131 replies to this topic

[DaZur]

Pariah Devalis, on 18 June 2017 - 07:35 AM, said:

The MWO Player Base as a whole recognizes there are problems with the game.

The MWO Player Base as a whole also tends to go batshit insane and practically cannibalistic whenever a solution to a problem is brought up.

What do?

Short of giving the entire playerbase a lobotomy... It's something folks who run with a more even keel will just have to tolerate. Or conversely, we can try to reason with them.

But you already know how well that goes.

[HollowBassman]

Imperius, on 18 June 2017 - 08:15 AM, said:

Here's an idea.

How about instead of all the camos that gets put on everything (which imo is too much wasted effort) we get new and old and few camos.

You might like old and junk. Which is fine, it's your personal preference. I myself do not.

I've been asking for worn/weathered camo and/or purchasable textures for a while.

[Revis Volek]

Gamuray, on 18 June 2017 - 05:22 AM, said:

They could make the Clan reload time longer.... ever thought of that? Simple solution... weapons that weigh less but do the same thing may need more time to accumulate the energy for firing or not have as powerful a reload system.

This simply pushes all Cgauss user to being IS gauss users...

[Scyther]

It's a difficult problem because BattleTech IP simply lays out Clan tech as superior. In the TT game or in the novels you can balance that lots of ways. In an online shooter most of those simply aren't workable.

Certain mechs have inherently better layouts. It's unavoidable when you have some mechs with great shoulder mounts and other mechs with arm or hip mounts, for instance. PGI in some cases makes that inexplicably worse by then mounting weapons under the already low arms.

While I feel the Clan/IS tech imbalance is significant, and should be addressed appropriately, nerfing things to heck and back isn't the way to do it. Some nerfs are ok, others are just slapping everyone who previously paid for that mech with its' given performance profile a slap in the face.

As someone mentioned earlier (I think El Bandito?) it would be better to give IS Gauss faster charge, or longer charge hold, or even an extra +2 ammo per ton, to balance it against C-Gauss. As opposed to nerfing every Clan chassis that can mount 2 CG, or 2 CG + an ERPPC.

And as DaZur says, as long as the overall balance is generally in a decent range, we may simply have to accept that certain mech variants are going to be high performers due to great design. So long as even those are somewhat balanced; ie, 8 'great design' mechs on Clan side and 3 on IS side isn't acceptable balance. 6 and 5, that's ok.

[MechaBattler]

Skanderborg, on 18 June 2017 - 04:38 AM, said:

I think a quick solution would to simply increase the ammo per ton for IS gauss so the tonnage equals out.

Clan Gauss still remains 12 tons with 7 shots per ton

IS Gauss remains 15 tons while increasing to 14 shots per ton.

So if a clan takes a gauss rifle and 4 tons of ammo to equal 16 tons he has 28 shots , and if a IS takes a gauss with 2 tons of ammo , he spent 17 tons for 28 shots. Both weapons perform equally but the IS just get a free ton or 2 and slots from not having to take more ammo tonnage.

That's actually the most reasonable thing I've read on these forums in a long time.

Edited by MechaBattler, 18 June 2017 - 09:31 AM.

[Angel of Annihilation]

Its not Gauss that is causing PGI to nerf the Night Gry and Marauder IIC, its the amount of playload they can carry and the speed that they can move it around the battlefield. I honestly don't feel either mech is OP at the moment, especially not the Night Gyr with it already extremely low mobility values,

But you have to consider that the Night Gyr is bringing Assualt mech levels of firepower within a 75 ton chassis. Also it has no real flaws aside from its somewhat slow top speed. It has good hitboxes and all its weapons are high mounted, plus it has JJ. So in the case of the Night Gyr, it is its Poptarting ability that is getting it nerfed. Remember PGI doesn't like Poptarts. The thing is, there isn't anything PGI can do to it to keep it from Poptarting so they are going another route, make it so miserable to play that everyone moves on to another chassis. Seriously, if it moves around the field like a Fatlas or Direwhale, then good poptart or not, people just won't play it, problem solved.

