76 replies to this topic

[Dlardrageth]

Black Sunder, on 10 March 2012 - 01:11 PM, said:

Just this part I'll respond to in part because of the inaccuracy that it gets thrown around with. Frakenmechs are mechs created using pieces of other mechs. Like a centurion arm, the legs of a hunchback, the torso of a enforcer, and the head of a T-bucket. THAT is a frankenmech.

A mere semantic difference really if you mount the body parts or just the weapon's from the Centurion's arm, the enhanced leg actuators from a Hunchback's leg (internals), the armor from an Enforcer torso and the sensor suite from the Trebuchet. So yeah, you don'T get the body parts themselves, just the interior and just the features you want. Big deal of a difference. And Viktor Frankenstein in the original novel didn't pick the body parts for their aesthetic appeal, he picked them for their functionality and sew them together. Pretty much the same what you'd do with constructing a "patchwork Mech" (Like that expression better?) from components completely alien to the original design.

Thus I'd respectfully keep on calling something like that a "FrankenMech", no matter if the whole limb or just a major part will be appropriated from elsewhere, and you can call it... whatever. It remains a Frankenstein-ian method and design, no matter if you actually see a completely adapted limb or if you don't

[Zarkan]

Course I could point out that in the ear this game is starting out fluff wise most of the 'mechs running about are relics cobbled to gether from mutible varients of the same and even differnt 'mechs into something that....sort of functions.

[Paladin1]

Brakkyn, on 09 March 2012 - 04:06 PM, said:

Or maybe "customizing your loadout" means you buy a base [/i]Catapult[/i], then in the MechLab decide which variant to pilot in the upcoming drop, so you always own the base 'Mech, but not a specific variant.

I suspect that this is probably closer to the truth of what we're going to see. I suspect, due to how it was explained as to how pilot trees will work and how you'll have to master the variants of a particular design before you're considered Elite with it, that we're going to see only canon variants available for builds, but those builds will require you to gather the required parts to complete them. The variant specs that you'll be building will probably be purchased, and then collecting the parts will be up to you. Take for example the Hunchback and Swayback. To convert from a standard 4G Hunchback to a 4P Swayback, you'll probably need to buy the variant build info and then either buy or salvage the necessary lasers and heatsinks to complete the conversion.

This also should deal with the fear of being overrun with boaters, as it gives the devs control over the variants and what is introduced, keeping boats and other overpowered or unbalanced designs to a minimum. In other words, we should see an AWS-8Q Awesome but no 100 ton designs with nothing but PPCs.

[Phos]

Being more similar to the table top game isn't automatically better.

[Zarkan]

*shudders* I hate TAC's

[Big Bad Bubba]

As a longtime BT player, starting with the miniatures, paper and pencils, and playing MW 1 through 4 and MechCommander 1 and 2. If the devs can implement something similar to the pencil and paper design process, play balance should take care of itself.

If you want to get a larger engine, you need to devote tonnage to get the more powerful engine and, as a consequence, had to sacrifice armor, weapons and/or equipment. Every advantage has a balancing disadvantage. Missile and ballistic weapons have limited ammo and relatively low heat. Energy weapons have unlimited ammo but produce huge amounts of heat. Heat Management is a supremely important skill. Is it better to use 75% of your weapons 100% of the time or to use 100% of your weapons but have to worry about an alpha strike shutting down your mech or blowing it to bits in an ammo explosion? I'd say it's a person choice either way.

Use of terrrain and topography were just as important as what weapons were available to use. If they don't have a direct line of sight on you, you could unload some serious mayhem, or wind up in an ambush. Circumstances and tactics usually determine who wins and loses.

If you can run any type of boat (cannon or not), the more power to you; because, I should win if I make you fight me to my style and what I do best no matter what the weapon load out is. This is also central to any battletech experience.

On a somewhat different tanget, I can't wait until pulse lasers and targeting computers are available becuase I will slice and dice worse than a nightmarish 100 ton cuisin-art.

[Zarkan]

Course the table top game also always had the threat of running into crazy fools like me with 20+ medium tanks or droves of infantry/battle armor for your heavy guns to pick away at slowly. Bet you kept those machine guns/ light lasers now huh?

[Phos]

Let's talk about the viability of mechs. Were mechs not customizable, you'd have this particular variant of this particular mech being the best at a given role, and that's it. Allowing the end user to customize the mech allows for second and third tier chassis to be bumped up by addressing their shortcomings. Part of the weakness of this system was that you usually ran out of tonnage before hardpoints so you weren't giving up anything by leaving all those solid weapon hardpoints empty.

Also a mech with 5 PPCs isn't going to be able to fire coolant coolant fire.

Big Bad Bubba, on 10 March 2012 - 07:45 PM, said:

As a longtime BT player, starting with the miniatures, paper and pencils, and playing MW 1 through 4 and MechCommander 1 and 2. If the devs can implement something similar to the pencil and paper design process, play balance should take care of itself.

