476 replies to this topic

[StaIker]

There are some assumptions here that could be misleading us.

Victor and Outlaw, have the Devs even indicated that we will be able to access the Mechlab pregame as per MW4? Who is to say that it won't be like WoT where players create their vehicle and then click ready without having any idea about the map, conditions or what team mates are taking, then the server tosses them into the next available match with 11 other random guys? We need to know what the matchmaking system is to talk intelligently about how to manage the balacing of it.

Furthermore, BV could only ever be assigned by player, not by team. Can you imagine the chaos that would erupt with 12 strangers fighting over team tonnage? It's a non-starter.

[Belisarius1]

=Outlaw=, on 20 March 2012 - 08:41 PM, said:

Wel Belisarius, I know you keep bringing it up, but I could care less about respawn. Just FYI

Yeah, see, unfortunately, the devs do, and the game's balancing is going to take it into account whether we want it to or not. I'd rather engage with that and look for ways to make the best of it, instead of ignore it and let balance changes made for respawn take NR down with them.

=Outlaw=, on 20 March 2012 - 08:41 PM, said:

See I don't get that. Why do you care about making the Hunchback viable, but not the charger? I know the charger is a notoriously crappy assault, but just replace it with some other crappy assault. Why care about the Hunchback's viability but not the assault's? If priced accordingly, that crappy assault would be viable (up to a point of course). Similar to how a tonnage system would make the Hunchback viable over the Atlas. If we just focused on taking the best for the job, with zero restrictions, that will be one small list of mechs.

I care about the hunchback because it represents a different style of play. The ultimate goal is to give me as a pilot as many viable, interesting choices as possible. Choosing a medium over an assault is interesting, because the medium should be played differently, and I want diversity. The charger... actually the charger's a terrible example because it's such a weird 'Mech; let's talk about something like the Zeus vs. AWS-9Q in HC.

In that situation, you have two 'Mechs with identical roles, but one is just flat-out better at it. Here, even making the Zeus viable through BV doesn't give real diversity. It's got a different name, but the role is the same, and the way I play it is the same... only I have no radar. So I'd prefer to take what's best for the job, rather than being bribed into using something inferior but no more interesting.

What I'd really rather is that the Zeus be changed to give it a genuine niche and a reason to make me want to drive it for its own sake, because that does give real diversity. My concern is that BV in NR will push the game towards fake diversity by hiding the problem, getting the wrong 'Mechs used for the wrong reasons and never fixed.

Edited by Belisarius†, 20 March 2012 - 09:35 PM.

[StaIker]

Quote

In this situation, the zeus is a kind of fake diversity, because even though it's a different 'Mech,

This is a really good point to make here. There are only a certain number of Mechs and weapons that can ever be useful in their own right. After you reach that number, any additions end up being marginal changes to already existing weapon concepts or as Bel described it, Fake Diversity. Having more items that perform basically the same function as existing ones does nothing for diversity or balance, it's just flashy new items for their own sake. At some point we have to be able to sit back and say we have enough diversity to make the game interesting in the long term and leave it at that. I really don't want a system that is geared towards making the garbage end of the spectrum viable by penalising all the good stuff. All we need is enough good stuff to play with that we don't miss the garbage.

[Belisarius1]

And now my habit of continuing to edit for like an hour after each post starts to show, because that sentence isn't even there anymore...

[Victor Morson]

Belisarius†, on 20 March 2012 - 07:37 PM, said:

Personally, I'm happy to never use the charger in an NR game. I don't need him, or want him. NR should be about bringing the best for the job, because you only get one of it. I still want a reason to take the hunchback, though, and so I think NR should use a tonnage limit. Tonnage still prevents 12x atlas, but it's also familiar and simple to pilots, and doesn't require the same level of (let's face it) crazy pre-match arithmetic.
raise MWLL on.

The pre-match arithmetic is why unless a drop commander has a direct interface to manually assign pilots into their 'mechs with all the number on screen, I don't think BV is going to work out for a game that needs to be paced so that casual players can get into drops without much sweat.

