704 replies to this topic

[MyriadDigits]

FindersWeepers, on 02 April 2021 - 04:28 PM, said:

3rac5 anni gang where we at

I too am hype for the 100 ton mega RACWhacker

[Jack Shayu Walker]

Im just happy as a clam that we got the Cauldrons MASC buffs WITHOUT the Accel/Decel nerf.

[Fishtiddies]

Kray76, on 02 April 2021 - 03:48 PM, said:

As i said.
The experienced players, will killing the newbies more faster.
YOu dont understand, that the newbie players, didnt play long enought to learn the game if they killed on the first sign by experienced players. And i saying you, with this setting, i will kill many of the lesser experienced players faster, Most of them are sitting in big Mechs with a lot of LBX. So you came along with some pinpoint weapon, you can aim, they have no chance. And they dont know why. Result of this, they playing some painfull matches and going offline because this game isnt funny.
There will be new meta, you listed some of the actually meta, so theyre will be new ones, more devestating ones.
Thats definetly the wrong way, if we want to grow the playerbase,
Even my friends dont wanna play this game, because they are dying, before they understand why. But they playing War Thunder or World of Tanks, because this games has an "Arcade" mode for newbies, to learn the mechanics, and go one level upward step by step. Here, are you as an newby completly lost. And dont say, join a clan. The most players are joining a clan after they have played a lot of hours. I am also not in a clan., If a game is only playable, if youre in a clan, then its something going wrong. If you wanna earn money for your servers.

One guy hates the changes guys, scrap everything. Honestly, imagine thinking increasing the viability of underperforming weapons somehow makes this game less new player friendly. Think about that really hard. Making more playstyles viable somehow makes less of a playerbase....

Edited by Fishtiddies, 02 April 2021 - 06:09 PM.

[Felbombling]

I know I've been away for awhile and probably missed this, but now would have been the perfect time to pare down the LB 20-X AC so it could fit into the same places an AC/20 or Ultra 20 could.

Please place bug in ear at PGI.

[Jack Shayu Walker]

Fishtiddies, on 02 April 2021 - 06:04 PM, said:

One guy hates the changes guys, scrap everything. Honestly, imagine thinking increasing the viability of underperforming weapons somehow makes this game less new player friendly. Think about that really hard. Making more playstyles viable somehow makes less of a playerbase....

He probably wants PGI to go back to balancing by nerfs only bc TTK too high plz. Thank god we appear to be done with that mentality.

Edited by Jack Shayu Walker, 02 April 2021 - 06:19 PM.

[Kray76]

my godness. and again, where are you living?
in nowadays, players dont want to read manuals before they beginning to play. They want to start and going on. and.we wondering about our pitty playerbase and that new players are running away.
Its to easy to think everything is meta. Two ac20 fired at once, will make more panic as uac 10 etc.
Its not only about numbers.
I could think, you guys never played quickplay.without a group or.clan members. This patch is a really a mistake. if we want.to grow up new players.
For me, its great, but i want more player.We will see.

[Alstren]

*Almost Everyone
** I sure do

Edited by Alstren, 02 April 2021 - 06:22 PM.

[Jack Shayu Walker]

Kray76, on 02 April 2021 - 06:19 PM, said:

my godness. and again, where are you living?
in nowadays, players dont want to read manuals before they beginning to play. They want to start and going on. and.we wondering about our pitty playerbase and that new players are running away.
Its to easy to think everything is meta. Two ac20 fired at once, will make more panic as uac 10 etc.
Its not only about numbers.
I could think, you guys never played quickplay.without a group or.clan members. This patch is a really a mistake. if we want.to grow up new players.
For me, its great, but i want more player.We will see.

I live in the world where im going to cry if i see one more patch full of nerfs. Nerfs aren’t fun. New players aren’t going to be getting **** on any harder than they have in the games past. The meta will just shift again. Double AC/20 is literally the same as the old Quad UAC/10 Kodiak except it can’t double fire.

Edited by Jack Shayu Walker, 02 April 2021 - 06:25 PM.

[Hiten Bongz]

Krasnopesky, on 02 April 2021 - 05:10 PM, said:

If you look at the damage clan LRMs do under ~100m you will be surprised, it is extremely low.

The difference in spread for an ATM9 compared to LRM20 is quite large (3.5 vs 5.05). When simply comparing numbers on a spreadsheet that does not seem like much, but in practice it makes a large difference. If you add Artemis to the LRM20 suddenly it takes up more slots and is a lot heavier too (and still has worse spread). The ammo difference between the two launchers does not make up for this completely.

