133 replies to this topic

[C E Dwyer]

All this new system will do is make the game even more static, poke alpha and hide.

I have zero confidence in this changing the game for the better.

God I miss closed beta,

[Yanlowen Cage]

Maybe the quriks and ghost heat crap needs to be removed and we just balance clan vs IS by damage potential and armor. Thus a madcat/timberwolf would be equal in weight to say an atlas. So you have a madcat. We have a hulk... Atlas i mean.

Edited by Yanlowen Cage, 24 March 2016 - 12:06 PM.

[Alardus]

Yanlowen Cage, on 24 March 2016 - 12:06 PM, said:

Maybe the quriks and ghost heat crap needs to be removed and we just balance clan vs IS by damage potential and armor. Thus a madcat/timberwolf would be equal in weight to say an atlas. So you have a madcat. We have a hulk... Atlas i mean.

You're talking about battle value surely.

[no one]

Cathy, on 24 March 2016 - 11:42 AM, said:

All this new system will do is make the game even more static, poke alpha and hide.

I have zero confidence in this changing the game for the better.

God I miss closed beta,

You know, we should probably be happy they got as much right as they did on the first try. If machine-guns had healed their targets on implementation we'd probably getting a patch right around now to decrease the rate at which machine gun healing stacks with flamer healing.

[Trauglodyte]

Gas, you mistook what I said. Quite frankly, after rereading what I wrote, I get that. Personally, I don't have a problem with 30 point alphas, energy boats, etc. You may have glanced over it, but I distinctly wrote that I love Awesome and Cicadas - the only Awesome that I run is the 9M. What prompted the creation of this topic is hopping into a game and seeing everyone doing nothing but running energy boats. The 'laser vomit' meta is stale, boring, and pretty pathetic, in my opinion. I don't like when people gravitate from meta to meta but that is the reality of on-line gaming and something that I've bee dealing with since UO. Hell, people do that in pen and paper games. What bothers me at the core, and I am an admitted TT purest, are these three things:

1) the weapon balance that we have is probably the best it has ever been but it is still at a point where energy is always the best choice and it has been that way since beta; at some point, missiles need to be scary and dakka needs to be more than just AC5s, UAC5s, and Gauss Rifles
,
2) compounding the weapon balance issue is that there isn't any real benefit to building a mech around long range + medium range or, in other words, mixed builds are less efficient because the long range weapons , Large Lasers as an example, are great at max range and close range which means taking shorter ranged weapons on purpose is a detriment to you, and

3) health is the only resource that we have to manage because there are no penalties for running too hot. The Large Pulse + Medium Laser has been a thing since Beta; I was running that on my Awesome 8Q, along with an arm mounted PPC, when we only had 9 mechs and 4 maps in game because the ranges were similar and the cool downs + beam durations synced up really nice like. BUT, I made sure that I had a ranged weapon so that I could poke when I approached my optimal range.

SARNA built this game on specific weapons for specific ranges/purposes and real life dictates that we do the same cause you don't see M1s using their 155mm sabot rounds on infantry. What's worse is that nobody gives a **** about alphas which were, all through TT, novels, and the design of this game, supposed to be a last resort sort of thing. It was a last resort because, if you did it, you'd build up so much freaking heat that you'd cook yourself alive in the process. In MWO, I see nothing but players immediately turning the Override off the second the games starts and, why not?, the downside is some slight damage to a random internal. The point that I was trying to make is that this game should be about making smart and conscious decisions as to what to do and when instead of mashing every single button you've got assigned to a weapons group and then moving on to the next target. For emphasis and to better make my point:

Quote

I'm hoping that the new system lengthens TTK and makes it so that we lose our efficiencies on top of having some negative penalties to movement and our ability to aim precisely - I'M NOT ADVOCATING COF. There has got to be some limiting factors in this game or we're going to continue the monkey poo flinging stupidity that we've got today. That isn't good for anyone.

Edited by Trauglodyte, 24 March 2016 - 07:18 PM.

