1063 replies to this topic

[Doc Holliday]

Sug, on 28 February 2013 - 08:36 AM, said:

This thread needs to bite down on it's suicide tooth.

Sadly I don't think it has one.

[Vapor Trail]

Doc Holliday, on 28 February 2013 - 08:34 AM, said:

No, you greatly overestimate human ability. You're using the top 1% or fewer pilots as your example, and claiming that represents the playerbase at whole.

Better players SHOULD be able to be more effective. That's the whole point of a skill-based game. As I said from the very beginning, any of this crap being suggested does nothing but remove a large degree of player skill from the equation. It's nothing more than an attempt to remove pilot shooting skill and normalize things so that the only skills that matter are things like positioning, tactics, and teamwork. Those elements are also important in a shooter, but the primary skill in a shooter should always be the player's skill to actually shoot.

But this game is a SHOOTER, not a pure mech sim. It never will be a pure mech sim because it is built around SHOOTING.

If your idea of a mech SIM is a game where the mech does the shooting for you, then unfortunately you were deceived by PGI. That does not change the fact that this game is a SHOOTER and the mech does not do the shooting for you.

How does removing the Death Star effect "remove a large degree of player skill from the equation," or make the shooting side of the game easier so that "the only skills that matter are things like positioning, tactics, and teamwork," exactly?

If anything, it makes the game harder by requiring you to be more accurate with single shots, and judging when you can or can't make massive hits with large salvos. Which would require MORE skill to be good at the game, not less.

[Doc Holliday]

Vapor Trail, on 28 February 2013 - 08:44 AM, said:

How does removing the Death Star effect "remove a large degree of player skill from the equation," or make the shooting side of the game easier so that "the only skills that matter are things like positioning, tactics, and teamwork," exactly?

If anything, it makes the game harder by requiring you to be more accurate with single shots, and judging when you can or can't make massive hits with large salvos. Which would require MORE skill to be good at the game, not less.

You already have to judge when you can or can't make massive hits with large salvos. There's already a penalty for firing a massive salvo over a single weapon when the shot is questionable. That penalty is high heat buildup for nothing, or ammo wasted. If you shoot 6 weapons and hit nothing, that's 6 times the wasted resources over shooting one weapon and hitting nothing. Smaller weapons like SLas do less damage and waste less resources on a missed shot. Large weapons like PPCs waste a lot of resources on a missed shot. If you fire a salvo of 4PPCs and miss, you now have to spend some time waiting for that heat to dissipate. That's the penalty. And yes, even the very best of the best players miss some shots. That's what that weapon spread table in TT was originally intended to represent.

Weapon spread doesn't present you with any kind of additional depth in tactics. All it does is penalize you further for using multiple weapons simultaneously, for no reason.

The only way your position would have any merit is if everyone was using aimbots.

Edited by Doc Holliday, 28 February 2013 - 08:54 AM.

[urmamasllama]

Doc Holliday, on 28 February 2013 - 08:34 AM, said:

No, you greatly overestimate human ability. You're using the top 1% or fewer pilots as your example, and claiming that represents the playerbase at whole.

Better players SHOULD be able to be more effective. That's the whole point of a skill-based game. As I said from the very beginning, any of this crap being suggested does nothing but remove a large degree of player skill from the equation. It's nothing more than an attempt to remove pilot shooting skill and normalize things so that the only skills that matter are things like positioning, tactics, and teamwork. Those elements are also important in a shooter, but the primary skill in a shooter should always be the player's skill to actually shoot.

But this game is a SHOOTER, not a pure mech sim. It never will be a pure mech sim because it is built around SHOOTING.

