68 replies to this topic

[lazorbeamz]

Laser vomit, particularly of clan mechs dominates pugs, it dominates competitive games. It has proven to be too effective, too easy to leverage the huge and long range hitscan alpha strikes.

Ballistics, mrm, srm require minimal distances to work ~250 meters at most. DPS and range figures on those are kind irrelevant when they can only be acheived in theory. My brawler roughneck only gets ~60 alpha strike on the weapons which spread badly (mrm, uac10) and have small effective range ~250 m and reduce effect on moving targets by at least 50%. Laser vomit clan hunchback which is 15 ton lighter will do 70+ hitscan alpha strikes at 500m.

please nerf lasers and allow more fun and brawly gameplay with options. Increase ballistic velocities by a lot, remove ballistic ghost heat rules.

Edited by lazorbeamz, 13 November 2017 - 11:32 AM.

[Mole]

Sure let's nerf lasers again and cycle back to ERPPC/Dakka/Gauss vomit meta. Face it, guy. So long as long range weapons are viable, there are going to be people that prefer to fight at range. Personally, I like brawling. If I play smart, I can manage a really fun brawl even on maps like Polar Highlands. If you're choosing your fights carefully you shouldn't be having a problem brawling, and most games end up turning into a brawl toward the end of the match anyway. What I often do when I am in a brawler is if there is a sniper phase going on I just let them widdle eachother down and keep my head low. Sooner or later someone turns it into a knife fight and I get to work in my fresh brawler. So instead of nerfing sniper rifles so that you can be careless with your shotgun, how about you play your shotguns carefully?

[N0ni]

What people don't seem to get when they call for nerfs, is that once those nerfs are in place... another meta will come to life and dominate the field and there will be another call for nerfs.

The cycle will continue now and forever, so try to enjoy what you have at the moment.

[FupDup]

Have no fear, it's not a matter of if...it's a matter of when. PGI continued nerfing laser vomit even when PPC/Gauss was the meta again. We'll come back full circle for like the fourth or fifth time within several months I imagine.

[Khobai]

Quote

another meta will come to life and dominate the field and there will be another call for nerfs.

thats why a lot of games give players the tools to counter-meta

like if MWO had reflective armor, ablative armor, blue shield, etc... then players could use defensive tech to counter whatever weapon is meta... which would force the meta to constantly evolve. you wouldnt just have one stale meta then.

im not saying thats the approach MWO should take, just that its the approach other games have taken. I mean there are downsides to adding those defensive techs to the game. it potentially adds a rock paper scissors element to the game that can be frustrating. nobody wants to be the guy with lasers when the whole enemy team has reflective armor. hard counters suck.

I think defensive techs as soft counters rather than hard counters could work though. Im generally against hard counters but soft counters are fine. so instead of reflective armor reducing laser damage by 50%, maybe only make it reduce it by 20%-30%.

Edited by Khobai, 13 November 2017 - 12:25 PM.

[Mystere]

I've said it before and I will say it again: We need big claustrophobic highly-urban maps.

A 50% ratio is a good start.

[Vonbach]

Khobai, on 13 November 2017 - 12:20 PM, said:

thats why a lot of games give players the tools to counter-meta

like if MWO had reflective armor, ablative armor, blue shield, etc... then players could use defensive tech to counter whatever weapon is meta... which would force the meta to constantly evolve.

you wouldnt just have one stale meta then.

Something needs to be done to counter clan laser vomit.

[Khobai]

Quote

Something needs to be done to counter clan laser vomit.

well the easiest stopgap solution is just to link large lasers and medium lasers and possibly gauss in the same ghost heat group

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Assaults need the ability to torso twist quickly again. No amount of armor quirks PGI adds will make up for not being able to so easily make my Atlas's arms absorb the damage they once did. With Clan HLLs taking 1.55 seconds and CERMLs nerfed to 1.25 seconds of duration being able to just spread damage would heavily reduce their effectiveness.

Wish we were back when the Dakka meta, laser vomit meta, and gauss+ppc meta were all relatively balanced with eachother.

[Roughneck45]

Anyone else notice a guy named lazorbeamz wants to nerf lasers

[lazorbeamz]

Clan laser vomit:
50 ton Hunchback with 500 m effective range, hitscan, pinpoint, 70+ alpha strike

IS brawler:
65 ton RGH-2A with mrm 30, uac10 and 2 medlas. 60 alpha strike which spreads terribly, weapons which are totally ineffective against small and or moving targets and at 300+ m ranges.

This is a bit stupid at this point.

To add insult i need to rely on QP brawling. Yes QP brawling (which isnt there).

The only reasonable meta is brawling and dakka meta. Brawling and autocannons require weapons with trashy slow flying projectiles. They should compensate for it with hugely better damage values, heat values etc. Hitscan is too much of an advantage in itself already. Laser damage should seriously be cut by 25 % easily and they will be balanced still.

