65 replies to this topic

[Dimento Graven]

Y E O N N E, on 15 January 2019 - 08:07 PM, said:

I don't agree it's a good thing for the game. The LFE and cXL should've been the baseline as they were, and they should've done something to the other two engine types to make them more attractive. That being said, I don't necessarily think the other types needed something, anyway; big 'Mechs made plenty of use of STD engines to fit some of the most powerful builds in the game and Lights did the same with XL.

Really only for assaults and a few heavies where loading up AC20's or HG's in the side torsos is your aim, OR, for those RARE times where you're trying to add the ability to zombie...

That's a rather limited 'mech pool, and even then you're typically (not always) trading F tons of speed to do it.

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There is zero merit to trying to make all three engines an equal choice for every weight class, because the absolute limits which exist on speed, size, and available tonnage make such an effort futile.

No one is saying make them equal for all classes, but to add desirability for a broader range of builds, yes, absolutely.

[Y E O N N E]

Dimento Graven, on 15 January 2019 - 08:22 PM, said:

Really only for assaults and a few heavies where loading up AC20's or HG's in the side torsos is your aim, OR, for those RARE times where you're trying to add the ability to zombie...

That's a rather limited 'mech pool, and even then you're typically (not always) trading F tons of speed to do it.

It's not that limited though. 'Mechs from 55 tons to 100 can all run Heavy Gauss effectively. If you can run a Heavy Gauss, you can certainly run an LB-20X or an AC/20. You need that STD to run combinations of 10 and 5 ACs in the torso, and there are a lot of 'Mechs which can do that well from 65 to 100 tons. You often need a STD to fit lots of LRMs and still have slots enough for ammo.

HGauss and big dakka tend to be pretty damn strong in the current game environment.

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No one is saying make them equal for all classes, but to add desirability for a broader range of builds, yes, absolutely.

It's not the engine that chooses the build, though, it's the build that chooses the engine. As long as XLs kill you and don't have some sort of direct mitigation (i.e. extra hitpoints to STs), you will not be encouraged to take them on your 'Mechs that are inherently big and slow regardless of the firepower. As long as there are no tiny quarter and half-ton weapons with gigantic returns on damage, you will not take STDs on your Lights or most Mediums.

By gimping LFE and cXL, though, what you have accomplished is gimping the classes that most rely on having access to those engines which split the difference. That's all the stuff in the middle.

[Dimento Graven]

Y E O N N E, on 15 January 2019 - 09:18 PM, said:

It's not that limited though. 'Mechs from 55 tons to 100 can all run Heavy Gauss effectively. If you can run a Heavy Gauss, you can certainly run an LB-20X or an AC/20. You need that STD to run combinations of 10 and 5 ACs in the torso, and there are a lot of 'Mechs which can do that well from 65 to 100 tons. You often need a STD to fit lots of LRMs and still have slots enough for ammo.

HGauss and big dakka tend to be pretty damn strong in the current game environment.

HG is only for 'mechs with ballistics in the ST's, no 'mech I can recall can load HG's in the arms. So for that, that's a limited pool in the 55 to 100 range. If you want HG's YOU HAVE to run SE's, and that would be the only reason to run an SE before, and even then the ST loss advantage of SE's was EXTREMELY minimal BECAUSE of the near free ride LFE and cXL's got on ST loss.

Even smaller pool of 'mechs usable CT/head weapon mounts.

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It's not the engine that chooses the build, though, it's the build that chooses the engine. As long as XLs kill you and don't have some sort of direct mitigation (i.e. extra hitpoints to STs), you will not be encouraged to take them on your 'Mechs that are inherently big and slow regardless of the firepower. As long as there are no tiny quarter and half-ton weapons with gigantic returns on damage, you will not take STDs on your Lights or most Mediums.

Yes and no for the IS side of things. It's long been forced to compromise on alpha-speed-survivability triangle due to the lack of engine options (before the LFE) and their typically larger, heavier equipment.

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By gimping LFE and cXL, though, what you have accomplished is gimping the classes that most rely on having access to those engines which split the difference. That's all the stuff in the middle.

Those engines, especially the cXL were OP, especially when you consider the cumulative effect of all the other Clan benefits. NOW, the engines are more in line with each other. You can fix it with POWER CREEP, by somehow buffing SE's, OR, you can bring down the others, slightly.

I think PGI made a good choice in this instance.

