259 replies to this topic

[justcallme A S H]

Verilligo, on 24 April 2021 - 08:09 AM, said:

I think it might be helpful to get a direction to take balance suggestions in with regards to how the Cauldron wants to balance weapons. By that I mean, is the Cauldron aiming to balance weapons such that they require more skill to use effectively, but extremely rewarding when done so, or is the aim to make weapons generally easier to use at the cost of decreased performance? As an example, you could easily build a type of balance for something like the HPPC by dropping the velocity while making it extremely deadly when it hits, but that builds in a skill requirement that makes it more difficult to approach for the general player base. Based on the recent balance pass changes, that would seem to be the opposite direction that the Cauldron is trying to head in, and confirming that (at least to some extent) might make suggestions easier to cultivate.

This might sound broad - but - fun. Make mechs, weapons and chassis have options across the board.

High/Low skill overlaps. People will debate this of course - however look at Tier 1-3 games vs Tier 3-5. It is completely different. 3min games vs 10min games.

The skill-gap of weapons is not so much of a focus in that - do they all, work? That is the aim. Something that slaps like a wet noodle does not work and is not fun.

Giga-one-shot PPFLD is not fun. While a few have said Alphas are "up", the PPFLD options in the game now are largely unchanged as you could always do this. There are just more weapons that can bring that to bear, and that is a limited extra.

Of course fun is objective. All that can be said is look to 2016/2017 when the population was between 1.5x and 2.5x higher. Head back in that direction with better balance as more fun, more chassis, more optioins.

[pbiggz]

Will you give my jumpjets ups again? Please give me ups paul was very mean to take them away. I haven't brought my heavy metal into a match since 2015.

[lazorbeamz]

SCRAPMETAL99, on 24 April 2021 - 08:23 AM, said:

these people bitching about light gauss pronbbs never use them

it just makes ac10 irrelevant and takes its place thats all

[justcallme A S H]

pbiggz, on 24 April 2021 - 08:45 AM, said:

Will you give my jumpjets ups again? Please give me ups paul was very mean to take them away. I haven't brought my heavy metal into a match since 2015.

JJ is May patch I believe.

[justcallme A S H]

FupDup, on 24 April 2021 - 08:20 AM, said:

It barely has any extra range over the normal Gauss as it is. Is Cauldron seriously going to range match them? That just reinforces my fear that the LGR will ONLY be good when combined with PPCs and not worth using with any other weapons.

Some mechs can LGR out to 1140m+ with ERPPC. That's too much, I played it earlier and it is truly a bit silly.

That comes back to quirks of course. Feedback so far has been its a little too strong on range.

There are a few ways to look at it, which we are taking into account in a overall view. Quirk reduction is one such option or outright damage. See who has what idea.

At the same time a 2 LGR mech (if that is all it can fit) should not be gimped.


Kras the cat-herder-in-chief (lol he gonna kill me) has also put forward a super relevant question here:

Krasnopesky, on 24 April 2021 - 08:24 AM, said:

How would you make them viable if they couldn't combine with PPCs?

At the same time a 2 LGR mech (if that is all it can fit) should not be gimped.

[Gas Guzzler]

justcallme A S H, on 24 April 2021 - 05:50 AM, said:

We are looking at the following weapons that have already become clear candidates for adjustments as they are over-performing in various ways:

• HPPC
  
• SNPPC
  
• uPL (cMicro Pulse)
  
• Light Gauss

HPPC - What builds make this a problem? I haven't noticed these being as much of an issue.

SNPPCs - I think they are a little too cool and cooldown a little too fast. Once you get 3 of em plus an AC20 or LB40 it can be rough.

uPL - On the Piranha? Anything else? Maybe just a little hotter and a little more burn time?

Light Gauss - Aside from the 50 PPFLD Nightstar (quirks) is this really overperforming? Any more deets?

[Verilligo]

justcallme A S H, on 24 April 2021 - 08:43 AM, said:

This might sound broad - but - fun. Make mechs, weapons and chassis have options across the board.

High/Low skill overlaps. People will debate this of course - however look at Tier 1-3 games vs Tier 3-5. It is completely different. 3min games vs 10min games.

The skill-gap of weapons is not so much of a focus in that - do they all, work? That is the aim. Something that slaps like a wet noodle does not work and is not fun.

Actually, that is fairly straight to the point and informative. I had a thought that was the aim, but confirming it helps.

With the specific weapon systems quoted, it may be a little difficult to really strike to the heart of their troubles. With LGR/ERPPCs, a fair bit of the problem seems to be based in quirks, which will be getting a pass in the near-ish future. Likewise with the uPL, since part of what makes them so deadly is that responding to the big offenders is difficult since they are so much more mobile than everything else in their weight class or their usual targets are so much bigger.

