704 replies to this topic

[Jack Shayu Walker]

I don't really get all the hullabaloo about time to kill. I could take it or leave it on a higher TTK. What i can't take or leave on is weapon variety. I NEED that in my life.

Edited by Jack Shayu Walker, 04 April 2021 - 12:58 AM.

[Aidan Crenshaw]

Paul Meyers DEST, on 03 April 2021 - 06:36 PM, said:

Spawns are weird somwtimes, but not part of the patch.

This is not out yet. Francois' work is not connected to them changing XML values. He said he's aiming for one map fix a month. Iirc.

[Reno Blade]

After thinking and reading a bit more, I am torn between better build options and "worse TTK" in my head.
Is it a logic error thinking like this:

• If 50% people in a match have meta builds (e.g. 100% efficiency) and 50% have non-meta (e.g. 50% efficiency), then it would mean the team is fighting only at 75% efficiency.
  
• Coming patch, the non-meta builds would maybe be at 80% pushing the team efficiency at 90%.
  
• ofc talking about comp/meta (100% meta builds in team) you would "JUST" mix up the builds, while everything sits around 100% efficiency already anyway.

Result:
SO the effect is most noticable in pugs with "bad" builds (bracket, fun, random...) or non-maxed elite players (e.g. more in lower tiers), but it would push both sides:
- buff your non-meta build so you can kill better (instead of dying horribly fast with 50dmg done)
- buff your opponents overall efficiency also overall, as more people have better builds (because better weapons) so you might die faster

Conclusion, TTK is going to be faster overall, if not already at 100% meta build efficiency, right?
(not considering faster twisting for future agility patches)

PS: I like to live longer to have "more action per match" so I like matches where there are many people with (less efficient )stuff such as "Lore/Bracket Builds" vs stomps with meta "BOATS".

[MechWarrior5602072]

It seams like a nice weapon balancing, bad thing is that no armor balance is added. weapons with more DPS will make less lights pilots in game (some bad hitbox machs like COM, FLE, PIR.. will be played still) more dmg on same armor value will make that light mach bad choice...

and there is a chance that we get something else patched insted (you know... Pgi style... like march patch...or any other)

I wont expect too much so I don't get disappointed...

[Navid A1]

InnerSphereNews, on 01 April 2021 - 06:36 PM, said:

The April patch brings about the first step in a series of community-driven changes to various aspects of gameplay in MechWarrior: Online. A large number of community members including competitive, casual, veteran and new players as well as public opinion and discussions have been involved in the past few months to form a road map to reach our ultimate goal, which is to make the game fun for all players.



In order to achieve this, several steps have been envisioned throughout the year.

• Increasing utility of the wide array of weapon types and incentivizing more diverse ‘Mech and weapon combinations through a Weapon Pass.
  
• Increasing baseline agility across the board with the purpose of re-introducing fluidity and increasing time to kill (TTK) by giving ‘Mechs the ability to roll, twist and use cover in a much more effective way.
  
• Accomplishing an all new round of geometric re-scaling across all chassis in order to reduce the overall scale of ‘Mechs (particularly 35t+ chassis) and directly increase survivability.
  
• Going through a ‘Mech quirk and skill-tree revision in line to all other changes, in order to address and compensate the weakest outliers which are limited by factors such as hardpoint count, model shape, and/or other factors.

It is worth noting that the changes in this patch are based on values and stats of weapons and equipment prior to the March 2021 patch. As it is expected, these changes would lead to a shift in the so-called “meta”, and their effect will be monitored in the coming month. The gathered data will then be used to modify and re-adjust changes if needed.
This patch is mainly focused on weapon and equipment adjustments.

This part of the patch note is more important than the rest, particularly for people predicting "TTK Armageddon"

Step by step. Next focus is a quirk pass, then agility, and then we get to scale.

Edited by Navid A1, 04 April 2021 - 06:45 AM.

[lolbbq]

Nice work Cauldron team (cannot believe you are doing such well planned and comprehensive changes for free) and PGI community managers. Its great that a good number of skilled individuals want to keep this game alive for mutliplayer mech-fans.
Cannot wait to try the patch out.

