246 replies to this topic

[Fluffinator]

pudge131, on 06 March 2012 - 04:06 AM, said:

Yeah I agree with this, the way that themechs can eventually be modded does not seem to make too much of a difference. Even if it is +2.5% over multiple times.

2.5%x10=25% that would be huge for an assult trying to target a light

[pudge131]

Fluffinator, on 06 March 2012 - 04:08 AM, said:

2.5%x10=25% that would be huge for an assult trying to target a light

Yes but in those skill tree images I saw that there were some that were only a possible of 4x for some of these "boosts".

I am guessing those were just quick mock ups, but there was no reference to the possibility of having it as a multiple of 10, nor anywhere close to it. Any ideas?

Edited by pudge131, 06 March 2012 - 04:16 AM.

[LackofCertainty]

I was under the impression that the bonuses you get from the skill trees are super minor, but eventually you unlock pilot points from grinding up the trees. Pilot points give you access to new modules and such, so that's where the big "bang for your buck" would come in.

[pudge131]

LackofCertainty, on 06 March 2012 - 04:20 AM, said:

I was under the impression that the bonuses you get from the skill trees are super minor, but eventually you unlock pilot points from grinding up the trees. Pilot points give you access to new modules and such, so that's where the big "bang for your buck" would come in.

Yes, well either way, if the mech skill sets (or whatever they are called) if they are so slight as 2.5% faster I do not see the point in even having their application. I would think it more of a mistake to use those.

Anyways I am just stoked for the game. I think the mechs should all be available in the beginnings of the game, however not be able to use them all. Have them required to be purchased with an in-game currency. That "rewarding" aspect of any game I do believe is key for keeping an interest to a great majority of players of any game.

[Fluffinator]

pudge131, on 06 March 2012 - 04:15 AM, said:

Yes but in those skill tree images I saw that there were some that were only a possible of 4x for some of these "boosts".

I am guessing those were just quick mock ups, but there was no reference to the possibility of having it as a multiple of 10, nor anywhere close to it. Any ideas?

I will take +10% turret turn speed on a heavy or assult any day. 4x2.5%
Also consider what if you can unlock 10% more cooling from your heat sinks, or 10% better aim, or 10% more range
When you stop and think about it 10% can be almost game breaking if you can grab it in the right places.

[LackofCertainty]

I think the idea isn't "hey, give me 400% faster torso twist as an unlock! I want to be ubersauce so I can pwn nubs!!!" The idea is to give a person very very minor tweaks to represent them getting the feel for a mech that they've piloted a while. It's a minor encouragement to get you to stick with a mech you bought, not a game-changing perk a la CoD or BF.

Making a person who's put more time into the game be artificially better than a nub fresh off the street isn't exactly a good idea imo. It makes the first impression of the game be more harsh, because the new player thinks they're getting roffle-pwned because of pure skill when it's really a mix of skill + the enemy simply having a better mech.

That's one of the main reasons why I think that a new player should just start with a lump sum of C-Bills that is enough for them to buy any 1 mech, or even have them pick one mech. If they want to start with an Assault, let them start with an Assault. If they want to start with a Light, let them start with a light. Doing it any other way makes the player think that certain mechs are "better" than others which hurts the "Every mech has it's uses" goal that the devs are working toward. Starting the game and buying your first mech should be more like picking a class in a class based shooter. In Team Fortress 2, you can start as a scout, or you can start as a heavy, or you can start as a etc. etc. etc. People naturally spread out into all the classes because there's no perception of "this is better than that," it's all up to each player's preference.

Edited by LackofCertainty, 06 March 2012 - 05:12 AM.

[SI The Joker]

Scar, on 06 March 2012 - 03:45 AM, said:

Pretty strange to hear that. Scout, as i said before, very valuable team class, but make it nearly as potent in open fight as a specialized heavy assault platform...

I think you're jumping too far into extreme territory here. It comes across to me that the devs are just trying to make it so that there is no uber-mech. I think that's a fair thing to do.

