605 replies to this topic

[Paul Inouye]

roboPrancer, on 07 August 2018 - 02:10 PM, said:

Yeah I know, I mean barely touch them at all. A very light touch. Like just barely graze them.

Damage 7.9999999?

Seriously... there has to be SOME adjustment... I agree that we can't just clobber the snot out of them. Just tone them down a bit. If it affects ANY vomit by some small margin.. it's better than no affect on it at all.

This is where the discussion lies. We increase duration a BIT.. we decrease damage a BIT. We bring a 50 point alpha down to 48 and that's as far as we can go before it's too punitive? Then that's where we stop and investigate elsewhere. Where else do you the community think could help us with the laser vomit gulf?

[roboPrancer]

To be fair they could probably take a decent hit to their damage. I just still fear that they will get nerfed like the smaller lasers did, which left most of my tonnage light mechs (viper, cicada, light mechs) uneffective at their past roles. admittedly, mechs that are boating larger lasers dont have the same tight tonnage limits.

Edited by roboPrancer, 07 August 2018 - 02:19 PM.

[Paul Inouye]

roboPrancer, on 07 August 2018 - 02:18 PM, said:

To be fair they could probably take a decent hit to their damage. I just still fear that they will get nerfed like the smaller lasers did, which left most of my tonnage light mechs (viper, cicada, light mechs) uneffective at their past roles. admittedly, mechs that are boating larger lasers dont have the same tight tonnage limits.

This is something we mentioned in the podcast and original post.

If the slight nerfs hit a light/medium mech too hard, we'll requirk that mech to allow for better dps/sustainability because of it's hardpoint restrictions and/or weight restrictions etc.

[roboPrancer]

[MisterSomaru]

Paul Inouye, on 07 August 2018 - 02:01 PM, said:

Note: The snip isn't saying your other info isn't important.. it's just a way to focus my reply.

I've said this above and in previous posts... our focus right now is the laser vomit issue on Clan side. The community doc points out weapons systems that are low performers and some other outliers (streaks) etc. Those numbers suggested by the community are not being ignored. Like I said before.. there are numbers in the community doc that work correctly and will be implemented in the future.

You mention bringing agility back and this is exactly what we've been saying in the podcast and the original post in this thread.

Put it to you this way.. help us close that laser vomit gap and we discuss all the other weapon systems on a case by case basis and move forward.

The biggest thing in my opinion is increase twist speed. it doesn't need to be an astronomical amount, none of us truly want CoD agility, it kills the feel of giant stompy robots and add a segment in the mandatory tutorial about the importance of twisting, not just as a side note in the academy exploration. That way, newer players know from the get go that staring at 6+ lasers is probably a bad idea. Increasing cooldown does nothing for lasers to deal with the issue except to make it harder for lights and lighter mediums that focus on lasers to provide effective damage. What it does do is make it easier to cool off after a large alpha. And, increasing burn time does nothing but make the laser vomit mechs very inneffective. The time exposed becomes no longer worth it in many cases and the playstyle is dropped almost entirely except for the most extreme circumstances. This community takes changes in playstyles to the extreme when nerfs or buffs happen to weapons systems. I would personally start with a +15 deg/second boost to twist across the board and see where that takes it, but hey, just an average player.

[Paul Inouye]

MrSomaru, on 07 August 2018 - 02:24 PM, said:

The biggest thing in my opinion is increase twist speed. it doesn't need to be an astronomical amount, none of us truly want CoD agility, it kills the feel of giant stompy robots and add a segment in the mandatory tutorial about the importance of twisting, not just as a side note in the academy exploration. That way, newer players know from the get go that staring at 6+ lasers is probably a bad idea. Increasing cooldown does nothing for lasers to deal with the issue except to make it harder for lights and lighter mediums that focus on lasers to provide effective damage. What it does do is make it easier to cool off after a large alpha. And, increasing burn time does nothing but make the laser vomit mechs very inneffective. The time exposed becomes no longer worth it in many cases and the playstyle is dropped almost entirely except for the most extreme circumstances. This community takes changes in playstyles to the extreme when nerfs or buffs happen to weapons systems. I would personally start with a +15 deg/second boost to twist across the board and see where that takes it, but hey, just an average player.

Just a question... do you think an across the board 15deg/sec buff is going to be good overall? That's going to push some med/heavy mechs into pretty snappy territory. I personally think the big boost would be something applied to Assaults first to see if it gets the desired effect (no doubt it will).

[denAirwalkerrr]

Srsly why are you so obsessed with nerfing lasers when only few assaults are an issue? Why not nerf them?

Edited by denAirwalkerrr, 07 August 2018 - 02:34 PM.

[PobbestGob]

Some mechs like the Dragon certainly don't need an extra 15deg/sec twist speed. would be nice for assaults tho yeah.

