58 replies to this topic

[FupDup]

Why are you even nerfing the Inner Sphere ones? They ain't the issue.

And Micros? Bruh, pls stahp.

[Throe]

This whole thread calls into question the practice of limiting boating by using hard points, since that's obviously no longer happening.

If we instead balance weapons around the idea that hardpoints don't exist, and you can mount as many of whatever type of weapon as you have tonnage and free critical slots for, maybe this whole argument will become moot. Maybe they can even get rid of the ridiculous Ghost Heat mechanic which never made any sense.

Pulling weapons values from TT was not a bad idea at first, but this game has obviously moved *far* beyond that. Honestly, it was beyond that in the first place, but they had to get starting values for weapons somewhere, and TT was not a terrible choice.

Here's hoping they can take it one step further and remove the hard point limitations entirely too, since that was also silly from inception.

[FupDup]

Throe, on 02 January 2018 - 12:05 PM, said:

This whole thread calls into question the practice of limiting boating by using hard points, since that's obviously no longer happening.

If we instead balance weapons around the idea that hardpoints don't exist, and you can mount as many of whatever type of weapon as you have tonnage and free critical slots for, maybe this whole argument will become moot. Maybe they can even get rid of the ridiculous Ghost Heat mechanic which never made any sense.

Pulling weapons values from TT was not a bad idea at first, but this game has obviously moved *far* beyond that. Honestly, it was beyond that in the first place, but they had to get starting values for weapons somewhere, and TT was not a terrible choice.

Here's hoping they can take it one step further and remove the hard point limitations entirely too, since that was also silly from inception.

Hardpoints are about far more than just boating limitation. They're also about making sure that each chassis or variant is at least slightly different from one another (flavor, variety) rather than hitboxes being the one and only difference between them.

Also consider dynamic geometry in this issue. Allowing every mech to carry 10-12 weapons of any type in every single body location at the same time would be an absolute nightmare to make models for.

[The6thMessenger]

Dakota1000, on 02 January 2018 - 05:38 AM, said:

Nothing really falls out of favor or become obsoleted if you remember to always bring up the underperformers to new levels. In the end you can just keep buffing and buffing and it evens itself out, TTK gets too low? buff defense. TTK gets too high? Buff offense. Its really that simple.

Even to the point that armor values became five digits? even when damage becomes four digits?

AC20 dealing 1000 damage! CT armor has 12400 armor. Come on, that's stupid.

Yes, sure nothing falls out of favor by bringing up underperformers, but likewise if you bring down overperformers. Same result, without the stupidity.

Dakota1000, on 02 January 2018 - 05:38 AM, said:

As for the Spirit Bear, it was a mech that relied on brawling and mobility, brawling wasn't at all meta at the time that I got it and still isn't really. It couldn't beat an Atlas-S in a straight fight since the Atlas had much more defensive quirks compared to the none on the Spirit Bear, but the SB could at least move around quickly for a new type of gameplay similar to that of my old Executioner but with a big ballistic and SRMs instead of just CSPLs all the time.

Really not seeing any pay-to-win there. It was more of an example of a mech that was at an average level being brought down to below average due to blanket nerfs that only thought to beat down a top tier mech (the KDK-3) without really worrying about the others that are affected.

And again, that's just over nerfing. Also, it's premium content, a 100 tonner that goes 64.8 KPH with MASC, that is built for almost the same splat attack of the Atlas. Come on, it's paying for increased capability, yes you do not automatically win, but it's a capability near out of reach for the free user.

Dakota1000, on 02 January 2018 - 05:38 AM, said:

Since PGI shows a track record of *always* over nerfing everything by taking everything the mech has going for it away at once I never really advocate for any nerfs around here.

I'm not PGI man. That's why i went to the community, i asked for their input, I don't have the power to just nerf it.

Dakota1000, on 02 January 2018 - 05:38 AM, said:

The reason I look at only top performers is because those are the ones that are most studied out of the meta, we know how they pair up to the other top performers and the things below that might as well not exist in the eyes of the competitive. The average becomes exceedingly hard to find, especially when builds are brought in. Does some potato in a 1 UAC2 + LRM20 Atlas end up bringing the average down or do we just cut off the extremes?

And couldn't be just they're underperformers when we put a baseline at a standard? What about the average informed pilot than the professionals?

The reason I look at the average because the meta sucks, its people exploiting abusing utilizing mechanics to their advantage by technicality resulting in a less fun game. Have you watched Paquiao vs Mayweather? Yes Mayweather won fairly, but it's just a boring game as a whole.

Dakota1000, on 02 January 2018 - 05:38 AM, said:

In general the meta revolves entirely around specialists, even under perfect weapon balance it isn't ideal to run mixed builds do to not being all effective in one range bracket, having to lead for multiple weapon speeds, having to control multiple firing groups, needing different ammo for each gun, etc.

