11 replies to this topic

[Kyle Polulak]

Hey everyone!

Please let us know how the balance changes in today's PTS version affected you.

• How was your experience piloting Inner Sphere 'Mechs?
  
• How was your experience piloting Clan 'Mechs?
  
• With this version, would you feel more or less comfortable about the state of game balance from introducing Clan vs IS?
  
• Did you try a Clan vs IS private match? If so, which side won?

[Kmieciu]

Has anyone noticed that lower arm actuators did not work on the public test server? I tested Kit Fox, Nova, Stormcrow and Timber Wolf. I only had laser weapons in the arms, lower arm actuators were checked, but there was no horisontal movement for the arms.

And no, the arm lock was not on. I could move my mechs' arms up and down, but not side to side.

I own a Kit Fox and a Nova on production server and they work fine.

Edited by Kmieciu, 31 August 2014 - 01:02 AM.

[Fire and Salt]

I had the same issue with lower arm actuators.
Even tried taking them off, saving, and putting them back on.



ERLL changes are interesting - it is now more useful at brawling, and less useful for maps like alpine... hard to say if is a buff or a nerf, but it will resolve one of the major issues that the ERLL had - which was that it was OP on alpine.


ERML heat increase - hmm, maybe.


ERSL heat increase - no. Too hot. The only reason that the ER Small exists in my opinion is to offer a cooler laser for the knife fight. I would rather have the IS Smalls 3 dam / 2 heat than the clan smalls 4 dam / 3 heat.
Reduce the heat from 3 -> 2.6 or 2.7.


Clan LRMS - did you make the cooldown equal for all versions? I tested them on my summoner - and the LRM5s still shot faster than the LRM15s because the cooldown doesn't start until the firing cycle is over.
The stats give the impression that the clan LRM20 is surperior to the IS LRM20 in DPS, but since the IS LRM fires all of its shots at once, I don't think this is actually the case.

Nit picky, but I would prefer that the cooldown start immediately, rather than after the firing cycle is complete, so the cooldown time could accurately reflect the DPS.

This may trigger a bunch of complaints about OP clan large LRM launcher sizes, from people who don't know how this works... also makes spreadsheet warrior too hard



Clan SSRMs - I noticed that the clan SSRM6 cooldown is faster. I never used those things because 7 seconds was insane. 6 seconds is still a long time, but it surely wont make them OP or anything. I still prefer the SSRM4 or 2.

[Koniks]

CERLLs and the laser boat builds were about as overpowered as they were at launch, even with the diminished range.

CERLLs probably need ghost heat increased towards 6-8 and base heat increased by at least .5.

[MasterBLB]

Nikolai Lubkiewicz, on 28 August 2014 - 08:56 AM, said:

Please let us know how the balance changes in today's PTS version affected you.
How was your experience piloting Inner Sphere 'Mechs?

Same as on production server.It was good,IS mechs when piloted by competent players and even a bit cooperating each other are perfect match for Clans.

Nikolai Lubkiewicz, on 28 August 2014 - 08:56 AM, said:

How was your experience piloting Clan 'Mechs?

Worse.
Hampering them by idiotic heat nerfs is not way to do,unless you introduce true double heatsinks.Which essentially will negate the change,showing how inaccurate it is.Even now,on live server using some meaningful number of ER-ML (six or more) require tons of heatsinks(20+) and good heat management to handle.And you want to restrict them even more.
They are already (on production) pretty well balanced except borked C-ER LL,streak-4 and streak-6 with too long cooldown making them unusable,ER-Small Laser reduced damage and LRMs not starting to cooldown immediately after shot.

Nikolai Lubkiewicz, on 28 August 2014 - 08:56 AM, said:

With this version, would you feel more or less comfortable about the state of game balance from introducing Clan vs IS?

Less.
Nerfing Clans beyond common sense is not way to go while you have perfect and lore-based solution like numerical amount of squads.10 Clan mechs vs 12 IS ones,that'd be perfect.

Nikolai Lubkiewicz, on 28 August 2014 - 08:56 AM, said:

Did you try a Clan vs IS private match? If so, which side won?

