10 replies to this topic

[Marmon Rzohr]

This is my belated commentary of the changes coming to the game from the last Skill Tree PTS. Thank you for reading and/or commenting if you choose to.

I’d like to focus on the massive changes to tech, mech and gameplay changes coming in the next patch.
I feel that these changes aren’t going to improve any of the axes of balance.

First of all the engine desync:

This is a global mobility nerf. There is no other way to describe it. Unless the base mobility stats change significantly or many mechs get noticeable mobility quirks most mechs - especially ones that favoured builds with big engines (the Victor for example) will be very sluggish compared to the live game.

I feel that focusing on engine ratings is a too narrow view of the Clan/IS imbalance.
(if the summoner, timber wolf, executioner, gargoyle and many other mechs were not omnimechs the first thing you would do is fit a SMALLER engine – the Night Gyr’s superiority demonstrates this).

Furthermore, movement is MWO’s ONLY defensive mechanic. The only one. Peeking faster, twisting and avoiding damage are a pilots single tool to mitigate damage. It will make piloting the average mech from light to heavy very, very frustrating and lower the Time To Kill. Not only that but it removes a lot of given and take in the construction of both IS and Clan Battlemechs and it’s justified by the Clan XL.
Nerf the Clan XL then ! Buff the IS XL and STD engines ! Please don’t be so heavy handed !

The fundamental imbalance between IS and Clan is caused by:
A ) the Clan XL
B ) lighter weapons

In the past the Quirkening made IS mechs superior to Clan variants by giving them quirks to compensate for a durability disadvantage they had with IS XL engines, quirks to make weapons better so IS mechs maintained competitive firepower with a smaller weapon payload. This was the only solution that worked and it’s very easy to see why. The Quirkening is (IMO) MWO’s biggest success story as it made mechs that were unplayed and absolute garbage not only very good, it made them very unique and interesting. While the level of quirks then was a bit too much, it was scaled back, far, far from the target to the point where far too few IS mech remain competitive to Clan equivalents.

Anyone remember the Spider 5K ? You know that absolute bottom of the bottom of the floor under the barrel of light mechs up to the quirkening which made it a mech that featured prominently in the World Championship no less !

Bring back the quirks ! The ideas were good ! The competitive IS mechs of today are still based on those old quirks – the Battlemaster, the Spider 5k, the Grasshopper 5P, the Shadowhawk 2D2 etc.

Edited by Marmon Rzohr, 10 May 2017 - 03:20 AM.

[Dracol]

Mobility quirks got rolled into base agility stats. The Summoner is still the most agile clan heavy. Some individual varients have better base agility compared to the varients of the chassis. Some, like the Kodiak 3, have worse base agility than the other varients of the chassis. Mechs like the Timber Wolf and Hellbringer, have taken a nerf in agility. Grasshopper is now the most agile IS heavy.

It is going to be interesting how this all plays out....

[Marmon Rzohr]

Dracol, on 10 May 2017 - 10:12 AM, said:

Mobility quirks got rolled into base agility stats.

I mean you say that but:

My experience has been a decrease in mobility performance compared to the live server, and a noticeable one on most mechs. This is my main concern. The average nerf to the agility of so many mechs will have a significant impact on gameplay, regardless of their relative perfomance.

Not to mention it's nerfing player choice (for both IS and Clan Battlemechs) to compensate for the advantage of the Clan XL... which remains unchanged as just as powerful relative to IS tech.

Mind you the relative agility values are also worrying:

Spoiler

The fact that the Summoner is the most agile clan heavy is ok, but the question is why is it less agile than on live ? Heck, the Jenner IIC is less agile. Why ? It's not like lights need a nerf and nerfing a light mechs mobility is a death sentence. If the relative balance of Clan vs IS lights is a concern there are many way to resolve it: heat dissipation, weapon cooldown, structure/armor quirks etc.

