64 replies to this topic

[Appogee]

It would become the lurmtato's new weapon of choice.

Imagine trying to have a decent fight with a half dozen of them standing back lobbing grenades with gay abandon into the fray.

No thanks. It'd be like the M320 spam in Battlefield 3.

Edited by Appogee, 25 January 2017 - 11:03 AM.

[Koruthaiolos]

TAG Lasers and NARC could bring up a firing solution in the sky to aim at in order to ensure rounds land on target. You could lase or NARC the ground in the middle of a group of mechs... Mortars are an area weapon after all.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Pjwned, on 25 January 2017 - 10:46 AM, said:

I wouldn't mind seeing it be more incentivized in a more appropriate manner

What exactly would be an "appropriate" manner? Quirks that only affect weapons mounted in this locations, sized hardpoints, etc? Those all sound like artificially imposing restrictions to incentivize mounting them in those locations rather than something that is natural....

Pjwned, on 25 January 2017 - 10:46 AM, said:

Do I think it's appropriate to incentivize 1 particular weapon system to be arm mounted by making it far less useful in a torso mount when that's not the case for any other weapon system?

Why exactly? The mechanics of this weapon would be unique from any other weapon system.

Pjwned, on 25 January 2017 - 10:46 AM, said:

You would still need to lead your shot against a moving target, and even with assist it wouldn't exactly be easy mode to hit a target hiding behind a wall or a hill or something.

I should've worded that better, do we have assists for existing weapons (since ballistics have trajectories after all)? As long as the mechanics of the trajectory are straightforward (no special behavior outside it is a slower trajectory based projectile) then assists shouldn't really be needed. People complain about how this game is too much "point and click" yet when a weapon with a higher skill floor than normal is suggested people want it to be easier, sometimes I swear.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 25 January 2017 - 11:17 AM.

[Johnny Z]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 25 January 2017 - 11:15 AM, said:

What exactly would be an "appropriate" manner? Quirks that only affect weapons mounted in this locations, sized hardpoints, etc? Those all sound like artificially imposing restrictions to incentivize mounting them in those locations rather than something that is natural....


Why exactly? The mechanics of this weapon would be unique from any other weapon system.


I should've worded that better, do we have assists for existing weapons (since ballistics have trajectories after all)? As long as the mechanics of the trajectory are straightforward (no special behavior outside it is a slower trajectory based projectile) then assists shouldn't really be needed. People complain about how this game is too much "point and click" yet when a weapon with a higher skill floor than normal is suggested people want it to be easier, sometimes I swear.

How ever it is done it could be for players that want a more laid back role, or strategic not a higher skill floor. It should require different play style than try harder play style. Like I said already twice. 2 spots would be awesome.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Johnny Z, on 25 January 2017 - 11:45 AM, said:

How ever it is done it could be for players that want a more laid back role

Sorry no, the last thing we need is a style that encourages bad LRM boat-esque practices aka hiding 200m away from any friendly lobbing LRMs at targets that won't get hit asking for LRM locks and being slow and not sharing armor.

I want an indirect fire weapon that is useful in more competitive settings which means it shouldn't have a low skill floor to allow for abuse in lower tiers.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 25 January 2017 - 11:50 AM.

[Green Mamba]

Bombast laser after that?

[Johnny Z]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 25 January 2017 - 11:48 AM, said:

Sorry no, the last thing we need is a style that encourages bad LRM boat-esque practices aka hiding 200m away from any friendly lobbing LRMs at targets that won't get hit asking for LRM locks and being slow and not sharing armor.

I want an indirect fire weapon that is useful in more competitive settings which means it shouldn't have a low skill floor to allow for abuse in lower tiers.

Competitive setting? You mean private leagues where a bunch of alts can over hype each others game play?

Anyway, why not offer game play variety for players.

Make the game 14 v 14!

Edited by Johnny Z, 25 January 2017 - 12:04 PM.

