347 replies to this topic

[Reno Blade]

When we had the PPC meta, I was saying that it's too easy to hit with PPCs.
Then PPCs (and some ACs) got velocity nerfs and they are much harder to play with, without a lot of practice and concentration.
So imho these are in a good spot in regards to difficulty.

cUAC20 with a 5 bullet burst are difficult to use to get all 5 shots on target and even more so on the same location.
Imho, this is great.

ACs are easier to use with single bullets, beside the damn slow velocity.
I would prefere if the difficulty comes from the burst (spreading damage) and the velocity is increased.
But having std ACs also using burst would make them very similar, so the question remain how IS/Clan could be different, or how the uACs could be changed.
Just saying Clan have 1 more bullet than IS, or longer time between bullets is what we currently have.

Some option floating around was to have 100% jam chance, but the jam-duration is the same as the cooldown (e.g. 4s cd and 4s jam).
That way you would have 2x cooldown with double tap, or normal cd without and have the same DPS than normal ACs (besides the longer burst duration maybe).

I think the 20s could use some cd, heat and velocity buffs, but need burst to compensate.
It would be easier to hit with and use in a build (e.g. brawling) but need more skill to get all damage on the target, similar to the MRMs.

So overall, longer bursts and longer beam duration is the key change we need before we can think of any "buff".

Pulse lasers on the other hand need a different role by just halfing (or even lower) the cooldown.

[Wraith 1]

These changes would be a massive improvement to balance if implemented exactly as they are. I would be very happy and would probably pull out my tiny college student wallet and buy more MC.

Having said that, here are my thoughts on the exact minutiae:

- IS flamers are twice as heavy as C-Flamers, and IS mechs have fewer energy hardpoints to spare, but IS flamers have no advantage whatsoever. I agree that adding direct damage to flamers could be potentially broken, and 0.5 tons isn't nearly enough to justify a vastly more powerful weapon, but some extra range or a longer time to fill the overheat bar would be nice.

- Add me to the list of people concerned about the C-AC/5 and C-UAC/20 overtaking their IS counterparts. The IS AC/5 is a very strong weapon that the Clans have no direct analogue for, and I feel like a large velocity buff for C-ACs would be more appropriate for the sake of asymmetric balance and faction 'flavor'. Conversely, I almost think the UAC/20s are so bad that they both could go down one shell, but that's probably crazy and not something PGI would be up for.

- While I think dual HGR is currently better than dual AC/20 ever was, I can see why having a comparable level of PPFLD combined with a higher fire rate could be a little concerning. As a compromise to increasing the AC/20 ghost heat threshold, I'd like to see the heat penalty reduced slightly. Especially for (C-)UAC/20, which don't have the huge PPFLD to worry about, and weren't even that scary on the PTS when they had zero ghost heat.

- IS LBX still don't have any notable advantage for their increased weight and slots. (3x falloff LUL) Not really a problem since IS have more brawl/ballistic options anyways, but a little bit of velocity or cooldown would be neat.

- Clan laservomit is one of my least favorite builds to play as or against, but I don't think both C-ERML and C-HLL need to be nerfed in the same patch. C-HLL already seems a little uncommon compared to C-ERLL in solo and FW, and the nerf to C-ERML would still hit most of the (competent) builds that use C-HLL. Not saying either nerf is necessarily bad, just that if I were Chris, I wouldn't add them both at the same time.

- Brawl is kinda dead right now, and a partial revert of the artemis and C-SPL nerfs doesn't seem like enough to bring back the builds that relied on those. Possibly just me; I am biased toward brawl meta. Can't comment on μPLs or ERμLs because there never were good builds that relied on those.

Edited by Wraith 1, 10 June 2018 - 09:25 PM.

[Khobai]

Quote

While I think dual HGR is currently better than dual AC/20 ever was, I can see why having a comparable level of PPFLD combined with a higher fire rate could be a little concerning. As a compromise to increasing the AC/20 ghost heat threshold, I'd like to see the heat penalty reduced slightly. Especially for (C-)UAC/20, which don't have the huge PPFLD to worry about, and weren't even that scary on the PTS when they had zero ghost heat.

dual HGR shouldnt be allowed either. huge PPFLD breaks the game. HGR tries to balance it with short range and long cooldown, but its still stupid and unfun to get hit with that much damage in one location and not be able to avoid it.

instead HGR should be buffed to be a stronger singleton weapon. And dual HGR should have a heavy ghost heat penalty. So you can still dual HGR if you want to, but you have to pay the extra heat for it.

