437 replies to this topic

[Tina Benoit]

Additional note:
The Solaris Leaderboards will be pruned of players who did not complete the minimum of 25 matches and the rewards will be given out accordingly to the subsequent reduced leaderboard standings.
The leaderboard archive will be available once the patch has been released.

[UPnADAM]

Tina Benoit, on 15 October 2018 - 02:32 PM, said:

Additional note:
The Solaris Leaderboards will be pruned of players who did not complete the minimum of 25 matches and the rewards will be given out accordingly to the subsequent reduced leaderboard standings.
The leaderboard archive will be available once the patch has been released.

Can you also shorten solaris to one month?

[Gojira Goth I-HOP Mecrenary]

Tina Benoit, on 15 October 2018 - 02:32 PM, said:

Additional note:
The Solaris Leaderboards will be pruned of players who did not complete the minimum of 25 matches and the rewards will be given out accordingly to the subsequent reduced leaderboard standings.
The leaderboard archive will be available once the patch has been released.

Everything in 15 pages that has been brought up and this is what PGI responds to? Solaris was and still is a dead game mode.

[Mechwarrior0216182]

UPnADAM, on 15 October 2018 - 02:50 PM, said:

Can you also shorten solaris to one month?

lol dont try to get a reply from tina, she might have community liason in her job description but she must be only employed part time 2 days a month for 1 hour because thats how often she does anything.

We've been asking in the solaris forum for months to be able to queue multiple divisions at once.... for them not to change rewards of a season late in the season when people have already committed time to get to the rank they want for the rewards they want...

To put Oce vs Eu matches on the N.A. server instead of whoever gets the home server having a 300 ms advantage...

To tell us which mechs are moving, not just give us the spreadsheet and expect us to do the work.....

Edited by HowToKillAGameLURMBUFFS, 15 October 2018 - 04:42 PM.

[AzureRathalos]

Sereglach, on 14 October 2018 - 07:30 PM, said:

Stealth Armor is going to become broken because mechs won't have the capacity to go without cooling long enough to be viable, and PGI knows it.

Throwing $0.02 in.

You do know how Stealth Armor heat works, right?

Stealth doesn't turn off heat dissipation while it is active. Instead, it applies a set amount of heat gain per second that works against the dissipation of the mech. If you happen to have the right build or quirks, you can make heat go down (albeit slowly) while Stealth is active.

If the heat dissipation of mechs are getting an overall increase (at the cost of significantly lowered heat capacity), it may actually be possible for more mechs to run Stealth Armor while keeping temperatures low.

Edit: Looks like I didn't know how Stealth Armor heat worked. Ignore what I said.

Edited by AzureRathalos, 18 October 2018 - 09:50 AM.

[Y E O N N E]

Sereglach, on 14 October 2018 - 08:19 PM, said:

I didn't say that 2.1 objectively met all of their design goals flawlessly. I only said that PTS 2.1 was met with objectively overwhelming positive feedback and it did fully cover all of the PTS objectives.

It objectively did not fully cover the objectives though.

Quote

It's worth noting that the hard caps of 40 and 45 heat, of PTS 2.0/2.1, did absolutely reduce maximum potential Alpha size before shutdown/overheat.

Sure, but this is a meme all by itself because of how meaningless it is. Nobody was using 108-point Gauss-vomit alphas because they were too hot to be anything other than gimmicky. AKA, the existing system was actually working as intended.

Quote

In fact the only real complaint in PTS 2.0 was that a lot of staple builds couldn't Alpha without shutdown. That's why they increased capacity to 45 heat in PTS 2.1, to accommodate those builds at least one non-shutdown Alpha from zero heat. As a side effect, increasing dissipation did increase the frequency of the "average" Alpha, but negative feedback towards that was minimal. Certainly some outlying weapons needed tuning; and it looks like PGI is going to do that tuning. However they should have stuck to tuning outlying weapons instead of retaining heatsink capacity.

