845 replies to this topic

[NocturnalBeast]

Vxheous, on 12 June 2018 - 03:44 PM, said:

Yes, lets just kill the game completely by taking away 90% of the mechs that people have paid cash/grinded for. Do you even think before you type such nonsense?

Yes, but those Mechs you "paid for" (are leasing) are continually being nerfed into something that is not even close to what you originally "paid for". I was being melodramatic and I do not seriously believe that PGI would get rid of a large percentage of Mechs and half of the tech in the game. My point is that apparently no one can agree on what these weapons should be able to do. I mean PGI has to try to balance between lore, realism and gamers' unrealistic expectations.

Edited by Ed Steele, 12 June 2018 - 04:26 PM.

[Rhialto]

All I have to say is that this some shadows are still not fixed 2 years later... and it's annoying as hell.
I can live with current weapons state but seeing this all the time sucks...

Get ready to see it as much as I see it, I'll post everywhere until you fix! Get it?
That way you'll also get sick of it and maybe fix!

[D34DMetal]

Chris Lowrey, on 08 June 2018 - 10:58 AM, said:

So as Paul stated in his overview post found here, we will be looking to directly address the current state of clan Alphas and bring them closer into alignment with the capabilities on the Inner Sphere side of the tech factions. The current trends of sustainable Alphas on the clan side reaching up to 94 damage when the IS typically cap out at around 60-65 effective damage without serious build concessions is too great of a divide to have fully slanted into the corner of a single faction and we will be taking steps to bring them closer into alignment.

[color=orange]Base Direction[/color]

To streamline discussion on the topic, it's best to think of solutions that we will be looking into following two overall approaches that we can take when looking at individual changes:

• Changes that result in Desynced fire as the optimal method of fire to reward the clans overall higher damage outputs.
  
• Reduction in baseline Damage output to something that is much better aligned to what the Inner Sphere is capable of keeping up with.

Changes that target more de-synchronized fire will keep the overall damage outputs and performance values of the Clan weapons at their current state, but will require players to break up their fire to optimally use. This can further play into the asymmetry between the two tech factions by allowing the Clans to keep their higher baseline values, but require a higher amount of trigger discipline skill to keep the reticle on target across multiple shots to make the most out of their damage output.




If not that, then we must consider bringing the overall damage values of those said weapon systems into greater alignment with the up-front damage per-ton output on the Inner Sphere side. As these two directions form the root of what the individual changes would encompass, we are open to hearing opinions on the ideal direction for bringing this particular issue into line.

[color=#ffa500]Options[/color]

What is described bellow are some of the options we are considering for addressing this. These are all individual things being explored, and should not be seen as an "all or nothing" series of changes so much as what options we have on the table to address the above points. We are divulging these things to spur discussion on the matter and monitor what is considered the best way forward to address this particular issue. Based on feedback received, we will more then likely only integrate either a single larger change to a single item, or a series of smaller changes across multiple items depending on community feedback on overall direction.

[color=#FFA500]Clan Gauss Rifles[/color]

The 3 less tons needed to equip Clan Gauss rifles need to come with meaningful give and take compared to their heavier IS equivalents. Off of two clan Gauss rifles, the 6 saved tons over their IS counterparts is often plenty of tonnage to compliment the weapons with payloads that their IS counterparts are often strapped to compete with. This will be adjusted to offer fairer give and take between the two tech base's rifles.

[color=#FFA500]Option 1: [/color]

• Upfront damage reduced to something more in-line for the tonnage invested in the weapon, Other attributes adjusted to keep the same current DPS.

[color=#FFA500]Option 2: [/color]

• The Clan Gauss rifle is given a recoil effect similar to, but not as intense as, the Heavy Gauss rifle. No other attributes are changed.

[color=#FFA500]Option 3: [/color]

• The Clan Gauss Rifle and all Clan Large Class Lasers are linked into the same heat penalty group.