The Marauder IIC on the other hand is just able to move too fast. I think mine generally run about 76kph with Tweak and if I wanted to max the engine, I can get them over 80 kph. They also have great hitboxes, have a high amount of armor and can mount significant levels of firepower. They have alot of flaws too but overall the pros and cons kind of wash themselves out and we end up with what can only be classified as a good mech and good mechs are popular to play. So the issue here is they are too good of a all-arounder and suffer not from being OP but rather for being too popular. PGI can't have allow a mech to be just all-around good because why would someone play something else that had a major drawback then? So in this case, they give it the Fatlas or Direwhale treatment, make them miserable to play and again, people transfer over to some other mech and problem goes away.

[Jackal Noble]

Don't forget clan Gauss has only 5HP.
Don't forget clan dhs has 6.5 HP vs 10
Don't forget that almost all of clan weapons have less hp

[Jay Leon Hart]

JackalBeast, on 18 June 2017 - 09:53 AM, said:

Don't forget clan Gauss has only 5HP.
Don't forget clan dhs has 6.5 HP vs 10
Don't forget that almost all of clan weapons have less hp

Don't forget crits are random
Don't forget TCs increase crit chance

[Imperius]

Don't forget new tech is coming

[Jackal Noble]

Jay Leon Hart, on 18 June 2017 - 09:59 AM, said:

Don't forget TCs increase crit chance

Just like lbxes lol.

[Jay Leon Hart]

Imperius, on 18 June 2017 - 10:01 AM, said:

Don't forget new tech is coming

High hopes, low expectations

[Jackal Noble]

Jay Leon Hart, on 18 June 2017 - 10:07 AM, said:

High hopes, low expectations

I'm expecting the mauler to be an absolute monster.

[Shifty McSwift]

Tarl Cabot, on 18 June 2017 - 06:36 AM, said:

It used to be that way with ONE Gauss Rifle and 2PPC/ERPPC (the 10dmg, not the 10+2x2.5dmg variety ) - but fatlases that could not use cover to get close w/their brawling weapons cried foul, leading to various changes with weapon velocities/etc, including castrating JJs, felt most by the two assault.

/RIP Highlanders and Victors....

Yeah, though that probably would have been the days of no gauss charge time etc too. Honestly IMO it's the PPCs that add up for the huge amounts of PPFLD when the heat is spread across half or more of a team shooting them in particular, and at the ranges they are optimal etc, when you really look at gauss vs ppc, ppc wins, and PPC holds none of the charge or fragility etc.

I know a lot of people hate "nerf" or think "endless balancing" is pointless, but that is part of the ongoing development side of things, what they want a particular thing to be used for and how people actually utilise it can often be in conflict, if things aren't functioning in a "balanced way" or the meta starts to focus out a large percentage of weapons that is also not optimal for the consistent variety and flavor to the game and the viable tactics.

PPFLD (like a ppc hit or gauss projectile) is THE most efficient method of dealing damage period. Guns that function like this need the heaviest balancing mechanics for good reason, but almost all of PPCs balancing focus seems to be in heat, which seems too specific or one sided for a balance focus, particularly how the gauss works at almost 0 heat to synergise. The increase in PPC variations too will only add to it.

[Brain Cancer]

Jay Leon Hart, on 18 June 2017 - 09:59 AM, said:

Don't forget crits are random
Don't forget TCs increase crit chance

Don't forget we get to have IS TC's in about a month.

But seriously, Gauss do get the best of most worlds.

They are the best heat: damage ratio in the game short of consumables. They're in the small club that will destroy pretty much anything they hit on a crit, even if it barely penetrates armor for 0.1 structure damage. Ammo doesn't explode. Clantech Gauss are auto-cased so an explosion doesn't spread past the gun location. And thanks to perfect convergence, they can put 30 damage (more with the usual PPC/Gauss) down the line at incredible ranges.

