845 replies to this topic

[RedWasp]

Size Hardpoints = no Alpha 94 damage

[Stinger554]

RedWasp, on 14 June 2018 - 02:14 PM, said:

Size Hardpoints = no Alpha 94 damage

Unless you lock out cERML it does equal 72 which is also a problem.

[YUyahoo]

So a few days ago in phase 1 of June's mech sale I bought an Awesome variant I didn't have. I kitted it out with max armor (except for its "dead" arm), max engine and it has a very sustainable 95pt alpha with a 1.37 heat efficiency. Is the damage pinpoint? No, but it has enough ammo to fire off more than 20 rounds of 95pt alphas (and no lrms are a part of that damage). I better not tell anyone or maybe PGI will want to nerf the Awesomes too....oh wait, its an IS so clearly there is no need to worry, only clan mechs need to be nerfed (again)!

Seriously though potential high alphas have been more of an issue ever since the civil war update and not just on the clan side...IS mechs can get just as high alphas (and in some cases with far more pin point damage), some even higher than that dreaded "94" plateau that Paul and Chris are worried about. Since PGI put all these weapons in the game they should have been able to predict the issue(s) these weapons would cause. Rather than trying to find away to reduce the effectiveness of one sides weaponry (instead of addressing high alpha issues for both IS and Clan), why not look at returning mech agility as so many here have pointed out and improve hitboxes so that torso twisting/rolling damage because an effective counter? Trying to "improve" the game by constantly making mechs and weapons worse/weaker is not an effective way to grow your game or make it more fun for anyone to play.

[Stinger554]

YUyahoo, on 14 June 2018 - 02:36 PM, said:

So a few days ago in phase 1 of June's mech sale I bought an Awesome variant I didn't have. I kitted it out with max armor (except for its "dead" arm), max engine and it has a very sustainable 95pt alpha with a 1.37 heat efficiency. Is the damage pinpoint? No, but it has enough ammo to fire off more than 20 rounds of 95pt alphas (and no lrms are a part of that damage). I better not tell anyone or maybe PGI will want to nerf the Awesomes too....oh wait, its an IS so clearly there is no need to worry, only clan mechs need to be nerfed (again)!

Seriously though potential high alphas have been more of an issue ever since the civil war update and not just on the clan side...IS mechs can get just as high alphas (and in some cases with far more pin point damage), some even higher than that dreaded "94" plateau that Paul and Chris are worried about. Since PGI put all these weapons in the game they should have been able to predict the issue(s) these weapons would cause. Rather than trying to find away to reduce the effectiveness of one sides weaponry (instead of addressing high alpha issues for both IS and Clan), why not look at returning mech agility as so many here have pointed out and improve hitboxes so that torso twisting/rolling damage because an effective counter? Trying to "improve" the game by constantly making mechs and weapons worse/weaker is not an effective way to grow your game or make it more fun for anyone to play.

95 non-pinpoint alpha isn't an issue because it spreads like crazy. I assume you are using MRMs which have huge spread unless you are facing hugging people.


As for IS mechs having higher pinpoint alphas I'm going to ask for a build because the only thing that I've see get close is the ANH which does 80 and has all the trade offs that comes with just being an ANH.

[Tarl Cabot]

Tarogato, on 13 June 2018 - 09:26 PM, said:

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.


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

Really? When isXL were introduced it was associated with TT rules of 3 engine crits and mech is out. Then Clans were introduced w/cXL which had no penalties to start with except the need to lose both side torsos. It was SEVERAL months before PGI even added the heat penalty, then a year later before the movement penalty.

So you are saying that SIMPLY if a IS mech with an isXL will NOT DIE w/loss of the first side torso, it unadulterated powercreep. ./chuckles.... again, because the IS mech would not die with the loss of a SIDE torso, it would take either the cockpit, both legs, center torso (same across all engines) or both side torsos for LFE/CLAN XL, currently.

Lights, mediums and heavies would benefit the most, with the difference being top speed and one or two better weapons. For assaults only a few would benefit and that would the be energy focused mechs with a few KPH speed and an extra DHS or two, or the ability to equip a ballistic + others without dropping to 50 KPH. Most of the other assaults are lucky they are able to equip LFE, primarily due to ALL OTHER IS components taking up more space than their Clan counterparts.

So no, your counter argument doesn't hold much water at all, in an environment that is completely different from the boardgame. Dice is not being used here, nor is there a functional engine crit system in place, something PGI kept noting every time they APOLOGIZED for adding NON-LETHAL penalties when a cXL loss a side torso.

It does not really matter though, PGI does not know what they want to do with the engine issue so they are playing it safe (chuckles) and sticking to only PART of the ruleset while continuing ignoring the rest of it.

/shots time!!!!!!!

[YUyahoo]

Stinger554, on 14 June 2018 - 02:51 PM, said:

95 non-pinpoint alpha isn't an issue because it spreads like crazy. I assume you are using MRMs which have huge spread unless you are facing hugging people. As for IS mechs having higher pinpoint alphas I'm going to ask for a build because the only thing that I've see get close is the ANH which does 80 and has all the trade offs that comes with just being an ANH.

