845 replies to this topic

[ThiefofAlways]

There is more to this that just Alpha sure you can have a 94 alpha but what's the burn time. IS have much shorter burn time so the damage is pinpoint and actually does more.

Long and short, the more your nerf the less money you will get from me.

[wolvhound]

i love this game...just not all the nerfs so i have a question.
Can we just follow the lore?
it had a pretty good way for the innersphere to deal with the clans

the IS introduced ppc capacitors (introduced by the combine in 3060) and the heavy guass to fight the clans
and xpulse laser
and Bombast laser 3064 (can fire immediately or can charge for full power...like guass charge)
reactive armor 3063(guass solution)
armored components 3061
composite internals 3061
Hyper velocity ac in 3059
ac armor piercing ammo 3059
Laser reflective armor 3058 (laser solution)
Clans streak lrm 3057 (oh look clans missiles that are worth it)
Extended lrm 3054
blue shield particle field 3053(just a button like masc)
silver bullet guass rifle 3051
thunder lrm fascam 3051
laser heat sinks 3051
c3 slaves and masters 3050(unit bonuses for having them maybe)
Arrow IV missiles 3044

so if your doing these mech refits for 3060 can we please get the tech thats supposed to be on the battlefield by then and add different ammo types for the autocannons for both sides

[Stinger554]

Grim 13, on 13 June 2018 - 04:29 PM, said:

I love how you keep yammering on and on and on about Clans reaching up to 94 damage alpha and how that's a big no-no, while I'm aware of several IS 'Mechs that greatly exceed said 94 alpha and do so repeatably.

Those IS mechs that can do that either aren't sustainable, not pinpoint, slow as ****, or some mixture of the three. The costs required to get to that alpha are significantly different favoring Clans.

Edited by Stinger554, 13 June 2018 - 07:48 PM.

[P0607]

Please don't touch clan gauss, but consider actually BUFFING is gauss. Clan gauss is just fine where it is right now, you can't even fire it with cerppcs anymore. On the other hand, is ballistic builds right now are mostly spam or "boom"-style builds. By buffing is gauss you will not upset anybody and bring some more options on the field. By nerfing clan gauss you will just create another "clam" weapon that nobody wants to use, thus resulting in even more laservomit alpha builds for the clans.

[LordNothing]

i think part of the issue with clan lasers is due to the arbitrary nature of gh groups. no group configuration is possible where an exploitable high alpha configuration is not possible, unless you lump all the lasers into one big group. thats not a sane option imho.

what if instead we go with algorithmic ghost heat? a dh/dt gauge similar to the one from mech2 would indicate how safe it is to fire an alpha. it just measures how much the heat state of the mech changed in the last second (though the running average over several seconds might be better so that it takes more time to recover from large alphas). it would map to a heat penalty curve which affects anything that is fired or is currently firing. when you fire an alpha you get a huge spike which takes time to dissipate, to avoid a heat penalty you would need to fire when the gauge is low. heat penalty is applied per game tick so firing too many lasers will result in a runaway heating effect which can be fatal.

pairing gauss with ppc or other high heat weapon could still get around this system as the gauss is simply out of the equation due to its low heat rating. to solve this you would heavily weight the heat penalties against gauss to compensate for the low heat of the weapon. hot firing the weapon could make it as hot as a ppc, but cold firing would be practically heatless. you could get around it by alternating the gauss with the energy weapons rather than firing together which is kind of what you want. you could still open up with the gauss first and fire the high heat weapons, but you would need to cool off almost completely for an unpenalized gauss shot.

[cougurt]

Samial, on 13 June 2018 - 04:32 PM, said:

94 damage alphas on clans.. Seriously no wonder this game has issues.. Do not listen to these clan players bring their damage down to 60-65 akin to IS then the game will be playable..


