65 replies to this topic

[LordNothing]

martian, on 06 November 2022 - 08:40 AM, said:

I still see a good number of them in the game, albeit not as many as in Summer.

thats a good sign that the nerfs weren't overkill.

[martian]

LordNothing, on 06 November 2022 - 08:46 AM, said:

thats a good sign that the nerfs weren't overkill.

I agree.

[Curccu]

Rosarius, on 05 November 2022 - 03:12 PM, said:

UAC burst is OP
Machine gun lights are OP
SPL is OP.
Blue lasers are OP
Long range PPFLD is OP
Poptarts are OP
ECM is OP

How about we have all mechs and weapons removed except for atlases and small lasers?

Nope There is a rumor that omni messiah DATA has said that small lazors OP.

[LordNothing]

they are barely usable on the charger with stupid small laser quirks. the cycle time is amazing, but you still have to bring an assault mech inside 200m.

[Darian DelFord]

Heavy Money, on 05 November 2022 - 11:47 AM, said:

Strange to see a thread complaining about Alphas bringing up brawling weapons and not 50 PPFLD Snipers.

Thats a whole 'nother thread. But just as cancerous But its a subset of the high alpha problem.

Dyex, on 05 November 2022 - 04:05 PM, said:

Think a mentional part of the major powercreep is also in part to the reworked skill tree in the last year too.
Now more then ever heat management and skill quirks let you pull off some powerful alphas.

Most likely yes.

Duke Falcon, on 06 November 2022 - 01:16 AM, said:

Frankly, if you say alphas are to low, well, THIS GAME IS NOT BATTLETECH.
If you imply that alphas are to high, it is because THIS GAME IS NOT BATTLETECH.
Either way, the choice is yours but do not get fooled by the MechWarrior in the title. It is like the NetFlix's Witcher: Loosely and hardly based on the original Witcher...

I see why damage got nerfed compared with armour in a multiplayer game (enough whines and cries about "sudden deaths" by the way on these forums). Just accept it and try to get out the best from what we have\got\forced to accept "is as is".

Ummmm how long have you been playing this game? And to give you a bit of a history lesson..... ALLLLLLLL the way back in beta they had to double the armor values as PGI quickly realized that players did not rely on dice rolls to hit their marks.

Eventually the Ghost heat solution vs the Alpha solution was decided upon thanks to the comp players. And now we have this massive Alpha game.

Edited by Darian DelFord, 06 November 2022 - 08:17 PM.

[Curccu]

LordNothing, on 06 November 2022 - 01:00 PM, said:

they are barely usable on the charger with stupid small laser quirks. the cycle time is amazing, but you still have to bring an assault mech inside 200m.

Not enough hardpoints and speed in that mech.
Small lasers would really be super awesome if there was IS light 30-35t with 10-16E hardpoints, might work with 40 tonners also but there isn't any and most likely will never be.

Edited by Curccu, 07 November 2022 - 12:05 AM.

[Curccu]

Darian DelFord, on 06 November 2022 - 08:09 PM, said:

Eventually the Ghost heat solution vs the Alpha solution was decided upon thanks to the comp players. And now we have this massive Alpha game.

Wait what how is ghostheat my fault? Back in the day when ghost heat was implemented PGI didn't even know what comp play meant or that it happened in their game.

[Darian DelFord]

Curccu, on 07 November 2022 - 12:03 AM, said:

Not enough hardpoints and speed in that mech.
Small lasers would really be super awesome if there was IS light 30-35t with 10-16E hardpoints, might work with 40 tonners also but there isn't any and most likely will never be.

Honestly, that would be a scary mech...... and one that I would buy instantaneously

Curccu, on 07 November 2022 - 02:30 AM, said:

Wait what how is ghostheat my fault? Back in the day when ghost heat was implemented PGI didn't even know what comp play meant or that it happened in their game.

When they were attempting to figure out how to deal with the damage issue and boating of weapons specifically. There were two avenues. Punish each individual weapon system (Boating one weapon type) above a certain amount, or punish firing all your weapons at once. Albeit they both have their pros and cons. Needless to say the comp players (Ones running tourneys every other week) wanted it to be a weapon system, vs the rest of the community which thought if you fire an alpha it should be punished that way. Needless to say the boating is how they attempted to address the problem and that is how we got Ghost Heat. Which does absolutely nothing if you have different weapons types ergo..... the High Alphas that have been in this game forever now, because Ghost Heat was a flawed implementation and did not fix the underlying issue which was firing ALL your weapons at once.

With all that say, the vast majority of the community wanted a alpha penalty, the group (comp) players wanted individual weapons so they could still do their high damage. Granted in all honesty there was no easy answer to address it.

Edited by Darian DelFord, 07 November 2022 - 05:42 AM.

[LordNothing]

Curccu, on 07 November 2022 - 12:03 AM, said:

Not enough hardpoints and speed in that mech.
Small lasers would really be super awesome if there was IS light 30-35t with 10-16E hardpoints, might work with 40 tonners also but there isn't any and most likely will never be.

it was fun on one of the boosted speed event queue modes. i think i got it up to squirrel speeds once.

[martian]

LordNothing, on 06 November 2022 - 01:00 PM, said:

they are barely usable on the charger with stupid small laser quirks. the cycle time is amazing, but you still have to bring an assault mech inside 200m.

