259 replies to this topic

[Weeny Machine]

The majority of light mechs really struggle, especially the IS ones and 35t mechs.
I do not think that more firepower is the solution. Else, they would get similar to other mech classes. A better approach would be to buff their agility so they can stay out of a heavies or some assaults firing arc for a meaningful time (note: I am not saying "completely"!) and/or give them a lower radar profile so they get detected later. The latter would help a lot to let them close the distance so they can use their low-range weaponry.

As I said initially, the 35t mech family has been in the worst state after the re-sizing since ages. At that time, Russ promised compensation because of their increase in size - which never came. The Wolfhound, Panther, the IS/Clan Jenners and other 35t mechs are hit quite easily because of their big size after the re-sizing and feel pretty fragile (at least in T1)

CK16, on 29 May 2017 - 02:55 PM, said:

Sight, things I have learned about light pilots from their QQing...

They want their lights as tanky as a heavy, as much fire power as a heavy, but still want to maintain their 130+kph and turn on a dime ability...sounds fair to me...

First of all, the last time you played a light mech was season 8 and you had a match score of 155. Do you really think you are in a position to make a comment, ANY comment, of the state of light mechs? I can tell you, you look like a hypocrite.

Edited by Bush Hopper, 29 May 2017 - 10:28 PM.

[meteorol]

I'm begging for sensible adjustments to the Night Gyr and the MAD IIC.

You guys have a bit of a track record in going over the top with nerfs to mechs that needed slight tweaking. Better do two rounds of small tweaks (if the first isn't enough) instead of one big hit that might be too heavy.

[Karl Streiger]

meteorol, on 29 May 2017 - 10:38 PM, said:

I'm begging for sensible adjustments to the Night Gyr and the MAD IIC.

they didn't said they will nerf them didn't they?
Because if they want to adress BlackKnight or Firestarter - well I didn't have seen any.
And the Night Gyrs - all the Night Gyrs I have fought with did fell prey to my Gargoyle.... ok the reason is the did use them as pure LRM boats - and when you compare a LRM Night Gyr post Skill Tree - with the performance of the Sniper Night Gyr pre Skill Tree - the decline in performance would be breath taking

[DGTLDaemon]

OK, I'll try as hard as I can to be objective here Chris, a couple of questions for you:

1) Is your observation that the Night Gyr and Marauder IIC have "swung wide into over-performing territory" based on performance of specific builds or types of builds, or are you just looking at overall numbers for the chassis, without examining specific loadouts? For instance, in case of the Night Gyr, are the poptart PPC/Gauss Night Gyrs responsible for overperformance, or is it true for other loadouts as well?

2) With your "adjustments" planned for the June patch, will you be adressing the performance of specific Night Gyr and Marauder IIC loadouts, or will you be applying a blanket nerf to the chassis that's going to kill all other builds in the process, like it was the case with the Kodiaks?

A reply would be greatly appreciated

Edited by DGTLDaemon, 30 May 2017 - 12:22 AM.

[Lucky Noob]

Where is the Buff for the Pretty Baby ?

[Kalleballe]

IMHO, just asking comp players about the strongest and weakest variants would be faster and more accurate.

[Karl Streiger]

Kalleballe, on 30 May 2017 - 12:58 AM, said:

IMHO, just asking comp players about the strongest and weakest variants would be faster and more accurate.

and when you have 3 comp players you would have 4 opinions
then there is of course the question who is a comp player? Should I call names?

[Sjorpha]

Kalleballe, on 30 May 2017 - 12:58 AM, said:

IMHO, just asking comp players about the strongest and weakest variants would be faster and more accurate.

Yeah, probably. The general data might be a bit contaminated by potato.

But I have to agree with PGIs pbservations here, balance is much improved with the skill tree, contrary to my own expectations I must say. So well done Chris/PGI for once

I think if they use the data they have going forward like they do here, they can use input from comp play to address specific things that don't show up in general data because the skill threshold is hig for that particular thing. For example jumpsniping can be OP without major impact in QP queue because it can be hard to do well, and LRMs can be underpowered but have inflated numbers because noobs can't avoid them. (not saying that is the current situation, just examples)

Overall balancing seems to be on the right track. Looking forward to wepons and engine balancing, maybe someday IS won't need quirks or tonnage advantage to be equal

[DGTLDaemon]

Kalleballe, on 30 May 2017 - 12:58 AM, said:

IMHO, just asking comp players about the strongest and weakest variants would be faster and more accurate.

