259 replies to this topic

[MischiefSC]

I would say change is good and variety is good.

[HammerMaster]

I'd like to have my own server.
T T armor and damage values
Beta BLOOM reticule
6 second cool down for ALL weapons
TT heatscale and penalties
Usable jump jets (30meter each JJ)
3039 (NO CLANS or separate login IS v IS clan v clan)
Reduced or no quirks
Skill maze rethink or wipe
Repair and rearm (your lostech lbx-10 blows up you buy/find new one)
Reign in customization (bonus for stock/super stock, penalize for complete redone rig, long upgrade wait)
No map vote. Full random
ECM ABORTION to TT stats (does not break LOS locks, does negate Artemis etc)
No muthaflippin Gauss charge
Recoil for ballistics
No free c3 lockons
No contrived ghost heat punishment
Mech scale revised
LRM reworked (in LOS direct fire, HIGH velocity, great dmg ,out of LOS high arc/high spread poopy dmg)
Knockdowns revised.

Edited by HammerMaster, 01 July 2018 - 05:53 PM.

[Nightbird]

Weapon balancing is something PGI is working on right now, nonetheless thanks for the bump

[Nightbird]

See Clan laser changes here:
https://mwomercs.com...riday-july-13th

Nightbird said:

Currently MWO's weapon damage and heat values deviate significantly from Battletech lore. This was done with the best of intentions for balance reasons, however I wonder if more dramatic tweaks to other parameters (cooldown, duration, velocity, etc) can lead to fair trade-offs between IS and Clan tech, leading to a unique piloting experience for both sides. This is different from our current direction of the same builds and combat strategies, except everything is better with Clans. In other words, the goal is BOTH better game play balance than today & better lore adherence so we're not playing Rob the Robot Pilot instead of Battletech,

Prediction on the mark, do we want things different or do we want them the same?

Edited by Nightbird, 06 July 2018 - 05:18 PM.

[Nightbird]

Another bump for starting with lore damage and heat values, and getting balance by tweaking cooldown, duration, etc until we get a very diverse but balanced arsenal. What's the point of having the same experience on IS and Clan? Yes, after the Clan lasers are nerfed, IS will get survival reduced, in a cycle that will see Clan weapons the same as IS weapons when adjusted for tonnage and crits. Balanced? Yes, but devoid of faction flavor.

Edited by Nightbird, 07 July 2018 - 09:55 AM.

[MischiefSC]

So lore #s didn't work in lore. In lore the new weapons flat out replaced the old ones. Clan weapons replaced IS weapons.

You can balanced IS and Clan on different form factors but lore is a bad place to start IMO.

[Nightbird]

Whether you can preserve damage and heat and tweak other factors for balance, or homogenize everything for balance, you end up with balance both ways. The only real question is do you want IS and Clan to have different flavors, or taste the same in the end.

[MischiefSC]

Nightbird, on 07 July 2018 - 01:30 PM, said:

Whether you can preserve damage and heat and tweak other factors for balance, or homogenize everything for balance, you end up with balance both ways. The only real question is do you want IS and Clan to have different flavors, or taste the same in the end.

There is 0 lore to support different "flavors" between IS and Clan other than Clan is 100% flat out always superior.

Lore is a burden for balance. I would be more inclined to take HBS Battletech as a guideline than TT lore values.

[Y E O N N E]

Nightbird, on 07 July 2018 - 01:30 PM, said:

Whether you can preserve damage and heat and tweak other factors for balance, or homogenize everything for balance, you end up with balance both ways.

I just want to point out that this is a false dichotomy. There is no "either/or" decision here because you, in fact, have more than two variables you can change and each with a multitude of options. They do not have to result in homogeneity, regardless of which variables you choose to tweak and which ones you choose to neglect.

