572 replies to this topic

[Vellron2005]

Wintersdark, on 14 October 2015 - 01:24 AM, said:

I'd certainly be happy with the weapon nerfing, given their lighter/smaller nature, if they also unlocked the omnimech customization.

After all, locked customization is a very poor means of balance: it doesn't create better balance or serve as a "disadvantage to counter other clan advantages" because it's a fixed, but not equally applied factor. It only serves to ruin mechs that don't have an optimal set of "locked" features, while it totally leaves those optimal mechs aside.

What people ultimately have to realize is that given an equal numbers game, Clan weapons are going to have to be - HAVE to be - actually worse than IS weapons. They are smaller, they are lighter, they are used alongside safer XL engines. That doesn't mean worse in all ways, but it does mean that the sum of them must be worse than the sum of IS weapons.

You can't have a faction mounting more, better weapons, and achieve balance.

Previously, they've attempted to balance the factions by adding quirks, but this has turned out to require massive quirks. Massive weapon quirks are basically identical in end result to simply having IS weapons be better weapons.

This method - nerfing the clan weapons - is exactly the same thing as buffing IS weapons (or extremely quirking IS mechs) except it reduces TTK instead of increasing it.

Why would they HAVE TO BE worse or even equal to IS weapons?

This issue is simple to solve... Clan lasers have MORE RANGE, and MORE HEAT than IS lasers, and do comperable damage.. it was always like this, in every MW game... ever.

I don't understand why people just look at range, and completely disregard the heat? Yes, My Timby can outrange you. But it will also shout down on me, letting you close in and alpha me in the face..

So as a Clan pilot, I MUST, by default, have superior heat-menagement skill to actually use my lasers effectively..

I mean the Clan's whole "shtick" is to use their superior warrior skills to "throw caution to the wind" and take their equipment to its limits in order to win, while IS keeps is safe and confy.

That's why clan cockpits are basic, spartan and minimalistic, while IS cockpits have leather seats and coasters.

Edited by Vellron2005, 14 October 2015 - 01:32 AM.

[ElricVonRabenfels]

Quote

Lasers will not do full damage when striking a ‘Mech that is not target-locked from a range greater than 60% of the Laser’s Maximum Range.

I -generally- like reduced laser ranges as it'll make brawlers more viable, but that laser lock-on mechanic is just... wrong?

Edited by ElricVonRabenfels, 14 October 2015 - 01:31 AM.

[Tincan Nightmare]

Man, for all the 'give IS greater numbers and Clans OP mechs' crowd, please try to think this out to the logical conclusion. When the majority of players are presented two options, if one is straight out better and more powerful, they will more than likely choose that option. I mean be honest, would you rather play in a over powered mech, ensured to get some kills against a cannon fodder opponent, or drive a lower powered unit with the knowledge that you are going to die often and have lowered chances of even getting a kill during a match? The result would be wait times even worse than they are now (probably worse than CW), as the MM struggles to find enough IS pilots, which compounds the problem as that is the faction that would need more pilots per match.

[Kin3ticX]

fully agreed

Most of whats going on here is freakout over nerfing clan lasers a bit while super quirking an IS mech a year ago was not as big a deal. Nothing has weapon quirks in the PTS2, and if the PTS2 is well received I imagine quirks will be much milder from here.

Quirk system is being pushed to it's limits on the live build, thats why there are 50% cooldown quirks and such.

Edited by Kin3ticX, 14 October 2015 - 01:45 AM.

[Matthew Ace]

Tuku, on 14 October 2015 - 12:35 AM, said:

The heatsink thing gets me....Clan heat sinks dropped down to 1.2 heat dissapation. Clan weapons...most of them are hotter on the whole than IS weapons...Maybe drop them some to bring them in line but 1.2 is a bit much in my opinion.

Clan Doubles are raised from 0.14/s to 0.15/s, but capacity lowered from 1.4 to 1.2.

