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Cauldron Leaks A Few Dec 2023 Patch Notes

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#1 Moadebe

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Posted 25 November 2023 - 05:32 AM

I figured I would keep things going so that anyone who has not found their way to the Cauldron Feedback Server (located here: https://discord.gg/BKb7muZZ3Y ) can still know what is going on and be informed.

Currently there are a few leaks up on the discord server (yes....despite what SOME people might say....they ARE leaks. Just cause its not PC gamer and some major game reveal doesn't mean they are not leaks amidst the community...)

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Anyway.

LETS DIVE IN!

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From the General Forum post from Tiyos/PGI Frostbyte
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I will try to keep doing this at any chance I get to help bridge the gap between the discord server and here for the people who only stay here in the forums for whatever reason they may have to do so.

Keep it civil. Please. We are all trying to make this game better. Despite what anyone personally might feel about a change.

Edited by Moadebe, 25 November 2023 - 05:42 AM.


#2 Besh

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Posted 25 November 2023 - 06:08 AM

Great, thanks !


and while heat penalty is mentioned I grab the opportunity to ask : anyhwere up to date I can read up on ghost heat, which weapons are grouped together etc ?

#3 w0qj

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Posted 25 November 2023 - 06:24 AM

Ghost Heat tables:
https://mwo.nav-alph...pment/ghostheat

Equipment Stats:
https://mwo.nav-alph...uipment/weapons

HSL Quirk List: (Updated by yours truly--a shameless plug):
https://mwomercs.com...-hsl-quirk-list


View PostBesh, on 25 November 2023 - 06:08 AM, said:

...while heat penalty is mentioned I grab the opportunity to ask : anyhwere up to date I can read up on ghost heat, which weapons are grouped together etc ?


#4 SafeScanner

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Posted 25 November 2023 - 06:53 AM

Wow leaks are that bad a dictionary had to be used what next does the word of blake have a bible we can borrow?

#5 VeeOt Dragon

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Posted 25 November 2023 - 07:42 AM

well glad to see the Longbow getting some buffs, they really need them.

#6 Moadebe

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Posted 25 November 2023 - 07:51 AM

View PostSafeScanner, on 25 November 2023 - 06:53 AM, said:

Wow leaks are that bad a dictionary had to be used what next does the word of blake have a bible we can borrow?


That was more for a very specific reason

#7 LordNothing

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Posted 25 November 2023 - 05:50 PM

a small nerf to sinks might be acceptable vs the huge blanket nerf that was being talked about. its still a blanket nerf though.

however it has occured to me that many of the problems can be traced back to lasers. lerms are dead, cant compete with lasers, all the ballistics ammo buffs, ballistics cant compete with lasers with their intrinsic limitations, so they are being removed. where are all the gh loopholes, in the lasers. what weapons stack the highest alphas, lasers again. and when do i get better than usual match scores, when i run vomit. its not even strictly limited to the clan anymore, the blazer gives a much needed boost to existing is laser weapons, and they can now hit some of the high alpha numbers which have historically been a clan only thing, and with the usual superior quirks on the is side makes up for the remaining difference.

even hags. nobody cares about 120 tube mrm sandblast boats, but do 2/3 of that with a ballistic and all hell breaks loose. what is is it that people dont like about hags, you can snipe with it. why do they hate snipers, blue lasers. if i wanted to snipe now what would i take, blue lasers. would this outrage have even existed if blue lasers werent such a problem. and its not just a the blue ones. what should be a supplemental workhorse weapon is the dominant weapon system, and everything else is playing catch up. and the huge alphas are denying agency and players are cowering in terror because a single hit from one of those alphas will ruin their match. a hag you can usually roll off, with lasers its often hard to know whats hitting you, whether its 20 damage in backup weapons or a 72 point alpha, until its too late.

Edited by LordNothing, 25 November 2023 - 05:57 PM.


#8 Quicksilver Aberration

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Posted 25 November 2023 - 05:54 PM

View PostLordNothing, on 25 November 2023 - 05:50 PM, said:

why do they hate snipers, blue lasers. if i wanted to snipe now what would i take, blue lasers. would this outrage have even existed if blue lasers werent such a problem.

