173 replies to this topic

[Gyrok]

Why do you think alpha strikes are currently an issue?

What would you do to change them, and why?

My thoughts run to the issue being with the extremely short duration of IS lasers meaning mechs can put 58 damage onto a single component faster than someone can twist to spread that damage.

I think if the egregiously short burn duration was mitigated, it would become less painful to take a laser alpha. They *are* supposed to be DoT...the clan lasers are clearly nearly twice the burn time, why should IS lasers be half the burn for 90% of the damage?

[Gas Guzzler]

Gyrok, on 07 May 2016 - 09:36 AM, said:

Why do you think alpha strikes are currently an issue?

What would you do to change them, and why?

My thoughts run to the issue being with the extremely short duration of IS lasers meaning mechs can put 58 damage onto a single component faster than someone can twist to spread that damage.

I think if the egregiously short burn duration was mitigated, it would become less painful to take a laser alpha. They *are* supposed to be DoT...the clan lasers are clearly nearly twice the burn time, why should IS lasers be half the burn for 90% of the damage?

Well they have less range too, expecially in the LPL bracket, but at the same time, I would support an increase in duration to LPLs.

[DAYLEET]

Gyrok, on 07 May 2016 - 09:36 AM, said:

Why do you think alpha strikes are currently an issue?

Because if it make sense in a story to have mech that are always stronger with more firepower... it does not in a video game where they are all mixed together.

Now, i dont think alpha strike is an issue but i guess we can try to balance the game with it since we're not a story. Rather than use quirks.

Gas Guzzler, on 07 May 2016 - 09:38 AM, said:

Well they have less range too, expecially in the LPL bracket, but at the same time, I would support an increase in duration to LPLs.

All energy duration quirks needs to go, all weapon quirks needs to go but the duration one is the worst offender.

Edited by DAYLEET, 07 May 2016 - 09:42 AM.

[Ultimax]

I'm fine with big alphas and I don't care if they prevent duration quirks from affecting pulse lasers.

I think the actual (base) burn times of IS pulse lasers are fine, because of their higher weight and shorter range.

LLAS & ERLLAS can either be shortened outright or keep -duration quirks. ER LLAS should not have been pushed to 1.25s to begin with.


CERLLAS shouldn't be 1.5s, that is too long of a duration.


CERMLAS should have the max range nerf reduced a bit, it didn't make sense to buff all things IS while also nerfing the Clan range advantage with lasers in this category.


And a lot of Clan Mechs need some freaking real quirks already.

Edited by Ultimax, 07 May 2016 - 09:54 AM.

[Triordinant]

Gyrok, on 07 May 2016 - 09:36 AM, said:

Why do you think alpha strikes are currently an issue?

What would you do to change them, and why?

Alpha strikes have always been an issue because the entire armor/internals system in this game is predicated on 2 of your weapons hitting the same section of an enemy 'mech being an extremely rare event. Having 3 or more weapons hit the same spot is supposed to be almost impossible.

Lots of solutions have been proposed over the years including 1) cone of fire/reticle bloom, which is a mechanic in almost all FPS games, 2) grouped weapons can only fire in chain-fire mode, 3) a power-draw system (which is what PGI is supposedly working on), 4) slower weapon convergence, etc., etc.

[Lucian Nostra]

My problem with the Alphas in this game is that you step out to take a shot if someone was watching that area than your CT internal or have a ST blown off, on a heavier assault you might have some armor left.

That or you fire and blow apart something on the other side. I remember playing in one of our Nova Cat tournaments where we got paired to fight alongside NS, This is early clan stuff and Mexicutioner brought out a Dire Wolf, everyone expected 2 PPC 2 Gauss but the now meta LPL, ML, Gauss build is what he took. Like EVERYONE was puzzled about what made this twinkie overlord build good till he stated "I can alpha off another Dire wolf's ST in 1 shot" that's just stupid..

