605 replies to this topic

[Felbombling]

Paul & Chris,

I've been around since Closed Beta, so I know a thing or two because I've seen a thing or two [to coin that commercial].

Some things I feel you should consider as you push forward with your weapon balance adjustments...

• One of the most game breaking decisions PGI made with the Mech Lab was allowing for nearly unlimited Engine selection. This took the single most important design decision when it came to building a Mech and made it an afterthought. Instead of deciding how much of a trade off you wanted to make as a player when it came to movement capabilities vs. available weapon tonnage, now the player can just design the perfect weapon load-out and then, to the half ton, slap an engine in. I'd say the solution for this would be to limit each chassis to maybe four engine ratings [standard, XL or Light] and force players to really think during the design process. Allow for us to make some tougher decisions. Most might still go with the max available, but some might want to opt for something in-between the stock engine rating and a middle ground option. Clan Omni Mechs are obviously exempt from this, but you get the idea.
  
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• Minimum and shared armour values should be implemented. You say you want to lengthen time-to-kill. Well, stop giving us tools that allow for min-maxing. Stripping one or both arms completely of armour to have that extra laser, heat sink or ammo bin makes a difference, but doesn't really make much sense. If the armour value on the right arm is pumped up to max, the left arm should automatically match that value. Don't let players min-max that crap.
  
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• Because PGI wants to stick close to published data when it comes to Mech releases, you have two locked in lore criteria when it comes to weapon balance... tonnage and critical slots. Everything else is on the table. My take would be to limit the Clan Range advantage to a few percentage points over the Inner Sphere and let the other locked in savings stand on their own. Burn duration, cooldown, reload speed, heat, etc. can still be tweaked for balance.
  
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• If you could, remove a critical slot from the Clan and Inner Sphere LB20-X AC. As you don't allow for shared critical slot locations, as does the lore publications, you've stifled some design choices needlessly here. This change can only be a positive thing, and would not affect new Mech introduction.
  
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• I know Russ has mentioned this to you, Paul, via Twitter, and you responded. Game fidelity is important for visual information gathering. I am one of the people pushing for purple Clan Heavy Large Lasers and orange Clan Heavy Medium Lasers. A contrail colour for Narc and a new colour for ATMs would also help the situation. This is the thinking man's shooter, so let us think.
  
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• You could bring jump-sniping back as a game style if you applied a steep performance curve calculated by engine rating divided by Mech tonnage, just like in the table top game. This would determine the ideal number of Jump Jets a Mech NEEDS to perform at peak jumping efficiency. Let people jump-snipe if they want to, but make them pay for the Jump Jets to do it properly. Adding one Jump Jet to a chassis and being able to pop-tart hardly seems painful to the design process.
  
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• More than one person on the forums has floated the idea of forced chain-fire of energy weapons as a way to mitigate their pin-point damage. Something as small as .1 of a second between the initiation of the next burn in sequence could spread the love a little. Perhaps a cooldown period for MGs should also be looked at, instead of the constant hosing we see now. Barrels get hot and seize... it is realistic.
  
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• If possible, create a 'danger zone' mechanic around each Mech, very tight, to apply physical damage to encroaching enemy Mechs. It doesn't have to be elaborate, something simple like 10% weight applied as damage. For example... get too close to an Atlas as an enemy Mech, take 10 damage every six seconds. The Atlas in turn would take 10% of the enemy Mechs' tonnage as return damage. Light Mechs can and have abused hugging tactics for years without being properly addressed.
  
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• Weapon quirks are a glorious opportunity for you to add lore advantages to Mechs. The min-maxing sometimes takes Mechs and makes them completely unrecognizable to their original role or load-out. Would it be such a bad thing to have concepts in place, such as signature hard-point quirks that would allow for specific weapon placement? PPC quirks for the Warhammer being available only to arm mounted, for instance? Allow the Awesome to fire 3x PPC without ghost heat. Subtle adjustments to add flavour to the game... and a little nostalgia.
  
