160 replies to this topic

[Sandpit]

Ok since Russ stated that the recent CERLL and PPC nerfs were brought about as a result of "speaking with top competitive players" I'm just curious, what players did he speak to?

Anyone in the comp scene here on the forums involved in that? Just curious, this isn't a bash them thread, I'd just like to get an idea on who exactly Russ considers competitive and what exactly their game is like. This isn't an epeen thread, I don't care how "good" your unit is. This isn't a debate regarding the PPC and CERLL nerfs. This is simply information seeking to get an idea as to what this game is getting shaped around

As always, if you can't stay civil and on-topic I'm real good at hitting the report button

[Wintersdark]

I don't know who he spoke to, but that was pretty much the common opinion - that nerfing the Gauss+PPC deal would push clan mechs to just running ERLL's.

For me personally, I don't even really care. I've long believed most of Paul's balancing ideas are drawn from a hat full of miniature crazed monkeys anyways. There's a lot I think PGI does very well, all things considered (despite the common forum angst) but the random New Balancing Mechanics are always, *always* terrible and random.

[Adiuvo]

You know if PGI did talk to competitive players chances are they wouldn't be able to speak about it, right?

[Deathlike]

Wintersdark, on 09 August 2014 - 01:55 PM, said:

I don't know who he spoke to, but that was pretty much the common opinion - that nerfing the Gauss+PPC deal would push clan mechs to just running ERLL's.

For me personally, I don't even really care. I've long believed most of Paul's balancing ideas are drawn from a hat full of miniature crazed monkeys anyways. There's a lot I think PGI does very well, all things considered (despite the common forum angst) but the random New Balancing Mechanics are always, *always* terrible and random.

Well, we were going to have "aggressive" weapon balance before Launch.

Thing is, I haven't even put two thoughts into using LPL even after the last LPL change.

[Deathlike]

Adiuvo, on 09 August 2014 - 02:00 PM, said:

You know if PGI did talk to competitive players chances are they wouldn't be able to speak about it, right?

While I think an NDA is probably the most annoying thing, I semi-agree with that... but then again my personal opinion is that they need to actively debate their opinion in an open forum... because there's no legit way of claiming "this idea is good" if there's no consensus.

Mind you, it's hard to get a good consensus on many things, but Ghost Heat on just having 2 CERLL is... really far out there.

[Wintersdark]

Deathlike, on 09 August 2014 - 02:01 PM, said:

Well, we were going to have "aggressive" weapon balance before Launch.

Thing is, I haven't even put two thoughts into using LPL even after the last LPL change.

Yeah, the "aggressive" weapon balancing that was supposedly just starting with the normalization of the pulse lasers, so they could move forward and adjust them from a common starting point.

Of course, they were not adjusted again, were clearly not balanced, and nothing else changed... so, yeah. There's that.

Amusingly, his originally proposed (and utterly ridiculous) ERLL change including the GH limit of 1 was far, far more aggressive than any weapon change I've seen since the start of open beta.

[Jakob Knight]

I think the general opinion (and it is only opinion) is that the players in reference were those who host the NGNG program, with whom the devs have often corresponded with and used as their channels of information instead of the Forums. Many of those are 'competitive players', and are in contact with others who play in tournaments or their own ladder-style leagues.

I do think there is a lot of misunderstandings involving this term, however. Somehow, it seems 'competitive players' has become synonymous with 'best players' to the Devs and 'self-entitled players' to the playerbase who don't participate in tourneys for one reason or another. In truth, the 'competitive players' are no better or worse than other players, with the exception that their focus of the game is on it as a sport rather than as a war game. However, the players who are as good or better than the 'competitive players' are never acknowledged or thought about because they don't have scores to their names, and so don't exist to the Devs.

It remains to be seen if MWO will devolve into a Solaris-style arena sports game or not, which will largely determine if the 'competitive players' will indeed be the best suited for the game or if those with a wider outlook on the game will end up being better at MWO. Time, and the intents of the devs, will determine that.

Edited by Jakob Knight, 09 August 2014 - 02:07 PM.

[Adiuvo]

Deathlike, on 09 August 2014 - 02:03 PM, said:

While I think an NDA is probably the most annoying thing, I semi-agree with that... but then again my personal opinion is that they need to actively debate their opinion in an open forum... because there's no legit way of claiming "this idea is good" if there's no consensus.

Mind you, it's hard to get a good consensus on many things, but Ghost Heat on just having 2 CERLL is... really far out there.

