198 replies to this topic

[Hobbles v]

Ttk is fine as is. I rarely get insta gibbed but when I do its usually because I did something dumb. Tanking is easy.

Too many derps can't predict enemy movements and can't twist damage well. Then complain they died too fast when four enemy mechs unload on them with impunity because they lack even the slightest bit of survival instinct or tactical forethought.

If you want to live longer put in the effort

[MechaBattler]

Gas Guzzler, on 06 January 2017 - 11:16 AM, said:

They will just find the most efficient way to do 30 damage whatever that may be, and big mechs will build around the DPS limit afforded by energy draw, which was high. So the top performing medium mech, which is the dual ER PPC HBK-IIC, would have been completely unaffected by Energy Draw, yet a mediocre ER ML boat medium would get wrecked. On the high end of the spectrum, you would still see dual gauss dual ER PPC Kodiaks, they would just fire their weapons separately, which is already done at long range anyway because you can't alpha and hit the same component on a mech that is in motion due to projectile velocities. You would also see dakka assaults become more powerful again, while mediocre laser vomit assaults like the Executioner would get wrecked. You would also probably see Dual Gauss, single ER PPC builds a lot, which would run cool enough despite the energy draw penalties, more or less as cool as a dual ER PPC, single Gauss build does now, which is workable.

Primary impact is any low podspace big mech can't rely in its up front laser damage anymore and the higher pod space mechs just take the PPFLD efficient damage or dakka. Net loss for balance, very little change to TTK.

Some people on the PTS were talking about how energy draw doesn't address range differences. So what if they had given higher range a penalty on the energy draw scale? What if they had added a further penalty to pin point damage?

[C E Dwyer]

T.T.K is to fast, but other than.

Reduce the damage of every weapon.
Increase cool down on every weapon, making the game more corner poke alpha warrior than it already is
Lower the number of hard points each mech has (will cause **** storm to end all **** storms). or restrict further what weapons can go in what hard points ( only slightly less of a mega **** storm )

What's going to happen to slow it down ?
Also if your focused down by more than a couple of mechs it isn't going to have any noticeable effect

Ahh I missed one

increase armour values but see focus fire above

Edited by Cathy, 06 January 2017 - 11:46 AM.

[Gas Guzzler]

MechaBattler, on 06 January 2017 - 11:37 AM, said:

Some people on the PTS were talking about how energy draw doesn't address range differences. So what if they had given higher range a penalty on the energy draw scale? What if they had added a further penalty to pin point damage?

So then you can't fire more than 1 ER PPC at once without incurring a heat penalty so that the 2 ER PPC HBK-IIC feels the sting of Energy Draw? I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound like MechWarrior to me. The problem is, in order for Energy Draw to actually have the desired effect, it has to go to such an extreme, that most people aren't going to like how the game plays, and the only ones that do are the folks that really want to wander around in the open chainfiring weapons all the time, which despite what some forumites may insist, is definitely a minority.

There is a reason popular online PvP shooter games don't have ridiculously long TTK and death by papercut battles. Its not fun for people who like PvP shooters, and belongs in more of an RPG type setting. This is one of the reasons that I'm glad MW5 is coming. Its going to give the sim feel in a single player environment, which I will enjoy playing for different reasons than the competitive PVP gameplay in MWO, and hopefully will take some pressure off of MWO to become something it isn't, and shouldn't be.

Edited by Gas Guzzler, 06 January 2017 - 12:22 PM.

[MechaBattler]

Gas Guzzler, on 06 January 2017 - 12:21 PM, said:

So then you can't fire more than 1 ER PPC at once without incurring a heat penalty so that the 2 ER PPC HBK-IIC feels the sting of Energy Draw? I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound like MechWarrior to me. The problem is, in order for Energy Draw to actually have the desired effect, it has to go to such an extreme, that most people aren't going to like how the game plays, and the only ones that do are the folks that really want to wander around in the open chainfiring weapons all the time, which despite what some forumites may insist, is definitely a minority.

There is a reason popular online PvP shooter games don't have ridiculously long TTK and death by papercut battles. Its not fun for people who like PvP shooters, and belongs in more of an RPG type setting. This is one of the reasons that I'm glad MW5 is coming. Its going to give the sim feel in a single player environment, which I will enjoy playing for different reasons than the competitive PVP gameplay in MWO, and hopefully will take some pressure off of MWO to become something it isn't, and shouldn't be.

