5 replies to this topic

[Y E O N N E]

Disclaimer: I disagree with the motivation and direction of this entire effort. I do not find the big Clan alphas to be overbearing in localized engagements or in the meta of the game as a whole. What I find to be an issue is that IS alphas are slightly too hot and too slow to cycle for the ~20% deficit they have in alpha damage on the live client and, in my opinion, the game would be more enjoyable if we buff those rather than nerf the Clans. I do not like this trend where IS and Clan equipment become more similar in how they behave and feel in the name of equality; PGI should be emphasizing the strengths and weaknesses of each side rather than dulling them.

I also do not appreciate PGI saying "the community asked for change XYZ", implicating the balance document we created, when the changes PGI makes are different in magnitude and context even if they are superficially similar. Thanks.

With that said, here are my impressions on the changed weapons and the changes I would make to them if we are still going to continue along the current course.

Spoiler

Clan ER Small Laser - Weak, why would I use this? Takes too long to burn for the damage it deals at the range it deals it and cycles too slowly. Only really useful if you can bring 12 of them.

Suggested Tweak: 4.5 damage, 3 heat, 0.90 s duration, 2.75 s cooldown

Note: cSPL are going to need upward adjustment.



Clan ER Medium Laser - Weak. Takes too long to burn for barely any more damage than its IS counterpart. Cycle time feels good, at least.

Suggested Tweak: 6 damage, 5.5 heat, 1.15 s duration, 4.00 s cooldown.



Clan Heavy Medium Laser - Weak. Similar to cERML, it takes too long to burn for insufficient damage but, unlike the cERML, it does not even have the long range to help mitigate that. Reduced heat and duration feel fine, but it needs more damage to justify using it. It's already not a popular weapon on the live client, it could in fact use some buffing.

Suggested Tweak: 9 damage, 7 heat, 1.25 s duration, 5.00 s cooldown



Clan Medium Pulse Laser - Weak, Again, does not bite enough for how long it burns, and it offers a poor value proposition relative to the IS competition and the cERML. The truncated max range on it really hurts, too. This weapon is just barely useful on the live client with less than a handful of 'Mechs.

Suggested Tweak: 6.75 damage, 4.5 heat, 0.8 s duration, 3.00 s cooldown, 510 m max range



Clan ER Large Laser - Strong, very strong. Clan 'Mechs firing 3+3 stomp all over IS builds doing similar with ERLL in terms of heat efficiency without the ghost heat in the way. Being able to fire 3 also more or less negates the set of changes on the big-alpha Assault 'Mechs that this whole PTS is testing changes for.

Suggested Tweak: leave it alone relative to the live client values.



Clan Heavy Large Laser - Strong, doesn't really change much in terms of effectiveness other than that, when combined with weaker cERML, it is even more essential toward building a competitive alpha strike, but duration across the board is a problem for Clans since their Heavies and Mediums can no longer brute-force their IS competition.

Suggested Tweak: 16 damage, 15 heat, 1.4 s duration, 5.5 s cooldown



Clan Large Pulse Laser - Indifferent.. It's not strong enough relative to its weight to justify pairing with the now-neutered cERML builds instead of the cHLL, even in bundles of three. Also not strong enough to be used just 3-deep on any 'Mechs with enough weight to mount it and cool it, duration is too long. It's just going to get run in a 3+3 configuration on a selection of Assaults.

So, this weapon was in a much better place when it was balanced against a trio of IS Large lasers, which are 27 damage over 1.1 seconds for 21 heat and 15 tons. As such...

Recommended Tweak: 13 damage, 11 heat, 1.15 s duration, 3.25 s cooldown



Clan Gauss RIfle - No change; the recoil doesn't throw off my aim or compel me to spread out my damage more than it does because the damage is instant and I can instantly apply it at the end of the laser burn.

Recommended Tweak: Remove recoil, Crit chance down to 80%, set heat to 5.

