12 replies to this topic

[BobbyBrinks]

These are the changes that I would make....
(NOTE: I wrote this actually a while ago before the March5th patch, but never got around to finishing/posting it. The streak section is open, i would buff lbx10 dmg slightly, and i didn't even start to think about how to address the AtlasK, Raven3L and a few others items. However, I still believe that many of these changes are still applicable even in the post patch environment. The purpose of this post was NOT to point out glitches or ask for significant game additions. Aside from the alpine peaks radar towers, I believe that many of these changes could be modified/coded with a modest effort. We all want lagshields fixed, 32v32 and other game modes etc. This isnt the post to discuss this. Instead, this thread is to post balance changes YOU would make, or to discuss my suggested changes. If you do choose to add your balance changes, please use a similar format which explains the mechanical changes, and then covers the reasoning behind these changes in a separate paragraph.

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ECM - ECM has been completely reworked. ECM disrupt now has a range of 125 meters. Friendly mechs under ECM disrupt cover are cloaked and un-targetable by enemy units until 500 meters or closer. Within 500 meters, targeting is delayed by 1.25 seconds. Targeting info can be shared with teammates greater than 500 meters, so long as the original targeting mech stays within the 500m range. Missiles fired against targets under ECM (at any range) have a 10% chance to be disrupted for each second of flight time. When disrupted, a missile loses tracking and simply flies straight on its last course. This effect is unrecoverable. ECM counter now removes all of the affects of ECM on both friendly and enemy mechs within 125 meters.

PPCs - ECM disable upon hit reduced to 1.5 seconds.

AMS - Now has three modes (Disabled, Active, and HighSpeed Burst modes). "Disabled" turns off the AMS to conserve ammo. When "Active" the AMS functions like normal (pre patch AMS). "HighSpeed Burst" increases AMS efficacy 250%, at the cost of an additional 4x the standard ammo consumption. After 2.5 seconds of continual firing in burst mode the AMS has a 50% chance to jam (each second thereafter). Jams take 3 second to clear. Switching between each of the three AMS modes disables the AMS for .5 seconds at it changes it's firing parameters.

Streak SRMs - OPEN FOR EDITS.

LRM - LRM damage has been reduced to 1.6 per missile from 1.8.
Catapult Chassis - Torso twist for all variants has been reduced by 15 degrees.
Alpine Peaks - The map has been remade for balance reasons. See below for more info.
Capture Victory - The amount of time necessary to capture a base has been increased 3x.
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ECM Changes - The previous version of ECM has some poor gameplay traits which this remake hopes to address. First, the previous ECM was very binary. Complete immunity from missiles or no benefit. It also was had a stacking mechanic which created a arms race. The best strategy to employ ECM was to stack a lot of it, since 5 ECM can counter 4 enemy ECMs. This was extremely evident in 8mans. The new ECM does not require to be stacked, nor does it provide immunity. Instead, players now have to make choices when firing against mechs under ECM. At 500m (5 seconds of flight time and 50% missile disrupt rate), players will have the strategic choice and they can fire at mechs under ECM seeing reduced hit rates. Players, if they have targeting assistance, will have the option to fire at ECM mechs at 1000m (10seconds of missile flight and a statistically 100% disrupt rate), however their volleys will be extremely ineffective. This removes the binary mechanic while still allowing ECM to properly shield a mech lance from missile barrages. While these changes primarily are for LRMs, SRMS will need tweaks to keep them from becoming too dominant in this new environment since they can no longer be disrupted from firing.

PPC Changes - This has been reduced as a result of the ECM Rework. This effect is now more of an added side benefit than a direct counter to ECM since the remake has made it less dominant.

AMS Changes - Currently AMS is a very static item. It gets dropped on a mech, and without any player inputs defends the player until it is destroyed or it runs out of ammo. This new mode will give players an activate-able missile defense that is more effective but unsustainable. Using Burst at the right time can allow a player to survive a missile barrage to get to cover or lead a charge across an open field. Jamming was included in order to create some downside (aside from increased ammo waste) to the system to prevent total missile immunity to groups packing the system. The player with missiles could eventually overwhelm an AMS in burst by volley firing missiles (keeping the AMS continually firing) causing it to jam. Well coordinated groups could alternate turning their AMS on and off to protect having them all jam at once.

