197 replies to this topic

[Ovion]

On a thought, what if rather than use the Max Range rules we have, we drop that 'post optimal' number.
At the moment, we have +100% on most weapons, +0% on missile weapons, and +200% on certain other weapons.
What if everything had a base +30% for extreme range with drop off, with certain things like LBX / Gauss getting +60%.
Missiles could double their spread for every 5% past optimal till they detonate at the end of their run.

This would mean LRM's would actually be long range.
You could only 'snipe' with weapons meant for it, such as ER Large Lasers, Gauss, AC2's and AC5's.
And the high-damage burst stuff, would mostly require you be within a map square.

[Aramuside]

You know having taken a few months off and relaxing I can read this thread and just feel wry amusement at all the rage at the thought of change.

[Lily from animove]

just bring out 30 heattreshold and true dhs. that solves all your vomitting issues and you can even tone down other ghost heat restrictions. All smaller mechs can still vomit an alpha which isn't that high allowing smalelr mechs to stay in the new "alpha range" while large maps cannot drop huge alphas anymore, but due to mixed weapons or more heatsinks can bring more sustained fire. Now their tonnage is justified and smaller emchs don't have to fear the "one hit to the spectator" configs.

whoever tested this idea and said it sin't feasable was a very uncompetent person. all previous emchwarriors had this and were playable. All you need to do is town doen some heatnumebrs bakc to TT values and keep adjusting the damage/cooldowns so that heatwise most TT setups work. A Nova should eb able to volley that one arm but then need to cooldown or keep firing the second arm in sequences. Thats very nicely how it worked in MW3.

And also rework the heat shutdown stuff and add some serious consequences to overheating. I would make 100% heat --- 120% shutdown (thats just 36 heat at all with a fixed heattreshold of 30). And every % above does 1damage to the mech as it heats up (and not slowly anymore while cooling down). And in override mode make this 1damage per % above 100. + if a mech stays overheated for more than 10secs make it trigger damage again for the % in overheated state.

this creates a safe buffer area for people that allow shutting down but creates series consequences for overriding or going big over the heat treshold.

Edited by Lily from animove, 17 October 2017 - 12:41 AM.

[Ovion]

Lily from animove, on 17 October 2017 - 12:26 AM, said:

just bring out 30 heattreshold and true dhs. that solves all your vomitting issues and you can even tone down other ghost heat restrictions. All smaller mechs can still vomit an alpha which isn't that high allowing smalelr mechs to stay in the new "alpha range" while large maps cannot drop huge alphas anymore, but due to mixed weapons or more heatsinks can bring more sustained fire. Now their tonnage is justified and smaller emchs don't have to fear the "one hit to the spectator" configs.

whoever tested this idea and said it sin't feasable was a very uncompetent person. all previous emchwarriors had this and were playable. All you need to do is town doen some heatnumebrs bakc to TT values and keep adjusting the damage/cooldowns so that heatwise most TT setups work. A Nova should eb able to volley that one arm but then need to cooldown or keep firing the second arm in sequences. Thats very nicely how it worked in MW3.

And also rework the heat shutdown stuff and add some serious consequences to overheating. I would make 100% heat --- 120% shutdown (thats just 36 heat at all with a fixed heattreshold of 30). And every % above does 1damage to the mech as it heats up (and not slowly anymore while cooling down). And in override mode make this 1damage per % above 100. + if a mech stays overheated for more than 10secs make it trigger damage again for the % in overheated state.

this creates a safe buffer area for people that allow shutting down but creates series consequences for overriding or going big over the heat treshold.

This combined with some reduced max range, and you'd shift the game paradigm into something a bit more dynamic.

[mad kat]

It's good that you eased off the knee jerk nerf, my BJ-1X and HBK-4P can panic a little less now but the fact remains some mechs still rely on the medium laser as their PRIMARY weapon, not a backup.

Even my Battlemaster has medium lasers as its primary weapons so while you may think they should be a backup space and tonnage filler weapon they are simply not.

That being said on faster/hotter mechs i have been switching to ERSL as backup weapons.

[MischiefSC]

I really appreciate the decision to scale the changes back and I appreciate the intent to buff ballistics and nerf lasers, both by just a bit, to try and bring them into a better balance.

