142 replies to this topic

[Joseph Mallan]

3rdworld, on 02 May 2013 - 10:47 AM, said:

BAP now completely counters ECM.

One of the most heavy handed "balance" changes I have seen in a while.

What is the point of disrupt mode again?

Lets hope it is still one for one though. A single BAP blocking more than one ECM would be overkill.


(So it will happen of course!)

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 03 May 2013 - 07:34 AM.

[AlmightyAeng]

Thanks Paul. Getting direct numbers and a target date, several weeks ahead of time, is really awesome.

I'm looking forward to seeing how this affects builds...and the choices 'Mechwarriors will make.

[arghmace]

Holy mother of god, I'm really happy about that PAB-ECM-change! It took unfortunately long, but still, big thumbs up to you, PGI.

I have to say, though, that I too am now conserned about that specific ECM-slot ruining some mechs and builds, depending on where the slot is placed. With the IFF jamming removed and PAB countering ECM, this change probably wouldn't be needed anymore.

I don't know what some of you are smoking saying that MG buff is not enough. A bit more range and double damage is very good. A small laser has a dps of 1.0 over 0.8 of MG, but latter does no heat at all, which is a huge plus. Of course MG needs ammo but a single ton is enough for 3 weapons, really. And then there's the crit bonuses. I for one will be using 3 MG's in my HBK-4G, accompanied by 2 PPC or LPL.

Edited by arghmace, 03 May 2013 - 08:47 AM.

[Howdy Doody]

arghmace, on 03 May 2013 - 08:46 AM, said:

Holy mother of god, I'm really happy about that PAB-ECM-change! It took unfortunately long, but still, big thumbs up to you, PGI.

I have to say, though, that I too am now conserned about that specific ECM-slot ruining some mechs and builds, depending on where the slot is placed. With the IFF jamming removed and PAB countering ECM, this change probably wouldn't be needed anymore.

I don't know what some of you are smoking saying that MG buff is not enough. A bit more range and double damage is very good. A small laser has a dps of 1.0 over 0.8 of MG, but latter does no heat at all, which is a huge plus. Of course MG needs ammo but a single ton is enough for 3 weapons, really. And then there's the crit bonuses. I for one will be using 3 MG's in my HBK-4G, accompanied by 2 PPC or LPL.

Yea I was running some numbers on this post and it seems like a perfect buff. Unless my math is wrong.
http://mwomercs.com/...-mg-discussion/

[General Taskeen]

Howdy Doody, on 03 May 2013 - 08:55 AM, said:

Yea I was running some numbers on this post and it seems like a perfect buff. Unless my math is wrong.
http://mwomercs.com/...-mg-discussion/

Well, if you take into account the entire MG weapon family, a LMG on a record sheet Mech (like the Flea-19) would be garbage if we are to assume each type of MG gets its own damage per bullet like TT. The problem with some weapon design in the game is not taking into account future possible types as well. The problem all along also, has been the MG design at its core (a stream of bullets) which is more difficult to balance when they could have simply made it a ballistic by copying the AC/2 programming and adjusted it accordingly.

However! I assume PGI is not willing to make broader changes in the live beta servers and will instead change as needed in the live test servers, whenever those will be launched.

Edited by General Taskeen, 03 May 2013 - 09:19 AM.

[DocBach]

arghmace, on 03 May 2013 - 08:46 AM, said:

Holy mother of god, I'm really happy about that PAB-ECM-change! It took unfortunately long, but still, big thumbs up to you, PGI.

I have to say, though, that I too am now conserned about that specific ECM-slot ruining some mechs and builds, depending on where the slot is placed. With the IFF jamming removed and PAB countering ECM, this change probably wouldn't be needed anymore.

The they're making an ECM slot, they might as well make it share the same slot as AMS, since its pretty much the upgraded anti missile system anyways. Hell, make Beagle and TAG share that same slot. That way every 'Mech can carry things required to make their weapons work ie 'Mechs trying to use streaks or LRMs without an energy hardpoint.

