845 replies to this topic

[Weeny Machine]

70+ Alphas seen from the perspective of light and medium mechs

I think most people here see the alpha situation of heavy and assault mechs.

Let's see it from the perspective of light and medium mechs for a second which are for a reasons the underdogs numberwise.

An alpha of 70+ is enough to take out a ST or even CT of a light mech. This also hold true for some mediums. Sure, you can roll damage but you are not always in a 1 vs 1 situation and let's be honest you can also be caught with your pants down. It may be fun for a heavy or assault mech to cripple or outright destroy a low weight mech but I can assure you, it isn't for the pilot of the light or medium.Heck, ever got taken out by a dual heavy gauss in a light? It is no fun.

Therefore I am for changing the "high alpha meta" we have now more to a kind of "DPS meta". For example that the damage output of alphas is around 30 points of damage (maybe higher for "scatter" weapons like LBX and LRMS SRMS etc).

Of course, some of the heavy and assault jocks will now yell bloody murder, however, there are quite some advantages:
1. Facetime is suddenly available / Lights and meds get more playable
This means that a light and medium mech can suddenly act more freely like drive-by-shooting or even try a brawl simply because they do not need to fear that one well-placed alpha cripples them.

2. Diversity in playstyle
More facetime means that finally there can be other playstyles than peek-a-booing and alphaing like mad. Even brawling may become a thing once more or lead charges into an enemy line simply because the alphas of 2 mechs won't blast you to kingdome come

3. Diversity of loadouts
Currently boating trumps everything. However, when you can fire only e.g. 30 point alpha it also gets attractive to mix weapons more because you can "stagger" your volleys. So you may want a long-range weapon to soften up the enemy and backup weaponry as well.

4. Movememt vs Firepower & Armour
Finally you can re-position and moving properly (not just running from cover to cover) gets more important. Like dogfights in WW2 planes. At the moment while agility is important to some degree it gets easily trumped by firepower and armour to generate and absorb such huge alphas. This again would support speedier mechs like lights and mediums and make them more relevant

And there are even more advantages.

Now, what drawback has it? You cannot one-shot people anymore. Is it so bad to have no Call of Duty with mech skins?

Edited by Bush Hopper, 14 June 2018 - 12:14 AM.

[teh Reika]

add a spread for weapons and the problem of pinpoint damage will be eliminated
stop spoiling the game

Edited by teh Reika, 14 June 2018 - 12:09 AM.

[Weeny Machine]

teh Reika, on 14 June 2018 - 12:08 AM, said:

add a spread for weapons and the problem of pinpoint damage will be eliminated
stop spoiling the game

I think they said that they cannot do it because of hitreg or whatever

[Marius Evander]

To the fools complaining only clanners complaining, look at my account mech list, if you can work out how to do that, nearly almost IS mechs, dont get fooled by the Smoke jag logo, im doing a mech bay tour. Some Clan mechs laser alpha may be a little overpowered, but blanket nerfing the weapon because of a few mechs and destroying all the balanced clan laser mechs to do it will basically kill the only weapon group that hasn't been destroyed for the majority of clan mechs by previous clan weapon nerfs instead of chassis/variant nerfs.

[Grim 13]

Stinger554, on 13 June 2018 - 06:14 PM, said:

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.

My 110 Alpha build is as sustainable as any Clan 94 Alpha dealer and is fast enough (57 km/h) considering the armor and firepower it brings, another 102.2 Alpha build I know of is also in the 50+ km/h range and can deal it's Alpha indefinitely, half of the alpha being pinpoint. That's without mentioning 2 different IS 'Mechs that have a relatively low alpha but can deliver 120 pinpoint damage in 4 seconds without having heat issues.

[Vesper11]

Yes for desynced fire to balance out big fat weapon boats, no for carpet balancing that will affect already not so popular light and medium mechs.

[cougurt]

Bush Hopper, on 13 June 2018 - 11:57 PM, said:

70+ Alphas seen from the perspective of light and medium mechs

I think most people here see the alpha situation of heavy and assault mechs.

Let's see it from the perspective of light and medium mechs for a second which are for a reasons the underdogs numberwise.