[color=#FFA500]Clan Lasers:[/color]



The upfront damage of Clan lasers, and the ease of access the clans have at supplementing their fire with heavy upfront damage, at decent ranges, for minimal tonnage directly contributes not just to those Alpha's at the top, but a general lopsidedness in most build performance throughout the entire clan / IS lineup and often sees the Clan 'Mechs with access to a large number of energy hard points consistently outperform equivalent 'Mechs on the IS side. While the popular adage sees the belief that only a handful of 'mechs consist as "problem" 'Mechs, the reality is that as a whole, the overall performance of even an average clan 'Mech can put up are often consistently higher then what the average IS 'Mech can put up provided they have access to a certain number of energy hardpoints. This will be a change that is targeted to either raise the skill cap needed to utilized mass Clan laser fire, or will be reduced to a level that does not completely overshadow the IS equivalent weapons.

[color=#FFA500]Option 1: [/color]

• Upfront damage is reduced to IS equivalent levels. Superior range values are kept.
  
• Instead of superior upfront damage, we can reduce the cool-downs, heat, and other attributes to move the natural boosted per-turn damage that the Clan weapons are historically known for in the fiction, as a higher rate of fire leaving them overall where they are now, but shifting the added damage perks away from Boosted Alpha strikes and more towards higher overall DPS. Keeping closer alpha damage

[color=#FFA500]Option 2: [/color]

• Clan Laser's heat scale triggers set to 30 damage caps similar to their IS counterparts. All other weapon attributes remain unaffected.
  
• This will keep the superior damage for the weapons as it is now, but mass lasers will come with a higher skill ceiling in order to effectively utilize the entire payload in combat.

[color=#ffa500]In Closing:[/color]



As stated above, we will not be looking to integrate everything at once, but instead focus on player feedback, concerns, and opinions, and move forward for addressing this particular issue. If the community can produce an alternative solution that meets the same intended goals of reducing Clan upfront damage alpha from its current 94 damage peak, to instead peak off closer to the 60-65 damage peak the IS reaches without serious build concessions, as outlined in Paul's overview post, then we are open to implementing that solution provided its technical feasibility.

Additionally, while we know that many like to utilize other forms of social media to express feedback, in this instance we request that the primary discussion for this topic be centralized within this thread as there will be multiple eyes on these discussion topics.

These are all TRASH ideas to bring about balance. All you need to do is implement mech heat-scale penalties (modifiers, what-ever you want to call them). Things like 50% heat slow your mech down, and 75% heat slows down your weapons recycle time. And all of a sudden, you don't need to worry about tweaking ghost heat (an already terrible band-aid fix) and adding other shallow "balance" changes like recoil to gauss rifles. The heat-scale system adds DEPTH to the game-play, which is a good thing.

Nevermind the fact that people have been advocating for a heat-scale system for mechs to be added into the game for years. Seriously just do it already.

[Y E O N N E]

Heat scale will do nothing except snowball the demise of 'Mechs that have cooling problems already, be it through inherently poor equipment options or having lost cooling capacity to losing an LFE/cXL side torso or DHS crits. Players will just ride the line at whatever percentage unacceptable penalties kick in at and that will define the meta. That meta will look a lot like what you got with Energy Draw when damage before penalty was capped to 30: boated cDHS and cERML.

[D34DMetal]

Yeonne Greene, on 12 June 2018 - 05:19 PM, said:

Heat scale will do nothing except snowball the demise of 'Mechs that have cooling problems already, be it through inherently poor equipment options or having lost cooling capacity to losing an LFE/cXL side torso or DHS crits. Players will just ride the line at whatever percentage unacceptable penalties kick in at and that will define the meta. That meta will look a lot like what you got with Energy Draw when damage before penalty was capped to 30: boated cDHS and cERML.

I have to disagree: how can you draw that conclusion when you don't know how a heat-scale system would ACTUALLY operate in-game?

[Ghost Paladin117]

xUnbreakablex, on 11 June 2018 - 01:50 PM, said:

So, there is a lot of hot garbage here but I will try to get through this as painlessly as possible for the readers and the staff.

Lore - From a lore perspective this makes no sense as clan tech has always been superior to IS tech.

CW - have you looked at the map? It has not moved much for a reason. Clan tech is lacking severly. We are limited in our effective builds to combat the Inner Sphere Surrats to that which works.

