876 replies to this topic

[Gallowglas]

Right now the C-ER-MLs are probably in a good place. Running 4 of them on my TW along with a U-AC-20 makes me heat conscious whereas before I wasn't. I think it was a fair trade-off. They're not so hot that they're worthless and don't seem OP.

[BLOOD WOLF]

Russ Bullock, on 07 September 2014 - 10:02 PM, said:

I think this is a very good example that just points to the descrepency being in base play style theory. Both LPL hitting 22% and 3-4 salvos. As it pertains to TTK and brawling, I think we want players to have to make more decisions to actually cease to fire their weapons a little more frequently than currently. But also keep in mind if its consistent across the board and balanced then you are at no disadvantage. You have the same stats as everyone else, and make no mistake if i let you put IS lasers on your Clan mech you would choose the Clan ones, range and damage will always win out on the decision process and Clan lasers always have more range and damage.

A LBX-20, 3med, 2SRMx6, and 2SRMx4 is a build I made and never needed to change ever. Not since clans came and probably wont. Despite the balance of weapons. I agree with the idea of the so called play style theory. Even with the nerfs I have seen clan pilots do unbelievable damage. A direwolf piloted right could Rack up 1000dmg easy. No meta, just playing with the weapons.

Gallowglas, on 07 September 2014 - 10:07 PM, said:

Right now the C-ER-MLs are probably in a good place. Running 4 of them on my TW along with a U-AC-20 makes me heat conscious whereas before I wasn't. I think it was a fair trade-off. They're not so hot that they're worthless and don't seem OP.

Use that LBX-20, It is good for your health.

[Imperius]

This isn't strictly clan related but all mechs.

Most deaths are from CT correct? Most players don't blow off torsos or weapons, yes a few do and so do I but most of my deaths are due to CT with all weapons intact.

Why not just buff CT on a scale ex 10% for lights 15% mediums 18% heavies and 21% assaults?

[Too Much Love]

Russ Bullock, on 07 September 2014 - 08:47 PM, said:

I believe the rule will be - 3 critical hits to the engine in the RT or LT will cause X% slowdown and x% heat. This of course will not impact IS mechs because with 3 critical engine hits to either torso means they are dead. It is true that a clan mech cannot get away from this because they have to use XL engines but look at the current situation. A Direwolf missing its RT is only still alive but moving and full speed and pointing up an entire IS mechs weapons at you still. They really dont seem that injured.

Many will ask, why not take this further so perhaps 1 critical engine hit in say the CT or just critical engine hits in general have these negative impacts. This is something that I believe has some credibility in the future. But step one to implement this functionality is to put this new negative impact onto Clan mechs that have lost a torso and review from there.

First of all, thank you for directly communicating with players. I think community appreciate it.

Finally, we see your conception of the game - more close range combat, longer time to kill. I can agree with it. It's much better than jumping ppc online.

But I would like to warn you against too much nerfing. Sad, but many times nerfs were "overpowered". It sometimes felt like overreaction. For example, HGN and Viktor mechs. For the long time they have been Gode Mode mechs. But in a minute they became real junk. Why not make it more balanced? We don't want them to be the only option to play, but we want them to be in the game actually. Now they are really not viable at all.

The same with clans. We afraid that one day you will nerf them to unplayable state. Speaking about clan XL - ok 10% of speed decrease and heat increase could be normal, but if you make it 30% or even 40% it will be disaster to clans. It's all depends on the amount of the changes.

[Russ Bullock]

EarlGrey83, on 05 September 2014 - 11:29 AM, said:

Really dissapointed about the 10vs12.

12 was not a random number. Its what an IS unit looks like. 12 Clan mechs is just a random number.

Besically, you´re going with the easy solution instead of doing it right.

Please read all of my replies, its very possible even probable that doing it right as you say leads to far worse problems.

[Osric Lancaster]

" We have come to the conclusion that, for the foreseeable future, this is NOT a viable option for MWO, here are some of the reasons why: "

• UI redesign of the pre-game, scoreboard and end of round screen.

Wait, you mean the UI you're going to have to rework when you do community warfare soon tm* ? So basically either this is a non argument. Or are you saying you never really intended to do community warfare anyway?

FYI - this event is emphasizes how laughably horrible the process of forming groups is in the current UI is. Log in, pretend your a new player and try to get a group going. It is not a fun or intuitive process. I'm glad you're doing something for long standing merc. corps, but you can't even see what a person has messaged you until you try to message them.

• New rules for tie breakers surrounding the uneven team sizes

How about this - If a match ends and both sides are equal in number, then the side with the greatest remaining % of initial tonnage wins.

