483 replies to this topic

[JimboFBX]

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[color=#959595]Depending on the amount of time HSR fixes will require, we MAY bump IS health by a small percentage to hold us over until the majority of HSR issues are dealt with.[/color]

This makes no sense. So because light mechs have too much health due to HSR issues, the solution would be to bump health even further?

Health is fine. In a 1v1 you lose components, etc as expected presuming the other guy isn't doing nothing but targeting your CT and you actually know how to turn away from incoming fire. Of course it's usually a 4v1 or 7v1, especially if you're a **** player who doesn't know how to drive your mech. I'm not saying people who complain that mechs have too little health are **** players but when they say things like "my assault mech gets vaporized in a 7v1 situation" then I can't help but think that's the case.

If the CT could have heavier external armor and damage to blown off side armor transferred damage straight to the CT internals then maybe people would have a reason to target other parts of the mech besides the legs.

[Terminatedv666]

I cant post a topic so I'm not sure where to post this.

The reason I am even here is when I play mech warrior online, I boot in with my 100 ton atlas and sometimes the game kicks me out. The mechwar interface is still loaded though. When I check my mech it says its in a game. So I have to wait around 10 mins just to use my mech again.

there should be an option to let you join the ongoing game.

[xengk]

MisterFiveSeven, on 12 August 2013 - 01:50 PM, said:

"desyncing" needs to be clarified.

But I wonder why all of our minds jumped to the worst possible conclusion...

Sound like Gauss might be getting fire delay, like what autocannon used to have.
I still remember when my 4G(F)'s AC/20 goes *clank*BOOM*kling*, instead of the current BOOM*kling*.

[Rashhaverak]

Urdnot Mau, on 12 August 2013 - 04:58 PM, said:

They need to change the "bullet" speed for Gauss and PPC. PPCs should be slower and Gauss should be faster. This way, as they have stated, Gauss will become a primary long-range weapon (since leading will be harder for PPC). Plus: If a target is moving, the faster weapon is more likely to hit where the player was aiming and the slower weapon will hit another place. If that happens in the situation i proposed, 20 damage would either miss or hit a different spot. What they shouldn't be is equally fast, so they will always hit at the same location. I understand that by intuition PPC should be faster than Gauss, but for the gameplay's sake, i'll be ok with that. I also wouldn't mind if they increased the base heat for PPC and ERPPC for 1 more point. They feel amost where they should be.

Total agreement that lowering the PPC projectile speed would appear to be a very viable solution. Leading a target would require the shooter to either decide to fire one weapon or the other. Added side benefit is that we would get the chance to see the beautiful graphic glory that is the PPC.

[Rashhaverak]

Urdnot Mau, on 12 August 2013 - 04:58 PM, said:

They need to change the "bullet" speed for Gauss and PPC. PPCs should be slower and Gauss should be faster. This way, as they have stated, Gauss will become a primary long-range weapon (since leading will be harder for PPC). Plus: If a target is moving, the faster weapon is more likely to hit where the player was aiming and the slower weapon will hit another place. If that happens in the situation i proposed, 20 damage would either miss or hit a different spot. What they shouldn't be is equally fast, so they will always hit at the same location. I understand that by intuition PPC should be faster than Gauss, but for the gameplay's sake, i'll be ok with that. I also wouldn't mind if they increased the base heat for PPC and ERPPC for 1 more point. They feel amost where they should be.

Total agreement that lowering the PPC projectile speed would appear to be a very viable solution. Leading a target would require the shooter to either decide to fire one weapon or the other. Added side benefit is that we would get the chance to see the beautiful graphic glory that is the PPC.

Urdnot Mau, on 12 August 2013 - 04:58 PM, said:

They need to change the "bullet" speed for Gauss and PPC. PPCs should be slower and Gauss should be faster. This way, as they have stated, Gauss will become a primary long-range weapon (since leading will be harder for PPC). Plus: If a target is moving, the faster weapon is more likely to hit where the player was aiming and the slower weapon will hit another place. If that happens in the situation i proposed, 20 damage would either miss or hit a different spot. What they shouldn't be is equally fast, so they will always hit at the same location. I understand that by intuition PPC should be faster than Gauss, but for the gameplay's sake, i'll be ok with that. I also wouldn't mind if they increased the base heat for PPC and ERPPC for 1 more point. They feel amost where they should be.

Total agreement that lowering the PPC projectile speed would appear to be a very viable solution. Leading a target would require the shooter to either decide to fire one weapon or the other. Added side benefit is that we would get the chance to see the beautiful graphic glory that is the PPC.

