185 replies to this topic

[Gas Guzzler]

C337Skymaster, on 15 January 2022 - 06:22 AM, said:

To my own question: why the sudden addition of Radar Dep to literally everything? I make it a personal point to AVOID that overpowered pos whenever possible, only caving to the need to pick up the ECM nodes. LRMs can't trade in a direct-fire capacity without locks because of their incredibly slow projectile speed, and with the amount of ECM on the field, today, and MASC, and overall maneuverability, cover, and general Call-of-Duty peek-and-poke playstyle in MWO, the ability to hold a target for a second or two after it drops into cover to complete the target lock and fire indirect (also enabling the upward arc which will clear the cover they just ducked behind) is the ONLY way an LRM weapon system can cause any damage in a match. Given that Radar Dep takes precedence over Target Retention, as well, and the increase in 100% radar dep running around the battlefield is absolutely eradicating an entire weapon system from the game.

Are you referring to the non-ECM Blood Asp CTs? If so, the reason is they are currently more or less unused, and adding that quirk to them gives them some more purpose to exist. So... as a lurm boat, would you rather face a Blood Asp with ECM, or one with 25% radar dep?

I would prefer the 25% radar dep..

[AnAnachronismAlive]

Gas Guzzler, on 16 January 2022 - 11:04 AM, said:

Are you referring to the non-ECM Blood Asp CTs? If so, the reason is they are currently more or less unused, and adding that quirk to them gives them some more purpose to exist. So... as a lurm boat, would you rather face a Blood Asp with ECM, or one with 25% radar dep?

I would prefer the 25% radar dep..

Plus it allows for some minor build-adaptations, since it frees skill-points for other purposes (even if that is only 1-3 of em).

[Navid A1]

Lifeblight, on 16 January 2022 - 06:29 AM, said:

Caldron motto, "Making the game less fun one patch at a time."
Thanks guys.

Would be good if you can elaborate on that.

The Cauldron is not some secret cabal making balance changes to appease satan.

They are players, both casual and experienced comp level. And the one goal they have is to make the game more fun... because that's the game they are playing.

So... please elaborate what part you don't find fun.

Edited by Navid A1, 16 January 2022 - 11:15 AM.

[NoxMorbis]

Avalon91211, on 16 January 2022 - 10:51 AM, said:

They are still highly upset about getting their a$$'s handed to them by my LRM-60 King Crab all those years ago and have been trying to get revenge since.

Agree with almost everything you said. We have a good player base now. We can add a member to our lance who I just called a bunch of names (jokingly) because he was on the other team drilling me, and it's all good.

LRMs suck when you are on the receiving end, no doubt about it. However, a good lance or team can deal with them. Usually, they don't, but that's not an LRM problem. It's a failure to coordinate. No one likes melting away from LRMs, but it makes things spicy an necessitates that players learn to play more tactically.

The thing is, except when there is an event, I don't see an overuse of LRMS. First, they are boring to use. Second, they are boring to use. Third, . . . . And, who want to play a game for fun that bores them? They have their place.

Edited by NoxMorbis, 16 January 2022 - 12:22 PM.

[Staude Coston]

Navid A1, on 16 January 2022 - 11:11 AM, said:

So... please elaborate what part you don't find fun.

well, the more patches, the more free time I'll have for other things my bikes need some love too so everything is fine keep it up By the way, I can't imagine for the best will in the world that you don't know what it's about

[NoxMorbis]

C337Skymaster, on 15 January 2022 - 06:22 AM, said:

To my own question: why the sudden addition of Radar Dep to literally everything?

How many mechs now get some sort of dep? Some mechs really do need some help because in their current form, they really do suck.

Edited by NoxMorbis, 16 January 2022 - 12:38 PM.

[Charles Sennet]

Navid A1, on 16 January 2022 - 11:11 AM, said:

So... please elaborate what part you don't find fun.

