310 replies to this topic

[Tyzh]

Sprouticus, on 19 May 2012 - 02:17 PM, said:

Thank you. You are correct except for one thing. Due to movement, convergence, and skill, in all likelihood the damage would be spread more, and the light mech would last LONGER than 4 seconds. if the atlas is able to concentrate fire and focus it would be double the length. If not, who knows how much longer the light would last.

The Dev's have been stating repeatedly that light can somewhat stand their ground against assaults, and this is probably the reason why.

As I said before, my primary concern with double armor is fights degrading into furballs all the time.

Heh, thanks. I wasn't really addressing the benefits of a light mech's mobility. I was just trying to demonstrate that doubling armor values isn't some kind of buff to heavy mech's, like some people were suggesting.

[Sassori]

Volthorne, on 19 May 2012 - 03:40 PM, said:

Computers don't miss. Pilots do. The only way to simulate that would be through reticule sway. And I'm sure no one wants that.

Who said anything about reticule sway? I surely didn't. Though I wouldn't mind it, those arms are /MOVING/ it's not a stable level platform.

I said the targeting reticule should be /LARGER/. Meaning when you shoot it still hits somewhere in that reticule but it's not always dead center. Think Mass Effect style targeting as an example. When you slow to a crawl and zoom in with a sniper rifle you can get pretty accurate, but it's not always that accurate.

Point is, it's not pinpoint accurate.

[Tyzh]

Why is it the o

Volthorne, on 19 May 2012 - 03:40 PM, said:

Computers don't miss. Pilots do. The only way to simulate that would be through reticule sway. And I'm sure no one wants that.

Why is it the computer that has to miss? Couldn't it just be the hardware, the mech itself?

[Evex]

Okay people need to calm down for a moment. Looking at the screen shots and the Mechlab video I think you all are jumping to a conclusion based on your own experience with Mechwarrior/battletech. The category for Armor says just that Armour. It does not say Armor factor, or Armor in tons. At current we do not know if 320 Armour is equal to the same amount of Armour Factor in the table top games. It could be that the devs are using a different system to calculate Armor not related to AF, and instead 320 Armour is 10 tons of Armour on a Hunchback, and that the 352 armor of the catapult is still around the ten through twelve ton range ton mark. You also have to consider that this 352 Armour. Lets remember this armor is on the K2 variant, and most variants don't carry the same armor as there original version.

Think of it this way the atlas armor factor doubled is 604, so if the Armor category is equivalent to Armor Factor then why does it go up to 700 ? Why is there another 96 points of armor there ? You are also forgetting that any mech can equip ferro fibrous armor. An Atlus max armor is 19.5 and the equivalent to that in ferro fibrous is 17.5, yet while 17.5 is equal to 19.5 tons of standard armor it gives 12% more protection. At this point my mind is going Armor category is not equal to Armor Factor. Neither is the Armor category equal to double armor. Until we get into the game we have no idea what the armor category value of 325 actually means.

[Spider]

This may be of interest: taken from the 1990 compendium

[Sassori]

That reminds me of something else: As heat rises, the target reticule could grow wider as the targeting computer gets futzy due to higher heat! Perfect.

[verybad]

Azantia, on 18 May 2012 - 09:34 PM, said:

Okay Zakatak (nice name by the way...),
Look at the math above and tell me that is how you want the game to play and I will say, sure we can agree to disagree, but I think you should go back to Mech_Assault. Anyone else here who loves battletech and has a good grasp of how it plays according to lore want to defend an atlas able to take 16 PPC hits / 8 AC 20 rounds before it goes down?

Im not saying everything translates from tabletop to a computer game. But this is one of those things that doesnt need to change, just to accommodate poor piloting / poor tactical decisions.

Just one question.

Do you think the weapons are going to fire once every ten seconds?

If an Autocannon fires lets say twice every ten secodns (on average, faster for smaller ACs, slower for larger ones) Yet those ACs (or lasers or missiles) are doing TT number damaged, then aren't those weapons dong TT level damage?

You're looking at the numbers from a very ununderstanding level approach. It's real time, not TT, you can't make a successful game where all the weapons fire once every ten seconds. It' would be ludicrously bad.

If the weapons are doing approximately the damage they're rated for over ten seconds to targets then it's following canon.

If an AC-20 fires twice in ten seconds, does ~40 points of damage to armor that has 32 points per ton.

Then what are you crying over? It's the same damn thing. This is part of the reason MW4 did this also btw. Not to make it more "arcade" but so the damage over time was approcimately cannon and felt "right".

How is this not obvious?

Weapons in battletech TT don't necessarilly do the TT damage in a real time event. The damage is average over time for a ten second period.

Welcome to real time, it's not a turn based game. This doesn't make it any mroe "arcade" or MechAssault,

If you think they can release a ten second for all weapon recharge/reload time and have a signifigant player base after the first week, then please mention that so we can both save each other's time without discussing this further.

Edited by verybad, 19 May 2012 - 04:29 PM.

