211 replies to this topic

[meteorol]

Wintersdark, on 23 August 2016 - 05:33 PM, said:

KDK-SB, LBX20, 2xERML, 4xASRM6, MASC, XL400

Brutal. Simply brutal. The 15 draw LBX20 and very reasonable SRM6's allow cool-as-a-cucumber combat. You don't alpha both together unless you want a kill right then, but fire one then the other while twisting past (never stopping twisting) and you deliver crushing damage with easy-peasy heat management. Felt OP.

AS7-DDC, 2LBX10, 3SRM4, STD350

Felt stronger than the SB, but obviously not as fast. Quirks lead to awesome twist, though, so fine. Same logic as the SB, but much higher LBX damage vs. lower SRM damage; structural quirks and more spread fire made me feel indestructible.

TBH, i guess your test regarding those mechs will be more than inaccurate compared to what we will see once ED goes on live server.

Test server is 4v4, no matchmaking at all, with like half of the players testing some odd builds. Only a fracture of the map coverage the enemy team has in 12v12. Getting close to the enemy is way easier than it is in 12v12, the incoming fire is way less, and playing a brawler is generally way easier with only 4 enemy mechs.

I feel like the inability to alpha strike SRM and AC on a reasonable amount of heat will have a massive impact on those mechs if ED goes live the way it is.

All in all, sadly the test server is pretty much useless. I get the idea to use 4v4 to get a reasonable amount of matches going due to the low amount of people actually testing, but 4v4 is not even close to what happens in 12v12. Testing a new system in an environment it will never be used in isn't the best idea to begin with, but probably the only way to do it with the low amount of people willing to actually play on test server.

Edited by meteorol, 24 August 2016 - 09:31 AM.

[Wintersdark]

TKSax, on 24 August 2016 - 09:27 AM, said:

Thats easy, 30 damage to the same part of mech will be better than 66 spread out all over a mech,

Well, 30 damage to one part vs. 66 damage spread to the whole torso, with the 66 damage being able to be fired again as fast or faster; or capped less in overall damage done? If you're only doing 22 damage to the CT, 22 to each ST, but you're firing faster and/or longer, you're winning that battle vs. a guy who's doing 30 damage per shot; and that's assuming you've both got perfect aim.

Despite being a very long time LBX hater, I've adopted many into my shorter ranged builds, and they are flat out kicking ***. Mostly just hit target +1 component, but draw so little power and generate so little heat I'm able to combine them with heavy laser alphas and/or crushing SRM vollies.

[Gas Guzzler]

Wintersdark, on 24 August 2016 - 09:30 AM, said:

Now, just to be clear: I actually preferred less restrictive numbers. But that preference is easily offset by just how incredibly effective mixed builds are being; I'm really enjoying this.

Its not real though man... surely you can see that once it gets to 12 v 12 and the meta settles in, its just going to be boating something else. Nerf that? Move on to the next thing, and so on.

Wintersdark, on 24 August 2016 - 09:30 AM, said:

Now, just to be clear: I actually preferred less restrictive numbers.

Could never have guessed that based on all your butter tweets that Russ is eating up and retweeting!

[Cy Mitchell]

Navid A1, on 24 August 2016 - 08:23 AM, said:

I would accept UAC10s energy draw being 10 if it fired a single shot.

With ED. You fire 3 shells. You spread damage... and you are PUNISHED instantly.

I see that Russ responded on Twitter that he will take your ideas concerning AC/UAC draw to the design team to discuss them.

[Wintersdark]

Gas Guzzler, on 24 August 2016 - 09:31 AM, said:

5 LPL would be more effective at 50 damage, given its much easier to put it all in the same place. Obviously. Fire 3, wait 1 second, fire 2

Depending on range, sure.

Or 3 LPL and a buttload of SRM's, fire the 30 damage LPL's then unload a facefull of SRM's, for example.

Clan side, I found 2xLBX10+2LPL was way better then 2+2LPL, as it hit roughly as hard but at a tiny, tiny fraction of the heat. Fighting directly against a quad LPL Warhawk in my Orion was eye opening, as he heatcapped pretty quick, while I could keep hammering away.

[Navid A1]

Well, I guess our main difference is that you think your PTS experience will extrapolate to live server as well.
you are having fun in a 4v4 match with people trying things out.

12v12 is a whole different play style

Rampage, on 24 August 2016 - 09:35 AM, said:

I see that Russ responded on Twitter that he will take your ideas concerning AC/UAC draw to the design team to discuss them.

I'm certain they will adjust the total draw to negate this... be prepared for UAC5 drawing 8 and UAC10s drawing 14.

