55 replies to this topic

[DerMaulwurf]

DrSaphron, on 03 September 2017 - 09:01 AM, said:

I've been seeing waaay too many calls for nerfs to basically everything lately when what we need are buffs! Most notably the return of engine sync! Now Im not looking for full on old engine sync stats but more like 50% of what it used to be. Mobility should increase TTK as well as un-killing certain chassis such as the Phoenix Hawk and Linebacker.

Discuss?

First the obvious part: the Linebacker is still good. The agility quirks were simply rolled into the base stats. Nothing to see here.


Now the more complicated part. There is no inherent superiority for either buffs or nerfs. Both approaches are situational. Which means that there are right and wrong scenarios to apply each.

For once, buffing/nerfing the outliers while keeping most items untouched reduces the number of times where you have a chance to misjudge the impact of the patch and thus create a new problem. The hard question in any case is what is the desired level and how does each piece perform relative to the design goals.


If you ask for buffs/nerfs you need to outline the problem, how your proposal remedies it and most importantly why your sproposed solution is superior to alternatives.

On this particular example, I have to say that I am sick and tired of sweeping changes that affect all mechs and would very much like for PGI to stick to a more incremental style of changes. There's also the price to consider that un-desyncing agility and engines would make things more difficult for PGI to evaluate by reintroducing an additional degree of freedom in mech builds. This is not a price that is impossible to pay. But it should be paid for a clear benefit.

[sceii]

DerMaulwurf, on 05 September 2017 - 01:36 AM, said:

For once, buffing/nerfing the outliers while keeping most items untouched reduces the number of times where you have a chance to misjudge the impact of the patch and thus create a new problem. The hard question in any case is what is the desired level and how does each piece perform relative to the design goals.

Even small change on one weapon can affect a lot of mechs, we have changes to many weapons in every other patch for a while.
Small buffs/nerfs to outliers are a chasis specific quirks, and we know PGI does not like this thingy anymore, so they prefer to do sweeping balance passes.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

Please buffs the AI from the Players and a Tactical Awarness ...support Fire , Firelines (not stand like a Piss Line in the crimson Street Tunnel ...the next to die please) not stand back alone and a Good Team ,thats by HPG Conquest not run in the basement to hold only one Point and wait of the Duckbill Hunters..nerf all the Mimimi the lRM to bad while im stand to long in open ...Nerf the MGs while im stand in Big assault alone with no team Cover...Team see above For UAVs and not ignored the Minimap , not try to run away in a Daishi by a Black jack

MWO since 2016 more KiddyFightgame as Robocraft

Edited by Old MW4 Ranger, 05 September 2017 - 02:20 AM.

[Kazzun]

My only concerns about engine size is that it actually should improve acceleration.
I mean from logical sight if i got a tank with 1500 hp @50 Ton it would accel better than the same with 500 hp.
It would defenitly not improve the gyro as it remains the same nor it would improve the brakes 4 same reason.

[sceii]

Kazzun, on 05 September 2017 - 02:47 AM, said:

My only concerns about engine size is that it actually should improve acceleration.
I mean from logical sight if i got a tank with 1500 hp @50 Ton it would accel better than the same with 500 hp.
It would defenitly not improve the gyro as it remains the same nor it would improve the brakes 4 same reason.

Mechs have not wheels, they are bipedal.
They use muscle like myomers for both accelerate and deccelerate.

[Kazzun]

True, but then...eng size should also NOT improve speed 4 same reasons u tell?

[sceii]

Kazzun, on 05 September 2017 - 03:48 AM, said:

True, but then...eng size should also NOT improve speed 4 same reasons u tell?

More power more myomers you can pack.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Kazzun, on 05 September 2017 - 02:47 AM, said:

My only concerns about engine size is that it actually should improve acceleration.
I mean from logical sight if i got a tank with 1500 hp @50 Ton it would accel better than the same with 500 hp.
It would defenitly not improve the gyro as it remains the same nor it would improve the brakes 4 same reason.

Actually, getting a higher engine rating does improve the gyro. If you notice the tonnage values of engines you'll see jumps every few rating increases, those tonnage jumps are from the increased gyro weights that are rolled in with the engine. Ontop of that the increased power output of the engine acting on the mechanical muscles of the mech should mean that a bigger engine should boost agility in full, accel, decel, turn speed, torso twist, all of it.

Engine desync was a mistake. It brought no buffs to the slow mechs that people thought it would save, rather it dragged everyone down to their level.

[Cementi]

Power Creep is the death of many games. Nerfs have to happen or the game gets silly.

Alpha Warrior Online would be silly if not for them however these days that's not what we are playing. What we are playing is Credit Strike Online and that **** is beyond silly and needs not a nerf bat, or nerf hammer but a nerf bomb.

[Requiemking]

Dakota1000, on 05 September 2017 - 07:09 AM, said:

Actually, getting a higher engine rating does improve the gyro. If you notice the tonnage values of engines you'll see jumps every few rating increases, those tonnage jumps are from the increased gyro weights that are rolled in with the engine. Ontop of that the increased power output of the engine acting on the mechanical muscles of the mech should mean that a bigger engine should boost agility in full, accel, decel, turn speed, torso twist, all of it.

Engine desync was a mistake. It brought no buffs to the slow mechs that people thought it would save, rather it dragged everyone down to their level.

Engine desync was always intended to be a direct nerf to the Fat Ballerinas that were dominating the game at the time. The fact that, due to engine sync, the heavier weightclasses could erase the sole advantage of the lighter weightclasses by simply upping their engine size was bad for the game, and as such, it needed to go.

