20 replies to this topic

[stjobe]

Here's the quirks for the 1V, 3M, and 3S:

[Alek Ituin]

Why would you ever nerf a Lolcust (lookin at you, 3M)? Almost as bad as the litany of negative quirks the Mist Lynx got... THE MIST LYNX. Because the Mist Lynx is soooo OP, amirite?

Edited by Alek Ituin, 11 September 2015 - 03:07 PM.

[Vashramire]

As much as I love that they can actually serve a role now, it still sucks that anything with thermals and 2 gauss will take them out still.

[Tahribator]

Vashramire, on 11 September 2015 - 06:47 PM, said:

As much as I love that they can actually serve a role now, it still sucks that anything with thermals and 2 gauss will take them out still.

What role can they serve, now that they're deprived of their weapon quirks which was the only thing that kept them on life support? Nobody will take a Locust just because it locks stuff faster.

Currently there is only one viable Locust, and that is the 1E. Why? Because it has amazing laser quirks. This instantly makes it a high risk/high reward 'Mech and that is exactly how the Locust should be. It should be a very weak but a mobile 'Mech with a nasty bite.

With these quirks, even less people will bother with it. Bring the weapon quirks back. Also the acceleration nerf over the board is something very negative. Every single Locust needs the accel/decel quirks to stay alive.

[Nightshade24]

Alek Ituin, on 11 September 2015 - 03:07 PM, said:

Why would you ever nerf a Lolcust (lookin at you, 3M)? Almost as bad as the litany of negative quirks the Mist Lynx got... THE MIST LYNX. Because the Mist Lynx is soooo OP, amirite?

personally I did very well with the locust before quirks and I find most quirks not needed for the thing.... it is also the best 20 ton mech in game. (pretends it isn't the only one... Flea.... we hardly knew ye' )

[Vashramire]

Tahribator, on 12 September 2015 - 01:49 AM, said:

What role can they serve, now that they're deprived of their weapon quirks which was the only thing that kept them on life support? Nobody will take a Locust just because it locks stuff faster.

Currently there is only one viable Locust, and that is the 1E. Why? Because it has amazing laser quirks. This instantly makes it a high risk/high reward 'Mech and that is exactly how the Locust should be. It should be a very weak but a mobile 'Mech with a nasty bite.

With these quirks, even less people will bother with it. Bring the weapon quirks back. Also the acceleration nerf over the board is something very negative. Every single Locust needs the accel/decel quirks to stay alive.

Weapon quirks are only gone till they do a weapons pass so that is really irrelevant because even with current weapon quirks they are trash. Yes some pugs are bad shots but if one person can aim right they are fodder for any other light mech and anything larger if they get remotely close. On PTS they can scout better than some lights was my point. I never said it was superior to others in that role or that it did particularly well. The 1E has amazing weapon quirks but it's still trash because it can't take a hit and gets wrecked by streaks hardcore like all the other Locusts. No one should be bringing up weapons at this point of balance because they are trying to get roles defined. The question is "if role warfare is working, does this mech perform in that role?" A light scout mech that can barely equip 4 ML should not be competitive with heavier mechs for damage. Quirks or no quirks. If you do crazy damage in a Locust during a match, the other team is just bad.

Now the point of these threads isn't to complain about everyone's precious weapon quirks disappearing but to constructively give feedback on how/if mechs are performing within these roles. I'll take a mech that's **** at damage if it gives my team and edge in scouting/positioning. The important thing is, does the game reward you for making that choice over something that brings more durability/firepower. They want tactics and roles to be a thing. Let them know if it is or isn't working and why. Saying a weak firepower mech that needed harsh weapon quirks to exist in a different, less role oriented game of brawlers on live isn't helping. I hope the Locust is one of the top scouting mechs and get very little weapon quirks. But I want scouting to really be a meaningful part of the game. If they can't accomplish that then my Locusts are going to sit in my mech bays like they have since I bought my Phoenix package and no weapon quirks are going to fix that.

