545 replies to this topic

[Kitane]

Large Lasers were nerfed because they were the most obvious choice of boating if PPCs became unpopular.

And while LLs have issues with damage spread, they also have a perfect convergence PPC boats could only dream about. Leading the target disrupts the convergence. You don't lead with lasers, you have your perfect convergence every time on every shot.

Edited by Kitane, 17 July 2013 - 01:49 AM.

[blinkin]

Theodor Kling, on 17 July 2013 - 12:48 AM, said:

Good thing there is no infantry too shoot that at ingame then

remember, aim at the shirt because weapons should be used for the purpose of destroying equipment.

NextGame, on 17 July 2013 - 01:47 AM, said:

dont like the completely arbitary weapon limits (large laser in particular) and dont see why everyone should be forced to run tabletop builds as online != tabletop.

no one is forced to do anything, but they are penalized for running extremist builds.

[SmoothCriminal]

FYI LPLs havent been nerfed, so a four LPL k2 can dish out 120+ damage before overheating.

[Theodor Kling]

Iceash, on 17 July 2013 - 01:39 AM, said:

While there are still a few tweeks that need to be made the overall gameplay i have seen in the last 20 odd matches seem to allow for a greater diversity in mechs and builds.

Ppl are no longer trying to cram the most ppc's they can fit into their machines, so apart from a few stalkers with 2ppc 2erppc which will be dealt with on the 30th i have been hit with everything apart from an lbx-10 and the kitchen sink.

There seems to be alot of complaining about the system in place, while it seems quite complicated for new players I can't really see what the issue is apart from maybe ppl don't like change and don't like having to now find a new build.

My complaining is not about not liking change ( since that was long overdue), but like others already mentioned the over complicated change. I don't get why they didn't simply play around with the heat values a bit. Simple numbers change, takes about a minute to do? Ok.. with double checking for typos by several people maybe 20 min?
Maybe the new stacking penalty would have been needed after that anyway, maybe not. But they never tried the simple approach, instead they came up with a new system they needed to code from scratch. A code that is obviously not very flexible as well, else the combining of PPC and ERPPC would have been in this patch.

That said: yes, at least in my elo ranges the new system seems to work mostly, bringing more diversity to the field. Although it is sometimes hard to judge if its because of the new heat system or the fun dmg buff to SRMs

[Hauser]

Theodor Kling, on 17 July 2013 - 02:24 AM, said:

But they never tried the simple approach, instead they came up with a new system they needed to code from scratch.

The simple approach would have people shift to the next best weapon and boat that. This system prevents that all together.

Theodor Kling, on 17 July 2013 - 02:24 AM, said:

That said: yes, at least in my elo ranges the new system seems to work mostly, bringing more diversity to the field. Although it is sometimes hard to judge if its because of the new heat system or the fun dmg buff to SRMs

Both.

There is less accurate fire incoming and the mechs that still do it run hot. This makes closing the range for a brawl and brawling easier.

[NextGame]

Kitane, on 17 July 2013 - 01:49 AM, said:

Large Lasers were nerfed because they were the most obvious choice of boating if PPCs became unpopular.

And while LLs have issues with damage spread, they also have a perfect convergence PPC boats could only dream about. Leading the target disrupts the convergence. You don't lead with lasers, you have your perfect convergence every time on every shot.

If you nerf every viable weapon, which is practically what has happened, you don't fix anything, you just make the game more complicated to play for no real reason, with bizarre & needlessly harebrained weapon combinations required for decent damage output. All that was actually needed were minor tweaks to sniper weapons, not the wholesale slaughter of boating builds.

[NextGame]

blinkin, on 17 July 2013 - 02:04 AM, said:

no one is forced to do anything, but they are penalized for running extremist builds.

I think you have the word extremist confused with the word logical

Edited by NextGame, 17 July 2013 - 03:22 AM.

[Kyynele]

I personally disagree with the methods they used to fix the game, and still think it's an illogical and confusing system.

However in practice, at least the 10+ games I played immediately after the patch were a tremendous improvement in gameplay variety. Gauss + 2x PPC might still be a problem but I'm sure it will get sorted out as well. For the results, I voted "yes."

[Vassago Rain]

It has no effect on any of my mechs.

[Kitane]

NextGame, on 17 July 2013 - 03:05 AM, said:

If you nerf every viable weapon, which is practically what has happened, you don't fix anything, you just make the game more complicated to play for no real reason, with bizarre & needlessly harebrained weapon combinations required for decent damage output. All that was actually needed were minor tweaks to sniper weapons, not the wholesale slaughter of boating builds.

You don't have to tell me that. A heat scale balance is a solution, but not a good solution. The LL nerf was to be expected when heat scale plan was announced, because LL is right behind PPCs as an excellent boating weapon.

[Mega Prawn]

Kitane, on 17 July 2013 - 01:49 AM, said:

Large Lasers were nerfed because they were the most obvious choice of boating if PPCs became unpopular.

And while LLs have issues with damage spread, they also have a perfect convergence PPC boats could only dream about. Leading the target disrupts the convergence. You don't lead with lasers, you have your perfect convergence every time on every shot.

I don't wish to put words in your mouth, but I'm assuming you're arguing in favour of the LL nerf?

If that's so, I'm afraid I must disagree. Your point about the perfect LL convergence is a fair one, but LLs also have the substantial disadvantage of being a duration weapon. This means two things: 1) Damage is, as you said, spread over your target; 2) in order to put all damage on target and mitigate laser-raking you have to remain exposed for the duration of the weapon's firing time.

