376 replies to this topic

[Wintersdark]

How is the c4 ruined by this? You can still run 40 tubes easily. And lrm5's are very tonnage efficient, if you're not running Artemis.

I'm running 50 on my a1 via 2 15's and 4 5's, and doing just fine with it.

[GreatBeer]

[Warge]

New map: too bright and... again there is no feeling that you are inside BIG walking warmachine...

[Bounty Dogg]

I'm ok with the changes that PGI have made to balance this game.

That being said......

Repair and Rearm as the Main balancing Mechanic is starting to look pretty good these days.....isn't it.

[gwarm]

GoochyMama, on 30 July 2013 - 11:08 AM, said:

Ok I think this statement needs to be put forth for you all: MechWarrior Online is in beta right now. BETA!

THAT SETTLES IT FOLKS! CANCEL ALL FEEDBACK!

[Fishhawk]

GreatBeer, on 30 July 2013 - 03:00 PM, said:

RAGEEEEEEEQUIT!

very constructive.

[Lynceus]

What actual bothers me most about this patch is the sharing of the highest base heat value for all the linked weapons of the same type.
Despite I think LRM-Boats have a proper role and function in MWO, there are situations where I really want to have my missles clustered in one big pack for example when there is just enough time for one volley to reach the target before I lost the lock or it reaches cover. Till now it was more than viable to link different launcher types together but after this patch I have to pay always the same heat for all my launchers as for my biggest one? So 1xLRM15 and 1xLRM5 actually counts as 2xLRM15 regarding base heath? That's not viable in my opinion and is not by any chance related to skillfull heat management.

At least, it makes AMS so much more worth it and due to increasing chain fire, I can track LRM-Mech positions even better than before.

[GreatBeer]

Fishhawk, on 30 July 2013 - 03:10 PM, said:

RAGEEEEEEEQUIT!

very constructive.

I ain't takin sass from a middle Tennessean. You pick a side or go back to Alabama. :mad:

[Unbound Inferno]

Wintersdark, on 30 July 2013 - 03:00 PM, said:

How is the c4 ruined by this? You can still run 40 tubes easily. And lrm5's are very tonnage efficient, if you're not running Artemis.

I'm running 50 on my a1 via 2 15's and 4 5's, and doing just fine with it.

Yeah, read your own post maybe?

LRM-15s have a smaller spread, and with 4x LRM-5s you have a really good tight group landing.

2x LRM-20s from a C4 is a wide spread and dirt useless, borederline waste of ammo if it wasn't for the occasional Awesome that could get hit with... maybe half of it? Yeah, no.

[Bluecricket]

I'd say it's an appropriate response given how stale the combat has been for the past several months.

Not only does nothing seem to be being done, but the changes being made do little or nothing to actually function as any form of solution to these issues or even indicate that a solution is being investigated.

In fact, many recent changes only serve to make the current powerhouses even stronger. Cataphract 3Ds and HGN 732s range between completely unaffected to only very slightly affected.

Cockpit/Reticule shake has been toned down to the point where poptarting is back to being very easy and possible, and the new heat containment/shutdown penalty "fix" actually makes it even more forgiving on the sniper 'mechs. And now we're going to see crits on equipment causing damage to internals? That is, mechs are going to die even faster??

To compound it all, the latest patch seems to introduce more issues with hit detection on missiles, or it seems like SRMs are adversely affected, as it doesn't feel like I'm doing much damage with my SRM strikers anymore. I tried to stay positive through the past few weeks (I'm seriously one of the only active players left in my unit) and was hoping the SRM damage to 2.0 band-aid would help, but now it's clear that things are only going to get worse before they're going to get better.

[Unbound Inferno]

GreatBeer, on 30 July 2013 - 03:00 PM, said:

I am not there yet. I was determined to stick through till launch once I got on board, and even though I play less I at least try.

[X3N2R10N]

at least ya'll been able to get into the game, my launcher will just stop working as soon as i hit play. instead i get the std microsoft popup stating i should inform microsoft and close the program ... now why would i want to do that ... what i want to do is congratulate at pgi at their continued success at alienating their players ... kudos pgi, kudos !

