200 replies to this topic

[Noth]

Sudden Reversal, on 14 November 2012 - 12:35 AM, said:

XP implementation is extremely poor.

To infer that no pilot can be better than Green, without owning multiple variants of their preferred Mech in the form of entirely distinct chassis, is spurious to say the least and a blatant money grab\time sink to boot.

Quite frankly it stinks and is most probably the weakest aspect of MWO at present, barring the matchmaking which is being addressed.

I hate it. We should all hate it.

It needs to be changed.

Nothing in this actually represents pilot skill. Mech trees represent familiarity with the mech along with the mechanics fine tuning it. Becoming familiar with multiple variants of the same chassis then gives you/your mechanics the understanding to further improve the mech. The Pilot skills represent you learning how to use new modules that you can install in your mech.

Whether the pilot is green or not is all on you as your are the pilot.

[Rejarial Galatan]

Noth, on 14 November 2012 - 12:37 AM, said:

A smart atlas can kill lights pretty easily. Further when knockdowns are put back in lights have to fear being knocked down much easier than the other mechs which will drop their survivability. Different mechs and mech classes have different strengths and weaknesses. This promotes a team game. I've lost count of how many times I've killed lights with relative ease in non lights. The mech trees don't change that. Further the mech trees do not make enough of a difference to matter in a real match scenario.

problem I am having is that there is STILL the double armor/structure values in place. I use 4 ML and a Gauss Rifle with 8 tons, yes, you read that right, 8 TONS. I should, by all logic and canon and lore, should rip a light open like a tin can with my gauss rifle with a fast pass from my ML set up, but, no, they take the hit as well as I can <in normal values> and keep going, THAT is my problem with lights. Take away the double values, and get instant balance damage wise, and sudden forcing of better tactical play across the board.

[Noth]

Rejarial Galatan, on 14 November 2012 - 12:42 AM, said:

problem I am having is that there is STILL the double armor/structure values in place. I use 4 ML and a Gauss Rifle with 8 tons, yes, you read that right, 8 TONS. I should, by all logic and canon and lore, should rip a light open like a tin can with my gauss rifle with a fast pass from my ML set up, but, no, they take the hit as well as I can <in normal values> and keep going, THAT is my problem with lights. Take away the double values, and get instant balance damage wise, and sudden forcing of better tactical play across the board.

Take away double values and you get matches ending in under 5 minutes and less actual tactical play (they actually tested this). I have no issues downing lights with just lasers. It just takes a bit longer just like it takes longer on all mechs.

[Rejarial Galatan]

They claim they are staying as close to canon as possible, yet, they distinctly venture as far from canon as they can with armor/structure values and the radar issue we have. Canon says the AC-20 no matter where it hits, CT/RCT/Cockpit, it is a 1 shot 1 kill strike. PERIOD. Gauss is 1 shot 1 kill to the head, and nearly 1 shot 1 kill on mechs, with only those 40 ton or less being a 1s1k. AC-20 is 20 dmg, Gauss is 15. Check stock canon numbers and tell me what they did is right. you want double values, fine, up the power of these 2 weapons to keep pace with canon.

[Noth]

Rejarial Galatan, on 14 November 2012 - 12:47 AM, said:

They claim they are staying as close to canon as possible, yet, they distinctly venture as far from canon as they can with armor/structure values and the radar issue we have. Canon says the AC-20 no matter where it hits, CT/RCT/Cockpit, it is a 1 shot 1 kill strike. PERIOD. Gauss is 1 shot 1 kill to the head, and nearly 1 shot 1 kill on mechs, with only those 40 ton or less being a 1s1k. AC-20 is 20 dmg, Gauss is 15. Check stock canon numbers and tell me what they did is right. you want double values, fine, up the power of these 2 weapons to keep pace with canon.

They are changing things as needed to fit the game they want to make. If I wanted to play a game where I die in a few hits, I'd load up any other shooter on the market. They want matches to actually last longer than a few minutes. Like I said they tested those armor levels and it did not facilitate fun nor the game design they were going for. It also didn't feel like you were in a giant walking mech.

[Rejarial Galatan]

it is not fun as an assault pilot to know that a light mech has the SAME durability to a single, double or even TRIPLE gauss strike as any other mech on the market. THAT is not fun. That is unnerving at best, and wholly mismatched and unfair at worst.

[Mota Prefect]

Good points OP I'm glad you were able to articulate what I cannot. The XP system as it currently is makes for a boring grind and a flat gameplay experience. I hope this is only a placeholder and that something of more substance is down the line.

[twibs]

I cannot understand how/why people would use money to get the GXP. Mechs get XP fast enough and GXP comes when it comes, it's not like there much past the zoom module there anyway.

Why is everyone in such a hurry to unlock everything? Or perhaps it's just my WoT career speaking where next tank could require up to 300,000XP to unlock and you got about 1,000 xp in average if you played good.

Btw, I too think it's boring an unintuitive, just don't call it money sink or you're just... silly.

Edited by twibs, 14 November 2012 - 12:54 AM.

