10 replies to this topic

[anonymous139]

I'm talking about three specific nerfs. Clan Laser nerfs, IS-Auto Cannon range nerfs, ghost heat... I'll try to be short and concise (failed obviously), but I'll break my arguement down in segments below.

First off, the Clan Laser nerfs... The added heat that you get from firing these puppies off have rendered mechs that were supposed to be at least feasible as near unusuable "trash mechs", such as the Nova. I think the heat generation for these weapons need to be scaled down to a more reasonable level. And the duration for these is unreasonable. Why should a clan ER medium laser have to be held on target for as long as an IS ER Large Laser while generating nearly the same heat and two points less in damage at 45 meters shorter than a large? I mean, is that really neccessary? Why not apply the same idea used to differentiate IS Large Lasers from IS ER Large Lasers? Add only slightly more heat to the base IS Medium Laser generation and only .15 more in duration in addition to the IS Medium Laser's duration.

IS Auto Cannon range nerfs... This one baffles me. Naturally a ballistic weapon would retain more energy at further distances because of the physical forces at play; the kinetic energy used to fire a projectile downrange. Whereas with a laser you have to concentrate a beam of energy. Its range is highly depended on the power of the laser in question in order to effectively burn into its target. Get far enough away, and you might as well be using a laser pointer. Where as a bullet or shell can travel for miles before hitting something and transferring the destructive energy into it. It's why battleships even after the second World War were pretty much used as artillery platforms. It's very silly to me that when you wield an AC-20, you've got essentially a single barrel battleship cannon that can only be used effectively at knife range. Doesn't make sense whatsoever. I pretty much consider ballistics to be a counter to energy builds that are deadlier at close range.

And last but not least... Ghost heat. A nerf that was introduced back in the days where you could wind up in a match with 12 quad PPC wielding Stalkers for all you knew. Back when 3-3-3-3 or weight class based matchmaking was just a pipedream. In my eyes, this didn't hurt so much the big guys as it did what I'd call firesupport mediums like the Hunchback 4P. The ability to bring all its weapons to bear (most often 9 medium lasers) against heavier enemies died when ghost heat was introduced. After that Hunchback pilots had to keep their hands off the alpha strike button, the higher than normal heatspike that came with it made it impossible to finish a mech with an alpha strike in combat without overheating and shutting down and subsequently getting pounded into oblivion by responding hostiles. And after the clan laser nerfs with ghost heat on top, the Nova was effectively neutered. The thing is I think ghost heat had some unintended consequences, larger than PGI anticipated. I've seen the ability to mount multiple PPCs on a medium or a bunch of lasers as an equalizer. With ghost heat active, they're just dead weight; too heavy to scout, and too light to matter. Which is why I think it's time they consider dropping ghost heat altogether.

What are your thoughts?

Edited by NonVictim, 25 March 2015 - 04:17 PM.

[Firewuff]

Ac ranges are not nerfs. Its from the tt values and its for balance. Why would i take an ac5 if i could take an ac20 and get the same range or better? As for the clan laser spew they are still way more op than is at range so there is really little issue there

[MechWarrior849305]

1) C-ER ML is an IS LL, with 4 less tons in it. Deal with it
2) Duh. Because
3) Don't use alphas. Solved

[Gyrok]

NonVictim, on 25 March 2015 - 04:07 AM, said:

I'm talking about three specific nerfs. Clan Laser nerfs, IS-Auto Cannon range nerfs, ghost heat... I'll try to be short and concise (failed obviously), but I'll break my arguement down in segments below.

First off, the Clan Laser nerfs... The added heat that you get from firing these puppies off have rendered mechs that were supposed to be at least feasible as near unusuable "trash mechs", such as the Nova. I think the heat generation for these weapons need to be scaled down to a more reasonable level. And the duration for these is unreasonable. Why should a clan ER medium laser have to be held on target for as long as an IS ER Large Laser while generating nearly the same heat and two points less in damage at 45 meters shorter than a large? I mean, is that really neccessary? Why not apply the same idea used to differentiate IS Large Lasers from IS ER Large Lasers? Add only slightly more heat to the base IS Medium Laser generation and only .15 more in duration in addition to the IS Medium Laser's duration.

