894 replies to this topic

[TexAce]

Running only IS mechs (and doing good in them) I have a much harder time against an IS poptart than any clan mech...and I also have yet to see a poptarting mad cat

Edited by TexAss, 22 June 2014 - 04:36 PM.

[1453 R]

Adiuvo, on 22 June 2014 - 04:33 PM, said:

How the hell do you post stuff like this and expect people to be nice to you?

I don't. I don't particularly care if I'm on the House of Lords' short list of Guys To Call Ugly Names. I've had the misfortune of dropping with Ryan Steel before, and his "GG, PEASANTS" at the start of both matches I suffered through with him and his HoL buddy was only icing on the cake of the caustic and utterly scornful forum posts I've seen out of him.

The truly sad thing? I was in my DuaLarge 3L at the time, and I still tried to offer him and his wingman ECM support because two Highlanders working in close coordination was still my best chance of winning that match. Does that make me a hypocrite for trying to work with what I had, or just a loser?

[Mcgral18]

heimdelight, on 22 June 2014 - 11:30 AM, said:

Thanks for reading

Quote

Now to bring this all full-circle and back to the pinpoint weapon balance, Time to Kill needs to be decreased in order for Lights, and even mediums, to be more viable again.

By this, I assume you mean increase TTK? As in, instead of taking 4 seconds to kill a mech, it now takes 6 seconds, TTK longer/TTK increased. Or TTK from 4 to 2, TTK decreased, things die faster.

Quote

This brings me to my next point. With the introduction of Clans, overall Damage-per-second (DPS) has increased. Sustained DPS has also increased. This means Time-to-Kill (TTK) has decreased.

As for this, I've found the opposite. There is indeed more damage flying around, but only the Gauss and ERPPCs can focus that damage. Everything else is easily spread. I've found TTK to be increased a fair amount, even with all the extra damage flying around.


2 PPCs activating ghost heat? Well, not my first pick but I guess that works. Perhaps simply increasing their cooldown to 5 or 6, so they aren't identical to the AC20, the ML and the SRM6, all short range weapons.

Global cooldown on PPCs and Gauss works as well. Doesn't affect single mounted weapons, but boats get their PP FLD alpha strikes reduced greatly, and that damage might be spread out.

Pulse lasers, I agree need something done to them.

Increasing the burn length on lasers? Not too sure about that. 1.5 seconds is already pretty long.

cUACs I can't really comment on since neither the Kit Fox or the Nova mount them effectively.

As for the Timberwolf nerfs....well, that worked so well on the Victor.

Edited by Mcgral18, 22 June 2014 - 04:50 PM.

[RaKa]

1453 R, on 22 June 2014 - 04:46 PM, said:

I don't. I don't particularly care if I'm on the House of Lords' short list of Guys To Call Ugly Names. I've had the misfortune of dropping with Ryan Steel before, and his "GG, PEASANTS" at the start of both matches I suffered through with him and his HoL buddy was only icing on the cake of the caustic and utterly scornful forum posts I've seen out of him.

The truly sad thing? I was in my DuaLarge 3L at the time, and I still tried to offer him and his wingman ECM support because two Highlanders working in close coordination was still my best chance of winning that match. Does that make me a hypocrite for trying to work with what I had, or just a loser?

EXACTLY THIS. Although it is not representative of the other individuals in HoL, the one who are more ... colorful in their image of insulting their non HOL teamates with their toxicity cough cough Adrian & Ryan & Villz doesn't help at all with their public image.

Edited by RaKa, 22 June 2014 - 04:54 PM.

[Aresye]

heimdelight, on 22 June 2014 - 03:35 PM, said:

My only advice to every single person in this thread is to please read my post in it's entirety. I see many of you misinterpreting what I am saying, and I would spend the time replying to each and every one of you with specific sentences in my OP but it's too much of a time investment with too little reward. My best advice is to please read the post as a whole.

I read your post as a whole, and while looking back on it my previous replies may have been a little unfounded, it doesn't change the fact that what you've proposed can have inconsistencies and overlook many things, most notably proposing that the Timberwolf has its mobility nerfed.

Now, I may not have as prestigious of a background as you, but if we're basing the validity of our arguments on performance, here's an overview:

I have been playing MechWarrior since MW2, was in a competitive unit in MW3 simply called the Federated Commonwealth, in which we were 1st place multiple seasons in a row. In MW4 I participated as a member of Clan Wolf-in-Exile, earned my bloodname, and later stopped playing for a few years. Rejoined later in MW4: Mercs with the Black Scorpions, a moderately competitive unit back in NBT leagues. With MWLL I joined the current Clan Wolf I am still a part of and distinguished myself as one of the better aerospace pilots in the game.