[Y E O N N E]

Dimento Graven, on 15 January 2019 - 09:32 PM, said:

HG is only for 'mechs with ballistics in the ST's, no 'mech I can recall can load HG's in the arms. So for that, that's a limited pool in the 55 to 100 range. If you want HG's YOU HAVE to run SE's, and that would be the only reason to run an SE before, and even then the ST loss advantage of SE's was EXTREMELY minimal BECAUSE of the near free ride LFE and cXL's got on ST loss.

Even smaller pool of 'mechs usable CT/head weapon mounts.

It wasn't a near free ride, though. You already lost cap, dissipation, and speed as well has half of your weapons. Why do we need to pile yet another punishment on top of that, especially one that can result in the immediate death of the player and thereby render it little better than an XL?

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Yes and no for the IS side of things. It's long been forced to compromise on alpha-speed-survivability triangle due to the lack of engine options (before the LFE) and their typically larger, heavier equipment.

Sloppy as the balancing methods may be, the IS were and are doing fine in spite of having to more tightly manage that triangle.

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Those engines, especially the cXL were OP, especially when you consider the cumulative effect of all the other Clan benefits. NOW, the engines are more in line with each other. You can fix it with POWER CREEP, by somehow buffing SE's, OR, you can bring down the others, slightly.

It's not a change that rewards playing well, is the problem. A change that, for example, added twist speed and structure for IS XLs would not really change much...unless the player was good at torso-twisting. Now he can last longer. A change that adds heat capacity for STD engines isn't going to do much, either, unless the player knows how to build his 'Mech to actually use that.

But a heat-spike on ST-loss directly punishes you for doing the thing this game is built around: doing damage. You can't possibly know when you will lose that ST every time, and random events are not fun. Being punished again while already down in so many other ways is not fun.

[Dimento Graven]

Y E O N N E, on 15 January 2019 - 09:46 PM, said:

It wasn't a near free ride, though. You already lost cap, dissipation, and speed as well has half of your weapons. Why do we need to pile yet another punishment on top of that, especially one that can result in the immediate death of the player and thereby render it little better than an XL?

It's a major difference when you're talking about isXL, and as far as isSE, the Clan XL was WAY to superior in this game (again, quantifying it with all the OTHER Clan advantages), it was over due for a nerf. ESPECIALLY considering that even in the previous state, with the speed reductions and BOTTOM END capacity loss, a lot of clan 'mechs were still upwards of 80% battle viable after ST loss.

As far as the LFE is concerned, it just got caught in the mix, but that's ok.

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Sloppy as the balancing methods may be, the IS were and are doing fine in spite of having to more tightly manage that triangle.

I'm sure from the Clan, "the only real balance is if EVERY THING CLAN is better than IS", yeah that's true. But for a few outliers in the IS deck, Clan 'mechs were far superior.

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It's not a change that rewards playing well, is the problem. A change that, for example, added twist speed and structure for IS XLs would not really change much...unless the player was good at torso-twisting. Now he can last longer. A change that adds heat capacity for STD engines isn't going to do much, either, unless the player knows how to build his 'Mech to actually use that.

Those changes had been suggested for years and the Clan centric players fought tooth and nail to keep it from happening.

This is the compromise we got intead.

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But a heat-spike on ST-loss directly punishes you for doing the thing this game is built around: doing damage. You can't possibly know when you will lose that ST every time, and random events are not fun. Being punished again while already down in so many other ways is not fun.

See, that one dimensional perspective is your problem. The game is about playing in a skilled fashion, not the "LET'S VOMIT ALL OUR WEAPONS ALL THE TIME" that the masses have lazily let it degenerate to. It shouldn't be about how much you can spray-and-pray on your enemy before he does to you, it's supposed to be about intelligent placement of your 'mech, intelligent piloting of your 'mech, and intelligent shooting of your 'mech's weapons.

It's not supposed to be Robot-COD/Robot-Quake/Robot-Team Fortress/et al...

So a game where your build matters, how you play it matters, how effectively you manage your positioning, heat, and damage, having multiple interactions and multiple consequences makes it interesting, and that's fun!

I wouldn't be playing it after 8 years if that's all it was... Would you?

