305 replies to this topic

[Gargoth]

PGI
Step away from the AC/2
No.
Don't
DO NOT TOUCH IT.

[MischiefSC]

On SRMs, maybe a different approach? Why not pull the max range off of them? Just have them keep a tight spread out to 270, then spread out like the LBX out to, say, 540? At that point it's a bit less about their poor hit detection and more about them being a decent way to do damage for the weight (and the available hardpoints). Then give them a speed buff (much like LRMs got) to make them more 'accurate'.

I get that the HSR issues are going to push the fix for them out for a good long while. The rest of the meta however seems to be pushing combat to ~400m. Since there isn't a viable means of making SRMs a brutal and deadly short-range only weapon there simply is no point-blank answer to the 30pt PPC/AC alpha at ~400m.

That's alright, but it still leaves missile hardpoints with the choice of SSRMs, LRMs or untrustworthy SRMs that explode at 270m.

It sounds like even after HSR is fixed the goal is to ensure SRMs are NOT that accurate - this means they will be perpetually inferior to an equal tonnage in ACs/lasers/PPCs. With the intent to ensure SRMs are not too dangerous at point-blank, why not lift their range gimp a bit in return? Even if they were completely accurate in HSR they'd still be inferior to an equal tonnage of lasers and ACs in the current meta. Inaccurate at any range and painful range limit not reflected in any other weapons. The current system seems to try and balance them to damage/heat/tonnage/DPS with other existing weapons without also accurately reflecting that they did not get the same range buff every other weapon did.

[Grifthin]

Changes look good. Keep up the good work.

[Remarius]

Cimarb, on 11 April 2014 - 04:40 PM, said:

The AC2 had an immense DPS increase and needed to be brought back down. They shouldn't even have the same DPS as AC5s, IMO, but this is at least a good start.

BTW, no one in their right mind has only AC2s as weapons, so I'm not sure what you mean by "AC2 carriers". My Phract with 2xAC5 and 2xAC2 is tons of fun, though, and provides enough screen shake to make most return fire ineffective unless I am an idiot and stand still or rush straight ahead.

Mmh actually I know a few people that run (very successfully) triple AC2 Shadow Hawks.

[Thorqemada]

Imho bringing the AC2 in line with the other ACs is a good step, AC5 gets only a slight decrease in DPS and is still good for what it is used by now anyway (AC5s + PPCs remains unnerfed) so in the life game there is no AC5 nerf for most Mechs but the (U)AC5 boats.
SRM4 have almost the DPS of SRM6 and be a very good Option for Mechs in the Medium and Light weightclass.
SRM2 were synched with the AC10 and i will still use them that way bcs the heat and my 2-Button-Mouse demand that.

Ranges: I never understood why Missiles cant go ballistic after their burntime and explode on Impact - that would increase their range by a fraction of the increase any other weaponclass got.

And why do not make SRM clumsy Streaks?
It reads like that Streaks and LRM do not have HSR trouble so why making yourself such a hassle and not change the way SRM work?
That would make Missiles also the weapon to go for all the many People that suffer from bad connections and inferior perfoming PCs.
SRM be not the dumbfire Missiles the games made them as a "lack" of "sophisticated guidance systems" does not mean the absence of "basic guidance" (that is why Streaks become SRM under ECM - imho only the Periphery has true dumbfire Missiles).

I apreciate your attempts to communicate with your Players

PS: Personally i want to not have more than 1 Variant per Mech i play in the Mechbay - only exception is the Jenner-S - give me a Marauder and we have a new deal.

Edited by Thorqemada, 12 April 2014 - 01:51 AM.

[AlexEss]

Chemie, on 11 April 2014 - 01:51 PM, said:

so CW programming STILL has not started yet? Jeez...hopeless.

That i guess is a matter of how you look at it. Once could argue that both UI 2.0 and the new matchmaker are sub-systems of CW. It is all a matter of perspective =P

Beyond that i´d say the actual coding part of CW is the easy part. Planning the features and having it making sense is the trucky part (as evident by the time it has taken) but i agree, CW should not have been a announced feature in the way it was. They should have played it safer and said that the game was to be a lobby game with a larger meta game added later. But then again hindsight is 20/20 =)

Then again i am just happy to have a new mech game that is not the mess that was MW3/4 (PvP speaking... the SP part was kind of nice but the PvP was... well bad unless you either played a regulated league or used mods.

[RamsoPanzer]

You base your patches on unnecessary buffing-nerfing weapons. Fixing things? nah, too much work.

[arghmace]

WVAnonymous, on 11 April 2014 - 01:40 PM, said:

It would have to have less heat due to reduced firing rate, unless the nerf is from making the shells do less than 2 dmg.

No, AC2 does 1 heat per 2 dmg whatever the rate of fire is. That's the thing that matters. Saying that a weapon "gets a buff" in its heat efficiency since its rof is nerfed is just insane.

[Butane9000]

Again normalize the distance, heat and rate of fire on these weapons.

Current:
Weapon - Damage - Range/Max Range - Heat - ROF
AC2 - 2 - 720/2160 - 1 - .52
AC5 - 5 - 620/1700 - 1 - 1.5
UAC5 - 5 - 600/1800 - 1 - 1.5
AC10 - 10 - 450/1350 - 3 - 2.5
LBX-10 - 10 - 540/1620 - 2 - 2.5
AC20 - 20 - 270/810 - 6 - 4

Proposed:
Weapon - Damage - Range/Max Range - Heat - ROF
AC2 - 2 - 500/1500 - 1 - .75
UAC5 - 5 - 400/1200 - 2 - 1.25
AC5 - 5 - 450/1350 - 1.5 - 1.5
AC10 - 10 - 400/1200 - 2.25 - 2
LBX10 - 10 - 250/750 - 2 - 1.75
AC20 - 20 - 350/1000 - 3.5 - 2.5

test these weapons at those values. You'll see a lot less long range fighting and pinpoint damage. UAC5 and LBX10 are for brawling and quick firing so they have less range but shorter cool downs. The AC2 still has better range then LRMs but no longer the ridiculousness of their previous numbers. This will force people to get closer in combat as well. You can also change up ammo per ton to even them out.

