37 replies to this topic

[Davegt27]

[RickySpanish]

It's not Tiyos, but it'll do I guess.

[Curccu]

As much as I would love to watch whole video (I lied, I do not wish to do so) some short easy to read list would be nice, what was discussed.

Thank you!

[D V Devnull]

Curccu, on 11 October 2023 - 06:17 AM, said:

As much as I would love to watch whole video (I lied, I do not wish to do so) some short easy to read list would be nice, what was discussed.

Thank you!

Cauldron's basically planning on messing with Cool Shots & Clan DHS in order to curb High Alphas coming from Clan Weapons which are knocking down TTK to really fast speeds. If they don't stick to extremely small changes every month until the correct result is reached, it will result in devaluation of the entire Clan Tech Base as it becomes completely useless, and that would basically kill Faction-based battles entirely until a considerable reverse happens. Or at least, that's what I was able to mentally scrape & retain out of the entire hour-and-some of content.

Quite frankly, if they really have to change it with Nerfs to things, then my stand on that one is the following...

• Clan DHS Cooling Rate down from 0.22/sec to 0.2/sec for an immediate, but maybe better to only try 0.21/sec first
  
• Clan DHS Heat Capacity down from 0.5/DHS to 0.475/DHS for an immediate, but maybe better to only try 0.4875/DHS first
  
• Cool Shot Cooling Boost down from current to 1/2x speed over 2x time for an immediate, but maybe better to only try 3/4x speed over 3/2x time first

...and that would reel in both Clan and I.S. reasonably evenly, seeing as the I.S. is starting to get stuff that's boosting their Alpha capability to the point of Clan-type levels in battle.

Personally however, I would prefer a more Buff-oriented approach to these things, for which they could do...

• I.S. DHS Cooling Rate up from 0.22/sec to 0.25/sec for an immediate, but maybe better to only try 0.235/sec first
  
• I.S. DHS Heat Capacity up from 0.5/DHS to 0.65/DHS for an immediate, but maybe better to only try 0.575/DHS first
  
• Change literally ALL of the Mechs so that their Armor & Structure is 1.5x current, which causes the bigger Weight Classes to feel more like what they're claimed to be, along with letting Lights be reasonably durable

...and doing it this way would basically diffuse the Alphas on Clans & I.S. at the same time it would provide forgiveness for making errors during battles. I know doing it this way would require a few months of work in order to prevent bugs before being released, and that we would all have to wait very patiently. But, this kind of Buff-styled methodology would likely be taken a lot better by the whole MWO Community which exists right now, and result in a far higher likelihood of recovering lost players along with increased chance of retaining new players. You know what they say about Honey vs. Vinegar in regards to things, right?

Heck... One could even ask if the Single Heat Sinks have really been made viable enough, or if work on those may also be needed!

Unfortunately, even with ALL of this post that I've written, what are the REAL chances of those in The Cauldron seeing this entire post, listening, and possibly changing course from Nerfs to Buffs on what gets applied? Or for that matter, even doing a mix-and-match application of these ideas, even if the exact values used are minorly different? Right now, it happens that I'm rather VERY EXTREMELY worried that The Cauldron will start wrecking things, akin to how the previous "Balance Overlords" group whom ended up removed from MWO-related operations did in the past. All it will take is one bad monthly Patch to make people re-think their trust in any Balance-handling group which gets things altered for everyone, so let us all hope that this current group understands being properly conservative with per-month rates of changes, or they're going to cause a lot of bad response happening in the near future.

~D. V. "Is it really Nerfs that are useful, or perhaps Buffs instead, or maybe a mix thereof?" Devnull

[Widowmaker1981]

D V Devnull, on 12 October 2023 - 09:54 AM, said:

Cauldron's basically planning on messing with Cool Shots & Clan DHS in order to curb High Alphas coming from Clan Weapons which are knocking down TTK to really fast speeds.

Errr, really?

