102 replies to this topic

[Dan Nashe]

Roughly equal does not mean same.
If large pulses and ppcs were both valid, for example, they would still play very very differently.

Balance means that most weapons are valid in some mainstream builds.
I.e the 3 er ppc 3 ml build will always be bad.
But you should be able to make good competitive builds with either weapon.

[Amsro]

I have yet to see an "Aggressive Weapon Balance" take place. The only thing close was the Arty/Air Strike buff.

Ghost Heat doesn't count as "Weapon Balance" because it does no such thing.

The test server is only used to test broken items publicly to get feedback, I've NEVER seen a weapon adjustment tried on the test server.

Meh, I'll just keep waiting. Its been a crazy year, maybe the game could end up complete one day!!

[Roadbeer]

Amsro, on 05 December 2013 - 09:55 AM, said:

Meh, I'll just keep waiting. Its been a crazy year, maybe the game could end up complete one day!!

By definition, an online game is never 'complete'

[Kunae]

Roadbeer, on 05 December 2013 - 10:55 AM, said:

By definition, an online game is never 'complete'

That definition is for MMORPG's and MMO's. This is neither.

[Roadbeer]

Kunae, on 05 December 2013 - 11:07 AM, said:

That definition is for MMORPG's and MMO's. This is neither.

Again, this is like defining what constitutes BETA, old terms in a new world. Some could argue that we haven't been in BETA since the moment they put in MC purchases, some can argue that we're STILL in BETA regardless of the Launch event.

Since this is currently a MOBA with an allegedly impending MMO(RPG),CW, it's going to fall somewhere in-between. It's kind of like arguing that CW is going an Expansion or just DLC.

[New Day]

Homeless Bill, on 03 December 2013 - 05:14 PM, said:

That SRMs are bad? Because they are. Since we're clearly not going to get a missile hit registration fix anytime soon, can we please push the damage up to 2.5? Please?

But what about when they finally do fix hit registration? Just turn the damage back down to 2.0 in the same patch or just let SRMs have a week of being overpowered. What, like direct fire alphas haven't had their day in the sun?


It's not. Even on large, stationary 'mechs, SRMs are ****** compared to their direct fire counterparts.

They would still be useless. Sure they might to great damage but do you want a weapon that will stop working when you need it the most.

[Jman5]

Amsro, on 05 December 2013 - 09:55 AM, said:

I have yet to see an "Aggressive Weapon Balance" take place. The only thing close was the Arty/Air Strike buff.

Ghost Heat doesn't count as "Weapon Balance" because it does no such thing.

Let's not gloss over reality here. They did do a lot of weapon balance over the summer even if you exclude ghost heat (which is a ridiculous exclusion). SRMs/Streaks had spread, damage, CD changes, and a randomization feature introduced. Several energy weapons had significant heat adjustments. Gauss had a big change. UAC 5 had a change. lb10x had spread changes. PPCs were changed to 0 damage under 90m. pulse laser beam duration changed.

There were lots of weapon balance changes in the summer when this was said. You can argue that they didn't go far enough in certain cases because I would agree in regards to dummy SRMs and Pulse lasers. However, they did change things around quite a bit.

My problem is that they haven't really touched weapon balance since launch. I think it's high-time to revisit some of these weapons because there are clearly problems left to be solved.

Edited by Jman5, 05 December 2013 - 11:58 AM.

[Trauglodyte]

Ultimately, balancing weapons isn't as easy as tweaking damage, heat, range, etc. Thinking like that is simply putting the weapon in a vacuum. They've already mentioned on several accounts that they've tried to keep weapons balanced withing a group (see lasers and ACs). The problem ultimately lies in how weapons are used. When Open Beta released, the elephant in the room was the double gauss and various post patch lrm boating. Med Lasers in groups like other laser boating, while damaging, are somewhat balanced by their heat plus map environment. PPCs are also limited by heat but you can still use multiples if you don't mind hiding for the cool down (see quad PPC Stalkers back in the day). Using multiple PPCs plus ACs wasn't an issue 12 months ago because other weapon issues were but now we're seeing the impact of heavy pin point damage localized in single salvoes. You can't simply balance that away without changing the entire characteristic of the weapon. Every weapon in the game, save for PPCs and pure ACs, spread damage around. I imagine that they're not doing a heavy weapon balance because they're trying to figure out if the current state of those weapons is good for the game. Personally, I'm ok with it to a certain extent but it really comes down to if the damage is ok with a fixed convergence or if changing the damage application sans convergence change is possible.

[Almond Brown]

627, on 03 December 2013 - 11:36 PM, said:

I'd like to have a... don't know... kind of test server where we could try out different weapon stats like higher srm damage, Narc without tha damage limiter, MGs as "light AC2" instead of a crit seeker...

man, that would be great.

Slight problem. How do you get enough players to Test to actually collect enough data to say they are "just right"? You can't unless everyone plays the Test and then it isn't the Test anymore but is now the new Live Production server.

