13 replies to this topic

[Quantum Prime]

I have a suggestion for INCREDIBLE team play. Add Team WEIGHT CLASSES. RIght now 8v8 teams has no tonnage limits. Why not add a couple weight classes for teams to compete in?

300 Tons
400 Tons
500 Tons

Maybe start with just 300 aside from the existing so they can beta it.

Fill the tonnage however you want. It's like UFC.. you don't HAVE to weigh 170 - but you CAN"T go over 170. That's classic MW style. The ship that drops the mechs had limits - same concept here.

EVEN BETTER - you could run 4 atlas (400tons) vs 4 hunchbacks, 2 lights and 2 heavies - no need to limit it to 8v8. Why not a 4 vs 8? If the 4 team is crazy enough to do it, let them!. Just set the cap at 8. Stick to weight limits. This is classic MW. How many times in the books did you run into a "ok, you get 8 mechs and we get 8 mechs?" never. it has ALWAYS been tonnage.

Any drawbacks to this? I can see the 300 ton series - lights and mediums - CLASSIC MW game. CLASSIC. Maybe throw a cat for support. That would limit atlas to maybe ONE with ECM - 100 tons = 2 hunchbacks = 3 Jenners. And then the atlas would play the MW role - Front Assault while medium mechs flank and heavies support. Every team member would fit their role - every Ton counts.

You know it's the way to go

The tactics would be incredible. You would NEVER know what you're going to go up against. CLASSIC mechwarrior. CLASSIC.

Let me know what you think. I personally think it's fantastic

Edited by Quantum Prime, 06 December 2012 - 08:48 PM.

[focuspark]

No. Absolutely not. Weight categories assume more tons is inherently better and while that may be true on TT it is not true in MWO and should never be. A proper mix of mechs is far more important than the number of tons you bring. I'll happily see you 400 tons of Atlases with 400 tons of Jenner any day.

[Pertz]

focuspark, on 07 December 2012 - 12:32 AM, said:

No. Absolutely not. Weight categories assume more tons is inherently better and while that may be true on TT it is not true in MWO and should never be. A proper mix of mechs is far more important than the number of tons you bring. I'll happily see you 400 tons of Atlases with 400 tons of Jenner any day.

If you re-read what he's proposing, you'd realize your example isn't arguing your point. At this point in the game, the ONLY reason to have a less than assault mech is speed. For example, there is absolutely no place for a medium mech going 70kph when you can have a heavy doing the the same speed with more firepower and armour. The reason medium mechs even exist is because of your exact example: Three medium mechs at 50 tons each are better than two assaults at 75, but unless you have weight class limits, you'll never see that happen. If you have player limits (which seems necessary), you must have weight classes for balance. Otherwise you'll see exactly what is going on in 8v8 now. 6 atlases and 2 cicadas.

Edited by Pertz, 07 December 2012 - 12:30 PM.

[focuspark]

No I'm reading it right and I do not agree.

[Quantum Prime]

How does a weight class assume more tons is better? It does the exact opposite.

First - i'm not talking about regular matches - those work ok -ish. I'm talking about GROUPED TEAM MATCHES.

Second - If you think weight wins over diversity, you don't know how to play this game. One atlas will get mauled by, say a light and heavy. Or two mediums. EASY. If you're saying that setting a 300 weight class will result in 3 atlas then by all means make a group and do it. I for one will have 1 heavy (100t), 3 mediums (150T).2 lights (50T)

Who do you think is going to win? It's a fair match. Same number of ECMs only your team is insanely slow and easily flanked.

Focuspark -. Right now 8v8 TEAM matches (by team, i mean GROUPED TEAM matches) are essentially composed of 6 atlas and 2 lights.... mediums and heavies are not used in there because there is no tonnage restriction. In fact, if you chose a 50 ton mech you're HURTING your team because in 8v8 GROUPED TEAM MATCHES there is no class matching. Meaning a group could end up with 8 mediums vs 8 heavies.

If i we set ADDITIONAL championship weight classes we could have an incredible amount of diversity and go back to the true nature of MW game - diversity is a good thing.

Edited by Quantum Prime, 07 December 2012 - 06:07 PM.

[Voidsinger]

Ultimately, no tonnage balancing is going to be the best solution.

I think having a battle system based off BT, but looking at the changes PGI implemented, and the changes in balance. Focus Park is right, because MWO has been modified to give lights and mediums a better chance by taking into account things the tabletop could not.

Mediums are out, for the simple reason economics is not in. Running an assault should be expensive, and yes involve losing money when used outside its design use. So should using a great deal of ammunition, or Level 2 technology like XL engines.

On this Focus Park and I disagree greatly. I see the economy as an intrinsic part of the game, and a possible balance mechanism. He does not. However, it is this that makes a medium put in place of a heavy or assault. It is cheaper all round to operate.

