8 replies to this topic

[Pugastrius]

I'll start by saying:
1) I'm by no means an master pilot (a point of view that is sorely lacking on the forums)
2) I have no experience with the Table Top game, so my views aren't being tainted by a specific rule set.
3) I just started playing during Open Beta, and have not seen how the game has progressed.
4) My goal is usually to make the game more skillful & fun.

With that said here are my thoughts:

1) Weapons Damage (general): Is just too high. This is not a heat issue (which reduces long term damage) it is a burst issue. Like most games, the longer a match lasts the more likely the team with the greater skill wins since there is more time to demonstrate that skill. If I were in charge I would cut all damage in half and see how it plays out.

2) Missiles (general): Relative to the other weapons these are really weak. Interestingly, I think that this is probably the "right" amount of damage in the game. If you tried to kill someone with strictly missiles it would take probably 20 rounds, this feels about right to me in terms of how long someone should live.

So why are missiles right and other weapons wrong? The pin-point accuracy of most weapons allows players to completely ignore a considerable amount of the mech (namely the arms and legs) which amplifies their relative damage.

3) Streak Missiles: My understanding was these things were supposed to have near 100% efficiency even against light mechs since you can't even shoot them without a solid lock. If that's the case then why do half miss even when they are running straight away from me and I'm hitting them 100% of the time with my beams from that angle.

4) Large Weapons (PPCs and the like): These are pretty pointless in general. They add very little damage for the tonnage & space requirements. The biggest issue IMO is that at even moderate distance (say 400 meters) the ability to hit a target drops off exponentially. More-over, (unlike when in close quarters) when a hit does occur it is just as likely to hit the extremities as it is to hit the torso. I suspect that even if their relative damage were increased by 50% (say 10->15) I suspect people would still prefer lighter weapons.

5) ER Weapons: These need a massive overhaul. Largely because of the distance issue discussed with the large weapons, but even more so since they don't have any damage bonus. At present these seem to be very very bad versions of missles.

6) Armor: One of the biggest issues I see with this game is that it usually makes no sense what-so-ever to do anything other than go for the kill locations with each and every attack. Blowing off an arm can take just as long (and in some case longer) than just blowing the mech up. I would heavily favor a massive reduction to leg and arm armor with that tonnage then placed onto the torso. This would make hitting a location other than the kill points as more impactful and decrease the importance of hitting the kill points.

7) Repairing: So I'm not really sure why a "good" pilot is punished with higher repair bills. That is, the pilot that turns their torso to have both arms blown off before dying is penalized for their longevity. To combat this, I would suggest a "maximum" repair bill.

8) Capture: One of the worst things in this game is the fact that both teams "win" in terms of C-Bills per hour if no fighting actually occurs and both teams run straight for the capture. Whether you win the race or not, you earn more C-Bills per hour for doing so. To combat this, I suggest that capture speed be based on the amount of tonnage left in the game.

If:
- 100% of the tonnage is still in the game, then you can't capture at all.
- 80% left, then you capture at 20% of maximum speed.
- 20% is left, then you capture at 80% of the maximum speed.
Etc.

9) Earning of C-Bills: The distribution of C-bills seems way off. I understand that players should be rewarded for playing, but there needs to be a larger reward for playing well.

- Drastic increases to damage rewards.
- Drastic increase to assist/kills rewards.
- Spotting assists need to be drastically reduced. (Why is helping one set of missiles as important as helping kill a target?)
- Balanced by a reduction in the rewards for winning & losing.

Reward for losing a match needs to "just barely" cover the costs of repairing.

10) Mechs: I believe a lot of this has to do with the prior 9 problems, but the light mechs offer way too much strength in the areas that matter (damage potential, speed for capturing, and damage avoidance). Here's what I see (yes, I read about knockdowns being temporarily removed):

- Armor: Contrary to popular belief, light mechs are actually more heavily armored than assault mechs. In general the light mechs have 45 ish torso armor vs. the 100 on the assault mechs. Unfortunately, due to speed, latency, and small stature of the light mechs even an accurate pilot is going to distribute damage much more evenly on a light mech than a heavy mech. As mentioned before, in general damage done to extremities is largely wasted damage.

Thus if you are even just twice as likely to hit a large mech in the torso than a light mech (it's much much higher than twice as likely for me at least) you are actually getting more armor out of your light mech than you are getting from an assault mech.

I believe the redistribution of armor (discussed above) will slightly change this balance (favoring assault mechs) but probably doesn't go far enough.

