605 replies to this topic

[MechTech Dragoon]

I'm going to come at my suggestion a bit from a "add/remove mechanics" standpoint, rather than straight nerfing numbers. Despite requiring more resources for something like this...you are likely to get less community backlash than from number nerfing. So, lets get into it.

Add a "toggle fire mode" button into the game, controlled via scroll wheel selecting weapon group, middle mouse click changing firing mode for weapons in the group. Below is a change list. I know this would require weapons to have multiple states, which would make your engineers hate you for a decent amount of time haha.

Switching firing modes will trigger the cooldown period of a weapon, this also gives the game time to cause the weapon to switch to another state.

Atms-3 firing "modes" removal of minimum range on third firing mode, 80m on second, 120 on third.

Lrms-2 firing modes, one indirect, one direct fire stream. Change IS lrms to stream fire, but closer between missile launches to clan lrms. Increase indirect missile "lob" and increase spread when in indirect fire mode. Decrease lrm minimum range on both sides, decreased more on direct fire mode.

Srms-Change to stream fire for all launchers, longer fire time for clan srms, reduce spread overall significantly.

LBX autocannons-2 firing modes, 1 slug, one spread. Slug does not benefit from increased crit damage.

IS Standard/Hvy/Light PPC-2 firing modes, second firing mode causes damage equal to 1/4 of total damage to installed component of user and removes minimum range.

Regular/ultra autocannons-Change is autocannons to burst fire like clan, increase clan number of projectiles, reduce projectile scale and screen shake, increase velocity.

Rotary autocannons-Increase projectile number, reduce screen shake/projectile size, increase velocity.

Heavy lasers-Drastically reduce beam times to IS-like levels, widen beams to cause splash, converting heavy lasers to brawling lasers (as they should be)

Heavy gauss-Increase projectile size slightly to reduce headshots, hvy gauss headshots are a bit of a problem.

Replace consumables with corresponding equipment. (Arti beacon launchers being similar to narc and taking a pre-included 2 shots, cannot add additional ammo, same weight/slots/tonnage. Uav launchers, again, same weight/slots/tonnage as narc, pre included 4 shots, fires directly up before expanding into uav. )

Energy weapons-Instead of a nerf to energy weapons, remove ghost heat values, instead add a per-click firing limit where needed, similar to gauss. People will still be able to spam lasers, but in a chain-fire spam fashion since lasers dont have a hold down charge time, but it will increase the time between laser shots, instead of having a "shoot it all and die" type of deal. Assuming it takes you say 0.05 of a second or less between clicks, after ten laser shots you've lost a half second of dps overall, and spread the beams out more, but only slightly. This would also be less confusing than ghost heat, and reduce laser poking.

Reduce overall beam duration for lasers significantly, add a pre fire(different on a per/weapon basis) charge up time that goes automatically when the weapon begins firing. (not a hold down charge like gauss, weapon just charges and then fires after the click). Along with this, add a "pre fire glow" to all energy weapons on their corresponding hardpoint locations, matching energy weapon color.
And improve....combat...fidelity...people need to know what type of ppc/laser is hitting them, suggesting making all weapons of a certain class on a per-faction basis uniform.
Ex being, IS standard lasers are red, clan er's are orange, IS er's are blue. Laser width changes dependent on laser size, so telling between different laser sizes is relatively easy.

The reason for this is multifold, With an increase in fidelity, pre-fire glow and a pre-fire charge time, people facing energy boats will have time to react and twist to incoming laser/ppc fire, know exactly what is hitting them and laser fire will also come in very slightly staggered due to the firing at a time number limit.
This will effect lights/mediums less, given that pulse lasers and small lasers overall would have a very small pre fire charge time, and shorter beam duration's than before.



Add stability into the game. This could be done through a stability bar, which goes up when losing components, and being hit by missiles/ballistic weapons and when firing ballistic weapons. A "add point" system to the bar similar to heat, as the bar goes up, your reticule starts to shake, the bar goes down at a set rate/second dependent on your weight class and actuators(more actuators, more stability bar reduction). Cause heat values above a 70% threshold to attribute to the stability bar at a rate/second until heat levels are below the set threshold.

