819 replies to this topic

[Gas Guzzler]

dervishx5, on 09 August 2016 - 09:08 AM, said:

Well we'll see what the real competitive teams do with power draw if it comes to it. AC5 boats don't exactly scream speed either, and they're more of a brawling weapon than anything else. I don't think power draw is really going to limit the effectiveness of the rapid fire large laser mech.

A Black Knight was what, 21 points of damage from the LPL? If ghost heat goes away you can do pretty good with 4 LL.

Time will tell. It's rare when the DOA crowd is accurate.

Competitive players aren't using lasers on the tourney build, they are using Dakka/PPCs/Gauss, and that is before the BK/GHR/WHM-6D all got nerfed.

[Johnny Z]

Signal27, on 09 August 2016 - 09:06 AM, said:

This is if you only think that mechs will always just stare at each other while holding perfectly still on a big open field - Then yes, the big-DPS autocannons will reign supreme. But it's not always like that nor is it going to be. Right now, I actually pilot some of those 60+ alpha laser vomit boats you are vigorously defending. And all I have to do is pop out from behind a corner, dump my alpha, and roll back into cover. The DPS boat can't answer that so long as they are held at bay by team mates or I can reposition my mech before he can charge and close the difference. So, if this power draw thing comes to pass, you know what I'm going to do? Remove some of the lasers and replace them with heat sinks. Will this work? I don't know - which goes back to I'd rather wait and actually test this in play then be so cocksure it's going to fail because of the way it sounds on paper.



I wouldn't say "completely wrecked." I'd more say "tweaked." I seriously doubt this plan, by how it sounds on paper, is going to forever relegate lasers to the trash pile. We'll just have to wait and see.

I hope someone else reads this. Not to mention there are mechs doing 70+ energy alphas.

[ice trey]

AnTi90d, on 13 June 2016 - 06:25 PM, said:

Do you guys think it would be good for this game to have a system that prevents players from firing all of their weapons due to some invisible mechanic that has never existed in all of Battletech / Mechwarrior?

What Battletech used to balance the game was having each weapons system hit a randomly determined location, so that four medium lasers or two PPCs are not equal to an AC20.

What Mechwarrior had up until now was called "Multiplayer as an afterthought" because while internet was in most homes by the early 2000s, FAST internet and unlimited bandwidth packages that didn't tie up the household phone lines wasn't guaranteed. Many folks were still dancing with the fax-machine sounds before logging in. Multiplayer was really just an afterthought to give the game a little more milage, rather than the main product. As such, concepts like "All the guns hit perfectly on the crosshairs" that could allow for concentrating ludicrous damage values on a single point" were kept in the game, because balance is a non issue when the AI that outnumber you five to one are stuck in stock builds with weird weapons groupings, and you're expected to bring some sort of powergamey custom builds to shred through them and feel macho.

There are a lot of things I would have preferred seeing put into this game before it made the jump from singleplayer to multiplayer exclusive - mostly centered on doing everything possible to kneecap power-gaming. Customization? Bad idea. MPBT 3025 had the right idea by keeping players in stock builds, but came out in the age of 28.8K modems so good luck finding a player base. Counterstrike-style expanding reticules based on movement also would have helped prevent players from min-maxing with 60-point alphas, because it'd spread the damage over a larger area, and would also coax players to move tactically, slowing down to take shots, or keeping the speed up when protection is needed.

So many players (Who've never bothered rolling some dice in a game of Battletech) are quick to judge that Battletech mechanics won't work in a Mechwarrior game. While I don't assume that we'd end up with Fallout-style slow-motion fights with Select-your-target screens, or that mechwarrior PC games should run on a 2D6 system, a lot of the mechanics that are put into place in the Battletech boardgame can - and should - be simulated in a multiplayer game, because it has always been at it's core a multiplayer game, and all the mechs in the game, the hit location systems, the criticals - all exist as a part of those mechanics. You start cowtowing to the e-sports community who don't know a Javelin from a Jupiter without having Sarna.net in a seperate tab, trying to put mechanics that worked OK in single player - because you were supposed to be stronger than the wave-after-wave of AI - into a multiplayer game, you end up with a mess.

