413 replies to this topic

[Mcgral18]

ScarecrowES, on 01 May 2016 - 01:38 PM, said:

You guys are seriously crying that one mech that's generally acknowledged to be overpowered... and there's really no argument there... is being made, potentially - though we have no actual idea without seeing exactly how it plays - slightly bigger... I mean... how DARE PGI make a 45-ton mech the same size as all other 45-ton mechs!

The BJ being overpowered would get you laughed at, two years ago. Before quirks, when the 35 PP FLD was raining down from the skies.

http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/mechlab#i=77

Two shots will kill your ST, which you cannot protect, unless you wanted to shield with your other ST or CT.
It could carry an AC20, and was adequate up close, but next to the Shaq Hawk who could do that with an STD, there wasn't much competition.


Quirks are what make the BJ above average (no longer OP, but still quite good)
Not exclusively quirks, but that's what make them go beyond the average mark. Good weapon mounts (most with hardpoints themselves) but with mediocre hitboxes. A large CT lends to XLs, but it cannot protect its STs due to geometry.


What saves it is being well sized.



If you make it bigger, you make it more fragile, and you make it REQUIRE those quirks. You know, as I joked in the OP, the doubled structure that made it GOOD, and beyond good.



Relying on quirks to make robots worthwhile is BAD.
Almost as bad as trying to balance factions with quirks instead of base weapon stats.


Volume is a terrible metric when mechs have different shapes, as discussed with the Peace Dove and the Stalker.
Or perhaps the Kintaro in comparison to other 55 tonners.

Mech shape has a greater impact than outright volume.


The BJs STs shouldn't get exceedingly larger...but there's the risk, since it's so skinny, to grow a fair amount. It lacks the arms the others have, thus that "volume" which is missing will instead move towards height, which means it will die easier, the opposite of what most of the playerbase wants.

[Ultimax]

Volthorne, on 01 May 2016 - 01:52 PM, said:

Regardless of what anyone has said in this topic so far, bar Wintersdark (Scarecrow was getting close but didn't quite hit the mark Mid-post edit: Scarecrow actually got it this time), doing a full rescale of EVERYTHING instead of SOME things makes sense for two reasons:

None of us are saying a full rescale of everything is wrong, are you guys even reading things you respond to?

We're saying that if in this full rescale, some mechs get physically LARGER, that is a mistake.

They should be choosing the mechs at the smallest volume/size currently for each tonnage and everything else disproportionately larger should be scaled DOWN to meet them.


All mechs would still be consistent volumetrically,

Nothing should get larger.


Its good they are using a calculation to do all this, its good that they are rescaling all of the mechs - its bad that they have not chosen the smallest mechs across the tonnages as their fixed points.

Is that clear enough?

Edited by Ultimax, 01 May 2016 - 02:17 PM.

[ScarecrowES]

Ultimax, on 01 May 2016 - 02:16 PM, said:

None of us are saying a full rescale of everything is wrong, are you guys even reading things you respond to?

We're saying that if in this full rescale, some mechs get physically LARGER, that is a mistake.

They should be choosing the mechs at the smallest volume/size currently for each tonnage and everything else disproportionately larger should be scaled DOWN to meet them.


All mechs would still be consistent volumetrically,

Nothing should get larger.


Its good they are using a calculation to do all this, its good that they are rescaling all of the mechs - its bad that they have not chosen the smallest mechs across the tonnages as their fixed points.

Is that clear enough?

You make absolutely no sense... you can't rescale all mechs to a standard and not have SOME mechs get larger. PGI is not picking a single mech per tonnage class that "fits the bill." They picked a standard by which ALL mechs will be judged.

This standard means all mechs will be normalized.

Say they do pick a single mech per ton to be the standard... who picks that? And what is it based on? How do we prevent situations where the "most reasonable" 45-tonner and the "most reasonable" 55-tonner end up being exactly the same size, and thus all 45-ton and 55-ton mechs end up being the same size? So now, all your 55-tonners will kick the crap out of all your 45-tonners because they're the same size but the 55-tonners have better armor and weapons. Imagine all the whining then.

You'd just end up having to redo the scaling all over again. Just like they've done with the quirks. Over and over and over.

[Sjorpha]

Ultimax, on 01 May 2016 - 02:16 PM, said:

None of us are saying a full rescale of everything is wrong, are you guys even reading things you respond to?

We're saying that if in this full rescale, some mechs get physically LARGER, that is a mistake.

They should be choosing the mechs at the smallest volume/size currently for each tonnage and everything else disproportionately larger should be scaled DOWN to meet them.


