545 replies to this topic

[Allen Ward]

Gulinborsti, on 16 July 2013 - 02:53 PM, said:

Say "NO!" to drugs!
Say "NO!" to racism!
Say "NO!" to 3rd person view!

Ha ha Erm...Say "NO!" to Seismic? It's better than having 3rd person view (at short range at least).

Edited by Allen Ward, 20 July 2013 - 02:50 PM.

[Augustus Martelus II]

Just find that 3 large laser ''boating'' suck a little

[Khobai]

large lasers werent overpowered. there was absolutely no reason to nerf them. PGI just has no f-ing clue what theyre doing. They do arbitrary knee jerk balance fixes, without consulting the player base first so we can tell them its stupid, and the game taking strides backwards because of it.

pgi needs to remove this heat penalty nonsense and just fix convergence. Thats all anyone wants. The game should not be dominated by alphastrike builds.

[KuruptU4Fun]

Amsro, on 20 July 2013 - 02:40 PM, said:

This is the one moment in time I wish SRM's hadn't been buffed, if they were still 1.5 no one would be using them and we would see once and for all that this NEW system has had ZERO effect on the Meta game.

I'm sure half of the YES voters have been deceived by this change of loadouts, people are just trying srms again. ER/PPC's are still just as effective.

I think though Amsro the missile boating will see some of the limitations the energy weapons are experiencing. What I've seen is that a lot of the good snipers aren't worried about the heat penalties, they know how to adapt. The QQ'ing is from those who can't deal with those limitations and now find themselves more of a victim to multiple targeting because they DO boat.

Khobai, on 20 July 2013 - 03:00 PM, said:

large lasers werent overpowered. there was absolutely no reason to nerf them. PGI just has no f-ing clue what theyre doing. They do arbitrary knee jerk balance fixes, without consulting the player base first so we can tell them its stupid, and the game taking strides backwards because of it.

pgi needs to remove this heat penalty nonsense and just fix convergence. Thats all anyone wants. The game should not be dominated by alphastrike builds.

Consulting the playerbase (even just the ones here in the forum) would simply cause them to stall with changes altogether. A smaller focused group like the 12 vs. 12 servers give them more acute data made by people who really want to give constructive feedback.

[SixBottles]

FupDup, on 20 July 2013 - 06:28 AM, said:

How often,exactly, do you see people shooting for a Highlander's arm (the place where it holds ballstics)?

By the way, making high alphas take more tonnage doesn't remove high alphas from the game, because pinpoint damage to a single location (usually the CT) is still the most effective way to kill a mech (other than lights and zombie Cents).

ok. first off nobady wants to remove high alphas. high alphas are fine if they come with consequences like slow firing rate or range restrictions.

secondly more tonnage, ammo and fragitility are damn important. it DOES matter if u can afford those extra 10 tons or not. u must trade somethin for em... u compromise. see thats the sort of consequences i was talking about.
the fierced ppc stalker cant even mount a gauß. and if u have a misery u loose a couple of double heatsinks and restrict yourself to a limited engine due to the extra weight.

and lastly... u dont see people shooting at a highlanders arm? maybe there u got your problem. instead of always targeting the ct u should tacticly decide what to shoot. take the atlas for example... if u get that side torso, its offensive capabilities will be cut in half. if u aim at the misslepods of an catapult u'll do the same... or the arm of an catrapat or the legs of a light.

i am not saying that the game is finally balanced now, i am still waiting for the 180m minimun range for the ppc and/or a slight heat nerf or the buffs of lbx's, pulselasers etc...
BUT this last patch was a step in the right direction.

[tigerija]

I think they are still earning and earn a lot of money for this game. Not too much I'd say. But I dont think they invested a lot into this game (might sound bad but I dont mean it). Mostly programmers I'd say.

Also, there are groups. So 3 LL. Why not 2+1?

Only problem is that their autofire feature should be improved to go with this new heat feature.

