212 replies to this topic

[Luminis]

Hm. Dunno, I don't feel that bad about most of the stuff.

Weapon changes:

• Clan Small Laser: The C-SPL had it coming, honestly. Might see ERSLs on Clan lights now. This ain't gonna be good for the light queue, but not unwarranted, still. Makes room for ER Micros, potentially, so there's that.
  
• IS Small Laser: The IS smalls were irrelevant and will remain that way...
  
• Clan Medium Laser: Now, the C-ERML... It didn't get a nerf to heat or damage which is what I initially expected. The burn time increase sucks for its user-friendly-ness but its damage / range / tonnage combination basically necessitated it to be looked at. The C-MPL might even be a net buff with how small the adjustments to damage and duration are. We might actually see someone field them!
  
• IS Medium Laser: Makes room on the ERs on the IS side. The change in CD for the MPL seems minuscule and reduced heat on the regular ML might be important for lighter chassis boating them, but nothing significant.
  
• Clan Large Laser: Damage nerf on the LPL isn't huge. Reduced duration and CD aren't really compensating for that, but damn, I'm glad the damn thing retains its range. I was certain it was gonna get that taken way. Works for me, I guess. Might also mean that PGI can get Heavy Larges in below their Table Top damage values while still differentiating them from the existing lasers. For the ERLL, the increased CD seems a bit much, but the reduced duration was much needed. With the reduced LPL damage, it might even be a bit of an alternative again.
  
• IS Large Laser: This is the odd one for me... Yes, the IS LPL was probably the most ubiquitous weapon around, moreso than even the C-LPL, but with the buff to the regular LL, it seems harder to justify the additional tonnage. With the ERLL's reduced duration, I'd think the big choice is going to be between regular LLs and ERLLs from now on.
  
• C-ERPPC: Sitting in cover for an additional .5 seconds isn't going to ruin a poptarts day, so eh.
  
• LRMs: Nerfing LRMs and buffing AMS. Because that weapon system didn't have enough issues yet. Well, I don't use them, so whatever.

'Mech changes:

• Night Gyr: Probably a necessity to nerf it. Personally, I'd prefer negative quirks to reduce its PPC + Gauss performance specifically because blanket mobility nerfs also affect lesser builds (like the mixed LPL/dakka build I have on mine ). It might still do okay, that remains to be seen, but I have a feeling the EBJ might be the next premier Clan heavy.
  
• Marauder IIC: One of my favourites, but piloting the MAD-IIC and the SNV back to back does highlight just how good the MAD-IIC is (or was, rather). Nerfing all variants (except one) is a bit questionable and I do hope they're not getting hit to the same degree. The MAD-IIC is the primary offender and the MAD-IIC-A might be up there as well, but I don't think the MAD-IIC-D or the Scorch ought to be hit just as hard as the base variant.
  
• Battlemaster: The nerf to its structure quirks stands out more to me than the remaining changes. Makes sense with the premier Clan assault also being nerfed, but I feel like this is just as much in expectation of the LFE dropping next month. Depending on how big the nerf is, we might see the BLR-1G become the best variant again, not least of all because 6x LL might now be a damn sweet loadout.

Edited by Luminis, 17 June 2017 - 12:30 AM.

[Nomad One]

Great. A patch all about catering to an even smaller minority than the faction warfare regulars, and catering to the incompetent mongrels of tier 4 and 5, all while trying to cover your backsides for the newer weapons taking the previous weapon stats.

Clan small pulse laser losing a third of its damage hits the bad clan mechs the worst. Rest in peace mr. gargles and nova, apparently you don't deserve to have a niche.

IS medium lasers were already better at medium range trading, now they're even more so. Clan ER mediums are worse than IS ERLL's now. Logic? Not available in pgi-land. Standard IS large laser now completely invalidated by the IS ERLL. Again, no logic available.

The only thing these mind boggling stupid changes will manage to do is force clans to play ERPPC/ gauss poptarts and ERLL snipers. They can no longer trade against IS laser vomit builds, so it's all about staying at 800m+ ranges. Great, so how did that increasing playstyle diversity thing work out for you?

How about giving clans back their stormcrow for scouting, now that their only answer against obnoxiously overquirked inner sphere 50-55 ton medium mechs with SRM bomb builds has been effectively made incapable of even standing up for itself? Oh can't do that because there will still be braindead numbskulls who bring LRM centurions? Guess it's handicap central for one side forever then!

[Ced Riggs]

Mystere, on 16 June 2017 - 08:39 PM, said:

I was in a drop where we had only one light and one medium. The rest were heavies and assaults.

I see your heavy drop and raise you the Steiner Scout company. Last night we dropped with 1 Hunchback, 1 Nova and 10 (ten) Assaults in group queue. Needless to say, the enemy was horrendously confused. We made up for it by NASCARing away from them so our slower assaults got picked off, but we simply outtanked them with armor and stupidity for an insulting 12-6 victory.

