35 replies to this topic

[Malorish]

Wondering what people's thoughts are after the recent buff/nerf cycle to LRMs and ACs, and the recent hitreg changes for SRMs (though perhaps we need some more time to sort this out).

Thoughts on Current Meta: Seems the current meta is still PPC/AC sniping and poptarting, though now LRM boating is a possible option as long as you have a spotter. Brawling happens a bit more often, but it's more of an end game mode than a real mech design choice.

How I'd Like the Meta to Change: Poptarting seems like a very un-fun game tactic and I'd like to see it go away. Sniping is too dominant overall. I'd like Brawler builds to be viable by bringing down combat ranges a bit.

Things I'd Change:

• Range and damage nerf to PPCs (say 10-20% damage nerf, and 20% range reduction). They'd still have pinpoint going for them, but it would make lasers a more viable alternative.
  
• OR - Have PPCs fire in 2 or 3 bolt volleys to reduce pinpoint (or both)
  
• ECM Divided into personal and team variants.
  
  • Personal ECM same weight as current, only shields your mech.
    
  • ​Team ECM weighs 5 tons, works like the current one.
• ​Increase armor values by weight class (light = 1 x current value, medium = 1.1 x current value, heavy = 1.2 x current value, assualt = 1.3 times current value)

What do other people think about the current meta?


What would you change?

Edited by Egomane, 04 May 2014 - 01:59 AM.

[El Bandito]

Malorish, on 03 May 2014 - 09:59 AM, said:

What would you change?

Too many to count, unfortunately.

Pulse Laser improvement, to start with...

Edited by El Bandito, 03 May 2014 - 10:07 AM.

[Flaming oblivion]

Malorish, on 03 May 2014 - 09:59 AM, said:

Wondering what people's thoughts are after the recent buff/nerf cycle to LRMs and ACs, and the recent hitreg changes for SRMs (though perhaps we need some more time to sort this out).

Thoughts on Current Meta: Seems the current meta is still PPC/AC sniping and poptarting, though now LRM boating is a possible option as long as you have a spotter. Brawling happens a bit more often, but it's more of an end game mode than a real mech design choice.

How I'd Like the Meta to Change: Poptarting seems like a very un-fun game tactic and I'd like to see it go away. Sniping is too dominant overall. I'd like Brawler builds to be viable by bringing down combat ranges a bit.

Things I'd Change:

• Range and damage nerf to PPCs (say 10-20% damage nerf, and 20% range reduction). They'd still have pinpoint going for them, but it would make lasers a more viable alternative.
  
• OR - Have PPCs fire in 2 or 3 bolt volleys to reduce pinpoint (or both)
  
• ECM Divided into personal and team variants.
  
  • Personal ECM same weight as current, only shields your mech.
    
  • ​Team ECM weighs 5 tons, works like the current one.
• ​Increase armor values by weight class (light = 1 x current value, medium = 1.1 x current value, heavy = 1.2 x current value, assualt = 1.3 times current value)

What do other people think about the current meta?


What would you change?

Make it so they cant cover them selves and the team with ecm , and increase the weight to team ecm to 10 tonnes and reduce the weight to single ecm to 1 tonne, If they want the massive advantage team ecm crutch brings make them lose something for it currently there's no downside to ecm.

[Abisha]

maximum amount of LRM launchers. say like 8 max for a whole team.

ECM, it's no longer to hide mechs, but still disrupt LRM.

the Party Maker, 3/3/3/3 sounds rater silly.
why not 3 Assaults Max, 5 Heavy's Max, 4 Light/medium (with a maximum of 6 Light/Mediums

[Antarus]

Our game is still WW1 with giant stompy robots. They added mustard gas to flush people out, but the people with machine guns started bringing just enough gas to make people come out too.

Regardless of whether the weapons themselves are out of line, an entire firing line of the same cookie-cutter direct fire robots is the heart and soul of the entire game now. Battletech is supposed to be a game about mitigating damage via movement and positioning - but because cover in this game is a 100% mitigation, there is no superior strategy except to minimize exposure, and amplify single instant damage output. You cannot advance, unless it is in cover, and new players are learning that the only way to play is to hide, because as soon as they try to make any decisive maneuver they are eaten by someone with a PPCPPCAC/5AC/5 or dual gauss or whatever. The only coutner is AC/20x2, another terrible meta choice, with insanely low TTK on anything. Lasers, except for the rare game where people don't turn their big guns back along the source line of the giant blue ERLL tracers, are useless.