Multi-faceted balancing is complex, and unless some things are really in your face unbalanced (ECM, and access to ECM), then it will take some tinkering to arrive at.

[Quantum Prime]

But why?

MECHWARRIOR IS BASED ON TONNAGE>

As long as tonnage is not taken into consideration a dragon will be a weak heavy, and an awesome a weak assault.
As long as tonnage caps are not set for team groups, everybody will play assault. Economics - i can see your point here, but i think it's flawed. People who pay accounts will still just play mass assaults.

TONNAGE was the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF MECHWARRIOR> everything revolves around your mech weight.

When you launched on missions, the reason they didn't just send a bunch of assaults all the time is because a) are slow and they take up too much weight.

You said you didn't like it - but why would it not work?

Say your team wants to enter the 500 TON class. Perfect - work with eachother - OH i have a dragon - ok 60 - nice - Jenner - 35 sweet - etc etc - OK now need to fill a 65 - catapult - perfect we have support. It will force people to do the same thing they do with their WEAPONS. Imagine if they took the tonnage out of weapons and just had hardpoints. Everybody would just put on Large Lasers, gauss, AC20 etc. That's EXACTLY what is going on in here. Everybody is mounting ATLAS - because the GROUP TEAM matches have no weight restriction.
Example : Dragons weigh less than Catapharacts - that advantage needs to be observed.

The economic fee for using larger mechs is broken - totally broken. I understand that before you had to 'afford' whatever you could launch. It made sense in single player missions. But in multiplay it doesn't work. it would benefit those who have a ton of Credits (because they play a lot or buy MCs) and in the end it wouldn't really help variety. The teams that can 'afford' assaults will run them, beat the 'poor' people running meds,. The assaults make more money, keeping full assault teams at lead.

Remember Mechcommander - when they had to "DROP" mechs in - you had a weight restriction. You have 200 TONS. Make the best of it. This benefits ingenuity as opposed to 'who has more money and larger mechs'

[MadSavage]

In terms of firepower, yes things would be balanced, but four atlases vs 11 jenners wouldn't be so fair due to the speed/lag shield of the jenners. Weight restrictions is a good idea, but the number of players per team should be restricted as well. 300 tons with up to six players. 400 tons with up to eight players. In that way diversity has to be taken into account.

[focuspark]

Voidsinger, on 07 December 2012 - 06:14 PM, said:

Ultimately, no tonnage balancing is going to be the best solution.

I think having a battle system based off BT, but looking at the changes PGI implemented, and the changes in balance. Focus Park is right, because MWO has been modified to give lights and mediums a better chance by taking into account things the tabletop could not.

Mediums are out, for the simple reason economics is not in. Running an assault should be expensive, and yes involve losing money when used outside its design use. So should using a great deal of ammunition, or Level 2 technology like XL engines.

On this Focus Park and I disagree greatly. I see the economy as an intrinsic part of the game, and a possible balance mechanism. He does not. However, it is this that makes a medium put in place of a heavy or assault. It is cheaper all round to operate.

Multi-faceted balancing is complex, and unless some things are really in your face unbalanced (ECM, and access to ECM), then it will take some tinkering to arrive at.

ahh Void you hurt my feelings (not really) and misrepresent me. Check the sig bro. I think this game needs a full blown economy or it's fail. The free ammo thing is me complaining that ammo costs need to be factored in better when balancing weapons and given inflation in all games there's no way to do it so PGI should give up and make ammo free.

[Voidsinger]

focuspark, on 08 December 2012 - 01:11 AM, said:

ahh Void you hurt my feelings (not really) and misrepresent me. Check the sig bro. I think this game needs a full blown economy or it's fail. The free ammo thing is me complaining that ammo costs need to be factored in better when balancing weapons and given inflation in all games there's no way to do it so PGI should give up and make ammo free.

Great, I knew this was coming :-D

When you do a mission, the person who hires you is the one paying.

If you're a House unit, you get paid whatever the heck your house says you get paid. This includes supplies. The elite units will tend to get given more. This increase in normal allocations is completely tied to your ongoing performance and status within the House.

Mercenaries are just like contractors now. They pay based on supply/demand. They also expect to make more (whether it be money, salvage, planets, prestige...whatever), than they put in. Just like corps now, they are contract based, and anything not in the contract they not only make you pay more for, but can make you pay a great deal more for. The Draconis Combine pre-3028 was notorious for the Company Store policy, where merc units ended up so indebted to the Combine, they were absorbed.

Free ammunition may solve a few problems now, when we are in deathmatch mode. Look however down the road to when the Metagame starts falling into place. The economy is an integral part of running a mech, and a mercenary unit. Giving freebies now means people go into a heavy handed economy with builds that just cannot survive without massive subsidies.

