227 replies to this topic

[Cimarb]

Peiper, on 23 April 2014 - 11:21 AM, said:

1st: I have just sat down at the computer to see this announcement. I have a bunch of work to do for grad school, and could do a summary after class. If someone could leak the podcasts to me early, I might be able to better have a summary ready to go along with the announcement. But like the rest of us on the island, I don't get anything before you do.

2nd: When I do summaries, I prefer to run them in my own thread. If I were to do a summary now, I'd create my own thread, then get the riot act read to me by a mod about posting multiple threads on the same subject. Since I would be a repeat offender, I'd probably get banned.

3rd: Looks like KRC759 via AntiCitizenJuan beat me to the punch. Fast work! Bravo!

4th: Scanning through the summary, this one looks like it would have been a blast summarizing! Lots of stuff I'd probably question or editorialize! I might do an editorial summary or review for fun, but I'm not going to post it on page 12 or whatever of this thread. I'll probably post it on NGNG's forums and link it here in this post when I have it ready. I really don't like putting the work into something only to have my post buried where no one will find it. Having no 'news' section in the forums anymore means that it's a popularity war to stay on page one as it is!

So, Battlebadger and friends, I'll see what I can do for a summary sometime after class/after you're asleep, post it to NGNG's forums, and link it here when I'm finished.

I'll update my OP with a link to yours when it is complete.

[Strum Wealh]

FupDup, on 23 April 2014 - 09:38 AM, said:

Weapons that are only effective up close are kind of supposed to have a lower TTK than weapons effective at medium-long ranges. That's the point of taking the risks of getting close in the first place.

And that proximity risk is rewarded by an increased concentration of damage against a single location (which also corresponds to a lower TTK, versus engaging with the same weapon from a greater range).
Increasing total per-salvo damage, on the other hand, does not fix anything and makes the existing problem (general TTK being too low) worse.

FupDup, on 23 April 2014 - 09:38 AM, said:

Forced ammo mixing is arbitrary and doesn't change the fact that cluster rounds would be garbage if implemented the same way as Inner Sphere clusters.

Forced munition mixing is not arbitrary - that is, it is neither capricious nor unreasonable - and addresses the issue (how to prevent players from loading only LB-X slug rounds & completely eschewing LB-X cluster rounds) in an effective manner that neither 1.) can be easily circumvented in the MechLab, nor 2.) produces additional situations that exacerbates an already undesirable condition (as increasing the per-submunition damage of the cluster rounds by 40-50% would do with regard to the already-too-low TTK).

FupDup, on 23 April 2014 - 09:38 AM, said:

LBX slugs firing in bursts would make Clan Ultras superior to the LBX's, because the Ultras take up 1 less critical slot each, and are also burst, but get to allocate all of their ammo into munitions that are effective (no clusters, slug only), and have the ability to fire faster (with jamming risks).

With using BattleTech values as a base, a slug-firing LB-X would have longer effective ranges (and, very likely, longer maximum ranges - and, thus, superior damage vs. distance curves) than the same-class Clan UAC, with similar base rates-of-fire (as the IS LB-X and AC/10 have the same ROF (2.50s cooldown) & the IS UAC/5 and AC/5 have the same base ROF (1.66s cooldown)) and no risk of jamming at the most inopportune moments.
Having LB-X slugs as single-shell salvos, while it does maximize the contrast between the slug and cluster modes, stands to make them superior to the Clan UACs (and all of the IS sutocannon types).

[N a p e s]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 23 April 2014 - 11:26 AM, said:

No chance, right now when hits register, 2.0 damage sucks.

Remember, SRM's were doing like 17 times their normal damage when Splash was alive and well. And it still took Splatcats and someone in the training grounds for us to really care.

When they fix SRM HSR, I actually think they will need to up the damage. Because the game we have now has much bigger maps and working HSR with the long range weapons.

SRM's are going to need to be brutal to make up for having to expose yourself to brawl with them.

