156 replies to this topic

[Snowbluff]

Marauder3D, on 17 December 2016 - 06:40 AM, said:

It's the death proof XL engine.

I'm a lore nerd. Played battle tech since 87 when I was 12 years old, and every game since Crescent Hawks Inception. So what I am about to say is very difficult for me:

For the good of this game and faction balance, IS XL engines need to be normalized with clan XL. No side torso death. The inequality and disparity is just too difficult to balance in a PvP game like MWO.

A year ago I would have never said this, being the grognard that I am. But having played both Clan and IS in MWO for the past few years, I've just reached a tipping point.

Not, that idea is crap. Game knowledge (mech tech base, hit boxes, measuring equipment versus targets moving speed.) providing faster kills increases the skill in the game. Proper structure quirks are much better.

[Koniving]

Prosperity Park, on 16 December 2016 - 03:42 PM, said:

Which gets to you more:

The fact that Clans get death proof XL engines, or the 2 slot DHS that lets them dissipate much more heat than a IS Mech?

Neither, but what gets me would solve both of those.

1) Lack of engine destruction through crits actually meaning anything (engine has 15 health, we can crit the engine to 0... nothing happens). I don't care if you're using STD, XL or CXL... 15 health and your engine should be freaking gone.
Course, I had a solution to where STD engines have 40 health before destruction (with each 'slot' having a maximum of 10 HP), XL has 30 health (with each slot having a maximum of 10 HP) and CXL has 20 health (with each slot having a maximum of 7.5 HP), and an even further balanced one but we won't get into that.
(Note: Having less maximum HP per slot means it is easier for a single weapon doing a single crit to take out multiple slots).

2) Growing threshold. Currently by stacking heatsinks we can raise not only our cooling rate but the maximum amount of fire we can deliver at one time (which simultaneously makes cooling faster feel slower and encourages ALPHA WARRIOR).

Solution? Locked threshold. Stacking lots of heatsinks will no longer mean ungodly alpha strikes that surpass the potential of those who can't carry as many as there will be a fixed amount of heat you can have at one time before a shutdown. (While we're at it, locking shutdown when it occurs until we cool down to 50% heat will make 'pushing it' a much deadlier of gamble rather than a wrist slap)

Edited by Koniving, 31 December 2016 - 04:06 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

Locked threshold just means those who can boat DHS with more tonnage efficient weapons win. Just ride 98% with 5+5 cERML and 30 cDHS. Only ACs would compete.

[Tarl Cabot]

Snowbluff, on 31 December 2016 - 03:51 PM, said:

Not, that idea is crap. Game knowledge (mech tech base, hit boxes, measuring equipment versus targets moving speed.) providing faster kills increases the skill in the game. Proper structure quirks are much better.

QP it does not matter as much, but bring in FP where the technology is separated, there are lots of issues. As an example of thinking of proper structural quirks...

An example of what it takes to kill an IS and Clan II. And the really sad part is the IS Orion, even using an isXL engine can not come close to equipping the firepower than an Orion IIC can. Others have pop up, an IS mech can torso twist to spread incoming damage but so too can a Clan mech, more so the humanoid than the chicken walkers.

Quote

Or Orion vs Orion IIC

Clan's Orion IIC Side Torso - 60/4 armor / 32 IS + 8qIS --- CT 88/4 armor... 46 IS +12quirkedIS

IS's Orion Side Torso - 60/4 armor / 32 IS + 16qIS ---- CT 88/4 armor... 46 IS + 23quirkedIS

• To take out a Orion IIC w/2*ST = 2*60+2*40 = 200pts of damage (both side torsos)
  
  • ​100pts of damage for one side torso w/20% heat/movement penalty but still active
• To take out a Orion w/1*ST = 60+32+16 = 108pts of damage (only one side torso w/isXL) = death

So even with structural quirks the IS Orion will be dropped much faster than the Clan's Orion IIC, and that is not even including the damage potential differences of Clan weapons vs IS weapons. Structural quirks does not mean parity when the item that is supposed to be protected is partially damaged is the difference between either generating a 20% heat/movement penalty (Clan) vs death (IS).

And then, again structural quirks, in Dec 2015 when PGI had a quirk round released than give several IS mechs not only some serious weapon quirks but also structural quirks nerfs requests went flying, especially when most of the organized merc units when IS, bringing into wide use their MC-purchasable Black Knight (Jan 2016) and c-bill available blackjack.

