147 replies to this topic

[w0qj]

One of the earliest Patch Notes from MWO ever.

Really looking forward to this patch and the new map

[Void Angel]

Znozoic, on 06 December 2024 - 06:43 PM, said:

when have you seen someone play it with energy? It's not even half of what it was when it came out....

That's why the quirk is so huge - its real impact with just one hardpoint is pretty small. As for "half of what it was," that's not true by my recollection - that's also not what you said. What you said was,

Znozoic, on 06 December 2024 - 04:28 PM, said:

WHICH QUIRKS?! only 2xammo left....

and that's amazingly inaccurate, which is why I listed all those quirks. You're keeping all the performance quirks and going down to "only" double ammo per ton - that's 1440 damage on the GrimMechs Poptart build, down from 2160. If you take a slight hit on the alpha by going to All SRM4s, you can get 1920 damage in your ammo bins, down from 2880.

By invoking its broken, original release state, you're taking that as a baseline and then saying "look how much it's been nerfed!" That's breathtakingly inaccurate logic. The on-release Scaleshot was hideously, game-warpingly powerful, and it's been nerfed for that reason. Making up fantasies about how it's "just down to double ammo quirks" discredits your complaint.

[FRAGTAST1C]

Valec, on 07 December 2024 - 02:07 AM, said:

I am actually really impressed PGI has made the DLC free and are actually providing refunds. I think it always should have been free, but it wasn't, and people bought it. I never expected to see a total about face like this including refunds. PGI has really matured as a company.

Not not exactly. They have worded the 180 as a "Gift" instead of "Sorry, guys. We have learned our lesson and going forward, we'll avoid stuff like this".

[oltalmazo]

martian, on 06 December 2024 - 12:14 PM, said:

Maybe I am checking the wrong patch notes, but Bane 1 is going to get boosted heat quirk, Bane 2 is going to be able to run previously forbidden weapon combos, Bane 3's missiles will get more range, Bane 4 is going to get tons of armor in quirks, Bane "Leviathan" is going to be boosted both defensively AND offensively. And Bane 6? That 'Mech with 10 ballistic hardpoints AND 4 energy hardpoints AND Clan ECM suite? I have seen it doing in the game pretty well.

Sounds quite good: The majority of variants gets boosted and the strongest variant gets a slight nerf.

... and pretty powerful. They can carry more weapons than some lighter 'Mechs weigh.

You mean that you must actually check your surroundings instead of walking through the game in your 100-tonner and killing 'Mechs left and right?

I suggest that you start working on your gunnery skills.

MechWarrior Online has four 'Mech classes. All 'Mechs should have some degree of viability, not only Clan Assaults.

All Clan ECM-capable BattleMechs and OmniMechs should be kept unnerfed, right?

Yeah, sure.

So you can smash them in your Clan 'Mech that carries more weapons, is better protected and better cooled?

Oh, well.


PGI has this message for you:


Like it or not, 'Mech quirks can be changed whenever PGI wishes.

And yet the Clan mechs are weaker then the IS meshs. Weker armor and heat management. So you say this balanced?!
If they want nerf not boot off them.
And yes this game hase a new name: QuirkWarrior

[martian]

oltalmazo, on 07 December 2024 - 07:11 AM, said:

And yet the Clan mechs are weaker then the IS meshs. Weker armor and heat management. So you say this balanced?!
If they want nerf not boot off them.
And yes this game hase a new name: QuirkWarrior

The MWO Championship finals took the place a month ago. Two thirds of the 'Mechs used by the top players that evening were Clan 'Mechs. If you suck in Clan 'Mechs, blame yourself.

