9 replies to this topic

[Sable]

I realize these are not final numbers or adjustments, and i get the impression some of these changes were just a "what the hell, lets see how it goes" type of change. Kinda like when PGI changed LRM speed and you went a bit higher, then a lot higher, then dialed it back to in between. Let let me go over each weapon adjustment i thought was good, bad, and some concerns.

cERPPCs
As a Warhawk Prime lover i must say the changes to the clan ERPPC had me interested and thats where i started my testing. After the mini update that happened to the PTS i feel like it's in a very good spot. with the higher damage i feel like it's got it's bite back while the longer cooldown is a fair tradeoff in my opinion. The added benefit is that since you aren't firing as quickly you have more time to cool off in between shots. And the nature of longer cooldowns moves the cERPPC into more of a long range support weapon rather than a full on main weapon. It helps solitify the Warhawk into it's intended role i think. It's not like you could get into brawling range and be able to go toe to toe and still be as effective. I also don't think cERPPCs will become a huge problem because there aren't that many mechs that can boat them effectively. Except for the warhawk, dire, and kodiak nothing can mount enough heat sinks to use Four of them well.

IS ERPPCs
i actually think these are also in a great spot now since the changelog patch for PTS. They aren't as hot as clan ERPPCs and have a slightly better cooldown. The reduced heat from the latest change puts them in a very appealing place compared to before.

IS PPCs
With the other PPCs getting a buff i do feel like these could use a little more love since they still have shorter range and the minimum range handicap. I think regular PPCs should maintain their current live cooldown as to give them some appeal over ERPPCs.

Autocannons
I felt like these all performed right where they ought to be nothing significant struck me while testing them.

Ultra Autocannons
The energy consumption decrease i felt was a nice plus and for cUACs. As for the jam time i think UAC10s and higher the 8 second jam is fair. It punishes those who solely rely on them and encourages a mixed loadout to have backup weapons in the occurrence of a jam. But i do agree with other's who have mentioned an 8 second jam for the lower caliber UACs seems like a bit too much especially on the UAC2s which too my knowledge are rarely used anyway.

Large Laser types
I have to say some of these changes confused me as I find in some cases it removes the discouragement of boating certain weapons.

IS Large Laser
although the damage was reduced from 9 to 8, the energy consumption was reduced to 7.2 from 9. I find this out of place with the whole idea of reducing alphas. at 3 you would be at 27 energy for 27 damage, so firing 4 at a time would give you a heat penalty of 8 additional heat. But at 7.2 you can fire 4 large lasers and only be at 28.8 energy used for 32 damage and get no penalty. Doesn't this kinda ruin the point of limiting alphas? The ER large laser has the same numbers for damage and energy used.

IS Large Pulse Laser
The same problem happens here with the new energy draw numbers. Old numbers of 10 damage for 10 draw you could fire 3 large pulse for 30 damage with no penalty. But with the new damage at 9 with a draw of 8.1 you could fire 4 large pulse lasers for 36 damage at 32.8 draw. The penalty is low enough that i'm sure people would consider it an acceptable amount of penalty to alpha all the time.

Clan ER Large Laser
Same issue here, old damage 11, old draw 11 = 2 er large firing without penalties, 22 damage
New damage 10, draw 9 = 3 ER large firing without penalty, 30 damage

Clan Large pulse
Although i do feel like the nerfs to Clan large pulse laser damage from 13 to 11 was necessary at 9.9 draw it means you can now fire 3 of them at a time. Which means instead of 26 damage for 2 large pulse now you'll have 29.7 damage going out from 3 large pulse.

All the large laser groups are basically buffed in a way i do not think will accomplish limiting higher alpha strikes. If this is the case i think more people would just adopt into a large laser meta game.

And although these didn't get any changes this round i do feel it's important to say something about SRMs. I don't get why being able to fire 4 SRM6s was tweaked to begin with. Even if they are short range and that is their drawback i don't think they should get special treatment. That's still a lot of damage to alpha at someone.