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• Targeting Computers should be treated the same way ECM is when it comes to placement and availability. Determine the size and weight of the Targeting Computer by the weight of the weapons tied directly to it, just as in the lore. This would give a standard set of buffs for a Targeting Computer and add value to other Omni Pods as a selling point for Mech Bundles.

Last point, and this is important. This game went a full calendar year between quick-play maps. This cannot happen again. The game needs new maps injected into the fold so that playstyles and load-outs are challenged during the map voting process. There is a reason players with LRMs pick certain maps, maybe even save up their multipliers for them. You have a library of game assets that you can use to pump out maps on a consistent basis, so my strong suggestion is that PGI use them.


===================================================

Just a quick note to Gojira...

Gojira1308, on 07 August 2018 - 02:12 PM, said:

The grind to even become a some what competent pilot is insane thanks to the skill tree system. If we figure a new player can amass two skill points per match that's still roughly 45-50 matches to complete the 91 point tree. At 15 minutes a match that's 11-13 hours of grind PER MECH. Not to mention the roughly 3 million c-bills in cost.

Exact number being 3.64 Million C-bills and 72,800xp for a full 91 point tree.

Gojira, your numbers look fine on the requirement to flesh out a Mech, but you're missing a few important details when it comes to time investment. Daily double first win bonus. Event XP bonuses and freebies. Free XP accumulation. Also, I'd guess that the average match lasts about five to seven minutes, not the full fifteen. You'll have the odd match that goes the distance, certainly, but not every single match lasts that long.

The time required to get to 91 isn't as bad as you think, and I imagine if you go look at your stats for any Mech you've just hit 91 skill points on, it probably reads something like 35 matches or less actually played. Cheers.

Edited by Felbombling, 08 August 2018 - 05:30 AM.

[Cy Mitchell]

I just listened to the podcast. Thanks for giving your thoughts on laser balance and asking for input.

I am one of the people that does think that huge laser Alphas are a problem. I do not think that a 94 point Alpha is a problem unless it is repeatable or doable with no negative repercussions. IMO if you can do it more than once without taking a long time to cool off or you can do it and immediately follow it up with a volley of 50-75 more damage then I feel it is a problem. I am also someone that thinks that some Clan lasers have been over nerfed already and need to be looked at to restore their viability on Light and Medium Mechs.

I tested on both of the recent PTS sessions. I know that Paul has said in the past that we should not (or do not need to) provide specific number values but I was a little put off by the type of numbers on 1.0 and 1.1. Thanks for the explanation of the reason for those on the podcast.

I suggested some compromise numbers after 1.1 and I will include them here to make sure they get a look:

Rampage, on 29 July 2018 - 09:05 AM, said:

cspl 5 damage 2.0 CD .6 Dur
cerSL 4.75 damage 3.0 CD 1.0 Dur
cMPL 6.5 7.0 damage 3.0 CD 1.0 Dur
cerML 6.0 damage 4.0 CD 1.25 Dur
cHML 9.0 damage 5.33 CD 1.5 Dur
cLPL 11 12 Damage 3.5 CD 1.3 Dur (4 GH)
cerLL 10 Damage 4.0 CD 1.5 Dur (3 GH)
cHLL 16 damage 5.5 CD 1.67 Dur (3 GH)

The right combination of PTS 1.0 and PTS 1.1 should get us to a pretty good place, IMO.

Consider removing coolshots from the game. It would solve a lot of the abuse of laser vomit.

I am glad to hear there will be changes coming to coolshots. I would rather see them gone completely but making them less effective will help IMO.

OT footnote: I would also like to reiterate my hope that Clan UACs will get some attention soon. The changes to combat boating on a few Mechs really impacted the viability of using the UACs singly or in pairs. Phil mentioned the dual UAC5 HBR on the podcast. It was my go to build back before the changes with its little 38 point Alpha (48 with double tap). Now it is a handicap to the team if I use it.

