Summary:
· Energy draw works as intended.
· Longer weapon cooldown is nice.
· Energy tied to the damage does not allow proper weapon balance, it stimulates use of PPFLD weapons and heavily taxes splash damage weapons.
· Making different energy thresholds for mechs of different classes/weight can be an option to test further (or energy draw quirks perhaps).
· Energy draw does not addresses boating of the similar weapons, on the contrary it encourages it.
Suggestions:
· Set 1.5 energy multiplier for PPFLD weapons (with adjustments for clan ERPPC and UACs) to avoid pinpoint meta
· Keep hitscan lasers as they are with 1e/1damage ratio (need further testing)
· Set 0.5-0.75 energy multipliers for splash damage weapons, depending on their spread (hard to test now – PPFLD is too good. Further testing is required).
· Establish different independent system to address boating on top of the ED.
For those who's still here:
Energy draw addresses the biggest drawbacks of Ghost Heat – it affects every weapon and it is more or less intuitive. My general opinion – it works quite well.
Weapon balance is not the purpose of current PTS, yet there are some clear issues, affecting gameplay a lot.
-First, every mech treated the same way as any other – there is no difference between scary Direwolf and tiny Locust.
-Second, EnergyDraw does not address boating, quite opposite it encourages it even more.
-Third and the most important - weapon draw based almost exclusively on weapon damage. It barely take into account how pinpoint the damage is and does not account for other weapon attributes at all. Thus, you can get away with 6 PPC Stalker and you are screwed with AC20/SRM brawl Atlas. Current weapon draw figures on PTS made ERPPCs and IS ACs best brawling weapons in my experience.
Draw per weapon is a fundamental thing, which will define balance in the game under Energy Draw and that is something I want to share an opinion and see yours.
Main idea is to adjust the draw values for how pinpoint weapon is. Adjustments for other attributes (range, heat, cooldown, etc.) could be added on top of that later on. I assume that the base draw cap of 30 will be kept (though I wish it will be increased for assaults to 36-42 at least) PPFLD
Spoiler
1. All PPFLD (pinpoint frontloaded damage weapons: IS autocannons, IS PPCs, Gauss) energy draw should receive a multiplier of 1,5. E.g. PPC will draw 10*1,5=15 energy, AC20 will draw 30, Gauss – 22,5 etc. This will further discourage 6 PPC builds, will make you think twice before receiving +15 heat from firing dual AC20, will desync dual gauss+dual PPC builds. Finally, it will bring things a bit closer to the live server balance (which I consider relatively good). I use 1,5 multiplier exactly because of the latter.
Dual Gauss carriers like JM-6 will not be affected a lot, as Gauss rifle has no heat, thus 7,5 heat penalty will be negligible. 100t dual gauss/ppc builds on the other hand will require decent firing discipline to be viable. On top of that triple gauss (Thunderhawk!) might be balanced, but that still depends whether charge mechanics will live.
CERPPC and UACs
Spoiler
2. Clan ERPPC: splash damage currently adds severe penalty to this weapon. Taking the same approach as with PPFLD will bring it to 18.5 (10*1,5+3,5 from splash) energy for 10 damage you make to the component you want to hit. IMHO it is a bit too much, you can’t even fire 2 of them. There are 3 ways to deal with that: 1-do not count splash damage at all (15 energy, like IS PPC); 2-make it 15 pinpoint damage (22.5 energy, so you can fire one like Gauss rifle); 3-lower the multiplier
3. Clan UACs: they already do splash damage. This balances their double tap ability and lower weight on live servers, so treating them as PPFLD weapon gives second penalty to UACs. Besides, double-tap already draw energy by itself. Thus, draw for UACs should be determined by how long it takes to make their full damage.
My logic is following: CUAC5 fires 2 shells in 0,11 seconds (+0,11 for every next shell, 033 for UAC20), thus the draw should be:
damage*(PPFLD multiplier of 1,5-time to fire) = 5*(1,5-0,11)=6,95
The draw will be following: CUAC 2 = 2 CUAC 5 = 6,95 CUAC 10 = 12,8 CUAC 20 = 23,4
Perhaps the flawed logic, but it gives UACs something to compensate for multiple shells. This treats 2s and 5s almost as PPFLD weapons and allows to use 2 UAC10s + UAC 5 with almost no penalty. 3 UAC 10s or 2 10s+ 2 5s or dual 20s can be used as well, but the penalty will be more severe, as it should be.
BTW double tap works excellent in PTS, it can either be used as a immediate burst of damage with some penalty, or as a second AC after 1sec of energy recharging. Fire discipline is required, which is wonderful.
Lasers
Spoiler
4. Hitscan weapon (all sort of lasers) worked relatively well at PTS. 1 to 1 energy to damage ratio is fine as lasers have burn duration. However, I did not test them a lot, as it is the easiest weapon in the game.
