127 replies to this topic

[MischiefSC]

You play a different QP from me. It's all Erlls and lbx2s. The moment anyone gets close one team literally turns and runs, often getting shot in the back.

Sometimes you'll get a guy with HGauss who ambles through the most open area of the map and dies to LRMs.

In the last 30 matches I have trouble getting my team to close when it's 7-1.

Reduce burn and damage from Clasers and they're still significantly different from IS lasers and unless you're saying IS lasers can't be twisted they're still mitigateable. Mobility is as much about getting guns on target as twisting off.

You got smoked by big alpha laservomit, not gauss+2ppcs. Well, sometimes you got smoked by both. However that was the heyday of the HBR, not just the Night Gyr.

Changes to TTK don't have to be big - you're just moving from 1 hit open/cripple, 2 hit cripple/kill to 1 hit hurt, 2 open/cripple, 3 cripple/kill. Skilled twisting/use of positioning/mobility extending that.

[Ghogiel]

MischiefSC, on 01 July 2018 - 01:09 PM, said:

You play a different QP from me. It's all Erlls and lbx2s.

Edited by Ghogiel, 01 July 2018 - 02:05 PM.

[MischiefSC]

......

I'm thinking you linked a picture that isn't supported.

[Ghogiel]

MischiefSC, on 01 July 2018 - 02:04 PM, said:

......

I'm thinking you linked a picture that isn't supported.

fixerated

[MischiefSC]

Ghogiel, on 01 July 2018 - 02:06 PM, said:

fixerated

Maybe it's mid day/Euro vs primetime players? Most my QP matches involve both sides scattering to find hiding spots to shoot from. Then either shooting people in the back while they run away or spectating the LRM Dire Wolf as he tries to kite from the 11 enemies remaining or the 2xerll ACH as he keeps trying to find the perfect place to hide and shutdown before he discos when the enemy finds him.

During primetime I'm either in private lobbies, FW or sometimes GQ which isn't as bad.

[Ghogiel]

MischiefSC, on 01 July 2018 - 02:33 PM, said:

Maybe it's mid day/Euro vs primetime players? Most my QP matches involve both sides scattering to find hiding spots to shoot from. Then either shooting people in the back while they run away or spectating the LRM Dire Wolf as he tries to kite from the 11 enemies remaining or the 2xerll ACH as he keeps trying to find the perfect place to hide and shutdown before he discos when the enemy finds him.

During primetime I'm either in private lobbies, FW or sometimes GQ which isn't as bad.

Yeah timezones do change things a fair bit. EU do play with more S than W.

I don't think I have even seen ERLL and LB2s both in the same pug game like ever though. There is usually only 1 or 2 mechs with ERLL, more often then not it's just 2 of them on something like a HBK. Not any LB2s though. Yeovone more accurately describes the pug meta, some sort of mix of lurmers pokers and dakka for the most part. A fair amount of IS U/AC2s here and there, LB2s are like one of the mythic hardly used weaps imo.

[Y E O N N E]

MischiefSC, on 01 July 2018 - 01:09 PM, said:

You play a different QP from me. It's all Erlls and lbx2s. The moment anyone gets close one team literally turns and runs, often getting shot in the back.

I also play QP more frequently than you do and time zones are also probably different. Having played across every time zone, I can tell you that EU mid-day players are by far the worst in the community and that the most competitive games happen between 9:00 PM and 2:00 AM Eastern US time.

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Sometimes you'll get a guy with HGauss who ambles through the most open area of the map and dies to LRMs.

There's sometimes an ERLL user, usually gets his **** kicked in because his positioning is bad and his team is shot out from under him. More often than not, you've got a T1 carry in one of the four or five God Assaults ™ doing 800+ and everybody else is supporting (or inhibiting, as the case may be). There are the idiots who wander out in the open with HGauss Annihilators, the scrubs who can't figure out how a Deathstrike works, and plenty of YOLO Piranhas, but it's mostly dakka or HGauss pushes once the battle is joined.

