230 replies to this topic

[Far Reach]

*Chaotic over-invested replies*

I like it.
The patch, that is.

[DAEDALOS513]

justcallme A S H, on 17 September 2021 - 06:10 PM, said:

cLPL is basically going back to pre-Cauldron heat penalty for firing more than 2 at once. It is not a huge jump so much as it's just being put back to how it was.

It is already strong so there is no worry in backing it off.

Thank you.

[w0qj]

Correction: The TDR-9S has only +1 HSL for PPC-family.

Wrong: The Patch Notes incorrectly stated that TDR-9S has "mechs that have ERPPC HSL +2 (currently only MAD-6S and TDR-9S)"

https://mwomercs.com...21september2021

Edited by w0qj, 22 September 2021 - 08:59 AM.

[C337Skymaster]

Horseman, on 22 September 2021 - 06:19 AM, said:

Again, this is too massive a change to implement in the game's current state unless you want to kill MWO dead.
And it still screws new players while veterans already have all mechs they'll ever want. Taking those mechs away would just get you a riot and players leaving en masse.
It's something that would have to be part of the gameplay from the beginning. The most you can get right now is promote playing faction-appropriate chassis in some manner.

So on the one hand, I don't have much choice but to agree with you here. The frustration is that this WAS supposed to be a part of MWO from the beginning, but was quietly dropped after they made the decision to restrict themselves to "minimum viable product". There are those of us who are still looking forward to them getting away from "minimum".

Horseman, on 22 September 2021 - 06:19 AM, said:

Artificial scarcity pisses off players.

And that's why you make it natural scarcity: in-game factories and production facilities, etc. Make resource production be an NPC factor in the game, and acquiring those resources is affected by how many are getting produced and destroyed in any given period of time. I really liked how MW2: Mercs handled their store, where you have just a few items available at any one time, and in order to conduct certain upgrades, you had to wait until you could purchase the requisite materials (Double Heat Sinks, Ferro Fibrous Armor, Endo Steel, etc, all required "upgrade kits" that you had to buy, and which were scarce).

Horseman, on 22 September 2021 - 06:19 AM, said:

The existing balance is not conducive to asymmetric player counts.

So the point of THIS idea literally is to change "the existing balance". I've said elsewhere that "balance" is this fictional idea that people always aspire to, but which is not something achievable in this space-time continuum. No matter what changes are made, when the changes stop, and the dust settles, a meta will shake out of the mix, and that meta WILL be OP, no matter what. So the only way to pretend to have any kind of "balance" is to keep things changing so fast that nobody can get used to anything, and there's no chance to form a Meta.

While we're in a state of constant change, it'd be nice to tip the game back towards where it's supposed to be: Clans are more powerful than Inner Sphere on a 1:1 basis. That's not currently true in MWO, but it's supposed to be. The way that got balanced was by not engaging in 1:1 fights, but rather, engaging in fights where the IS could bring enough firepower to neutralize the Clans inherent advantage (you know: teamwork). The Clans, therefore, were always trying to pick 1:1 fights: their strength; and the IS was always trying to divide them up and jump them individually: their strength.

In order to do that, though, we can't ever have mixed-tech teams. This will make it a little tricky for groups of players, because they'll have to agree on a tech base, but it won't affect solo players much at all, because they'll be auto-sorted based on what they brought, and matched into whatever game fills up first. The beauty of something like that is that sometimes you only need 20 players to kick off a match, instead of 24. It's just whatever's ready first.

I'm a little annoyed by the power creep that I'm seeing: it seems at this point like every weapon has had its damage increased and/or its heat decreased, and every 'mech has had armor quirks added to compensate, with one or two exceptions. I'm really interested, at some point, in hitting a reset button, seeing where things stand, and then restarting the process from zero, and see if maybe we can find a neutral point a lot closer to the base values, rather than where we currently seem to be, with triple armor, in some cases, and double ammo or 1.5 times the original damage dealt.

Edited by C337Skymaster, 22 September 2021 - 09:08 AM.

[John Bronco]

C337Skymaster, on 22 September 2021 - 09:07 AM, said:

While we're in a state of constant change, it'd be nice to tip the game back towards where it's supposed to be: Clans are more powerful than Inner Sphere on a 1:1 basis. That's not currently true in MWO, but it's supposed to be.

