23 replies to this topic

[LordNothing]

lets take lerms for example. its free cheap damage until you start considering the opt-in counters you can employ. now they are perhaps overcountered and need buffs as a result.

apply the same philosophy to ppcs. implement a counter, which is available in lore. however i dont think those tt rules translate well. supposidly it will cut the damage of ppcs in half, but can only be used 6 times. use it more than that and it has a chance of critting the equipment in the component hit (resulting in something equivalent to an ammo/weapon explosion).

however i do not believe those mechanics will translate well to mwo. the equipment itself will probibly need to be treated as an upgrade, like artemis. install it and it adds the required fixed equipment. when an active shield is hit with a ppc the damage is reduced by half and a set amount of heat is applied to the shielded mech.

the blueshield system gets a charge bar with a max value of 60 (equivalent to six standard ppc blasts). when hit the full ppc damage is subtracted from the bar. if there is not enough charge, the bar is zeroed and the weapon passes through as if there was no shield. it goes through a cd phase and then recharges before reactivating. the equipment crits with damage as if it were a weapon/ammo explosion. the system will still function, but only on components with an undestroyed blueshield component (and perhaps diminished charge capacity proportional to remaining units).

this will be most effectively used on counter-sniper builds. it will enable you to either win ranged trades with it or allow you to close in to brawling range where you have the dph advantage. or simply take less damage from ppcs.

[FupDup]

Blueshield is a bad piece of equipment because it's even more hyperspecialized than AMS. AMS at least works against ALL missile types.

What you really want is Reflective Armor, which reduces ALL energy damage.

[LordNothing]

FupDup, on 20 July 2022 - 06:02 PM, said:

Blueshield is a bad piece of equipment because it's even more hyperspecialized than AMS. AMS at least works against ALL missile types.

What you really want is Reflective Armor, which reduces ALL energy damage.

im for reflective armor being a counter to lasers. same for reactive armor and ballistics. it would solve the problem of one weapon type having a disproportionate number of counters.

Edited by LordNothing, 20 July 2022 - 06:46 PM.

[PocketYoda]

Yep it is Time, all platinum mechs get reflective armor by default.. hand out those MCs people.. PGI can thank me later.

[Curccu]

LordNothing, on 20 July 2022 - 06:41 PM, said:

im for reflective armor being a counter to lasers. same for reactive armor and ballistics. it would solve the problem of one weapon type having a disproportionate number of counters.

-50% E dmg
+50% B&M dmg?

[martian]

These alternative armor types such as reflective or reactive are not useful as you think.

For example, they were available in MechWarrior 4 and yet, I went through the game on the first play with standard and ferro-fibrous armor. Why? Because you can never know what opposition you will face. It was true in MechWarrior 4 and it would be equally true in MechWarrior Online.

Imagine equipping reactive armor with all its disadvantages, only to find out that almost all enemy 'Mechs are running lasers and PPCs ...

[Kanil]

martian, on 20 July 2022 - 10:54 PM, said:

Imagine equipping reactive armor with all its disadvantages, only to find out that almost all enemy 'Mechs are running lasers and PPCs ...

Given the amount of lasers and PPCs around these days, you're right that bringing reactive armor wouldn't be all that useful. Reflective armor, on the other hand...

One of the appeals of armor types is that it could let the meta self-balance, to an extent. If one weapon type becomes really popular for whatever reason, the player base can simply equip the armor that counters it until a patch balances it out.

Additional bonus: players who just can't handle weapon type X, could now equip counter Y instead of whining about it on the forum.

[LordNothing]

martian, on 20 July 2022 - 10:54 PM, said:

These alternative armor types such as reflective or reactive are not useful as you think.

For example, they were available in MechWarrior 4 and yet, I went through the game on the first play with standard and ferro-fibrous armor. Why? Because you can never know what opposition you will face. It was true in MechWarrior 4 and it would be equally true in MechWarrior Online.

Imagine equipping reactive armor with all its disadvantages, only to find out that almost all enemy 'Mechs are running lasers and PPCs ...

i dont really think so. mwo has strong and varied metas and i think some of these armor types would work out on builds that counter those metas. right now it seems like the best way to counter an op meta is to ***** about it on the forum, and it usually gets addressed within 90 days (does that make that the meta metagame?). id rather be able to go: "ok these builds are busting my balls, how do i build a mech with the sole purpose of defeating them?"

getting lermed to death -> ams, ecm, radar derp
getting erll camped to death -> reflective armor
too many ppcs -> blueshield
all this rac/machine gun/ac2 spam -> reactive armor.

it gives players some agency to create builds that can stop metas that undermine a lot of other playstyles. this is perhaps why lerms have never been meta. there is always something you can do to stop them. for the armors the cost of switching is not really that much in terms of tonnage.

