413 replies to this topic

[Argent Usher]

Yeach, on 08 February 2012 - 08:25 PM, said:

see http://mwomercs.com/...ed/page__st__40

Hmm near 60% want the customizing of Weapons, Equipment, Armor and Engine/Internal Structure as in previous MW 4 (25%) or Tabletop (33%) but would you modify your mech when the progress of the Battlemech Efficiencies you had lose?
I think the most Min-Maxer here hope they can modify their mech for each match in a mechlab but i don't really want see mechs like a Piranha just because he could be a good criters.
Maybe you would unlock faster the pilot modules if you need only ever Tier1 per 1 player point and the number of XP points of ten tier1 variants is probably much less than from an elite II mech.

[Kael Tropheus]

Pink, yours is the only acceptable one that I have seen so far. The problem with rampant customization is not only is it directly against 25 years of fluff, it would give a massive unfair advantage in pvp against purists who want to play in the battletech universe. Might as well be playing armored core or one of the manga games at that point. It isnt Battletech. I am all for MW1's mech lab. I never felt the later games were very Battletechy because of the customization which shouldnt have been there.

[Moorecroft]

Boating makes sense from a combined arms military perspective. Only certain units would need flexibility to be effective at all ranges.

Perhaps the problem is that too many 'canon' mechs and configs arent specialised enough? The people that wrote BT probably loved the idea of badass mechs with a variety of weapons, and who doesnt? Fact is, now that we're simulating being in the mechs fighting other mechwarriors, we realise that we need specialised firepower.

Screw the canon, make the mechs standard configs better. These are mechs that were built for battle. it makes sense for them to be optimised for battle.

Once the stock mechs are worth piloting, you can make customisation more realistic (as in weapon swaps, armour upgrades are all achievable. Changing internal structure, jumpjets etc are much more difficult or impossible without buying a new mech from factory.)

[Kael Tropheus]

Half the point is the mechs are not supposed to be optimized. Their designers whatever their thoughts were designed them that way for balance. Optimization will destroy any sense of balance in the game. An awesome has 3 PPCs, it is supposed to over heat when it fires all three, its to balance that it has 3 PPCs and heavy armor. In a PVP game balance is absolutely the most important thing that should be on the designers minds(that and staying true to canon). I dont want to have to deal with mathhammer and statistics when in the battlefield.

Edited by Kael Tropheus, 09 February 2012 - 06:54 AM.

[Alkero]

Cattra Kell, on 05 December 2011 - 05:14 AM, said:

I wouldn't mind a mixed version of this system. As much as I liked the freedom of the Mw2/Mw3 system I found far to many players min-maxing. With Mechwarrior 4 I did enjoy the hard point system as well due to the fact it *tried* to balance what weapons could be fitted.
Lets also not forget in the Novels and lore wise that indeed you could fit what you wanted but it often took weeks of hard work that involved either buying a new arm or tearing out all the guts in the arm and reconstructing it after the weapon was installed, most of the time if there was a large laser in the arm before, you either were installing a PPC or other lasers to replace the large laser due to the capacitors already there.

I wouldn't mind seeing though, different mech variants. What I mean by this is the same mechs, say there are 3 versions of the Thorn, the only difference is the hard points available on it. This would allow some customization (based on what variant you want) but also keep some balance so you don't roll with a 5 ERPPC Alpha-Cat. Just my own opinion on the subject, I am sure other people have other opinions and I hope that they post them too.

I love this idea, seriously the best one I've heard yet, excellent job there Cattra!

[Name140704]

I'd rather not have customization of 'mech loadouts. The pilot upgrades and 'mech xp upgrades are enough for me.

[Outlaw2]

Pinkamena Pie, on 13 January 2012 - 10:01 AM, said:

I would go for close to full customization, but with consequences.

Basically...

You start off by buying a stock mech or varient. Taking the CPLT as an example, I buy a CPLT-C1. It shows as a CPLT-C1.

You can buy refit kits to convert a mech you own to a given varient. Say I buy a CPLT-K2 refit, it will convert my CPLT to be a CPLT-K2. It shows as a CPLT-K2.

Once you have the varient that you're using as a basis, you can start to customise it. These customisations will not be as efficient as if the mech/refit was built around the new layout however, so any parts fitted through such a process will be slightly less effective.
Say I want to strip all the weapons other than the PPCs from my CPLT-K2, and use the weight to add jump capability, I am adding 4 jury-rigged jump jets. These will be slightly less effective than the 4 jump jets that the CPLT-C1 has as standard. This mech will show as a "CPLT-K2?", showing opponents what the basis of the mech is, but indicating that it's different from normal in some way.

Some ideas for drawbacks for jury-rigged parts:
- Weapons: Slower recycle times and/or increased heat output per shot.
- Armour: Less points of armour per ton.
- Heat sinks: Less heat dissipated per heatsink.
- Jump jets: Less thrust and/or higher heat output.

The drawbacks should be balanced so that they're severe enough to stop cheesemechs from dominating, whilst mild enough that minor modifications aren't noticably penalised.


