136 replies to this topic

[PurplePuke]

Speaking for myself, I'm not mad or complaining. I was just asking.

I don't think it's correct to dismiss the removal of a 10% velocity quirk, which by the way is for all missiles not just LRMs, as "insignificant" as one poster put it.

It's 10% significant. 10% often matters in MWO because of the nature of the game. If it didn't matter, it wouldn't have been added then eventually removed.

There are situations in the game where 10% velocity can mean life or death, or can tip the balance of a game.

So I was just wondering about the change, that's all.

[Tiy0s]

I have to agree with Quicksilver here. Cauldron operates the same way game developers do. Have a vision on how to achieve a healthy game state and move towards vision. They take feedback on their Cauldron feedback discord and a lot of it is heard and taken into account. As someone who works with designers, balance adjusters, etc on MW5 Clans on the daily I can assure you that it's the same workflow.

Balance by player wide committee is never a good idea. Developers take player feedback into account, as does Cauldron but unfortunately the vast majority of any player base doesn't have a proper idea of what it takes to balance or understanding of all of the plethora of game mechanics at play. This is not a dig at the player base in any way, it takes a lot to learn and understand. You have to demonstrate a very in depth understanding of the game in order to be trusted to balance it. The balancing is still done for the players so you can never write off their feedback but there is a large difference between taking in feedback and giving them the wheel. This is also not just an MWO thing but a fact for every video game that requires iterative balance updates.

[RockmachinE]

Quicksilver Aberration, on 09 January 2025 - 10:06 AM, said:

Jumping to conclusions isn't very "critical" if you ask me.

It was a reiteration not conclusion. The cauldron's resentment for LRMs has been concluded a long time ago.

Quicksilver Aberration, on 09 January 2025 - 10:06 AM, said:

LRMs have never been meta, but they've been broken more than twice (the number of LRMpocalypse date back pretty far).

They were extremely effective, that's why everyone was using them and that was the case more than once in MWO's history. Whether you want to call that broken or meta is a question of semantics.

[Tiy0s]

PurplePuke, on 09 January 2025 - 10:31 AM, said:

Speaking for myself, I'm not mad or complaining. I was just asking.

I don't think it's correct to dismiss the removal of a 10% velocity quirk, which by the way is for all missiles not just LRMs, as "insignificant" as one poster put it.

It's 10% significant. 10% often matters in MWO because of the nature of the game. If it didn't matter, it wouldn't have been added then eventually removed.

There are situations in the game where 10% velocity can mean life or death, or can tip the balance of a game.

So I was just wondering about the change, that's all.

Back on this topic though, for the Trebuchet 10% velocity nerf. This month I brought up the Trebuchet and Champion and how those two mechs had sort of been "left behind" and needed some touch ups. The Trebuchet is an interesting mech because all of the variants are mediocre/bad except for the TBT-7M. For years the TBT-7M has remained as one of the most powerful LRM mediums in the game. Agile and amazing DPS for its size, the only downside was its fragility.

When we decided to give the Trebuchet extra armor, we felt that the TBT-7M should lose something as it's already a powerful LRM skirmisher. It got armor, it lost velocity. Simple as that. A phrase in Cauldron I've heard thrown around a lot is that a mech can't have firepower, armor, and mobility all together. So when the Treb 7M got an armor buff, it had to lose a bit of firepower.

It will still be a powerful missile skirmisher.

[Ttly]

Tiy0s, on 09 January 2025 - 10:37 AM, said:

Back on this topic though, for the Trebuchet 10% velocity nerf. This month I brought up the Trebuchet and Champion and how those two mechs had sort of been "left behind" and needed some touch ups. The Trebuchet is an interesting mech because all of the variants are mediocre/bad except for the TBT-7M. For years the TBT-7M has remained as one of the most powerful LRM mediums in the game. Agile and amazing DPS for its size, the only downside was its fragility.

When we decided to give the Trebuchet extra armor, we felt that the TBT-7M should lose something as it's already a powerful LRM skirmisher. It got armor, it lost velocity. Simple as that. A phrase in Cauldron I've heard thrown around a lot is that a mech can't have firepower, armor, and mobility all together. So when the Treb 7M got an armor buff, it had to lose a bit of firepower.

It will still be a powerful missile skirmisher.

Velocity nerf isn't a firepower nerf, it's an accuracy nerf, you know, the difference from doing no damage and damage at all in most missiles' case? Ignoring the fact that the hit placement are often poor due to missile spread among other things.
If they wanted to nerf its firepower, then go for the cooldown I'd say.

Oh by the way, the GRF-1N exists with similar builds and quirks too and better hardpoint spread (that gives it excuse to use light engine) to it as an existing reference.

Edited by Ttly, 09 January 2025 - 11:13 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

RockmachinE, on 09 January 2025 - 10:35 AM, said:

They were extremely effective, that's why everyone was using them and that was the case more than once in MWO's history. Whether you want to call that broken or meta is a question of semantics.

