Mechwarrior Mercenaries 5: Single player inside!

[Soapyfrog]

That’s a lot of words to say you want a particular feature in Mechwarrior which almost nobody else really wants.

I’m not even wildly opposed to cone of fire weapons that would kick in while moving and get worse the faster you move … except that it simply is not an important thing and adds rng that most people will just find frustrating and honestly would probably encourage less mobile gameplay.

For single player being able to kill mechs efficiently is kinda the point of the game; each mission is a series of fights you are trying to get through without using up too many resources. Should you be able to easily headshot mechs? Probably not and that I am sure will be fixed. Should you be able to kill an Atlas by taking out only 20% of its armour? Yes. Better players will do it well and worse players will struggle and hopefully they will be able to dial up the AI difficulty to challenge the better players. taking away weapon accuracy is just unnecessary sandbagging that will hurt worse players worse than it will hurt good players anyway.

Remember when they added weapon accuracy while jumpjets were firing in MWO (a necessary and good change for various reasons imho), one of the effects was that it pushed jumpsniping out of the reach of the average player.

[Timex]

@Soapyfrog

For single player being able to kill mechs efficiently is kinda the point of the game

You don’t think you could kill mechs effectively unless you can combine small weapons into huge ones?

I mean, the overall selection of weapons actually has specific weapons designed to enable that kind of capability.

Again, that’s kind of the point of a weapon like the AC20.

@Soapyfrog

Should you be able to kill an Atlas by taking out only 20% of its armour? Yes.

But should it be as easy as it is? Because it’s pretty easy.

@Soapyfrog

Remember when they added weapon accuracy while jumpjets were firing in MWO (a necessary and good change for various reasons imho), one of the effects was that it pushed jumpsniping out of the reach of the average player.

Really? The average player couldn’t figure out that you need to stop during your JJs for a brief moment before firing your weapons?

On some level, making more complex mechanics that players need to internalize isn’t a bad thing. It’s the act of learning those mechanics that gives a game depth, and makes it worth playing.

If everything is easy when you first start playing, then the game isn’t good. There’s nothing to get better at.

@Soapyfrog

taking away weapon accuracy is just unnecessary sandbagging that will hurt worse players worse than it will hurt good players anyway.

But we aren’t talking about just making every weapon random in it’s precision.

We are just saying that you can’t for 4 medium lasers to achieve the exact same effect as an AC20.

You could still use an AC20 and achieve the exact same effect. Or hell, you could use the medium lasers, you’d just have to land 4 times as many aimed shots, and deal with the additional exposure of your mech.

Do you really think that being forced to make such choices as a pilot would reduce your fun? Wouldn’t it give you a deeper, richer environment in which to play?

@Soapyfrog

That’s a lot of words to say you want a particular feature in Mechwarrior which almost nobody else really wants.

ALso… this…
we’re just talking here, dude. If you don’t wanna talk about it, that’s cool. Like I said, I don’t think there’s any chance at all PGI would implement any of this anyway.

Is there anything that you think they should change compared to past incarnations of mechwarrior, or should it just stay the same in your mind, with updated graphics? It seems like you’re arguing that the old game was good enough.

In terms of “no one wants it”, do you really think you’ve got a super good grip on that? I mean, based on what, a few posts in the MWO forums? How many people even still play that game? The steam charts have it at less than 600 concurrent players these days. Maybe you need to expand out beyond that group a bit.

[schurem]

Luckily this is a SP game, so we can mod it, tweak it and make it our own.

I do hope the AI gets a once-over tho, or I’d be very sorry about my preorder :/

[Fishbreath]

@Timex

In terms of “no one wants it”, do you really think you’ve got a super good grip on that?

Do you? You seem to be coming at it from the high-end PvP competition end of things, which, relative to the number of people who’ll buy it and play it, a vanishingly small fraction of people will experience.

Anyway, just play with a joystick instead of a mouse, as God intended, and all concerns about too-precise weaponry go out the window.

[Timex]

@Fishbreath

Do you? You seem to be coming at it from the high-end PvP competition end of things, which, relative to the number of people who’ll buy it and play it, a vanishingly small fraction of people will experience.

Nah, I’m just talking about what we’ve recognized as an issue for a long while, and talking about a possible solution. And one that likely won’t be implemented anyway.

On some level, I just like talking about the game, as I’ve been doing for ages.

@Fishbreath

Anyway, just play with a joystick instead of a mouse, as God intended, and all concerns about too-precise weaponry go out the window.

To be clear here, I’m not really suggesting less precise weapons. It’s more about removing the ability to stack weapons perfectly on top of one another.

Like I said, the existing mechanisms in battletech and the weapons they have would still allow you to pull off the same kinds of shots. That’s one of the chief purposes of the AC20 in battletech, in that it will kill a mech with a single shot to the head.

The only things you’d really lose the ability to do at all, would be crazy things like stacking really massive amounts of damage into a single bullet, like multiple AC20’s, or 4 PPC’s, etc. But that seems like not being able to do that one thing wouldn’t really affect the “fun” for anyone.

