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Developer Diaries #1: Mechwarrior Ability Revision

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Greetings Mechwarriors,

A reminder In case you missed it.
Our friendly Dev Kiva has specifically asked us to test the skills in the game beta and THEN provide detailed AAR feedback.

Uninformed assumptions without having tried it first at this point provide no relevant feedback, are counter to OP request, and thus will be considered off-topic. It makes the Devs job harder to comb through such static in this particular thread for actual beta function feedback. So please post such elsewhere such as here or here for example so we can keep this thread organized.

Beta gameplay testing feedback only here in this thread please, not theory crafting or opinions or conjecture. Those can go in I've of the other threads that are discussing them.


Posts choosing not to take this advice willexperience unfortunate Jump Drive malfunctions.




Thank you.
 
I wasn't sure about posting anything because I think I take a very different approach to my mechwarriors' skills than many players do - I don't really train them to suit my purposes, but like to grow them with an emphasis on what they were already good at, so I end up with a weird mix of pilots by the endgame. The result is that I don't really have "builds" that I rely on like many players... but maybe that makes me more impartial?

Anyway, for what they're worth, here are some impressions from the current mid-campaign game of a casual, non-meta, role-player type:

Sensor Lock: A strict upgrade that still isn't busted, so nothing to complain about here. It's certainly now a more likely choice when I have a close-range mech that needs to contribute to a fight, but can't get close enough to bring its best guns to bear on a target.

Bulwark: Being able to combine guarded and cover, even if it requires losing a turn now, makes bracing an interesting choice for a spotter whenever I've used a primarily long-range lance. The thing now is that aside from that, or the additional boost when I use Vigilance in cover, I didn't have much use for it. If I used Vigilance routinely, I'd probably like it much more, but I'm about 50/50 between using it and Precision Shot.

I had plenty of use for bulwark before, though not so much that it felt too good. It did mean standing in place, so no evasion or adjusting firing angles, but it worked well on a forward anchor for my lance, and I wasn't forced to move if I was already in a good shooting position (which for me was the main benefit of bulwark, the ability to be both offensive and defensive without having to give up a good spot). And despite not stacking, cover was still relevant because I still had plenty of mobile pilots who'd benefit from woods and such, usually running in and out to combine cover and evasion.

But again, I never ran around with a full lance of bulwarkers like I see some folks have done, so maybe it was totally broken/worthless and I never realized it.

Coolant Vent: This is hard to judge. On the one hand, while it shouldn't be a recurring strategy, it's been a fantastic "panic button" effect when I needed to finish off something really dangerous. Because it's on the high end of the Guts tree, it means that the line between self-damage and shutdown is relatively narrow, so I didn't feel like I was trading a mechwarrior injury for overheating - I was trading it for a turn without shooting, either by bracing or shutdown. I also means I'm far enough into the game to have a medbay upgrade on the Argo, combined with high HP to keep recovery down to just a few days, and I have spare pilots on the roster to fill in if needed (and likely no more than one more job available before leaving system anyway).

On the other hand, I would have hoped that Juggernaut would have been replaced with another melee-related ability - say, a charge that allows a mech to deliver a higher-damage melee attack after moving up to its sprinting distance, in return for physical and/or stability damage like a DFA?

Look, I just really want to see a Banshee running full tilt and kludge someone over the head. Like, ridiculously hard.

Sure Footing: I really didn't see much of a difference overall in regards to evasion. It was nice before to get some absurd evasion levels with jumping lights and mediums, but I can do without. The stability reduction is an interesting bonus, much appreciated in the mid-game when incoming missile swarms start to become a thing, but my mechs aren't quite beefy enough to stay standing through them all. Plus, it's neat to be able to get an entrenched state without bracing.

*******

EDIT: Okay, I just discovered one other thing about the combination of Piloting and Guts.

So before, I sometimes liked to have a spotter/decoy mech piloted by somebody with both evasive move and original-flavor bulwark. Sure, the abilities didn't work together at the same time, but it also meant I wasn't locked into one defensive strategy - whether moving or not, they'd get a good buff when drawing fire.

For my purposes, new-recipe bulwark doesn't work as well... but now it combines with sure footing, meaning I can run a pilot with both skills into some woods at the end of a long move, use Vigilance, and have them shoot while reducing incoming accuracy by at least 20% and damage by 75%. For that turn at least, the mech might as well be using the Somebody Else's Problem field. It's just too bad that "double entrenched" isn't a thing, just to ice that cake.

It still feels like a niche case to me, but worth noting.
 
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Oh, I forgot to mention the new Sensor Lock. And I love it. My skirmisher aproach often left my light mech without something to shoot because it needs to get out of trouble. And now it can jump away and apply a debuff instead of bracing. Dekker just got even more deadly!!!
 
I've had a chance to run a few skirmish matches with the new skills and here are my thoughts.

