51 replies to this topic

[Spheroid]

Right now LBX-2, LBX-5 and MG are useless. Every patch more and more mechs receive base armor quirks above and beyond that which the survival tree provides. Its highly probable that an Urbanmech, Orion/Orion IIC, Linebacker or Atlas can survive a match without any serious penetration if played cautiously. Ergo no opportunity to utilize the crit mechanic exists.

However if we adopt the table top mechanic of penetrating shots, weapons that feature low damage for a high number of crit rolls would suddenly have purpose. An extreme range ballistic build could if poptarting or ridge humping hope to cause an explosion to a meta build utilizing gauss or gauss-ppc. Right now that trade will lose 100% of the time.

PGIs approach to increasing TTK seems to be buffing durability across the board. Why not increase component destruction to reduce firepower on the field as an alternative?

Certain terrible hardpoint mechs are without purpose currently and rely on quirks that defy the soul of the mech in lore. The Locust-1V is a machine light scout not a clone of the Hussar. Also the numerous aweful light and medium mechs with that have one missile and a few ballistic mounts would benefit.. Those builds are incapable of doing meaningful work without God level quirks.

Giving them through armor crits would do this. A mech that has to wait until the end the match is to do anything is essentially dead weight and contributes nothing to victory via the ratio of damage dealt vs. that shared by the team leading to attrition loss.

Also why not make "component destruction" true to its name? Right now its body segment destruction not component destruction. If instead of rewarding the loss of a limb why not breakdown the section into its constitute parts? A leg consists of the hip, upper leg actuator, lower actuator, foot actuator and up to two slots for equipment. If these components were individually scored albeit at a lesser amount than leg destruction the results would be indentical had you simply blown it off with a large caliber weapon.

Streaks were always useless against large targets, but if you give them a crit roll function that streak Commando may yet rise from the grave as in the old days to harass fatties. Streaks are garbage even against lights now, so they need all the help they can get.

This change to how crits work would not alter the meta as we know it because the large alpha combinations that are so effective at killing would achieve armor penetration long before the TAC. It would give a useful mechanic to bad weapons without altering the cluster mechanic into either a pseudo AC-5/10 via spread or ultra clone via dps.

Edited by Spheroid, 11 July 2017 - 12:05 AM.

[El Bandito]

It sorta makes sense as pellets can technically find small weakpoints to exploit. However, questions need to be asked.

First, what would be those crits' actual number values regarding damage and chance, now that they can go through armor? The pellets themselves have very low damage, so it will require a lot of damage multipliers to remove the items in the location, but too much will straight up murder the location instead of stripping it.

Second, wouldn't adding more RNG might piss people off? Imagine your main weapon is suddenly useless just cause someone fired LBX at you from 500 meters and the pellets didn't even make the armor orange. Certainly not fun for the recipient.

[Spheroid]

@Bandito: In tabletop the chance of a penetrating crit roll was 1/11. Most of the time no ill results occurred when rolling for the effect. A 2-7 on D12 was no damage.

We should try this same ratio but alter the weapon specific crit multiplier to control the effect.

Edited by Spheroid, 11 July 2017 - 12:18 AM.

[The Lost Boy]

MGs arent useless. 1 or 2 are marginally useful. 3 OK. 4 and up nasty against opened up components. Thats where they accel. Critting out things. LB 2s and 5s just have better options like uacs or reg acs. When you get to mechs than can take 10s or 20s you have to choose uac/ac or lbx, and all 3 have pros and cons for use. Things are fine where they are.

[LordNothing]

perhaps make it where the armor has to be compromised down to 25% before damage starts passing to structure and crit rolls start happening. damage passthrough might be 10%, and crit rolls might be 25% what they are against bare structure.

Edited by LordNothing, 11 July 2017 - 12:21 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Critical hits are too random for my taste.

There are other ways to buff LBX. Like give them some actual extra damage. Raise their rate of fire a bit. Lower their heat further. Reduce the spread further and increase their range.

[The Basilisk]

I don't think that would be a good idea.
There is too much troll potential here.....think of all the weaponless Atlases and Direwolves stumbling around the battleground.....thats just horribad.