If your idea of a mech SIM is a game where the mech does the shooting for you, then unfortunately you were deceived by PGI when they told you this game would be a sim. That does not change the fact that this game is a SHOOTER (not really a sim) and the mech does not do the shooting for you.

apparently i need to reiterate this everytime i post
I DO NOT CONDONE CONE OF FIRE
and that's where i've got you because now i know you haven't read my proposal at all because nothing i suggested would detract from player skill it would ADD to the skill cap while also adding realism and immersion to the game in the end nothing i suggested would affect lower level players because like you just said they won't pay attention to it. when i came up with my ideas i thought about

• how will this affect balance
  
• how will this affect normal players
  
• how will this affect skilled players

a normal player won't notice a small amount of consistent drift in one direction on his weapon and it won't affect the way he plays except for alpha builds that will quickly notice they aren't popping people as easily anymore.





higher level players will see the drift in their weaponry and be able to compensate for it

heck most pure shooters have head bobbing CoD and BF love head bobbing

let me give you a bit of my background MWO is really my first dive into the BT universe other than the mechpods at cons. my mecha gaming before this was 99% Armored core i'm not some sim purist like you assume i am. i am coming from playing FPSs and mech fighting games. as a shooter this game doesnt' feel right and as a mech sim it doesn't feel right. both on similar reasons

Edited by urmamasllama, 28 February 2013 - 08:58 AM.

[P e n u m b r a]

well single shots do low damage and will not have the stopping power to stop any mech that seriously wants to run full speed use line of sight and get in close. the bigger the target is the more of your cone will land = promotes close range combat where you will land the maximum amount of shots while firing as much as possible it would just become arcade button bashing why the hell cant you understand that??

[Doc Holliday]

urmamasllama, on 28 February 2013 - 08:50 AM, said:

and that's where i've got you because now i know you haven't read my proposal at all because nothing i suggested would detract from player skill it would ADD to the skill cap while also adding realism and immersion to the game in the end nothing i suggested would affect lower level players because like you just said they won't pay attention to it. when i came up with my ideas i thought about

• how will this affect balance
  
• how will this affect normal players
  
• how will this affect skilled players

a normal player won't notice a small amount of consistent drift in one direction on his weapon and it won't affect the way he plays except for alpha builds that will quickly notice they aren't popping people as easily anymore.








higher level players will see the drift in their weaponry and be able to compensate for it

heck most pure shooters have head bobbing CoD and BF love head bobbing

Those shooters also don't have legs that twist and move independently from the torso, they don't have different targeting reticles, they don't have multiple weapon groups to manage, etc. etc. So they can get away with head bobbing effect.

You're right, I didn't properly read your proposal. I personally wouldn't really have a problem with such a system as long as it keeps randomness out of the equation. But most other players would. You have to go for a happy medium between too much aiming skill and not enough, and I'm guessing the current system is right about there. If you put in too many things like that to manage you make your game too much of a niche game and you end up with too few players to support it.

However on the flip side, if you wanted to bring in the crowd of players who want less skill you have to start changing the things mentioned above and make the game BattleTech in name only. Basically, you'd have another Hawken. While those games have their place, I'm pretty sure no one would accept a game like Hawken as a BattleTech game no matter what Mech models and equipment you used. Simply adding randomness to aiming multiple precision weapons isn't going to bring in new players, nor is it going to keep any significant number of players from leaving. Bottom line, why break what's already working just to satisfy the whining of 89 people?

I believe this is exactly why, as good as it is, Red Orchestra never really became popular.

Le0yo, on 28 February 2013 - 08:55 AM, said:

well single shots do low damage and will not have the stopping power to stop any mech that seriously wants to run full speed use line of sight and get in close. the bigger the target is the more of your cone will land = promotes close range combat where you will land the maximum amount of shots while firing as much as possible it would just become arcade button bashing why the hell cant you understand that??

This is also an excellent point.

Edited by Doc Holliday, 28 February 2013 - 09:07 AM.

[The Trice]

Basically just copy the firing system of World of Tanks... accuracy, convergence, and shaking while firing,

[MaddMaxx]

Thedrelle, on 26 February 2013 - 10:01 AM, said:

Seconded.

