400 replies to this topic

[Alex Morgaine]

Still not happy about light gauss cool down... 2.6 was fine, you could get it down to about an even 2.0 via skills no problem.

[The Mysterious Fox]

fp has the same dynamic as qp but dragged out to an hour. stomps still gonna stomp, why drag it out

[Nightbird]

Gas Guzzler, on 24 March 2021 - 09:59 AM, said:

That's the build of a forward thinker right there.

b33f build of course lol

[Antares102]

DAEDALOS513, on 24 March 2021 - 10:05 AM, said:

Too much time is spent searching, loading in, map voting (removing map voting would be a good move), waiting for that one guy to connect to the match and then exiting a match.. When all that's factored in against gameplay time.. quick play.. TOO quick. I'm sure most QP'rs would agree..

TTP (time to play) should be reduced.. not TTK.

Wow, I think you are the first guy I ever convinced about something on the internets. Thank you for that!

Edited by Antares102, 24 March 2021 - 10:32 AM.

[DAEDALOS513]

Antares102, on 24 March 2021 - 10:30 AM, said:

Wow, I think you are the first guy I ever convinced about something on the internets. Thank you for that!

hehe no problem.. some people actually want to have the ability to select mechs based on map selection.. can you imagine the debacle that would cause? Everyone going lurm happy on the no cover maps.. those maps would be ruined forever.

[Last Of The Brunnen-G]

You put a lot of effort into these changes.
Regarding the Streak and LRM changes i am a little bit dissapointed. Streaks were difficult to use compared to normal SRMs anyway, with the damage reduction they are more or less useless. By the time i look a light (if possible at all) i can shoot standard SRMs many times.
LRM health is dependend on LRM launcher size in your changes. Besides from this being illogical, there really is no reason to do this. Smaller launchers have pros and cons no need to give them such a buff they are already the most weight efficent launchers.

[Krasnopesky]

DAEDALOS513, on 24 March 2021 - 09:51 AM, said:

How is ttk in a good place when matches are so quick?

Thanks for the updated cauldron link. I agree.. LOS lrms should be more concentrated.. maybe 3 component spread damage.. No LOS lrms should do 5 component spread.. increase missile health so lrmer's can do their damage. There is alot more ams and ecm than in the past so lrms do need health buffing but with increased spread.

Yep, we all know Vulcan is better than firestarter.. vulcan is better than most lights and mediums.. I was just trying to point out that the firestarter is still capable of performing albeit with more effort and experience. in most cases there will be a better mech out there than most (that's why we have meta).. does that mean we shouldn't use those underdogs? There is a certain satisfaction when you do well with an underdog that you just don't get with a meta mech. I get very little pleasure using meta.. i think i've run that meta mp vulcan twice (i use ml's on it). And I'm totally against making all mechs behave the same by buffing them to be the same. In the vein of keeping mechs unique and differentiated.. i suggest keeping the firestarter's mobility (or lack thereof vis-a-vis little pitch) as is and making it the atlas version of lights.. by buffing it's armor a bit.

As a reply to your side note: When you say you don't want to nerf the vulcan, this is exactly what I'm talking about. It's so hard to get you guys to let go of your crutches. The vulcan has absolutely too many things going for it.. small and narrow size, agility, jets, amazing hitboxes, amazing mounts, even decent quirks.. don't you think it can afford to be nerfed a bit?

The only reason we have bad mechs out there is because there are a handful of op meta mechs we compare them to. The solution isn't to buff 90% of the mechs to their level.. the more reasonable solution is to nerf the 10% of the standout mechs .. so simple.

Your line of reasoning to continue nerfing 'Mechs and weapon system is exactly the same as PGI's has been for the past 8 or so years. That line of thinking has resulted in more and more people leaving the game, leaving us with the current low population of players. Nerfing what currently works rather than buffing what doesn't just makes people have less fun, this has been proven time and time again.