Quote

In the last 30 matches I have trouble getting my team to close when it's 7-1.

Sounds like EU to me; don't feel too bad because you'd have problems getting them to close even if you were somehow winning 7-6.

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Reduce burn and damage from Clasers and they're still significantly different from IS lasers and unless you're saying IS lasers can't be twisted they're still mitigateable. Mobility is as much about getting guns on target as twisting off.

No they ain't. If you reduce damage on cERML from 7 to 6, you have to reduce its duration to about 1.075 seconds to keep parity with the isERML. That 0.175 second delta between the IS version and the Clan version will not have any practical effect in combat, nothing at all like the current 0.35 second delta. Furthermore, the gun already has superior DPS to the IS version and would continue to do so with no changes to its cool-down.

But all of this is neither here nor there. The primary issue is that the two guns will feel too similar, reducing the distinction between IS and Clan. That's bad.

Quote

You got smoked by big alpha laservomit, not gauss+2ppcs. Well, sometimes you got smoked by both. However that was the heyday of the HBR, not just the Night Gyr.

No you didn't, not at the end of the Goldilocks Era. At the end, the meta was defined by the following 'Mechs, depending on range bracket:

• Mauler MX90 (5x AC/5 or 3x AC/5 + 2x UAC/5)
  
• Atlas S (AC/20 + SRM24A)
  
• Battlemaster 1G (5x or 6x ERLL)
  
• Grasshopper 5P (5x ERLL)
  
• Warhammer 6R (2x PPC + 2x UAC/5)
  
• Hunchback IIC (4x UAC/2)
  
• Hunchback IIC (3x cLPL, 2x cERPPC)
  
• Blackjack 1X (6x ML + 2x MPL)
  
• Black Knight 7/L (3x LPL + 5x/6x ML)
  
• Timber Wolf (2x cLPL + 5x cERML, cSRM24A + 5x cSPL, or Gauss + 2x cERPPC)
  
• Summoner (cSRM30A)
  
• Nova D (10x cSPL, D for its armor quirks)
  
• Storm Crow (some preferred mix of cSPL and cSRM6A or Streak 36)
  
• Griffin 3M/2N (SRM24 or SRM16A)
  
• Jenner IIC-A (6x cSPL)
  
• Jenner IIC (cSRM36)
  
• Arctic Cheetah (5x or 6x cSPL)
  
• Firestarter S (5x MPL)
  
• Firestarter A (8x SPL)

The Black Knight and Timber Wolf got completely replaced by Warhammers (including the Black Widow briefly for MRBC7) because the meta at this time was Brawl-Push, and the lasers couldn't hack it with the heat. The HBK-IIC eventually pushed out the Blackjack after PGI did a targeted nerf on it. Nowhere in here were laser boats nuking competently-played targets in single volleys, as they could all twist fast enough to spread each other's damage. Even the IS XL was not only viable, but preferable to STD and the 'Mechs above could take hits well enough that they were preferable to Clan flavors.

Then the quirk nerfs, re-scale, KDK-3, and NTG all happened in quick succession. The Kodiak replaced the Mauler and the Atlas with the KDK-3 DakkaBear and Spirit Bear, respectively. The KDK-3 also quickly evolved Gauss+PPC. While it might appear that pop-tarting came back because nothing could survive face-time with the KDK-3, it was in fact already on its way back to counter the Mauler. The NTG quickly replaced the Warhammer for dakka, and then evolved to Gauss + PPCs to replace the TBR in countering the KDK. It is at this point that PGI decided to start absolutely hammering mobility, jams, and heat, and it is precisely because the Gauss+ERPPC volleys, when well-played, were obliterating targets before they knew what hit them from ranges most weapons can't respond effectively at and because the dakka KDK had no properly exploitable weaknesses when directly confronted; the IS dakka nerf was just collateral damage to maintain optics.

Quote

Changes to TTK don't have to be big - you're just moving from 1 hit open/cripple, 2 hit cripple/kill to 1 hit hurt, 2 open/cripple, 3 cripple/kill. Skilled twisting/use of positioning/mobility extending that.