Thanks for considering my input and opinions. I really hope we get some balance changes that make me want to play the game regularly again.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Yeonne Greene, on 07 August 2018 - 07:19 PM, said:

The NARC duration is slightly absurd, especially when fired from a RVN-3L; I feel that's where you should be looking more so than cool-down. Getting hit by a NARC on a map like Polar or Caustic pretty much takes you out of the fight if the enemy has competent LRM players, either because you are dead or because you have to sit out of range or under cover for prolonged amounts of time. It's not fun.

At the very least taking advantage of short cool-down requires the NARCer to be exposed and engaged.

Yeah, NARC durations are absurd. The fact they don't fall off after a certain amount of damage or a section falling off is absurd as well.

Rampage, on 07 August 2018 - 08:14 PM, said:

OT footnote: I would also like to reiterate my hope that Clan UACs will get some attention soon. The changes to combat boating on a few Mechs really impacted the viability of using the UACs singly or in pairs. Phil mentioned the dual UAC5 HBR on the podcast. It was my go to build back before the changes with its little 38 point Alpha (48 with double tap). Now it is a handicap to the team if I use it.

A Hellbringer isn't really built to optimally use ballistics given it lacks both FF AND ES, so it being a viable ballistic boat is going to require quirks without making mechs like the MCII-B which are already powerful, even more so.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 07 August 2018 - 08:29 PM.

[Sereglach]

First off, thank you to Paul and Chris for opening a more direct dialog on balance; and taking the time to address as many posts as possible (I can hope mine is one of them). I'm not going to rehash the discussion on 1.0 and 1.1, as I think the points there are reasonably well covered. I'll try to focus more on the plans moving forward.

LRMs are obviously a bit of a hot topic. I think the targeted nerfs to locking radius, Artemis guidance, and NARC cooldown will be well placed and a viable facet to target. On the opposite side of the spectrum, more buffs to LAMS heat and AMS ammo might be worthwhile, as well . . . however I'd say their damage and rate of fire are in a solid spot. I think (L)AMS improvements should be targeted at the sustainability of countering multiple LRM mechs for extended periods of time (especially for some mechs like the 3xAMS Kit Fox where it's the mech's primary job). An ECM buff concerns me, because I'd rather not see a gameplay meta shift back to the days of 1 ECM mech protecting an entire death ball . . . please tread very carefully here.

It was stated in this thread that some of the incoming LRM changes were considered for SSRM balance purposes. Has thought been given to changing SSRMs to fire more like ATMs at short range? The way ATMs function seems to alleviate the old "Streaks always hit CT" issue from back in the day. Giving Streaks good guidance with ATM's flat short-range trajectory seems like it would be a good way to improve the weapon system, maintain its flavor, and resolve the extreme damage-spreading that seems to be the weapon system's Achilles Heel.

Overall agility buffs might be a good thing, but again, I have a serious concern here. However, at least it is a concern that the two of you seem to share. One thing that felt like it brought the downfall of lights was the eventual dismantling of the old rock-paper-scissors that MWO seemed to have when I first started playing. Each subsequent weight class carried enough extra armor and weapons to beat the lower class in a heads up fight, but gave up some agility in turn; and that continued until you reached the Assaults, which gave up so much agility that a Light could outmaneuver and beat an Assault in a heads up fight. Agility was buffed and buffed until Assaults could effortlessly snapshot lights and 1-shot kill them quite consistently. Engine desync helped restore a lot of that inter-class balance; and I don't want to see that lost.

I will agree heavily with some other players in this thread that are upset that other systems, mentioned some time ago, haven't been addressed yet. In particular, Jump Jets are in dire need of being restored back to, or at least close to, their original levels of lifting thrust. Note that I'm saying their levels of thrust, and not saying they need the original "impulse jump" that allowed 1 jump jet to be all that was needed for most mechs. Screen shake, PPC/Gauss velocity desync, and LRM buffs have done everything needed to deter the old poptart meta from overpowering everything else, but restoring Jump Jets to greater viability would allow the poptart style to come back as one potential avenue of counter-play to peek-and-shoot laser vomit.