[Jay Leon Hart]

Khobai, on 10 June 2018 - 03:48 AM, said:

dual HGR shouldnt be allowed either. huge PPFLD breaks the game. HGR tries to balance it with short range and long cooldown, but its still stupid and unfun to get hit with that much damage in one location and not be able to avoid it.

instead HGR should be buffed to be a stronger singleton weapon. And dual HGR should have a heavy ghost heat penalty. So you can still dual HGR if you want to, but you have to pay the extra heat for it.

If they make it smaller, sure, otherwise no. STD engine only is already a massive drawback.

[ShiverMeRivets]

Reno Blade, on 10 June 2018 - 01:34 AM, said:

Some option floating around was to have 100% jam chance, but the jam-duration is the same as the cooldown (e.g. 4s cd and 4s jam).
That way you would have 2x cooldown with double tap, or normal cd without and have the same DPS than normal ACs (besides the longer burst duration maybe).

This is a good idea how not to make UAC ridiculously better than AC, and to remove randomness which is bad gameplay. This way, for 1 extra ton you can front load your damage, but do not increase or decrease your dps. The effect is completely predictable which means its a player tactical choice, rather than a gamble. Much easier to balance too.

I like this. Thumb up.

[Vesper11]

OP needs to look into Damage per Heat per 0 ton, when you zero all the weapons to 0 ton and add 0.15 (as per DHS) heat per second ped each ton, this shows quite a bit about lasers, like that cHLL is almost the same DpHp0t (0.88) as cLPL (0.87) which means that for my favorite Shadowcat that mounts 2 large lasers it doesn't matter if you choose cHLL or cLPL when it comes to sustained DPS, where cHLL provides a bit higher heat capacity, higher alpha, lower exposure frequences with higher exposure time while cLPL provides the reverse of exposure, while having higher DPS and range.
Speaking about cHLL and cLPL more, cHLL provides ability to install heatsinks and not to fire cHLL on high heat so effective heat per second is lower, where cLPL heat advantage is only effective when it's constantly used, but at the same time cHLL takes more space and you need even more space for those extra heatsinks (one of things mediums mechs have).

DpHp0t also shows how useless micro lasers are even if you take into account their reduced weight. cmPL (1.79) is barely more efficient than cSPL (1.65) while 8 cmPL DPS (10.32) is not much higher than 6 cSPL DPS (9.6) while having almost half the range, alpha and requiring more hardpoints. cERmL is even worse, it has lower DPS, DpHp0t AND range than cSPL, and the only reason it's somewhat better (a bit lower DPS but higher DpHp0t) than cERSL is because cERSL sucks and is only good as a sidearm weapon.

Machineguns (btw, DpH on machineguns, wut?) is a kind of weapon that if you mount it, you mount AS MANY as you can, thus simply increasing DPS is no good. What makes IS MGs worse is lower damage per ton, simple stupid balance is add more ammo per ton, another option is to increase range (I don't know about TT 'n stuff; I do want melee though) so slower IS mechs will make better use of it while for lights it's simply better to buff SPLs to take along with MGs, which, while having very good DpHp0t (2.05), has much lower range than clan counterpart AND, for some reason, lower DPS.

I barely use other weapons so can't comment on them.

Edited by Vesper11, 10 June 2018 - 05:50 AM.

[Khobai]

Quote

If they make it smaller, sure, otherwise no. STD engine only is already a massive drawback.

crit splitting would be ideal. since it would allow LFE with a single HGR.

also STD engine should be buffed so its not a drawback. STD should be buffed enough that even clans consider it over CXL on certain builds.

[Nema Nabojiv]

Tarogato, on 08 June 2018 - 08:31 PM, said:

You think it's not important to buff weapons that are so useless that they aren't used? You'd rather they remain useless?

Oh, they will remain useless even if the whole list goes right through. My fear is, if PGI miraculously listens this time, they will gladly screw some ok-ish clan lasers along the way.
In the end it will do more harm than 12.5 percent increase of light PPC velocity or other insignificant nonsense.