Clan Gauss - Do not touch it. Stop it right now. It is fine as is. The Freebirths have so much flexability with light gauss, gauss, and heavy gauss. Take a kodiak with dual gauss and an annihilator with dual heavy gauss and there is no competition, the heavy gauss wins every time. The range is what makes the weapon semi-useful, although you will probably never see it used in competitive play because the slow rate of fire makes other equally heavy weapons (see UAC20's), much better. If you have to nerf bat it, add the recoil. realistically, leave it alone. My counter argument is IS gets to fire 3 large lasers with a duration much shorter then our large lasers, faster cooldown, and seemingly almost greater range, and that will mess up any mech with guass.

Lasers - ok i got a little chuckle out of this. "often sees the Clan 'Mechs with access to a large number of energy hard points consistently outperform equivalent 'Mechs on the IS side." do you even play clan? or CW at all? Competitive drops? I have had entire teams decimated by IS stalkers, battlemasters, and Thunderbolts boating ER large lasers which fire almost as far as clan ER lasers, with a shorter duration and cooldown, and the icing on the cake is they can fire 3 where as we can only fire 2. That third laser means they get 27 damage (not counting any damage bonus quirks) to our 22. Lets not forget that most IS Mechs have bonus armor, structure, and weapon quirks which can easily give them an advantage over an omnimech.

If you reduce clan laser damage to IS levels you will basically be taking lasers out of the game for clans. You will see a shift to more missiles and dakka. Why? Because who wants to shoot 2 er large lasers for 18 damage so you dont incur a heat penalty (which is already greater than IS counterparts) while the IS nukes you with 3 lasers for 27 damage in a shorter duration.

If you cap weapon group fire damage to lasers to 30, you will also see a shift to most likely pulse, dakka, and missiles. Why would i want a capped 30 point alpha with a longer burn time when i can just poke out with a uac 20 and 10 and rip off 60 damage and go back into cover. otherwise i'll need to expose for far too long to get my full weapon volley off and end up getting cored before i can get back into cover.

In Conclusion - do not nerf clan stuff, its already bad enough as it is. If you do I would like to hear your thoughts on how you plan to balance the fact that clan can only fire 2 er larges while the IS gets 3, and how 27 damage will always be superior to your proposed 18 for clans.

This seems pretty spot on. The only thing I'd like to add is if they go ahead with the reducing overall damage, then do it ACROSS THE BOARD, to everything. If the damage potential is out of hand then change it all from the ground up. But if damage values continue to creep towards 1:1 Clan/IS than IS quirks need to be completely removed.

[Y E O N N E]

DeadMetal89, on 12 June 2018 - 05:28 PM, said:

I have to disagree: how can you draw that conclusion when you don't know how a heat-scale system would ACTUALLY operate in-game?

Because there is a certain amount of heat you can generate before any penalties. Where you set that is going to govern the size of your alphas and how much max DPS you can realistically output within a given time window. I don't need to know what the penalties are if my goal is to avoid them.

[Tarl Cabot]

The MWO heatscale determines how often a mech can continue firing after each cooldown til max 100 is reach. A mech could fire that big alpha with 70% and hit 70 HScale then full reverse or full run to the next cover. With a HS threads that drops a mech speed that pilot will need to determine if firing all of those weapons are worth it at one time for that big alpha at that one target or would it be setting itself to be butchered due to tis drop in speed to reach cover.

Of course for my listing it was meant to include all of it, just one one item or another. Ghost heat linking may still be needed but that one big alpha would still allow the mech to move normally without repercussion while it is cooling down. And the current double armor was due to PGI making a MAJOR cut in the cooldown timers across the board because it was taking too long to fire ones weapons to kill mechs then the mechs were dying too fast...... And IS components ARE bulkier and heavier than Clan tech, thus improving how the isXL operates would allow people to squeeze in a few more items, especially since they can not generally take advantage weight savings for Endo/Ferro for non-lights like Clan battlemechs can.

Of course, I would like to hear Chris' thoughts on what he would LIKE to do with numbers, even though Russ keeps saying he has to REIN in things and keep it on a short lease.

