545 replies to this topic

[B0oN]

FupDup, on 16 July 2013 - 03:11 PM, said:

I'm going to guess that they're the ones who don't know how the game works and therefore they don't know how to circumvent it; so they automatically assumes that it fixes the metagame just because PGI said so.

Absolute truth, as I don´t have an inkling of what´s going on or how to work around it !

[Wintersdark]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 16 July 2013 - 03:36 PM, said:

So how can you say you like a system that is still completely exploitable?

That's what I'm trying to figure out.

Basically the thing people like is people are trying to use SRM's.

That's great.

But when they are found to be underwhelming again (which seems to be the case due to the hit detection issues), and people go back to their PPC/Gauss boats (btw, you do realize that a Highlander with 3 PPC's and 1 Gauss only generates 7 extra heat?), then what?

Gotta say, I find SRM's are definitely usable now - the hit detection thing is still an issue, but it affects all weapons so it's kind of a wash.

But like I said above... I just finished changing my Heavy Metal back from it's favoured build of gauss+3LL to Gauss+2ERPPC, because that avoids the silly heat scaling. Yay. MORE PPC's.

Nope... The heat scaling is easily bypassed; AC40 Jag's just rock AC20+2PPC's. Same alpha, still usable when your out of ammo, bigger engine, longer range. Again.... More PPC's.

3rdworld, on 16 July 2013 - 03:52 PM, said:

You have to remember, people on the forums actually think AC/40 mechs were an issue.

The amount of TT nuthuggers and PGI brownnosers far excede people that are good at the game (that post on the forums).

Yup. The AC40 Jag was not a problem, and the AC40 Cat... well... heh.

People were all up in arms about it, and now it's gone. A little lost flavour, but the replacements will do exactly the same thing but better.

[Victor Morson]

They probably see a lot more people running other builds, and aren't getting sniped, so they think it's OK... until someone that knows how to snipe shows up.

I mean half of these people are running the worst Frankenmechs ever now, with AC/5 and AC/10 mixes and such. It's kind of hilarious, but mostly depressing.

[Victor Morson]

Wintersdark, on 16 July 2013 - 03:54 PM, said:

I'd say this has nothing to do with the heat system and everything to do with OMGSRM'SDON'TSUCKANYMORE. SRM's and brawling have always been a favourite of many, but SRM's have sucked for so damn long.

SRMs aren't all that great, honestly, at 2.0. They really aren't. They're decent now, at most. Twin AC/20s would be far, far more powerful than them, if they didn't cause something ludicrous like.. what was it? *42* heat?

Wintersdark, on 16 July 2013 - 03:54 PM, said:

The heat thing... I approve of thought behind it, but I just can't support it because it's too complex and unintuitive, extremely difficult to explain to non-forum folk who won't see the table, and is entirely too easy to circumvent - even if you ignore how you can use erppc's and ppc's together right now, as that will be fixed.

It's one of those thoughts that should have died the minute it hit paper and got peer reviewed. If they allow peer reviews.

Perhaps Paul is like Lucas in his later years, only allowing yes-men or people who know to shut up to talk to him inside PGI?

Wintersdark, on 16 July 2013 - 03:54 PM, said:

I'm saddened that my various 3LL builds were viewed as OP... I've swapped them to 2PPC builds instead - which actually worsens the whole high alpha meta thing.

Yep. The Large Laser got voted repeatedly as the "best baseline weapon" on these forums, the weapon all others should aspire to be on a per-tonnage basis. Instead we got this hilarious twin PPC+Gauss bump, while anything that could combat it is dead.

Wintersdark, on 16 July 2013 - 03:54 PM, said:

But... yeah. It's well intentioned, but it doesn't actually help the game at all. That's just hidden by the SRM's, so people will attribute build changes to the heat system.

People are making different builds.. but it's horrible. 6 PPC Stalkers are becoming med/small/srm2/lrm10 builds that are sure to make the TT-is-law crowd swoon, but ultimately die just as horrendously as they would have before.

