306 replies to this topic

[cazidin]

With the changes to engines and general agility of mechs, will we see more Mediums, as this could be seen as an indirect nerf to Heavy and Assault Mechs?

[Dogstar]

I'm hoping that mediums will become the new most popular mech, as it is in 'lore'

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Dogstar, on 22 February 2017 - 11:19 AM, said:

I'm hoping that mediums will become the new most popular mech, as it is in 'lore'

Mediums were the second most popular (lights outnumbered mediums) and the only reason that was ever the case was due to cost.

[FireStoat]

It's interesting how a post filled with actual facts will be ignored as it can't be argued against, and people are keen on argument with posting. Happens all the time, and Widowmaker's post a page back is the example. Uncoupling maneuverability from engine size is a completely made-up rule that has zero(0) to do with the table top game that the rest of this game is taken from. The Timber Wolf vs Panther example was correct.

If this was PGI's idea of fostering a desire in players to consider Light and Medium mech use more in what they are normally picking, I humbly submit that they're going about it wrong. The play modes and rewards are the culprit of why players make the choices they do. The real work deserves to be made in those areas.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

FireStoat, on 22 February 2017 - 11:56 AM, said:

The play modes and rewards are the culprit of why players make the choices they do.

Lolno, lights are just less fun to play. Changing game modes won't fix that because the fun from this game doesn't come from objectives, it comes from killing enemy dudes.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 22 February 2017 - 12:00 PM.

[Wintersdark]

Bud Crue, on 22 February 2017 - 04:11 AM, said:

Doesn't all the hand wringing above all depend on the base line values PGI assigns to each mech/classs? And since we don't know there is no point in worrying about it.

Which has been my point all along. Snipped the rest for brevity, but it was all absolutely correct.

I fully expect PGI to be PGI and do exactly as you say, and utterly fump it up initially. Then we can scream and cry about the worst parts, and it should be passably (Minimally Viable Product) implemented. Then, over time, it can lead to a better game than we have now. This is exactly how things have worked with every major mechanical change in MWO's history. Take quirks: They were an utter sh****ow initially, but more or less do their job today - IS vs. Clan balance recently is vastly better than it was pre-quirk, after all.

[Wintersdark]

Widowmaker1981, on 22 February 2017 - 06:40 AM, said:

Well, on THAT basis a 140 kph 35 tonner should have exactly the same twist speed as a 30 kph 100 tonner. (and literally no one in this entire game cares about arm speed, at all - it could be multiplied by 100000 and would have zero effect)

As i said, leave lore out of it. Its not relevant.

I'll admit to not being an uber-comp player, but I care about arm speed.

When you're not playing with the crutchy-armlock on, having rapidly moving arms is a substantial advantage against a mech with torso mounted weaponry. You can bring your weapons on target and keep them on target better.

In a crutchy-armlock world, arm mounted weapons are generally a flat out disadvantage. If anything, they should dial down torso pitch and yaw speeds and push up arm speeds, because this is Mechwarrior, not World of Tanks.

But, this is another discussion entirely.

Widowmaker1981, on 22 February 2017 - 10:15 AM, said:

to be honest, i think the sensible, obvious way to do it is to base all mechs agility around stock engine baseline agility, and then give bonuses to mechs that need it (3/5 IS assaults and heavies, most IS lights and mediums) and .. nerf the Kodiak and Night Gyr by giving them below stock agility. Would actually even out a lot of stuff - the Huntsman would suddenly be a sensible alternative to the HBK-IIC - fixed gear etc vs 4/6 level agility.

Why? Stock engine agility is not battletech agility. "Stock Engine Agility" is purely based on a system where the engine can be massively upgraded and is purely a MWO creation.

Mechs defined by agility should certainly have increased agility, but using "stock engine agility" as a baseline per chassis is a terrible idea that would utterly nerf the crap out of the Inner Sphere. I can't help but think you just popped this idea up without ever giving its actual impact any thought whatsoever.

