81 replies to this topic

[FupDup]

August Immanuel, on 28 September 2014 - 11:18 AM, said:

Not really. Are you familiar with the term force multiplier?

That probably applies more to the Mad Cat's speed rather than its agility (the two items are often related, but not the same).

[El Bandito]

FupDup, on 28 September 2014 - 10:32 AM, said:

Because the Victor nerfs worked so well, right?


Why does everybody go on about the agility/mobility of the Mad Cat? At best, its agility is equal to the Suckoner and Mad Doge. It's actually a little bit less because of the S side torsos and a slightly lower twist radius. Given that people don't complain about the agility of the other Clan heavies (which are at least equal to the Mad Cat in that specific regard), this would indicate that the Mad Cat's problem is something other than its agility.

Then do you want to reduce it's firepower? Nerf its hitboxes? Cause TW currently moves like a 65 tonner while carrying the firepower and durability of a 85 tonner--aided in part by agility and in part by its well covered rear hitbox. No other Heavy mech can have 95% of the torsi armor in the front and survive for long. Something has to give.

Victor nerfs were too heavy-handed but some nerfs were necessary, and I say that as a DS pilot. The way Victors spammed the queue was just like what happened with the TWs. Victors was too XL friendly and had huge engine rating. I'd say reverting the agility the nerfs to 10% instead of 20% would be ok. Only thing VIctor lacked was hardpoints, but TW does not have that issue.

Edited by El Bandito, 28 September 2014 - 05:57 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

FupDup, on 28 September 2014 - 10:32 AM, said:

Because the Victor nerfs worked so well, right?


Why does everybody go on about the agility/mobility of the Mad Cat? At best, its agility is equal to the Suckoner and Mad Doge. It's actually a little bit less because of the S side torsos and a slightly lower twist radius. Given that people don't complain about the agility of the other Clan heavies (which are at least equal to the Mad Cat in that specific regard), this would indicate that the Mad Cat's problem is something other than its agility.

Fallacious reasoning.

None of the others pack as much punch and armor for that agility.

[FupDup]

El Bandito, on 28 September 2014 - 05:38 PM, said:

Then do you want to reduce it's firepower? Nerf its hitboxes? Cause TW currently moves like a 65 tonner while carrying the firepower and durability of a 85 tonner. Something has to give.

I would prefer to apply multiple small nerfs to multiple aspects of the mech. Individually they wouldn't do much, but together they might just do the trick.

Basically, the current problem with the mech is that it gets all three corners of the "Power Triangle." It has durability, power, and mobility all wrapped up into one delightful package. It gets the best of all three worlds.

A specific agility nerf would reduce the mobility aspect of the mech while keeping the other factors (durability and firepower) the same. Would it work? I dunno. But what it would do is focus the mech into a specific niche rather than keeping it "multirole." The Mad Cat's current ability to "specialize at being a generalist" is obnoxious, but I would prefer to keep the mech versatile and well-rounded rather than making it into a one-trick pony. The heavy class already has enough mechs that excel at one job and don't really do other jobs very well.

Essentially, I'd prefer the Mad Cat to be decent at every job but not excelling at any one job. A jack of all trades, but a master of none. I want it to have good durability, but not as much as a tanking specialist. I want it to have good firepower, but not as much as a firepower/glass cannon specialist. I want it to have good mobility, but not as much as a mobility specialist.



So, my objective would be to apply small nerfs to each of the three elements of the power triangle -- durability, mobility, and firepower.

For mobility, I would rather have an "Anti-Speed Tweak" of sorts rather than an agility nerf. Give it a -10% speed quirk. 81 kph would still be very good for its size, but wouldn't be quite as crazytown as 89.1. Agility nerfs just make the mech feel unresponsive and unfun (I miss my Victors ).

For durability, I would prefer a modest enlargement of the CT nose cone. I wouldn't turn it into a Catapult is a walking CT, but it would be noticeably less durable. If that would be too much work, maybe just slapping a -10% armor quirk on the CT would do.