On any given day, I think an excellent Jenner pilot could outmatch an average Atlas pilot in 1v1 combat... Not "would", but could. I'm using a correlation as such:

American Football. On any given Sunday... on paper the Chicago Bears (and I'm a fan) look great - but they lose games they have no business losing... not every time... just sometimes. It's not that the Bears don't have a good team - the team did not execute or the other team just played better.

Apply that same thought process to Mech piloting... on paper, the Atlas looks as though it should win every fight... but in reality... on any given day... that Jenner could win the battle.

I mean heck... just the fact alone that a Jenner could, in theory anyway, run right past an Atlas' front side faster than that Atlas can torso twist to take aim makes me believe in this. In an urban environment especially; All that light mech needs to do is duck behind buildings and attack the Atlas from the sides and back, ducking back into cover of building after each attack. In this scenario, I see an Atlas losing.

In an open field battle... if you're talking a stereotypical circle of death, that Jenner will run laps around the Atlas... a smart Jenner pilot would stop on the "backside" of that lap (backside of the Atlas that is) and unload SRMs and 4MLAS into the back of the Atlas. Now if the Jenner pilot did get caught up in that "main fire zone" of the Atlas a couple times - yes - toast... but that depends totally on the pilot, not so much the mech.

Yes? No? Am I just crazy here?

[Scar]

SI The Joker, on 06 March 2012 - 05:41 AM, said:

I think you're jumping too far into extreme territory here. It comes across to me that the devs are just trying to make it so that there is no uber-mech. I think that's a fair thing to do.



On any given day, I think an excellent Jenner pilot could outmatch an average Atlas pilot in 1v1 combat... Not "would", but could. I'm using a correlation as such:

I share your PoV at this point and i hope there won't be an Uber-mech in MWO. And i told exactly the same about the skilled Light against the average Heavy before. But '4/6 out of 10' proportion is too high for me. I really hope that's just a random numbers, which are pretty far from the real ones.

don't forget that we're talking about the average statistics - not about exclusions or rare cases.

Quote

In an open field battle... if you're talking a stereotypical circle of death, that Jenner will run laps around the Atlas... a smart Jenner pilot would stop on the "backside" of that lap (backside of the Atlas that is) and unload SRMs and 4MLAS into the back of the Atlas. Now if the Jenner pilot did get caught up in that "main fire zone" of the Atlas a couple times - yes - toast... but that depends totally on the pilot, not so much the mech.

In your example the Light already have the Tactical Advantage against the Heavy. But this is a "spherical horse in the deep vacuum" situation, because to start the run around - the Light need to get himself close enough. It's possible, but not that probable.

Edited by Scar, 06 March 2012 - 06:47 AM.

[Kallende Rathwynne]

Being Steiner I will probably start out heavy at launch, I hope the Thug is available but if not I may go Awesome or Stalker. Just seems too easy to go Assault right off the bat but then it depends on what is chummed out for the masses

[Kallende Rathwynne]

Scar, on 06 March 2012 - 06:44 AM, said:

I share your PoV at this point and i hope there won't be an Uber-mech in MWO. And i told exactly the same about the skilled Light against the average Heavy before. But '4/6 out of 10' proportion is too high for me. I really hope that's just a random numbers, which are pretty far from the real ones.

don't forget that we're talking about the average statistics - not about exclusions or rare cases.



In your example the Light already have the Tactical Advantage against the Heavy. But this is a "spherical horse in the deep vacuum" situation, because to start the run around - the Light need to get himself close enough. It's possible, but not that probable.

