127 replies to this topic

[C337Skymaster]

BoldricKent, on 02 July 2018 - 02:26 AM, said:

Chain fire wouldnt reduce TTK by much, you can still hit same component with it, if you arent standing still.... but stagger fire is actually most common in Battletech, since most of chassis cant do alphas well and getting shutdown is far more risky then in MWO. Overlapping weapons with multiple systems is norm, boating of weapons not so much-its more of shooters domain.

To some degree, yes, but consider this: Say it takes you 200 ms to release a mouse button and click it again. Say also that it takes the weapon you're firing 600 ms to fully discharge (IS LPL, for example). If you're firing three of those, then you've effectively increased your duration by 400 ms. Now take into account the slight movement that you impart on your mouse by clicking the button repeatedly. At max range, that slight twitch can mean the difference between a CT hit and a side-torso hit, depending on the 'mech you're shooting at. Maybe desktop rigs with 40" monitors allow for more precise aiming. I play on a 17" laptop, and that finite movement messes with my aim every single time.

[YueFei]

MischiefSC, on 01 July 2018 - 11:48 PM, said:

TTK is better looked at as 'how long to remove you from the match'. MWO is different from the majority of games in that not only do you die and get permanently removed from the match but you can be crippled and have no way to heal or recover. This makes for a far less forgiving environment than 99% of shooters out there.

I get people wanting to feel like the shots they land are telling - however in most 1 hit 1 kill games they are even less so as killing someone changes nothing - they'll be back in full health with a new weapon in a few seconds. What is important though is that ranged trading, suppression, lane control and all that stuff needs to still be effective and even dominant in a skilled v skilled team engagement.

It also needs to be fun. Currently it's not as fun - clumsy, awkward to play. Needs to be a bit faster and responsive.

Counterstrike is similar in that you can't recover health and dying means you're out of a "match" (a round). But this is mitigated by the fact that you get follow-up rounds quickly, and each one lasts under 3 minutes. So even if you got picked off early in the match, you'll wait around a couple minutes at the most before you get a chance to try again.

There's no healthy way to alter MWO game mechanics to the point where someone making a grave error can survive for any meaningful amount of time. I do decently on average, but even I throw up stinking performances every now and then, and when I screw up massively I manage to get off maybe 3 shots and I die in about 10 seconds with <100 damage. As it should be.

I don't want to alter the current Quickplay mode, or any of the existing game modes of MWO. But maybe it's useful to add a new mode. Not only will casual players not mind getting fragged quickly, they'll get a much higher volume of practice compared to what they'd get in the normal Quickplay modes. Instead of queuing up and waiting a couple minutes for a match, then waiting a couple more for everything to ready up, then dropping, then a couple more minutes marching into position... 6+ minutes of time invested, only to screw up and get exploded in 15 seconds. That's not a good ratio of action-to-wait-time, that's like a 1:24 ratio of action:wait-time. You could play like this for 4 hours and you'll have had 10 minutes of actual action.

But if you can explode and then 10 seconds later you're respawned and seconds later you're back in the fight, dying quickly doesn't seem so bad. And you're getting a much higher volume of practice in. Play like this for 4 hours, and even if you're exploding within 15 seconds of getting back into the fight, and waiting 30 seconds to respawn and march back into action, you'll have been able to shoot robots for nearly 1.5 hours.

Anyways, the old Mechwarrior games had modes like this, with respawns. Yes, it's less deliberate, it's less mindful, but it is fun in its own way and would provide a fun environment for both newbies and casual players.

If we had that kind of mode, all of a sudden TTK wouldn't seem like such a pressing issue.

The only problem is, I don't know if the player population is big enough to support yet another mode. On the other hand, PGI invested all that time and resources into making Solaris 7, only to have that action dry up quickly. This new mode might just bring in a fresh crowd and retain it, enlarging the player pool from which the other game modes could eventually draw from.

[BoldricKent]

C377Skymaster : fair point, depends on your gaming setup, but we already have chain fire mode in the game, that doesnt require
lifting your finger from fire button and since lasers are only scan hit weapons, i still think overall accurateness wont take a huge dump. Many players use macro programs to ensure better aim, either avoiding heat penalty, delaying fire for better aim.. etc..
Either way, i dont think TTK would suffer much from chain fire, the only real exception could be HLL(long duration).

[Cloves]

YueFei, on 02 July 2018 - 10:54 PM, said:

Counterstrike is similar in that you can't recover health and dying means you're out of a &quot;match&quot; (a round). But this is mitigated by the fact that you get follow-up rounds quickly, and each one lasts under 3 minutes. So even if you got picked off early in the match, you'll wait around a couple minutes at the most before you get a chance to try again.

