16 replies to this topic

[Night Thastus]

As any good 'Mechwarrior knows (or anyone can pick up based on the name) the Hunchback has a gigantic side torso.

I've used the 4G, and find that with no real significant structure quirks to the right torso, you just lose 90% of your firepower at the beginning of every match, especially since the Hunchie isnt' good at torso twisting. It has neither the hitboxes, nor the agility. It shouldn't need them. It really needs a structure buff to the RT. All it comes down to.

[Vashramire]

Nearly all armor quirks live got turned into structure buffs which doesn't really help anything except allow you to use an XL for longer even though it is quite likely you will basically only have your head laser left pretty early in the game. 4G took a hit of 6 armor in the RT and the GI became a tank with the mobility of a turret. 4P is basically crippled. 24 bonus structure with -50% accel means you aren't going to get out of the way fast enough to save the hunch. Personally the only one not nerfed to dirt is the 4G which took a hit to it main weapons survivability.

Edited by Vashramire, 11 September 2015 - 06:27 PM.

[Fate 6]

Yeah, I'm not sure why the HBK got hit so hard across the board. Before quirks it really wasn't a stellar mech, which is why it got great quirks in the first place. Even now on live most HBKs are probably the ideal for balance in the medium class.

[Haydin]

Right back to where we were pre-quirks. They shoot the hunch, you lose your firepower. The increased damage and armor were a MUST for making the hunchie work, IMO.

Edited by Haydin, 11 September 2015 - 06:34 PM.

[Vashramire]

Quirks initially were really introduced to balance out Clan vs IS. With no weapon quirks, clans have a much higher TTK and larger threat range. With weapon quirks removed and some IS mechs getting heavy nerfs to mobility and survivability (in the case of swapping armor for structure) while a good portion of clans can still spot you quicker and hit you harder from farther. I'm all for tough as nails IS mechs that take forever to kill but this is foam padding instead of actual armor. I know this is just an initial pass but certain things need to be consistent themes. Everyone knows a Hunchbros weakness. And the first sign that he isn't a threat is when you see the armor cracked. Then you know, you don't have to wreck through 10,000 structure. You just need 10 damage to his weapon and he's done. Making the armor crack sooner is going to turn you from a Hunchback to a paraplegic. I'm not even asking for weapon quirks. I just want to be able to have a fighting chance to just use the weapons I have.

[RedRover55]

The 4H version seems more agile and the +24 in RT was useful.

[Jman5]

RedRover55, on 11 September 2015 - 11:25 PM, said:

The 4H version seems more agile and the +24 in RT was useful.

The 4H and the 4P are actually losing hitpoints with this quirk pass. They currently have +30 hitpoints, and now they are going to have only +24 in the hunch. The only hunchback that's coming out of this with a stronger Right Torso is the Grid Iron.

[Dimento Graven]

I actually feel a bit of 'bait and switch' going on with the Grid Iron... We paid real money for a 'mech with specific features that balanced it against a lot of the clan 'mechs of similar weight.

NOW?!?!!?

Just another IS death trap.

Congrats PGI, you've shown yet again how little you understand BattleTech, or the game you've created.

[Vashramire]

Dimento Graven, on 12 September 2015 - 10:15 AM, said:

I actually feel a bit of 'bait and switch' going on with the Grid Iron... We paid real money for a 'mech with specific features that balanced it against a lot of the clan 'mechs of similar weight.

NOW?!?!!?

Just another IS death trap.

Congrats PGI, you've shown yet again how little you understand BattleTech, or the game you've created.

Supposedly the GI and GI LTD quirks are different. -5% instead of -50% which was brought up here. If the 50% is a typo like the -3500 torso twist on one of the Enforcers then the GI actually wouldn't be too bad for survivability. Let's just hope there are a lot of typos across the board.

[Vlad Striker]

Quote

We paid real money

This! I payed for GI and +50% of gauss reloading and 350m mpl. Not for it's yellow coloring.

[Chuck Jager]

Vashramire, on 12 September 2015 - 10:36 AM, said:

Supposedly the GI and GI LTD quirks are different. -5% instead of -50% which was brought up here. If the 50% is a typo like the -3500 torso twist on one of the Enforcers then the GI actually wouldn't be too bad for survivability. Let's just hope there are a lot of typos across the board.

In all the game I play the bonuses to characters change. Wether the mech was paid for in cash or grind should make little difference. I have done both.

[Dimento Graven]

Vashramire, on 12 September 2015 - 10:36 AM, said:

Supposedly the GI and GI LTD quirks are different. -5% instead of -50% which was brought up here. If the 50% is a typo like the -3500 torso twist on one of the Enforcers then the GI actually wouldn't be too bad for survivability. Let's just hope there are a lot of typos across the board.

The thing is though, even with a 5000% bonus to torso twisting on HB's, you still have a huge ass side torso, where the majority of the fire power is kept, that's targetable from 300 degrees.