The second point in particular is a major difference between LLs and PPCs. When using PPCs you have much more freedom to corner-creep, pop-tart, torso-twist, and snap-shot, not to mention the fact that all 10 points of damage will go in one place.

I in no way thought that LLs were in any need of a buff, I just cannot see how they needed to be nerfed. Even if everyone dumped PPCs in favour of LL boating, matches would probably be closer and more interesting. But bear in mind that if the meta shifted in such a way, then that would mean the balancing was over-zealous. The appropriate thing to do would have been to alter PPCs in such a way that they remained useful but not patently dominant - some people would have switched to LLs (or something else) whilst others would stick to PPCs.

[Lykaon]

I'm not a fan of it mainly on account of it not actually doing anything significant.

So my 2 ER-PPC 2 PPC stalker alpha spam boat was not effected and won't be until the 30th.After the 30th I will instead be using a Misery with 2 ER-PPC and 1 Gauss rifle.This Misery trades off 5 points of alpha damage for better heat managment superior mobility (300 engine on this baby) and no deminished damage at min. ranges because I traded the PPCs for a Gauss.

My AC40 Jaeger was changed to a Gauss Rifle twin PPC configuration.Again I lost 5 damage off a 40 point alpha but now I have less ammo dependency issue and much longer range.

My Highlander needed adjustments. 3 PPCs and a gauss is now 2 ER-PPCs and a Gauss and the third PPC was traded for 2 SRM6 racks (yeay buffed SRMs)

My Atlas needed no changes it had 2 ER-PPCs and a Gauss,350 std engine and a SRM6.

Spiders are still nigh invulnerable so my spider doesn't care if 3 or more PPCs are more heat I only have 1.

This heat patch was overall a waste of time that bearly altered anything.We will see more results from the SRM buff than this heat penalty patch as far as altering the meta goes.

Edited by Lykaon, 17 July 2013 - 04:40 AM.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

I'd imagine the reason large lasers were caught up in this is purely due to PGI's internal numbers.

Large Laser boats would post HUGE damage numbers at the end of matches.

It's not necessarily that they were more effective than PPC's, but I've seen more 1000 damage games from LL boats for obvious reasons.

They probably overreacted to that.

[Kitane]

Mega Prawn, on 17 July 2013 - 04:21 AM, said:

I don't wish to put words in your mouth, but I'm assuming you're arguing in favour of the LL nerf?

No, LL didn't need nerf. But if PG wanted to nerf boating, then they couldn't avoid nerfing LLs, they were one of best boatable weapons in the game.

So while I don't agree with the general idea of nerfing boating, I agree with nerfing LLs along other boatable weapons to keep it consistent.

[Faithsfall]

Theodor Kling, on 17 July 2013 - 02:24 AM, said:

My complaining is not about not liking change ( since that was long overdue), but like others already mentioned the over complicated change. I don't get why they didn't simply play around with the heat values a bit. Simple numbers change, takes about a minute to do? Ok.. with double checking for typos by several people maybe 20 min?
Maybe the new stacking penalty would have been needed after that anyway, maybe not. But they never tried the simple approach, instead they came up with a new system they needed to code from scratch. A code that is obviously not very flexible as well, else the combining of PPC and ERPPC would have been in this patch.

That said: yes, at least in my elo ranges the new system seems to work mostly, bringing more diversity to the field. Although it is sometimes hard to judge if its because of the new heat system or the fun dmg buff to SRMs

I agree with you, this could have been looked at in a far simpler way, but I and others have been saying this for a long time, change things in baby steps but more frequently to see if it works or not, unfortunatly PGI seem unable to do this and keep going for the large change.

Now saying that this change to the heat setup seems to be a huge improvment on what the game had degenerated into.

The thing i mentioned about ppl not liking change, well i was trying not to say that unfortunatly alot of ppl who were running the max number of ppc's are the main ones who seem to be complaining the loudest.

[3rdworld]

BTW, you cannot use Chain Fire for 2x2 PPCs, it will trigger the penalty.

Their own chain fire mechanic doesn't work with the idiocy that is Paul's balance schemes.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

3rdworld, on 17 July 2013 - 04:58 AM, said:

BTW, you cannot use Chain Fire for 2x2 PPCs, it will trigger the penalty.

Their own chain fire mechanic doesn't work with the idiocy that is Paul's balance schemes.

Er...confirm for me, so if I shoot 2 PPC's, then .5 seconds later, shoot 2 more. It triggers the penalty?

[3rdworld]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 17 July 2013 - 04:59 AM, said:

Er...confirm for me, so if I shoot 2 PPC's, then .5 seconds later, shoot 2 more. It triggers the penalty?

I don't have a macro written to try it. I can probably give it a shot tonight.

All I know, they said that chain firing them 2 then 2 won't trigger the penalty because the CD on CF is supposed to be .5 secs. And that is completely false.

Edit: My guess, that chain firing is effected by the pilot skill "Fast Fire". However PGI didn't think to take it into consideration when laying the rotten egg that is Paul's heat scale.

Edit #2: I have a un-elited QKD, that I can get 4 PPCs on. I will test it tonight as well and see if my intuition is correct.

Edited by 3rdworld, 17 July 2013 - 05:07 AM.

[EvilCow]

I like having less boats in game but I dislike this method.

[Perigrinial]

I like the new system. The game feels more like Mechwarrior and less like CoD sniper wars now.