261 replies to this topic

[Brauer]

Alreech, on 21 November 2020 - 07:41 AM, said:

Because they got structure & armor quirks they can buff with skill nodes and can use torso twisting. And they are fast and small.

That makes them viable as Mech killers especially if you the use of the R key to find damaged enemys to kill or maim.
So they have the same role as any other Mech in the game.

They can't serve a expendable scout because you don't have respawns and all the matches are fight at the same grids on most maps.
They can't serve as cappers because going capping reduce your teams strengh.

So what? Yeah, it'd be nice to see matches on more locations on maps. Things like alternative domination circle locations could help with this on some maps, changing up mechs won't make a difference. Anyway, if you take a look at comp you'll see scouting is super important there, however once you scout the enemy you also need to kill them. Thus scouts need to have guns as well, it's never enough to just say "they're over there", so you're not going to see undergunned scouts be meta with or without respawns outside of edge cases like a narc mech.

Quote

I answerd to a guy that want's to remove Ghost Heat so that Mechs capable to mount 6 ER-Large Lasers can shoot them and didn't understand why PGI introduced it.

IMHO indirect limiting like Ghost Heat (Yes, you can replace 6 Medium Lasers with Large, but you just generate much more heat than expected) don't work, and because it don't work PGI quirked up a lot of Mechs to make the viable, creating new problems like hard to kill light Mechs.

Ghost heat works fine enough imo. It's kind of a dumb mechanic, but it's not game-breaking by any means. Ghost heat also isn't the reason that lights are "hard to kill" (they aren't btw). The reason lights are VIABLE is that in a pvp game each class needs to be useful and so asymmetric balance is key. If PGI just balanced by more tonnage = moar better you would basically only see assaults. If you are struggling to deal with lights look to your own play rather than requesting that PGI buff the highest performing mech class in the game.

Edited by Brauer, 21 November 2020 - 08:30 AM.

[The6thMessenger]

Brauer, on 21 November 2020 - 06:33 AM, said:

Some of the absolute best mechs in the game are lights and mediums. Lights and mediums are quite viable in all game modes.

Sounds about right. Heavies and Assaults are a bit more liability at this point. Poor mobility of Engine Desync and the heavy quirkening of said mechs made sure of that.

Remember when Dire Wolf was a legitimate threat, not a walking target dummy that happens to have guns? Remember when Timber Wolf was one of the best Heavies? It's annoying how they kind of flanderized Clans into the glass-cannons. I blame PGI wanting to cater to the Min-Max mentality.

[The6thMessenger]

Alreech, on 19 November 2020 - 09:19 AM, said:

PGI didn't limited Alpha damage first because most players disliked the way Microsoft limited big weapons in MW4.

I'm honestly all for MW4 styled Sized Hardpoint, where you can place 3 MG Arrays in place of a single AC20. With MW4 styled Sized Hardpoint, the mechs could be much more unique because you have to pick a specific mech to mount a specific weapon.

This incredibly free mechlab, while the best iteration in the series, it is just a balancing nightmare, especially when PGI doesn't know what they are doing, nor listen to those that do.

But we can't just undo the current mechlab right now.

[tingod]

the camo of the mech must have a unvisibleadvance on long range....

sorry my english.

[Alreech]

Brauer, on 21 November 2020 - 08:05 AM, said:

Anyway, if you take a look at comp you'll see scouting is super important there, however once you scout the enemy you also need to kill them.

And Comp Queue (organised, premade teams, using VOIP to coordinate) is how relevant to MWOs most succesfull mode Solo Quickplay?

Quote

Ghost heat works fine enough imo. It's kind of a dumb mechanic, but it's not game-breaking by any means. Ghost heat also isn't the reason that lights are "hard to kill" (they aren't btw). The reason lights are VIABLE is that in a pvp game each class needs to be useful and so asymmetric balance is key. If PGI just balanced by more tonnage = moar better you would basically only see assaults. If you are struggling to deal with lights look to your own play rather than requesting that PGI buff the highest performing mech class in the game.

