40 replies to this topic

[Gagis]

Most mechs have been just fine after engine decoupling.

The exception to this has been timber wolf, night gyr and kodiak which had had agility nerfs or just plain low baseline agility values to counteract the extra agility given by their gargantuan engines. After the decoupling, they were left with just low baseline agility values and would have just needed to be brought in line with most other mechs to be fine.

Its totally off topic, but I'd totally pay extra to get a c-bill boosted version of my SHD-2D2.

Edited by Gagis, 19 April 2020 - 07:40 AM.

[Arugela]

Except that the agility was to give it specific abilities. It's not about making it in line. That is all nonesense. it has to do with the geometry and other subtle features of the mech to make it do certain things it needs to do. There may be other ways to fix those issues but it would probably involve the geometry and other more subtle parts of the mechs being mofidied. Either way those abilities need to stay in tact.

For instance my favorite direwolf build had it's exact twist ability to let it get both arms in the twist when doing a full left to right arm twist to add the arm's armor pool into the hp to balance out like how the damage distrubuted like the annihalator. Just not enough people ever learned this becuase they copy pasted from the internet instead of learning things themselves. It was a main feature of the mech. It needs it to tank properly and do what it is supposed to do for those who actually know how to use it. ON top of this the movement abilities need to be as they were because part of that was going backwards and forwards to keep the enemy in the correct distance while you pushed to reduce damage but get in hits. This varied per build. But it's the abilities before decoupling were exactly what they needed to be to play the mech correctly. You have to design the mechs right and keep them that way to people get to learn them.

And the cbill thing can only help the game. the main reason nobody knows the game is primarily that they restrict access and nobody gets to use enough of the mechs to learn the subtelties of the geometry and other things you only learn from using mech. They have the worst combo possibly. The game requires more use of vehicle than most games. But they drove it into a force people to buy at all cost method that messes up the games community development in game. They destroyed and went against the original design of the game and messed it up after the original developers left by the looks of it. If they are going to make duel paths they need to preserve the old one. And loosen the purse strings a little and actually develop a game and let people experience it fully so the game develops on the player level. That would fix most of the games problems until you get back to the bad design being added since the games inception. At which point they need to hire people who can do the work correctly and put those people in charge instead of continuing the let the game be run like an ATM machine for the game owner's and his buddies in the art department.

In case nobody knows, the Annihilator is the IS version of the Direwolf. But the annihilator is easier as it's designed around heavy long fire abilities(Where you have to aim longer. Although this is partially why the arms move sideways while the direwolf doesn't) and so it spreads the damage easier. The direwolf used to be the same but requires more time swinging back and forth to get the same results so you needed/wanted to potentially pick layouts with fast fire times. It's big belly gave it the ability to tank with a center mech tank where you swing left from center then right. This gives it quicker response times when returning fire to each out better return which was needed for it to get any fire off depending on the build. It also allows both arms for even bigger hp pools so it could tank longer. This is what makes the annihilator so strong. And from videos I've seen people still don't use it to it's full potentially and just lazily tank. The Direwolf could be played with tank first considerations and very strong alphas to kill or strip armor fast from large tank and allow allies to help while still essentially pushing. You would tank first then return fire between enemy shots, unless a really good opportunity presented itself and was a better option. It was a more patient tank if played right. But now it's basically useless as you can't rotate and move back and forth correctly because they didn't understand the mech.

I still think they should make the in game annie more like the picture and thin it out. It looks like it was meant for very aggressive turret like use in heavy return fire situations with the thin head and arms. If they shrunk it and the hit boxes it would be useful for what it should be and probably be a really good all rounder for all match types. You just need to fix the above problems with people getting to play out the different mechs so people learn the game and know how to counter more appropriately and stop complaining about things being op and know how the game works.

Basic jist of the annie vs direwolf is the direwolf had to twist farther to tank limiting return fire. This means it needed slightly faster turns to tank fully and be viable for it's designed rolls. The annie has to twist less to get everything in and should have thinner arms and head to allow more incoming fire with lesser twisting while exposed for long fire times. But this is partially made easier with builds that should emphasize main arm weapons with very thing arms to avoid arm hits and ranges and allow hits with just arm weapons in heavy return fire while the body twists a bit and potentially can't return fire. Direwolf has still up and down arms and wider twist to tank while annie has body twist with arm movements to return fire while tanking. Annie has better geometry to support fast or long spin up weapons and fire times. Direwolf was based on short quick fire times or lots of range to reduce fire and still better with quicker shots. Edit: Unless you weild some big things on the direwolf-A right arm potentially. I wonder if that was recently added or if it was always there.)

