18 replies to this topic

[DC1]

To start with, please dont thrash me for trying to find a silver lining here, but after reading through swarms of complaints and posting a couple of my own, it occurred to me that there must be some good in all of these recent changes. For example:
1. Gauss rifles: I hate, hate, hate what they did to GR's. The charge time ruins there combat effectiveness, and at 15 tons (18 plus amo) these things are supposed to be the best, not the worst. But hey, on the upside, there are a lot less gaussapults running around and people are actually using A/10's for once... thats kinda a good thing? ... right?
2. Ghost heat: Besides being the worlds most convoluted and unintuitive system, it is getting the job done right? ... well I mean at least sorta. Those A/C40's dont alpha as much and the missile and laser boats dont either... A/C2 boating got a little nerf and the overall balance improved a little... maybe?
3. Climbing speed reduction: Sure, its annoying to find yourself stuck climbing up a hill you know you could get over before this happened... stalling out your atlas half way up a hill in front of a line of guns is one of the worst feelings in the world, and it looks as stupid as it feels when you see someone bobbing up and down against the walls of a canyon because they "Really thought this was the one they could get up" Still... it did kinda give light mechs a sorely needed advantage, and helped nerf the big guys a little... so, thats something, isnt it?
4. 3rd person: What the heck is this doing in online? I mean, dont you remember the good old days when people couldnt peek around a corner without actually peeking? ... Then again, it is kinda fun to actually look at my own mech from time to time... especially when all I get to do is walk for the first half of the match. Any chance they could throw in a rotate camera function?
5. The decrease in CB: ok, we all hate this one... but it makes you try that much harder i guess.

The list goes on... fill in your own and maybe you can find a positive outlook too. Sure, sometimes the community needs to get out and presser the Devs a little, but at the same time they are at least trying to make the game better. They arnt perfect, the games not perfect, I get that, at least the games still fun... well for me anyways. What about you?

[DaZur]

Happy as a clam...

Sure things could be better but I'm doing my thing and having fun regardless.

[WVAnonymous]

I just rebuild my load outs every few months. Something always works.

At the moment, I have 2 AC5s with many MLs in many mechs and I have 20 ER PPCs in inventory. Next month it may be 20 AC5s in inventory and lots of something else mounted.

Something always works.

[Charons Little Helper]

Madness? THIS IS MWO!!! *kick*

[OneEyed Jack]

Ghost Heat: Total rubbish. The simple adjustment of increasing the heat on PPCs accomplished more to create the effect they were looking for than Ghost Heat ever did. All it does at this point is punish weapons that didn't need or deserve to be punished and confuse new players.

Gauss Recharge: Idiotic. There is no reasonable logic to either the existence or the mechanic. But mostly it just makes the heaviest weapon in the game sub-par and unreasonable to use in any kind of mixed build.

Slope Code: Good concept, crappy implementation. I think they took it too far, considering the point of Mechs over vehicles is largely about mobility. I think the angle cap should be a bit higher, both to better represent that mobility and to better match the slopes that were obviously intended to be climbable on various maps. Also, it should never have been launched without some kind of work-around to keep low terrain from bringing mechs to a complete stop. There are still things lower than the graphical step-height of mechs not only slowing them down, but stopping them. Even slightly larger objects/slopes should not be able to stop mechs, such as the small craters in TD. A slope below knee-height should be traversable, regardless of angle.

[Lightfoot]

The fix for Gauss Rifles is to increase the recharge to be 20-30% longer than the AC20. That's all that has ever been needed. If it was this way to begin with we would not even be talking about Gauss Rifles.

The Ghost Heat is just way overdone and is ruining half the Mechs out there. They need to tone it down and get back to Mech Simulation.

[Sephlock]

DC1, on 18 November 2013 - 11:30 AM, said:

AN UPSIDE TO THE MADNESS?

That's all I've got.

Everything else is bad nerfs and Lovecraftian logic.

And the best part is, people can't say "THIS IS BETA!" anymore. That excuse was stupid and wrong back then, and it's dead and buried now, thank god.

"BETA" did not excuse any of this, and the non "THIS IS BETA" people all saw this state of affairs coming, and got shouted down, Spartan style...

I can't have non pinpoint damage, functional DHS, non ghost heat, rapid fire AC/2s, decent LRMs, regular ECM, or the ability to walk my 100 ton atlas over a 1 mm tall pebble, but I CAN gloat.

THIS IS *NOT* BETA!

THIS *IS WHAT YOU DEFENDED*!

ENJOY THE FRUITS OF YOUR LABOR, White Knights!

/bitterness

No seriously, in a clumsy way they sort of forced us into generating the numbers/statistical trends that they wanted. For now. In the same way that the Soviet Union forced the people to generate the numbers/statistical trends that they wanted, minus the disappearances and gulags (although K-town counts, right ? Right?)