Yeonne Greene, on 12 June 2018 - 05:52 PM, said:

Because there is a certain amount of heat you can generate before any penalties. Where you set that is going to govern the size of your alphas and how much max DPS you can realistically output within a given time window. I don't need to know what the penalties are if my goal is to avoid them.

And right now the only penalty is actual SELF damage if hitting that alpha or continuing firing once you approach 100% then the decision to shutdown and suffer some SELF damage while being an ACTUAL sitting target or hit the override, self damage but not be a sitting target. Whereas a more fleshed out HS with movement penalties, a player can decide if temporary having a drop in speed is worth it the heat at that time without incurring actual SELF damage or truly being a sitting duck. Sorta of like the Skill Tree. Once a person realize what they need from it, they change up the tree from their default cookie cutter setup. I know I have made many changes to my mechs based on what I really want out of them.

In the end though, PGI attempt to satisfy the players with an overall damage drop in alphas will not go well. Reducing actual weapon damage itself is ehh.. while increasing the base armor reducing how quickly a big alpha strips the armor./internal structure.

I would also like to see a rescale of the Assaults down, ie reduce the volume difference between lights and assaults., but I can wish!!

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 12 June 2018 - 06:04 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

Tarl Cabot, on 12 June 2018 - 05:54 PM, said:

And right now the only penalty is actual SELF damage if hitting that alpha or continuing firing once you approach 100% then the decision to shutdown and suffer some SELF damage while being an ACTUAL sitting target or hit the override, self damage but not be a sitting target. Whereas a more fleshed out HS with movement penalties, a player can decide if temporary having a drop in speed is worth it the heat at that time without incurring actual SELF damage or truly being a sitting duck. Sorta of like the Skill Tree. Once a person realize what they need from it, they change up the tree from their default cookie cutter setup. I know I have made many changes to my mechs based on what I really want out of them.

None of this is relevant to my point.

If we have a heat-scale, penalties will start after X% of heat generated. You are going to tune your alphas and your DPS so that you can ride the line and stay just below X% if level 1 is a harsh penalty (i.e. HUD shuts down) and ride just above X% if level 1 is a soft penalty (i.e. loss of top speed). If the biggest alpha you can afford at X% is roughly 30, then the meta will be exactly as on the ED PTS. If it's bigger, then it edges the game closer to what we already have. There is no "ideal point", either, because the meta becomes 30 point poptarts and dakka if X% gets over 30 but not high enough to allow a laser volley capable of stopping a 'Mech.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

AgentIce, on 11 June 2018 - 01:30 PM, said:

The biggest issue that has sabotaged all attempts at balance has been the huge heat capacity that mechs have.

Both sides can Alpha their entire loadout with no consequence.

All mechs get 30 heat cap for no reason other then the TT rules have a ~30 point system of increasing penalties for overheating.

Cut the heat cap in half.
only 15 points base + 1 per heatsink. And only 1 per SHS or DHS.

I've been a proponent of this line of action for a very long time.

Quote

Originally posted here, and an addition or two.

• Starting Heat Containment, reduce value from 30 down to 14, raise Dissipation.
  
  • Consider idea of Heatsinks raising 1.0 Capacity each, with further Dissipation compensation.
• Convert Alpha Strike Keybind into Target Interlock Circuit toggle, for storing multiple Weapon Group combos.
  
  • Idea being able to have specifically assigned Weapon Groups to certain Keys and being able to swap what weapons are available to fire with said keybinds.
    
  • An addition would be to see more articulation with Arm Actuators and TIC, so that there can be cases of raising and extending arms up wit different TIC combos similar to Missile Door toggles.
• Convergence Firing Variables - currently we can fire any weapon group and have perfect convergence on the fly.
  
  • The idea here is using the TIC and existing Fixed equipment Sensors to have a role in how weapons fire into our crosshairs at various Ranges.
    
  • Sure weapons have gimbals and a range profile, the interplay here would be that there would be more Spread in Weapons Fire, and Players would be able to set Targeting Range preferences on preferred engagement range.
    
  • A player wants to poke at long range, and so the Techs have optimized the Mech and Targeting systems for that, so that at tighter fighting ranges, there'd be a need to compensate, such as setting a TIC setting and even going into Skill point investments having a role here.
    