[Chris Lowrey]

MrSomaru, on 07 August 2018 - 01:49 PM, said:

There are absolutely useless garbage weapons that are ignored completely unless someone is bored and remembers it exists.

Such is why LRMs got the attention they did when they did. They where considered by many to be hands down the worst weapon system in the game to the point that players where being openly hostile to friendly team members for bringing them into a match. That is a place we want no weapon in the game to be in. While it could be argued that many would want any other weapon system to get the treatment more then LRM's, because they where the heaviest offender in this regard compared to all other weapon systems, it was the squeakiest wheel that got the grease.

This does not mean that we are ignoring other weapon systems or feedback. As Paul said, we implement focused changes on a monthly basis and will not do wide balance shifts across the entire weapon roster for the many reasons we bring up in the podcast. There are a number of other weapons systems, including ones in the community doc that are also being observed that will undoubtedly come up soon enough. What we said about LRM's equally applies to everything else. LRM's are being targeted now because they are the heaviest offender when it comes to their overall place in the game. Once we get them into a state that we are satisfied with, we will move onto the next thing that come up as the heaviest offender. But that means that we intend to get them into a place where they are not a total non-factor in the game. As we have said, we are open to further changes past the ones that are being pushed in August, but we intend to ensure that the weapon does have a place amoung the other weapons in the roster and isn't just relegated to a complete non-factor.

Quote

Streaks are too strong. One should be rewarded for being able to shoot at light mechs and hit them. skill should be rewarded. There are few enough light pilots as is thanks to lock on weaponry, but a streakboat just eliminates lights altogether.

No disagreements. It is why we are pushing a constriction of the lock on mechanics this month. Here is a better illustration of the incoming changes to the lockon angles:


This along with the removal of the Lock On boosts through Artemis will mean you will need to keep your bead on your target tighter, and longer then what many are used to under the current system.

This will also affect Streak and ATM launchers. In fact, this change was something that was initially investigated to look into streaks' behavior against Light 'Mechs back when we where looking into the missile hit location changes, but was heald off because it would have put LRM's, then the worst weapon system in the game, into an even bigger ditch then they where. Again, we are open to making further changes, but they have to come from a place that sees them as another usable option within the wider weapon roster. Yes that equally applies to all other weapons out there. But they where not as far into the ditch as LRM's where, which is why they got the attention when they did.

[Paul Inouye]

denAirwalkerrr, on 07 August 2018 - 02:28 PM, said:

Srsly why are you so obsessed with nerfing lasers when only few assaults is an issue? Why not nerf them?

Lasers are being focused because of said gulf between Clan and IS as to what can be brought to the battlefield when boated. Yes, it's a couple of assaults on the extreme edge of things.. but even in lower tonnage classes, the discrepancies are there.

That being said, we're toning down the nerf substantially to make any sort of trickle down less punitive to the lighter weight classes.

Edit: What are your thoughts on negative quirks to bring specific outliers into line?

[Tranderas]

Paul Inouye, on 07 August 2018 - 02:34 PM, said:

Lasers are being focused because of said gulf between Clan and IS as to what can be brought to the battlefield when boated. Yes, it's a couple of assaults on the extreme edge of things.. but even in lower tonnage classes, the discrepancies are there.

That being said, we're toning down the nerf substantially to make any sort of trickle down less punitive to the lighter weight classes.

That gulf in gameplay is what defines the difference between IS and Clans. Without it there's no meaningful reason to play one or the other. Clan damage, IS armor quirks. That's how the game is supposed to be.

As for the LRM changes, your buffs to them have made me even more hostile to teammates that bring them to bear on the battlefield. Any player that uses LRMs now is actively contributing to the problem of a lower skill ceiling and too much indirect fire in the game. We want skill to be rewarded, not punished, and the best way to do this is to either fundamentally rework LRMs- generally we propose a velocity buff that comes with a requirement of line of sight- or remove them from the game entirely.

[PobbestGob]

Chris Lowrey, on 07 August 2018 - 02:32 PM, said:

Such is why LRMs got the attention they did when they did. They where considered by many to be hands down the worst weapon system in the game to the point that players where being openly hostile to friendly team members for bringing them into a match. That is a place we want no weapon in the game to be in.

imo hostilities towards lrms aren't because the weapon is bad, but because theyre most often played in heavier mechs that sit in the back of the team and toss them everywhere. these mechs typically dont share their armor and are the last remaining players on the team, fresh and unscratched. the recent buffs to lrms have actually made this problem worse, not better. nerfing non-LOS spread etc rather than buffing heat/velocity might change that play style. seems the august patch is headed that way.

Edited by Kill2Blit, 07 August 2018 - 02:45 PM.

[roboPrancer]

Lrms were also considered toxic because of the playstyle that they entail. Sitting in the backline instead of sharing armor like good teammates should. Waiting for other players to get risky LOS and press r so that they can get a lock and start contributing to the team. And good players dont like bringing them because you need to wait to lock a target to fire.

