103 replies to this topic

[Wintersdark]

Kiiyor, on 17 May 2015 - 04:48 AM, said:

Well, many of those mechs, despite the claimed over quirking, are still bad. Terrible. Garbage.

People keep claiming that mechs are 'over quirked' because or raw numbers. The thing is, these numbers are borderline irrelevant when the mechs are terrible anyway. The Awesome does indeed have some terrifying raw damage numbers, but that mech is still the equivalent of a 10 year old myopic fat kid with a bazooka. He has some firepower, but the only way he is ever going to be dangerous is if you're locked in a broom closet with him. I've played the Awesome in every iteration of MW. It's my favourite mech. I've probably got 3K drops in that thing alone going back to CB, and even with it's godlike quirks, I can't bring myself to drag it out of mothballs. It's a free kill to the enemy.

The GridIron has some fantastic quirks for that Gauss, but it's still terrible. The insane rate of fire is dependent on no-one actually looking at you while you are shooting at them - or that Gauss, and likely your CT, are gone. He can't hit and fade like the 4G. He's the ghost in Super Mario that stops when you turn around.

There may be a case for some of the other mechs and their quirks, but i'm not sold. I'll be interested to see how the meta shifts now that the Trinity (may) have lost some of it's luster.

All IMHO, of course.

I have to agree completely. Until those mechs are actually used - and used a lot - it's just not a problem.

Yes, I'd like to redistribute quirks too in some cases, but really the enhanced structure/armor for mechs with bad geometry is necessary. Ignore the numbers for a moment; mech geometry is one of the most important defining aspects of the mech's performance. Those mechs in TT could look like anything and it made no difference, but here in MWO geometry is critical. At least the defensive quirks don't haul down TTK and make the mechs very gimmicky (see DRG-1N).

But there's so much "This mech is over-quirked and needs to be nerfed!" when the mech is still bad. We don't need to nerf sub-par mechs.

Scaling? Clearly, it's not going to change. And honestly, in many of these cases wouldn't make a lot of difference anyways. An Awesome is never going to be small.

[Deathlike]

Wintersdark, on 17 May 2015 - 05:09 AM, said:

I have to agree completely. Until those mechs are actually used - and used a lot - it's just not a problem.

Yes, I'd like to redistribute quirks too in some cases, but really the enhanced structure/armor for mechs with bad geometry is necessary. Ignore the numbers for a moment; mech geometry is one of the most important defining aspects of the mech's performance. Those mechs in TT could look like anything and it made no difference, but here in MWO geometry is critical. At least the defensive quirks don't haul down TTK and make the mechs very gimmicky (see DRG-1N).

But there's so much "This mech is over-quirked and needs to be nerfed!" when the mech is still bad. We don't need to nerf sub-par mechs.

Scaling? Clearly, it's not going to change. And honestly, in many of these cases wouldn't make a lot of difference anyways. An Awesome is never going to be small.

It is OK to pretend the Pretty Baby is on a diet?

It's been a wonderful 12 hours or so... I'm sure there will be more amusing sentiments on Tuesday.

[Wintersdark]

Deathlike, on 17 May 2015 - 05:11 AM, said:

It is OK to pretend the Pretty Baby is on a diet?

It's been a wonderful 12 hours or so... I'm sure there will be more amusing sentiments on Tuesday.

Tuesday will bring tears the like of which haven't been seen in many moons. Many.

[Joseph Mallan]

Wintersdark, on 17 May 2015 - 05:17 AM, said:

Tuesday will bring tears the like of which haven't been seen in many moons. Many.

Guess it'll be worth queuing up then.

[Pjwned]

Kiiyor, on 17 May 2015 - 04:48 AM, said:

Well, many of those mechs, despite the claimed over quirking, are still bad. Terrible. Garbage.

If you say so.

Quote

People keep claiming that mechs are 'over quirked' because or raw numbers. The thing is, these numbers are borderline irrelevant when the mechs are terrible anyway.

They're not irrelevant when you have cases of mechs firing 2x AC5 faster than an AC2 and other similarly ridiculous overquirked nonsense.

Quote

The Awesome does indeed have some terrifying raw damage numbers, but that mech is still the equivalent of a 10 year old myopic fat kid with a bazooka. He has some firepower, but the only way he is ever going to be dangerous is if you're locked in a broom closet with him. I've played the Awesome in every iteration of MW. It's my favourite mech. I've probably got 3K drops in that thing alone going back to CB, and even with it's godlike quirks, I can't bring myself to drag it out of mothballs. It's a free kill to the enemy.