[Serenna187]

A certain thing came to mind recently,why does the C-AC20 take up 9 slots at 12 tons while C-UAC20 takes 8 slots at 12 tons?Since the regular ac is gonna be made more viable it may as well get that extra slot requirement removed and be made 1 ton lighter to be consistent with their IS counterparts at 10 slots 14 tons and 10 slots 15 tons

[RileyRackham]

TheCaptainJZ, on 01 April 2021 - 09:19 PM, said:

Yeah, that's what's been said.
I suppose what I mean is, I hope the Cauldron is not too biased on the perspectives of it's own members. Even the casuals within the group are probably experienced players who know the game really well. But there are other players who play this game who might have other ideas and perspectives. Whether accurate or not, I still have the impression the Cauldron is led by comp players.

Personally, I think I'd like a global damage and cooldown nerf across the board to increase TTK. We have introduced more and more weapons and mechs capable of firing off higher and higher alphas. This is power creep. But the majority of the player base always wants to buff weak weapons instead of nerfing powerful ones. But you can achieve balance by nerfing things too. The meta is UAC weapons? That means they're too powerful. Nerf them. Now suddenly, lasers are more viable. Or something else. I feel like those that play the meta refuse to give up their power so they'd rather make it so everyone else can kill things faster instead of making it so they're just the ones that can kill things slower. I want things to die slower, like they used to. We used to think that 40 damage alphas were too high so ghost heat was added to kick in about that point. Now, we're comfortable with 60 damage alphas? That'll cripple or kill a medium mech in one shot. To me, I'd like to be able to run around a little bit and take hits but not die immediately from 2 mechs firing at me at once, but I guess that's just me.

Buff armor to change TTK, don't nerf weapons.

[anfadern]

Matt is all stressed out, I really feel for him.
Damn he gets Tourette syndrome!

We love the game and all news that indicates that MWO is alive and evolving makes us happy.
Keep up the good work you guys!

[Jack Shayu Walker]

TheCaptainJZ, on 01 April 2021 - 09:19 PM, said:

Personally, I think I'd like a global damage and cooldown nerf across the board to increase TTK. We have introduced more and more weapons and mechs capable of firing off higher and higher alphas. This is power creep. But the majority of the player base always wants to buff weak weapons instead of nerfing powerful ones. But you can achieve balance by nerfing things too. The meta is UAC weapons? That means they're too powerful. Nerf them. Now suddenly, lasers are more viable. Or something else. I feel like those that play the meta refuse to give up their power so they'd rather make it so everyone else can kill things faster instead of making it so they're just the ones that can kill things slower. I want things to die slower, like they used to. We used to think that 40 damage alphas were too high so ghost heat was added to kick in about that point. Now, we're comfortable with 60 damage alphas? That'll cripple or kill a medium mech in one shot. To me, I'd like to be able to run around a little bit and take hits but not die immediately from 2 mechs firing at me at once, but I guess that's just me.

Personally, I think the problem with this approach is a big one, albeit it's an entirely subjective one.

If you buff a piece of equipment, you (usually) don't force the people who receive the buff to alter or relearn how they use their favorite toy. They can use it like they always have because by definition the equipment is still capable of the feats it was previously, -OR- you've also given them the option to study the equipment to acquire even greater gains on the battlefield.

If you nerf a piece of equipment, you force the people who receive the nerf to alter and relearn how to use their favorite toy and you ensure that even if they do put in the effort to relearn it, they end up with less than they started with. I probably don't have to explain why putting in extra effort to reteach yourself only to backslide in effectiveness doesn't feel good.

Thus when you balance mainly by nerfing, you create animosity rather than excitement in the player base. Of course nerfing is sometimes necessary for maintaining the health of the game, but when you repeat this over and over again it becomes pretty grueling. IMO it starts to just feel like the devs only want to suck all the fun out of the game.

The worst you get by balancing primarily with buffs is inflated numbers. If TTK is too high, and there aren't any clever solutions left, you can always just add armor and structure. Inelegant? Probably. But it breeds more fun-having, I think.

Edited by Jack Shayu Walker, 04 April 2021 - 10:23 AM.

