572 replies to this topic

[Anarcho]

Guys, cmon, Use your brains...

The lock for lasers will only affect the damage PAST the optimal range... why? Be creative:

1: Tgts locked receive a bonus of stabilization from the computer, so at distance, the laser keep itself steady, and dont "spread" damage

2; Lasers in the future auto compensate power according to range (energy efficiency) so a target locked gives the exact range to the compute calculate the power necessary for full damage

3: My kids are singing here in the living room so I cant come with new ideas....

[Livewyr]

It's not perfect, but holy crap it is soooooo much better.


So much better.
ECM no longer the famine for LRMs, but still a hindrance. (Start firing up that AMS)
Clan Heatsinks and IS heatsinks working differently. (Interesting)
Clan overrange reduced on lasers (I would have done all clan weapon overange, but that was also with TT values)
Lasers in general not just being the long range kings without a spotter
Spotter needing to be concerned with positioning (Jenner isn't going to just stick his head out at 800 meters and immediately get his ST removed. Same with the Shadowcat)


There is still much more to do, but this breaks that 180 degree plane in the right direction, IMO.

[0oFoxtroto0]

is there an auto-lock function yet? no? why? people do not lock on...i live in a hell of empty red triangles.....

[Pardo Kerensky]

People that barely play a game trying to balance it.
Just stop.
The more you try to forcibly 'balance' this game the more you break it.

[Felbombling]

A couple of things came to mind as I read this...

A: Wouldn't it just be easier to throw away the term 'ER' for Clan lasers and just match up Inner Sphere weapon ranges? The Clan weapons would still have advantages of weight and crit space over the Inner Sphere Weapons. Even the outlier weapons for the Inner Sphere ER Large Laser and ER PPC are countered by damage values in favour of the Clan weapons, so let the Inner Sphere have a slightly longer ranged Large Laser option.

B: If you would consider dropping the huge heat pool available to Mechs as a counter to all the Alpha Strikes being used in game, I think you would see better results than increasing the performance of the Inner Sphere heat sinks, in general. At first glance, it looks as though you will only be giving Inner Sphere Mechs more breathing room to Alpha Strike one more time.

C: ECM change! /happydance

[Tremendous Upside]

I think what I find most ironic about these changes is that they're being labeled as a mech rebalancing - while they're essentially throwing all of their efforts in that regard out the window. This isn't an attempt at rebalancing mechs. It's an attempt to throw out the current game meta and force a new one to emerge - same as they've ever done. It's no different than jump jet changes, ghost heat, etc.

[Livewyr]

DrSlamastika, on 14 October 2015 - 05:16 AM, said:

WTH is this? Lasers will be like LURMS, you need lock it, its not good . . .

Gotta pay something for that insta-hit at 1000 meters...

[Kmieciu]

People freak out when they read "-40% clan laser nerf" while in fact ERML, when locked, will still have 50% more effective range than IS ML and when unlocked, it will have roughly the same range (290 meters).

50% more range and 20% more damage not enough for you, Clanners?

Edited by Kmieciu, 14 October 2015 - 05:51 AM.

[Livewyr]

I recommended the 50% max range Nerf, so seeing it put in at 40% sounds fine to me.


Information warfare will actually be a thing in this PTS it seems.

[Nightmare1]

40% range reduction for the Clans? Heat capacity reduction for their DHS too? Seriously??? Why don't you just drop them off at the vet and have them neutered? The only particularly good thing the Clans have is ranged combat. Take that away, and they're kind of pointless.

As for the lasers not doing full damage unless locked, that's kind of ridiculous too. It's an energy beam; you fire it and it hits wherever you point it. Making the damage dealt dependent on lock-on is both counter intuitive and rather silly. I don't recall anything in the Lore about lasers dealing sub-standard damage because the pilot didn't have a lock. It also makes no sense physically.

[Livewyr]

Nightmare, you're forgetting that they are removing the quirks all around (IS included)

So the IS will again have much shorter range.

ISML goes to 270 (540)
cERML goes to 405 (650ish)

Still quite the range advantage.

Clan Heat Capacity is going down, Clan Heat dissipation is going up along with IS... (which is ok, considering that clans have 2crit DHS, not three)

[Jack Shayu Walker]

Kmieciu, on 14 October 2015 - 12:31 AM, said:

Optimal range stays the same so... not?

If you take a small laser and you follow their word literally Kmieciu, then optimal range will be 200m and max range will be 240m, so... yes.

Edited by Jack Shayu Walker, 14 October 2015 - 06:08 AM.

[Kin3ticX]

Nightmare1, on 14 October 2015 - 05:55 AM, said:

40% range reduction for the Clans? Heat capacity reduction for their DHS too? Seriously??? Why don't you just drop them off at the vet and have them neutered? The only particularly good thing the Clans have is ranged combat. Take that away, and they're kind of pointless.