[Fishbreath]

@Timex

But that seems like not being able to do that one thing wouldn’t really affect the “fun” for anyone.

My MWO three-PPC Jenner begs to differ! The joy of that would have been significantly reduced sans pinpoint alpha strike. (It already was, somewhat, by ghost heat.)

I could something like the classic PlanetSide expanding cone of fire working, but I don’t know if the MechWarrior franchinse is ready for that.

[Timex]

@schurem

I do hope the AI gets a once-over tho, or I’d be very sorry about my preorder :/

It’s gonna be a mighty heavy lift, I fear.

To make really “good” AI, in Mechwarrior, involves a lot of stuff… way more stuff than would go into good AI in a normal shooter. Sensor management, armor shielding, decisions about where to land your shots… all that stuff is gonna be tricky to pull off.

I suspect that they might be able to get the mechs to use cover to some extent, but generally difficulty of bots in mechwarrior just revolves around making them maximally precise with their shots, and having them always hit your CT. Essentially, the difficulty ramps up by forcing you to kill them faster, before their guns can recycle enough to burn through your core. But that’s somewhat simplistic.

It’ll be interesting if they can do more than that, but there isn’t much in the beta to suggest that they have developed much in terms of anything beyond the most basic, bare-bones “move and shoot” system.

[Soapyfrog]

@Timex

Again, that’s kind of the point of a weapon like the AC20.

Hmm I wonder why the AC/20 is still considered a very good weapon? Hmm.

@Timex

If everything is easy when you first start playing, then the game isn’t good. There’s nothing to get better at

Yes if you turn aiming into a die roll it’s one less thing to get good at. In a game where shooting stuff is the whole point…

@Timex

We are just saying that you can’t for 4 medium lasers to achieve the exact same effect as an AC20.

It is amazing that you think this is the current state of play.

@Timex

In terms of “no one wants it”, do you really think you’ve got a super good grip on that?

Yup it’s been litigated and re-litigated at length.

MWO is of course at a much lower ebb than in previous years but you can still get games more or less instantly at any time of day or night. Regardless MWO has been one of the more successful Mechwarrior games, and certainly the most successful and best iteration of mechwarrior PvP.

[Timex]

@Soapyfrog

Yes if you turn aiming into a die roll it’s one less thing to get good at. In a game where shooting stuff is the whole point…

But you wouldn’t be doing that.
You understand that, right? You’d still be able to aim weapons with perfect precision.

You just couldn’t stack a bunch of bullets perfectly on top of each other into a single giant bullet.

Do you really think that doing such a thing is essential to the game being fun? If so, why do you think that?

@Soapyfrog

MWO is of course at a much lower ebb than in previous years but you can still get games more or less instantly at any time of day or night.

Really? That’s interesting. Like I said, the steamcharts show it as only having around 400 players at most times of the day, with a peak of less than 600. That would make me think it might be hard to find a game, given those players would be spread around the globe.

I just thought of something that maybe is important to understanding your view here…
Do you believe that stacked damage in Mechwarrior is a problem at all?

[Fishbreath]

I don’t know how common it is, but you can still run the MWO launcher sans Steam. Steam numbers might not tell the whole story.

[Timex]

Ya, that’s possible. Looking at their forums though, they still only have a handful of actual named users participating on a daily basis.

Way back in beta, we had the ability to see how many concurrent users they had from within the game, but they stripped it out for some reason.

[Soapyfrog]

@Timex

Really? That’s interesting.

Is it? Mulitplayer games have cruised along on less. The bigger issue with low player counts is bad matchmaking.

@Timex

Do you believe that stacked damage in Mechwarrior is a problem at all?

Yes and no. It can be a problem with pinpoint weapons where there is no way to avoid a massive alpha hitting a single location (6 PPC stalkers come to mind) but mostly it’s not because of the way the weapons are designed and balanced. I would argue limiting the ability to boat pinpoint weapons is a better way to deal with the issue so that sniping is still a rewarding pursuit.

[Timex]

@Soapyfrog

Yes and no. It can be a problem with pinpoint weapons where there is no way to avoid a massive alpha hitting a single location (6 PPC stalkers come to mind) but mostly it’s not because of the way the weapons are designed and balanced. I would argue limiting the ability to boat pinpoint weapons is a better way to deal with the issue so that sniping is still a rewarding pursuit.

But that’s all the weapons other than laser weapons and missiles, right? I’m assuming PGI kept the DOT effect of lasers that they had in MW5.

I recall when they tried to work around this problem… what’d they call that system, Ghost Heat? Did you think that was a good solution from PGI?

I’m trying to figure out if you think that this isn’t really a problem at all, or whether you just want some different solution.

[Soapyfrog]

@Timex

To make really “good” AI, in Mechwarrior, involves a lot of stuff… way more stuff than would go into good AI in a normal shooter. Sensor management, armor shielding, decisions about where to land your shots… all that stuff is gonna be tricky to pull off.

