215 replies to this topic

[Jackal Noble]

Khobai, on 24 August 2018 - 06:27 PM, said:

Id be okay with countertech as long as its not stronger than AMS

AMS feels about right for a soft counter to a specific weapon.

So I think 15%-20% damage reduction would be fine for reflective/reactive armor. 50% would be way too broken.

Not if it's 50% susceptible to it's counter. but ya sure, whatevs.

[Jackal Noble]

For real this crap is like 2 steps backwards. Raising the heat cap is a no no. Keep it lower so derp-tarded alpha strike players can't play that garbage. All it does is allow cowardly type players to succeed which should never be a thing.

Edited by Jackal Noble, 24 August 2018 - 07:29 PM.

[Jackal Noble]

I will say this, however; If this PTS2.1 is a deliberate attempt to allow high heat alphas succeed in order to see what the "ceiling" is then fine. Otherwise this is the wrong direction.

[cougurt]

Jackal Noble, on 24 August 2018 - 07:29 PM, said:

For real this crap is like 2 steps backwards. Raising the heat cap is a no no. Keep it lower so derp-tarded alpha strike players can't play that garbage. All it does is allow cowardly type players to succeed which should never be a thing.

you sound like the kind of player who dies within the first 2 minutes of every match.

[Jackal Noble]

cougurt, on 24 August 2018 - 07:44 PM, said:

you sound like the kind of player who dies within the first 2 minutes of every match.

Except I'm not.

You sound like the kind of player this game is rife with.

Perhaps you misunderstood my post yogurt with a C.

[Tekamen]

The Locust 1E, 3M, and Pirate's Bane are not accessible on the PTS. Will use available Locust variants to test agility. A well placed alpha will destroy a component, if not out right kill a Locust. The added agility helps this light, so long as the pilot maintains Guerrilla warfare (hit-and-fade) tactics to confuse and harass enemy mechs and protect friendly mechs from enemy lights. The 1V, 1M, 3S, and 3V work well as scouts and flank harass mechs. Damage potential is underwhelming without the use of artillery or airstrikes when compared to the 1E, 3M and Pirate's Bane. No noticeable issue with heat on the variants on the PTS. Sustained fire possible without the need to disengage enemy mechs.

50 point heat cap is of course much nicer than than only having 40 points of heat to consume before disengaging from firing upon enemy mechs. Chain firing 4x ERPPCs on a Warhawk feels pretty good on PTS. 2x ERPPC half alpha is fine too, so long as pilots take care to space shots and not apply ghost heat. The 50 point heat cap mitigates sustained fire and will most likely promote hit and fade style play while the pilot waits for heat to dissipate.

Running 2x LPL and 6x MPL on a Super Nova (SNV-1) was quite effective against enemy mechs of all weight classes and by limiting weapons grouping fire to either the LPLs or the MPLs sustained combat without overheat was possible due to the quick cooling effects of being able to stack 18-20 extra heat sinks on the build.

Running 2x Gauss with 6x medium laser based builds will likely see increased usage due to very low heat per fire ratio of gauss ballistics. Timed alphas from these mechs are highly effective at taking down components or outright killing enemy mechs, similar to their usage on the live MWO server. Edit: Further testing with various 2x Gauss and energy based builds (6x ML, 2x LPL, 6x MPL, 4x ML, 2x ERLL revealed that this build is not overwhelming powerful compared to other assault counterparts. Mechs running high DPS brawl (LBX/SRMs) or long range UAC2/AC2 weapons out performed 2x Gauss with laser variations. The 50 point heat cap limits full alphas, but a pilot can alpha 2x Gauss and 6x ML two times before having to manage heat load.

I personally feel that the 50 point heat cap is fine for most builds and mech weight classes, forcing pilots to rely on weapon grouping and judicious use of full alphas before taking cover. The 40 point heat cap felt highly restrictive for a lot of laser centered builds and it even limited sustained Ultra Auto Cannon, other ballistic weapons, and SRM brawl builds.

Most lights feel underwhelming as an effective harassment platform. Unless it's a Piranha PIR-1 that can sneak into the back side of high tonnage heavies and assaults and rip off a side torso in 2-3 seconds. Lights are getting insta gibbed or having legs nuked off with one well placed alpha from laser based or LBX builds. It's most likely the tonnage difference on PTS; i.e. not much a 1x LPL LCT-1V can do against a 90-100 ton 4x LBX10 assault or 2x LPL, 6x ML laser mechs.

The Jenner IIC feels a lot better to pilot with the added agility and running 6x SRM6s heat load is manageable with weapon grouping and the 50 point heat cap. The Jenner IIC still suffers from its large size (i.e. almost as tall as the Catapult heavy mech). Side torsos and CT get nuked with one well placed enemy alpha (40 points of damage or more), much like the live server...which is why this mech has fallen off from use by most pilots.

Arctic Cheetah feels nice to pilot regarding mobility and agility, but arms, legs, side torsos and center torso are easily wrecked by enemy pilots utilizing high damage full or half alpha weapon groupings.

