198 replies to this topic

[Felicitatem Parco]

If you can survive a Direct-hit from a full volley consisting of 2 high powered Gauss Rifles and two large particle cannons, then TTK is ridiculously high.

No combat vehicle should be able to survive a single volley like that.

So, MechWarrior Online's TTK is unrealistically high. MechWarrior games are famous for having armor that is stronger than the weapons used against it, which is in its own right quite silly.

Peeking? That's not only effective but also smart. That is how the game "should" be played. That is how battles are won. If you want to prevent the peek and poke gameplay, then the only option is to removal the rewards you get from kills and victories and focus instead on other obscure achievements that don't encourage people to play-to-win.

Edited by Prosperity Park, 06 January 2017 - 09:13 AM.

[1453 R]

MechaBattler, on 06 January 2017 - 08:18 AM, said:

Time to kill being higher would give mechs with limited firepower a chance to be more relevant. Though it depends on how they achieve that. Lowering cooldowns just puts those mechs further into the depths of irrelevance.
...

Just to point out: this is pretty much completely inverted from the truth.

In a game where 'Mechs are nigh-unkillable god-machines that take thousands of damage to drop, i.e. what the TTK guys typically seem to be aiming for, then the fifteen-minute timer on a match becomes a very real issue. A firepower floor materializes because your team needs to be able to deal X total damage in a period of 15 minutes or it becomes actually impossible to drop your enemies, and 'Mechs with firepower below that floor are actively detrimental to your team.

At no point does "Less Guns" beat "More Guns". No matter how much health the enemy has. In point of fact, lower TTK (as in reduced player health) tends to work better for limited-firepower 'Mechs because the actual disparity between them and higher-firepower 'Mechs is similarly reduced. There is a massive difference between "do I take a 'Mech that can 2-shot someone or a 'Mech that can 3-shot someone?" and "do I take a 'Mech that can 20-shot someone or a 'Mech that can 30-shot someone?". One requires you to get off a single extra shot, which positioning and tactical advantage can let you do pretty easily. One requires you to get off ten extra shots, which is in fact ten times harder to do.

TTK right now is fine. If you get burned down by an entire enemy team it's your fault, not the game's. if you're taking repeated PPFLD alphas to the brainspace, again, that's likely your fault, not the game's. Too much durability devalues lighter 'Mechs and lower-gun'd 'Mechs even more than the game already does. We need less Fatbros Online, not more.

[Aiden Skye]

Too low. Beam durations could be longer on everything. Limits placed on firing massive PPC / goose PPFLD alphas. Then again it's not really that simple. A lot of mechs in the game don't have the hard points and tonnage to deal massive game breaking alphas that just melts everything...TTK is fine with them. I still would have liked to see some iteration of the energy draw system.

[CK16]

TTK is fine outside of meta builds, meta builds TTK needs to be looked at (clan and IS alike) and increased. Yes I want death to meta vomits of any kind

[jss78]

It's honestly not too bad, and this is speaking as a guy mostly sitting in XL-engined IS mediums. If you get focused or take an alpha strike in rear-ST, you'll go down quick, but I think this is OK. I still get lots of satisfying games where my 'mech is gradually whittled down to <40% health.

To me the bigger immersion breaker is the average speed and agility of the 'mechs. Not in the sense that this game was ANYTHING like CoD, but there's no sense of 20-100 ton mass in the 'mechs. (Which that MW5:M trailer captured pretty well BTW.)

Edited by jss78, 06 January 2017 - 09:22 AM.

[Gas Guzzler]

Appogee, on 06 January 2017 - 09:05 AM, said:

Too true.

I think it's less "thinking man's shooter" and more "unthinking man's hider".

No, the unthinkers are the ones that wander out and get instagibbed. What's so ironic is that the people who complain about this not being a thinking man's shooter think that being able to mindlessly wander around and still have high TTK somehow takes more thought than actually being aware of your position, your team's position, and the enemy team's position.