Pointing out quirks can come and go, rendering inadequate Battlemechs into monsters then drop them to adequate but does nothing for the actual foundation difference of how isXL engine is handled differently from the cXL engine. Would structural quirks increased to Dec 2015 level with the now severely reduced weapon quirks make the BK feared again? No, since it was the actual weapon quirks that really made it shined, whether it was using a slower STD engine or a faster but fragile isXL engine.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 31 December 2016 - 04:32 PM.

[Koniving]

Snowbluff, on 31 December 2016 - 03:51 PM, said:

Not, that idea is crap. Game knowledge (mech tech base, hit boxes, measuring equipment versus targets moving speed.) providing faster kills increases the skill in the game. Proper structure quirks are much better.

Better idea.
Instead of structure quirks... why not remove Crits = 15% of crit damage to structure damage.

Currently if I hit you with an AC/20 against your structure and it does a single crit, instantly knocking out two pieces of your equipment... I actually do 20 + (15% of 20 crit damage = 3) = 23 damage to your structure.
If I triple crit, that's 20 + (15% of 60 crit damage = 9) = 29 damage to your structure.

Is 5 to 15 points of extra structure gonna matter?
Or should we just take away the real problem instead of bandaiding it with "Quirks"?

[RestosIII]

Koniving, on 31 December 2016 - 04:10 PM, said:

Better idea.
Instead of structure quirks... why not remove Crits = 15% of crit damage to structure damage.

Currently if I hit you with an AC/20 against your structure and it does a single crit, instantly knocking out two pieces of your equipment... I actually do 20 + (15% of 20 crit damage = 3) = 23 damage to your structure.
If I triple crit, that's 20 + (15% of 60 crit damage = 9) = 29 damage to your structure.

Is 5 to 15 points of extra structure gonna matter?
Or should we just take away the real problem instead of bandaiding it with "Quirks"?

So you want to nerf MGs? Or just remove crits from everything but MGs and TC boosted Clanners?

[Y E O N N E]

RestosIII, on 31 December 2016 - 04:14 PM, said:

So you want to nerf MGs? Or just remove crits from everything but MGs and TC boosted Clanners?

Not removing it from TC-boosted Clanners would pretty much make the exercise pointless...since the whole idea is that structure is too vulnerable and that's why it's a mediocre way to buff IS durability.

Edited by Yeonne Greene, 31 December 2016 - 04:18 PM.

[Koniving]

Yeonne Greene, on 31 December 2016 - 04:06 PM, said:

Locked threshold just means those who can boat DHS with more tonnage efficient weapons win. Just ride 98% with 5+5 cERML and 30 cDHS. Only ACs would compete.

This assumes 3 things for that logic to work in your specific example.
That 30 isn't an automatic shutdown temp due to having fast heatsinks
That you're willing to ride "98%" heat at a rate of one shot per 9 seconds. (calculated and then confirmed using MWO heat sim)
That you're going to get within range before being taken out.

I do agree there is that issue, but the fact is that 30 DHS wins just as much for the same reason in the current system; except instead of 98% heat (which one shot would put you at 88.5% heat and that's still the 9 second wait to fire if waiting for 0, or about 8 seconds if you wanted to ride at 95-98% heat), you'd only be manage to muster up a whopping 36.875% heat.

In other words... your argument is meaningless.

RestosIII, on 31 December 2016 - 04:14 PM, said:

So you want to nerf MGs? Or just remove crits from everything but MGs and TC boosted Clanners?

Why would you nerf them? Just use them.
They crit at approximately 0.95 to 2.85 damage per SECOND per MG and deliver a whopping random crit chance...
How many medium lasers have you destroyed with MGs after the latest buff? How many have you destroyed in the past 4 years?

They are horrendous at delivering damage to single slots.

Notice the engine crit thing said X health per ENGINE... and Y maximum Health per SLOT.

Thus, no need to touch MGs. Their 'shotgun' like spread against crits will make it very difficult to score "mass engine kills" without boating 8 MGs and about 6 seconds of crits against an IS ST with an XL engine and about 2 DHS. Bit less against a Clan XL.

Now a CT, well, there is that. But you're still looking at the crit padding of the Gyro, so that's about 5 seconds worth at minimum for 8 MGs, assuming most crits never hit above "double crits".
Lets dig into that, shall we?

This is remembering that they do approximately 9.5 "checks" per second for a crit, meaning any specific crit does a whopping "0.1" to a maximum of "0.3" crit damage per successful roll.

