78 replies to this topic

[Makenzie71]

Tesunie, on 13 October 2015 - 12:21 PM, said:

I see it with pilot names sometimes too as it is.

You cannot possibly be emplying that EnormousBlackCock had any ill intentions behind his handle.

[Tesunie]

Makenzie71, on 13 October 2015 - 12:35 PM, said:

You cannot possibly be emplying that EnormousBlackCock had any ill intentions behind his handle.

Of course not. He's talking about his overly fat ebony colored rooster he has on his farm...
It's a rare bread...

[Makenzie71]

[Warzog]

MechWarrior 3 was released in 1999, and fairly closely followed the BattleTech rules, which allowed any weapon to be loaded onto a mech as long as there were both enough empty slots, and tonnage left.
MechWarrior 3 also added Multi-Player to the MechWarrior Universe. Unfortunately, there were those few who went out of thier way to exploit any and every advantage they could to win at all costs. They would strip a mech down to minimum armor, minimum engine, fill every slot with small lasers, and a M.A.S.C. They would target you from max sensor range, start to move towards you, hit M.A.S.C. which would slam them into you, alpha strike you with all of their small lasers, which would kill even the most heavily armored assault mech, for the kill and usually the win.

MechWarrior 4 was released in November 2000, and also had Multi-Player. They even added the Weapon Type Hardpoints, which are still in use in MechWarrior Online today, in an attempt to stop the Exploits experienced in MechWarrior 3, but limiting mech builds in that way, and to that degree, put off many players who enjoyed following the BattleTech rules to make BALANCED mechs.

For those who don't know, a Balanced mech is one that can hit at long, medium, and short ranges, and can hit beyond and within Line Of Sight (LOS). Special purpose mechs like the Locust scout only has close LOS weapons as it never knows when it will encounter an enemy around the next corner. The Catapult was designed as a long ranged, beyond LOS support mech. The Atlas, Centurion, and Dragon base models were all examples of balanced mechs.

MechWarrior Online has attempted to curb the exploits by using the Weapon Type Hardpoints of MechWarrior 4, and has gone so far as to limit the number of weapons to 16 weapons per mech. Yeah, I've seen 16 weapon mechs, usually 4 machine guns and 12 small lasers on Nova's, in an attempt to get the same effect of the MechWarrior 3 Multi-Player mechs mentioned above. Probably one of the reasons why the heavy class, energy weapons only, Nova Cat hasn't been added to MWO yet.

Adding the "Large" or "Small" setting to the Weapon Type Hardpoints would be a step towards getting the game more balanced, and more the way the game's founders intended. The only problem I could see would be with mechs like the Adder ADR-Prime (a.k.a. Puma) and it's variants. The ADR-Prime comes with an ER-PPC in each arm, unusual for a light mech, but as a light mech, it can also carry up to five smaller energy weapons. So an exception would have to be made in that case.

[Jaeger Gonzo]

High quality post Warzog.

[IraqiWalker]

Jaeger Gonzo, on 11 October 2015 - 09:52 AM, said:

Sized Hard Points is not something that was invented by Battletech, but exactly by Mechwarrior games.
Of course is not about balance directly, but about flavor of mechs, yet it still help with overall balance, as Stock games exactly shows.
Not sure what myths about TT you heard, but its not even close.
Again Stock Mode shows that assumption like this are simply missed and are not covered by our game play experience.
In Stock Mode 98% of meks are perfectly playable and maybe even more important, each one offer different game play experience.
Thing that you describe you can find in Full Custom, where 10% are playable. And even this 10% don`t offer different game experience as are load with same setup.
So knowing how things go in Stock Mode, I have no doubts that more restricted lab rules would be better for more diverse and interesting game.

I'm sorry, but have you played TT where you had a fixed number of units per team? Where it wasn't just BV limiting you, but deployment size as well? Soon as you do that (12 v 12), 90% of all mechs are useless.