[Gas Guzzler]

Snazzy Dragon, on 06 January 2017 - 08:07 AM, said:

peek
alpha
pull back
cool off and reposition
peek
alpha
pull back
cool off and reposition.....

There's alot more to it then that. If you don't believe me, look at the leader boards and observe the difference between your stats, and the top 100 folks stats. There is clearly a lot more thought that goes into it.

W A R K H A N, on 06 January 2017 - 09:12 AM, said:

I still would have liked to see some iteration of the energy draw system.

Ew. Talk about ruining MechWarrior.

[Mawai]

1) I too think TTK could be longer.

However!

2) The main reason TTK feels so short is mostly bad play. If you peek in your assault and there are six opponents on the other side of the ridge then don't be surprised if you die before you can reverse.

The number of folks I see doing this even after watching a team mate taking a lot of fire peeking at the same spot is un-real.

On the other hand, I do think that odds of 1v2 or even 1v3 should not necessarily be an instant death sentence. It should take some time to core out any mech (especially assaults) except when facing overwhelming firepower.

This is a fine line to tread. Large caliber weapons need to "feel" like they are doing a lot of damage ... death by a thousand cuts isn't fun and is painful to watch ... on the other hand, instant death from two 2xgauss+2ERPPC alphas isn't much fun either

Anyway, TTK now unless you make a mistake isn't too bad ... and no matter what gets changed in weapon balance ... making a mistake WILL result in very short TTK.

[Gas Guzzler]

Snazzy Dragon, on 06 January 2017 - 08:24 AM, said:

I would start with the heat scale-- alpha striking was a latch ditch move in a lot of cases, and rarely resorted to. In MWO, it is the norm.

In BattleTech rules the heat cap never exceeds 30 units on a battlemech but in MWO we can easily reach more than double that, and we have far less heat generation because of general heat reductions and heat reduction quirks.

Very erroneous comparison here.

If I'm not mistaken, the triple PPC awesome could "alpha" its 3 PPCs all day long without incurring heat penalties, because after the 10 seconds of the turn, all of its heat sinks dissipated all of the heat, so no penalties. You can't compare the heat scale from TT like that, it doesn't apply.

Mawai, on 06 January 2017 - 09:20 AM, said:

... on the other hand, instant death from two 2xgauss+2ERPPC alphas isn't much fun either

The only things I can honestly remember one-shotting with 2x GAuss 2 ERPPC are stationary lights, or if I somehow catch a medium with its back to me, also stationary.

[Gas Guzzler]

CK16, on 06 January 2017 - 09:15 AM, said:

TTK is fine outside of meta builds, meta builds TTK needs to be looked at (clan and IS alike) and increased. Yes I want death to meta vomits of any kind

So, your way or the highway? What a bad attitude to have.

[JediPanther]

TTK is great for every mech in the game even light mechs except the ones that aren't cheetahs. Oh wait Yeah IS mechs do take greater skill to play and survive in since they have to carry more tons to do any thing. Big AC 20? Low ammo count. Fire two ppcs on the K2? Overheat and die after the third shot.

Front loaded your atlas to 101 armor? Well good you survived a single kdk's alpha. Want to keep up with your team mates in clan mechs while using an is mech? Better start striping out the ac and srms for that bigger engine or go isxl st death trap.

The only good thing about is mechs is the fact they have way more faster lights. They had to steal the jenner and call it 2c. Before the ach they had nothing able to catch an is light at 130+

[Mawai]

Prosperity Park, on 06 January 2017 - 09:12 AM, said:

If you can survive a Direct-hit from a full volley consisting of 2 high powered Gauss Rifles and two large particle cannons, then TTK is ridiculously high.

No combat vehicle should be able to survive a single volley like that.

So, MechWarrior Online's TTK is unrealistically high. MechWarrior games are famous for having armor that is stronger than the weapons used against it, which is in its own right quite silly.