I don't need the history lesson, I was a key participant. And when I say "average" frequency, I don't mean frequency of the average-sized alpha, I mean the average frequency with which alphas in general are fired, regardless of size. If it could be fired without shutting down, then the sustainable DPS you could project with it went up across the board.

Negative feedback was minimal because it still felt nice to play, which is great, but if at the end of the day you still have an imba game then the complains have merely been deferred.

Quote

Now, as for the gap between IS and Clan weapons in PTS 2.1, that was actually met in that PTS. Here's how: Clan weapons are -generally- hotter, while doing more damage. With both IS and Clans having the same heat cap, and retaining current Ghost Heat limits, Clans were more restricted in their alphas (biggest reason for the bump from 40 to 45 heat cap between PTS 2.0 and 2.1). Generally speaking both sides were limited to whatever Alpha could be pumped out for ~50 heat (after skill tree); and while Clans retained an edge there, it wasn't as lopsided as it is.

This is not correct. I was one of the main people doing the math in the feedback threads, along with Navid A1 and Rydiak, and the numbers we all showed did not at all support what you are saying. While some gimpy Clan 'Mechs that didn't need nerfing will indeed run hotter (i.e. energy Lights, certain Mediums), the bread and butter of Clan 'Mechs run so efficient in damage and dissipation that no IS 'Mech could keep up in terms of output at the same ranges, those ranges being beyond brawl range (MRMs technically could, but they are qualitatively not the same). A continuation of IS dominance in brawl and incompetence at range is not healthy.

What you did see was a proxy debate about whether or not the way Navid was emphasizing the importance of the first 20 seconds of combat was appropriate or not. If you think it is, then yes you might see this as a nerf. But if you don't - and I don't because laser vomit is not typically fired at its maximum rate by its very nature - then no, it's not a nerf but a buff since the sustainable rate increased. Regardless, the change is/was a wash at best, so you can't really say with a straight face that it hurt the builds it was aimed at.

Quote

However, the sustainability department was never a listed design objective, sadly. Clans could inherently pump out more DPS due to their ability to equip more heat sinks on most builds. That was a reason for one of the few desired changes, from the community, of PTS 2.1: give IS 2.2-2.3 dissipation and Clans 2.0 dissipation on their DHS, but I can't say that there was any overwhelming majority demanding that. Unfortunately, PGI just decided to give everyone 2.2 DHS dissipation and call it a day.

PGI was nebulous in how they defined reducing the gap between IS and Clan vomit. Alpha size was given, but not linked directly to that objective.

Whether or not the community was overwhelmingly demanding something doesn't have any bearing on its necessity.

Quote

On the other hand, this patch still gives enough capacity that the "average" Alpha is still going to be potentially a lot higher than it was in PTS 2.1 AND it's going to be able to be done even more often with DHS cooling at 2.2. Why PGI decided to go this route seems beyond comprehension given the results of PTS 2.1.

The alphas didn't change on PTS 2.1, though. The only build that was hurt was the 78-point HLL+cERML alpha, unable to fire all without shut-down. And everything else? Easy, they could get enough hard cap through the skill tree and DHS and enough soft cap through the sheer dissipation rate that they could still fire, and they cooled off so fast that the inability to fire on cooldown was irrelevant to the way lasers are played. Ironically, even the 94-point alpha could still be used on the DWF.

Quote

Regardless, even if you think that 2.1 didn't meet their PTS objectives, this patch does a significantly worse job of trying to achieve any of their design goals.

Disagree, but not because this patch is good but because PTS simply didn't accomplish anything. It felt nice to play, but by the numbers it was a failure. This patch is easily more effective at reducing the power of Clan laser alphas simply because it also introduces changes to the lasers themselves, like them or not.

Edited by Yeonne Greene, 15 October 2018 - 05:11 PM.

[Chris Lowrey]

AzureRathalos, on 15 October 2018 - 04:54 PM, said:

Throwing $0.02 in.

You do know how Stealth Armor heat works, right?