Dogstar, on 22 February 2017 - 11:19 AM, said:

I'm hoping that mediums will become the new most popular mech, as it is in 'lore'

I would like to see this, but feel it's unlikely.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 22 February 2017 - 11:59 AM, said:

Lolno, lights are just less fun to play. Changing game modes won't fix that because the fun from this game doesn't come from objectives, it comes from killing enemy dudes.

I like how people always say "teh modes!" yet time and time again, no matter what the requirements are, players are shown to clearly prefer the mechs with the best ability to blow up other mechs. The odd player wants to be all scouty or what have you, but by and large, this is a game about blowing up other mechs and as such that'll always be the most important part.

[Wintersdark]

FireStoat, on 22 February 2017 - 11:56 AM, said:

It's interesting how a post filled with actual facts will be ignored as it can't be argued against, and people are keen on argument with posting. Happens all the time, and Widowmaker's post a page back is the example. Uncoupling maneuverability from engine size is a completely made-up rule that has zero(0) to do with the table top game that the rest of this game is taken from. The Timber Wolf vs Panther example was correct.

What actual fact? The OP's post was 90% rank speculation, not actual fact.

As to "uncoupling maneuverability from engine is a completely made-up rule that has zero to do with the table top game": What nonsense is this? Coupling maneuverability to ground speed is a completely made-up rule that has zero to do with the table top game. The current system was just made up for MWO, and even at its inception wasn't terribly popular for the same reasons we support it change now. Obviously, we needed some system, and the one we have is just what they tried first, and didn't suck so much it warranted being changed during Beta when there were so many very much more serious issues.

Quote

If this was PGI's idea of fostering a desire in players to consider Light and Medium mech use more in what they are normally picking, I humbly submit that they're going about it wrong. The play modes and rewards are the culprit of why players make the choices they do. The real work deserves to be made in those areas.

Rewards is a tough nut to crack. What rewards should change to incentivize lights/mediums? It's been attempted many times over the years and never really made lights more popular.

Game modes, I address above in my response to Quick. In short, because in practice this is a game about blowing up stompy robots, and that's what people want. When game modes move away from that, people riot.

[Pjwned]

Widowmaker1981, on 22 February 2017 - 06:40 AM, said:

Well, on THAT basis a 140 kph 35 tonner should have exactly the same twist speed as a 30 kph 100 tonner. (and literally no one in this entire game cares about arm speed, at all - it could be multiplied by 100000 and would have zero effect)

As i said, leave lore out of it. Its not relevant.

Except that doesn't make sense. You can assume that because lore had nothing to say about torso twist speed then that means every mech had the same torso twist speed, but you can just as easily--in fact, more easily--assume that it would be different and it was just left out because it never mattered in the original Tabletop game.

[Wintersdark]

1453 R, on 22 February 2017 - 07:30 AM, said:

Because I DON'T F***IN' GET IT! I don't know why people want to inflict this huge mobility penalty across the entire frickin' game,

Nobody wants huge agility penalties across the board. We're not asking for that, and that's the rank speculation we keep accusing you of. We'd all PROTEST MASSIVE AGILITY NERFS.

Quote

I don't know why medium and light pilots think they're going to be immune to the effects of not being able to derive any agility from their engine anymore I don't know why assault pilots who're desperate for every last inch of twist/second they can get are so thrilled with the idea of losing literally the only source of additional agility beyond their awful stock profiles and a bunch of SKilltree nodes worth less than the packets they come in on, and which everybody else gets MORE benefit from as it is.

Do you really understand how agility is calculated? REALLY? Engines don't give you a bonus to your agility.

Agility is purely a function of engine size/tonnage; or, more specifically, it's a function of ground speed, modified by quirks. That is it. Mechs don't have a base line agility now and a bonus for engines. There is no baseline. Only speed*quirks. As such, there's no reason to assume there'd be massive agility nerfs. There'd just be a baseline per weight class.