Peeking? That's not only effective but also smart. That is how the game "should" be played. That is how battles are won. If you want to prevent the peek and poke gameplay, then the only option is to removal the rewards you get from kills and victories and focus instead on other obscure achievements that don't encourage people to play-to-win.

No .. it isn't.

In the board game upon which MWO is based, a mech armed with 2 GR and 2 ERPPCs firing at a target at optimum range has to roll to randomly hit with each weapon. The component hit by each weapon then has to be independently assigned. Even in Battletech, it is quite possible for a mech to survive such an alpha ... perhaps more than once depending on relative motion, cover, pilot skill (difficulty to hit) and the components that are hit.

In MWO, there is no random number for to hit or hit location. All four weapons can hit the same location at the same time. This drastically reduces mech survivability compared to the board game upon which it is based. In order to compensate for this, the armor has been increased in MWO.

In addition, mechs in the Battletech physics world are durable ... even if such an alpha actually hit the center torso of an Atlas in the board game without doubled armor ... it still would not kill the mech. That is the point ... in the Battletech universe, the armor utilized is sufficient to dissipate kinetic and energy weapon hits and protect the structure while ablating the armor. Realism arguments about "No combat vehicle should be able to survive a single volley like that." are meaningless since in the Battletech universe mechs can and do survive such volleys.

In Battletech and MWO, mechs are heavily armored (and armed) so that they are difficult to kill. In order to replicate this experience, it is important that TTK not be too fast. On the other hand, if a pilot makes a mistake, peeks over a ridge or around a corner in a slow mech, faces 4 to 6 opponents ... then if those opponents are awake .. the peeking pilot can expect to die and no reasonable change in weapon balance can or should prevent that.

[Bombast]

Gas Guzzler, on 06 January 2017 - 09:24 AM, said:

If I'm not mistaken, the triple PPC awesome could "alpha" its 3 PPCs all day long without incurring heat penalties, because after the 10 seconds of the turn, all of its heat sinks dissipated all of the heat, so no penalties. You can't compare the heat scale from TT like that, it doesn't apply.

The Awesome AWS-8Q generated 32 heat while moving and firing everything but the small laser, and could dissipate 28. Heat began affecting you at 5 (-1 movement). So generally...

-3 PPCs (+4 Heat) (No penalty)
-3 PPCs (+8 Heat) (-1 Move, -1 Attack)
-2 PPCs (+2 Heat) (No Penalty)
-3 PPCs (+6 Heat) (-1 Move)
-2 PPCs (0 Heat) (No Penalty)

And so on.

Still, you are correct. The TT heat scale doesn't work so well in an FPS game.

Though I still wish heat penalties were a thing...

[Gas Guzzler]

JediPanther, on 06 January 2017 - 09:33 AM, said:

Front loaded your atlas to 101 armor? Well good you survived a single kdk's alpha.

Actually, on an Atlas S with properly front loaded armor (lets say 116) I think you would survive 3 or 4 50 damage alphas...

116 armor + 62 structure + 27 CT structure quirk = 205 hit points. So yeah, if you were just standing there eating it in an Atlas S, and you just gave a meta KDK-3 4 free alphas, you would still be just barely alive.

[Gas Guzzler]

Mawai, on 06 January 2017 - 09:34 AM, said:

No .. it isn't.

In the board game upon which MWO is based, a mech armed with 2 GR and 2 ERPPCs firing at a target at optimum range has to roll to randomly hit with each weapon. The component hit by each weapon then has to be independently assigned. Even in Battletech, it is quite possible for a mech to survive such an alpha ... perhaps more than once depending on relative motion, cover, pilot skill (difficulty to hit) and the components that are hit.

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...

Edited by Gas Guzzler, 06 January 2017 - 10:10 AM.

