60 replies to this topic

[Peter Overheater]

Reno Blade, on 16 July 2017 - 06:38 AM, said:

Lol peter... sounds as if all pro gamers should play Gauss PPC meta because all other pro's are doing it too.
and no, there is no secret Energy Draw, just simple GH grouping.

Err, actually no. What i want to say is that the "Core-Problem" is not the "OP-Ness" of some weapon types and mechs, but the throwing together of pilots of way too different skill levels. There will always be some kind of meta for comp, and people will use it because there is no sense of bringing an ineffective loadout to an 8v8 match, no matter if comp queue or mrbc. So you are forced to shift to another effective loadout, practice with it (of course in public drops), become good in it, and then someone is nerfing this loadout or playstyle again. Sure, you can adapt, but for example nerfing the NTG to an Assaul-like sluggish mech will not help players of lesser tiers to have a good time when they try it for the first time. Especially on this Mech you are forced to play it on long range because twisting in a brawl or going back to cover takes very long, and you don't have the Armor or structure to tank it away like an Assault mech. So what is the solution to not get insta-shot from a medium in the back when entering a brawl? Jumpsniping and at least medrange armament. And the most effective loadout is 2Gauss 1/2PPC for this mech.

What i want to say is: If you have good players around you wich can deal with this mech as opponent it is much harder scoring higher damage numbers. If you have enemies of lesser skill levels and you can play this mech good you can score above-average damage much more easy. But at the end of the day it doesn't matter which loadout or Mech is most effective and used by "Pro-Players", as long as both groups come together it will always be unfair for less good players. And IMO the solution for this is not nerfing certain mechs or weapon combinations or playstyles to the ground but to get a decent matchmaking lowering the frustration for all players. I'd rather wait 5 minutes for a match than doing "seal-clubbing" all the time.

[Felicitatem Parco]

I don't see why ATMs should be as resistant to AMS as LRMs are because ATMs can deal 72 damage per trigger-pull without Ghost Heat. LRMs can deal 40 at most, so ATMs have almost twice the damage potential.

So, the fact that ATMs can be countered by AMS is part of that risk/reward thing.

[Brain Cancer]

Here's a good question. Do range quirks/skill nodes increase the distance at which damage falloff is triggered for weapons?

So, say I have 10% extra range for missiles. Is an ATM's 3-damage "sweet spot" now expanded from 250m to 275m, and so on down the line?

[Reno Blade]

Brain Cancer, on 19 July 2017 - 10:15 AM, said:

Here's a good question. Do range quirks/skill nodes increase the distance at which damage falloff is triggered for weapons?

So, say I have 10% extra range for missiles. Is an ATM's 3-damage "sweet spot" now expanded from 250m to 275m, and so on down the line?

yes.
see the first post https://mwomercs.com...ll-off-weapons/

Range Quirks and Range Skills:

Its important to note that range skills apply their modifier to all weapon ranges with the exception of the minimum range. When it comes to weapons built around the gradual damage fall off, its important to note that Range modifiers will extend the range in which all of these benchmarks can be hit. So using the ATM's for example, 15% of quirks or weapon skills boosting range would boost the second damage Plateau of the ATMs from 500 meters, to 575 meters before you start seeing damage fall off.

Edited by Reno Blade, 19 July 2017 - 12:04 PM.

[Felicitatem Parco]

I only see one scenario to explain ATM behavior in MW:O: Unspent propellant contributes to blast force, which is why they do more damage up close than far away, and why they are very inefficient LRMs (please discard the BattleTech "3 ammo-types" canon because, in this incarnation of the game, there's just a single ammo type).

I only see one of two possible scenarios to properly program ATM behavior that reflects the above situation:

1.) Damage Step-off as currently implemented at key ranges. The only way to justify this would be if the missile actually gets a speed boost at each damage-drop to imply that it's consuming a bunch of propellant in a burst. It would also help normalize the travel time between close and distant targets to make them less horrid at long-range defense.

2.) Linear damage drop. This explanation simply ignores the BattleTech 3 ammo types stepping ranges and makes them more analogue, as if they really contributed unspent propellant into the ultimate blast force.

[Entropy11]

There's already precedent in the fluff that the clans developed a dual-use propellant/high explosive to simplify their missile construction. The hard breaks in the ATM damage can be directly attributed to the missile converting parts of the warhead into propellant in stages.