With this change, and the above changes, as well as the smaller lock on window, you can effectively remove ghost heat, Since laser weapons are now staggered and have a firing indicator, enabling reaction time to incoming fire, and lasers are extremely inaccurate when reticule shake is involved.

Ballistic weapons will now cause, and contribute, to your stability,(this means mgs too) as well as having more shots/fire on both is and clan side, spreading out damage, while also increasing your chances of landing shots on enemies while stability bar is high.

Due to reticule shake and lock window decrease, locks will be harder to maintain when under fire or high in heat, indirect fire will also spread more.

With the stability bar, you can also reduce or remove the screen shake when using jumpets, however cause them to contribute to the stability bar at a high rate while in use instead, improving fighting while jumping. Drastically nerf initial thrust, buff thrust speed and burn time.
Heavily reduce leg damage when falling.


Mwo's crit system is REALLY cool, and very robust, however, it doesn't see much action due to large amounts of pinpoint fire and low structure values.
With the above changes, increase overall structure values by a decent amount. Reason for this is going to be the increase in projectiles being fired via autocannons, (more crit chances) and to increase peoples willingness to fight when armor is open, currently when armor gets opened, people get VERY afraid to fight. Id suggest a 50-75% increase in structure values across the board.


All of these suggested changes compound together into an increase in weapon flavor and variety, as well as a higher skill cap to landing pinpoint fire and taking down enemies and more intense longer fights, instead of "i alpha'd and you died"

This would also add further equipment options in the future, such as different gyros, cockpits or actuator upgrades, and gives clanners an actual reason to equip hand actuators, and more of a reason to hold onto lower arm actuators since they effect stability.


I am aware a weapons overhaul like this would be taxing, however the system is outdated, and needs a refresh.
A large change like this could be done with a big mech-pack release as a sort of "expansion" to provide the funding for the project similar to civil war. I know youve played wow a bit paul, so you likely know players are less hostile to changes during expansions, and big changes generate a large amount of hype, and gauge interest in players that have left, many will leave again mind you, however, a percentile of interested returners will stay.
I have personally returned to WoW many of times just to see how cool my fire mage feels at the start of an xpac with all the new changes to my class. This would gauge a similar response.

I will be posting this in another forum post to get responses there as well.

[Jman5]

I really think the key to making LRMs acceptable weapons in the eyes of the community is to focus on mitigating their penchant for being positively frustrating at times. When you have a UAV overhead, or a NARC, or some mech has a solid lock on you and the LRMs just rain and rain and rain ripping you apart. You get a feeling of helplessness which then leads to frustration, which leads to lots of people concocting all sorts of justifications for why they hate LRMs.

We need some mechanism or change that creates some sort of upper limit to just how long a LRM-boat can rain on a player before the target gets some sort of respite.

Perhaps if there was some sort of gradual spread to your LRMs the longer you're locked and hitting a target until you eventually lose lock entirely and have to re-aquire. This way, the initial hits are still strong, but your damage returns go down over time.

Edit; I do think some of the changes like making the lock-on circle smaller help toward this goal. I just think we need to go further.

Edited by Jman5, 15 August 2018 - 12:48 PM.

[SilentScreamer]

Jman5, on 15 August 2018 - 12:37 PM, said:

I really think the key to making LRMs acceptable weapons in the eyes of the community is to focus on mitigating their penchant for being positively frustrating at times. When you have a UAV overhead, or a NARC, or some mech has a solid lock on you and the LRMs just rain and rain and rain ripping you apart. You get a feeling of helplessness which then leads to frustration, which leads to lots of people concocting all sorts of justifications for why they hate LRMs.

We need some mechanism or change that creates some sort of upper limit to just how long a LRM-boat can rain on a player before the target gets some sort of respite.

Perhaps if there was some sort of gradual spread to your LRMs the longer you're locked and hitting a target until you eventually lose lock entirely and have to re-aquire. This way, the initial hits are still strong, but your damage returns go down over time.

No

LRMs take a very long time to kill a mech because they travel slow in the high arc and they spread damage around a target...you'll survival even longer if you have AMS equipped. There are plenty of options for a pilot caught by a UAV: 1) Shoot down the UAV 2) find cover 3) ask a teammate to shoot down the UAV.