All mechs would still be consistent volumetrically,

Nothing should get larger.


Its good they are using a calculation to do all this, its good that they are rescaling all of the mechs - its bad that they have not chosen the smallest mechs across the tonnages as their fixed points.

Is that clear enough?

That's ridiculous.

The only thing that really matter is that the volumetric relation to density is consistent between mechs, it doesn't matter if they choose "small" or "big" mechs as the starting point as the only definition of "small" and "big" is the relation to other objects(mechs).

[ScarecrowES]

Mcgral18, on 01 May 2016 - 02:07 PM, said:

<snip>

I totally understand what you're getting at. I do... but when you're talking about this, you're talking about it as if we're looking at this one mech in an otherwise untouched field of competitors. As if somehow the Blackjack has been singled out. Everything is getting rescaled, not JUST the Blackjack. A slightly larger (and unless we're talking about 7% or better, a barely noticable bit larger) Blackjack is going to be plopped into a game chock full of mechs whose sized have changed. There are other mechs that will get bigger too, and others that will get smaller.

And the thing about the Blackjack is... well all lighter medium mechs really... they shouldn't BE survivable. They shouldn't be able to stand up in a fight. Faster ones will make up for their squishiness with speed, but will sacrifice firepower. The Blackjack is set up to ignore its squishiness and focus on maximizing the amount of damage it can dish out relative to the small amount it can take. A slow mech at the lighter end of its class should be the first mech in its class to die in a stand-up fight. The Blackjack should die faster than any 45-ton mech.

As you say... it's small size prevents that from happening.

[Y E O N N E]

ScarecrowES, on 01 May 2016 - 02:36 PM, said:

And the thing about the Blackjack is... well all lighter medium mechs really... they shouldn't BE survivable. They shouldn't be able to stand up in a fight. Faster ones will make up for their squishiness with speed, but will sacrifice firepower. The Blackjack is set up to ignore its squishiness and focus on maximizing the amount of damage it can dish out relative to the small amount it can take. A slow mech at the lighter end of its class should be the first mech in its class to die in a stand-up fight. The Blackjack should die faster than any 45-ton mech.

That's it, you're done.

When both sides in a game have the same number of 'Mechs, every 'Mech has to be just as good as the others.

[Mcgral18]

ScarecrowES, on 01 May 2016 - 02:36 PM, said:

As you say... it's small size prevents that from happening.

You sound as if that's a bad thing

[Ultimax]

Yeonne Greene, on 01 May 2016 - 02:40 PM, said:

That's it, you're done.

When both sides in a game have the same number of 'Mechs, every 'Mech has to be just as good as the others.

As I pegged Mr. Logical fallacy shouting science a few posts ago, he is basically agenda driven - he's just doing his best to hide it.

Sjorpha, on 01 May 2016 - 02:32 PM, said:

That's ridiculous.

The only thing that really matter is that the volumetric relation to density is consistent between mechs, it doesn't matter if they choose "small" or "big" mechs as the starting point as the only definition of "small" and "big" is the relation to other objects(mechs).

It matters because the bigger the mechs are, the easier they are to destroy.

Surely, you can't actually be that dense to not understand that.


Lets take this to absurd shall we, PGI scales all mechs to be consistent volumetrically but PGI also decides that Commandos will be as large as the current Atlas is. All other mechs will get larger to be consistent with this new paradigm - making the Atlas absolutely gigantic compared to its current size.


All mechs would be consistent volumetrically but mech survivability would go down because everything is easier to target.


So yes, the definition of small and big matters because they are targets on a screen that we shoot at. The amount of pixels they take up has an enormous impact on the game.


If this were the new battle tech game being made by HBS, then yes it would be irrelevant - but its not, it is a FPS.

Edited by Ultimax, 01 May 2016 - 02:50 PM.

[MechWarrior319348]

Ultimax, on 01 May 2016 - 02:46 PM, said:

As I pegged Mr. Logical fallacy shouting science a few posts ago, he is basically agenda driven - he's just doing his best to hide it.

Common, that's wrong.

Now I had an agenda a few threads back when I was defending the developers, that was agenda driven.

If he is trying to prove an important point, than he is worth listening to.

[FupDup]

Gigliowanananacom, on 01 May 2016 - 02:49 PM, said:

If he is trying to prove an important point, than he is worth listening to.

He's not, so he isn't.

[MechWarrior319348]

FupDup, on 01 May 2016 - 02:50 PM, said:

He's not, so he isn't.