[Sir Trent Howell]

This is perfectly logical. In tabletop, you have to roll a die in order to hit a target, which results in a lot of missed shots due to bad lack. Let's face it, it's A LOT easier to hit an object in a video game. MW4 got so ridiculous with laser boats because it was point, shoot, and hit. After a bit of playing, it really wasn't difficult to hit the CT of any Mech 80-90% of the time. There's no randomness. You're ignoring the difference between rolling a die to hit a target and the ease of pointing and clicking in a video game.

[ManDaisy]

We just gotta wait till the next ask the devs questionair comes out we're gonna be a buncha dogs fighting over bone.

[ExAstris]

Owl Cutter, on 19 May 2012 - 07:59 AM, said:

There is a model well-known to RTS gamers which is used to describe the relationship between durability, damage output, weapon reach and unit movement reach: the rock-paper-scissors relationship between pikemen, archers and cavalry. Pikemen offer the best blend of durability and damage output: base attrition power, if you will. Cavalry offer much less bang-for-buck in that sense, so an equal investment will just get smashed against pikemen, but their greater speed allows them to overrun archers long before the archers' shots during that time can even up the fight. In turn, archers can attack pikemen from impunity since they have a range advantage and no mobility disadvantage vs. pikemen.

The relative values for movement, attack range, attack power, and hit points are supposed to be tweaked to where the rock-paper-scissors relationship emerges in the most satisfying way. If Piranha shifted the balance from power to durability, then as noted by several other posters here it might be to counterweigh the fact that players are gonna be much better than the dice at landing hits in general and, depending on skill, anywhere from moderately to hugely dramatically better at focusing those hits on the desired location.

In translating from the turn-based die-rolling game to a realtime skill-based game there are bound to be a lot of unexpected consequences that need to be compensated for, which will mostly be found through testing. Discussion of possible such consequences is good, and might even help avoid errors by bringing things up or shedding light on why something is going wrong, but the few points of actual information we have are nowhere near enough to justify worrying that the people actually making and presumably constantly playtesting the game are in danger of failing to anticipate a mistake that we can see coming. So far as I know, we don't have hit percentage numbers for the testers, or even have numbers for movement capability in terms of distance relative to weapon ranges per "turn's worth" of weapon fire, so we don't even know whether the game actually follows the tabletop game accurately or deviates wildly in terms of that balance. Heck, we don't even know whether a "turn's worth" is the same amount of time from one weapon to the next or varies wildly! I love the speculation, but it takes a massive flying leap to conclude that the game is going to be broken. Relax and enjoy the anticipation, we can't know such things until the game is opened up.

Quoted For Truth.

[Shootanoob]

ManDaisy, on 19 May 2012 - 04:37 PM, said:

We just gotta wait till the next ask the devs questionair comes out we're gonna be a buncha dogs fighting over bone.

close... more like a bunch of dogs fighting over a bone we imagine - with each of us imagining a different bone, as it seems :-)

[Steel Talon]

What about Hardcore gamemode like in BF3 where armor is realistic & arcade mode with 200%

Or just some middle way, lets say 150% ?

Edited by steel talon, 19 May 2012 - 05:11 PM.

[verybad]

TT numbers are a simulation using average damage over time. There's nt reason to have the numbers be dumbed down in order to please a few rabid TT players that don't understand why numbers are changed. They'd also complain if an AC-20 did 10 damage every 5 seconds. If the weapon did 20 damage and fired once every 10 seconds (an ac-5 firing once every 10 seconds and doing 5 damage, etc) They might be happy, but the gameplay would suck for everyone else.

My preference for this would be that the in game numbers weren't published and players simply had to go by what the weapons names were. This would allow the developers to balance weapons without huge dissent amont players that aren't really looking for balanced gameplay, but closer following to the TT published numbers. Don't even tell us when weapons values are changed. Just make the game as good and as balanced as possible.

After all, while most people would consider a 120mm cannon to be more powerful than a 100 mm cannon, it's a bit more difficult to say HOW much more powerful...

Edited by verybad, 19 May 2012 - 05:08 PM.

[Nick Makiaveli]

Pvt Dancer, on 19 May 2012 - 02:06 PM, said:

This game is, no matter what is said, based off of table top battletech. To turn table top to a FPS, there are 5 things that were balanced... Armor, Damage, Recycle Time, Accuracy and Heat.

Everything is balanced off of each other. There is a reason why every mech did not have max armor or that heat sinks are designed the way they are to even the number of heat sinks to weapons mounted. From building the mech from the ground up, those 5 factors are used for balance.

They are increasing accuracy and recycle time, so they have to boost armor. With increased recycle time, how does heat work? You better hope it is also increased recycle time then. But the balance is already screwed up. How much of a threat is a mech with 2 medium lasers now that his weapons are DoT and he really can't hurt anyone for a long time due to double armor? Well, now you have to up gun him. And if you can't fit the guns on him, you go for bigger mechs that can carry those guns. That boost to armor is already creating a artificial boost to mechs as now they will have to be tweaked out to do more damage to over come said armor.

