282 replies to this topic

[Davers]

Stefka Kerensky, on 20 April 2015 - 11:18 PM, said:

So, bout quirks, PGI is going on to follow its philosophy about a no brainer FPS: since months I go on saying that locusts are op, for instance, and every time I drop with it I have at least 500 dmg and 2-3 k.
Is this normal?
I mean: can this happening in a normal BT game?

"But it's really gone too far. Quirks are going form a potential saviour of underperforming mechs to making the game unrecognizable as "A Battletech Game"."

I know this post is a bit outdated, but...

Should light mechs be unable to do this consistently? Then why would one play a light mech, especially since damage directly correlates to Cbill income?

Should only some light mechs be able to do this? Then why bother piloting anything else?

Do you think your performance in a Locust is the same as everyone else's? Do all Locusts routinely do 500+ damage and get 2-3 kills a game or would you consider your performance an exception? Should Locusts all be nerfed so you can't do that anymore?

If you had claimed that about another mech, like a Timberwolf, would that make it more acceptable? Basically should deciding to buy a Timberwolf over a light mech mean that you automatically can contribute more to the team's victories?

If we went with what occurs in a 'normal BT game' then who would ever volunteer to drive a Locust?

[CptGier]

PGI needs to restart the entire game stats starting with TT and rethinking it all.

PPCs, AC10s, LRMs, a large portion of the IS mechs and some of the clans are pretty lame.

Meta consists of like 3 weapons, lasers, gauss and AC5s?

Range needs to be 1x...Pulses need to be just what htye are, more machinegun laser and less straight up superior laser. Faster Cool down, less dmg per shot, faster beam duration, shorter range, less heat...more damage over time, less in a single beam...almost like Laser AC5s....DoT weapons....LL does 10/12, LPL should be like 8/10. Lasers should never deal more dmg then heat, it makes everything else obsolete.

And yeah, quirks are hosed.....

[Postumus]

I keep seeing posts mentioning "insane" quirks, but never talking about the performance of the mech that has the quirks. While, at a glance, the DRG-1N 50% Ac/5 cooldown quirk is extreme, the performance of the mech itself with the quirk is not. It has enough serious drawbacks with the 2xAC/5 + lasers build (XL Engine, dakka vs. FLPPD, godawful hitboxes, ballistics in the low arm etc.).

Likewise, the new Highlander 732B, while it gets a pretty huge armor quirk, the mech itself is underwhelming. It is still slow (engine cap), unmaneuverable, has a hard to miss, barn-like profile, and low firepower for an assault mech.

Looking at just quirk numbers outside the context of the mech doesn't give a good idea of whether quirks are working well or not, or are overpowered or not. That said, quirks should not be substitute for weapon balancing, they should be a way of balancing out the "intangibles" that contribute to a mech's competitiveness or lack thereof - things that cannot be precisely quantified in the way that number of hardpoints, engine size, or tonnage can be. Once certain weapons get balanced, then the weapon quirks should be looked at again.

[Telmasa]

Postumus, on 23 April 2015 - 06:29 PM, said:

I keep seeing posts mentioning "insane" quirks, but never talking about the performance of the mech that has the quirks. While, at a glance, the DRG-1N 50% Ac/5 cooldown quirk is extreme, the performance of the mech itself with the quirk is not. It has enough serious drawbacks with the 2xAC/5 + lasers build (XL Engine, dakka vs. FLPPD, godawful hitboxes, ballistics in the low arm etc.).

Likewise, the new Highlander 732B, while it gets a pretty huge armor quirk, the mech itself is underwhelming. It is still slow (engine cap), unmaneuverable, has a hard to miss, barn-like profile, and low firepower for an assault mech.

Looking at just quirk numbers outside the context of the mech doesn't give a good idea of whether quirks are working well or not, or are overpowered or not. That said, quirks should not be substitute for weapon balancing, they should be a way of balancing out the "intangibles" that contribute to a mech's competitiveness or lack thereof - things that cannot be precisely quantified in the way that number of hardpoints, engine size, or tonnage can be. Once certain weapons get balanced, then the weapon quirks should be looked at again.

I have not seen a Dragon-1N get under 500 damage in a match in months, no matter how stupidly & suicidal the pilot was playing it.

That's just my own personal anecdote, but I still think that says something about how stupidly easy it is to use when you have that kind of extreme DPS.

There are far better ways to improve the Dragon without giving it so much DPS that it becomes pure cheese.

