206 replies to this topic

[Nicholas Carlyle]

PGI doesn't jump at anything...they meander along...stop to yell at the kids on their grass...feed some pigeons...babble on about the good ol' days...

Then about a year later they change something.

If over-all DPS is high, and you have 4-5 months to change and test it for release, you need to start making changes right away.

[Conraire]

No, actually he's right. Damage output across the board is too high in this game. If you pay attention to Canon TT. All weapons had a 10 second round. Those weapons were balanced against that rate of fire. AC2 did 2 points every 10 seconds, but also had the longest range. for Ballistics. The MG did 2 points in 10 seconds but had the shortest range, and was made very light to compensate.

All Previous mechwarrior games, lowered the hit dmg of all weapons to compensate for the higher ROF. And most of them also doubled the armor of all mechs to compensate for the effective doubling of RoF, on high alpha dmg weapons like the PPC and and long fire lasers..

Here they basically used TT weapon dmg, and tripled or more the ROF, while only doubling effective armor.

[Braggart]

If they think damage is to high now, just wait until its 12vs12.


If they dont fix thing before 12vs12 lights and mediums will be completely removed from usefulness. With no tonnage limits either. It will be 12 heavies and assaults that will destroy enemy mechs within seconds of seeing them. Because they will all be boating PPCs and gauss, and tear out torsos in seconds.

Then we have to worry about clan tech coming. Where mechs will be able to mount 3 Ultra AC 20s. Clan PPCs weigh less, deal more damage, and take up less crits. A clan ER medium laser is basically a IS large laser, same range, slightly less damage & heat, but only 1 ton, then ENDO and FERRO both take 7 slots instead of 14, and DHS are 2 slots.

IF they dont fix things now, it will only get worse and worse as time goes on.

Edited by Braggart, 28 April 2013 - 09:41 AM.

[Zerberus]

Gremlich Johns, on 27 April 2013 - 07:33 PM, said:

Don't nerf damage, make the loadouts on mechs make sense. A raven with an XL300? really? The engine almost as big as the torso. 3xSSTRK2 on a commando? ammo takes up space, make it realistically sized.

Canon is 2xSRM4 and an SRM6 on that exact variant (2d , the only mando w/3 racks)....

Make ammo realistic sized: And make only energy boats and MGs viable, becasue one ton of §RL sized" LRM ammo (120 missiles) takes about as much space as an entire atlas Side torso. One ton of AC20 (7 slugs)would be about 3x the size of the gun, whioch itself occupies an entire torso.

In other words, you`re completely disregarding the "fiction" part of "science fiction" and using "reality" to advocate an obviously game breaking change. But while we`re adding reality where nobody wants it, we could have cockpit hiuts kill the pilot and destroy the mech permanently, too.... maybe add a "realistic" mode where the battlemechs are simply replaced by tanks becasue the 100 ton walking fortress idea is the biggest tactical joke any miloitary planner could ever devise.

Good luck with that

Edited by Zerberus, 28 April 2013 - 09:49 AM.

[Skyfaller]

Zyllos, on 27 April 2013 - 04:51 PM, said:

This is a bad way about balancing group firing against alpha striking because it's placing a superficial system in place to keep you from alpha striking.

you can still alpha... except it will cost you.

edit:

Alternatively you can just add +1 second to the refire delay of any alpha strike weapon fired. MGs and flamers would be the exception of course.

a 6-weapon alpha strike is +6 seconds refire delay to all weapons. A heavy price to pay for a huge frontloaded damage shot.

Edited by Skyfaller, 28 April 2013 - 10:21 AM.

[Lightfoot]

Hmmm, maybe it was doubling the recharge values from Battletech? The lack of a Heat Cap instead of actual DHS?

Not being sarcastic here, just mentioning it for review.

Of course doubling the recharge helps brawlers. Long range takes some patience so you don't miss completely. Alot of players seem to be struggling with Long Range right now. It's just a little harder to learn than short range. It's not OP as far as I can tell though. Players can almost bring short range to Alpine now and win. If that becomes too easy, that's all you will see.

[White Panther]

Braggart, on 28 April 2013 - 09:37 AM, said:

If they think damage is to high now, just wait until its 12vs12.

All that pinpoint damage is going to make 12v12 ridiculous the way the game is right now. I think PGI has to make shooting more difficult because its way too easy right now. Any ***** right now can load up a stalker, highlander, or 3D with ppc's and gauss and have that easy to use high damage alpha.

[Psydotek]

I feel that 'mechs with balanced loadouts are fine. It's certain weapon boats with pinpoint alpha strike damage with zero heat penalty that's hurting things...

