206 replies to this topic

[MaddMaxx]

Mechwarrior Buddah, on 29 April 2013 - 05:27 PM, said:

It always comes fast and loud when IVE proposed that in the past

Only because if you remove, or even curb substantially, the run and gun play style, you suck much of the FUN from the game. No one plays un-fun games, well except the hardcore neck beards who don't bat an eye when Stock play is asked for.

So a Balance must be found or get ready to dig in for another 10 year hibernation...

Barghest Whelp, on 30 April 2013 - 12:55 AM, said:

So what you're saying is that every mechwarrior game that has been made so far has been a **** game with battletech maths?

Gotcha.

Been 10 years since the last one...

Gotcha.

[MaddMaxx]

Belorion, on 30 April 2013 - 05:58 AM, said:

Oh but they can and they will. They complained about maps being too small, PGI introduced larger maps, and now the complains are that some of the maps are too big.

They complained that streak a pults were op, and that srms did too much damage, now they complain that srms are underpowered.

The Irony of your words is not lost on many of us.

[Morang]

TLDR the thread.

I already stated elsewhere that state rewind hit balance hard. Slowing ROF isn't the only answer - another way is to reduce projectile velocity and increase beam duration again (to increase aiming difficulties which were reduced by state rewind). It will benefit lights especially.

[MustrumRidcully]

Belorion, on 30 April 2013 - 05:58 AM, said:

Oh but they can and they will. They complained about maps being too small, PGI introduced larger maps, and now the complains are that some of the maps are too big.

They complained that streak a pults were op, and that srms did too much damage, now they complain that srms are underpowered.

And are these the only possible options? EIther it's OP or it's UP?

"People said the taxes were too high, so we removed them. Now they complain that the streets are in a bad state and there is no police to protect them from criminals. It's impossible to make people happy!!!"

[Barghest Whelp]

Karr285, on 29 April 2013 - 04:37 PM, said:

So he said DPS was to high and your Solution is to lower the refire rates of the other weapons effectively increasing their DPS... the hell?

Yeah, here's the thing: he said the DPS was too high. Not me.

And I want to buff the other weapons because they're useless compared to the PPC, AC20 and UAC5. Of course, lowering the cooldown isn't the only way to go about it, but to me it seems to make the most sense.

I don't see the current DPS as a problem. Sure, the max allowed armour or certain mechs could do with a bit of tweaking, but other than that, it's just players that refuse to learn to spread their damage that die quickly.

tl;dr: poor players are refusing to improve their game and demanding that the game be made easier.

[Orzorn]

HSR threw a huge wrench in balance because this game was balanced from the ground up against these issues and bugs, and now that they've been fixed (witness the missile issues related to splash) we get all these new weapon behaviors.

I think one of the biggest issues right now with high alpha builds is the heat generated is low enough you can often fire twice in quick succession. Many mechs can not survive 120 damage in 4 seconds. This game has no high heat penalties (Hell, Mechwarrior 4 had high heat penalties). Brawling feel neutered because of the missile nerfs (sure, they're okay in pubs, but 8v8s are absolutely full of sniper builds and extremely hard, if not futile, to bother with brawling mechs).

Fix missiles, sprinkle some extra heat on PPCs, and maybe think of adding in some high heat penalties and we might see more balanced combat.

[MustrumRidcully]

Barghest Whelp, on 30 April 2013 - 07:58 AM, said:

Yeah, here's the thing: he said the DPS was too high. Not me.

And I want to buff the other weapons because they're useless compared to the PPC, AC20 and UAC5. Of course, lowering the cooldown isn't the only way to go about it, but to me it seems to make the most sense.

I don't see the current DPS as a problem. Sure, the max allowed armour or certain mechs could do with a bit of tweaking, but other than that, it's just players that refuse to learn to spread their damage that die quickly.

tl;dr: poor players are refusing to improve their game and demanding that the game be made easier.

Try spreading around 45 to 60 damage coming as one shot on any mech. That's the whole "trick" with all those alpha strike builds - that the damage is not "spreadable". You may be able to spread the second shot - but you just got one of your components severely softened up - it will be hit again, and even if you spread the damage from now on, that component can't deal with with the spreaded damage either.

[Orzorn]

MustrumRidcully, on 30 April 2013 - 10:48 AM, said:

Try spreading around 45 to 60 damage coming as one shot on any mech. That's the whole "trick" with all those alpha strike builds - that the damage is not "spreadable". You may be able to spread the second shot - but you just got one of your components severely softened up - it will be hit again, and even if you spread the damage from now on, that component can't deal with with the spreaded damage either.