[Felicitatem Parco]

Entropy11, on 19 July 2017 - 08:30 PM, said:

There's already precedent in the fluff that the clans developed a dual-use propellant/high explosive to simplify their missile construction. The hard breaks in the ATM damage can be directly attributed to the missile converting parts of the warhead into propellant in stages.

Meaning a speed-boost at each stage, resulting in time-to-target profiles that make impacts more likely against long-distance targets than a constant velocity system would.

[jjm1]

Can I suggest some HUD updates to indicate these Min-Optimum-Max ranges in game.

I just took ATM-9s for a spin and all it tells me down on the weapon element is optimal range 1155m. That's obviously garbage, and the mechlab isn't much better at explaining these mechanics which is probably why we often see people LRMing under 100m.

An additional range element on the HUD (next to weapon group status on the reticle, or more ideally next to the active target bracket) might be a good idea telling people what percentage of its optimal damage their weapons will do.

Can I also suggest moving player names and badges and maybe even the mech variant off the target brackets and keep them in the top right with the rest of the target info as it tends to obscure other mechs. One glance to the screens top right is all you should need because its static info and we don't need a persistent in-your-face reminder for it.

[Tarl Cabot]

Quote

Can I also suggest moving player names and badges and maybe even the mech variant off the target brackets and keep them in the top right with the rest of the target info as it tends to obscure other mechs. One glance to the screens top right is all you should need because its static info and we don't need a persistent in-your-face reminder for it.

Agree, the ability to toggle names-IDs etc on/off!!

[Entropy11]

Meaning a speed-boost at each stage, resulting in time-to-target profiles that make impacts more likely against long-distance targets than a constant velocity system would.
I'm fine with that.

Edited by Entropy11, 20 July 2017 - 09:48 AM.

[Brain Cancer]

Yeah. One of the big improvements in missile tech in Battletech was developing an explosive composite that could be used as the exterior shell of missiles, allowing them to get more explosive yield for the same weight. They still have a true warhead, but it's an upgrade.

[Felbombling]

Chris, shouldn't this post be part of the actual patch notes? Or at least added there, as well? I spent some time looking for the ATM values, and after getting frustrated posted in General as a plea for the other players to help me out, if they had seen this information somewhere. For certain the UI doesn't really give good indication of this information in the Mech Lab.

Thanks.

[Revis Volek]

all those graphs and such just need to be bigger, it should be a "cant miss" kinda window in the mechlab, same with GH warning and such. You should be able to get a window that you can actually read and not some dinky graph hidden in jargon.

[Honeybadgers]

I love the new is tech. I think it's pretty much all well balanced (maybe add 2 damage to the light gauss)

But as a clanner. What the ****? Heavy large lasers are a literal joke, 2 burns of two of them is enough to overheat almost any mech and they're so huge you can't run enough heat sinks.

Why can't I fire 6 heavy smalls at once? it screws with my arctic cheetah bigtime.

And why are ATM's so freaking bad? what the hell was going on? The minimum range, the horribly slow flight time, the paper maché health? Axe the min range, reduce the max to 600-800m, reduce the damage in the sweet zone to 2.5 or 2, make them fly faster, and give them way more HP.

Clan mechs simply can't go toe to toe with IS anymore at ranges under 600m. IS mechs not only have guns as good as ours, but they have more modular mechs since the quirks make up for hardpoint deficiencies, they now have the massive variety of armor, structure, heat sink, and engine variety that battlemechs benefit from, they have (essentially) our XL engines now, as well as a large variety of monstrous infighting guns like heavy ppc, snub ppc, light ppc (for lights/meds this is amazing) RAC's that utterly lock your screen and ability to see ANYTHING, even with max gyros, MRM's that hit insanely hard, and ultra AC's/ LBX that just punish us in close with the quirks, generally superior hitboxes and LFE's.

Simple answer - make the heavy large not so horrible (reduce the heat 2-3 points and reduce the burn time, the face time required is a JOKE.) and fix ATM's to be a proper mid-range weapon that doesn't require a 48 barrage to hope to survive more than 10 meters past the goddamn tubes.

