^ What Yeonne said. The "Dartboard of Balance" is a bit of a meme around here.
Popcat, on 11 March 2018 - 04:09 PM, said:
One other thought do you think this is because the users are improperly using good mech's, The variety of possible builds or just PGI not knowing the mechs well?
Some 'Mechs, like the ENF-5P and GHR-5J, have been bad from day one of their existence in game, but have been hit again and again with nerfs applied to the weapons they depend on, as when the global UAC jam chance and duration nerfs came down, or the LPL damage nerf, or ISLL burn duration nerf. Other times, they've been hit with
specific nerfs, at the same time as other objectively superior 'Mechs filling the same niche got softer nerfs or even buffs.
Other 'Mechs, like the Timberwolf and Dire Wolf, were at one point the apex 'Mechs in their class, and received (at the time well-justified) variant-specific nerfs... which were
not rolled back when power creep and successive balance passes rendered them obsolete compared to newer additions to the game.
It happens to weapons, too. IS small pulse has never been an OP or even a
good weapon, except on the tiny handful of fast lights with enough hardpoints to boat it effectively (which, really, was a stable of two: the FS9-A and the LCT-1E)... but was nevertheless hit with a damage nerf when PGI rebalanced the medium and small lasers. Result? Nobody uses the thing anymore, because it isn't worth the tonnage even as a backup weapon.
Another example: the KDK-3 formed a meta around itself after the Kodiak's release, so PGI nerfed the weapons it used rather than just the specific overperforming variant, which affected
every single 'Mech using UACs, including underperformers like the aforementioned ENF-5P, resulting in UACs being all but abandoned for months in favor of PPC+Gauss. Which, some months later, was
also nerfed, resulting in the current laservomit/Gaussvomit meta.
Overall, balance is in a pretty good place, but on a case-by-case basis, it's wildly inconsistent, and since PGI plans to balance Solaris variant-by-variant, a lot of us are extremely skeptical that they'll get it right the first (or tenth) time around. We are, of course, open to the possibility of being pleasantly surprised, but we're too jaded by now to
expect that we will be.
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