I share your view to a certain extent. This is why mechs are divided into classes, in large part. I thought Mech Commander did a good job in this respect, certain mechs have certain roles and the scout who decides to go against a heavy or assault mech in a field is either desperate or suicidal. There's a reason they are described as Reconnaissance in terms of campaign roles. When used in such a role, they are force multipliers not skirmishers unless necessary and this is why a well balanced advance force will have at least two of these represented in their roster.
Mediums are ideally hunters or skirmishers, where the lights are more specialized. The Centurion is an archetypical skirmisher as is the Shadow Hawk and Phoenix Hawk. The Hunchback fills the role as the archetypical hunter. Its AC20 is what the entire design is built around, and it is generally still faster than its heavier counterparts to grant it survivability.
Heavies are where the archetypical killers are drawn from, this is the sweet spot range in mainstream thought for all around verstility. The Madcat, Thor, Thug, and Warhammer are classic examples of this. They can move and they can hammer while still taking a hit. The assault class really doesn't need much of an explanation, a lot of weight but slow with exceptions that are rare in the extreme like the Highlander. Not all assault mechs are intended for holding the line though, look into the Cyclops for such an example. The Cyclops is intended as a force multiplier if you have the numbers to justify it in your roster as it is intended as a mobile command unit for a sizeable advance force where logistics are likely to be sketchy. I hope this info is helpful

[Outlaw2]

Morkani, on 05 March 2012 - 11:46 PM, said:

i've expanded a little bit on that idea i loved in this thread, do you think something like this would help to encourage people to play many different roles?

lights with no damage .... available to drop immediately after game is over
lights with only armour damage ..... available to drop after 10 minutes or an extra 5k cbills spent for immediate repair
Lights with armour & Crit's damage .... available to drop after 15-45 minutes or 10k to 50k cbills (depending on how much crit dmg)
Light completely destroyed .... available to drop after 1 hour or 75k cbills spent for immediate repair

medium with no damage .... available to drop immediately after game is over
medium with only armor damage .... available to drop after 20 minutes or an extra 25k cbills spent for immediate repair
medium with armor & crit damage .... available to drop 30 - 60 minutes or an extra 50k - 100k cbills (pending on crit dmg)
medium completely destroyed .... available to drop after 2 hours or 150k cbills spent for immediate repair

heavy with no damage .... available to drop immediately after game is over
heavy with only armor damage .... available to drop after 2 hours or an extra 150k cbills spent on repair
heavy with armor & crit damage ..... available to drop after 2.5 or 3.5 hours or 200k to 300k cbills spent on repair
heavy completely destroyed.....available to drop after 4 & 1/2 hours or 400k cbills spent on repair

assault with no damage .... available to drop immediately after game is over
assault with only armor damage .... available to drop after 4 hours of repair or 350k cbills spent on repair
assault with armor & crit damage .... available to drop after 6 to 8 hours or 500k to 700k cbills spent on repair
assault completely destroyed ..... available to drop after 12 hours or 1mil cbills spent on repair

OF COURSE, I just pulled these numbers out of thin air, i don't know what the weight of cbills are, the wait time's i'm sure need to be adjusted from what i suggested, & the whole thing would be a sliding scale no two repairs would be the same.

Now ...this is exactly what I DONT want to see. I don't want out of game factors acting as strong determining forces on what mechs players will take for a match. Im not knocking the C-bill costs you are suggesting (since there really is no reference point to measure it with anyway), but the over the top time spent repairing the mechs it the deal breaker. And again, especially for competitive play (what Im personally looking forward to)
It promotes people to NOT use in regular pub matches the mechs they are usually assigned during competitive matches. This is completely lame, and smacks of WoT.

Besides, you can not base your or any match balancing system simply on weight class. Like many people including me are saying, some assaults will be inferior to some heavies...hell even some mediums. Not to mention completely outclassed by other mechs of similar role and weight. Thats the nature of BattleTech. You are going to need a much more refined measuring stick.

Edited by =Outlaw=, 06 March 2012 - 07:58 AM.

[Kallende Rathwynne]

=Outlaw=, on 06 March 2012 - 07:54 AM, said:

Now ...this is exactly what I DONT want to see. I don't want out of game factors acting as strong determining forces on what mechs players will take for a match. Im not knocking the C-bill costs you are suggesting (since there really is no reference point to measure it with anyway), but the over the top time spent repairing the mechs it the deal breaker. And again, especially for competitive play (what Im personally looking forward to)
It promotes people to NOT use in regular pub matches the mechs they are usually assigned during competitive matches. This is completely lame, and smacks of WoT.

