401 replies to this topic

[Gas Guzzler]

I think PPC velocity quirks should go away, and all PPCs should travel 25ish percent faster. Reasons in Homeless Bill's post.

Edited by Gas Guzzler, 20 April 2015 - 12:25 PM.

[_____]

1. CTF-3D - UAC jam chance quirk is just bad. You really need 2 or more UACs to make them viable, which makes you carry XL if you want additional weapons. UACs require exposure time to do any damage and combined with an XL is just risky. Some mild (7.5-10%) ballistic cooldown quirk would be much better. Also the ballistic hardpoint on the Cataphract arm is too low-slung to be very useful, which makes double UACs even worse. It also doesn't converge very well with the RT ballistic unless you arm lock while firing.

2. RVN-4X ballistic range quirk - only really worth it for big ballistics since 2xMGs were weak even when MGs were stronger. And the 4X with big ballistics is closer to joke builds than a viable build. Replace it with an energy heat-gen quirk or a better missile cooldown quirk. Right now the 4X is clearly the worst RVN without question.

3. AWS-8V, if you want us to use PPCs, at least make them less hot. Good that there's a velocity quirk but I'd still rather take LPLs because I'm sure to hit my target, for more total damage, and they're 30% cooler. 10%+ PPC heat gen quirk, and I might consider PPCs over LPLs.

[Anakha]

Summoner quirks have to be the worst. Please get rid of the machine gun and AMS quirks and replace with more laser duration and laser heat reduction quirks that will effect combat. Also the small percentage quirks like on the missile launchers do nothing I have tested it. Those need to be increased massively to have an effect on missile spread. If you are going defensive with quirks then the arms and all 3 torso's need more armor quirks. I guess structure is fine for the legs since there are no wpns in them but the arms and torso's need armor quirks badly. Also please do more generic quirks and not specific to the stock mech loadout. Nobody runs stock builds on Omnimechs.

Overall the quirks are so small they have NO effect on the mech's actual combat ability. The Summoner lacks hardpoints and tonnage so all offensive quirks should be focused on heat reduction, cooldown, and duration reduction to help offset this.

My 2 cents...

[Void Angel]

Wait, you want constructive criticism? Have you... read these forums? Well, You asked for it! Here we go:

• Restricted torso twist ranges on brawlers, - like the massively reduced torso twist range on the Battlemaster 1G (and 3M) - are hands down my least favorite quirks. The quirks on the 1G in particular are geared toward a short-to-mid-range brawler - but the insanely reduced torso twist (a 25% reduction!) makes it very hard to survive in that role while still dealing damage, despite the large arms of the Battlemaster chassis. A disheartening combination - particularly in my Phoenix Variant Assault.
  
• My second-least favorite quirk is Firestarters. Nearly all of them. The combination of an incredible number of energy hardpoints with 15-30% heat reduction allows for a 35-ton 'mech with a small movement profile and jump jets to alpha like an AC/40 Boomjaeger. When you have a 35-ton Light with the same maximum DPS - and better heat sustainability - than a 65-ton Battlemech, you've created an overquirked monster that invalidates nearly all other Lights that are not ECM scouts.
  
• Next on the list are internal structure buffs. These are better than nothing, but they do little to protect the equipment in those locations. Whenever I see structure buffs on a 'mech, I say "meh," and skim ahead to the real quirks.

And finally speaking again of Battlemasters, my other least favorite quirks are the ones that are just splashed in, because chassis flavor. That 1G Battlemaster has one missile hardpoint, yet it gets the same missile quirk as the rest. This is my fourth out of the top three because it really isn't that important - unless these single-hardpoint quirks are being bought out of the same "quirk budget" as quirks that affect six hardpoints...

Edited by Void Angel, 20 April 2015 - 12:45 PM.

[Bows3r]

Hm, my top 3 least favourite quirks from the opinion of a comp player.

