78 replies to this topic

[Reno Blade]

UPDATED 2017-05-31:

Spoiler

- Changed Energy values
- Added Skill tree section
- Updated Weapon specific values and goals

UPDATED 2017-06-10:

Spoiler

- Updated laser values (less burn time, less heat for some clan lasers)
- Updated the Gauss values (added dmg and heat changes)
- Added graphs for PPC splash if using constant ratios

Updated 2017-06-24:

Spoiler

- Added excel table with all weapon stats and dps stats with the proposed changes as outlined in this thread

Updated 2016-07-11:
Another take with changed values after a lot of feedback in multiple threads.

Spoiler

Energy
- reduced some heat, but also some damage/cd
- tweaked laser classes again to increase pulse dps/dph stats
- Pulse are only lasers below 1.0s duration and below 2.0s cooldown
- Heavy Lasers have higher stats than ER lasers, but keep the longer burn and shorter range
- only LPPC/ERPPC without splash, but with higher heat than the other PPCs.
Ballistics
- fixed some cooldowns to better balance smaller/dps weapons against bigger weapons
- increased burst counts/charge times
Missiles (IS)
- slight reduction in cooldowns
- reduction in stream durations from previous values
- increase in LRM and MRM velocities
Missiles (Clan)
- slight reduction in cooldowns
- reduction in stream durations from previous values
- increase in LRM and ATM velocities
- added ATMs for medium/long range for comparison and increased the short/med range of ATMs

As the release of 3060 tech was announced, I re-thought the whole weapon and TTK discussion and came up with the following agenda to achieve the goals.


Are you agreeing with the goals?
Are you agreeing to the means to achieve these goals?
Are all edge-cases covered?


GOALS

A.) Make mechs feels huge and powerful
B.) Increase TTK
C.) Make arm-weapons important
D.) Increase performance of low hardpoint variants vs boats



CHANGES

General changes:

• G-1) Increase all Internal Structure by 100%
  
• G-2) Reduce Torso movement speed values by ~50% -> (already done by Skill Tree base lining / Engine desync)
  
• G-3) Reduce overall weapon efficiency to deliver damage to one spot (see E-1 / B-1 and M-1)
  
• G-4) Reloading increased by 25% for each weapons per type at a time (more details below for each weapon type) to reduce boating efficiency

Skill tree changes:

• S-1) Increase total number of nodes per attribute by 100% (double) (e.g. able to skill 20% cooldown if investing that much)
  
• S-2) Add Nodes for PPC auto-charge speed (25%)
  
• S-3) Add Nodes for Gauss charge speed (25%)
  
• S-2) Add Nodes for AC Burst duration (25%)
  
• S-2) Add Nodes for Missile volley stream duration (25%)

Energy Weapon specific changes:

• E-1) Reduce PULSE Laser cooldowns, damage and heat by ~50-70%
  
• E-2) Increase all Standard/ER beam durations by ~25%
  
• E-3) Increase Heavy Laser beam duration to 150% of IS counterpart
  
• E-4) PPCs have unique Direct-to-Splash ratios depending on range.
  
• E-5) PPCs (all classes) will gain a 0.5s - 1.0s fire-delay (auto charge)
  
• E-6) Only 2x PPCs can be fired/charged at a time (Gauss can not be charged at the same time)
  
• E-7) PPC Capacitors are used as a separate weapon in the weapon groups to charge the extra 5dmg/5heat and generate permanent 0.5 heat per sec while charged – charge time as PPC cd
  
• E-8) Reloading more than 1x PPC, 1x LL/LP, 2x ML and 4x SL at a time is increasing the cooldown of the next weapon by 25% each

Missile Weapon specific changes:

• M-1) All missiles fire in streams
  
• M-2) Reloading more than 20LRM, 20MRM, 12ATM and 12SRM/Streak ammo at a time increases the cooldown of the next weapon by 25% each

Ballistic Weapon specific changes:

• B-1) All ACs fire in streams (LBX excluded)
  
• B-2) UACs gain 1x projectile per volley instead of Double-Tap ability
  
• B-3) Rotary ACs use more projectiles for a volley and increase the ROF and reduce cooldown over time
  
• B-4) Only 1x Gauss can be charged at a time
  
• B-5) When charging a Gauss, all energy weapon reloading is paused
  
• B-6) Gauss CD is reduced by 50%, but Charge time and Charge-hold time is doubled
  
• B-7) Reloading more than 1x Gauss, 1x AC20, 1x AC10, 1x AC5 or 2x AC2 at a time increases the cooldown of the next weapon by 25% each

Note:

E-1, M-1 and B-1 will increase TTK even with big alphas, as the damage is much more spread if the shooter is not very skilled.
E-8, M-2 and B-7 will further increase TTK, as boating weapons will have lower DPS from reload limits. Players have the choice between burst (boating) or sustained dps (less hardpoints used).




