1125 replies to this topic

[Khobai]

Quote

Hot running 35 pinpoint on heavies compared to laservomit builds punching way into the 60. Not an issue at all.

60 damage laser vomit isnt acceptable either

laser vomit also needs to be nerfed

[Johnathan Von Tanner]

Khobai, on 08 February 2018 - 01:56 AM, said:

60 damage laser vomit isnt acceptable either

laser vomit also needs to be nerfed

You can take my lights, you can take my poptarts. You WILL not take my hellbringers!

[Khobai]

Quote

You can take my lights, you can take my poptarts. You WILL not take my hellbringers!

i dont see any other way around it

if you want clans to use anything besides lasers then lasers need to get nerfed

[Johnathan Von Tanner]

Khobai, on 08 February 2018 - 02:01 AM, said:

i dont see any other way around it

if you want clans to use anything besides lasers then lasers need to get nerfed

I know the nerf culture conditioning is strong man. FIGHT IT! Try imagining a game where other weapons combos DON'T suck and you will find many different loadouts become viable and fun.

[AccessTime]

Trying to fine tune an inherently flawed system to begin with... a good example is mechanics like "ghost heat" that need to go in favor of a much shallower or limited heat scale.

Overall, weapons are just far too deadly, this is supposed to be a game of armor and endurance, not precision alpha strikes that can seriously damage a mech in a single attempt. Especially at the higher levels of play, the game is very unforgiving; there is so much immediate firepower out there that one single mistake can take you out of the match.

[Bud Crue]

Too much for a casual like me to comment on with a critical eye after only one read through. I will say that the numbers seem to make sense for the most part...it looks good. I have concerns over what seems to me to be a natural next step of dequirkening as some of the values would seem to suggest that; and it is mho that quirks in some cases need to be used more rather than less to give mechs not only flavor but to address true outliers (this is about returning fun after all and viable variety is fun) but my assumption my very well be wrong and is an argument for another day.

As to the effort itself and those who undertook it: Thank you. Its a breath of fresh air to see something this constructive being viewed with this much interest both from those critiquing it and you who are responsible for it (take a hint PGI). Now we just wait for PGI to say their say and do what they will. I shall try my best to keep my cynicism silent.

BTW: for those of you who haven't yet: go take a look at the reddit thread. Lots of insightful commentary there.
https://www.reddit.c...balance_update/

[meteorol]

AccessTime, on 08 February 2018 - 02:16 AM, said:

Trying to fine tune an inherently flawed system to begin with... a good example is mechanics like "ghost heat" that need to go in favor of a much shallower or limited heat scale.

Overall, weapons are just far too deadly, this is supposed to be a game of armor and endurance, not precision alpha strikes that can seriously damage a mech in a single attempt. Especially at the higher levels of play, the game is very unforgiving; there is so much immediate firepower out there that one single mistake can take you out of the match.

How many PVP FPS are forgiving exactly? Make a mistake in CS, BF, CoD, Overwatch, or whatever and you are literally dead in less than a second. At higher level of CS play, mistakes kill you with almost 100% certainty. MWO is already a lot more forgiving than other PVP games on the market. By a wide margin. A very, very wide margin.

Mechs got obliterated in a few seconds in previous MW titles' multiplayer if you made a mistake, btw. What people hope to achieve, this "walk around for ages while getting shot without dying because i'm a big bad robot", that's people trying to convert their single player experience into multiplayer games. Mistakes are punished in multiplayer PVP. That's just a fact. And they should. MWOs skill ceiling is already low enough for a Direwolf with a single class 1 JJ to hover over it. If you lower that any further, it will at some point lose its appeal to people who play it because they want to compete against others (which, at the end of the day, is the point of a PVP game).

Edited by meteorol, 08 February 2018 - 03:10 AM.

[Curccu]

dario03, on 07 February 2018 - 07:07 PM, said:

I found it a little odd that it says that cssrm is fine but atm is to powerful vs lights. I assume this is because atm range and also because atm can also be good against bigger mechs where as streaks not so much. However I disagree about streaks. Them being balanced by being anti-light weapons but bad against heavies and assaults has never made sense to me. They should be rebalanced so that they are effectively nerfed vs smaller mechs but buffed vs bigger mechs.

They cannot be balanced like that by changing numbers, whole weapon mechanism have to be re-engineered to do that.