An alpha of 70+ is enough to take out a ST or even CT of a light mech. This also hold true for some mediums. Sure, you can roll damage but you are not always in a 1 vs 1 situation and let's be honest you can also be caught with your pants down. It may be fun for a heavy or assault mech to cripple or outright destroy a low weight mech but I can assure you, it isn't for the pilot of the light or medium.Heck, ever got taken out by a dual heavy gauss in a light? It is no fun.

that's the risk you take when you're not fully paying attention to your surroundings, and one that can be mitigated through more cautious and observant gameplay. yes, it can be frustrating to get one-shot in a light, but if you're playing intelligently it shouldn't be very common.

Bush Hopper, on 13 June 2018 - 11:57 PM, said:

Therefore I am for changing the "high alpha meta" we have now more to a kind of "DPS meta". For example that the damage output of alphas is around 30 points of damage (maybe higher for "scatter" weapons like LBX and LRMS SRMS etc).

i hope you enjoy a very homogenized and even more stagnant meta, because that's what you'd end up with.

Bush Hopper, on 13 June 2018 - 11:57 PM, said:

Of course, some of the heavy and assault jocks will now yell bloody murder, however, there are quite some advantages:
1. Facetime is suddenly available / Lights and meds get more playable
This means that a light and medium mech can suddenly act more freely like drive-by-shooting or even try a brawl simply because they do not need to fear that one well-placed alpha cripples them.

they can already do this, you just need to have some situational awareness and know how to approach larger threats.

Bush Hopper, on 13 June 2018 - 11:57 PM, said:

2. Diversity in playstyle
More facetime means that finally there can be other playstyles than peek-a-booing and alphaing like mad. Even brawling may become a thing once more or lead charges into an enemy line simply because the alphas of 2 mechs won't blast you to kingdome come

brawling was alive and well before they made the brilliant decision to nerf every single brawling weapon and make most of the mechs handle like junk.

Bush Hopper, on 13 June 2018 - 11:57 PM, said:

3. Diversity of loadouts
Currently boating trumps everything. However, when you can fire only e.g. 30 point alpha it also gets attractive to mix weapons more because you can "stagger" your volleys. So you may want a long-range weapon to soften up the enemy and backup weaponry as well.

that's not entirely true. having synergistic weapons is the important thing. whether you achieve that through boating (which is only possible to a certain extent due to ghost heat) or complementary weapon systems is up to you. forcing a strict damage cap only serves to eliminate more defined roles and penalize mechs with certain hardpoint configurations.

Bush Hopper, on 13 June 2018 - 11:57 PM, said:

4. Movememt vs Firepower & Armour
Finally you can re-position and moving properly (not just running from cover to cover) gets more important. Like dogfights in WW2 planes. At the moment while agility is important to some degree it gets easily trumped by firepower and armour to generate and absorb such huge alphas. This again would support speedier mechs like lights and mediums and make them more relevant

you know what else would make lights and mediums more relevant? un-nerfing their agility and limited selection of weapons.

Bush Hopper, on 13 June 2018 - 11:57 PM, said:

And there are even more advantages.

Now, what drawback has it? You cannot one-shot people anymore. Is it so bad to have no Call of Duty with mech skins?

it has major drawbacks. it greatly diminishes the dynamic of DPS vs. alpha, and it becomes ridiculously restrictive the more you go up in tonnage. the call of duty comparison doesn't make a lot of sense considering one shot kills have always been present in both battletech as well as previous mechwarrior titles. mechwarrior online has a far higher TTK on average than probably any other game i've played. it can vary pretty wildly since you have all sorts of mechs of differing weights and weapon payloads running around the battlefield, but to me that's part of what makes the game interesting.

[Weeny Machine]

cougurt, on 14 June 2018 - 02:19 AM, said:

you know what else would make lights and mediums more relevant? un-nerfing their agility and limited selection of weapons.

At least I agree with you on that. However, you won't get the former because of guys like these (see link) who think light mechs are "invulnerable" (his words) but haven't played a light mech for ages

https://mwomercs.com...25#entry6113625

The latter...how would you give them more access?

[Monkey Lover]

Page 27, i have a feeling anything added by now will not matter haha.


I vote for leaving clan weapons the way they are but decrease heat cap and increase heatsink rate.