So far from a Skirmish perspective:

Coolant Vent is very powerful with the right build. I am undecided if it is too powerful. The fluff explanation could use a bit of a rework, but for game mechanics, it works.
Sure Footing: I will need to test this in campaign where stability will be more of an issue. In general it seems fine, but it will change my strategies away from constant jumping. I consider this a good thing. I disagree that Evasive Move wasn't relevant. It was very helpful, particularly with heavier mechs.
Fortify: Didn't get much use of this. In general, I like the concept, but will need to test it more. A push towards more maneuvering is a good thing in my mind.
Sensor Lock: Slightly more useful than it was before. I thought it was reasonable previously, so not too worried about it. Not a substantial change.

Disclaimer: I was in the "evasion isn't too weak" group. Bulwark was a bit at odds with other design decisions to promote maneuvering. Before this I was running a campaign without using Bulwark at all. I found that it was viable even up into assault mechs, but I had Evasive Move and jump jets on all my mechs.

So far I have run 3 skirmish matches, one at each of the standard lance sizes (15m, 20m, 25m). I used the four specialized mechwarriors (Apex, Paradise, Sumo, Arclight) so that I would have all of the abilities.

My light lance was a an Urbanmech, Panther, Commando (large laser variant), and a custom Griffin with 3 large lasers. I had designed the Griffin variant as a burst fire light mech hunter back when large lasers were really hot... so now it actually ran pretty cool. I ended up not really using any of the new abilities. I never built up enough heat to use Coolant Vent. I was always moving and firing so I never used Bulwark. I did use Sensor Lock, but it is hard to tell if it had any substantial effect. Overall this fight was a bit of a wash. No real clear results.

My medium lance was a Kintaro, Trebuchet, Commando (LL again), and Centurion (LL variant). I was randomizing my maps, so this fight ended up on a lunar biome (actually, I think it was considered martian, but it looked lunar). The lack of cover and higher heat made this a more interesting fight.

Coolant Vent on the Kintaro was very useful. In skirmish, without additional consequences, Coolant Vent is very powerful. It allows significantly higher volume of fire.

I struggled to find a point where it would make sense to use Bulwark. I used Sensor Lock a few times, likely more than I would have previously. Actual effects on Sensor Lock are hard to determine. Sure Footing was also tough for me to evaluate. The extra evasion chevron is good. I actually like not having it apply to jumping and sprinting. Jumping already gets an extra chevron and sprinting is much more likely to max out the chevrons without the bonus. Each chevron does seem to have a noticeable effect for me, especially when I can get up to 3 or 4 chevrons, but I already liked evasive gameplay.

For the heavy match I went ahead and built a mech specifically to take maximum advantage of Coolant Vent. Here is my Alpha Crab:

2018-08-28_2103_1.png


It absolutely wrecks enemy mechs. My match was on a desert and it could fire everything except one medium laser without overheating. The turn after I would use Coolant Vent and fire everything. My other mechs were an Urbie, Blackjack, and a Centurion. The Centurion got wasted by an enemy Stalker early in the match, but two alphas from this Crab crippled the Stalker. After that the match was just mop up. I did run out of AC/20 ammo, but by that time the match had already been determined. I only had to use Coolant Vent twice and Sumo had plenty of health left even with that.

I didn't have a chance to see much of the other abilities. Paradise got killed off early. Sensor Locking wasn't really needed.

I think I will need to try these skills out in the campaign to see how they do.
 
Here's my thoughts about new abilities.

1. New Sensor Lock. The old SL was fine and useful, and aiming debuff adds some more utility, which is definitely good. I imagine SL now being some kind of laser pointer, aimed at the enemy's cockpit in order to annoy the pilot thus making them prone to miss. Kinda hilarious.

2. Sure Footing. Eh, it's fine. Not great, but good enough. One extra pip of Evasion doesn't matter all that much, but it's nice to have nonetheless. In my experience lighter Mechs don't benefit much from Entranced because if they have high enough evasion then most of missiles and AC shells would miss them anyway, and if they don't... well, they are too busy being torn to shreds to care about stability. But heavier units? That's another thing entirely. This perk combined with their higher natural Stability and the fact that Piloting increses St.Threshold allows them to shrug off ridiculuous amounts of St.Damage. In that regard SF seems a bit too OP. Oh and please change the name of status effect if possible. Piloting iss all about going fast like a wind, not about digging trenches. Then again, maybe ace pilots tend to execute that fancy full stop maneuver at the end of their turn, so their Mechs' legs bury themselves into ground because of inertia pull?

3. New Bulwark. I prefer the old one, but I can live with new. However, I'd suggest reverting to original Bulwark, just watering it down to 25 % of DR/St.DR if it is such a big deal. Also, please note that I've encountered several cases of weird AI bechaviour. I've seen enemy units standing still in the open and every time it was Defender-spec pilot or some evolutions of it, like Vanguard. My guess is that AI still operates under the old rules of activation for Bulwark. That, or AI just being artificial idiot once again.