What I think Life is getting at is while the cLPL is indeed a very strong weapon ATM, Clans NEED a really good weapon to offset the the inherit advantages of IS mechs esp. in FP (more survival quirks, better skill tree, 120 extra tons, better pinpoint HSL's, etc.). The Stalker is a prime example of a good mech that got THREE rounds of buffs making it SUPER top tier in FP especially in the snipe role. Its most definitely over-buffed (compared to alternatives) but nothing from the Cauldron on this that I've seen. Instead the SNV-1 lost its laser duration quirk. Apparently, it "absolutely was" a huge problem. Where? QP? Not seeing them there. FP? Not there either. We see a lot of Stalkers than we ever see Supernovas (let alone the specific 1 variant but that was OP somehow).

Regardless of the Cauldron's stated goal of balancing for QP (with comp obviously in mind too) its irresponsible to ignore FP as the decisions being made right now are having HUGE impact on that game mode. To those that would say the mode is dead, I say there are more player/matches happening in FP than in comp. Prove me wrong here. So why can't the Cauldron balance for FP as well?

The perception exists among many FP players that anytime there is remotely something good on the Clan side its quick to get a nerf (hearing that cERLL will get a GH nerf in Feb) while the stronk stuff on IS is allowed to continue unbated, example being: 40-50 long range pinpoint damage at nearly 3K KPH that Clans have nothing close to. While not "oppressive" in QP, its a different story in FP. The only way to know is to play the mode which I just don't see a lot of known Cauldron members doing right now especially Clan side.

Even when we look at terrible chassis and the Cauldrons treatment of them, we get some big inconsistencies. Compare the Hellfire's quirks to the Black Knight's coming next week. Arguably the Hellefire has EVEN WORSE geometry and hardpoint locations (not to mention total hardpoints) than the BL-7 but it didn't get near the level of quirks. Evingolis recently did a post-Cauldron-review of the Hellefire and it's still epically bad. Why didn't it get the BL-7 treatment? Only conclusion we're left with is its a Clan mech. Meanwhile we're getting ready to receive big waves of Black Knight pushes in the coming weeks.

Data has also made a lot of good points (on lights and flooding the game with survival quirks among them) on the Cauldron Discord. No need to repeat them.

What I'd love to know from the Cauldron is what chassis/weapons on the IS side do they think is maybe is too strong and they're looking at? That might mitigate the perception that the Cauldron has an IS bias with nerfs to Clans most important weapons when we simply have less choices to begin with compared to IS. So what if the cLPL is good right now? IS has so many other strong choices that Clans simply don't have. But the answer is to reduce DPS of cLPL by 9%?

I want to careful not to sound over-harsh because there has been a lot of good changes too, but this is where these types of comments are coming from since you asked.

Edited by Charles Sennet, 16 January 2022 - 01:14 PM.

[Navid A1]

Charles Sennet, on 16 January 2022 - 01:02 PM, said:

What I think Life is getting at is while the cLPL is indeed a very strong weapon ATM, Clans NEED a really good weapon to offset the the inherit advantages of IS mechs esp. in FP (more survival quirks, better skill tree, 120 extra tons, better pinpoint HSL's, etc.). The Stalker is a prime example of a good mech that got THREE rounds of buffs making it SUPER top tier in FP especially in the snipe role. Its most definitely over-buffed (compared to alternatives) but nothing from the Cauldron on this that I've seen. Instead the SNV-1 lost its laser duration quirk. Apparently, it "absolutely was" a huge problem. Where? QP? Not seeing them there. FP? Not there either. We see a lot of Stalkers than we ever see Supernovas (let alone the specific 1 variant but that was OP somehow).

Regardless of the Cauldron's stated goal of balancing for QP (with comp obviously in mind too) its irresponsible to ignore FP as the decisions being made right now are having HUGE impact on that game mode. To those that would say the mode is dead, I say there are more player/matches happening in FP than in comp. Prove me wrong here. So why can't the Cauldron balance for FP as well?

The perception exists among many FP players that anytime there is remotely something good on the Clan side its quick to get a nerf (hearing that cERLL will get a GH nerf in Feb) while the stronk stuff on IS is allowed to continue unbated, example being: 40-50 long range pinpoint damage at nearly 3K KPH that Clans have nothing close to. While not "oppressive" in QP, its a different story in FP. The only way to know is to play the mode which I just don't see a lot of known Cauldron members doing right now especially Clan side.

