1026 replies to this topic

[Von Falkenstein]

How about improving the flawed ones instead of ruining the good ones?

[DeathlyEyes]

Paul, the problem isn't this mech or a few other chasis. The problem is that game mechanics play into the highlander's strength of having jump jets. Half the maps are drastically more difficult to maneuver without jump jets. Furthermore having damage done over long periods of time with lasers means that shielding torso sections with lasers is incredibly hard. You have to expose yourself while sniping much longer and while brawling you can't turn to shield torso's as effectively either. Because it is too hard to get in and out of cover without jump jets, poptarting has become super prevalent. Because laser duration lasts so long ACs PPCs and to a Lesser extent gauss is much more useful than lasers.

The highlander just exposes this problem even more than most mechs because it has a lot of armor and the added maneuverability makes it a pretty strong mech. Unless the mechanics that push players into this style mech are corrected the problem will exist until the nerf wand is waved so much it affects more than just the individual mechanic. (see gauss rifle no longer being able to counter snipe poptarts). The other issue is if you somehow make this fast paced skill based combat out the game will become much less competitive. Eventually we will have a bunch of sitting ducks shooting at eachother doing absolutely nothing impressive or skill related because it won't be possible. Dipping into and out of cover will become utterly worthless because by the time you are back in cover all weapons will have already reloaded.

Mechwarrior 4 was quite balanced actually. There were reasons to take all sorts of weapons, well except LRMs, which in my opinion makes sense because these weapons are low skill weapons. You just hold it over a target and fire with no aiming really involved, that should come with a low reward.

PPCs had a range advantage over lasers while having slight heat disadvantages when trying to output similar amounts of heat. Lasers had the advantage of being easy to aim since they did damage without having to lead targets. Gauss rifles gave an extreme heat advantage while weighing a lot and also requiring to be lead.

Brawling weapons actually far out DPS'd long range weapons. Getting close to a sniper was generally bad news since they actually ran hot. Getting close was much easier because terrain was easier to transverse. In addition to this different weapons also had different advantages. If you took a high alpha build for brawling you could quite potentially knock over other mechs, while a high DPS mech would often allow you to do more damage scoring more points for your team. Light mechs had a similar mechanic, when doing damage to mechs heavier than you, you got more points, doing damage to lighter mechs gave you less points.

We would run light mechs in competitive league play in Team Battle game types all the time to take advantage of this mechanic, giving a more diverse mech loadout. In team destruction (kill points only) most leagues instituted tonnage limits that forced people to take a more diverse drop deck than simply 12 gladiators, the equivlent to the highlander.

I am sick and tired of seeing the nerf wand being waved making things utterly useless. The gauss rifle was mostly ruined in order to prevent a high alpha build instead of actually solving the root cause of the issue which is that other weapon systems take too much time to do their damage. Now the gauss rifle is only useful being used while poptarting. If you are getting sniped by a mech going in and out of cover forget it. A highly skilled player can easily pop in and out of cover within a second and with the charge mechanic returning fire is very difficult.

Nothing short of ruining the game and making it a completely luck based competition similar to table top will actually nerf things to be an even playing field. Teamwork will always trump individuality. If this game continues down the path it's currently on a large segment of your client base will leave. The people who pay money for this game tend to be competitive rather than casual. If you want to cater to the players coming into the game as new players consider giving them trial mechs that match the meta.

If you want to break up the meta you have to expand the options of play. Making the viability of popping in and out of cover without jump jets at this point is a must. Fixing SRMs to actually make sense is a must. (we use to run a nasty build on the black lanner in mechwarrior 4 with a bunch of srm4s, it would knock most mechs down).

Jump sniping will always be a prominent tactic because its quite easy to coordinate with teamwork, other stratagies work as well to counter when game mechanics aren't designed to cause them to fail from the beginning.

Edited by h4t3r4d3, 06 February 2014 - 03:12 AM.

[Rasc4l]

aniviron, on 05 February 2014 - 10:12 PM, said:

I'm glad you're looking at the highlander- it's been the go-to best assault since it was released. The only mech that even comes close is the Victor.

But please don't pull a Raven on it, where you give it an artificial handicap that breaks the mech, where once the underlying issue is fixed leaves the mech terrible and uncompetitive.