And the whole problem with the Highlander's quirks is that the Atlas, which deserves quirks like that, for all kinds of reasons, has gotten none. Wheras the Highlander doesn't really need those quirks - it needs better jumpjets.

*AND*, my Shadowhawks still want to talk to the Grid Iron about getting ballistic dooldown quirks, especially for Gauss.

[Nightshade24]

I personally do not think LBX sucks. I use them all the time. even if quirks support a different weapon or no quirks at all. (for eg choosing LBX 5's over UAC 5's on direwolf, hellbringer, mad dog, etc)

I do agree anything close to 50% needs to be fixed...

[STEF_]

Davers, on 23 April 2015 - 06:07 PM, said:

I know this post is a bit outdated, but...

Should light mechs be unable to do this consistently? Then why would one play a light mech, especially since damage directly correlates to Cbill income?

Should only some light mechs be able to do this? Then why bother piloting anything else?

Do you think your performance in a Locust is the same as everyone else's? Do all Locusts routinely do 500+ damage and get 2-3 kills a game or would you consider your performance an exception? Should Locusts all be nerfed so you can't do that anymore?

If you had claimed that about another mech, like a Timberwolf, would that make it more acceptable? Basically should deciding to buy a Timberwolf over a light mech mean that you automatically can contribute more to the team's victories?

If we went with what occurs in a 'normal BT game' then who would ever volunteer to drive a Locust?

The issue stands in the ethernal skirmish we are playing from years. So PGI had to uber quirk lights.
As you notice, not every light has properly quirked for that ethernal skirmish, so yes, there are sub-par lights,, too.
(btw, every light specialist can do that 4-500 dmg, trust me, I'm quite average)

I would have design this game in a very different way.
For instance, lights should have recon and scout roles, and should be payed properly (c-bills and xp) for that, and for having this, we should need very very large maps, where lights are necessary and a prerequisite for teamplay and the victory.

[SaltBeef]

All lights should be as fragile as the mist lynx. Then Butt inspecting a Direwolf would be a more risky venture.

[FupDup]

SaltBeef, on 23 April 2015 - 10:42 PM, said:

All lights should be as fragile as the mist lynx.

[Alistair Winter]

SaltBeef, on 23 April 2015 - 10:42 PM, said:

All lights should be as fragile as the mist lynx. Then Butt inspecting a Direwolf would be a more risky venture.

And should becoming an assault mech pilot be just as difficult as in Battletech? Should Dire Wolves and King Crabs be exceptionally rare mechs, reserved for the absolute elite? Should we also introduce repair and rearming costs, so fielding a centuries old warmachine would be a more risky venture, to the point where mercenary units would struggle to keep their assault mechs operational?

Or are you suggesting that we keep the status quo, but use light mechs as sacrificial lambs for assault mech pilots' e-peen, so they can just enjoy easy mode without putting in any real effort?

People want a Battletech game with a traditional power hierarchy, but they don't repair and rearm, they don't want a fully functioning economy and they want individual players to have absurd incomes (in BT terms) to the point where everyone has about a hundred mechs in their garage. Is that Battletech? If people actually wanted it to be more like Battletech, then economy in this game would look more like MW2:Mercs and less like Need For Speed Underground. And people don't want the risk of losing their mechs either, the way you lose all your equipment when you die in games like CounterStrike. They just want to be handed the best mechs in the game and then demand that their mechs should be better than everyone else's.

It's short sighted.

Edited by Alistair Winter, 24 April 2015 - 04:46 AM.

[Lily from animove]

SaltBeef, on 23 April 2015 - 10:42 PM, said:

All lights should be as fragile as the mist lynx.

FupDup, on 24 April 2015 - 04:30 AM, said:

SaltBeef, on 23 April 2015 - 10:42 PM, said:

Then Butt inspecting a Direwolf would be a more risky venture.

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[Josef Koba]

Overall, I like the quirks, though I can see both sides. On the one hand, it makes some chassis viable whereas they were not before. Then again, it pretty much makes certain builds on those chassis mandatory in order to be competitive. So in a way it shoehorns certain builds into being, and that's the only thing you see. It's min/maxing at it's worst in some cases (that Thunderbolt...I never see a diverse Thunderbolt anymore, only ERPPC and/or Med Pulse). Still, I like the quirks and it adds an element to my mech lab that I didn't have before. I think that some chassis should have quirks; the Awesome and the PPC for example. As I understand it, that mech was supposed to be a PPC platform.