Even when we look at terrible chassis and the Cauldrons treatment of them, we get some big inconsistencies. Compare the Hellfire's quirks to the Black Knight's coming next week. Arguably the Hellefire has EVEN WORSE geometry and hardpoint locations (not to mention total hardpoints) than the BL-7 but it didn't get near the level of quirks. Evingolis recently did a post-Cauldron-review of the Hellefire and it's still epically bad. Why didn't it get the BL-7 treatment? Only conclusion we're left with is its a Clan mech. Meanwhile we're getting ready to receive big waves of Black Knight pushes in the coming weeks.

Data has also made a lot of good points (on lights and flooding the game with survival quirks among them) on the Cauldron Discord. No need to repeat them.

What I'd love to know from the Cauldron is what chassis/weapons on the IS side do they think is maybe is too strong and they're looking at? That might mitigate the perception that the Cauldron has an IS bias with nerfs to Clans most important weapons when we simply have less choices to begin with compared to IS. So what if the cLPL is good right now? IS has so many other strong choices that Clans simply don't have. But the answer is to reduce DPS of cLPL by 9%?

I want to careful not to sound over-harsh because there has been a lot of good changes too, but this is where these types of comments are coming from since you asked.

The majority of matches in MWO are quick play matches, far surpassing anything comp or FP ever had. It's only natural that balance focus is on there. Balance can't be separated... we can't "balance for FP too"... we can consider it to not allow something going way over the top.

The reaction towards most changes have been with disregard towards where the weapon has been before.
Where was feedback after April when most clan lasers got turbo charged?

Clan weapons like ER Medium, cLPL, HLL, cERLL were boosted a lot. Top Laser vomit mechs in this game are all clan mechs. And those laser vomit mechs got quirk passes to further help them.... and more will, as we get to them to either do a focused pass on them or adjust them.

We also have the performance data of each individual variant in the game which is something we look at. Rather than just considering a single unit's bias towards a single game mode during weekend.
You mentioned the SNV-1. When it got the ERLL HSL +1, we were going to remove all the duration from it, rather we had to try it first before removing anything from it. When we ourselves can run stuff like SNV-1 and see how out of whack broken it is with all the duration quirks (which btw we reduced in steps), how do you expect us to go about it?

You mentioned the black knights and a post about hellfires. In every patch note there is a section called """Adjustments to previous passes"""... where we take a look back at mechs that have received quirk passes before... and the overwhelming majority of that part is further boosts to mechs that we see are still not performing. Time is limited... PGI's deadlines are tight, we need time to test and run the builds... can't power through 100 mechs every patch based on imaginations or assumptions. Hellfires need a bit of help... We initially gave it armor on all torsos... on the second pass we increased the armor even more, and added arm armor to it as well plus some offensive quirks. We'll have to double check it again to see how much further we can go.


Also regarding big waves of BL rushes... You think a 12 man push of Sunspiders is less scary than black knights?... take 8 laser vomit sunspiders and crush everything.

[Nathan White]

Navid A1, on 16 January 2022 - 02:14 PM, said:

Also regarding big waves of BL rushes... You think a 12 man push of Sunspiders is less scary than black knights?... take 8 laser vomit sunspiders and crush everything.

...if you have enough MC to buy 2 hero mechs for 1 laservom sunspider.

[Navid A1]

Nathan White, on 16 January 2022 - 02:35 PM, said:

...if you have enough MC to buy 2 hero mechs for 1 laservom sunspider.

Good thing you can load up on Timbers and Ebons then.
Some HBRs for some good measure.

[Scout Derek]

Charles Sennet, on 16 January 2022 - 01:02 PM, said:

in FP

Dude.

We've gone over this MULTIPLE times. Cauldron ain't balancing around that. They've even said it themselves, and now again as well.

I know you enjoy FP, but please, come on.

[w0qj]

Question: Why this "25% Radar Deprivation" for non-ECM Blood Asp CT's?

==>Why not "35% Radar Deprivation" instead, as an example for discussion? Just curious.