Curccu, on 20 July 2022 - 10:38 PM, said:

-50% E dmg
+50% B&M dmg?

not sure id want another missile counter, but something like that.

[lazorbeamz]

Snubs shouldnt outclass weapons like AC20, 10 like they do.
Only extreme quirks make the latter two any viable.

[CrimsonPhantom6sg062]

This is a terrible idea.

Main reason why IDF missiles such as lrms get some hard counters is because they are IDF, not because they are missiles.

The only real hard counter I can think of is AMS.

Baffled at why people think ECM counters lrms? In my experience lrms counter ECM, because of tag and the tracking nature of lrms. Also ECM does NOTHING to DF lrms or atms. The thing I see that ECM snipers seem most reluctant to duel are pure lrmboats. Especially ECM ERLL snipers, because they have no real advantage versus lrms.

ECM is only a threat to lrms and atms if they don't carry tag or ppcs and rely exclusively on IDF, or if the ECM mechs bunch together.

There are no hard counters for anything else apart from that. (except ballistics to counter flamers, and that is more of a coincidence then an intentional feature)

AMS is more of a counter versus a build that is generally more difficult to defend against in organized games.

You'd think that AMS would blunt the damage of MRMs and SRMs, but not in my experience. I have no problems wiping out 3xAMS kit foxes with SRM and MRM lights, and its probably due to a combination of high velocity, high missile health and short range.


Introducing hard counters to everything sets a really bad precedent, especially in a game as difficult to balance as MWO.

So, rather than trying to find a strategy to counter a build, e.g. AC2s, this would encourage players to fall back onto stuff such as reactive armor. But what if they encounter PPCs? Fall back to reflective. What about Gauss? Get reactive. What if the opposition uses a mix of builds, bracket, or kitchen sink builds? You're ****-ed.

But if you adapted your playstyle, you could play well against a variety of builds. Its not like its hard work, you just need to pay a little attention to what you are doing.

Expand this to teams. What if one side is full of ballistics with reflective, and the other has full energy and reflective? Stomp incoming. And how would you balance this? How would you let ANY matchmaker know about these differences?


So please don't introduce hard counters into this game for specific weapon types. AMS is designed to counter IDF, and nothing much else. Everything else is just soft counters and stuff.

I am all for equipment, but I wouldn't like to see this feature.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Kanil, on 20 July 2022 - 11:25 PM, said:

Given the amount of lasers and PPCs around these days, you're right that bringing reactive armor wouldn't be all that useful. Reflective armor, on the other hand...

One of the appeals of armor types is that it could let the meta self-balance, to an extent. If one weapon type becomes really popular for whatever reason, the player base can simply equip the armor that counters it until a patch balances it out.

That's not really how it works, because those armors all have drawbacks to offset that damage reduction, and if they didn't, why wouldn't you just run reflective because statistically more mechs are just going to run energy weapons. Which is really part of the problem is energy weapons have such a lower tax to run them that most mechs can afford a solid amount. The same cannot be said about ballistics.

It's also worth noting reflective didn't deter LL spam during the MW4 days, it just became a requirement to survive.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 21 July 2022 - 09:27 AM.

[feeWAIVER]

I would hate for my match to be determined by rock, paper, scissors.

[Knownswift]

I wonder if the game can actually do damage mitigation other than the missile door and damage through destroyed section mechanics.

[LordNothing]

CrimsonPhantom6sg062, on 21 July 2022 - 02:07 AM, said:

This is a terrible idea.

Main reason why IDF missiles such as lrms get some hard counters is because they are IDF, not because they are missiles.

The only real hard counter I can think of is AMS.

Baffled at why people think ECM counters lrms? In my experience lrms counter ECM, because of tag and the tracking nature of lrms. Also ECM does NOTHING to DF lrms or atms. The thing I see that ECM snipers seem most reluctant to duel are pure lrmboats. Especially ECM ERLL snipers, because they have no real advantage versus lrms.

ECM is only a threat to lrms and atms if they don't carry tag or ppcs and rely exclusively on IDF, or if the ECM mechs bunch together.

There are no hard counters for anything else apart from that. (except ballistics to counter flamers, and that is more of a coincidence then an intentional feature)

AMS is more of a counter versus a build that is generally more difficult to defend against in organized games.

