redplauge, on 21 July 2012 - 07:07 AM, said:
one of the interesting things ive noticed... the vast majority of the weapons the op has mentioned are all t3 or advanced tech (post wobbie jihad).
the introduction of the clans only brought about t2, normal gauss, er, pulse. targeting comps, c3, tag, ect. att (around 3048) these are just hitting the main house units as prototype equipment. now the clan tagcomp, does have a bit of headshot use but few weps can oneshot a mech to the head (ac20, gauss and clan erppc can if its not very heavily armored).
Targeting Computers were a Clan only thing up until 3062 when the Federated Suns managed to make their own. Also it should be noted that the term 'targeting computer' is some what of a misnomer, as Targeting Computers are "
sophisticated pieces of electronics that, unlike normal targeting systems, physically help MechWarriors target their opponents. Recoil compensators and gyroscopic stabilizers are used to prevent normal weapon drift from factors such as recoil and movement while the computer accounts for atmospheric and other conditions to present an accurate "lead" on the target.", and I didn't see any post-jihad weapons mentioned in his origional post.
Ignatius Spectre, on 20 July 2012 - 09:47 PM, said:
Firstly, thanks for your well thought out and presented argument.
I agree, the statement that 3025 tech being the purest form of the game, is a personal opinion and one i formed through years of playing on battletech mux's those people who were fortunate enough to have played them will attest to the pure amount of skill and knowledge required to be successful, given you had to know what variant you were facing purely from the weapons they fired.
My argument that new tech takes away from the skill in the game was this. In old tech the only killer weapon in the game was an AC20, if you were slow enough to get caught by someone wielding one, hopefully you were armoured enough to have one or stuck in a Mackie or AC-10 Urbie, or had the ability to hit back, ANH or AC-20 Urbie. In a battle you would take multiple hits, be taking advantage of every terrain and speed bth modifier you could find all the while firing back, You could use your full loadouts, PPC's LL's LRM's ML's srm's in a battle there wasn't really a range 22+ BTH 10 instant killer that the closer you got the better the BTH got. So unless you took an AC20 or 2 PPC's to the dome you weren't done in a single shot.. anyone who got range 6 or less in a light was asking for it but they were still getting 11's.
To my knowledge FASA made the changes in the newer generations to speed up play to appeal to gamers with a shorter attention span, who felt 2 hours to resolve a single fight was absurd (especially in campaigns). So they made the changes to range, damage, and base to hit to allow for more damage in less time to make the game quicker and more exciting. With the introduction of the clans they definitely succeeded making things more exciting but like the majority of folks, barring the Urbanmech brigades, soon learned the hard way that Guass Rifles were fun, here to stay, and likely to take your head off. The single shot kill became the game. The BTH 9 partial to the head at 19 hexes was the norm, the skill of closing with your opponent, managing heat, weapon bth, (LL's and ML's bth's changed at different ranges but were normally tic'd together), facing's to minimize damage or bringing the right weapons to bear was typically reduced to Guass rifle ammo management.
Now I know Battletech is not Mechwarrior, in that one is first person and the other is a tabletop or Mux simulation, where the hits are determined by BTH not hand eye coordination, but there will be a lot of battletech in MWO and I would prefer to see a mechwarriors battletech skill out perform the pointer finger of a first person shooter veteran, head capping folks at max range.
Love the idea of era specific matches.
The time delay before the arrival of the clans and subsequent arms race is a welcome relief, however the Grey Death Legion, and the Wolfs Dragoons had Star League and Clan tech respectively, as well as the remnants of Clan Wolverine, or SL era Eridani Light Horse units.
I think this thread has started beating a dead horse as my original question had been answered, but any positive and constructive discussion that develops from this thread is most welcome.
Thanks again.
You are welcome, and thank you for a well thought out and articulated response. It is a nice change from the usual counter point of "ur opinions r poop" I normally see.
I do have to agree with the speed of play point, and the 'head hunter' weapon point to an extent.
Yeah, the random Gauss round taking off your head is annoying, but if that is the way the dice fall, that is the way the dice fall. I've had the first shot of the game from the opponent be some fluke Gauss round to my biggest 'mechs head from across the field, but I managed to rally and fight it to a draw at least. To me one of the biggest balancing factors in CBT are the dice, but the group I normally play with uses the floating critical rule (where snake eyes isn't a critical chance on the CT, but instead you reroll and the crit chance applies to that location) and the version of partial cover where you roll locations normally, but if the shot indicates a leg hit the cover you are behind eats the shot instead. Your milage may vary depending on how you play.
