3 replies to this topic

[WKMitchell]

First off I will point this thread http://mwomercs.com/...e-engine-sizes/ . Good discussion about larger engines in MWO.
Hopefully by now people have had a chance to try the new map Alpine. I like the much larger design of the map it will bring out a lot more balanced designs like many traditional mechs were stock. Though it brings up the issue of speed of mechs on this map. I played a game of conquest where the other team had 4 lights to our 1 and they capped us out except for one point simply cause we didnt have the speed to do anything. We tried splitting up near the end into 2 lances of 4 which just ended up getting one of them slaughtered when the other team blobbed them with all 8 mechs.
　
So good points of this map:
-It will make scouts usefull for scouting
-It will make short ranged boats, and possibly even some of the longer ranged boats less appealing. (6 ppc stalker might very well end up just to slow to be useful)
-It is larger therefore will require more coordination to effectively win.
　
Points that should be addressed:
-Lots of texture popping on this map even with a good rig.
-It is larger therefore will require more coordination to effectively win. (Yes I know I listed this as a good point as well. It will mean that we need better tools implemented to help PUGS organize if they want to)
-Last but not least it means that larger engines will give an even bigger advantage then they already did in the normal maps.
Where I see this becoming a problem is all the additional inherent benefits you get from having a large engine as discussed in the "lets-talk-about-large-engine-sizes". Plus it further stratifies the mechs used between Paying Players, and Free Players. As changing out engines is a very expensive proposition (especially XL's) for people who do not have large amounts of time or the money to get premium time. I am not against having stuff being end game expensive items like the modules, but I also feel that playing around with engine sizes and types in your mech should not be an end game as the benefits are too big to be balanced properly.
　
IMO the average player will ignore the better engines for another mech instead(this takes into account that they dont have every mech they want and have the mech bays for them) and will be put at a much larger disadvantage on these new maps. I am sorry for the bad formatting I still cant get this forum to like my enter key. So I ended up having to paste from wordpad which was its own challenge.

Edited by WKMitchell, 19 February 2013 - 02:13 PM.

[Praehotec8]

Definitely some good thoughts here. Assaults, particularly are going to feel the push for bigger engines (especially in PUG games where they need to be able to respond independantly). I was just in a match with a player who had an atlas with top speed 32 kph. Needless to say, he was not very useful. Very slow mechs may be releegated to defending critical points, something which may be more useful as more game modes come online.

Communication is certainly key on this map...luckily the large size makes it more viable for scouts/advance mechs to relay info to the team prior to engaging.

12v12 will also help populate the map better, giving assaults more time/opportunity to engage.

For now, I think just forcing pilots to consider taking more balanced loadouts is good enough. One of the benefits and downsides of playing a game in development is just that...it's in development. As the game grows, I think it will grow to support this type of play very well, and more varieties of mechs can perform ably.

[BLUPRNT]

There are many threads already pointing out the cons present in this map. However, yours is by far the most well presented form I have come across. Thank you for the positive side to be presented first and the heads up for what I should probably prepair for. I'am stuck at work for now.
Perhaps we will all have to spend more time in mechlab to build better balance loadouts to be prepared for the random deployment. I see I get to have more fun now!

[Roland]

The biggest issue this map raises is that you have no idea when you are going to play it, and it's totally different from existing maps in terms of how you play it.

I have lots of mechs which are great on that map.. but there are lots of mechs which are virtually useless on that map. Since I have no idea when it will come up, it's kind of a crapshoot.