702 replies to this topic

[byter75]

Krasnopesky, on 07 April 2021 - 09:28 PM, said:

Clan streaks will do worse at one hitting Light Mechs, which was one of the factors currently in game that we wanted to mitigate. In that sense they will perform a little worse against Lights. Of course with better DPS they will still easily kill a Light if engaged in a sustained fight, but they were always doing that regardless.

You're definitely correct that lowered heat per damage will result in Mechs needing more heatsinks to sustain their damage, but many clan Mechs have the tonnage to do so. We will definitely be watching the damage per heat balance when the patch drops to ensure that they are now not too hot.

Streak Mechs were never pushing a group of large Mechs regardless of these changes with a streak boat (although you definitely can with a group of streak Mechs). Streak boats are often skirmishing/flanking type Mechs in matches, we weren't trying to change that role. What we are trying to do is give Clan Streak Mechs a better chance if they run into a bigger Mech while flanking or skirmishing on the flank of their team. The higher DPS should achieve these goals and if it is clear they don't we will evaluate the statistics and feedback and look at other potential ways to balance them.

Streaks are currently great at winning skirmishes but obviously that's not all you should do when you've secured a flank. Being able to contribute to the main fight is an important second stage for lock-on play and sadly it can be very inconsistent due to ams.

Mixing atm with streak was what allowed clan lockon to be more consistent, part of your weaponry had no minimum range and part of your weaponry was more resistant to ams.

Being less heat efficent combined with lower damage per ton (and higher dps) means that streak will be a lot more tonnage hungry. Since atm ammo is loosing some of its damage at closer ranges it'll be harder to find the tonnage for both weapons (and now that streak is following a different philosophy for cooldowns, it is harder to sync them up).

Personally I am a fan of the idea of reducing feast or famine. Lockons can be really harsh against smaller mechs (feast) and their damage can all too easily drop off a cliff when matched against massed ams (famine). So to reduce issues with feast or famine I would personally prefer to see streaks toned down against smaller mechs, whilst helping them in the second stage of the fight, rather than pushing them to be more specialized*

*By doings like making them more tonnage hungry (cooling & ammo) along with breaking down clan lockon synergies (harder to mix and match).

Edited by byter75, 07 April 2021 - 10:37 PM.

[dario03]

byter75, on 07 April 2021 - 10:29 PM, said:

Streaks are currently great at winning skirmishes but obviously that's not all you should do when you've secured a flank. Being able to contribute to the main fight is an important second stage for lock-on play and sadly it can be very inconsistent due to ams.

Mixing atm with streak was what allowed clan lockon to be more consistent, part of your weaponry had no minimum range and part of your weaponry was more resistant to ams.

Being less heat efficent combined with lower damage per ton (and higher dps) means that streak will be a lot more tonnage hungry. Since atm ammo is loosing some of its damage at closer ranges it'll be harder to find the tonnage for both weapons (and now that streak is following a different philosophy for cooldowns, it is harder to sync them up).

Personally I am a fan of the idea of reducing feast or famine. Lockons can be really harsh against smaller mechs (feast) and their damage can all too easily drop off a cliff when matched against massed ams (famine). So to reduce issues with feast or famine I would personally prefer to see streaks toned down against smaller mechs, whilst helping them in the second stage of the fight, rather than pushing them to be more specialized*

*By doings like making them more tonnage hungry (cooling & ammo) along with breaking down clan lockon synergies (harder to mix and match).

How would you do that?

[Albert C]

Krasnopesky, on 07 April 2021 - 07:58 PM, said:

This would be awesome. Especially if you could watch other matches, not just your own. Then you might see some streamers reviewing matches that are played too.



Clan streaks do less damage per shot, but actually have more DPS overall. This makes them a little worse against Light Mechs (they will still beat Lights quite easily regardless, but not just one hit them as easily) but better against other Mechs.

It has been almost 8 years and I wonder why match replay is still not there. Also a proper IK foot animation does not exist yet. Even MW4 is much better in this aspect.