Is it somehow not blindingly obvious to everyone that, if Clan alphas have recently become problematic, the reason is HAGs?

To me, it seems pretty obvious just in the mechlab, 120+ alphas are doable without ghost heat and thats far higher than before. HAG damage per ton (both gun and ammo) is just really very high and.. oh look. What a surprise.

I dont think messing with DHS will change things much, just drop some ERMLs out and still have 100+

Edited by Widowmaker1981, 12 October 2023 - 10:15 AM.

[D V Devnull]

Widowmaker1981, on 12 October 2023 - 10:14 AM, said:

Errr, really?

Is it somehow not blindingly obvious to everyone that, if Clan alphas have recently become problematic, the reason is HAGs?

To me, it seems pretty obvious just in the mechlab, 120+ alphas are doable without ghost heat and thats far higher than before. HAG damage per ton (both gun and ammo) is just really very high and.. oh look. What a surprise.

I dont think messing with DHS will change things much, just drop some ERMLs out and still have 100+

I almost didn't see your reply due to it not including the quote during the initial post, but I get exactly what you mean and how you feel.

I wonder if it would be possible to alter the Ammo/Ton & Bullets/Attack such that Damage/Salvo is then 1/Bullet instead? That would really Nerf HAG hard. Each size would have to put out as many bullets as they claim indicated damage before they're done firing. That would as equally increase the needed facetime to where it would be like those I.S. RACs in nature, which would likely balance the issue out.


EDIT :: By the way, what you highlighted here with the HAGs seriously makes a case for the thoughts above which I put forth about Buffing I.S. DHS and increasing ALL Mech Armor & Structure across the entire Clan & I.S. Lineups which exist right now!


~D. V. "Perhaps making HAGs fire a salvo of bullets equal to their damage would solve the issue?" Devnull

Edited by D V Devnull, 12 October 2023 - 10:44 AM.

[Widowmaker1981]

D V Devnull, on 12 October 2023 - 10:37 AM, said:

I wonder if it would be possible to alter the Ammo/Ton & Bullets/Attack such that Damage/Salvo is then 1/Bullet instead? That would really Nerf HAG hard. Each size would have to put out as many bullets as they claim indicated damage before they're done firing. That would as equally increase the needed facetime to where it would be like those I.S. RACs in nature, which would likely balance the issue out.


EDIT :: By the way, what you highlighted here with the HAGs seriously makes a case for the thoughts above which I put forth about Buffing I.S. DHS and increasing ALL Mech Armor & Structure across the entire Clan & I.S. Lineups which exist right now!


~D. V. "Perhaps making HAGs fire a salvo of bullets equal to their damage would solve the issue?" Devnull

1 projectile / ammo per 1 damage is probably taking things too far, its currently 1 per 5 damage. A middle ground might be a starting point, but its risking making them useless vs skilled enemies and still OP vs bad enemies that just stand there.

[TheCaptainJZ]

If the problem is alpha potential (as it has been for years), the solution would seem to be reducing the ability to fire too many weapons at once or reducing damage. Across the board. The strength of mechs with more hardpoints ought to be continuous streams of fire which requires face-time as the counter, not being able to fire all guns at once, imo.

Edited by TheCaptainJZ, 12 October 2023 - 11:43 AM.

[PurplePuke]

The Cauldron is going to be cautious, which is the only way to implement heat changes without losing track of what the changes do.

From my listen to the podcast, they intend to lower the heat capacity. That will limit alpha strikes.

Then they'll watch to see what happens. If it's not having the desired effect, they'll make another change.

That sounds pretty reasonable to me. I hope it works to curb some of the extremely high alphas in the game.

[The6thMessenger]

D V Devnull, on 12 October 2023 - 09:54 AM, said:

Cauldron's basically planning on messing with Cool Shots & Clan DHS in order to curb High Alphas coming from Clan Weapons which are knocking down TTK to really fast speeds. If they don't stick to extremely small changes every month until the correct result is reached, it will result in devaluation of the entire Clan Tech Base as it becomes completely useless, and that would basically kill Faction-based battles entirely until a considerable reverse happens. Or at least, that's what I was able to mentally scrape & retain out of the entire hour-and-some of content.