Stealth doesn't turn off heat dissipation while it is active. Instead, it applies a set amount of heat gain per second that works against the dissipation of the mech. If you happen to have the right build or quirks, you can make heat go down (albeit slowly) while Stealth is active.

If the heat dissipation of mechs are getting an overall increase (at the cost of significantly lowered heat capacity), it may actually be possible for more mechs to run Stealth Armor while keeping temperatures low.

What you are seeing in these cases is actually external heat sources.

Current implementation of Stealth armor does fully cut off your 'Mechs dissipation, with the exception of movement heat (otherwise you would shut yourself down just running around.) But past that, your 'Mech does not dissipate any heat. But your 'Mech can still accumulate / dissipate heat based on external sources within the environment so ambient temperature can potentially see a 'Mech cool or heat up depending on what map you drop on. Feel free to test this yourself in testing grounds. Cold maps like Frozen city will see your heat slowly dissipate, while on Terra Therma, you will slowly accumulate heat even if it is the same build.

This is not to say that this is going to remain it's implementation, only that this is how it currently opperates. As stated in the patch notes, we are well aware that the current tuning of Stealth Armor is tuned to the old system, not the incoming system, and we will be taking steps to ensure that it will work better within the new system.

[Sereglach]

AzureRathalos, on 15 October 2018 - 04:54 PM, said:

*snip*

Chris Lowrey, on 15 October 2018 - 05:54 PM, said:

*snip*

From a personal perspective the simplest solution, that already plays into systems already in place, is that active Stealth Armor applies a large cooling penalty to the mech in the form of -essentially- a negative cooling quirk. 0.5, 0.25, 0.3, or whatever value PGI thinks is a reasonable starting point. Make it big enough to ensure brawling is virtually impossible, and that snipe-poking can only be done in short bursts.

Yeonne Greene, on 15 October 2018 - 05:09 PM, said:

*snip*

Then we agree to disagree on it. For me to debate your points with what I've already stated is to turn this into a circle argument; and that's not productive for the thread, and a waste of my time. If you didn't like it, which apparently you didn't, then that puts you in the extreme minority.

Again, overwhelming sentiment and results was that the PTS was quite good and that it accomplished what PGI and the Community wanted. It wasn't flawless, and needed tuning, but it did accomplish the goals. Personally, I liked PTS 2.0 more than 2.1, and I think the lower heat cap did a better job, but that's just me.

As far as weapon changes go, the only one I really and truly care about is the Flamer, because it's my favorite weapon in Battletech, but right now we're walking into Flamergeddon 2.0. In regards to the other changes, I personally think anything that brings closer parity between Clan and IS equipment is a good change.

The premise of heat system in the patch is still movement in the right direction, even if I don't agree with their implementation and it's against the overwhelming majority consensus of the results of PTS 2.0/2.1. I'm not overly happy about PGI's decision on that side, but I can tolerate it. Again, my biggest gripes with the patch are the extremely crippling known issues that this patch is going to bring live, regardless of their existence. THAT is the part that I, personally, am disgusted by.

Edited by Sereglach, 15 October 2018 - 06:14 PM.

[PraetorGix]

I am in general agreeing with these changes, but why did you have to fu*k with clan lasers... again.
And Fafnir quirk reductions? Fafnir doesn't have quirks because clamz OP, it has quirks because its HORRIBLE hitboxes. It's barely usable, barely above meme build category, and you are going to make it less durable?
Sure, I'm positive all those HGauss Sleipnirs and LRM boats and MG Piranhas will respect the sanctity of Fafnirs and only let their laser vomit buddies confront them.

[Warning incoming Humble Dexterer]

Gojira1308, on 15 October 2018 - 04:36 PM, said:

Everything in 15 pages that has been brought up and this is what PGI responds to? Solaris was and still is a dead game mode.

