647 replies to this topic

[C E Dwyer]

Just looking at the assault tier placings surprises me

While the Awesomes are clearly in the right spot and the Battlemasters.

it has made me double take to see a two tier difference in the stalkers, as I don't feel there is that great a difference.
the other one was the victors being the only and all in T1 while ECm D-Dc 'only' makes t2 and the k is sitting down in t4, yet the highlanders which are jump capable and can be as effective missile boats as the t2 stalkers are lower than them.

while no one can doubt that the Vic's are very capable mechs, they can't put down the same amount of damage as a Banshee-E, which was my preffered mech for the first big solo faction challenge, which sits at T3, neither can they hide under their own ECM screen.

with mediums the wolverines placing surprised me also being so low, still we wait and see I guess

[UrsusMorologus]

Quote

[color=cyan]For many chassis there ends up being very little difference between the hard points and a player may end up building those variants in a very similar way. For instance whether I am playing a Dragon 5N, 1C or 1N I generally end up building them in very much the same way.[/cyan]

This is opposite of how I play mine. I dont see the point in tying up 3 mechbay for 3 of the same mech, so I look for unique roles for them to fill and if I cant find any then I sell the less effective varients.

Having 3 Atlas with AC20 buffs just means I'm selling 2 of them

[UrsusMorologus]

I'm starting to think most of the weapon quirks are going to be counterproductive

-- If the quirk buffs weapon(s) that you don't use, they do not improve the chassis any. The chassis will still be bad for non-stock configs.

-- If they buff refire rate without buffing heat-shedding, you will not be able to use the faster refire rate effectively, so the buff is of no value.

-- As already documented elsewhere, buffing the projectile speed may make lead-time different for the same weapon on different varients of the same chassis

So in the end all you can buff is range and heat-shedding, to make the stock layout more attractive without screwing up the chassis entirely, and Russ already said they wont buff heat-shedding

Not sure weapon quirks are going to actually achieve the desired objective

Edited by UrsusMorologus, 20 October 2014 - 06:05 AM.

[Felio]

Felio, on 19 October 2014 - 10:00 PM, said:

SRM range (like on the Jenner D) is kind of a joke. It's difficult enough to hit at 270m.

That's Sarah's Jenner, so you should probably give it something she'd use, anyway. Didn't she use streaks with 4 ML?

Come to think of it, could Sarah's Jenner be given unique quirks? I know it was originally sort of a champion 'mech, but it is special.

LooseGoose7, on 19 October 2014 - 11:26 PM, said:

The Ember needs to be buffed. Hit boxes could probably get smaller, JJs could be more efficient and it could get better heat dissipation..............

I think the Firestarter seems fine; the thing holding back the Ember is that machine guns are so bad. It's listed as tier 1 despite this, however, which means it gets nothing.

[Draconeran]

I hope to see all the catapults getting structure/armor buffs to their arms. I love to hop in my C4 on occasion and drop so LRMs. May be even give them a missile buff.

[Macksheen]

One plus is that Russ has said this is the initial pass - it may be final, but they'll look at it going forward. That's great, and means we'll see tweaks over time.

Another slight concern I have is again looking at the Jester. Giving it less quirks because of (whatever) ... ok fine. Mechs that get boosts to inherently worse weapons though may need (?) bigger bonuses to make up for it.

[VanillaG]

From a consistency standpoint the quirks should be nominally based on the stock load out. Most of the examples seemed to follow this philosophy but there were a couple of notable exceptions. The Jenner Oxide and Kintaro-18 only get quirks for SRM or LRM even though the stock load outs contain both types of missiles. In these cases a smaller general missile buff might be in order instead of specific weapon buffs to denote that these chassis are optimized for missile warfare instead of trying to pigeon hole into specific builds.

In the case of the Centurion-9D it gets a buff to the SRM/4 even though it comes with a LRM/10 stock. Changing that quirk to general missile quirk instead allows for greater flexibility. Giving it a specific non-stock weapon quirk seems short sighted as that quirk might be come worthless if the meta ever shifts away from the combination.

[Hoax415]

I would like to see better use of missile quirks than what we have seen so far as well.

Range quirks are awful for IS missiles. Missile Flight speed > Cooldown > Heat >>>>> Range.

Specific launcher size quirks that don't match stock loadouts are pretty disappointing.

[BARBAR0SSA]

Where is this!
"With my recent post showing the new Mechlab visual customization of the centurion I thought I would share a few of the Centurion quirks."

I want to see that

[SovietArmada]

Sigh big big big face palm on the 4H quirks.

First off, i hope they aren't getting rid of the torso quirks because that was huge for the Hunchbacks in general. Second, no one, and i mean no one in their right minds would run an AC-10 on a Hunchback. I understand it's cannon, but I thought we were trying to avoid cannon when looking at game balance.

As someone who placed 2nd in the IS medium bracket using exclusively the 4H, please take my "expert" advice. The 4H would benefit from AC-20 quirks, no one will be making use of the AC-10 quirks because the AC-20 will always be the better option on the 4H.

The medium laser buffs are fine, as well as the change to RT armor/internal buffs. I sincerely hope the Hunchbacks in general will be allowed to keep their Twist and Yaw buffs as that was a HUGE reason why the 4H was able to be used competitively.

[Felio]

poast moar qwerks plz

[Semper Fi]

No love for the Cicada 3M?

