17 replies to this topic

[JC Daxion]

While i've liked many of the changes that have happened over the last year bringing back many of the old mechs and making the solid the one thing i've noticed is the higher alpha's have really hurt over all IMO. Some mechs loose all there armor and even break into structure in a single shot which effects the rest of the match.

It got me thinking, why not a global reduction of 50% if you have armor. It would slow down the opening of the game just a bit and it would let folks make a mistake or two, It would also reward people for having good aim as they could hit open structure and flanking would mean more as the back having less armor would do more damage.

Maybe they don't have to go to 50%, even a 25% would be helpful. I also thought about a damage reduction to structure if a mech has armor, take the 6 torso armor parts and then reduce by a % depending on how many parts still have armor. This would be a smaller reduction but it would make back stabbing a bit more of a challenge. It should be a viable option, but getting one shot kinda sucks. With the changes from swapping structure to armor a lot of mechs can drop in a single shot, it's practically like hitting the head.

Like i said the new balance seams to be decent but it really does really punish a single mistake far to much for my liking. It would basically help with that and slightly increase TTK which i think would be a good thing. I know the cauldron said that movement buffs (and the size changes that i don't think are happening unless someone knows something i don't) did not do enough to decrease the TTK verse how much it was increased due to the new changes.

thoughts?

[Meep Meep]

Buff the resistance to receiving crits but only for assaults and maybe a few of the really bad hitbox heavies. Most assaults have a ton of structure but mg lights and other crit seeking weapons can make short work of them once armor is opened up. This will increase ttk for the mechs that can't zip around to cover when under fire.

[John Bronco]

Alphs are not any higher than they have been historically.

If you are dying quickly you have made a grave positioning mistake and should avoid repeating this mistake in the future.

Quote

[color=#959595] I know the cauldron said that movement buffs (and the size changes that i don't think are happening unless someone knows something i don't) did not do enough to decrease the TTK verse how much it was increased due to the new changes.[/color]

Source?

Edited by John Bronco, 04 April 2022 - 05:48 AM.

[EPJ]

JC Daxion, on 03 April 2022 - 03:23 PM, said:

While i've liked many of the changes that have happened over the last year bringing back many of the old mechs and making the solid the one thing i've noticed is the higher alpha's have really hurt over all IMO. Some mechs loose all there armor and even break into structure in a single shot which effects the rest of the match.

It got me thinking, why not a global reduction of 50% if you have armor. It would slow down the opening of the game just a bit and it would let folks make a mistake or two, It would also reward people for having good aim as they could hit open structure and flanking would mean more as the back having less armor would do more damage.

Maybe they don't have to go to 50%, even a 25% would be helpful. I also thought about a damage reduction to structure if a mech has armor, take the 6 torso armor parts and then reduce by a % depending on how many parts still have armor. This would be a smaller reduction but it would make back stabbing a bit more of a challenge. It should be a viable option, but getting one shot kinda sucks. With the changes from swapping structure to armor a lot of mechs can drop in a single shot, it's practically like hitting the head.

Like i said the new balance seams to be decent but it really does really punish a single mistake far to much for my liking. It would basically help with that and slightly increase TTK which i think would be a good thing. I know the cauldron said that movement buffs (and the size changes that i don't think are happening unless someone knows something i don't) did not do enough to decrease the TTK verse how much it was increased due to the new changes.

thoughts?

a old form post that hits this topic. https://mwomercs.com...rf/page__st__20

Edited by EPJ, 04 April 2022 - 08:49 AM.

[Nightbird]

MWO already reduced all weapon damage by 50% by doubling armor values. In a way, your request has already been granted.

If you're asking for it to be double again... well now you're just being greedy.

[TheCaptainJZ]

JC Daxion, on 03 April 2022 - 03:23 PM, said:

While i've liked many of the changes that have happened over the last year bringing back many of the old mechs and making the solid the one thing i've noticed is the higher alpha's have really hurt over all IMO. Some mechs loose all there armor and even break into structure in a single shot which effects the rest of the match.

It got me thinking, why not a global reduction of 50% if you have armor. It would slow down the opening of the game just a bit and it would let folks make a mistake or two, It would also reward people for having good aim as they could hit open structure and flanking would mean more as the back having less armor would do more damage.

Maybe they don't have to go to 50%, even a 25% would be helpful. I also thought about a damage reduction to structure if a mech has armor, take the 6 torso armor parts and then reduce by a % depending on how many parts still have armor. This would be a smaller reduction but it would make back stabbing a bit more of a challenge. It should be a viable option, but getting one shot kinda sucks. With the changes from swapping structure to armor a lot of mechs can drop in a single shot, it's practically like hitting the head.

