180 replies to this topic

[Homer The Thief]

Well if a 4 man focus fire your CT, that's kinda a normal, A good 4 man would do one alpha.
Its tricky as armour changes affects weapons balance as well
and armour is double or triple standard lore values already.

Edited by Homer The Thief, 10 May 2021 - 01:12 PM.

[TheLazyLinx]

Homer The Thief, on 10 May 2021 - 01:10 PM, said:

Well if a 4 man focus fire your CT, that's kinda a normal, A good 4 man would do one alpha.
Its tricky as armour changes affects weapons balance as well
and armour is double or triple standard lore values already.

It's not always a 4 man lance that does my CT in. And the lore is mostly a translation of the table top game, in which you have random hit locations unless you take much lower accuracy shots for specific sections of the mech. Not to mention that over all you have a much lower accuracy rate on the table top.
In this you can pin point twin heavy gauses on a single side torso without much trouble. And SSRM's & LRM's are guaranteed hits even if you don't have direct line of sight, which is not how the table top works either.

[Homer The Thief]

At higher levels of play that kind of thing is normal, even a bunch of Tier one solo's can do it.
They don't need targets called to focus on a CT.

I was just thinking that recent XML changes to weapons balance would be effected by any armour changes.
Its a vicous cycle.

Personally I think better Matchmaking with unmerging of queues is the answer, who knows if that will ever happen.

[DAEDALOS513]

TheLazyLinx, on 10 May 2021 - 12:56 PM, said:

If time to kill is a problem. Why not an across the board armor buff?
Something like 20% armor bonus would not only increase time to kill but also make super high alpha builds less of a pain to fight against.
Especially since a lot of mechs just don't have the armor to do anything right now. Sometimes when I take my front loaded, armor spec Kraken Atlas I lose all my CT armor in something like 2 alphas from the enemy. Something that would just put down lower armor assaults. Not to mention things like the Timberwolf and Marauder that have such weak side torsos they get picked apart before they can do anything.

Yep, doesn't make sense.. does it? Been calling for your suggestion for a while now as a possible solution to the TTK quagmire and should at least be tried on a trial basis.. its much more easy to implement than a mech-wide resize (which I honestly think will never happen).

Even if it does.. that's a LOT of resource time required to implement.. is it really worth it? Last time it took almost a year to implement when they had a full complement of employees.. Now? With what, twice as many mechs? I shudder at the thought of how long it could take. Personally I would prefer the resources put toward added content.. game modes.. maps.. etc.

It may be too late though because cauldron put us in this quagmire where we will need armour/agility buffs and/or resizing to counter all these buffs.. and after that I predict nascar will have been escalated to an even more disgusting level because of the added aggresivenes we'll encounter in matches with these buffs and even more time and resources will have to be put towards adjusting maps and/or nerfing weapons. Just silly..

Edited by DAEDALOS513, 10 May 2021 - 03:42 PM.

[DAEDALOS513]

Homer The Thief, on 10 May 2021 - 02:29 PM, said:

At higher levels of play that kind of thing is normal, even a bunch of Tier one solo's can do it.
They don't need targets called to focus on a CT.

I was just thinking that recent XML changes to weapons balance would be effected by any armour changes.
Its a vicous cycle.

Personally I think better Matchmaking with unmerging of queues is the answer, who knows if that will ever happen.

Perhaps better matchmaking will help those in tiers 3+.. but not in tiers 2-.. TTK will only go down further.

I told the guys at cauldron that when you buff soooo many weapons they would be putting us all into a vicious cycle of buffing and counter-buffing..

Edited by DAEDALOS513, 11 May 2021 - 07:57 AM.

[TheLazyLinx]

It just seems so convoluted to buff mobility to reduce TTK. It's not like all of a sudden people will start doing dance moves in a Annihilator or something. It will clearly benefit some mechs more than others and screw with the balance but in a new way and in return require a new rebalance.

