26 replies to this topic

[Fu Sun]

Poll: If you would rather mechs, specifically their weapons, be made more deadly or less deadly, i.e. nerfed, which would you rather have?

A player was complaining about every time people discover a weapon that does well, it is toned down for gameplay. This kind of resembles communism, because no one is allowed to succeed too much. Everyone contributes, and no one really wins.

If anyone's ever read Harrison Bergeron, it's very similar, in eerie ways. The only weapons now that seem to do anything are gauss or RACs. Machine guns were really fun for awhile, now they have about as much zing as ping pong balls.

[The Mech behind you]

Weapons got more and more powerful over the years, mainly through introducing new more powerful weapons, while the level of defense remained except for quirks.

IMO the problem is that the mechs die too fast. So either reduce the effectiveness of weapons, or push the armor and structure levels. I'd even suggest something radical like doubling the armor or half the weapon damage, but that's just me.

[Bud Crue]

Fu Sun, on 20 July 2023 - 07:51 PM, said:

Poll: If you would rather mechs, specifically their weapons, be made more deadly or less deadly, i.e. nerfed, which would you rather have?

Nerfs to anything should be done very selectively and iteratively. But I'll always prefer individualized adjustments made to clear overperfomlng mech variants than to the weapon systems that they employ.

Back in the days when Chris (and Paul) were in charge of balance, we would get broad brush nerfs to all manner of weapons whenever a single mech that used those weapons became dominant (see the series of nerfs to all manner of weapons after the Kodiak was released as a classic example). Be that due to the individual mechs hard point location or number, it happened repeatedly and consistently for years, and the game, and its players suffered as a result. They might also nerf the problematic variant that was causing the perception that the weapon was over performing as well, but more often than not it was the weapon type that a given outlier was using that got hit and I always felt like all that ever did was slightly impact the outlier in question while making what was already mediocre even worse.

In a game where some mechs have 8 hard points for a given weapon, while other mechs have only 2, a broad nerf to the weapon that both mechs are capable of using may result in the superior mech being made somewhat more "balanced" but it absolutely eliminates the already inferior inferior performing mech from being viable.

Edited by Bud Crue, 21 July 2023 - 04:38 AM.

[badpiggy]

How do you type “weapon nerfs are communism” without laughing lmao

[Boblin the Goblin]

"Everything I don't like is communism"

By that logic, this game is communism because you get paid even if you lose the match. In fact, the 'government' pays for your repairs and rearmaments.

Lmaoooo

Edited by Adolf Rizzler, 21 July 2023 - 05:13 AM.

[An6ryMan69]

The communism comparison is a bit of stretch for me, but suggesting there's not much point in seeking that one great mech or great weapon or great build as it is basically a waste of time - that's fair. Balancing squishes everything into the vanilla middle for sure. That could be taken as a positive if you don't want to dump real money in the game and feel fine playing with your first handful of mechs you buy with your c-bill cadet bonuses very early on; or it could be taken as a negative if you have real money to spend and feel compelled to Pokemon around a vast array of mechs and weapons for the best of the best until you realize it doesn't exist.

So for the OP - not sure if significant changes to offence or defense will matter that much in a "balanced" world. Unless the balance is moved towards either longer or shorter time-to-kill (for some reason I don't know), which could be accomplished easily enough a number of ways.

Edited by An6ryMan69, 21 July 2023 - 08:51 AM.

[kalashnikity]

Fu Sun, on 20 July 2023 - 07:51 PM, said:

Poll:  If you would rather mechs, specifically their weapons, be made more deadly or less deadly, i.e. nerfed, which would you rather have?

A player was complaining about every time people discover a weapon that does well, it is toned down for gameplay.  This kind of resembles communism, because no one is allowed to succeed too much.  Everyone contributes, and no one really wins.

If anyone's ever read Harrison Bergeron, it's very similar, in eerie ways.  The only weapons now that seem to do anything are gauss or RACs.  Machine guns were really fun for awhile, now they have about as much zing as ping pong balls.

Re: Machineguns

Nerfing an entire weapon class (machine gun crit) due to one variant of one chassis (Crael) was pants on head stupid. I very rarely criticize management choices, so this should carry more weight.
ETA: they could have just said "no crits for Crael MGs", but no, they nerfed an entire weapon class instead.

Edited by kalashnikity, 21 July 2023 - 09:29 AM.

[Ilostmycactus]

I do think it would be an interesting experiment if the durability was more in line with a game like War Thunder, for example. In that armor would defeat certain things in certain situations, but you could also have internal components modeled more and a good shot could take you out or cripple you. Just an experiment, it's a pretty big departure from the armor points system etc etc.

