257 replies to this topic

[Reno Blade]

Imho the problem is vomit.
Any kind of boating is better than mixing or trying to use more heat efficient build (e.g. you take 3xLL instead of 2xLL + 2xML).

I'd either try to make boating harder (e.g. ghost heat) or to make weapons in general harder to hit (e.g. longer burn or more spread).

When looking at the RAC mechanic, that long duration and slight spread attributes come to mind.
Many people dislike the idea of laser duration over 1.5s, but even then, the HLL is used on Laser vomit builds.

So, why not "nerf" lasers for even longer burns...
and while we are at it, balancing needs to take care of all other weapons with additional spread for more random hit locations and with longer burst fire (e.g. uAC mechanic for all ACs) the overall hit% should go down further (especially if you twist).

My weapon balance take can be seen in my sig. (warning, hard nerfs included)

[Trissila]

MischiefSC, on 29 August 2017 - 10:41 AM, said:

Because we have a mechlab there is never, ever, ever going to be a point where stock mechs are as good as intelligently modified mechs. Ever. If you could mechlab all you wanted in TT you would constantly make better mechs using tabletop stats than stock mechs. The point of stock mechs was to force flaws in design. The whole 'weapon for all ranges' idea was always stupid, always inferior but they did it to try and generate a 'feel' for the mechs and prevent alpha strike FTW designs.

Yeah, that's also important to keep in mind. At the end of the day, MWO is based upon Battletech, and Battletech was designed as a tabletop wargame. It was designed with dice rolls in mind, adding a fair bit of randomness to results that just isn't present in a first-person video game that is ideally supposed to be about player skill. Mechs were designed to have certain feels to them, or to deal with situations that come up in lore-based fiction or broad-scope TT scenarios but not in a game like this. Machine guns are "for" dealing with infantry and light vehicles... but there are no infantry or light vehicles here so they end up getting used on mechs instead, which leads to their weird status of being all but useless unless you happen across an armor-stripped component that isn't already destroyed, at which point they're suddenly beastly. Ditto concepts like mechs that had a single AC/2; in-lore that's for dealing with combat vehicles but in-game the only thing to shoot at is a battlemech, and a single AC/2 is useless in that scenario.

The only thing stopping people from playing the TT the same way they'd play MWO is that TT has rules that limit what you can do build-wise and throws dice-based RNG into the mix that can cause even an optimal build to perform poorly. People would complain if RNG caused their legs to lock up for the rest of the match the moment they activated their MASC, ditto various heat effects, and thus we have inelegant kludges like ghost heat.

[Shadowomega1]

The Lighthouse, on 29 August 2017 - 09:47 AM, said:

The primary reason of nerfing cSPL and SPL was to nerf light mechs. It is probably the only exception because PGI always thinks the light mechs are overpowered.

Just look at the mechs that are abused in FW. They are Orion, Orion IIC, Roughneck, Linkbacker, and Assassin. Do you know what they have in common? They are all speedy mechs with a lot of defensive quirks that they rely far less on torso twisting, instead they can just facetank/hug enemies no problem.

Are you being serious, or just BSing? Calling Orion and Orion IIC fast? Its largest engine is rated at 360 which is 77 kph +5/6 kph from speed tweak which is about 82/83 kph which is a far cry slower than the Mad Dog, Timberwolf, Ebon Jaguar with a top speed just over 87kph. The Orion and Orion IIC doesn't have many hard points so it ends up requiring heavier weapons to be of any use to the team. So you end up with a lighter engine, my Orion IIC uses a XL 330 with speed tweak it is capped at 77/78 kph. The Orion is likely going to be slower as it is not likely to run an XL or have the room for an LFE. The Roughneck engine rating is capped at 315 and on a 65 frame that gives it 78 kph so again not fast at all.

The only fast mechs in your list is the Linebacker which is a 65 ton heavy and the 40 ton Assassin which it should be considering its a light in a medium's chassis.

[Jay Leon Hart]

On a Heavy 'mech scale of "Fast Enough" (81kph) to "Fastest" (97.2kph);

81kph - MDD @ 60 tons / EBJ & HBR @ 65 tons / SMN @ 70 tons / TBR @ 75 tons
83.2kph - BL-7-KNT-L @ 75 tons
84.5kph - GHR-5J @ 70 tons
84.7kph - JM6 "Firebrand" @ 65 tons
88.5kph - CPLT "Jester" @ 65 tons
97.2kph - DRG @ 60 tons / LBK @ 65 tons

[Admiral-Dan]

Nema Nabojiv, on 28 August 2017 - 01:11 AM, said:

Not quite. LRMs still suck and need a buff in both velocity and lock on time. Or damage.

There are dozens of threads for every weapon (including LRM) claiming they are OP or need a buff. If half of the playerbase think a weapon needs buffs and the other half thinks they need nerfs, the weapon seems to be OK.
If this happens for nearly all weapons the balance seems OK.

[Y E O N N E]

TIL: 5 kph constitutes a huge gap in speed for Heavies.

