845 replies to this topic

[A Headless Chicken]

I remember there was a guy saying enforce chain-fire only mode on balance discussions.

I may have laughed hard at the absurdity of that suggestion but it looks like Chris wants it to be a thing.

[Kerch1253]

Jatix, on 11 June 2018 - 03:24 PM, said:

I dont mean this in a unfriendly / troll way. But as a new player its very hard to have a good view of balance. This goes for all games. I've been here since beta and I can say the game was waaay more fun before. Its only more fun now for players who dont want to improve and need op stuff to compete. But they still had plenty of ways to contribute before (lrm's, etc)

It's not uncommon for veteran players to find newer player's perspectives (in any game) to be myopic, so I'm not offended at all.

I'm not particularly concerned with how fun the game used to be/not be, as I find the game plenty fun right now. I prefer that not change, so I just wanted to give my feedback "vote" while I still had the opportunity. They're welcome to consider it or not, as I'll be voting with my wallet later.

[System Belmont the Mech Slayer]

After reading everything I'm still on the fence about the way things have been changed over the years.

I'm on the side that says half the heat value from 30-15 and utilize the heat sinks.

I always thought this game should be played by using staggered weapon systems, because the current system is best utilized by maximizing the alpha and then ducking behind cover to cool down

the lower heat value system would hopefully make more people stagger weapon fire and or chain fire to keep heat levels down, which might not change the time to kill but would make the brawl and other forms of fighting more engaging

I mean, I have been waiting for a dakka meta for so long and then you give it to us in the form of machine guns..... thanks

Edited by System Belmont the Mech Slayer, 11 June 2018 - 04:17 PM.

[System Belmont the Mech Slayer]

Also how much work would it take to lower the heat value compared to the other changes, I'd redownload the ptr to test that way out

[Nema Nabojiv]

So, a personal story.

It was a great evening before I decided to check what's new in MWO. Then I saw this thread. And now I'm upset, like seriously, in a bad mood, about the fact that in a month or so MWO will become slightly worse then it is now and nothing can be done about it.

And all that on top of being so much disgusted by May's patchnotes that I logged in maybe once or twice since then. Like why the hell do I have to worry they'll break something in each new patch? I came for fun, and though I did have fun, I'm also getting so much frustration that I feel its a net loss.

[SneekiBreeki]

On a side note thank god Warframe runs smooth on the integrated graphics chipsed and The Sacrifice is coming out this week.

Oh btw i'm supporting the community balance proposal and i shall repeat what many a member have already posted here: make it so, set it up on a PTS at least but for the love of god almighty or whatever you believe in stop nerfing everything into utter usefulness and stop making everything so boring and unfun to play.

[Metachanic]

It seems we have an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. Buffed baseline agility is a good counter to high-alpha, high-duration laservom, and based on the growing collection of quotes below, it's a much-sought-after buff to fun, not to mention shorter-range play styles.

Quote

...not even considering boosted agility to help improve survivability?

Quote

...the best place to start is giving us mobility back.

Quote

...can you re-couple the engines to agility?

Quote

...-plain buff agility

Quote

...bring back agility!

Quote

...seriously you kill the playstyle that is designed to counter long duration clan lasers and nerf mechs’ mobility into oblivion and now admit that you have problems with high alpha-high duration weapons which evaporates those sluggish moving turrets on legs you call mechs?

Quote

...would not be needed if we were to get back the mobility that was HEAVILY nerfed many patches ago.

Quote

...engine/agility decoupling?

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...a lot of them have horrible geometry or agility for spreading damage out

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...and brawling agility is dead.

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...give us back mech agility and responsive handling

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...buffing the survivability of the mechs affected through agility.

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...no changes since this ridicules engine decouple to agility at all, as if everything is alright

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...just have such terrible agility they are physical painful to play.

[SneekiBreeki]

^ For the love of god yes, YES to what Meta posted. Buff baseline agility back!

[Capn Cat]

Another option for consideration:

Adjust upward the Ghost heat cap for IS energy weapons so they can reach the similar alpha per single weapon type to Clans.

IS v Clan retains that interesting Asym nature because they still have to invest more tonnage and heat to get the alpha, but they can at least compete for the stopping power without penalties.

