Is headcapping too powerful?

[Jade_Rook]

General question. Heavy Metal has introduced several new chassis and weapons which make decapitating mechs significantly easier. The Marauder can get over 30% chance to hit the head with Called Shot Mastery (CSM). The Annihilator gets 4 AC/10s with a damage bonus that lets them headcap.

Should headshots be nerfed?
Should the called shot bonus to hit the head specifically be reduced?
Should it even be possible to make called shots at the head using Precision Shot?

I know a lot of builds and strategies have been developed around head shots, so I am wary about suggesting that it should be changed. So I am curious what other people think.

 

[Abramsrunner]

I like it because every drop with a custom lance of Tac 9 pilots turns a normal run into a massacre of mechs that would make the Black Watch blush, and that is funny.

If the values are kept the same, It should probably be changed to if the mech has a major debuff on it like being shut down, or knocked down then allow a headshot called shot. I don't think HBS will do much in the way of nerfing called shots in Battletech, but if there is a BT2 they may change it up a bit so it's not a no brainer to go for the head with mass weapon volleys.

 

[Eximar]

It was too easy before, so I never targeted heads with Precision Shot.
Now, it's just absurd.

 

[Prussian Havoc]

IMO Headshots in the swirl and whirl of Combat should come as a pleasant surprise with the Head not being targetable by Precision Strike.

Headshot Called Shots on fallen or shutdown Mechs are acceptable as the Mechs are vulnerable due to either Instability or Heat.

 

[hongooi]

I think the problem isn't so much with headshots, but with called shots being OP in general. In my previous campaign game last year, which went on and on to the point of driving Glitch to drink, I ended up swearing off Precision Shot just because it was becoming a bit silly. I could kill just about any mech with a called shot to the center torso from a King Crab or Atlas 2. (This didn't stop me using tank-n-spank tactics to knock enemies down with massive lurm barrages, then core them. I reserve the right to be inconsistent.)

Headshotting with a Marauder is powerful, but if it wasn't available, I'd just target the CT instead, and with heavier mechs and more weapons. The real advantage of headshots is that they give you 3 mech pieces as salvage, which means you can level up your company much faster.

 

[commuterzombie]

Called shots to the CTs of smaller Mechs (65 tons and below) and called shots to the heads to Assault Mechs are how you easily even the odds on the higher skull missions. With a greatly increased variety of weapons in the game that can head shot, and Mechs like the Warhammer, Marauder and Annihilator in the game that are really good at farming those called shots, I think it's the dominant late game strategy.

I can see an argument for setting the base % to called shot the head reduced to 10% for Tactics 9 pilots (let the Marauder shoot at the old value of 18% if you like) but I don't mind the system as it is now. It makes collecting all the assault mechs viable in a career, even if you're on 'pieces of eight' salvage.

 

[Starman]

I like the suggestion to remove called shots to the head and make it a random occurrence, perhaps scaling the chance up for pilots with higher combined Tactics and Gunnery skills.

 

[HunterWilde]

I hope if they come out with a BT2 game that they don't have precise shot at all as an ability, and just let called shots be done on shutdown or prone mechs. It makes the game to easy and really reduces the threat level of certain enemy mechs. Come across an enemy Victor? Precision shot to remove right torso and no more AC20. Hunchback? Same thing. Just image if you saw a Victor or Hunchback come into range and you didn't have precise shot. The way Battletech and mechs were designed just doesn't mesh well with the ability to blow off a mech's most powerful armaments at will and defang them.

 

[Jolly Joker]

The more I read, the more I think that Precise Shot should come with some kind of downside.

So as a first suggestion - how about giving evasion pips of BOTH mechs (firing and fired-at) a negative modifier on precise shot probabilities? This would give headshots to fast-moving mechs a low probability, would make coil-weapons useless as headhunting weapons and would generally reduce headshot probabilities.

 

[MeiSooHaityu]

It can be a bit easy with Called Shot Mastery. I don't know if I would nerf it though. Maybe...hard to say.

One thing I do to help curb headshots being overly easy/helpful is I slow down MechWarrior progression a long with requiring at least 5 pieces of salvage for a mech.

With these settings, I can't headcap a complete mech, and my MechWarrior take a long time to get proficient at reliably getting headshots.

Really, by the time MechWarrior are proficient at headshots, I am pretty far into my game at that point.

This seems to work well for me.

 

[Pherdnut]

It's not powerful until you have high-level pilots and crew morale high enough to use it regularly. I'm okay with end-game godly, although they could perhaps add 6-skull missions where you're facing mechs with high-grade equipment like yours and full use of their abilities.

The Maras are perhaps a bit silly though. I pilot-killed 19/20 mechs on one of those defend/attack missions and never had to deal with more than one lance at a time.

 

[Nick_S]

I don't headshot that often (in part because I tend to stop my careers when I'm getting to the point of having fully optimized builds -- because the game gets less interesting), but discussion on these forums has convinced me that headshotting has become too efficient a tactic.

