425 replies to this topic

[Tompaboy]

Well i think that going through initiation with the trial mechs only made me more determined to get
my own mech and start modifying it according to the experience i gathered from trial.
Sure it was tedious sometimes when i went up against premades with highly customed mechs shreaded me to pieces
but then if i remained and got to watch others and how they played i learned from that too.

Now i got some hunchies levling as elite, some other mechs that i'm trying out and modifying according to what
i've learned so far and having real fun.

My point is that the learning curve of this game is rather steep if you havent played mechwarrior before but it should be.
Thats what caught my interest and whats keeping me here. If you want some vanilla shooter there are many others out there to choose from.
Please dont trivialize this game trying to appease some people who are used to get it all handed too them without any effort!

[Sifright]

Joseph Mallan, on 04 December 2012 - 04:50 AM, said:

No. Heat needs to be fixed. That is the fix that will make the trial Mechs usable v our customs. An Awesome 9M Should run the whole game without shut down by cycling it's ERPPCs in a 3 and 2 cycle. It will be warm, but it will stay at a constant level of heat.

You know we've always had problems with each others posts in the past, I think it's because of how we approach the issue.

In truth I don't care if pgi go the fix heat route or the recustomize stocks to make them fit the MWO rules.

but at least we are on the same page with stock variants being broken in the current rule system

[Steinar Bergstol]

MustrumRidcully, on 04 December 2012 - 04:47 AM, said:

If you limit yourself to 10 seconds between shots, the situation would be pretty much like in the table top.

But the problem is - that isn't a good strategy. If you fire only every 10 seconds, you deliver less damage than an enemy that doesn't restrict himself like that. Maybe he overheats and you don't - but if you die before he overheats, and you can't kill him because you deal too little damage, you're not doing very well, are you?

The problem is that you have always compare yourself to the alternatives. There are several:
1) Someone could have made a mech that is build to fire his weapons as often as he can for an extended period of time.
2) Not all weapon and build s- even without customziation - are equally effected.

<Lots of good stuff snipped to save space>

Oh, I'm not disagreeing with you, Mustrum. Not at all. In fact I think we pretty much are on the same wavelength here. All I said, really, was that heat worked sort of like TT if you artificially limited yourself to 1 shot per 10 seconds no matter what weapon you use. I think we both agree, however, that people doing that is unrealistic at best and completely ridiculous at worst. Gee, I have a gauss which can fire until the cows come home without building heat, but I'll limit myself to one shot every 10 seconds to be fair to the PPC guy... Yeah. That's not gonna happen.

As I've said before, the problem in my opinion stems from balancing according to customization from the start rather than balancing according to stock and _then_ adding customization based on that.

[John Norad]

BigJim, on 04 December 2012 - 04:19 AM, said:

You seem to disagree, and then agree with me at the same time..?

First off, I noticed my tone could've been interpreted as a bit aggressive. I apologize.
Apart from that, yep, TT isn't novels. Reading books creates images and feelings in your mind. TT is just a game with rules. I could apply the gist of what you wrote to books, but not to the TT.
Well, maybe the term 'principles' should've been discussed and defined, first.

BigJim, on 04 December 2012 - 04:19 AM, said:

Short version is that heat is harsh.

It should be, yes.

BigJim, on 04 December 2012 - 04:19 AM, said:

Right now with our custom mechs we mitigate heat so well that it's barely even a consideration.

And that's the thing I don't like. The combination of trial mechs being inefficient and custom mechs (some in particular without losing efficiency) having few issues.

BigJim, on 04 December 2012 - 04:19 AM, said:

Now I admit that having all kinds of screwy things happen when your heat gets to 5% or whatever would be annoying in a real-time game, (..)

Would it? Would it be more frustrating than now? If the heat scale was moving erratically like it does atm, then yes. Penalties would come and go on the fly, heat would be hard to manage. But I guess between my lines you can see I have a different idea of how it should work.
All in all I find the binary "to shutdown or not to shutdown, that is the question" system too uninspired and boring. Yes, there should be penalties to overheating, but at the same time the heat scale should be less volatile.

BigJim, on 04 December 2012 - 04:19 AM, said:

That's why I say it adheres to TT principals, and not that it's a 100% literal translation

See, I applied it to how mechs work. Different usage/interpretation really.

BigJim, on 04 December 2012 - 04:19 AM, said:

Like so many things from TT, a 100% translation wouldn't work well in a real-time first person game, but the current heat system, and how stock mechs respond is about as close as you can get I think without making the game a total frustration-fest.

This is where I disagree. Although the term 'close to TT' is subject to personal taste and interpretation, too

BigJim, on 04 December 2012 - 04:19 AM, said:

So I come back to my basic premise, that the heat system per-se isn't the problem, the problem lies with the mix of stock and fully-pimped mechs.