NOW, if that huge side torso had some ability to discourage sustained targeting of it, like when there were weapon specific quirks, that'd be one thing, as it is, that side torso is still cored in only two Clan alphas. MOST Clan 'mechs medium and above still have the ability to min/max their way to a minimum 40 point alpha, most can do quite a bit better than 40 points, and with the lack of range quirks they get to do that at MUCH greater range than the typical IS load out is going to be able to respond.

Again, I can't see how this rebalance does anything other than put Clan at better than 100% OP.

I haven't found anything that:

Brings Clan and IS weaponry ranges into balance, Clans still have FAR superior range even more so now that most of the IS 'mechs I've looked at no longer have any range quirks.
Brings Clan and IS damage into balance. MOST Clan weapons still have a higher DPS.
Brings Clan and IS heat generation into balance. It appears that most Clans weapons will burn slightly cooler than IS now.
Brings Clan and IS survivability in to balance. All Clan XL's still can survive a single ST loss where as any IS 'mech with XL is dead after the same loss.

In fact, from what I've seen on the few clan mechs, with the ability to tweak quirks through omnipod change outs, the Clan ability to min/max their way to a 'mech with FAR superior abilities than anything an IS can bring has been INCREASED, and tremendously so.

I really think that Paul just doesn't get it.

That man needs to go incognito, join a mid tier IS unit and do nothing but play IS 'mechs in CW for a month. No meetings, no programming, no bull sessions, just plant his ass in front of a computer and actually PLAY the game as it is now.

Some of the **** they've done makes zero sense, ESPECIALLY after reading his explanation of what he thinks they've done.

Apparently being able to 'target' a 'mech is a great big deal... Only in very few cases, specifically if there a lots of missiles present.

When I'm firing my gauss at an enemy 1500+ meters away from me, I don't have him targeted, but I'm doing my best to hit the same location with every shot. I don't need a target lock for this, and a target lock sure as hell doesn't improve my aim or chances to hit the enemy where I want. So what gives with all the targeting centric quirks? It's pointless, UNLESS, I can somehow target THROUGH terrain, and of course you can only do that with UAV's, or if someone else has that 'mech targeted, and again, it ONLY makes a difference if I'm going indirect fire, which MOST players don't.

"It's a large WTF PGI, what the hell were you thinking?" situation...

[Vashramire]

Why do people only focus on the weapons? The point of this round of pts is for mostly movement and info balancing. Ideally we would have weapon quirks but they want to establish a base line of how weapons do without them, instead of inflating their damage by having the heavy quirks they currently have. Weapon quirks are coming back after they finish with this round they are going to do a weapon balance then add quirks back in but nowhere near as strong as before in accordance with their findings. This is the first wave of mobility/info quirks with a bit of structure/armor based on a formula that weighs mech stats. The formula obviously needs to be tweaked but in no way is the game balanced IS vs Clan atm.

This is a setup for how mechs handle. Does the heavy move and act like a heavy, not hit like a heavy. Some mechs just have ****** hardpoints without quirks. If you redo the whole game at once, it's hard to pinpoint if weapons are hitting too hard or mechs are too squishy. If mechs are melting with no weapon quirks, that says something about those weapons or the mechs melting because you only need to know the base values for the weapon, not that the mech got toasted because they fought a mech with a weapon system quirked for nearly double the dps when the base weapon performs nowhere near that. Even leaving in small weapon quirks throws the numbers off. If you play pts with IS you will likely lose. That's a given. It's not balanced yet and the current quirking is subject to drastic change as a result. We just need to validate if the new system is usable from a role warfare point of view (ie:are lights able to aid the team by scouting better now) or does it need a lot more work. Not "Clan beat IS hands down: PTS broken". Let's be a little more grown up.

Edited by Vashramire, 12 September 2015 - 12:22 PM.

[Dimento Graven]

Vashramire, on 12 September 2015 - 12:22 PM, said:

Why do people only focus on the weapons? The point of this round of pts is for mostly movement and info balancing. Ideally we would have weapon quirks but they want to establish a base line of how weapons do without them, instead of inflating their damage by having the heavy quirks they currently have. Weapon quirks are coming back after they finish with this round they are going to do a weapon balance then add quirks back in but nowhere near as strong as before in accordance with their findings. This is the first wave of mobility/info quirks with a bit of structure/armor based on a formula that weighs mech stats. The formula obviously needs to be tweaked but in no way is the game balanced IS vs Clan atm.

This is a setup for how mechs handle. Does the heavy move and act like a heavy, not hit like a heavy. Some mechs just have ****** hardpoints without quirks. If you redo the whole game at once, it's hard to pinpoint if weapons are hitting too hard or mechs are too squishy. If mechs are melting with no weapon quirks, that says something about those weapons or the mechs melting because you only need to know the base values for the weapon, not that the mech got toasted because they fought a mech with a weapon system quirked for nearly double the dps when the base weapon performs nowhere near that. Even leaving in small weapon quirks throws the numbers off. If you play pts with IS you will likely lose. That's a given. It's not balanced yet and the current quirking is subject to drastic change as a result. We just need to validate if the new system is usable from a role warfare point of view (ie:are lights able to aid the team by scouting better now) or does it need a lot more work. Not "Clan beat IS hands down: PTS broken".Let's be a little more grown up.

