101 replies to this topic

[HeresWhy]

B3R3ND, on 21 May 2017 - 01:00 AM, said:

Build diversity is greatly improved.

The global nerf on cooldown, heat efficiency and hit on agility (accel / decel, turn & twist) is however a big negative impact on the gameplay.

Those two sentences do not coexist.

Edited by HeresWhy, 21 May 2017 - 05:21 AM.

[Mechwarrior1441491]

I don't mind the mechs being more sluggish. Reminds me of closed beta. If only we had knockdowns back.

Having to think about where you are moving before you get there. Committing to fighting and the realization that you aren't getting out of this and have to shoot your way out.

[Imperius]

Mechwarrior1441491, on 21 May 2017 - 05:32 AM, said:

I don't mind the mechs being more sluggish. Reminds me of closed beta. If only we had knockdowns back.

Having to think about where you are moving before you get there. Committing to fighting and the realization that you aren't getting out of this and have to shoot your way out.

Two problems you can't twist fast enough in some mechs to "shoot your way out" and the second problem is we're never getting collisions and knockdowns back!

[Alexander of Macedon]

Khobai, on 21 May 2017 - 01:40 AM, said:

Like the arctic cheetah. Its a 30 ton mech but it pilots like a garbage truck.

Or the Summoner which is a 70 ton mech with the agility of a light

What are you on about? Are you one of those people that doesn't put anything into mobility and then complains that the 'mech is slow and unresponsive? My arctic cheater matches have felt situation-normal, still running laps through entire enemy teams without taking significant damage.

[Imperius]

Alexander of Macedon, on 21 May 2017 - 05:58 AM, said:

What are you on about? Are you one of those people that doesn't put anything into mobility and then complains that the 'mech is slow and unresponsive? My arctic cheater matches have felt situation-normal, still running laps through entire enemy teams without taking significant damage.

Assaults should not be reliant on the mobility skill tree to function! That is a tree pretty much set for lights! That is role warfare!

[s0da72]

I don't see much difference in game play. In quick play I still see the same types of mech's being used as before the patch. Maybe they haven't gotten the memo that those mech's suck now.

[Zigmund Freud]

Imperius, on 21 May 2017 - 05:07 AM, said:

Where did I say the light isn't supposed to kill a assault? As it stands now lights aren't killing assaults (at least the direwolf in my case) with skill I'm not suggesting we should go super fast. I'm saying it's ******** people here think it's considered acceptable balance to take away the ability to aim and defend yourself

Then how do you see a balance solution, where both lights can kill an assault, and assault can "aim and defend himself"? The only way how lights can kill an assault is when they are fast enough to stay behind assault's back, or hit and GTFO quick enough. If a direwhale (assault of assaults) can aim and hit a light, one or two alphas will be over the top enough to kill it. It won't be defending yourself, it will be making lights utterly useless, if even the slowest of all assaults can kill them 1 on 1.

[2xShockFist]

Its funny, cause I remember back in the day people complaining that mechs moved too fast and it didn't feel mechwarrior enough cause mechs were supposed to be slow and clumbsy. Now that we sorta have that people are complaining again. I dont even.

[Mystere]

B3R3ND, on 21 May 2017 - 01:00 AM, said:

Build diversisty is greatly improved.

I'm afraid that "build diversity" you are seeing will only be temporary because people are still experimenting. But once that phase is done, just wait until the copy-and-pasta folks start arriving in mass numbers.

Edited by Mystere, 21 May 2017 - 08:44 AM.

[Nightmare1]

I disagree with the OP. This Skill Tree has breathed a lot of life back into the game for me!

[Jman5]

Khobai, on 21 May 2017 - 01:40 AM, said:

Like the arctic cheetah. Its a 30 ton mech but it pilots like a garbage truck.

Or the Summoner which is a 70 ton mech with the agility of a light

Arctic Cheetah feels fine. I don't even have a single point in the mobility tree and the only thing I notice is the lack of speed tweak.

[Cyrion]

The Skill Tree has its problems, but for the most part it's fine. PGI's problem there is that they touted it as a huge content buff for the players when in reality it was just a way to help them slow the game down. Maybe they mentioned that somewhere explicitly and I just missed it, but it might have gone over better with the community if they'd just outright said "Yeah, this skill tree is about toning down Mechs across the board because we've let them get out of control."

The real problem isn't with the Skill Tree, it's with the engine decoupling. Their scattershot approach has wrecked certain mechs and made other mechs a lot better than they should be. A 95-ton assault shouldn't move as well as a medium mech. Though there are still a few wonky issues with the Skill Tree, specifically in regards to mechs that have nutty armor quirks to begin with. A 60-ton mech shouldn't have more tankiness than an Atlas (here's looking at you B33F, with your Flame).

All that being said, I've had a lot of fun playing since the patch. The river of tears about the incessant clicking the skill tree requires was greatly overblown. I would pick one of my mechs I wanted to try, skill it, play with it for a few games, and then switch to something else. My right hand still hasn't developed carpal tunnel. Also, I actually had a decently interesting and fun time trying to decide how to skill my mechs, too. Do I forgo Radar Derp on this mech? Do I pick up some defensive nodes on this one? How much agility to I think I need on this assault? Yeah, the customization isn't super deep and you do get locked into taking stuff, but it isn't the end of the world like a bunch of people were claiming.

