439 replies to this topic

[Kael Tropheus]

Ug totally disillusioned by this. I wanted a true to the game mechlab and we get kindergarten to appease the masses. Hopefully the costs to do any customization will be atrocious. The only real balancing method they have left now is heat. If they keep it true to game perhaps it will be ok. If they do it lamely like the older MW games there is little hope of balance. By true to game, I want chances of ammo explosions, blurry screens, possible shutdowns, slower movement etc.

[BerryChunks]

Belial, on 04 April 2012 - 03:42 PM, said:

Okay. Yeah, that wasn't what I meant but I see the points made here. My argument is that all light 'Mechs have the impending threat of easier destruction, but MWO's game design should encourage playing as them anyway.

I notice that most opponents of this system are ignoring that everything else about the MechLab is canon, even with proper ciritcal spaces and tonnage and armor distribution (MW4's armor system was messed up).



I'm confused now as to which systems you do and do not favor. Elaborate, please? 'Cause MWO's system looks like it will prevent cauals from getting their cheesy Gausszilla boats. (I will admit to using such designs in instant action games for my own maniacal gratification, though.)

Allowing weapon customization in a simple and easy manner breaks canon and creates unreliability in knowing who you face and their capabilities. Allowing full unrestricted customizing makes some mechs clearly better than others, essentially turning the mechs into different 'skins' for your 'mech' instead of different mechs for different capabilities and jobs.

If a catapult and a cauldron born can have exactly the same load out, one or the other is redundant. Even with hardpoint limiting, you lose the stability that variants provided from tabletop. Lets take any mech with 1 short, 1 medium, and 1 long range weapon. you can go for 3 long range and discard the drawbacks and advantages of the mixed system, making it easy to hold people at range with 100% of your weapons hitting them. Your enemy cant rely on knowledge then, and if someone blindly went into the fight with the wrong config vs yours, they're dead. Its like if in Starcraft if you were able to swap out marine rifles for grenade launchers and your enemy cant scout it until your marines fire. You need a different setup yourself to deal with it, but since you're going in blind, you auto-lose or auto-win if you blindly picked the counter. Its less tactical and skilled, not more.

The hardpoint system MIGHT have been reasonable, if it took time and money and access to a mech bay on some world and force players to wait for their unit to be changed to their liking. This would make it unsustainable in full out war and allow more tactical usage to deprive enemies of their most munchkinized hardpoint system mech.

[HIemfire]

Belial, on 04 April 2012 - 03:54 PM, said:

Ahhhh, okay. Much better now.

Well, customization has been just as big a part of the franchsie as everything else, so we can't do away with it enitrely for the sake of tactical variant choices. Besides, it may not be an instant or cheap process, and even the variants will have different customization options (see my comment on the standard Hunchback versus the Swayback). Hopefully this system addresses the boating problems that all previous games have faced. Even without the customization, the light 'Mechs have THREE bigger 'Mechs armed with big ACs to worry about (Centurion, Hunchback and Atlas). How well they fare is up to the pilot.

I don't really know how close the story that was posted with the Commando is supposed to reflect game play but if it is indicative of the type of gameplay we will be having then its worriesome. When taking a design means that when you light up the enemy that you yourself are brought into immediate view then what you are carrying on the chassis makes a huge difference. A Large Laser that hits well, a PPC or an AC/10 hit equate to death for many of the 3025 scouts, and having to be in range to use you weapons (SRMs and Medium Lasers have the same range as an AC/20 in canon) to do so as implied means you are within the midlin range for the 3 big guns weapons. Not a good place to be even in some of the mid tonnaged mediums much less a light mech.

Kael Tropheus, on 04 April 2012 - 03:56 PM, said:

Ug totally disillusioned by this. I wanted a true to the game mechlab and we get kindergarten to appease the masses. Hopefully the costs to do any customization will be atrocious. The only real balancing method they have left now is heat. If they keep it true to game perhaps it will be ok. If they do it lamely like the older MW games there is little hope of balance. By true to game, I want chances of ammo explosions, blurry screens, possible shutdowns, slower movement etc.