Ya, I think its valid to see where they'll be when hit reg issues are resolved, after that we can see where to go from there. I do however totally agree that SRMs need to be brutal to make up for their short range and spread damage.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Napes339, on 23 April 2014 - 11:35 AM, said:

Ya, I think its valid to see where they'll be when hit reg issues are resolved, after that we can see where to go from there. I do however totally agree that SRMs need to be brutal to make up for their short range and spread damage.

Agreed.

it wouldn't be an issue if PGI was quick to fix things, but I believe last time they changed a weapon and then fixed HSR on it, it took them like 6 months to rectify it.

So we'll wait and see when HSR is fixed, where SRM's are at.

But having tried them recently after the last patch, when they do register, it's not worth it. Having to be within 270m is a HUGE limitation in MW:O currently.

[Gallowglas]

4 damage pinpoint versus 5 damage per shell? You guys will have to be very, very, VERY careful to make the RoF high enough to justify it versus the (U)AC5. Even so, the tonnage, heat, and ammo capacity difference are going to be major detractors now.

*edit*
Maybe if ALL AC's are damage-over-time as is implied, the relative balance will be okay. It makes me wonder though how the UAC will perform versus the AC5 if that's the case.

Edited by Gallowglas, 23 April 2014 - 11:51 AM.

[FupDup]

Strum Wealh, on 23 April 2014 - 11:35 AM, said:

And that proximity risk is rewarded by an increased concentration of damage against a single location (which also corresponds to a lower TTK, versus engaging with the same weapon from a greater range).
Increasing total per-salvo damage, on the other hand, does not fix anything and makes the existing problem (general TTK being too low) worse.

The cluster round, with 1.0 damage per pellet, will not ever have increased concentration of damage over a slug round. It might be able to match the concentration if you get really really close, but it will never surpass it.

Increasing the per-salvo damage does fix things. It makes the ammo type significantly better than slugs in close quarters, giving it a situational advantage. Or, I guess an alternate is to just crank up the critical multiplier and leave the base damage as-is, but critting out components in this game is almost never on-par with the ability to simply rip out the entire section.

Strum Wealh, on 23 April 2014 - 11:35 AM, said:

Forced munition mixing is not arbitrary - that is, it is neither capricious nor unreasonable - and addresses the issue (how to prevent players from loading only LB-X slug rounds & completely eschewing LB-X cluster rounds) in an effective manner that neither 1.) can be easily circumvented in the MechLab, nor 2.) produces additional situations that exacerbates an already undesirable condition (as increasing the per-submunition damage of the cluster rounds by 40-50% would do with regard to the already-too-low TTK).

No, it's not an "effective manner." All you're doing is literally forcing players to use garbage equipment, rather than making the equipment itself stop being garbage. It would be like trying to "make Trebuchets useful" by designing the matchmaker to put one on both teams every match without exception. The mech would still be trash, and not many people would want to run it. Or, you might require all mechs with energy hardpoints to mount at least one Small Laser. Forcing people to run trash is not fun gameplay. People should want to use certain equipment based on the pros/cons that the equipment has to offer.

The TTK is only too low for builds that can put huge amounts of damage into one spot without spread, generally at long-ish ranges, and usually take cover afterwards. A highly situational, close-range weapon that still won't usually put all damage into one hit location (because buckshot) would hardly be too low of a TTK.


Or, if we're really too worried about "TTK issues," we can just say eff it and not buff clusters at all while still leaving ammo fully divided. The Inner Sphere arsenal already has a plethora of bad weapons and mechs, so the Clans having one useless type of ammunition is a far lesser evil than the Clans having an entirely useless class of weaponry (the LBX lineup). If the ammo sucks, I can just load in different ammo. But if the whole gun sucks, then I have to put in an Ultra in place of it and never use the LBX at all.

Strum Wealh, on 23 April 2014 - 11:35 AM, said:

With using BattleTech values as a base, a slug-firing LB-X would have longer effective ranges (and, very likely, longer maximum ranges - and, thus, superior damage vs. distance curves) than the same-class Clan UAC, with similar base rates-of-fire (as the IS LB-X and AC/10 have the same ROF (2.50s cooldown) & the IS UAC/5 and AC/5 have the same base ROF (1.66s cooldown)) and no risk of jamming at the most inopportune moments.
Having LB-X slugs as single-shell salvos, while it does maximize the contrast between the slug and cluster modes, stands to make them superior to the Clan UACs (and all of the IS sutocannon types).