For clarity, What is his agenda?

[ScarecrowES]

Yeonne Greene, on 01 May 2016 - 02:40 PM, said:

That's it, you're done.

When both sides in a game have the same number of 'Mechs, every 'Mech has to be just as good as the others.

Aaaaand the Blackjack having more firepower than any other 45-ton mech and still being more survivable than any other 45-ton mech despite being slower AND smaller than any other 45-ton mech makes it... just as good as the others?

How is does that make ANY sense? You make a choice with the BJ... you trade speed for guns. When you go slow in a mech with no armor, you should die faster. The BJ doesn't.

[FupDup]

Gigliowanananacom, on 01 May 2016 - 02:52 PM, said:

For clarity, What is his agenda?

Making medium mechs suck.

[MechWarrior319348]

ScarecrowES, on 01 May 2016 - 02:52 PM, said:

Aaaaand the Blackjack having more firepower than any other 45-ton mech and still being more survivable than any other 45-ton mech despite being slower AND smaller than any other 45-ton mech makes it... just as good as the others?

How is does that make ANY sense? You make a choice with the BJ... you trade speed for guns. When you go slow in a mech with no armor, you should die faster. The BJ doesn't.

Was he being sarcastic? I confusid

FupDup, on 01 May 2016 - 02:55 PM, said:

Making medium mechs suck.

Yeonne Green wants them to suck?

[ScarecrowES]

Ultimax, on 01 May 2016 - 02:46 PM, said:

Lets take this to absurd shall we, PGI scales all mechs to be consistent volumetrically but PGI also decides that Commandos will be as large as the current Atlas is. All other mechs will get larger to be consistent with this new paradigm - making the Atlas absolutely gigantic compared to its current size.


All mechs would be consistent volumetrically but mech survivability would go down because everything is easier to target.

For the love of god, please tell me how that makes ANY sense. If YOU, the shooter AND your target are increased at the same exact proportion, then your target would appear exactly the same size from your perspective, and you would appear exactly the same size from your target's perspective.

[FupDup]

Gigliowanananacom, on 01 May 2016 - 02:57 PM, said:

Yeonne Green wants them to suck?

No, Scarecrow does.

Scarecrow is the "he" that we have been talking about here.

Edited by FupDup, 01 May 2016 - 02:58 PM.

[MechWarrior319348]

I dont really care about size. I can put my crossair on an object, and I can hone it in on a specific component.

What really pisses me off is the speed of the blackjack.

I dont care about the firepower, but its hard to kill it when its twisting its torso as fast as a ceiling fan, and running 114 kph in circles.

Edited by Gigliowanananacom, 01 May 2016 - 03:00 PM.

[FupDup]

Gigliowanananacom, on 01 May 2016 - 03:00 PM, said:

I dont really care about size. I can put my crossair on an object, and I can hone it in on a specific component.

What really pisses me off is the speed of the blackjack.

I dont care about the firepower, but its hard to kill it when its twisting its torso as fast as a ceiling fan, and running 114 kph in circles.

Keep in mind that only 1 variant can reach those speeds. 5 out of 6 of the variants can only go 90.9 kph.

Edited by FupDup, 01 May 2016 - 03:01 PM.

[ScarecrowES]

FupDup, on 01 May 2016 - 02:58 PM, said:

No, Scarecrow does.

Scarecrow is the "he" that we have been talking about here.

Kinda a stretch to go from, "I'd like the Blackjack to be volumetrically equal to all other mechs of the same weight," to "I want all mediums to suck."

[FupDup]

ScarecrowES, on 01 May 2016 - 03:02 PM, said:

Kinda a stretch to go from, "I'd like the Blackjack to be volumetrically equal to all other mechs of the same weight," to "I want all mediums to suck."

--->

ScarecrowES, on 01 May 2016 - 02:36 PM, said:

And the thing about the Blackjack is... well all lighter medium mechs really... they shouldn't BE survivable. They shouldn't be able to stand up in a fight. Faster ones will make up for their squishiness with speed, but will sacrifice firepower. The Blackjack is set up to ignore its squishiness and focus on maximizing the amount of damage it can dish out relative to the small amount it can take. A slow mech at the lighter end of its class should be the first mech in its class to die in a stand-up fight. The Blackjack should die faster than any 45-ton mech.

As you say... it's small size prevents that from happening.

There are more quotes just like this one from you, but I'm too lazy to add them in here. The point is, your description up there does in fact convey a sense that you want this mech to suck.

Edited by FupDup, 01 May 2016 - 03:04 PM.