Wtf at 94 damage alphas no wonder we are seeing death in seconds.

the game is quite playable as it is, despite the continued efforts to make it less so. most people don't even use the oh-so-scary 94 point alpha builds, instead opting for the cooler running 72-80 point ones. while that's still pretty high, it could easily be brought down to a more reasonable level with some minor stat tweaks that would cause little to no collateral damage.

there's nothing wrong with large alpha strike oriented loadouts. it's a perfectly valid build archetype that has every right to exist, and ideally would bring more variety to the game. the issue is that just about everything else has been repeatedly nerfed to the point where laser/gauss vomit reigns supreme. it could certainly stand to be brought down somewhat, but what we really need is for other play styles and builds to be given some buffs for a change.

[Felbombling]

A couple of points:

The advantages of Clan weapons over Inner Sphere weapons all seem tied, to some degree, with BattleTech canon. You didn't have to adhere to them so closely. Two things matter, given that you like to keep to the published lore of the BattleTech Technical Readouts. 1. Tonnage of the weapon. 2. Critical slots of the weapon. So long as you keep to those two stats, all future Mech packs will be accurate.

That leaves weapon heat, recycle rate, burn duration for lasers, range and damage as variables to work with. For example, nothing is set in stone to say that the Heavy Medium Laser MUST do 10 damage, produce 10 heat, etc.

Something else to consider is forced chain fire of laser weapons. Any lasers in the same weapon group could cycle on a .25 second delay. So, a set of four Clan Heavy Medium lasers would take a full second longer to do full potential damage, and that would extend face-time for a full salvo, allowing target Mechs to torso twist share damage over more hitboxes.

Signature weapon slot quirks should be considered. When it comes to quirks, what you messed up a little bit was not tailoring the quirks to the stock load-out. So now you have Vindicators with a 25% missile cooldown quirk, meant for an LRM 5, instead being applied to an MRM 40. Use some forethought when it comes to applying quirks and you could avoid stuff like this.

Classify weapons into two different classes. Heavy weapons [5+ tons] and support weapons [4.5 tons or less.] Heavy weapons are on a longer cooldown and meant to be heavy hitting, fearsome weapons. Support weapons have cooldowns similar to what we have now, but adjust damage numbers to maintain balance against the Heavy Weapons.

On a side note, and this is something I've bugged Russ about at least ten times... make the Clan Heavy Large laser purple in colour and the Clan Heavy Medium Laser orange in colour. For multiple obvious reasons, this would add to the allure of the 'Thinking man's shooter' you claim your game to be.

My two C-Bills.

[Stinger554]

P0607, on 13 June 2018 - 06:27 PM, said:

Please don't touch clan gauss, but consider actually BUFFING is gauss. Clan gauss is just fine where it is right now, you can't even fire it with cerppcs anymore. On the other hand, is ballistic builds right now are mostly spam or "boom"-style builds. By buffing is gauss you will not upset anybody and bring some more options on the field. By nerfing clan gauss you will just create another "clam" weapon that nobody wants to use, thus resulting in even more laservomit alpha builds for the clans.

I don't think IS gauss itself is underperforming. People don't take it due to crit space issues, stupid hand actuators, and things of that nature rather than it just being bad; which is a whole other set of issues.

The problem is when you compare Clan gauss and IS gauss side by side. Clan gauss is straight up superior with no meaningful differences between the two to account for the 3 tons and 1 slot difference between the two. So something should happen with regards to that.

The issue with buffing IS gauss is that it's already a decent performing weapon, if you buff it then it gets into OP territory(there's that power creep PGI is talking about). So while I'm okay with buffing IS gauss, it's not really a good solution.

Adjusting clan gauss to match it's required weight and slot requirements relevant to IS gauss is the better solution imo. Chris' option one in that regard is appropriate imo. DPS shouldn't change just the upfront damage.