Another item addressed elsewhere in this thread, that I agree with, is the removal of ST death on IS XL engines. I think reverting Clan XL and making IS LFE have a 40% penalty, to speed and in-engine heatsink capabilities, on ST loss and giving IS XL a 60% penalty on ST loss will do a great deal to relieving some of the fears from high-alpha builds in general. It also relieves a lot of concerns over the available tonnage disparity between IS and Clan. In addition, it provides an avenue to reduce some of the particularly high structure and armor values on some of the IS chassis, because they could use survivable XL engines to carry more competitive amounts of firepower on a much wider array of chassis. Then an LFE engine becomes more about a choice between crits and tonnage (for example, an LFE Annihilator or Mauler can run ST AC/20s while XL cannot) instead of being the only weight saving engine IS can use, and not die on ST loss. Best of all, this change would actually have the greatest impacts at the lighter end of the spectrum, as IS Lights and smaller Mediums are much more tonnage-starved than their larger brethren while Heavies and Assaults tend to run out of crits before they run out of tonnage; and the fixed-engine-handicapped clan light omnimechs don't suffer as much of a debilitating penalty on ST loss.

Next point to address are the plans to test high heat dissipation and lower heat caps. I thank all that is holy that this is finally being considered, and I beg you both to not back down from this route. I think it will be a huge improvement for MWO gameplay as a whole. In lore the Alpha Strike has always been the "Oh Shiitake!" moment where you either fire everything and -maybe- live or you're just going to die; and heat neutral builds gave up a lot to be heat neutral, packing far less firepower than other mechs. I'd like to see the Alpha Strike in MWO become more of a last-ditch move for most builds and I'd like the ability to actually make heat neutral builds, even if I have to sacrifice a bit to do it. That said, I have one idea to finally help bring SHS into a more viable role for some builds: consider giving SHS more capacity than DHS. This kind of move can not only give MWO an opportunity to resolve a lot of the "Alpha Vomit" issues, but it can also give SHS an opportunity to not be wasted tonnage in the Mech Lab; and that's an opportunity I don't think PGI should pass up on.

Another avenue for curbing some of the Alpha Strength has been dabbled in before, but never actually tested full-on. Please consider turning Pulse Lasers into actual DPS focused weapons. Right now, what does a Pulse Laser do? It provides more damage at a lower duration. When you want as much Alpha you can get as pin-point as you can get it, you take pulse lasers . . . especially for the Clans. Many of the common "Laser Vomit" builds utilize Pulse Lasers to get the job done, especially on the clan side where they can afford the extra tonnage cost in weapons and still have plenty of space to pile on the DHS. Will PGI please consider full fledged Pulse DPS Lasers . . . cutting cooldown, duration, and damage by ~50% and heat by ~60%. Not only does it make Pulse Lasers a DPS energy option, but it removes the more pinpoint Alpha Vomit option that even gains damage over STD or ER counterparts.

There's plenty of space in the energy weapon spectrum to make Pulse lasers the DPS weapon, IS STD or C/IS ER the balanced lasers for damage/duration/cooldown, Heavy Lasers the extreme Alpha Laser, and PPCs the PPFLD weapons. In fact Clans having the Heavy Lasers with longer duration and higher damage, while IS having a wider array of PPC PPFLD options still gives both factions a distinct feel in their energy choices that fits the flavor MWO has established for each faction.

Lastly, but certainly not least, Paul and Chris, you know I can't participate in a balance discussion and not bring up my baby. You both have stated that PGI wants to address the bottom performers as well as the top performers; and I don't think you can get much of a lower performer, currently, than the Flamer. The mechanics are convoluted and not explained anywhere in the UI or Mech Lab for the average user . . . let alone the fact that there's nothing explaining their different function in Solaris (where they might have had some usability, but were neutered to prevent potential exploits). Several years ago Russ mentioned making them into something akin to the Energy MG; and that it was something we'd have a discussion about after the "Flamergeddon" incident. Can we please explore something like that? I've said it before and I cordially request an answer to the viability of this. Can we please explore making the weapon something akin to a fixed and flat 1.0 DPS, .75-1.0 HPS, and 1.0-1.5 HDPS? If we scrap the exponential scaling and acceleration mechanics, and move to fixed flat values, then we create a weapon that's inherently easier to implement and balance. It also removes all concerns about exploits and stun-locking. The 90% maximum threshold can certainly still be maintained AND keep the weapon viable. This is something I'm literally begging you to look into and address, please. It is my favorite weapon series in all of Battletech (TT having ER and Heavy Flamers, as well), and having the weapon system languishing in a defunct state for years has been a huge drag on my enjoyment of the game. Please, again, I'm begging for something to be done here and for some kind of discussion about it.

