44 replies to this topic

[Armored Yokai]

This thing was really fun even when you were being targeted by it because you could always run into the enemy full kamikaze and just run out by the time the purple smoke hit.

We sadly can't have nice things.

[FupDup]

A giant 400m radius of guaranteed death for even the most armored assault mechs was not a "nice thing."

It wasn't actually a true Long Tom. It was a tactical nuclear missile.

Edited by FupDup, 03 December 2017 - 06:49 PM.

[Pur]

cuz it was skilless cancer

[Armored Yokai]

FupDup, on 03 December 2017 - 06:49 PM, said:

It wasn't actually a true Long Tom. It was a tactical nuclear missile.

if they replaced it with 2-4 arty strikes spread around i'm sure it wouldn't be as deadly

[Siegegun]

Had multiple matches where I did not even get to play when long tom was there. literally all 4 respawns and most of my team destroyed without ever even seeing the enemy. What a great way to retain players in a mode few like. As has been said, this was not a "nice thing". It was stupid.

[The Lighthouse]

PGI removed "Long Tom" so late that it actually did not matter. By the time then, FW was completely deserted and never recovered til now.

It really tells you how much Russ and Paul are competent at game design, and a strong hint that you really should at least wait for reviews for MW5.

[WrathOfDeadguy]

The only way nukes will ever be a good idea is if they have to be carried into battle on a stock Urbanmech UM-AIV.

[Koniving]

Armored Yokai, on 03 December 2017 - 06:38 PM, said:

This thing was really fun even when you were being targeted by it because you could always run into the enemy full kamikaze and just run out by the time the purple smoke hit.

We sadly can't have nice things.

PGI was ******* stupid and had a weapon that had a radius of 270 meters... an explosive diameter of 540 meters... A 30 meter section in which it can do 1390 damage PER MECH...
On a weapon that in Battletech only has a DIAMETER of 150 meters, and a maximum possible damage output to the ENTIRE AREA... of only 270 damage.

Even if you doubled that to counter for MWO's double+ armor/structure... that's 540 damage TOTAL... distributed in increments of 5 to various body parts.

PGI gave us a thing that drops 1390 damage total in HUGE allotments.

Why can't we have nice things? Because PGI can't ******* look at the goddamn lore.

Or in this case, the rulebook... or the stats of the weapon... or just ******* common sense. It's an artillery gun twice the weight of a Gauss Rifle, with ammo of the EXACT same weight PGI would have us believe AC/20 rounds are (20 damage = 1 shell. In BT a ton holds 5 rounds. The Long Tom also holds 5 rounds per ton. Trouble with this logic is AC/20s do not produce 20 damage in a single shot; it's just summarized that way. so you don't have to do 2 to 100 dice rolls to find out where the damage goes in the tabletop game.)

I personally believe the second issue was how it was implemented. The random target based on highest congregation of mechs is a very poor and easily abused mechanic. It should have been manually targeted. With damage like I described from the source material you could easily dedicate 1 to 2 shots per player. Canonically it is aimed by using TAG. Alternatively a player could aim it while dead, or it could be aimed via the Battlegrid. 12 to 24 shots of 270 or 540 damage with a 150 meter radius is somewhat annoying but not that difficult to overcome and these shots would have to be carefully timed and placed with all players n the team with the Long Tom having their turn to aim and fire it at least once.

Edited by Koniving, 03 December 2017 - 07:23 PM.

[Armored Yokai]

I know it's a pipe dream but i'd love to see split criticals and Arrow IV/Longtom.

[FupDup]

Armored Yokai, on 03 December 2017 - 07:25 PM, said:

I know it's a pipe dream but i'd love to see split criticals and Arrow IV/Longtom.

The Clan Arrow IV is 12 slots, making it possible to mount with a STD engine (although a bad choice because of that).

For ballistics there's the Thumper Cannon at just 7 slots and 10 tons.

[WrathOfDeadguy]

I believe that whomever implemented the Long Tom in MWO must have drawn their inspiration from the god-tier callout abilities from CoD4 and later- there was a tactical nuke in that which you could gain access to if you had a certain number of kills, or if certain other conditions were met (another reason I don't play most modern shooters- reward the top performer in the game by giving the the ability to guarantee a win with a TPK on the entire enemy team? Screw that noise).

Superweapons are IMO never a good idea in any game from any genre. Too much incentive to cheeserush before they unlock and end the game before it gets interesting. Supers even ruined RTS. Remember the olden days when supers could be disabled in the game setup menu? Kids are so fecking lazy since Y2K...

[FupDup]

WrathOfDeadguy, on 03 December 2017 - 07:30 PM, said:

Supers even ruined RTS. Remember the olden days when supers could be disabled in the game setup menu? Kids are so fecking lazy since Y2K...

ION CANNON ACTIVATED!

[WrathOfDeadguy]

FupDup, on 03 December 2017 - 07:31 PM, said:

ION CANNON ACTIVATED!

