258 replies to this topic

[Ensaine]

Have many PTS's... everyone run and do testing.. do maths, make graphs, do this, do that......all to rein in the bogeyman 94 point Alpha

Ask for feedback, interact with the community ....

Many weeks later........

Didn't listen to anyone, did what they wanted anyways, will deploy new patch with no testing, buffs laser vomit.

I am SO glad I didn't waste my time on those PTS sessions.

[MechaBattler]

I was glad for the cap being 45. But disappointed to hear dubs would still raise the cap. Eh, I see plenty of graphs and numbers being thrown around. So I'll just leave this to the number crunchers to try to reason with PGI. At the end of the day it's going to be one way or the other. Best we can hope for is a good compromise.

[Daurock]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 08 September 2018 - 03:50 PM, said:

I like how you claim it is declining because of how it falls apart and you picked the worst one that no one ever cared about to begin with.....

To be fair, the H2c-B is probably ton for ton the best LRM mech in the game. Additionally, when you take it, no one shouts you down for being a "Dirty LRM Assault." Win Win!

[Cy Mitchell]

MechaBattler, on 08 September 2018 - 03:59 PM, said:

I was glad for the cap being 45. But disappointed to hear dubs would still raise the cap. Eh, I see plenty of graphs and numbers being thrown around. So I'll just leave this to the number crunchers to try to reason with PGI. At the end of the day it's going to be one way or the other. Best we can hope for is a good compromise.

Same. I thought, "OK, the listened and went with 45 heat cap." Then today I started really reading and analyzing what they did. It is not a 45 cap at all because they added heat cap back into the heatsinks which raises the cap back up to 50. Then on top of that, they increased dissipation along with the fact that additional heatsinks keep adding to to the cap and Operations Heat Containment nodes raise it even further.

Yeah, it has reduced Alpha damage a tiny bit from Live but is it enough to even bother with? I am going to have to re-spec many of my Mechs into Heat Containment to not be at a disadvantage against others that are heavy into it. That is going to cost me a small space fortune in GXP and C-Bills. I have been a supporter of lower Alpha damage and less repeatable large Alphas but this proposal does not do enough to be worth the effort or cost in my mind.

The heatsinks should not add to the heat cap. They certainly should not add as much as they do in the proposal if you are going to increase the heat base by 15 points. I do not think anyone thought that the heatsinks needed even more dissipation than what they had in PTS 2.1. I just do not understand the justification for these changes. I did not think that 2.1 went far enough. Unless I am totally missing something here this does next to nothing in meeting the goals, as I understood them, that the all the PTS were set up to find a solution to.

I guess that "45" heat cap number was just a bit of a con.

[Shadowomega1]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 08 September 2018 - 03:50 PM, said:

I like how you claim it is declining because of how it falls apart and you picked the worst one that no one ever cared about to begin with.....

2 ERLL and 4-6 ERML has been pretty much the staple Hunchback for a while. Outside of that you have the 2 LBX20 for drops where brawls are ensured and then you have 4 UAC2 or 4 ERLL for long range poke fights. 2 ERPPCs for the occasional pop-sniping if need be. The IIC-B has always been the worst of the bunch because the Hunchback IIC just isn't built for in your face sort of fights.

Yet in Tier 1 prime time, I rarely see any of those builds, I see at best 1 Hunchback ever 4 to 6 matches. I also find you calling the IIC-B the worst of the bunch when quad SRM-6a at 94 kph as I had plenty of match in T1 with it smacking down what people said were top tier assaults mechs with meta builds and even slapping around top tier heavies with meta builds.

[MechaBattler]

Rampage, on 08 September 2018 - 05:06 PM, said:

Same. I thought, "OK, the listened and went with 45 heat cap." Then today I started really reading and analyzing what they did. It is not a 45 cap at all because they added heat cap back into the heatsinks which raises the cap back up to 50. Then on top of that, they increased dissipation along with the fact that additional heatsinks keep adding to to the cap and Operations Heat Containment nodes raise it even further.

Yeah, it has reduced Alpha damage a tiny bit from Live but is it enough to even bother with? I am going to have to re-spec many of my Mechs into Heat Containment to not be at a disadvantage against others that are heavy into it. That is going to cost me a small space fortune in GXP and C-Bills. I have been a supporter of lower Alpha damage and less repeatable large Alphas but this proposal does not do enough to be worth the effort or cost in my mind.

The heatsinks should not add to the heat cap. They certainly should not add as much as they do in the proposal if you are going to increase the heat base by 15 points. I do not think anyone thought that the heatsinks needed even more dissipation than what they had in PTS 2.1. I just do not understand the justification for these changes. I did not think that 2.1 went far enough. Unless I am totally missing something here this does next to nothing in meeting the goals, as I understood them, that the all the PTS were set up to find a solution to.

I guess that "45" heat cap number was just a bit of a con.

Maybe they're just afraid of changing it too much. Afraid of backlash from casual players. Not the loudest handful here, but the people who wouldn't normally be bothered with coming onto the forums. That's my guess. The way they're going strikes as being less jarring to casual players.

