Posted 13 June 2018 - 03:32 PM
Overall, I've always been in favor of nerfing the over-performers and buffing the under-performers (particularly one severe under-performer that's near-and-dear to me). The baseline balancing option is a solid way to go. Rather frustratingly, some of us have been offering options for some baseline balancing approaches, for years, that have received very little -if any- attention. However, for what it's worth, I do sincerely appreciate PGI opening up this relatively more direct line of communication to the player base on weapon balance.
Here are some of the things I'd personally like to see. Some are direct things listed in Chris and Paul's respective posts, and some are other things I think desperately need to be addressed.
1. Alphas have been a massive problem for ages. Just a few years ago it wasn't 60+ damage, but 30+ damage that was the problem. The introduction of clan-tech blew the old problem out of the water. Then quirks and skill tree have added some survivability buffer, making the "intolerable" damage value a bit higher than it was before. However, regardless of the damage values involved, I'm all for seeing the damage broken up rather than turning the game into a DPS race. In that scenario, an extreme high-damage Alpha could still be done, but it becomes the last-ditch effort and risky maneuver that it was in lore. A stricter reliance on weapon group firing also has the advantage of bringing more parity between boating builds and mixed builds . . . allowing bracket firing and staggered groups to both be viable engagement options over the course of a fight.
2. As for breaking up damage, Ghost-Heat/Heat-Scale has always felt like an awkward and manipulable system that attempts to break up damage, but can easily be gamed to still put out massive damage. After all, with all of the various Ghost Heat rules in place we still have the problem we have. While still in need of refinement focused on the system and not the various weapons, I think the Energy Draw system was a much more straightforward, intuitive, and readable system for the average player to utilize. Even if PGI doesn't revive the exact concept of Energy Draw, any system that's going to solve the problem, through penalization of constant Alpha-firing, needs to take the fundamentals of that system into consideration. The solution needs to transcend individual weapon systems or weapon types.
3. Personally, while I'm not for completely turning all weapons into a DPS race, there's plenty of room to push certain weapons in that direction. Pulse Lasers, for example, currently have very little difference between themselves and standard or ER lasers. All this does is allow people to get a higher Alpha with more pinpoint potential via shorter beam durations. However, if we keep very short durations while drastically lowering cooldown, up-front damage, and heat per shot, then we can remove 7 weapons (S, M, and L pulse for IS and Clan, as well as Clan micro pulse) from the high Alpha plague. Just throwing out some rough values, but cutting damage by 50-60% while cutting heat and cooldown by 60-75% gives you something that fits the lore of the weapon (rapid fire pinpoint laser pulses) and curbs Alpha Damage from a large group of weapons. It also adds more variety to the energy spectrum.
4. I think we could consider reticle shake for more than just Clan Gauss. Maybe consider reticle shake for ALL ballistics, and make it an additive value based on the size of the weapon(s) being fired. MGs can have nil reticle shake (they've already got bullet spread), AC2's have minor shake, and so on up until Gauss Rifles and HGRs have significant reticle shake. After all, ballistics -and namely Gauss- are THE main source of PPFLD in the game. Combine that with weapon groups that fire large quantities of mixed ballistics and lasers, and you have a potential solution for forcibly spreading massive Alpha Strikes over an enemy mech. It also gives the Screen Shake nodes of the skill tree another viable use.
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As for specific weapons, I think you know which one I'm going to address. The Flamer. I do sincerely and cordially request some level of dialog with PGI over this weapon system. It's one of the absolute worst under-performers in the game right now. In fact, on Paul's balance chart, I imagine it as the one blue line that's FAR below everything else on the graph. Please, please fix this weapon system. The fact that it's in such a broken state that it is the ONLY weapon to have special rules between Solaris and Standard game modes just speaks to how desperately this weapon needs attention.
In it's current mechanics and values, 4.5 HDPS is difficult to balance on an individual weapon system . . . let alone the exponential scaling/acceleration that this HDPS has. The "free fire window" with "pseudo cooldowns" attempt to keep this in line, but do so in such a heavy-handed way as to eliminate the Crowd Control (CC) function of the weapon. On top of it, to attempt to balance the weapon's functionality, PGI has completely removed the physical damage capabilities. Then, even on top of that, PGI implemented different firing rules for Solaris to prevent the weapon from being usable in the one place it's current mechanics could possibly have been competitive. Which then also leaves the question, will Flamers have Standard or Solaris functionality in competitive mode, because vs. SHS the currently neutered Flamers might actually find a small window with which to create a "Flamergeddon 2.0".
Now, via this dialog and a desire to fix the lowest performing weapons in the game, is the prime time to fix the Flamer; and I don't think it'll take that much effort. Incrementally, you can first lower the initial HDPS by at least half. Afterwards you can restore the physical damage the weapon had before "Flamergeddon". Then, you can remove all the exponential mechanics, fire windows, and pseudo-cooldowns. Finally, we can look at tweaking and balancing the final baseline numbers until they feel solid. On the other hand, I think this is one weapon where doing all the changes at once -especially with a PTS iteration- will not cause cataclysmic shifts in MWO's gameplay or meta. Quite frankly, I think the best place for this weapon to sit at, given the gameplay mechanics and play-style of MWO, is right were Russ had talked about putting it back in 2013, which was making it the MG of the Energy weapons . . . modest and controllable DPS with added Utility (in this case moderate heat damage vs. the MG's crit bonuses).
While I understand that Chris and Paul wish to bring down the over-performing weapons before focusing too much attention on the under-performing ones, it would be sincerely appreciated if the poor little Flamer could receive the love and attention it deserves, making it a viable weapon of choice that actually competes with other weapons in its tonnage bracket.
Regardless, I hope we see more direct conversation from Chris and Paul towards the community over gameplay balance; and I think if we all work together we'll realize we all have the same goal of wanting to make MWO the best and most enjoyable experience that it can be. Thank you for your time and consideration; and I do sincerely hope for more dialog with PGI over balance as we move on (and of course personally over the Flamer . . . after all . . . it's my favorite).
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Tarogato, on 13 June 2018 - 10:45 AM, said:
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