So say you have 3 crit slots of IS XL engine.
Now you have 6 crit slots of IS Double Heatsink.
Each crit SLOT of the XL engine has 10 health.
Each IS DHS has 10 health (so if all other crit slot health pools worked the same way, it would be 3.33333333 HP per slot... but they do not; it's one pool for 3 slots.)

Lets roll some crits!
Lets assume 100 shots.... actually I don't wanna type that much. So lets use the calculator to find 20 shots.
Bam. Nada
Nada
Nada
DHS 1 = 10 HP - 0.1 = 9.9 HP.
Nada
Triple crit! DHS 1 = 9.9 HP - 0.1 = 9.8 HP. DHS 2 = 10 HP -0.1 = 9.9 HP. DHS 1 = 9.8 HP - 0.1 = 9.7 HP.
Nada
Double crit! XL engine slot one = 10 HP - 0.1 = 9.9 HP. DHS 1 = 9.7 HP - 0.1 HP = 9.6 HP.
Double crit! XL engine slot two = 10 HP -0.1 = 9.9 HP. XL engine slot two = 9.9 HP - 0.1 = 9.8 HP!
Double crit! DHS 1 = 9.6 HP - 0.1 = 9.5 HP! DHS 1 = 9.6 HP -0.1 HP = 9.5 HP!
Triple crit! XL engine slot one takes all three crits (somehow)! 9.9 HP - 0.3 = 9.6 HP!
NADA
Triple Crit! XL engine slot three = 10 HP - 0.1 HP = 9.9 HP! XL engine slot one = 9.6 HP - 0.1 = 9.5 HP! DHS 2 = 9.9 HP -0.1 = 9.8 HP!

Hell that's 11 bullets so far with (interestingly) 3 triple crits, 3 double crits, one single crit and a number of nadas.

Results?
DHS 1: 9.5 HP.
DHS 2: 9.8 HP.
XL engine slot One: 9.5 HP.
XL engine slot Two: 9.8 HP.
XL engine slot Three: 9.9 HP.

I'm sorry, but I'm not concerned because it would have to bring 30 damage in total, and each slot of the IS XL engine has a maximum of 10 HP.
Even twin AC/20 would have a hard time 'instantly' destroying an engine given this system, even if both got at least a single crit. This is because the crit 'stops' when the object is destroyed, thus if you destroyed slot 1 with the single crit of AC/20 1 and got slot 2 with AC/20 2... the player's engine still has slot 3 with 10 HP.

If crits don't stop just because the damage has HP of that slot has run out, say the remaining 10 damage of each crit carries over to do another 10 crit damage, then you might be a little worried about the guy who would have been guaranteed to kill you by firing his twin AC/20s to your cockpit regardless.

But MGs? Laugh at 'em. You won't have any weapons left by the time the 12 MG Piranha is done with you, but you'll still have an engine (and you would have died anyway from all the 'real' damage he did).

Edited by Koniving, 31 December 2016 - 04:52 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

Koniving, on 31 December 2016 - 04:26 PM, said:

In other words... your argument is meaningless.

Unfortunately for you, it is not, because it is exactly the scenario that played out on PTS.

1. If such a low threshold were to be an automatic shut-down, big 'Mechs with lots of tonnage become pointless
2. You forget that you have to first get to 98%, and the 'Mech with 30 DHS will take longer to do so than the 'Mech with 18
3. Range is a non-issue so long as you can't send a large simultaneous volley down-range.

[Tarl Cabot]

The structural quirks helped but nearly as much as the weapon quirks that were introduced in Dec 2015 then neutered a few times months later.

Quote

History lesson

Merc units switched from Clan to IS, severe population imbalance to say the least, leaving primarily Clan pugs and a few loyalist units. Many mercs went FRR. The Clans were driven back to having only a few worlds each.

But why the switch? Advantage. What better way to try new things while not at a severe risk of losing, knowing most other mercs will also go IS, leaving the seals?

• Dec-2015 Massive Skill Reduction % across the board, ERLM/smaller Clan Energy weapons max range halfed, loss of C-XL torso/speed reduction
  
• PGI has been playing with CW/FP tonnage differences as a bandaid.
  
• IS mech quirks % changed from specific weapon to general weapon quirk
  
• Dec 15-2015 Black Knight becomes available for MC purchase and it had some serious quirks, especially structural quirks, BLR-6-KNT 23ct/16st 12arms/16legs, then energy range 20% and energy heat/cooldown 10%. Accel/Decel/Turn speed 35% Torso yaw speed 25%.
  
• Jan 2016 Black Knight available for C-Bill purchase now!!!
  