[badpiggy]

There’s a lot of very strong, very powerful chassis that stand out from the competition, and the same thing goes for weapons. The game is in the most balanced state it has been in years (which is a good thing btw), but there’s still plenty of outliers. The insinuation that there are no strong weapons other than gauss and RACs is plain false.

[feeWAIVER]

When we play in Event Queue with bonus armor, and it takes a few shots before your armor even registers the damage- that feels good. It feels like I'm driving a giant war machine that can take some hits before armor integrity is compromised.

[C E Dwyer]

surely we're not talking stepped heat penalties for multiple's of the same weapon ?

[Risen Trash]

Fu Sun, on 20 July 2023 - 07:51 PM, said:

The only weapons now that seem to do anything are gauss or RACs.

Lol- run a gauss-only build for a bit and then see how you feel about it.

[Risen Trash]

the check engine light, on 21 July 2023 - 01:37 PM, said:

why tf are you running pure Gauss? Even I know I'm mecha-shitposting when I run the quadgoose KDK3. It's FUN sometimes but the AC10/LB10X+ERPPC shames it.

The op stated that gauss and RAC are the only weapons that "seem to do anything." I was refuting that statement. Seems like you're refuting that, too. Speak to that.

[LordNothing]

kalashnikity, on 21 July 2023 - 09:26 AM, said:

Re: Machineguns

Nerfing an entire weapon class (machine gun crit) due to one variant of one chassis (Crael) was pants on head stupid. I very rarely criticize management choices, so this should carry more weight.
ETA: they could have just said "no crits for Crael MGs", but no, they nerfed an entire weapon class instead.

its the kodiak 3 all over again. finally a stronk ballistic and nope cant have that. mwo may not be communist but it sure as hell lives in california.

Edited by LordNothing, 21 July 2023 - 05:36 PM.

[LordNothing]

feeWAIVER, on 21 July 2023 - 11:30 AM, said:

When we play in Event Queue with bonus armor, and it takes a few shots before your armor even registers the damage- that feels good. It feels like I'm driving a giant war machine that can take some hits before armor integrity is compromised.

paper doll code cant scale. apparently multiplication is lostech.

Edited by LordNothing, 21 July 2023 - 05:39 PM.

[Risen Trash]

Bud Crue, on 21 July 2023 - 04:36 AM, said:

I'll always prefer individualized adjustments made to clear overperfomlng mech variants than to the weapon systems that they employ.

Agreed. I remember when AC2's used to AK. And it was good on a Blackjack or Shadowhawk with 2-3. After the nerf it was never the same. Maybe it made the larger mechs more balanced, but it really hurt smaller ballistic mechs.

[East Indy]

Weekly reminder that the problem isn't the weapon itself: it's this game's failure to effectively balance multiples of the weapon run by hardpoint-blessed variants, and insistence on using hit locations from a board game offering only <20% chance to hit the center torso.

[RockmachinE]

Fu Sun, on 20 July 2023 - 07:51 PM, said:

Poll: If you would rather mechs, specifically their weapons, be made more deadly or less deadly, i.e. nerfed, which would you rather have?

Back in the old days, in a 1 on 1 you would actually start circling into the other direction once you were close to loosing a side. Deliberate Zombie stick builds with head/torso weapons were a thing. Fights took a while.

Now one wrong peek can get you obliterated and will debilitate your mech regardless of weight class. It's freaking goofy.

The power creep in MWO is real.

Edited by RockmachinE, 22 July 2023 - 08:06 AM.

[TheCaptainJZ]

Back in the old days of broad nerfs, we didn't yet have mech quirks that could tailor performance of a single chassis.

[Dekallis]

Let's be real, the balance in this game is so whacked that 'fixing' it would basically make this a brand new game.

Power creep didn't really creep that much compared to people mathing out optimal builds and figuring out how to break the game.So the Dire wolf or atlas having 250ish Total points of CT durability doesn't matter much in the face of 70+point alphas reducing them to 3-4 hit kills.
Meanwhile, lights which can have around 80-90 points of CT(for more 'durable' lights with skill tree and all) still only require like 2 clean hits so the gap between an assault and a light is only roughly 2 more shots to kill with identical weapon loadouts. Assuming you hit. THAT'S the balance problem in a nutshell. Obviously mediums and heavies don't fare any better.

This problem was then compounded by the change to 12 man matches all the extra mechs ensure survivability stays low. In short it wouldn't even matter if you nerfed most weapons because the amount of firepower would still be lethal in short order.