58 replies to this topic

[Shibas]

Zyllos, on 28 December 2012 - 11:41 AM, said:

You will never fix trial/stock mechs without doing my suggestions.

For those who say you can't apply TT turn based mechanics to a real time FPS, math anybody?

But this thread shows that the world is not ready for a 100% FPS Battletech game. So it is a lost cause...which is very sad.

I can almost smell the smugness of that post.The only problem is that you don't actually resolve anything about the trial mechs.  Sure, your introduction to a heat penalty and changing the rate of fire on weapons and heat dissipation would slow the game down, but it really doesn't do anything about the problem itself.  Your changes in no way alters the heat management and overheating issues of a trial mech that only has X SHS. You're still gonna over heat in the same number of shots just at a slightly slower rate.  So instead of 3 shots over 15 seconds to overheat, it's now 3 shots over 30 seconds.
What's being proposed here is a solid idea by not having to change and overhaul the system already in place, but instead using it to offer a more user friendly introduction to the game.  The biggest problem would be the fact that nobody would be using the stock mechs at all and they would be place holders. At that point it would be a good way to introduce a stock mech only play type so that they could actually be used.

[Reavermyst]

Personally, I do like MOST of the trial mechs in design. My only beef with the rest is that they're heavy on heat Sinks when they don't really need them or have tons of ammunition that many of use won't even go through. I believe future trial mechs should be better equipped, but not so to where they're preferred over owned Chassis. The Trial Stalker right now is a pretty good build for what it is and serves as a good alternative if I don't feel like running my other Hunchback.

[SaJeel]

Also i disagree with everything Zyllos and think it would detract from the game ^^

[Helter]

Reavermyst, on 29 December 2012 - 07:46 AM, said:

Personally, I do like MOST of the trial mechs in design. My only beef with the rest is that they're heavy on heat Sinks when they don't really need them or have tons of ammunition that many of use won't even go through.

You know, I've heard a lot of opinions people have about the trial mechs. I must say, calling any of them oversinked is a new one.

[DocBach]

I would love to see a gameplay mode option where only stock 'Mechs were allowed. Especially if we didn't have to own the 'Mechs, just select from a list and drop. I'd even be pleased if they only included the stock configurations from the Technical Readouts, like just the AS7-D Atlas out of all the Atlas chassis, or the AWS-8Q Awesome.

[Helter]

Aside from the fact that stock mechs generally aren't that fun to drive even when going up against other stock mechs, I really don't think fragmenting the playerbase is the answer. The 8-man queue is already a ghost town during prime time (even though it's the most fun and challenging way to play, imo). I don't think a stock mech mode would be attractive to enough people to be worth it.

[Zyllos]

Shibas, on 29 December 2012 - 07:41 AM, said:

I can almost smell the smugness of that post.The only problem is that you don't actually resolve anything about the trial mechs. Sure, your introduction to a heat penalty and changing the rate of fire on weapons and heat dissipation would slow the game down, but it really doesn't do anything about the problem itself. Your changes in no way alters the heat management and overheating issues of a trial mech that only has X SHS. You're still gonna over heat in the same number of shots just at a slightly slower rate. So instead of 3 shots over 15 seconds to overheat, it's now 3 shots over 30 seconds.
What's being proposed here is a solid idea by not having to change and overhaul the system already in place, but instead using it to offer a more user friendly introduction to the game. The biggest problem would be the fact that nobody would be using the stock mechs at all and they would be place holders. At that point it would be a good way to introduce a stock mech only play type so that they could actually be used.

I was not being smug, but serious. You absolutely can not fix heat management with SHS (which are basically all Stock mechs) with the current RoF because it is unmanageable compared with control of having smaller weapons with less heat.

Also, how would slowing down RoF make you over heat in the same number of shots? You even present a situation which defeats your own argument:

Quote

...So instead of 3 shots over 15 seconds to overheat, it's now 3 shots over 30 seconds...

Let's look at this.

If you have a weapon system which produces 30 heat in 3 shots over 15s, or 10 heat per shot with a 5s cooldown. This weapon system would produce 2.0 heat per second.

