95 replies to this topic

[Weeny Machine]

Wasn't the patch supposed to curb high alphas?

I can only speak of my builds but I still can fire the mechs with a super high alpha loadout as before. Before I wasn't able to alpha 2 times without cooling down. The only change is: I can now fire sooner another big alpha than before.

So, in my book this was a buff to laser builds and alpha strikers, not a nerf.

What are your thoughts?

[Luminis]

The patch severly reduced the biggest drawback Laser Vomit had while barely reducing the upfront damage. So yeah, definitely a net buff.

[Peter2k]

Well frankly depends on what PGI wanted to achieve.

I have to yet test it out (keyboard died, getting a new one) but I'm sure it's fun with better heat dissipation.

But if PGI wanted to increase TTK then that's probably a fail.
The most extreme outliers in alpha damage are probably hit, but aside form that, everyone else can pump out more damage continuously.

Edited by Peter2k, 17 October 2018 - 10:15 AM.

[Shanrak]

The highest alphas were reduced by 4-5 points overall, but DPS now has gone through the roof.

[Felbombling]

I balance Mech builds by running a circuit on Crimson Strait. I set my Mechs up so that they can kill off seven Mechs with the aid of one cool-shot and one arty strike in or around three minutes, with ammo to spare. It works out pretty well as a balancing aid, allowing me to shave ammo and/or heat sinks in an effort to fine-tune a Mech build, and the end result is that, during actual live combat, I rarely run out of ammo or find myself in chained shut-down situations when pressed.

At any rate, after the patch, similar test runs have found that Mechs die slightly faster and that the cool-shots are needless. The times posted are basically tied directly to the ground speed of a Mech [Assaults are slooooow], so I might just keep the load-outs as is and enjoy the added efficiency on hot maps, or possibly dump a few heat-sinks for added armour or an extra laser where possible.

My guess is that TTK will be shorter, which isn't exactly the move I was expecting PGI to go with. I think Russ has stated publicly that TTK was too short, so this is rather kooky.

[JediPanther]

not much you can expect when changes are usually along the lines of .14 reduced to .13 etc. .01 change is massive in pgi's book. after all they have to waste all that time and effort just typing up and posting that patch notes much less play their own game. I'm sure russ has mw5 just fine. in 90 days or soon.

Pgi might have switched from a dart board to a yo-yo. .13 reduction here .15 addition there and now a .01 reduction about here.

[Gloris]

Yeah same for me, my high heat builds can still full Alphastrike (like my 2LL 6ML Hunchback IIC) , but now they cool down much faster giving me almost the same alpha damage with improved dps.

Same for basically every other build i have that relies on Lasers, all of them now do way more dps and the reduced heatcap basically does not matter.

Pgi you did it again, you wanted to nerf something but buffed it!

[Nightbird]

Patch has so many obvious unintended consequences that the amount of time wasted for all the PTS sessions is appalling.

[Marquis De Lafayette]

I will leave the math to the math wizards amongst us, but anecdotely the only thing that feels worse is IS Erlarge boats like the 5 Erlarge Grasshopper. Which is a bad thing....Clan High-Alpha Laser vomit feels a bit different, but with the massive dissipation buff it feels overall better and I can do some things I couldn’t before. From a heat standpoint cerlarge feels great and cmpls boats feel amazing. So, good thing PGI took away those defensive buffs on popular Is Assaults....smh

IS mpls brawlers like the top dog also feel great and so do many brawlers on both the IS and Clan side..but if they wanted to encourage different Clan mech playstyles this didn’t do it. High alpha lives and seems like it’s better than ever!

[process]

PGI went too far with both dissipation and capacity. I didn't get a chance to play PTS 2.1, but I felt that PTS 2.0 was a good balance between the two variables. Even fully skilled, you could just barely alpha 2 HLL 4 cERML on a cold map.

The theoretical maximum heat capacity should really be between 40 and 50, inclusive of skills. Anything north of 50 enables and improves many of the builds, with the exception of Gauss combos, that this patch was supposed to tone down.

[Daurock]

A couple of observations -

As best I can tell, the Global heat change was NOT intended to be the change for Clan Alphas. The global sink change was borne out of 2.0 and 2.1, where people found that a lower heatcap, with a higher dissipation was fun for most people, even though Neither of those test servers did a great job of limiting Alpha. For example, even in PTS 2.0, with a locked 40 cap, you could alpha for 57 in a GaussVomit Huntsman, 60-65 ish in a GaussPulse Jag, and 72 in a MadCat2. Keep in mind that at 40 Cap, they also started encountering mech builds that completely got shafted, and weren't laser builds at all. The quad ERPPC warhawk, for example, literally didn't work under the 40 Cap, which was a major, unintended drawback of the dramatically lower cap found in 2.0. The bottom line became, so long as a clan mech could mount and fire 6 ERMeds, they could tack a gauss rifle or two onto it, and attain very high alphas, regardless of how low you made the cap.

Still, despite not really having much effect on attainable alphas, enough people enjoyed the increased dissipation that the devs decided to simply put it in, and instead of making the heat cap a drawback, increasing it so that it was a near-global buff.

Not exactly the path i would have taken, but at least it does make things more comfortable for just about every mech out there. My SplatCatMk2 also feels MUCH cooler under the changes, and got far more deadly, and it doesn't even have a single laser on it. They got buffed pretty substantially too.

