19 replies to this topic

[Mcgral18]

TL;DR summary at the bottom.


It seems your starting algorithm was...a strange thing. It nerfed some of the worst mechs in the game, removing their Quirkening buffs, then still removing agility via Nega-Quirks.

Then, on the other side of things, you, against all logic and sound reasoning, have significantly buffed the TimberWolf and Dire Whale. Double digits buffs.

Krivvan, on 11 September 2015 - 08:53 PM, said:

The PTS meta is the same as the regular game meta, minus all the meta IS mechs.

For most of the good Clan builds, you can use the omnipods in a way to avoid all the negative quirks and just get positive quirks:




So the best Clan mechs effectively got buffed. And the IS mechs all nerfed. I know they know the PTS wouldn't have Clan vs. IS balance, but this thread was asking for what PTS meta was so....

Then you've got the Myth Lynx and SadCat that are shafted:



I mean, that heat efficiency is totally worth it!
Unlike the God Tier robots, those mechs cannot pick from a large variety of effective pods. They lack hardpoints to do that.


This is the issue with Clam CT Omnipod quirks...they stack lots of NegaQuirks on the CT, then positive ones on the other Pods.

The result was taking the CT with the least amount of NegaQuirks, then mounting the hardpoints needed, then start offsetting the NegaQuirks with spare Pods. As seen above, you can min max the hell out of it, making them far better than the current Live server, while the Myth Lynx above is a fair bit worse.


Solution? Don't NegaQuirk the hell out of the CTs for no good reason.
Let's take a look at the Cute Fox Prime-CT:

-<component name="centre_torso">
<Quirk name="torsoangle_yaw_additive" value="-30"/><Quirk name="torsospeed_yaw_multiplier" value="-0.2"/>
<Quirk name="accellerp_all_multiplier" value="-0.2"/><Quirk name="decellerp_all_multiplier" value="-0.1"/>
<Quirk name="turnlerp_all_multiplier" value="-0.05"/><Quirk name="targetscantime_short_multiplier" value="1"/>
<Quirk name="targetscantime_medium_multiplier" value="0.33"/><Quirk name="targetretentiontime_additive" value="-2"/>
<Quirk name="targetacquisitiondelay_additive" value="3"/>
</component>

-30 to Torso Yaw...which starts at 120. It gets cut down to Assault level twist distance (Current KCrab starts at 100), with no good reason to do that.

The above Whale has nearly the same torso yaw, for reference.



A better solution? Don't quirk every single omnipod. Give Nega-Quirks to the Pods that need it, and to the CT of the mechs who need it, exclusively. Don't Nega-Quirk every single mech in the game...except for the God Tier ones. That's just ridiculous, on so many levels.

Example? Give the Timby a 20% twist speed Nega-Quirk, on every CT. No getting around it. See how that pans out. It would marginally decrease damage spread ability, but all it does is remove the Double Basics efficiency (making it the same twist speed as a Trial Timby, but faster and it still twists further).

Not a small increment by any means, but a single, easy variable. Not something that can be completely avoided, as seen above.

For the Whale? Dunno. Maybe twist range. It's already very restricted, and cutting it further would make spreading damage very hard. It has the firepower to facetank anything and kill it, but focus fire would take them down even faster than present.
It can sword and board nearly all the firepower, so it can tank quite a bit with the current twist range and speed, but not sure what the proper nerf would be. Test Servers are good for that...


As for Inter Faction balance, without quirks, it's rather rubbish. Worse, you've nerfed some of the worst mechs out there, for no good reason. Negative Turn speed on a Commando? Negative sensors on Light Mechs? Slow Accel on a LOLcust? It's insane.

To try and fix the Inter Faction balance, perhaps you should try to do one of Paul's favourite things:


Well, perhaps not all of them. In fact, let's start with only 1 thing. Extra Light engines.

The cXL is one of the largest differences between Clam and IS balance. It allows you to safely take more firepower, which is always a good thing. Currently, the Clam XL gets a minimal 20% heatsink nerf with CT loss, to the heatsinks located in the CT (TrueDubs and External). isXL gets death.

Normalize that part. Give the isXL 50% penalties, and cXL 75% penalties. Extend the penalties to Speed and Agility (Twist speed, Accel) as well.

Start at those numbers, and see how things match up.