For firepower, a simple 10% cooldown quirk for all weapons might suffice.

In general, the Clan XL side torso penalty will probably help because the mech has relatively large ears. Right now its big sides are mostly a blessing, but when the mech becomes hotter and slower from losing an ear, that might change.

Edited by FupDup, 28 September 2014 - 05:52 PM.

[FupDup]

Bishop Steiner, on 28 September 2014 - 05:51 PM, said:

Fallacious reasoning.

None of the others pack as much punch and armor for that agility.

That would indicate that the point of overpoweredness was achieved by a factor other than agility, given that those three mechs share roughly the same agility but only one of them is blatantly overpowered.

[ShinobiHunter]

@ FupDup, Honestly I think it would be better to keep the TW's firepower and speed/agility, but tweak its survivability a bit. Just my 2 cbills though

[Griggio]

I thought this thread was about Mad Dog heat generation for a second there. Didn't realize it was a another nerf Clan, buff Is, make me number 1 again discussion.

No but really...stop it. There could be a thread discussing why Hot Rod Red isn't really Hot Rod or red and it's almost a given the same names will pop up stating "Well It is Hot Rod Red, but clans are OP'd and need balancing!"

Edited by Griggio, 28 September 2014 - 05:59 PM.

[FupDup]

ShinobiHunter, on 28 September 2014 - 05:59 PM, said:

@ FupDup, Honestly I think it would be better to keep the TW's firepower and speed/agility, but tweak its survivability a bit. Just my 2 cbills though

My nerf proposals included a small survivability reduction in the form of either a CT hitbox increase (not walking CT like Catapult, but not Stalker-ish either) or a -10% armor quirk on the CT.

[El Bandito]

FupDup, on 28 September 2014 - 05:51 PM, said:

In general, the Clan XL side torso penalty will probably help because the mech has relatively large ears. Right now its big sides are mostly a blessing, but when the mech becomes hotter and slower from losing an ear, that might change.

IF they equip the ears.

[ShinobiHunter]

FupDup, on 28 September 2014 - 06:00 PM, said:

My nerf proposals included a small survivability reduction in the form of either a CT hitbox increase (not walking CT like Catapult, but not Stalker-ish either) or a -10% armor quirk on the CT.

I like the idea of CT increase (like you said, not Catapult), and I would like to see the ears left on even when you're not packing missiles. I'm not too crazy about the idea of an armor quirk though.

[FupDup]

El Bandito, on 28 September 2014 - 06:03 PM, said:

IF they equip the ears.

Even without the missile pods, the side torso hitboxes are mostly Stalker-ish right now in that they make the CT easy to shield (but not quite as narrow as the Stalker's CT is).

Current hitboxes:




I would slightly extend the CT along the sides of the nose (I wouldn't go all the way, because that would be overkill).

[El Bandito]

FupDup, on 28 September 2014 - 06:07 PM, said:

Even without the missile pods, the side torso hitboxes are mostly Stalker-ish right now in that they make the CT easy to shield (but not quite as narrow as the Stalker's CT is).

Current hitboxes:




I would slightly extend the CT along the sides of the nose (I wouldn't go all the way, because that would be overkill).

Wow, those ST coverage makes my Catapults wet. Hope the Clan XL penalty will affect the T-Wolf performance noticeably.

Edited by El Bandito, 28 September 2014 - 06:10 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

FupDup, on 28 September 2014 - 05:55 PM, said:

That would indicate that the point of overpoweredness was achieved by a factor other than agility, given that those three mechs share roughly the same agility but only one of them is blatantly overpowered.

Generally when something is superior in the other areas, giving it equal agility is considered the deal breaker. The way balance works, is give and take. You want the same agility, you lose firepower or armor, etc, to come in line.

Overall, agility is one of the only things that can be tweaked without breaking it's "locked" abilities. That and hit boxes.

[FupDup]

El Bandito, on 28 September 2014 - 06:09 PM, said:

Wow, those ST coverage makes my Catapults wet. Hope the Clan XL penalty will affect the T-Wolf performance noticeably.