[Pjwned]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 25 January 2017 - 11:15 AM, said:

What exactly would be an "appropriate" manner? Quirks that only affect weapons mounted in this locations, sized hardpoints, etc? Those all sound like artificially imposing restrictions to incentivize mounting them in those locations rather than something that is natural....

I'm not really too sure what would be a good idea and also appropriate, because I don't really think it needs to be incentivized further.

I can say that sized hardpoints is something I want anyways though, and if we do have weapon quirks (which I would prefer none of, or else very few) then I would like to see them more or less entirely dependent on hardpoints since that would make them considerably less lame, so I think you're on the right track there, especially since the incentives would be a lot more consistent than "everything except this 1 weapon system works about as well in torso and arm mounts."

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Why exactly? The mechanics of this weapon would be unique from any other weapon system.

Because there's ways of handling it without that being the case, although granted if it's meant to be a precision weapon then those methods would make it more complex than just firing it like a grenade launcher and depending on splash damage to do the job.

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I should've worded that better, do we have assists for existing weapons (since ballistics have trajectories after all)? As long as the mechanics of the trajectory are straightforward (no special behavior outside it is a slower trajectory based projectile) then assists shouldn't really be needed. People complain about how this game is too much "point and click" yet when a weapon with a higher skill floor than normal is suggested people want it to be easier, sometimes I swear.

Because it would still have a higher skill cap than normal even with some sort of trajectory assist, and if it's a precision weapon then it would be pretty damn hard to use without some sort of assist.

Edited by Pjwned, 25 January 2017 - 12:10 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Pjwned, on 25 January 2017 - 12:05 PM, said:

I'm not really too sure what would be a good idea and also appropriate, because I don't really think it needs to be incentivized further.

What do you mean further? Currently there is absolutely no good incentive to mount weapons in the arm because it implies wider convergence and generally lower mounts than in a torso both of which are not worth the extra range of movement outside of a few cases (Whale is an example of an exception to the rule).

Pjwned, on 25 January 2017 - 12:05 PM, said:

I can say that sized hardpoints is something I want anyways though, and if we do have weapon quirks (which I would prefer none of, or else very few) then I would like to see them more or less entirely dependent on hardpoints since that would make them considerably less lame, so I think you're on the right track there, especially since the incentives would be a lot more consistent than "everything except this 1 weapon system works about as well in torso and arm mounts."

Sized hardpoints wouldn't really balance that so much as limit what could be carried in the torso in a few cases. That doesn't necessarily fix the problem of people abusing torso mounts, just which mechs it can be abused on (which again, doesn't fix the imbalance between torso and arm weapons).

Pjwned, on 25 January 2017 - 12:05 PM, said:

Because there's ways of handling it without that being the case, although granted if it's meant to be a precision weapon then those methods would make it more complex than just firing it like a grenade launcher and depending on splash damage to do the job.

Because it would still have a higher skill cap than normal even with some sort of trajectory assist, and if it's a precision weapon then it would be pretty damn hard to use without some sort of assist.

Why should it be a precision weapon exactly? It is an indirect fire type of weapon without homing. It being precision even with aim assistance would require it to do boat loads of damage to be worth the risk (aka an extremely situational weapon).

[LordNothing]

i imagine it would work a lot like the long tom arty in MWLL (just not as powerful). for indirect, aim up and you get an indicator of the range of the impact point, you would have to match it to the range of a locked target. pretty much like lerms but with aiming. direct fire might be just point and shoot, and the angle is figured out for you by your mech's computers.

[Pjwned]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 25 January 2017 - 01:03 PM, said:

What do you mean further? Currently there is absolutely no good incentive to mount weapons in the arm because it implies wider convergence and generally lower mounts than in a torso both of which are not worth the extra range of movement outside of a few cases (Whale is an example of an exception to the rule).

The extra range of movement is still an incentive either way, and there are a number of mechs where the main weaponry is mounted in the arms whether you like it or not.

