1263 replies to this topic

[Victor Morson]

Deathlike, on 11 June 2013 - 10:49 PM, said:

Well.. we're heading in that direction at this point.

I don't think that's what's happening.

I think they are primarily isolated, play testing stuff on their own internal network, only occasionally venturing online in any serious capacity. This is fine. As a result, however, they are getting an extremely skewed picture of the game like if some aliens were trying to figure out humanity from watching our 24 hour news shows. It's going to be loud, noisy, full of stupid opinions and offer tons of contrary facts.

They are getting all the wrong notes as a result, and because they refuse to keep a dialogue running with some of the better teams and players in the game, they're not getting any dose of reality to temper plans.

When you are this close to a project, and you design a system to work a certain way and it does in fact work like you wanted it, it's easy to not consider how others might use it, or how it might be awful if others do X Y or Z.

I'm not blaming them for getting things wrong on the balance.. they've got a lot on their plate. I am however saying that they should have a community manager that's interfacing with the people on here that do know what they're talking about to consult with before even bringing stuff like this up.

We're not rioting because we like to riot, we're legitimately concerned that it feels like the devs keep trying to break the game in ways it doesn't need to be broken off of misguided, ill-informed ranting from newbies.

I really want to be clear: I want the newbies to have a good time. I'm not saying "Screw the newbies, cater to us hardcore people!" I'm saying if you listened to the hardcore people, you wouldn't have the real underlying problems that anger the newbies in the first place. We should do everything we can do embrace new people, and casual players, but everyone benefits from a properly balanced game.

[Deathlike]

Aylek, on 11 June 2013 - 10:54 PM, said:

I like the changes announced. And I think this is a wonderful opportunity to make each variant slightly more individual by using quirks as proposed in my quote.

This is NOT a change for the mechs. This is a change for LOADOUTS for alphaing boated weapons.

[Victor Morson]

Aylek, on 11 June 2013 - 10:54 PM, said:

I like the changes announced. And I think this is a wonderful opportunity to make each variant slightly more individual by using quirks as proposed in my quote.

You know what else is a wonderful opportunity to make each variant slightly more individual? Making each variant slightly more individual.

If the proposed change was, say, 10% more heat to PPCs on Stalkers and maybe -10% less heat on PPCs to Awesomes, you'd have a lot of people in here saying "Hey that sounds good!" instead of just sitting here face palming and going "What were they thinking?" over and over.

Deathlike, on 11 June 2013 - 10:57 PM, said:

This is NOT a change for the mechs. This is a change for LOADOUTS for alphaing boated weapons.

He's talking about the fact some 'mechs would have "override" quirks, like the Swayback example being able to fire another medium laser.

The problem is they are quirks to a broken system. I love the idea of quirks and want to see more, but I want to see quirks that impact systems we already have.. not proposed broken ones.

[xengk]

This thread is growing faster than I read it!!

Anyway, here are my feedback on the suggestion.

SSRM
great fix on randomizing the hit location for SSRM, however with this change it might now be viable to increase the damage per missile to 2.
While we are at it, up the damage for vanilla SRM's damage to 2.5~3 per missile.

Flamer & MG
Not familiar with them enough to comment on the change.

Pulse Laser
Pulse laser are already penalized with weight, range and heat.
Adding more heat to them will only make them even less desirable than before, even with the new damage buff.
Please retain their current heat but buff the damage.
Currently pulse laser deals 20% more damage than their normal counterpart but lost 1/3 the range (except PSL). Suggest up the damage to at least 30% to compensate.
Slas 3dmg
PSL 3dmg -> 3.9dmg
MLas 5dmg
PML 6dmg ->6.5dmg
LLas 9dmg
PLL 10dmg -> 11.7dmg

Heat Damage
A step in the right direction, but as many have mentioned that 150% is too lenient.
I understand that you might be using this as a test figure and will scale down as more data are collected.
The ideal number would be
100% Shutdown
110% Take 1 IS damage in a random component every second, until cooldown to 100%
120% Take 2 IS damage in a random component every second, until cooldown to 110%
130+% Take 3 IS damage in a random component every second, until cooldown to 120%
All IS damage have a chance to score a crit on equipment/ammo.

