119 replies to this topic

[Thiccacuga]

T1 was a mistake.

[Vanguard319]

Yeah, I was calling BS when I saw two of my team mates in stalkers w 5 binaries, and alpha striking without shutting down. You can't fire 2 heavy lg lasers without ghost heat, and they have the same dmg profile.

[Typhlon]

And to give the other side of my opinion, I do enjoy the new weapons (though my sound isn't working for them and I've yet to find out why). Binaries are extremely fun on the mechs which suit them, they fill a genuine need for IS to better compete with Clan alphas (especially now with HAGs). I don't find XPulses very useful outside of lights but that's because the high alphas heavily punish staring. I'm not big on the trend of alphas going higher and higher, especially for how severely the trend favours skilled players farming QP (I have already encountered a lot of inexperienced players in XPulse assaults getting minced by HAG or Binary vomit in two or three alphas).

The UI change that updates your mechs health faster is great, the map changes (those that I've seen on emerald, anyway) seem good for making maps a little more dynamic, and the Domination circle being green on the map is an excellent, if small, adjustment. I am not here to whinge about the entire patch being bad because it's simply not. It's exciting and it's fun, though not without balancing issues.

This is about one particular oversight, which should have been caught, in the opening days of the comp season, and about a very alarming pattern of behaviour where typos are making it into the game (from people who play it), which then go unfixed, and the wider problems this indicates with a lack of oversight from PGI over its own game and community devs.

I suppose there not being hotfixes is another significant issue, but I don't know their reasoning on that and frankly don't care as long as they are checking for mistakes BEFORE they go live.

[KursedVixen]

So what's the problem??? I'm reading through all of this and still don't fully understand.

[Typhlon]

Vanguard319, on 22 August 2023 - 09:33 PM, said:

Yeah, I was calling BS when I saw two of my team mates in stalkers w 5 binaries, and alpha striking without shutting down. You can't fire 2 heavy lg lasers without ghost heat, and they have the same dmg profile.

You can do 2 Heavy Large before ghost heat, and the intended HSL on Binaries was meant to be the same. That STK-4N has a combined +2 Large Laser HSL (which currently also applies to Binaries), and with the extra 1 that comes from the oversight, you can get 5 Binaries (normally that one should be 4, which may already be too much but we'll see how they perform). Heavy Larges have the benefit of being under half as heavy for the same alpha but worse heat and duration/cooldown. That's one of the exact mechs which could be impactful for comp (insane laser alpha, but very hot).

[Typhlon]

KursedVixen, on 22 August 2023 - 09:38 PM, said:

So what's the problem??? I'm reading through all of this and still don't fully understand.

Well the basic gist of it is that this is the second time (in just a couple months) that a programmer who actively plays the game has made a typo which then got into the final patch. The first one (Clan Assault MASC having 10% of the accuracy penalty it's supposed to) was not fixed this patch, despite being a KNOWN issue with a clearly known source and solution, and there's concern among the people with whom I play (including myself) that it was intentional from that dev from the start. IE, a dev who plays the game is slipping in things they want and calling them mistakes when they get noticed, not intending to fix it, which is a pretty clear conflict of interest. There's no hard evidence of that being the case, it's just a worry.

The HSL especially is extremely easy to notice (those stats are very easy to read) and test for (one would think that ghost heat would be tested just to get benchmarks of impact, bug catching aside), and it's concerning that nobody is proofreading what those programmers give them.

The competitive season is just starting, and that's the absolute last time you want to be letting balance-impacting bugs into the game. All this (combined with other complaints about stuff like Pay to Win with newly released mechs [Stone Rhinos] or the management and decisions of the cauldron, these are things I hear echoed a lot) is particularly wearing on the comp community. We invest a lot of time and effort into the game, and frankly a game which does no legwork in catching or fixing stuff like this isn't worth taking seriously as a competitive game.

The ultimate purpose of the thread is to get that frustration across to the devs, to make clear that we are watching September's patch notes, and to alert other players to this particular issue so they know to start keeping an eye on things as well; it's not like the Clan MASC fiasco is well-known to the entire community.

