11 replies to this topic

[Ragedog4]

2.1 means Round 2 (and my Fiance worked all day so I don't have to worry about her getting upset) Previous notes for 2.0 can be found here: https://mwomercs.com...laying-all-day/

TLDR(Also see Conclusion at bottom): I agree the 40 heat cap was too low, but the Heat scale change to 50 felt a little too much, Actually felt I was playing the current MWO with the Assault mechs.
I would still prefer around a 45 cap after testing all day. Assaults get buffed due to this change being able to fire more, deal more damage, and dissipate faster since they can carry more heat sinks.
Mobility is still wonderful but I still stress they need more on some mechs and to give more mechs the same buffs.

BS Info: Ive been playing since before Founders Beta, I've played almost all mech variants with over 15,000 matches since that time. Tried another 20 Mechs this PTS.* Most different then last weeks list. My current play rate for mechs are: Lights 7%, Mediums 28%, Heavys 32%, Assults 32%. however Lights were my most played for both Open and Closed Beta (Not recorded matches).

These are my Notes:

Changes from Max heat: Last week I agreed that 40 was a little too low. However, Disagree with me as you wish, I feel 50 is a little too much. The reason for this is the balance gap. I can now jump into Assault Energy boats with Gauss and it feel the same as the current MWO, just a change of habit on how to play. That defeats the purpose of what this was suppose to do. Last week I had FUN playing EVERY mech. This PTS felt like Lights to Most Heavys felt fun, and the Assaults felt the same as the Current MWO besides Mobility. So being at 50 instead of ~45 only lets Assaults stay powerful and the gap of balance is only shortened between Lights to Heavys. The Assaults with a cap of 50 now can fire more and still dissipate a lot faster because they can fit more weapons and heat sinks. ~45 Will balance this for all mechs, and shorten the balance gap.

Would Change: Bring down the cap to ~45. Its a good midpoint and it accomplishes bringing the balance gap closer without screwing the assault mechs. Don't drop it to 40, that is a tad low.
Also, fix Flamers and IS Ballistic since they are tad too hot with this new heat set up (since Clan ballistic have no issues with heat now).

Mobility: The Mechs I have played this time, I am very pleased with the changes. However there are some that need attention and others that were not affected that should be mobility buffed as well.
I had all these Mechs Agility skill trees maxed the same except for 1 kinetic burst, 1 brake, 1 torso twist, and 1 Anchor turn (3 Yaws and 3 Pitches were also not included which don't account for speed so I didn't see much point testing them at this time).

*IS Mechs I Played with Notes:

JVN-10P: Needs more Anchor Turn. It feels just slightly outclassed by some other light mechs.

JR7-D: Great Agility. Still needs a slight Armor buff. Maybe +5 in arms. Dies faster than most other lights.

BJ-1X: WOW! Just so good with all these changes.

ENF-5D: Amazingly mobile. Was well needed.

GRF-2N: Feels better but needs a little more Anchor Turn.

SHD-2H: Works well, Quite Balanced.

RFL-5D: Works well, Could use a slight Torso Twist Increase.

QKD-4G: Works Well, Needs a small Armor Buff (maybe just a few points in LT, CT, and RT).

BL-7-KNT-L: Very Good Mobility. Would Play Again for Laser Brawl.

VTR-9S: Great Mobility. Will Play again.

*CLAN Mechs I Played with Notes:

Adder(2PPC): AMAZING! Works Well.

JR7-IIC-3: Still Sluggish. Needs more Anchor Turn.

VPR-M: Mobility is wonderful again!

IFR-P: Good Mobility, Perhaps a slight increase in Anchor turn.

NCT-A: Good changes.

NightGyr: Feel more like a Heavy now (or a 78 Tonner if that was a thing).

TBR-W: Works A LOT better.

HGN-IIC-C: Very good, Mobility Fixed it, maybe a slight buff to the ones that have less missles, somewhere to match the other 90T mechs.

WHK-C: Very Good, agile (The 2 PPC and 2 LPL worked well, would even work with 45 cap).

MKII-DS (Meta): Works a tad too well. Would even work really well with a cap of 45.

Conclusion from 2.0+2.1: Set Heat Cap to around 45. 40 to low, 50 too high. Give more mechs Mobility Changes to balance. Some of the ones that were changed need a tad more buff. Flamers need to be fixed. IS Ballistics (Especially IS UAC/10s) are too hot. Give IS Double Heat Sinks a ~.1 buff, Std Heat Sinks ~.2 buff to keep clan Alpha High but not hurt the IS side. Do this since clan DHS take one less slot/can fix more (Please don't Nerf the Clan DHS to fix this, will only cause problems). OH...one more thing...let this go live for better testing.