Weapon values

Energy:
- Pulse Lasers have reduced cooldown, but also reduce damge and heat, so you would need more face time for higher dps (dakka like ACs)
- Pulse Lasers have the highest dps
- Heavy lasers have longest burn durations and cooldowns cooldown, but good dps and heat values
- Standard/ER lasers have average stats, but lower dps than Pulse/Heavy Lasers
- all PPCs have unique splash per range, if possible, otherwise PPC, SNPPC and HPPC/cERPPC have splash (and get lower heat) while ERPPC and LPPC do not have splash (updated) but keep their high heat




Changes E-1, E-2 and E-3 (Laser)
Laser:

Spoiler

SL 2.0s cd, 1.0s beam - 3dmg, 1.6 heat
erSL 2.2s cd, 1.2s beam - 3dmg, 2.5 heat
ML 2.8s cd, 1.2s beam - 5dmg, 3.5 heat
erML 3.2s cd, 1.4s beam - 5dmg, 4.2 heat
LL 3.6s cd, 1.4s beam - 8dmg, 6.0 heat
erLL 4.0s cd, 1.6s beam - 8dmg, 7.0 heat

cerSL 3.0s cd, 1.2s beam - 4dmg, 2.8 heat
cerML 3.5s cd, 1.4s beam - 6dmg, 5 heat
cerLL 4.0s cd, 1.6s beam - 10dmg, 8.5 heat

cHSL 4.0s cd, 1.5s beam - 6dmg, 4 heat
cHML 4.5s cd, 1.7s beam - 10dmg, 7 heat
cHLL 5.0s cd, 1.9s beam - 16dmg, 13 heat

SP, 0.9s cd, 0.5s beam - 1.4dmg, 0.8 heat
MP 1.2s cd, 0.6s beam - 2.8dmg, 1.2 heat
LP 1.5s cd, 0.7s beam - 4.5dmg, 1.5 heat

cSP 0.9s cd, 0.5s beam - 1.4dmg, 0.9 heat
cMP 1.1s cd, 0.7s beam - 2.8dmg, 2.0 heat
cLP 1.3s cd, 0.9s beam - 4.5dmg, 3.3 heat

Changes for E-5 (PPCs)
PPC Classes

PPC autocharge and velocity (the old alternative balancing idea included auto-charge)

Spoiler

PPC 5.0s cd, 0.8s autocharge -> velocity 1000
erPPC 5.0s cd, 1.0s autocharge -> velocity 1100
cerPPC 5.0s cd, 1.0s autocharge -> velocity 1100
LPPC 5s cd, 0.5s autocharge -> velocity 1200
HPPC 5s cd, 1.5s autocharge -> velocity 1000
SNPPC 5.0s cd, 0.8s autocharge -> velocity 1000

PPC Splash distribution (E-4) with graphs!
The latest table above just shows 2 splash dmg for PPC(8+1+1), SNPPC(8+1+1) and HPPC(13+1+1) for simplicity

Spoiler

I've tried to make each PPC unique and make HPPC a mix of multiple profiles that is worth taking over combining any of the other PPCs (e.g. LPPCs with PPCs).

PPC / LPPC


ERPPC / SNPPC


CERPPC / HPPC


PPCs are great for mid-long range and have 0 dmg min range
LPPCs have constant ratio and 0 dmg min range (so they are less efficient on mid-long range)
ERPPCs have highest direct damage (100%) on long-extreme only and have high splash on shorter range
CERPPCs is using increasing direct damage, but has good averages
HPPCs have some splash at min range, but get high direct damage overall (more than combinations of other types)
SNPPCs start with high direct damage but drop off quickly and also have a shorter range and damage drop

If using constant ratios, my suggestion would be this:

Spoiler

That way you get more total damage from HPPC and still can combine quite nicely the LPPC with the other types and also not making multiple LPPCs stronger than the other types (considering 2x LPPC would be 6+2+2 and normal PPC would be 8+1+1).


Ballistics:
- all ACs use more bullets which increases difficulty to bring all damage on target
- Gauss requires longer charges which increases difficulty to use in brawl efficiently (might not be enough to prevent Gauss of beeing the only good PPFLD weapon) but also gets shorter cd and longer hold time to compensate the longer charge time.




Changes B-1, B-2 and B-3 (ACs)
AC Classes
Base IS is 0.1s per bullet
Base Clan is 0.15s per bullet

some older alternative ideas for UAC and RAC bursts:

Spoiler

AC2 1+1 = 2dmg -> burst 0.1s = total cd+burst 0.82s
AC5 1.66+1.66+1.66 = 5dmg -> burst 0.2s = total cd+burst 1.86s
AC10 2+2+2+2+2 = 10dmg -> burst 0.4s = total cd+burst 2.7s
AC20 4+4+4+4+4 = 20dmg -> burst 0.4s = total cd+burst 4.4s