You're going to have to cite a source for this extravagant claim.

[pattonesque]

John Bronco, on 22 September 2021 - 09:32 AM, said:

You're going to have to cite a source for this extravagant claim.

The source is a hilariously poorly balanced 35-year-old tabletop game lol

[Roodkapje]

Ostsr, on 22 September 2021 - 04:33 AM, said:

Why not just ppc family hsl on kgc-kj? It has 4 ppc in stock build and why I cannot fire 4 snubs on it?

You don't need PPC on that variant : Just 6 x MPL and some MRM and AC/2 on top I believe with an LFE ofcourse

I love the King Crab variants!
And now with those HSL quirks for 2 x AC/20 added... MWAHAHAHA!!! YEAH!!!

C337Skymaster, on 21 September 2021 - 01:43 PM, said:

It gives players something to aspire to: salvaging their way (or earning enough money to buy their way) into the 'mech of their choice, then becoming an expert in that 'mech. It's intended to make special 'mechs special again, and rare 'mechs rare. If only 1 in 100 'mechs in the entire Inner Sphere is supposed to be an Assault 'mech, and only 1 in 100 Assault 'mechs is supposed to be an Atlas, then it looks really weird to get a drop with 12 Atlases (yes, this is Faction Play, but wasn't that supposed to be the end-goal of the entire game?).

That would be another part of an MMO: There are only X number of a particular 'mech in existence. Perhaps there are in-universe factories currently producing that 'mech, at which point the number might increase, while a raid on said factory might slow or stop that number increasing for a period of time (or permanently).

The changes you suggest would make this already obscure game very very VERY obscure and a lot of (casual) players would abandon the game immediately!

Like someone already said : Fun for Singleplayer and not for Multiplayer or MMORPGish games!

C337Skymaster, on 20 September 2021 - 08:19 PM, said:

So that's actually unfortunately complicated.

That's a lot of information to remember : Thnx!

C337Skymaster, on 20 September 2021 - 07:49 PM, said:

Yes and no. Even 'mechs with torso weapons will have some spread. Since the weapons fire in parallel to each other, hardpoint mounts on different components will strike different components on the target, or partially miss altogether. It WILL, however, make 'mechs with hardpoints all on the SAME component relatively powerful, compared to their peers. It would still make it more difficult to group weapons from across multiple components together to hit the same target. 'Mechs such as the Hellbringer would need to divide the torso lasers into left/right weapon groups, and then attempt to decide where the head-mounted laser fits best based on personal preference. Fired all at once, each side would hit a different component on the target, because they're spread just far enough apart. Light 'mechs, such as the Javelin and Piranha would experience the least downgrade, due to the already close proximity of their weapons, while 'mechs such as the Flea and Locust would experience a bit more weapon spread. Even a small pulse Piranha would have their two torsos hitting two different target components as often as not, due to the speed they need to maintain, and the tight targeting tolerances required to get the whole torso lined up on a single target component. They would need to be good at left/right weapon grouping, and then adjust for the off-center targeting required to hit the same spot, increasing the skill required to do well (high skill frequently being touted as a good thing). The built-in scatter of machine gun fire means that they wouldn't be affected nearly as much by the change. The same goes for LBX autocannon, SRMs, MRMs, and lockon weapons wouldn't be affected at all.

Sorry, but that would suck heavily!

So far in the future and we can't focus our fire on one spot ?! WTF ??

Fainting Goat, on 20 September 2021 - 12:37 PM, said:

I think the easiest adjustment would be to just increase the tonnage of AC2's: make it 7 tons for IS, 6 for clan. A clear improvement.

That would ruin my beautiful KGC-000 build so...

NO.

Edited by Roodkapje, 22 September 2021 - 09:58 AM.

[BinaryFyre]

Soooo, I hope this post gets to the map maker. *Crossing fingers*

So the new remake this patch, its good, it is more challenging than the previous map, Folks are so thrown by it. Thats fantastic, I think. I only have one major problem with the map, that I can barely or not see at all. Not like I don't have the right stuff to run it, running at ultra max. But, I cannot see past all the plombage of smoke. Cycled through night vis, thermal, and it is just so dang hard to see anything past 500M, and between 100-500M can still be super duper challenging.