So better that we go the typical FPS route? That's what you and the others want. Another first person shooter with mechwarrior flavoring.

How would you suggest making mechs with less hard points more viable?

Edited by MechaBattler, 06 January 2017 - 12:25 PM.

[El Bandito]

Just want 8v8 back for pug queue. Will definitely help longer TTK.

[Gas Guzzler]

MechaBattler, on 06 January 2017 - 12:24 PM, said:

So better that we go the typical FPS route? That's what you and the others want. Another first person shooter with mechwarrior flavoring.

How would you suggest making mechs with less hard points more viable?

...the best medium in the game uses 2 Energy hardpoints... Popular heavies make use of 3 or 4. The mech chassis balance issues transcend quantities of hardpoints, but the issues with different chassis could be addressed through quirking or extra skill points (for the new skill tree). I know people don't like quirks, but when done correctly they have worked in the past.

Typical FPS? This game is far from the typical FPS, and I'm only arguing that it doesn't need to be further away from the typical FPS just because some people don't like that they can't figure out how to avoid getting instagibbed. I'm actually in the camp of making this like the MechWarrior games that I have loved before. All of them allow you do put together devastating levels of firepower, but being instagibbed is rare, unlike CoD/Overwatch/Battlefield/Halo, etc. I appreciate the difference in flavor between MWO and other shooters, as has always been the case of MechWarrior games, but that doesn't mean it should go the "death by 1000 papercuts" route.

[MechaBattler]

Gas Guzzler, on 06 January 2017 - 12:58 PM, said:

...the best medium in the game uses 2 Energy hardpoints... Popular heavies make use of 3 or 4. The mech chassis balance issues transcend quantities of hardpoints, but the issues with different chassis could be addressed through quirking or extra skill points (for the new skill tree). I know people don't like quirks, but when done correctly they have worked in the past.

Typical FPS? This game is far from the typical FPS, and I'm only arguing that it doesn't need to be further away from the typical FPS just because some people don't like that they can't figure out how to avoid getting instagibbed. I'm actually in the camp of making this like the MechWarrior games that I have loved before. All of them allow you do put together devastating levels of firepower, but being instagibbed is rare, unlike CoD/Overwatch/Battlefield/Halo, etc. I appreciate the difference in flavor between MWO and other shooters, as has always been the case of MechWarrior games, but that doesn't mean it should go the "death by 1000 papercuts" route.

What makes the Hunchbank IIC so much more viable than others? Why is the Shadowhawk-2K not considered as viable considering it has high mounted energy points and can jump? The Clan XL? The targeting computer? The extra 5 points split on other locations?

We've seen PGI go two ways about balancing. Either nerf the thing that is doing too good. Or buff everything else to high levels. But then that leads to a lot of backlash from the community. So it's just easier to leave things where they are?

Also that last bit is just a difference of opinion. Not all of us want it your way.

[Johnny Z]

Gas Guzzler, on 06 January 2017 - 12:21 PM, said:

So then you can't fire more than 1 ER PPC at once without incurring a heat penalty so that the 2 ER PPC HBK-IIC feels the sting of Energy Draw? I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound like MechWarrior to me. The problem is, in order for Energy Draw to actually have the desired effect, it has to go to such an extreme, that most people aren't going to like how the game plays, and the only ones that do are the folks that really want to wander around in the open chainfiring weapons all the time, which despite what some forumites may insist, is definitely a minority.

There is a reason popular online PvP shooter games don't have ridiculously long TTK and death by papercut battles. Its not fun for people who like PvP shooters, and belongs in more of an RPG type setting. This is one of the reasons that I'm glad MW5 is coming. Its going to give the sim feel in a single player environment, which I will enjoy playing for different reasons than the competitive PVP gameplay in MWO, and hopefully will take some pressure off of MWO to become something it isn't, and shouldn't be.

No one knows about this game and its not done yet. If and when those two things come together then this game will be appreciated a lot more.

My point being is that the long ttk is an excellent part of this game and allows single mechs without infinite respawn and creates down to the last mech gameplay, which is excellent.

Raising TTK a fraction isn't bad. Limiting alpha barf spam isn't bad either.