Lets look back a few years at the poptart meta. The screaming, the tears the crying.. over what a 35 point alpha?

[Jackal Noble]

addendum, see Black Knight.

[Gas Guzzler]

DAYLEET, on 07 May 2016 - 09:39 AM, said:

All energy duration quirks needs to go, all weapon quirks needs to go but the duration one is the worst offender.

I would argue that duration quirks are okay on mechs that have 3-4 hardpoints, but they are completely unnecessary when mechs have 7-9 hardpoints.

[Cy Mitchell]

The problem. as I see it, is not Alpha strikes. It is multiple, relatively quickly, repeatable Alpha strikes. Every Mech should be able to fire all its weapons at once. It should not be able to fire all its weapons over and over again without some type of negative ramifications. High heat wreaks havoc with human, electronics and machinery. BT/MW weapons produce high heat. Therefore, firing too many of them in too short of a time frame should have a negative effect on the pilot, sensors and mobility/agility of the Mech.

Edited by Rampage, 07 May 2016 - 10:12 AM.

[Black Ivan]

Alphas are an issue for a long tiem and only become worse. Being able to put out 58 points or more damage into one section is bad.

PGI could implement some sort of weapons converson or something so that all weapons fire won't hit one component

[Novakaine]

Gyrok, on 07 May 2016 - 09:36 AM, said:

Why do you think alpha strikes are currently an issue?

What would you do to change them, and why?

My thoughts run to the issue being with the extremely short duration of IS lasers meaning mechs can put 58 damage onto a single component faster than someone can twist to spread that damage.

I think if the egregiously short burn duration was mitigated, it would become less painful to take a laser alpha. They *are* supposed to be DoT...the clan lasers are clearly nearly twice the burn time, why should IS lasers be half the burn for 90% of the damage?

Because you have the range nuff said.

[Ultimax]

Gas Guzzler, on 07 May 2016 - 10:09 AM, said:

I would argue that duration quirks are okay on mechs that have 3-4 hardpoints, but they are completely unnecessary when mechs have 7-9 hardpoints.

IMO duration quirks should have been limited to:

• Heavy/Assault mechs with very bad geometry (& possibly hardpoint locations) to minimize how that geometry affects their gameplay through improving (reducing) their exposure times
  
• Lights/Mediums with few hardpoints (i.e. likely to use 2 to 3 LLAS) and/or bad geometry, hardpoint locations, etc.
  
• LLAS/ERLLAS & maybe in some cases MLAS - meaning no duration quirks for pulse lasers

Edited by Ultimax, 07 May 2016 - 10:19 AM.

[cazidin]

Low tonnage, low critical slots, high damage. Even clan laser vomit is deadly.

[Triordinant]

Novakaine, on 07 May 2016 - 10:17 AM, said:

Because you have the range nuff said.

...and lighter weight weapons that take up fewer slots.

[Gyrok]

Novakaine, on 07 May 2016 - 10:17 AM, said:

Because you have the range nuff said.

Actually, no...range quirks for IS mechs means that all small and medium class clan lasers are essentially equaled by other weapons that play the same range bracket. The difference is that the IS gets the damage done in half the face time, meaning they can twist away, while clans must wait for full burn or trade at a disadvantage.

Duration has nothing to do with range by the way.

Triordinant, on 07 May 2016 - 10:27 AM, said:

...and lighter weight weapons that take up fewer slots.

And heavily nerfed DHS that mean less heat cap per DHS.

I am not against the style of play, it is ok to have that be a mechanic. What I think is that the ability to put a single alpha strike to a component larger than about 30-40 damage is a bit much...especially with a weapon like lasers.

In the case of a mech like the DW, well, it pays a heavy cost to run the cheese Gauss/PPC build for 50 pp. As would a KGC/Mauler or anything else really.

Now that IS lasers have become single component weapons...it puts those lasers a class above anything else that is not a single component weapon. Which brings us back to duration has nothing to do with tonnage.