Any mech that can run dual heavy gauss can do more focused pinpoint that anything the clans can offer...50>30. And on the PPC side of pinpoint, sure cERPPC does a little more damage than isERPPC but what do the clans have that match the HPPC for pinpoint?
Just to be clear though, I am not advocating for Clan over IS or IS over Clan...PGI's objective ultimately is balance and all I am saying is you can't achieve balance in two things you want to be slightly different from each other if you just keep making one of those two things weaker and weaker while ignoring the other.

[Careful Method]

Weapon balance is fine. Buff armor.

Make machine guns jam. More ghost heat on RACs. Buff regular cACs (no one uses them). Clan LPLs don't seem to do the damage I can get out of a regular ERL even with having to burn longer, even though their stated damage is slightly higher. Expand tiers to 10 or more. Bad players for 10 years are in tier 1 because one win>3 or 4 losses.

I'm sure I could think of more.

[Jaybles-The-PegLeg-PotatoCaptain]

Why not just make the threshold builds invalid? Like anything over the arbitrary alpha limit, be it 60,70, or 80+ is locked out. Give an invalid loadout message 'Build restricted due to balance considerations'. No weapon changes needed.

[Eisenhorne]

Jaybles-The-PegLeg-PotatoCaptain, on 14 June 2018 - 07:56 PM, said:

Why not just make the threshold builds invalid? Like anything over the arbitrary alpha limit, be it 60,70, or 80+ is locked out. Give an invalid loadout message 'Build restricted due to balance considerations'. No weapon changes needed.

because then you couldn't use MRMs or many other missile weapons.

[Yar0Wind]

I had a desire to buy "Incubus". All options - basic, reinforced, heroic - the first time in this game. He looks very beautiful on art. But since the Clans are made unplayable, I do not see the point in this. Thank you for saving money, PGI.

[Rizzi Kell]

i can fire that mechs Alpha went in shut down and survive that for another Alpha... did you do that too?but had to rebuild that build some armor moved out and put in aditional heatsink

[Y E O N N E]

Rizzi Kell, on 14 June 2018 - 09:48 PM, said:

i can fire that mechs Alpha went in shut down and survive that for another Alpha.

Only if potatoes don't shoot you.

[Rizzi Kell]

https://mwo.smurfy-n...5e326d991f704bc
as a usefull one with the use of 1 coolshot you can Alpha 3 times before went in shutdown….

Edited by Rizzi Kell, 14 June 2018 - 11:47 PM.

[Aleski]

Rizzi Kell, on 14 June 2018 - 11:30 PM, said:

https://mwo.smurfy-n...5e326d991f704bc
as a usefull one with the use of 1 coolshot you can Alpha 3 times before went in shutdown….

Stop your trolling. Have you ever try those builds ? MRM are far worse than a twin gauss + lazor alpha. They spread damage everywhere. With gauss and lazor and good aim, you can one shot some locust or commandos easily. With MRM, it's not the same story !

If you want to troll, learn to git gud at this.

[Leon Ward]

Okay Aleski, but what about Anni and his '86 Alpha? He can fire 3 times before he goes down. I wonder if one of the Gamebalancer was ever destroyed by 10 Annis and 2 Sleipnir in the CW with 48 to 12? This is not really about the fact that it does not make sense to increase the TTK.

Unfortunately, as a clan player, it is always tiresome to hear "Clan need to be nerft" but then simply get chopped up by IS in the CW with said Alphabuilds. PGI WHAT IS WITH THE IS ALPHABUILDS ?????

Edited by Lance-a-Lot, 15 June 2018 - 02:31 AM.

[babymotte]

If high alpha laser builds are a problem wouldn't the most reasonable solution be to bring something like reflective armor into the game? That wouldn't break anyone's now working builds which they have put a lot of time and effort into (not just building them, but also learning how to play them), will make the game more diverse and whoever has the feeling that he is dying of laser vomits too often (which I for example don't, I find the heavy gauss a lot more crippling) can easily rebalance his mech's defensive capabilities to be more effective against lasers than other weapon types.

[Rizzi Kell]

Trolling? nearly every hate post of useable clanbuilds (at exact 2 mechs) is trolling here , nobody shouts About 3 RAC2 or heavy Gaus... so it is my Right to Show you up what is the problem.
If you dissagree, that is your fault, but i like my clanbuilds and even if i could run that crazy superduper heavy 94 Alpha, i would not do it.
So don´t call me a troll.

[Leon Ward]

It takes a really new approach to balancing. Ghost heat and weapon shakes + the big box of Pandora "Quirks" are wrong and make the game "unfunning" because over and over again as the Assesin or earlier the Hugin or the Jenner-O happen and then have to be Quirk and nerf again .... and so on

Edited by Lance-a-Lot, 15 June 2018 - 02:37 AM.

[Rizzi Kell]

ever heard of, that a clan weapon got a buff? i heard it never, every time a weapon was nerfed it was a clan weapon….

[Soviet Alex]

So I thought I was stuck mid-tier because most other players were better. Turns out it's because I run a lot of ballistic builds.

Joking aside, I like the minor recoil option for the gauss rifle better than the alternatives. You could even justify it in the game lore as the Clans removing recoil dampers to bring the weapon tonnage down without sacrificing damage (as opposed to the light gauss rifle, which loses damage to save weight but doesn't have recoil).

As for Clan lasers, my preferred option would be to reduce damage per cycle but increase rate of fire to preserve the same total damage across approx. 10 seconds.