242 replies to this topic

[Brain Cancer]

Jun Watarase, on 14 October 2017 - 05:14 AM, said:

I dont know why they dont just balance all the UACs to have the same DPH though. Because you know, that would actually make sense.

The IS UAC 5 is the dominant choice because its not burst. The IS UAC 2 is basically irrelevant because the UAC 5 is better in almost every way, especially in terms of DPH.

The clan UAC 5 is pretty bad because its burst, the fact that its burst gives it nearly the same DPS as the UAC 2 and it has nearly the same damage per shell as the UAC 2. It's main saving grace was that it was much more heat efficient.

I could see them having other things (range, ROF) coming into account as reasons to do so, but yeah. The UAC/2 isn't quite there yet.

This was a remarkably good patch at screwing with everyone, with some changes seemingly done (increasing missile spread, SERIOUSLY?) solely so a drying-out river sinks all boats.

[Jun Watarase]

Quote

Typical MWO community, Complains about laser vomit being the go to and strongest meta for months. When it gets addressed they collectively lose their ****.

The problem is, the nerfs dont address laser vomit at all and hurts non-laser vomit builds. The problem with laser vomit has always been the fact that its hitscan, some lasers have very low burn durations effectively making spread minimal to non-existent, and the fact that you can do massive alphas with them. Oh and the fact that laser vomit builds are actually as heat efficient as mixed laser/ballistic builds because you can cram more DHS into mechs. Nerfing their DPS is simply failing to recognize why laser vomit is used in the first place, and that's because they don't play their own game and cannot be bothered to take 5 mins out of their workday to ask someone why laser vomit is used.

They don't appear to understand the concept of asking someone when they don't understand something...they simply will not do it. They would rather come up with completely wrong assumptions like "the DRG-1C is overperforming" instead.

[Brain Cancer]

Jun Watarase, on 14 October 2017 - 06:09 AM, said:

The problem is, the nerfs dont address laser vomit at all and hurts non-laser vomit builds. The problem with laser vomit has always been the fact that its hitscan, some lasers have very low burn durations effectively making spread minimal to non-existent, and the fact that you can do massive alphas with them. Oh and the fact that laser vomit builds are actually as heat efficient as mixed laser/ballistic builds because you can cram more DHS into mechs. Nerfing their DPS is simply failing to recognize why laser vomit is used in the first place, and that's because they don't play their own game and cannot be bothered to take 5 mins out of their workday to ask someone why laser vomit is used.

They don't appear to understand the concept of asking someone when they don't understand something...they simply will not do it. They would rather come up with completely wrong assumptions like "the DRG-1C is overperforming" instead.

This. I'd have expected a massive duration nerf more than a cooldown nerf.

Imagine if they'd ended up adding 33% or more to beam duration instead of cooldown. Lasers would become more of a facetime weapon, especially things like ERLLs and HLLs. Cooldown does slow how fast those mega alpha blasts come along, but it doesn't change their effects in the first place.

[Tordin]

Im not fond of bandwagoning for good or bad but yeah. Especially the energy changes and the comparisons between small, medium and large are bonkers if not insane!

Having smaller lasers with longer cooldown than larger?? Sure it defeats big close range alpha strikes by small and medium std, pulse and heavies, and put that meta in the locker. The large lasers weapons sure will be more poke efficient, increasing long range meta again.
If it werent for the range, dmg and duration(?) difference, you could aswell call the medium lasers for large lasers and vice versa..

Edited by Tordin, 14 October 2017 - 06:15 AM.

[oldradagast]

Hahahaha - medium lasers take longer to cooldown than large lasers now?! Oh, brilliant! Yeah, whatever PGI.

Dartboard of balance for the win, or maybe it's if they notice ANYTHING being used, it has to be nerfed, and then they throw darts at the dartboard to determine how to nerf it. Lunacy!

[Prof RJ Gumby]

ForceUser, on 14 October 2017 - 05:51 AM, said:

Typical MWO community, Complains about laser vomit being the go to and strongest meta for months. When it gets addressed they collectively lose their ****.

