47 replies to this topic

[Karl Streiger]

badaa, on 09 January 2015 - 12:00 AM, said:

get rid of quirks fix pinpoint all will be well

better of course

but well? No - simple a shift - "increased" laser vomit - guys crying about ballistics and PPC are useless - need buffs. Was there when i raged against the storm - that they should learn to aim - but hey they get there buffs - and finally even HSR - and suddenly the over buffed PPCs wents crazy.

you still will have "META" - the Gauss Cat was Meta for example - because it didn't feel the convergence issue

Edited by Karl Streiger, 09 January 2015 - 12:16 AM.

[Alistair Winter]

luxebo, on 08 January 2015 - 10:01 PM, said:

Huh. Right, did you miss the early discussion of the 733C? Sure it's usable in it's own right, but not nearly the same king of the sniper battles. Same as Ember, now other Firestarters pass it (though it still is powerful in it's own hands.)

The meta has changed a lot since the 733C was king. But the best mechs in the game right now are arguably the Timber Wolf and Storm Crow, and those have never been nerfed. They've been out 6 months. In the gaming world, that's an eternity, plenty of time to make some observations and try to adjust balance.

The Ember was never directly nerfed either. A direct nerf would mean that PGI wouldn't have to go so far to buff the other Firestarters. Which is my point. Nerfing the OP mechs is easier and faster than trying to buff all the other mechs. But when the Clan invasion started, PGI decided they were done nerfing mechs.

[DoctorDetroit]

Widowmaker1981, on 08 January 2015 - 04:13 AM, said:

Unfortunately unless PGI changes their stance on Clan mech build rules (and im not sure they should) the SUPER BAD clan mechs are not fixable (Summoner, Nova, Gargoyle), and we simply need them to release the Arctic Cheetah, Huntsman and ebon jaguar so we can have a bit more variety. The SMN, NVA and GAR can be deleted from the game if they want, they add nothing and never will.

IS mechs can probably all be fixed with quirks, since they dont have locked in poor build choices to contend with.

Nova is amazingly fun to play if your an aggressive player that likes knife fighting distances. It is slow, easy to kill, short range, with low low hardpoints but if your skilled enough to get into range it out dps assault mechs. Ppl consider it OP bc of its dps, but forget how difficult it is to close distance with the nova on many maps.

[luxebo]

Alistair Winter, on 09 January 2015 - 05:26 AM, said:

The meta has changed a lot since the 733C was king. But the best mechs in the game right now are arguably the Timber Wolf and Storm Crow, and those have never been nerfed. They've been out 6 months. In the gaming world, that's an eternity, plenty of time to make some observations and try to adjust balance.

The Ember was never directly nerfed either. A direct nerf would mean that PGI wouldn't have to go so far to buff the other Firestarters. Which is my point. Nerfing the OP mechs is easier and faster than trying to buff all the other mechs. But when the Clan invasion started, PGI decided they were done nerfing mechs.

Point taken, yeah that is true. But I believe once Clan quirks are imbound, there might be some choice between TBR/HBR vs other heavies, SCR vs other meds.

Ember is still pretty strong which is true.

I think that PGI should be buffing things in the right direction however, as atm they've been making quirks off of DPS and power. My reasoning of making the thread is to continue quirks; it was a great start with some strong mechs after the quirks, but it ain't enough, and the specific weapon quirks should spread to more generic (i.e. more quirks per mech for certain weapons, don't limit to one loadout and one only, allow some variation).

[Alistair Winter]

luxebo, on 09 January 2015 - 09:57 PM, said:

I think that PGI should be buffing things in the right direction however, as atm they've been making quirks off of DPS and power. My reasoning of making the thread is to continue quirks; it was a great start with some strong mechs after the quirks, but it ain't enough, and the specific weapon quirks should spread to more generic (i.e. more quirks per mech for certain weapons, don't limit to one loadout and one only, allow some variation).

Yeah, I agree. It's a case of treating the symptoms rather than the disease too.

Previously, the problem was that people were just all using the same weapons. AC20, UAC5, ML, Gauss and ER PPC. Nobody used pulse lasers, nobody used small lasers and for a time everyone was using the PPC+AC10 build on every mech in the game, almost.

So instead of trying to adjust weapon balance and improving the less popular weapons, PGI decided to use quirks to make the less popular weapons more popular. The SPL is still a fairly terrible weapon on most mechs, but it works on certain mechs due to quirks. If they give mechs generic quirks like cooldown bonus on energy weapons and ballistics, people may go back to just using the same builds for all mechs again. In other words, PGI would have to fix the weapon balance before replacing weapon specific quirks with generic quirks. Otherwise, the variety suffer and we're back to a new version of the PPC+AC10 meta.

[luxebo]

Alistair Winter, on 09 January 2015 - 10:51 PM, said:

Yeah, I agree. It's a case of treating the symptoms rather than the disease too.
Previously, the problem was that people were just all using the same weapons. AC20, UAC5, ML, Gauss and ER PPC. Nobody used pulse lasers, nobody used small lasers and for a time everyone was using the PPC+AC10 build on every mech in the game, almost.
So instead of trying to adjust weapon balance and improving the less popular weapons, PGI decided to use quirks to make the less popular weapons more popular. The SPL is still a fairly terrible weapon on most mechs, but it works on certain mechs due to quirks. If they give mechs generic quirks like cooldown bonus on energy weapons and ballistics, people may go back to just using the same builds for all mechs again. In other words, PGI would have to fix the weapon balance before replacing weapon specific quirks with generic quirks. Otherwise, the variety suffer and we're back to a new version of the PPC+AC10 meta.