[Zergling]

Honeybadgers, on 31 July 2017 - 01:17 AM, said:

I love the new is tech. I think it's pretty much all well balanced (maybe add 2 damage to the light gauss)

And increase RAC2/5 damage while reducing their heat.
And reduce MRM spread.
And reduce IS ER Medium Laser heat
And reduce IS UAC10 heat
And reduce SN-PPC heat

It isn't all rosy on the IS side, not by a long shot.

Honeybadgers, on 31 July 2017 - 01:17 AM, said:

But as a clanner. What the ****? Heavy large lasers are a literal joke, 2 burns of two of them is enough to overheat almost any mech and they're so huge you can't run enough heat sinks.

If you nearly overheat from firing 2x Heavy Large twice, then you aren't running anywhere near enough heatsinks.
That is 64 heat in total, with 7.3 seconds of time between salvos to cool off; even an unskilled Clan mech with just 10 engine doubleheatsinks won't overheat from just 2 salvos.

Honeybadgers, on 31 July 2017 - 01:17 AM, said:

Why can't I fire 6 heavy smalls at once? it screws with my arctic cheetah bigtime.

This I agree with; there is no reason for Heavy Smalls to have a ghost heat limit of 5 instead of 6, when Clan ER Mediums have a ghost heat limit of 6.

Honeybadgers, on 31 July 2017 - 01:17 AM, said:

And why are ATM's so freaking bad? what the hell was going on? The minimum range, the horribly slow flight time, the paper maché health? Axe the min range, reduce the max to 600-800m, reduce the damage in the sweet zone to 2.5 or 2, make them fly faster, and give them way more HP.

ATMs are not a bad weapon; I find them to actually be quite decent.

The changes you proposed will remove the strong niche they have at short range, and make them an entirely mediocre weapon.

Honeybadgers, on 31 July 2017 - 01:17 AM, said:

Clan mechs simply can't go toe to toe with IS anymore at ranges under 600m. IS mechs not only have guns as good as ours, but they have more modular mechs since the quirks make up for hardpoint deficiencies, they now have the massive variety of armor, structure, heat sink, and engine variety that battlemechs benefit from, they have (essentially) our XL engines now, as well as a large variety of monstrous infighting guns like heavy ppc, snub ppc, light ppc (for lights/meds this is amazing) RAC's that utterly lock your screen and ability to see ANYTHING, even with max gyros, MRM's that hit insanely hard, and ultra AC's/ LBX that just punish us in close with the quirks, generally superior hitboxes and LFE's.

This is, quite frankly, a complete and utter load of bull, and I'm saying that as someone that primarily uses Clan mechs.

1) IS weapons are still inferior to Clan; just compare a 6x ER Medium Laser Hunchback 4P to a 6x ER Medium Laser Hunchback IIC-A.
2) IS gained no more choices in structure or heatsinks, and their choices there are still far inferior to Clan.
3) Light Ferro is far inferior to Clan Ferro, for the same slots
4) Light Fusion Engines are far inferior to Clan XL, as they weight substantially more while having the same penalties.
5) The Clan ER PPC is still the best PPC in the game.
6) If you are unable to shoot due to screenshake, then stop getting hit. RACs are just a terrible weapon overall.
7) MRMs are actually rather weak due to their inability to concentrate damage, in addition to being inferior to SRMs in DPS output.
8) New IS UAC/LBXs are still inferior to Clan equivilants.
9) Hitboxes? What? You never heard of the Marauder IIC?

Honeybadgers, on 31 July 2017 - 01:17 AM, said:

Simple answer - make the heavy large not so horrible (reduce the heat 2-3 points and reduce the burn time, the face time required is a JOKE.) and fix ATM's to be a proper mid-range weapon that doesn't require a 48 barrage to hope to survive more than 10 meters past the goddamn tubes.

Or alternatively, git gud.

[Honeybadgers]

Zergling, on 31 July 2017 - 01:55 AM, said:

And increase RAC2/5 damage while reducing their heat.
And reduce MRM spread.
And reduce IS ER Medium Laser heat
And reduce IS UAC10 heat
And reduce SN-PPC heat

It isn't all rosy on the IS side, not by a long shot.





If you nearly overheat from firing 2x Heavy Large twice, then you aren't running anywhere near enough heatsinks.
That is 64 heat in total, with 7.3 seconds of time between salvos to cool off; even an unskilled Clan mech with just 10 engine doubleheatsinks won't overheat from just 2 salvos.