[Noth]

Rejarial Galatan, on 14 November 2012 - 12:52 AM, said:

it is not fun as an assault pilot to know that a light mech has the SAME durability to a single, double or even TRIPLE gauss strike as any other mech on the market. THAT is not fun. That is unnerving at best, and wholly mismatched and unfair at worst.

What? You durability is over 2x theirs. If they couldn't go fast they'd die almost instantly. It just sounds like you want to run around one shotting people. That is not this game.

Mota Prefect, on 14 November 2012 - 12:53 AM, said:

Good points OP I'm glad you were able to articulate what I cannot. The XP system as it currently is makes for a boring grind and a flat gameplay experience. I hope this is only a placeholder and that something of more substance is down the line.

Bucket style is staying. Substance will come in the form of pilot skills and modules.

[Rejarial Galatan]

a gauss rifle is a 15 damage weapon. in canon, a head at max is HALF what it is currently, like 8-18 TOTAL, in canon. a gauss rifle with a ML follow up, is a 2 shot kill like that, in canon, an AC-20 is a 1 shot 1 kill weapon. PERIOD. hell, its enough to tear the ct of most mechs wide open in canon, its meant to be a devastating weapon. BUT, take a match I had today as prime example of SIMILAR durability to my atlas under STOCK conditions and 100% values, not 200%. I shot the jenner POINT BLANK with a gauss rifle with an instant 4 ML follow up strike. In NORMAL 100% values, that is a KILL shot. PERIOD on a jenner. BUT, in MWO? it was like hitting a 100% values ATLAS. No light mech should survive that kind of punch and be anything less that fatally wounded.

[Noth]

Rejarial Galatan, on 14 November 2012 - 01:09 AM, said:

a gauss rifle is a 15 damage weapon. in canon, a head at max is HALF what it is currently, like 8-18 TOTAL, in canon. a gauss rifle with a ML follow up, is a 2 shot kill like that, in canon, an AC-20 is a 1 shot 1 kill weapon. PERIOD. hell, its enough to tear the ct of most mechs wide open in canon, its meant to be a devastating weapon. BUT, take a match I had today as prime example of SIMILAR durability to my atlas under STOCK conditions and 100% values, not 200%. I shot the jenner POINT BLANK with a gauss rifle with an instant 4 ML follow up strike. In NORMAL 100% values, that is a KILL shot. PERIOD on a jenner. BUT, in MWO? it was like hitting a 100% values ATLAS. No light mech should survive that kind of punch and be anything less that fatally wounded.

GR and AC/20 are still devestating. Heck the GR is considered the best weapon in the game. Just because they don't one shot or near one shot doesn't mean they are not devestating. I've had mechs turn and run from my AC20 colliding with them and seeing a sudden drop in their armor. I've blown off legs with an AC20 followed by laser swipes on a light. At that point the light was as good as dead.

Like I said, it just takes longer to kill mechs that is all. If you can't live without near one shotting light mechs, you might want to go back to MW3 or 4. Nothing you are saying is actually an issue in the grand scheme of things since lights still dies much much faster than heavier mechs when removed from their speed. This in turn has increased match length and encourages more tactical play since your mech can't take more than a couple shots.

[Rejarial Galatan]

then tell me why, that jenner did not lose its bloody arm at the very least with such a massive impact, because I hit him square in the torso, just off center enough to NOT be a face shot, and his 'arm' or torso did not come off. explain please, because my math says I should have opened him up, but did not. even HE confirmed strike impact AND location.

[Noth]

Rejarial Galatan, on 14 November 2012 - 01:22 AM, said:

then tell me why, that jenner did not lose its bloody arm at the very least with such a massive impact, because I hit him square in the torso, just off center enough to NOT be a face shot, and his 'arm' or torso did not come off. explain please, because my math says I should have opened him up, but did not. even HE confirmed strike impact AND location.

Because he had more armor there than the damage you did and you math is based off of TT values and not what is in the game. He still took heavy damage. Additional damage there would probably had taken off his torso. This is not a hard thing to understand. You in a bigger mech are still able to take more damage than that jenner. Get the idea out of you head that this is TT. Weapons that are devastating in TT are still devastating here just not I win buttons. This is because of the devs wanting longer battles and the fact that you can aim you shots here instead of having random hit locations like in TT.

[Rejarial Galatan]

TT states my shot would have sheared the arm clean off him as the limb has less armor/structure combined than the output of the shots, especially at full burn laser time in this game.

[Noth]

Rejarial Galatan, on 14 November 2012 - 01:34 AM, said:

TT states my shot would have sheared the arm clean off him as the limb has less armor/structure combined than the output of the shots, especially at full burn laser time in this game.

This is not TT don't treat it like TT. Get TT out of your head and start looking at this as a game that used TT as a starting point, not an end point.

Edited by Noth, 14 November 2012 - 01:36 AM.

[Rejarial Galatan]

Fine, time to apply the last decent MW game I played before MWO: MW2 GBL. Even in THAT game, a gauss rifle is a crippling blow to a jenner, if not out right fatal. Why not have the same values of armor/dmg here as there?