The current quirks across the whole Jenner line, being a comp player, I can say Jenners are 'nigh useless now. Firestarters not only got better quirks, but also do not have the massive CT of the Jenner, and instead have a rather balanced hitbox, including arms that can catch shots intended for the ST's. Even the Oxide gets the shaft when compared to something like the Huggin.

Shadow Hawks, a once top-tier chassis now mostly left in the dust due to heavily quirked alternatives for the same, or even less tonnage. They are still somewhat viable, but not nearly as much as the other 55ton IS options, namely the Griffin, and Wolverine. The only real niche the Shadow Hawk has left is pop-tarting, and while it does that well, it doesn't match the current meta much. Some enhanced quirks on-top of what it has already would be ideal.

And lastly, the Summoner. While the Summoner makes an excellent pop-tart, among the best there is, that's basically all it can do. Like the Shadow Hawk, some increases to the quirks it has already combined with possibly a JumpJet/5% extra speed buff would do it wonders. Such increases would allow it to take some other builds that it has potential for, but simply can't do over a lighter option.

[Void Angel]

PS: Is the inability to follow simple instructions indicative of a profound and useful opinion? =) Of course, I'm the guy who offered four least favorite quirks, but still.

[Felio]

I don't like the Dragon Slayer's quirks at all. PPC/Gauss? Really? *yawn* It needs to be more flexible than that.

The Anasi's main quirk is 30% ballistic range, which is lousy because it only has two ballistic hardpoints, so there's no point in bringing any machine guns at all. MGs also have very poor accuracy at their normal max range due to cone of fire. Extending it is just a trap for newbies who don't know this.

Most of the clan weapon quirks are far too weak. Many are functionally zero -- they do not change anything that happens on the battlefield. I don't mean victory or defeat, I mean hits and misses to specific sections. Things like 2% missile spread, 2.5% cooldown, and 6% laser duration (all on the Summoner). Or 5% LBX spread (Kit Fox, competing with the ECM omnipod, no less). I would rather they not even exist, cluttering my UI. They aren't worth the extra 0.01 seconds of patch download time.

[aniviron]

Okay, first, a short writeup of why structure quirks are bad in their current form, and nobody is ever excited to receive structure quirks on their favourite mechs:

aniviron, on 07 April 2015 - 10:31 AM, said:

The problem is that not all quirks are created equal. The way MWO plays, weapon quirks are far superior to structure quirks, at least as they are implemented right now.

Let's take the DRG-1N as a case study right now. Given that it's in the same tier-five position as the Awesome, and has similar CT issues to that mech, let's say you gave it structure quirks instead of weapon quirks. Even if you doubled the magnitude of the AWS' CT quirks on the structure-heavy hypothetical Dragon, it would get +40 IS, for a total of 150 with heavily stacked ~70 front CT armor plus 80 CT IS. The weapon quirked DRG is still going to win that fight even without any CT structure buffs because of the magnitude of the refire quirk being given to it. The structure buffs are just too small to make the same amount of difference right now. It's why I rarely see good players driving Zeuses, despite their huge amount of armor and relatively generous hitboxes.

You could say that this is an unfair comparison, as it's spreadsheet-warrior at its finest though; our two hypothetical Dragons here are fighting in a vacuum. So let's look at the two most common types of combat in MWO. The first is long range fighting; weapon quirks are king here, you need look no further than the TDR-9S and STK-4N for that. Shorter burn times and faster projectile speeds mean that you're putting damage on-target far more often than your opponent, and given that you only have to burn through an additional 10-20 HP in all but a handful of cases, the weapon quirks are more than going to make up for that. That amount of structure is one or two PPC hits, which is virtually nothing- velocity and burn times are far superior to such a small amount of health. I will concede that heat quirks are far less useful at range given that your opponent can just duck back down behind cover, but it does significantly reduce the opportunity cost of firing, meaning snipers can take much riskier shots without having to worry about heat, which is a relatively big deal. Even more importantly, it means that long range mechs can compete with close ranged loadouts in terms of heat at close range.

