126 replies to this topic

[Xetelian]

Was this really necessary to hit ALL clan lasers instead of just the ones that are prevalent in laser vomit?

Does the ERSmall laser really need a big damage reduction? Without a duration reduction too?
I don't think so.

Does the ERMedium laser really need almost 2 damage taken off of it instead of just one damage? This also doesn't include a duration reduction either. I think this is too much. EDIT: A friend pointed out something I didn't verify it but he said "5.25 damage for 5.7 heat" so that this weapon will be more HEAT than Damage.

Medium Pulse laser is fine it doesn't need this nerf, you already took the range off of it and it isn't the best clan weapon in the game. Leave it at 7 damage.

Clan ERLarge laser isn't good, this nerf will make it worse even if you can take an extra one.

Clan Large Pulse laser isn't good and it doesn't need to be made worse, increasing the ghost heat limit isn't going to make up for shaving damage off of a long duration PULSE weapon. This will likely make the Heavy Large Laser even more attractive.

Heavy Medium laser is only 270m and has a super long cool down and duration. Shaving 2 damage off of it but only a fraction of a second off duration is going to really screw this weapon up. You're already limited to 4 of them so why isn't the ghost heat limit on these going up as well with these nerfs? Why isn't the cool down coming down as well? It takes 7 or so seconds to recycle the weapon and 8 damage isn't enough to justify EVER taking it.


Heavy Large laser 2 point damage reduction should be paired with a duration and cool down reduction. The cycle time on this weapon is huge and I assume it is the longest in the game right now.

Edited by Xetelian, 06 July 2018 - 04:51 PM.

[Smutty]

From 1.1 DPH to 0.92 DPH for cERMLs (unless I mucked up simple division)

Really?

Come on now why are you trying to turn Clantech into IS Tech? Look I know tabletop balance is hilariously bad but a tech differential in this game could be so delicious

Instead we're doing what- reducing the amount of viable Clan energy builds even further? Why?

Bumping the Ghost Heat threshold for cLPLs and cERLLs is a good change, so thank you for that. Been a long time coming. Now if you could be so gracious as to reduce their burn times by a couple of days or so that would be perfect

[IronEleven]

Not necessary in the slightest. The HLL and ERML were a little bit problematic but screwing over the entire set of clan lasers (That weren't already screwed, in case you thought I forgot about the small/micro laser family) is insane.

[PJohann]

Bias and incompetence. 2 words to fully describe our balance overlords. I can't see how game can recover from damage caused by them.

[Metachanic]

CHLL changes seem about right. Testing required. CERML changes seem directionally good, but quite heavy-handed. Cooldown buff is extremely welcome, but why 5.25 damage instead of 6? Raised ghost heat limits on CERLL will probably push the ERLL trading game significantly in favor of clans, especially on heavier chassis. CLPL ghost heat limit increase is nice, good way to differentiate the weapon, but potentially not much impact on gameplay. CERSL and CMPL changes seem wholly unnecessary; is either weapon overperforming at present?

[R Valentine]

I would have left cERSL in tact and even cLPL. Maybe not wreck cERML down to 5.25. 6 would be OK. 6.5 for cMPL. HLL nerf ok. Leave HML alone. Rarely used as is.

[FupDup]

My comments from the original thread:


I'm okay with the overall direction, but my nitpicks are:

1. The Clan ERML damage nerf went too far down. 6 damage would keep it at least a little different from the IS side, 5.25 is basically identical. Also, I think I'd rather have a slight beam duration reduction than a cooldown reduction so that lighter Clan mechs could make better use of non-small lasers. Also, the heat should never be higher than the damage on a laser weapon.

2. The Clan MPL also probably went down a little too much (see above, it's basically an IS MPL now).

3. Clan ERSL didn't really need this. It's been whacked with the nerf bat more times than I can count. Otherwise, if you absolutely need to involve it then bring the damage up to 4.5 (nice round number) and compensate the beam duration a bit (1.0 duration pretty pls?).

4. The Clan ERLL shouldn't have higher heat than damage (currently 10.8 heat). PPCs can somewhat get away with that because of their PPFLD advantage, but lasers should never go below 1.0 damage per heat ratio.

Beyond that I'll have to do some spreadsheetwarrior and actual playtesting to see how the other stuff works out. In particular I think that a higher GH limit on the CERLL and CLPL will be nice in theory (Triple ERLL Shadowcat intensifies) but I'll have to see how much it gets abused in practice.

Edited by FupDup, 06 July 2018 - 05:32 PM.

[IronEleven]

Also I feel the need to mention that testing these changes in a 4v4 environment is not going to produce any sort of valuable data.