If I can't see, and I do not have instruments to see, I can't shoot. And I've found myself loosing interest super fast, well if I can't shoot and I can't see I'm just gonna sit here and die and get to the next match and hope that map doesn't get picked. IDK, reduce some of the smoke or turn down the haze IDK, but for anyone visually impaired this map is a nightmare. Pls help

[Mech the Dane]

What they broke now?

[C337Skymaster]

John Bronco, on 22 September 2021 - 09:32 AM, said:

You're going to have to cite a source for this extravagant claim.

Record sheets. Technical Readouts. Rulebooks. Literally the entire game of Battletech, which this game is drawn from (1:1 on day one, with changes made over time).

The history, that you're apparently not aware of if you didn't already know this, is summarized below:

Over the time period between present day and the late 2700's, humanity developed interstellar travel and colonized a vast swath of space spanning approximately 1500 light years with Earth (Terra) at the center, and maintaining its dominance through an enforced technological edge. By the 2500's, humanity entered a relatively peaceful Golden Age. At or about 2775, the hereditary ruler of the Star League was assassinated and Terra occupied by a Usurper from a periphery state (Rim Worlds Republic, stretching from the Jade Falcon occupation zone along the outer edge of Steiner space about 3/4 of the way to the Marik border). This resulted in a civil war in which the technologically superior Star League military had to fight their way back home from where they had been on campaign out towards Taurian space (periphery outside Davion space near Capellan Confederation), to oust the Usurper. Once that task was accomplished, it was discovered that the usurper had killed all blood relatives of the hereditary ruler, so there were no legitimate heirs to the throne, and the rulers of the remaining nations each claimed the throne for themselves and then went to war over it. The leader of the Star League Military, foreseeing this, took about 80% of that military (as much as volunteered to accompany him) and left known space in 2785. Over the course of the next 265 years, following a cultural restructuring, that military force lived in relative peace and stability and continued to develop its technology. Meanwhile, the rest of the Inner Sphere entered a period of nearly constant warfare, during which time anyone with knowledge of advanced technology was killed, factories were destroyed, libraries were burned, "to keep that technology from being used by [the other guys]".

From there, we come to the time period the game is currently set in: We're about 30 years past a thumb drive with a lot of old technology specifications on it being discovered on a backwater planet and distributed everywhere as an insurance policy to prevent the merc company that found it from being wiped out by anyone who was after the intel. Around 20 years later, the Clans invaded with what was realistically a 300 year edge in technological advancement.

Thus my statement: Clan tech is superior to IS tech. The way that has traditionally been balanced has been to have fewer Clan 'mechs in any particular fight. That way the IS 'mechs can outnumber and/or outflank their Clan opponent.

As for the 10 v 12 number, IS militaries typically break down into Lances of four 'mechs each. Clan militaries utilize Stars of 5 'mechs each. So a 10 v 12 battle is two Stars vs three Lances. Not hard at all to envision, but I'm not a software engineer, so I have no idea how hard it would be to code. PGI makes it seem like coding a red screen is next to impossible, and yet we have Mass Effect from Bioware, so I have no idea...

Edited by C337Skymaster, 22 September 2021 - 11:25 AM.

[John Bronco]

MWO has record sheets?

[Mech the Dane]

So tomorrow MW5 gets melee combat, I thought the Caldron took over to do a "better" job than PGI, how come they haven't brought death by axe to face yet?

[Ruediger Steiner]

So the NSR-10P ... why? For the lulz?

[C337Skymaster]

Roodkapje, on 22 September 2021 - 09:56 AM, said:

The changes you suggest would make this already obscure game very very VERY obscure and a lot of (casual) players would abandon the game immediately!

Like someone already said : Fun for Singleplayer and not for Multiplayer or MMORPGish games!