[Gas Guzzler]

Trauglodyte, on 24 March 2016 - 07:17 PM, said:

Gas, you mistook what I said. Quite frankly, after rereading what I wrote, I get that. Personally, I don't have a problem with 30 point alphas, energy boats, etc. You may have glanced over it, but I distinctly wrote that I love Awesome and Cicadas - the only Awesome that I run is the 9M. What prompted the creation of this topic is hopping into a game and seeing everyone doing nothing but running energy boats. The 'laser vomit' meta is stale, boring, and pretty pathetic, in my opinion. I don't like when people gravitate from meta to meta but that is the reality of on-line gaming and something that I've bee dealing with since UO. Hell, people do that in pen and paper games. What bothers me at the core, and I am an admitted TT purest, are these three things:

1) the weapon balance that we have is probably the best it has ever been but it is still at a point where energy is always the best choice and it has been that way since beta; at some point, missiles need to be scary and dakka needs to be more than just AC5s, UAC5s, and Gauss Rifles
,
2) compounding the weapon balance issue is that there isn't any real benefit to building a mech around long range + medium range or, in other words, mixed builds are less efficient because the long range weapons , Large Lasers as an example, are great at max range and close range which means taking shorter ranged weapons on purpose is a detriment to you, and

3) health is the only resource that we have to manage because there are no penalties for running too hot. The Large Pulse + Medium Laser has been a thing since Beta; I was running that on my Awesome 8Q, along with an arm mounted PPC, when we only had 9 mechs and 4 maps in game because the ranges were similar and the cool downs + beam durations synced up really nice like. BUT, I made sure that I had a ranged weapon so that I could poke when I approached my optimal range.

SARNA built this game on specific weapons for specific ranges/purposes and real life dictates that we do the same cause you don't see M1s using their 155mm sabot rounds on infantry. What's worse is that nobody gives a **** about alphas which were, all through TT, novels, and the design of this game, supposed to be a last resort sort of thing. It was a last resort because, if you did it, you'd build up so much freaking heat that you'd cook yourself alive in the process. In MWO, I see nothing but players immediately turning the Override off the second the games starts and, why not?, the downside is some slight damage to a random internal. The point that I was trying to make is that this game should be about making smart and conscious decisions as to what to do and when instead of mashing every single button you've got assigned to a weapons group and then moving on to the next target. For emphasis and to better make my point:

Weapon balance is actually better than that. At competitive play, SRMs ARE scary, meta in fact. The difference is, they require some coordination to use effectively, which is why they come into their own in larger groups and competitive play.

Dakka is also very strong. The Mauler is one of the top assaults in the game right now, with AC5s. The Atlas is the king of brawling assaults and its meta loadout is an AC20 and 4 SRM6's with Artemis, and it will demolish any energy boat within 270 meters, it just takes teamplay and coordination to get it into that range.

Ironically, having dangerous mechs makes you have to think more about your game. You have to carefully choose every movement to make sure that you don't get a chunk taken out of you.

I am VERY concerned that making energy boats not viable is only going to cut down on viable mech variety (see a couple posts last page about all the viable mechs we have right now) and not really going to effect TTK. If you can still boat AC5s people are still going to drop fast, which is why it comes down to more thoughtful play, and being aware of the enemy team and where your own team is.

[QuantumButler]

LOL Implying it won't be worse than Ghost Heat and also be super buggy and not work consistently, making certain builds vastly op while making other builds pretty much useless trash.

[Prof RJ Gumby]

Gas Guzzler, on 24 March 2016 - 07:25 PM, said:

I am VERY concerned that making energy boats not viable is only going to cut down on viable mech variety (see a couple posts last page about all the viable mechs we have right now) and not really going to effect TTK.

Oh c'mon. Can we quit this "not being able to dish out 58 points of dmg with one click will make energy boats not viable" nonsense? You will just click twice instead of once and your total duration will increase to ~1.5-2.0 seconds. So a 75ton BK will still dish out 58 points of dmg while this scary scary 90ton ac5 mauler will dish out 60 in roughly the same time. Some difference.

Please note that this meta mauler got some heavy ballistic quirks, just as every viable AC boat. Guess they needed that.

No-alpha-strike limitation will not destroy laserboats, just close the gap between them and everything else, make laserboats actual all-rounders who still win against specialised loadouts you mentioned in every condition other than that one specialised builds were built for.