[Kaeb Odellas]

Nomad One, on 17 June 2017 - 12:37 AM, said:

Great. A patch all about catering to an even smaller minority than the faction warfare regulars, and catering to the incompetent mongrels of tier 4 and 5, all while trying to cover your backsides for the newer weapons taking the previous weapon stats.

Clan small pulse laser losing a third of its damage hits the bad clan mechs the worst. Rest in peace mr. gargles and nova, apparently you don't deserve to have a niche.

IS medium lasers were already better at medium range trading, now they're even more so. Clan ER mediums are worse than IS ERLL's now. Logic? Not available in pgi-land. Standard IS large laser now completely invalidated by the IS ERLL. Again, no logic available.

The only thing these mind boggling stupid changes will manage to do is force clans to play ERPPC/ gauss poptarts and ERLL snipers. They can no longer trade against IS laser vomit builds, so it's all about staying at 800m+ ranges. Great, so how did that increasing playstyle diversity thing work out for you?

How about giving clans back their stormcrow for scouting, now that their only answer against obnoxiously overquirked inner sphere 50-55 ton medium mechs with SRM bomb builds has been effectively made incapable of even standing up for itself? Oh can't do that because there will still be braindead numbskulls who bring LRM centurions? Guess it's handicap central for one side forever then!

12 CSPL Nova is just hilariously OP in quick play and scouting though. It needed a nerf.

I'm not sure about the extent of the nerf though. Holy cow.

[UnofficialOperator]

Kaeb Odellas, on 17 June 2017 - 01:05 AM, said:

12 CSPL Nova is just hilariously OP in quick play and scouting though. It needed a nerf.

I'm not sure about the extent of the nerf though. Holy cow.

so nerf the chassis, not the entire weapon

[Kaeb Odellas]

UnofficialOperator, on 17 June 2017 - 01:06 AM, said:

so nerf the chassis, not the entire weapon

Well it was the CSPL that was OP about the build, not the Nova itself. You see plenty of laserboat Novas that don't run CSPLs and don't do as well.

It's basically an IS SPL + 50%. 50% more range, damage, heat, and duration. Or an IS MPL with less range, less heat, and half the weight. Stupid OP.

[meteorol]

Thanks for those well thought out, sensible adjustments.

Just one heads up for futher changes though... If you don't want people to ever use a weapon again, like the CSPL, just delete it from the game. Has the same effect, but is more overseeable.

[Yosharian]

C-SPL damage reduction is too heavy for one balance pass, a 33% reduction in damage per shot? That's too much for one balance pass

You've been at this for years now PGI and you still don't understand that you do small incremental changes on balance passes

Also you've looked at quirks but there are still many mechs out there absolutely floundering, never ever used because they are so bad, and you don't even touch them

Edited by Yosharian, 17 June 2017 - 01:25 AM.

[xe N on]

I expected a much larger nerf, escpacially for the (C)-LPL.

C-ERML - one of the tonnage efficient wepon in the game - is virtually not nerfed at all. Anyone who cries about 0,1 seconds duration nerf (that are 100 milisecond) should simply caclulate at which rate mechs twists torsos and how much twist degree is lost by facing the enemy by 0,1 sec more.

The cooldown nerf is irrelevant, too, because C-ERML is an alpha focused weapon and not DPS.

Edited by xe N on, 17 June 2017 - 01:27 AM.

[JohnnyWayne]

Kaeb Odellas, on 17 June 2017 - 01:11 AM, said:

Well it was the CSPL that was OP about the build, not the Nova itself. You see plenty of laserboat Novas that don't run CSPLs and don't do as well.

It's basically an IS SPL + 50%. 50% more range, damage, heat, and duration. Or an IS MPL with less range, less heat, and half the weight. Stupid OP.

CSPL were the only thing making clan lights viable. And there only the ACH and JennerIIC. Losing a shoulder being looked at compared to a 70 armor CT on the wolfhound sure is balanced.

Also, ISLPL remains the highest DPS weapon in the game. Lol.

Oh yea, marauder nerfs of course. After all the madcat IIC is coming up and PGI needs people to buy that.

Edited by JohnnyWayne, 17 June 2017 - 01:37 AM.

[Roadbuster]

C-ER-PPC nerf is good, but it won't change much. People didn't spam them before and they just have more time to cool down between shots now. Still a very potent weapon.

Laser changes seem ok. Even the small laser ones.
Hard to hit light mechs with armor quirks (and lag-shield) with the firepower of much heavier mechs were a bit too much.
Reduction of C-SPL damage is a good thing, but going from 6 to 4 might've been too much at once, we'll see.
C-ER-SL cooldown nerf is pretty much thanks to the Novas. It will bring them down to a more reasonable DPS output. On the plus side, IS-SL and especially C-ER-SL, now have lower HPS, which means you can sustain the damage output for a longer time.