[twibs]

Rejarial Galatan, on 14 November 2012 - 01:42 AM, said:

Fine, time to apply the last decent MW game I played before MWO: MW2 GBL. Even in THAT game, a gauss rifle is a crippling blow to a jenner, if not out right fatal. Why not have the same values of armor/dmg here as there?

Because that wouldn't be fun. MW:O is tactical game, not one-shot-KO.

If you want to argue, stick to MW:O realm and to it's functionalities, bearing in mind the other PC or TT games have very little meaning here.

[Vaniyz]

Noth, on 14 November 2012 - 01:36 AM, said:

This is not TT don't treat it like TT. Get TT out of your head and start looking at this as a game that used TT as a starting point, not an end point.

And yet TT is routinely stated as the main source. As someone who typically prefers assault mechs, it annoys me what what what should be the simple order of a glance, a grunt, and one well-placed shot to deal with flies circling me, it's instead an awkward multi-minute affair of turning and trying to get pugs to keep those pesks off me so I can fill my role. Typically in Mechwarrior, if you make a decent miscalculation for placement or enemy forces, you die right then and there. In MWO, you usually have time to skitter away or at least get into a position to put up somewhat of a fight. Appeals more to people who aren't multiple decade-long fans of the material. But hey I'll be here either way.

More importantly, massively off-topic. I agree with several points in the thread. Straight linerization is bad in an exp tree/progression/whatever, and it's not fun to have to play variants you don't want to. Much as I'm getting tired of its use in so many things, even a level system, and a tiered three-set specialization (say, offence, defence, and support) would be better. But even then that gets into a cookie-cutter x% damage reduction against energy weapons here, y% more damage, etc. I'd rather see a slower progression which just effects the pilot than individual mechs. While that doesn't "simulate" a jock's lack of familiarity with a new mech by not having a little bonus here and there, it doesn't foce players to pilot anything but what they want to if they want the full benefit of an experience system.

[HumanDuracell]

Rejarial Galatan, on 14 November 2012 - 12:37 AM, said:

agreed. 100%. why? in lore, a mech pilot may spend his or her ENTIRE CAREER in a SINGLE variant of a mech. I spend 99.99% of my time in my AS7-D. I hate the K model, I hate the RS, I hate em all but the D. Why? I like its flexibility, the others, not so flexible. to force me into mechs I ultimately sell back is insulting.

I agree with that.
Canon-wise, many of the 'Mechs in the Battletech universe are handed down from one generation to the next and have been in the same family for years, perhaps even decades.
In the first BT novel that was released (Decision at Thunder Rift) it described how the young Grayson Death Carlyle would one day pilot his father's Phoenix Hawk. It did not however state at any point in the book that in order to fully master it he would have to pilot the family mech in addition to two variants before he could consider himself the best of the best.

Perhaps a solution to the problem could be resolved thus:

1) Pilots may unlock all levels of a particular variant using only that one 'Mech. This would give players the option to concentrate on their preffered variant and unlock the various tiers without having to fill their stable up with other variants of the same 'Mech which is how it is at the moment. It would also give the player a better opportunity to 'branch out' with different 'Mechs in order to try different play-styles.

2) To reflect the fact that only one 'Mech would be needed the XP requirement for each of the unlocks would be increased accordingly. In other words, the time spent amassing the XP required to unlock the bonuses would be pretty much the same as it would have been to unlock the bonuses of three variants. The difference is that only one 'mech is now needed and the unlocks would better reflect the time devoted to that one 'Mech.

3) In addition to increased XP cost, the cost of the actual 'Mech itself could be increased to reflect that only one variant would be required. This increase need not be the combined cost of three 'Mechs (which would be ridiculous) but possibly around the 1.5x the current cost would be reasonable. This way it would not be that much more of a grind to get the 'Mech you want and would provide a headstart to those Founder players with 'Mechs in addition to others who choose to buy a 'Mech using real money /MC credits. (it would give them the recognition deserved for investing money into the game, which in this current economic climate is always a brave thing to do.)

3) Only 3/4 of the bonuses per tier need be unlocked before having access to the next tier. This would permit a little variation/customisation without breaking the game. If the player chooses, he may unlock the remaining bonuses at a later time but is not obliged to do so. Again, the XP requirement could be raised a little to reflect this change.

Anyway that's just my thoughts on the situation. Feel free to comment, I'm sure you will ^^

Edited by Edanomel, 14 November 2012 - 02:16 AM.

[Draco Argentum]

Assaults vs Lights isn't really the topic guys.

Noth, on 14 November 2012 - 12:13 AM, said:

The mech xp is a faster grind and represents progress. because of the ability to own multiple mechs it is potentially endless grind with fairly easily reached goals. It's a psychological thing.

Right, its a Skinner Box. The devs designed it to manipulate some basic psychology so people would get hooked and hopefully spend cash. I intentionally left this out of the OP. But it is very obvious to me that the mech XP system was designed for monetisation first and gameplay second.