704 replies to this topic

[STORM BANDIT]

I am beginning to wonder if the Succession Wars really started over a weapons balance patch. The whole coup thing was just a smoke screen.

[Antares102]

DAEDALOS513, on 09 April 2021 - 10:45 AM, said:

Nonsense.. strong words. I was going to post screenshots to show how effective this build is but I have nothing to prove.. the ebon is amazing as is..

Any build that wastes more than 0.5 tons is nonsense. And your build wasted 6.5t.
If you claim otherwise you simply disqualify yourself from being a competent player and Cauldron guys should take your feedback with a grain of salt.

DAEDALOS513, on 09 April 2021 - 10:45 AM, said:

Shows you how op heavy lasers are.. and Cauldron wants to buff them?

The buffs are very minor and less than 5% taking ALL stats into account not just damage e.g. for the HLL.
If Heavy lasers were so overpowered as you claim, then everybody would use them. Does everybody? No. Hm... why is that?

DAEDALOS513, on 09 April 2021 - 10:45 AM, said:

Not sure what you mean about the HBR.. i have 2hl, 4hml on it in the screen shot..

Seriously now... what it this then?

DAEDALOS513, on 08 April 2021 - 03:47 PM, said:

Another heavy laser build but with ecm.. that will only get shnastier..

There's a fricking ERML in the head.
Sorry but claiming that you run 4x HML and claiming your screenshot shows that even though it's not true disqulifies you even more. You are making a fool of yourself.

DAEDALOS513, on 09 April 2021 - 10:45 AM, said:

I don't use arm weapons because they aren't worth the heat.. they force you to overexpose killing your ecm ninja skills.. and half the time you hit terrain anyway, wasting heat.

What are you talking about? Weapons in arms have exactly the same heat as weapon anywhere else? Ah you mean you hit the terrain too often. Well another indication that you dont know what are doing. Hitting the ground being a problem is a typical low skill player indication. I also had that in the first few weeks when I started with MWO but at some point you learn to avoid it.

DAEDALOS513, on 09 April 2021 - 10:45 AM, said:

The madiic moves like a boat.. you can't compare it with these mechs. The range on HML is perfectly fine when you have the agility and high mounts.

I can very well compare it because you dont need so much agility if you have more range and the low front profile of the MADIIC. Torso twisting is not necessary (so much) for MADIIC.

DAEDALOS513, on 09 April 2021 - 10:45 AM, said:

Thanks for your analysis but you should try the builds before paper warrioring...

For somebody who is playing so much and very regularly you have average stats at best, so you arent the MWO genius that you think you are.
Claiming 6.5t waste builds are fine... sorry you dont know what you are doing.
Claiming things in screenshots that are provably wrong... makes it even worse.

Also your constant bickering against Krasnopesky with your level of "sophistication" is really annoying. Krasnopesky said they consider your feedback but the more you argue the more you will lose him and Cauldron guys in general.
While I would not say that Caldron should disregard your feedback I would say the way you get (your own) facts wrong makes your critique questionable.

Edited by Antares102, 09 April 2021 - 02:07 PM.

[Anomalocaris]

Navid A1, on 09 April 2021 - 10:50 AM, said:

Our standard would lead to all lock-ons getting significant nerfs based on how they are now.
We held off on those needed nerfs by keeping new player experience in mind.

When you say you are trying to hold us to our own standard, you have to explain how we are violating it in the first place.

You need to understand which range brackets and weapon mechanics are competing for dominance.
As an example. A boost to C-SPLs were not to bring it up to the same level as C-ERPPCs. Those two weapons are fundamentally different... IS MPL is the base line for close range adjustments.

Engagement between a close range MPL light and a streak mech is not really similar to something like IS ERPPC vs C-ERPPC.

Lock-ons really don't compete directly (pun intended) with other base-line weapons that we've used. They function in a separate category.


Also regarding IS streaks vs SRMs... you are forgetting that IS Streaks are 100% guaranteed hit on components, unaffected by server hitreg condition, or maneuvering. To add to that, usual damage rolling maneuvers like torso twisting result in more focused damage into your torso against Streaks.