The other typical combat situation in MWO is a more sustained brawl, an up-close slugging match. Again, weapon quirks are always superior to structure, at least in the amounts we have now. This is for two reasons: the first is that a mech that can cripple its opponent faster is much more likely to win, and the second because of the heat cap. In the first scenario, the structure-buffed mech is at less of a disadvantage, and in a couple of cases, it's often enough to tip the scales. The Hunchback, for example, has traditionally been bad because it was easily crippled, and could then be finished off at leisure. Because of the huge amount of armor and IS the RT has received however, it's now better to just try and core them straight through. Most mechs aren't so lucky, however, and their structure bonuses are spread thin across the mech, meaning that it's still easy to target a single spot to wipe out most of your opponent's weapons quickly, and in this case again, the weapon quirks almost always allow you to cripple your opponent before he can do the same to you, granting you a win.

Brawls are also heat limited, meaning that in a symmetrical duel of, say, a HBK-4SP vs another 4SP, heat reduction is more important than structure. During the initial seconds of the fight, due to the sheer amount of HP that the 4SP gets, it often has an advantage against its enemies. Because of the difficulty of disengaging an enemy at under 270m however, it's going to be about 10 seconds before the HBK is running hot enough that it's firing half or less of its weapons, while their opponent will still be firing most of theirs for another salvo or two at least- again, far outstripping the amount of HP that the mech gets.

Lastly, while structure and armor buffs are nice, you really need to reexamine where they're going. I keep hearing people who don't pilot Warhawks going "Wow!!! +28 arm armor, OP pls nerf!" Well that's nice, but the Warhawk's hitboxes are set up in such a way that the side torsi are so huge and the arms small enough that even with a 90 degree twist relative to your opponent, it's very rare that I will lose an arm before a side torso because the ST can be hit from every direction. So sure, the numbers look big, but in the end they grant virtually no benefit to the Warhawk- and the issue is absolutely not limited to the WHK. The only mech on the list that seems about right is the Nova, but that's simply because the Nova is such a huge, slow whale of a medium that virtually every component of it is vulnerable to being shot off.

tl;dr right now structure quirks are too spread out and too small in magnitude to come close to equaling weapon quirks. All the top-tier mechs are weapon-focused, and it's no coincidence.

As far as specific mechs go, well, I'm pretty disappointed in how the Awesome has fallen by the wayside again. Its quirks felt pretty decent when they first rolled out and nothing else had much in the way of quirks except for bad mech.

Now, it's gone back to being bottom-of-the-barrel tier. The Awesome was notoriously fragile to begin with, and the structure quirks went a little way towards helping that, and some decent PPC quirks made it worth taking offensively.

Then, other mechs started to get double the quirks that the Awesome got for PPCs even though they were never nearly as bad as it, and mechs like the Zeus have gotten again roughly twice the amount of health buff that the Awesome gets, except the Zeus has better hitboxes and modeling to begin with, and the Zeus gets it as armor instead of structure, which makes it even better.

I know the old adage "Power creep sells rulebooks," but either update the Awesome, or rein in some of the creep.


Also, I know the clan quirks are being iterated on, but the Mist Lynx, Nova, and Warhawk need serious work still. The Warhawk was close, it got some big structure buffs- but they all went to the arms, which never get shot, when they needed to go to the side torsi which are massive. No one ever dies to CT kills in a Warhawk, the hitboxes are very unbalanced, it's always the huge, squishy sides that pop first.

[Big Tin Man]

Kit Fox, Nova and Summoner all need more help. Big specific help. For example:

Summoner--+30% LBX 20 range, -30% LBX 20 cooldown, -20% LBX heat gen, +30% C-ERPPC velocity, range.

That was my summoner build, just a PPC and LBX-20. It was fun, nimble, did ok damage, but it's a freakin 70 ton heavy. It needs more punch and other than boating SRMs there just aren't enough hardpoints for it to work.

Kit fox is too slow, so it must be a ranged poker, nova too wide, slow and hot.

[XX Sulla XX]

My least favorite quirks are ones that will never be used. Quirks are about making non viable mechs viable. That comes down to Firepower, Durability and Agility in that order.