Even if we went with just regular TT matches where it's BV that limits it. It doesn't matter what you say, the urbanmech is inferior to most other mechs, period. It's only saving grace is that it's cheap, so you can have many of it on the board. Something you can't do in MWO, because it's a PVP game between equal numbered teams. Sized hardpoints also make a good mech insurmountably superior to all others. Including other variants of it's chassis.

Let's take for example, the Shadowhawk. Let's say of the bunch, only the 2H could mount a Gauss Rifle. In the poptart days that would have immediately, and without a chance, rendered the other shadowhawks inferior, and bad by comparison.

We also have a case study of the impact of sized hardpoints, by just looking at what happened with MW4 online play. It was mainly clan weapons on IS chassis, or novacats/any mech that can slap 6+ lasers. The entire game rendered down to barely 4 chassis. I remember there was a phase or JJ shadowcats were a thing. However, that was a fleeting moment, where a 5th chassis entered the game. Only to burn to death by so many lasers on the way down.

cdlord, on 12 October 2015 - 06:41 AM, said:

I want to address this.

I want you to be able to do whatever you want.

The problem lies in allowing everyone to do that as well. The outcome is the meta and when a new mech is released, there is an obligatory "DOA" thread because it can't meta like a previous mech. You also get mechs that never see the light of day because it can't meta like it's other variants. My system would give some of those mechs that would have a large hardpoint a tantalizing reason to take.

It's for the health of the game and the community. PGI has given us all the rope we could reasonable ask for and here we are hanging ourselves.

If your dual gauss or laservomit build was fringe and a rare instance, something that you found a way to tame that not everyone has, then we wouldn't need to discuss this. But everyone is doing it and it's driving people away.

The problem is that if my laservomit gauss build works so well, people would just get the variant I have, and run the build anyways, and this time, the meta would be narrowed down to not only one chassis, but possibly one variant of one chassis.

[Karl Streiger]

Bringing this back on the table - sorry i know you think all the arguments are done but in the endless dept of my NID of my brain case i did find another idea. (OK it doesn't apperared from no where -somebody did made a hint)

OK you have to read the MWLL HP book first:
TLDR; to have aesthetic styles there were several hardpoint sizes - so a PPC could not squeezed into the CT mount of a Flea etc. Four smaller hardpoints could be arranged to be a much bigger one etc.

and here we go:

• Magna Hellstar
  
• Kreuss
  
• Donal
  
• Fusigon Longtooth
  
• Lords Light

What do you think when you read those names?

- ok all of them are PPCs.
But really: Is this Right Arm PPC:


equal to this arm PPC?



I don't think so.

When reading all the fictional works, including novels and sourcebooks you can find different descriptions on how the PPC works.
I know in the novel its rule of cool - but why not to take them granted?

So the Lords Light PPC is described in VictorMilans book like a "permanent" stream of particles - while for example the Magna Hellstar PPC (BlackKnight and Marauder) is described to have visible sparks before discharging.

So you can say: the Magna Hellstar PPC is a heavy hitting PPC that might need some time to charge (gauss charge)
While the Lords Light deal low damage on hit but can fire very very fast

Hardpoint sizes????

Well all Biped Mechs have 74 Slots - and for each Mech doesn't matter the size its 3 slots for a PPC
Make sense in TT where a Locust could almost have the same size of a Warhammer - but in a FPS?
So yes the Locust is much smaller but still it could mount the same equipment.

But what would happen if we scale the slots accordingly to the size?
Of course you have to make fixed stuff like Endosteel, Hips armactuators relative... maybe not the reactor and the gyro (creating a "real engine cap") hey you can't mount a 200 rated engine in your locust - there is physically not enough room.