"Why would we make the over all balance unhealthy, than fringe mechs needing buffs in the first place?"

Why would we kill off the fringe mechs in the name of balance when we could have balance without killing them? I've already given my own explanations of how I would do this.

Because it's sad to just have one mech to do only a few builds. It's boring that people just do the same thing to adhere to the meta so they'd most likely win.

Stop building around the meta, and change the meta instead.

Lily from animove, on 02 January 2018 - 05:59 AM, said:

if lasers were easy to use T5 wouldn't use LRM's as much. Lasers aren't easy to use properly they require skill because you need to keep them on a section or you waste heat into a irrelevant section. Especially against good opponents who know how to twist. You can't twist vs PPFLD.

Since when are we counting those terribad? You know they're the same ones that lurm from 1000m away?

Lasers are easy because you get result with less input, such as not having to lead your shots.

Lily from animove, on 02 January 2018 - 05:59 AM, said:

Also, yes, whatbout laservomit hellbringer and laservomit mad's and such? well ebcase hbr canno utilise the existign B's well, thats why. reverse questions: why do ballistic Hunchies exist? because thats a chassis that CAN use ballistics properly. HBR's an omni with bad restriction not able to ballistic. Make the HBR a battlemech and give it 2 cockpit high mounts for ballistics, and it would spit gauss as well. The issue is that ballistic builds are niche due to how they need to be build to work properly and many chassis do not have the tonnage. hardpoint or geometric setup to utilise ballistics well.

But when they do, they go for lasers. Hellbringers can boat 2x UAC5, UAC10 and even UAC20, but why is it the laser vomit is the go to with respect to the meta?

Lily from animove, on 02 January 2018 - 05:59 AM, said:

What if we suddenly amde a 10 heat 10damage (no spread) PPC? do you think people would use lasers anymore as they currently do? probably not, all HBR's would spit this new PPC. But PPC's are stupid "pay heat for spread" weapons making them in the end a lot less efficient than needed.

That's why I chose to nerf Lasers instead.

Lily from animove, on 02 January 2018 - 05:59 AM, said:

buffing and nerfign tech will not make balance EVER. mechs are way to different and trying to nerf specific meta builds will nerf all emchs much harder relying ont he same wepaons but not beeing meta. Buffing weapons to help inferior mechs does generate the opposite. you suddenly end up with a new meta because some other mech can do that weapon better and probably boat it. If you want balance you need to balance on mechs but also restrict boating because some mechs cannot ever boat. And to restrict boating, restrict heat first, because it restricts alphas. And then people would in best case just use multiple wepaons for different ranges being more efficient at those ranges.

But we (I) don't want to build a meta, i don't want people just adhering to a single build over and over, i don't want one-trick ponies, i want them to be more viable to different builds. You make one mech better in one role, then you obsolete another in terms of a role.

Lily from animove, on 02 January 2018 - 05:59 AM, said:

you know what, if you take a lost of all wepaons, and remove their names and name them wepaon 1 weapon 2 etc, you will suiddenly see laservomit doesn't exist, you will just see a few weapons who work well together and some who are niche. if we had 10 different ballistics from 2t till 15t (and i am not talking about MG's in here too) so every mech would find a possibility to urilise 3-4 of them at the same time once he has 3B+ hardpoints we would see them being used as well a lot more across the baord. but we don't have many B's well spread in tonnage, we just have medium heavy, heavy, superheavy, then, medium ehvay with spread, heavy with spread and superheavy with spread ballistics. and this makin them never work well in synergy generally. that just works on some builds. And with the infaltionary heatscale PGI allowed MWO to have lasers will just be a better allround wepaon.

How so? people would still flock over laser weapons and heavy alpha because it fits the meta better than the rest. If you mean, turn everything as ballistic weapons -- well obviously they won't be laser vomit.

We don't have 10 different ballistics on different weight-class categories, we are urged to invest tonnage with them compared to laser weapons. Whether Laser Vomit vanishes in your scenario, it's irrelevant, we have a completely different environment where different things happen.

FupDup, on 02 January 2018 - 10:35 AM, said:

Why are you even nerfing the Inner Sphere ones? They ain't the issue.

And Micros? Bruh, pls stahp.

Because IS has ballistics too. It just fits in the model. Sure, i guess IS lasers are kind of okay, but that's just the spirit of the idea i'm pitching in. I admitted that my specified numbers wouldn't be balanced anyways.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 02 January 2018 - 04:50 PM.