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Sized hardpoints wouldn't really balance that so much as limit what could be carried in the torso in a few cases. That doesn't necessarily fix the problem of people abusing torso mounts, just which mechs it can be abused on (which again, doesn't fix the imbalance between torso and arm weapons).

The imbalance seems to be more or less entirely "why would I use this arm mount on this mech when I can use this superior torso mount on this other mech instead."

Sized hardpoints would be a pretty direct response to that, as well as other issues.

I guess you don't have as many slots available in the arms, but that's because you have actuators there which are actually useful.

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Why should it be a precision weapon exactly? It is an indirect fire type of weapon without homing. It being precision even with aim assistance would require it to do boat loads of damage to be worth the risk (aka an extremely situational weapon).

Because it can be a precision weapon with fast enough projectile speed and quite possibly trajectory assist, and I already brought up potential problems associated with it being a glorified grenade launcher.

I'm not saying it has to be a precision weapon though.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Pjwned, on 25 January 2017 - 01:44 PM, said:

The extra range of movement is still an incentive either way

Except it isn't a worthwhile one.

Pjwned, on 25 January 2017 - 01:44 PM, said:

and there are a number of mechs where the main weaponry is mounted in the arms whether you like it or not.

Not sure how this is relevant?

Pjwned, on 25 January 2017 - 01:44 PM, said:

The imbalance seems to be more or less entirely "why would I use this arm mount on this mech when I can use this superior torso mount on this other mech instead."

Sized hardpoints would be a pretty direct response to that, as well as other issues.

It is only a direct response to that if the mech didn't have good weapons placed in those torso locations, in other words it only fixes SOME of the issues by directly removing that option but it doesn't fix ALL of them. Sized hardpoints don't add incentive to take weapons in the arm, they just remove the ability to add good weapons to the torsos in some cases. That isn't a fix.

Pjwned, on 25 January 2017 - 01:44 PM, said:

Because it can be a precision weapon with fast enough projectile speed and quite possibly trajectory assist

Just because it can doesn't mean it should.

Pjwned, on 25 January 2017 - 01:44 PM, said:

I already brought up potential problems associated with it being a glorified grenade launcher.

If you mean the SRM "splash" problem, that shouldn't stop them from actually adding an AoE weapon which has been sorely lacking from this game. It would actually be nice if they could fix that because that allow them to give better uniqueness to missiles (like the ATME vs LRM or ATMHE vs SRM issue).

[0bsidion]

Depending on how it was implemented it could be an interesting addition or a great way to accidentally rack up TKs and/or team damage. It isn't really a new weapon system though, it's one that got phased out because LRMs were superior, and then came back because of AMS.

The thing that would really add flavor to mortars though would be ammo switching, which PGI doesn't know how to do.

[Valdarion Silarius]

Best mechs for mortar defense based on structural geometry.

Spoiler

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Edited by Arnold The Governator, 25 January 2017 - 02:43 PM.

[Pjwned]

This is starting to stray quite a bit away from the topic of mortars by the way, so perhaps another thread would be better to continue talking about sized hardpoints and such.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 25 January 2017 - 01:53 PM, said:

Except it isn't a worthwhile one.

I said I don't see a need to further incentivize arm mounts, I explained why I said that, and you moved the goalpost because even though there is an incentive it's "not good enough."

Would that never be a good enough incentive even with something like sized hardpoints, or is it just not a good enough incentive right now?

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Not sure how this is relevant?

It's relevant for those mechs when you decide "should I put my weapons in the arms or the torsos" because the torsos aren't an option (or else have no noteworthy hardpoints).

Jenners are just 1 example, and I can give you a whole bunch more if you want, but I predict the response will just be "well nobody uses that mech" at least a dozen times if I go on further, even though part of the goal is to get people to use those mechs more.

