214 replies to this topic

[3rdworld]

Paul Inouye said:

The LPL and MPL update last patch seem to put the weapons where we want them for now.

I don't even.

Edited by 3rdworld, 25 February 2014 - 08:10 PM.

[Dymlos2003]

Have you guys used them right?

[Asmudius Heng]

I feel the LPL is at least usable now after testing but its till not a great choice except on certain mechs. Its 2 slot adantage allows it to go into a CT energy area is still one advatage but PPCs still feel superior on the whole.

MPL as still total trash - again Paul, people do not hate your balance changes anywhere near as much as your flippant comments that explain NOTHING about your reasoning.

WHY do you feel that MPL are in a good place for now. Do not just say you think they are give us some reasoning or it sounds like you either 1. Have no idea, 2. Think we are idiots and not worth explaining to, 3. all of the above.

for over a year i have been saying you need to explain the WHY about things not just what the decision is because the community reacts very badly when they have a statement without reasoning to be able to at least give some sort of response back.

EXPLAIN in just a little detail and it will go a long way ... you might even get some better responses that might help you ...

[mekabuser]

tbh, i noticed no difference.

[Dymlos2003]

Asmudius Heng, on 25 February 2014 - 08:13 PM, said:

I feel the LPL is at least usable now after testing but its till not a great choice except on certain mechs. Its 2 slot adantage allows it to go into a CT energy area is still one advatage but PPCs still feel superior on the whole.

MPL as still total trash - again Paul, people do not hate your balance changes anywhere near as much as your flippant comments that explain NOTHING about your reasoning.

WHY do you feel that MPL are in a good place for now. Do not just say you think they are give us some reasoning or it sounds like you either 1. Have no idea, 2. Think we are idiots and not worth explaining to, 3. all of the above.

for over a year i have been saying you need to explain the WHY about things not just what the decision is because the community reacts very badly when they have a statement without reasoning to be able to at least give some sort of response back.

EXPLAIN in just a little detail and it will go a long way ... you might even get some better responses that might help you ...

Explain why mpl are trash?

[3rdworld]

Dymlos2003, on 25 February 2014 - 08:21 PM, said:

Explain why mpl are trash?

1 damage for 1 heat, 1 ton, and shorter range?

Edited by 3rdworld, 25 February 2014 - 08:29 PM.

[Dymlos2003]

3rdworld, on 25 February 2014 - 08:29 PM, said:

1 damage for 1 heat, 1 ton, and shorter range?

You forgot something

[Asmudius Heng]

Dymlos2003, on 25 February 2014 - 08:21 PM, said:

Explain why mpl are trash?

Compared to a medium laser its benefiots are negligable.

You pay twice the tonnage for less range, a tiny bit more damage, a slightly shorter pulse, and pretty aweful heat for the damage done.

The advantages are that it only takes a single hardpoint ... thats about it.

The efficiency of this weapon is too low, for what its role seems to be.

The current update gave it an extra 20 meters optimal range, thats nice but the heat to damage for the tonnage you spend makes people steer towards the more heat efficient and less weighty medium laser - or to spend more tonnage and move to a heavier energy weapon.

Prhaps i should not say trash, but i think most people who have tried them would agree they are quite sub par for the knife fighting role they have.

[Dymlos2003]

Slightly shorter? 1 second compared to 3... That's quite a.bit shorter and what most of you guys dont.get.

[FupDup]

Dymlos2003, on 25 February 2014 - 08:35 PM, said:

Slightly shorter? 1 second compared to 3... That's quite a.bit shorter and what most of you guys dont.get.

The ML duration is 1 second. The MPL duration is 0.6 seconds.

[Asmudius Heng]

Dymlos2003, on 25 February 2014 - 08:35 PM, said:

Slightly shorter? 1 second compared to 3... That's quite a.bit shorter and what most of you guys dont.get.

Are you referencing the beam duration?

0.6 second to 1 second duration?

Where did you get 1 compared to 3?

EDIT: I should say i do not mind that mechanic as it DOES allow more damage on individual locations i feel, however I think they could easily make it 0.5 and that would feel better but would still not solve the heat vs damage vs tonnage ratios that make it a poor choice.

We should NOT forget the beam duration it is a part of the equation but its not enough and your numbers are way off

Edited by Asmudius Heng, 25 February 2014 - 08:40 PM.