Wow, there it is. This post, along with some others in this thread, shows that at least some portion of the Cauldron working group considers lock-on weapons to be cancer in the game. And they would nerf them into the ground if they could.

Well at least you're being honest about it. I've defended the Cauldron group against charges of being elitist and really wanted your efforts to bear fruit for the game. But let's be clear. The Cauldron has stated the objective of the weapons pass is to bring underperforming systems up closer to the level of meta weapons. Virtually everything short of UAC10s, Clan ERPPC and IS MPL has been buffed. But Streaks and ATMs get nerfed. How in the world can you say that streaks are overperforming? And ATMs? Besides streaks the most easily hard countered weapon in the game. I can see making a case for higher heat/gh penalties on ATMs to discourage mass volleys (because the biggest non-GH volley you can lob is 81 pts between 120-270m). Make firing that 3rd ATM12 really painful if you like.

But even if I buy into your explanation of "we need to compare across range brackets" (and I don't, but let's just assume I do for sake of argument), the methodology here makes no sense. The current meta weapons (UAC5/10, ERPPC and IS MPL) did not get nerfed at all. Everything else was buffed to bring them up to the level of those weapons. So why weren't other missile weapons buffed to match these weapons which must be super meta if they're getting nerfs?

As for the rest, it feels like song and dance. There's a subset of players that simply can't stand when a mediocre player manages to lay down some punishment on them with lock-ons and indirect fire. Even though they'll beat those ATM/LRM (and streak?) players like a rented mule 99 times out of 100, it just seems to burn their egos so badly. Just watch TTB when someone targets him with ATMs or LRMs - even though he'll probably win anyways the invective directed at the lockon players is substantial. I don't get it. I run radar dep, sometimes AMS, and I use cover. ATMs and LRMs really aren't a problem and streaks? LOL. Yeah, if someone drops a LRM/NARC group, there might be issues. But that's a soup queue problem. And if people are doing that, its not hard to bring some AMS and ECM in your own group. But let's not punish your typical player for soup queue group shenanigans (or simply change the mechanics of boating, GH penalties, etc.).

[Navid A1]

Runecarver, on 09 April 2021 - 12:22 PM, said:

If the plan is to make all weapons more competitive against one another, why put lock-ons into an entirely separate category, supposedly only for "the new player experience"?

It was only after several patches and a few larger reworks of the locking and tracking mechanisms that lock on weapons were no longer an utter joke, incapable of holding their own as viable weapon systems. Now the plan is to do what, exactly? Return LRMs to their 2015-2016 incarnation where they were only ever rarely used to annoy the supposedly "advanced" players or by newer players who had not yet seen how ineffective the weapon systems were?

Anomalolacris is correct that you, and several other members of this supposed "cauldron" group seem to have double standards when it comes to certain weapons, not holding them to the same standard to make them viable weapons.



Then you are willfully ignoring their current mechanics. A player using said weapon system has to track their target for the entire flight of the missiles. Which is around 4 seconds at 900 meters. Even if a friendly mech or UAV is providing a constant secondary lock through which to fire. And that is excluding the prohibitively long indirect lock times. But if those aren't available, they have to do it themselves, getting closer and closer in order to have any consistency. So if you know this, how can you still state they're completely risk or effort free? Simply because they have to use indirect fire as much as possible because they can't compete against other weapons in direct fire competitions?

If you are this highly biased against a weapon system then I would highly suggest you get yourself acquainted with them more thoroughly. As it is, your biased outlook (and if your comments are to be believed the biased outlook of many of your fellow "cauldron" members) towards these weapon systems is not geared towards making the game more fun, balanced or competitive for everyone. Just towards those who have a specific outlook of what is "the right way to play."



So you're referring to what mech, specifically? Because even a Mad Cat MkII with quad ATM12s generally has one jump jet, and runs at around 60-62 kph.

It takes 6 volleys from a quad LB10X assault mech to kill a testing grounds AS7-D through the center torso at 200 meters. That is roughly 13.5 seconds.
It takes 3 volleys for a quad ATM12 assault mech to kill that same testing grounds AS7-D through the center torso at 200 meters. That takes roughly 10 seconds in terms of pure weapon cooldowns. That is still around 3 full volleys of 4x ATM12's.