But that was supposed to be what MWO was, originally: a faithful recreation of the universe for us to play around in (similar to EVE online, which I'll admit, I've never played, but I like the concept). The first thing I ever heard about MWO, which got me more excited about a game than I've ever been, and which was the most crushing blow I've ever received from a game when it was rescinded, was that the game was going to advance in real time, 1:1 with the real world, starting in about 3049 (a few months before the Clan Invasion). That would have been AMAZING, and honestly would have alleviated a lot of the balance issues we're having, because you can just point to stuff and say "it's old, it got replaced by that" (which a lot of stuff did), and keep going from there.

Roodkapje, on 22 September 2021 - 09:56 AM, said:

That's a lot of information to remember : Thnx!

No problem! I've been trying to find answers to the same question, myself, and a lot of this stuff is new to me, too.

Roodkapje, on 22 September 2021 - 09:56 AM, said:

Sorry, but that would suck heavily!

So far in the future and we can't focus our fire on one spot ?! WTF ??

That's literally one of the defining characteristics of the source game and material: you rolled a pair of dice and looked up the result on a chart to determine where each and every weapon hit. LRMs were rolled in groups of 5 plus the remainder (so if only 12 missiles hit from an LRM 20, you'd roll locations on 5, 5, and 2), and SRMs were rolled per individual missile. For a Piranha, with 15 weapons (2x ERML, 1x ERSL, 12x MG), you'd roll to see which of the 15 weapons hit the target, and then roll where each of the hits landed.

So no, we can't focus everything on one spot, even this far in the future. That's actually the purpose of Clan Targeting Computers: they're different sizes because of a rule for how they control different amounts of weapons, and they marginally increase the accuracy of direct fire weapons (and have no effect on missiles, whatsoever. That's what Artemis is for).

The ability to focus everything in one spot is literally why we have two to three times as much armor as the record sheets allow for, and why we have ghost heat in game: If we can fire as many of a single type of weapon as possible without penalty, we can achieve a pinpoint damage value greater than any level of armor available, resulting in guaranteed one-shot kills with every salvo. One-shot kills were supposed to exist, but they were supposed to require a massive gun, like an AC/20, and a certain amount of luck, as well as the skill to get it within range. Even then, you could only accomplish the feat on vehicles and light 'mechs. Even most mediums had enough armor and structure to survive at least one hit, and the chances of hitting the same component again weren't the best, depending on which component it was, because it was all decided by dice roll.

John Bronco, on 22 September 2021 - 11:01 AM, said:

MWO has record sheets?

Sort of. Catalyst Game Labs currently owns and controls the Tabletop Battletech Game, and publishes the record sheets. If you get access to them, just double the armor point values, and those are all of your MWO store loadouts.

For example, here is Yen Lo Wang. Engine sizes are supposed to be evenly divisible by chassis tonnage. The reason MWO's Yen Lo Wang breaks that rule is because they needed to use up the weight left over by the missing Hatchet in the left arm. Also notice the heat, damage, and range numbers in the Weapon & Equipment inventory. Range and Movement numbers are in "Hexes". A Hex is 30 meters across, and a 'mech can move those distances in one 10-second turn (from which you can calculate: 6 hexes at 30 meters apiece in 10 seconds comes to 64.8 KPH). 9 hexes at 30 meters apiece is 270 meters: the base range on an IS medium laser and AC/20. The "( R )" next to one of the medium lasers indicates that it is "( R )ear firing". On TT, you occasionally have a way of shooting the backstabber without turning around.

Edited by C337Skymaster, 22 September 2021 - 11:57 AM.

[An6ryMan69]

This is a mixed bag patch as far as I am concerned.

The buff to clan LRM's is a good start, I am always disgusted when I fire a volley of LRM 60 at a Corsair 7A, and they laugh it off. LRM users still have a crazy abundance of ECM mechs on the battlefield, and map design purposely made to limit LRM effectiveness to deal with, but this is something going our way, if only a little. LRMs have always been a foundation of Battletech weapons, and I'm glad there is a minor pause in stomping them out seen here.

The buffs/quirks generally are good, for the most part, keep it up! There are still mechs that have no quirks at all though, or one silly token 5% boost to something, which is basically stupid, considering some mechs are so buffed to be pretty much unrecognizable from their original form. If you're going to hand out buffs then git to it across the board, even on mechs that don't actually suck. Punishing success isn't cool.