[mogs01gt]

Gas Guzzler, on 06 January 2017 - 09:10 AM, said:

Not really. You don't compare a real time first person shooter to books, especially when the books are wildly inconsistent about how long it takes to destroy/disable mechs.

Frankly, TTK is pretty high compared to every other PVP shooter I have played. If you are out of position and half the other team sees you, you probably won't last long, although I have walked away from those situations before, it all depends. I don't really think any action is needed on PGI's part to lengthen TTK, its long enough, and this game plays NOTHING like CoD, so those comparisons can be thrown out the window. The problem is, a lot of players are short on the "thinking" part of this game, so they end up in bad situations very frequently. You can't play the game mindlessly because you can't just kill mechs instantly by yourself like in other shooters, but if you face 6+ mechs, they can kill you in short order.

Its not like we have any options. We can either compare it to a typical FPS like CoD, compare it to lore which was based on the author's opinion or we base it on a table top game that was then based around a set amount of actions/time. PGI needs to clearly define it and move forward.

[Gas Guzzler]

mogs01gt, on 06 January 2017 - 10:03 AM, said:

Its not like we have any options. We can either compare it to a typical FPS like CoD, compare it to lore which was based on the author's opinion or we base it on a table top game that was then based around a set amount of actions/time. PGI needs to clearly define it and move forward.

How about comparing it to previous MechWarrior games?

[mogs01gt]

Gas Guzzler, on 06 January 2017 - 10:10 AM, said:

How about comparing it to previous MechWarrior games?

Sure! But arent we a bit too far removed from those?

[MechaBattler]

1453 R, on 06 January 2017 - 09:12 AM, said:

Just to point out: this is pretty much completely inverted from the truth.

In a game where 'Mechs are nigh-unkillable god-machines that take thousands of damage to drop, i.e. what the TTK guys typically seem to be aiming for, then the fifteen-minute timer on a match becomes a very real issue. A firepower floor materializes because your team needs to be able to deal X total damage in a period of 15 minutes or it becomes actually impossible to drop your enemies, and 'Mechs with firepower below that floor are actively detrimental to your team.

At no point does "Less Guns" beat "More Guns". No matter how much health the enemy has. In point of fact, lower TTK (as in reduced player health) tends to work better for limited-firepower 'Mechs because the actual disparity between them and higher-firepower 'Mechs is similarly reduced. There is a massive difference between "do I take a 'Mech that can 2-shot someone or a 'Mech that can 3-shot someone?" and "do I take a 'Mech that can 20-shot someone or a 'Mech that can 30-shot someone?". One requires you to get off a single extra shot, which positioning and tactical advantage can let you do pretty easily. One requires you to get off ten extra shots, which is in fact ten times harder to do.

TTK right now is fine. If you get burned down by an entire enemy team it's your fault, not the game's. if you're taking repeated PPFLD alphas to the brainspace, again, that's likely your fault, not the game's. Too much durability devalues lighter 'Mechs and lower-gun'd 'Mechs even more than the game already does. We need less Fatbros Online, not more.

Basically "git gud" post.

And you're going after the idea of raising durability of mechs. Which I said nothing about. Did you read my post?

I think PGI had the right idea with energy draw. Even if energy draw itself wasn't really enough alone. Combined with lower heat cap and higher dissipation. If they tighten the heat cap, it would actually make bringing more heatsinks over guns a viable strategy.

Though there was an issue with Clans being able to bring more dubs.

Edited by MechaBattler, 06 January 2017 - 10:28 AM.

[Gas Guzzler]

mogs01gt, on 06 January 2017 - 10:15 AM, said:

Sure! But arent we a bit too far removed from those?

How do you mean? Yeah I mean we doubled armor and introduced ghost heat, and we have a hardpoint system that is both more and less restrictive than MW4 but much more restrictive than 2 and 3. You could one shot a heavy mech pretty easily in MW4, not the case here in MWO. I mean, if we were to make MWO more like previous MechWarrior titles, TTK would be lower.