[Y E O N N E]

Shadowomega1, on 08 September 2018 - 05:21 PM, said:

Yet in Tier 1 prime time, I rarely see any of those builds, I see at best 1 Hunchback ever 4 to 6 matches. I also find you calling the IIC-B the worst of the bunch when quad SRM-6a at 94 kph as I had plenty of match in T1 with it smacking down what people said were top tier assaults mechs with meta builds and even slapping around top tier heavies with meta builds.

The only role the HBK-IIC-B ever played when you had two equal teams going at it (read: competitive matches) was Streak-boat.

The rest is bads obfuscating deficiencies. In QP, the qualifier of "T1" means nothing at all.

[Jonathan8883]

I'll add my voice to the (already articulate) chorus that these are steps in the right direction, but don't go far enough WRT heat cap. Clan mechs can boat lots of heat sinks. IS mechs can't.

Also: Fix PSR!

Edited by Jonathan8883, 08 September 2018 - 06:14 PM.

[justcallme A S H]

Yeonne Greene, on 08 September 2018 - 05:46 PM, said:

The only role the HBK-IIC-B ever played when you had two equal teams going at it (read: competitive matches) was Streak-boat.

The rest is bads obfuscating deficiencies. In QP, the qualifier of "T1" means nothing at all.

Haha "Tier 1" in prime time.

That made me laugh given you can make it into "Tier 1" with 190 average match score which is well below the median match score of 35,000 players. Yep, Tier 1 is really an accurate description of skill...

[Grus]

Rydiak, on 07 September 2018 - 08:30 PM, said:

Read that paragraph again. IS LFE and Clan XL.

Chris chatted with me and went over it.

Navid A1, on 07 September 2018 - 08:47 PM, said:

Aaand, here are comparisons and damage output simulations.

Note: damage output simulation is done using continuous fire while avoiding overheating and Ghost heat. Please understand that you will not be doing 80 seconds of continuous fire in practice and the graphs are plotted up to 80 seconds for comparison only














Clan vs IS laser vomit comparison :

Must be lostech... because it looks like IS is comming ahead on a lot of those.

[Y E O N N E]

Grus, on 08 September 2018 - 07:22 PM, said:

Must be lostech... because it looks like IS is comming ahead on a lot of those.

They are coming out ahead on literally none of those, and one of those is comparing a 'Mech with an optimum range of 270 meters to one with an optimum range of 400 meters...and still losing in the long run.

The MAD-IIC is also under-sinked.

Edited by Yeonne Greene, 08 September 2018 - 07:59 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Yeonne Greene, on 08 September 2018 - 07:53 PM, said:

The MAD-IIC

The MAD-IIC is also lower on the totem pole than the MKII, Whale, and Supernova in Gauss/Laser vomit.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 08 September 2018 - 08:35 PM.

[Kubernetes]

Yay they buffed Clan laser vomit... wait, what

[Rydiak Randborir]

Here is an example of the 2HLL 6ERML "Giga-vomit" HBR build with skill tree.

Live:
Heat Capacity: 79.925
Alpha Damage: 78
Alpha Heat: 57.875525
Alphas before Overheat: 1.786760898
Damage before Overheat: 139.36735
2nd Alpha Wait Time: 2.840350978
Neutral Heat Alpha DPS: 5.300703194

PTS2.1:
Heat Capacity: 57.5
Alpha Damage: 78
Alpha Heat: 56.8781
Alphas before Overheat: 1.491774514
Damage before Overheat: 116.3584121
2nd Alpha Wait Time: 5.712826087
Neutral Heat Alpha DPS: 6.172970809

October Patch:
Heat Capacity: 64.975
Alpha Damage: 71
Alpha Heat: 56.17223
Alphas before Overheat: 1.692281578
Damage before Overheat: 120.151992
2nd Alpha Wait Time: 3.105503054
Neutral Heat Alpha DPS: 6.180884874


So the build loses 7 damage and 13.8% DamageBeforeOverheat, but gains 16.6% sustained DPS compared to Live. Compare this to PTS2.1, where DamageBeforeOverheat was dropped by 16.5% but sustained DPS increased by 16.5% without nerfing any individual weapons.

Biggest thing to pay attention to is PTS2.1 would have increased 2nd-Alpha re-fire time by 2.87 seconds, whereas October Patch only increases it by .27 seconds. Want brawlers to be able to push laservomit mechs? This is the metric to pay attention to.

If the goal was to nerf laservomit, PTS2.1 was the way to do it. The brilliance of PTS2.1 was it reigned in laservomit all without nerfing the actual weapons, unlike October Patch!

Edited by Rydiak, 20 October 2018 - 10:08 AM.

[Kurbeks]

Navid A1, on 08 September 2018 - 01:23 PM, said:

Meanwhile the most popular light mech in the game is the IS wolfhound. reasonably fast... but the size of a medium.

And the reason is armor quirks.