[Albert C]

Personally I am never a fan of streaks, when you can achieve much better results with carefully aimed srm. I wonder if its possible to implement heat seeking amunition with limited tracking ability. I kniw this will fundamentally changes how ssrm works in this game and doesn't fit the lore. I would love to see it implemented in a way that awards players who do aim but does not require the same precision of srm. By changing factors like tracking cone, turn rate and seeking distance you can make light mechs life easier while also making them more effective against heavier slower targets by allowing poptarting. Essentially a heavy srm with less dmg but seeks to its target to a limited degree.

[byter75]

dario03, on 07 April 2021 - 11:01 PM, said:

How would you do that?

There's three parts, the feast, the famine and the specialization:

Famine:
Streaks do good dps and they 'can' harrass bigger mechs to death, the famine becomes an acute problem when there's ams. The simple solution is to simply improve the missile health (like what is being done for a lot of missile weapons this patch), that way you can more easily contribute to the main fight (even if using streaks in the main fight it isn't exactly your strong suit).
In the long run, it would be good if the tug of war between ams & missiles was somehow addressed, as of right now in QP you kind of have to just live with a dice roll that determines how many missiles and ams are on either side (where lots of missile can swamp the ams or lots of ams can shut down the missile mechs). It might be better for ams to have a dampening effect on missiles (that stacks to only a certain point) rather than it just deleting a certain amount of missiles nearby (as it does right now).

Feast:
With most weapons the smaller, faster and further away a mech is, the harder it is to hit them and this neatly helps to balance out the lighter mechs' lower survivability (There's a lot of nuance you could include here but generally the model holds). However lock-ons follow a different model, lockon time is longer for smaller mechs but once you have it, it's relatively easy to keep and you tend to deal almost full damage no matter the range or size of the opponent. Since streaks just need to get a lock (they don't even need to hold it) they can reliably get all their damage on any mech they aim at, even smallest ones, which is unfair when you can boat so much lockon damage with clan.
Whilst I am not super familar with the xml files, I do remember patches that have adjusted tracking strength and spread for lockon streaks (they used to hit the arms a lot more). I would try nerfing these if that meant that smaller mechs had an easier time against streaks.
Ideally, in the long run it would be great if lockon weapons would spread more according to what is being targeted. I know it takes longer to get a lock against smaller mechs, so maybe that same code could be accomidated to make lock-ons tend to miss/spread more against smaller mechs
(lore explaination would be that they generally have a smaller radar signature, so missiles struggle to pinpoint smaller mechs locations as easily as they do now)
Clans boating lockons will still be a problem even with more missile spread so, let's talk about....

Specialization:
I personally enjoy the current synergy between atms and streaks. Both have a cycle time of about 5 seconds and both want to be used within ~360m or so. One resists ams whilst the other can always be used up close, it's interesting playing with their trade offs and varying missile velocities (streak is faster so you have to lob it just a bit after the atms depending on the range).
However ATMs can do some very large alpha strikes with (little to) no ghost heat form just 2-3 missile hardpoints. Whilst streaks are very hardpoint hungry, they also don't share ghost heat restrictions so you can stack them together for bigger alpha strikes (e.g. warhammer 2C with atm24 & ssrm18 currently does 108 dmg alpha with no ghost heat).
Since I like the idea of taking both weapons it would be a shame to link their ghost heat however the size of their alphas is something that does need addressing.
I would suggest treating atms like we do mrms (regarding ghost heat). Since the larger launchers are so hardpoint efficent you can only fire 1 mrm40 or 1 atm12 without ghot heat (but ghost heat is slim). Only 2mrm30 or 2atm9 together, etc etc. Naturally this would need to be balanced out against ams and whatnot. Still this would help address the relative hardpoint efficency of atms and the alpha strikes they can produce.
(I do like this patches' idea to reduce upfront missile damage, as that also helps tone down the alpha strikes).

In the end those are just some of my ideas, hopefully they are on the right track. Never the less, I hope the end goal (reduce feast or famine) is something people can see the merit in working towards.

Edited by byter75, 08 April 2021 - 12:21 AM.

