314 replies to this topic

[Wintersdark]

Averen, on 02 March 2015 - 02:50 PM, said:

Your math is a bit off. We need to compare IS LLs because of the range.
*4 IS LL fired 28 heat, 38 dmg, 20 tons.
*6 CERMLs fired 30 heat, 42 dmg, 6 tons.
Then factor in that clans have free XLs, smaller DHS and more free slots, besides better hardpoint management. Frankly, there are already close to no scenarios where an IS mech could even equip 8 ml's, let alone cool them enough to use anything else than a gauß aside.

I don't think there is any scenario where 'buff clan laser' is a good response. They are the most efficient weapons in the game (even more so than the IS ML, which had that position before).

While I've got a lot of issues with clan vs. Is balance, this is one point I agree with. Clan medium range lasers are objectively better than IS medium range lasers. IS has superiority at the ER level (more than 70 is mechs have quirks increasing their ERLL at significant levels) and short range to a lesser extent, but the Medium Range bracket, 400-600m, is simply much more valuable.

There are lots of things that need work Clan side, but their lasers do not need any kind of buff.

Well. To be honest I'd like to see the ghost heat categories split up, so small lasers arebin a different heat group, I don't think that's too much to ask. But otherwise, no, clan lasers don't need a buff.

Edited by Wintersdark, 02 March 2015 - 02:57 PM.

[BARBAR0SSA]

Prosperity Park, on 02 March 2015 - 02:45 PM, said:

I think the 3LL limit is good to make 15 tons of Inner Sphere LL comparable to 4 tons of Clan ERML. Sure, the 3LL is a little better in combat, but weighs almost 4 times as much to achieve the same damage at 400 meter ranges.

It would be nice if they removed the Ghost Heat cap in IS ML because only a verybsmall number of Mechs could utilize that cap removal, and I think they are all Lights, Mediums, an Awesome, and a Banshee... Mechs that could use help, anyways.

Before anyone goes off on me, I think both factions are fairly balanced, depending on the map though certain weaknesses can be exploited on either side. If clans were godly OP, there wouldn't be 12 man clean groups losing to 12 man IS groups with the sheer OP argument. I played the IS side, and my average damage was higher than clan side, due to the higher DPS IS mechs.


Clan MLs vs IS LLs, there's a massive range difference, beam duration quirks, cooldowns etc. You can't do a straight comparison as a requirement for buffs/debuffs.

6k 3ERLL = 27 dmg, 21 Heat @ 750M (I'm hard capping this at the IS range bug) purely quirked 2.76s Cooldown, 1.06 beam time
6k with 3 LL = 27 dmg / 15.75 Heat 562M quirked only, massive advantage on hot map 2.76s cooldown & 0.85s Beam Time(same as clan MPL)

4x Clan ML = 28 dmg / 24 Heat @ 405M range for 4 tonnes. 3s cooldown, 1.15s beamtime From distance, you're completely screwed, hot map, you can do more upfront damage but for massive amount of heat.

To get the same range you'd bring 2 clan erLLs, for 22 dmg / 20 Heat and 1.5s burn time & 3.25 cooldown.


The IS erLLs are superior, they have Higher DPS for same or less heat compared to clan LLs.

The LLs on the 6k as a great example, just trounce the clan MLs, better range, heat and DPS. In a optimal situational fight fight you're exposed for 0.3s less, so you can peek fire and back up before they do full damage along with twist to shield arm.

"Bring 4 clan erLLs duh"

Stalker 4N can bring 6, and really accelerate the DPS


Not including ghost heat or any other variables since everyone has a bloody opinion of "YEAH BUT IF I ADDED THIS", it's all done with quirks only and no modules and account for bugs in the game if someone wants to ***** about clan LLs range, IS are supposed to be 911M with quirks and modules, no extra tonnage compared to the massive TC required with 2 erLLs on clan lasers.

Edited by shad0w4life, 02 March 2015 - 03:26 PM.

[Averen]

Wintersdark, on 02 March 2015 - 02:56 PM, said:

While I've got a lot of issues with clan vs. Is balance, this is one point I agree with. Clan medium range lasers are objectively better than IS medium range lasers. IS has superiority at the ER level (more than 70 is mechs have quirks increasing their ERLL at significant levels) and short range to a lesser extent, but the Medium Range bracket, 400-600m, is simply much more valuable.

