356 replies to this topic

[o0Marduk0o]

Destructicus, on 28 May 2014 - 04:05 PM, said:

Paul....How can you balance a game you don't even play?
The AC nerfs may seem all fine and dandy on paper, but it's going to make it that much harder for brawlers to approach meta builds since we won't be able to suppress and close in on them as effectively.
This was not the most effective way to go about combating the meta.

Breaking news for you, those AC tweaks are not to fix meta issues. The original ranges are x2, not x3 as we had before.
You can say the AC ranges were overbuffed during closed beta and now they fix it.

[o0Marduk0o]

SLDF DeathlyEyes, on 28 May 2014 - 07:25 PM, said:

Try making these changes.....

Eliminate Gauss charge and put Gauss rifle recycle rate to 6 seconds. Increase PPC recycle time to 5 seconds and eliminate ghost heat all together. Reduce laser duration to .5 seconds for regular lasers and .3 seconds to pulse lasers. Reduce hill climb penalties and buff acceleration and stopping rates of all mechs by 15%. See what happens then to balance.... I bet a lot of positive things would come from these changes.

So basically you want to break the game even more? Congratulation sir!
Luckily you are not in charge.

[Kmieciu]

Helmer, on 28 May 2014 - 05:32 PM, said:

Between maxed out armor and internal structure the head has 33 pts of damage it can take.

FTFY

Edited by Kmieciu, 29 May 2014 - 03:05 AM.

[Fiona Marshe]

Now we just need the energy weapons reduced to 1.5x range and all will be well.

[Wintersdark]

Fiona Marshe, on 29 May 2014 - 03:16 AM, said:

Now we just need the energy weapons reduced to 1.5x range and all will be well.

Because those lasers are so OP?

[Chemie]

Monky, on 28 May 2014 - 04:37 PM, said:

I will never understand the dev team's approach to pulse lasers.

In a few updates, we'll have a 2 ton clone of a medium laser! Hooray!

Guys, you need to give these weapons functional niches rather than try to cram them into identical holes.

This. Even if MPL had same range as ML, they are not worth the double the weight. Same for SPL. Make MPL different and viable instead of almost the same and useless. The beam duration is not enough to matter. Only people who run them are those that think they sound cool and pugs who can't keep them on target so actually do less damage with the pulse due to shorter "on" time (you only do more damage in shorter time if you don't miss with one pulse).

Edited by Chemie, 29 May 2014 - 03:30 AM.

[Reno Blade]

The AC drop-off-range change won't do much for most players.
You already have problems hitting with them after their optimal ranges (specially if your target is moving lateral).
The AC20 finally does less damage at 450 than the AC10, which was needed to bring the AC10 back as the go-to medium range AC instead of only bringing 20s or 5s/2s.
Using 5s and 2s beyond 600m or 720m is not a big change either, as you rarely use them at 1000m (where you will notice the difference).

To reduce "meta" there needs to be changes to the PPCs and ACs.
I said it a few times, but a delay or splash for PPCs and burstfire for all ACs (inner sphere) would eliminate all the pinpoint crap and still give these weapons a unique feel.
Way harder to hit targets with lateral movement or twitch shooting after twisting towards the target and then twisting back.
It would still be the same damage to "dumb" targets that move straight towards you, but requires more skill than just twitch shooting now = good for the competitive players who are skilled.

I also agree the Arty could have longer cooldown and longer duration with less damage, but people then might just walk through it and rush the enemy position with a few "scratches", if not tuned carefully.

For the Pulse lasers, I could love it with a bit less heat and a little shorter cooldown.
That way you would have
a ML with 3s cooldown and 1s duration for 5 damage and 4 heat.
a MP with 2.5s cooldown, 0,6s duration for 6 damage and 4.2 heat maybe? (0.5s less cooldown, 0.4 less heat)
with the shorter cooldown, the Pulselaser would emphasize the feel of a quick brawler weapon, but the heat (even reduced) would limit your ability to keep firing it, because you would do more heat per second than with a MLaser.
With the 2x tonnage compared to the ML, it would be only worth with a shorter cooldown.

