55 replies to this topic

[cSand]

FupDup, on 25 January 2016 - 10:10 AM, said:

Thoughts like the ones in this quote box are the reason that we can't have nice things. Stop denying us nice things.

I guess I don't understand the obsession with having parity on all weapons. Even if they buffed MGs, flamers, and SLs, nobody would take them. Cause your ML, or LL, or LPL, or w/e else, is still gonna be more effective at <200m range.

Just accept that just like real life with people, not all weapons are as useful as others.

Edited by cSand, 25 January 2016 - 10:42 AM.

[FupDup]

cSand, on 25 January 2016 - 10:35 AM, said:

I guess I don't understand the obsession with having parity on all weapons. Even if they buffed MGs, flamers, and SLs, nobody would take them. Cause your ML, or LL, or LPL, or w/e else, is still gonna be more effective at <200m range.

I'm not exactly expecting them to be a metagame mainstray where you have 12-man teams boating them on all 12 robots, I just want some kind of niche (e.g. very close range) where it can actually do things and not be terrible.

cSand, on 25 January 2016 - 10:35 AM, said:

Just accept that just like real life with people, not all weapons are as useful as others.

Vidja games aren't real life though...

[Quicksilver Aberration]

MischiefSC, on 25 January 2016 - 10:29 AM, said:

doesn't have a lot of drawbacks up close and has enough range to be able to cripple someone before they close.

They have plenty of drawbacks once a group gets in close, anyone who thinks otherwise has either not played a good brawl team or not played ERLL enough, the problem used to be they were able to cripple any team before they got in range, I'm not sure how true this still is however, the next season of comp stuff will allow for more science

If you are saying it us suitable up close compared to cERLL, then you would be correct but that isn't really a worthwhile comparison.

[cSand]

FupDup, on 25 January 2016 - 10:37 AM, said:

I'm not exactly expecting them to be a metagame mainstray where you have 12-man teams boating them on all 12 robots, I just want some kind of niche (e.g. very close range) where it can actually do things and not be terrible.



Vidja games aren't real life though...

haha fair enough.

[Gas Guzzler]

kapusta11, on 25 January 2016 - 10:31 AM, said:

No one's arguing that cERLL does not suck, it does, but saying that weapon quirks, which were ment to balance weapons that people use all the time, need to go away based on disparity between the other two weapons that no one ever sees outside of Boreal Vault and Polar Highlands, is irrational.

I'm not even saying they should go away. I'm just saying they should not have a huge range bonus AND a duration bonus. The whole mantra of lasers is the longer the range, the longer the duration, so it is inherently unbalanced to buff the range to unparalleled levels AND decreasing the duration.

And to be honest, its not just Boreal Vault and Polar Highlands. It is comp matches in general.

[MischiefSC]

Ballistics need to flat out rule long range trades. Put all Ballistics back to 3x range with ballistic drop from 2-3x range (not the 2x range that AC20s and 10s have). Exempt ERLLs from all range/cooldown quirks.

[Y E O N N E]

Gas Guzzler, on 25 January 2016 - 11:12 AM, said:

I'm not even saying they should go away. I'm just saying they should not have a huge range bonus AND a duration bonus. The whole mantra of lasers is the longer the range, the longer the duration, so it is inherently unbalanced to buff the range to unparalleled levels AND decreasing the duration.

And to be honest, its not just Boreal Vault and Polar Highlands. It is comp matches in general.

Is it really, though? It seems more accurate to say longer range begets increased heat and higher damage begets longer duration, because those are the more direct foils and are also truisms within the game.

[MischiefSC]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 25 January 2016 - 10:38 AM, said:

They have plenty of drawbacks once a group gets in close, anyone who thinks otherwise has either not played a good brawl team or not played ERLL enough, the problem used to be they were able to cripple any team before they got in range, I'm not sure how true this still is however, the next season of comp stuff will allow for more science

If you are saying it us suitable up close compared to cERLL, then you would be correct but that isn't really a worthwhile comparison.

The problem is absolutely that you can cripple someone well before they close with you and even in the range of regular LLs, 400m or so, the ERLL isn't feeling any sort of downside. Even with a heat cut CERLLs would because at 1.5 you can win trades with 1s LLs.