[ShooterMcGavin80]

Navid A1, on 04 April 2021 - 06:44 AM, said:

This part of the patch note is more important than the rest, particularly for people predicting "TTK Armageddon"

Step by step. Next focus is a quirk pass, then agility, and then we get to scale.

I have a hard time believing that they are going to do a comprehensive re-scaling pass. And increasing baseline agility simply does not help assaults and heavies that have larger hitboxes. I have pretty mixed feelings about twisting and rolling damage as it is. Twisting to protect a component is of course good sensible play, but madly twisting so that the server somehow magically makes laser damage disappear is another thing. If every mech is going to be able to shrug and twist damage like Fleas, Assassins, and Vulcans, well, that might not be a good thing.

Pretty much every weapon gets a buff, with the exception of ATM's and possibly clan Streaks. So count me in the 'concerned about TTK' corner. I think a slower more surgical approach would be better. This pass should really just be limited to LGR's, LPPC's, and maybe SPL's (Clan and IS), and Clan uPL's. That would potentially revive some currently unused weapon systems into the playground.

[Krasnopesky]

ShooterMcGavin80, on 04 April 2021 - 11:22 AM, said:

I have a hard time believing that they are going to do a comprehensive re-scaling pass. And increasing baseline agility simply does not help assaults and heavies that have larger hitboxes. I have pretty mixed feelings about twisting and rolling damage as it is. Twisting to protect a component is of course good sensible play, but madly twisting so that the server somehow magically makes laser damage disappear is another thing. If every mech is going to be able to shrug and twist damage like Fleas, Assassins, and Vulcans, well, that might not be a good thing.

Pretty much every weapon gets a buff, with the exception of ATM's and possibly clan Streaks. So count me in the 'concerned about TTK' corner. I think a slower more surgical approach would be better. This pass should really just be limited to LGR's, LPPC's, and maybe SPL's (Clan and IS), and Clan uPL's. That would potentially revive some currently unused weapon systems into the playground.

They will do a comprehensive rescale this year. PGI have said that themselves.

The best weapons that currently dictate TTK did not get a buff: cERPPC, IS MPL, UAC5&10, LBX10, AC2. They are all remaining exactly the same as they were pre March patch.

TTK will be boosted quite a bit this year as others have said. Rescale and agility will increase TTK and if that isn't enough to convince you the quirk pass which will likely involve giving underperforming Mechs enhanced defensive quirks and decreasing some overperforming Mechs' offensive quirks will definitely increase TTK.

[ShooterMcGavin80]

Krasnopesky, on 04 April 2021 - 12:33 PM, said:

The best weapons that currently dictate TTK did not get a buff: cERPPC, IS MPL, UAC5&10, LBX10, AC2. They are all remaining exactly the same as they were pre March patch.

MRM's and a IS ML's and LL's got decent buffs, they're already used in a lot of meta builds.

[Krasnopesky]

ShooterMcGavin80, on 04 April 2021 - 06:25 PM, said:

MRM's and a IS ML's and LL's got decent buffs, they're already used in a lot of meta builds.

Those three weapons are inferior to the aforementioned ones, hence they received some buffs to make them more competitive.

MRMs are good at dealing damage, but they do so in a very inefficient manner. They often waste damage through missing due to their large spread and fire time or having their missiles destroyed by AMS. They are also inefficient due to their propensity of spreading damage over the target Mech, often hitting more than 2 components in an alpha. Furthermore they are mostly used by Mechs with very large missile quirks such as the Quickdraw IV4, Wolverines and Trebuchet 7M and they rely on these quirks to be truly impactful to a certain extent.

IS MLs are quite good in the current game, but suffer against MPLs and have significant trouble competing with them. IS MLs also struggle to output damage due to their relatively low DPS.

IS LLs did not get a flat buff in the coming patch, rather a rebalance. Their DPS has been lowered, but to compensate they use less heat, have higher damage per laser tic and you can now fire four of them at a time. These changes help smaller Mechs shoot 2/3 LL as those Mechs are limited by their heat rather than cooldown and the changes also open up some midrange builds (4 or 5 LL builds / Laservomit builds with 4 LL instead of 3) for Heavy and Assault Mechs to compete with clan laservomit and dakka builds.