[Nightbird]

Yeonne Greene, on 07 July 2018 - 01:58 PM, said:

I just want to point out that this is a false dichotomy. There is no "either/or" decision here because you, in fact, have more than two variables you can change and each with a multitude of options. They do not have to result in homogeneity, regardless of which variables you choose to tweak and which ones you choose to neglect.

Homogeneity doesn't mean complete equivalence, 5 damage IS ERML versus 7 damage C-ERML is a 40% difference, 5 damage versus 5.25 damage is a 5% difference. All other existing differences, such as cooldown and duration will eventually be reduced proportionally. You can argue that 5% is a lot still if you want and that it makes for uniqueness and I can argue no, it's homogeneous at this point.

MischiefSC, on 07 July 2018 - 01:51 PM, said:

There is 0 lore to support different "flavors" between IS and Clan other than Clan is 100% flat out always superior.

Lore is a burden for balance. I would be more inclined to take HBS Battletech as a guideline than TT lore values.

There is, Clan weapons are lighter and more alpha centric.

[Nightbird]

I would rewrite the narrative simply as, Clan and IS equipment is, in the hands of a skill pilot, relatively close together in performance. (At least after the recovery of star league memory helm), however IS pilots and organizations simply do not compare in training and logistics to the clanners. Most fights resulted in ill-trained pilots in undergunned mechs against a force that was maximized in both. As a way to avoid losing morale, IS sources spun the differences as being tech based.

[MischiefSC]

Nightbird, on 07 July 2018 - 02:08 PM, said:

Homogeneity doesn't mean complete equivalence, 5 damage IS ERML versus 7 damage C-ERML is a 40% difference, 5 damage versus 5.25 damage is a 5% difference. All other existing differences, such as cooldown and duration will eventually be reduced proportionally. You can argue that 5% is a lot still if you want and that it makes for uniqueness and I can argue no, it's homogeneous at this point.



There is, Clan weapons are lighter and more alpha centric.

I would rather Clan lasers be 6 damage.

[Nightbird]

MischiefSC, on 07 July 2018 - 02:59 PM, said:

I would rather Clan lasers be 6 damage.

Why is 6 balance-able but 7 not? Arbitrary?

[Y E O N N E]

Nightbird, on 07 July 2018 - 03:19 PM, said:

Why is 6 balance-able but 7 not? Arbitrary?

Like I said at the beginning of this thread, I think it's more about the things you have to do to make fixed damage and heat balanced are not necessarily enjoyable.

[Nightbird]

Yeonne Greene, on 07 July 2018 - 08:18 PM, said:

Like I said at the beginning of this thread, I think it's more about the things you have to do to make fixed damage and heat balanced are not necessarily enjoyable.

I respect your opinion, I just disagree in that I think having different play styles which are balanced is value-added rather than un-enjoyable.

[Y E O N N E]

Nightbird, on 07 July 2018 - 08:36 PM, said:

I respect your opinion, I just disagree in that I think having different play styles which are balanced is value-added rather than un-enjoyable.

It's certainly not unplayable, and I think your spin does a pretty good job of giving a reason to take most of the weapons, I just don't think I'd find the prospect of having to charge down a gauntlet of IS Large Pulse firing once every 1.71 seconds particularly enjoyable while playing Clan 'Mechs.

[Nightbird]

Yeonne Greene, on 07 July 2018 - 08:44 PM, said:

It's certainly not unplayable, and I think your spin does a pretty good job of giving a reason to take most of the weapons, I just don't think I'd find the prospect of having to charge down a gauntlet of IS Large Pulse firing once every 1.71 seconds particularly enjoyable while playing Clan 'Mechs.

I don't think you'll have to worry about that. It's so high heat that having more than 2LPL on a mech is suicide and has to be paired with dakka to make it work. IS large lasers are so hot that boating is a really bad idea.

[Y E O N N E]

Nightbird, on 07 July 2018 - 09:02 PM, said:

I don't think you'll have to worry about that. It's so high heat that having more than 2LPL on a mech is suicide and has to be paired with dakka to make it work. IS large lasers are so hot that boating is a really bad idea.