As has been stated before though, the issue is alpha size for laser and laser-supported loadouts. DPS is only relevant if you have sustained time in the crosshairs and with the current alpha size being 60-90, a half second in cooldown won't matter. It will to the IS, as it reduces their viability for better DPS (which was already iffy) but for Clan mechs it's not really going to change any loadouts or reduce alphas by any reasonable or relevant amounts.

Reduce damage, cooldown and heat on lasers would get what we seem to be looking for. The point is to make each individual alpha smaller. The ability to puke up 80+ damage over ~1 second, then a short wait and do it again for 160+damage over 2 exposures of about 2 seconds each means I can consistently blow half the enemy mech off before he's closed to a position where he can use his DPS. Even more to the point in a team v team environment DPS builds are at a significant disadvantage unless the DPS is really, really high.

Balance is always a moving target but satisfaction with it right now seems really low. Especially for IS vs Clans. DPS vs alpha isn't an even match; alpha is more valuable in a 12 v 12 (or 8 v 8) environment than DPS. Significantly so. Precision alpha is even more valuable. DPS for ballistics and DPS-oriented weapons isn't anywhere close.

[I cant want to]

Lily from animove, on 17 October 2017 - 12:26 AM, said:

just bring out 30 heattreshold and true dhs. that solves all your vomitting issues and you can even tone down other ghost heat restrictions. All smaller mechs can still vomit an alpha which isn't that high allowing smalelr mechs to stay in the new "alpha range" while large maps cannot drop huge alphas anymore, but due to mixed weapons or more heatsinks can bring more sustained fire. Now their tonnage is justified and smaller emchs don't have to fear the "one hit to the spectator" configs.

coupled with something similar to the below table (from sarna), with the hit modifiers being handled by crosshair shake already used by MASC and JJ. then you could pretty much scrap ghost heat entirely.


Heat Effects Table
Heat Points Effects
30 Auto shut down
28 Ammo explosion on a 8+
26 Shut down on a 10+
25 -5 MP
24 +4 to hit
23 Ammo explosion on a 6+
22 Shut down on a 8+
20 -4 MP
19 Ammo explosion on a 4+
18 Shut down on a 6+
17 +3 to hit
15 -3 MP
14 Shut down on a 4+
13 +2 to hit
10 -2 MP
8 +1 to hit
5 -1 MP


edited for formatting

Edited by chaothulhu, 17 October 2017 - 01:54 AM.

[Prof RJ Gumby]

How about you guys finally add large and medium type lasers into one ghost heat group? You've already done that with many weapons, you did that with gauss and PPCs and that was a very good decision, because gauss and PPCs no longer need to underperform when used separately, just so they don't overperform when used jointly.

Slap GH on mixed laser vomit, so people and mechs using mediums as secondary weapons (most of both groups) won't need to suffer unwarranted penalties just because there is always vomit that is and will overperform them.

For the good of the game and variety, rainbow vomit needs to go.

[Vladosteron]

How about not giving laser weapons not Ghostheat but Ghostduration?
The more Laz0rs you fire, the longer they burn, the more facetime you need, the more spread the damage gets.

I think this method would encourage less boating.
Also the angle changes on Misses are contraproductive in my opinion.

PS: For Ballistics a ghostcooldown mechanic makes more sense than Ghost heat also. Wanna fire those 6 AC5s? Go on, but your feed ramps will need so time to feed them.

[Teenage Mutant Ninja Urbie]

thank you guys for (finally) listening.

maybe in the future you can avoid all the forum-rage&outrage and just ask people or do public testings?

I know the mechwarrior-crowd (myself included) can be difficult - but you're not making it easier for yourself with your strange ways of doing things.
pls just interact more often, show some interest and care in your paying customers.
will be more relaxed for all of us

[Gasoline]

Lily from animove, on 17 October 2017 - 12:26 AM, said:

just bring out 30 heattreshold and true dhs. that solves all your vomitting issues and you can even tone down other ghost heat restrictions. All smaller mechs can still vomit an alpha which isn't that high allowing smalelr mechs to stay in the new "alpha range" while large maps cannot drop huge alphas anymore, but due to mixed weapons or more heatsinks can bring more sustained fire. Now their tonnage is justified and smaller emchs don't have to fear the "one hit to the spectator" configs.

whoever tested this idea and said it sin't feasable was a very uncompetent person. all previous emchwarriors had this and were playable. All you need to do is town doen some heatnumebrs bakc to TT values and keep adjusting the damage/cooldowns so that heatwise most TT setups work. A Nova should eb able to volley that one arm but then need to cooldown or keep firing the second arm in sequences. Thats very nicely how it worked in MW3.

