333 replies to this topic

[ghostrider]

Did people not notice the biggest announcement of them all...a new frickin' map! Yeaah boiii!

[Gas Guzzler]

Charles Sennet, on 16 October 2021 - 03:25 AM, said:

The proliferation of pinpoint damage is problematic but if they're going to increase it, they needed to do it for both IS and Clan tech in (relative) equal measure. Right now there's a Grand Canyon level gap between the two at multiple range brackets; brawl, mid, and snipe.

You're right Clan pinpoint damage gets much higher.

[Curccu]

PeppaPig, on 16 October 2021 - 01:11 AM, said:

The fact that the Commando has quirked to be even harder to kill - c.f. Ash's diatribe that the COM didn't need anything a couple of months back, just brings to question what game they are playing and in reality, what planet they are living on?????

How about you play commandos only next season and lets see if you can have as good w/l k/d and avg matchscore as you have currently?

Same to everyone who QQs about commando being too good, play it for a season instead of your heavies and assaults.

[Ravni]

I mostly play lights in solo quickplay at tier-1, and at the risk of outing myself here as an atrociously terrible Commando pilot, my personal QP stats with it are dreadful: roughly 40% win rate, just over 0.5K/D, and under 230dmg average. That bad.

Now perhaps that is all just personal problems, and I am sure I could become decent enough with it given enough practice. That said, I've skilled up bad-to-mediocre mechs with no experience many times and done fine with them: even the newly buffed LCT-1V, which is hardly a world beater and which I had never played before, I could maintain positive win rate & K/D rate, and at least average over 300dmg all the while skilling it up from scratch. Better lights like MLX I can average closer to 2.5 K/D & 600 dmg.

[Lifeblight]

Curccu, on 16 October 2021 - 08:34 AM, said:

How about you play commandos only next season and lets see if you can have as good w/l k/d and avg matchscore as you have currently?

Same to everyone who QQs about commando being too good, play it for a season instead of your heavies and assaults.

So the goal is to quirk the commando until it's capable of doing the same level of damage as say an Atlas or a Warhammer? That's an interesting take. The hit box registry is off. It has been for a long time. It's not even a debate. To suggest that it is superior in damage output compared to assault and heavy mechs is naive.

[Ravni]

Lifeblight, on 16 October 2021 - 09:50 AM, said:

So the goal is to quirk the commando until it's capable of doing the same level of damage as say an Atlas or a Warhammer? That's an interesting take. The hit box registry is off. It has been for a long time. It's not even a debate. To suggest that it is superior in damage output compared to assault and heavy mechs is naive.

In the non-strawman world that the rest of us inhabit, no one in this thread was suggesting massive buffs for the Commando. And low and behold, if one were to simply peruse the posted patch notes at their leisure, the objective observer might ascertain that indeed there are no massive buffs to the Commando to be found.

The "goal" here, as it were, is simply to contest the stated assertion by some here that the minus 15 structure and plus 15 armor on the right arm of the COM-1D (indisputably the best Commando) is going to have even the slightest hint of the tiniest iota of an impact on your gameplay experience.

Edit: and please, by all means, post your Commando stats. Any variant.

Edited by Ravni, 16 October 2021 - 10:14 AM.

[Heavy Money]

Clay Endfield, on 16 October 2021 - 12:31 AM, said:

And I'm sorry, I myself adore the LGR + PPC builds, but these +2 ER PPC quirks on Gauss based mechs is getting absolutely ridiculous. They shouldn't be so basic or common place. I get the King Crab, sure, it has wonky hitboxes and gawd awful ballistic hardpoints... But the MAD-4L? I've consistently hit over 800 damage in that beast BONE STOCK, and now it's getting a buff?!!!

Gonna sound weird, but I'm not very enthusiastic about that. The -15% Heat Gen quirk was negligible because it's heat efficiency pre-buff was already so damn good that it never feared a Crit Heat warning to begin with; a +10% Cooldown on Gauss? I can support that.

