100 replies to this topic

[Curccu]

adamts01, on 07 February 2018 - 11:36 PM, said:

Big alphas aren't a problem, Big pinpoint alphas are. Big pinpoint damage is why this game has so many balance problems, why we have a timid poking meta where high mounts are vastly superior, why assaults don't push, why we have so many insane armor/structure quirks, why a single AC20 is a joke, and why boating is the be all end all tactic. Smaller alphas or introducing spread to large alphas would up face time, bring brawling back, and I'd argue promote a much more fun meta than peeking out from behind rocks every few seconds just to go back in to hiding.

That is pretty much what I said, OPs suggestion was remove ghost heat and have ghost shake after 50 damage, that removes long duration clan vomit over 50 dmg (ERML+LPL/HLL) but it enables 5xPPC, 5xLPL(50 damage with ,57 second burn time), 3xcERPPC, 5xERLL 4xcERLL alphas without penalty, now most of those mechs have to stagger those alphas OR at least wait longer time to cooldown if ghostheat is triggered.

[Khobai]

Quote

Forget all that. Instead of nerfing lasers let's un-nerf everything else. Bring back gauss/PPC. Bring back lower jam duration on UACs, tighten SRM and MRM spread. That's right, make the battlefield more deadly, not less.

TTK needs to be slower not faster

it makes more sense to nerf lasers than buff everything else

[adamts01]

Curccu, on 07 February 2018 - 11:53 PM, said:

That is pretty much what I said, OPs suggestion was remove ghost heat and have ghost shake after 50 damage, that removes long duration clan vomit over 50 dmg (ERML+LPL/HLL) but it enables 5xPPC, 5xLPL(50 damage with ,57 second burn time), 3xcERPPC, 5xERLL 4xcERLL alphas without penalty, now most of those mechs have to stagger those alphas OR at least wait longer time to cooldown if ghostheat is triggered.

OK. It didn't register that OP was limiting high-damage spreading to lasers only. I've always argued that all high-damage alphas should have an accuracy penalty, but that pinpoint could still be achieved through chain fire or smaller groups. I really think this would eliminate 90% of this game's balance problems and in practice be much more palatable than the try-hards want to admit, as nearly every game out there balances with a cone of fire or a recoil-based accuracy limiter.

[process]

Khobai, on 07 February 2018 - 04:35 PM, said:

lowering the heat cap just forces everyone to use dual gauss.

instead of laser vomit everyone will use dual gauss/laser instead and the alphastrikes will be just as big

lower heat cap would fix nothing and would only hurt the game by forcing dual gauss on everyone. or hurt the game by having to nerf gauss so badly that no one will ever use it again.

the best solution is to fix ghost heat so it doesnt have as many abusive loopholes.

Good, then that's the only weapon type we have to worry about. One solution is to compensate by increasing dissipation and adjusting other weapon's heat values. That way you get to keep your dual Gauss and have other weapons become more competitive.

Maybe taking more than 1 Gauss reduces your heat capacity by, say, 10 points out of a maximum of 30. That is a straightforward adjustment that could be visually accessed directly on the HUD.

My entire philosophy on balance is to get away from seemingly arbitrary, concealed mechanics that the player can't consistently account or compensate for. It can't be fun for new players and I'm sure it continues to frustrate older players. At least something like a charge limit is simple and discrete, better than ghost heat or ghost spread.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

process, on 08 February 2018 - 05:32 AM, said:

Good, then that's the only weapon type we have to worry about. One solution is to compensate by increasing dissipation and adjusting other weapon's heat values. That way you get to keep your dual Gauss and have other weapons become more competitive.

Maybe taking more than 1 Gauss reduces your heat capacity by, say, 10 points out of a maximum of 30. That is a straightforward adjustment that could be visually accessed directly on the HUD.

My entire philosophy on balance is to get away from seemingly arbitrary, concealed mechanics that the player can't consistently account or compensate for. It can't be fun for new players and I'm sure it continues to frustrate older players. At least something like a charge limit is simple and discrete, better than ghost heat or ghost spread.

Then people swap from gauss to AC10s. Anyone else remember back on page one how I said nerfing things just kills the item if its nerfed too bad and we just move down another step in the circles of bad?

So basically swap dual gauss to the lighter dual AC10s that don't kill your heatcap, then pair it up with a bunch of lasers, and we're right back at the issue again.