That's largely why I've swung towards the "X # of slots for classes" slot as my personal vote. Don't get me wrong: I agree with all the positive things said towards BV and think, indeed, it is better. It works in Living Legends for public matches due to personal cash, but having tried some 1 life drops in that game, I realize that it is something that takes serious planning and not a lot of people are, honestly, cut out for it. Telling people "We need 4 heavies or below, 8 mediums or below" is way, way easier and would work with a public crowd. It's not better, but it is viable.For that reason I think tonnage is the second best option, as that's pretty easy to figure out as well, if you're not dealing with limited 'mechs (which we won't be in MWO) - most of the headaches from the age of stat tracking in leagues was recording who died, what you had available, etc. and all of those are non-issues for MWO.

My main positive concern is that there is in fact a limiting factor into the game, and why I'm more concerned with "Why take a Hunchback over an Atlas?" as my priority question that sums this thread up for me (the answer being a team limit), than the Charger/Atlas question. In an ideal world where everyone playing MWO is a hardcore BattleTech person I'd totally prefer BV as a system. I definitely, positively do not want to lose sight of the public audience that needs things simpler, because MWO will be bringing in a lot of people who haven't played a MechWarrior game in years, aren't familiar with the universe and even a crowd who just want to play a game about big stompy robots shooting each other.

Past MechWarrior games had these people, some of which became BattleTech fans through the game and got more interested in competitive play. The game with the least number of these people is Living Legends, due to it requiring a high-powered older game to run and it's mod status, resulting in a pretty small community that forms really strong cliques (See Smoke Jag's endless crusade of rage kicking leggers/armers/back shooters) and really pushes off newbies. It's a great mod and a lot of fun with teams when you can get them.. but MWO will have a drastically larger population and that's a good thing.

The one way BattleValue could work is if the lobbies have a set amount when they start (contracts act as lobbies from what I understand?), and people can pick whatever 'mech they can fit in there. The downside is people will literally race to throw the most expensive, overpowered unit they can onto the team in public matches leaving the team really lopsided. This is another reason I'm leaning towards the "slot" system, because it gives a fair shake to everyone to fill the lances with what they have available, yet forces the team to have a diversified company.

The one thing I think many of us strongly agree on, however (and this is really the key point that needs to be made) is having drops without any kind of restrictions will be disastrous in the long term to the game - dramatically so. Even if initially it works out due to not many people having top tier assaults, as soon as the hardcore crowd does so, games will become horrendously unbalanced. If people can pay real money for c-bills to skip straight to high end 'mechs, you'll immediately have an angry pay to win backlash. There's LOTS of things people will spend money on in the game - including c-bills to buy heavier equipment - but allowing the unrestricted use of said heavier equipment is one thing that could literally severely damage the game even if everything else is amazing (and it sure does look that way!)

It's my major hope that the devs will address this at the next Q&A, either explaining how they've balanced the game to encourage people to use, to go back to the question I keep asking, the Hunchback over the Atlas or optionally explaining how drop restrictions might work. This is a huge concern outside of these forums as well as within them, including in many of the larger hardcore crowd that plans to migrate to this game when it's released. I think it'd put us all at a great deal of ease.

EDIT: My main reason for keeping up the Hunchback example is (for those just joining us) it's role is the same as an Atlas. Additionally, both 'mechs are confirmed and thus it is not a hypothetical. It has similar speed and is designed for front line, direct fighting. However, the Atlas carries all of it's guns plus a bunch more and vastly increased armor, leaving the Hunchback without a role.. unless, of course, you're limited to just a couple Atlas but can include many Hunchbacks, whatever the method.

It's not because of a specific Hunchback fetish; the same could be said of other designs, such as a Dragon versus a Zeus, Trebuchet vs a Catapult or Catapult vs a Mauler. I just wanted to clear that up, because given I keep using this example, so no one gets the mistaken impression I'm a Hunchback fan boy that's upset their mech might be useful. Of the confirmed 'mechs I lean most towards the Catapult.

Belisarius†, on 20 March 2012 - 09:16 PM, said:

What I'd really rather is that the Zeus be changed to give it a genuine niche and a reason to make me want to drive it for its own sake, because that does give real diversity. My concern is that BV in NR will push the game towards fake diversity by hiding the problem, getting the wrong 'Mechs used for the wrong reasons and never fixed.