If you took that same weapon system and applied it to the slower RoF, you then have 30 heat in 3 shots over 30s, or 10 heat per shot with a 10s cooldown, producing 1.0 heat per second.

Based on this, 10 SHS would allow this weapon system to be heat neutral in the second situation (0.1 dissipation per SHS * 10 = 1.0 dissipation per second) while the first situation would produce 1.0 heat per second while firing as fast as possible.

Also, what I suggested does not change or overhaul any system. It is basically taking one number assigned to each weapon and doubling it's value, in a text file. This is the most simplist change possible and makes quite the difference.

And, once this is done, if you want to retain the current "speed" of firing, equip more weapons. Which was the whole point of the system in the first place. You gained your high RoF of weapons by equipping a number of the same weapon, not by upping the RoF and then invalidating larger weapon systems by not allowing them to fire any faster due to too much heat.

[Helter]

Zyllos, on 31 December 2012 - 08:34 AM, said:

A bunch of nonsense

I've refrained from replying to you thus far because I thought it was kind of hilarious that you had the audacity to quote yourself on the first page with something totally off-topic. Now, it's just getting old.

This thread is not about flaws in the current heat management system, perceived or otherwise. If you wish to discuss that, please do so in a more appropriate thread.

However, if you'd like to stick around here and discuss ways of improving the trial mech offerings without making sweeping balance changes, then by all means stick around and contribute.

[Zyllos]

Helter, on 31 December 2012 - 09:09 AM, said:

I've refrained from replying to you thus far because I thought it was kind of hilarious that you had the audacity to quote yourself on the first page with something totally off-topic. Now, it's just getting old.

This thread is not about flaws in the current heat management system, perceived or otherwise. If you wish to discuss that, please do so in a more appropriate thread.

However, if you'd like to stick around here and discuss ways of improving the trial mech offerings without making sweeping balance changes, then by all means stick around and contribute.

Still trying to determine what is "sweeping" changes...

Also, your suggestions on the front page is what should be considered "sweeping". Your basically asking PGI to remove all the TRO designs with customly built ones to fit a heat system which is out of balance.

I am so confounded as to why people are so afraid of having slower firing, in a game that was ment to be built around firing weapons only once every 10s?

Heck, you can even accomplish the same objective by reducing the ratio of heat/damage inline with 10s while upping the RoF. That also accomplishes the very same thing as just lowering the RoF.

[Helter]

I never said TRO designs should be removed, nothing of the sort. I said that they often don't work well as trial mechs, and presented an alternative that should work within the confines of the game as it stands right now, and should continue working regardless of any balance changes down the line because it inherently acknowledges that the game is and will always be in some variable state of flux.

I believe that my suggestion would, in fact, do nothing at all to the overall balance of the game itself, since the trial mechs would simply be pre-customized versions of stuff already there. You may or may not have noticed, but the vast majority of designs encountered while playing tend to be customized in some form or other.

I am not proposing any changes to weapons, hardpoint layouts, the heat system, ECM, or anything else like that. I am simply suggesting a way to make trial mechs less frustrating for new players.

So, once again: if you want to change the way heat works or how weapons behave, this is not the thread for it.

[Mazgazine1]

this is a great idea, what this would also force PGI to do is make a web-based mechlab to create the designs. (Or adopt ones that already exist).

[Monathin]

Zyllos, on 31 December 2012 - 09:17 AM, said:

Still trying to determine what is "sweeping" changes...

Also, your suggestions on the front page is what should be considered "sweeping". Your basically asking PGI to remove all the TRO designs with customly built ones to fit a heat system which is out of balance.

I am so confounded as to why people are so afraid of having slower firing, in a game that was ment to be built around firing weapons only once every 10s?

Heck, you can even accomplish the same objective by reducing the ratio of heat/damage inline with 10s while upping the RoF. That also accomplishes the very same thing as just lowering the RoF.

