704 replies to this topic

[DAEDALOS513]

John Bronco, on 06 April 2021 - 09:17 AM, said:

You don't think balance adds value to a game?

It's been tried before.. this is basically a live pts.. so balance is not achieved. Most weapon changes were never asked for.. trying to balance weapons by mass changing isn't efficient as it makes it hard to narrow down future necessary tweaking..

Also I don't believe buffing 90% of the weapons to the level of the few op ones is the right way to go. It's back-asswards. All this will do is decrease TTK and make matches even shorter. Search/load times will be longer than match time..

I would have started by slightly nerfing Clan ppc's, is/clan ac2/uac2, and increasing atm spread.. those stand out the most for me.. ironically these are the weapon systems most 'good' players use.. coincidence?

Edited by DAEDALOS513, 07 April 2021 - 07:48 AM.

[Krasnopesky]

DAEDALOS513, on 06 April 2021 - 09:13 AM, said:

You are contradicting yourself.. first you say they are taking feedback and then you say if i don't like the game i'm free to leave. Call me whacky but If I don't like the way a game is handled then I will state it. Games don't become successful with your business model of take it or leave it lol.

If you want to read all our suggestions be my guest and check the forums.. but there were lots of low hanging fruit suggestions that were ignored... yes IGNORED. No other excuse because many were easy to implement.

I know what has been done so far, you don't have to repeat for them. I don't care.. I look at results and all I'm saying is 4 months in (not having high hopes for april patch) and we're still waiting for something that gives added value to the game.. not just fixes for broken things or weapon tweaks.

I'm not sure why we are debating either..

I didn't tell anyone to leave or not pay, I was talking about the basic customer/consumer interaction and how it works. I was rewriting what you originally said in your first comment. You seem to be misinterpreting a lot of what I write.

I asked you which suggestions you feel were completely ignored because I was genuinely interested. There are a lot of suggestions out there, I can't find them all (nor do I need to, it isn't my job, that's on PGI as you said).

Again I am literally agreeing with most of what you are saying.

[Z Paradox]

John Bronco, on 06 April 2021 - 09:17 AM, said:

You don't think balance adds value to a game?

balance is something that comes with every patch ( in normal games). Game value (in this game) have went down with every patch. game get more value with new maps, new weapons, new modes, new mechs, new engine... Focus on "NEW" part to understand Game Value. And we still have many problems so balance is just nice to have it back.

Edited by Z Paradox, 06 April 2021 - 09:29 AM.

[DAEDALOS513]

Krasnopesky, on 06 April 2021 - 09:23 AM, said:

I didn't tell anyone to leave or not pay, I was talking about the basic customer/consumer interaction and how it works. I was rewriting what you originally said in your first comment. You seem to be misinterpreting a lot of what I write.

I asked you which suggestions you feel were completely ignored because I was genuinely interested. There are a lot of suggestions out there, I can't find them all (nor do I need to, it isn't my job, that's on PGI as you said).

Again I am literally agreeing with most of what you are saying.

Like I said I'm not about to repeat yet again all my (our) suggestions.. they are already in the forums but one suggestion that would have increased QOL for everyone is separating native/omnipod quirks from node quirks? A simple colour change and reorganization. Ok another was increasing cw conquest capture points.. the game ends before half the mechs even had a chance to fight.. makes no sense.

Edited by DAEDALOS513, 06 April 2021 - 09:44 AM.

[Krasnopesky]

DAEDALOS513, on 06 April 2021 - 09:29 AM, said:

In fact you did say if i don't like the game I don't have to play it.

Show me exactly where I wrote that. I never said that to you or anyone.

I said in a general sense if a customer doesn't like a product they don't pay for it. This is a general concept, not pointed towards anyone in particular, or even directly at this game.

This game being F2P means you can play it without paying anyway. Many members of the community have continued to play this game but have publicly said they won't spend any money until it starts moving in a direction they like. I think this is a good form of feedback too.

DAEDALOS513, on 06 April 2021 - 09:29 AM, said:

But anyway.. i'm not about to repeat yet again my suggestions.. they are already in the forums but one suggestion that would have increased QOL for everyone is separating native/omnipod quirks from node quirks? A simple colour change and reorganization. Ok another was increasing cw conquest capture points.. the game ends before have the mechs even had a change to fight.. makes no sense.

I would love both those ideas. In fact I directly asked for the CW conquest capture points increase to Daeron just last month (as a lot of people have asked).

