283 replies to this topic

[Davers]

I will mention Atlases seem much more like assault mechs now. A lot more of that 'wolves taking down a bear' feeling than before.

[Inappropriate1191]

Way I see it, missiles were in desperate need of a nerf. They were doing way too much damage, to the point that the majority of your firepower came from missiles. Now, do I think they went a bit too far? Yeah. Missiles aren't useless at the current state, but they also aren't that viable for anything other than something to fill those green hardpoints with. PGI is going the right path, though, but they need to swing it a little bit to the other side, and make missiles a little more powerful. I think when they do that, they'll hit the sweet spot.

[Ens]

Some PPL need to read Dev-posts completely:

Paul Inouye, on 21 March 2013 - 02:46 PM, said:

THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THIS MESSAGE:
This is a TEMPORARY fix to quell the damage done by missiles at this time. We are fully investigating the damage model AND focusing on the grouping of missiles and will update as soon as we can on how any changes will be managed/implemented.

Edited by Ens, 24 March 2013 - 01:59 PM.

[Sifright]

Davers, on 24 March 2013 - 12:02 PM, said:

Until you realize that SRMs are NOT hitting for only 1.5 damage per missile, then there is not point continuing this conversation.

Until you realize that SRMS are doing only 1.5 damage to the component per missile they hit there is no point continuing this conversation.

Srms splash doesn't effect the component it hits. A person who is using srms and targeting a specific component to kill an enemy rapidly can no longer deal that damage.

Splash DOES NOT effect the component the missile impacts on.

The only mechs that were being HEAVILY impacted by the splash bug pre full on splash madness were light mechs where all the components/hitboxes were tight in against each other.

The larger mechs WERE NOT suffering to any where near the same degree from the splash bug until the prehotfix patch.

Edit: the important thing to remember is that splash damage for those who were utilizing the srm weapons as a precision weapon is actually a penalty because now their sum total of damage is being used to make precision play worse.

Edited by Sifright, 24 March 2013 - 02:02 PM.

[PaintedWolf]

Re-posted as this point is relevant to this discussion: Okay, let's consider, if a Splatcat is doing 90 points of damage as intended, it should take on average 3-4 salvos for the Splatcat to drop a Mech. Averaging out HarmAssassins stats we get roughly 3.5 volleys per kill- perfectly in line with expected damage.

If we look at the videos we see some Mechs already damaged or Light going down in 1-2 strikes, and we see other cases where Mechs survive up to 6. That seems pretty much like 3-4 on average to me, that seems like a 90 point Alpha Strike.

So again, if the Mech is doing more then 90 point Alphas, why not only is this not being shown in damage overviews, AND in HarmAssassins state BUT also why is it we don't really see any of this in the video evidence presented above?

Adding: In other words, if the hot fix is happening cause of a bug vs balancing out the Mech's expected damage it completely changes the dynamics of the discussion. Presuming we need to fix a bug means that noting the Splatcat's weaknesses traded off for the high Alpha equates to such a defense as one of allowing people to cheat.

However if this is over missile damage, and not the bug, then we can begin to discuss things like heat, range, armor, etc.

Ens, on 24 March 2013 - 01:59 PM, said:

Some PPL need to read Dev-posts completely:

Yes some people claim we should not worry because it is temporary. These people will then claim in the next sentence that the hot fix balanced the game and missiles are now where they are supposed to be.

[Lord Perversor]

PaintedWolf, on 24 March 2013 - 02:03 PM, said:

Re-posted as this point is relevant to this discussion: Okay, let's consider, if a Splatcat is doing 90 points of damage as intended, it should take on average 3-4 salvos for the Splatcat to drop a Mech. Averaging out HarmAssassins stats we get roughly 3.5 volleys per kill- perfectly in line with expected damage.

If we look at the videos we see some Mechs already damaged or Light going down in 1-2 strikes, and we see other cases where Mechs survive up to 6. That seems pretty much like 3-4 on average to me, that seems like a 90 point Alpha Strike.

So again, if the Mech is doing more then 90 point Alphas, why not only is this not being shown in damage overviews, AND in HarmAssassins state BUT also why is it we don't really see any of this in the video evidence presented above?