Nonetheless I would love to see some adjustments to energy of CERMLs (4 without penalty with 1.15 duration is barely usable, many mechs like Nova use them as a primary weapon though). Some changes with IS LPL and regular LL balance (LPL is clearly superior with it's 0,67 duration and 700 max range) would be nice too.
Cluster damage weapons
Spoiler
5. Cluster damage weapons could be further decomposed to 2 groups: unguided weapons (SRMs, LBXs) and guided (LRMs, Streaks).
Unguided weapons, both LBXs and SRMs got hit pretty hard with PTS. First, you can't fire 4 SRM6 without penalty now. Second, you can’t sync SRMs and AC on brawlers like Atlas/Kodiak-SB without penalty anymore. Finally, PPFLD weapons are so good, there is little sense to use SRMs/LBXs. Would love to test them with 1.5 multiplier for PPFLD weapons, but even with this suggestion in place you can alpha with PPC or AC20 quite often, so cluster weapon should have something to balance that. Ability to fire 4 SRM6 with no penalty again would be welcomed. LRMs: still inferior to other weapon systems, at least ghost heat finally based on number of missiles, not launchers. This puts bigger launchers at even greater disadvantage though-they spread more, still heat penalty occurs earlier for them. Not sure if it make sense to band aid already crippled thing, but it’s something to consider. Streaks: Didn't tested them. 15% cool down increase should have nerfed them even more.
While I am also thinking that the penalty multiplier over 30 (or lowered limit to 25) should be 1.0 or 1.5 instead of 0.5xDMG, your numbers would definitely help the overall balance of these 3 weapon types in the new system.
Reducing the efficiency of the big FLPPD and therefore making them good in smaler number but not "always better" in larger numbers is what I also think would be best.
It would bring light/medium mechs which can only use 1 or 2 of the bigger guns to a closer level than these med-heavy-assault mechs using multiples of the same weapons.
It sounds interesting but there is the gauss rifle to consider. Of course, it's near-seven second recycle rate might make a difference.
Gauss rifle is hard to judge right now, since removing charge mechanics is a big step. Judging by forum posts and in-game opinions there are enough supporters of both versions of Gauss. I personally enjoyed entirely different weapon behavior, but my only experience without charging is current PTS.
IMHO there are options here:
1. Removing charge with 7s cooldown and 22,5 energy draw should work well.
2. Keep charge mechanics, return 4.5s cooldown, make it 22,5 energy draw.
3. Keep charge mechanics, keep 7s cooldown, exempt Gauss from 1.5 multiplier - 15 energy to draw. This won't fix 2PPC/2Gauss builds though.
Still needs testing with other PPFLD weapons fixed first
Edited by AngrySpartan, 22 August 2016 - 12:52 PM.
So my options are now to boat for laser vomit or boat for splat. Seems an easier decision than vomit, splat, OR PPFLD. I mean, who needs to see build variety anyway.
Triple PPC is a fairly decent upper limit. Only 2 Peeps is silly, as seen by Ghost Heat.
I'd rather reduce the "energy" values for SRMs, LBX, and Lazors to create more competition.
"Nope, that will make TTK too low".
One player made a feedback video of the PTS, and his feedback was that penalties weren't enough, PPCs should have their draw increased, and Gauss rifles should have their draw significantly increased. This feedback was graciously accepted by a member of NGNG, so I would expect those types of changes in the next round of the PTS.
Edit: Technically he didn't say he was passing it on to PGI.
One player made a feedback video of the PTS, and his feedback was that penalties weren't enough, PPCs should have their draw increased, and Gauss rifles should have their draw significantly increased. This feedback was graciously accepted by a member of NGNG and will be passed on to PGI, so I would expect those types of changes in the next round of the PTS.
After seeing the AC/5 get giganerfed, I wouldn't be surprised. The Nerfinator probably has a monthly quota or something to meet.
Oh NGNG. When will you stop whispering bad ideas into the ears of the devs?
As long as they leave my cUAC/10s still viable. Oh... wait. Damn.
He did say he "took notes on and will pass on" Celyth and Tarogato's feedback, which had a great deal of a following on reddit, when someone asked if it was going to be passed on as well... but we will see how true that is.
Sorry everyone TTK is to quick currently in the live servers, so we will implement a new system that forces us to destroy our opponents by confusing them with math equations and more extra moving colored bars that are located away from the field of view (approximatelly half a screen away from the location of our cross hairs!)
Boating LPL and ER LL it is then.
#VarietyAchieved
Could be the case. That's why it needs further testing.
FupDup, on 22 August 2016 - 03:45 PM, said:
Triple PPC is a fairly decent upper limit. Only 2 Peeps is silly, as seen by Ghost Heat.