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It is only a direct response to that if the mech didn't have good weapons placed in those torso locations, in other words it only fixes SOME of the issues by directly removing that option but it doesn't fix ALL of them. Sized hardpoints don't add incentive to take weapons in the arm, they just remove the ability to add good weapons to the torsos in some cases. That isn't a fix.

What other issues are there besides torso mounts having better placements with no reason to not cram in the biggest weapon possible in many cases? It's a huge problem for mechs to be considered bad just because they don't have the most meta hardpoint layout possible, and I'm not seeing any practical suggestions that you like, unless you actually think that 1 weapon system being better in the arms would fix it which would be ridiculous.

What would you do to make the Vindicator relevant besides sized hardpoints? I saw a couple threads earlier suggesting mechs should be able to move their arms higher and in a tighter position, so do you want that?

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Just because it can doesn't mean it should.

And just because it can be an AoE weapon doesn't mean it necessarily should, and you basically ignored my response to how it could be practical as a precision indirect fire weapon even though you brought up your concerns about that.

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If you mean the SRM "splash" problem, that shouldn't stop them from actually adding an AoE weapon which has been sorely lacking from this game. It would actually be nice if they could fix that because that allow them to give better uniqueness to missiles (like the ATME vs LRM or ATMHE vs SRM issue).

And what practical solution is there to fix that?

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Pjwned, on 25 January 2017 - 04:03 PM, said:

I said I don't see a need to further incentivize arm mounts, I explained why I said that, and you moved the goalpost because even though there is an incentive it's "not good enough."

Would that never be a good enough incentive even with something like sized hardpoints, or is it just not a good enough incentive right now?

I didn't move the goal post because you didn't think arm mounts should be incentived further even though the current incentives ARENT enough to choose arm mounts over torso mounts and no, for a majority of mechs that is not a good enough incentive, which was the point I was driving at. Sized hardpoints only force people to put weapons in inferior spots (not that I'm opposed to sized hardpoints, I just know they don't actually fix the problem), they don't actually fix the inferiority problem.

Pjwned, on 25 January 2017 - 04:03 PM, said:

It's relevant for those mechs when you decide "should I put my weapons in the arms or the torsos" because the torsos aren't an option (or else have no noteworthy hardpoints).

Jenners are just 1 example, and I can give you a whole bunch more if you want, but I predict the response will just be "well nobody uses that mech" at least a dozen times if I go on further, even though part of the goal is to get people to use those mechs more.

Not every mech should be capable of running artillery well, just like not every mech should be capable of running laser vomit.

Pjwned, on 25 January 2017 - 04:03 PM, said:

What other issues are there besides torso mounts having better placements with no reason to not cram in the biggest weapon possible in many cases? It's a huge problem for mechs to be considered bad just because they don't have the most meta hardpoint layout possible, and I'm not seeing any practical suggestions that you like, unless you actually think that 1 weapon system being better in the arms would fix it which would be ridiculous.

What would you do to make the Vindicator relevant besides sized hardpoints? I saw a couple threads earlier suggesting mechs should be able to move their arms higher and in a tighter position, so do you want that?

Sized hardpoints won't fix the Vindicator because other mechs are already able to do 2 PPCs and can do it better (BJ-3 for example). There is no magical fix for mechs like the Vindicator, at least none that aren't somewhat arbitrary, which is why quirks work just fine for fixing them.

Pjwned, on 25 January 2017 - 04:03 PM, said:

And just because it can be an AoE weapon doesn't mean it necessarily should, and you basically ignored my response to how it could be practical as a precision indirect fire weapon even though you brought up your concerns about that.

It should be AoE because we don't have a single AoE weapon in this game, we have never had true artillery weapons outside of strikes (ones that punish clumping/camping). As for practical precision indirect fire, it could potentially be a thing, but I just don't understand why we need one not to mention to potential for broken shenanigans that tend to go with indirect fire. Small splash damage is easier to balance with indirect than precision for similar reasons that PPFLD is such a hard thing to reign in.

Pjwned, on 25 January 2017 - 04:03 PM, said:

And what practical solution is there to fix that?