Heat Penalty
The weapon limit should be a standard universal number; for example firing 3 or more identical weapon will trigger heat penalty.
Quirks can be introduce for canon boat variant, such as the HBK swayback and Awesome 8Q to make them heat efficient.

2 weapon fired = 0% heat penalty
3 weapon fired = 5% heat penalty
4 weapon fired = 10% heat penalty
5 weapon fired = 20% heat penalty
6 weapon fired = 30% heat penalty
7 weapon fired = 40% heat penalty
8 weapon fired = 50% heat penalty
9 weapon fired = 60% heat penalty
10 weapon fired = 70% heat penalty

Spoiler

Using the HBK-4P(no quirk) example:
6 ML fired = 24 heat -> 31.2heat (30damage, 6ton, 6slot)
7 ML fired = 33 heat -> 39.2heat (35damage, 7ton, 7slot)
8 ML fired = 42 heat -> 48.0heat (40damage, 8ton, 8slot)
9 ML fired = 56 heat -> 57.6heat (45damage, 9ton, 9slot)

Quirks can be introduce to the 4P, example increase weapon limit to 6.
Using the HBK-4P(with quirk) example:
6 ML fired = 24 heat -> 24.0heat (30damage, 6ton, 6slot)
7 ML fired = 33 heat -> 25.4heat (35damage, 7ton, 7slot)
8 ML fired = 42 heat -> 35.2heat (40damage, 8ton, 8slot)
9 ML fired = 56 heat -> 44.8heat (45damage, 9ton, 9slot)

Using a 6PPC Stalker example:
2 PPC fired = 16heat -> 16.0heat (20damage, 14ton, 6slot)
3 PPC fired = 24heat -> 25.2heat (30damage, 21ton, 9slot)
4 PPC fired = 42heat -> 35.2heat (40damage, 28ton, 12slot)
5 PPC fired = 60heat -> 48.0heat (50damage, 35ton, 15slot)
6 PPC fired = 88heat -> 62.4heat (60damage, 42ton, 18slot)

6 PPC boat still deal high alpha, however non-boat can still achive the same damage with equal heat. While a quirked 4P can do it with less heat, incresing it's desirability.
6PPC alpha (62.4heat)= 6 ML + 6 ML(31.2heat + 31.2heat)

In a 10 second duration, the stalker can alpha twice(124.8heat), while an un-quirked 4P can fire 6ML 3 times(93.6heat) to achive the same damage, with the option to add in the 3 extra ML as needed.
With this, PPC still retain it's advantage of range and pin point damage but is outmatched by ML in brawl.

[Lindonius]

[Victor Morson]

Lindonius, on 11 June 2013 - 11:01 PM, said:

It needs a family plot with the BJ-1X and some Cicadas and Jenner variants, too.

EDIT: Also people need to remember in MW:O ballistics are hot. 4x AC/2.. 4x AC/5.. goodnight, sweet Jaggermech.

Edited by Victor Morson, 11 June 2013 - 11:06 PM.

[Deathlike]

Victor Morson, on 11 June 2013 - 10:57 PM, said:

I don't think that's what's happening.

I was meaning that they're going in a bad/wrong direction.

Quote

I think they are primarily isolated, play testing stuff on their own internal network, only occasionally venturing online in any serious capacity. This is fine. As a result, however, they are getting an extremely skewed picture of the game like if some aliens were trying to figure out humanity from watching our 24 hour news shows. It's going to be loud, noisy, full of stupid opinions and offer tons of contrary facts.

They are getting all the wrong notes as a result, and because they refuse to keep a dialogue running with some of the better teams and players in the game, they're not getting any dose of reality to temper plans.

