158 replies to this topic

[The6thMessenger]

You know the drill; Light, Caseless, Hypervelocity, Proto ACs; Streak, Extended, Enhanced LRMs, Arrow; Mech-Mortars, Thunderbolt, MMLs; Plasma Rifles; Bombast, Binary, X-Pulse Lasers.... and on

The cauldron did a swell job with the balance, I think the game could cater to more weapons now. The maps are cool, the skill-tree getting reworked is also cool, but new weapons are honestly the variety that would renew my interest.

[LordNothing]

when people stop asking for small things like silver paint and balance. maybe then pgi will do some of the big stuff like weapons packs. stop giving pgi low hanging fruit to pick.

Edited by LordNothing, 23 April 2022 - 06:12 PM.

[feeWAIVER]

The6thMessenger, on 23 April 2022 - 04:56 PM, said:

You know the drill; Light, Caseless, Hypervelocity, Proto ACs; Streak, Extended, Enhanced LRMs, Arrow; Mech-Mortars, Thunderbolt, MMLs; Plasma Rifles; Bombast, Binary, X-Pulse Lasers.... and on

what are these things, and how are they different from what we currently have?

[TheArisen]

feeWAIVER, on 23 April 2022 - 09:42 PM, said:

what are these things, and how are they different from what we currently have?

They have unique functionality like thunderbolt lrms are lrm mines. Binary laser is two large lasers strapped together so it's an XL laser I guess. Bombast laser is kind of like a charge up laser that has variable cooldown depending on charge. Light autocannons are lighter in exchange for range. Plasma rifles are kind of like ammo fed flamers.
https://www.sarna.ne...ategory:Weapons

Personally I'd like to look at adding new equipment like Modular armor which lets you add armor to specific parts of your mech but less efficiently and in TT for a mobility penalty.

[Weeny Machine]

I would be happy to have an ARROW IV or THUMBER system to break the camping snipe meta - plus these systems were widely used during that timeframe.

Sidenote: get rid of the air and artillery strikes then

Edited by Weeny Machine, 24 April 2022 - 02:04 AM.

[w0qj]

Let's dream big!

MWO Timeline Expansion (the first one since the Civil War timeline expansion)

Omnimechs for Inner Sphere!
New Mech chassis such as Stone Rhino!
New Hero Atlas with ballistic Left Torso *and* Right Torso!
IS gets advanced ATM!, Binary Lasers,
IS gets Silver bullet gauss, Binary lasers or Hyper assault gauss (credits: Beffa)

Clan gets advanced ER-Pulse-Laser, MRM, RAC, and PPC! New mech chassis!
Angel ECM! Bloodhound Active Probe!

Premium Combat pets (Elemental, Elemental IIC, Pollux tanks, helicopters, etc.)!

More brand new maps!

Deepened Faction Play experience!

Love to dream big

[Gagis]

feeWAIVER, on 23 April 2022 - 09:42 PM, said:

what are these things, and how are they different from what we currently have?

Basically: the same but some dials go up to ELEVEN.

Tech advancement in Battletech timeline is mostly just bland power creep.

[Reverend Flashback]

I'd like to see especially some new clan weapons.
Variety on their side is really sad.

IS got rotaries for ballistic weapons with no equivalent on clan side.
IS got 5 kind of ppcs (normal, er, light, snub, heavy) vs clans (1) erppc.
IS got 3 different gauss rifles (light, normal, heavy) and clan has only one again.

The only thing they have are some ****** tiny micro lasers you won't mostly use on anything but a light mech. (despite the "******", I'm not saying they are bad, but extremly niche)
Oh, and they have the heavy large laser.

Maybe I forgot something, but that's it I guess...

[Andrewlik]

Reverend Flashback, on 24 April 2022 - 08:50 AM, said:

I'd like to see especially some new clan weapons.
Variety on their side is really sad.

IS got rotaries for ballistic weapons with no equivalent on clan side.
IS got 5 kind of ppcs (normal, er, light, snub, heavy) vs clans (1) erppc.
IS got 3 different gauss rifles (light, normal, heavy) and clan has only one again.

The only thing they have are some ****** tiny micro lasers you won't mostly use on anything but a light mech. (despite the "******", I'm not saying they are bad, but extremly niche)
Oh, and they have the heavy large laser.

Maybe I forgot something, but that's it I guess...

What I'd like to see is a "big", direct fire Clan missile tube.
There are some clan mechs with single or double missile hardpoints, which I don't always feel I can use because why would I waste 3 tons + 1 ton of ammo on srm 12 that on a midrange build?
I don't always want to play LRMs or ATMs, but still want to use midrange missiles. Something MRM-adjacent for clans, but idk what that'd be

[FupDup]

Andrewlik, on 24 April 2022 - 09:11 AM, said:

What I'd like to see is a "big", direct fire Clan missile tube.
There are some clan mechs with single or double missile hardpoints, which I don't always feel I can use because why would I waste 3 tons + 1 ton of ammo on srm 12 that on a midrange build?
I don't always want to play LRMs or ATMs, but still want to use midrange missiles. Something MRM-adjacent for clans, but idk what that'd be

Mech Mortars are a good candidate for that for both factions.

