179 replies to this topic

[pursang]

CaveMan, on 01 November 2011 - 11:14 PM, said:

Min-maxed 'Mechs aren't an issue if the game properly balances heat (which means overheating needs to have dire consequences as in the board game), range, weapon reload times, and ammunition concerns. If you pack 30 small lasers into a 'Mech, there should be serious consequences. By the same token, the single big gun approach should be viable, and everything inbetween.

Yes of course, but what really constitutes a min-maxed 'Mech or boat loaded out with only one weapon type? It's a little subjective or so I've found. Is the Awesome a PPC boat because it has 3+ PPCs? Is the Longbow a LRM boat because it has so many LRMs? I agree that ammunition and heat needs to play a big factor, but how big of a factor? Who draws the line and says: "That's just silly, there's no way we'll allow them to do that" in a game known to have a lot of silliness?

Anyone remember the LAMs? Or the 135-ton Ares? Hatchet-wielding Hatchetman? Yeah.

Edited by pursang, 01 November 2011 - 11:33 PM.

[CaveMan]

pursang, on 01 November 2011 - 11:32 PM, said:

Yes of course, but what really constitutes a min-maxed 'Mech or boat loaded out with only one weapon type? It's a little subjective or so I've found. Is the Awesome a PPC boat because it has 3+ PPCs? Is the Longbow a LRM boat because it has so many LRMs? I agree that ammunition and heat needs to play a big factor, but how big of a factor? Who draws the line and says: "That's just silly, there's no way we'll allow them to do that" in a game known to have a lot of silliness?

Anyone remember the LAMs? Or the 135-ton Ares? Hatchet-wielding Hatchetman? Yeah.

I'd say it only counts as "boating" when you're actively exploiting a flaw in the rules. The Awesome isn't a boat because it's been carefully designed to be functional and well-rounded. Compare this to the idea of a 100 ton 'Mech with 7 PPCs and 10 heat sinks, which exists only to ruin someone's day by using grouped-fire and blowing out their torso before the other guy can get a hit in, and winning the match that way. The latter should be discouraged somehow, but I can't for the life of me think how to do it, without crippling some aspect of legit play.

[Hellgardia]

CaveMan, on 02 November 2011 - 12:11 AM, said:

I'd say it only counts as "boating" when you're actively exploiting a flaw in the rules. The Awesome isn't a boat because it's been carefully designed to be functional and well-rounded. Compare this to the idea of a 100 ton 'Mech with 7 PPCs and 10 heat sinks, which exists only to ruin someone's day by using grouped-fire and blowing out their torso before the other guy can get a hit in, and winning the match that way. The latter should be discouraged somehow, but I can't for the life of me think how to do it, without crippling some aspect of legit play.

I think a mech with 7 ppcs and 10 heat sinks would blow itself up before hitting anything (kinda reminds me of a 8 erll supernova i saw back in mw3)

[flessar]

I really want something akin to the trailer in 09 as far as targeting goes. Watch the PPC fire and you will see the only two direct hits he scored were when he wasnt being raped by the AC 20 and stood still long enough to get a fireing base. While on the move and getting hit by the AC he was unable to do anything but remodle the city around him to be more holey. Also note the lack of impact the medium lazers and machine guns had in the fight, as far as aiming went any way. They lacked the raw kick neccisary to divert the aim much, but the missles generated small artifical smoke screen's that prevented clear LOS and thus paused the combat for a few seconds. This is the combat I am looking forward too.

However, if you allow in a full MechLab and all the gizzmo's and widgets it inspires in the imagination, I will likely see 2 mech's on every single battlefield. The OMGWTFBBQPWNZOR!!!ONEone111!!! and the mech that the guy logging in for the first time gets. I dont want that, period. Step outside your comfort zone and play without the G-O-D mode cheat on. I have played with the MechLabs and done middling to well with its options. But I was always the only unique mech on the server, every one else was in the same ******* bastardized version of the same chassis with the same loadout. I could kill some of them, but they would destroy me for not playing their way with that same mech.

[Reoh]

You know the targeting tech of battletech wasn't the best. The whole Xboating thing is a bit silly when canonically there are mechs that do it anyway by default. A lot had been lost over the millenia, and It seems a lot of people are concerned about grouping lots of weapons together for alpha strikes. What if there were limits on how many weapons could be grouped together? Or mybe the more weapons you grouped together the less precise they were. Instead of hitting everything on the same spot there'd be a spread where the damage might be layed out across multiple areas or have some even miss! You know, like how the game originally played.

I'm not saying we go straight back to dice rolls here, but with a little creative tinkering the crosshairs of doom could be diluted. You'd have to choose to cycle through weapons (or smaller groups) and fire multiple times trying to hit them all on target or just shotgun blast and hope for the best.

Edited by Reoh, 02 November 2011 - 06:17 AM.

[fearfactory]

silentwolff, on 01 November 2011 - 08:49 PM, said:

Open mechlab like MW3, although I'd be open to some restrictions. Didnt really care for MW4's mechlab.
And who are these people voting no mechlab? Why even play MW?