In fact that's a huge positive change to the Solaris reward system... But it's a shame it was only mentioned now

[Mechwarrior0216182]

Humble Dexter, on 15 October 2018 - 07:53 PM, said:

In fact that's a huge positive change to the Solaris reward system... But it's a shame it was only mentioned now

Positive change if it was implemented at the start of a season.... Huge if at the start of s2... but what they have just done is an imbecilic tragedy.

Edited by HowToKillAGameLURMBUFFS, 15 October 2018 - 09:39 PM.

[D V Devnull]

PraetorGix, on 15 October 2018 - 07:11 PM, said:

I am in general agreeing with these changes, but why did you have to fu*k with clan lasers... again.
And Fafnir quirk reductions? Fafnir doesn't have quirks because clamz OP, it has quirks because its HORRIBLE hitboxes. It's barely usable, barely above meme build category, and you are going to make it less durable?
Sure, I'm positive all those HGauss Sleipnirs and LRM boats and MG Piranhas will respect the sanctity of Fafnirs and only let their laser vomit buddies confront them.

Yep... PGI's Game Balance Team has absolutely no idea about the scaled impact of...

• removing certain Armor/Structure Quirks on some of these Inner Sphere Chassis, and how it would result in the unwanted lowering of Time-To-Kill, as well as the failure to actually have a reasonable positive impact on MWO's Game Balance
  
• lowering Clan Damage when their PTS Players specifically told them to leave those alone, which makes Clan Mechs far too much into Worthless Paper
  
• increasing Weapon Heat Gen when their PTS Players also said to not raise it
  
• their (as in, PGI's personal own) failure to flatly increase the Baseline Armor/Structure of ALL Mechs, which would obviously come with increasing the Allowed Mission Time... but, that's something everyone could have lived with in order to enjoy MWO better
  
• how the above item about Baseline Armor/Structure & Mission Time could have FINALLY allowed for Lance-by-Lance Combat, which is something I know PGI has been trying to get to happen for an endless amount of time
  
• their (again as in, PGI's personal own) failure in regard to reconfiguring Ghost Heat Penalty Links, and how it could have totally ended the Massive Alpha Strikes that everyone is complaining about... particularly from combinations of ACs/UACs/LB-Xs/Gauss/PPCs/Lasers happening together at Mid-to-Long Ranges
  
• how not re-expanding the Initial Locking Angle even so much as 10% is rendering Locking Missile Weapons into a Junk-Type State to many in their Player Base... I've actually had to put up with having my ear ranted at IRL, as well as the trouble it is physically causing to my wrists... Streaks just don't work right anymore with Light Mechs at point-blank in the face, even with an Active Probe + TAG Combo... there needs to be an allowed drift in angle

...and further upon that, how their current actions come nowhere close to really completing that desire/want/need of their Community. Frankly, PraetorGix, it has become laughable how PGI's Staff silently refused to run an "Alpha Balance PTS 3.0" with these changes first in order to see how it would work out, before dumping it into the Live Game. Then PGI...

• stacks on their "List of Known Bugs and Flaws", things that should have definitely been handled before the Monthly Update Patch ever came out the door
  
• fails to fix an Out-Of-Bounds on one of the Maps (https://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/269167-bug-caustic-valley-premature-out-of-bounds-condition-c2-through-f2/), or at least indicate that a fix has been loaded if they actually did create one, even though this Issue can be potentially game-breaking
  
• does NOT handle the Website-To-Game Issue regarding Event Reward Injections, where it should be providing an Injection Notification Dialog after you click those nifty and helpful Redeem Buttons in your browser
  
• leaves people (thankfully NOT including me at this time) to have their Game Clients crash at random, but seemingly particularly linked to Groups and Mission Launches
  
• causes people with the above item to question if the Next Monthly Update Patch will end up leaving their MWO Install in a permanent state of damage

...and then one can/could/would start to wonder if PGI is trying to shake off some people from playing MWO forever. Let's hope that a lot of people regain their Game Client Stability after the Next Monthly Update Patch lands, or there's going to be an unlimited well of anger from the Player Base. May we also hope that things in-game turn out looking a lot better than people (myself included here) are foreseeing, or that will also result in unlimited caustic-grade anger too. That's something I don't look forward to.