Result:
- Players who want to be able to tinker with mech layout can do so to their heart's content.
- Players who just want to give a mech their own personal touch can do so without any significant penalties.
- Canon (and near-canon) mechs stay dominant due to being the most effecient use of hardware.

The only players who really get penalised by such a system are the minmaxers who want to completely rebuild a mech from scratch, and squeeze out every last percent of performance. (Note that players who want to do complete rebuilds for fun can still do so, and probably aren't going to be quite so worried about the loss of a few percent of effectiveness if it gives them the mech they want.)

This is something I'd like to see. Its also very similar to how the TT works (read Strategic Operations book), so it should satisfy all the btutt purists.

Lets make it clear, min/maxing customization in Mechwarrior translates to boating. So I'd also add bonus to non-boating weapon combinations. Minor ones, but enough to further dissuade people from taking all of one weapon, and encourage mixing it up. Otherwise people will simply gravitate to stock variants/refit kits that boat the best. Penalties to alpha strikes would also go a long way to counter some of the advantages of boating, but thats another thread.

I would further expand on the refit kits (which are basically a form of "stock customization" without the penalties Pinkamena described) I'd like to see large kits that could allow players to change entire weapons loadouts, engine, armor, structure, ect...all the way to small ones which could a simple ammo/heatsink swap. These refit kits can come with their own sets of stat penalties and bonuses to further distinguish(and balance) one kit from the other. Its basically a form of customization that the devs can better control and balance. In fact if I was dev king, mech lab customization would only be in the form of refit kits ONLY.

Edited by =Outlaw=, 09 February 2012 - 11:07 AM.

[Siphonaptera]

The argument about keeping to 'canon' varients is silly because missile/laser boats already exist, and the only reason they were problems in mechwarrior is that weapons don't match their tabletop miss chances and damage spread.

When you fire an AC/20, it destroys the location it hits. When you fire 4 medium lasers they will most likely spread damage over an area. An AC/20 can leg many light mechs in a single hit in table top, but it is a random chance. In the video game when you alpha strike four lasers they will all hit the same spot for the most part, so firing four medium lasers becomes the equivalent of foring an AC/20 while that isn't the case in table top where the damage values were based on random chance. There are ways to fix this by limiting alpha strikes to a 10 second window instead on instantaneous firing of all weapons, since a TT alpha strike is everything over 10 seconds.

The fix to the mechlab is assigning power drain for weapons based on their damage so that they can only fire X amount of damage per second based on engine size, so you can fire a lot of weapons together in an atlas but only one Lg Laser or two medium lasers on a light mech every couple of seconds. Alpha strikes, jump jet sniping, and all front loaded damage is solved with this fix for FPS because upping hte power drain at low tonnage is a balance between engine and weapon weight.

So if you had a light with 6 medium lasers, you could fire all 6 over 10 seconds, but only 2 together, then a couple seconds until the next two while the first have their standard recycle time.

As an aside, keeping stock mechs means that players will all field the same mech that fits the translation to first person shooting. It is the same thing as having a mechlab without the fun of building your own mech. The biggest enjoyment of using a mechlab is making the changes to fit playstyle, and while I agree it shouldn't be as fast as in between drops it should be possible in a reasonable amount of time to load out to personal specs.

[corsair]

it does't make sense to limit what you can mount in certain locations. Variants usually come about to meet a need so as long as an engineer somewhere can make it work then there should be limitations.
that being said i would prefere to play with pre constructed builds and limited customization.

[Siphonaptera]

Artistically, I'm good with reasonable art based limitations, like the Centurian having any large cannon weapon on the right arm instead of the left to match the look, but I should be able to put a PPC, 3pack of Medium Lasers, SRM6. etc there for whatever cost/time requirements exist.

[Yeach]

Siphonaptera, on 09 February 2012 - 07:30 PM, said:

Artistically, I'm good with reasonable art based limitations, like the Centurian having any large cannon weapon on the right arm instead of the left to match the look, but I should be able to put a PPC, 3pack of Medium Lasers, SRM6. etc there for whatever cost/time requirements exist.

Would you be okay for the Centurion to have the large cannon weapon moved to the torso?

[Sug]

Siphonaptera, on 09 February 2012 - 06:42 PM, said:

As an aside, keeping stock mechs means that players will all field the same mech that fits the translation to first person shooting. It is the same thing as having a mechlab without the fun of building your own mech. The biggest enjoyment of using a mechlab is making the changes to fit playstyle, and while I agree it shouldn't be as fast as in between drops it should be possible in a reasonable amount of time to load out to personal specs.

I dunno, I don't remember there being any customization available for the various MPBT's and we enjoyed those just fine.

I like how my knowledge of mechs and their variants came into play. I think that adds a tactical element to the game. Knowing your opponent has short range weapons, you stay out of range, if he's long range you get in close, etc.

I feel that full customization would take away the feel of each individual mech. Canonically there's enough mechs and variants to fit all types of playstyles.

No one's playing TF2 complaining about how they can't customize their Scout with a chaingun.

Edited by Sug, 09 February 2012 - 07:59 PM.

[Siphonaptera]

Yeach, on 09 February 2012 - 07:44 PM, said:

Would you be okay for the Centurion to have the large cannon weapon moved to the torso?

