21 replies to this topic

[XX Sulla XX]

The idea is to take the best of engine desync and the best of the original system where engine size is tide to agility. The best part of engine desync from a player stand point was increased viability of smaller engines. The down side was no reward besides speed and heat sinks for large amount of tonnage you give up for larger engines. Another downside was less freedom for players when building mechs since most larger engines just were not worth the tonnage.

The idea is to a system that keeps the current agility of small engines but then slowly increase agility as you move to larger and larger engines. We want to have better rewards for going with large/huge engines and much the lower fire power that comes with them.

- So why should we make this change? It will I believe make the game more fun.

- Yes base agility on many mechs still will need to be adjusted.

- Yes it will mean more work for PGI.

- The only downside I see is the time it will take to get everything adjusted correctly.

- And yes I am sure other people besides myself have suggested this before.

[Y E O N N E]

Is the definition of "big" a constant that applies to all 'Mechs, or is "big" relative to the specific 'Mech's tonnage?

[XX Sulla XX]

Miss Greene, on 31 October 2020 - 01:16 PM, said:

Is the definition of "big" a constant that applies to all 'Mechs, or is "big" relative to the specific 'Mech's tonnage?

Well since there is such a wide variety of mechs I was trying to be a bit vague. Really the idea is to tune each mech/chassis and probably around optimum engine size. That is mechs tend to have an optimum engine size. But as you increase size beyond that point you are just loosing fire power in favor if speed at a rate that does not make any sense. But if you have a well balanced boost to agility on the upper end along with the speed and heat sinks you have a more rational reason to take the much larger engines some times.

Many mechs are designed with a very large engine cap as part of what makes it special. And over all you just want to add back in more choice of agility on the upper end of engine size. So players can make the choice between some more agility at the expense of some fire power.

But as stated above I want to keep the changes that made smaller engines for viable.

[LordNothing]

so you want your assaults to turn faster. perhaps the assault is the wrong class for you.

the only real problem with the system currently in place is that i have less incentive to use isxl on bigger mechs. the days of xl400 assault rushes is over. perhaps an intrinsic agility boost on isxl is in order. lfe and cxl dont really need one.

Edited by LordNothing, 31 October 2020 - 02:11 PM.

[thievingmagpi]

I don't care much about desync.

A properly monitored and regularly series of xml passes is a better solution imho. Devs who actually played their game or even understood their game (or at the very least, listened to people who do) would/could easily adjust such things on the fly, we'd see underutilized mechs brought out more and even some semblance of "rolling META changes".

But well... lol

Edited by thievingmagpi, 31 October 2020 - 02:38 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

XX Sulla XX, on 31 October 2020 - 01:33 PM, said:

Well since there is such a wide variety of mechs I was trying to be a bit vague. Really the idea is to tune each mech/chassis and probably around optimum engine size. That is mechs tend to have an optimum engine size. But as you increase size beyond that point you are just loosing fire power in favor if speed at a rate that does not make any sense. But if you have a well balanced boost to agility on the upper end along with the speed and heat sinks you have a more rational reason to take the much larger engines some times.

Many mechs are designed with a very large engine cap as part of what makes it special. And over all you just want to add back in more choice of agility on the upper end of engine size. So players can make the choice between some more agility at the expense of some fire power.

But as stated above I want to keep the changes that made smaller engines for viable.

I understood all of that, but you have to decide which stats are 'Mech-specific and which ones are universal simply for organizing your code, and that will have knock-on effects. There is also something to be said for behavioral consistency, so players don't have to remember extremely granular minutia about every single variant in the game.

Ergo, you really need to decide from the start if the scalar that modifies your base stats is a constant for each engine size or if it's dynamically adjusted based on the proportion of the total 'Mech tonnage that the engine occupies and whatever other stats you want. It is not practical to hard-code behavioral characteristics for tens of thousands of variant+engine combinations.

[The6thMessenger]

XX Sulla XX, on 31 October 2020 - 12:41 PM, said:

The idea is to take the best of engine desync and the best of the original system where engine size is tide to agility. The best part of engine desync from a player stand point was increased viability of smaller engines.

...