[pbiggz]

TheLazyLinx, on 10 May 2021 - 03:47 PM, said:

It just seems so convoluted to buff mobility to reduce TTK. It's not like all of a sudden people will start doing dance moves in a Annihilator or something. It will clearly benefit some mechs more than others and screw with the balance but in a new way and in return require a new rebalance.

This is an old and useless argument.

There will always be a meta. Every game has a meta. Chess has a meta. You can make the game more fun to play any number of ways, and the threat of there being a new meta if you do change something does not justify not changing that thing. Its like NIMBYism with mechs. Its useless.

[pattonesque]

TheLazyLinx, on 10 May 2021 - 03:47 PM, said:

It just seems so convoluted to buff mobility to reduce TTK. It's not like all of a sudden people will start doing dance moves in a Annihilator or something. It will clearly benefit some mechs more than others and screw with the balance but in a new way and in return require a new rebalance.

people at many levels twist to try to spread damage, and this will make them better at doing so

[TheLazyLinx]

pattonesque, on 10 May 2021 - 04:22 PM, said:

people at many levels twist to try to spread damage, and this will make them better at doing so

But not all mechs will benefit from it at the same level, some have such weak side torsos that there isn't much you can spread. And mechs so big and slow like the Nightstar that even if you could turn 20% better will not really help that much.

[pbiggz]

TheLazyLinx, on 10 May 2021 - 04:26 PM, said:

But not all mechs will benefit from it at the same level, some have such weak side torsos that there isn't much you can spread. And mechs so big and slow like the Nightstar that even if you could turn 20% better will not really help that much.

And?

The nightstar is a 95 ton gunboat. It'll benefit greatly from added mobility, but its not supposed to be tanky. Not every mech is meant to handle/tank damage like a quirked out thunderbolt.

[TheLazyLinx]

pbiggz, on 10 May 2021 - 04:19 PM, said:

This is an old and useless argument.

There will always be a meta. Every game has a meta. Chess has a meta. You can make the game more fun to play any number of ways, and the threat of there being a new meta if you do change something does not justify not changing that thing. Its like NIMBYism with mechs. Its useless.

Except mobility is a by design unbalanced implementation, while an across the board armor buff would not be.
Also another factor. Mobility would require a certain skill level to use. While armor would benefit even noobs just starting out.

pbiggz, on 10 May 2021 - 04:31 PM, said:

And?

The nightstar is a 95 ton gunboat. It'll benefit greatly from added mobility, but its not supposed to be tanky. Not every mech is meant to handle/tank damage like a quirked out thunderbolt.

So TTK reduction for me but not for thee?

[pbiggz]

TheLazyLinx, on 10 May 2021 - 04:37 PM, said:

Except mobility is a by design unbalanced implementation, while an across the board armor buff would not be.
Also another factor. Mobility would require a certain skill level to use. While armor would benefit even noobs just starting out.


So TTK reduction for me but not for thee?

First, TTK needs to be increased, not decreased. People want mechs to live longer, not die faster.
Second, not all mechs should be the same, so if you take a nightstar, you're a squishy death machine that melts whatever it looks at but needs some support. Thats how its supposed to work. If you want to be tanky, you take a tankier mech.

[Dahief 720]

pbiggz, on 10 May 2021 - 04:31 PM, said:

And?

The nightstar is a 95 ton gunboat. It'll benefit greatly from added mobility, but its not supposed to be tanky. Not every mech is meant to handle/tank damage like a quirked out thunderbolt.

Given the sheer size of the mech and it's weight class it should have some decent level of survivability, making it wiggle faster will help spread some damage but that's not dropping your total % any less.

Mobility is usable for mechs with longer cycle times on their weapons but not everything can be built around that and sometimes hitboxes simply don't allow it. As an example, the Centurion has an arm dedicated to tanking damage with extra structure points added via quirks and a long cycle time on hard hatting ACs. Thanks to the geometry of the mech it's still likely going to get blasted straight through the CT even if you torso twist with perfect timing.

Do you think the Zeus, Marauder or Jagermech are going to benefit from increased mobility?