Not that high alpha laser+gauss would even be a problem in a lower heatcap zone, high DPS builds and splat builds would, seeing as a splat build can spit out more damage in a shot than a heatcapped laser build, so much so that even with the spread you're getting more damage on the component you want to hit than the other guy for less heat.


There's never "the only weapon we have to worry about" in balance, when changing one weapon you must take all others into account and compare them and different builds available, or else its just a constant stream of nerfs that do nothing but shift the meta to the next best thing indefinitely.

Buff bad weapons, leave good weapons as the baseline, because that's what they are, the base quality of weapons that people want to use in the meta.

Edited by Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood, 08 February 2018 - 07:18 AM.

[process]

Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood, on 08 February 2018 - 07:17 AM, said:

Then people swap from gauss to AC10s. Anyone else remember back on page one how I said nerfing things just kills the item if its nerfed too bad and we just move down another step in the circles of bad?

So basically swap dual gauss to the lighter dual AC10s that don't kill your heatcap, then pair it up with a bunch of lasers, and we're right back at the issue again.

Not that high alpha laser+gauss would even be a problem in a lower heatcap zone, high DPS builds and splat builds would, seeing as a splat build can spit out more damage in a shot than a heatcapped laser build, so much so that even with the spread you're getting more damage on the component you want to hit than the other guy for less heat.

What's wrong with that? For SRMs, if you are able to get in range, you should be outperforming a Gauss-focused mech. Likewise, the AC10 should be better than Gauss in certain situations. None of this is a nerf to individual weapon system, rather it's a shift from high heat-high alpha to low heat DPS.

Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood, on 08 February 2018 - 07:17 AM, said:

There's never "the only weapon we have to worry about" in balance, when changing one weapon you must take all others into account and compare them and different builds available, or else its just a constant stream of nerfs that do nothing but shift the meta to the next best thing indefinitely.

Buff bad weapons, leave good weapons as the baseline, because that's what they are, the base quality of weapons that people want to use in the meta.

What I meant is Gauss weapons are the only outliers in a heat-balance discussion. My base objection to the current system is that the high heat cap allows for the high alphas everyone is complaining about, and is why we have ghost heat to compensate. It's a band-aid solution to a self-inflicted problem.

Edited by process, 08 February 2018 - 07:31 AM.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

process, on 08 February 2018 - 07:30 AM, said:

What's wrong with that? For SRMs, if you are able to get in range, you should be outperforming a Gauss-focused mech. Likewise, the AC10 should be better than Gauss in certain situations. None of this is a nerf to individual weapon system, rather it's a shift from high heat-high alpha to low heat DPS.


What I meant is Gauss weapons are the only outliers in a heat-balance discussion. My base objection to the current system is that the high heat cap allows for the high alphas everyone is complaining about, and is why we have ghost heat to compensate. It's a band-aid solution to a self-inflicted problem.

I never mentioned SRMs, MRMs exist too now and outrange CERMLs.

Gauss isn't that much of an outlier compared to the base ACs though considering the alpha strikes you can still bring with other builds. Gauss already has many other restrictions on it such as it being super explosive, having a charge up, only 2 can even charge at once, having pitiful DPS, and being very heavy.

Compared to the AC10, the only things the gauss wins at is higher velocity, higher damage per shot, and 1.75 more heat per shot.

[process]

Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood, on 08 February 2018 - 07:47 AM, said:

I never mentioned SRMs, MRMs exist too now and outrange CERMLs.

Gauss isn't that much of an outlier compared to the base ACs though considering the alpha strikes you can still bring with other builds. Gauss already has many other restrictions on it such as it being super explosive, having a charge up, only 2 can even charge at once, having pitiful DPS, and being very heavy.

Compared to the AC10, the only things the gauss wins at is higher velocity, higher damage per shot, and 1.75 more heat per shot.

SRMs are the most potent for splat in terms of damage/heat, damage/time, and damage/ton. MRMs have higher potential damage but they spread, and admittedly I think their role is currently encroaching on SRM's role.

The restrictions on Gauss are largely a result of the near-instantaneous, high-pinpoint damage from great distance. Again I don't necessarily agree with the current implementation, but I'm not advocating for changing any of its fundamental values, merely offering an alternate mechanism to balance that doesn't involve ghost heat or ghost bloom.

[Hobbles v]

Dont nerf lasers. Every time pgi tries they end up stealth nerfing everything else. Buff alternatives.

