22 replies to this topic

[Reno Blade]

Yes, we can – listen to the community.
Here is the plan for a phased release.
Let us know how you feel about these changes!

Often the Community lists these few things in MWO that are leading to sometimes less fun:

• 1. Game battle-time is short when being killed very fast – TTK is too fast (QP and FP)
  
• 2. Weapons are boated for more dmg per volley – leads to #1
  
• 3. Single weapons feel weak, so you pack multiples – leads to #2 and then to #1
  
• 4. Skills are simple improvements without choices – mechs without full elite skills feel weak
  
• 5. Faction warfare has no life to keep you engaged outside the battles

To change everything in the game in one step would make players wait very long AND have a huge change at once where it’s hard to recognize the game and the success of the changes at all.
Therefore the release of the changes is split into phases as outlined below.

Phase 1: Heat System control (Energy Draw) –> Reduces Alpha dmg
Phase 2: Gameplay Tuning (Mechs/Weapon) –> Increases survivability and single-weapon feeling
Phase 3: Weapon System changes –> Increases diversity and balance
Phase 4: Heat Side-Effects (from Table Top) –> Increase importance of heat management
Phase 5: Skill System Revamp –> Provides diversity and choices
Phase 6: Faction Warfare Mission Additions –> Provides short term fun and long term goals



Let’s have a quick overview of what to expect in each Phase before we go into details.

Phase 1 – Heat System Control – Energy Draw

• 1. Add Energy Draw (as is currently in PTS3)
  
• 2. Fine tune ED values
  
• Medium/Light weapons to have about 1:1 dmg/draw
  
• Higher values for large weapons about 1:1.2 dmg/draw
  
• 3. Going over the 30 cap will pause Energy replenishing for 1 second

Phase 2 – Gameplay Tuning

• 1. Internals of all mechs x2
  
• 2. Large weapons with high damage and long cooldown
  
• 3. Med/Light weapons with low dmg and short cooldown
  
• 4. LRM spread normalized
  
• 5. Agility decoupled from Engines and put on each variant as quirk
  
• 6. Jump Jet tuning (more efficient)

Phase 3 – Weapon System changes

• 1. Pulse Laser with very short cooldown (makes them different to std Laser class)
  
• 2. ACs fire long streams of bullets (more dakka, more fun)
  
• 3. LRM Line-Of-Sight lock on mechanic to lock on 5 bones of the target (SSRM hit locations)

Phase 4 – Heat Side-Effects (from Table Top)

• 1. Agility reduction
  
• 2. Speed reduction
  
• 3. Internal damage
  
• 4. Damage to components (weapons, ammo, heat sinks)
  
• 5. More damage the higher you go in heat, but still less than current override-damage

Phase 5 – Skill System Revamp

• 1. Remove all Skills and provide Class based skills
  
• 2. Overlap only few skills for two Classes ( Light/Med, Med/Heavy, Heavy/Assault)
  
• 3. Provide choices in skill tree – Unable to max everything
  
• 4. Money-Sink to reset skills of a mech to 0 (removes the invested XP only)

Phase 6 – Faction Warfare Mission Additions

• 1. Provide changing daily missions per faction (e.g. head hunter mission: destroy 5 Jade Falcon Mechs)
  
• 2. Add weekly Campaigns per faction (complete multiple Missions)
  
• 3. Add 3-Month Campaigns per faction (multiple weekly Campaigns/Missions)
  
• 4. Add Inspect-Player feature (FW Campaign and Contract stats only)
  
• 5. Campaigns give badges for the pilot’s parade-uniform (inspect player feature)
  
• 6. Switching faction will cancel your progress of the current campaign of that faction

===========================================================================

Edited by Reno Blade, 09 September 2016 - 02:41 AM.

[Reno Blade]

===================================================================

Now let’s go into detail for each Phase.


Phase 1 – Heat System Control – Energy Draw

• 1. Add Energy Draw (as is currently in PTS5)
  
• 2. Fine tune ED values
  
  • Medium/Light weapons to have about 1:1 dmg/draw
    
  • Higher values for large weapons about 1:1.4 dmg/draw

• 3. Going over the 30 cap will pause Energy replenishing for 1 second

Some weapon values for dmg/draw for #2:
(Final numbers in phase #3 )

• PPC 10 dmg, 12 draw
  
• cERPPC 13 dmg, 15 draw
  
• Gauss 15dmg, 18 draw
  
• AC20 20 dmg, 24 draw
  
• LL 9 dmg, 10.8 draw
  
• ERLL 9 dmg, 10.8 draw
  
• cERLL 10 dmg, 12 draw
  
• LP 10 dmg, 12 draw
  
• cLP 12 dmg, 14.4 draw
  
• ML 5dmg, 5 draw
  
• SL 3dmg, 3 draw
  
• cERML 6dmg, 6 draw
  
• SRM6 12dmg, 9 draw
  
• LBX10 10dmg, 7.5 draw
  
• LRM20 20dmg, 15 draw

Edited by Reno Blade, 29 September 2016 - 07:39 AM.