• Significant re-factoring of the match maker to develop team sizes that don’t match.

3/3/3/3 was a terrible idea from the start. There was never a real reason to do that instead of tonnage or value balancing. If you're worried about breaking the PUG matchmaking just split it -


10 clan vs. 10 clan (X% or more of launching players are in Clan 'Mecs)
12 IS vs.12 IS (Y% or more of launching players are in IS 'Mecs)
10 clan vs. 12 IS (Between x and y % of launching players are in both IS/clan 'Mecs)

There's no strain on the matchmaking because it just makes a match using whatever it has the 'Mechs for. Hell give people the option to 'ready' / select multiple weight classes of 'mech for the match maker to select from to smooth things more.

• 'Mech chassis tonnage balancing will no longer work.

In the hypothetical case where with the current matchmaker pairs a team of all clan vs all IS 'Mechs, the tonnage factor is 1:1. So you're 'refactoring' would be as involved as all of shifting that to 5:6? Maybe 4.5 : 6.0 if you set tech closer to canonical values? Seems like tweaking a single tonnage balance ratio would be easier than patchwork weapon tweaks. More reliable, too.

• Elo will no longer work with 10 vs 12 team calculations.

You think it works now? Again applying a factor to a player skill score is not a hard thing.

• These elements alone (not including other edge cases) represent at least several additional weeks, if not months, into refactoring and testing time before they would be ready for deployment. That is time that will directly impact the development and delivery of CW modules 2+.

How are you supposedly going to do "Community Warfare" without touching any of the aforementioned things?


. . . It's the least effort approach I've come to expected from PGI. Doesn't strike me as minimally viable, anyway.
*snark edit*

Edited by Osric Lancaster, 07 September 2014 - 10:31 PM.

[Asmudius Heng]

Imperius, on 07 September 2014 - 10:09 PM, said:

This isn't strictly clan related but all mechs.

Most deaths are from CT correct? Most players don't blow off torsos or weapons, yes a few do and so do I but most of my deaths are due to CT with all weapons intact.

Why not just buff CT on a scale ex 10% for lights 15% mediums 18% heavies and 21% assaults?

That really depends on the mech and it's hit boxes in relation to XL engines - also the less of damage shooting through dead sections is very much mech independant.

For instance i regularly get my Atlas down to being just a walking CT ... i dont have anything left to shoot so more health on my CT really does not matter at this point.

I think armour quirks for enlarged body parts (why did the hunchie get an internal buff for the gun torso???) and then better internals across the board would help TTK more and give 'crit seeking' weapons more of a place.

We generally need good reasons to shoot more than just the CT so that the game does feel more tactical when choosing your location.

Which brings me back to clan mechs and thier need for side torso destruction penalties which seem to finally being looked at

[Russ Bullock]

Gallowglas, on 07 September 2014 - 10:07 PM, said:

Right now the C-ER-MLs are probably in a good place. Running 4 of them on my TW along with a U-AC-20 makes me heat conscious whereas before I wasn't. I think it was a fair trade-off. They're not so hot that they're worthless and don't seem OP.

thanks for your input

[Gryphorim]

Russ Bullock, on 07 September 2014 - 08:41 PM, said:

Thanks. I want to encourage this approach. Even those that might say take your time to do 10v12 need to remember there are just as many saying CW before anything else. This feels like the best approach to get CW out this year and to really fulfill the original vision. Then we can see where were at and decide on what to do next.

I'm a die-hard advocate for 10v12, but I'll accept an interim balance pass to clantech to bring them inline with IS and a 12v12 game model, in the short-term, to allow CW phases to be rolled out in a timely manner. Having said that, I would like assurances that 10v12 would become a thing sometime in future.

Ideally, I'd like to see:

All of CW (and 1 or 2 new maps), then

Collision, MASC, and physics pass, (and the completion of the art pass on older mechs), then

Clan Stars and the 10v12 game model, with a full rebalance to suit.

[Russ Bullock]

Death Storm, on 05 September 2014 - 11:45 AM, said:

I have something to say:

Myself and a lot of people spent lot money in this game and in Clan Mechs In General I have just visited Mechlab and went onto training grounds with my Clan Mechs, Your Clan Weapon Balance or should I say Nerf!!!, Has pritty much steam rolled all my Clan Mech loadouts I cant even fire 4 - 8 shot without over heating. So far Meduim Laser receved Nerf heat 6 and Er Large Laser are now 10 heat penalty, Clan ER PPC are abusutely Useless with Slow Procetile firing and Mass heat 15 points.

