37 replies to this topic

[Kuaron]

Monkey Lover, on 01 March 2017 - 11:35 PM, said:

I have 4 years of running a light, slowing down goes against everything I know lol As long as lights are buffed if needed to make up for this i will get used to it

I, too, am curious about how they are going to balance it. Or will it be enough that the heavier Mechs will be less agile and easier to circle in return?
Also, will it shift the fighting distances to longer ranges?

[SnafuSnafu]

XX Sulla XX, on 02 March 2017 - 12:14 AM, said:

Thats a straw man. I did not say my problem was with it being different. My problem is I believe the goal is wrong. You can say you like less agility and I can say I like having more agility. But saying I do not like change because it is change is not representing my argument correctly.

My counter argument to it was fairly clear, that the new mechanics adds depth to the overall gameplay.

The second point merely asserts that the changes being different to what we have now requires a stronger argument to be disliked than 'My problem is I believe the goal is wrong', 'Or that less over all agility is [not] a good goal' or 'I never believed it was a problem' as they lack definition and are non-arguments. Even if you do have definitions for those you never bothered to state them, and therefor my assertion that one does not like the changes for the sake that they are changes is in fact not a 'straw man', an assertion, but not a strawman.

Yarai Miu, on 02 March 2017 - 12:14 AM, said:

Dear PGI, lowering agility means lower Time-To-Kill(TTK). Lower accel/decel means you can't corner peak, you get roasted, lower TTK. Slower torso twisting means you're enable to spread damage as well, lower TTK.

If this agility nerf was supposed to increase TTK, well they did a good job. Honestly the game is slow enough as is. It doesn't need to be any slower. Lights already got butchered in the rescale, let's not make them any more irrelevant shall we?

From our testing earlier the overall TTK is WAAAAAY WAAAY up, which a lot of people liked. Mistakes will cost you a lot more though, which is good IMO.

Lights do need some help, they've needed help for a long time, but that's hardly a unique issue, though some of the changes could be better in regards to lights, but that's an argument for lights not the overall state of the changes which are looking to be fairly good overall.

Edited by SnafuSnafu, 02 March 2017 - 01:27 AM.

[Arianrhod]

Seeing some debate about whether mechs should be able to decelerate as fast as they accelerate. Seeing some people say that mechs shouldn't stop as fast because "physics" or "doesn't feel right".

Any object has a certain amount of inertia that needs to be overcome based on its mass. In a perfect vacuum with no gravity or friction, it takes exactly the same amount of force to start an object as to stop an object. Therefore, if your engine can produce enough force to accelerate to 100 kph in two seconds, it can stop you, as well. Now, having legs instead of perfect directional thrusters complicates this, because legs don't function as perfect brakes and they don't work as well in reverse (obviously). However, I don't think the effect of that should be as great as what we see in the PTS. After all, objects in motion being influenced by friction and gravity have a natural tendency to stop moving already. Given how advanced and non-knock-over-able the mechs' gyroscopes and leg assemblies in MWO are shown to be, you should just be able to stick your legs in the ground and stop rapidly if you're a small mech.

Think about it this way. Conveniently, humans are bipedal organisms, e.g. have legs, so most of us can try this. Sprint. Now stop. It's not good for your legs, but you can stop damn quickly if you put your mind to it—more quickly than you accelerated, even.

Tl;dr, even though mechs are big the laws of physics do not imply that they shouldn't be able to slow down or stop.

[XX Sulla XX]

SnafuSnafu, on 02 March 2017 - 12:52 AM, said:

My counter argument to it was fairly clear, that the new mechanics adds depth to the overall gameplay.

The second point merely asserts that the changes being different to what we have now requires a stronger argument to be disliked than 'My problem is I believe the goal is wrong', 'Or that less over all agility is [not] a good goal' or 'I never believed it was a problem' as they lack definition and are non-arguments. Even if you do have definitions for those you never bothered to state them, and therefor my assertion that one does not like the changes for the sake that they are changes is in fact not a 'straw man', an assertion, but not a strawman.

Its an opinion not an argument. One I have never agreed with.

And no it really does not all take a stronger argument straining at semantics aside. I do not need to state exactly what I mean as it is common knowledge to any one playing the game. It is why I have been able to talk to a large number of people tonight about agility and the pros and cons of more or less of it without having to explain twisting speed, turning speed etc etc. Because we all play the game and have common knowledge of what we are talking about.

I have a preference for mechs that are more agile. I believe the game in general is more fun with a higher agility cap. I know Phil's and Siri's and others views on why thy think less agility is better for the game. I have not agreed with these ideas when they were proposed and I still do not.

So lets be clear. This is a game. Its about what is fun for the players. Not every player will get enjoyment from the same things. Even if you did get enjoyment from less agile mechs it does not make you right in a general sense but only in that you know what you enjoy. I know for myself I do not like less agility. I did not like it the last time they nurf agility. I moved to smaller mechs to compensate for it. It did not make the game more fun for me. It did not make the game better.

There is no reason to have a debate on it as for the most part its like debating if a TV show is enjoyable to watch or if some kind of food tastes good or not its all rather subjective. As such I need to do no more than state my subjective opinion on if I like the less agility game play or not.

Edited by XX Sulla XX, 02 March 2017 - 01:51 AM.