As demonstrated, in close quarter ranges, where the ATM12 is supposed to shine, it can edge out the inner sphere quad LB10X mech in terms of time to kill. But it does no one-shot assault, no matter how much you hyperbole their lethality.

We do run LRMs... A lot actually. The results are devastating. To the point that we basically feel bad for the enemy team.
I personally believe that LRMs are performing far beyond how they should. They are designed to frustrate your target on top of dealing alot of damage.
On the other hand, the hard counters are designed in a way to block an LRM user completely when they are in effect.

As I said before, the only reason we didn't change anything on LRMs was to see if higher performance from other weapons can narrow this giant gap. Then we get to see if LRMs need adjustment to their consistency by making them become hard-countered less, while at the same time reduce their peak performance in indirect fire mode with no specialized spotter. With a dedicated spotter (narc, TAG), they will still need to perform well.

This fits pretty well with our stated goal of bringing things up to the same level of high performing weapons... and LRMs and ATMs are sitting there right at the top.


Regarding ATMs... sure training ground Atlas doesn't move, has no friends and you can stand in front of it and shoot it till it dies... trades in this game does not happen like that. You usually have 3-4 seconds of shooting window around a piece of cover you are using, and each time you poke (or jump up) you are dumping 144 damage into your target, while your target is dumping 40. Two trades later, your target is dead, and you have just been scratched.

And for all that, ATMs really don't need that much tonnage investment either, Huntsman, Vapor Eagle, HBK-IIC-B, Summoner,... and the list continues, all can pack a huge firepower, run at 81 kph, and jump.

Edited by Navid A1, 09 April 2021 - 02:19 PM.

[dario03]

DAEDALOS513, on 09 April 2021 - 12:05 PM, said:

You're confusing strong weapons for crutches.. there is a big difference. All weapons are strong if you use them right.. however, some weapons don't need as much effort to do well in and work well in most situations when they shouldn't.. these are CRUTCHES. Heavy larges are far from op or being considered crutches.. they require positional skill, building skill and dare I say finesse and hardly work in all situations. I literally used clan peeps ONCE during this farce of a patch. But many 'top players' are boating them..

As for me generalizing comp players.. you have your opinion, i have mine.. I speak from experience and what I see on the battlefield.. the only way you can reach 98-99% on jarl's is if you abuse meta/broken mechs and weapons. There are always the few exceptions, but that is a given.

I think a different wording of the last couple of sentences would work better. You say the only way you can reach 98% is by abusing broken mechs/weapons but you also say there are exceptions. If there are exceptions then its not the only way. I think it would have worked better if you just said using broken mechs/weapons will get you there easier. Not everyone will agree that you have to run broken mechs/weapons to get to 98% Jarls since plenty have done it without. However everyone will agree that its easier if you use strong mechs/weapons. Our goal is to lessen the gap between meta and non meta weapons so using meta builds is less of an advantage.

Edited by dario03, 09 April 2021 - 02:45 PM.

[DAEDALOS513]

Antares102, on 09 April 2021 - 01:02 PM, said:

Any build that wastes more than 0.5 tons is nonsense. And your build wasted 6.5t.
If you claim otherwise you simply disqualify yourself from being a competent player and Cauldron guys should take your feedback with a grain of salt.


The buffs are very minor and less than 5% taking ALL stats into account not just damage e.g. for the HLL.
If Heavy lasers were so overpowered as you claim, then everybody would use them. Does everybody? No. Hm... why is that?




Seriously now... what it this then?



There's a fricking ERML in the head.
Sorry but claiming that you run 4x HML and claiming your screenshot shows that even though it's not true disqulifies you even more. You are making a fool of yourself.



What are you talking about? Weapons in arms have exactly the same heat as weapon anywhere else? Ah you mean you hit the terrain too often. Well another indication that you dont know what are doing. Hitting the ground being a problem is a typical low skill player indication. I also had that in the first few weeks when I started with MWO but at some point you learn to avoid it.



I can very well compare it because you dont need so much agility if you have more range and the low front profile of the MADIIC. Torso twisting is not necessary (so much) for MADIIC.