What do you mean by true to the game? How much truer are we going to get. It looks like PGI is sticking to a predominatly Class B level of customization with maybe a partial Class F if engine type change outs is permitted.

[Sporkosophy]

HIemfire, on 04 April 2012 - 03:23 PM, said:

An AC/20 is a far cry from a Large Laser. I'm hoping there is something to mitigate what I see as a major flaw in the system or the COM-2D and it's ilk will probably become hangar queens.

A large laser can still be penetrating on the second hit. Scout mechsBattle armor is fragile because it's so small and meaningless. The Commando has always been a death trap, just as every light mech in the game.

[HIemfire]

Sporkosophy, on 04 April 2012 - 04:13 PM, said:

A large laser can still be penetrating on the second hit. Scout mechsBattle armor is fragile because it's so small and meaningless. The Commando has always been a death trap, just as every light mech in the game.

Thus bring into question the viability of scouting in a sim like this. Give the targeting info then run and pray you don't get hit.... One maybe two times of performing your role a match before dying is not really all that efficent and looks right now to be questionably effective. Remember, this is not the table top where you control multiple mechs and other units. We are the pilots and our progress is directly tied to our success which a fair portion of which is tied to what happens when we get hit. We will get hit no matter how good we get at evading. Piloting a laser designator wrapped in blasting caps wrapped in tinfoil does not look like it will end up staying fun, if it is at all, for long.

Edited by HIemfire, 04 April 2012 - 04:24 PM.

[BerryChunks]

HIemfire, on 04 April 2012 - 04:23 PM, said:

Thus bring into question the viability of scouting in a sim like this. Give the targeting info then run and pray you don't get hit.... One maybe two times of performing your role a match before dying is not really all that efficent and looks right now to be questionably effective. Remember, this is not the table top where you control multiple mechs and other units. We are the pilots and our progress is directly tied to our success which a fair portion of which is tied to what happens when we get hit. We will get hit no matter how good we get at evading. Piloting a laser designator wrapped in blasting caps wrapped in tinfoil does not look like it will end up staying fun, if it is at all, for long.

There was a blog or story post stating that some lights ganged up on an atlas and killed it, while he atlas was never able to get a lock and never able to turn fast enough to aim at where the enemy had previously been.

meaning light mechs will move fast and heavy mechs will turn slow. possibly also that it takes some time to get the weapons to lock onto the range of an enemy mech to accurately hit them from a distance.

[Tannhauser Gate]

Hardpoint system + Critcals: Yep, allows for customization without boating. Makes TRO Variants important as base models rather than obsolete. Includes sinks and ammo like MW3 in a hardpoint system like MW4. Good.

Armor: Classic and logical from MW3. Im assuming we will see 3049 armor types/weights to choose from and the variant type determines internal structure composition.

Modules: Very glad to see that each module must be purchased for each mech you want to install it in rather than permanent enhancements basd on your pilot profile that migrate to every mech to pilot. I was worried about that. Cant wait to see that in action.

Visual: Not only can you use a camo/skin pattern as your template but you can change the colors of the pattern. Nice! especially for free feature. Cant wait to see the store.

I wanted to see a mechlab that is anti-boating, pro-variant, allows balanced weapon and system customization, highly customizable visually and, based on that reveal, it looks thoughtfully and logically built with those ideas in mind. So, very good.

Proceeding to the Q&A with questions…

[Qman]

Like what i am reading here. I am just glad that mwo is coming out to be hating because it does not match some sentiment i have to the table top game.

[HIemfire]

BerryChunks, on 04 April 2012 - 04:36 PM, said:

There was a blog or story post stating that some lights ganged up on an atlas and killed it, while he atlas was never able to get a lock and never able to turn fast enough to aim at where the enemy had previously been.

meaning light mechs will move fast and heavy mechs will turn slow. possibly also that it takes some time to get the weapons to lock onto the range of an enemy mech to accurately hit them from a distance.