[Wilburg]

These answers are a shame. And I am not only saying this, because you keep ignoring questions about the communication with the playerbase. Also, you do not even take the time to slip the slightest information in your answers, keeping it as "politically neutral" as possible so nobody can ever say "but you told us".
- The main issues ..... REALLY? That´s like going to the garage and say "My car makes noises." "What noises?" "Strange ones."
We actually all know those main issues and most of us agree. Is this just the confirmation that you are not on an island and see the problem, too? No "issue about it is ...", "we are looking forward to get this tested by ..."?
- Desync weapons. You could have avoided a lot of flaming but just giving examples. Especially reasonable examples like taking back the buffs you introduced to make them more viable while HSR wasn´t working. Or talking about reload times or projectile speed. And not by giving the impression that you are working out some fancy and artificial desync-mechanism.
- And finally .. whenever you talk about buffing A because B doesn´t work properly ... you scare the sh** out of me. Because you simply don´t tend to take back those changes and get some op stuff in the end. Just try to get things straight and do not start patching patches ....

[mekabuser]

i think the server load for the game and forums is the elephant in the room. This game has gone from literally unplayable to smooth as butter to its present state which is approaching unplayable again. THis has nothing to do with specs but rather pgis programming and or server load.
Im leaning towards the servers as the website itself often runs at sloth like levels with the best internet connection in the usa.

[Jakob Knight]

DV McKenna, on 12 August 2013 - 01:49 PM, said:

This sounds like another overly silly lazy way of balancing rather than fixing the actual problem

Since the actual problem is the playerbase demanding the devs fix all the tactical and strategic problems posed by other players for them (which requires more and more complex and mystifying systems and code that impact other complex systems and code, making even more complex systems and code nessessary to cover the problems from that code), I don't see how the actual problem can be solved. That would require the players to think and come up with tactics and strategy on their own, rather than continual damands the devs change the game so they don't have to deal with whatever the latest successful build/tactic/strategy is.

Edited by Jakob Knight, 13 August 2013 - 04:45 AM.

[Warge]

Niko Snow, on 12 August 2013 - 01:27 PM, said:

Answer from Paul:[color=#959595] The assumption that we think the 2PPC+Gauss is a lesser problem than any of the other high alpha builds, is incorrect. We have looked at what we can do with the build in question and have come up with a plan to de-sync the firing times of PPC and Gauss and keeping the Gauss as a primary long-range weapon. More information on this will be made available as soon as we get the feature ready to test.[/color]

Hard heat threshold = 30, PPC heat = 10. No?

[Hammerhai]

Yes, they do not read here.

First off: Ballistics are laughably easy to use compared to lasers. Yes, I am looking at ALL the brawlers here.

Introduce bullet drop for ALL ammo weapons, including the mighty Gauss.Preferably by Gravity constant of the map
By all means slow down the projectile of the PPC. Simply having different points of Impact on Gauss and PPC will go a long way to help.

Sound good? I bet it doesn't
Seems eminently reasonable to me, though,

And above all, easy to implement.

Edit: clarify my point on ballistics vs PPC

Edited by Hammerhai, 13 August 2013 - 05:15 AM.

[Gwaihir]

Gwaihir, on 12 August 2013 - 01:35 PM, said:

Ahahahaha, manually desynching the firing of Gauss rifles and PPCs, that is absolutely great.

Seriously, has no one considered that they're fine without all this artificial messing around, and that they just need their numbers changed to be balanced sniper weapons?

If it was absolutely fine and balanced to have them work without any ghost heat, crazy convergence, cone of fire, or "Manual desynchronization" in MW:LL, why won't it work for MW:O? I've yet to hear any good reasoning on this point.

e: For real, because this is getting in to serious and utter comedy time: Why would you waste precious, precious programming time on something that would be an utter non-issue with perhaps 5 number changes in one XML file, at most? Roll back the PPC projectile speed buff, to something other than the exact same speed as a Gauss slug. Drop PPC RoF to 5 seconds. Anything like that would be better than this. Literally anything.

I'm still waiting for any response to this at all, in any form, from anyone. Does everyone here also think Q3A's Railgun was OP? Or is this just going to continue to be the elephant in the room. How did all these earlier games work without ghost heat, or ghost firing delay, or having weapons go somewhere other than where you pointed them?

Hammerhai, on 13 August 2013 - 05:10 AM, said:

Yes, they do not read here.

First off: Ballistics are laughably easy to use compared to lasers. Yes, I am looking at ALL the brawlers here.

Introduce bullet drop for ALL, including the mighty Gauss.Preferably by Gravity constant of the map
By all means slow down the projectile of the PPC.

Sound good? I bet it doesn't
Seems eminently reasonable to me, though,

And above all, easy.

