21 replies to this topic

[Mechwarrior2342356]

See title.

Going from lightly dusted CT front to cherry red because some nutcupper caught you ONCE is unfun.

[Sagara Sousuke 011011001]

the check engine light, on 23 October 2023 - 09:58 AM, said:

See title.

Going from lightly dusted CT front to cherry red because some nutcupper caught you ONCE is unfun.

Are we there in terms of timeline? (I think it was clan tech by 3060ish and IS by 3080)

I'd love to see it as it would shift away from the current meta. In game I think laser damage was cut by 1/2. I'm sure thats a bit too strong for this game, but 20-25% would be fun.

(Looks like we are there timeline-wise given x pulse are here)

Edited by Sagara Sousuke 011011001, 23 October 2023 - 12:50 PM.

[Meep Meep]

Reflective armor is weaker to kinetic damage though so then you just get reamed by a dakka boat or hagspam. Nah, just learn better positioning and how to reflexively twist.

[Samziel]

Sagara Sousuke 011011001, on 23 October 2023 - 12:47 PM, said:

Are we there in terms of timeline? (I think it was clan tech by 3060ish and IS by 3080)

I'd love to see it as it would shift away from the current meta. In game I think laser damage was cut by 1/2. I'm sure thats a bit too strong for this game, but 20-25% would be fun.

(Looks like we are there timeline-wise given x pulse are here)

I dont think timeline has mattered at all for a while.

I believe reflective armor would take more damage from ballistics? Nice additional buff to HAGs...

[Saved By The Bell]

They could do reflective armor, which OK with ballistic, but require more tons and space.

[Davegt27]

can anyone explain what reflective armor does ??

[Sagara Sousuke 011011001]

Davegt27, on 24 October 2023 - 04:19 AM, said:

can anyone explain what reflective armor does ??

It basically dissipates energy from things like lasers / PPCs etc reducing damage by 50%. It works like regular armor otherwise but is bulky. I think it used an extra 12 slots over standard and no weight saving like ferro?

[pbiggz]

Reflective AND reactive armor. We need both for them to have the desired effect on the meta.

Meep Meep, on 23 October 2023 - 01:33 PM, said:

Reflective armor is weaker to kinetic damage though so then you just get reamed by a dakka boat or hagspam. Nah, just learn better positioning and how to reflexively twist.

You're reading this completely wrong.

The presence of reflective and reactive armour would mean the presence of a hard counter either to blue laser spam, OR dakka spam. You cant have both at the same time, so countering one comes at the cost of making yourself more vulnerable to the other. This makes sense to me. If you want the most well rounded defense, existing armour types will still be your best bet, but if you want to choose to defend against a weapon type you know you have trouble dealing with, you now have the option to do so.

In turn that ability to more specifically target certain strategies with certain countermeasures encourages more mixed builds because while the reward from running unified builds with easily directed single-weapon type alphas is high (consider that laser midrange has been king for like 5 years), it now comes with a risk because if you load up all lasers, you might run into a reflective boy and your build is useless, but if you were running a mixed ACs and PPCs build for instance, at least part of your alpha will still make it through their defenses.

And these armor types are just the beginning. I have long held that new equipment, especially defensive equipment, would do more to "fix" the meta than anything else. Right now we have few choices on our mechs except to stack additional weapons, which is why alphas have crept up pretty much non-stop. Equipment would eat up valuable tonnage that would otherwise have gone to more guns.

[Rondoe]

Davegt27, on 24 October 2023 - 04:19 AM, said:

can anyone explain what reflective armor does ??

Take a look at this.
https://www.sarna.ne...eflective_Armor

[LordNothing]

Meep Meep, on 23 October 2023 - 01:33 PM, said:

Reflective armor is weaker to kinetic damage though so then you just get reamed by a dakka boat or hagspam. Nah, just learn better positioning and how to reflexively twist.

id rather have dakka bear back because it would at least be something different. when was the last time we had a serious ballistic meta?

also if you are worred about this, add it in parallel with reactive armor. and blueshield.

Edited by LordNothing, 24 October 2023 - 10:53 AM.

[Curccu]

the check engine light, on 23 October 2023 - 09:58 AM, said:

See title.

Going from lightly dusted CT front to cherry red because some nutcupper caught you ONCE is unfun.

Not sure if you want this with Yesterdays HAG buff

[Mechwarrior2342356]

Curccu, on 25 October 2023 - 03:37 AM, said:

Not sure if you want this with Yesterdays HAG buff

Bring in Reactive, Hardened, all of it. Start bringing in things that increase TTK instead of reducing it. Make alpha-monsters lives much harder.

Edited by the check engine light, 25 October 2023 - 11:44 AM.

[martian]

the check engine light, on 23 October 2023 - 09:58 AM, said:

Bring In Reflective Armor.
Going from lightly dusted CT front to cherry red because some nutcupper caught you ONCE is unfun.

the check engine light, on 25 October 2023 - 07:26 AM, said:

Bring in Reactive, Hardened, all of it. Start bringing in things that increase TTK instead of reducing it. Make alpha-monsters lives much harder.

MechWarrior 4: Vengeance had those alternative armor types. Technically, they did work. Reflective Armor protected against lasers, Hardened Armor protected against ballistic weapons, etc.

Unfortunately, they were less useful in the context of the game than you would think. The problem was that you never knew what 'Mechs with what loadouts you would be facing.*

Imagine that you are killed by some enemy laser boat. You go to your 'Mechlab and equip your 'Mech with Reflective Armor and accept its weight and space penalty. You deploy only to find out that the majority of enemy 'Mechs are running HAGs (Quite common these days.). In the end, you would find that your Reflective Armor not only does not give you advantage, but it often puts you into disadvantage.

