732 and 732b; Mauler 1R, 1P, and 2P; Zeus 9S; Quickdraw 5K and IV-4; Orion Protector; Jagermech DD; Enforcer 5D; Kintaro 19 and 20; Jenner K; and Raven 3L... This doesn't count several clan mechs.

[Lykaon]

The Atlas Overlord, on 04 October 2015 - 06:05 PM, said:

I think this would work great.

Now all those mechs that don't have the hardpoints to compete with direct firepower can use all that extra crit space to make themselves significantly tougher.

Players could then choose between direct fire power spam, or durability...rather than just choosing whatever mech let's them bring the largest number of weapons to bear.

Stock load outs are a joke on virtually every mech in comparison to fully outfitted mechs anway.

It's time for FF to be something other than just another way for light mechs that don't need the crit space to save even more weight.

In order to make any significant differance in survivability Ferro armor would need to provide huge increases in armor value.Anything less would essentially be a waste of time.

IE. Standard armor on a 60 ton mech would be 44 /12 (28 internal). It is a fairly trivial task to build a mech with a 40+ alpha damage value. Or essentially about 4 seconds time to destroy any 60 ton mech with an XL engine (ideal circumstances)

If 40 alphas are easy to set up then we can assume they will be common place (and they are) And if the capped armor values using tandard armor for mechs 20-60 tons (I.S. mechs most likely to use XL engines) can and often do result in combat effective survival times measured in under 5 seconds how much "bonus" armor would ferro fibrous need to provide to make any significant impact? +50% would be able to absorb 2 alpha strikes of 40 damage values before being killed on the third alpha 3-4 seconds later.

So an absurd +50% value only adds around 4 seconds of survival.Outright doubling armor values for FF would pretty much double TTK at an astounding 8-12 seconds!! As you see defense as fallen way behind offense these days.

The name of the game is not absorbing damage it's dealing more pinpoint focused damage faster than the enemy does.

Evasion is always superior to absorbtion (the enemy never runs out of misses you will run out of armor no matter how much you have)

And then there is as has been mentioned stock mech loadouts that must be preserved.Unless of course we will have PGI alter how mechs are designed when purchased to accomidate a shift in a core design mechanics.Any mech that has ferro fibrous armor on it's stock build would need to be altered to accomidate this change (or all mechs altered to be unassembed at purchase or something)

And then I wonder why it even matters?

Even on the table top game FFA was/is not as efficent as Endo Steel for saving weight and there are few mechs that allow for both FFA and ES on Inner Sphere mech designs.

I do use both Ferro and Endo on a few of my I.S. mech builds.Mostly light and medium mechs.

I have come to except a few "rules" of design.

One: Double Heatsinks on almost everything with a few very nitch cases requiring singles.

Two: Endo Steel first and if there is room Ferro Fibrious second

Three: Inner Sphere XL engines are very dependent on mech geometry and a certain speed to armor to evasion ratio that makes them worth using but always inferior in mech durability compared to clan XLs or Standard engines.

Overall I can't see any solid benefit to altering Ferro Fibrious that would be meaningful enough to merit it's cost AND be worth the chain reaction in other alterations needed to make it work (accomidating stock mechs released by PGI and normalizing crit space cost etc)

[Joseph Mallan]

We really need to stop trying to change the rules of a universe that has 30 years of evolution. If you don't like the rules play a different game.

[Johnny Z]

I think this top

Joseph Mallan, on 05 October 2015 - 02:27 AM, said:

We really need to stop trying to change the rules of a universe that has 30 years of evolution. If you don't like the rules play a different game.

I think this topic is about making ferror fibrous more relevant to the game. Its isnt very at the moment.

I seen this name had made a reply, and thought "this guy knows alot about the finer points of Battletech rules, maybe he will have a good answer." Instead it was a "gtfo"

I myself have no idea how Ferro could be more usefull or single heat sinks for that matter. It just seems to make sense to have whats already in the game be usefull rather than adding new equipment. So that once new equipment is added it has a solid foundation.

Although maybe ferro fibrous is fine the way it is to. I really dont know.

Edited by Johnny Z, 05 October 2015 - 02:38 AM.

[GreyNovember]

Joseph Mallan, on 05 October 2015 - 02:27 AM, said:

We really need to stop trying to change the rules of a universe that has 30 years of evolution. If you don't like the rules play a different game.

Evolution means the rules change. Y'know. For better or worse. Probably better, because they managed to survive to reproduce.


On topic, yeah, screw it, why not just allow Ferro to jam on drastically more armor?

That has to come out of a build SOMEWHERE. The mech is then either going to run hotter, have less firepower, or less ammo, while taking more hits.

That means people shoot less, tank more, and die less quickly.

[Paigan]

I nice little simple and perfectly stock-compatible and lore-compatible solution:

Give Endosteel a signifcantly higher (like x2 or x3) chance of critical hits.