In MWO's last faction tournament I finished in 18th place on the Lone Wolves with a score of 2150, which is high enough to have been on the top 10 for a few of the factions. I didn't have many issues holding my own in the tournament, and actually learned not to fear the competitive crowd as much as I had before. Yes, you guys are good, but your good in groups, and I didn't seem to have any problems defeating most of you on an individual basis during the faction challenge.

I don't take pride in getting kills and winning by utilizing a repetitive tactic. I like to take on multiple mechs at a time and make them regret ever facing me.

Speed and maneuverability makes that happen, and my entire background in MechWarrior has been as a Timberwolf pilot for that very reason. Even in MW4 Mercs when hill humping Nova Cats and poptarting Battlemaster IICs were the norm, I was that one Timberwolf pilot. The stubborn, hipster one that refused to become part of the Nova Cat/Battlemaster meta.

I'm all for ways to make jump sniping in itself a much less commonly used tactic, but nerfing the mobility of the Timberwolf just because the competitive crowd decided to go, "That's the new meta!" is the same type of knee jerk reaction that led to the Victor becoming viable ONLY in that role, and I would be a very sad panda to see the Timberwolf's main advantage in mobility nerfed solely because the competitive crowd decided to defile such a graceful mech by turning it into a poptart.



Long story short: Just because you play competitively doesn't mean your opinion carries more weight. I respect your playing ability, I enjoy the challenge of seeing you in-game, but in the end there are plenty of good players that are not part of any competitive unit who have drastically different opinions on Clan balance and their recommendations are just as valid, regardless of whether or not they have their own twitch stream.

[heimdelight]

Mcgral18, on 22 June 2014 - 04:46 PM, said:

By this, I assume you mean increase TTK? As in, instead of taking 4 seconds to kill a mech, it now takes 6 seconds, TTK longer/TTK increased. Or TTK from 4 to 2, TTK decreased, things die faster.



As for this, I've found the opposite. There is indeed more damage flying around, but only the Gauss and ERPPCs can focus that damage. Everything else is easily spread. I've found TTK to be increased a fair amount, even with all the extra damage flying around.


2 PPCs activating ghost heat? Well, not my first pick but I guess that works. Perhaps simply increasing their cooldown to 5 or 6, so they aren't identical to the AC20, the ML and the SRM6, all short range weapons.

Global cooldown on PPCs and Gauss works as well. Doesn't affect single mounted weapons, but boats get their PP FLD alpha strikes reduced greatly, and that damage might be spread out.

Pulse lasers, I agree need something done to them.

Increasing the burn length on lasers? Not too sure about that. 1.5 seconds is already pretty long.

cUACs I can't really comment on since neither the Kit Fox or the Nova mount them effectively.

As for the Timberwolf nerfs....well, that worked so well on the Victor.

That is indeed a typo. Time to Kill needs to be increased, not decreased. I apologize for that.

[ShadowWolf Kell]

Mcgral18, on 22 June 2014 - 04:46 PM, said:

By this, I assume you mean increase TTK? As in, instead of taking 4 seconds to kill a mech, it now takes 6 seconds, TTK longer/TTK increased. Or TTK from 4 to 2, TTK decreased, things die faster.



As for this, I've found the opposite. There is indeed more damage flying around, but only the Gauss and ERPPCs can focus that damage. Everything else is easily spread. I've found TTK to be increased a fair amount, even with all the extra damage flying around.


2 PPCs activating ghost heat? Well, not my first pick but I guess that works. Perhaps simply increasing their cooldown to 5 or 6, so they aren't identical to the AC20, the ML and the SRM6, all short range weapons.

Global cooldown on PPCs and Gauss works as well. Doesn't affect single mounted weapons, but boats get their PP FLD alpha strikes reduced greatly, and that damage might be spread out.

Pulse lasers, I agree need something done to them.

Increasing the burn length on lasers? Not too sure about that. 1.5 seconds is already pretty long.

cUACs I can't really comment on since neither the Kit Fox or the Nova mount them effectively.

As for the Timberwolf nerfs....well, that worked so well on the Victor.

Additionally, I'd be for a slight IS ER PPC heat drop. You can run IS mechs with 2 ER PPCs about as well as you can on a Summoner with 2 ER PPCs. I see no reason to reduce the Summoner's effective build list further than it already is.

Both faction ER PPCs have identicle range.