Gas Guzzler, on 16 January 2022 - 11:04 AM, said:

Are you referring to the non-ECM Blood Asp CTs? If so, the reason is they are currently more or less unused, and adding that quirk to them gives them some more purpose to exist. So... as a lurm boat, would you rather face a Blood Asp with ECM, or one with 25% radar dep?

I would prefer the 25% radar dep..

Edited by w0qj, 16 January 2022 - 04:07 PM.

[Navid A1]

w0qj, on 16 January 2022 - 04:06 PM, said:

Question: Why this "25% Radar Deprivation" for non-ECM Blood Asp CT's?

==>Why not "35% Radar Deprivation" instead, as an example for discussion? Just curious.

Just to make it so that if you want max radar dep (95%-100%), you have to have 4 radar dep. nodes.
With 35%, you can get 95% with just three skill nodes that's just one side of its respective tree. We also were debating 20% yet decided to make it worth more than one single node

Edited by Navid A1, 16 January 2022 - 04:13 PM.

[Navid A1]

Also regarding the summoner Pride hero mech losing the cooldown on its left torso.

The advantage of that pod is shifted towards its survival quirk (which no other pod with similar energy hardpoint have)... and the Energy Cooldown quirk will be given back to an easy to access arm pod (like Prime and M) in February.

Edited by Navid A1, 16 January 2022 - 04:27 PM.

[justcallme A S H]

Charles Sennet, on 16 January 2022 - 01:02 PM, said:

Data has also made a lot of good points (on lights and flooding the game with survival quirks among them) on the Cauldron Discord. No need to repeat them.

And yet lights are still the worst performing class in the game.

Let the flood continue then because it's going to take a few more Tsunami's before lights are actually going to be a problem in MWO.

Navid A1, on 16 January 2022 - 02:14 PM, said:

Clan weapons like ER Medium, cLPL, HLL, cERLL were boosted a lot. Top Laser vomit mechs in this game are all clan mechs. And those laser vomit mechs got quirk passes to further help them....

This is the key point here.

Clans were solidly buffed ages ago.. Weapons buffs and survival quirks were given out enmasse many many months ago for Clan. Certain indivuduals have conveniently forgotten about it though because it's not in the last few sets sets of patch notes.

I also find it interesting the people carrying on about IS "OP" are all from the same unit. No bias there at all, sure

The Black Knight - one of the the worst IS Heavies in the game - getting some buffs to bring it upto par and suddently people are expecting to get crushed in FP by waves of them? I highly doubt it and if you do lose to it, you probably need to revisit your own tactics.

The weapons, builds and META has has a shift. There is no question about that and I tried to point this out a while back as well. Alas I bet none of that has been taken onboard whatsoever.

[Charles Sennet]

Navid A1, on 16 January 2022 - 02:14 PM, said:

The majority of matches in MWO are quick play matches, far surpassing anything comp or FP ever had. It's only natural that balance focus is on there. Balance can't be separated... we can't "balance for FP too"... we can consider it to not allow something going way over the top.

The reaction towards most changes have been with disregard towards where the weapon has been before.
Where was feedback after April when most clan lasers got turbo charged?

Clan weapons like ER Medium, cLPL, HLL, cERLL were boosted a lot. Top Laser vomit mechs in this game are all clan mechs. And those laser vomit mechs got quirk passes to further help them.... and more will, as we get to them to either do a focused pass on them or adjust them.

We also have the performance data of each individual variant in the game which is something we look at. Rather than just considering a single unit's bias towards a single game mode during weekend.
You mentioned the SNV-1. When it got the ERLL HSL +1, we were going to remove all the duration from it, rather we had to try it first before removing anything from it. When we ourselves can run stuff like SNV-1 and see how out of whack broken it is with all the duration quirks (which btw we reduced in steps), how do you expect us to go about it?

You mentioned the black knights and a post about hellfires. In every patch note there is a section called """Adjustments to previous passes"""... where we take a look back at mechs that have received quirk passes before... and the overwhelming majority of that part is further boosts to mechs that we see are still not performing. Time is limited... PGI's deadlines are tight, we need time to test and run the builds... can't power through 100 mechs every patch based on imaginations or assumptions. Hellfires need a bit of help... We initially gave it armor on all torsos... on the second pass we increased the armor even more, and added arm armor to it as well plus some offensive quirks. We'll have to double check it again to see how much further we can go.