The one thing I don't really like is all these armor buffs, which have been mentioned. Buffing a medium to the point where it has as much armor as an Atlas or a Banshee just seems ridiculous to me. If that's what's going to happen, then the Atlas and Banshee, etc, need to have armor buffs too...then we just get into an armor buff arms race. If the Atlas was supposed to be the tankiest of tanks on the battlefield, it makes little sense that it has armor comparative to a previously under-performing medium. Or less, actually since the Atlas has mostly internal structure buffs, which I find to be a lot less useful than straight armor. Now, my RT might stick around but my AC/20 is gone anyway after the armor is stripped, so it's a moot point.

And realistically, how does one explain the increase in armor on these mechs? Armor has weight. If the Nova gets X amount of armor for free, weight wise, why can't I use the same mystical technology on my Atlas? Or Dire Wolf? Or any other mech? I can see how a mech might have a buff to heat dissipation as it was built to carry a particular system, but EXTRA armor that has no weight? It doesn't make any sense to me from a technology perspective. I want the same zero weight armor package on my Atlas.

[Bishop Steiner]

Josef Koba, on 24 April 2015 - 06:00 AM, said:

Overall, I like the quirks, though I can see both sides. On the one hand, it makes some chassis viable whereas they were not before. Then again, it pretty much makes certain builds on those chassis mandatory in order to be competitive. So in a way it shoehorns certain builds into being, and that's the only thing you see. It's min/maxing at it's worst in some cases (that Thunderbolt...I never see a diverse Thunderbolt anymore, only ERPPC and/or Med Pulse). Still, I like the quirks and it adds an element to my mech lab that I didn't have before. I think that some chassis should have quirks; the Awesome and the PPC for example. As I understand it, that mech was supposed to be a PPC platform.

The one thing I don't really like is all these armor buffs, which have been mentioned. Buffing a medium to the point where it has as much armor as an Atlas or a Banshee just seems ridiculous to me. If that's what's going to happen, then the Atlas and Banshee, etc, need to have armor buffs too...then we just get into an armor buff arms race. If the Atlas was supposed to be the tankiest of tanks on the battlefield, it makes little sense that it has armor comparative to a previously under-performing medium. Or less, actually since the Atlas has mostly internal structure buffs, which I find to be a lot less useful than straight armor. Now, my RT might stick around but my AC/20 is gone anyway after the armor is stripped, so it's a moot point.

And realistically, how does one explain the increase in armor on these mechs? Armor has weight. If the Nova gets X amount of armor for free, weight wise, why can't I use the same mystical technology on my Atlas? Or Dire Wolf? Or any other mech? I can see how a mech might have a buff to heat dissipation as it was built to carry a particular system, but EXTRA armor that has no weight? It doesn't make any sense to me from a technology perspective. I want the same zero weight armor package on my Atlas.

Agreed.

I'm not against the idea of quirks, I am against how they have morphed from "extras" to help the poor and disenfranchised Mechs to have a voice again, to being some mandatory thing that defines the mechs, period.

Some, IMO are done real well. I honestly think the HBK family is pretty close to spot one. One major Armor/Structure boost to a problem area of the chassis, and then a good blend of generic and specialized quirks that allow it to function with something that approximates it's efficacy in TT. The GI is overdone (IMO), and one might argue on the 4J (though let's be honest... LRMS are mostly bad and inefficient, so it does make sense they get higher %s than pp-fld weapons). But in general, while effective, after the initial shock, you don't see people complaining about OP Hunchbacks dominating the game (even my own Gridiron complaint is that a paywall mech has quirks significantly out of line over the rest of it's family. On something like Heat Reduction or Cooldown, a single massive specialized quirk will almost always trump multiple lesser quirks. Just like minmax in all other aspects of this game. Fortunately, HBKs still take some modicum of skill to succeed in, period, so it's not near as omnipresent as say, a Stormcrow.).

And likewise, mechs like the Centurion (the 40% seems a little high on the 9D, and if it was a PP-FLD autocannon, it would be. But how many people run around afraid of the Autoshotty CN9? Despite the fact I almost ALWAYs have great fun matches in mine)and a few others.