[Tiy0s]

oltalmazo, on 07 December 2024 - 07:11 AM, said:

And yet the Clan mechs are weaker then the IS meshs. Weker armor and heat management. So you say this balanced?!
If they want nerf not boot off them.
And yes this game hase a new name: QuirkWarrior

On the cauldron feedback and cauldron private servers, I provide data on how mechs perform in quickplay in roughly 3 month intervals. In the last capture, which was Aug 21 2024 to Nov 14 2024, the top performing mechs in quickplay were:
- Warhammer IIC Maul
- Bullshark 6
- Executioner B-C(Sovereign)
- Marauder IIC D
- Stone Rhino Aksum
- Nightstar 10P
- Cyclops Sleipnir
- Annihilator Clan Gausszilla
- Bullshark Clan Mako
- Longbow 7V
- Fafnir 5(this is also a trial mech, stats are included. That trial mech performs anomalously well compared to others)

One thing I will note is that this is not a sign we need to buff lighter mechs. Light mechs have much higher variance, some players score 10 damage and die in them while some run circles around entire enemy teams. The average landed them right in the middle, but at their peak they are just as strong(sometimes stronger) than their heavier counterparts.

However, out of those 11 mechs I posted, 6 of them are clan. Which is a pretty healthy spread in my opinion.

Also, while they are not listed in the top mechs due to the average spread I gave above, there are some mechs that should be on that list for strongest. Shadow Cat is problematic in how powerful it is. FLE-19 was problematic as well, but the nerf/buff combo it had should reduce its variance and equalize it a bit. A few charger variants, nerfed this patch, were also far too strong.

Stone Rhino was still a little too strong on a few variants, with this they should be good. Scaleshot will still be good post patch. A single Bane got nerfed but 3 of them got turbo buffed and I think we might buff another.

A final note before I go back to what was supposed to be my vacation weekend lol. I know people are unhappy with mechs getting nerfed after they come out. Scaleshot, Stone Rhino, Bullshark, Scattershot, Aksum, there’s a lot of examples. I get that, and I try to avoid it. We’ve had a bit of a problem with that in cauldron and I’m honestly the biggest one to blame for it. I’ve been pushing hard for mechs to be “memorable” on release and that sometimes means accidentally over cooking with them. With the Bane, we tried a more moderate approach with room to buff later rather than going full throttle. As a result, we had to nerf one variant and buffed a bunch of others. I know there were a few others who felt the mech was DOA, but overall we’ve been pretty pleased with how the Bane has performed in this more moderate approach. I hope we can keep that mindset for future mech packs, boosters, legends, etc.

Cauldron doesn’t have access to a public test server, hell I don’t even have one of those. So we do our best to get things working on paper, but what comes in the patch is what comes in the patch. Balance is a live updating thing and if something is broken we’ll just have to fix it. So stick with us, things will always be made right eventually.

[Ttly]

Tiy0s, on 07 December 2024 - 09:06 AM, said:

- Warhammer IIC Maul: Probably all the HAG80 damage farmers because of the event, yeah wow, maybe there's a problem with HAG80 builds?
- Bullshark 6: This is a surprise, it's the 6AC5/UAC2 builds isn't it? Turns out giving something with as much armor as the Annihilator higher engine range and agility actually lets it perform, whoa!
- Executioner B-C(Sovereign): Usual C-UAC spam.
- Marauder IIC-D: Well it's *the* ECM HAG60+ERLL damage farmer, what did anyone expect?
- Stone Rhino Aksum: C-UAC spam, because hardpoint bloat, whoa.
- Nightstar-10P: ECM+UAC spam.
- Cyclops Sleipnir: 4LB10 builds, though the Cyclops do lack armor quirks for its tonnage so whatever, it has to run a pretty slow moving build to afford this.
- Annihilator Clan Gausszilla: HAG+Gauss spam, again, whoa.
- Bullshark Clan Mako: C-UAC+ERLL spam, though admittedly I hardly seen any Mako damage farmers.
- Longbow 7V: Now this is THE most unusual one, MRM+ERML builds?
- Fafnir 5 (Trial): Probably just damage count being inflated from people taking out STs or even headshotting with 2HGR I'd assume?