To prevent STD engines from being obsolete, give them incentive. Not having essentially single heatsinks when Sword and Boarding is nice, but certainly not the biggest factor. Give them significant Structure buffs (yes, not as good as armour, but still something). Either exclusively to the CT, to the tune of 30, or also to the STs (since you could reinforce the STs because the XL engine isn't there?). Make it significant enough, even Clam Battlemechs are tempted to put one in, occasionally (Single Ballistic Hunch IIC? It has the CT mounts).

Also greatly increases TTK. IS mechs won't be bringing more firepower than the Clams currently do, but everything would die slower (headshots aside).



Weapon wise, well, if you're complaining about laservomit, it's pretty damn obvious why it's at the top. Everything else has been rendered garbage. AC2 nerfs? MG nerfs? Over 20% straight up damage nerfs to both those weapon systems. Missiles? Utterly rubbish in comparison. You get worse performance than lasers at much shorter range, without the ability to pinpoint your damage, on top of having to work with slow travel speed.

SRMs with Artemis used to have a large amount of skill to how effective they were. They flew in and out, converging at a set distance, potentially hitting as few as a single hitbox on large mechs. Deadly, but incredibly short range. A nice Risk to Benefit ratio, no?
You've changed SRMs to be nearly static in spread after the initial large jump. Past 10M, you have nearly max spread immediately, nearly a 12M CoF on the cSRM6. That's from head to knee on an Atlas, from 30M or 200M.


Solution? There are a few options. Reduce spread, return of the old Artemis flight path, damage buff, travel speed buff.

All are nice. 2.5 damage, 500M/s, with In and Out Artemis Flight Path (and smaller base spread)? Beautiful. Give that to isSRMs, and smaller buffs (travel speed and spread only?) to Clam SRMs. Half weight shouldn't have the same effectiveness, but they still need to exceed Lasers at 20M.


LRMs are rubbish, and with the Jesus Box, there's too many variables when you throw these sensor Nega-Quirks in. Allow LoS locks, like in MWLL. It avoids that issues nicely, if you're in range and can see the mech, you can lock on. Indirect firing is something someone else can discuss.


Machine Guns took that 20% nerf, and retained the 3M CoF. Remove one or both of those nerfs, for Clam and IS MGs. Keep the CoF on the Clam to account for half weight? It was a pointless nerf, that ruined an already mediocre weapon system.

AC2s could have their cooldown brought back down, on top of having their heat reduced. 4 DPS, they were still bad weapons. You decreased that to under 3. Bring it to 3.5, with 0.8 heat per shot as a starting point. Less worthless, but still pretty bad.

Flamers? Buff the ******* damage. You've kept them worthless for YEARS. If you don't want them to have a noticeable effect on the enemy heat, let them be damage dealers with a sub 100M range. FFS, you can't possibly make a weapon worse than this...aside from that time you did. When all missiles were affected by the cLRM damage reduction min range...gotta love 0.05 damage SRMs at 10M.

Give Flamers 2 DPS. Yes, 0.2 Damage per tenth of a second, up from 0.07. That's if you keep their ridiculous heat gain, and short range while also being a constant fire DoT weapon. An easy change for you to make, literally change this:

-<Weapon faction="InnerSphere" HardpointAliases="Energy,Flamer,ISFlamer" name="Flamer" id="1007">
<Loc iconTag="StoreIcons\Flamer.dds" descTag="@Flamer_desc" nameTag="@Flamer"/>
<WeaponStats maxDepth="10.0" volleydelay="0.25" speed="100" lifetime="1.0" duration="-1.0" tons="1" maxRange="90.0" longRange="90.0" minRange="0" ammoPerShot="0" ammoType="" cooldown="0.0" heat="1.0" impulse="0.0" heatdamage="0.0" damage="0.7" numFiring="1" projectileclass="" type="Energy" slots="1" Health="10" maxheight="0" critChanceIncrease="0.14,0.08,0.03" critDamMult="1.1" trgheatinctime="3.0" heatinctime="6.25" coneoffire="10"/>

to this:

-<Weapon faction="InnerSphere" HardpointAliases="Energy,Flamer,ISFlamer" name="Flamer" id="1007">
<Loc iconTag="StoreIcons\Flamer.dds" descTag="@Flamer_desc" nameTag="@Flamer"/>
<WeaponStats maxDepth="10.0" volleydelay="0.25" speed="100" lifetime="1.0" duration="-1.0" tons="1" maxRange="90.0" longRange="90.0" minRange="0" ammoPerShot="0" ammoType="" cooldown="0.0" heat="1.0" impulse="0.0" heatdamage="0.0" damage="2.0" numFiring="1" projectileclass="" type="Energy" slots="1" Health="10" maxheight="0" critChanceIncrease="0.14,0.08,0.03" critDamMult="1.1" trgheatinctime="3.0" heatinctime="6.25" coneoffire="10"/>

WOW, that was hard.