The Vulcan isn't a 'crutch' that I or any other skilled player are leaning on, it is simply one of the best options to take. Before piloting the Vulcan people used the Wolfhound, before that the Arctic Cheetah, before that it was the Jenner, before that it was (surprise surprise!) the Firestarter. The same people did well in these 'Mechs not because they relied on them to do well, but just because they had the skill to do so. You keep using the terminology of 'Mechs and weapon systems being crutches for players, yet I have not seen a player markedly reduce in skill and lethality as a direct result of a nerf to what they use effectively or a change in meta. Players simply adapt and take the next best thing.

The Vulcan feels good to pilot and use. The Firestarter on the other hand feels absolutely terrible to pilot and frustrating. No one enjoys not being able to move properly and look down, especially in a light 'Mech. Now don't misunderstand me, I don't want to make the Firestarter an identical copy of the Vulcan, I am more than happy to have 'Mech diversity. The problem is currently there is no reason at all to take the Firestarter when you could pilot a Vulcan. I want to give people a reason to pilot the Firestarter, not take away the reasons to pilot the Vulcan. The result of nerfing the Vulcan won't be people playing the Firestarter, it will either be people continuing to play the Vulcan despite it being nerfed, or people playing the Phoenix Hawk or Wolfhound instead. The same problem exists with the Firestarter being one of the worst light 'Mechs due to the multitude of nerfs PGI have inflicted upon it over many years.

Edited by Krasnopesky, 24 March 2021 - 11:34 AM.

[Krasnopesky]

MasterBurte, on 24 March 2021 - 11:16 AM, said:

You put a lot of effort into these changes.
Regarding the Streak and LRM changes i am a little bit dissapointed. Streaks were difficult to use compared to normal SRMs anyway, with the damage reduction they are more or less useless. By the time i look a light (if possible at all) i can shoot standard SRMs many times.
LRM health is dependend on LRM launcher size in your changes. Besides from this being illogical, there really is no reason to do this. Smaller launchers have pros and cons no need to give them such a buff they are already the most weight efficent launchers.

We re-balanced clan streaks, not nerfed them. We have reduced the amount of damage they do per alpha, but greatly increased the rate at which they fire and how much heat they generate per shot. The end result is actually an increase in damage per second (DPS).

Also streaks are much better at dealing with lights than SRMs are for a number of reasons. The delay to firing them at a light is not as much as you claim (provided you equip tag/bap as you should with streaks) and the homing nature of the streaks means most if not all the damage connects to the light mech. SRMs on the other hand will typically miss a significant portion of their alpha due to range and spread. Our changes to clan streaks will reduce the potential one shot capabilities of clan streak boats, but increase the possible damage they can do throughout a match. The changes also make clan streaks more usable against larger 'Mechs than they currently are.

LRM health has received a percentage buff based on the existing stats, smaller launchers (5s / 10s) are not taken as much as larger ones and are often less effective, hence PGI changing the health to favour smaller launchers years ago. Our PTS has done nothing to change this concept.

[Krasnopesky]

Alex Morgaine, on 24 March 2021 - 10:06 AM, said:

Still not happy about light gauss cool down... 2.6 was fine, you could get it down to about an even 2.0 via skills no problem.

Light Gauss should be more viable than ever with our changes, the buff to damage, velocity and range are quite large.

Currently LGR cooldown means you basically have to stare at an enemy 'Mech to do damage. This means you lose to basically every long range option as they either have more DPS than you do (AC2s) or can out-peek you (ERLL, ERPPC). Increasing the damage and velocity while keeping relatively same DPS will mean you can compete with those other long range options better while not being nerfed in essentially anyway.

As a side note, de-linking LGR from ghost heat with the PPC family will give you the option of adding in 1 or 2 ERPPCs to a LGR build. Giving you even more options to compete as a long range trading 'Mech.

[MechB Kotare]

I think it will be laser vomit meta all over again. But i shall adapt like i always did.

I do hope however, that lrm velocity nerf only concerns indirect fire. I dont see any reason why direct fire should get any nerf.

[Nightbird]

Since PPC ghost heat limit is 3, allowing 30 damage, what is the advantage of HPPC that warrants a 5s cooldown versus 4 for PPCs? It is 1 ton less but 5% less tonnage for 25% less DPS seems severe.

