54 replies to this topic

[Panzerjotun]

The trial mechs are a horrible introduction to the game for new players. In the min/max environment of mwo they are ovens that serve as cannon fodder.

[Escef]

Joseph Mallan, on 14 February 2013 - 05:48 AM, said:

What is killing the trail Mechs is the heat system & the definition of "a turn"

A turn is 10 seconds. In that 10 seconds one moves (constantly) Fires ones weapons ONCE, (TT also had physical attacks)weapons reload/recharge AND VENT HEAT. All this in ten seconds. We don't have Physicals, weapons cyclic times were Buffed but Sinks are taking a full turn to vent. Not how the mechanic should work.

Someone needs to read the old Solaris 7 dueling rules.

[Joseph Mallan]

If the heat system worked as intended... The Trial Mechs would still be inferior to Customs but not AS inferior. A 9M should be able to fire a 3/3/2 rhythm with the ERPPCs all game without over heating! THAT's WHY IT'S AN AWESOME!

Escef, on 14 February 2013 - 05:57 AM, said:

Someone needs to read the old Solaris 7 dueling rules.

I did read them. They sucked! As alternative rules they have never been used for standard or official tournament play for a reason.

[Asmosis]

The stock atlas DC D or w/e its called kicks ***. You just need to know how to group its weapons.

All the trial lights suck though, they're way too slow to be used as light mechs and are easy pickings for even heavy/assult mechs.

Edited by Asmosis, 14 February 2013 - 06:04 AM.

[Lukoi Banacek]

This isn't TT.

[MustrumRidcully]

Joseph Mallan, on 14 February 2013 - 05:48 AM, said:

What is killing the trail Mechs is the heat system & the definition of "a turn"

A turn is 10 seconds. In that 10 seconds one moves (constantly) Fires ones weapons ONCE, (TT also had physical attacks)weapons reload/recharge AND VENT HEAT. All this in ten seconds. We don't have Physicals, weapons cyclic times were Buffed but Sinks are taking a full turn to vent. Not how the mechanic should work.

While I kinda like being able to fire every 5 seconds (regardless of whether damag eand heat was adjusted or not), there is an interesting chance to be expected when people could fire only every 10 seconds. it might feel a bit boring, but on the other hand, timing your shots well might be much more important now - taking an early pot shot an enemy that's closing in may be unwise if you would hit more precisely at closer range. But if the enemy takes the opportunity to move into cover during the time yo uwait, you just wasted a lot of damage by not firing. Worse even if he took a shot but you waited too long!

Still, I would probably prefer a game set around 4-5 second cycle times for weapons and heat sinks. And a real heat scale, instead of the "regenerating ammo" heat system we have right now.

Escef, on 14 February 2013 - 05:57 AM, said:

Someone needs to read the old Solaris 7 dueling rules.

Do we need to go through themath again to remind everyone why the Solaris 7 dueling rules are bad and fail to replicate Battletech on a 2.5 second turn scale?

I won't, I'll just point out a PPC deals 10 damage in 10 seconds in and a Medium Laser deals 5 damage in 10 seconds in Battletech, in the Dueling Rules the PPC deals 10 and the Medium Laser deals 10, too. If you think that makes sense and maintains the weapon (im)balance of the table top... Well, I am not a math teacher.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 14 February 2013 - 06:07 AM.

[Escef]

Joseph Mallan, on 14 February 2013 - 05:59 AM, said:

I did read them. They sucked! As alternative rules they have never been used for standard or official tournament play for a reason.

Because they change what's good and what's not. Because very few stock mechs work well in them. Because fast mechs that are oversinked with fast cycling brawling weapons are very strong.

Just like pretty much every Mechwarrior game.

[VonRunnegen]

The trials are terribad.

The main problem I see with them is they are used by new players, who don't yet know what they're doing. If they were just a bit slower/weaker/whatever then they'd be bad but it'd be ok.... but instead they run way too hot. This is something everyone has to deal with but is certainly an acquired ability. Add in that mashing P to start up again is likely to trap a new player in a startup/shutdown loop and you've got a horrible starting point. A nice cool trial mech that was otherwise just a bit substandard would be lovely - though of course to achieve this weapon choices would be VERY restrictive as most are too hot to be used on a SHS mech

[Ens]

...because they´re TRIAL...

[Lukoi Banacek]

Why do any of these TT rules matter? This game still isn't TT. Isn't meant to be TT. Will never be TT. TT never accounted for human precision, speed or coordination nor can it, so while the spirit of the game and lore are present in MWO, they are not the baseline.