[Stinger554]

Felbombling, on 13 June 2018 - 07:53 PM, said:

Something else to consider is forced chain fire of laser weapons. Any lasers in the same weapon group could cycle on a .25 second delay. So, a set of four Clan Heavy Medium lasers would take a full second longer to do full potential damage, and that would extend face-time for a full salvo, allowing target Mechs to torso twist share damage over more hitboxes.

Forced chain fire would be horrible to play...so hard pass.


Agreed with the not adhering to lore values; though they've done it before. Look at HLL in Lore it's 16 dam for 18 heat(at least according to sarna) MWO has it reversed and if that's not intentional I will *************; well if I had shorts.

[TheCaptainJZ]

Buff everything? Sorry, no. We've been buffing things for 4 years to compensate for clan tech and then mechs that could boat weapons with loads of hardpoints (especially energy). Why do so many mechs have armor quirks? Let's drop some damage numbers and remove those armor quirks. More damage over time and less one-shots. Once upon a time, the gausscat reigned supreme and that was only 30 ppfld but we are far beyond that now. Obviously, there are underperformers, but if you nerf a few things at the top, guess what? They become average or less under performing at least. Does this introduce other problems? Sure then we will need to pull something else back to reduce 6 years of power creep.

Anyway,

Clan Gauss Rifles:
Option 1: Reduce damage
Maybe if it's like 2 points. That makes it deal 13 damage, but that makes a single gauss rifle less attractive to take, same with IS, so I don't really like this idea.

Option 2: Recoil
Fine by me.

Option 3: Ghost Heat
I'm in favor of tweaks that avoid needing to use ghost heat. It's never been a very well explained mechanic ingame, doesn't make sense except from a pure penalty perspective, and there are plenty of other attributes we can use to balance. Besides, Gauss rifles don't generate heat. That's why it's attractive to pair gauss with lasers--little heat + high heat. From an in-universe perspective, this wouldn't make sense. Why would firing a laser and a no-heat rifle generate ridiculous amounts of extra heat (presumably from the laser)?


Clan lasers:
Option 1: Reduce damage but buff other stats
I would prefer this option. Reduce damage, maybe not to IS levels but midway? Keep range. This is their "clan" attribute and what makes them ER lasers after all. They already have a faster max range drop off (1.5x range instead of the normal 2x range of most weapons for maximum range). Let them fire more often to make up the difference.

Option 2: Ghost heat has always been a band-aid fix for 5 years or something now. At least in this case, ghost heat makes sense because they are like-weapon types and already generate heat and this is consistent with the whole ghost heat mechanic in place. I would be ok with this option, but it is more difficult to explain.

In the past, there has always been a hesitation to break away from the damage numbers from lore. Since the rounds are not 10 seconds between shots, I never understood why we can't break away from those numbers.

Edited by TheCaptainJZ, 13 June 2018 - 08:32 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

TheCaptainJZ, on 13 June 2018 - 08:27 PM, said:

Clan lasers:
Option 1: Reduce damage but buff other stats
I would prefer this option. Reduce damage, maybe not to IS levels but midway? Keep range. This is their "clan" attribute and what makes them ER lasers after all. They already have a faster max range drop off (1.5x range instead of the normal 2x range of most weapons for maximum range). Let them fire more often to make up the difference.

Clan ER and Heavy lasers all have their max ranges set to 2x optimum. It is only the Clan Pulse lasers that have [inconsistently] truncated max ranges. That said, those truncated max ranges are still further out than their IS pulse counterparts.

Edited by Yeonne Greene, 13 June 2018 - 08:38 PM.

[Tarogato]

Tarl Cabot, on 13 June 2018 - 03:30 PM, said:

Explain? UNTIL an isXL loses one SIDE torso, it is already equivalent to cXL with the exception it is taking up one extra slot per side torso. So you are saying that if isXL is able to SURVIVE the loss of the first side torso most weapons would have be rebalance around that change, seriously?