  • Weapons that have larger energy draw could have slower convergence, have spread due to taxing the Mech to pinpoint all weapons. A weapon like the Gauss holds this charge in itself, thus why it causes damage to the mech wielding the weapon system.
• PSR Tiers - Increase the number of tiers and relabel them. For example, have seven to nine Tiers, and have a different means of climbing up and down the Tier Ladder and/or rate Climb.
  
  • Idea being that if there can be increased separation from the Top to brand new players, and being at 8v8 in Quick Play, could allow for a different sense in how that system works, using essentially what already exists with the current numbers there are for various track-able statistics.

I hope something further can be considered, and so we'll see how this vote goes and what more can be done for MWO in the future.

Edited by Nothing Whatsoever, 12 June 2018 - 06:26 PM.

[TheSteelRhino]

Everyone always looks at this and says the weapon and damage it does is the problem. Or it's to low tonned.
What about the SIDE EFFECTS of Excessive boating of ANY weapons type?

This makes the game more than just about Aim and build. Piloting and heat management would become a REAL thing.

Ballistics
***********
So. Shouldn't ALL ballistics have some sort of recoil. Obviously an AC2 or machine gun would be pretty minimal.

But it would seem that torso mounted ballistics, missiles (although a bit more gentle), and PPCs (you are firing charged particles which do technically have mass...more so that just light) should cause a noticeable and cumulative recoil? (The more you fire at one time the harder to control?)

Arm mounted weapons would have same, but the arms would soak up some of that. That discourages over use of high torso mounts. And just might make mechs with High Arm mounts popular.

It should be HARD to keep dual UAC20's on target if firing both at the same time. Same with Heavy Gauss, or Gauss.

Machine gun boating? Great....Ammo feeds can JAM.


Energy Weapons,
*********************
PPCs and Lasers should cause issues with power draw, heat etc.
For example: high heat levels should cause problems with targeting computer (ie your crosshairs) and come with risk of damaging weapons systems. Ie...you fry circuitry. If power transformers can blow (and they do) then a capacitor can do the same thing. (and they do). Same thing with Power draw. Thus there comes a risk with firing to many energy weps simultaneously. Lets say 30 points of damage worth of power. That's 2 Clan ERPPC. 3 IS PPC/ERPPC. We'll round off to 3 Large Laser/Large Pulse, and 6 IS medium/medium Pulse Lasers, and 5 Clan Medium/medium Pulse lasers. And however many small/small pulse lasers... More than that, you can damage a weapon, or even all the weapons of that type in a certain section. (Ie all energy in left arm, or right torso) as you blew out a capacitor or maybe at high heat levels you can blow out some heat sinks.

(I personally would like ammo explosions, but don't think folks would go for that).

Want to talk missiles?
**************************
Personally, I think that having excessively large numbers of missiles in the air should cause targeting issues. Those LRMS are NOT active homers. They are at best semi-active homers, and require a signal from the targeting mech to track. And when you have LRM 60 mechs with 120 missiles in the air (very possible ) it would seem like , you just shouldn't be able to get a lock until at least 1 volley hits. Or maybe the number should be more like 90. Streaks are obviously bit different but with their current targeting of different components that doesn't seem quite as severe.

PGI always focuses on directly nerfing damage or heat on a per weapon instance. Never thinks about the SIDE EFFECTS of excessive energy, missile, or ballistic boating. What I am proposing would force players to lower alphas and use them sparingly or otherwise REALLY JACK UP THEIR MECH for the rest of a match. And it would make some playstyles more challenging if you continue to try and boat.

Just sayin'.

Edited by TheSteelRhino, 12 June 2018 - 06:27 PM.

[xRaganx]

If they do what they say they plan to do...i am so out of here for good.

[D34DMetal]

Yeonne Greene, on 12 June 2018 - 05:52 PM, said:

Because there is a certain amount of heat you can generate before any penalties. Where you set that is going to govern the size of your alphas and how much max DPS you can realistically output within a given time window. I don't need to know what the penalties are if my goal is to avoid them.