~Mr. D. V. "finally read through the thread, and now I'm tracking it too" Devnull





(p.s.: PGI also needs to re-implement easier access to one's involved conversations, just like any other Invision Power Boards Forum happens to have. Trying to keep up on a Forum Conversation which one is involved in can currently be quite the pain!)

[Moldur]

Can you fix the bug where you took a criminally disgusting dump on clan pulse lasers in order to make heavy lasers relevant but instead just made both of them suck?

[Peter2k]

D V Devnull, on 15 October 2018 - 11:20 PM, said:

Snip

I would've found it interesting to test out a PTS where the base armor and/or structure is doubled again and to see how it plays out

PGI wants to increase ttk, would've seemed obvious to me to at least give it a try, can't be that difficult to set up.

Edited by Peter2k, 16 October 2018 - 12:19 AM.

[Bishop Six]

Moldur, on 15 October 2018 - 11:46 PM, said:

Can you fix the bug where you took a criminally disgusting dump on clan pulse lasers in order to make heavy lasers relevant but instead just made both of them suck?

Lets make a bet:

We'll make a duel and i only will take this "sucking" weapons.

Only because a weapon do less damage than before it doesn't mean it isn't viable anymore.

Kill2Blit, on 15 October 2018 - 06:56 AM, said:

If you mean the requirement to have 10 heat sinks minimum, that's not going away. Uniform heat sink behavior will make lights no longer need dissipation quirks though. Some people have mentioned clan nerfs but the only questionable one is the med pulse, which has no need for further nerfs. The other anger on the thread is towards the heat changes, not because theyre nerfs (theyre not), but because theyre not what people loved from PTS 2.1. This mega dissipation and heat sinks still adding to the heat cap is far too generous a buff, plus the fact that there are major known bugs that are being pushed to live without first being fixed. This game is six years old and no longer in beta, major bugs that are documented shouldn't be released like this. And PTS 2.1 was the most well-received update to MWO in years, and then it was thrown out in favor of this patch. That's where the salt is coming from.

Well ok, then i understood this wrong. Sad, would be cool without this penalty. Still my other points are standing where i critizise "Muh-Clanners-are-nerfed"-Dudes.

And i fully understand the salt coming from bugs and unfinished parts of the game. I am waiting for FP improvments for myself.

Still this is no reason for this lynch mob, especially if the majority of points are untrue. Worse than that, people even don't control their opinion by facts, they just start autistic screeching.

That must be the new generation of kids... i saw this on TV... (<- cynical laughter)

[Cyrilis]

Tina Benoit, on 15 October 2018 - 02:32 PM, said:

Additional note:
The Solaris Leaderboards will be pruned of players who did not complete the minimum of 25 matches and the rewards will be given out accordingly to the subsequent reduced leaderboard standings.
The leaderboard archive will be available once the patch has been released.

I see the reason why. But this should have been announced at the BEGINNING of a season, not 36 hours before it ends!
I think that's a pretty arbitrary call with that short notice. Revert that please and set in effect at the beginning of next season!

Edited by Cyrilis, 16 October 2018 - 03:38 AM.

[Daurock]

Yeonne Greene, on 15 October 2018 - 05:09 PM, said:

Disagree, but not because this patch is good but because PTS simply didn't accomplish anything. It felt nice to play, but by the numbers it was a failure. This patch is easily more effective at reducing the power of Clan laser alphas simply because it also introduces changes to the lasers themselves, like them or not.

I still find myself chuckling about that. If the stated goal is to reduce the alphas of clan laserVomit , the best way to attack it was... to reduce laserVomit alphas. It's a big circle from 1.0, to walking around the bushes in 1.1, 2.0, and 2.1, and back to a simple laser reduction. I find that amusing.