[Flash Riprock]

“The goal of changes made to Streak SRMs in this patch has been to make the weapon more consistent in terms of damage output which has been achieved by reducing the upfront raw damage and adjusted heat values while allowing the weapon to fire faster.”

This sounds good as long as you have the armor for a sustained fight, which most medium and light clan mechs don’t have. And since streaks are not pin point damage, the lowered damage makes staying in a prolonged fight even riskier.

Being able to shoot faster doesn’t count for much if you also get dead faster.

Just my initial concern as a light/medium driver and streak lover.

[Krasnopesky]

Flash Riprock, on 06 April 2021 - 09:45 AM, said:

“The goal of changes made to Streak SRMs in this patch has been to make the weapon more consistent in terms of damage output which has been achieved by reducing the upfront raw damage and adjusted heat values while allowing the weapon to fire faster.”

This sounds good as long as you have the armor for a sustained fight, which most medium and light clan mechs don’t have. And since streaks are not pin point damage, the lowered damage makes staying in a prolonged fight even riskier.

Being able to shoot faster doesn’t count for much if you also get dead faster.

Just my initial concern as a light/medium driver and streak lover.

That is a good point. Just to clarify what the changes to clan streaks actually result in I will use the example of cSSRM6 damage over time to show how the change looks:

-----------------------------
Old streak 6s have more damage during: the first shot (12 damage), ~6 seconds (24 damage), ~18 seconds (48 damage)

New streak 6s have more damage during: ~4 seconds (18 damage), ~8 seconds (27 damage), ~16 seconds (45 damage), after ~20 seconds (54 damage) the new streaks are always doing more damage.

They have the same damage at: ~12 seconds (36 damage)
-----------------------------

The first alpha damage is obviously very important and the current streaks are better then, however afterwards there are only two points when the current streaks are actually doing more damage.

[DAEDALOS513]

Flash Riprock, on 06 April 2021 - 09:45 AM, said:

“The goal of changes made to Streak SRMs in this patch has been to make the weapon more consistent in terms of damage output which has been achieved by reducing the upfront raw damage and adjusted heat values while allowing the weapon to fire faster.”

This sounds good as long as you have the armor for a sustained fight, which most medium and light clan mechs don’t have. And since streaks are not pin point damage, the lowered damage makes staying in a prolonged fight even riskier.

Being able to shoot faster doesn’t count for much if you also get dead faster.

Just my initial concern as a light/medium driver and streak lover.

I didnt' go through all the changes but some other things that don't make sense; implementing ppc buffs before adjusting ppc quirked mechs.. what we are experiencing now with ppc-geddon will be worse until they find the time or 'resources' to adjust mech quirks.

Nerfing IS streaks makes no sense either.. like who ever thought IS streaks were op or a threat? You barely see them.. now you'll see them even less.

IS med laser cooldown and heat quirks. Who ever said they were too hot? Who ever said they took too long to fire?

Edited by DAEDALOS513, 06 April 2021 - 11:05 AM.

[Jack Shayu Walker]

DAEDALOS513, on 06 April 2021 - 09:21 AM, said:

It's been tried before.. this is basically a live pts.. so balance is not achieved. Most weapon changes were never asked for.. trying to balance weapons by mass changing isn't efficient as it makes it hard to narrow down future necessary tweaking..

Also I don't believe buffing 90% of the weapons to the level of the few op ones is the right way to go. It's back-asswards. All this will do is decrease TTK and makes matches even shorter. Search/load times will be longer than match time..

I would have started by slightly nerfing Clan ppc's, is/clan ac2/uac2, and increasing atm spread.. those stand out the most for me.. ironically these are the weapon systems most 'good' players use.. coincidence?

Well I thank my stars that you're not in charge.

I've had enough of the nerf based balancing. I want all these weapons to be powerful like they were in the good old days. I want the game to be fun again!

And for the record the idea that changing a lot of things at once is inefficient is nonsense. The cauldron's changes are meant to all work together. Heck the reason TTK is going to go up is because PGI didn't want to mess with mech quirks and mech agility in the same patch, even though both of these things could have been altered with an XML change and would have mitigated the increase in TTK induced by buffing underperforming weapons en masse.

[Anomalocaris]

Krasnopesky, on 06 April 2021 - 10:14 AM, said:

That is a good point. Just to clarify what the changes to clan streaks actually result in I will use the example of cSSRM6 damage over time to show how the change looks:

-----------------------------
Old streak 6s have more damage during: the first shot (12 damage), ~6 seconds (24 damage), ~18 seconds (48 damage)

New streak 6s have more damage during: ~4 seconds (18 damage), ~8 seconds (27 damage), ~16 seconds (45 damage), after ~20 seconds (54 damage) the new streaks are always doing more damage.

