463 replies to this topic

[Jackal Noble]

no.

[MischiefSC]

Mcgral18, on 08 July 2018 - 08:14 AM, said:

Item health increase I can agree with

6-7 MGs still feel pathetic against structure, damage wise.
Which given the short range and 100% facetime doesn't quite make up for the risk.


12 on the Piranha can actually do something significant.

It's 12 dps heat free with bonus crit damage for a 20 ton weight investment for a team. MGs are 0 heat and light weight. I would way, way rather ersmls/spls be dangerous and MGs have more of a niche role for quickly stripping components (just not as fast as they do currently) or just heat-free DPS.

I have no issue with dangerous lights. I wish more lights were more dangerous. I would start with rolling back the rescale for most lights and give them their mobility back. I also want buffs to every small laser across the board.

However MGs are just flat out superior for the weight invested. If I could take 12 MGs on a 75 ton heavy I absolutely would, more like 1xlbx20 and 11 MGs or the like. Because MGs are currently one of the best weapons for the weight in the game.

Roll the crit bonuses back. Buff item health. Buff lights and small lasers.

Edited by MischiefSC, 08 July 2018 - 09:08 AM.

[Mcgral18]

MischiefSC, on 08 July 2018 - 09:07 AM, said:

Roll the crit bonuses back. Buff item health. Buff lights and small lasers.

This does also cut their damage (significantly)


Which can be adjusted, but then there's this issue:


From certain special individuals.



I don't particularly care about their weapon stripping capabilities
I want damage...which none of the MGs do unless you have 12.
At 100M, with low Dam/ton, HMGs are kinda sad.

[MischiefSC]

Mcgral18, on 08 July 2018 - 09:11 AM, said:

This does also cut their damage (significantly)


Which can be adjusted, but then there's this issue:


From certain special individuals.



I don't particularly care about their weapon stripping capabilities
I want damage...which none of the MGs do unless you have 12.
At 100M, with low Dam/ton, HMGs are kinda sad.

Damage for no heat. Sure, they should do damage, but again - no heat for the damage they do. So if they're even close to the DPS of micro or small lasers they are totally superior.

HMGs could stand a damage buff - all MGs should. So long as small lasers get one too to stay ahead of the curve.

MGs have to be a niche weapon. No heat, which is just too big a hurdle to jump balance wise to have them play in the same space as micro/small/ersml/spls.

[FupDup]

MischiefSC, on 08 July 2018 - 09:17 AM, said:

-
MGs have to be a niche weapon.
-

There's one very big thing you're missing with this argument...MGs are the only lightweight ballistics in the game. Without them, the lightest IS ballistic is 6 tons and the lightest Clan ballistic is 5 tons. If we had Magshots for IS and AP Gauss for Clans then I could somewhat understand your position, but since we don't have those and won't for many years (if ever) that position is untenable. Protomech ACs and Light ACs would also be nice to this end but not as necessary as Mags and APG.

Like, imagine if we suddenly deleted every small and medium laser in the game and left only the Flamer as our entry-level energy weapon. Then it would HAVE to be more universally applicable because otherwise lights and many mediums couldn't even use energy weapons properly (not enough tonnage for large lasers or PPCs). The same goes for MGs relative to other ballistics. Give us the other stuff and maybe we could come to an arrangement.

[MischiefSC]

FupDup, on 08 July 2018 - 09:21 AM, said:

There's one very big thing you're missing with this argument...MGs are the only lightweight ballistics in the game. Without them, the lightest IS ballistic is 6 tons and the lightest Clan ballistic is 5 tons. If we had Magshots for IS and AP Gauss for Clans then I could somewhat understand your position, but since we don't have those and won't for many years (if ever) that position is untenable. Protomech ACs and Light ACs would also be nice to this end but not as necessary as Mags and APG.

Like, imagine if we suddenly deleted every small and medium laser in the game and left only the Flamer as our entry-level energy weapon. Then it would HAVE to be more universally applicable because otherwise lights and many mediums couldn't even use energy weapons properly (not enough tonnage for large lasers or PPCs). The same goes for MGs relative to other ballistics. Give us the other stuff and maybe we could come to an arrangement.

I get that. I totally do. However you need to find a way to make them useful without replacing the small energy options completely. How do you propose to do that? Because currently MGs are flat out superior. The WLF sees play because of mech durability. If the WLF had 8-12 ballistic hardpoints on a variant that would be the one getting played.

[Sjorpha]

Since not one shred of actual evidence has been posted to support the notion of the Piranha being too strong, only theorycrafting and anecdotes, this is to my knowledge the best actual research on the subject that has been done to date.

https://www.reddit.c...d_averaged_the/

It shows the Piranha scoring a 7% higher median damage than locusts. 290 vs 271. So basically it's a little stronger than the locust.

If more up to date statistics shows a scarier picture please compile and post it, all I know is that so far all the ominous theorycrafting about it's "insane DPS" and so on somehow seems to fail in producing the actual results you would expect from a very overpowered mech.

I'm not saying it doesn't have extreme specs on paper, because it clearly does, but at the end of the day in-game results is what should inform balancing and for some reason the Piranhas aren't having the impact on the game you would expect looking at it.

Compare to the KDK-3, where the scary predictions were immedeately supported with as much evidence and direct impact on the game as you could wish for. Extremely high averages even from bad players, extreme overrepresentation in matches, extreme performance peaks from good players and so on.

In short, the KDK-3 directly after release quickly produced the results you would expect from something overpowered, and the Piranha...just doesn't, at least not yet.

[MischiefSC]

The Piranha is a light and most people suck in lights. Suck real bad. You'd want a set of 20+ matches from 4+ people who consistently do well in lights. The KDK3 was an abnormality, most imbalances are hard to sort from the noise of the overall average players suck factor.