- Damage: Sadly because of the hardpoint restrictions, a light mech can pack as much punch as an assault mech. Since they can afford space (but not tons), the "upgrades" disproportionately benefit them. A potential solution would be to reduce the "space" on a light mech (i.e. you lose, one slot per tier in every appendage from assault). This conceptually makes sense anyhow as there should be less space on a smaller mech. In practice this would mean a light mech would have 3 fewer slots per area than assault mechs.

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Quick Thoughts on the UI:

- Target friendly: I should be able to know what weapons my team is packing.

- Scoreboard: Should tell me what type of mech each is driving once we see them (immediately for team mates).

- Weapon cycling: I should be able to select how I want my weapons (in my group) to cycle. It shouldn't just be "cycle one at a time or all at once"

- Grouping: The friends / grouping feature needs to be reworked it takes way too many clicks to group. At the very least a pop-up should occur when you're invited to a group and there should be no need to "create a group" at all. It should be done server side when an invitation is accepted.

- Mech Lab: Users should be able to "sell a mech" or upgrades back within the first hour of purchasing since (as of now) there is no way to see if you can actually build the mech you want from the description.

- Ammo: Repairing ammo needs to be much cheaper in general (if not free)

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TLDR Version: I think survivability needs to be increased across the board while simultaneously increasing the importance of destroying mech components. "Large" (both mechs and weapons) need to be brough up to par with the smaller versions.

Hope this helps... Feel free to comment.

[sycocys]

You survivability increases as your skill increases for the most part, other than a few weapon builds I really don't feel they are overpowered on the whole. Not barreling headlong into an assault or gauss/ac cat makes a world of difference as does actually working with your team in this regard. Also don't stand still in the open.

As far as the er weapons go I think they serve their purpose quite well - doing damage at a further range to weaken someone up for your close range focused shots.

I'm on the minority side but I really think the repair system is about right to balance things out - yes you pay more for going above and beyond, but you win more often or at least offset it with some additional kills.

Including with the ammo in repairs this is part of the games balancing method.

Some of the other things like setting teams up I think is being overhauled - weapon sub-groups would be nice for heat management, but you can also accomplish this through key binding and have better timing doing it manually anyhow.

[Ceribus]

I completely disagree with the part of damaging extremities being pointless... first thing I shoot on a light mech is his legs, they have much lower armour and internal structure HP and can be destroyed much faster than trying to bore through the torso and one you blow one off it's really quick and easy to finish him off by taking the other one out

As for lights being able to pack the same punch as an assault I disagree again, mainly in the ability of assaults to equip high calibre Ballistic weapons that let them do alot of concentrated damage.

Also a good pilot is able to force his opponents to spread the damage across his whole mech through torso twist and turning..... Don't keep circling your opponent in the same direction

Edited by Ceribus, 19 November 2012 - 12:17 PM.

[sycocys]

Yep ^ - First thing on most cats to go is the ears, and the shoulder of an HBK, and the arms of a dragon. Once a mech is mostly disabled you can focus on the kill or on the next target and let someone else do the dirty work.

[Tyrzun]

Pugastrius, on 19 November 2012 - 11:18 AM, said:

1) Weapons Damage (general): Is just too high. This is not a heat issue (which reduces long term damage) it is a burst issue. Like most games, the longer a match lasts the more likely the team with the greater skill wins since there is more time to demonstrate that skill. If I were in charge I would cut all damage in half and see how it plays out.

2) Missiles (general): Relative to the other weapons these are really weak. Interestingly, I think that this is probably the "right" amount of damage in the game. If you tried to kill someone with strictly missiles it would take probably 20 rounds, this feels about right to me in terms of how long someone should live.

So why are missiles right and other weapons wrong? The pin-point accuracy of most weapons allows players to completely ignore a considerable amount of the mech (namely the arms and legs) which amplifies their relative damage.

3) Streak Missiles: My understanding was these things were supposed to have near 100% efficiency even against light mechs since you can't even shoot them without a solid lock. If that's the case then why do half miss even when they are running straight away from me and I'm hitting them 100% of the time with my beams from that angle.

4) Large Weapons (PPCs and the like): These are pretty pointless in general. They add very little damage for the tonnage & space requirements. The biggest issue IMO is that at even moderate distance (say 400 meters) the ability to hit a target drops off exponentially. More-over, (unlike when in close quarters) when a hit does occur it is just as likely to hit the extremities as it is to hit the torso. I suspect that even if their relative damage were increased by 50% (say 10->15) I suspect people would still prefer lighter weapons.

5) ER Weapons: These need a massive overhaul. Largely because of the distance issue discussed with the large weapons, but even more so since they don't have any damage bonus. At present these seem to be very very bad versions of missles.