[K O Z A K]

All lasers should burn for 30 seconds, and be able to shoot down all other weapons, and also be able to stop other lasers, then we'll finally be able to do mech lightsaber fights

[Y E O N N E]

If the larger ballistics completed one fire-cooldown-fire cyclein roughly the time it takes a cERML to complete its burn, you'd have more people using ACs since they could at least participate in the trade. The big volleys would be roughly even with a big laser volley (e.g. AC/30 x2) with the option to slam out more damage if the target doesn't cover again and the drawbacks of ammo, flight time, and run speed.

The thing about increasing laser duration is that it ends up pushing us toward poptarts even harder because the damage rate isn't high enough to make the laser volley competitive with the PPFLD. So that means more Summoners with ERPPC, more bouncing Grasshoppers with HPPC (appropriate!), etc.

[The6thMessenger]

Yeonne Greene, on 02 January 2018 - 05:37 PM, said:

If the larger ballistics completed one fire-cooldown-fire cyclein roughly the time it takes a cERML to complete its burn, you'd have more people using ACs since they could at least participate in the trade. The big volleys would be roughly even with a big laser volley (e.g. AC/30 x2) with the option to slam out more damage if the target doesn't cover again and the drawbacks of ammo, flight time, and run speed.

The thing about increasing laser duration is that it ends up pushing us toward poptarts even harder because the damage rate isn't high enough to make the laser volley competitive with the PPFLD. So that means more Summoners with ERPPC, more bouncing Grasshoppers with HPPC (appropriate!), etc.

Well, yes i agree the damage rate needs to be competitive -- although it also needs to be balanced.

I think PPCs are kind of already balanced by the instantaneous spike of heat, and the high heat in the first place, as well as the weight difference. i.e. you can have 3 ERML for 1 LPPC, 6 ERML for 1 PPC. But sure, i guess that the damage/tick should be adjusted to still be competitive, but we'll need to figure out how much we'd increase the duration and still make them competitive.

Any suggestions on the laser duration? Although i know that the heavy Large Laser needs to be at the longest -- and 2.00s as pointed out by Dago.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 02 January 2018 - 05:49 PM.

[K O Z A K]

If we could freaking pick what mechs/loadouts we want to use after we know what map we'd be playing, you'd see dakka and srm/ac/lbx brawling builds picked over lasers a lot more

[Xetelian]

:EDIT:

I read it wrong. It was Cooldown not duration.

The title of the thread was Duration and I didn't read it very closely and didn't see that it said cooldown.

4 second beam duration on a HLL?


So you want people to die every other time they fire their HLL? 8-12 seconds of return fire from most mechs is death for anything but a DWF.

Just imagine an SHC with 2 HLL, a fairly common sight, trying to tank 4 seconds of damage each time they peak.


Most people don't hide before their lasers finish, and if they do, why ever bring a 16 heat weapon to do <10 damage?


The PPFLD meta hasn't gone away but it will be all everyone brings if this happens.

Edited by Xetelian, 02 January 2018 - 07:09 PM.

[FupDup]

The6thMessenger, on 02 January 2018 - 05:45 PM, said:

Any suggestions on the laser duration? Although i know that the heavy Large Laser needs to be at the longest -- and 2.00s as pointed out by Dago.

I don't think any laser should have a longer duration than current, except maybe the IS LPL if it gets its damage restored and a few extra meters of range.

Just reduce the damage on some of the Clan beams. Can't dance around the issue forever.

[The6thMessenger]

Xetelian, on 02 January 2018 - 06:13 PM, said:

4 second beam duration on a HLL?

That's the cooldown dumdum, it's 2 seconds. Now if they were chainfiring 4 HLLs, that's 4 seconds -- but you're doing 60 damage so, i guess it's fine.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 02 January 2018 - 06:31 PM.

[Mechrophilia]

Instead of ghost heat, maybe PGI should have used "added-duration-percent" for multiple lasers fired on an upward curve. The more lasers, the longer duration.

Moreover, laser duration doesn't exist in tabletop. You can tweak it all you want without messing up "lore" if that's the concern.

[Anjian]

Why not lower laser damage when the mech reaches a state of high heat?

[Xetelian]

The6thMessenger, on 02 January 2018 - 06:30 PM, said:

That's the cooldown dumdum, it's 2 seconds. Now if they were chainfiring 4 HLLs, that's 4 seconds -- but you're doing 60 damage so, i guess it's fine.

Ok, my mistake.



6 seconds of cycle time would be a lot better than 7 seconds but the duration would still be rather brutal.

[The6thMessenger]

Xetelian, on 02 January 2018 - 07:05 PM, said:

Ok, my mistake.



6 seconds of cycle time would be a lot better than 7 seconds but the duration would still be rather brutal.

It's supposed to be brutal, that's literally 15 damage/shot, out of a 4 ton weapon. And it's cumulative cooldown is somewhat the same with the current iteration, it's just readjusted from 18 damage to 15 damage, along with appropriate heat and cooldown adjustment.

