388 replies to this topic

[Arbhall Sommers]

I dont mind if the devs keep the damage values as they were in TT, they have mentioned they are upping the values of armor to compensate for the lack of die roles as the core game mechanic, and reflecting how much stock they are putting in our aiming abilities. If my aim counts, and I have an AC2 or AC5. There will be many a headshot landing at long range. In only 2 hits with an AC5 I can potentially kill the pilot twice. 5 times with an AC2 is just as fine by me, since EVERY hit to a mechs head damages the pilot! after five hits the pilot is most likely spattered all over the couch or has been jarred into unconciousness. Let them be under powered. if you know the terrain and the capabilities of your mech, you can knock out another pilot fairly easily.

To anyone that says you cant do anything to a mech with an AC, lets see what they are like, maybe they will be better and rock mechs. We are just guessing and hoping.

[Future Perfect]

Kraven Kor, on 05 July 2012 - 12:40 PM, said:

Yes, we know. You have linked that thread here like 19 times.

No, no, no and no.

And the AC/2 IS useless.

[Tincan Nightmare]

Future Perfect, on 06 July 2012 - 12:33 AM, said:

No, no, no and no.

And the AC/2 IS useless In my opinion.

Fixed it for you

[Kanatta Jing]

Future Perfect, on 06 July 2012 - 12:33 AM, said:

No, no, no and no.

And the AC/2 IS useless.

Well the AC/2 has range and absurd amounts of range. I think it's only real use in the game is to force support mechs to find a new position.

PS: I am suggesting that the JaggerMech is to be classified as a Fire Suppression Mech until it can get the upgrade to Sniper.

Edited by Kanatta Jing, 06 July 2012 - 01:11 AM.

[Kraven Kor]

Future Perfect, on 06 July 2012 - 12:33 AM, said:

No, no, no and no.

And the AC/2 IS useless.

When this game launches, me and you need to exchange certain words. Also, certain bullets.

[Red King]

Paul Inouye, on 13 April 2012 - 12:29 PM, said:

5 pages of pure speculation?

Did you guys install a peep camera in our studio? And how did you get to see what the AC/2 does before I did?

Ok it's 16 pages now. Read about the first 12 pages. It really is interesting the amount speculation that is being splashed around.

Whether a weapon/mech is viable for Your Play Style, depends on too many factors we do not know yet.

1) Enviroment - all the traliers I have seen seem to be the same small map area. We do not even know if this will be a "real" enviroment, it may just be the "sandbox" created for the videos.

• In open areas long range weapons will likely be more useful.
  
• But can we shoot through trees/buldings? This could affect weapon choice.
  
• Will it be hot(poor heat sink performance) or cold(better performance).
  
• Will there be weather? What affects if any will weather affect targeting/performance of weapons?

2)Visibility - part of Enviroment

• How far can we see/target?
  
• Can I see/target farther than I can shoot?
  
• Can a shoot farther than I can see(do "bullets" continue and/or do damage past the weapon range)?
  
• Will there be time of day(lasers in the dark are easy to see)?
  
• Can you see where bullets come from/will there be muzzle flash?
  
• Will there be tracer rounds/incindery rounds?
  
• Will there be "smoke" and how will it affect damage(will lasers spread/lose effectiveness)?
  
• Can we "lay smoke" to hide team mates?
  
• Will there be chaff?
  
• Will there be flares?
  
• Will ther be ARC or NARC beacons for missles?

3) Time - Right now, matches last 15 minutes

• Will match times get shorter/longer in the future?
  
• What is the "real" reload time for weapons in a match?
  
• Do matches last long enough to use more than a ton of ammo for ballistic weapons?
  
• How far/how long will we have to run before we can engage at any range?

4) Mech

• What mech are you using?
  
• What is your roll in this match?
  
• Do weapons have recoil/how much recoil per weapon?
  
• How much weight can you actually throw at once and still aim?
  
• Will placing weapons in differernt locations affect targetting(do cannons in the arms get more recoil or faster target lock)?
  
• Do we need to target with ballistic weapons or cannons(or are they "dumb weapons")?

These are just a few of the things I can think of off the top of my head, and most of us won't know until August 7th or later at launch. And every one of those variables affect all the other variables.