About a 20% is all you need to keep high alphas down but not hurt all the other clan mechs.

Edited by Monkey Lover, 14 June 2018 - 03:23 AM.

[Dungeon 206]

the only reason why the 94pt clan alpha (which really is just the 2erLL 6erml 2Gauss Dire Wolf) is being targeted for nerf....
is because Chris met one in game, got alphaed, didnt twist, and died.

its the same story all the time. Chris dies in game, isnt happy, and then goes ahead to nerf whatever killed him.


Chris. i cant wait to meet you in game with my DHGR Anni.
that is one mech that truly needs a nerf.
(which incidentally is only 86pt alpha but so much more OP than the 94pt DWF any time any day - just goes to show the level of thought in PGI's balance department)

Edited by Dungeon 206, 14 June 2018 - 03:55 AM.

[ADI84000]

why nerf weapons for all clan mechs , when only dire wolf can do this , and the deathstrike hero mech wich you wont see that much.... and both can fire once ... get like 80% heat and need 10 seconds to fire again , making them turret warrior online.... so basicly in the long run you do like 94 damage every like 10-15 seconds ... lets say on the direwolf with more heatsinks you might get 9 dps... thats continously firing 2 IS med lasers... yea high alpha .... but incredible high heat ... cant fire twice , maybe with a coolshot you can fire twice but thats only once per game.... and the burn time... is what like 1.5 seconds so you basicly starring the enemy in the face for the time it takes to get out of cover shoot and burn time and get back into cover also you can only twist while going back to cover not while shooting cause of the burn weapons ,

has anybody considered the bad sides of these laser vomits.... yea its very good vs noobs maybe who stand still and you get all that damage in one component.... but when people twist... you mostly hit with the double gauss and the rest of 64 out of 94 damage gets spread all over for 1.5 seconds while the mechs twists twice from one side to the other or goes back into cover, also you are fully expoesd and facing the enemy for that 1.5 seconds and while you shoot at someone who twists spreading the damage you dont twist all he`s team mates will shot you in the ct.... resulting probly more than 94 damage to you....
and laser vomit has become the meta because balistics where nerfed and missiles were nerfed.... they should not be this hot or jam as much to be a viable dps weapons considering how much tonnage they weigh.... lets see 2 uac 10 and 2 uac 5 meta = 30 damage , double tap = 60 damage change of jam... weighs .... well probly more than twice the weight of the lasers needed for that 64 damage alpha but you can shoot and twist.... shoot and twist shoot and twist or just continously shoot until you jam and get back in cover... maybe if you reduced the heat on those balistics and made them a viable dps weapons , reduce jam chance by 50% across the board on all uacs , come on in reality weapon jams accour maybe one in 1000 shots.... or maybe less here its maybe one in 2-3 shots 4-6 if you are lucky or even the first time you shooot everything jams... a better jam mecanic would be : double tap once and have 10% jam chance , double tap twice and have 20% .... double tap 9 times and have 90% jam chance
buff the freak`n brawl weapons srms spread and velocity buff, make artemis great again, streak spread and velocity buff, small pulse and med pulse buff for is in half the heat half the cooldown it has now same for clan just increase the small pulse to 5 damage... 4 is just ridicoulous considering you can fire 2 er small 50a for 10 damage... for same tonnage and higher range... yea higher cooldown but its 250% extra damage for same tonnage, make brawl awesome again make people wanna be hesitant to be so close to others and run away when they see a brawler or more people be brawlers...
make ppcs not be the hottest weapon and huge cooldown reduce the cooldown a bit reduce the heat by 20% and velocity by atleast 20% so you encourage different play styles in peek and poke... increase the clan and is er ppc ghost heat to be able to fire 3-4 , so they are an alternative to those laser traders and
you know what the funny part is.... they gave us the skill tree... so we got better cooldowns from the skill nodes, wich we had before with the modules... but allot of weapons got cooldowns increased clan er small , er med ....
we got -heat ... with heat nodes... but then a balistics heat was increased.... laser heat increased..
we got mobility tree... but hey engine desync .... so its even worse then before on agility wise, heavies feel worse than assaults before engine desinc... mediums feel like heavies... lights feel like mediums... lights dont feel like lights .... would be nice if someone had the numbers with modules... and old skill tree on what cooldown and heat dissipation and max heat , we had , and what we have now with the skill tree , and before you would get all that .... and a double multiplier as i remember, and now you have to choose to have some or others...
heres a proposition just buf all the skill tree nodes by 25-50% , everyone will get more armor /structure if they want it from the nodes... or more agility if they want it... some nodes even need a 75%-100% increase ... no one uses the jump jet skill tree ... few people use the infowar one.
and ecm also get nerfed so if you want to have it as it was before skill tree you need to put points... in
how are these buffs ? how are these improvements,
after the skill tree we had nerf after nerf after nerf after nerf , in each weapon class, balistic missile lasers machine guns even lol and we will have nerf lasers now , nerf balistics later cause they are new meta after laser meta nerf, nerf ppc next cause new meta after balistic nerf, nerf missiles cause new meta after all those nerfs... wait the lasers are the new meta op and strong again.... nerf lasers again.