UAC2 1+1 +1extra = 3dmg -> burst 0.2s = total cd+burst 0.92s
UAC5 1.66+1.66+1.66 +1.66extra = 6.66dmg -> burst 0.3s = total cd+burst 1.96s
UAC10 2+2+2+2+2 +2extra = 12dmg -> burst 0.5s = total cd+burst 2.8s
UAC20 4+4+4+4+4 +4extra = 24dmg -> burst 0.5s = total cd+burst 4.5s

cUAC2 1+1 +1extra = 3dmg -> burst 0.3s = total cd+burst 1.02s
cUAC5 1.66+1.66+1.66 +1.66extra = 6.66dmg -> burst 0.45s = total cd+burst 2.11s
cUAC10 2+2+2+2+2 +2extra = 12dmg -> burst 0.75s = total cd+burst 3.25s
cUAC20 4+4+4+4+4 +4extra = 24dmg -> burst 0.75s = total cd+burst 5.25s

RACs reduce cd and burst duration over time.
RAC2 0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5 0.72cd -> burst 0.3s, 1.00s cd = total cd+burst 1.3s
-> 0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5 0.72s cd-25% -> burst 0.25s, 0.75s cd = total cd+burst 1.0s
-> 0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5 0.72s cd-50% -> burst 0.2s, 0.50s cd = total cd+burst 0.7s
-> 0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5 0.72s cd-75% -> burst 0.15s, 0.25s cd = total cd+burst 0.4s
pausing the fire will slow down to standard cd again after 2x CD time and adds a short 1sec "jam" for each increased cooldown (max 3s)

RAC5 1+1+1+1+1 1.66s cd -> burst 0.4s, 2.00s cd = total cd+burst 2.4s
-> 1+1+1+1+1 1.66s cd-25% - burst 0.33s, 1.50s cd = total cd+burst 1.83s
-> 1+1+1+1+1 1.66s cd-50% - burst 0.266s, 1.0s cd = total cd+burst 1.266s
-> 1+1+1+1+1 1.66s cd-75% - burst 0.2s, 0.5s cd = total cd+burst 0.7s
pausing the fire will slow down to standard cd again after 2x CD time and adds a short 2sec "jam" for each increased cooldown (max 6s)

Changes for B-6 (Gauss)

Spoiler

Gauss 15dmg, 3.5s cd, 1.5s charge, 2.0s charge hold, 3heat (+2)
Light Gauss 10dmg(+2), 3.0s cd, 0.75s charge, 1.5s charge hold, 2heat (+1)
Heavy Gauss 25dmg, 4.0s cd, 2.0s charge, 2.5s charge hold, 4heat (+3)

Missiles:
- longer cooldown for all missiles
- Stream-fire every missile
- Missile velocity increased for LRM/MRM + can skill velocity and volley duration
- (optional for more skill dependency) Streak/LRM lock mechanic changed to aquire 5 target components (e.g. 2x LT, 1x CT, 1x RT, 1x RL) for each 5 missiles.

Missiles (IS)


Missiles (Clan)


Missile volley stats:
IS LRM 0.25s volley duration per 5 missiles
Clan LRM 0.4s volley duration per 5 missiles
MRM 0.4s volley duration per 5 missiles
ATM 0.3s volley duration per 3 missiles
SRM 0.10s volley duration per 2 missiles
SSRM 0.15s volley duration per 2 missiles

Missile cooldowns:

Spoiler

LRM5 5.5s cd
LRM10 6s cd
LRM15 6.5s cd
LRM20 7s cd

cLRM5 7s cd
cLRM10 7.5s cd
cLRM15 8s cd
cLRM20 8.5s cd

MRM10 5s cd
MRM20 6s cd
MRM30 7s cd
MRM40 8s cd

ATM3 4s cd
ATM6 5s cd
ATM9 6s cd
ATM12 7s cd

SRM2 4s cd
SRM4 4.5s cd
SRM6 5s cd

sSRM2 4s cd
sSRM4 4.5s cd
sSRM6 5s cd

Boating example calculation

Player1: 1xERLL, 2x ML build vs Player2: 2x ERLL, 4x ML build vs Player3: 3x ERLL, 6xML build
ML 3.0s cd, 1.2s beam - 5dmg, 3.6 heat
erLL 4.5s cd, 1.6s beam - 8dmg, 7.0 heat

Spoiler

Player1 can can reload all 3 lasers without waiting time and can use both ML every 4.2s (3.0s cd, 1.2s beam) and the ERLL every 6.1s (4.5s cd, 1.6s beam)

Player2 will have to wait for the second ERLL and second pair of ML for additional 25% cd time (extra 0.75s for ML and 1.125s for ERLL) but as the beam duration is quite close to the cd time, Player2 can fire 2 ML every 4.95 seconds and one ERLL every 7.225 seconds.

Player3 will have to wait 25% for the second Laser and also 50% for the third ERLL and ML pair.
the third ML pair will reload in 5.7s and third ERLL in 8.35s.

Ratio for ERLL:
Player1 with 1ERLL-> 8dmg / 6.1s = 1,311dps
Player2 with 2ERLL-> 16dmg / 7.225s = 2.214dps (69% increase vs Player1)
Player3 with 3ERLL-> 24dmg / 8.35s = 2.874dps (29% increase vs Player2. 120% increase vs Player1)

The advantage of Player 2 vs Player1 is not 100% more weapons fired (double), but “only” 69% more.