Somehow stopping the lag shielding mechs would improve a lot of matches also, but isn't related.

About "popular" online shooters, there is only one that I think fits that to any degree and that's BF 1. This game can do better. Not to mention that this games direction competition is world of tanks and the like. This game can do WAY better than those.

Edited by Johnny Z, 06 January 2017 - 01:33 PM.

[Gas Guzzler]

MechaBattler, on 06 January 2017 - 01:22 PM, said:

What makes the Hunchbank IIC so much more viable than others? Why is the Shadowhawk-2K not considered as viable considering it has high mounted energy points and can jump? The Clan XL? The targeting computer? The extra 5 points split on other locations?

We've seen PGI go two ways about balancing. Either nerf the thing that is doing too good. Or buff everything else to high levels. But then that leads to a lot of backlash from the community. So it's just easier to leave things where they are?

Also that last bit is just a difference of opinion. Not all of us want it your way.

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...927a45281e2d270

More DHS and all the stuff you listed make the Hunchback IIC better.

So... you could pretty easily quirk some of that.. provide the Shadowhawk with PPC velocity quirks for instance, but its not really an insane level of firepower, its just being able to expose so little of your mech to fire that makes it good.

No, you are right, but the people who don't want it my way won't be happy until they have a single player MechWarrior game, despite what they may think. Because there, any balance issues are not highlighted like they are in PvP.

As far as what is doing too good? Clan tech is a little too good, mainly because IS stuff was nerfed. The KDK-3 was a huge outlier and has been reigned in but is still the best assault, and frankly, Energy Draw would still leave it as the best assault. The only thing IS assaults are good at is laser vomit right now, plus the AS7-S (which gets smashed in the face by Energy Draw, I might add, dude to the AC20+SRM24 damage output), so if you make IS assaults have to stare a bit longer that makes the KDK-# firing PPCs, then Gauss, not a big deal at all.

[Gas Guzzler]

Johnny Z, on 06 January 2017 - 01:29 PM, said:

No one knows about this game and its not done yet. If and when those two things come together then this game will be appreciated a lot more.

My point being is that the long ttk is an excellent part of this game and allows single mechs without infinite respawn and creates down to the last mech gameplay, which is excellent.

Raising TTK a fraction isn't bad. Limiting alpha barf spam isn't bad either.

Somehow stopping the lag shielding mechs would improve a lot of matches also, but isn't related.

About "popular" online shooters, there is only one that I think fits that to any degree and that's BF 1. This game can do better. Not to mention that this games direction competition is world of tanks and the like. This game can do WAY better than those.

The alpha barf spam isn't have the deal people make it out to be. For example if my only two weapons are ER PPCs, are you really going to fault me for Alpha striking whenever I can? Even the evil 50 damage alpha Kodiak will split fire A LOT whenever firing at long range.

As far as I am concerned, the gameplay of this game is much more interesting and fulfilling than CoD or BF1. Overwatch has the character variety thing going for it, which is cool, but I still like playing MWO more.

[MechaBattler]

Gas Guzzler, on 06 January 2017 - 01:35 PM, said:

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...927a45281e2d270

More DHS and all the stuff you listed make the Hunchback IIC better.

So... you could pretty easily quirk some of that.. provide the Shadowhawk with PPC velocity quirks for instance, but its not really an insane level of firepower, its just being able to expose so little of your mech to fire that makes it good.

No, you are right, but the people who don't want it my way won't be happy until they have a single player MechWarrior game, despite what they may think. Because there, any balance issues are not highlighted like they are in PvP.

As far as what is doing too good? Clan tech is a little too good, mainly because IS stuff was nerfed. The KDK-3 was a huge outlier and has been reigned in but is still the best assault, and frankly, Energy Draw would still leave it as the best assault. The only thing IS assaults are good at is laser vomit right now, plus the AS7-S (which gets smashed in the face by Energy Draw, I might add, dude to the AC20+SRM24 damage output), so if you make IS assaults have to stare a bit longer that makes the KDK-# firing PPCs, then Gauss, not a big deal at all.

Technically you could fire 2 PPCs with the Shadowhawk-2K and run more heat efficiency. But yeah a lack of velocity bonus, which the hunchback IIC gets from it's targeting computer, holds 2K back.

So basically we need to go back a year to before Paul came in and decided quirks were too bloated.