Some examples:

AMS - This will never be enough to help make a mech viable.

NARC BEACON DURATION - Again this will never make a mech viable its just fluff.

[Kinski Orlawisch]

Torso movement improvement on a main Torso wich Needs an armor buff. (HBR)

[StalowyZolw]

Projectile speed buffs, as stated by many before, variable speed of projectile throws your aim off, and unless you stick to certain configuration on given chassis, your going to miss a lot when you have to hit target. so, PPC and ERPPC, off with speed quirks on mechs, buff the weapon itself. Speed quirks could be left at that point on Awesomes as PPC's are their life and reason of existence, but Awesomes need more than that, they need better heat quirks or ability to fire 3 PPC/ERPPC at once without triggering ghost heat.

Next, overgimped firerate quirks, there was enough written of that.

Highlander, while last quirk pass has somehow ressurected it (mostly 5% speed buff), its still inferior choice to Atlas or Bansh. Previously there was, and still is only one reason to take Highlander over Atlas - jumpjets, and with change to their mechanics jj capable assaults lost their greatest advantage. So, both Highlander and Victor need increase in takeoff power and speed to make them live and viable again.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

My top choices:

Most Rate of Fire, and Cooldown Quirks. Due to the fact that our rate of fire was high overall before quirks, having weapons able to fire more often, didn't make sense to me. And weapons like Machine Guns need to be redesigned. MGs in particular should be made into a ballistic weapon 1.00 damage per projectile and 1.00 DPS, for example, (places the cooldown at 1 second). Flamers, should have a beam duration and cooldown so that they lose their exponential heat raise and can do a bit more damage.

Quirks that reduce Armor, just feel that there's no need for these with the high amounts of damage we can deal out (so glad that they're few right now).

Current Mech Tree Efficiencies, as generic placeholders they need to be updated or simply removed. Then, if anything, make a few of those worthy Efficiencies into Modules that we can mount, and simply add a few more Slots. I'd also transform current Weapon Cooldown Modules into Velocity and Beam Duration modifiers.

[Reno Blade]

... lost my post because of loging out after 24h, so again...

I'd say Quirks below 7% or above 30% are out of line.

Anything below 7% (Clan mechs with 1-2% or IS Tier1 mechs) wont notice anything.

Anything with insane quirks like the Dragon 1N or the Grid Iron who can push weapon cooldowns below 50% (combined class and weapon quirk) are very fun, but not really balanced or fair.

I'd say cap all quirks for weapons (combined weapon class and weapon) at 30% max.
e.g. 15% ballistic + 15% Gauss for a total of 30%
With fast fire and module thats still nearly 50% but it's not 60-70%

[RjBass3]

Ok, this is kinda a double edged sword for an answer but here goes.

Energy range quirks, especially on the TDR-5SS and RVN-4x. Don't get me wrong, the 25% energy range increase on the TDR-5SS and the 30% range increase on the RVN-4x are really nice, but the problem is in the max range.

On the TDR-5SS, when I install 4 ERLL's and the ERLL range module, it shows that I deal full damage at 911 meters. So by the games own rules, I should then deal minimum damage at 1822 meters. However that isn't the case. In game reality the ERLL's reach out to a max range of 1500 meters and just stop.

Hence the double edged sword of an answer. The quirks are awesome, but that bug needs to be either resolved or if capped on purpose, needs to be explained.

Thanks.

[Stealth Fox]

While I personally like the Dragons 1ns quirks just cause it makes Auto cannons feel like AUTO Cannons. I have to say, it is some major BS.

I get it, its a viable mech again, its feared, its good. I like it, but you guys keep doing this where you take a perk and make it more then 30 percent, that can be stacked on top of via other methods, and then give the clans like a.. 5 percent.

Also what is with the lack of love to the Highlander and Victor? I've got a highlander collecting dust cause its a trash POS and I LOVE that mech.

High weapon quirks, Internal structure quirks, Lack of love to mechs that need it.. ANYTHING that limits maneuverability.