4. Coolant Vent. No. Just no. Juggernaut was situational, but still fun ability and had its uses. Gladiator and Brawer builds were very fun to play with and surprisingly effective in a pinch. But CV, while isn't useles, is definitely too situational for my tastes. It's just not worth investing in it, especially as a top-tier ability. And you compare it with competing abilities... I most certainly don't see myself picking this ability over MT, BS or AP. Therefore, Coolant Vent makes Brawler and Gladiator builds useless. Sure, I can imagine that CV might have its uses in multiplayer and even in Campaign every once in a while, but not for its cost. That being said, it's obvious that there were a lot of effort put in this ability, and it has nice "last ditch effort" ring in it, so I suggest removing it from the Skill Tree and making it into some kinde of once-per-mission ability like Ejection. In a way it is Ejection in reverse: instead of doing a bit of damage to Mech in order to save the pilot, CV does damage to pilot in order to save Mech from melting down. So, tl;dr: #bringjuggernautback! And if you think that it's too weak to be a top tier ability, then buff it. For example, like it has been done in Better Juggernaut mod, allowing Juggernaut pilots automatically activate Bulwark and fire main guns after Melee. That mod made Brawler and Gladiator builds very powerful (maybe even too powerful) and fun to play with.
 
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Coolant Vent:I loaded up one of my old single player campaigns and began to try and abuse this ability as best I could.
What I've found is it allows you, with the assistance of a Cockpit Mod+ or ++, to neglect equipping heat-sinks entirely. I found it to be exceedingly dull, as I was able to called shot at long range and one shot most enemy mechs round after round. In between contacts I would cool off entirely and be able to do it again to the next group. Now Obviously I am not going to do this every round when I make contact with 12 mechs at the same time. But taking out 4 or 5 of them each with one volley, will be no problem. This is anything but Battletech to me, and quite frankly, I found it boring.

When I initially heard "vent coolant through the cockpit" my immediate gut reaction was one of disbelief and removal from immersion. It made no sense to me. I do understand the choice and cost benefit intention of the ability in the context of game choices, but I find it to be extremely over-powered, against lore, and dull.

Coolant vent promotes the pairing of mechs with 10 heatsinks and Pilots with Coolant Vent. Drop your heatsinks out of your Stalker, every mech for that matter, up the missile /weapon count/size and Alpha like it's going out of style, and don't forget your jumpjets... Hyper Specialized LRM carriers no longer need to mount any heatsinks, just add more tubes and insert coolant vent pilot - (knockdown meta empowered/maintained even through evasive piloting changes).

Beta branch Coolant Vent AI pilots: From what I could tell, there was not a single instance of AI leveraging this ability, indeed AI pilots with Coolant Vent metered their heat expenditure to never get close to overheating, and was therefore never any use.

Beta branch Changes in Bulwark:
There is a strategy in Multiplayer of Jump-bracing until you jump behind the enemy and kill them with only shots to their back armor. Currently it is exceedingly difficult to stop a any mech with 5 or more jump jets from getting behind you and killing you before you can respond. Now it will be even harder, as the max number of evasive pips in multiplayer will not change with evasive movement ability for these chassis and bulwark in cover provides even more protection. Thus, making a successful shot against jump bracing bulwark pilots will mean even less. This will apply to every pilot with bullwark: massive evasion, and 75% damage reduction as they jump from cover to cover until they shoot you in the back and kill you before you can respond. This is not a fun choice or alteration to the already overwhelmingly powerful strategy. This strategy will be even easier to perform with Sumo as a Pilot: jumping and firing and emptying the heat bar every other round (8 jump/alphas), and bulwarking to reduce 75% of incoming damage when the positioning isn't ideal.
While the AI doesn't follow this strategy at all, it would be a very frustrating tactic if it did, and a very easy game for the player, if they did.

Beta branch AI bulwark behavior: I found that enemy 'Defenders' would still operate under the assumption that Bulwark gave them 50% damage reduction and would remain stationery in the open and take their shots. This made enemy units with legacy bulwark behavior EXCEEDINGLY easy to kill, and cheapened the victory.

Beta branch Changes in Evasive Pilot:
I found evasive pilot to afford very little. While that 1 extra evasion for walking does affect your defense and the entrenched ability almost assures you'll be standing at the end of opFor's focus fire, it is not enough on its own. Unless you brace/guard after you walk, you're in deep trouble anyway. Which, doesn't feel any different than the current implementation, only now its BETTER when you enter a location with cover.

I don't like citing problems without offering solutions. Here are some of my thoughts on providing meaningful choices that I believe to be less exploitable:

Objective: discourage stationery game-play by altering the stationery benefit of Bulwark.
Suggestion: Bulwark Pilots that are stationery/walking benefit from 25% damage reduction that does not stack with cover. Additionally, walking/stationery bulwark pilots that perform the Guard/Brace action benefit from the 25% damage reduction from that ability -stacking with cover as currently implemented in the beta test branch.

Objective: Make more than one path/decision tree to success
In order for someone that wants another path for damage reduction, evasive pilot will make 2 evasive pips permanent (or scale the number of permanent pips with piloting skill), regardless of 'unstable' but not knocked down, when running or walking.

