744 replies to this topic

[aniviron]

Zanathan, on 14 October 2014 - 02:28 PM, said:

Am I the only one that doesn't think the quirks will make much of a difference? I'm on the fence for the next few patches ... I'm more of a content (maps, game modes, CW, etc) type of guy =)

I don't think you're the only one, but I also have this to say:

I've been a diehard Awesome pilot since closed beta. It was the very first thing I bought after the commando I got to grind CB, and I've stuck with since then. Yes, I know they're terrible. I don't care; the Awesome has been among my favourite mechs in tabletop, and every previous Mechwarrior.

So they've been awful for a bit over two years now, really, ever since the engine nerf waaaaay back when, and then much worse since ghost heat. But you know what? The first quick pass that affected the Awesomes, among other problematic chassis, have completely changed everything. Suddenly the 8Q and 9M are vicious beasts. I no longer get a guaranteed CT loss before the sides, now I can twist to mitigate fire effectively. The cooling boosts make all the difference in the world, and squaring off against a Stalker, Battlemaster, or even an Atlas, I can sustain my fire long enough that I'm still dumping shots into him 30 seconds after he's redlined. It's a massive change, makes the mech completely viable, at least on par with the Stalkers.

And the quirks that are coming on Nov 4? They're apparently going further than the ones the Awesome already has.

I think you might be underestimating the change.

[Zordicron]

I am late here, but I don't care. I just looked over the mech tier list. Couple out of place IMO, but not like my opinion matters regarding this as I am not some ubermeta tryhard.

That said, all you solo cue muthafuckahs best watch out when my "tier 5"(LOL) t-bolts receive the most powerful quirks in the heavy class.

Joking aside, Russ, please remove the "module slot penalty" at least from the Fang if not both Fang and Flame, seeing as you put it in tier 5. I never understood the penalty for either of those mechs, nothing about them is so vastly superior to the standard Dragons that warranted removal of a mech module IMO.

[LordLosh]

November 4th... icky! I was really looking forward to these quirks. All the game is right now is Dire whale and timber wolf laser vomit builds and its only going to get worse with timber wolf c-bill release. I might honestly have to take a break until November.
Meh all I really want is for you guys to focus on CW and nothing else. If i don't get clan wars before end of this year you can kiss my THOUSANDS of dollars I have dumped into this game to support it GOODBYE.

[Zanathan]

aniviron, on 14 October 2014 - 02:39 PM, said:

I don't think you're the only one, but I also have this to say:

I've been a diehard Awesome pilot since closed beta. It was the very first thing I bought after the commando I got to grind CB, and I've stuck with since then. Yes, I know they're terrible. I don't care; the Awesome has been among my favourite mechs in tabletop, and every previous Mechwarrior.

So they've been awful for a bit over two years now, really, ever since the engine nerf waaaaay back when, and then much worse since ghost heat. But you know what? The first quick pass that affected the Awesomes, among other problematic chassis, have completely changed everything. Suddenly the 8Q and 9M are vicious beasts. I no longer get a guaranteed CT loss before the sides, now I can twist to mitigate fire effectively. The cooling boosts make all the difference in the world, and squaring off against a Stalker, Battlemaster, or even an Atlas, I can sustain my fire long enough that I'm still dumping shots into him 30 seconds after he's redlined. It's a massive change, makes the mech completely viable, at least on par with the Stalkers.

And the quirks that are coming on Nov 4? They're apparently going further than the ones the Awesome already has.

I think you might be underestimating the change.

Thanks for that. This actually makes me look forward to it a little more.

[Tezcatli]

Quirk pass is literally the only thing I care about. The other stuff is nice and I appreciate the continued balance in regards to fall damage and JJs. But I want to see some quirks! :3

[Felio]

I'm not so sure every Shadowhawk is tier 2. The 2D2 might even be tier 1.

Others, like the 2H, with its only one energy hardpoint, might be tier 3.

Reason being that energy hardpoints are very versatile and important when saving weight, while 3 ballistic points on a medium can only be used for machine guns, and they are... well, not that good.

The 2K doesn't even have any arm-mounted weaponry. That earned the SDR-5V a spot in tier 5, and rightfully so.

What is the GRF-1E? Sparky? Then what is the GRF-S? Also Sparky, but in a different tier?

[Karl Marlow]

HashtagComStarWasRight, on 04 October 2014 - 01:56 PM, said:

MWO is not BT.

*looks at the top of the page*

*Reads "Mechwarrior Online"*

*reads subtitle "A Battletech game"*

[Nik Reaper]

So, might it not be a good idea to have a public test for the quirks after the 21th and before the 4th sence this is a big change , one that again might rise noise and pichforks?

At worst they might pull it out and redo parts of it for the next patch after it and avoid a regular community outrage , and if they are fine they might get info for fine tuning them for the 4th.

