91 replies to this topic

[Victor Morson]

DaZur, on 11 June 2013 - 01:16 PM, said:

Hyperbole much?

Experience.

You've heard they're finally planning to end the Trial 'mech system, right? The one we all said that would kill new player retention and then surprise, killed new user retention?

Yeah. That's months off. This system came about at open beta launch.

DaZur, on 11 June 2013 - 01:16 PM, said:

Yes, I sense your urgency and can appreciate your call to action but I think you and others are having a knee-jerk reaction of epic proportions based on IGPs patterned history up to this point.

To a degree, I will simply say this is true. I will also say that it is important we bring this up NOW, because bad systems that have gotten a backlash have been corrected before implementation.

For whatever reason, once they are in, getting rid of them is like pulling teeth.

DaZur, on 11 June 2013 - 01:16 PM, said:

To answer your question "yes"... Based purely on the premise that some balance metrics need to be birthed from real-world application that can't be fabricated in lab or simulated.

IMHO the end justifies the means...

What the ends? Nerfing exactly one cheese build that's not very good anyway at the expense of reworking the entire alpha strike system?

As I've repeatedly tried to stress this solves absolutely nothing in terms of high-alpha 'mechs. Big 'mechs with a few big guns will continue to dominate. Small 'mechs with large numbers of guns will continue to suffer, with apparently specific exceptions.

Until you force a restriction on all the largest 'mechs nothing will change.

Edited by Victor Morson, 11 June 2013 - 01:34 PM.

[HRR Insanity]

Victor Morson, on 11 June 2013 - 12:55 PM, said:

I think it might be that they the problem is not understood. This is why they desperately need some "community managers" that play the game heavily working actually at PGI for better perspective, honestly.

For example, I am honestly concerned that they look at the current weight situation and go:

"Hey, everyone is driving assaults. That must mean everyone likes driving assaults, nothing to see here!"
"People are taking lots of damage from the kinds of guns only assaults can mount! Quick, let's nerf Alpha strikes, that's what all the cool kids pugs are blaming!"

I have to wonder if there is any realization that the reason everybody drives assaults is because everyone drives assaults, and without weight limits, it's just an arms race. Assault pilots are highly, highly vulnerable when mediums and lighter heavies are the majority force!

I keep going back to what sounds like an unrelated point, but I really believe it's the entire reason for the high-damage frustration right now. This is like an RTS where you can freely choose to build a medium tank or your super unit with no downsides for picking the latter, what are you going to do?

No, alphastrikes/pinpoint damage remain the problem.

Gedankenexperiment:

There are no such things as Heavy or Assault 'Mechs. What are the 'best' Medium 'Mechs?

The 'best' Medium 'Mechs are those that pack the biggest punch in their alphstrike. 4P, etc.

Pinpoint precision/grouped weapon damage has been the problem since MW2. MW3 and MW4 were dominated by grouped weapon builds (dependent on netcode issues either short or long range alphas... but always grouped weapons). MWO is being dominated by grouped weapon builds...

It's fixable. Actually address the underlying issue and weapon balance becomes much more straightforward. You can actually balance WEAPONS rather than worry about what's going to happen when multiples of them combine... because that issue is already dealt with.

[Sprouticus]

Victor Morson, on 11 June 2013 - 01:03 PM, said:

Are you completely open to living with a horrendous broken system for 6 months?

Because that's what happens every time something awful happens here. Once something dumb like this gets put in, they will refuse to take it out, and instead try to hammer and hammer it to make it more tolerable instead.

See: Trial 'Mechs, ECM as a missile hard counter, the missile nerfs, etc.

Effectively if this is horrendous we might get a tiny reduction to it's awfulness once a month or every other month for half a year, before they either finally give up on it or we stop complaining because the pain is less than it was.

Victor, I have a serious question:

Let's assume these numbers: (n= max number of weapons without heat penalty)

LRM20-2
LRM15-2
LRM10-4
LRM5-6
SRM6-3
SRM4-4 or 5
ML-6
mpl-4
SL-10
spl-7
LL-4
lpl-3 or 4
ERLL-4
PPC-3
ERPPC-3
Gauss-2
AC5-3
UAC5-3
lbx10-3
AC10-2
AC20-1
(I left off a few useless weapons)

Now, assuming these number (which I just threw together, but those numbers look reasonable to me)

How many mech loadouts do you have that would be impacted by those numbers.

