247 replies to this topic

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Hauptmann Keg Steiner, on 22 July 2022 - 04:26 PM, said:

If we're keeping Gauss charge around, can we at least get rid of Gauss explosions?

Now that I can get behind. Gauss explosions, ammo explosions, anything that is a small chance of happening but when it does it basically means death is definitely no fun and are generally just bad mechanics. You'll get no pushback from me on removal of that.

[Sjorpha]

I like the charge mechanic on gauss, i don't really understand why It's considered a problem but apparently some people don't enjoy it. I like it because It's unique, has that bow and arrow feel, and allows gauss to be balanced to a higher power level than it could be without charge.

Whether gauss and ammo explosions are fun or not to have in the game is a different topic, there's really no connection there so bringing it up in a diskussion about the charge mechanic is just whataboutism.

It seems to me that the gauss charge debate boils down to a matter of taste, you like it or you don't and there's really not much to say beyond that.

Edited by Sjorpha, 23 July 2022 - 12:50 AM.

[Nightbird]

Yeah, explosions are a different topic. I would like to see explosion chance to be 100% and damage correspondingly reduced for all explosive equipment. For crits, just change it to 100% chance of crit of open component but again, reduce the crit damage. The only "roll" is for which equipment is hit, since we don't have physicial equipment unlike other games can't do anything about that. Crit damage should also be reduced by range, doesn't make sense for weapons at max range to do full crit damage.

Edited by Nightbird, 23 July 2022 - 09:19 AM.

[The6thMessenger]

I haven't actually played for a while, so take my word with a grain of salt.

Navid A1, on 18 June 2022 - 08:48 PM, said:

Would it be ok if Light Gauss rifles were linked again with PPC family in heat penalty group, IF it allows us to boost individual PPC type and Gauss rifles weapons on their own?

Personally, I don't like re-linking LGR with PPC -- it's good as it is. That 10% damage increase is no good trade to basically losing 50% of it's moment damage -- to something like 2x LGR + 2x ERPPC.

Much of the game is about builds, of combining weapons together, I find it little use to argue on weapons being "on it's own". GRs being low heat is a natural pairing with high-heat weapons, and so far the only deterrence is the artificial one -- the Ghost Heat.

The LGR being able to fully meld with PPCs like this is so far what it has going for it. It'll never be like it's alpha-centric family-members, or at least it shouldn't be. That 10% damage bonus is a joke, and if anything LGR just sounds more like a scapegoat when really what is just wanted is more PPC buff.

In fact, these buffs are a bit power-creeping at this point, I feel that there's going to be an endless cycle of buffing damage and buffing armor, then buffing damage again.

My take is that PPCs should have generally lower heat, so that bringing more weapons would instead be a more understandable approach, than just packing so much heat-sinks as primary.

Lastly, I think we need to stop buffing snubs, honestly. I know you guys want your min-maxing, but this is getting ridiculous.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 23 July 2022 - 07:19 PM.

[VeeOt Dragon]

i think things are good where they are sitting now. yeah i one that hates the charge mechanic on Guass (i would get rid of it and increase the cooldown by a little more than the current min charge time it takes to fire. with that i would make them explode when crit but only when fully charged. (i know complicated but makes sense), not enough to completely kill a mech if its in the side torso (IS XLs not included) but enough that you will likely lose the torso. i would aslo include a disruption to ECM/target locks like when you are hit with a PPC to take in the fact that you mech is likely going to be hit with a nasty power surge.)

the only other thing is perhaps a small reduction in heat on PPCs but not by much. other than that both weapons are in a good place stat wise right now.

