36 replies to this topic

[Rasc4l]

Hello everybody!

I would really appreciate your input on these thought. First, let me say that the most recent patch+hotfix was a nice move to the right direction and brought LRMs mostly back to the game. This thread:

http://mwomercs.com/...an-vanilla-mw4/

made me think about whole weapon groups "being broken" and while I don't entirely agree with that, it made me wonder what in general would be needed to fix the current balance. Well not maybe even fix, hell, what do I know but to at least bring certain weapons (back) into the game and better balance those that currently need a bit tweaking. Currently, it is my humble opinion that only 15 out of 26 of all weapons are working as they should:


Ballistic 5/8:

Not ok: AC/10, LBX, MG


Energy 5/10:

Not ok: SL, SPL, flamer, PPC, ERPPC


Missile 5/8:

Not ok: SRMs


While staring at the current weapon and equipment stats at smurfy's:

http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/

I came to a 10 point program that I think balance the game greatly. As I'm aware the whole forum is filled with people who know what's best for MWO, feel free to bash my reasoning in your reply.

1. SL: First bring the small lasers back into the game by lowering their cooldown to 2.00 from 2.25 and heat to 1.8 from 2.0. The first will increase their DPS a bit over the current 1.00, which will give a bit more viability compared to the current version.

2. SPL: Small pulse lasers will need a bit more work so to justify the 2 x tonnage compared to SL, their cooldown should be down to 2.00 from 2.25 just like SL, heat reduced from 3.0 to 2.5, and damage increased to 3.5 from 3.0 giving them a minor edge in that respect just like medium/large lasers have with their pulse counterparts.

3. MG: Due to 1. small laser DPS is now over 1.0 so we should have no problem increasing MG DPS to 1.0 from 0.8 i.e. damage from 0.08 to 0.1. The last fix to MGs made them barely playable but this minor tweak should help more.

4. Flamer: Stop playing around and start respecting the laws of thermodynamics. There is NO heat cap. I want to be able to shutdown and overheatdamage that 6xPPC stalker in my 6xenergy jenner even if it takes 5 minutes of continuous grilling! And I don't care what their damage is, once you properly implement hindrances from high heat levels as requested, the flamers will do their work.

Then there are these larger weapons:

5. PPCs: The current LRM fix somewhat relieved the sniper problem. However, it only hides the problem still within the game, which is (ER)PPC. Especially ERPPC is deadly because it has almost the double range of largest lasers, while still being usable at close quarters after HSR (which is nice and realistic). Therefore, I think the TT heats for these weapons are not that exaggerated especially as we are about to face 12 vs. 12 soon - a condition which favors weapons, which have unlimited ammo. This is why I think PPC heat should be increased from 8 to 9 (TT:10) and ERPPC heat from 11 to 14 (TT: 15). Yes, you read right, 14, not 13. 13 would be fine if it didn't work at close range like PPC and if the clans wouldn't have to be balanced with IS weapons so that pushes it to 14 in my opinion.

6. AC/10: This is the most underpowered of the autocannons and I think the first step would be to bring the DPS to the same level as with AC/20: from 4 to 5. This would happen by dropping AC/10 cooldown from 2.5 to 2.0.

7. LBX10: I understand the recent decrease in spread increased the viability of this weapon. Despite this, I don't really see it used. I haven't used the weapon since my 2xLBX10 atlas was a failure but this is my idea how it should work in theory. The weapon obviously has a rather long range and it should be usable up to half a kilometer. Therefore, I would imagine that at this range, the buckshot of 10 of 1 damage projectiles should still be intact enough to impact, say, 6-8 hit to an Atlas. One passes between the legs, two through armpits or something. A light mech will be less hit but still feel the hit. It is still much less than what an AC/10 would do at that range to which it should be compared. LBX10 should not be a sawed-off shotgun and there should be some justification for the high price and the current critical stuff just don't cut it.

8. SRM: SRM damage should be increased to 2.0 from current 1.5 to make it a good brawling weapon and make snipers/LRM-boats more scared at close range. AFAIK there are some flightpath changes incoming, which may be good because I've heard they spread weird or too much. Like LBX, I haven't used them for a while so this is more intuition than empirical data and conlusion from that.

9: LRM: LRM damage should be increased to 1.0 from current 0.9. The latest patches were nice and the hotfix made being behind cover really being behind cover again but I'd still go fo this minor tweak. Also to make LRM5 slightly more viable against AMS.