IS Auto Cannon range nerfs... This one baffles me. Naturally a ballistic weapon would retain more energy at further distances because of the physical forces at play; the kinetic energy used to fire a projectile downrange. Whereas with a laser you have to concentrate a beam of energy. Its range is highly depended on the power of the laser in question in order to effectively burn into its target. Get far enough away, and you might as well be using a laser pointer. Where as a bullet or shell can travel for miles before hitting something and transferring the destructive energy into it. It's why battleships even after the second World War were pretty much used as artillery platforms. It's very silly to me that when you wield an AC-20, you've got essentially a single barrel battleship cannon that can only be used effectively at knife range. Doesn't make sense whatsoever. I pretty much consider ballistics to be a counter to energy builds that are deadlier at close range.

And last but not least... Ghost heat. A nerf that was introduced back in the days where you could wind up in a match with 12 quad PPC wielding Stalkers for all you knew. Back when 3-3-3-3 or weight class based matchmaking was just a pipedream. In my eyes, this didn't hurt so much the big guys as it did what I'd call firesupport mediums like the Hunchback 4P. The ability to bring all its weapons to bear (most often 9 medium lasers) against heavier enemies died when ghost heat was introduced. After that Hunchback pilots had to keep their hands off the alpha strike button, the higher than normal heatspike that came with it made it impossible to finish a mech with an alpha strike in combat without overheating and shutting down and subsequently getting pounded into oblivion by responding hostiles. And after the clan laser nerfs with ghost heat on top, the Nova was effectively neutered. The thing is I think ghost heat had some unintended consequences, larger than PGI anticipated. I've seen the ability to mount multiple PPCs on a medium or a bunch of lasers as an equalizer. With ghost heat active, they're just dead weight; too heavy to scout, and too light to matter. Which is why I think it's time they consider dropping ghost heat altogether.

What are your thoughts?

I agree with you completely.

However, the nerf-herding IS guys will try to explain to you that the 911m ERLL range that they have is somehow giving up a range advantage to our 802m range ERLL (both with range 5 module). Not sure how bad they are at math, but, that is the nerf herding crowd for you...

This day and age, I think I have figured it out...it is not actually the mechs/weapons/anything that is OP, it is just the word Clan or sometimes substituted for "Clamz"

[sycocys]

I guess I don't see many, at least with the guys I played with, running ERLL because the added heat kills the overall dps. They did it for a few days when the quirk was pushed out further but most quickly went back to regular LL. Could be different for other groups that like to stand back and see whose long range alpha kills who first, just not something our group did.

While I'm not a huge fan of the ghost heat either, blasting full alpha strikes literally had no downside other than you had to wait for all your weapons to cycle before. It's actually made more players slightly better players just because they are more inclined to fire in a way that sustains dps and forces focus fire to bring enemies down rather than as you mentioned one guy with 6 ER PPCs wrecking everything in sight and sometimes even out of actual drawn sight.

[Dispersive]

DuoAngel, on 27 March 2015 - 05:27 AM, said:

1) C-ER ML is an IS LL, with 4 less tons in it. Deal with it
2) Duh. Because
3) Don't use alphas. Solved

So quirks aren't petinent at all? I'm sorry, but it should be one or the other: Either dash the IS quirk system or un-nerf the Clan laser. Not both.

[IraqiWalker]

Gyrok, on 27 March 2015 - 06:13 AM, said:

I agree with you completely.

However, the nerf-herding IS guys will try to explain to you that the 911m ERLL range that they have is somehow giving up a range advantage to our 802m range ERLL (both with range 5 module). Not sure how bad they are at math.

How did you fail this hard at math? The C-ERLL STARS with an extra ~70 meters of range. How is it even humanely possible that an equal percent based increase (10%) would give the IS ERLL more range?

In fact, looking at it in terms of meters, and damage, the range module gives more for the money, to the clan version.

There's a difference between calling people out when they are overzealous, and completely not understanding basic math, and common sense. The IS ERLL has a range of 675 vs. 740 on the clan version. Unless all clan mechs received a (C-ERLL max range - X meters) quirk, I don't see how you missed that.

Dispersive, on 16 August 2015 - 08:17 PM, said:

So quirks aren't petinent at all? I'm sorry, but it should be one or the other: Either dash the IS quirk system or un-nerf the Clan laser. Not both.