Instead I'd ask that you take a look at what makes the HGN so good, and work with that. If I can suggest a good place to start, I would say look at jumpjets. Right now, the 'mechs you will see in competitive play are the Jenner, Shadowhawk, CTF-3D, Victor, and Highlander. What all of these have in common is jump ability- the only mech that you see in high level play without jumpjets is the Jager, and that's only because nothing else can exploit ballistics so fully.

The problem is that right now jumpjets let every single mech maneuver far above its natural ability. Or rather, the problem is that one jumpjet lets the mech do that, instead of jumpjets plural. The numbers that people have been running indicate that just one jumpjet gets you to half of the mech's maximum possible jump height, with shockingly low returns for each additional jet. This gives all of those mechs the ability to turn incredibly rapidly, peek above hills, pass rough terrain, and go places in seconds that takes other mechs minutes (Canyon, looking at you), and all for the weight and crit cost of just one jumpjet.

So instead, give us a linear boost, make the jets work like they say in the mechlab. where each one gives you 5m of lift or so. I don't mind poptarting. I don't mind mechs turning in midair and juking. I don't mind that I have to walk 2km to go up a ridge that can just be jumped over. I do mind that the mechs doing these things have to sacrifice just one crit slot and .5 to 2 tons to do so. If someone is poptarting in a highlander, they'd better have had to put on 10 tons of jumpjets to do it.

That one simple fix will give the Stalker and Atlas a lot more room to breathe at the top end of the weight bracket.

Paul, listen to aniviron. These are good points about JJs.

[w0rm]

Fix SRMs first before you break something else, kthx.

[Viges]

Jman5, on 05 February 2014 - 05:43 PM, said:

I would say there are four major/meta jump snipers right now:

Highlanders (733C mostly, 733, 732)
Victors (dragon slayer)
Cataphract (3D)
Shadowhawks (2D2)

I would keep all these mechs in mind when you think about nerfing. If you weaken just one, then people will pile into the remaining three. Basically mechs with jump jets, and an asymetrical energy/ballistic hardpoint on one side (dual ppc + Autocannon(s)). The higher the guns the more powerful they are.

So I guess the next meta will be heavy ballistic brawlers like:

surprise-surprise!


Highlanders
Victors
Cataphracts
Shadowhawks

you can add k-2 and jagers if you want.

Changed much?

JJ not the problem as people say

pinpoint meta is

[DeathlyEyes]

Viges, on 06 February 2014 - 03:26 AM, said:

So I guess the next meta will be heavy ballistic brawlers like:

surprise-surprise!


Highlanders
Victors
Cataphracts
Shadowhawks

you can add k-2 and jagers if you want.

Changed much?

JJ not the problem as people say

pinpoint meta is

Pin point meta makes the game exciting it should be allowed on more mechs. Expand it to lasers and fix the actual issue of laser duration ruining the game.

Edited by h4t3r4d3, 06 February 2014 - 03:36 AM.

[Viges]

h4t3r4d3, on 06 February 2014 - 03:36 AM, said:

Pin point meta makes the game exciting it should be allowed on more mechs. Expand it to lasers and fix the actual issue of laser duration ruining the game.

WOW - hell NO!

move ballistics/ppc to the place where lasers, srm/lrm, gauss are and we'll be fine

ballistics - firing bullets over time like they should
ppc - charge mechanic

Long battles with pew-pew, dakka-dakka and like - thats what makes this game fun, not oneshooting for sure. I dont want to play hawken or battlefield clone here, ty.

[PawPaWuFF]

crosshair shake while also falling, next

[Kyynele]

Ryan Steel, on 05 February 2014 - 05:55 PM, said:

I don't see how anything I've ever posted, or my performance in other mech builds confirms what you've said. None of us have ever been scared of anything getting nerfed. We'll just use something else that works at a high efficiency.

I think you're the one who's scared. I rebuttled your contention that our FOTM builds was our crutch by calling for a complete poptart removal and you simply attempted to restate the rehashed rhetoric that you terribads have always used when we walk over your steaming, charred mech corpses. You know you're going to get pooped on, and you're so mad about it that you have to spew patently false statements despite our challenge.

As it has been, and always will be, any change to this game will not move us away from the top of the totem pole. We are imbalanced. We are OP. Get ready to get steamrolled by the House of Lords.

LORD STEEL
ggclose

Yeah. There was a time when I got to witness one of the most prominent of your LORD guys in a Jenner F. Every game I saw him in, he scored under 200 damage and max 1 kills. That's a pretty awful performance for a good mech. He was good in one thing though, when it looked like his team wouldn't be steamrolling us, he went hiding and disconnected. Several matches in a row. ggclose indeed.