That being said, has any thought been given to adjusting the role that the uPL performs? At current, it competes with the cERSL and ERuL as being effectively a duplicate of them, but with reduced burn time. Could it instead be balanced in respect to machine guns? Drop the burn time/cycle time/heat/damage substantially, effectively turning them into laser machine guns, but remove their critical hit chance entirely in exchange for being better on armor. HMGs would still be viable because they would be effective on both armor and structure, and you would expand the number of mechs that can go for machine gun type builds because they would be able to pair their energy slots up with their ballistic ones.

The SNPPC issue seems a little easier to handle, being it appears to just be a PPFLD problem and being able to pair three of them up with a big ballistic. You can keep the SNPPC damage where it is, but drop the pinpoint damage by two points and instead have it splash one point to each adjacent location similar to the cERPPC. This means the huge damage WHM mentioned earlier would only do 44 damage to a single location per alpha, which is still a lot. You could change those adjustment numbers to half that amount, too, if a 50 -> 44 reduction seems too drastic for the amount of tonnage and heat dedicated.

Edited by Verilligo, 24 April 2021 - 09:10 AM.

[FupDup]

Gas Guzzler, on 24 April 2021 - 09:07 AM, said:

SNPPCs - I think they are a little too cool and cooldown a little too fast. Once you get 3 of em plus an AC20 or LB40 it can be rough.

That's probably a case of the Spooky Heat cap being raised rather than the base weapon being too stronk. Instead of nerfing the base weapon just put the cap back at 2 but reduce the heat penalty a bit so it's not as bad as before (kind of like what ERPPCs got).

Seems like a lot of unintended consequences came from Spooky Heat cap raisings.

[IanDresarie]

justcallme A S H, on 24 April 2021 - 08:43 AM, said:

This might sound broad - but - fun.

With that said, I'd like to re-iterate my earlier point: Playing against Laser vomit is currently very not-fun.

[justcallme A S H]

Gas Guzzler, on 24 April 2021 - 09:07 AM, said:

HPPC - What builds make this a problem? I haven't noticed these being as much of an issue.

SNPPCs - I think they are a little too cool and cooldown a little too fast. Once you get 3 of em plus an AC20 or LB40 it can be rough.

uPL - On the Piranha? Anything else? Maybe just a little hotter and a little more burn time?

Light Gauss - Aside from the 50 PPFLD Nightstar (quirks) is this really overperforming? Any more deets?

Now this is just my personal view:

HPPC - on any mech with -10% heat. You can drop 3 HPPC, 45PPFLD dmg @ 600m and only clock 60% heat. Before the patch it was around 80%. So its a bit ridiculous as on cooldown you can drop it a second time and many, many mechs get deleted from it.


Overall (not personal) :

SNPPC - 3 is the issue. Looking into a splash mechanic/distribution. See where it goes.
uPL - on more than the PIR. A few mechs that harcore boat inc MDD. Minor adjustment.
LGR - Quirked mechs going out to 1100m+ is nuts. A few optioins around with quirk redistribution. Again gathering feedback to see.

Edited by justcallme A S H, 24 April 2021 - 09:27 AM.

[Snowhawk]

Spheroid, on 24 April 2021 - 08:38 AM, said:

How about a mild(but not excessive) ghostheat penalty for linking LGR and ERPPC? Similar to the mild ghostheat on triple I.S. peeps?

I see it similarly.... If you nerf the LGR then no one will use it. Better nerf "the sum" respectively stacking several weapon systems. Ghost heat can be a simple solution for this.

[justcallme A S H]

IanDresarie, on 24 April 2021 - 09:21 AM, said:

With that said, I'd like to re-iterate my earlier point: Playing against Laser vomit is currently very not-fun.

Personal view here

I have not had an issue with lasers. Dakka previously could drop 80dmg on a UAC double tap in less than 1 second and it still can with limited aim-input. There has not been major complaints about this.

To drop a 70pt Laser Alpha requires a solid 1s of extremely accurate aim.

I always found Dakka to be insanely easy to stop a giga-dump/easier PPFLD vs laser which is a hit-scan.

I was getting hit heavily with laser last while night playing. I also recognised that I had become a lazy donkey with my gameplay. In 2016/2017 lasers were the same level they are now for damage. 2016/2017 the skill level was a LOT higher.

It is a interesting point and see where it lands. I feel mobility will reign in those 1-1.2sec duration lasers by a decent margin.

Edited by justcallme A S H, 24 April 2021 - 09:36 AM.

[FupDup]

justcallme A S H, on 24 April 2021 - 09:26 AM, said:

SNPPC - 3 is the issue. Looking into a splash mechanic/distribution. See where it goes.
uPL - on more than the PIR. A few mechs that harcore boat inc MDD. Minor adjustment.