No ghost heat on:

• 3x IS ERPPC / SNPPC / PPC
  
• 8x IS ML / ERML
  
• 7x IS MPL

'But power creep!'

Clan laser vomit has reigned over this game for a long time now - Allowing IS mechs to reach higher alphas won't change that fact one bit.

They'll still have a multitude of asym things holding them back: Limited hardpoints to take advantage of the increased caps. More tonnage investment required, coupled with the fact that IS endo and FF are inferior to clan. Much higher heat even once GH is removed, coupled with substandard IS DHS.

One more: Consider allowing 3x IS Gauss to charge simultaneously O_O

In short, theres a lot of artificial mechanics in the game right now that are holding the IS back, ease off on those sanctions and allow IS mechs more diversity in their builds so they can better compete with Clans


One thing I'd like to see / hear was happening - a 'mutation' style of design iteration.

Every month a radical design change is selected and pushed out either to live / PTS / internal servers and playtested.

One day a month you try something completely different. If you're doing it live or on PTS then incentivise people playing on this day also exclude this day from the leaderboard stats.

The ideas can come from anyone in the design team / community and are selected by a voting process within PGI. The vetting of ideas is for the most part mandated by what is easily achievable (changing number values for example)

Examples

• What happens if you halve heat capacity?
  
• What happens if you increase the Damage of all IS lasers by one point?
  
• What happens if you remove ghost heat altogether? (Direstar style mayhem - but bearable for a day and good data)
  
• What happens if you double armour?
  
• What happens if you make the changes in my above post?
  
• What happens if you make lights half the size? (meds 66% scale, Heavies 84% scale) etc etc.

Rationale: You get to see the effect of large-scale changes in a large-scale test without the kind of risks that mean people freak out about your balance changes as they do now (it's only for one day) Also a small amount of 'little details' errors are tolerable.

You get to see the kinds of wacky outlier builds people will come up with to exploit the changes.

And last but most importantly you get the players on board with the changes that DON'T work - if you put up the mutation that the community has been calling for then we all get to see first hand why it doesn't work.

[byter75]

In my mind there's a fundamental rot that the vast majority of these changes do not touch on, the average work a mech can do is not insignificantly impacted by consumables, as being able to pop a cool shot or throw down a strike allows mechs to mitigate heat and soften the foe respectively. I do wonder how much the disparity in how effectively different players do with the same weapon systems is tied to their use of consumables.

For example laser weapons have many great traits, compared to missile and dakka they are relatively small and light, they are hit scan (rather than projectile) and have decent range and damage. Their big downside is the large heat generation, a large amount of laser vomit can struggle to keep up a good sustained dps making it weak to being pushed in.... unless you have a button which effectively allows you to mitigate or ignore this downside whenever you are feeling its effects.

imo heat is a large part of weapon balance, it is supposed to limit the damage potential of mechs, its supposed to help define weapon systems with how heat efficient they are. However things like coolshots undermine this system, a mech with two maximised coolshots is on average a lot more capable than one without. Large laser alphas are more of a big deal when they are able to flatten out their heat curve when they need to.

[SneekiBreeki]

[Redacted]

Edited by draiocht, 13 June 2018 - 04:21 PM.
discussing moderation, replies removed

[draiocht]

[mod]Please keep discussion close to topic.
Tangential discussion may be moved to other threads.
Thank you.[/mod]

[Banshee2X]

Okay on a more serious post then my last post on this thread.

While I do believe Cross Tech would solve a lot of this games balance problems I know that the development team will never go for it. I don’t know why Cross Tech is always shot down given that this game is not canonical you can’t argue against it being against traditional lore!

Anyways I do not feel strongly about the clan nerfs in my opinion it makes greater sense to buff IS lasers in general and perhaps give Autocannons and SRMs the attention they desperately deserve and buff them as well and possibly as mentioned by another user in an earlier post grant an increase in performance to IS double heatsinks to better compare with their clan counterparts which are still vastly superior.

The constant nerf mentality isn’t the way the game should go we need to really look at what under performs and think about how to bring that weapon systems performance up rather than take an overperforming weapon system and bring its performance down.
And as others have stated in this forum it really is time to knock the dust off the Public Test Server and really let us break stuff in there to give you guys the developers some data and good feedback to go off of. These weapon updates or ideas that get changed next patch or rolled back before the patch even comes out (May Patch Clan Laser Nerfs) is not only irritating to the player base but it’s also wasting your development time that could be spent creating new content for future updates or collecting data from Public Tests.