[DAEDALOS513]

Krasnopesky, on 24 March 2021 - 11:22 AM, said:

Your line of reasoning to continue nerfing 'Mechs and weapon system is exactly the same as PGI's has been for the past 8 or so years. That line of thinking has resulted in more and more people leaving the game, leaving us with the current low population of players. Nerfing what currently works rather than buffing what doesn't just makes people have less fun, this has been proven time and time again.

The Vulcan isn't a 'crutch' that I or any other skilled player are leaning on, it is simply one of the best options to take. Before piloting the Vulcan people used the Wolfhound, before that the Arctic Cheetah, before that it was the Jenner, before that it was (surprise surprise!) the Firestarter. The same people did well in these 'Mechs not because they relied on them to do well, but just because they had the skill to do so. You keep using the terminology of 'Mechs and weapon systems being crutches for players, yet I have not seen a player markedly reduce in skill and lethality as a direct result of a nerf to what they use effectively or a change in meta. Players simply adapt and take the next best thing.
The Vulcan feels good to pilot and use. The Firestarter on the other hand feels absolutely terrible to pilot and frustrating. No one enjoys not being able to move properly and look down, especially in a light 'Mech. Now don't misunderstand me, I don't want to make the Firestarter an identical copy of the Vulcan, I am more than happy to have 'Mech diversity. The problem is currently there is no reason at all to take the Firestarter when you could pilot a Vulcan. I want to give people a reason to pilot the Firestarter, not take away the reasons to pilot the Vulcan. The result of nerfing the Vulcan won't be people playing the Firestarter, it will either be people continuing to play the Vulcan despite it being nerfed, or people playing the Phoenix Hawk or Wolfhound instead. The same problem exists with the Firestarter being one of the worst light 'Mechs due to the multitude of nerfs PGI have inflicted upon it over many years.

The reason pgi's methods didn't work is because they would release a brand new shiny mech pack.. the new OP king of the hill.. only to (justifiably) nerf it into back to reasonable levels once sales for it had tapered off and complaints against the mech had peaked. These nerfs were necessary because many of the new mechs were simply too strong. Selling strong mechs and then nerfing them is what drove sales for PGI in the short run and this cycle is pretty much standard practice in the industry.. but this practice relies on fresh blood to continuously replace the bitter veteran players that felt jilted and would LEAVE the game (mech paks were hardly cheap).

So you see although this sales strat works short term, long-term it isn't viable if fresh blood isn't replacing bitter vets that leave. MWO always had trouble bringing in fresh blood and retaining them (due to the high learning curve, failed matchmaker, you name it.) especially outside of battletech fans that are very loyal to a fault..

TL:DR OP mech paks made nerfing necessary because either the new mech had ridic quirks and or hit boxes (see arctic cheetah), or it was capable of carrying too many of a certain weapon type forcing the nerfing of said weapon (see direstar and ppc ghost heat). THIS is the reason players left.. nerfing was only necessary because of bigger stronger mechs coming into game.

So again I say, nerf the mechs back down to reasonable levels since we don't have mech paks anymore so it shouldn't be an issue in the future..

PS. the vulcan can have agility fine.. let it feel good to pilot.. but then nerf some other aspect of it.. like i said it has too many positive things going for it making other mechs irrelevant.. it will still be fun to pilot just not an op crutch.

Like I said the reason to pilot a firestarter is to do well in non meta.. you can't beat that feeling. Doing well in meta is like taking candy from a baby.. not sure how people can only pilot it. I did say make firestarter more tankier.. that would get more to pilot it without it losing its uniqueness. But giving all lights great agility.. i can hear the furor from assaults pilots already.. haven't we been down this road before?

Edited by DAEDALOS513, 24 March 2021 - 11:56 AM.

[Krasnopesky]

DAEDALOS513, on 24 March 2021 - 11:45 AM, said:

The reason pgi's methods didn't work is because they would release a brand new shiny mech pack.. the new OP king of the hill.. only to (justifiably) nerf it into back to reasonable levels once sales for it had tapered off and complaints against the mech had peaked. These nerfs were necessary because many of the new mechs were simply too strong. Selling strong mechs and then nerfing them is what drove sales for PGI in the short run and this cycle is pretty much standard practice in the industry.. but this practice relies on fresh blood to continuously replace the bitter veteran players that feel jilted (mech paks were hardly cheap) and LEAVE the game. So you see this sales strat works short term but long term it isn't viable if fresh blood isn't replacing bitter vets that leave. MWO always had trouble bringing in fresh blood outside of battletech fans that are very loyal to a fault.. due to the high learning curve, failed matchmaker, you name it.