Depends on the code, you would hope they could rely on code for splash damage to act reliably or at least have some manner of control like other FPS do in other engines. They have fixed other problems before, I just don't think they've reproached the subject of splash damage before and I would love for them to try again with incentive to without worrying about breaking an existing weapon again.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 25 January 2017 - 04:53 PM.

[Rhent]

The only Mech Mortar I want is one where I can launch irate Urbies at my opponents.

[Y E O N N E]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 25 January 2017 - 10:34 AM, said:

Not sure how battlezone handled it, but are we basically talking about making it like Long Toms from MW4 or your typical grenade launcher from an FPS which has trajectories (but probably slower velocity)?

I think, yes? It works just like the mortar in Tribes 2, though in Battlezone the impact effect depended on what type you had equipped.

Video (Skip to 19:10):


And Battlezone II:


There is a target lead indicator telling you how high you need to lob it to make the shot, but it was also present for every other weapon in the game regardless of what it was. MWO has no such assist, so it wouldn't be fair for it to be present on mortars but not on auto-cannons. And, to be honest, it would make using those weapons way too easy.

[Fox With A Shotgun]

The only way I see this weapon type becoming somewhat useful is if PGI somehow learned to code in manually-aimed indirect fire the same way as Wargaming did with WoT SPGs. Otherwise, it becomes either too awkward to use (high shell velocity + low drop for long range, means that it's nearly impossible to aim it accurately for true indirect fire) or too short-ranged (low shell velocity + high drop for pronounced ballistic curves means that it has too short a range).

[Pjwned]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 25 January 2017 - 04:50 PM, said:

I didn't move the goal post because you didn't think arm mounts should be incentived further even though the current incentives ARENT enough to choose arm mounts over torso mounts and no, for a majority of mechs that is not a good enough incentive, which was the point I was driving at.

There already is an incentive, so I said "I don't think it needs to be incentivized further" because an incentive already exists, which I explained to you very clearly when you asked what I meant by "further" since apparently it wasn't obvious what I meant (even though it should have been).

That's obviously a different point (i.e goalpost moving) from "the current incentive isn't good enough" which is what you say, which I find to be fairly annoying when the main solution I offer apparently isn't good enough, because that would be fine to say--aside from moving the goalpost, which I don't normally care a great deal about except when you continue to flagrantly ignore what I actually said--except that you don't offer any actual solutions yourself so that is what makes it considerably more annoying.

Is that clear enough? It better be, because now I don't really care whether you do or not and I'm done arguing this dumb point.

As far as the current incentive being good enough--an argument that you could have approached better--I do think it is good enough and the actual problem is with other hardpoints (i.e side torso hardpoints) being incentivized too much.

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Sized hardpoints only force people to put weapons in inferior spots (not that I'm opposed to sized hardpoints, I just know they don't actually fix the problem), they don't actually fix the inferiority problem.

So how do arm hardpoints remain inferior when the side torso hardpoints are addressed? Are they somehow going to remain inferior to CT or head hardpoints with the whole 2 slots in the CT & 1 slot in the head?

The issue isn't arm hardpoint inferiority, it's torso hardpoint superiority, which seems pretty evident by you having nothing to offer to actually incentivize arm hardpoints, or if you do have something in mind then it must not make much (or any) sense since I would think that it would have come up already if it did.

As a reminder of my position, I don't want sized hardpoints to restrict where equipment can go, only to penalize weapons that are oversized for that hardpoint.

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Not every mech should be capable of running artillery well, just like not every mech should be capable of running laser vomit.

Okay, so how would you consistently deny the effectiveness of laser vomit then? Torso mounted mortars should be consistently less effective than arm mounted mortars according to you, so what's a similar idea for lasers? Ideally it should make sense too, but I suppose it wouldn't hurt too much to just throw something out there that makes no sense at all even if it obviously wouldn't be convincing if it didn't make sense.