[dario03]

byter75, on 07 April 2021 - 11:46 PM, said:

There's three parts, the feast, the famine and the speclialization:
Famine: Streaks do good dps and they 'can' harrass bigger mechs to death, the famine becomes an acute problem when there's ams. The simple solution is to simply improve the missile health (like what is being done for a lot of missile weapons this patch).
In the long run, it would be good if the tug of war between ams & missiles was somehow addressed, as of right now in QP you kind of have to just live with a dice roll that determines how many missiles and ams are on either side (where lots of missile can swamp the ams or lots of ams can shut down the missile mechs).

Feast: Unlike most weapons, how much of a homing alpha strike that typically hit a mech isn't effected by its size (against lights you have to lead with projectiles or hold on target for lasers). Since streaks just need to get a lock (they don't even need to hold it) they can reliably get all their damage on any mech they aim at (even smallest ones).
Whilst I am not familar with the xml files, I do remember patches that have adjusted tracking strength and spread for lockon streaks (they used to hit the arms a lot). I would try nerfing these if that meant that smaller mechs had an easier time against streaks.
Ideally, in the long run it would be great if lockon weapons would spread more according to what is being targeted. I know it takes longer to get a lock against smaller mechs, so some similar code to that could be implimented to make lock-ons tend to miss more against mechs with smaller health pools.

Lastly there's specalization.
I personally enjoy the current synergy between atms and streaks. Both have a cycle time of about 5 seconds and both want to be used within ~360m or so. One resists ams whilst the other can always be used up close, it's interesting playing with their trade offs and varying missile velocities (streak is faster so you have to lob it just a bit after the atms, depending on range).
However ATMs can do some very large alpha strikes with no ghost heat form just 2-3 missile hardpoints. Whilst streaks are very hardpoint hungry, they also don't share ghost heat restrictions so you can stack them together for hugemongous alpha strikes (warhammer 2C with atm24 & ssrm18 currently does 108 dmg alpha with no ghost heat).
Since I like the idea of boating the weapons together it would be a shame to link their ghost heat together however the size of their alphas is something that needs addressing.
I would suggest treating atms like we do mrms (regarding ghost heat). Since the larger launchers are so hardpoint efficent you can only fire 1 mrm40 or 1 atm12 without ghot heat. Only 2mrm30 or 2atm9 together, etc etc. Naturally this would need to be balanced out against ams and whatnot but it would help balance out the value of missile hardpoints.
(I do like this patches' idea to reduce missile damage, as that also helps tone down the alpha strikes).

In the end those are just my ideas, hopefully they are on the right track. Never the less, I hope the end goal (reduce feast or famine) is something people can see the merit in working towards.
There's two parts, the feast and the famine.
Famine: Streaks do good dps and so they can harrass bigger mechs to death, the famine mostly comes from their weakness to ams. The simple solution is to simply improve the missile health. In the long run, it would be good if the tug of war between ams & missiles was properly addressed

Having performance like spread or amount of missiles fired be based on size of the locked target is something I've wanted for a long time. So I'm with you there, unfortunately it is not possible with xml, and may not be even with more access. Tracking strength in xml doesn't actually do anything for streaks right now since that is for lrms and atms. Moving streaks to use the same kind of tracking that lrm/atms do was discussed since then maybe faster targets could dodge some. However there was some issues with them working at close range that couldn't be fixed with xml. So maybe something can be done later but for now this is what was decided on to test.

Originally when the changes were going to pts the plan was to try a couple of different changes for cssrm and atms. Some of the things you mentioned like missile health and atm ghost heat was planned. Might still happen though, this patch doesn't have to be the only weapon balance pass.

Edited by dario03, 08 April 2021 - 12:06 AM.

[byter75]

dario03, on 08 April 2021 - 12:04 AM, said:

Having performance like spread or amount of missiles fired be based on size of the locked target is something I've wanted for a long time. So I'm with you there, unfortunately it is not possible with xml, and may not be even with more access. Tracking strength in xml doesn't actually do anything for streaks right now since that is for lrms and atms. Moving streaks to use the same kind of tracking that lrm/atms do was discussed since then maybe faster targets could dodge some. However there was some issues with them working at close range that couldn't be fixed with xml. So maybe something can be done later but for now this is what was decided on to test.