[Vellron2005]

Tincan Nightmare, on 14 October 2015 - 01:32 AM, said:

Man, for all the 'give IS greater numbers and Clans OP mechs' crowd, please try to think this out to the logical conclusion. When the majority of players are presented two options, if one is straight out better and more powerful, they will more than likely choose that option. I mean be honest, would you rather play in a over powered mech, ensured to get some kills against a cannon fodder opponent, or drive a lower powered unit with the knowledge that you are going to die often and have lowered chances of even getting a kill during a match? The result would be wait times even worse than they are now (probably worse than CW), as the MM struggles to find enough IS pilots, which compounds the problem as that is the faction that would need more pilots per match.

I usually always side with the underdog... That's probably why I don't own a DakaWolf.

The reason I play clan wolf is lore based. I probably would not play any other clan, and would rather play Davion, Steiner or Wolf's Dragoons if there was a Mercenary faction.

I would rather have superior numbers than superior equipment, and would rather have superior skill than superior numbers.

I would fully support 10 vs. 12 if it would stop all the "clans are op" bullshait, and would enjoy the numbers challenge.

Edited by Vellron2005, 14 October 2015 - 01:40 AM.

[Dakkss]

Tincan Nightmare, on 14 October 2015 - 01:32 AM, said:

Man, for all the 'give IS greater numbers and Clans OP mechs' crowd, please try to think this out to the logical conclusion. When the majority of players are presented two options, if one is straight out better and more powerful, they will more than likely choose that option. I mean be honest, would you rather play in a over powered mech, ensured to get some kills against a cannon fodder opponent, or drive a lower powered unit with the knowledge that you are going to die often and have lowered chances of even getting a kill during a match? The result would be wait times even worse than they are now (probably worse than CW), as the MM struggles to find enough IS pilots, which compounds the problem as that is the faction that would need more pilots per match.

Which is why you also have IS vs IS and Clan vs Clan like CW to to mitigate the wait times. There are also a lot of people very dedicated to Battletech lore here and strictly pilot IS battlemechs. Most of which play in teams with teamspeak or whatever and thus are very organised and effective, enough to beat out 2 Clan Stars.

[Too Much Love]

Igor Kozyrev, on 14 October 2015 - 01:28 AM, said:

Have you actually listened to the community this time?

No, they didn't. Its just a new round of nerf-this buff-that circle.

Its hard to call "less triangles" stuff a great achievment. How much work it requieres to forge such a magnificent plan? 20 min? 2 hours?

Meh, so easy to satisfy the crowd. Why make really new content then?..

[Wintersdark]

Vellron2005, on 14 October 2015 - 01:29 AM, said:

Why would they HAVE TO BE worse or even equal to IS weapons?

This issue is simple to solve... Clan lasers have MORE RANGE, and MORE HEAT than IS lasers, and do comperable damage.. it was always like this, in every MW game... ever.

I don't understand why people just look at range, and completely disregard the heat? Yes, My Timby can outrange you. But it will also shout down on me, letting you close in and alpha me in the face..

Please slow down, and read my post more carefully.

I didn't "just look at the range and disregard the heat" - when I said Clan weapons had to be worse than their IS counterparts, I also said (see the text you quoted):

Quote

That doesn't mean worse in all ways, but it does mean that the sum of them must be worse than the sum of IS weapons

By "sum of them" I mean the combined weapon, all it's features. Heat. Range. Beam Duration. Damage. Etc. Everything. Right now, the cERLL is superior to the IS ERLL, even including all the factors. It's just better. AND it's smaller, and it's lighter. It's simply better. Yes, it's hotter and has a longer beam duration, but given all the factors it is, in absolutely no way, well balanced.

I'm not saying the range thing was the right way to go, but it's better than further increasing burn duration (worst idea ever; makes them unusable, greatly pushes up FF, etc). Alternatively, they could have matched damage, left the heat higher.