Reinstating old Spooky Heat caps would solve both of those pretty quickly.

Side note, I don't remember the MDD being a hardcore energy boat? It only maxes out at 8 energy hardpoints unless I missed a variant. I would've expected you to mention something like the Nova which is a true hardcore boat.

[Gas Guzzler]

justcallme A S H, on 24 April 2021 - 09:26 AM, said:

Now this is just my personal view:

HPPC - on any mech with -10% heat. You can drop 3 HPPC, 45PPFLD dmg @ 600m and only clock 60% heat. Before the patch it was around 80%. So its a bit ridiculous as on cooldown you can drop it a second time and many, many mechs get deleted from it.

Raise ghost heat penalty?

justcallme A S H, on 24 April 2021 - 09:26 AM, said:

Overall (not personal) :

SNPPC - 3 is the issue. Looking into a splash mechanic/distribution. See where it goes.
uPL - on more than the PIR. A few mechs that harcore boat inc MDD. Minor adjustment.
LGR - Quirked mechs going out to 1100m+ is nuts. A few optioins around with quirk redistribution. Again gathering feedback to see.

If 3 is the issue then revert ghost heat cap raise so mechs that only bring 2 aren't hurt.

uPL hopefully its a minor adjustment

I disagree with LGR range being a problem I wouldn't touch it until after mobility/quirk pass.

[R Valentine]

I have a hard time even considering HPPC or SNPPC to be "overperforming". Both are hard countered by range at opposite ends of the extreme. The SNPPC is outranged pretty quickly passed optimal while the minimum range on HPPC, combined with its difficult fitting characteristics, make it easily dunked by any mech with mobility.

ERLL will take a long time to tell, because everyone is still in "MUST BRAWL AND TURN LEFT ALWAYS NEVER CHANGE CAN'T PLAY GAME ANY OTHER WAY OR MY HEAD EXPLODES!" mode. Maybe after the 400th consecutive dunking the bulk of the player base will realize there's a better way to do things.

uPL is the only outlier I can think of, and only because of one mech. I don't really fear the 10 billion uPL Gargoyle. Mr. Gargles is a large target you can see coming. He gives you plenty of warning he's on his way and time to apply damage before he lumbers into 200m range. Meanwhile, little fishies swimming up stream under cover of anything taller than an Atlas foot have no problem 2 shotting you from behind because they rushed your spawn point.

[Gas Guzzler]

IanDresarie, on 24 April 2021 - 09:21 AM, said:

With that said, I'd like to re-iterate my earlier point: Playing against Laser vomit is currently very not-fun.

Laser vomit hasn't been an issue for me at all. Not even close.

[FupDup]

Kiran Yagami, on 24 April 2021 - 09:38 AM, said:

uPL is the only outlier I can think of, and only because of one mech. I don't really fear the 10 billion uPL Gargoyle. Mr. Gargles is a large target you can see coming. He gives you plenty of warning he's on his way and time to apply damage before he lumbers into 200m range. Meanwhile, little fishies swimming up stream under cover of anything taller than an Atlas foot have no problem 2 shotting you from behind because they rushed your spawn point.

The little fishie is going to get indirectly nerfed when assault mechs are made agile and smaller, meanwhile the fish will stay at its existing size (according to a rescale preview that was posted a while ago).

I'd hold off on nerfing the fish or any other light right now because the ecosystem will change around them in the coming months.

Edited by FupDup, 24 April 2021 - 09:43 AM.

[justcallme A S H]

FupDup, on 24 April 2021 - 09:34 AM, said:

Reinstating old Spooky Heat caps would solve both of those pretty quickly.

Side note, I don't remember the MDD being a hardcore energy boat? It only maxes out at 8 energy hardpoints unless I missed a variant. I would've expected you to mention something like the Nova which is a true hardcore boat.

Ye so there are a few options if you want to dig into the Mechlab that are truly, stupid.

Like this REVENANT

Not joking you can alpha that almost 4x with a coolshot under 12s... It is too much.

[Spheroid]

Link 2x LGR + 2x ERPPC via ghostheat and replace the +1 HSL ERPPC Nightstar quirk with +1 HSL standard GR quirk. Problem solved.

[Verilligo]

Kiran Yagami, on 24 April 2021 - 09:38 AM, said:

The SNPPC is outranged pretty quickly passed optimal while the minimum range on HPPC, combined with its difficult fitting characteristics, make it easily dunked by any mech with mobility.

I think it's the "any mech with mobility" part of the equation that's important. A lot of mechs simply do not have mobility. That being said, it is a LOT of pinpoint for being able to basically churn them out nonstop. This is likely resolved by simply making the ghost heat penalty on firing three at once worse to the point that it goes back to the 80% heat value from pre-patch.