Actually, it needs to be both. Because this is a 12 v 12 PVP game, so we need artificial methods of balance.

If you want. We can get into a proper weapon debate on Clan vs. IS, and I can show you exactly why the clan laser nerfs need to be there (especially so long as the IS ML, and SPL have extra heat).

EDIT: I should add that some clan lasers do need /some/ buffing. No, not all of them, not even most of them. Just 1 or 2. maybe.

Edited by IraqiWalker, 16 August 2015 - 08:41 PM.

[Dispersive]

But we already have the Clan quirks(nerfs, for the most part) artificially handicapping the clan mechs already. If the majority of the Clan lasers themselves won't be re-buffed for fear of overpowering them, then perhaps some adjustments to the Omnipods of certain mechs should be made?

[IraqiWalker]

Dispersive, on 16 August 2015 - 08:56 PM, said:

But we already have the Clan quirks(nerfs, for the most part) artificially handicapping the clan mechs already. If the majority of the Clan lasers themselves won't be re-buffed for fear of overpowering them, then perhaps some adjustments to the Omnipods of certain mechs should be made?

Many of the omnipods are set up much like their lore versions. So fiddling with them will cause a bigger scrap storm than the quirks, and the nerfs on the TBR+SCR did. Especially considering many clan mechs like high mounted weapons (there's a reason the TBR A Left Torso has so many neagtive quirks. It's 3 energy hardpoints above cockpit level, making for a terrifying mount point)

Also, if you check the quirks on clan mechs. You'll actually notice that there are extremely few negative quirks on them. The TBR, and SCR are still the 2 most powerful mechs in their respective weight classes, despite some minor negative quirks. Most of the others have very few to no negative quirks.

[Check the Mech quirks list on smurfy (spread quirks are shown in red, but they are buffs)] to double check. The pods that have negative quirks on them, are very powerful. Hell, my nova, by all rights should have some debuffs on the prime arms (it used to), but they've been removed, because the mech needed the buff.

The reason I like the potential of the quirks system is that it can help mechs on a case by case basis, without borking the game for the rest of us. (Instead of blanket buffs, and nerfs to weapon systems, which make top line mechs even worse).

Here's the simplest reason why we need both nerfs, buffs, and quirks: The top performing IS mechs, are all quirked mechs, using insane level quirks, and they are barely matching the top performing clan mechs.

This tells me that if weapon systems are not to be modified, then we need to implement even more quirks to make up for the difference.

For the record, I own both clan, and IS mechs, and I love both (I even sprung for the ACH soon as I could), my goal is to get the game to a point where it is balanced for as many people, and mechs as possible. Balance does not mean "the same", though.

It's why I like the dynamic most IS and clan weapons have right now:

-Lasers: long range is clan advantage, short range is IS advantage, and mid range is a 50/50 shot (almost)
-ACs: Long range goes to IS, short range goes to clan, but Gauss is clearly clan. (identical stats, except lighter, and smaller)
-Missiles: Still needs work, because clan has a clear advantage here on all weapon systems. IS LRMs are more effective, but it's not enough to make up for 5 ton LRM 20s.

[Appuagab]

Boating is a big problem of MWO balance, so heat penalties should stay.

[Lily from animove]

Nova is fine and it was not trashy because of heat, it is trashy because of omnipresent CT and wide hitboxes, some HP buffs would have helped the mech enough.

laser balance is kinda ok as it is now, except I would probably give CERML 1 less heat and one less damage each to have more heatefficiency and make them a bit more workign on those clanlights with fewer hardpoints.

If they drop ghostheat they need to lower the heatscale, otherwise, ouch. New alphawarrior incoming. Can't wait to fire all 12 CERML on a Nova at ONCE. or all CERSL at once multiple times or even CSPL- lol wait no ghotheta yous aid? should even use 14 CERSL, and 14 CSPL.
No ghostheat without any heatscale reduction is comeplete overkill. Not even speaking about some funny builds in DWF's possible.

Again, you bring up the Nova, the nova was never neutered due to heat at ANY place. The Nova started to be neutered as soon as people figured out where the CT hitbox exactly is and simply stared to core it easily and fast.

Edited by Lily from animove, 17 August 2015 - 02:52 AM.