Yep, torso buffs clearly don't do anything for an already large mech with plenty of armor, it needs excessive weapon quirks on top of that.

Quote

The GridIron has some fantastic quirks for that Gauss, but it's still terrible. The insane rate of fire is dependent on no-one actually looking at you while you are shooting at them - or that Gauss, and likely your CT, are gone. He can't hit and fade like the 4G. He's the ghost in Super Mario that stops when you turn around.

I forgot that having 660m optimal range on a rapid fire gauss rifle along with insane MPL range quirks didn't facilitate a hit & fade strategy, clearly the mech that has to get in your face to do any worthwhile damage while being a far easier target to hit is better at that.

Joseph Mallan, on 17 May 2015 - 04:50 AM, said:

In general. I think its just to much hand holding.

Catapult (As designed) has 66% or more of its firepower in the arms. Unless you take the all ears A1. Now a smart Pilot would not put all his eggs in one basket and would not need to have the arms buffed.

Well, if the arms too much of a liability then there's not really much point in bringing a Catapult unless you want to be a burden on your team and hide behind hills all day with LRMs.

[Wintersdark]

Pjwned, on 17 May 2015 - 05:25 AM, said:

If you say so.

They are. 1N's, 8Q's, they're not filling the queues. They're still bad mechs.

Quote

They're not irrelevant when you have cases of mechs firing 2x AC5 faster than an AC2 and other similarly ridiculous overquirked nonsense.

I'd rather them be different too, but still: It's not that big a problem with those mechs are still bad mechs.

Quote

Yep, torso buffs clearly don't do anything for an already large mech with plenty of armor, it needs excessive weapon quirks on top of that.

And yet, do you see Awesome's tearing up the queues?

Seriously: If you're calling Awesome's overpowered, you lose your right to participate in balance discussions. An argument that it's quirks are poorly placed? Sure. What do you think would work better? But overpowered? That's a laugh. Awesome's are still objectively bad mechs, even with their quirks.

[Joseph Mallan]

Pjwned, on 17 May 2015 - 05:25 AM, said:

Well, if the arms too much of a liability then there's not really much point in bringing a Catapult unless you want to be a burden on your team and hide behind hills all day with LRMs.

A Catapult is not meant to be on the frontline like we seem to think is the only line that matters. If it stays behind the front line adding pain where needed, the ears are not a problem. Don't blame the game cause we refuse to use the Mech as it was meant to be used.

The Catapult is an offense oriented, second-line fire-support BattleMech

[Ultimax]

Alistair Winter, on 17 May 2015 - 01:44 AM, said:

The consensus seems to be that the Timber Wolf and Stormcrow were nerfed too hard. Not because they're terrible compared to other clan mechs, but because the Inner Sphere is going to steamroll the Clans in CW.

Where do you even come to these conclusions?

They are going to be nerfed too hard and it has little to do with CW.


Unless you boat SRMs now, you are looking at 1.4s CERMLAS and slower recycles (lower DPS), that's ridiculous.

[Kh0rn]

I personally see that no matter how much they change this or that balance will always be a issue cause ultimately it all has too boil down too the mech lab and while it is the greatest feature in the game it is also the cause behind the balance problems. Giving the player the option too do any thing with any mech despite what that mech may have been build for. Putting any size weapons in any size slots with out the need too think about energy output, Auto cannon sizes or racks for missiles, No draw backs or cons for any thing you do and taking engines and swapping them out at will. The idea was having a restrictive system that said alright look you have a med laser in that are you can field small energy weapons in that arm cause of the energy capacitor set too that level so ML , SPL,SM or MPL can be fitted. Same would apply too AC and missiles. While still giving people time too customize there mechs at will it would bring a great sense of variety as each chassis now would have its uses in different areas like in BT where each chassis had different roles too perform as in the reason for its construction. Having this total freedom we have now is the result for having meta , having the top tier and the lower tier. Only sane fix that I could come up with. MWLL does not even have a mech lab and its balanced cause it forces players too use 8 pre defined variants that are build for different roles.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

I'd consider sliding a few of the quirks around some to help mixed loadouts and so on. Some thoughts on such tweaks, for example:

TDR-5SS: Make a single quirk change.