[Dymlos2003]

Asmudius Heng, on 25 February 2014 - 08:39 PM, said:

Are you referencing the beam duration?

0.6 second to 1 second duration?

Where did you get 1 compared to 3?

EDIT: I should say i do not mind that mechanic as it DOES allow more damage on individual locations i feel, however I think they could easily make it 0.5 and that would feel better but would still not solve the heat vs damage vs tonnage ratios that make it a poor choice.

We should NOT forget the beam duration it is a part of the equation but its not enough and your numbers are way off

Meant 2, for some reason I kept thinking 3. That's my bad.

[Asmudius Heng]

Dymlos2003, on 25 February 2014 - 08:43 PM, said:

Meant 2, for some reason I kept thinking 3. That's my bad.

0.6 to 1 is still not a 2/1 ratio but close. I think it SHOULD be 0.5 to 1 to be more noticable.

However i stand by my statement that this is not enough of an advantage to mitigate the other disadvantages but should also not be ignored.

[divinedisclaimer]

Asmudius Heng, on 25 February 2014 - 08:39 PM, said:

Are you referencing the beam duration?

0.6 second to 1 second duration?

Where did you get 1 compared to 3?

EDIT: I should say i do not mind that mechanic as it DOES allow more damage on individual locations i feel, however I think they could easily make it 0.5 and that would feel better but would still not solve the heat vs damage vs tonnage ratios that make it a poor choice.

We should NOT forget the beam duration it is a part of the equation but its not enough and your numbers are way off

Any skilled energy user will know, a %40 reduction in hold time is the most significant advantage of pulse lasers. What you people aren't understanding is, these weapons best fit a single role: hitting fast movers.

If you can track mediums on a full speed light for a full second and hit it's leg the entire second; then you will appreciate how much more dangerous pulse lasers are. While they don't do much more damage, what they do is deliver more of it to a target which is dipping in and out of the beam.

They remain a niche weapon, but now fill that niche very nicely. I find the range buff improved this greatly and now use a pair in my centi anti-light build.

Edited by divinedisclaimer, 25 February 2014 - 08:46 PM.

[Asmudius Heng]

divinedisclaimer, on 25 February 2014 - 08:45 PM, said:

Any skilled energy user will know, a %40 reduction in hold time is the most significant advantage of pulse lasers. What you people aren't understanding is, these weapons best fit a single role: hitting fast movers.

If you can track mediums on a full speed light for a full second and hit it's leg the entire second; then you will appreciate how much more dangerous pulse lasers are. While they don't do much more damage, what they do is deliver more of it to a target which is dipping in and out of the beam.

They remain a niche weapon, but now fill that niche very nicely. I find the range buff improved this greatly and now use a pair in my centi anti-light build.

I agree to a point.

I will use pulse lasers of any kind on very fast movers because its hard to keep a beam on target when going over a certain speed.

Conversly i will also use pulse lasers on big fat mechs that i might have trouble hitting lights with a regular beam because they can dodge a lot of the damage. Though this is a lesser usage because the range is so low you are too fat and slow to use them effectivly.

In between those ranges i dont think it is enough of an advantage.

I do not like these weapons to be so niche as to be used only in very narrow roles when we have a brawling range that has been neglected due to poor SRMs, LBX, and pulse lasers.

The beam duration does not make this weapon viable in enough sitations to warrent its weight - but it cannot be ignored either. This polariation where some people claim its duration makes it king and others say it does not make a difference is frustrating it is just paret of the overall equation.

I use lasers quite a bit so i know the advantage but its just not enough to make me use them much.

I am using the LPL more on fast movers but the MPL still feels like it is making me pay too high a price for what it does.

[Sephlock]

Bront, on 23 February 2014 - 02:34 PM, said:

I'm loving the LPL buff. Haven't tried MPLs since then, but the extra range equates into extra damage much of the time on them, so it likely helps. Is it enough? maybe, the heat change helped the LPL quite a bit as well.
I think a 120 range on SLs, and 100 on SPLs I think would be a good buff

Be honest: would you EVER use SPLs, even then?

Asmudius Heng, on 25 February 2014 - 08:13 PM, said:

for over a year i have been saying you need to explain the WHY about things not just what the decision is because the community reacts very badly when they have a statement without reasoning to be able to at least give some sort of response back.

