17 replies to this topic

[Ultimax]

I wasn't particularly happy with the laser changes currently for PTS 3.

I feel the large class lasers were mostly nerfed in order to gain what is a functionally unusable amount of energy draw discount that really does not make the trade off worth it.


I also reviewed the small & medium class laser changes, and only a few of them actually receive a usable buff - the others weren't nerfed per say but the net change was basically a wash as a discount on e-draw that doesn't allow you to actually use more weapons is irrelevant to how the game is actually played.


So what I've done is set E-draw back to 1:1 ratio (Damage:ED) for nearly all lasers, and then baked some buffs directly into the lasers themselves where it felt needed.


I also tried to balance IS vs. Clan lasers as best as I could, so please look at all of the weapons for a total picture.

For example, the CLPL functions more like a heavier, improved IS LLAS - that's its closest competitor.

The CMPLs function more like lighter weight, shorter ranged IS LPLS that trade heat efficiency and range for an amazing tonnage advantage.


Looking for comments and feedback on these numbers, as long as they are within the context that energy draw will go live - and keeping in mind how these weapons will now be used once the system is live, and how they compete vs. other existing weapons in the big picture of all weapons in game.





Link to table: https://docs.google....dit?usp=sharing



SMALL AND MEDIUM CLASS LASERS

IS SLAS

• Increased range to 150m

IS SPL

• Increased range to 125m
  
• Reduced E-draw to 3.5 (safe alpha of 32 points of damage from 8x SPLs)

IS MLAS

• Increased range to 300m
  
• Reduced heat from 4 to 3

IS MPLS

• Increased range to 250m
  
• Reduced heat from 4 to 3
  
• Reduced CD from 3s to 2.75s
  
• Reduced E-draw from 6 to 5 (safe alpha of 36 points of damage from 6x MPLs)

CERMLAS

• Reduced range to 400m (from 405M)
  
• Increased beam duration to 1.1s (Down from 1.15 on live)
  
• Increased CD from 3s to 3.25s
  
• Reduced damage from 7 to 6
  
• Reduced heat from 6 to 5.5

CMPL

• Increased range to 350m
  
• Reduced beam duration to 0.75 (from 0.85s on live)
  
• Decreased E-draw from 8 to 7 (allows safe alpha of 32 points of damage from 4x CMPLs)

LARGE CLASS LASERS

IS LLAS

• Reduced CD to 3.1s
  
• Increased Range to 500m

IS ERLLAS

• Increased CD to 3.3s from 3.25s
  
• Reduced beam duration from 1.25s to 1.2s

IS LPL

• Increased range to 375m
  
• Reduced beam duration to 0.65s from 0.67s

CERLLAS

• Increased range to 775m
  
• Reduced damage from 11 to 10
  
• Reduced heat from 10 to 9.5
  
• Increased CD to 3.7s from 3.25s
  
• Reduced beam duration from 1.5s to 1.35s

CLPL

• Decreased range from 600m to 500m
  
• Decreased damage from 13 to 10
  
• Decreased heat from 10 to 8
  
• Reduced beam duration from 1.12s to 1s

Edited by Ultimax, 05 September 2016 - 07:47 AM.

[kapusta11]

Why not keep stats from live servers? They were tested literally for years. Why change already balanced stats (except for cERLL and IS SL) just to fit them into garbage ED system. SRMs have their own draw modifiers just do the same thing with lasers without changing anything. It's not like ED will suddenly become more complicated than it is already.

[Ultimax]

kapusta11, on 04 September 2016 - 12:19 PM, said:

Why not keep stats from live servers? They were tested literally for years. Why change already balanced stats (except for cERLL and IS SL) just to fit them into garbage ED system.

I'm working under the impression that ED is going live.

If you look at the situation, I think it's pretty clear that PGI will be going forward with this. In which case I'm trying to make the best of it.


That's my assumption.


Working from that, a few comments:

1) I don't like the idea of changing all lasers across the board to get ED discounts, partly because it creates more exceptions - and more exceptions creates more ways for everything to be poorly balanced.

2) I don't agree that laser weapon values are currently perfectly balanced both internally or externally (faction) - and in fact could use some of the tweaks I'm adding now. These tweaks become more important under the assumption that ED is going live no matter what.

