133 replies to this topic

[Victor Morson]

There's a LOT of unrest in terms of the current balance. I am sincerely hoping that some statement will be made on the following:

MGs: Are these getting buffed again? At least, getting their crit chances restored/buffed to go with the damage & range? They did not need a nerf with the buff.

LRMs: Are you aware that the current LRMs are just shy of useless, dealing far too little damage and contending with super powered AMS?

Flamers: These transfer even less effective heat than before, are you aware they really aren't working in a worthwhile manner at all?

LBX/10: While I think the spread is good now, are there plans to improve the per-pellet damage to make the weapon more usable?

SRMs: Is there a huge damage buff coming again for SRMs? If they cannot get explosive damage back, are they going to get enough per-damage missile to be useful again?

ECM: You guys are aware that giving a hard counter another hard counter has nerf'ed it out of usefulness almost entirely right? Are there plans to introduce softer counters?

PULSE LASERS: These are almost never taken by competent players because the advantages are too minor. Are there any plans to reduce the discharge time to increase accuracy and return them to usefulness?

Air Strike / Artillery Strike: Will any attempt be made to make these competitive with the other modules and consumables, and function as anything more than a teleporting grenade with recycled 'mech weapon graphics at some point?

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Frankly there's a growing concern in the community in general that you guys aren't really aware of the balance situation within the game, and I would really, really like to clear that up. This is something that I think, after this many roller coaster balances, that deserves an official response or even a discussion, at this point.

People are getting very, very burnt out on this PPC-Gauss meta that I 100% believe is caused by the above weapons not working and not in fact by the PPC and Gauss being too good. They're just the only weapons that haven't been savaged by the nerf sledgehammer right now.

My primary concern, I will admit, is LRMs and SRMs. Are you planning to fix the explosive damage and re-up missiles? Why haven't you temporarily given them the same damage total (1.2 originally) per missile, instead of simply rendering the explosive damage too small to apply and leaving the damage at 0.9? Are you aware that the currently weak SRMs is the main reason we don't have brawlers that can deal with jump snipers, since SRMs are actually inferior to ranged weapons up close right now?

Again, I'm sorry if I'm "leading" the questions and am doing my best to push the general pulse of everyone I've encountered right now both in-game and on-forum right now into this. But I absolutely believe that we need some kind of in-depth, weapon by weapon statement by PGI right now.

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Now I'm not asking for someone to come reply to this thread. I don't want to start a flame war with PGI employees and again, I think overall this game is incredibly well done if we can stop these wild, massive balance mood swings and start fine tuning stuff properly instead.

No, my whole point to writing this is the hope some kind of official thread will be created with PGI's views on what needs to be done and also a timetable of when it will be done. If we're getting non-broken LRMs and SRMs, for example, we would love to know and also know the date.

We'd also very much like an update on this "Explosive bug" that causes explosive damage to favor the CT and why we can't just get raw damage buffs until it is actually fixed down the line?

Please PGI. This would reassure a lot of people (provided you guys do realize there's serious problems with these weapons right now, which I honestly cannot believe you wouldn't know about!) and give us something concrete to look forward to.. in particular if there's some kind of schedule to tune the weapons in smaller, more frequent ways after that. By being silent on these issues and failing to tune them for such a prolonged period of time (which I think upsets people more given this would require some adjustment, not massive coding) it lends serious credit to the idea that you don't really have your "finger on the pulse" of how balance actually plays out. Again, I find this impossible as PGI does play the game but it is more than worth commenting on.
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TL/DR: PGI, please give us your views on the troubled weapons and equipment in some kind of official statement, and give us a plan how you guys are looking into proceeding? It would do a lot to "stop the bleeding" of players, as it were, and would be very appreciated by those that have stuck through all this.

Edited by Victor Morson, 29 May 2013 - 01:16 AM.

[Chavette]

Petition? Stop acting like they don't owe you an answer, you don't need any petition.

