334 replies to this topic

[Nightbird]

10 slot LBX20, nerf the velocity, would be great

[Navid A1]

Nightbird, on 20 May 2021 - 08:03 PM, said:

10 slot LBX20, nerf the velocity, would be great

I don't think that is a bad change.

But for that a very close look has to be taken at AC20s and allowing two to be fired with no GH, and see how people think about it.
I personally have no problem with it.

[KursedVixen]

Kaptain, on 20 May 2021 - 07:13 PM, said:

Looking forward to more mech mobility passes and rescale. The mobility has made the Firestarter, Atlas and Hunchy (the ones I tried so far) fun to play again.

I still favor 8v8 from back in the day (armor doesn't matter in TTK its number of weapons on the board)
I still want the LBX20 to be 10 slots so it can be arm mounted (like in TT) on jumpy highlanders and victors
The invisible hit boxes on maps are still BS and need to be patched out.

hopefully we see more of these for clan mechs that need it i think the Arctic wolf needs a little bit and maybe some of the other clan lights... not the pirahna though.

Edited by KursedVixen, 20 May 2021 - 10:27 PM.

[PocketYoda]

Y E O N N E, on 20 May 2021 - 12:40 PM, said:

I doubt you ever played Hawken, if that's your position.

Hawken was a terrible game, no wonder it died.

[C337Skymaster]

Navid A1, on 20 May 2021 - 08:08 PM, said:

I don't think that is a bad change.

But for that a very close look has to be taken at AC20s and allowing two to be fired with no GH, and see how people think about it.
I personally have no problem with it.

Sounds like for that to happen, a combined ghost heat group would need to be created between AC/20's and Snub Nosed PPCs, although I'm not sure how you'd set it up so that you can fire 2 AC/20's or 1 AC/20 + 2 or 3 SNPPCs. My current understanding is that ghost heat hits at the lowest number. i.e.: if there's an AC/20 in the group at all, you can pair it with only a single other weapon, regardless of type, even if the other weapon is set at 3 or 4 before ghost heat...

[Nightbird]

C337Skymaster, on 21 May 2021 - 07:21 AM, said:

Sounds like for that to happen, a combined ghost heat group would need to be created between AC/20's and Snub Nosed PPCs, although I'm not sure how you'd set it up so that you can fire 2 AC/20's or 1 AC/20 + 2 or 3 SNPPCs. My current understanding is that ghost heat hits at the lowest number. i.e.: if there's an AC/20 in the group at all, you can pair it with only a single other weapon, regardless of type, even if the other weapon is set at 3 or 4 before ghost heat...

Right, you'd set snubs back down to 2 if the goal is to limit alphas.

[C337Skymaster]

Nightbird, on 21 May 2021 - 07:30 AM, said:

Right, you'd set snubs back down to 2 if the goal is to limit alphas.

Trouble is, that'd unfairly punish those who are trying to run snubs without carrying an AC/20 in tow. I suppose if you're raising the ghost heat limit on AC/20's to 2, you could just as easily remove it altogether. There's only one 'mech I can think of that can run 3 AC/20's, and it carries so little ammo it's already a bit of a meme...

[Y E O N N E]

MechaGnome, on 21 May 2021 - 05:01 AM, said:

Hawken was a terrible game, no wonder it died.

Nah. It died because of mismanagement. I played it tons, and it was better than MWO for most of its life. Even had a longer TTK, for those who are fans of long TTKs.

Nightbird, on 21 May 2021 - 07:30 AM, said:

Right, you'd set snubs back down to 2 if the goal is to limit alphas.

And still get 60-point alphas on those 'Mechs that can run 2AC/20+2Snub, because Snubs almost certainly won't stay 8+3 if they can only be fired in pairs.

Granted, I don't think such a 'Mech will be oppressive since it will be invariably big and slow, ergo risky, so this may not be a non-issue.

[C337Skymaster]

Y E O N N E, on 21 May 2021 - 08:26 AM, said:

Nah. It died because of mismanagement. I played it tons, and it was better than MWO for most of its life. Even had a longer TTK, for those who are fans of long TTKs.

Eh, I saw a video of Hawken. WAY too twitchy. Mechwarrior games are SUPPOSED to be slow and ponderous. "Thinking man's shooter". Gives you time to pause and consider between each shot. ("supposed to be" being the key phrase. It's been getting faster over the years, as weapon cooldowns continuously decrease).

