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Final Attempt at Balance
I’ve written a lot on the PTS forum, but am still highly frustrated and concerned with the direction things are going. To that end this is my last attempt to call attention to and fix balance issues. If you find yourself agreeing with the majority of what I write here please like this post and tweet to Paul and Russ so they can see where the community is coming from and avoid a potentially disastrous rebalance that will ruin the game for everyone. If you have an idea for balance that I missed and you think is great, please contribute to this thread in a CONSTRUCTIVE manner.
The first thing to address is the terrifying lack of focus on weapon balance. This is important because many mechs are “bad” currently only because they don’t have “good” hardpoints (laser/gauss). Do you really think the Atlas would be in as bad a shape as it is if it were able to carry dual gauss+3LL?
I want to address each weapon family one-by-one.
-PPCs: No reason to take them currently as they are hotter, heavier and more prone to missing than large lasers. Solution: Increase velocity by 35%, add cockpit shake to impacts and make it so each impact raises the heat on the enemy mech by 1 point.
-LBX: No reason to take them as they spread damage like crazy at anything other than point blank range. Solution: Decrease cycle time by roughly 35% relative to ACs so that the sandpapering damage they do actually adds up. Increase velocity by 20% too.
-SRMS: Not taken because they spread damage like the LBX, but have an even slower travel time and thus are more prone to missing. Solution: Increase missile speed (which is on the table for the next PTS phase already and something I have advocated for a while) by 35% and tighten spread by 15%.
-LRMs: Garbage when ECM is on the field and enemy players know how to position well, cheese when neither of those hard counters are present. Solution: Make LRMS capable of indirect fire only when enemy is TAG’d or NARC’d and increase velocity by 35%. This will also contribute to role warfare as scouting and providing fire support will be real things, turning the light meta from small laser boating to at least having a second viable playstyle with the inherit cat and mouse games that come along with it. I would also propose a reduction of TAG range to accompany these changes to 500m so that lights can’t just paint enemy mechs from a range where they cannot realistically risk interception.
-MGUNS: Absolutely garbage damage currently; kills many light chassis as their ballistics slots are worthless. Solution: increase damage by 65%.
-LASERS: King of the battlefield currently. Solution: decrease overrange to 1.2x as a starting point, allow ballistics to keep their current overrange. Also the IS MUST get the ISERML as that weapon is the bread and butter of medium range trading and without it any attempt to balance IS vs Clans will either be OP or insufficient.
-ACs: Not taken because they are much more likely to miss than lasers. Solution: Increase velocity by 25%, also lower the heat of the AC2 family so that it doesn’t overheat anything other than assaults when used. Many medium chassis (Blackjack family with exception of 1X) have no place on the battlefield currently because they can’t maintain suppression with the AC2 without overheating. I understand that this was done to kill the AC2 machine gun macro, but surely there is another way to handle that mechanic other than to penalize all the players that don’t resort to borderline cheating/cheese?
-Flamers: I actually think this weapon just got a bad rap and I’ve used them to great effect (especially the clan version at only .5 tons being able to basically shut down a FS or AC’s damage). Always open to suggestions though.
-Increase ammo per ton so that ballistics and missiles have longevity without having to invest huge amounts of tonnage. This will be especially felt in CW matches.
If after these weapon changes poptarting makes an annoying comeback, we can simple add an extra second of reticule shake to jumpjet use.
ECM as it stands on the last PTS felt like it was in a good place (not preventing targeting but delaying lock and target data by 3 seconds). Related to ECM, the infotech that has been displayed on the PTS is my biggest concern. Convoluted mechanics like ghost damage on lasers and different target profiles add very little to game play other than confusion and due to their complex nature have such a long list of possible unintended consequences.
As an example I will use the Atlas again. The ECM change coupled with assault mechs being the easiest to pick up on sensors means that one playstyle of the Atlas, the DDC brawler, is effectively handicapped since the mech will not be able to sneak up for a close range strike without everyone on the battlefield knowing its location. Another Atlas playstyle, the LURMINATOR, (™ Ordellus) is also dead as assaults can only target enemies to about half the effective range of LRMS.
The current system of quirks, if implemented intelligently, is still quite capable of bringing up any underperforming mechs post weapon balance. Once again I will use the Atlas DDC as my example. Say for instance that post weapon balance, we find that the Atlas DDC is still underperforming. We can add a torso twist speed buff and further increase the armor on the arms of the mech to allow it to shield and roll damage at close range more effectively. There is no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater here.
I implore PGI to implement these weapon balance changes in the next PTS so that we can have a solid foundation from which to explore more complicated balance mechanics such as heat cap and heat dissipation. I would love to be able to propose a solution for heat cap and heat dissipation, but the issue is so complex with so many variables that realistically the only way to find out what they are is by logging lots of hours playing. I know a lot of people have been clamoring for a 30pt heat cap with 2xDHS as a solution to the current high alpha meta and initially I agreed with it too, but then I started to think in depth on the subject. Off the top of my head the most effective mid-range meta build (5ERML+Gauss), would be unaffected and might actually gain strength as it might be able to fire alphas with less of a break in between to cool off. Some other builds, like the 4xERPPC Warhawk, might not even be playable with a 30 point heat scale. I don’t have access to PGI’s values for heat management, so I can only conjecture. I do have a firm opinion on one thing that I think would be a good step in toning down the damage of laser builds: the removal of coolshot consumables. I feel like this consumable is a very large reason why ballistics are so often passed up in favor of lasers. If PGI is intent on keeping the consumable in game, at least we could change it to work like the coolant flush of previous Mechwarrior titles wherein you could dump your heat, but you would sacrifice heat dissipation for the rest of the match.
One last thing; so much of the “meta” revolves around how the maps are made. A lot of the laser domination is due to the abundance of cover available at the moment where a mech can cool off. I am not advocating every map being rolling hills or open grasslands, but I strongly believe that no one map will ever be able to cater to every mech/weapon playstyle. I have harped on this in the past and will re-iterate it one more time, we desperately need more maps and more map variety so different playstyles can find their niche and keep the game dynamic.
I hope that you see the reasoning behind my proposed changes and agree with them so that we can approach the PGI developers as a unified front and make this Mechwarrior title better and more fun to play. As I said previously tweet this to Paul and Russ if you agree, and if you feel I missed something or have something constructive to add please post below.