None of these weapon systems feature heavily as 'top meta' in QP, FP, Solaris or comp, hence they have each received some buffs to help them be more viable options for people to use.

[The6thMessenger]

ShooterMcGavin80, on 04 April 2021 - 11:22 AM, said:

I have a hard time believing that they are going to do a comprehensive re-scaling pass.

PGI said they were doing Rescale as well.

The Gulag Cauldron has impressive suggestions. Originally I thought their values were going to get butchered by PGI and their clueless balancing staff, but here we are the April Patch.

[cougurt]

ShooterMcGavin80, on 04 April 2021 - 11:22 AM, said:

I have a hard time believing that they are going to do a comprehensive re-scaling pass. And increasing baseline agility simply does not help assaults and heavies that have larger hitboxes. I have pretty mixed feelings about twisting and rolling damage as it is. Twisting to protect a component is of course good sensible play, but madly twisting so that the server somehow magically makes laser damage disappear is another thing. If every mech is going to be able to shrug and twist damage like Fleas, Assassins, and Vulcans, well, that might not be a good thing.

Pretty much every weapon gets a buff, with the exception of ATM's and possibly clan Streaks. So count me in the 'concerned about TTK' corner. I think a slower more surgical approach would be better. This pass should really just be limited to LGR's, LPPC's, and maybe SPL's (Clan and IS), and Clan uPL's. That would potentially revive some currently unused weapon systems into the playground.

heavies and assaults benefit immensely from improved agility. some not as much as others (fafnir and dire wolf come to mind), but generally speaking i'd say larger mechs get the most out of it because they can't passively roll damage as well as smaller mechs. the mechs you mentioned largely survive due to a combination of speed, size, and favorable hitboxes, which has a compounding effect on their ability to negate damage. we had significantly better agility pre-skill tree, and it wasn't an issue whatsoever.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

Krasnopesky, on 03 April 2021 - 03:59 AM, said:

The entire point of this is that it was done by a community group called The Cauldron and not PGI. If these changes are well received hopefully PGI will trust us to make further balance changes too. This will free up people at PGI to work on other important elements (like creating new content). So really this will save PGI time and manpower.

yes is a option and a Hope https://static.mwomercs.com/forums//public/style_emoticons/default/smile.png or the Bad Option :or, now that MWO belongs to EG7, PGI doesn't do anything anymore, or can't do anything because the last team members who knew their way around MWO have left, or are catching better jobs at EG7, and only the people from the community are allowed to play around with the XML files and dearon is allowed to spread hope.

By the Side ,What the Couldron team doing ,is better as many from PGI in the Back Days ...a shame for the dev`s

Im self use the same Weapons ,and all the buffs and Nerfs uniteresting for me ,Tactical Sense ,Awarness and Position is the Key for hight TTK...Thinkings Men Shooter ? and its more and more for teh RAID Mobile Game user, tahts thinking im not can standing in Open terrain in Focus fire and overlived it for a Minute ?! TTK is to low ...plays CoD or Battlefield and you see what a low TTK is
terribel and im not thinking PGI make it better and brings the most Assaults,Heavys (Black Knight with 70t much tall like a Gladiator or Atlas, and catapult with 65t is a dwarf against mediums ) down in Sizing.

Edited by MW Waldorf Statler, 04 April 2021 - 10:33 PM.

[Pure_NZ]

"As many of you know, towards the end of last year we were tasked with revitalizing MechWarrior Online."

You think we are idiots?
Exactly NOT. All the capacities were reserved for that crap MW5. Sometimes when you thought it was so much time between two patches, you tuned the IS.
The game is obsolete:

• Invisible edges
  
• Marionette mechs
  
• True/False images of turrets
  
• Square objects
  
• Autocannons/Lasers/Missile pods/Arms/Mechs are steady contrary to these are shooting
  
• Mechs CAN NOT crouch
  
• 6 hitboxes on the mechs. A MECH CAN BE DESTROYED IF YOU SHOOT ITS FINGERS!
  
• CLAN AC20 Autocannons shoot 4 times times to make 20 damage. Shoot 4xAC5 projectiles but with 720m range! What is this ********? The AC20 means 200mm, not the imaginary calibers you want! Of course, its IS variant can take a 20 damage by one shot.
  
