657 replies to this topic

[A Headless Chicken]

FromHell2k, on 29 June 2018 - 01:07 AM, said:

Well, by now most lights got 1, maybe 2 chances to avoid that AC/20. Then they have more chances to make it count
Beside that, a light mech shouldn't try on an assault alone, should it? If it does, there would then just be the need to exploit weak spots, not just "pew pew runby".

I'm just sick of all this "nerf pls". Always the same. So my solution would be blunt, but practical.

As if they can make anything count with that discrepancy in firepower to armor.

I don't get why lights should not be allowed to take on assaults either, too OP for the assaults?

lazorbeamz, on 29 June 2018 - 01:12 AM, said:

Thats a lot of offtopic. And stop spamming nonsense please. The clan laser nerfs are very long overdue and many of us have been asking about this for a long time. Just way too much pinpoint with hitscan at 400+ meters.

"Many of us" say it's overdue. Also, "many of us" say it's a stupid, shortsighted nerf because it leaves the Clans with a variety of playstyles swept six feet under.

[FromHell2k]

lazorbeamz, on 29 June 2018 - 01:12 AM, said:

Thats a lot of offtopic. And stop spamming nonsense please. The clan laser nerfs are very long overdue and many of us have been asking about this for a long time. Just way too much pinpoint with hitscan at 400+ meters.

"Pinpoint with lasers" = "Handicapped piloting skills as target". Still easy to counter.

[MiZia]

My next question is...if they nerf Clan vomit and as result got to revisit all Mech Chassis thst have Armour/Structure Quirks would it not be more of a change than just use the Community Table? (since it was stated that changing so many wep systems would be a lot of work).
But still... even if not best solution i would also try FromHells solution on PTS just to prove that Bads still would get rekt pretty fast whatever armor they get.

[Shaggath]

FromHell2k, on 29 June 2018 - 12:57 AM, said:

Well, I'm not sure. I still believe that people, which complain about too high alphas, are just too "handicapped" to twist the mech to spread the damage, instead they like to get it in one spot. If it would take 3-4 "high alpha shots", this flaw in playstyle would be too obvious to complain about.

When you twist torso on your medium and a single hit remove armor on all side.
You start to think is not better to stop twisting and give them only one side for two shot or this alpha was just out of bound.

I really understand people on this game they have address this problem long time ago when only IS and after the meta was more intresting.

People say ppc are bad gauss are bad ac are bad, before clan all of this have utility.
When a single h medium can do 10 damage or heavy large 18 why using something more difficult with restriction for less damage same heat.
The IS damage hierarchy weapon is perfect, the clan weapon damage hierarchy is stupid.
At the moment of a partial hitscan of laser make more damage then ppc it's stupid.

One alternative solution it's to introduce inner sphere plasma rifle, and cqc weapon, take this big shoot in the face see you heat climb to shutdown and be smash and put unbalance without nothing to do.
With a big bro sit on your face saying clantech made in china i just use my axe.

Edited by Shaggath, 29 June 2018 - 03:49 AM.

[MischiefSC]

Yeonne Greene, on 28 June 2018 - 05:56 PM, said:

Not especially. Mischief got it right, it does amplify the effect of having skill. At the same time, he is also complicit in a lie of omission: the same thing that amplifies the effect of having skill also dulls the requirements for being considered "skilled."

The fact is, a longer TTK empowers DPS play-styles and disempowers hit-and-fade play-styles. The result is less depth as everybody shifts to DPS. Right now, the DPS builds are already the strongest builds unless you have very long sight-lines where range attenuation makes DPS untenable. That you saw poke dominate in MWOWC was a function of the fact that the favored maps all had...very long sight-lines.

No, it favors hit and fade just fine. We're not talking about doubling armor or anything. Right now the game strongly favors hit and fade. The current MWOWC environment favors brawling (or all but brawling) for the opposite reason.

You want to dial it a tiny bit down from where it is now so that hit and fade is not absolutely dominant. Currently it's one clean hit to cripple with skilled players; you don't really even need focused fire. Focused fire just clinches the cripple/kill in 1 or 2 hits.