The advantage of Player 3 vs Player2 is 29% (instead of 50%) and vs Player1 120% (instead of 200%).

This provides a boost for Goal D.) increased performance for low hardpoint variants vs boats.

4x PPC boat:
PPC 6.0s cd, 0.8s autocharge

Spoiler

Time 0 all 4 PPCs fired, PPC cooldowns are increased by 25% (1.5sec) for each additional PPC:
first PPC is ready after 6s (normal 6s cd),
second PPC is ready after 6+1.5 = 7.5s
third PPC is ready after 6+1.5+1.5 = 9s
fourth PPC is ready after 6+1.5+1.5+1.5 = 10.5s
and if the first PPC is fired again after 6.8s (6s +0.8s autocharge), it would get the same 4.5s increase (for 3 other currently PPCs reloading).

firing the same build in a 2+2 fashion would give one cooldown build up of 6, 7.5 + 9, 7 + 6, 7 +6, 7 ...

comparing that to single or dual PPC volley:
1 PPC fired on cd would be every 6.8 seconds (6s cd + 0.8s charge). (1.47 dps)
2 PPCs fired on cd would be:
first PPC is ready after 6.8s (normal 6s cd),
second PPC is ready after 6+1.5s = 7.5s
firing the fist PPC again after 6.8s would give it also a +1.5s as the second PPC is still loading.

so while a Dual PPC build could fire 2x PPCs every 9.3 seconds (7.5s cd +0.8s charge) (2,15 dps),
a Quad PPC build would fire 4x PPCs every 11.3seconds (10.5s cd +0.8s charge) (3.54 dps).

compared to flat 6s cooldown dps of 2.94dps (2x PPCs with 6.8s cd+charge) and 5,88dps (4x PPCs with 6.8s cd+charge), the 2x PPCs only gain 46% (instead of 100%) vs single PPC and the 4x PPCs gain only 64% vs dual PPC and only 140% vs single PPC.


so if firing boated weapons of the same type as fast as possible, will either spread out the shots (because of the delay in reload times), or the pilot needs to wait for the full cycle (e.g. 11.3s cooldown with 4xPPCs) before firing another Alpha.

Edited by Reno Blade, 12 July 2017 - 09:34 AM.

[El Bandito]

[Willard Phule]

Oooooh, oooooh! You forgot the most important part. How to make the "end game content" playable for people dropping for the first time.

Use the PSR rating as a damage modifier. That way, the T5s get 5 points of damage for every LRM that hits. Considering they start shooting beyond maximum range most of the time, I think it's a way for them to actually be able to contribute to their team.

[KinLuu]

Restrictions are not fun.

Games should be fun.

[Reno Blade]

wow trolls.

I guess twitch shooting alpha strikes is more fun than having a sim-like game where you feel like piloting a huge mech instead of playing Call of duty X.

Lets see if there are any real replies commenting the actual goals listed.

[Snazzy Dragon]

I feel obligated to inform you that the majority of the playerbase would probably laugh at all of this and call it stupid, and that you should not be surprised if you get some nasty responses.

[Mcgral18]

Not being able to shoot for 1.5 seconds, and unable to charge two at once, when the weapon has a 2.5s cool down...


Plzno

[Samriis]

Reno, something you might want to add into your thinking is reload priority. It's something that could be set up in the Mechbay. This would be critical in a brawl situation because of two methods of thought... do you 1. prioritize your Arm weapons so you can track down those annoying lights? Or 2. prioritize your torso mounts due to the fact you think you will loose your arms before they recharge.

[Hobbles v]

This game is plenty slow already. Cod or even slower fps games are far faster than this.

The fact is I do feel like I'm piloting a giant slow machine.

They are slow relative to the distances covered

They do not stop on a dime like an fps

You can't side step like an fps

They don't turn at right angles like an fps

You mech has several health pools to use (locations to sacrifice) instead of one hit boxes for allunch

Most direct hits do not instantly kill mechs

The speed at which you can aim and how far you can look varies by both the mech type and epuipment loaded instead of the same speed everyone gets in an fps. Also this "quick twitch aiming" is STILL slower thanot a fps.

Stop trying to restrict the game so a 38kph assault with 7 different types of weapons can feel more viable but still suck anyways

Edited by Hobbles v, 20 January 2017 - 08:56 AM.

[Clit Beastwood]

My more elaborate reply is my next reply below, use that instead

Edited by Fierostetz, 20 January 2017 - 08:25 AM.

[Clit Beastwood]

Reno Blade, on 20 January 2017 - 06:30 AM, said:

Lets see if there are any real replies commenting the actual goals listed.

I acknowledge your attempt to preemptively dismiss any replies you don't agree with, but you need to learn to accept that it's going to happen. Your ideas are not really new and they aren't conducive to a f2p game that so desperately needs to attract the FPS crowd to remain business-viable.

