483 replies to this topic

[Felbombling]

Quote

Question from Solis Obscuri: Why do you consider the 2xPPC+Gauss high-alpha build which nearly everyone has been using for the last three months a lesser balance problem than firing three Large Lasers or four SRM-4s at the same time?
Answer from Paul: 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.

The next meta style for snipers shifts to 2PPC+AC/10.

Your core game mechanics are set up in such a way as to promote high-alpha builds, PGI. Your ammo bins do not have enough ammunition per ton, forcing available tonnage out of secondary systems, equipment or weapons. Your pin-point target mechanics are overwhelming the armour values, even at double TT numbers. Your heat pool is way too high, allowing for continuous and repeated brutal weapon combinations. Your weapon reload/recycle times are too high, further taxing your ammunition and armour values. Your Mech customization freedom is way too lenient… especially when it comes to engine choices. Players have the freedom to bend your game to the breaking point, which they have proven very adept at.

I am very sorry to say, but so long as you ignore the impact the above core game mechanics are having on your repeated attempts at weapon balance, you will be forever tweaking weapon values and dreaming up convoluted and confusing additional mechanics to stamp out problems that should otherwise have very obvious solutions.

[DirePhoenix]

Wales Grey, on 12 August 2013 - 09:51 PM, said:

So are you going to address the arguments and specific points that #savemwo brought up, or are you just going to keep posting this ad hominem trash?

I'm not sure you understand what ad hominem means. An ad hominem would be saying that "PGI isn't considering the #savemwo points because it comes from a bunch of whiners". That's not what they're saying.

They are saying that just because they don't personally address each and every point someone brings up, it doesn't mean they haven't seen or considered it.

[Jakob Knight]

Player One: "I want the weapons to fire when I press the button, as accurately as possible."

Player Two: "Having weapons hit pin-point where I target is too OP. I want hit locations to be randomly determined across the 'mech."

Player Three: "Aiming is too tough!! Why can't we just make it all melee fighting?? Those are sooo cool in <fill in the giant robot fighting movie/anime here>!!"


Who do you tailor the game for? All are players in the game, and all demand the game be changed to suit their preferences, or the game is trash and no one should bother playing such a broken sim.

For every person who finds capping boring, there is another who lives to outsmart the opponents who are too dumb to leave anyone on defense. For every player who wants to be a sniper, there's another who thinks everyone should be forced to brawl. For every player who thinks blazing away with a million weapons in mindless fury is fun, there is another who thinks it is more enjoyable when it's down to a single weapon, and a single shot with a steady hand to determine who survives.

The problem is that they are trying to make everyone who cries happy, and as the above shows, there will -always- be someone crying.

[Blue Footed Booby]

DirePhoenix, on 13 August 2013 - 07:03 AM, said:

I'm not sure you understand what ad hominem means. An ad hominem would be saying that "PGI isn't considering the #savemwo points because it comes from a bunch of whiners". That's not what they're saying.

They are saying that just because they don't personally address each and every point someone brings up, it doesn't mean they haven't seen or considered it.

Uh, no, ad hominem literally means "argument against the man." It can be "you're wrong because you're dumb" but that's the trivial example given in a Logic 101 textbook. In practice, ad hominem is ignoring the content of the argument to make accusations against the person making it, leaving the conclusion implicit. Quoting a post that makes a point and talking about the poster is absolutely an ad hominem even if it doesn't literally end with "...and therefore you're wrong."

[John MatriX82]

Homeless Bill, on 12 August 2013 - 01:37 PM, said:

Q: 2xPPC + 1xGauss?
A: "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."
Bill's Thoughts: What the hell? If this is just recycle time, it'll have no effect. But what it sounds like is "one of these weapons will no longer fire when you click." If that's the case, I'm absolutely dumbfounded. Quit making new, confusing systems!

How can you possibly answer "New Player Experience" as the second biggest problem in the game, while simultaneously pushing through a bunch of unnecessary, convoluted changes that will do nothing but irritate and confuse the hell out of new players?

If it's not some new, weird system, you can disregard that. But that's sure what you're making it sound like. The last thing we need is a new, arbitrary mechanic.