Generally speaking, nobody wants to see Agility nerfs to lights and mediums. Many don't want to see agility nerfs *anywhere*.

But what agility nerfs happen or don't is entirely a factor of where the baseline values are, and are tunable - that's why this is a PTS.

What this system DOES do is allow a weight class as a whole to be tweaked for balance, something that's clearly needed as since day one we've had a system where Lights are the weakest weight class, followed by Mediums.

Quote

But everyone keeps saying "Nah nah man, it'll be great! Just shut the f*** up for a while and watch it! This is gonna be awesome! We're gonna see so many lowball standard engines again, it's fantastic!"

WHY?!

Why not? Why are you so upset with some players choosing to run lower rated standard engines? Don't you see how that benefits balance?

If IS can competitively run lower rated standard engines and maintain their current high-rated XL firepower, they're trading some ground speed for survivability. Currently, that ALSO entails a trade of agility, which is just too much and is why IS mechs are all packing XL's these days.

You seem really upset at the notion that choosing to go with less speed and more survivability (std engine) or less speed and more firepower would be a better choice. It's not a good choice right now, as is clearly visible by anyone looking at the game.

You SHOULD have viable choices that way. Choice is good; choice leads to better gameplay.

Now, maybe you love mechs moving fast. That's great! Keep moving fast. Lots of people will. But just because YOU want that doesn't mean nobody should be able to choose more survivability or more firepower.

[Wintersdark]

Pjwned, on 22 February 2017 - 12:29 PM, said:

Except that doesn't make sense. You can assume that because lore had nothing to say about torso twist speed then that means every mech had the same torso twist speed, but you can just as easily--in fact, more easily--assume that it would be different and it was just left out because it never mattered in the original Tabletop game.

And, when all is said and done, this is a first person/sim sort of game, and those factors are critical for game balance here whereas they didn't matter in tabletop. As such, we can safely ignore tabletop here, and instead look for the solution that provides the best game experience in MWO.

This allows mech agility profiles to be adjusted either individually or by weight class as a whole. That's impossible right now aside from huge sweeping quirks which keep getting screwier all the time, and it's a significant reason why light and medium mechs suffer currently.

[1453 R]

Wintersdark, on 22 February 2017 - 12:43 PM, said:

Nobody wants huge agility penalties across the board. We're not asking for that, and that's the rank speculation we keep accusing you of. We'd all PROTEST MASSIVE AGILITY NERFS.

You're not protesting them now, eh?

Wintersdark, on 22 February 2017 - 12:43 PM, said:

Do you really understand how agility is calculated? REALLY? Engines don't give you a bonus to your agility.

Agility is purely a function of engine size/tonnage; or, more specifically, it's a function of ground speed, modified by quirks. That is it. Mechs don't have a base line agility now and a bonus for engines. There is no baseline. Only speed*quirks. As such, there's no reason to assume there'd be massive agility nerfs. There'd just be a baseline per weight class.

Generally speaking, nobody wants to see Agility nerfs to lights and mediums. Many don't want to see agility nerfs *anywhere*.

But what agility nerfs happen or don't is entirely a factor of where the baseline values are, and are tunable - that's why this is a PTS.

What this system DOES do is allow a weight class as a whole to be tweaked for balance, something that's clearly needed as since day one we've had a system where Lights are the weakest weight class, followed by Mediums.

Yes, I get that agility is a function of groundspeed. You know what I meant - in a system where the only possible variable one can adjust to increase or decrease their mobility is removed from play, it doesn't matter what counts as 'bonus' agility, baseline agility, or anything else - it's all the same absolute untouchable hardlocked package. Agility tree nodes are a complete nonentity because either they're mandatory, and thus part of the basic mobility package, or they're garbage and thus not part of the base mobility package.