I don't know of the actual reasoning behind it, but playing with them during the few hours that the limit was at 2, it seemed that the ghost heat wasn't really intended to punish 2. The heat difference was somewhat noticeable but wasn't crippling or anything. Instead it was to punish the use of 3, which was like using 4 now.

Anyways that's just a guess on Paul's pov.

Edited by Adiuvo, 09 August 2014 - 02:08 PM.

[TLBFestus]

They either;

• Don't exist
  
• Have an NDA forbidding them even saying they are doing this
  
• Have no NDA and are smart enough NOT to acknowledge that they said "Hey....let's change 3-4 variables at a time just to keep things interesting".

[Deathlike]

Wintersdark, on 09 August 2014 - 02:04 PM, said:

Amusingly, his originally proposed (and utterly ridiculous) ERLL change including the GH limit of 1 was far, far more aggressive than any weapon change I've seen since the start of open beta.

Personally, I think it was a ploy. Then again.. it reminded me so much of Coolant v1 proposal.

Then we got to make fun references out of a 19SHS K2.

[Adiuvo]

Jakob Knight, on 09 August 2014 - 02:06 PM, said:

I think the general opinion (and it is only opinion) is that the players in reference were those who host the NGNG program, with whom the devs have often corresponded with and used as their channels of information instead of the Forums. Many of those are 'competitive players', and are in contact with others who play in tournaments or their own ladder-style leagues.

There are very very few competitive players affiliated with NGNG. IIRC you have 4 who stream with them: JagerXII, Odwalla, Vercinix, and Edmeister. Out of those Jager is the only one who goes on the podcast and talks to the devs.

[Deathlike]

Adiuvo, on 09 August 2014 - 02:07 PM, said:

I don't know of the actual reasoning behind it, but playing with them during the few hours that the limit was at 2, it seemed that the ghost heat wasn't really intended to punish 2. The heat difference was somewhat noticeable but wasn't crippling or anything. Instead it was to punish the use of 3, which was like using 4 now.

Anyways that's just a guess on Paul's pov.

I'd say if the Ghost Heat penalty didn't rise, you could have justified that (specifically, the heat penalty multiplier, NOT the Ghost Heat limit). I bet the numbers wouldn't be so harsh.

The reality though is that you're pushing 4 different nerfs... 1 of which is minor (heat increase), but the other 3 in conjunction with each other (duration, ghost heat limit, ghost heat multiplier) is a lot to figure out which is having the most effect over what.

Edited by Deathlike, 09 August 2014 - 02:14 PM.

[Jakob Knight]

Adiuvo, on 09 August 2014 - 02:09 PM, said:

There are very very few competitive players affiliated with NGNG. IIRC you have 4 who stream with them: JagerXII, Odwalla, Vercinix, and Edmeister. Out of those Jager is the only one who goes on the podcast and talks to the devs.

Again, it depends on how you define 'competitive players'. If you mean only those who are actually involved in ongoing leagues and tournaments, then there are at least two or three who have (can't speak to how many do now, since NGNG has abandoned their RSS feeds). If, on the other hand you mean players who view MWO as an arena game rather than wargame, then from what I heard since I started listening to it, it seems the majority of those who are involved in NGNG would qualify.

Regardless, this is just opinion, and we don't know. The only thing we do know is that there have been very vocal calls by NGNG to adjust PPCs, and now that has happened. Even though the PPCs were already sub-par compared to what they were in the original source material, somehow the opinion that PPCs were in some way OP became accepted by the Devs as true.

Anyway, what's done is done, and we can count on it continuing to happen as long as only one opinion is consulted for changes that affect everyone.

[Chemie]

If they talked and listened, they would have fixed a bunch it idiotic things (starting with ghost heat)

[Adiuvo]

Jakob Knight, on 09 August 2014 - 02:20 PM, said:

Regardless, this is just opinion, and we don't know. The only thing we do know is that there have been very vocal calls by NGNG to adjust PPCs, and now that has happened. Even though the PPCs were already sub-par compared to what they were in the original source material, somehow the opinion that PPCs were in some way OP became accepted by the Devs as true.

Ignoring the source material and instead looking at the game as it currently stands, PPCs were pretty overpowered and really needed some tweaking after being the basis for every meta build in the past 1.5 years.

The source material is great to adopt for everything but weapon balancing, simply because we have the ability to aim in this game. So long as MWO stays a FPS, which Mechwarrior always has been, RNG can't take the forefront.

Edited by Adiuvo, 09 August 2014 - 02:25 PM.