From there, there's the cERML issue. One strange suggestion I've heard, and not minded? Change the 2x range max from Clam lasers to 1.5x.

405-810 for the cERML changes to 405-607.5M.
That's as opposed to an unquirked isML at 270-540.
Less damage, but also less heat. It's a starting point, to be adjusted upon. Start with it affecting all Clan lasers?

Not sure how easy a change that is, but it might be as easy as this:

-<Weapon faction="Clan" HardpointAliases="Energy,Laser,MediumLaser,ERLaser,ERMediumLaser,ClanLaser,ClanMediumLaserFamily,ClanMediumLaser,ClanERLaser,ClanERMediumLaser" name="ClanERMediumLaser" id="1212">
<Loc iconTag="StoreIcons\ClanERMediumLaser.dds" descTag="@ClanERML_desc" nameTag="@ClanERML"/>
<WeaponStats maxDepth="10.0" volleydelay="0.0" speed="0" lifetime="0" duration="1.15" tons="1" maxRange="810" longRange="405" minRange="0" ammoPerShot="0" ammoType="" cooldown="3.0" heat="6.0" impulse="0.0" minheatpenaltylevel="7" heatpenalty="1.4" heatdamage="0" damage="7" numFiring="1" projectileclass="" type="Energy" slots="1" Health="10" visRange="1500" heatPenaltyID="10"/>

to

-<Weapon faction="Clan" HardpointAliases="Energy,Laser,MediumLaser,ERLaser,ERMediumLaser,ClanLaser,ClanMediumLaserFamily,ClanMediumLaser,ClanERLaser,ClanERMediumLaser" name="ClanERMediumLaser" id="1212">
<Loc iconTag="StoreIcons\ClanERMediumLaser.dds" descTag="@ClanERML_desc" nameTag="@ClanERML"/>
<WeaponStats maxDepth="10.0" volleydelay="0.0" speed="0" lifetime="0" duration="1.15" tons="1" maxRange="608" longRange="405" minRange="0" ammoPerShot="0" ammoType="" cooldown="3.0" heat="6.0" impulse="0.0" minheatpenaltylevel="7" heatpenalty="1.4" heatdamage="0" damage="7" numFiring="1" projectileclass="" type="Energy" slots="1" Health="10" visRange="1500" heatPenaltyID="10"/>

There may be other implications, but I don't know them.
The cLPL would go to 900, which is still pretty damn significant, but lets work on starting points to begin with. Test Server can resolve the iterations.



Well, all that text and it can be summed up pretty easily.
TL;DR?

• Don't NegaQuirk bad robots. Nega-Quirk God Tier robots
  
• Normalize XL engines
  
• Give STD engines significant Structure bonuses (CT at minimum, possibly ST)
  
• Buff SRMs, LRMs, MGs
  
• ******* buff Flamers
  
• Change the 2x Extended laser range for Clan Lasers to 1.5x (as a starting point)

Edited by Mcgral18, 12 September 2015 - 09:39 PM.

[Rebas Kradd]

Or at the very least, explain your reasoning for once. I'm trying very hard to give the benefit of a doubt and assume that there's a reason why Tier 1 mechs got buffed and Tier 5 mechs got nerfed. It would help if I knew what it was.

[Mister Blastman]

Buff Flamers and SRMs! Do it PGI. Do it!

Why oh why did you give Tier 1 robots buffs and Tier 5s nerfs? I don't understand.

[Adiuvo]

This is a really good post. I agree with everything except for the XL changes, I'd rather just see the cXL have further drawbacks such as speed reduction and heat capacity loss. Your solution isn't bad either though.

