400 replies to this topic

[Darion Rothgarr]

Didn't they propose removing the HSL Penalty for LPPC in their proposal?

[LordNothing]

kapusta11, on 19 March 2021 - 04:19 AM, said:

So how's your spreadsheet better than that of PGI?

Right off the bat:
- Clan MPL range nerfed massively? Any reason why? Are they that oppressive?
- Clan Heavy large buffed across the board. More damage, less duration. I mean I don't mind, if people want the return of gauss vomit, sure, whatever. cER meds and Gauss buffed too so I see where this is going.
- PPC ghost limit increased to 3. I prefer PGI's approach of giving them better punch per ton and be meaningfully different from other weapons as opposed to, what it looks like a design approach of this whole spreadsheet of "this weapon generates 1 more heat and that weapon deals 1 more damage and this one has 0.5 sec longer cooldown but they all do more or less the same thing and in the end it doesn't matter because GAUSS VOMIT IS BACK BIТCH".
- Rotary AC5s nerfed? Lol, I guess RAC5 meta was a thing.
- IS Medium laser heat decreased by 4.42%. Nice meme.

Unfortunately it seems the goal of helping underperforming weapons fell prey to buffing author's prefered play style and ultimately failing to address the core issue of certain weapons not having a niche to fill because it's already filled by a weapon with better stats and no amount of number juggling is going to fix that.

the good thing about the test is we can see how good or bad it would be. anything else is speculation until it sees testing.

now i got to find drive space to put the pts client. *deletes mw5*

Edited by LordNothing, 19 March 2021 - 05:06 AM.

[LordNothing]

Navid A1, on 19 March 2021 - 01:03 AM, said:

Added an easier to read full list of changes to the first post

oh good, those spreadsheets looked atrocious. lots of color codes and no legend. #divzero everywhere. really hard to read.

[Krasnopesky]

kapusta11, on 19 March 2021 - 04:19 AM, said:

So how's your spreadsheet better than that of PGI?

Right off the bat:
- Clan MPL range nerfed massively? Any reason why? Are they that oppressive?
- Clan Heavy large buffed across the board. More damage, less duration. I mean I don't mind, if people want the return of gauss vomit, sure, whatever. cER meds and Gauss buffed too so I see where this is going.
- PPC ghost limit increased to 3. I prefer PGI's approach of giving them better punch per ton and be meaningfully different from other weapons as opposed to, what it looks like a design approach of this whole spreadsheet of "this weapon generates 1 more heat and that weapon deals 1 more damage and this one has 0.5 sec longer cooldown but they all do more or less the same thing and in the end it doesn't matter because GAUSS VOMIT IS BACK BIТCH".
- Rotary AC5s nerfed? Lol, I guess RAC5 meta was a thing.
- IS Medium laser heat decreased by 4.42%. Nice meme.

Unfortunately it seems the goal of helping underperforming weapons fell prey to buffing author's prefered play style and ultimately failing to address the core issue of certain weapons not having a niche to fill because it's already filled by a weapon with better stats and no amount of number juggling is going to fix that.

Well PGI came to us for help and offered us a PTS, so presumably our spreadsheet was impressive enough for them.

Clan MPLs will end up better than they currently are. The optimum range has been decreased, but many other stats have been buffed.

Here is a picture of cMPL damage over range:

You should also note that cMPLs are colder and have reduced duration combined with a bit higher damage. That means they do a decent amount more damage per game tic. If it turns out cMPL are still underperforming during the PTS we can always tune them a bit more.

RAC5s have been buffed, not nerfed in any way.

In regards to IS PPC family, Clan Laser, and Gauss buffs I encourage you to test them out first in the PTS. My prediction is they will not be overpowered. Currently Gauss, laservomit, and gaussvomit are underperforming compared to cERPPCs, IS MPLs, UACs, AC2s and brawling mechs in general, hence the drive to buff them to parity. We don't want to completely change the meta, just make every playstyle and weapon system viable in its own right.

The most important aspect is to test all the changes in the PTS and then write down your feedback, none of these changes are set in stone.

Edited by Krasnopesky, 19 March 2021 - 09:05 AM.

[Baron Kit]

Love everything I see hoping the MCII-B is still a monster and I know the deathstrike is gonna be awesome aswell.

Good job!

[Krasnopesky]

Darion Rothgarr, on 19 March 2021 - 04:55 AM, said:

Didn't they propose removing the HSL Penalty for LPPC in their proposal?