Yes, they probably did introduce some things to speed up game play, and I personally have no problem with that, but there are some rules (option ones of course) that do allow for longer games even when using new tech, such as ECM suites being able to create ghost targets to increase to hit modifiers. I've use that to very good effect with the Atlas AS7-S2 variant a few times, and while playing as Steiner no less, even had the oponent scratch his head and say "Hey, what the hell? You are using tactics...as Steiner...this isn't right!"
And as you progress in tech more ways were added to increase your modifiers to survive a little longer even with higher damage weapons floating about.
Some weapons I see as being extreamly silly are:
1.) Hyper Assault Gauss Rifles (HAGs): They shoot off guass rounds in 5 point clusters and come in 20, 30 and 40 rating. Also they are considered flak weapons so they chew through aerospace, and vtol assests. Granted they get a -2 on cluster hit tables for long range, no modifer at medium range and a +2 at short range.
2.) Snub Nosed PPC: It has a 9 hex short range, which happens to be one of (if not) the longest in the game and no minimum range, but it has a variable damage profile 10 at short, 8 at medium and 5 at long range. Though I still love these things
3.) Improved Heavy Gauss Rifles and Improved Advanced Tacticle Missile Launchers: Improved Heavy Gauss don't suffer from the damage drop off that normal heavy gauss do, and Improved Advanced Tacticle Missile Launchers are just streak versions of the Advanced Tacticle Missile System, and they get 5 different types of ammunition too boot. An iATM-12 with HE ammo ends up being 36 damage in 5 point clusters. Even I find them to be a bit too much dakka.
Somewhere else on the forums a person mentioned that double heat sinks were actually the cause of the power creep and I can honestly say that it is a legitimate arguement and agree with it to a degree. I mean if we didn't have the ability to disapate so much heat because of double heat sinks, firing all these weapons would quickly lead to being shut down constantly.
Look at the Nova Cat and Hell Star 'mechs for a prime example of this. The Hellstar (as much as I love that thing!) is 95 tons and mounts 4 Clan ER PPCs and has 30 double heat sinks, enough to disapate all of its weapons fire heat. You can literally go four turns at full weapons fire and walking before you have to worry about maybe not firing one PPC. It is an Awesome on steroids. One variant of the Nova Cat has 4 ER Large Lasers and a Targeting computer with enough heat sinks to fire every damn one of them and only generate walk/run heat. The same mechs without double heat sinks would be absurdly heat inefficent and near unusable.
That being said from what we have seen from the various videos released (both leaked beta and legitimate PGI releases) it seems that heat builds up fast, disapates slowly, and doesn't disapate if you are firing any weapons, and I am guessing that more heat sinks just means you disapate a little quicker. I feel that this is a good thing as it makes for more tactical play in what you fire, and when you fire it.
Also it makes weapon groupings more important, which I feel is an over looked aspect of CBT. Most stock designs have weapon groupings that cover different range profiles and seem to be ment to switch from one group of weapons to another group depending on the range to the target. Obviously there are some exceptions to this. This kind of plays into the whole customization thing I was mentioning earlier. I had a mixed reaction when I heard there was a mech lab, it was "HOORAY MECH LAB!!!" as I though of various cutom designs which then made me think "Well ****, every other jack *** out there is going to be thinking the same thing" and, "DAMN IT MECHLAB. THERE IS A MECH LAB..." but I think they have done a pretty good balance so far and I anxiously await August 7th to see how it plays out.
sakkaku, on 20 July 2012 - 09:54 PM, said:
Wut. You can't aim at a persons head in TT. Not even with a targeting computer (except maybe knocked down? don't know the exact rules for that). So unless you rolled a really, really lucky shot you can't take someones head off at max range with a guass.
Targeting Computers and immobile you can, also depends on the variation of partial cover you use.
Remarius, on 20 July 2012 - 10:50 PM, said:
By the way - insulting everyone that disagrees with you is just pathetic so lay off phrases that (in the way you use them) are clearly derogatory.
I don't feel that they were intentionally using phrases like that to be derogatory. I think they were just stating how they felt in a way we all have the habit of doing, that being not having the preamble of "this is just my opinion". Come on we all do it. I do it too, and have been trying to correct myself and adding a disclaimer just for that reason.
EDIT: For spelling, yet again. ._.
Edited by Evinthal, 21 July 2012 - 10:19 AM.
2
We are just scratching the surface of LosTech in 3049, so there are some new and powerful things coming out... but the Clans won't be till next year, and I doubt even the Devs have thought about 5+ years down the road yet. We will just have to see how things go, though I do very much hope this game does well and this becomes a problem the Devs have to face in 2018 