[AnnoyingCat]

they said no

[Nicholas Carlyle]

They should have been doing updates with regards to weapon balance every patch.

The fact that they haven't, and we're now 4 months give or take from release makes it hard to fathom they'd start now.

I was pretty optimistic about this patch, and anyone that has read my posts knows that's the opposite of my normal demeanor.

But they still managed to totally miss the mark. Not only did they introduce 3-4 bugs with LRM's. They then hotfixed them into uselessness again.

And as has been said the other weapon systems touched in this patch either still remain worthless to take (MGs/Flamers/LBX10's) or too good (PPC's).

I will also say, that I think the "nerf" to PPC's actually was a buff because it sync's them better with a Gauss Rifle for poptarting.

And by the way, starting threads like this on the weekend is a waste of time. These devs do not work normal dev hours leading up to release of a game.

[Asmudius Heng]

As much as I want them to do this, I am certain they will not.

Communication has always been PGIs greatest weakness.

[Renthrak]

I think it would be easier to balance the game if the underlying mechanics were changed, rather than constantly tweaking weapons that have issues due to said mechanics.

[Target Rich]

PGI...has a framing problem with MWO...

The game is simply TOO high end ...the graphics game engine is impossible to play on about 80 percent of installed PC's

The game REQUIRES an insanely high level of skill...the user interface is a totally patched together piece of ****......lets face it..you are piloting a simulator with fricking ARROW keys on a pc keyboard...how fricking absurd can you get here people...EVERY other decent simulator abandoned that mickey mouse about the middle 1990's.

The game has so many bugs that it reminds me of an abandoned farmhouse... and each Patch fix...only acerbates the basic problem.,.

So what I see here is a dev team "forted up" and riding this for as much revenue that they can get,

The marketing demographics are fairly obvious....they already have their dedicated fan base...and unless RADICAL simplification and debugging is effected...that is ALL they will ever capture... So they are squeezing that fan base for what they can get.

That is why their primary role is MARKETING....happy talk...happy talk...and no real information...

The sad thing is that the beta is such a pos that many mecha fanatics have become so fustrated that they have turned to other venues...heck I have a premium account etc...and I have virtually abandoned this to play WOT...which actually WORKS on my laptop...and is fun..and is not buggy...and has a huge meta game...

So...when you hear about all that "sizzle"...you might look at what is currently on your plate....

And that shrunken hamburger patty composed of gristle and soybean product...is not what you thought you were paying for...

[Sybreed]

all I can say about balance is that from a design point of view, I would have done a better job. Unless there's some hidden very long term plan that they're hiding from us that will put anything into place (which I doubt exists), they're either a) not doing a good job at all or don't have time to balance the game, which is a #1 priority right now (sorry CW and UI 2.0)

[Mordynak]

This guy is Elite so we should agree with him....

[Sybreed]

Mordynak, on 26 May 2013 - 04:57 PM, said:

This guy is Elite so we should agree with him....

I know I sound like a smartass, but PGI has done so many things so far that just left me wanting to post the Jackie Chan meme all over the forums, I know I would have done things differently right from the start.

Right now, I don't understand their stubbornness about LB-X- and MGs and Flamers.

Edited by Sybreed, 26 May 2013 - 05:11 PM.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Sybreed, on 26 May 2013 - 05:04 PM, said:

I know I sound like a smartass, but PGI has done so many things so far that just wanted me to post the Jackie Chan meme all over the forums, I know I would have done things differently right from the start.

Right now, I don't understand their stubbornness about LB-X- and MGs and Flamers.

This is one of those things that REALLY bugs me.

Ignoring all the sheer...just...yeah...about LRM's.

It's obvious those 3 weapons stink. They have ALWAYS stunk. Why not take 3 patches in a row, up the damage on MG's/LBX10 every patch, and raise heat generation of Flamers every patch. Until they are worth mounting.