[Kin3ticX]

Jman5, on 15 August 2018 - 12:37 PM, said:

I really think the key to making LRMs acceptable weapons in the eyes of the community is to focus on mitigating their penchant for being positively frustrating at times. When you have a UAV overhead, or a NARC, or some mech has a solid lock on you and the LRMs just rain and rain and rain ripping you apart. You get a feeling of helplessness which then leads to frustration, which leads to lots of people concocting all sorts of justifications for why they hate LRMs.

We need some mechanism or change that creates some sort of upper limit to just how long a LRM-boat can rain on a player before the target gets some sort of respite.

Perhaps if there was some sort of gradual spread to your LRMs the longer you're locked and hitting a target until you eventually lose lock entirely and have to re-aquire. This way, the initial hits are still strong, but your damage returns go down over time.

Edit; I do think some of the changes like making the lock-on circle smaller help toward this goal. I just think we need to go further.

That may be a bit convoluted but perhaps upping the damage, nerfing the cooldown, and nerfing the ammo could have a similar impact. Less missiles but similar damage with a side effect of giving LRMs a little more alpha. People would also have to be more careful with when they get a lock or lose a lock. Combine that with making the pipper less forgiving so maybe light mechs can juke out of a lock against an unsteady hand.

[Jman5]

Kin3ticX, on 15 August 2018 - 01:10 PM, said:

That may be a bit convoluted but perhaps upping the damage, nerfing the cooldown, and nerfing the ammo could have a similar impact. Less missiles but similar damage with a side effect of giving LRMs a little more alpha. People would also have to be more careful with when they get a lock or lose a lock. Combine that with making the pipper less forgiving so maybe light mechs can juke out of a lock against an unsteady hand.

Would be interesting to see how that plays out. I think you would have to be pretty aggressive in the changes. Some damage increase, but significant increase in cooldown. The reason is because while I think the culprit of player frustration is when there is seemingly unending lrm rain, a lot of lrmboat damage comes from forgettable 1-2 volley hits. So if you try to retain its current dps you would probably wind up turning it into a massive buff for lrm-boats.

So something like 15% damage increase, but 30% cooldown increase, or even 20/50.

Edited by Jman5, 15 August 2018 - 02:29 PM.

[Kageru Ikazuchi]

Jman5, on 15 August 2018 - 12:37 PM, said:

... You get a feeling of helplessness which then leads to frustration, which leads to lots of people concocting all sorts of justifications for why they hate LRMs.

I think the flight trajectory needs to be looked at, particularly at the terminal phase (when the missiles are approaching the target). If I can look up in my cockpit and see nothing but hard cover in front of me, I should be immune to missile spam from that direction, right? Last I checked, that was not necessarily the case.

Quote

Edit; I do think some of the changes like making the lock-on circle smaller help toward this goal. I just think we need to go further.

I think so, too.

[justcallme A S H]

Kageru Ikazuchi, on 15 August 2018 - 03:53 PM, said:

I think the flight trajectory needs to be looked at, particularly at the terminal phase (when the missiles are approaching the target). If I can look up in my cockpit and see nothing but hard cover in front of me, I should be immune to missile spam from that direction, right? Last I checked, that was not necessarily the case.


I think so, too.

Yep, definitely a problem. More so with IS LRMs and their higher ARC angle can definitely hit you even if you're jammed face first into a mountain.

All of this I feel is secondary. Just remove the recent buffs, see what happens. Not going g through more changes in the gooe it'll work... We will still be in the same situation. Also thinking about it. LRMs, particular Clan, really did not need an ammo buff. IS did simply due to tonnage issues. The ammo buff meant I actually took 2T ammo off most clan LRM boats for 2x cDHS. Combine that with reecent heat buffs - it's a double stacked benefit.

[50 50]

Kin3ticX, on 15 August 2018 - 01:10 PM, said:

That may be a bit convoluted but perhaps upping the damage, nerfing the cooldown, and nerfing the ammo could have a similar impact. Less missiles but similar damage with a side effect of giving LRMs a little more alpha. People would also have to be more careful with when they get a lock or lose a lock. Combine that with making the pipper less forgiving so maybe light mechs can juke out of a lock against an unsteady hand.

Would make the sensor tree target retention nodes more valuable.
It's almost turning them into guided missiles.