[Thorqemada]

Lasers should work with a heat bar like RACs and Beamlaser have a steady uninterupted beam until weapon overheating and Pulse Lasers the same but with pulses - Pulse Laser do more damage per pulse bcs you can put higher energy into a pulse than a beam at the cost of heat and weight ofc.

But both weapons are not implemented in that way...

Edited by Thorqemada, 02 January 2018 - 07:29 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

The6thMessenger, on 02 January 2018 - 05:45 PM, said:

Well, yes i agree the damage rate needs to be competitive -- although it also needs to be balanced.

I think PPCs are kind of already balanced by the instantaneous spike of heat, and the high heat in the first place, as well as the weight difference. i.e. you can have 3 ERML for 1 LPPC, 6 ERML for 1 PPC. But sure, i guess that the damage/tick should be adjusted to still be competitive, but we'll need to figure out how much we'd increase the duration and still make them competitive.

Any suggestions on the laser duration? Although i know that the heavy Large Laser needs to be at the longest -- and 2.00s as pointed out by Dago.

TBQH? +7.5% across the board if you want a broad stroke.

Personally, though I feel it's more nuanced than that. I think the IS LPL can sustain a nerf to 0.9 seconds if it gets its damage back. I think the ERML can sustain a nerf to 1.00 seconds if it gets its cooldown buffed (it also needs a heat reduction, but that addresses a different problem). I do not think the standard ML should be nerfed on duration at all, nor should any of the smalls (Clan and IS). There are other minor tweaks that can be made, but overall I think the problem lies elsewhere. I have always felt that standard AC cool-down is too long. Without having sat down to do any calculations, I think if we make it something like 10-15% shorter than the UAC cooldown and we might start something good. I also feel that UACs should be a little more reliable; if you could count on at least getting a double-tap out then a pair of UACs with lasers is a lot more attractive over Gauss or nothing. Make it jam after the round releases, or decrease jam chance in exchange for longer duration, I dunno. Rule of thumb is that ACs ought to win on a full expose and UACs should be more ideal for a quick burst.

[LordNothing]

the problem i have with lasers is that they make all the other weapons suck in comparison. duration would really bring things into alignment. they are used by good units in fp, on mwowc builds, not to mention my entire clan deck. if thats not an indication of laser dominance i dont know what is. the point and click adventure game needs to be suppressed.

thing that really makes lasers different is that they are designed to be boated. individually they would be completely worthless and need to be either boated outright or used (usually in 2s or 4s) to add some extra firepower to mixed builds (or backup weapons). then you got really expensive weapons like the gauss rifle or the uac20 or mrm40 or cerppc/hppc and so on which can really stand on their own in any build where boating them is usually impractical outside of troll builds. you really cant balance them on their stats alone without accounting for usage scenarios.

the ac5 example is a good one because thats a good stand alone weapon for a medium or perhaps a light (like an urbie). with 2t ammo thats equivalent in weight to 8 meds (or 4 medpulse) and 2 extra heat sinks. given all the disadvantages of the ac5 the 8 meds come out on top. lasers win in dps, in alpha, in pretty much every way but range and ppfld. problem is that you take that ac5 and introduce it to an annihilator and you got a boat, that finally out dpses but still doesnt out-alpha the 8 tons of lasers. of course you put those lasers on an assault you are probibly going to pair it with several large class lasers because you can.

more baseline duration across the board, ghost duration (to suppress boating and give small numbers of lasers a fighting chance), and interruptable beams on weapons that fire over a second and a half.

Edited by LordNothing, 02 January 2018 - 08:35 PM.

[Tarogato]

I agree.

What I didn't like about the cooldown nerf on the medium lasers was that... the cERML DPS wasn't really beholden to its cooldown value, it's more of a hidey-pokey weapon so it didn't feel the nerf. Whereas the IS ML and ERML are shorter range, they're slightly more commit-y and need that DPS in order to have an advantage (compete) inside the cERML range. The cooldown nerf really hurt them.

And for far too long in MWO laservomit has generally been a little bit too easy and powerful. I would nerf pretty much all laser durations universally, probably by 10%, while compensating by reducing the cooldowns to get back to the same DPS values for all weapons. Of course, I would also buff some other weapons. Rather than nerf lasers by 20%, I would rather nerf them by 10% but buff ballistics and missiles by 10%. Made-up numbers of course.

[Dago Red]

Hazeclaw, on 02 January 2018 - 05:20 PM, said:

All lasers should burn for 30 seconds, and be able to shoot down all other weapons, and also be able to stop other lasers, then we'll finally be able to do mech lightsaber fights

Or DBZ beam struggles!