There's no healthy way to alter MWO game mechanics to the point where someone making a grave error can survive for any meaningful amount of time. I do decently on average, but even I throw up stinking performances every now and then, and when I screw up massively I manage to get off maybe 3 shots and I die in about 10 seconds with &lt;100 damage. As it should be.

I don't want to alter the current Quickplay mode, or any of the existing game modes of MWO. But maybe it's useful to add a new mode. Not only will casual players not mind getting fragged quickly, they'll get a much higher volume of practice compared to what they'd get in the normal Quickplay modes. Instead of queuing up and waiting a couple minutes for a match, then waiting a couple more for everything to ready up, then dropping, then a couple more minutes marching into position... 6+ minutes of time invested, only to screw up and get exploded in 15 seconds. That's not a good ratio of action-to-wait-time, that's like a 1:24 ratio of action:wait-time. You could play like this for 4 hours and you'll have had 10 minutes of actual action.

But if you can explode and then 10 seconds later you're respawned and seconds later you're back in the fight, dying quickly doesn't seem so bad. And you're getting a much higher volume of practice in. Play like this for 4 hours, and even if you're exploding within 15 seconds of getting back into the fight, and waiting 30 seconds to respawn and march back into action, you'll have been able to shoot robots for nearly 1.5 hours.

Anyways, the old Mechwarrior games had modes like this, with respawns. Yes, it's less deliberate, it's less mindful, but it is fun in its own way and would provide a fun environment for both newbies and casual players.

If we had that kind of mode, all of a sudden TTK wouldn't seem like such a pressing issue.

The only problem is, I don't know if the player population is big enough to support yet another mode. On the other hand, PGI invested all that time and resources into making Solaris 7, only to have that action dry up quickly. This new mode might just bring in a fresh crowd and retain it, enlarging the player pool from which the other game modes could eventually draw from.

You bring up the number one issue with player retention. Action vs wait time. That alone is what killed Solaris. 6+ minutes in the que, a minute to ready, a minute of elevator and announcer, less than two minutes of play. This is why solo que is the most popular mode. Folks will tolerate failure and death, what they will not tolerate are mostly wait screens.

[MTier Slayed Up]

What really killed Solaris for most people were certain mechs being spammed in every division. 1 and i believe 2 were plagued by Annihilators. Got old after a week of it.
Along with little rewards for winning, no FFA, etc, it was doomed on release.

Que time was short at least.

[Cloves]

DrtyDshSoap, on 03 July 2018 - 08:54 AM, said:

What really killed Solaris for most people were certain mechs being spammed in every division. 1 and i believe 2 were plagued by Annihilators. Got old after a week of it.
Along with little rewards for winning, no FFA, etc, it was doomed on release.

Que time was short at least.

. Hmm, I tried it after the initial rush, and prefer lighter mechs in general. I am aware of that issue, but any 1v1 will hit the meta solution quickly, nothing they could do about that unless they changed habits borne of years. I would not want them to balance the game around 1 v 1 anyway.

[Grus]

DrtyDshSoap, on 03 July 2018 - 08:54 AM, said:

What really killed Solaris for most people were certain mechs being spammed in every division. 1 and i believe 2 were plagued by Annihilators. Got old after a week of it.
Along with little rewards for winning, no FFA, etc, it was doomed on release.

Que time was short at least.

Yeah it got old killing them in my piranha.

[MischiefSC]

I'm not sure respawns are a good solution but I admit I don't know what is.

You've got some very different interests you're trying to meet in MWO -

Casuals who just want to stomp around in robbits and blow stuff up. I honestly expect a lot of them to go to MW5 - that was always a better concept for many, PvE, just do what you want and still win anyway.

Casual PvP players who want the PvP and want to 'git gud' but just don't have the time/energy/interest to go competitive. That's probably the bulk of MWOs population.

Competitive players who want maximum challenge, maximum risk/reward format and possibly a slew of balance stuff that isn't that fun for everyone else (like poptarting).

Lorehounds who want a more RP-ish experience. Given that they are universally NOT the 'skill/competitive' players they're also going to end up in the MW5 population.

What that means is the bulk of the people playing the game don't even understand the basis of game balance and gameplay experience and just know they want to win more often by doing what they're already doing and so they recommend terrible balance ideas that even they would hate if it happened. We have too little space between player skill groups creating not a skill curve but a skill cliff which creates a huge difference between expectations of players of what a game should play like.

I wonder if you could have a 'competitive/ladder' gamemode with different weapon/tech balances? We have that with Flamers for Solaris VII. A much, much lower TTK environment with ladder rankings but not the long wait, badly balanced environment of Solaris VII but say an 8 v 8 team (even with 'pugging') setting. Maybe even all Conquest.

I dunno.