We still had this when alphas were literally 40-50% weaker than they are now. 4 PPCs was OP, the standard totally dominant poptart was 35 damage and it was so dominant it was all but broken. We can nerf a whole lot of things by quite a bit and still not be anywhere near a DPS only environment.

We have quirks on a handful of mechs that makes up for that - only on a handful of mechs. That's the crux of the issue. We're far, far better off getting good weapon balance and then dialing quirks back as needed.

Longer TTK does *not* dull the edge of what's required to be skilled. It just makes things that we currently consider bare minimum spread out from the masses. It just turns the skill curve literally into more of a curve. Top tier players will still be top tier, will still beat everyone they beat now but will in fact do so more often as the skill sets they have will have more time to come into play. A tiny increase in the value of accurate focus fire, communication and coordination will have a magnified effect in favor of the teams that do so consistently and effectively.

It certainly does give DPS a small boost; which it needed anyway, as reflected in the community balance suggestions. However poke is still superior at top levels of play for the same reason it is now - just not quite as much so. Isn't that the point of balance?

[Agent of Change]

MischiefSC, on 29 June 2018 - 06:26 AM, said:

We still had this when alphas were literally 40-50% weaker than they are now. 4 PPCs was OP, the standard totally dominant poptart was 35 damage and it was so dominant it was all but broken. We can nerf a whole lot of things by quite a bit and still not be anywhere near a DPS only environment.

It is funny how many people who have been playing since pre-Steam seem to conveniently forget how completely outraged people were at the Gausscat K2 or the 35 damage Alpha poptarts as you say. It was IIRC alphas of 35 or even *gasp* 40 that led to the implementation of the heat scale. This game could definitely shaved a lot of alpha damage and still not nearly make PPFLD not a very valuable tool.

[SilentScreamer]

Agent of Change, on 29 June 2018 - 06:39 AM, said:

It is funny how many people who have been playing since pre-Steam seem to conveniently forget how completely outraged people were at the Gausscat K2 or the 35 damage Alpha poptarts as you say.  It was IIRC alphas of 35 or even *gasp* 40 that led to the implementation of the heat scale.    This game could definitely shaved a lot of alpha damage and still not nearly make PPFLD not a very valuable tool.

It has been said many times by many players:
LOWER heat cap, INCREASE heat disapation.

[Agent of Change]

SilentScreamer, on 29 June 2018 - 07:24 AM, said:

It has been said many times by many players:
LOWER heat cap, INCREASE heat disapation.

Also maybe some meaningful penalties for running consistentlyvery hot BEFORE shutting down... but that's just the TT nerd part of me dreaming.

[FromHell2k]

Agent of Change, on 29 June 2018 - 06:39 AM, said:

It is funny how many people who have been playing since pre-Steam seem to conveniently forget how completely outraged people were at the Gausscat K2 or the 35 damage Alpha poptarts as you say. It was IIRC alphas of 35 or even *gasp* 40 that led to the implementation of the heat scale. This game could definitely shaved a lot of alpha damage and still not nearly make PPFLD not a very valuable tool.

The good old times, aye. But one thing still remains. Skill cannot be nerfed. When they introduced cockpit-shake for using JJs, some people were crying that it ruins the poptart-build. Well, we didn't give a cent. Same would happen with those "planed changes" for now.

SilentScreamer, on 29 June 2018 - 07:24 AM, said:

It has been said many times by many players:
LOWER heat cap, INCREASE heat disapation.

THAT! Still like my idea with the armor/damage though.

[Y E O N N E]

MischiefSC, on 29 June 2018 - 06:26 AM, said:

No, it favors hit and fade just fine. We're not talking about doubling armor or anything. Right now the game strongly favors hit and fade. The current MWOWC environment favors brawling (or all but brawling) for the opposite reason.

No, it doesn't favor hit and fade at all. You encourage either gaps too easy to exploit or alphas to weak too discourage a push. and, right now, the game strongly favors pushing over hit and fade unless you have a long distance to exploit. You see it in nearly every FP match. You see it in every QP match. Trading doesn't really happen except when the map is an extreme range one, and it's not at all happening between 'Mechs slinging 94 point alphas around and barely including 80-point alphas.

Quote

You want to dial it a tiny bit down from where it is now so that hit and fade is not absolutely dominant. Currently it's one clean hit to cripple with skilled players; you don't really even need focused fire. Focused fire just clinches the cripple/kill in 1 or 2 hits.