Eeeeeh...

It fires so fast that I don't need to bring more than two, and just two frees up enough tonnage in combination with LFE that I can bring more sinks than is typical today...and those sinks are buffed. So I sit here slamming out 18-point alphas at 10.5 DPS, generating only 7 heat per second on the net. Assuming your heat capacity rules are just being added onto the existing, that means I reach my heat cap of (50+(1.5*12))+(70/4) = 85.5 after 12.2 seconds. I can fire 7 times in that space for 128 damage, which is more than enough to reduce Mediums and Light Heavies to scrap and severely cripple anything bigger. And that's with only the 10% dissipation buff added from the skill tree, and only one 'Mech firing on a target. In a team environment, I wouldn't really ever need to take ballistics to give me DPS for stopping a push.

And it's not like the LL is that much less effective as a DPS machine, here, either. Do I take the 2x LPL for 18 damage, 20 heat, and 10.5 DPS at 360 meters or do I take 3x LL for 24 damage (+6), 24 heat (+4), 9 (-1.5) DPS, and 450 meters (+90)? Probably the LLs, since I'll need the alpha more often than I'll need the push.

I know you said your numbers are notional, but that's where they currently sit.

[Nightbird]

Yes, your example would be of a middle of the way DPS option for a 50 IS tonner (2UAC5s or 2LBX10s or MPLs all very situational). I think 12 seconds to do 128 damage is a fair tradeoff option to the 40-50 damage alphas you can do today, if someone doesn't twist or retreat for 12 seconds they deserve serious damage.

The stats I created for large class lasers are forced by the high alpha nature of medium lasers. MWO give MLs high dps per ton as well, such that if you're not capped by ghost heat and hardpoints, you almost never want to use large lasers. I fixed that by making large class lasers primary weapons with high DPS and low cooldowns, and medium class lasers turned into back-up or alpha increasing weapons with long cooldown. (Not medium pulse lasers, which maintain a distinct DPS role )

This means that pairing large lasers with medium lasers for big alphas no longer makes sense as energy draw ensures you can't alpha with it and the cooldowns don't sync. It would make more sense to pair LL/LPL with AC/5&10 if you want to go DPS, or pair MLs with Gauss if you want alpha. LL/ML/Gauss combos will fire very weirdly. In all cases, the max alpha is contained as is desired and we'll see more bracket builds. Do you choose 6 AC5s for maximum sustained DPS or 4AC5s + 2LPL for higher initial burst DPS for about 10 seconds?

Of course, the numbers need tweaking but the weapon roles as proposed are very different to today. The meta would be dramatically different, and likely not be boated weapons but bracket builds that mix high heat ratio with low heat ratio weapons.

[Y E O N N E]

I don't think you are going to see any more bracket building than we currently have, since bracket building is building for multiple ranges and that remains as poor a choice as always, because dedicating to one bracket is still the stronger option.

As for whether or not people will take 6x AC/5 instead of 4x AC/5 and 2x LPL, what do you see now? Not the latter, and that's not because it can't deal damage well; it's because the two weapons have little synergy. Since the PPCs are also hit-scan in this paradigm, and have a charging mechanic, you won't see those PPC+UAC builds make any notable comeback for the same reason. You certainly won't see much of these extra-toasty lasers being combined with the also-extra-toasty UAC/10, much like you already don't see much being paired with them today for the same reasons.

But, because because your larges fire so fast, you will very likely see what I described earlier, with 'Mechs taking two or three, max four, and then doubling down on the heatsinks. Back in 2015, that was actually one of the go-to IS meta builds: 3x fast-firing LPL and nothing else but heatsinks. What you won't see much of on the IS side is classic Large+Medium laser boating, because there is little point in dedicating that weight if you have to stagger-fire and if you can build that half-alpha much lighter with weapons that cycle comparably quickly to a stagger-fire.