Never do easy when you can do a new complicated system, instead. KISS is for suckers! (Also maps don't have different gravity at the moment).

[Yankee77]

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Answer From Paul:

[color=#959595]Hit Detection – It is imperative that this improves for launch. Not only does it affect how the game plays right now but it also creates issues with weapon balancing.[/color]

[color=#959595]New User Experience – An upcoming tutorial is about to hit our testing builds and we will be pushing this out as soon as possible.[/color]

[color=#959595]Game Balance – There are still a number of Mechs and weapons that need to be looked at prior to launch.[/color]

Glad to hear it, especially hit detection and the new user experience.

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Answer from Paul:[color=#959595] We currently have the ability to do this on a global scale (i.e. all Mechs are affected by the same multiplier.) However, it wouldn’t be pertinent to set this number yet as we are still waiting on HSR improvements. Depending on the amount of time HSR fixes will require, we MAY bump IS health by a small percentage to hold us over until the majority of HSR issues are dealt with. We are going to be looking at this on 2 levels. We need to make sure we don’t end up with a bunch of Mechs running around with no weapons/ammo and we need to make sure we don’t make the armor destruction time shorter than the IS destruction time.[/color]

Glad to hear that's something you are looking at... and it makes sense to wait for the HSR fixes, since only then would you have reliable data to determine what improvements would be needed.

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Answer from David: [color=#959595]The Awesome is a Mech that we need to take a look at. Recently, we’ve started a new pass looking at improving the balance between the Mechs. (Look for improvements to Medium Mechs coming in the August 20[/color][color=#959595]th[/color][color=#959595] patch.) As we do this, we’ll be sure to take a look at the Awesome. This will involve, first of all, making sure that there’s nothing weird or buggy about the hit boxes, and then seeing what we can do to improve the Mech. Exactly what form those improvements come in will remain to be seen.[/color]

I'm personally hoping for chassis-specific quirks in this case, for example if the Awesome had a higher "max alpha" value for PPCs. If the awesome was the one mech that could load 3 PPCs without heat penalties, it would definitely make it more interesting (and its inherent flaws would compensate for that advantage), and keep it "faithful" to its canon "mystique".

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Answer from Paul:[color=#959595] The assumption that we think the 2PPC+Gauss is a lesser problem than any of the other high alpha builds, is incorrect. We have looked at what we can do with the build in question and have come up with a plan to de-sync the firing times of PPC and Gauss and keeping the Gauss as a primary long-range weapon. More information on this will be made available as soon as we get the feature ready to test.[/color]

Excellent news! Glad to hear you guys are aware of the issue and are working on.

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Answer from Brian W and Karl:[color=#959595] A replay system is one of those features that has long been on our list of things to do. Unfortunately there are many challenges that we still need to address, such as the size of the replay file, building a system that can read in a replay and play back the file correctly, future integration with AI and scripted bots, and the ability to efficiently scrub the replay file. We currently have no time frame for when this feature will be released due to the amount of work involved, and our current commitments to essential launch and post-launch features that are considered higher priority.[/color]

I'd definitely love to see this, especially if we could freely use some spectator camera while watching replays.

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Answer by Paul: [color=#959595]By the time you’re reading this, 12v12 is live as are the new timing values for capturing a base. Base captures take a lot longer to happen and that will give defending teams more time to return to base. Conversely, if a team plans on winning by capture, they’re going to have to plan this quite a bit earlier on in the match. Since the process of capture is much longer, the fast cap is no longer an issue if you have people watching the base capture notification.[/color]

Personally I liked the new 12v12 capping delay. It is a significant change, but capping is still very viable, and on the larger maps most conquest games end through points rather than wiping the team, which does make conquest more relevant IMO.

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Answer from Paul:[color=#959595] Yes it is still in the works. What is required is our tonnage limit system to be implemented so we don’t have to do crazy stuff in the match making system to get groups assembled. The tonnage limit system will put Mech balance in the hands of the player and the match maker then only has to worry about Elo and team player counts. With this system in place, players will be able to launch in groups of 1-12 inclusively. I cannot give a time estimate on this yet. My GUESS would be shortly after launch.[/color]

I'd love to hear more about the tonnage limit system, and how it will be implemented. Either way, I'm very happy that there will be a tonnage limit system at all.

Thank you.

[Royalewithcheese]

Jakob Knight, on 13 August 2013 - 04:43 AM, said:

Since the actual problem is the playerbase demanding the devs fix all the tactical and strategic problems posed by other players for them (which requires more and more complex and mystifying systems and code that impact other complex systems and code, making even more complex systems and code nessessary to cover the problems from that code), I don't see how the actual problem can be solved. That would require the players to think and come up with tactics and strategy on their own, rather than continual damands the devs change the game so they don't have to deal with whatever the latest successful build/tactic/strategy is.