We still had this when alphas were literally 40-50% weaker than they are now. 4 PPCs was OP, the standard totally dominant poptart was 35 damage and it was so dominant it was all but broken. We can nerf a whole lot of things by quite a bit and still not be anywhere near a DPS only environment.

Improper comparison; we didn't have push 'Mechs back then like we do now. No massed DHS, no hyper efficient cERML, no UAC boats, no MG boats, no HGauss, no MRMs, no ATMs, and SRM hit-reg was all kinds of f*cked. ANd even then, the PPC+UAC boats often pushed on each other until they were basically brawling; it's what happened in the EmP vs. SJR finals in 2014.

Quote

We have quirks on a handful of mechs that makes up for that - only on a handful of mechs. That's the crux of the issue. We're far, far better off getting good weapon balance and then dialing quirks back as needed.

There is no disagreement there. The diagreement is on the direction of that balance, and I hold that TTK where it is is already slightly too long.

Quote

Longer TTK does *not* dull the edge of what's required to be skilled. It just makes things that we currently consider bare minimum spread out from the masses. It just turns the skill curve literally into more of a curve. Top tier players will still be top tier, will still beat everyone they beat now but will in fact do so more often as the skill sets they have will have more time to come into play. A tiny increase in the value of accurate focus fire, communication and coordination will have a magnified effect in favor of the teams that do so consistently and effectively.

Yes it does, because it increases the opportunity to recover from mistakes in the short term. It's not neccessary that I be so much better any more that I don't make mistakes if I can shrug off one or two mistakes that would have previously fatal or crippling. You saw this very concept in action when teams historically chose heavier 'Mechs within a weight class over lighter ones, why they still sometimes chose a Clan 'Mech with its Clan XL over an IS 'Mech with its IS XL even when the IS version was offensively superior, and why you see Sleipnirs over Maulers today.

Quote

It certainly does give DPS a small boost; which it needed anyway, as reflected in the community balance suggestions. However poke is still superior at top levels of play for the same reason it is now - just not quite as much so. Isn't that the point of balance?

No, it didn't need it anyway. Most of the current top-performing 'Mechs in the game are DPS builds. Triple+ UAC/2 is a DPS build. Quintuple AC/2 is a DPS build. Quintuple UAC/5 is a DPS build. 12x MGs is a DPS build. 8x MGs and 4x ER Small lasers is a DPS build. 7x SPL is a DPS build. A pair of UAC/10 and UAC/5 is a DPS build. RAC/6 and RAC/10 are DPS builds. Quad LB-10X is a DPS build. MRM60 is a DPS build. Even twin HGauss, contrary to appearances, is a DPS build. The Gauss Hammer is taken only because it is also a DPS build in context of the maps it is strong on. Hell, even my g*ddamn Flea with 2x MPL and 5x SL is a damn DPS build.

Edited by Yeonne Greene, 29 June 2018 - 09:35 AM.

[Gas Guzzler]

I agree with everything Yeonne just said.

Consider my opinion on the matter expressed.

[Conner Ward]

NyxSilence, on 28 June 2018 - 11:01 PM, said:

I mean to be completely fair here NOTHING in mwo is anywhere close to lore or even tabletop numbers comparison just for the sake of "balance". I mean hell look at battletech. You use ANY mech, ANY OF THEM, they actually feel like battlemechs. In here its just different flavored COD or some would argue Battlefield. Honestly even a Stalker in battletech has WELL OVER 130 CT armor. So lets be real here: balance in this game is no where to be seen except on the field of what is now becoming pvp mmo mechwarrior.

Actually, if PGI got rid of all buffs / nerfs and quirks and used the armor system and weapon damage system similar to what is in BATTLETECH, that might be a good start. Also, adding knockdowns from taking excessive damage or from (high speed) collisions would be good too.

[The Lighthouse]

So, when are we actually going to have PTS?

[FromHell2k]

Conner Ward, on 29 June 2018 - 10:19 AM, said:

Actually, if PGI got rid of all buffs / nerfs and quirks and used the armor system and weapon damage system similar to what is in BATTLETECH, that might be a good start. Also, adding knockdowns from taking excessive damage or from (high speed) collisions would be good too.

