15 replies to this topic

[Scandinavian Jawbreaker]

Ok had some time to fool around with the PTS. Looking at the numbers here and I am stunned. At first glance this looks very awful and at second glance just inconvenient. Ok let's start...

1. Jigsaw building

The idea might be good on paper to give certain omnipods different values but the execution is just an inconvenience for everyone. With the economy already being very tight in this game especially for Clan mechs, now you have to make a jigsaw out of your mech to get the proper combination. Ok... Here's what I see when I first looked at the Executioner:



Soo I was thinking, why the hell does my EXE-Prime get -40% (!!!!) turn rate nerf? Then looking at the omnipods I see the reason. Ok... Switch out EXE-Prime legs and put EXE-B legs instead to negate the effect. I also had EXE-A arm so switched it back to Prime and voilá, I suddenly have positive acceleration quirks. Looking at the heads I see that EXE-D head has nice positive quirks in it, choose it and the build is done... Costing 1,3 mil C-Bills. That is ridiculous but I now have a buffed EXE.



Looking at the Dire Wolf. Here's the first glance:



55% turn rate nerf for my B? While Prime with pretty much same weaponry actually has a BUFF? Looking at the omnipods again... I can drop it down to -45% with A legs but that's about it. S left torso alone gives -35% so ok, I can live without jumpjets especially when the Prime gets a direct buff.

The figures are ridiculous. Totally overboard. PGI said they'll drop the ridiculous weapon quirks but you just moved to ridiculous maneuverability quirks. Well done? You can game the build to your liking but instead of so called balance it is an inconvenience. It limits the options drastically and makes only couple omnipods worth using. It costs c-bills. That guy who's using "lacking" omnipod combination is just gimped against my beefed mechs. New player experience? LOL.

2. IS quirks wtf

There is some serious inconsistensy within the IS mechs. Is it truly so that those mechs that were good back in the day are considered OP to this day? If so you're just lost... I like the stuff you gave Highlander for example but let's look at HBK here:



Is this a joke? Is the 4P so feared? Instead look at the 4G, what is the explanation to this? The 4P is getting direct nerfs on this "balance" pass. Same thing with the Jenner. F gets no buffs and the Oxide for example gets ridiculous buffs. Also the Cataphract is getting nerfs... Just... LOL. Inner Sphere mechs will be in deep ****... you know why?

3. No weapon balance modifiers

The Clan weapons are considerably better all around. That's a fact. IS loses ALL weapon quirks and clans do not recieve negative ones. In fact good chassis' like Timber Wolf, Dire Wolf and Stormcrow getting buffs for movement and losing their negative modifiers will bring the game back to the state it was in when Clans arrived the first time - bad state. So this "balance" pass reverts everything back to that. If PGI wants to follow TT values they need to do something with the quirks, this pass does nothing. There will be only couple mechs powerful and maybe 1 of them is IS.

4. Infotech

Seriously lol. You do not give a **** about infotech all you need is weapons that kill enemy. That's it. Aside from roleplaying aspects or whatsoever this "infotech" is totally useless and I wonder how it was even considered as a balancing factor. Here are the balancing factors: Firepower, Survivability. There. Not hard.

I seriously hope that this pass will not go thru and PGI realises the fails they are doing. I suggest you hire a person who has the knowledge how to balance weapon systems and mech chassis'. So disappointed. Didn't even cover all areas.

[Yokaiko]

Here here.

Edited by Yokaiko, 12 September 2015 - 05:10 AM.

[Jack Shayu Walker]

The big thing to take away from this, is it's going to be brutal on new players. Honestly, be careful how you do it PGI, but clan mech omniquriks need some simplification. I got a kick out of bringing my main mech back up to snuff in the mech lab, but I can assure you, not everyone will feel the same. It's going to give your steam players headaches, bigtime.

[Yokaiko]

Jack Shayu Walker, on 12 September 2015 - 05:11 AM, said:

The big thing to take away from this, is it's going to be brutal on new players. Honestly, be careful how you do it PGI, but clan mech omniquriks need some simplification. I got a kick out of bringing my main mech back up to snuff in the mech lab, but I can assure you, not everyone will feel the same. It's going to give your steam players headaches, bigtime.

Gives me a headache, I still hadn't rebuilt most of my Timbers and Crows after the last "balance" pass.

[Jack Shayu Walker]

ugrakarma, on 12 September 2015 - 04:45 AM, said:

4. Infotech

Seriously lol. You do not give a **** about infotech all you need is weapons that kill enemy. That's it. Aside from roleplaying aspects or whatsoever this "infotech" is totally useless and I wonder how it was even considered as a balancing factor. Here are the balancing factors: Firepower, Survivability. There. Not hard.

I seriously hope that this pass will not go thru and PGI realises the fails they are doing. I suggest you hire a person who has the knowledge how to balance weapon systems and mech chassis'. So disappointed. Didn't even cover all areas.

Going to have to stop you there, infotech is important in terms of that target acquisition delay. I put a lot of time quirking out my mechs to bring that infernal number down.

[Yokaiko]

Jack Shayu Walker, on 12 September 2015 - 05:14 AM, said:

Going to have to stop you there, infotech is important in terms of that target acquisition delay. I put a lot of time quirking out my mechs to bring that infernal number down.

and that is the issue, at least the clan mechs have the option, IS get whatever they have an those values are all over the board.

[Jack Shayu Walker]

Yokaiko, on 12 September 2015 - 05:16 AM, said:

and that is the issue, at least the clan mechs have the option, IS get whatever they have an those values are all over the board.

