101 replies to this topic

[ScrapIron Prime]

Kanil, on 19 May 2022 - 03:23 PM, said:

Who says the Piranha has to shoot at the Longbow every single turn?

Also, it's got lasers.

The piranha backs up 3 hexes to a range of 4? Fine, the longbow backs up on its turn to a range of 7. Hello, LRMs at optimal range... hitting on 6's.




PS... If by any longshot chance you're going to attend Origins Game Faire in Columbus Ohio on June 8-11... let me know. I'll take you over to the Catalyst Games area and introduce you to a few Gunslingers.

Edited by ScrapIron Prime, 19 May 2022 - 05:49 PM.

[Kanil]

ScrapIron Prime, on 19 May 2022 - 05:48 PM, said:

PS... If by any longshot chance you're going to attend Origins Game Faire in Columbus Ohio on June 8-11... let me know. I'll take you over to the Catalyst Games area and introduce you to a few Gunslingers.

I just realized that the Piranha doesn't have maximum leg armor for some reason. So that makes the Longbow a lot more dangerous given it's abundance of 5 point damages, only takes two to take off a leg. So I'm not going to bother continue the conversation, but I will say...

MegaMek exists.

Edited by Kanil, 19 May 2022 - 06:56 PM.

[Meep Meep]

Trying to shoehorn in BT dice based battle mechanics into a real time hitscan first person shooter was an ongoing mistake of PGI for years and years. Good lord how many lrm iterations did they go through because of muh lore and BT damage tables? Say what you want about Cauldron but at least they are trying to balance the game with reality and fun in mind. Day one MWO should have been a BT themed game balanced for real time action. But at least we are going in the right direction now and who knows if they make it fun and accessible enough for new player retention the game might get a nice second wind. I mean the BT IP itself is still alive and popular so no reason we can't get more players to hop on.


Also as long as we are on the topic of pts I submit that IS LMG are reduced in weight from .5 tons to .25 tons to make them easier to fit on light mechs so you can get a baseline one ton two lmg and half ton ammo fit . This keeps it inline with clans because .25 is the lowest you can go and not screw up the fittings which is why both their MG and LMG weigh the same.

[Novakaine]

[sosegado]

w0qj, on 17 May 2022 - 09:01 AM, said:

There are counters to these mechs, but only MWO experts, good aiming vs Lights, and perhaps even Seismic Sensors. (Newcomer: so what's a Seismic Sensor??)

- - - - - - - - - - - -
Lights are OP!

... Piranha Cipher

I wanted to see what all the fuss was about when it came to this particular mech.

The Piranha Cipher, so I bought one and I've played it a few times.

Holy Crap!

What Mad, Evil Genius designed this thing!?!

It's an amazing mech!
It's a genuine monster!

P.S. Please, Please, Please, never give this thing jump jets!

Edited by Stab Wound, 20 May 2022 - 10:09 PM.

[King Carrot]

I'm a new player and the only reason I stayed with the game is because there are super light mechs that can use speed to catch lone big mechs. The typical firing line situation is just a snoozefest.

[Novakaine]

[LordNothing]

i never figured data as a lights op-er.

he does kind of have a point. a lot of lights are nerfed into oblivion just on the grounds that they aren't machine gun lights. for a long time a mech with six machine guns was something, but then they went nuts with the piranha, the flea, and now the viper-f. i think they should have done mgas rather than proliferate ballistic hardpoints all over the place on smaller mechs. in the early days of the game ballistic hardpoints were handed out with an eye dropper. but they figured they could do it on light mechs because they could only carry machine guns.

they should have done mgas so they can stack machine gun damage without stacking crit rolls and stuck with sane numbers of hard points. but its too late for that and people arent going to like having their hardpoints stripped out. i think maybe they need to do a hard cap on how many mg crit rolls can come from a single mech regardless of how many mgs they use.

[Meep Meep]

LordNothing, on 21 May 2022 - 10:13 AM, said:

i never figured data as a lights op-er.

Heh, then you haven't seen his youtube channel where he puts up tons of 'omg lights are op' vids.

But he doesn't really think they are op he just likes to spam controversial titles on his vids to drive up views.

If you watch the vids it clearly shows he is mainly working in lances and him and his buddies are tag teaming isolated mechs. Or if its a solo vid he is camping most of the game taking pot shots then late game when everyone is opened up he farms crits with the mg builds. Its very smart play as a top player should be doing but it hardly shows that lights or mg lights are op as a class or else ~everyone~ would be turning in that type of performance.

[LordNothing]

Meep Meep, on 23 May 2022 - 09:31 AM, said:

Heh, then you haven't seen his youtube channel where he puts up tons of 'omg lights are op' vids.

But he doesn't really think they are op he just likes to spam controversial titles on his vids to drive up views.