So. Once more - which tab in the MechLab can I go to in order to tweak my myomer rig, actuator systems, control runs, or whatever else it takes to get some shake back into the bake?

Wintersdark, on 22 February 2017 - 12:43 PM, said:

Why not? Why are you so upset with some players choosing to run lower rated standard engines? Don't you see how that benefits balance?
If IS can competitively run lower rated standard engines and maintain their current high-rated XL firepower, they're trading some ground speed for survivability. Currently, that ALSO entails a trade of agility, which is just too much and is why IS mechs are all packing XL's these days.

You seem really upset at the notion that choosing to go with less speed and more survivability (std engine) or less speed and more firepower would be a better choice. It's not a good choice right now, as is clearly visible by anyone looking at the game.

You SHOULD have viable choices that way. Choice is good; choice leads to better gameplay.

Now, maybe you love mechs moving fast. That's great! Keep moving fast. Lots of people will. But just because YOU want that doesn't mean nobody should be able to choose more survivability or more firepower.

You and Quick and everyone else keeps ignoring the Prosperity question y'all shoved in my face when Prosperity was trying to get Clan gear megagigagagglenerfed:

Why is it that a 26.5t engine is ideally supposed to be considered equivalent, with no advantages or desirable traits, compared to a 12.5t engine? Because that's the game you keep describing to me, and I don't understand why fourteen tons is allowed to buy you nothing of value if these two engine types are supposed to be perfectly competitively equivalent to each other.

Is a twenty-six ton engine supposed to be better than a twelve-ton engine or isn't it? If it's not supposed to be better than a twelve-ton engine, explain to me why a player would choose to spend fourteen tons on flab? If fourteen tons of weight, however, is supposed to buy the sort of massive advantage you'd expect the entire mass of two PPCs, or one AC/20 (with ammo/heat sinks, on the Clan side!) to yield...then why is everyone so pissed the hell off that upgrading your engine yields strong benefits?

[Quicksilver Aberration]

1453 R, on 22 February 2017 - 01:25 PM, said:

Why is it that a 26.5t engine is ideally supposed to be considered equivalent, with no advantages or desirable traits, compared to a 12.5t engine?

26.5t engine and 12.5t engine + 14 tons of weapons are supposed to be considered equivalent, let's not purposely misrepresent our argument.

Keeping that in mind, this definitely helps STD engines since agility is part of the reason STD engines are lackluster compared to large XLs.

1453 R, on 22 February 2017 - 01:25 PM, said:

So. Once more - which tab in the MechLab can I go to in order to tweak my myomer rig, actuator systems, control runs, or whatever else it takes to get some shake back into the bake?

It's that "Select Mech" button.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 22 February 2017 - 01:46 PM.

[Pjwned]

1453 R, on 22 February 2017 - 09:41 AM, said:

And I see no evidence for those beliefs to be warranted, any more than other folks see evidence of Piranha being Piranha. This idea folks have that lights and mediums will be totally unaffected by this change is ridiculous. Piranha does not do things only to effectively undo them at the same time for twice the work. They're not going to do this weird magical thing where they remove engine rating from mobility profiles, but then set all medium and light 'Mechs to have mobility profiles sufficient that nobody in those weight brackets notices whilst ensuring that heavy and assault drivers are all shackled to the Dire Whale Golden Poop Standard.

People keep treating this as some sort of insane Great Rebalance where everything will be awesome, when it's nothing of the sort. It's Piranha giving everyone what a handful of ultracomps want, and people being convinced their stuff will be much better off than it actually will be. All those Wah-Hammah drivers who're slobbering over the thought of getting 350XL mobility out of a 240STD are going to be quite rudely jarred out of their pipe dream when they find out it goes the other way - that they get 240STD mobility, even when loading a 350XL (assuming that was possible).

All this "quit making so many unfounded assumptions!" junk? YOU FIRST, BRUHS. Does no one remember the Rescale? All those "we'll requirk everything to make it better once we establish a formulaic baseline for balance!", and the fact that the formulaic baseline was established followed by none of the promised quirking?