[Trauglodyte]

The Strange, on 02 May 2013 - 06:38 PM, said:

Nope, this was in the original quote.

"If Mech X has BAP, and Mech Y has ECM, and Mech X gets within 150m or less of Mech Y, Mech Y loses all effects of ECM. It is a 100% counter to ECM. Mech Y is now vulnerable to LRMs/S-SRMs as long as Mech X stays within 150m. Any friendly Mechs to Mech Y will no longer be shielded until Mech X leaves the 150m area around Mech Y."

So, say you have an ECM and I have a BAP. You are shielding your team from missiles with your ECM and I come within 150m of you, I nullify your entire ECM field and now everyone you were shielding is vulnerable to missile fire..

NO!

Why do people keep saying this? If you carry BAP and either your target or another enemy mech has ECM and you are within 150m or less of that mech, YOU will no longer be affected by the ECM effects. BAP does not have any impact on how friendly mechs are affected by ECM. It is a personal/singular/solo counter to ECM within that 150m and is not a bubble. BAP isn't turning into a full time ECCM+sensor boost. The sensor boost just means that you (not your team) can burn through the static when within each EWs primary bubble.

[arghmace]

Trauglodyte, on 03 May 2013 - 09:54 AM, said:

NO!

Why do people keep saying this?

Because it says "Mech Y loses all effects of ECM. It is a 100% counter to ECM. Mech Y is now vulnerable to LRMs/S-SRMs as long as Mech X stays within 150m."

I cannot understand how you interpret this in a way that only the PAB-carrying mech is unaffected by ECM. ECM loses all effects, period. And how on Earth would he be vulnerable to LRM's if only the mech within 150m could shoot LRM's at him when they don't do damage that close?

[Trauglodyte]

Because when you're within 180m of an ECM carrying mech, all counters to ECM (TAG and NARC) are rended useless. You can't use them within the bubble to target someone else and you can't use them within the bubble to target the ECM mech. You are locked out from guided weapons completely. The only counter in game, currently, is running ECM in "counter" mode. BAP now works like a singular ECM in "counter" mode when withint 150m of said ECM mech. It doesn't counter ECM for everyone, just the BAP user. Essentially, each system has a bubble (ECM - 180m, BAP - 120 + 25% [150m]) and, in this fight, the BAP bubble wins.

Admittedly, I could be wrong. But logic dictates that when you have a system that has a full on counter bubble, it makes no sense to have another system provide a full on counter bubble. Furthermore, BAP doesn't benefit your team by extending friendly sensor range or target acquisition speed. So, why would it all of a sudden counter the ECM effect on everyone when it is a singularly designed system from the jump?

Just to add to the above, the Devs aren't always the greatest when it comes to writing things clearly. It is why we have Jenners coring Atlases in 3s, 6 machine gun Spiders, etc. In Paul's write up, the BAP carrier couldn't target the ECM carrier for LRMs anyway as the ECM mech was within 180m so that, alone, negates what he wrote. He was, at least in my view, just indicating that the target could be locked on.

[Howdy Doody]

arghmace, on 03 May 2013 - 10:45 AM, said:

Because it says "Mech Y loses all effects of ECM. It is a 100% counter to ECM. Mech Y is now vulnerable to LRMs/S-SRMs as long as Mech X stays within 150m."

I cannot understand how you interpret this in a way that only the PAB-carrying mech is unaffected by ECM. ECM loses all effects, period. And how on Earth would he be vulnerable to LRM's if only the mech within 150m could shoot LRM's at him when they don't do damage that close?

I read it like you Arghmace.

EDIT: Maybe you are both saying the same thing.....I'm confused! Tooooo much brain usage for a Friday!

Edited by Howdy Doody, 03 May 2013 - 11:03 AM.

[arghmace]

Trauglodyte, on 03 May 2013 - 11:01 AM, said:

BAP now works like a singular ECM in "counter" mode when withint 150m of said ECM mech.