EXPLAIN in just a little detail and it will go a long way ... you might even get some better responses that might help you ...

I suspect that it is based on the statistical data, and the reason he doesn't want to specify is because they don't want to cause even more meta-whoring... I think they said something to that effect with regards to not releasing numbers.

It would explain the oddly specific (and tiny) changes the weapon modules make- they aren't looking at things from a gameplay perspective, they're looking at things from the top down.

divinedisclaimer, on 25 February 2014 - 08:45 PM, said:

Any skilled energy user will know, a %40 reduction in hold time is the most significant advantage of pulse lasers. What you people aren't understanding is, these weapons best fit a single role: hitting fast movers.

If you can track mediums on a full speed light for a full second and hit it's leg the entire second; then you will appreciate how much more dangerous pulse lasers are. While they don't do much more damage, what they do is deliver more of it to a target which is dipping in and out of the beam.

They remain a niche weapon, but now fill that niche very nicely. I find the range buff improved this greatly and now use a pair in my centi anti-light build.

These are fair points, and the reasons why I was eyeing LPL speculatively, but SPL are just inferior weapons and MPL are... really not so much better than Mlas that you'd accept the higher heat.

The bottom line is that there is another factor at play here: the heat-to-kill ratio (and associated factors). The question you should be asking yourself is "Will this weapon make me overheat before it makes the other guy dead"? If the answer is "yes", consider a different weapon.

Now, the obvious counter to that is "Well, you don't have to fire continuously, just run away while you wait for your mech to cool down".

You know what helps with that? Range. Also, not dedicating 2x the tonnage to weaponry (as you must for small and medium pulse lasers), taking up tonnage that could be used for a bigger engine and/or more heatsinks.

Even if your strategy is just to torso twist, the above factors still apply.

--- TBH though, I haven't crunched the numbers, so maybe they are still worthwhile in that regard. ---

Which brings me to another point: Sure, pulse lasers look better for swatting lights, but a light mech needs to make the most of it's space/tonnage, and therefore is in all probability going to rely on mlas (although with the advent of the Firestarter, some will admittedly be using SLAS). That essentially means that your anti-light weapon (spl or mpl) is going to have inferior range when compared to the weapons the lights will be carrying- and they'll be significantly faster than you are.

That is not a good combination (for you).

Now, LPL have enough range to deal with this- few lights are going to pack large lasers, and those that do are generally not going to have enough of them (or enough time) to pew pew you to death from outside your max range, even assuming you don't have anything longer ranged than LPL on your mech.

There are the odd PPC light mechs, but those guys would get you even if you used regular lasers.

--edit--

Note that the other most common light weapons also fall into the "sweet spot" - they have longer optimal range than MPL, but shorter optimal range than LPL.

I'm too lazy to copy/paste the values, though .

Edited by Sephlock, 25 February 2014 - 09:30 PM.

[aniviron]

divinedisclaimer, on 25 February 2014 - 08:45 PM, said:

Any skilled energy user will know, a %40 reduction in hold time is the most significant advantage of pulse lasers. What you people aren't understanding is, these weapons best fit a single role: hitting fast movers.

If you can track mediums on a full speed light for a full second and hit it's leg the entire second; then you will appreciate how much more dangerous pulse lasers are. While they don't do much more damage, what they do is deliver more of it to a target which is dipping in and out of the beam.

They remain a niche weapon, but now fill that niche very nicely. I find the range buff improved this greatly and now use a pair in my centi anti-light build.

As a skilled energy weapons user, I can tell you this:

Out of every hit I have with medium lasers, I do 61% of my maximum possible damage averaged over thousands of shots for shots that hit; for that 1 second beam time, I am hitting for .61s. Out of every hit I have with medium pulse lasers, I do 61% of my maximum possible damage on every shot that hits, also averaged over thousands of shots; for the .6s beam time, I am hitting for .366s.

When I first found out that my damage percentages over hit shots were identical for pulse and normal lasers, I couldn't believe it. It felt like I should get much more damage per shot out of the pulse lasers! So I started to pay a lot of attention in game, and found that the advantage was really about as negligible as the numbers were suggesting, which means that, at least for me, pulse lasers are heavier, hotter, and shorter range, and confer exactly no advantage to make up for this. I switched everything that was using pulse lasers to normal lasers with more heatsinks and immediately saw a noticeable performance improvement; for everyone I have queried about this, they have also found that their pulse laser damage stats are within a percentage point or two of their normal lasers as well.