• CLAN AC10 Autocannons shoot 3 times times to make 10 damage. Shoot 3xAC5(or what?) projectiles but with 1080m range! What is this ********? The AC10 means 100mm, not the imaginary calibers you want!
  
• CLAN AC5 Autocannons shoot 2 times times to make 5 damage. Shoot 2xAC2(or what?) projectiles but with 1260m range! What is this ********? The AC10 means 100mm, not the imaginary calibers you want!
  
• IS light mechs with heavies’ armor
  
• IS lights can run the ping
  
• IS lights and medium can’t be destroyed by 3 hits from 2xLB20X
  
• Sticky Assassin can’t be destroyed by 4 hits from 2xLB20X
  
• IS mediums an ligths have optimal variants for Short Range combat. Have missile pods in the torso symmetrically. Have energy pods in the torso symmetrically. Have any pods in a medium. For example: The Assassin has Jumpjet/1million SRM/Runs 200KPH/ECM/Stealth Armor/Invulnerability
  
• CLAN mediums and lights can’t be built to be combat worthy. If a variants has equipments the player needs, it is sure that weapon pods are in the arms.
  
• No combat worthy CLAN mech can be built against the IS mechs.
  
• All the CLAN mechs are wide as you can did draw them.
  
• All the IS mech have the optimal shape to avoid the hits. Mainly have an inverted triangle torso, this way can’t be targeted well. Contrary to the CLAN mechs. You did draw them as wide as you can.
  
• IS AMS boats. 4xAMS on the IS mechs. The CLAN missiles are ineffective if there is a Corsair in the IS team.
  
• IS Missile boats. 6 and 8 missile pods on a IS mech? 6 or 8 AMSs on a IS mech? Are you serious???
  
• 0,3s IS Laser shooting
  
• IS can shoot 8 lasers, mediums and larges without overheating. They are shooting continuously happily without ghost heat and overheating. Are you serious???
  
• IS mechs have 20% more armor
  
• No combat worthy 100tons CLAN mechs
  
• Should I continue the listing?

You are doing nothing, not revitalising!
You are compensating your lack of talent and degrade the CLANs to make the IS wins in the combats/factions because want to see the IS’ victory, your favourite’s victory. Just let’s see the „Inner Sphere News” account. Why not CLAN news?
In a real simulator the CLAN/IS ratio should be 12/24 mechs, mainly int he faction combats!
Oh, you have no motivation to fight in real environments?
Oh, you have no motivation to carry it out?
Oh, and there is no enough players to carry it out?

Edited by Pure_NZ, 04 April 2021 - 11:01 PM.

[byter75]

Ho boy, there's a lot of changes to process so I have tried to sum it all up in one digestible image (hope this could be helpful):
(Note: Rac dps hasn’t actually increased, though the no-jam window is in a similar ballpark)




To start from the top, the biggest thing that jumps out to me is the many buffs to laser vomit.
Lasers are relatively lightweight, they are also relatively simple and easy to use (due to being hitscan). Their versatility can compliment many other weapon systems but they also can easily compliment one another (and dominate the meta). Whilst I think some laser vomit weapons like large pulse needed some love, we are also giving similar levels of love to staple laser vomit weapons like medium lasers who work as the bread and butter options for both factions. A 10% buff to underperformers like large pulse is warranted, giving 10% buffs to the bread and butter weapons can have a lot more of a knock on effect particularly since we risk their powers combining with all the other laser vomit buffs to be greater than the sum of their parts.
I.e. Laser vomit power creep is something to look out for, we ‘might’ want to roll some of it back next patch.

I like the changes to ppcs, though imo they are gonna pail in comparison to lighter, cooler, hitscan-er laser vomit.

To me, the missile changes seem all over the place.
We are improving ams to help encourage people to take it more but we also recognize that more ams causes missiles to have issues with their feasts turning into famines, so we buff some missiles to try to compensate. Sadly this results in a tug of war where we encourage more ams to be taken, which favours bigger missile mechs (because they can take more missile tubes) with only the weapons we feel like buffing.