A singular ECM in counter mode completely disables the ECM in regards to your whole team, does it not? So if PAB does that...

But yes, it might be that Paul's choice of words in the summary went a bit astray and what we get is how you think it will be. But for now I naturally stick to the most (or actually only) logical interpretation of Paul's words.

Edited by arghmace, 03 May 2013 - 11:43 AM.

[The Strange]

Trauglodyte, on 03 May 2013 - 09:54 AM, said:

NO!

Why do people keep saying this? If you carry BAP and either your target or another enemy mech has ECM and you are within 150m or less of that mech, YOU will no longer be affected by the ECM effects. BAP does not have any impact on how friendly mechs are affected by ECM. It is a personal/singular/solo counter to ECM within that 150m and is not a bubble. BAP isn't turning into a full time ECCM+sensor boost. The sensor boost just means that you (not your team) can burn through the static when within each EWs primary bubble.

Perhaps that is what he meant. I don't know, I can only read what he wrote and interpret it to the best of my ability.

"If Mech X has BAP, and Mech Y has ECM, and Mech X gets within 150m or less of Mech Y, Mech Y loses all effects of ECM. It is a 100% counter to ECM. Mech Y is now vulnerable to LRMs/S-SRMs as long as Mech X stays within 150m. Any friendly Mechs to Mech Y will no longer be shielded until Mech X leaves the 150m area around Mech Y."

This states that a BAP user, who comes within 150m of an ECM user, completely negates the ECM effects. 100% hard counter. That translates to shutting it off completely. It is like the ECM doesn't even exist while the BAP is within 150m. It states LRMs as well, so that would imply that your team members can lock on to it as well. Then it goes on to specifically state that any friendly Mechs will no longer be shielded. Which I take to mean that all other Mechs on your team would be able to lock on to any Mech that was previously shielded by the disabled ECM field.

Face it, they are completely negating ECM with the BAP. Once everyone equips a BAP on their Mech, ECM will be completely pointless.

The thing that seems unbalanced to me though, is that any Mech can take a BAP, but only certain ones can use ECM. We are all familiar with ECM Mechs, so we know which variants to target with our BAP. For instance, I know I have to get close to the D-DC to shut off his ECM. But we can never know which Mech we have to destroy to get rid of their BAP and restore our ECM field. Seems really stacked in the favor of getting rid of ECM.

[armyof1]

AC5 rate of fire really needs to be shortened to something like 1.4 to make them closer to how good UAC5 is, right now there is still no decent reason not to grab a UAC5 instead of the a lot weaker AC5. If the build you're making can only let you carry one/several AC5 instead of UAC5, then you simply need to abandon that build and make one that works for UAC5 instead, it's that big a difference. As long as the DPS of AC5 won't be improved, this will still be true.

MGs are moving in the right direction, it's still not there though as I think 1 DPS would make more sense but still it's a lot better. LBX is still going to suck, just suck 20% less which isn't good enough. It's still spreading damage comparable to SRMS while having the same DPS as an AC10 which is ridiculous for the small amount of weight/crit slots you save when not going with the AC10. It's kind of like the AC5/UAC5 situation, it's simply a mistake to go for the lighter weapon due to what you lose in the process. The devs still need to rethink this unless they're happy with some weapons that are not worth using, since there is a clearly better weapon for slightly higher requirements.

Edited by armyof1, 03 May 2013 - 07:23 PM.

[Scryed]

Zyllos, on 02 May 2013 - 10:38 AM, said:

Here is an update on the weapon balance specifics: http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__2315318



The Machine Gun changes are a good step in the right direction. Honestly think setting it to 0.1 per shot would have been fine as it still leaves it pretty weak against armor.

LBX/10 is another good step in the right direction. On the surface, 20% does not seem like enough but I will not be able to test this out for sure until June. The only thing I am looking for is for 8 of the 10 pellets hitting the target at optimum distance against a Medium mech on average.

