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Some of these suggestions are well received:
http://mwomercs.com/...-scale-effects/
(97.48% liked, literally only one dissenter).
Some are not. (http://mwomercs.com/...h-damage-alpha/)
It's high time, after the most recent balance pass, I offer my thoughts again and piss in the proverbial wind. Some of us just like the rain, I guess.
Step one:
Balance IS vs Clan - IS gets lots of durability. Clans get their current damage profile. This is nearly identical to what was proposed by PGI with many significant systems-specific changes (see below. The idea here being that total time to kill is effectively the same (clans can take less damage but do more of it, inner sphere can do less damage but take significantly more).
* Increase inner sphere armor by 25%.
* Increase inner sphere structure (all mechs, all components) by 25-40%.
* Tune down all IS 'weapon quirks' for cooldowns to a maximum of 15. Leave all others in place.
This also gives us variety, huzzah!.
Step two:
Fixing LRMs, ECM, AND AMS in one go:
* Increase LRM speed by approximately 15%, decrease all LRM spread by about 5%.
* ECM - applies only to the mech using it. NO MORE AOE PROTECTION. This heavily favored clans due to their ability to put ECM on any variant that had a chassis with it vs IS being stuck with one-two generally sub-par chassis per weight class (barring lights).
* AMS - Triple or quadruple it's ability to down missiles. Each AMS system should be able to take out HALF of an incoming 20-missile volley, at least. Overlapping systems and prioritization are already built in game - it's just completely useless because AMS is such **** ATM. Increase ammo consumption by 25% to compensate for this.
What this does is give you slightly more effective LRMs, ECM becomes what it was meant to be - a scout specific or role specific mech-only item which doesn't give your team a massive advantage for a minimal weight cost. Meanwhile the LRMs are offset by the use of AMS which now actually has VALUE instead of just being a lump on your shoulder that takes out maybe 10% of incoming missiles.
Step three:
Make low class/light weapon systems functional:
* Machine guns - remain the same damage profile, decrease cone of fire by 50%, increase range by 300%. This gives a 'light suppression' effect or constant DPS ability to light mechs which lack it as of current.
* Flamers - Triple the heat given to enemies (up to 90%, as per current standards), make it cost a flat heat amount to the firer equivalent to half a small laser per second. This is opposed to it's current metric of a EXPONENTIAL (logarithmic) increase when dealing damage to an enemy resulting in it overheating the firing mech before the affected mech is hit.
* Bring IS-SRM and IS-Streak-2 SRM damage back up to 2.5 per missile.
- leave clan systems the same - they're already stupidly light and easily boatable.
* IS C.A.S.E. - reduces crit chance on component structure by 50% (so (baseline + tarcomp + weapon bonuses) / 50%) limits explosions to that area as it does currently.
* MASC - reduce rate of increase by 20%. It simply builds up too fast as of current, despite my love of it. It's good for like 12 seconds, tops, which is kind of missing the point.
Step four:
Make public queue gameplay more favorable to light and medium mechs:
* Depending on queue depth, offer a scaling 'reward band' of higher mech experience (5-15%) and cbill payout (5-15%) for low queues. INCENTIVIZE US PGI.
* Give scout mechs 800-1000m detection ranges with faster acquisition. Give fire support and skirmishers 5-800m ranges. Give brawlers and front line troops 350-500m detection range.
* Add in an 'enhanced thermal imaging' module which gives us our original thermal with longer view distances (increase by 100-200m). Takes up mech module slot. Possibily limit it to mechs with 800-1000m 'targeting systems'.
Step five:
Balance clan weapons:
I'm not talking meganerfs here; I'm talking bringing them into line weapons-wise by reigning in the ridiculous components. Specifically:
* Clan pulse lasers - reduce their damage to IS values, per TT.
* ERML - needs more heat or a lower ghost heat threshold (like 4, vs 6).
* CGAUSS - reduce ammo per ton by 2-3 to compensate for it's blatant '**** you I'm better' factor.
* Reduce jam chance on all UAC5's by 5%-10%. This should apply to IS UACs as well.
NOTE - I am *NOT* in favor of nerfing other component systems for clans such as their XL/etc.
Step six:
Heat effects:
As mentioned in the link above, I believe heat effects should be added on a scale as you increase heat. Specifically:
40% heat - blanket 5% cone of fire added to all direct fire weapons. Movement degraded by 5%.
70% heat - blanket 10% cone of fire added to all direct fire weapons. Blanket 10% chance to crit a fired weapons system or heat sink for 2 damage per firing (up to a max of 6 damage on a bad crit roll). Movement degraded by 10%.
90% heat+ - Blanket 15% cone of fire added to all direct fire weapons. Blanket 30% chance to crit a fired weapon system or heat sink for 2 damage per firing (up to a max of 6 damage on a bad crit roll). Movement degraded by 20%.
100% heat - current, though I think it needs more damage done to assault mechs per second over 100%. Lights need a reduction on damage inflicted. Medium/heavy seem about right. All crit effects from 90% heat also carryover.
I realize this is severe.
To offset:
Step seven:
Fix ballistic weapons:
* reduce AC20/UAC20 heat by a quarter. Eliminate ghost heat for firing two AC/UAC20's.
* fix machine guns (see step 3).
* Restore AC/2 damage per second by giving it it's original CD and reduce heat by half.
* reduce all other ballistic weapons heat by half.
* Universally reduce jam chance on all UAC's by 5-15%.
* Restore 3x range for AC2's. Or alternately, increase all AC2 range by 20%.
* Give clan AC's (not UAC) 30% more ammo per ton.
* Remove all 'variant specific' ballistic heat and cooldown quirks.
This provides a solid offset and a valid reason to use ballistic weapons as well as effectively killing the 'laser vomit meta' while still giving you effective laser weaponry for long range/sustained fire.
I'm sure I could come up with more, but that's about it for now. If you like it - bombard russ's twitter with it
Edited by Gevurah, 06 October 2015 - 12:04 PM.