[Dracol]

Ghost heat = no more quick firing triple AC/2 (manual or macro) = no more stun lock
Ghost heat = 3 ppcs can't be fired together with impunity = game now involves more brawling then b4
Ghost heat = multiples of a weapon are affected = running a single or pair of the same weapon didn't get nerfed
Ghost heat = dual AC/20 still viable but their engagement time reduced = more mechs beside jagers are now used for brawling

Gauss rifle = op weapon of table top balanced in MWO via skill = every ballistic slot available is no longer filled with gauss rifles

Movement change = heavies and assualts can no longer go every where = battles more dynamic as non jump capable mechs have to carefully consider their approach

IMHO MWO is better because of em, and although early, the biased poll is supporting my position

[bar10jim]

I noticed that no one has voted the "I Quit" option. Could that be because they quit?

[DrSlamastika]

I love this gauss gun and I dont care about others things

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

The heat tax needs to go, sooner would be better than later, but it can't just be removed. Something else needs to be done. I'm a fan of the "low capacity high dissipation" heat rework proposal.

Gauss seems in a decent place now. Plenty of people seem actually to prefer it with the new charge mechanic, and I definitely see pilots making amazing use out of them, but they are no longer the only ballistic worth taking. ACs can finally compete.

3PV is pretty meh, but I would like to see PGI follow through and not allow it for CW matches. It's fine in "instant action" games like we have now.

Maneuverability limitations are great. They started out a bit buggy but PGI has been constantly updating their maps to make the system work better and I think it adds a lot of tactical challenge to the maneuver war, while also boosting JJ utility.

I'd much prefer a more generous c-bill return, but I imagine that will wait until more "role warfare" rewards go live. I do occasionally hit 300k, I'm often between 150k and 250k, but a bit of bad luck and I find myself getting 50k on a win. If something goes terribly wrong a bad game can and should be bad for income, but spectacular wins should counterbalance that with booku bucks. It all depends on what PGI wants to median income to be. 150k per game? 100k? 250k? The time investment required to buy a new mech (or to get DHS or whatever) should be the basis of the income balance.

I'd prefer a bit more generosity since c-bills are what let you play around with new mechs and new builds and that's what keeps people coming back to play over and over again. That said, I'm willing to wait a bit until we see what other reward options become available as PGI expands the non-damage pay scale.

[Mystere]

Levi Porphyrogenitus, on 18 November 2013 - 02:02 PM, said:

3PV is pretty meh, but I would like to see PGI follow through and not allow it for CW matches. It's fine in "instant action" games like we have now.

I would prefer that they turn 3PV into something more like this and allow it everywhere.

[Dirus Nigh]

Ghost heat is a bad idea. raising the heat of weapons to the original values has gone a long way in balancing large energy weapons.

Gauss rifle charge time is a complicated with no logic and poor reasoning behind it. Weapons should fire when the trigger is pulled. The capacitors on a gauss rifle are charged during the reload time, just like PPCs and lasers. They want to make the weapon cabable of sniping but the charge mechanic ruins that roll. Mechs who use PPCs and large lasers can bob in and out of cover and fire while my gauss rifle is charging then losing charge while Im trying to set up the shot.

Other adjustments would have been better, like making the slug speed different than the PPC. By traveling at different speeds they will hit different locations, or one of them will miss the target. Giving the gauss a high cycle rate, or even increasing the heat to four.

Using the analogy of real life snipers who hold their breath when firing is completely wrong. A sniper holds their breath to steady their aim, it is not required to load a round into the chamber and pull the trigger. That explanation makes PGI look foolish at best.

Slope effecting movement is fine. it creates a dynamic effect for terrain. However it does need adjusting, my mech should not stop cold because it hit some thing that does not come up to its knee.

Edited by Dirus Nigh, 18 November 2013 - 02:20 PM.

[Taemien]

OneEyed Jack, on 18 November 2013 - 12:44 PM, said:

Ghost Heat: Total rubbish. The simple adjustment of increasing the heat on PPCs accomplished more to create the effect they were looking for than Ghost Heat ever did. All it does at this point is punish weapons that didn't need or deserve to be punished and confuse new players.

I don't know if that would work. Lets look at 2x AC20s. Ghost heat prevents them from being alpha'd. Your suggestion would just make it so no one would ever mount 2. Same thing with 4 PPCs. How do you prevent (using heat only, as convergence changes aren't possible), a 40pt alpha all the time, but still allow it for emergency alphas at a severe cost? While maintaining the fact that the weapons can still be chain fired.

See they didn't want to get rid of 4xPPC or 2xAC20s.. they wanted to limit their alphas. So what else would you have suggested to get the same results?

