230 replies to this topic

[S3dition]

arghmace, on 30 July 2013 - 11:52 AM, said:

How exactly is PPC too hot when it has the same dmg per heat ratio as ML, is only slightly hotter than LL and is cooler than LPL? Also the ER PPC is very close to ER LL. Too hot? A weapon that does front loaded damage should certainly be hotter than a duration beam weapon so currently PPC's are indeed too cool.

Not to mention extreme range and EMP effect.

[Jack Starborn]

Allen Wren, on 30 July 2013 - 10:41 AM, said:

So, wait, basically instead of the internal structure buff we need, we're getting a mechanic that makes our internals blow out even quicker? Is the game not short enough now?

Exactly. (ER) PPC / GR / AC20 builds will be even more dangerous. MWO is doomed

[MustrumRidcully]

Gwaihir, on 31 July 2013 - 08:02 AM, said:

https://twitter.com/...602345491742721

This just in guys, LRMs, SRMs, and lasers are pinpoint damage.

For certain types of "pins", I suppose. You sure can get a lot of angels on the pinpoint that SRMs hit.

[D34K]

FFS. This game...

[Bors Mistral]

Adrak Manta, on 31 July 2013 - 03:37 PM, said:

- PPC and ERPPCs will be bumped by 1 base heat each.

= definitely not enough! 2-3 maybe + after more then 2-3 ppc a mech are fired he have no more energy for 10 seconds . a ppc need very much of energy!

Au contraire, it's definitely enough. Enough heat-wise, anyway.

What PPCs need is lower projectile speed. Lower PPCs to 1600 and ERPPCs to 1800. Short of an actual convergence system and/or charge-up time, this is what will help the most.

[Hatepriest]

Since the patch I have been getting (Cry engine error 128 of 0 bytes) and being Dropped out on dropping into a map. 5 times so far.

Edited by Hatepriest, 01 August 2013 - 07:23 AM.

[Hammertrial]

Hatepriest, on 01 August 2013 - 07:14 AM, said:

Since the patch I have been getting (Cry engine error 128 of 0 bytes) and being Dropped out on dropping into a map. 5 times so far.

Send an email to support@mwomercs.com or post a bug report http://mwomercs.com/...feedback-12233/

I doubt that a post in a completely non patch related thread is going to give you help.

[Apnu]

Are we ever going to see the ML return to 3 heat?

[ObsidianSpectre]

Namais, on 01 August 2013 - 09:23 AM, said:

Do you remember when these threads got to 50 pages in 24 hours because lots of people actually gave a ****?

It's not as if PGI pays attention to anything the community says anymore. If they did, ghost heat would never have gotten off the ground.

[Kunae]

Arbalister, on 31 July 2013 - 06:00 PM, said:

I was here in closed beta. There were discussions between the beta group, and the devs. In fact, it wasn't uncommon to hop in game for a few games with Russ, or Paul, or several of the other PGI guys. Live, in teamspeak discussion of problems, tactics, weapon balance, builds, etc. I was part of a select group that worked *heavily* on diagnosing and then testing a patched client for a particular crash to desktop issue - with direct access to the dev trying to repro and fix the problem.

At the start of "open beta" that changed pretty dramatically. Just about the same time that the signal to noise ratio in these forums went to heck. That's what happens. It becomes less about testing then about people whining every time a change affects them personally.

I've been involved in literally dozens of game betas, and a good chunk of those are for online games, since Asheron's Call in 1998. This happens in all of them. Dev interaction with the playerbase eventually dries up, as the whining and bitching drives them out of the forums. And, honestly, I can't blame them.



Can't do it when you can't control the player base. We have far more people here that are here for no reason other then to play the game for free. "Open Beta" means nothing to them.

That's why there is now a test server.

None of that is any excuse for PGI's behavior over the last 10 months.

The "signal to noise" ratio went up at OB in large part to them stopping real communication and saying and doing some really stupid things.

Example1: They went Open Beta, when it still should have been CB for another 6 months, at least.
Example2: Russ's dismissive letter to the CB testers, at the end of CB, explaining in condescending tones how the testers were burned out on testing, when they had never really allowed, or given anyone the tools to adequately test with, at least since they let in the first "Founders" into CB.
Example3: Paul's removal of knockdowns right before OB. This should have been fixed within a month, and still hasn't. It really shouldn't have been removed unless a proper fix was already ready.

This last example was the start of a whole chain of stupid, and easily preventable, events which continue to this day. These laughable "anti-boating" and "anti-poptart" measures are only the most recent examples.

PGI and IGP created the "toxic environment" on these boards, and to eschew them using this as a justification is disingenuous, at best.
------------

On a side note, I tested AC2, with you. I think I was going by the name Ansrengar or Gartharan back then... or maybe this handle... I honestly don't remember.