Adding: In other words, if the hot fix is happening cause of a bug vs balancing out the Mech's expected damage it completely changes the dynamics of the discussion. Presuming we need to fix a bug means that noting the Splatcat's weaknesses traded off for the high Alpha equates to such a defense as one of allowing people to cheat.

However if this is over missile damage, and not the bug, then we can begin to discuss things like heat, range, armor, etc.



Yes some people claim we should not worry because it is temporary. These people will then claim in the next sentence that the hot fix balanced the game and missiles are now where they are supposed to be.

Let me resume it in a way you can more easily understand since you seems a bit dense.

It's not that the missiles was doing MORE DMG per single impact area, but they was doing increased dmg in AoE effect. Yes the Splatcat has a 90 point alpha IF all missiles hit CT.
while the bug allowed those 90 points multiplied for as many sections it's transversed (like 90x3 if it hit just LT-CT-RT on a single mech) wich also granted extra killing abilty due the added ability to crush other weapons/ammo/section SHOULD NOT be receiving such dmg.

Edited by Lord Perversor, 24 March 2013 - 02:12 PM.

[stjobe]

I'll just add that the 'hotfix' didn't actually fix any of the bugs; it only
1. Reduced splash radius (from 4m to 1.8/1.3 for LRMs/SRMs respectively)
2. Capped splash damage to 40% of direct damage
3. Lowered direct damage

This was done so the game would be playable at all while they work on the real fix.

The fix which I hope will mean the following:
1. Removal of splash damage entirely
2. Improvement of flight path and spread so that missiles hit a 'mech sized target at most ranges
3. Improvement of terminal phase so that LRMs more reliably can hit a moving target
4. Increase in damage of both SRMs and LRMs by a few fractions
5. Optionally a LRM flight speed increase of roughly 25%

[Davers]

Sifright, on 24 March 2013 - 01:59 PM, said:

Until you realize that SRMS are doing only 1.5 damage to the component per missile they hit there is no point continuing this conversation.

Srms splash doesn't effect the component it hits. A person who is using srms and targeting a specific component to kill an enemy rapidly can no longer deal that damage.

Splash DOES NOT effect the component the missile impacts on.

The only mechs that were being HEAVILY impacted by the splash bug pre full on splash madness were light mechs where all the components/hitboxes were tight in against each other.

The larger mechs WERE NOT suffering to any where near the same degree from the splash bug until the prehotfix patch.

Edit: the important thing to remember is that splash damage for those who were utilizing the srm weapons as a precision weapon is actually a penalty because now their sum total of damage is being used to make precision play worse.

And yet other posters in this thread have said they have not really noticed much of a change in terms of how many alpha strikes it takes to kill mechs.

We have no answers about which mechs are/aren't being heavily effected other than the Commando. But all mechs with more 'complicated' hit boxes are being effected. Which are these mechs? I don't know. I am sure it's not something you would know just by looking at them.

Lastly, and as something that is a bit off-topic, SRMs being better 'precision weapons' than ballistics seem to be a bad idea. SRMs do high damage because they are NOT supposed to be as accurate as they are in MWO.

[PaintedWolf]

Lord Perversor, on 24 March 2013 - 02:10 PM, said:

Let me resume it in a way you can more easily understand since you seems a bit dense.

It's not that the missiles was doing MORE DMG per single impact area, but they was doing increased dmg in AoE effect. Yes the Splatcat has a 90 point alpha IF all missiles hit CT, while the bug allowed those 90 points multiplied for as many sections it's transversed (like 90x3 if it hit just LT-CT-RT on a single mech) wich also added extra killing abilty due the added ability to crush other weapons/ammo/section SHOULD NOT be receiving such dmg.

And that would still show up on stats and video.

If the missile doesn't just do a 90 point Alpha, like you are claiming, but the explosion is damaging multiple areas, say 2 or 3, then that would what? 180 damage? 270? Let's say it only ends up doing 50% more cause only have the missiles splashed- that's 135 damage- still significant enough for us to see signs off.