[pbiggz]

Dahief 720, on 10 May 2021 - 05:00 PM, said:

Given the sheer size of the mech and it's weight class it should have some decent level of survivability, making it wiggle faster will help spread some damage but that's not dropping your total % any less.

Mobility is usable for mechs with longer cycle times on their weapons but not everything can be built around that and sometimes hitboxes simply don't allow it. As an example, the Centurion has an arm dedicated to tanking damage with extra structure points added via quirks and a long cycle time on hard hatting ACs. Thanks to the geometry of the mech it's still likely going to get blasted straight through the CT even if you torso twist with perfect timing.

Do you think the Zeus, Marauder or Jagermech are going to benefit from increased mobility?

Pretty much every mech will benefit from extra mobility, but plenty of them will need more love in the form of quirks, which are in the pipe. Im not sure where this conversation was meant to go, but it sounds vaguely like the notion that mobility ALONE wasn't enough to buff the nightstar was justification for not buffing it at all?

[Dahief 720]

pbiggz, on 10 May 2021 - 05:07 PM, said:

Pretty much every mech will benefit from extra mobility, but plenty of them will need more love in the form of quirks, which are in the pipe. Im not sure where this conversation was meant to go, but it sounds vaguely like the notion that mobility ALONE wasn't enough to buff the nightstar was justification for not buffing it at all?

Then I look forward to seeing what those quirks are, hopefully this game isn't going to be fixed by making everything twitchier.

Also don't assume so much, I implied no such notion.

[justcallme A S H]

TheLazyLinx, on 10 May 2021 - 04:37 PM, said:

Except mobility is a by design unbalanced implementation, while an across the board armor buff would not be.
Also another factor. Mobility would require a certain skill level to use. While armor would benefit even noobs just starting out.

Mobilty is not unbalanced at all as a balance metric.

TheLazyLinx, on 10 May 2021 - 04:37 PM, said:

So TTK reduction for me but not for thee?

How about... Play the mech in the role its supposed to be?

That's the point about unique/fun. If every chassis does the same thing the same and just look different that defeats the purpose.

Some mechs should brawl better. Some should range better. Some should be better at one specific weapon than others. That is qhat brings flavour and uniqueness to the game and also a reason to have different mechs. Variety is actually good for the game and its economy as well as a subset of it.

[Bowelhacker]

justcallme A S H, on 08 May 2021 - 03:15 PM, said:

And a question to anyone else reading...


Are you seeing a massive increase in SHC every other match, dragging games out???

Funnily enough the last couple of days there have been a lot of SHCs getting around in matches I've played, but they aren't really dragging things out.

[Bowelhacker]

Also, has there been any consideration of reducing the damage that weapons do instead of the constant powercreep?

[DAEDALOS513]

pattonesque, on 10 May 2021 - 04:22 PM, said:

people at many levels twist to try to spread damage, and this will make them better at doing so

Agility won't help much against all these ppc builds the cauldron buffs have spawned.. all the new duration buffs will also mitigate some of the benefit from agility buffs.. so we're basically back to square one.

This is such a silly cat and mouse game.. so many unnecessary buffs should NEVER have been implemented in the first place so as to require agility buffs.. everything cauldron is doing is to make this game a COD clone.

Bowelhacker, on 10 May 2021 - 05:19 PM, said:

Also, has there been any consideration of reducing the damage that weapons do instead of the constant powercreep?

They won't even consider that.. if a weapon is too strong, they won't nerf it.. they will buff everything else.. logical yes? They think 'nerfing' is anathema to making the game fun.. their goal is to make the game fun, you see.. match and ttk times be damned..

Edited by DAEDALOS513, 10 May 2021 - 06:12 PM.

[DAEDALOS513]

TheLazyLinx, on 10 May 2021 - 04:37 PM, said:

Except mobility is a by design unbalanced implementation, while an across the board armor buff would not be.
Also another factor. Mobility would require a certain skill level to use. While armor would benefit even noobs just starting out.


So TTK reduction for me but not for thee?

Careful, too much logic confuses people around here..

Edited by DAEDALOS513, 10 May 2021 - 06:16 PM.