[Frytrixa]

Quote

Catapult Jester - Tier 3 Skirmisher

Large Laser Range +15%
Large Laser Heat Gen -15%

Keep in mind that having JJ or ECM will remove a quirk - hence why we have two on the Jester

I don't think that enhancing the Large Laser is the best choice it'll make the "ER Large Laser" become redundant:

• LL+Quirk(range)+Module(range) = 612,5m effective range
  
• ERLL = 675m effective range (stock)

Maybe enhancing the MLas or Pulse Version is a better choice?

Edited by Frytrixa, 20 October 2014 - 02:07 PM.

[GroovYChickeN]

SovietArmada, on 20 October 2014 - 12:33 PM, said:

Sigh big big big face palm on the 4H quirks.

First off, i hope they aren't getting rid of the torso quirks because that was huge for the Hunchbacks in general. Second, no one, and i mean no one in their right minds would run an AC-10 on a Hunchback. I understand it's cannon, but I thought we were trying to avoid cannon when looking at game balance.

As someone who placed 2nd in the IS medium bracket using exclusively the 4H, please take my "expert" advice. The 4H would benefit from AC-20 quirks, no one will be making use of the AC-10 quirks because the AC-20 will always be the better option on the 4H.

The medium laser buffs are fine, as well as the change to RT armor/internal buffs. I sincerely hope the Hunchbacks in general will be allowed to keep their Twist and Yaw buffs as that was a HUGE reason why the 4H was able to be used competitively.

What you just said is the exact reason to give it a ac10 quirk. Give players a reason to take something other than the biggest gun you can fit.

[Wintersdark]

SovietArmada, on 20 October 2014 - 12:33 PM, said:

First off, i hope they aren't getting rid of the torso quirks because that was huge for the Hunchbacks in general.

Russ has said that all negative quirks are being stripped, as well as the weapon quirks from the previous quirk run (dragon, centurion, awesome). However, all the positive quirks from the old balancing pass are remaining - so the torso twist and such are staying.

[Wintersdark]

Frytrixa, on 20 October 2014 - 02:07 PM, said:

I don't think that enhancing the Large Laser is the best choice it'll make the "ER Large Laser" become redundant:

• LL+Quirk(range)+Module(range) = 612,5m effective range
  
• ERLL = 675m effective range (stock)

Maybe enhancing the MLas or Pulse Version is a better choice?

ERLL+Module(Range)=759.4m If you're comparing one with a module, compare the other with a module too.

Anyways:

This allows the mech to utilize Large Lasers in a role normally filled by the ERLL. However, the LL is much cooler, as well as sporting a shorter beam duration. As you allude, you'd be silly to mount ERLL's in this case... but this isn't a weapon specific change, it's a variant specific change. It only applies to that particular variant; the ERLL is still a perfectly valid weapon with it's own role outside that variant.

[DarkonFullPower]

UrsusMorologus, on 20 October 2014 - 06:01 AM, said:

So in the end all you can buff is range and heat-shedding, to make the stock layout more attractive without screwing up the chassis entirely

Indeed. That's the limit of weapon buffs. That's why I wanted more mobility and/or defense buffs. It's as simple as "Dragons are now 1 tier lower on the Hill Climb scale because we say so."

I believe that these extremely specific perks are happening to both test if the quirk system is a good idea in the first place, as well as slowly and carefully seeing how easy/hard they are to balance.

You must understand that general quirks are VASTLY HARDER to balance then weapon specific ones. A +20% increase to the AC/20's bullet speed is awesome, but that same 20% would make AC/2 and AC/5's ridiculous hit reg weapons . They had to push back the date to Nov 4 even with these simple buffs. Take a guess how long and how much testing it would take to do general buffs?

EDIT: Looks I'm proven right in under a minute. Wow.
http://mwomercs.com/...tober-road-map/

Edited by DarkonFullPower, 20 October 2014 - 04:02 PM.

[Kaeb Odellas]

Hrm...

Still not into the weapon-specific stuff, but I guess I can live with this.

EDIT:

How would the velocity stuff affect machine guns, since they're hitscan. I'm assuming they just don't work? Maybe give an MG spread reduction quirk to mechs with ballistic velocity buffs?

Edited by Kaeb Odellas, 20 October 2014 - 04:08 PM.

[ExAstris]

Recent quirks update now suggests that weapon specific quirks will be half weapon specific, half global.

That's good news for a lot of mechs whose best configurations make little use of the specific weapon(s) in their default armament, but still rely heavily on its main feature.

The HBK-4H, Jester, and LRMapults all come to mind here. The 4H will now be getting some 10% buffs to its AC20 (and general laser buffs), making all its buffs useful. The Jester will be getting general energy buffs with some extra kick to large laser builds. While LRMapults will be (in all likelihood) getting some general missile buffs, so that using LRM launchers other than the default size is still boosted as well as boosting SRM performance.


General weapon boosts of course are more likely to cause more balance issues to crop up, but the prospect of dragging so many chassis out of the garbage dump still has me giving this idea two thumbs up. We can put out a few brush fires later, for now, the push to make every mech at least usable is a huge move in the right direction.

[Kirkland Langue]

Even I'll agree that the 50/50 split is a good idea.

Don't get me wrong, I still think that balance discussions should be had AFTER CW has been running for a few weeks - but since these balances are all IS, and compared against other IS mechs, it won't be completely thrown aside once CW arrives.

Of course CW will bring about one balancing issue which will have to be visited: Tonnage and Synergy. Basically players will consider what works best as a secondary, or filler, mech once they have their primary mechs selected. This will impact decision making and even if Mech A is better than Mech B - it may still be that Mech A needs perks to remain competitve against Mech B simply because Mech B has better dropdeck synergy with Mech C than Mech A does (and, of course, Mech C is the desired primary mech for the drop deck).