69 replies to this topic

[Training Instructor]

Agree with the first two points.

Machine guns should f**k you up at close range. It's what they are supposed to do. Sorry you can't handle that.

[stjobe]

BatWing, on 30 June 2013 - 01:10 PM, said:

I cant freaking believe that from this post the only thing a large majority get to discuss and debate about is the stupid MACHINE GUNS!!! Really ???

It's because you claiming that the MG is currently overpowered kind of tells everyone that you haven't the slightest clue about weapon balance, game balance, and in fact, you haven't got a clue about the game in general.

So why discuss your other so-called "points"? It's obvious to anyone that actually plays the game that you're incapable of discerning what is balanced and what is not.

But okay, just to satisfy you I'll shoot down your other ideas as well:

Increase crit slots for boated weapons.
Crit slots are a balance tool in BattleTech. You've got that right. However, the devs have already made a mess of the BattleTech balance by letting heat run rampant, so before that gets fixed there's simply no point in trying to adjust crit slots. Besides, how many slots would you have to give the PPC before you, the MGs-are-overpowered guy, thinks they are balanced? Five? Seven?

And what about the 9xML HBK-4P? That's a 45 alpha too, should we increase the crit slots for the ML as well?

Any weapon can be boated. Increasing crit slots is not a solution to boating.

Slowing the PPC down
The reload time of the PPC is the least of its problems. The fact that the heat system allows you to boat and fire them en masse and that the (lack of) convergence system allows them to all hit the same pixel are much, much graver problems. A slower firing rate would have absolutely zero impact on the alpha capability of PPC boats.

In short, both your proposed solutions fail to address anything meaningful about the current high-heat, pin-point alpha meta, and that's why people chose to talk about your weird ramblings on the MG instead.

Edited by stjobe, 30 June 2013 - 02:28 PM.

[Deathlike]

Budor, on 30 June 2013 - 10:08 AM, said:

7/10, would read again

It's so funny, my inner Urbie rolled over.

[StandingCow]

I wouldn't mind seeing PGI be a little more strict with the hardpoints, what we have now are almost omnimechs, just find the variant you want to do your build on and go.

MGs, since they are infantry only in lore, and they have them in game... just make them do around the same damage as small lasers, their disadvantage is... they have ammo. Make them have a bit more chance to do critical damage to internals but less to armor than small lasers. Done.

I posted a suggestion last week that PGI throw the timeline in the trash and introduce different types of armor:
Reflective - Reduces energy damage weaker against ballistic.
Regular (armor we have now) - Same against all weapon types.
FF (in game now but rarely used in anything but lights) - Reduces damage against ballistics weaker against energy.

I really think the armor change adds another dimension to the battlefield that people need to be aware of, it means if you carry one type of weapon only, that you are going to be at a disadvantage... now this does kind of screw light pilots a bit since they usually run energy weapons... but it also helps their survivability a bit and they can do what they mostly should be doing, scouting.

I also think weight limited drops is important... seeing 4+ assault mechs on the battlefield isn't how the game is supposed to be... mediums are the workhorses and should be the most often used mechs on the field... so in a 12v12 most drops imo should have 2 assaults max, the obvious negative to that is people wanting to drive assaults might get longer queue times, which would cause people to cry.

So, I don't think boating or any weapon is specifically the issue... the abundance of assault mechs is.

Edited by StandingCow, 30 June 2013 - 06:10 PM.

[Grand Ayatollah Kerensky]

I truly hope that PGI just stops listening to whining pubbies. You wanted SRMs nerfed, and you got it. Eat up your just desserts, eat it allllll up.

[StandingCow]

Narcisoldier, on 30 June 2013 - 06:15 PM, said:

I truly hope that PGI just stops listening to whining pubbies. You wanted SRMs nerfed, and you got it. Eat up your just desserts, eat it allllll up.