Quote

Gauss Recharge: Idiotic. There is no reasonable logic to either the existence or the mechanic. But mostly it just makes the heaviest weapon in the game sub-par and unreasonable to use in any kind of mixed build.

I think that is a matter of opinion. Some people still do quite well with these weapons.

Quote

Slope Code: Good concept, crappy implementation. I think they took it too far, considering the point of Mechs over vehicles is largely about mobility. I think the angle cap should be a bit higher, both to better represent that mobility and to better match the slopes that were obviously intended to be climbable on various maps. Also, it should never have been launched without some kind of work-around to keep low terrain from bringing mechs to a complete stop. There are still things lower than the graphical step-height of mechs not only slowing them down, but stopping them. Even slightly larger objects/slopes should not be able to stop mechs, such as the small craters in TD. A slope below knee-height should be traversable, regardless of angle.

Could be worse. TT has worse rules for slope. A 27 degree slope not only can't be climbed by mechs. It requires 3 JJs to traverse. 45 degrees is even worse than that, requiring 6 jumpjets.

I do agree that a slope below knee-height should be traverseable and I will even say that any small hill that is smaller than a mech should be as well. Not sure how they'd code that to be honest.

[Victor Morson]

I wish you didn't lump everything into the same poll. I like the Gauss but hate most everything else you mentioned.

[Tezcatli]

My opinion. Balance isn't bad. Better then past instances.

We could use a bit of an adjustment in screen shake effect from ACs.
Mechs could use a re size. Like the Treb.
I personally think jump jets should impart some heat on the user.

But more importantly. We need CW. Balance is good enough. Give us a better reason to fight. Give us something else to build toward. Because it feels like right now I'm only building toward the next mech. And more game modes to break a bit of this stale feeling.

[xMEPHISTOx]

Bah...people whine to much in games these days, I blame the FTP model.

[Apnu]

Doesn't matter what PGI does to tune the game. I'll adapt and overcome. Here are my selfish responses:

GR changes? I didn't run it too much and when I did I used it for long/medium ranges anyway. The damn thing is a glass cannon, no way I want to brawl with it.

Ghost heat? Bah! I've always favored balanced builds, this is a non issue for me. Even in my beloved HBK-4P with 8 medium lasers. I just had to change my ticks a bit. No sweat. And now I over heat less because my game play changed for the better.

Climbing speed, seems more realistic to me. As a cyclist I know what climbing hills is like, it makes you work hard. But we're talking about mechanics right? In a car I'd just give it more gas until the engine struggled with the grade. But this game doesn't have a measurable tax on fuel, so the climbing speed thing works for that. I'm fine with it. Plus it just means I have to change my routes and incorporate it into my game. It also means I have a better chance hitting a cicada slowing down because of a climb, and that's good for me.

3rd person? Well I freaked out about it when it was proposed. When I used it I laughed. Its unusable for real combat. I can see how a newbie would like it until they put on their big boy mech pants. I can see how it can give you a bit of scouting intel, but not much. My game stats haven't changed one bit since 3rd person has been released. I'm still roughly .500 over all. Turned out to be much ado about nothing, PGI got it right. I agree I'm unclear to the point of that mode, I think a good tutorial and training overcomes the need for 3rd person, but its not a game breaker.

Honestly, nothing surprises me after the level 10 hissy fit on the forums over ECM.

[Navy Sixes]

I haven't joined any groups yet (no consistent time I can play) but one of the conditions I'm definitely laying down in my criteria for a group is playing with people who want to play the game we have been given (FOR FREE!) instead of crying for the make-believe game we keep in our head that we just know would be better than this. I don't want to chose a faction until I'm sure I won't be asked to spend too much (meaning any) time waging a silly war against the game developers instead of playing the game I love.

I've been playing a LRM cat for about five months now, and I've been through good times and bad, ups and downs with each tweak. When they were op or there was a bug, I played around with it and tried to run-up my stats as much as possible before the patch-hammer came down. When they were nerfed (and pay attention, because this is key) I adjusted my play style and adapted to the nerf.

Yes, I came here to the forums to gripe, but I didn't just give up on LRMs as a whole. I'd like to be a considered a top LRM user (I know I'm not near there yet, save your flame) so that means learning to use the system as it stands at the moment. For better or for worse, in sickness and in health...

The problem is too many people that chase DPS around, find something that's too powerful, and then cry when PGI makes it less broken, then go on to the next hit on the DPS charts. A four PPC mech is still pretty dangerous if it's driven by someone who knows how to chain fire, manage their heat and has a more sophisticated build/play strategy than "mash \". Gauss is still a great weapon in the hands of someone who understands its role and perimeters and doesn't want to use it as a no-heat AC15.

Play the game, Harding.
[redacted]

Edited to include an awesome clip from an awesome movie.

Edited by Egomane, 19 November 2013 - 03:45 AM.
Edited to remove language rules violating clip