Realize that the game being in real time already changes a lot, and that being able to target specific body parts also changes up how a of things work. There are probably some other longstanding differences I don't know about. I imagine jump jets were good for something in TT, but mechs in 4 could walk up a sixty degree incline so all they did was take up a few tons.

[Sassori]

Zarkan, on 10 March 2012 - 08:06 PM, said:

Course the table top game also always had the threat of running into crazy fools like me with 20+ medium tanks or droves of infantry/battle armor for your heavy guns to pick away at slowly. Bet you kept those machine guns/ light lasers now huh?

I've always said, any heavy/assault mech without a method to deal with infantry and light armor was just asking to die. It's why the Battlemaster had machine guns stock, Banshee's and Awesome's had Small Lasers. Atlas just had to much armor to be very vulnerable to infantry.

I think this is why I hate full customization, because mech's should be built to make sense. Merc's especially aren't going to have the support of a full company for anti-infantry in a lot of cases. This is where versatility comes in handy. If you have short, medium, and long range weapons you can fight effectively at any range.

You won't be as good as a specialist, but you'll be able to fight and not be useless.

[Blackfire1]

after reading 3 pages...

I honestly don't see a reason as to why we can't have both.

[Zarkan]

Christopher Dayson, on 10 March 2012 - 09:49 PM, said:

I've always said, any heavy/assault mech without a method to deal with infantry and light armor was just asking to die. It's why the Battlemaster had machine guns stock, Banshee's and Awesome's had Small Lasers. Atlas just had to much armor to be very vulnerable to infantry.

I think this is why I hate full customization, because mech's should be built to make sense. Merc's especially aren't going to have the support of a full company for anti-infantry in a lot of cases. This is where versatility comes in handy. If you have short, medium, and long range weapons you can fight effectively at any range.

You won't be as good as a specialist, but you'll be able to fight and not be useless.

Agreed, still that hardly stopped most games I was in where custom mechs were allowed to ultimately end up with me swarming some poor PPC/guass boat monster with a swarm of bull dog medium tanks.

[Paladin1]

Phos, on 10 March 2012 - 07:00 PM, said:

Being more similar to the table top game isn't automatically better.

Actually, yes it is. The TT game came first and set the standards by which all other games are measured, so being closer to the TT game makes MWO a better game by default.

[Sp12]

Phos, on 10 March 2012 - 07:00 PM, said:

Being more similar to the table top game isn't automatically better.

Truth.

[Charlic Wolf]

ALL YALL NEED TO WAKE UP role warfare vid, they declare that they will have BOTH.

[Zarkan]

Paladin1, on 11 March 2012 - 03:46 PM, said:

Actually, yes it is. The TT game came first and set the standards by which all other games are measured, so being closer to the TT game makes MWO a better game by default.

Only if they where planning on making a Turn based strategy game and even then... Well I certainly don't want to see everyone running jump jet clan tech medium pulse cheese here anymore than on the TT.

[Pht]

Phalanx, on 09 March 2012 - 03:29 PM, said:

What I am thinking of is if a Mech already exists that fits a player's playstyle, but they cannot get it for whatever reason(went broke paying for repairs), how will the Devs balance the Mech Lab so that players cannot simply create a near-clone of the Mech they want with the Mech they own?

Hopefully?

Something like this:
http://mwomercs.com/...dpost__p__54497

Quote

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

"Blue" is mislabeled. It should be "equipment" which mostly means you can put heatsinks there, maybe ammo.

Should be pretty straight forwards.

Things that those familiar with the MW4 lab and the parent game won't see so obviously:

Don't allow internal structure type to be changed - don't allow engines to be changed (instead, look to the things in Tac Ops, like sprinting, for a wide 'Mech performance envelope). cockpit, gyro, and actuators (hip, arm joints) should not be allowed to be messed with (with the single exclusion of omnimechs with omni arms removing the hand and I think the lower actuators for using ppcs and gauss?).

Omnimechs can't modify their armor or otherwise do anything that would cross over from non-omni areas into omni-slots - otherwise, they're no longer modular, in addition to the above restrictions.

This gives a quick way to resolve penetrating hits and allows for the armor/damage behaviors to be ported with ease in a way that fits the fluidity of a VG with ease, and it stops (as much as the original mechs meant to!) munchkins from lunacy.

Omnimechs might have to be somehow restricted in number, because they'll be (as they should be and as the Lore blurbs them) scary, as far as loadouts are concerned.

One of the other things this would necessarily bring with it is that all the variant chassis of a base chassis (non-omnimech chassis, that is) would actually have to be in the game. There would be a large field to choose from - which would be even more fun if they managed to get the combat setup where they could handle the 'Mech quirks (marauder is supposed to be deadly in combat, that sort of thing).

This would stop the MW3 problem where all 'Mechs are rendered into nothing more than visually different bags full of guns - munchkin min/max Sheol misery, and still allow for a LOT of customization.

[AJC]

Thorn Hallis, on 10 March 2012 - 12:23 AM, said:

Think we should wait until we know how the mechlab will work exactly,

it's people like this that give me hope for the mechwarrior fanbase.

until we know how it works and what it will and will not let us do we can only wildly speculate on what can be done.