Medium Pulse Range: 25% change to PPC Velocity: 25%

DRG-1N: The 50% cooldown is excessive for one attribute of the AC/5's

AC/5 Cooldown: 25% change to Energy Heat Generation: 15%

Ballistic Cooldown: 25% reduce to 20 % and add Ballistic Velocity: 15% (10% of AC/5 and 5% of Ballistic Cooldown)

Ideas for two other Dragons

Spoiler

DRG-1C: The 15% cooldown for one Hardpoint is weak

Laser Duration: 15% change to Energy Heat Generation: 15%

Ballistic Cooldown: 15% raise to 25 % and add Ballistic Velocity: 15%

DRG-5N: Three Ballistic hardpoints are wasted on the specific UAC/5

UAC/5 Cooldown: 12.5% change to Ballistic Heat Generation: 12.5%

Ballistic Range: 15% change to Energy Range: 15%

BLR-1S: Applying Spread and Velocity Quirks

Energy Range: 25% change to LRM Spread: 7% SRM Spread: 8% LRM Velocity: 2% and SRM Velocity: 8%

Some other Assaults below:

Spoiler

AWS-8V: Missile Range swap

Missile Range: 15% change to Energy Heat Generation: 15%

AWS-9M: Enhance Weapons a tad

Energy Range: 12.5% reduce to 7.5% and apply 2.5% each to ERPPC Heat Generation: 15% (for new value) and Energy Heat Generation: 15% (for new value)

Energy Cooldown: 15% change to Missile Heat Generation: 15%

AWS-PB: Tweak the specific quirks

Large Laser Range: 12.5% change to LRM Spread: 7% and SRM Velocity: 5.5%

Large Laser Heat Generation: 12.5% merged into Energy Heat Generation: 25% (for new value)

BLR-1D: Swap a Ballistic Quirk

Ballistic Cooldown: 12.5% change to Ballistic Heat Generation: 12.5%

STK-5M:

Missile Range: 7.5% change to LRM Velocity: 2% SRM Velocity: 5.5%

SRM 6 Range: 7.5% change to LRM Spread: 2% SRM Spread: 5.5%

BNC-3S:

Remove Medium Laser Range, Medium Laser Duration, Energy Range add Ballistic Velocity: 20%

Ballistic Cooldown: 10% change to PPC Heat Generation: 12.5% (2.5% comes from the remainder)

I have other ideas, but stopping now!

Edited by Praetor Knight, 17 May 2015 - 07:04 AM.

[Gremlich Johns]

Ultimatum X, on 17 May 2015 - 06:05 AM, said:

Where do you even come to these conclusions?

They are going to be nerfed too hard and it has little to do with CW.

Unless you boat SRMs now, you are looking at 1.4s CERMLAS and slower recycles (lower DPS), that's ridiculous.

These changes have everything to do with CW.

Coupled with the nerfs to the Clan tech, unless the Clan drop tonnage cap is raised, the future of CW will swing significantly in the favor of the IS-centric players - PGI's biggest customers who they (PGI) do not want migrating to Clan tech because then CW would truly be a travesty.

[lsp]

They're already nerfing the STK-4N and the Firestarters... not to mention we constantly get nerfed in to the ground while the clans remain untouched. It's about time you guys get yours. And they're not even addressing the real problem, the hitboxes on the storm need to be redone, not it's quirks.

Just as a refresher for you, every time the IS get a half way decent mech it ends up nerfed because of cry babies. Just recently, TDR-9S, WVR-6K, both nerfed, one nerfed into being garbage. Now the STK-4N, once again, one of the only decent mechs we have to fight the clans in CW, is getting nerfed.

[lsp]

Praetor Knight, on 17 May 2015 - 07:02 AM, said:

I'd consider sliding a few of the quirks around some to help mixed loadouts and so on. Some thoughts on such tweaks, for example:

TDR-5SS: Make a single quirk change.

Medium Pulse Range: 25% change to PPC Velocity: 25%

DRG-1N: The 50% cooldown is excessive for one attribute of the AC/5's

AC/5 Cooldown: 25% change to Energy Heat Generation: 15%

Ballistic Cooldown: 25% reduce to 20 % and add Ballistic Velocity: 15% (10% of AC/5 and 5% of Ballistic Cooldown)

Ideas for two other Dragons

Spoiler

DRG-1C: The 15% cooldown for one Hardpoint is weak

Laser Duration: 15% change to Energy Heat Generation: 15%

Ballistic Cooldown: 15% raise to 25 % and add Ballistic Velocity: 15%

DRG-5N: Three Ballistic hardpoints are wasted on the specific UAC/5

UAC/5 Cooldown: 12.5% change to Ballistic Heat Generation: 12.5%

Ballistic Range: 15% change to Energy Range: 15%

BLR-1S: Applying Spread and Velocity Quirks

Energy Range: 25% change to LRM Spread: 7% SRM Spread: 8% LRM Velocity: 2% and SRM Velocity: 8%