Why is the Warhammer so slow ? Why is the Timber Wolf almost as slow as a Night Gyr which has 50% more pod space ? Why did they nerf the Atlas' agility compared to Clan 100t mechs, a boost it sorely needed ? Why is the Thunderbolt less agile than the Grasshopper (which is a better mech) ?

I don't want to prophesize doom, but it usually takes a loooooong time for changes implemented like this to be adjusted and even then many mechs get left behind and forgotten because of the huge scope of the initial change. And my experince as a player so far tells me this is going to be a negative change which will restrict players to the select few mechs which were least affected by engine change. The rest will just feel like mechs with -20% to -60% accel/decel quirks i.e. horrible.

[Reno Blade]

I think the overall goal is that the average agility of light/med mechs with skills are same/higher while the average agility of heavy/assault will be lower (in general), and only close (slightly lower) to the same with skills.

If there is a huge discrepancy to my assumptions, I would expect that there might be a miscalculation and some things might be bugged.
BUT overall nerf of agility + overall weapon nerfs = longer TTK over all mechs should be a good change to the gameplay (imho).

[Widowmaker1981]

Reno Blade, on 11 May 2017 - 12:42 AM, said:

I think the overall goal is that the average agility of light/med mechs with skills are same/higher while the average agility of heavy/assault will be lower (in general), and only close (slightly lower) to the same with skills.

If there is a huge discrepancy to my assumptions, I would expect that there might be a miscalculation and some things might be bugged.
BUT overall nerf of agility + overall weapon nerfs = longer TTK over all mechs should be a good change to the gameplay (imho).

Just one point: an agility nerf results in a decreased, not increased, TTK. Mechs being less able to get back behind cover (due to acc/dec nerfs) and less able to twist incoming damage (twist nerfs) means that they will take more damage, and that damage will be better concentrated.

That might be counteracted by the cooldown / heat nerfs causing lower RoF, but if im honest i doubt it. I think the net effect will be for average TTK to get slightly lower.

[Reno Blade]

Widowmaker1981, on 11 May 2017 - 01:45 AM, said:

Just one point: an agility nerf results in a decreased, not increased, TTK. Mechs being less able to get back behind cover (due to acc/dec nerfs) and less able to twist incoming damage (twist nerfs) means that they will take more damage, and that damage will be better concentrated.

That might be counteracted by the cooldown / heat nerfs causing lower RoF, but if im honest i doubt it. I think the net effect will be for average TTK to get slightly lower.

That is true.

But at the same time, you will have harder time following the target laterally with your cross hair.

Ofc that only works if the target/shooters are fast and any slow mechs will have more problems due to low movement and twist speeds.
Slow shooter will have more problems against fast targets, while fast shooters will have easier time coring slow targets.
If faster shooters also have problems with aiming speeds, the advantage will be less, so it might be better to have a overall nerf for twist/arm speeds for everyone.

[Marmon Rzohr]

Reno Blade, on 11 May 2017 - 02:39 AM, said:

That is true.

But at the same time, you will have harder time following the target laterally with your cross hair.

Ofc that only works if the target/shooters are fast and any slow mechs will have more problems due to low movement and twist speeds.
Slow shooter will have more problems against fast targets, while fast shooters will have easier time coring slow targets.
If faster shooters also have problems with aiming speeds, the advantage will be less, so it might be better to have a overall nerf for twist/arm speeds for everyone.

Tracking a target is only an issue in litteral melee range even in an assault mech, and with light mechs also getting decreased mobility, it will likely be easier to shoot them, especially if they try to peek you or if you take shots at range.

Reno Blade, on 11 May 2017 - 12:42 AM, said:

I think the overall goal is that the average agility of light/med mechs with skills are same/higher while the average agility of heavy/assault will be lower (in general), and only close (slightly lower) to the same with skills.

If there is a huge discrepancy to my assumptions, I would expect that there might be a miscalculation and some things might be bugged.
BUT overall nerf of agility + overall weapon nerfs = longer TTK over all mechs should be a good change to the gameplay (imho).