[Reno Blade]

===================================================================

Phase 2 – Gameplay Tuning

• 1. Internals of all mechs x2
  
• 2. Large weapons with high damage and long cooldown
  
• 3. Med/Light weapons with low dmg and short cooldown
  
• 4. LRM spread normalized
  
• 5. Agility decoupled from Engines and put on each variant as quirk
  
• 6. Jump Jet tuning (more efficient)

Some values for #2 and #3

• PPC 12 dmg, 14.4 draw -> 7s cd
  
• cERPPC 16 dmg, 19.2 draw -> 7s cd
  
• Gauss 18 dmg, 21.6 draw -> 7s cd
  
• AC20 24 dmg, 28.8 draw -> 7s cd
  
• LL 11 dmg, 10.8 draw -> 6s cd
  
• ERLL 11 dmg, 13.2 draw -> 6s cd
  
• cERLL 12 dmg, 14.4 draw -> 6s cd
  
• LP 12 dmg, 14.4 draw -> 6s cd
  
• cLP 14 dmg, 16.8 draw -> 6s cd
  
• ML 4dmg, 4 draw -> 2.5s cd
  
• SL 2dmg, 2 draw -> 2s cd
  
• cERML 5dmg, 5 draw-> 3s cd
  
• SRM6 12dmg, 9 draw-> 4s cd
  
• LBX10 10dmg, 7.5 draw-> 4s cd
  
• LRM20 28dmg, 21 draw-> 7s cd

#6
- Jumpjets scaling increase for max jet numbers.
- Quirks for increased Jumpjet for certain mechs (e.g. Phoenix Hawk, Highlander)

Edited by Reno Blade, 29 September 2016 - 07:41 AM.

[Reno Blade]

Updated for PTS-5 2016-09-27
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Phase 3 – Weapon System changes

• 1. Pulse Laser with very short cooldown (makes them different to std Laser class) UPDATED stats
  
• 2. ACs fire long streams of bullets (more dakka, more fun)
  
• 3. UAC double tap changed to 100% jam AFTER the second shot.
  
• 4. LRM Line-Of-Sight lock on mechanic to lock on 5 bones of the target (SSRM hit locations)

Some values for #1

• LL 10 dmg, 8 heat, 10 draw - 6s cd, 1.2s duration
  
• ERLL 10 dmg, 9 heat, 10 draw - 6s cd, 1.4s duration
  
• cERLL 11 dmg, 9 heat, 11 draw - 6s cd, 1.5s duration
  
• LP 4 dmg, 3 heat, 4 draw -> 2s cd -> 0.6s duration
  
• cLP 4.6 dmg, 3.3 heat, 4.6 draw -> 2s cd -> 0.6s duration
  
• MP 2.5 dmg, 1.5 heat, 2.5 draw -> 1s cd -> 0.5s duration
  
• cSP 2 dmg, 1.1 heat, 2 draw -> 0.75s cd -> 0.4s duration
  
• ML 4dmg, 3 heat, 4 draw - 2.5s cd, 1s duration
  
• SL 2dmg, 1 heat, 2 draw - 2s cd, 0.8s duration
  
• cERML 5dmg, 4 heat, 5 draw - 3s cd, 1.2s duration

e.g. over duration of 72seconds, you can fire:


a LL 10 times, for 100 dmg and 90 heat,
or a ML 20 times for 80 dmg and 60 heat
or LP about 27 times for 108 dmg and 81 heat
or cLP 27 for 124.2 dmg and 89.1 heat

Some values for #2

• AC2 1 dmg, 2 bullets, 1s cd
  
• AC5 1.25 dmg, 4 bullets 3s cd
  
• AC10 2 dmg, 6 bullets, 4s cd (12 total dmg)
  
• AC20 3 dmg, 8 bullets, 7s cd (24 total dmg)
  
• cUAC2 1 dmg, 2 bullets, 1s cd
  
• cUAC5 1 dmg, 5 bullets 3s cd
  
• cUAC10 1.5 dmg, 8 bullets, 4s cd (12 total dmg)
  
• cUAC20 2.4 dmg, 10 bullets, 7s cd (24 total dmg)

#3
UAC double tap will now jam after the double tap with a 100% chance for the cooldown duration.