Anyways, here is a quick and sloppy brainfart of what it might look like post-Fuddy Duddy adjustment:




That might or might not be too much. Hard to tell without game testing.

Bishop Steiner, on 28 September 2014 - 06:11 PM, said:

Generally when something is superior in the other areas, giving it equal agility is considered the deal breaker. The way balance works, is give and take. You want the same agility, you lose firepower or armor, etc, to come in line.

Overall, agility is one of the only things that can be tweaked without breaking it's "locked" abilities. That and hit boxes.

Quirks can be used on a lot more things that just agility. Cooldowns can sort of reduce firepower (well, reduced firepower over time, but same alpha potential). We already have positive armor/internal structure quirks on many things, just slipping the + to a - would work. Speed is already modified via a pilot tree skill, so that indicates that we do have control over that as well.

And there's heat efficiency too, but the Clan XL penalties (whenever they get here) should take care of that.

Edited by FupDup, 28 September 2014 - 06:13 PM.

[ShinobiHunter]

This is my thought on hitboxes on the TW.


(looks like we had about the same idea )

Edited by ShinobiHunter, 28 September 2014 - 06:24 PM.

[Mystere]

Is this thread about Mad Dog heat, Timber Wolf agility, or something else entirely?

Edited by Mystere, 28 September 2014 - 06:22 PM.

[FupDup]

Mystere, on 28 September 2014 - 06:21 PM, said:

Is this thread about Mad Dog heat, Timber Wolf agility, or something else entirely?

Yes.

[Deathlike]

I'm not sure I like this idea any more than how engine size is linked to torso twisting and turning... but...

If one were to do the XL engine penalty, it should actually be scaled by the size of the engine... the speed and the heat penalty would be derived by the engine size. The bigger the engine, the bigger the penalty. On the other hand, it is most certainly going to hurt the Gargoyle the most (at least as suggested), but if that mech for whatever reason turns in a beast, we'll all be better for it.

Just note that something like the Kitfox and Myst Lynx would suffer less by it (I mean, they are already heat challenged naturally)....

Edited by Deathlike, 28 September 2014 - 06:33 PM.

[Kassatsu]

Piney, on 27 September 2014 - 04:39 AM, said:

It's definitely a toaster. It's funny to watch a MDD driver blasting alphas and shutting down almost every shot. It's also a bit squishy.

The trick is that the mech really isn't a brawler. I run mine as fire support where I can pick and choose targets without resorting to alphas. It makes a great LRM boat.

That's kind of its intended role in lore isn't it?

It really is a fire support mech, it gets ripped apart very fast if you try to brawl with it. Catapult 2.0 honestly, it does just about everything a catapult does only better. Sure, no AC40, but arguably better missiles (because who even takes AMS?) with better backup weapons (6xLRM5 with enough ammo to last a match and an LBX20? 3 ER small lasers just because?! Yes please.)

6xSSRM4s will ruin anybody's day if you chainfire them, and will wreck a light mech if you alpha them (gotta watch that heat doing that though). 6xLRM5s are a rather effective troll build (both in actual combat efficiency AND trolling with non-stop shaking). 6xSRM6 and an LBX20 is a hilarious(ly bad?) build as well, but again, dat heat.

[ShinobiHunter]

Deathlike, on 28 September 2014 - 06:31 PM, said:

I'm not sure I like this idea any more than how engine size is linked to torso twisting and turning... but...

If one were to do the XL engine penalty, it should actually be scaled by the size of the engine... the speed and the heat penalty would be derived by the engine size. The bigger the engine, the bigger the penalty. On the other hand, it is most certainly going to hurt the Gargoyle the most (at least as suggested), but if that mech for whatever reason turns in a beast, we'll all be better for it.

Just note that something like the Kitfox and Myst Lynx would suffer less by it (I mean, they are already heat challenged naturally)....

I kinda like this. It makes sense to me and would certainly help with the Timby without killing the lights and mediums.