Indeed, what I suggest is adapting Targeting Computers, Active Probes, and Command Consoles so they apply their effects via quirks, which will not only allow you to see the BAPs effects in more detail but will also allow PGI to give the equipment additional benefits that will interact with the new quirk system. The command console, could, for instance give any IS mech equipped with it, a nice suite of sensor buffs; something, mainly, to bring down that acquisition time since battlemechs can't swap pods.

This should all be done on top of simplifying the pod quirks. One way to do that is to just drop the whole scan time thing, it makes things look complicated but in practice it makes very little difference IMO.

[Yokaiko]

Jack Shayu Walker, on 12 September 2015 - 05:25 AM, said:

Indeed, what I suggest is adapting Targeting Computers, Active Probes, and Command Consoles so they apply their effects via quirks, which will not only allow you to see the BAPs effects in more detail but will also allow PGI to give the equipment additional benefits that will interact with the new quirk system. The command console, could, for instance give any IS mech equipped with it, a nice suite of sensor buffs; something, mainly, to bring down that acquisition time since battlemechs can't swap pods.

This should all be done on top of simplifying the pod quirks. One way to do that is to just drop the whole scan time thing, it makes things look complicated but in practice it makes very little difference IMO.

Why waste the tonnage when you have things like -200% target scan? Its STILL going to take three times as long to get a paper doll at that range, so why bother. MK1 eyeball go.

Or hope someone that CAN scan calls the weak point (which basically never happens in the pub queue)

[SpiralFace]

Is anyone actually playing with these mech to see how overbalanced they are? Or are they just complaining about a spread sheet stat?

I had a 70% quirk on my mad dog A's turn rate, I was like, WOW, thats pretty ridiculous.

Went into a match and tested it out, and while it was defiantly NOTICEABLE, I hardly considered it on the ridiculous side.

[Scandinavian Jawbreaker]

SpiralFace, on 12 September 2015 - 05:46 AM, said:

Is anyone actually playing with these mech to see how overbalanced they are? Or are they just complaining about a spread sheet stat?

I had a 70% quirk on my mad dog A's turn rate, I was like, WOW, thats pretty ridiculous.

Went into a match and tested it out, and while it was defiantly NOTICEABLE, I hardly considered it on the ridiculous side.

Yes. Ran them in the testing ground. They make a significant impact to the way mech maneuvers.

[Yokaiko]

SpiralFace, on 12 September 2015 - 05:46 AM, said:

Is anyone actually playing with these mech to see how overbalanced they are? Or are they just complaining about a spread sheet stat?

I had a 70% quirk on my mad dog A's turn rate, I was like, WOW, thats pretty ridiculous.

Went into a match and tested it out, and while it was defiantly NOTICEABLE, I hardly considered it on the ridiculous side.

I'd love to can't get a game going on PTS.

I will tell you getting a lock takes forever, its lots of Mk1 Eyeballing, PGI mega structured a lot of IS mechs, which is cool and all but it doesn't save the equipment under the armor.

If you have any questions on how insanely arbitrary the quirks are look at Cataphracts, apparently on a phract, ECM is of less value than hoverjets, THEN go look at Atlas where the D get +48 structure over like half of the mech and the D-DC gets...mobility nerfs.

[SpiralFace]

ugrakarma, on 12 September 2015 - 05:49 AM, said:

Yes. Ran them in the testing ground. They make a significant impact to the way mech maneuvers.

Yeah, and LRM's seem ridiculous in the testing ground, but are pretty much worthless in a live match.

I've been finding that while things do appear on the high side, when I get a match (when I get lucky enough to find one,) It offers a decent attribute, but is hardly ridiculous in comparison to some of the other things I could be getting.

[Jack Shayu Walker]

Scan time nerfs and buffs need to be more subtle and should be combined into a single value, it's the acquisition times that should be on the larger extreme. Acquisition should then receive big buffs from running Command Consoles or Targeting Computers, Active probe can then give a pretty hefty buff to scan time, pretty much bringing most mechs onto the buffed side of scan time while also countering ECM, and increasing sensor range.

[InRev]

One of the (many) big problems with this rebalance is how a lot of the changes don't even make sense between the variants of a chassis. To quote myself from the Hunchback forum:

InRev, on 11 September 2015 - 10:42 PM, said:

4SP and 4P which both use weapon systems with a 270 meter range have +200% and +300% short-range scan time and +2 and +4 acquisition delay, respectively.

So two historically strong brawler mediums are blind as bats in CQB.

It just makes no logical sense. Regardless of how useful or important the sensor quirks actually are, why would you nerf the close-range vision on a brawler mech? What are you trying to accomplish by doing this? Nerfing the long-range vision at least serves the purpose of pushing the brawling role, but this makes no sense at all.

And unfortunately, the PTS is full of examples like this. There's creating variant differentiation and then there's this.

[Lily from animove]

Pod balance is just non existent, on nearly any clanmech you have a closer look. not even speakign about individual CT's where module slots differ.

[Antares102]

ugrakarma, on 12 September 2015 - 04:45 AM, said:

4. Infotech

Seriously lol. You do not give a **** about infotech all you need is weapons that kill enemy. That's it. Aside from roleplaying aspects or whatsoever this "infotech" is totally useless and I wonder how it was even considered as a balancing factor. Here are the balancing factors: Firepower, Survivability. There. Not hard.

I seriously hope that this pass will not go thru and PGI realises the fails they are doing. I suggest you hire a person who has the knowledge how to balance weapon systems and mech chassis'. So disappointed. Didn't even cover all areas.

This.

Who at PGI really thinks that sensors can compensate for additional DPS.
This is not Planetside Mechwarrior with huge maps and hundreds of players.
This is arena death match. Info tech doesnt help to deflect enemy gauss.