That alone is big, because you are tacking at least 5 seconds onto that and a lot can happen in 5 seconds. And at that, you are bumping into what can be achieved in the alphas and pseudo-alphas of DPS-oriented builds. Like I said in the other thread, if you nerf my MAD-IIC's alpha down to 60, what reason do I have to take that over an MCII-B which can volley out the same 60 in less time, for less heat, from further away, and with another 60 on the way? The zerg-rushing will be real.

Edited by Yeonne Greene, 01 July 2018 - 03:47 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Yeonne Greene, on 01 July 2018 - 03:04 PM, said:

I also play QP more frequently than you do and time zones are also probably different. Having played across every time zone, I can tell you that EU mid-day players are by far the worst in the community and that the most competitive games happen between 9:00 PM and 2:00 AM Eastern US time.




There's sometimes an ERLL user, usually gets his **** kicked in because his positioning is bad and his team is shot out from under him. More often than not, you've got a T1 carry in one of the four or five God Assaults ™ doing 800+ and everybody else is supporting (or inhibiting, as the case may be). There are the idiots who wander out in the open with HGauss Annihilators, the scrubs who can't figure out how a Deathstrike works, and plenty of YOLO Piranhas, but it's mostly dakka or HGauss pushes once the battle is joined.



Sounds like EU to me; don't feel too bad because you'd have problems getting them to close even if you were somehow winning 7-6.



No they ain't. If you reduce damage on cERML from 7 to 6, you have to reduce its duration to about 1.075 seconds to keep parity with the isERML. That 0.175 second delta between the IS version and the Clan version will not have any practical effect in combat, nothing at all like the current 0.35 second delta. Furthermore, the gun already has superior DPS to the IS version and would continue to do so with no changes to its cool-down.

But all of this is neither here nor there. The primary issue is that the two guns will feel too similar, reducing the distinction between IS and Clan. That's bad.



No you didn't, not at the end of the Goldilocks Era. At the end, the meta was defined by the following 'Mechs, depending on range bracket:

• Mauler MX90 (5x AC/5 or 3x AC/5 + 2x UAC/5)
  
• Atlas S (AC/20 + SRM24A)
  
• Battlemaster 1G (5x or 6x ERLL)
  
• Grasshopper 5P (5x ERLL)
  
• Warhammer 6R (2x PPC + 2x UAC/5)
  
• Hunchback IIC (4x UAC/2)
  
• Hunchback IIC (3x cLPL, 2x cERPPC)
  
• Blackjack 1X (6x ML + 2x MPL)
  
• Black Knight 7/L (3x LPL + 5x/6x ML)
  
• Timber Wolf (2x cLPL + 5x cERML, cSRM24A + 5x cSPL, or Gauss + 2x cERPPC)
  
• Summoner (cSRM30A)
  
• Nova D (10x cSPL, D for its armor quirks)
  
• Storm Crow (some preferred mix of cSPL and cSRM6A or Streak 36)
  
• Griffin 3M/2N (SRM24 or SRM16A)
  
• Jenner IIC-A (6x cSPL)
  
• Jenner IIC (cSRM36)
  
• Arctic Cheetah (5x or 6x cSPL)
  
• Firestarter S (5x MPL)
  
• Firestarter A (8x SPL)

The Black Knight and Timber Wolf got completely replaced by Warhammers (including the Black Widow briefly for MRBC7) because the meta at this time was Brawl-Push, and the lasers couldn't hack it with the heat. The HBK-IIC eventually pushed out the Blackjack after PGI did a targeted nerf on it. Nowhere in here were laser boats nuking competently-played targets in single volleys, as they could all twist fast enough to spread each other's damage. Even the IS XL was not only viable, but preferable to STD and the 'Mechs above could take hits well enough that they were preferable to Clan flavors.