Like i said the new balance seams to be decent but it really does really punish a single mistake far to much for my liking. It would basically help with that and slightly increase TTK which i think would be a good thing. I know the cauldron said that movement buffs (and the size changes that i don't think are happening unless someone knows something i don't) did not do enough to decrease the TTK verse how much it was increased due to the new changes.

thoughts?

There's an easier solution: Drop damage values across the board.
1. Lowers alpha damage potential
2. Lowers the need of adding or increasing armor quirks
3. Counters skills in the skill tree that currently buff weapons by letting them shoot faster, farther, more often, and cooler.
Remember when ghost heat was added to try and counter high alphas? Alphas now can be twice as high as then. In addition, after Clan weapons and Civil War weapons were added, there were more weapons that can pump out more damage at farther range than ever before, decreasing TTK. IMO, overall damage per second (whatever adjustments you want to make to achieve that--speed, damage, burn time, range, etc.) should be reduced by about 10%.

Edited by TheCaptainJZ, 04 April 2022 - 09:00 AM.

[Gagis]

We already have double the armour values, and MWO is based on Battletech, where mechs are rather fragile, especially when not moving from cover to cover or when under focused fire.

Making mechs take even longer to kill would make MWO even less like its source material.

[caravann]

Light mechs gain advantage when you reduce damage since rear armor become higher valid target.
My solution is to unlock armor in rear and reduce the max amount of armor.
This way armor is positioned from arms and legs to the rear side torso and rear center and head.
People who find them having arms unused are able to stack the armor in the rear.
Once the arms are destroyed them become easier targets for LRM.
Center torso is able to be hit in rear by centering the attack at the waist.
This means that you can't rely on front center.

The game end up with a circle and anyone who stand further away wins.

They win because of rear torso.
At distance you can't be flanked in the rear while vulture opposition in the center.

Light mechs don't show their rears and the reason why them survive longer when not showing their rears.

This is why rear torso need to be unlocked while making armor asymmetric ,
which means nobody going to make the ultimate mech.

Armor in the arms are going to end up in the rear. Mechs with weapons in the arms are going to only use one side of the mech.
This means that for some mechs they're better off with only one side torso and one arm. They get rear armor instead.
But they're easier targets for LRM since paperdoll is reduced by 1/3

Standard engine is going to be a good option for mechs. With rear armor you are able to take advantage of the smaller engine by only needing to protect one side of the mech. New weapons are going to become valid as example arm mounted rocket launchers.

This is my theory and I find it hard to understand why rear armor was locked.
Why snipers and light mechs survive by covering their rear while assaults gets flanked from a pixel angle and dies.

[DaZur]

Bigger issues exist and armor values are actually outliers...

Probably the most damning is Point-Point-Damage (PPD) in particular between torso and arm mount weapons. This issue was further exacerbated by the introduction of arm-lock. A simple mechanic to simulate reticle oscillation secondary to ground speed, terrain and weapon fire recoil would have solved so many issues. Instead we have insta'-convergence inside the arc of fire.

[ThreeStooges]

Just add on ghost heat to 2x guass builds and undo the ppc ghost heat back to 1 only. Problem solved of high alpha ppfd insta-killing the vast majority of mechs under 90 tons.

[D V Devnull]

Nightbird, on 04 April 2022 - 08:58 AM, said:

MWO already reduced all weapon damage by 50% by doubling armor values. In a way, your request has already been granted.

If you're asking for it to be double again... well now you're just being greedy.

Perhaps they are, but the current Armor & Structure values were only designed for 8v8 combat usage originally, and do not hold up well in 12v12 combat situations. During that recent PGI-executed 8v8 weekend, it happens that I got to see how 2x TT feels with only that many players, and rapidly understood how under-providing that it really is in 12v12 operations, and what effects that has on players and their MWO game experience. Maybe we're finally at the point of needing to meet somewhere in-between the current 2x TT state, and where it would be double that at 4x TT values. Any chance that 3x TT sounds good, since it would match the 150% increase in both player count and damage output from both Teams during battle over where it previously was? It has certainly got to be a lot easier than making PGI Staff do a rescale on all the Mechs in the game at this time, and save a lot of headaches, right?

~D. V. "Yeah, going 4x TT would probably be too much, but 3x TT sounds like it would fix a lot of problems!!!" Devnull



(p.s.: I should note that I sensed all this trouble coming about 6 years ago, prior to everything getting messed with. I think that I even may have posted about it too. I wish the pre-Cauldron controllers of Game Balance had been willing to change the Armor & Structure value limits from 2x TT to 3x TT and how that factored into Mech Tonnage during normal game operation. It would have saved us all the last 6 years of madness!!!)