This I agree with; there is no reason for Heavy Smalls to have a ghost heat limit of 5 instead of 6, when Clan ER Mediums have a ghost heat limit of 6.





ATMs are not a bad weapon; I find them to actually be quite decent.

The changes you proposed will remove the strong niche they have at short range, and make them an entirely mediocre weapon.





This is, quite frankly, a complete and utter load of bull, and I'm saying that as someone that primarily uses Clan mechs.

1) IS weapons are still inferior to Clan; just compare a 6x ER Medium Laser Hunchback 4P to a 6x ER Medium Laser Hunchback IIC-A.
2) IS gained no more choices in structure or heatsinks, and their choices there are still far inferior to Clan.
3) Light Ferro is far inferior to Clan Ferro, for the same slots
4) Light Fusion Engines are far inferior to Clan XL, as they weight substantially more while having the same penalties.
5) The Clan ER PPC is still the best PPC in the game.
6) If you are unable to shoot due to screenshake, then stop getting hit. RACs are just a terrible weapon overall.
7) MRMs are actually rather weak due to their inability to concentrate damage, in addition to being inferior to SRMs in DPS output.
8) New IS UAC/LBXs are still inferior to Clan equivilants.
9) Hitboxes? What? You never heard of the Marauder IIC?





Or alternatively, git gud.

Rather than break it down, let me say that I disagree with you on every single thing except our agreement that the 5 heavy small cap is dumb.

"git gud" is hardly part of it. I'm nearly tier 1, and rarely do poorly in games. I've been trying for weeks to get ATM's to work properly. Boating them, support weapons, using LRMS and SRMS to tank for them, running them on lights, mediums, and heavies, in skirmish, front line, brawl setups, NOTHING has worked except a quad ATM12 scorch that is still just outplayed by its meta LB40 SRMA24.

Heavy larges don't overheat you on the second shot, but they will overheat every mech short of a supernova running two and NOTHING ELSE BUT HEAT SINKS on the third. That means that with 2 heavy larges, you cannot run anything except nearly heat neutral secondaries. So no missiles. no other lasers. no AC20 or dual 10. The face time is broken, you can get gunned down in seconds with the burn time. They need less damage, WAY less heat, WAY less burn time, and to off set it, less range.

ATM's are a joke. They are not "decent" they range from "completely unusable" to "WAY TOO STRONG" with literally nothing in between. They are a goddamn design joke. They do way too much damage when the connect properly, but 95% of the time they cannot connect effectively and get killed in flight within 10 meters of the tubes. I've literally fired an ATM24 barrage at an annihilator over a crest, 274M away, only to have every single missile die within literally 10 meters of leaving the tubes with nothing but 4 mechs with normal, everyday AMS, no nova or kit fox boats.

Please stop saying things are "decent" because they do work, only when the damnable stars align.

And you're simply wrong about the IS mechs still being inferior. You just aren't. Period. We have options to get better hardpoint locations, yes. We can run heavier alphas, yes. But our stuff runs hotter, we have fixed structure/armor that severely limits heat dissipation and engines that LOCK many of our mechs into certain roles (adder, space fridge, dire whale, shitfox, cougar) I would argue that ton for ton, on equal grounds and similar builds, equal players would win in an IS vs clan 1v1 brawl 80% of the time.

Playing faction these past few weeks has been just a joke. Even with dedicated, reasonably well coordinated pushes, the IS stuff just smashes us as soon as we close. The only times we win are when we vastly outmaneuver the enemy or when we're defending and keep the IS at >700m.

[Zergling]

Honeybadgers, on 31 July 2017 - 08:22 PM, said:

"git gud" is hardly part of it. I'm nearly tier 1, and rarely do poorly in games.

Sub-1.0 W/L and sub-1.0 K/B when you are Tier 2 is not 'rarely doing poorly'. That is not good performance, so your stats will drop hard when you hit Tier 1.

Honeybadgers, on 31 July 2017 - 08:22 PM, said:

I've been trying for weeks to get ATM's to work properly. Boating them, support weapons, using LRMS and SRMS to tank for them, running them on lights, mediums, and heavies, in skirmish, front line, brawl setups, NOTHING has worked except a quad ATM12 scorch that is still just outplayed by its meta LB40 SRMA24.