LRM Changes - Missile damage has been reduced due to the ECM changes which will allow missles more opportunities to fire. Damage has been reduced slightly to compensate for this. The reduction of .2 per missile might seem like alot, but we are only talking 2 damage per 10 missiles here. Missiles are still going to hurt quite a bit.

Catapult changes - To bring this chassis back in line with the other mechs. While this chassis has some significant weaknesses such as exposed weapon racks (ears) and large cockpit hit box, the torso twist made it abnormally good at brawling. This change is a small tweak that should not have a significant impact on the Catapults performance. Anyone who tells you otherwise is screaming that the sky is falling. Instead of being the best heavy mech and the obvious choice it now be an extremely strong choice to add to a lance.

Alpine Peak Changes - The map has been remade to correct certain balance issues. The original map had an upper (NE) and lower (SW) cap point, with an extremely large peaks near the middle in F5. First, the extremely tall peaks have been removed for various reasons. They were clumsy to climb up, and confusing to new players as to which terrain is climbable. 85 ton mechs skiing down the hills is strange and not believable as well. Furthermore, it was easier for the upper team to reach, and was a dominant position on the map. The new map features rolling hills of snow with occasional jagged peaks/elevated points for additional cover/missile defense. Size of the map has not been adjusted, however new radar towers have been added for each base (2 per team). These towers alert of the team of approaching mechs within 2.5km, and they cover the flank side approaches to each cap zone. The presence of ECM cloaked mechs is detected at 1.25km. The towers have the equivalent of 30 armor and 10 internal hp and can be destroyed. When an enemy mech is detected, the team can only see a small dot on the battle map. The type, heading and speed of a detected enemy mech is not displayed. If the detection is of an ECM mech, the dot is larger (125meters wide). ECM equipped mechs can hide their teammates from the enemy's battle map, so that the enemy team will only be aware that an ECM equipped mech has been detected. The contact could represent a single scout, or a large raiding party looking to cap.

Capture Victory Changes - Capping a base has been adjusted to encourage larger team captures instead of lone wolfs. The capping mechanic is to allow teams to win the game if the enemy bunkers down and refuses to move, or to allow teams to end the game if a lone enemy powers down and hides. Changing the time to cap 3x will still allow games to end in a reasonable time if a team decides to cap, but this will limit the risk of a pair of mechs backcapping and allow teams greater freedom to manuever before the capping endgame.

Tl;DR: Go read a different post if this is too long for you. While you might not agree/enjoy this one, this forum is full of terrible posts that are short in length for you to enjoy.

[FrupertApricot]

Hire this guy.

[SkyCake]

Horrible..... alpine??? Not being able to hack alpine is the hallmark of bad players... after ecm changes you lost me completely.. lrm nerfs?!?!? They are exactly useless in competitive play... even with your ecm nerfs they would still be useless

[MischiefSC]

Some good recommendations. My only change would be to allow you to see targets under ECM just perhaps block paperdolls at range. Give us a reason not to use thermal all the time, it gives me eye strain. It's unhealthy but you pretty much have to. It's also brutal against newbies and pugs, people on voip or even just very experienced players have learned to work around it. That's a problem, not a benefit.

For SSRMs - dumbfire like SSRMs in ECM. That's it. Like they're supposed to. I don't have an issue with them otherwise. With lasers having state rewind and other weapons to follow they're not particularly more nasty than LLs for popping lights and SSRMs are not a huge deal to an atlas or other mech. No more so than standard SRMs are. A Jenner with 2xSRM4s scares me more than a 3L at this point. Especially if he's sneaky.

I have no issues with Alpine, I like the map. You just need to slow down to play it well. I would flatten it a bit. The mountains and sharp peeks are a bit silly. Just realize that unless you nerf down LRM turning a bit they'll ignore shallow hills. This is why LRMs in the river on Forest have the advantage. Sharp cover vs shallow cover on the shore.

Edited by MischiefSC, 09 March 2013 - 07:23 PM.