I'd rather reduce the "energy" values for SRMs, LBX, and Lazors to create more competition.
I do not consider return of the exponential heatscale - too complicated and not intuitive.
I do not consider increase in the penalty (from 0,5 to 1 let's say) because it will equally hit every weapon, including currently underperforming, like SRMs
That's why it's limit of 2 and not 3 PPC. With 3 peeps and decent number of heatsinks you can make pinpoint 60 damage alphas penalty of 15. Which means era of 6PPC Stalkers will return. If you make PPCs to draw 15 - that's already 30 points of penalty. With 4 PPCs it's 40 point alpha, which is managable.
Could be the case. That's why it needs further testing.
I do not consider return of the exponential heatscale - too complicated and not intuitive.
I do not consider increase in the penalty (from 0,5 to 1 let's say) because it will equally hit every weapon, including currently underperforming, like SRMs
That's why it's limit of 2 and not 3 PPC. With 3 peeps and decent number of heatsinks you can make pinpoint 60 damage alphas penalty of 15. Which means era of 6PPC Stalkers will return. If you make PPCs to draw 15 - that's already 30 points of penalty. With 4 PPCs it's 40 point alpha, which is managable.
6 PPC Stalkers can't sustain their heat, even without penalty systems. The quad versions were much deadlier...
With that being said, I think that the penalty for exceeding the "energy" bar could stand to be higher. Reducing the "energy" for SRMs and etc. will help them not receive the penalty to begin with.
So my options are now to boat for laser vomit or boat for splat. Seems an easier decision than vomit, splat, OR PPFLD. I mean, who needs to see build variety anyway.
And how's PPFLD is excluded from the equation? Bringing PPFLD weapons to 1.5x draw or similar will make it the same as on a live servers, but better:
-You can alpha with dual AC20 if you want. You can't do that without penalty
-Triple AC10's/PPC? Same as now, but less penalty for PPCs.
-Quad PPCs alpha? Not possible on live servers, viable on ED
etc.etc.etc....
PPFLD weapons, even being "nerfed" to draw 1.5x damage are pefectly viable, even more viable than we have now.
Ultimax, on 22 August 2016 - 04:04 PM, said:
This is an awful idea, there's nothing wrong with 30 points of damage from PPFLD weapons.
Not to mention creating multiple exceptions to how the system works is basically what was wrong with ghost heat.
Yes, 30 pts are viable, but you have to pay for it. Either with different mechanics for gauss we have on live servers now, either with increase heat. That's the advantage of ED - you can choose. Under GH penalty for 3 PPC was too harsh to consider it.
Aleksandr Sergeyevich Kerensky, on 22 August 2016 - 04:09 PM, said:
Sorry everyone TTK is to quick currently in the live servers, so we will implement a new system that forces us to destroy our opponents by confusing them with math equations and more extra moving colored bars that are located away from the field of view (approximatelly half a screen away from the location of our cross hairs!)
Did a HUD feedback topic recently. Not satisfied with it either.
Edited by AngrySpartan, 22 August 2016 - 04:50 PM.
you may not need to punish ppfld more then with all weapons linked now. 2xGauss 2xERPPC and 1xGauss 2xERPPC will likely generate a lot of penalty points onces they polish the numbers
Other combos like 2xLPL, 3xERML and 2xGauss, 2xLPL, 3xERML are going to suffer even more. Those totally dodge the ghost heat system of the live build but were already nerfed with gauss cooldown nerfs and ERML range nerfs.
im going under the reasonable assumption that the PTS had pretty mild settings merely to show off the base of the system rather than the completed system
Other combos like 2xLPL, 3xERML and 2xGauss, 2xLPL, 3xERML are going to suffer even more. Those totally dodge the ghost heat system of the live build but were already nerfed with gauss cooldown nerfs and ERML range nerfs.
I still don't see why these loadouts need to be nerfed more. The IS side will likely be okay because they can just boat LPLs, but any Clan energy boat is going to suffer, which is bad for balance.
Aleksandr Sergeyevich Kerensky, on 22 August 2016 - 04:09 PM, said:
Sorry everyone TTK is to quick currently in the live servers, so we will implement a new system that forces us to destroy our opponents by confusing them with math equations and more extra moving colored bars that are located away from the field of view (approximatelly half a screen away from the location of our cross hairs!)
In that case, for good measure let's also add zero convergence to the mix and see who are capable of seat-of-the-pants geometry and trigonometry. <maniacal >
I still don't see why these loadouts need to be nerfed more. The IS side will likely be okay because they can just boat LPLs, but any Clan energy boat is going to suffer, which is bad for balance.
3xC/LPL is also going to put out less heat under the current PTS and now 2xC/LPL is within just a few damage of 3xLPL
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