[DisasterMedic]

WoNkY SaUsAgE, on 30 July 2013 - 03:30 PM, said:

at least ya'll been able to get into the game, my launcher will just stop working as soon as i hit play. instead i get the std microsoft popup stating i should inform microsoft and close the program ... now why would i want to do that ... what i want to do is congratulate at pgi at their continued success at alienating their players ... kudos pgi, kudos !

Your computer knows what you want and desire, and it has determined the optimal course to prevent your sorrows from growing.

[Deathlike]

WoNkY SaUsAgE, on 30 July 2013 - 03:30 PM, said:

at least ya'll been able to get into the game, my launcher will just stop working as soon as i hit play. instead i get the std microsoft popup stating i should inform microsoft and close the program ... now why would i want to do that ... what i want to do is congratulate at pgi at their continued success at alienating their players ... kudos pgi, kudos !

Please use the MWO Repair Tool. It makes miracles occasionally and is worth keeping around for patch day.

[Roosterfish]

How about refunds to people that have bought and leveled up Hunchback 4-P's, Catapult A-1's, Catapult C-4's, Awesome 8-Q's, and Awesome 9-M's? Since these mechs have had what they were actually designed to due nerfed to death.

Poor job by the developers at PGI for ruining these mechs.

[Skyfaller]

Apnu, on 30 July 2013 - 12:45 PM, said:

Or maybe as a pilot you should focus on more than one weapon on your mech. Just thought.

My LRM "boat" is the HBK-4J, I have 2 LRM15s on it. I'm not even a little bit effected by this. Oh and I have 4 medium lasers on it. I don't over heat, and when I run out of LRM ammo I can do something besides plod off to cap a base.

Also: The heat scaling isn't for when you have SRMs and LRMs together, you read that wrong. All LRMs count towards the heat scale as a group. All SRMs the same but if you had say, 2 LRMs and 2 SRMs you have no heat scaling to worry about.

2 lrm 15s is not a boat.

A stalker with 2 LRM15s and 2 LRM10s (or 4 15s or 1 20, 1 15 and 2 10s) is an LRM boat.

The problem with this change is that it EFFECTIVELY removes LRM support mechs from the equation. A CatA1 cannot now equip a full LRM load because it will get insane heat penalty.

For a weapon that has a 10+ second warning, takes 10 seconds to hit at max range, is highly visible in the air AND requires not only a lot of tonnage crit slots... and which REQUIRES additional purchase of upgrades AND modules to even become effective at dealing damage ... giving it a heat penalty is just... IDIOTIC.

Chain firing LRMs only makes them be chewed up by AMS. I know from tests that a quad lrm15 is stopped in FULL if chain fired and just two ams are chewing at it. What other weapon can be countered from start to finish like this? NONE.

The LRM heat penalty needs to be removed.

[X3N2R10N]

Deathlike, on 30 July 2013 - 03:34 PM, said:

Please use the MWO Repair Tool. It makes miracles occasionally and is worth keeping around for patch day.

lolz it didnt work.

[MoonUnitBeta]

tsula, on 30 July 2013 - 11:36 AM, said:

Read here please http://mwomercs.com/...94#entry2605094

Ah, thank you. Yes I was at work so I could not do too much reading. I appreciate the reference.

[Saint Scarlett Johan]

Really? This patch has one good thing in it. A fix to tripping on pebbles in Canyon. Now to do it to the rest of the maps.

But seriously? This new heat scaling is stupid, and lazy.

4xPPCs
-base alpha heat = 32
-multiplier * scale * base heat of weapon: 7*0.30*8 = 16.8
-base alpha heat + penalty: 32+16.68= 48.8

4xERPPCs
-base alpha heat = 44
-multiplier * scale * base heat of weapon: 4.5*0.30*11 = 14.85
-base alpha heat + penalty: 44+14.85= 58.85

2xPPC 2xERPPC
-base alpha heat = (16 + 22) = 38
-multiplier * scale * base heat of weapon: 7*0.30*11 = 23.1
-base alpha heat + penalty: 38 + 23.1 = 61.1


When it should be:
2xPPC 2xERPPC
-base alpha heat = (16 + 22) = 38
-multiplier * scale * base heat of weapon: (4.5*0.30*11)/2 = 7.425
-multiplier * scale * base heat of weapon: (7*0.30*8)/2 = 8.4
-base alpha heat + penalty: 38 + 7.425 + 8.4 = 53.825

And this nerf bat just de-optimized MANY missile boats. The way the tubes are set up on many mechs dictated the size of the LRMs mounted. Now the mechs that would mount an LRM20 and two LRM10s just got swatted down.