MW4 multiplayer was all the proof I needed. "How many assault mechs can we give jump jets, cERLL, and cGauss for pop-tarting" was the name of the game. Any other tactic was made needlessly difficult or useless. Never mind how the only active rooms turned off heat and ammo considerations. MWO fixed some of the issues, but also kept a fair number of concepts that have brought us to this current neverending mess of nerfs and buffs - and it never will end, because so many core concepts were botched from square one.

For the record, My start was through Mechwarrior 2, Back to MW1, the crescent hawks series, Mechcommander, MW 3, and MW 4. By the time 4 had come around, I was so disappointed with the customization system and the atmosphere of multiplayer, it drove me to find a better way to get my mech fix - the original source material.

Edited by ice trey, 09 August 2016 - 09:19 AM.

[dervishx5]

Gas Guzzler, on 09 August 2016 - 09:10 AM, said:

Competitive players aren't using lasers on the tourney build, they are using Dakka/PPCs/Gauss, and that is before the BK/GHR/WHM-6D all got nerfed.

Well I'll take your word for it. I haven't played the game since a month before the tournament started. Back when I was playing PPC/Gauss was bad for brawling, as you well know.

Still, the only teams left playing in that sham of a tournament are the super hardcore ones that could pretty much kill anyone with any weapon. They have superhuman levels of coordination that the vast majority of the competitive playerbase does not. That's not the best way to judge how something will work. NS could never ape SJR nor EMP no matter how many times we tried, as you also know.

Edited by dervishx5, 09 August 2016 - 09:15 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Johnny Z, on 09 August 2016 - 09:12 AM, said:

Not to mention there are mechs doing 70+ energy alphas.

None that are good are doing 70+ energy alphas. Actually the best alpha prior to the ghost heat nerf of the CUAC10s was the Dakka Kodiak at 80 damage. Quit using trash builds as boogeymen.

ice trey, on 09 August 2016 - 09:13 AM, said:

What Battletech used to balance the game was having each weapons system hit a randomly determined location, so that four medium lasers or two PPCs are not equal to an AC20.

I'm pretty sure you are also forgetting BV and how it played a factor in balance.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 09 August 2016 - 09:14 AM.

[Felicitatem Parco]

I want a MechWarrior game, not a BattleTech game.

It's time to admit that BattleTech rules are insufficient for a vehicle sim game. Battletech rules have AC/20s and Gauss Rifles with identical cooldowns. They give the AC/2 a minimum range and the same cooldown as a AC/10. All the energy weapons in the world have no effect on the reactor's energy production capacity, but Mechs' walking speed is 100% dependent on reactor output.

Face it, a BattleTech game would suck from the cockpit.

This is a MechWarrior game, though, which means they can tailor the rules as needed since it is not set in BT Stone. They have adjusted weapon stats, added weapon functions, bastardised some weapon systems, and done all sorts of stuff as they see fit to make the transition from BT to MW. Again, a direct BT port to the cockpit would have sucked.

However, the "Energy Draw" feature is not an Energy Draw feature. Firing AC/20s does not draw anything simar to the amount of energy tapped by dual PPCs. They need to rename the feature "Damage Cap" or "Alpha Cap" to be more transparent .

It's meant as a Balancing Feature that has no actual sim basis. It's not immersive nor is it realistic at all. It is similar to how high Mario can jump in SMB -> not realistic at all, but the game helped by having an unrealistic feature such as a person being able to jump several times their own height.

The question is now "How will an Alpha Cap help the game?"

To be Honest, if it lets my fire 3 PPCs again, then I might be happy about it. It seems to hit the LL + ML boats hardest, so they may be forced to use more PPCs followed by lasers, or deal with the extra 0.5 second burn. It will also probably hit SRM bombers hard, too. This makes me think we will see more bullets on the field. It's a good thing I like the dakka.