Hand-waving away semantics is pretty interesting when also talking about people being critical.

Broken means that they operate well above the power curve in certain situations which is what LRMs were for a long time in MWO's history. In certain situations, particularly lower tiers where players struggled with basic positioning they were too powerful, while in higher level play they are almost non-existent. That sort of brokeness is typically symptomatic of bad mechanics, one that historical PGI piled band-aid after band-aid on to cover rather than fix. HAGs are somewhat similar to this as they are good at farming damage but not really the most effective weapons, and historically lights were too. Lights and LRMs are harder to fix because it comes down to foundational things.

Meta is just what is the best, however it doesn't mean they need nerfing or are performing above the power curve. Buff vs nerf just depends on what your desired power curve is.

Edited by Quicksilver Aberration, 09 January 2025 - 10:54 AM.

[RockmachinE]

Quicksilver Aberration, on 09 January 2025 - 10:24 AM, said:

You are free to disagree with their vision of the game, but blaming them for executing on their vision is........and odd thing to complain about,

Skewing game balance is bias not vision. A vision, for example, would be a game that can be played by people of various skill levels with differently powerful hardware in diverse ways. Nerfing certain weapon systems to the point that they've become trivial is just preference and bias.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

RockmachinE, on 09 January 2025 - 10:57 AM, said:

Skewing game balance is bias not vision. A vision, for example, would be a game that can be played by people of various skill levels with differently powerful hardware in diverse ways. Nerfing certain weapon systems to the point that they've become trivial is just preference and bias.

It's almost like I said something about this.....

Quicksilver Aberration, on 09 January 2025 - 10:48 AM, said:

...Lights and LRMs are harder to fix because it comes down to foundational things.

I mean I have assume you've been here long enough to remember all the old "LRMs/Lights OP!!!!!" threads of yore. Trying to thread the needle on making a balanced weapon that is mechanically broken thanks to a low skill floor, situational, and has a lot of potential power thanks to the nature of lock-ons (tracking + homes in on a central bone of the mech), yeah I wonder why that's so hard........especially given how little you can adjust due to no engineering.

There is a bias here, it's just not who you attribute it to, especially given the cauldron isn't a monolith. Again, of all the things to complain about the cauldron, this ain't it.

Edited by Quicksilver Aberration, 09 January 2025 - 11:10 AM.

[Valdarion Silarius]

I was ok with the Cauldron's overall balancing up until the clan DHS nerf. I think there needs to be a revisit of a majority of the clan weapon heat output to compensate for the changes. It does not have to be major but I did notice many of my old builds being obsolete ever since that change.

I would also like to see gauss rifle charge up times completely removed in a future patch with long cool down times reintroduced again. Not a big fan of AP Gauss/Magshot being the only gauss rifles that do not have to deal with this penalty.

[Gas Guzzler]

RockmachinE, on 09 January 2025 - 10:57 AM, said:

Skewing game balance is bias not vision. A vision, for example, would be a game that can be played by people of various skill levels with differently powerful hardware in diverse ways. Nerfing certain weapon systems to the point that they've become trivial is just preference and bias.

In what way are they trivial? Keep in mind you can’t have your cake (lock ons) and eat it too (over power everything else). They aren’t trivial, they have their place and are situational as has been stated before. If a lock on weapon with indirect fire was the end all be all, what would be the point of anything else?

Saying the weapon system is trivial is hyperbole. I see more LRMs than I do cMPL, so I guess before the upcoming patch Cauldron had a vendetta against cMPL. Does that sound ridiculous? Because it is.

[BlueDevilspawn]

RockmachinE, on 09 January 2025 - 10:04 AM, said:

You made a nice looking yet disingenuous list. A good number of the points are irrelevant to LRMs. The others make little to no difference in practice.

Plasma to cancel ECM effects is not relevant to indirect fire. AMS score nerfs were done to prevent event farming. Sensor range, which is in quite a few points on the list, is not relevant to LRM usage since they are no good at very long ranges and easy to evade to begin with. BAP does not apply to LRMs at all.

Its a system that's been nerfed to oblivion, its been done because of personal preferences and bias and this is the real issue.

In no way is this list irrelevant to LRMs. They are 100% completely relevant and impactful to LRMs and indeed any other lock-ons.

[RockmachinE]

Quicksilver Aberration, on 09 January 2025 - 10:48 AM, said:

Hand-waving away semantics is pretty interesting when also talking about people being critical.
Meta is just what is the best

There's rarely consensus what constitutes words like "broken" and "overpowered". There's even disagreement what is meta. It was expediency not hand waving, trying to avoid an argument over definitions in the first place which is what this conversation is devolving to.

Quote

Meta is just what is the best, however it doesn't mean they need nerfing or are performing above the power curve.