One of the original concepts was to remove ghost heat so you could easily 'boat' LPPC. We ended up balancing LPPCs around their current ghost heat limit of 3 without ghost heat for a few reasons:

1. Balancing them towards shooting 3 at a time prevents them from directly competing with other weapons in the PPC family.
2. Buffing them significantly as we have done makes 3x LPPC light mechs much more viable.
3. It enables them to better function as backup/filler weapons on heavier mechs.

Here is one build I am excited to test LPPCs on when the PTS goes live: https://gulag.nav-al...ee3a17c6_SDR-5D

Despite this Spider only having a 15 alpha it can still do excellent work. It shoots out past 500m, the three second cooldown means it actually has some relatively meaningful DPS, the damage is pinpoint so it works excellently as a mobile poptart skirmisher and finally as the minimum range has been removed from LPPCs you won't get trolled by a Locust with 1 small laser slowly killing you at the end of a match.

[Krasnopesky]

Baron Kit, on 19 March 2021 - 06:32 AM, said:

Love everything I see hoping the MCII-B is still a monster and I know the deathstrike is gonna be awesome aswell.

Good job!

Now that regular clan AC5s have been buffed to shoot just 1 shell and have the same velocity as clan ERPPC, this is a build I think will do quite well: https://gulag.nav-al...e0aefedc_MCII-B

Plenty of reliable DPS with the added benefit of having weapons to use when your arms get shot off.

Edited by Krasnopesky, 19 March 2021 - 06:47 AM.

[Darion Rothgarr]

Krasnopesky, on 19 March 2021 - 06:36 AM, said:

One of the original concepts was to remove ghost heat so you could easily 'boat' LPPC. We ended up balancing LPPCs around their current ghost heat limit of 3 without ghost heat for a few reasons:

1. Balancing them towards shooting 3 at a time prevents them from directly competing with other weapons in the PPC family.
2. Buffing them significantly as we have done makes 3x LPPC light mechs much more viable.
3. It enables them to better function as backup/filler weapons on heavier mechs.

Here is one build I am excited to test LPPCs on when the PTS goes live: https://gulag.nav-al...ee3a17c6_SDR-5D

Despite this Spider only having a 15 alpha it can still do excellent work. It shoots out past 500m, the three second cooldown means it actually has some relatively meaningful DPS, the damage is pinpoint so it works excellently as a mobile poptart skirmisher and finally as the minimum range has been removed from LPPCs you won't get trolled by a Locust with 1 small laser slowly killing you at the end of a match.

Thats going to make the 6 lppc awesome 8Q sooo much better....

[ghost1e]

hyped

[Antares102]

kapusta11, on 19 March 2021 - 04:19 AM, said:

Unfortunately it seems the goal of helping underperforming weapons fell prey to buffing author's prefered play style ...

Oh please dont start this crap this earily already.
Give these guys a chance especially Navid A1 who is really idealistic.
And if anything there are many authors of these stats and according to the Gulags mission statement this also includes less skilled players. For the love of god please don't tell me next they they all collude to make their play style better.
GTF off my community driven balance trial man!

Edited by Antares102, 19 March 2021 - 07:28 AM.

[Nightbird]

YueFei, on 18 March 2021 - 10:40 PM, said:

The re-scaling and agility buffs should allow properly piloted mechs to survive longer.

If someone just stands there and stares at his enemies, yeah he's gonna die faster.

It wasn't an argument, just an observation, since 95% of mechs will not be properly piloted.

[Krasnopesky]

Antares102, on 19 March 2021 - 07:27 AM, said:

Oh please dont start this crap this earily already.
Give these guys a chance especially Navid A1 who is really idealistic.
And if anything there are many authors of these stats and according to the Gulags mission statement this also includes less skilled players. For the love of god please don't tell me next they they all collude to make their play style better.
GTF off my community driven balance trial man!

There are over 20 people contributing to (edit) The Cauldron. Many of them are highly skilled comp pilots, but there are just as many others, including popular streamers and people who simply enjoy theory crafting and balancing the game. I very much doubt you could find one 'preferred' playstyle amongst that relatively diverse group.

Also trust me; if it was just Navid, or any one person, producing this balance proposal that sheet would be a fair bit different. Not everyone agrees on every aspect of this proposal, but we have collectively come to a consensus on this proposal and others after months of work.

Edited by Krasnopesky, 22 March 2021 - 11:01 AM.