I do have to disagree with this part though. Provided we did have some sort of BV system, cost is a very real and important aspect to diversity. If I could have a lance of Zeus in my configuration, or optionally 1 Awesome and 3 Dragons for the same BV, the Zeus is suddenly a far more attractive option for some situations. There's nothing fake about it.

Say we were talking about a post-apocalyptic game to illustrate the point. You can buy Crossbows for $10, handguns for $50 and a Rifle for $100. Clearly, the Rifle or perhaps Handguns, situation depending, are going to be superior in every way to the Crossbows. But if you can give 5 guys a ranged weapon for the price of equipping ONE with a handgun, suddenly the Crossbow doesn't look like such an unattractive option despite being inferior. That doesn't strike me as fake or artificial diversity, but a hard tactical choice about what's more useful, and depending how each team chooses the match would play out differently.

I hate to de-rail from the 'mech talk, just trying to put it in another context for a moment.

StaIker, on 20 March 2012 - 09:29 PM, said:

This is a really good point to make here. There are only a certain number of Mechs and weapons that can ever be useful in their own right. After you reach that number, any additions end up being marginal changes to already existing weapon concepts or as Bel described it, Fake Diversity. Having more items that perform basically the same function as existing ones does nothing for diversity or balance, it's just flashy new items for their own sake. At some point we have to be able to sit back and say we have enough diversity to make the game interesting in the long term and leave it at that. I really don't want a system that is geared towards making the garbage end of the spectrum viable by penalising all the good stuff. All we need is enough good stuff to play with that we don't miss the garbage.

First off, I really disagree that adding stuff past a certain point is going to murder diversity. The one thing that's kind of unfortunate about MWO is that we won't have access to quite a bit of the neat gear added later (even after the story went to hell), like Heavy Lasers, Light Gauss, MRMs, RACs, ATMs, Heavy/Light PPC, Rocket Launchers, etc. Not to say it's all perfect, as stuff like the HAG seems like a retread of earlier concepts. I for one would like as many 'mechs as they can add to the game, even if the changes are fairly subtle; yes, there is a difference to take a 'mech that sports 3 lasers and a PPC versus one that can sport 3 lasers and a Gauss, even if they're similar.

Second, if you put an entire class or two of 'mechs in the "Garbage" bin (Any medium not designed for fighting scouts or scouting, and a good chunk of front line heavies) to not penalize the "good stuff" (assaults) you're seriously missing the point. Some things have an important role, but only if you are working with limited resources.

If you ever played Left 4 Dead 2 (I know, I'm going off 'mechs again to make an example) you'd realize that infected like the Jockey and Hunter are very useful to the team, fun and have a great role to play.. but if everyone could spawn Chargers, Boomers or even Tanks at will, nobody would ever touch them. An enforcement of the team balance needs to be there to give the middle of the road stuff a chance to shine.

I promise to stop out-of-game comparisons now, I'm just trying to explain the argument for restrictions in other contexts.

Edited by Victor Morson, 21 March 2012 - 12:16 AM.

[StaIker]

I've had a bit of a think about it and come up with this, a variation of my idea to earn tickets or credits with the battalion CO in the lighter mechs that give you the ability to play in assaults. This time it is a bit more sophisticated. The rate a player earns them and the cost to use various assaults are variable.




I'm not saying these represent an ideal ticket rate, they are purely for example. This creates a very strong motivation to use Mechs between 45-75 tons and then for the assaults, the 80-90t variants are the most cost effective. Lighter than 45t are going to be dedicated scouts, so they already have a reason to be used and the 100t Mechs would be a rarity, even in the assault class if for no other reason than it takes a lot of tickets to get a game with one. This doesn't do anything for weapons balance but it does provide players with a strong incentive to concentrate their play in the mid-weights leaving the very light and the very heavy Mechs in their niche roles. What it doesn't do is tell players what they have to play. And I like that.

[docmorningstar]

IceSerpent, on 02 March 2012 - 10:40 AM, said:

Voted for BV/C-bills, assuming that it's per-team value. Also, the "battle value" should be different from CBT BV, because system that gives the same BV to a clan 20-tonner and IS 100-tonner is badly broken IMHO.