[Knownswift]

LordNothing, on 23 April 2022 - 06:12 PM, said:

when people stop asking for small things like silver paint and balance. maybe then pgi will do some of the big stuff like weapons packs. stop giving pgi low hanging fruit to pick.

Adding equipment islow hanging fruit.

Anything that isn't working on a matchmaker is a waste of time. Matchmaking is a core service, literally everything in the game sits on top of it's online experience and that experience is kinda ****.

[LordNothing]

Knownswift, on 24 April 2022 - 09:57 AM, said:

Adding equipment islow hanging fruit.

Anything that isn't working on a matchmaker is a waste of time. Matchmaking is a core service, literally everything in the game sits on top of it's online experience and that experience is kinda ****.

if it was low hanging fruit, we would have it already. last weapons pack took a pts and multiple iterations of retrofits. i believe they could introduce new weapons and equipment without the retrofits in most cases. but if they did it again the cauldron would need to be involved in balancing the new weapons into their existing balance solution.

ive also said it many times that match maker improvements are not exciting new content. if that is all that is in the patch notes, maybe i dont play that month, or just do the event. if on the other hand they give me something i can play with for a couple weeks, that gets me back into the game for a couple weeks rather than the day or two that events usually last. the huge civil war pack got me back in for months. population helps match making a lot more than any small tweak they can do.

Edited by LordNothing, 24 April 2022 - 08:21 PM.

[FupDup]

LordNothing, on 24 April 2022 - 08:17 PM, said:

if it was low hanging fruit, we would have it already. last weapons pack took a pts and multiple iterations of retrofits. i believe they could introduce new weapons and equipment without the retrofits in most cases. but if they did it again the cauldron would need to be involved in balancing the new weapons into their existing balance solution.

I think the next round of NuTech would probably not need quite as many retrofits since most of the truly drastic geo changes (like accounting for 40+ missile tubes on every IS missile hardpoint) got handled the first time around.

And it would depend on how picky we are with the details, for example we could probably live with LACs just using the same barrel as regular ACs (lore-wise I think they're supposed to be shorter, helping to explain the weight and slot difference). Magshots, AP Gauss, and HAGs can just take the regular Gauss triangular prism and resize it. Mech Mortars are a weird one...I guess just make them have SRM-sized missile holes but with a size-8 version added for the MM8. All the different lasers just use the generic laser nub (IDK about Binary Laser though).

Edited by FupDup, 25 April 2022 - 03:03 AM.

[LordNothing]

FupDup, on 25 April 2022 - 03:02 AM, said:

I think the next round of NuTech would probably not need quite as many retrofits since most of the truly drastic geo changes (like accounting for 40+ missile tubes on every IS missile hardpoint) got handled the first time around.

And it would depend on how picky we are with the details, for example we could probably live with LACs just using the same barrel as regular ACs (lore-wise I think they're supposed to be shorter, helping to explain the weight and slot difference). Magshots, AP Gauss, and HAGs can just take the regular Gauss triangular prism and resize it. Mech Mortars are a weird one...I guess just make them have SRM-sized missile holes but with a size-8 version added for the MM8. All the different lasers just use the generic laser nub (IDK about Binary Laser though).

yea thats what i was thinking. while it would be cool that all the new weapons would have unique models, its not like the existing weapons do. one laser nub represents a whole lot of different weapons. ppcs, gausses and autocannons are just scaled versions of the base models. there might be consistency issues with racs if you add clan versions, as players kind of expect a rac to look like a rac. clans dont have mrms as far as i know and things like streak lrms could use the same hardpoints. somehow i imagine the hag to be an amalgamation of the uac and the gauss, but it could just be a gauss. i figure in a lot of cases you could just add subtle embellishments to the existing guns to make them look different, say caps around ppcs or a flash suppresser at the end of the gauss rifle. it would be awesome if you could put those in procedurally to minimize the workload.

i pushed early on for a more procedural weapons system, sort of like mwll's pod system. it was a more advanced version of what mw4 had. weapons had their own unique models, which one or more could fit in a pod, and the pod was kind of a bit of adaptive geometry. there was a chassis-to-pod interface which was standard, and a pod-to-weapon interface which was also standard. or something like that, i cant find the thing i was reading about how that worked and that was a long time ago. i thought, early on that there was a future market for weapons variants (which i would have gladly purchased) and that a procedural weapons system would optimize the workflow involved in their creation. i think wot screwed that up for us with their gold ammo, nobody wanted paywalled superweapons after that.