Lastly the Gauss change although every little bit helps this didn't seem to have a big impact on anything i observed.

Also still waiting for JJ improvements to be encorporated into the energy draw system

As i said at the start of this post i get the feeling some of these changes were just to see what would happen or what it would be like to try it out for funnzies. But the ideal place for ED will be somewhere between ED2 and ED3

Edited by Sable, 03 September 2016 - 04:35 PM.

[Reno Blade]

Very nice write-up.

I see the it pretty much the same, especially the large laser class changes seem to make boating them easier, but at the same time make it less useful, as you need to mount more of them for the same damage.
So the change might actually be good in the end. (requiring 1 more LL/LP now will mean 5 or 7 more tons that could be used for other weapons)

Reno Blade, on 02 September 2016 - 11:45 AM, said:

Preliminary feedback to the changes. I will test these in detail later (and update the graphs).

AC/UAC changes:
Seems ok.
Other option would be to have short, but more frequent Jam (higher chance, but only 2-4 sec duration)

M Laser changes:
Seem OK.
6 (no pen.) to 7ML (0-2 penalty)
5 (no pen.) to 6MP (0-3 penalty)
4 cMP (no pen.)
4 (no pen.) to 5 cERML (0-2 penalty)

LL Laser changes:
Reducing dmg will bring the LL down to 8dmg / 7heat (and ERLL 8dmg / 8heat)
4 LL (no pen.) can be fired together now, but thats 20 tons of weapons for 32 dmg / 28 heat
4 ERLL (no pen.) can be fired together now, but thats 20 tons of weapons for 32 dmg / 32 heat
3 cERLL (no pen.) using 12 tons for 30 dmg / 27 heat

LP Laser changes:
3 LP (no pen.) using 21 tons for 27 dmg / 21 heat
4 LP (2.4 pen.) using 28 tons for 36 dmg / 28 heat
3 cLP (no pen.) using 18 tons for 33 dmg / 30 heat

PPC changes:
3x PPC (no pen.) using 21 tons for 30 dmg / 30 heat
3x erPPC (no pen.) using 21 tons for 30 dmg / 37.5 heat (EDITED for 9/2 hotfix)
2x cERPPC (no pen.) using 12 tons for 30 dmg / 30 heat

overall, these weapon all are close to 1:1 rate of dmg/heat, but it seems the LL and LP changes look like they will not be very useful compared to ML and cERML anymore.

While LL/LP and PPCs are now closer to each other in regards to ton, dmg, heat and draw,... the PPC wil be better than the lasers.
I think the Large laser class could get -1 heat to balance this out .


Comparing low vs high dmg/heat/draw LL/LP:
Mechs like the Wolverine 6K can use 4x LL or 3x LP or just 2x LP and 2x ML and a different engine.
Or Stalkers using 4-6 LL/LP.
I rather see mechs only using 2x LL/LP because they are strong, but hot (draw a lot).
This would make single/dual more efficient than to use 4-6 of them.
On the other hand, having the LL/LP "weaker" will also reduce the efficiency of 3-6 LL boats as the tonnage/dmg ratio is not so good compared to other weapons (ML, SRM, AC, LBX).

So we need to see if the LL is still useful with the damage/tonage ratio and dmg/heat compared to the rest.

and some changes I propoesed earlier to go with the feedback:

Reno Blade, on 03 September 2016 - 02:28 PM, said:

maybe closer to these numbers?

Proposed weapon stats, (change to PTS3)
PPC 10 dmg, 9 heat, 11 draw, 5s cd (-1 heat, +1 draw)
isERPPC 10 dmg, 12 heat, 12 draw, 5s cd (-1.5 heat, +2 draw)
cERPPC 13 dmg, 15 heat, 15 draw, 6s cd (-2 dmg, -0.8s cd)
Gauss 15dmg, 1 heat, 18 draw, 7s cd
LL 9 dmg, 7 heat, 8.1 draw, 1.15 duration, 3.25s cd (+1 dmg, +0.9 draw)
ERLL 9 dmg, 8 heat, 8.1 draw, 1.30 duration, 3.25s cd (+1 dmg, +0.9 draw)
cERLL 10 dmg, 9 heat, 9 draw, 1.50 duration, 3.25s cd (-1 heat)
LP 10 dmg, 7 heat, 9 draw, 0.8 duration, 3.25s cd (+1 dmg, +0.9 draw)
cLP 12 dmg, 10 heat, 10.8 draw, 1.20 duration, 3.25s cd(+1 dmg, +0.9 draw)