1. I think it should be the other way around. I cannot stand HALO anymore, because your lined up shot at the guy charging you doesn't DO enough damage. Right now MWO is very halo. So, we are forced into a brawl over and over. Range weapons need to do a LOT more damage. If that entails adding in mimimum ranges so be it. Rock/paper/scissors... ZOOM needs to improve a lot ot make sure we can hit them at range too, much less target a specific locaiton...

2. They were OP just a little while ago. They got hit with a nerf bat pretty hard recently. They were the only viable range weapon for fast moving targets at range.

3. Same with streaks. Got the Nerf bat recently. People were using them again to hit one target location becaues it's hard to do that on a fast moving target.

4. Agreed. I've been beta testing PPCs a lot lately and they are super underpowered. It's great to hit that Atlas a couple times that is just standing still at 600+ meters, but he eventually moves before you actually hurt him. You can't HURT anything at range before it closes on you becaues of firing delays and minimal damage.

So, it becomes a brawl.
2 x medium lasers 10 damage 8 heat 2 tons 2 slots.
1 x PPC 10 danage 9 heat 7 tons

The medium laser route leaves 5 more tons you can ues for heat sinks or whatever, shooting more often, more armor, whatever.

3 X medium laser 15 damage 12 heat 3 tons 3 slots. You still have 4 more heat sinks if you want them to shoot more often and do more damage.

PPC damage must come up or the weight down. One or the other to be on equal ground as medium lasers. You can't get off enough "Accurate" shots at range to make range important. Even if you try fighting at range your still eating gauss/LRMS which are both far better options.

4. ER anything right now is a joke. Mechs more too fast and the maps are too clutered to give you LONG range shots and there is simply no way to SEE them and target them over 1000k meters, much less hit them at that range. Zoom is no where near good enough. You can forget about hitting a specific target location as well.

[Ciel Noir]

Pugastrius, on 19 November 2012 - 11:18 AM, said:

9) Earning of C-Bills: The distribution of C-bills seems way off. I understand that players should be rewarded for playing, but there needs to be a larger reward for playing well.

- Drastic increases to damage rewards.
- Drastic increase to assist/kills rewards.
- Spotting assists need to be drastically reduced. (Why is helping one set of missiles as important as helping kill a target?)
- Balanced by a reduction in the rewards for winning & losing.

Woah woah!! No way should spotting assist be reduced. It's an optimal part of the game. Once the trip mechanic is reintegrated it will take skill just getting in and out alive to get points as a spotter.

Reduce the spotting and all you have is people trying to wrestle each other for kills just to get points. Scouts get low C-bills per game as it is.

[Ceribus]

I agree with Ciel Noir on that. This is not FPS out leet the rest of your team kind of game, it's designed around co ordinated team work and spotters are as important as the missile boats and the brawlers.... As for Tyrzun's suggestion, the brawl is a huge part of this game and I'd hate to see the game reach a point where multiple mech are sniped before the brawl even starts. These are walking tanks they are not supposed to go down easy, the idea for snipers is to stay back out of the fight and pelt targets without have to get hammered in return. I do heavily agree with you on PPCs and ERs though

[Tyrzun]

Ceribus, on 19 November 2012 - 01:41 PM, said:

As for Tyrzun's suggestion, the brawl is a huge part of this game and I'd hate to see the game reach a point where multiple mech are sniped before the brawl even starts. These are walking tanks they are not supposed to go down easy, the idea for snipers is to stay back out of the fight and pelt targets without have to get hammered in return.

Well if each team had them, it would be countered. Same as LRMS. Providing a play style for those that enjoy it. Not OP, but viable. So, if you rush at them they hurt you enough to where they have a chance once you close the distance. Just wanted to be clear what I am advocating. These maps have so much cover... you only get off maybe 1-2 shots before you are in brawl range. 10 damage is nothing. When you have HBs with 8 medium lasers doing 40 damage in a brawl. It's pretty unbalanced right now.

[sycocys]

Tyrzun, on 19 November 2012 - 02:16 PM, said:

Well if each team had them, it would be countered. Same as LRMS. Providing a play style for those that enjoy it. Not OP, but viable. So, if you rush at them they hurt you enough to where they have a chance once you close the distance. Just wanted to be clear what I am advocating. These maps have so much cover... you only get off maybe 1-2 shots before you are in brawl range. 10 damage is nothing. When you have HBs with 8 medium lasers doing 40 damage in a brawl. It's pretty unbalanced right now.

And as soon as you take out that low armored - easy to hit shoulder piece you have HB's with 2-3 lasers and an open shot at their torso. It more than balances out if you actually fight as a team and take the time to understand where you should be shooting to disable each mech.