It's true mixing stock and customized mechs is a problem at the moment. But that's due to a lack of proper matchmaking (taking into account both pilot skill and mech efficiency) and due to a suboptimal heat system. The latter makes players overheat their inefficient stock mechs when facing custom mechs, in an attempt to avoid the unavoidable, resulting in shutdown, destruction and frustration.

Edited by John Norad, 04 December 2012 - 05:16 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Sifright, on 04 December 2012 - 04:59 AM, said:

You know we've always had problems with each others posts in the past, I think it's because of how we approach the issue.

In truth I don't care if pgi go the fix heat route or the recustomize stocks to make them fit the MWO rules.

but at least we are on the same page with stock variants being broken in the current rule system

Whether we have had problems or not, we are both trying to fix what we perceive to be wrong with the game. The Stock Mechs are not the problem, The heat system is(IMO). If the heat system worked correctly, we would not need to mod canon variants. We would want to, but the "must" would be removed.

i once, long ago, read a BattleTech DEV quote that went something like, 'The TRO Mechs are not optimized on purpose. It gives them weaknesses and keeps them from being Munchy.'

The official reason the TRO Mechs are the way they are is because they were balanced... for the TT game.

[FunkyFritter]

I remember shortly open beta started and I finally ground out enough games in the trial raven to buy a jenner. Suddenly I could move 50% faster, deal twice as much damage and had more armor to boot. The poor players who hadn't managed to grind out of their trial mechs yet didn't stand a chance. I would prefer to see the trial mech system dropped altogether for something that allows new players to customize, but at the very least the gap between a custom build and what the newbies are stuck with needs to be a lot smaller.

[Zwietracht]

Sifright, on 04 December 2012 - 03:23 AM, said:

hahahaha, you realize those 'opinions' are different this week from last week because those weapons where changed and behave radically differently? Right?

What do you mean No you didn't know that?

Surely you wouldn't be posting such drivel if you didn't know what you were talking about.

oh boy there you got me.. yes i have absolute no idea. and you know what? its great to be not one of these buggers around who are so self convinced and for sure they got the one & only argument why this game will fail / already failed^^ i count you towards them

and all i wanna say is ... i spended 80 dollar to have a advantage to guys like you... playing for free and demanding more? well then pay!

[Purlana]

MustrumRidcully, on 04 December 2012 - 04:47 AM, said:

If you limit yourself to 10 seconds between shots, the situation would be pretty much like in the table top.

PPC vs GR.

Go ahead and limit your PPC shots to 1 per 10 seconds, watch as the GR user picks you apart.

[Sifright]

Joseph Mallan, on 04 December 2012 - 05:30 AM, said:

Whether we have had problems or not, we are both trying to fix what we perceive to be wrong with the game. The Stock Mechs are not the problem, The heat system is(IMO). If the heat system worked correctly, we would not need to mod canon variants. We would want to, but the "must" would be removed.

i once, long ago, read a BattleTech DEV quote that went something like, 'The TRO Mechs are not optimized on purpose. It gives them weaknesses and keeps them from being Munchy.'

The official reason the TRO Mechs are the way they are is because they were balanced... for the TT game.

Yea see, I can agree with where you are coming from, I'm just less picky about how it gets fixed exactly I just want the new player experience to be a lot better than it currently is.

Fixing heat would actually make a lot of the hotter weapons viable straight away which is a good enough reason to go that route on it's own.

but i'm more worried about player retention at the moment.

Player numbers seem to be getting quite low see the same faces every other game now.

Purlana, on 04 December 2012 - 05:38 AM, said:

PPC vs GR.

Go ahead and limit your PPC shots to 1 per 10 seconds, watch as the GR user picks you apart.

He means in heat.

hes well aware GR are much much better than ppcs in current environment

[Asmosis]

Franchi, on 03 December 2012 - 09:12 PM, said:

Heat is exactly the problem, lets remember that these mechs, the trials specifically, are ported directly from TT. If a mech designed to carry 3 of a weapon (with other weapons as back up) cannot fire one of them at its max ROF without overheating heat is broken.

none of my mechs can fire their payload consistently without overheating. Infact if a mech can go completely heat neutral (or close to it) you have over compensated with heat sinks. This applies to everything, even dual gausscats.

Heat threshold is another resource you need to balance properly like crit space, tonnage, armor etc. You dont build a mech that has 60% of its crit slots free just like you dont build a mech that can never get over 40% heat threshold.