There are lots of things that need work Clan side, but their lasers do not need any kind of buff.

Well. To be honest I'd like to see the ghost heat categories split up, so small lasers arebin a different heat group, I don't think that's too much to ask. But otherwise, no, clan lasers don't need a buff.

Nice to see we can agree at that one.

But for splitting up small laser... Heat Scale is supposed to limit mono weapon builds and alphas. I know my Nova isn't exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer, but i don't think i'm comfortable with a 72pts alpha at little more than ~50% heat.^^

[Felicitatem Parco]

Let's all remember that a CERLL weighs less and takes up less space than a ISERLL...

The IS ERLL *should* be a better weapon because it weighs more and takes up more space...

Edited by Prosperity Park, 02 March 2015 - 04:54 PM.

[Wintersdark]

Averen, on 02 March 2015 - 04:31 PM, said:

Nice to see we can agree at that one.

But for splitting up small laser... Heat Scale is supposed to limit mono weapon builds and alphas. I know my Nova isn't exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer, but i don't think i'm comfortable with a 72pts alpha at little more than ~50% heat.^^

I didn't say remove heat from the CERSL, just put it into a separate heat group from the CERML (so CERSL+CSPL in one group, CERML and CMPL in another). While yes, this would allow a Nova to alpha 6 CERML and CERSL at close range (and still generate a metric shitton of heat) that wouldn't even begin to help the Nova. It's a terrible mech at best.

[Averen]

Wintersdark, on 02 March 2015 - 06:27 PM, said:

I didn't say remove heat from the CERSL, just put it into a separate heat group from the CERML (so CERSL+CSPL in one group, CERML and CMPL in another). While yes, this would allow a Nova to alpha 6 CERML and CERSL at close range (and still generate a metric shitton of heat) that wouldn't even begin to help the Nova. It's a terrible mech at best.

I'm talking about 6ERML+6ERSL, that should be about 50% heat with ~22 DHS backing it up (without elite). Nova is just a good example atm, it really matters to every clanmech with a lot of energy-hp's. And there will be more in future.

Otherwise, independent of chassis, more than 6 clan laser at the same time will rarely ever be balanced. Not sure why you'd want to change that.

Edited by Averen, 03 March 2015 - 01:50 PM.

[Gorgo7]

shad0w4life, on 02 March 2015 - 03:22 PM, said:

*Nonsense pipe-dream analysis*

Really?!? IS LL...3 of them at 15 tons vs. 4 Clan ERML at 4 tons? What do you do with the other 11 tons? Run your clan boat without them?

Idiot.

[Kristov Kerensky]

Prosperity Park, on 02 March 2015 - 04:54 PM, said:

Let's all remember that a CERLL weighs less and takes up less space than a ISERLL...

The IS ERLL *should* be a better weapon because it weighs more and takes up more space...

Huh? Better tech should be a worse choice? That makes no sense at all. You do realize the Clan toys wiegh less, hit harder and go farther because they are advanced technology compared to the Inner Sphere technology, right? They take up less space and weight less due to better manufacturing technology, not because they shaved off shielding and cut pieces off, you do realize this don't you?

[Punk Oblivion]

Not sure if devs are still watching this thread, but I was thinking about how to get rid of ghost heat all together the other day. Why not just put a hard-cap on the number of similar weapons that can be fired at one time. They already do this with the Gauss rifle. You can only fire two at a time, the system just won't let you charge and fire more than 2 at a time even if you have 4 on a direwolf.

Why not expand on this idea. Make up some arbitrary fiction, like because of energy/targeting/ammo feed restrictions, only so many of each type of weapon can be fired in a .5 second time frame. Make the cap at, say, 20 damage. So each weapon type can only fire out roughly 20 points of damage in a half second. So for example:

one AC20
two AC10
four AC5
four ML's
two LL's
a total of 10 SRM's (a 6+4, or two 4's+ 2, or five 2's)
A total of 20 LRM's (two 10's, 5 +15)

There are of course some weapons that are in the weird 11-15 damage range. But those weapons could either be put on a .25 second delay for a single shot at a time, or allow them to go over twenty with a penalty mechanic, similar to how the gauss has the charge up to deal with.