Speaking of buffs/quirks, I am a bit dismayed to see the already overpowered lights getting artificially pumped up even more. The game already suffers from the situation where a Flea or Locust can single handedly kill an assault (....or two or three; been there, seen it...) which is absurd, and now they are being buffed even more. The wrong way to go. I don't hate light mechs, but I do hate what MWO does with some of them; from the absurd small scaling, to crazy agility, to the ability to still carry very respectable weapons payloads, these things just defy any manner of logic. So just stop the madness with fleas and locusts and the like, please.

The clan LPL penalty increasing sucks; just the whole concept of penalizing players for firing weapons sucks actually. The whole point of having two guns instead of one, is to be able to dish out the punishment twice as fast, if you get what I mean.

I bought the Dire Wolf Prime specifically because it had ECM; do I get my C-Bills back?

Caustic Valley redux. Meh. A potentially very good map, laid low by a crippling amount of structure. I was hoping for different, but not expecting it, given recent map updates. Another great map for an over buffed Locust to eat up Stalkers and Maulers on I suppose....

As always, I am glad to be able to earn a free mech, and other loot! Thanks for that, unreservedly!

Edited by An6ryMan69, 22 September 2021 - 01:30 PM.

[Wolfgang Grenzstein]

BinaryFyre, on 22 September 2021 - 10:28 AM, said:

Soooo, I hope this post gets to the map maker. *Crossing fingers*

So the new remake this patch, its good, it is more challenging than the previous map, Folks are so thrown by it. Thats fantastic, I think. I only have one major problem with the map, that I can barely or not see at all. Not like I don't have the right stuff to run it, running at ultra max. But, I cannot see past all the plombage of smoke. Cycled through night vis, thermal, and it is just so dang hard to see anything past 500M, and between 100-500M can still be super duper challenging.

If I can't see, and I do not have instruments to see, I can't shoot. And I've found myself loosing interest super fast, well if I can't shoot and I can't see I'm just gonna sit here and die and get to the next match and hope that map doesn't get picked. IDK, reduce some of the smoke or turn down the haze IDK, but for anyone visually impaired this map is a nightmare. Pls help

well I would like to chime in and inform the map maker how insanely bad his designs are - brawling is dead now, long range ftw.

oh and yes, visibility on caustic valley was always poor, now it is destitute.

Roll that back please, mmk?

[pattonesque]

Wolfgang Grenzstein, on 22 September 2021 - 12:54 PM, said:

well I would like to chime in and inform the map maker how insanely bad his designs are - brawling is dead now, long range ftw.

oh and yes, visibility on caustic valley was always poor, now it is destitute.

Roll that back please, mmk?

Haven’t played new Caustic yet but dude, brawling is incredibly viable on new HPG, Polar, and Canyon. Snipers are also viable there but come on dude

[MechNexus]

pattonesque, on 22 September 2021 - 01:06 PM, said:

Haven’t played new Caustic yet but dude, brawling is incredibly viable on new HPG, Polar, and Canyon. Snipers are also viable there but come on dude

Seconding this. New HPG in quickplay always comes down to the central brawl, idk what people are smoking.

[Big-G]

MechNexus, on 22 September 2021 - 01:16 PM, said:

Seconding this. New HPG in quickplay always comes down to the central brawl, idk what people are smoking.

Basement camping is the new meta it seems...

pattonesque, on 22 September 2021 - 01:06 PM, said:

Haven’t played new Caustic yet but dude, brawling is incredibly viable on new HPG, Polar, and Canyon. Snipers are also viable there but come on dude

I find the new Caustic a little open... too open, with obstacles spread far and in clusters... you end up having to shove team mates around to get enough cover in full on battles.

[Commoners]

I support clan tech being buffed to being superior to IS tech if they can only target mechs that aren't being engaged by other targets, they only get to queue if they underbid tonnage on all other people in the queues playing clan mechs, and they get banned from playing clan mechs if they ever run away from a fight and have to go play mech maintenance simulator instead.

And when/if melee gets implemented they aren't allowed to use it or they also get banned.

Edited by Commoners, 22 September 2021 - 05:10 PM.