The idea is to a system that keeps the current agility of small engines but then slowly increase agility as you move to larger and larger engines.

So it's like the original system, but uses a different baseline?

Why is this needed though? You could just put every mech at their pre-desync maximum agility value. I see no point in tying the agility with the engine at all.

[The pessimistic optimist]

This would be a indirect nerf to some weapons

Edited by SirSmokes, 31 October 2020 - 03:31 PM.

[XX Sulla XX]

Miss Greene, on 31 October 2020 - 03:06 PM, said:

I understood all of that, but you have to decide which stats are 'Mech-specific and which ones are universal simply for organizing your code, and that will have knock-on effects. There is also something to be said for behavioral consistency, so players don't have to remember extremely granular minutia about every single variant in the game.

Ergo, you really need to decide from the start if the scalar that modifies your base stats is a constant for each engine size or if it's dynamically adjusted based on the proportion of the total 'Mech tonnage that the engine occupies and whatever other stats you want. It is not practical to hard-code behavioral characteristics for tens of thousands of variant+engine combinations.

I agree IF PGI is interested in doing something like this that will all have to be taken into account. And then the details become very important.

And yes you do not want to hard code each engine option in each mech clearly.

And yes you will want it based dynamically on some combination of factors like percentage of tonnage the engine takes.

If enough people are interested and if PGI is interested then the system can be worked out in fine detail with help of the community.

LordNothing, on 31 October 2020 - 02:06 PM, said:

so you want your assaults to turn faster. perhaps the assault is the wrong class for you.

the only real problem with the system currently in place is that i have less incentive to use isxl on bigger mechs. the days of xl400 assault rushes is over. perhaps an intrinsic agility boost on isxl is in order. lfe and cxl dont really need one.

What? Who said anything about assaults?

I want to... keep the base desync agility boost to smaller engines... have some level of reward in agility for taking engines that are larger than optimum for all weight classes.

[XX Sulla XX]

The6thMessenger, on 31 October 2020 - 03:21 PM, said:

So it's like the original system, but uses a different baseline?

Why is this needed though? You could just put every mech at their pre-desync maximum agility value. I see no point in tying the agility with the engine at all.

Well it is like a combination of the current system and the original system. The desync helped small engine builds to a huge amount since every engine has the same agility now. And this was good in giving people many more build options with smaller engines. On the upper end it hurt every build with larger than optimum engine size because you now only get speed. So the idea is to have the best of both. So that it makes more sense to run lower firepower but larger engines mechs a bit more.

thievingmagpi, on 31 October 2020 - 02:36 PM, said:

I don't care much about desync.

A properly monitored and regularly series of xml passes is a better solution imho. Devs who actually played their game or even understood their game (or at the very least, listened to people who do) would/could easily adjust such things on the fly, we'd see underutilized mechs brought out more and even some semblance of "rolling META changes".

But well... lol

Well a pass on base agility for under performing mechs is something we need either way.

SirSmokes, on 31 October 2020 - 03:28 PM, said:

This would be a indirect nerf to some weapons

Do you mean weapons with longer burn times say vs a somewhat higher torso twist on average across mechs?

[The pessimistic optimist]

XX Sulla XX, on 31 October 2020 - 04:49 PM, said:

Do you mean weapons with longer burn times say vs a somewhat higher torso twist on average across mechs?

Yes lasers

[Y E O N N E]

SirSmokes, on 31 October 2020 - 04:55 PM, said:

Yes lasers

It will make IS ones more attractive than Clan ones.

[The6thMessenger]

XX Sulla XX, on 31 October 2020 - 04:49 PM, said:

Well it is like a combination of the current system and the original system. The desync helped small engine builds to a huge amount since every engine has the same agility now. And this was good in giving people many more build options with smaller engines. On the upper end it hurt every build with larger than optimum engine size because you now only get speed. So the idea is to have the best of both. So that it makes more sense to run lower firepower but larger engines mechs a bit more.

But whyyyyyyyyyy? The lower-engines doesn't need to be penalized any further.

