193 replies to this topic

[Yeach]

MethosFurey, on 06 June 2012 - 04:11 AM, said:

Sometimes you would strip away arm armor, because nothing was in them, and you really needed that tonnage. Most thanatos light gauss players would strip that right arm down to .2 or so (this way it tended to last two small shots). Head armor was usually reduced to .1, rear armor was reduced to .1 (unless you were brawling).

I can understand the reasoning but should it be right to do so?
If Mechwarrior is to be in the spirt of Battletech lore, should we be allowed to strip a body part to .2 armor?

[Veliah Truard]

There should be some linkage to it... For instance, an armor "cap" for each limb, a softcapped limit as to how many tonnes of armor/weaponry the limb could carry, then link the limb's mobility as a factor to how much weight it is carrying, for instance, if you decide you tend to show your right side to the enemy when you fight, and then so increase your right leg's armor to max, whereas you under protect your left leg, your mech, having to provide power to two diffrent loads depending on which foot is on the ground, would have a limp, or an 'amble'.

Same with arms, the heavier the arm, the harder the servos have to work to make the arm aim it's loadout at an enemy mech. so yeah, maybe you got enough armor on your left arm to choke a battalion of hunchbacks, but good luck trying to hit anything traveling faster than 50 KPH.

This way, if a player wanted to load out as you're describing, he would have to deal with a real representation of what piloting an unbalanced mech would be like.

Of course, any mech with jump jets should WANT to be as balanced as possible, unless you like your mech doing sideways cartwheels because of all the weight on that side pulling at the mech's center of gravity.

[Yeach]

I was thinking of an armor minimum (say 20% of the internal structure of the portion of the mech).

[Freyar]

Customization needs to be let alone. A person's options are there for them to choose. Artificially limiting that? Well.. it just feels like a gamey attempt to limit the options a player has.

[oohawkoo]

mmmm its a sound way to do things tho =3 if the arm is useless why protect it too hard ... i think it just bothers him that when he has to shoot someone he has to do it a few more times than he originaly thaught ..... personaly i wouldnt make the armour on my useless arm complealty 0 since that so called useless limb is actualy covering a good third of my mech .. a quater minium ...especialy from the side ... and since this game apears to be going to play slightly different to previous versions i should think a lot of ppl that would take it to zero will find quickly that its just not a good plan....(not to mention that you have to repair later on and that will cost quite a lot most likely specialy to replace lost parts:p)

personaly i think its a waste of time worrying about what armour someone else is carrying since ill just shoot them till they eaither fall over or i do o.o,,,,,, there are other good reasons for leaveing that kinda custamiseing alone .. drop a little armour get more space for weapons or other systems ... maybe even a boost to speed.... if you take those options away we end up getting crippled in other places =X

[latdheretic]

There is no point to artificially limiting what people do to modify their mech within the normal rules. If somebody wants to under-armor a limb, then the limb is going to get damaged. This should add to the repair bill like a heavily armored limb that takes damage, only easier to put into the blown off category.

Min maxing is the same way should be regulated by the consequences for doing so, not made against any kind or rules. Too many PPC's to heat sinks is going to cause you to overheat, under-armored locations are going to be vulnerable. Too many weapons for your weight will turn you into a glass cannon, and vulnerable to ambush.

With the game done right, extreme minmaxing will gimp you into ineffectiveness. Working Min/Maxing is just efficient design. I feel the TT handles it pretty well (though not perfectly). Every indication that I can see suggests that the Devs have it under hand as well.

[ZekeTheZealot]

That Guy, on 19 April 2012 - 06:43 PM, said:

there are two very simple ways to prevent munchkin(ing)/min maxing.

You select your mech BEFORE you get to the game lobby/ready room/ whatever they want to call the premission briefing. In MW4 people select the best mech for the map, and that mech is preciously tailored for that map. a city map, AC20 boats, SR stuff usually slow, an open map poptart sniper etc. If you pick your mech before you know your operating environment, it leaves the gamble up to you. it will most likely make people choose more generalist load outs more often to be safe. If you take a specialist (hunchie, catapult etc) its a little more of a gamble.
Its because of that tailoring that makes minmaxing so easy, and annoying. in MW4 there is really very little reason to take a generalist mech (in "pro" games at least) because you are not spec'd up and specialized. If in MWO we select our mech after we know the map, it lets people minmax much more easily (oh its big city, alright everyone grab yer hunchies!). If we select BEFORE, that minmax becomes a gamble, and less like the "i win" button.