2 years from now we will have ****** weapons and ****** mechs... and no one will want to play this game anymore.
i used to love this game... and it almost makes me cry.... how low the population is ... how few people still play faction i see the same 30-40 people on each side in faction play for months now no matter the time of day.... and how much allot of mechs were nerfed... for being op.... thats the thing some mechs are better than others much better... i think the kodiak should have not been nerfed... and everyone is gonna yell at me... it still needs some structure/armor considering how huge that ct is and how easy is to hit... i remember killing allot of kodiaks easily when they came out... and they had quirks and now its even easier because they dont... frankly its the easiest to kill assault on the battle field... its slow and its ct is huuuuuge
you should not have nerfed uac 10s heat and put them in ghost heat mecanic... now a counter for the annihilator would have been that 4 uac 10 kodiak to fight against the double heavy gaus 6 medium pulse laser annihilator wich is close to that 94 alpha that we are complaining on clan side... but guess what duration is like a third of that making it more deadly than that... but people only look at the numbers... wow 94 damage... yea but how abought 50 pinpoing double heavy gauss , 36 damage in like 0.5 seconds with skill tree , so in 0.5 seconds you put out 86 damage... 8 damage less than clan puts out in 3 times ... the face time.....
and there are 100 times more anihilators with heavy gauss 86 alpha in 0.5 .. .. than dire wolfs and deathstrikes with 94 alpha in 1.5 seconds in quick play and faction play...

how about you bring back by buffing all other weapons to compete with these 2 is and clan huge alphas -dps and brawl .
srms , streaks, small lasers, small pulse , med pulse , large pulse, make them true dps weapons... cut the pulse laser cooldown and heat by half, reduce jam and heat on uacs, make srm spread and velocity better, make small laser and clan er small really short cooldown considering its low range and damage and really low heat... so you can pressure these guys with high alpha with dps builds... making the high alpha builds harder to be viabile... and everyones gonna be happy , then remove gauss ppc ghost heat and uac ghost heat...
make MWO fun again.... you have been nerfing everything for a year... all weapons have been nerfed... please stop.... start buffing them ....

if by trying to increase ttk you destroy this game.... and make everyone LEAVE... we will be left with 100 guys who will take 10 years to kill each other...
and ttk wich in my opinion is something so subjective based on circumstances of the match.... how many people shoot at you and how much you twist... and from what angle you get hit and where
i`ve played against clan heavy laser vomit... and if you twist and team play and pressure them.... it doesnt do much... considering how beefy structure/armor wise those is mechs are... please stop letting noobs dictate the nerfs because they are being stomped by some mechs and cry about it
MAKE MWO FUN AGAIN....

[cougurt]

Bush Hopper, on 14 June 2018 - 03:15 AM, said:

At least I agree with you on that. However, you won't get the former because of guys like these (see link) who think light mechs are "invulnerable" (his words) but haven't played a light mech for ages

https://mwomercs.com...25#entry6113625

The latter...how would you give them more access?

i'm suggesting that they buff some of the lighter weapons. things like the small laser family, micro lasers, SRMs, etc.

[Black Ivan]

Sigh, why not balance IS as well. All I hear is balance Clans here, balance Clans there. What about balancing everything?