Edited by lazorbeamz, 13 November 2017 - 12:37 PM.

[WrathOfDeadguy]

Laservomit became the dominant meta because PGI over-nerfed other weapon types. Lasers got hit with some significant nerfs before and during the July gigapatch:

- Damage nerfs to both Clan and IS Large Pulse
- Damage nerf to Clan Medium Pulse
- Damage nerfs to both Clan and IS Small pulse
- Beam duration increases to IS Large Laser, Clan ER Medium and ER Small

These were accompanied by a tiny handful of buffs:

+ IS ER Large duration reduced
+ IS Small laser damage increased (by all of 0.25)

The new lasers, of course, released with their own stats based on post-nerf/buff values for existing laser types (for example, IS ER Small has 3.25 damage just like the standard IS Small).

If the PPC/Gauss nerfs had not been so heavy-handed, the combined effect of the laser nerfs would have prevented any kind of laser meta. Nearly all of the lasers in common use at the time received nerfs. The fact that a laser meta arose after all of those nerfs says more about what PGI did with other weapons than it does about how good lasers are. That lasers continue to be meta despite further nerfs to heat and cooldown only confirms that the problem is not with the lasers- it is with all of the other weapon combos that PGI nerfed in the newtech patch.

TL;DR: Lasers overall were more powerful before they became the dominant meta.

[lazorbeamz]

They didnt really nerf lasers im not feeling it. if they nerf their damage by 25% across the board then it would be a start to nerfing lasers.

Now we have 18 damage heavy lasers which are worse.

[Snazzy Dragon]

You probably want to specify WHICH lasers you want nerfed, because the vast majority of them aren't doing so great.

[Vonbach]

Snazzy Dragon, on 13 November 2017 - 12:43 PM, said:

You probably want to specify WHICH lasers you want nerfed, because the vast majority of them aren't doing so great.

I'd nerf one class of laser by removing it from the game. Heavy lasers. These things are cancer.

[lazorbeamz]

Snazzy Dragon, on 13 November 2017 - 12:43 PM, said:

You probably want to specify WHICH lasers you want nerfed, because the vast majority of them aren't doing so great.

Everything that has less then 250 m range is probably not worth nerfing. My best bet would be to nerf heavy lasers and er larges. Also clan mediums. But i would like clan lasers to stay better then IS lasers for clan vs IS balance flavoring and this will require some small nerfs to IS medium, medpulse and er med.

Remember lasers give you hitscan by default and when comparing this ability to ballistic projectiles or MRM/SRM it is like cheating.

Edited by lazorbeamz, 13 November 2017 - 12:51 PM.

[Troa Barton]

Dakota1000, on 13 November 2017 - 12:26 PM, said:

Assaults need the ability to torso twist quickly again. No amount of armor quirks PGI adds will make up for not being able to so easily make my Atlas's arms absorb the damage they once did. With Clan HLLs taking 1.55 seconds and CERMLs nerfed to 1.25 seconds of duration being able to just spread damage would heavily reduce their effectiveness.

Wish we were back when the Dakka meta, laser vomit meta, and gauss+ppc meta were all relatively balanced with eachother.

THIS^

The reason laser vomit is so effective right now is because assaults cant mitigate their damage effectively anymore.
The reason it's effective against everyone else is because they don't torso twist or they pick the wrong fights.
I've had laser boat lights peek against my Marauder IIC... We are effectively both laser builds with the same burn duration but they think its a good idea to peek at something with 3 times their firepower. I've seen several more just stand there and let me carve off a torso.

As far as assaults not being tanky enough anymore, that is a separate issue and one that needs to be addressed but not at the cost of nerfs.

There is nothing wrong with lasers nerfing them will nerf every class of mech and that is a horrible idea.

Burst weapons trump lasers, your SRM boat if used properly will make child's play out of a laser boat when exposing only long enough to fire a salvo of missiles.

[MechaBattler]

Not for nothing but laser vomit has been a viable thing throughout the game's history. It's just simple to use and build around. They buffed ballistic velocity to make them easier to use. But with ballistics it's all or nothing.

I think they should tweak heat cap and heat dissipation to not stop laser vomit. Just make it less optimal, but still effective enough to be competitive. If DPS ballistic builds are too good, they can address those directly. Again not to break them, just make them less effective. But PGI tends to break metas with the nerf hammer instead of tweaking things.

[Snazzy Dragon]

lazorbeamz, on 13 November 2017 - 12:48 PM, said:

. But i would like clan lasers to stay better then IS lasers for clan vs IS balance flavoring and this will require some small nerfs to IS medium, medpulse and er med.

Remember lasers give you hitscan by default and when comparing this ability to ballistic projectiles or MRM/SRM it is like cheating.

And just like that, I've exposed the ugly

lol

[davoodoo]

Imagine a battletech game where ppl dont use lasers.

Glorious.