[Antares102]

Krasnopesky, on 19 March 2021 - 07:51 AM, said:

There are over 20 people contributing to the Gulag. Many of them are highly skilled comp pilots, but there are just as many others, including popular streamers and people who simply enjoy theory crafting and balancing the game. I very much doubt you could find one 'preferred' playstyle amongst that relatively diverse group.

Also trust me; if it was just Navid, or any one person, producing this balance proposal that sheet would be a fair bit different. Not everyone agrees on every aspect of this proposal, but we have collectively come to a consensus on this proposal and others after months of work.

Sure, dont tell this to me I know that. Tell this to kapusta11.
I tried to defend you guys

[YueFei]

Nightbird, on 19 March 2021 - 07:50 AM, said:

It wasn't an argument, just an observation, since 95% of mechs will not be properly piloted.

Non-rhetorical question:
How much of that is truly due to improperly piloted mechs, versus mechs being too sluggish and too big?

Honestly I think it's probably 6 of one, half a dozen of the other.

For a long time I drove nothing but the Shadowhawk. I did my best to make it work, but it got CT-cored alot. It's not particularly agile. Perhaps from my opponents' PoV, I look like a dunce eating their shots with my face. It doesn't look like I'm properly piloting my mech.

Recently I switched to the Wolverine. I'm still the same player. Suddenly I'm able to spread the damage. I didn't learn to pilot better, the mech is just waaay more agile. It gives me more margin in terms of reaction time.

Not all of us have lightning reflexes (if we did, we'd probably use it in a more fast-paced FPS game). I might be reacting in 300ms instead of 180ms, and if the mech is too sluggish, I won't be able to get it turned/shifted in time.

Whilst some players indeed don't react at all, I bet a whole bunch of players are like me, mostly average joes who are making an honest effort to twist, turn, and stutter step, but the mech just isn't responding fast enough for us. Maybe an elite player who can anticipate what's about to happen and/or react faster than us can make a sluggish mech work for them, but for potatoes like me making mechs more agile makes defensive maneuvering much more "accessible".

[Nightbird]

YueFei, on 19 March 2021 - 08:17 AM, said:

For a long time I drove nothing but the Shadowhawk. I did my best to make it work, but it got CT-cored alot. It's not particularly agile. Perhaps from my opponents' PoV, I look like a dunce eating their shots with my face. It doesn't look like I'm properly piloting my mech.

As someone with 400 average MS, even though your tier got reset due to inactivity the past 3 years, you're part of the 5% if not 1%?

[Navid A1]

Mcgral18, on 19 March 2021 - 02:35 AM, said:

I'll certainly come back to give it a try, but agility is what really killed the game for me


A 900M/s AC20 is a nice start though

We have a whole host of significant agility buffs across the board in store... One step at a time.... If PGI keeps working with us.

That and re-scale (that's actually happening in the coming months) are going to help the state of the game a lot.


soon

Edited by Navid A1, 19 March 2021 - 08:28 AM.

[Nightbird]

Navid A1, on 19 March 2021 - 08:24 AM, said:

We have a whole host of significant agility buffs across the board in store... One step at a time.... If PGI keeps working with us.

That and re-scale (that's actually happening in the coming months) are going to help you understand these weapon changes.

soon

I will be happy if rescale is done. The global pandemic is ending soon and with the receding population, I fear so goes the will to keep promises. The attrition rate in the game has not improved. Weapon, quirk, rescale, agility, map changes only helps the enjoyment of us old-timers, the rest won't notice the nuances of the improvements. If we're not helping grow the 95%, but suck up all the oxygen with improvements catered at us the 5%, then we surely deserve what we will get.

[Runecarver]

LRM velocity decrease and a miniscule increase in missile health to compensate? Sounds like the gulag is still salty about their existence.

[Navid A1]

Runecarver, on 19 March 2021 - 09:12 AM, said:

LRM velocity decrease and a miniscule increase in missile health to compensate? Sounds like the gulag is still salty about their existence.

Nerfs to LRMs were going to be a lot more heavy handed... but this is an attempt at balancing... not forcing personal preference.

[Runecarver]

Navid A1, on 19 March 2021 - 09:14 AM, said:

Nerfs to LRMs were going to be a lot more heavy handed... but this is an attempt at balancing... not forcing personal preference.

"Attempt at balancing." Right, sure.

If you couple this sort of velocity reduction with the general mobility increases the "gulag" has been proposing, the LRM weapon system will be hit far too harshly. Do the mobility testing first, then look at whether or not LRMs are still so scary that they need nerfing.