Edited by Dimento Graven, 15 January 2019 - 10:10 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

Dimento Graven, on 15 January 2019 - 10:08 PM, said:

It's a major difference when you're talking about isXL, and as far as isSE, the Clan XL was WAY to superior in this game (again, quantifying it with all the OTHER Clan advantages), it was over due for a nerf. ESPECIALLY considering that even in the previous state, with the speed reductions and BOTTOM END capacity loss, a lot of clan 'mechs were still upwards of 80% battle viable after ST loss.

I can't think of any Clan 'Mechs that were so strong that they needed to be hit by this change, and the only one that comes to mind as maybe needing it (at a stretch, the MCII- is actually not impacted by it anyway because it runs so cold.

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As far as the LFE is concerned, it just got caught in the mix, but that's ok.

Gimpy Clan Omnis also got caught in the crossfire.

Catching things in the crossfire is signature of MWO's continual failure to get things right.

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I'm sure from the Clan, "the only real balance is if EVERY THING CLAN is better than IS", yeah that's true. But for a few outliers in the IS deck, Clan 'mechs were far superior.

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For the record, I am not a Clanner. I'm not a loyalist for anything.

Also, it's not a few outliers. Most IS 'Mechs that aren't underweight for their hardpoint types or undergunned for their weight are quite competent in combat with the Clans, especially in a group. Even if that means just vomiting a bunch of MRMs on the target. Almost every chassis has a competent variant.

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Those changes had been suggested for years and the Clan centric players fought tooth and nail to keep it from happening.

This is the compromise we got intead.

No, PGI never entertained the idea because it's a lot more complicated in every way. There are apparently only three engine types in this game: cXL, isXL, and STD. According to Chris, the LFE is apparently bound in some way to the cXL code, so you can't do anything mechanically to the cXL that won't also change the LFE. For the others, PGI just generally doesn't want to touch code; this LRM change is actually a big deal because it's the first indication that they've made some major mechanical change to an existing feature in a long time. Even most of the Civil War items are just copy-paste+XML tweaks of existing stuff.

This compromise, though, is just punishing high-heat, trade-oriented builds in a game environment that already heavily skews in favor of low-heat, push-oriented DPS builds.

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See, that one dimensional perspective is your problem. The game is about playing in a skilled fashion, not the "LET'S VOMIT ALL OUR WEAPONS ALL THE TIME" that the masses have lazily let it degenerate to. It shouldn't be about how much you can spray-and-pray on your enemy before he does to you, it's supposed to be about intelligent placement of your 'mech, intelligent piloting of your 'mech, and intelligent shooting of your 'mech's weapons.

It's not supposed to be Robot-COD/Robot-Quake/Robot-Team Fortress/et al...

You are falling into MechDad thought patterns, here.

The intelligent thing to do is to wait until you can fire all of your weapons so you can do the most damage in the least amount of time. The only reason you should fire a partial salvo is if there is an immediate, overriding tactical advantage to doing so (i.e. you are going to make a kill, remove a component, discourage the enemy from moving, bait a torso twist, etc.).

Proper heat management is riding your heat curve to maximize your output without toasting yourself. That's math. If you are not near 100% all the time, you are either playing something that can't generate appreciable heat or you are not shooting enough. You are leaving damage potential on the table, having both your armor and your firepower absent from the fight, and that is playing badly. Even without the spike, taking the ST already means that your output is reduced because you have a lower cap to ride and a lower dissipation to ride it with, to say nothing of the fact that you probably lost some non-engine sinks and some weapons, too, and will have more trouble getting out of the way. You are already gimped. With the spike, you are effectively telling players that they should aim to never be over 85% heat which is...counterintuitive. Heat is a resource to be used, that's the whole point. Placing a soft cap on it doesn't make any sense, especially when cold builds like HGauss, RACs, ATMs, MGs, MRMs, and LB-X are out-performing hot weapons already.

If you are going to get shut down and killed for doing your damage, you are just going to take an XL and do the damage...but only on 'Mechs which could already do just fine with an isXL. Hooray, much added variety. Very depth. Clan 'Mechs will not be switching to STD engines because they've thus far been balanced around cXL engine weight savings and taking a STD means they leave too much on the table.

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So a game where your build matters, how you play it matters, how effectively you manage your positioning, heat, and damage, having multiple interactions and multiple consequences makes it interesting, and that's fun!

I wouldn't be playing it after 8 years if that's all it was... Would you?

Has this game even been playable for 8 years? I thought it was 7, at the longest.

And the spike not being a thing did not result in those things being trivial. They mattered before the spike just as much.