135 replies to this topic

[Bishop Steiner]

Terrorsdawn, on 29 January 2016 - 11:54 PM, said:

When I buy a product, (yes each mech, mech pack or bundle we buy is a product) we buy it for certain reasons. To have the people that sold it to us decide they want to screw with it, change it or modify it, they are changing the product. I am sick of ending up with mechs, I once loved stripped and sitting in my warehouse waiting for them to maybe one day be restored to something close to what I bought in the first place. I feel like I have been the victim of a bate and switch scam. In all honesty that is what PGI is doing to all of us. Small changes related to defects, like bugged hit boxes, are ok but taking away the quirks that gave the mech a role to play is not. Would you by a sports car and be happy they updated it with a patch that gave you great millage but did 0 to 60 in 16 secs.

Well, that is your own fault, as in the EULA, and Purchase agreements you agreed to, PGI reserves the right to alter the content at any time, JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER PERPETUAL F2P GAME DOES.

By you thinking, wow, you buy a mech, because it's been buffed to the point of being OP, well, hey, it was super broken OP when I bought it! Screw the game and balance! Don't touch my op toy!

SMH.

[LegendaryArticuno]

Aresye, on 30 January 2016 - 12:57 AM, said:

As for the OP, why is it when all the big units are on Clan side, the reason Clans are winning is because, "Clan mechs OP," yet when IS is stomping Clans because the big units are IS, it's because, "All the big units are IS?"

It's a small change for most mechs. The RVN-4X and a few other mega-ranged mechs will suffer from the nerf to energy range, but all in all these changes are actually relatively small, and we should be pleased PGI is focusing on smaller changes, and not as many all at once.

Top Dawg an already subpar mech is going to get reamed by the ranged energy quirk nerf.

The nerfs should be on a case-by-case basis not a flat nerf all around.

Edited by LegendaryArticuno, 30 January 2016 - 09:38 AM.

[Monkey Lover]

Khobai, on 30 January 2016 - 09:22 AM, said:

not really.

CERLL = 10% longer range than ISERLL. Capping IS range quirks at 10% makes the CERLL and ISERLL equal.

There is no reason IS needs range quirks longer than 10%, effectively giving them more range than clan mechs.


.

Yet it still does more DPS even with a longer duration and has less weight. Then you add on a target computer it does more range and crits. Maybe a lot more range soon with target computer buffs.

That's not even counting very few people were running around with er lasers this is a blanket nerf on every laser weapon.

Medium laser even with 25% range is still less range than a er medium with more dmg.

[Novakaine]

Well I see the massive whine-fest worked.
What did they do and you know who you are.
Camp on PGI doorstep and do the occupy thing.
Sheesh.
Get ready.

[Mechi Messer]

Just to breake it down a bit:
Lore does not matter. It can't matter in a PvP game. Making stuff just better than everything else leads players to choose the better stuff.
That's why we have seen mostly crows and timbis in competitive leagueplay for a long time.
This wouldn't even matter much if there were just one faction. Competitive play is always about min/maxing and let's face it, we have bazillions of different mechs in MWO and balancing them all is impossible in my opinion.
Poo hits the fan when there are two factions and one of these has the best possible mech(s) to pick from and the other has only worse. This has been the case for CW from introduction to Requirkening. It has been toned down during various balancing-atempts but was still noticable.
MWO is a shooter, wether it's for the thinking man (which I sometimes doubt...) or not doesn't matter much. MWO and especially CW was and has always been about high alpha peekaboo and focus fire.
DPS just isn't that important. Multiple weaponsystems, swisswarmyknife-mechs, etc neither. Spit as much damage as you can with one click and twist, or run for/into cover.
Some clanmechs were really good at that, sturdy and fast. Perfect combination for CW
They tried to bring down these Übermechs somewhat succesfully but shafted subpar clanmechs, too. Bad move. Now they do the right thing and want to buff these subpar clanmechs.
BUT they remove negaquirks from former topperformers to make them even better.
This and in my opinion only this is a stupid move. Given PGI just buffs the subpar clanmechs slightly, which is more or less their usual approach after quirkening part I, won't make these mechs more viable in CW because Timbis can cough out more laserbeams, are faster, tougher whatever.
I really don't care much about range and the toning down of some rangequirks (Battlemaster for instance). In my opinion CW is fought below 600m. Every map allows this. Even Boreal gives opportunity to reach this range. And I think it is the only map were snipers are any good.
If the negaquirks leave we will see a lot more lpl + medlas laservomit. That means less TTK. Less TTK is bad. IS will have a hard time answering this. They had less alpha for the whole time. Only few assaults (Banshee and Battlemaster) were able to compete with Laservomit-timbi as it is. You can do 50+, run much slower and weigh more, have less range. Damagespreader like Atlas and stuff do not count. They are good but only at 300m.
Timbi will outpuke mentioned laservomit-competitors soon it seems.
This just isn't wise.