I think we can narrow this down further, people dislike taking damage. Blue lasers IMO aren't the most dangerous mechs even in QP. They are threatening but most of the people taking them can't even aim (looking at you 2 cERLL Cheetahs) and are either tickle you or are something you can generally use terrain to avoid entirely. A good ERLL/Gauss boat is dangerous no doubt, but 90% of the ones I see are bad and typically sit in one spot and most of them are easy food for things like the Scaleshot. I don't expect to go away taking no damage, but for most mid/long range monsters like Gaussvomit/HAGvomit/Laservomit/PPCs and Gauss/etc/etc, you can generally outtrade them by closing the gap. It's a different story if there are grouped up blue lasers actually focusing their fire, but that sort of thing is rare.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 25 November 2023 - 05:56 PM.


#9 crazytimes

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Posted 25 November 2023 - 06:04 PM

What I'm seeing here is an LRM Annihilator hero is becoming more attractive. I'm feeling 4 X LRM5 +ARTEMIS. Chainfire for days.

6 X xspl as backup. 12 tonnes of ammo, and of course a LAMS in case they too have one of these.


#10 LordNothing

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Posted 25 November 2023 - 06:24 PM

View PostQuicksilver Kalasa, on 25 November 2023 - 05:54 PM, said:

I think we can narrow this down further, people dislike taking damage. Blue lasers IMO aren't the most dangerous mechs even in QP. They are threatening but most of the people taking them can't even aim (looking at you 2 cERLL Cheetahs) and are either tickle you or are something you can generally use terrain to avoid entirely. A good ERLL/Gauss boat is dangerous no doubt, but 90% of the ones I see are bad and typically sit in one spot and most of them are easy food for things like the Scaleshot. I don't expect to go away taking no damage, but for most mid/long range monsters like Gaussvomit/HAGvomit/Laservomit/PPCs and Gauss/etc/etc, you can generally outtrade them by closing the gap. It's a different story if there are grouped up blue lasers actually focusing their fire, but that sort of thing is rare.


you can stack at most 4 or 5 erlls before you run out of tonnage or space for heat sinks, and they dont synergize with anything else in the laser family. they are not nearly as big of an issue as the midrange bracket where you can have alphas as high 60-72 points, usually which do not come with any ghost heat at all. some of the short range laser boats can also get pretty high up in alpha, but not as high as the midrange (gh usually factors in, especially on the clan side). still i think that lasers in general are overperforming across the board in both tech bases with a bit of a bulge around the midranges (which is where hll, lpls, large and blazer live). with erlls their bark is worse than their bite, but convince players in tiers 5-3 of that.

this was the basis of my (not so great) idea to put the cerml in the large laser group. it ultimately just moves the problem, and really not that much. would be better if gh penalties were based on heat accumulated over the previous half a second rather than come from arbitrary look up tables. you want to stop the big alphas and have the players spread them out in time such that you have more time to respond with evasive action. if the game lets you put weapons in more than one gh group, or just do a single laser gh group that covers all of them, and tweak weapon limits such that no set of beams can dump more than x amount of heat in the same half second. if you cant tie up the loopholes then i think direct laser nerfs are required. the big alphas are a major source of ttk problems.

#11 Quicksilver Aberration

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Posted 25 November 2023 - 09:06 PM

View PostLordNothing, on 25 November 2023 - 06:24 PM, said:

with erlls their bark is worse than their bite, but convince players in tiers 5-3 of that.

I mean you can't really convince them unless they are new and actually have desire to get better. "If it killed me it's OP" is the motto of the lower tiers sometimes. There is something to say for certain things being a little too EZ in lower tiers, but IMO blue lasers is not one of them (LRMs or HAGs are tho, ie things that farm damage really easily but taper off in higher tiers).

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 25 November 2023 - 09:08 PM.


