Yeah, it's not tabletop. And it probably shouldn't be. But there's some things which keep things in check which HBS' game did not keep - and we're seeing the results of that. Headshots on demand with a full alpha strike, being able to spike someone into shutdown with heat weapons... these things just weren't something you could do in the tabletop. (There were other broken options, but they took some effort to get there.)
I'm quite certain, well . . . you don't care about it. And while you're fishing for me to advocate and try to play developer - no. That's HBS' job to do, not mine, and not yours. They want to "screw up" their game, that's on them. Players want to cheat their way through the game with headshot machines and then complain how it's trivialized? That's on the players.
You don't like to play developer yet you (and me and everybody here) have expressed some opinion about the state of the game and what could be done?. Do you realize that to some extent this game targets people who may never heard before of BT, right?. What I'm saying is that whatever solutions you propose should take that into account, because otherwise is not very likely to happen imo.
Do you really consider cheating playing accordingly to the game rules?. Not cheat codes, not exploits, but skills within the core of the career/campaign progression, like building morale so you can use PS/Vigilance more often?. How can that be a player's fault wanting to do as well as he can within the game constraints?. There are not dozens of morale based skills but only two, and using them intensively after buying Argo upgrades is "cheating your way"?.
The Marauder's effectiveness seriously is too random to call "reliable", as far as I can call it. It's more reliable compared to other methods, certainly. But far more reliable? Hitting a 'Mech with all the ordinance I can until it goes down and doesn't get back up. Having a full Lance which can delete a single troublesome 'Mech (or render more than one into non-threats) is more reliable than sinking Resolve into Precision Shots and hoping it works. Because there's still a not-insignificant chance it won't happen.
I think you're not seeing it like I see it. For example, if you need to kill nine mechs you don't rely on being able to
specifically oneshot kill any particular mech, you rely on killing fast enough you won't be surrounded by them and exactly which one takes one or two salvos (or sometimes even three) doesn't matter much. You rely on that and survivability, like having relatively high evasion, only one target being able to fire at you thanks to range plus mobility from JJs (controlling Line of Fire), Vigilance, Bulwark + Cover and Ace Pilot to fire -> jump away -> fire -> jump away or reserve -> jump into -> fire -> fire again -> jump out.
So it is not just the quirk which makes it so good.
And I'll repeat again. This playstyle can be done with many other mechs and loadouts, at a lower level but it can be done. Long before HM I was already doing it, and probably I've mentioned it here and there in this same forum and for sure in Steam. And did it using mostly LL based builds, like A-II 6xLL+++ 1xAC5++/2xAC2++, KC 4xLL+++ 1xAC5 or even GRH 6xML++ (although this one was definitely risky). For "normal" five skull missions LL+++ allowed to cheese the mission but the hardest ones were not so easy, and some like Ambush were super hard.
The A-II has not Gyro (for the LLs) and the KC has Gyro but lacks A-II firepower, both have worse initiative and are slower and they're a lot less damage-on-the-head/heat efficient.
@Doctor Machete
Please could you run the figures again if the Marauder had somewhere around 28-30% bonus, which may be an interesting balance point between 'vanilla' and non-vanilla items that will have a greater divide in availability for those playing new store options or maybe some other options HBS introduce next patch (and those are official options rather than an individual player house rule).
The chart is incredibly useful.
The M3R bonus is a x2.4 multiplier. Now I've used a 2 multiplier, which gives base head chance very close to 30%:
And notice that "GLOBAL MULT." set to one in the right-down corner. That's because when I used the AIM mod (right now is broken) I could enable clustering, which would increase a lot the chances to the aimed location so this setting was meant to compensate for that (like with a 0.33 value), so now you'd get more or less the same chance to hit the aimed location but those close to it would receive a moderate increase and those location farther would be reduced.
What I'd propose is a similar setting with a slider format, where you can go from 1x (current) to 0x (no called shots at all) and the in-betweens. And of course, if you set it to minimum you should get a better score in the Career. I think this solution would be a good compromise. If you're a newbie don't touch it, but if you're experienced or just don't like using PS then it is a win-win.
And then I'd left the M3R as it is... or not. I don't think it really matters a lot. Is it OP? clearly yes. But there are other not-so-OP but still OP builds, and if you look at what people like to use it would seem than the M3R as one of the most popular, based on threads here and in Steam forums. So yes, many like some cheese from time to time, myself included. Sometimes I want a challenge and other times I just want to relax. If I've been playing Hades or Dead Cells for a couple hours what I don't want from BT is something hardcore but four or five turn based missions to relax. But if I'm going to focus on BT for a while then I'd prefer some serious challenge, like foes using PS on you with custom loadouts (as optional setting), that would be awesome, rather than nerfs.