No, seriously....as long as there is some kind of shooter like weapon convergence (point and shoot mechanik) through armor crits are a bad idea.
Disarming mechs gets too easy then.
Imagine Shadowhawks that get disarmed at 500m by some little kitfox or Adder with dual LB2X...no fun. (yes you can hit a single zone reliably with smal lbx at this range.)

[Spheroid]

@Basilisk: It wouldn't be that bad. Only a fraction of the total shot fired would penetrate and those that do would have to work against the normal HP heath of the weapons and other crit padding objects. It would be a long engagement with lots of exposure for a Kit Fox vs. Shadowhawk. Not a sure with at all.

It would only suck for side torso gauss assaults. They can always stick an ER Large or heavy medium in the head to avoid impotency. Again the crit value can be experimented with to avoid abuse.

[The Basilisk]

Spheroid, on 11 July 2017 - 12:54 AM, said:

@Basilisk: It wouldn't be that bad. Only a fraction of the total shot fired would penetrate and those that do would have to work against the normal HP heath of the weapons and other crit padding objects. It would be a long engagement with lots of exposure for a Kit Fox vs. Shadowhawk. Not a sure with at all.

It would only suck for side torso gauss assaults. They can always stick an ER Large or heavy medium in the head to avoid impotency. Again the crit value can be experimented with to avoid abuse.

See, its like with a lot of other weapons that are, seen from a 1on1 or 4on4 perspective, subpar or even not practical at all.
ERLL...in a one on one clearly a bad weapon due to facetime.
In standart QP.... 4 of them are my weapon of choice for my ECM Hellbringer to farm high dmg and C-bills.
Got an other HBR with 3 ERMlaser and 2 LB5X.
This guy runns so quite and cool you can fire all day long and you get your kills and C-bills.

Nearly everything is situational except you give a weapon a god mode.
And the ability to kill an Assault with a light due to ammo explosion from 900m without needing to get through armor is such an ability.

[Spheroid]

Its going to take forever to cause an ammo death. Lets say a stock Atlas-D suffered penetrating hits to the RT. If all those hits miraciously hit the same ammo bin and not the AC-20 you would need 5*11 LBX-2 shots to the RT. Because of crit padding the number of needed shots is going to be much higher. How long does that take in combat? Minimum 40 seconds baring cooldown quirks for a single gun. Does the Atlas twist at all? Does the Atlas move behind cover?

As we all know non-gauss explosion is only 10% likely. LBX through armor crit death is not to be feared. Gauss loss doesn't do enough structure damage to be fatal.

Edited by Spheroid, 11 July 2017 - 01:39 AM.

[El Bandito]

Then you gotta think about the scenario where the mech can boat more than two LBXs. What about when half the enemy team is using LBXs? How will it impact gameplay?

The Basilisk, on 11 July 2017 - 01:11 AM, said:

And the ability to kill an Assault with a light due to ammo explosion from 900m without needing to get through armor is such an ability.

Yes, and that will further highlight the superiority of Clan CASE over that of the IS CASE.

Spheroid, on 11 July 2017 - 01:31 AM, said:

Its going to take forever to cause an ammo death. Lets say a stock Atlas-D suffered penetrating hits to the RT. If all those hits miraciously hit the same ammo bin and not the AC-20 you would need 5*11 LBX-2 shots to the RT. Because of crit padding the number of needed shots is going to be much higher. How long does that take in combat? Does the Atlas twist at all? Does the Atlas move behind cover?

As we all know non-gauss explosion is only 10% likely. LBX through armor crit death is not to be feared. Gauss loss doesn't do enough structure damage to be fatal.

That might be the case for huge ST quirked mechs such as the Atlas, but what about the others? And unlike exposed torso, armored section will take more hits before getting destroyed, which translates to more chance of ammo exploding.

The idea is interesting, but PGI needs to pin point any potential abuse from this new mechanic while setting the numbers.

Edited by El Bandito, 11 July 2017 - 01:39 AM.

[Zergling]

El Bandito, on 11 July 2017 - 12:11 AM, said:

Second, wouldn't adding more RNG might piss people off? Imagine your main weapon is suddenly useless just cause someone fired LBX at you from 500 meters and the pellets didn't even make the armor orange. Certainly not fun for the recipient.

Yeah, RNG like this is bad for a PvP game.

I highly recommend going for some idea that is NOT based around random chance.