[SnafuSnafu]

Arianrhod, on 02 March 2017 - 01:43 AM, said:

Seeing some debate about whether mechs should be able to decelerate as fast as they accelerate. Seeing some people say that mechs shouldn't stop as fast because "physics" or "doesn't feel right".

Any object has a certain amount of inertia that needs to be overcome based on its mass. In a perfect vacuum with no gravity or friction, it takes exactly the same amount of force to start an object as to stop an object. Therefore, if your engine can produce enough force to accelerate to 100 kph in two seconds, it can stop you, as well. Now, having legs instead of perfect directional thrusters complicates this, because legs don't function as perfect brakes and they don't work as well in reverse (obviously). However, I don't think the effect of that should be as great as what we see in the PTS. After all, objects in motion being influenced by friction and gravity have a natural tendency to stop moving already. Given how advanced and non-knock-over-able the mechs' gyroscopes and leg assemblies in MWO are shown to be, you should just be able to stick your legs in the ground and stop rapidly if you're a small mech.

Think about it this way. Conveniently, humans are bipedal organisms, e.g. have legs, so most of us can try this. Sprint. Now stop. It's not good for your legs, but you can stop damn quickly if you put your mind to it—more quickly than you accelerated, even.

Tl;dr, even though mechs are big the laws of physics do not imply that they shouldn't be able to slow down or stop.

The sluggishness to me feels more like how a mech should feel, at least in the western style of mecha [I know the Japanese have the crazy fast mecha with insane agility]. However, going from 130 km/h to 0 in like a second may very well induce G forces equivalent to hitting a tree in a highway, but that's besides the point anyway as it's a game, and some people like higher agility and some don't.

Edited by SnafuSnafu, 02 March 2017 - 01:51 AM.

[Arianrhod]

SnafuSnafu, on 02 March 2017 - 01:50 AM, said:

The sluggishness to me feels more like how a mech should feel, at least in the western style of mecha [I know the Japanese have the crazy fast mecha with insane agility]. However, going from 130 km/h to 0 in like a second may very well induce G forces equivalent to hitting a tree in a highway, but that's besides the point anyway as it's a game, and some people like higher agility and some don't.

I'm glad you considered the g-force aspect cuz it's honestly hard to find people who evaluate game mechanics in terms of how much they actually make sense. 130 kph in one second is oh. . . . 1,300 meters per second per second over the course of one second. Short duration, but enough to totally kill you, as the human body can only laterally survive like 180 meters per second per second (for a duration). In a single moment of force, people have been known to survive over 900 meters per second per second–but again only for a split second.

Basically small mechs as they currently are would kill you. 45 ton mechs and higher though would be perfectly safe, if it makes you feel any better.

Don't quote me on anything; not a real scientist.

Edited by Arianrhod, 02 March 2017 - 02:07 AM.

[xengk]

I though it look really cool to see light banking corners instead of ballet at top speed.

[50 50]

We can't stop, we have to slow down first.....

[Dee Eight]

I look at folks arguing about braking time/distance should be the same as acceleration time/distance as being the same sort who think that because their car has all-wheel / four wheel drive, then that means they should also be able to stop faster on slippery roads. In reality however, physics don't work out that way. Just because you've convinced yourself that A = B, doesn't mean that actually the reality. That's an alternative fact to use a term from the current trump administration.

[XX Sulla XX]

SnafuSnafu, on 02 March 2017 - 01:50 AM, said:

The sluggishness to me feels more like how a mech should feel, at least in the western style of mecha [I know the Japanese have the crazy fast mecha with insane agility]. However, going from 130 km/h to 0 in like a second may very well induce G forces equivalent to hitting a tree in a highway, but that's besides the point anyway as it's a game, and some people like higher agility and some don't.

Exactly a personal subjective opinion on what we think will make the game better for each of us. I would say though that I think Battletech 5 is going to be geared 100% to a vision much more inline with what you want. Its one reason I hate to see these changes to this game.

[XX Sulla XX]

The more I think about this the more I think they should leave agility as it is in this game and funnel those that want sluggish mechs to Battletech 5.

[Malrock]

SnafuSnafu, on 02 March 2017 - 12:52 AM, said:

From our testing earlier the overall TTK is WAAAAAY WAAAY up, which a lot of people liked. Mistakes will cost you a lot more though, which is good IMO.

No. One positioning mistake should not mean insta death. do you have any idea how punishing that is. This will be the death of the game if that is how this goes live for new players who join. Oops you stepped out a bit to far bye now, sorry you only lived 30 seconds. I like extra TTK but trying to get extra TTK by screwing over you ability to move around is not a solid way to achieve that, and i believe it doesn't actually help lengthen TTK, it shortens it. The other aspects of the tree (survival) and the nerfs to the mechs heat management are what is having a TTK impact. Less effective heat management and more armor are doing their intended job which is why TTK has gone up.

[Baulven]

I think time to kill feels like it is way up because the matches are not 12v12. What I can tell you is that my MAD IIC feels a whole lot squishier and sluggish than live. For arm and torso movement I just doubled my mouse movement speeds (a bit more than double for fine tuning) and it was essentially the same as what I have now. Repositioning is an issue because after a certain amount of extra engine assaults turn like a freight train, though heavies still seem able to perform very well (EBJ had nearly no difference that I could feel with adjusted mouse settings.)

[XX Sulla XX]

I agree everything else being the same less agile mechs make time to kill go down.