25 replies to this topic

[Zordicron]

Previously in Mechwarrior games: water gives you a solid boost in cooling! Very tactical usage, get in the water and gain a big damage output advantage on the enemy! In return, it messes with your accel and top speed.

MWO: water gives you a tiny boost, because only leg heat sinks are affected. Only SHS fit in the legs.
MWO: Water is wide open space. In MWO, wide open space means you get uberganked by pinpoint alphas, or even LRM60 lurm boats. in organized group play, after assesment of the enemy, there is a chance the open space is useful for positioning. In puglandia, standing in the water in the open will get you roflstomped.

Truth is, if water was a simple flat cooling increase, people would be risking the open area in it for damage output advantage. It might actually have a tactical advantage. It doesn't, so it doesn't, and people won't. In MWO, water is there to be pretty. it doesn't affect movement(minus map borders, but giant rocks do the same) it doesn't have a tactical advantage for cooling(let's be real) and the way the game plays with lasergank to rule them all, any open space, including water, is only useful if the tiny chance the whole enemy team has much worse range than your team does.

As a whole, water in MWO is a failure, especially compared to previous MW titles. Opportunity, missed. Maybe some day we will see it revisited, but thats a long shot IMO anymore.

[Helsbane]

Ware ye all the Locust what dwells 'neath the sea!

[Ano]

El Bandito, on 27 October 2015 - 03:30 AM, said:

Well, it is kind of a buff to Light mechs. Since water reduces damage, the Lights can be pretty damn durable, depending on how submerged it is.

Hm. On the map design front, I'm generally in favour of varied environments, so I don't mind the water (and it's not like there are many big unbroken expanses of water where fighting actually takes place all that often)

That said, next time I get ripped apart by any kind of light mech, if there's a speck of water visible around my mech I'm officially blaming the map and not my meagre skills. Thanks, El B!

[Whatzituyah]

Their is too much land please reduce the land!

[Spleenslitta]

sycocys, on 27 October 2015 - 02:46 PM, said:

They should have put a huge pond/lake dead in the middle of the new Forest Colony with some tree stumps scattered through it. Would have actually made it more interesting than all the dead space with the water on the outside of the map.

Good idea. Tree stumps, boulders, a small hill or two and maybe a decrepit old building that has fallen over when there was a mudslide or something.

[wanderer]

Deep water in Battletech was actually a mixed blessing.

You cooled down faster, sure- but non-energy weapons (other than torpedo launchers) didn't do diddly if you try firing them submerged, and of course energy weapons had range issues. Armor breaches poured huge amounts of bad-for-your-internals liquid into your 'Mech, crippling or outright disabling many 'Mechs entirely. The ideal, of course was leg-high to avoid potential issues with a lake full of water in your engine compartment if you took too much damage. And of course, mobility issues- can't move fast, can't jump with submerged jets (again, there's special underwater maneuvering units for that), and if you trip and breach a leg, enjoy eventually dying when life support fails if you went much deeper. The rare "seafaring" 'Mech built for the job didn't do badly, mind you- but all the risks were still there.

Enemy submarines with things like long-range torpedo launchers were unholy terrors of the deep- most 'Mechs simply couldn't fire back effectively and were slowed so badly by deep water as to be easy targets- and every torpedo salvo that hit was multiple chances at crippling armor breeches on a target.

So yeah. I'll stick to the shallow end of the pool. Water -should- slow people down a bit and it should give mild levels of cooling (with more to 'Mechs with leg-mounted heatsinks)...just to give it more character in MWO. Don't worry about the whole "liquid in the internals = section disabled" part. MWO pilots are lousy about environment hazards as it is given how many people I see cooking on Caustic.