When you are this close to a project, and you design a system to work a certain way and it does in fact work like you wanted it, it's easy to not consider how others might use it, or how it might be awful if others do X Y or Z.

Agreed on those points. This is why I continue to mock them for the Spider-5K... worst mech variant possible in the game.

Quote

I'm not blaming them for getting things wrong on the balance.. they've got a lot on their plate. I am however saying that they should have a community manager that's interfacing with the people on here that do know what they're talking about to consult with before even bringing stuff like this up.

They have community managers.. there is one that picks the ODDEST MG thread of MANY MG threads to "pass the word" to the devs, where there are many more LEGITIMATE MG threads that document many issues with respect to MGs MANY times over, and not a peep from said community manager. Do you see the problem here? The community manager does not reflect that of the community, rather "selective" posting about things that MAY OR MAY NOT be RELEVANT or even ACCURATE at the time. That is MINDBLOWING to me.

Quote

We're not rioting because we like to riot, we're legitimately concerned that it feels like the devs keep trying to break the game in ways it doesn't need to be broken off of misguided, ill-informed ranting from newbies.

I really want to be clear: I want the newbies to have a good time. I'm not saying "Screw the newbies, cater to us hardcore people!" I'm saying if you listened to the hardcore people, you wouldn't have the real underlying problems that anger the newbies in the first place. We should do everything we can do embrace new people, and casual players, but everyone benefits from a properly balanced game.

Well, part of the problem is the newbie system (newbie queue based on ELO), trial mechs...and a host of things you have to teach newbies about with respect to this game is missing... oh wait.. TUTORIALS! Of course, outdated-ish youtube videos don't help (especially when the game's UI is changing every 2-3 months or so). If you want newbies to stay, you need something INTERACTIVE. Even older games that are so newbie-tutorial heavy get the basics down pat. The advanced stuff, you're own your own, but at least that's reasonable. The basics are what make me more concerned (I helped a newbie today on ranges and stuff... the things that should've been apparent, but still isn't, because of a LACK OF A TUTORIAL.

[aniviron]

To those who are suggesting that you should take internal damage over time whenever you go past 100% heat, regardless of whether or not you shut down: why would you ever shut down ever, then? The whole point of shutting down is that you are trading the risk of being motionless and unable to return fire in exchange for not taking internal damage. If you go over 100% heat and take internal damage no matter what you do, why even have the shutdown mechanic in the game? If you're guaranteed to take internal damage, you might as well keep moving and make yourself hard to hit/get to cover while you take the damage.

[No7]

Can I also whine a little? I don't usually do, but when I do. I do.

sarkun, on 11 June 2013 - 01:18 PM, said:

The boating is not the problem, it's the symptom! The problem is absolute pinpoint accuracy!!!

I've just had a match were I died early to sniper fire so I could see all of my teams loadouts:
We've had

• 2x 6PPC stalkers
  
• 4ERPPC stalker
  
• Atlas RS with Gauss & 4PPC
  
• Misery with Gauss & 4PPC
  
• Misery with Gauss & 3ERPPC
  
• K2 with 4LL
  
• AC40 Jaeger (me)

that is 27 PPCs, 3 Gauss, 4LL and 2AC20.


All high alpha, pinpoint damage. If you increase the heat, we will just move towards more Misery and Atlas RS configs. What is needed is not additional confusing heat mechanic, but accuracy nerf. Or we can just pretend this is quake2 instagib railgun mode. Only the players are much much slower and cant jump so are easier to hit.

This post is brilliant in multiple ways. This is what is wrong with MWO and has been since open beta started.

1. Look at your team layout. What is that, 6 assaults and 2 heavies. There is the main problem already. Where are the lights and mediums? Why is not a good team layout enforced?

2. You died early from sniper fire? Why the hell did the enemy even see you? Use cover! You should be the last mech standing. (But I guess you died intentionally to look at the team, huh?)

3. You are in a brawler mech when your 7 team mates are in non-brawler builds. How do you expect that to work?

4. You complain about dying from sniper fire where the enemy have pin point accuracy. It is like saying, the enemy knows how to aim, please PGI; make them stop!