[Blood Rose]

Just bring back delayed convergence
Your Mech is carrying multiton cannons weapons on hardpoints all over that are adjusted either by the mechs limbs or by servos that are integral to their mounts. They take time to adjust convergence from 50 metres to 300 metres. It forces players to choose between firing early and potentially missing/spreading damage over the target, or risking return fire and waiting until their weapons sync up.
BAM, now boats are nowhere near as effective, sniping builds are heavily nerfed, and missiles have a distinct area of advantage. Your welcome.
Perhaps give the option to have your weapons pre-converged on a mech you have targeted, maybe the 'u' button?

[Tarl Cabot]

D V Devnull, on 04 April 2022 - 02:21 PM, said:

Perhaps they are, but the current Armor & Structure values were only designed for 8v8 combat usage originally, and do not hold up well in 12v12 combat situations.

snip

~D. V. "Yeah, going 4x TT would probably be too much, but 3x TT sounds like it would fix a lot of problems!!!" Devnull

(p.s.: I should note that I sensed all this trouble coming about 6 years ago, prior to everything getting messed with. I think that I even may have posted about it too. I wish the pre-Cauldron controllers of Game Balance had been willing to change the Armor & Structure value limits from 2x TT to 3x TT and how that factored into Mech Tonnage during normal game operation. It would have saved us all the last 6 years of madness!!!)

Actually, you would be incorrect in why the internal structural was double, and due to simplified coding and no additional coding, that update was an error lead to the armor being doubled. So no. Armor increase was not due to an 8v8 battlefield.

• During early closed beta (family/friends only), PGI had setup weapon cooldowns along the lines of Solaris VII/MPBT 3025 Weapon Delay, which were definitely longer they are today and when the game opened up.
  
• FF complained it was taking too long to kill mechs. Standard BT armor/structure, not doubled.
  
• Weapon delays (cooldown) was smashed and reduced big time. Quicker gameplay...
  
• Yeah!!! but now mechs were dying too quickly...
  
• PGI directed their coders to double the internal structure for mechs (remember, only IS and not many available at the time).
  
• Coders doubled the internal structure for all mechs, but coding used was KISS principle, thus by doubling up structure, it also doubled the armor.
  
• PGI were asked about that, well, that wasnt supposed to happen but we will leave it as it is.
  
• Quirks were a far off dream at this point.

Adding a screenshot of the Solaris weapons setup for IS weapons. Clans actually had shorter weapon delays (cooldowns) on some of their weapons (not shown here).. and mine all, Solaris IIV was setup with 2.5sec turns.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 04 April 2022 - 03:43 PM.

[Ekson Valdez]

This thread has been moved to Feature Suggestions

[D V Devnull]

Tarl Cabot, on 04 April 2022 - 03:38 PM, said:

Actually, you would be incorrect in why the internal structural was double, and due to simplified coding and no additional coding, that update was an error lead to the armor being doubled. So no. Armor increase was not due to an 8v8 battlefield.

• During early closed beta (family/friends only), PGI had setup weapon cooldowns along the lines of Solaris VII/MPBT 3025 Weapon Delay, which were definitely longer they are today and when the game opened up.
  
• FF complained it was taking too long to kill mechs. Standard BT armor/structure, not doubled.
  
• Weapon delays (cooldown) was smashed and reduced big time. Quicker gameplay...
  
• Yeah!!! but now mechs were dying too quickly...
  
• PGI directed their coders to double the internal structure for mechs (remember, only IS and not many available at the time).
  
• Coders doubled the internal structure for all mechs, but coding used was KISS principle, thus by doubling up structure, it also doubled the armor.
  
• PGI were asked about that, well, that wasnt supposed to happen but we will leave it as it is.
  
• Quirks were a far off dream at this point.

Adding a screenshot of the Solaris weapons setup for IS weapons. Clans actually had shorter weapon delays (cooldowns) on some of their weapons (not shown here).. and mine all, Solaris IIV was setup with 2.5sec turns.

<<< image from https://assets-cloud.enjin.com/users/3647322/pics/original/4042298.jpg >>>

Fair enough... I was simply extrapolating from what I had seen in older videos and the in-game 8v8 Match experience which I had collected. I seriously had no idea this came about because of what you just described!

That said, it still seems like current 2x TT Armor & Structure limits are rather unjustly too low for 12v12 combat situations. Would you agree that maybe we should be getting The Cauldron & PGI to work together and bump those to 3x TT in order to make Mechs feel properly durable once again?