So you can either take "the big upgrade" (ES) but pay a price of more fragile internal structure (because it's weight-optimized).
Or you can take "the small upgrade" (FF) and pay no price (apart from the slots, of course).


This would even make perfect sense that many clan mechs have FF but no ES.


Perfect solution.
Trivial to implement.

[Paigan]

Joseph Mallan, on 05 October 2015 - 02:27 AM, said:

We really need to stop trying to change the rules of a universe that has 30 years of evolution. If you don't like the rules play a different game.

Oh how i hate those ignorant statements.

Is it so inconceivable for you that people like 90% or even 99% of something but see dramatic problems in the rest 10% / 1% that they would want to see changed?

It's the same kindergarten mentality I encountered ingame the other day:
Some guy was spamming the global chat.
I wrote I wish a chat block function to ignore children like him.
And the answer from another guy was: "Don't like global chat, don't use it."

It's not my responsibility to completely abandon a useful feature just because one idiot abuses it.
It's the idiot's responsibility to not be an idiot (or the admins to ban him or provide means to ignore him).

How small-minded and ignorant must people like you be that the only thing they can shout when someone addresses a problem in a complex system is "Don't use the whole system".

Apart from that: BT rules have 30 years of extremely idiotic rules.
Why do light mechs have the same amount of space as assault mechs?
Why can not every mech fit JJs if the technology is available?
Why are there no automated targeting computers?
Why are there not more differently sized weapons (medium is 1 ton, large is 5 tons, wtf?)?
Why are ACs so riduclously huge and still have high heat that should actually be the energy weapon limiting factor?

This could go on for PAGES. It's a game made by intellectual little children (that I personally abandoned as soon as I matured past being a child with ~20).
NEVERTHELESS, it has some nice details, especially since the (far too few) fixes that PGI made that make it worth playing, even though the countless moron-details are a P in the A.
So don't you just simplistic kindergarten-wise say "don't play it"

How about FIXING it?

Edited by Paigan, 05 October 2015 - 03:07 AM.

[Yellonet]

This is a pretty good idea, but in order not to break anything it could work like this:

Keep everything like it is now, except that with FF you can add more armour. Say 25-50% more than with standard armour.
FF would then, as now, save weight when you keep the same amount of armour, but the more important benefit would be that it could be used to increase protection over standard armour (as what I think many new players think it does).
This would make it well worth it to use FF on some builds instead of Endo.

Edited by Yellonet, 05 October 2015 - 03:24 AM.

[Yellonet]

Paigan, on 05 October 2015 - 03:07 AM, said:

How about FIXING it?

Well, after "fixing it" it wouldn't be BT, would it? It's clear that you hate the game, just uninstall and play something else!

Spoiler

Yeah, I hate that "Don't like it? Don't use it!" mentality too.

[Sjorpha]

Yellonet, on 05 October 2015 - 03:16 AM, said:

This is a pretty good idea, but in order not to break anything it could work like this:

Keep everything like it is now, except that with FF you can add more armour. Say 25-50% more than with standard armour.
FF would then, as now, save weight when you keep the same amount of armour, but the more important benefit would be that it could be used to increase protection over standard armour (as what I think many new players think it does).
This would make it well worth it to use FF on some builds instead of Endo.

This would be my preferred solution, it also seems quite lore friendly.

Something to motivate standard structure would nice too, maybe just reducing IS by 10% when equipping endo.

[SgtMagor]

CtrlAltWheee, on 04 October 2015 - 07:02 PM, said:

Agree that ferro is an opportunity to improve the game. Also agree that it's a cool way to give  a role to mechs with limited hardpoints.

The devil is in the details but it seems a good concept.

Secretly, I'd like to see 2x basics taken away to slow the game down. This is a nice way to give lights back a small amount of survivability to make up for loss of speed tweak.

I watched 5 mechs including myself firing at an Artic Cheetah, that refused to take damage an in fact was coring the 5 of us. they need to fix light mechs that have assault armor first!

[Naduk]

something needs to be done
i propose FF gets a 12% reduction to all incoming damage
this would make its lower weight reduction vs endo much harder the choose between
brawlers would not be able to pass it up i reckon

[FalconerGray]

The Atlas Overlord, on 04 October 2015 - 06:05 PM, said:

Stock load outs are a joke on virtually every mech in comparison to fully outfitted mechs anway.

Which is itself a major problem to begin with.

[Ex Atlas Overlord]

Lykaon, on 05 October 2015 - 01:23 AM, said:

Overall I can't see any solid benefit to altering Ferro Fibrious

Other than the fact that it's completely useless right now and could be removed and no one would even notice?

[Khobai]

Quote

Overall I can't see any solid benefit to altering Ferro Fibrious

12% damage reduction is really the only alteration it needs

it gives players an option for making their mech a little tougher... an option they currently dont have.