[Ljusdahl]

I don't have the final answer, but I have a rough idea for a starting point to balancing locusts. The quirks needed to make the ammo-dependent variants viable are ridiculous, so I'd rather approach it from another angle. I propose a speed quirk and new lightweight weapons:

-Reduce the engine cap to 180 for all variants, and give it a speed/turning quirk to bring it back up to the values that a 190 engine would give. Now you have an extra .5t to spend without penalty!

-Add Light SRM2: Weights 0.75t, but slower rate of fire and higher heat generation than SRM2's.

-Add SRM1: Weights 0.5t. Same cooldown as SRM2, more heat per damage, and increased accuracy.

So take the LCT-3S for example. You would now have a lot more build versatility. You could bring the good old 4xSRM2 with very limited ammo, or 4xL-SRM2(frees up 1t), or 4xSRM1 for accuracy and a backup laser, or a mixture.

I definitely think they should keep all their previous acceleration/deceleration quirks as well. It's part of its identity!

[stjobe]

Ljusdahl, on 13 September 2015 - 09:16 AM, said:

-Add Light SRM2: Weights 0.75t, but slower rate of fire and higher heat generation than SRM2's.

-Add SRM1: Weights 0.5t. Same cooldown as SRM2, more heat per damage, and increased accuracy.

This is unlikely in the extreme to happen.

[Ljusdahl]

stjobe, on 13 September 2015 - 09:30 AM, said:

This is unlikely in the extreme to happen.

Because it's a bad idea, or PGI stubbornness, or what?

[stjobe]

Ljusdahl, on 13 September 2015 - 09:34 AM, said:

Because it's a bad idea, or PGI stubbornness, or what?

Because those weapons aren't BattleTech weapons. This is a BattleTech game, even though its connection to BattleTech is rather tenuous.

PGI have historically been rather unwilling to introduce weapons that are even out-of-timeline; I don't foresee them making up their own weapons.

[John McHobo]

Am I alone in being irritated by the fact that all these Variants have nothing in common anymore?

The giant differences in acceleration/decelaration and durability are so large is doesn´t even look like its even remotely based on the same chassis.

[Ljusdahl]

stjobe, on 13 September 2015 - 09:45 AM, said:

Because those weapons aren't BattleTech weapons. This is a BattleTech game, even though its connection to BattleTech is rather tenuous.

PGI have historically been rather unwilling to introduce weapons that are even out-of-timeline; I don't foresee them making up their own weapons.

They are minor variations of existing weapons, not a far cry by any means.

Are consumables, modules, quirks, heroes, ghost heat, gauss charge-up, 3PV drone, shooting while jumping, etc. part of BattleTech as well? I've never played the board game, but I'm guessing not.

[stjobe]

Ljusdahl, on 13 September 2015 - 02:04 PM, said:

They are minor variations of existing weapons, not a far cry by any means.

Are consumables, modules, quirks, heroes, ghost heat, gauss charge-up, 3PV drone, shooting while jumping, etc. part of BattleTech as well? I've never played the board game, but I'm guessing not.

Well, you'd be surprised:

Consumables, yes: Coolant pods, for example.
Modules, no. That's a Paul idea.
Quirks, yes: Design quirks.
Heroes, yes. Lots of them, here's one.
Ghost heat, no. Another Paul idea.
Gauss charge-up, yes, and explosions.
3PV drones, yes. The whole TT game is 3PV, but there's drones too.
Shooting while jumping, yes. You get a +3 to hit penalty for doing so.

If you haven't tried the board game, you should. It's a nice little game with over 30 years of lore behind it. Too bad our lead designer claims to only have played it once...

[Ljusdahl]

stjobe, on 13 September 2015 - 02:40 PM, said:

Well, you'd be surprised:

Consumables, yes: Coolant pods, for example.
Modules, no. That's a Paul idea.
Quirks, yes: Design quirks.
Heroes, yes. Lots of them, here's one.
Ghost heat, no. Another Paul idea.
Gauss charge-up, yes, and explosions.
3PV drones, yes. The whole TT game is 3PV, but there's drones too.
Shooting while jumping, yes. You get a +3 to hit penalty for doing so.

If you haven't tried the board game, you should. It's a nice little game with over 30 years of lore behind it. Too bad our lead designer claims to only have played it once...