So now the real question, will there be Long Toms? (oh please, please, please, say yes)

[KuruptU4Fun]

Here's a scenario you may find the A/C's quite useful. The blizzard map, If you use a Jager as a sniper along the perifrial of the map. Try to blend into the cliffs. Take sniper shots at other mechs and shut down to blend against the wall so people with thermal imaging can't see you. Once they lose interest power up and snipe again! Because the A/C's produce little heat your mech will cool off much faster.

Edited by KuruptU4Fun, 06 July 2012 - 08:32 AM.

[Damion Sparhawk]

Nik Van Rhijn, on 05 July 2012 - 11:00 PM, said:

Unless you're in Beta (and therefore can't say anything) what we don't know is if weapons will have different rates of fire to damage. So far the ranges, etc have been classic values, from what we have seen. "Turn" speed may be faster, ie every 5 seconds, not 10 and armour therefore doubled. For those advocating high RoF as the "redeeming factor. If the AC2 fires 5x faster than the AC10 it deals the same damage, just spread over time, instead of frontloaded. Or is the balance between the weapons supposed to be that it gets through its ammo 5x faster?
The other thing to remember is that the range differentials are much less than MW4. This means that opposing mechs will be able to close the range fairly quickly, or use terrain to get out of sight. We also don't know it TACs are in the game, without them one of the main advantages of the lighter ACs is gone.

TACS are in the game, a dev mentions them during the hardpoint explanation forum post

[Damion Sparhawk]

Red King, on 06 July 2012 - 07:46 AM, said:

Ok it's 16 pages now. Read about the first 12 pages. It really is interesting the amount speculation that is being splashed around.

Whether a weapon/mech is viable for Your Play Style, depends on too many factors we do not know yet.

1) Enviroment - all the traliers I have seen seem to be the same small map area. We do not even know if this will be a "real" enviroment, it may just be the "sandbox" created for the videos.

• In open areas long range weapons will likely be more useful.
  
• But can we shoot through trees/buldings? This could affect weapon choice.
  
• Will it be hot(poor heat sink performance) or cold(better performance).
  
• Will there be weather? What affects if any will weather affect targeting/performance of weapons?

2)Visibility - part of Enviroment

• How far can we see/target?
  
• Can I see/target farther than I can shoot?
  
• Can a shoot farther than I can see(do "bullets" continue and/or do damage past the weapon range)?
  
• Will there be time of day(lasers in the dark are easy to see)?
  
• Can you see where bullets come from/will there be muzzle flash?
  
• Will there be tracer rounds/incindery rounds?
  
• Will there be "smoke" and how will it affect damage(will lasers spread/lose effectiveness)?
  
• Can we "lay smoke" to hide team mates?
  
• Will there be chaff?
  
• Will there be flares?
  
• Will ther be ARC or NARC beacons for missles?

3) Time - Right now, matches last 15 minutes

• Will match times get shorter/longer in the future?
  
• What is the "real" reload time for weapons in a match?
  
• Do matches last long enough to use more than a ton of ammo for ballistic weapons?
  
• How far/how long will we have to run before we can engage at any range?

4) Mech

• What mech are you using?
  
• What is your roll in this match?
  
• Do weapons have recoil/how much recoil per weapon?
  
• How much weight can you actually throw at once and still aim?
  
• Will placing weapons in differernt locations affect targetting(do cannons in the arms get more recoil or faster target lock)?
  
• Do we need to target with ballistic weapons or cannons(or are they "dumb weapons")?

These are just a few of the things I can think of off the top of my head, and most of us won't know until August 7th or later at launch. And every one of those variables affect all the other variables.




So now the real question, will there be Long Toms? (oh please, please, please, say yes)

some of these variables we can make educated guesses at based on the focus for the game, they're trying to make it as true to the tabletop as they reasonably can, making adjustments where they can't, and working to get as close to realistic as is possible, thus bullets will have travel time, potentially ballistic arcs and whatnot, we can also speculate from previous games what they're likely to be able to include, such as weather effects, long range haze and such, they specifically mention enhanced optics with the jagermech, as one of it's prime advantages so we can assume that, at least with the jager, there will most likely be a range outside of unassisted optics that is within the range of the AC's it carries. They have said they want the maps to be sprawling and cluttered, so you may have to hunt for long range firing 'channels' but I'm sure they won't make them impossible as that would entirely rule out the viability of certain builds and mechs, that is of course where teamwork comes into play, you find your sniping spot, and your team leads the enemies into the trap, spring trap and find the next point.
And yes, please let there be long toms and for the love of all that is awesome, make the targetting controls actually useful, MW:4's longtom controls were completely and utterly worthless (or at least not reasonably understandable, I get the principle behind the way it was, but they didn't even have range markers, the only way you'd be able to accurately guage fire is with a three shot pattern and... you don't get a whole lot of shots with the long tom in general. considering they're supposed to be over a thousand years in the future perhaps they could actually computerize some of those calculations hmm? I mean, if we can do it -today- in real life, I find it rather difficult to believe that the advanced computer systems used to run mechs couldn't be installed with the equations necessary to at the very least paint a probable landing point reticle.)