A lot people Spent heffty price for all these mechs and now PGI are devaluing Clan Tech by introduing More nerfs Clan Weapons. I am personally very annoyed and in future will be thinking twice before I ever make another Purchase on any Package deal that is if course Im still playing Mechwarrior online.

I am serousily Disapointed specailly for all the people forked out all that money for Clan tech.

These sorts of quotes can be very frustrating because we care very deeply about our customers and want to keep them, of course. But we also feel like we delivered exactly what we promised and the team did an amazing job of it. They look and feel awesome. And please read the initial posts that we linked, these Clan mechs were defined long before anyone bought one. There still absolutely amazing.

[MoonUnitBeta]

Russ Bullock, on 07 September 2014 - 08:32 PM, said:

How many of your truly prefer that style of gameplay in MWO? Please I am actually asking.

I really like where the time of death sits right now.
Defensive quirks like + armor to hunchie's hunch, etc, helps them keep them dishing out the pain, but it keeps the fun going as well. The Cent with the +armored arm is a great thing, making cent pilots live longer as well.

Honestly, I'd really like to see more control in the pilots hand in deciding whether to sacrifice defenses for offense, or vise versa. I know it's not really in the time line, but giving us the ability to switch between reactive, reflective, or heavy armor will help us adapt and fight against offensive metas. That's just an example, but the key is being able to choose. I think Ferrous fibre armor needs a rework to suit this. Something that sets it apart from regular armor, rather than saving weight or offering an armor boost. Passive radar would be wonderful addition as well.

I hope this helps... Embrace giving pilots a choice of going offense or defense. Currently it's a matter of stance. I'm hoping it will also be a combination of mech, weapon, and effective equipment choices as well. I think that gives players the option if they want to aim for lasting a long time vs not.

BTW: Really cool you're in this thread talking directly with us. It's just nice to see.

Edited by MoonUnitBeta, 07 September 2014 - 10:37 PM.

[Russ Bullock]

Gryphorim, on 07 September 2014 - 10:19 PM, said:

I'm a die-hard advocate for 10v12, but I'll accept an interim balance pass to clantech to bring them inline with IS and a 12v12 game model, in the short-term, to allow CW phases to be rolled out in a timely manner. Having said that, I would like assurances that 10v12 would become a thing sometime in future.

Ideally, I'd like to see:

All of CW (and 1 or 2 new maps), then

Collision, MASC, and physics pass, (and the completion of the art pass on older mechs), then

Clan Stars and the 10v12 game model, with a full rebalance to suit.

Very reasonable approach to accomplishing a list.

[UBCslayer]

Gallowglas, on 07 September 2014 - 10:07 PM, said:

Right now the C-ER-MLs are probably in a good place. Running 4 of them on my TW along with a U-AC-20 makes me heat conscious whereas before I wasn't. I think it was a fair trade-off. They're not so hot that they're worthless and don't seem OP.

Agreed, Clan mediums are a lot hotter, but still usable... even the most popular energy build on the Timberwolf (2 Large Pulse, 4/5 Mediums) is still usable, but much harder to dominate like before with because it runs too hot in a brawl.

[Russ Bullock]

Osric Lancaster, on 07 September 2014 - 10:15 PM, said:

" We have come to the conclusion that, for the foreseeable future, this is NOT a viable option for MWO, here are some of the reasons why: "

• UI redesign of the pre-game, scoreboard and end of round screen.

Wait, you mean the UI you're going to have to rework when you do community warfare soon tm* ? So basically either this is a non argument. Or are you saying you never really intended to do community warfare anyway?


FYI - this event is emphasizes how laughably horrible the process of forming groups is in the current UI is. Log in, pretend your a new player and try to get a group going. It is not a fun or intuitive process. I'm glad you're doing something for long standing merc. corps, but you can't even see what a person has messaged you until you try to message them.

• New rules for tie breakers surrounding the uneven team sizes

How about this - If a match ends and both sides are equal in number, then the side with the greatest remaining % of initial tonnage wins.

• Significant re-factoring of the match maker to develop team sizes that don’t match.

3/3/3/3 was a terrible idea from the start. There was never a real reason to do that instead of tonnage or value balancing. If you're worried about breaking the PUG matchmaking just split it -



10 clan vs. 10 clan (X% or more of launching players are in Clan 'Mecs)
12 IS vs.12 IS (Y% or more of launching players are in IS 'Mecs)
10 clan vs. 12 IS (Between x and y % of launching players are in both IS/clan 'Mecs)

There's no strain on the matchmaking because it just makes a match using whatever it has the 'Mechs for. Hell give people the option to 'ready' / select multiple weight classes of 'mech for the match maker to select from to smooth things more.