[Wintersdark]

Gas Guzzler, on 24 August 2016 - 09:35 AM, said:

Its not real though man... surely you can see that once it gets to 12 v 12 and the meta settles in, its just going to be boating something else. Nerf that? Move on to the next thing, and so on.

There will ALWAYS be a meta. Maybe it will be boating; but I suspect it won't be pure boating. I've seen how my builds fare against boated builds, and I've seen how my own boated builds perform. My experience has been that I can get the same burst but higher DPS out of mixed builds than I can out of boated energy builds. Boated missile builds are funky, but few mechs do that so it's not really worth pursuing - they have all the flaws boated missile builds have always had. Boated ballistics? Some ballistics work better boating, but there are limits. It depends on what your approach is, what you want to acheive.

I can see you'd probably prefer to just boat more AC5's, for example... but on live, too, if you can run more AC5's you generally want to. Not really any different.

Quote

Could never have guessed that based on all your butter tweets that Russ is eating up and retweeting!

One can like many different things, and one can feel that things one enjoys may not be as good for the game as something else.

I preferred less restrictive numbers; but I'm REALLY enjoying this too, and this PTS has way fewer serious flaws than the prior one did (particular with regard to how easy it was to do heavy alpha cover peeking, which I think would become heavily prevalent in a new meta.

---

PTS1 was quite heavily leaning to the old 30pt PPFLD alpha meta. I enjoyed that meta, quite a lot. I don't really think it was good for the game given how many people didn't like it, but I certainly enjoyed it.

PTS2 has moved away from that. I do strongly think all PPC's where over-nerfed in this PTS, and that needs to be addressed. However, I'm finding pretty much everything else quite effective, with nothing presenting an overwhelming advantage that cannot be matched by other builds. I think that's good for the game.

After all, this is the first time I've seen LBX's as actual valid weapons. Good ones, even, worth considering over UAC's for some builds (but definitely not all).

Edited by Wintersdark, 24 August 2016 - 09:45 AM.

[Navid A1]

Wintersdark, on 24 August 2016 - 09:44 AM, said:

PTS2 has moved away from that. I do strongly think all PPC's where over-nerfed in this PTS, and that needs to be addressed. However, I'm finding pretty much everything else quite effective, with nothing presenting an overwhelming advantage that cannot be matched by other builds. I think that's good for the game.

Sorry man. You wrapped it up for all of us in those tweets. Its highly unlikely for them to change anything at this point.

[Gas Guzzler]

Wintersdark, on 24 August 2016 - 09:44 AM, said:

There will ALWAYS be a meta.

You know, I like the meta now, because I can use SRMs (AND LB20 EVEN!! Spirit Bear hugs FTW, there is your viable LB build, and it works on other similar builds as well, you can even run 2 LB10s and 3 SRM6s on an ON1 IIC, I bet it would be a great brawler on the live servers), lasers, PPCs, Gauss, AC5s, AC20, etc, and its all viable, really in all sorts of combinations. No BS mechanic saying I can't fire an AC20 and SRMs at the same time ("You can.." NO. Its not viable to go up to 70% heat in a brawl with one shot). This turns all of this upside down,and says that bigger mechs have to stare to make use of all of their weapons.

Its bad, and its not why I have bought pretty much every mech pack to date because I enjoy this game so much. Its not fair to simply change gameplay. Balance is one thing, this changes the nature of the game.

Man, this looks like fun, I'm gonna have to try this tonight on the live servers.

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...117b2fa7770daae

Edited by Gas Guzzler, 24 August 2016 - 09:57 AM.

[Cy Mitchell]

Navid A1, on 24 August 2016 - 09:43 AM, said:

Well, I guess our main difference is that you think your PTS experience will extrapolate to live server as well.
you are having fun in a 4v4 match with people trying things out.

12v12 is a whole different play style



I'm certain they will adjust the total draw to negate this... be prepared for UAC5 drawing 8 and UAC10s drawing 14.

I am glad to see you are so upbeat about your ideas being taken under consideration.

[Wintersdark]

meteorol, on 24 August 2016 - 09:31 AM, said:

TBH, i guess your test regarding those mechs will be more than inaccurate compared to what we will see once ED goes on live server.

Test server is 4v4, no matchmaking at all, with like half of the players testing some odd builds. Only a fracture of the map coverage the enemy team has in 12v12. Getting close to the enemy is way easier than it is in 12v12, the incoming fire is way less, and playing a brawler is generally way easier with only 4 enemy mechs.

I feel like the inability to alpha strike SRM and AC on a reasonable amount of heat will have a massive impact on those mechs if ED goes live the way it is.