Depends.... a ERLL equiped dasher(?is that even a mech? getting old...) vs an Atlas...I'd bet on the dasher. That would be working as intended

StaIker, on 21 March 2012 - 01:06 AM, said:

I've had a bit of a think about it and come up with this, a variation of my idea to earn tickets or credits with the battalion CO in the lighter mechs that give you the ability to play in assaults....

It's an interesting idea, but I'm afraid that it will annoy people to no end. World of Tanks uses a similar (ish) system where operating heavier tanks tends to become a losing economical proposition. This forces people to grind cash in lower-tier tanks in order to play their bad-boys. Noone likes being told 'no' or being forced not to use their 'good gear'.

A ticket system would enforce each player to play a variety of mechs, when, rather, I think we should be looking for many players to specialize in DIFFERENT classes of mechs; like soldier-medic-engineer specialization. A ticket system forces you to play as a 'medic' a certain number of times before you can be an engineer...why?

I know what you are trying to do, but I think that is the 'wrong' way to get diversity...

Edited by docmorningstar, 21 March 2012 - 03:58 AM.

[docmorningstar]

To Victor Morrison

Nice well thought out post. I think that we are all trying to reach the same point:

A fun game.

There can be several aspects to 'fun' in a game like this.

1 There can be 'fun' in the unlocking and 'catch 'em all' aspect of the game (for the inner hoarder)
2 There can be 'fun' in joining a clan/house/team that challenges all comers (for the inner dictator)
3 There can be 'fun' in the actual combat mechanics of the game (for the inner child)

We're talking right now about how to make the combat mechanics fun. One of the primary descriptors for fun is the novelty of the situation. I think that to many games are to easy to become 'perfect' at. I've been playing alot of World of Tanks, and due to the same flavor of tanks (they are all tanks...) limited number of maps (15?), and limited type of game play (1), there isn't much 'newness' to the game. That means the only place I'm having fun in that game is in the collection of units part, and to some degree in the clan/group part. the mechanics are 'meh' at this point. I know how to fight each map, and how to best use my tank to win. Everything else is just polishing at this point. This happens in *every* FPS that I have ever seen, to greater or lesser extent.

What I want to see happen in MWO is to keep parts 1 & 2 fun, while making part 3 essentially 'unlimited fun' - make it so that noone can *ever* be perfect at MWO. That there is no 'perfect' mech, perfect team, or perfect strategy.

To do that we need to have battles be *really* flexible.

One of the ways to do this is to combine objectives, mech limits, and the metagame. You have to look at ALL THREE of those features together when doing something like balancing

Edited by docmorningstar, 21 March 2012 - 04:20 AM.

[Victor Morson]

docmorningstar, on 21 March 2012 - 03:26 AM, said:

Depends.... a ERLL equiped dasher(?is that even a mech? getting old...) vs an Atlas...I'd bet on the dasher. That would be working as intended

There's a custom variant for that (not a standard one, but rather, a canonized novel model), but I get what you're saying. I would bet on a Dasher sporting ER Mediums or Heavy Smalls over a T1 IS Assault as well (It's damage and range are probably superior to a lot of T1 Assaults and it makes up for it's armor with speed to backstab safely) and comparing Clan tech to IS Level 1 is exactly one of the big things Battle Value has going for it once the Clans invade, provided they don't try to nerf it to make things fair. If anything the "Firemoth vs Atlas" question is a damned good pro-BV/anti-Tonnage argument as any.

The Dasher can simply hide until it wins init then show up on the back of an assault and nearly one-shot it pretty often on Table Top. BV reflects this and isn't really broken for valuing a unit like this so high. Honestly Clan lights in particular (and some IS T2 Lights) get advantages that are hard to replicate in a real time environment due to the way they operate as back stabbers based around who has init that turn; none the less if Clan lights appear in the game that can deal as much damage as T1 assaults while moving four times as fast, I think that clearly puts them into a different category than the light 'mechs we'll see at first.

This doesn't really change the weight class slot/tonnage issue, however, because as awesome as a well armed Clan light can be, a Clan heavy or Assault can put the fear of God into you even faster.