Case in point, streaks.
Clan streak was already quite vulnerable to ams, it had to rely on its natural synergy with the much tankier atm missiles to get larger, more consistent alpha strikes. This patch moves to break up that natural synergy in cooldowns. Streaks are still slow and vulnerable, you can upgrade the 4’s to 6’s but the increased slots and decreased ammo economy (for both weapons) only goes to hurt this weapon synergy.
IS streak on the other hand are very heavy, relatively short ranged and very vulnerable to ams (they typically have to go it alone). Increasing their cooldown whilst pushing clan to fire faster simply just waters down the differences between the two tech bases, with IS streak effectively becoming even more dependent on quirks to save it from its many downsides (and it’s now less distinctive from the much more flexible clan option).

At its core, the main problem with this tug of war is that missile numbers and ams both stacks linearly (with smaller mechs unable to keep up as things escalate). How many missile boats your team has (and how big they are) compared to how many ams the enemy has (stacked together), can lead to drastically different results where either the ams gets swamped or the missiles get stopped entirely. Instead of randomly giving some missile weapons our blessings whilst smacking already struggling ones in the face I think we need to adjust how ams works in general so that missiles won't have these issues with linear fickleness.

If I spend 13.5 tons for IS ssrm18 which has 10.8 missile health or 14 tons for atm24 which has 24 missile health, then clearly the weapon with twice the missile health (yes... the missiles are a bit slower and they arc) is the one that needs even more missile health whilst the other (which does half the damage, with a much more restrictive range profile) needs a nerf.
(Read this part in a slightly sarcastic voice:) Apparently streaks, which have squishy missiles, aren’t subject to being shot down by ams. Instead it’s really their cooldowns that determine whether they are feast or famine. So, naturally if they can’t be boated all that easily we increase their cooldowns. Or if they are easier to boat and have natural synergies with weapons with similarly long cooldowns, we decrease their cooldowns because it was seemingly too long, even though it was working in harmony with another weapon that still work with this hit & run playestyle and we needed those tanky missiles to remain consistent because (for some barmy reason) we only worry about ams when we are taking atms.

So yeah. Srm & mrm changes are nice. Lockon changes seem very PGI-y, wish that wasn’t the case, we just had a good taste of that last patch.

I like the Rac5 buffs, though they might make them a bit too strong (particularly at lower tiers). Glad we finally will have ac20 velocity & HSL buff. Like giving Lgauss something unique with removal of ghost heat. Not sure if the various ballistics will see play but these buffs are in the right direction for them. Gauss hp changes are a nice little bandaid that holds the damage you get from these weapons exploding back for an extra moment or two (yay).

To conclude.
Best part of the patch is the change to arty.
I like all the distinct buffs given to certain weapon systems (lppc, snub, ac20, lgauss & case).
I am a little worried about power creep with laser vomit (and rac5).
MIssiles are stuck with a bit of an identity crisis. The ams tug of war needs more than haphazard PGI-style missile health changes.. Lrm can easily nuke someone within 20 or 30 seconds (often plus quirks & skill tree), an unnecessary nerf that does little to address the endless value that 'can' be possible with indirect fire.
With lockons and arty getting toned down we hopefully can see more lights & mediums again (as they were punished harshly by arty & big homing volleys).
I hope we can address the identity issues with missiles in the future and that we stop giving them *rolls a dice* style changes.
All in all, an interesting patch.

Edited by byter75, 04 April 2021 - 11:39 PM.

[The6thMessenger]

Pure_NZ, on 04 April 2021 - 10:56 PM, said:

You are doing nothing, not revitalising!
You are compensating your lack of talent and degrade the CLANs to make the IS wins in the combats/factions because want to see the IS’ victory, your favourite’s victory. Just let’s see the „Inner Sphere News” account. Why not CLAN news?
In a real simulator the CLAN/IS ratio should be 12/24 mechs, mainly int he faction combats!

While I agree that PGI has came short a LOT of times and broke so many promises.

This is just silly. Clans are purposefully OP by TT standards, and keeping one side of the tech incredibly OP won't make a balanced game. Yes, the IS mechs are overtuned, but simply arguing "clan should be OP" isn't helpful.

Buff Clans because they need it, when they need it.