The extra range of the LBX's in TT is pretty small. It's only 90 meters for the 2 and 5 rated ones, which is laughable. The 10 and 20 rated ones have identical range for both AC classes. You can get around jamming by not holding down the trigger or I guess a macro if you're lazy.

Clan Ultras would only be inferior to single-slug LBX if the RoF or jam stats were too restrictive for the Ultras. Otherwise, the extra RoF (due to double tap mode) would allow for some serious dakka if the target doesn't have cover to hide behind or in a brawl. The LBX would be more of a sneak-n-peak kind of gun, and the Ultra would be better for suppression/brawling (depending on its size).

Edited by FupDup, 23 April 2014 - 12:01 PM.

[Haakon Magnusson]

RG Notch, on 23 April 2014 - 11:15 AM, said:

PGI: an uneducated consumer is our best customer, and target demographic.

They probably hope for this, as it would be easier and larger demographic but still the poor diehard fans are the ones that will probably buy this package... I can't before I know more (I already know that clan mechs will be mwo end content. I probably should accept the fact that I need to find a team and take part in player run CW... With proper balancing OP clan mech fights can be fun, or succession wars)

[Kaldor]

Quote

On the Heat Scale;

11:25 - Heat scale was all Paul. Original problem was high damage alphas' - all MW's had this issue. "Heat scale stopped high damage alpha", ignoring pinpoint damage.

Umm yeah. Are they playing the same game? Heat scale only nerfed 4-6 PPC builds.

Quote

12:50 - Heat cap doesn't stop this because you can cool down and do it again. Heat scale works better because you can die from it.

About this. No discussion on this topic generally lacks over heat penalties. Way to gloss over the 1000 threads on this without actually reading.

Quote

13:20 - Still working on balancing where it should start from a points of damage count.

Huh?

Quote

14:00 - Person making a 30 point shot has to jump through hoops and that's a skill shot. Heat scale is working exactly as they want.

I have no issue with 30 point alphas either, but 2 PPCs & (insert whatever) is hardly a skill shot. A skill shot would be taking 3 LLs and holding them on target for the entire burn at 400m.

Quote

15:00 - Paul can see the benefit of more information about ghost heat. Maybe an in game indicator that you can then go and search in the front end to find out what's going on.

I agree with this. This stuff needs to be out there first and foremost.


They also glossed over how piss poor medium mechs are doing with the current meta which is only enforced by the heat system. Also not above, they acknowledge that lowered heat cap doesnt effect meta builds, but the part they so obviously missed was the fact that brawling, which is horribly broken, would receive direct love from a better heat system with a lower cap and higher dissipation.

The entire thing... Dont know if I want to cry, or laugh hysterically...

[AlmightyAeng]

RG Notch, on 23 April 2014 - 11:15 AM, said:

PGI: an uneducated consumer is our best customer, and target demographic.

This is the reason I didn't throw down money for a Clan pack. I still haven't chosen my Phoenix medallions because there's no way to gauge what sort of impact they'll have.

They increase loyalty points! Great...which are used for? Community warfare! When is that coming? Buy a clan mech! What? Color sales!

When I spend money, I like to know what I'm buying.

[Bilbo]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 23 April 2014 - 11:26 AM, said:

No chance, right now when hits register, 2.0 damage sucks.

Remember, SRM's were doing like 17 times their normal damage when Splash was alive and well. And it still took Splatcats and someone in the training grounds for us to really care.

When they fix SRM HSR, I actually think they will need to up the damage. Because the game we have now has much bigger maps and working HSR with the long range weapons.

SRM's are going to need to be brutal to make up for having to expose yourself to brawl with them.

If they remain the same damage and work as intended I would be ecstatic. However, 36 damage from the SRMs alone on my Atlas is plenty brutal, and I would have to say probably too much so.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Bilbo, on 23 April 2014 - 12:09 PM, said:

If they remain the same damage and work as intended I would be ecstatic. However, 36 damage from the SRMs alone on my Atlas is plenty brutal, and I would have to say probably too much so.