[Vassago Rain]

Jman5, on 22 June 2014 - 04:26 PM, said:

I think many of the regular forum posters here don't understand just how utterly frustrating this place is. It's like showing up to an insane asylum where people argue up is down and black is white. Any mention of imbalance or change to game values gets you immediately attacked by a handful of regulars who imply you need to learn to play. The only reason this was somewhat muted in this thread is because Lords are unquestionably one of the best competitive teams out there. (and a lot of people came over from reddit)

It took more than a year for some of the regulars on this forum to recognize that jump sniping with Autocannon + PPC was one of the most powerful combos in the game. And some people still don't get it. Can you imagine how frustrating it is to spend a lot of time seriously practicing with and playing against all sorts of different weapon/mech combos. Facing off against the very best of the best in this game. And then when you post your findings on the forum you get pages of people who just hand wave your argument saying you're just whining.

We can't even agree on fundamental principles of the game.

I post here regularly because I believe it's one of the best ways to get feedback to PGI. However, make no mistake, I do not enjoy this place. I wish all the comp guys would post here regularly because it would lead to better discussions, but I understand why they don't.

MWO is famous for being scrub heaven. The term 'steering wheel underhive' was invented for a reason.

[StormPaladin99]

The clan are well done out the door but a few fixes can definitely be implemented.

The lights are paper mache bullet magnets they have no use and just get cored as soon as you look at someone as was said in the first post they just aren't durable its kinda sad for the people who love lights.
The lrms are fine but its when you have 200 flying at you when you look around a corner my suggestion would be a limit to the amount of missiles a team can have in the air.
Also some of the clan mechs have massive center torsos and no side torsos. ( i tend to see the dire wolf, adder, and the nova)

Just some things i found problems with and for you guys to think about.

[ApolloKaras]

The only balance concern I have, after piloting these babies for a bit is the Clan XL engine.

However table top has already given us an idea for balancing. When you got your torso blown out in Table top while carrying a clan XL engine, you generated more heat per turn, (Thanks Escef!) +10 more heat actually.

Other than this detail I don't see any other balance issues it feels pretty solid.

[Mystere]

Prezimonto, on 22 June 2014 - 04:22 PM, said:

I think they should add less FLD and more hops to the CERPPC.

Without touching the IS (ER)PPC?

Prezimonto, on 22 June 2014 - 04:22 PM, said:

I think they should add less FLD and more hops to the CERPPC.
What I'd like to see is that pod mounted JJ need to be balanced to work.... so if you've got 4 (two either side) and lose one to a crit, you only get 2 JJ.... if you lose a whole side, you can't fly.

A very specific nerf targeted at a very specific mech? How well did that work for the Victor and and the Highlander?


Right. (on both counts)

Edited by Mystere, 22 June 2014 - 05:20 PM.

[Vanguard319]

Prezimonto, on 22 June 2014 - 04:22 PM, said:

What I'd like to see is that pod mounted JJ need to be balanced to work.... so if you've got 4 (two either side) and lose one to a crit, you only get 2 JJ.... if you lose a whole side, you can't fly.

nah, make it so that losing JJs on one side causes your mech to drift in that direction, in addition to losing thrust relative to each JJ lost. Does the job just as well, while making more sense in terms of gameplay.

[Vassago Rain]

1453 R, on 22 June 2014 - 04:46 PM, said:

I don't. I don't particularly care if I'm on the House of Lords' short list of Guys To Call Ugly Names. I've had the misfortune of dropping with Ryan Steel before, and his "GG, PEASANTS" at the start of both matches I suffered through with him and his HoL buddy was only icing on the cake of the caustic and utterly scornful forum posts I've seen out of him.

The truly sad thing? I was in my DuaLarge 3L at the time, and I still tried to offer him and his wingman ECM support because two Highlanders working in close coordination was still my best chance of winning that match. Does that make me a hypocrite for trying to work with what I had, or just a loser?

I've been playing with and against the LORDS since they were DV8, before steel jags were the final say in meta warfare, back during the dark days when kaos still walked the earth. In all that time, the only top tier competitive player that's been unpleasant for real is PEEFsmash, and I don't think he's even around anymore.

If you take real offense to ggclose, maybe online gaming isn't for you, and you'd probably suffer a stroke if you saw the things random pubbies call me on a daily basis.

[Lomak]

Larger Maps and different kind of secondary mission objectives could help spread out the teams. That would help light and medium because of their speed advantage and increase the time to kill. Introduction of 12v12 did decrease it and led to mechs staying more together what makes it difficult to engage because of focus fire.

Edited by Lomak, 22 June 2014 - 05:11 PM.

[Mister Blastman]

heimdelight, on 22 June 2014 - 11:30 AM, said:

Also, since I believe this 'Mech deserves it's own section, the Timberwolf is an atrocity on balance in this game and needs to be nerfed. It is 75tons, goes 89kph, and is better than all of Clan Assaults, Heavys, Mediums, and Lights at literally everything. It can loadout nearly anything, and can out maneuver anything. This is a massive issue.