I think the biggest issue with using the kind of telemetry PGI are using is that it exaggerates the mech's overperformance/underperformance. Competitively-minded players will always try to extract every possible advantage from their mechs and builds, so if a mech has even the slightest potential for being better than the others, the comp crowd will rush to take advantage of that. As a result, the mech will end up being played by a lot of good players, and its statistical performance will go off the charts. On the other hand, if a mech is perceived as an underdog, the comp crowd will not touch it. Instead, it will be played by either lore fans who feel an attachment to that particular chassis or potatoes who can't tell a good mech from a bad one (or those who are simply bored of the meta and want to try something different), and its statistical performance will drop even further than it deserves. I think that's one of the reasons why the Marauder IIC and the Night Gyr are considered to be "overperforming" right now. With the demise of the Kodiaks and heavy nerfs to the Timber Wolves, the power/comp gamers switched to the Marauder IIC and the Night Gyr, and their performance numbers spiked as a result.

Edited by DGTLDaemon, 30 May 2017 - 01:22 AM.

[lazytopaz]

What about Centurions? Will they get some love??

[Tier5 Kerensky]

My Marauder IIC -D is pretty good with it's ECM and gauss sniper loadout. Same thing for Warhawk -B lurmboat.The skill three really gives nice sustained DPS boost.

Same thing for Night Gyr, it's pretty good to run many configs, although I don't like it's speed as Clan heavy.

[Karl Streiger]

lazytopaz, on 30 May 2017 - 01:34 AM, said:

What about Centurions? Will they get some love??

I want no love for Centurions.... i want my ARM back -and missiles claps

Edited by Karl Streiger, 30 May 2017 - 01:39 AM.

[chucklesMuch]

Small regular tweaks to balance would be mint... heavy handed nerfing of entire chassis or weapons systems not so much, especially when there is only one variant that is an outlier... also would you please remove the negative quirks off the TBR.

[Kurvi]

Here's a suggestion.

We currently get W/L and K/D leaderboards per player. It's yielded very useful statistical information. Could you start publishing the same statistics per mech variant? This way the community could do their own analysis see real proof that things are improving?

[G4LV4TR0N]

Can we get data on worst mechs too?

[Wildstreak]

Chris Lowrey, on 29 May 2017 - 10:01 AM, said:

*snip*

Dunno about this, I only played for 2 days since May 16.

Never saw any of the following Mechs: Panther, Gargoyle, Wolverine.

Have seen more of: Commando, Warhawk, Nova.

The rest in the same numbers.

I do not really measure Mechs on W/L since there are team qualities that go into that.

Also no comparison of Quick Play choices vs. Faction Play choices vs Competitive choices. That 3 way division is important and each has to be measured separately.

As for the short list of 5, King Crabs were not that common before, showing up more now but not in overwhelming numbers so why adjust them?
Same for Firestarter.
Black Knight, hardly ever seen even more so since the patch.

I cannot speak more on these as I only ran unskilled Mechs, rather surprising which Mechs can do well unskilled. Are you keeping track of that too?

Also have you noticed how many of each weight class is played?

You may be reading data wrong by not looking at it from the right view.

Edited by Wildstreak, 30 May 2017 - 04:36 AM.

[lazytopaz]

So when/if will we see adjustements mech by mech case? (or getting back quirks that were "stolen" from mechs that were already obscure/non-meta)

There are multiple mechs that got hit by nerf bat in the knees, balls and over the head... repeatedly.. until there wasnt much left.

I don't see this skill tree anywhere near to a "finished product" state. It's a good start. But, JOB. IS. NOT. DONE. yet.

CN9 (um ... variant D costs loads of money and brings... nothing exceptional, unique or interesting to the table anymore), BJ, WVR, etc.