Edited by Victor Morson, 21 March 2012 - 04:06 AM.

[Soviet Alex]

Personally, I like the new "some of each" option. But can't we just let the devs do their job & reserve judgement until launch? If you guys want a massive, detailed Battletech MMO with your own personal favourite matchmaking algorithms, go make it yourselves.

[docmorningstar]

But...but..I'm not insanely wealthy,...

[MaddMaxx]

Is it Wednesday yet? Well lookee there, it is. LOL

@=Outlaw=

We can change any stat at any time until the game becomes "Stats Wars Online". That really doesn't sound like much fun though. How about we agree to disagree on this one.

Good hunting come Launch day.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

If you look at the way role warfare has been laid out then it seems pretty clear that the devs don't intend people to be swapping mechs around the way we have done in the past. It seems like you would get a paricular mech and then improve your experience (for pilot and mech) in that chassis. You would then get variants to level up before you can progress to the next level

The determining factor in how many mechs/variants you can own is going to be cost. We know that we will have to pay for repairs and the cost of those (in relative if not absolute terms) are laid down in the handbooks, which presumably will provide at least a starting point. In general the larger the mech/ bigger/ more weapons then the greater the cost, not only to buy, but to repair. Unless you consistantly win, with little damage, it may well be that you can't afford to regularly play an Atlas. At least not without buying C-bills with real cash.
It could well be that economic measures, along with "role warfare" and possibly other factors that we are not yet aware of, will drive the diversity of mechs.

If we ignore merc corps, as the only "organised" units in game, and look at Factions & Lone Wolves. These are all going to be PUGs although groups of friends may be dropping together. The matchjmaking algorithm may group people together using a mix of BV and class to ensure some sort of equality using the mech you have chosen to play. Alternatively it might just pick 12 pilots at random. Until they tell us more then we are just rehashing ideas on too little information.

@Maxx - I will be too busy trying to stay alive on my first drop to do any hunting

[Outlaw2]

StaIker, on 20 March 2012 - 09:02 PM, said:

There are some assumptions here that could be misleading us.

Victor and Outlaw, have the Devs even indicated that we will be able to access the Mechlab pregame as per MW4? Who is to say that it won't be like WoT where players create their vehicle and then click ready without having any idea about the map, conditions or what team mates are taking, then the server tosses them into the next available match with 11 other random guys? We need to know what the matchmaking system is to talk intelligently about how to manage the balacing of it.

Furthermore, BV could only ever be assigned by player, not by team. Can you imagine the chaos that would erupt with 12 strangers fighting over team tonnage? It's a non-starter.

They haven't told us much in this regard. The way I see it playing out is that you do create your mech pre-game ... outside the lobby even. You then queue up. There is no way to know for sure, but I got the impression you will get to know to an extent what map setting you queue up for, since you will be fighting over specific planets..but its anyones guess at this point.
The way I'd handle BV for pubs is by automating it all with the matchmaker. You queue up with a mech of your choice, and matchmaker puts you in a match with equal BV on both sides of say 1200BV. The BV total can differ from planet to planet, with more important planets having a higher BV total. If you queue up with a high BV value mech, and so does 90% of the players, your queue time might be longer than a player that queues up with a lower BV mech.

Below is a dev quote from Russ. They already plan on using the matchmaker to balance pub matches

Russ Bullock, on 12 March 2012 - 12:58 PM, said:

Apologies as I didnt read every single response so I may repeat some information. A lot of this will comem down to really balancing our match making. Ideally all of the lances are well balanced between the roles as created by the players and the match maker. So playing your centurion wont put you in a match with 23 other heavies and Assaults. That should be balanced out with a mix of lights, mediums etc etc each time you take to the field.

Matchmaking will be a challenge but were committed to working hard at getting it right.

----------------------------------------------

Belisarius†, on 20 March 2012 - 09:16 PM, said:

Yeah, see, unfortunately, the devs do, and the game's balancing is going to take it into account whether we want it to or not. I'd rather engage with that and look for ways to make the best of it, instead of ignore it and let balance changes made for respawn take NR down with them.