In my garage I have....4. out of 38 mechs. The 4 PPC stalker, 3 LRM20 D-DC and 3xLRM20 highlander, and the 2 AC20 Jagger.


Keep in mind that the heat penalty for n+1 is bad, but not horrific.

Lets then look at N+2, where the penalties get really high.

Out of 38 mechs I have.....none


Well then you might say, why bother if it so few mechs, just raise the heat. Here is why:

With this system, they CAN do for instance is raise the damage on the MPL without having to worry about a 9 mpl huncie or a 6 mpl BJ. Or raise the damage on the LPL without worrying about 5 LPL cataphracts. They can balance gauss by making N=1 and then the heat for the 2nd one high, but raising the internal HP back to 10 perhaps. It means smaller mechs or mechs with only 1-2 hardpoints become more viable.


And that completely ignores the fact that you can split your shots and go with N+whatever and still never get penalized.

That 6 PPC stalker can still shoot two bursts of 3, then hide to cool down. The difference is that it didn't hit the same panel. Unless the pilot is really good or you are standing still. And if they are that good or you are standing still that seems pretty damn fair.



In the end you guys are making a mountain out of a mole hill.

[Victor Morson]

Pando, on 11 June 2013 - 01:16 PM, said:

You obviously are far to emotional to comprehend the message Paul wrote. I strongly suggest sleeping it off. Then, after you've had a nap read Pauls post and edit your own.

I'm more than a little tired of the fact that while the game needs tons of tuning, these PUG-born ideas that are reactionary based on a surface observation getting sway in the patches.

People see 6 PPC Stalkers and if they die to one, they rage out. It's a bad 'mech and if they play for any time at all they'll realize that. Even if they don't, the problem is there shouldn't be more than a couple Stalkers on a typical field anyway! The game just isn't balance for it!

But yeah. Given the time to fix things that are put in the game broken combined with a publically stated willingness to add stuff that is known to be broken, I think this is cause for some alarm.

Pando, on 11 June 2013 - 01:16 PM, said:

My main reason for this message, you mentioned how worthless the 4p will be. Read exactly what Paul said about the 4p. Read where its chassis/weapon specific...meaning we've been provided with examples that are subject to change. Which means specific variants might not have a heat penalty at all.....take a nap.

Thanks.

There's always room for more 'mech quirks, but this is just going to make this already overly complicated system get even more confusing and for what? What exactly are we solving?

Are we solving 3 PPC + 1 Gauss? Probably not. 2 PPC + 1 Gauss? Apparently definitely not. 4 PPC Stalkers? Are they really much worse than the others? What about how to deal with the Victor mounting 2x Gauss + 2x PPCs with Awesome 9M speeds? No?

WHAT is this solving, aside from ONE crappy build? I can count lots of ways it's damaging things and not one it helps.

EDIT: If you wanted to add a flat "This 'mech has 10% less heat from X weapon, this 'mech has 10% more heat from Y weapon" that's a fine way to add quirks to get rid of things like this Stalker, but it's still not going to actually solve the underlying issue.

Edited by Victor Morson, 11 June 2013 - 01:48 PM.

[Deathlike]

FupDup, on 11 June 2013 - 01:31 PM, said:

Hey guys, look at the bright side: MGs are getting another minuscule damage buff! Triumph!

Still waiting for the Spider-5K quirk: 6 ballistic hardpoints.

[Crimson Fenris]

The heat treshold idea seems to not solve anything at all.
The intended numbers are very arbitrary, and will not hinder high alpha boating. The 0.5 second will not make any difference, and still allow the use of macros. If that number is set accordingly to each weapon cooldown, it will become a bit more difficult to macro with two or more different weapons systems.
If you further increase this threshold by a percentage of current heat, that became impossible to macro the thing, since it's not a fixed number.

The heat penalty limit will hurt some builds, like hunckback 4P, wich is made for boating, but not any of the misery around (3PPC+Gauss), not to mention Highlanders with a 3PPC build...

Set this heat penalty to a percentage of the weapon's heat value : like this, high-heat weapons will suffer more than low-heat ones, wich, I guess, is the intended goal...

Furthermore, the 150% heat limit is FAR TOO GENEROUS !
That means being around 95% heat, and firing 4 or 5 PPC at the same time... no pilot is currently doing that, except in exceptionally desperate situation.
So it will not encourage players to have a better heat managment...

Set the limit to 100%, then apply damages accordingly to the weapons fired : for the same reason, it will hurt more the high-heat weapons, as intended.