#12 LordNothing

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Posted 25 November 2023 - 11:58 PM

View PostQuicksilver Kalasa, on 25 November 2023 - 09:06 PM, said:

I mean you can't really convince them unless they are new and actually have desire to get better. "If it killed me it's OP" is the motto of the lower tiers sometimes. There is something to say for certain things being a little too EZ in lower tiers, but IMO blue lasers is not one of them (LRMs or HAGs are tho, ie things that farm damage really easily but taper off in higher tiers).


i think it really comes down to what is an acceptable alpha? depends on the weapon, its effective range, and its mechanics of course, but big alphas still kill. you cant reduce ttk without reducing those alphas. its certainly not dps, which is more dangerous to those using it than to the players on the receiving end. so what should the maximum penalty free alpha be?

i dont think numbers above 60 are viable if we want to reduce ttk. 50 i think would be better. these are still well into mech crippling territory. there are a lot of penalty free alphas in this range. hags top out at 60. 50 is around where dumbfire missiles top out and hgauss of course. at 40 is where most single type autocannon boats top out, lerms as well. single type lasers top out at 36. atms around 30 in their short range bracket. ppcs are in the 20-30 range. streaks top out at 36 or so (i dont understand why brawly guided weapons are nerfed harder than ranged guided weapons).

things get ridiculous when you start stacking different ratings. hgauss gives you some overhead for energy weapons. there are some uac boats that mix 10s and 5s and can dump huge alphas on a double tap in the 60+ range. but none of these have anything on lasers. dire can break 100 for a brawl vomit alpha, no gh (doesnt even shut down, and thats without nodes). midrange can get up to 72 (76 if you count medpulse as midrange). erll is the only one where gh actually is useful keeping the alpha at 22/27 depending on tech base. but its easy to fade your lasers around that by holding half your alpha for a half a second. of course crossing weapon types can get more alpha, but thats usually not considered meta for being unwieldly.

so it always makes me question why a demonstrably easy to use weapon type with almost identical mechanics across the board with high stacking potential still tops the alpha shenanigans at mid range when there are hard to use brawl weapons that cap out a lot lower. hags get pretty close but their charge and high z-spread kind of counter act that, erlls have to spread their burn time for their alphas. im not saying we ban huge alphas if they apply penalties but i think those penalties need to be implemented in a way where 60+ point alphas come with some diminishing returns.

e: some clean up and corrections, removed redundant information, misfigured the streak numbers, and a reference to a paragraph i removed or lost before the original post. as usual i blame lizzy the desk cat.

Edited by LordNothing, 26 November 2023 - 03:21 PM.


#13 Weeny Machine

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Posted 26 November 2023 - 06:20 AM

View PostLordNothing, on 25 November 2023 - 11:58 PM, said:


i think it really comes down to what is an acceptable alpha? depends on the weapon, its effective range, and its mechanics of course (il go into that below), but big alphas still kill. you cant reduce ttk without reducing those alphas. its certainly not dps, which is more dangerous to those using it than to the players on the receiving end. so what should the maximum penalty free alpha be?

i dont think numbers above 60 are viable if we want to reduce ttk. 50 i think would be better. these are still well into mech crippling territory. there are a lot of penalty free alphas in this range. hags top out at 60. looking at various boats with 50 is around where dumbfire missiles top out. hgauss of course. at 40 is where most single type autocannon boats top out, lerms. single type lasers top out at 36. atms around 30 in their short range bracket. ppcs are in the 20-30 range. streaks have it the worst, top out at 18 or so.

things get ridiculous when you start stacking different ratings. hgauss gives you some overhead for energy weapons. there are some uac boats that mix 10s and 5s and can dump huge alphas on a double tap in the 60+ range. hgauss lets you throw on some lasers. but none of these have anything on lasers. dire can break 100 for a brawl vomit alpha, no gh (doesnt even shut down, and thats without nodes). midrange can get up to 72 (76 if you count medpulse as midrange). erll is the only one where gh actually is useful keeping the alpha at 22/27 depending on tech base. but its easy to fade your lasers around that by holding half your alpha for a half a second. of course crossing weapon types can get more alpha, but thats usually not considered meta for being unwieldly.

so it always makes me question why a demonstrably easy to use weapon type with almost identical mechanics across the board with high stacking potential still tops the alpha shenanigans at mid range when there are hard to use brawl weapons that cap out a lot lower. hags get pretty close but their charge and high z-spread kinda counter act that, erlls have to spread their burn time for their alphas. im not saying we ban huge alphas if they apply penalties but i think those penalties need to be implemented in a way where 60+ point alphas come with some diminishing returns.


Good post.