Still hardpoint sizes???
So the Panther; Griffin; Catapult K2; Banshee all have a PPC
The Panther uses the Lords Light; the Griffin the Fusigon Longtooth, the K2 the average Donal (WHM) and finaly the Banshee the Magna Hellstar. (like the MAD)
All of them have different place available: with the assumption: more size > more alpha lower DPS; lower size > more DPS low Alpha

In the end those Assaults with there big alpha weapons will be able to deal the pain, as the should be. While smaller Mechs don't fire a scary Alpha.
(Can you remember those Quad PPC Cicada Joke Build - with limited size and 4 Lords Light PPCs (if there is enough room) this Mech won't scare you while the Banshee with 4 Magna Hellstars would give you creeps (if it has room and can take the heat)

Of course in the end i don't see any way of an implantation of this into MWO. But i like this idea so much i will take the afford to make a BattleTech conversion.

[iLLcapitan]

No, totally against it. Would limit the builds one see on the battlefield even more. Can we please stop draggin the lore in, everytime it fits a certain oppinion? The lore gives a general frame and feeling for this game, but TT concepts do not work for a FPS.
Creating valid builds aside from any meta or other trodden path is fun and takes some skill on its own.

[Karl Streiger]

iLLcapitan, on 09 November 2015 - 01:39 AM, said:

No, totally against it. Would limit the builds one see on the battlefield even more. Can we please stop draggin the lore in, everytime it fits a certain oppinion? The lore gives a general frame and feeling for this game, but TT concepts do not work for a FPS.
Creating valid builds aside from any meta or other trodden path is fun and takes some skill on its own.

The initial idea - or the MWLL HP idea creating different size weapons of one class?

(should even be able to use this system to swap a Imperator A (5) for a Lords Light PPC)

[iLLcapitan]

All those additional weapons would be nice to have, but I would prefer new actual gameplay content.

[Khobai]

Quote

The reason is Battletech flavor. Some people including me, don`t want to see K2 on gauss in they freaking MG slots.

Except battletech explicitly allows you to put gauss in a mg slot. Its a Class C refit (see below). So if "battletech flavor" is your reason then its completely, utterly, and entirely wrong. Battletech flavor is actually a compelling argument for why it SHOULD be allowed, because youre allowed to do it in battletech.

Edited by Khobai, 09 November 2015 - 05:09 PM.

[Karl Streiger]

Khobai, on 09 November 2015 - 04:59 PM, said:

Except battletech explicitly allows you to put gauss in a mg slot. Its a Class C refit (see below). So if "battletech flavor" is your reason then its completely, utterly, and entirely wrong. Battletech flavor is actually a compelling argument for why it SHOULD be allowed, because youre allowed to do it in battletech.

want't to have a UAC5 and a SRM4 in each arm of my K2....simple because those K2 3D fan creation models were great
with a good underlying system every build could be balanced, the old argument

"no dual Gauss" in MG slot of course is invalid - when you look just from the "Balancing" PoV - thinking hardpoint sizes would prevent this: JM6-DD -> JM6-G (more common the JM6-H)

[CDLord HHGD]

Bump?

[Kaeb Odellas]

I'd like to see a softer version of this.

Give each hardpoint a certain number of slots. Multiple hardpoints of a same type in one component can share slots as needed. If your weapons fit neatly into the slots provided, it gets a bonus to its stats, similar to the way quirks currently work.

However, if your loadout doesn't fit into the slots, you can still run it, but without the bonus. Perhaps you can give it the weapon negative quirks if it's particularly excessive.

[Rogue Jedi]

Vellron2005, on 09 October 2015 - 05:24 AM, said:

(somebody mentioned a Kitfox with a gauss riffle which I think is absurd).

The reason the Kit Fox became known as the Uller in the Inner Sphere is that it carried a Gauss, it is named after the Norse god of archery precisely because it carried a Gauss Rifle on the KFX-A,
how is that more absurd than the Hollander, a Light Mech specifically designed to carry a Gauss Rifle

[Ialdabaoth]

One thought I've been having recently is to just create a fourth class of hard point, called a 'Small Weapon Hardpoint', which can hold any type of Small Laser, Medium Laser, Machine Gun, AC/2, or Flamer. That way 'mechs are limited in the number and positions of the of big guns they can mount, but gain some flexibility with their smaller weaponry.

[Koniving]

Sized hardpoints has been suggested since day one. Naturally I vote for it but have my own idea.