[Xetelian]

Added an edit, apparently a couple of the lasers will be more heat than damage, that is not a good trade off for laser weapons. You can't justify ever taking a laser weapon when it has a long duration and creates more heat than it does damage.

Edited by Xetelian, 06 July 2018 - 04:54 PM.

[Ilfi]

PGI isn't particularly good at balancing for game feel. They look at their numbers and balance for the lowest common denominator in spite of community desires. It's why LMGs are dead, it's why Clan SRMs are dead, it's why Clan SPLs are dead, it's why Clan MPLs are barely clinging to life, and on and on and on. With brawling 95% dead and Clan's mid-range 500m weapons being gutted over and over, the only thing left will be UACs/Gauss for both sides and the occasional BushRACker or fast backstabber.

In my opinion, it all comes down to quirks. Their current implementation is tragic; Clans may have been viable without quirks in the past thanks to their somewhat better weapons, but years of heavy-handed nerfs have systematically chipped away at the only reason to consider Clan Mechs in the first place. For Clans, if we're given no meaningful quirks and inferior weapons across the board, there'll be no reason left to field them.

Edited by Ilfi, 06 July 2018 - 05:10 PM.

[Shadowomega1]

Only weapon I see on the list that I am fine with the change is cERLL, however I do not see IS LL or ERLL on the list taking it from 9 to what it should be, 8.

While HLL is going down to 16 which is what it is in table top and in MW3 (not sure about modded MW4), I feel may end up causing the weapon to lose favor for cERLL just for the range advantage.

cERSL the only change should have been burn time duration from 1.1 down to .9 .

I will have a more detailed write up tomorrow after stepping back in game and writing down some numbers for comparison.

[PJohann]

Clan Gauss Rifle
Weapon Recoil added to the weapon.

Completely pointless nerf attempt. Recoil wont change ANYTHING because people are fire their lasers first while gauss charges. I guess our balance overlord is not good enough at playing this game to know and understand that.


Clan ER-Small Laser
- Damage reduced to 4.4 (from 5)
- Heat reduced to 3.2 ( from 3.5)
- Cooldown reduced to 3.2 (from 3.5)

30 alpha (assuming ghost heat limit) at 200ish meters with relatively long burn is overpowered? Direct hit to clan lights, mediums and some niche close range builds (that are already beyond being bad). Another example of "looking good on a spreadsheet"


Clan ER-Medium Laser
- Damage reduced to 5.25 (from 7)
- Heat reduced to 5.7 (from 6.3)
- Cooldown reduced to 4 (from 4.5)

More heat than damage on a non-PPFLD weapon. With these changes C-ERML becomes inferior to IS counterpart in terms of mid-range trading. Also kills so many builds on mediocre mechs that weren't a problem. Nice. (sarcasm)


Clan ER- Large Laser
- Damage reduced to 10 (from 11)
- Heat Scale Trigger Increased to 4 (from 3)
- This means that you will receive the first heat scale penalty when firing 4 Clan ER-Large Lasers.

Welcome to extreme long range meta. Also more heat than damage.


Clan Medium Pulse laser
- Damage reduced to 6.25 (from 7)
- Heat reduced to 4.5 (from 4.75)

C-MPLs were good. Once. With 8 damage. Completely off meta niche weapon since nerf and they want to slap it once more?


Clan Large Pulse laser
- Damage reduced to 11 (from 12)
- Heat Scale Trigger Increased to 4 (from 3)
- This means that you will receive the first heat scale penalty when firing 4 Clan Large Pulse lasers.

Might generate couple new loadouts but still mostly irrelevant.


Heavy Medium Laser
- Damage reduced to 8 (from 10)
- Heat reduced to 7 (from 8)
- Duration reduced to 1.37 (from 1.45)

Nerf to already pretty bad weapon. At this point I cant even find any vague reasons other than biased blanket nerf


Heavy Large Laser
- Damage reduced to 16 (from 18)

Eh. Maybe. Used only on couple specific laser boats and the infamous 94alpha strawman.



Overall: Very bad. Its not balance, its just straight up incompetence and unability to see anything beyond some weird spreadsheet. Fire these [REDACTED] and let the community take the wheel. At least there are some people who actually know what to do and how it will impact the game.

Edited by PJohann, 06 July 2018 - 05:33 PM.

[Battlemaster56]

They hit the mark on the HLL laser but as I figured when touching CERML there was gonna be collateral damage to all the other lasers, especially to ERSL and HML unnecessary nerfs to these weapons that barely have a use or just to weak to even be used.

Also the heavy handed damage reduction to ERML/PL just made them identical to their IS counter parts .25 damage is not make any difference, if I want to use a IS ERML and MPL I'll go drop in my IS mechs, 1 point damage reduction is need for ERML and adjust their heat and boom good.

