49 replies to this topic

[Malcolm Vordermark]

Mechs with clustered torso hard points won't feel that change much, and they're already some of the best in the game. This would probably make them strong comparatively.

The game is about quickly disabling enemy mechs through focused damage on key components. That wont change unless something is altered in the way mechs take damage, not deal it.

[Roadbuster]

Mister Blastman, on 11 April 2017 - 07:57 PM, said:

I'm fine with this. I'm sick and damn tired of this convergence crap. Fix the armor system... or help damage spread better.

These are war robots! They're supposed to be hella tough!

Why? Because Japanese Anime says so! And toughness is cool. And epic fights... are awesome.

Power creep and insta kills are... retardedly lame.

[jjm1]

Pr8Dator2, on 11 April 2017 - 06:16 PM, said:

SOLUTION FOR ALPHA BOATING

The solution is hard-point quirks.

Every hard-point is different and should have strengths and weaknesses beyond just its location. A Nova Primes tighly clustered arm laser mounts are small and wont get specific bonuses. A mech with a single energy hard-point mounted in a large chunk of geometry should have that weapon enhanced by quirks to account for its increased size and loneliness.

It doesn't matter if they are both med lasers, 'med laser' just defines a set base-line stats that are ramped up or down to compensate a mech for its hard-point number disadvantage and to encourage mounting weapons to lore friendly locations like a War Hammers beefy arms instead of its clustered torso mounts.

Beyond all that, you can also try to balance the number of energy weapons per alpha not with a universal ghost heat rule but by engine size. So energy boating lights don't have the same limits as an energy boating assault mech and you cant downgrade your engine to boat more energy so there is a catch 22 where weight and engine-rating check each other to determine how much energy a mech can use every second or so. And I'd like firing more lasers than stored energy to give you diminished range and/or damage per weapon instead of a magical heat spike.

[justcallme A S H]

Dee Eight, on 11 April 2017 - 08:07 PM, said:

Get rid of the whole 'optimal' and 'maximum range' nonsense. Direct fire weapons of the energy and ballistic types shouldn't have a maximum range double or triple their optimal range. And put the minimum ranges into place for the ballistic weapons that are supposed to have them. That'll cut out a lot of boating.

It'll do the exact opposite. Boating will be the only option.

How you cannot see that explains, everything.

[Dee Eight]

Yeonne Greene, on 11 April 2017 - 08:24 PM, said:

A. Yes they should deal damage beyond the rated optimum, because intuitive physics

B.) An AC that does no damage or doesn't fire at less than a minimum is stupid for the same reason as A.

C.) No it won't cut into boating even slightly, it just means you'll boat a different weapon for that range bracket. Sometimes not even that.

#1 This is a video game. They already ignored intuitive physics. Otherwise the planetary differences of gravity and atmosphere (or lack thereof) would affect the weapons and mechs more than they do (limited to heat/cooling). Higher gravity = slower performance from mechs, and worse ballistics/missile flights... not to mention than a vacuum like HPG's map... would mean nothing to slow the projectiles in flight, so the range should be much better. Then there's the little matter of laser beams passing thru an atmosphere. Humidity and particulates in the air affect the beam path greatly, as the laser essentially has to burn its way thru. You can see this right now in the real world with a green diode laser. Aim it on a clear night sky, and you can illuminate objects miles away, and get arrested for blinding pilots if you point it skywards into the path of a plane. Repeat this during fog however...you'll get a nice line that goes a few hundred feet and that's it. Use it underwater and you'll be lucky to get a few dozen feet of beam. If you have access to any of the commercially available "destructive" lasers... the ones that can pop balloons across a room for example... same thing on a foggy night...totally different result. You can still pop it...closer...but you also have to wait for it to burn a path thru the fog to deliver its energy to the target.



#2 Again, given that the lore says most AC ammo is High Explosive Dual Purpose types, since they have to deal with both armored and unarmored/lightly armored targets...and the small rated weapons are meant for longer ranges... this makes perfect sense. The Fuses require a minimum arming distance and the targeting doesn't work as accurately really close to the firing unit. Unlike with a tank for example, you cannot just look down the barrel and bore sight the things with the breech open. Also there's a real work example of this from the brits using M3 Medium tanks in north africa 1942. The M2 75mm gun on the early M3 tanks was derived from a french howitzer/field gun from the late 1890s. The shells for it were thus designed for use in such a gun fired at a greater distance from the target. The tank however was being employed for close infantry support...and the shells didn't travel far enough in many cases to reliably arm the shell.

Watch this....skip to 20 mins...




I'm all for applying intuitive physics... but it would help if you knew beforehand what the actual physics were before trying to cite that as reasoning for how things are in this video game...because it does not appear that you, or the designers at PGI understand anything about atmospheres, vacuums and gravity when it comes to how things should perform in them.

Edited by Dee Eight, 11 April 2017 - 11:56 PM.

[mike29tw]

The only problem I see is the Gauss/PPC boats that deals 30+ PPFLD. Maybe we should address those instead of blanket balance changes that impact all weapon systems at once, including those that are fine at the moment?