I care about the hunchback because it represents a different style of play. The ultimate goal is to give me as a pilot as many viable, interesting choices as possible. Choosing a medium over an assault is interesting, because the medium should be played differently, and I want diversity. The charger... actually the charger's a terrible example because it's such a weird 'Mech; let's talk about something like the Zeus vs. AWS-9Q in HC.

In that situation, you have two 'Mechs with identical roles, but one is just flat-out better at it. Here, even making the Zeus viable through BV doesn't give real diversity. It's got a different name, but the role is the same, and the way I play it is the same... only I have no radar. So I'd prefer to take what's best for the job, rather than being bribed into using something inferior but no more interesting.

What I'd really rather is that the Zeus be changed to give it a genuine niche and a reason to make me want to drive it for its own sake, because that does give real diversity. My concern is that BV in NR will push the game towards fake diversity by hiding the problem, getting the wrong 'Mechs used for the wrong reasons and never fixed.

I think its asking way too much to expect each mech, each variant, each weapon to have its own individualized, VIABLE niche. Its a bit of a pie in the sky ideal that won't ever happen. If we insist on this happening then we will regulate large portions of the game to the shelf. Of course I don't advocate flooding the player with boring choices either. With your Zues and Awesome example, we could give the Zues a niche, but lets say its never quite enough to make it viable next to the awesome. Lower BV gives it that extra push. The same with ACs. They have proven to be a pain to balance with the mindset of giving them a perfectly balanced and viable niche. Using BV could help over coming a lot of these types of balance headaches. Again think of it as an added tool on your balancing belt.

The problem I see arising in MWO is that there are going to be many mechs that are strictly better than others in every way. This is due to the nature of MWO F2P business model of getting players to get more and more upgrades (ala WoT). You will have mechs which have FF-armor, double heatsinks, endo steel, ect...all the things that make some mech better than others. Then comes the day where you are in a competitive match, and the other side creams you with mech that are all fully upgraded with the best money can buy. Think WoT where clan matches are decided on who took the most T10 tanks. This is ultimately what I trying to avoid. Not just the pay to win environment, but the limited diversity environment as well.

I'd like to have matches of all types. I don't mind some very high BV matches where you need the best of the best in the game. Along side lower BV matches where I can take stuff I like but are simply not viable in higer BV matches. Not only that but a lower BV match would allow players that are new...or don't have time/money to grind out every pieve of upgraded equipment for every mech... to participate in a match and still be competitive with their low BV mechs.

Its like this that you will avoid any kind of pay-to-win backlash from the player base.

MaddMaxx, on 21 March 2012 - 06:56 AM, said:

We can change any stat at any time until the game becomes "Stats Wars Online". That really doesn't sound like much fun though. How about we agree to disagree on this one.

Thats true for ANY multiplayer online game. Patches will come with a series of stat changes. It comes with the territory. Start worrying when they stop doing that.

Edited by =Outlaw=, 21 March 2012 - 08:17 AM.

[TheRulesLawyer]

StaIker, on 21 March 2012 - 01:06 AM, said:

I've had a bit of a think about it and come up with this, a variation of my idea to earn tickets or credits with the battalion CO in the lighter mechs that give you the ability to play in assaults. This time it is a bit more sophisticated. The rate a player earns them and the cost to use various assaults are variable.




I'm not saying these represent an ideal ticket rate, they are purely for example. This creates a very strong motivation to use Mechs between 45-75 tons and then for the assaults, the 80-90t variants are the most cost effective. Lighter than 45t are going to be dedicated scouts, so they already have a reason to be used and the 100t Mechs would be a rarity, even in the assault class if for no other reason than it takes a lot of tickets to get a game with one. This doesn't do anything for weapons balance but it does provide players with a strong incentive to concentrate their play in the mid-weights leaving the very light and the very heavy Mechs in their niche roles. What it doesn't do is tell players what they have to play. And I like that.

Id really rather not see a system that arbitrarily limits me from using my favorite mech even if that mech is a 100 tonner. IE Assaults might be a slow growth path in terms of cbills/tickets/whatever but it shouldn't be negative on average.