Option to set 3 LL to fire 2 at a time and 3rd one after 0.5 seconds. That should be by default actually. And then player should be able to customize chain to make it fire 1 by 1 if he wants to.
4 LL get fires 2+2. He can customize then.

Chain fire for 4 LL works bad. And grouping them is very user unfriendly.

Edited by tigerija, 20 July 2013 - 03:33 PM.

[KuruptU4Fun]

tigerija, on 20 July 2013 - 03:31 PM, said:

I think they are still earning and earn a lot of money for this game. Not too much I'd say. But I dont think they invested a lot into this game (might sound bad but I dont mean it). Mostly programmers I'd say.

Also, there are groups. So 3 LL. Why not 2+1?

Only problem is that their autofire feature should be improved to go with this new heat feature.

Option to set 3 LL to fire 2 at a time and 3rd one after 0.5 seconds. That should be by default actually. And then player should be able to customize chain to make it fire 1 by 1 if he wants to.
4 LL get fires 2+2. He can customize then.

Chain fire for 4 LL works bad. And grouping them is very user unfriendly.

I think some sort of in game timing macro for certain weapons is needed. Not as a module, but something that needs to be equipped. Kind of like the command module that was first in the game, but never used.

[FupDup]

SixBottles, on 20 July 2013 - 03:08 PM, said:

ok. first off nobady wants to remove high alphas. high alphas are fine if they come with consequences like slow firing rate or range restrictions.

If nobody wants to remove high alphas, then why the hell are people praising the heat scale system? Isn't that the intended point of it all?

SixBottles, on 20 July 2013 - 03:08 PM, said:

secondly more tonnage, ammo and fragitility are damn important. it DOES matter if u can afford those extra 10 tons or not. u must trade somethin for em... u compromise. see thats the sort of consequences i was talking about.
the fierced ppc stalker cant even mount a gauß. and if u have a misery u loose a couple of double heatsinks and restrict yourself to a limited engine due to the extra weight.

People have been boating PPCs and Gauss on Highlanders as the main loadout for the mech since the thing was released months ago; and have been doing it on Cataphracts for even longer. Must not be effective at all if all of the high level Highlanders use it...

SixBottles, on 20 July 2013 - 03:08 PM, said:

and lastly... u dont see people shooting at a highlanders arm? maybe there u got your problem. instead of always targeting the ct u should tacticly decide what to shoot. take the atlas for example... if u get that side torso, its offensive capabilities will be cut in half. if u aim at the misslepods of an catapult u'll do the same... or the arm of an catrapat or the legs of a light.

The arm has almost as much armor as the side torso, and therefore it is wasted effort. This is true for nearly every single mech out there, except for Catapults who have most of their weapons in their ears. By the time you've blown off the arm, you could've just destroyed the side torso to remove the arm with it. The whole point of that example was to show you why the Gauss Rifle's explodability isn't as much of a liability as everybody likes to claim it is.

Edited by FupDup, 20 July 2013 - 04:41 PM.

[Amsro]

KuruptU4Fun, on 20 July 2013 - 03:04 PM, said:

I think though Amsro the missile boating will see some of the limitations the energy weapons are experiencing. What I've seen is that a lot of the good snipers aren't worried about the heat penalties, they know how to adapt. The QQ'ing is from those who can't deal with those limitations and now find themselves more of a victim to multiple targeting because they DO boat.

I guess my post was misinterpreted, I am fully encouraging the SRM buff, i've even dusted off a couple mechs (trebuchet's).

My main reasoning was to show how little effect the heat boating penalty had on the meta, the big change came in the way of brawling encouraged by SRM builds.

Simply returning ER/PPC heat and/or velocity back to pre buff numbers would be more effective at curbing boating then this system. They were buffed because you could barely hit (Hit Detection was worse then it is now). Now that you can hit with them, they are overpowered.

In the end this system is just a bandaid, on top of previous bandaids from problems that have now been fixed. PGI instead needs to backtrack and look at changes that were implemented as fixes to see if they are still needed.

