18 replies to this topic

[FSjdsa]

Bushwacker quirks make no sense. Take the P1 for example. 1 energy hardpoint, 1 ballistic hardpoint, 6 missile hardpoints. Must get a missile bonus, right? Nope, ballistic and energy. Okay, what about the S2? It has 4 missile hardpoints, 2 energy hardpoints and 1 ballistic hardpoint. It's got to have a missile bonus, right? Or at least energy? Nope, ballistic again. What about the P2? 4 energy, 2 ballistic, 2 missile. I'm starting to sense a pattern. I'm guessing it doesn't have energy quirks? Close! +20% for machine guns, but only +5% for energy. Whose idea was it to give these things quirks that don't apply to a large majority of their hardpoints? WTF?!

Edited by Plaid Ninja, 21 February 2018 - 08:39 PM.

[InvictusLee]

They want to encourage non-meta builds such as something that isnt 100% SRMS.

[Dee Eight]

They've also for over a year now been trying to only quirk the smaller hardpoint type # counts, if it gets a weapon quirk at all.

[Khobai]

they dont need to give it missile quirks, youre already going to use missiles on it even without missile quirks

they gave it E and B quirks so you use E and B on it

[N0ni]

It's to encourage use of the lesser hardpoints (and it's based around stock loadouts). Choice is yours whether you take advantage of those or ignore it. Taking the P1, would you even consider using that 1B or 1E for something without quirks? Probably not. So they gave a little incentive.

[Wintersdark]

The posts here are correct.

The reason why PGI is taking this route however is less fluffy, and more practical.

When you buff a hardpoint type on a mech with 6x of that hardpoint, it's very difficult to control the value of that quirk. A 10% cooldown quirk on the missile hardpoint would be a major buff to the mech, affecting 6 weapons. But it means the mech gains more, the more you pile on to that hardpoint type - a Bushwacker with 6xSRM launchers would gain a lot more from that than a Bushwacker with 3xSRM launchers, obviously, and you have to balance around the worst case scenario. This essentially forces all Bushwackers to be SRM boats, and unfairly penalizes Bushwackers that aren't running all six.

On the other hand, buff the E or B hardpoint, and the gain from that buff is less, while the max gain a builder can get out of it is simply from that one weapon. This makes the loss if you don't use the weapon type at all much less, and it also means that finding a way to utilize that buff fully is a lot easier - you don't need to invest a heck of a lot to get a single E weapon, for example.



Consider ERPPC's. When you reduce the heat generation of ERPPC's by 30%, a mech with a single E hardpoint gains a solid, but not ridiculous advantage. A mech with 3E however can mount 3 of them, and basically get a "free" erppc shot every cycle - an enormously powerful advantage. Thus, you need to balance that mech around 3xERPPC's, which really sucks if someone is building that mech and DOESN'T want to run 3xERPPC's, as it's going to suck otherwise.

[Humpday]

Can you imagine being a developer for this game? You'd lose your mind.
No wonder BT is so pathetic.

ITS YOU.

Edited by Humpday, 21 February 2018 - 09:18 PM.

[ramp4ge]

The Linebacker's the same way. The only variant that gets any decent missile characteristics is the D-model, and only if you run the set of 8 omnipods. And even if you do that, the only quirk you get that favors missiles is a 5% SSRM cooldown.

It's seriously retraded and it makes no sense. Why wouldn't you actually give quirks that are relevant to the default omnipod layout of the mech?

The LBK-PRIME gets a -10% missile cooldown but you only get 1 hardpoint in each torso instead of 2 hardpoints in each arm like the D-model. And again, you only get the quirk if you run the full set of 8.

Some mechs get amazing synergy with their quirks. Like the Orion V. But some just make absolutely no sense.

[Yosharian]

Plaid Ninja, on 21 February 2018 - 08:15 PM, said:

Bushwacker quirks make no sense. Take the P1 for example. 1 energy hardpoint, 1 ballistic hardpoint, 6 missile hardpoints. Must get a missile bonus, right? Nope, ballistic and energy. Okay, what about the S2? It has 4 missile hardpoints, 2 energy hardpoints and 1 ballistic hardpoint. It's got to have a missile bonus, right? Or at least energy? Nope, ballistic again. What about the P2? 4 energy, 2 ballistic, 2 missile. I'm starting to sense a pattern. I'm guessing it doesn't have energy quirks? Close! +20% for machine guns, but only +5% for energy. Whose idea was it to give these things quirks that don't apply to a large majority of their hardpoints? WTF?!

Those quirks are meant to shore up deficiencies in those areas.

For example, a mech with only one missile hardpoint can only bring one missile weapon, which isn't very meta. So if that one missile weapon has a great quirk attached to it, it might be worth bringing along after all. (it won't be, but that's the idea behind the quirk)

The quirks are meant to boost the mech's weaknesses, not take the mech's strengths (which by definition don't need a boost) and make them even stronger.

[ramp4ge]

Sometimes they do boost the strengths. The ON1-V, for example. It got quirks for armor (It now has assault-levels of armor with nodes), 20% ballistic cooldown, -30% UAC jam chance and a 15% missile cooldown.