The advantages of IS weapons (shorter duration, faster cooldown, tighter spread, higher crit multipliers, more frontload) are balanced around a gameplay environment where the best IS engine is also the most fragile. You take away that fragility and it's unadulterated powercreep. Like I said, you'd need absolutely massive penalties to prevent that, and even then most people would easily agree that it would still be a better option than anything we have available now.

When you make a change that powercreeps your baseline, you need to reevaluate your status quo and offset that powercreep.

Tarl Cabot, on 13 June 2018 - 03:30 PM, said:

Do Clan weapons/components weigh more, take up more slots, have shorter range and do less damage than IS weapons/components? Does Clan tech have several weapon systems that have a minimum range where NO damage is generated?

All of this is offsetted by clan weapons having longer durations, slower cooldowns, larger spread, and less frontload.

[Y E O N N E]

Besides, we've already seen demonstrable proof that IS XL doesn't need to be survivable on a ST loss to be acceptable and even dominant. See also: all of 2015.

[Felbombling]

Stinger554, on 13 June 2018 - 08:03 PM, said:

Forced chain fire would be horrible to play...so hard pass.

All lasers have a beam duration, so you'd still have multiple lasers burning at the same time with a .25 second chain delay. I think 'horrible' is a harsh word for something that wouldn't affect a weapon group that badly. A player would still have the option to abort the burn cycle from a weapon group prematurely, so I don't see how it would be 'horrible'. It would indeed work towards their desire to increase TTK and dampen the effects of pin-point damage.

Edited by Felbombling, 13 June 2018 - 09:35 PM.

[cougurt]

Felbombling, on 13 June 2018 - 09:34 PM, said:

I don't agree. All lasers have a beam duration, so you'd still have multiple lasers burning at the same time with a .25 second chain delay. I think 'horrible' is a harsh word for something that wouldn't affect a weapon group that badly. A player would still have the option to abort the burn cycle from a weapon group prematurely, so I don't see how it would be 'horrible'. It would indeed work towards their desire to increase TTK and dampen the effects of pin-point damage.

it would make virtually all laser builds both nonviable and an incredible hassle to play. lighter mechs in particular would suffer since they have few other options and absolutely must minimize face time. yes, it would be horrible.

[Y E O N N E]

Felbombling, on 13 June 2018 - 09:34 PM, said:

All lasers have a beam duration, so you'd still have multiple lasers burning at the same time with a .25 second chain delay. I think 'horrible' is a harsh word for something that wouldn't affect a weapon group that badly. A player would still have the option to abort the burn cycle from a weapon group prematurely, so I don't see how it would be 'horrible'. It would indeed work towards their desire to increase TTK and dampen the effects of pin-point damage.

Then I will just take ballistics and both out-burst and out-DPS any laser boat you want to take.

[Tarogato]

wolvhound, on 13 June 2018 - 05:13 PM, said:

i love this game...just not all the nerfs so i have a question.
Can we just follow the lore?
it had a pretty good way for the innersphere to deal with the clans

the IS introduced ppc capacitors (introduced by the combine in 3060) and the heavy guass to fight the clans
and xpulse laser
and Bombast laser 3064 (can fire immediately or can charge for full power...like guass charge)
reactive armor 3063(guass solution)
armored components 3061
composite internals 3061
Hyper velocity ac in 3059
ac armor piercing ammo 3059
Laser reflective armor 3058 (laser solution)
Clans streak lrm 3057 (oh look clans missiles that are worth it)
Extended lrm 3054
blue shield particle field 3053(just a button like masc)
silver bullet guass rifle 3051
thunder lrm fascam 3051
laser heat sinks 3051
c3 slaves and masters 3050(unit bonuses for having them maybe)
Arrow IV missiles 3044

so if your doing these mech refits for 3060 can we please get the tech thats supposed to be on the battlefield by then and add different ammo types for the autocannons for both sides

Out of the 17 equipment you listed, only 5 are actually actively produced in timeline. Two are already essentially in the game, one is literally artillery, and the other two require ammo switching.