ALL of that up there supports my side of the argument: the heat-scale would be a factor in players deciding how much weaponry they fire in terms of DPS and PPFLD. That's the point of the heat-scale. I still don't see how adding a heat-scale penalty/modifier system would be more detrimental than beneficial in the context of balance and added depth.

There's really no point in making all of these assumptions that a heat-scale would be bad for the game when we don't even have solid proposal for such a system (never mind data to back up those claims).

[Y E O N N E]

DeadMetal89, on 12 June 2018 - 06:46 PM, said:

ALL of that up there supports my side of the argument: the heat-scale would be a factor in players deciding how much weaponry they fire in terms of DPS and PPFLD. That's the point of the heat-scale. I still don't see how adding a heat-scale penalty/modifier system would be more detrimental than beneficial in the context of balance and added depth.

It's detrimental because whatever point you set the first heat penalty at governs how big the alphas can be, meaning you don't need to invest in more guns once you hit that point, you just invest in more heatsinks. Only one side has hyper tonnage efficient weapons that can fit more than enough heatsinks to completely offset the higher base heat on them. That's what happened during the Energy Draw PTS; Clan DHS boating was the new meta. Even with ballistics, to get a given amount of firepower the IS had to sacrifice more DHS.

So you've got 'Mechs that have to run hotter to get similar firepower having a harder time riding the line.

TL;DR: you will have to adjust more than just the heat system if you want heat penalties.

Quote

There's really no point in making all of these assumptions that a heat-scale would be bad for the game when we don't even have solid proposal for such a system (never mind data to back up those claims).

There's no point in discussing the specifics because they really don't matter. If heat penalties trigger at 30%, then we treat 30% like we treat 100% now. You can easily extrapolate the rest from that.

[Kabaak]

Here's an idea for high energy alphas:

Let's consider what such a sudden draw on the Power Delivery System (PDS) of a mech might actually do. Sure heat sinks help mitigate the amount of heat, but that has nothing to do with how much power the entire system can draw.

If your PDS is overloaded, it could temporarily affect mobility, top speed, HUD, ECM, Consumables or any number of other systems. Repeated abuse of your PDS might even cause permanent damage, resulting in a reduction in power output. This would manifest itself by reducing your per energy weapon damage output for the rest of the match. A positive side effect could even be shorter burn times to go along with reduced damage, possibly encouraging a shift to late game brawls.

Another alternative is to reduce range as the side affect. Just throwing out ideas.

The chance could go up with an energy alpha beyond a target damage threshold such as 30, or 40 or whatever is decided.

That way we don't take away the alpha, but if you are going to sit back and vomit 90+ and then duck into cover all game, you do so by pushing your mech past recommended design specifications.

This is more in line to pushing your ultra autocannons past their recommended design specs and getting jams.

Just trying to think outside the box...

[Velocikitty]

Sigh..

So its come to this PGI.

You could breath new life into the game at this point. By a massive amount of weapon changes. Make weapons that are useless, into weapons that are decent, if not awesome to use.

Instead, we get yet another heavy handed, and out of touch 'balance' update. I'm sure we're get a 'brand new whale pack' next week too!

You could literally draw a bunch of players back. Instead, you are driving what little playerbase away, by doing half brained passes like this..

Its a shame, I actually enjoyed this game at one point. Years ago. Before the bloat of skill trees, and weapon bloats.

Signed,
A former customer.

Edited by Velocikitty, 12 June 2018 - 08:11 PM.

[kenosha]

Mix the tech already. Allow Clan to use IS weapons and IS to use Clan weapons. To balance it out, don't allow mech quirks to effect weapons not from it's side.

This opens up more options to all players. Clan and IS weapons can have different pro's and con's, giving players even more choice.

If you are looking for another money sink, charge some cbills to mount a weapon not from the mech's side.

[Soulless86]

What would removing coolshot from the game do? Having to rely on a purchasable consumable to be part of balance is a ******** way to design games and is in reality just a money sink.

[Nightbird]

Nightbird, on 12 June 2018 - 12:00 PM, said:

Energy draw for energy weapons and gauss.