The other major difference to note is how long it takes an LRM20 to fire all of it's missiles compared to an ATM9. ATM9s fire all their missiles in 0.4 seconds while it takes an LRM20 0.95 seconds. Again this difference may not seem huge but functionally it makes a lot of difference in game.

Finally you can only shoot 2 LRM20s without ghost heat, while you can shoot 3 ATM9s without ghost heat. LRMs also have greater ghost heat penalties compared to ATMs. This means when fired en masse the LRMs will actually be a bit hotter.

True the damage is low but it's better than zero

I'm really not opposed to the ATM damage nerf in itself, but I think there's a missed opportunity here to remove or at least shrink the dead zone to compensate. Much like what's happening with the PPCs that are designed for a close range engagement. Missile health is nice, but the majority of people don't run AMS so it's not going to always make a difference. And I don't think people are going to start using ATMs for long range engagements either.

Basically, this is one way to balance ATMs, but it's not really what I would prefer or how I would have done it.

Certainly do appreciate the laser love, though. Thanks for addressing my post. Overall, the changes are mostly positive.

Edited by Hiten Bongz, 02 April 2021 - 06:39 PM.

[cougurt]

Hiten Bongz, on 02 April 2021 - 06:37 PM, said:

True the damage is low but it's better than zero

I'm really not opposed to the ATM damage nerf in itself, but I think there's a missed opportunity here to remove or at least shrink the dead zone to compensate. Much like what's happening with the PPCs that are designed for a close range engagement. Missile health is nice, but the majority of people don't run AMS so it's not going to always make a difference. And I don't think people are going to start using ATMs for long range engagements either.

Basically, this is one way to balance ATMs, but it's not really what I would prefer or how I would have done it.

Certainly do appreciate the laser love, though. Thanks for addressing my post. Overall, the changes are mostly positive.

i dunno, i feel like AMS is becoming increasingly more common. that said, i don't think it would be too unreasonable to reduce the minimum range or slightly increase ammo per ton, but we'll have to see how it plays out.

[Jack Shayu Walker]

*Screams back in computer.*

[Sereglach]

Overall, I'm quite surprised to see such a positive set of changes coming in the April patch. For the most part I'm pleased with them. I will also be waiting with currently bated anticipation for the rescale and skill tree changes planned for the future.

However, there are a few critiques I'd like to give, and I hope they're taken into consideration to some degree or another:

1. Disappointed to see the ONE weapon not touched was the Flamer. MW5 Flamers in MWO . . . it NEEDS to happen; and it shouldn't be too hard to make happen. Sadly, with ALL resources stripped from MWO to meet deadlines for MW5 multi-platform launch, I can understand why it didn't. May? Please?

2. Hopefully something happens in May with equipment not touched in the April patch. Flamers (can't emphasize my poor Flamers enough), Command Consoles, Targeting Computers, and Jump Jets all deserve attention. In particular, Heat Scale, Desync/Gauss Charge, and Screen Shake all thoroughly killed the "all Pop-tart all the time" meta . . . I think we can at least give jump jets back their jumping.

3. No mention of IS XL engine changes/goals. I'd personally like to see the current 60% penalty applied to IS XLs while giving Clan XLs and LFEs a 30-40% penalty on ST loss. I realize this would likely take engineering time, but am disappointed to not even see mention of it on the outline or intentions for the future. Save the pure ST=death for XXL engines, if we ever see those, where it'd apply to both IS and Clan variants.

4. I'd personally like to see more drastic changes to pulse lasers to turn them into energy DPS weapons. Cut the damage and heat in half while cutting the cycle and burn time to a mere third, as a starting point. High DPS but very high HPS if used for too long. Honestly the laser types have just felt too similar for too long, but that's a personal opinion and I know others probably don't feel that way.

5. IS PPCs feel like they could use a few more small tweaks. Give LPPC 6 damage . . . it should at least be slightly more than a medium laser (it's a 3 ton 2 slot investment, after all), but otherwise the changes made were great. Give the others with minimum range a linear ramp-up damage like the standard IS PPC used to have, but the LPPC should retain the removal of minimum range.