5. The quake railgun is an extreme high skill weapon with massive drawback. You kill, if you hit. But hitting takes skill. Have you ever watched the high elo players in quake? I never liked quake, but ******* the high skill players are good! Even if it is easier to hit in MWO, it still takes skill to nail the same location multiple times. And note, it does not take a lot to kill a noob, since he will either stand still or walk straight at you.


6. Crying about things from a complete solo PUG experience. This is a team game. Group up! If I had one wish come true in this game it would be that PGI took help from organized teams and used statistics from 8v8 games to look at how their game was behaving. Looking perhaps 5% at public PUGging is enough. The game is about playing as a team, and that is where the focus of balancing the game should be.

7. A 6PPC stalker is an extremely gimped mech and very easy to kill. But it takes a team effort. If you walk straight at it, alone, you will die horribly. As you deserve.

8. A 4PPC stalker is still a very gimped mech that already runs extremely hot. Also easy to kill, especially if you and a buddy are piloting jenners. See? Team play.

9. A PPC + gauss assault mech is a powerful weapon, as it should be. But you will not have pin point accuracy in that mech unless you are a stupid noob that walk straight into them so that the gauss slug will hit the same location as the PPC. Hint, don't stand still and don't walk straight into the enemy, it really does help.

10. The pure whine of people that want to play their game in their mech. In this case an ac40 brawler. In itself a boating build with a pretty simple "win" button. But since the player can't control what the other 7 PUGgers are bringing, the games are very random. Currently when we finally have a working medium and long range combat, the amount of brawling is not what it used to be. So the player whine, and want to go back to before Alpine and the HSR for ballistic came into play. Because back then the majority of the matches were brawling and that was good! Yeah! No medium range and no ******* snipers, ever!


I hate to read this forum and see post after post about crying children that wants PGI to nerf their enemy so that they can suck less in their specific mech that they want to play with. And I hate it even more when PGI listens to these cry babies.

Now that PGI is nerfing the highest alpha build in the game, it is suddenly not enough for you. No, now they should nerf even a 3 PPC build because that is also too hard for you to play against. What the hell is wrong with you people? If you can't play this game well enough to beat a 3PPC mech 1v1, then this game is probably not for you.

Let me tell you this as a closing section.
If you group up with a team of brawlers, (good ones, that knows the maps and how to aim, good load outs and all that) and you drop against a sniping team. You will win in almost every map. You will have problem on Alpine, but if enemy brought regular PPC instead of ER PPC, you will win there as well. It is not about your experience in a solo pug game where you are trying to make your ac40 boat count when the other 15 mechs have long range weapons and missiles. It is about your team how you as a group defeat the enemy. Regardless of load out and map.

That is what MWO is about.

7

[Victor Morson]

I'd land on the lack of Tutorial more if it wasn't already coming in UI 2.0. I'm unsure when Trial 'mechs are dying in favor of a five-mission tutorial, which is far and away a better system. I seriously think we lost like a third of our potential population in this game over their stubborn refusal to ditch the trial 'mech system way back when. Way too many newbies leave over it even after they tried buffing and buffing it to make it into the sub-par thing it is today.

But yeah. They're fixing that stuff. As long as it's being fixed, I'm good with that.. it's acknowledged as a problem then. It concerns me more when stuff like this happens with no realization of the problems.

I'd really like to see the CM in more games and while they should in fact stay out of these threads, they should also be very vocal on Twitter talking about upcoming changes. I'm not a big fan of twitter, but a lot of CMs use it for valuable feedback in addition to purposely creating some community ties with the more competitive teams.

[Victor Morson]

No7, on 11 June 2013 - 11:10 PM, said:

This post is brilliant in multiple ways. This is what is wrong with MWO and has been since open beta started.

1. Look at your team layout. What is that, 6 assaults and 2 heavies. There is the main problem already. Where are the lights and mediums? Why is not a good team layout enforced?

