Battle Armor in the past , now and the future (discussion)

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Battle Armor in the past , now and the future (discussion)

fire-hound

I am well aware this is a minefield, so I would like the potential participants to try answer in calm way and only after a walk away - we don't want or need flame wars or shit shows.

Let's try make a objective review of where BA came from, where they are now (bad place) and where we'd like them to be - so we derive the most fun of this game we all come to love so much.

No flames beyond this point please!

History:
1. so-so fire power
2. excellent fire options and solutions with a sticky hand grenade,
3. swappable weapons (lore breaking)
4. can throw a weapon away
5. can pick up a weapon and fire it right away (IMO exploitable)
6. unlimited motion and JJ power (lore breaking)
7. easy denial by nearly instant death of any weapon (marginal health level)
Many top players found (and derived) massive fun out of the game play - it was tough on the nerves but both sides where having some (debatable) fun - no newbies ever had any - to be frank.

Now:
1. buffed firepower (5 grenades kill a light mech dead)
2. removed some, added other weapons (art is still WIP)
3. removed an ancient bug in modifiers - medium BA is non trivial to kill now
4. nerfed some of the non existent inertia and JJ juice
Currently the BA stands in a place as if it was a crossover from an different game - to many a player's dismay and the fun is strongly towards one side of the play.

Future:
1. I would like the PPC lose the recoil - it is an energy weapon - period
2. There should be an weapon with strong recoil (the PPC had) but it should be ammo based (ballistic)
3. Recoilless still needed (heck, i'd even add proper mortar!)
4. Weapons swap is out of question - buy, drop, lose - just no swap!
5. Tripple wielding is okay (M1, M2 + missiles on M3) so the play style comes in line with the rest of the game
6. Damage potential is to be brought in line with TTK of other units accordingly to the game meta, unit class and place in the big scheme - no more Superman style or 1 vs army please!
7. If we ever could, bring back the hand grenade - leave it pending for the eventual coding hero <3
8. If we ever get classes of BA, i want to see mech piloted be meat bags - the BA in the cockpit was broken from the start - if one opts to eject - have him keep his c-bills, be stealth on radar and have no honor (0 tickets) to be shot at? and has to make the long walk home (or hitch a friend with a free seat)

This is my list - and mine alone -you might disagree, REE, or whatever, just please try contribute in a worthy manner (even disproving any of my points).

Kind thanks.

DeimosEvotec

ah what did I expect to come from this it's just a normal firehound post
let's go through this top to bottom
H 3. nobody cares about lore breaking, more on swapping later
H 5. Did you try? I did and sure it's doable but not viable.(I've never ever seen this used in actual combat)
H 6. it's a game, game mechanics are usually game breaking because trying to simulate everything accurately is usually no fun
infinite ba spawning apc/gob/hep clown cars, infinite ammo at apcs, infinite ba regen, fast vehicle repairs, being able to spawn a practicaly infinite number of vehicles, build rules differ from lore, equipment functions different from lore, no heat lams, do I need to go on about "lore breaking" stuff? it has always been a shit argument and always will be

N 1. we don't have grenades anymore unless you mean the grenade launcher which is really hard to hit on moving targets or the ba srm which all top ba player don't like and are getting changed again?

F 1. Is being talked about no decision yet
F 2. There is no weapon in our arsenal that fits that property
F 3. we have a recoilless unless you mean we need a model and mech mortar I don't know
F 4. I disagree, biggest annoyance is the srms in the swap cycle just swapping between the two primary weapons is just fine
F 5. this is more complicated than you think and comes with its own problems if weapons on a ba worked like on mechs you would get ba poking out alpha striking all weapons and getting back into cover until all weapons cycled
F 6. As I already mentioned in the discord srm and uHL are going to get nerfed
F 7. maybe I'll have to see how much is fixable workaround-able
F 8.Pilots have always been planned, gameplay changes around that are not yet decided

As always I recommend thinking about problems/complications cause by suggested changes and what gameplay the change would cause/necessitate/incentivize.
And if you make suggestions about changing certain mechanics you should go more indepth and describe what problem this would fix, how given situations would play out differently with the changes and also point to problems of your own suggestions that you haven't figured out how to fix yet.
Single sentence suggestions are never all that convincing.

fire-hound

BA are more complicated than any sentence or paragraph - i see we can agree on that one.