[kapusta11]

Ultimax, on 04 September 2016 - 12:29 PM, said:

I think it's pretty clear that PGI will be going forward with this.

The only reason why PGI are going forward with it is because people are already working under the impression that ED is going live.


As for stats themselves, they are irrelevant. Hell, you can call Blizzard to balance everything. The true problem is that PGI decided to cater to the people who will always find a reason to complain.

Edited by kapusta11, 04 September 2016 - 10:17 PM.

[Ultimax]

kapusta11, on 04 September 2016 - 12:50 PM, said:

The only reason why PGI are going forward with it is because people are already working under the impression that ED is going live.

I think it's more the fact that if you look at the work they put into the UI, it was pretty clear from the get-go that they weren't going to just scratch the whole system like they did with info-tech.

And, honestly speaking, while ED isn't perfect - if the weapons values are good the system itself is as good or better than what we have now, and allows for some builds in particular that I know I'd personally enjoy playing.

Am I happy with all of it? No, but I'm a realist and do not think any amount of kicking and fighting will see it disappear.

[davoodoo]

Nah pgi is going with it because russ, who thinks he knows better what players want than players themselves.

Then again community does nothing to dispel this delusion.

[BLOOD WOLF]

davoodoo, on 05 September 2016 - 04:37 AM, said:

Nah pgi is going with it because russ, who thinks he knows better what players want than players themselves.

Then again community does nothing to dispel this delusion.

So what's better Russ's ego or your ego?

Spit in the face of your fellow testers as well, because they are making changes according to feedback and observation from the PTS.

Edited by BLOOD WOLF, 05 September 2016 - 05:04 AM.

[davoodoo]

BLOOD WOLF, on 05 September 2016 - 05:03 AM, said:

So what's better Russ's ego or your ego?

Spit in the face of your fellow testers as well, because they are making changes according to feedback and observation from the PTS.

My ego?? nah you can ignore it i dont care, however 1st look at these forums should tell that there really isnt any argument for ed while there are plenty against it...

Dont try to make it personal when it isnt.

Edited by davoodoo, 05 September 2016 - 05:06 AM.

[Ultimax]

Made some edits to:

LLAS
IS LPL
CLPL
CERMLAS


Added link to the google sheet doc and removed the table image.

[Jack Shayu Walker]

BLOOD WOLF, on 05 September 2016 - 05:03 AM, said:

So what's better Russ's ego or your ego?

Spit in the face of your fellow testers as well, because they are making changes according to feedback and observation from the PTS.

davoodoo, on 05 September 2016 - 05:06 AM, said:

My ego?? nah you can ignore it i dont care, however 1st look at these forums should tell that there really isnt any argument for ed while there are plenty against it...

Dont try to make it personal when it isnt.

Honestly Blood, I'm inclined to believe that ED is going to be a change for the worse. It'll be a survivable change, but a negative change none the less. Testing it, to me, is really all about giving feedback to make these negative changes more livable, and learning how to adapt before they hit live.

I think that davoodoo is right in saying that it's going to be harder than it needs to be to talk Russ out of ED. Honestly, you really need about a 75-80% approval rating from your community to move forward with this kindof stuff, and PGI will be content to move forward with just 55%.

At best ED shifts the meta, and brings previously un-usable builds into usability, but it also knocks builds out of usability, and doesn't (at least not in the PTS 3 form) really increase build variety as a whole. It also makes the system more complicated for newer players. Sure Ghost heat wasn't clearly displayed, but it was simple enough to grasp provided PGI made the information easily available on the front end.

Edited by Jack Shayu Walker, 05 September 2016 - 09:12 AM.

[Livaria]

The range increase that you are suggesting seems to be a bit big in my opinion. If there ever were to be a range increase to lasers I'd prefer around half the values.

[Ultimax]

Livaria, on 05 September 2016 - 10:23 PM, said:

The range increase that you are suggesting seems to be a bit big in my opinion. If there ever were to be a range increase to lasers I'd prefer around half the values.

Could you be more specific please?

Which range increases seem too much, or do you mean all of them?


Keep in mind, that it is highly likely due to the nature of the design of energy draw that PPCs and Ballistics will become heavily favored in many ways - primarily because they tend to be limited right now to 30 or 40 point deliveries anyway, but they have a clearly superior method of delivery (front loaded + pin point).

