8 replies to this topic

[Ruar]

Decided to go in and try test a little more. Kept working different skill nodes until I finally found something I could live with. I ended up not taking any skill I didn't want which limited me to half of the weapon tree. I focused more on mobility and reducing my heat.

Items I considered to be must haves-

Radar Deprevation
Cool Run
Speed Tweak

Items I wanted-

Laser Duration
Heat Generation


I ran a match but my settings were wrong so I corrected them and just went into the training grounds for testing. The match was very one sided because the other team was heavier overall so it ended quickly. I didn't see much value in dropping into any matches.

In the training grounds I went to canyon network because it's where I do all my testing. I was running an ENF-4R with three large lasers. Normally I can get four to five volleys off before I have to worry about overheating. This was reduced to four but once my heat got up it stayed up. I ended up changing my weapon groups to a 2-1 setup instead of firing all three at once. I could fire two fairly consistently and then add the third before heading off to cool down.

Mobility felt great. No issues with going or stopping, jump jets felt the same. I assume the decoupling would have little change to a 50 ton mech since it's in the middle of the weights.


Overall I don't mind the increased heat since it will apply to everyone. This is going to seriously change how people setup their mechs. I like to stay around 1.5 heat when I build but I think I'll have to shift towards 1.75 in order to keep up my fire. The changes to heat will have the most effect on gameplay and shift the meta towards ACs instead of lasers.

I did wish I could customize my mech more though. Being forced to take nodes I don't want in order to get the nodes I did want didn't feel like customization. It felt like pigeon holing. When they talked about the skill tree I was really hoping I could pick and choose exactly what I wanted but for some reason they have chosen to go with this confusing and illogical web system. I don't like it and I don't understand why they feel it's needed.

[Ruar]

Kind of surprised there aren't more posts talking about how the play in game feels.

[Monkey Lover]

It lost its 10% heat quirk and basically didn't get it back. Lower end mechs are going to be hurting after this patch.

I still wonder how many will switch over to ac as if you look at the 5p. It lost
UAC/5 Cooldown -5%
Ballistic Heat Gen -5%
Ballistic Velocity-20%

I have more of a feeling people will move over to the meta mechs who didn't drop as many quirks for example the mx90. Very little in quirks lost. If was meta before and will be after.

Edited by Monkey Lover, 26 April 2017 - 08:27 AM.

[Cy Mitchell]

Ruar, on 26 April 2017 - 08:09 AM, said:

Kind of surprised there aren't more posts talking about how the play in game feels.

It is hard to get a feel for it in actual games when almost everyone is dropping in Assaults and playing like this is some kind of a tournament with huge prizes for winning. I have leveled up a Light and a Medium so far. Dropping against 4 Assaults does not give you much of an indication of how your Mech is going to perform and if I take anything less than a good heavy then the rest of my "team" does not get to test much either as they get rolled so fast they cannot test anything.

[Ruar]

Rampage, on 26 April 2017 - 09:09 AM, said:

It is hard to get a feel for it in actual games when almost everyone is dropping in Assaults and playing like this is some kind of a tournament with huge prizes for winning. I have leveled up a Light and a Medium so far. Dropping against 4 Assaults does not give you much of an indication of how your Mech is going to perform and if I take anything less than a good heavy then the rest of my "team" does not get to test much either as they get rolled so fast they cannot test anything.

Testing grounds solves that problem.

[Jikil]

I haven't dropped in any matches but in the testing grounds my clan heavies felt awful to pilot. Acceleration was slow and handling was abysmal. Maybe the timberwolf has just been too strong, but now its greatest asset in its engine is heavily nerfed. I'd rather have a heavy mech with a much smaller engine like the night gyr since they both handle about the same now.

Is it not possible to make mechs feel like they do on live?

I do not like the engine decoupling because its pretty much an agility nerf across the board for anything that isn't a small engined IS mech.

Raise up the baseline stats for engines to what they are on live before adding any skill points. For battlemechs set the baseline values to whatever engine most people run in that mech.

Mechs that handle like bricks aren't fun to play. And having a high top speed is more a liability than a benefit with the changes so far.

Edited by Jikil, 26 April 2017 - 09:27 AM.

[Ruar]

Jikil, on 26 April 2017 - 09:27 AM, said:

I haven't dropped in any matches but in the testing grounds my clan heavies felt awful to pilot. Acceleration was slow and handling was abysmal. Maybe the timberwolf has just been too strong, but now its greatest asset in its engine is heavily nerfed. I'd rather have a heavy mech with a much smaller engine like the night gyr since they both handle about the same now.

Is it not possible to make mechs feel like they do on live?

I do not like the engine decoupling because its pretty much an agility nerf across the board for anything that isn't a small engined IS mech.

Raise up the baseline stats for engines to what they are on live before adding any skill points. For battlemechs set the baseline values to whatever engine most people run in that mech.

Mechs that handle like bricks aren't fun to play. And having a high top speed is more a liability than a benefit with the changes so far.

Did you put any points into mobility to get back the accel/deccel boosts you have from previous skills? If not then what you are seeing is the lack of boosts from skills since accel/deccel was not changed with the decoupling, just the agility.

[Cy Mitchell]

Ruar, on 26 April 2017 - 09:14 AM, said:

Testing grounds solves that problem.

Yes, and I use it a lot. However, Mechs do not perform the same on testing grounds as they do in game in some cases. To get around that, I tend to test a set-up in the PTS testing ground and then test the same set-up on the LIVE testing ground. It still may not be the same as in game but at least I am seeing how the ST has affected the performance of the Mech in a apple to apple comparison.

In MWLL, I was an Alpha and Beta tester for years. We used to get groups together and go into a game to test weapons, mobility, armor values, etc for hours at a time. For the most part, there was no actual combat. It was just testing over and over until we got quantifiable results and values. In MWO, there in almost none of that. PTS just becomes another arena.

[Ruar]

Rampage, on 26 April 2017 - 09:35 AM, said:

Yes, and I use it a lot. However, Mechs do not perform the same on testing grounds as they do in game in some cases. To get around that, I tend to test a set-up in the PTS testing ground and then test the same set-up on the LIVE testing ground. It still may not be the same as in game but at least I am seeing how the ST has affected the performance of the Mech in a apple to apple comparison.

In MWLL, I was an Alpha and Beta tester for years. We used to get groups together and go into a game to test weapons, mobility, armor values, etc for hours at a time. For the most part, there was no actual combat. It was just testing over and over until we got quantifiable results and values. In MWO, there in almost none of that. PTS just becomes another arena.

I agree, but I recognize that PGI doesn't want true testing, they just want the PTS to be a way to generate player approval of changes.

Otherwise they would give us a testing lab and allow people to group test in the testing grounds.