I *do* appreciate that you take the time to build out a big list, it shows that you care about the game, but you can't approach any aspect of the internet without expecting resistance.

To address your points:

- Make mechs feel huge and powerful
\ They do - get a subwoofer, crank it up, and play on a big TV or a projector (seriously, playing full-wall via a projector is awesome).

- Increase TTK
\ You can do that yourself by not standing in the open. I see you're playing from Germany - it's been my experience over the last several years that EU players tend to be very stationary and US/AUS players tend to be much more aggressive. The stationary "point-holding" playstyle exhibited by a lot of EU players does a great job of making you easy to encircle and whittle down when playing against an equal but more aggressive team. Your TTK goes up if you just move. People gripe about "death balling", but it works. You can't stop that, all you can do is adapt. I have been in two units with US and EU contingents, and have done lots of drops with both sides. When it's EU vs EU (sub 100MS pings on EU servers) the stationary tactics work, but when it was EU vs US, the "deathball" almost always won. The EU players are *great* at strategizing, but those strategies usually have too many pieces. It wasn't as bad in 8v8, but with 12v12 the game became much less mistake tolerant- holding those complex strategies together under fire got a LOT harder. The "cowboy" playstyle of mashing the W key through the keyboard while clicking as fast as possible just works better *in this game*.

- Make arm weapons important
\ They are - while you may not see it, plenty of people are fine with them. You can hit off-plane targets, you can more quickly track lights, etc. Learn to play with arm lock off You need to adapt to the game, not try to change the game to adapt to you.

- Increase performance of low hardpoint variants vs boats
\ Why? There's always going to be good and bad variants of "things". Further "equalization" only removes what little flavor there is left in the game. If everything you ate tasted like vanilla - how long before you get tired of vanilla? Besides, dedicating yourself to a bad variant/chassis for a while is a great developmental endeavor. Want to get great at running, say, an arctic cheetah? Go drive Commandos with XL's exclusively for a month, then jump into a cheetah. Watch how you soar!

The fact is, not everyone gets to be the best - there are good players, there are bad players, there are mid players. There are different playstyles. There are players that are absolutely awful but love every second of it. There are players that are GREAT at the game but really just "phone it in", because of the lack of variety. A lot of the proposed changes I see from players are myopic, in the sense that they only factor in their own perspective. Realize that a huge chunk of the player base is better at the game than you - and that a huge chunk of the player base is worse at the game than you. Unless you can fully, honestly, and objectively look at the game from multiple angles, your perspective on the game is flawed.

Finally - I do respect the fact that you structured it mostly like an actionable project plan, it makes it a lot easier to read At the end of the day, GL:HF

Edited by Fierostetz, 20 January 2017 - 08:24 AM.

[Johnny Z]

Hobbles v, on 20 January 2017 - 07:49 AM, said:

This game is plenty slow already. Cod or even slower fps games are far faster than this.

The fact is I do feel like I'm piloting a giant slow machine.

They are slow relative to the distances covered

They do not stop on a dime like an fps

You can't side step like an fps

They don't turn at right angles like an fps

You mech has several health pools to use (locations to sacrifice) instead of one hit boxes for allunch

Most direct hits do not instantly kill mechs

The speed at which you can aim and how far you can look varies by both the mech type and epuipment loaded instead of the same speed everyone gets in an fps. Also this "quick twitch aiming" is STILL slower thanot a fps.

Stop trying to restrict the game so a 38kph assault with 7 different types of weapons can feel more viable but still suck anyways

This is a sim of 20 to 100 ton war machines. So it should reflect that. It does that quite well and still provides good game play. It could be slowed down a little for the sim. TTK and all that.

The many comments that this game requires less aiming skill than other shooter are an real joke. This game requires way more practice to get good at. These comments suggest that MechWarrior players don't also play other fps games and are really annoying. If anything new players get beat up to quickly in this game because its tougher to play.

Edited by Johnny Z, 20 January 2017 - 08:47 AM.

[Alan Davion]

Reno Blade, on 20 January 2017 - 03:04 AM, said:

GOALS

A.) Make mechs feels huge and powerful
B.) Increase TTK

CHANGES

General changes:

• G-1) Increase all Internal Structure by 100%

Energy Weapon specific changes:

• E-1) Reduce Beam weapon cooldowns by ~30-50%

Note:

E-1 will increase TTK even with big alphas

I have to ask whether you mean increase TTK as being increase the time required to kill a mech, or increase the speed at which mechs die, because you seem to be talking about both.

For starters, we already have doubled internal structure thanks to the original doubling of armor and structure from back in the earliest days.

Secondly, you talk about making the mechs feel huge and powerful, and then seem to talk about making them DIE even faster by speeding up laser cooldowns. Laser weapons are already the easiest weapons to use here, and you want to make them easier to use?

What you propose would not change anything. Increasing internal structure and then speeding up weapon cooldown, you'd be chewing through armor and structure just as fast we already do.