The games I've played so far have been a lot of fun. I mean, the potato LRM spam has been slightly annoying, but you just plan for it and stay near cover. Most of the mechs handle like they did before if you skill them correctly. My Battlemasters were still stupid good. The Hack Gyr was still extremely good. For all the crying about the death of the Locust and lights in general, I did fine on my Pirates Bane and Cheetah. Maybe they're a bit worse off in the mobility/agility department, but then again so is everyone else. And you know what was really amazing? I took out the ol' Splatdog for a spin and it actually didn't completely suck. That mech was damn near unplayable before unless you were working with a group. Your side torsos were basically made of paper. Someone sneezed in your direction and half your weapons would be gone. I dumped points into the defensive tree for it and now it can actually tank some damage. I had a blast twisting like a boss while 4-5 mechs shot at me on Mining and couldn't bring me down. You don't get insta-punished with a dead/crippled mech for being slightly out of position now. PGI wanted the TTK to go up and they achieved that goal. Personally, I think it has made the game more fun.

Yeah, there's plenty of goofy stuff with this latest patch. Yeah, PGI needs to make a few changes. But it hasn't wrecked the game. Stop being so dramatic and just go have fun.

Edited by Cyrion, 21 May 2017 - 07:31 AM.

[STEF_]

B3R3ND, on 21 May 2017 - 01:00 AM, said:

I will be honest, upfront i wasnt really looking forward to the skilltree but now that we have it i have to say tinkering with it, figuring out optimal paths and testing its effects has been interesting and entertaining. Build diversisty is greatly improved. Perhaps it needs some tuning and tweaking but so far job well done!

The global nerf on cooldown, heat efficiency and hit on agility (accel / decel, turn & twist) is however a big negative impact on the gameplay. Across the board all mechs basically became a lot more clumsy, sluggish and a lot less enjoyable to pilot.

Altough the skilltree has a good effect on mech customisation, the global nerf on a mech performance makes the game just plain out boring... Im not really enjoying MWO and its current gameplay at all!

HOnestly skill tree and global nerf are esactly the reasons why I'm enjoying mwo much more now than when I left 6 months ago: less twitch shooter more robotic war machine, known as battlemechs

Edited by Stefka Kerensky, 21 May 2017 - 07:31 AM.

[MischiefSC]

It's more balanced than it was, at least assuming you're making good skill tree choices. There's a real cost to heavies and assaults now vs mediums and lights.

If you want your mech to be as agile as it used to be, max the mobility tree. It's almost identical then.

[Pixel Hunter]

Khobai, on 21 May 2017 - 01:14 AM, said:

The game feels inconsistent to me

You have some heavies that are more agile than lights

You have some lights that pilot like assaults

You can have two different assaults which have huge disparities in how agile they are

Its a damn mess.

it makes me wonder why somebody was so keen to release this

here's my .02

-Assaults got a HUGE direct nerf with the agility thing

-Heavies and maybe mediums (need to play more mediums) got a reasonable TTK BUFF especially if you aren't running XL engines....but only if you can avoid the new LRM rain

-I dunno about lights either, but when you tag a Arctic Cheater in the torso with 2 LPL, 2 Medium twice and throw in an AC 20 and he runs away...certian light mechs seem to have just gotten really,really tanky with skills

some kinda scary things i'm noticing is a lot of very rapid fire slamm ac2/ac5 builds on assaults which seem a bit broken, and a few really spammy clan mechs with PPC's. I noticed a summoner firing those things nearly one after another. alongside missile spam

Edited by Gimpy117, 21 May 2017 - 07:51 AM.

[Angel of Annihilation]

Khobai, on 21 May 2017 - 01:14 AM, said:

The game feels inconsistent to me

You have some heavies that are more agile than lights

You have some lights that pilot like assaults

You can have two different assaults which have huge disparities in how agile they are

Its a damn mess.

I agree on this. The skill tree aside, the Engine Decoupling is what is really a mess. I had thought they were going for a standardization of effect based on the weight of the chassis but that is not the case, instead they seem to be using it as an arbitrary balancing tool. I really didn't even notice until I decided to finally buy a Night Gyr to test what it was like to skill a mech from scratch.

At first I thought it was just because the baseline mobility had been nerfed across the board but even when I got it skilled up it still felt sluggish as hell. After some research I found out that for some reason its base agility is like half of all the other heavy mechs and worse than many, much heavier assaults. This is when I realized that by an large the baseline agility of mech coincides almost directly with the community perception of that mechs power state. If a mech was considered OP or even just good, those mechs universally have worse states. Mechs that were considered under-performing, all have best in weight class stats.