• 'Mech chassis tonnage balancing will no longer work.

In the hypothetical case where with the current matchmaker pairs a team of all clan vs all IS 'Mechs, the tonnage factor is 1:1. So you're 'refactoring' would be as involved as all of shifting that to 5:6? Maybe 4.5 : 6.0 if you set tech closer to canonical values? Seems like tweaking a single tonnage balance ratio would be easier than patchwork weapon tweaks. More reliable, too.

• Elo will no longer work with 10 vs 12 team calculations.

You think it works now? Again applying a factor to a player skill score is not a hard thing.

• These elements alone (not including other edge cases) represent at least several additional weeks, if not months, into refactoring and testing time before they would be ready for deployment. That is time that will directly impact the development and delivery of CW modules 2+.

How are you supposedly going to do "Community Warfare" without touching any of the aforementioned things?



. . . It's the least effort approach I've come to expected from PGI. Doesn't strike me as minimally viable, anyway.
*snark edit*

Actually no we would not need to adjust those screens to support CW. You choose to attack or defend a planet and all that goes into that in the front end UI. THEN you launch into a game and the screens mentioned do stay the same.

CW is happening andn I am completely fine with you not believing me until it releases, talk to you then.

UBCslayer, on 07 September 2014 - 10:35 PM, said:

Agreed, Clan mediums are a lot hotter, but still usable... even the most popular energy build on the Timberwolf (2 Large Pulse, 4/5 Mediums) is still usable, but much harder to dominate like before with because it runs too hot in a brawl.

You see these are good results not bad results. However admit you dont dominate but your still dang powerful...just as it should be. Again I am not looking to Nerf the weapons further except in a worst case scenario, I think we can get the rest of the way there with the other plans.

[Russ Bullock]

Jman5, on 05 September 2014 - 11:52 AM, said:

I'm happy to see you guys are not doing 10vs12. It was a doomed concept from the start for many more reasons than you listed.



I'm really excited to see another buff to mech hitpoints. The more we can move away from 1-2 hit killshots the less luck and more skill will play a role in deciding the victor. This is especially critical since this game does not have a respawn system. Plus it's less frustrating for new players who make positioning mistakes.

Another thing that excites me about this is that it could potentially make critical hits more valuable. There might be more emphasis on widdling down a mech's firepower with critical hits instead of just blasting through him. That to me has always been how I pictured mechwarrior. Losing limbs, weapons, ammo, but still limping along doing your best.

Perhaps what you might consider is buffing the center torso and legs hitpoints more than the arms and side torsos.

Quoted mostly to again represent diversity of opinion, if I quote just those in direct opposition it sends the wrong message about the big picture. Truth is there are just as many in favor as against, perhaps more, this might just mean we have nearly hit the right spot.

IronLichRich, on 05 September 2014 - 11:54 AM, said:

Just a note of perspective. I am a player who absolutely loves Clan mechs and technology, but still likes some Inner Sphere tech as well. Unfortunately, that tech (templar, fafinr, devastator) is a bit far off. I am also in favor of buffs before nerfs

Hopefully constructive criticism/feedback here. Having played the late August PTS with these changes, I don't feel the changes to the ER Lasers for Clan is atrocious. On my 7ERML+Gauss Timber Wolf, my engagement distance was not unbearably short, but the IS mechs were not taking a 7 laser+gauss alpha from outside many of their engagement ranges anymore. The increased heat took a bit of getting used to, but was also acceptable. For my Dire Wolf, I run a setup similar to the prime (remove the lrm and uacs for a torso mounted gauss rifle and heat sinks/ammo), and I felt that the changes were acceptable. While I'm not too sure about the changes to the pulse lasers as I didn't use them too much on the PTS, I am more than happy to trade 150m of range in exchange for reduced ghost heat. Remember people, the ghost heat for CERLL got REDUCED and you can still shoot at freebirth scum from outside anything but LRM or ERPPC effective range.

As to my thoughts on what the largest issue the clans have is? They take no penalty for side torso loss. I feel that a heat penalty would be best, not necessarily 10 heat like in the tabletop (not sure how the numbers work exactly for heat in MWO, just manage my heat scale), but I feel that a movement penalty will just result in the mech without a torso just getting annihilated as opposed to having reduced effectiveness. There should be a price for having the ability to mount incredible firepower, but it should NOT be "hey, here's all these cool guns...now don't shoot them because they're nerfed into oblivion."