My suggestion is to quirk multiple weapons at a time depending on what role a mech is, though it could end up weirdly depending on how PGI does it. Does provide more variantation but I dunno if it's better than fully generic. At the same time, weapon balance would be a huge issue as well due to how PGI layered out the weapons (esp stuff like Flamers, smaller lasers without quirks, etc).

To show an example of this: let's say we have the TDRs. The 9S shouldn't be limited to triple ER PPCs all the time, maybe more quirks upon the idea that the 9S is more of a ranged fighter over a brawler. Therefore the buff on ER PPCs should also be applied to regular PPCs, maybe ER LLs, maybe even ACs and missiles of sorts. The 5SS shouldn't be limited to MPL only either, and maybe a few given LPL/SPL/ML/SL buffs (which differ from the 9SE). And so on, though don't have enough time to create a huge list of what I would like to be quirked.

I also think they should try showing us the movement quirks, armor quirks, etc that are planned more than just acceleration/turn rate type things or simple armor/structure buffs. They did say stuff on that and I would like to see more variety than just simple DPS output (which is of course needed on some mechs, just not every single one).

Edited by luxebo, 10 January 2015 - 12:18 AM.

[Boldar]

Why not change the way quirks are given? Each mech does have certain hardpoints, just like it is now. But make the quirks customable. Not every Mech can get the same quirks, but you can have a pick. For example, the Catapult C1 can take LRM quirks, but not SRM (not build for it in the first place), but Stalkers can take both.
Each weapon can get quirks. Would be a lot more work to configure your mech, but you could personalize it. And make the quirks have disadvantages, espacially if you take too many of the same type. So you buy a LRM quirk for example (7,5% increased range for one LRM 15) for the Catapult C1. You buy the same quirk for another launcher, you get 5% slower reload time for both launchers.

Give us the opportunity to individualize our mechs. If you want to go with an AC Thunderbolt you should be able to customize it in a way that supports ACs. And each quirk could have appropriate negative traits. Your right arm PPC runs cooler? Less protection in the right arm, as the heat has to go somewhere. PPC does more damage? Less range. PPC got more range? More heat. AC fires faster? Less damage. AC does more damage? Uses more ammo (I know, hard to implement, but would make sense). AC got more range? More heat (bigger propellant charge).

So you could have quirks for each weapon type and a mech that can use this weapon gets access to none, some or all of the quirks. And if some Mechs still need some love give them one or two "global" quirks maybe even something like 5% improved heat dissipation. Maybe let the Awesome get one more PPC quirk before getting a negative modifier.

This way it would be easier to balance mechs. For example no quirks available for light mechs with Gauss rifles (exept the Hollander maybe). But it would be a hell of balancing this system in the first place.

Edited by Boldar, 13 January 2015 - 11:58 PM.

[luxebo]

Boldar, on 13 January 2015 - 11:56 PM, said:

Why not change the way quirks are given? Each mech does have certain hardpoints, just like it is now. But make the quirks customable. Not every Mech can get the same quirks, but you can have a pick. For example, the Catapult C1 can take LRM quirks, but not SRM (not build for it in the first place), but Stalkers can take both.
Each weapon can get quirks. Would be a lot more work to configure your mech, but you could personalize it. And make the quirks have disadvantages, espacially if you take too many of the same type. So you buy a LRM quirk for example (7,5% increased range for one LRM 15) for the Catapult C1. You buy the same quirk for another launcher, you get 5% slower reload time for both launchers.
Give us the opportunity to individualize our mechs. If you want to go with an AC Thunderbolt you should be able to customize it in a way that supports ACs. And each quirk could have appropriate negative traits. Your right arm PPC runs cooler? Less protection in the right arm, as the heat has to go somewhere. PPC does more damage? Less range. PPC got more range? More heat. AC fires faster? Less damage. AC does more damage? Uses more ammo (I know, hard to implement, but would make sense). AC got more range? More heat (bigger propellant charge).
So you could have quirks for each weapon type and a mech that can use this weapon gets access to none, some or all of the quirks. And if some Mechs still need some love give them one or two "global" quirks maybe even something like 5% improved heat dissipation. Maybe let the Awesome get one more PPC quirk before getting a negative modifier.
This way it would be easier to balance mechs. For example no quirks available for light mechs with Gauss rifles (exept the Hollander maybe). But it would be a hell of balancing this system in the first place.

Thumbs up to this one, it goes similarly to my post of the multiple weapon quirks with bigger buffs for the weaker weapons placed to put up weapon variety.

I think this has to go with what hardpoints a mech has. I still want variety, not if for example, the HBK-4G gets AC20 quirks and so does 4H, which would mean that they fit the same role and the only thing 4G excels at is some niche multi-AC builds, while 4H can get more than 3 MLs, which means the quirks need to be variant specific and most must be specific to the chassis.

Also, for example, the Catapult example needs some variety, so maybe not CPLT-C1 with SRM quirks, but instead possibly The C4/A1 with SRMs quirked, and then another with SSRMs and/or Narcs, and even C1 with some laser quirks if the player decides to do so (i.e. a laser brawler with support SSRMs). So this is complex but if PGI chooses this kind of route then balance will be tons better with more roles per mech and variant.

To the negative quirks, yes but we can't always have negative quirks, otherwise mechs will change rating poorly on mechs and balance may even be worse after negative quirks. It should also have an option for stock without positive or negative in this case. And for weak mechs negative quirks might not make a change even then. For stronger mechs it may change up playstyle to a fresher one, but gotta be watched out for.

(We will need global quirks for some mechs to retain power, as some mechs simply wouldn't stand well otherwise. For example, Dragon, Catapult, Awesome, Thunderbolt, Hunchback, etc would struggle hard due to the lack of average quirks via movement/armor/overall weapon class buffs).