Edited by Typhlon, 22 August 2023 - 10:07 PM.

[Typhlon]

CFC Conky, on 22 August 2023 - 07:59 PM, said:

@OP,

With all due respect, do you game code for a living? If you do/did, was your work always error-free?

Good hunting,
CFC Conky

I've coded enough and worked with enough coders to understand that mistakes DO happen, but that allowing a mistake through to the final product is far worse than just making the mistake at all. And that's before considering that you know that it won't be fixed for a month. And of all things, the introduction of a new weapon is the exact place you'd want to proofread thoroughly and test, both because the large amount of code is more likely to have a mistake by virtue of being Bigger and also because you do NOT want the audience's first impression of a new feature to be "oh. there's an obvious bug." (consider that the first thing most people were mentioning about the Ceres map wasn't the gameplay, the look, or anything meaningful about the map itself, but that the large frames of debris could be seen but not fired through and that seemed dumb)

And that's before before considering that this exact type of error happened last month, was noticed, and was NOT fixed, which is exactly my entire thesis - I went back and added some info to the original post to clarify that, as I hadn't put in nearly as much context on the MASC thing as was necessary for the point, but it goes deeper than me or anyone else being buttmad about one typo.

Edited by Typhlon, 22 August 2023 - 10:43 PM.

[Meep Meep]

Ok so IS can boat three of them with no heat penalty giving many IS mechs ~almost~ clan laser vomit alphas. This isn't some game breaking bug. At ~worst~ it will allow some IS mechs to be competitive with meta clan vomit mechs. Not seeing the huge issue. As far as the masc thing eh mirror it over to IS and call it a day. I mean how many assaults can use masc and also have decent hitbox and hardpoints?

[confracto]

Tiy0s, on 22 August 2023 - 03:52 PM, said:

Posting this on my personal and not my dev account because it's not about PGI, but my own personal response to this.



You're taking a screenshot of a single post I've made in an entire conversation about the balance of these new weapons. If you actually read the conversation, you'd know that I am beating myself up incredibly because of accidentally letting this change slip by me. People telling me I've ruined the integrity of their championship series opener, cauldron members calling it a catastrophe, and who knows what else. I'm probably going to end up taking a sick day on community outreach because of how much negative community feedback I've had sent to me directly about the mistake of mistyping a 4 instead of a 3 on a weapon stat.

These weapons were my first major project since joining PGI that I took the initiative on, and I wanted them to do as well as they could. And I'm mostly satisfied with how they turned out despite a few glaring issues that we're fixing in September.

So I'm sorry I made a single post alleviating it with humor as I beat myself up on this issue, and I'm sorry that the single post of me trying to deal with it through humor is all that you cared to read.

1. Don't beat yourself up at all, ever, about making a mistake like this.
2. Recognize the system failed, and that you alone were not wholly responsible. Do what you can to make sure the system works correctly to catch this in the future.
3. Read my signature to understand where I'm coming from with points 1 and 2.

Edited by confracto, 22 August 2023 - 10:53 PM.

[Curccu]

Meep Meep, on 22 August 2023 - 10:45 PM, said:

Ok so IS can boat three of them with no heat penalty giving many IS mechs ~almost~ clan laser vomit alphas. This isn't some game breaking bug. At ~worst~ it will allow some IS mechs to be competitive with meta clan vomit mechs.

Yep I don't really see huge if any problem with most mechs but probably this Stalker-4N that can alpha 5 of them without shutdown. 90 damage with sub 1 second burn with stalkers profile is pretty damn good.

[Meep Meep]

Curccu, on 22 August 2023 - 11:06 PM, said:

Yep I don't really see huge if any problem with most mechs but probably this Stalker-4N that can alpha 5 of them without shutdown. 90 damage with sub 1 second burn with stalkers profile is pretty damn good.

And in true pgi fashion the 4n will get nerfed next patch to compensate.

[Samziel]

Vanguard319, on 22 August 2023 - 09:33 PM, said:

Yeah, I was calling BS when I saw two of my team mates in stalkers w 5 binaries, and alpha striking without shutting down. You can't fire 2 heavy lg lasers without ghost heat, and they have the same dmg profile.