I'm also thinking that Ghost Heat is a dumb mechanic. And i would prefer a direct limitation like it was done in MW4 or 5.
What asymetric balancing in MWO? You get that in good PvP Games like Star Wars Squadrons, and they do it with hard limiting of weapon loadouts & speed instead of indirect nerfs like Ghost Heat.

And thanks, i don't struggle with light & medium mechs, mainly because im ablte to press R and pick off damaged bigger mechs.
Others think Ghost Heat must be remove from the game, because they are struggling killing of light & medium mechs, how about conving them that a kind of limitation is needed to achive (even bad) balancing?
https://mwomercs.com...ost__p__6360322

Edited by Alreech, 22 November 2020 - 05:38 AM.

[Brauer]

Alreech, on 22 November 2020 - 05:34 AM, said:

And Comp Queue (organised, premade teams, using VOIP to coordinate) is how relevant to MWOs most succesfull mode Solo Quickplay?

Comp is where you see teams attempt to play the game in an optimal fashion. You basically do not see that in QP. In QP the objectives and spawns are part of what makes team movements and enemy locations predictable, but a HUGE part of it is player behavior. Nerfing lights won't eliminate Nascar.

Quote

I'm also thinking that Ghost Heat is a dumb mechanic. And i would prefer a direct limitation like it was done in MW4 or 5.
What asymetric balancing in MWO? You get that in good PvP Games like Star Wars Squadrons, and they do it with hard limiting of weapon loadouts & speed instead of indirect nerfs like Ghost Heat.

Asymmetric balance - lights abuse speed and mobility to beat up on bigger less agile enemies, assaults abuse massive firepower and heavier armor. Each class plays a role and has a niche. As opposed to just nerfing lights into the ground so all they can do is look at enemy mechs, which is essentially useless in QP. Not to mention there are clear and direct limitations on loadouts (tonnage, slots).

A mechlab with far more limited options, such as in MW4 or MW5 just severely limits the options available and in the case of both of those games is also HEAVILY biased towards heavier mechs because the options available to lighter mechs are far fewer. In MW5 only a handful of mechs are viable, especially in the early game. Switching to such a bad mechlab would not improve anything, it would just lead to even more complaints about too few mechs being worth playing.

Quote

And thanks, i don't struggle with light & medium mechs, mainly because im ablte to press R and pick off damaged bigger mechs.
Others think Ghost Heat must be remove from the game, because they are struggling killing of light & medium mechs, how about conving them that a kind of limitation is needed to achive (even bad) balancing?
https://mwomercs.com...ost__p__6360322

Tarteso, if that's the other player you are referring to, claims in that post that lights aren't currently worried about the massive firepower of assaults as a justification for getting rid of ghost heat. That's just false a false premise right out of the gate. When you are playing a light you need to be constantly considering your position, vulnerable angles, exposure to the many dangerous mechs on the field, and moving to prevent an easy shot on you. Pretty much any light can be one-shot by just about any decent build on the field if the light stands still or makes an error. You both are making very misguided claims about the state of balance and lights in particular.

[Reno Blade]

How do you see the MW5 system of weapon levels?
would that make balancing too messy, or would it make the "grind" and building mechs more interesting, if you could "loot" level 2-5 weapons and equipment over time, or get such things as bonus in events, packs, premium time/abo ... or would that even count as pay-to-win?

[Brauer]

Reno Blade, on 22 November 2020 - 08:06 AM, said:

How do you see the MW5 system of weapon levels?
would that make balancing too messy, or would it make the "grind" and building mechs more interesting, if you could "loot" level 2-5 weapons and equipment over time, or get such things as bonus in events, packs, premium time/abo ... or would that even count as pay-to-win?

With MW5 mechlab only a handful of mechs would be viable, as is made pretty clear in MW5.

Higher level weapons are just P2W or RNG nonsense for a PVP game. If they're available enough the highest level guns are the only viable ones. If they're hard to get/cost money they're P2W or RNG determining results even more than it does already.

[Cluster Fox]

Daeron Katz, on 16 November 2020 - 01:10 PM, said:

• Skill Tree / Grind Reduction
  
• Remove Torso Heat Spike Mechanic
  
• Heat Management Values Not Representative of Heat Efficiency
  
• Simplify Command Wheel
  
• Remove Time of Day Change in Matches (FPS hit)
  
• UI Performance Pass / Scaling?