Eg 1: recent nerf to clan heat gen nodes. Mechs with fewer heat sinks (dakka and missile mechs) relied on those nodes for a higher effective heat cap in lieu of heat sinks for short term brawls or bursts of dps staredowns.
High aplha laser mechs noticed it less as they still have a buttload of heatsinks to cool off quickly.

[R Valentine]

Hobbles v, on 08 February 2018 - 08:06 AM, said:

Dont nerf lasers. Every time pgi tries they end up stealth nerfing everything else. Buff alternatives.

Eg 1: recent nerf to clan heat gen nodes. Mechs with fewer heat sinks (dakka and missile mechs) relied on those nodes for a higher effective heat cap in lieu of heat sinks for short term brawls or bursts of dps staredowns.
High aplha laser mechs noticed it less as they still have a buttload of heatsinks to cool off quickly.

No, don't buff alternatives. TTK needs to increase, not decrease. We don't need to faster than we already are. It's ridiculous right.now. Clan laser vomit is way too good. Nerf the hell out of it.

[ROSS-128]

A gauss rifle only generates 0.17h/s, double Gauss generates 0.34h/s. A SHS engine by itself cools 1.2h/s (PGI buffed it from 1.0 during the previous heatsink "balance"pass), a DHS engine by itself cools 2.0h/s.

No matter how low you go, lowering the heatcap only makes the Gauss Rifle stronger. Heatcap is not a universal panacea.

In terms of DPS overall TTK is just fine though, a typical IS laser build does about 2DPS, a typical Clan laser build does about 4DPS. The only reason laser vomit gets quick kills is that two Clan laser mechs or 3-4 IS laser mechs focusing fire can get a kill in one volley, allowing them to ignore DPS for that target. The Clan mechs are the only ones really out of line at all. That's mostly because getting 2 people to focus is easier than 3-4 people, and a cool-shot can let you be your own second mech in a pinch.

You're never going to get Singleplayer levels of TTK. NPCs typically have heavily nerfed weapons, they don't fire at full capacity, they typically don't focus fire, and they tend to have artificially bad aim, all to artificially inflate the Player's power against them. You can't go into a multiplayer game expecting to be the Player Character while everyone else plays the role of NPCs.

It would be interesting to see the people who endlessly advocate for longer TTK in general put up some hard numbers though. How long are we talking here? And how long do you think it will be when 4+ mechs are focusing fire?

[Kubernetes]

Khobai, on 08 February 2018 - 12:17 AM, said:

TTK needs to be slower not faster

Why?

Quote

it makes more sense to nerf lasers than buff everything else

The nerfing mentality is what got us here. The Clan HLL is a piece of s**t. It's only dominant because every other weapon system got nerfed into oblivion. I would never equip heavy vomit if we had viable gauss+ERPPC, 13 dmg CLPL, or UAC10s that didn't take forever to unjam. At this rate all weapons will end up the same flavor of ineffective, but hey you'll get your slow TTK!

[R Valentine]

ROSS-128, on 08 February 2018 - 08:47 AM, said:

A gauss rifle only generates 0.17h/s, double Gauss generates 0.34h/s. A SHS engine by itself cools 1.2h/s (PGI buffed it from 1.0 during the previous heatsink "balance"pass), a DHS engine by itself cools 2.0h/s.

No matter how low you go, lowering the heatcap only makes the Gauss Rifle stronger. Heatcap is not a universal panacea.

In terms of DPS overall TTK is just fine though, a typical IS laser build does about 2DPS, a typical Clan laser build does about 4DPS. The only reason laser vomit gets quick kills is that two Clan laser mechs or 3-4 IS laser mechs focusing fire can get a kill in one volley, allowing them to ignore DPS for that target. The Clan mechs are the only ones really out of line at all. That's mostly because getting 2 people to focus is easier than 3-4 people, and a cool-shot can let you be your own second mech in a pinch.

You're never going to get Singleplayer levels of TTK. NPCs typically have heavily nerfed weapons, they don't fire at full capacity, they typically don't focus fire, and they tend to have artificially bad aim, all to artificially inflate the Player's power against them. You can't go into a multiplayer game expecting to be the Player Character while everyone else plays the role of NPCs.

It would be interesting to see the people who endlessly advocate for longer TTK in general put up some hard numbers though. How long are we talking here? And how long do you think it will be when 4+ mechs are focusing fire?

