27 replies to this topic

[Johnny Z]

I am not commenting on this to much since I am the type that wont know how good it is until quite a few matches on live server.

I have tried PTS server 1 2 and 3 and all seemed great.

The way it works, it makes sense it will be a huge improvement. Its also a huge change and I don't envy the balance guys and girls.

[Wintersdark]

Marack Drock the Unicorn Wizard, on 04 September 2016 - 02:32 PM, said:

Hello Poptart-online... Time to find a new game. One that is actually balanced.

Poptart Online? Care to back that up with any kind of logic?

The changes that ended the poptart meta are still in effect. PPC's are horribly slow and thus inaccurate, jump jets are atrocious. The weapons you'd poptart with are being severely nerfed (see: 7 second cooldowns, roughly twice what they where during the poptart meta).

When we had lots of poptarts, it was because you could deal good damage with safety, and once your opponent closed still have a very strong load out (as ppc+ac5/Gauss was an extremely effective short range load out as well as long).

On PTS now, that is not the case. Gauss and ppc's have staggeringly long cooldowns ensuring if a brawler gets close, hell be pushing over a hundred damage for each of the poptarts 30 damage shots. That's very one sided, even with spread.

[CJ Daxion]

Collecting data.. that is all... there will be another patch

[BLOOD WOLF]

Wintersdark, on 04 September 2016 - 07:05 PM, said:

Brawling is fundamentally the same on the pts and live. It actually doesn't impact brawlers much at all, except the very hittiest of the lot.

You don't need more face time, you can be constantly twisting. But take pts to 12v12, and you have brawlers able to alpha but ranged mechs unable to do so. 1v1 brawlers *crush* sniper type mechs, absolutely destroy them. Very high DPS, way harder punches, better heat efficiency.

Dakka is a strong defense against brawlers, but by its nature spreads damage a lot as well (making it easier to weather on approach) and is much less effective on pts vs. live.

Closing the distance, as you well know on our maps is pretty trivial. On basically all of them there's covered approaches to get quite close.


What's happening here is people keep looking at brawlers and thinking they're losing anything, when most are literally unaffected by the pts changes, and those that are affected are only minorly impacted. Having to fire SRM's then an ac20 doesn't hurt them, it's no more face time, it doesn't require the brawler to stop twisting at all. Twist+fire+twist+fire..... And then they compare this to live. But that's not what's happening.

But yeah, while AC20 brawlers have that to deal with (still no staring time mind you) LBX/SRM brawlers don't. They're perfectly capable of dropping much heavier alphas than those they're fighting.

I was running a quad srm 4 and AC20/LBX 20 spirit bear on the PTS. The thing still gets hot and I still have to space out my fire. It's not an alpha every time I fire, I can assure you.

Edited by BLOOD WOLF, 05 September 2016 - 03:40 AM.

[Pariah Devalis]

I actually want the Gauss charge back. At least for 2+ Gauss Rifles. Having a 7 second (well... 6.8 second) CD for the C-ERPPC keeps it from behind able to put out stupid damage, and the long ranged game is really only strong in niche cases like the Shadow Cat that are not only mobile enough to maintain distance, but stealthy enough to vanish long enough to dump all that heat those ERPPC generate.

No charge Gauss Rifles, though? I forgot how easy they used to be back in the closed beta days - except back then we had to lag shoot. Not to say the charge mechanic was hard, but it made it less mindless and gave it some flavor as a weapon system.

In the PTS, I've thus far tested Dakka builds, ERPPC builds, Gauss builds, SRM builds, laser builds, and LRM builds fairly thoroughly. Brawlers definitely still have an edge against the ranged mechs - both with small lasers and SRMs. They've always had, really, but people are generally too scared to work as a group and roll up against enemy firepower to bowl the enemy over in an unstoppable wave of flame and death.

Dakka feels more like a mid range option now than a brawl one, outside of the IS AC20. Ranged is still potent, but the rate of fire and heat generated is low and hot enough you can close the distance and punish them. LRM platforms continue to be sub par, but that's just due to the current LRM mechanics.

Edit:

I somehow managed to miss the whole fear of poptarting. Again, the only mechs able to really use poptarting are light and lighter medium mechs. Everything else is still too clunky to poptart with due to hover jets and reticule shake.

Edited by Pariah Devalis, 05 September 2016 - 03:56 AM.

[Wintersdark]

BLOOD WOLF, on 05 September 2016 - 03:39 AM, said:

I was running a quad srm 4 and AC20/LBX 20 spirit bear on the PTS. The thing still gets hot and I still have to space out my fire. It's not an alpha every time I fire, I can assure you.

AC20 yeah, absolutely. LBX less so. But if you go smaller, then not so much at all. My DDC with dual LBX10 and SRM's is cool as a cucumber.

But "Brawler" doesn't only encompasss AS7-S and KDK-SB. They're just packing the biggest guns.

Under ED, you've got 40 damage before you start bumping ED caps with those weapons.

Anyways, the point remains, that doesn't hurt brawlers. You don't have to stare in between shots. You still just twist+fire+twist+fire (as I've said repeatedly). You just do it faster. Meanwhile, they guys your hammering are packing 7s cooldown ERPPC's?

You're twisting 100% of the time, landing 36/48 and 20pt blows every 1-1.5 seconds and running cool. SRM, twist, lbx, twist, SRM, twist, etc. And your worried about the guys doing 30 damage every 7 seconds for way more heat?

[BLOOD WOLF]

Wintersdark, on 05 September 2016 - 04:17 AM, said:

AC20 yeah, absolutely. LBX less so. But if you go smaller, then not so much at all. My DDC with dual LBX10 and SRM's is cool as a cucumber.

But "Brawler" doesn't only encompasss AS7-S and KDK-SB. They're just packing the biggest guns.

Under ED, you've got 40 damage before you start bumping ED caps with those weapons.

Anyways, the point remains, that doesn't hurt brawlers. You don't have to stare in between shots. You still just twist+fire+twist+fire (as I've said repeatedly). You just do it faster. Meanwhile, they guys your hammering are packing 7s cooldown ERPPC's?

You're twisting 100% of the time, landing 36/48 and 20pt blows every 1-1.5 seconds and running cool. SRM, twist, lbx, twist, SRM, twist, etc. And your worried about the guys doing 30 damage every 7 seconds for way more heat?

I am going to have to run another test with people and get a better understanding of your scenario.