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The 4v4 mode is nice and promotes proper scouting and teamwork, but I'm really not satisfied about the weapon changes. Gauss snipers feel good, they're capable of sniping but they're much less effective in a brawl now, giving the AC20 preference if you want to brawl. The SRM's are easier to work with now, but I noticed some flying through enemy mechs and others just not registering (PTS server seems to have some issues sometimes. I've seen warping, high ping spikes and questionable hitreg). The Streaks didn't need the speed buff and they seem much more powerful now that lasers have become so much worse. You just pop in and out with streaks, firing full volleys and wait for the target to die, their lasers won't smash you down like before. Streaks were my most effective weapon on PTS, together with AC's. AC's are much harder to aim than lasers, but even against largely stationary targets they will spread their damage all over (or my aim is still not all that great) and are only good when used en masse (Dire can still kill every mech very quickly and cannot be taken down as fast due to lasers being ineffective).
I've run my Wubshee, which has an XL395, 2 LPL + 6 MPL. Its performance is highly dependant on teammates targeting other mechs, because lasers just aren't good at any ranged fighting anymore. For range fighting, PPC's and Gauss are king and no longer being bothered by ERLL snipers generally. Your lasers are unreliable in a brawl, as pulse lasers have abysmal range (MPL has 132m optimal) if you cannot lock or switch locks fast enough. Basically lasers are unreliable in both range and brawl, having been nerfed way too hard. The lowered skills mean you overheat in 2/3 of the time, meaning you're dead quickly if you try to brawl with lasers.
The skills are almost useless now, apart from the 7.5% (downgraded from 10%) speed tweak and the mastering for another module slot. Mechs feel extremely sluggish and the slower mechs cannot twist damage at all as it takes double the time to turn now, leaving you cored very quickly. TTK is higher only in specific situations but even my XL mechs just couldn't die by side torso loss because of my cored CT every single match. The armor quirks are pretty much distributed at random, with any mech that performed decently on live servers not getting ANY extra armor at all and the ones that do get it get only a few extra HP's on each component. It felt like every game came down to who could core out the enemy mechs as fast as possible in the largest ballistic boats.
Particularly assaults simply won't be able to climb anything, Canyon Network walls are unclimbable in most mechs without JJ's, because you decelerate too fast to get up there. The pebble problem is only worse, hit a small thing and your 52kph Dire will immediately slow to 20kph and will need a few seconds to regain full speed (until it hits the next small obstacle).
Lights felt better. Assaults have trouble hitting the lights now that they're so much slower, meaning that assaults and slower heavies will need mediums to protect them from lights now. The bad lights all got extra armor, but none of the decent lights got any of that, leading to a particular Commando being tankier than a Firestarter. If you're slow and a light begins to run around you while you're in the open, you'll be rear cored because you can't turn fast enough to get a shot at those lights.
Infotech felt useless. The flashing reticle only shows up when you have a target locked but any decent player won't need target info to know where to hit the enemy anyway and will go for the usual spots. In 4v4 scouting plays a critical role, but I think that in 12v12 mode scouting has become more dangerous, as lights will need to be in line of sight for a few seconds to actually be able to target enemies so they show up on the minimap, leaving you vulnerable for longer to PPC and gauss fire.
TL;DR: Lasers felt overnerfed and unreliable, ballistics are the new meta, infotech doesn't do much, 4v4 feels good, every mech is much slower and cannot twist damage quickly anymore, lights feel stronger against large opponents but still get shredded by mediums (and can no longer run to cover to evade streaks, those are too fast).
Some changes with which I would be okay with weapon changes to be put on live servers:
- Laser Ghost Range applies to 50% of maximum range, not 60% of optimal range.
My reason for having lasers at 50% of maximum range and not at 60% of optimum:
The lasers are calibrated to work in their optimal range, but will be much less focused and therefore lose damage quickly (faster damage falloff) beyond their optimum range. If you want to snipe with those, you'll need to get a radar lock so your lasers can calibrate themselves to stay focused at larger ranges than their optimum range. Firing without a lock outside of your optimal range will be largely ineffective (which it isn't on live servers).
- Streak don't need the extra speed. If they retain the extra speed, perhaps cut their range a little to make it more dangerous to poke out, lock, fire and go back into cover. Lights could try to get behind cover before, now they're even more likely to get hit by the full wave.
- IS and Clan Gauss is not equal, Clan has 1 less slot (less likely to be critted), weighs 3 tons less (and has built in CASE) but retains the same rate of fire as the IS Gauss. Perhaps keep Clan Gauss at 5.5 sec but put IS Gauss at 4.5-5.0 second cooldown to make up for this? (Most IS mechs need to sacrifice a lot of speed and other weaponry to fit Gauss, generally not a problem for Clan mechs)
- Look at heat issues for full laserboats, they should remain viable. Perhaps keep the low capacity (to prevent alpha striking often) but add a higher dissipation which promotes brawling and use of more than the alpha button?
- You want to increase TTK, why nerf twisting damage then? Slower mechs will have huge difficulties twisting damage quickly which will make arm shielding and ST shielding much harder. The better people can twist damage, the longer they'll live which means increased TTK.
EDIT: added another change that I would like to see.
Edited by VanguardMk1, 06 November 2015 - 04:58 AM.
