51 replies to this topic

[FunkyT]

Luminis, on 05 July 2017 - 11:16 AM, said:

I'm sorry for taking this bit out of the post to reply to, but I just wanted to point out that 'Mechs - both Clan and IS - are generally balanced around the best possible build. Yes, it's gonna be annoying if PGI goes on to remove range quirks on the grounds of ERs now existing for IS too, especially if you're running a build with regular lasers because you don't want to deal with the heat, but less optimised builds getting swept aside by the broad strokes PGI makes to balance 'Mechs is pretty much normal.

Yeah, that's probably the only sensible way to do things. There's likely no feasable way to include every possible build.
But it would at the same time kinda suck to limit variety, by balancing around the best possible outcome.

Best thing would be if they could somehow balance each situation for itself, but that would again be an extreme amount of work and would likely just make room for more issues.

So in order to keep the likely LFE meta in check, XL builds will probably have to take the nerf.

[Baulven]

Much like rescale it will take months of seeing what the new tech actually accomplishes before any adjustments should be made. That being said with the fact that it's tanky as hell the heavier stable that is forced to run STD since they are not XL friendly will definitely see a boost. I don't know if that boost will raise them enough to be used in regular rotation though.

Edited by Baulven, 05 July 2017 - 12:06 PM.

[Luminis]

FunkyT, on 05 July 2017 - 11:40 AM, said:

Best thing would be if they could somehow balance each situation for itself, but that would again be an extreme amount of work and would likely just make room for more issues.

Absolutely, which is why I'm so surprised that PGI is opposed to balancing with (weapon specific) negative quirks instead of e.g. mobility nerfs that hit a multitude of builds. But it be what it be and PGI do what it do.

[Kaptain]

Increases? No. Should we actually implement the stated intent of engine decoupling in that all mechs of X weight share the same accelerate/decelerate and turn speeds? Yes, yes we should. This would in-turn buff the mobility of mechs like the NGR and TW.

I would also like to see IS mechs quirks toned down (this coming from a near 100% IS player)

Edited by Kaptain, 05 July 2017 - 02:34 PM.

[Reza Malin]

Kaptain, on 05 July 2017 - 02:33 PM, said:

Increases? No. Should we actually implement the stated intent of engine decoupling in that all mechs of X weight share the same accelerate/decelerate and turn speeds? Yes, yes we should. This would in-turn buff the mobility of mechs like the NGR and TW.

I would also like to see IS mechs quirks toned down (this coming from a near 100% IS player)

While i was all behind quirks being removed a while back, i don't realistically see how it can be done.

For some chassis, then yes its viable. The problem is a great number of other chassis will simply die, and never get used. The new tech doesn't seem to offer enough changes to offset the fact that a number of IS chassis are significantly inferior to newer clan mechs, especially battlemechs, as well as a few of the newer IS mechs.

To me, they will always need quirks to buff unpopular mechs. This mainly comes down to hardpoint location and variation, as well as hitboxes in my opinion.

Time will tell i guess once the new tech goes live.

Also, why would we want NGR and TBR mobility buffed? They are already mobile enough, as well as being two of the most popular picks, especially NGR. The reason decoupling was selective to me, is that it gives PGI another way to balance chassis types for mobility, without quirks. Something you already highlighted a dislike for.

Forget lore, or weights, its a video game. Decoupling is simply a way to regulate overperforming mechs like the KDK3, MAD IIC and BLR 2C. Which are all still good incidentally, just not as must have as before.

You certainly don't sound like an IS player.

Edited by Reza Malin, 06 July 2017 - 06:42 AM.

[Y E O N N E]

Kaptain, on 05 July 2017 - 02:33 PM, said:

Increases? No. Should we actually implement the stated intent of engine decoupling in that all mechs of X weight share the same accelerate/decelerate and turn speeds? Yes, yes we should. This would in-turn buff the mobility of mechs like the NGR and TW.

I would also like to see IS mechs quirks toned down (this coming from a near 100% IS player)

That was never the intent of engine decoupling. The intent was to set a lower limit for a 'Mech of a certain mass that is considered good so less good 'Mechs have another variable at their disposal to make them better.

For example, the IS Marauder is only as good as it is because it is agile, else the lighter Warhammer is the better choice (it still is, regardless).

