155 replies to this topic

[Pers0nne]

Okay but really tho, the main problem about the torso stuffing is that it make arms totally useless.
But let's think about it for a second, what's the point of having armes on giant robot ? To let them hold giant weapons.

So why not give bonuses to arms to let them hold big weapons more easily ?
Something like -50% tonnage on all (or just some specific) weapons fitted on arms would surely work.

Sure arms are still a weak point, but they are also doing their job, letting you carry bigger gun easily !

[RestosIII]

Pers0nne, on 08 December 2016 - 04:34 PM, said:

Okay but really tho, the main problem about the torso stuffing is that it make arms totally useless.
But let's think about it for a second, what's the point of having armes on giant robot ? To let them hold giant weapons.

So why not give bonuses to arms to let them hold big weapons more easily ?
Something like -50% tonnage on all (or just some specific) weapons fitted on arms would surely work.

Sure arms are still a weak point, but they are also doing their job, letting you carry bigger gun easily !

I... I can't tell if you're serious or not. Please don't be serious. Please let this be a joke and/or bait.

[Quxudica]

Gas Guzzler, on 08 December 2016 - 04:23 PM, said:

I've had this argument before, don't really care to have it again, and frankly my mind is having trouble comprehending why people still push for this. It's way too late in the game to change such a fundamental mech build customization aspect.

MechWarrior 2/3 didn't even have hardpoints, you could put weapons wherever. Don't see why its needed other than the arbitrary "The Warhammer is supposed to have the PPCs in the ARMS!" In the end, all this would do is make a couple mechs who have the right size weapons in the right locations be dominant, and you end up having less variety than we have now.

And literally someone just said that you want the big PPCs on the arms because they are the big spots, and then went on to say "except for the Hunchback where you want the big weapon in the shoulder." It's like... really?? It can't get any more arbitrary then that.

The physical characteristics of a mech should influence how the mech plays beyond the arbitrary hitboxes pgi gives them. A couple chassis with high mounted HPs large enough to hold big guns are not going to dominate the meta, and would be far easier to deal with balance-wise than every single mech with a MG or SL port at or above the cockpit. Meanwhile, currently low-tier or even unusable builds would see a boost as their less-than-ideal HP locations actually matter due to what those locations can slot. The Hunchbacks AC20 torso is a huge bulking target because it can take that giant AC20, that's the trade off. The Warhammers big shiny arm barrels or the Catapults giant ear cannons lose a tremendous amount of value when the vulnerability and/or less-than-ideal location isn't rewarded by being able to hold something you otherwise could never take.

The problems with the game are systemic and no one system change will fix them all. There is more than one path to addressing them but the core issues lay in the utter lack of weapon limitations, the lack of truly impactful non-weapon equipment choices, the heat system and convergence.

[Nik Reaper]

Oki, let's try it this way:

Let's say they add specific location based quirks to mechs, but keep the basic quirks as they are, how much and what would say this warhammer need for you to consider adding PPCs to the arms?

For me probably something like -30% heat or +50% projectile speed from PPCs in arms might do it, still needs armor on the arms but if -heat is there might save on a few DHS.

[MechWarrior5152251]

There was no way for game designers or their hired artists to have been able to anticipate how important hardpoint height would be in the future back in 1985. The most advanced video game was Star Wars in its wire frame glory.

[Quxudica]

Nik Reaper, on 08 December 2016 - 04:40 PM, said:

Oki, let's try it this way:

Let's say they add specific location based quirks to mechs, but keep the basic quirks as they are, how much and what would say this warhammer need for you to consider adding PPCs to the arms?

For me probably something like -30% heat or +50% projectile speed from PPCs in arms might do it, still needs armor on the arms but if -heat is there might save on a few DHS.

Ignoring for the moment that Quirks are being done away with, I don't think they'd be enough and would likely end up just complicating matters further. The crux of the problem is far more chassis are able to fire far more large weapons from behind far more cover than they really should be able to. This has contributed to the hill-humping-alpha-spam meta we have today. One of the biggest goals behind sized hardpoints, beyond making mech silhouettes more than skin choice, is to force players to take greater risks if they want to bring big guns to bear, while also limiting the boating of weapons.

Quote

There was no way for game designers or their hired artists to have been able to anticipate how important hardpoint height would be in the future back in 1985. The most advanced video game was Star Wars in its wire frame glory.