Well, I apologize for the wall of text, but it was stated that this was the place to post to give direct feedback and try to get a civil conversation going. I wanted to be as thorough as possible while I have the opportunity. Thank you, both, for your time and consideration. While many are passionate about their beliefs and opinions, I would like to believe that we all want MWO -and by fiat the MechWarrior franchise- to have the best success possible.

[Cy Mitchell]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 07 August 2018 - 08:25 PM, said:

A Hellbringer isn't really built to optimally use ballistics given it lacks both FF AND ES, so it being a viable ballistic boat is going to require quirks without making mechs like the MCII-B which are already powerful, even more so.

The 2 x UAC5 HBR was a pretty common build back before the UAC jam nerf. You are right, it is not the best chassis for carrying ballistics. I would be OK with Mechs like it got ballistic jam chance reduction quirks so that the only viable build on the Mech would no longer be pure laser vomit. However, I would much rather see changes made that addressed boating of weapons like the UAC while not making the use of one or two of them a waste.

[Khobai]

These changes are TERRIBLE. Why are you nerfing Artemis and NARC? That makes no sense.

Artemis only buffs direct LRMs which arnt the problem AT ALL. Its indirect LRMs which are the problem.

And NARC is barely used as is. There needs to be MORE of a reason to use NARC, NOT LESS.

Also why are you buffing ECM? We dont even want ECM to give stealth in the first place. ECM giving bubble stealth has always been way too good for 1-1.5 tons. The only equipment that should give stealth is Stealth Armor.

And 50% tightening of the lock angle? Why dont you just make it so we cant fire LRMs at all. Horrible and completely unnecessary.


This is what you need to do:

Nerf indirect LRMs and increase cooldown and damage per missile on LRMs so theyre less spammable.

Buff Artemis, TAG, and NARC (increasing cooldown on NARC is fine but it should be more powerful overall). You could add ARROWIV to the game to make TAG more useful. You could give NARC some of the iNARC abilities to make NARC more useful (like make NARC pods explode for 6-8 damage when their duration expires and have them cause a HUD scrambling effect).

Remove stealth from ECM. Instead give ECM a new ability like creating fake radar contacts. Which is something it actually does in Battletech.

Edited by Khobai, 07 August 2018 - 09:07 PM.

[cougurt]

to all the people suggesting a massively reduced heat cap: the goal isn't to outright kill laser vomit builds (or at least it shouldn't be). a lot of people seem to have this idea that there's something wrong with laser vomit on a fundamental level, and i really don't get that. it's just another build archetype, and it has its strengths and weaknesses like everything else. i think it may be worth experimenting with different values for heat cap and dissipation rates, but trying to force laser builds into a DPS role just seems silly to me.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Rampage, on 07 August 2018 - 08:48 PM, said:

The 2 x UAC5 HBR was a pretty common build back before the UAC jam nerf. You are right, it is not the best chassis for carrying ballistics. I would be OK with Mechs like it got ballistic jam chance reduction quirks so that the only viable build on the Mech would no longer be pure laser vomit. However, I would much rather see changes made that addressed boating of weapons like the UAC while not making the use of one or two of them a waste.