Edited by Kunae, 01 August 2013 - 12:17 PM.

[Arbalister]

Kunae, on 01 August 2013 - 12:15 PM, said:

None of that is any excuse for PGI's behavior over the last 10 months.

The "signal to noise" ratio went up at OB in large part to them stopping real communication and saying and doing some really stupid things.

Communication here stopped well after the typical forum wars about every change started. I'm not saying things couldn't have been handled differently, but if you've been in any beta, for any game, you've seen the same thing happen there. It's not unique to PGI. Turbine has some of the best, most interactive devs I'd ever had the pleasure of interacting with... by the end of closed beta for AC2, all the friendly faces from AC beta were gunshy and wouldn't participate in open forums. Note - there were, and probably still are, non-public forums for Turbine games (ie, LOTRO) where the participation never dropped off. I was a behind the scenes tester for most of their games (DDO excepted) well into the second year of LOTRO. Even when they're running a "closed" beta of a new expansion, there are testers that have been working on new content that no other players have seen. It's a controlled environment, on a closed server. They will, and have, removed people for being jerks... note, I don't mean for disagreeing, or protesting a change - lord knows I did, for a few - I mean for the sort of rants and behaviour that are commonplace here... and in the LOTRO forums, or the WOW forums... etc.

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Example1: They went Open Beta, when it still should have been CB for another 6 months, at least.

I disagree. And a ton of people in closed beta would too. For a couple reasons - the game as it stood was feature complete. The mechanics were all in place... and still are. What major game elements have been added since open beta started? None. Everything that's changed since then is window dressing... new mechs, new skins, and performance tweaks, either to the engine or to the game balance. There is a major game element missing - Community Warfare - but we knew in closed beta that it was going to be delayed. Another reason is economics - developers, like you and me, like to do things like get paid... eat... have homes. They're funny that way. Finally - scale. This is a company working on its first "massive" online game. There is a learning curve to what you can do when the game has to scale to manage the number of simultaneous connections this one has... so... open beta is the thing.

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Example2: Russ's dismissive letter to the CB testers, at the end of CB, explaining in condescending tones how the testers were burned out on testing, when they had never really allowed, or given anyone the tools to adequately test with, at least since they let in the first "Founders" into CB.

Don't recall the letter, so I won't comment.

Quote

Example3: Paul's removal of knockdowns right before OB. This should have been fixed within a month, and still hasn't. It really shouldn't have been removed unless a proper fix was already ready.

Knockdowns were broken. I like the mechanic, and I think it should eventually make its way back into the game... but there is no way on earth that a Jenner should be able to knock an Atlas on its butt. That should have been like colliding with a mountain.

Quote

This last example was the start of a whole chain of stupid, and easily preventable, events which continue to this day. These laughable "anti-boating" and "anti-poptart" measures are only the most recent examples.

If you're referring to the heat scale and the shaking cursor thing... I actually like both changes. The heat scale thing is something that's been coming since closed beta, btw. I was personally involved in a conversation with Paul on TS back then, where a number of us were discussing it. I wasn't at all surprised to see it now. And now my favorite 'mech is heat neutral, again.

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PGI and IGP created the "toxic environment" on these boards, and to eschew them using this as a justification is disingenuous, at best.
------------

Did they create the same environment on the WOW forums, the AC forums, the AC2 forums, the DDO forums, the Earth and Beyond forums... the Wish forums.... okay, that last one I have to cop responsibility for... I made no bones about how i felt about their idiotic point and click to move system... and the game never made it out of alpha...

My point is, every forum for every online game I've ever tested, right back to MUDS I used to code for... have the exact same posts. The exact same complaints. Everyone one of them. The common element here is not PGI, it's players.

Quote

On a side note, I tested AC2, with you. I think I was going by the name Ansrengar or Gartharan back then... or maybe this handle... I honestly don't remember.

Gartharan sounds vaguely familiar, but, you know, that was a long time ago. :-) But, you then know what I mean.Think of the vitriol in the forums for AC2 when they started letting people in in the last stages of closed beta, and through open beta. How many hundred of posts were there explaining why the game sucked totally and wasn't asheron's call? I can remember so many people that expected that AC2 was going to be the most awesome thing! Imagine! AC with improved graphics! But that's *not* what the game was. It was a new game, set in the same world... but *everything* was different. The world itself changed and was no longer familiar. The mechanics changed. Races that were the enemy became playable. There was no skill based progression. The magic system was nothing like it was in AC... etc, etc. The forums went up in flames, people attacked the game outside of the forums, etc. And the game failed. Not because it was a bad game - it was an excellent game... with some flaws, but still an excellent game. What it was *not* was what every player in AC at the time *thought* it would be.

