62 replies to this topic

[Bud Crue]

Tristan Winter, on 21 January 2017 - 05:06 AM, said:

I agree in many regards, but the best way to fix the balance between weight classes (e.g. best light mech vs best heavy mech) is to nerf all heavy mechs. Otherwise every light mech in the game needs uber-quirks like the Locust.

I'm not happy with weight class balance untill the weight restrictions are practically meaningless, until 12 Locusts is as viable as 12 Night Gyrs or 12 Kodiaks. We're very far from that place. In order to get there, some nerfs are required. They may be global nerfs to certain weight classes by manipulating the core rules for mobility (e.g. decouple turn rate from engine size), but some nerfs will be required.

It makes no sense to have an arena shooter without respawns where the 4 classes of mechs are not equally powerful. Either we need respawns or we need better class balance. People talk about how it breaks Battletech lore when Dire Wolves aren't better than all light mechs and medium mechs. Well, it also breaks lore when light mechs are as rare as unicorns. In lore, the Locust is the most common mech in the galaxy. In MWO, I see 10 Night Gyrs for every Locust.

Or instead of making them all equal, they could give them actual unique roles, where in the roles are of equal value...ya, know, like they said they would. Repeatedly. For years.
Sigh.

[Y E O N N E]

Nightmare1, on 21 January 2017 - 05:04 AM, said:

Actually, out of all those Mechs you listed, I was mainly considering the Nova. It's agility and jump ability is better than the HBK-IIC. When I jump with my HBKs, I feel sluggish, but my Nova feels nimble. It's responsive, allowing me to make better snapshots. The weapon mounts between both Mechs are comparable, as are their top speeds, but the Nova's smaller profile and better jump ability makes it harder to hit. I actually take less damage in a Nova and produce as much damage or more than when I pilot a HBK-IIC for poptarting.

I wouldn't really call personal performance great supporting evidence. I take less damage and do as much or more in a Mist Lynx compared to when I run an Arctic Cheetah, but that's because it's simply what I've practiced in more.

HBK-IIC has better-protected cooling, can run 20x DHS and still have room for a TC2, and has less mass over the cockpit to shoot at when it peeks, and that's all-natural. What the Nova has is quirks, quirks which are likely going away real soon with most of the rest and which still weren't enough to convince a teams like EmP, 228th, SJR, etc. that the Nova is better at pop-tarting than the HBK-IIC...and that was using a client where the general level of buffs for both sides was higher.

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As for being slower (I don't own the Huntsman, so I'll ignore it), none of those Mechs you listed are slower than the HBK-IIC except for possibly the BJ.

Might want to check that again. The HBK-IIC can and does run a 275 engine (quad cUAC/2 runs a 255 though), so it runs at 95.8 kph. The Nova and Huntsman run at 87.1 kph, the BJ caps out at 90.9 kph (with one exception and it isn't the poptart and it also has extremely restricted torso yaw). The Shadowcat, Vindicator, and Phoenix Hawk are all faster, but the two IS ones there don't feature high mounts and none of them can fit sufficient cooling if they actually run fast. There is the Shadow Hawk, which can run fast and fit cooling and even jump better, but it has to run an isXL and it doesn't get the splash damage which, though it might look insignificant, is a major force multiplier.

The Hunchback is really one of the faster Medium pop-tarts.

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I didn't see any Mechs in the MWOWC Finals because I decided not to waste my time watching anything MWOWC related.

Your loss. I only watched the regional finals and the Mech Con finals. If you want to see how the 'Mechs perform in the best hands under extremely high stress, that's what you want to watch.

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I play my own Mechs against a large pool of players and, based on how the Mechs perform, that is how I rank them. I don't rely on someone else's website's estimation, or what a handful of people on a couple of teams decided to use as a tactic, to determine whether one Mech is better than another.

Come now, don't be another Viktor Drake. If our own personal rankings were useful for the coversation, the MLX would get nerfed, the ACH would get buffed, the EBJ would get buffed, the BLR would get buffed, etc.

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All that being said, the Summoner really didn't need the nerf. *scowls*

We'll agree to disagree on that one. It was never as bad a 'Mech as everybody made it out to be, it just wasn't good at doing the same things as the TBR or EBJ. Most of its issue is low mounts making it difficult to actually use the weapons it has.

Edited by Yeonne Greene, 21 January 2017 - 11:01 AM.

[Insanity09]

The discussion of helping out certain mech classes (lights and mediums, mostly) by giving them viable roles really means two things: more revamping of the reward system, and new scenarios where the new roles shine.

While I am strongly in favor of both of these things, it doesn't truly address why some mechs in a class are collecting dust, while others appear in every single match.
(another thing that desperately needs to happen for many mechs, all the way up to the heavy class in some cases, is another rescale of size, mostly downwards)

I worry that the skill/quirk (and module) changes coming will crush the mechs that are currently bolstered into usefulness by quirks into being part of the dust that accumulates on less useful mechs. I'm waiting with great trepidation on that subject.

What might be helpful to see is not downward adjustments of existing quirks, but for the mechs that are considered top of their class, a few actual negative effects (quirks?). Yes, the community would scream bloody murder, but imagine a simple +5% heat gen quirk for weapon load outs that data mining shows are overperforming (such a mech might still have an overall 10% heat gen bonus, but only 5% effective for certain weapons). A minor (few %) cooldown penalty? Such quirks would not actually destroy a mechs performance, but might truly help bring them in line with lower performers. Also, it would aid in keeping the buff/nerf cycle at a central balance point, rather than an escalation cycle, with occasional backing off from a previous escalation (called a nerf at times, though not truly so when considering a balance point)