I like the King Crab buffs. Faster torso twist and more armor will make them viable again.

[Kaeb Odellas]

JohnnyWayne, on 17 June 2017 - 01:34 AM, said:

CSPL were the only thing making clan lights viable. And there only the ACH and JennerIIC. Losing a shoulder being looked at compared to a 70 armor CT on the wolfhound sure is balanced.

Also, ISLPL remains the highest DPS weapon in the game. Lol.

Oh yea, marauder nerfs of course. After all the madcat IIC is coming up and PGI needs people to buy that.

ISLPL isn't even the highest DPS energy weapon. That honor goes to the C-ERPPC. Beyond energy weapons. every autocannon but the AC2 has a higher DPS. For missiles, the SRM4, SRM6, LRM15, and LRM20 have higher DPS.

CT armor on the Wolfhound maxes out at 67 if you bring no rear armor, but that's because Woflhounds are enormous, have no jump jets, are easy to hit, and have less firepower than the ACH. And losing a side torso kills you. Honestly, if you're complaining that Wolfhounds are OP, I don't know what to say to you.

Edited by Kaeb Odellas, 17 June 2017 - 02:09 AM.

[DGTLDaemon]

Well, traditional Clan laser vomit (LPL+ERML) is now officially dead. It used to work because both weapon systems had similar effective ranges, burn times and cooldown times, so it made sense to fire them at the same time. Now with the increased burn time and cooldown of the ERML and the reduced burn time and cooldown of the LPL, they will be totally out of sync. I guess I'll be retiring all my laser vomit mechs until the new tech is released in July. Then we'll see whether those heavy lasers are any good.

As for the rest of the changes... It's just another f*ck you to the Clans from PGI, as usual. I'm simply at a loss for words here. The same faction keeps getting hit by the nerf bat month after month, and the game devs call it "balancing". It's unbelievable.

[JohnnyWayne]

I complain about light mechs being too weak. And by no means should have remotely 70 CT armor in any case. That is bad design that goes against all light mechs are supposed to stand for in this game. They bring firepower that has to be applied carefully but then be deadly combined with hit and run tactics.

What happens here is the death of a whole class of mechs. On clan side more than on IS side - they can switch to medium lasers anytime.

[Tarogato]

Andi Nagasia, on 16 June 2017 - 06:16 PM, said:

=(LINK)=

Why did you make a new discussion thread linking to the already perfectly functional discussion thread?

Edited by Tarogato, 17 June 2017 - 12:52 PM.

[Kaeb Odellas]

JohnnyWayne, on 17 June 2017 - 02:15 AM, said:

I complain about light mechs being too weak. And by no means should have remotely 70 CT armor in any case. That is bad design that goes against all light mechs are supposed to stand for in this game. They bring firepower that has to be applied carefully but then be deadly combined with hit and run tactics.

What happens here is the death of a whole class of mechs. On clan side more than on IS side - they can switch to medium lasers anytime.

They gave 35 tonners more durability because the rescale made them enormous. They're not exactly hard to hit.

What would you have done to make Wolfhounds viable?

[Tarogato]

Kaeb Odellas, on 17 June 2017 - 02:24 AM, said:

They gave 35 tonners more durability because the rescale made them enormous. They're not exactly hard to hit.

What would you have done to make Wolfhounds viable?

Not make them bigger.

[Kaeb Odellas]

Tarogato, on 17 June 2017 - 02:25 AM, said:

Not make them bigger.

Fair, but that's apparently how big they're supposed to be according to PGI's volume/tonnage formula. And it's not like they were very hard to hit before the rescale either. Increasing size and toughness makes them less susceptible to getting instagibbed by streaks, at the cost of being easier to hit by everything else.

I would have liked to see them get more speed per engine rating. Actually, I'd like to see individualized speed/engine formulas for each mech.

[Dee Eight]

MortZA, on 16 June 2017 - 08:02 PM, said:

That's a huge hit to the HBK-4SP. Was it over performing or something?

yes. structure node quirks stacking with huge quirks equaled a 50 ton medium with the internal structure values of a banshee.

[JohnnyWayne]

Kaeb Odellas, on 17 June 2017 - 02:24 AM, said:

They gave 35 tonners more durability because the rescale made them enormous. They're not exactly hard to hit.

What would you have done to make Wolfhounds viable?

**** the rescale and honestly, I would give any light mech jump jets....

Every variant on a light mech should be able to fill a role. Sniper, Striker. Striker on laser or SRM basis. But lasers are going to be killed, shifting this game more towards missiles and less valid options for light mechs. Which are laughably few already.

Edited by JohnnyWayne, 17 June 2017 - 03:20 AM.