[Vellron2005]

Just...

NO

Also, i don't really see a problem with boating.. it's a valid building strategy..

[BLOOD WOLF]

Vellron2005, on 12 April 2017 - 01:00 AM, said:

Just...

NO

Also, i don't really see a problem with boating.. it's a valid building strategy..

no one is saying you can't boat.

The problem is 60 alphas for beans is a problem. It has been and players that sit and yell "its fair" have no clue about balance

Edited by BLOOD WOLF, 12 April 2017 - 01:06 AM.

[Kangarad]

the only real sulution besides ghost heat would be tol make the biggest weapon the best and degrade on smaller ones on both heat efficiency and dps ton for ton/slot for slot. that way everyone would mount the biggest weapons possible instead of going for multiple smaller ones.

[Athom83]

Possibly a geometric heat scaling based on the amount of weapons of the same type being fired at the same time. This makes "ghost heat" more realistic and less ****ing ******ed because of that magic number of weapons that suddenly make you produce 50%+ more heat that you would've.

[Tarl Cabot]

mike29tw, on 12 April 2017 - 12:59 AM, said:

The only problem I see is the Gauss/PPC boats that deals 30+ PPFLD. Maybe we should address those instead of blanket balance changes that impact all weapon systems at once, including those that are fine at the moment?

And that is why jumpjets have been hamstrung (JJ needed fix when using just 1JJ but overdone), especially assaults such as Highlanders and Victors jumpjets , along to added GR chargeup, most ballistic ranges changed from 3x to 2x, ballistic/ppc velocities decreased for all but GR which saw an increase

I think I am missing an item or two but sound familiar?

Long range alpha strikes will happen but other than a small cone of fire when firing more than one weapon, the one of the way to reduce the frequency, as previously noted would be to increase the cooldown timers. Just remember though, nothing will fix one from dying to focus fire.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 12 April 2017 - 05:13 AM.

[R Valentine]

I wouldn't say torso mounter guns need more convergence, but they certainly need less convergence than arm mounted guns. Torso guns can't even move. In fact, in TT it is against the rules to have any turret or turret like gun fixtures on a mech. The only guns with a firing arc are mounted on the arms.

"God" hardpoints is another issue that needs to be addressed in this game, and there's only really one way to fix it. Fix the maps. Given that virtually all MWO maps are rough, hilly, and contain muliple levels of terrain, high mounted hard points will always be king. You cannot nerf that. You have to change the game. Why does terrain in MWO have to be so uneven? Flat places do exist in the world(see Texas). We need more flatter maps with high cover, like old frozen city. At least change the game from hill peeking to corner peeking. That will make the height hard points less important. Sure, keep some hill maps, but not the current iteration where every map is a high hard point map.

[Snazzy Dragon]

Just make any loadout with more than 10 firepower invalid for dropping and enforce chain fire on all weapon groups.

No more alphas.

It'd be fun, I swear!

[Natred]

Paper rock scissors bud.. map selection and positioning are everything.. always been that way even in taple top.
.

[Revis Volek]

this really isnt table top...




Please go to table for better game experience.

Edited by Revis Volek, 12 April 2017 - 02:58 PM.

[ANOM O MECH]

You see since this is not table top, what happens here is not detracting from it. That is why in this video game we choose not to use dice....

In short, no. This is not actually a problem and for the most part this game plays very well. Just needs more content.

[Wil McCullough]

an elegant solution would be to add another targeting reticle just for st weapons.

ct and arm mounted weapons always hit right in the center of the current reticle (the "o").

meanwhile st weapons will have another reticle.

this st reticle jumps around when moving, and will takes time (maybe 1-2 sec) to converge with the current "o" reticle only when the mech stops moving.

this solution gets rid of the poptart mechanic that for some reason everyone seems to hate, and also reduces the effect of peekaboo. either you pop/peek with reduced firepower or you stay in the open long enough to deal a converged alpha and risk getting heavy incoming fire.

thoughts?

[Pr8Dator2]

Wil McCullough, on 12 April 2017 - 07:37 PM, said:

an elegant solution would be to add another targeting reticle just for st weapons.

ct and arm mounted weapons always hit right in the center of the current reticle (the "o").

meanwhile st weapons will have another reticle.

this st reticle jumps around when moving, and will takes time (maybe 1-2 sec) to converge with the current "o" reticle only when the mech stops moving.

this solution gets rid of the poptart mechanic that for some reason everyone seems to hate, and also reduces the effect of peekaboo. either you pop/peek with reduced firepower or you stay in the open long enough to deal a converged alpha and risk getting heavy incoming fire.

thoughts?

Yes, this is one way too.

[GenghisJr]

150 km/h and 6 medium lasers care not for assaults mounting small lasers and actually quite enjoy dissecting them.

[PhoenixFire55]

Pr8Dator2, on 11 April 2017 - 06:16 PM, said:

There has been many proposed solutions for the current boating of small weapons situation and how it detracts greatly from the original tabletop ...

I'll stop reading right here, since the very first sentence of your statement is false.