[cougurt]

these proposed changes all look excellent, would love to see a PTS done and try them out at the very least.

[sycocys]

Nerfs kind of have to happen after the massive hardpoint inflation that's been going on since the introduction of clan mechs.

[justcallme A S H]

Asym, on 07 February 2018 - 09:21 PM, said:

OP. No. you do not represent "us". You and the crew you invited aren't "us". Not even close. Do not recommend anything in our name because you Do Not Represent "us" at all.

Good try but you'll never find "balance" because balance isn't about what MW is about. It's about struggle between two completely different cultures fighting over the same space. It's the "Cold War" storyline and balance has nothing to do with it because there wasn't balance in the first place. Good grief. What we should be asking PGI to do is de-nerf everything and start over. Make all weapons as deadly as they were designed to be and call it a day....

No.

What part of the below was in any way, unclear?

justcallme A S H, on 07 February 2018 - 06:05 PM, said:

Some of the usual Clan Apoligists around here need to do the same and do not derail this initiative with bottom of the barrel balance commentary or comments about things you have been proven many times, to not understand. You do not balance from the bottom, ever. Not being rude either, but this stuff needs to be fixed and it won't if it continues.

Some of you Clan apologist/lorehounds that, are honestly not that good at the game, need to take a back seat. The game is in such a position because of you in many ways and the constant carrying on without any idea what balance actually means in a FPS at a decent level.

And I don't need any of this in a rude way. I mean this in a way that hopefully, just maybe, if you guys just stop this game might actually become fun again.

It's honestly time to take a back seat fella's. Let some proper numbers, calculations and understanding of the game take a forward seat just for a while and watch MWO become great again.

[Nema Nabojiv]

Some feedback on the doc.

Yays:
- LBX and UACs
- missiles and artemis
- all small lasers, all pulse lasers
- PPC+gauss, PPCs in general

Nays:
- ATMs - they have 150 meters effective window, that's limiting enough.

- Clan ERs and HMLs - right now they're high-exposure high-heat high-reward combo. You suggest to make them same-exposure same-heat lower-reward, WTF?

- RACs - no buffs without reducing explosions. Or they will become new uber weapon.


On general approach - appreciate the effort, but if you suggest nerf you could have not bother at all, as we have PGI for all our nerfing needs and they never let us down on that.

[0Jiggs0]

I applaud the effort put into this, but the suggested changes seem intended to normalize IS and Clan weapons, when doing the opposite could produce a better result. This is not to say that Clan weapons and their IS counterparts should not be competitive with each other, only that their balance has no need to be symmetrical and in many cases shouldn't be. The proposed buff to IS MG base damage is a good case for asymmetrical balance (and the topic of a recent thread) which could be taken a step further to create distinctive gameplay styles for every weapon system, mech, and faction.

Per the IS MG buffs suggested in the document and mentioned above, IS MGs under-perform. The justification for the buff is empirically sound; Clan mechs can generally mount two of their MGs for each IS MG at the same weight, therefore, increased damage for the IS weapons is needed to maintain balance. While this balancing methodology is adequate for MGs, it is not so clearly suited for other weapons. Giving a base damage advantage to IS Lasers using the same justification would undermine one of the core themes of the game, Clan tech superiority. Maintaining this theme by giving an outright gameplay advantage to the Clans is obviously undesirable, but maintaining a thematic contrast most certainly is not. Returning to the Clan vs IS MG example, it could be argued that the damage buff would constitute a breach of the superior Clan tech theme as well, unless additional alterations to both weapons' performances were made to maintain thematic consistency. In this case, the IS would receive superior damage in exchange for weight and spread, reflecting a weapon that compensates for its shortcomings with brute force, while the Clans would possess more "refined" weaponry, having better range, spread, and crit damage. Adjust for a similar per-ton DPS, and now both weapons feel distinct to their factions, while remaining competitive with each other.

The approach above can be taken with every weapon class in the game. If Clan LRMs have superior tech, shouldn't they have better target tracking? How would the IS LRMs be compensated for their disadvantage? Better velocity, perhaps? These sorts of questions and design/balance approach, I believe, will lead to a much more enjoyable end result than statistical comparisons alone.

Thank you very much for putting this together, it shows a genuine dedication to the game and its success. I hope my feedback was helpful.