And having 25 players test and say "they are great, do it" will not cut it for Live play. Sorry!

[Homeless Bill]

Fierostetz, on 05 December 2013 - 09:00 AM, said:

Out of curiosity - what's the ideal state you're looking for? There has to be a best weapon and a worst weapon or it's just going to get more boring. Personally, I love LPL, but thats mainly because I like to sneak them onto lights. MPL aren't for me, but SPL are great on a jenner kneecap-puncher. I worry that the weapons will get *so* balanced that there's no reason to take one weapon over another. I do miss the monster machine guns we had a while back - that was fun! My post isn't meant to be argumentative, it's more to determine what the ideal state is, then we can worry about getting to that ideal state.

There will almost always be weapons that are better and weapons that are worse, but I'd like to minimize that. It's not that weapons should all be the same - it's that they should each have a niche role that they perform well. Pulse lasers could use a range boost, but I'd prefer they get a damage boost/heat decrease and a beam duration reduction. That way, they'd still be short-range, but they'd excel at it.

Right now, there's no situation where certain weapons are good. SRMs, though they should be the single best weapon inside of 200m, are bad. Even on the testing grounds, they're just underwhelming. I'd take an autocannon every time, and that's just not how it should be. I haven't seen a Splatcat in ages, no one runs SRMs in high Elo matches, and they're pretty scarce everywhere else as well.

NamesAreStupid, on 05 December 2013 - 11:22 AM, said:

They would still be useless. Sure they might to great damage but do you want a weapon that will stop working when you need it the most.

I want a weapon that has a chance to be useful - that's all. I'll roll the dice on moving targets. Would you rather have a weapon that's consistently ******, even against stationary targets? Why?

[Kunae]

Roadbeer, on 05 December 2013 - 11:21 AM, said:

Again, this is like defining what constitutes BETA, old terms in a new world. Some could argue that we haven't been in BETA since the moment they put in MC purchases, some can argue that we're STILL in BETA regardless of the Launch event.

Since this is currently a MOBA with an allegedly impending MMO(RPG),CW, it's going to fall somewhere in-between. It's kind of like arguing that CW is going an Expansion or just DLC.

Adding an over-arching map with win/loss progression-bars to Counterstrike doesn't make it a MMO/RPG. It's still just a FPS.

Adding CW to MWO doesn't make it a MMO/RPG. It's still just a FPS with robot models.

[Roadbeer]

Actually, that's called an opinion.

Because even though neither of us expect the CW map to be more than a glossy progress bar, even something as simple as that gives it a level of persistence that qualifies it as an MMO/RPG/MOBA.

[Heffay]

Roadbeer, on 05 December 2013 - 01:00 PM, said:

Actually, that's called an opinion.

Because even though neither of us expect the CW map to be more than a glossy progress bar, even something as simple as that gives it a level of persistence that qualifies it as an MMO/RPG/MOBA.

It's more than that. The position of the progress bar will have real effects in the game economy.

I guess you could say that about anything. Sure you killed Kel'Thuzad and got the achievement for it, but WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN???

[Kunae]

Heffay, on 05 December 2013 - 01:03 PM, said:

It's more than that. The position of the progress bar will have real effects in the game economy.

I guess you could say that about anything. Sure you killed Kel'Thuzad and got the achievement for it, but WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN???

Um, this game doesn't have an economy.

Adjusting the purchase price of mechs that you don't need to buy because you already own them, is not an "economy".

Roadbeer, on 05 December 2013 - 01:00 PM, said:

Actually, that's called an opinion.

Because even though neither of us expect the CW map to be more than a glossy progress bar, even something as simple as that gives it a level of persistence that qualifies it as an MMO/RPG/MOBA.

No, it's fact.

By your reasoning, a FPS with a ladder-system could be called an MMO/RPG/MOBA, simply because the stats had "persistence".

A good comparison, GW1 vs GW2.

GW1 was a fantasy shooter.
GW2 is a MMORPG.

[Kekkone]

stjobe, on 05 December 2013 - 08:39 AM, said:

How can you increase something that's already hitscan?

Edit: The MG isn't implemented as a ballistic weapon, it's implemented as a laser with bullet graphics. However those graphics have nothing to do with the actual weapon implementation:
* MGs are hitscan; pull the trigger and the target takes damage immediately.
* MGs have 2x max range like energy weapons, not 3x like ballistics
* MGs got HSR in phase 1 with the energy weapons, not phase 2 with the ballistics

So basically the MG is a laser with no cooldown, doing 10 damage ticks per second (HSR permitting). The bullet-stream gfx is just smokes and mirrors.

Last time i used MG's i recall having to lead the target to get registered hits. Must have been a HSR issue then.

[Roadbeer]

Kunae, on 05 December 2013 - 01:58 PM, said:

Um, this game doesn't have an economy.

