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I've found that there is rarely a reason to aim at anything but the CT, a few exceptions exist such as the Dragon 1N or the obvious IS XL engine mechs exposing themselves, but in general mechs are so diversely built that nothing much matters but the CT, making combat very simplisticly linear and boring, giving no incentives to aim to cripple mechs rather than just killing them outright.
I've also, as many others have, voiced concerns about the TTK being low in the past, naturally I find that to be an issue to this day as tactics have more or less stagnated and if anything improved in deadliness; But the most glaring issue is the ease at which the CT is peeled off in mere seconds as if effortless, nobody is very worried about getting hurt or losing some limbs etc. because that rarely happens, it is the exception, everyone worries about the CT and everyone aims for the CT.
When you shield from damage nobody really cares about your arms etc., not the shooter, not you, they want to get to the gooey innards, but why is that, you do this even if you didn't have shield arms because the CT is so vulnerable it's pretty much the achilles heel of most mechs, why does the CT have to be so weak.
If you're CT cored then of course you protect the CT, but we do this anyway because the CT is still very weak, wouldn't it be more interesting to have players try to protect all of their other various body parts more to stay intact rather than explode essentially what can be perceived sometimes as out of the blue.
This issue is especially a big problem for LOS sustained damage builds where exposing the CT is a constant requirement and issue, you can't often put out damage without also being fully exposed by the CT, I estimate that is not very reasonable in terms of balance as it punishes already weak weapons and helps to push the weapon preference into builds where this behaviour isn't required.
When using a KGC-000 with UAC5's for instance, you're a walking CT if you want any damage put out, if you assault anything where people wait for you you will drop dead if you're also trying to do damage, not from your arms exploding or legs falling off, but your CT imploding from focus fire, almost every time. You also can't shield yourself because then you won't be doing any damage so you have a choice of one or the other, more notably your actual most reasonable choice is to not equip sustained damage weapons at all to begin with in the mechlab. Whereas high alpha higher cooldown builds will simply fire, you shield and then fire again etc. successfully surviving and spreading out damage.
There is a huge discrepancy in what is required for the use of various weapons and the freedom of how you take damage, sustained damage weapons are in a very bad place in comparison to high alpha weaponry of any kind.
Almost everyone is after the CT as if tunnel vision gripped them, the bigger you are the more CT will be aimed for, but what if it was more equal or even the other way around.
What if to truly optimally kill a mech it would be more viable to strip them of their most dangerous limbs and side torsos, to kill a King Crab you would rather shoot its arms to disarm it, to kill a catapult you'd rather shoot its shoulder boom box junk, also making gaining information of a mech and using it properly more important and to utilise, as to see what is vulnerable and dangerous and go for it rather than blindly the CT.
I think it is very desirable to have clear mechanics in place which make it significantly advantageous to reduce incoming damage from the enemy mechs by intentionally first crippling them rather than going for the CT to kill them outright every time, the CT which should be a very protected part of the mech in my opinion should be THE strongpoint of any mech and more of a last resort aiming point to put it down rather than the universal target focus point.
So this suggestion focuses on all these issues, TTK, more interesting combat aiming regions, gameplay enhancement, and allowing sustained builds more leeway in terms of survival making shielding an option but not the definitive required tactic to survive.
What if the CT could allocate a substantial amount of extra armour.
Suggestion:
- CT can now hold ~50% additional maximum armour with the compromise and expense of weight.
- Players feel compelled to take advantage of the potentially higher CT armour, in general lowering their maximum weapon weight slightly, up to a couple tonnes less for the heaviest of mechs.
- Makes aiming and taking out mech body parts more interesting as the relative armour difference becomes quite significant when tunneling the CT.
- CT is still a legitimate focus point but not at all the go to always go for the CT as it is today.
- TTK is raised both by increased overall defensive means and slightly reduced offensive means, while risky builds still stay risky.
- Increases the viability of close range brawler builds to force a re-evaluation of previously set in stone combat tactics of hot snipers.
- Sustained damage builds and mechs become more viable as their vulnerability is spread out rather than their existence based solely on how long their CT stays intact.
Potential secondary concerns:
- IS XL would need to be mechanically retuned, when a ST is taken out it would no longer kill the mech but simply slow it down by 20-33% per ST, however the IS XL could yield a structure penalty by say 50% reduction, and the STD a higher structure amount of say 50% to balance them. But these are secondary concerns and can be solved in many ways.
- All ammo quantity/t would potentially be required to be increased slightly, 10-20%.
Thank you.
Disclaimer: This is a concept suggestion, any numbers are placeholders to allow an example solution to be evaluated for its functional properties, it is not meant as a ready to implement solution, but an example to allow discussion about a potential solution in a manner like it.