• Other BK had similar setups but the big one BL-7-KNT-L with Energy Range 20%, Laser Duration 15%, Energy heat gen 10% plus the above structural quirks, fielding a gaggle of isMPL
  
• BK previous structural quirks were 6arms/8st only and 8legs while the energy quirks were low or did not exist for that specific mech.

And it is in that weight range where it could run a STD and still be fast enough, while an isXL gave it a decent speed boost. Have a coordinated unit fielding @ least 2 lances per round with focus firing, it was devastating especially vs green Clan or pugs.

Another mech that stood out were the Blackjacks. They had more structural quirks than the Black Knight (chuckles) 28ct, 22st and 24arms and some 24legs with some sick energy quirks.

[Koniving]

Yeonne Greene, on 31 December 2016 - 04:39 PM, said:

Unfortunately for you, it is not, because it is exactly the scenario that played out on PTS.

1. If such a low threshold were to be an automatic shut-down, big 'Mechs with lots of tonnage become pointless
2. You forget that you have to first get to 98%, and the 'Mech with 30 DHS will take longer to do so than the 'Mech with 18
3. Range is a non-issue so long as you can't send a large simultaneous volley down-range.

1) It's called don't alpha.
2) I used your example with both the MWO formula and tested it with the Heat Sim using 30 DHS with MWO's exact mechanics + Elite Skill Tree, meaning all the bonus cooling, all the convoluted ********, and the 20% extra threshold. Also you couldn't get to 98% on your first shot even with the 5 Clan ER MLs, you'd get to 88.5% on your first shot and have to wait for the cooldown. You should read it again. You're looking at 8 seconds minimum between shots if you want to keep firing 5 ER ML at the same time with 30 DHS and 30 threshold. 8 seconds. 9 if you want to cool to zero first.
3) You're correct.

Try it out yourself.
Note that's with MWO's current thresholds for Clan DHS.
You currently only get 37% on your first shot with your Specified build of 30 DHS and 5 Clan ER ML.
In 30 threshold, you'd hit 88.5% on your first shot.
You'd be 3 times LESS EFFECTIVE after the threshold lock to 30.

Most builds would be roughly more effective if they convert to DPS rather than alpha damage..023

**** we can get away with right now. 35 PPCs fired in 18 seconds (when PPCs had 3 second cooldowns) with 10 DHS. The current system is a slap on the wrist.

Tried that with 30 threshold, and you'd explode on the 5th PPC.
Or fire 2 PPCs, wait 1 second, fire a third and just wait 10 seconds to fire another 3 PPCs.

Your Clan ER MLs at 5 of them and 30 DHS, that's 8 seconds minimum between shots if you want reach and ride 95+% heat. 8 second pauses... or join the crowd and go DPS with 2 or 3 ER ML at a time.

I will note: That's assuming clan DHS still has the skill tree that buffs it to 3.45 cooling per second with PGI's other twisted warped nonsense. Amounts of DHS above 18 are still below "doubles"... while amounts up to 17 DHS are slightly superior to tabletop doubles in cooling rate.

Final note: Ghost heat can be removed from AC and UAC/20s, but ACs particularly the IS ACs would need to reduced from their FLD status if lasers are to be able to compete. Or lasers reduced to intervals of 0.5 seconds or less.
(Canon laser beams are up to 0.2 seconds with the exception of specific laser variants that max out at 2 seconds; but that's supposing from the same sentence it takes 3 0.2 second beams to get 5 damage across 10 seconds, while a 1 second beam does the whole 5 seconds in a single shot--and just can't be used for 9 seconds. So there is that. I mean if you want 'other' solutions; just remove the FLD and convert to lore's "classification of weapons" by damage over a unit of time and set that time for 5 seconds.)

Edited by Koniving, 31 December 2016 - 05:25 PM.

[Johnny Z]

Yeonne Greene, on 31 December 2016 - 04:06 PM, said:

Locked threshold just means those who can boat DHS with more tonnage efficient weapons win. Just ride 98% with 5+5 cERML and 30 cDHS. Only ACs would compete.

Ac's are not competing now.

[Tibbnak]

Yeonne Greene, on 31 December 2016 - 04:06 PM, said:

Locked threshold just means those who can boat DHS with more tonnage efficient weapons win. Just ride 98% with 5+5 cERML and 30 cDHS. Only ACs would compete.

Sure would be a shame if a rogue flamethower were to accidentally throw your heat riding off.

