1084 replies to this topic

[kesuga7]

May our Patch prayers be answereddd!

May the Tyranrry of the meta be abolisheddd!

Praise Russ and the All-StarLeague-Father!

..Your not Russ..HERESY!



​The two large laser maximum alpha was really not needed 3-4 would have been fine

Edited by kesuga7, 11 July 2013 - 12:28 PM.

[Bloody Moon]

I'm very disappointed that this counter-intuitive "max alpha" path was taken when there were so many much more sensible alternatives were offered by the community to reduce the pinpoint high alpha effect.

An incomplete list of alternatives:

- Pinpoint weapon conversion into burst fire.
- Negating the heat scale increase of the heatsinks, effectively forcing the mechs to handle alphas within 30 points of heat.
- Convergence overhaul.
- Limited alphas by engine power.

And many more...

[EvilCow]

Prosperity Park, on 11 July 2013 - 12:23 PM, said:

because the heat penalty system, alone, is not intended to stop PPC+Gauss sniping.

And what is meant to stop? hunchbacks?

It is a layer of arbitrary rules which will make the game even harder to understand.

[TehSBGX]

What about Other ACs aside from 20?

Edit - Also Buff LBX damage with SRMs too.

Edited by TehSBGX, 11 July 2013 - 12:45 PM.

[catspider]

I don't play much with SRM, and it is not because they do not do enough damage, it mainly has to do with the flight path: it is a dumb fire rocket that does not fly in a linear path.

Personally i would like to see the srm behave like a LBX shell, with a linear cone pattern of spread from 0 at the source to max spread at its longest range. This would indeed make the weapon (at least for me) a lot more useful, as range would control spread, and therefore control pinpoint damage better, even with lower damage rockets.. get closer more focused, go further less focused.

Messing with damage up and down while a noble intention, just shifts the issue for a while from small mechs to bigger mechs and unfortunately those larger mechs are a lot easier to hit with SRM than the small ones. If you want to go hunting lights, there are better weapons than a dumb fire missile.

As far as the heat scaling/penalty goes: don't really see a downside to it. In fact combined with the bigger picture of 12v12 matches its a great move. One has to take into consideration the simple mechanic of less weapons fired per mech at one time = more mechs have to focus the same target to achieve the same result in the same amount of time. Essentially this spells out to, you need to be a better team player.

Of course we all like sitting there and boating once in a while - i am guilty of it myself, however i welcome the proposed changes and look forward to to them. Keep in mind that these changes do not break the game, simply add complexity and depth to it.

Edited by catspider, 11 July 2013 - 12:39 PM.

[Shakespeare]

Yes. Reasoning: 2.0 might actually be a fair value, and it's not the hit-detection on smaller mechs that has reduced SRM utility - it's the medium mechs that depend on small numbers of SRM launchers to do their work. It's a weapon that needs to be treated like the medium laser... useful in pairs, vicious in boats. The inherent weaknesses of the launchers (max range, spread, high heat) plus the added max alpha penalties should be enough to keep boats (splatcats, let's be real.) from taking over the world. Add to that the many changes the game has seen since the last splatcat 'outbreak'..namely, that we can reliably hit their ears from a safe range with ballistics, PPC, LRM, even laser, and you've got a mech that's understandably lethal up-close, but vulnerable to any midrange mech or to its own heat inefficiencies and chassis structure.

Edit: Right, heat scale. I like the initial implementation. Only holes I see are PPC and ER PPC need to contribute to the same alpha 'pool', or quad PPC is still available. (many players do this already to bypass the heat on 4 ERs), and SRM 4s + 6s should probably do the same (either as a percentage - 4's being worth 'part' of a 6, or just 1 for 1). I don't personally mind the Large Laser Max Alpha...I've run LL phracts and stalkers, and believe me, the only reason those builds aren't out there destroying all things is that PPC boats are 'faster on the draw', as far as damage output goes. It's a preventative step, to curb the next best energy weapon before everyone starts doing it. Or have we forgotten which stalker won the last assault tourney?
Finally, yeah, this doesn't impact twin PPC + Gauss - a 35 alpha at ultra high speed from long distances. It does, however, hurt the triple PPC + Gauss, a far more common variant. (I'm looking at you, highlander halomechs). A change in PPC speed could nullify the combo... and until then, the Gauss recycle rate and vulnerability to damage helps keep it from being a constant threat. Sure, it sucks fighting groups of them, but by any reference point, it's not an impossible, unusual, or exploitative build. Basically, they've shaved 10 points off of the potential alpha of mechs that do this the most. Ultimately, a more aggressive matchmaking class balance will do more to reduce assault snipers than a heat penalty, since they're most threatening in packs. I don't fear a single highlander with 2 PPC + Gauss. two or three? *shivers*