But another issue for me is lack of variety. I agree, for the most part about the armor. I think it works for the Zeus, because it really doesn't pack the punch of most other Assaults, but being extra tanky adds a nice flavor to it. Some mechs, like the Banshee, can already tank all day if you know how to twist. The Atlas though? Should be, IMO almost ALL defensive quirks. It should be the toughest mech in the game, if not necessarily the best firepower (even in 3025, many mechs outgunned the Atlas in reality). But it doesn't have to be ALL armor. Find ways to make the ECM on the DDC more effective, to regain it's command niche role (25% range boost?). Give the 7K quirks that actually make the AMS more useful (half ammo consumption, double RoF, or the like). And give the low tech RS and D butt loads of armor and structure. The Atlas should be able to wade into a enemy formation and soak and tank and basically cause the level of fear they still can in Stock Mech Matches.

But also, we should see things like Sensor, BAP and ECM enhancements in quirks for mechs like the Raven (and corresponding focus on scouting roles XP and Cbills) and Spider. Jump Jet enhancements (cooler running, faster ascent rates, longer range) on Jump Oriented mechs. I'd love to see a Locust with less Machine Gun quirks and even more ridiculous acceleration/deceleration and turn rate quirks. An AWS that either didn't get GH from it's PPCs, or that was simply the best PPC mech in the game.

So much that the quirk system COULD do to give flavor, enhance actual role warfare, etc. Instead we got.... well..this.

[Bishop Steiner]

So... Hows CW going? Nothing But Stalkers and Thunderbolts vs Timberwolfs and Stormcrows, or are we seeing all the variety of these wonderfully balance mechs Quirks have brought us?

I don't have enough bandwidth to play atm so I must ask instead of seeing for myself.

[Johny Rocket]

Bishop Steiner, on 24 April 2015 - 06:33 PM, said:

So... Hows CW going? Nothing But Stalkers and Thunderbolts vs Timberwolfs and Stormcrows, or are we seeing all the variety of these wonderfully balance mechs Quirks have brought us?

I don't have enough bandwidth to play atm so I must ask instead of seeing for myself.

Curious as well, well, not enough to wait 20 min to drop. Though i can think of a drop deck that could play to those mechs weaknesses.

[Rear Admiral Tier 6]

Tom Sawyer, on 21 April 2015 - 06:07 AM, said:

Insert the generic Russ does not read the forums only his tweets.

Perhaps Tina reads these and some of the devs.

Sad times

Maybe because the forum is mainly full of cancer,failure,insults and loud minorities that barely play the game?

[kapusta11]

Bishop Steiner, on 24 April 2015 - 06:33 PM, said:

So... Hows CW going? Nothing But Stalkers and Thunderbolts vs Timberwolfs and Stormcrows, or are we seeing all the variety of these wonderfully balance mechs Quirks have brought us?

I don't have enough bandwidth to play atm so I must ask instead of seeing for myself.

Timberwolf and Stormcrow are good because of quirks? Good to know.

[Deathlike]

Bishop Steiner, on 24 April 2015 - 06:33 PM, said:

So... Hows CW going? Nothing But Stalkers and Thunderbolts vs Timberwolfs and Stormcrows, or are we seeing all the variety of these wonderfully balance mechs Quirks have brought us?

I don't have enough bandwidth to play atm so I must ask instead of seeing for myself.

I run an Enforcer... but rarely drop in that (because it never gets to that point).

Does that make you feel better?

[Bishop Steiner]

kapusta11, on 25 April 2015 - 12:13 AM, said:

Timberwolf and Stormcrow are good because of quirks? Good to know.

oh look someone taking a quote and inserting their own context to obscure the point. HOw shocking.

[EvilCow]

Quirks is where they really jumped the shark...

[Clint Steel]

I don't mind quirks in theory. I think they have potential to make the bad Mechs good (without changing their geometry, or changing their hard point locations [which i'm not against personally])

Some weapon systems should first be made more viable, before they quirk them on specific Mechs though, such as LBXs ERPPCs and PPCs, and Clan AC. After this, then making certain varients specialists, or generalists in particular weapon types can be looked at.

Also, there has to be a decision as to what mech all should be compared and balanced to.I'm not a fan of the tier system currently being used as I think its wrong to pick the best Mech, and balance toward it, since that will mean much lower TTK, as all Mechs will be better on the field.

Instead, I would pick a Mech about 75% as good as the best Mech, and balance all towards that (this includes nerfing down the top 25%).

Aside from that, I would like to see variation in the varients. I think the Ravens are a good example of quirks working right, as I would never play the 2 or 4x, before as they had nothing to offer, but now they add something interesting to the chassis. A bad example would be the BJ's where the the BJ-1 and BJ-1DC have little variation between them.