PPC Capacitor (never left its prototype stage)
X-Pulse Lasers (not in production until 3078)
Bombast Laser (never left prototype stage)
Reactive Armour (not in production until 3081)
Armored Components (was never widely produced)
Composite Internals (never left prototype phase)
HVAC (never entered full production)
Armour Piercing AC ammo (yes this one was produced in 3059)
Laser Reflective Armor (not produced until 3080)
cStreak LRM (never left experimental phase)
Extended LRM (didn't enter production until 3082)
Blue Shield Particle Field Dampener (never left experimental phase)
Silver Bullet Gauss rifle (didn't enter production until after 3078)
Thunder LRM (yes, these were reintroduced by 3052)
Laser Heat Sinks (these are already in MWO. See: Night Gyr quirk)
C3 (a lot of C3 functionally is effectively already built into the default mech sensors in MWO)
Arrow IV (yes this was reintroduced in 3044)

[lazorbeamz]

Stinger554, on 13 June 2018 - 07:58 PM, said:

I don't think IS gauss itself is underperforming. People don't take it due to crit space issues, stupid hand actuators, and things of that nature rather than it just being bad; which is a whole other set of issues.

The problem is when you compare Clan gauss and IS gauss side by side. Clan gauss is straight up superior with no meaningful differences between the two to account for the 3 tons and 1 slot difference between the two. So something should happen with regards to that.

The issue with buffing IS gauss is that it's already a decent performing weapon, if you buff it then it gets into OP territory(there's that power creep PGI is talking about). So while I'm okay with buffing IS gauss, it's not really a good solution.

Adjusting clan gauss to match it's required weight and slot requirements relevant to IS gauss is the better solution imo. Chris' option one in that regard is appropriate imo. DPS shouldn't change just the upfront damage.

Thats wrong clan gauss has very small health and will explode as soon as your armor is stripped. Pretty much robbing your clan mech of any structure you got there remaining.

Edited by lazorbeamz, 13 June 2018 - 11:33 PM.

[P0607]

Stinger554, on 13 June 2018 - 07:58 PM, said:

I don't think IS gauss itself is underperforming. People don't take it due to crit space issues, stupid hand actuators, and things of that nature rather than it just being bad; which is a whole other set of issues.

The problem is when you compare Clan gauss and IS gauss side by side. Clan gauss is straight up superior with no meaningful differences between the two to account for the 3 tons and 1 slot difference between the two. So something should happen with regards to that.

The issue with buffing IS gauss is that it's already a decent performing weapon, if you buff it then it gets into OP territory(there's that power creep PGI is talking about). So while I'm okay with buffing IS gauss, it's not really a good solution.

Adjusting clan gauss to match it's required weight and slot requirements relevant to IS gauss is the better solution imo. Chris' option one in that regard is appropriate imo. DPS shouldn't change just the upfront damage.

The thing is clan weapons SUPPOSED to be superior. I could say some clan mechs can't change their structure/armor type, but many of them have or can be equipped with the desired types. But to make it "fair" you can give them some disadvantages that would require you to alternate clan playstyle from is.

But to really make things fair PGI could've could've introduced "threat level" mechanic, that would've been used instead of just plain mech weight in matchmaking. Threat level should consist of the mech weight, tech level, hardpoints and observed success on the battlefield (meta mechs' threat level would be increased). If something like this would've been done PGI could've gotten rid of a large amount of quirks, eased the ghost heat (or even removed it or remade it into another mechanic), also allowing clans to have superior mechs and weapons, keeping their numbers/tonnage lower than their is low-tech counterparts. This even compliments the lore, cause clans don't have the sheer amount of resourses that is does.