Edited by Arugela, 19 April 2020 - 11:24 AM.

[VonBruinwald]

Arugela, on 19 April 2020 - 11:00 AM, said:

In case nobody knows, the Annihilator is the IS version of the Direwolf. But the annihilator is easier as it's designed around heavy long fire abilities(Where you have to aim longer. Although this is partially why the arms move sideways while the direwolf doesn't) and so it spreads the damage easier.

Lack of arm swing is down to the nature of the Omnimech. Got nothing to do with the Annhi.

Sarna.net said:

While they can be considered structural components, the lower-arm and hand actuators are themselves Pod-mounted and easily removed to provide additional Pod Space in the arms. However, the mounting points for them in the arms are also utilized by larger bore weaponry such as Gauss Rifles, Autocannons, and PPCs, so the lower-arm and hand must be removed to carry these weapon types on OmniMech arms, hampering the close-combat abilities of these configurations.^[8]

Edit: Just checked: DWF-A Right arm can equip a lower actuator if you want that lateral swing.

Edited by VonBruinwald, 19 April 2020 - 12:13 PM.

[FRAGTAST1C]

Der Geisterbaer, on 19 April 2020 - 07:37 AM, said:

How confident are you that PGI would be able to properly implement such a +30% cap when implementing such cockpit items as MC purchasable store item vs. one store item that turns a whole mech into a [S*] variant?

Once you have given the answer there try to ask yourself this: What solution would PGI prefer there? The one that allows you to swap between mechs and thus is only required like once to possibly four times or a solution where you'd have to buy the upgrade for each mech individually?

Why do you consider that the cockpit item should be purchased with MC? It could be a webstore only item, like the $10 GSP bundle that gives you 200 GSP.

If there's no cap on how much C-bills one can earn from a match, why does it matter? Does it matter if the item turns one mech into a special one or if it can be swapped? How many copies of the same mech do you have? I'll tell you that I have multiple copies of the same Hero mechs. If I buy that item, I'd buy more, like the rest of community does.

I suggested that if it's too hard for PGI to turn a normal mech into a special one, then they could just make a cockpit item like the two that already exists but give them a bigger boost and sell as a new item. If they put a cap, fine. If not, even better. Can they code it? Ask them and ask them what method they'd prefer. I'm not taking any liberties to answer things for them. I'm just suggesting that they might make money IF THEY ACTUALLY SOLD WHAT THE COMMUNITY WANT TO BUY.

For e.g., last year, I bought mechs from every dropship sale. A couple of times, I bought twice from the same sale. This year, I didn't. Why? 'Cause I already had what I wanted. If I was to buy that again, they'd need to allow us to buy multiple copies from the same category and combine IS and Clan mechs. They didn't and I didn't spend money on it. I'm pretty sure most of the people didn't either. A few of us had suggested exactly what might make us buy the dropship sale. But they'd rather hope that something sells rather than guarantee sales by giving what the community want.

[VonBruinwald]

FRAGTAST1C, on 19 April 2020 - 07:43 PM, said:

Why do you consider that the cockpit item should be purchased with MC? It could be a webstore only item, like the $10 GSP bundle that gives you 200 GSP.

You can still get CBill/XP booster cockpit items when purchasing a couple of escalation packs:

https://www.mwomercs...-war-escalation

Selling them as a standalone for $20 a pop seems fair, same price to get an (S) variant but you get a lower bonus in exchange for being able to hot swap it between mechs.

[FRAGTAST1C]

VonBruinwald, on 20 April 2020 - 01:26 AM, said:

Selling them as a standalone for $20 a pop seems fair, same price to get an (S) variant but you get a lower bonus in exchange for being able to hot swap it between mechs.

Hmm.. I don't know if I want to spend 20 bucks on an item that gives only 5% boost, regardless of being able to swap it between mechs. I'd pay $15 for a 20% boost, however, instead of 30%.

[Sniper09121986]

FRAGTAST1C, on 20 April 2020 - 07:35 AM, said:

Hmm.. I don't know if I want to spend 20 bucks on an item that gives only 5% boost, regardless of being able to swap it between mechs. I'd pay $15 for a 20% boost, however, instead of 30%.