ATM's are a joke. They are not "decent" they range from "completely unusable" to "WAY TOO STRONG" with literally nothing in between. They are a goddamn design joke. They do way too much damage when the connect properly, but 95% of the time they cannot connect effectively and get killed in flight within 10 meters of the tubes. I've literally fired an ATM24 barrage at an annihilator over a crest, 274M away, only to have every single missile die within literally 10 meters of leaving the tubes with nothing but 4 mechs with normal, everyday AMS, no nova or kit fox boats.

Please stop saying things are "decent" because they do work, only when the damnable stars align.

I don't have any significant problems with making ATMs work, with both my Cougar and Mad Cat II. And it is worth mentioning that my stats with ATMs is currently at 45.96% hit rate, and 2.42 damage per hit.


AMS countering ATMs so hard is a problem, which I believe should be fixed by buffing ATM missile hitpoints to at least double.

In the mean time, you should do one of the following if AMS is countering your ATMs:
A: stop boating ATMs exclusively so all your firepower isn't negated so easily, instead use mixed builds
or
B: avoid using them in high AMS environments like FP

Honeybadgers, on 31 July 2017 - 08:22 PM, said:

Heavy larges don't overheat you on the second shot, but they will overheat every mech short of a supernova running two and NOTHING ELSE BUT HEAT SINKS on the third. That means that with 2 heavy larges, you cannot run anything except nearly heat neutral secondaries. So no missiles. no other lasers. no AC20 or dual 10. The face time is broken, you can get gunned down in seconds with the burn time. They need less damage, WAY less heat, WAY less burn time, and to off set it, less range.

Oh please, do you even check your facts before spouting this sort of nonsense? Even a mere 14 DHS is sufficient to allow 3 consecutive salvos of twin Heavy Large Laser.

And that's on a heat neutral map, with no skill nodes unlocked on a Hunchback IIC-A, which has no energy heat gen or heat dissipation quirks.
Hell, with 25 DHS the Hunchback IIC-A is damn near heat neutral; it can fire constantly with only a marginal heat gain.

And yes, I actually tested it; you can go ahead and do the same (as you should have done yourself before making such a claim).

Honeybadgers, on 31 July 2017 - 08:22 PM, said:

And you're simply wrong about the IS mechs still being inferior. You just aren't. Period. We have options to get better hardpoint locations, yes. We can run heavier alphas, yes. But our stuff runs hotter, we have fixed structure/armor that severely limits heat dissipation and engines that LOCK many of our mechs into certain roles (adder, space fridge, dire whale, shitfox, cougar) I would argue that ton for ton, on equal grounds and similar builds, equal players would win in an IS vs clan 1v1 brawl 80% of the time.

You really haven't done any sort of unbiased analysis of this topic, and are basing your claims on anecdotal evidence and personal experience.


To do an unbiased comparison, you look at similar builds that each faction can run.

Eg, the Hunchback 4P with 6x ER Medium Lasers.
Versus the Hunchback IIC-A with 6x ER Medium Lasers.

Hunchback 4P has
378 meter effective range
0.81 second beam duration
30 damage alpha
7.21 maximum DPS
3.92 sustained DPS
54.33% heat efficiency

Hunchback IIC has:
420 meter effective range
1.25 second beam duration
42 damage alpha
8.40 maximum DPS
4.72 sustained DPS
56.22% heat efficiency

In case you can't tell, the Clan mech has an 11% advantage in range, 40% advantage in alpha, 16% advantage in maximum alpha, 20% advantage in sustained DPS, all for the disadvantage of 0.44 worse beam duration.

To be fair, the Hunchback 4P is more agile than the IIC, but not by a massive amount. The 4P also has some side torso durability quirks.
Those even things up a little bit, but IIC's considerable advantage in firepower means it is the better mech.


Or 2x ER PPC poptarts, starting with Cataphract 3D for IS, versus Summoner for Clan.