Neither of the upcoming changes addressed these builds strongly, what are you trying to say here?
I mean the SR-1 nerf alone is, what? Why change the -heat% to -ballistic heat%? If anything it should be changed to only -energy heat% to discourage ERLL+HAG boating rather than nerfing ERLL+Gauss builds (not that -5% changes a lot), one of the apparent chief complaints of the Stone Rhino are the low arm hardpoints anyway, puting stuff on the arms instead of the STs should be encouraged rather.
It's a petty change, but it just feels misguided?

Edited by Ttly, 07 December 2024 - 10:22 AM.

[Void Angel]

Clantech is so not weaker than the Inner Sphere. Problem exists between keyboard and chair.

[Battlemaster56]

Znozoic, on 06 December 2024 - 04:28 PM, said:

WHICH QUIRKS?! only 2xammo left....

It still have 20% missile range and velocity, which still a lot better than the Jenner IIC which pretty much obsolete to the scaleshot.

[Ttly]

Void Angel, on 07 December 2024 - 09:26 AM, said:

Clantech is so not weaker than the Inner Sphere. Problem exists between keyboard and chair.

The slow Clan Lights (Adder, Kit Fox, Cougar) are terrible, performance wise they only do as much as mediums (and moves at similar speed too) without the armor or the weapon tonnage and while they do have bajillions of quirks, it has only managed to barely put them on par with most mediums due to rather underwhelming potency in some of said quirks. Well, this applies to some of the mediums too like non-ECM Arctic Wolves (when was the last time you've seen one?), most of the Viper variants that isn't the Scaleshot, Ice Ferret, etc.
Because you know, most of the "lighter weight clan weapons" aren't actually that much lighter when it comes to the medium-light weapons and how at those weight brackets, IS mech players actually figured out to just run XL to have as much/more firepower (thanks to IS quirks) while only slightly moving slower (thanks to not being engine locked by not being an omni) at most and how the benefits from cXL (not blowing up when you lose an ST) is frankly overrated as you'd be stuck with like only 1/3rd (or even less) of your firepower (due to a combination of lower heat capacity+dissipation AND losing an entire side's worth of weapons) anyway if you lose an ST.

Edited by Ttly, 07 December 2024 - 10:10 AM.

[Tiy0s]

Ttly, on 07 December 2024 - 09:18 AM, said:

Neither of the upcoming changes addressed these builds strongly, what are you trying to say here?
I mean the SR-1 nerf alone is, what? Why change the -heat% to -ballistic heat%? If anything it should be changed to only -energy heat% to discourage ERLL+HAG boating rather than nerfing ERLL+Gauss builds (not that -5% changes a lot), one of the apparent chief complaints of the Stone Rhino are the low arm hardpoints anyway, puting stuff on the arms instead of the STs should be encouraged rather.
It's a petty change, but it just feels misguided?

SR-1 was because people would run AC10 + Plasma which was very strong. Make the plasma a little hotter, slight tweak. The ERLL-Gauss or HAGvom is better on the SR-2.

These changes aren’t misguided, I think after reading your build breakdown you may not just have a full understanding of what builds were most problematic on mechs. 4 Standard AC10 + 3 Plasma on the SR-1 was the most offensive build.

As for the others:
WHM-IIC-M is 2 HAG40 with a mega cooldown quirk. We chose not to nerf it at the moment, but still might. It’s mostly just a damage farmer, not a big killer.

BSK-6: 2 UAC10 2 UAC5 all in the high mounts. 5 UAC5s occasionally. This mech is getting nerfed.

EXE-B-C: The high scoring build on this mech is LB5 spam + a PPC. Like the Maul, this mech is a damage farmer and not a very big killer.

MAD-IIC-D: ECM godbox plus HAG ERLL with really good quirks. Got nerfed.

Aksum: Mega UACs. Got nerfed. Got nerfed again.

NSR-10P: 2 UAC5 2 UAC2 ECM has been a top tier farmer for years. Only relatively recently has it been deposed from first place.