I agree completely. I don't own one personally but have played at a Friend's house using his Timberwolf and it was akin to meeting a God. The stuff I can do in that chassis with little to no practice... I broke 1203 damage (no strikes) in one drop just using 2x ERPPC + Gauss. I looked at the stats after I had used it for several hours...

I was averaging 748 damage a drop... Without using strikes.

Granted I break 1100+ regularly, having very little experience in this thing and seeing what it can do...

The 'mech is ridiculous. There is absolutely NO reason to use any other Clan 'mech and given the opportunity, anything else, period. It is insane what it can pull off.

The speed... the maneuverability, the survivability, the firepower, the configurability (well, arguably there is one optimal config for it for FLD and I think I have found it)

It is the second coming of 'mech nirvana. It has far too many pluses and almost no negatives. Now, I don't own one, and I don't say this from facing them, I say this after using them. My reputation speaks for itself. I know what I'm talking about, and I agree, the Timberwolf needs to be nerfed. Even at the height of the HGN 732s power before ghost heat, the Timberwolf would have easily usurped it.

So something needs to be done.

I'm not sure what beyond chassis changes and frankly I hate nerfing a single chassis. I think the problem is and will always be weapon convergence and front-loaded damage. Until either of these are addressed for every weapon class in some manner, this problem will persist. In the right hands, FLD is scary good.

[TOGSolid]

Vassago Rain, on 22 June 2014 - 05:07 PM, said:

I've been playing with and against the LORDS since they were DV8, before steel jags were the final say in meta warfare, back during the dark days when kaos still walked the earth. In all that time, the only top tier competitive player that's been unpleasant for real is PEEFsmash, and I don't think he's even around anymore.

If you take real offense to ggclose, maybe online gaming isn't for you, and you'd probably suffer a stroke if you saw the things random pubbies call me on a daily basis.

People being bigger {Richard Cameron} doesn't excuse other people being lesser {Richard Cameron}.

Edited by TOGSolid, 22 June 2014 - 05:14 PM.

[Xarian]

OP was wrong on pretty much all points. FLD is still the problem, always was. The only nerf that TW needs is restricting its access to jump jets.

Clan ERPPCs are pretty balanced, except for the ability to poptart. Fix jumpjets and the game will get much better.

[Diablobo]

Since the main culprit of the poptart meta is the PPC, it is the weapon we need to focus on for balancing. Adding a penalty to firing more than one PPC while in the air is easiest way to address the meta while not nerfing the PPC for other normal uses.

I think it would also be cool if firing a PPC while in midair would cause some cool visual effects like electricity arcing or sparks flying all over the place.

Edited by Diablobo, 22 June 2014 - 05:30 PM.

[Drasari]

Xarian, on 22 June 2014 - 05:26 PM, said:

OP was wrong on pretty much all points. FLD is still the problem, always was. The only nerf that TW needs is restricting its access to jump jets.

Clan ERPPCs are pretty balanced, except for the ability to poptart. Fix jumpjets and the game will get much better.

If all weps were in some way like Clan weps with spray/splash/hitscan the game would be way better. Its why games have been longer lately. People in Clan mechs with said type of weps.

[Mavairo]

The game would be better off without FLD Pinpoint even existing in the first place.
I know people are going to say "jump sniping is a legit tactic!"
No it's not. It's mind numbingly boring, start to finish. There's a reason I sold all my victors save the dragonslayer, and re armed it with LL instead of PPCs.

Jump sniping is by far the largest reward for the least effort required in any game I've played that takes itself as seriously as the devs take this one. And that's saying quite abit considering I came from Star Trek Online and the high end guilds there.

You move, jump, shoot on the fall, and move somewhere else, rinse and repeat. There's no real survival skills there, given how minimal return fire is, positioning consists solely of playing a cross between keep away and whack a mole.

And people think this is okay, and entertaining?
I consciously stopped playing 12 mans because of this meta, I've also consciously avoided pouring my heart and soul into improving at this game, squarely because after four days of being a pop retart in live play, I found myself Revolted.

Which sucks, because I'm a competitive player at heart. But Move Jump, Shoot is so soul sucking mind numbing, I just can't be arsed to bother with it, especially since the meta hasn't changed one iota for over a year now.

Nerfing the TW into the ground isn't the answer. Perfect Convergence needs to be removed, that's the answer. Nothing else is going to address the problem, having a complete lack of shake on the Fall, is just a secondary at best issue.

As a side note I have more fun in 4 mans running around in pugs against other 4 mans and asst pugs than I ever did in 12s. Before the stat wipe my DS which I used (before the rearm) had a 6 to 1 KDR. But you know what? I have more fun bsing around in my TDRs and their Brawling Meager 1.87 through 2.11s than I ever did playing whack a mole.

Edited by Mavairo, 22 June 2014 - 05:48 PM.