164 replies to this topic

[00dlez]

HRR Insanity, on 08 June 2012 - 09:52 AM, said:

Completely disagree. For a F2P game, this sort of diversity is EXACTLY what is needed to drive players mad... and spend money.

Subtle (likely unprovable) differences in weapon mechanics will drive players to spend more and play more to have more options and further customize their 'Mechs.

I think having weapon variants under the general category of "AC20" would be a fantastic marketing ploy and appeals to those of us who remember that the Chameleon had a 'Cyclops Eye Large Laser'... and very likely to make me want to kill the OP if they implement it.

From http://www.sarna.net...meleon#Armament ...

"The primary weapon was a Cyclops Eye Large Laser. This was backed up by two Intek Medium Lasers and a trio of Defiance B3S Small Lasers. To make the threat of overheating more real to the new MechWarrior, the 'Mech carried two Scatter Gun Light Machine Guns that can be used for anti-infantry training."

Excellent suggestion.

I'll start to agree with you, but would much prefer a good game with fewer options. There hasn't been a decent mechwarrior game in a long long long time (MW2: Mercs IMO, but I digress). If the devs start to focus on nicety aspects like the OP described and lose sight of core gameplay and balance objectives, I know I'll be less likely to spend money and less likely to play long term. Job one is to launch a product that is sound, tweaks like weapon variants can come later.

[FrupertApricot]

I just realised there is a thread with an essentially similar thesis to mine from a few months back. sorry

[Roland]

Quote

TWO laser types. One that is the tracing laser like we see in this and MWLL, and then lasers that work like the ones in MW4 where its a laser point hit.

But that difference is huge.... And, in that case no one would use the new lasers.. they'd use the MW4 style ones. Doing all the damage in one location is going to be far more effective 99% of the time.

You won't really be able to make differences like that within a class of weapons without make one "good" one and one "garbage" one.

As I said, you could make more subtle differences.. Like, this has a 5% faster recycle time, but does 6% less damage. You see this in Armored Core games, but it makes the customization pretty daunting. Ends up feeling a lot more like math class than MW4's mechlab.

[FrupertApricot]

I would'nt use the MW4 lasers because with those, If you miss, you lose tons of DPS. The tracer lasers are much more forgiving of melees with missiles and cannons knocking you around, and 99.9999 percent none of this will ever be implemented, so yay thought experiments

[Siilk]

Again, I fully support OP. It's the kind of diversity MWO needs.

[Roland]

FrupertApricot, on 08 June 2012 - 12:23 PM, said:

I would'nt use the MW4 lasers because with those, If you miss, you lose tons of DPS. The tracer lasers are much more forgiving of melees with missiles and cannons knocking you around, and 99.9999 percent none of this will ever be implemented, so yay thought experiments

The thing is, with the MW4 lasers... it's pretty hard to miss. They're instant hit.

Say you and I fight and we have equal mechs, but you use the new style lasers, and I use the MW4 ones.

Every shot I land is going to do all of the damage from the whole alpha on the same location.. In order for you to achieve that same effect, you're going to have to keep the targeting reticle over that particular panel for the entire time the laser is firing.

I'm going to punch through your armor way faster, because you're gonna be spreading damage all over my mech, while I keep pounding the same armor panel.

Anyone who played MW4 can vouch for this... This is one of the main reasons why lasers were so dominant in that game, and one of the main reasons why the PGI guys changed to the new version of the lasers, I think.

I mean, sure.... if I missed then I wasted that shot... but the good players didn't miss much.

[Birddog FAC]

As a side note to this i must say im not happy with the single shell Autocannon that i see in the posted videos in all lore and books the auto cannons fire a burst 1 doing a total of damage based on the caliber if they only fired one round they would have simply been called cannons or Rifles not auto cannon as the definition of an auto cannon is the same as its name and automaticaly firing cannon in either burst or continual status

[Birddog FAC]

oh i would also like to mention that this was usualy dont in 3-5 round bursts and they could use the basic lazer system they have implemented to do it as the rounds would spread around.. obviously an AC2 would fire its burst in close enoughf sucsession to hit in only one or two areas where the AC20 would require more skill to put all the damage on target

[Rodney28021]

Mostly be hard to impliment from a coding viewpoint. I doubt the devs would do it.