[Yokaiko]

Mister Blastman, on 12 September 2015 - 07:54 PM, said:

Buff Flamers and SRMs! Do it PGI. Do it!

Why oh why did you give Tier 1 robots buffs and Tier 5s nerfs? I don't understand.

Pretty sure it was procedurally generated (their new BV) and failed to account for many things of over corrected for the wrong things.

[Mcgral18]

Adiuvo, on 12 September 2015 - 08:08 PM, said:

This is a really good post. I agree with everything except for the XL changes, I'd rather just see the cXL have further drawbacks such as speed reduction and heat capacity loss. Your solution isn't bad either though.

Which part don't you like? The not dying, or significant difference in penalties?


Or the big buffs to STDs? I admit...I like the idea of a LOLcust getting +60 structure (30CT, 15 per ST) if it runs a STD...but I'm not sure if it should be that high, and also if it should scale with tonnage.

[KraftySOT]

Im pretty darned sure they did not plan for all the quirks to be removed permanently and this to be anywhere near the final draft.

It seems like now what they mean to do, is to actually do this in steps of sort. They said theyd be doing quirks based on their metrics of inhouse BV. Well...except I think an Orion and the Locust, there are no quirks. There is a new sensor system. But there are no redone rebalanced quirks, and why on earth would they have nerfed the ACH, just to renerf it and completely remove quirks entirely for weapons and heat with this system.

I hate to throw a wrench into what is a fantastic and spot on post.

I just am pretty sure what we saw for 24 hours or so, is simply the sensor system.

There was a really huge kneejerk reaction that this was somewhere near done. Yeah they kinda intimated it was near done, but, obviously upon inspection, it isnt. They probably might have to do a "quirks button" or fly away window, or even a popup for them, because between sensors, AND weapons AND structure, AND armor quirks, theres information bloat. Thats simply to much to display or deal with, its even messier .xmls...

Still. Fantastic post.

[Adiuvo]

Mcgral18, on 12 September 2015 - 08:18 PM, said:

Which part don't you like? The not dying, or significant difference in penalties?


Or the big buffs to STDs? I admit...I like the idea of a LOLcust getting +60 structure (30CT, 15 per ST) if it runs a STD...but I'm not sure if it should be that high, and also if it should scale with tonnage.

Mainly just the buff to STDs. Idk, I think the game really needs to have a punishment for doing something stupid like walking into a Daishi firing line, and even now unless you *really* screw up it's pretty forgiving with proper twisting, especially so assuming that they'll eventually be logical and nerf clan weaponry.

[Mcgral18]

Adiuvo, on 12 September 2015 - 08:25 PM, said:

Mainly just the buff to STDs. Idk, I think the game really needs to have a punishment for doing something stupid like walking into a Daishi firing line, and even now unless you *really* screw up it's pretty forgiving with proper twisting, especially so assuming that they'll eventually be logical and nerf clan weaponry.

The idea is otherwise, STDs would become useless. isXLs would become worse cXLs, but the survivability would still be roughly on par.


What else would you do to STDs to keep them relevant? Sword and Boarding at 100% is its own benefit (fun on the live server HGN...old but not so gold), but unless you want to run an AC20, there wouldn't be a point to the STD engine.


Structure seems like a nice way...but come to think of it, not sure how hard that would be to program.

I'm trying to make these changes as easy as possible, copy pasting current code, or just .XML edits. Perhaps some would actually be considered by PGI.


Truth be told...I'm not sure 60HP would save you from a Daishi firing line anyways...
Also being Structure, doesn't save you from Crits, of which Gauss is one of the best. Perhaps I should add that in...0.5 Crit Damage Multiplier for Gauss Rifles to only deal 7.5 Crit Damage per crit, making blowing out weapons rarer (but still very possible).
Not really a downside to all the positive aspects.

Edited by Mcgral18, 12 September 2015 - 09:06 PM.

[KraftySOT]

And theres absolutely no reason not to do that to the flamer first thing monday morning.

Seriously someone tweet that to Russ. Thats stupid easy to fix. Its not perfect, but itll do until they figure out something else.

I want to see 18 and 20 DPS flamer machines that blow themselves up immediately. Im dead serious. Do this. Monday morning. FFS do something right for once this year.

Edited by KraftySOT, 12 September 2015 - 08:34 PM.