Capacitor: 30 pts fixed.
Recharge: 15pts/sec

Only lasers, PPC, gauss use energy

Lasers, PPC use 1 pt per damage, gauss uses .5pt per damage

Behavior:
Lasers draw evergy as it fires, cuts off if runs out of energy (45 damage alpha possible with 1sec laser duration)

PPCs only fire if there is enough pts in total

Gauss draws energy as it charges, needs 15pt for dual gauss, 25 for dual heavy gauss, if run out of capacitor energy can charge at reduced rate as regen

Changes needed:
Large lasers need faster cooldown, medium lasers need slower cooldown, balance DPS/ton


Remove ghost heat from all affected weapons

An example of clan gauss+vomit meta with this change:

If you have 2x C-Gauss and lasers, you can still charge your Gauss, which consumes 15pts over 0.75 seconds, at which point your capacitor will have regenerated to 27 pts, wait another 0.25 seconds for a full capacitor, and fire your gauss + vomit about 45 damage over a 1 second period for a total of 75 damage.

This is still a little higher than what IS can do, but a little less outrageously so. If the Night Star ever has its hands removed, it would be able to do IS gauss+vomit of 60 damage.

The major difference though, is that if you turn a corner and panic alpha, charging your gauss and vomiting at the same will choke your energy system, meaning your lasers get cut short and your gauss doesn't finish charging. This increases the skill needed to use this combo by a little.

[Nicodemus Rosse]

I've been mostly off playing BattleTech for the last several weeks and it's reminded me of why I love the franchise and why, for all that I like this game, it feels really "off" for what it's theoretically supposed to be. I mention this because it's been interesting seeing the number of replies that were more out-of-the-box—as opposed to ideas about damage per tick, heat, burn time, and ghost heat.

If we're constrained to just the handful of variables on the table now, I'm strongly on board with at least trying a week or two of PTS (or even public server) where all the stats are set based on the community weapons rebalance project. I don't like everything they suggest, but at least it all makes some kind of coherent sense and steps away from balance as an exercise in applying band-aids to your band-aids that were applied over past band-aids. It's very "the old lady swallowed a cat to catch the mouse she swallowed to catch the spider she swallowed to catch the fly" thing.

It's exhausting.

A quick fix for excessive Clan laser alphas might be to reduce the effectiveness of Clan coolshots instead of debuffing the weapons globally or removing coolshots entirely.

If we could get whatever we wanted...
For matchmaking and factions:

• Get rid of un-themed 12 v 12 mixed tech base Quick Play by tweaking the MM to drop you into 4 v 4 (IS), 5 v 5 (Clan), 5 v 8 (Clan vs. IS), 8 v 8 (IS), 10 v 10 (Clan), 10 v 12 (Clan vs. IS), or 12 v 12 (IS) games based on current player queue population. Try to make the biggest IS vs. Clan match first, then the biggest IS and biggest Clan matches you can separately, then move on to smaller match sizes in a similar order. If the population is large enough, try to group by faction.
  
• Mercenaries are an IS only faction.
  
• Set the game to pick mission types based on the size of the match, so Incursion is reserved for 10x10 and up, Escort is 10x10 and below, etc. Once the MM assembles a match, it bans mission modes that are outside the match size.
  
• Let players set several camo options for each 'Mech, based on maps, a bit like the new feature to let you save Skill Tree configurations and re-use them. No decals, just "for drops on Polar, use W pattern with colors X, Y, Z."
  
• Find a way to wrap FP and QP together; the modified MM above would let you have matches that actually align with faction-vs-faction combat, and adding Scouting as a mission mode for small groups is fairly workable. The main challenge here would be how to handle drop decks, and how to manage the faction scoring overall. Suddenly all the players are either doing Solaris or participating in a conflict that makes more sense than the current mixed QP format.
  
• Add a "Grand Melee" game mode for Clan 5v5 drops that's effectively a Battle Royale. Because why not?
  
• Modify match rewards system to incentivize Clanners to try for Solo Kills and KMDD (because Zellbrigen) and IS for good cooperation. When Clan players end up with lower match rewards for concentrated fire, it might counteract their range/damage advantage a bit. Incentives can work, given good overall balance.