And then how is it Mechs are surviving that kind of damage? Sure after 5-6 Salvos on an Assault, we should see hundreds upon hundreds of points of damage show up- a Stalker gets hit 5-6 times at multiple locations for over 90 points of damage?

Just surviving a 90 point Alpha is difficult enough for a Mech. Now you are saying they are surviving entire salvos of 2-3 times that number, but the damage is magically missing from the stats page and the video evidence for some reason does not show any signs of it. Shouldn't we be seeing component destruction 2 pages long? Shouldn't we be seeing arms blown off and legs blow off simultaneously?

There's all sorts of things we SHOULD be seeing if these claims about extra damage are true that we just aren't seeing, but then we get a lot of "special reasons" why this is the case, and the story changes to something new with every post and objection.

Basically the bug is too minor to appear in the general data BUT sufficient to effect game play. That is extremely convenient isn't it? When we look for evidence of it, it is not big enough to appear, but when it comes to justifying sweeping changes all of a sudden the bug is prevalent and a big deal having a huge effect.

Again, this does not seem like a consistent case, and more like people willing to change their story and say anything at all to justify a change completely unwarranted by a minor bug concerning splash damage.

stjobe, on 24 March 2013 - 02:13 PM, said:

I'll just add that the 'hotfix' didn't actually fix any of the bugs; it only
1. Reduced splash radius (from 4m to 1.8/1.3 for LRMs/SRMs respectively)
2. Capped splash damage to 40% of direct damage
3. Lowered direct damage

This was done so the game would be playable at all while they work on the real fix.

The fix which I hope will mean the following:
1. Removal of splash damage entirely
2. Improvement of flight path and spread so that missiles hit a 'mech sized target at most ranges
3. Improvement of terminal phase so that LRMs more reliably can hit a moving target
4. Increase in damage of both SRMs and LRMs by a few fractions
5. Optionally a LRM flight speed increase of roughly 25%

So the game was "unplayable" before the patch now, but the patch didn't reduce missile damage that much. Amazing, the game was in an emergency state to the point where it was "unplayable".

What about all those gameplay videos where a Commando survived 2 full salvos, and a Stalker survived 6 Splatpult Alpha strikes? That does not look unplayable to me- that looks like it was working as intended.

There are five gameplay videos I analyzed, including one that was meant to show the Splatcat was "OP" and dozens more online that show the game is playable, and the Splatcat appears to be doing 90 points of damage. In these videos we don't see absurdly high points of damage (in the 2-3k range we'd expect), we don't see pages and pages of component destruction, we DO see Mechs surviving multiple volleys of 36 SRMs- even Light Mechs. Some Assaults even survive 5 or 6 full on volleys. This does not look like it was "unplayable" to me.

Edited by PaintedWolf, 24 March 2013 - 02:24 PM.

[FrostBear]

Sad things happen...live with it boaterpros...finally A1s, srmstalkis, and the rest get smacked around. Love it.


FrostBear

Edited by FrostBear, 24 March 2013 - 02:26 PM.

[Lord Perversor]

@paintwolf

Are you seriously saying that before the hotfix you didn't notice that SRm/streak/LRm was somehow magically obliterating the armor of almost all sections with just 2x alphas ??

So you saw normal a 400 armor Cataphract (and just the armor not counting internals) gone with 2x 90 dmg alpha ???

In that casi i suggest you may try to play this game with more variable builds than you seems to do.

[stjobe]

PaintedWolf, on 24 March 2013 - 02:21 PM, said:

So the game was "unplayable" before the patch now, but the patch didn't reduce missile damage that much. Amazing, the game was in an emergency state to the point where it was "unplayable".

No, the game was "unplayable" AFTER the patch, but BEFORE the hotfix. And the most pressing issue wasn't LRM damage or splash damage, but the fact that LRMs all of a sudden did extra damage to the head of 'mechs no matter where they hit.

So a LRM would do its listed damage to wherever it hit, and then additional damage to every hitbox in the 8m sphere of splash damage AND THEN additional damage to the head.

That was what made the game "unplayable".

Since they already was working on a missile fix because of the splash damage problem that had been discovered and confirmed the week before the patch, they decided they needed to do something, and what they did was the hotfix that reduced splash radius, capped splash damage, and reduced direct damage - i.e. where we are now.