For somebody who is playing so much and very regularly you have average stats at best, so you arent the MWO genius that you think you are.
Claiming 6.5t waste builds are fine... sorry you dont know what you are doing.
Claiming things in screenshots that are provably wrong... makes it even worse.

Also your constant bickering against Krasnopesky with your level of "sophistication" is really annoying. Krasnopesky said they consider your feedback but the more you argue the more you will lose him and Cauldron guys in general.
While I would not say that Caldron should disregard your feedback I would say the way you get (your own) facts wrong makes your critique questionable.

Any build that waste's .5 ton is nonsense? Sorry if I can think for myself and create my own meta.. this thinking seems to work just fine for me.. you really should try to think outside the box.. makes life (and you) more interesting..

I added an ermed in the head cuz as I already explained i didn't want to use the lower arm weapons.. my main weapons are heavies.

Any buffs, minor or not, that aren't needed are wrong.. imho a mech should not be able to pinpoint alpha 72 (76 after patch, lol) and not overheat or be able to cool off as quickly as it does now..

I never said they were overpowered.. i said they are fine and did not need buffing.. if you have the skill to use them then heavies (and any weapon really) can be overpowered. My concern is with buffing weapons that go beyond that.. that don't need much skill to make work or that work in all situations.. i can't believe you guys are all for dumbing down this game (ala clan ppc style) so all weapons can work in all situations with minimal skill.. and yes i know this is an exaggeration but that's the direction this patch is taking us

If you think I'm an average player that's fine.. it's the average player who should be leading changes.. not try hards that think clan peeps are fine where they are and uac2's need buffing.. the two most op weapons in the game..

Edited by DAEDALOS513, 09 April 2021 - 04:08 PM.

[DAEDALOS513]

dario03, on 09 April 2021 - 02:39 PM, said:

I think a different wording of the last couple of sentences would work better. You say the only way you can reach 98% is by abusing broken mechs/weapons but you also say there are exceptions. If there are exceptions then its not the only way. I think it would have worked better if you just said using broken mechs/weapons will get you there easier. Not everyone will agree that you have to run broken mechs/weapons to get to 98% Jarls since plenty have done it without. However everyone will agree that its easier if you use strong mechs/weapons. Our goal is to lessen the gap between meta and non meta weapons so using meta builds is less of an advantage.

Guys if you wanna get into semantics fine.. but I'm not going to bother responding to them.. You know exactly what I meant and you know I'm right.. if not, you're kidding yourself.

For the umpteenth time.. we know your goal.. you're going about it backwards..

Edited by DAEDALOS513, 09 April 2021 - 04:11 PM.

[The6thMessenger]

DAEDALOS513, on 09 April 2021 - 10:34 AM, said:

Wouldn't it be great if there was a toggle where you choose to lob instead of DF lurms? I've run into many instances where I didn't want to direct fire..

I would prefer said toggle to only happen with NARC or TAG. This is because this restricts IDF with NARC and TAG, that makes it their niche. Needing an actual dedicated spotter for IDFing would make it a bit more fair and makes it role-warfare.

Navid A1, on 09 April 2021 - 02:16 PM, said:

We do run LRMs... A lot actually. The results are devastating. To the point that we basically feel bad for the enemy team.
I personally believe that LRMs are performing far beyond how they should. They are designed to frustrate your target on top of dealing alot of damage.
On the other hand, the hard counters are designed in a way to block an LRM user completely when they are in effect.

I blame PGI. Though I feel LRMs are the most balance they are before, I do see it's problem of being still feast-or-famine, and the annoying spammy-nature while having high DPS/Ton.

I think it would be less annoying if they were treated like PPCs were treated in march patch. Front-load damage while reducing DPS. Maybe 1.3 damage/missile, with 40% increase in CD. This would make it less frustrating and spammy, while making it less forgiving that players need to be more careful in how they lurm.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 09 April 2021 - 04:25 PM.

[DAEDALOS513]

The6thMessenger, on 09 April 2021 - 04:10 PM, said:

I would prefer said toggle to only happen with NARC or TAG. This is because this restricts IDF with NARC and TAG, that makes it their niche. Needing an actual dedicated spotter for IDFing would make it a bit more fair and makes it role-warfare.