The main problem was the long range clan HLL+ERLL vomit that laughs at weapon cooldowns, because they're heat-limited, not cooldown-limited. That meta was reinforced with PGI nerfing its alternatives along with hurting anything else using med or small lasers.

EDIT:
Especially smaller mechs that use 5-6 smaller lasers will have much harder time to do damage, and actually these mechs were main counters for clan vomit, because only they were fast enough to minimize damage taken by HLL-based vomit. HLL wins.

AC/UAC5s get nerfed with higher heat heat
AC/UAC10s get hurt, because you often need to supplement them with med lasers, and these got nerfed,
Artemis nerf hurts maaany missle boats

Almost everything got nerfed, but HLL+ERLL baots got nerfed in the most insignificant way, while they were the main problem.

Edited by Prof RJ Gumby, 14 October 2017 - 06:27 AM.

[Nightmare1]

Jun Watarase, on 14 October 2017 - 12:49 AM, said:

Oh man...just cannot get enough of how poor an understanding of the game PGI has...



Yea those 5% missile spread skill nodes were making missiles OP, which is why competitive teams were spamming Artemis SRMs instead of laser vomit...oh wait.

Name a single player that complained on the forums that Artemis was OP. Oh wait, you literally cannot, because it never happened.

Remember guys, the DRG-1C was overperforming! Which is why IS units spammed DRG-1Cs in faction play and there were tons of people calling for DRG-1C nerfs on the forum...oh wait that never happened either.



Oh noes being able to maintain locks at 45 degree angles is op!!!! <--- Said no competitive player ever.



ATM spread was OP apparently. Did Paul rage after facetanking ATMs in an assault or something?

Still no fix for 1 AMS neutralizing a single ATM-9. Because it's really hard to double their missile HP by editing a xml file.



Lasers were never a DPS weapon. They were used for massive hitscan alpha strikes. They always had sub par DPS. This change does nothing to discourage massive hitscan alpha strikes.

This just means that matches will take longer since both teams will still be running laser vomit and will need more time between alphas.

Apparently spending 5 mins to ask competitive players why they use laser vomit is too hard for PGI to do. Good thing PGI plays their own game and therefore understands why laser vomit is used...oh wait.



The jenner isnt used because it has bad hitboxes. Why does PGI think that mobility buffs will help bad hitboxes, when mechs like the wolfhound, javelin and assassin have plenty of mobility along with better hitboxes, and can do the exact thing that jenners can except better? Oh right, they don't play their own game.

You know, a 12 year old could tell me that mechs with bad hitboxes should get durability quirks while mechs with good hitboxes shouldn't. Yet, PGI does the exact opposite and gives the wolfhound durability quirks while the jenner gets a mobility buff instead.



Completely ignoring the fact that the Atlas is non-viable because it cannot boat ballistics. The king crab/annihilator are used because they can boat 4x or more ballistics. The Atlas cannot which is why it is non-viable.



Completely ignoring the fact that the dire wolf isn't used because it has bad hitboxes compared to the Kodiak.



So apparently the answer to the KDK-3 being the only worthwhile variant is to give the other variants a mobility buff. Because that really compensates for the inability to boat UACs. You don't need a crystal ball to know that clan units will still run the KDK-3 because any non UAC boat Kodiak is non-viable.

Any 100 tonner that cannot boat ballistics does not have enough firepower for its tonnage. This is a simple fact of the game that PGI would understand if they played their own game.



Completely ignoring the fact that the skill tree encourages boating lasers since it requires the least node investment (a grand total of 4 SP for laser duration nodes vs 10+ nodes for velocity and missile/ballistic related nodes).

Also does nothing to fix the useless high explosive skill nodes, or underutilized trees.

Also gotta love the fact that more than two months later, the incorrect mechlab turn rates that i reported are still being investigated...PGI seems really understaffed.

Would you like to buy a mechpack?