In a perfect world, yes I would prefer that the game give players completely true cusomization including moving anything anywhere IF the goal is to recreate the TT system. I am good with maintaining and artistic limitation to keep 'iconic standard mechs' (meaning those varients with pictures that so many players fail to realize were simply one of the many varients that existed hence the '-4R') as a style choice as the one reason for a limitation. So many players fail to understand that the one model pictured isn't the 'standard' version, it was the common version and happened to be pictured.

A mechlab, if used for creating purchased mechs that have costly changes from that point forward would represent purchasing a 'local' mech. So for the canons listed in prior TROs you could buy the Davion version cheap in Davion space, but it would cost a lot more to buy it on the opposite side of the core worlds or cost a lot to modify one to match the same loadout.

Edited by Siphonaptera, 09 February 2012 - 08:15 PM.

[Siphonaptera]

An example of how many varients exist in cannon, the Charger has multiple varients that modify the engine and armor plus the weapons to turn it into an assault mech. There was even a varient to do so accomplished by a Mercenary Battalion, plus the note that there were several other varients that were only made to one or two mechs:

"CGR-SB - Called Challenger by its designers, the SB variant of the Charger was devised in 3025 by Stuart Bell, chief Tech of the mercenary unit Hat-in-the-Ring Battalion. The radical alteration looks to turn the Charger into a traditional assault 'Mech. This is accomplished by reducing the 'Mechs speed to 54 km/h, which allows the use of a smaller engine (incidentally, the commonplace Pitban 240 reactor)."

Yes, in 3025 a mercenary unit was regularly modifying mechs. Not at the factory, but retrofitting mechs with engine and armor changes. Changes that turned a 5 small laser assault mech into a true assault mech by downgrading the engine and loading up on armor and weapons. Canon supports a mechbay, the only question is how to represent the difference between IS tech and omnimechs and that can be done through cost.

[Euclid]

While it's been two and a half decades since I last played Battletech, I don't recall any mechs you played being forcably pidgeon holed into specific chassis. In fact one of the most enjoyable aspects of the game (to me anyways) was designing your mech statistics from scratch and taking it through the paces: distributing armor points, tweaking heat sink counts, agonizing over magazine loadouts, and of course deciding on armaments. So I'm really confused about all of this talk of full customization not being canon. Admittedly I've been extremely out of touch with the game since I stopped playing round'about Aerotech - yet I haven't read any mention about *that* rule set. How many "canon" mechs have the flight conversions in 'em? Not that I would want play a game with those rules included mind you, but when the expansion came out it was more options to fool around with. And it was fun to do so for a shortlived period. I just don't see how removing full customization, by tweaking mech specs, would be a requirement for the game to be considered 'canon'.

All that said, I realize that moving from table top to computer simulation can be a nasty beast and differences are almost a necessity between the two. But removing customization under the sole excuse of canon shouldn't be a factor. One of my least favorite aspects of MW4 was the hardpoint restrictions and I would always choose the mechs with the omni option. And even then I still wanted wanted try something else besides an energy weapon in a bay designated for energy.

[Sug]

If there's going to be customization I just want people to have to put some thought into their configs. I don't want some nub to be rewarded for putting twenty medium lasers in their atlas and one shotting everyone on a city map.

I'm not against min/maxing or even boating. I'd like people to actually have to worry about running out of ammo, or shutting down for more than 8 sec after alpha striking. There are cannon boats, Longbow, Supernova, etc but those have the drawbacks of minimum range & limited ammo (Longbow) or overheating and shutting down if you don't use volley fire (Supernova)

[LionOne]

Quote

A decent proposal, anything is better than the army of cookie cutter clones, only with different "skins". Still, it creates another problem - it would make everyone min-max their most valuable weapons to the better-armored torso, making mechs' arms, bristling with guns... essentially obsolete.

Firing arcs cared for this in the table top games.

Omnimech weapons are modular by design (mounted in pods) - so I'm not sure what the logic on restricting Omni's would be.

Edited by LionOne, 09 February 2012 - 10:16 PM.

[Pinkamena Pie]

LionOne, on 09 February 2012 - 10:14 PM, said:

Firing arcs cared for this in the table top games.

One way to deal with this would be to have dual reticules. Torso weapons need to be aimed by moving the body, and fite at the centre of the screen. Arm weapons can be aimed with a movable reticule, and can fire anywhere within the screen. Of course, we don't know how compatible this idea will be with the control system the developers are using.

[John Clavell]

I think we're going to get a system which allows for customisation but the experience is going to be 'directed'. Roles seem to be so important, allowing you to turn an assault mech into fully armoured, 90km+, with full InfoTech as role warfare breaking. There was hints of variants they might allow customisation within these variants. But I think a MW3 system will just go against role warfare.

[MaddMaxx]

Some stats for Prime Mechs & Variants. FD could be kept quite busy if the game plays well.

From 2438 to 3048 there are 226 Prime (base Chassis) with 531 Variants.

Plenty of variety for the Dev, surely, and all could be graded on usefulness without ruining what is hoped to in game Balance.