But there was every way for PGI to anticipate it, and even if they didn't they had an entire group of beta testers telling them these this (as well as convergence, the heat system and power creep) were going to be a problem. It was entirely foreseeable.

Edited by Quxudica, 08 December 2016 - 04:47 PM.

[Pers0nne]

RestosIII, on 08 December 2016 - 04:37 PM, said:

I... I can't tell if you're serious or not. Please don't be serious. Please let this be a joke and/or bait.

Alright, so instead of being a ****, tell me why that wouldn't be a good idea then.

[Herodes]

Boogie138, on 09 November 2016 - 03:22 PM, said:

All you "lore-hards" should just stick to private matches in stock mode.

This is not about lore being a sacred dogma. It is about adding diversity and flavour to a game where a lot of different robots tend to follow the same meta and end up being all the same. With lore-specific "flavour quirks" you do not punish anyone. You offer some boni for build diversification, you offer motivation to buy more Mechpacks, you offer a more canon-like BT feeling and thus you make a more enjoyable gameplay and end up with a satisfied player base.
Win win for everyone. And no one gives up anyting.

[Pers0nne]

Herodes, on 08 December 2016 - 04:49 PM, said:

This is not about lore being a sacred dogma. It is about adding diversity and flavour to a game where a lot of different robots tend to follow the same meta and end up being all the same. With lore-specific "flavour quirks" you do not punish anyone. You offer some boni for build diversification, you offer motivation to buy more Mechpacks, you offer a more canon-like BT feeling and thus you make a more enjoyable gameplay and end up with a satisfied player base.
Win win for everyone. And no one gives up anyting.

It's not even about lore, it's about game mechanics.
Is torso stuffing and empty arm something desirable on a game mechanic stand point ?
Does it make the game better ?

The answer is pretty clear, no it not.
MW is about aiming at your opponent to strip him from his weapon before you can kill him, if you poor everything on the torso it totally negate that core part of the game.
The game is also about giant robot with giant weapons, not about zombie chikens running around and blasting all their weapon from their chest.

[Carl Vickers]

Mechs from TT were setup for role based warfare in a paper and pen game, when the game went electronic, things changed due to things like hill humping.

In a game where the creator wants it to be e-sports, people who want lore based builds are going to suffer as high mounted weapons where the less you expose of yourself when you fire is the better meta, yet again, this is reality.

[RestosIII]

Pers0nne, on 08 December 2016 - 04:47 PM, said:

Alright, so instead of being a ****, tell me why that wouldn't be a good idea then.

With just the Warhammer, cutting PPC weights in half in the arms would give it a massive 7 more tons of DHS/Engine/Ammo to go with. Having PPCs in the arms is a slight liability, but nowhere near the amount of ridiculousness 7 more tons would allow. That's effectively completely free PPC. This is coming from someone who refuses to take the PPCs out of my Warhammer arms, and runs solely **** lore builds. That, and messing with equipment tonnage outside of ammo amounts would be a messy process, especially since it would have stock mechs either sitting with free tonnage when you buy them, or PGI will have to find stuff to just randomly shove into them to fill it up.

[Pers0nne]

Hoooo you cutie little pie !
So you can't just take an idea as what it is, AN IDEA, if we don't do perfect math for you ?

Okay, so let me clarify for you since you seem in real need of it.
OF COURSE you can't just add a massive buff like that with no cost in return, it obvious, but maybe not enough for people like you!

So what drawback could we add to the mech in order to balance that a bit ?
Well, their is ALOT of different things we could do, the most basic would be to reduce the overall mech tonnage by a bit less than 7tones (since having the weapons on your arm is a bad point, giving him 2 tons could be an acceptable trade), it would have as side effect to limit any build not putting thos PPC where they are supposed to be.

You don't want to reduce the tonnage for lore reason ? Fair enough, we could just increase the tonnage of the base mech (ie the mech totally striped of everything). Right now he's at 7tones. He could be 12tones naked. BOOM problem solved, and your mech is still a 70tons.

So, now that I've spilled EVERYTHING to you, what do you think of that idea ?

[RestosIII]

Pers0nne, on 08 December 2016 - 05:30 PM, said:

So, now that I've spilled EVERYTHING to you, what do you think of that idea ?

