49 replies to this topic

[Pr8Dator2]

There has been many proposed solutions for the current boating of small weapons situation and how it detracts greatly from the original tabletop but none seems very logical as they either sacrifices skill for chance, making it outright boring or play with heat too much to the point of being restrictive.

I am proposing a solution that neither toys with heat nor sacrifice skill and still solve the present situation in a logical manner, and even give more reasons for putting weapons in the arms rather than the current situation of everyone boating in the torsos.

That is, ST torso weapons should have no convergence.

That means only the CT weapon and the arm weapons should hit where the recticle aims due to arms being able to follow the recticle and CT weapons basically is the recticle, but ST weapons should still shoot releatively straight, about 1 component away from the recticle centerline as ST weapons should nott be able to move like arms can, right? Simple logic.

This one simple solution solves boating to a huge extend, make arm weapons attractive again, requires more skill for ST weapons to hit where you want it to, solves high mount ST gauss poptart and not toy with heat at all. SOLVES ALL AT ONCE...

What do you guys think?

Edited by Pr8Dator2, 11 April 2017 - 06:27 PM.

[Carl Vickers]

[Redacted]

Edited by draiocht, 12 April 2017 - 05:07 PM.
inappropriate language

[Pixel Hunter]

or just give stealth convergence nerfs to more than X amount fired at once

[Jingseng]

or remove weapon quirks, as they are the primary reason you would load up heavily on a single weapon - to min/max benefits.

though of course, people will still do it anyway, because min/maxing is still a thing.

[Athom83]

Ye nicked multiple threads (all somewhat recent).

[Pixel Hunter]

Jingseng, on 11 April 2017 - 06:34 PM, said:

or remove weapon quirks, as they are the primary reason you would load up heavily on a single weapon - to min/max benefits.

though of course, people will still do it anyway, because min/maxing is still a thing.

RIP inner sphere mechs then.

[Carl Vickers]

Jingseng, on 11 April 2017 - 06:34 PM, said:

or remove weapon quirks, as they are the primary reason you would load up heavily on a single weapon - to min/max benefits.

though of course, people will still do it anyway, because min/maxing is still a thing.

Quirks have nothing to do with loading up on a single weapon. Quirks help with what chassis to pick to boat on. Min/maxing will happen in MWO cause we have a mech lab and are not forced into playing stock mechs.

[chucklesMuch]

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.... **snip**

This isn't a TT game...

I personally don't see the boating of small weapons as an issue... there are plenty of counters to brawlers and lights

[FupDup]

I'm not sure why so many people love the no-torso-convergence idea so much. It basically gets sidestepped by mechs with either closely clumped torso hardpoints (thus firing parallel doesn't matter) or high mounted arm hardpoints.

[Tarl Cabot]

One route is a modification of torso lock. Sorry but fighting, twisting, etc, there should be some sway with arm-mounted weapons with torso lock enabled, just enough that twisting or tilting up and firing you do not get that instant convergences of both torso and arm mounted weapons.

Hey, it was only a suggestion

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 11 April 2017 - 07:28 PM.

[El Bandito]

FupDup, on 11 April 2017 - 07:25 PM, said:

I'm not sure why so many people love the no-torso-convergence idea so much. It basically gets sidestepped by mechs with either closely clumped torso hardpoints (thus firing parallel doesn't matter) or high mounted arm hardpoints.

Feels more immersive to me, at least. I liked that part of Chromehounds. We already have established meta mechs. This is simply changing them, but adding more immersion while we are at it.

Edited by El Bandito, 11 April 2017 - 07:47 PM.

[Felicitatem Parco]

Jingseng, on 11 April 2017 - 06:34 PM, said:

or remove weapon quirks, as they are the primary reason you would load up heavily on a single weapon - to min/max benefits.

No. People boat weapons of a single type because they all share a single firing solution (range, velocity, trajectory, etc.).

Using one firing solution is more efficient and effective than needing multiple firing solutions.

[MechaBattler]

Jingseng, on 11 April 2017 - 06:34 PM, said:

or remove weapon quirks, as they are the primary reason you would load up heavily on a single weapon - to min/max benefits.

though of course, people will still do it anyway, because min/maxing is still a thing.

As that why people used to boat before quirks?

[Mister Blastman]

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.

[Dee Eight]

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.

[Y E O N N E]

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.

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.

[WrathOfDeadguy]

Um... every time one of these comes up, I feel compelled to point out that TT construction rules allowed players to boat as many weapons as they had crits and tonnage for, because hardpoints were not limited based (loosely) on stock loadouts like they are in MWO. It was completely possible to fill a fast medium 'Mech to the gills with MGs and derp around with a zero heat 80-point alpha strike, which considering crit rules and lower armor values was generally more than enough to one-shot most 'Mechs even with random hit allocation. Small weapon boats were definitely viable, and some of them were downright broken.

You wouldn't see anybody boating lasers in those numbers, but that was because of heat penalties, not dice rolls; 40xSL would flash-fry you before you could say "pew!" 6-8ML boats like you see in MWO, on the other hand, were definitely worth taking in TT. While a single big gun would mean more single-component damage on a hit, boating smaller guns meant more chances to hit, which could be a huge advantage if your to-hit modifiers were low (or the enemy's defense modifiers were high). Which would you rather have on a difficult shot: an AC20 which you get one roll for (and only 5 shots per ton of ammo), and if you fail you do zero damage... or a brace of MLs, each of which gets its own roll and has no ammo limit?

[JC Daxion]

Yes.. I have thought about this as well.. Would much rather torso fired weapons be a Cone of fire verse PP. If you want PP, then fire one at a time, it's that simple.

Want your dual gauss to hit PP, fire one, then the other,, Fire in dual you are not going to hit the same spot. As long as the cone is not to large.

My only thought is about hitting legs on lights. Could the engine go from a cone on toros, and still all hit the legs?

[Khobai]

random cone of fire is a bad solution IMO because randomness takes the skill factor out of the game.

Id rather see more non-random damage spread mechanics like what we already have: beam duration, ripple fire, burst fire, splash damage, etc...

Quote

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!

pretty much how I feel.

Im just not sold on adding RNG to the game. I think damage can be spread out more using non-random game mechanics.

And I also think a 50%-100% internal structure increase would help as well for several reasons. First it improves TTK. Second it makes critical hits matter more. For this game to be a proper battletech game its gotta get to a point where critical hits matter at least somewhat.

Edited by Khobai, 11 April 2017 - 09:52 PM.

[Shifty McSwift]

Then the meta would just shift to the arm weapon mechs, or stay with them, like in the case with the Nova.

It wouldn't so much fix everything as it would just add extra level of balancing along with a bunch of issues.