With the quirks those small lasers can reach out to 240 m ... but one is still left with the problem how to get a big and not especially agile assault 'Mech close enough. The range is better with ER Smalls, but the firepower is still quite limited.

[feeWAIVER]

The small laser crusader quite good.. it's got around a 50pt alpha on small laser cool down, and it can go like 90kph, plus jump jets for mobility.

Edited by feeWAIVER, 07 November 2022 - 11:34 AM.

[RickySpanish]

feeWAIVER, on 07 November 2022 - 11:33 AM, said:

The small laser crusader quite good.. it's got around a 50pt alpha on small laser cool down, and it can go like 90kph, plus jump jets for mobility.

SPL 6T is astonishingly good if you can get into the sub 200m range. 55 points of damage fired 4 times back to back. It's the best build for it IMO.

[JediPanther]

High alphas and the always nerfing to lrm-missile systems to where it is virtually gone from the game is why the game has become so dam boring. Everyone is too timid to find and attack now. They just want to be a turret with a boom-i-win mentality.

Hell Even when I did champion the kgc to be able to fire its ac20s at the same dam time without ghost heat it still makes kgc meek until they crawl within 300m to use it if they have any armor left from the 50-60 dual guass ppfd sobs.

As for the highest alpha on a light mech I won't say how high I've been able to get because then all the lights op bs would start and the build is very mech and weapon specific. hint: it's not a fish.

[feeWAIVER]

RickySpanish, on 07 November 2022 - 12:01 PM, said:

SPL 6T is astonishingly good if you can get into the sub 200m range. 55 points of damage fired 4 times back to back. It's the best build for it IMO.

With 14 spls, and max XL engine, I can get it to fire 4 times, a 56 pt alpha, and it shuts down on the 4th alpha...
With 14 reg smalls, max Light XL, I can get it to fire 9 times, a 52.5 alpha, and it shuts on on the 9th alpha.

(With 2 JJs for both)

Edited by feeWAIVER, 07 November 2022 - 04:14 PM.

[martian]

JediPanther, on 07 November 2022 - 03:51 PM, said:

High alphas and the always nerfing to lrm-missile systems to where it is virtually gone from the game is why the game has become so dam boring.

The last weekend I saw a lot of LRMs in the game.

[foamyesque]

martian, on 07 November 2022 - 10:49 AM, said:

With the quirks those small lasers can reach out to 240 m ... but one is still left with the problem how to get a big and not especially agile assault 'Mech close enough. The range is better with ER Smalls, but the firepower is still quite limited.

With straight smalls you can stick a *standard* 400 engine in that thing and play it kind of like a fast brawling heavy. You're still punished by being technically an assault by hitbox size and whatnot, but it's pretty speedy. The problem is that you can't twist much because the laser cycle time is so short, so you've got to pick your times pretty carefully because you *will* be face-staring.

Alternatively, and this is my own preference, you can trade a couple of the SLs out for bigger, longer-range guns -- I like ERPPCs -- to help you front-load your damage or take snapshots at mid-to-long range. And up close you've still got very strong DPS out of the laser battery.

[Curccu]

feeWAIVER, on 07 November 2022 - 04:12 PM, said:

With 14 spls, and max XL engine, I can get it to fire 4 times, a 56 pt alpha, and it shuts down on the 4th alpha...
With 14 reg smalls, max Light XL, I can get it to fire 9 times, a 52.5 alpha, and it shuts on on the 9th alpha.

(With 2 JJs for both)

crd-6t SLs with "Small TC" to get 11% range and lots of jumpies... I like jumpies.
But without playing SL looks better than SPL one, not that much more dps from SPLs but so much hotter, heavier and less range.

[Ekson Valdez]

The topic of this thread is "The State Of Alphas In This Game". Pleas don't stray.
Thank you.

[martian]

foamyesque, on 07 November 2022 - 10:58 PM, said:

With straight smalls you can stick a *standard* 400 engine in that thing and play it kind of like a fast brawling heavy. You're still punished by being technically an assault by hitbox size and whatnot, but it's pretty speedy. The problem is that you can't twist much because the laser cycle time is so short, so you've got to pick your times pretty carefully because you *will* be face-staring.

Alternatively, and this is my own preference, you can trade a couple of the SLs out for bigger, longer-range guns -- I like ERPPCs -- to help you front-load your damage or take snapshots at mid-to-long range. And up close you've still got very strong DPS out of the laser battery.

I saw many Chargers after it got those Small laser quirks. I guess that many players bought it just to try it.

But as quickly as those 'Mechs with Small laser alpha appeared in the game, they also disappeared quickly from the game. Probably people found out that runing a massive assault 'Mech with a small short ranged alpha strike is not so simple.

Surprisingly, I saw one such Charger this weekend. The player was lucky: We dropped on Emerald Vale, so got the opportunity to get close enough to enemy 'Mechs. On Alpine Peaks it would be much more difficult.

[foamyesque]

martian, on 08 November 2022 - 10:07 AM, said:

I saw many Chargers after it got those Small laser quirks. I guess that many players bought it just to try it.

I was one of 'em, and it was hilarious, but I struggled a bit (as I expected -- fast assaults aren't my best play) until I swapped over to the ERPPC + ERSL config, which I actually quite enjoy. By frontloading the damage with big guns you're more able to play peek & poke games, and dual ERPPCs are plenty good for trading fire with snipers -- you might not win a trade but at least its now a *trade*, not free damage for them.

The straight up alpha number isn't the only thing that rules, here.