Sadly, all that did was hurt brawling and cause more PPC warrior online. :/

[Sybreed]

Narcisoldier, on 30 June 2013 - 06:15 PM, said:

I truly hope that PGI just stops listening to whining pubbies. You wanted SRMs nerfed, and you got it. Eat up your just desserts, eat it allllll up.

there's a difference between what you're saying and what happened. SRMs were bugged and it was found out. Devs had to react by nerfing massively SRMS as they were doing 2 to 4 times the damage they were supposed to do. You're saying bugged, too strong SRMs should have stayed in game? Yes, it hurt brawling but it needed to get fixed.

Now, where things went wrong is how slow it's taking PGI to make SRMs viable again. They should have buffed SRMs last patch for sure. If they aren't buffed next patch, well, I don't know what to think.

[Kunae]

Sybreed, on 30 June 2013 - 06:26 PM, said:

there's a difference between what you're saying and what happened. SRMs were bugged and it was found out. Devs had to react by nerfing massively SRMS as they were doing 2 to 4 times the damage they were supposed to do. You're saying bugged, too strong SRMs should have stayed in game? Yes, it hurt brawling but it needed to get fixed.

Now, where things went wrong is how slow it's taking PGI to make SRMs viable again. They should have buffed SRMs last patch for sure. If they aren't buffed next patch, well, I don't know what to think.

The problem is that PGI doesn't fix its "fixes" fast enough. The SRM splash damage "fix" went in over a month ago, (possibly a lot longer than a month, I don't remember exactly.), and yet they didn't reset SRM damage back up to any level of usefulness.

It is still incomprehensible how people don't understand that PGI is the cause of the longevity of "pop-tarts" and every other broken mechanic, because they take 6 months to change one line of code. And by then they've put in 20 other things to counter the thing that was broken, and everything else is screwed up.

This is only on PGI's shoulders... and they need to fix the underlying issue, which is their process.

[Novakaine]

BatWing, on 30 June 2013 - 07:25 AM, said:

I tried to refrain myself from posting here for a while, however I can t make it anymore and i have to rant it out.

just to let you know, I am a FAN, an accountable Customer. I just poured $100 for 25k MCs last week, just before the new Phoenix deal came out, so now I am stuck with having to buy the $80 deal as well, soon.

Yes, I ll do it, because doesn t matter how much i hate this game, this is my addiction and I will get those Phoenix Mechs.

With this said, it s sad just seeing that this game is a freaking JOKE.

3 major issues not solved for gamplay balance, and i swear to God, you don t need to be a Rocket Scientist to fix this BS:

1 - BOATING
2 - PPC / ERPPC
3 - This point has been removed to avoid stupid waste of time

Point 1: Boating
Besides an ongoing slight adjustment to balance damage, heat and other weapon aspects, is it too difficult thinking that the solution that makes sense for boating is JUST making the weapons that are subjected to be boated LARGER. More Slots. IF IT DOESN T FIT IT CANNOT BE BOATED.
This is valid for any weapon that can be exploited. Some other adjustments may be required as well but the priority should be just make them bigger.

Point 2: PPC Family
PPCs of any kind were supposed to be mostly Sniper weapons. Usually Sniper weapons have longer recycle than Assault short/medium range weapons. Apply this rule to PPC for God sake.
Also apply the rule that a PPC weapon is a BIG weapon! We see how the PPC looks like. Is a quite big Particle Cannon. It cannot be only 3 Slots. Make it Bigger so it cannot be boated, make it Slower as it should be being a Sniper energy weapon.
These 2 solutions would alrady reset the abuse actually rolling about the PPCs in general.

Point 3: Removed due to a useless flame about how good or bad are MGs - I guess we have way more important things to talk about. My opinion was misunderstood and makes no sense to keep it open.

So, these Designer Engineers, these Game Professionals, these Devs, what the hell are they thinking about "balancing"?

Do you play the game, do you QA your "Solutions" before pushing them to production?