[Deathlike]

FupDup, on 20 July 2013 - 04:41 PM, said:

The arm has almost as much armor as the side torso, and therefore it is wasted effort. This is true for nearly every single mech out there, except for Catapults who have most of their weapons in their ears. By the time you've blown off the arm, you could've just destroyed the side torso to remove the arm with it. The whole point of that example was to show you why the Gauss Rifle's explodability isn't as much of a liability as everybody likes to claim it is.

I got "disarmed" once in a match... it didn't really bother me too much:


I got kinda lucky to have survived it TBH. It didn't help the outcome at all.

[John MatriX82]

It's an hard to explain system for new players, it's hard to make it understand even in the mechlab and it doesn't really solve the issue.

I'd rather like to have an hardpoint limitation system, many are adverse to it, but it would solve all the issues we have, allowing boating for boaters (Awesomes with 3 PPCs would be ok), limit uber lrm boats and srm boats and so on.

[theta123]

Well what we see now is PPC/PPC/ERPPC/Gauss builds........

Meanwhile im just sitting here getting killed in my normally build Victor.

[SixBottles]

FupDup, on 20 July 2013 - 04:41 PM, said:

If nobody wants to remove high alphas, then why the hell are people praising the heat scale system? Isn't that the intended point of it all?

no its not. its about balancing them. high alphas were and are still way too good in comparison to alternatetive tactics like brawling or high DPS builds.

Quote

People have been boating PPCs and Gauss on Highlanders as the main loadout for the mech since the thing was released months ago; and have been doing it on Cataphracts for even longer. Must not be effective at all if all of the high level Highlanders use it...

i personally never had any problems with dual ppc and gauß builds. especially the cataphract is fine since it isnt that heavily armored. they are maybe a bit too good but this patch was not a final thing, tweaks will come in the folowing patches.
the main thing what makes gauß/ppc combo much fairer than mono ppc builds are tonnage, ammo and different projectile speeds.

like i said... i am still waiting for that minimum range adjustment for the ppc. if thats in, the heat can remain as it is, cause the hard counter to sniping and pinpoint damage would be flanking and closing in. like it is with the lrm's.

as for the arm story, yes i concur with you, the armor values for arms is too high on most mechs. but still, u can easily rip off that armor in 2-3 volleys and then u will only need minor damage to destroy that gauß.
if u want to blow off the entire side torso u will need to rip off more armor and then reduce the internal hitpoints to zero, wich will take some time on big mechs like the highlanders, effectivly doubling the amount of damage u need to deal to achieve your goal.

[Black Ivan]

PGI fixes something, but they don't change the entire mechanic to deny boating of any sort.
What they should do is introduce different hardpoint variants, so that the options for boating become less.

Edited by Black Ivan, 21 July 2013 - 01:56 AM.

[SixBottles]

well, because for me, that stupid hardpoint system is half the fun of the game... i think i've spent more time in mechbays and smurfy than on the battlefield. take the customisation away and you will loose half the playerbase. and PGI knows this.

[MustrumRidcully]

Black Ivan, on 21 July 2013 - 01:55 AM, said:

PGI fixes something, but they don't change the entire mechanic to deny boating of any sort.
What they should do is introduce different hardpoint variants, so that the options for boating become less.

"Less" is insufficient. How many Stalker variants did we really need to get the 4 PPC sniper?

You need something to ensure that you can either:
- never build such boats
- never get such an advantage from boating.

The first requires saying no to a lot of stock mechs that happened to be boats.
The second requires more work. Paul seems to think it requires fiddling with heat penalties, I disagree, especially since it will feel quite weird to turn a Triple Gauss Rifle mech like the Thunder Hawk into an overheating nightmare. (And note how PGI seems scared away from giving us Dual Ballistic Assaults so far. The Victor had two variants that could have easily been turned into such ballistic boats, PGI did deliberately not implement those.)