New players NEED to overheat.
New players NEED to run out of ammo.
New players NEED to get outrun

They need this so they can understand why these things are important when they come to make their first mech, otherwise they'll fill it up with the biggest most expensive weapons they can fit. with 10 heatsinks and a 150 standard engine.

Edited by Asmosis, 04 December 2012 - 05:49 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Then lets hope that whatever PGI and the crew do it attracts millions of players to this universe and makes it the best MMO(or whatever it is ) ever. Cause I want to still be playing when My character reaches Earth and kicks the crap out of the WoB. This is semi canon as I am a member of the BattleCorps Legion and they did kick WoB Ash with the AMC.

[Stone Wall]

Heat does need to be fixed. It feels like on most maps I'm playing on MechWarrior 3's notoriously hot Beachhead map.

[Sifright]

Zwietracht, on 04 December 2012 - 05:37 AM, said:

oh boy there you got me.. yes i have absolute no idea. and you know what? its great to be not one of these buggers around who are so self convinced and for sure they got the one & only argument why this game will fail / already failed^^ i count you towards them

and all i wanna say is ... i spended 80 dollar to have a advantage to guys like you... playing for free and demanding more? well then pay!

Why would I pay for an advantage when I'm good enough to not need it?

I have a good win/loss ratio kthx I also don't need to pay to win. It goes against my ethos to even use such a feature. I'll beat you with my own skill and resources or not at all.

[Imagine Dragons]

Vulix, on 03 December 2012 - 03:36 PM, said:

themittani.com is run by people who sit on their *** to blog and complain about video games all day

Really? Because reading the whole article, the interviewer seems giddy as heck...

Not to mention the current comments were more constructive than critical...

Super Mono, on 03 December 2012 - 04:14 PM, said:

This is insane. Did you not read any of the dev's comments about how they were concerned that DHS went live in a broken state and none of their testers caught it? You think they'd intentionally lie to make their staff and Q&A dept look incompetent?

Case in point; Artemis. Somehow the QA missed the 90 degree missile arcs...

[wanderer]

XenomorphZZ, on 04 December 2012 - 06:19 AM, said:

Case in point; Artemis. Somehow the QA missed the 90 degree missile arcs...

Yep. I tend to see QA as their "alpha" testers, while we beta testers are the ones that apparently actually play with the things.

I swear, it felt like what they initially did with DHS was fire off some shots and go "Yup, these cool faster" without actually figuring out how MUCH they were supposed to cool things down.

Likewise with Artemis. "Hey, the missiles hit better! Call it a day, we're DONE here.".

[MustrumRidcully]

Purlana, on 04 December 2012 - 05:38 AM, said:

PPC vs GR.

Go ahead and limit your PPC shots to 1 per 10 seconds, watch as the GR user picks you apart.

There was a "But" following the post. But it always helps if other people make the same point as I do, but shorter.

Maybe w eshouldn't change the heat system. We should just apply an XP and C-Bill reward penalty for everyone that shoots more often than once in 10 seconds.

[Taizan]

BigJim, on 04 December 2012 - 02:56 AM, said:

However, vs a team of custom mechs and the players who have learned the system is scary, and I didn't let myself get into a brawl with anyone.
The quicker this game gets a Trial vs Trial option, the better for everyone.

Exactly what he says in the interview. This plus a decent tutorial will do a lot for completely new players.

Glad to see you gave it an honest try and made a rational conclusion!

[Imagine Dragons]

MustrumRidcully, on 04 December 2012 - 06:37 AM, said:

There was a "But" following the post. But it always helps if other people make the same point as I do, but shorter. Maybe w eshouldn't change the heat system. We should just apply an XP and C-Bill reward penalty for everyone that shoots more often than once in 10 seconds.

Breaking News;

A new trend has suicide farmers spamming MGs and Flamers the whole match prior to their death.

[Khobai]

I think you guys misinterpreted what Russ said. He didnt say all stock mechs are extremely good. He just said some stock mechs are extremely good, and alluded that stock mechs arnt so bad that a skilled player cant overcome their deficiencies. Which is true... I can use certain stock mechs and still end up #1 for damage and kills in most matches.

But yeah... obviously heat needs to be fixed so we dont have some stock mechs that are totally useless.

Edited by Khobai, 04 December 2012 - 07:16 AM.

[Purlana]

Khobai, on 04 December 2012 - 07:11 AM, said:

I think you guys misinterpreted what Russ said. He didnt say all stock mechs were extremely good. He just said some are extremely good and alluded that the stock mechs arnt so bad that a skilled player cant overcome their deficiencies. Which is true... I can use a stock mech and still end up #1 for damage and kills in most matches.

In other words, the trial mechs are BAD so you need to be better then the other pilots to win.

Edited by Purlana, 04 December 2012 - 07:14 AM.