This will keep the DPS of UAC equal to the AC with the ability to shoot twice per cooldown with twice the cooldown afterwards.

#4
- LRM lock for Line-of-sight locking will have 5 subsequent locks which can lock to the targets bones similar to the random lock of Streak SRMs.
- The target bones for locking of each of these 5 locks will be decided by the location of the crosshair while locking on.
- Every 5th missile will target the same locked bone. e.g. LRM10 will have 2 missiles for each of the locked bones.
- Firing LRM before all 5 locks are achieved will fire the rest of the unlocked missiles as if they were fired out of LoS (current spread cloud volley).

Edited by Reno Blade, 29 September 2016 - 07:35 AM.

[Reno Blade]

Phase 4 – Heat Side-Effects (from Table Top)

• 1. Agility reduction
  
• 2. Speed reduction
  
• 3. Internal damage
  
• 4. Damage to components (weapons, ammo, heat sinks)
  
• 5. More damage the higher you go in heat, but still less than current override-damage

e.g.

• going over 30% heat will reduce agility & speed by 10%
  
• going over 50% heat will reduce agility & speed by 20%
  
• going over 75% will start damaging your internals and weapon components

Edited by Reno Blade, 09 September 2016 - 02:27 AM.

[Reno Blade]

Phase 5 – Skill System Revamp

• 1. Remove all Skills and provide Class based skills
  
• 2. Overlap only few skills for two Classes ( Light/Med, Med/Heavy, Heavy/Assault)
  
• 3. Provide choices in skill tree – Unable to max everything
  
• 4. Money-Sink to reset skills of a mech to 0 (removes the invested XP only)

Some examples for skills where you can only choose 2 at a given time

• Speed
  
• Agility
  
• InfoWarfare
  
• Heat efficiency
  
• Energy Capacity
  
• Range
  
• Reload speed

Edited by Reno Blade, 09 September 2016 - 02:41 AM.

[Reno Blade]

Phase 6 – Faction Warfare Mission Additions

• 1. Provide changing daily missions per faction (e.g. head hunter mission: destroy 5 Jade Falcon Mechs)
  
• 2. Add weekly Campaigns per faction (complete multiple Missions)
  
• 3. Add 3-Month Campaigns per faction (multiple weekly Campaigns/Missions)
  
• 4. Add Inspect-Player feature (FW Campaign and Contract stats only)
  
• 5. Campaigns give badges for the pilot’s parade-uniform (inspect player feature)
  
• 6. Switching faction will cancel your progress of the current campaign of that faction

Some examples for Missions:

• Destroy X components
  
• Destroy X mechs of House Steiner (see mech list)
  
• Kill X Pilots of House Steiner (Faction)
  
• Win X battles vs Faction Clan Jade Falcon
  
• Defend X Bases against the Clans/IS

Some examples for Campaigns:

• Recapture 1 Planet on Border to Clan Wolf
  
• Protect 3 Planets of your faction from being invaded
  
• Enable Scouting Bonus (e.g. UAV) 10x
  
• Complete 10 missions
  
• Kill 100 Claners

[Quicksilver Aberration]

No, I don't want this game to only be about brawling with SRMs.

[ScarecrowES]

I vote no... on all of this. And only because the game will be so borked up with the first phases that your latter phases, some of which I might agree with, won't have any point... noone will be playing anymore.

[Reno Blade]

I get the feeling that nobody read past the first phase here...
phase 2 to 4 provide changes which were suggested already a few times by players over the past years and the values for phase1 are changed in phase 2-4 to adapt weapon changes.

I find the hanges to bring a LOT more diversity into weapon balance than ever before AND the game would NOT turn into SRM brawler only.

if you doubt the values, provide examples and suggest something to improve it.

I'm surprised silly qq-posts get more responses than this.

[davoodoo]

In what battletech do you have mechs with single weapons?? even things like 3025 commando got 2 srm launchers and medium laser and only heat they should generate is from movement...

Edited by davoodoo, 10 September 2016 - 08:26 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Reno Blade, on 10 September 2016 - 07:13 AM, said:

I get the feeling that nobody read past the first phase here...

I read the whole thing before I made my comment, and I still stand by it.

Reno Blade, on 10 September 2016 - 07:13 AM, said:

I find the hanges to bring a LOT more diversity into weapon balance than ever before AND the game would NOT turn into SRM brawler only.