SRMs are OK at best, again, and just ultimately not worth centering a build around. In particular given the "genius" 3 cap on the 6s.

[Nauht]

If it doesnt affect you so much ehy cry so hard about it?

So far I've seen the usual excuses -

- I never ran a ppc boat, so this doesnt affect me at all, but the heat penalty sucks.
- I run with 4 ppcs but always chained the , so this doesnt affect me at all, but the heat penalty sucks.
- I was running a ppc/gr setup waaay back when my mech was still a nut, so this doesnt affect me at all, but the heat penalty sucks.

What a joke.

Admit it - you only care so much cos it affects YOU.

Funny how the forums become so altruistic when a patch comes that affects someone's preferrd build.

[FupDup]

Nauht, on 16 July 2013 - 04:10 PM, said:

If it doesnt affect you so much ehy cry so hard about it?

So far I've seen the usual excuses -

- I never ran a ppc boat, so this doesnt affect me at all, but the heat penalty sucks.
- I run with 4 ppcs but always chained the , so this doesnt affect me at all, but the heat penalty sucks.
- I was running a ppc/gr setup waaay back when my mech was still a nut, so this doesnt affect me at all, but the heat penalty sucks.

What a joke.

Admit it - you only care so much cos it affects YOU.

Funny how the forums become so altruistic when a patch comes that affects someone's preferrd build.

The reason we don't like it is because it doesn't work. It has more loopholes than the US tax code and any player with a brain will be able to circumvent it if they haven't already. Why would we like systems that don't work?

[Dadrick]

The game was more fun tonight than it has been in a while.

[Rahnu]

3rdworld, on 16 July 2013 - 03:52 PM, said:

You have to remember, people on the forums actually think AC/40 mechs were an issue.

The amount of TT nuthuggers and PGI brownnosers far excede people that are good at the game (that post on the forums).

Wait, what?

You seriously thought 40 damage with pinpoint accuracy and minimal heat generation could be anything other than a massive, game-breaking issue after PPCs (inevitably) get nerfed?

Let me remind you folks that it doesn't matter if sniping is the name of the game right now. Eventually, sniping will not be top-of-the-deck anymore, and when that happens we have to consider the internal balance between all the brawling weapon systems. When one weapon system (the AC/40 in this case) greatly outshines all of the others, we have a problem. And when that weapon system already lets people kill other mechs in the space of 8 seconds, I'm pretty damn well sure I don't want everything else to get buffed up to its level!

Edited by Zyrusticae, 16 July 2013 - 04:24 PM.

[Tigerwolf]

I love how the "hardcore" players seem to always come out with their arrogant "it doesn't work" and "I know because I am better at this game than you". Being a "TT nuthugger", I find the current system tolerable and agree that the issue is convergence. I also agree that this community is very antagonistic and gives Monty Python's argument sketch a run for its money.

We fixed boating!
No you didn't.
We know it's not perfect, but we are trying.
No you're not.

[MischiefSC]

The false freedom of false choices.

What this heat scale does is give the impression of nerfing boating without significantly nerfing boating - which, in essence, seems about perfect since I'm not sure PGI *wants* to nerf boating. I'm not even sure boating needs a nerf. Some mechs are designed to boat.

A real fix would address why people boat - pinpoint convergence, etc. Not a new topic to anyone I'm sure.

What this will do is lend a false value to sub-optimal builds under the premise of avoiding 'boating penalties'.

It doesn't really hurt anything or change anything except perception for some people so I guess that's good. An increase to PPC/ERPPC and a reduction to PPC projectile speed would do more and be more significant.

Boating is a product of 2 things. Instant pinpoint convergence (an issue PGI has said won't be fixed for a long time) and weapon imbalance. You get some synergy from boating multiple weapons with the same projectile performance and some weapons are better than others. Some, like PPCs/ERPPCs significantly so. Thus they get boated.

I don't like or dislike the new boating system. I do see it for what it is - a half-baked band-aid for a more serious set of problems. PPCs are getting fixed by the sound of it by the end of the month - rolling back the buffs they got to make them viable until HSR came in. Convergence is an issue they've said is going to take a good long while. Until then.... what do you do?