Is the AMS and Laser AMS affected by the weapon tree nodes?
ie. more range, cooldown, ammo, heat etc.
Would a bigger umbrella help?

I wouldn't mind seeing an alternative mechanic for the Laser AMS similar to the RAC/UAC where it can fire for a period and then shuts down once it's bar is full but does not generate any or much less heat.

[Jonathan8883]

I really don't understand the desire to further narrow the LRM lock cone. In my Catapult I still have some trouble tracking fast-moving target boxes at 300 meters when I am also maneuvering. This is just going to encourage stationary staring, ie bad gameplay.

[Vyx]

If (direct LOS exists) at the exact time of LRM firing, then LRM cooldown is normal.

If not(direct LOS exists) at the exact time of LRM firing, then LRM cooldown is double.

Call the lengthened cooldown "indirect fire calculation delay".

Simple solution. Easy to code.

Edited by Vyx, 15 August 2018 - 10:22 PM.

[Shaky Snake]

When it comes to LRMs, I like the idea of tying the lock cone/artemis tracking to a targeting comp; While reducing the lock cone should make it difficult to hold a lockwithout a TC, a MKI would give a tiny buff, but a MKVI should give a huge buff, at the cost of a whole lot of ammo/slots - I really believe it would move people away from 'boating' the system into a more viable multi-role kind of style by emphasising the risk/reward nature of the system, and it's ability to impact a match from start to finish (like a SNV-A with 4000 rounds can do on Polar Highlands).

Outside of that, after listening to the podcast, I really appreciate the thought process that has gone into the proposals and PTS, even if I remain skeptical of the output so far; I'm very keen to see (and think it'd be useful in supporting your arguements) the data outputs of these sessions, and I feel that this would gather more community support than simply saying "this is a problem". But in general, thanks for being open about it.

[Reno Blade]

Jman5, on 15 August 2018 - 02:23 PM, said:

Would be interesting to see how that plays out. I think you would have to be pretty aggressive in the changes. Some damage increase, but significant increase in cooldown. The reason is because while I think the culprit of player frustration is when there is seemingly unending lrm rain, a lot of lrmboat damage comes from forgettable 1-2 volley hits. So if you try to retain its current dps you would probably wind up turning it into a massive buff for lrm-boats.

So something like 15% damage increase, but 30% cooldown increase, or even 20/50.

I think it's only starting to be a thing when we look at something like
6-8s cooldown with 1.5dmg / missile
and a steep GH penalty with over 40 missiles for IS and over 30 missiles for Clans (because of weight).

This would reduce the boating and spamming, but increase a good placed shot.
So if you are willing to take the heat penalty, you might launch your lrm 80, but get (close to) shutdown (e.g. similar to a dual ac20 risk/reward).

At the same time it helps builds that use lower number of launchers to have a harder punch and also give a reason to use more backup weapons (because of the idle time in between).

In general, I think more punishing GH (or Energy Draw) would solve a lot of these issues with boating and spamming.
While GH is a quick win here, the advantages of Energy Draw as a more robust system is pushing ED back on the to-do-list again.

[Kin3ticX]

Reno Blade, on 16 August 2018 - 09:27 AM, said:

I think it's only starting to be a thing when we look at something like
6-8s cooldown with 1.5dmg / missile
and a steep GH penalty with over 40 missiles for IS and over 30 missiles for Clans (because of weight).

This would reduce the boating and spamming, but increase a good placed shot.
So if you are willing to take the heat penalty, you might launch your lrm 80, but get (close to) shutdown (e.g. similar to a dual ac20 risk/reward).

At the same time it helps builds that use lower number of launchers to have a harder punch and also give a reason to use more backup weapons (because of the idle time in between).

In general, I think more punishing GH (or Energy Draw) would solve a lot of these issues with boating and spamming.
While GH is a quick win here, the advantages of Energy Draw as a more robust system is pushing ED back on the to-do-list again.

I think adding energy draw will just dig a deeper hole into an unfun game. Ive said this many times before, but ED as shown in the old PTS is basically a nested energy bar within an energy bar. This is because the heat bar is an upside down energy bar and heatsinks are an anaolg of power generators.