Also, to anyone arguing that Torso Lasers can't converge, a simple lense on a gymbal in front of the apeture could redirect a laser beam anywhere you wanted it.

In fact, why don't they have polished mirror armor? deflect the lasers!

Both items are available, but sadly not until 3062.

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while a comparable Inner Sphere version of the Targeting Computer weighs one ton and occupies one critical slot for every four tons it controls

As noted above, Reflective Armor is also put into production in 3062. Hmmmm. That was a good year for the IS I guess.

[Der Geisterbaer]

Doc Holliday, on 28 February 2013 - 08:16 AM, said:

I think it's silly however that a light mech should be as easy to hit as a heavy mech in any format. Even in TT physical size should be accounted for with roll penalties.

In TT there aren't roll penalties due to size, at least not for combat between mechs. One reason being that by lore the weight differences actually don't directly translate into large size differences. The portrayed size differences here in MW:O are in some cases much larger than what the T:ROs of the mechs would indicate. Another reason being that the target's total movement during a turn (which is a correlation to mech weight class / size) is used as TN modifier.

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But that's all moot because there's one key difference between MechWarrior and TT Battletech. In MechWarrior you're controlling ONE mech, not a lance of four.

Might seem like a nitpick, but no, the individual player does not necessarily control a full lance (or star) in TT.
You can easily just control one single mech in an encounter. I have witnessed more than enough games where 8 people played just a single mech as part of an lance vs. lance encounter. TT merely opens the possibility to command several mechs at a time.

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If lights really were as outclassed by assaults as they are in lore no one would pilot them. There would be absolutely no point to use them at all.

Unless of course they fulfill specific roles within the scenario ... and then, going by the same lore: Assault mechs being too slow for certain operations, in group being too heavy for certain transportation ships and of course there are the simple econoomic reasons within the game universe as to why none of the successor states (not even the clans) can decide on sticking to assaults only.

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It should be easier to hit an Atlas than a Commando. It's over 4 times the size. That's so obvious I'm not sure why you'd even bother bringing it up.

Sorry, a four times higher mass doesn't translate into 4 times higher size.

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TT came before the lore did,

Debatable, since we cannot safely determine what went into the design process of TT.

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and the purpose of the random spread dice mechanic is to represent pilot error, not mech error.

Actually the random spread represents various things, but not necessarily pilot error. Pilot error/skill is used in the "to hit" roll, that uses a defined pilot skill (which can vary!), movement of attacker and target, increasing inaccuracy due to heat build up, terrain, distance to target. These factors are decided for every weapon that is fired separately. Only after successfully hitting the random spread comes into play ... and one could make good argument for the idea that spread here also comes from different time indexes the pilot was able to succesfully aim on an enemy mech and pressing "fire" at the right time, since overall one "round" in TT is from ingame perspective at least 10 seconds long.

So TT - despite using the term "alpha strike" - doesn't actually allow to do alpha strikes ... at least not in the sense of lore info or the video games.

Quote

So far exactly 89 people have "liked" the OP in this thread. I'm pretty sure there's a good deal more than 178 people who read this forum.

That falsely assumes that everybody who can relate to the OP's goals has actually "liked" the thread.

[P e n u m b r a]

stop talking about TT its balanced for turns and dice... it does not transfer into a working real time game with fun shooting elements, and stop ignoring the fact this really would just turn it into a boring arcade blast em up in close range it is battletech themed that is all. The board game is dead why do you think its a good role model? obviously not many people enjoyed it or thought it was fun.

Edited by Le0yo, 28 February 2013 - 09:20 AM.

[urmamasllama]

Small victories at least you finally understand what im saying

Le0yo, on 28 February 2013 - 09:13 AM, said:

stop talking about TT its balanced for turns and dice... it does not transfer into a working real time game with fun shooting elements, and stop ignoring the fact this really would just turn it into a boring arcade blast em up in close range it is battletech themed that is all. The board game is dead why do you think its a good role model? obviously not many people enjoyed it or thought it was fun.

except that they are using the TT as the basis for how they balance the mechs

Edited by urmamasllama, 28 February 2013 - 09:25 AM.