The real (If small) change they DID make regarding high alphas was the nerf on Clan Er-Meds, and HLLs. That, as of right now, was the only nerf to Clan Vomit applied. Whether that was strong enough nerf is obviously up for debate (and I would argue, probably didn't go far enough for the ERML) One small thing to keep in mind that clan mechs that use the Nerfed lasers also took about a 10% efficiency hit, (I.E. they generate just as much heat, for less damage) so while it's certainly true that they made a huge amount of hay from the sink changes, they also are running about 10% hotter for the same damage as before, somewhat attenuating the global buff.

[Khobai]

process, on 17 October 2018 - 06:06 AM, said:

The theoretical maximum heat capacity should really be between 40 and 50, inclusive of skills. Anything north of 50 enables and improves many of the builds, with the exception of Gauss combos, that this patch was supposed to tone down.

we tried 40-50 heat cap and it was absolutely terrible. even PGI admitted that it killed off too much variety and pigeonholed players into only using certain builds. which is specifically why they didnt implement it, and why it should NEVER be implemented.

what PGI needed to do was go further with the damage nerfs on CERML. 7 damage->6.5 damage was barely noticeable. They shouldve lowered it to at least 6 damage. that wouldve had a much more noticeable impact on laser vomit alphas.

PGI also needed to buff ISDHS, because they take up more crit slots than CDHS, so they should be better than CDHS. The game will never be balanced as long as clans have better firepower throughput than IS due to being able to carry more weapons and dissipating heat faster.

Edited by Khobai, 17 October 2018 - 07:36 AM.

[Weeny Machine]

Daurock, on 17 October 2018 - 07:00 AM, said:

A couple of observations -

As best I can tell, the Global heat change was NOT intended to be the change for Clan Alphas. The global sink change was borne out of 2.0 and 2.1, where people found that a lower heatcap, with a higher dissipation was fun for most people, /snip

Well, it is fun (at least for me). The problem is, as said above, that the high alphas aren't touched by the changes.

[Vxheous]

Bush Hopper, on 17 October 2018 - 07:28 AM, said:

Well, it is fun (at least for me). The problem is, as said above, that the high alphas aren't touched by the changes.

PGI wanted to kill the 94-108 alpha boogeyman....they achieved that goal. Clan alphas that relied on 2xHLL are now 6-8 pts lower than before. The goal wasn't to kill alpha peek/poke playstyle, it was to curb the extreme high alpha.

[Eisenhorne]

Vxheous, on 17 October 2018 - 08:09 AM, said:

PGI wanted to kill the 94-108 alpha boogeyman....they achieved that goal. Clan alphas that relied on 2xHLL are now 6-8 pts lower than before. The goal wasn't to kill alpha peek/poke playstyle, it was to curb the extreme high alpha.

True, but it was still a dumb goal in the first place, as no mech actually hit that 94-108 alpha without being so hot it was useless....

[Shanrak]

TTK seems to be way down now, average match time is 5 minutes or less. Not saying that's bad or anything, I'm enjoying this patch a lot.

I suspect the next step is another damage nerf to bring TTK back up a little.

[process]

Khobai, on 17 October 2018 - 07:28 AM, said:

we tried 40-50 heat cap and it was absolutely terrible. even PGI admitted that it killed off too much variety and pigeonholed players into only using certain builds. which is specifically why they didnt implement it, and why it should NEVER be implemented.

What sort of variety are we talking about? Excluding ghost heat effects, the only builds affected by a lower heat cap are high alpha energy builds. Generally just alphas. Ghost heat itself is partially a response to the conditions enabled by high heat capacity.

Khobai, on 17 October 2018 - 07:28 AM, said:

what PGI needed to do was go further with the damage nerfs on CERML. 7 damage->6.5 damage was barely noticeable. They shouldve lowered it to at least 6 damage. that wouldve had a much more noticeable impact on laser vomit alphas.

I don't necessarily disagree with you here, but the risk of tweaking individual weapon stats against an entire heat system is that it can quickly swing them from really good to really bad when compounded.

A clan light with 4 erML losing 4 points of damage is more greatly impacted than an assault with 6 erML and 2 LPL losing 6 damage. Better to lower the capacity so that light is unaffected, especially since they'll tend to carry fewer heatsinks and benefit less from the current dissipation rates. The assault is in a much better position to work around a damage nerf.

[Shanrak]

process, on 17 October 2018 - 08:18 AM, said:

What sort of variety are we talking about? Excluding ghost heat effects, the only builds affected by a lower heat cap are high alpha energy builds. Generally just alphas. Ghost heat itself is partially a response to the conditions enabled by high heat capacity.

ERPPC warhawk for one. Impossible to do a 2 by 2 shot anymore with heat cap at 40.

[Spheroid]

It was a brazenly stupid method to address a supposed problem. As mentioned by others the unintended consequences of this patch will be vast.

Why didn't they make small and simple tweaks to linked ghost heat combinations? That would have addressed the problem alphas without the collateral damage.

[Spheroid]

Shanrak, on 17 October 2018 - 08:28 AM, said:

ERPPC warhawk for one. Impossible to do a 2 by 2 shot anymore with heat cap at 40.

Yes it can. You must have been standing in lava or built your Warhawk incorrectly. 2x2 is very possible.