[Yokaiko]

That harkens back to throwing 9 flamers on -4Ps and cooking the ammo out of LRM Cats.

[KraftySOT]

Adiuvo, on 12 September 2015 - 08:25 PM, said:

Mainly just the buff to STDs. Idk, I think the game really needs to have a punishment for doing something stupid like walking into a Daishi firing line, and even now unless you *really* screw up it's pretty forgiving with proper twisting, especially so assuming that they'll eventually be logical and nerf clan weaponry.

For some reason, not being a clammer, I have no idea what youre talking about really. What does your standard engines have to do with getting shot. I would think not getting penalties for losing half your mech is better than getting penalties for losing half your mech, but that theres probably some clam mech that has a STD engine and is also free tonnage deficient. But thats really not the point right? Its MOREFIREPOWER that you can mount with an XL in MWO because of the way the whole thing works.

I didnt even know you guys had standard engines. I mean I know they in theory exist, but ive never seen a clan mech in Battletech with a standard engine on the field lol

Why on earth would you even BUILD a mech with a standard engine when you have an extra light engine that doesnt have 3 crits in a ST....MOARFIREPOWERNHEATSINKS.

Seriously...they could use a buff. If their "advantage" is more survivability. Then they need their survivability aspect scaled up. I hear you poor guys talking about having 7 tons free on a 45 ton mech and crap and I feel legitimately bad for you.

Edited by KraftySOT, 12 September 2015 - 08:46 PM.

[Mcgral18]

KraftySOT, on 12 September 2015 - 08:34 PM, said:

And theres absolutely no reason not to do that to the flamer first thing monday morning.

Seriously someone tweet that to Russ. Thats stupid easy to fix. Its not perfect, but itll do until they figure out something else.

I want to see 18 and 20 DPS flamer machines that blow themselves up immediately. Im dead serious. Do this. Monday morning. FFS do something right for once this year.

It would be nice if they had a use, they're just in such a sad state.

[Andi Nagasia]

the best idea i saw was Duke Nedo's on Engine Crits,

Duke Nedo, on 10 July 2015 - 01:47 AM, said:

The suggested engine "normalization" is imo an excellent step in the direction of Balance without any serious drawbacks. Let me expand a little on this.

The suggestion I threw out in the OP just to give an example how it could be done in the simplest way. From the OP
______________________
1. Allow individual crit slots to be destroyed in the engine
2. Make harsh penalties for losing an engine crit slot, like 10% cooling, 10% speed per slot
3. Increase death by engine destruction to 4 crit slots
______________________

What does this mean? It would mean that both IS and clan XLs would survive losing one side torso. By doing so, the IS Version would lose 3 engine slots, then clan Version (and any future LFE I think) would lose 2 engine slots. With the numbers about, a lost ST for an IS mech would mean -30% cooling and -30% speed, and for a Clan mech it would mean: -20% cooling and -20% speed.

Isn't that fair? The IS XL engines would still be worse than clan XL in every conceivable way. They would be the same weight, 2 more slots, and larger penalty for lost ST and have no benefits.

The other good thing with XL normalization is that mechs that do not suffer too badly from XL ST Death ("XL safe") also do not gain so much be getting safe XL, which means that there is no risk of overpowering any mech by doing this. It's a completely safe change that can only improve Balance. If they would instead opt for achieving the same by ST armor buffs, these could easily become wrongly scaled and either do nothing or OP some mechs.

Some argue that STD engines would be obsoleted, which firstly is not entirely true since mechs with low engine cap don't really benefit from XLs, like Stalkers and the slow Awesomes. Secondly, it can easily be countered by giving for example STD engines a Component HP buff of appropriate size, whatever that is. Something in between could be done for LFEs, if they should be introduced at all.

All in all, I'd argue that XL normalization like this would be a really elegant step towards Balance. PGI still have the tonnage penalty difference between weapon/Equipment to deal with, but the XL fix would cut the amplitude of the problem approximately in half, reducing the need for extremely strong quirks.

(LINK)
now Engine Crits dont really have to be created for this, just use a (ST loss = Negative Quirk),

i do agree weapons need to be rebalanced Tech(IS) to Tech(Clan),

i think ACs are in a good place IS vs Clan, thought their are some Outliners(AC2(both sides)(C-Gauss)

i think Lasers could be reworked to be more balanced for instance,

and then Use a Simple Range for Heat Ratio(MLs)70m = 1Heat)(IS-ML 280M@4Heat)(C-ERML 420M@6Heat)

Missiles need to be balanced as well but targeting i think needs some work before that,
Edit-

Edited by Andi Nagasia, 13 September 2015 - 08:32 AM.