They're still working on the actual fix.

[Sifright]

Davers, on 24 March 2013 - 02:17 PM, said:

And yet other posters in this thread have said they have not really noticed much of a change in terms of how many alpha strikes it takes to kill mechs.

They are wrong. It takes a much longer time to kill mechs of any kind with srms now. Before I could kill an atlas from behind in two salvos if I placed all of the missiles in the rear ct properly (This would be expected with 180 damage as the atlases would have 30-40 rear armour+64 internal ) now it takes 4+ salvos from an A1 considering thats a heavy mech placing all of its damage precisely into the rear of a mech I think thats a touch unreasonable.

Davers, on 24 March 2013 - 02:17 PM, said:

We have no answers about which mechs are/aren't being heavily effected other than the Commando. But all mechs with more 'complicated' hit boxes are being effected. Which are these mechs? I don't know. I am sure it's not something you would know just by looking at them.

Actually a fair few players knew about this bug for quite a long time and the mechs most effected were light mechs due to the way their hit boxes are placed and how small the mechs in general are.

The mechs most effected were in order of severity

Spider
Commando
Raven
Jenner
Cicada

Every other mech in the game before splash madness patch was implemented did not suffer extreme over damage from missile splash because their hitboxes were so spread out.

Davers, on 24 March 2013 - 02:17 PM, said:

Lastly, and as something that is a bit off-topic, SRMs being better 'precision weapons' than ballistics seem to be a bad idea. SRMs do high damage because they are NOT supposed to be as accurate as they are in MWO.

This comment is a red herring.

I've not stated they should be a better precision weapon, ballistics will always have more precision than srms unless you can point to people taking cockpits out with srms intentionally before the lrmpocalpyse patch? My point is if you play with high precision targeting in mind which for SRMS gives you a very small engagement envelope with all the downsides that this implies you are rewarded with higher damage capability. Ballistics allow you to be highly precise to ranges exceeding 300m with out to much difficulty.

Srms are currently junk because precision play is done better by ballistics even if you face hug with your srms.

[PaintedWolf]

Lord Perversor, on 24 March 2013 - 02:25 PM, said:

@paintwolf

Are you seriously saying that before the hotfix you didn't notice that SRm/streak/LRm was somehow magically obliterating the armor of almost all sections with just 2x alphas ??

So you saw normal a 400 armor Cataphract (and just the armor not counting internals) gone with 2x 90 dmg alpha ???

In that casi i suggest you may try to play this game with more variable builds than you seems to do.

A 90 point Alpha is a lot of damage and that's what makes up for the fact that the specialized build is heavily deficient in other areas. To get there the A1 has to sacrifice heat efficiency, armor, often times use an XL and rely on a relatively low ammunition pool, has little range and can get its ears blown off rendering it helpless.

Now with respect to the claims that Mechs are surviving 5-6 volleys, but not dying from the undetectable extra damage on these 90 point Alphas because it is aoe---the fact is you would then notice an excess amount of component destruction- which again we are not seeing.

[Sifright]

Lord Perversor, on 24 March 2013 - 02:25 PM, said:

@paintwolf

Are you seriously saying that before the hotfix you didn't notice that SRm/streak/LRm was somehow magically obliterating the armor of almost all sections with just 2x alphas ??

So you saw normal a 400 armor Cataphract (and just the armor not counting internals) gone with 2x 90 dmg alpha ???

In that casi i suggest you may try to play this game with more variable builds than you seems to do.

I certainly wasn't seeing this happen and I have 700k In my A1 for experience.

a full frontal smash on a cataphract would often knock the front CT to yellow internals and orange damage on a side torso.

180 damage SHOULD remove all of the armour on the front of a cataphract by the way Phract torso on all sections has a maximal armour amount of 208 and no one ever puts all of their armour on the front.

but no I wasn't seeing 400 damage from two head on salvos vs a phract.

Edited by Sifright, 24 March 2013 - 02:37 PM.

[TheSteelRhino]

Henri Schoots, on 24 March 2013 - 01:26 PM, said:

a support weapon is most definitely for killing, one of the better known support weapons is the howitzer.
you are giving your own meaning to words.
having said that, missiles are long range weapons, meant to kill targets.