Sleipnir: This mech actually suffered for a long time, cyclopses in general. Only after the Arges did we start buffing them and I am pleasantly surprised to see it’s doing well. It has a decent balance between firepower, mobility, and fragility that strikes me as well balanced.

Gausszilla: Mega HAG farm. Honestly this mech is fine in my opinion.

Mako: This one I feel like you’re the most far off the mark here. The build, like the SR-1, is 4 AC10 and 3 Plasma. UAC+ERLL isn’t really a viable archetype on any mech tbh. But this mech also got nerfed.

Longbow 7V: This is not surprising if you know the builds for it. 4 BLC 5 ERML is a very, very, strong vomit build.

Fafnir 5: This mech performs incredibly well in the lower tiers and gets worse the higher you go. Lower tier players, especially in lights, are much more likely to stand still. Against a trial mech with 2 heavy gauss, that’s instant death.


This is another reason why, in order to be in cauldron, you have to be a very knowledgeable player of the game. Most cauldron players are very high level competitive players with an extreme depth of understanding. You can’t effectively decide which mechs get buffs or nerfs if you don’t understand how well they perform with their most optimal builds.

[Ttly]

Tiy0s, on 07 December 2024 - 10:45 AM, said:

-snip-

4C-AC10+3Plasma on SR-1 and the Mako. Really? Then again, why -ballistic heat instead of -energy heat on SR-1 seeing as most of the damage profile on that build would be on the AC10s anyway? And it just seems rather dismissive of the fact that its main strength would be the ballistic hardpoint placements rather than the energy ones.

Also dismissing damage farming builds just like that? Even dismissing their not-necessarily highest winrate (despite their damage farming giving them high scores) it's just not fun to have them against/in your team in my opinion.

Edited by Ttly, 07 December 2024 - 11:11 AM.

[BlueDevilspawn]

Yes 4AC10 and 3 plasma on both the SR-1 and Mako is THE meta build. Equally devastating in QP and comp. The changes were meant to slow down the sustain to farm/kill.

As for damage builds, the Maul is still a glass cannon as all WHM IIC are, it was previously a very niche mech to pick. Not sure I agree with your sentiment of “against/in your team” since that sounds like you have a bone to pick with a playstyle rather than actual mech balance.

[CoronaStrider]

When will there be a sale for the end of the year? And when will MW5 Clans be available on GoG?

Edited by CoronaStrider, 07 December 2024 - 02:15 PM.

[Luminios]

Ttly, on 07 December 2024 - 11:05 AM, said:

Also dismissing damage farming builds just like that? Even dismissing their not-necessarily highest winrate (despite their damage farming giving them high scores) it's just not fun to have them against/in your team in my opinion.

There are several factors affecting mech's QP stats - if something has been shown to farm really well, it is usually the better informed players that pick up on it, and the more performance-driven ones that actually end up playing it. So since e.g the Maul doesn't have an absurd amount of drops I'd say the stats are saying it is better than it actually is. Compared to e.g. the Mako or the BSK-6 it has ~680 damage per kill instead of ~525, which are arguably the better mechs. Farm mechs are annoying more from a community standpoint rather than a gameplay one IMO. Some people are constantly playing MAD-IIC-D to get big damage for no effort, to feel better about their mediocre skill. vOv

Also, TDR-9S is another top performer for 21st August to 14th November. Literally the best non-assault for WLR with a 1.24, with lots of drops and a worse performing trial variant. Maybe that mech is a bit too handheld too.

[Znozoic]

Void Angel, on 07 December 2024 - 06:40 AM, said:

That's why the quirk is so huge - its real impact with just one hardpoint is pretty small. As for "half of what it was," that's not true by my recollection - that's also not what you said. What you said was,
and that's amazingly inaccurate, which is why I listed all those quirks. You're keeping all the performance quirks and going down to "only" double ammo per ton - that's 1440 damage on the GrimMechs Poptart build, down from 2160. If you take a slight hit on the alpha by going to All SRM4s, you can get 1920 damage in your ammo bins, down from 2880.