Some other Assaults below:

Spoiler

AWS-8V: Missile Range swap

Missile Range: 15% change to Energy Heat Generation: 15%

AWS-9M: Enhance Weapons a tad

Energy Range: 12.5% reduce to 7.5% and apply 2.5% each to ERPPC Heat Generation: 15% (for new value) and Energy Heat Generation: 15% (for new value)

Energy Cooldown: 15% change to Missile Heat Generation: 15%

AWS-PB: Tweak the specific quirks

Large Laser Range: 12.5% change to LRM Spread: 7% and SRM Velocity: 5.5%

Large Laser Heat Generation: 12.5% merged into Energy Heat Generation: 25% (for new value)

BLR-1D: Swap a Ballistic Quirk

Ballistic Cooldown: 12.5% change to Ballistic Heat Generation: 12.5%

STK-5M:

Missile Range: 7.5% change to LRM Velocity: 2% SRM Velocity: 5.5%

SRM 6 Range: 7.5% change to LRM Spread: 2% SRM Spread: 5.5%

BNC-3S:

Remove Medium Laser Range, Medium Laser Duration, Energy Range add Ballistic Velocity: 20%

Ballistic Cooldown: 10% change to PPC Heat Generation: 12.5% (2.5% comes from the remainder)

I have other ideas, but stopping now!

F v c k that, your ideas are garbage and unnecessary. Specially the MPL range to PPC velocity, just showing your true bias. PPC velocity is such a wasted quirk, specially on a mech that doesn't use ppcs... and the fact the ppcs are completely worthless. TDR-5SS is fine as is. Dragons are still Dragons and aren't even good, they're still like tier 3 mechs, because their hitboxes are garbage and they have to take an xl.

Edited by lsp, 17 May 2015 - 07:44 AM.

[Yokaiko]

Gremlich Johns, on 17 May 2015 - 07:08 AM, said:

These changes have everything to do with CW.

Coupled with the nerfs to the Clan tech, unless the Clan drop tonnage cap is raised, the future of CW will swing significantly in the favor of the IS-centric players - PGI's biggest customers who they (PGI) do not want migrating to Clan tech because then CW would truly be a travesty.

Welp they are losing $200 more from me, I canceled both upcoming.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

lsp, on 17 May 2015 - 07:44 AM, said:

F v c k that, your ideas are garbage and unnecessary. Specially the MPL range to PPC velocity, just showing your true bias. PPC velocity is such a wasted quirk, specially on a mech that doesn't use ppcs... and the fact the ppcs are completely worthless. TDR-5SS is fine as is. Dragons are still Dragons and aren't even good, they're still like tier 3 mechs, because their hitboxes are garbage and they have to take an xl.

Hmm...

So regarding only the MPL range of TDR-5SS, (which still retains a 25% boost to Energy Weapons by the way), sees:

Range decease by a difference of 55 M with the current 330 M (Moduled 352 M) going to 275 M (with Lvl 5 Module: 297 M).

The mech will still pump out 6 damage 3.4 heat MPLs, still allowing it's alpha of 42 damage and 23.8 heat if you only bring MPLs.

You will still see a 25% Range boost to other Energy Weapons, so there will be more reason to bring ER LLs (911 M range afterall) or LLs also.

The main difference is that now, builds that try to use PPCs now have a projectile speed of 1187.5 from the stock 950 m/s and a heat value at 8.5 from 10 with a range of 675 M.


And yeah, Dragons can certainly benefit from Zeus styled armor quirks at the very least in addition to some quirk adjustments. I still feel that they need some tweaks to existing quirks to give them better benefits for their hardpoints and hardpoint layout, since they'd be less dependent on a single arm (like the 1N), and could try to make use of ER LLs or LPLs in the Left Side, for example.


If we want quirks to give us one trick ponies, that fine, that's not something that I favor though (my true bias, I suppose). That's why I made these suggestions to sustain boosts for under-performers and allow for a bit of build variety as well in the process.

[Joseph Mallan]

lsp, on 17 May 2015 - 07:44 AM, said:

F v c k that, your ideas are garbage and unnecessary.