Y E O N N E, on 21 May 2021 - 08:26 AM, said:

And still get 60-point alphas on those 'Mechs that can run 2AC/20+2Snub, because Snubs almost certainly won't stay 8+3 if they can only be fired in pairs.

Granted, I don't think such a 'Mech will be oppressive since it will be invariably big and slow, ergo risky, so this may not be a non-issue.

Eh, at least a bit of an issue. There are already complaints of the 50 point alpha from Dual Heavy Gauss, so upping that to 60 is kinda counter to the intent.

That said, alpha size wouldn't matter if we could get rid of the pinpoint aspect of it. That's really what's getting everything into so much trouble: the fact that you can land all that damage in one spot, rather than it getting spread around, like it's supposed to be. Getting two or three weapons to hit the exact same component consistently is supposed to be a god-level feat of gunnery.

[Y E O N N E]

C337Skymaster, on 21 May 2021 - 08:48 AM, said:

Eh, I saw a video of Hawken. WAY too twitchy. Mechwarrior games are SUPPOSED to be slow and ponderous. "Thinking man's shooter". Gives you time to pause and consider between each shot. ("supposed to be" being the key phrase. It's been getting faster over the years, as weapon cooldowns continuously decrease).

If by having the real option to dodge is what made it twitchy, then sure. But the way the mechs actually moved was far clunkier and mech-like than in MWO, which is disconnected and arcadey. Actual ground speeds were not fast; Locusts could run circles around Hawken's Scout class. It did get worse once they removed the fuel requirement from dodging, sped everybody up, put a height ceiling on jump jets, and removed the accuracy bloom mechanic, but that was only on the back third of the game's life and is part of the mismanagement.

Overall, Hawken was more ponderous than MWO with higher TTK, it just required a pilot actually try instead of being damage passive sponges.

Quote

Eh, at least a bit of an issue. There are already complaints of the 50 point alpha from Dual Heavy Gauss, so upping that to 60 is kinda counter to the intent.

That said, alpha size wouldn't matter if we could get rid of the pinpoint aspect of it. That's really what's getting everything into so much trouble: the fact that you can land all that damage in one spot, rather than it getting spread around, like it's supposed to be. Getting two or three weapons to hit the exact same component consistently is supposed to be a god-level feat of gunnery.

And the Cauldron did nothing to nerf DHG because those complaints are not grounded in reality. The DHG 'Mechs are also slow, they can also be spoofed by a competent peek build because of the charge-up requirement. The loudest complaints come from Light pilots but, as a Light main myself, the number of times I've been killed in a Light by DHG is vanishingly small.

Don't much care what the lore behind pinpoint weapons is in BT, MWO is a shooter and every MW game has had pinpoint; MWO is actually the least offensive about it. If everything came down to some amount RNG then it wouldn't be fun to play because your efforts get constantly foiled by the dice behind the computer. Some games have bloom mechanics which turn spread into a skill to be managed, but those don't impact first-shot and the bloom would have to be way slower to decay than the cool-down of the weapon to matter. It is what it is, the more appropriate solution is for sub-sections in the armor that make it far harder to consistently hit the weak spot. Imagine armor being a grid on the paper doll; a lot harder to hit a small square than a single torso section. Also a lot easier to distribute damage with active twisting.

[DisasterTheory]

Canyon 2.0 is Amazing. Thank you.

[C337Skymaster]

Y E O N N E, on 21 May 2021 - 09:06 AM, said:

If by having the real option to dodge is what made it twitchy, then sure. But the way the mechs actually moved was far clunkier and mech-like than in MWO, which is disconnected and arcadey. Actual ground speeds were not fast; Locusts could run circles around Hawken's Scout class. It did get worse once they removed the fuel requirement from dodging, sped everybody up, put a height ceiling on jump jets, and removed the accuracy bloom mechanic, but that was only on the back third of the game's life and is part of the mismanagement.

Overall, Hawken was more ponderous than MWO with higher TTK, it just required a pilot actually try instead of being damage passive sponges.



And the Cauldron did nothing to nerf DHG because those complaints are not grounded in reality. The DHG 'Mechs are also slow, they can also be spoofed by a competent peek build because of the charge-up requirement. The loudest complaints come from Light pilots but, as a Light main myself, the number of times I've been killed in a Light by DHG is vanishingly small.