[Tarogato]

Nema Nabojiv, on 10 June 2018 - 08:55 AM, said:

Oh, they will remain useless even if the whole list goes right through. My fear is, if PGI miraculously listens this time, they will gladly screw some ok-ish clan lasers along the way.
In the end it will do more harm than 12.5 percent increase of light PPC velocity or other insignificant nonsense.

I would say a 33% DPS increase to Light PPC is anything but insignificant.
After it sitting there for three months, I'm starting to wonder if it's actually too much.

[Flyby215]

Proposed changes look great. 'would like to see more for RACs, and nerfs for Guass... but meh, beggars can't be choosers.

Where do I sign up?

[Wraith 1]

Khobai, on 10 June 2018 - 03:48 AM, said:

dual HGR shouldnt be allowed either. huge PPFLD breaks the game. HGR tries to balance it with short range and long cooldown, but its still stupid and unfun to get hit with that much damage in one location and not be able to avoid it.

instead HGR should be buffed to be a stronger singleton weapon. And dual HGR should have a heavy ghost heat penalty. So you can still dual HGR if you want to, but you have to pay the extra heat for it.

There's tons of ways to avoid it, that's why they have short range, long cooldown, and are restricted to the slowest mechs in the game. It's a deadly build with obvious weaknesses, it's very fun to play as and against.

Your suggestion is the best compromise I've seen for nerfing dual HGR, but the game doesn't need any more fun, skillful builds nerfed out of it, especially when said build spends half the match paying extra weight for the damage of a normal gauss rifle.

[Prototelis]

As far as HGR goes; a dual HGR cyclops can't hit a nova that is face hugging it and those gauss rifles are phannie pack level.

[El Bandito]

Khobai, on 10 June 2018 - 08:28 AM, said:

also STD engine should be buffed so its not a drawback. STD should be buffed enough that even clans consider it over CXL on certain builds.

Which brings us back to base tech balancing. Something PGI has been avoiding for many years. Std engine, Std structure, Endo/FF etc... they refuse to see the light.

Edited by El Bandito, 10 June 2018 - 07:29 PM.

[Nightbird]

Want to point out once again that IS LBX are inferior to Clan LBX with no benefits to the increased bulk and weight.

[The Lighthouse]

Khobai, on 10 June 2018 - 03:48 AM, said:

dual HGR shouldnt be allowed either. huge PPFLD breaks the game. HGR tries to balance it with short range and long cooldown, but its still stupid and unfun to get hit with that much damage in one location and not be able to avoid it.

instead HGR should be buffed to be a stronger singleton weapon. And dual HGR should have a heavy ghost heat penalty. So you can still dual HGR if you want to, but you have to pay the extra heat for it.

It never broke the game.

People here really have a short memory.


We had....

50 PPLED damage + 10 splash damage.

Actually could possibly fit into a 75ton heavy mech that could jump high enough that you could poptart.

Massive range, full damage til about 700m instead of 220m what we have now.


And we had this setup right from the beginning of the Clan inclusion.

Yes, 2 X C-Gauss + 2 X ER-PPCs is what I am talking about.

One thing we should remember is that this build was not that dominating until PGI massively nerfed UACs into the ground.

There is no need to say "huge PPFLD breaks the game". Instead we can always make other builds more viable.

Edited by The Lighthouse, 10 June 2018 - 10:25 PM.

[LordNothing]

Nightbird, on 10 June 2018 - 07:38 PM, said:

Want to point out once again that IS LBX are inferior to Clan LBX with no benefits to the increased bulk and weight.

the 10 kind of makes sense for the lower tonnage option, the rest have major drawbacks. the entire 5 line is bad across both tech bases, the lb2 is too big for what it is, and the 20 requires std engine. id actually bring in the spread a lot on the is side. especially on the 20 and the 5. on the 2 and 5 id give it a small cd buff. the 10 stays about where it is with at most a tiny spread buff.

Edited by LordNothing, 10 June 2018 - 10:34 PM.

[El Bandito]

LordNothing, on 10 June 2018 - 10:32 PM, said:

the 10 kind of makes sense for the lower tonnage option, the rest have major drawbacks. the entire 5 line is bad across both tech bases, the lb2 is too big for what it is, and the 20 requires std engine. id actually bring in the spread a lot on the is side. especially on the 20 and the 5. on the 2 and 5 id give it a small cd buff. the 10 stays about where it is with at most a tiny spread buff.