Definately not in solo pug queue. WLF can be seen once if few games at best. While we see PIR everygame. Same as with locust and after last patch - spider.

[Xx_M01S7R47JU1C35_xX]

PGI: We don't like the community changes because they increase time to kill, and create power creep.

Also PGI: We're going to globally raise sustained DPS by 11%~23%, nerfing nothing, while widening the gap between ballistics/missiles and lasers even more.

---

Laser vomit benefited the most from these changes, but this isn't the only weapon system whole long term damage output was limited by heat. LRMs will also see their sustained DPS increase significantly out of this. Because that's what this game needed. 14%~17% increased LRM DPS.

---

@PGI The fact that you've decided to push these changes live only proves you that you're misguided in your attempts at game balance. These balance changes do exactly what you said you didn't want to do when you said the Community Balance initiative promoted power creep, and reduced time to kill.

These changes disproportionately buff Laser Vomit, High Alpha builds, and LRMs when compared to other builds that ran cool or didn't utilize heat sinks as much such as Dakka, Brawl, or Poptart. Further reinforcing the laser vomit / guass vomit meta and diminishing the effectiveness of other playstyles or counter-playstyles.

We were on the right track with the heat changes. PTS 2.0 and PTS 2.1 felt really great to play. I was finally able to knock the dust of some IS laser mechs that I haven't been able to play effectively since the skill tree and first round of heat changes. With more testing we could have steered MWO down a better path for everyone.

But you jumped the gun. Took two PTS parameters that you admit didn't work, and mashed them together. Then without testing the suggested changes you're pushing them live.

There will be negative feedback, you'll backpedal on the changes inevitably, and then continue to use this as an example of "Well, we looked at it, and it wasn't well received" in the future when similar changes are brought up. This is the exact same scenario that happened in the past. And not unlike when you tested the skill and engine changes, disregarded the community feedback, and pushed them live without testing.

I don't even know what else to say. Good people have spent good time trying to test, provide feedback and data, write comprehensive posts, outline problems and solutions, and while it looked like we were finally going to make headway and start turning the decline of this game around you borderline sabotage your own development process and testing environment and belittle your community even more.

Yet even more good, hardworking community members will quit and there will be even less people around to try and solve these issues or provide data in the future.

It's time to stop. This has went on for too long. Please put these suggestion changes up in PTS 2.2. Please stop disregarding community feedback. Please stop trying to push half-baked updates through to production with no testing, and poor reasoning. Please help stop the decline of the game and it's community.

Edited by Brynjarr, 09 September 2018 - 03:43 AM.

[Sable Dove]

TTK is too low, and pinpoint alpha damage is too high, so the solution is to increase DPS of pinpoint high-damage alpha builds?

I really don't understand this methodology...

What was the purpose of the PTS if you're just going to go with an option that wasn't tested, no one asked for, and has the opposite effect of what players wanted?

Also, indirect de-buff to SHS? Too useful on the half-dozen builds that could actually afford to spend an extra 20 tons on heatsinks to make them a better choice than DHS, or what? Welcome back, new-mech DHS tax.

[Oberost]

Bud Crue, on 08 September 2018 - 08:10 AM, said:

Good bye any reason to play

FTFY

[MiZia]

Yeonne Greene, on 08 September 2018 - 07:53 PM, said:

They are coming out ahead on literally none of those, and one of those is comparing a 'Mech with an optimum range of 270 meters to one with an optimum range of 400 meters...and still losing in the long run.

The MAD-IIC is also under-sinked.

Blr has 20% range on medium laser. in fact fully skilled it can peak out at like 490 meters optimal for ermeds. for std meds its like 370?

[Navid A1]

Yeonne Greene, on 08 September 2018 - 07:53 PM, said:

They are coming out ahead on literally none of those, and one of those is comparing a 'Mech with an optimum range of 270 meters to one with an optimum range of 400 meters...and still losing in the long run.

The MAD-IIC is also under-sinked.

Since your are so fixated on 270m range of MLs on the battlemaster, I decided to test something.

Consider a battlemaster-1G, with 20DHS, LFE335, TC1, 3xLPLs and 4xMLs (Yes. FOUR. even one less than what I originally assumed)

That thing has +10% range for MLs, and +10%range for E weapons... and -5% ML heatgen. With Range quirks, and TC1 boost, the Medium laser range can be bumped up to 370m+, and LPLs to 470m+

And finally in terms of damage output... well take a look for yourself at these comparisons to the MAD-IIC:






The BLR-1G not only keeps up with the MAD-IIC in terms of damage output in the long run, it is able to even over-perform in the first 30 second of engagement.
One top of that.... consider the very fast burn duration and super quick cooldown with cockpit level hardpoints, as well as great side profile for torso twisting.

At the end of the day... I'd take that BLR a thousand times over the that MAD-IIC, since it can also brawl if required!!!

Also, that MAD-IIC is not under-sinked!. the difference between 29DHS compared to 30DHS on the same build is so tiny that it would not be even distinguishable on a graph!

Edited by Navid A1, 09 September 2018 - 07:09 AM.