~D. V. "sees 3x TT for Armor & Structure with 12v12 combat as the long-standing best possible solution" Devnull

[An6ryMan69]

I like playing MWO. As.It.Is.

[Tarl Cabot]

D V Devnull, on 05 April 2022 - 08:10 AM, said:

Fair enough... I was simply extrapolating from what I had seen in older videos and the in-game 8v8 Match experience which I had collected. I seriously had no idea this came about because of what you just described!

That said, it still seems like current 2x TT Armor & Structure limits are rather unjustly too low for 12v12 combat situations. Would you agree that maybe we should be getting The Cauldron & PGI to work together and bump those to 3x TT in order to make Mechs feel properly durable once again?

~D. V. "sees 3x TT for Armor & Structure with 12v12 combat as the long-standing best possible solution" Devnull

Do not really agree, for several reasons.

• Most Lights would actually being from it the most due to their size and mobility.
  
• Armor quirks and/or Structure quirks are already live on many mechs.
  
• The larger the mech, the easier it to hit and hit the same armor section. Twisting helps spread damage but see #1.
  
• Most mechs need to be resized, and that would mean shrinking them. And for lights, a few need to a very slight increase while a few of the 35t would need a tad of shrinkage.
  
• isXL would need to be updated to match cXL/LFE survivability w/loss of 1st ST, but with different mobility/heat dissipation penalties
  
• Heavier or different collision damage (for those leg hugging lights).
  
• Extreme (PGI might furbar the coding) - ability to briefly raise one arm at a time higher than nut level to fire arm-mounted weapons, especially for humanoid mechs.

Though the easiest route PGI could take would be to increase the base Structural points, thus increasing the Armor points (coding is hard ) but have you reviewed the mechs w/armor quirks before even SP? A number have approximately 58% of TT armor value or 29% of the MWO value of armor quirk for the CT online..... Take the Atlas.. MWO 124 armor + 36 armor quirk on CT.. why is that? Look at the scaling, not just to other mechs but the game in general. And going to lighter mechs.. several Light IS mechs, at least for the CT, are at 100% of TT value and 50% at MWO value. And it is not just one mech either.

Quirks are the quickest/easiest item to change, unknown how deep the base IS/Armor coding is buried but increase the TT base from 2x to 3x, imho would be extreme, regardless if it was 8v8, 10v10, 12v12, 15v15. In any game, it would be an extreme setting for all 12 mechs to be lined up on one mech?

[JC Daxion]

Nightbird, on 04 April 2022 - 08:58 AM, said:

MWO already reduced all weapon damage by 50% by doubling armor values. In a way, your request has already been granted.

If you're asking for it to be double again... well now you're just being greedy.

No, it has nothing to do with being Greedy.. and everything to do with power creep. Way back when a cataphract IM with 3 UAC5's was a beast.. or a quad AC2 Jagger where top mechs. But now we have mechs that boat 8XUAC2s, and 3 UAC5's+PPCs are a thing. A light or fast mech had quad 4's, now things just as fast have 6- or 8, There are laser boats that have a 70-80 point burn. Heck i was in a Victor that still had armor and a stupid Locust PB ground down my armor and my CT before my buds killed him. (My fault for not twisting enough and just missing a refire, but my point is a lot of mechs including lights have way more fire power than the past when a spider with 3 MPL's or a commando with a pair of SRMs were deadly.


The flip side of things with structure, Now there are lights that can blast 60+ in a few seconds.. 12 ERSLs for example to a mech that is meant for front end T1 play with all those bonus points being added to armor, but down in the lower teirs it's a death trap. People don't know how to protect there back or teams don't help and they get destroyed. I want manuvering to be a thing, but at the same time someone skilled should not be killing a dire from the rear in 5 seconds in T5. Just having damage reduction if you had armor would be a good thing. In T1 you are rarely having someone in a light sneaking up on you and destroying you, but T5 it's a huge issue and it's what brings lights as OP up all the time. Down in T5 it's almost a cheat. You could add all the armor parts to a total of 6, or just keep it by Torso section so if armor is on one sire then the structure damage has a reduction.


Total Alpha's are up from the early days, and now ghost heat seams to be around 40 points verse 30.. and that's fine, But the added armor and movement and JJ's did not out weight the burst damage improvements.

I ask for a global change because i think balance is actually OK, but i also think it's a bit to much. which is why i think a global reduction on armor what ever % it is.. and perhaps a reduction to structure if a mech has full armor and just a single open part for those back stabbers to help the folks down low and learning. Don't tell me that in T1 your worried about some flea coring you from behind, but in T5 it is an issue and this is one way it could be addressed with out blowing balance out of the water.