It would be akin to nerfing Jetpacks in Tribes by adding a 2nd jetpack bar to reduce jetpacking while retaining the old energy bar. I have no experience in game design but I bet this breaks some kind of cardinal rule.

Ghost heat is a nested system as well but it comes in the form of a table and not a power pool within a power pool to bottleneck the main power pool..

[Metachanic]

TLDR: Including skills and quirks, mobility stats most beneficial to longer-range, high-alpha mechs (acceleration, deceleration) were generally buffed during the desync, while stats key to brawling were generally nerfed.

Some results on pre- and post-desync mobility from within the Community Balance gulag. Taro and Navid are working on posts of their own which can go into more detail on the math and underlying assumptions here, but I've assembled some visuals that should be more digestible. These are massive images, the only way to show the huge variety of mechs in the game, so viewing at full size is recommended.

Note that these charts include mechs which were released post-desync. We've reverse-engineered the formulas governing engine rating and various mobility attributes, so the numbers assume everything existed both before and after the desync and skill tree. Pre-desync mobility quirks are included.

First, it is worth noting that the desync was a net increase to acceleration, deceleration, and turn rate across most mechs. However, the devil's in the details. Specific chassis were nerfed rather aggressively in key attributes, and net increases to acceleration and deceleration speeds in most mechs are partially responsible for the popularity of laservom builds, since most chassis can now peek and fade more rapidly.

Beginning with torso yaw speed, the most-discussed mobility stat in a high-alpha, high-duration laservom world, and probably the most discussed feature post-desync, because it is the most-nerfed stat. I've presented the data in several ways, first by plotting the torso yaw speed by chassis pre and post desync and with and without skills, so viewers can see how much a particular chassis has shifted or is affected by the presence or absence of skills.

Torso yaw speed changes, sorted by tonnage and chassis.

Second, changes sorted by chassis, to show net gains and losses.

Torso yaw speed, sorted by tonnage and chassis.

This third chart is where you should go if you want to see the mechs most negatively affected by the desync, and there are some curious outliers in the bottom. It's the same data as the second chart, sorted from most-nerfed to most-buffed. This is the chart that makes the desync look worst, but it's the easiest way to spot mechs left behind in the desync.

Torso yaw speed, sorted by change magnitude.

First, an outlier; the Trebuchet 3C. A decidedly off-meta mech that nonetheless got the heaviest net change pre- to post-desync. It used to have strong mobility quirks, which were not added to its baseline stats. Strange, since it isn't exactly a high-order threat.

Next, Atlases. Absolutely hammered by the desync. This is an iconic brawling assault, and yet despite several structure-quirked variants, large hitboxes, and an extremely limited torso pitch range, every single one of its agility stats received nerfs on most variants. Torso yaw speed fell 40% on versions without mobility quirks. Full torso yaw speed skills narrows the gap to 25%, but that's still a massive hammering. Versions with higher baseline agility (the K, BH, and KR) received less punishing nerfs, but still came out behind pre-desync levels. There's a strong case to be made for much higher agility on structure-quirked variants, or a general quirks and mobility pass on Atlases in general, since overall, they lost turn speed, acceleration, deceleration, and twist speed in the desync. The only exception is turn speed, and it takes full skills to exceed its pre-desync agility by only 9%.

There are lots of other short-range mechs with large hitboxes which got similar nerfs to the Atlas. IS Orions, the Griffin 2N, Firestarters, Cataphracts.... Of the mechs we studied, 365 out of 528 (69.1%) received net nerfs to unskilled torso yaw speed during the desync. Assuming full yaw speed skills, that drops to 111 out of 528 (21.0%). But with lower baseline agility and stronger acceleration and deceleration for long-range machines, there isn't as much incentive to run percentage-based mobility skills, and with the relative strength of the mobility and firepower/operations trees, mobility nodes are not a generally popular choice, as far as I know. Personally, after the yaw speed node buff, I run partial torso yaw speed skills on many of my short-range assaults, but I believe I'm in the minority. Flat values or stronger percentage-based skill nodes would help. Recent buffs to these nodes were a step in the right direction, and helped create a meaningful trade-off for larger brawling mechs.

