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[Elizander]

Quirk Adjustments

The following 'Mechs are receiving Quirk Adjustments in this patch:

Inner Sphere Lights

• Jenner (multiple variants) – Jenners got a bit bigger since the rescale. In order to help them cope with this we have increased their agility(Accel/Decel/Turn Rate) so that they will be able to manipulate cover better through peek-and-shoot tactics with their relatively high mounted energy hard points as well as to break off from an engagement more effectively.

• Locust (multiple variants) – Locusts benefited a lot during the rescale and they can now be quite a threat to other mechs. Due to the smaller profile we have decided to reduce the armor bonus so that locust pilots still have to be careful when exposing themselves to enemy fire. The offensive quirks have been reduced to offset the benefits they gained from the rescale. If they appear to be too ineffective after some time of observation, we might revisit this and restore some of their offensive quirks.

Inner Sphere Mediums

• Blackjack (multiple variants) – Blackjacks have been quite good, even if they did not have the large durability quirks they enjoyed. The high mounts ensure that they can make the best use of terrain against their opponents. It might have taken some time, but we have decided to scale down their durability just a little bit more to even them out with other mediums. There was a lot of outcry when they first got their huge durability buffs so hopefully they will be in a perfect place now with these changes and will have to be more careful with both their arms being shot off. They still have torso-mounted weapons, however, so this is not too big an issue.

• Centurion (CN9-AL) – We are continuing our pass to keep IS energy quirks in check. The CN9-AL still has good durability quirks and retains 5% Large Laser CD along with -20% heat gen and -10% laser duration. We think that we’ve lowered its face-time DPS enough to balance out with its durability without affecting its longevity in combat (via retaining the heat gen quirks).

• Kintaro (multiple variants) –The Kintaro is something we’d like to see more often on the field so we’ve added some durability quirks to it in order for them to last a little bit longer in the front lines. We’re not too keen on increasing structure beyond this point, but it should help it stay alive just a bit longer for those few extra shots.

• Phoenix Hawk (multiple variants) – Due to player feedback, we’ve beefed up the Phoenix Hawk structure, particularly the arms so that they can retain their offense longer in a match. Some agility quirks were added to all variants to help it get out of the line of fire faster or help with peek-and-shoot strategies. We’ll monitor the PXH performance to see if the arm structure bonus is enough.

Inner Sphere Heavies

• Catapult (multiple variants) – Catapults used to be much larger prior to the rescale, but now they are quite compact. We were not sure if the rescale would have an overwhelmingly positive effect on their survivability until it went live, but now we can safely say that it did. We did not want to remove any of their offensive quirks so we just decided to remove the armor quirks that were added in response to user feedback prior to rescale and shave off some structure. If the A-1 still has issues with the arms being shot off we might go back later to add more structure to it.

• Marauder (multiple variants) - The Marauder came with very good geometry and hitboxes and good pilots who can leverage this by always keeping their enemies in front of them are difficult to take down. We feel that this ‘tankiness’ is a great benefit to the mech so we toned down some offensive quirks on some variants and reduced overall agility. Marauders still have great hard points and the high mounted ballistics is something that no quirk can really make up for on other chassis. The MAD-R had the ballistic quirks taken away, but with more mounts means lighter and higher velocity ballistics with longer range anyway so removing the minor ballistic quirks won’t take much away from the variant. If Marauders have too much trouble twisting to spread damage we might go back and increase Torso Yaw or Turn Rate in a future update.

• Quickdraw (multiple variants) – The Quickdraw has pretty good offensive quirks still. We wanted to dial down the structure bonuses just a little more so that it can be more clearly defined as a fast offensive skirmisher and make pilots be more careful where they position themselves. They already have high agility so having structure too high was something we are concerned with. We decided that we’d rather lower structure a little instead of reducing agility quirks, but we’ll keep an eye on it.

• Warhammer (multiple variants) – The Warhammer is already quite tough with good hardpoints (for the most part). We feel that the agility was a little too high and we did not want to reduce its structure. While the change might seem big, we think that this will better put the Warhammer in a tanky heavy role which we prefer instead of removing structure quirks and having it as an agile skirmisher.

Inner Sphere Assaults

• Battlemaster (multiple variants) – The Battlemaster has always been blessed with multiple high energy mounts and that’s no big secret. Not many assault mechs that can move as fast as it can can really compete and since we would rather not lower the energy hardpoints or something ridiculous like that, we just decided to take out some energy quirks to see if this brings it more in line with the other assaults. Battlemasters just ended up bringing more to the table than Stalkers or Banshees did (assaults with high energy mounts) because it could go faster and has more high hardpoints to work with. We’ll see if this brings the mech in line with the others and we might boost the other assault mechs up instead of nerfing the Battlemaster further, but no guarantees.

Please note that balance is an ongoing process and is based on developer observations of game data, competitive play and player feedback. We'd appreciate clear and concise feedback regarding the changes after they have gone live and tested for a few weeks so we can gather our own data to compare with what players tell us.

If something is drastically wrong with the changes we might consider a hotfix, but due to the resources and player inconvenience this causes, we'd like to avoid this option if possible. Thank you for your cooperation and understanding.

[Deathlike]

That'll never happen.

I mean, we're more likely to get this:

"This mech sucked. We decided to overbuff it for reasons."

"This mech was loudly screamed as OP, and as such, we nerfbatted it to the ground."

Done.