I especially agree with the TTK and alphas numbers. As you said: range also plays a role. I mean, before 2xAC20 was seen as so dangerous that they got ghost heat. I think it is a mistake that HAG 30s/40s can be fired together because of the stacking potential - why don't they get GH?Even a double HAG 30 can punch through some mediums' ST armour if you are not moving and blow up or cripple a light and maybe mixing weapon types could at least help to spread the damage somewhat

That is also the reason why dps weapon are currently in most situatiosn bad. I mean, the number crunching of x-pulse lasers show that they aren't bad. In reality you get a huge alpha to the face and the target scuddels away and cools down, so your dps advantage is for naught and you are already open because even if you twist the next massive alpha will most likely be internal. The next problem is if you have dps weapons - if you twist, your dps is even lower before the target scuddles away.

Sorry, this wasn't about x pulse laser, the point is: the alphas need to get lower so there is room again for dps weapons

And btw: add ECM in the mix and it gets pretty stupid - and that is what we have now. Power creep all over the place. Therefore I really like LordNothing's proposal to get alphas down to around 50 damage. This can be achieved by weapon grouping and ghost heat.

Edited by Weeny Machine, 26 November 2023 - 07:47 AM.


#14 Curccu

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Posted 26 November 2023 - 08:38 AM

View PostWeeny Machine, on 26 November 2023 - 06:20 AM, said:

I mean, before 2xAC20 was seen as so dangerous that they got ghost heat.


If I remember correctly AC20 ghost heat came at time when there was no quirks... so no extra HP in form of Structure or Armor.
And again.. If I remember correctly old skill tree didn't provide extra HP either... So everything was a lot more squishy.

But that was pretty damn many Years and patches ago so might not remember it correctly.

#15 Tarl Cabot

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Posted 26 November 2023 - 10:45 AM

View PostCurccu, on 26 November 2023 - 08:38 AM, said:

If I remember correctly AC20 ghost heat came at time when there was no quirks... so no extra HP in form of Structure or Armor.
And again.. If I remember correctly old skill tree didn't provide extra HP either... So everything was a lot more squishy.

But that was pretty damn many Years and patches ago so might not remember it correctly.


Correct no HP in the original skill tree. And remember it was also setup that players had to purchase/skill up 3 variants of the same mech. Then there were the modules, which are now either part of the current Skill Tree or separated into Consumables. Included a screenshot of the when the mechlab had been updated in 2015. Only so many modules could be used at any one time.

https://mwomercs.com...14115-16may2017


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#16 Tarl Cabot

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Posted 26 November 2023 - 11:24 AM

https://mwomercs.com...oo-wide-spread/
Thread on nerf AC20 max range back in 2013 (Clans do not go live til mid-2014). Autocannon ranges were 3x the standard ranges.

Discussion of reducing all max ranges. Again, Before Clans even when live. And the issue wasnt just one AC, it was when a mech (preclan) could equipment more than one AC and "perfect" convergence.

https://mwomercs.com...he-autocannons/

Found it. June 2014 is when AC ranges were reduced from 3x to 2x. And a few weeks laker the Clans-First Wave was released June 17th, 2014

https://mwomercs.com...96-03-jun-2014/

#17 SLDFSpectreSix

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Posted 26 November 2023 - 06:48 PM

Ayyyyy Annihilator buff Posted Image

#18 Moadebe

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Posted 26 November 2023 - 07:15 PM

View PostTarl Cabot, on 26 November 2023 - 10:45 AM, said:


Correct no HP in the original skill tree. And remember it was also setup that players had to purchase/skill up 3 variants of the same mech. Then there were the modules, which are now either part of the current Skill Tree or separated into Consumables. Included a screenshot of the when the mechlab had been updated in 2015. Only so many modules could be used at any one time.

https://mwomercs.com...14115-16may2017


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I do not miss any of this whatsoever. *shudders*

#19 Curccu

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Posted 27 November 2023 - 12:34 AM

View PostMoadebe, on 26 November 2023 - 07:15 PM, said:

I do not miss any of this whatsoever. *shudders*

Must have 3 variants with basics unlocked was super annoying.

#20 KursedVixen

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Posted 27 November 2023 - 07:51 AM

might as well change their name too since they are not Clan double heat sinks if they are inferior in any way.

maybe call them prototype double heat sinks or P heat sinks

Edited by KursedVixen, 27 November 2023 - 07:57 AM.






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