Now just let me get this straight. You would pay a retail price of a perfectly fine game for an in-game trinket?

Two bucks. I am feeling generous.

[Battlemaster56]

Gagis, on 19 April 2020 - 07:37 AM, said:

Most mechs have been just fine after engine decoupling.

The exception to this has been timber wolf, night gyr and kodiak which had had agility nerfs or just plain low baseline agility values to counteract the extra agility given by their gargantuan engines. After the decoupling, they were left with just low baseline agility values and would have just needed to be brought in line with most other mechs to be fine.

Its totally off topic, but I'd totally pay extra to get a c-bill boosted version of my SHD-2D2.

WarhammerIIC got shafted when released, just because it a laser vomit mech mostly.

[letir]

Gagis, on 19 April 2020 - 07:37 AM, said:

Most mechs have been just fine after engine decoupling.

The exception to this has been timber wolf, night gyr and kodiak which had had agility nerfs or just plain low baseline agility values to counteract the extra agility given by their gargantuan engines. After the decoupling, they were left with just low baseline agility values and would have just needed to be brought in line with most other mechs to be fine.

The problem is that many "others" including IS 75-tonners, who for some reason have better agility than clan 60-65 tonners, and some durability quirks just for good measure.

So if PGI simply buff Timberwolf agility, it will simply blew Ebon Jaguar out of the water as "main clan heavy", but still be incapable properly contest IS mechs in agility department.

[Sniper09121986]

letir, on 20 April 2020 - 08:42 AM, said:

The problem is that many "others" including IS 75-tonners, who for some reason have better agility than clan 60-65 tonners, and some durability quirks just for good measure.

So if PGI simply buff Timberwolf agility, it will simply blew Ebon Jaguar out of the water as "main clan heavy", but still be incapable properly contest IS mechs in agility department.

I say Orion-IIC is more popular than Jag or Wolf, but at least the Jag has high mounts going for it. Timby, on the other hand, is totally screwed compared to what it was. It is worse at damage twisting due to hitboxes, it has as much as three high non-missile mounts and then it even cannot torso-twist that well. At least it can pack a lot of energy hardpoints.

[Der Geisterbaer]

FRAGTAST1C said:

Why do you consider that the cockpit item should be purchased with MC?

Where did I say that an MC version was the only option? Instead of ...

FRAGTAST1C said:

It could be a webstore only item, like the $10 GSP bundle that gives you 200 GSP.

... trying to nitpick a tangent aspect you might want to deal with the content of the actual questions that I gave you.
So let me repeat that for you:
Why is it that you think that PGI might have trouble to create copies of database entries for existing mechs unter the [S] moniker wherein the +% C-Bill setting is set while similarly believing that they can recreate database entries for certain cockpit items with the added limitation that their bonus is programmatically limited to a defined upper value in order to avoid granting C-Bill gains that could be deemed "excessive" when used in mechs that already come with such +% C-Bill bonus?

FRAGTAST1C said:

If there's no cap on how much C-bills one can earn from a match, why does it matter?

The question still is: Should it matter? Is there a chance that a + 60% C-Bill bonus pior to premium time or event based bonuses might be deemed "excessive"

FRAGTAST1C said:

Does it matter if the item turns one mech into a special one or if it can be swapped?

The answer to that is related to the second question I had for you: What's more desirable for PGI? A pair of cockpit items that you buy once (up to a maximum of four for FW games) and then simply swap between all your mechs or an item that essentially converts one single mech into a [S] variant of itself?

FRAGTAST1C said:

How many copies of the same mech do you have? I'll tell you that I have multiple copies of the same Hero mechs. If I buy that item, I'd buy more, like the rest of community does.

While there certainly are people who might buy the cockpit items multiple times for convenience reasons that's ultimately just one hypothetical against another. Now try to convince me (or rather PGI) that their overall sales of such cockpit items would be higher than selling items that strictly cause a by mech conversion. All that under the stipulation that they even consider going through the required implementation expenditures at this stage of the game's life-cycle.

FRAGTAST1C said:

I suggested that if it's too hard for PGI to turn a normal mech into a special one, then they could just make a cockpit item like the two that already exists but give them a bigger boost and sell as a new item.

Which brings me back to the original question: Why to you think that the former might be "too hard" while the latter ...