The entire game is broken because, the heat curve is entirely off (Too much heat pool, not enough dissipation) to favor PPC alpha and AC followups, instead of brief engagements that spike heat and the need to cool off in between in short order. An entire class of weapons that does pinpoint damage is infinitely superior to everything else, and there is no way for you to move fast enough or use a map cleverly enough to not be vaporized other than standing in the trenches - I mean, behind a rock. The normal Battletech strategies for mitigation, like trees, movement, etc are all pointless in the game, because one hit from AC/40, PPCPPCAC/5AC/5 or 2x gauss effectively ends the game by ipening an entire location up, unless, you're a chest-stacking highlander who can swing instantly with JJ's to direct the hits.

[Mcgral18]

Bring PPC cooldown to 5 seconds. At the moment, it's the same as many brawling weapons, while outperforming them at 4 seconds.

Otherwise...I'll wait until the 6th. Paul stated there is a magic SRM fix, which was making them think of putting them back to 1.5 damage, down from their "temporary" 2.0 buff, while leaving streaks at 2.5 damage.

Working SRMs could do wonders to make brawling and fast meds competitive against the FLD meta. Overwhelming short range firepower against long range precision attacks.

[verybad]

Make pulse laser a shorter ranged, but faster firing one shot weapon, not a paint gun like other lasers. There's no advantage to them, and they weigh too much, the slightly faster firing time isn't enough. Make them competitive with ACs..They're hotter, and pretty heavy for what they range at...

[Abisha]

verybad, on 03 May 2014 - 10:17 AM, said:

Make pulse laser a shorter ranged, but faster firing one shot weapon, not a paint gun like other lasers. There's no advantage to them, and they weigh too much, the slightly faster firing time isn't enough. Make them competitive with ACs..They're hotter, and pretty heavy for what they range at...

I consider my self a Pulse Expert, (all my mechs are pulse based) and i say you are wrong sir, serious wrong.
they have drawbacks, but also many good sides for instance the fire duration.

[YueFei]

Slashing the heat cap down would do wonders.

As it is now, I did the math on it before, and IIRC with 15 DHS, and dumping a coolant flush, you can fire 2xPPC + 2xAC/5 non-stop for 6 or 7 salvos. A proper heat cap of 30 would make you shut down on the 2nd consecutive volley. Forcing a sniper to have to be the one who gives ground and repositions in order to buy time to cool off for another shot from a new angle. As it is now, with the high heat cap, such builds are *very* capable of making a hard push, sustaining PPC fire for 20+ seconds, and dishing out enough damage to break the enemy's robots.

Should just give a proper heat capacity and remove coolant flush from the game. =/


*EDIT*

Here we go:
15 DHS, with Elite efficiencies:
Capacity of 68.4
Dissipation of 3.105 hps

On a heat neutral map, each firing cycle of 4 seconds would generate this much heat:
+22 - 12.42 = 9.58

Time - Heat
0 - 22
4 - 31.58
8 - 41.16
12 - 50.74
16 - 60.32
20 - 69.9 - 21.6 (coolshot) = 48.3
24 - 57.88
28 - 67.46
32 - 77.04 (shutdown... finally)

That's NINE salvos. I suppose if you're moving around and generating some heat that way, you won't be able to fire 9 salvos, but you can probably still rip off at least 6 or 7 before overheating.

It's no wonder such builds can effectively hold strong positions and not get overrun, and it's no wonder such builds can also go on the offensive effectively... they've got enough in the tank to sustain fire long enough to trash their opponents.

Edited by YueFei, 03 May 2014 - 10:33 AM.

[Blue Drache]

Off a cliff with the nerfs.

[Mcgral18]

Abisha, on 03 May 2014 - 10:20 AM, said:

I consider my self a Pulse Expert, (all my mechs are pulse based) and i say you are wrong sir, serious wrong.
they have drawbacks, but also many good sides for instance the fire duration.

I've used them a fair bit as well. There simply isn't a good reason to take them over regular lasers. MPL vs ML, you gain a single point of damage and one extra point of heat, for less range and twice the tonnage. You do that damage in 60% of the time. Benefit is no ghost heat on MPLs.

Very little benefit to a fair bit of cost. Putting them back to the proper TT heat stats would help.

The cost is too high for the reward.

[Appogee]

Pulse lasers should have their beam duration further decreased, and either their damage or their range increased.

At the moment, their cost in tons and heat and range is too much to justify their relatively small advantage in DPS and beam duration.