[LordNothing]

Nightbird, on 23 July 2022 - 09:17 AM, said:

Yeah, explosions are a different topic. I would like to see explosion chance to be 100% and damage correspondingly reduced for all explosive equipment. For crits, just change it to 100% chance of crit of open component but again, reduce the crit damage. The only "roll" is for which equipment is hit, since we don't have physicial equipment unlike other games can't do anything about that. Crit damage should also be reduced by range, doesn't make sense for weapons at max range to do full crit damage.

would be cool to shoot off people's guns directly. id rather be able to use skill to hit a particular component than a dice roll. you would have to go in and add a box to every hardpoint on every chassis in the game and then have some logic where if the armor is down, and you hit a weapon box the damage is dealt entirely to the weapon, if there is extra or it hits the component off a weapon box, then the damage is applied normally by dice roll, excluding weapons and equipment with external boxes. but that is an absurd amount of work (hitboxes for every possible loadout) for such a little payoff. this is easier to do with a proper weapon model system.

[Nightbird]

LordNothing, on 25 July 2022 - 09:22 AM, said:

would be cool to shoot off people's guns directly. id rather be able to use skill to hit a particular component than a dice roll. you would have to go in and add a box to every hardpoint on every chassis in the game and then have some logic where if the armor is down, and you hit a weapon box the damage is dealt entirely to the weapon, if there is extra or it hits the component off a weapon box, then the damage is applied normally by dice roll, excluding weapons and equipment with external boxes. but that is an absurd amount of work (hitboxes for every possible loadout) for such a little payoff. this is easier to do with a proper weapon model system.

You can play Crossout or Star Citizen if you want all components physicalized with their own HP and hitbox. Crossout even has quadruped mechs!

Edited by Nightbird, 25 July 2022 - 05:30 PM.

[Akamia Terizen]

MyriadDigits, on 22 July 2022 - 04:54 PM, said:

tbf to gauss dets, component health kinda guarantees you're gonna lose a decent chunk of structure before the weapon crits out.

Ammo dets just suck though. You're dead as soon as that burn starts and there's literally nothing you can do about it.

If I'm going to be frank, I like it that way. It's literally why I play a MechWarrior game like MechWarrior Online and not some other shooter; it's the only game that brings BattleTech's (apparently!) unique qualities to the mech genre in video games – and tabletop, for that matter.

This game and MechWarrior 5 are already missing so much from tabletop, which I find to be really sad considering they're the most tabletop-friendly games in this branch of the franchise since MechWarrior 2*. I would really rather not see it become less so.

* Or possibly MechWarrior 3, but I have not played that and thus cannot speak to its mechanical accuracy on any level whatsoever. Yet...

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Akamia Terizen, on 25 July 2022 - 05:16 PM, said:

This game and MechWarrior 5 are already missing so much from tabletop

Pretty sure that is intentional at least for MWO, because this game is very different from a turn based RPG. If you expected things to just be copy/pasted into here this game would be more of a ghost town. Lights would be played even less, the game would come down to managing RNG among other things. Then there is the fact this is real time so trying to adjust based on that is kinda hard.

The rules aren't what make Battletech what it is and never have been. The core of the game is giant robots slugging it out among a political backdrop that has Game of Thrones feels to it. The game is meant to feel more plodding than traditional mecha which is generally focused on being faster paced much like traditional shooters and typically has a stronger focus on the characters than Battletech has.

That said, I would love to see a reboot of sorts for the Mechwarrior series to expand the demographic it tries to appeal to while also ditching most of the rules that make balancing so hard in MWO (like redoing the tonnage difference between mechs and weapons among the biggest changes).

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 25 July 2022 - 05:54 PM.

[Akamia Terizen]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 25 July 2022 - 05:49 PM, said:

The rules aren't what make Battletech what it is and never have been.

I respectfully disagree, at least in part. As a game, they are largely the reason I was interested in the first place. If they go away completely, so do I. I may still read novels – because, y'know, I am also interested in the universe – but the game is no longer of interest at that point.

The closer adherence to tabletop mechanics is why I want to play MechWarrior and not the other BattleTech shooter game, MechAssault. BattleTech's rules are why I want to play it and not some other mech game. These things are important; they are what sets BattleTech (and MechWarrior) apart from these other games.