Sorry, you can't just say "36 damage". It's 36 damage, spread all over the damn place. On top of that SRM's aren't exactly the fastest projectile in the game either. And were actually nerfed indirectly by the AMS changes.

Also, lets not forget they have a 270m hard cap, HARD CAP.

I'm much more scared of a 30 damage pinpoint alpha from 700m, than I'll ever be scared of a 36 damage alpha, spread all over the place, that requires you to get that Atlas within 270m of me.

Honestly, If I'm in a Meta style mech, I doubt your Atlas ever gets to use his SRMs on me, because Atlases are by far one of the easiest mechs to kill in the game at this point.

Edited by Nicholas Carlyle, 23 April 2014 - 12:13 PM.

[WarHippy]

Another thought I would like an answer to is why are large lasers still capped at two with regard to ghost heat if 30-35 damage alphas are ok? The arbitrary cap of two has never made anything resembling sense to me.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

WarHippy, on 23 April 2014 - 12:13 PM, said:

Another thought I would like an answer to is why are large lasers still capped at two with regard to ghost heat if 30-35 damage alphas are ok? The arbitrary cap of two has never made anything resembling sense to me.

What? You are questioning the Large Laser Ghost Heat Limit? HOW DARE YOU?! IT MAKES TOTAL SENSE...wait...It's stupid and like you said, arbitrary.

[Haakon Magnusson]

Gas Guzzler, on 23 April 2014 - 11:18 AM, said:

True, but the Nova and Warhawk are going to be laughable if they don't see some increase in effectiveness. I'd rather the Clans be overpowered (how they were supposed to be) than super difficult to use.

Can't completely disagree, nova is a female dog to use anyway. Clan outright superiority just doesn't work how they are balancing now.

[AlmightyAeng]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 23 April 2014 - 12:12 PM, said:

Sorry, you can't just say "36 damage". It's 36 damage, spread all over the damn place. On top of that SRM's aren't exactly the fastest projectile in the game either. And were actually nerfed indirectly by the AMS changes.

Using a tripod of SRM4's for <200m generally has me hitting 90% on a single location...within 100m it's all center torso. It's not a commando-sized bubble like machine gun hitscan...it's not exactly "all over."

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Haakon Magnusson, on 23 April 2014 - 12:16 PM, said:

Can't completely disagree, nova is a female dog to use anyway. Clan outright superiority just doesn't work how they are balancing now.

That's because they've explicitly stated they don't plan to give the Clans outright superiority. And they are doing it by adding the things we've asked them to add to IS weapons to help with the issues they have.

I mean good lord, burst AC's and a slug for LBX? We've only had a billion threads asking for this for IS.

Ghost Badger, on 23 April 2014 - 12:18 PM, said:

Using a tripod of SRM4's for <200m generally has me hitting 90% on a single location...within 100m it's all center torso. It's not a commando-sized bubble like machine gun hitscan...it's not exactly "all over."

SRM6's are very different and I'd say in every way worse than SRM4's currently.

But lets say you use 4's, it's 24 damage, that requires you to get within as you said, 100m to get all center torso.

Or you can do 30 damage repeatedly, pinpoint and start attacking at 1000m.

[Goose]

AntiCitizenJuan, on 23 April 2014 - 08:11 AM, said:

All credit goes to /r/OutreachHPG user KRC759

[claps]

AntiCitizenJuan, on 23 April 2014 - 08:11 AM, said:

8:40 - Paul was the architect of repair and rearm.

Some things can't be predicted …

AntiCitizenJuan, on 23 April 2014 - 08:11 AM, said:

15:00 - Paul can see the benefit of more information about ghost heat.

I could use some postmortem ammo levels to go with it. ;-)

AntiCitizenJuan, on 23 April 2014 - 08:11 AM, said:

28:25 - Some changes (command chair post coming) to the Clan weapon setup for balance purposes. Tonnage and crits are locked for all weapons

29:29 - Sweeping changes are done, micro changes from now on.