[arghmace]

Butane9000, on 12 April 2014 - 03:34 AM, said:

Proposed:
Weapon - Damage - Range/Max Range - Heat - ROF
AC20 - 20 - 350/1000 - 3.5 - 2.5

Yeah, right. Good idea making AC20 at least twice as good as it is now

[Primetimex]

Paul can you please steer clear of the useless jargon and well-trampled buzzwords like "maximum", "buy-in" and "thoroughness".

Just talk in plain English like so:

1. CW is still in design phase and it will remain so until we all get bored at discussing it.
2. After said discussion, we still don't know when we can code it.
3. Point 2 and 3 is because we're being very "thorough".

[ShinVector]

Butane9000, on 12 April 2014 - 03:34 AM, said:

test these weapons at those values. You'll see a lot less long range fighting and pinpoint damage. UAC5 and LBX10 are for brawling and quick firing so they have less range but shorter cool downs. The AC2 still has better range then LRMs but no longer the ridiculousness of their previous numbers. This will force people to get closer in combat as well. You can also change up ammo per ton to even them out.

Somehow I believe the cheese crowd will just go to LRMs as their preferred long range weapon.

[Chemie]

"completed high level scope assessment"

When do they start the "low level" aspects? I mean, shouldn't high level scope have been sorted out 2 years ago when they promised "3 months from now"? Or at least have completed high level scope when in April 2013 they told all the PC rags that CW was nearly finished and Phase 1 was June 2013?

Edited by Chemie, 12 April 2014 - 04:10 AM.

[ImperialKnight]

Please leave the AC2s alone.

For a moment, I thought we'd be getting the Phoenix Hawk or Marauder. But it's just variants not chasis....

New Phoenix variants with STD engines and I may actually consider playing the Griffin chassis.

[Chemie]

The more they nerf IS weapons, the bigger the gap to clan weapons. What some folks may miss here is that they just buffed clans weapons OR they now have to nerf even more than before the clan weapons for that impossible "clan=IS" target they have but can't possibly hit. With clan mechs carrying 2x the weapons as IS, clan weapon specs need to be reduced by ~70%.

[Kyynele]

So, after the patch, AC2 vs AC5:

AC2:
+ 2 tons lighter, takes only 1 crit (but you'll likely have to spend those 2 tons to extra heatsinks)
- shorter range
- generates almost 3 times more heat
- spreads damage all around
- very low alpha

AC5
- weighs more
+ longer range
+ generates practically no heat, can be very efficiently combined with high heat energy weapons like PPCs
+ does more damage per hit, combines very nicely with other pinpoint direct damage weapons like PPCs

Despite the 25% weight save, the choice looks about as easy as whether to take flamers or medium lasers.

While this nerf does slightly touch AC5 efficiency, it drops AC2 clearly into the "only use if nothing else is possible to fit" category.

[Mawai]

Hi Paul,

Just a suggestion ... but when testing the new matchmaker ... please use simulated mech data that is similar to the actual load on the servers. My concern with the 3/3/3/3 match making the way it has been described ... particularly with exact tonnage matching is that there will be extremely long queues forming for specific weight classes.

You need to decide what an acceptable queue time is ... my suggestion would be a maxium of 2 minutes for a match that typically lasts 10 minutes.

However, any significant imbalance in mech distribution will easily result in queue times of 30 minutes or more in some cases. The least common mech class will limit the formation of matches ... every other mech class will see a queue.

If queue times get to be that long ... you will have a lot of unhappy players.

Edited by Mawai, 12 April 2014 - 04:37 AM.

[Windsaw]

Like I said earlier, even if I don't agree, I kind of understand the DPS nerf to the AC2.
I just don't understand the range nerf.

Ideally I would ask the devs for an explanation for the motivation for that specific change.
But I know that the chances of getting an answer to that question is next to none.

But by now there is quite an amount of people here that voiced their general approvement for these changes. Since they therefore also approve of the range nerf I hereby ask them directly:

What is the reason why the range nerf for AC2s was necessary and why it will improve the gameplay?

PS: I'm not expecting an answer that I agree with. But that is fine. But I want any answer, because I simply can't think of any.

[IraqiWalker]

Windsaw, on 12 April 2014 - 05:23 AM, said:

Like I said earlier, even if I don't agree, I kind of understand the DPS nerf to the AC2.
I just don't understand the range nerf.

Ideally I would ask the devs for an explanation for the motivation for that specific change.
But I know that the chances of getting an answer to that question is next to none.

But by now there is quite an amount of people here that voiced their general approvement for these changes. Since they therefore also approve of the range nerf I hereby ask them directly:

What is the reason why the range nerf for AC2s was necessary and why it will improve the gameplay?

PS: I'm not expecting an answer that I agree with. But that is fine. But I want any answer, because I simply can't think of any.

The reason I assume is that it is dealing as much as an AC5 while taking up less weight. So they shot the range a bit to compensate. I'd rather they made it 2.0 or 2.5 and out-ranged the AC5 by 100-200 meters.

[Chavette]

The people at PGI don't seem to take into account having to stare at the enemy dead in the eye with no chances of evasive maneuvers is actually a drawback of a weapon and should be taken into consideration when balancing weapons..