Overall buffs to agility are good because they help with dodging enemy fire, hit and fade tactics, and poking around cover, but light mech pilots will have to resort to scouting, stealthy, or long range play in order be effective on the battlefield. Flanking and light packs (2-4 lights working on isolated mechs) will probably still be highly effective at taking down larger tonnage mechs with close quarter brawl weapons like small pulse, medium pulse and SRMs. Solo ECM and Stealth Armor lights will most likely remain effective tools for scouting, flanking, and harassment against isolated enemy mechs.

Edited by Tekamen, 26 August 2018 - 07:55 PM.

[Josh Seles]

Just came from the PTS.
Much better than live servers.
Personally, I think 50 heat capacity is slightly too high; would prefer 45 instead.

More detailed feedback in the PTS subforum.

[Arkansas6A]

Navid A1, on 24 August 2018 - 03:51 PM, said:

Killing light mechs in one button press is often done by Gauss weapons, which do not generate heat. If you see a light that is getting messed up with one high laser alpha, that light deserves to die... horribly.

Um...
Agree. You got me on the light mechs. Their size and speed are their savior. But to a medium mech, with twisting, 70 points is still a devastating loss of armor. And if for some reason you don't manage to twist it off, that's critical damage already, if not having the component blown clean off already. And here it comes again in a few seconds. Now, is it the loadout's fault? Is it that medium mechs make easy targets (too big, or too slow, or not nimble enough, pick one)? Is it global heat dissipation for all mechs? All of the above, or none?

And gauss rifles, well, yeah, they suck. O hai, Mr. Fafnir, what component are you going to sever in this next five seconds? Halp...

Quote

The idea of alpha striking being an act of desperation is only in BT novels, and thats where it belongs... in novels, and not a first person real-time tactical game. Do you consider firing 5 to 6 ACs an "alpha strike" as well?
Even in BT, you can kill mechs in 10 seconds (1 turn)... now, do you like having it like classic BT?

I mean to say that the alpha strike can't be the only perceived way to play. Otherwise, why bother having multiple variants? Make them all with 12 hardpoints of all kinds. Or, just make three variants, one with all energy, another all missle, and the last all ballistic. Everything is a boat. Bind them all to mouse button one, shoot your wad a couple of times and then take cover behind something until you can do it again.

Quote

And finally, the resistance is not due to "change". The resistance is there to make sure that more builds become viable without completely erasing already viable styles. This will result in a diverse range of builds.

And....agreed. You're one of the ones I was referring to seeing the bigger picture. You seem to be supporting the heat changes in 2.0 and 2.1 more or less. Am I incorrect? But any way you hack it, diversity is GOOD. The only point of contention is what is underpowered, and what is overpowered. And a definition of viable. Viable for what? Comp, FP, QP?

Quote

Unfortunately, some people expect their kitchen sink builds (extremely weak builds according to lore) to be able to compete with customized and specialized builds and when it doesn't, they think that balance has a problem.

And finally, I guess that depends on what you'd consider a kitchen sink build. More than one weapon type? Two? Three? The old school Warhammer had PPCs, MLs and SLs. Machineguns and an SRM 6. Dear Lord, that's a lot. That's a bloody train wreck to use in MWO, But say we strip down to 2 PPCs, 4 MLs, and an SRM6, Is it still a kitchen sink?

[dwwolf]

cougurt, on 24 August 2018 - 05:49 PM, said:

heavies and assaults mainly need better twist speed since they naturally eat more damage due to being bigger targets. lights and mediums need better accel/decel and turn rate to aid in avoiding damage altogether, which would also help to distinguish them from heavies.

Accel/decel and turn rate would help. As would better response to jumpjets. ( tonnage/thrust is bad for mediums).
But the main culprit is the engine table and the maximum speed that results from it compared to weapon range.
Mediums pay a very large weight cost for not that much extra speed.

6/9 vs 5/8 comes down to about 5.5 m/s if you are chased. If you straight line, which isnt a hot idea to begin with.
7/11 vs 5/8 is a 8.6 m/s difference.
8/12 vs 5/8 is about 11m/s difference...and about the limit for medium mechs (only really possible for 40 tonners ).

5/8 mediums are fire support.

Most medium mech sizes also do not help compared to light mechs.

[D V Devnull]

@ Paul Inouye & Chris Lowrey ---

Some Mech Variants have been found to be missing from the PTS In-Game Store. Could we have a Patch to fix that, and an extension of the PTS Time Frame to compensate so people can check more stuff?

EDIT :: By the way, glad to see that you squelched the Live Server Events on the PTS. I was starting to wonder why any of them had been left running.

~D. V. "Missing Parts of the Normal Game Elements = Not Good & Disrupts Testing Properly" Devnull

Edited by D V Devnull, 25 August 2018 - 04:57 AM.

[Cyrilis]

Hey PGI,
just a quick idea to make the PTS a bit more attractive:
Make that are not released for MC or C-bills yet available on the PTS.