[Unbound Inferno]

Sprouticus, on 11 June 2013 - 01:38 PM, said:

In the end you guys are making a mountain out of a mole hill.

Hardly. You yourself pointed out how much this doesn't solve anything - that is what we are complaining about. This is a pointless band-aid that is only adding a complication for a few sporadic builds without even really addressing the problem they claim it is solving.

BTW, it does NOTHING on LRM boats. At all. Stagger-fire on those builds will hardly be noticed thanks to the missile tubes almost forcing that to begin with already.

[Sprouticus]

Victor Morson, on 11 June 2013 - 01:14 PM, said:

At least you gain an advantage out of it. Besides, the 2 ER PPC 2 PPC Stalkers are pretty effective anyway, possibly more than any other Stalker in PUGs.

But don't fear, you can always buy a Misery.



Another tool to scramble Mechlab where it isn't necessary and make things way more complicated than they need to be. Doing per-weapon heat modifiers is going to be a complete train wreck.



You're seriously arguing against 9 Medium Laser Hunchbacks in their current state? Did you notice they went away already because the underlying problems (engine speed cap) were fixed?



There is absolutely no reason to penalize boats. There is a reason to stop everyone from driving 'mechs that can fit 50+ tons of guns without breaking a sweat, though.



By your logic:
3 PPC / 1 Gauss Highlander - No Penalty.
3 PPC / 1 Gauss Misery - No Penalty
2 PPC / 2 Gauss Victor - No Penalty

Boy, I'm sure glad they fixed the "real reasons" high damage alphas are an issue. Clearly, it's boating and not the fact most teams exceed 700 tons.

Perhaps they will be able to fully revaluate the speed cap with these changes and the HSR. 9 ml hunchies were a problem because of speed, lag, AND the fact that they could fire 9 ml's 4 or 5 times before they got hot. They have addressed 2 of those 3 issues, perhaps the speed cap could be altered....

Gauss/PPC combo's are an issue, you are correct. But with this change, perhaps they can raise the speed of the PPC without them feeling like instagib nasty alpha wepaons. (or lower the gauss or both) so that you can't do combo shots and hit the same panel. (unless someone is standing still).

even if they don't, adding a gauss with it's inherit limitations (it blows up and is really heavy and has ammo) makes it less valuable then 2 PPC's IMO. And a 2 Gauss/2 PPC 80 tonner is gimped without any heat penalty.


This system gives them a known upper limit on damage to a single point. That is a HUGE advantage for balancing weapons. I don't think you are seeing the value in that simple tool.

[General Taskeen]

FupDup, on 11 June 2013 - 01:31 PM, said:

Hey guys, look at the bright side: MGs are getting another minuscule damage buff! Triumph!

WE MUST MAINTAIN OUR GLACIAL TWEAK SCHEDULE.

[Roland]

Victor Morson, on 11 June 2013 - 12:06 PM, said:

- First and foremost: This punishes small 'mechs. If you bought a BJ-1X get ready to throw it in the trash, because the limit on numbers of guns will absolutely wreck it.

Given that Paul specifically laid out an example of the 4P not being nerfed significantly by this change, I'm not sure why you are so freaked out or think that it'll nerf small mechs.

Quote

- Most high alpha builds don't carry many guns anyway! Everyone rambles about the 6 PPC Stalker, which is clearly far worse than the 4 PPC Stalker. This will punish the bad build and not punish the good one

Again, Paul laid out an example of PPC's that suggests the 4 PPC stalker would suffer a 10 heat penalty if he alphaed his PPC's. That's a penalty of greater than 25%. That's a significant penalty to that configuration.

The 6 PPC stalker simply becomes totally unusable.

Quote

- Goodbye, Secondary Guns. Does your 'mech have backup weapons? Lasers or streaks in case they close the distance? Well if you pop those 3-4 backup guns, you're going to take a huge heat penalty now, despite the fact they likely carry less than a tenth of your firepower. I know I'm not going to want to eat surges of heat for firing a bank of small lasers.

Given that Paul laid out an example with no heat penalty for firing 6 medium lasers, I honestly don't understand where your assumption that firing your backup weapons would necessarily create any heat penalty at all.

I think that maybe you didn't read Paul's whole post, and are just assuming that it'll be implemented in the worst possible way.