[Lucian Nostra]

Luminis, on 05 July 2017 - 11:16 AM, said:

Personally, I'm against blanket buffs to Clans.

Interesting since clans have sucked down how many poorly thought out blanket nerfs since inception that have crippled some of the mechs?

Also, not in reference to your posts but yeah just like to point out that a 6% win differential (47% vs 53%) is damn close yet you still get IS players hollering like Clan mechs are firing nukes at them or something.

[GoatHILL]

LFE cannot replace XL builds in heavies or assaults. There is no way to keep the firepower / cooling you either have to give up weapons or heatsinks or both to go from an XL to LFE.

The LFE will help some STD builds but its not going to do much if anything for XL fatties.

[Y E O N N E]

GoatHILL, on 06 July 2017 - 08:29 PM, said:

LFE cannot replace XL builds in heavies or assaults. There is no way to keep the firepower / cooling you either have to give up weapons or heatsinks or both to go from an XL to LFE.

The LFE will help some STD builds but its not going to do much if anything for XL fatties.

More like the LFE can't replace the XL on Lights, most Mediums, and most Heavies. Assaults actually wear it pretty well, since they don't always need to go fast in the first place.

Really, LFE only replaces on select builds. Laser vomit can take the LFE because all you do is trade LPL for LL, which you may want to do anyway to get more range, but keep the DHS and keep the speed. The skill tree takes care of duration. A few dakka DPS builds can also use LFE, like the old UAC/5 + PPC standby on the WHM-6R.

[panzer1b]

I dont think clans need it too much (and im a clanner for the most part but play IS too), since they already have an extensive advantage in mobility over IS with the whole 2 ST death XLs. I also think that very few if any of the new weapons are going to be all that game changing (more variety of playstyles will open up but i dont see any of the new weapons tech making a huge difference overall in the way the game is played unless they sneak in a massive buff to something just before it goes live).

The biggest difference at least personally will be LFE and light ferro armor. If you play STD heavys then going LFE is a no-brainer since it gives you either more speed, or more tonnage to play with, or both for just 4 slots which can be obtained from switching FF to light FF and give 3 more slots for stuff. Ofc there will still be the choice between XL and LFE, but every single mech (with a few exceptions like zombie builds and HGauss) that had a STD before will be flat out better after the LFE drops. Its not going to make or break the game nor will it automatically make IS the dominant faction necessarily, but its going to give a large number of heavier IS mechs the ability to gain speed and or firepower with literally no downsides except the minor penalties on ST loss and death on 2 ST destroyed (zombie firepower is so lousy that you may as well be dead when both ur STs are destroyed).

Anyways, i think they outta give it a month or so to play out, if IS truly becomes super dominant then start with nerfing quirks that are leftover, if they remain dominant afterwards then start nerfing their weapons or whatnot to compensate. That said, i highly doubt its going to be much if any unbalance, given the only really really powerful IS tech thats coming out being the UACs (unless they make them have ghost heat ofc, dual uac20s without ghost heat is op as hell nomatter what the excuse is)...

[Khobai]

Quote

I dont think clans need it too much (and im a clanner for the most part but play IS too), since they already have an extensive advantage in mobility over IS with the whole 2 ST death XLs.

Except with the agility nerfs there is no mobility advantage anymore.

I think they need to give clans back their lost mobility. And rather than nerfing clan mobility just make the ISXL survive a side torso destruction like they originally shouldve done in the first place.

Quote

More like the LFE can't replace the XL on Lights, most Mediums, and most Heavies. Assaults actually wear it pretty well, since they don't always need to go fast in the first place.

You can easily put LFE on most IS heavies and still have enough firepower to compete. I did not have that problem at all on PTS and was able to convert all my IS heavies over to using LFE. Its absolutely worth a few extra tons to be able to survive a side torso destruction. An IS heavy with an XL engine is not even close to an even match for a Clan heavy if the Clan pilot knows to go after the XL. LFE puts you on slightly more equal footing with clan heavies.

I agree that IS Lights and Mediums cant really trade their XLs for LFEs though. The tonnage just isnt there.

Edited by Khobai, 06 July 2017 - 09:14 PM.