If you watch the vids it clearly shows he is mainly working in lances and him and his buddies are tag teaming isolated mechs. Or if its a solo vid he is camping most of the game taking pot shots then late game when everyone is opened up he farms crits with the mg builds. Its very smart play as a top player should be doing but it hardly shows that lights or mg lights are op as a class or else ~everyone~ would be turning in that type of performance.

i've actually just started watching it, he talks about stuff that's boggled my mind for years. my tier seems staying put so i need to play better.

lights take a skill set that seems counter intuitive to the way other classes play out. its a very dynamic form of play. worst thing you can do with a squirrel is to try and play it like a hill humping heavy/assault. you can do that a few times but then you are out of armor. haning out with lethargic players can be very bad because it deprives you of your true armor, speed. players who do not play lights simply never develop the skill set, a lot of players try them and then go back to heavies or whatever works for them.

Edited by LordNothing, 23 May 2022 - 01:02 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

LordNothing, on 21 May 2022 - 10:13 AM, said:

i think maybe they need to do a hard cap on how many mg crit rolls can come from a single mech regardless of how many mgs they use.

They should just remove crits from the game period imo. Crits aren't fun to play against, I mean who hasn't had a weapon get destroyed immediately after having their armor opened up by a point or less of damage? It's a pretty crappy feeling and it's not like there is any real way to protect yourself from these sort of crits. Crit damage only reinforces the snowball and opportunistic nature of these weapons/mechs. These lights aren't really that great to initiate much unless a mech decides to isolate themselves (though you can be some form of area denial with that) or the battle has already begun to swing your way (where they can capitalize on the work your team put in for you).

tl;dr crits are unfun, remove them and just bump up the raw damage of weapons that relied on them (LBX and MGs)

MGAs would also be nice just to lower the hardpoint requirement to run MGs effectively, but honestly it would be nice to see something similar for some lasers like IS small lasers as well.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 23 May 2022 - 01:37 PM.

[LordNothing]

part of me wants to get rid of dice rolls for a purely deterministic mechanic. they make sense in a turn based table top that doesnt try to perfectly simulate events. and when you can simulate cause and effect you should do that. if a gun jams it should be because you spammed it, and if a weapon explodes it should be because you hit it directly. i guess they mostly use it partly out of nostalgia and partly because its harder to make a new from scratch mechanic than it is just to copy something verbatim from a source book.

Edited by LordNothing, 23 May 2022 - 01:46 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

As for the rest of the thread which I skipped outside of the OP, I think it is important to understand that have traditionally been pretty feast or famine. The smaller ones are notoriously hard to hit (or impossible to hit if they hug your ankles) for lower end players but on the higher end typically just don't have the armor to survive well (especially against streaks). Without significant quirks or reliance on things like MGs, they also traditionally have required the most work to get significant damage out of (even with MGs, they require stuff happen before they can do things half the time).

IMO, the lower end lights need to be bigger in size but compensated with more armor/internals (probably a lot more, just look at the poor 35 tonners like the Jenner IIC) for being enlarged to make them less feast or famine. The larger end mechs probably also need to be compressed a little bit because some of them just have too easy to isolate sections (with maybe some reduced armor/internal quirks). Too round it all off maybe some general heat/ammo quirks for lights to help with the lack of tonnage they have to play with but also there shouldn't be a single mech that can huge a mech's leg and escape getting shot by that mech, it is similar to minimum range, it just isn't fun to play with.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 23 May 2022 - 01:59 PM.

[Meep Meep]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 23 May 2022 - 01:35 PM, said:

tl;dr crits are unfun, remove them and just bump up the raw damage of weapons that relied on them (LBX and MGs)

Apparently people missed this on the patch notes.

BALLISTIC WEAPONS

Machine gun:
Reduced critical damage multiplier to 7.83 (from 9.0)

Heavy Machine gun:
Reduced critical damage multiplier to 5.25 (from 7.0)

Clan Machine gun:
Reduced critical damage multiplier to 5.6 (from 7.0)
Increased ammo per ton to 2200 (from 2000)

Clan Heavy Machine gun:
Reduced critical damage multiplier to 3.75 (from 5.0)


I suggested this months and months ago as a way to "fix" mg crit spam on boating builds and seems they finally used it.

Basically reduce crits on mg and hmg so they are primarily used as dps weapons and leave lmg as the crit farmers.

So after the patch lights that were boating mg and hmg shouldn't be stripping out your weapons as soon as they can spray an open component.

Not really an issue for me though as I boat lmg for the range. No one thinks me plinking them at 300m+ is doing anything until they realize their armor is evaporating.

[LordNothing]

Meep Meep, on 23 May 2022 - 03:52 PM, said:

Apparently people missed this on the patch notes.

BALLISTIC WEAPONS

Machine gun:
Reduced critical damage multiplier to 7.83 (from 9.0)

Heavy Machine gun:
Reduced critical damage multiplier to 5.25 (from 7.0)

Clan Machine gun:
Reduced critical damage multiplier to 5.6 (from 7.0)
Increased ammo per ton to 2200 (from 2000)

Clan Heavy Machine gun:
Reduced critical damage multiplier to 3.75 (from 5.0)


I suggested this months and months ago as a way to "fix" mg crit spam on boating builds and seems they finally used it.

Basically reduce crits on mg and hmg so they are primarily used as dps weapons and leave lmg as the crit farmers.

So after the patch lights that were boating mg and hmg shouldn't be stripping out your weapons as soon as they can spray an open component.

