42 replies to this topic

[Brain Cancer]

How about we start with removing additional structure damage from critical hits, which would directly increase TTK?

Then you actually make crits do what they should, which is destroy equipment- and you properly damage model that equipment, a task that has been put off for years that leaves actuator, engine, gyro, etc. as nothing more than meaningless spots on the critspace paperdoll that do nothing, meaning only zeroing out structure basically matters in terms of reducing a 'Mechs capacity. An unarmored vehicle should have bad things happen when someone puts holes in it's fundamental components, but in MWO most of those fundamentals show no effect whatsoever unless the location is utterly destroyed.

Once you can actually crit things in a meaningful fashion, you can revisit the laughable "it does extra critical damage so it's better against internals" LB-X and turn it into an equipment obliterator instead, which is what cluster ammo is supposed to do in the first place- and in the process even the LB-2X is made useful. Likewise, you can reduce equipment damage effects for weapons that are already potent otherwise, like non-scatter ballistics, PPCs, etc. If equipment damage is meaningful, it becomes another way to balance weapons. "Tanky" robots can have "reduces critical damage" quirks, or it can be applied straightforward to standard internals vs. endosteel if need be.

People say "RNG isn't fun", but by their nature, anything that doesn't utterly ignore RNG (read, brute force focused single-locational damage) is second-rate to garbage-tier in MWO. People say "losing your equipment to a crit sucks" - I say that now, the usual result is a smart player isn't even trying to "critseek", pumped half a dozen lasers into your location, and you lost all your equipment to damage anyway. If someone's willing to sacrifice part of their combi-blast-o-doom alpha strikes of location-melting, it should have some other interesting effect instead.

[Luminis]

The advantage of high alpha builds is the potential to take a component / kill in one or two volleys. Crank up armour / structure high enough and you'll shift the meta to sustained DPS. If you can't burst down a target, it can push you, force you to shut down / override and die.

Burst > squishies, tanks > burst and sustained DPS > tanks.

The question is whether we are willing to increase TTK that much (and buff sustained damage in the process).

[GoatHILL]

So do you double ammo again that's what had to be done the last time armour was doubled?

If so now your DPS mechs are full of ammo with your new crit seeking weapons and only 1 side has true CASE. That will be fun.

[Kaeb Odellas]

GoatHILL, on 11 July 2017 - 07:53 PM, said:

People have been complaining about high alphas forever so you want to push game even farther towards high alpha?

As an IS only player most of my mechs are limited to sub 35 alpha FLPPD. Power creep is the problem the more armour you add the more you push the meta to high damage only mechs.

If all mechs were tougher, it would be more difficult to kill or cripple them in one or two shots, reducing the impact of high-alpha builds. It would actually push the meta towards heat-efficient brawlers, as alpha builds tend not to be able to maintain their damage over long periods.

[DrxAbstract]

Andi Nagasia, on 11 July 2017 - 05:18 PM, said:

right now Crits dont matter perhaps as much as they should,
when dealing with Damage, usually the Component is lost before the Items within,
this puts Crit weapons in an odd place, and Item health balancing as well,

so
=Should we Double Structure?=
this would make Structure and Armor Values Equal,
(in MWO as well as TT you have 2 Times as much Armor as Internal Structure)
having more structure would mean you would be alive longer after your Armor is gone,
and as such your Components would have more time to become destroyed(Crit'ed)


=Please Note=
yes i am aware that both Armor and Structure have been Doubled from TT Values,
and that this was done because unlike in TT you can Aim better this being an FPS,
(this would mean Armor would be (x2), and Structure would be (x4), from TT)


Thoughts, Comments, Concerns?
Thanks,

The unfortunate reality is, as the current system is designed, Internal Structure will never be equal to Armor as long as Critical Hits deal additional damage to Structure. That it's possible for a weapon to inflict its base damage on top of bonus damage to structure upon dealing a critical hit makes Structure less valuable than Armor and, thus far, always has been the case... Which is why I have scoffed at Structure quirks.