Do not give me the BETA BS anymore because after a few hundreds bucks poured on this game this aint BETA nomore, get out of Kansas...

Perhaps with all due respect.
"Go play COD."

[Grand Ayatollah Kerensky]

Sybreed, on 30 June 2013 - 06:26 PM, said:

there's a difference between what you're saying and what happened. SRMs were bugged and it was found out. Devs had to react by nerfing massively SRMS as they were doing 2 to 4 times the damage they were supposed to do. You're saying bugged, too strong SRMs should have stayed in game? Yes, it hurt brawling but it needed to get fixed.

Now, where things went wrong is how slow it's taking PGI to make SRMs viable again. They should have buffed SRMs last patch for sure. If they aren't buffed next patch, well, I don't know what to think.

SRMs were nerfed twice. In closed beta, they were in a really good place but the pubbies cried because of 4 SRM6 awesome pimpslapping them every round. So PGI widened the spread so that they became useless. Then, because they were so useless, they upped the damage. People then realized that SRMs were really good if used at point-blank range. Pubbies cried about splat-cats. PGI held out a while and put out a patch that gave artemis SRMs really tight double helix flight patterns. Pubbie lights and mediums were getting one-shotted, Pubbies cried. PGI looked a little closer at SRMS and discovered that the splash damage was wrong. What do they do? Remove splash damage entirely and nerf SRM damage into obsolescence.

[jakucha]

Narcisoldier, on 30 June 2013 - 07:26 PM, said:

Pubbies cried. PGI looked a little closer at SRMS and discovered that the splash damage was wrong. What do they do? Remove splash damage entirely and nerf SRM damage into obsolescence.

Congrats on one of the more biased posts I've seen here. Apparently everything that goes wrong is "pubbies" fault, and even when they're complaining about a legitimate bug that the SRMs had it's still "crying".

Edited by jakucha, 30 June 2013 - 07:41 PM.

[juxstapo]

Quote

The recent Buff of damage was the newest major BS could be done. Now Spiders and Jagers boated with MGs can tear apart well protected FULL ARMORED mechs. MGs were supposed to bounce away from armor. Make Critical if the location is "naked". NOT STRIP THE ARMOR AWAY

New sig!

Edited by juxstapo, 30 June 2013 - 10:45 PM.

[Cache]

Viktor Drake, on 30 June 2013 - 10:31 AM, said:

However this heat scale is based on TT heat values which we absolutely do not have. In TT I should be able to fire 2 ER PPCs completely heat free with just 15 DHS. In MWO your lucky to be able to fire them 3 times before Overheating.

So I will be more than happy to take TT heat penalities, providing of course that my 2 LL, 2 ML, Gauss Cataphract will be completely, 100% heat neutral at 14 DHS cause it sure as hell isn't possible with the current heat scale in game.

If you alpha once with your Phract and let it cool for 10 seconds, is it heat neutral?

The heat gain/dissipation system is different here than in TT. I'm not arguing that we go to the TT system for that. It's the overheat system with penalties that I believe we need. There are adjustments to MWO's heat system that can be made to slow things down a bit, as I've heard that the devs feel a Mech dies too quickly. (Couldn't cite a source for that and I may have heard wrong.)

Increase the cool-down of all weapons by a bit and raise heat for all by a little bit more. Then add a second heat meter alongside the first on the HUD. The first meter shows your safe heat. Go over that and it registers on the second. The second meter shows how deep in the penalty box you're sitting. Allow for the chance of penalties every ~5 seconds you're on that scale. Slowed movement and erratic crosshairs would be automatic, the severity determined by amount of heat. Ammo explosions would be random as they are now with critical hits, giving a greater chance the further up the scale. Shut-down could be a timed thing--you'd be given ~1 second to hit override at the bottom of the scale and ~1/4 second just below the top. Hit the top and you're automatically shut down for 5-10 seconds.