Objective: Choices
Don't combine damage reduction or the bypassing of it (penetrating shot): Make Bulwark and evasive piloting both second tier abilities (as with penetrating shot).

Fix an Un-Fun Strategy: make Jumping and Guard/brace mutually exclusive. It doesn't make sense that Lifting a bipedal tank into the air and landing it can be combined with the ability to reduce incoming damage and especially stability damage (ever pushed someone mid air on a trampoline?). Right now heat is not enough of a cost to jumping mechs that move up-to sprint distance (in most cases) with any facing, and full accuracy (especially combined with coolant vent). Perhaps still provide an action to jumping mechs to lower current existing stability, but avoid combining jumping with physical or stability damage reduction...

Objective: make Juggernaut a worthwhile skill:
Suggestion:
Step1: create an Initiative round 0 that can only be entered via juggernaut, falling prone, or precise shot, and not the "reserve" action.
Step2: Fix Juggernaut, falling prone, and precise shots made in initiate phase 1 and 0 to affect their target acting in phase 1 and 0 - next round. Currently mechs in initiative 1, targeted by called shots, juggernaut, and falling prone do NOT alter the initiative of the target in the following round (!).
Step3: make Juggernaut the guts5 ability and the altered bulwark the guts 8 ability.
Step3: shore up the juggernaut skill by giving pilots that make a melee or DFA attack damage reduction to the rear arc (25% or 50%?) and those that walk into melee benefit from bulwark (25% as proposed above) or evasive Pilot (permanent evasive pips including when unbalanced).

Objective: continue with Coolant Vent but reduce the amount of abuse it facilitates:
Suggestions:
1: Bypass damaging the Cockpit Mod. No matter what this ability must damage the pilot, not the cockpit mod, or there is 0 risk for using the ability with the mod equipped.
2: reduce the amount of heat vented; 100 is extraordinarily exploitable.
3: maybe instead of pilot health, move the overheat threshold of that mech down for the rest of the deployment/flashpoint, risking overheating more often, as you do when you are low on/out of coolant.
4: maybe instead of pilot health, reduce the amount of heat cooled each round for the rest of the deployment/flashpoint as heatsinks don't operate as well without coolant.
5: AI enemys need to know how to capitalize on the use of this ability. Pair AI pilots with this ability into mechs that otherwise run hot, so players can 'feel the heat'.

Sensor Lock: I have no input at this time. It seems like it would pair well with an evasive pilot that has permanent evasive pips as proposed above. As for use after contact is made: Late game gunnery with Targeting computers is so high, the penalty of 2 stacks of Sensor interference and benefit of 2 less evasive pips, is a minimal impact.
But, this being an early game skill, the benefits are excellent all the way to end game.
 
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Ok, here's some thoughts after a late game, post-campaign mission. I understand this might not apply to the early game, but I'm planning to run a new game anyway so I'll post some early game feedback then.

My lance consisted of a King Crab, close combat build, high heat, piloted by a Guts/Pilot build ( Sure Footing, Bulwark, Coolant Vent). In support I had 3 multi-role, multi range mechs (2xHighlanders and an Atlas), heat efficient, piloted by a pair of Tactician/Pilots and another with a Tactician/Gunnery.

It was an assassinate mission, with escorts and reinforcements. One thing I noticed was that the reinforcement location now had a marker in the map indicating the general direction they will be approaching from. I didn't notice this before (they just usually pop up) or maybe they added this in (thank you). This allowed me to position my line carefully so I don't get surrounded and swarmed.

Previously I would charge one or two heavily armored, close ranged mechs with vigilance+sprint, then plant them like trees, bulwark then draw fire. With the changes, I did something similar and moved a King Crab in a forest and let it absorb fire all day, trying to stay in cover, moving to brace when in danger of being flanked/knocked down and using vigilance liberally if I wanted to move AND fire. It was basically an expensive target dummy.

My remaining mechs served as either snipers with PPCs, Gauss Rifles, LRMs, or finishers with AC20s and SRMs. They were heavily dependent on evasive pips and making sure they were in weird angles and ranges were they wouldn't draw the enemy line's attention. They would stay in the outskirts, dancing around my bulwarked/covered King Crab exchanging long range fire as the enemy approached, then swooping in for the kill with high damage burst if one gets too close.

It was a 4 star mission and main Opfor consisted of an Orion, Thunderbolt, Quickdraw and KC, reinforcements consisted of another pair of Orions and Thunderbolts. They basically threw themselves against the KC and got picked off one by one. It wasn't even close. My bulwarked KC took most of the fire and never got any internal damage.

Some thoughts:

- Sensor lock never came into play for me. My main damage sponge never really had enough evasive pips to matter, so I never bothered sensor locking a potential attacker to reduce it's damage. This might matter more in early game, but I've still to test it out in a fight with lights/mediums.