Also regarding big waves of BL rushes... You think a 12 man push of Sunspiders is less scary than black knights?... take 8 laser vomit sunspiders and crush everything.

Well, I think I answered your question which was why I replied. I don't want to get into an entire back-and-forth here as frankly that's shown not to be productive historically. Fact is Clans are getting a big nerf to their most important weapons. IS has some very strong weapons themselves which don't seem to be as carefully analyzed or they would have been toned down (i.e. long range pinpoint that's almost hitscan speed). That, and the proliferation of survival quirks on the IS side, seem excessive.

Side note: with each passing patch and balance pass, going all the way back to the CW Tech, the 120 ton IS advantage in FP seems increasingly egregious and unnecessary. Perhaps not your department but really its time things were equalized there.

I'm far from the only one who believes these things. We're not all wrong. Thanks for reading.

[L1f3H4ck]

I've come to the conclusion that the cauldron hates LRMs so much that they are willing to let other missiles suffer for it. Mechs that just might use missile quirks for LRMs don't get any, just to be safe. But i'm sure there's a totally valid balance argument why Jager A and IV4 "needed" ballistic ammo quirks, but not missile ammo. I've already said my piece on the BAS-B arms. I'm looking forward to the Catapult getting all it's quirks changed to SRM only.

And so missiles are currently in a horrible state, all of them, get used to it I guess.

[Staude Coston]

'justcallme A S H

I also find it interesting the people carrying on about IS "OP" are all from the same unit. No bias there at all, sure

which unit still plays clan as majority ?

Edited by Staude, 16 January 2022 - 09:44 PM.

[Navid A1]

Dakkalistic, on 16 January 2022 - 09:04 PM, said:

I've come to the conclusion that the cauldron hates LRMs so much that they are willing to let other missiles suffer for it. Mechs that just might use missile quirks for LRMs don't get any, just to be safe. But i'm sure there's a totally valid balance argument why Jager A and IV4 "needed" ballistic ammo quirks, but not missile ammo. I've already said my piece on the BAS-B arms. I'm looking forward to the Catapult getting all it's quirks changed to SRM only.

And so missiles are currently in a horrible state, all of them, get used to it I guess.

Ammo quirks are given if they are able to make certain builds possible on a mech. Do you think you are limited by missile ammo on an IV4?

Ballistic weapons are very large and heavy. Ammo quirks can make them a viable options with good back up weapons and speed. You see less missile ammo because it's rare you find a case where missile ammo is an issue.

MRMs on the IV4 is performing the exact same way as before... now you have a ballistic option as well. Try 2xAC10s with 2 medium lasers.

I have told you before that Every patch mechs that receive their first pass will be looked at again. I know you have a fascination with Blood Asp-B arms and that will be looked at.


btw...
So much LRM hate here:
https://mwo.nav-alph...=a56eb6ce_EBJ-C

I don't even have to bring up the long list of IS LRM mechs.


More missile boosts to come for clans in coming months.

Edited by Navid A1, 16 January 2022 - 10:22 PM.

[L1f3H4ck]

Navid A1, on 16 January 2022 - 10:22 PM, said:

MRMs on the IV4 is performing the exact same way as before

They don't though. IV4 is no longer the tanky Quickdraw, it's the slow one. And MRMs have become weaker in comparison to other options, Clan Laservom being the prime offender currently, as a result, IV4s have become much rarer, I hardly see them at all anymore.

Yes I assume clag bias, it's been around forever, and every time someone goes on about how great the community is, I tell them to unironically play LRMs for a while and see how it works out for them. It's going to take more that an EBJ build to convince me otherwise after that other previous "exchange" (I was sharing armor for YOUR weak-sauce Roflman CT, you know?)

Even getting into SRM range in a non-zoomer without being laser drilled by clans or PPFLDed by IS at 3 times your range can be a challenge in itself these days. Damage on classic Missile mechs like Wolvie and Assassin keeps going from great to meh or even anemic.

Teal hardpoints need help