1063 replies to this topic

[Snoopy]

I totally agree with the OP.


But I'm not sure how PGI defines FPS and how this will effect the future of the game : FPS

Does PGI want to build a Mechwarrior First Person Shooter or a Mechwarrior First Person Simulator ?

[B4silisk]

Bump

[Krzysztof z Bagien]

[Pht]

Niko Snow, on 28 April 2013 - 09:24 PM, said:

Finally going to speak up in this thread which I've been watching grow for months now and try to ask a question without hurting the sensitivities of anyone involved....

Oh, come on now, bring on the klog-stompers!

[MajorChunks]

Niko Snow, on 28 April 2013 - 09:24 PM, said:

Finally going to speak up in this thread which I've been watching grow for months now and try to ask a question without hurting the sensitivities of anyone involved.... am I the only one here reading the title in the voice of Invader Zim?

Every time, and repeatedly.

[Karazyr]

i seriously dont see why you all put so much stock in the table top rules, your aware they dont work in realy time right? its because they originally followed those rules that the game is unbalanced, i say let them do what they think is right and screw the TT rules.

[Critical Fumble]

Derrpy, on 01 May 2013 - 08:10 AM, said:

i seriously dont see why you all put so much stock in the table top rules, your aware they dont work in realy time right? its because they originally followed those rules that the game is unbalanced, i say let them do what they think is right and screw the TT rules.

Actually, that's not at all what happened in this case.

In TT rules, shots are reasonably hard to land on a specific point, and an alpha strike will almost certainly spread across the mech. They chose to ignore inherent inaccuracy - to some extent this is good - but in the process they compromised the balance of the game in armor depletion.

They could just throw all the TT rules out, but then they've mostly wasted the money they used to buy the rights to use this IP.

[RainbowToh]

Basically OP wants that, the bigger your alpha boat strike, the bigger the spread, which i think is fairly reasonable.

[HRR Mary]

Niko Snow, on 28 April 2013 - 09:24 PM, said:

Finally going to speak up in this thread which I've been watching grow for months now and try to ask a question without hurting the sensitivities of anyone involved.... am I the only one here reading the title in the voice of Invader Zim?

The title was in essence a combination of a catchy title with some light-hearted humor, to gather the most view and diverse opinion. Glad you picked that up

The fact that this thread continues to pop up at regular interval shows that people care about the ideas exposed, I'm just chagrined it starts building up support only now, as Insanity (and most of our unit) has stopped playing until "something new and fun" comes up in MWO.

[Critical Fumble]

HRR Mary, on 02 May 2013 - 04:04 AM, said:

The title was in essence a combination of a catchy title with some light-hearted humor, to gather the most view and diverse opinion. Glad you picked that up

The fact that this thread continues to pop up at regular interval shows that people care about the ideas exposed, I'm just chagrined it starts building up support only now, as Insanity (and most of our unit) has stopped playing until "something new and fun" comes up in MWO.

The single-point alpha has reared its ugly head. If that fades away then, unfortunately, so would most of the interest even though its probably one of the most future-proof ideas put forward.

Funny meta comment here: he's more right than most people are willing to admit. I can't think of any time that something that couldn't strike one location regularly got the widespread "OP/not fun" label. SSRMs got it hard when they were mostly striking torsos; long, long ago MLs got it because of the Deathstar hunchie; the GR and AC/20 Cats got it; Ilya with GR got it; LRMs get it bad when the flight path obviously breaks and they home in on the CT or head like a swarm of angry bees; the SRM Cat also got this as a distinguishing feature that was used to argue against this point - that because the missiles spread it isn't true, but in reality the true danger of the thing was when you were close enough that most of the alpha would strike a single hitbox.

[Vapor Trail]

Back when we had regular GD (which is where the thread resided then) a rule of thumb was "if it doesn't have an over the top title... it'll disappear into the dead zone in three minutes."

All I've got to add at this point is that we're roughly 5 months after the original post (though the original thread was a few months older) and the (apparently) most hated builds (according to the forums) are all builds that utilize high-damage, long-range, single point strikes.

Most of the community proposed fixes for PCC boating involve increasing heat. Unless you increase heat significantly (returning the PPC to TT stats only adds 12 heat per shot to the Hex Stalker. The mechanics of the mech build won't change significantly. It'll still one-shot lights, and two-shot most heavies. It'll just take a total of ~7 seconds longer to cool off / start up. Which isn't going to do the dead mech on the receiving end much good.

Having that second salvo scatter because you're sitting on 75%+ heat would do a lot more to curb that particular situation.

[MustrumRidcully]

Critical Fumble, on 01 May 2013 - 08:48 AM, said:

Actually, that's not at all what happened in this case.