Why the hell does anyone think the 'aggressive quirking' is going to be any more actually-there this time?

You could save your hyperbolic freakouts for when the PTS update hits and see if it's really as bad as you say, which is not far away, and not immediately flip your **** just because you don't like the idea and try to whip people up into a frenzy for no valid reason with insane hyperbole that makes no sense.

You might also recall that PGI has since made pretty clear their intentions to drastically reduce the number of quirks in the game, probably because they're an absolute shitshow, and that is probably why they didn't bother with changing quirks on a large scale after the mech rescale. I mean, it could be that they just didn't follow through because they didn't care, but to me I don't care because less quirks = good anyways.

Edited by Pjwned, 22 February 2017 - 02:26 PM.

[1453 R]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 22 February 2017 - 01:45 PM, said:

...
It's that "Select Mech" button.

So I'm just supposed to sell off everything in my 150+ stable that isn't one of the half-dozen, at best, 'Mechs that remains post-decoupling that doesn't move as if it's legged right out of the dropship? Suppose that'd make remastering those five or six machines that can still move easier, but that's not really the way I'd prefer to do that.

Imagine I'll be putting a lot of time into trying to make Shadow Cats work. Imagine those'll be the only mediums left in the Clan stable that can get from zero to max, or max to reverse-max, in less than ten seconds. As long as the M.A.S.C. holds out, anyways.

I mean, heaven forbid they put this agility they're ripping out of players back into the game anywhere, right? Can't have heavier, more robust actuators or a bulkier myomer network that trades crits for agility, or anything like that. Oh no no no no no no no no. 'Mechs have to have character. Which means they all have to be painfully clumsy and difficult to pilot, rather than having character in their cockpit structures/layouts, movement animations, ambient audio, weapons and hardpoint positions and layouts, or any of the other innumerable little things that help distinguish what ride you're in.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

1453 R, on 22 February 2017 - 02:23 PM, said:

So I'm just supposed to sell off everything in my 150+ stable that isn't one of the half-dozen, at best, 'Mechs that remains post-decoupling that doesn't move as if it's legged right out of the dropship?

No, if you value some feature of another mech, it means you should look into using that mech rather than trying to make your favorite mech one-size-fits-all for lack of a better term.

It's similar to the idea that if you wanted a PPC boat assault, the Awesome should be what you want to take to get that, not just outfit your Stalker to do it (and do it better no less). There has been a serious problem with too free of customization in this game to the point where it's no surprise we have trouble creating diversity when the field has more than variant options than 2 generations of Pokemon.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 22 February 2017 - 02:32 PM.

[Pjwned]

1453 R, on 22 February 2017 - 02:23 PM, said:

I mean, heaven forbid they put this agility they're ripping out of players back into the game anywhere, right? Can't have heavier, more robust actuators or a bulkier myomer network that trades crits for agility, or anything like that. Oh no no no no no no no no. 'Mechs have to have character. Which means they all have to be painfully clumsy and difficult to pilot, rather than having character in their cockpit structures/layouts, movement animations, ambient audio, weapons and hardpoint positions and layouts, or any of the other innumerable little things that help distinguish what ride you're in.

I don't see how decoupling agility from engine rating means that sort of thing can't come later on (which I would think is actually pretty interesting potentially), it just means that agility is no longer a function of engine rating, and I guess until that sort of system happens then yeah you can't really do much to boost your mech's agility; clearly some terrible tragedy that will ruin the game blah blah blah.

If you want a more robust system for internal mech equipment then I would likely support that, but I don't see that happening for a while and it's not acceptable to just leave things the way they are (on the live servers currently) until that happens.

[Steve Pryde]

Bigger engines = more space for dhs and more running speed. That are two positiv things that are enough for me to upgrade.

Edited by Steve Pryde, 22 February 2017 - 02:48 PM.