Besides, you can not base your or any match balancing system simply on weight class. Like many people including me are saying, some assaults will be inferior to some heavies...hell even some mediums. Not to mention completely outclassed by other mechs of similar role and weight. Thats the nature of BattleTech. You are going to need a much more refined measuring stick.

While I agree with what you are saying, at the same time this encourage people to build a mech inventory and to put more thought into what they decide to roll out with in any given mission. I can see where he is coming from in repair times, because an assault mech is obviously bigger than a light mech. If we go with a system like he is suggesting, then it will open the door for the OmniMech advantages, which up front would logically be shorter repair times, but disadvantages would be higher market cost/value.

[Outlaw2]

Kallende Rathwynne, on 06 March 2012 - 08:01 AM, said:

While I agree with what you are saying, at the same time this encourage people to build a mech inventory and to put more thought into what they decide to roll out with in any given mission. I can see where he is coming from in repair times, because an assault mech is obviously bigger than a light mech. If we go with a system like he is suggesting, then it will open the door for the OmniMech advantages, which up front would logically be shorter repair times, but disadvantages would be higher market cost/value.

I get the idea behind it, but I just don't think it will work out too well
For causal open public play, a repair time system like this might work, but when you add competitive matches into the mix, it falls apart. It would be a VERY unsatisfying system for competitive players...and probably even for causal players tbh.
Im sure we can find other ways to simulate the advantages of OmniMechs without resorting to this.

Edited by =Outlaw=, 06 March 2012 - 08:16 AM.

[Wyzak]

=Outlaw=, on 06 March 2012 - 08:15 AM, said:

I get the idea behind it, but I just don't think it will work out too well
For causal open public play, a repair time system like this might work, but when you add competitive matches into the mix, it falls apart. It would be a VERY unsatisfying system for competitive players...and probably even for causal players tbh.
Im sure we can find other ways to simulate the advantages of OmniMechs without resorting to this.

Well, if we have units which are running like real Merc units, I think they will already be taking repair times into account when they schedule their matches, if for no other reason then role playing purposes. I've seen several "units" which operated their logisitics outside of whatever game they were using for competition who took the in-universe actions of their company very seriously; my point being I don't think they should be disadvantaged by having to take out a second-line mech while the others are in repair. And if you are, then don't take the contract. Does that make any sense?

[TheRulesLawyer]

Orzorn, on 05 March 2012 - 09:42 PM, said:

And yet League of Legends, the CREATOR of the western free to play model, throws that in your face. You can not purchase Influence Points (the in-game earned currency). You can, however, purchase IP-boosts, which increase the rate at which you earn IP. You still have to play, however, to get the IP. And, as I said in my other post, IP was important in that it is the only currency by which you can buy runes, the most important thing to have in the game. Without those, many hero builds don't work (can't jungle Amumu without runes). Everything in the game can be purchased with real cash EXCEPT for runes and Influence Points.

This forces players to, you know, actually play the game, even if they have a fat wad of cash to spend. You can not allow players to max out their strength without player a single game. If you could purchase c-bills, that's exactly what you're allowing. League of Legends knew it, and I'm sure PGI knows it as well.

I have the feeling that the modules in MWO are the Runes of the game. You can only unlock them by playing the game.

[Elizander]

I'm gonna need something with an Autocannon or PPC when this game launches.

[Fugu]

Repair time would however be a very frustrating thing for new players. Having no eyperience and only one mech it would really hurt to have to wait all the time. I can see that easily being way too frustrating for many new players.
I know I wouldn't like it.

[Project_Mercy]

=Outlaw=, on 06 March 2012 - 07:54 AM, said:

Now ...this is exactly what I DONT want to see. I don't want out of game factors acting as strong determining forces on what mechs players will take for a match. Im not knocking the C-bill costs you are suggesting (since there really is no reference point to measure it with anyway), but the over the top time spent repairing the mechs it the deal breaker. And again, especially for competitive play (what Im personally looking forward to)
It promotes people to NOT use in regular pub matches the mechs they are usually assigned during competitive matches. This is completely lame, and smacks of WoT.

So what you're saying is, you don't want any reprocussions for what you do, to effect you?