The reasons Focus you see Ammo prices as too high is simple. You take too much friggin ammunition into a game. You already get 150% of the shots per ton for LRMs doing 180% damage per missile. For SRMs, shots were the same, and damage boost a mere 25%. The SRM/.sSRM people I have a little sympathy for.

You may say to hell with canon. I say canon balanced quite a few major issues, and ammunition costs remained the same over 25 years. This may be a videogame, but it is based off a tabletop with a long and rich history, and that is where the initial marketing targeted. Canon matters to these people. In the end, it comes down to the question of how much PGI can balance the conflicting interests of the Canon People, their initial fanbase, and Videogamers raised on games like Call of Duty, coming here expecting commonality with other videogames rather than the tabletop this game translated from.

[focuspark]

Yeah, I pilot an SRM mech (not SSRM) so I deal with ammo costs. As it is it takes forever to get ahead CB wise. If i actually paid for ammo I'd be going backwards in CB. I take 5 tons of SRM+Atemis ammo with me. And, before you "that's the price of Artemis" let me remind you that i already pay +1 crit and +1 ton per launcher just fit Artemis in addition to the 850,000CB. There's no reason ammo should cost so much... Especially since mechs have double HP in MWO.

[Voidsinger]

focuspark, on 08 December 2012 - 01:53 AM, said:

Yeah, I pilot an SRM mech (not SSRM) so I deal with ammo costs. As it is it takes forever to get ahead CB wise. If i actually paid for ammo I'd be going backwards in CB. I take 5 tons of SRM+Atemis ammo with me. And, before you "that's the price of Artemis" let me remind you that i already pay +1 crit and +1 ton per launcher just fit Artemis in addition to the 850,000CB. There's no reason ammo should cost so much... Especially since mechs have double HP in MWO.

Hey, SRM ammo only does 62.5% of the potential damage per ton compared to tabletop. Right now, LRMs do 135%. I did start a thread to modestly increase missiles per ton, but that went nowhere. That would reduce weight and costs slightly in a fair way.

Energy weapons usually have about 150% heat for ER variants. For a PPC, that's an extra 5 tons of heatsinks they need to carry to balance the heatload. 1 ton for Artemis only matters for 4 or more launchers, and the benefits are there in damage.

However, we are sidetracking a topic on a quite good idea.

Given the 15 ton band for light mechs, 15 tons for mediums, 15 for heavies and 20 for assaults, there is quite a great deal of possibility of being grossly mismatched. Given the lightest mech in the game will be 20 tons, there is reason to look at what he said.While balancing is more complex than tonnage, it does form an important element.

[Teralitha]

@ OP, there are already countless topics suggesting tonnage limits, and battle value limits among other weird suggestions.... going back many months. This is nothing new.

And there are still idiots who think a tonnage limit isnt needed.

Edited by Teralitha, 08 December 2012 - 06:06 AM.

[Necroconvict]

Quantum Prime, on 06 December 2012 - 08:47 PM, said:

I have a suggestion for INCREDIBLE team play. Add Team WEIGHT CLASSES. RIght now 8v8 teams has no tonnage limits. Why not add a couple weight classes for teams to compete in?

300 Tons
400 Tons
500 Tons

Maybe start with just 300 aside from the existing so they can beta it.

Fill the tonnage however you want. It's like UFC.. you don't HAVE to weigh 170 - but you CAN"T go over 170. That's classic MW style. The ship that drops the mechs had limits - same concept here.

EVEN BETTER - you could run 4 atlas (400tons) vs 4 hunchbacks, 2 lights and 2 heavies - no need to limit it to 8v8. Why not a 4 vs 8? If the 4 team is crazy enough to do it, let them!. Just set the cap at 8. Stick to weight limits. This is classic MW. How many times in the books did you run into a "ok, you get 8 mechs and we get 8 mechs?" never. it has ALWAYS been tonnage.

Any drawbacks to this? I can see the 300 ton series - lights and mediums - CLASSIC MW game. CLASSIC. Maybe throw a cat for support. That would limit atlas to maybe ONE with ECM - 100 tons = 2 hunchbacks = 3 Jenners. And then the atlas would play the MW role - Front Assault while medium mechs flank and heavies support. Every team member would fit their role - every Ton counts.

You know it's the way to go

The tactics would be incredible. You would NEVER know what you're going to go up against. CLASSIC mechwarrior. CLASSIC.

Let me know what you think. I personally think it's fantastic

Interesting idea, but seriously stop using the word classic. You forget something though, usually only one opponent had to drop for a battle, as the enemy of them is already on the planet that is being attacked, rarely did two armies go fly across the stars to a random battlefield just to battle over a mechlab facilities 3 jumps away.