The +2 ER PPC HSL quirk on a mech with -15% Energy Heat, dual gauss, ECM, JJs, and a crap load of armor? That's just obscene. Completely and utterly obscene and as an accomplished and avid MAD-4L pilot I am totally against it. 50 pinpoint damage at 810 meters should be tricky to achieve and weighed down by compromise; like a NSR-9J sporting 3x ER-PPCs & 2x LGRs, and only packing 14 DHS to manage the heat and suffering from a ton of armor stripping. Or a Banshee 3E running 2x LGR & 3x PPCs on hip mounts and coughing up the 810 meter alpha range. Or a MAD-5A packing 2x LGR & 2x HPPCs, and all the crippling circumstances that build requires...

... But just giving it to a mech that was heavily blessed to begin with? Please don't do this. Let the KGC-001 trial it out before you give it to the MAD-4L. The King Crab can use all the help it can get. In my experience, the 4L doesn't need the buff, and the imbalance this is going to bring to the meta once the player base realizes what they have could influence future decisions regarding a +2 ER PPC HSL quirk. Potentially preventing a mech that could REALLY use the buff (Like the KGC-001) from getting the quirk it needs to stand apart.

Just from a math standpoint, you can build a 4L with 2x ER-PPC, 2x GR, 13x DHS, LFE 300, Endo, ECM, 1 JJ, & 5 tons of ammo, and only have to reduce the max armor of the mech by 6 points (just set cockpit to 12; max everywhere else). And you get a mech that (BEFORE Skills) maintains over a 50% Heat Efficiency; can Alpha for 50 pinpoint @ 810 meters 4x in quick succession before hitting crit heat levels (then just shed heat while abusing the not too insignificant ranged firepower of dual Gauss); packs a JJ and ECM; has far from awful hitboxes/hardpoint locations; packs a motherload of armor.

It is so broken. Nothing else can do what it does, nothing else can even get close. It is so incredibly overpowered that I feel dirty thinking about playing my beloved 4L again.

Two mechs being capable of running 2GR+2ERPPC is neither basic nor commonplace.

2LGR+2ERPPC is a heavy mech loadout that does 40 PPFLD. It can be run on a variety of mechs with good mobility and/or mounts. The MAD-4L and KGC are getting to run bigger alphas because these mechs are slow, clunky, and have to expose their giant profiles to use their low mounted arms. These are mechs that, essentially, cannot poke and fade due to their size. Unlike many 2LGR+2ERPPC options, if they expose themselves, it takes long enough to get back in cover that they can take considerable return fire from much higher dps ranged options, like ERLL or AC2 boats. They need to do more damage to have a reason to exist and be worth taking.

I guess its good that you have gotten some high scores in the 4L, but it does not hold up at higher tiers or when compared to other options. Other long ranged specialists consistently outperform the MAD-4L at pretty much every tier, including heavy mechs. Other snipers out snipe it, often for 20-30 tons less. Its additional armor over these other options vanishes in a volley or two, which the other options often wouldn't have been hit by.

Your feel for where the mech is at is contradicted by the experience of others and doesn't line up with the data. Currently, the 4L is run with GR+LGR+2ERPPC. This is a 45dmg pinpoint alpha. And its not wrecking the game by any means. You barely even see them. I don't think I've ever seen anyone else in one (I occasionally see the stock stealth loadout show up and accomplish nothing.) 5 more damage, a bit more dps, and the GR and ERPPC cooldowns lining up better will help, but its a stretch to think this is going to break anything.

[Steve Pryde]

All the new quirks for Marauder IICs and the prime variant doesn't get er-ppc hsl +1 quirk?

[Charles Sennet]

Ravni, on 16 October 2021 - 10:12 AM, said:

In the non-strawman world that the rest of us inhabit, no one in this thread was suggesting massive buffs for the Commando. And low and behold, if one were to simply peruse the posted patch notes at their leisure, the objective observer might ascertain that indeed there are no massive buffs to the Commando to be found.

The "goal" here, as it were, is simply to contest the stated assertion by some here that the minus 15 structure and plus 15 armor on the right arm of the COM-1D (indisputably the best Commando) is going to have even the slightest hint of the tiniest iota of an impact on your gameplay experience.