[Cache]

StandingCow, on 30 June 2013 - 06:04 PM, said:

MGs, since they are infantry only in lore, and they have them in game... just make them do around the same damage as small lasers, their disadvantage is... they have ammo. Make them have a bit more chance to do critical damage to internals but less to armor than small lasers. Done.

They're not exactly infantry-only, but they certainly are a lot more damaging to "soft" targets than armored. I see others comparing them to today's .50 caliber and claim that it just bounces off of armor. I'm not going to step into that argument but personally I compare Mech-mounted MG's to the modern 20mm. Better vs. armor and deadly vs. infantry.

[Shae Starfyre]

Has anyone tried aiming those 6 mgs towards a flock of incoming missiles; does it act like an AMS? This is all the matters, right?

[Tombstoner]

Vote with your money. you cant complain about the state of the game when you feed PGI cash. money = a yes vote for the currant system. This makes the choice to get the phoenix mecs so hard for me.

[xDeityx]

Tombstoner, on 01 July 2013 - 08:38 AM, said:

Vote with your money. you cant complain about the state of the game when you feed PGI cash. money = a yes vote for the currant system. This makes the choice to get the phoenix mecs so hard for me.

That's not really doable. We like 'mechs too much, and PGI knows it. Just look at the reseen Phoenix fiasco. People are throwing money at PGI again I'm sure.

What you're saying is like telling a crack addict to stop using crack for a while if he doesn't like the quality of it so that his dealer will get the picture and up the quality of the crack.

[Shae Starfyre]

I am on MechCrack!

[Demuder]

stjobe, on 30 June 2013 - 10:16 AM, said:

This whole "MGs should be useless against 'mechs" malarkey has zero support in BattleTech lore. None whatsoever. In Decision at Thunder Rift, chapter 12, Grayson Death takes out a Wasp by destroying its cockpit with - wait for it - a vehicle-mounted machine gun. Not even a 'mech MG, but a vehicle-mounted one.

In all fairness, I am pretty sure that I remember several instances in the lore books where "machine gun fire harmlessly bounced off the mech's armor". Also cockpits in lore are kinda taboo, although unarmored and really weak (I think a single direct hit from a medium laser can take them out) only on critical moments in the plot are they taken out.

Anyway, I can't say if machine guns in MWO are fine, under or overpowered tbh. But I do think they fall under the general category of PGI's major fails: how to balance a weapon by only changing its damage and heat so that it is efficient when it is mounted normally or boated. Lots of weapons fall under this category, (ER)PPCs, Gauss (not yet, but soon), LRMs, SRMs, AC20s, etc etc. Heaven forbid we take a look at a mechanic other than raw damage or heat !

Edited by dimstog, 01 July 2013 - 09:50 AM.

[Steven Dixon]

Tombstoner, on 01 July 2013 - 08:38 AM, said:

Vote with your money. you cant complain about the state of the game when you feed PGI cash. money = a yes vote for the currant system. This makes the choice to get the phoenix mecs so hard for me.

Unfortunately it doesn't work like that. At best we would show PGI/IGP that we aren't interested in the Unseen and they wasted their time and money going after them, at worst IGP would feel that MWO is suffering and that they will have to do other things to generate revenue (i.e. P2W, catering to the masses, ect). At least the OP is articulating his feelings although I belive he would have more effect if he tempered some of the emotion in his post. Emotional critiques tend to put the person reading the critique on the defensive which makes them unlikely to listen to your advice.

The problem is that its not as easy to fix balance problems as people think it is. We each think our solution is right but that doesn't really make it so. My idea to fix boating is to classify hardpoints as big and small so a small laser and medium laser will fit in a small energy hardpoint while a large laser and PPC will fit in a large one. However this isn't without problems either.

Change comes slowly. My personal strategy is that if I ever feel I'm becoming frustrated I simply stop playing the game for a while (sometimes just a day or two). When I come back I realize that most of my irritation really came from overplaying more than anything else. And I try not to take it too seriously; its entertainment after all and boy has this game entertained me .