[Kmieciu]

GlycerineOxide, on 08 October 2014 - 07:12 AM, said:

Please please please don't mess up the Timber-S with fixed slots.

Remember those torso's also come with 2 missile 1 ballistic on left and right with an energy on the right. If you fix the jjets its going to nerf the buildability of the Mech, artemis will become more difficult to fit, 4 missile racks will be impossible to fit unless a ballistic is sacrificed, UAC5/SRM4 builds would be impossible. 4 LRM10 builds impossible.

That's the whole point.

[Escef]

Felio, on 14 October 2014 - 07:53 PM, said:

Reason being that energy hardpoints are very versatile and important when saving weight, while 3 ballistic points on a medium can only be used for machine guns, and they are... well, not that good.

Infamous Impaler (xImpalerx), who streams for NGNG runs 3xAC2 on it. And he usually does respectably with it. He's running a smallish engine and trimmed a fair amount of armor, though. It's kind of a tight fit.

[Angel of Annihilation]

Russ Bullock, on 29 September 2014 - 02:57 PM, said:

I am sorry you feel this way but this is just game development and balance. And in the end your Timberwolf's are likely still going to be the best heavy mech's in the game. Just based on hard point configurations they are kind of untouchable from that status. Has been true in every MechWarrior game to date and remains true in MWO.

It's just a dang good mech.

You know Russ I really wish you would re-evaluate this.

As I mentioned at one point and as you yourself point out, making the change to fixing JJs t the S torsos isn't going to change the power of the Timber Wolf rather all it does is make their build outs more restrictive. Honestly I am not sure how implementing something that doesn't effect balance but does effect builds and creates unwanted and unwarranted restrictions is overall good for the game.

I mean this change, if you go forward with it, is only going to upset many Timber Wolf owners with almost zero net change to overall balance of the mech. That doesn't make much sense to me.

Now I have to be honest and say yes I am one of those whose builds are getting mangled by this change because I happen to use the S right torso for the extra energy hard point while not utilizing JJs on my builds and after testing it is just damn frustrating to have to build around this restriction. On my prime I just dropped two ER MLs and subbed in a ER LL which gives me just slightly less alpha but much greater range for the same heat management but on my C which also doesn't use JJs I can't build anything I really like that still remains unique from my Prime and S variants. Because of that it is going to end up going from one of my most used mechs to just something taking up a Bay for no good reason at all.

[Felio]

Escef, on 15 October 2014 - 12:18 AM, said:

Infamous Impaler (xImpalerx), who streams for NGNG runs 3xAC2 on it. And he usually does respectably with it. He's running a smallish engine and trimmed a fair amount of armor, though. It's kind of a tight fit.

Yeah, I did try the build. It was fun for a while, but it could be done better on a heavier 'mech.

And I know it's not what you were suggesting, but I'm not sure what someone introduced as "infamous" does should be a part of the discussion.

[Soul Tribunal]

I'm actually okay with the Quirk Pass getting pushed if it means that the quality of what we get will make up for the delay.
This is one thing I really want them to get right, so I am willing to wait it out a bit longer.
Though that means for a while longer I'll be suffering in my newly purchased Victors, I'm willing to wait.

-ST

[Greenjulius]

Felio, on 14 October 2014 - 07:53 PM, said:

I'm not so sure every Shadowhawk is tier 2. The 2D2 might even be tier 1.

Others, like the 2H, with its only one energy hardpoint, might be tier 3.

Reason being that energy hardpoints are very versatile and important when saving weight, while 3 ballistic points on a medium can only be used for machine guns, and they are... well, not that good.

The 2K doesn't even have any arm-mounted weaponry. That earned the SDR-5V a spot in tier 5, and rightfully so.

In my opinion, the 2K and 2H are the only tier 1 Shadowhawks. Those stacked 3 Energy and 3 Ballistic hardpoints in the left shoulder are key to them being at the top. I used those two mechs alone to reach number 6 in the IS Mediums. A key is using jump jets to turn quickly. I use 3xERLL with the 2K, and 2xAC5, 1xAC2 on the 2H. Both are incredibly good builds.

The 2D looks good for a meta build, a left side stacked 2xPPC/1xAC10 poptart is possible. I haven't tried it yet however.

The 2D2 only seems to makes a good light chaser. It's questionable as a splat boat. I can't get nearly as many good games with the 2D2 as I can the 2H and 2K. I kind of regret getting it.

The 5M has boring hardpoints, and is fairly disadvantaged because of that. I haven't picked it up yet.

Edited by Greenjulius, 15 October 2014 - 07:13 AM.

[Summon3r]

really looking forward to IS quirk pass hope it stays for Nov4 patch now.

[MadLibrarian]

Will any of this be going to the public test server before it's implemented?