[Kmieciu]

Wintersdark, on 14 October 2015 - 01:28 AM, said:

Thus, cERLL: 740m Optimal, + (740*0.6) = 1184m maximum range; cERML: 405m Optimal, + (405*0.6) = 648m maximum range.

Your math is even more convoluted than PGIs ;-)

It's quite simple in the XML code, really.

Right now we have:
name="ClanERLargeLaser"
longRange="740"
maxRange="1480"

All they really change is the second number AKA maxRange.

Sitting back at 800 meters and spamming 2xc-ERLL is IMHO quite stupid right now. 22 damage for 20 heat during 1.5 seconds smeared all over the enemy? And you'll get double gauss-ed in return. When I see those ERLL jokers in game I just laugh and torso twist all the damage.

I'd rather be doing 61 damage @ 464 meters during 1.2 seconds. With 0 ghost heat.

But that's only me. Nobody else is using the LPL+ERML combo.

Edited by Kmieciu, 14 October 2015 - 01:48 AM.

[Kin3ticX]

ElricVonRabenfels, on 14 October 2015 - 01:30 AM, said:

I -generally- like reduced laser ranges as it'll make brawlers more viable, but that laser lock-on mechanic is just... wrong?

Yeah, same here, this feature is out there. Save for nerfing clan range, this feature was bound to be controversial. On paper its strange and can only be playtested extensively to see how players try to use this. I imagine PGI is trying to create a reason to have an "info mech". Not saying I think it will work but some people have wanted something like a stock+ raven-3L (light with bap/tag/narc) to be a thing. Currently a combat centric light is how lights are seriously played.

Thing im sort of worried about is being in the solo queue and nobody brought an infomech

Edited by Kin3ticX, 14 October 2015 - 01:43 AM.

[Wintersdark]

Kmieciu, on 14 October 2015 - 01:40 AM, said:

Your math is even more convoluted than PGIs ;-)

It's quite simple in the XML code, really.

Right now we have name="ClanERLargeLaser" longRange="740" maxRange="1480" All they really change is the second number AKA maxRange.["]

I understand how the XML's look.

If they just reduce the 1480 by 40%, then you get the absurd 888m range, and IS LL's outranging Clan ERLL's. This is the literal reading of what they wrote, but it doesn't make a lot of sense.

I get the math I posted above seems weird and convoluted, but it's basically the only answer that isn't totally messed up.

[Blood Skar]

Kin3ticX, on 14 October 2015 - 01:22 AM, said:

That math cant be right.

Look at the ERML

If you reduce 405 by 40% you get 243m, less than a ML. Doubt PGI would do that.

His math was perfectly correct. 1480 reduced by 40% is 888.
However PGI havn't made clear what they mean by the ''40% to max range''.

It's just like them not to have responded to this thread... sadly being here and about since oct 2012..it's not really much of a surprise to me. Customer service and responses to threads was never their strong point.

Lets hope that reduction is to ABSOLUTE max range and not OPTIMAL range. I'm guessing it probably is Absolute max range as they said 'Max Range' and not Optimal range....but who knows..they have done sweeping changes before.

All it would take is a dev to pop in here and just type a 2 sentence clarification. Shouldn't be that hard to do should it?

[Vellron2005]

Wintersdark, on 14 October 2015 - 01:39 AM, said:

Please slow down, and read my post more carefully.

I didn't "just look at the range and disregard the heat" - when I said Clan weapons had to be worse than their IS counterparts, I also said (see the text you quoted):

By "sum of them" I mean the combined weapon, all it's features. Heat. Range. Beam Duration. Damage. Etc. Everything. Right now, the cERLL is superior to the IS ERLL, even including all the factors. It's just better. AND it's smaller, and it's lighter. It's simply better. Yes, it's hotter and has a longer beam duration, but given all the factors it is, in absolutely no way, well balanced.

I'm not saying the range thing was the right way to go, but it's better than further increasing burn duration (worst idea ever; makes them unusable, greatly pushes up FF, etc). Alternatively, they could have matched damage, left the heat higher.