[Generic Mistake]

KuruptU4Fun, on 06 July 2012 - 08:32 AM, said:

Here's a scenario you may find the A/C's quite useful. The blizzard map, If you use a Jager as a sniper along the perifrial of the map. Try to blend into the cliffs. Take sniper shots at other mechs and shut down to blend against the wall so people with thermal imaging can't see you. Once they lose interest power up and snipe again! Because the A/C's produce little heat your mech will cool off much faster.

That sounds fun XD.

I am not exactly a MW vet. Played the games in my younger your back in the days of MW3 Mechcommander . Just looking at this from a game theory standpoint. Overall PPC's and such will probably be better weapons overall assuming your not standing still firing. However with the hardpoint system in place your not always going to have those energy slots in every area you are choosing your weapons. If your mech has 1 ballistic hardpoint left and you want something to accent your long range combat abilities. Suuuuuuure Guess rifle would be great but that is 15tons BEFORE ammo. Chances are you will pick an ac 2 or 5 just so you don't throw the hardpoint away. Don't get my wrong I love the concept of the jagermech and really hope that it's default variant is more then viable. Heck assuming it IS viable it will be the first mech I buy past my founders mechs. Really I think that AC/2-5 will be mostly used to fill spots or accent other ranged weapons, until we get more ammo types. This argument that they are "useless" just seems silly to me, a ballistics heavy mech will use less tonnage on ammo then heatsinks for an energy heavy mech which can then be used for extra armor (again this is with a limited knowledge of the BT uni.) . Assuming they do a decent job with balance it will come down to filling roles and play style.

P.S. I know that this post is very run on and all over the place, I have been up for something like 30 hours now and kinda am falling apart.

Edited by Generic Mistake, 06 July 2012 - 09:19 AM.

[Damion Sparhawk]

and to claim that the nipples are useless, pft, that's where I stick my small lasers/flamers/machine guns!

[Grendel408]

AC2s and AC5s useless? Not in my opinion... don't get me wrong, I love the AC10/20s too... but a good loadout could consist of a few ACs and mainly an energy based loadout... think of the Jagermech... that thing is gonna lay down direct fire support with ease, faster reloads and cycling and you can keep a 'Mech rocking good, but keep some distance and you can hammer away at armor, combined with lasers and you've got a mean arsenal at your disposal... I'm looking forward to running these as much as possible

[Latriam]

UAC 5's and UAC 10's as well as ROT 10's or Rot 5's were my favorite weapons.
its called making a juggler.
you hit them so much so fast they cant even aim. Now the game has to incorporate that hit as you are getting pounded by shells repeatedly your ride should bounce all over.
its really maddening to have a med mech just pummel you to death with Rot'5 's I loved it and brought down more than my fair share of heavies that did not respect that.

The intial Jagermech is a bit of a juggler even if he just pair shoots his AC's he can snipe and make it where the enemy mech cannot affectively fire and hit anything. this is great if his hunchie is up close and pounding the same mech the two work well together.

One thing to remember about battletech/MWO it was not a one person game you had a lance of 4 mechs that worked TOGETHER and when that happens you can kick some serious booty

we used to fly with a scout(jenner) brawler (hunchie) medium support (trebuchet) heavy (cata or jager) this lance killed many many opponents

so think some more on team play.

[ZivyTerc]

My experience comes only from MWLL - which I think it is a much closer comparison to MWO than TT game. There the low caliber ACs can do some damage, but it takes them too long to be really viable. Don't forget it is an action game, kind of Counter strike in mechs.... Targets pop up only for a few seconds, nobody will do you favours by standing in one place for a minute to let you hammer them with your small ACs. You need to nail them with gauss or PPC before they fade off again. Plus (all ACs) seem to run out of ammo too soon and then you have to haul *** to base for resupply, while those other mechs with energy weapons continue to trade shots and destroy enemies. AC2 and 5s are somewhat good for antiair, but it still takes waaay too long to kill a chopper with them - and there won't be aerospace in MWO, if I read it correctly.