[Abisha]

Mcgral18, on 03 May 2014 - 10:24 AM, said:

I've used them a fair bit as well. There simply isn't a good reason to take them over regular lasers. MPL vs ML, you gain a single point of damage and one extra point of heat, for less range and twice the tonnage. You do that damage in 60% of the time. Benefit is no ghost heat on MPLs.

Very little benefit to a fair bit of cost. Putting them back to the proper TT heat stats would help.

The cost is too high for the reward.

you forget that the front burst is massive higher then Lasers, aye at heat cost but that's why your busting.
so yea you loss DPS in the long fights but gain DPS in short fights

so it comes to this, kill or be killed.

Edited by Abisha, 03 May 2014 - 10:30 AM.

[Mcgral18]

Abisha, on 03 May 2014 - 10:28 AM, said:

you forget that the front burst is massive higher then Lasers, aye at heat cost but that's why your busting.
so yea you loss DPS in the long fights but gain DPS in short fights

so it comes to this, kill or be killed.

Or take a ballistic, get FLD and never worry about heat.

[crossflip]

It may just be my probably abysmal elo, but I see more matches being decided by LRMs than by FLD poptarts. I do still see them, just not as much as lurmcrawlers. It's often just a game of who can blot out more of the sky. I know LRMs are easily countered by good use of cover and ECM and situational awareness and whatnot, but in the kind of volumes I'm seeing now they're simply successful due to the sheer frustration they can produce.

I never lose my cool in videogames, I never rage or swear or anything, but damn, having the sky fall on me when I peek out from behind a building makes me want to punch my desk and bite bricks. The barrages of noisy cockpit shaking are just incredibly jarring and annoying.

Edited by crossflip, 03 May 2014 - 11:02 AM.

[Abisha]

Mcgral18, on 03 May 2014 - 10:33 AM, said:

Or take a ballistic, get FLD and never worry about heat.

this is not really On topic, but first Ballistic not have the burst and use Tonnage in Ammo.
while it not sounds like a big deal till you run out of ammo.

[Malorish]

Flaming oblivion, on 03 May 2014 - 10:06 AM, said:

Make it so they cant cover them selves and the team with ecm , and increase the weight to team ecm to 10 tonnes and reduce the weight to single ecm to 1 tonne, If they want the massive advantage team ecm crutch brings make them lose something for it currently there's no downside to ecm.

I figured at 4 extra tons for a team ecm it removes it from lights and mediums (unless they want to pay that heavy tradeoff). For the Atlas DDC, you can still bring it for the team but the cost isn't stupid high.

[Adiuvo]

With the main weapons? Nothing, at least until the SRM fix. Once that goes in if they're still underperforming boost their damage to 2.5.

AC5/PPC/Gauss are well balanced.

I'd nerf the Victor's torso twist speed by 10% or 15%. It's a number to play with. Perhaps some further JJ tweaks.

Small lasers and small pulse need a massive range increase.

MPLs need a large heat decrease.

LRMs need a new targeting mechanic altogether. A good idea that's been tossed around is to get rid of indirect fire altogether unless someone is NARC'd or there's a UAV, but in response increase the speed of them further with direct fire. Personally I'd like to see a change to the targeting mechanic in that if you lose track of the mech for even a split second you instantly lose lock and the missiles would blow up. The same would apply for streaks, though in the case of streaks allow them all to seek CT, but you'll have to reduce their damage from 2.5 back down to 2.

Target Decay also needs a nerf, from a 3.5 lock to maybe a 2.5 or 2.25 second lock. LRMs move fast enough now that missiles will just about always hit with a 3.5sec lock, which is completely undeserved in situations where people are visible for maybe .5sec.

[Sancho Kabrinski]

I'd put a charge mecanic to the ppc/erppc's like the one the gauss rifle has. And, maybe, remove the charge mechanic from the gauss rifle.

[verybad]

Abisha, on 03 May 2014 - 10:20 AM, said:

I consider my self a Pulse Expert, (all my mechs are pulse based) and i say you are wrong sir, serious wrong.
they have drawbacks, but also many good sides for instance the fire duration.

You may be an expert with them, you may do well with them, but they aren't as good as standard lasers, and they haven't shoveled out their own niche. They're a weapon people take when they wan't something different. If they were effective, then more people would stay with them.

In any game, weapons will advance or fall back in their usage based on their effectiveness. So while they're good for you perhaps, the overall quality they have needs to be improved in order to be considered better than sub-par.