Though at this point, with the skill tree on the horizon. Why not just give lower performance mechs more skill points? It seems easier to let the players decide what they need to shore up a mech's deficiencies. Rather than PGI guessing at what would help.

The other things we'll just have to agree to disagree. Two sides of the mechwarrior coin.

[mogs01gt]

Gas Guzzler, on 06 January 2017 - 12:58 PM, said:

...the best medium in the game uses 2 Energy hardpoints... Popular heavies make use of 3 or 4. The mech chassis balance issues transcend quantities of hardpoints, but the issues with different chassis could be addressed through quirking or extra skill points (for the new skill tree). I know people don't like quirks, but when done correctly they have worked in the past.

Typical FPS? This game is far from the typical FPS, and I'm only arguing that it doesn't need to be further away from the typical FPS just because some people don't like that they can't figure out how to avoid getting instagibbed. I'm actually in the camp of making this like the MechWarrior games that I have loved before. All of them allow you do put together devastating levels of firepower, but being instagibbed is rare, unlike CoD/Overwatch/Battlefield/Halo, etc. I appreciate the difference in flavor between MWO and other shooters, as has always been the case of MechWarrior games, but that doesn't mean it should go the "death by 1000 papercuts" route.

2 erppc's are effective because they are played in a camp or die style. They dont push, they dont flank, they sit back and sling erppcs from a safe distance. That is not the essence of how the entire Mechwarrior world was designed around.

[Lightfoot]

TTK is too fast. Well duh, of course it is, the recycles are mostly 2x what BattleTech states they should be and doubling the armor doesn't fix that. I don't expect super-tanking abilities like an MMO tank class, I just want to have usable armor and not one-shot armor.

[Gas Guzzler]

MechaBattler, on 06 January 2017 - 01:47 PM, said:

Technically you could fire 2 PPCs with the Shadowhawk-2K and run more heat efficiency. But yeah a lack of velocity bonus, which the hunchback IIC gets from it's targeting computer, holds 2K back.

So basically we need to go back a year to before Paul came in and decided quirks were too bloated.

Though at this point, with the skill tree on the horizon. Why not just give lower performance mechs more skill points? It seems easier to let the players decide what they need to shore up a mech's deficiencies. Rather than PGI guessing at what would help.

The other things we'll just have to agree to disagree. Two sides of the mechwarrior coin.

Yeah we will see what the do with quirks and the skill tree, though I agree about the extra skill points, but at the same time, some mechs need MORE than just a 10% boost in some regards, so I'd hate for those mechs to lose their quirks.

Its more of the BattleTech coin, as past MechWarrior games have all allowed devastating levels of firepower, that is nothing new. Its just in the single player setting, you don't have to worry about competing with other players, so if you want you can run whatever mixed build you want and still be okay. The issue at hand is whether we want our MechWarrior game to resemble the slow dice rolling type of combat in the TT game and the slow, sweat dripping combat described in the books (well some books, in other books mechs drop like flies, its kind of arbitrary), or if it should resemble other MechWarrior games.

mogs01gt, on 06 January 2017 - 01:58 PM, said:

2 erppc's are effective because they are played in a camp or die style. They dont push, they dont flank, they sit back and sling erppcs from a safe distance. That is not the essence of how the entire Mechwarrior world was designed around.

So? What does that have to do with the effect of the quantity of hardpoints on mech efficacy? Push/brawl mediums need 4 missile hardpoints. Not a breathtaking number of hardpoints there either. And I would argue that the do flank frequently... just from long range.

Edited by Gas Guzzler, 06 January 2017 - 02:02 PM.

[Ultimax]

MechaBattler, on 06 January 2017 - 11:37 AM, said:

Some people on the PTS were talking about how energy draw doesn't address range differences. So what if they had given higher range a penalty on the energy draw scale? What if they had added a further penalty to pin point damage?

Then teams would play rush decks, and get in your face and you will die faster than you do now against their SRM brawl builds.

TTK in brawls, against real brawl builds is much lower than it is vs. long range decks. Its not even close.

[mogs01gt]

Gas Guzzler, on 06 January 2017 - 02:01 PM, said:

Yeah we will see what the do with quirks and the skill tree, though I agree about the extra skill points, but at the same time, some mechs need MORE than just a 10% boost in some regards, so I'd hate for those mechs to lose their quirks.