Because some of us stopped playing MW4 Online because of the excessive amount of jump sniping energy boats and overused assault 'mechs. That game heavily favors assault 'Mechs to the point where the mods actually increased the amount of armor they can carry. I don't want to see a bunch of quad PPC Atlas' running around the battlefield. How is that BattleTech, especially in 3025 play, where medium 'Mechs were the most common weight class? Shoot, customization isn't even allowed in BattleTech tournament play, and for good reason. If you hate ammo or certain types of weapons there are canon designs out there that can suit your needs. PPC hog? AWS-9Q Awesome or PNT-9R Panther. Laser hog? JR7-D Jenner or FLS-9K Flashman.

AFAIK, Multiplayer BattleTech 3025 didn't have customization and it was a pretty dang good game. If a MechLab is allowed, so be it, but they should implement something like a dropweight limit similar to one used in MechCommander.

[crabmeister]

aniquilator6, on 02 November 2011 - 12:32 AM, said:

I think a mech with 7 ppcs and 10 heat sinks would blow itself up before hitting anything (kinda reminds me of a 8 erll supernova i saw back in mw3)

Of course, that's a canon mech.

[fearfactory]

crabmeister, on 02 November 2011 - 08:04 AM, said:

Of course, that's a canon mech.

Supernova is but it has 6 ER Large Lasers and can only fire one arm to avoid heat.

[UncleKulikov]

I like the idea of customization. I also want there to be limits, so that power building isn't useful.

But for this to work at all, the balance from tabletop (my experience) needs to be tweaked.
First, 5 20 ton mechs should be able to tie wiith a 100 ton mech (on average).
Second, ballistic weapons need a boost or energy weapons need a disadvantage. They don't blow up, they take up less space, no ammunition, etc.

If those elements are addressed (I'm not familiar at all with the balancing in the digital games), then a mech lab would be a welcome addition.

Still restricting to "default" builds for tournaments and ranked matches is also an option, one that I support. If your concerns are about fairness and pure balance, that solution creates an area of core balance.
But the game should be flexible enough for people to play how they want, to an extent, and allowing mech customs in casual/private games is a good feature that will significantly increase the appeal for many gamers, Mechwarrior fans and non alike.

Edited by UncleKulikov, 02 November 2011 - 08:15 AM.

[TheRulesLawyer]

Aleksandr, on 01 November 2011 - 04:43 PM, said:

"Cons
leads to min/max mech designs"

To me that is a huge plus. Who wants to have battles with 4 different mech types across 100 models? Let's get some variability.

Wow... If you have a full mechlab you'll end up with a very few "idea" loadouts depending on the nerf cycle of the game. The model will just change a little bit from mech to mech. If you really want to see variety out on the field you need TRO mechs. There will still be a flavor of the month, but it will be a bit harder to change.

[CaveMan]

You know, a great deal of the lame übermech building can be avoided if the game devs will just stick to 3025 equipment. Without double heatsinks it's actually really hard to ***** with game balance in a custom design. Every machine has to be a careful tradeoff of heat vs speed vs armor vs firepower. There is no perfect 'Mech in 3025 play. As fun as some of the later tech is, it really does ruin the game.

[TheRulesLawyer]

People suggesting just making full customization just cost alot and take a long time just aren't thinking things through I think. It just means people with lots of $$ or lots of time (depending on how they structure f2p) will have full custom munchkin mechs. It means the casual and free player will be at a substantial disadvantage. If customization is allowed, it should be non-trivial to accomplish in terms of RL time for all players (so not just grind, but timers) *AND* it needs some sort of ongoing disadvantage. That way optimizing your mech means you're paying for it every battle and you'll have to weigh the cost of using it vs the benefit of running exactly the loadout you want. I'd suggest neg xp and income mods for custom mechs.

[Nill Zenath]

I tend to agree with the MW4 group, but maybe allow the option for a more unfettered upgrade of non-omni-mechs but at an escalating cost. By virtue of being a computer game as opposed to a tabletop game they can add certain complexities to their formulation. Instead of a weapon or piece of equipment having a fixed refit cost, it could have a more sliding scale approach where the greater the number of refits the more disproportionate the cost... that throws a wrench into min-maxing and adds an aspect that disuades all but the most compelled.

I also think there are other aspect of this they should to consider, due to the persistent nature of the world. Refit time is one thing, it shouldn't necessarily be instantaneous... where it could tie into the size of the mech and the complexity of the refit... that way it promotes having multiple mechs... while the complexity of refits adds more down time to repair, further penalizing min-maxing.

[Elazul]

Is this going to be WoW with Mechs? If so please add the lab so we can have lots of min/max cr@p like you have over in WoWville. I could always use a good vomit now and then.

[wyggles]

Mousehold, on 01 November 2011 - 03:50 PM, said:

Adhering to the design of any past Mechwarrior game, or to the Battletech board game, is just begging to flop. I grew up playing the games and was a huge fan through middle school and high school, but they were designed decades ago and they just don't hold up today. They are, quite frankly, awful games once you look past the veil of nostalgia.

"Should we have a mech lab?" This is not the right question to ask.The mech lab is not an important issue. It's tangential to the real issue: creating a Mechwarrior game with a diverse array of interesting mechs to pilot.