Skill tree

Make the difference between skilled mech and unskilled mech half of what it is - BUFF unskilled mech base stats.
- Makes the base model more fun and the grind less of a requirement.

Quick fix: Remove half the nodes, top at 45, give the difference from removed nodes to base stats.
Much better : Redesign skill tree.

---

Remove Torso heat spike mechanic

OK, do it.
- There's already a dissipation and capacity loss for XLs and LFEs.

---

Heat management values

Check out the different 3rd party mechlabs for examples.
UACs need to be considered 1.5x of their heat to account for average between single/doubletaps.

NEW FEATURE REQUEST FOR HEAT. Quality of life improvements.

Play a different sound when over 100% heat.
- Faster paced beeping, higher pitch, something !

A new options in general game settings: Override ON/OFF by default. just like arm lock.
- Also, make the override less of a UI monster.

A new option in mechlab: %Heat level for warning. That way I can set a warning at 25% for some builds, 95% for others.
- The default warning level is useless for most of my builds.

---

The other 3 point I got no opinion aside that the HUD needs a lot of love.

Edited by Cluster Fox, 22 November 2020 - 10:20 AM.

[Ballistic Panicmode]

On the side torso destruction heat spike mechanic:

Why not move the current heat spike / mobility debuff (or slightly worse) to IS XL side torso destruction, providing some chance to survive.

Reduce those penalties to half for Clan XL / IS LFE.

And please, for the love of God, figure out how to track the consequence of destroying a side torso. You trigger an ammo explosion, you get credit for the resulting damage. Destroy a side torso with 2 engine slots, trigger a "forced suicide". Isn't it possible to flag the overheat damage until that mech is either destroyed or falls below the critical heat threshold?

Edited by Ballistic Panicmode, 22 November 2020 - 01:00 PM.

[The6thMessenger]

Brauer, on 22 November 2020 - 09:14 AM, said:

With MW5 mechlab only a handful of mechs would be viable, as is made pretty clear in MW5.

That's why I would advocate for MW4-Styled Size Hardpoint, but with MWO-Styled equipment.

Brauer, on 22 November 2020 - 09:14 AM, said:

Higher level weapons are just P2W or RNG nonsense for a PVP game. If they're available enough the highest level guns are the only viable ones. If they're hard to get/cost money they're P2W or RNG determining results even more than it does already.

I agree. It would have been interesting if FP was turned into the MMO-RPG aspect of the game, while QP remained into this balance-stasis. But right now, that is MW5. I even question the point of Faction Warfare right now.

[mcpug]

I don't know if this has been mentioned. Sorry if it has.

What about a bid process on the Xp and Cbills we receive in each match. New players may prefer more Cbills to buy new mechs and equipment faster. Experienced players may prefer Xp since we don't need Cbills as much.

Also I believe it would encourage buying mech packs. Level up those purchased mechs a little faster! Don't need the Cbills as much when we buy with MC.

Say 8 points to bid on Xp or Cbills and if we have special mechs with Cbill bonus we get an extra two points (25%) that have to go into Cbills.

[Guile Votoms]

The skill tree needs to be drastically reduced, ideally to be more in line with quirks in 5% increments, and preferably not as a tree at all.

The current system is just a mess and exists solely to waste everyone's time.

[VileKnight]

Daeron Katz, on 16 November 2020 - 01:10 PM, said:

In this thread, lets discuss ideas for updating or adding to our current monetization model in MechWarrior Online, such as:

• Skill Tree / Grind Reduction
  
• Remove Torso Heat Spike Mechanic
  
• Heat Management Values Not Representative of Heat Efficiency
  
• Simplify Command Wheel
  
• Remove Time of Day Change in Matches (FPS hit)
  
• UI Performance Pass / Scaling?