We had. Dragon Bowling.. o_O

[Mystere]

Ed Steele, on 28 June 2018 - 10:23 PM, said:

Lords exploiting Poptarting was what started the whole trend of whining-based, knee-jerk buffing and nerfing back in beta (long before Clans were introduced).

I miss the Lords.

[Mystere]

GweNTLeR, on 28 June 2018 - 11:41 PM, said:

Its actually 56 damage in 5s for 4xAC2.
And since gauss CD is actually a 5+0.75(and 0.75 is not affected by CD quirks/nodes), it loses even more in DPS.
The formula: n*d*(1+fix(T/CD))= 4*2*(1+fix(5/0.72))

Where did the "1" in "1+fix(5/0.72)" come from? Using that formula gives 64 damage, not 56.

[Conner Ward]

FromHell2k, on 29 June 2018 - 10:42 AM, said:

We had. Dragon Bowling.. o_O

Yeah, but it is PGI's job to get the physics right.

[GweNTLeR]

Mystere, on 29 June 2018 - 11:00 AM, said:

Where did the "1" in "1+fix(5/0.72)" come from? Using that formula gives 64 damage, not 56.

1-the first shot, without CD. Fix is round towards zero. Fix(5/0.72)=fix(6.94)=6. (6+1)*2*4=56

justcallme A S H, on 29 June 2018 - 12:43 AM, said:

Where does the 0.75s come from? Surely not counting charge mechanic...

Well, you have to wait 0.75s after CD to charge up no matter what, so I think it is fair to include it.
I mean, the first shot could be changed beforehand, but the second would require a charge up anyway if we are talking about continious shooting.

Edited by GweNTLeR, 29 June 2018 - 12:20 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Yeonne Greene, on 29 June 2018 - 09:31 AM, said:

No, it doesn't favor hit and fade at all. You encourage either gaps too easy to exploit or alphas to weak too discourage a push. and, right now, the game strongly favors pushing over hit and fade unless you have a long distance to exploit. You see it in nearly every FP match. You see it in every QP match. Trading doesn't really happen except when the map is an extreme range one, and it's not at all happening between 'Mechs slinging 94 point alphas around and barely including 80-point alphas.



Improper comparison; we didn't have push 'Mechs back then like we do now. No massed DHS, no hyper efficient cERML, no UAC boats, no MG boats, no HGauss, no MRMs, no ATMs, and SRM hit-reg was all kinds of f*cked. ANd even then, the PPC+UAC boats often pushed on each other until they were basically brawling; it's what happened in the EmP vs. SJR finals in 2014.



There is no disagreement there. The diagreement is on the direction of that balance, and I hold that TTK where it is is already slightly too long.



Yes it does, because it increases the opportunity to recover from mistakes in the short term. It's not neccessary that I be so much better any more that I don't make mistakes if I can shrug off one or two mistakes that would have previously fatal or crippling. You saw this very concept in action when teams historically chose heavier 'Mechs within a weight class over lighter ones, why they still sometimes chose a Clan 'Mech with its Clan XL over an IS 'Mech with its IS XL even when the IS version was offensively superior, and why you see Sleipnirs over Maulers today.




No, it didn't need it anyway. Most of the current top-performing 'Mechs in the game are DPS builds. Triple+ UAC/2 is a DPS build. Quintuple AC/2 is a DPS build. Quintuple UAC/5 is a DPS build. 12x MGs is a DPS build. 8x MGs and 4x ER Small lasers is a DPS build. 7x SPL is a DPS build. A pair of UAC/10 and UAC/5 is a DPS build. RAC/6 and RAC/10 are DPS builds. Quad LB-10X is a DPS build. MRM60 is a DPS build. Even twin HGauss, contrary to appearances, is a DPS build. The Gauss Hammer is taken only because it is also a DPS build in context of the maps it is strong on. Hell, even my g*ddamn Flea with 2x MPL and 5x SL is a damn DPS build.

So burst damage is a DPS build? If you're going to say that everything that isn't PPFLD/hitscan at long range is a DPS build than... okay I guess? If that's how you're defining it than yes, anything that doesn't allow you to effectively play PPFLD/hitscan at long range favors DPS. Which has always been the case and has nothing to do with TTK but instead where/how a weapon setup works.