[MadRover]

Cementi, on 05 September 2017 - 09:12 AM, said:

Power Creep is the death of many games. Nerfs have to happen or the game gets silly.

Alpha Warrior Online would be silly if not for them however these days that's not what we are playing. What we are playing is Credit Strike Online and that **** is beyond silly and needs not a nerf bat, or nerf hammer but a nerf bomb.

Credit strike as in air strike online? Yeah the air strikes are getting silly. The weird part is, for me at any rate, I almost always seem to win those games especially when my team doesn't bother to drop strikes very often. However, it has gotten silly mostly because I see people getting lazy with their shots and just pew pew into the air or something. Just too reliant on their strikes.

[Alex Morgaine]

SOL Ranger, on 04 September 2017 - 07:16 PM, said:

...
What would right now be something like CT 97 frontal and 3 armour in the rear, would become ...

125 frontal. 3 rear, strip extra armor off arms of any. That's probably what would happen unless they used inefficient arm mounted weapons.

[mouser42]

[SOL Ranger]

Alex Morgaine, on 05 September 2017 - 05:23 PM, said:

125 frontal. 3 rear, strip extra armor off arms of any. That's probably what would happen unless they used inefficient arm mounted weapons.

I have no doubt that would be common and that's one of the points of it to allow the full flexibility of personal choice, allowing the build option to invest into back armour if you so wish without it necessarily directly affecting your frontal armour capacity. It isn't there to guarantee without compromise everyone 75pt of back armour, because that wouldn't be reasonable.

Currently there is no option to even get 10 back armour without it directly reducing your frontal defenses noticeably, which is already a highly questionable unwarranted choice given the vast majority of fights occur frontally. However with this you can instead drop some minimal ammo or a heatsink to get some rudimentary back armour at least if you feel you need it, alternatively drop something more and uparmour your back into something that you can use to defend yourself with actively even, and if not then it doesn't affect you at all directly either. Especially mechs with poor/few hardpoints get more viable options with this kind of system.

It's about allowing builds and players more pragmatic choices when the current system doesn't offer any options of that kind, deciding between 98 or 97 frontal and 2 or 3 rear armour isn't an option, but rather a minimal grey area cookie cutter build everyone uses.

However investing 25% more frontal armour for the added weight cost and then up to an additional 75% potential for the back is an open active option for all builds that focuses compromise directly on the engine choices, armaments, armour types and internals you fit on the mech and what is optimal there depends on many factors, including the subjective ones most notably.

I think this would be a great way for assaults to compensate for their lack of mobility and especially new players to compensate for their lack experience and skill, by simply going slightly lighter for armaments but more omni-armoured and protected to give them a more forgiving experience.

This would also raise TTK on its own when the most damage oriented heavier platforms invest slightly less into armaments to gain some staying power.

I'm pretty sure I would personally go with ~20 back armour if frontal armour wasn't compromised as it is now, also I would definitely go with the increased frontal armour on pretty much everything and that's already a significant amount of weight lost for armaments and raised TTK on its own.

If people want to run with minimal rear armour still then that is their choice and they get to enjoy the benefits of such a build decision as well, and the drawbacks.

All in all I see this kind of pragmatic change well worthy of implementation, offering us more choices between going more economic and defensive or heavily offensive in our builds.

[Mothykins]

Man, I've been gone a long while, but the same sorta arguments seem to keep popping up.

TTK seems good, to be really honest, especially after taking a six month break. The weapon blance is... Okay.

The only things that really stands out to me as being broken, or at a point they need to be reigned back in is Strikes, to a degree, and the purely positive nature of the skill tree (I really do think it should have had negative tradeoffs, it would make the choices a more meaningful IMHO)

On the Flip Side, IS ERPPCs need a look at. I find it hilarious and sad that two gives you 30-40% heat on a K2 (14 Heatsinks), but fire a gauss first and welcome to 80% heat.Gun is worthless, even more so in the current meta.

Heck, I can fire 4 LLs for 50% heat and the same alpha. Or Two gauss for literally 5 damage less per volley. And No heat.

Better yet, I can fire an MRM 40, MRM 30 and an AC20 for 50% heat on an Atlus (12 heatsinks)

Apparently we live in a strange world where a 35 Damage alpha at long range with mixed velocity and long travel time is scarier then a 90 point mid-to-short range alpha? I don't get it. Even taking into account PPFLD, you're talking about having to lead shots at 1 KM out for less than 35 Damage, and at medium range why are you not just holding a laser on them? Why are we even bothering with the ghost heat on this anymore? I can see it justified for something like, oh, 2 Gauss, 2 PPC, or 4 PPC, or what ever, but really? 2 IS ERPPCs and a Gauss is so game breakingly good that it needs to pump out more heat then Mt. Doom on Terra Therma?

A few of the old balance changes need to be looked at, maybe rolled back into something approaching sanity. I think that's a problem this game has, where old changes don't really get examined until they've been built on a million times, and as much as I love the game, PGI seems to really like to go all in, no-turning-back on changes (Nerfing the K2's Yaw as a hard stat pre-quirks, which is still a thing to this day for example) or on mechanics.

[Athom83]

SOL Ranger, on 05 September 2017 - 09:10 PM, said:

Currently there is no option to even get 10 back armour without it directly reducing your frontal defenses noticeably,

Atlas D and Annihilator disagrees with you.