3 replies to this topic

[MechaBattler]

I felt like pulse lasers were a strangely good place in the first pts iteration. Or is my lack of Clan experience showing?

[Daurock]

MechaBattler, on 31 July 2018 - 12:55 PM, said:

I felt like pulse lasers were a strangely good place in the first pts iteration. Or is my lack of Clan experience showing?

My Takeaways -
-Clan LaserVomits/GaussVomits on this one felt more powerful than the first test, but the longer durations make them un-fun to use. Both this test, and the previous one are significant nerfs when compared to live.
- Laser based Clan lights and mediums somehow got even worse on this version than the previous one. The durations seemed to REALLY hurt these guys. If any version of this stuff goes live, these guys are gonna need a whole heaping pile of quirk goodness.
- Some big IS assaults felt a little more fragile than the last test, but still very powerful. Part of that is probably simply due to the format, but part of it is probably real too.
- Clan Stuff NOT using lasers still seems pretty good when people actualy care to use it. LBX20+SRMs Still Rip faces off.
- Clan pulse lasers seem to have no focus in this patch. I think they need a bit of a re-work, probably off to smaller Alphas, and lower heat. (Just my opinion on that one)

[Cy Mitchell]

My takeaway from both PTS test was that they went to the extreme when setting up the laser values in both test. In PTS 1.0 they reduced the damage too much on most of the lasers. In PTS 1.1 they increased the duration too much on many of the lasers. The big duration increases on the heavy and large lasers were definitely not fun to use.

I think a blend of longer duration/only slight damage reductions for weapons with short duration on live and damage reduction/with only slight increases in duration for weapons with long duration on live could be the answer to reigning in Clan vomit.

I do not think the Gauss recoil had much impact on PTS 1.0. It had more of an impact on PTS 1.1 because you had to wait on the longer laser duration to end before you could release the Gauss shot which left you exposed much longer.

I think raising the ghost heat on large lasers is a bad idea.

I did not test any IS Mechs because I normally do not play them much.

So, I think that with the right blend of duration increases in some cases and damage reduction in others, they could attain the stated goal of the PTS to limit Clan Alpha damage and bring Clan vs IS laser balance closer.

[Josh Seles]

I will admit that I was only able to get 5 matches because of lack of population, so I don't feel as qualified as I wanted to be in order to give feedback here but I feel I must.

I think that laser durations are too long here, basically reverting to the time when C-ER Larges were 1.5 seconds on live. I didn't like that time back then and I won't like it now either. The C-ER LL wasn't used back then and likely won't be used if this goes through. What I think is happening here is the nerfing of the only really viable Clan playstyle (mid-range laser alpha-vomit) with no good alternative to turn to. Ballistics are nerfed, missiles are nerfed, pulse laser burns are nerfed too.

Generally, I consider durations longer than 1.3 seconds to be too unwieldy, 1.35 seconds maybe. If there's good damage involved. like with the Heavy Large, I could accept a burn longer than 1.35 seconds, not that I'd use it.

If we must nerf Clan lasers, I say minimize the impact and stop trying to pull another mid-2017 style energy rebalance because I think all other Clan lasers are performing relatively well currently.
- C-ER Medium Laser adjusted to 6 dmg with reduced heat/burn
- Heavy Large Laser adjusted to 16 dmg with reduced heat/burn

After trying this PTS, I'm convinced that nerfing lasers again isn't the solution we're looking for. I think problem we're dealing with is the fact that we have too much heat capacity, which creates the symptom of being able to stack on lots of hot-running weapons and just absorb the heat spike. If we had, say, heat capacity locked at 35 with better dissipation instead (TrueDubs, anyone?), alpha striking 2 Heavy Larges and 4 C-ER Mediums would probably be an instant shutdown, possibly even before the laser burn is over. I won't even get into the loopholes in Ghost Heat.

Even by itself, reduced heat capacity could be a better solution than what we are trying now and I'd rather see that instead of the proposed laser changes. We could even combine reduced heat capacity with Energy Draw, and then we'd have limiting systems for both heat and damage at the same time.

Reverting past nerfs and buffing never-performing equipment would also help the symptom of high alphas. They don't even need to be big changes.
- Small-class lasers, across the board (buff and un-nerf)
- SRM spread (un-nerf)
- past ballistic nerfs
- Artemis spread (un-nerf)
- Agility and mobility (un-nerf)