Edited by Mechi Messer, 30 January 2016 - 10:10 AM.

[Aresye]

Chados, on 30 January 2016 - 04:58 AM, said:

[nerdrage]

They nerfed the Jester.

The JESTER. Really, Russ? Seriously, bro? The Jester? What on Earth was OP about the frickin' Jester? No one runs them. Ever. Except a very few insane Underhivers like self, as they're quite fragile even with standard engines. They used to have a 15% Large Laser range quirk, and I was fine with that. It didn't pertain to ERLL. Taken away, and changed to 15% across the board. Now it's just being nerfed by at least 5% . Dude! Duuuuuuuude.

The Jester is one of the best mechs in the game, and definitely not fragile with the generous structure quirks it received.

Built myself a mini-TBR on it, and actually ended up preferring the Jester over a TBR.

[Chrome Magnus]

Khobai, on 30 January 2016 - 09:22 AM, said:

not really.

CERLL = 10% longer range than ISERLL. Capping IS range quirks at 10% makes the CERLL and ISERLL equal.

There is no reason IS needs range quirks longer than 10%, effectively giving them more range than clan mechs.



Yeah ok. Id like my money back from the stock market crashing too. There are no guarantees in life. PGI didnt guarantee you theyd never change anything, anymore than the stock market can guarantee it wont go down.

I'm happy with ERLL's range being dialed back but that's cherry picking just one laser. Even after 10% IS quirks the Clan lasers will still have around a 30% advantage.

[XX Sulla XX]

[Surn]

Is and clan mechs were almost competitive, now they nerf the only IS advantage on a handful or mechs. Utter bs! Worse, it was based on a few teams trolling to make thier comp mechs more OP.

[pbiggz]

MechregSurn, on 30 January 2016 - 10:46 AM, said:

Is and clan mechs were almost competitive, now they nerf the only IS advantage on a handful or mechs. Utter bs! Worse, it was based on a few teams trolling to make thier comp mechs more OP.

You live in a fantasy world you know that right? Do you think that scaling back range quirks to 10% is going to cause clans to be OP? Did you forget about the structure quirks the IS gets? Did you forget about the ludicrous burn times on clan lasers? Did you forget about crippling clan ER PPC heat?

What drug are you on and why aren't you sharing because that is some potent **** right there if you actually think the clans are really OP right now. They're underpowered you dolt.


PS: I suppose you're the kind of person who wishes this game was 3025 IS only tech 1 with no mech lab. Im not sorry to tell you this, but it isn't and it never was, and it never will be. You wont rest until the clans are removed from the game, therefore you are a blocker of progress and no one will take your words seriously.

Edited by pbiggz, 30 January 2016 - 10:58 AM.

[AssaultPig]

tbh I'm less worried about any individual change than about the fact that PGI seem to have no idea how they actually want to balance weapons

we seem to be getting a quirk pass every several months at this point, and there'd be nothing necessarily wrong with that except the only metric guiding their decisions seems to be the amount of whining happening on twitter. Like, why are >10% energy range quirks on highly marginal mechs actually a problem? Why does the timber wolf need a buff (granted, a small one)? And so on.

Edited by AssaultPig, 30 January 2016 - 11:03 AM.

[TercieI]

XX Sulla XX, on 30 January 2016 - 10:27 AM, said:

PGI's? Players'? Yes?

[FupDup]

From another thread:

Bumping it down on a few of the top gundams would have been mostly fine, the real problem is that they're taking an across-the-broad global approach with it. Most of the gundams with range quirks aren't good enough to be causing issues.

It's also sad to see every laser except the ERLL taking the hit just because of the ERLL...I would rather see mechs with big range quirks get a small negative range quirk for the ERLL specifically at the same time.