Changing jamming mechanics to just not be stupid would be a better option, undoing jam nerfs just makes mechs that already strong because they boat them even stronger. Not that changing jam mechanics will actually change much but making the jam mechanics not completely RNG would definitely help the "feel" of single/double UACs. For the most part though, almost every weapon has that problem where only one or two of them feel like a waste, and buffing them so that boats get all the advantage too will do nothing but keep the game borked.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 07 August 2018 - 09:18 PM.

[General Solo]

If you put the skill points into narc why should you not get a return on the skill point investment.
Plus some mechs come with narc quirks, so we are tailoring the mech to the role.
Role warfare

To equip narc you gotta give up 4 tons (2T ammo) of other goodies, moar for IS.

Killing the narcer should be your teams priority if you have one about, and due to 4 tons less goodies are less good at a stand up fight than those without narc.

If people ignore the narcer is that the narcer's fault?

Edited by OZHomerOZ, 07 August 2018 - 09:25 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

OZHomerOZ, on 07 August 2018 - 09:17 PM, said:

If you put the skill points into narc why should you not get a return on the skill point investment.
Plus some mechs come with narc quirks, so we are tailoring the mech to the role.
Role warfare

To equip narc you gotta give up 4 tons (2T ammo) of other goodies, moar for IS.

That doesn't mean it should be a "delete a mech for free" option on maps like Polar and Caustic in PUG queue. Hell, even without NARC playing a light on maps like Caustic or Polar is pretty cancerous unless your either an ECM light (with the full tree) or an ERLL light.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 07 August 2018 - 09:25 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 07 August 2018 - 09:23 PM, said:

Hell, even without NARC playing a light on maps like Caustic or Polar is pretty cancerous unless your either an ECM light (with the full tree) or an ERLL light.

Or just really f*cking good compared to the QP flotsam.

While I hate playing Polar in my Flea (Caustic in Flea is ez), I can't say I have too much trouble. Lights are by far the least affected class when it comes to the LRM epidemic.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Yeonne Greene, on 07 August 2018 - 09:30 PM, said:

While I hate playing Polar in my Flea (Caustic in Flea is ez), I can't say I have too much trouble. Lights are by far the least affected class when it comes to the LRM epidemic.

I've found myself having to basically move the main body in my Viper (which is by no means good, but there is a noticeable difference in play) or I just get legged from all the LRM spam even with Radar Dep for doing a movement that typically would go unscathed even with regards to direct fire. My guess is the Flea is fast enough that it can move fast enough at an angle that LRMs can't track well enough that they hit the ground instead of legs similar to what happens to the Locust.

Caustic might not be as bad for lights given the nascar that typically happens on that map in QP.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 07 August 2018 - 09:36 PM.

[General Solo]

Its not a delete button for free.

Try it in solo queue. Hardly a delete push
Group Queue - Maybe, haven't seen it much but I don't do much GQ

You can't compare LRM?narc performance in Faction play, as FW doesn't have a match maker and thus separate players by skill which is main reason for that dieing game modes fantastic new user experience and thus population growth.

The idea that you can balance weapons using 12 man premades vs solo is imo so WRONG.

LERM/NARC is a still a situational weapon system dependent on the enemies skill as much as the map.
In the right situation why shouldn't it be strong.

Dont wanna hear about FW for the reasons I already have given.

Edited by OZHomerOZ, 07 August 2018 - 09:42 PM.

[The6thMessenger]

I don't think you could solve the problem with simple change of numbers. No point in dancing around it.

LRMs need mechanical change if it would ever get out of the damn ****-tier. If you're worried about it being a force multiplier, hows about making it add to the force instead? Make Indirect-Fire and NARC/TAG mandatory, this results into more rewarding spotter builds because LRMs can be balanced as a Direct-Fire instead.

Yes, you can balance the LRMs in a way that both low tier and high tier is satisfied. And that is increasing damage and cooldown, to put more rewarding shots. This maintains the same mechanics for the inexperienced to learn, while it makes LRMs more rewarding to land for players who could skillfully land them.

Clan Lasers having so much damage is the problem, then reduce the damage. Playing with the duration alone is not enough, experienced and sneaky players can just go around it by beaming from a safe place, and ultimately did nothing.