Its more of the BattleTech coin, as past MechWarrior games have all allowed devastating levels of firepower, that is nothing new. Its just in the single player setting, you don't have to worry about competing with other players, so if you want you can run whatever mixed build you want and still be okay. The issue at hand is whether we want our MechWarrior game to resemble the slow dice rolling type of combat in the TT game and the slow, sweat dripping combat described in the books (well some books, in other books mechs drop like flies, its kind of arbitrary), or if it should resemble other MechWarrior games.



So? What does that have to do with the effect of the quantity of hardpoints on mech efficacy? Push/brawl mediums need 4 missile hardpoints. Not a breathtaking number of hardpoints there either. And I would argue that the do flank frequently... just from long range.

Because efficiency of hardpoints and weapons is irrelevant when the game is played in a fix manor. Weapons in this game are at the whim of map design and game mechanics. Right now, the game pushest people towards poke sniping.

Edited by mogs01gt, 06 January 2017 - 02:03 PM.

[Mawai]

Gas Guzzler, on 06 January 2017 - 09:44 AM, said:

I don't care about a dice rolling board game when I am playing a first person mech shooter known as MechWarrior. No MechWarrior game I have played (MW2-MWO) has ever resorted to randomized dice rolling targeting like that. In MW4, you can one shot Heavy Mechs. This isn't a new thing to MechWarrior, its just that in MWO you are forced to play against people who choose to bring effective loadouts. There is no logical reason behind the statement "TTK is too low", its just the opinion of a selection of players, who should really just go play MW5 so they don't have to be in a pool with sharks. Sorry that it isn't released yet...

You're right ... there is no "logical" reason behind the statements that "TTK is too low" or "TTK is too high". It all has to do with how the game "feels" for the individual players and how the balance overall works for teams.

In my personal opinion, and it IS just my opinion (just like everyone else's) the average time to kill at the moment isn't too bad ... it could be slightly longer to make the game a little more forgiving of errors and to make the mechs "feel" slightly more durable.

The only logical arguments can be based on what sort of average time to kill makes for the best multiplayer experience for a mechwarrior game. At the one end of the spectrum are single shot kills where the game is over as soon as you get hit. The other end of the spectrum is where every shot chips away a little bit more and killing an invidual mech could take minutes. In my opinion, neither of these extremes is a good choice for a mechwarrior game. However, there is no data of any kind available on the actual impact of time to kill on either player satisfaction or retention .. so all of the comments in this thread are just opinions.

Finally, the only reason I mentioned table top was because the person I was responding to seemed to think that a dual gauss+dual PPC attack should insta kill any mech and frankly ... that is wrong in TT, wrong in all the previous MW titles and wrong in MWO ... and I disagreed with the OP that one shot kills should be common.

P.S. If you are interested in a game that will be using the random number approach ... HBS Battletech is one example ... though it is more Battletech than Mechwarrior.

[AphexTwin11]

Ultimax, on 06 January 2017 - 07:36 AM, said:

TTK is fine.

If you feel like this is counter strike then you have either never actually played counter strike or you are just really bad at this game.

LMAOOO this ^^^^^

+1

[Gas Guzzler]

mogs01gt, on 06 January 2017 - 02:03 PM, said:

Because efficiency of hardpoints and weapons is irrelevant when the game is played in a fix manor. Weapons in this game are at the whim of map design and game mechanics. Right now, the game pushest people towards poke sniping.

Well.. I was about to respond to this but then realized that I have said what I was going to say on these forums 500000 times so there is no point. But **** it I'll say it anyway, just one more time:

Yeah, poke sniping at mid-long range is popular because you can do it without team support. Brawling requires team support to do effectively, so in the disorder of the public queue, it is much more difficult to pull off. That being said... if you can get 12 people together on the same page, you can in fact stand toe to toe with sniper/laser vomit Kodiaks/Night Gyrs/Ebon Jaguars in brawl Griffins and Shadowhawks, as Operation Great Dane showed last night. Fast brawlers can be devastating if well coordinated, even more devastating than coordinated snipers on the right maps, which as you say is map dependent. Personally, I'm okay with different strategies being stronger on different maps, and don't expect all strategies to be 100% balanced on every map, because that is unrealistic.