Gauss rifles are the only weapon you can balance with CD nerfs BECAUSE it's not heat dependent. Energy weapons are limited by heat anyways, so CD nerfs are hardly noticeable. Gauss CD needs to be 8 seconds minimum, and 8.5 or 9 for clan. You should have to pay for generating no heat. Don't give me the, "but but but, GAUSS RIFLE EXPLODE!" Oh please, if you're at the point where your gauss rifles are being crit you were on your way out anyways, and clans are auto-cased so they don't lose half the mech like IS does. Extended CDs between gauss firing is the only way to reliably balance it. That gives brawlers a chance to close in before taking another hit. You can even remove the charge up time if you do that. It'll no longer be relevant.

[blood4blood]

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here's an old screen from a MW4 game that shows a perfectly reasonable build IMHO:

[FupDup]

blood4blood, on 08 February 2018 - 09:58 AM, said:

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here's an old screen from a MW4 game that shows a perfectly reasonable build IMHO:

Pretty sure that's a No Heat, Unlimited Ammo server. Therefore, unreasonable by definition.

Oh, and also 3PV.

Edited by FupDup, 08 February 2018 - 10:09 AM.

[Hobbles v]

Kiran Yagami, on 08 February 2018 - 08:15 AM, said:

No, don't buff alternatives. TTK needs to increase, not decrease. We don't need to faster than we already are. It's ridiculous right.now. Clan laser vomit is way too good. Nerf the hell out of it.

Ttk is fine. You just need to learn how to survive better. Its already waaaaaaaay longer than pretty much any shooter or pilot sim.

Decreasing offensive output will just make good players even more dominant as they already know how to roll damage and avoid it. Just lets them slip up a couple more times before death.

Doubling the health on everything or halving the damage output will not save the scrubs who stare at firing lines or remain stationary for more than a couple seconds or straight up lack situational awareness. They will still die to focussed fire in under 3 seconds.

[blood4blood]

FupDup, on 08 February 2018 - 10:06 AM, said:

Pretty sure that's a No Heat, Unlimited Ammo server. Therefore, unreasonable by definition.

Oh, and also 3PV.

Honestly don't recall that particular game, but that build was definitely used in both HOLA and NHUA games. I can take or leave 3PV, I regularly played both in MW4. My point is TTK is too high in MWO, no weapons need nerfed, weapons need buffed instead.

PS And I already know my opinion is in the minority. I enjoyed sniper wars more than brawl fests, though, it's one of the many reasons I still think MW4 was a better game than MWO.

Edited by blood4blood, 08 February 2018 - 10:31 AM.

[R Valentine]

Hobbles v, on 08 February 2018 - 10:07 AM, said:

Ttk is fine. You just need to learn how to survive better. Its already waaaaaaaay longer than pretty much any shooter or pilot sim.

Decreasing offensive output will just make good players even more dominant as they already know how to roll damage and avoid it. Just lets them slip up a couple more times before death.

Doubling the health on everything or halving the damage output will not save the scrubs who stare at firing lines or remain stationary for more than a couple seconds or straight up lack situational awareness. They will still die to focussed fire in under 3 seconds.

What pilot sims would those be? And I don't give a damn about shooters. Mechwarrior is a sim, not a shooter. It should always be more sim like than shooter like. And no, TTK is not fine. It needs to be longer.

[FupDup]

Kiran Yagami, on 08 February 2018 - 01:38 PM, said:

What pilot sims would those be? And I don't give a damn about shooters. Mechwarrior is a sim, not a shooter. It should always be more sim like than shooter like. And no, TTK is not fine. It needs to be longer.

While I don't agree with the guys who want mechs to die faster than they already do, I do have to point out that if MW was truly a simulator that would mean faster kills. A simulation is designed to mimic real life physics as closely as possible.

In the real world, powerful weapons like the Gauss Rifle would punch straight through your armor and put a hole in your reactor. Making mechs take a long time to kill is not realistic, therefore not fitting the term "simulation." Hell, the fact that we even have giant walking gun platforms is inherently unrealistic.

The long TTK is just a gameplay choice to make the MW series stand out from other first-person games, it's not about realism/simulation.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Kiran Yagami, on 08 February 2018 - 01:38 PM, said:

What pilot sims would those be? And I don't give a damn about shooters. Mechwarrior is a sim, not a shooter. It should always be more sim like than shooter like. And no, TTK is not fine. It needs to be longer.

Mechwarrior games have always been shooters, what are you on about?