good map design: If each map is big and varied enough, then any form of play should be viable as long as you have most of a functioning brain. IE dont noob rush a hill full of catapults over a couple of K of open ground with a hunchie, or try to knife fight that hunchie with the CAT. From the devs interviews and the small snippets of maps that we have seen, we should be good on this

This is a good idea, but honestly i dont know how well it will be perceived. If you were a real MechWarrior in the BT universe, you'd at least be given enough information about where you were going for the mission, so you wouldn't choose a PPC boat to go on a mission in the desert. In terms of stamping out Min/Maxing, it would be effective. In terms of making sense in universe, i dont think it would go quite as well.

[Teralitha]

There is no such thing as min/maxing. Its all skill. One thing, to beat another thing, that beats another thing, that beats another thing....

Every game will be a gamble. Always has been. When someone figures out a config that seems to be powerful, theres an opposing player, who figures out how to beat it. The game is always evolving, and players always adapting.

For example, If you think that a mw4 novacat laser boat was an example of maxing, I can give you an example of a mech designed to beat it.

If you give me an example of an entire team of min/maxed configs, I can give you a whole team of mechs designed to beat it. Whatever example you can come up with, I can give you an example of what beats it.

Perception, Its all in your head.

Edited by Teralitha, 08 June 2012 - 08:04 PM.

[Mercurial]

Players will always min/max in a competitive environment. That's called being competitive.

If doing so breaks a competitive game in a fundamental fashion, then something is wrong with the game. Either it gets fixed, you deal the hand the game dealt you, or you leave.

[Vexgrave Lars]

And here.. all along.. I thought this thing had DIED! yet the thread lives!!

Werd to da tribe!

[LordDeathStrike]

Yeach, on 08 June 2012 - 06:16 PM, said:

I was thinking of an armor minimum (say 20% of the internal structure of the portion of the mech).

if they wanna walk around without armor let them, my mech is a walking wall of armor with heavy weapons payload. i will splat any munchkin stupid enough to not have armor faster then he can QQ on a forum about how unarmored mechs die instantly.

[Kargush]

Yeach, on 19 April 2012 - 05:34 PM, said:

From wikipedia

Min-maxing is the practice of playing a role-playing game, wargame or video game with the intent of creating the "best" character by means of minimizing undesired or unimportant traits and maximizing desired ones. This is usually accomplished by improving one specific trait or ability by sacrificing ability in all other fields.

Starting this topic for a discussion of min-maxing as it relates to MWO.
Specifically what should be allowed to be min-max
ie Armor, Weapons/loadout, Engine.

I'll start off with what I percieve as min-maxing that IMO should be taken out of MWO that was allowed in previous mechwarrior games.
"armor points could be adjusted so one arm could have less armor points than the other arm"

This allowed micro-management of min/maxing that could protect a percieved strong right arm (with max right arm armor) and reduce the armor to (or almost) zero for the "useless/ cannon fodder" left arm.

IMO when doing armor allocation, you should not be allowed this and should have "balance" armor loadout.

What's it to you anyway?

EDIT: This fear of intentionally trying to put as much performance as possible out of a mech, a character, or whatever, is really silly. So what if someone wants to have a "cannon fodder" arm? It's not like such measures are without precedent in the real world (see lizard tails). So what if someone manages to tweek their medium mech to the point where it eats assaults. It'll have to be astoundingly good to prevent LRM barrages and team work, or be part of a crack team, in which case the individual min-max isn't worth that much.

The meme that "min-max" is bad is just another nerd fallacy.

EDIT II: And I see I am LTTP. Oh well.

Edited by kargush, 08 June 2012 - 08:58 PM.

[SpiralRazor]

Indeed...agree with Kargush.....min maxing is a nerd fallacy. Welcome to competitive gaming, or EI see LoL for some real competitive $$$ gaming and min maxing....they even have 3 "bans" per team side.


A Crack team will be just that, crackerjack sharp and using every advantage to be gleaned with what they have to work with. They are NOT going to be mounting a bunch of AC2's.

For a real world reference, if you dont think a Navy SEAL team is min-maxed, youve never read up on SEAL training....talk about insane.

[Draxern]

Certain amount of min / maxing in all games. I think only thing the developers can do is attempt limit or place reasons not to go so far away from the generic design.