That's been pretty clear for a while now. Why do people insist on turning to TT to justify arguments when it's been made clear both through Dev comments AND Dev actions in coding the game, that TT is not the doctrine this game is based on.

[Joseph Mallan]

Escef, on 14 February 2013 - 06:08 AM, said:

Because they change what's good and what's not. Because very few stock mechs work well in them. Because fast mechs that are oversinked with fast cycling brawling weapons are very strong.

Just like pretty much every Mechwarrior game.

Because a machine gun should not be better to use than a weapon 28 times its size(AC20)!
Yes they are, now add to that the foolish cyclic rates of the old Solaris rules and you get the jacked up heat system we have now. 10 seconds to do everything in one turn including the venting of heat. So if that means reducing the time that one turn is so be it. Fire once, recycle and vent in 10 seconds(2 seconds/2-3 seconds/4 seconds) A turn could be knocked down by 2-3 seconds easily.

[Khobai]

10 second cooldowns would be unacceptable in a live action game. What PGI should've done though was divide the damage and heat by the cooldown.

For example, in TT, an AC/20 does 20 damage and 7 heat every 10 seconds. So in MWO an AC/20 should do 8 damage and 2.8 heat every 4.0 seconds. But since armor was doubled it should actually do 16 damage and 2.8 heat every 4.0 seconds. That would've normalized all the damage and heat back to tabletop levels instead of this triple rate of fire nonsense we have now.

Additionally, to reduce how overpowered aiming is, the armor ratios in MWO should've been adjusted so that the vital areas received more armor and the non-vital areas recieved less armor. The three torso locations should've gotten about 20% more armor while the four arm/leg locations should've gotten about 20% less armor. That would've helped fix the massive imbalance of MWO having aiming instead of random hit locations.

Edited by Khobai, 14 February 2013 - 06:33 AM.

[Lukoi Banacek]

How is the armor imbalanced at this point?

Fights last a reasonable amount of time seems like, one on ones especially.

[Khobai]

Quote

How is the armor imbalanced at this point?

Mostly because of aiming. In tabletop, hit locations are entirely random, and your center torso only gets hit roughly 20% of the time. MWO uses the tabletop armor values, which assume the center torso only gets hit 20% of the time, but in MWO you can aim for specific locations instead of it being random. The end result is that locations like the center torso are drastically underarmored compared to how often they get hit and mechs die much faster than they should.

Edited by Khobai, 14 February 2013 - 06:39 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Though I agree with what you are saying, for the most part i am pretty happy with how well armored my Mechs are. From my Centurions up!

[Khobai]

Quote

Though I agree with what you are saying, for the most part i am pretty happy with how well armored my Mechs are. From my Centurions up!

I find survivability drops drastically on Assaults though. Mainly due to scaling. All of the locations on assault mechs are scaled way up in size compared to the locations of other weight classes. Yet the armor wasn't scaled up to compensate.

In tabletop, the chance to hit an Atlas in the side torso is exactly the same as the chance to hit a Commando in the side torso. But in MWO, because of the aiming and scaling, assault mechs get screwed because it's much easier to hit them in the side torsos. As a result, XL engines arn't as worthwhile for assaults as they should be.

Now don't get me wrong, I like the fact an Atlas is bigger than a Commando, and thats how it should be. But if MWO is going to stick to tabletop armor values than the Atlas should somehow get compensated for the fact its hit locations are easier to pinpoint than the Commando's (either with more torso armor or passive damage reduction on its torso locations)

So to summarize what I feel are the three big problems with the game at the fundamental level:
1) damage and heat should be normalized to 10 second turns instead of triple rate of fire.
2) armor should be redistributed based on MWO hit probability rather than being based on TT hit probability.
3) bigger mechs should get compensated for being way easier to hit and should benefit more from XL.

Edited by Khobai, 14 February 2013 - 06:56 AM.

[Budor]

Stormwolf, on 14 February 2013 - 04:56 AM, said:

Stock mechs aren't optimized, they can perform the tasks they were designed for.

Die?

[Joseph Mallan]

Khobai,
6, 7 & 8 are the more common combos on a bell curve with 2 D6 your 3 torsos get hit more often than most, then arms/legs then Head/Golden BB.

[Escef]

Joseph Mallan, on 14 February 2013 - 06:22 AM, said:

Because a machine gun should not be better to use than a weapon 28 times its size(AC20)!

And a half ton machine gun should not be outranged by an M16, so what?

[Eric darkstar Marr]

Aym, on 14 February 2013 - 04:42 AM, said:

QFT