I can go into more detail here, but for the sake of brevity, we can simply say that the desync is at least partially responsible for the rise of mechs like the 2x LB20X Warhammer 6R overshadowing the Orion, since Warhammers lost 12% of their unskilled torso yaw speed compared to a 35% loss on Orions. There are many cases where these kinds of mis-matches contributed to the rise of a particular chassis, and the obsolescence of another.

Acceleration, generally speaking, was buffed during the desync. Yay, right? Sort of. Yes, net buffs to mobility are something we've been after for a while, but note that high-alpha, high-duration laservom boats need acceleration and deceleration for their poke and fade style, and since a lot of popular chassis lost twist speed, this change in mobility only shifts the meta toward longer-range, high-alpha laservom and away from brawling. With lower torso yaw speed, there's incentive to stay at range, where yaw speed matters less for tracking targets, and those targets, also lacking torso yaw speed, can't twist away your fire.

Acceleration changes, sorted by tonnage and chassis.

Small-engined Clan lights such as the Kit Fox and Cougar received significant and much-needed buffs from the desync. The Firestarter, for unkown reasons, was nerfed even if acceleration is fully skilled, and its large size makes it a particularly easy target with low mobility numbers. There are peculiar chassis which used to have strong mobility quirks, like the Centurion D, Enforcer 5P, and Trebuchet 3C, which maintain their strong mobility compared to other variants of the chassis, but still received net nerfs to their pre-desync state. Which is odd for off-meta mechs.

Turn speed was generally buffed, and significantly, which is helpful in scenarios where you can twist your legs and torso in the same direction simultaneously to increase your effective, if not actual, torso yaw speed. This stat has the greatest effect on light survivability, and to a lesser degree, on brawler maneuverability. So it's a welcome improvement basically everywhere.

Turn speed changes, sorted by tonnage and chassis.

I've tried to be as precise as I can without making this post even more absurdly long, so if there are any questions about the data, I'll keep an eye on this thread. Taro and Navid should be making posts with their own thoughts soon.

Edited by Metachanic, 16 August 2018 - 09:57 AM.

[Chris Lowrey]

Had a number of priority tasks this week, so catching back up with the thread. So apologies in advance if I'm digging up things that the general discussion has moved on from.

Sable Dove, on 12 August 2018 - 12:37 AM, said:

Is there actually official documentation that says this? I'm not super familiar with the tabletop game, but I've seen claims varying from 10 seconds to 6 minutes (based on weapon ranges vs movement speeds). So focusing a mech down in 50-60 seconds is quite different from focusing a mech down in 25-30 minutes.

Personally, I don't think balance should have much to do with the tabletop, but longer TTK would be more fun, for the most part. Especially in QP, no one wants to push because the first two mechs or so that come out usually get obliterated because five or more mechs are focusing them down at once, so TTK in a 1-on-1 being 50-60 seconds sounds okay, but when the first mechs out are facing 5 or 6 mechs worth of fire, TTK is about 10 seconds, which is less than ideal when you spent 2 minutes finding a match, 3 minutes in the lobby, 2 minutes walking to the fight, and get 10 seconds of fighting. So as a result everyone is timid, and no one wants to be the first ones to push because they're almost guaranteed not to have a good time.

1 game turn = 10 seconds real time is often one of the first things spelled out in many of the various BT rulebooks. The latest, Total War, being no different. Its the first thing mentioned under "A note on scale and the rules." Followed directly afterwards with every hex of the board denoting 30 meters of real world distance.

Although this is often the most cited when it comes to adapting the BattleTech universe into other mediums outside of table top, its what follows directly after that I feel is the most important part when it comes to what we do, which I will quote directly:
"However, players should note that such "real world" terms are abstractions when applied to the board game. Classic BattleTech is a game, not a detailed simulation. Therefore, the real world must take a back seat to game play -- for simplicity, length of play, space required and simple enjoyment."