[Mcgral18]

Andi Nagasia, on 13 September 2015 - 08:30 AM, said:

the best idea i saw was Duke Nedo's on Engine Crits,

(LINK)
now Engine Crits dont really have to be created for this, just use a (ST loss = Negative Quirk),

i do agree weapons need to be rebalanced Tech(IS) to Tech(Clan),

i think ACs are in a good place IS vs Clan, thought their are some Outliners(AC2(both sides)(C-Gauss)

i think Lasers could be reworked to be more balanced for instance,

and then Use a Simple Range for Heat Ratio(MLs)70m = 1Heat)(IS-ML 280M@4Heat)(C-ERML 420M@6Heat)

Missiles need to be balanced as well but targeting i think needs some work before that,
Edit-

I'm generally trying for simple, although there are a few things above that go beyond existing code.


Any difference to my suggested XL nerf and your suggested one? Both have negative effects once the ST is gone.


1.4s seems... a tad excessive for the ERML. I'd prefer a damage and heat reduction to that. Remember how the ERLL feels? Not very nice.


Aside from the Artemis thing (less spread works too) my SRM suggestions were .XML edits. More damage, less Spread and faster velocity. All simple variables.

Targeting would be nice, and ideally it should also change for LRMs, but I'm not hoping for that. More damage, less spread, make them useful.

[Andi Nagasia]

Mcgral18, on 13 September 2015 - 01:31 PM, said:

I'm generally trying for simple, although there are a few things above that go beyond existing code.

Any difference to my suggested XL nerf and your suggested one? Both have negative effects once the ST is gone.


1.4s seems... a tad excessive for the ERML. I'd prefer a damage and heat reduction to that. Remember how the ERLL feels? Not very nice.

well in a way these are simple too,

no not adding Engine Crits but instead,
C-XLs take -20% Speed on ST loss, retains its life after ST loss,
IS-XLs take -30% Speed on ST loss, retains its life after ST loss,
(yes, both are similar and ether would be better than Nether)

1.4 is abit Excessive, but those values were for the Example not my thoughts,
as current ML has 0.9 Duration its possible the Values would look more like,
(1Damage = 0.18Duration)(1Heat = 70m Range)
Table,........Weapon,...Damage,...Duration,...Heat,... Range,...
Current,... IS-ML.............5,.............0.90,........4,.........270m,...
Current,... C-ER-ML,.......7,.............1.15,........6,.........405m,...
New,......... IS-ML,............5,.............0.90,........4,.........280m,...
New,......... C-ER-ML,.......7,.............1.28,........6,.........420m,...
so with the new Balance C-ER-ML will gain +0.13Duration +15Range,
Edit-

Edited by Andi Nagasia, 14 September 2015 - 03:37 PM.

[Mcgral18]

I guess that could be tried, but as a second iteration.


I did forget to mention the PoorDub buff, that 0.6x buff to heat dissipation. PGIs 5% buff doesn't normalize the Heatsink count as it's only 1.9 VS the 2 it should be for certain 7 TrueDub robots.

My suggestion brings it to the full 2.0 that it should be, without fixing the issue...

[Xavier]

Here is the role warfare solution. Allow pilots to choose the role of each of their mechs through the mech skill tree.

for a larger image click this link

https://pbs.twimg.co...AV-Zb.png:large

Edited by Xavier, 14 September 2015 - 11:11 AM.

[Duke Nedo]

This needs to be on page 1.

As for clan-vs-is XL implementation... as long as they address it, anything goes. Just make the gap smaller by any means, we need it! PGI needs it! Balance without superquirks requires it...

[Mcgral18]

Duke Nedo, on 16 September 2015 - 05:47 AM, said:

This needs to be on page 1.

As for clan-vs-is XL implementation... as long as they address it, anything goes. Just make the gap smaller by any means, we need it! PGI needs it! Balance without superquirks requires it...

It needs a more thrilling title to remain on Page 1 and get the views in.
This one's a tad too modest.