That seems the best way to assure positive community opinion and allow for multiple phases of changes as necessary. Since there's still so much development left, I'm hoping they will be leaving the test server open and implementing updates frequently. Weekly seems enough, but even having a little time offpeak (or at peak if possible for important stuff) each day could provide a lot of useful information for players and developers.

The forums seem pretty active, especially in the important threads. There are a bunch of changes coming in the form of IS Quirks that will incite a lot of discussion. They could provide a lot of benefit if the development areas were utilized to organize the information with a systematic approach by mech, chassis, or at least class. It can help assure positive results through well documented user opinion and bug reports. A single thread presenting the tier list and all it's comments doesn't seem to do justice to the changes' enormity. Plus, I'm sure Niko can always use more stuff to do on the forums.

Then again, this might already be the plan. I am stoked for Quirks. I will be rejoicing either way. \o/

[CtrlAltWheee]

Those 4G and awesome quirks are beyond what I was even hoping for.

REALLY pleased that PGI went as far as they did and looking forward to playing IS mechs.

[Wintersdark]

aniviron, on 14 October 2014 - 02:39 PM, said:

I think you might be underestimating the change.

Yeah, I'm definitely of the opinion that a lot of people are underestimating what this will do.

Look at the venerable 4G - it's going to be, with modules, dropping 20pt shells at ~370m and 2.5s cooldown. That is not a minor change. The Awesome? PPC heat generation/range/velocity/cooldown (buffed by) 25%? that's HUGE. More structure helps too, for both of these mechs, but those weapon buffs... Holy crap. That's not a minor change.

I'm really excited about how this will play out; I've got a lot of old mechs kicking around that never see use currently... but are going to get a whole lot more awesome.

Edited by Wintersdark, 16 October 2014 - 04:40 PM.

[Pezzer]

Umm, they said that there would be, for example on the HBK-4G, ballistic bonuses that would stack with the AC/20 bonuses.

Russ said this was what they were aiming for in the town hall. For example, all of the AC/20 quirks would be
+15% Range
+15% Velocity
+15% cooldown
While there would also be a +10% bonuses for ballistics in general.

Now the HBK-4G is quite literally only going to be played competitively with the AC/20 build. That's a bit boring, if you ask me.
Least it gets generalized laser bonuses, I guess. So I could go LLs and an AC/5 maybe. That would still kinda suck without those bonus ballistic quirks, though.

[MuonNeutrino]

I am both pleased and slightly worried by the example quirks we've been given.

Pleased, because holy crap those are actually pretty darn big quirks. As mentioned, once you stack a cooldown module that hunchback is going to be firing its ac20 every 2.5 seconds. These actually will make a significant difference for some of the weakest mechs.

However, I am still somewhat concerned over some of the implications of their choice to make the tier quirks (as opposed to the general chassis quirks like the HP buffs) revolve around weapons.

For one, while this may increase the overall variety of chassis/variants that are considered somewhat viable, it does so only by *decreasing* the variety of builds for those chassis. This is effectively saying 'if you want to fight on a level playing field in your HBK-4G, you *must* use an ac20'. Now, ac20 builds were certainly the most common for that mech, but you still did see others - for that matter, it's the only way to actually *use* the ballistic slots they gave it. Now, anyone who doesn't run an ac20 on it is insane.

The other worry is that, if the weapon quirks are based around specific weapons that are 'thematic' to the variant or the variant's stock build, it benefits some mechs more than others based on the actual usefulness of those thematic weapons. For example, take the HBK-4H that they listed. Even if its quirks were tier 5 in strength rather than tier 4 and it had a velocity quirk to match the 4G's, it would still have weaker quirks than the 4G simply because the ac10 is an inferior weapon compared to the ac20. This is going to cause problems where a variant is underbuffed because of the choice of weapons to apply its quirks to.

For an extreme example, take the BJ-1, a mech that is near and dear to my heart. It almost certainly exists in tier 3 exclusively because of the strength of builds like the ac20 boomjack or things like Jager's right-sided gauss/ppc sniper. However, its 'thematic' weapons are ac2s, which are among the worst weapons in the game right now. If it gets a set of quirks focused around ac2s, it effectively won't have been buffed at all, because in order to *use* those quirks you have to switch to a build that is objectively so much worse as to negate any overall benefit gained. On the other hand, just two spots below the BJ-1 in the list is the HBK-4P, whose quirks will almost certainly revolve around the medium lasers which are already among the best weapons to put on that mech. Thus, these two tier 3 mechs, which are theoretically in need of equal amounts of buffing, wouldn't actually receive equal buffs.

I would hope that, if they do insist on giving mechs quirks revolving around their 'thematic' weapons, that they at least consider where that mech with that sort of loadout would actually fall on the tier list and adjust the strength of the quirks appropriately. For example, putting ac2s on a BJ-1 almost certainly reduces it to tier 4 in power, so if it does have to get ac2 quirks it should at least get 4 tier-4-strength ones rather than 3 tier-3-strength ones.