[iLLcapitan]

Looks great, please carry on and don't listen to Khobai he just wants to nerf everything lol.

[Angus McFife VI]

Khobai, on 08 February 2018 - 01:56 AM, said:

60 damage laser vomit isnt acceptable either

laser vomit also needs to be nerfed

I think its fine if the duration is long because then that requires a lot of face time and an enemy making a mistake, not to mention the skill required to keep a steady long burn.

Edited by Dont LRM me please, 08 February 2018 - 04:48 AM.

[Scyther]

Overall this list of changes looks good. I am not well enough versed in recent game mechanics to comment specifically on the numbers associated with each change. I would raise a couple questions:

-Most of the changes appear to be 'increases in effectiveness'. There are some balances with weight, heat, ammo etc. However what would the overall impact of all of these do to current TTK issues?

-Assuming that overall weapon usefulness is increased, how does this impact a typical QP match where you are going to have some decent players who can take full advantage of these changes mixed with some poor/new/unskilled players for whom the changes won't matter much since piloting, basic builds, map awareness, positioning etc will be major factors?

(Note: I don't personally feel it is wise to balance a game with only the decently competent players in mind, as experience has shown that only about 40% (or less) of any large games player base are decently competent.)

-I would ask a couple skilled players good with making builds (who aren't part of the drafting group), "How would you break this set of changes? IE, given this setup, what is the most broken/OP build you could make?" That helps test the extreme boundaries of what the changes enable.

Those questions might well be answered with "Fine, those issues have to be addressed with survivability changes to skill tree, quirks, basic mech armor/structure etc.", but they are the ones I would address on any large balance change.

Edit: Also, agree with OJiggsO above on the issue of not making Clan/IS weapons balanced by making them close-to-the-same. Better if each side has an individual 'flavor' making them competitive but not equal. For instance the Clan/Range vs IS/Brawl split has always seemed appropriate to me, so long as the IS has some opportunity to force a brawl while Clan has some options for maintaining range.

Edited by MadBadger, 08 February 2018 - 05:07 AM.

[dario03]

Curccu, on 08 February 2018 - 03:11 AM, said:

They cannot be balanced like that by changing numbers, whole weapon mechanism have to be re-engineered to do that.

They can if they can set spread based on target tonnage. Which might not be that difficult since we have had target info based on tonnage before, and they have made it so streaks don't target destroyed components.

[ROSS-128]

Even though competent players are often a minority, they are the ones that should drive balance because balancing for terrible players is frankly impossible. No matter how you try to help them out they will somehow keep being terrible, and it will always be because whatever killed them is OP. Bads... find a way.

That's why throughout this game's life cycle there has always been a group of Clan apologists insisting Clans were woefully UP and should be buffed instead of nerfed, even before quirks were introduced. You can't really do anything about bads being bad like that.

[Appogee]

A big part of the weapon balance challenge is due to hardpoint inflation.

Part of the reason we have such an illogical mess of weapon values and Mech quirks is that PGI have tried in some cases to nerf OP chassis and hardpoint combinations by changing the values of the weapons they boated (eg. the KDK-3 inspired nerf to C-UACs).

So I recommend you test how these new values play out when the various weapons are boated. Take the mech that offers the most energy hardpoints (a Gargoyle build perhaps) and then see what kind of sustainable DPS it will deliver when boating each laser type. Do the same for the Mech with the most Missile hardpoints, MGs, Gauss, etc etc etc.

Better to work out the outliers - and how to address their issues - ahead of time.

[Scyther]

Another point, having just re-perused Bud Crue's post above. As this proposal is 'one slice of the pie', I would agree with Bud's preference that quirks (or something very similar) be used more to balance mechs and tech bases rather than less. While the quirk system is finicky it is also a very BT-universe compatible concept, with techs fiddling with and repairing mechs and various manufacturers and Houses tweaking designs over time trying to keep older mechs competitive on the battlefield.

It is much better to take a little-played chassis, or even a new variant, and balance it with inherent quirks rather than to try to adjust all weapons to be equally effective on it. It just requires quirks to be somewhat more... carefully chosen than in the past.

It also allows for better differentiation between variants on a chassis. With 'rule of 3' gone, we need more reasons to buy more than the 'meta best' version of each chassis.

Edited by MadBadger, 08 February 2018 - 05:17 AM.