I read your post entirely, and understood it just fine

Yes, the CERLL is superior, but it has drawbacks... to make it more balanced, they should focus on the drawbacks, not nerf the advantages.

YES, make the damage and beam duration same, range an heat greater, size smaller - and there you go.. Solved all Clan lasers.

The CERLL is basically a ERLL on steroids. You invest more energy and less space to go farher for same effect. That's what clan lasers should be and have been in every other MW game..

I don't understand what's the issue here..

[Túatha Dé Danann]

The most disturbing thing in this whole wall of text is the heat efficiency reduction of Clan DHS. Clan weapons create more heat per second than their IS counterpart - a reduction will kill most of the Clan mechs. Right now, there are Clan Builds out there that run on the edge of 30% (Smurfy) heat efficiency and you cannot make it better - which will kill some of the more "hotter" weapons right off the bat. This includes most laser-builds (RIP Nova - again! Because it was so OP, right?) and will kill certain weapons entirely from the game (Clan ER-PPC).

Killing off content is BS. Create a new system! You had 3 years time for that!

[Dakkss]

Blood Skar, on 14 October 2015 - 01:48 AM, said:

It's just like them not to have responded to this thread... sadly being here and about since oct 2012..it's not really much of a surprise to me. Customer service and responses to threads was never their strong point.

All it would take is a dev to pop in here and just type a 2 sentence clarification. Shouldn't be that hard to do should it?

I recall people getting answers quicker and more frequently on Twitter and Facebook when directly asking the devs, it caused some discouragement from the community about why the main website barely got any attention.

Perhaps someone try twitter. I would, but I don't use it.

[Kmieciu]

Blood Skar, on 14 October 2015 - 01:48 AM, said:

His math was perfectly correct. 1480 reduced by 40% is 888.
However PGI havn't made clear what they mean by the ''40% to max range''.

I'm willing to bet ''40% to max range'' means maxRange*0.6

[Vellron2005]

Blood Skar, on 14 October 2015 - 01:48 AM, said:

His math was perfectly correct. 1480 reduced by 40% is 888.
However PGI havn't made clear what they mean by the ''40% to max range''.

It's just like them not to have responded to this thread... sadly being here and about since oct 2012..it's not really much of a surprise to me. Customer service and responses to threads was never their strong point.

Lets hope that reduction is to ABSOLUTE max range and not OPTIMAL range. I'm guessing it probably is Absolute max range as they said 'Max Range' and not Optimal range....but who knows..they have done sweeping changes before.

All it would take is a dev to pop in here and just type a 2 sentence clarification. Shouldn't be that hard to do should it?

Yeah, that would be really helpfull actually

[Kin3ticX]

Túatha Dé Danann, on 14 October 2015 - 01:51 AM, said:

The most disturbing thing in this whole wall of text is the heat efficiency reduction of Clan DHS. Clan weapons create more heat per second than their IS counterpart - a reduction will kill most of the Clan mechs. Right now, there are Clan Builds out there that run on the edge of 30% (Smurfy) heat efficiency and you cannot make it better - which will kill some of the more "hotter" weapons right off the bat. This includes most laser-builds (RIP Nova - again! Because it was so OP, right?) and will kill certain weapons entirely from the game (Clan ER-PPC).

Killing off content is BS. Create a new system! You had 3 years time for that!

Clan DHS have the same cooling (1.5), smaller heatcap, major difference

[Too Much Love]

Personally I don't care at all. All those changes are meaningless.

Ok, there will be a new meta: maybe not a laser vomit, but gauss ppc again, maybe not a stormcrow but some trebuchet or whatever. So whats the point? To change A for B? To make more "fog of war"? Does it really bothers someone?

All those changes are flat, its only a surface.

And this game still HAS NO STORY, NO BACKGROUND FOR FIGHTING, NO GOALS, CW IS DESERT etc. And the worst of all - it won't change ever.