My CW dropdeck contains both 5lpl Banshee and 8ml blackjack. None of them is 1-click laservomit, but 1-2 punch laser boats. Banshee dishes out 33dmg after ~0,65 second and total 55dmg after ~1.30 second (LPLs are kinda OP, huh?). In a similar manner, the 45-ton BJ is 40dmg in below two seconds on a highly mobile platform (ml are so light I ended up having BAP on this mech, as there was only 2 slots left, but almost 2 free tons with biggest engine available). Both are perfectly viable and effective against almost anything. Funnily, they even net me more kills than usual, because I can kill one red CT with punch 1 and half a second later kill another red CT with punch 2. The only thing these builds are actually clearly inferior to are (suprise, suprise) 1-click laservomits. So please don't argue that laser boats will be useless if not based on laservomit. Non-vomit laserboats are already here and they work just fine. Alpha limit will make them even better by invalidating the only thing clearly superior to them.

Edited by Prof RJ Gumby, 25 March 2016 - 01:58 AM.

[ReemusX]

Alpha Strike requires charge-up..nah

I don't know man.

Just seems that making heat changes only hits the brawling or DPS side in the open. Doesn't seem like it will have an effect on the peekers, pop-tarts, and snipers who use cover along with damage.

Edited by ReemusX, 25 March 2016 - 02:24 AM.

[Saltychipmunk]

ReemusX, on 25 March 2016 - 02:17 AM, said:

Alpha Strike requires charge-up..nah

I don't know man.

Just seems that making heat changes only hits the brawling or DPS side in the open. Doesn't seem like it will have an effect on the peekers, pop-tarts, and snipers who use cover along with damage.

bingo, strictly speaking what pgi has done is created an environment where mechs that can either do a ton of indirect damage (via lrms) or mech that can do a ton of damage and run away to cool down are king.

that is pretty much the meta. use a crap load of lrms , use a crap load of long range weapons, blob around an ecm mech and pop whatever idiot enemy decides to show their ugly face to you first.

[H I A S]

Saltychipmunk, on 25 March 2016 - 04:33 AM, said:

that is pretty much the meta. use a crap load of lrms

Edited by arivio, 25 March 2016 - 04:40 AM.

[Dr Hobo]

I'd like to have a thinking mans shooter.

I mean don't get me wrong,I like to try my whacked builds that should never see the light of day in serious/semi serious play.

But in lore they've even said that firing gauss limits the output of other weapons/shuts them off temporarily because it requires so much juice.

It might open up more builds when dakka dakka is good for more than paperweights and kickass sounds.

[oldradagast]

To the OP: Be careful what you wish for, because you might get it.

PGI has demonstrated zero understanding of the actual problem in the game. It's not "energy weapons are too powerful" or "boating weapons is too powerful" or "high alpha values are too powerful." No, the singular issue with weapons overall is the ability to boat lots of similar weapons and apply pixel perfect damage from all those weapons at long ranges. That's the problem - that's why you can constantly put all your damage on a single pixel on a mech so far away that even you may not be sure which component is exactly under the crosshairs - but the damage magically always goes to the same spot... all of it...

I have zero reason to believe PGI will actually fix this in a way that doesn't break something else. Maybe they'll make energy mechs useless. Maybe they'll punish brawlers with short-range, scatter weapons because "their alpha is too high" The list of potential failures is a long one, and fully expected since the designers have yet to prove that they understand the actual problem they are trying to fix.

[Mead]

So it's come down to 'implement X to stop players from doing Y', when it should be in the nature of 'implement X to allow players to do Z'.

Getting sick of hearing about how players need to be "punished" for this or that (obviouly not talking about toc violations). It's a terrible mindset.

[Dr Hobo]

Mead, on 25 March 2016 - 05:58 AM, said:

So it's come down to 'implement X to stop players from doing Y', when it should be in the nature of 'implement X to allow players to do Z'.

Getting sick of hearing about how players need to be "punished" for this or that (obviouly not talking about toc violations). It's a terrible mindset.

I don't think that's the intent here.

I think it's the intent to curb the disgusting metas that keep propping up.

There;s no variety in fits,and there's rarely any thinking outside the box.

I think this is being done because PGI is unwilling,or unable to find a proper way to balance quirks,heat,and weapons/mechs in a proper way.

We don't have a dice roll here like we did in TT. And having an RNG based method of aiming(think LRMs) would make most people rage.

[Lugh]

Tyler Valentine, on 23 March 2016 - 03:57 PM, said:

We'll still run it. I'll just have to stay in cover longer after I kill you

Not likely, It will likely just mean a SMALL change to your behavior so you have to have 3 weapon groups instead of two and be exposed for an extra half a second. *GASP*

DOOM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Prof RJ Gumby, on 25 March 2016 - 01:57 AM, said:

No-alpha-strike limitation will not destroy laserboats, just close the gap between them and everything else

The problem you don't seem to understand is that non-laserboats are very close to being viable and things like the GRF-2N, AS7-S, and MAL-MX90 are great examples of that. All it takes is decent velocity to make many weapons to be reliable at their optimal range, who would've thought that?