TL:DR OP mech paks made nerfing necessary because either the new mech had ridic quirks and or hit boxes (see arctic cheetah), or it was capable of carrying too many of a certain weapon type forcing the nerfing of said weapon (see direstar and ppc ghost heat). THIS is the reason players left.. nerfing was only necessary because of bigger stronger mechs coming into game.

So again I say, nerf the mechs back down to reasonable levels since we don't have mech paks anymore so it should be an issue in the future..

PS. the vulcan can have agility fine.. let it feel good to pilot.. but then nerf some other aspet of it.. like i said it has too many positive things going for it making other mechs irrelevant.. it will still be fun to pilot just not an op crutch.

Like I said the reason to pilot a firestarter is to do well in non meta.. you can't beat that feeling. Doing well in meta is like taking candy from a baby.. not sure how people can only pilot meta.. I did say make firestarter more tankier.. that would get some to pilot it. But giving all lights great agility.. i can hear the furor from assaults pilots already.. haven't we been down this road before?

You just agreed with me basically while adding in additional points / motivations outside of balance that PGI took the nerfing path. Regardless of why PGI did the nerfing, in the end all the nerfs have left a huge amount of 'Mechs under-performing for a variety of reasons (weapons, agility, scale, etc) which caused a lot of veteran pilots to leave. Many 'Mechs were strong on release sure, but many 'Mechs have never been good since release as well.

Never once have I said I want to give all lights great agility, some lights are definitely too agile considering their other strengths, but some others, especially the Firestarter, are almost unplayable. I have said it a few times now, you can barely look down at all in a Firestarter. At least let the 'Mech target enemies below it. Some 'mechs should definitely be more agile than others, some should be tankier, some should be good at shooting, some should be super fast etc etc. but above all they shouldn't be frustrating to play. Currently certain attributes of 'Mechs make them incredibly frustrating to play and that should be fixed in my opinion.

[Krasnopesky]

MechB Kotare, on 24 March 2021 - 11:41 AM, said:

I think it will be laser vomit meta all over again. But i shall adapt like i always did.

I do hope however, that lrm velocity nerf only concerns indirect fire. I dont see any reason why direct fire should get any nerf.

I anticipate laservomit will be a bit stronger, but not stronger than the existing meta choices (just different). If it is evident that laservomit is the complete new meta we will tone done some of the buffs.

We are getting a lot of feedback towards incentivizing direct fire and disincentivizing indirect, so that is likely the way we will go in the second iteration of the PTS. Unfortunately the velocity of LRMs is one value and the arc of the LRMs is what makes them move quicker or slower along a certain distance, so we can't simply nerf direct or indirect velocity.

[Gagis]

I just don't understand why anyone would want to play a game that actively fights against the player trying to play it. These arguments against the community suggestion are essentially asking for the game to be less fun.

You need to feel like you are in control, and minimizing turn rates and maximizing cooldowns makes it feel like the game is fighting against you and you have no control. This is horrible and should never be done. This is like game design 101 stuff.

Edited by Gagis, 24 March 2021 - 12:16 PM.

[DAEDALOS513]

Krasnopesky, on 24 March 2021 - 11:59 AM, said:

You just agreed with me basically while adding in additional points / motivations outside of balance that PGI took the nerfing path. Regardless of why PGI did the nerfing, in the end all the nerfs have left a huge amount of 'Mechs under-performing for a variety of reasons (weapons, agility, scale, etc) which caused a lot of veteran pilots to leave. Many 'Mechs were strong on release sure, but many 'Mechs have never been good since release as well.