FRAGTAST1C said:

If they put a cap, fine.

... isn't in case of also implementing such a cap?

FRAGTAST1C said:

Can they code it? Ask them and ask them what method they'd prefer. I'm not taking any liberties to answer things for them.

Yet you already expressed your concern that they can't "code" the one thing but the other

FRAGTAST1C said:

I'm just suggesting that they might make money IF THEY ACTUALLY SOLD WHAT THE COMMUNITY WANT TO BUY.

And I'm trying to tell you that their decision of actually trying to sell something like that hinges on the expected income vs. the necessary expenditures after evaluating game impact and with a general favoring of a solution that actually maximizes income.

FRAGTAST1C said:

For e.g., last year, I bought mechs from every dropship sale. A couple of times, I bought twice from the same sale. This year, I didn't. Why? 'Cause I already had what I wanted. If I was to buy that again, they'd need to allow us to buy multiple copies from the same category and combine IS and Clan mechs. They didn't and I didn't spend money on it. I'm pretty sure most of the people didn't either. A few of us had suggested exactly what might make us buy the dropship sale. But they'd rather hope that something sells rather than guarantee sales by giving what the community want.

Nice to know but yet again unrelated.

But may I suggest that we leave this be at this point?
This quite obviously isn't leading anywhere productive from here on out.

[FRAGTAST1C]

Sniper09121986, on 20 April 2020 - 07:57 AM, said:

Now just let me get this straight. You would pay a retail price of a perfectly fine game for an in-game trinket?

Two bucks. I am feeling generous.

Do you buy Hero mechs or not? What's the benefit of a Hero mech other than the mech itself? C-bill bonus. So, yeah. I'd pay 15 bucks for an "in-game trinket" that can be used any number of times. They can even put that on sale.

Der Geisterbaer, on 20 April 2020 - 09:27 AM, said:

*load of unnecessary words*

Nice to know but yet again unrelated.

But may I suggest that we leave this be at this point?
This quite obviously isn't leading anywhere productive from here on out.

My response was to someone else who wanted to know about the limit of the bonus and converting the mechs itself into Special or having cockpit items. If you have questions, address it directly to PGI. Don't pull them out of wherever it is you're pulling from to start a discussion that goes around in circles.

Just to give you some food for thought, really consider my last paragraph from my previous post about the dropship sale and wonder what'd have been better for PGI... making sure everyone had a reason to buy a dropship pack or entice a handful who "might" consider spending money? Then worry about the evaluation of the game's impact on customers with money to spend and also, how they managed to setup a pipeline that needs 250k to create a map for the players to enjoy.

[VonBruinwald]

FRAGTAST1C, on 20 April 2020 - 09:55 AM, said:

Do you buy Hero mechs or not? What's the benefit of a Hero mech other than the mech itself? C-bill bonus.

You're forgetting unique hardpoints and paint schemes (and omni podz for da' klanz).

Some of us are collectors, if you truly love a particular chassis you need to have at least one of every variant.

That reminds me, I need another Urbie....

[FRAGTAST1C]

VonBruinwald, on 21 April 2020 - 04:24 AM, said:

You're forgetting unique hardpoints and paint schemes (and omni podz for da' klanz).

Yeah, when I said "... the mech itself", I meant everything about it i.e., the hardpoints, omnipods (where applicable) and even warhorns/bolt-ons. The thing is, there aren't a lot of mech chassis that have good Hero mechs.

[grimbane88k]

YES it was a mistake to remove coupling

[n00biwan]

Yeah, I'd agree that the decouple was handled badly (like, it needed looking at, probably, but was dealt with to heavy-handedly and unevenly effected different chassis).

As a f2player (mostly) I wouldn't see it as pay to win if there was some kind of way of buying hero status for a favoured mech. whatever the mechanism.

I'd prefer something like a "You're my hero" standing item that costs like 1k mc and just gives the cbill bonus over a one time, "buy this thing and convert your mech to an (S)" cash store purchase (would need to find a new letter though). Then f2players can access them and it's not even ptw any more... I mean, it's still just more pay to skip grind either way.

To be honest, I feel like payouts are too low for the current cbill economy anyway.... the drain of buy/refit/skill is far higher than it has been in the past.

E- Since the cbill hanging medals exist, a cbill boosting standing item should be easier to add for them, right? If you want to get behind the idea, make it easy for them.