Reno Blade, on 04 September 2016 - 12:32 AM, said:

...
Why so hung up on "rules" such as 1:1 ? balance needs finetuning not a corsett just to be simple.

My reason to choose a higher draw was because the PPC's FLPPD character compared to LLaser.
I think having a higher draw is a pretty good way to balance the PPCs between each other AND to other weapons.

I don't think it would be good to have the draw of cERPPC below 15 with 13 damage.
Taking 13 draw for 13 damage and adding a Gauss for 18 draw and 15 damage would give a strong FLPPD strike of 28 damage for 17 heat (1 penalty heat)
Using 15 draw cERPPCs would only be 3 penalty heat, so a total of 19 heat with a Gauss.

And for the ISPPC, reducing the heat to 9 will allow smaller mechs to use 2 PPCs a bit better, but using 3x PPC would not be the "Best" option vs other weapons, as you would get 3 penalty heat, which is only bringing you to 30 heat as they would do now already without penalty (10 heat x3).

As for ISERPPCs, less base heat again, but a draw of 12 means you will be less optimized using 3 of them together.
You can, now that the base heat is lower, use 3x (e.g. on an Awesome) and generate 3x 12 heat and draw = 36 + 6 heat = 42. still cooler than the base heat we have on live with 45.

Do these considerations make it worth the deviation from the 1:1 rule now?

[L3mming2]

Sable, on 03 September 2016 - 04:15 PM, said:

I realize these are not final numbers or adjustments, and i get the impression some of these changes were just a "what the hell, lets see how it goes" type of change. Kinda like when PGI changed LRM speed and you went a bit higher, then a lot higher, then dialed it back to in between. Let let me go over each weapon adjustment i thought was good, bad, and some concerns.

cERPPCs
As a Warhawk Prime lover i must say the changes to the clan ERPPC had me interested and thats where i started my testing. After the mini update that happened to the PTS i feel like it's in a very good spot. with the higher damage i feel like it's got it's bite back while the longer cooldown is a fair tradeoff in my opinion. The added benefit is that since you aren't firing as quickly you have more time to cool off in between shots. And the nature of longer cooldowns moves the cERPPC into more of a long range support weapon rather than a full on main weapon. It helps solitify the Warhawk into it's intended role i think. It's not like you could get into brawling range and be able to go toe to toe and still be as effective. I also don't think cERPPCs will become a huge problem because there aren't that many mechs that can boat them effectively. Except for the warhawk, dire, and kodiak nothing can mount enough heat sinks to use Four of them well.

IS ERPPCs
i actually think these are also in a great spot now since the changelog patch for PTS. They aren't as hot as clan ERPPCs and have a slightly better cooldown. The reduced heat from the latest change puts them in a very appealing place compared to before.

IS PPCs
With the other PPCs getting a buff i do feel like these could use a little more love since they still have shorter range and the minimum range handicap. I think regular PPCs should maintain their current live cooldown as to give them some appeal over ERPPCs.

Autocannons
I felt like these all performed right where they ought to be nothing significant struck me while testing them.

Ultra Autocannons
The energy consumption decrease i felt was a nice plus and for cUACs. As for the jam time i think UAC10s and higher the 8 second jam is fair. It punishes those who solely rely on them and encourages a mixed loadout to have backup weapons in the occurrence of a jam. But i do agree with other's who have mentioned an 8 second jam for the lower caliber UACs seems like a bit too much especially on the UAC2s which too my knowledge are rarely used anyway.