Originally when the changes were going to pts the plan was to try a couple of different changes for cssrm and atms. Some of the things you mentioned like missile health and atm ghost heat was planned. Might still happen though, this patch doesn't have to be the only weapon balance pass.

As far as I'm aware, streak has always had an issue at point blank range where either the lock is lost or the missiles do nothing if you shove your face into the enemy. Or do you mean that streak didn't hurt within more reasonable distances like 50-120m?

I do hope ams balance and lockon balance will continued to be worked on in future patches. c:
Ams rewards blobbing up and 'destroy X missiles' is hard to balance, causing feast & famine due to the dice roll from matchmaker and it punishes smaller missile mechs (who often don't have 'that' many missile hardpoints to take the smaller launchers (unless it's certain clan mechs)).

For now, I hope we could do the simplest change and address the abysmal missile hp for streaks, particularly for IS who have to pay a huge tonnage premium to take their streaks*.

*It's starting to get silly. After this patch, it'll be 28.8 missile hp for atm24 compared to 10.8 missile health for IS ssrm18, that means clan atm has 2.66 times the missile health for about the same tonnage and it has much better dps / alpha-strike (and atm24 can add streak to the alpha!). Poor IS tech.

Edited by byter75, 08 April 2021 - 12:53 AM.

[dario03]

byter75, on 08 April 2021 - 12:49 AM, said:

As far as I'm aware, streak has always had an issue at point blank range where either the lock is lost or the missiles do nothing if you shove your face into the enemy. Or do you mean that streak didn't hurt within more reasonable distances like 50-120m?

I do hope ams balance and lockon balance will continued to be worked on in future patches. c:
Ams rewards blobbing up and 'destroy X missiles' is hard to balance, causing feast & famine due to the dice roll from matchmaker and it punishes smaller missile mechs (who often don't have 'that' many missile hardpoints to take the smaller launchers (unless it's certain clan mechs)).

For now, I hope we could do the simplest change and address the abysmal missile hp for streaks, particularly for IS who have to pay a huge tonnage premium to take their streaks*.

*It's starting to get silly. After this patch, it'll be 28.8 missile hp for atm24 compared to 10.8 missile health for IS ssrm18, that means clan has 2.66 times the missile health for about the same tonnage and 66% more dps / alpha-strike (and clan can add streak to the alpha!). Poor IS tech.

I'm not the one that tested them but I believe it was something like sub 90m.

[Runecarver]

dario03, on 08 April 2021 - 12:04 AM, said:

Having performance like spread or amount of missiles fired be based on size of the locked target is something I've wanted for a long time.

This makes absolutely no sense. So against the most mobile targets, which are already capable of denying lock on weapons from achieving a stable lock, streaks should be even weaker? Streak missiles have already been weighted to be less concentrated so as not to "one-shot" light mechs. Even now, they only really do that if the light mech somehow has one XL engine side torso turned towards an entire 36 missile volley.

On another note, this arms race between AMS and missile health is monumentally stupid. First AMS range and damage per second were increased a few times because a single AMS was "too weak" against massed missiles. Now we're in a situation where just four AMS spread across 1-4 mechs completely shut out c-LRM60 and less. Or 2x ATM12's, or 3x ATM9's. To the point that the feast or famine situation is a real issue where entire weapon systems are nullified by a passively active, terrain and line of sight ignoring support system. Now we're boosting missile health, rather than just... simply reducing AMS damage or range and reducing volley delay for streamed missile weapon systems so that they would have less vulnerability to AMS.

[dario03]

Runecarver, on 08 April 2021 - 12:56 AM, said:

This makes absolutely no sense. So against the most mobile targets, which are already capable of denying lock on weapons from achieving a stable lock, streaks should be even weaker? Streak missiles have already been weighted to be less concentrated so as not to "one-shot" light mechs. Even now, they only really do that if the light mech somehow has one XL engine side torso turned towards an entire 36 missile volley.