[StonedVet]

Holy crap people pay attention to the broadcast!!! It is NOT penalizing lasers or light mechs or anything for that matter. It is balancing CERTAIN weapons so they are used in the manner they were meant for. PPC's were never meant to be boated and the heat penalty for them is bang on. Medium lasers are not being nerfed, Certain mechs are meant to carry 5-9 lasers and they will still be viable. It states that the swayback can fire its 6 lasers as is meant and then the 3 after that, that is NOT nerfing. That is promoting the use of a mech the way it was designed and meant to be played. As for PPC's you better be damned straight that firing 6 of them is gonna give you heat penalties, firing 6 at a time is supposed to melt a mech not just shut it down, consider yourselves lucky its only a heat penalty now and if you go over 150% doin a 2nd alpha strike, serves you right. the game should be about doing maximum damage while managing heat, not maximum damage in between shutdowns. One is using skill .. the other is not, you be the judge.

Edited by Lowridah, 11 June 2013 - 02:15 PM.

[Victor Morson]

Lowridah, on 11 June 2013 - 02:15 PM, said:

It states that the swayback can fire its 6 lasers as is meant and then the 3 after that, that is NOT nerfing.

Vastly reducing the alpha and forcing split shots is not a nerf? I... I...

Edited by Victor Morson, 11 June 2013 - 02:21 PM.

[StonedVet]

Victor Morson, on 11 June 2013 - 02:17 PM, said:

you obviously have no clue how certain mechs are meant to be used. Your facepalm just goes on to you for not knowing or understanding certain mechs or what an Alpha strike is meant for in the first place.

[Kaio-Kerensky x10]

I was going to write a whole :effort: post about this, but Victor Morson did already. Boating is not the problem. High damage pinpoint alpha is the problem. If you absolutely crush, say, the 4-6PPC Stalker, Highlanders and Victors are right there ready to pick up that banner.

There's just no reason not to run mechs that can run high pinpoint alphas. They're the hardest-hitting mechs in the game, the most efficient mechs in the game, and also very nearly the toughest mechs in the game. Boating nerfs don't fix that.

Lowridah, on 11 June 2013 - 02:21 PM, said:

you obviously have no clue how certain mechs are meant to be used. Your facepalm just goes on to you for not knowing or understanding certain mechs or what an Alpha strike is meant for in the first place.

I get that you imagine that the 4P isn't supposed to shoot all its weapons at once, for [reasons]. The problem is that it just isn't very good right now, even when it can shoot all its weapons at once. Why does it need a nerf that makes playing it more difficult, more complicated, and less effective, when the global nerf isn't going to fix any problems or make it any better? Do we really need that many fewer good mechs in the game?

Edited by Zharot, 11 June 2013 - 02:25 PM.

[Victor Morson]

Lowridah, on 11 June 2013 - 02:21 PM, said:

you obviously have no clue how certain mechs are meant to be used. Your facepalm just goes on to you for not knowing or understanding certain mechs or what an Alpha strike is meant for in the first place.

Zharot's post explains all the ways you are wrong in a very comprehensive manner, so I will just refer you to that.

[StonedVet]

Victor Morson, on 11 June 2013 - 02:17 PM, said:

Vastly reducing the alpha and forcing split shots is not a nerf? I... I...

An "alpha strike" is when a BattleMech attacks with all of its weapons at the same time. While extremely powerful, it dramatically raises the 'Mech's heat level, and after several successive alpha strikes most 'Mechs will shut down from overheating. Here just for you, So the Swayback for example can still fire its 9 ML's but as per the definition of Alpha strike the heat is raised drastically, so please tell me how its a nerf again? its the way the system was meant to work anyways. A 9 ML hunchback is and never was meant to be running around the battlefield dropping alphas on everyone time and time again, an alpha was meant as a last resort when a mech pilot had no other option and was facing defeat. So I ask, where does the facepalm come into play? that's right, it doesnt

[Lootee]

I'd rather they just did it by weapon size rather than multiples of weapons with the same name.

Make it so you can only fire 1 big gun or 3 small guns every .5 seconds. If you group fire 6 PPCs it will take 3 seconds and you'll need a steady aim.

HBKs and BJs can still unload 3 ml, 3 ml, 3 ml in 1.5 seconds but they'll need a steady hand as well.

Firing a heavy gauss rifle has a chance of knocking your mech flat on its back. When you fire 2 AC/20s simultaneously that do 15 more dmg than the heavy gauss or 2 PPC + gauss which does 10 more dmg than heavy gauss it should either not allow you to do it, or be a guaranteed knockdown on the firing mech.