You'd think that AMS would blunt the damage of MRMs and SRMs, but not in my experience. I have no problems wiping out 3xAMS kit foxes with SRM and MRM lights, and its probably due to a combination of high velocity, high missile health and short range.


Introducing hard counters to everything sets a really bad precedent, especially in a game as difficult to balance as MWO.

So, rather than trying to find a strategy to counter a build, e.g. AC2s, this would encourage players to fall back onto stuff such as reactive armor. But what if they encounter PPCs? Fall back to reflective. What about Gauss? Get reactive. What if the opposition uses a mix of builds, bracket, or kitchen sink builds? You're ****-ed.

But if you adapted your playstyle, you could play well against a variety of builds. Its not like its hard work, you just need to pay a little attention to what you are doing.

Expand this to teams. What if one side is full of ballistics with reflective, and the other has full energy and reflective? Stomp incoming. And how would you balance this? How would you let ANY matchmaker know about these differences?


So please don't introduce hard counters into this game for specific weapon types. AMS is designed to counter IDF, and nothing much else. Everything else is just soft counters and stuff.

I am all for equipment, but I wouldn't like to see this feature.

thing is none of these are hard counters. soft counters at most. even ams is a soft counter as it might knock out 10-25% of missile damage. making ams less effective against mrms/atms/srms may have been a mistake, and narc in particular should be hardened against ams.

ecm is also a soft counter which in turn has its own counters (ppc is my preferred method). radar derp is the hardest counter as it can be cranked all the way to 100% at very little cost. i feel like missiles have enough going against them to exempt them from being limited by reactive armor, at least not to the same degree as ballistics (50% ballistics, 25% missiles perhaps).

blueshiled, as i discribed, knocks out at most 50% of the damage but can be overloaded with too many ppcs, creates heat, can be crited for internal explosion. 50% may be a tad excessive though. especially when thinking about reactive/reflective which wouldn't have the recharge mechanic. perhaps 35% is more approachable.

blueshield might better be implemented as an armor rather than a 4th upgrade option. but i like the idea of stacking blueshield with reflective armor for anti-energy survivability.

as for "What if the opposition uses a mix of builds, bracket, or kitchen sink builds?", id say good, people are using more stuff because they can bring counters to the builds that best oppose them. i think a lot of the problems with this game comes in when one playstyle cancels another, you cant brawl because there are too many snipers/lermers or you cant run lights because there are too many streak builds. or you are losing components in one hit because you dont have a counter to vomit builds. those alone justify the addition of reflective.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

LordNothing, on 21 July 2022 - 01:11 PM, said:

blueshiled, as i discribed, knocks out at most 50% of the damage but can be overloaded with too many ppcs, creates heat, can be crited for internal explosion. 50% may be a tad excessive though. especially when thinking about reactive/reflective which wouldn't have the recharge mechanic. perhaps 35% is more approachable.

None of those are really good mechanics unfortunately. Anything that can be overloaded only incentivizes boating even further (look to AMS a exhibit 1 of this). Critting for internal explosions are also silly counters imo because it is guaranteed to trigger and kind of either kills usage of it like Gauss in side torsos or isn't enough to really bother (ammo explosions). Making it armor based makes it more strategic which is always nice, whereas making it something that is actively controlled similar to stealth makes for somewhat better mechanics.

However something worth noting, too specific of "counters" fall into a category where they often end up feast or famine which generally makes for bad equipment imo. TBH I would just like to see shields implemented maybe on select mechs just to see how they work out. Something that is either front facing or just guards against damage from all sides temporarily but slowly recharges while active and requires significant down time to recover. It works in games like Overwatch mechanically, however mechwarrior is much slower pace so not sure on what cooldowns you would really end up with. That is a mechanic though that would be interesting to play around with even if not really canon.

[Glaive-]

For those saying reflective armor wouldn't be worth the downsides, it actually has no disadvantage vs ballistics or missiles.

Per the Tactical Ops rule book, reflective armor reduces incoming energy damage by 50% and but recieves double damage only from falls, melee damage, artillery, and collision with buildings and the like.

In MWO, those sources of damage are nonexistent for the most part, so reflective would actually be pretty good, if not the go-to for some builds.

Edited by Glaive-, 21 July 2022 - 03:34 PM.

[ScrapIron Prime]

Glaive-, on 21 July 2022 - 03:33 PM, said:

For those saying reflective armor wouldn't be worth the downsides, it actually has no disadvantage vs ballistics or missiles.