Nerfing agility significantly will dramatically decrease TTK. Think how peeking in assault mechs works - you always take return fire, but at least you have the firepower to severely damage someone in return. With medium, heavy and light mechs this is not the case.

I'm also assuming you are unaware of how dramatic the change will be, based on your optimism

If the graphs for mech accel/deccel in the in-game mechlab are correct (they seem to be as far as I can tell), I will now give you some highlights:

Spider 5K : 50% (FIFTY) percent reduced acceleration
Timber Wolf: more than 66% reduced acceleration. It is about 20-30% slower than the Dire Wolf is on live.
Jenner F,K,D: around 44% reduced acceleration
Mist Lynx: around 52% reduced acceleration. ON. A. MIST. LYNX.
Vindicator: around 50% reduced acceleration. ON THE VINDICATOR.

I should stress that the values for IS mechs were done in comparison to the stock engines of the mechs in the mechlab store. If you would using a noticeably bigger engine than the stock one in your builds, the change would be even more significant.

The story goes on. Please be my guest and look at the mobility stats:
https://static.mwome...Final%20PTS.pdf IS mechs
https://static.mwome...Final%20PTS.pdf Clan mechs

and compare them to the values you see in the mechlab.

This is going to be tragic. And since every single mech is affected by the change, it will take months to tweak values for specific mechs and most likely many will be forgotten. This will not be good gameplay.

Edited by Marmon Rzohr, 11 May 2017 - 10:10 AM.

[testhero]

High Twist and arm speed skills are pretty pricey in the skill tree as it stands at the moment

The thing I am not looking forward to is that when this drops it will take ages for any necessary adjustments to be made to it and those base mobility quirks that the devs keep harping on will be hidden so you will no longer be able to tell a mechs mobility before you purchase it

[Grus]

Marmon Rzohr, on 10 May 2017 - 03:19 AM, said:

The fundamental imbalance between IS and Clan is caused by:
A ) the Clan XL
B ) lighter weapons
.

What? If the IS XL is that bad.. DON'T USE IT! Adapt and overcome, Clan meta is ppc and gauss. I'm terrabad with them so I use something else like erll. If you're not able to mitigate the damage you receive then dont bring a weakness to the field.

Edited by Grus, 12 May 2017 - 12:31 PM.

[Marmon Rzohr]

Grus, on 12 May 2017 - 12:30 PM, said:

What? If the IS XL is that bad.. DON'T USE IT! Adapt and overcome, Clan meta is ppc and gauss. I'm terrabad with them so I use something else like erll. If you're not able to mitigate the damage you receive then dont bring a weakness to the field.

It's one thing to adapt and overcome, it's a completely different for players to have objectively worse options for mech building just because of their choice of faction (the Clan XL is superior to both the IS XL and STD engines). For tech to be balanced, IS needs some changes. Not extreme or massive changes, several small adjustments will do.

And almost none of it is coming in this patch. In fact the opposite.

[MechWarior9169571]

When you dig down to the core of the matter you reach one conclusion: The game will sux really hard for mechs with quirks, especially mobility quirks. So we all either become metawhores and get what is at the very least a playable mechs (NTG maybe?) or wait until the devs finally figure out that they've ruined the gameplay/gamefeel that most of us love and are HAPPY with and maybe try to fix it. I'll be getting refunds on my mechpacks until they straighten this fiasco out.

And the point that testhero made about mobility quirks possibly being hidden is kinda scary. Cloak & Dagger games with the mech's specs is beyond silly, its asinine. Be forthcoming on what changes you make and expect more feedback that is honest. IMO, making changes to the mechs' mobility that are hidden for some strange reason pisses me off. If its come to the point of trying to keep the MWO community pacified by making hidden changes without our knowledge then you've assumed the role of Big Brother and are treating us like children. Why do this? What does it accomplish besides pissing us off because we'll figure out the nerf eventually?

Edited by romwyzard, 13 May 2017 - 09:44 PM.