I have to agree on that one. A lot of the balance effort on the mechs is centered around the high-alphas going around, ALREADY. Nerfing Clan Tech ALONE, is just devaluing the clans.

[SafeScanner]

It will be interesting

If they are intent to nerfing coolshot and clan DHS i would say they should nerf IS ER weapons and make them more defined right now all i see is ER is because its better in nearly every way minus a little bit of heat whats the point of standard is weapons

it would be nice to see value in armor once more without Buffing every mech with quirks to compensate

[Samziel]

D V Devnull, on 12 October 2023 - 09:54 AM, said:

Unfortunately, even with ALL of this post that I've written, what are the REAL chances of those in The Cauldron seeing this entire post, listening, and possibly changing course from Nerfs to Buffs on what gets applied?

You did listen to the whole podcast did you? Join the Cauldron Discord to get your voice heard. They do read the forums too but the Discord was made specifically for this. https://discord.gg/BKb7muZZ3Y

I wouldn't go doomsaying. Even if the capacity bonus would be 0 the heat capacity of 20 cDHS would be 50 instead of 55. And they were going for something in the middle. I play lots of clan laservomits and will continue to do so after the nerf.

Edited by Samziel, 12 October 2023 - 09:41 PM.

[Curccu]

The6thMessenger, on 12 October 2023 - 01:54 PM, said:

I have to agree on that one. A lot of the balance effort on the mechs is centered around the high-alphas going around, ALREADY. Nerfing Clan Tech ALONE, is just devaluing the clans.

Well only clans have stupidly large alphas right? You do agree that having over 100dmg pretty much pinpoint alpha with 400+ range is stupid?

[The6thMessenger]

Curccu, on 12 October 2023 - 10:35 PM, said:

Well only clans have stupidly large alphas right? You do agree that having over 100dmg pretty much pinpoint alpha with 400+ range is stupid?

Yes, but you know what, they already have counter-measure for that, in the form of Armor Quirks, in the form of increased mobility that allows easier shielding and torso twisting. That the high alphas are also balanced out by significantly longer burn duration weapons, such as say the HLL at a whopping 1.45s.

If they're just reducing alphas of the clans, but leave them sluggish as hell, have their weapons unwieldy like that, damn straight it's just devaluing them.

[Curccu]

The6thMessenger, on 12 October 2023 - 10:39 PM, said:

Yes, but you know what, they already have counter-measure for that, in the form of Armor Quirks, in the form of increased mobility that allows easier shielding and torso twisting. That the high alphas are also balanced out by significantly longer burn duration weapons, such as say the HLL at a whopping 1.45s.

If they're just reducing alphas of the clans, but leave them sluggish as hell, have their weapons unwieldy like that, damn straight it's just devaluing them.

Not every IS mech even has good armor quirks.
And yes devaluing something that is too good isn't bad thing.

PS. I don't fanboi any faction I play both sides and clans are just generally better. There are some bright stars on IS but generally clan **** rocks harder because tech is just so much superior.

[The6thMessenger]

Davegt27, on 11 October 2023 - 03:22 AM, said:

> 7:22 "I feel that the decisions being made for like competitive players"
> 7:33 "I don't really see it that way"
> 7:57 "you just as have the ability to use that weapon that way too"
> 8:23 "i think that's a scapegoat"
> 8:33 "things aren't the way I wanted them ergo they are the problem"
> 9:04 "they (comps) want.."
> 9:44 "I don't think that's fair."
> 10:33 "It takes your top level players to point that out"

The reason why I say that it is only catered to comps is that balance is only centered around good play that is typically brought out by the comps who are masters of the game, and not bad-play that ACTUALLY happens on games, that people have to endure.