One of these things is not like the other. One of these things doesn't belong here.

You can't have your cake and eat it too. It's one or the other. Either you make this game reflect the true nature of Battletech, i.e. big, hulking, armored war machines that pound each other to scrap, or you make it CoD with Mech skins.

Now, there ARE some proposed changes of yours that I do agree with.

Reno Blade, on 20 January 2017 - 03:04 AM, said:

GOALS

A.) Make mechs feels huge and powerful
C.) Make arm-weapons important
D.) Increase performance of low hardpoint variants vs boats


Energy Weapon specific changes:

• E-2) Increase all beam durations by ~20-50%
  
• E-3) Increase Heavy Laser beam duration to 150% of IS counterpart
  
• E-5) PPCs (all classes) will gain a 0.5s - 1.0s fire-delay (auto charge)
  
• E-6) Only 2x PPCs can be fired/charged at a time

Missile Weapon specific changes:

• M-1) All missiles fire in streams

Ballistic Weapon specific changes:

• B-1) All ACs fire in streams (LBX excluded)
  
• B-2) UACs gain 1x projectile per volley instead of Double-Tap ability
  
• B-3) Rotary ACs use more projectiles for a volley and increase the ROF over time, but can overheat the weapon
  
• B-6) Gauss CD is reduced by 50%, but Charge time and Charge-hold time is doubled

These proposed changes I would actually be in favor of. Many of these changes would slow down TTK, make the mechs actually FEEL like they're big, hulking walking death machines.

I'm in particular favor of the AC changes because that's how ACs/UACs are SUPPOSED TO BE. They're supposed to be rapid fire weapons, with Ultras firing that much faster with a subsequently increased risk of jamming. Even NORMAL ACs are supposed to have a risk of jamming up.

[Reno Blade]

Samriis, on 20 January 2017 - 07:41 AM, said:

Reno, something you might want to add into your thinking is reload priority. It's something that could be set up in the Mechbay. This would be critical in a brawl situation because of two methods of thought... do you 1. prioritize your Arm weapons so you can track down those annoying lights? Or 2. prioritize your torso mounts due to the fact you think you will loose your arms before they recharge.

Thats a good point and I was thinking about this.
I had though about a simple switch for prioritizing small/fast (SL/ML) weapons vs large/slow (LL/PPC), or using the weapon groups 1-6.
Setting priority in the mechlab might be a good option too, yes.
Thanks

[Kdogg788]

Where did they say in an official account we are getting 3060 tech, and what are they giving us?

-k

[Reno Blade]

Mcgral18, on 20 January 2017 - 06:57 AM, said:

Not being able to shoot for 1.5 seconds, and unable to charge two at once, when the weapon has a 2.5s cool down...


Plzno

Not sure which weapon you mean here.
As an example, I listed some builds.
last build compared different laser builds. (1xERLL and 2xML vs 2x or 3x this loadout)
There is shown how the 2x build is still superior, as it can use the cooldown of one half while the other is recharging.

Hobbles v, on 20 January 2017 - 07:49 AM, said:

This game is plenty slow already. Cod or even slower fps games are far faster than this.

The fact is I do feel like I'm piloting a giant slow machine.

They are slow relative to the distances covered

They do not stop on a dime like an fps

You can't side step like an fps

They don't turn at right angles like an fps

You mech has several health pools to use (locations to sacrifice) instead of one hit boxes for allunch

Most direct hits do not instantly kill mechs

The speed at which you can aim and how far you can look varies by both the mech type and epuipment loaded instead of the same speed everyone gets in an fps. Also this "quick twitch aiming" is STILL slower thanot a fps.

Stop trying to restrict the game so a 38kph assault with 7 different types of weapons can feel more viable but still suck anyways

Yes MWO is slower than typical FPS, but the speed you can start/stop and twist and aim (even torso-only builds) is quite fast even if you have a heavy mech.
Using anything faster than a 75t with 300 engine will provide enough speed, where you can ignore the small bonus of arm weapons and use these as shields only.

38kph Assault might be a bit slow, but what would be slow enough without being too slow? the 100t assaults with 300 engine are turning very slow and this is the slowest, but anything faster loses the feel of big and stompy quite quickly in my opinion.

[Clit Beastwood]

Reno Blade, on 20 January 2017 - 09:29 AM, said:

Yes MWO is slower than typical FPS, but the speed you can start/stop and twist and aim (even torso-only builds) is quite fast even if you have a heavy mech.
Using anything faster than a 75t with 300 engine will provide enough speed, where you can ignore the small bonus of arm weapons and use these as shields only.

38kph Assault might be a bit slow, but what would be slow enough without being too slow? the 100t assaults with 300 engine are turning very slow and this is the slowest, but anything faster loses the feel of big and stompy quite quickly in my opinion.

The problem is, it would alienate a large % of the playerbase. You can either have a game that is amazing for a small % of players, or a game that is ok for a large % of players. Think of it from the business perspective - F2P games require constant to survive. They have to cater to the masses. I wouldn't mind them adding a "sim" mode, but it really sounds like you want a more battletech game instead of a mechwarrior game. The mechwarrior games have always been arcade-ified.