[SmithMPBT]

Definitely looking forward to it stopping builds like this one:

[Gas Guzzler]

Signal27, on 09 August 2016 - 09:06 AM, said:

This is if you only think that mechs will always just stare at each other while holding perfectly still on a big open field - Then yes, the big-DPS autocannons will reign supreme. But it's not always like that nor is it going to be. Right now, I actually pilot some of those 60+ alpha laser vomit boats you are vigorously defending. And all I have to do is pop out from behind a corner, dump my alpha, and roll back into cover. The DPS boat can't answer that so long as they are held at bay by team mates or I can reposition my mech before he can charge and close the difference. So, if this power draw thing comes to pass, you know what I'm going to do? Remove some of the lasers and replace them with heat sinks. Will this work? I don't know - which goes back to I'd rather wait and actually test this in play then be so cocksure it's going to fail because of the way it sounds on paper.



I wouldn't say "completely wrecked." I'd more say "tweaked." I seriously doubt this plan, by how it sounds on paper, is going to forever relegate lasers to the trash pile. We'll just have to wait and see.

Yeah so they work great in the solo queue where everybody indecisively stands still. As Quicksilver Said, there are very few lasers in the MWO world championship, its all dakka, PPCs, and Gauss (all PPFLD, no hitscan) and thats before the best laser boats got nerfed. So now energy draw comes along to limit you to 30 damage of lasers at a time, I fail to see how they won't be relegated to the trash heap.

[Johnny Z]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 09 August 2016 - 09:13 AM, said:

None that are good are doing 70+ energy alphas. Actually the best alpha prior to the ghost heat nerf of the CUAC10s was the Dakka Kodiak at 80 damage. Quit using trash builds as boogeymen.


I'm pretty sure you are also forgetting BV and how it played a factor in balance.

Not true. Your simply not speaking the truth. The 70+ alphas have been used to devastating effect. Maybe you are a newer player and havnt played with/against some of the guys I have. So maybe its ignorance.

Edited by Johnny Z, 09 August 2016 - 09:21 AM.

[Gas Guzzler]

SmithMPBT, on 09 August 2016 - 09:15 AM, said:

Definitely looking forward to it stopping builds like this one:

That's a pretty terrible, useless build. One that is already stopped by Ghost Heat 1.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

dervishx5, on 09 August 2016 - 09:13 AM, said:

Well I'll take your word for it. I haven't played the game since a month before the tournament started. Back when I was playing PPC/Gauss was bad for brawling, as you well know.

I'll give you the loadouts for the Lords vs SJR match recently:
Lords
* 2 Dakka Kodiaks
* 1 Dakka Warhammer
* 1 Dakka/PPC Warhammer
* 2 PPC Hunchback IICs
* 2 SPL Jenner IICs (I believe)

SJR
* 1 Dakka Kodiak
* 1 Gauss/PPC Kodiak
* 1 ERLL Grasshopper
* 1 Gauss/PPC Timby
* 2 PPC Hunchback IICs
* 1 SPL Jenner IIC
* 1 SPL Arctic Cheetah

[dervishx5]

Prosperity Park, on 09 August 2016 - 09:15 AM, said:

I want a MechWarrior game, not a BattleTech game.

It's time to admit that BattleTech rules are insufficient for a vehicle sim game. Battletech rules have AC/20s and Gauss Rifles with identical cooldowns. They give the AC/2 a minimum range and the same cooldown as a AC/10. All the energy weapons in the world have no effect on the reactor's energy production capacity, but Mechs' walking speed is 100% dependent on reactor output.

Face it, a BattleTech game would suck from the cockpit.

This is a MechWarrior game, though, which means they can tailor the rules as needed since it is not set in BT Stone. They have adjusted weapon stats, added weapon functions, bastardised some weapon systems, and done all sorts of stuff as they see fit to make the transition from BT to MW. Again, a direct BT port to the cockpit would have sucked.

However, the "Energy Draw" feature is not an Energy Draw feature. Firing AC/20s does not draw anything simar to the amount of energy tapped by dual PPCs. They need to rename the feature "Damage Cap" or "Alpha Cap" to be more transparent .

It's meant as a Balancing Feature that has no actual sim basis. It's not immersive nor is it realistic at all. It is similar to how high Mario can jump in SMB -> not realistic at all, but the game helped by having an unrealistic feature such as a person being able to jump several times their own height.

The question is now "How will an Alpha Cap help the game?"