LRM change is also in the right direction but from 100m/s to 120m/s seems really small. Again, I will not be able to test this until June but it that is only a difference of 10.0s to 8.33s at 1km.

The AC/5 change of 540m to 620m is EXTREMELY odd. Why not reduce the cooldown to match that of the UAC/5 instead of upping the range?

NARC is in need of a duration change (I suggest by 100%, to 30.0s) but the major issue with NARC is that it is easily removed by damage. The 27 damage threshold is what is killing NARC. A single player can just shoot a single LRM/20 or some direct fire weapons and it will be knocked off. That is not enough benefit.

I guess the people of the community who wanted BAP to counter NARC won out here. I think this still just hides the power of ECM with another bandaid. Guess I will have to wait and see in June.

ECM being forced to a location, can't make a comment about it yet. If that heavily affects mechs who utilize it negatively, then it might be a step in the right direction for balance. But as it still stands, ECM is still making a variant the go-to variant.

AC/5 firing at ultra speeds would make the UAC/5 useless, they should redo all AC firing rates and make ultras double that rate.

[El Bandito]

The Strange, on 03 May 2013 - 06:34 PM, said:

Perhaps that is what he meant. I don't know, I can only read what he wrote and interpret it to the best of my ability. "If Mech X has BAP, and Mech Y has ECM, and Mech X gets within 150m or less of Mech Y, Mech Y loses all effects of ECM. It is a 100% counter to ECM. Mech Y is now vulnerable to LRMs/S-SRMs as long as Mech X stays within 150m. Any friendly Mechs to Mech Y will no longer be shielded until Mech X leaves the 150m area around Mech Y." This states that a BAP user, who comes within 150m of an ECM user, completely negates the ECM effects. 100% hard counter. That translates to shutting it off completely. It is like the ECM doesn't even exist while the BAP is within 150m. It states LRMs as well, so that would imply that your team members can lock on to it as well. Then it goes on to specifically state that any friendly Mechs will no longer be shielded. Which I take to mean that all other Mechs on your team would be able to lock on to any Mech that was previously shielded by the disabled ECM field. Face it, they are completely negating ECM with the BAP. Once everyone equips a BAP on their Mech, ECM will be completely pointless. The thing that seems unbalanced to me though, is that any Mech can take a BAP, but only certain ones can use ECM. We are all familiar with ECM Mechs, so we know which variants to target with our BAP. For instance, I know I have to get close to the D-DC to shut off his ECM. But we can never know which Mech we have to destroy to get rid of their BAP and restore our ECM field. Seems really stacked in the favor of getting rid of ECM.

Here is an idea. Why don't we talk about it after actually experiencing it in the gameplay?

Anyway, ECM will still be 10X more effective than AMS at shielding from the LRMS and will still shut down SSRMs if it is between 150-180 meters. My Streak cat managed to dance between 180-200 meters when there was an enemy ECM carrier nearby, so I am sure lights can do something similar now that the tables are turned.

Edited by El Bandito, 03 May 2013 - 08:48 PM.

[Keifomofutu]

Scryed, on 03 May 2013 - 08:37 PM, said:

AC/5 firing at ultra speeds would make the UAC/5 useless, they should redo all AC firing rates and make ultras double that rate.

I'd make them fire at exactly the same rate of say 1.5. But I'd also reduce the jam percent chance of UAC5s OR make the the jam rate variable based on mech heat. And of course put in a way to toggle whether or not holding the trigger down makes it double fire or not double fire. You currently have to macro to achieve this.

A UAC5 should preform just like an AC5 unless you double fire. Its only 1 ton more it shouldn't be a wonder weapon compared to AC5. It will also always have the advantage of burst damage over ac5.

Edited by Keifomofutu, 04 May 2013 - 08:14 AM.

[Gaan Cathal]

Keifomofutu, on 02 May 2013 - 11:04 AM, said:

The current light "balance" is for Raven to be the numero uno light in virtually every situation. That's not balance at all.