Then the quirk nerfs, re-scale, KDK-3, and NTG all happened in quick succession. The Kodiak replaced the Mauler and the Atlas with the KDK-3 DakkaBear and Spirit Bear, respectively. The KDK-3 also quickly evolved Gauss+PPC. While it might appear that pop-tarting came back because nothing could survive face-time with the KDK-3, it was in fact already on its way back to counter the Mauler. The NTG quickly replaced the Warhammer for dakka, and then evolved to Gauss + PPCs to replace the TBR in countering the KDK. It is at this point that PGI decided to start absolutely hammering mobility, jams, and heat, and it is precisely because the Gauss+ERPPC volleys, when well-played, were obliterating targets before they knew what hit them from ranges most weapons can't respond effectively at and because the dakka KDK had no properly exploitable weaknesses when directly confronted; the IS dakka nerf was just collateral damage to maintain optics.



That alone is big, because you are tacking at least 5 seconds onto that and a lot can happen in 5 seconds. And at that, you are bumping into what can be achieved in the alphas and pseudo-alphas of DPS-oriented builds. Like I said in the other thread, if you nerf my MAD-IIC's alpha down to 60, what reason do I have to take that over an MCII-B which can volley out the same 60 in less time, for less heat, from further away, and with another 60 on the way? The zerg-rushing will be real.

I'm probably looking at what came after the KDK3 era changes then.

So change CERML by 0.5pts, reduce burn time by 1/2 as much as you're talking about but cooldown enough to make up the difference. reduce heat more on IS ERMLs but cooldown a tiny bit on IS MLs. Put IS LPLs back to Goldilocks (I like the term for the era) stats exactly - in fact put IS and Clan LPLs back to almost exactly where they were.

Just as an example.

Put mobility back in where it was. If you think laser burns are okay then, well, leave them but I take peoples opinions on burn duration as part of the issue.

As to overall increase in TTK the point is to keep the relative value of poke vs brawl where it is now. If that means more dialing back on brawling from where it is now over poke that's fine. If that means dialing it all back but PPC/Gauss up a tiny bit that's also fine. If that means making poke weapons a bit stronger in the brawl by lowering their heat or cooldown that's fine too. I'm not talking a big overall change - that 5 seconds you're talking about is one 5 second exchange over the match but it's the difference for most players between being knocked out of the match at 3 minutes in vs 5 or 6 or 7 minutes in. The first means the match felt like it was a bad investment of time. The second, much less so. For focused fire the difference becomes much, much smaller.

I"m really flexible with how you make that change work. I think however that a longer TTK is a good thing - we need it. Like I said about skill curve; it's pretty close to an upside down 'U' right now that's like 3 or 4 times wider than it is tall. You have to balance that curve more. Absolutely that pushes top tier performance further from median - which you want. It almost certainly will increase the number of shots to kill mechs and I absolutely get that doing so feels like it dials back the per-shot, per-trade impact of good performance but if you don't give those median/sub median performers the feeling like they have the time and at least potential to shoot and do damage and stomp around you end up with **** like we have now where everything gets made un-fun to try and accomplish the same role.

I think you will find that in the long run you're winning more (which you should) and risk-management pays off even more than it does now and we can end up with situations where a really good 8man can consistently win vs a mediocre/bad 12man. When you can create that situation consistently and predictably you open up the MM options that Nightbird was talking about for dynamic team sizes which also gives us way, way better MM options.

There's a lot of payoffs. Way more than just recoil on CGauss and the little CLas balance being discussed.

[C337Skymaster]

My two cents which I think will fix a lot of our problems: Permanent Chain Fire. Get rid of Group Fire, entirely.

[YueFei]

MischiefSC, on 01 July 2018 - 07:26 PM, said:

I"m really flexible with how you make that change work. I think however that a longer TTK is a good thing - we need it. Like I said about skill curve; it's pretty close to an upside down 'U' right now that's like 3 or 4 times wider than it is tall. You have to balance that curve more. Absolutely that pushes top tier performance further from median - which you want. It almost certainly will increase the number of shots to kill mechs and I absolutely get that doing so feels like it dials back the per-shot, per-trade impact of good performance but if you don't give those median/sub median performers the feeling like they have the time and at least potential to shoot and do damage and stomp around you end up with **** like we have now where everything gets made un-fun to try and accomplish the same role.