Large Laser types
I have to say some of these changes confused me as I find in some cases it removes the discouragement of boating certain weapons.

IS Large Laser
although the damage was reduced from 9 to 8, the energy consumption was reduced to 7.2 from 9. I find this out of place with the whole idea of reducing alphas. at 3 you would be at 27 energy for 27 damage, so firing 4 at a time would give you a heat penalty of 8 additional heat. But at 7.2 you can fire 4 large lasers and only be at 28.8 energy used for 32 damage and get no penalty. Doesn't this kinda ruin the point of limiting alphas? The ER large laser has the same numbers for damage and energy used.

IS Large Pulse Laser
The same problem happens here with the new energy draw numbers. Old numbers of 10 damage for 10 draw you could fire 3 large pulse for 30 damage with no penalty. But with the new damage at 9 with a draw of 8.1 you could fire 4 large pulse lasers for 36 damage at 32.8 draw. The penalty is low enough that i'm sure people would consider it an acceptable amount of penalty to alpha all the time.

Clan ER Large Laser
Same issue here, old damage 11, old draw 11 = 2 er large firing without penalties, 22 damage
New damage 10, draw 9 = 3 ER large firing without penalty, 30 damage

Clan Large pulse
Although i do feel like the nerfs to Clan large pulse laser damage from 13 to 11 was necessary at 9.9 draw it means you can now fire 3 of them at a time. Which means instead of 26 damage for 2 large pulse now you'll have 29.7 damage going out from 3 large pulse.

All the large laser groups are basically buffed in a way i do not think will accomplish limiting higher alpha strikes. If this is the case i think more people would just adopt into a large laser meta game.

And although these didn't get any changes this round i do feel it's important to say something about SRMs. I don't get why being able to fire 4 SRM6s was tweaked to begin with. Even if they are short range and that is their drawback i don't think they should get special treatment. That's still a lot of damage to alpha at someone.

Lastly the Gauss change although every little bit helps this didn't seem to have a big impact on anything i observed.

Also still waiting for JJ improvements to be encorporated into the energy draw system

As i said at the start of this post i get the feeling some of these changes were just to see what would happen or what it would be like to try it out for funnzies. But the ideal place for ED will be somewhere between ED2 and ED3

ERPPC's

if u compare IS ERPPC's and CERPPC's the IS version is way to hot, if u normalise the heat per damage the CERPPC should have 20.25 heat...

IMO IS ERPPC should have 12,5 heat and the clan ERPPC should have 18 heat, the speed of all PPC should also be increased by 20%

the CUAC2,
this thing got buffed! not nerfed!
still not saying that its a very good weapon but it got a average double tap DPS increase of ~20%, and its initial burst damage is way better then before (have done some testing on PTS1 and on PTS3 with a 6 CUAC2 chainfire macro dire, and the diference is huge, now its easy to out dps your ED regen, something that was inposible before..)

explenation;
jamm chance 0.5 (7%/14%)
jamm duration 1.6 (8s/5s)

0.5*1.6=0.8

so the average time lost due to jamm on a double tap was decreased by 20% for the CUAC2,
PGI was not kidding when they said they normalised the CUAC2. now it gets a average DPS increse when double tapping and due to the jamm chance being lower, the initial burst is also much better, like it is with the higher caliber UAC's...

ps, the more corect calculation including the cd time to the jamm times makes the decreace in time lost due double tap jamm even go up to 24% so as i think the cUAC2's used to have 98% damage on double tap now they will probably have around ~122% damage on avrage on double tap...

Edited by L3mming2, 04 September 2016 - 02:23 AM.

[davoodoo]

Tbh i would rather see heat normalised to clan erppc as you shouldnt have weapon generating more heat than its dmg.
If you absolutely must have higher heat than dmg then i would like to see erppc with 10 dmg 12-13 heat and 1900-2000 velocity as truly niche sniper weapon with regular ppc being regular use energy ac10.

and im not even against removing is erppc completely and removing ppc min range limit.

Edited by davoodoo, 04 September 2016 - 04:39 AM.