It makes sense because the entire defensive strength of most fast lights is being hard to hit. Streaks basically counter that by only requiring you to aim by the target for a while. A light can only deny a lock by moving out of line of sight of all enemies and uavs or by having counters like like stealth armor.
If lock-ons could have different performance based on target size then they could be buffed in other ways. For instance the weighting of where missiles hit could be made more torso centric against heavier targets.

Edited by dario03, 08 April 2021 - 01:17 AM.

[byter75]

Runecarver, on 08 April 2021 - 12:56 AM, said:

This makes absolutely no sense. So against the most mobile targets, which are already capable of denying lock on weapons from achieving a stable lock, streaks should be even weaker? Streak missiles have already been weighted to be less concentrated so as not to "one-shot" light mechs. Even now, they only really do that if the light mech somehow has one XL engine side torso turned towards an entire 36 missile volley.

On another note, this arms race between AMS and missile health is monumentally stupid. First AMS range and damage per second were increased a few times because a single AMS was "too weak" against massed missiles. Now we're in a situation where just four AMS spread across 1-4 mechs completely shut out c-LRM60 and less. Or 2x ATM12's, or 3x ATM9's. To the point that the feast or famine situation is a real issue where entire weapon systems are nullified by a passively active, terrain and line of sight ignoring support system. Now we're boosting missile health, rather than just... simply reducing AMS damage or range and reducing volley delay for streamed missile weapon systems so that they would have less vulnerability to AMS.

Just like how ams stacks linearly, shuting down missile play making it unreliable and less fun.
So too can streaks & atm boating shut down an entire weightclass/playstyle making it unreliable and less fun.

Because we can't control how good lockons are against different weight classes, we can't address their effects on play as easily.
Right now streaks have to be decent enough against larger mechs but that damage potenial comes down with equal force against mechs with smaller health pools.

This awkward arms race between missiles and ams is because our options are somewhat limited causing us to almost always land on a generally unsatifying compromise.
Similarly, if we can't adjust lockon effectiveness according to who you are shooting at, then we always have to balance their effectiveness against all targets at once, leading to more awkward compromises.

Edited by byter75, 08 April 2021 - 01:30 AM.

[K4I 4LL4RD LI4O]

So we will have a Rifleman iic which can fire 4 lrg pulselssers at a time with 0 ghostheat for a total of 52 points of dmg pinpoint.This will be FUN!

[Aidan Crenshaw]

It does the same for 48 dmage right now, your point?

[DAEDALOS513]

Jack Shayu Walker, on 07 April 2021 - 10:22 AM, said:

Wait you consider the March patch a nerf to clan PPCs? I thought we were all sorta pretending that patch didn't happen? Even these patch notes are based on pre-March numbers.

Good a question. At what cost. The cost to me seems to be a slightly lower TTK at the top end of play and a still mild but more significant reduction in TTK at the low end of play where TTK is already fairly high.

Is an increase in build variety and a spread of weapons that are now more satisfying to use worth such a reduction in TTK. Clearly your answer is no. For me the answer is yes. Faster matches and lower TTK are fine with me, believe me. Maybe some other players will have this rude awakening you speak of, but heck, I miss the time before when PGI did the global weapon cooldown nerf. I like a lower TTK. Not to say I'd like a super-low TTK, but my ideal TTK is still lower than what we have now.

That all said I'm willing to accept that a lower TTK is not what most people want, and good news! As the Cauldron has said, basically all of their changes henceforth will be about raising TTK. It's only because of PGI that we aren't getting some of those TTK raising changes in the same patch, but hey I guess with PGI you can only expect so much.

So you're saying Cauldron is doing the PGI cha-cha? Two steps forward, 3 steps back? Because this first patch of theirs is gonna do one hell of a number on decreasing TTK..

you too can dance along... try and keep up..

Edited by DAEDALOS513, 08 April 2021 - 05:19 AM.

[K4I 4LL4RD LI4O]

If you have to ask Aidan I suggest reading the overall changes. If you can't see what is coming for us, well you'll be in for a rough wake up call. If you think those ppc gauss changes were bad, wait until this giant patch rolls over us without pts. Remember Arctic Cheethas with 6 small pulse riping assaults apart? I do. Remember Marauder iic laser vomit and hellbringer laservomit before they got dialed down a bit? I do. So think back and remember if you can, remember all that is coming back for us, at once, in one patch. Than add to that the new possibilities for the newer mechs. That is my point. Higher alphas and fadter alphas will not save this game, it will break it.