Let's lave the history aside - for now.

Yes currently the BA's tool chest is packed with weapons of too much power - for the situational constrains the BA has or does not have compared to any other asset in game.

BA has:
1. access to unlimited energy
2. unlimited regeneration by it self (its a self contained mobile filed base and APC combined)
3. unlimited weapon swap on filed (i once picked up an stray BA PPC after i ejected...) and up to 4 weapons at once (not a bug deal but still...)
4. access to unlimited heat sink capacity (unless you account the reload and weapon overheat - I don't buy into it on Inferno and Phledgeton for instance)
5. access to unlimited angle of firing
6. access to move beyond what the server/client model can reliably track (lag shield, or "ADAD skill" how Saber15 calls it)
7. access to spawning and full equipment on places other assets are off limits.

breaking this or that, this is quite a point of leverage for both the aces and the average Joe in game...

Then the size - the BA has been sold to us as a 5 man unit for one player - yet the unit is occupying only 1/5 of the silhoutette you could shoot at where there a BA squad.

The particular in game problem:
Single BA on the building on Zoetermeer (quite JJ friendly map) can have like upper hand against pretty much every single mech all the time - if you run - he cores your back, if you try attack - he just stays outside of the firing cone of practically any mech that could even remotely treathen him in mobility - only way to counter it is either get a dedicated BA from far away (long walk yada yada) or gang up like 2 -3 players and equip with dedicated anti BA assets - just plain any asset won't do.

As pointed out earlier (years earlier) - players should fight players, and each and every abuse should have a straight and simple counter.

The current BA state breaks this rule - to counter an medium tier BA - one has either to be top tier BA player, or to go for lengths that break the fun and immersion.

Since some time now, people realize it's easier to just quit the game and go play something else.

I'm not one of them, but if that was the goal of this much development...

Maybe it is time to consider if we want larger player base, or will persist on having combined arms game in which each and every class has to be capable to 1v1 an atlas?

Maybe we could, at least, reconsider what the broader player base wants (a leaner game)? This was clearly indicated by ever more players hanging on the free testing rather than going in the TC ones and partake in the grinding...

DeimosEvotec

if you mean ammo with that then blame the old dev team destroying the infanrty ammo system for the ton based vehicle ammo system I'm trying to fix and use it for ba
2.which is getting nerfed further and further (regen delay and speed) and that might not necessarily be the right direction
so what, weapons will be restricted to certain classes when we get them but before that it would be a waste of time to try to differentiate between a pilot and a ba
because it would be pointless what do you want to happen when the ba goes over it's "heatlimit"? spontaneously combust? also ba don't have a fusion reactor that overheats each weapon has it's own cooling system so if anything it would make sense that each weapon would have it's firerate change depending on ambient temp and cooling but that need a bunch of new code
that's just normal fps stuff and i see no reason to limit that on ba
since you make that claim do you have anything but anecdotal evidence to support that?
that is intended and will even be necessary when I get ammo in

BA size and what should we do? make it 5 times as big or try to add AI ba squads? btw ba only have the health of a single CBT ba otherwise they should be able to facetank 5 ac10 shots and live. they only have more damage to compensate which is where that 5x comes in

so zoetermeer is very favorable for ba and now we should balance ba around that? what about open areas why not buff ba because they are so weak out in the open? maybe try to change something about the map if ba are too strong there like putting anti ba turrets in places or changing something about the buildings. I can't really be specific here as I have not played the new version of that map
maybe try tag + arrows or c3 + long range jj mech on another building or if the map has air I would suggest c3 + air which can be very effective against ba
depending on how good the players are jj mech or ba would also be enough

what it takes to counter a mid tier ba depends on terrain, positioning and teamwork
what can 1v1 an atlas is very much dependent on variants, terrain, positioning and player skill.