- Bulwark/Sure Footing - I miss the added evasive pips from jumps, but I liked it for my main tank. Rotating constant movement to avoid getting flanked, bracing/vigilance to get bulwark and staying in forests made that KC practically indestructible, even when being focused by LRMs (1 point of damage per hit LOL). I am wondering why jumping doesn't get the bonus though, I wish it did.

- Coolant vent only played once for me, using it to sustain 3 alphas from my King Crab main tank (double AC20s, MLas, SRM6s) that totally obliterated a Quickdraw and Thunderbolt that came close to melee range. It's powerful, but highly situational for me and fully utilising it means building for it specifically with high heat, high alpha builds. In the single player game, I doubt anyone would deliberately plan a lance expecting to use pilot health as a consumable, tactical resource. Compare it to Ace Pilot, Breaching Shot and Master Tactician - XP investments that have no draw backs but are usable in nearly every single situation. So for me, Coolant Vent is a BIG NO

And please please, if you are going to keep this skill as is, please rename this to something else or attach some other technical fluff to this that makes sense. I'm an engineer in RL, and there's absolutely no way anyone would design exhausts or coolant vents thar will eject through or near the cockpit where a live human will be. I just can't get over the silliness of the concept.

Some alternatives to the Coolant Vent 'drawback':
- Maybe a limited number of vents per mission? (like 2 or 3?)
- Maybe limited by a cool down ? Like usable only every 3 turns?
- Maybe a different drawback, like internal damage or maybe a random critical on a component? This would be more logical 'tech fluff' than venting heat through or near the mech cockpit

Or maybe Juggernaut could simply stick true to it's name and be a skill that allowed melee attacks on an opponent at sprint range. Since the Guts line basically already encourages high heat builds and melee attack is one of the more productive actions you can take when close to overheating, then it sort of aligns with the theme of the tree.

Regardless, appreciate @HBS_Kiva and the devs posting all of this and encouraging us to try it and get feedback from the community. I know it can be scary exposing your thought processes to a legion of fans who have their own ideas, notions and biases of how a game should be designed.
 
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AAR

After a little more testing, Coolant Flush is just disgusting on alpha boat heavy and assault mechs. It's really a free ticket out of any tough situation where you couldn't otherwise make use of your weapons without risking shutdown, or where you have the opportunity to win a fight just by brute forcing Alpha strikes. Really frigging ridiculous in Skirmish fights. This new skill takes a big steaming dump on any notion of heat-balancing loadouts or building for anything except damage and volume of fire.

Did use the new Bulwark some more. Honestly, I'm not that impressed. Guess it's nice that you can stack some extra resistance in, but where Bulwark always shown - making tanks tankier - it really is just an encouragement for people to avoid shooting your tanked unit and go for something squishier. And you lose it if you change facing, so once an opponent moves to flank at all you have to choose between losing the defensive bonuses or not being able to shoot (or turning then Bracing again, which basically resets the whole equation).

Between nerfing Bulwark and nerfing Evasive move and adding LOLCoolant Flush, really just disincentives mobility and rewards rolling heavy and Alpha-boating. Makes flamers sort of pointless too, if you try to close in on that hot-running assault it can just Coolant Flush and Alpha strike some more. Seems like a downgrade in tactical decision-making to me. Coolant Flush is a dumb ability and it should never go live.
 
Having played quite a few Hours i mostly like the changes to Bulwark making the gameplay more mobile - if you have enough vigilance to put your Mechs defensive up.
If not it seems the best is to place a thick armored Mechbait somewhere in a cover and let the OpFor target it whil your other Mechs kill them from afar as the amount of Incoming damage has been broadly increased if you dont so by a significant margin also forcing you to probably to upgrade as early as possible to higher armored heavier mechs which then will become more slow/immobile afterwards making the game less mobile again.

Evasion is still not worth it...the Problem is that some Weapon hit so hard it can only be survived when their damage is greatly reduced and Evasion does not reduce the damage that hits your Mech despite having 4 Evasion Wedges (which count down every attack and on Sensor Locking so that the Chance to get hit grows increasingly big at some Point meaning Evasion is a death sentence while Cover, Bulwark, Brace work against every attack the same amount).
Maybe Evasion should not add Wedges but make them permanent for the given round.

I have the Feeling you increased stability Damage to make sure foot more worthwhile?
I for sure receive more stability Damage.

Had another Convoy Mission were Vehicles stopped on the road - can it be that they somehow are linked to the Mech that activates the yellow marker that makes the convoy appear and that the vehicles stop if that Mech is to far away?
Bcs i ususally let my Scout activate the yellow markers and then send them ahead for Scouting so they make a big distance in short time at least in the early missions when i have still use of a Spider, Locust, even the Shadow Hawk ist sometimes (on some maps) way faster than some of the vehicles.

I like the new Maps and the Defense Base Mission with AI Engeneer Defense Turret activation.
I like that the Vehicles move around after delivering the engeneers and sensor lock for the Towers as well shot at the OpFor - really immersive!