Still, more data is always good. If you want to find out if pulse lasers are doing anything for you, just take your total number of hits, and then multiply by the damage that the weapon does for a 100% hit. For normal medium lasers, that's 5, for MPL, it is 6. Then, take the total damage you've done with the weapon and divide by the number you just came up with in the previous operation; this will give you the percent of the damage you've done out of the total possible damage. Unless your pulse laser percent is significantly higher than your normal laser percent, you're not getting any benefit out of the shorter burn time.

[Asmudius Heng]

Sephlock, on 25 February 2014 - 09:15 PM, said:

I suspect that it is based on the statistical data, and the reason he doesn't want to specify is because they don't want to cause even more meta-whoring... I think they said something to that effect with regards to not releasing numbers.

It would explain the oddly specific (and tiny) changes the weapon modules make- they aren't looking at things from a gameplay perspective, they're looking at things from the top down.

I am certain they look at the data and that is good, you need hard data for some aspects of checking effectiveness - but as we all know data can be skewed by many other factors in a game like this that is so complex. You need some level of intuition and need to look at the bigger picture of the balance ecosystem that raw data may not give enough answers to.

That being said i do not want them to release data at all if they are worried about it.

What if Paul said:

"The pulse lasers are proving to be extremely effective for newer players and seem to have found a niche even in upper level play on certain mechs.

We felt that adjusting them further might unbalance things for newer players who were getting more effectivness from these weapons than more experienced pilots."

Now i would disagree with that example for instance (probably something that applies to LRMs though) but it would give an idea of the WHY from thier global point of view.

This might kick of discussions about how to balance for newbies an experienced players for instance.

That is just an example i do not believe that new players actually understand what the hell pulse lasers even are or why they should run them so dont nitpick me about the example it was just that - hypothetical on HOW you explain a balance change or no change.

No data needed but the analysis of thier data and their own human play experience would be easy enough to explain.

People would disagree, people would agree, people would rage, people would white knight, nothing would change there .... but the level of understanding in that mess would be higher and suggestions would be more informed.

[Deathlike]

Paul never really gets into details into future changes... only they are "acceptable". He's never able to quantify or qualify his statements. This is unfortunately PGI standard practice on things "we supposedly have no clue about" (w/o even discussing balance specifically).

That's why I hate Paul. Misinformation or even non-information is not information. It means you are either clueless or in denial of the reality.

[Fooooo]

Still not great imo.

I used to love using my troll 4LPL 1x before ghost heat and the increase to LPL heat, Its not really workable anymore, or at least not as fun as it was.

Its ok if your running say ML's. 1 or 2 LPL mixed in with the rest ML works ok. Still not great tho.



I'd say increase their dmg more or lower duration.

Maybe try 15dmg or so.

Or

Maybe lower the duration to say 0.3 or something so they are more "pinpoint" lasers with very short range as a drawback. (as their heat is pretty much a LL so their heat isnt so much a drawback anymore imo)

Same with MPL and SPL, increase their dmg a bit so them having such short range isnt as much a drawback as it is atm, or decrease duration to make them more "pinpoint".

They a harder one tho, as all the maps are different and so are the players.

So, someone who can get in close without taking any dmg in a LPL build (or any strictly short range build) "should" come out ontop of most "ranged" builds when it comes to getting the kill, or at least, that should be part of the goal.. (1on1 test situation here ofc)


You then have maps with different levels of cover, some with no ways to get to places without being exposed for a while making ranged the advantage there.

Some with tons of cover supposedly giving the short range builds an advantage....(well they SHOULD have one, they dont really atm as ranged still wins out for most on those maps anyway)

So increase in dmg looks like a good way to balance that out a bit imo.....(or making mechs live longer via HP increases or something.)



I guess thats one of the problems of not using stricter range rules more often in the weapon system.

IE long range weapons do less dmg up close, or none at all (PPC as example, tho I think 90m is still too short, should be 120 or 150 ) etc. Short range weapons do less dmg out far or none at all.

Edited by Fooooo, 26 February 2014 - 02:01 AM.