Wow. Lets put this in context. How many m1a1 tanks are lost to a howitzer? Sure, it can probably happen. But tanks are usually taken out by DIRECT fire.

Any weapon to be of any use at all has to be capable of damaging or killing. You havent even thought your statement through. We are talking about battlemechs, not infantry armor, or tanks. Mechs are tougher than tanks according to the lore and game this is based off of. Make a logical or well considered argument next time.

[PaintedWolf]

Okay at this point let's consider two hypothesis:

1- Either the Splatcat was doing lots of extra damage that we cannot detect in 4-5 different measurements, including observation of gameplay videos, overall career stats, overviews of damage done in match AND recordings of components destroyed.

Or:

2- Some people just under-estimate how effective a specialized build is in it's relevant niche.

The 6 PPC Stalker kills enemy Mechs in 1-2 shots all the time. That is expected. It gives up a lot to get there, and the claim that it was OP would be met a lot of suspicion, especially if the claim was based around claims like "OMG the PPC Stalker 2 shotted me OP!!!".

This above is important because if the issue really is that of a bug causing extra-splash damage to some light Mechs then we have a very different discussion. Then we can discuss how to solve this specific bug.

But if the point is just to nerf SRMs because people are complaining they are OP, particularly when boated, then we have to discuss whether or not this is balanced by the other deficiencies that come along with the Splatcat, and how it fits into a team environment.

Remember role warfare is a component of this game. Just because a specialist excels at its role is not sufficient reason to nerf the Mech.

However the Mech as a whole was nerfed, and the official reason given was that it was due to a bug. Both LRMs and SRMs were heavily nerfed due to this bug- heavily compromising the "role-warfare". And contradictory reports are being given on how effective and prevalent this bug is- ranging from it was minor to the point we can't really detect or measure or observe it- to reports it was making the game "unplayable". These views tend to change based on what is convenient to the argument- the only consistent point being they want missiles reduced in damage, with the fact that they require "less skill" repeated over and over.

Rhinehardt Ritter, on 24 March 2013 - 02:45 PM, said:

Wow. Lets put this in context. How many m1a1 tanks are lost to a howitzer? Sure, it can probably happen. But tanks are usually taken out by DIRECT fire.

Any weapon to be of any use at all has to be capable of damaging or killing. You havent even thought your statement through. We are talking about battlemechs, not infantry armor, or tanks. Mechs are tougher than tanks according to the lore and game this is based off of. Make a logical or well considered argument next time.

When was it even decided that LRMs are supposed to be a support weapon only? Again we are seeing more claims just pulled from thin air and presented as though they were holy writings.

[Damocles69]

splat cat tear are delicious. im glad they nerfed your noob mech into the ground

Edited by Damocles69, 24 March 2013 - 03:04 PM.

[Davers]

Sifright, on 24 March 2013 - 02:34 PM, said:

I've not stated they should be a better precision weapon, ballistics will always have more precision than srms unless you can point to people taking cockpits out with srms intentionally before the lrmpocalpyse patch? My point is if you play with high precision targeting in mind which for SRMS gives you a very small engagement envelope with all the downsides that this implies you are rewarded with higher damage capability. Ballistics allow you to be highly precise to ranges exceeding 300m with out to much difficulty.

Srms are currently junk because precision play is done better by ballistics even if you face hug with your srms.

Please don't act like it is difficult getting within 270m of another mech. Or even 50m.

SRMs do more damage than any other weapon for their size. This was balanced by their lack of accuracy. That SRMs became the premier brawling weapon for their incredible focused damage is a flaw, not a feature.

Hopefully they can fix the problem and return the weapons back to their listed damage. Then we can actually look towards balancing.

[PaintedWolf]

Damocles69, on 24 March 2013 - 02:56 PM, said:

splat cat tear are delicious. im glad there nerfed your noob mech into the ground

Okay this is what I am talking about, the claim is this is a completely objective hot fix over a minor bug (or Major bug, the arguments change with the wind) and now we have someone clearly making it sound like they want SRMs/LRMs nerfed because of the "skills" argument.