I feel those are the wrong things to increase... you nerf accuracy and keep recycle time standard, heat becomes your balancing factor, as intended. The 2d6 roll to hit in table top is now turned into a firing cone that can potentially scatter the damage all over the mech... bamn, balanced just like in table top. You have a chance to actually miss the mech, which doesn't appear to be the case now...

You make a good point, and that would work. Well it would work for those of us, like myself, that would be happy with a TT simulator. But most people want a MW simulator, ie FPS style shooting which a "cone" effect would nerf their skill significantly.

Also I say again since no one else has commented on it (at least by pag 7 that I've seen) It's entirely possible that the mechs had double armor for testing purposes. Or that the armor code isn't complete. Wasn't there a comment about someone (probably Paul) cheating by loading up massive amounts of LRM ammo since the code wasn't in for it to have weight?

[ManDaisy]

Well I'm just gonna say you stray to far from the orgins and you end up with mech assault. Suddenly lava guns everywhere.

Edited by ManDaisy, 19 May 2012 - 05:29 PM.

[Volthorne]

Tyzh, on 19 May 2012 - 03:54 PM, said:

Why is it the computer that has to miss? Couldn't it just be the hardware, the mech itself?

The computer doesn't miss. Nor does the hardware for the computer, as that IS the computer. The 'mech is just an extension of said computer.

Christopher Dayson, on 19 May 2012 - 04:14 PM, said:

That reminds me of something else: As heat rises, the target reticule could grow wider as the targeting computer gets futzy due to higher heat! Perfect.

This would be a perfectly suitable introduction. If the heat was 50%+, the electronics would start to get a bit screwy... Granted, there may already be enough going on in the cockpit at higher heat levels that this may not be necessary.

[Name140704]

I'm sure if there is a problem it will be addressed in/during the BETA we're all itching for. Not sure why all the worry. PGI isn't Microsoft, they won't drop the ball like M$ did for MW4. They've already made (99.9)10^23477452% more communication than M$, and the fact that PGI doesn't ignore us gives me hope.

Besides, your tears envigorate me. I need to relax before this game comes out.

[Sleeping Bear]

OMG, there is a whole shitload of whiners out there. The game is not even out yet and already a bunch of you are whining that it is going to be broken and too much like MW4. I think that we need to wait for the game to be released, or at least out in beta, before we start trying to nitpick it to death. This sounds like a case of a child crying because he wants vanilla and was given chocolate ice cream. Guess what? The second that spoiled little brat takes a lick of that chocolate ice cream, he starts saying that chocolate ice cream is the best ice cream in the world.

[Tyzh]

Christopher Dayson, on 19 May 2012 - 04:14 PM, said:

That reminds me of something else: As heat rises, the target reticule could grow wider as the targeting computer gets futzy due to higher heat! Perfect.

That actually sounds like a pretty entertaining idea.

Volthorne, on 19 May 2012 - 05:29 PM, said:

The computer doesn't miss. Nor does the hardware for the computer, as that IS the computer. The 'mech is just an extension of said computer.

I'm sorry, but I can't accept that. Being a computer does not make it infallible. And the hardware is not the computer. The hardware I was referring to are the limbs, the myomer and the electricity the computer sends that jerk limbs and guns around. It's not some pristine and perfect dance of math and numbers. The machine is built, in many ways, to mimic the systems of the human pilot you've already admitted is fallible. It is not as unreasonable as you want it to be that the weapon accuracy of the machine is within a certain functional limit, instead of perfect outside of pilot error.

[Faktopus Osis]

All I've been seeing in this thread is 1v1 light vs heavy/assault stand still and shoot me style fights. What i do not see, however, is the fact that in multiplayer matches (4v4/12v12) there can be more than one mech firing on another mech! its not "oh well it takes me twice as many turns to kill you" its "HEY IM IN A JENNER FACING DOWN AN ATLAS AND IM GETTING SCREWED, HELP ME OUT" whats that? TEAMWORK. regardless of what they do to armor values and ammo capacity etc its always going to boil down to how your lance works together compared to the enemy! if all 4 enemy mechs split up and my lance is running as a unit, focus firing down 1 at a time, even if we were all in mediums and there were 4 atlases, i doubt that the 4 atlas pilots are going to stand up to 4... lets say Mad Dog mechs... in a 1v4 fight because the lighter mechs have friends to back them up. Long story short, before we start freaking out about numbers changing... we need to get our hands on this game... like i dont know... an open beta? which is coming out fairly soon from what i hear... SEE FOR OURSELVES how it effects gameplay and if it feels like a for real mechwarrior title. if it makes it so no light mech can survive any encounter with a heavy/assault THEN post something so that the devs can address it and patch the game. ITS A BRAND NEW GAME, IT WONT BE PERFECT AT LAUNCH. just wait and see rather than blowing up the forums before we have concrete evidence!