[Felicitatem Parco]

1.) The LRM 20 quirks on the Catapult C4 are one of my least favorite because the LRM20 is wholly-inferior to twin LRM10 and this Mech has enough hard points to load 4 LRM10 instead of just 2 LRM20 (hence, this Mech is "designed" to load quad LRM10 as opposed to twin LRM20).

The multi-LRM10 load out is currently better than the quirked LRM20s. The only way to make the C4 useful with LRM20s is to quirk them even more to fire at the same rate or faster as LRM10 and reduce their cluster diameter to match the LRM10... Only then would there be a reason to load LRM20s instead of LRM10s.

2.). All of the Jenners need significant CT armor quirks because they cannot spread damage through torso-twisting - they have just a single massive CT section.

3.). The Blackjack 1DC recently had it's firepower reduced by a third by lowering the autocannon refire rate quirk and by changing the quirk from AC/5 to AC/2. It would be nice to see the AC/2 refire rate bumped back up again so it gets only single-nerfed instead of double-nerfed.

[Saint Atlas and the Commando Elf]

-In general, everything that is >30% is just too much. And constant power creeping is not the way to keep a game interesting.

-If you want to buff LRM20 - greatly reduce spread.

-PPC projectile speed should be at least 1500 w/o any quirks.

[oldradagast]

As others have said:

1) Quirks that break the game: 40% to 50% cool down quirks, etc. The types that vastly inflate a mech's capabilities until it outperforms anything else remotely similar. I get it - the game has plenty of dud mechs - but this just feels like the wrong way to fix the problem.

2) Structure quirks vs. Armor quirks: Not always bad, but it still bugs me that the Awesome gets structure quirks while the Zeus gets Armor quirks when the Awesome was supposed to be really tough.

3) PPC quirks: PPC's are so bad right now that the only mechs that use them are those with huge quirks. That means the weapon itself is underpowered, not that we need more mechs with huge PPC's quirks. Get the speed back up on PPC's and ERPPC's, and do something about that crazy dead zone under 90m with the PPC's and maybe people will use them again on something other than super-quirked mechs.

4) Subtle velocity quirks: Not as beneficial as one might think because of the need to adjust aim for the same weapon on different mechs. That, and they just feel wrong somehow from a game world viewpoint.

Edited by oldradagast, 20 April 2015 - 03:59 PM.

[CrushLibs]

1. ALL PPCs should have speed increased and capped range of 800/1600m

2. All U/AC & LBX should travel at the same speed range 1,200 -1,400m/s not 650-2,000m/s , why make people relearn leading targets from gun to gun.

3. Clan U/AC should be reduced by 1 pellet ie U/AC-20 = 4 ,, U/AC-2 = 1 and Ghost heat adjusted down on UAC to .20 secs so when a UAC double taps it doesn't cause its own Ghost Heat ie. 3 UAC-5s when double firing doesn't cause the heat of using 6 UAC-5s.

4. IS & Clan energy weapons med/small will have GH above 6 lasers even the FS.

5. No mech will have above a 25% quirk for Heat , ROF , Range etc etc

6. Any IS/Clan weapon with same range and basic damage should not be quirked like the SRMs , ER/PPC , Guass

7. Mechs that can't mount larger than a 250 engine and has less than 10 D/SHSs like Puma/Urbie etc should have 10 D/SHS heat capacity at 2.0.

8. No quirking armor on a mech, to a mech more than 10 -15 tons heavier. Hunchy 50T shouldn't have the armor of a 80T mech + internals on top of that too. When you add 16-18 points to a lighter mech you make it nearly un-kill-able in a timely manor -- max 10-15% increase of internals on any given part.

9. Laser adjustments -- IS increase all to within 20% of Clan Small/Med and 10% of Clan Large

10. Guass charge time reduced to a window of fire=.30 sec delay after holding down button 1 - 1.5 secs it resets ,, range reduced to 750 / 1500m max

I will stop at this point. I hope you take to heart the suggestions you asked for