Not on public test.During games on live server I quite often fought fresh Novas in my Hunchback 4G (LBX10,2xMG,3xML) and solo'ed them.The only Clan mech which is really hard to defeat 1 on 1 is Dire Wolf if a non-light or really fast medium (over 120 km/h) is used.But that's okay.
I find Clans not superior to IS,they just have advantages in some areas and weaknesses in others.That makes them more dangerous at range,but they lose really big part of their power in close quarter battles.While fighting 1 vs 1 significantly longer beam durations and greater heat output can be managed by skilled pilot,things change if there are more enemies at once.A Clan mech can destroy one of them,but after that it is too heated up to continue fight with the other.
That's another reason why introduction of 10 vs 12 teams is the real way to go.

[Reported for Inappropriate Name]

in a game with all ranged weapons with strict limits, the weapons with the most range will always win due to a defense mechanism that appears in damage/hitpoint model games called distance damage mitigation.

so your only choices that I can see right now are to buff is weapons, or change map design, or add some kind of modules that assist in closing range gaps, or to keep nerfing clan weaponry until its no longer fun and the only people who defend it are people who spent money on clan mechs and don't want to acknowledge they made a bad purchase.


of course if you ask me on an honest level the biggest problem is balancing around the innate player stupidity that affects a majority of the community. I live with an average player, and know a few others in real life for both this game and world of tanks, and every time they start talking about how the only reason they lost is because of gold rounds or because the "team" didn't support them when they wanted to re-enact the beginning of robocop as the role of alexander james murphy, I honestly want to kill myself because even if you try to bring their ignorance to light they just look at you like you're crazy and then either ignore the moment or come up with an excuse only an insane person could generate in order to persist their delusional state... but I'm digressing a bit here.


I think at some point is vs is and clan vs clan queues might be a good idea as an option, but first i'd rather you solve the desync issues because that is a more toxic problem than bad gameplay balance in regards to retaining customers. I mean with the network issues any deals you're having to pull players in might as well be like trying to fill a basket with water.

Edited by Battlecruiser, 02 September 2014 - 09:27 AM.

[Tenore]

I found the decreased to the range of clan lasers made sense as they do enjoy a significant range advantage over IS lasers. That being said, the increase to the heat of the ER Medium and the ER Small are heavy handed. Clan mechs like the Nova specifically were built to and need to boat lasers as they do not have the free tonnage to mount ballistics. Most Clan mechs lack the free tonnage to boat ballistics as some IS mechs can. (IS mechs enjoy a significant advantage with ballistics as their autocannons are front loaded for damage.) ER Medium heat could be increased perhaps in the 0.25-0.5 range and when combined with a range decrease would be better in balance. ER Smalls do not need a range reduction or heat increase in my opinion. They are already a niche weapon; while fearsome in large quantities in a close range fight, they are next to useless in a long range fight. Clan ER Larges were nice to use again as the reduced burn time allowed them to be viable both at long range and close range; skill is still required to apply full damage but the range reduction keep them from being over powered. I do feel that Clan lasers could use an increase in heat for balance however the figures used in the PTS were higher than needed in my opinion, especially for the ER Medium and ER Small as I have mentioned.

[Thorqemada]

•How was your experience piloting Inner Sphere 'Mechs?

As usual with the exception that the changes to the ERLL do not make any sense at all:
Make it 2 Points hotter, or make it weight 1 ton more than the LL (obviously the IS is lacking miniaturisation of advanced tech and the range increase comes along with a weight increase).
~50% more burntime does not make any sense at all and is no normalization!





•How was your experience piloting Clan 'Mechs?

Way more surviveable than IS-Mechs and even gimped Mechs like the Summoner do outperform the best IS-Heavys with ease!
When the C-Bill Timberwolf is released something similar to the "Fokker-Scourge" will happen!





•With this version, would you feel more or less comfortable about the state of game balance from introducing Clan vs IS?
When i look every morning into the mirror and hypnotize myself that may work out...

Edited by Thorqemada, 02 September 2014 - 10:02 PM.

[Reno Blade]

• How was your experience piloting Inner Sphere 'Mechs?
  
• How was your experience piloting Clan 'Mechs?
  
• With this version, would you feel more or less comfortable about the state of game balance from introducing Clan vs IS?
  