For CERLL and LPL idk why they need to be touch at all, they haven't been over performing from what I can tell.

Well gonna wait for this PTS and see how this effect my whole line up.

[Ilfi]

Man, seeing "MPL" and "8 damage" in the same sentence really tore up my heart-strings. Remember when there was a point to using MPL and SPLs, when they were just barely good enough at pinpoint damage and DPH to justify the huge cuts in armor and effective range? Those were the days.

I just cannot begin to understand why there are so many blanket changes to Clan Lasers when the intent is to reduce the alpha of Gauss Vomit. That's not "all lasers," that's THREE (3) weapons. What do we get? A nonsensical Gauss nerf that won't change anything; an HLL nerf that's okay but won't change much; and MLs gutted so mercilessly that they're outright worse than Inner Sphere ER MLs.

You know, if it was JUST the above three things, I think I would be able to look the other way, but that's not what we're getting. These constant out-of-nowhere nerfs to weapons that don't deserve it is completely insufferable. It's frustrating to play with squads, chat with subreddits, complain in Discords with hundreds of people that have an established consensus on game balance -- in this case Clan Lasers -- and for one man in one company to spit on their community without hesitation, ignore feedback, and implement ineffective solutions to a debatable issue. It is frustrating beyond words to want to give this game second and third chances, and end up punished because of it.

I know at this point that we're clearly not playing the same game PGI plays, but it's just so damn heart-wrenching to see the same thing happen time and time again.

[Cer6erus]

20$ says the gameplan to 'balance' clan lasers is this...

Ignore community feedback
Propose absolutely asinine balance changes that in no way can ever go through
'Listen' to the community when they say its too much
Split the difference with the proposed nerfs and actual nerfs
Claim you listened to the community when still unleashing massive nerfs
Half the community goes home happy because they 'convinced' PGI to not nerf as hard, even though drastically over tuned nerfs would not have gone live in the first place
???
Profit.

[PJohann]

Cer6erus, on 06 July 2018 - 05:44 PM, said:

20$ says the gameplan to 'balance' clan lasers is this...

Ignore community feedback
Propose absolutely asinine balance changes that in no way can ever go through
'Listen' to the community when they say its too much
Split the difference with the proposed nerfs and actual nerfs
Claim you listened to the community when still unleashing massive nerfs
Half the community goes home happy because they 'convinced' PGI to not nerf as hard, even though drastically over tuned nerfs would not have gone live in the first place
???
Profit.

Yep. Happened before. All according to plan (plummeting population is a mere coincidence)

[Xetelian]

Cer6erus, on 06 July 2018 - 05:44 PM, said:

20$ says the gameplan to 'balance' clan lasers is this...

Ignore community feedback
Propose absolutely asinine balance changes that in no way can ever go through
'Listen' to the community when they say its too much
Split the difference with the proposed nerfs and actual nerfs
Claim you listened to the community when still unleashing massive nerfs
Half the community goes home happy because they 'convinced' PGI to not nerf as hard, even though drastically over tuned nerfs would not have gone live in the first place
???
Profit.

That is the truest way of looking at how Paul balances this game.

Bottom line is we need a new balance team.

[Christophe Ivanov]

If all this Nefing happens, That's it, PGI no more spending my money as I have had it. I bought all this for the way the game was BEFORE like a year ago. We was in a agreement then, I bought your mechs, your weapons, etc, You get my money. Now all that I spent is now going to be WORTHLESS.
So tell me why I should spend more of my money now?

[justcallme A S H]

PJohann, on 06 July 2018 - 04:36 PM, said:

Bias and incompetence. 2 words to fully describe our balance overlords. I can't see how game can recover from damage caused by them.

Not really bias.

More-so a complete and utter lack of understanding of the game, what makes it fun and why people play it.

The game was fun, now its stale. Little nieche/dynamic things like the Locust 1V / 1LPL... Dragonc 2-C 3LPL or a big alpha from mech with the agility of a hand-operated atrillery turrett... These things are niche, they create dynamic game play - They make it interesting and fun.

However Clan has been shoe-horned into Laser or Gauss/Laser (and LRMs). Ballistics leave a lot to be desired unless boated 3+ and Brawling with SRM/Laser is dead. If any of this makes it into the live server, honestly the only two viable play styles will be cERL spam or LRMs. That's about it.

[D34DMetal]

Pretty sure these changes are being tested on the PTS. And I don't really like any of the changes, but it looks as though the clan large lasers will be able to be fired in groups of three WITHOUT ghost heat according to the test notes. These aren't necessarily the changes that will go live if at all unless I missed some sort of stealth live patch notes?