Currently though with range buffs and burn time buffs you can put ERLLs on a number of mechs and not only carve someone up like a turkey at 1k+ but even at 200, 300m you're trading at burn times comparable to a regular LL or CERML using an ERLL and only slightly inferior heat efficiency. Sure, you get into my face with a brawling loadout and you'll out DPS me when there's no cover but given that I've handily won every single trade that got you to brawling range to do so you're probably 1 good hit from death anyway and I'm 3+ worth of armor and structure still.

If ERLLs could out-range other weapons (as they do without quirks) but lost trades due to longer burn time universally within those weapons ranges (inside 400m) that's a solid balance. Currently with quirks they don't. They win or maintain trades right up to a face humping exchange.

[adamts01]

Khobai, on 25 January 2016 - 09:28 AM, said:

that would eliminate the need to give IS weapons insane weapon quirks to balance the disparity between clan and IS tech.

Some weapons are near useless without quirks, those need to get fixed. But most of the quirks were because the chassis were lacking, not the weapons.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

MischiefSC, on 25 January 2016 - 12:05 PM, said:

They win or maintain trades right up to a face humping exchange.

That is somewhat misleading, because they don't win trades once other weapons get within range (like iLLs, cLPLs, etc) they win because they dealt enough damage before hand to the point that the disadvantage was insurmountable, there is a difference.

[Chuck Jager]

Kinda funny that I still find my Clan mechs (Scrow, Twolf, HBR, ACH and EBJ - ie I did my homework) the best bet on most maps over 20 games, with the exception of the BJ and Marauder that still get similar results. In CW and on Polar Crap (while it is in heavy rotation) against lower tier players the IS range advantage is felt, but higher tier players still push to the magic 300-600m distance pretty quick and the quirks on the IS erll do not help the teams time to win meaning folks who sit in the distance will contribute more to a loss if there are more than 2 of them.

The IS has a decent advantage at close range only if both teams start at 600m and they can not move backwards, but in purely PUG play of group Q with mixed teams the attrition by the time the range is closed is not enough to make up for the added destruction to balance the match.

Even bad clan mechs do as well as barely playable IS mechs, and you can usually find one decent build to level three variants. I would rather have a sloppy clan build over a sloppy IS build on my team (firestarter with a std engine). I do not mind some quirked IS having an advantage at a range that is basically a sign of bad game play, when after closing to 900m the clan has the advantage (average of all mechs). The clan XL survivability and speed makes closing this distance easier than trying to get within brawling range. Also even newer timid players can more easily be prodded to close this gap too.

The best advantage of the cerll is the ability to stick it in the head, center torso and over a gauss in the torso. For most of the proposed balances to duration and damage they would need to still make both factions have the same tonnage and still keep the crit slot size.

Look at the isERLL as the fully useable weapon while the cERLL is a secondary weapon, but the clan gets very useable cSRLAS and the cERMLAS (at this time), cLPLAS, 2 ton less gauss, 1/2 cost lrm tonnage for more useable direct fire and lrm ability for noobs, and on and on.

There is a big picture and then individual leaves on the trees. I actually think PGI has done a decent job with the big picture here in a no win lore VS in Game asymetric balance, but it is the players picking at individual stats that are easy to use for forum wars.

Both side have some really good builds. IS has some very specific builds that are more limited and get boring to play faster than Clan builds.

The whole point of asymmetric is for each side to have advantages in specific areas. This is what I hear folks complaining about.

Choosing to play bad mechs with bad builds the wrong way is not a Clan or IS issue.

[Revis Volek]

Jables McBarty, on 25 January 2016 - 10:30 AM, said:

Except the IS laser also comes with range quirks.

-A QKD-4G's 25% range boost with Level 5 Range Mod ERLL is at 911 optimal, over 1800 max.
-Pair a C-ERLL with a MkV targeting computer and Level 5 range and you get 851 optimal.

The IS laser already has a shorter burn time but with less DPS; add in the 4G's 15% (or 4H's 20%) duration reduction and you don't even need to focus, just brush an enemy and you're scratching armor at ranges where the Clanner can't compete.