I had this talk with Brauer on the discord, I don't remember exactly the words, but just how it went: I pointed out that in QP, alpha is king, PPFLD is king, and DPS that involves face-time sucks, RACs and XPLs that involve face time is hard to use. And he pointed out that alpha weapons have low DPS -- and I get that, I get that to defeat these vomit-builds or sniper is to kind of rush them, and DPS will shine in that -- and to that respect I suppose that the 10.912 DPS of the RAC5 or the 4.4 DPS of the XPL is indeed very high. The problem is that it doesn't happen, or at least is hard to do in an environment such as the T1 QP Solo Queue where there is little coordination and frustrating passivity, where you won't get the support of your team to get our your DPS, and that is why there what reigns supreme are the alpha builds and not the DPS ones

I am not defending bad-play... completely, but it is simply what happens. Sure it's unlucky, but when alpha and ppfld reigns supreme, when homing weapons are consistently bad and hard to use at these environment, theres consistency that can't be just attributed to just luck.

Now sure, when you look at good-play, take the feedback of those who know how they are applied best and can make them shine, you can get it as balanced as possible. I agree with 10:33, and in a way I see that their response would be how to best utilize the builds and the situation, and if you're not really doing it the right way then you won't get good results.

But that is exactly it, the game is set up as their tactics, as their builds, their idea of right way. What if I don't see the worth in RACs being able to shoot beyond the redline, and would like to broker 100% jam for a shorter jam dissipation/duration and increased DPS for increased front-load in damage that would be more compliant to what happens in T1 QP Solo? **** me right? I wasn't just using RACs very well, a face-time weapon with a mechanic that encourages maximizing the jam-bar by building up the jam-meter even when you're not shooting, in an environment where alpha reigns supreme.

Until they are considerate with bad-play by being more lenient, of what actually happens on environments besides theirs, they will only ever catering to the competitive play. The least they could do is be honest about it.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 13 October 2023 - 12:25 AM.

[The6thMessenger]

Curccu, on 12 October 2023 - 10:47 PM, said:

Not every IS mech even has good armor quirks.

So give quirks to those then?

Curccu, on 12 October 2023 - 10:47 PM, said:

And yes devaluing something that is too good isn't bad thing.

Sure, but the problem is that the lot of the damage capacity of clans are already reigned in. So I don't think as much as they aren't too good -- well the clan vomit are -- but this will also have unintended consequences to those that are bad already and will become even worse because they are built around exactly to those setup and is held back as a result. Such as say, the Hunchback IIC A, feeling sluggish and fragile because of it's capacity to output a CPU-Melting death-ray.

Maybe if they gave some more armor back, some mobility back, take away some armor quirks from IS as well. Now that would be fair.

Curccu, on 12 October 2023 - 10:47 PM, said:

PS. I don't fanboi any faction I play both sides and clans are just generally better. There are some bright stars on IS but generally clan **** rocks harder because tech is just so much superior.

Why do you need to mention that? I dont care?

Edited by The6thMessenger, 13 October 2023 - 12:11 AM.

[Curccu]

The6thMessenger, on 12 October 2023 - 11:55 PM, said:

So give quirks to those then?

What kind of quirks you need to give mechs to be as good as clan stuff that can alpha over 100 damage and still has sustained dps way over 10.

The6thMessenger, on 12 October 2023 - 11:55 PM, said:

Sure, but the problem is that the lot of the damage capacity of clans are already reigned in. So I don't think as much as they aren't too good -- well the clan vomit are -- but this will also have unintended consequences to those that are bad already and, and will become even worse.

Yes clan vomit is too good and nerfing heat cap nerfs vomit. They could also add HAGs to large laser ghost heat group, that would reduce these massive alphas.

The6thMessenger, on 12 October 2023 - 11:55 PM, said:

Maybe if they gave some more armor back, some mobility back, take away some armor quirks as well. Now that would be fair.