But without demanding those things from PGI (that they sadly will never even try to do) I'm just saying that instead of nerfing clans once more they could buff is gauss a little, cause it is not the best choice right now both for the dps, ease of use, crit slots, explosions. Even if decrease it's cooldown it will not justify having a lot of face time with your enemy, cause other weapons will still put out more dps and will crit your gauss if you do so. There is already a restriction to charging only two gausses at once, so boating of it shouldn't become a problem. Also the mechs that can do that can just put two heavy gausses on.

[ZortPointNarf]

My two cents:

• Some of the clan mechs that are hard point blessed will shred anything with high alphas. Nerfing the individual weapons being used will not solve this, they will still boat whatever is most effective and lead to a continual nerf-fest as we race to the bottom of a pile of unusable weapons for anything but these meta-mechs. The only way to avert this is to introduce a more complex group caps, such as linking PPC + Gauss, this should be extended to possibly trigger with damage scaling instead of heat scaling, thus if you say fire a 70 alpha you get smacked hard by the heat, but at a 50, the heat is less, even if you boat more of some currently ghost heat grouped weapons.
  
• Reduce the slot requirement for the IS LBX-20, this thing is the exclusive domain of assaults that can run a standard engine and carry the weight. A lot of IS mechs would benefit from running this weapon in their arms, or even better, being able to load it with a light engine, since the clans already gain so much with their danger-free XL engine.
  
• Make Clan AC weapons fire single shots, same as the IS side, only let UAC fire in streams.
  
• Nerfing weapons has a detrimental affect on hard-point and tonnage starved mechs, take the Adder-Prime, it excels at boating cERPPC, or it used to, then they got nerfed, first on heat then on cool-down, the net effect is that the adder is now nearly a dud. Those changes were needed to stop the bloody top-tarters, not the weapon, but the way it was applied meant that all the smaller support mechs that are only viable with running a weapon above their weight are now useless. If you have only one or two weapons and can go make coffee between shots then something is clearly broken.
  
• Another way of doing it might be to have different ghost heat groupings per tonnage, so that larger mechs ghost harder, since they have more heat sinks to absorb the heat and then deal with it.
  
• Now I know, most hate the concept of ghost heat,but how else do you keep a weapon viable and limit excessive boating? The traditional approach has more often than not led to weapon nerfs that were disproportionately punitive towards the hard-point starved and lighter tonned mechs.
  
• Remove the wind down on Gauss, allow it to be charged up and held, the cost is if you charge up and don't find something to shoot you are either a finger short or firing a weapon group with it. The cool downs are ok, the spin down is silly, maybe even make the very first charge take say .5s longer than the normal cool-down as the weapon charges or some justifiable reason. I used to play at massive ping, and effectively using a gauss weapon that spins down just as you finally line up a shot is frustrating, yes i should get gut, but you play on 300ms ping and we can talk again.
  
• I quite like some of the heat management ideas, that people proposed, the problem isn't the weapons, its boating the weapons, and with boating should come toasty mechs.
  
• I do love the aim of increasing TTK, and I hope this will happen, the longer I spend alive in the game, the more enjoyment i get from it, simple really.
  
• IS Omni-Mechs, we need those in game, it will bring an entirely new approach to the game with lots of potential to show that the IS is actually in a good spot and that clans may not even need a nerf. Just a thought, and also really want those in-game.
  
• Outside of this weapon thread, the economy needs a serious re-think to account for the cost of skill points, I am spending almost all my income on skill point and not buying new weapons and mechs, thus no new mech bays, that is a bad business model, and I am already running prime, cockpit items and supporter pack to double my income.
  
• edit: One more to add, consumables skew the game, both the strikes and the cool shots, I would only leave in UAV's, the rest are all insta-gib buffs that makes balance a mission.
  
• edit2: It may be hard, but maybe we need ghost weapon groupings per weight, or maybe lower the total heat will solve half the issues, but i fear that will just mean a lot more shut down mechs, and that ain't fun for anyone but the B33f in his Nova.

Edited by ZortPointNarf, 14 June 2018 - 04:26 AM.