They have the same damage at: ~12 seconds (36 damage)
-----------------------------

The first alpha damage is obviously very important and the current streaks are better then, however afterwards there are only two points when the current streaks are actually doing more damage.

I am generally supportive of the upcoming weapon changes, but I do share some of the concerns expressed about streaks (and the usefulness/niche of ATMs with the damage changes). DPS tends to be a way we look at a lot of weapons. But I feel as weapon cooldowns trend longer, DPS becomes less useful in assessing weapon strength.

Someone else mentioned that the increased fire rate and reduced damage means that while a light mech will have a lower chance of getting blapped by a single streak volley, it also means that mechs will have to expose more to get the same damage out. This is less of an issue for a heavy or assault boating streaks, but for a light or medium it becomes more of an issue.

A big alpha and long cooldown (see PPCs after April patch) favors hit and run or peek/poptart tactics. I don't mind pushing for less peeking/poptarting, but lighter, more fragile mechs are going to have a harder time if they have to expose themselves for an extra salvo to get the same damage out.

Its a difficult balance, and I'm fearful the need to implement only weapons this time around is going to irritate a lot of people who can't wait for the resizing and agility changes to come down the road. But in the meantime, I think streaks should be revisited pretty quickly (and I would have liked to see ATM cooldown get longer while keeping the higher skill cap 3dmg range bracket - easier to close on the mech, reduces dps, but still provides the punch).

Either way, I hope these changes work out well so we can continue to get more community driven development.

[DAEDALOS513]

Jack Shayu Walker, on 06 April 2021 - 10:54 AM, said:

Well I thank my stars that you're not in charge.

I've had enough of the nerf based balancing. I want all these weapons to be powerful like they were in the good old days. I want the game to be fun again!

And for the record the idea that changing a lot of things at once is inefficient is nonsense. The cauldron's changes are meant to all work together. Heck the reason TTK is going to go up is because PGI didn't want to mess with mech quirks and mech agility in the same patch, even though both of these things could have been altered with an XML change and would have mitigated the increase in TTK induced by buffing underperforming weapons en masse.

You're equating high dps with fun? You sound like a kid in a candy store that wants a little of everything and doesn't know whats' good for them. Lets see how you feel on the receiving end when you get cored after 2 or 3 shots on. Lets see how you feel when match times start to last under 4 minutes where walking to the battle will last longer than the actual battle.

Because all weapons are judged relative to each other.. It will be harder to pinpoint how a weapon is behaving because by mass buffing, you have more variables on the table to look at. At the moment we know clan ppc, is/clan ac2/uac2's and atms are outliers as far as dps and taking down mechs goes.. by mass buffing we throw all our knowledge out the window and have to start from scratch.. instead of doing what's more efficient we're buffing everything else to their OP levels. YAY CANDY. Much like society nowadays.. common sense has gone out the window..

Edited by DAEDALOS513, 06 April 2021 - 11:38 AM.

[Krasnopesky]

Anomalocaris, on 06 April 2021 - 10:58 AM, said:

I am generally supportive of the upcoming weapon changes, but I do share some of the concerns expressed about streaks (and the usefulness/niche of ATMs with the damage changes). DPS tends to be a way we look at a lot of weapons. But I feel as weapon cooldowns trend longer, DPS becomes less useful in assessing weapon strength.

Someone else mentioned that the increased fire rate and reduced damage means that while a light mech will have a lower chance of getting blapped by a single streak volley, it also means that mechs will have to expose more to get the same damage out. This is less of an issue for a heavy or assault boating streaks, but for a light or medium it becomes more of an issue.

A big alpha and long cooldown (see PPCs after April patch) favors hit and run or peek/poptart tactics. I don't mind pushing for less peeking/poptarting, but lighter, more fragile mechs are going to have a harder time if they have to expose themselves for an extra salvo to get the same damage out.

Its a difficult balance, and I'm fearful the need to implement only weapons this time around is going to irritate a lot of people who can't wait for the resizing and agility changes to come down the road. But in the meantime, I think streaks should be revisited pretty quickly (and I would have liked to see ATM cooldown get longer while keeping the higher skill cap 3dmg range bracket - easier to close on the mech, reduces dps, but still provides the punch).