[Marcus Cvellus]

It is repeated 100x before, but it it is impossible to balance out weapons that are made with MISSING in mind in no missing involved environment.

It will just be a whack a mole and flavor of the month each time you try to fix it.

Edited by Marcus Cvellus, 28 April 2013 - 12:28 PM.

[Comguard]

Mechwarrior was never supposed to be a game with pinpoint-accuracy. It was always about missing shots and hitting random locations.

Now we are trained to aim at center torso. This can't work.

Mechs are finished way faster then before. Only reason overall gametime has not decreased is because more time is consumed for maneuvers and just waiting for the enemy to make the first move. When the fighting starts it's over pretty fast, the Alpha-builds land their strikes and then one side gets the advantage. The rest of the match is about cleaning up the rest of the enemy team.

Problem is that we want a different game than PGI wants. They want to make this more like Hawken now, that's at least the impression I get.

[jeffsw6]

Roadbeer, on 28 April 2013 - 07:55 AM, said:

So, Jeff, No plans on changing your OP to reflect the contextual errors that were pointed out to you?

That's cool, I get it, shouting fire in a theater always gets the intended results.

Exaggerating a bit to get a discussion going ... no one has ever done that on the forums before.

[Roadbeer]

jeffsw6, on 28 April 2013 - 02:13 PM, said:

Exaggerating a bit to get a discussion going ... no one has ever done that on the forums before.

Yes, because that's what this forum needs, misrepresentation of developer statements.
Like this forum doesn't have enough volatility without you making crap up.

Fail.

I'm sure that the "PGI LIED, ELECTRONS DIED!" crowd will be along to screen-capture your OP to use in another of their tin-hat rants later.

Edited by Roadbeer, 28 April 2013 - 02:27 PM.

[Jungle Rhino]

In all seriousness the issue is not the weapons it is the mechs and specifically the mech skills.

MWO is effectively a twitch shooter.

Once you have all your skills elited so speed tweak + doubled up basics then your mech becomes a whirling dervish of death. Even Highlanders can twirl and skate elegantly across the battlefield. Lining up torso weapons is a breeze, and tracking that medium mech at close range laughably easy as it takes no time flat to slap it in reverse and counter-turn.

My suggestion is simple:

Drop all the pilot skills. They add nothing to the game other than pointless grind, and make assault mechs handle like mediums. Heck every damn DDC out there is going faster than a stock Hunchback. They turn like one too!

Drop the pilot skills, slow EVERYBODY down, and damage will drop. Weapon conversion takes longer, it takes longer to bring guns on target, maneurvures need to be planned in advance.

Also bring back knock downs and collisions including with terrain. Also poptarts who overheat and shutdown while JJ'ing should come crashing to the ground for severe damage.


There are many options availalbe to PGI rather than playing with the damage numbers. Bring the pilot skills back down to the 2.5% they were in CB. 20% doubled to 40% is just ridiculous.

[Iscariott]

I actually just came on the forums to post exactly this: "Damage is too high." Since April hit virtually every single time my mech takes any damage it is instantly orange armor or yellow internals. There isn't much room for torso twisting anymore when the first impact on my mech leaves me 1-2 vollys away from death.

[Kageru Ikazuchi]

Without knowing the how the damage-per-hit, damage-per-game, etc., trends, we're just guessing that Bryan was talking about (ER)PPCs and other ballistics ... he might have been talking about DPS in general.

One possible option to increase survivability, would be to make Ferro-Fibrous armor a viable upgrade ... allow it to increase the max armor value ... for example:
- an atlas can have up to 612 points of armor
- standard armor: max 612 points = 19.2 tons
- ferro fibrous armor now: max 612 points = 17.1 tons
- my proposal: ferro fibrous armor: max 19.2 tons = 683.2 points

Another option would be to rebalance the armor distribution between components (legs, arms, torsos, etc.).

[Joe Mallad]

Just my 2 cents.

With the new weapon state rewinds going into action and all weapons performing much better and being easier to use, aim and hit with... Weapons don't need a damage nerf. Machine guns, flamers and missiles still need an increase but all other weapons are good where they are as far as damage they do. An AC 20 should do 20 points of damage per shot, AC 5 should do 5.

The 2 BIG issues are that to many mech have way more weapon hard points than they need. If you take some energy hard points or ballistic hard points off some of these mech, they can't boat 6 PPC or 6 AC 2s. Or give hard points size limits so a mech like the Stalker can only have up to 2 PPCs or large lasers in large energy hard point and up to 4 medium lasers in standard laser hard points, the PPC boating and over all damage output would stop.