I equipped my 'Mechs in MW4 with Standard armor. It was not flashy, but it was reasonably effective against all kinds of attacks that enemy team could mount against my 'Mech.


* I am not talking about the single player campaign when you know exactly what enemy 'Mechs you would meet in any given mission. I am talking about the MW4 multiplayer games.

[Ekson Valdez]

This thread has been moved to Feature Suggestions

[foamyesque]

pbiggz, on 24 October 2023 - 10:43 AM, said:

Reflective AND reactive armor. We need both for them to have the desired effect on the meta.



You're reading this completely wrong.

The presence of reflective and reactive armour would mean the presence of a hard counter either to blue laser spam, OR dakka spam. You cant have both at the same time, so countering one comes at the cost of making yourself more vulnerable to the other. This makes sense to me. If you want the most well rounded defense, existing armour types will still be your best bet, but if you want to choose to defend against a weapon type you know you have trouble dealing with, you now have the option to do so.

In turn that ability to more specifically target certain strategies with certain countermeasures encourages more mixed builds because while the reward from running unified builds with easily directed single-weapon type alphas is high (consider that laser midrange has been king for like 5 years), it now comes with a risk because if you load up all lasers, you might run into a reflective boy and your build is useless, but if you were running a mixed ACs and PPCs build for instance, at least part of your alpha will still make it through their defenses.

And these armor types are just the beginning. I have long held that new equipment, especially defensive equipment, would do more to "fix" the meta than anything else. Right now we have few choices on our mechs except to stack additional weapons, which is why alphas have crept up pretty much non-stop. Equipment would eat up valuable tonnage that would otherwise have gone to more guns.

I'm in favour of anything that makes other long-range options deal with the same kind of hard shutdown missiles have had to deal with for years. The salt'll be legendary.


'course, the best long-range option right now is a mixed gauss/ERLL build IMO, so there's only so far it can take us, but no-selling the Dire Flashlights would be nice anyway.

Edited by foamyesque, 26 October 2023 - 12:06 AM.

[Mechwarrior2342356]

foamyesque, on 26 October 2023 - 12:06 AM, said:

I'm in favour of anything that makes other long-range options deal with the same kind of hard shutdown missiles have had to deal with for years. The salt'll be legendary.


'course, the best long-range option right now is a mixed gauss/ERLL build IMO, so there's only so far it can take us, but no-selling the Dire Flashlights would be nice anyway.

I've been combing through Sarna looking for anything that would increase TTK without outright nerfing weapons or band-aiding things with quirks. The armor types were the first things I found. Blue Shield is pretty specific, but that's not a bad thing. I don't think any of these things should just come completely tradeoff free, but the extra damage from X type thing is not a great tradeoff given the prevalent combo of ERLL with Gauss, PPCs with ACs or LGRs or similar.

The only other thing I can think of right now that would bring that TTK up is an across the board cooldown increase which is a nerf, wouldn't really ameliorate the alpha monster builds effectively and with the range required to close on the long range builds would still leave them with time to fire off multiple shots. The argument that "better players will not be set back at all by this" is a nonstarter because it's already a given that better players do better, and frankly if better players start pushing other players down in tiers eventually the issue will self-correct because they will then find themselves somewhat forced to play against people at or close to their level more frequently.

The skill tree is another avenue. Skill tree creates a substantial gap between skilled-out and not.

I'd rather stay within the realm of equip options and tweaks rather than messing with weapons. The other change I can think of is to ECM - reduce the effectiveness across the board, remove bubble, and require it being toggled to an "active" mode to produce sensor fritz, leave countering other ECM to BAP.

[KursedVixen]

reflective armor would make x-pulse utterly useless.

[JumpingHunter]

I would prefer to just have existing laser meta nerfed via nerfs to certain weapons like BLC and some nerfs to dedicated laser boat mechs with insane quirks and a lot of hardpoints, rather than by additional weight-consuming armor type, but it's always good to have new things in game regardless, so i'd vote for this feature.

[pbiggz]

KursedVixen, on 27 October 2023 - 04:01 AM, said:

reflective armor would make x-pulse utterly useless.

And reactive armour would make them hyper-effective.

If you're worried about one type of weapon (dont you hate x pulse lasers?) being extra nerfed by this, then you haven't read the rest of the thread.

Edited by pbiggz, 27 October 2023 - 09:14 AM.

[pbiggz]

JumpingHunter, on 27 October 2023 - 04:51 AM, said:

I would prefer to just have existing laser meta nerfed via nerfs to certain weapons like BLC and some nerfs to dedicated laser boat mechs with insane quirks and a lot of hardpoints, rather than by additional weight-consuming armor type, but it's always good to have new things in game regardless, so i'd vote for this feature.

If you find you're constantly having to tweak values and cant quite dial in on the right spot its sometimes indicative that there are things missing from the game that might be needed to make things healthier and more sustainable in the long term. The lack of specialized armour types and tonnage consuming equipment is largely the reason all you see is a meta centered around massive arms races - more gun is always better than less because there aren't really any meaningful alternatives to having more gun.

foamyesque, on 26 October 2023 - 12:06 AM, said:

I'm in favour of anything that makes other long-range options deal with the same kind of hard shutdown missiles have had to deal with for years. The salt'll be legendary.


'course, the best long-range option right now is a mixed gauss/ERLL build IMO, so there's only so far it can take us, but no-selling the Dire Flashlights would be nice anyway.

in a round about way it would be a buff to missiles. A firm equipment based counterplay option like reflective/reactive armor and blue shields would mean the opportunity cost of running missiles is alot closer to on par with other weapon types; ergo- more missiles, which is good.