Basically all of the mechs that are under gunned, starved with hardpoints (or just spread thin with 3 different types but 1-2 of each max; ergo having : 2E, 2M and 2B in one mech gives you laughable choices), podspace (have 3 hardpoints in the arm... but you can only maybe put one LBx10 and thats about it) and/or include horrible hitboxes.
Nerfbatting them with quirk reduction didn't help either. And no... skill tree is only bringing about 50% of their previous performance back which was already on average basis, only OK. Now it's just meh.
Don't give me that crap : "oh but you can adjust your mech in different ways now". Sure, I don't deny that. But in the end it doesn't matter how fast or armoured you are if you cannot hit back with proper ammount of force and/or how frequently you could've done that in the past.

Edited by lazytopaz, 30 May 2017 - 04:58 AM.

[lazytopaz]

Karl Streiger, on 30 May 2017 - 01:38 AM, said:

I want no love for Centurions.... i want my ARM back -and missiles claps

What do you mean "ARM back?" and missle claps? To me it seems these are only visual things that you will only notice in Mechlab and maybe on that rare occasion you actually meet another Centurion (yeah right) on a battlefield. Which is highly unlikely because it's already an obscure, non-meta, hardpoint starved, quirk-nerfed mech that will only be fielded by people who fell in love with the chassis. Which isn't a densly populated club anyway.
Things you've mentioned have nothing to do with improvement in overall performance, while making it a viable mech to take out to the battlefield.

Dragons at least have their quirks. Centurions have squat now.

You high on crack or something? Stop smoking and don't post BS.

Edited by lazytopaz, 30 May 2017 - 05:12 AM.

[Angel of Annihilation]

DGTLDaemon, on 30 May 2017 - 01:14 AM, said:

I think the biggest issue with using the kind of telemetry PGI are using is that it exaggerates the mech's overperformance/underperformance. Competitively-minded players will always try to extract every possible advantage from their mechs and builds, so if a mech has even the slightest potential for being better than the others, the comp crowd will rush to take advantage of that. As a result, the mech will end up being played by a lot of good players, and its statistical performance will go off the charts. On the other hand, if a mech is perceived as an underdog, the comp crowd will not touch it. Instead, it will be played by either lore fans who feel an attachment to that particular chassis or potatoes who can't tell a good mech from a bad one (or those who are simply bored of the meta and want to try something different), and its statistical performance will drop even further than it deserves. I think that's one of the reasons why the Marauder IIC and the Night Gyr are considered to be "overperforming" right now. With the demise of the Kodiaks and heavy nerfs to the Timber Wolves, the power/comp gamers switched to the Marauder IIC and the Night Gyr, and their performance numbers spiked as a result.

Yep. This is too true. When something is perceived as good, good players flock to it and the devs seldom take this into account. Marauder IICs are good but they took a significant nerf already and are no where near where they were before the skill tree, yet they want to nerf them more, seriously? Also I didn't own a Night Gyr until after the skill tree patch and when I first got it, I was like, "What the hell is wrong with this mech?!" because it wallowed around like fat Assault mech and even now fully skilled, it sits near the bottom of my list due to being such a wallowing pig of a mech. Hell I will take a post-skill tree Executioner any day over the Night Gyr. It is 20 tons heavier but I am running 3 LPLs in the chest of my Executioner backed up by 6 ER SLs in the arms and compared to the Night Gyr, I have twice the acceleration + MASC that makes it move even quicker. I can near run circles around a Night Gyr in it.

So yeah I am not seeing where post skill tree, either of these mechs need a nerf and can't for the life of me see how either could be even more powerful under the new skill tree. In fact I think that is what gets me the most, both have seen a significant nerf with Engine Desync and the Skill tree, yet somehow they are got more powerful than before??? That doesn't compute. I think it is more along the lines of them over nerfing the top performing mechs, making these two stand out but nerfing them doesn't change a thing because as soon as they are gone, something else will stand out.

Lastly isn't it a bit early for nerfs, especially to clan mechs considering we have all the new IS tech coming out in 6 weeks?

[Karl Streiger]

you can take your battlefield performance and put them were the sun never shines.

The Centurion was always about aesthetics - even in CB the Hunchback was always the better choice - and the only reason guy still used Centurions was the look... even when it was only in the Mechlab (not true because that crippled arm is also used in the BattleTech game by HBS)

Of course I can live with more armor quirks for the Left Arm - and some bonus for the ballistic.

Edited by Karl Streiger, 30 May 2017 - 05:20 AM.