[Doc Holliday]

You know what, I am done with this dead horse thread.

Every possible argument that can be made in favor of altering the core weapon design in this game has already been made and refuted. Multiple times.

If you have a relevant question for me, go back and reread all my posts. You will find that all those questions have already been more than adequately answered, and probably two or three times.

If it hasn't already been answered, it's not relevant.

[Der Geisterbaer]

Le0yo, on 28 February 2013 - 09:13 AM, said:

stop talking about TT its balanced for turns and dice...

Stop wasting your interjections when false claims about the TT are used as an argument by your own "side".

Quote

it does not transfer into a working real time game with fun shooting elements

You see that's one of the things you (and others) repeat constantly, but somehow cannot actually prove. I'll just pick up something that I just mentioned: Lacking inaccuracy due to heat. Doc could rightfully argue that TT uses that mechanic (in form of TN modifiers) in order to reflect the pilot suffering from the heat in a mech's cockpit (that goes way beyond 60°C by lore) during rising heat levels. Now despite some of our PCs could serve as heater, the game itself simply cannot put such a pressure one the playing gamer. Thus if one were trying to implement something that tries to simulate rising heat levels and the resulting inaccuracy of the pilot ... what technical solution would that require?

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stop ignoring the fact this really would just turn it into a boring arcade blast em up in close range

I'll leave judging of "boredom" to an anonymous mass instead of a vocal minority. And as far as close range brawling goes ... ~hmm~ interestingly enough that pretty much sums up 31th century warefare in the BattleTech universe ... ~grin~

Edited by Der Geisterbaer, 28 February 2013 - 09:31 AM.

[Roland]

Le0yo, on 28 February 2013 - 08:55 AM, said:

well single shots do low damage and will not have the stopping power to stop any mech that seriously wants to run full speed use line of sight and get in close. the bigger the target is the more of your cone will land = promotes close range combat where you will land the maximum amount of shots while firing as much as possible it would just become arcade button bashing why the hell cant you understand that??

I think this is a valid concern, although it kind of stems from the doubling of armor and such. To some extent, the need to group weapons together into large alphas is linked to needing to do twice as much damage to punch through a mech.

For instance, if armor wasn't doubled, you'd only need to land two PPC shots on a head section to kill a mech, rather than needing to land 4.

I agree with your concern here, in that additional inaccuracy really only impacts long range play, as once you enter into close combat, the "cone" from whatever inaccuracy addition you have basically stops having any meaning. It doesn't matter if there is spread, since you're so close that all the weapons are gonna hit one location anyway.

The other valid argument against inaccuracy is that it really wouldn't impact missile weapons at all. Currently, LRM's are kind of garbage anyway, but SRM's are certainly not. Given that they already spread damage all over, adding inaccuracy to direct fire weapons would indeed further strengthen SRM's, which do not need a buff.

[P e n u m b r a]

Game would be gutted why bother with terrain when both teams will just want to get point blank, with a cone or rng system. if you were to take any long ranged load out you would be gimping yourself. the game moves faster than table top, you can cover ground and get in there alot faster. Close range and firing as much as possible would be the most efficient combat. and this does also not happen in table top ither being turn based! every weapon fires at the same recycle time. For it to work how you imagine in BT you would need the whole system of rolls turns etc it would have to literally be battletech TT. They all ready had to double the Armour this is proof it does not work and your suggestion to fix it is add RNG? RNG that tips the game into one gutted meta the tt balance is a starting point a foundation, it will get changed to work and I hope they do because these suggestions from a game design point of view are horrific, like i said battletech board game is dead its not a good role model.

putting the Armour values back will do nothing so what you hit something once at long range and do a bit more damage hes still going to rip your balls off close range as he will do more damage back to you also....

stop and really have a think about what you are suggesting think about what would be the most efficient way to succeed in the game with said rules applied and you will see its really just bland.