Edit: and please, by all means, post your Commando stats. Any variant.

How about we fix the broken thing rather than debate if broken is okay or not? Once its damage reg issues are fixed then I doubt many people (including myself) would have an issue with a proper and balanced quirk pass. Until then, any buff to the thing is going to be received badly by many.

Just fix it. Problem solved.

[pattonesque]

Charles Sennet, on 16 October 2021 - 11:46 AM, said:

How about we fix the broken thing rather than debate if broken is okay or not? Once its damage reg issues are fixed then I doubt many people (including myself) would have an issue with a proper and balanced quirk pass. Until then, any buff to the thing is going to be received badly by many.

Just fix it. Problem solved.

just shoot them dude

[Valdarion Silarius]

Dakkalistic, on 15 October 2021 - 04:15 PM, said:

Nice

Bit of a shame the MAD-IIC "Prime" gets nothing

I'm surprised that any of the IIC's besides the Jenner IIC and Hunchback IIC are getting any buffs whatsoever. I thought the MAD IIC was strong enough as it is currently.

[Heavy Money]

Valdarion Silarius, on 16 October 2021 - 12:50 PM, said:

I'm surprised that any of the IIC's besides the Jenner IIC and Hunchback IIC are getting any buffs whatsoever. I thought the MAD IIC was strong enough as it is currently.

Yeah the MAD IIC vanilla does great with laser builds. Probably wouldn't hurt to let it also do PPC builds, but its hardly a priority.
The others MAD IICs were all kind of lackluster compared to other options and didn't really get played. Brawler Scorch used to be more popular in the past, but fell behind other options over all the various changes. So good to see it get some small adjustments.

[Navid A1]

Steve Pryde, on 16 October 2021 - 11:36 AM, said:

All the new quirks for Marauder IICs and the prime variant doesn't get er-ppc hsl +1 quirk?

Usually the main blocker for such quirks is builds you can make with highly concentrated hardpoints around the cockpit. Especially in this case, where you can load it up with heatsinks too. If quirks could have been tied to where you put the weapon, then sure, but it is not the case in MWO.

Also HSL quirks are sometimes used to set apart a variant that is heavily sandwiched between better similar variants. In this case, MAD-IIC base variant is the better variant. Even with no HSL quirk, it is a nice 4xERPPC mech as well as laser vomit... excellent convergence, and all around the cockpit.

Edited by Navid A1, 16 October 2021 - 02:55 PM.

[Ostsr]

MechaGnome, on 16 October 2021 - 01:30 AM, said:

Nightstars need a lot more than that... really

Quote

Nightstar
NSR-9P:

• Removed ballistic velocity
  
• Reduced UAC jam chance to -10% (from 25%)

• Added ERPPC HSL +2

Something like this

Edited by Ostsr, 16 October 2021 - 03:25 PM.

[Valdarion Silarius]

Heavy Money, on 16 October 2021 - 01:21 PM, said:

Yeah the MAD IIC vanilla does great with laser builds. Probably wouldn't hurt to let it also do PPC builds, but its hardly a priority.
The others MAD IICs were all kind of lackluster compared to other options and didn't really get played. Brawler Scorch used to be more popular in the past, but fell behind other options over all the various changes. So good to see it get some small adjustments.

Even all the armor quirks with all of the global base variants comes off as a surprise for me. The MAD IIC has fantastic hitboxes, so I'd like to hear their perspective of why they thought it was necessary to give all of the chasis more armor quirks.

Which is kind of ironic since I vouched for global armor quirks for the Warhammer IIC (and -crit chance receiving), and some arm armor quirks for the Rifleman IIC over on their discord. Seemed like those ideas got swept under the rug which is concerning.

[Heavy Money]

Valdarion Silarius, on 16 October 2021 - 03:53 PM, said:

Even all the armor quirks with all of the global base variants comes off as a surprise for me. The MAD IIC has fantastic hitboxes, so I'd like to hear their perspective of why they thought it was necessary to give all of the chasis more armor quirks.