With a more holistic view, here is how I think the game will be affected by the current PTS changes sorted by weight class:

Spoiler

Assaults are mostly unphased. The laser boats that formerly ran 2x cERLL and 6x cERML, like the Marauder IIC, do one of two things: they drop the engine to fit in another cERLL or they swap those cERLL to Heavy Larges (cHLL). The end result? Where before we had 64-damage alphas for 59.4 heat, we now have 61.5 alphas for 66.6 heat or 63.5 alphas for 66.2 heat. Neato, that's a marginal change easily absorbed because those 'Mechs have the armor to stare and 28-30 DHS to keep it cool. Gauss-vomit 'Mechs like the Deathstrike will simply drop engine to upgrade one cERML to a cERLL and gain a 75.75 alpha with longer effective range versus the shorter 80-point alpha they currently have.

Heavies that run pure lasers get hit pretty hard. You can run that same 2x cHLL and 6x cERML build on 'Mechs like the Hellbringer or Ebon Jaguar, but you do not have the heatsinks to give them decent sustain and are extremely vulnerable to a push. When you drop one or two cERML, you are now running a 53 to 58.25 alpha for between 54.8 and 60.5 heat. Compare to the 64 damage for 57.2 heat that the Hellbringer currently runs with 2x cHLL and 4x cERML. This is the same damage range that IS 'Mechs can get to, but IS 'Mechs can rip it out in less than a second after the Skill Tree where the Clans are still staring for more than a quarter of a second. That's a losing trade.

Mediums repeat the story of Heavies with even less DHS.

Lights have no lasers that are comparable to the IS Medium-class lasers. If you are playing a classic fast Light rather than one of the faux-Mediums (Cougar, Adder, Kitfox), and you don't have 12 energy hardpoints or 6+ ballistic hardpoints, then there are no lasers you can run which have a competitive combination of range, damage, duration, and heat. For example, a Piranha can fit 4x cMPL that deal 25 damage for 18 heat over 0.9 seconds, all for 8 tons with no extra double heatsinks beyond the minimum requirement. Compare to a Locust which can do the same 25 damage in the same range bracket over the same duration for 17 heat with two more extra double heatsinks...one of which it can convert into another Medium Laser to further out-class the PIR. This comparison already favors the Locust on the live client, it just favors it even more here. Similar applies to ER Mediums, where you can either take a Wolfhound that can do 30 damage in 0.9 seconds from 360 meters away for 27 heat or you can take an Arctic Cheetah doing only 1.5 more damage over 0.35 more seconds from a mere 40 extra meters away for a whopping 7.2 more points of heat...and you still don't get any more DHS where the WLF does because of locked JJs. Even on an Incubus, which won't have the locked JJs, you just match the WLF for heatsinks.

Honestly, I do not believe you can tweak only the Clan lasers; the entire suite of both IS and Clan lasers needs some adjusting because there is too much overlap within tech trees and because there is insufficient distinction across tech trees beyond "one side's version is better". With the current direction, we are going to end up with IS and Clan 'Mechs having not only quantitatively, but also qualitatively similar play. At that stage, I would have to ask "what is the point?" with regard to having distinct and mutually exclusive Clan and IS tech-trees.

Thank you for reading.

[Grus]

not to nitpick but i think 6 is still too low.. 6.5 for erml and then id be "ok" with it.

aside from that they can shove the clan gauss shake back to hell where they thought that up from..

aside from that.

[Jack Shayu Walker]

Well said.

[Y E O N N E]

Grus, on 16 July 2018 - 09:24 PM, said:

not to nitpick but i think 6 is still too low.. 6.5 for erml and then id be "ok" with it.

aside from that they can shove the clan gauss shake back to hell where they thought that up from..

aside from that.

I had to think about it for awhile but, truthfully, if the goal is to reduce alphas then merely cutting half a point off of the cERML accomplish almost nothing. Hellbringers and Marauder IICs would go from 64 to 62, Deathstrikes from 80 to 78, Hunchback IICs from 50 to 48. I can't really justify some counter-buffs with such menial de-buffs to damage. While the above changes still suffer from making Clan lasers more IS-like, I believe they are at least more tightly tuned to deliver a more usable and satisfying experience than what PGI has done. My way, a Hellbringer will only deal 60, but it has a slightly better nominal damage rate than the live version and runs significantly cooler; this may actually end up being too good relative to a 'Mech like the Warhammer, which in comparison is absolutely scalding hot in the same range bracket, but we would have to see.