[Vercinaigh]

Too long to write a equally long reply but keeping it short, this would break this game, kill all the relatively low skill cap there is in this game, and add more randomness which is toxic to competitive play in the first place. Just gonna leave it at that, find another day job.

[Biglead]

FrupertApricot, on 09 March 2013 - 07:14 PM, said:

Hire this guy.

I would, then I'd turn around and fire him. Sounds like a patch to fix "butt-hurt". PPC ECM reduction, LRMs damage nerf, catapult torso twist nerf? Please, why don't you throw in a toggle for Auto aim too?

Sorry, you're going to have to come up with better suggestions than that.


(Although ill give you props for the AMS rework).

Edited by Biglead, 09 March 2013 - 07:39 PM.

[Josef Nader]

The only change ECM needs is to prevent ALL missile locks within it's radius... friendly locks included. LRMs are fine where they're at. They're easy to dodge, and I see far too many pugs just standing out in the LRM rain rather than rushing down the boat or taking cover. Don't nerf LRMs because people are too stupid to work around them. They're easy to dodge and you get a huge, flashing warning when you're getting shot at. Pay attention. The way to fix Alpine is to integrate VoIP. Done.

Assault as a game mode needs to be completely reworked, especially given Alpine's size. Map timers are too short for maps like that.

Cats do need a twist nerf, though. I've been pushing for that for ages.

Edited by Josef Nader, 09 March 2013 - 07:38 PM.

[Kageru Ikazuchi]

First - well thought out ideas for improving the game ...

ECM: PGI should tweak ECM one feature at a time (to test balance in "the wild"), but let us know that they are looking into it, and recognize that (especially for PUG matches) the results are too often "more ECM = more likely win, no ECM vs. some ECM = almost certain loss"

PPC vs. ECM: I think this is fine now

AMS: I'd put AMS on my Jenner with these changes ... would give me the option to remain stealthy or try to use AMS to counter streaks

LRM: Rather than reduce damage, increase the spread ... every time I get caught in the open by LRMs, I'm kicking myself for letting it happen, but when I glance up and see 80 missiles coming over the horizon, I know I'm toast.

CPLT: It will be interesting to see what chassis variant tweaks they have in store for the CPLT. The canon reasons for the super torso twist are valid (C1 and C4 variants being able to defend against lights when providing LRM support in the back lines, and no arm rotation), but SRM boating on the A1 is out of control, I'm not sure exactly how to tweak the K2 without completely gimping it. (See Missile Pattern Tweaks below.)

Alpine: sounds like a completely new map to me. While AP needs some tweaks, like trees, regular vision draw distance, etc. Also, on AP, I've won conquest a few times when I was the only light on the team by focusing exclusively on capping while the heavys went straight to epsilon (where the battle is almost always fought). I was the last mech standing, never got in combat, but got the win by out capping the other team. Viable tactic, sure ... but not particularly exciting.

Capture Victory: Yep, too fast right now ... tweak it by small increments, and decrease the amount that multiple mechs stack the capture speed.

New item:

Missile Pattern Tweaks: Stacked missile systems (for example, 6x SRM-6 on a CPLT-A1, to use the obvious example) should have a wider missile pattern, rather than several tight patterns flying on top of each other. For example, 2x LRM-10 or 4x LRM-5 should have the same spread pattern as one LRM-20. (For the record, this will negatively affect my per-missile accuracy ... I love my HBK-4SP (2x SRM-6 +Artemis).)

[BobbyBrinks]

SkyCake, on 09 March 2013 - 07:20 PM, said:

Horrible..... alpine??? Not being able to hack alpine is the hallmark of bad players... after ecm changes you lost me completely.. lrm nerfs?!?!? They are exactly useless in competitive play... even with your ecm nerfs they would still be useless

My success or failure on alpine has nothing to do with whether the map is well designed or not. Attacking my skills as a player does not disprove my arguement or strengthen yours. I happen to like alpine alot, as it was a much needed breath of fresh air in the map pool. I would not change the size, and I like the fact that it forces players to bring more balanced builds. With that being said, I believe the map currently has some poor traits that are easily exploited or produce stale games. The super high hills being one factor. The super easy capping mechanics which almost encourages back caps being another. I understand that people would not agree with me about the LRM nerfs, but this change was a result of all aggregate changes I suggested. I currently do not enjoy the binary ECM game mechanic and was looking to create an alternative method.