All in all, sadly the test server is pretty much useless. I get the idea to use 4v4 to get a reasonable amount of matches going due to the low amount of people actually testing, but 4v4 is not even close to what happens in 12v12. Testing a new system in an environment it will never be used in isn't the best idea to begin with, but probably the only way to do it with the low amount of people willing to actually play on test server.

I talked about this earlier. I do get the differences, contrary to popular belief. I've been playing this game regularly for four years, under all sorts of conditions. I very clearly understand the differences between 4v4, 8v8, and 12v12.

When I'm talking about those brawlers above, I'm keeping in mind how brawling is in 12v12 matches.

Yes, your damage is spread. So is your opponents.

It's not like you're being forced to fire your AC20 and SRM's separately, but your opponents are still hammering you with massive PP alpha strikes; they're spreading their damage as well. The difference, in the AC/SRM and LBX/SRM builds is they don't require any real face time, you never need to stop twisting. It's not fundamentally different from live, while more direct damage builds tend to need slightly more face time.

Also, incidentally, I've found with my non-brawlers that it's markedly easier to avoid brawling in 4v4, because there's a hell of a lot more "safe space" on maps than there is in 12v12. In a 12v12 match, if they're brawl focused and pushing, there isn't anywhere to go; you'll just run into more OpFor. In 4v4, if you're faster, it's easy to stay clear.

Even so, you get in close, and you *wreck* stuff. The spread component of SRM's (and LBX's) allows you to push way more damage outbound. Even if you're doing comparable or slightly less PP damage, you're flat out wrecking stuff.

Brawling is absolutely fine.

[Navid A1]

Wintersdark, on 24 August 2016 - 09:03 AM, said:

No, I have not run a Direwolf yet, though I do have a lot of runs in my Kodiaks, which are quite similar.

Lol what?
Kodiak is similar to direwolf?
Sorry man, I can not take anything you say about gameplay seriously anymore!

Kodiak is different compared to a dire wolf by a galactic margin.

Being a battlemech, faster speed, faster torso twist rate, further torso twist range, lower arm actuators, Better torso twist profile...

no, seriously. I can not take your word for your testings any more.

Edited by Navid A1, 24 August 2016 - 10:01 AM.

[Navid A1]

Rampage, on 24 August 2016 - 09:59 AM, said:

I am glad to see you are so upbeat about your ideas being taken under consideration.

Trust me... its not the first time... they take half of your idea.. they twist it an mess it up and then throw it to your face and say that we listened to feedback.


That Clan gauss explosion chance... you know what was the main idea i was tweeting to Russ?
I was asking for a reduced explosion chance for IS gauss... what I got was more explosion chance for C-Gauss.
But hey.. they listened to feedback right? IS gauss now has less explosion chance compared to clan.

[Gas Guzzler]

Navid A1, on 24 August 2016 - 10:06 AM, said:

Trust me... its not the first time... they take half of your idea.. they twist it an mess it up and then throw it to your face and say that we listened to feedback.


That Clan gauss explosion chance... you know what was the main idea i was tweeting to Russ?
I was asking for a reduced explosion chance for IS gauss... what I got was more explosion chance for C-Gauss.
But hey.. they listened to feedback right? IS gauss now has less explosion chance compared to clan.

Similarly, there was a call for lower laser draw values to balance them against PPFLD. The result? PPFLD draw increased.

[Cy Mitchell]

Navid A1, on 24 August 2016 - 09:28 AM, said:

3xUAC10s?

Boating my friend.. boating the most efficient 30 amage combo.
Why bother with lasers+UACs any more

I do not think that fits the criteria he was describing as a more efficient 66 damage. The triple UAC10s would have to be double tapped, would not be all FLD, would still spread somewhat if the target was moving or twisted and would still cause a lot of heat. I need to test a triple build. I have not tried one yet to see how a 3 x UAC10 double tap Alpha would be on the heat.

[Wintersdark]

Gas Guzzler, on 24 August 2016 - 09:53 AM, said:

You know, I like the meta now, because I can use SRMs (AND LB20 EVEN!! Spirit Bear hugs FTW, there is your viable LB build, and it works on other similar builds as well, you can even run 2 LB10s and 3 SRM6s on an ON1 IIC, I bet it would be a great brawler on the live servers), lasers, PPCs, Gauss, AC5s, AC20, etc, and its all viable, really in all sorts of combinations. No BS mechanic saying I can't fire an AC20 and SRMs at the same time ("You can.." NO. Its not viable to go up to 70% heat in a brawl with one shot). This turns all of this upside down,and says that bigger mechs have to stare to make use of all of their weapons.