So basically, we lost the 40 point alpha STK and 45 point alpha 732 for the far faster and more heat efficient, 35 point CTF-3Dand Firebrands. Or the double Goose Jag, Ilyas, and Gats.


That's what we all wanted, right? To go to the next alpha build? The one's carrying Goose Rifles?


Bravoooooooo.......





Did anyone think that just raising the heat to PPCs and ERPPCs to 10 and 15, respectively, would've been not only simpler but better as well? Many veteran players are having trouble wrapping their head around this. Think of the n00bs? This system hurts them more than us, I can figure out a workaround. That new guy is going to go, "This game is stupid. No tutorial or anything. I join a match with a **** trial mech and get rolled. I finally bought a mech and kitted it out, but it sucks compared to all these other guys mechs. Screw this."



This game can't afford to keep bleeding players like it is.

[superbob]

Sgt Disciple, on 30 July 2013 - 02:04 PM, said:

QQ more it helps. Their taking the fun out of the game? BS you people decided winning was more important than fun long ago. No matter what they do people will dive on whatever boats winning and those who don't cry. They try to fix it then the exploiters cry and find the next easiest way to win. Rinse repeat.

Unfortunately this is the other half of the problem. However players are not to blame, they just gravitate to whatever wins the game. This basically boils down to the following, which I observed in a number of other multiplayer games as they matured:
1a. dev gives players a diverse selection of weapons and mechanics to fight
1b. smartass players catch on to the most powerful op weapon/mechanic and abuse it until it becomes standard
2a. dev attempts to balance weapons and mechanics to make the game less prone to abuse
2b. "normal" players complain - game got less fun. smartass players complain - their weapons of choice have been nerfed
2c. smartass players find and abuse some other weapon/mechanic until it's not fun anymore
3a. dev makes weapons and playstyles even less distinct to limit potential advantage for exploit seeking players...
...
999a. dev nerfs all weapons and mechanics to the point it no longer matters what you use and how you play, basically puts players on rails.
999b. players start to leave the game that became linear and restrictive. Player choice became meaningless (cosmetic) in a game initially designed around customization.

To be sure, the current situation is bad because PPC is in fact superior to most other weapons in MWO. There also are weapons which are plain useless, better replaced by heat sinks, armor or ammo for useful weapons. This has to be fixed.

However, in the long term, PGI will have to come up with mechanics that make the gameplay more interesting and reward variety in loadouts, rather than penalize boating (stick to balancing alone).

The fact the situation has devolved to the point where people are massively exploiting overpowered weapons and mechanics (generally speaking, this situation is not unique to MWO) indicates that the game itself has become uninteresting and has little to offer in return for creativity on players' part. This cannot be fixed by balancing alone. Trying to fix the gameplay this way may, in the short term, seem to help, but ultimately will make MWO boring.

There wouldn't be so many players running with PPC/gauss/AC40 if MWO wasn't so much about pinpoint damage, stacking kills and instant alphas. Rather than penalize most efficient loadouts, PGI needs to remove the incentive to seek the game-braking weapon combinations.

One way is to give players something else to do other than efficiently killing off other players - reversing the trend of MWO devolving into a glorified team deathmatch. Somehow I doubt that is going to happen.

Another idea I have is to subdivide armor further so that it becomes increasingly difficult to punch through it at long range. Snipers may knock out individual plates or subsections, but need to get closer to reliably target them again. Doing splash damage would make more sense because it would weaken the armor subsections more evenly, meaning brawling weapons could get a damage boost without being insta-killers like they would now - they'd need to hit same locations to kill instead of just the huge CT area. Although the amount of work to remap armor and hit boxes for this purposes makes this system unlikely as well.

However, this is, IMO, what needs to be done to set MWO on the right path - the game needs serious changes instead of miniscule balance tweaks. Unless the incentive to seek pinpoint damage, high-alpha weapons is somehow displaced, players will just keep coming up with whatever is best for that purpose at the time.

Also keep in mind that we're eventually going to get a whole arsenal of clan weapons, then a bunch of weapons from later timelines, imagine balancing that in the current setting.

Edited by superbob, 30 July 2013 - 04:03 PM.