Edited by Le0yo, 28 February 2013 - 09:55 AM.

[Zyllos]

Seems to me people are still on the boat of RNG...

There has been a suggestion on how to fix convergence without any random spread, but everyone keeps coming back to it.

"RNG this...", "RNG that..."

Remove convergence all together (for individual weapons) and let the arms to point directly at the Arm crosshair and leave the torso pointed directly at the Torso crosshair. But the individual weapons themselves fires directly straight.

No RNG, but convergence is removed.

Now that we have a way to remove convergence without a RNG, resume debating...

Hell, you could allow Torso mounted weaponry to converge on the Torso crosshair at it's optimum range and it will still fix the issue.

[P e n u m b r a]

having the torso directly forward would also be horrible and clunky can you imagine it you would literally have to joust each other just horrible... would also make any mech with more arm weapons way stronger than other mechs more thinking!

Edited by Le0yo, 28 February 2013 - 10:10 AM.

[Terror Teddy]

urmamasllama, on 28 February 2013 - 09:23 AM, said:

except that they are using the TT as the basis for how they balance the mechs

Which does not mean that they use the TT literally when balancing the mechs - in the same way that one should not take religious texts literally because then bad things tend to happen.

After all, would you like risking falling down due to pilot check whenever you land with jump jets? Or skill checks to void shutdown risks when at about 80% heat due to penalties?

The boardgame also includes a crapload of fluff text within the rules set that can ALSO be used for game balance purposes.

[Vapor Trail]

Roland, on 28 February 2013 - 09:40 AM, said:

I think this is a valid concern, although it kind of stems from the doubling of armor and such. To some extent, the need to group weapons together into large alphas is linked to needing to do twice as much damage to punch through a mech.

For instance, if armor wasn't doubled, you'd only need to land two PPC shots on a head section to kill a mech, rather than needing to land 4.

I agree with your concern here, in that additional inaccuracy really only impacts long range play, as once you enter into close combat, the "cone" from whatever inaccuracy addition you have basically stops having any meaning. It doesn't matter if there is spread, since you're so close that all the weapons are gonna hit one location anyway.

This is true... however, having a cone of fire does not necessarily mean that every weapon has the same cone. A set of medium lasers might have a fairly sizeable cone when fired together, several mils at least, which makes it likely that if fired together at medium range they'll hit different sections, or maybe miss altogether. A set of Large Lasers might have a mil or less. At medium range (for Large Lasers) they're more likely to hit different sections, or maybe miss altogether, but that 'medium' range is quite long for medium lasers.

Long range weaponry is supposed more accurate than short range weaponry is. It's part of what makes long range, direct fire weaponry desirable in the first place.

Roland, on 28 February 2013 - 09:40 AM, said:

The other valid argument against inaccuracy is that it really wouldn't impact missile weapons at all. Currently, LRM's are kind of garbage anyway, but SRM's are certainly not. Given that they already spread damage all over, adding inaccuracy to direct fire weapons would indeed further strengthen SRM's, which do not need a buff.

Not an argument against inaccuracy. Simply an indication of possibly needed change if it's adopted.

If necessary, LRMs and SRMs could have their damage backed off. SRMs are currently 0.5 damage per missile over TT, while LRMs are 0.8 damage per missile over TT, right? The damage levels don't sound big like that, but how about another way: SRMs are 25% more powerful on a per missile basis than TT and cycle between 60 and 65% faster than TT, and LRMs are 80% more powerful and cycle 55-65% faster.

Edited by Vapor Trail, 28 February 2013 - 10:19 AM.

[Belorion]

Weapons are pretty much close to where they need to be a/k/a balanced.