Mission design - some thing that becomes obvious is that sometimes the Mission Tasks are not really Fitting into the Maps.
Keep the Engeneers alive while making them reaching the Base 1 a single round without ever be in danger of being shot is simply put not a Task at all bcs you do Nothing to it - it simply happens.
This is true for quite some missions like you know Escort Mission will never get attacked on the way but only at the Destination Point.
I have the Feeling there is room for much more interaction with the Maps and the OpFor making the game even better :)

Had some Sound Trouble where a Mech instead of giving a Moving Sound started to Sound like a Vortex that sucks stuff in and crushes it (i first thought it was the Sound of a damaged Mech moving but it did not go away and after the Mission it became permanent and i had to Restart the game)
I still use the X-Fi Titanium PCIe with the latest official Win10 Drivers.

As i play Ironman on very slow XP gain i am way afar from Coolant and cant say anything that is based on Gameplay and not on experience with General Player Psychology.
So i will say nothing to that as it was kindly and polite reequested not to do so - i can say though that i do not like the Lore Explanation that is given to it that much bcs we know a Cockpit is a sealed and even air locked secure Pilot Containment and it will very unlikely happen that way.

I do not increase the enocunter difficulty bcs i feel that heavy and especially assault mechs should be a very rarity in the periphery-realms and the bandit-kingdoms and if they have such Mechs they should be as ill-prepared as Grim Sybills Mechs.

I stated it quite some time i like the game really and when i often start anew its bcs i dont want to go to far with an early Version of the game that makes another playthrough less fun and in General i usually like the early stages of a game more than the later Gameplay when buidling up changes to upkeep - i am as gamer be a builder, i am not an upkeeper.

So far so good - build up your mood! :)


PS: Where is the wildfire that drives Mechs out of the Woods? ;)
 
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Disclaimer: I don't play online, only vs. AI on close to max difficulty settings.

Let's address the changes one at a time.

Sensor Lock:
Old: Always kind of a meh ability that was sometimes useful when you didn't otherwise have a shot, or felt the need to brace, and occasionally getting in some long range LRM fire.
Beta: A definite, if only minor improvement, though it does make for some interesting decision making, especially when coupled with PPCs. I would say that it is a good change that doesn't feel overpowered, though it also seems like it could be, if one was inclined to go for the full on 'control the battlefield' mode.

Bulwark:
Old: Apparently the community-at-large's go to skill. It allows your mechs to face-tank a considerable amount of damage, though I don't think it is as powerful as many people seem swear by, as most maps have a fair amount of cover, which absorbs a reasonable though less amount of damage.
Beta: Being nigh on invincible is cool, I guess, though while your invincible, you're also not shooting, as you have to brace in order to get it. If your not shooting, most of the time, you're probably doing it wrong. I have more to say about this below.

Juggernaut/Coolant Vent:
Old: Juggernaut was somewhat useful early in the campaign but gets worse the further along you go. I think it has 3 main problems. First, the farther into the game you get, the heavier the mechs get, which means they get less mobile, making it more difficult to run over and bash that guy over the head. Second, there is no 0 Initiative phase (there really should be a 0, come on Devs), which causes it's ability to essentially do nothing in the late game. Thirdly, it's in a skill tree whose first ability wants you to stay still, conflicting interests to say the least.
Beta: Coolant Vent is busted, as others have pointed out. Cockpit Mods negating the drawback should not be a thing, also, fluff text flavor fail, though I get what they were meaning. Assuming the Cockpit Mod issue gets resolved, I think this is probably to powerful, though I need to playtest some more with it. It lets you build an extremely high heat Alpha Strike mech that you then get to Alpha Strike turn after turn after ludicrous turn. Late game, with a fully upgraded MedBay on the Argo, the downtime from injuries is not the a big a deal, so deliberately injuring your pilots for a potential turn of devastation is a small price to pay. To borrow/paraphrase a term/concept from MTG, your pilots Hit Points are a resource, use them. I see this as an ability that is likely very abusable, and should be drastically altered or ditched altogether.

Evasive Movement/Sure Footing
Old: This in my opinion is the better defensive skill. I must disagree with the Devs when they said It was so rarely relevant. Late game, on Assaults and Heavies, and even on some mediums earlier on, like the Hunchback, it is VERY relevant. That extra pip meant the difference between getting hit and not getting hit.
Beta: Surefooting is worse than Evasive Movement, as you no longer get the extra pip if you jump/sprint/melee/DFA, and the auto entrenching in no way makes up for the loss of evasion. More to say below.

As a member of the 'evasion is superior to bulwark' (in most situations) camp, I found that jumping back and forth in cover gave as good or better survivability than face-tanking with Bulwark, and obviously, you were much more mobile and maneuverable. That being said, I think the change to Bulwark was too drastic...feeling more like a ban-hammer than a nerf-bat; it feels basically useless and unplayable. This might be due to my playstyle, which is very mobility oriented, LITERALLY putting jump jets on everything (don't leave home without them), and never bringing more than one mech with Bulwark (1.2 version), and the Bulwark 'mech is always some kind of fire support build, tons of LRMs/PPCs/AC10s. Just placed him on a hill with good fire lanes and proceed to rain death, but I digress, my apologies...