[sceii]

Khobai, on 29 August 2017 - 09:04 AM, said:

um thats kindve the whole point behind how PGI asymmetrically balanced clan tech. in exchange for not having as much PPFLD, clans get lighter weapons that take up less crit slots, and better heatsinks.

clan gauss is the one exception to that and should definitely be changed.

not having as much ppfld = not having any ppfld?
Clans have better and smaller heatsinks but also have much less heat effective weapons with lesser accuracy.
Cgauss is clan single ppfld(erppc spreads a bit) weapon with a shitton of downsides.

MischiefSC said:

[color=#959595]Lasers are well balanced for what they are. The only balance issue they create is how to make more DPS oriented builds able to compete more effectively without being broken in turn. [/color]

DPS oriented builds were a thing a while ago, then uac/spl/srm get nerfed a bit with overall increase of mech structure/armor making cqc even less attractive.
Now we have lasers again.

[Brain Cancer]

Quote

There are dozens of threads for every weapon (including LRM) claiming they are OP or need a buff. If half of the playerbase think a weapon needs buffs and the other half thinks they need nerfs, the weapon seems to be OK.
If this happens for nearly all weapons the balance seems OK.

I'd agree, except that the people crying "Nerf LRMs!" and making threads tend to be horrible at actually playing the game or even using the countermeasures readily available to them.

This is "balance by potato", and it's terrible because it equates the opinions of the ignorant with the informed.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

sceii, on 29 August 2017 - 10:53 PM, said:

Cgauss is clan single ppfld(erppc spreads a bit) weapon with a shitton of downsides.

It says a lot when besides having a "shitton of downsides" that it is still one of the best ballistics in the game.

sceii, on 29 August 2017 - 10:53 PM, said:

less heat effective weapons with lesser accuracy.

They don't have lesser accuracy if damage per tick is equivalent between the lasers. cERML may have 1.25 duration, but it also has slightly better damage per tick than both IS medium lasers 5/0.9 < 7/1.25, only with the skill tree does the IS get favored in damage per tick and even then, they still don't have quite the damage potential (what can match 66-94 damage alphas Clan assaults can put out for example with similar sustained).

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 30 August 2017 - 10:57 AM.

[The Lighthouse]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 30 August 2017 - 10:52 AM, said:

They don't have lesser accuracy if damage per tick is equivalent between the lasers. cERML may have 1.25 duration, but it also has slightly better damage per tick than both IS medium lasers 5/0.9 < 7/1.25, only with the skill tree does the IS get favored in damage per tick and even then, they still don't have quite the damage potential (what can match 66-94 damage alphas Clan assaults can put out for example with similar sustained).

Hhhhhmmmmmmm, time to nerf cERML, again, I guess?....

....

[MischiefSC]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 30 August 2017 - 10:52 AM, said:

It says a lot when besides having a "shitton of downsides" that it is still one of the best ballistics in the game.


They don't have lesser accuracy if damage per tick is equivalent between the lasers. cERML may have 1.25 duration, but it also has slightly better damage per tick than both IS medium lasers 5/0.9 < 7/1.25, only with the skill tree does the IS get favored in damage per tick and even then, they still don't have quite the damage potential (what can match 66-94 damage alphas Clan assaults can put out for example with similar sustained).

I don't think I have a single Clan heavy or assault under 64 for an alpha. Most are above that.

With ATMs it's shockingly easy to make something that will club some poor ******* for over 100 damage at 120-240m (or whatever the sweet spot is) and over 80 beyond that.

Then we whine about 'all we do is nerf'. We have so much insane power creep for years that the last 10 nerfs all together still have us hitting for more than 50% above what a typical alpha used to be for heavies and even some assaults.

We keep trying to tweak it but we're so far beyond just a tweak it's hard to say what is a good idea. While I've toyed with the logic of some sort of accuracy mechanic (faster movement worsening accuracy, more weapons fired at once, etc) yet all those do is shift the problem and create other ones.

There's the 'double armor AGAIN' concept but I'm dubious on that.

What about splitting hit boxes? So, for example, your RT is RT1 and RT2 - both have 75% of its current health. This gives an overall 50% boost to mech health but conversely strongly rewards accuracy. Don't make it a top/bottom or left/right split, break the contour along visual parts of the mechs structure. The problem there is increasing the value of PPFLD. Then again if you functionally cap PPFLD hits back at 35 (like they used to be) I consider that a perfectly reasonable tradeoff. 35 PPFLD vs 60-80 laservomit damage.

Nerfing the holy living **** out of everything until the current IS Small Laser is the new baseline from which balance happens is another option. However that makes ballistics even less viable than they are now. For the tonnage and hardpoints lasers + DHS is just a better, pre reliable performer. The only reason Gauss is on the list is high velocity, low heat. You slow gauss down, even if you remove the charge-up, not sure it would be worthwhile.

The approach of Balance By Whack-A-Mole since Clan release has ended up with a truly psychotic balance landscape. Quirks were a big change and a concept with merit - just that, in hindsight, balancing every mech is more trouble than balancing every weapon and less reliable. I think structure/mobility quirks for mechs with unfortunate layouts of hardpoint and hitboxes is good but weapon quirks....