Now while I am all for balance and I do kind of like the fact that each mech has its own unique handling characteristics regardless of its engine, I think the nerfs go to far. The Night Gyr, for example, is by far not my favorite mech, in fact despite it being out for months, I just bought my first one 2 days ago but giving it roughly half the baseline agility of all other heavy mechs, is way out of line. It hasn't even been fun to play, so much so, I have kind of quit leveling it up. Once I got all the Agility Nodes and realized it still handles like brick, it just doesn't seem worth playing.

So OP yeah, I agree with you about the skill tree. It has it own issues but I have definitely found it to be an overall improvement that leads to far more customization than I originally believed but the Engine Decoupling needs to be reviewed and many mechs, now crippled by poor agility, for "Reasons", need to standardized based on other mechs of the same weight. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying a Night Gyr needs to have the exact same rating as a Black Knight, but it shouldn't be half the value.

Edited by Viktor Drake, 21 May 2017 - 07:55 AM.

[S p a n i a r d]

Juodas Varnas, on 21 May 2017 - 04:58 AM, said:

Linebacker (65 tons) has higher agility than Panther, Firestarter, Raven and Puma (35 tonners).
70 ton Summoner is more agile than 45 ton Blackjack and Vindicator (and larger medium mechs).
An 80 ton Gargoyle is as agile as 50 ton Centurions, Crabs, Hunchbacks and Enforcers.
A 95 ton Executioner is as agile as a 60 ton Rifleman.

It is absolute utter garbage, is what it is.


Funnily enough, the Arctic Cheetah was BUFFED by the engine decoupling, by quite a lot.
In fact, out of ALL mechs in the game, Arctic Cheetah was improved the MOST relative to how it was pre-patch (at least according to the agility reference chart by McGral). And the Atlas was nerfed the most (which is something it really did not need)

Just another patch and another proof that PGI know absolutely NOTHING about the game.

Are people really disappointed that some heavier mechs are more maneuverable than others in the same weight class? This thing with the Summoner, Gargoyle, Exev, Linebacker seems to be PGI's way of making players think about playing them instead of the usual staple--TBR, KDK, MAD-IIC etc. Honestly, I'm ok with that since they are heavy(ier) mechs that are more agile than usual (maybe a niche/specialized mech? Idk), and the light/medium mechs used as comparison still moves according to their weight class.

I think people are using these maneuverable heavy/assault mechs to claim that the entire system is ****** up but actually it's just an excuse because the real reason is that their KDKs, TBRs and other favorite mechs got nerfed.

Edited by S p a n i a r d, 21 May 2017 - 07:59 AM.

[MischiefSC]

Velocity buffs, range and cooldown have been a big buff for ballistics. Clan and IS. Durability buffs have made ballistic boats even stronger as you don't need the various heat gen/cool run/etc nodes and can fill survival and most of firepower.

While by the sound of it comp play hasn't changed much QP and especially FW have changed significantly. Anyone who say IS is bad now just really sucks at making good decks and mechs.

[Juodas Varnas]

S p a n i a r d, on 21 May 2017 - 07:57 AM, said:

Are people really disappointed that some heavier mechs are more maneuverable than others in the same weight class? This thing with the Summoner, Gargoyle, Exev, Linebacker seems to be PGI's way of making players think about playing them instead of the usual staple--TBR, KDK, MAD-IIC etc. Honestly, I'm ok with that since they are heavy(ier) mechs that are more agile than usual (maybe a niche/specialized mech? Idk), and the light/medium mechs used as comparison still moves according to their weight class.

I think people are using these maneuverable heavy/assault mechs to claim that the entire system is ****** up but actually it's just an excuse because the real reason is that their KDKs and TBRs got nerfed.

I pilot neither KDKs nor TBRs.

And i wouldn't mind having certain Heavy mechs being more agile than other HEAVY mechs, and not more agile THAN ******* LIGHT MECHS.
The entire system is an absolute MESS.
They should have just had a linear decrease in mobility with the increasing tonnage, with certain mechs being more (or less) agile than other mechs of the same weight, but definitely not enough to jump over an entire weight class and being more agile than mechs HALF their weight...

[S p a n i a r d]

Juodas Varnas, on 21 May 2017 - 08:00 AM, said:

I pilot neither KDKs nor TBRs.

And i wouldn't mind having certain Heavy mechs being more agile than other HEAVY mechs, and not more agile THAN ******* LIGHT MECHS.
The entire system is an absolute MESS.
They should have just had a linear decrease in mobility with the increasing tonnage, with certain mechs being more (or less) agile than other mechs of the same weight, but definitely not enough to jump over an entire weight class and being more agile than mechs HALF their weight...

Let's look at one of your examples: Linebacker > more agile than a Panther. But if you look at the stats, while it really is higher, the difference is not that big, like a few points or something. You make it sound like it's flying.

Me? Personally I'm ok with that. Since the Panther still moves like a light mech. And if that's what it takes for people to consider Linebackers instead of the usual mech picks, fine by me. Because if the Linebacker is just mildly more maneuverable than the other Clan Heavies (like you said), it won't a be that of a big deal for players to consider using them over the usual picks

Edited by S p a n i a r d, 21 May 2017 - 08:12 AM.