Or increase the pellet damage and reduce the range. Make them even better brawling weapon system.

Edited by El Bandito, 11 June 2018 - 12:23 AM.

[MischiefSC]

The Lighthouse, on 10 June 2018 - 10:25 PM, said:

It never broke the game.

People here really have a short memory.


We had....

50 PPLED damage + 10 splash damage.

Actually could possibly fit into a 75ton heavy mech that could jump high enough that you could poptart.

Massive range, full damage til about 700m instead of 220m what we have now.


And we had this setup right from the beginning of the Clan inclusion.

Yes, 2 X C-Gauss + 2 X ER-PPCs is what I am talking about.

One thing we should remember is that this build was not that dominating until PGI massively nerfed UACs into the ground.

There is no need to say "huge PPFLD breaks the game". Instead we can always make other builds more viable.

The only reason it didn't 'break the game' is that 2UAC10s and 3 CERMLs took less effort and skill to wreck face with and KDK3 with 4xUAC10 was lolrageous.

Not saying that PPFLD is the worst thing ever but the only reason that wasn't a huge problem is that there were other things that were even stronger.

Poptart SMN is strong (as in very useful) in the right situation with 20+10. 30-50 starts to become an issue. HGauss is stupid strong but it's only 300m and good on like 2 mechs and requires it to be slow. Double gauss isn't terrible but isn't worth the risk/weight most the time.

PPFLD with good range is the epitome of what works best - most damage with the best concentration for the lowest exposure at the most possible range. The moment that's strong enough to do as much damage as, say, laservomit then it replaces laservomit because it's got better concentration with less exposure at the same or better range.

Lightningvomit THD was bad, even the boomjag was potentially an issue even with crappy IS XLs.

I get that PPFLD is the natural counter to poke laser builds but the moment it can do the same job it replaces the poke laser build.

[Vellron2005]

Here's my take on proposed changes:

1) It seems to me that the proposed changes strongly affect the short-range brawling meta, which is already strong enough. I don't need even more effective linebacker/assassin rushes thank you..

It would favor only a certain small percentage of the elite players / units.

2) I'm not for nerfing lasers. because there are mech variants that are dedicated laservomit mechs, and such mechs would suffer. For instance, cooldown and heat nerfs completely killed the Executioner.

3) I am in favor of making IS LRMs better, especially in terms of heat. IS LRMs really are too hot, and no IS mech can mount the same number of tubes and ammo like Clan mechs..

However, I don't think Artemis Buff will make much of a difference, because most dedicated LRM boats simply don't use Artemis, because it requires a direct LOS playstyle which is not suited to dedicated LRMing.. That said, I am not against artemis buffs, but I think other buffs are needed to make LRMs better, like Lock-on arc returned to 45%, base spread buffs and targeting strength buffs.

Also, I think the artemis buff should affect only LRMs, and not SRMs, since SRMs are too powerful as is.

4) From the names listed as authors of this suggestion, I have to administer a dose of skepticism. Why? Because the people involved are all top-tier players that already dominate the game. While I have nothing against them, and acknowledge their skill, I think people from all skill levels should contribute to global changes to the game. Top-Tier players tend to lose perspective and aim the changes at making the game more fun for them.

Proposed changes aimed at lower cooldowns would dramatically drop TTK, which is already too short.

Also, to be perfectly honest, I'm sooo bloody tired of constant balance changes, meta shifts and bickering over IS and Clan balance. Set it up ONCE so that all weapons are good and useful, and leave it alone.

[El Bandito]

Vellron2005, on 10 June 2018 - 11:49 PM, said:

4) From the names listed as authors of this suggestion, I have to administer a dose of skepticism. Why? Because the people involved are all top-tier players that already dominate the game. While I have nothing against them, and acknowledge their skill, I think people from all skill levels should contribute to global changes to the game. Top-Tier players tend to lose perspective and aim the changes at making the game more fun for them.

Nah, lets keep the circle small, as any bigger we would have the famed donkey parable at hand, and nothing will go forward. Besides, in my 6 years of MWO foruming career I have not seen low level players contributing to anything significant in terms of balance ideas. They have plenty of horribad ideas though.

Of course, I personally still think base tech should be balanced before weapons. With luck, some weapon issues might go away post tech balance, thus we can kill several birds with one stone.

Edited by El Bandito, 11 June 2018 - 12:28 AM.