Mecha action games are a dime a dozen, and frankly they are mechanically uninteresting. I like BattleTech's rules; I like getting to play these ’Mechs from the first person perspective in a MechWarrior game, especially against other human players. I will always, unironically advocate to move closer to tabletop, rather than away.

I can do without the random distribution of damage from weapons fire that the tabletop has, but please, give me everything else. I want everything else.

[Bud Crue]

Akamia Terizen, on 25 July 2022 - 06:06 PM, said:

Mecha action games are a dime a dozen

Would you be so kind as to provide a list of these dime a dozen Mecha games, FPS and multi-player preferably? I am always looking for alternatives to MWO and MW5 doesn't cut it due to its single player limitation (among its plethora of limitations). Hawken was too spastic, the Titan Fall games couldn't decide what they were, Galahad 3093 is just goofy in every way (and don't get me started on the teleporting ability...just breaks any sort of immersion that I could muster). Honestly the closest I ever came to scratching the itch was going back to ye olde' Heavy Gear games and that is going a long way back. If there is some other multi-player mech based FPS, that allows for a significant degree of mech customization I'd be happy to know about it and willing to give it a try.

[Akamia Terizen]

Bud Crue, on 25 July 2022 - 06:25 PM, said:

Would you be so kind as to provide a list of these dime a dozen Mecha games, FPS and multi-player preferably?

Honestly, most of the ones I was thinking of with that statement are third-person or top-down shooters, which is kind of contributing to my point here, and is part of the stack of reasons why I consider MechWarrior going closer to tabletop BattleTech simulation to be a good thing. No other mech shooter quite does what MechWarrior does. There's Mech Merc Company, but that's singleplayer, unfinished (and possibly abandoned), and frankly a MechWarrior game with the serial numbers filed off. You've already named off the other games I had in mind that were not just mech games, but multiplayer FPS as well.

If you don't mind third person, there's Daemon X Machina, though that, too, is lacking in some areas I find important, aside from the view perspective.

Anyway, to other folks, the reason I care about BattleTech rules so much is because they model weapons, damage, movement, and just about everything else better than any other game I've played on the table, and I want that retained for the MechWarrior video games. Yes, even the multiplayer ones like MWO.

But you know what? There is at least one shooter, one that has no mechs in it, that does me one better: War Thunder. That game simulates real world combat vehicles far more accurately than any other game I've ever played. I'm not sure it's by any means perfectly realistic, but it is certainly more so than MechWarrior is in the ways that matter, and more than any tabletop game could ever match, including BattleTech, the wargame that gives me everything I want except the ability to directly pilot the BattleMech or whatever other unit I'm intending to bring.

For better or worse, BattleMechs do not exist in real life, and Square Cube Law – and most probably a plethora of other things – promises they never will. But I want a game that will otherwise simulate them realistically, and no game I know of does that better than MechWarrior and its parent franchise, BattleTech.

Edited by Akamia Terizen, 25 July 2022 - 06:55 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Akamia Terizen, on 25 July 2022 - 06:06 PM, said:

Mecha action games are a dime a dozen, and frankly they are mechanically uninteresting. I like BattleTech's rules; I like getting to play these ’Mechs from the first person perspective in a MechWarrior game, especially against other human players. I will always, unironically advocate to move closer to tabletop, rather than away.

I think there are some core mechanics that really separate this from most mecha games (which are really just your typical FPS with mecha skins). But outside of the core stuff like locational damage, weapon placement really mattering do you really need anymore? MW4 was the step in the right direction the series needed, even if imperfect. It got rid of the complex cruft that made sense in a turn based strategy game, not in a real time arena shooter where you take control of an individual unit.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 25 July 2022 - 07:13 PM.