[Weeny Machine]

cougurt, on 14 June 2018 - 03:52 AM, said:

i'm suggesting that they buff some of the lighter weapons. things like the small laser family, micro lasers, SRMs, etc.

You won't increase the TTK this way and the power creep will continue (lollaserspamlol)

[admiralbenbow123]

Here's my opinion:
CLAN GAUSS RIFLES
Option 1-good but not perfect
Option 2-a bit of a weird decision but makes sense and might work
Option 3-doesn't really make sense because c-gauss rifles get used mostly with c-medium lasers (at least from what I've seen)

CLAN LASERS
Option 1-I am not really a big fan of it but it might work
Option 2-I like that one a lot

[thievingmagpi]

Dungeon 206, on 14 June 2018 - 03:40 AM, said:

the only reason why the 94pt clan alpha (which really is just the 2erLL 6erml 2Gauss Dire Wolf) is being targeted for nerf....
is because Chris met one in game, got alphaed, didnt twist, and died.

its the same story all the time. Chris dies in game, isnt happy, and then goes ahead to nerf whatever killed him.


Chris. i cant wait to meet you in game with my DHGR Anni.
that is one mech that truly needs a nerf.
(which incidentally is only 86pt alpha but so much more OP than the 94pt DWF any time any day - just goes to show the level of thought in PGI's balance department)

This.

Big scary alpha strike ds aren't really an issue. Devs just trying to appease the masses in the laziest manner.

Moronic quirk adjustments (tbr lol), idiotic lrm buffs, continued ignorance of simple ui fixes, 1 new map per year....

But hey let's talk about nerfing clam assaults because some useless pugs don't understand torso twisting or basic map reading.

Incompetence

[ENOVA]

Dear developers.
As an alternative, here is my suggestion how to reduce the number of laservomits.

Option: if mech' lose a part during a fight and/or his structure was damaged, then it is sent for repair and mech can not be taken for a period of time (like 1 hour or so).

Trial mechs are not affected by this.
Plus, leave or just slightly nerf clans but keep them strong.
P.S.: many players simply do not have such a large number of laservomits to just keep choosing them. People more likely will choose another mechs AFTER EVERY match. No same mechs/leservomits-only anymore.

Edited by ENOVA, 14 June 2018 - 06:00 AM.

[cougurt]

Bush Hopper, on 14 June 2018 - 04:27 AM, said:

You won't increase the TTK this way and the power creep will continue (lollaserspamlol)

this isn't power creep, it's rectifying nearly a year's worth of misguided or heavy handed nerfs that have done nothing except make the game worse. if TTK must go up further, then i would recommend that they start by restoring mechs back to a decent level of agility. the only problem with this is that it does nothing to actually please the people who are complaining about TTK, since most of them are completely clueless when it comes to twisting, positioning, trading and general strategy. if we're going to take the "make everything trash" approach instead, then i'd appreciate it if they would at least hit everything at the same time.

[Daggett]

ENOVA, on 14 June 2018 - 05:10 AM, said:

People more likely will choose another mechs AFTER EVERY match. No same mechs/leservomits-only anymore.

Or they would stop playing at all until their favorite mech is ready again. Especially if they are new and only own a single non-trial mech. Would you be happy if your shiny new mech is unavailabe after it's first match and you are forced back to trial mechs? And you know this will happen after most matches?

You don't balance a game by manipulating your players in such a way. You let them play what they desire so they can have fun and keep playing.

To be more abstract: Imagine an imbalanced chess where white has a third rook instead of a pawn. Your approach is to tell players that for each time they play white they have to wait an hour until they can play white again. Wouldn't it be smarter to simply nerf white so the game is fun for everyone regardless of the side chosen?

[El Bandito]

Cadoazreal, on 14 June 2018 - 12:51 AM, said:

To the fools complaining only clanners complaining, look at my account mech list, if you can work out how to do that, nearly almost IS mechs, dont get fooled by the Smoke jag logo, im doing a mech bay tour. Some Clan mechs laser alpha may be a little overpowered, but blanket nerfing the weapon because of a few mechs and destroying all the balanced clan laser mechs to do it will basically kill the only weapon group that hasn't been destroyed for the majority of clan mechs by previous clan weapon nerfs instead of chassis/variant nerfs.

CERML and HLL do deserve the nerfs.