This is the root of all the problems that started this. I keep saying it, but the reason these super high alpha builds are an issue is they are allowed to occupy the majority of the team! If we had team tonnage, everyone might not get to drive what they want.. but a lot of people would be happy filling other roles, if they were viable to fill!

When you get a game balanced so it's 500 tons or so (I still prefer BV as a way to balance inferior variants), mediums and lighter heavies suddenly dominate the field and assaults fill the role they were supposed to in the first place. A lot of this stems from the initial claim that "All classes would be equal" which has always been a pipe dream unless they're willing to radically change the way BattleTech works.

But yeah. This is the real problem in a nutshell. Gauss / PPC "boats" in an environment where much of the team was in sub-60 tonners would be "1 PPC 1 Gauss." No more problems with "high alphas" because not everyone is driving a freaking assault!

[BigMekkUrDakka]

correct me if i wrong but LPL already have best DPS of all energy weapons(same damage as PPC but 3.25 sec cooldown), and beats some of ballistic weapons aswell so asking to buff those even more is like to ask for another "instakill" build, and if u say that theirs range is joke i will say that ac20/ac40 effective range is a joke as well, and pulse have almost the same "pinpoint" damage so be careful with yours wishes
and going to "instakill" mech loadouts be it lrm60, ac40, gauss30, PPC40 or 60, and so on its as No7 mentioned all your own fault, learn to play!
learn to use covers!
learn vulnerable points of those builds!
learn to play in team!
learn to use bloody torso twist!
use balanced builds!
and u will find that MWO surprisingly well balanced game with lots of fun and whatsoever
and u will find that ac40, gauss30 mechs yours favorite prey!

Edited by BigMekkUrDakka, 11 June 2013 - 11:22 PM.

[Deathlike]

I never made a thread about this, I had a really simple idea about overheating penalties a while back. It was really simple.

We have a pretty useless crit/health system IMO. However, one of the things we can do to make it useful was to make heat (the actual number, not the percentage) over the heat capacity after an alpha to be "redirected" back to the weapons that caused the alpha in the form of health loss to the weapons. It could either "destroy" a weapon depending on the heat, or distribute damage to all of the weapons used in the alpha. So, let's say a 6 PPC Stalker fires all its weapons.. it probably will generate something like 30 pts of heat above the current heat capacity of the mech. This could be damage dealt to all 6 PPCs (5 damage to each PPC, since it generates 30 pts of heat total) or blows up 3 PPCs each. That would be a form of a heat penalty that would actually do something of use... so you are forced to be a lot more weary of your heat management. Minor spikes over the mech's heat capacity would simply do minimal damage to your weapons... so OCCASIONAL alphas before shutting down won't make you lose all your weapons..

It's a really simply idea and it kinda works more or less with the existing system. The difference is that it doesn't require dramatic changes, outside of ACTUAL HP tweaks to the weapons...

Edited by Deathlike, 11 June 2013 - 11:24 PM.

[Takony]

Meh.

Heat scale penalties (blue/green/yellow/red/boom) would be, hmm, more in line with the whole mech/lore thingie, that is, if done intelligently, and in a way that is intuitive for beginners as well. And much more elegant.

Devs wouldn't have to cherry pick mechs/variants for these awful "fixes" that do nothing else just satisfy the thirst of the QQing bad lemmings for revenge because a guy that actually uses his brain for tactical positioning and can aim, murdered their mech.

This is just a cheap trick in order to get more money squeezed from the shouting, frothing cannon fodders, instead of making gameplay more enjoyable and deep.

But don't be fooled. Whiners gonna whine no matter what.

LPL: bad even now, totally useless with this "fix". Who in their right mind uses LPL when for the same wight/heat(almost) you can equip a PPC? Or a LL and 2 more heat sinks? Bah.

Weapon balance: impossibru, when the only weapons worth equipping are PPC, Gauss, AC20, LL and ML, and SSRM.
Hint: buff SRM for sanity's sake! Give us options, instead of borking up the remaining few tools we have.