Typhlon, on 22 August 2023 - 09:44 PM, said:

You can do 2 Heavy Large before ghost heat, and the intended HSL on Binaries was meant to be the same. That STK-4N has a combined +2 Large Laser HSL (which currently also applies to Binaries), and with the extra 1 that comes from the oversight, you can get 5 Binaries (normally that one should be 4, which may already be too much but we'll see how they perform). Heavy Larges have the benefit of being under half as heavy for the same alpha but worse heat and duration/cooldown. That's one of the exact mechs which could be impactful for comp (insane laser alpha, but very hot).

Build me a Stalker 4N that

1. Has 5 binaries
2. Isnt slow as ****
3. Doesnt greatly overheat from the second alpha
4. Has any kind of staying power in fights.

5 binaries is just too much. It's a non-issue. If you want to go into fight, alpha once and then die because you cant shoot for the next 30 seconds then cool. Do that. I find 4 binaries too hot also without a heat quirk like the Wraths -15%

Sure the HSL may be too big now. It's the same as giving all IS mechs the ability to shoot 6 large lasers. But it's still super hot so you cant boat too much of them. And it's maybe on par with the clan mechs right now.

Mistakes happen. Don't beat yourself too hard Tiyos.

Edited by Samziel, 23 August 2023 - 12:23 AM.

[Curccu]

Samziel, on 22 August 2023 - 11:15 PM, said:

Build me a Stalker 4N that

1. Has 5 binaries
2. Isnt slow as ****
3. Doesnt greatly overheat from the second alpha
4. Has any kind of staying power in fights.

5 binaries is just too much. It's a non-issue. If you want to go into fight, alpha once and then die because you cant shoot for the next 30 seconds then cool. Do that. I find 4 binaries too hot also without a heat quirk like the Wraths -15%

Sure the HSL may be too big now. It's the same as giving all IS mechs the ability to shoot 6 large lasers. But it's still super hot so you cant boat too much of them. And it's maybe on par with the clan mechs right now.

1. stk-4n
2. Almost max engine...
3. it doesn't need to alpha instantly 2nd time ~500m poke/trade mech and pretty damn good at it, not charging mech.
takes ~16 seconds to cooldown to shoot 2nd alpha without coolshot but there is always option to shoot less than alpha.

Is it game breaking? Probably not.

[Samziel]

Curccu, on 23 August 2023 - 01:56 AM, said:

1. stk-4n
2. Almost max engine...
3. it doesn't need to alpha instantly 2nd time ~500m poke/trade mech and pretty damn good at it, not charging mech.
takes ~16 seconds to cooldown to shoot 2nd alpha without coolshot but there is always option to shoot less than alpha.

Is it game breaking? Probably not.

I'm surprised. It is still way too hot though. You get much more use out of 4 (+2ERML) even when trading. Also don't know about XL safety here and if anyone gets in your face youre done for.

But still. Good attempt.

And yes, shooting 90 alpha every 16 seconds aint really gamebreaking. You get close to that way more often with a clan mech.

Edit

Seems with the hagvomits you get much more than that for less heat.

Edited by Samziel, 23 August 2023 - 02:40 AM.

[TELEFORCE]

confracto, on 22 August 2023 - 10:47 PM, said:

1. Don't beat yourself up at all, ever, about making a mistake like this.
2. Recognize the system failed, and that you alone were not wholly responsible. Do what you can to make sure the system works correctly to catch this in the future.
3. Read my signature to understand where I'm coming from with points 1 and 2.

Seriously, this guy's literally been there and done that. Looks like it's time to try some team-building exercises, PGI!

Edited by TELEFORCE, 23 August 2023 - 04:03 AM.

[Meep Meep]

Samziel, on 23 August 2023 - 02:06 AM, said:

Seems with the hagvomits you get much more than that for less heat.

Its definitely gausslbx at anything other than mid range and even then if you don't have good aim its going to spread around even more. Hag is going to be situationally powerful. Binary are going to open up many more IS laser fits and xpulse are a meme.