[Grus]

Yeonne Greene, on 17 July 2018 - 06:31 AM, said:

[color=#959595]While the above changes still suffer from making Clan lasers more IS-like, I believe they are at least more tightly tuned to deliver a more usable and satisfying experience than what PGI has done. [/color]

Again, in my opinion...

that's like asking a Ferrari to be built like a Ford.. no.

I keep saying this but the clan alpha isn't the issue, nether is the numbers of that alpha. we could be doing 150 damage but if it only scratches the paint on a IS mech and Clan mechs are still made of paper the clan mech will win that fight... if they want to nerf our damage they need to up or HP or damage resistance or do a nerf to IS HP and damage resistance.. just a blanket nerf on our side is telling of the bias that the balance team has...

and then there is the clan gauss shake... morons...

[Y E O N N E]

Grus, on 17 July 2018 - 09:50 AM, said:

Again, in my opinion...

that's like asking a Ferrari to be built like a Ford.. no.

Fords are built better than Ferraris, for starters, and it's more like the Clans are Fords from 2018 running rings around IS Ferraris from the 1970s. Clans would never build Ferraris, that would be wasteful.

Regardless, so you know where I stand: I do not give a single, flying f*ck about the lore. It is poorly written, uninteresting tripe. What I care about is the fact that this competitive (read: PvP) game has two mutually exclusive factions and that there is no point to that being a thing if one is better than the other or if they are indistinguishable in look and feel. Any attempts to use lore as justification for any mechanical game change when conversing me will be met with a cold and unyielding lack of sympathy.

Quote

I keep saying this but the clan alpha isn't the issue, nether is the numbers of that alpha. we could be doing 150 damage but if it only scratches the paint on a IS mech and Clan mechs are still made of paper the clan mech will win that fight... if they want to nerf our damage they need to up or HP or damage resistance or do a nerf to IS HP and damage resistance.. just a blanket nerf on our side is telling of the bias that the balance team has...

IS 'Mechs are not THAT durable, and the entire point of PGI reducing Clan alphas is because they believe they are tearing through 'Mechs too quickly, including with the extra durability. Whether or not we agree with that is besides the point, it just doesn't make sense from their perspective to simultaneously lower the alpha AND lower the durability because that leaves them exactly where they started. Right change or wrong change, that sort of problem has plagued PGI for years; whenever something needs buffed or nerfed, they always end up buffing or nerfing its counter at the same time, meaning no net change. Around and around we go!

That aside, the alphas matter relative to hitpoints, but so does how efficient your trade is in terms of damage rate. Neither IS nor Clan vomit at 400-500 meters is cold enough to really push with, so that means trading. Both IS and Clan 'Mechs take essentially the same amount of time to expose and acquire the target. Both IS and Clan 'Mechs will do roughly the same amount of damage on the target in the same time frame (i.e. ~0.9 seconds), the difference is that the Clans have the potential to do more because the IS 'Mech may not be physically capable of twisting a component out of the way fast enough (due to shape or lack of torso agility or both), and against competent players they typically aren't fast enough. Even if that remainder isn't focused on one spot, it's still less armor across whatever components it does scrape so the next shot hurts more even if it isn't to the same place.

This is fine.

What isn't fine is that the IS trading 'Mechs do not have the same kind of output when heat capped and that they do not cycle fast enough to actually mean a damn thing even if they were cool enough to push with. If the theme is supposed to be Clans get big alphas at the cost of slow cycling, and the IS are supposed to be fast cycling at the cost of smaller alphas, then we ain't there yet. My suggestions in this thread do not address this, and in fact run counter to this, but that's because it's what PGI wants and not what I want. What I want is closer to what was in that Community Balance Proposal, but PGI is not interested.