The quirks made it ridiculously tanky with hilarious firepower and the LFEs get it up there north of 60kph. It's such a fun 'mech now, because the quirks not only band-aided weaknesses to the extreme, they turned weaknesses into strengths and then buffed strengths too.

It literally is a mini Atlas now.

[FSjdsa]

I didn't think about it that way. Thanks for the explanation. It makes a lot more sense now.

[Khobai]

Quote

When you buff a hardpoint type on a mech with 6x of that hardpoint, it's very difficult to control the value of that quirk. A 10% cooldown quirk on the missile hardpoint would be a major buff to the mech, affecting 6 weapons. But it means the mech gains more, the more you pile on to that hardpoint type - a Bushwacker with 6xSRM launchers would gain a lot more from that than a Bushwacker with 3xSRM launchers, obviously, and you have to balance around the worst case scenario. This essentially forces all Bushwackers to be SRM boats, and unfairly penalizes Bushwackers that aren't running all six.

it actually isnt that hard, they couldve just divided the quirk % by the number of hardpoints.

for example:

1 missile hardpoint = 25% missile cooldown
2 missile hardpoints = 12.5% missile cooldown
3 missile hardpoints = 8.33% missile cooldown
5 missile hardpoints = 5% missile cooldown

[Bud Crue]

I don’t recall the podcast but Chris and/or Paul have commented on what the OP is observing, and the schema wherein they give quirks to secondary weapons over the primary is intentional. Quirks to the predominant system not only encourage power creep (in Chris and Pauls eyes) but also tend to force the player into only a couple of optimized builds.

The idea of the rule of 8 quirks was also addressed by Chris. He doesn’t see the rule of 8 quirks in the same light as other quirks because they are tied to omnipods that demand a mixed or less than optimum load out. By encouraging builds that don’t just boat a single weapons the rule of 8 quirks are viewed as increasing player choice and diversity.

[Bohxim]

Unfortunately the bushie x1 still retained nice ballistic quirks on top of having 3 hard points across 3 diff components which lends it some very nice options.
Guess if someone wants to min max, they can min max anything

[Water Bear]

Plaid Ninja, on 21 February 2018 - 08:15 PM, said:

Bushwacker quirks make no sense. Take the P1 for example. 1 energy hardpoint, 1 ballistic hardpoint, 6 missile hardpoints. Must get a missile bonus, right? Nope, ballistic and energy. Okay, what about the S2? It has 4 missile hardpoints, 2 energy hardpoints and 1 ballistic hardpoint. It's got to have a missile bonus, right? Or at least energy? Nope, ballistic again. What about the P2? 4 energy, 2 ballistic, 2 missile. I'm starting to sense a pattern. I'm guessing it doesn't have energy quirks? Close! +20% for machine guns, but only +5% for energy. Whose idea was it to give these things quirks that don't apply to a large majority of their hardpoints? WTF?!

There's basically two kinds of quirks. Type 1 is when a 'mech chassis has severe flaws and they want to make it more powerful, so they buff its main weapon systems.

The Bushwhacker is a type 2 situation. Because it only has 1E 1B on the P1, they realize that any build that actually uses those hardpoints will be worse than a straight missile build, so they buffed E and B weapons. If you go straight missile, however, it's one of the best medium mech chassis for that in the inner sphere, so it definitely doesn't need missile buffs.

Edited by Water Bear, 22 February 2018 - 05:48 AM.

[JC Daxion]

Plaid Ninja, on 21 February 2018 - 08:15 PM, said:

Bushwacker quirks make no sense. Take the P1 for example. 1 energy hardpoint, 1 ballistic hardpoint, 6 missile hardpoints. Must get a missile bonus, right? Nope, ballistic and energy. Okay, what about the S2? It has 4 missile hardpoints, 2 energy hardpoints and 1 ballistic hardpoint. It's got to have a missile bonus, right? Or at least energy? Nope, ballistic again. What about the P2? 4 energy, 2 ballistic, 2 missile. I'm starting to sense a pattern. I'm guessing it doesn't have energy quirks? Close! +20% for machine guns, but only +5% for energy. Whose idea was it to give these things quirks that don't apply to a large majority of their hardpoints? WTF?!

No, what would make Zero since is giving one of the best missile boats in the game missile quirks! The whole point of quirks is to Make under performing mechs good,, Or make underused weapons on a mech work better and that is exactly what the bushwacker quirks do..


adding missile quirks to those mechs would just be power creep.

[PocketYoda]

PGI is trolling you op.

[Alkabides]

I think you missed the quirk that they crush all clan mechs who are the same tonnage and below.

[MechaBattler]

It doesn't need it. Unlike say the Uziel. Which could use quirks tailored to it's strong points. Not surprisingly though it's best variant is the 6 energy variant with 10% cooldown to energy points. PGI knew what they were doing putting it in the reinforcements.

Edited by MechaBattler, 22 February 2018 - 12:13 PM.