So to respond to the second part of your comment, no, we do not use the Board game as a metric for balance of the entire experience, but we do use it as a guideline for getting the "feeling" from the universe. Somethings simply don't directly translate from Table Top to the game. (An Atlas or a Direwolf not being able to complete a 360 spin over a 10 second period of time being my favorite example of something that simply wouldn't adapt over from TT.) But some things we can keep to a "rough" translation leaning heavily on the fact that what happens over a single TT turn is an "abstraction" of what is actually happening. One example is Doubling up on armor, and having most weapon cooldowns come in as less then 5 second keeps the same general "flavor" of what the weapons are capable of doing to a 'Mech over a ten second period of time from table top, but keeping away from a "direct" translation where armor would be their direct canon values, but weapons are all on a 10 second cooldown. (Which simply wouldn't be an enjoyable experience.) We try to keep as much of the flavor as we can, but naturally, tuning things to work within the context of a first person shooter is going to take precedence over direct translations of any individual aspect of TT if we feel it gets in the way of how things work within MWO.

[NUMBERZero1032]

Chris Lowrey, on 13 August 2018 - 12:54 PM, said:

2.) We have seen a major uptick in the efficiency of brawlers, especially light and medium brawlers, that directly counter the more spread out nature of typical LRM play in Solo and Group queue. Either through dedicated flankers (more common in solo queue.) or calling for a coordinated push into the more spread out team (more common in group queue.)

This is out of DESPERATION. Everyone knows LRM mechs are potatos within minimum range. LOL
Efficiency means nothing when you're clubbing a baby seal.

Edited by NUMBERZero1032, 16 August 2018 - 10:29 AM.

[lazorbeamz]

I would like to see an across the board velocity increase to ballistics. 600m/s for uac20 is just humiliating. The weapon's listed range is way too high and its real effective range is greatly reduced by low velocity. Maybe this will help laser balace indirectly because the laser boats will receive more return fire at range. We already have weapon damage dropoff and dont need additional factors which reduce weapon damage at range.

Edited by lazorbeamz, 16 August 2018 - 11:49 AM.

[Tranderas]

Straight up buffing the effectiveness of the following weapon systems will have a positive change to the game experience explained below each change:

- Clan SPL
- All clan SRM launchers

Clans simply don't have a good short-range weapon outside of the C-ERSL, with the extraordinarily wide spread of SRMs and the constant nerfs to its pulse lasers. A direct boost to all these weapon systems would improve the power of clans sub-300m, allowing for an interesting give-and-take where mechs under 60t have the power to fight at short range, but still must pick their engagements due to their lack of armor quirks. It brings the goal of clan alpha and power vs IS armor quirks down to the sub-60t range the way it's enjoyed above that range. For SPLs a cooldown and duration decrease could be offset by a range decrease. SRMs need tighter spread.

Due to the weakness of these weapon systems, clans are forced to use C-ERSLs and C-Streak missile launchers to fight at close range, causing both those weapon systems to perform far above what they would otherwise were clans to have another weapon system that could compete at that distance.

- IS LPLs
- IS MPLs
- IS MLs/ERMLs

IS vomit simply cannot compete with the Clan side. I'd rather adjust upward, as everything from ML on up can benefit all classes of mech (note that we typically run 5mpl on mechs as small as a Wolfhound). I want to see heat reductions here, as IS mechs should be running cooler than Clan simply by nature of how they're supposed to be balanced. IS can afford to expose longer because of their armor quirks, but do less damage per alpha when they do; Clans get mobility and alpha but have to balance that with longer burns and the lack of armor quirks making picking and choosing fights more important.

- Clan UAC 2, 5, 10

This is another case of "other weapons are overperforming because these are underperforming." If you want clans to use weapon systems other than lasers, make other weapons worth using. In the cases of these weapons, we suffer higher jam chance and longer exposure time for a tiny increase in range. Some mechs would be able to have UAC quirks removed were this to pass.

- Clan and IS flamers

It's widely believed that flamers were nerfed because someone made Chris overheat with a light with flamers. Regardless of the truth of that rumor, flamers need to have their ghost heat raised again to be viable outside of joke builds.

- IS Light Gauss

A weapon that has been the joke of serious players thanks to its lackluster damage and DPS and the availability of better weapons at its tonnage. I want to see a damage increase to make it competitive with other options.

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The C-ERML has come under a lot of scrutiny over the last couple months, and I think it's unwarranted. It's so strong because everything else C has at that range is so weak, so I would buff around that concept, that things should essentially be at the ERML's level on both IS and C side.