Not to mention that the one weapon that the Atlas can boat, SRMs, just got nerfed with that Artemis system nerf, lol.

"Here Atlas, have so mobility! Oh, but wait, we're yanking your missile systems..."

[Jun Watarase]

Brain Cancer, on 14 October 2017 - 06:13 AM, said:

This. I'd have expected a massive duration nerf more than a cooldown nerf.

Imagine if they'd ended up adding 33% or more to beam duration instead of cooldown. Lasers would become more of a facetime weapon, especially things like ERLLs and HLLs. Cooldown does slow how fast those mega alpha blasts come along, but it doesn't change their effects in the first place.

Duration nerf on all lasers would hurt all laser builds, not just laser vomit. Personally i would bump IS LPL up to 0.75 burn duration (roughly same ratio as IS MPL to IS ML), make large and medium lasers share ghost heat (oh noes you have to use more than one type of weapon now!) and increase the ghost heat timer to 0.75s (more face time if you want to boat 9 MPL, 5 LPL or other nonsense).

I would even buff some lasers...clan ER SL down to 0.9 burn duration to make them more viable for brawling, C-SPL to 5 damage, reduce the gap between IS/Clan lasers and increase range on small lasers and small pulse in general. Also make PPCs on both sides viable without needing massive quirks, especially the ER-PPC which is a joke at ~14 heat.

[Nightmare1]

Kiiyor, on 14 October 2017 - 01:26 AM, said:

Well... it does space out the time between alphas. Laser vom vom is still stupensoudly powerful, but maybe now DPS weapons and an aggressive push will be more of a counter.

Except that there are a lot of Mechs, mainly Lights and Mediums, that need them for DPS because they have no other choice.

Take the HBK-4G, for example. It runs an AC/20 and 3xMLs. It's not a comp Mech or a Mech that you see very often, but it is a lot of fun. This nerf hits it hard. The same goes for the Firestarter, Crabs, Shadowhawks, Ravens, etc.

This is a very ugly nerf.

[Khobai]

these patch notes are atrocious

clan gauss is still 3 tons lighter than IS gauss with no real downside

ISXL is still half as good as CXL

and CDHS are still 50% better than ISDHS

but somehow thats okay because LRMs got nerfed? WTF PGI.

Quote

Typical MWO community, Complains about laser vomit being the go to and strongest meta for months. When it gets addressed they collectively lose their ****.

laser vomit wasnt overpowered because of the clan lasers themselves.

it was overpowered because of CDHS being way better than ISDHS which allowed clans to easily manage the heat from their laser vomit builds while IS couldnt do the same.

and because CXL/CFF/CES is way better than ISXL/ISFF/ISES it also allowed clan mechs to run even more of their better CDHS

increasing the cooldown on lasers does nothing because laser builds are heat limited not cooldown limited.

PGI has once again completely failed to balance the two tech bases.

WHY PGI WHY

Edited by Khobai, 14 October 2017 - 07:13 AM.

[The Lighthouse]

ForceUser, on 14 October 2017 - 05:51 AM, said:

Typical MWO community, Complains about laser vomit being the go to and strongest meta for months. When it gets addressed they collectively lose their ****.

This does not nerf laser vomit. Most of the case the time needed to cooldown the mech to fire another volley is longer than incoming-nerfed laser cooldown.

It only hurts mechs that use lasers as secondary weapons. This patch actually forces people to go pure lasers instead of diverse setup.

[Trissila]

Nerfing Artemis spread makes no sense whatsoever. It requires direct LoS, and even WITH Artemis and all spread nodes, direct LoS LRMs are still VASTLY inferior to dedicated direct-fire weapon systems. All this does is encourage more of the lame from-the-back LRM spam that everyone hates, and frees up tonnage/crits on LRM boats because why bring Artemis if my missiles are still going to suck even with the risk of exposing myself to direct LoS?

And that's before we even mention the effect this will have on SRMs for brawling. Nerfing brawling options is not something you want to do at this point in time.