And also rework the heat shutdown stuff and add some serious consequences to overheating. I would make 100% heat --- 120% shutdown (thats just 36 heat at all with a fixed heattreshold of 30). And every % above does 1damage to the mech as it heats up (and not slowly anymore while cooling down). And in override mode make this 1damage per % above 100. + if a mech stays overheated for more than 10secs make it trigger damage again for the % in overheated state.

this creates a safe buffer area for people that allow shutting down but creates series consequences for overriding or going big over the heat treshold.

This is actually what a lot of people tried to convince PGI to do since CBT. The whole system of inflatious amounts of heat led to things like ghost heat, energy draw and the little band aids we so much loved to hate. Basically PGI tried to insist on their approach of giving the player tremendous amounts of heat to play with and then punishing the player for using it.

I would even go so far as to say if a mech stays overheated for longer than 10 seconds, it should explode the reactor.

chaothulhu, on 17 October 2017 - 01:52 AM, said:

coupled with something similar to the below table (from sarna), with the hit modifiers being handled by crosshair shake already used by MASC and JJ. then you could pretty much scrap ghost heat entirely.


Heat Effects Table
Heat Points Effects
30 Auto shut down
28 Ammo explosion on a 8+
26 Shut down on a 10+
25 -5 MP
24 +4 to hit
23 Ammo explosion on a 6+
22 Shut down on a 8+
20 -4 MP
19 Ammo explosion on a 4+
18 Shut down on a 6+
17 +3 to hit
15 -3 MP
14 Shut down on a 4+
13 +2 to hit
10 -2 MP
8 +1 to hit
5 -1 MP


edited for formatting

Let's not make it too convoluted, shall we? I'm all for staying true to the original Battletech, but not everything translates well into a FPS. Random dice rolls deciding games is nothing we should aim for.

[kapusta11]

People don't take lasers for their DPS, stop mentioning these two things in one sentence unless you want to look like someone who has no idea what he's talking about.

The recent surge in laser vomit usage was caused by a combination of things:

• clans getting new high damage per ton laser (Heavy Large)
  
• clans having another high damage per ton laser being buffed (ERML range nerf reverted)
  
• yet another mobility nerf (engine mobility desync + mobility bonuses that were previously free now locked behind skill trees), slow targets are perfect to shoot at with lasers
  
• skill tree buffs for clans that benefit laser boats greatly (duration, range and heat)
  
• previous nerfs to weapon systems and play styles that used to counter laser vomit (jam/heat UAC nerfs, Gauss PPC Ghost Heat nerf, SPL nerf and now you're nerfing SRM brawling).

Edited by kapusta11, 17 October 2017 - 04:56 AM.

[Ober Affengeil]

Malakie, on 16 October 2017 - 01:43 PM, said:

Another way to see what the imbalance has caused is in the faction game play... Innersphere pretty much is on the losing end 95% of the time.

When I can stand toe to toe with my Atlas, max armor, max weapons and heat sink with a medium mech and it just ******* away without effort, it becomes clear there is an imbalance.

Getting hit with constant 80 points of damage while the other mech hides due to its speed and agility, does not make for fun game play in an Assault mech, trust me.

I DON'T want to see things nerfed completely but balance I do hope to see so that our skill actually becomes more of a needed thing to win than a luck thing.

While I am no where near being a top player, it is frustrating to have 5 kills in a match only to get taken down by someone that can hammer you and hide without taking hardly any damage in return.

You can hammer and hide too. Tactics and skill aren't a matter of the game, maybe it's you. Have you seen the faction scouting bar? It's 100% IS. I play both sides, and do well on both sides with what's there.

[Ober Affengeil]

Stitchedup, on 16 October 2017 - 06:52 PM, said:

What is problem with laser vomit anyway, the majortiy of mechs have and in many cases, only have energy hard points to use, why not just buff ballistic and see what happens. Lasers are the core weapon of the game. There is always going to be a meta in the game, why keep changing the rules every time someone doesn't like something.

Finally, someone says something intelligent.