[Amsro]

MustrumRidcully, on 21 July 2013 - 02:39 AM, said:

"Less" is insufficient. How many Stalker variants did we really need to get the 4 PPC sniper?

You need something to ensure that you can either:
- never build such boats
- never get such an advantage from boating.

The first requires saying no to a lot of stock mechs that happened to be boats.
The second requires more work. Paul seems to think it requires fiddling with heat penalties, I disagree, especially since it will feel quite weird to turn a Triple Gauss Rifle mech like the Thunder Hawk into an overheating nightmare. (And note how PGI seems scared away from giving us Dual Ballistic Assaults so far. The Victor had two variants that could have easily been turned into such ballistic boats, PGI did deliberately not implement those.)

Instead of fixing PPC's with heat, meaning you won't put 4 PPC's on your mech cause thats HOT!!!

They punush you with ninja heat if you can't stagger shots, If you can stagger shots then you still get the damage you were looking for as well as being pinpoint, in a timeframe that outpaces most people's reaction time. LOL!!

[FupDup]

SixBottles, on 21 July 2013 - 01:53 AM, said:

no its not. its about balancing them. high alphas were and are still way too good in comparison to alternatetive tactics like brawling or high DPS builds.

Except that the heat scale hits brawlers as well:
-Jagerbombs*
-People with more than 3 SRM6
-Streakcats*, also Stalker 5M's with 5 Streaks (although the heat scale for SSRMs is pretty low)
-Swaybacks or even Awesomes with 7 ML
-Various builds with 3+ LL (mostly Heavy Metals, there would've been Victors too if not for the heat scale)
-LPL boats (which already suck hard enough as it is)


*Note that I don't exactly care about preserving either of those FoTM's, I'm just pointing out that brawlers are hurt too.


And as for DPS builds, those always have performed less effectively than pinpoint alpha for various reasons, most notably our very high heat cap but pathetic dissipation rate. The heat system compliments long-range hillhump play because once DPS/brawlers reach their heat cap (which can happen very quickly on most builds) they can't cool down any faster than a sniper. Slow dissipation doesn't matter a damn if you've got a hidey hill to sit behind while you cool off.

Edited by FupDup, 21 July 2013 - 09:33 AM.

[Shinikaru]

Victor Morson, on 16 July 2013 - 03:18 PM, said:

$10 says every casual that votes yes is doing so because they are fighting other casuals that have adapted poorly.

I will admit it is amusing feeling like a God in games right now, because you can wade into the thick of their crappy designs and just murder them to death with PPC + Gauss that they think was hurt by this..



Exactly.

The games today have been so hilariously bad I've had time to explain this to people BETWEEN shots.

Sadly PGI seems to be basing most of its major "game changing" patches off of the very vocal casual part of the game population.
Personally not being part of that side, and much preferring competitive play requiring a higher personal skill I am constantly annoyed with PGI's dumbing down of their game with overly complicated additional layers.
They keep building on these additional game-play mechanics (JJ Shake/unpredictable offset, Meaningless heat restrictions) to "fix" the balance instead of just looking at the core base layer of their game and fixing that.
If the foundation is weak adding more on top of it won't help at all imo, it will just expedite the implosion. AKA skilled players just quitting out of annoyance or frustration.
Also: what the heck can we now expect for clan mechs and battletech cannon with something like a Kodiak? Just as an example its STOCK base load is now penalized from the get go, makes no sense.

Boating was never an issue to begin with, and calling this an addition to the games "depth" is nonsense. It was a clear-cut change to quell complaints of "boating".

What PGI has not yet figured out is that the vocal majority is not also the skilled minority, and the hard core minority spend more in the long run than "casual" majority players do. Especially now that it's getting harder and harder for a new casual to just pick up and go in this game, they are removing the fun factor while trying to make it as easy/dumbed down as possible. (imo)

[Grand Ayatollah Kerensky]

Played some games last night. Good to see that the sniper meta is alive and well. The only positive thing to come out of the patch was the SRM buff which probably took an intern 5 minutes to implement.