Not claiming that you guys don't know to play, but the reality might be a bit harsh on you when the weight limits kick in and you can't run 100% assault club any more. Steamrolling might be slightly harder when at least a couple of you are fast kills.

[Reno Blade]

Interesting. I had thougt balancing weapons would be better overall. (Nerfing ballistics and PPCs, pushing lasers and Pulse + SRMs a bit)

Looking forward to changes to JJs and (probably slower turning/twisting) highlanders.

I had posted this in feature suggestion forum before, but it might be interessting for others here also:

Quote

I thought about possible numbers for the JJ fuel and speed.
currently the fuel is independent of number of JJs as is the regeneration, only the thrust seems better, right?
With aiming for between 3 and 5 JJ as the norm, here are my values for how I imagine a good solution.

New JJ:
Each new JJ gives + 10% more fuel and 20% more reload speed, but the lower number of JJs will be less than what we have now.

Fuel of 1 new JJ = about 70% of fuel of 1 old JJ
Reload of 1 new JJ = about 40% of reload speed of 1 old JJ

Fuel of 2 new JJ = 80% fuel
Reload of 2 new JJ = 60% reload speed

Fuel of 3 new JJ = 90% fuel
Reload of 3 new JJ = 80% reload speed.

Fuel of 4 new JJ = 100% fuel
Reload of 4 new JJ = 100% reload speed.

Fuel of 5 new JJ = 110% fuel
Reload of 5 new JJ = 120% reload speed.

For a 12JJ spider:
Fuel of 12 JJ = 180% fuel
Reload of 12 JJ = 280% reload speed.
The 12JJ Spider would have nearly double the fuel and reloads about tripple as of now, but because of the larger fuel tank, it would be only slightly faster overall.

As you can see, 4 JJ would be what we have now, but some mechs like the HGN and Vic don't have more than 3 JJ slots so they will jump a little less even with 3/3 JJs. (just at 90% efficiency)



Oh, we can even change the turn speed of JJ by similar % as the numbers above. (180% for a spider might be too much turn speed FUN, but who knows)
That way, you can turn faster with more JJ, but are not super agile with 1 JJ.
That would also make certain mechs/variants act very differently.

Indirect nerf to Highlanders, as 1 JJ is 2 tons and you would not poptart as much with 1JJ as with 3-4JJs.

[DeathlyEyes]

Viges, on 06 February 2014 - 03:43 AM, said:

WOW - hell NO!

move ballistics/ppc to the place where lasers, srm/lrm, gauss are and we'll be fine

ballistics - firing bullets over time like they should
ppc - charge mechanic

Long battles with pew-pew, dakka-dakka and like - thats what makes this game fun, not oneshooting for sure. I dont want to play hawken or battlefield clone here, ty.

So you would like stand in the open warrior and not have to dip and dodge in and out of cover. Or would you like random number generator warrior where half your weapons don't hit and PGI rolls dice to see if all your weapons hit or not. Either way that sounds like a terrible game to me with no room for competitive attention. Charge mechanic will make Jump Sniping infinitely worse because the one weapon capable of countering it will be completely useless against it unless using cover becomes nerfed out of existence too. I seriously recommend you read my earlier post, its quite lengthy and you will understand why these mechanics are fine.

user5318, on 06 February 2014 - 03:44 AM, said:

crosshair shake while also falling, next

Absolutely not, as it stands theres no effecient way to get in and out of cover without jump jets. I don't want to play stand in the open warrior/linear warrior/civil war online.

Edited by h4t3r4d3, 06 February 2014 - 04:13 AM.

[Rippthrough]

Ryan Steel, on 05 February 2014 - 05:44 PM, said:

Yeah I have them sitting in my mechbay, and decided that having the significant chance of getting instagibbed wasn't an efficient way of securing wins. I'm sure it's good fun for some, as can be car surfing and highway car tubing, but I'm not so inclined to engage in those activities.

But that's the best bit!

Spend 10 minutes baiting an Atlas, get him red cored, then a random gauss fired at someone on the other side of the battlefield takes your leg off.
It's the only fun bit left in this game.

As for all those hoping this is going to stop all the 'meta' players from rolling you. Dream on, we've been here with every mech and every weapons system and you know why the 'meta' players ARE the meta players?
Because they adapt and overcome faster and easier than the rest.
You could force everyone to run identical Locusts with a single small laser for a week and they'd still be at the top.