Adjusting the purchase price of mechs that you don't need to buy because you already own them, is not an "economy".


No, it's fact.

By your reasoning, a FPS with a ladder-system could be called an MMO/RPG/MOBA, simply because the stats had "persistence".

A good comparison, GW1 vs GW2.

GW1 was a fantasy shooter.
GW2 is a MMORPG.

No, that's still opinion.

With the map that directs the direction of an economy (as weak as it may be) that constitutes persistence, your ladder analogy is just stat ranking, the differences are subtle, but you've planted your flag, so we're just going to have to agree to disagree.

[Solis Obscuri]

Joseph Mallan, on 04 December 2013 - 04:51 AM, said:

if we are fixing ghost heat we should fix it for the AC20, PPCs Large Lasers, ...etc

I always advocated that a divergence CoF from firing too many weapons in too short an interval would be a better approach, and much easier to visually represent with reticule spread. Generally fits well with lore and with science, as intense heat buildup tends to expand and distort most materials, as well as increasing electrical impedance and messing with how well computing systems, actuators and (fictional) myomers function. But Ghost heat has been fairly successful in making people think a bit more about their weapons groupings, and in curbing many of the high-alpha builds that were the only game in town a few months back... thought the heat on AC/2s is crazy, particularly since they now produce less heat when alpha'ed than when fired in a staggered sequence. I just find that bizarre.

[Kaldor]

Homeless Bill, on 03 December 2013 - 05:14 PM, said:

That SRMs are bad? Because they are. Since we're clearly not going to get a missile hit registration fix anytime soon, can we please push the damage up to 2.5? Please?

But what about when they finally do fix hit registration? Just turn the damage back down to 2.0 in the same patch or just let SRMs have a week of being overpowered. What, like direct fire alphas haven't had their day in the sun?


It's not. Even on large, stationary 'mechs, SRMs are ****** compared to their direct fire counterparts.


As much as the forums are a bit of a whiny cesspool sometimes, game balance is one thing I'd trust more to people here than whoever is in charge now.

Months of machine guns being bad, while PGI continues to tell us they're just fine. PGI decides making it a crit-seeking weapon will be enough, and the forums disagree. Fast forward a few months, the forums were right, and the machine guns, in addition to being savage crit-seekers, have had their damage more than doubled.

Months of endless poptarting, an unsuccessful attempt to end it with Ghost Heat, and then finally the PPC nerf that players had been begging for.

Also, pulse lasers have always been bad and still are bad. What's the point of having a balance forum when there's so rarely an attempt to balance out underperforming things?

TL;DR: Buff SRMs and pulse lasers. Because they're bad and there's no reason not to. Seriously, it's a number in a text file - why can we not get at least that small courtesy?

Bill...
I havent played in almost 2 months... Same as it was back then. Nothing will change. PGI has painted themselves into a corner so to speak. They would have to dump months worth of work to actually fix the problems. That aint gonna happen.

All system abominable as some sigs say...

[Turist0AT]

Yes! Thank you Homless Bill for bringing up this topic!

[Damia Savon]

Carrioncrows, on 03 December 2013 - 08:32 PM, said:

The entire Missile, EW, Collisions, and Hitboxes need reworked.

All SRM's should lock.
All missile weapons should have a 50% maximum range, not to be confused with their 100% effective range.



x6 SRM6 A1.

Hold the targeting cursor and you slowly begin to lock up missiles.



You can still fire those missile in their dumbfire mode but only the missles that have acheived lock will track.



If at any time you don't hold the targeting cursor over your target you begin to LOSE lock.

Once you launch the missiles you have to keep the targeting cursor over the target to maintain lock as slipping the cursor off target will cause the missiles to completely lose lock.

Once missiles cross their effective range they begin to lose lock until the missiles hit something or they reach their maximum range.

SRM's should work just like streaks but suffer a penalty to tracking and speed. So it would require skill to line up shots and keep the targeting cursor on the enemy mech instead of fire and forget as we have now.

All missiles should work like this, not just SRMs.

So what does this mean for streaks? Obviously, they track better and only fire once they have achieved a full lock on for that launcher so you will never prematurely launch missiles without a full lock otherwise they work the same.

Want to know more?

Watch this - > http://www.youtube.c...ayer_detailpage

I suggest you stop smoking crack. LRMs are hard to use as it is assuming you actually care about doing damage and do not just like tossing stuff downrange. You have to be at around 500-600m for LRMs to do any reliable damage (ironically that 50% effective range you mentioned).

Now you want to put all that on SRMs too? Oh yea. sure.. Please Mr. Shadowhawk.. just stay there for the couple seconds it takes all my SRMs to lock. Please do not move past 135 or they will be even more likely to hit those rocks or trees. Would you mind staying in a straight line so there is no chance of losing the lock I need to have any hope of hitting you.

Most importantly, please do not shoot me while I do this stupid SRM dance at 140m range.