The change to Evasive Movement is, in my opinion, a worse nerf, as that extra pip while jumping has seemed very crucial on numerous occasions, especially late game with my Assault Lance going up against 7-8 OpFor Assaults; I very often had 4-5 pips of evasion on my Assaults, by constantly max jumping back on forth in cover/LOS blocking terrain. Without the evasion, and the nerf to Bulwark, two lances of OpFor Assaults seems daunting/impossible (pardon the hyperbole) on the higher difficulty settings, and a challenge even on normal.

All that being said, I don't think either of these (non-Beta changed) are even the most powerful/must have ability on all your pilots. That, in my opinion, would be Master Tactician, followed very closely by Multi-Target. Every single one of my pilots is either Master Tactician paired with Bulwark/Evasive Movement/Multi-Target, or Multi-Target+Breaching Shot paired with Evasive Movement/Bulwark, with the Master Tactician making up ~80% of my Pilots. Please Devs, don't nerf Master Tactician, but if you were going to nerf one of the abilities, it should've been that one.

I think this more a general game system problem, not just BattleTech, but any game that utilizes Initiative as a core gameplay mechanic; anything (mostly) that modifies initiative is BUSTED, whether it is a buff to yours, or, to a lesser extent, a debuff to your opponent's. These sorts of abilities allow a player a degree a battlefield manipulation that perhaps they shouldn't have. In BattleTech, I manipulate it by finding the OpFor on Sensors, then maneuvering as close to them as I can without actually getting a visual, all while maxing out (or nearly) my evasion, preferably in cover/jumping+brace. I then proceed to Reserve my Lance through to the last Initiative step, letting the enemy come to me, dodge most of their fire, fire upon them, stripping their evasion, then in the following round, due to Master Tactician on all/most of my guys, get to activate first, thus getting to get all my evasion back, while tacking advantage of their lack of evasion, due to being shot up on the initial encounter in the previous round, and proceed to murder them. Rinse Repeat.

I think a better way to address the issue of everyone's Pilots having the same abilities would be to limit the number of Pilots with the same ability to be deployed on the same mission. One Bulwark, One Master Tactician, etc. I also think that the skill trees are part of the problem, for two reasons. First, end of the tree abilities ought to not only be powerful, but FEEL powerful, currently, only Master Tactician is like that (at least for me). Secondly, I don't think 4 skill trees with a total of 8 abilities is enough in all honesty; the Devs created overlap where there shouldn't have been; Bulwark meet Juggernaut, Juggernaut, meet Bulwark, wait, what?! Personally, I would double the number of trees(8), quadruple the number of abilities(4/tree), and double the number of abilities that pilots can take(6).

Just to spitball

Make a close combat/brawler tree, bring back juggernaut, and dad other abilities, like the ability to fire all your guns first(like in the tabletop game), then make a melee attack; this should be the final ability on the tree, maybe. You could do similar things with the other trees.
 
Reminder.

Let's try to keep this thread here as clean a possible for Dev sifting of After Action reports only. It's difficult for them to do so if we fill the thread with other unsolicited stuff that quickly proliferates.

Pure opinion and theory crafting posts please address in one of the theory crafting threads instead.

Thanks.

kiva thread rules.PNG
 
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Tried out all the new abilities in my campaign game on normal difficulty, in the early-mid game where enemies are predominantly medium and heavy mechs. Went up against (and piloted) the odd assault mech. Ran ~5 missions. All mechs were stock mechs.

Updated Sensor Lock is definitely nice. For me, it seemed to meet the design goals of seeing more sensor lock use after the OpFor had engaged properly. I found it quite nice for helping evasion-mechs further evade fire from particulary scary 'mechs - so it got plenty of use even on enemies with no evasion pips.

Personally, I'm fine with this change.

Sure Footing became my new 'all tanks must have', replacing Bulwark in that role. It didn't really make them more mobile - instead of just standing in one spot, they would shuffle around within a patch of forest to ensure they kept entrenched and some cover bonus.

The change is something I am fine with, though I'm not 100% certain it makes things meaningfully more mobile.

The Bulwark change probably created the biggest adjustment in play. I found myself actually sprinting to get from cover to cover, as well as using brace more often when I was expecting a 'mech to come under heavy fire.

Again, this change I think is fine. It's the one that has definitely shaken up my play the most, and hasn't diminished my enjoyment of the game.

Coolant Vent is just super-powerful. I very rarely had an opportunity to use it (I got so many polar maps) but when I did, it melted enemies. It definitely wants the pilot in a hot-running 'mech, and while I only used stocks I expect its value will only increase with custom 'mechs. I got the most mileage out of a Kinatro - so much SRM alpha. I didn't get as much play with it as I hoped mainly because my guts pilot kept getting head-shotted, so sat out a lot.

From what little I used it, I suspect it might be too good. I also wonder whether it would be better as a morale-ability instead of a guts ability, with the cost changed accordingly. For the rare situations where I did use it, the cost was meaningless because in campaign play the damage was healed by the time I got to my next contract. The cost basically only stopped me from spamming it.
 