TL;DR -
SRMS:
the mediums need a short range 'punch' weapon, and the standard configs suggest that the SRMs, particularly in Hunchies and Cents, is supposed to be effective even as single or dual launcher setups. Currently they are not. 2.0 might be just right, so please consider carefully when a readjustment is planned.

MaxAlpha: PPC vs ER PPC is a loophole, and SRM 4+ 6 could become one as well. The values overall look solid to me, though. Glad to see frank discussion and consideration on the matter. A good way to reduce 'time to death' in many games, is to ultimately find a way to reduce the total weight of teams, whether that's a limitation on assault mechs, or a class-based quota, or a total weight limit. Can't have 4-assault sniper teams wrecking everything if you only allow two assaults per match, eh?

Thank you for your time.

(Edit: Energy discussion)

Edited by Shakespeare, 11 July 2013 - 12:55 PM.

[Deathlike]

Bloody Moon, on 11 July 2013 - 12:27 PM, said:

An incomplete list of alternatives:
-

There are no alternatives truly considered. The Word of Paul is final.

[DeathofSelf]

GoldenFleece, on 11 July 2013 - 11:46 AM, said:

I think, that PPCs and ERPPCs are counted as the same weapon for this purpose. Also Large Lasers and ER Large Lasers probably...

I saw that it had been announced (not on the forums cause why the hell would the devs want to communicate that here?) that they are indeed not counted as the same but they would be later™ soon™. Why? Cause this is PGI we are talking about, I'm not really surprised

[Master Q]

Shumabot, on 11 July 2013 - 12:21 PM, said:

I agree that convergence would help with ac40 and PPC boating to an extent, but those builds would still be much better than non boated builds on the same chassis. Boating provides far more benefits than just easy convergence.

But it's the convergence benefit that's the biggest problem.

If I can alpha for 40 points with guaranteed convergence, that's a big deal. If I have to chainfire and aim, then at least I am cycling and aiming twice.

If my alpha is guaranteed to spread wide enough to split the damage between CT and a side torso, or CT and one arm, or both side torsos, that is not NEARLY as devastating a shot as guaranteeing a 40-point splat all in the CT.

Remove the benefit of the convergence and all of a sudden a paired AC40 set, or double-gauss, or multi-ppc isn't really all that different from a pack of 18 SRMs (which would ONLY BE 36 damage with 2 per missile, still less than the AC40 or MultiPPC builds).

Does it have "benefits"? Sure. Are the benefits much more balanced with all other builds that already have convergence questions, such as laser/ballistic or laser/missile mixes? YES.

[Jman5]

I'm fine with the SRM changes, but I would strongly advise you to not touch Streak SRM damage because they have 0 hit reg issues. I'm worried that if they ride the coattails of the necessary SRM buff, they will be out of control.

So buff SRMs, don't buff Streak SRMs.

[Deathlike]

Jman5, on 11 July 2013 - 12:33 PM, said:

I'm fine with the SRM changes, but I would strongly advise you to not touch Streak SRM damage because they have 0 hit reg issues. I'm worried that if they ride the coattails of the necessary SRM buff, they will be out of control.

So buff SRMs, don't buff Streak SRMs.

Strangely enough, I've had hitreg issues with it... but since it works better than SRMs through the current terribad hit detection, it's far more valuable at the moment.

[Bloody Moon]

Deathlike, on 11 July 2013 - 12:30 PM, said:

There are no alternatives truly considered. The Word of Paul is final.

Or so i've been told.

Nevertheless it takes less than 5 minutes to adapt to these changes and the meta remains the same.