10: Seismic module: This is not a weapon but critically influences situational awareness during combat and at the moment needs some adjustment. In my opinion it has two functions: first, to prevent you from being surprised from behind and second, allowing detection of enemies beyond line of sight. Both capabilities reduce tactical elements of MWO and despite having to sacrifice a precious module slot for it, the current ranges are just too much. The ranges should be 1/2 of current. Also if there is a cave wall or something similarly heavy between you and the enemy, the range should be 1/3 so that the blockage somewhat reduces detection. It should not be inconceivable that the physical barrier scatters the seismic waves and makes detection more difficult.

I'm quite sure my suggestions aren't perfect but at least they would enable many currently broken weapons. For example, I didn't touch the topic of SSRMs preferring CT, which is oddly the reason why they don't need the damage increase. Two minuses make a plus or something.

I'm just basically wondering why doesn't PGI tweak little things like these every week instead of every month? These are just numbers in a config file and the change itself doesn't take time.

[Jasen]

Sry but I think everyone is so tired of this voting crap.

They don't listen anyways.

[El Bandito]

LRMs need more (damage most likely) to be worth taking. For that, I agree. Might be more than 0.1 increase.

Seismic nerf should be no brainer.

Edited by El Bandito, 30 May 2013 - 04:47 PM.

[FupDup]

Rasc4l, on 30 May 2013 - 04:38 PM, said:

1. SL: First bring the small lasers back into the game by lowering their cooldown to 2.00 from 2.25 and heat to 1.8 from 2.0. The first will increase their DPS a bit over the current 1.00, which will give a bit more viability compared to the current version.

I'd prefer to reduce their heat to 1 and increase their optimal range to ~150-180m.

Rasc4l, on 30 May 2013 - 04:38 PM, said:

2. SPL: Small pulse lasers will need a bit more work so to justify the 2 x tonnage compared to SL, their cooldown should be down to 2.00 from 2.25 just like SL, heat reduced from 3.0 to 2.5, and damage increased to 3.5 from 3.0 giving them a minor edge in that respect just like medium/large lasers have with their pulse counterparts.

They should do 4 damage and heat could probably use a reduction to 2 as well (assuming SL gets reduced heat).

Rasc4l, on 30 May 2013 - 04:38 PM, said:

3. MG: Due to 1. small laser DPS is now over 1.0 so we should have no problem increasing MG DPS to 1.0 from 0.8 i.e. damage from 0.08 to 0.1. The last fix to MGs made them barely playable but this minor tweak should help more.

Each MG bullet should be around 0.12 damage, because the weapon has spread and ammo explosions to deal with. Ammo per ton should be reduced so the damage per ton of ammo is ~150 like most other ballistics.

Rasc4l, on 30 May 2013 - 04:38 PM, said:

4. Flamer: Stop playing around and start respecting the laws of thermodynamics. There is NO heat cap. I want to be able to shutdown and overheatdamage that 6xPPC stalker in my 6xenergy jenner even if it takes 5 minutes of continuous grilling! And I don't care what their damage is, once you properly implement hindrances from high heat levels as requested, the flamers will do their work.

I dunno what to do about the Flamer in general, but a range increase to 90m would be nice (that's the TT range anyways).



I don't have much to say about the larger weapons.

[El Bandito]

FupDup, on 30 May 2013 - 04:48 PM, said:

Each MG bullet should be around 0.12 damage, because the weapon has spread and ammo explosions to deal with. Ammo per ton should be reduced so the damage per ton of ammo is ~150 like most other ballistics.

But if you reduce damage per ton of ammo then people are forced to get more ammo, thus be more vulnerable to ammo explosions.

[Glaive-]

I believe this belongs in suggestions.

Rasc4l, on 30 May 2013 - 04:38 PM, said:

4. Flamer: Stop playing around and start respecting the laws of thermodynamics. There is NO heat cap. I want to be able to shutdown and overheatdamage that 6xPPC stalker in my 6xenergy jenner even if it takes 5 minutes of continuous grilling! And I don't care what their damage is, once you properly implement hindrances from high heat levels as requested, the flamers will do their work.

If you've ever played previous versions of MWLL, you would know that the heat cap is for the best. Without the heatcap, the flamer will always end up as a cheesy stunlock weapon that has no place in a mechwarrior game.

Also reducing the heat transfer rate would solve nothing. All that would do is make them useless in small numbers and encourage boating flamers even more (imagine a Nova with 12 flamers).