I blame PGI. Though I feel LRMs are the most balance they are before, I do see it's problem of being still feast-or-famine, and the annoying spammy-nature while having high DPS/Ton.

I think it would be less annoying if they were treated like PPCs were treated in march patch. Front-load damage while reducing DPS. Maybe 1.3 damage/missile, with 40% increase in CD. This would make it less frustrating and spammy, while making it less forgiving that players need to be more careful in how they lurm.

The suggestion I proposed before.. since mainly newer players use lerms.. is to leave them the way they are except increase spread.. (except for direct fire, then spread could narrow a bit).. This would let the new player feel like they are contributing to a match by suppressing the enemy, stopping pushes, getting decent damage in.. but the catch would be that it'd be more difficult to get a kill or easily core players.

[Navid A1]

DAEDALOS513, on 09 April 2021 - 04:33 PM, said:

The suggestion I proposed before.. since mainly newer players use lerms.. is to leave them the way they are except increase spread.. (except for direct fire, then spread could narrow a bit).. This would let the new player feel like they are contributing to a match by suppressing the enemy, stopping pushes, getting decent damage in.. but the catch would be that it'd be more difficult to get a kill or easily core players.

The thing that we wanted to do to them was to increase their indirect spread and increase their missile health a bit.

It makes it less cancer on the receiving end, and still remains satisfying for the player who is using it. Because let's be honest... nothing is more frustrating than being hard countered by an enemy mech that was dropped into a match randomly.

Edited by Navid A1, 09 April 2021 - 05:39 PM.

[katoult]

Aedryel, on 09 April 2021 - 09:00 AM, said:

-Using lower tube count missiles is entirely pointless if AMS becomes more widespread. Talk about weapon diversity.

You may want to try out some dual IS LRM20 builds before the patch. AMS is virtually non-existant if properly countered.

Aedryel, on 09 April 2021 - 09:00 AM, said:

-And, if overboating missiles is the problem, that should be addressed directly instead of rendering CLRMs and ATMs useless by an upcoming AMS fest.

You won't be getting that across though with that crowd. The anti-lockon unease is rampant among them. And by "them" i don't mean the two Goulash members who actively engage with us here but both the group as a whole and the environment that hangs out around them as their echo chamber.

Krasnopesky, on 09 April 2021 - 11:39 AM, said:

One last note I will mention is that The Cauldron is not solely composed of comp players, we also have other members of the community as a part of the team too.

As a note on why this connection comes up consistently - it would have helped if the goulash was not built entirely around unofficial MWO Comp infrastructure (Discord, Website...). I mean, it's understandable to use what you have, but if someone is told to go to the MWO Comp Discord to engage with The Cauldron then they'll automatically draw that association. Especially since - personal opinion - your decision processes aren't particularly transparent.

As a word of appreciation, i'm also not sure people understand the amount of work some of you put into this with regard to testing, communications etc. A tad more documentation on that and perhaps user tests might go a long way.

[Aedryel]

You know balancing is erroneous if stock mech variants underperform to a degree noone plays them.
If there was any meaningful tweaks, people would be compelled to use different armaments on once chassis, not overboating one kind. As long I see double/triple/quadruple RAC, MRMx, LRMx boats utilizing one single weapon system I remain yet to be convinced otherwise.

Like I said earlier, and for now I stay on the lock-on wep grounds, if overboating is the issue, overboating itself should be penalized, not the entire lock-on/targeting mechanism of the wep branch. Shooting a goldfish in the head from point-blank with a double-barreled shotgun is what you're doing to lock-on weps.
That's hardly balancing what you have done already to LRMs and will do with ATMs soon, that's nerfing pure and simple and even though the nerf was intended to aim the overboaters it hurts for them the least and everyone else who would slap on a single missile rack to complement his weaponty will suffer the most from it.

Edit: A Timber Wolf nowadays, instead of being the main staple of the clan toumans, a symbol of fine blend of speed, firepower and durability is a joke now. Same goes for Mad Dogs, but to a lesser degree, thanks to their Prime variant ST quirks compensate for that, but what I'm trying to say here is, MWO is deviating from the lore so much it's hardly an actual Mechwarrior game, it's becoming a CoD with robots.