[Cache]

Shumabot, on 11 July 2013 - 11:27 AM, said:

It would make ac40 so intensely dominant that no other weapon would ever see play and jagers would sit on iron thrones atop a mountain of atlas skulls. It would also make the game incredibly slow and boring with every mech constantly redlining/shutting down while staring at eachother. The tabletops systems do not translate into a live game environment, the damage is wrong, the heat scaling is way off, the refire rate is way off, the ranges are nonsense, the armor values are nonsense. Nothing in the tabletop makes for a good live game. That's why no previous mechwarrior game has tried it and most of MWOs problems come from the things they actually DID copy from the tabletop.

I believe you are very wrong in your assessment, and I am not advocating a straight TT conversion but tweaking things more to the spirit of the TT rules. That's why I said, "If done right..." Something more like this (last paragraph in particular).

[Deathlike]

Bloody Moon, on 11 July 2013 - 12:36 PM, said:

Or so i've been told.

Nevertheless it takes less than 5 minutes to adapt to these changes and the meta remains the same.

I know, but the ones that knew better already adapted to the meta... and it was only 2 hours old. This is sad.

[Team Leader]

This is the kind of stuff I would like to see more often. Put some faith in your beta testers haha

[DeathofSelf]

Also, I don't get how hit registration exclusively effects SRM damage, ALL weapons are hurt by your crappy hit reg. If I had a dollar for every AC20 that didn't register damage I could buy your stupid Phoenix package and get the Victor mechs early and probably have some money left for MC.

[Mister Blastman]

DisasterMedic, on 11 July 2013 - 12:06 PM, said:

For those of you wondering if PGI even understands how the mechanics of their own game works, I present to you:



If they actually knew anything whatsoever about their own product, they might stop wasting time on non-issues and focus on sensible balance fixes. Since they do not, it's kind of pointless having another thread filled with better solutions to the alleged problem which will be summarily discarded and ignored.

Bumped this post in particular. If the developers don't even know the mechanics of their own damn game, how the hell can they be expected to make good decisions in balancing it?

[PEEFsmash]

DisasterMedic, on 11 July 2013 - 12:06 PM, said:

For those of you wondering if PGI even understands how the mechanics of their own game works, I present to you:



If they actually knew anything whatsoever about their own product, they might stop wasting time on non-issues and focus on sensible balance fixes. Since they do not, it's kind of pointless having another thread filled with better solutions to the alleged problem which will be summarily discarded and ignored.

Every single day they prove more and more fully that they have no idea what is going on in their own game. The super sick 2 TAG build...my god.

Edited by PEEFsmash, 11 July 2013 - 12:41 PM.

[Troggy]

I think the problem is that as written, these "Heat System Penalties" adds nothing except complication. This thread is full of a tonne of simple workarounds (2+2 PPC/ER, etc.). It doesn't effect the PPC meta, it doesn't effect the sniping meta, it doesn't prevent sniping, it will be a minor inconvenience to dual AC20 Jagers (at best), and it doesn't even nerf splatcats.

So the question becomes: What does it do?

Well. It makes the game more complicated for beginners. It further reduces the utility of mediums. It means I have to consult a table before I build new mechs. And it further complicates the addition of new content FOREVER.

When you invent a system that fails to address EVEN ONE of your current problems, but creates at least 3 new problems, that is not a solution.

As C.S. Lewis puts it: “A sum can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on.”

The way to fix all of the problems is simple. Write out a list of problems, study them from as many aspects as possible. Pick one (or more), that seems like it has the largest impact, or the least entanglements. Fix it. Repeat until there are no more problems. If you find an entangled problem, try to reduce it to parts, then reapply the algorithm.

--
[color=#181818]Troggy [/color]

Prosperity Park, on 11 July 2013 - 12:23 PM, said:

Yeah, the Heat System Penalties will not "stop" splattering or anything like that. I always ran my SplatCat as 4SRM6 + 2SRM4 anyways to save some weight and heat.

In fact, this heat system is not intended to be the sole means by which to curb PPC+Gauss Sniping, either. More changes are inbound. It's folly to get up and say "This System Won't Stop the Meta!" because the heat penalty system, alone, is not intended to stop PPC+Gauss sniping. That's like complaining that "The Airbag failed to save me from a fuel explosion."

Edited by Troggy, 11 July 2013 - 12:49 PM.

[Tauman]

Don't buff SRMs at all. Nerf other weapons to raise time-to-kill to desired levels.