Are you calling anything that involves at any point closing with the enemy 'favoring pushing'? Because the game right now absolutely does NOT favor pushing - not until you've been winning trades for a bit. You absolutely don't want to push 500,600m into an enemy who's poking you or you'll lose the brawl when you get there. Nobody does that; even KCom switched from 12 brawling mechs to 8 brawling mechs and 4 range mechs and that's in FW where you've got respawns.

Which isn't a negative. However if your argument is that poke/trade only works on maps that are poke/trade friendly are you saying that's a flaw? I'm just confused over your logic here. Increasing TTK *a bit* absolutely does allow people to cross more distance before they go down but it just makes their failure when they arrive more certain. We're talking about increasing TTK overall, for everyone. Not just brawlers. If TTK is longer then hit/fade still works just as well.

Reducing Clan laservomit firepower affects brawling every bit as much as range trading. Giving double-gauss of any sort (save maybe IS gauss, just because it sucks so much) a small recoil is more about bringing CGauss into parity with IS Gauss. I'd say give it a health buff and then a tiny cooldown reduction to compensate. This helps it still control lanes and makes 1gauss+energy builds still viable at their job even after the change to clasers.

However increasing TTK overall, for everyone, not just brawl/DPS builds doesn't seriously hurt trade builds. It certainly brings the two a bit closer but any and all setups that involve max damage for min exposure are always going to be idea on any map/mode that lets you exploit that. That's always been a part of game balance and always will be. TTK favoring skill however is absolutely true and trade meta is always going to have a higher skill cap.

That you can't force a trade standoff at 400m on every map isn't a balance issue, it's a goal. You still want to be able to punish someone bad enough on the approach that he's going to lose anyway if he's not smart and careful but if you think dialing clan lasers damage back at the same time as reducing burn time and heat is going to eliminate that as viable I can't agree with you.

[Reno Blade]

TL;DR:
To keep the game interesting and not just have all weapons similar, the weapons need to be harder to master like the cUAC20, MRM40 with a long burst to make skill matter more than building alpha one-click mechs.

- Step1: Longer bursts/duration for the stronger weapons to bring strong weapons "down" to the weaker weapons (BOTH SIDES).
- Step2: Ghost Heat (Heat Scale) grouping of Large+Med lasers together to bring total alpha down without nerfing weapons and spread the weapon fire (BOTH SIDES)
- Step3: More Heat for all Gauss (+2-3) to make them less perfect for Laser+Gauss, to bring Laser+AC closer
And then you have already a much better baseline.
- Step4: Reduce quirks where needed
- Step5: Replace GH with Energy Draw that uses a 5-10s heat-over-time rather than instant spike.

To have a consistent design, here are the core rules:

Overall Balance of Clans compared to IS:
Advantages
+ More Range
+ More DMG (slightly)
+ Less Slots (smaller sizes) (unchangeable)
+ Less Weight (lower tonnage) (unchangeable)
Downsides
- More Heat
- More Cooldown (longer)
- More Duration (longer)
- Less Ammo / ton (~120dmg/ton vs ~180/ton)

Claners are better Mechwarriors, so their skill will compensate for more difficult weapon handling (longer duration and higher heat)
Cooldown + Duration and heat balance out the Range and DMG advantage overall
Ammo balances out the Size and Tonnage advantage of ammo-based weapon


Ghost Heat Changes:
On Top of that, there should be smaller changes to GH until we get something better:
- Med+Large Lasers share the same GH group
- Large lasers max increased to 3
- Medium lasers max increased to 6
- PPC/ERPPC/SNPPC max increased to 3
- LPPC max increased to 5
- SRM6 max reduced to 3



Details below also take into consideration that a too strong nerf to Laser/Gauss could get the PPC/AC meta back too high as the PPFLD was/is usually easy to hit with.

Quoting from another post:

Reno Blade, on 10 June 2018 - 01:34 AM, said:

When we had the PPC meta, I was saying that it's too easy to hit with PPCs.
Then PPCs (and some ACs) got velocity nerfs and they are much harder to play with, without a lot of practice and concentration.
So imho these are in a good spot in regards to difficulty.

cUAC20 with a 5 bullet burst are difficult to use to get all 5 shots on target and even more so on the same location.
Imho, this is great.