[East Indy]

Two additional thoughts:

1. Mobility of high-end heavies and assaults is not nearly as impactful as alpha potential. I played medium 'Mechs exclusively this PTS, and at no point did a 70-ton-plus enemy strike me as moving too quickly; rather, it was the live-game-level damage they were able to deal. Assaults, particularly, are slow; and in MWO they're big, and with BattleTech's location-based rules they produce diminishing returns from tonnage, which is why heavies have almost always been more popular to players. It's always just been the few choice chassis that can support huge alphas each meta season that drive up the weight class representation. So, the good news in my observation is that while assault-to-assault comparisons may matter, the more mobility, the better.

2. If Inner Sphere effective heat dissipation needs to be increased, I wonder if the buff should be applied through a blanket heat reduction of weapon systems instead of a heat sink factor increase. While the latter is a perfect master dial, and far less messy design-wise, the former probably makes for a better player experience since weapon stats are expected to differ widely across both class and caliber — whereas the (fair) assumption is that a heat sink is a heat sink.

[D V Devnull]

Cyrilis, on 25 August 2018 - 05:52 AM, said:

Hey PGI,
just a quick idea to make the PTS a bit more attractive:
Make that are not released for MC or C-bills yet available on the PTS.

Agreed.

Also of note, Paul Inouye & Chris Lowrey might also find it useful to enforce Tonnage Matching on the PTS... That way, teams are reasonably balanced to enough of an extent for people to actually test stuff out, instead of it being fast one-sided pugstomps. There should NOT be a need to balance based on PSR, though. How do you check Heat Management and associated elements anyway, when matches are going too fast to allow it?

~D. V. "finding the PTS Queue to be 'out-of-whack' and disruptive to actual testing" Devnull

[Apollo777]

I wish PTS was always online!
It's the ideal place to try new builds/mechs before spending any C-Bills/MC.

[Kuaron]

What exactly were the builds that needed to be saved by raising the (pre-skill) heat containment to 50?

The lower cap seemed to produce a more interesting gameplay.

[Sjorpha]

Daurock, on 24 August 2018 - 06:30 AM, said:

As much as i really want to believe that PGI can give IS and clan DHS a different values for dissipation, I'm not sure it's technically going to be possible. I have to think that they would have approached it at some time in the past if it was a technically easy thing to do, instead of going around on the fringes, like the heat skills in the tree, which they actually HAVE done in the past. If I had to guess, I wouldn't be surprised if the dissipation per sink number is hard-coded into the drop-down for SHS/DHS. (Much like the lock times are/were, causing the artemis fiasco currently going on.) No, I'm not a developer, but I am decent at reading tea leaves, and the fact that they've left it alone for so long is telling after some point.

In this case I'm sure, because IS and Clan DHS has actually had different dissipation rates in the past, and those have been changed more than once. So yes it's definitely technically possible and probably as trivial as changing a number.

[Sjorpha]

Navid A1, on 24 August 2018 - 06:35 AM, said:

You are correct that IS DHS needs to be stronger than C-DHS.
You are wrong to think that this should be achieved by weakening the C-DHS

IS to 2.0 and Clan to 1.8 would still be a huge buff to both clan and IS heatsinks, since the current dissipation value for both is way lower. So I'm not weakening anything and I'm not sure why you think so.

If it's IS to 2.2 and Clan to 2.0 or something like that just means we are making the buff even bigger. Either way both alternatives are huge buffs to both tech bases, unless you think 2.0 is some kind of magical number.

So basically we're agreeing that IS DHS needs a bigger buff than Clan DHS, and we're just disagreeing slightly about how big that buff should be.

Edited by Sjorpha, 25 August 2018 - 09:54 AM.

[FupDup]

When you're talking about Clan DHS being 1.8 or whatever I hope you're talking about just the external ones right? Because internal dubs at 1.8 would absolutely **** over a lot of robots.

[D V Devnull]

Apollo777, on 25 August 2018 - 07:48 AM, said:

I wish PTS was always online!
It's the ideal place to try new builds/mechs before spending any C-Bills/MC.

Agreed. It's also good when someone...

• wants some battles to practice and doesn't mind the matchmaker being more-or-less offline
  
• can't get a private lobby together on the Live Server
  
• doesn't want it to affect their Live Server Lifetime Profile Stats
  
• wants to make and test a build before actually making it part of their Live Server Profile
  
• is happy to help PGI with testing out new stuff... particularly when it comes with incentives
  
• is looking for a 'Live-Fire' Replacement for the Testing Grounds

...and it can be configured to refill (C-Bills), (MC), and GXP(General XP) every week so it never ends up being a choked environment.


~D. V. "Yeah, having an always-active Public Test Server would be rather awesome." Devnull






[One Single Word Edit by Post Author about 10 Days Later, to swap a "your" for a "their", because they can NOT figure out how they failed to proofread and make sure all the context was in-sync... Sorry about that!]

Edited by D V Devnull, 04 September 2018 - 03:33 PM.

[Navid A1]

I kindly advise people who think 50 heat cap is too much to actually build a famous laser vomit mech and, Play A Match!

Firing a single alpha while standing still in the testing grounds is not a good measuring stick... you should test your builds in situations when your targets fire back and try to close the distance.