Secondly, all the weapons have had there fire rates uped so much that the weapons are again, putting out more damage than they need to be. Go back and give them all reload and recharge times that are longer than we have now... And the weapons won't be as OP. Some weapons also need to once again give more heat than they do.

By recharge and rearm times being longer, this would also help out on heat issues in the game too. If you have to wait a bit longer to fire your weapons, you now give your heat sinks a bit longer to dissipate heat.

What we need is standard hard points that allow up to medium sized weapons to fit into and large weapon hard points of which you could still put small and medium weapons in... If you want, but can go up to large weapons.

Edited by Yoseful Mallad, 28 April 2013 - 03:43 PM.

[Vulkan]

The problem isn't damage. It isn't the weapons. It's the fact that you can fire all your weapons at once with pinpoint accuracy. The simplest and MOST EFFECTIVE way to fix this is to make Alpha's spread damage rather than hitting the exact same point. This has been argued for months upon months and the devs have been blind to reason, so I doubt they will listen, but this is what the game really needs.

I barely play Alphawarrior online anymore because all you see are the exact same builds capitalizing on the one greatest design flaw, the ability to deal pinpoint alpha strikes for little cost. There isn't even really a heat deterrent.

[Corvus Antaka]

Braggart, on 28 April 2013 - 09:37 AM, said:

If they think damage is to high now, just wait until its 12vs12.


If they dont fix thing before 12vs12 lights and mediums will be completely removed from usefulness. With no tonnage limits either. It will be 12 heavies and assaults that will destroy enemy mechs within seconds of seeing them. Because they will all be boating PPCs and gauss, and tear out torsos in seconds.

Then we have to worry about clan tech coming. Where mechs will be able to mount 3 Ultra AC 20s. Clan PPCs weigh less, deal more damage, and take up less crits. A clan ER medium laser is basically a IS large laser, same range, slightly less damage & heat, but only 1 ton, then ENDO and FERRO both take 7 slots instead of 14, and DHS are 2 slots.

IF they dont fix things now, it will only get worse and worse as time goes on.

This has always been a mechwarrior problem. the only way to fix it is with tonnage limits (ie no more than X tons per team) and imho it remains the best way to create balance in an unbalanced system (btech). when the clans come they get a 25% tonnage handicap, and suddenly that clantech isnt so OP either.

PGI has bigger worries though since we can prob stick clantech on IS mechs too.

balance changes dont come fast because decisions are not so easy to make and it takes a while for data to add up, and sometimes data contradicts what is actually the real issue.

The ppc/ballistic issue is that HSR has combined to make these guns the easiest to hit 1 area with max damage over and over, lasers kinda spray everywhere as we know.

before HSR this wasnt a big issue, but now it is much more so.

Edited by Colonel Pada Vinson, 28 April 2013 - 04:29 PM.

[keith]

Vulkan, on 28 April 2013 - 03:53 PM, said:

The problem isn't damage. It isn't the weapons. It's the fact that you can fire all your weapons at once with pinpoint accuracy. The simplest and MOST EFFECTIVE way to fix this is to make Alpha's spread damage rather than hitting the exact same point. This has been argued for months upon months and the devs have been blind to reason, so I doubt they will listen, but this is what the game really needs.

I barely play Alphawarrior online anymore because all you see are the exact same builds capitalizing on the one greatest design flaw, the ability to deal pinpoint alpha strikes for little cost. There isn't even really a heat deterrent.

devs are not blind to reason they want it to be a SKILLED based game, not a RNG based game where if i shoot 9 med laser 2 randomly hit ct rest go to RT and LT. next cluster 5 hit ct 3 hit lt then 1 goes rt. that crap is not mechwarrior that is table top. if u wish that play that type of game, here u go https://mwtactics.com/. still supporting IGP and the IP.

there is lots of ways to balance dam. look at MW 4 most of pinpoint weps had there dam lowered. ppc were not 10 dam, lasers, u could dream of 9 dam. most basaltic based wep did have higher dam, but that was because of NDB. PGi could change mech hit boxes around on some of the bad ones to make them live longer. quirks could include X get a bonus to CT armor while subbing it from where else. theres alot they could do just need to think outside of the box. in a nut shell need to get that test server up and running to play around with data base numbers.

[A DRUNK GUY]

I don't think the weapon balance is to terrible, one thing that I think would help is more diverse maps. A map can have and even balance of open space, city or canyon type terrain, not all huge football fields with a big hill thrown in here or there. Right now I feel like its mostly hills. Granted its still beta, but the maps we do have don't do giant mechs justice in the slightest.