It still makes no sense to impose arbitrary restrictions that only hold the game back from evolving. Obviously big differences from the TT exist already, yet a slight extrapolation of a weapon system is out of the question? I don't get it.

[Vashramire]

Values are different than TT, yes. But as a whole, no non-canon weapon tech has been put in the game because this game still tries to follow the lore, not just TT. Adding niche weapons that have never existed is a bandaid for a greater problem. In TT it was all dice rolls and a Locust could use that to it's advantage. Here even if you are a good pilot, someone who is a good shot can drop you. It's skill vs dice which is why a lot of mechs come with stock TT values and sometimes half the armor. You couldn't always hit what you needed. If you took half the armor off you could probably get away with a decent loadout. Unless we timeskip to Light Engines or they quirk it so we don't need 10 HS minimum or something it's just going to have to be subpar to other lights.

[stjobe]

Ljusdahl, on 13 September 2015 - 04:12 PM, said:

It still makes no sense to impose arbitrary restrictions that only hold the game back from evolving. Obviously big differences from the TT exist already, yet a slight extrapolation of a weapon system is out of the question? I don't get it.

There's two things about our weapons that cannot change: weight and crit slots. All the other variables can be (and have been) changed; heat, damage, rate of fire, range, ammo, but not weight and crit slots. Why? Because doing so would invalidate the construction rules (which among other thing means no more stock 'mech load-outs) and would sever one of the last connections that still make this "a BattleTech game".

Introducing non-lore weaponry is basically saying "we don't want our MechWarrior license any more", and I don't think PGI wants to get rid of it quite yet.

[Blaze32]

Tahribator, on 12 September 2015 - 01:49 AM, said:

Currently there is only one viable Locust, and that is the 1E. Why? Because it has amazing laser quirks. This instantly makes it a high risk/high reward 'Mech and that is exactly how the Locust should be. It should be a very weak but a mobile 'Mech with a nasty bite.

There are 2 good locust variants!!! The locust 3V reigns supreme! WHY?! Because it gets +20 HP to CT, (+8 armor / +12 Structure), gets +16 to legs (+8 armor / +8 structure), and +15 to LT/RT (+5 armor / +10 structure). Now you might say pshh that is not much the 1E is better... BUT this extra HP lets you survive the 2-guass-oneshot from any angle. on top of the extra armor and internals, it has 50% energy weapon range compared to the 25% from the 1E, but while it only has 10% duration compared to the 25% of the 1E it has 20% mg rof and 20% balistic range, this means that the 3V has about 5.301 DPS before modules and has a heat efficiency of around 1.8 compared to the 1E with 6 medium lasers which has 8.163 DPS and a heat effeciency of about 1.1 at best. While the 1E has it beat the 3V has greater sustain; both are great mechs, the 1E is not the only great locust varient.... just my 2 cents... BTW will miss these quirks

[Kmieciu]

Blaze32, on 14 September 2015 - 05:29 PM, said:

the 3V has greater sustain

Too bad the Locus can't >>sustain<< any kind of exposure. Try to peek two times in a row from the same spot - you'll get double gaussed!
3V needs to expose itself 3 times more often than 1E.

[Iain Black]

on a mech that needs the speed to survive any one second delay in anything is faaaaar to long for the time i am willing to expose the mech at all. you dont want any exposure. you want "woosh pew whoosh".

also, if it is squeezed into the Scout over light raider Position, the increase the f... the payout for scouting, narcing and spotting or this one is going to be impossibly hard to Level Up. and extinct soon after.

[Leopardo]

gosh - dudes - new balance idea of - WHOS GONNA PLAY - the INFO tech LIGHT WITH OUT FIRE POWER....answer is - NOBODY - the end of story dudes. i really dnt understand this thig they made with spiders and jenners......light browlers become trash! who theed this info tech in this less game play modes??. we already know where the enemy is - and if you what - i have the speed of 150 and uav to show everybody whers the enemies, and then go out from the area. do i need INFOTECH FoR IT? NO! do i have to fight after? YES - and what i need is UAV FIREPOWER MOBILITY!!!!! wheres INFOTECH? nevah heard of it!!!

Edited by Leopardo, 28 September 2015 - 12:25 AM.