15 replies to this topic

[Duke Nedo]

...make up your minds and make some statements.

While waiting for the great rebalance, it's really difficult to keep expectations in line when there are so many fundamental things that you are not sharing with us.

1. Will you address IS XL engine ST loss survivability vs clan XL ST loss survivability? Yes or No? Whether you do this or not turns up the amplitude of the required/expected quirks by a factor 2.

2. Will you unlock endo/ff on Omnimechs? Yes or No? While it does not affect faction balance that much (except HBR), it has a huge impact on clan intra-balance and the expectations for the crippled mechs.

3. Will you re-balance IS and clan weapons and equipment? Yes or No? When? How much? Once again, this affects the required/expected levels of quirks by almost a factor 2 as well.

Finally, since it was hinted at in the October roadmap that the great rebalance may never even reach the live server unless it's a significant improvement to what we have now (certainly not any time soon™), can you PLEASE allocate one working day for one of your employees with the most in game experience to go over the existing quirks and weapon stats. I'm asking for 8 hours to make some xml edits, and I'm thinking obvious things like Mist Lynx, Summoners, Vindicators, Shadowhawks, Cataphracts, Victors, Atlai, Flamers, Machineguns, AC/2, LBXs, IS smalls + a general look on the quirks of the most recently released variants where you have been overly cautious with quirks.

This would lift a lot of frustration from me at least.
Hugs and kisses.

Edited by Duke Nedo, 07 October 2015 - 11:34 PM.

[Naduk]

Ferro/endo should not be unlocked for clan mechs, they are already far too powerful
the clan lock situation is merely a symptom of the actual problem, it is also supposed to be one of the factors that makes them balanced vs IS

if you had to choose between ferro or endo , endo wins hands down every time no matter what
its simply better and its painfully obvious even to new players

what needs to happen instead is Ferro gets a buff, give it a in game 6-12% damage reduction (before armor)
this .. or something like this, will make Ferro an attractive choice for close combat mechs
it would be a hard choice between the extra weight return or the extra survival for mid range mechs
and long rangers might consider it to offset their XL engine but will have a hard time trading it for endo

Edited by Naduk, 08 October 2015 - 12:13 AM.

[Duke Nedo]

Naduk, on 08 October 2015 - 12:13 AM, said:

Ferro/endo should not be unlocked for clan mechs, they are already far too powerful
the clan lock situation is merely a symptom of the actual problem, it is also supposed to be one of the factors that makes them balanced vs IS

if you had to choose between ferro or endo , endo wins hands down every time no matter what
its simply better and its painfully obvious even to new players

what needs to happen instead is Ferro gets a buff, give it a in game 6-12% damage reduction (before armor)
this .. or something like this, will make Ferro an attractive choice for close combat mechs
it would be a hard choice between the extra weight return or the extra survival for mid range mechs
and long rangers might consider it to offset their XL engine but will have a hard time trading it for endo

I agree that FF could use a buff to justify its existence... and any change would likely increase the TTK which is probably a good thing.

About balance though, locked endo/ff only hurts the clan omnimechs that don't have it. What defines clan vs IS balance is how good the best mechs are, i.e. SCR, ACH, EBJ, TBR, HBR, DWF. Of these, only the HBR would become better as all the others have what they need (the DWF don't have enough free slots), so it would require special attention, definitely. In all other cases, unlocking endo/ferro would only help the poor omnis that are crippled by not getting access to it, like Summoners, Novas, Maddog, Gargoyle, Warhawk etc.

Edit: I.e. it's rather safe (except for the HBR) to unlock endo/ff as it will almost exclusively improve clan-clan intra balance without destroying clan vs IS balance. Other locked equipment though is much more dangerous to touch, since that will buff the best clan Omnis. Omnis need some kind of drawback since they can swap pods to optimize both hardpoints and quirks, compared to the coming Battlemechs. The clan Battlemechs will be hard to balance, since if they ship with near perfect hardpoints these will have all the benefits possible, so they kind of need to ship with suboptimal hardpoints not to break things...

Edited by Duke Nedo, 08 October 2015 - 12:26 AM.

[El Bandito]

Oh you know how PGI is. Not saying anything until they drop bomb shells on us. You really should just tweet Russ about it, instead of posting it here, where no decision making staff will read it.

[Duke Nedo]

El Bandito, on 08 October 2015 - 12:39 AM, said:

Oh you know how PGI is. Not saying anything until they drop bomb shells on us. You really should just tweet Russ about it, instead of posting it here, where no decision making staff will read it.

Yeah, you're right, but that requires Twitter.... I'm too old for that.

[anonymous161]

Why do people still scream about anything ab out the game in the forums anymore? It has never done any good go on that stupid twitter to get a response which will likely be a no response or soon maybe.

Also why does it still say on their site we're hiring....obviously no one wants to work there.

[El Bandito]

Duke Nedo, on 08 October 2015 - 12:43 AM, said:

Yeah, you're right, but that requires Twitter.... I'm too old for that.

Says the guy who plays with robots.

It takes literally 5 minutes to set-up the thing, and Russ actually replies to some of those tweets. Just do it! Don't make me bring Shia LaBeouf in here.

Edited by El Bandito, 08 October 2015 - 12:45 AM.

[Duke Nedo]

El Bandito, on 08 October 2015 - 12:45 AM, said:

Says the guy who plays with robots.

Point taken, fair enough!

[Duke Nedo]

I did it (I think, lol).

[Karl Streiger]

Naduk, on 08 October 2015 - 12:13 AM, said:

Ferro/endo should not be unlocked for clan mechs, they are already far too powerful
the clan lock situation is merely a symptom of the actual problem, it is also supposed to be one of the factors that makes them balanced vs IS

if you had to choose between ferro or endo , endo wins hands down every time no matter what
its simply better and its painfully obvious even to new players

what needs to happen instead is Ferro gets a buff, give it a in game 6-12% damage reduction (before armor)
this .. or something like this, will make Ferro an attractive choice for close combat mechs
it would be a hard choice between the extra weight return or the extra survival for mid range mechs
and long rangers might consider it to offset their XL engine but will have a hard time trading it for endo

They have to unlock - or at least make all ClanOmnis using the best options - the low hp thor could have ES and FF, the Hellbringer maybe ES only, the Warhawk and DireWulf both ES

Well and considering the Nova - well the Nova....by by Nova when the Hunch II arrives

All ClanMechs need to keept in balance first and you can quirk the hell out of them - or you simple give them the option to have ES/FF swap JJs and Masc and remove fixed equipment even tune the engine a little bit.

When the gap between the Hellbringer > Summoner < TimberWolf is reduced - you could effective start to balance IS vs Clan - not a second earlyer....
other wise all those discussions are :
Your TimberWolfs..... our Orions vs your Thunderbolts our Summoners - not a good ground to start a good discussion

Edited by Karl Streiger, 08 October 2015 - 03:29 AM.

[Widowmaker1981]

Duke Nedo, on 08 October 2015 - 12:22 AM, said:

I agree that FF could use a buff to justify its existence... and any change would likely increase the TTK which is probably a good thing.

About balance though, locked endo/ff only hurts the clan omnimechs that don't have it. What defines clan vs IS balance is how good the best mechs are, i.e. SCR, ACH, EBJ, TBR, HBR, DWF. Of these, only the HBR would become better as all the others have what they need (the DWF don't have enough free slots), so it would require special attention, definitely. In all other cases, unlocking endo/ferro would only help the poor omnis that are crippled by not getting access to it, like Summoners, Novas, Maddog, Gargoyle, Warhawk etc.

Edit: I.e. it's rather safe (except for the HBR) to unlock endo/ff as it will almost exclusively improve clan-clan intra balance without destroying clan vs IS balance. Other locked equipment though is much more dangerous to touch, since that will buff the best clan Omnis. Omnis need some kind of drawback since they can swap pods to optimize both hardpoints and quirks, compared to the coming Battlemechs. The clan Battlemechs will be hard to balance, since if they ship with near perfect hardpoints these will have all the benefits possible, so they kind of need to ship with suboptimal hardpoints not to break things...

Its more complicated than that. The Timber for example IS hurt by locked ES/FF. Not as much as many other mechs, granted, but if it was unlocked on the Timber you could:

1) Get 7 (or 14) more crit slots by ditching FF, for certain builds. Allows more DHS to be stacked.

2) Streamline builds by moving the dynamic ES/FF crits to the arms, allowing more tonnage to be gained from removing arm armour, and move all the critical components/ammo to the mech centerline, so losing arms costs you nothing, when currently almost every timber build will lose important weapons/ammo if you take off the arms.

Its not JUST tonnage. there is more to it than that. However, with IIC mechs coming im of the opinion that ES/FF (and DHS) DO need to be unlocked for all Omnis, just to prevent them being obsoleted by the fully customisable Clan Battlemechs (look BEYOND just the 4 IICs announced so far......). Clan gear would/will need some overall nerfs, but that is inevitable anyway with IICs coming.

Edited by Widowmaker1981, 08 October 2015 - 03:29 AM.

[Duke Nedo]

Widowmaker1981, on 08 October 2015 - 03:29 AM, said:

Its more complicated than that. The Timber for example IS hurt by locked ES/FF. Not as much as many other mechs, granted, but if it was unlocked on the Timber you could:

1) Get 7 (or 14) more crit slots by ditching FF, for certain builds. Allows more DHS to be stacked.

2) Streamline builds by moving the dynamic ES/FF crits to the arms, allowing more tonnage to be gained from removing arm armour, and move all the critical components/ammo to the mech centerline, so losing arms costs you nothing, when currently almost every timber build will lose important weapons/ammo if you take off the arms.

Its not JUST tonnage. there is more to it than that. However, with IIC mechs coming im of the opinion that ES/FF (and DHS) DO need to be unlocked for all Omnis, just to prevent them being obsoleted by the fully customisable Clan Battlemechs (look BEYOND just the 4 IICs announced so far......). Clan gear would/will need some overall nerfs, but that is inevitable anyway with IICs coming.

Yeah, I didn't really consider 1), but that's certainly true. As for 2) I was thinking in such a way that locked armor slots would still occupy the same locked slots if present, just removed if endo was removed... but you may have a good point there as well, the easiest way to code it is to just apply the same construction rules as everything else...

Think it's necessary to unlock endo/ff for the greater good though.... but I'd still be very careful with unlocking everything for Omnis because they can after all swap omnis/hardpoints/quirks around which is quite often a game-saver for the weaker variants. If that comes completely for free, Omnis will always be equally good or better than clan battlemechs...

[Naduk]

Widowmaker1981, on 08 October 2015 - 03:29 AM, said:

Its more complicated than that. The Timber for example IS hurt by locked ES/FF. Not as much as many other mechs, granted, but if it was unlocked on the Timber you could:

1) Get 7 (or 14) more crit slots by ditching FF, for certain builds. Allows more DHS to be stacked.

2) Streamline builds by moving the dynamic ES/FF crits to the arms, allowing more tonnage to be gained from removing arm armour, and move all the critical components/ammo to the mech centerline, so losing arms costs you nothing, when currently almost every timber build will lose important weapons/ammo if you take off the arms.

Its not JUST tonnage. there is more to it than that. However, with IIC mechs coming im of the opinion that ES/FF (and DHS) DO need to be unlocked for all Omnis, just to prevent them being obsoleted by the fully customisable Clan Battlemechs (look BEYOND just the 4 IICs announced so far......). Clan gear would/will need some overall nerfs, but that is inevitable anyway with IICs coming.

the general trouble with clans is they do not pay for their positives
locked equipment is supposed to be the price for omni's ability to change their hardpoints
but they pay nothing for the lower weight, smaller size more damage weapons
their range is payed for with heat, but everything else is just flat out better, MWO has added beam time/shell count to help
but its not quite enough as insane IS quirks have proven

i think the first step we need to take is to fix the Ferro vs Endo situation
if a summoner is suddenly a whole lot less rubbish because it is forced to have Ferro , then we can start to look at how things balance out from there, yes we still have problems with power house mechs like the timby
but it should be its own case for balance, not the start point for all clan balance

i dont see IIC mechs causing omnis any grief no matter how they are presented
the power to build the mech with the hardpoints of your choosing is very very powerful
i wish my wolverine's were omni mechs and rest my case

[Dino Banino]

Well, in terms of Clan and IS balance, we must get rid of quirks. Anytime you're dealing with a large amount of numbers, especially with different values, there is NO WAY that absolute balance will ever be achieved.

1) Quirks need to go

2) C-ER PPC damage needs to be at 15-kinetic and not 15-splash; and PPC/ER-PPC projectile speed needs to come back to its faster self

3) Energy Weapons + Gauss Rifle need to have their cooldowns re-worked to be in sync with their ranges (Weapon range / 100 = new cooldown)

4) Balistic Weapons need to have their cooldowns set to 0.3sec/1 damage (AC/2 - 0.6; AC/5 - 1.5)

5) Machine Gun and Flamer need to have their damage set to 0.2 or 2/sec

6) Some form of BV or C-Bill balance implementation needs to exist to penalize a team for using too many Clan 'Mechs

[Widowmaker1981]

Naduk, on 08 October 2015 - 04:28 AM, said:

i dont see IIC mechs causing omnis any grief no matter how they are presented
the power to build the mech with the hardpoints of your choosing is very very powerful
i wish my wolverine's were omni mechs and rest my case

If you think hardpoint swapping is as useful as min-maxing engine size and dynamic endo steel / ferro fibrous crit placement, you simply dont understand mech building.

[Duke Nedo]

Widowmaker1981, on 08 October 2015 - 06:30 AM, said:

If you think hardpoint swapping is as useful as min-maxing engine size and dynamic endo steel / ferro fibrous crit placement, you simply dont understand mech building.

To be fair though, that depends on which hardpoints we are starting out with... think NVA-D or EXE-C or SMN-Prime. There will always be near perfect engines for Omnis and near perfect hardpoints for Battlemechs, and the opposite where you're just crippled and can't do anything about it.

It's a bit off topic though... think you started a new topic on it, will read up later and perhaps reply there.

What I'd wish for here is that Russ would just step up and point out the direction, dare to actually dig in and see it through...