[Pariah Devalis]

I knew there was a patch for the PTS yesterday, but where are the notes? I think I missed them. What changed, exactly? Or was it just an update because of the new splash for the WTF event?

[Sable]

The micro patch for pts has the following changes.

A new updat to the PTS client to include the following:

PTS Changelog 9/2

• Clan UAC/20 energy consumption corrected to intended value. (18)
  
• Second UAC shot no longer causes energy draw in the event of a weapon jam.
  
  
  
  
  Weapon Tuning:
  
  • Clan ER-PPC cooldown duration increased to 6.8 seconds (from 6)
    
  • IS ER-PPC heat generation reduced to 13.5 (from 15)

Edited by Sable, 04 September 2016 - 07:56 AM.

[Pariah Devalis]

Sable, on 04 September 2016 - 07:56 AM, said:

The micro patch for pts has the following changes.

A new updat to the PTS client to include the following:

PTS Changelog 9/2

• Clan UAC/20 energy consumption corrected to intended value. (18)
  
• Second UAC shot no longer causes energy draw in the event of a weapon jam.
  
  
  
  
  
  Weapon Tuning:
  
  • Clan ER-PPC cooldown duration increased to 6.8 seconds (from 6)
    
  • IS ER-PPC heat generation reduced to 13.5 (from 15)

Excellent. Thanks! Alright, so I wasn't mad that the C-ERPPC originally had a 6 second CD when released with 15 damage. 6.8 is far closer to what I expected to keep DPS in line with IS particle cannons.

[Sable]

Yeah i agree. I innitially thought that maybe 15 damage would be too much but with the increased cooldown i feel like it becomes much more in line. Long cooldown, high heat but good damage

[Pariah Devalis]

Sable, on 04 September 2016 - 05:31 PM, said:

Yeah i agree. I innitially thought that maybe 15 damage would be too much but with the increased cooldown i feel like it becomes much more in line. Long cooldown, high heat but good damage

Now if only we could unbork the IS versions of the particle cannons. One of my favorite lines of weapons, but as long as they have worse than a 1:1 damage to heat ratio, and an energy draw worse than 1:1 with their damage, it makes no sense.

[DerMaulwurf]

Regarding PPCs:
The ER-PPC is heavier, bulkier, less frontloaded, less heat-efficient and has lower dps than its clan counterpart. If that is a great spot, I don't want to see a bad one.

I think that buffing the ER-PPC but not the regular IS-PPC is the right move. The latter has always been the preferred option. Narrowing the power levels of these two is good.

The C-ER-PPC is my second-most used weapon, but I really think it's the one that sticks out here. It really cannot have all the advantages over the IS versions at once. IS-PPCs should at least have higher dps to compensate for their weight. Even then they'd still have other disadvantages (range or heat efficiency). If the clan-cooldown is large enough already, lowering IS-cooldowns should be considered.


Regarding Lasers:
One should keep in mind that PGI has nerfed the heat efficiency of all the large lasers. So even if you can alpha more of them without a heat penalty. You still arrive at similar heat efficiency as compared to using ghost heated combinations right now.

As an example firing 3 cLPLs is 37.2 heat for 39 damage on the live server (about 1.05 damage per heat). On the PTS it's 30 heat for 33 damage (1.1 damage per heat). So the heat efficiency of a 3cLPL alpha hasn't changed by much. But since the overall damage and the heat efficiency for 2cLPLs have gotten worse, I still call it a nerf overall.

And it's similar for the isLL. Fire four on the live server: 36 damage for 36.4 heat. Fire four on the PTS: 32 damage for 28 heat. The advantage in heat efficiency is a bit morepronounced, but you have the nerf to beam duration on top, which strongly affects damage per tic when applied with the damage nerf. And if you compare 4LLs on the PTS with 3LLs on the regualar server, you pay 5 tons and 7heat per alpha, for 5 damage, which isn't a good trade at all.

Edited by DerMaulwurf, 05 September 2016 - 12:43 AM.