@HBS_Kiva , @HBS_Comanche , kind of an important question has come up regarding the proposed changes to Pilot Abilities.

Has the AI been updated to handle the changes in the Public Test release?
There is much theory-crafting going on below... but the answer to this question is pretty key.

While I understand the fine line... I am simply asking for clarification to the feedback request. I am not demanding an answer in any way shape or form. However, if we are to test and provide feedback... kinda need an answer... please.
 
I've played around with some of the other skills.
  • Coolant Vent: This is incredibly overpowered in both Skirmish and mid-late game in the campaign. Even if you knocked this down to 50% it would be overpowered. Also the AI didn't seem to use it in my matches when it would have been advantageous. I really think you guys need to go back to the drawing board on this skill slot and come up with something different. Otherwise, it's going to break your game badly and lead to people running really dumb builds with huge alphastrikes.
What if, we play off the theme of immobility in that skill tree except turn it around on the enemy. An active ability where your shot reduces mobility of the target you hit for a turn. You could call it Bola shot.
 
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Gave the beta changes a shot in an afternoon of testing yesterday. Played 3 missions from an early campaign save with mostly Medium-weight 'mechs (and one Dragon), and 3 from a post-campaign save with full Assaults. I don't play multiplayer at all (If it were up to me I would balance multiplayer and campaign modes separately - tactics that work in multi are often very different from what works on campaign, enough so that I feel balancing for one can significantly hurt the other). I may ramble a bit as I explain my opinions.


Sensor Lock - Still not terribly useful. By the time an enemy comes into sensor range, they're often already on the way over to fight me, leaving little time to "scout" the enemy and take potshots with LRMS or other beyond-visual-range weapons. I don't like keeping light 'mechs in my lance, given how easy they are to destroy (which only gets easier as the game goes on). A single shot from a Hunchback or Demolisher, or volley from an LRM/SRM carrier can (and has) wrecked more than one of my lights and killed my pilots. I could keep the lights at the back, running around to keep their evasion pips up and staying out of range of most enemies, but then I'm essentially down a 'mech and playing with a lance of 3. "Spending" a 'mech to make enemies slightly easier to hit, and now to make them slightly less likely to hit me, just doesn't work out in my mind.

Coolant Vent - Never. I already have enough trouble keeping butts in cockpits (Behemoth got a papercut! Out for 3 weeks) without actively burning my pilots' skin off. I mostly run stock, but I've still rarely run into a situation where I had trouble managing heat. Certainly not enough to spend skill points on an ability that forces me to hurt my own crew and lose them for yet more sick time. This is less of an issue later in the game when heal times are slashed thanks to the ship upgrades, but I still don't like it.

Sure Footing - While I agree Evasive Move was lackluster, I don't think this is the solution. Stability without reducing actual damage numbers doesn't seem to be very helpful - a Light will still get shredded, Mediums will be left with tatters of armor, etc. if you're taking enough damage in a turn to knock you down. If there were more patches of Rough Terrain, or if there were other ways to negate/mitigate damage through this ability, I think it would be much stronger and more attractive.

Bulwark - I saw the old version of this ability as being almost required as you progressed. Perhaps I'm just not a good enough player to abuse LOS and firing angles, as many others have mentioned being able to do when discounting Bulwark's power, but when facing enemies in a 2- or 3-to-1 ratio, ignoring half the damage the enemy puts out in a turn, every turn, is an ability I found to be incredibly valuable. Standing still also let me be more accurate, and build less heat from movement, which in turn let me fire more weapons and kill enemies faster. I can see why a person might not like this style of gameplay, as it's very static. Unfortunately, I found it necessary given the cramped maps and close-quarters fighting involved in almost every mission. Skirmishing, Hit-and-Run, Scouting... all of these tactics and techniques I couldn't get to work effectively when the enemy spawns right in your face and sight ranges are so short.
The new version I found to be a severe downgrade, to the point that it's nearly useless to me. I've only got four 'mechs: losing one for a turn so that I can hope the enemy focuses on it enough to make it not shooting or moving worth the sacrifice - every turn I'm not blasting an enemy to scrap is another turn that enemy has to shoot at me.
 
scJazz said:
@HBS_Kiva , @HBS_Comanche , kind of an important question has come up regarding the proposed changes to Pilot Abilities.

Has the AI been updated to handle the changes in the Public Test release?
There is much theory-crafting going on below... but the answer to this question is pretty key.

While I understand the fine line... I am simply asking for clarification to the feedback request. I am not demanding an answer in any way shape or form. However, if we are to test and provide feedback... kinda need an answer... please.
Click to expand...
I had an AI King Crab spamming Coolant Flush against me, so I think they have been.
 
EibonAlgol said:
I had an AI King Crab spamming Coolant Flush against me, so I think they have been.
Click to expand...
OUTSTANDING!

I've been waiting for just such a personal testimonial. Thank you. :bow:
 
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