[TimePeriod]

If anything PGI balance is at gun-point.

[Wintersdark]

Adiuvo, on 09 August 2014 - 02:07 PM, said:

I don't know of the actual reasoning behind it, but playing with them during the few hours that the limit was at 2, it seemed that the ghost heat wasn't really intended to punish 2. The heat difference was somewhat noticeable but wasn't crippling or anything. Instead it was to punish the use of 3, which was like using 4 now.

Anyways that's just a guess on Paul's pov.

If you were JUST using 2 ERLL's, then sure, it wasn't crippling. 30 heat is 30 heat. But if you're using them alongside other weapons? 30 heat for 22 damage (assuming you can keep them on target for two full seconds) was pretty brutal.

If the ghost heat wasn't intended to punish two, then it shouldn't affect two. Just set the heat where you want it to be. If you want GH to punish 3+, then that's where you set it. Not really complicated.

[Deathlike]

Here's a more complex discussion... just to think about how complex Ghost Heat has become...

I've hated the "Ghost Heat is fine with 3 LL" discussion...

3 LL
27 DOT damage
1 sec duration
3.25 sec cooldown (4.25 sec total)
24.53 heat (after ghost heat calculations @ smurfy)
15 tons
6 crits (3 energy hardpoints)
450m optimal range


1 PPC + 1 ERPPC
20 FLD PP damage (the current speeds actually make them sync friendly)
4 sec cooldown
25 heat
14 tons
6 crits (2 energy hardpoints)
90m min for PPC, 540m optimal, 810m optimal for ERPPC

I'll put forth that going LL vs PPC is always a personal design based on build and what you want to achieve with it. The thing is, I haven't really seen LL used in greater capacities than 2 in general (at best, you see the 4+ ERLL Stalker that fires them in 2 groups).

When a discussion about which is better.. there are preferences, but back before this series of nerfs.. you will probably find more people on the PPC side of the build... because you have PP/FLD damage... and you aren't completely useless if someone is going to brawl you. Mind you, I doubt people just build this as is (not that they couldn't though).

It gets more complicated on a competitive level though... yes the 3 LL does get "cooled" during its duration (well, it's hard to see that happening because the heat increase supercedes the cooling), but it's generating approximately more or less the same heat as the PPC+ERPPC combo. I stopped bothering with putting more than two LL/ERL together because of it.

While some people can handle it, Ghost Heat has indirectly "nerfed" the LL in favor of the PPC. While there are no perfect comparisons, these kinds of build considerations happen all the time at all different levels. Ghost heat simply did not do the LL many favors at all.

Anyways, it's just an artifact of the Ghost Heat system that makes me facepalm and wonder why the limits are just not thought out that well.

Edited by Deathlike, 09 August 2014 - 02:39 PM.

[Heeden]

Wintersdark, on 09 August 2014 - 02:26 PM, said:

If you were JUST using 2 ERLL's, then sure, it wasn't crippling. 30 heat is 30 heat. But if you're using them alongside other weapons? 30 heat for 22 damage (assuming you can keep them on target for two full seconds) was pretty brutal.

If the ghost heat wasn't intended to punish two, then it shouldn't affect two. Just set the heat where you want it to be. If you want GH to punish 3+, then that's where you set it. Not really complicated.

My guess is they felt 2 CERLLas was burning through targets too quickly for not enough heat, but they didn't want to punish lighter mechs using one of them for sniper work (or they wanted to make sure lighter mechs could only use one for sniper work).

Mechs with more than one can still get the same DPS if they don't mind staring down the target, and it gives the opponent much more time to react. Whether that was needed or not I couldn't say for sure but from my experience a beam-boating Clan mech can put out a lot of hurt, and sometimes twisting isn't enough as they just burn through the components.

My gut tells me we should expect further changes to the heat on CERLLas at some point in the future.

[Wintersdark]

That's about how it worked out for me. I loved LL's before ghost heat, and frequently ran 3 (Misery, Heavy Metal) or 4 (in my clearly OP Flame).

I wouldn't have cried about capping them at 3 (because 4+ builds where doing more than the "ghost heat target max alpha") but capping them at two really just wrecked them as a solid weapon system when compared to a pair of regular PPC's. They were already a bit behind due to DoT vs. PPFLD, but still, 27 damage from 3 was respectable, if it did often spread.

Capping them at 2 ensured total PPC dominance in Energy hard point use. While at the very high end, PPC's would have won anyways, it ensured that PPC's dominated nearly everywhere.