I just want better overall balance. I'm fine with the Piranha being strong - I wish the energy variant was just as strong and the Jenner was just as strong. Currently MGs are strong enough that the few ballistic variants of lights are the strongest with 1 exception. As there are more energy lights and missile lights I would like those to be as viable.

Dear God what if they were all viable... just in different but as useful ways? What sort of game would that be like? Oh, just like other good PvP games with good weapon/role balance.

Edited by MischiefSC, 08 July 2018 - 09:48 AM.

[FupDup]

MischiefSC, on 08 July 2018 - 09:47 AM, said:

-
Currently MGs are strong enough that the few ballistic variants of lights are the strongest with 1 exception.
-

I can name more than one exception where ballistic variants on light mechs are not the strongest. In several cases they're even the weakest.

Locust
Raven
Osiris
Panther
Urbanmech (best is K9, because it has the most lasers)
Spider (debatable, the Anansi hero certainly sucks and it's got ballistics but you can debate the 5K)
Adder
Kit Fox (debatable)
Cougar

[Mcgral18]

FupDup, on 08 July 2018 - 09:54 AM, said:

I can name more than one exception where ballistic variants on light mechs are not the strongest. In several cases they're even the weakest.

Locust
Raven
Osiris
Panther
Urbanmech (best is K9, because it has the most lasers)
Spider (debatable, the Anansi hero certainly sucks and it's got ballistics but you can debate the 5K)
Adder
Kit Fox (debatable)
Cougar

Though, let's be fair, you need a minimum amount of them to be useful
4 is no longer that number
6 can be adequate (but need supporting lasers)

[YueFei]

Perhaps MGs and small class lasers could be balanced against each other but still differentiated based on duration/cooldown. MGs are heat-free DPS but require constant face time. The small class of lasers could be more of a spike&run style of play, which can be helped by shorter durations, and perhaps a more generously extended damage fall-off range (ala Heavy Gauss), to help with that kind of play style of poking from cover.

[Prototelis]

YueFei, on 08 July 2018 - 10:00 AM, said:

The small class of lasers could be more of a spike&run style of play, which can be helped by shorter durations,

IS small class, IS med pulse, and clan Micro pulse already do this but the damage is anemic at best.

[MischiefSC]

FupDup, on 08 July 2018 - 09:54 AM, said:

I can name more than one exception where ballistic variants on light mechs are not the strongest. In several cases they're even the weakest.

Locust
Raven
Osiris
Panther
Urbanmech (best is K9, because it has the most lasers)
Spider (debatable, the Anansi hero certainly sucks and it's got ballistics but you can debate the 5K)
Adder
Kit Fox (debatable)
Cougar

Ate any of those as viable as crit lynx or piranha? Clearly the current MG design does them 0 good.

They are the weakest because they can't boat anything and because MGs are *not* niche enough and small energy ate not strong enough to make a couple MGs + lasers worthwhile. You've got MGs better then energy in the same role in a couple specific MG boats while everything else isn't really worth it in comparison, unless it's tanky as a medium/heavy.

Make MGs more niche so having 2-4 is worth it, make energy better so it's worth taking and with MGs. The point is to make everything you listed better while making the 3 extant light MGs boats a bit less so.

Do that by messing with crits or doing more structure but less armor damage (bigger disparity than even now) or whatever. Right now MGs compete directly with small lasers and do it better - in 3 specific mechs. That's **** for variety.

[Prototelis]

The wolfhound, Flea, and a few others compete directly with the PIR without mgs


At the end of the day the PIR has some glaring weaknesses most of you fail to acknowledge. Weaknesses that are EASILY exploited. You just want another powerful light nuked into garbage because muh assults.

Edited by Prototelis, 08 July 2018 - 10:52 AM.

[Vonbach]

Prototelis, on 08 July 2018 - 10:51 AM, said:

The wolfhound, Flea, and a few others compete directly with the PIR without mgs


At the end of the day the PIR has some glaring weaknesses most of you fail to acknowledge. Weaknesses that are EASILY exploited. You just want another powerful light nuked into garbage because muh assults.

Its going to get nerfed to death eventually especially if its allowed to continue as is.
Remember the Arctic Cheeter?

[Prototelis]

Vonbach, on 08 July 2018 - 11:18 AM, said:

Its going to get nerfed to death eventually especially if its allowed to continue as is.
Remember the Arctic Cheeter?

I remember the Arctic cheetah fondly, 6 spl was life.

I fail to see how this is the appropriate attitude. The number 1 problem with this game is balance by bitching.

We're becoming a community curated for crybabies.

[AEgg]

MGs require 100% facetime, facetime is death for light mechs. At best, the PIR is an annoying distraction, because it's a light you have to pay attention to, since it has to focus a single target to do any good, while other lights do not.

[Prototelis]

The PIR is strong at abusing people that don't understand the teamplay aspects of this game.

The same people that say "don't tell me how to have fun," that believe assaults should one shot everything, the people who are afraid of easily spread long duration lasers.

[YueFei]

Prototelis, on 08 July 2018 - 10:05 AM, said:

IS small class, IS med pulse, and clan Micro pulse already do this but the damage is anemic at best.

Increase their damage per shot until they aren't anemic. Modify the cooldown to compensate if the DPS gets out of hand.

I agree with others who say we shouldn't hold TT stats as if they were inviolate canon.

[KodiakGW]

Yeah, it must be the PIR that is broken. Yeah, it must be that and not hit registration...

https://youtu.be/oWuzjHNKOos

Yep, not hit registration! NOPE!!! Mech bounced not because it got hit by Dual HGauss...must have hit a speed bump. Yeah, that's the ticket. Everything fine...move along.