[DAEDALOS513]

Krasnopesky, on 07 April 2021 - 09:01 AM, said:

You're not understanding what he is saying. He is saying the current problems with the usage of Small Lasers and Small Pulse Lasers are due to a variety of issues that were caused by changes PGI has made over the years. More specifically he uses the example of how large the 35 tonne Jenner is and the issue that large size causes to the Mech.

The Cauldron essentially agrees with his assessment and has plans to address the concerns he brought up in order to make those weapon systems and the Mech viable again.

Not all lights are meant to brawl.. and Jenner is most definitely not.. unless you have uber skillz. So he's using it wrong.. if he insists on brawling with it he should not engage until the second half of match.. ie. the 2.5 minute mark..

Edited by DAEDALOS513, 08 April 2021 - 05:29 AM.

[Kodan Black]

I don't love the current PPC focus from the last patch (3x PPC Veagles are the new hotness) and in general feel that the changes made in March were poorly conceived and executed. The Cauldron changes may decrease TTK, but the bigger set of weapon changes is going to cause people to try out combos and mechs and the like. In that sense I don't think we'll see the same mass movement to 1 weapon system.

I would expect there to be trial and error given the lack of PTS means we are all figuring it out live. Some mech/weapon combos are probably gonna be OP and will get tweaked in future patches (I'd think June or July). But I also think that the people who think it will drop TTK have to bear in mind that there are supposed to be future changes both to weapons but also stuff like agility. Yes we may see movement as a playerbase in certain directions, but with another patch coming in May those choices may not make sense anymore. I suppose if I had to sum it all up in one word it would be: patience. Wait until the changes are further along to judge the success/failure.

[Krasnopesky]

It is good to keep in mind that The Cauldron wanted to have a PTS and we wanted to implement other changes that would impact greatly on TTK, but we were directed to focus only on weapons (and equipment) for now.

Our approach to balance is mainly focused on making underused weapon systems viable and comparable to current top performing weapons. PGI's past balance approach has been far more focused on nerfing weapon systems, often into unusable places. This is the reason that the concept 'unfunning of MWO' exists and held as true by a substantial portion of the player base.

Further iterations and balancing to weapons will be able to happen as early as the May Patch, especially in the case if there is something that stands out as being overpowered or underpowered. Likewise should the feedback be positive PGI should let us move forward with the other planned balance changes.

[Smutty]

Imagine complaining about MWO balance for years just to complain when something is actually getting done. Like ****, what's the worst that could happen? "Oh no SPL Lights are back to being viable." Oh God the horror. Heaven forbid that should happen.

Cauldron's already made it plainly clear that if something isn't functioning correctly (or if it's functioning too correctly) they'll hit it again later in the summer. I'm not really sure what else y'all want at this point

[DAEDALOS513]

Albert C, on 07 April 2021 - 11:37 PM, said:

Personally I am never a fan of streaks, when you can achieve much better results with carefully aimed srm. I wonder if its possible to implement heat seeking amunition with limited tracking ability. I kniw this will fundamentally changes how ssrm works in this game and doesn't fit the lore. I would love to see it implemented in a way that awards players who do aim but does not require the same precision of srm. By changing factors like tracking cone, turn rate and seeking distance you can make light mechs life easier while also making them more effective against heavier slower targets by allowing poptarting. Essentially a heavy srm with less dmg but seeks to its target to a limited degree.

That's the big myth with streaks.. perpetuated by those that don't use them.. you DO have to aim and CONTINUE to aim in order to hold a lock.. (not a small feat against agile lights). This not only forces you to increase your face time (ie. no torso twisting or spreading dmg) but also makes it more difficult to maneuver around in a brawl because your always facing the enemy instead of your surroundings.

On the other hand with srms, you alpha then twist and reposition until you're ready to fire again.. much more easier to use.

Edited by DAEDALOS513, 08 April 2021 - 06:17 AM.