Never once have I said I want to give all lights great agility, some lights are definitely too agile considering their other strengths, but some others, especially the Firestarter, are almost unplayable. I have said it a few times now, you can barely look down at all in a Firestarter. At least let the 'Mech target enemies below it. Some 'mechs should definitely be more agile than others, some should be tankier, some should be good at shooting, some should be super fast etc etc. but above all they shouldn't be frustrating to play. Currently certain attributes of 'Mechs make them incredibly frustrating to play and that should be fixed in my opinion.

The reason the mechs were left 'underperforming' is because there are still too strong mechs on the field that avoided the nerf hammer for some reason or another (see veagle for one). Again, once all mechs fall into reasonable levels of strength.. we'll see a cornucopia of variety of mechs and builds on the field. If PGI does release new mech packs in the future hopefully they won't have to rely on making them OP to drive sales and they would have diversified their source of income into other things like 'map paks' or cheaper prem time, watever.

You did say the vulcan feels good to use while the firstarter feels terrible. When you use the word 'feels' most people would think you're talking about how it pilots.. ie. agility. Agility and size are the only things the firestarter is really lacking..

PS. all your bad mouthing about firestarter has made me want to take it out.. expect screenshots hehe

Edited by DAEDALOS513, 24 March 2021 - 12:42 PM.

[East Indy]

Poking my head in here -- as someone who enjoys being that guy who can make unusual choices work, Firestarters are criminally easy to leg. Could use agility, too, but legs are what keep me away these days when I just want to break 300 MS without whiteknuckling.

Re: IS Medium Pulse Lasers, they're the Tabasco Sauce of meta. Put 5-6 on any decent geometry and you have a winner. Changing the weapon itself will only harm <5 builds. Only real change is dropping HSL to 4 with a very subtle curve that makes 5 hotter and 6 doable but uncomfortable. I say this as someone who picks my WLF whenever I need a ridiculously good match.

[Vindicated]

Nightbird, on 24 March 2021 - 11:42 AM, said:

Since PPC ghost heat limit is 3, allowing 30 damage, what is the advantage of HPPC that warrants a 5s cooldown versus 4 for PPCs? It is 1 ton less but 5% less tonnage for 25% less DPS seems severe.

I suppose hardpoints can be seen as an advantage of 2 HPPC vs 3 standard PPCs. You can often put 2 in the same location (notably for higher mounts, but also to strip arm armor), maybe not 3.

For example, Quickdraw 4G (could do 5K but lesser cooldown quirk) with 2 side torso and the rest arms (lower mounts, and typically used for shielding too). Vindicator AA has 2 right arm and 1 left, meaning no more shield arm (plus need to armor up arm). Grasshopper 5H (the free mech this month) has 2 high mounts (shoulder, cockpit level) and the rest are low (belly).

[Nightbird]

Vindicated, on 24 March 2021 - 12:30 PM, said:

I suppose hardpoints can be seen as an advantage of 2 HPPC vs 3 standard PPCs. You can often put 2 in the same location (notably for higher mounts, but also to strip arm armor), maybe not 3.

For example, Quickdraw 4G (could do 5K but lesser cooldown quirk) with 2 side torso and the rest arms (lower mounts, and typically used for shielding too). Vindicator AA has 2 right arm and 1 left, meaning no more shield arm (plus need to armor up arm). Grasshopper 5H (the free mech this month) has 2 high mounts (shoulder, cockpit level) and the rest are low (belly).

Basically, the pop mechs with 3E in good positions will be buffed relatively to those with 2E. Is it necessary? Are the mechs with more E points underpowered compared with those with less?

[DAEDALOS513]

Personally I feel that with all these buffs the compers want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to keep the meta as is for those days when they feeling lazy and want easy damage.. then they also want to have the option to take non-meta and do just as well in.. I think they are getting bored of taking same meta all the time so instead of making it less effective.. they want to keep it and buff everything else. In essence this boils down to a a casual gamer nerf because it helps them the least.

PS. they are buffing IS erl laser.. the strongest IS weapon on range maps.. really? If the goal is to make it more competitive against clan ppc.. maybe nerf clan ppc which everyone knows is too strong? But no.. they can't let go..

Edited by DAEDALOS513, 24 March 2021 - 12:55 PM.