The game would probably still be running if they'd called it something like "New Dereth" and kept the name "Asheron" out of it.

[Wales Grey]

Namais, on 01 August 2013 - 02:15 PM, said:

All good points, and let's not forget that the reason it went OB is so that IGP could open the till. That's it. Let's not pretend it had a damn thing to do with quality.

[Solis Obscuri]

3rd patch in a row that I'm seeing more and more jump-snipers making a comeback.

I'm not seeing 4-5PPC Stalkers or 2xAC/20 Jaegers like I used to. But I am seeing just as many 2xPPC+Gauss snipers, though, which I always considered an equal if not greater issue than pure PPC builds (which had horrid heat management) or dual-AC/20s (which at least had limited range and slow projectile speeds). As it stands... 3 PPCs do 30 damage for 24 heat and give you a penalty of an additional 10 heat, 2 PPCs and Gauss do 35 damage for 17 heat and no penalty... You've just ninja-buffed the most problematic combination of weapons by nerfing everything else relative to them. How does that make sense from a balance perspective?

As for the penalties on boating lasers.... how many builds do you see that present concerns? Most don't hit terribly hard, spread damage all over any moving target, and have terrible heat management. Swaybacks seem to have pretty tame firepower compared to the spate of AC/20 and PPC boats we've seen the last couple months, and the only laser-based build I've seen that raised any concern have been the 5 Large Laser Stalkers - but anything with medium lasers, or four large lasers or less hasn't seemed out of whack to me.

TBH, I'm not even sure we should worry about SRM boats, as the spread isn't nearly as tight point-blank as it once was.

Nerfing LRM volleys seems flat-out dumb given how well AMS has been buffed, in addition to the fact that ECM still denies effective LRM usage...

And, of course, heat shutdown is supposed to prevent a 'mech taking internal damage, though now it still takes internal damage and gets to be a sitting duck at the same time. That has to be fun for the n00bs with no unlocked efficiencies and SHS in their stock 'mechs.

I really see way more bad than good in the new heat penalty system.

Also, ECM is still ****, so thanks for nerfing Seismic so we can go back to the no-Information Warfare game of D-DCs sneaking across the battlefield like giant DEST ninjas alpha striking with their PPCs and Gauss Rifles as they go. It really enhances the sense of immersion when a vehicle bigger than my ******* apartment building has magic invisibility and causes less ground vibration while moving than a typical 2-ton forklift does.

[riverslq]

Solis Obscuri, on 01 August 2013 - 02:57 PM, said:

Also, ECM is still ****, so thanks for nerfing Seismic so we can go back to the no-Information Warfare game of D-DCs sneaking across the battlefield like giant DEST ninjas alpha striking with their PPCs and Gauss Rifles as they go. It really enhances the sense of immersion when a vehicle bigger than my ******* apartment building has magic invisibility and causes less ground vibration while moving than a typical 2-ton forklift does.

PGI is simply unable to code seismic which only works when a mech isn't moving.
They haven't figured out how to do that in perl/python/.net yet.

[Oznog]

I don't think the heat escalation is a good thing for overall gameplay.

First lemme say ERPPC is fun, but already PRETTY BAD for heat. It's HARD to use them strategically and they don't do that much damage.

But the central problem is this: when you rely on heat as your control over game balance, you're neglecting that "all maps are not created equal". You don't WANT the map choice itself to be a major unbalance. Not while the game has NO capacity to select a mech appropriate for the map. For example you don't want maps that an Atlas can't walk on, you don't want a map where an energy weapon build will just overheat and be useless.

The random nature of maps is just incompatible with any sort of game strategy UNLESS we can somehow select the mech we WANT for a particular map. Which would make sense, I mean what kind of military strategist says "No one's told me if we're gonna fight in the Arctic or mountains or mud or desert or forest or urban environment, so I'll just bring, uhhhhh... THIS type of vehicle". In mech lore, yes, you WOULD outfit your mechs for a specific environment. Here, we can't... the warriors strangely have NO IDEA where they're going to be next when dropping a mech.

[Oznog]

Solis Obscuri, on 01 August 2013 - 02:57 PM, said:

3rd patch in a row that I'm seeing more and more jump-snipers making a comeback.

I'm not seeing 4-5PPC Stalkers or 2xAC/20 Jaegers like I used to. But I am seeing just as many 2xPPC+Gauss snipers, though, which I always considered an equal if not greater issue than pure PPC builds (which had horrid heat management) or dual-AC/20s (which at least had limited range and slow projectile speeds). As it stands... 3 PPCs do 30 damage for 24 heat and give you a penalty of an additional 10 heat, 2 PPCs and Gauss do 35 damage for 17 heat and no penalty... You've just ninja-buffed the most problematic combination of weapons by nerfing everything else relative to them. How does that make sense from a balance perspective?