For instance, a mech with +20% energy range might get -10% ERLL range, which works out to just +10% ERLL range while letting every other laser get +20% as normal.

Edited by FupDup, 30 January 2016 - 11:11 AM.

[TercieI]

FupDup, on 30 January 2016 - 11:11 AM, said:

From another thread:

Bumping it down on a few of the top gundams would have been mostly fine, the real problem is that they're taking an across-the-broad global approach with it. Most of the gundams with range quirks aren't good enough to be causing issues.

It's also sad to see every laser except the ERLL taking the hit just because of the ERLL...I would rather see mechs with big range quirks get a small negative range quirk for the ERLL specifically at the same time.

For instance, a mech with +20% energy range might get -10% ERLL range, which works out to just +10% ERLL range while letting every other laser get +20% as normal.

Or just make the quirk "non-large laser." We've seen with the TBT-5J that there's more flexibility to quirking lasers than they usually do.

[Sjorin]

[FupDup]

Here are some more thoughts of mine on this matter:

------------

Another idea, this time from Quicksilver, would be to use additive quirks for range (and perhaps other things) instead of just multiplicative (aka percentages).

Basically, the problem with multiplicative buffs is that they tend to give the highest benefit to stats that are already high to begin with. Stats that are very low get very little help from it. For example, +10% ballistic cooldown is great for a Gauss or AC/20, but much tinier for an AC/2. But let's compare that to an additive "raw value" cooldown quirk. Make it, I dunno, 0.1 seconds or so. Shaving off 0.1 from an AC/20 would be practically nothing, but for an AC/2 that would be a much stronger buff.


As an entirely arbitrary example, let's say that a crappy mech with +20% or higher energy range instead got that replaced with +100m energy range. This is an absolute number, meaning that it would add on +100 range to any weapon type afflicted. For example, the ERLL would get boosted up to 775 meters from 675m. The regular LL would go from 450m to 550m. The Small Laser would gain a titanic 235m range compared to its default 135m. ML goes from 270m to 370m. Etc.

Additive buffs have the effect of giving the most benefit to the weapons/stats with the lowest/weakest values, while giving a proportionally lower value to weapons/stats/items with default high values. Since the low-value items tend to be poopy for the most part, this would probably cause fewer balancing issues than big percentage-based buffs.

--------------------------

Here is a more clear breakdown of how percentage/multiplicative quirks benefit the rich more than the poor. I'm going to use +30% energy range as the case study.

Small Laser: 135m --> 176m --> buff of 41m
Small Pulse Laser: 110m --> 143m --> buff of 33m

Medium Laser: 270m --> 351m --> buff of 81m
Medium Pulse Laser: 220m --> 286m --> buff of 66m

Large Laser: 450m --> 585m --> buff of 135m
Large Pulse Laser: 365m --> 475m --> buff of 110m

ER Large Laser: 675m --> 878m --> buff of 203m


TL;DR: Percentage based buffs make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

Sjorin, on 30 January 2016 - 11:40 AM, said:

That poor, poor Metal Babby.

OP Commando clearly had to be nerfed.

Edited by FupDup, 30 January 2016 - 11:45 AM.

[Monkey Lover]

pbiggz, on 30 January 2016 - 10:53 AM, said:

Did you forget about the ludicrous burn times on clan lasers?
Did you forget about crippling clan ER PPC heat?.

So if everyone keep repeating this they will start to believe it....
Clan lasers deal more damage they have a longer duration!!!!!!

Er laser 9 dmg for 1.25 seconds. O.138 seconds per dmg
Cer laser 11 dmg for 1.5second. 0.136 seconds per dmg. (Better than is. but balanced)
Medium 5dmg for 0.9 seconds. 0.18 seconds for 1 dmg
C medium 7dmg. 1.15 second. 0.164 sec per dmg. ( clans lot better)

Only weapon as I remember that has a lower duration per dmg is the lpl

The clan erppc does around 30% more dmg per heat compared to the IS. Clan ppc is a much better weapon and less weight.

Edited by Monkey Lover, 30 January 2016 - 11:50 AM.

[kapusta11]

FupDup, on 30 January 2016 - 11:45 AM, said:

TL;DR: Percentage based buffs make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

People will always use general quirks to buff already good weapons like LPLs. Why not just tweak weapons themselves?