Cataphract has:
810 meter effective range
1900 m/s velocity
20 damage alpha
5.00 max DPS
2.48 sustained DPS
49.63% heat efficiency


Summoner has:
850 meter effective range
1575 m/s velocity
20 damage alpha (plus 10 splash)
4.44 max DPS (not including splash)
2.83 sustained DPS (not including splash)
63.62% heat efficiency

So the Clan mech has a 5% advantage in effective range, 14% advantage in sustained DPS.
Versus the IS mech that has a 13% advantage in max DPS and 21% advantage in projectile velocity.
Sure the Cataphract is tougher due to stronger durability quirks, but the Summoner is also vastly more agile (it has about twice the acceleration, for example).
Overall, the Summoner is better at everything but very long range sniping.


Hell, I can even do brawl build comparisons, with the IS mech being a Splatpult 6x ASRM6 versus a 6x ASRM6 Mad Dog.

Catapult A1 has:
77.4 damage alpha
19.35 max DPS
7.30 sustained DPS
37.72% heat efficiency

Mad Dog has:
72 damage alpha
18.00 max DPS
9.15 sustained DPS
50.83% heat efficiency

So the Mad Dog has a 25% advantage in sustained DPS, while the Catapult only has a 7.5% advantage in alpha damage and max DPS in return.
In durability they are about equal; Catapult doesn't have strong durability quirks, nor does the Mad Dog, but the Mad Dog does have a slight edge in agility (and with these builds, over 10 kph advantage in top speed).

Overall, the Mad Dog is the better brawler, simply because it is running cooler.


What's the point of these examples? They show that Clan mechs don't actually run hotter when they are running comparable builds, because they can fit so many more DHS.

They also show that in general, Clans still are superior.

Honeybadgers, on 31 July 2017 - 08:22 PM, said:

Playing faction these past few weeks has been just a joke. Even with dedicated, reasonably well coordinated pushes, the IS stuff just smashes us as soon as we close. The only times we win are when we vastly outmaneuver the enemy or when we're defending and keep the IS at >700m.

Anecdotal evidence, and even if true it can just be due to the teams and players involved, not balance.

Edited by Zergling, 01 August 2017 - 02:17 AM.

[Brain Cancer]

Quote

ATM's are a joke. They are not "decent" they range from "completely unusable" to "WAY TOO STRONG" with literally nothing in between. They are a goddamn design joke. They do way too much damage when the connect properly, but 95% of the time they cannot connect effectively and get killed in flight within 10 meters of the tubes. I've literally fired an ATM24 barrage at an annihilator over a crest, 274M away, only to have every single missile die within literally 10 meters of leaving the tubes with nothing but 4 mechs with normal, everyday AMS, no nova or kit fox boats.

What's hilarious is that since they have higher velocity, ATMs actually handle AMS better than LRMs do. They have the same health, after all and higher speed means moving through the flak faster.

And people complain about LRMs and wonder why folks strap 60+ on a single chassis at once. ATMs without a barrage of lower-tonnage tubes firing to engage AMS can get dunked with ease on their own.

[Snowbluff]

Brain Cancer, on 01 August 2017 - 10:54 AM, said:

What's hilarious is that since they have higher velocity, ATMs actually handle AMS better than LRMs do. They have the same health, after all and higher speed means moving through the flak faster.

And people complain about LRMs and wonder why folks strap 60+ on a single chassis at once. ATMs without a barrage of lower-tonnage tubes firing to engage AMS can get dunked with ease on their own.

They fly 20% faster with volleys that are 40% smaller on launchers that are 40% heavier.

[testhero]

jjm1, on 19 July 2017 - 11:44 PM, said:

Can I suggest some HUD updates to indicate these Min-Optimum-Max ranges in game.

I just took ATM-9s for a spin and all it tells me down on the weapon element is optimal range 1155m. That's obviously garbage, and the mechlab isn't much better at explaining these mechanics which is probably why we often see people LRMing under 100m.

An additional range element on the HUD (next to weapon group status on the reticle, or more ideally next to the active target bracket) might be a good idea telling people what percentage of its optimal damage their weapons will do.

Can I also suggest moving player names and badges and maybe even the mech variant off the target brackets and keep them in the top right with the rest of the target info as it tends to obscure other mechs. One glance to the screens top right is all you should need because its static info and we don't need a persistent in-your-face reminder for it.

There are six small pipers around the target + they are linked to your weapon groups and will be green if you are in range WHEN you launch and Red if you are inside minimum range, (again, When you launch)
Flight times and the relative position changes of both mechs will change weather your missiles have actually traveled greater than 120m and will explode when they Impact.