Not to mention, in 8v8 environments, these teams often have large groups (in our last Marik Civil War battle, the 600 ton drop had 6 jumping Highlanders and 2 Cataphracts) of jump snipers focusing on one or two people. You can't survive that damage even if you attempt to spread it. You will be stripped to nothing in seconds, even if only two snipers are focusing you. Its like 45 damage per hit from each of them every 4 seconds.

Edited by Orzorn, 30 April 2013 - 11:13 AM.

[Corvus Antaka]

Orzorn, on 30 April 2013 - 11:05 AM, said:

Not to mention, in 8v8 environments, these teams often have large groups (in our last Marik Civil War battle, the 600 ton drop had 6 jumping Highlanders and 2 Cataphracts) of jump snipers focusing on one or two people. You can't survive that damage even if you attempt to spread it. You will be stripped to nothing in seconds, even if only two snipers are focusing you. Its like 45 damage per hit from each of them every 4 seconds.

this is why basecapping is important to winning and countering

but with the arm locked to torso it is easier than ever to focus 1 node with big alphas, and imho tonnage limits on teams combined with some weapon tweaks and the return of LRMS will resolve these issues. just wait until LRMS are hitting those snipers, it all won't be half so bad then

[Orzorn]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 30 April 2013 - 11:55 AM, said:

this is why basecapping is important to winning and countering

but with the arm locked to torso it is easier than ever to focus 1 node with big alphas, and imho tonnage limits on teams combined with some weapon tweaks and the return of LRMS will resolve these issues. just wait until LRMS are hitting those snipers, it all won't be half so bad then

I'd rather have SRMs with more power. LRMs won't stop the jump sniping nearly as well as an A1 slapping the jump snipers across the face. I mean, yeah, I want all the missiles to be balanced, but I think snipers were far more afraid of a jumping A1 getting in their face, because they could do little to fight back, especially if they used chain fire to keep them from being able to aim.

Also, its actually pretty difficult to cap against those snipers because their reach is great, and their speed is not mediocre. Most of those cataphracts can move 80+ kp/h.

Edited by Orzorn, 30 April 2013 - 12:04 PM.

[Corvus Antaka]

SRMS seem fine to me, Ive had no issues with any of my SRM mechs or SRMS since the patch.

[blinkin]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 30 April 2013 - 12:08 PM, said:

SRMS seem fine to me, Ive had no issues with any of my SRM mechs or SRMS since the patch.

i tried my catapult C4 with SRM after the missile mess died down and it seemed to be just as strong as it ever was (except for the early days of closed beta when it was a god machine). several matches and i really could not see any difference in the damage my SRM dished out.

[AC]

Read all 8 pages, and again I think some people are missing the major point here. A single UAC5 is balance with respect to a single PPC and a single AC20 and a single Gauss. The issue is that PGI released new mechs that broke this balance, and every mech release will continue to break weapons balance until they come up with a new a better slot system. One that is based on weapons sizes in addition to weapons type. The fact that you can strip off the AC2's and AC 5's on the Jagger and run 4 UAC 5's is the issue, NOT the weapon. Same with the stalker... does it make sense that PPC can fit where a ML once was? No, and the 6PPC stalker breaks the PPC balance. No one complains when a Cicada 3C runs around with a PPC though, why? Because it isn't the weapons, it is the mechs and the boating.

It should be painfully obvious at this point that the craptastic slot system we have not is not working. It allows too much abuse.

[Orzorn]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 30 April 2013 - 12:08 PM, said:

SRMS seem fine to me, Ive had no issues with any of my SRM mechs or SRMS since the patch.

Believe me, in the games I've played, they can't hold up. Even Centurions protecting each other can't get within 400 meters without getting rocked. Your arms block the first alpha, your torso takes the next two, and then next two will kill you. When 3-4 jump snipers are shooting at once, you go down fast. Even taking cover you can die very, very quickly. I say this having a jump sniper of my own, being in my corp with some of the best jump snipers I know, and playing against some of the best jump snipers I've seen. Even the most cautious mechs can disintegrate quickly when jump sniping teams begin to reposition such that, while you may be in cover against some of them, the other part has you in their sights.

I mean, compare the alpha strikes:
3 SRM6, 2 MLAS is 37 damage, with those SRMs spreading, and both weapons have a range of 270 meters.

Cataphract's standard jump sniping build is 2 ERPPC, 1 Gauss, which is 35 damage, all pinpoint.