[Reno Blade]

Fierostetz, on 20 January 2017 - 08:08 AM, said:

I acknowledge your attempt to preemptively dismiss any replies you don't agree with, but you need to learn to accept that it's going to happen. Your ideas are not really new and they aren't conducive to a f2p game that so desperately needs to attract the FPS crowd to remain business-viable.

I was more trying to get more than "plx don't nerf, noop" replies, so thanks for the detailed response here!

Quote

I *do* appreciate that you take the time to build out a big list, it shows that you care about the game, but you can't approach any aspect of the internet without expecting resistance.

To address your points:

- Make mechs feel huge and powerful
\ They do - get a subwoofer, crank it up, and play on a big TV or a projector (seriously, playing full-wall via a projector is awesome).

Sure the sound makes much, but if the mechs are sprinting and turning and then twitching to one side to give a quick alpha... thats a difference than huge and slow.
I'm thinking of Battleship kinda powerfull, where your huge cannons slowly turn into position and BAM, instead of quick fregattes where there are tons of small guns that turn quick to catch small aircrafts.

Quote

- Increase TTK
\ You can do that yourself by not standing in the open. I see you're playing from Germany - it's been my experience over the last several years that EU players tend to be very stationary and US/AUS players tend to be much more aggressive. The stationary "point-holding" playstyle exhibited by a lot of EU players does a great job of making you easy to encircle and whittle down when playing against an equal but more aggressive team. Your TTK goes up if you just move. People gripe about "death balling", but it works. You can't stop that, all you can do is adapt. I have been in two units with US and EU contingents, and have done lots of drops with both sides. When it's EU vs EU (sub 100MS pings on EU servers) the stationary tactics work, but when it was EU vs US, the "deathball" almost always won. The EU players are *great* at strategizing, but those strategies usually have too many pieces. It wasn't as bad in 8v8, but with 12v12 the game became much less mistake tolerant- holding those complex strategies together under fire got a LOT harder. The "cowboy" playstyle of mashing the W key through the keyboard while clicking as fast as possible just works better *in this game*.

Yes tactic is key in this game, be it Deathball, or other focused fire.
I have the feeling that some EU players are just too afraid to rush, as the rest wont follow and they die in vain, or without helping the team much, while it seems US players are more happy to play the "hero" to sacrifice oneself for the team.

But in general that's one of the points I am looking at.
If everything stays as it is, the TTK is very short and that's something I'm quite unhappy about.
In typical FPS games, you have respawns or much shorter games, so a early death isn't such a big thing there.

Quote

- Make arm weapons important
\ They are - while you may not see it, plenty of people are fine with them. You can hit off-plane targets, you can more quickly track lights, etc. Learn to play with arm lock off You need to adapt to the game, not try to change the game to adapt to you.

I see a lot more builds that either sacrifice one whole side (arm/torso) or put everything in the torso (e.g. Marauder, Warhammer, Hellbringer).
I'd love to see more use in bringing arm weapons (which are often very low, or get shot off).

Quote

- Increase performance of low hardpoint variants vs boats
\ Why? There's always going to be good and bad variants of "things". Further "equalization" only removes what little flavor there is left in the game. If everything you ate tasted like vanilla - how long before you get tired of vanilla? Besides, dedicating yourself to a bad variant/chassis for a while is a great developmental endeavor. Want to get great at running, say, an arctic cheetah? Go drive Commandos with XL's exclusively for a month, then jump into a cheetah. Watch how you soar!

I am looking at mechs like the Vindicator and PHawk for example. 1x LL and 2xML or even using 3xLL (because you need to bring dmg to the table)
In most cases, you will put as many LL in your mech as you can (before ghost heat) and that homogenizes the "boats" and also punishes mechs with low hardpoint count.

Using 1x or 2xSRM6 just doesn't do the trick, so you want 3x at least (Vindicators usually only have 1 M-slot).
Making these variants useless vs other mechs of similar weight seems to be not the best option. (and quircks are going away)

So with the focus of the Reload-chain of weapons, smaller amount of weapons will have less reload waiting delay and can use the full cooldown effectively. (see last Build example)

Quote

The fact is, not everyone gets to be the best - there are good players, there are bad players, there are mid players. There are different playstyles. There are players that are absolutely awful but love every second of it. There are players that are GREAT at the game but really just "phone it in", because of the lack of variety. A lot of the proposed changes I see from players are myopic, in the sense that they only factor in their own perspective. Realize that a huge chunk of the player base is better at the game than you - and that a huge chunk of the player base is worse at the game than you. Unless you can fully, honestly, and objectively look at the game from multiple angles, your perspective on the game is flawed.

Finally - I do respect the fact that you structured it mostly like an actionable project plan, it makes it a lot easier to read At the end of the day, GL:HF

Thanks for the detailed reply!
I respect that competitive players see MWO as a esport option, but the majority of new players will probably just bite the dust a few times until they give up.