Engine upgrade actually gives additional heat sink slots, in addition of speed. But regardless, so what if those are the only benefits of going up? Speed is still important, heatsinks are still important. Engine consideration isn't on a vacuum, it's about the specific builds it goes, the Battlemaster for example, it requires a bit of engine because you need all the space for the heat-sinks that you can fit it.

The Engine Desync hurt the entire game because of poor values, not because of the format. What you're doing isn't "best of both worlds", it's basically undermining what the point of Engine Desync was.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 31 October 2020 - 05:26 PM.

[LordNothing]

XX Sulla XX, on 31 October 2020 - 04:42 PM, said:

What? Who said anything about assaults?

I want to... keep the base desync agility boost to smaller engines... have some level of reward in agility for taking engines that are larger than optimum for all weight classes.

because assaults tend to require the larger engines usually 300 and up if you want to break 60. so it sounds to me like you want to be able to twist off damage better on those chassis. which used to be a common playstyle at one point. remember the wubshee!

i think that playstyle can be restored with intrinsic isxl agility buff. this would be a flat buff for all engines of that type rather than a curve though. perhaps about 10% and i might start using isxl on heavies and assaults again.

Edited by LordNothing, 31 October 2020 - 05:52 PM.

[XX Sulla XX]

SirSmokes, on 31 October 2020 - 04:55 PM, said:

Yes lasers

Well if needed things like heavy lasers can can be adjusted a bit. But PGI keeps talking about time to kill. And better average agility will increase time to kill as it is harder to focus one area.

Miss Greene, on 31 October 2020 - 04:58 PM, said:

It will make IS ones more attractive than Clan ones.

Yes as I mentioned in the reply to his post lasers can be adjusted as needed.

[XX Sulla XX]

The6thMessenger, on 31 October 2020 - 05:15 PM, said:

But whyyyyyyyyyy? The lower-engines doesn't need to be penalized any further.

Engine upgrade actually gives additional heat sink slots, in addition of speed. But regardless, so what if those are the only benefits of going up? Speed is still important, heatsinks are still important. Engine consideration isn't on a vacuum, it's about the specific builds it goes, the Battlemaster for example, it requires a bit of engine because you need all the space for the heat-sinks that you can fit it.

The Engine Desync hurt the entire game because of poor values, not because of the format. What you're doing isn't "best of both worlds", it's basically undermining what the point of Engine Desync was.

It does not penalize smaller engines as they already have an advantage since desync it just balances out the larger engines better.

Yes there are some benefits besides agility. Just not enough.

Desync hurt the game because of the system and agility choices for some mechs. Larger engines are such an investment in tonnage they need to give at least some agility on the upper end. This also gives more freedom back to players to trade a some fire power for a bit more agility.

[The6thMessenger]

XX Sulla XX, on 31 October 2020 - 07:38 PM, said:

It does not penalize smaller engines as they already have an advantage since desync it just balances out the larger engines better.

By your own logic, it kinda does, because we HAVE to go higher engine to get higher agility.

XX Sulla XX, on 31 October 2020 - 07:38 PM, said:

Yes there are some benefits besides agility. Just not enough.

It's all about the builds, not just the 1:1 investment of engine.

The mech would benefit more with consistent agility, not tonnage-walled just-because.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 31 October 2020 - 08:18 PM.

[The pessimistic optimist]

XX Sulla XX, on 31 October 2020 - 07:33 PM, said:

Well if needed things like heavy lasers can can be adjusted a bit. But PGI keeps talking about time to kill. And better average agility will increase time to kill as it is harder to focus one area.

I like PPC on some builds but lets not try and turn this game in to PPC warrior online

[XX Sulla XX]

SirSmokes, on 01 November 2020 - 03:24 AM, said:

I like PPC on some builds but lets not try and turn this game in to PPC warrior online

Pretty sure that is not what has been suggested.

[The pessimistic optimist]

XX Sulla XX, on 02 November 2020 - 05:27 PM, said:

Pretty sure that is not what has been suggested.

I never said that's what has bin suggested but it would be a big enough nerf to laser to make the PPC even more desirable weapons because there front load damage. The comp guys already have massive PPC fetish I don't think we need to nerf down lasers and make them less competitive

Edited by SirSmokes, 03 November 2020 - 04:01 AM.