Tarogato, on 07 February 2018 - 05:16 PM, said:
First of all huge thanks to the team for still trying to do something, and not giving up. Here's my
feedback wall of text
, sorry (read it as IMHO, and remember - it's not a bundle, take what you like. Also, remember guys - good at playing games doesn't make you good at making games, so listen to everyone without prejudice. Also - do not hurry; take good time to process all of community feedback, and discuss it):
Weapons:
About suggested changes, a little rant:
Why equalize total damage for all of cannon ammo per ton? Good balance makes use of every possible parameter. Not including a parameter holds back balance attempt from full potential. Raising total damage per ton is okay, equalizing it across the board without second thoughts - not okay. You just indirectly nerfed AC/10 for no reason.
About overall design: In a good shooter game weapons should feel different from each other. MWO is not quite there. I suggest you guys not only look for solutions how to fix current mess, but also explore ways how to improve design of a weapon/feature/mechanics.
Some of my thoughts:
1) Aren't you guys bored with how every laser feels the same? Point, burn, cooldown, repeat. Sure, damage, heat and stuff, they differ. But there are too many laser weapons for this to be enough. What if:
- Clan
Heavy lasers receive new gamemechanic, instead of being classic laser, described above, they would behave like Flamers - there is no cooldown, but there is ramp. Heavy lasers would be a constant beam (doing damage to a target, not heat), with reasonable heat per second. But when ramp is full, they start to make extra heat. Downsides of such weapon are clear, long burn and facetime (same as RAC, sort of) but Heavy lasers would make up for this with amounts of damage they can pump out, in time.
-
Pulse lasers. Not pulse enough. Reduce damage and heat, but also reduce cooldowns. So it would be rapid-firing energy weapon. Compensate increased facetime with lesser heat. I think it is more important than it seems - because longer cooldowns encourage peeking and hiding (i know, i know, laser vomit is capped by heatcapacity, not by cooldowns. But big cooldowns make alternatives for hiding less viable). I believe if we get more rapid-firing systems, with reasonable benefits in DPS, we would see much less of "Peeking man's puker".
2) AC vs UAC. Do you really think random jam is a good design? Especially when game tries to be some sort of skilled e-sport (which means no random chances)?
Why not make UACs slightly different, by removing jam and double-tap, but improving overall cooldown to squeeze more DPS? Also IS UAC/5 and /2 should ger burst fire. So in the end AC would have better range, heat and pinpoint, but UACs would have superior damage/DPS output.
Regarding clan ACs - reduce number of projectiles they shoot, to fit concept above. They still have better weights to compensate no-pinpoint.
3) LB-X cannons. Okay, we probably will never see ammo types. But what if make them sort of like clan ATMs - if targer is far, LB-X shoots a slug, if target is close, LB-X shoots a cluster shot. Both shots use same ammo (lets pretend difference is only in when projectile detonates, right after shot or on impact).
4) LRMs as weapon. In this type of game, hard counters are bad design. We have infamous "Feast or Famine". Yet LRM indirect fire is too annoying to get rid off hard counter. And honestly, weapon system hated both in low and hight tiers, even if for different reasons, is long overdue to design change.
I suggest to completely split direct and indirect LRM fire. If LRM shooter sees target, LRMs fly as they are now, but faster and at lower angle or without an angle. If line of sight is lost, lock is lost and missiles lose guidance, with ability to get back on track if line of sight is restored and lock is achieved in time.
If LRMs shoots indirectly, they shoot sort of like now, but at higher angle, and with much more spread, and lesser turning speeds. So it is more like a guided area bombardment, instead of full tracking. If lock is lost, missiles lose guidance, untill lock is restored or missiles hit something.
Direct and indirect fire are not interchangeable in the process. So if you want good LRM hit - pls stay and follow your target, and allow it to shoot you back. And if you making support fire from cover, it will never be that effective as direct fire, having much more spread and less missile manuverablity, so they are not doing full damage and are easy to dodge.
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UPD: Too complicated. I guess it would be better just to make lock-on times
for indirect fire longer, and missile spread larger, and missile turn speed slower
(for indirect fire all). Without changing core mechanic.
5) ECM. Since we normalized LRMs in previous suggestion, we can now normalize ECM.
ECM should no longer deny sensors. Instead of this it should deny targeting info and increase missile lock times. So if you have ECM-protected mech in your sensor range, you get your red marker for it. But you cannot see any info about it, not even pilot name. And missile lock on such targets is increased double or triple.
I know many people love this broken Jesus-field, but be honest with yourself, and let's fix it. Especially when LRMs are much lesser threat.
6) SHS v DHS. Reduce DHS heatcapacity to be qual to SHS, but cooling will still be better. And slightly reduce basic heatcapacity of mechs, if needed - compensate it with improved heatsink heatcapacity.
This way you can get an alternative - faster cooling with DHS, or more heatcapacity if boat SHS.
To have DHS as direct upgrade, it is weak design.
7) IS engines. Make IS XL suffer penalty on torso loss, but no death. Make LFE suffer no penalties on torso loss, and maybe moderate quirks for side torsos structure. Add to IS STD massive CT structure bonus, up to 100-150%.
P.S. I understand it would be more work (still reasonable amounts), but you can't make something good with minimum effort.
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Now onto other topics:
Skill tree:
Good intentions, but horrid design and flawed balance.
How to fix design, here are my suggestions :
main and
addition. Basicly, it's mostly structure and UI changes, reducing amount and grouping nodes into tier by tier system, instead of honeycomb maze.
As for balancing, comp guys are better suited to determine which values nodes should have, but here's some ideas:
Mobility branch and especially Jump Jets
should be scaled to benefit heavier classes, same as Survival branch is scaled to benefit lighter classes. Also Sensor branch can be scaled to benefit lighter classes (sort of thing infowarfare tried to achieve).
As for
Jump Jets - improve Forward vectoring. Especially for heavier classes, if you do not want poptarting assaults. So instead of poptarting big mechs could make fast forward jumps, closing to enemy/cover.
Mech quirks:
Scrap them all and rework from scratch:
1) read TROs and lore stuff. Assign each mech basic quirk to reflect its role/character. For example +X% range or mobility for Zeus, leg structure and JJ burn for Highlander, armour for Atlas, etc.
2) Evaluate each chassis. For each downside mech gets a quirk, to compensate weakness or to improve strong side. As downside you can count: bad hitboxes, huge one-dimentional volume, low hardpoint count, mixed hardpoint types, low hardpoint placement, crappy loaded omnies, and so on.
3) Assign each mech carefully thought quirks, in amounts they deserve. But no stupid quirks for specific weapons. Especially so stupid as with Thunderbolts (9S PPC, 5SS MPL) when quirked weapons have nothing to do with mech design, and are just a low-effort attempt to create
one viable loadout.
New player experience:
We can start with adding text into game. Weapon descriptions, mech descriptions. Battletech have many unintuitive stuff for newcomers.
Also, add
tips. Not on loading screens, but as overlay window in mechlab, where you can open it and read tips one by one.
And involve good players to write those tips. Without arrogance please.
Also, rebalance
PSR to not be biased on improving. This will also help players to stay in more appropriate tiers and face better matchmaking.
UPD: I forgot
Consumables:
Scrap them. Or at least incorporate into loadout system, when consumables would take weight and slots. Because consumables as they are have no trade-offs, they are "Always go to" instead of being an alternative or support.
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Thank you for your time
Edited by Sigmar Sich, 08 February 2018 - 10:28 AM.
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