[FunkyT]

There may not be so much of a acceleration / deceleration / torso speed advantage on the clan side anymore, since the engine decoupling.
But at least looking at the Clan heavies, most of them have a pretty solid 10 kph advantage in top speed over IS heavies, in some cases even up to 20 kph.
Just looking at ebon jaguar, timber wolf, hellbringer and summoner, who are locked into 81 kph (without speed tweak). I don't really know many IS heavies who reach 81 kph (again, without speed tweak), even with XL engines. I got a few black knight builds that go 75 kph just by engine size, which gets close but isn't quite there. And that is again with IS XL.
Same goes for assault mechs. I don't have too many Clan assaults (mostly just kodiak + marauder IIC), but apart from the direwolf, I don't think Clan assaults really go below 60 kph, while IS assaults barely go above or even just at about 60 kph.

Clan XL engines simply have a big advantage over IS LFE, there's no denying that. And while the mechs might not have a lot of variance in acceleration and such, their higher top speed across the board allows Clan mechs to get to the front faster, position themselves before the enemy arrives, or to rotate on the battlefield to wherever they're needed a lot easier.

So no, I don't think Clans should get mobility buffs just because of LFE. Can't really say anything about revoking negative mobility quirks, haven't played my timber wolves in ages.


Disclaimer:
I'm not really a light or medium pilot, so I don't really know what the mobility differences in those brackets are. But if IS mechs in these weight classes reach Clan speed, it's probably because of IS XL engines, which again puts them at a big disadvantage.

Edited by FunkyT, 07 July 2017 - 01:57 AM.

[Rusharn]

I think several of the agility nerfs to clan mechs needs to be reviewed. Many of the clan mechs have the worst handling mechs of the same tonnage and in many cases have poorer handling then IS mechs ten or twenty tons heavier.

[Y E O N N E]

Khobai, on 06 July 2017 - 08:59 PM, said:

You can easily put LFE on most IS heavies and still have enough firepower to compete. I did not have that problem at all on PTS and was able to convert all my IS heavies over to using LFE. Its absolutely worth a few extra tons to be able to survive a side torso destruction. An IS heavy with an XL engine is not even close to an even match for a Clan heavy if the Clan pilot knows to go after the XL. LFE puts you on slightly more equal footing with clan heavies.

I agree that IS Lights and Mediums cant really trade their XLs for LFEs though. The tonnage just isnt there.

You can absolutely swap out the XLs for LFE if your Heavy build is laser vomit. Now that the LPL has been nerfed down to 10 damage, it's not such a cut and dry difference between 3x LL and 3x LPL with MedLas supplements, with a total damage difference of...3. Neat. The range of the LL is more useful at that point than even the shorter duration of the LPL, in my opinion. No heatsinks or engine ratings are sacrificed to from XL to LFE on laser vomit.

It gets...tricky...when we start mixing it up. Generally speaking, you are giving up non-trivial cooling capabilities when you go from XL to LFE, which then requires a reduction in engine rating and/or firepower to find that new, but lower, sweet spot. I found many 'Mechs were still leaning on their quirks more than I would prefer.

[Kaptain]

Reza Malin, on 06 July 2017 - 06:36 AM, said:

Also, why would we want NGR and TBR mobility buffed? They are already mobile enough, as well as being two of the most popular picks, especially NGR. The reason decoupling was selective to me, is that it gives PGI another way to balance chassis types for mobility, without quirks. Something you already highlighted a dislike for.

But it is just another quirk at this point. Artificially reducing the acceleration of one mech at X weight so that it is slower than another mech at the same weight is a quirk, regardless of if it shows up on the quirk list or not.

BTW I didn't say anything about removing quirks just that I wanted them toned down. As an example the CT armor on the Urban mech is imo ridiculous. Although the shock of my enemies after they put a 50point alpha into my ct and it doesn't even penetrate is pretty priceless. This is an example of what I call a "freak" mech.

Edited by Kaptain, 08 July 2017 - 03:13 AM.

[Kaptain]

Yeonne Greene, on 06 July 2017 - 06:43 AM, said:

That was never the intent of engine decoupling.

Yes, yes it was. And they said so many times in the patch notes. The entire point was that a mech like the mad cat with a c375xl was benefiting not just in top speed and heatsink slots but also in mobility vs say an Inner Sphere Orion. The 75ton Orion could not mount such a large engine as the mad cats 375xl and also mount effective firepower. The intention, as they stated many times, was to reduce this advantage by normalizing movement at any given tonnage with other mechs of the same weight. They even give examples of this comparing a 30ton IS mech to a 30 Clan mech and in another example a 100ton IS mech to a 100 clan mech.