Vashimire it's not about being grown up it's about attempting to analyze something that appears to be absolutely broken from the get go.

AT BEST, these quirks were added in a VERY random fashion.

Again I refer you to this:

Hunchback AFTER Balance

I apologize for not getting the HBK-4H, I missed it somehow and the test server hasn't been up for me to get it added

From variant to variant we have a WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDE swing of performance values, and the swings make abso-f'ing-loutely no sense at all.

WHY does EVERY variant have its turn angle reduced? Unless the 4H has zero negatives to the Turn angle, the default turn angle of the Hunchback can't be achieved by ANY of the variants, AND, the turn angle quirk swings wildly from -35 to -5 degrees.

Add to that the f'ing weird acceleration/deceleration changes, swings in torso turn rate (I mean crimany the 4P and the 4P(C) have a -45% acceleration rate difference... WHY?!?!?!)

Switching from variant to variant will be like switching from Medium to Assault 'mech movement profiles and that's just absolutely stupid.

NOW, take a look at the current quirks (minus the weapons, because they don't count now, right):

You'll note the movement profile is consistent across all variants of the same chassis.

How in the F can PGI call the current pre-balance pass of quirks 'balanced' when it swings from variant to variant so violently?

It's this bizarre, random, and well, apparently ******** mishmash of quirks that we're calling out, and as I've mentioned in other threads, the fact that the Clans get to game their quirk system by swapping out omnipods to get the most beneficial mix of quirks DOES NOT help the community believe that this is a "good" long term solution.

Edited by Dimento Graven, 14 September 2015 - 08:32 AM.

[Vashramire]

Ya the algorithm's busted. Anything with multiple high weapon points got trashed by it (like the 4P) and it seems to think all Hunchbacks are unfairly fast or running high XLs all the time so if nerfs torso twist. What we were given was raw calculations from an equation that was suppose to give values to hardpoints, placement, weight, and movement and then attempt to balance that. Well the math's busted. It's not like someone went and gave each mech the goofy states they have, it was basically chosen by bad math. Some things are valued too highly and severely nerf unnecessary values. I personally would like for them to be a bit more uniform in their quirks, especially the side torsos which I think are pretty good on live. They know this isn't balanced and it's just a first pass. It only seems random because we don't know the formula they are using for determining quirks. It doesn't take much for them to change something since most people's reaction to some of the random nerfs is "this makes no sense on this mech".

[Dimento Graven]

Vashramire, on 14 September 2015 - 08:56 AM, said:

Ya the algorithm's busted. Anything with multiple high weapon points got trashed by it (like the 4P) and it seems to think all Hunchbacks are unfairly fast or running high XLs all the time so if nerfs torso twist. What we were given was raw calculations from an equation that was suppose to give values to hardpoints, placement, weight, and movement and then attempt to balance that. Well the math's busted. It's not like someone went and gave each mech the goofy states they have, it was basically chosen by bad math. Some things are valued too highly and severely nerf unnecessary values. I personally would like for them to be a bit more uniform in their quirks, especially the side torsos which I think are pretty good on live. They know this isn't balanced and it's just a first pass. It only seems random because we don't know the formula they are using for determining quirks. It doesn't take much for them to change something since most people's reaction to some of the random nerfs is "this makes no sense on this mech".

Compare the 4SP vs the 4J.

The 4SP has 5 energy, 2 missile, the 4J, has 6 energy, 2 missile.

4SP TAD = +2, the 4J has +0.5

The 4SP has 2 high mounted lasers, and 2 high mounted missile slots, one in each side torso.
The 4J has 4 high mounted lasers, and 2 high mounted missiles slots on one side torso.

If this were to even begin to make the slightest sense, it'd be the 4J with the TAD of +2...

This crap makes ZERO sense.

Edited by Dimento Graven, 14 September 2015 - 09:23 AM.

[Inflatable Fish]

Dimento Graven, on 14 September 2015 - 09:22 AM, said:

Compare the 4SP vs the 4J.

The 4SP has 5 energy, 2 missile, the 4J, has 6 energy, 2 missile.

4SP TAD = +2, the 4J has +0.5

The 4SP has 2 high mounted lasers, and 2 high mounted missile slots, one in each side torso.
The 4J has 4 high mounted lasers, and 2 high mounted missiles slots on one side torso.

If this were to even begin to make the slightest sense, it'd be the 4J with the TAD of +2...

This crap makes ZERO sense.

the 4SP has four arm-mounted lasers and only one high-mounted laser in the head slot.

that aside, I'm baffled why the 4SP has the same hit point buffs for (both!) its side torsos as the 4G, which has a WAY more pronounced hunch that is also much more critical for its performance. taking into account only the quirks we have now, it's by far the most beefed up and tanky variant of them all. (because the GI p. much requires an XL)