Edited by n00biwan, 21 April 2020 - 09:07 AM.

[Arugela]

One thing they could do is simply use a toggle for coupled engine and have it disable the tech tree altogether and make it bring back the old layout screens from before the decoupling while using a coupled engine. Then they could reuse old code if it's still around and have two modes. Tech tree is decoupled and coupled is the old system where you buy modules.

Then we could play which version we like and have the old mech designs back. So, why not the best of both worlds? Has the game caught up to the performance and other issues that made the decoupling?

Edited by Arugela, 22 April 2020 - 08:29 PM.

[Ignatius Audene]

And why should anyone play this? This idea is so bad, that not even pgi would come up with it.

[Teenage Mutant Ninja Urbie]

Ignatius Audene, on 25 April 2020 - 11:09 AM, said:

And why should anyone play this? This idea is so bad, that not even pgi would come up with it.

Somehow, I have the feeling that if Russ B. ever reads that, there'll be a "hold my beer" thing going on.

[Arugela]

I had another idea. What if the agility tree had the bonuses scale per mech to the original values. Then you could pick between setups. All I want is to be able to play my mech how I used to. Then you get versatility and you can customize with more stuff depending on the engine layouts. In fact what if the bonus scaled with the engine. This could reproduce the coupled engine if you chose to go deep into agility. The exact stats could even be unique per mech if needed.

Say torso twist and anchor give bonuses that max out at the old values or +1 the old values if other parts of the game increased(big if.). I would gladly go into the agility tree to get those old abilities back.

It's technically a simple adjustment and can be done per mech or automated per engine. Just adjust a value in the skill tree.

This would also give back more uniqueness per mech and more variation than even previously.

I like options more than not. I can personally do more with agility than armor(if the values so permit.). I would prefer to pick and have the appropriate values to do so. Solves a lot of problems.

I want my direwolf to be scary and effective again.

To counter this maybe they could add another tree that helps make you aim better. Although laser duration sort of accomplishes the same as does missile spread reduction. Unless it's not past the old bonuses.

Despite what people like to believe this game was not made for mechs to just hide behind hills and trade blows. This type of change would allow proper mechs to push again and not have everything in the game relegated to a peaking mech. This game is a mess as is. And it's easily fixable. There are also brawlers in the game and this completely removed them from the game just so people could stand farther back and hide behind cover all day and trade blows. I'm sorry, but there was more to the game than this once. Even if very few people figured out how to. There is no excuse for these changes. A simple design change to allow the same bonuses in the new system would fix everything and diversify mechs again.

I would really like my game back. I used to really enjoy it.

BTW, the old tanking style I used to use was fun because it allowed effective damage spreading and spent time so the heat could dissipate. Allowing for good hard hits between torso twisting. It made for a really good push tank(as opposed to a fully weapons focused build). I could push and mechs would actually follow because they knew I could take the damage from the enemy.

IE push tanks are dead atm and everyone is playing like world of tanks and hiding behind the nearest mountains. There is no longer an option to do otherwise because the changes literally made it impossible and removed the diversity from the game because FP players know nothing besides peaking.

This is annoying for me because I loved pushing. My entire playstyle was pushing. I don't know how they justified removing this. It makes no sense. It doesn't hurt FP for it to be in the rest of the games. And it could be used in FP with good pushers. But you had to learn to do a few tricks to maximize tanking. It was very skill base also. But it was only possible because of the old agility stats. This game was so fun too... 8( (I haven't been able to enjoy it sense decoupling.)

Editx: You could also have coupled engine with agility bonus tied to engine and drop down the mech to something like 45-51 points or less and the ability to pick stuff +1 spaces away while in decoupled mode. This could allow you to pick the first point and then pick every other away if desired or skip the first skill and pick the second and go every two. They could also open up the old item slot choices from pre coupling with this to add to the current builds again allowing for different choices on select mechs. Or add them in general and maybe take away options from some mechs for balance. Either way more choices.

Example: https://kitlaan.gitl...ch%20Operations

0 points to spare if using a 51 point system.

On top of this you could add free points anywhere in the skill tree. Either to give, "mandatory training points," and/or give access in the middle of the tree to start descending from a different location to give access to more diverse builds. Free points could be unique per mech and add to the total point effectively or even take from the available points. This could be used to balance potential mech layouts.

Edited by Arugela, 05 May 2020 - 09:06 PM.