In conclusion we need to look at both factions here not just The Clans. The Inner Sphere has been neglected for far too long (This coming from a primarily Clan player) I feel the documents proposed by Bear Claw Queenblade Bosw3r and a few others have done a very good job at addressing multiple problems within the games balance and should be strongly considered by the balance team at PGI as the first step into a better future for MWO!

Edited by Virtually Dark, 11 June 2018 - 04:40 PM.

[Vanguard836]

Of the above options here are my thoughts.

Clan Gauss Rifle

Option 1 : good for balancing dual or more gauss but hurts single gauss rifle builds more.
Keeping equivalent DPS will mean more exposure of said mech which are not as durable as the comparable IS mechs in general and would perhaps make them weaker if trading but stronger if able to attack from a side angle.

Option 2 : I don't find this mechanice overly effective as it's only necessary to shoot lasers 1st and then release the gauss rifle to avoid the shake. Granted I'm sure this allows for more time to torso twist or hide I'm not sure this will completely lower the overal alpha enough

Option 3 : I think it might help reduce combination of Clan Gauss and Large laser types but I beleive Gauss and medium is also a strong combo but nowhere as strong as this with the large lasers. Might be worth trying it.

Personnaly I think option 3 is more favorable and might combine it with option 2 which would force laser burns 1st giving some extra reaction time but I wonder if there's a way to simply circumvent option 3 by a slight burn delay.

On a side note I do find the clan gauss to be overly fragile for the 3 ton, 1 critical less but 50% of the HP. While I agree that the smaller weapon/component should have less health I feel this is a little bit too low. I'd like to see a slight increase of 2 to 3 HP on it if possible.


Clan Lasers

Option 1: This could be interesting however if it forces more face time the difference in durability between the two factions might show even more. I do like the idea of less burn time with the lesser damage and lesser heat.

Option 2: I feel this is potentially too harsh with the current damage values as it limits some weapons to 1 at a time increasing face time by quite a lot and might reduce the viability even more of some of the less well performing clan mechs.

of the 2 I'd prefer option to try option 1.


On another note there does appear to be a feeling that these combinations, the clan laser vomit, is one of the more versatile and friendlier means of dealing damage.

Large AC/UACs aren't very easy or fun to use due to low velocity of the bigger calibres and the very long jam times. That's not to say that massed low calibre ACs aren't effective but I don't like the idea of having to boat several "smaller" weapons of a type because the bigger ones feel to clunky due to jam and velocity.

Edited by Vanguard836, 11 June 2018 - 04:49 PM.

[Kukulza]

Paul Inouye, on 11 June 2018 - 01:09 PM, said:

We are not going to grandly scale all ‘Mechs and weapon systems upward to meet this level of damage output as that would lead to severe power creep and degradation of gameplay even in its current state. This touches on a community based balance document that has just started circulating. That document is a full upward trajectory of power creep. This does NOT mean there isn’t valuable information in there. There are some number changes we can make and underutilized weapon systems pointed out in the document and the points made about them are very useful feedback that we will address as we move forward.

With all due respect, Paul, there were literally laser nerfs along with LAMS buffs in this doc. While you may not agree with the buffing of certain weapon systems, those changes don't have to be implemented. It's pretty disingenuous for you to say all this doc will do is dramatically increase power creep. I noticed a few folks even here parrot that. That isn't right man.

For real though, what was the rationale for massively reducing everyone's agility? It makes TTK lower due to losing the ability to roll damage.

Edited by Kukulza, 11 June 2018 - 04:50 PM.

[Chimera_]

Fundamentally, I am completely opposed to the continued reliance on clunky mechanics and crippling nerfs used as a means of "balance". Adding more ghost heat groups only serves to further limit and nullify build potential, it's a sloppy band-aid replacing proper balance. The root cause of the currently perceived overperforming builds is the consistent crippling of many alternative weapons/weapon loadouts/mechs, so it would make much more sense to address the prior nerfs to alternatives than to continue a cycle of nerfing until we're fighting with 2 damage gauss rifles at 10 second cooldowns.