If you think given your cooldown numbers that anything will stop SRM brawling then you are naive or don't understand the meta.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 10 September 2016 - 09:49 AM.

[Reno Blade]

davoodoo, on 10 September 2016 - 08:24 AM, said:

In what battletech do you have mechs with single weapons?? even things like 3025 commando got 2 srm launchers and medium laser and only heat they should generate is from movement...

single "Large" weapons! mostly mediums,while most lights had a few small weapons only (e.g. 4ml jenner, vs, 1Ppc Panther )

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 September 2016 - 09:47 AM, said:

I read the whole thing before I made my comment, and I still stand by it.


If you think given your cooldown numbers that anything will stop SRM brawling then you are naive or don't understand the meta.

thanks for reading.
which cd were the worst if these numbers pushed the Srm to the top?
would you increase Srm cd to 5?
would the new Pulse laser cd not be useful for brawling vs 1srm?

[Quardak]

Your wouldnt get any useful information from the community. They generally dont like new ideas!

Edited by Quardak, 11 September 2016 - 03:33 AM.

[ScarecrowES]

Quardak, on 11 September 2016 - 03:33 AM, said:

Your wouldnt get any useful information from the community. They generally dont like BAD ideas!

FTFY

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Reno Blade, on 11 September 2016 - 12:07 AM, said:

which cd were the worst if these numbers pushed the Srm to the top?
would you increase Srm cd to 5?
would the new Pulse laser cd not be useful for brawling vs 1srm?

Pulse lasers would be worse because of having to fire repeatedly to sustain their current DPS compared to SRMs which have similar DPS to what they have currently in live. DPS oriented brawling weapons need to have crazy DPS to be useful, can't just keep them with the same DPS and make them require more shots.

You are ruining a very delicate balance that exists in live between DPS type weapons and alpha not to mention keeping SRMs at the same power level while nerfing long range.

[Sader325]

LRM locking onto bones is a TERRIBLE idea.

Streaks are the worst weapon in this game. Say no to Streak LRMS.

[Andi Nagasia]

Sader325, on 11 September 2016 - 03:19 PM, said:

LRM locking onto bones is a TERRIBLE idea.

Streaks are the worst weapon in this game. Say no to Streak LRMS.

well not Streak LRMs, (DIffrent weapons in BattleTech for Clan, im thinking they will fire in Volley like IS LRMs)
but LRMs that work like Streaks, has the ability to be very OP in Instances(Lights) & also Useless(Everything else)

[Reno Blade]

I updated the Pulse laser values for phase #3 to better reflect the "dps" nature of Pulse lasers to give a slight advantage over normal lasers.
Included also heat/duration for the rest, so to see the difference.

• LL 10 dmg, 8 heat, 10 draw - 6s cd, 1.2s duration
  
• ERLL 10 dmg, 9 heat, 10 draw - 6s cd, 1.4s duration
  
• cERLL 11 dmg, 9 heat, 11 draw - 6s cd, 1.5s duration
  
• LP 4 dmg, 3 heat, 4 draw -> 2s cd -> 0.6s duration
  
• cLP 4.6 dmg, 3.3 heat, 4.6 draw -> 2s cd -> 0.6s duration
  
• MP 2.5 dmg, 1.5 heat, 2.5 draw -> 1s cd -> 0.5s duration
  
• cSP 2 dmg, 1.1 heat, 2 draw -> 0.75s cd -> 0.4s duration
  
• ML 4dmg, 3 heat, 4 draw - 2.5s cd, 1s duration
  
• SL 2dmg, 1 heat, 2 draw - 2s cd, 0.8s duration
  
• cERML 5dmg, 4 heat, 5 draw - 3s cd, 1.2s duration

e.g. over duration of 72seconds, you can fire:
a LL 10 times, for 100 dmg and 90 heat,
or a ML 20 times for 80 dmg and 60 heat
or LP about 27 times for 108 dmg and 81 heat
or cLP 27 for 124.2 dmg and 89.1 heat

[Reno Blade]

Sader325, on 11 September 2016 - 03:19 PM, said:

LRM locking onto bones is a TERRIBLE idea.

Streaks are the worst weapon in this game. Say no to Streak LRMS.

I am actually not thinking about the streak lock as we have now, but to have to manually lock up to 5 locations (on the bones, just like random streaks target).
That way you have to aim where you want to hit and don't get a big ball of fire moving in a spread cloud.
It would increase skill and fun factor.