As for the highlander balancing, JJ changes would be great, so the Spiders, etc that can mount half their weight in them actually get a bit more use out it.
However, this is Paul, so he's probably thrown a dart at a wall and it's hit someones toes.

Highlander 'stubbed-toe' quirk comes out next month, you heard it here first.

[Joseph Mallan]

Roadbeer, on 05 February 2014 - 05:19 PM, said:

Sssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhh










Hear that?
















That is the sound of meta-humpers hearts breaking all over the forum

Yep. So get ready for a NEW play style to complain vociferously about in the near future.

[Mogney]

Seriously? Why not just buff the brawlers by fixing SRMs or something? Nerfing is not the only way to balance the game.

[Effectz]

Fix the god damn SRMS.

Give people an incentive to brawl.

[Moku]

Your whole team should be working on improving UI 2.0 and researching what usability is.

Moku 10SR
10th Solaris Rangers

[wanderer]

h4t3r4d3, on 06 February 2014 - 03:36 AM, said:

Pin point meta makes the game exciting it should be allowed on more mechs. Expand it to lasers and fix the actual issue of laser duration ruining the game.

If by "exciting" you mean "core everything in two shots", sure.

TTK goes straight to the toilet when you can't effectively distribute damage as it's coming in, or the weapon does it for you. Remember when people howled about too many LRMs or Streaks hitting the CT? That's the issue with PPC/Ballistics.

The quickest kills are weapons that can destroy a single, critical section of a 'Mech fast and efficient (as in it doesn't overheat the 'Mech firing). Given any reasonable level of mobility, that right now goes to taking some PPCs and a mix of autocannons, pointing at said section and clicking the fire button. Lasers? I can twist out of some of the damage, or if I'm already mobile, damage WILL spread across multiple hitboxes. Missiles? Already doesn't auto-hit the same spot in large numbers, save for at perhaps nose-picking ranges for SRMs. LB-X? Well, heck. The thing only fires shotgun blasts right now, even if canonically it's supposed to fire "solid" shots too.

Reverting lasers back to MW4-style hitscan/instant delivery just means the same fail with pretty lights.

[wanderer]

h4t3r4d3, on 06 February 2014 - 04:04 AM, said:

So you would like stand in the open warrior and not have to dip and dodge in and out of cover. Or would you like random number generator warrior where half your weapons don't hit and PGI rolls dice to see if all your weapons hit or not. Either way that sounds like a terrible game to me with no room for competitive attention. Charge mechanic will make Jump Sniping infinitely worse because the one weapon capable of countering it will be completely useless against it unless using cover becomes nerfed out of existence too. I seriously recommend you read my earlier post, its quite lengthy and you will understand why these mechanics are fine.

Or, you know, we'd like to be able to shield and twist away from more concentrated damage when we're running along in the open, shooting at each other instead of playing Snipewarrior Online. Nowadays, it's just "wait for the guy to turn to fire, dump a broadside into his CT and core him, repeat" if you're infighting, or "pogo up, put entire arsenal in single location on way down, repeat until target destroyed".

Quote

Absolutely not, as it stands theres no effecient way to get in and out of cover without jump jets. I don't want to play stand in the open warrior/linear warrior/civil war online.

So in other words, you want to be able to commit to cover and not have to leave it under any circumstances, including being able to deliver your full firepower to a target for the fractional time it's exposed while they're jumping up and down too. That's what a PPC/AC boat with jets can and does do, because it's the logical thing. Fewest volleys fired to kill target, minimal exposure to similar volleys thanks to poptarting, and non-similar configs suffer because your motion auto-spreads damage AND you can spread it further naturally with lasers, SRMs don't matter, and lock-on weapons have their locks broken naturally as you drop behind cover, frequently losing lock before it's even fully acquired.

Yes, kids. That's incredibly competitive meta we're looking at there.

[Ryan Steel]

Joseph Mallan, on 06 February 2014 - 04:07 AM, said:

Yep. So get ready for a NEW play style to complain vociferously about in the near future.

This guy gets it.

[Chemie]

Paul has to nerf the HGN. and JJ. That way the circle will be complete for clan mech to dominate. Those JJ assaults the IS have cannot be allowed to stand with the no JJ clan mechs. The IS cannot have good assault go up against those 85 KPH, fully armored, more weapons than you clan mechs can they?