TL;DR version: less cooldown and heat for Pulse laser = higher DPS but also higher HPS.

[warner2]

Adiuvo, on 28 May 2014 - 04:25 PM, said:

The autocannon changes lessen the damage a jumpsniper does to you at range, which makes it easier to close on them...

If you're closing you shouldn't be in a position where you can shoot them to begin with unless you're using JJs as well. You should be behind cover.

I'll give you an alternative. How about viable long range weapons that themselves can be used to suppress and disrupt long range high alpha builds and out damage them over time once the distance is closed?

Like, oh I don't know, the AC2 which has seen 2 successive nerfs (ghost heat, then range/damage under the bizarre guise of "normalisation") when in-fact it needed buffing. Or how about large pulse lasers that have much better range than they do now and produce more knock/impulse? MW4 had those and they were used for this purpose. The game has the concept of knock/impulse for weapons but it's not utilised enough. It could be utilised to add to the so called "meta" to give us the option of disrupting the aiming of high alpha direct fire builds.

[Kmieciu]

Paul Inouye, on 28 May 2014 - 04:14 PM, said:

Spoiler

I've seen this thrown around a few times now so let me respond to it.</p><p><br></p><p>There are a total of 9 different builds of MWO on my machine... all at varying stages of completion of new features.</p><p><br></p><p>In 7 of these specialized builds, I can turn on specific debug tools that allow me to see exactly what's happening in the game simulation which is something you will never be able to determine in production (live build). I can also dynamically tune things as the game is running in these builds which is also something that is impossible to do on the live servers.</p><p><br></p><p>I do play the game, just not on production where I don't have the tools that let me see exactly what's going on in the game engine. Plus I do randomly play now and then on production and I do spectate players quite a bit when I'm not at work.</p><p><br></p><p>And remember, PGI is not a huge company where I sit in my office isolated from the team and just messing about doing this or that. I'm very hands on with the dev team and don't have a lot of time to head up features and play the game during the average workday.

Could you take a look at flamers and make them more dangerous to the enemy, than to your own mech?

Edited by Kmieciu, 29 May 2014 - 04:07 AM.

[HammerMaster]

Area denial.

[Reno Blade]

warner2, on 29 May 2014 - 03:51 AM, said:

I'll give you an alternative. How about viable long range weapons that themselves can be used to suppress and disrupt long range high alpha builds and out damage them over time once the distance is closed?

Like, oh I don't know, the AC2 which has seen 2 successive nerfs (ghost heat, then range/damage under the bizarre guise of "normalisation") when in-fact it needed buffing. Or how about large pulse lasers that have much better range than they do now and produce more knock/impulse? MW4 had those and they were used for this purpose. The game has the concept of knock/impulse for weapons but it's not utilised enough. It could be utilised to add to the so called "meta" to give us the option of disrupting the aiming of high alpha direct fire builds.

You mean like the LRMs and ERLL?
When LRMs got buffed, everyone cried.
And ERLL are in a good place, but no match for such builds, because of beam time.

[Mawai]

Hi Paul,

Thank you for the update. The changes look interesting and I am sure the community will be watching how they play out.

The only comment I would have would be to encourage you to make these sorts of changes more frequently and perhaps consider tweaking other systems like ECM or heat sinks (though I know those are controversial topics).

Presumably in a month of play time there will be substantial telemetry collected on the performance of each weapons system, how commonly it is used and other factors which could then be used as a baseline for tweaking balance. By making updates more frequently and by being flexible and willing to roll them back when they don't work out ... it gives an opportunity to more quickly converge to an optimal set of values for the current state of the game engine.

As one example, I don't think it should have required significant usage of aritllery and air strikes in the recent tournament to identify that these systems needed to be tweaked from a balance perspective ... this adjustment could and perhaps should have been identified some time ago and balance adjustments already implemented. It has certainly been a topic of concern for months.

P.S. Not trying to be irritating ... but it is "denial" not "denile" ...

[Shlkt]

Arty changes look too severe IMO. Going from 60m to 75m, while also reducing shell damage to 35, will reduce average damage to a single target by 43%. That's one heck of a nerf.