[Ovion]

Gasoline, on 17 October 2017 - 03:14 AM, said:

This is actually what a lot of people tried to convince PGI to do since CBT. The whole system of inflatious amounts of heat led to things like ghost heat, energy draw and the little band aids we so much loved to hate. Basically PGI tried to insist on their approach of giving the player tremendous amounts of heat to play with and then punishing the player for using it.

I would even go so far as to say if a mech stays overheated for longer than 10 seconds, it should explode the reactor.

Let's not make it too convoluted, shall we? I'm all for staying true to the original Battletech, but not everything translates well into a FPS. Random dice rolls deciding games is nothing we should aim for.

I'm still disappointed Energy Draw got dropped.
It would have helped and made people think / make a choice between DPS and alpha builds.

As to the heat chart, well you could easily adjust that to the game:
Each Heatsink provides 1 (2) Heat Capacity and 0.1 (0.2) per second heat dissipation.
Every mech will then have 10 (20) base heat capacity and 1 (2) from the 10 heat sinks from the engine.
Every second after it dissipates heat it applies cumulative effects based on how far over the mechs capacity it is:
+5 -16.2kph top speed (min 16.2kph top speed)
+8 light screenshake (like with MASC / JJ motion)
+10 -16.2kph top speed (-32.4 total, min 16.2kph top speed)
+13 increased screen shake
+14 8% chance of shut down
+15 -16.2kph top speed (-48.6 total, min 16.2kph top speed)
+17 increased screen shake
+18 +8% chance of shut down (16% total)
+19 8% chance of a crit (10 damage) on one random location (if it hits an ammo bin or gauss rifle, it explodes)
+20 -16.2kph top speed (-64.8 total, min 16.2kph top speed)
+22 +8% chance of shut down (24% total)
+23 +8% chance of a crit (10 damage) on one random location (16% total)
+24 increased screen shake
+25 -16.2kph top speed (-81.0 total, min 16.2kph top speed)
+22 +8% chance of shut down (32% total)
+28 +8% chance of a crit (10 damage) on one random location (24% total)
+30 +8% chance of shut down (40% total)

[Racerxintegra2k]

Everyone is thanking PGI for listening ... they didn't listen. We said we didn't want any of it, they just scaled back the 1 horrible change. The entire patch is trash. Nerfing Lock on, Nerfing Artemis i blocked out the rest of it because its to horrible to imagine.

[Ovion]

Racerxintegra2k, on 17 October 2017 - 04:30 AM, said:

Everyone is thanking PGI for listening ... they didn't listen. We said we didn't want any of it, they just scaled back the 1 horrible change. The entire patch is trash. Nerfing Lock on, Nerfing Artemis i blocked out the rest of it because its to horrible to imagine.

The missile nerfs are fairly inconsequential at the end of the day - you should be tracking targets anyway.
Artemis is only useful about 1/3 the time and it's only being nerfed to the level it was pre-skill tree anyway, .

The Ballistic changes are great.
The mobility changes, apart from those to the Annihilator (which is meant to be a hulking behemoth) are good.

The only part that was poor, is the Energy changes because they don't fix the problem they set out to.

Edited by Ovion, 17 October 2017 - 04:51 AM.

[Rick Windwalker]

Nice, now tune down the laser vomits

thx for listening and responding to your community

Rick out

Edited by Rick Windwalker, 17 October 2017 - 05:47 AM.

[kesmai]

I could bring up heatscale and slot size, but i will not.
Most of you know why...

Edited by kesmai, 17 October 2017 - 05:50 AM.

[Stinger554]

Gas Guzzler, on 16 October 2017 - 08:56 PM, said:

Dude.... my point was that 3 ERML to 1 LPL is not a valid comparison, because neither makes practical sense.

Then perhaps you should have stated that first. Neither what makes practical sense? Are you talking about the comparison? If so FYI neither is not the correct word to use.

Gas Guzzler, on 16 October 2017 - 08:56 PM, said:

Comparing spread sheet numbers on 3 ERML vs 1 LPL is not how you arrive at balance.

It would be if they actually looked at all their spread sheets instead of just one and saw that literally no mech can effectively take advantage of the fact that 3 ERML is technically better than 1 LPL in it's range bracket. Not enough hard points to abuse. So no need to make adjustments because literally no mech can utilize it.

Edited by Stinger554, 17 October 2017 - 08:49 AM.