I find players don't mind low TTK if they can get back into the action sooner. The casual player who dies too quickly might be better served by some kind of instant-action mode with endless respawns delivered via Dropship directly into the fray (instead of walking the long way back to the fight as in Community Warfare). That might be the way to go, rather than screwing with the core gameplay mechanics.

I loved loved loved playing the heck out of Subspace Continuum. Despite the fact that you could die in 1 second, you could also fly and evade well and survive for a long long time against players trying to kill you. And even if you did die, you waited 5 seconds to respawn and could immediately re-attach to a teammate to get back into the fight (instead of flying the long way back in). Casual players could easily have a blast there, and the core gameplay remained the same in the Pub arena and in the Comp matches. Same hitpoints, same agility, same weapon damage, etc.

[MischiefSC]

YueFei, on 01 July 2018 - 11:28 PM, said:

I find players don't mind low TTK if they can get back into the action sooner. The casual player who dies too quickly might be better served by some kind of instant-action mode with endless respawns delivered via Dropship directly into the fray (instead of walking the long way back to the fight as in Community Warfare). That might be the way to go, rather than screwing with the core gameplay mechanics.

I loved loved loved playing the heck out of Subspace Continuum. Despite the fact that you could die in 1 second, you could also fly and evade well and survive for a long long time against players trying to kill you. And even if you did die, you waited 5 seconds to respawn and could immediately re-attach to a teammate to get back into the fight (instead of flying the long way back in). Casual players could easily have a blast there, and the core gameplay remained the same in the Pub arena and in the Comp matches. Same hitpoints, same agility, same weapon damage, etc.

TTK is better looked at as 'how long to remove you from the match'. MWO is different from the majority of games in that not only do you die and get permanently removed from the match but you can be crippled and have no way to heal or recover. This makes for a far less forgiving environment than 99% of shooters out there.

I get people wanting to feel like the shots they land are telling - however in most 1 hit 1 kill games they are even less so as killing someone changes nothing - they'll be back in full health with a new weapon in a few seconds. What is important though is that ranged trading, suppression, lane control and all that stuff needs to still be effective and even dominant in a skilled v skilled team engagement.

It also needs to be fun. Currently it's not as fun - clumsy, awkward to play. Needs to be a bit faster and responsive.

[MTier Slayed Up]

MischiefSC, on 01 July 2018 - 11:48 PM, said:

TTK is better looked at as 'how long to remove you from the match'. MWO is different from the majority of games in that not only do you die and get permanently removed from the match but you can be crippled and have no way to heal or recover. This makes for a far less forgiving environment than 99% of shooters out there.

Maybe it's just me, but I enjoy the fact that if I get stuck with a troll, or two, or derp team, I only have roughly 5 minutes to put up with them?
I do like the nature of "make your one life count," considering I played CoD Search & Destroy constantly. To each their own.

MischiefSC, on 01 July 2018 - 11:48 PM, said:

It also needs to be fun. Currently it's not as fun - clumsy, awkward to play. Needs to be a bit faster and responsive.

Play Armored Core.

[Soulless86]

C337Skymaster, on 01 July 2018 - 08:22 PM, said:

My two cents which I think will fix a lot of our problems: Permanent Chain Fire. Get rid of Group Fire, entirely.

That has never been in a mechwarrior/battletech game, that would kill the game.

[BoldricKent]

Chain fire wouldnt reduce TTK by much, you can still hit same component with it, if you arent standing still.... but stagger fire is actually most common in Battletech, since most of chassis cant do alphas well and getting shutdown is far more risky then in MWO. Overlapping weapons with multiple systems is norm, boating of weapons not so much-its more of shooters domain.