Which is kind of ironic since I vouched for global armor quirks for the Warhammer IIC (and -crit chance receiving), and some arm armor quirks for the Rifleman IIC over on their discord. Seemed like those ideas got swept under the rug which is concerning.

Marauders in general tend to fall apart too easily when their side torsos are focused, so I think its okay. Their hitboxes are great from the front and crap from the sides.

Don't think they've gotten to the Warhammer IIC and Rifleman IIC yet. They can also do so many per patch.

[Verilligo]

Charles Sennet, on 16 October 2021 - 11:46 AM, said:

How about we fix the broken thing rather than debate if broken is okay or not? Once its damage reg issues are fixed then I doubt many people (including myself) would have an issue with a proper and balanced quirk pass. Until then, any buff to the thing is going to be received badly by many.

Just fix it. Problem solved.

Okay. The Commando is fixed! No more hit reg issues. It was a really simple fix, all that needed to be done was literally nothing. Shall we move on?

[justcallme A S H]

Lifeblight, on 16 October 2021 - 06:24 AM, said:

I've been harping on about the Griffin being bad for nearly 6 months because it was bad. There is of course others still to come in future patches.

As have I internally with Cauldron, I was bringing it up every month. Cauldron can only get through so many changes in any given patch.

What is your actual point?

Ravni, on 16 October 2021 - 06:58 AM, said:

The top competitive variants like COM-1D & STK-5S were barely touched

Indeed. People are not looking at things objectively at all.

They just see the word "Stalker" and have a flip.

Charles Sennet, on 16 October 2021 - 07:04 AM, said:

Commandos are already cheat code level menace especially in Faction Play when there are often multiple and they shrug off a high percentage of damage taking heat, ammo, and time to take down.

As Cauldron has stated many, many times.

We are not balancing for Faction/Comp Play. While they might be considerations, they are not the primary focus.

[C337Skymaster]

Heavy Money, on 15 October 2021 - 10:11 PM, said:

(Lots of posts since I stepped out, can't respond to it all.)

The purpose of the various weapon overhauls we're seeing is to increase build variety though? More mechs and builds are viable. Sure there's still trends, but that's the basic mechanical fact that boating lots of the same weapon is better than mixing lots of weapons, and bracket builds are bad.

We can say the stock loadouts were carefully considered in the lore, but we don't really have any way to make that work. The weapon stats that would be necessary for a certain weapon system to perform up to lore expectations in one stock loadout won't necessarily work for another. The whole thing is just incoherent to represent in a game. Most of these loadouts aren't even good in tabletop. The only way to make stock loadouts really be good is to basically do bespoke giga quirking of them, which would break any other loadout on the same mech. This would be almost impossible to get right.

Your stock builds did better before because lots of people ran crap loadouts. Now, the average loadout has improved. But stock loadouts are generally the worst of the worst, so you've been left behind. The simple fix is for you to change your playstyle. This may not be what you want to do, but the playstyle you are really after (stock loadouts being effective and balanced) is barely feasible even if it were the balance objective. The game just isn't what you want it to be, and it probably never could be. Why not play the game for what it is? Its quite good now!

Also, returning to the subject of large lasers, even if you disagree on all of the above or don't want to change your approach to the game, you still shouldn't be worried about it. This is because people are not currently running builds like large laser boats at all. The mechs getting these LL HSL quirks are barely fielded. So its not like something you are fighting is going to get stronger. What's actually going to happen is that people who are currently running more powerful builds will be switching to play these other mechs for the novelty factor. So you may now see some more LLs on the field, but it will be instead of nastier weapons for the most part.

Apologies for the background audio. I was listening to Louis Rossmann while I was playing, which then complicated getting this clip, but I trimmed it to the relevant portion, since I kept promising to upload it. Turns out the first hit was from a Stalker, though I don't think I ever saw what he was carrying (Large Lasers obviously, but whether they were regular or ER, I couldn't tell). Either way, he burned through at least 60 points of armor and several of structure, all on a single component, even with me twisting away as soon as I realized he was shooting at me. The point of Assaults is not supposed to be to hide, but with that kind of firepower on the field, and no way to absorb it, we're not left with much alternative...