Yeah, I wouldn't alpha AC20 and SRM24. You can, and may if it'll be a kill shot, but generally speaking no, you won't. That's 68 damage though, 20 of which is PPFLD. This is exactly what the system is breaking up.

Still, an Atlas never needs to stare. You fire while twisting past (as you well know). The face time an AS7 gains with this is measured in fractions of a second, while a mech boating, say, lasers, needs much more face time.

This also means your atlas is delivering punches closer together - wham, wham, wham - which makes it substantially more difficult for your opponent to respond.

But LBX's? Running a dual LBX10 ON1-IIC-C is bad, and you know it. It's nowhere near as good as a dual UAC10 ONI-IIC-C. 20 damage spread vs. 40 damage? Yeah.

But on ED; those LBX's are actually gaining a lot of value. With their current, pretty tight spread, you hit mostly what you're aiming at. While you don't have the doubletap, your 20 damage costs you 15 energy vs. the 10's 20 energy, which directly allows more other weaponry to be fired with them.

CUAC10's are still extremely strong weapons in PTS2. They're still pushing damage comparable to dual AC20's, over vastly longer ranges and for less heat. But they're not really able to be paired with a lot of other weaponry, which serves as a great counterpoint.

Meanwhile, weaker weapons CAN be paired with more weaponry.


Either way, you can get an effective build. Go CUAC's if you're more tonnage and hardpoint constrained, as they deal way more damage per hardpoint, go LBX's if you've got hardpoints and tonnage to pack on more other weaponry.

[Navid A1]

Rampage, on 24 August 2016 - 10:08 AM, said:

I do not think that fits the criteria he was describing as a more efficient 66 damage. The triple UAC10s would have to be double tapped, would not be all FLD, would still spread somewhat if the target was moving or twisted and would still cause a lot of heat. I need to test a triple build. I have not tried one yet to see how a 3 x UAC10 double tap Alpha would be on the heat.

It is better than 2LPL 2UAC10... it is way cooler. (LPLs generate heat by themselves remember... convolute fire ftw)

The time between shells are 0.11 seconds, meaning that all shots land in 0.55 seconds (and you get 30 heat penalty as a result)
Yet with 2LPL + 2UAC10s your firing window is larger with higher heat (20 heat from LPLs + around 30 from penalty)

[Gas Guzzler]

Wintersdark, on 24 August 2016 - 10:11 AM, said:

Still, an Atlas never needs to stare. You fire while twisting past (as you well know). The face time an AS7 gains with this is measured in fractions of a second, while a mech boating, say, lasers, needs much more face time.

This also means your atlas is delivering punches closer together - wham, wham, wham - which makes it substantially more difficult for your opponent to respond.

But LBX's? Running a dual LBX10 ON1-IIC-C is bad, and you know it. It's nowhere near as good as a dual UAC10 ONI-IIC-C. 20 damage spread vs. 40 damage? Yeah.

The Atlas has to stare for 1.2 seconds in between his SRMs and AC20.

Having ran an LB20 plus SRMs ON1-IIC I can say that it will steamroll people at brawling range... the mechs other issues are the problem, hence why the LB20 + Srms build is a top tier brawler on the Spirit Bear.

[Navid A1]

Wintersdark, on 24 August 2016 - 10:11 AM, said:

Still, an Atlas never needs to stare. You fire while twisting past (as you well know). The face time an AS7 gains with this is measured in fractions of a second, while a mech boating, say, lasers, needs much more face time.

Why don't you try to twist in a direwolf?

If fire power is normalised across all mechs... I "DESIRE" direwolf to have the same mobility as the kodiak

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Wintersdark, on 24 August 2016 - 10:00 AM, said:

It's not like you're being forced to fire your AC20 and SRM's separately, but your opponents are still hammering you with massive PP alpha strikes; they're spreading their damage as well.

Under this system, they won't be firing massive alpha strikes, it will be dakka hammering you, whether it is the 5 UAC5 with TComp Whale or the 3 AC5/2 UAC5 Mauler or even the new 4 UAC5 Cyclops. Mixed builds like your laser vomit Kodiak won't be worth it against these mechs because they no longer are able to do the punch like they used too and the raw damage the dakka spits out will still be ruining any mech that stands in their way. I know many think AC5s are dead, but especially with the latest group of changes, AC5s are still one of the best weapons for assaults.

I'm with Gas though, this is too restrictive and won't make gameplay better, the longer this PTS goes on, the more I would be a fan of them just re-evaluating the thresholds and penalties of all the ghost heat groups in live.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 24 August 2016 - 10:32 AM.