[Yeach]

See this thread

[Rodney28021]

The table top rules didn't do that. But the mechwarrior roleplaying game did for the personal gear. Pistols and rifles were different stat wise with different brands, names and models.

[Antaumus]

It would be nice to have small differences 1-3% +/-. Nothing Major just to add a bit more customization. +1% damage, +1% heat, not game changing but I like customization, anything bigger and you run into balance issues. I'm sure a manufacturer while following a design spec would change things slightly just from using different parts with different tolerances or quality.

[CCC Dober]

Yep, this would be interesting. Special attention must be given to outliers, that are dealing either extreme damage per shot or damage over time. They will be the make or break of this idea. Still, variety is good and allows to differentiate variants even further. Like an added layer of complexity if you will. It doesn't affect the average gamer, but allows the advanced player to optimize a solid configuration.

[Accuso]

the idea itself is pretty good... the problem is that this way some manufacturers just won't be needed or used...

therefore more variety is good! but weapon dmg itself should not be the only option...
better options for the said variety would be different firing rate (for more overall dps but even more heat) ... or less heat production... or more dmg against certain armor types (more dmg against endo steel... less dmg against ferro)... but only about 10 percent @ max

that would make an impact to the game and the economy but would not make certain manufacturers useless...

more options like chassis for mechs from different manufacturers is another deal... variaty in the hardpoints would be nice...

comment pls... or just hate :-D

sgd. danny

[CCC Dober]

I think the way Borderlands went about it is a good idea (if considered).

The most extreme examples are the bandit weapons that are below average in every aspect, but gain incredible ammo capacity instead.Then there was Atlas, which was pretty much the opposite, but extremely rare/expensive as a result.

Check it out

Edited by CCC Dober, 09 June 2012 - 04:34 AM.

[Kallor Mar]

I think the idea of variaty is nice, but it has to be carefully balanced, so as to it wont end up like EvE online, where noone uses certain guns/ammo and such.
Insted af a fixed damage boost, perhaps it should come at a price.. as in, 5% more dmg, but 10% less range or higher ammo consumption? Agaign, if we follow the rules(which i like a good deal), a PPC is a PPC maybe down the line, when the game has been up for a long time, can the devs consider too looking into the more delicate rules of battletech.

Maybe a better solution is to have different ammo for guns?

[Rahn]

I had to vote no for the reason given in the poll but I do like this idea. It is something I spent a large amount of time on at one point. My goal was to bring another aspect to our TT game that would allow the players to actually care about the exact manufacturer of equipment they salvaged. After copious amounts of notes and time, I came to the same realization that the payoff was not worth the effort.

[Adrienne Vorton]

ah come on guys, lets just kick this BattleTech sh** out and make another Giant Robots game... there are SO MANY awesome ideas around in this forum to completely annihilate the idea of a back to the roots MW-Game..let´s go for it ...

/irony and rage mode off...

[CCC Dober]

Dear Adrienne, have you considered that these ideas/suggestions are deeply rooted within the BT unniverse?
It may come as a shock to you, but the way two weapons manufacturers achieve the same parameters is not necessarily the same.
Two obvious examples are lasers and autocannons. Either the laser burns a bit longer at lower intensity or it just squirts out as much as possible in a shorter time. Likewise an autocannon can deal damage based on large caliber alone or just fire several sub caliber shells in rapid succession for the same result. Granted, this has not been detailed enough but there are plenty hints if you look close enough. If you dare or care that is.

Edited by CCC Dober, 09 June 2012 - 04:56 AM.

[Adrienne Vorton]

honestly, i don´t care much about what´s in the canon description, but about how it´s handled on the field... since this is not gonna be an RPG, where i would lay much weight on the descriptions and all that... and btw..if u have one ac10 that spits out a direct dmg shot, and one ac10 that does kind of DoT, what do u think everybody will use..? a granted 10 dmg on one particular part, or the one with a great chance to spread the dmg and even miss a part of the damage? so i doubt there would be much use for handling weapons differently, if there is the one that´s cool and the one thats not(not exactly my thinking, but i guess many ppl would see it that way)... well...i´d just rather have it simple in a kind..equality for all weapons of one kind is what i´d like to see.. ...my opinion...

Edited by Adrienne Vorton, 09 June 2012 - 05:16 AM.