Yet the new fangled builds that my corp mates came up with and I've seen other teams using is something like 2 PPC, 1 ERPCC, 1 Gauss, which is 45 damage, all pinpoint. Absolutely disgusting mechs in terms of raw pinpoint power. Now thing of 3 really good pilots shooting these things in your direction. Surviving that is extremely difficult. "Use cover" is a nice idea, sure, and that's what we do. But being behind cover means you can't move forward, and while you're hiding, their scouts are tearing yours apart (these really heavy jump teams enjoy using wolf packs).

Regardless, your suggestions higher up (missile fixes, HSR for missiles, and tonnage fixes) will help a lot. I'm also fully expecting a 1 heat nerf on PPCs.

[Yokaiko]

MrZakalwe, on 30 April 2013 - 02:38 AM, said:

Does anybody think dramatically slowing down weapon convergence would help?

I've said removing torso convergence would be the best route since August or so.

[Orzorn]

blinkin, on 30 April 2013 - 12:13 PM, said:

i tried my catapult C4 with SRM after the missile mess died down and it seemed to be just as strong as it ever was (except for the early days of closed beta when it was a god machine). several matches and i really could not see any difference in the damage my SRM dished out.

The difference is 36 (from 90 to 54). That is not negligible.

Perhaps spread alterations make it feel like your damage is strong, because it might be slightly more pinpoint.

[AndyHill]

This game seems to currently be suffering from hit detection issues; the sniper builds are not doing as much damage as they should. Would be interesting to see that fixed...

Anyway, talking about pinpoint alphas, here's a comparison between pinpoint firepower in the tabletop and MWO. And, I would claim, the source of all alphawarrior / boating / tooquickdeathwarrior etc. problems.

Tabletop single point alpha (note that the point itself is more random than in usual MWO situations) monsters, including the tech currently in MWO:

1) AC20, dmg 20 (short range)
2) Gauss, dmg 15 (rare, valued weapon)
3) PPC, AC10, dmg 10
4) LLas, dmg 8
5) MLas, AC5, dmg 5

MWO pinpoint alpha weapons:

1) 6 X (ER)PPC, dmg 60 (good/great range)
2) 6 X (ER)LLas, dmg 54 (good range)
3) 9 X MLas, dmg 45
4) 4 X (ER)PPC, dmg 40 (jump sniper, great range)
5) 2 X AC20, dmg 40 (relatively short range)
6) 7 X Mlas, dmg 35
7) 3 X (ER)PPC, dmg 30 (jump sniper, great range, gauss kicker (+15) against slow targets)
8) 2 X Gauss, dmg 30 (good range, no heat)
...) A great number of laser combinations, including many pulse builds I omitted completely will produce pinpoint alphas between 20+ and 54
n) AC20, dmg 20 (the supposed-to-be-monster from TT)

Oh, btw, the firing rate for all these weapons has been approximately doubled - tripled. So, why oh why do the 'mechs die too fast, why is the meta so sniper/alpha oriented? Note that once clans arrive, the alpha monsters above will be rendered completely obsolete by pinpoint striking power of entirely different magnitude.

Edited by AndyHill, 30 April 2013 - 01:24 PM.

[Tarl Cabot]

AndyHill, on 30 April 2013 - 01:21 PM, said:

This game seems to currently be suffering from hit detection issues; the sniper builds are not doing as much damage as they should. Would be interesting to see that fixed...

....

Oh, btw, the firing rate for all these weapons has been approximately doubled - tripled. So, why oh why do the 'mechs die too fast, why is the meta so sniper/alpha oriented? Note that once clans arrive, the alpha monsters above will be rendered completely obsolete by pinpoint striking power of entirely different magnitude.

For snipers, it could be hit detection but the other end is they are not firing as often as brawlers.

As for the rate of fire, the bad part, imho, is the lack of a soft control limit in the heat scale. There is negative effect except a shutdown so the mind set is, do I fire to try to get that kill or should I do something else cause it is becoming more difficult to move and aim to even line up my target to hit?

Mech dying fast would also be due to the number of mechs on the field (taking this from a MPBT all versions). It jumped from 4 mechs to 8 mechs. In PUGs drops where there is little coop or communication on both sides, the fights can last abit. Once any type of coop/comm comes into effect, that damage modifier increases. This has been witnessed in true team play, be it 3-4 teams or sync drop of more than one unit. The opposition drops like flies. The combat has also jumped from no real weight restrictions. With the previous MPBTs, it was team play and communication, even if it was primarily with chat, and I guess you could call it PUGs, people who did not normally drop together, primary targets were still called out. And the mechs were all stock. The boat would be the hunchback with all of the med lasers. 1-3 long range weapons (most heavies/assaults) and 2-6 close range weapons.