[FupDup]

El Bandito, on 30 May 2013 - 04:53 PM, said:

But if you reduce damage per ton of ammo then people are forced to get more ammo, thus be more vulnerable to ammo explosions.

Good point, although doing 240 damage per 1 ton of ammo (0.12 damage x 2000 rounds) is still kinda silly compared to everything else.

Edited by FupDup, 30 May 2013 - 04:59 PM.

[Pater Mors]

Rasc4l, on 30 May 2013 - 04:38 PM, said:

2. SPL: Small pulse lasers will need a bit more work so to justify the 2 x tonnage compared to SL, their cooldown should be down to 2.00 from 2.25 just like SL, heat reduced from 3.0 to 2.5, and damage increased to 3.5 from 3.0 giving them a minor edge in that respect just like medium/large lasers have with their pulse counterparts.

I would prefer to see the ROF and beam time shortened rather than a straight damage buff. This will increase precision DPS which in my mind is the advantage of a pulse laser.

Quote

3. MG: Due to 1. small laser DPS is now over 1.0 so we should have no problem increasing MG DPS to 1.0 from 0.8 i.e. damage from 0.08 to 0.1. The last fix to MGs made them barely playable but this minor tweak should help more.

And here, I would like to see MG's crit on everything internal instead of just weapons/equipment. If they critted structure and engines they would be miles more valuable on a short range chassis.

Quote

5. PPCs: The current LRM fix somewhat relieved the sniper problem. However, it only hides the problem still within the game, which is (ER)PPC. Especially ERPPC is deadly because it has almost the double range of largest lasers, while still being usable at close quarters after HSR (which is nice and realistic). Therefore, I think the TT heats for these weapons are not that exaggerated especially as we are about to face 12 vs. 12 soon - a condition which favors weapons, which have unlimited ammo. This is why I think PPC heat should be increased from 8 to 9 (TT:10) and ERPPC heat from 11 to 14 (TT: 15). Yes, you read right, 14, not 13. 13 would be fine if it didn't work at close range like PPC and if the clans wouldn't have to be balanced with IS weapons so that pushes it to 14 in my opinion.

I don't think there's any problems with the current PPC's. I think the problems are the current lack of punishments for constantly overheating your Mech. Implement punishments and suddenly PPC boating becomes much more unattractive while using one or two PPC's in conjunction with other weapons becomes a much better proposition. Also, LPL's will have the advantage at short range if their beam duration and ROF are tweaked due to generating much less heat (which is as it should be IMO).

Quote

6. AC/10: This is the most underpowered of the autocannons and I think the first step would be to bring the DPS to the same level as with AC/20: from 4 to 5. This would happen by dropping AC/10 cooldown from 2.5 to 2.0.

Disagree here. The AC5 is a much worse weapon than the AC10 which I run on my Highlander and nets me a ton of damage/kills. I am rather happy with where the AC10 sits at the moment in terms of ballistics. The AC5 needs love to make it competitive with the UAC5.

Quote

8. SRM: SRM damage should be increased to 2.0 from current 1.5 to make it a good brawling weapon and make snipers/LRM-boats more scared at close range. AFAIK there are some flightpath changes incoming, which may be good because I've heard they spread weird or too much. Like LBX, I haven't used them for a while so this is more intuition than empirical data and conlusion from that.

Agree with a damage buff to SRMs. Personally I am happy with the spread, but that's just my opinion.

Quote

9: LRM: LRM damage should be increased to 1.0 from current 0.9. The latest patches were nice and the hotfix made being behind cover really being behind cover again but I'd still go fo this minor tweak. Also to make LRM5 slightly more viable against AMS.

Needs to be a much larger buff than .1, especially if/when they remove splash damage and CT centric damage focus. more like it needs to be buffed to 1.5 - 1.8.

Good post Rasc4l

[El Bandito]

FupDup, on 30 May 2013 - 04:59 PM, said:

Good point, although doing 240 damage per 1 ton of ammo (0.12 damage x 2000 rounds) is still kinda silly compared to everything else.

But MG's are close range support weapon (unlike ACs and Missiles) and shouldn't cost too much tonnage due to ammo needs. Compared to Small Laser anyway.

JM6-DD is an exception to the "support MG" rule though especially once 1.2 damage is implemented.

Edited by El Bandito, 30 May 2013 - 05:10 PM.