What PGI did in the course of years, christening running amok as "balancing" was to address existing issues with countermeasures entirely irrelevant to the problems themselves.

I will not be convinced a cLRM40 fired IDF is OP since the evenly spread damage and half the missiles missing their targets anyways due to the baseline 5m value.
Yes, notorious abusers made them overkill, but that was not due to their lock-on mechanics, but the unreal tube counts and PGI never addressed overboating itself, but screwed up missiles altogether.

Edited by Aedryel, 10 April 2021 - 01:31 AM.

[Antares102]

DAEDALOS513, on 09 April 2021 - 04:06 PM, said:

snip

I think it's pointless to discuss with you.
You are contradicting yourself as shown with your statement regarding the 4 HML and arguing that wasting 6.5t in a 65t is just fine and you create your own "meta" shows that you are not the most qualified person to talk about these things. There is only one meta and it's defined by the best players of which various are part of Cauldron.

Also you have way too much time on your hands and this kind of arguing seems more like entertainment to you than having the intention to change things for the better.

In the end Caldron changes will go through and will be adapted and the more nonsense you talk the less your opinion will be considered.

Edited by Antares102, 10 April 2021 - 01:50 AM.

[Aedryel]

katoult, on 10 April 2021 - 12:21 AM, said:

You may want to try out some dual IS LRM20 builds before the patch. AMS is virtually non-existant if properly countered.

The thing is sir, I'm solely using Clan rigs ever since MW3 and not feeling like going IS because a weapon branch is broken,
I'd prefer to see them balanced in a way which is fair to everyone.

I totally agree with the increased spread without LOS, I do agree with the shorter lock-on duration in an IDF scenario,
what I do not agree with is breaking a branch of weaponry with supposed "balancing" which punishes the playerbase the most who actually not abusing it. Same goes for TAG. Abusing should be penalized, not the weapon system behind it.
I maintain my opinion on countering missiles abusement is should not be achieved by abusing AMS, because that will render Clan missiles on lower tube counts entirely unusable. Extending the GH system with GH delay for the problematic weapon systems would deter people from abusing them in the first place while allowing the rest of the playerbase including the rookies to land meaningful hits.

[Z Paradox]

Antares102, on 10 April 2021 - 12:52 AM, said:

I think it's pointless to discuss with you.
You are contradicting yourself as shown with your statement regarding the 4 HML and arguing that wasting 6.5t in a 65t is just fine and you create your own "meta" shows that you are not the most qualified person to talk about these things. There is only one meta and it's defined by the best players of which various are part of Cauldron.

Also you have way too much time on your hands and this kind of arguing seems more like entertainment to you than having the intention to change things for the better.

In the end Caldron changes will go through and will be adapted and the more nonsense you talk the less your opinion will be considered.

DAEDALOS513 have a fair point regarding "DMG up" on some weapons. Players with good aim will get more kills regardless of build (6.5T more or less is not a problem at all), more dmg with less heat will make it so. Mix new weapon update with ppl who min/max mechs for max Dps and you get new stronger meta and you get 1 shoot kill games.
I like it that we get balancing, I dont like it for going too fast with so many weapons at once without Test server...

And I guess this wont be a big deal in T5... T1 on the other hand...

[Krasnopesky]

Z Paradox, on 10 April 2021 - 02:44 AM, said:

DAEDALOS513 have a fair point regarding "DMG up" on some weapons. Players with good aim will get more kills regardless of build (6.5T more or less is not a problem at all), more dmg with less heat will make it so. Mix new weapon update with ppl who min/max mechs for max Dps and you get new stronger meta and you get 1 shoot kill games.
I like it that we get balancing, I dont like it for going too fast with so many weapons at once without Test server...

And I guess this wont be a big deal in T5... T1 on the other hand...

This goes against the entire purpose of this balance update. The current best weapons are not receiving any buffs or brand new combinations to make them stronger.

Current underperforming weapon systems are receiving improvements to bring them up to a similar standard. This will mean that new / lower skilled players who choose to combine different weapons will not get punished as harshly for doing so. Functionally top tier players who only want to bring top tier meta weapons will have more weapon systems to choose from, but they will not be more powerful than the existing combinations.