[Samziel]

Meep Meep, on 23 August 2023 - 05:29 AM, said:

Its definitely gausslbx at anything other than mid range and even then if you don't have good aim its going to spread around even more. Hag is going to be situationally powerful. Binary are going to open up many more IS laser fits and xpulse are a meme.

I don't really understand the comparison to LBX. Even HAG40 doesnt have spread close to it. And at comparable range to blazers it's quite accurate. Sure, not a sniper weapon due spread and can be torso twisted. But definitely works at midrange.

Edit

Well yeah now that I think about it against moving targets it can be harder to hit the same component than with lasers. We'll see at CS how it performs.

Edited by Samziel, 23 August 2023 - 05:56 AM.

[kalashnikity]

I'm just curious how long it actually takes to type up a hotpatch file to change a 4 to a 3, and a .25 to a 2.5?

2 minutes?

10 hours?

Longer than it takes to make excuses/apologize?

Screen shake and HSL are BS anyways... so I really don't care, and I think this whole thing is hilarious.

And I i'll wager HAG and XPulse get the cluck nerfed out of them soon, they'll probably add more heat and slower ROF to HAG, and nerf the Xpulse dmg. Why? Because right now they are insanely OP. I mean, I got over 1000 dmg in a Pheonix Hawk last night with 2lmg, 3mxpl, Binary. And 2xHAG20 is just insanely powerful. I tlke it, which means it won't last...

That's when the pearl clutching can really begin in earnest.

[kalashnikity]

Typhlon, on 22 August 2023 - 09:36 PM, said:

And to give the other side of my opinion, I do enjoy the new weapons (though my sound isn't working for them and I've yet to find out why). Binaries are extremely fun on the mechs which suit them, they fill a genuine need for IS to better compete with Clan alphas (especially now with HAGs). I don't find XPulses very useful outside of lights but that's because the high alphas heavily punish staring. I'm not big on the trend of alphas going higher and higher, especially for how severely the trend favours skilled players farming QP (I have already encountered a lot of inexperienced players in XPulse assaults getting minced by HAG or Binary vomit in two or three alphas).

The UI change that updates your mechs health faster is great, the map changes (those that I've seen on emerald, anyway) seem good for making maps a little more dynamic, and the Domination circle being green on the map is an excellent, if small, adjustment. I am not here to whinge about the entire patch being bad because it's simply not. It's exciting and it's fun, though not without balancing issues.

This is about one particular oversight, which should have been caught, in the opening days of the comp season, and about a very alarming pattern of behaviour where typos are making it into the game (from people who play it), which then go unfixed, and the wider problems this indicates with a lack of oversight from PGI over its own game and community devs.

I suppose there not being hotfixes is another significant issue, but I don't know their reasoning on that and frankly don't care as long as they are checking for mistakes BEFORE they go live.

The faster paperdoll update was really messing with me last night, apparently my eye was so trained to check for the flash at a certain time interval, I kept thinking I missed. Took all night to retrain my brain.

pbiggz, on 22 August 2023 - 06:03 PM, said:

I dont really care either way but christ the tone of this thread is infuriating. There are few communities as infantile and self-important as the MWO community and every time something changes you guys march out the same "im a victim" sign. Even if OP is right, you guys have to find a way to communicate without dogpiling a dev and acting like 12 year olds or nobody is going to want to listen to you as a rule.

QFT "Infantile and self important"

I might add "Entitled"...

pbiggz, on 22 August 2023 - 06:03 PM, said:

I dont really care either way but christ the tone of this thread is infuriating. There are few communities as infantile and self-important as the MWO community and every time something changes you guys march out the same "im a victim" sign. Even if OP is right, you guys have to find a way to communicate without dogpiling a dev and acting like 12 year olds or nobody is going to want to listen to you as a rule.

QFT "Infantile and self important"

I might add "Entitled"...

[kalashnikity]

Samziel, on 23 August 2023 - 02:06 AM, said:

Seems with the hagvomits you get much more than that for less heat.

I put together a 4xHAG20 Kodiak last night, didn't run it, but I know what the results will be.

They are going to nerf the heck out of HAG soon, can't bring a weapon into the game like that, it "unbalances" the entire game.

So... enjoy it while it lasts.