From a survival perspective, having equivalent Armor and Structure sounds great and would lend more importance to crit-potential weapons... Or would it? As it stands, there's not enough Structure on most Mechs to validate Crit-Seeking weapons as most weapons are more than capable of destroying components, if not the section itself entirely, either because of low component health, the base damage of the weapon(PPC/Gauss/AC20) or the sheer number of weapons being brought to bear... To summarize: You already lose equipment/weapons to critical hits from standard weapons at a similar rate as you do crit-seeking ones. Granted that has a lot more to do with the effectiveness (Or rather the ineffectiveness) of crit-seekers vs. standard weapons due to the baseline performance of the respective weapons--to implement this would require a defining line be drawn between the weapons commonly associated with crit-seeking and those that are not.

[Shifty McSwift]

Brain Cancer, on 11 July 2017 - 09:28 PM, said:

People say "RNG isn't fun", but by their nature, anything that doesn't utterly ignore RNG (read, brute force focused single-locational damage) is second-rate to garbage-tier in MWO.

That post was great and I agree totally with the idea of making crits based on stuff other than direct damage boosting, though it would make crit seeking weapons considered even less "meta" by comparison (or crit seeking as a buff would be low end), without other buffs. But nonetheless I like the idea of damage not multiplying like that.

But...

Personally I hate (edit; hate is a strong word lol, I dislike the reliance on it in gaming, to be specific) RNG, but won't hinder myself by not utilising something like the UAC which relies on RNG double or nothing mechanics, that potential is just to high to ignore in my eyes, except when it comes down to something like a stream vs splat, which changes the dynamics of the weapon usage (sorry to bring that up again lol, but its relevant enough).

Edited by Shifty McSwift, 11 July 2017 - 11:09 PM.

[GoatHILL]

Kaeb Odellas, on 11 July 2017 - 10:34 PM, said:

If all mechs were tougher, it would be more difficult to kill or cripple them in one or two shots, reducing the impact of high-alpha builds. It would actually push the meta towards heat-efficient brawlers, as alpha builds tend not to be able to maintain their damage over long periods.

So you are just changing the meta to a half dozen heat-efficient brawlers.

People will play whatever kills the other guy the fastest. The sooner he is dead the sooner he stops shooting at you. When you buff armour over a certain point it becomes foolish to play something that can't bring enough DPS or Alpha. The longer your face time the greater your chance of dieing whether is FLPPD or brawl.

A great example of this is the Shadowhawk it was the best medium mech in the game some said the best overall. But then the Clans came into the game and it just could not carry enough firepower to compete. Too much face time with the enemy.

[Valhallan]

Well as i said when i suggested this in that other LBX thread, really aside from compensating ammo weapons (which should all get normalized to 200 already anyway) i don't see the issue with double structure. Some might point out that on a fatlass (the most common guy to lose something) losing your AC/20 "early" is "unfun" but frankly if that Fatlass didn't have so much bonus extra structure to begin with it would have lost the ST completely anyway rendering it moot. In addition the huge items have far less hp compared to smaller items, said fatlass rarely loses anything in it's SRM side for example. Finally if someone essentially chose to gimp their load-out in the armor-stripping phase (which is still half your hp with double struc) by picking a crit-seeking weapon it sure as hell should have much better efficacy to compensate in the structural only portion. But since falphas are so high, the location is vaporized far before anything is really critted out in general and those are even at the assault levels which have lots of structure and even massive structure quarks, on heavies/mediums? and especially lights you will almost never see anything get crit out unless you got raked by a m-gun spammer who's so hot he couldn't fire his other weapons. The non-RNG alternative is to just boost the bonus internal damage of such weapons to such obscene levels that they would be doing something like 2x structural damage. More hp actually benefits heat efficient mechs more than high falpha, that being said i really doubt this would be enough to make brawling the go to strat for comp, it would just give it a little boost.

I don't agree with buffing standard structure in order to give a reason to use ferro, the reason no-one bother's with ferro is that ferro is objectively terrible without logistics being factored in since it just flat out does exactly the same thing endo does but less, so i stand by my stance of them just altering ferro to be a hardened lite and just give a x% armor quark with 0 change on armor weight. Stock designs won't be affected because you can always shave the armor down appropriately in order to get the weight back (net armor is same thanks to the quark), meanwhile now there is an actual choice about whether to sacrifice critslots for more tonnage (endo) or for more armor (ferro). This wouldn't invalidate Hardened (if it ever gets in), since hardened doesn't cost any crit slots whatsoever and basically just increases the armor cap in exchange for the speed debuff.