[Cabusha3]

Viktor Drake, on 16 December 2016 - 06:04 PM, said:

Hmm. You do realize that Clan weapons are significantly hotter than IS weapons and they (Clan Mechs) generally need to mount about 10-15% more DHS to cool the same amount of firepower?

For example lets just compare really quick.

IS mech
6 x ML = 30 damage = 24 Heat
2 x LPL = 22 damage = 14 Heat
Total 52 Damage = 38 heat


Clan Mech
4 x cER ML = 28 damage = 28 Heat
2 x LPL = 26 Damage = 20 Heat
Total 54 Damage = 48 Heat

So for roughly the same damage output, the Clan mech will generate 10 more heat. This mean the Clan mech would have to mount about 3 more DHS to compensate for its hotter running weapons. That is 6 more critical slots invested. That is like turning 6 of his external 2 slot DHS into 3 slot DHS. Also this costs him an additional 3 tons of weight invested into DHS, weight an IS mech could use for more weapons or a bigger engine. Hmm....2 slot Clan vs 3 slot IS....seems like the IS might actually have an advantage here despite the seeming advantage of a 2 slot DHS.

Honestly its is posts like this that really get me riled up when there is talk about Clan vs IS balance. People complain about something based on only the face value things and get all righteous about it. However rarely do they think things through and look at the bigger picture or the entire package. Sure if you just compare Clan DHS to IS DHS there appears to be an obvious advantage, I mean 2 slots vs 3 slot right, obviously smaller is better because that means you can put more on your mech. However if the weapons Clan mechs are forced to use run so much hotter than the IS counter parts that your actually forced to mount more of them on a Clan mech to gain the same heat dissipation level as an IS mech then suddenly all 2 slot DHS do is allow you to match IS 3 slot performance.

I could go on to talk about who being forced to mount more DHS to cool a given weapon also acts to counter act the Clan weight and size advantage of many Clan weapons as well. In my example the Clan mech is forced to waste 3 tons, 3 TONS of its weight limit on DHS. Add that weight to those lighter Clan weapons and you find that the Clan mech now only has a 1 ton advantage for the same level of firepower.

So please stop with the balance complaints unless your going to do more than look at the face value of things.

As far as the XL engine, yeah I think something needs to be done to address that even if it is lore breaking but I still don't think IS and Clan XL should be the same down the rivets, nor do I think Clan mechs should be punished further than they already at.


Oh and before anyone calls me a "Clanner Idealist" a Clanner Idealist wouldn't have half his stable consisting of IS mechs and a greater real dollar investment in IS Hero mech and mech packs hehe.

And this post completely ignores the ranged advantage of said clan weapons. And the half crit Endo/Ferro further pushing into clan favor.

[Clownwarlord]

Clan xl engines are what push me to clan mechs.

I can put in a load out for xl engines and get the survive-ability nearly of a standard engine? That wins. Whatever increases survive-ability for me.

As for 2 slot DHS I have to say that doesn't increase survive-ability but more so increases damage output because the heat was negated more so I could shoot more which means my damage output is increasing.

[MischiefSC]

Unless the structure quirks on a single ST are equal to the cost of having to shoot off both STs they are not of equal value to CXL. With death proof XLs Clans can always run the bigger engine, which in turn let's you carry more in engine DHS.

CDHS, CEndo/CFF all provide significant advantages at no real offsetting cost. To a degree the DHS are offset by higher weapon heat, however Clan weapons are also lighter/smaller with most doing more damage and having more range.

If DHS get normalized as well as the other disparities then weapon balance will likely need tweaked as well and, obviously, quirks removed.

[Dee Eight]

I think if instead of reducing the speed of clan mechs which lose a side torso, they treated engine crits the same way they're supposed to as in tabletop...as 5 extra heat for each crit... that clan mechs would suffer a bigger penalty if they had a base heat load of ten applied.

[NighthawK1337]

Considering that IS lasers run cooler, I'd say that the XL engine.

[Felicitatem Parco]

NighthawK1337, on 31 December 2016 - 05:58 PM, said:

Considering that IS lasers run cooler, I'd say that the XL engine.

Actually the only way I would consider an IS energy boat is if they have massive heat generation quirks. You can stuff at least a third more DHS in a Clan Mech than an IS Mech. I can put 19 external and 10 internal DHS on a Marauder IIC with 18 tons of energy weapons and more sensors on top, with a good engine. That's cool.

However, I do admit the only to get away with that is a huge deathproof XL engine...

[JigglyMoobs]

The biggest IS disadvantage is the free birther scum pilot sitting in the cockpit.

There, I said it. Sue me.