Laserboats are not the end-all-be-all and haven't been since the meta shift and slight unnerfing of the Gauss (though I almost wonder if the cooldown is still a touch too high).

Btw, if you force splitting firing groups of the BK, medium laser usage will drop even further. LPLs already have ghost heat, if you force MLs to be in that group, they will just be dropping the MLs for LPLs in their place. You did touch on part of the problem which actually got a reddit thread a while back from some of the guys in EmP, it was about the short duration being the actual problem, not the alpha or anything else, which suggested laser durations get increased a bit so that damage wasn't so concentrated within around half a second.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 25 March 2016 - 06:36 AM.

[Mead]

Dr Hobo, on 25 March 2016 - 06:03 AM, said:

I don't think that's the intent here.

I think it's the intent to curb the disgusting metas that keep propping up.

There;s no variety in fits,and there's rarely any thinking outside the box.

I think this is being done because PGI is unwilling,or unable to find a proper way to balance quirks,heat,and weapons/mechs in a proper way.

Yeah, that's my point. Instead of fixing the underlying problems they just heap more restrictions on top of it until it won't be fixed. It's reactive development, negative development. And their cheerleaders among the playerbase give them a reason to pretend they're doing great things instead of playing whack-a-mole with the original issue.

[Gas Guzzler]

Prof RJ Gumby, on 25 March 2016 - 01:57 AM, said:

Oh c'mon. Can we quit this "not being able to dish out 58 points of dmg with one click will make energy boats not viable" nonsense? You will just click twice instead of once and your total duration will increase to ~1.5-2.0 seconds. So a 75ton BK will still dish out 58 points of dmg while this scary scary 90ton ac5 mauler will dish out 60 in roughly the same time. Some difference.

Please note that this meta mauler got some heavy ballistic quirks, just as every viable AC boat. Guess they needed that.

No-alpha-strike limitation will not destroy laserboats, just close the gap between them and everything else, make laserboats actual all-rounders who still win against specialised loadouts you mentioned in every condition other than that one specialised builds were built for.

My CW dropdeck contains both 5lpl Banshee and 8ml blackjack. None of them is 1-click laservomit, but 1-2 punch laser boats. Banshee dishes out 33dmg after ~0,65 second and total 55dmg after ~1.30 second (LPLs are kinda OP, huh?). In a similar manner, the 45-ton BJ is 40dmg in below two seconds on a highly mobile platform (ml are so light I ended up having BAP on this mech, as there was only 2 slots left, but almost 2 free tons with biggest engine available). Both are perfectly viable and effective against almost anything. Funnily, they even net me more kills than usual, because I can kill one red CT with punch 1 and half a second later kill another red CT with punch 2. The only thing these builds are actually clearly inferior to are (suprise, suprise) 1-click laservomits. So please don't argue that laser boats will be useless if not based on laservomit. Non-vomit laserboats are already here and they work just fine. Alpha limit will make them even better by invalidating the only thing clearly superior to them.

I think you are being optimistic. The only builds I see using volley fire are ER Large builds. Maybe that Banshee you speak of, but if a BK has to split it's shots, I will probably look elsewhere.

Similarly, the vomit Executioner already has to stare for 1.18 seconds and it is a hair too much, you think it is still going to be viable if it has to stagger shots. I doubt it. Why take that over that Banshee you just described?

You can be optimistic all you want, but I don't see low pods pace clan mechs or IS laser boats having a very strong foothold, especially when PPFLD is available as well.

Also, that gap between laser boats and "everything else" is not nearly as big as you seem to think. There are many other weapons used in both public and competitive play.

Edited by Gas Guzzler, 25 March 2016 - 07:55 AM.

[Gas Guzzler]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 25 March 2016 - 06:33 AM, said:

You did touch on part of the problem which actually got a reddit thread a while back from some of the guys in EmP, it was about the short duration being the actual problem, not the alpha or anything else, which suggested laser durations get increased a bit so that damage wasn't so concentrated within around half a second.

Would be interesting to see how that played out now. Right off the bat I could see increasing IS LPL duration to 0.85-0.9 seconds.