As for stock builds vs meta builds: I feel like you're trying to set the bar for "good" a bit too high. Everyone's aiming for their 1000 dmg QP matches, but those should be the outlier, not the norm. 400 dmg per match should be a good average target to set, and pre-patch, my stock 'mechs could meet or exceed that, especially as an average. Post-patch, that average has dropped closer to 300 dmg per match, and has become more punishing of XL engines than it was previously (and removing players option to try out an XL engine on a heavy or assault seems to be opposite of the proposed goals, does it not?)

One limitation that I do try to keep in mind, although anymore I wonder how relevant it is: is the idea of people playing this game with a Microsoft mouse that they swiped from the office, rather than a gaming mouse that has enough buttons to control all of the available weapon groups, as well as zoom, and possibly even on-the-fly DPI changes. Mice like that are relatively cheap these days, and I feel that anyone playing this game more than an hour per week, or interested in spending any money on MWO at all, would be benefited by obtaining one.

Once you have the ability to control more than two weapon groups, your ability to build out more complex and flexible 'mechs, or operate some of the more convoluted stock builds, improves exponentially. If it wasn't for having an ambidextrous mouse that helps me remember if a weapon is on my left or my right, my accidental back-shots into teammates would be double or triple what they already are, and for sure: controlling stock loadouts with lots of weapon groups would be much more difficult.

Add to that the benefit of designating one button for "missiles", and it helps the muscle memory every time you get a weapon lock to "fire the missiles".

So you say "your stock builds did better because everyone was running crap builds, but now everyone else's builds are better". I see that and hear "everyone was playing around and running what they found enjoyable, but ever since the weapon buffs, they've been running dictated 'meta' builds because their previous builds don't work anymore". Basically the same as mine, with the sole exception being that I didn't change anything, and most other folks are chasing the shifting meta with each patch, rather than running their own builds and stubbornly sticking to them. I mean, when you add HSL quirks, it seems silly to run anything other than a build that takes advantage of those quirks, thus pigeon-holing that 'mech into that build, or a similar one. As I said previously: I'm okay with ones that enable a 'mech to use its signature loadout, and don't punish it (or punish it less) for what it comes with by default, especially in cases where someone buys a 'mech at a stretch, and has to run it as-is for a couple matches before they've saved up enough to update it (even aside from dedicated stock-players such as myself), but adding HSL to a 'mech that requires a player to heavily customize the 'mech into that build is going too far, and starting to defeat the purpose of Ghost Heat in the first place.

9x8 = 72. That's the full complement of armor (including quirks) on the side torso of a Dire Wolf, and darn near the full side-torso complement on an Atlas. That's all the armor and half the structure on a Timber Wolf's bunny-ear. I don't think we should be encouraging that on underutilized 'mechs, but should rather be looking at ways to discourage it wherever else it exists. Daedaloss512 was sounding the alarm on that before the weapon patch even dropped, and he was right to do so, even though he was met with as much (if not more) ridicule for his efforts than I have.

Heck, a Warhawk, known for quad PPC, can only deal 20 pinpoint in a salvo, and will shut down if it deals 40 pinpoint. I think that's appropriate. I think that shouldn't change. But I also think that every other 'mech should be subject to similar limitations.

[justcallme A S H]

C337Skymaster, on 16 October 2021 - 05:32 PM, said:

Turns out the first hit was from a Stalker, though I don't think I ever saw what he was carrying (Large Lasers obviously, but whether they were regular or ER, I couldn't tell). Either way, he burned through at least 60 points of armor and several of structure, all on a single component,

So you'd already taken fire from the Stalker and VGL.

You then walked into the open and were shot by the Stalker with 4x LL (36dmg) , Vapor Eagle with 2 HLL 5ERML (68dmg) and the Mauler - this was after taking damage to that same torso earlier. So 104 dmg++.

It was not just the Stalker shooting you so of course 60pts of armour was chewed up when there was 100dmg+ coming at you.

Pre-cauldron if you peaked out and made a bad trade - it would have ended the same way.

Edited by justcallme A S H, 16 October 2021 - 05:52 PM.