[Kitane]

While an idea of Flamers being able to keep a mech overheated and disabled sounds great on paper....it really isn't. It has been proven repeatedly to be a very unpopular and unsuccessful game feature. There are only few things gamers hate more than being disabled and helpless for longer periods of time. That's why in MMOs they often keep Crowd Control effects under control with diminishing returns or alternate methods.

MWO isn't MMORPG, but this is a human psychology issue.

Edited by Kitane, 30 May 2013 - 05:20 PM.

[FupDup]

Kitane, on 30 May 2013 - 05:19 PM, said:

While an idea of Flamers being able to keep a mech overheated and disabled sounds great on paper....it really isn't. It has been proven repeatedly to be a very unpopular and unsuccessful game feature. There are only few things gamers hate more than being disabled and helpless for longer periods of time. That's why in MMOs they often keep Crowd Control effects under control with diminishing returns or alternate methods.

MWO isn't MMORPG, but this is a human psychology issue.

I don't think stunlocks are the root of the issue here, because a lot of people on this forum get a hard on when knockdowns are mentioned but suddenly don't like Flamers...it's about weight class. Any mech can use a Flamer, but only large mechs can use knockdowns. For this situation I shall coin the term "weightism."

Edited by FupDup, 30 May 2013 - 05:23 PM.

[IceSerpent]

Didn't vote for 3 reasons:

1. I completely disagree with OP's list of weapons that need changes. More than that, it's completely unclear how his suggested balance would work (i.e. what is going to be balanced against what).
2. I see no reasoning behind the proposed numbers, i.e. why set heat on SL to 1.8, and not 1.9 or 1.7?
3. Setting up a poll on this kind of proposal is just silly - you either can back your suggestion up and fend off criticism, or you can't.

Just my $0.02

[Stone Profit]

tl:dr
OP thinks he knows better than the devs when he has no clue whats involved, whats planned and is ignoring the fact that hsr is incomplete.

[IceSerpent]

Stone Profit, on 30 May 2013 - 05:28 PM, said:

tl:dr
OP thinks he knows better than the devs when he has no clue whats involved, whats planned and is ignoring the fact that hsr is incomplete.

Well, to be fair, hsr won't give us much - we are only missing it for missiles, but we have serious balance issues between energy and ballistic weapons. On top of that, you can do a quick comparison between, let's say, SRM/SSRM+lasers Stalker vs. quad PPC Stalker (assuming 100% hit rate and no hit detection issues) and brawler looks very bleak even on paper.

[Stone Profit]

IceSerpent, on 30 May 2013 - 05:37 PM, said:

Well, to be fair, hsr won't give us much - we are only missing it for missiles, but we have serious balance issues between energy and ballistic weapons. On top of that, you can do a quick comparison between, let's say, SRM/SSRM+lasers Stalker vs. quad PPC Stalker (assuming 100% hit rate and no hit detection issues) and brawler looks very bleak even on paper.

Ballistics hsr is only half implemented. and why balance energy and ballistics when youll have to do it over again when you fix hsr for missiles? People just dont get that.

[El Bandito]

FupDup, on 30 May 2013 - 05:22 PM, said:

I don't think stunlocks are the root of the issue here, because a lot of people on this forum get a hard on when knockdowns are mentioned but suddenly don't like Flamers...it's about weight class. Any mech can use a Flamer, but only large mechs can use knockdowns. For this situation I shall coin the term "weightism."

That's logical. However, it makes no sense for a pondering Assaults to get a super short range Flamer though. Flamer might as well be non-existent for them.

Even heavies will prefer Medium Lasers.

Edited by El Bandito, 30 May 2013 - 05:46 PM.

[Rasc4l]

Pater Mors, on 30 May 2013 - 05:05 PM, said:

I would prefer to see the ROF and beam time shortened rather than a straight damage buff. This will increase precision DPS which in my mind is the advantage of a pulse laser.

I like this idea.

Pater Mors, on 30 May 2013 - 05:05 PM, said:

And here, I would like to see MG's crit on everything internal instead of just weapons/equipment. If they critted structure and engines they would be miles more valuable on a short range chassis.

I thought they critted everything. If they don't, they should. With this, 1.0 DPS might be good enough.

Kitane, on 30 May 2013 - 05:19 PM, said:

While an idea of Flamers being able to keep a mech overheated and disabled sounds great on paper....it really isn't. It has been proven repeatedly to be a very unpopular and unsuccessful game feature. There are only few things gamers hate more than being disabled and helpless for longer periods of time. That's why in MMOs they often keep Crowd Control effects under control with diminishing returns or alternate methods.