[Reno Blade]

Alan Davion, on 20 January 2017 - 08:59 AM, said:

Quote

GOALS

A.) Make mechs feels huge and powerful
B.) Increase TTK

CHANGES

General changes:

• G-1) Increase all Internal Structure by 100%

Energy Weapon specific changes:

• E-1) Reduce Beam weapon cooldowns by ~30-50%

Note:

E-1 will increase TTK even with big alphas

I have to ask whether you mean increase TTK as being increase the time required to kill a mech, or increase the speed at which mechs die, because you seem to be talking about both.

For starters, we already have doubled internal structure thanks to the original doubling of armor and structure from back in the earliest days.

Secondly, you talk about making the mechs feel huge and powerful, and then seem to talk about making them DIE even faster by speeding up laser cooldowns. Laser weapons are already the easiest weapons to use here, and you want to make them easier to use?

What you propose would not change anything. Increasing internal structure and then speeding up weapon cooldown, you'd be chewing through armor and structure just as fast we already do.

One of these things is not like the other. One of these things doesn't belong here.

You can't have your cake and eat it too. It's one or the other. Either you make this game reflect the true nature of Battletech, i.e. big, hulking, armored war machines that pound each other to scrap, or you make it CoD with Mech skins.

Now, there ARE some proposed changes of yours that I do agree with.



These proposed changes I would actually be in favor of. Many of these changes would slow down TTK, make the mechs actually FEEL like they're big, hulking walking death machines.

I'm in particular favor of the AC changes because that's how ACs/UACs are SUPPOSED TO BE. They're supposed to be rapid fire weapons, with Ultras firing that much faster with a subsequently increased risk of jamming. Even NORMAL ACs are supposed to have a risk of jamming up.

Thanks for the detailed reply!

I understand that laser cd reduction might be counter intuitive here, but if you combine it with :
E-2) Increase all beam durations by ~20-50%
and
E-8) Reloading 1x PPC, 1x LL/LP, 2x ML and 4x SL at a time
I think the result might be quite good boost for survivability.

Last time we had long beam durations (i think 1.5 to 2.0s for cERLL when clans were released), everyone was crying they can't make the damage work, as the beam is too long and they need to twist away often.

The only problem I see here is that exactly this might happen.
Player fires long beam and stares down the target. in this time he is not twisting, so he can get more damage to the CT quickly.

But if this is used together with slower torso speed and longer reload times with delays, I expect to see less accuracy and less alphas/dps from boats.

Laser values might look like these:

Spoiler

SL 1.5s cd, 1.0s beam
ML 2.0s cd, 1.4s beam
LL 2.5s cd, 1.8s beam
ERLL 2.5s cd, 2.0s beam

cerSL 1.5s cd, 1.2s beam
cerML 2.0s cd, 1.6s beam
cerLL 2.5s cd, 2.2s beam

cHSL 2.0s cd, 1.5s beam
cHML 2.5s cd, 2.0s beam
cHLL 3.0s cd, 2.6s beam

SP, 1.0s cd, 0.7s beam
MP 1.5s cd, 1.0s beam
LP 2.0s cd, 1.3s beam

cSP 1.2s cd, 0.9s beam
cMP 1.7s cd, 1.2s beam
cLP 2.2s cd, 1.6s beam

here again the comparison builds:
Player1: 1xERLL, 2x ML build vs Player2: 2x ERLL, 4x ML build vs Player3: 3x ERLL, 6xML build

Spoiler

Player 1 can can reload all 3 lasers without waiting time and can use both ML every 3.4s (2.0s cd, 1.4s beam) and the ERLL every 4.5s (2.5s cd, 2.0s beam)

Player 2 will have to wait for the second ERLL and second pair of ML for additional cd time (2.0s for ML and 2.5s for ERLL) but as the beam duration is quite close to the cd time, Player2 can fire 2 ML every 2.0 seconds and one ERLL every 2.5 seconds.

Player3 will have to wait for the second Laser and also for the third ERLL and ML pair.
But as the second ERLL/2xML are coming off cd faster than the third will start, the advantage of a 3^rd ERLL and 5^th/6^th ML is only in burst fire of initial Alpha or when able to pause the combat to fully reload.

The advantage of Player 2 vs Player1 is not 100% more weapons fired (double), but “only” 70% more.

The advantage of Player 3 vs Player2 is 0% in sustained brawl and only shows when able to cool down in between volleys (peek and hide).

This provides a boost for Goal D.) increased performance for low hardpoint variants vs boats.

[Gas Guzzler]

Reno Blade, on 20 January 2017 - 06:30 AM, said:

wow trolls.

I guess twitch shooting alpha strikes is more fun than having a sim-like game where you feel like piloting a huge mech instead of playing Call of duty X.

Lets see if there are any real replies commenting the actual goals listed.

Dude, if you can't play in the pool with others, wait for MW5. Your goals are bad, and your solutions are even worse.