So, 4 (5 and 6) ppcs were op. Good. now 2PPC 1 GR is op. It's ammo dependant, gauss rifle explodes in no time, guns have different speeds, does 5 less total points of damage, you usually require more tonnage or risk to slap a gauss in a side torso on many mechs (therefore ending up halved pretty fast) or go XL for the combo. But it's op. Good, I guess we'll be dismounting our mechs' legs and toss them at each other if we keep nerfing everything. Nerf 2PPC 1 GR, many will fall back to 4 PPCs and start using macros until you won't start to accept the idea that hardpoint freedom democracy has come to an end.

Restrict hardpoint dimensions. Make each variant unique compared to the others of the same chassis. Think of an HBK 4G that can carry GR or AC 20, while the 4H can't because it's limited to AC 10/LBX10.

Think of Awesomes like 8Q or 9M to be the only ones actually capable to bear 3xPPCs (while every other mech has 1 or 2x capability) and FIRE THEM AT ONCE WITHOUT SILLY PENALTIES. Boom!!! An underrated chassis would be instantly re-considered, respected but at the same time be pretty countearble, because of it's absolutely laughable BIG hitboxes.

Make that if you have 10 missile tubes in a section, you are limited to 10 ******* tubes. No multiple salvo firing. You have more hardpoints in that section? Good, combine launchers to reach the 10 limit. So dual LRM5 or SRM6+SRM4. Do you have 3 missile hardpoints for a 10 tubes only section? Ok, you can mix LRMs (up to 10) with SRMs (always up to 10). With a system like this, barely few mechs could reach 50 LRMs capability (HGN 733, STK 3H), few could get 40 (CTPL C4, other HGN's) and many would stay limited at 30.

Instantly LRM balancing could become absolutely easier and you would give up a good punch also to smaller launchers mounted on mechs that can't bring more than 10-15 lrms; at the same time SRMs, since you won't be able to phisically mount 36 SRMs in an A1 or Stalker side torsoes wouldn't be able to hold up more than a single LRM5 or SRM6, would be much easier to rebalance, without any silly heat penalty. You wouldn't simply be able to mount all that stuff, it would be extremely easy to undestand for everyone. Get in the mechlab, select the side torso of a stalker, you see that you can mount a LRM5 or SSRM2, SRM2, SRM4, SRM6, the rest is red. SO EASY.

Homeless Bill, on 12 August 2013 - 01:37 PM, said:

Seriously guys, you need to accept that a lot of 'mech scaling is wrong, and you need to do a pass to rescale a lot of chassis (Awesome, Quickdraw, Stalker, Trebuchet, Kintaro, etc.). If it's difficult to do, you guys should figure out a way to make your asset pipeline support re-scaling. It keeps happening, and it needs a quick solution.

^^^THIS.THIS INFINITE TIMES.^^^

Edited by John MatriX82, 13 August 2013 - 07:27 AM.

[SmallandBlue]

Jakob Knight, on 13 August 2013 - 07:16 AM, said:

For every person who finds capping boring, there is another who lives to outsmart the opponents who are too dumb to leave anyone on defense. For every player who wants to be a sniper, there's another who thinks everyone should be forced to brawl. For every player who thinks blazing away with a million weapons in mindless fury is fun, there is another who thinks it is more enjoyable when it's down to a single weapon, and a single shot with a steady hand to determine who survives.

Exactly, which is why all of these playing styles(well, as many as possible anyway) should be viable and balanced. Right now only sniping is.

[Alwrathandabout42ninjas]

"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."

Gonna have to ask the community to stop complaining about the gauss + 2 ppc combo. It is working as intended and should not be nerfed. The PPC and the Gauss are both long range weapons and if a mech wants to dedicate all of its tonnage or become an easy to kill poptart taking an XL I think he should not be penalized for it. If PGI does end up nerfing them theres gonna be alot of pissed off players. If PGI nerfs every little thing the community complains about, this game will become worse than nerfed legends, a game I dont really play anymore. I dont want to see this happen. Battletech is all about nasty guns and killing mechs, not about nerfed guns killing mechs.

Edited by Alwrath, 13 August 2013 - 07:44 AM.