I look forward to trying out the other changes.

Edited by Shlkt, 29 May 2014 - 05:13 AM.

[StillRadioactive]

It seems as though everyone's missing the big, meta-changing news from DevVlog #4:

Quote

"One other thing that is currently on the table and Alex Schmidt is actually working with the engineers on this, is relooking at the way Mechs take damage when they fall. Now that's things like a light mech taking way more damage than a heavy mech when they drop off from the same height. Now this is going to be based on a scalar system, so the bigger the `Mech the more damage they're going to take. Smaller the mech, again it all depends on how much health do you need to be dropping from."

Why is this important? Think about how poptarts operate.
Step 1) Wail on the jets and get as high as you can.
Step 2) Wait until the shake stops.
Step 3) Fire on target.
Step 4) Slam into the ground.

If step 4 suddenly starts doing a non-negligible amount of damage to Highlanders, Victors and Cataphracts, you'll see a few changes.

1) Some people will stop repeatedly jump-sniping, using it only for certain circumstances.
2) Some people will sacrifice weapon tonnage to fit extra jets that they can use to cushion the fall.
3) Some people will sacrifice engine size to fit extra jets that they can use to cushion the fall.
4) Use lighter 'mechs to poptart.

Any of the first 3 reactions will make it easier for a brawler to get in there and knife 'em in the back. The fourth makes it easier for return fire or enemy striker 'mechs to take them out.

Edited by StillRadioactive, 29 May 2014 - 05:19 AM.

[Shredhead]

StillRadioactive, on 29 May 2014 - 05:18 AM, said:

It seems as though everyone's missing the big, meta-changing news from DevVlog #4:


Why is this important? Think about how poptarts operate.
Step 1) Wail on the jets and get as high as you can.
Step 2) Wait until the shake stops.
Step 3) Fire on target.
Step 4) Slam into the ground.

If step 4 suddenly starts doing a non-negligible amount of damage to Highlanders, Victors and Cataphracts, you'll see a few changes.

1) Some people will stop repeatedly jump-sniping, using it only for certain circumstances.
2) Some people will sacrifice weapon tonnage to fit extra jets that they can use to cushion the fall.
3) Some people will sacrifice engine size to fit extra jets that they can use to cushion the fall.
4) Use lighter 'mechs to poptart.

Any of the first 3 reactions will make it easier for a brawler to get in there and knife 'em in the back. The fourth makes it easier for return fire or enemy striker 'mechs to take them out.

Though that's not how poptarting works. You only jump exactly as high to clear the obstacle, not "as high as possible". These changes won't hit skilled players as much as you think.

[Shlkt]

SRM missile spread reduction will probably have a greater impact than the modest damage boost. I assume those numbers are for standard guidance. Could you also post the numbers for Artemis launchers?

[BLOOD WOLF]

Destructicus, on 28 May 2014 - 04:22 PM, said:

I've edited the initial post that you have since responded to that it includes the following:
The AC nerfs may seem all fine and dandy on paper, but it's going to make it that much harder for brawlers to approach meta builds since we won't be able to suppress and close in on them as effectively.
This was not the most effective way to go about combating the meta.

It feels as if these changes are cutting of the legs we use to rush meta players.

additional edit
I'm not trying to be a **** here, it can be hard to decipher the tone of text, I really want to know why this change seems to knock brawlers more than the people who abuse the meta
Why not target the meta directly?

It didnt knock brawlers, as a matter of fact, this brings them into line as brawling weapons. AC's were never meant to be sniper weapons.

[BOWMANGR]

Shredhead, on 29 May 2014 - 05:28 AM, said:

Though that's not how poptarting works. You only jump exactly as high to clear the obstacle, not "as high as possible". These changes won't hit skilled players as much as you think.

Poptarting needs skill ?!?

[AdamBaines]

LegoPirate, on 28 May 2014 - 04:26 PM, said:

a big list i posted on reddit. implement pls.

These post always make me LOL.

[Sable]

I like all these changes but where's the PPC tweaks? I'd be happy if the movement speed was nerfed down from 1500mps to 1000mps or even 1200mps.