I know PGI wants to offset any buffs with nerfs somewhere, but restoring mech agility should alleviate any significant increases in Time to Kill. I disagree with Paul's assessment that a mech shouldn't be able to die in a few volleys, however- a player should be punished for exposing his mech for too long, in too bad a situation. Players should be rewarded for picking their fights well and playing to the advantages of their mech, their chosen weapon system(s), and their individual playstyles.

I also disagree with Paul's insistence that Clans and IS should have parity with their weapons. The whole point of IS v Clan is to have an asymmetrical gameplay style that allows players to pick based on their preferences. Do you want big stompy robots with armor for days and the ability to expose for long periods, which you'll need because your weapons are a little weaker? You go IS. Do you want to have massive damage that you can drop anywhere on the map thanks to your mobility, but be chicken-wing frail, need to expose forever, and have a high heat per shot? You go Clan. With give-and-take options along the way. That's how the game should feel.

Finally, I'm disappointed that it took losing 80% of the concurrent players before Paul stepped up, but I appreciate that some effort is being made. I hope Paul finds a way to turn the game around, because I do genuinely enjoy it more than any other vehicle combat game that exists and want it to improve. I want the player base to grow, I want to be able to play Faction Play at night with my friends like I used to. I wanna have fun. So show us something, Paul. It's on you.

Edit: I forgot to note that NARC CD increase is not the way to punish that weapon. It needs to have its lock assist duration dramatically decreased. It doesn't matter if you take twice as long between shots if you still erase mechs in 5 seconds with each shot, and increasing its CD will merely make the obnoxious light player behavior of shooting one then running off to the other side of the map even more prevalent.

Edited by Tranderas, 16 August 2018 - 12:06 PM.

[Chris Lowrey]

Chados, on 13 August 2018 - 04:22 PM, said:

And Chris, I know you’re going to ignore me and you don’t want to hear this, but LRMs in 2015 kept me in the game when I sucked as a noob and had a .15 kill/death ratio. A C1 Catapult and LRM tactical skirmish play running within optimal range of medium lasers saved the game for me. The larger lock cone and decent Artemis bonuses kept me playing while I learned the game. Whether you like it or not, the learning curve is vertical in this game and the more you steepen it in the name of making better gameplay at the narrowest and highest levels, the more you are going to drive new players to something less demanding to learn in the front end.

I've been hearing you as well as everyone else who has commented here. I'm well aware of how steep the learning curve of the game is. As well as the arguments both in defense of the current mechanics of LRMs and those against them as they are currently implemented. I've heard the posts about the incoming changes in regards to how this will amount to nothing being changed, as well as those that say it will ruin the whole weapon system. But at this point, the verdict is still out on how much this actually affects gameplay since the actual impact of these changes is at this point theoretical based on their "on paper" changes.

Make no mistake, we want to make things accessible for newer players, but this also comes with the notion that we don't want mechanics to ONLY exist for new players. Deciding to move from one weapon to another because it is more optimal at the playstyle you wish to focus on is one thing, but having a tactical hard wall where a player can progress no further with the skills that they acquired utilizing a weapon they have enjoyed is a much larger issue on our end.

We can monitor these change's effects on the lower skill population just as much as the higher skill population. But one thing I would want to note is that we want just as much of a level playing field at low skilled tiers as we do on high skilled tiers. And the LRM's potency at lower skill levels is very much an often complained about topic that is almost never absent from the first page of the New Player Forums. So as much as we would love to preserve the experience you are noting here with how you massively enjoyed LRMs at that level when you first came to the game, we also do not want them to be so oppressive at that level that players who enjoy alternative play styles like mass DPS Dakka or PPC sniping aren't turned away when they are constantly under LRM bombardment and cannot figure out a solution on their own. (As keep in mind, only a very small percentile of the player-base even peaks into the forums.) So this is something that we will monitor, but it is a bit premature to render a verdict on the changes at that level of play prior to their actual release. We will observe and make further changes if it is not achieving the intended results or if it swings the dial to the other side where LRMs are suddenly not a viable option.

[Horseman]

Chris Lowrey, on 16 August 2018 - 01:33 PM, said:

So this is something that we will monitor, but it is a bit premature to render a verdict on the changes at that level of play prior to their actual release.

Unless you ran them through a PTS first. Just saying...