Note: All hardpoints are backwards compatible by one size.

MG, AC/2, UAC/2, LBX/2, AC/5, LBX/5 = Ballistic I

UAC/5, LBX/10, AC/10 = Ballistic II

UAC/10, AC/20, UAC/20, LBX/20, GR = Ballistic III.


(Alternate ballistic: )

MG, (U)AC/2 , LBX/2 LBX/5 (Clan AC/5) = Ballistic I

AC/5, UAC/5, LBX /10 (Clan AC/10), = Ballistic II

AC/10, UAC/10, LBX/20, AC/20, GR = Ballistic III.


(Alternate Ballistic 2)

MG, AC/2 , LBX/2 = Ballistic I

UAC/2, LBX/5, AC/5 = Ballistic II

UAC/5, LBX/10, AC/10 = Ballistic III

UAC/10, LBX/20, AC/20 = Ballistic IV

UAC/20, Gauss Rifle = Ballistic V


Energy:

Small, SPL, ER Small, Medium = Energy I

ER ML, MPL, Large, PPC = Energy II

ER Large, Large Pulse, ER PPC = Energy III


Missile (Based on canonical exchange rates) (Meaning, specifically stated as "designed to be easily swapped with X or Y" in any tech readout, manual, rule or other sourcebook as a Battletech campaign-driven R&R-based 'soft point'.)

SRM-2 (4 damage), LRM-5 (5 damage), MRM-10 (10 damage), Mech Mortar/1 (2 damage/shell/ammo type) = Missile I.

SRM-4 (8 damage), Streak SRM-2 (4 damage, never misses when locked), LRM-10 (10 damage), MRM-15 (15 damage), Mech Mortar/2 (2 damage/shell/ammo type) = Missile II.

SRM-6 (12 damage), Streak SRM-4 (8 damage, never misses when locked), LRM-15 (15 damage), MRM-20 (20 damage), Mech Mortar/4 (2 damage/shell/ammo type) = Missile III.

LRM-20 (20 damage), Streak SRM-6 (12 damage, never misses when locked), MRM-30 (30 damage), Mech Mortar/8 (2 damage/shell/ammo type). = Missile IV

Arrow IV, MRM-40, Long Tom Artillery. = Missile V.

Just a thought.

Edited by Koniving, 08 December 2015 - 09:17 AM.

[L Y N X]

Other suggestion...

have the Small category for 1 hardpoint but to allow the mounting of larger weapons, require 2 hardpoint to mount one such weapon system. I think this will remove many hardpoints from mechs and make the multiple ballistics hardpoints on mechs like the HBK-4G useful to mount that AC-20. But on the Clan side it will reduce the amount of heavy weapons in many instances.

Just trying to keep it simply silly!

Edited by 7ynx, 08 December 2015 - 03:51 PM.

[Tesunie]

7ynx, on 08 December 2015 - 03:50 PM, said:

Other suggestion...

have the Small category for 1 hardpoint but to allow the mounting of larger weapons, require 2 hardpoint to mount one such weapon system. I think this will remove many hardpoints from mechs and make the multiple ballistics hardpoints on mechs like the HBK-4G useful to mount that AC-20. But on the Clan side it will reduce the amount of heavy weapons in many instances.

Just trying to keep it simply silly!

I actually find, as far as balance issues go in the game, the current unbalancing factor isn't large weapons where small ones in lore would go, but a massed amount of small weapons. (Look at Firestarter, Arctic Cheetah, etc for examples.) I don't believe your solution would really solve any balancing issues, besides someone's fanatical adherence to a more stock like mech loadout. (And anyone who knows me, knows I like stock mech, and I like lore.)

As far as another point against your concept, in order for it to work (as far as I can figure in my head), a lot of mechs would need to have their hard points reworked, typically in an inflating manner. This would have to be done just to sell some of the stock configuration of some mechs (such as the Summoner, of note the C variant specifically). I feel this would just farther disrupt balance, as well as reinforce the concept of "boating a lot of smaller weapons". (See note above.)