[Rebas Kradd]

By and large, the game is very well-balanced. LRM's are not yet done being tuned and will experience another uptick with the release of missile HSR. As for LB-X, MGs, and Flamers, well, complaining about niche weapons as unbalancing the ENTIRE GAME is rather silly when the bulk of combat is just fine.

[Victor Morson]

Rebas Kradd, on 26 May 2013 - 05:24 PM, said:

By and large, the game is very well-balanced. LRM's are not yet done being tuned and will experience another uptick with the release of missile HSR. As for LB-X, MGs, and Flamers, well, complaining about niche weapons as unbalancing the ENTIRE GAME is rather silly when the bulk of combat is just fine.

SRMs are not a niche weapon. And LBX should not be.

I only brought them up because after this long the only "buffs" they got were also met with nerfs. You don't nerf stuff while you're buffing it. It's crazy, but remember we're mostly talking primary weapons that are completely worthless.. entire categories of them. This is really bad.

Again, I don't want to get on other misdirect PGI hate. I don't have PGI hate. I do, however, hate how they have been playing "violent balance whiplash" with huge gaps inbetween. If they were tuning the game in small amounts on a bi-weekly basis, I and many others would not have nearly the complaints, because you could clearly see things trending in well searched ways.

Frankly I want them to respond because I want to hear "Yes, we know X Y and Z is broken. We plan to do A, B and C about them" and maybe some kind of flexible agreement to stop super-charging weapons followed by turning them into jokes immediately after every few months.

I don't want to be sitting in the dark, forced to play specific weapon configs to remain competitive while going "Man if they do something to missiles, (insert any idea), this game will totally play different" while crossing my fingers and hope someone at PGI realizes how dire the situation has actually become in terms of weapon balance.*

* This is also why I get rather annoyed with all the cries to nerf stuff in these threads. We don't need to nerf the whole damn game out of existence. What we do need, however, is more viable weapons so we can be flexible in our strategies.

Edited by Victor Morson, 26 May 2013 - 05:35 PM.

[Deathlike]

My response to the question stated by the topic question title... everything is "working as intended" and will be reevaluated whenever you whine loud and often enough.

[tuokaerf]

Ahem:

http://mwomercs.com/...apon-balancing/

It looks like they're working on some stuff. Considering the nastiness that comes from this forum, I'm not surprised they wait a bit before sharing ideas.

Additionally, they might not have the answer right now. The best they can do right now until a public test server is available is test internally then release to the masses to collect data. They're not going to know if it's a problem (unless it's buggy) for a few weeks to months in some cases.

[Keifomofutu]

Agree. Most of the dedicated brawling weapons are completely underpowered. Ac20 isn't but that is a weapon that only certain mechs can fit and limits many to a slower standard engine if you do use it.

The only weapon that sort of qualifies as working functionally at close ranges is the medium laser. But only certain chassis like a couple of the mediums and lights can really pack enough of these in. They are an effective weapon but they run so hot enmass that they aren't good for a brawl to the finish and are better at hit and run attacks with a couple alphas at a time. They are also very easy for the opponent to spread all the damage across the entire body. This is why pulse lasers need to be brought to snuff as they should be the more surgical brawler's weapon of choice.

Edited by Keifomofutu, 26 May 2013 - 09:36 PM.

[OpCentar]

There can be no weapon balance until they fix (nerf) boating.

[jeffsw6]

Chavette, on 26 May 2013 - 04:06 PM, said:

Petition? Stop acting like they don't owe you an answer, you don't need any petition.

They do owe me an answer. I am the customer.

[CancR]

Moreso then the customer, we are the shareholders We are the stockholders, the people trying to fund this game while they get the game off the ground. They damn sure own answers.

[Victor Morson]

OpCentar, on 26 May 2013 - 10:15 PM, said:

There can be no weapon balance until they fix (nerf) boating.

Contrary to what you'd like to believe, boating does not make or break individual gun balance.