For weapons and engines:

• Fix isXL engines by upping the number of Engine crits that kills you from 3 to 4. You can lose one side, but if the other side is open you might get critted out before the other side is actually destroyed. Still incentivizes LFEs, both for space and durability, but maybe not as much as now. Could drop their prices a bit to compensate? Another balance option would be to introduce a heat management spike with the 3rd crit, rather than it killing you, so you run hotter than with just 2 engine crits but don't actually die.
  
• A partial fix for convergence: Disable arm lock entirely. Aiming all your arm and torso weapons at one spot with precise convergence is not helping. Instead, let players toggle which reticle (arm or torso) follows the mouse and which one lags the mouse.
  
• Another fix for convergence: A modified energy draw system, where instead of ghost heat for firing lots of linked weapons, each weapon draws X power, and once your 'Mech has drawn all of the available power any remaining weapon lags a fraction of a second behind the previous one before it fires. (A group of 6 cERML might fire three together, and the other three fire one at a time partway through the burn duration of the first three.) Bigger energy weapons draw more power per weapon shot, so you could manage 2 PPCs, but the third lags. The point of this is not to limit alphas (heat does that) but to reduce the number of weapons you can fire at once and get precise convergence. Gauss Rifles that are charging use 100% of your power, so literally nothing else can fire while they're charging—they basically lock your power supply while they charge, and you get it all back when they finish (this is supported in lore, where a warrior firing a single Gauss Rifle found it pulled so much power that his Dire Wolf noticeably slowed down, the cockpit lights dimmed, and subsequent laser shots lagged just an instant before actually firing). Autocannons, MGs, and missile weapons don't draw energy at all.
  
• Prevent PPFLD autocannon mayhem by giving the AC/10 and AC/20 weapons recoil just enough to keep them from hitting the same spot even when fired simultaneously, and remove the recoil when chain-firing at the normal chain fire interval. Switching IS ACs to multiple shells like Clan ACs use for the 5, 10, and 20 guns would also help a bit.
  
• LRMs fired at a target you have a lock on fly straight. LRMs fired at a target an ally has locked will home in as long as the ally holds the lock, but you don't know the ally has a lock until the ally used the command wheel to invoke "target spotted." Your own lock breaks as soon as the target leaves line of sight, no delay. To compensate, boost LRM flight speed considerably when they're flying straight at a target you have locked. When you lock a target an ally has spotted for you and you don't have LOS, your lock is actually an "indirect firing solution" and not a normal weapon lock. LRMs treat it as a lock, all other weapons treat it like you have no lock on anyone. This means you can direct-fire LRMs effectively, or you can provide indirect fire if you have a cooperative spotter, but none of the current nonsense where you're chasing someone else's locks whether they want you to or not while you hide from the fight.
  
• Multiple AMS don't cleanly stack; the first one is 100% effective, the second is only 80% effective, the third is only 60% effective, the fourth only 40% effective. Multiple AMS aren't necessarily going to play nice, and they'll probably waste shots trying to take out the same missile with shots from 2+ AMS systems, so diminishing returns make sense and reduce the magic of triple AMS missile shields.
  
• Same for massed machine guns, diminishing returns will help.

For role warfare, because why not?

• Quirk 'Mechs based on their roles, and modify their match rewards for those roles! By linking these to chassis instead of build, you provide an incentive for builds that suit the "personality" of the chassis, but still allow players to play the builds they want and do well enough.
  
• Scout 'Mechs should have longer sensor range by default, before skill tree, or should get those skill nodes for free. They get better match rewards for locking new targets, holding locks for allies, flanking, and so on.
  
• Skirmishers should get some agility bonuses and better rewards for flanking, kill assists.
  
• Fire support should get better rewards for kill assists but not for KMDD or solo kills, and buffs to long- and longer mid-range weapons like light ACs, large lasers, Gauss Rifles, and LRMs.
  
• Brawlers should get substantial agility and durability buffs, and bonus rewards for KMDD to de-incentivize them from hanging back and kill-stealing, and reward guts.
  
• ...and so on.

None of that's gonna happen, but a nerd can dream.

Edited by Nicodemus Rosse, 12 June 2018 - 09:42 PM.