Raven will still be a good gunboat after the change. It just won't be the best one. Jenner can't disrupt the enemy team. You really sound like you want to have your cake and eat it too with the Raven 3L.

The problem in the light-balancing meta has never been the ECM. It's been the Streaks. Ravens (3Ls) were...passable skirmishers at best pre-ECM and every other non-Jenner was a joke. This was, simply, because 4MLAS+2SSRM > 3MLAS+2SSRM. When ECM came in, the fight went to 4MLAS vs 3MLAS+2SSRM and the Raven became king. HSR has moved things back slightly, since the value of MLAS in the equation has gone up slightly compared to the SSRM (although still nowhere near equal, needs fixing).

I'm not sure yet, personally, what effect this will have. HSR has changed things up, making SSRM less essential (although still horribly broken) and 1.5t is a lot for a light mech to set aside. There's also the increase of effectiveness of the JR7-F, which has been the best combat light since day one, it's just got a very high skill floor to get that out of it.

El Bandito, on 03 May 2013 - 08:46 PM, said:

My Streak cat managed to dance between 180-200 meters when there was an enemy ECM carrier nearby, so I am sure lights can do something similar now that the tables are turned.

In fairness, they'll have to aim at the same time. That's already double the work.




Le Edit: Does bring up a point though - ECM-carrying lights dominance was actually more about larger missile-heavy mechs than it was about other lights. Whatever anyone says, a Jenner against a Raven has a decent chance (although less than 50%, granted) if the pilots are equal. Against a Streak-Cat or Streak-Treb or any-assault-with-spare-missile-hardpoints they're toast. Hitting gunlines is going to be more or less impossible once those quad-PPC stalkers start loading out 6 4-5 SSRM launchers and a BAP.

Edited by Gaan Cathal, 04 May 2013 - 12:40 AM.

[Kaspirikay]

It's streakcat time

[Wynteryth]

jeffsw6, on 02 May 2013 - 10:49 AM, said:

I am discouraged by the Machine Gun buff. I think a 100% damage increase and 1/3rd range increase is not nearly enough. Not adjusting their spread, maybe that's tougher to figure out; but ... I don't think they understand how gimp the MG is. They have gone from claiming that MGs were fine and stating that a 6MG Spider could "core the back of an Atlas in seconds" to buffing it 100% and yet, this will not be enough.

Total lack of PPC / Gauss discussion, terrible. Just ******* terrible. FFS do they not know that the current meta-game is that half of players are using SNIPER WEAPONS?

MGs in the Battletech Universe are supposed to be Anti-Infantry weps.. Not mech fighting weps. The only way a 6MG Spider could core an Atlas is from behind and with like 3-4 shots of each MG, while being withing 50 meters of the Atlas.

The biggest problem I see with the game when it comes to balancing is that it's wandered so far away from the original when it comes to heat, damage and distance of the weapons that band-aiding it won't fix it. They need to return the heat and damage to the original BT systems. And that includes fixing the double heatsinks.

[Gaan Cathal]

Wynteryth, on 04 May 2013 - 09:45 AM, said:

MGs in the Battletech Universe are supposed to be Anti-Infantry weps.. Not mech fighting weps. The only way a 6MG Spider could core an Atlas is from behind and with like 3-4 shots of each MG, while being withing 50 meters of the Atlas.

The biggest problem I see with the game when it comes to balancing is that it's wandered so far away from the original when it comes to heat, damage and distance of the weapons that band-aiding it won't fix it. They need to return the heat and damage to the original BT systems. And that includes fixing the double heatsinks.

Nope. Machine guns do 2 damage a round, same as an AC2. They get EXTRA damage against infantry.

As for the heat thing, I partially agree with you that things like heat cap and dissipation need addressing more than weapon ranges, but the idea that slavishly sticking to (never internally balanced) TT numbers has already done enough damage (tonnage). This is a real time environment with aiming, to produce the same effect as in TT you need radically different numbers.