Not really an issue for me though as I boat lmg for the range. No one thinks me plinking them at 300m+ is doing anything until they realize their armor is evaporating.

we didnt miss it. i dont think its going to make a lick of difference. its just going to make machine guns suck on platforms with six or less hardpoints. meanwhile saturation machineguners are not going to notice.

Edited by LordNothing, 23 May 2022 - 04:03 PM.

[Meep Meep]

LordNothing, on 23 May 2022 - 04:02 PM, said:

we didnt miss it. i dont think its going to make a lick of difference. its just going to make machine guns suck on platforms with six or less hardpoints. meanwhile saturation machineguners are not going to notice.

Dunno. Clan mg already kinda sucked at farming crits even when boated as per test map usage and now their multi is even lower with IS basically getting the old clan values. The mg lights I am most successful with are boated IS lights which seem to magically clean out open components with just a light spray. This will no longer happen and I'm cool with that.

My suggestion for reducing crits is to make it a mech specific thing with crit reducing quirks on mechs with bad hitboxes but lots of structure like assaults and heavies. Mechs with low structure should be vulnerable to crits since they have so little of it to protect their mounted equipment and weapons.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Meep Meep, on 23 May 2022 - 04:10 PM, said:

Dunno. Clan mg already kinda sucked at farming crits even when boated as per test map usage and now their multi is even lower with IS basically getting the old clan values. The mg lights I am most successful with are boated IS lights which seem to magically clean out open components with just a light spray. This will no longer happen and I'm cool with that.

To be clear, the main goal of MG boats is the DPS boost with crits. And to LordNothing's point, this just increases the barrier of entry to make them worthwhile. No different than the impact AMS has on LRMs, just means you gotta boat more to bother with them. I mentioned the component destruction because it is an unfun side-effect of that extra DPS.

Meep Meep, on 23 May 2022 - 04:10 PM, said:

My suggestion for reducing crits is to make it a mech specific thing with crit reducing quirks on mechs with bad hitboxes but lots of structure like assaults and heavies. Mechs with low structure should be vulnerable to crits since they have so little of it to protect their mounted equipment and weapons.

That makes less sense as the sole difference mechanically between internals and armor is that internals is less valuable because of crits (ie 1 pt or armor is worth more than 1 pt of internals). If you are going to give them equivalence then what is honestly the point? Though tbh, without crits and special armor/internals there really isn't much of a difference. At that point internals are just free armor which honestly I'm fine with, just worth mentioning.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 23 May 2022 - 04:47 PM.

[LordNothing]

Meep Meep, on 23 May 2022 - 04:10 PM, said:

Dunno. Clan mg already kinda sucked at farming crits even when boated as per test map usage and now their multi is even lower with IS basically getting the old clan values. The mg lights I am most successful with are boated IS lights which seem to magically clean out open components with just a light spray. This will no longer happen and I'm cool with that.

My suggestion for reducing crits is to make it a mech specific thing with crit reducing quirks on mechs with bad hitboxes but lots of structure like assaults and heavies. Mechs with low structure should be vulnerable to crits since they have so little of it to protect their mounted equipment and weapons.

seems like it would be easier to nerf mg crits and put crit quirks on the ones with fewer hardpoints. or perhaps add mg nodes to the skill tree so that you would need to allocate a couple nodes to mgs to get their current crit rate.

[Curccu]

LordNothing, on 23 May 2022 - 09:07 PM, said:

seems like it would be easier to nerf mg crits and put crit quirks on the ones with fewer hardpoints. or perhaps add mg nodes to the skill tree so that you would need to allocate a couple nodes to mgs to get their current crit rate.

Do nerf and then skill tree tax to be back to pre nerf... would seem kinda silly.

But MG "problem" is here to stay because we got mechs with huge amounts of those hardpoints and those with just few without any other low tonnage option to use those few hardpoints effectively. Hard if not impossible to balance in a way that everyone would be happy.

[LordNothing]

Curccu, on 24 May 2022 - 12:21 AM, said:

Do nerf and then skill tree tax to be back to pre nerf... would seem kinda silly.

But MG "problem" is here to stay because we got mechs with huge amounts of those hardpoints and those with just few without any other low tonnage option to use those few hardpoints effectively. Hard if not impossible to balance in a way that everyone would be happy.

inflating hardpoints for machine gun mechs was an egregious shortcut with big consequences. mgas should have been used instead to solve the problem. instead of giving mechs 12 hardpoints you give them four, then install 3 mga3s for 12 mgs total. you could upgrade that to mga4s or hmga3s or some such. older machine gun lights can enjoy the party. heavies and assaults could mount enough to matter. these perhaps should have came out with the civil war weapons pack before the piranha came out, and it would have solved the mg problem forever. hindsight is 20/20 and now we got a problem that should have been forseen.

fortunately there are only 6 mechs that can carry more than 6 machine guns stock (7 when the crusader hero drops), not counting omnipod kitbashes. you could probibly give mgas exclusively to those mechs simultaneously with a hardpoint reduction. then if, they do well, retrofit them on other formerly useful machine gun mechs.