• Did you try a Clan vs IS private match? If so, which side won?

- The IS LL and ERLL felt quite good.
With the longer beam for the ERLL but nearly the same heat and the same damage, both weapons feel like they have a place and do not replace each other totally.

- The Clan laser changes are interesting.
The ERLL and LPulse feel quite good, whilte the cERML and cERSL feel a bit hot.
All Clan lasers have a lot of range advantage still.
Both ML and LL compared to pulse have 0.4s longer beam and the ERML and cLP both work great together with their 1.2ec beams.
Duration and ranges look good.

- I'd say that these changes would be better. A lot of people asked to "revert" cERLL beam back to before the patch and change instead reduce range and increase heat.

- No private matches done.

A few more changes that would improve the "role" of smaller weapons for smaller mechs could look like these:

reduce SPulse cooldown a bit (2.0 from 2.25s)
reduce ML cooldown a bit (2.75 from 3.0s)
reduce MPulse cooldown a bit (2.50 from 3.0s)
increase LL and ERLL cooldown a bit (3.50 from 3.25s)
reduce LPulse cooldown a bit (3.0 from 3.25s)
increase PPC cooldowns more. (5.0 from 4.0s)

reduce LRM 5 cooldown a bit (3.0 from 3.25s)
keep LRM 10 cooldown (3.75s)
increase LRM 15 cooldown a bit (4.5 from 4.25s)
increase LRM 20 cooldown a bit more. (5.25 from 4.75s)

It would make it more attractive to use medium/small weapons for higher rate of fire and (higher dps) and the big/slow weapons for big punch, but lower rate of fire = better distinguish between "roles".

It could help to give medium mechs an edge using medium sized weapons and launchers and increase the benefits of pulse lasers to warant the high tonnage/heat/range cost over normal or ER lasers.

The shorter cooldown on Pulse laser would not be a balance problem, as the heat would limit the rate of fire after a few volley anyway.
But it would allow the pulse lasers to be used more for quick brawls and for hit and run.

[Rumplestiltskin]

Battlecruiser, on 02 September 2014 - 09:26 AM, said:

in a game with all ranged weapons with strict limits, the weapons with the most range will always win due to a defense mechanism that appears in damage/hitpoint model games called distance damage mitigation.

so your only choices that I can see right now are to buff is weapons, or change map design, or add some kind of modules that assist in closing range gaps, or to keep nerfing clan weaponry until its no longer fun and the only people who defend it are people who spent money on clan mechs and don't want to acknowledge they made a bad purchase.


of course if you ask me on an honest level the biggest problem is balancing around the innate player stupidity that affects a majority of the community. I live with an average player, and know a few others in real life for both this game and world of tanks, and every time they start talking about how the only reason they lost is because of gold rounds or because the "team" didn't support them when they wanted to re-enact the beginning of robocop as the role of alexander james murphy, I honestly want to kill myself because even if you try to bring their ignorance to light they just look at you like you're crazy and then either ignore the moment or come up with an excuse only an insane person could generate in order to persist their delusional state... but I'm digressing a bit here.


I think at some point is vs is and clan vs clan queues might be a good idea as an option, but first i'd rather you solve the desync issues because that is a more toxic problem than bad gameplay balance in regards to retaining customers. I mean with the network issues any deals you're having to pull players in might as well be like trying to fill a basket with water.

Wow, that dude is gonna be there all day.

[101011]

Thorqemada, on 02 September 2014 - 10:02 PM, said:

Way more surviveable than IS-Mechs and even gimped Mechs like the Summoner do outperform the best IS-Heavys with ease!

Jagermech with dual Gauss will destroy a Summoner any day of the week.

[RustyBolts]

Thorqemada, on 02 September 2014 - 10:02 PM, said:

Way more surviveable than IS-Mechs and even gimped Mechs like the Summoner do outperform the best IS-Heavys with ease!

Holy ******* ****! You cant be ******* serious! All the dual AC/20 IS mechs running around can crush a Summoner in just 1 or 2 shots. Hell even a single AC/20 mech can rip it apart. Lets also not forget that IS heavies running LRMS can destroy any clan mech due to a lack of ECM support and bulk fire whereas clan mechs have that ****** stream fire.