As for the lasers not doing full damage unless locked, that's kind of ridiculous too. It's an energy beam; you fire it and it hits wherever you point it. Making the damage dealt dependent on lock-on is both counter intuitive and rather silly. I don't recall anything in the Lore about lasers dealing sub-standard damage because the pilot didn't have a lock. It also makes no sense physically.

Before you go off the deep end......

Notice that IS mechs wont have their weapon quirks in the PTS

Weird thing how when PGI tried up quirking IS mechs originally they got less grief but if they actually start over and start fixing stuff globally people freak out over it. ERMAGERD CLANS NERFED WHY EVEN HAVE CLANS

Many IS mechs had 15-25% energy overall range quirks. I imagine after this the quirks would have to be a bit milder to reflect the global changes. BTW The 40 percent reduction here in the notes is only everything beyond optimum range.

[Goose]

Anybody patched, yet?

[latinisator]

Goose, on 14 October 2015 - 06:10 AM, said:

Anybody patched, yet?

Maintenance still. Anyhow, 3 PM PDT is still a few hours away, quiaff? About midnight here in Germany, so 8 hours to go.

I look forward to this PTS session, even though I have to admit that 40 % less max range reads...meh. Worse is the less heat cap for Clans DHS imho. But since I did not play (how btw ) under the new circumstances, who am I to call the collapse of modern civilization has begun? Maybe it has, but still I have to see it with my own eyes.

[Astrozombi e]

i can say only one to pgi - STOP IT.
You going wrong way. Redisigned map is suck, @NEW BALANCE@ is a boolshit, a few more thing like this and i would leave MWO.

Edited by Astrozombi e, 14 October 2015 - 06:22 AM.

[Jack Shayu Walker]

Vellron2005, on 14 October 2015 - 12:51 AM, said:

I agree... I also bought all my mechs with cbills.. hard earned cbills.

And one more point..

I don't really understand why we "need" this big rebalance... I play both CLAN and IS mechs.. and I do similar damage, similar match scores, and am similarly useful in both.

I really don't understand why all the whining about CLAN's beeing OP... they are only marginally better at some things, and are worse in other things..

If you ask me.. things are pretty balanced right now.

If they should balance anything, its only those "DOA" mechs, and the absurd over quirking..

This is what you get by raising your kids with a "reward participation, not wining" mentality. You get people who don't understand that not everything in the world is equal, fair, or balanced. And that that's what makes the universe perfect. The overwhelming variety of imperfection.

This breeds a generation of "nerf it and make it all the same" kind of people..

P.S.

God help us if ever we should encounter aggressive Aliens. We'll tell them to nerf their death rays cose' they are OP..

Don't you think you are being a bit grouchy? You are bringing real world issues into clan IS balance now? I can't believe we're having a "kids these days" argument over why PGI won't do 10 vs 12. They said they couldn't because of technical limitations, IMO we need to stop whining about it, suck it up, and help them balance Clan and IS tech so they are different but (roughly) equal. "Follow the lore" is not constructive feedback, it's frankly not going to happen.

PS: In modern online gaming balance is important. I'm sorry you feel that it's a whussy move, but it's a game dude, it's supposed to be fun, not teach life lessons.

[Wintersdark]

Frost Lord, on 14 October 2015 - 05:22 AM, said:

well we kinda tried it, we had op clans but didn't really try giving the IS more numbers.

Because that was impractical for a number of reasons.

[Sjorpha]

Sounds interesting, love the ECM and heatsink changes.

Agree that clan lasers need reduced range, but why change the basic range mechanic to do it? It would be much simpler to just reduce their optimal range by IDK maybe 20% or so. It's important that they stay longer range than IS though, since there has to be some distinction to ER technology. As others have said it's a bit unclear how to interpret the exact effects.

Lock on improving long range laser damage is an interesting idea, not sure how much sense it does but it will certainly improve the usefulness of scouts and UAVs.

Indirect buff to LRMs via ECM change and improved scouting is great, maybe we'll even see LRMs used in higher tiers and comp matches some day who knows?

[Jack Shayu Walker]

I'm sorry but I am seeing so many tantrum posts.

"Why won't you follow lore!?"... uh because we can't achieve game balance. "Well do 10 v 12 then!"... well we've already told you we can't do asymmetrical teams in the pub queue so... "Why don't you just delete BattleTech and MechWarrior logo and just call it something else!"... I um... why would we do that? It's still very much a Battletech game isn't it, I mean we've given you a star map based off the lore, we've given you iconic mechs of the Battletech series including some of the unseen... we're trying. I just sort of feel like changing the weapon stats doesn't invalidate the game as a Battletech title. "But it does! it does though! it's just big stompy robots now!"