Obviously we can still mix-and-match weapons to get over a 20 point alpha, but at least it will most likely be with weapons of different speeds/ranges/damage profiles

[Mad Porthos]

Does anyone know for sure if the ghost heat change for large lasers persisted into the new patch or not? If you look at the announcement of ghost heat change to 3 large lasers, it states it will remain in place until the next patch only, for testing. Now, a buddy of mine was going off yesterday about his new 3 large laser build being too hot all of the sudden. This got both of us thinking, did they set the GH back to 2 large lasers? Anyone know for sure, in the specs/xmls?

[Mad Porthos]

Prosperity Park, on 02 March 2015 - 04:54 PM, said:

Let's all remember that a CERLL weighs less and takes up less space than a ISERLL...

The IS ERLL *should* be a better weapon because it weighs more and takes up more space...

Can't entirely agree with this. Yes, it pays for it's effectiveness with weight, but it's not meant to be entirely balanced to be better BECAUSE of this. It's only through the grace of PGI that they decided to come up with ghost heat, or other things to "balance" clan tech vs. inner sphere tech at all.

The raw facts of the matter, NOT what I want in a real PVP game, mind you... is that clan tech should be all the better range, damage and less heat stats, plus if things like beam duration were considered, these too should be much shorter than the centuries old inner sphere technology, even in the case of ER technologies which were the pinnacle of the old star league weaponry. The clans had centuries to improve on those in all ways, even if they were busy building their worlds out in the periphery.

So just saying, there's really no "SHOULD" about a weapon, based on weight etc. and concepts of balance that do not wish to recognize intended heirarchies, that some things are meant to be better. To do otherwise is like saying that a blunderbuss should be better than an autoshotgun because it is heavier, nevermind that one is loaded with shrapnel and balls and a powder charge, while the other is a modern piece of clockwork machinery.

[Felicitatem Parco]

I'm saying that weapons that weigh more and take up more space should have better battlefield characteristics than lighter, smaller weapons.

Is Clantech supposed to be better according to Lore? Sure, and that would create an arms race where everybody wants to use only Clantech because IS tech would be crap in comparison.
It would make a piss-poor PvP game.

Weapons that weigh less and take up less space should be either hotter, have longer beams, shorter ranges, or experience other shortcomings that compensate for their light weight and compace size. Otherwise you get nothing but sad sacks that want to lean on their Crutchtech in order to succeed.

[Pezzer]

Just tested it, 3LL does not generate ghost heat. I fired a 3LL alpha in testing grounds, then a live match. The live match produced less heat.

Edited by Pezzer, 05 March 2015 - 04:24 PM.

[aniviron]

Prosperity Park, on 05 March 2015 - 03:16 PM, said:

I'm saying that weapons that weigh more and take up more space should have better battlefield characteristics than lighter, smaller weapons.

Is Clantech supposed to be better according to Lore? Sure, and that would create an arms race where everybody wants to use only Clantech because IS tech would be crap in comparison.
It would make a piss-poor PvP game.

Weapons that weigh less and take up less space should be either hotter, have longer beams, shorter ranges, or experience other shortcomings that compensate for their light weight and compace size. Otherwise you get nothing but sad sacks that want to lean on their Crutchtech in order to succeed.

Yeah, because clan mechs like the Nova can just equip Endo and Ferro and... oh wait, nevermind, most clan mechs effectively lose out on quite a lot of tonnage because of things like locked standard internals, unnecessarily massive engines, locked probes and flamers, not to mention jumpjets.

There are also relatively few clan mechs that can take tons of a certain kind of weapon without drawbacks, since clan mechs don't get hardpoint inflation.

The thing is, if you want to make clan weapons strictly worse to compensate for their lower weight, then you're absolutely crippling any mech that's not the Timberwolf/Stormcrow. Are the TWF/SCR/DWF a balance problem? Absolutely. But think very carefully before you suggest nerfs to the Mist Lynx, Adder, Ice Ferret, Nova, and Summoner. Honestly I'm struggling to think of any IS mechs that are worse than those five, because even the truly bad mechs like the SDR-5V and Vindicators get pretty huge quirks that make them good at something.