Base turrets in MWO already shoot for your most damaged locations. These things are not necessarily that hard but an AI that can just reliably core you or leg you is not going to be fun to do missions against.

Past MechWarrior AIs were not good and it’s at least partly on purpose. The missions have to be more than fighting one mech of equal power to a standstill.

Like I said I am hoping the AI can be dialed up to represent skilled opposition but you are supposed to be, in single player, an elite warrior smashing waves of scrubs.

[Soapyfrog]

@Timex

I recall when they tried to work around this problem… what’d they call that system, Ghost Heat? Did you think that was a good solution from PGI?

It worked out well enough even if it’s not my preference and the implementation in some cases was just dumb.

@Timex

I’m trying to figure out if you think that this isn’t really a problem at all, or whether you just want some different solution.

For single player I don’t think it’s a problem that requires a solution beyond limiting the ability of mechs to carry absurd load outs.

[Timex]

@Soapyfrog

Base turrets in MWO already shoot for your most damaged locations. These things are not necessarily that hard but an AI that can just reliably core you or leg you is not going to be fun to do missions against.

Targeting the most damaged location is a bit simpler than what I was talking about, but ultimately you can make sensible decisions. The bigger issue is stuff like sensor control (although that was pretty simplified in MWO wasn’t it?) and torso shielding.

I guess we’ll see what they can pull off in terms of improving the AI.

@Soapyfrog

It worked out well enough even if it’s not my preference and the implementation in some cases was just dumb.

Did it? I seem to recall that it just caused minor changes in configurations… like, instead of running 4 PPC’s, you ran two PPC’s and a gauss on jumping cataphracts.

Then they added in some kind of charge up time for the gauss, didn’t they?

It seemed like everyone recognized that this was a problem, but they kept trying to deal with it in little band-aids, that folks just worked around.

@Soapyfrog

For single player I don’t think it’s a problem that requires a solution beyond limiting the ability of mechs to carry absurd load outs.

There are stock mech configs which are kind of “absurd” when you add in mechwarrior style damage stacking.

[Soapyfrog]

@Timex

It seemed like everyone recognized that this was a problem, but they kept trying to deal with it in little band-aids, that folks just worked around.

As clumsy as ghost heat is it’s definitely preferable to cone of fire for example.

If you look at MWO right now there is a pretty good mix of effective builds and only some of them are pinpoint builds that you feel are a big problem.

[Timex]

Do they still have a competitive scene in MWO, meaning high level regulated play? It seems odd that they would have significantly more variety in the builds now than they used to, given the principles of mech design have been fairly static for like… 25 years now?

What changed to move away from high damage pinpoint accuracy builds? Did they implement some kind of new mechanic?

[Soapyfrog]

Yes there is still competitive play, and yes given no other restrictions competitive play will converge at the highest levels on a small handful of optimal loadouts. Do you imagine you would solve that with cone of fire?

Below the highest level of play you will quickly see more variety because brawling is pretty strong against a sniping team that can’t play optimally, for example.

In ordinary play there are many viable builds, obviously, unlike past years where you really might see almost nothing but PPCs for example.

[Timex]

@Soapyfrog

Yes there is still competitive play, and yes given no other restrictions competitive play will converge at the highest levels on a small handful of optimal loadouts.

Ok, so they still have the same balance issues. What are the competitive leagues that still exist? I looked up some of the old competitive leagues, like MRBC, but it looked like they haven’t been active for over a year.

I’d be interested in seeing some streaming footage of modern competition in MWO to see how it’s evolved. Do you know anyone producing that kind of thing now?

@Soapyfrog

Do you imagine you would solve that with cone of fire?

Limiting the ability to stack damage would almost certainly result in significant changes of the optimal builds. And again, you keep saying “cone of fire”, but that’s just shorthand, right? I mean, we both understand that we’re not talking about just always randomizing where shots land, right?

@Soapyfrog

Below the highest level of play you will quickly see more variety because brawling is pretty strong against a sniping team that can’t play optimally, for example.

Yeah, the problem with competent players was that even at short range, sniping builds tended to be incredibly strong, since a huge single bullet punches through you just as easily at 50m as it does at 800m. “Brawler” builds would tend to just be builds that were slightly more efficient in certain regards, but ultimately such efficiency was often negated by the fact that a skilled player with large bore guns could just kill a target before efficiency came into play, and then could just chill behind cover while cooling down.

Brawling tended to require more coordinated effort than sniping, as it required being able to have a whole lance exert enough pressure on targets to exploit those efficiency gains. It also required separating targets from their support.

@Soapyfrog

In ordinary play there are many viable builds, obviously, unlike past years where you really might see almost nothing but PPCs for example.

What’s changed that caused that?
Are those builds more competitive for some reason now, or are there just less folks who build optimal mechs and murder the people running sub-optimal builds?