[Pjwned]

Wintersdark, on 17 May 2015 - 05:42 AM, said:

I'd rather them be different too, but still: It's not that big a problem with those mechs are still bad mechs.

It is still a problem because excessive quirks are never valid for any mech.

Quote

And yet, do you see Awesome's tearing up the queues?

Seriously: If you're calling Awesome's overpowered, you lose your right to participate in balance discussions. An argument that it's quirks are poorly placed? Sure. What do you think would work better? But overpowered? That's a laugh. Awesome's are still objectively bad mechs, even with their quirks.

Never said they were overpowered, I said their quirks were excessive.

Joseph Mallan, on 17 May 2015 - 05:46 AM, said:

A Catapult is not meant to be on the frontline like we seem to think is the only line that matters. If it stays behind the front line adding pain where needed, the ears are not a problem. Don't blame the game cause we refuse to use the Mech as it was meant to be used.

The Catapult is an offense oriented, second-line fire-support BattleMech

I'm just saying that if you all do is hide behind hills with LRMs (especially with the current state of LRMs and ECM) then you're not being very useful, so if you need to expose yourself a bit more to be more useful but find your arms getting shot off because they're such easy targets (with no quirks to buff them even a little bit) then why bring a Catapult?

Edited by Pjwned, 17 May 2015 - 08:36 AM.

[Wintersdark]

Pjwned, on 17 May 2015 - 08:31 AM, said:

It is still a problem because excessive quirks are never valid for any mech.

I'd rather no mechs have ridiculous quirks, but...

Quote

Never said they were overpowered, I said their quirks were excessive.

While a fair statement, this is a pretty minor problem given that even with excessive quirks, it's still a bad mech. There are bigger fish to fry.

[Kristov Kerensky]

Kh0rn, on 17 May 2015 - 06:33 AM, said:

I personally see that no matter how much they change this or that balance will always be a issue cause ultimately it all has too boil down too the mech lab and while it is the greatest feature in the game it is also the cause behind the balance problems. Giving the player the option too do any thing with any mech despite what that mech may have been build for. Putting any size weapons in any size slots with out the need too think about energy output, Auto cannon sizes or racks for missiles, No draw backs or cons for any thing you do and taking engines and swapping them out at will. The idea was having a restrictive system that said alright look you have a med laser in that are you can field small energy weapons in that arm cause of the energy capacitor set too that level so ML , SPL,SM or MPL can be fitted. Same would apply too AC and missiles. While still giving people time too customize there mechs at will it would bring a great sense of variety as each chassis now would have its uses in different areas like in BT where each chassis had different roles too perform as in the reason for its construction. Having this total freedom we have now is the result for having meta , having the top tier and the lower tier. Only sane fix that I could come up with. MWLL does not even have a mech lab and its balanced cause it forces players too use 8 pre defined variants that are build for different roles.

And what, pray tell, were the most used Mechs in MW:LL? That's right, tanks and battlearmor/elementals! Oh, right, that's not exactly what I meant, but you get the point I think? Even running totally stock only builds, the PLAYERS will use the most powerful of those builds every single time without fail, especially the competition players. I know, you didn't have much experience with them in MW:LL, but believe me, they WILL find and use the top stock builds if that's all they get access to, and that will be your meta.

Seriously, some people think if you give people a choice of a bbgun and a sniper rifle everyone will pick the bbgun....

[Duke Nedo]

meteorol, on 17 May 2015 - 04:40 AM, said:

How does cooldown hardly matter? As long as you are not heatcapped, 18% more cooldown costs you a significant amount of your dps. Don't forget that cooldown starts after the burn finished, so longer burn time+ longer cooldown comes together for even less dps. And how is gauss+ energy not nuked? The most prominent build in that regard was gauss+5 er ml. 5 energy heatpoints result in a pretty harsh penalty.
Guys will probably use the gauss/2lpl build a lot more than right now. But honestly, getting pigeonholed into specific builds because you are trying to avoid penalties isn't exactly promoting build diversity.

Not as bad as builds using all E pods... my point was that most clan builds I have tried are heat-limited so cooldown is not the biggest issue while laser duration truly is. The gauss/2x LPL build is only nerfed by 9% so I also reckon it will be the build.

The bad thing is the way this punishes all-energy builds much more than builds mixing pods, so I would definitely have preferred blank chassi nerfs of say 10% laser duration and 10% cooldown or something like that. It would affect all builds equally and would be much more comprehensive to read for new players.

Edited by Duke Nedo, 17 May 2015 - 08:51 AM.