[Rahnu]

MischiefSC, on 16 July 2013 - 04:25 PM, said:

Convergence is an issue they've said is going to take a good long while. Until then.... what do you do?

Sadly, the answer is depressingly obvious here: Quit, and don't spend a dime on the game until the issues get fixed.

The unfortunate truth is that I have not actually felt a single urge to log into the game in months, not even to steal a glance at the new mech chassis. Convergence is the one issue getting fixed that would actually reinvigorate my interest in the game, but as PGI clearly does not see it as a top priority, who knows how long it'll be before something actually happens?

What especially irritates me is that the better bandaid solutions seem obvious - improving internal weapon balance with frequent (and very badly-needed) tweaks to overpowered weapon systems until there's something resembling a decent balance would do a lot to help the game, as opposed to waiting for weeks to do something as simple as changing the numbers in a txt file. If every weapon had sufficient pros and cons such that a mech boating only a single weapon system is beholden to all of those pros and cons, we wouldn't be having the problems we're having now (aside from the convergence still needing to be fixed, obviously). But for whatever reason, we've been stuck with a single weapon system outstripping everything for months on end. It's embarrassing.

Edited by Zyrusticae, 16 July 2013 - 04:39 PM.

[subgenius]

So this thread is basically 3 guys going chicken little, and when others come back with differing opinions, they basically just tell them "you're wrong, because I'm absolutely sure this will fail".

Sorry Fup and Victor, just because you want it to fail doesn't make it so. Plenty of us are having a good time and seeing more diversity on the field post patch.

[Unbound Inferno]

Should add a disclaimer. Those answering Yes aren't noticing or are getting around it with no noticeable changes.

[FupDup]

subgenius, on 16 July 2013 - 04:39 PM, said:

So this thread is basically 3 guys going chicken little, and when others come back with differing opinions, they basically just tell them "you're wrong, because I'm absolutely sure this will fail".

Sorry Fup and Victor, just because you want it to fail doesn't make it so. Plenty of us are having a good time and seeing more diversity on the field post patch.

I don't "want" it to fail, because it already does that all by itself. No external assistance is necessary.

You're also messing up the cause-and-effect chain of seeing people use fewer PPCs.
The causes are:
1. People are goofing around with the new SRM buff
2. Many people don't yet know how to mix PPCs and Gauss to bypass the heat scale system

[Nicholas Carlyle]

subgenius, on 16 July 2013 - 04:39 PM, said:

So this thread is basically 3 guys going chicken little, and when others come back with differing opinions, they basically just tell them "you're wrong, because I'm absolutely sure this will fail".

Sorry Fup and Victor, just because you want it to fail doesn't make it so. Plenty of us are having a good time and seeing more diversity on the field post patch.

Once again, can you explain why you feel this fixed the problem?

I've yet to have anyone who likes the new mechanics explain why they think it is working.

The only thing they say is "Well I see less PPC boats", which could be for a variety of reasons, none of which has anything to do with the new heat mechanics.

[Wintersdark]

Nauht, on 16 July 2013 - 04:10 PM, said:

If it doesnt affect you so much ehy cry so hard about it?

So far I've seen the usual excuses -

- I never ran a ppc boat, so this doesnt affect me at all, but the heat penalty sucks.
- I run with 4 ppcs but always chained the , so this doesnt affect me at all, but the heat penalty sucks.
- I was running a ppc/gr setup waaay back when my mech was still a nut, so this doesnt affect me at all, but the heat penalty sucks.

What a joke.

Admit it - you only care so much cos it affects YOU.

Funny how the forums become so altruistic when a patch comes that affects someone's preferrd build.

You can care about something because you feel it's bad for the game even if it doesn't affect you.

The heat changes DO affect me. But it's ironic, because the heat changes are pushing me out of non-high pinpoint alpha builds into high pinpoint alpha builds.

I never (other than a couple times for lols) ran 4+ ppc builds I don't like them. I did like Large Lasers, and had several 3LL and a 4LL build: My Heavy Metal and Misery sported 3LL's, and my Flame sported 4.