Laser cooldown nerfs are just... wow. That is NOT the right way to address laser boating. Nobody brings lasers for DPS; absolutely no one just holds the triggers on the lasers to fire them on cooldown. Increasing ERML cooldown by over a second won't change anything significant, it'll just cause people to stay behind cover longer in the rote "pop out, fire, drop back" cycle. You're not "open for retaliation" because you're not an available target in the first place. And when you do close to brawling range on a laser boat, this nerf doesn't do anything there either, because they're not cooldown-limited in that situation, they're heat limited. Lasers are cycled and ready to fire, but doing so will melt them down.

About the only builds this will affect are very light laser boat 'mechs that bring a bunch of medium/small lasers because that's the only choice they have given their tonnage. They're getting clubbed for no good reason, to effect a 'nerf' of larger 'mechs that aren't actually getting nerfed in any meaningful way.

[Steve Pryde]

ForceUser, on 14 October 2017 - 05:51 AM, said:

Typical MWO community, Complains about laser vomit being the go to and strongest meta for months. When it gets addressed they collectively lose their ****.

It's not about the nerf, it's about how PGI handles it. Why is laservomit so strong? It's because it's just too easy to use (hitscan vs weapons that need velocity like ppcs, acs, gauss and missiles). How often do u hit terrain with ballistics and ppcs there u easy hit with a full 50-100 dmg laservomit burn?

And the artemis nerf? JESUS, THEY NURFED SRM BRAWLING AND LURMING LOL.

Mcgral18, on 14 October 2017 - 05:12 AM, said:

As a matter of fact, there were FOUR

Simply an unacceptable amount to have.
#PGIplz nerf

I think the Summoners where all ppc-nipple Summoners? I didn't watch any of the tournament matches.

Edited by Steve Pryde, 14 October 2017 - 07:58 AM.

[Xetelian]

Artemis changes, unnecessary.

100 ton mobility changes, too little.

Laser changes, gross.

ANH nerf, why?

.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

Sorry I'm just going to sit back and laugh while you guys continue to discuss this topic, after it's been very, very clear that PGI won't listen to your balance suggestions.

They clearly have a view of the game that you do not, their vision, and yours, do not align. [much like they didn't align with original founders]

Either play the game as is, or move on, it's literally that simple.

[Johnny Z]

Totally disagree with the entire topic except the laser alphas not being effected by cool downs. There are clan mech one shotting other mechs out there. Side torsos from the front anyway.

So much balancing and the largest balance problem has always been boating cerml's. Clan tech pilots that mean business just boat cerml's ftw.

This FP event, if all clan pilots stacked cerml boats it would be brutal.

Edited by Johnny Z, 14 October 2017 - 08:25 AM.

[deathlord]

I simply cannot believe I am about to utter these words, but seriously... I'd rather have Paul back in charge of design than this insanity.

[Johnny Z]

deathlord, on 14 October 2017 - 08:07 AM, said:

I simply cannot believe I am about to utter these words, but seriously... I'd rather have Paul back in charge of design than this insanity.

Most difficult game to balance ever made, EASILY.

Aside from the design decision to introduce Clan tech as easy mode balancing has always been good. The challenge since easy mode was added has been weening the Clan players off the easy mode teet without having hundreds of man babies going into diaper filling tantrums.

Edited by Johnny Z, 14 October 2017 - 08:16 AM.

[Rakshasa]

Khobai, on 14 October 2017 - 06:42 AM, said:

PGI has once again completely failed to balance the two tech bases.

Because they can't be balanced short of breaking MWO adherence to the TT system, or the blackest of sorceries. Clans were made to break the TT status quo back in a time when "balance" meant a mech had the same guns on both sides, and they're still using the same rules.

Edited by Rakshasa, 14 October 2017 - 08:19 AM.

[Burke IV]

CMDR Sunset Shimmer, on 14 October 2017 - 08:00 AM, said:

Either play the game as is, or move on, it's literally that simple.

Its sad tho, go back to when we had little triangles on the minimap. We all missing that now eh