[Gwaihir]

There's nothing at all inherently wrong with the dual PPC + gauss phract 3D. (Also the good builds don't use XLs, sorry).

Everything that countered it has been killed off pretty effectively though.

Edited by Gwaihir, 13 August 2013 - 07:47 AM.

[XFactor777]

Homeless Bill, on 12 August 2013 - 01:37 PM, said:

Seriously guys, you need to accept that a lot of 'mech scaling is wrong, and you need to do a pass to rescale a lot of chassis (Awesome, Quickdraw, Stalker, Trebuchet, Kintaro, etc.). If it's difficult to do, you guys should figure out a way to make your asset pipeline support re-scaling. It keeps happening, and it needs a quick solution.

Am I the only one who thinks that if the Quickdraw was smaller that the 5K would quickly(see what I did there) become the best mech in the game?

[MisterFiveSeven]

Gwaihir, on 13 August 2013 - 07:47 AM, said:

There's nothing at all inherently wrong with the dual PPC + gauss phract 3D. (Also the good builds don't use XLs, sorry).

Everything that countered it has been killed off pretty effectively though.

This is surprising. When everyone else is also toting pinpoint alphas, you can only spread damage so much. I wouldn't imagine the xl to be that much of a sacrifice.

[Minoxen]

As a thought when I read the "Desync" I'm imagining some kind of fire delay to the PPC.

Perhaps this as an idea, PPC begins charge and displays a tracer line when button pressed (like IRL lightning a brief bit before it fires, but obviously longer here for game purposes since that's miliseconds IRL) Having this tracer on your target will make your cross hairs indicate a hit like how TAG does. After the 0.25 to 0.5 second delay (hopefully something other than 0.5) the ppc(s) fire down that tracer line to the current location targeted.

This function should be easily implemented by borrowing from the function of tag, changing the tracer line color etc, and simply adding the delay to actual fire. This allows for folks who are still good snipers and have the gunnery skills to maintain target to use the ppc as a skilled sniping weapon. This would also limit its use with poptarts and require pilot timing to get the Gauss Rifle to fire in proper timing to get the pinpoint 35alpha. Just a Thought!

[Gwaihir]

MisterFiveSeven, on 13 August 2013 - 08:20 AM, said:

This is surprising. When everyone else is also toting pinpoint alphas, you can only spread damage so much. I wouldn't imagine the xl to be that much of a sacrifice.

XLs are still a large liability in a serious game, and despite hyperbole to the contrary, everyone is not a good enough shot to always hit your CT. Being able to stay in the fight in any form at all (Even if it's only as a distraction) is still much more valuable than the extra heatsinks gained from using the traditional XL300 build.

[Appogee]

I sense a Gauss minimum range incoming...

[Zargar The Barbar]

I think De-syncing Gauss and PPC could work out really well if coupled with projectile speed differences.

Projectile Speed:

Lets say the PPC projectile is slowed by 20% and then the Gauss rifle projectile is sped up by 10% making the Gauss an even better sniper weapon (since we cannot use more than 2 Gauss rifles on anything.) The 30% difference in projectile speed would make it difficult to land hits on the same location since different leading distances would be required.

Recharge Rate:

The the weapon recharge rate for the Gause could be slowed from 4 to 5 (or 4.5 if you think this is too much) seconds per shot, this would give more incentive to use the AC20 as a brawling weapon, but the fast projectile speed would make the Gauss valuable to snipers and would effectively decrease their damage output over time (which means its less valuable in a brawl)

In regards to dual Gauss Builds:

I realize that dual Gauss builds may be on a come back if Gauss gets a projectile speed boost. Maybe the slower fire rate won't be enough to discourage 30 pts of high-speed pinpoint damage. In Battletech lore Gauss rifles take up a large amount of energy. And when one is fired it slows the targeting computer. (this happened during one of the battles between Phelan Wolf and Vlad in the Blood of Kerensky series) PGI probably does not plan to approach targeting computer issues. However Gauss could have an interesting nerf. Lets say you simply cannot fire more than one Gauss rifle within .5 seconds. Or if we want to go further with it, lets say if you fire 2 Gauss rifles within .5 seconds then you mech shuts down due to power failure. (This could be the same as basically clicking power down, no extra cockpit animations or anything fancy. You fire 2 Gauss rifles and your mech turns off)

Anyways I think this would be a great way to fix the Gauss / PPC / Dual Gauss issues.