To be Honest, if it lets my fire 3 PPCs again, then I might be happy about it. It seems to hit the LL + ML boats hardest, so they may be forced to use more PPCs followed by lasers, or deal with the extra 0.5 second burn. It will also probably hit SRM bombers hard, too. This makes me think we will see more bullets on the field. It's a good thing I like the dakka.

This belongs in its own thread.

[Gas Guzzler]

Johnny Z, on 09 August 2016 - 09:17 AM, said:

Not true. Your simply not speaking the truth. The 70+ alphas have been used to devastating effect.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Johnny Z, on 09 August 2016 - 09:17 AM, said:

Not true. Your simply not speaking the truth. The 70+ alphas have been used to devastating effect.

No, they haven't because they are bad, show me where in this tournament has any 70+ alpha energy boat been used?

[Bluttrunken]

Chimera11, on 13 June 2016 - 06:39 PM, said:

I'm going to wait to form an opinion until there's actually enough information to form an opinion on.

This is actually considered bad style in most gaming forums, afaik.

Edited by Bluttrunken, 09 August 2016 - 09:19 AM.

[dervishx5]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 09 August 2016 - 09:18 AM, said:

No, they haven't because they are bad, show me where in this tournament has any 70+ alpha energy boat been used?

You're being trolled.

[Signal27]

Gas Guzzler, on 09 August 2016 - 09:16 AM, said:

Yeah so they work great in the solo queue where everybody indecisively stands still. As Quicksilver Said, there are very few lasers in the MWO world championship, its all dakka, PPCs, and Gauss (all PPFLD, no hitscan) and thats before the best laser boats got nerfed. So now energy draw comes along to limit you to 30 damage of lasers at a time, I fail to see how they won't be relegated to the trash heap.

Again: The fact they are hitscan weapons that are light and small will make sure they still get use, even if the sky truely does land on us as you are predicting they would at the very least be used by newer players and those who are not as gifted in the aiming department. They're not going to see the trash heap.

While I won't deny that competitive tournament players favor the weapons with PPFLD, the power draw isn't going to change the way they play at all - so I don't see what the issue is on that front unless you're arguing for a boost to lasers, which is a completely different subject than Ghost Heat 2.0. It's just going to change the more casual games is all - which again, are going to see players tweak their laser boats rather than sell them off in droves, and stands the potential of increasing TTK which everybody seems to favor.

[Johnny Z]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 09 August 2016 - 09:18 AM, said:

No, they haven't because they are bad, show me where in this tournament has any 70+ alpha energy boat been used?

If they are so bad then this energy pool making them impossible isn't a big deal. Nice. Topic closed.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Johnny Z, on 09 August 2016 - 09:23 AM, said:

If they are so bad then this energy pool making them impossible isn't a big deal. Nice. Topic closed.

Except it isn't making them impossible, they will be just as bad as they are currently if not a little worse. I think you may have misconceptions on how this power draw will work.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 09 August 2016 - 09:34 AM.

[Gas Guzzler]

Signal27, on 09 August 2016 - 09:23 AM, said:

Again: The fact they are hitscan weapons that are light and small will make sure they still get use, even if the sky truely does land on us as you are predicting they would at the very least be used by newer players and those who are not as gifted in the aiming department. They're not going to see the trash heap.

While I won't deny that competitive tournament players favor the weapons with PPFLD, the power draw isn't going to change the way they play at all - so I don't see what the issue is on that front unless you're arguing for a boost to lasers, which is a completely different subject than Ghost Heat 2.0. It's just going to change the more casual games is all - which again, are going to see players tweak their laser boats rather than sell them off in droves, and stands the potential of increasing TTK which everybody seems to favor.

Small and light doesn't matter if they can be used to great effect on heavies and assaults, which have enough tonnage for them. All that matters is the end result. I'm not arguing for a boost to lasers, I'm arguing for them to be able to keep their high damage to balance against the heat efficient DPS of dakka and the precision of PPFLD.

Its not going to change TTK. Dakka melts mechs.. seriously TTK isn't going anywhere. When I was a new player, I found holding lasers on individual components much more difficult than hitting with projectiles, so I fail to see that side of the argument. It definitely took time for me to get accustomed to using lasers.