In the past, Lasers were often 2nd class weapons (or worse) - because they lacked the ability to trade against those builds.

A combination of PPC nerfs and Laser "gains" (not direct buffs, but rather the advent of mechs with a huge number of energy hardpoints as well as quirks) saw this shift for a while.


The recent trend has an actually decent balance for the most part in general play, depending on the quirks of the mech you are using.


So I'm buffing based on that, that these lasers will need to compete in a new area where one of their best advantages (enormous alphas that can be utilized on even some medium mechs) will no longer be available due to energy draw.


That, and I've always felt that IS small/medium class lasers suffered from very short ranges which created both mech weight class balance issues as well as faction vs. faction balance issues.

Edited by Ultimax, 06 September 2016 - 08:28 AM.

[Lostdragon]

All damage is not equal and trying to balance around ED is the wrong approach IMO. ED is basically going to require every weapon have its own ED value or I don't ever think it can work as intended, and even then I don't think it is going to be fun or improve the game measurably.

[Ultimax]

Lostdragon, on 06 September 2016 - 10:35 AM, said:

All damage is not equal and trying to balance around ED is the wrong approach IMO.

All damage being equal is largely irrelevant if you balance the other factors of weapons innately.

The 5 damage of a medium laser is clearly not the same as the 5 damage of an AC 5.

One has superior delivery & superior range, on the other hand it also weighs EIGHT TIMES as much, and also requires several tons of ammo.

That's how you balance their "damage" - you tweak the rest of the stats when possible to give them all value - and at the end of the day, no a 1 ton medium laser should not deal as equally good damage as an 8 ton AC 5 with 3 tons of ammo, because that would be ridiculous.

[Lostdragon]

Ultimax, on 06 September 2016 - 11:58 AM, said:

All damage being equal is largely irrelevant if you balance the other factors of weapons innately.

The 5 damage of a medium laser is clearly not the same as the 5 damage of an AC 5.

One has superior delivery & superior range, on the other hand it also weighs EIGHT TIMES as much, and also requires several tons of ammo.

That's how you balance their "damage" - you tweak the rest of the stats when possible to give them all value - and at the end of the day, no a 1 ton medium laser should not deal as equally good damage as an 8 ton AC 5 with 3 tons of ammo, because that would be ridiculous.

My point is if you start trying to tweak duration, damage, heat, etc. around ED being 1:1 with damage then you will wind up with lasers that are basically the same from IS to Clan. If the base values are balanced well enough and the weapons are fun then you shouldn't have to mess with them much to get ED to function as intended. The ED value should be tweaked to reflect the relative strength and weakness of the weapon, the weapon should not be nerfed or buffed to shoehorn it into an ED value based solely on the dmage it outputs.

[Ultimax]

Lostdragon, on 06 September 2016 - 12:15 PM, said:

My point is if you start trying to tweak duration, damage, heat, etc. around ED being 1:1 with damage then you will wind up with lasers that are basically the same from IS to Clan.

And yet, I have managed to do exactly the opposite.

There are no clones on my spreadsheet, I'll assume you are working off of your own pre-conceived notions and aren't actually interested in a real discussion.

Feel free to prove me wrong with an actual analysis.

[Lostdragon]

Ultimax, on 06 September 2016 - 12:17 PM, said:

And yet, I have managed to do exactly the opposite.

There are no clones on my spreadsheet, I'll assume you are working off of your own pre-conceived notions and aren't actually interested in a real discussion.

Feel free to prove me wrong with an actual analysis.

Your CLPL and ISLL have almost exactly the same stats. You even dialed back ED for several weapons, probably to avoid doing specifically what I am saying.

[Ultimax]

Lostdragon, on 06 September 2016 - 12:30 PM, said:

Your CLPL and ISLL have almost exactly the same stats. You even dialed back ED for several weapons, probably to avoid doing specifically what I am saying.

Those two are close, but they are closer because where they are now the CLPL is basically a super version of it.

It also has nothing to do with ED and everything to do with the fact that there are 12 different lasers. How much uniqueness do you really expect?

I dialed ED on a few specific weapons so they could get closer to 30 point alphas, they also happen to be weapon's that are often unused in favor of their lighter, longer ranged counterparts.