Far more important than a mech lab is making sure every mech in the game has a unique role that makes it worth using. If there is never a reason to use an Uller instead of a Mad Cat, never any reason to use a Hunchback instead of an Atlas, then we might as well not even bother having anything but Mad Cats and Atlases in the game.

Yes, yes and yes.

I would love it if the stock variants were available and customization was limited and expensive for IS 'Mechs. OmniMechs are a different story all together. There should be a reason to chose different chassis. However, judging by the poll and the overwhelming amount of posts supporting the MechLab that is not very likely. As such I just hope they use a model closer to the Mech4 MechLab, the one from Mech3 was an abomination.

[Thundercles]

I like the idea of using the MW4-style lab, overall. Perhaps pull some details from the other MW games or TT rules as well. I also think each factory-level 'official' variant should have its own hardpoint mapping. So, a Catapult A may have a different set of hardpoints than Catapult B. (This covers the missile/PPC variants, as mentioned previously in this thread.) Min-Maxing and boating can be minimized but not eliminated, by meticulous detail to weapon balance. (Damage-per-ton/damage-per-critical space/damage-per-heat, etc.)

Omni-tech should not be an immediate concern, but a similar system should work there. Instead of limiting by type of weapon, just tonnage/critical limits, perhaps.

From a development standpoint, at least, you save a lot on basic animation... all the variants are going to WALK the same, just pack different weapons.

[Airwolf]

Pht, on 01 November 2011 - 05:26 PM, said:

That would create a group of long time/elite players who would have fully min-maxed munchkinmechs that would pound on the greenhorns very badly...  it would be nice to have an equal playing field of opportunity instead of "castes" that people get stuck into (newbie, elite, noRLifer, etc).

Exactly Pht, that's why they're elites, they've done their time, they've survived, they've earned their scars, they've earned their pay, they've learned what works best for them and their style of battle.  I wouldn't expect a rookie just out of the academy to be anywhere near equal to a seasoned veteran or elite.  You might have well said that there should be no Clan mechs in this game at all so everyone would be on "an equal playing field of opportunity".  I don't remember if this game will actually have/keep track of any kind of piloting/gunnery skills and any improvements thereof but there's got to be some sort of 'reward' for the player other than just access to larger 'stock' mechs (which are usually slower and bigger targets (grin)). As for greenhorns getting pounded, that's usually the case when some backwater depot gets raided by veterans or elites. Does it suck for the greenhorn? Definitely. Welcome to the war and the battlefield -- there's nothing *equal* about it.

Personally, I *expect* to have my mech shot out from under me more times than I care to keep track of as I am (unfortunately) more of an 'old-school' type gamer (my sons *constantly* remind me that I've gotten old and should just go back to the rear lines but every now and then, I'm able to surprise them just a little bit ).

I still hold to my original post, let them fully customize, just make it somewhat realistic but still expensive, minor customizations = Wow - so much for the new hovervan for the wife and kids, medium customization = OUCH, time to take a 2nd mortgage on the house, major customization = WHAT?!?!?! it's gonna cost *HOW* much !?!??!?

[CobraFive]

I think a limited mechlab like MW4 is the best idea. more like in the Mekpaks though, with more then just "ballistic, Energy, missile" slots. The added slots like "Direct Fire" and etc helped.

Having these limited designs builds the character for each 'mech IMO, and helps limit the min/maxing and ridiculous boating.

Edit: And the idea of paying to have more customize options is pretty much the definition of Pay to Win. So I vote no to that.

I'm fine with paying to get the money for bigger guns and such, but only if you can get them by playing, too.

Edited by cobrafive, 02 November 2011 - 04:28 PM.

[sarmhan]

cobrafive, on 02 November 2011 - 04:24 PM, said:

I think a limited mechlab like MW4 is the best idea. more like in the Mekpaks though, with more then just "ballistic, Energy, missile" slots. The added slots like "Direct Fire" and etc helped.

Having these limited designs builds the character for each 'mech IMO, and helps limit the min/maxing and ridiculous boating.

Edit: And the idea of paying to have more customize options is pretty much the definition of Pay to Win. So I vote no to that.

I'm fine with paying to get the money for bigger guns and such, but only if you can get them by playing, too.

I agree with both of your statements - limited customization helps makes mechs feel more unique, and having any kind of non-cosmetic customization locked for non-paying users is a bad idea.

[Airwolf]

Jack Deth, on 01 November 2011 - 08:45 PM, said:

I'd say allow some modification, but put restrictions on it.  Restrict it by common sense as to how much you could realistically modify the structure of a mech, and restrict it by making it cost a lot in c-bills and refit time (omni's excepted), just like in the books.

Allowing unlimited or near-unlimited refits kind of removes the whole point of omnimechs.  They pay for this ability by the mech costing a lot more, and weapon pods costing a lot more than just bare weapons.

I thought that the entire point about Omnis were to allow for rapid loadout changes in the field to suit the particular mission at hand, i.e. long-range fire support vs. close-range firepower or being able to swap out ammo dependent weapon systems for energy weapons for those extended, behind-the-lines raids without resupply...