178 replies to this topic

[BMR1580]

grayson marik, on 28 August 2014 - 10:19 AM, said:

Same here

Nobody on my TS can get on, we all get the same error: Account not authorized.

[Devilman Zhang]

101011, on 28 August 2014 - 10:17 AM, said:

Your suggestion requires a rework of one of the most basic rules of Battletech.

Weapon ranges, rates of fire, and jump-jet functionality have also deviated from TT. I don't think that making the XL engines more comparable would be too much of a stretch at this point... but you're entitled to disagree.

[Phromethius]

Just wanted to say that all those saying a blind test is a bad idea, well you couldn't be more wrong. Blind tests are a perfect way to not skew numbers in any kind of way and look at actual usage numbers.

They are looking for NORMAL data loads and flow of traffic. If everyone thought that LRMS are beign adjusted then everyone would Boat on the test server. This way, people play what they normally play or better yet, experiment further and PGI ends up with data on all weapon types.

They should keep quiet about what they are balancing all the time. Now for MAPS, or UI functionality, let people know that kind of things so the public can actively seek out buggs and navigate every nook and cranny of a UI feature. Good move PGI! Hopefully it is a fruitful thing.

[Loganauer]

The launch tutorial is awesome! Not sure if that was new with a first time loading the game, but I like it. Hope it helps the new players.

The range reduction on the lasers I can live with, the duration changes I can live with (though I think ISERLL was overnerfed (1.25 duration would’ve been better), but whatever it’s almost even with CERLL now), but I’d rather the heat and damage were returned to tabletop values. I am SUPER happy that the CERLL nerf was brought down to reasonable levels, especially with the range and duration reduction.

Pulse lasers already are rarely used and should be redesigned to have a very low cooldown or for continuous fire and balanced around that.

C-LRM nerf was necessary, but wish it was harder and applied to all IS LRMs too, (and this is a pipe dream) along with PPC and Gauss cooldown nerfs instead of projectile speed reduction and charging.

A penalty to losing the clan XL side torso would’ve been good.

Super happy that you’re using test servers before big changes, greatly appreciated. If only more polls were done for player feedback too! *edit* would've been great if we had more time to test and if you gave us feedback on the feedback.

In most of the games I played, the games that had more clan mechs dominated, even after the nerfs. I sincerely hope you guys will seriously consider 10 vs 12 and balance from there. You can find deterrents to prevent everyone from wanting to pick clans, and you can allow people to do 10 vs 10 and 12 vs. 12 and give them an option to not face each other at all. Returning repair and rearm can make clantech more expensive to help balance them, and adding a cbill incentive to encourage people to play IS. Right now they’re balanced by being damned expensive and largely requiring a purchase, which is fine. There is frankly no way to balance clans and IS against each other 1:1 without ruining the clans entirely and they were never designed to be 1:1. No matter how you tweak the weapon systems, clans can still cool faster, run faster (except lights), mount more armor, lose their side torso without dying, and mount more weapons. You’d have to completely ruin the weapon systems to make them perfectly balanced, and in-doing so, lose most of your players (mostly the ones that paid for the content you’d be ruining) so 10 v 12 is the smartest way to balance them. It’s also popular among the community, so that reason alone should be enough motivation. I might suggest a poll on the front page just to get a feel where the community is at.


P.S Please consider prioritizing adding heat penalties and a heat system redesign (30 minimum heat threshold, 50 maximum) and cone of fire/recoil/convergence changes for better game balancing. After that maybe a jump jet revamp and information warfare revamp. Just some things to think about putting out –with- community warfare, at the same time that would drastically improve the game and go beyond “polishing” the game. I will be writing an essay about all these things and presenting it on the suggestion forums in days to come.


P.P.S I’m not sure how you intend to put out community warfare, but with dozens or hundreds of planets/continents to battle on, it should probably become a priority to include player driven content via a community map development kit or computer generated maps, rather than having your limited staff each design maps themselves. Community driven content worked very well for MW:LL.

Edited by Loganauer, 31 August 2014 - 04:01 PM.

[Kael Posavatz]

Damage Per 1/10 Second within optimum range (rounded to hundredths)
Inner Sphere Prior Test
ER Large Laser .9 .6
Large Laser .9
Large Pulse Laser 1.77
Med Pulse Laser 1
Medium Laser .5
Small Laser .4
Small Pulse Laser .68


Clans
ER Large Laser .56 .69
ER Med Laser .54 .56
ER Small Laser .4 .4
Large Pulse Laser .9 .97
Med Pulse Laser .82 .87
Small Pulse Laser .59 .59

IS Heat
ER Large Laser 8.5 8
All other heat values remain unchanged

Clan Heat
ER Large Laser 9 10
ER Med Laser 5 6
ER Small Laser 2 3
Large Pulse Laser 8 9
Med Pulse Laser 5.5 6
Small Pulse Laser 2.4 3.4

IS Range
No Changes were made

Clan Range
ER Large Laser 890 740 -17%
ER Med Laser 450 400 -11%
ER Small Laser 200 150 -25%
Large Pulse Laser 600 525 -12.5%
Med Pulse Laser 400 330 -17.5%
Small Pulse Laser 180 150 -16.7%