Per the Tactical Ops rule book, reflective armor reduces incoming energy damage by 50% and but recieves double damage only from falls, melee damage, artillery, and collision with buildings and the like.

In MWO, those sources of damage are nonexistent for the most part, so reflective would actually be pretty good, if not the go-to for some builds.

Well that's the point, isn't it? Superior against one thing, drawbacks against another. Reflective armor exists in a world of melee weapons, MASC, and Triple Strength Myomer, so melee vulnerability is sometimes a BIG disadvantage. If that drawback doesn't exist, you would have to substitute something OR nerf the armor advantage.

But let's face it... this is MWO. The dev team is small right now, and folks are asking for an entirely new system of toys instead of just adjustments to a spreadsheet of existing items? Unless we're doing a huge rollout of new tech, and an on-boarding of devs to accommodate it, this isn't happening.

[LordNothing]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 21 July 2022 - 03:30 PM, said:

None of those are really good mechanics unfortunately. Anything that can be overloaded only incentivizes boating even further (look to AMS a exhibit 1 of this). Critting for internal explosions are also silly counters imo because it is guaranteed to trigger and kind of either kills usage of it like Gauss in side torsos or isn't enough to really bother (ammo explosions). Making it armor based makes it more strategic which is always nice, whereas making it something that is actively controlled similar to stealth makes for somewhat better mechanics.

However something worth noting, too specific of "counters" fall into a category where they often end up feast or famine which generally makes for bad equipment imo. TBH I would just like to see shields implemented maybe on select mechs just to see how they work out. Something that is either front facing or just guards against damage from all sides temporarily but slowly recharges while active and requires significant down time to recover. It works in games like Overwatch mechanically, however mechwarrior is much slower pace so not sure on what cooldowns you would really end up with. That is a mechanic though that would be interesting to play around with even if not really canon.

i tried to keep in some of the tt mechanics. the system is going to require 8 slots, one in each component. any one of which can be critted. the explosion damage is only 5 points. the difference is in tt rules the system is only good for 6 ppc bolts and then becomes unstable and subsequent hits can (by crit roll) kill the system entirely. im just going by what it says on sarna.

requiring 60 ppc damage to discharge does nothing for boating, as that is more than any one mech can deliver without cooking off their own mech. that would require a full alpha from 4 snppcs/cerppcs/hppc or 6 ppc/erppc or 11 lppcs, well above the gh limits for a single mech (still possible, but risky). you would need at least 2 boats to lock the system out for a cooldown and recharge.

in case where the system is not fully discharged, you would have a short delay between the last hit and the recharge cycle. so taking it part way down and keeping it under fire to keep it from entering its recharge cycle is the best way to defeat it. a single mech could pull it off (without overheat) with chain fire. even then you would need a second mech to capitalize on the dropped shield as the first mech would likely be too hot at the time.

i think we could do away with the gauss+ppc linked ghost heat with this. especially if we get reactive armor. the counter to the old ppc+gauss meta would install a blue shield on top of reactive armor. it would eat crit slots, probibly require an std engine and small cool weapons, but it would enable you to close the gap and bring shorter range weapons to bear.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Glaive-, on 21 July 2022 - 03:33 PM, said:

For those saying reflective armor wouldn't be worth the downsides, it actually has no disadvantage vs ballistics or missiles.

Per the Tactical Ops rule book, reflective armor reduces incoming energy damage by 50% and but recieves double damage only from falls, melee damage, artillery, and collision with buildings and the like.

In TT it takes up space (10 crits I believe?) and in MW4 it had lower points per ton (so it was heavier to mount the same level of protection). For Clans the space is less of a concern, but for IS mechs that could mean giving up Endo Steel which is a pretty significant weight cost. So functionally maybe not any downsides but there are definitely downsides otherwise why run any other armor?

LordNothing, on 21 July 2022 - 05:44 PM, said:

i think we could do away with the gauss+ppc linked ghost heat with this. especially if we get reactive armor. the counter to the old ppc+gauss meta would install a blue shield on top of reactive armor. it would eat crit slots, probibly require an std engine and small cool weapons, but it would enable you to close the gap and bring shorter range weapons to bear.

If it requires a STD engine and small cool weapons, it isn't really a reasonable counter. It also becomes a tax, we should learn from the issue with missiles and not repeat those mistakes.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 21 July 2022 - 05:52 PM.

[LordNothing]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 21 July 2022 - 05:47 PM, said:

If it requires a STD engine and small cool weapons, it isn't really a reasonable counter.

you could take one or the other if you need more firepower. the point is you can add extra survivability but it comes at a cost.