For helping the Inner Sphere pilots, I think the following would help:
-Introducing the Light Fusion Engine and ERML as soon as possible. I'm all for timeline acceleration if it means that I can keep a game I enjoy alive without the use of the nerf bat.
-Giving the IS an assault mech that can mount 2 gauss rifles ASAP. When I'm in a IS mech, this is one of the things that makes me sad as an assault pilot.

This is an excellent post, thanks.

[Warchild Corsair]

Hi Russ, thx for your answers here. Tremendous help understanding the direction the game is heading!
Being a die-hard IS player myself I want to point out a different approach. Clans were never designed to be balanced from the start. The whole tonnage, range, weapons advantage lead to the biggest roflstomp in the history of the BT universe and that was the invasion. Trying to balance this via Weapon stats, beam duration, range nerfs etc. Is just not the right way to go.

My idea would be to give the game modes a reconsideration. Change the rules by which we play, introduce asymmetrical combat, be creative here with some help from the community. Make battlefield assets available to IS only, like support tanks or infantry, make Arty and Air Strikes IS only. Give us more maps with more variety to play the new game modes. Give us maybe a respawn mode or a convoy support mode or a hit and run mode.

This with two stars vs three lances, of course. Make Mwo feel less like a wannabe esport title and more like the game that captures the spirit of the BT universe.

Please.

From a player who will never play or buy Clan Mechs.

[Russ Bullock]

ThatDawg, on 05 September 2014 - 12:06 PM, said:

Russ, you and your team claim to have some master plan-

It seems to the untrained eye, like you offer for $ale very powerful mechs, then having bled that market dry, nerf them down to pretty equal with the free stuff?
Now talk about releasing a new wave of powerful mechs....for real green? Lather rinse repeat?

I have seen this theory thrown around but if we were after Max revenue why would we be nerfing them now, as of the balance changes only 2 of the 8 mechs were available for C-Bills and any new Clan Waves will inherit the weapon changes. No the weapon changes are simply for balance and package sales have never stayed our hand from making a change.

Btw there has been no change in the rate of sales since the balance changes were implemented.

[CocoaJin]

I'm a bit disappointed that the Clans won't be as strong as they ought to...I never had any plans to run them but I was looking forward to the challenge of fighting them. I was really hoping the devs would come up with some asymmetrical means of balancing out the matches without balancing out the mechs...a difficult task I know, but would have a friction coup is PvP game design.

So though I don't like it, I'd be willing to concede those desires and give the current path a try. Maybe it would better to just make Clan mechs run hot...that way, you could appreciate the awe inspiring weapon payloads...just not as frequently.

[Russ Bullock]

Koniving, on 05 September 2014 - 12:12 PM, said:

Paraphrase: "10 versus 12 won't happen because we'd have to redesign the system."

Well duh. Now, with the 2+ years it took to make the new UI, you would think at some point in time, someone would have said "You know, Clans aren't supposed to be arranged in groups of 4 and they pride themselves on lower pilot counts. Maybe we should consider a 10 versus 12."

Which.... I believe such has been mentioned dozens upon dozens of times before UI 2.0 came out, so during its development...

....and no one decided to put in a clause for its occurrence?

Its true I mentioned the work it would take to change but I have several times pointed out that the number one reason is that I am simply not willing at this point in time to tell IS players there mechs can't compete. Trust me the vast majority of high skill players will migrate to Clans and then it would be very difficult to foresee enough players of sufficient skill making for a competitve IS vs Clan battle in CW.

[SaltBeef]

Hopefully there will come a time when the mechs are settled and the nerfings changes can end!!! It is getting spendy to constantly adjust to Mech changes. The Clan mechs are a lot hotter and more expensive to modify and run! Brawling up from against frontloaded IS PP ballistic is going to be the clan weakness IMHO. Clan mechs should cost no more than IS mechs C-bill and MC wise if they are nerfed to equality with a different feel. I agree with mech survivability increases and have mention that several times before in post If all mechs got buffed enough so that none of hem can be one shotted with a 50 alpha there would be less whining and more maneuver in gameplay. I was actually pretty happy with the game until all of the hammer nerfs fell in I have spent a lot of dough here convince me to continue. I play IS and Clan and have 95 mechs 3 empty mech bays most of which purchased with MC. I love the Battle-tech universe a lot hate to see it changed too much from it's roots and flavor. The Graphics are outstanding I love them weapons looks are cool want it to settle into something I can get used to.

Edited by SaltBeef, 07 September 2014 - 11:01 PM.