Revert height bonus for multiplayer

[ObLoM]

Dear HBS Team,

Having collectively played hundreds of multiplayer battles since release, and about 120 battles since Urban Warfare, we (the player of Inner Sphere Wars https://innerspherewars.eu) would like to request a revert to the recent modification of height bonuses to mech attacks in multiplayer.

The problem:

The new height bonus system has been introduced to make jumping on top of buildings and firing down at mechs a risk/reward mechanic. However, when jumping onto indestructible objects (e.g. mountains) the risk component is missing. Before the recent change, height bonuses were given at +1 per 30 meters of height differences capped at +3. This gave significant rewards for occupying high ground, without being game breaking. After the most recent change, a mech can get bonuses of 40% or more to accuracy by occupying high ground.

Why is this bad for multiplayer? Maps are not symmetric in multiplayer, and map features now matter so much, that host or guest may have an insurmountable advantage from the get go. For example, central mountain has an enormous mountain right by host’s starting location. A jumping long range mech (such as a Catapult-C4) can get up by round 3 top the very top, and enjoy a game-breaking bonus for the entire game against the guest player. Combined with an Apex pilot - doubly so for getting through bulwark. This advantage also makes pilots with the worst gunnery skills (like Arclight) have 80-90% hit chances at long range against lights with significant evasion. Of course many other mechs (PPC and LRM jumpers mostly) benefit from this in a similar way to the point where it has become the defining factor of winning a match - are you host, or guest? This newly available tactic trivialises all others. It also further devalues non-jumping mechs which were already struggling.

The solution:

Revert bonus calculation to how it worked before, for multiplayer. The other, but less desirable option, is to keep the same mechanic but cap it at +3 or +4. This issue with the second option is that even slight hills or rises will give the full bonus.

 

[Jhebbal]

I will add my support behind this post. This is a change that, while seemly made single player games a bit more fun with the bonus to height, has completely thrown off game balance in multiplayer. I've been participating in Inner Sphere Wars, which is the largest multiplayer HBS Battletech League and has been running for over a year now (since the game's inception), and as a league we have collectively logged over a hundred and twenty games since the new expansion, and the height changes that have come with it.

Almost every multiplayer map has a terrain feature that offers a significant height bonus - as ObLoM mentioned, Central Mountain, there's also Alpine River, Tide Bay, the buildings on Metro Green, even the mountain on one side of the Stacks map - the overpowering advantage such a height bonus gives sweeps away all the tactical subtlety that makes this game great. It makes jump-capable mechs better than they already are, granting them easy access to these perches to rain down extremely accurate fire on non-jump capable mechs, and for sniper and fire support mechs to hit with almost certain accuracy a fully evasive light mech from extreme range because of the height bonus.

I would support a reversion to the height bonus to what it was before the release of Urban Warfare - again as ObLoM has mentioned, the second option of simply capping it would still give immediate max or near max bonuses because the rate of change is so high for height/accuracy.

 

[Dark Khaos]

It would be nice if height bonus was a settin option in Multiplayer Host Room (similar to timer choice) so it doesn’t impact single player and allows for a more “please everyone” option.

 

[happygrue]

100% agree with the above. Jump Jets are already king in the hands of a clever opponent. Given that they were _already_ far to good and in need of a Nerf (make it harder to aim when jumping! Or more heat! Or something!), it is just brutal to see that if you have JJ you can run your evasion up AND get amazing height bonuses that can even cut through light mechs with high evasion if you jump up to the places that JJ mechs get to easily and others do not. It may work in single player or against the AI but in a serious MP match the height changes are just gutting match after match with silliness on places like Central Mountain and others.

 

[Grayson Marik]

I agree. As creator of ISW, I have watched fight outcomes from all playing parties. The outlined effect is apparent. Statistically, i can most often guess the outcome of a battle by the posted drop decks of players on some of the maps like alpine, central mountain or all others with significant height differences.

 

[Fallonar]

In addition to what the above have said, the other factor that these height bonuses give to multiplayer is that it loses the focus of the multiplayer pilot balance. Pilots in mp necessitate a more holistic method of choice than what is presented in singleplayer, with few pilots having more than 4 gunnery and so having low chances to hit compared to what one would find in a campaign. This significant aim cap on a lot of pilots means that anything that is hard to hit (such as a javelin) is doubly so and requires extra effort to sensor lock and remove evasion for mechs to be able to land their shots. But the new height bonuses completely negate that. Now, even Paradise with his measly 2 gunnery would be hard pressed to ever have a shot lower than his 75% cap with the bonus that height grants. This means that the principles that have been running multiplayer combat for over a year are all thrown aside for this game-breaking mechanic.

The amount of areas that this mechanic interferes with, be they pilots or terrain or jump jets, exacerbates so many of the issues that are presented to the multiplayer community and is impossible to manage with no settings to toggle these different issues on/off. A change needs to be made to fix the balance of the game.

 

[The Skimmer]

And afraid I have to agree. I put ~350 hours into single player, the lost interest due to the AI (not a whinge, by the way, 350 hours is pretty good value). I bought flashpoint, but never played it, and didn't buy UW. Then I saw some ISW games, and decided to jump in. That's when I bought UW, so multiplayer has got at least a sale for the company...

As of now, ISW requires height, and little else. While some of the maps are unbalanced, it wouldn't be anywhere near the problem it is if the height bonus wasn't so high. Cap it, increase the scale, change it so the requirement for an extra pip requires more than the last (e.g. +1 at 10, +2 at 30, +3 at 60) etc, whatever, but it needs to be dealt with. You could even put it into tactics or something, add a 'max height bonus +1' every few skill points the same way we do for evasion and piloting, with basic pilots limited to +2, but excellent tacticians to +6 or so - this will doubly help ISW, as our tacticians are our sensor lockers, and if they fire they can't lock...

 

[Grayson Marik]

Well, as the game ages, we are closing to the time, when Multi Player and Multi Player content keep the game living and healthy. So I strongly recomend to give MP mode more love anyway, next to the height bonus ah... "mistake"

 

[Blade_mercurial]

I don't really play multiplayer (although maybe one day I will have the time to get into it), but I can see how this change can be game-breaking for that game-mode.

Hell, its actually too good of a bonus for single-player. The AI isn't smart enough to exploit it, so it becomes mostly an advantage for the player, and its another case of trivializing Evasion Pips (a mechanic that really doesn't NEED yet another way to bypass because it also diminishes the value of usual solutions to dealing with high Evasion Targets: having to sensor lock or engage in melee).

So even from a single-player standpoint, I think the to-hit bonus for height is way too good, and I'd be happy to see it toned down in some fashion. If that benefits the multi-player community, then double-win, from my point-of-view!