As for the penalties on boating lasers.... how many builds do you see that present concerns? Most don't hit terribly hard, spread damage all over any moving target, and have terrible heat management. Swaybacks seem to have pretty tame firepower compared to the spate of AC/20 and PPC boats we've seen the last couple months, and the only laser-based build I've seen that raised any concern have been the 5 Large Laser Stalkers - but anything with medium lasers, or four large lasers or less hasn't seemed out of whack to me.

TBH, I'm not even sure we should worry about SRM boats, as the spread isn't nearly as tight point-blank as it once was.

Nerfing LRM volleys seems flat-out dumb given how well AMS has been buffed, in addition to the fact that ECM still denies effective LRM usage...

And, of course, heat shutdown is supposed to prevent a 'mech taking internal damage, though now it still takes internal damage and gets to be a sitting duck at the same time. That has to be fun for the n00bs with no unlocked efficiencies and SHS in their stock 'mechs.

I really see way more bad than good in the new heat penalty system.

Also, ECM is still ****, so thanks for nerfing Seismic so we can go back to the no-Information Warfare game of D-DCs sneaking across the battlefield like giant DEST ninjas alpha striking with their PPCs and Gauss Rifles as they go. It really enhances the sense of immersion when a vehicle bigger than my ******* apartment building has magic invisibility and causes less ground vibration while moving than a typical 2-ton forklift does.

THIS. Shutdown is just "broken" now. It doesn't prevent mech damage, and just gets you killed.
It doesn't do anything for you, it doesn't make you cool faster, for example.
I do my BEST to disable it at all times, but the game only makes the Override last a few seconds, and basically you can't just keep hitting the button over and over.

The overheating alarm is mostly useless, too. It's a fairly wide band. I MIGHT be able to shoot without an overheat or might not. I don't have time to look. I can also hit Shutdown without the alarm going off first, so it's not really meaningful anymore.

[Arbalister]

Gallowglas, on 30 July 2013 - 11:53 AM, said:

IThe life cycle of a mech that has reached internals should be longer, not shorter.

How do you figure? Down to internals means that the armour is stripped off, the weapons are fragged, and the actuators are exposed, just begging to be terminated... as is the "skeleton" of the mech. If you're down to internals, you're toast... and should be.

[Chronojam]

Arbalister, on 02 August 2013 - 11:55 AM, said:

How do you figure? Down to internals means that the armour is stripped off, the weapons are fragged, and the actuators are exposed, just begging to be terminated... as is the "skeleton" of the mech. If you're down to internals, you're toast... and should be.

This is incorrect, especially because we never experience having those weapons and actuators and systems destroyed. Your mech tends to keel over, especially because of armor distribution rules and the current metagame. Mechs in tabletop and all the fiction survive a long time on busted systems and take much more abuse to be put down compared to MWO.

[Ketzktl]

As was mentioned in a couple of previouse post, one of the defining features of Battletech is the idea that mechs don't usually just keel over and die when their armour is removed, they start to lose systems and capabilities until they are eventually ground down.

That premise is the basis for how some weapons such as SRMs and LBX weapons are suppose to work, hastening the destruction of equipment rather than gunning for the destruction of the mech itself.

[Sephlock]

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•A % of critical damage done to the internals of a component will be applied directly to the Inner structure of that component.

I was relived when I read this, until about a split second later when I realized that this will lead to people altering their builds to contain the lowest possible # of components (the most obvious example of this would be cramming all their heat sinks into an engine rather than using external DHS to soak up crits.

I guess we'll have to see how it pans out, but it could potentially be useful...

I know that you can't kill someone via critting their engine, but does anyone know if the engine slots themselves can be critted? In other words, can I use LBX/flamers/mgs to punish someone with an XL engine by shooting out his rear side torso and critting the hell out of the 3 XL engine slots in that section, thus devastating his mech because he has some slots that can be critted that never go away until he is dead?

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•Large and medium pulse lasers are going to have their beam durations reduced.

•ER Large Laser is going to have its base heat reduced.

I hope these will be significant changes, and not MG level tweaks.

Regardless, YAY!

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•PPC and ERPPCs will be bumped by 1 base heat each.

I guess this is okay... I don't know.

Ketzktl, on 02 August 2013 - 02:29 PM, said:

As was mentioned in a couple of previouse post, one of the defining features of Battletech is the idea that mechs don't usually just keel over and die when their armour is removed, they start to lose systems and capabilities until they are eventually ground down.

That premise is the basis for how some weapons such as SRMs and LBX weapons are suppose to work, hastening the destruction of equipment rather than gunning for the destruction of the mech itself.

Give all missiles bonuses to damaging components and internal structure!