Well, PGI has ensured that my HM and Misery will now be Gauss+2ERPPC (no heat penalty) and my Flame... Seriously, my 4LL Flame was OP? Well, ok.

I did run a AC40 Jag. I ran it because I'm obsessed with symmetry on otherwise symmetrical mechs. But, that's not an option now, so I run AC20+2PPC+3MG. That is, if it's escaped you, a much more potent build, with exactly the same pinpoint alpha strike ability, but also with much longer range and less ammo dependance.

All three of these builds actively worsen the sniping meta. None of these three mechs were snipers before, all three often are now.

I'm upset with these changes because, quite simply put: They didn't fix the problem. They fixed problems that don't exist, or where imaginary (6 SRM6 cat, ac40jag, 6ppc stalker), and didn't impact the gauss+2PPC which dominates the meta. And even then... the problems they "fixed"? They're all easy to bypass - such as the AC40Jag change shown above.


So, yeah, I don't like these changes. Not because they hurt me - they don't, really, other than making me move more builds to PPC's when I wasn't really eager to do that - but because they don't do what they're supposed to do, and as I said above they're extremely confusing for players who don't read the forums.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

By the way, I can say I've used a PPC/Gauss combination build about 5 times total. I've had an ER PPC mounted on a Raven for 5 or 6 times for the "lulz" when I was annoyed. These changes, even if they did work, do nothing to effect the builds I play regularly.

I do not own any Stalkers at all.

So when I complain about this, it is not because I was nerfed. It's because it was just plain poorly thought out.

[Wintersdark]

subgenius, on 16 July 2013 - 04:39 PM, said:

So this thread is basically 3 guys going chicken little, and when others come back with differing opinions, they basically just tell them "you're wrong, because I'm absolutely sure this will fail".

Sorry Fup and Victor, just because you want it to fail doesn't make it so. Plenty of us are having a good time and seeing more diversity on the field post patch.

Wat? There's no chicken little. This isn't going to particularly hurt the game. Our issue with it is that it's not fixing anything, it's bandaid placed six inches away from the wound. Fail? It's not going to make the game fail. It's a small change in the grand scheme of things which we'll all adapt to quickly.

It's just not going to fix anything.

And it's really annoying that people keep attributing the diversity you see in builds now to the heat changes, when the majority of it is due to the SRM changes, and the rest is experimentation. You'll see most people go back to Gauss+2PPC, except for those who stick with SRM's - but don't think anyone is sticking with SRM's because of the heat changes.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Wintersdark, on 16 July 2013 - 04:48 PM, said:

Wat? There's no chicken little. This isn't going to particularly hurt the game. Our issue with it is that it's not fixing anything, it's bandaid placed six inches away from the wound. Fail? It's not going to make the game fail. It's a small change in the grand scheme of things which we'll all adapt to quickly.

It's just not going to fix anything.

And it's really annoying that people keep attributing the diversity you see in builds now to the heat changes, when the majority of it is due to the SRM changes, and the rest is experimentation. You'll see most people go back to Gauss+2PPC, except for those who stick with SRM's - but don't think anyone is sticking with SRM's because of the heat changes.

This is it in a nut shell.

The damn changes didn't fix a thing.

And I don't think the proposed additions in the upcoming July 30th patch will either.

[Wintersdark]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 16 July 2013 - 04:44 PM, said:

Once again, can you explain why you feel this fixed the problem?

I've yet to have anyone who likes the new mechanics explain why they think it is working.

The only thing they say is "Well I see less PPC boats", which could be for a variety of reasons, none of which has anything to do with the new heat mechanics.

Could be an Elo thing, but I never really did see many 4+ PPC boats. Pretty rarely at best, because they're not very good builds. LOTS of Gauss+2 or 3 PPC's, of course, lots and lots... I suppose (after the patch on the 30th) this will cut down on the Gauss+2PPC1ERPPC build, so everyone will roll Gauss+2PPC+some SRM's.

We'll still see snipefests, because why would you stop?