Patch notes:

"Engine selection has long been a balance sore-spot in MWO. Too much was gained by upgrading Engines to higher ratings, with little opportunity for providing a compelling give-and-take between the lighter, slower Engines against the heavier, faster Engines. The system also created a dynamic where baseline ‘Mech viability could be dramatically impacted by the inherent Engine restrictions of a 'Mech. These issues only compounded Inner Sphere and Clan imbalances, with Clan 'Mechs fielding much heavier Engines than their Inner Sphere counterparts - with no sacrifice to Loadout - due to fundamentally lighter equipment.

With the above issues in mind, we are breaking baseline Mobility characteristics away from Engines. Mobility will instead be determined by the overall tonnage of the chassis

Rather than being dictated by Engine size, the above Mobility attributes will instead be integrated as baseline attributes on an individual variant basis. These attributes have been primarily distributed based on tonnage values, and at a top-down level you can expect Mobility to now be roughly equal across tonnage lines.

As examples, while their speeds will differ an UrbanMech will now have the same Mobility attributes as an Arctic Cheetah, while a Kodiak will share the same Mobility attributes as an Atlas"

While the raw Mobility attributes across this curve are now primarily determined by tonnage, the practical impact of this curve on the battlefield will still be influenced by the Max Speed/Engine Size of your ‘Mech. Put another way, while ‘Mechs with identical baseline Mobility stats will keep those stats regardless of Engine size, ‘Mechs with larger engines will still benefit from better Acceleration, Deceleration, and Turn Speed due to the higher Max Speed provided from the Engine.





The thing I don't like is they have started straying away from the decoupled values and instead are using mobility base stats as an entirely new set of positive and negative quirks or buffs/nerfs if you will. Artificially nerfing and buffing as they see fit. This makes the game even more convoluted and increases the number of "freak" mechs that simply perform far better, or far worse, than you would otherwise expect. And worse yet instead of seeing a red quirk that is obviously a negative you have to study each aspect of mobility and compare it to other mechs to see why your heavy mech is as slow accelerating as some of the heaviest assaults, as an example.

Edited by Kaptain, 08 July 2017 - 03:30 AM.

[MischiefSC]

As soon as IS LFE has the same weight savings as CXL, sure.

Currently? No, not really. This has a minimal impact of a few STD focused builds but all it does is help a bit, not completely, with the most on going balance failure in the games design.

[Rusharn]

I agree. The reduction in Mech mobility, especially on the clan side is heavily obfuscated. The should have a base line for each tonnage of mech and then show in the quirks list the positive or negative values the mechs have compared to that base line, so pilots can make a better assessment of the true agility of the mechs, especially at time of purchase.

[Reza Malin]

Rusharn, on 08 July 2017 - 08:18 AM, said:

I agree. The reduction in Mech mobility, especially on the clan side is heavily obfuscated. The should have a base line for each tonnage of mech and then show in the quirks list the positive or negative values the mechs have compared to that base line, so pilots can make a better assessment of the true agility of the mechs, especially at time of purchase.

This would be helpful.

Anyone who thought they were normalising the speed and agility within each weight bracket in general, please read the quoted segment of the patch notes from Kaptain above where it states "on an individual variant basis".

[Reza Malin]

Kaptain, on 08 July 2017 - 02:37 AM, said:

But it is just another quirk at this point. Artificially reducing the acceleration of one mech at X weight so that it is slower than another mech at the same weight is a quirk, regardless of if it shows up on the quirk list or not.

BTW I didn't say anything about removing quirks just that I wanted them toned down. As an example the CT armor on the Urban mech is imo ridiculous. Although the shock of my enemies after they put a 50point alpha into my ct and it doesn't even penetrate is pretty priceless. This is an example of what I call a "freak" mech.

Valid points, i see what you are saying. I guess i am just not overly bothered about seeing a clear stat for agility. Quirk ir not, as long as mechs with huge agility and speed compared to others in the same weight bracket are slightly more balanced, i am happy.

After all, mechs are keeping their top speed, it is just agility/mobility that has been fixed.

Edited by Reza Malin, 08 July 2017 - 11:26 AM.