[Krasnopesky]

katoult, on 10 April 2021 - 12:21 AM, said:

As a note on why this connection comes up consistently - it would have helped if the goulash was not built entirely around unofficial MWO Comp infrastructure (Discord, Website...). I mean, it's understandable to use what you have, but if someone is told to go to the MWO Comp Discord to engage with The Cauldron then they'll automatically draw that association. Especially since - personal opinion - your decision processes aren't particularly transparent.

As a word of appreciation, i'm also not sure people understand the amount of work some of you put into this with regard to testing, communications etc. A tad more documentation on that and perhaps user tests might go a long way.

Those are some great points and stem from exactly the place you have identified. I had the website and the large discord already available and simply used what was existing to host The Cauldron's information. The same applies for the original videos last year that we hosted on MWO Comp Twitch and YouTube.

On the flip side I have made a lot of effort to reduce the past stigmas associated with comp and have made comp more accessible to new players who are interested. So in my opinion I would like to get to a place where being a comp player is not a stigma to some people. Many many games out there do not have the same outlook on their competitive scene that some people in the MWO community do. A lot of that stigma has stemmed from the comp scene in the past where toxicity was more rife.

Documentation and user tests are quite extensive (certainly a lot more testing was done for the April patch compared to the March patch), but not done in a way that is presentable or easily digestible unfortunately. It is a great recommendation on an area to improve in though and something I will address the next time we (The Cauldron) meet.

[Anomalocaris]

Aedryel, on 10 April 2021 - 12:33 AM, said:

I will not be convinced a cLRM40 fired IDF is OP since the evenly spread damage and half the missiles missing their targets anyways due to the baseline 5m value.
Yes, notorious abusers made them overkill, but that was not due to their lock-on mechanics, but the unreal tube counts and PGI never addressed overboating itself, but screwed up missiles altogether.

Agreed. I was so crestfallen to see the responses from Cauldron members regarding lockons that I started doing a little more poking around.

Based upon quickplay scenarios there is little reason to nerf any lock-on weapons, and absolutely no reason to nerf streaks. But it appears in faction play streaks can be a big deal when brought en masse.

While I trust Krasnopesky's assertion that there are a variety of player types/skills on the Cauldron team, based upon my brief inquiries it appears that there are a disproportionate number of persons who focus more on group and faction drops vs solo. I say disproportionate in terms of their game mode distribution vs. the general population's.

This, to me explains their hatred of lock-on weapons (calling them cancer, saying they'd hard nerf them even more if they could). Because if you bring a focused team with complementary lock-on loadouts and a good strategy you can do some major damage if the opposing team doesn't bring a counter.

I get that, but given how little faction is played vs. quickplay, I think it's dangerous to worry too much about balance of the former at the expense of the latter. Simple hard nerfs that might mitigate faction issues will kill QP usefulness. Several posters here have proposed much better solutions to discourage mass boating of missile weapons and reducing the ability to salvo sky darkening numbers of missiles at once.

The lock-on hate attitude needs to go and better ways to balance need to be found before a large part of the player base is alienated and starts to incorrectly view the Cauldron as not having their best interests in mind.

[Krasnopesky]

Anomalocaris, on 10 April 2021 - 06:17 AM, said:

Agreed. I was so crestfallen to see the responses from Cauldron members regarding lockons that I started doing a little more poking around.

Based upon quickplay scenarios there is little reason to nerf any lock-on weapons, and absolutely no reason to nerf streaks. But it appears in faction play streaks can be a big deal when brought en masse.

While I trust Krasnopesky's assertion that there are a variety of player types/skills on the Cauldron team, based upon my brief inquiries it appears that there are a disproportionate number of persons who focus more on group and faction drops vs solo. I say disproportionate in terms of their game mode distribution vs. the general population's.

This, to me explains their hatred of lock-on weapons (calling them cancer, saying they'd hard nerf them even more if they could). Because if you bring a focused team with complementary lock-on loadouts and a good strategy you can do some major damage if the opposing team doesn't bring a counter.