[Tarl Cabot]

Soulless86, on 02 July 2018 - 12:45 AM, said:

That has never been in a mechwarrior/battletech game, that would kill the game.

Battletech/TT was only chain fire. on TT TICs (weapon group) did not happen until Solaris VII.. I know, you meant PC but then there were the early PC games Crescent Hawks Inception/Revenge, Mechcommanders series, etc and the new BT game. The first Mechwarrior PC game did have 3 TICs but it was ripple fire. The weapons fired one after another by a split second. Same with GEnie MPBT EGA 3025 and MPBT Solaris.

So from MW2-4, MWLL, EA MPBT 3025 (used a MW4 clone engine), BT VR, and MWO had weapon groupings that fired said weapon simultaneously.

[Nema Nabojiv]

YueFei, on 01 July 2018 - 11:28 PM, said:

I find players don't mind low TTK if they can get back into the action sooner. The casual player who dies too quickly might be better served by some kind of instant-action mode with endless respawns delivered via Dropship directly into the fray (instead of walking the long way back to the fight as in Community Warfare). That might be the way to go, rather than screwing with the core gameplay mechanics.

That is so true.
Thankfully, PGI in their infinite wisdom decided to invest in solaris where your playtime is shorter than your waittime.

[MischiefSC]

DrtyDshSoap, on 02 July 2018 - 12:18 AM, said:

Maybe it's just me, but I enjoy the fact that if I get stuck with a troll, or two, or derp team, I only have roughly 5 minutes to put up with them?
I do like the nature of "make your one life count," considering I played CoD Search & Destroy constantly. To each their own.


Play Armored Core.

Not saying I want respawns or anything like that. I'm not saying I want anything like Armored Core. I'm saying I prefer the game balance experience more like, as Yeonne put it, the 'Goldilocks Era' of MWO.

[Snukums]

I find this whole discussion kinda circular without getting a better defined goal for these nerfs, buffs, etc. It seems to me that MWO has a number of potentially contradictory objectives - lore (mech characteristics, clan vs. IS strengths and weaknesses, etc.), mech diversity, and fun for players of all skill levels (i.e. TTK). Without defining what balance PGI is attempting to achieve, the envelope of solutions just wobbles around these dimensions with the occasional skew when something new is introduced.

It doesn't matter what PGI does, the meta will adjust, team-work will trump the fine details (stomps will still happen) and good players will always dominate and skewer poorer players. The real issue to me is whether PGI is investing its development time poorly with these balance gyrations when it could be investing it instead in a better tiering system, a better match-maker, new maps, weapon systems, game-types, etc. which bring more fun (and more players) rather than continuously manipulating the existing solution envelope (which is always going to PO players by harming their mech or side (Clan or IS).

Edited by Snukums, 02 July 2018 - 11:17 AM.

[Brenden]

Dogstar, on 30 June 2018 - 12:45 AM, said:

Can we just shoot this argument in the head for once and all please!

Firstly, when each player in the game has one mech and each mech is meant to be as equally valid as another mech then it's blatantly unfair for one mech to have a much superior technology.

Fair gameplay has to overrule 'lore'.

Secondly if you want to accept that lore > fair play then you have to include all the lore not just pick and choose the bits you like - which means clan players need to 'bid down' and we have to have asymmetric matches. But clan fans don't want that, they just want to treat this like a single player game and wreck face.

******* clans have ruined Battletech and every game derived from it.

To be fair, I'd love to have the Bidding-Down system. It'd make the game itself feel more unique, and it could help to balance it out. But another thing I don't understand is - if a player has one mech, why not allow them to pick, from a selection that rotates monthly, a mech from either faction? From a selection of say, Medium or Light mechs, let a new player pick one inner sphere and one clan. That way they'd have access to both.

[Brenden]

It would be nice, though, if the game had a mode called "Lore Mode" or something. All the mechs, weapons, everything would reflect how they are in Battletech; No double armor, no halved DHS. Lasers fire one beam like in MW4, but do have a cool down. That sort, almost like how it was so long ago.