If you think ba are too strong in certain terrain then focus on that ammo, weapon swapping, heat, firing angles and spawn positions aren't gonna help fixing that.

Crix

The main problem with battle armor has always been logistics, and the fact that he small heavy laser should never have existed. Battle armor can do a fair amount of damage and even if they do nothing but get a few shots off and die they can respawn with at any base with a full loadout. They're annoying because they often win by attrition. They're incredibly distracting when (ba are) on defense and focusing on killing them gets you basically nothing, while ignoring them means you often take a lot of damage.

DeimosEvotec

uHL is getting nerfed 175m range to 125m and maybe also damage and firerate that's not sure yet and if the nerfs don't work out we will remove it.
ba are also worth 2 tickets same as an osiris, uller or hep so repeatedly losing them is bad unless they manage to kill something.
I also fixed a bug that caused ba kills to not give their kill award which will also be increased.
As for the fast spawn times, the server owners set that but when we get the pilot class as default and the ba suits need to be purchased I could see if we can make equipping a suit take a certain amount of time similar to building a vehicle to reduce their deployment speed.

fire-hound

DeimosEvotec
1. You mean calling a clip - clip and having clips of various sizes - to the extent to actually attaching an in game entity to it - and be able to pick one up in game-space (ie engine) like in those games of old times? I would love to see that!
2. regen re-balancing would help a lot
3. i would like exploding firearms - yes - good idea! ("!YOU! broke it! - now go get another one" )
4. thing is - either we have normal FPS shooter with normal FPS stuff, or a tank simulator game, but not tank-sim with fast-paced-shooters shitting on every one until no one plays any more?
5. you want me to dig up Saber15's videos of where he was laser-shot thru walls (lasers are client side "hit-judgements", so he was "there" but on shooter's client he was "elsewhere" and the hit registered...)
6. answered favorably by someone else above (re-spawning speed)

Regarding Zoeter - did you just advise to gang up versus a single player because he is using BA?
This is so "Elf + Shiva_A days of 071" when i think about it

We certainly are looking forward to the latest BA fixes hit the street, and even more certainly to future corrections hit the streets in a more timely manner.
Only then we can reasonably evaluate the BA place in the grand scheme any further.

P.S.
One more thing to put in grinder:
Player retention is not necessarily only getting new (inexperienced) players to play the game.
Player retention is about keeping old (well versed) players to play the game on - when you take some fun away - people expect to get something in return - except salt.

Also, how can we be sure our dev team is not over influenced by just one of the sides of our (ever growing) player base?
Maybe those players that don't play any more (be it hiatus or rage quit) should make some sort of a (reasonable?) list of objections and/or requests to be evaluated too?

And I agree with the one who said "MW:LL is a game player take a long hiatus, just to come back fresh again." - I hope for many to return and find a fresh game worthy many a fun moments.

Sabrist

Increasing the time it takes to make BA battle ready would be major improvement. It does feel bit cheap to get back in the battle (cap defending especially) so fast after dying.
Cap denying by hiding in or between buildings (or otherwise unreachable terrain) is one thing I wouldn't like to see, but that highly depends how insighful the mappers have been when placing their cap zones.

RDL_Vitos

/ "anti ba turrets"

where to find them?

fire-hound

@RDL_Vitos we have some new turrets in game already, we could make some more (and i need a totally new class for mobile dropships (don't ask ))
new turrets:
Twin_ERPPC
Twin_Gauss
and more
Tripple_LPL
and MG_AMS
you have to check for them in the add on libraries in DB view...
maybe the Twin turrets are x10 too weak compared to Sentinel turret (@ me or Sabrist for details)