Don't much care what the lore behind pinpoint weapons is in BT, MWO is a shooter and every MW game has had pinpoint; MWO is actually the least offensive about it. If everything came down to some amount RNG then it wouldn't be fun to play because your efforts get constantly foiled by the dice behind the computer. Some games have bloom mechanics which turn spread into a skill to be managed, but those don't impact first-shot and the bloom would have to be way slower to decay than the cool-down of the weapon to matter. It is what it is, the more appropriate solution is for sub-sections in the armor that make it far harder to consistently hit the weak spot. Imagine armor being a grid on the paper doll; a lot harder to hit a small square than a single torso section. Also a lot easier to distribute damage with active twisting.

Honestly? Day one of MWO (6 years ago, now, for me), I swore that's what I was looking at, and I was amazed, astounded, and really impressed. Then I played for a few days and realized it was just an animation (even though the animation appears to have that level of detail: it only turns bullet marks where the weapon actually hit), so it kinda seems like the ability is there, or used to be.

My dream goal is not so much to turn MWO into a mirror of TT (although my arguments track that way, and I get accused of that a lot, not without merit), but to turn it into a simulator of real-world battlemech combat, with the TT rules and specs as a foundation. (The range is the range. Speed is speed. Turning speed is turning speed, damage, armor, heat, etc). I would LOVE for each 'mech to be blanketed in a Finite Element Analysis mesh, with as many individual nodes as our computers can handle, each registering damage in its own location.

Hip actuators. Knee actuators. Ankles. Feet. Wrists. Arms. You shoot the ear on a Mad Cat, and it destroys the LRM launcher, not the engine. You have to shoot down where the engine is to hit the engine, etc. It would be glorious!!! I honestly don't think even a supercomputer could keep up with the calculations required to keep the game playing in real time, but I would be behind something like that 100%.

I still want pinpoint loosened up a LITTLE bit, though. You take the armor values for around the 'mech and spread them out that much, you're going to have 1 pt of armor over each location, and be getting crits with every individual weapon hit. You shoot one of these pinpoint alphas, and it's gonna rip right through and out the back. And besides: realism: A battleship can't shoot 9 shells and have them all land on the same coin-sized spot (as hard as they might try). The shells spread out a LITTLE bit...

[Y E O N N E]

C337Skymaster, on 21 May 2021 - 11:24 AM, said:

Honestly? Day one of MWO (6 years ago, now, for me), I swore that's what I was looking at, and I was amazed, astounded, and really impressed. Then I played for a few days and realized it was just an animation (even though the animation appears to have that level of detail: it only turns bullet marks where the weapon actually hit), so it kinda seems like the ability is there, or used to be.

In a "real-world" sim, the 'Mech would be disabled immediately on pretty much any penetration of armor. We are not throwing needle-thin spears at each other or even inert kinetic penetrators, there would be lots of collateral. AC shells all detonate, Gauss rounds travel so fast that they would explode through the armor (none of which could withstand a single hit), PPCs would heat up and explode the target from the inside-out. Only lasers would do minimal collateral.

All that to say, the spread would be irrelevant.

[KursedVixen]

C337Skymaster, on 21 May 2021 - 11:24 AM, said:

Honestly? Day one of MWO (6 years ago, now, for me), I swore that's what I was looking at, and I was amazed, astounded, and really impressed. Then I played for a few days and realized it was just an animation (even though the animation appears to have that level of detail: it only turns bullet marks where the weapon actually hit), so it kinda seems like the ability is there, or used to be.

My dream goal is not so much to turn MWO into a mirror of TT (although my arguments track that way, and I get accused of that a lot, not without merit), but to turn it into a simulator of real-world battlemech combat, with the TT rules and specs as a foundation. (The range is the range. Speed is speed. Turning speed is turning speed, damage, armor, heat, etc). I would LOVE for each 'mech to be blanketed in a Finite Element Analysis mesh, with as many individual nodes as our computers can handle, each registering damage in its own location.

Hip actuators. Knee actuators. Ankles. Feet. Wrists. Arms. You shoot the ear on a Mad Cat, and it destroys the LRM launcher, not the engine. You have to shoot down where the engine is to hit the engine, etc. It would be glorious!!! I honestly don't think even a supercomputer could keep up with the calculations required to keep the game playing in real time, but I would be behind something like that 100%.

