Here is an issue I have with most people's reaction to holding on to TT rules. They don't understand the Table Top game and so make assumptions about it, usually incorrect assumptions. To address specific arguments against working closer to TT.
1. "To slow. This is a FPS and so weapon fire rates can't be the same as a Turn in TT is 10 seconds."
It could very much work, what is lacking is imagination. Everyone assumes that in that 10 seconds each mech fired each weapon once. So the assumption is 1 bullet came out of a machine gun every 10 seconds? Silly when you think about it that way, right? What people need to understand is that you don't slavishly keep Damage, heat, ammo the same and then change rate of fire. That is just silly.
Instead PGI should have kept it so that weapons average out to TT values over that 10 seconds. I said it in closed Beta, I will say it again.
AC 20 - RoF 5 seconds - Heat 3.5 - Dam. 10 (double amount of "Shots" from a ton)
Med Laser - RoF None (Depress button turns beam on). 10 seconds of firing does 5 damage and generates 3 heat.
PPC - RoF 5 seconds - Heat 4.5 - Dam 5
Now your armor doesn't have to be doubled since values are still the same as TT. In addition forcing weapons to spread damage out between shots means 20 damage won't go to one section from an AC 20 unless they are very good shots. Notice we are still rewarding aiming skills.
2. "You can't randomize shooting, it removes the skill."
No it doesn't. You don't even have to randomize heavily, but you make certain weapon mounts work better than others for convergence. Many, many, many, modern games use randomization to determine where a weapon shoots. Hell, another mech game Hawken does. The longer you depress the firing button the more random it gets.
I am currently playing Borderlands 2 on a regular basis and having recoil drive my gun off target and making my shots less accurate adds a good deal to the game. The weapons are "balanced" by this. I have a character with a rotary barreled mini-gun style rifle with 140 ammo capacity. That gun is perfect for chewing up large heavy health targets because the accuracy isn't so much needed as it continues to fire but the amount of shots it can put out is important. The firing circle goes from pencil eraser sized up to drinking glass sized.
Other weapons work great in bursts. Using that we can "randomize" without using dice. This makes continuous pinpoint shots less likely as bullets and beams sway off target from one moving weapon platform to the other.
3. "TT doesn't properly reflect physics or a FPS experience."
No, but it actually does a better job of roughly representing it than any MW computer game so far. Many of you seem to forget that the mech you are driving around should be bouncing you all over the place. I have yet to see a game that would properly "jiggle" the reticle/cockpit/pilot around. The reason behind the Mechwarrior mythos is that the battlemechs can go where normal combat vehicles can't and act in ways they can't.
What we get in all MW games is a tank with extra turrets. This is done for simplicity and I understand, but I REALLY wish the would add the shake of running around in a giant mecha in. If running really wrecked someone's aim the way it does in TT you would require a LOT more skill to pop those shots into the CT of even an Atlas. Standing still makes you a better target but also gives you easier shots.
Instead we all have super shocks that make our ride smooth and our reticle doesn't bounce unless we step on a slight bit of terrain. This is yet another thing that gives us "Super Aim" and makes armor values ridiculous compared to the weapon damages.
4. "Why not just go play TT if you like TT that much."
I do! There are, however, times when I want to do more than just look down at my forces on the table. I want to view it from the cockpit. I still want it to be Mechwarrior though, and not Hawken/Gundam/Shogo. I want my mechs falling apart because 3 generations or more have used them in battle. I want gritty teeth shaking, "Oh no... my heat is too high!" combat. MWO comes close but still lacks a few things.
5. "If they followed TT it would be unbalanced."
I'll point out again. If they followed TT:
* When you ran your aim would be off a bit, so Jenners circling you at 140 KPH would have a hard time hitting you just like you would have a have a hard time hitting them.
* Instead of just blowing you up, heat would affect your Reticle and movement speed. Your accuracy would degrade as you built up more and more heat and your mech systems started to fail under the stress so heat management would be even more important.
* Weapons would be fairly accurate, but not pinpoint accurate. Boating 10 of something would not be any better than firing 10 times with 1 of the same weapons. RNG would not determine if you hit or miss, but might determine how far a shot drifted OR cockpit shake and non-ultra smooth ride would make it harder to hold your reticle on target.
* ECM would not stop LRMs from direct firing all by their lonesome, nor would it stop Streaks from firing, they just wouldn't "Lock On". ECM wouldn't "hide" mechs from "radar"
* Physical attacks would prevent mechs from wanting to "hug" bigger mechs in an attempt to avoid their fire.
*Mechs could fire behind them with backward mounted weapons or "flip arms" if they lacked lower actuators to bring those weapons to fire upon those that are behind them.
* A BV system would determine what types of mechs you faced based off of what mechs were on your side and the skill of who was piloting them.
* Off board artillery could called in on "clumps" of mechs making the "blob up and FF" "tactic" less desirable as well as slow heavily armored mechs.
Some of these probably just haven't arrived like Physical Attacks/Knockdown and artillery, but others are noticeably lacking and would help balanced certain things out without having to go, "Lets give someone boating more heat for no logical reason. ". Sticking "closer" to TT values and rules weeds out some of the issues and causes others, but the TT rules have a lot of balance from the years of playing and it seems silly to throw those out because, "Those don't work in a sim based off of them."
6. "The rules don't matter as long as the flavor is there."
Sorry, the flavor is a direct result of those rules. That flavor came from those core rules. That is the reason certain things were written the way they are. The rules were written and then the reasons for them explained away in the mythos/flavor/fluff/canon. Why can't a battlemech do X? Because it is a machine that has been through countless battles and been patched together by technicians that only basically understand how it works... which means the rules don't let you and that is our excuse for that.
I don't care if you change the AC 20. I do care if you make a Large Laser do more damage than an AC 20. I do care if you make the AC 20 not require ammo. Just because I say I want things close to TT doesn't mean I am going to force you all to fire once every 10 seconds and have virtual dice popping up on screen. It means I want a simulation where the AC 20 is the premier short range, big damage, weapon. It means I want a simulation where "Fire Support" means something as does "Recon Lance". NOT "Big stompy robots FPS". Because I can mod the skins in CoD or some other game engine and have "Big stompy robots FPS". without having Mechwarrior/Battletech easily enough.
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Mechwarrior Buddah, on 26 December 2012 - 10:15 PM, said:
