Nightmare1, on 29 September 2015 - 08:16 PM, said:
I think it's at the best state it's been in to date. I also think that the Clans should maintain some advantages over the IS since that is the Lore. Otherwise, why bother to call them Clans and why bother to even include them in the game if they're little more than locked down, glorified IS Mechs?
I'm an engineer; I understand about design. What I'm saying is this: MWO has too many features for it to be balanced. You can't balance a pulse laser with a Gauss. You can't balance the LRM with anything. You can't balance SRMs with PPCs. Each system has a unique combat niche. It's not as simple as some run-and-gun where you have a shotgun, a pistol, a rifle, and a machine gun. Those are all quick and easy to balance. Here, it's way too different.
For the Clans and the IS each:
You have four calibers of AC/s with 3 different firing mechanisms.
You have SRMs.
You have LRMs.
You have 3 sets of lasers.
You have 3 sets of pulse lasers.
You have Gauss.
You have two types of PPCs.
You have MGs.
You have Flamers.
You have 3 types of streak missiles.
You get the picture. With so many weapon systems, it's impossible to find a complete balance. The best thing to do, is settle on an acceptable meta, as most online games do, and then add additional content to help balance it via dilution. All your meta tryhards will run the meta regardless, but most everyone else that's just playing for kicks (like me) will run what they want for fun. The end result is that the meta is there, but it's less prominent due to the abundance of additional systems for normal play.
A great example of this is Star Trek Online. Like with any game, it has a distinctive meta that they were unable to fully balance with the rest of the game. To remedy this, they added additional content, and continue to do so on a regular basis. As a result, while the meta remains the comp players' choice, the new content and the continued addition of content serves to add playstyle diversity that dilutes the meta's presence outside of the comp matches.
If Ghost Heat were removed from all ballistics (not just the AC/2) and all missiles, then balance would be a bit better. If hit reg for SRMs was fixed, that would help with balance. LRMs are a whole can of worms on their own, so I won't touch on them here. If PPC/ERPPC heat was reduced, that would help balance them a little. Reactive and Reflective armor are ways to help balance the game without having to change any weapon values. These are all minute adjustments that could be made to improve game balance without resorting to drastic nerfs. In the end, the same goal is achieved, but in a much more harmonious manner.
All I'm saying, is that the game feels good right now in both the solo and the group queues. I don't think we need more nerfs. I think the game suffers from a lack of depth more than balance and that new content would give players a reason to run something other than the meta. In short, it can't hurt and the success of other games shows that it works.
understand when some of us are calling for "balance" we are not asking for all weapons to be "equal" simply that no single weapon is the "best" weapon in all circumstances
like now generally speaking the best loadouts for IS involve some hyper-quirked mech boating laser vomit amplified by quirks. Clans in general want whatever mix of LPL+ER med lasers or gauss+LPL/ER Med Laser. this is not balance, this is one specific mix of weapons overshadowing all others and in general it is the only viable weapons loadout to bring when everyone else is packing it too.
balance to me is every weapon having a purpose and a place, and that it be good at its purpose. SRMS and big ballistics should be king of the brawl even if it takes making AC 20's have 5x internal health for example.
alot of balance has to do with maps as well because maps will dictate which weapons are favorable for those combat conditions (like cold maps being favorable to all energy loaouts) and alot can be done in the map department (removing invisible walls, fixing spawn locations, adding or removing cover from certain spots est). this is a hard one to work around so the best overall solution is to just concentrate on making weapons perform well at their purpose and then going to the maps and making sure that they are large and varied so that no single weapon is a "good" weapon in all places. IE getting ganked in LOL, a char thats good at jungling and ganking a lane is good because he can take advantage of the grass/leap over lanes est then hide and spring. if LOL didnt have that grass, unique char abilities, or intelligently thought out lane construction ganking simply wouldn't be possible.
also to clarify when i say "slightly" im talking about 1%-5% generally.
but the way i see it
- as a general rule all cockpit shake should be reduced significantly and only big guns like gauss/ac20/lrm20's/ppcs should knock you about violently. also being hit by weapons shouldn't obstruct your view as much as they do, example ballistics making big fiery explosions regardless of size, tone down the smoke/flames its not necessary and i find it rather annoying. these are the 2 reason that AC2's got nerfed so hard (which was a stupid short sighted decision), when the simple solution was tone down the shake and smoke.
- ghost heat should go and only be applied to curb the higher end of boating IE i think its reasonable to raise the cap on clam LL, all PPC's and all ac20's to 3. in fact there shouldn't even be ghost heat on ballistics, if we toned down ammo per ton a bit people would either have to trade speed for ammo or place shots carefully. i think it was wrong to include any ballistics in ghost heat. there should be no ghost heat on any pulse lasers IS or clan, and idk how i feel about the 6 limit on med lasers but its probably very close to "balanced" maybe make it 8 but it really feels close to good balance. clam small/med/pulse/ER lasers should not be in the same ghost heat pool at all it literally is what pigeonholes clans into taking 6 lasers and a gauss.
- all endo and ferro should be unlocked on clan mechs to "normalize" them all, then weapons will be much easier to balance so they dont have to be over nerfed for over performing mechs or under-nerfed causing under perfoming clam mechs to need "hyper-quirks".
-if you swap ferro for endo (warhawk for example) the endo should go right in the same spots as the ferro did, and if you add endo to ferro it should add them on a 1-1 basis IE if a RT in a clam mech already has 1 crit of ferro adding endo will use another crit in that location. this might require that some mechs get a few more of those locked DHS unlocked for endo space, i dont care if you have to pay to remove them and i dont care if endo/ff is three times (or more) as expensive on clams as IS.
- this will automatically help balance it out. because mechs that already have lets say a ferro crit or two in an arm can no longer sling an ultra/lbx 20, or you may have to choose to keep or lose an actuator or go down a gun size to add endo.
-scrap the increasing heat cap with more heat sinks, make all double heat sinks "true dubs" and having more just means you cool off faster. SHS stay inferior to DHS in almost all circumstances.
weapons as a whole are balanced not because they are equal but because each one is good at its use. I think weapons weight should stay as it is for the most part.
- normal lasers should be mainline weapons that are a good balance of range, heat and damage/dps/damage falloff, clams should get normal laser variants in the same vein. they do exist and would help balance to have.
- ER lasers should have good range/less damage falloff and good damage but lose their edge up close because of extra heat.
- Pulse lasers (of all kinds) should have their beam duration and recycle times shortened with higher heat then normal lasers and damage should fall steeply outside of optimal range to give you a "brawling" laser. the CLPL is the outlier here, all other pulse lasers can be balanced easily but the CLPL will have to take a small hit and i think it should be heat.
- all wub should wub well IE if you sneak up on someone, or the fight opens at close ranges, all other things equal, mechs boating mainly long range weapons should get murdered by wub/brawlers and in general pilots not in a brawler should be terrified of letting wub machines get close to them.
- ER/PPCs should have good (fast) projectile speed and range and
even be easy to hit with but to compensate they should run very hot (increase heat in the realm of 20%-30%) and have much longer cooldowns (at least 50%) and fine tune as needed.
--- ISvsClam energy balance--- should work as thus, clams keep their better range with
no beam duration penalty but all their lasers make more heat then a comperable IS laser. IS lasers have
slightly faster cooldowns and lower heat making them more deadly once in "optimal" range.
- LBX cannons should have their crit chance at least doubled and all LBX's should get slightly faster (shorter) cooldowns (compared to normal AC's) to reflect that they are brawling weapons and meant to dish out crits up close.
- normal AC cannons should get a small COF but overall maintain high accuracy even at optimal range, with deviation skewing proportionally the farther the rounds go past "optimal" range with slightly less heat then ultra AC's they should be treated much like normal IS lasers being common mainline weapons they should perform well and have a good balance of range, damage and low heat.
- ultra ac's should have a slightly (very slightly) wider COF then normal AC's but still maintaining good accuracy out to their optimal range, they should make slighy (and i mean slightly) more heat then normal AC"s, play with jam chance to bring them into line as far as balance and when you do tweak it in small amounts like 2.5% to find the sweet spot. so that ultras can retain their status as DPS dealers with the trade-off of jam chance, slightly reduced accuracy and slightly higher heat.
