9 replies to this topic

[Jun Watarase]

The patch notes for engine desync seem to suggest that it depends on quirks + tonnage but that doesnt make sense given some numbers that im seeing in the store.

A normal 60 ton mech like the mad dog has a turn rate of 50.42. This decreases slightly as you go up in tonnage, 65 ton mechs have a turn rate of 47.55 (EBJ) , 45.26 for a 70 ton mech (warhammer) and 42.39 for a 75 ton mech (Orion).

But some mechs have massive agility that are not listed in their quirks at all.

The marauder is as agile as the mad dog despite being a 75 tonner...while the night gyr, at the same tonnage, has a turn rate of 34.95, the same as the marauder IIC at 85 tons.

The grasshopper has a turn rate of 55...which is more than a 60 ton mech...the 85 ton battlemaster is as agile as the warhammer 15 tons heavier....the cyclops at 90 tons is as agile as the mad dog despite being 30 tons heavier!

Almost all the mechs with way more agility than they should have for their tonnage are IS mechs for some reason. The exceptions are mechs like the gargoyle/executioner which are trash anyway.

What's going on?

[FupDup]

Well, I've noticed that in general the size of the stock engine seems to have a correlation with high base agility and low stock engines usually have average agility at most. Which is what the decoupling was supposed to change. -.-

Edited by FupDup, 10 August 2017 - 09:48 AM.

[El Bandito]

Most of the "bad" mechs didn't have their agility nerfed, post engine decoupling. Overperformers had their agility cut sharply. Seems like PGI is using agility change as another balancing tool now. I predict the Linebacker will get a nerf in the future.

[Khobai]

Quote

How Is Mech Agility (Turn Rate, Etc) Calculated?

rng

[Smites]

Khobai, on 10 August 2017 - 04:55 PM, said:

rng

Isn't there a dartboard or something for this, or was that stolen?

[Angel of Annihilation]

El Bandito, on 10 August 2017 - 04:55 PM, said:

Most of the "bad" mechs didn't have their agility nerfed, post engine decoupling. Overperformers had their agility cut sharply. Seems like PGI is using agility change as another balancing tool now. I predict the Linebacker will get a nerf in the future.

Yeah El Bandito, I don't agree with you often but on this I mostly agree. PGI is most definitely using agility as a balancing tool and they used engine decoupling as camouflage to hide that fact.

As for the Linebacker, I hope not. It isn't all that good of a mech without its agility. That high base agility is what gives it a role in this game, without it, it would be just another crappy mech.

[Jun Watarase]

Its just baffling how mechs like the marauder and cyclops are so agile. Its not like these are under tonnage mechs. A 90 ton mech has no business running around brawling like a 60 tonner.

[Khobai]

Its not that baffling. PGI just did it completely wrong.

engine desync was supposed to give all mechs consistent agility based on their tonnage and eliminate outliers that were too agile for their tonnage.

instead engine desync just ended up nerfing clan mechs PGI thought overperformed, even in cases where theyre supposed to be agile. And we still have outliers like the executioner that are way too agile for their tonnage.

what we got was not what people asked for...

Edited by Khobai, 10 August 2017 - 08:13 PM.

[yuujiroassistant]

Jun Watarase, on 10 August 2017 - 08:07 PM, said:

Its just baffling how mechs like the marauder and cyclops are so agile. Its not like these are under tonnage mechs. A 90 ton mech has no business running around brawling like a 60 tonner.

The Desync values do not make much sense. The agility values have essentially killed most of the light mechs, and they few that still work do so due to their ability to tank their way through the damage they can no longer manouver around (jr7, wlf, and especially fs9) Want to know why jr7iics have dropped off the map? Handling of a firestarter but with worse hitboxes, armour, and ultimately, laughable survivability.

Also, because desync changes for many mechs do NOT scale with their max speed, low agility is felt FAR MORE by mechs with higher top speed. This is why, even though the ON1IIC and TBR have identical agility on paper, the TBR feels more sluggish and harder to move around. Most of the mechs listed are either omni or use large engines for their signature builds and cannot function well with smaller ones.

Turn accel is dependent on what percentage of your top speed you are at. Mechs with high top speeds but low accell (TBR) have very VERY difficult times turning because the amount of time it takes to speed up and slow down is longer. This also makes it hard to peek without precise manual throttle control because the higher top speed means it takes longer for a mech of equal accel to reach 0kmph from max throttle.

I wrote on these forums and on outreach HPG a small paper about how this single change destroyed the timber wolf's viability and fun after the skill tree, I'm not going to again. More information can be found in that post: https://mwomercs.com...wolf-revisions/

PGI, please take a look at the accel and decel values for all your mechs and normalize them to scale with engine rating OR inversely scale turn radius to top speed. This problem was self correcting in the old system, reared its head immediately in the PTS, was pointed out repeatedly during that time, was deployed to the same reception from players (like me) who pedantically tested its rates, and still hasn't been fixed or addressed.

Here's a quick list of mechs off the top of my head whose old agility based specialties or general handling are killed by lack of scaling turn radius to top speed:

Raven (allver)
Kodiak-SB
Firestarter (allver)
Locust (allver)
Panther (allver)
Jenner IIC (allver)
Trebuchet (allver)
Blackjack-1X
Griffin (allver)
Vindicator (allver)
Timber Wolf (allver)
Summoner (allver)
Mad Dog (allver)
Atlas (allver)
Gargoyle (allver)

Edited by SUCTION, 10 August 2017 - 08:33 PM.

[Pjwned]

There wasn't any real method to the madness as far as I could tell, it was just up to PGI balancing it subjectively in many cases; I don't see how else some mechs have the agility levels that they do.

Which is fine...to an extent, but I bet there's going to be a re-tuning of mech agility at some point so that there's a bit more consistency.

Fortunately I would say that mech agility is overall in a pretty good state as far as I can tell, but I also don't play a huge variety of mechs so I could be wrong.