By invoking its broken, original release state, you're taking that as a baseline and then saying "look how much it's been nerfed!" That's breathtakingly inaccurate logic. The on-release Scaleshot was hideously, game-warpingly powerful, and it's been nerfed for that reason. Making up fantasies about how it's "just down to double ammo quirks" discredits your complaint.

in 58 leg armor... It's a glass cannon! what's the point if you're not going to do any harm? ( you have 100% a accuracy... right? )

[-Ramrod-]

Tiy0s, on 07 December 2024 - 10:45 AM, said:

SR-1 was because people would run AC10 + Plasma which was very strong. Make the plasma a little hotter, slight tweak. The ERLL-Gauss or HAGvom is better on the SR-2.

These changes aren’t misguided, I think after reading your build breakdown you may not just have a full understanding of what builds were most problematic on mechs. 4 Standard AC10 + 3 Plasma on the SR-1 was the most offensive build.

As for the others:
WHM-IIC-M is 2 HAG40 with a mega cooldown quirk. We chose not to nerf it at the moment, but still might. It’s mostly just a damage farmer, not a big killer.

BSK-6: 2 UAC10 2 UAC5 all in the high mounts. 5 UAC5s occasionally. This mech is getting nerfed.

EXE-B-C: The high scoring build on this mech is LB5 spam + a PPC. Like the Maul, this mech is a damage farmer and not a very big killer.

MAD-IIC-D: ECM godbox plus HAG ERLL with really good quirks. Got nerfed.

Aksum: Mega UACs. Got nerfed. Got nerfed again.

NSR-10P: 2 UAC5 2 UAC2 ECM has been a top tier farmer for years. Only relatively recently has it been deposed from first place.

Sleipnir: This mech actually suffered for a long time, cyclopses in general. Only after the Arges did we start buffing them and I am pleasantly surprised to see it’s doing well. It has a decent balance between firepower, mobility, and fragility that strikes me as well balanced.

Gausszilla: Mega HAG farm. Honestly this mech is fine in my opinion.

Mako: This one I feel like you’re the most far off the mark here. The build, like the SR-1, is 4 AC10 and 3 Plasma. UAC+ERLL isn’t really a viable archetype on any mech tbh. But this mech also got nerfed.

Longbow 7V: This is not surprising if you know the builds for it. 4 BLC 5 ERML is a very, very, strong vomit build.

Fafnir 5: This mech performs incredibly well in the lower tiers and gets worse the higher you go. Lower tier players, especially in lights, are much more likely to stand still. Against a trial mech with 2 heavy gauss, that’s instant death.


This is another reason why, in order to be in cauldron, you have to be a very knowledgeable player of the game. Most cauldron players are very high level competitive players with an extreme depth of understanding. You can’t effectively decide which mechs get buffs or nerfs if you don’t understand how well they perform with their most optimal builds.

Well as always I have the unpopular opinion which becomes subject to heavy flaming. All I can do is represent the people who don't go on these forums and mostly play QP and Faction Warfare. And I already know I'm going to draw massive amounts of ire but I really don't give two craps. You can get mad but you can't prove me wrong.

All I hear in this post is elitism. Arrogant "We are better than you thus know better than you, you lowly uneducated peons! We know what's best for you!" elitist horse crap. Sounds pretty "Big Brother" to me. Only a relatively small portion of the player base actually plays at that level. Expecting EVERY player to play at this level because they do and if someone doesn't they are just horrible players is snobbery in the highest. Because of that I give VERY LITTLE credence to the top top tier competitive players. And that goes for ANY game. If you really think the average player and average NEW player does all this math and spreadsheeting...you're kidding yourselves. See here in the real world the majority of the player base just wants to shoot things and not have to do advanced calculus in order to do so. And that if they complain that their fun is being infringed upon are automatically shut down as low knowledge players that don't know what they are talking about and need to "git gud". "Trust us. We know what's best for you. I mean look at these numbers!" Well guess what? People don't care about numbers. They care about having FUN. You can have all the numbers that you want. That doesn't necessarily represent the general feeling in the game. I've come to learn that I cannot judge ANY player in this game. Because people just want to have fun. And often times that fun get's ruined by a minority of "knowledgeble players" that over analyze a friggin' video game. To the point where it becomes so fine-tuned that only a relatively small number of people can really take advantage of it and brush off those who cannot as well...somehow inferior. Not even as a player but as a person in whole in many cases.