Oh, and of course crippling agility on mechs in an attempt to balance them is terrible and unfun. Please reverse that and discontinue the practice.

[Roach]

Good thing, that you guys finally trying to solve this.

Well, I would definitely not touch the weapons output, IF you could increase the armor protection itself. That would help and certainly prevent the one shot-one kill, what we sometimes have and would help people to get into cover before the get killed in seconds.

Secondly, I would introduce the #rng effect in MWO. Meaning, as in WoT e.g., that you shoot and based on weapon specification there is a certain random factor, that the shot actually arrives within any part of the target reticle. This can be affected positively by skills you acquire and negatively by other effects like terrain, heat, etc.

In the tabletop and in MekHQ there is this random effect and totally changes the whole feel of the game. People could still be accurate but just read one book, any book and you'll see that even the best mech pilots can miss. Here, now I do not miss: I aim and fire and it hits.

[M1Combat]

I'm going for option 2 AND 3 for the Gauss along with option 2 for lasers.

the reason for option 2 AND 3 is that one will affect the build that are tuned for the immediate alpha and the other will affect the more skill tuned builds where you fire the Gauss more towards the end of the laser burn.

Also... please re-attach torso twist and engine speed.


That said...

I feel like other Clan weapons need to be buffed. I use almost exclusively IS mechs and the simple reason for it is that the IS AC's and SRM's are junk and I prefer to play AC builds. Admittedly it's been a while since I used them (I just boat lasers on the clan side... sometimes with a gauss thrown in) but the AC's maybe need more velocity to account for the fact that they spread damage.

[Brain Cancer]

This game is terrified of anything but perfect, instant convergence on the crosshair. Unless it's an actual guided weapon, in which case "MUH SKILLS" must apply and the weapon must have horrible spread instead.

[Excalibaard]

High alpha and laser dominance isn't limited to clan. Nerf current gaussvomit and another meta build that smartly avoids the solutions will rise, like cutting the head off a hydra and another growing in its place. The way I see it there's a weapon-specific and a broad change that can be made. The latter has been suggested many timea already, so I start with the weapon-specific one.

Weapon-specific balancing-in-a-void: Energy Rebalance 3.0,
I suggest looking into synchronising the damage-per-tick. The biggest problem with clan alpha is when the damage indicator is slow and your mech takes a while to twist, so the beam duration ends before you can shake it off. Increase beam durations proportional to the damage and laser weapon size/type.
IS ML 5 damage in 1 second? Then IS ERML 5 damage in 1.25 seconds (compensation for extra range) and clan ERML 7 damage in 1.75 seconds. IS MPL has improved DPT for costing more tonnage and having higher HPS, so deals 5 damage in 0.75 seconds? Then clan MPL deals 7 dmg in 1.05 seconds.
Different base values for uL, SL and LL: for example the IS LL could be set to 10 dmg in 1.5 seconds and adjustments are made from there for the separate weapon types. You may end up with an incredible beam duration of 3 seconds on the HLL, but that seems thematic for the absurdly hot and powerful weapon it's supposed to feel like. This also makes it feel unique as a 'Suppressing laser' that just keeps firing, and increases the skillcap to use, rather than being 'the better ERLL in quickplay'.
The final improvement is that PPCs will be relatively better when the lasers have more spreading to them, without needing to be changed.
In addition to this energy rebalance, you slap a cooldown nerf on the gausses so their DPS per Ton becomes terrible as compensation for the high Damage per Heat. Other DPS weapons can now effectively outtrade Gauss due to having better DPS and more tonnage for speed or loadout improvements. GG.

However, this requires a lot of testing and adjustments and frankly, there's a better idea that has been suggested many times before:

Lower the heat capacity. Either the base value of 30 should be reduced and/or changes to heat sink capacity gain.

As a result, no longer can people fire absurd amounts of lasers or other alpha at the same time. Of course, have a warning when mech alpha exceeds mech heat capacity.

This will shift balance in favor of gauss and other ballistic weaponry due to their superior damage/heat, so assess their power and increase gauss cooldown to reduce their DPS per ton, improving other AC performance. Inversely, PPCs are in a terrible spot as they're already too hot for their intended use as pinpoint alternative for lasers. Reduce PPC heat.

Edited by Excalibaard, 11 June 2018 - 04:59 PM.