Either way, I hope these changes work out well so we can continue to get more community driven development.

Great points. We will be watching closely once the patch hits and testing the changes ourselves live to evaluate how it all works out. It would have been nicer to have the PTS first so we could have a better opportunity to test and further refine, but as it is I am happy to see these changes go forward and I know a lot of people looking forward to them, which is nice to see.

For clan streaks another concept we had was modifying the range slightly and not reducing the damage as much (1.75 per missile instead of 1.5) but as I said we can evaluate the performance and then look at further modifications if needed.

6 seconds of cooldown is very very long (as we can see in the current game with the PPC cooldown change) so while reducing alpha and increasing cooldown can be negative as you identified, it can also be positive if done correctly. Reducing damage and cooldown to current SPL levels is of course almost never the answer as then you just always have to stare at the enemy to do damage.

ATMs we also had lots of different concepts for, so the same idea applies should they not function as intended. In many situations (especially in QP) I think we will see them perform better than they currently do due to the common presence of AMS that you typically see (especially if an event includes missile damage or an AMS specific event goal).

Edited by Krasnopesky, 06 April 2021 - 11:13 AM.

[mcmatthew]

DAEDALOS513, on 06 April 2021 - 10:40 AM, said:

Nerfing IS streaks makes no sense either.. like who ever thought IS streaks were op or a threat? You barely see them.. now you'll see them even less.

Agreed, although at least they didn’t nerf the SSRM2. If you are gonna nerf SSRMs it makes sense to nerf the 4 and 6 tube versions. They have an advantage over regular SRMs in that the spread doesn’t increase as the amount of tunes increases.

[Kodan Black]

I'm excited to see these changes, but I'm more excited to see the removal of the last patch's changes.

[Jack Shayu Walker]

DAEDALOS513, on 06 April 2021 - 11:04 AM, said:

You're equating high dps with fun? You sound like a kid in a candy store that wants a little of everything and doesn't know whats' good for them. Lets see how you feel on the receiving end when you get cored after 2 or 3 shots on. Lets see how you feel when match times start to last under 4 minutes where walking to the battle will last longer than the actual battle.

Because all weapons are judged relative to each other.. It will be harder to pinpoint how a weapon is behaving because by mass buffing, you have more variables on the table to look at. At the moment we know clan ppc, is/clan ac2/uac2's and atms are outliers as far as dps and taking down mechs goes.. by mass buffing we throw all our knowledge out the window and have to start from scratch.. instead of doing what's more efficient we're buffing everything else to their OP levels. YAY CANDY. Much like society nowadays.. common sense has gone out the window..

Yeah yeah. Be careful not to break your legs when fall off your high horse.

Many of these buffs put these weapons at power levels that they have been at before earlier in this games history. Yes I'm excited to return to those times, because yes those times were exceptionally fun in my experience. I remember back when cSPL did 6 damage and laser vom Timber Wolves were cool and cERPPCs had a 4 second cooldown (im actually sad that last one didn't come to pass, but the cERPPC is currently performing well so oh well). Back when, you know, we had actual variety. The difference between then and now is that PGI arrived at that state of balance by chance in their usual bumbling around, and of course it didn't last. This time I'm excited to have someone who knows what they're doing, The Cauldron, getting us there.

Frankly I don't give a damn if I get "cored in 3 volleys," (and lets set aside how many different variables that statement brushes aside, you know how like how big the attacker is vs how big the target is). I played medium mechs back in the day, and I still do now and I'm damn successful at it; I love the fast pace. And for the love of god match times weren't 4 minutes before and they aren't going to be now, so calm down.

And gee its almost like by balancing only a few weapons at a time it also takes you much longer to get through the whole roster. And its almost like the time you lose by having to recollect data from scratch after a big pass is negligible when you consider how long all those small patches will take to achieve a fun balanced game. PGI does have metrics to track this stuff, you know.

Edited: Because I should do better than name calling.

Edited by Jack Shayu Walker, 06 April 2021 - 12:22 PM.

[RockmachinE]

Good good.

[katoult]

Jack Shayu Walker, on 06 April 2021 - 12:06 PM, said:

And for the love of god match times weren't 4 minutes before and they aren't going to be now, so calm down.

In Tier 1 matches currently the 3 minute mark is the decisive moment where one side starts getting killed off - and you rarely see matches longer than 7-8 minutes. The TTK tends to be half what it is in low tiers.

DAEDALOS513, on 06 April 2021 - 09:21 AM, said:

ironically these are the weapon systems most 'good' players use.. coincidence?