Heh. Yeah, and in 95/Gold/TD and TS (where the disable option was present), the IC could destroy at most one building and whatever hapless infantry were next to it. Then EA devoured Westwood, and by C&C3 it was just a nuke with different graphics. Sigh...

[The Lighthouse]

C&C 3 was an actually good game, with several competitions going on.

Too bad it was the start of rush tactics which players sell their MCVs, making troops, sell rest of the buildings to sell EVEN more troops, which worked unfortunately well.

Then we had Red Alert 3 and it basically became de-facto tactics, now people brought MCVs to crush infantry for rush.

The problem was that while this was viable tactic and competitive people liked it, general population did not like such ridiculous way to win.

At that point EA really should had tried to lessen this problem (like selling back buildings won't give you much money would had solved this problem).

Instead, they embraced this way of playing and C&C 4 was all about this. While the production quality of C&C 4 was bad, but the fact that EA abandoned traditional way of playing C&C to appease competitive crowd doomed the whole franchise.

[davoodoo]

Koniving, on 03 December 2017 - 07:16 PM, said:

Or in this case, the rulebook... or the stats of the weapon... or just ******* common sense. It's an artillery gun twice the weight of a Gauss Rifle, with ammo of the EXACT same weight PGI would have us believe AC/20 rounds are (20 damage = 1 shell. In BT a ton holds 5 rounds. The Long Tom also holds 5 rounds per ton. Trouble with this logic is AC/20s do not produce 20 damage in a single shot; it's just summarized that way. so you don't have to do 2 to 100 dice rolls to find out where the damage goes in the tabletop game.)

Im pretty sure there was ac20 variant firing only 1 slug, i think it was 155mm caliber.
Also ac10 ac5 and ac2 had one of such variants too.

[chucklesMuch]

Armored Yokai, on 03 December 2017 - 06:38 PM, said:

This thing was really fun even when you were being targeted by it because you could always run into the enemy full kamikaze and just run out by the time the purple smoke hit.

We sadly can't have nice things.

Yeah. Seriously. Half hearted effort by PGI... after all there are still a couple of peeps playing CW.






PGI You really gotta go all in when you plan to kill a thing...

[a gaijin]

The Lighthouse, on 03 December 2017 - 07:47 PM, said:

C&C 3 was an actually good game, with several competitions going on.


Too bad it was the start of rush tactics which players sell their MCVs, making troops, sell rest of the buildings to sell EVEN more troops, which worked unfortunately well.


Then we had Red Alert 3 and it basically became de-facto tactics, now people brought MCVs to crush infantry for rush.


The problem was that while this was viable tactic and competitive people liked it, general population did not like such ridiculous way to win.


At that point EA really should had tried to lessen this problem (like selling back buildings won't give you much money would had solved this problem).


Instead, they embraced this way of playing and C&C 4 was all about this. While the production quality of C&C 4 was bad, but the fact that EA abandoned traditional way of playing C&C to appease competitive crowd doomed the whole franchise.

Reading the above quote brought the below to mind.



"MWO was an actually good game, with several competitions going on.

Too bad it was the start of boating tactics, which worked unfortunately well.
...and it basically became de-facto tactics, now people boat weapons to crush TTK for rush wins.

The problem was that while this was viable tactic and competitive people liked it, general population did not like such ridiculous way to win.

At that point pgi really should had tried to lessen this problem (like diminishing returns on boating won't give you much extra alpha dmg would had solved this problem).

Instead, they embraced this way of playing and mwo was all about this. While the production quality of mwo was bad, but the fact that pgi abandoned traditional way of playing MechWarrior to appease competitive crowd doomed the whole franchise."



That may not be 100% accurate but...it's good enough for government work.

[WrathOfDeadguy]

Well, uh... boating has kinda been a thing as long as MW games have had build customization. It was a thing in TT too. You carry the greatest number of whatever weapon type consistently yields the lowest TTK, hardpoints or house rules restrictions permitting. Even if your campaign didn't permit custom builds, the best 'Mechs were usually the ones which were either stock boats or the nearest thing to them.

It works in MW because it works in real life. Historically, the most successful armored vehicles and combat aircraft have been the ones with a uniform armament, or at least the capability to carry standardized ordinance. They're easier to produce, they're easier to train crews for, and they're easier to maintain- in addition to delivering a consistent, lethal offensive punch. With known performance specs for a given armament, you can build a chassis around that armament to achieve the best possible results, every time. Boating is just common sense engineering applied to gaming.

But... we digress.

[davoodoo]

Lets be honest, even in fluff if they could get away with specialising they did it.

But unlike in mw games, in tt rearming took months to do and wasnt easy.
Omnipods partially fixed that problem and you had many specialised variants many of which were boats.

[Khobai]

longtom and arrowIV should be mech carried weapons

then we can get rid of consumable strikes