Biglead, on 09 March 2013 - 07:37 PM, said:

I would, then I'd turn around and fire him. Sounds like a patch to fix "butt-hurt". PPC ECM reduction, LRMs damage nerf, catapult torso twist nerf? Please, why don't you throw in a toggle for Auto aim too?
(Although ill give you props for the AMS rework).

Not at all. If you think the current balance is perfect, thats your opinion. Once again, attacking the poster is pretty common on these forums but doesnt really prove anything. Alot of the changes are a result of attempting to modify ECM into an object that is less binary and more FUN from a gameplay standpoint. Changes to the such as PPC disable and LRM damage reduction would be needed in my opinion if you modified ECM. Other items, such as the catapult tweak and (if i got around to it) Raven3L adjustments would be an attempt to make ALL mechs viable. Raven 3Ls being the first go to choice should set off some alarms that something (either via the mechs stats or the synergy of stats, weapons and other factors) is creating an imbalance. This doesnt mean that we need to have huge sweeping changes to correct this. Sometimes all it takes is a gentle nudge to get things back to where they should be.

[MischiefSC]

LRMs don't need a 'nerf', they need fixed.

Faster, less damage. Less direction change but able to lock through ECM just slower at any range. Have missile lock remain longer. ECM breaks Artemis and reduces how long missile lock remains on a target, effectively blocking target decay and such.

They need to be viable compared to direct fire weapons. Currently they are not. Pretty much boat or go home and a total feast/famine weapon depending on map, who you drop with and how skilled the people you play against are.

If PPCs worked that way people would flip. That you need all these counters to LRMs just shows how broken it is. Balance them with/against other weapons.

[BobbyBrinks]

MischiefSC, on 09 March 2013 - 08:16 PM, said:

LRMs don't need a 'nerf', they need fixed.

Faster, less damage. Less direction change but able to lock through ECM just slower at any range. Have missile lock remain longer. ECM breaks Artemis and reduces how long missile lock remains on a target, effectively blocking target decay and such.

They need to be viable compared to direct fire weapons. Currently they are not. Pretty much boat or go home and a total feast/famine weapon depending on map, who you drop with and how skilled the people you play against are.

If PPCs worked that way people would flip. That you need all these counters to LRMs just shows how broken it is. Balance them with/against other weapons.

We have a pretty similar view on LRMs, but are recommending different paths to get there. My goal was to create an environment where LRMs could be fired more often, but you would have reduced hit rates which would hopefully level out the LRM experience and get it away from its current all or nothing, feast or famine mechanics.

I have been running an LRM stalker for weeks now and came to the above conclusions well before the most recent Artemis changes etc. Unfortunately, i think that some of the reasoning of my post (and yours) will simply be lost due to the fact that the meta has shifted and LRMs are back in style again. And whenever something is in style, all the whining and "Learn to use cover" comments start coming out.

LRMS were never bad, even when ECM was introduced. As long as your mech could bring tag, and you can boat 50+ lrms the damage you can do per volley is sickening. Even if your jammed by ECM all game and only get a couple volleys off, large LRM boats can practically one hit medium mechs. The stalker I was running can reliably core most atlas' in 3 volleys frontally. People love to lob missiles at 1km, but really i found the best results were at around 350 meters. You can probably get off 2-3 volleys before they can close, and at that range the chance of them reacting and breaking LOS/using cover is limited. It just feels broken.

The PPC changes are more of a result of altering how ECM works. ECM I believe would really fall out of favor and not be used if you implemented my suggested changes and kept the disable at 5 seconds. Without play testing, its really impossible to see how it would play out and where the right balance would be however.

[Noobzorz]

The only thing I saw that I really agreed with is that alpine ******* sucks. It's an unbalanced slow paced snore fest that frequently turns into two teams playing ring around the rosy with the giant hill formation until one team caps even though there are ten living players remaining.

[Sephlock]

ECM: ECM now does what it is supposed to do, as opposed to serving as a streak invulnerability shield.