Any other similar limitations you have in mind while you're at it, like not every mech should be capable ballistic boats?

I'm also going to note that, in the broadest sense, I think "not every mech should be capable of running laser vomit" is fairly dumb because that obviously violates the intent for lasers to be as simple as possible, which is reflected by how they work and the stats that they have (in this game). I'm okay with that to the extent that you might have some oversized lasers in certain hardpoints, but beyond that...

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Sized hardpoints won't fix the Vindicator because other mechs are already able to do 2 PPCs and can do it better (BJ-3 for example). There is no magical fix for mechs like the Vindicator, at least none that aren't somewhat arbitrary, which is why quirks work just fine for fixing them.

Here's an interesting hypothetical for you then.

Let's say that PPCs would be considered oversized for the torso mounts in the BJ-3, which if you wanted to consider lore does make some sense because the stock loadout has only medium lasers in the torsos, so ideally you would mount the PPCs in the arms where they wouldn't be considered oversized because that's where the PPCs are actually mounted in the stock loadout.

So then it comes down to 3 options:

-Put oversized PPCs in the BJ-3 torso(s) anyways, or perhaps PPCs would only be oversized in 1 torso hardpoint if that was deemed too harsh(?)
-Put PPCs in the BJ-3 arm(s), where they wouldn't be oversized
-Use the VND-1AA instead, because it would also have big arm hardpoints and feature a better engine cap as well as better twisting capability

I realize you could just put 2 PPCs in 1 arm on the BJ-3 and still have the benefit of 2 high mounted PPCs, but if you go back to looking at the stock loadout then it shows that the 2nd energy hardpoint in each arm only mounts a medium laser, so even in the same component the hardpoints could be sized differently so that, in that case, 1 PPC would fit in the arm while the 2nd PPC in the same arm would be oversized.

Note that when I look to stock loadouts for hardpoint size it's more as a guideline rather than a strict rule, so depending on how hardpoint sizes were handled and the needs (or advantages) of a mech then the hardpoint wouldn't necessarily be as small (or even as large) as lore might suggest, e.g the torso hardpoints and 2nd arm hardpoints on the BJ-3 might be big enough to fit large lasers with no penalty but not PPCs. This does kind of have the potential problem of being a little messy though, since the question of "how big should this hardpoint be" would start to get pretty subjective if a strict rule isn't followed, although on the other hand maybe that's exactly what we need.

That is an example of how sized hardpoints could be applied, by disincentivizing hardpoints to make other mechs more relevant instead of this constant problem of "it doesn't have metapuke hardpoints so it's ****."

Hardpoint dependent quirks could also come into play if needed.

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It should be AoE because we don't have a single AoE weapon in this game, we have never had true artillery weapons outside of strikes (ones that punish clumping/camping). As for practical precision indirect fire, it could potentially be a thing, but I just don't understand why we need one not to mention to potential for broken shenanigans that tend to go with indirect fire.

1. Well we don't have any precision indirect fire weapons either, which I think would be cool and quite a bit different from LRMs which are currently the only indirect fire weapon, and I don't really think mortars are the way to introduce mech mounted AoE weapons because that sounds better suited for Arrow IV or the Long Tom Cannon...whenever those might show up.

2. Issues like...what? I don't see too many issues with what I propose unless mortars deal splash damage, which isn't my idea.

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Small splash damage is easier to balance with indirect than precision for similar reasons that PPFLD is such a hard thing to reign in.

Depends on the code, you would hope they could rely on code for splash damage to act reliably or at least have some manner of control like other FPS do in other engines. They have fixed other problems before, I just don't think they've reproached the subject of splash damage before and I would love for them to try again with incentive to without worrying about breaking an existing weapon again.

Okay, but I'm not really seeing an actual solution being offered to deal with the potentially major problems of mech mounted weapons that consistently deal splash damage.

Edited by Pjwned, 25 January 2017 - 09:16 PM.