• Skill Tree / Grind Reduction
  
  • Honestly, I think the grind in this game is fine. The skill tree on the other hand does seem clunky and a burden. What if we reduced the overall size of the skill tree by 25%, but increased the total gain of the remaining nodes by the same amount. It produces the same overall gain, each node feels more powerful, and reduces the amount of grind that some players are complaining about?
• Remove Torso Heat Spike Mechanic
  
  • Oh god yes. We need to get rid of this mechanic. Part of good heat management for a player is knowing how to ride that 99%-100% threshold. If I am in a fight, managing my heat, it doesn't make sense for me to go from 70% to shut down because someone popped my torso. I can't think of any viable argument to keep this mechanic, but if someone at PGI has one, I would love to hear it.
• Remove Time of Day Change in Matches (FPS hit)
  
  • What would the development hours/effort for something like this be? I apologize if this offends anyone, but I just don't see this as a bigtime need. Is this impacting a huge segment of the community? Do we have any stats for what sort of hardware the community is using to get the idea of the average performance that are currently being enjoyed, and what the gains would be for this? While I am all about performance increases, I think this would be a second tier item compared to other performance issues, like the overall UI, how fast the game loads, etc.
• UI Performance Pass / Scaling?
  
  • Scaling - Yes, yes, yes! I would really like to scale my UI up to 4k without needing a magnifying glass to read it. I realize that adoption rate of 4k is still not huge, but it's only going to increase. No idea what sort of dev hours this would require, but could we bundle this with the overall performance pass?
    
  • Performance pass - An overall pass for performance would be highly welcome, and the UI is in bad need of a refresh.
• Other
  
  • File this under quality of life, but can we add some additional audio options that allow me to direct the sound from MWO to another sound device? This is a pretty common menu item in most games, but for some reason PGI didn't include it in MWO or MW5.

[Taffer]

skill tree pretty much killed the game for both of my friends. I guess it was more like the final nail in the coffin, but it was the end for them. Simplifying it would be good but..... honestly too little too late, man. That was years ago. I'm surprised we aren't just talking about a new MWO at this point.

[Augustus Ull]

How about mixing Clan and IS Tech? Just make it really expensive to do it, and give it a failure / malfunction chance similar to the weapons jam on RAC's, etc.

[thievingmagpi]

Augustus Ull, on 24 November 2020 - 01:13 PM, said:

How about mixing Clan and IS Tech? Just make it really expensive to do it, and give it a failure / malfunction chance similar to the weapons jam on RAC's, etc.

Mixtech is absolutely, 100% not viable.

[Marshal Jim Duncan]

I don't necessarily mind grinding out the skill on the mech, because it often gives me a chance to build out an atypical loadout that works for me.

What I would wish for is a way to grind out a mech without having it have a negative impact on the tier ranking.

Maybe flip a switch in the UI and your match score doesn't count on your skill ranking, even if it was a really great score?

Heat management needs a lot of work. I have a mech that I haven't changed the build on in over 2 years, with 15 heatsinks (10 in the engine), and after the last couple of patches or so it just vomits heat and shuts down … even when chain firing. So, either the info I see in the mech lab is a lie or some developer got a D in math.

[thievingmagpi]

Marshal Jim Duncan, on 24 November 2020 - 07:00 PM, said:

Heat management needs a lot of work. I have a mech that I haven't changed the build on in over 2 years, with 15 heatsinks (10 in the engine), and after the last couple of patches or so it just vomits heat and shuts down … even when chain firing. So, either the info I see in the mech lab is a lie or some developer got a D in math.

Mechanics change all the time in games. Problems with balance changes aside, you shouldn't ever expect something that was effective 2 years ago to perform exactly the same today, in pretty much any pvp game. Sounds like you've missed one of the heat changes.

[Forgeling]

Marshal Jim Duncan, on 24 November 2020 - 07:00 PM, said:

I don't necessarily mind grinding out the skill on the mech, because it often gives me a chance to build out an atypical loadout that works for me.

What I would wish for is a way to grind out a mech without having it have a negative impact on the tier ranking.

Maybe flip a switch in the UI and your match score doesn't count on your skill ranking, even if it was a really great score?

Heat management needs a lot of work. I have a mech that I haven't changed the build on in over 2 years, with 15 heatsinks (10 in the engine), and after the last couple of patches or so it just vomits heat and shuts down … even when chain firing. So, either the info I see in the mech lab is a lie or some developer got a D in math.

They lowered the maximum heat and increased the cooling instead a while back.