Edited by Zergling, 11 July 2017 - 01:41 AM.

[Shifty McSwift]

Or, maybe it's time we realised that LBX would be fine in functionality if all regular ACs fired in a short burst?

[Zergling]

Shifty McSwift, on 11 July 2017 - 01:42 AM, said:

Or, maybe it's time we realised that LBX would be fine in functionality if all regular ACs fired in a short burst?

That could only work with a fairly significant buff to those ACs that are currently single shot, and given this is PGI we are talking about, you are pretty much asking for those weapons to be broken into uselessness.


EDIT: edited to remove unnecessary snarkiness. Sorry for being grumpy guys.

Edited by Zergling, 11 July 2017 - 01:52 AM.

[jss78]

But what about ... ammo switching?

[Shifty McSwift]

Zergling, on 11 July 2017 - 01:46 AM, said:

Seriously, that could only work with a fairly significant buff to those ACs that are currently single shot, and given this is PGI we are talking about, you are pretty much asking for those weapons to be broken into uselessness.

Because you are used to PPFLD ACs. And also because it would make the obvious OP nature of UACs more present. To me these are separate issues.

In core terms of functionality, with one weapon working as a single splat shot with spread, vs a stream following a single line, there is internal balance in that system that provides real functionality and preferential choice in their equipping, both have pros and cons that weigh up well without other balancing mechanics.

jss78, on 11 July 2017 - 01:50 AM, said:

But what about ... ammo switching?

I feel like this has been brought up enough to just kind of depressingly accept it as not going to happen, and to define these weapons individually for the terms of MWO gameplay/balance.

Plus if you could switch between a single slug shot or buck shot, why would you ever choose buckshot?

Edited by Shifty McSwift, 11 July 2017 - 02:30 AM.

[Khobai]

LBX should definitely not through armor crit. it has no penetrating qualities.

if any weapon should through armor crit it should be gauss, especially heavy gauss. because supersonic projectiles and all. it fires mach6 penetrating rounds.

they could lower the damage on gauss from like 15 to 12 (or 25 to 22 on hvy gauss) but give it the ability to through armor crit

it would balance gauss in an interesting way. lower PPFLD in exchange for a chance to through armor crit.

Quote

Plus if you could switch between a single slug shot or buck shot, why would you ever choose buckshot?

well the point of cluster rounds is to tear up internal structure and crit out weapons in an exposed location that has no armor left.

the problem with MWO is that the crit system is flawed because entire locations get destroyed faster than weapons get critted. because theres not enough internal structure to survive all the PPFLD.

Edited by Khobai, 11 July 2017 - 02:12 AM.

[jss78]

Shifty McSwift, on 11 July 2017 - 01:58 AM, said:

I feel like this has been brought up enough to just kind of depressingly accept it as not going to happen, and to define these weapons individually for the terms of MWO gameplay/balance.

Plus if you could switch between a single slug shot or buck shot, why would you ever choose buckshot?

I think you'd have to buff the base damage (and/or crit damage) of the pellets enough that in closer quarters and against unarmoured components, it becomes significantly stronger than slugs. If it's devastating enough in those circumstances, maybe people would consider bringing a half-ton of cluster shot.

[Shifty McSwift]

So yeah, again, you wouldn't choose the buckshot over single shot, unless it had some other buff anyway, or except in some very fringe scenarios, in which many people would still just fire a slug round. In MWO with the way things are and have been, single slug is simply just better than buckshot.

[Shifty McSwift]

Zergling, on 11 July 2017 - 01:46 AM, said:

EDIT: edited to remove unnecessary snarkiness. Sorry for being grumpy guys.

Eh, we all fall into speech and/or argumentative traps, but there was more to your post than just that bit of sarcasm etc so I wasn't holding it against you. I have been rather curt too, so I also apologise if I have come across this way to anyone, but again to me the point to discussion is to tear arguments apart, not the person, if their argument is valid their character and or argumentative approach means nothing really, it is just a part of their identity/current mindset (what those arguments become used for though is something else).

I actually appreciate and sometimes enjoy being corrected, but I do despise argumentative logical fallacies IF that is all one is working with, so to me if my arguments or ideas are torn to pieces through logical argumentative processes, I am the better for it.