[Widowmaker1981]

Wintersdark, on 22 February 2017 - 12:15 PM, said:

I'll admit to not being an uber-comp player, but I care about arm speed.

When you're not playing with the crutchy-armlock on, having rapidly moving arms is a substantial advantage against a mech with torso mounted weaponry. You can bring your weapons on target and keep them on target better.

In a crutchy-armlock world, arm mounted weapons are generally a flat out disadvantage. If anything, they should dial down torso pitch and yaw speeds and push up arm speeds, because this is Mechwarrior, not World of Tanks.

But, this is another discussion entirely.



Why? Stock engine agility is not battletech agility. "Stock Engine Agility" is purely based on a system where the engine can be massively upgraded and is purely a MWO creation.

Mechs defined by agility should certainly have increased agility, but using "stock engine agility" as a baseline per chassis is a terrible idea that would utterly nerf the crap out of the Inner Sphere. I can't help but think you just popped this idea up without ever giving its actual impact any thought whatsoever..

i wasnt talking about armlock, i absolutley care about LAAs if i have arm mounted weapons, but in no mech ever have i thought "I wish the arms on this mech moved faster". Ive thought "i wish the arms on this mech moved laterally" but if they do that, in every case its easily fast enough...

in my opinion, the mechs 'defined by agility' are also the mechs that come with big stock engines. Name me a mech thought of as agile that was also slow? It was just a thought anyway - and also what i think PGI might do, not what is best. I also did advocate nerfing the best clan mechs to below baseline, though i should have included the MAD-IIC as well.

[1453 R]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 22 February 2017 - 02:31 PM, said:

No, if you value some feature of another mech, it means you should look into using that mech rather than trying to make your favorite mech one-size-fits-all for lack of a better term.

It's similar to the idea that if you wanted a PPC boat assault, the Awesome should be what you want to take to get that, not just outfit your Stalker to do it (and do it better no less). There has been a serious problem with too free of customization in this game to the point where it's no surprise we have trouble creating diversity when the field has more than variant options than 2 generations of Pokemon.

I value my Viper's ability to jump like it actually means it, and to be an extremely nimble machine able to get into and out of scraps very nearly freely with first-class agility mated to excellent speed and the aforementioned awesome jump jets.

Where, pray tell, do I turn for the 'Mech that's supposed to do those things when the Viper no longer does? Because frankly if the VIPER isn't your fast striker of choice I don't know what in the bloody Shatnerizing manhell is.

They're not just moving things around, Quick - they're outright eliminating high-mobility, high-evasion machines as a playstyle. They're completely scrapping the idea that Victors should be more agile than Atlases, and telling us "get all those 2% arm speed nodes if you want to be agile again!"

F***. That. How Piranha expects 'Mechs absolutely dependent on being fast, exceptionally mobile harassers or strikers to maintain any presence in this game when everything is getting its knees shot out - "but we're making Phoenix Hawks just a little bit less slow, so everything will be fine!" - I do not know.

Pjwned, on 22 February 2017 - 02:36 PM, said:

I don't see how decoupling agility from engine rating means that sort of thing can't come later on (which I would think is actually pretty interesting potentially), it just means that agility is no longer a function of engine rating, and I guess until that sort of system happens then yeah you can't really do much to boost your mech's agility; clearly some terrible tragedy that will ruin the game blah blah blah.

If you want a more robust system for internal mech equipment then I would likely support that, but I don't see that happening for a while and it's not acceptable to just leave things the way they are (on the live servers currently) until that happens.

Why not?

They've left Ghost Heat untouched until nobody remembers it's a travesty that should be burned with fire anymore. Why not allow engines to do the job of making the 'Mech better at moving until you're ready to do a system of 'Mech internal system improvements? HBS is already doing work on actuator/myomer/whatever improvements; borrow from that the same way HBS is borrowing Alex. The groundwork's already done over there. Get to portin'.