I still want pinpoint loosened up a LITTLE bit, though. You take the armor values for around the 'mech and spread them out that much, you're going to have 1 pt of armor over each location, and be getting crits with every individual weapon hit. You shoot one of these pinpoint alphas, and it's gonna rip right through and out the back. And besides: realism: A battleship can't shoot 9 shells and have them all land on the same coin-sized spot (as hard as they might try). The shells spread out a LITTLE bit...

yeah i wish the ears on the Timberwolf were separate pods same with the Mark 2 and any mech that has "ears" or shoulder pods like that... last i recall the Timberwolf was suppose to be like a hybrid of a Marauder and Catapult so take the arms of the catapult stick it to the sides of the torso and make them like actual missile pods instead of side torsos, this is why many people don't put giant LRMs on thier Timberwolf it makes the hitboxes for the side torso bigger so it's better to carry srm6's or lrm 5's.. or now atm3's

Edited by KursedVixen, 21 May 2021 - 12:28 PM.

[Culnan]

Gotta throw in with the 'anti' side on this one. Canyon 2.0 is hot garbage. I've yet to even notice the new ramps thanks to the lack of cover enabling the worst kind of sniping and lrm spam.

[C337Skymaster]

Y E O N N E, on 21 May 2021 - 12:12 PM, said:

In a "real-world" sim, the 'Mech would be disabled immediately on pretty much any penetration of armor. We are not throwing needle-thin spears at each other or even inert kinetic penetrators, there would be lots of collateral. AC shells all detonate, Gauss rounds travel so fast that they would explode through the armor (none of which could withstand a single hit), PPCs would heat up and explode the target from the inside-out. Only lasers would do minimal collateral.

All that to say, the spread would be irrelevant.

I mean... yeah? That's kinda how the books read, too. The armor can withstand one or two hits in any one location, after which shots start going through structure and equipment. It's part of what makes 'mech combat furiously intense, and relatively quick.

The closest comparison we've got in the modern day is tanks, and there ARE tanks whose armor can withstand one or two hits from another tank, as long as the shots don't both hit in the same area. Most tanks designed and built within the last 20 years have big enough guns to penetrate a lot of that armor, but guns from 40 years ago that haven't been upgraded lack sufficient penetrating power, in some cases.

If you take it to a logical extreme, we get rail guns on ships. The projectile's kinetic energy deals a LOT of damage, but if the armor is thick enough, or otherwise strong enough, all it does is dent it.

A shot that hits a hip actuator will generally bust the hip actuator, even if the 'mechs armor is perfectly fresh. The infantry tactic of "kneecapping" places explosive charges right up against the knee joint, and there's obviously enough room for them to get their arm through whatever armor might exist in the area so they can plant the charge.

[Y E O N N E]

C337Skymaster, on 21 May 2021 - 01:26 PM, said:

I mean... yeah? That's kinda how the books read, too. The armor can withstand one or two hits in any one location, after which shots start going through structure and equipment. It's part of what makes 'mech combat furiously intense, and relatively quick.

The closest comparison we've got in the modern day is tanks, and there ARE tanks whose armor can withstand one or two hits from another tank, as long as the shots don't both hit in the same area. Most tanks designed and built within the last 20 years have big enough guns to penetrate a lot of that armor, but guns from 40 years ago that haven't been upgraded lack sufficient penetrating power, in some cases.

If you take it to a logical extreme, we get rail guns on ships. The projectile's kinetic energy deals a LOT of damage, but if the armor is thick enough, or otherwise strong enough, all it does is dent it.

A shot that hits a hip actuator will generally bust the hip actuator, even if the 'mechs armor is perfectly fresh. The infantry tactic of "kneecapping" places explosive charges right up against the knee joint, and there's obviously enough room for them to get their arm through whatever armor might exist in the area so they can plant the charge.

So we don't actually know that a modern MBT can take a hit from a peer MBT; it's not been tried. It's always been NATO MBTs beating up on obsolete Mid-east export-grade MBTs. The M1 Abrams, Leopard 2, Challenger 2, LeClerc, etc. have never gone toe-to-toe with a Russian domestic T90.