So feel free to attack me. In fact, I heavily encourage you to do so! You'll just be proving my point. You've lost touch with a majority of the player base and you don't even realize it. I want my game balanced and controlled by the original programmers. Not a class/group of people that expect others to play at their level and if you don't that you "suck and need to git gud" and should be reprimanded and belittled because of it. Some of you just need to find a new game to master. Because you're ruining the fun for a greater number of people that just want to shoot things with big stompy robots and not be belittled concerning their game-play.

And Tiy0s...

"This is another reason why, in order to be in cauldron, you have to be a very knowledgeable player of the game. Most cauldron players are very high level competitive players with an extreme depth of understanding. You can’t effectively decide which mechs get buffs or nerfs if you don’t understand how well they perform with their most optimal builds."

A) Cauldron shouldn't exist. Or at least in the form it is now. B-) BOY does that sound condescending and C) That everyone else are inferior players and their opinions shouldn't matter and should be cast aside simply because they don't represent a friggin' spreadsheet.

Edited by -Ramrod-, 07 December 2024 - 07:03 PM.

[Ttly]

BlueDevilspawn, on 07 December 2024 - 12:50 PM, said:

Yes 4AC10 and 3 plasma on both the SR-1 and Mako is THE meta build. Equally devastating in QP and comp. The changes were meant to slow down the sustain to farm/kill.

Yeah wow, slowing down the P-PPC sustain, when again, most of that damage is from the 4C-AC10s anyway which are all placed above the cockpit and requires little exposure (for a 100t anyway) to use, and to use the arm mounts where all the energy weapons are on the Stone Rhino-1 you'd have to expose a lot of its body meanwhile.

I mean I'm just so glad that the change is aimed at discouraging even bothering to use those arms and instead just abuse the torso hardpoint placements, aren't you too?

Edited by Ttly, 07 December 2024 - 11:03 PM.

[mytilus edulis]

Was looking forwards to the new map. Sadly it is also headache inducing like FWC. I have found some kind of pattern but don't really have the technical knowledge to know how to describe it.

I looked through some histograms of FWC and Luthien and found something resembling a pattern. I also compared it with histograms of a CSGO map that causes the same headaches for me.

Hellebore, which is in the middle of the following image, does not cause issues, and the histogram looks different.





This edited version of Luthien doesn't cause as severe of headaches:


This edited version of Luthien makes the headaches worse:

[CSJ Edward]

Tiy0s, on 07 December 2024 - 10:45 AM, said:

SR-1 was because people would run AC10 + Plasma which was very strong. Make the plasma a little hotter, slight tweak. The ERLL-Gauss or HAGvom is better on the SR-2.

Do not nerf the Plasma Cannon, it is one of the few Clan weapons that feels good to use in MWO and is not overpowered. Saying a weapon is overpowered just because it overperforms on a mech because of excessive quirks does not mean the weapon is the problem, it is the quirks on the mech that are the problem. Two of the most overperforming weapons in the game are MGs and RACs, especially on IS Mechs that have ridiculous quirks.

Finally, light mechs are not supposed to be able to tank damage like heavier mechs it is the skill of the pilot that is supposed to keep light mechs alive and that is the reason that you see such a wide range of performance results in games, because of the skill difference between pilots.

As much as I love the Clans, I believe the game would be better off if it just stuck to 3025 era tech and Mechs as close to BATTLETECH lore values as possible in a realtime game.

Edited by CSJ Edward, 07 December 2024 - 11:15 PM.