I'm sure you don't. Most people would prefer to be able to just do whatever and have no reprocussions. But then you reach a point (usually pretty early) when you ask yourself "Ok, I just blew up that guys assault, and he's jus going to respawn.."

I propose that everyone who's saying "I want my assault" really isn't sitting down and thinking about it. Your assault isn't all that special when EVERYONE IS IN ONE. You might as well all be in lights. It's a question of scale. The reasons assaults are magical, is because they're massive (slow) walking death machines. If it's just atlas on atlas then you might as well all be in locusts. You remember in the first trailer when an altas comes out of the smoke and the guy panics? Well, imagine if instead of a warhammer the guys in a Jenner and he goes "lol, some nub in an Atlas just showed up" and just goes around to pantsing him. Does that seem like Battletech to anyone?

And no matter what the game is, a good portion of random people are going to view every match as a deathmatch. that's just how Online games go. If you have any doubt of this, you clearly haven't played enough FPS (especially FPS on consoles).

If you want some reward, you should have to put in some risk. Risk is the spice of life. I'm not saying you need to mine for 3 weeks to build a mech (ala Eve Online), but having a cooldown on that mech seems a nice step to at least mean people have to THINK some before dropping nothing but killing machines.

That said, I didn't see a cooldown on lights or mediums. You should be able to drop any of (at least a backbone style) of light or medium at will. So no, there would be no "waiting".

It's either that, or put a tonnage/point total per side. And then ya'll can fight over who gets the assault. That'll be awesome, let me tell you.

It's either that, our your public games are just going to turn into all assaults, with the occasional guy in a fast mech who feels like doing a mission. It's true in MMORPGs, It's true in FPS, many and more don't care about the mission, they just want to shoot people. Expecting people to do otherwise is Naive, and will result in a very boring game.

Edited by Wraeththix Constantine, 06 March 2012 - 09:41 AM.

[Fugu]

Wraeththix Constantine, on 06 March 2012 - 09:30 AM, said:

So what you're saying is, you don't want any reprocussions for what you do, to effect you?

I'm sure you don't. Most people would prefer to be able to just do whatever and have no reprocussions. But then you reach a point (usually pretty early) when you ask yourself "Ok, I just blew up that guys assault, and he's jus going to respawn.."

Speaking for myself here I wouldn't mind him respawning instantly if I know it did cost that guy a good amount of cash to do so. Eventually he'll run low on cash and won't keep respawning because he's broke or it's getting too pricy.
If he just respawns I would at least know that it would hurt that guy because with the money goes the time he's spent to earn that money.

Am I right or is this totally besides the point you're making?

[Project_Mercy]

Fugu, on 06 March 2012 - 09:40 AM, said:

Speaking for myself here I wouldn't mind him respawning instantly if I know it did cost that guy a good amount of cash to do so. Eventually he'll run low on cash and won't keep respawning because he's broke or it's getting too pricy.
If he just respawns I would at least know that it would hurt that guy because with the money goes the time he's spent to earn that money.

Am I right or is this totally besides the point you're making?

Depends what you mean. If you mean that you have to pay # cbills per drop, and # goes up based on the tonnage, then that might do roughly the same thing; except it's more prone to exploitation in the F2P model (aka, pay to win).

If you're saying # is the same irrelivent of your tonnage, and you just pay # per spawn; then that's not really what I'm talking about. In fact, that's just a "pay to play" mechanic; which doesn't effect the game. It's just a way to make money in F2P. That's repair bills in any MMO.

There's always going to be people who want to just spawn, shoot people, and then move on. In a game without reprocussions (like say, Modern Warfare), that's totally fine. In a game where you're supposed to be fighting over something, it's asinine. Even in MPBT where there was no objectives in a mission, you didn't get respawn.

Also, MPBT? At the end (of it's very short run) everyone was in assaults and high-ton heavies... It was extremely lame, and people started to mention it before it got shut down. And where we go again, doing the same thing, except possibly allowing people to start in them, instead of having to grind up to them, which is just going to shorten the gameplay.

Edited by Wraeththix Constantine, 06 March 2012 - 10:05 AM.