And yet often times something is meta precisely because its overpowered and over performing. At certain points LRMs were best at all levels of play and thus were meta.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

RockmachinE, on 09 January 2025 - 11:16 AM, said:

There's rarely consensus what constitutes words like "broken" and "overpowered".

While true, they're used to describe different things typically and conflating them does no one any good.

RockmachinE, on 09 January 2025 - 11:16 AM, said:

And yet often times something is meta precisely because its overpowered and over performing. At certain points LRMs were best at all levels of play and thus were meta.

Alright you got me there, buuuuuuuut understanding why they were meta is important, and the only time they've ever been meta all all levels they've been extremely overpowered should tell you something.

Edited by Quicksilver Aberration, 09 January 2025 - 11:22 AM.

[Gas Guzzler]

Ttly, on 08 January 2025 - 10:41 PM, said:

Well that doesn't change that it's rather unwarranted, and at the really low velocity of LRM, +10% velocity is what turns a missile that takes 3 seconds to hit a 500m distance target to like 2.7s.

Be that as it may, it’s still one of the best LRM mediums in the game, and it gained additional durability, which benefits it more than a minor increase in missile velocity.

[Ttly]

Gas Guzzler, on 09 January 2025 - 12:00 PM, said:

Be that as it may, it’s still one of the best LRM mediums in the game, and it gained additional durability, which benefits it more than a minor increase in missile velocity.

Its DPS through its strong -missile cd% doesn't mean much if said shots don't even hit. And that's just giving LRMs too much credit for how much spread and how easily torso twistable their damage is, on top of lower velocity giving it less hits overall because of losing locks even if it kept its DPS, and the extra armor is mainly on the CT only which doesn't help that much with IS XL as well.

If the goal is to lower its firepower because "it has more durability with these changes" well you could've went with nerfing the cooldown quirk, but then you'd just end up with a 50t GRF-1N more or less.

Edited by Ttly, 09 January 2025 - 12:12 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Ttly, on 09 January 2025 - 12:05 PM, said:

Its DPS through its strong -missile cd% doesn't mean much if said shots don't even hit. And that's just giving LRMs too much credit for how much spread and how easily torso twistable their damage is, on top of lower velocity giving it less hits overall even if it kept its DPS

It's only less hits if you keep shooting at the same ranges. Velocity and range are more linked than people give them credit (you aren't hitting targets consistently with the old slo-mo PPCs at 1000m for example), so while you think of it as a decrease in accuracy (which is somewhat arguable given how slower velocities allow them to track faster targets better), velocity nerfs are honestly better thought of as range nerfs.

Ttly, on 09 January 2025 - 12:05 PM, said:

and the extra armor is mainly on the CT only which doesn't help that much with IS XL as well.

The extra armor is for the CT because the mech is a walking CT. The mech itself is pretty XL safe because of that (no different than several IS mechs like the Cent, Grasshopper, and Charger).

[Gas Guzzler]

It’s one of the best LRM mediums. It practically invalidated the HBK-4J. It will be fine.

[Ttly]

Gas Guzzler, on 09 January 2025 - 12:12 PM, said:

It’s one of the best LRM mediums. It practically invalidated the HBK-4J. It will be fine.

That's more of an issue with the 4J being underpowered/neglected though, rather than the Trebuchet being that good.
Speaking of, how come it's not getting any changes seeing as the ballistic IS Hunchbacks got some buffs on this patch?

Quicksilver Aberration, on 09 January 2025 - 12:11 PM, said:

so while you think of it as a decrease in accuracy (which is somewhat arguable given how slower velocities allow them to track faster targets better), velocity nerfs are honestly better thought of as range nerfs.

Tracking fast targets better, yeah, sure, if the missile even gets to lock to them in the first place and assuming the lock-on stays up and the missile doesn't just arc itself into cover while it zips around. Oh, and as if shooting at fast targets such as lights are the main priority for LRMers with all that point going against them in the first place, unless we're talking about some Ferroblast or something like the Oxide now which actually has a big enough hitbox to be hit just fine even with the "too fast" velocity.

Edited by Ttly, 09 January 2025 - 12:31 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Ttly, on 09 January 2025 - 12:15 PM, said:

Tracking fast targets better, yeah, sure, if the missile even gets to lock to them in the first place and assuming the lock-on stays up and the missile doesn't just arc itself into cover while it zips around. Oh, and as if shooting at fast targets such as lights are the main priority for LRMers with all that point going against them in the first place, unless we're talking about some Ferroblast or something like the Oxide now which actually has a big enough hitbox to be hit just fine even with the "too fast" velocity.

If your target isn't fast, then I highly doubt the velocity change is going to make that big of a difference and if it does, then I guess you'll need to play a bit closer.

[Hawk819]

Ok, thanks, Tiy0s, and as soon as I can, I'm gonna nab that pack. It took me a bit, but not do we get Jaime Wolf's Archer, but also Shelby Brubaker's Nightstar. Sweet deal!