[Farix]

StaggerCheck, on 13 August 2013 - 06:41 AM, said:

The next meta style for snipers shifts to 2PPC+AC/10.

Your core game mechanics are set up in such a way as to promote high-alpha builds, PGI. Your ammo bins do not have enough ammunition per ton, forcing available tonnage out of secondary systems, equipment or weapons. Your pin-point target mechanics are overwhelming the armour values, even at double TT numbers. Your heat pool is way too high, allowing for continuous and repeated brutal weapon combinations. Your weapon reload/recycle times are too high, further taxing your ammunition and armour values. Your Mech customization freedom is way too lenient… especially when it comes to engine choices. Players have the freedom to bend your game to the breaking point, which they have proven very adept at.

I am very sorry to say, but so long as you ignore the impact the above core game mechanics are having on your repeated attempts at weapon balance, you will be forever tweaking weapon values and dreaming up convoluted and confusing additional mechanics to stamp out problems that should otherwise have very obvious solutions.

How high is "too high" as far as pin point damage goes? How is 2 PPC+AC/10 any different than 3 AC/10s or 2 gauss rifles? What about a Quad AC/5 or 6 AC/2s?

Edited by Farix, 13 August 2013 - 09:26 AM.

[Chronojam]

DirePhoenix, on 13 August 2013 - 07:03 AM, said:

I'm not sure you understand what ad hominem means. An ad hominem would be saying that "PGI isn't considering the #savemwo points because it comes from a bunch of whiners". That's not what they're saying.

They are saying that just because they don't personally address each and every point someone brings up, it doesn't mean they haven't seen or considered it.

No, actually, that is what is being said. Would you like me to dig up the quotes to make you look foolish now, or would you like to realize you are wrong and back down, or would you plan on having me dig up the quotes only for you to move the goalposts and say I misunderstood what you just said?

[Chronojam]

John MatriX82, on 13 August 2013 - 07:23 AM, said:

now 2PPC 1 GR is op.

If you use "now" to mean "at present" then yes, it is true that #2ppc1gauss is the dominant build of the dominant metagame.

If you use "now" to mean "it has just become" then no, because #2ppc1gauss has been the dominant build of the dominant metagame for seven months.

[Ransack]

Appogee, on 13 August 2013 - 08:55 AM, said:

I sense a Gauss minimum range incoming...

that's what it smells like to me

[Chronojam]

Appogee, on 13 August 2013 - 08:55 AM, said:

I sense a Gauss minimum range incoming...

The Aristocrats! Tabletop!

[Borak Bloodaxe]

Frankly I'm tired of all these cries and complaints.
you have wept for ppc alpha ... they have been nerfed and it was fine to do so.
But it was not enough ... and they have increased the heat.
But it was not enough ... now do not go well 2ppc + gauss ... it is
too powerful.
Now they will be nerfed again. Then you will weep for what?
The problem is not the PPC ... or the gauss ... the problem is not the
snipers .. the problem is you!
Spending too much time crying and too little to try to play better, to
improve yourself.
I do both the sniper and brawler that there is always someone who
complains about something.
They call us cheaters, they say that we use aimbot and everything else
I see too many times players without a minimum of tactics, using mechs
without criteria and getting out there thinking they are invincible,
or thinking that it is enough to have an atlas to be able to run in
open field to destroy everything that we encounter.
You're playing the wrong game.
I've never complained meeting snipers, I move with caution, I change
position frequently, unfortunately, is full of people who are still
there and take the blows and then they cry.
People that does not know how to play, this is the problem, MWO is
full of bad players who cannot adapt, don't know how to play but they
can only complain about everything.
When MWO will be reduced to "i run around in my mech shooting stuff
blidnly" you will achieve your goal, but at that point the game will
be dead and no one of the good players will be left.

Edited by Borak Bloodaxe, 13 August 2013 - 09:52 AM.