The .5 sec global cooldown on big guns could simply be the mech's battle computer preventing a foolish MW from knocking himself on his arse.

[Kaio-Kerensky x10]

Lowridah, on 11 June 2013 - 02:32 PM, said:

A 9 ML hunchback is and never was meant to be running around the battlefield dropping alphas on everyone time and time again, an alpha was meant as a last resort when a mech pilot had no other option and was facing defeat. So I ask, where does the facepalm come into play? that's right, it doesnt

I don't know if you've played TT, but the 4P has 8MLs in TT and does run around dropping them on people. It's the one thing that the mech is capable of doing. You slot into a position where 0-1 enemies can shoot at you, and wreck them with 40 damage, in both MWO and TT. It's one of a very few mechs that plays exactly the same in TT and MWO, and it's hardly imbalanced in MWO. Why on earth does it need nerfing?

PanchoTortilla, on 11 June 2013 - 02:33 PM, said:

I'd rather they just did it by weapon size rather than multiples of weapons with the same name.

Make it so you can only fire 1 big gun or 3 small guns every .5 seconds. If you group fire 6 PPCs it will take 3 seconds and you'll need a steady aim.

HBKs and BJs can still unload 3 ml, 3 ml, 3 ml in 1.5 seconds but they'll need a steady hand as well.

Why do these mechs need to be nerfed?

This is the ultimate question. Light and medium mechs boat light, efficient weapons to do their jobs. Light and medium mechs are in a bad place right now. Why do we need an overcomplicated system that hurts almost all light and medium mechs while only removing a couple of assault builds from play?

Edited by Zharot, 11 June 2013 - 02:37 PM.

[Victor Morson]

Lowridah, on 11 June 2013 - 02:32 PM, said:

An "alpha strike" is when a BattleMech attacks with all of its weapons at the same time. While extremely powerful, it dramatically raises the 'Mech's heat level, and after several successive alpha strikes most 'Mechs will shut down from overheating. Here just for you, So the Swayback for example can still fire its 9 ML's but as per the definition of Alpha strike the heat is raised drastically, so please tell me how its a nerf again? its the way the system was meant to work anyways. A 9 ML hunchback is and never was meant to be running around the battlefield dropping alphas on everyone time and time again, an alpha was meant as a last resort when a mech pilot had no other option and was facing defeat. So I ask, where does the facepalm come into play? that's right, it doesnt

I think you don't understand what a nerf is. A nerf is making something less effective.

If you force the Hunchback to either cook itself to death or fire in two groups (Causing a much greater fire duration / exposure window, a death sentence in a medium) that is reducing it's effectiveness. That is a nerf.

I really don't care about how you personally view the BattleTech universe at all; from the standpoint of MW:O there is no reason to make this already sub-par 'mech, and many others, even worse to fix a problem that will just adapt and continue unphased. This is to say nothing of the fact that this isn't even canon in the first place. Because it plays into how you might have imagined the books doesn't mean even a tiny bit here and I'm a fan of the source material.

This is literally punishing the entirely wrong set of designs! You can get back to me with what the Hunchback is "supposed" to do, when it's actually OP at what it's doing. It's not even effective right now!

Edited by Victor Morson, 11 June 2013 - 02:38 PM.

[StonedVet]

Zharot, on 11 June 2013 - 02:24 PM, said:

I was going to write a whole :effort: post about this, but Victor Morson did already. Boating is not the problem. High damage pinpoint alpha is the problem. If you absolutely crush, say, the 4-6PPC Stalker, Highlanders and Victors are right there ready to pick up that banner.

There's just no reason not to run mechs that can run high pinpoint alphas. They're the hardest-hitting mechs in the game, the most efficient mechs in the game, and also very nearly the toughest mechs in the game. Boating nerfs don't fix that.



I get that you imagine that the 4P isn't supposed to shoot all its weapons at once, for [reasons]. The problem is that it just isn't very good right now, even when it can shoot all its weapons at once. Why does it need a nerf that makes playing it more difficult, more complicated, and less effective, when the global nerf isn't going to fix any problems or make it any better? Do we really need that many fewer good mechs in the game?

I understand people will find other ways around this "fix" but the ONLY way to fix boating is to establish certain weight/weapon size into certain weapon slots like we all have suggested from the start. I was giving an example (swayback) only because it is meant to have a lot of lasers and was a clear example. I got jumped on for it.