Brainstorming -- one possible approach would be to say that Precision Strike can only be used to target a location which has already received damage. I have no idea how you'd justify that with in-game logic, but it would mean that you couldn't target the head in most cases and you couldn't target the CT (or the rear CT) until you'd first damaged the mech with a non-precision strike attack.

That's a little too weird to be a perfect solution, but I mention it because it would be an interesting dynamic.

 

[Prussian Havoc]

@Jolly Joker and @Nick_S have good points. A countervailing restraint for Precision Striking a Mech’s Head might be a good compromise. Perhaps the difficulty in Precision Striking a Head as opposed to a limb or torso could be recognized by the condition that to PS at the Head, one only gets to fire a single weapon... kinda like the sniper taking steady careful aim with his rifle, as opposed to his rifle, his shotgun, his pistol, and his automatic weapon.

 

[Jolly Joker]

Good point.

 

[unclecid]

always felt that precision shot should not only require morale/resolve but should have a 'x' turn cooldown for the pilot that uses it.

 

[Nick_S]

@Jolly Joker and @Nick_S have good points. A countervailing restraint for Precision Striking a Mech’s Head might be a good compromise. Perhaps the difficulty in Precision Striking a Head as opposed to a limb or torso could be recognized by the condition that to PS at the Head, one only gets to fire a single weapon... kinda like the sniper taking steady careful aim with his rifle, as opposed to his rifle, his shotgun, his pistol, and his automatic weapon.

Still brainstorming, PS currently servers a number of functions. Early game it's occasionally useful just to boost the chance to hit without worrying about the ability to aim for a specific location. Limiting it to a single weapon would make it much less useful early game.

Broadly speaking PS helps with all of the elements of efficient offense: (1) increases damage by improving chance to hit, (2) increases ability to degrade the opponents capability by allowing targeted attacks, (3) makes it easier to concentrate fire on a critical opponent (by reducing their initiative).

Similarly vigilance (the defensive ability) helps in multiple ways (1) removes stability damage, (2) sets braced, (3) improvement to initiative makes it easier to get out of a bad situation the following turn.

Putting more limitations on PS would make it less of a general-purpose offensive ability. I think the approach should either be to split out the offensive abilities and end up with two offensive moral abilities (for example one which improved chance to hit and hurt the target's initiative and then other for precision targeting) or to keep PS as a broad ability and make it less useful for targeting specific locations.

Splitting it in two is less good. It requires changing the UI, and it's not a great idea to have two abilities one of which is mostly useful in the early game and the other is mostly useful in the later game. Better to have one ability which can be useful throughout the whole game.

Suppose Called Shot Mastery is really the problem, and that base PS is fine (which I think is true). What if high-tactics combined with PS functioned like a TAG system, rather than improving targeting? Tactics-6 could set a state so that all fire on the targeted mech would gain 10% damage for the next turn. Tactics-9 could increase that to 20%.

That would take away from the "target specific location" portion of PS but would enhance the "concentrate fire" aspect. It would also be in keeping with the name of the skill -- "tactics."

I like that much better than my first idea.

 

[Nick_S]

One additional thought: that change would make it more difficult to target the legs of mechs early game (a useful way to gain salvage), so it might make sense to add a stability-element to PS as well.

Perhaps: Mech making the Precision Strike gets 20% bonus to stability damage & Precision Strike removes Entrenched.

So it can have some early-game use as a way to contribute to knockdown as well as (or instead of) an immediate kill (and it would take away from the current dynamic in which ML-boats are best able to take advantage of PS).

 

[Bladewinder]

Or do it like CBT. Targeting a specific point target on a battlemech increases the penalty.
Basically you get a +3 penalty to hit a certain part, but if not targeting a specific location, it confers a -1 bonus to hit instead.

And remove the called shot bonus from the tactics school because it is too good or at least curb it down.

So instead of seeing things like to 90% chance to hit CTs / legs, you only see something like 75% with absolute 10/10 pilots.
I mean most of our 10/10/10/10 dudes are usually looking at 95% chance to hit at optimal range.
Losing 20% to focus all shots into 1 location is a very fair trade off.

Or just scrap called shots altogether.

Then we can finally curb ridiculous scenarios like 4 mechs taking on 20 in attack and defend.
Lance vs 12 is already very absurd in the long run of things. Even in vanilla before all the Clan tech came in.

This will effectively reduce power creep in the game in the long run.

 

[sortulv]

I like the called shots, mostly because they are the primary way to get extra salvage, which it really thematic for a merc company. It does feel strange that the only way to make called shots is also the way to improve precision. Would have liked to have that reversed, so that called shots are an alternative to increased accuracy, not an additional bonus.

 

[unclecid]

keep it simple.
put precision shot on a cooldown so it cannot be spammed by each pilot every round.
if a pilot can only use it once every 3 or 4 rounds or more it would greatly reduce the issues.
this is just my opinion.