Coolshots eliminating 14 heat under 3 seconds with concern to Laser Vomits is practically useless. Clan Lasers have about 4 to 5 seconds of Cooldown + Beam duration. You still effectively removed 14 heat regardless of under 1 second or 3 seconds, because there's still less heat when the weapons finishes recycling.

Dires and other really slow clan mechs do need the mobility. They still have the problem of moving under 65 KPH.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

OZHomerOZ, on 07 August 2018 - 09:38 PM, said:

You can't compare LRM?narc performance in Faction play, as FW doesn't have a match maker and thus separate players by skill which is main reason for that dieing game modes fantastic new user experience and thus population growth.

I don't play FW nor would I bother bringing it up.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Just give us missile lock-on mechanics like MW4 had I think we would be in a great spot regarding streaks, atms, and lrms.

Have to have LoS with the target, have to hold the reticle OVER the mech (not within some targeting square) to acquire a lock, and missiles home in on where you had the reticle at the moment of firing (if you had the mech in your reticle that is) allow you to focus damage on parts of a mech. In turn for how hard it was to acquire targets, missiles were fire and forget as well.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 07 August 2018 - 09:51 PM.

[General Solo]

I think they should fix match maker before they balance anything.

aka in Solo Queue T1 should mean something, just not number of games played

In FW, maybe give FW two queues:
One called Frontline for groups and T1 and T2 solo's, this que affects the IS Meta map
Second Que called Militia vs Garrision for T3,T4 and T5 solo's which does not affect the IS meta map

(before each faction had a queue think 7 adding the solo ques doubled dat, tell me if I'm wrong.)

Only once the skill divide is sorted, should balance be discussed as you are building your balance on a weak foundation.

Edited by OZHomerOZ, 07 August 2018 - 09:53 PM.

[GweNTLeR]

Paul Inouye, on 07 August 2018 - 10:18 AM, said:

o Artemis boosts to lock on times and tracking removed. For LRM's it will only tighten the spread on the missile launchers.

@Paul @Chris could you please clarify how artemis currently works and will work with LRMs in terms of spread? There have been some indications(mostly based on feelings and old topics) that artemis doesn't currently reduce spread (or does at a reduced rate?). Does it require LOS? Noone from devs touched this topic for a long time, so it would be great to clarify.

[KingJoo]

Theres a lot of posts and info to go through so I havent quoted anything, but I feel like in the last few weeks or so there is a tonne of conflicting info from all corners of the community and much of that info is neck deep in anger and salt. This thread seems like a great way to move forward, and I’m so very hoping that happens cause I just started to play this game a year and a week ago and I’m finally starting to feel half decent and I dont want to see it go.

Every functional community has a set of representatives that advocates for the people. Would the communicating process be any easier if a group (like the group of pilots that spearheaded the community balance document? They have already shown how dedicated they are to the topic) took all the community ideas and provided a unified on topic source of input to work with PGI. Then perhaps a professional and singular dialoge could take place?

Edited by KingJ00, 07 August 2018 - 10:16 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 07 August 2018 - 09:34 PM, said:

I've found myself having to basically move the main body in my Viper (which is by no means good, but there is a noticeable difference in play) or I just get legged from all the LRM spam even with Radar Dep for doing a movement that typically would go unscathed even with regards to direct fire. My guess is the Flea is fast enough that it can move fast enough at an angle that LRMs can't track well enough that they hit the ground instead of legs similar to what happens to the Locust.

Caustic might not be as bad for lights given the nascar that typically happens on that map in QP.

It's less about tracking, more about simply not being seen. The Locust is actually even easier since I have more range on that one (a homogeneous 309 vs. heterogeneous 253/172). I can't really make any disruptive flanking maneuvers, it's true, but it's QP so it's not like I have to. It's just as effective for me to be an auxiliary gun on the front line, abusing my agility to keep hammering 'Mechs distracted by other targets.

If it were a competitive match, I'd be doing the cap game anyway, so I don't see that much is lost.