Ever wonder how many designs got clobbered by the ECM mount point?

AntiCitizenJuan, on 23 April 2014 - 08:11 AM, said:

36:00 - Clan AC's could be shooting in bursts, i.e. CUAC20 5 round burst doing 4 damage per shell, so will be DoT and doing spread damage. Will still have jamming mechanic too. There won't be Clan Standard ACs (though there was some confusion on this).

38:05 - Potentially looking at beam duration to balance Clan lasers (standard and pulse).

38:40 - LRMs firing in sequence is a possibility, so firing in streams which will improve AMS performance against them.

39:30 - No minimum range on Clan LRMs, but possibly ramping up damage from 0 - 180m.

So: Table Top tech advances are OP, but something has to change to represent improvement?

The laser thing sounds neat, but I'm not liking the LRM streams: It's a strategy in the IS, but Omni should mean you'd have to load up on 5-racks for Clanners to do it, as of course they always have the full tube-count to go with a 20-rack. The damage ramp … Might be a necessary evil. :-(

AntiCitizenJuan, on 23 April 2014 - 08:11 AM, said:

40:20 - Clan ATMs are under discussion, not ready to discuss - though Paul says he's focussing on weapons(?).

41:05 - Doesn't want Inner Sphere to have ability to change ammo on the LBX. Clans only option.

Two patterns forming: "Clan Tech means selectable ammo," and "Clan ACs will be UP." I'd though I'd heard selectable ammo was too hard to do, and I don't think much of the LBX without it. I guess you could chose to load it with standard round in the 'MechLab, but then whom would use cluster?

Then we have the Ultra: We used to ask for this, to go with the barrel geometry, but now I think what was proposed should be held onto for the RACs, CRACs, and HAGs that come later. An Ultra/20 getting it's second round off within 2 seconds seems to be the "appropriate" level of OP …

AntiCitizenJuan, on 23 April 2014 - 08:11 AM, said:

52:40 - No way of knowing how big a group is going to affect a match. Decided to stick with 4 (was a push for 3 from somewhere)."

MM will break under all the Three-Assaults-And-A-Light combos everyone will bring, yearling a solid wall of match-fails: We will get a Hot Fix on Wednesday forcing the "odd" 'Mech in a lance to be from an adjacent weight class …

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Goose, on 23 April 2014 - 12:20 PM, said:

MM will break under all the Three-Assaults-And-A-Light combos everyone will bring, yearling a solid wall of match-fails: We will get a Hot Fix on Wednesday forcing the "odd" 'Mech in a lance to be from an adjacent weight class …

This is the thing I'm very curious about.

[AlmightyAeng]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 23 April 2014 - 12:19 PM, said:

That's because they've explicitly stated they don't plan to give the Clans outright superiority. And they are doing it by adding the things we've asked them to add to IS weapons to help with the issues they have.

I mean good lord, burst AC's and a slug for LBX? We've only had a billion threads asking for this for IS.



SRM6's are very different and I'd say in every way worse than SRM4's currently.

But lets say you use 4's, it's 24 damage, that requires you to get within as you said, 100m to get all center torso.

Or you can do 30 damage repeatedly, pinpoint and start attacking at 1000m.

Not saying I wouldn't take the pinpoint, just that SRM's aren't nearly as bad as sometimes made out to be in terms of spread. It's WHY I take SRM4's. SRM6+a is pretty decent...without artemis...yeah...don't bother.

Let's not discuss hitreg...until they "fix" it again.

Edited by Ghost Badger, 23 April 2014 - 12:22 PM.

[WarHippy]

Ghost Badger, on 23 April 2014 - 12:18 PM, said:

Using a tripod of SRM4's for <200m generally has me hitting 90% on a single location...within 100m it's all center torso. It's not a commando-sized bubble like machine gun hitscan...it's not exactly "all over."

Yeah, but he was talking about srm6's which have a much larger spread than those srm4's you are using, and 24 points in one spot isn't that big a deal when compared to AC/20's and other similar weapons. The 36 points he was talking about would have more spread than that even with artemis.