Heat was a faction. You may fire off the 2 PPCs ya had then it was control fire while twisting/turning to spread incoming damage. And you worried not only about shutdown but slowing down.

Which assaults were used the most? Stalkers (LRM/Large Lasers), Cyclops Q (2 LRM 10s), Banshee 5S (2 PPCs), with the occasional Atlas, awesome, zeus and battlemaster. The lances stayed at range for as long as possible, weaving in and out of range til a critical point was reached then it became a brawl.

Something like is going on today with the snipers and weaving in/out of cover. That was how true/mixed lances, assaults, heavies and most medium drops occurred. The pace was slower and I can recall only a few drops in EGA/Solaris where cover was used (LRMS were direct fired weapons only). In the short life of 3025 the combat engine resembled MW4 (shudders) in all things except for it lacked customization, which was a good thing.

[jeffsw6]

Jungle Rhino, on 30 April 2013 - 01:26 AM, said:

I don't know why PGI is surprised that damage has gone up and PPCs are being boated just after they introduced the Coolshot modules that effectively add 50% to the burst damage capability for such a build.

I wonder how many people are actually spending MC on this module that has single handedly sucked the fun out of this game?

Have you spectated your teammates and observed how many players are actually using CoolShot in their PPC boat? I almost never see that in my games. I use them on my brawler quite often, because in that situation, running for cover is not going to work (since the enemy is close and can follow me) and killing the opponent is my only option. A sniper can just ... stay behind cover while he cools down.

MrZakalwe, on 30 April 2013 - 02:38 AM, said:

Does anybody think dramatically slowing down weapon convergence would help?

No. This would nerf brawling and medium-ranged combat which IMO are not nearly as broken as extreme-range sniping.

Also I think some people may not understand "weapon convergence." It's based on range. If you are sniping at an opponent 1050m away who is running toward you, it is only a tiny, relatively fast adjustment for your weapons to re-converge to 920m for your next shot -- that's if the enemy is running toward or away from you; if he is running sideways the range doesn't change at all.

On the other hand, if you are aiming at someone 30m away and need to re-focus on an opponent at 250m, that is a larger adjustment and will take longer. You will end up missing more enemies at 250m due to your proposed convergence nerf than you would at 920m. You will never get your weapons to converge on an enemy light mech who is circling you.

Belorion, on 30 April 2013 - 05:58 AM, said:

Oh but they can and they will. They complained about maps being too small, PGI introduced larger maps, and now the complains are that some of the maps are too big.

They complained that streak a pults were op, and that srms did too much damage, now they complain that srms are underpowered.

Like I said, PGI has not really tried to balance the game. Hopefully they will in the weeks before 'Release.' They have ignored obvious problems and they only do something when the forums are a river of flame. They literally do not care that the game is unbalanced, they're just not saying that. It is abundantly clear that they have other priorities. What are these other priorities? Hopefully HUD bugs and crashes.

Morang, on 30 April 2013 - 06:31 AM, said:

I already stated elsewhere that state rewind hit balance hard. Slowing ROF isn't the only answer - another way is to reduce projectile velocity and increase beam duration again (to increase aiming difficulties which were reduced by state rewind). It will benefit lights especially.

Are you joking? Increasing beam duration will nerf Medium Laser and Large Laser. These are just about the only 2 weapons that are not worthless or over-powered. Your suggestion is the worst idea I've read on the subject of balance.

Edited by jeffsw6, 30 April 2013 - 04:13 PM.

[MrZakalwe]

jeffsw6, on 30 April 2013 - 04:11 PM, said:

No. This would nerf brawling and medium-ranged combat which IMO are not nearly as broken as extreme-range sniping.

Also I think some people may not understand "weapon convergence." It's based on range. If you are sniping at an opponent 1050m away who is running toward you, it is only a tiny, relatively fast adjustment for your weapons to re-converge to 920m for your next shot -- that's if the enemy is running toward or away from you; if he is running sideways the range doesn't change at all.

On the other hand, if you are aiming at someone 30m away and need to re-focus on an opponent at 250m, that is a larger adjustment and will take longer. You will end up missing more enemies at 250m due to your proposed convergence nerf than you would at 920m. You will never get your weapons to converge on an enemy light mech who is circling you.

Good point, well made.

But personally I think that would be a good start; lights and mediums are currently toast up close (run an AC40 Jaeger and since ballistic HSR went live I no longer have any problem legging them at all) and snipers are not that big a problem as far as I can tell; it's popups who will be having to converge during the jump (they will often be looking at a hill or the sky before hand so convergence will not be set right for their target) so this may help more than you think.

Adding high heat penalties could help with monster energy alpha builds.