6. This is probably something that needs engineer time to make happen, so I don't expect it for even May, but Streaks could strongly benefit from the ability to fire without locks. Granted, this isn't in lore, but we also don't have ECM stealth bubbles in lore and we don't have RNG cones of fire like in lore (via dice-rolled location strikes). It'd also be nice to see Streaks fly more like the direct-fired LRMs/ATMs instead of the weird bone-locking that they do now. These changes could transition steaks into more viable general-use weapons instead of more dedicated anti-light weapons.

7. When you get around to requirking mechs, give the poor Spider 5V a second AMS (like the hero) and 1 energy hardpoint in each ST (new and unique). It's probably the least viable chassis in the entire game without extremely over-quirking it. You're now changing tonnage and crit sizes of basic gear . . . so it's time to break some other rules, too.

8. If PGI is truly partnering with the Cauldron to increase TTK, then look into giving us more defensive options. Reinforced Structure and Reactive, Reflective, and Hardened armor can piggy-back the existing armor/structure and quirk rules in game to give us more choices to handle our mechs instead of just the amount of tonnage dedicated to weapons. You can even consider Modular Armor pods if you're feeling up to it.

Again, overall I think this content for the April patch looks like a great starting point for moving forward. Good to see PGI actually put in the effort to reverse the course of March as quickly as possible. It makes me tentatively hopeful for the what the future of MWO might look like.

[Sug]

Sereglach, on 02 April 2021 - 06:57 PM, said:

1. Disappointed to see the ONE weapon not touched was the Flamer. MW5 Flamers in MWO . . . it NEEDS to happen; and it shouldn't be too hard to make happen.

MWO flamers were originally like the MW5 ones but people used them to blind other players so the visual was changed to more of a jet than a flame thrower : /

[Jack Shayu Walker]

Sug, on 02 April 2021 - 07:39 PM, said:

MWO flamers were originally like the MW5 ones but people used them to blind other players so the visual was changed to more of a jet than a flame thrower : /

Now we use RACs for that.

[PraetorGix]

The loss of the PTS was really bad, but holy **** the decision to move the changes to this month ends up being way better than the PTS+May patch! I assume there will be a lot of tweaks needed, because contrary to what everyone else seems to think the Gulag is not a council of development gods (and personally I really dislike giving to random people who are not game developers power over development of our game. If they can be catered to, why can't my balance ideas be on the game as well?) but I hope most of the changes are good enough to stay; and if nothing else they will shake things up enough to make for a couple interesting weeks.

Oh and those post-prod icons in the Vlog were cute and funny, keep them coming!

Edited by PraetorGix, 02 April 2021 - 07:55 PM.

[Kynesis]

I expected to disagree with a good portion of any suggested changes, even from comp players (or potentially especially from comp players). I was honestly surprised to discover that I like all of the changes and agree with their reasoning.
I'm actually quite looking forward to their implementation, even without a PTS.

Having said that, and as much as I want mechs resized and the great degradation in mobility addressed, I'd caution us all about those changes - I think these issues need _a lot_ of thought put into them before committing. Some mechs have suffered much more than others & on the flipside, some will benefit far more than others.

[Kynesis]

Next on the list... getting rid of <insert much swearing here> engine heat transfer on side torso destruction.

[Jack Shayu Walker]

Kynesis, on 02 April 2021 - 07:48 PM, said:

Next on the list... getting rid of &lt;insert much swearing here&gt; engine heat transfer on side torso destruction.

Player was recently killed by side torso destruction shut down : p

No but i agree tho.

[The6thMessenger]

Hiten Bongz, on 02 April 2021 - 04:37 PM, said:

Mainly: why would anyone use ATMs anymore with reduced close range damage (it's only real advantage over LRM spam) while the huge dead zone still remains? I was really hoping the dead zone would finally be removed and the weapon balanced a bit better to counter that.

...

Maybe I'm missing something, but unless the massive dead zone gets removed, I just see people switching ATMs for equivalent LRM launchers. Is this really what we want?

Thoughts? I'm not a top player but I'm not terribad by any means, maybe I'm overlooking some stuff, or not "getting it" with these changes. Either way, kinda sucks ATM minimum range didn't get deleted and the weapon balanced after that.

I kind of agree somewhat. Although I agree with their damage reduction too.

The increase of sweetspot range to 270m would have addressed that, but they miss the opportunity. The deadzone seems important for the weapons for them considering that it still does monstrous damage.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 02 April 2021 - 08:00 PM.

[Carchemish]

So, uh...just to be clear. April 20th for all of this? I was hoping for like...tomorrow

At least for the March patch roll-back. Please do that early?

Edited by Carchemish, 02 April 2021 - 08:02 PM.