ACs are easier to use with single bullets, beside the damn slow velocity.
I would prefere if the difficulty comes from the burst (spreading damage) and the velocity is increased.
But having std ACs also using burst would make them very similar, so the question remain how IS/Clan could be different, or how the uACs could be changed.
Just saying Clan have 1 more bullet than IS, or longer time between bullets is what we currently have.

Some option floating around was to have 100% jam chance, but the jam-duration is the same as the cooldown (e.g. 4s cd and 4s jam).
That way you would have 2x cooldown with double tap, or normal cd without and have the same DPS than normal ACs (besides the longer burst duration maybe).

I think the 20s could use some cd, heat and velocity buffs, but need burst to compensate.
It would be easier to hit with and use in a build (e.g. brawling) but need more skill to get all damage on the target, similar to the MRMs.

So overall, longer bursts and longer beam duration is the key change we need before we can think of any "buff".

Pulse lasers on the other hand need a different role by just halfing (or even lower) the cooldown.

And the detailed proposal changes including buffs and nerfs much more close to a baseline balance than the suggested community panel:

Reno Blade, on 09 June 2018 - 08:24 AM, said:

Updating the values with a stronger focus on the Clan vs IS balance.

The whole table can also be found directly on Google docs for better access:
https://docs.google....UXElpK4lnCQd_M/

Overall Balance of Clans compared to IS:
Advantages
+ More Range
+ More DMG
+ Less Slots (smaller sizes) (unchangeable)
+ Less Weight (lower tonnage) (unchangeable)
Downsides
- More Heat
- More Cooldown (longer)
- More Duration (longer)
- Less Ammo / ton (~120dmg/ton vs ~180/ton)

Claners are better Mechwarriors, so their skill will compensate for more difficult weapon handling (longer duration and higher heat)
Cooldown + Duration and heat balance out the Range and DMG advantage overall
Ammo balances out the Size and Tonnage advantage of ammo-based weapon


Overall Weapon concepts:

Spoiler

- ACs have bursts with medium cd and low heat (heat lowered, cd increased, velocity increased)
- LBX still with lowest heat of all ACs
- UACs have burst with longer cooldowns than ACs and more heat than ACs, while UACs have 100% jam chance with cooldown time doubled on jam
- Gauss have long cooldown and increased charge with additional heat (reduces synergy of the perfect mix with Lasers)

- STD Laser have medium stats and low heat (good sustained)
- ER Laser have higher heat, longer range, longer cd and longer beam than STD Laser (sniper trading with low dps)
- Heavy Laser have the highest cd and duration (burst weapon)
- Pulse Lasers have very short cd and low damage per shot, but high dps and low duration (dps weapon)

PPCs have different velocity and cd depending on size.
- LPPC medium cd, medium velocity
- ERPPC have long cd and high range and velocity
- PPC, SNPPC, HPPC have better heat
- CERPPC has the longest cd

Missile volleys for all missiles with Clans having longer duration than IS
- LRMs have long cooldowns to emphasize the support role that should be supported by other weapons, velocity increased.
- SRMs and SSRMs both have cd and ammo difference between IS and Clans
- MRMs have long cooldown and medium velocity (both increased)
- ATMs have more distinct cooldowns (4-7s from small to large launcher) and better range brackets

Ghost Heat Changes:
On Top of that, there should be smaller changes to GH until we get something better:
- Med+Large Lasers share the same GH group
- Large lasers max increased to 3
- Medium lasers max increased to 6
- PPC/ERPPC/SNPPC max increased to 3
- LPPC max increased to 5
- SRM6 max reduced to 3


This is directly aimed to reduce laser vomit while at the same time increasing the build options (especially for combination of larges)

Images of the Weapon groups with background colors from low(red) to high (green) to compare weapon stats
Changes have different font color:
Buffs = Blue font
Nerfs = Red font

https://docs.google....UXElpK4lnCQd_M/

Energy:


Ballistics:


Missiles (IS):


Missiles (Clan):

Edited by Reno Blade, 29 June 2018 - 01:15 PM.