But their damage has always been ok and there are much more useless weapons than lrms, like micro lasers. Even boating 15 of those is quite underwhelming.

[Chris Lowrey]

Paul Inouye, on 07 August 2018 - 02:34 PM, said:

Lasers are being focused because of said gulf between Clan and IS as to what can be brought to the battlefield when boated. Yes, it's a couple of assaults on the extreme edge of things.. but even in lower tonnage classes, the discrepancies are there.

That being said, we're toning down the nerf substantially to make any sort of trickle down less punitive to the lighter weight classes.

To add to this, just because we bring down one aspect doesn't mean we don't have our eyes on other aspects that we would like to bring up.

At the risk of having Paul smack me down for saying too much, lasers in particular can be a primary blocker when it comes to other avenues of buffs that we may want to explore that benefits all weapons including lasers. So just because we target one aspect for reduction does not mean we are unwilling to improve other aspects of the weapon systems. In fact it's something that is actively debated internally when it comes to these greater balance talks.

[MisterSomaru]

Paul Inouye, on 07 August 2018 - 02:28 PM, said:

Just a question... do you think an across the board 15deg/sec buff is going to be good overall? That's going to push some med/heavy mechs into pretty snappy territory. I personally think the big boost would be something applied to Assaults first to see if it gets the desired effect (no doubt it will).

Just a general statement. Many of the more fragile mechs with bad/large hitboxes would benefit as well.15 may be a large number, but I've noticed how sluggish even many mediums feel, and some lights like the firestarter can't even track other lights.
10 may be more reasonable, but 15 is just a number that feels more comfortable for me. I wouldn't start doing the complex differentiating numbers until an actual baseline twist buff can be determined by weight class, and then narrowed down by hitbox real estate, and then further down by quirked variant.
Some mechs are not quite as gifted in the hitbox department as others, and suffer for it, but once a good starting point is established through *dedicated* testing, then other numbers can be tweaked. Basically, buff the agility, take a mech with bad hitboxes like an atlas, have a laser vomit mech alpha, have the atlas twist off the damage for as long as possible, with the armor distributed to how a higher tier player would do it, with frontloaded armor, and note how long it takes for it to kill compared to how long it would before, then run it through a situation where it needs to get close and kill the laser vomit mech with brawling weapons, post and pre numbers buff. I would say run this test with 3 mechs from each faction in the medium, heavy, and assault weight class.
Combine with gauss if desired. depending on firing order, the gauss will land 30 pinpoint at the intended target, or be twisted off in another location while the lasers will basically doodle all over the mech.

[denAirwalkerrr]

As far as quirks go I won’t be giving any numbers. Lighter clan omnimechs with big fixed engine are very bad due to miserable DPS and almost non-existent kiting in MWO so they all need a relatively big buff. From assaults personally I see only DS as overperforming on 80 alpha build. NOBODY runs 90+ things on it because it’s too hot. BAS is dead with new torsos, DWF is dead long ago.

[process]

The trouble with LRMs has always been their binary performance. Uncontested and without cover, they effortlessly suppress from range. Against a smart enemy, or without sustained locks, they are nearly useless. Increasing missile speed may make them less bad in the worst case scenario, but it makes them even more potent in the best case scenario.

The challenge here is to bridge the gap between extremes in performance. A mechanical alternate could be to keep LRM speed low, but also to flatten the missile arc when a direct line of sight is acquired, similar to ATMs. This gives them some direct fire potency without completely eliminating their artillery capabilities.

[denAirwalkerrr]

Not only torso twisting needs buffing, but agility too since it contributes towards spreading damage when poking corners.

[Chris Lowrey]

process, on 07 August 2018 - 02:46 PM, said:

The trouble with LRMs has always been their binary performance. Uncontested and without cover, they effortlessly suppress from range. Against a smart enemy, or without sustained locks, they are nearly useless. Increasing missile speed may make them less bad in the worst case scenario, but it makes them even more potent in the best case scenario.

The challenge here is to bridge the gap between extremes in performance. A mechanical alternate could be to keep LRM speed low, but also to flatten the missile arc when a direct line of sight is acquired, similar to ATMs. This gives them some direct fire potency without completely eliminating their artillery capabilities.

Bridging the gap is defiantly a good way to define the current intent.

While we often hear about flatter trajectory arcs + increased speed for direct fire solutions, we run into the same issues with multiple firing states for LRM's as we do for switchable LBX / ATM ammo. While as Paul said, we won't ever completely discount the possibility of core weapon changes, we do need to stay within the bounds of what is feasible on the engine side, and unfortunately alternative fire states presents a major challenge.

Never say never, so don't fully discount what I say here. But this is a case where like ATM's, keeping a single firing state across the weapon makes it more feasible for implementation on our end.

[roboPrancer]

Instant lock would actually do alot for lrms as "legit" direct fire weapons.