So I will most probably stick with all energy setups OR something with a decent alpha-punch like AC20s with lazors for backup.

[Terror Teddy]

With a bit of luck we might actually get a good use out of actual camouflage pattern.

I suggest camouflage pattern "Snowball" for the winter city map.

[Kraven Kor]

And I fully admit that I might jump into MWO and find out that AC/2's are, in fact, not very useful. But that still doesn't make the case to remove them, and again, I'm fairly confident that at least some players will figure out ways to use AC's in general to good effect.

[UnexpectedDmg]

hmmm...consider two mechs side by side
Mech 1 miss with a PPC
Mech 2 miss with first round AC5

what is the DPS for each mech for the next 30seconds?

I like the PPC, however, it really is a "I had better hit my target because I will be out of action for a bit"...
depending on target conditions more "opportunities" to hit may be the smart move.

[Damion Sparhawk]

ZivyTerc, on 06 July 2012 - 09:57 AM, said:

My experience comes only from MWLL - which I think it is a much closer comparison to MWO than TT game. There the low caliber ACs can do some damage, but it takes them too long to be really viable. Don't forget it is an action game, kind of Counter strike in mechs.... Targets pop up only for a few seconds, nobody will do you favours by standing in one place for a minute to let you hammer them with your small ACs. You need to nail them with gauss or PPC before they fade off again. Plus (all ACs) seem to run out of ammo too soon and then you have to haul *** to base for resupply, while those other mechs with energy weapons continue to trade shots and destroy enemies. AC2 and 5s are somewhat good for antiair, but it still takes waaay too long to kill a chopper with them - and there won't be aerospace in MWO, if I read it correctly.

So I will most probably stick with all energy setups OR something with a decent alpha-punch like AC20s with lazors for backup.

running out of ammo to soon is simply a matter of ensuring you have a proper loadout for your weapons, if you find yourself running out of ammo you should probably think about reallocating some tonnage, because you're obviously not -dying- before you're OOA XD, I'm not sure if they'll even have support drops for ammo and whatnot, so chances are pretty good once you're out, you're out, but it sounds like this MWLL is not really anything like MWO, MWO is a first person (cockpit) shooter in walking skyscrapers, the bigger the mech, the longer it's likely to be under fire before it can lumber it's way behind cover again, we're talking 50-60 km/h which is damn slow (not even 40 mph at 60 km/h), and that's a -fast- assault mech XD, also, you're fighting other players, not NPC's, they're not going to immediately hide as soon as you start shooting, more likely they're going to come running for you, unless they're otherwise engaged. That being said, AC's are just a playstyle choice, not everyone is going to feel at home behind them and nor should they, it takes a level of skill and knowledge of both your mech and your enemies, and a heavy reliance on good teamwork to use the weapons to their maximum potential, and not everyone is cut out for that role in the battlefield. Every lance needs multiple roles and at least one of those roles is going to be a heavy hitter, whether it's a brawler or an LRM platform you're going to be doing big damage, and taking a lot of heat because of it. Just don't be surprised when it's the guy with the pop gun plinking away who pulls your *** out of the fire.

UnexpectedDmg, on 06 July 2012 - 10:14 AM, said:

hmmm...consider two mechs side by side
Mech 1 miss with a PPC
Mech 2 miss with first round AC5

what is the DPS for each mech for the next 30seconds?

I like the PPC, however, it really is a "I had better hit my target because I will be out of action for a bit"...
depending on target conditions more "opportunities" to hit may be the smart move.

yeah, it's a lot harder to hit those little speeders with a very slow weapon, generally why I would almost invariably go with a pulse laser over a PPC for an energy backup. (obviously not an option until clans however)

[Kraven Kor]

Damion Sparhawk, on 06 July 2012 - 10:19 AM, said:

yeah, it's a lot harder to hit those little speeders with a very slow weapon, generally why I would almost invariably go with a pulse laser over a PPC for an energy backup. (obviously not an option until clans however)

I think the IS Pulse Lasers were available prior to clans, via one of the memory cores, but I don't really know for sure. Just seems that was a "Star League" thing more so than a "Clan" thing.

[Vassago Legion]

Someone has been reading A Song of Ice and Fire