Count "one Mississippi, two Mississippi" all the way up to ten. Do you really want to be firing once that long? It would basically boil down to "who fires first wins", since the current situation isn't rolling a dice to confirm hits, but actually aiming at people to fire lasers at them. Trying to implement the time of classic tabletop unds to an FPS is out of the question, because heat balancing is a core mechanic right now of determining who wins. A heat inefficient mech (either undersinked or overloaded with weapons) will tend to lose out because its not about firing fast, it's about firing constantly. Your suggestions combined with the balance changes PGI put in already (such as doubling armor) would slow game pace to a crawl, and the game is already at a steady balance between pace and feeling like you are actually piloting a mech.

Firing once every ten seconds would destroy any concept of balance the game currently has, only so you can have your perfect 1-to-1 battletech game. And then you say you can't fix things without your changes?

Make your own thread about the changes you want to do instead of clogging up this one. The problem with trials is not the heat system or firing rates, but how they're built.

[Werewolf486 ScorpS]

Lets fix up the jalopies! NO....

[Helter]

Werewolf486, on 31 December 2012 - 06:11 PM, said:

Lets fix up the jalopies! NO....

I'm having difficulty parsing this, would you mind rephrasing? Are you saying that you enjoy the easy kill that the trial mechs currently bring to the table? Because that seems mighty selfish and not at all friendly to new players if so.

[GreatBeer]

I am more than happy to make a bunch of new trial mechs for you, PGI. Please replace them, they are awful.

[Runenstahl]

Am I alone when I say that the trial mechs aren't that bad ? I have to admit I only tried the centurion and the stalker so far (makes more sense to pilot your own mechs where you can actually use the XP and money you earn), but they didn't seem bad at all.

They do have a rather broad array of close and ranged weapons instead of specializing in close combat or ranged combat. And yes, most of them don't have "high end" items like XL engines or ferro fibrous armor. So what ? That only means you have something to look forward for. And the difference isn't actually THAT big. Skill matters much more then the question of having 12 % more armor or not.

And as long as your still learning (and are probably a rather bad pilot) it doesn't matter in which mech your are blown up.

Having a broad array of weapons has also pros: you can actually "test" out several different weapons (and therefore combat) types with just one mech.

Fact is: I didn't think (and still don't) of the trial-mechs as weak or boring at all.

Edited by Runenstahl, 02 January 2013 - 11:13 AM.

[Xandralkus]

The issue is that weapons (globally) generate too much heat. Ten or so heat sinks on a trial mech is currently not enough to provide sufficient cooling.

I address this problem, and many more problems, in the following post:

http://mwomercs.com/...20#entry1477020

Included is a global rebalancing of all weapon values, including heat. With the changes detailed within, all trial builds would be combat-competent and not prone to excessive overheating, even on Caustic Valley.

[Helter]

Runenstahl, on 01 January 2013 - 10:09 PM, said:

Am I alone when I say that the trial mechs aren't that bad ? I have to admit I only tried the centurion and the stalker so far (makes more sense to pilot your own mechs where you can actually use the XP and money you earn), but they didn't seem bad at all.

Not all of them are, and the current trial Stalker and Centurion are certainly the least bad/most forgiving of the current bunch.

The issue is (usually) not that the weapon loadout on a given trial mech is particularly bad. Aggressively mediocre, sure, but usually not outright terrible. The biggest problem that I see is that they are almost universally criminally undersinked. This really isn't even PGI's fault most of the time, as they're working off of the canon tabletop builds which were frequently the same way. It's usually easy enough to fix once you own the mech simply by swapping out a couple big weapons for smaller, cooler versions and using space saved for more heatsinks (or simply just switching to DHS), but new players don't have that option off the bat and are stuck frustrating themselves by overheating on Caustic and then being forced to wait half the match to cool down enough to fire their trial Dragon's medium laser again.

The point is that trial mechs should never be frustrating for a new player. They don't need to be super-optimized FOTM killing machines, and they should be able to overheat if you aren't careful, but not to the point of becoming immediately useless/dead if you make the mistake of doing it a place like the caldera on Caustic (see earlier posts for detail on that).

[Remora]

If you want to play tabletop, go play tabletop. I tried to type things about how much tabletop fluff makes piloting a mech sound like an excruciating ordeal that would make for a ****** godawful video game but all I could think of was "**** YOU GO AWAY" and that would be mean to say.

So just go away and take your terribad ideas with you please, you make everyone around you sad