[Bassault]

Weeny Machine, on 24 April 2022 - 02:03 AM, said:

I would be happy to have an ARROW IV or THUMBER system to break the camping snipe meta - plus these systems were widely used during that timeframe.

Sidenote: get rid of the air and artillery strikes then

Ah yes, players should be able to be hit for 20 pinpoint dmg + explosion dmg by completely skilless lockon weapons, that makes sense. Also it won't break any sniping meta, as you'd need a lock, which requires someone to get closer, Also snipers can take cover easily the rocks and hills they hide on. Only map design will fix sniping.

Edited by I LOVE ANNIHILATORS, 25 April 2022 - 06:55 AM.

[LordNothing]

I LOVE ANNIHILATORS, on 25 April 2022 - 06:53 AM, said:

Ah yes, players should be able to be hit for 20 pinpoint dmg + explosion dmg by completely skilless lockon weapons, that makes sense. Also it won't break any sniping meta, as you'd need a lock, which requires someone to get closer, Also snipers can take cover easily the rocks and hills they hide on. Only map design will fix sniping.

20 isnt that much, especially when you consider the weight of the weapon. give the ammo a not so good ammo/ton, or make the ammo 2 slots per ton (1-slot half ton). its not pinpoint damage if you cant point it at somones face. you can also give it so much spread that the target lock is merely a suggestion of where the shot should land. its also not really a weapon you want to be caught using alone at the edge of the map. im fine with it being a pure aoe weapon as well.

[Bassault]

LordNothing, on 25 April 2022 - 07:46 AM, said:

20 isnt that much, especially when you consider the weight of the weapon. give the ammo a not so good ammo/ton, or make the ammo 2 slots per ton (1-slot half ton). its not pinpoint damage if you cant point it at somones face. you can also give it so much spread that the target lock is merely a suggestion of where the shot should land. its also not really a weapon you want to be caught using alone at the edge of the map. im fine with it being a pure aoe weapon as well.

20 is a shitload, considering that the 20dmg comes from an enemy you can't even see and he can't even see you, from across the map with no chance for you to retaliate. What about mediums and lights? 20 dmg is a massive amount, especially if it hits your arm with weapons or your side torso with XL. What about the splash dmg? What if it crits your rear armor out?

Edited by I LOVE ANNIHILATORS, 25 April 2022 - 09:31 AM.

[Dogstar]

feeWAIVER, on 23 April 2022 - 09:42 PM, said:

what are these things, and how are they different from what we currently have?

They all require loads of dev time and so are total pie in the sky

[LordNothing]

I LOVE ANNIHILATORS, on 25 April 2022 - 09:30 AM, said:

20 is a shitload, considering that the 20dmg comes from an enemy you can't even see and he can't even see you, from across the map with no chance for you to retaliate. What about mediums and lights? 20 dmg is a massive amount, especially if it hits your arm with weapons or your side torso with XL. What about the splash dmg? What if it crits your rear armor out?

you can say that about dual gauss.

[An6ryMan69]

More weapons and systems to chose from is always a good thing.

I'd prefer changes to more fundamental things (not sure if this breaks battletech rules...don't actually care...the game already has mediums with assault class armor, etc.):

I would like to see changed is available slots in the mechlab. Available slots should be based on mech size and not fixed for all mechs. The fact that an Annihilator has no more room for heat sinks (for example) in it's left torso (for example) than a Flea does is absurd, a freakin Annihlator should pretty much be able carry around a spare Flea in it's left torso if it wanted to. I'd say slots on mechs might be modified as follows: Light - minus 75% per slot area, Medium - minus 50% per slot area, Heavy - no change, Assault - plus 50% per slot area. So a Flea would have 3 usable slots in left torso, a Hunchback would have 6, a Timberwolf would have 12 (default now) and an Annihilator 18.

Engines should always provide enough heat sinks to run a mech - additional heat sinks only needed for heat heavy loadouts as the player decides.

Get rid of Gauss charging system.

Reconsider artillery and air strikes; matches that start with five artillery barrages and several mechs badly mangled before a real shot is fired make me seriously wonder how we got here.

Consider how so many factors in the game work against missile use (mass ECM, built in radar-dep, missile-killing map design, mechs with multiple AMS, etc.) before adding more missile systems that have everything stacked against them anyways.

Keep working on the match maker and VERY seriously consider separating groups and solo drops again; as a solo player, getting beat by another solo player who is just better than me is actually fine and expected - standing no chance while getting ripped apart by a lance of matching platinum Black Knights working in unison is garbage.

Consider how many times in a row a map can come up in quickplay, under any circumstances. I recently played literally seven Emerald Vale matches in a row; it sucked. Doesn't help that I hate Emerald Vale.

I do like all the recent and upcoming changes to gameplay though.

Edited by An6ryMan69, 25 April 2022 - 09:57 AM.