[Signal27]

Mad Porthos, on 05 March 2015 - 10:54 AM, said:

Does anyone know for sure if the ghost heat change for large lasers persisted into the new patch or not? If you look at the announcement of ghost heat change to 3 large lasers, it states it will remain in place until the next patch only, for testing. Now, a buddy of mine was going off yesterday about his new 3 large laser build being too hot all of the sudden. This got both of us thinking, did they set the GH back to 2 large lasers? Anyone know for sure, in the specs/xmls?

I don't think so. There's this one mech I have equipped with three large lasers. Every time I pull the trigger when the heat is 0%, it always shoots up to 25%. It hasn't changed since the patch.

[aniviron]

Ozealot, on 05 March 2015 - 05:31 PM, said:

What's so bad about the TWF/SCR/DWF? Never got that. I get still higher damage scores in a match in quirked IS mechs since I have way more dps than in my Clan Mechs.

Mist Lynx is also a nice Mech imho.






I totally agree here with you. Customization is key to get the best for the own playstyle in the min/max environment of this game. Since everybody is so used to it some seem to forget this at times.

I know it's a bit off-topic, but holy crap can you share your MLX builds? I'm used to bad mechs, I've played Awesomes and Hunchbacks since beta, I run Novas and Warhawks now, but the Mist Lynx is the mech that broke me. My lowest KD in any mech except the MLX is 2.15, and the MLX is at .88.

[aniviron]

Ozealot, on 05 March 2015 - 07:07 PM, said:

Woah, that post is longer than intended. Anyway, I wish you success. Maybe this will help you a bit.

It does help a bit. As you say, heat is by far the biggest problem- I'm a longtime Jenner/Raven vet, and am used to using my JJs in combat, but six JJs overwhelms the MLX's heatsinks. As you suggest, I've been using the B pods for the extra armor, and have been running similar-ish builds; the only one I really tolerate is two SRM6 + 3ER SL. I'm not much for MGs so I probably won't take the A pod, but I can see the attraction of heatless weapons.

It's funny, normally I don't mind 'bad' mechs, and even quite like the Kitfox and Adder, but the MLX is just so fragile. Maybe if the arms didn't come off when something looked at them funny. Thanks for the advice, I'll be using it this weekend to see if the MLX gets any better with elite efficiencies.

[aniviron]

Ozealot, on 05 March 2015 - 07:47 PM, said:

If you don't want to go cheese and do the SRM boat with your Adder, I run mine with CUAC5, 1xCSRM6 (left arm) and two CER Medium Lasers (sidetorsos). Oh, and a flamer, heh. Just because I just noticed your post in this thread. Have fun.

Might have to try it. I hate the Adder a lot less than the MLX; even if it's not good, I still have fun in it.

[Insects]

Is this still active?
Announcement says yes, but game is giving warning so Im unsure?

Paul Inouye, on 13 February 2015 - 05:47 PM, said:

Edit:
Just an update: Yes, the LL changes are still effective post patch.

Hmmm is it?

For 3xLL, ENF-4R (-12.5% energy heat generation)
Im seeing heat rise values of:
1 = 4
2 = 14
3 = 24


Which according to smurfeys is suffering ghost heat penalty, plus not getting the -12.5%?

Anyone explain what Im seeing?

Edited by joelmuzz, 07 March 2015 - 03:27 AM.

[warner2]

joelmuzz, on 07 March 2015 - 01:43 AM, said:

Is this still active?
Announcement says yes, but game is giving warning so Im unsure?



Hmmm is it?

For 3xLL, ENF-4R (-12.5% energy heat generation)
Im seeing heat rise values of:
1 = 4
2 = 14
3 = 24


Which according to smurfeys is suffering ghost heat penalty, plus not getting the -12.5%?

Anyone explain what Im seeing?

One I thing I have noticed (in testing grounds) is that 0% on the heat scale doesn't seem to mean 0%. I was doing similar testing a while back and was having to wait a few seconds after the heat bar had come down to 0% to get predicable results. It's as if the scale is off and when it says 0% it is more than 0%. From memory this was on Frozen City, perhaps that makes a difference.