I think it's horribly misguided and would cause way more balance problems than it would solve, that's what I think. You shouldn't be forcing people to run those weapons in the arms, you should be encouraging it. With your idea, you're actively punishing people for having a build outside of that system. With something like hardpoint specific quirks, that's an encouragement to using those weapons in that spot. When you start messing with tonnages, especially with your second example of boosting the weight of the mech without armor/weapons/an engine, you just nerfed the entire chassis outside of lore builds. And that's not cool.

[Mole]

I have to agree with RestosIII in this little spat. This idea is bad and there's no way to band-aid it to make it sound more palatable.

[Davegt27]

Quote

The reason to address convergence is purely gameplay regardless of if it makes logical sense or not, it's just a happy coincidence that it actually does make logical sense. BattleTech takes place in the far flung future yes. The far flung future of the 1980's, hence why everything is big and bulky and not nearly as advanced as you would think it would be. That, in turn, is neatly explained in lore by the constant apocalyptic warfare the galaxy never seems to recover from, causing entire technologies to be forgotten (thus, "LosTech"). Many of the mechs we are piloting are actually family heirlooms passed down generations that have been blown up, rebuilt, destroyed, patched, broken down and jerryrigged to keep running because the tech to build new ones is either lost or not widely available.

so correct me if I am wrong the reason for the anti-convergence and the sized hard points, anti-alpha is to allow battle Mechs to live
this is all well and good and I agree with the idea if we where designing a new game
but PGI might think along different lines or they have other ideas on how to solve the problem

check out this video

[Pers0nne]

RestosIII, on 08 December 2016 - 05:41 PM, said:

I think it's horribly misguided and would cause way more balance problems than it would solve, that's what I think. You shouldn't be forcing people to run those weapons in the arms, you should be encouraging it. With your idea, you're actively punishing people for having a build outside of that system. With something like hardpoint specific quirks, that's an encouragement to using those weapons in that spot. When you start messing with tonnages, especially with your second example of boosting the weight of the mech without armor/weapons/an engine, you just nerfed the entire chassis outside of lore builds. And that's not cool.

You have no idea of how game balance works don't you ?

You just want a bonus to incentivize THE CORRECT use of the mech. Because YES, putting the big guns in the big gun welding arms IS the correct use of the mech.

You can call it "encouragement" it's still a power creep, and will still be punishing to the guys won't won't get thos "encouragement". By giving bonuses to force people to do what they are supposed to be instead of simply stopping them from doing what you don't want you are just creating an uncontrolled spiraling in power.


BububububbuBUT THE FREEDOM OF CUSTOMIZATION you'll no double will shout. Well, no matter what their will be "good" and "bad" build, the question is, will you rather have good build being healthy for the game (putting big gun on the big arms) or stuffing everything on the torso and running empty handed ?

Warhammer mech (and mech like him) are supposed to be "mech with big guns in their arms"; if the optimal way to build them is not that then you have failed somewhere along the line and should fix that.
In fact, ALL mech should have that kind of quirk, because torso weapons are inherently better thanks to their fact that they are way harder to destroy. If you let people put the biggest gun there then their is no reason at all to use the arms, and that the problem right now, their is ZERO advantage to put the biggest gun on the arms, with that tweek you will still have the same amount of weapons, but they will be placed more logicaly lore-wise, look-wise and gamplay-wise.

And it won't cause ANY "balance problem" as long as your mech, with his big guns in his hand is good enough.

Edited by Pers0nne, 08 December 2016 - 06:06 PM.

[RestosIII]

Pers0nne, on 08 December 2016 - 06:01 PM, said:

You have no idea of how game balance works don't you ?

You just want a bonus to incentivize THE CORRECT use of the mech. Because YES, putting the big guns in the big gun welding arms IS the correct use of the mech.

You can call it "encouragement" it's still a power creep, and will still be punishing to the guys won't won't get thos "encouragement". By giving bonuses to force people to do what they are supposed to be instead of simply stopping them from doing what you don't want you are just creating an uncontrolled spiraling in power.


BububububbuBUT THE FREEDOM OF CUSTOMIZATION you'll no double will shout. Well, no matter what their will be "good" and "bad" build, the question is, will you rather have good build being healthy for the game (putting big gun on the big arms) or stuffing everything on the torso and running empty handed ?

It won't cause ANY "balance problem" as long as your mech, with his big guns in his hand is good enough.