Case in point: the whole splatcat/splash damage/lurmageddon fiasco. You could make a very good case that the meta is yet to recover from where the missile balance rollercoaster dropped us off.

[QuaxDerBruchpilot]

Horrace, on 13 August 2013 - 04:57 AM, said:

CryEngine 3 - GDC 2013 Licensee Showcase Trailer

You'd better not show this here. PGI might accidentially discover the tool they have at hands. Given the path they are currently following with the graphic settings, I might as well play minecraft.

[Yankee77]

Erata, on 12 August 2013 - 10:18 PM, said:

This is the last official Mechwarrior game in the last 10 years and a lot of people are sad to, they think, see it go.

Competition is very fierce over where gamers' attention spans are going to be placed and where the money's going to flow. Even though the game isn't complete and utter misery, it just isn't as fun as it used to be, and certainly not as fun as some of its competition which changes depending on who you're talkin' to.

See, that one I don't really understand. How is the game not as fun as it used to be? Are you comparing to previous MW titles, or saying the game used to be more enjoyable earlier in beta?

Because if it's the latter, that definitely is not my experience. At least for me, MWO is a far better game today than it was a year ago, offering a richer and more varied experience than before. Even before 12v12 (which I enjoy tremendously as making the matches far more lively and challenging), MWO had gone a long way and has greatly improved. We definitely had some dark times, especially the first few months after ECM was introduced, or when poptarting was everywhere (beyond even the competitive meta).

To me MWO has grown and improved tremendously in the last few months, it's just a more enjoyable game now. All this rage seems to be more about the lack of major additions to the game than any major issue with the actual gameplay. Frustration at not having Community Warfare and 12v12 and UI 2.0 and other big new features, and instead just playing the same game over and over again for a year now has worn some people's patience.

But the gameplay itself? Yeah, it's improved. It's not perfect, and balance still needs work, but it's a lot better than it used to be. With release coming just around the corner, I'm content just waiting for the new features to hit. In the meantime at least, I'm having a blast with 12v12.

[Kunae]

How hard is it to comprehend this simple tidbit, PGI:

------------------------
Return PPC and ERPPC heat to canon levels. 10/15

Return ML heat to canon levels. 3 heat.

Drop heat-cap to canon levels. 30, iirc.

DHS to canon: 2.0 dissipation across the board.
------------------------

Result? Most of your weapon-balance problems fixed.

Edited by Kunae, 13 August 2013 - 05:49 AM.

[Odanan]

Jojobird, on 12 August 2013 - 02:03 PM, said:

I really hope there is a better solution than fire desync possible. While I play a 2PPC + gauss build quite often (guilty), and I see that current heat system has already altered the balance of the game for the better (even though I perhaps disagree with the method, I like the result), I would hope this can be achieved with something less drastic.

I want the weapons to fire when I press the button, as accurately as possible. I agree if you make me learn a new way of compensating for different projectile speeds, make aiming harder, or really any other method I can at least try to compensate for with skill, but still end up with a worse result on average (I love the new jump sniping). But at the end of the day the weapon should fire when I want it to. If I miss, I screwed up, but that's fine, make it hard, it gives us something to strive for. Please do not make it an arbitrary delay we have no control over.

Agreed, agreed, agreed.

I suppose they will add a very small delay to the Gauss Rifle, like a "charging time" - something like 0.1 second. That could work, but isn't it overcomplicated? Wouldn't just increasing the recycling time of the Gauss or changing the speed of the PPC projectile fix the issue?

The same way, I like the fact we have more mixed builds now with grouped weapons heat, but I dislike any this crazy new mechanics that take a whole book to be explained.

There is a very important rule when building a system: KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupi*). Don't try too hard, PGI.

[Tombstoner]

ASK the DEVs is turning into a white house press core meeting.

[Ransack]

I must say that I was disappointed by the questions that they chose to answer, and the answers themselves.

Damn PGI, I'm trying. Give me something to restore my hope. Obscure answers that are going to make things more complicated is not the answer. Anyone thinking that PPC's are going to get touched is not thinking clearly. PPC's will stay as they are because they are still the primary counter to ECM. They are going to end up messing up the Gauss Rifle worse than it is now.

[Helbrecht]

MisterFiveSeven, on 12 August 2013 - 01:50 PM, said:

"desyncing" needs to be clarified.

But I wonder why all of our minds jumped to the worst possible conclusion...

we hardened over pgi past failures at balancing.