Dunno. I feel like there's some sweeping but elegant change that could be made to tie it all together. Grand Unified Balance Theory. Maybe we need to build a larger Quirk Collider to find it?

[sceii]

MischiefSC, on 30 August 2017 - 11:59 AM, said:

I don't think I have a single Clan heavy or assault under 64 for an alpha. Most are above that.

We have so insane powercreep that clan heavy and assaults have 68+ alpha FOR FREAKING THREE YEARS MATE, THREE WHOLE YEARS BUDDY.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

sceii, on 30 August 2017 - 12:09 PM, said:

We have so insane powercreep that clan heavy and assaults have 68+ alpha FOR FREAKING THREE YEARS MATE, THREE WHOLE YEARS BUDDY.

Those insanely high alphas weren't always relevant though. Pre-Kodiak, Clan assaults weren't actually that strong and the Battlemaster/Mauler roamed around with their 25 and 55 point alphas.

[sceii]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 30 August 2017 - 12:11 PM, said:

Those insanely high alphas weren't always relevant though. Pre-Kodiak, Clan assaults weren't actually that strong and the Battlemaster/Mauler roamed around with their 25 and 55 point alphas.

They were after clan release most popular year 1 trw build was 2lpl 5erml
battlemaster you're talking about was a result of GODLIKE quirks.

Edited by sceii, 30 August 2017 - 12:14 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

sceii, on 30 August 2017 - 12:13 PM, said:

They were after clan release most popular year 1 trw build was 2lpl 5erml

Sure, but after the great "rebalancing" 1.5 years in there was around 4-6 months where Clans did not have that dominance, and even during the Kodiak era, after the death of the quad UAC10 Kodiak the alphas were around 60 granted they were PPFLD which increase the danger of them. Burst damage is always going to have higher alphas, its necessary for making them trade well against PPFLD.

sceii, on 30 August 2017 - 12:13 PM, said:

battlemaster you're talking about was a result of GODLIKE quirks.

No it wasn't, the quirks were hardly changed after the rebalance (it had massive structure on release iirc), the difference was the Whale got brought down hard with the rebalance which was its main competition.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 30 August 2017 - 12:18 PM.

[Bud Crue]

sceii, on 30 August 2017 - 12:13 PM, said:

They were after clan release most popular year 1 trw build was 2lpl 5erml
battlemaster you're talking about was a result of GODLIKE quirks.

I think the BM's (or at least some of the BM's got their "GODLIKE" quirks in May of 2015. They were adjusted in some variants at rescale (June 2016).

[Trissila]

MischiefSC, on 30 August 2017 - 11:59 AM, said:

Dunno. I feel like there's some sweeping but elegant change that could be made to tie it all together. Grand Unified Balance Theory. Maybe we need to build a larger Quirk Collider to find it?

There really isn't.

Again, MWO is heavily based on Battletech Table Top. The damage numbers are largely taken from TT, weapon behavior is taken from TT, etc.

But TT involves a whole lot of dice rolling, and this is factored into how things are balanced. You roll for whether or not you even hit the target in the first place. That roll is modified by a ton of things, including your current heat level. You roll for how many missiles in a volley actually impact. You roll for where you actually hit the target.

MWO has none of this. You point and shoot. The player has control over whether and where they hit, which allows them to be much more focused than TT. In TT, an alpha strike spreads damage all over the place unless you're incredibly lucky, but in MWO it is trivial to focus an entire alpha on one desired component.

That drastically changes how things should be balanced, yet the numbers are still largely based on TT. For as long as that's the case, there is no silver bullet.

[InspectorG]

Bigbacon, on 27 August 2017 - 02:45 PM, said:

it doesn't even need to be sim based...

more heat = more problems. Spike = problems now.

Too. Complicated.

[InspectorG]

Tapdancing Kerensky, on 26 August 2017 - 05:52 PM, said:

The answer to most problems is more torso twisting.

but dat facetank newtech....

[Valhallan]

MischiefSC, on 30 August 2017 - 11:59 AM, said:

Dunno. I feel like there's some sweeping but elegant change that could be made to tie it all together. Grand Unified Balance Theory. Maybe we need to build a larger Quirk Collider to find it?

How about tweaking the heat system? bring the cap down to TT levels (my pokehunch2 19 dhs 2HLL,4ERML,2mpl should explode immediately not 90%) so burst is less effective by virtue of not having enough leeway to waste someone completely if they have good enough accuracy.

But more importantly make the big decision to finally fix DHS and make it follow the same engine construction rules the other 2 follow (1 engine slot per 25, DHS in engine should still eat 2/3 crits like how the other 2 still eat the same amount). IDK about your experience but i find that the E/M/B balance is a lot better if DHS is not in the picture simply because it getting +100%/200% magic engine crits is far too good and more than compensates for non-engine sinks being 2/3 crits. Alternatively, since this would shatter a lot of lore designs, flat out hardlock the first 10 engine sinks to be SHS, the crit cost of the extra slotted shouldn't shatter that much. The overall decreased heat capability will make heat efficiency even more important. (gauss will probably need to be tweaked since we don't have the TT counterplay of bringing tandem-charge srms/ AP ac ammo).