Not to mention that IS PPCs get the Energy Range quirk boost while the Clan Targeting Computer boost is limited to beam weapons (ie lasers, and paltry single-digit boosts at that). IS PPCs doing half damage at 1500 meters where Clan is barely doing anything?

I understand that PGI needs to balance both Quick Play and CW, but take a map like Boreal Vault--get an IS firing line on the E5/F5 hills loaded with quirked IS ERLLs and the clans can barely open the gates--even though they supposedly have an advantage at range. (Granted I'm a CW nub, and was probably playing with other CW pug-nubs, but I think the point is valid regardless).

I wasn't around for previous balance passes, and I don't know what the solution is, but the CW tech base balance is non-existent for the moment. Maybe give different quirks in CW than QP, so that every chassis/variant is viable in QP but some are less so in CW. Because given the nature of the game there will always be non-viable chassis/variants for CW, right now it's just that the ones with quirked energy weapons are enormously dominant.

Energy Range and Heat Gen quirks dont have anything to do with PPC;s or ERPPC's, only quirks labeled as such will do anything for PPC's.


Energy means lasers.

Edited by Revis Volek, 25 January 2016 - 12:43 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

Revis Volek, on 25 January 2016 - 12:43 PM, said:

Energy Range and Heat Gen quirks dont have anything to do with PPC;s or ERPPC's, only quirks labeled as such will do anything for PPC's.


Energy means lasers.

This is not correct. General energy quirks apply to all energy weapons, including PPCs.

[Jables McBarty]

Revis Volek, on 25 January 2016 - 12:43 PM, said:

Energy Range and Heat Gen quirks dont have anything to do with PPC;s or ERPPC's, only quirks labeled as such will do anything for PPC's.


Energy means lasers.

I'll have to check when I get home, but I'm pretty sure that my CDA-2A(C) that I got from the event last week has 2xERPPCs that have 1100m optimal range.

Jables McBarty, on 25 January 2016 - 01:32 PM, said:

I'll have to check when I get home, but I'm pretty sure that my CDA-2A(C) that I got from the event last week has 2xERPPCs that have 1100m optimal range.

I mean, that range boost is _the_ reason that I stripped all the armor to fit those two ERPPCs and the DHS to support them

[Gyrok]

FupDup, on 25 January 2016 - 10:01 AM, said:

While I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with your idea, I have to point out that the Clam ERLL actually has a slightly higher "beam time efficiency" than an IS ERLL that lacks duration quirks.

Clam: 11 damage / 1.5 seconds = 7.33333 damage per second of holding the beam
IS: 9 damage / 1.25 seconds = 7.2 damage per second of holding the beam

So, if the Clammer holds his beam on the IS mech for the same 1.25 seconds, his damage dealt will actually be a tiny bit higher than the IS mech deals to him.


The default range is actually just 135m.

Until you reach the 25% range quirked IS mechs that deal more damage per tick than clans, more damage per second, and can fire 3 at a time without ghost heat.

That happens for those mechs right around ~1200m IIRC, which does come into play in some scenarios. But when IS can do 27 damage over 1.25 seconds, and clans only get 22 over 1.5 seconds for basically the same heat...IS can win trades at any range against clans because they are doing more damage over less time in any scenario.

3x IS ERLL:

1.25s duration
27 damage to 675m assuming no quirks, and no modules
24 heat
21.6 damage per 1.0s

2x CERLL:

1.5s duration
22 damage to 740m assuming no quirks (lol Clam quirks!), and no modules.
20 heat
14.67 damage per 1.0s

Edited by Gyrok, 25 January 2016 - 02:58 PM.

[Jables McBarty]

Jables McBarty, on 25 January 2016 - 01:33 PM, said:

I'll have to check when I get home, but I'm pretty sure that my CDA-2A(C) that I got from the event last week has 2xERPPCs that have 1100m optimal range.



I mean, that range boost is _the_ reason that I stripped all the armor to fit those two ERPPCs and the DHS to support them

I can confirm--my CDA-2A(C) has ERPPCs with 1013m optimal range. So Energy range boost applies to all weapons that use Energy hardpoints (though I was a bit off when i said 1100+ range)