*Edit: My personal Main reason for around 45 is due to balance for Medium and Light Clan vs IS Mediums and Lights, given we increase the IS Double and Single heat sink buff. This would allow a 50 ton Clan to do 42 Alpha with 6 Med Lasers while moving, while the IS can continually fire 6 Med Lasers alpha. Gives different game play still but makes sure the Clans don't get nerfed too much (Also Ghost heat can be removed from most weapons).

Edited by Ragedog4, 25 August 2018 - 05:16 PM.

[Sable]

And here we have it again, you want the same power of heavies and assaults on live while boosting light and medium performance. You've got this half right at least. The point is to tone down assaults and heavies and while also helping lights and mediums. You said yourself you had fun in every mech you tried in PTS 2.0 with 40 heat. What other reason can you justify a higher heatcap than to be able to continue to alpha all day in heavy and assault mechs.

[Ragedog4]

Sable, on 24 August 2018 - 06:06 PM, said:

And here we have it again, you want the same power of heavies and assaults on live while boosting light and medium performance. You've got this half right at least. The point is to tone down assaults and heavies and while also helping lights and mediums. You said yourself you had fun in every mech you tried in PTS 2.0 with 40 heat. What other reason can you justify a higher heatcap than to be able to continue to alpha all day in heavy and assault mechs.

Main reason for the cap at around 45? Because some Clan Mediums need to fire 6 ER Meds at once to be fair with other IS mechs loadouts. With 40 the Clan Meds and Lights under-shine to IS. That's the whole point. 45 not to boost Assaults, but to bring the Balance of Clan and IS closer as well as Lights to Assaults.

[Sable]

Ragedog4, on 24 August 2018 - 06:27 PM, said:

Main reason for the cap at around 45? Because some Clan Mediums need to fire 6 ER Meds at once to be fair with other IS mechs loadouts. With 40 the Clan Meds and Lights under-shine to IS. That's the whole point. 45 not to boost Assaults, but to bring the Balance of Clan and IS closer as well as Lights to Assaults.

But do they need to fire all 6 at once? That is the question people aren't taking into consideration. People seem to be stuck in the mindset that alpha striking the entire weapon group is THE ONLY way to fire them.

Edited by Sable, 24 August 2018 - 07:19 PM.

[Ragedog4]

Well that's only 42 dmg. A lot of IS mechs can do more than that with an alpha several times before overheating with different builds. Plus the duration it still has with mechs being able to torso twist faster makes them a weaker weapon for pinpoint. So its a bit of a double wammy. Plus the talk of IS DHS and SHS getting a slight buff again would make IS even more powerful if they can alpha so many times over clan. Its a overall DPS type of thing. :/

[Fluffinator]

Sable, on 24 August 2018 - 06:06 PM, said:

And here we have it again, you want the same power of heavies and assaults on live while boosting light and medium performance. You've got this half right at least. The point is to tone down assaults and heavies and while also helping lights and mediums. You said yourself you had fun in every mech you tried in PTS 2.0 with 40 heat. What other reason can you justify a higher heatcap than to be able to continue to alpha all day in heavy and assault mechs.

Don't try to put everything the same weight in the same boat. The Pirannah light is one of the most OP mechs in the game. Some lights need love but not all of them. Some assaults are OP but most of them are sadly unusable.

[Ragedog4]

Fluffinator, on 25 August 2018 - 05:23 AM, said:

Don't try to put everything the same weight in the same boat. The Pirannah light is one of the most OP mechs in the game. Some lights need love but not all of them. Some assaults are OP but most of them are sadly unusable.

Agreed. We need to look at this change as a overall change to balance all mechs together. Some other mechs need a direct change individually.

[jonomy]

thanks for the notes. I did not realize Locusts were to be mostly excluded from the test. Most of my Locusts are not in inventory and they cannot be bought in the store. I try to play what's asked for in the tests - don't neglect lights and mediums, many people playing heavy and assault mechs.

LCT-1E with better heat management profile is a mech I had hoped to try out.

[Ragedog4]

jonomy, on 25 August 2018 - 06:48 AM, said:

thanks for the notes. I did not realize Locusts were to be mostly excluded from the test. Most of my Locusts are not in inventory and they cannot be bought in the store. I try to play what's asked for in the tests - don't neglect lights and mediums, many people playing heavy and assault mechs.

LCT-1E with better heat management profile is a mech I had hoped to try out.

Just for you I jumped on to try out a few Locusts. You are right. The Hero and 1E are gone. I dont know what is going on but they kicked them out of the PTS. Very odd.

Does anyone know why they were removed?

Edited by Ragedog4, 25 August 2018 - 08:22 AM.