Also, I don't think you appreciate the energies involved, here. If it penetrates the torso, the hydrostatic shock of going through that armor will not just destroy a simple actuator, it's going to shred the entire inside. Ditto if a shell or missile detonates within the structure. The kinetic energy in something whose mass is measured in tens of kilograms and which is travelling at hypersonic velocities is going through basically anything that isn't several meters thick. If you want to still locomote, you aren't carrying that kind of armor. To wit, even without railguns we are already at a point where you can't rely on passive armor to stop modern munitions. That's why today's naval vessels are only lightly armored: your best chance is to evade or otherwise kill the enemy first. CWIS is a last-resort. The same thing applies to tanks; we've got the passive armor as good as it can be for the weight and we've moved on to active counter-measures like the Israeli Trophy system.

While it would be a cool spectacle, you don't really want to play a realistic mech game because it will essentially be a walking simulator where you nuke them or they nuke you, largely without any exchange. And whatever that game is, MWO will not be that and shouldn't try to me. That's way out of scope.

[C337Skymaster]

Y E O N N E, on 21 May 2021 - 01:44 PM, said:

So we don't actually know that a modern MBT can take a hit from a peer MBT; it's not been tried. It's always been NATO MBTs beating up on obsolete Mid-east export-grade MBTs. The M1 Abrams, Leopard 2, Challenger 2, LeClerc, etc. have never gone toe-to-toe with a Russian domestic T90.

Also, I don't think you appreciate the energies involved, here. If it penetrates the torso, the hydrostatic shock of going through that armor will not just destroy a simple actuator, it's going to shred the entire inside. Ditto if a shell or missile detonates within the structure. The kinetic energy in something whose mass is measured in tens of kilograms and which is travelling at hypersonic velocities is going through basically anything that isn't several meters thick. If you want to still locomote, you aren't carrying that kind of armor. To wit, even without railguns we are already at a point where you can't rely on passive armor to stop modern munitions. That's why today's naval vessels are only lightly armored: your best chance is to evade or otherwise kill the enemy first. CWIS is a last-resort. The same thing applies to tanks; we've got the passive armor as good as it can be for the weight and we've moved on to active counter-measures like the Israeli Trophy system.

While it would be a cool spectacle, you don't really want to play a realistic mech game because it will essentially be a walking simulator where you nuke them or they nuke you, largely without any exchange. And whatever that game is, MWO will not be that and shouldn't try to me. That's way out of scope.

Well, then I guess that's where we get the artistic license of "1000 years in the future" (kinda like Star Trek does with shields and whatnot). The tech of the universe is "Ferro Fibrous" and "Foamed Steel" and whatnot, that we can say (whether it is or not) is better at defending against the energies involved, or at withstanding the damage being applied, etc. I mean, "realistically" we can't tie a gyroscope to a human brain and use it to move a 10m tall bipedal robot cross-country at close to 100kph, either.

But if we believe hard enough, we can make it happen!

[Y E O N N E]

C337Skymaster, on 21 May 2021 - 04:11 PM, said:

Well, then I guess that's where we get the artistic license of "1000 years in the future" (kinda like Star Trek does with shields and whatnot). The tech of the universe is "Ferro Fibrous" and "Foamed Steel" and whatnot, that we can say (whether it is or not) is better at defending against the energies involved, or at withstanding the damage being applied, etc. I mean, "realistically" we can't tie a gyroscope to a human brain and use it to move a 10m tall bipedal robot cross-country at close to 100kph, either.

But if we believe hard enough, we can make it happen!

That's the thing, though. If you want a "realistic" mech sim, you have to keep it as grounded in reality as much you can. The more fantastical it gets, the less sim it inherently becomes because you have to make more and more abstractions and suppositions about things that exist only in the imagination. A small, extremely buoyant, bipedal tank that is the product of a suped-up 1980s civilization taking a hit whose deposition of energy is greater that of a 16-inch shell from an Iowa, and surviving enough to remain a threat, isn't cool in this context; it's eye-roll-inducing.

For sims, "Rule of Cool" is not.

[Y E O N N E]

Lockheed_, on 21 May 2021 - 03:03 PM, said:

So after playing Canyon 2 for a few days now, Nascar is unfortunately not dead on this map (yet?), HOWEVER I have noticed that this map now allows better to not partake in the nascar, get in a good position and just take shots at the people doing the potato tornado. This is something that I have only experienced on rubellite so far and I am enjoying it.

I'm finding that it's a slower NASCAR. The primary focus of the revision was to improve mobility around the map for 'Mechs without JJs; adjusting geo to discourage rotato came later. I am finding there are still too many places that are tactical suicide without JJs. This creates situations where people are diving out of fire and then finding that the only way out that isn't death is to...rotato.