^^when im talking about COF i mean at "optimal" range, if you aim a cannon at the CT of a mech standing dead still it should not deviate far enough to miss but just far enough to maybe hit that LT/RT instead of CT with normal AC's being "spot on" almost all the time. ballistics should still maintain their bullet drop but it should be reduced a bit from current values.
- Gauss should simply get a longer cooldown and this will be tricky but i would say no less then 35% and no more then 65% longer then current values and play in 5% increments to find the sweet spot.
---ISvsClam Ballistics Balance- overall clams get lighter AC's and keep the multiple projectiles on AC's/ultras. I say pick 1 of 3 things or very small amounts of each
1 clam AC's are slightly less accurate vs IS AC of same caliber
2 clam AC's get slightly longer cooldowns vs IS AC of same caliber
3 clam AC's make slightly more heat vs IS AC of same caliber
---as for Clam Gauss since it has better range and weight compared to the IS gauss make it have a slightly longer cooldown then the IS Gauss to compensate but think and play in small increments (5%-10% tops) its not really that much better overall.
- SRMS all should have a much higher chance of critting and all SRMS should have their spread reduced (i think around 20%-30%ish would be about right). Artemis should make SRM spread demonically tight at the risk of having to make sure your tight cluster hits with little room for missing. im fine with SRM speed, ghost heat limit should be 4 for all sizes, maybe shorter cooldowns and slightly less heat and i mean maybe, i think tightening the spread+increase cap to 4 alone will help alot.
- SRMS should be feared along with big ballistics and wub in a knife fight if you didn't come prepared.
--- ISvsClam SRMs balance --- IS gets cooler running, faster firing SRMS, clams get lighter/smaller launchers with better range and a bit faster projectile speed, both have the same spread/damage. there you go PGI.
- Streaks in general should have slightly longer cooldowns and slightly higher heat compared to normal SRMS but almost instant lock status when you are in weapons range especially if a target is tagged or narced. but generally i find streaks pretty well balanced already. ISvsClam balance should be the same as normal SRMS. IS could really use a streak 4 and 6 launcher timeline be damned.
-LRMS should be fire and forgot (with LOS/TAG/NARC/UAV) with more missiles connecting the longer the lock is held. Artemis should make a huge difference in lock on times with LOS easily cutting it in half. LRMS should lose all Artemis buffs when fired indirectly. indirect fire should not be possible without a TAG, UAV or narc beacon. keep LRM damage spreading.
-LRM launcher size should be normalized an LRM 20 should not be a waste of space. multiple smaller launchers should dish out more DPS with more damage spread and higher heat, big launchers should make less heat and have better accuracy.
--- ISvsClam LRM balance--- pretty much is fine as long as IS keeps its "lobbed" fire and clams keep their "blue rainbow" just remove ghost heat from launchers or increase the cap to 4 across the board.
---Radar---
-ECM should lose its stealth bubble and stealth armor period. simply counter BAPs extended sensor range and Artemis buffs on that mech. It should prevent indirect fire on that target wholesale. and it will still be the most potent piece of equipment on the battlefield.
-Bap should increase sensor range and reduce lock on times and target info times with LOS.
-Tag should be invisible to the eye but the receiver should get a notice (like narc) that he is being tagged.
-Tag\Narc\UAV+LOS should equal almost instant lock on and paper doll info when within sensor range.
- Light mechs should have better sensors then bigger mechs across the board and get higher bonus's then normal from things like BAP/TAG/UAV's so they can you know
scout and find those juicy targets.
-meds should profit slightly more but not as much as lights with things like BAP/TAG/UAV's.
-heavys and most assaults should be about on par concerning sensors unless they are a "command mech" from lore in which case give them a small sensor buff.
- Fix the maps so they offer less funneling and more angles to attack defensive positions, balance cover and spawns so mechs dont get ganked in the first minute of a game (lookin at you tourmaline and caustic).
just as a few thoughts concerning balance
Edited by Mellifluer, 29 September 2015 - 11:47 PM.
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