They even don't get the min range issues from TT, meaning you can't even close and expect a loss of effectiveness.

[FupDup]

El Bandito, on 18 June 2017 - 03:37 AM, said:

I dunno how to improve the IS Gauss, which is three full tons heavier than Clan Gauss, to be competitive without further pushing the power creep. Perhaps much less charge timer?

I've always been in favor of the durability route, which helps offset things like the fragile XL engine. The explosion damage could be reduced to somewhere around 12ish for starters.

[Shifty McSwift]

Brain Cancer, on 18 June 2017 - 10:54 AM, said:

Don't forget we get to have IS TC's in about a month.

But seriously, Gauss do get the best of most worlds.

They are the best heat: damage ratio in the game short of consumables. They're in the small club that will destroy pretty much anything they hit on a crit, even if it barely penetrates armor for 0.1 structure damage. Ammo doesn't explode. Clantech Gauss are auto-cased so an explosion doesn't spread past the gun location. And thanks to perfect convergence, they can put 30 damage (more with the usual PPC/Gauss) down the line at incredible ranges.

They even don't get the min range issues from TT, meaning you can't even close and expect a loss of effectiveness.

Agreed, but even given all that, they are balanced against many other weapons, and if any weapon in the game is going to get that beautiful pinpoint damage with such a tiny projectile, it should be gauss, though I really don't know why they would want to make it so heat neutral that it is almost non existent.

Look at PPC conversely though, it shines pretty brightly, it gets away with a LOT of advantages for the extreme heat.

FupDup, on 18 June 2017 - 11:01 AM, said:

I've always been in favor of the durability route, which helps offset things like the fragile XL engine. The explosion damage could be reduced to somewhere around 12ish for starters.

See that aint a half bad idea at all. Heavy gauss, if given the range reductions of general heavier ballistics, will really need toughness too for its role. Light gauss could be nice and squishey though.

[arma1ite]

In my opinion there's no need to nerf the C-gauss's CD or Damage or even ammo capacity.

It'll be better this:
1) If mech has 1 c-GR, then the crit explosion of GR is the same.
2) If mech has 2 c-GR, then the crit explosion of one makes the explosion of the another (maybe with 50% chance - it's for discussion)
3) If mech has 2 c-GR and JJ then the crit explosion of one GR makes insta kill. =)

P.S. 4) If mech has 2 c-GR (or more) + JJ + PPC - then crit makes insta kill & ban the player for 30 minutes. )))

Edited by arma1ite, 19 June 2017 - 12:43 AM.

[The Basilisk]

As always there is no "its exactly this, and only this reason" for a supposed problem.

IS - pilot skills, the ridiculous notion of having to be able to stare someone down, the absurd entitlement of two factions having to be equaly strong at the same things (you effin do not go on longrange fights versus clan), the thought about FP invasion maps (and their lackluster environmental conditions) as measurement for IS vs Clan performance (why would you approach a Gauss guy with a bunch of short/medrange/longrange Laser Mechs if dropping them somewhere hidden or somewhere with covered ways to approach the gauss guy)

As always there are a whole bunch of factors making certain builds strong.
Biggest factors are environmental conditions and lackluster pilot skills.
Frontloaded damage was always a problem when you had conditions overly favoring the usage of those weapons.

-->splat SRM/SSRM builds --> Jumpsniper Gauss/PPC --> Dual AC20 builds --> extreme Laser vomit builds --> etc. etc. the spiral is turning round and round

[Mechteric]

Only allow one gauss to be charged at a time instead of two, problem solved.

[Kalleballe]

If dual gauss is OP, why is nobody running HBK-IIc? Its exploding ST maybe?

Gyr would be balanced by forcing longer exposure if it had lower arm hard points.