[Reno Blade]

Probably some bug, don't worry about the mechs missing.

I feel that PTS2.0 was WAY better than what PTS2.1 does.
Even just 10 more heat allows for even more power than Live because the dissipation is higher.

I'm currently playing a HBR with 2x HLL, 4x ERML and 25 DHS.
Without the skills, an alpha is shutting me down, but with skills .. i only get to 81(solaris) / 72% (grim) or so.
It doesnt allow for continuous fire as some people wrote before, even on cold map a second volley will shut you down.

[Ragedog4]

Reno Blade, on 25 August 2018 - 08:22 AM, said:

Probably some bug, don't worry about the mechs missing.

I feel that PTS2.0 was WAY better than what PTS2.1 does.
Even just 10 more heat allows for even more power than Live because the dissipation is higher.

I'm currently playing a HBR with 2x HLL, 4x ERML and 25 DHS.
Without the skills, an alpha is shutting me down, but with skills .. i only get to 81(solaris) / 72% (grim) or so.
It doesnt allow for continuous fire as some people wrote before, even on cold map a second volley will shut you down.

Im hoping we can get 100 tonner Alpha to 80 like the duel H Gauss with 6 med annihilator. Have that the 100 tonner cap. Makes me wonder what numbers need to be done to make that work. This also making sure smaller mechs are balanced with them and not left in the mech dust.

Edited by Ragedog4, 25 August 2018 - 10:55 AM.

[nazgul090]

This pts thing is cearly about nurfing alpha strike. Dont reduce the heat cap. You would only kill the variety of loadout in the clan faction. 2HLL+4ERMED would be replace by 6 med pulse. 2LPL+5ERMED would be replace by 8-9 med pulse. 2LPL+6MEDPULSE would die and be replace by 8-9 MEDPULSE. A good player is even more frightening in a C_MEDPULSE boat than on an 2 LPL+5ERMED or 2HLL+4ERMED by the way.

The 2GR+2HLL+4HML (96 alpha) is a troll build with zero sustain damage. If u cant brawl that thing peeking at 270 meter ur bad. If u cant take advantage of him being hot for 10 sec ur bad.

The one only thing that high alpha strike deserve as a nerf is the removal of coolshot from the game. Do that, and u will still see a variety of build being used.

But, brawler will thrives if they can reach their unaware target. Ballistic sustain dps build will be allow to pressure laser boat or high alpha stike build more easily.

Balance would be closer to be achieved in my opinion. Because coolshot is way more impactfull on laser boat or high alpha stike build then on sustained dps ones, wich hardly reach their max heat anyway. Either because they are running cold or the laser vomit trigered an upgraded coolshot+over ride, wich allowed him ro add 2 additional alpha after hes 3 first.
Wich means 295 damage over 177 (pinpoint!!!) (2LPL+5ERMED).

Instead of nerfing to the ground high alpha strike build, by making them totaly worthless, u should buff what counter them.

Buff brawl.

Buff C_AC20, C_UAC20, IS_AC20, IS_UAC20. Those weapon have a nice dps, but the VELOCITY is too bad to be worth using. Leading ur target takes so much time at max effective range. Those weapon are WORTHLES. Except for IS_ac20, just because a bullet of 20 damage pinpoint is really impactfull.

Buff (rework) SRM. Alike LBX, the missile cluster should be tighter at closer range and looser at max range.

Buff LBX. F[color=#222222]or example, t[/color]he effective range of LBX10 is 540m. Would be effective if the target was round and twice as big as an annhilator. Cause u miss half the bullet around a target. Wich means that if u want a real effective range, u got to be between 400meter (to hit 2arms and 3 torsos) and 300 meter(to hit 3 torsos). Tighten the ballistic cluster slightly or:

Add more crit chance.
Since the meta is all pin point focus, the only chance of splash damage to be some how equaly usefull is if u crit away equipement, such as weapon. If a mech part is cored, but refused to die since u spread ur damage, the ultimate value is to crit away everything. Then its ok that the side torso is still alive.

About coolshot, i dont think u would ever remove it from the game, even tho i really wish it happens. Here my rework proposal:
1-Cant use coolshot if any weapon arent cycled or rdy to fire or on cooldown.
2-Instead of 3 sec of dissipation, make it 6.
3-If u fire any weapon, the remaining dissipation is lost.
This would make using a coolshot more skill base, would force u to take cover if u are hot. You would just recover quicker, wich make sense. Because one of the skills in this game is to manage ur heat.

If u try any of those coolshot things, i doubt this pts thing is worth it.
It would also be more simple and wont turn the game upside down.
Would be more closer to balance while allowing a variety of build.