I wasn't kidding when I talked about the 5 min grilling time. The time can be long and the end can be exponential or it can aproach 100 % indefinetely but the possibility should be there to take the heat past the current artificial limit.

IceSerpent, on 30 May 2013 - 05:22 PM, said:

Didn't vote for 3 reasons:

1. I completely disagree with OP's list of weapons that need changes. More than that, it's completely unclear how his suggested balance would work (i.e. what is going to be balanced against what).
2. I see no reasoning behind the proposed numbers, i.e. why set heat on SL to 1.8, and not 1.9 or 1.7?
3. Setting up a poll on this kind of proposal is just silly - you either can back your suggestion up and fend off criticism, or you can't.

Just my $0.02

Thank you for your input. 1. What weapons in your opinion need modifications? 2. I understand. Most numbers I just gave to give some impression in which way to go so that my post wouldn't be too vague: "Buff lasers!". I don't mean them to be the final word.

Stone Profit, on 30 May 2013 - 05:28 PM, said:

tl:dr
OP thinks he knows better than the devs when he has no clue whats involved, whats planned and is ignoring the fact that hsr is incomplete.

You are quite right that arrogance can be present but I, of course, simply cannot know better than the devs. I just aim to engage discussion about what should currently be changed about the game so that it would work as a good Battletech game. I welcome your criticism and it is true that many coming things present variables on things discussed here which might at least partially make them moot.

[Pater Mors]

Rasc4l, on 30 May 2013 - 05:49 PM, said:

I like this idea.

I thought they critted everything. If they don't, they should. With this, 1.0 DPS might be good enough.

I have to admit that the pulse laser idea is not mine, it's been floating around here for a while. It's just the one I personally think makes the most sense.

As for MG's I am reasonably certain they only crit equipment, weapons and ammo. They just do straight damage to internals and structure and engines are immune to crits as far as I am aware. I could possibly be wrong. One of the benefits I see with MG's is that when shooting through the armour the bullets should be pinging around inside, smashing up everything, including the endo steel structures, myomer bundles and whatever else. It makes sense that things like actuators should suffer critical hits too. Even if its not represented (arms locking at the elbow etc) it should still count for damage to the body section.

[Renthrak]

I am pleased to see another player taking a more detailed approach to improving game balance. While my personal opinion is that many of these weapon issues should be lower priority than changes to the heat scale or weapon convergence, we will have to deal with this at some point. Starting early isn't necessarily a bad thing.

I have a few threads of my own on balance changes. Perhaps we should compare notes?

LRMs:
http://mwomercs.com/...eeking-to-lrms/

Heat:
http://mwomercs.com/...ce-first-draft/

Aiming:
http://mwomercs.com/...out-randomness/

[IceSerpent]

Stone Profit, on 30 May 2013 - 05:40 PM, said:

Ballistics hsr is only half implemented. and why balance energy and ballistics when youll have to do it over again when you fix hsr for missiles? People just dont get that.

You are missing the point - just assume for a moment that we have absolutely perfect hit detection, then try to come up with a brawler build (except for twin AC20 boat) that you feel can stand up to a sniper. Also, assume that both teams are equally skilled and are on voice comms.

Rasc4l, on 30 May 2013 - 05:49 PM, said:

Thank you for your input. 1. What weapons in your opinion need modifications?

All missiles need a buff, all lasers need a buff except for LL and possibly ML (it's marginal IMHO and might need a small buff), AC10 and LBX10 need a buff, AC20 needs a buff in damage and a huge nerf in range.

Quote

2. I understand. Most numbers I just gave to give some impression in which way to go so that my post wouldn't be too vague: "Buff lasers!". I don't mean them to be the final word.

I am not looking for just "buff lasers", but rather for a proposal that makes all short range weapons roughly equal to each other, all long range weapons roughly equal to each other (which we have, except for LRMs being beyond bad), and a proper "trade firepower for range" balance between ranges (proper in this case means that sniper has an overwhelming advantage if it catches a brawler in the open at max range and brawler has equally overwhelming advantage if it manages to sneak up to the sniper without taking damage in the process).

In other words, if we got some math that shows this sort of proportions between different weapons, we would be golden. Well, almost - we'd have to get PGI on board somehow and get the whole thing implemented without "accidentally" adding tactical nukes to the game.

Edited by IceSerpent, 30 May 2013 - 06:27 PM.