[Akamia Terizen]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 25 July 2022 - 07:11 PM, said:

I think there are some core mechanics that really separate this from most mecha games (which are really just your typical FPS with mecha skins). But outside of the core stuff like locational damage, weapon placement really mattering do you really need anymore? MW4 was the step in the right direction the series needed, even if imperfect. It got rid of the complex cruft that made sense in a turn based strategy game, not in a real time arena shooter where you take control of an individual unit.

MW4 stood as my favorite game of all time for years, but not, specifically, because of what it lost from earlier MechWarrior games. At the time, I was mostly concerned about the sheer variety of BattleMechs I could use. Now, I want more. I want that "complex cruft" back in force. I want knockdowns back. I want everything.

And more importantly, I don't want to lose what's already here.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Akamia Terizen, on 25 July 2022 - 07:20 PM, said:

MW4 stood as my favorite game of all time for years, but not, specifically, because of what it lost from earlier MechWarrior games. At the time, I was mostly concerned about the sheer variety of BattleMechs I could use. Now, I want more. I want that "complex cruft" back in force. I want knockdowns back. I want everything.

When I say complex cruft, I don't mean knockdowns or DFAs (both of which were in MW4, well the former in some regard), I mean ECM and missile mechanics, AMS bubbles, criticals, weapon explosions, the mechlab going back to TT, minimum range, etc. Things that just make the game convoluted without really adding anything to the game.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 25 July 2022 - 07:30 PM.

[Akamia Terizen]

Those things do add to the game, though. They make it feel real in a good way, at least to me.

I understand those things may not be your idea of fun, but boy are they mine. I want them all to stay.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Akamia Terizen, on 25 July 2022 - 07:33 PM, said:

Those things do add to the game, though.

They do add something, complexity, but not complexity that makes this game deep, but complexity to give the semblance of depth. For the most part, that complexity can either be ignored (LRMs I'm looking at you) or min/max'd once you know the rules. The game doesn't teach you anything about how to game that complexity either which is part of the reason the new player experience has always been garbage. If this were a single player game, sure maybe that would be fun, but for a online FPS that lives and dies by the player population, no.

They serve no purpose other than either trapping players into thinking they are making smart choices or in cases like ECM during the Streak SRM2 Raven days, creating arms race that make the game even shallower than it already was.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 25 July 2022 - 07:48 PM.

[Akamia Terizen]

An arms race was always going to happen. MechWarrior is a simulation game, and I would like to keep it that way as much as is possible. Kindly don't take that away.

As for the new player experience, I dunno about you, but anytime I introduced a new player, they seemed to be fine. Maybe there's differing values at play here. I'm not here because I want to play with giant robots that feel "gamey". This is the only multiplayer shooter I am aware of that gives me anything I actually want, besides War Thunder and, in a different way, Elite: Dangerous.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Akamia Terizen, on 25 July 2022 - 07:53 PM, said:

An arms race was always going to happen. MechWarrior is a simulation game, and I would like to keep it that way as much as is possible. Kindly don't take that away.

I've had this discussion before, simulations and games are diametrically opposed.

Games are about well designed and fun mechanics. Play and counter play. You might splash in realism here and there but the focus is on fun engaging gameplay, not realism.

Simulation games are about, well realism and that's really about it, everything else is trumped for realism.

Simulation games are a bit of an oxymoron, and MW4 decided tried to move the game away from trying to be a sim hybrid which again, was the right choice for growth.

Some may have come here wanting this to be flight simulator: mech edition, but I don't think it would've lasted even this long had it been that.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 25 July 2022 - 08:15 PM.

[Akamia Terizen]

It still remains that MechWarrior is the only mech simulator that's worth playing, and MechWarrior Online is the only one that's worth playing that has player-versus-player combat.

If I have to wait for a brand new MechWarrior game to come out that gives me everything (or more than MWO and MW5 combined do, at the very least) I want, then so be it, but in the meantime, please don't take away what's already here. Please? I don't want another MW4. I really don't.

Edited by Akamia Terizen, 25 July 2022 - 08:15 PM.