Oh boy. This one is a doozy. I want to incentive lore builds, yes. Do I personally view putting PPCs in the arms as a good thing? Oh definitely. Do I think people should be forced to do it by actively making their mech inferior if they move their weapons? No. Encouraging lore builds without slashing the tires of every other build helps increase build diversity. Telling someone "No, you're bad and should feel bad!" for sticking weapons in the torso would lower build diversity.

I probably would have been fine with sized hardpoints if they were implemented back when the game came out, but making a change as major as yours, or as major as sized hardpoints now? That would, rightfully, make a good deal of the population get angry and leave because suddenly you're punished for customization. It's the same reason locking all quirks behind the set of 8 system was a bad idea.

[Pers0nne]

Ho you are a cleaver girl for sure !

Let's totally ignore the naked truth even when I stuff it right under your nose : You have no idea what game balance mean, and you don't understand something to be "the right thing" you have only ONE solution, make it better than the rest, and you there's only 2 ways to do that.

The first (and what you propose) is to give a bonus to that thing, making it just BETTER than the other builds, and if the other builds are already "balanced" than your bonused build became unbalanced and op. Well done, that's really what everyone want !

The second is to force one way or another what you want in every build (what I propose). And then, not only their is not ONE op build, but you still have the exact same amount of builds in the end.

Because if you use my idea people will still fit the same amount of guns in their mech, but they will start by putting the big one on the arms instead of putting them in the torso. If you make so that all arms have a reduction of weapon weight (and if you reduce the tonnages of the mech so they won't just load more guns on the mech) you didn't harmed build diversity at all, you just made sure that amrs are alway where you'll want to put your gun first instead of now where it's on the torso.

And that's has NOTHING to do with "the lore" it just good old common sens and game mechanics. Of course mech should have their big guns on their arms, and it's also make for better gameplay, because cuting the arm of a mech should be a good thing, not a was of damage.

And that part about the sized hardpoint being too much of a change to be implemented, well, it's NEVER too late to make changes, as long as you are certain they are good. And let's be honest, the new skill tree is as big of a change as that.

[RestosIII]

Pers0nne, on 08 December 2016 - 06:39 PM, said:

The first (and what you propose) is to give a bonus to that thing, making it just BETTER than the other builds, and if the other builds are already "balanced" than your bonused build became unbalanced and op. Well done, that's really what everyone want !

Incorrect. Giving hardpoint specific buffs would make them equal, because technically the weapons perform better in those arm hardpoints, but they still lack the positioning and tight spread of torso mounted weaponry. It would be a choice between the two options.

Pers0nne, on 08 December 2016 - 06:39 PM, said:

The second is to force one way or another what you want in every build (what I propose). And then, not only their is not ONE op build, but you still have the exact same amount of builds in the end.

Because if you use my idea people will still fit the same amount of guns in their mech, but they will start by putting the big one on the arms instead of putting them in the torso. If you make so that all arms have a reduction of weapon weight (and if you reduce the tonnages of the mech so they won't just load more guns on the mech) you didn't harmed build diversity at all, you just made sure that amrs are alway where you'll want to put your gun first instead of now where it's on the torso.

Oh no, you definitely harm build diversity with that. By actively making it so that you can't fit as many guns on the mech as you could previously, you have actually made it so there are less builds. You seem to not get one of the main reasons for people putting weapons in the torsos in the first place: Different weapon heights and arm shielding. If you make it so that people will have to strip armor and heatsinks/ammo/engine size to fit their guns in the ST's, people aren't going to do it any more, and just go for a mech that isn't crap because it's forced to put its guns in the low slung arms. Sure, something like the Jagermech and Catapult K2 might get a resurgence, but that's entirely because unless you actually buff the weapons, no-one will use those arms still.

Pers0nne, on 08 December 2016 - 06:39 PM, said:

And that part about the sized hardpoint being too much of a change to be implemented, well, it's NEVER too late to make changes, as long as you are certain they are good. And let's be honest, the new skill tree is as big of a change as that.

There is definitely a cut-off date for making absolutely massive changes to how game mechanics work. Making the mechlab completely different, with the weapon system being absolutely revamped is a much bigger change than replacing the placeholder skill system.

[Nik Reaper]

Thinking on it a bit longer, there is an easy but terribly unpopular option, drastically reduce torso twist speed... no more easy damage spreading but suddenly a need for fast moving and targeting arms... not sure if this would make the game better but hey, at least now you want arm weapons...