How do you know they are not doing any of that?

The6thMessenger, on 12 October 2023 - 11:55 PM, said:

Why do you need to mention that? I dont care?

You don't care that I have no bias toward some faction or that clan tech is OP?

[The6thMessenger]

Curccu, on 13 October 2023 - 12:24 AM, said:

What kind of quirks you need to give mechs to be as good as clan stuff that can alpha over 100 damage and still has sustained dps way over 10.

Lower heat and cooldown -- which plenty of IS mechs kinda already do.

There's also a setup that, yeah it's high, that is assuming you get full burn -- and it's set up that it's hard to do, or it's easy to spread around.

Curccu, on 13 October 2023 - 12:24 AM, said:

Yes clan vomit is too good and nerfing heat cap nerfs vomit. They could also add HAGs to large laser ghost heat group, that would reduce these massive alphas.

Yeah, when they complained that clan alpha is high and turned to lasers, I think they are forgetting that THEY ******* INTRODUCED HAGS.

But I would rather have HAGs at lower velocity and retain 0.11s slug interval. As for heat, it's really the same issue with Gauss -- yes HAG is hot already, but maybe Gauss in general should have had ghost heat when you fired two, so it's not a heat-less weapon when you fire two. My god, the problems a heatless weapon gave to balance.

Curccu, on 13 October 2023 - 12:24 AM, said:

How do you know they are not doing any of that?

TBT I haven't fully watched the video and just got to the part where Sean denies Comp Preference on balancing, that is why the comment revolves around DV's post instead.

But only really focusing on the Clan vomit, tells me that. Unless it's not the case, in which case I retract my sentiment, by bad.

Curccu, on 13 October 2023 - 12:24 AM, said:

You don't care that I have no bias toward some faction or that clan tech is OP?

Yes. I don't care.

If you have bias, then I would because it could have a skewed perception.

But I don't really assume bias, I'm not that kind of person. And you admit that you don't really have one already, so what is the problem even?

Edited by The6thMessenger, 13 October 2023 - 12:36 AM.

[Curccu]

The6thMessenger, on 13 October 2023 - 12:34 AM, said:

Lower heat and cooldown -- which plenty of IS mechs kinda already do.

There's also a setup that, yeah it's high, that is assuming you get full burn -- and it's set up that it's hard to do, or it's easy to spread around.

No amount of heat and cooldown helps if battle is done by trading which it very often is, it only comes to play when pushed but HAG builds have pretty good sustained DPS also so not even real weakness.
Not really hard to get full burn from HLL to heavy/assault mechs, smaller ones can dodge some of it but they don't have total durability of heavy or assault so... Even if that kind of massive alpha spreads (from CT to STs and maybe some to even arms it is still a lot of damage and take few of those = dead.

The6thMessenger, on 13 October 2023 - 12:34 AM, said:

Yeah, when they complained that clan alpha is high and turned to lasers, I think they are forgetting that THEY ******* INTRODUCED HAGS.

But I would rather have HAGs at lower velocity and retain 0.11s slug interval. As for heat, it's really the same issue with Gauss -- yes HAG is hot already, but maybe Gauss in general should have had ghost heat when you fired two, so it's not a heat-less weapon when you fire two. My god, the problems a heatless weapon gave to balance.

Yep introducing HAGs was mistake IMO at least in the form that they are.
Long range, high velocity, low spread and NOT hot. HAGs are cooler than clan autocannons.
Hottest HAG, HAG30 has better DPH than any cUAC.

The6thMessenger, on 13 October 2023 - 12:34 AM, said:

TBT I haven't fully watched the video and just got to the part where Sean denies Comp Preference on balancing, that is why the comment revolves around DV's post instead.

But only really focusing on the Clan vomit, tells me that. Unless it's not the case, in which case I retract my sentiment, by bad.

I haven't either but I assume there is something else than only heat nerf if video is almost hour and half long.