Still, I guess those other 3 test servers were at least useful. A lot of people found that a higher Dissipation, smaller Cap model was actually enjoyable to play, so they're moving in that direction. The salt I see here surprises me a bit from that, actually. That basic model was pretty well recieved, and the patch absolutely moves in that direction. I would posit that many people are mistaking the global change to be the balance change, which is missing the forest for the trees, IMO.

Edited by Daurock, 16 October 2018 - 05:20 AM.

[Cypherdrene]

D V Devnull, on 15 October 2018 - 11:20 PM, said:

Yep... PGI's Game Balance Team has absolutely no idea about the scaled impact of...

• removing certain Armor/Structure Quirks on some of these Inner Sphere Chassis, and how it would result in the unwanted lowering of Time-To-Kill, as well as the failure to actually have a reasonable positive impact on MWO's Game Balance
  
• lowering Clan Damage when their PTS Players specifically told them to leave those alone, which makes Clan Mechs far too much into Worthless Paper
  
• increasing Weapon Heat Gen when their PTS Players also said to not raise it
  
• their (as in, PGI's personal own) failure to flatly increase the Baseline Armor/Structure of ALL Mechs, which would obviously come with increasing the Allowed Mission Time... but, that's something everyone could have lived with in order to enjoy MWO better
  
• how the above item about Baseline Armor/Structure & Mission Time could have FINALLY allowed for Lance-by-Lance Combat, which is something I know PGI has been trying to get to happen for an endless amount of time
  
• their (again as in, PGI's personal own) failure in regard to reconfiguring Ghost Heat Penalty Links, and how it could have totally ended the Massive Alpha Strikes that everyone is complaining about... particularly from combinations of ACs/UACs/LB-Xs/Gauss/PPCs/Lasers happening together at Mid-to-Long Ranges
  
• how not re-expanding the Initial Locking Angle even so much as 10% is rendering Locking Missile Weapons into a Junk-Type State to many in their Player Base... I've actually had to put up with having my ear ranted at IRL, as well as the trouble it is physically causing to my wrists... Streaks just don't work right anymore with Light Mechs at point-blank in the face, even with an Active Probe + TAG Combo... there needs to be an allowed drift in angle

...and further upon that, how their current actions come nowhere close to really completing that desire/want/need of their Community. Frankly, PraetorGix, it has become laughable how PGI's Staff silently refused to run an "Alpha Balance PTS 3.0" with these changes first in order to see how it would work out, before dumping it into the Live Game. Then PGI...

• stacks on their "List of Known Bugs and Flaws", things that should have definitely been handled before the Monthly Update Patch ever came out the door
  
• fails to fix an Out-Of-Bounds on one of the Maps (https://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/269167-bug-caustic-valley-premature-out-of-bounds-condition-c2-through-f2/), or at least indicate that a fix has been loaded if they actually did create one, even though this Issue can be potentially game-breaking
  
• does NOT handle the Website-To-Game Issue regarding Event Reward Injections, where it should be providing an Injection Notification Dialog after you click those nifty and helpful Redeem Buttons in your browser
  
• leaves people (thankfully NOT including me at this time) to have their Game Clients crash at random, but seemingly particularly linked to Groups and Mission Launches
  
• causes people with the above item to question if the Next Monthly Update Patch will end up leaving their MWO Install in a permanent state of damage

...and then one can/could/would start to wonder if PGI is trying to shake off some people from playing MWO forever. Let's hope that a lot of people regain their Game Client Stability after the Next Monthly Update Patch lands, or there's going to be an unlimited well of anger from the Player Base. May we also hope that things in-game turn out looking a lot better than people (myself included here) are foreseeing, or that will also result in unlimited caustic-grade anger too. That's something I don't look forward to.

QFT!

[BMKA]

Thanks, Chris :/

[Alan Hicks]

Patch day !

Time for the game to be ruined even further...

Too bad the Champion mech had to be delivered with these "constructive alterations".


Drain every drop of fun out of MWO, that must be one of their main goals.