Clan Missile Cooldown Times
LRM-5 3.25sec 3.5sec
LRM-10 3.75sec 4sec
LRM-15 4.25sec 4.5sec
LRM-20 4.75sec 5sec

Streak SRM-4 5.25sec 5sec
Streak SRM-6 7sec 6sec


Comments: The change to the clan streaks was fairly minor but a definite plus, and the increased cooldown time on Clan LRMs is not incredibly onerous, but since IS already gets an improved ability to shoot down Clan LRMs with AMS, the fact that IS mechs can interpose structures and spread damage in mid-missile stream (none of which Clans can do against IS LRMs which hit in a single mass), I am not convinced that this change was truly necessary.

Beam duration... Oh my yes! This was one of the better changes to come out recently. I compare all beam weapons by damage-per-tenth-second as it allows you to actually directly compare all beam weapons against each other. This balances fairly well, the Clan ER Large Laser is no longer almost pathetically weak in comparison. The IS Large Pulse Laser remains noticeably out of alignment with the others, although this help to somewhat offset the advantages enjoyed by Clan ERPPCs in other situations.

The heat nerf I can do without. Thanks to ghost heat some cannon builds are already the next thing to impossible to play (Adder-Prime, case in point, and the Nova-Prime is barely marginal). The heat nerf is an across the board one point heat penalty (save the medium pulse which get rounded up to an even 6 pts) that comes across as being a kick to the clans rather than a reasoned adjustment on the basis of each individual weapon.

The range nerf is even worse because while the weapons were longer-ranged, it was a marginal advantage when you consider what range combat is usually resolved at. The sight-lines on most maps where both 1) combat is likely and 2) the clans can make full use of their superior range are already few and far between. Alpine Peaks is a notable exception but even there much blame can be laid on stale tactics and lack of creative use of terrain by the vast majority of players, and even there customizing a mech or optimal use on one map is stupid, especially when there are some very hot maps (which Alpine Peaks is decidedly not) to contend with. Slashing the range on Clan ER Medium and Large Pulse Lasers by over ten percent, Small and Medium Pulse Lasers and ER Large Lasers by over fifteen, and the ER Small laser by 25% does not improve the balance.

Lastly, some points to consider.

1) The IS mechs have access to Star League tech, the same stuff ComStar had at Tukayyid, and not even ComStar was able to field whole armies of customized battlemechs. These are most decidedly not the rusting relics the Clans spent three years kicking apart.

2) The vast majority of maps sharply restrict available longer sightlines, and the vast majority of combat is resolved in locations where range is further restricted. This already does a fine job of negating most of the superior range of clan energy weapons.

3) Not implementing an optional military ball ammunition for the LB-X weapons, denied the clans a single-shot front-end damage weapon. In fast-turning brawls this means it is quite common or not all of the rounds of an AC/Ultra cannon to hit a target, or if they hit, they spread in much the same manner as the LB-X rather than dealing their total damage to a single component the way IS Autocannons do.

4) Pure IS on Clan battle is very rare. Is there truly sufficient data to indicate that the Clans are horribly out of balance with IS counterparts because of a weapon mechanic as opposed to superior level of skill, an advantage posed by environment, battlemechs being played less intelligently because OmniMech rules already require their operators to be a little smarter in how they play, better battlefield coordination (voice comes for group queue, or even using in-game chat by solo queue) or something else?

5) At this point those operating Clan Mechs are still largely self-selecting (in other words, willing to drop real money rather than wait for c-bills). Making the assumption they did so because they like the game, it logically follows that the majority are somewhat good at it. (no doubt there are some that are bad at the game but still dropped a couple hundred dollars, but they are rare). Opposing this you have the people who did not buy clan mechs for whatever reason, including the new, unwilling to invest, if-and-when casual, and all the rest. If the self-selecting population is 'pretty good', and the other population more sill-diverse, it raises the argument that you are adjusting weapons based on skills of the players rather than game mechanics.

6) Last point. If people want to play the underdogs, let them. 'Balancing' deprives those who want to relive those desperate battles against a seemingly implacable foe just as much as it deprives the Clans of their vaunted superiority. It denies the IS the challenge of uniting to overcome the greatest threat it had faced in centuries. It denies the people who want to play as IS pilots the true challenge that the Clans represent, and the honor and glory of overcoming those challenges. And for the Clans? It drop us to the level of surats.

[TLBFestus]

Don't know about the content of the announcement, but the fact that RB actually made a post with information in it, some suggestion that they listened (in areas), and more importantly didn't stick his foot in his mouth and insult anyone, well....this I find a promising sign.

Just a little.

Edited by TLBFestus, 29 August 2014 - 09:34 PM.

[Shadow Magnet]

After about 15 matches on the test servers, my impression is: those weapon changes made almost all my Clan builds "unfun".