[Soviet Alex]

Russ Bullock stated in another thread over in General Discussions that matchmaking would attempt to pair up like-for-like companies. So if you roll with 12 assaults, you'll be paired against another assault company. Whilst the exact details are still being hammered out, the devs are clearly onto this problem & they already have a solution. It just needs tweaking in closed-beta. Let's wait & see what pans out.

[Dlardrageth]

TheRulesLawyer, on 21 March 2012 - 11:24 AM, said:

Id really rather not see a system that arbitrarily limits me from using my favorite mech even if that mech is a 100 tonner. IE Assaults might be a slow growth path in terms of cbills/tickets/whatever but it shouldn't be negative on average.

Additionally this model has next to no incentive for those of us who don't care about assaults at all. To make an example - what use is some random "ticket/credit" to pilot an assault Mech for me, when you'd have to pay me in RL to get me into one? Waste of time. Add that to the somewhat ridiculous notion that you should go scout in an UrbanMech or Panther or Whitworth automatically, just because, and I quote: "Lighter than 45t are going to be dedicated scouts[...]", and this model makes even less sense.

All it would lead to, is the pilot in the Panther telling the battalion commander eventually to get ****ed and having a laugh at his rage, because he does care neither for scouting nor for those "assault tickets" he isn't interested in at all. Thus, I somewhat doubt this system would work out well...

Edited by Dlardrageth, 22 March 2012 - 02:07 PM.

[zorak ramone]

I know I'm jumping in here late, but there are three important reasons why you have to use cost/BV over tonnage: XL engines, endo-steel and FF armor. XL engines may make mechs more vulnerable to destruction, but when you get to the heavies and assaults, the difference between an XL mech and a standard mech, at the same speed, is so vastly different that the vulnerability doesn't balance for it.

Compare a BNC-3E (95 tons, 64kph) with a standard engine to a BNC-5S (95 tons, 64kph, XL engine). Both have the same armor and speed, but the 3E carries a PPC and AC5, while the 5S carries 2xERPPCs, 1xGR, 4xML, 1xSRM6. Tonnage, and XL engine vulnerability clearly doesn't balance these two mechs. On the other hand, by CBT's pricing system, the 5S is more than double the price of the 3E.

FF and ES are another issue. For mechs that don't fill up all of their critical slots (say, any medium or light, and many heavies), these guys are basically free tonnage as their only downsides are critical space and price. Tonnage alone will not balance mechs with these equipments.

Edited by zorak ramone, 22 March 2012 - 12:29 PM.

[MaddMaxx]

zorak ramone, on 22 March 2012 - 12:28 PM, said:

I know I'm jumping in here late, but there are three important reasons why you have to use cost/BV over tonnage: XL engines, endo-steel and FF armor. XL engines may make mechs more vulnerable to destruction, but when you get to the heavies and assaults, the difference between an XL mech and a standard mech, at the same speed, is so vastly different that the vulnerability doesn't balance for it.

Compare a BNC-3E (95 tons, 64kph) with a standard engine to a BNC-5S (95 tons, 64kph, XL engine). Both have the same armor and speed, but the 3E carries a PPC and AC5, while the 5S carries 2xERPPCs, 1xGR, 4xML, 1xSRM6. Tonnage, and XL engine vulnerability clearly doesn't balance these two mechs. On the other hand, by CBT's pricing system, the 5S is more than double the price of the 3E.

FF and ES are another issue. For mechs that don't fill up all of their critical slots (say, any medium or light, and many heavies), these guys are basically free tonnage as their only downsides are critical space and price. Tonnage alone will not balance mechs with these equipments.

Once again, that assumes that some players will have access to that Tech and others will not. As new Tech arrives, it will always trump old tech, someone may not want, or opt out of a certain Weight Class, as per their play style, but to opt out or forgo the latest Tech?

We have places where we keep those types. Well away from everyone else.

[Dlardrageth]

MaddMaxx, on 22 March 2012 - 02:15 PM, said:

We have places where we keep those types. Well away from everyone else.

Stop dissing ComStar, sheesh! Just because they use "outdated" StarLeague LosTech doesn't mean they can't be effective with it. Ask some clans about that after Tukayyid.