Has been confirmed already (last months mech warfare blog). Doesn't do that much to alieviate my concerns though. We will see how it pans out when the game goes live, that will be the most telling time. I hope to beable to do something other than line fight this time.

[Thorqemada]

Well, so far i see potential in the Lab while it puts reasonable restriction rules against some construction insanity that would happen - i miss Engine customization.

So far MWO has many amazing concepts and hope they will work out.

[SpiralRazor]

"Above all other customization, that weapons can only be swapped out with weapons of the same weapon type. For example, energy weapons cannot be swapped with ballistic weapons."



This is dumb...and super crazy arficial...makes no sense in the game world either, and especially no sense if Omni mechs will be in the game at some future point.



Cant support it now.

[Sporkosophy]

SpiralRazor, on 04 April 2012 - 05:03 PM, said:

"Above all other customization, that weapons can only be swapped out with weapons of the same weapon type. For example, energy weapons cannot be swapped with ballistic weapons."



This is dumb...and super crazy arficial...makes no sense in the game world either, and especially no sense if Omni mechs will be in the game at some future point.



Cant support it now.

Sup needless panic, how you doing? Balance is like that. Beyond, you know technobabble justifications.

[Malkenson]

Just a quick thought...

Perhaps highly customized Mechs will only playable in Arena style matches, and not playable in Planetary Conquest? Perhaps I'm just jumping the gun a bit, as no real info has been put out yet, that I know of, as to just what kind of fighting we will be able to do.

After all, in cannon, Arena Mechs where far different than line Mechs. If you only want to fight in Planetary Conquests, you might never come across some of the more bizarre designs.

[Daiichidoku]

so......


when do we get the "McMech"

i want one badly

[plodder]

I like what i see, admittedly, I am not as knowledgable as most those here, but more so of a few (very few), but unless I missed something, it looks like both MW3 & MW4 mechlab ideas flow toghether here well, with a paint shop!!! So I like it. I also like the differences of opinions, I learn more from them than anything else. Thanks PGI, thanks to everyone else. ;o)

[Odanan]

Dihm, on 04 April 2012 - 09:22 AM, said:

It also raises the question that I didn't see answered: can you change from one armor type to another (from standard to ferro), or one engine type to another (from standard to XL) within the variant. Changing this alters the critical structure pretty significantly, so I'm going to guess not.

I'm a long time tabletop player but I always thought the Endo Steel and Ferro Fibrous slot setting as unnecessary and erroneous. IMO, the only requirement should be having the required 14 free slots (or 7 for clan). As you can't destroy these Endo/Ferro slots AND in fact they are DISTRIBUTED over all the mech, you shouldn't have to assign critical points for them.

But, if the developers want to keep a carbon copy of the tabletop, I can live with that...

PS: about the XL Engine, I hope you can`t replace for a standard Engine and vice versa. It would mess all the criticals.

PS2: the most stupid thing from the tabletop rules is the "roll again" in assign critical hits. Come on, if you have only a 1 ammo ton and nothing more in your torso does it means the first critical hit will always hit that ammo? Bullshit! The chance is the same if there were 11 hit sinks in there, because the 1 ton ammo IS OF THE SAME SIZE!

PS3: (kind of off topic) Ultra Autocannon second shot should not be decided in MWO by random, but by the pilot's (player) skill.

[Sprouticus]

BerryChunks, on 04 April 2012 - 04:09 PM, said:

Allowing weapon customization in a simple and easy manner breaks canon and creates unreliability in knowing who you face and their capabilities. Allowing full unrestricted customizing makes some mechs clearly better than others, essentially turning the mechs into different 'skins' for your 'mech' instead of different mechs for different capabilities and jobs.