Edited by Gyrok, 07 May 2016 - 11:30 AM.

[Tristan Winter]

For me, the big problem is that it makes MWO less of a multi-tasking challenge. Some people will say that min-maxing and boating is unavoidable, and that's a separate discussion, but when you combine boating with alpha strikes, you get a "thinking man's shooter" which is basically team deathmatch where you only need to use WASD and Mouse 1 button to win the game. One of the most fun parts of MWO, in my eyes, is the multi-tasking. Having a mech with 3-4 weapon groups, jump jets, consumables, MASC, ECM, and so many buttons to push. That's the fun part of MWO, for me.

But right now? Forget 4 different weapon groups, forget the methodical balancing act of firing different weapons at the same time. Just equip 3LPL and 4ML and smash Mouse 1 with your fist when you want to kill a robot.

Now, the way Russ is describing it, it sounds like they want to force players to use smaller weapon groups more often, and only use alpha strikes at certain moments. This adds a tiny bit of complexity. Not much, but it makes MWO different from most FPS games. It'll be interesting to see if the power draw system has any impact on boating as well.

Edited by Tristan Winter, 07 May 2016 - 11:31 AM.

[Gyrok]

Tristan Winter, on 07 May 2016 - 11:29 AM, said:

For me, the big problem is that it makes MWO less of a multi-tasking challenge. Some people will say that min-maxing and boating is unavoidable, and that's a separate discussion, but when you combine boating with alpha strikes, you get a "thinking man's shooter" which is basically team deathmatch where you only need to use WASD and Mouse 1 button to win the game. One of the most fun parts of MWO, in my eyes, is the multi-tasking. Having a mech with 3-4 weapon groups, jump jets, consumables, MASC, ECM, and so many buttons to push. That's the fun part of MWO, for me.

But right now? Forget 4 different weapon groups, forget the methodical balancing act of firing different weapons at the same time. Just equip 3LPL and 4ML and smash Mouse 1 with your fist when you want to kill a robot.

Now, the way Russ is describing it, it sounds like they want to force players to use smaller weapon groups more often, and only use alpha strikes at certain moments. This adds a tiny bit of complexity. Not much, but it makes MWO different from most FPS games. It'll be interesting to see if the power draw system has any impact on boating as well.

I expect it will be just as popular as the now defunct info warfare they put on the PTS that caused pitchforks and torches to be brought out of closets across a plethora of MWO social media.

[Gas Guzzler]

Triordinant, on 07 May 2016 - 10:27 AM, said:

...and lighter weight weapons that take up fewer slots.

Yet the duration is the reason that Black Knights are full meta, and laser vomit Clan mechs are rarely used in competitive play..

Gyrok, on 07 May 2016 - 10:51 AM, said:

And heavily nerfed DHS that mean less heat cap per DHS.

Okay, putting our logic/realism hats on, that is completely ********. The DHS nerf was the smallest set back Clan mechs have seen to date, and was even partially offset by increased dissipation. Seriously, this is not the reason laser vomit clan mechs have fallen by the wayside.

The ER MLs don't have significant enough range advantage to counteract the laser duration anymore, that is the primary reason.

[Tristan Winter]

Gyrok, on 07 May 2016 - 11:32 AM, said:

I expect it will be just as popular as the now defunct info warfare they put on the PTS that caused pitchforks and torches to be brought out of closets across a plethora of MWO social media.

Info warfare was a good idea, implemented poorly. PGI has a history of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. They've had some good ideas that were rejected far too early. Info warfare being one of them.

But yes, I also expect that Power Draw will be unpopular, at least initially. They need to do something though.

[Novakaine]

Nope not in the slightest.
Clan weapons have the best of min and max ranges.
Except for the quirks on a few IS mechs.
Which was the reason you Clankers were crying about in FW.
Battlemasters ring a bell?
Of course they do.