[pbiggz]

Monkey Lover, on 30 January 2016 - 11:46 AM, said:

So if everyone keep repeating this they will start to believe it....
Clan lasers deal more damage they have a longer duration!!!!!!

Er laser 9 dmg for 1.25 seconds. O.138 seconds per dmg
Cer laser 11 dmg for 1.5second. 0.136 seconds per dmg. (Better than is. but balanced)
Medium 5dmg for 0.9 seconds. 0.18 seconds for 1 dmg
C medium 7dmg. 1.15 second. 0.164 sec per dmg. ( clans lot better)

Only weapon as I remember that has a lower duration per dmg is the lpl

The clan erppc does around 30% more dmg per heat compared to the IS. Clan ppc is a much better weapon and less weight.

I like that you left heat out of that equation to fit your narrative. Yes they all do more damage, and I wont comment on whether they should or not, though I believe the key to IS vs Clan differentiation isn't more damage/heat vs less damage/heat, but making the delivery system unique, but you've left out a massive part of the equation.

IS laser vomit has longer range, shorter burn times, and lower heat than clan for slightly less damage. Slightly less. If IS laser vomit gets reigned in slightly, and thats exactly whats happening here, its getting reigned in slightly, then its still top teir good, you just wont see HHOD sitting in their drop poking with ER larges anymore because they're too chicken **** to come out of their drop zone on boreal. It reinforces better play, not mechregsurn kcom boogieman brawl play, but better play.

And even if IS laser vomit got a major nerf, is is still better than clan right now because IS has massive structure quirks. Knock down the quickdraw and the blackjack and you still have basically +-30% structure across the board on most IS mechs, the few exceptions being gross oversights on PGI's part, or paul balancing for paul tier (note the cataphract still has basically no quirks, because it was a good mech in 2013).


TLDR, you're pushing a narrative because any clan buffs are offensive to you. Go play harebrained schemes battletech if you want tech 1 3025. Im going to play it, it looks like a ton of fun, but its not this game. This game has clans in it, I like the clans. I like the IS too, i'd like them balanced, so shut up, and let PGI at least try to balance them, rather than starting a riot every time the clans get even a sliver of a buff.

[TercieI]

FupDup, on 30 January 2016 - 11:45 AM, said:

Here are some more thoughts of mine on this matter:

------------

Another idea, this time from Quicksilver, would be to use additive quirks for range (and perhaps other things) instead of just multiplicative (aka percentages).

Basically, the problem with multiplicative buffs is that they tend to give the highest benefit to stats that are already high to begin with. Stats that are very low get very little help from it. For example, +10% ballistic cooldown is great for a Gauss or AC/20, but much tinier for an AC/2. But let's compare that to an additive "raw value" cooldown quirk. Make it, I dunno, 0.1 seconds or so. Shaving off 0.1 from an AC/20 would be practically nothing, but for an AC/2 that would be a much stronger buff.


As an entirely arbitrary example, let's say that a crappy mech with +20% or higher energy range instead got that replaced with +100m energy range. This is an absolute number, meaning that it would add on +100 range to any weapon type afflicted. For example, the ERLL would get boosted up to 775 meters from 675m. The regular LL would go from 450m to 550m. The Small Laser would gain a titanic 235m range compared to its default 135m. ML goes from 270m to 370m. Etc.

Additive buffs have the effect of giving the most benefit to the weapons/stats with the lowest/weakest values, while giving a proportionally lower value to weapons/stats/items with default high values. Since the low-value items tend to be poopy for the most part, this would probably cause fewer balancing issues than big percentage-based buffs.

--------------------------

Here is a more clear breakdown of how percentage/multiplicative quirks benefit the rich more than the poor. I'm going to use +30% energy range as the case study.

Small Laser: 135m --> 176m --> buff of 41m
Small Pulse Laser: 110m --> 143m --> buff of 33m

Medium Laser: 270m --> 351m --> buff of 81m
Medium Pulse Laser: 220m --> 286m --> buff of 66m

Large Laser: 450m --> 585m --> buff of 135m
Large Pulse Laser: 365m --> 475m --> buff of 110m

ER Large Laser: 675m --> 878m --> buff of 203m


TL;DR: Percentage based buffs make the rich richer and the poor poorer.


That poor, poor Metal Babby.

OP Commando clearly had to be nerfed.

Like OP LCT-3M before it. Clearly.