If a catapult and a cauldron born can have exactly the same load out, one or the other is redundant. Even with hardpoint limiting, you lose the stability that variants provided from tabletop. Lets take any mech with 1 short, 1 medium, and 1 long range weapon. you can go for 3 long range and discard the drawbacks and advantages of the mixed system, making it easy to hold people at range with 100% of your weapons hitting them. Your enemy cant rely on knowledge then, and if someone blindly went into the fight with the wrong config vs yours, they're dead. Its like if in Starcraft if you were able to swap out marine rifles for grenade launchers and your enemy cant scout it until your marines fire. You need a different setup yourself to deal with it, but since you're going in blind, you auto-lose or auto-win if you blindly picked the counter. Its less tactical and skilled, not more.

The hardpoint system MIGHT have been reasonable, if it took time and money and access to a mech bay on some world and force players to wait for their unit to be changed to their liking. This would make it unsustainable in full out war and allow more tactical usage to deprive enemies of their most munchkinized hardpoint system mech.

Your pesimism is rather bothersome and detracts from the fact that you make some decent points

1) Yes, range boating will be an issue.
2) Yes I would have preferred a more restrictive mech labs (armor, HS, and eqipment only in my perfect world)
3) Yes there is some built in frustration in configs being unknown


But honeslty I think you are just looking for reasons to be upset
1) A LOT of people wanted a mechlab, in some cases people have posted in this thread that the mechlab doesnt go far enough, and that the hardpoints dont make sense and artificially limit mech creation. (I generally categorize those into min/max boat whores, but thats me). The current solution is the most viable for PGI in regards to keeping the community happy long term.
2) I am hopeful that single range mechs (Cough Cough Awesome's) will be at a real disadvantage due to min range issues
3) I am hopeful that a severe heat penalty system will give a firm if not hard cap to energy boats
4) I am hopeful that engine type wont be changeable, nor internal structure.
5) I am hopeful that engine size will be artifically limited to 1-2 levels up or down from the variant base engine
6) I am hopeful that there will be significant difference in recharge and travel time between balistics and PPC's. This, combined with a DoT laser and hopefully a severe heat scale will make boating foolish and range boats an unwise idea.
7) I am hopeful that the initial game will be limited to primarily level 1 tech (note the energy weapons they call out in the article (flamer, S/M/L Laser, PPC). Thats level 1 tech only.

As you can see, in my world the glass is half full. The mechlab is not perfect (for me) but it is a solid compromise, and the potential problems can be overcome with other game elements. I suggest you try to look at things with a slightly larger scope and maybe things will look a little brighter.

[Ramien]

SpiralRazor, on 04 April 2012 - 05:03 PM, said:

"Above all other customization, that weapons can only be swapped out with weapons of the same weapon type. For example, energy weapons cannot be swapped with ballistic weapons."



This is dumb...and super crazy arficial...makes no sense in the game world either, and especially no sense if Omni mechs will be in the game at some future point.



Cant support it now.

Actually, it makes quite a lot of sense in the game world - how many mech descriptions talk about problems with ammo feeds? An ammo-based hardpoint is basically the connections for ammo feeds for a mech - something that I believe would be very difficult to add post-construction.

[sadamle]

I'm sorry champs. But that was the most boring dev blog to date. Not only are just about all those items discussed obvious, I've read nothing new or even remotely interesting that differentiates this mechlab to any of the previous incarnations or that's been discussed before. Even modules are used in the exactly same way as equipment. Have space/criticals > equip.

Also, I am pretty sure that the diagrams can be designed with a little bit more finesse. I mean seriously, let's keep the quality of the work high throughout.

I guess there are some new players but generally, we all know how to equip / loadout mechs, let's see how it looks and how it functions as a user exp. Give us something we can look at, discuss and analyse. *sigh* epic disappointment.

Oh well, now I gotta wait another month.

[StandingCow]

Think this is the best way they could have done it. Looking more and more forward to throwing my money at the screen.