I wouldn't quite agree there. The meta tends to be simplistic formulas - take Inner Sphere mech in weight range X to Y, make it fast enough to stay at the head of the nascar, stick as many MPL on it as can fit ; take mech in weight range A to B, put jump jets on it, place 3 ER PPCs on it. Similarly the same 2UAC10/2UAC5 combo is the meta for virtually any clan assault.

In addition, what's your metric on "good" ? Half the accounts in the Top 100 on Jarl's are alt accounts that exploit proficiency with a specific high DPS mech/weapon combination for farming. There's a handful that actually specialize similarly as their general playstyle, and then there's a few dozen actually good general players (of which a good number are in some way involved in the Goulash).

Edited by katoult, 06 April 2021 - 12:41 PM.

[MUNTAFIRE2]

This is what everyone wanted to say, but didn't know how or couldn't say... Turn the servers into the public test servers and rollout the community changes in a first step to move forward in the way of updating and balancing the game.
"

Kodan Black


Posted Today, 08:58 AM
I'm excited to see these changes, but I'm more excited to see the removal of the last patch's changes."

I agree with this guy. I like these moves forward, but I am also looking forward to taking the changes away that were made... especially the MASC thing. MASC is great and to have the mobility boost taken away, really sucks.

[DAEDALOS513]

Jack Shayu Walker, on 06 April 2021 - 12:06 PM, said:

Yeah yeah. Be careful not to break your legs when fall off your high horse. Once you get to tier 1, you'll be lucky to see matches lasting 5 minutes unless your on polar or alpine..

Many of these buffs put these weapons at power levels that they have been at before earlier in this games history. Yes I'm excited to return to those times, because yes those times were exceptionally fun in my experience. I remember back when cSPL did 6 damage and laser vom Timber Wolves were cool and cERPPCs had a 4 second cooldown (im actually sad that last one didn't come to pass, but the cERPPC is currently performing well so oh well). Back when, you know, we had actual variety. The difference between then and now is that PGI arrived at that state of balance by chance in their usual bumbling around, and of course it didn't last. This time I'm excited to have someone who knows what they're doing, The Cauldron, getting us there.

Frankly I don't give a damn if I get "cored in 3 volleys," (and lets set aside how many different variables that statement brushes aside, you know how like how big the attacker is vs how big the target is). I played medium mechs back in the day, and I still do now and I'm damn successful at it; I love the fast pace. And for the love of god match times weren't 4 minutes before and they aren't going to be now, so calm down.

And gee its almost like by balancing only a few weapons at a time it also takes you much longer to get through the whole roster. And its almost like the time you lose by having to recollect data from scratch after a big pass is negligible when you consider how long all those small patches will take to achieve a fun balanced game. PGI does have metrics to track this stuff, you know.

Edited: Because I should do better than name calling.

I'm perfectly safe on my 'high horse'.. with 50,000+ matches into this game I'm very comfortable up here. Once you reach tier 1 you'll be lucky to be in matches that last 5 minutes.

Reminiscing with your rose coloured glasses does nobody any good.. there were different variables back then.. the games were 'funner' as you put it because there were far fewer strong mechs and weapons back then. So in relation.. those weapons you speak of were in effect stronger. There were no veagles that can boat everything and the kitchen sink, blood asps (with insane dps, mounts and ecm to boot), no faf's with their one shot kills, no vulcans with their broken hitboxes, etc.. so attributing the fun you had in the past based solely on weapons is flawed. Mechs were also smaller.. ie smaller hitboxes.

You just wanna rush into this and mass buff because it would take too long to fine tune 3, 4 weapons at a time?.. this, after you called pgi's past work 'bumbling?' That's the pot calling the kettle black in my book.

Edited by DAEDALOS513, 06 April 2021 - 01:17 PM.

[ShooterMcGavin80]

DAEDALOS513, on 06 April 2021 - 09:21 AM, said:

I would have started by slightly nerfing Clan ppc's, is/clan ac2/uac2, and increasing atm spread.. those stand out the most for me.. ironically these are the weapon systems most 'good' players use.. coincidence?

Agreed very much. I would also slightly nerf IS laser vomit. Make it slightly hotter or slightly longer burn time. Right now for me anyways IS lasers are easymode.

MRM's didn't need a buff either. In quickplay MRM boats are already veery strong.

Nerfs would go a long way towards balance and better experience then giving buffs to 90% of the weapons.