In TT rules, shots are reasonably hard to land on a specific point, and an alpha strike will almost certainly spread across the mech. They chose to ignore inherent inaccuracy - to some extent this is good - but in the process they compromised the balance of the game in armor depletion.

They could just throw all the TT rules out, but then they've mostly wasted the money they used to buy the rights to use this IP.

Oh, I think there is value in using Battletech models and story elements.

There is little value in taking table top stats, and then changing everything around them so the base assumptions that made these values even (sometimes only remotely) balanced are no longer true.

Of course, you could probably start with the table top stats, and then change the base assumptions conciously and adapt whatever needs changing so the stats still make sense.

But the approach so far seems more random and unfocused then concious, deliberate design.

[HRR Mary]

@ Critical Fumble and Vapor Trail : the thing is that the current proposals to "counter" the meta are only looking at symptoms not cause. What they will engender is only the actual "op" weapon to be replaced by another one (or combination of), ad nauseam.

I do hope that the DEVs will consider going back on the Heat Scale and "damage spread when alpha"... I'm pretty sure those two points are the source of 60% of the lack of weapon balance.

@MustrumRidicully : My thoughts exactly.

[Kanjejou]

Spread for alphastriking could be interesting and heat maluses maybe too.

Right know its annoying to see boat being more effecitv 80% of the time.

Edited by Kanjejou, 03 May 2013 - 07:46 AM.

[Pht]

Derrpy, on 01 May 2013 - 08:10 AM, said:

i seriously dont see why you all put so much stock in the table top rules, your aware they dont work in realy time right?

They can and do work in real time:

http://mwomercs.com/...different-idea/

Quote

its because they originally followed those rules that the game is unbalanced,...

They didn't work from the tt combat rules. In the closed beta they took the tt weapons and armor stats, but NOT the rules those stats were built for.

Which led to insanely quick deaths. So they doubled the armor values. Which screwed up the weapons balance, so they started tweaking the weapons, and the weapons balance has been screwed up ever since.

Quote

i say let them do what they think is right and screw the TT rules.

They have been. Doubled armor, upped rate of fire, they absolutely never used the to-hit and hit-location combat rules that the tt weapons and armor stats were built to work with (and which represent not the skill of the mechwarrior, but the combat performance of the 'mechs).

MustrumRidcully, on 02 May 2013 - 10:34 PM, said:

Of course, you could probably start with the table top stats, and then change the base assumptions conciously and adapt whatever needs changing so the stats still make sense.

But the approach so far seems more random and unfocused then concious, deliberate design.

Who knows what kind of plans they had for converting over the TT system stuff... or by what standard they decided which parts they would even consider converting over.

The way things are falling out, I'm beginning to suspect these plans and standards may not have been very systematic or comprehensive...?

[TheForce]

Shouldn't this be in the gameplay balance forum? Cause if they don't deal with group fire and pinpoint accuracy, they can't balance this to the lore.

[Skinflowers]

Important discussion which needs to stay current.

Rather than construct a long, rambling post and offering argument and counter argument to every post made here, there have been some good ones so no need to over egg the pudding, i'll just say this; try it PGI.

It's beta test. So employ it as intended. Test it.

[Pht]

Skinflowers, on 04 May 2013 - 03:36 AM, said:

Important discussion which needs to stay current.

Rather than construct a long, rambling post and offering argument and counter argument to every post made here, there have been some good ones so no need to over egg the pudding, i'll just say this; try it PGI.

It's beta test. So employ it as intended. Test it.

Amen.

[Merit Lef]

Insanity, you bring up some good points and glad that more people are trying to bring depth and balance to the game. If you have the chance to read there is another form that I think you would like that discusses some similar topics you have brought up. Practically the group firing. http://mwomercs.com/...skilled-pilots/

[Aidan McRae]

HRR Insanity, on 07 January 2013 - 05:12 PM, said:

The original post.

^
This, devs, is *the* fix to the game. It explains and rectifies all the current problems with the game. I've been playing since CB and I -- idiotically -- couldn't figure out why boats like swayback or 2PPC/Gauss poptarts, 6 LL Stalk or 6 PPC Stalk, were such amazing builds. OF COURSE hitting with 2-6x of the same damage on a single part of a Mech is going to be better than having diversity of weapons, like an SRM/AC/Laser build -- I'm spreading damage...like original CBT...*cough* the way it was intended. (On a side note, you could target a region of a Mech on your shot...for like a 4 modifier to your 2d6 roll. Yeah, no thanks on that)

Do this. Or we have the problem you were trying to avoid with your double armor values: very very quick deaths. Let us bop'em and sock'em with either some randomness or some restriction to weapon-group Alphas. You rolled for EACH weapon in CBT, so...why not just make it so no weapons can be grouped except shotgunners like LBX or SRM...oh wait, that's pretty much a cone effect...hm...