TL;DR: give us MORE choices, not LESS. Decisions instead of arbitrary, half-assed limits.

[Victor Morson]

What I don't get is why they are quick to add 500 things to heat management, instead of just making your speed drop the closer you get to 100%. Doubly so if it impacts torso twist as well.

A 85 ton Stalker 6 PPC boat that can only move 24kph after the first shot is going to be obliterated by this change, without some kind of sweeping anti-medium nerf. No need for extra damage, no need for restricting weapons, NOTHING. I mean if said Stalker recovers from power down and is brought back to 50% speed until it cools, do you really think it's going to live very long?

Is that too logical or straight forwards or something?

EDIT: I don't want to be one of those "In the canon!" people, but this system is pretty much what TT uses. It's totally fine. I don't care if you change the rules and make it less severe (in fact it should be less severe), but it's a simple way to add further downsides to running to hot without all of ... this.

Edited by Victor Morson, 11 June 2013 - 11:27 PM.

[Zaptruder]

Ronin Starwalker, on 11 June 2013 - 07:45 PM, said:

The issue is still convergence.

I think the best approach I've read and heard about is a seperate reticle for each weapon system that will only converge when you stop moving.

People will still boat weapons and still fire them. It's the pinpoint accuracy that is the issue.

Use the same logic you did with pop tarting, they both have a common root cause.

Six Sigma Master Black Belt Root Cause Analysis = Convergence.

Given the complexity of dealing with 2 reticles, 5 reticles would cause heads to explode.

Slow convergence I think is the way to go; but just let people *feel* it, rather than polluting the UI with a bunch of dumb reticles.

Maybe have the golden lock like in the books.

[MustrumRidcully]

Hey Paul,

You mentioned that you considered the reduction of the heat threshold, but you said it had the problem of "nerfing" all mechs.

It seems to me you missed that the community idea in this direction is not just lowering the capacity, but also raising the dissipation across the board.

The way I see it, weapons in M:WO produce 2.5 or more times the heat (and damage) than they did in the table top, but dissipation is still at table top rates. This tends to make mech unable to compensate their heat, and rely on the generous heat threshold. The consequence is that people try to alpha strike fast and take down an enemy, and cool off either behind safe cover or over the smoking wreck of the enemy mech. You can press enough damage inside your heat capacity limit that this is one of the most effective strategies.

Your change with the "boating penalty" seems rather complicated way to deal with this. And how would someone playing the game and not reading the forums all the time know this is something that could affect him?

[GantzO]

need up srm damage to 2.0!!!!

[Solomon Ward]

A very inelegant band-aid solution to boating.

Icing on the cake : This garbage idea came initially from the community.

[Deathlike]

Victor Morson, on 11 June 2013 - 11:25 PM, said:

What I don't get is why they are quick to add 500 things to heat management, instead of just making your speed drop the closer you get to 100%. Doubly so if it impacts torso twist as well.

A 85 ton Stalker 6 PPC boat that can only move 24kph after the first shot is going to be obliterated by this change, without some kind of sweeping anti-medium nerf. No need for extra damage, no need for restricting weapons, NOTHING. I mean if said Stalker recovers from power down and is brought back to 50% speed until it cools, do you really think it's going to live very long?

Is that too logical or straight forwards or something?

EDIT: I don't want to be one of those "In the canon!" people, but this system is pretty much what TT uses. It's totally fine. I don't care if you change the rules and make it less severe (in fact it should be less severe), but it's a simple way to add further downsides to running to hot without all of ... this.

I don't care for TT, but trying to get simple concepts applied here is like pulling teeth. I'm not into having straight TT rules applied... I care whatever results from the change makes sense for the game.

I think MW3 did not apply many of such rules, and it was fine (for different reasons altogether). MWO doesn't have to necessarily use the same rules.. but the choices must be better than this terrible idea that will be forced upon us.