[JadePanther]

amount of structure doesnt really matter. once your last sliver of armor is gone all your equipment gets critted out instantly by current MG fire when facing 3 or more MGs.. On the PTS it was even worse as HMG's would strip your armor down really fast(then guess what next) and LMGs could be very effective of doing the same thing at greater range than current MG's...

You can triple and quadruple structure but i doubt its gonna stop anyone with MG's saying kiss all your weapons goodbye the instant you lose armor.. The problem lies somewhere inside the MG crit system that gets multiplied when using 3 or more MG's... basically you've gotta have a long sit down with RNGesus and rexamine how crits are being calculated and handled when multiple MG's are in play. is it 3 musketeers in play, one for all and all for one, ie one crits causing them all to do a crit damage in the weapon group..

[Skanderborg]

Make LBX an execute weapon , 100% + damage to exposed internals.

[P10k56]

Skanderborg, on 12 July 2017 - 05:29 AM, said:

Make LBX an execute weapon , 100% + damage to exposed internals.

Ultimate killstealer then.

[C E Dwyer]

Should be left well alone, just because there is a fail critical hit system, we don't need the internals buffed because of it.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

[Skanderborg]

P10k56, on 12 July 2017 - 05:43 AM, said:

Ultimate killstealer then.

I'm a team player , if I open up someone with laser vomit just for the guy next to me to kill the target with a single LBX shot , fine with me. Whatever wins the game right?

[SOL Ranger]

Crits should be removed as anything RNG based and replaced with a linear system that also allows linear priority padding.

[Bud Crue]

I'd be up for say a 10% across the board change and see how that goes for a while. Or heaven forbid make additions on a favored basis whereby mechs with fewer hard points, or that have restricted hardpoint locations.

Ya know...iterative balance and all that.

[Kangarad]

when some mechs have 100+ structure and still suck at tanking.

Id say nope.

The crit system needs some changes tho.

[davoodoo]

How about we reduce hp of components to 1/2/3.

Your precious ac20 gets hit?? it goes out.
2 crits to gyro?? well **** you hoverjet crosshair for the rest of the match.
3 crits to engine?? out.

SOL Ranger, on 12 July 2017 - 05:58 AM, said:

Crits should be removed as anything RNG based and replaced with a linear system that also allows linear priority padding.

Inb4 extra "ghost" system to limit that linear system because it breaks the balance...

Ppl never learn...

Edited by davoodoo, 12 July 2017 - 07:29 AM.

[Magnus Santini]

I am not in favor of any further increase in hit points, which would aggravate the imbalance against lower-alpha mechs. The books had other effects of "crit" hits like temporary disabling of systems while the pilot rerouted the electricity or controls around the busted wiring. So maybe you can't walk, jump, turn your torso left, or shoot a weapon for 60 seconds?

[ScrubLord1]

On the contrary, critical hits have a much greater presence now. Since the component health pass a couple of patches back, I have noticed equipment being destroyed a lot more often before structure is taken off. The difference in occurrence is definitely noticeable compared to pre-patch when critical hits truely didn't matter, and the current place of component health actually makes LBX10 a very good weapon.

Either way, I still like to see an increase to effective health of mechs to convey that added sense of durability of being in a giant armored mech. With all the high alphas going on now, and civil war tech will just increase that even further, mechs have this odd sense of being really paper-thin. I want to see that addressed soon.

[DANKnuggz]

I don't really see how making someone stay alive longer so I can have the "satisfaction" of destroying one or 2 more components with crits is going to be more enjoyable than just blowing that section clean off...

All I can see happening here is needing more alpha damage rather than using crit weapons and relying on RNGeebus to neuter your opponent before you can actually kill them.

It would seem to me that a small increase to the critical hit chance of crit-seeking weapons would be more effective w/o outright changing the way non crit-seeking weaponry relates to current armor/structure. I say small and I mean SMALL since the loss of 1 or 2 critical components can pretty much spell the end of your effectiveness in a map leaving you to wander around scratching ineffectively with whatever weapons you have left.

It shouldn't be that much easier to neuter a player than it is to kill them.

You want to see players focus on neutralizing mechs w/o destroying them?? Add engine critical explosion chance and brawlers may not be so keen to core mechs at point blank range. Legged mechs don't explode upon death =D

Edited by DANKnuggz, 12 July 2017 - 11:41 AM.