I understand that you try to balance out things, but with the heat changes I spend now 70-80% of a match waiting to cool down below critical levels. I run mostly laser heavy builds or laser boats, I love my Nova more than my Timber Wolf.
But now? Those 12 laser hard points are a waste because you are unable to utilize so many lasers effectively.

Yes, you are supposed to do heat management - but this is really over the top and killing most of the fun for me.

Actually, I got so frustrated that I stopped playing after those matches trying out the laser changes that I did not bother to test the LRM and SSRM changes.

If you put those changes to live, then we will really need 10 vs 12 - 10 IS vs 12 Clans...

How about you don't increase the heat and ghost heat but rather the cool down time of weapons for balancing them?

Edited by Shadow Magnet, 29 August 2014 - 10:24 PM.

[MasterBLB]

I can only second Shadow Magnet.

In short - for Clans toned down laser ranges a bit (except small lasers) are okay.Heat increase is not.
For IS ER LL longer beam duration sucks.

#edit
Balancing by increased cooldown is not needed.The only thing were clan energy weapon is superior it's range,and that will be adjusted.

Edited by MasterBLB, 29 August 2014 - 11:16 PM.

[Cybermech]

If you can't calculate the massive issues with having 10v12 on the interwebs, then their is something wrong with your thought process.

[Yakeru]

Played a few matches on the PTS yesterday, with Clan Mechs only, since I only played Clan Mechs since their release.
My experience with the weapon changes:

PPCs are great now. They were way to slow and not viable anymore, now its just fine.

Pulse Laser, I didn't notice a big change on that, which is a good sign on the balancing. I'm a close-ranger when brawling, so it didn't effect me much. But I guess that's fine.

c-ER-LL are a lot better now. They were not viable in the last state, actually I didn't use them at all, because Pulse Lasers were soooo much better. By reducing the range of Pulsars and reducing the duration of the ER-LL, you created 2 Weapons with a different purpose, which is really great. Since closed beta Pulsars and LL felt like all the same, it didn't make a big difference on what you played. Now that has definetly changed. Super fine work on that!

I didn't experience any heat problems. That might be, because I always try to have a 1.3 or above heat efficency. It might be a problem for more heat related builts, espacially since the clan mechs are very heat related anyway.

All in all, all the changes felt great. The experience was a lot better, than in the actual game.

I am much aware of the fact, that a lot of people cry about ClanMechs being too strong, but thats just bullshit.
Clan Mechs are better on long range, but when it comes to brawling, the IS-Pinpoint is so much superior, that it is nearly impossible for equal Clan-Teams, to win against an IS-Team. With a good strategy, the IS will always find a way to get you into close range, there is no map, where you can avoid that at all costs, maybe on Alpine.

So right now, there is NO DAMN WAY, where a 10 vs 12 can possibly happen on a fair basis.

Edited by Yakeru, 30 August 2014 - 01:08 AM.

[MadTulip]

My feedback on laser balance changes in a different topic as i didnt want to spam here.:

http://mwomercs.com/...ancing-general/

[IllCaesar]

I was not able to get onto the PTS at all, all of yesterday or on Thursday. I even uninstalled and reinstalled the Test Server Client.

[SaltBeef]

Someone suggested I post this here ...

I noticed Clan Streak 2 and streak 4 weapon systems did not get module upgrades but the Clan streak 6 did , Why?

Inner sphere streak 2 gets modules increases. Clan streak2 and 4 should get them as well The clan streak 6 fires the same missiles just more of them at a time.

[SaltBeef]

Noticed a lot less mech stuck in Mech factory map.... I noticed clan mechs ran a lot hotter when brawling. The heat should be a little less than the test but still needs to be there. Mostly Clan on Clan dominated.. I think I overheated 3 times fighting a cataphract with a laser Crow but eventually he dropped.
C ER LL burn time better but I liked 1.5 duration better.....IMHO IS ER LL should be dropped to 1.4
duration but I was used to the longer burn due to clan mech practice. Tried ER LL on awesome I piloted like crap due to being awake 17 hrs but I did not mind the IS Laser burn time.

Edited by SaltBeef, 30 August 2014 - 09:36 AM.

[Archon]

The nerf to clan medium lasers was too hard. Also I have no reason to take a pulse laser over its standard counterpart now; please consider reducing the changes to heat on pulse lasers or increasing their damage.

[SVK Puskin]

Where did you place the new data center, in Europe or?

[Randall Flagg]

del.

Edited by SKINLESS, 17 September 2014 - 02:10 PM.

[NQ strooka_ace ZOD]

Until Steiner and the other is houses are not playing with is mechs at all - NERF the clanners. It doesn't matter if im in a better mech for me. Teamplay wins, and therefore Steiner will loose. I dont want to see any win gibberish steiner in a clan mech. - dismissed.

[Cimarb]

strooka, on 01 September 2014 - 07:22 AM, said:

Until Steiner and the other is houses are not playing with is mechs at all - NERF the clanners. It doesn't matter if im in a better mech for me. Teamplay wins, and therefore Steiner will loose. I dont want to see any win gibberish steiner in a clan mech. - dismissed.

huh?...