I get that, but given how little faction is played vs. quickplay, I think it's dangerous to worry too much about balance of the former at the expense of the latter. Simple hard nerfs that might mitigate faction issues will kill QP usefulness. Several posters here have proposed much better solutions to discourage mass boating of missile weapons and reducing the ability to salvo sky darkening numbers of missiles at once.

The lock-on hate attitude needs to go and better ways to balance need to be found before a large part of the player base is alienated and starts to incorrectly view the Cauldron as not having their best interests in mind.

Navid does not speak for the entire Cauldron, he is just one voice and opinion in there amongst many. In that sense I also do not speak for the entire Cauldron but try to objectively impart the logic and reasoning used thus far. We have many diverse opinions on this game and balance, none of them are 100% correct or 100% incorrect as there are many ways you can approach balance and fun.

What we identified as an excellent way to increase such a subjective idea as 'fun' was to increase the amount of viable and usable weapons (and as an extension for later patches, Mechs) and rebalance some weapons to work better at one role compared to another, or reduce mechanics we feel detract from the overall balance of the game.

In this regard a problem of Clan Streak missiles was identified that they often one hit Light Mechs, yet struggle against larger Mechs when they have to engage them. What we went with this patch was to increase the DPS and reduce the upfront alpha damage. Should this prove to not work, we have many other ideas and concepts to rebalance streaks in different ways, but all aiming towards that one concept. Similarly IS streaks were regarded as having too much DPS for a weapon system that is a 'fire-and-forget' homing weapon (this is in part due to missile quirks on some of the commonly taken IS SSRM boats). We are currently testing many different ways to rebalance and adjust these weapons, including testing many of the suggestions and feedback ideas given here.

(warning personal opinion incoming) I have played ATMs quite extensively in Quick Play, Faction Play, and Comp. Overall I really enjoy playing them but personally I found them to be far too feast-or-famine. The upfront damage at the close range bracket was ridiculous when compared to almost anything else I could reasonably equip on Mechs of a similar tonnage. However the drawback was AMS completely shut me down and made me useless if too many were present. In this regard the majority of the Cauldron agrees and as such we have reduced that large upfront damage to a level we feel is more reasonable and increased missile health to a point where we feel they are rebalanced rather than nerfed (in many cases they will now be stronger than they currently are and certainly more consistent).

We have many ideas on how to balance all lock-on weapon systems and it would have been excellent to have multiple versions of PTS to properly test them all out. As it stands I (personally) am quite happy with the current changes to lock-ons and will be testing them immediately when the patch drops. Should they prove to be nerfed (which is not the objective) further changes, based on objective feedback gathering and testing, will occur in May.

In summary: I have no hatred of lock-on weaponry and I want them to perform at a point where they are competitive with other options. I currently think they perform extremely well, but I also think they could have some rebalancing to make them perform more consistently. The majority of The Cauldron agrees with this to the best of my knowledge.

Edited by Krasnopesky, 10 April 2021 - 07:29 AM.

[Antares102]

Z Paradox, on 10 April 2021 - 02:44 AM, said:

DAEDALOS513 have a fair point regarding "DMG up" on some weapons. Players with good aim will get more kills regardless of build (6.5T more or less is not a problem at all)...

Ah jesus even more tonnage-wasting-is-fine folks.
Look for the wasted 6.5tons in an Ebon he could build something like this instead:
https://thecauldron...._4e8f6ecd_SMN-F

What he has to sacrifice compared to an Ebon are the better on-cockpit level side-poke weapon slots

What he gets instead is:

• Significant quirks for a clan mech
  
• Almost double the agility compared to Ebon
  
• One more DHS compared to Ebon
  
• JJ which is important for mobility/survival
  
• Overall more armour

Sorry but I repeat it again, wasting tonnage is nonsense especially on the level of 10% of the total weight of your mech.

Pick a different chassis and you can get so much more for the same loadout.
As I said the Hellbringer loadout made much more sense but the Ebon loadout makes no sense at all.

If you disagree then I invite you and any other tonnage-wasting-is-fine folks to do a 1vs1 you with the Ebon and me with the Summoner. (But I need a bit of warm up since I havent played for 2 years)

Edited by Antares102, 10 April 2021 - 08:01 AM.