52 replies to this topic

[BlueDevilspawn]

1453 R, on 24 February 2025 - 03:16 PM, said:

Man. What an incredibly fascinating and eye-opening day-odd it has been in the Cauldron Feedback Discord.

For anyone else thinking of throwing their hat in the ring and providing Feedback in the Cauldron Feedback Discord: don't. As generally an advocate for the Cauldron overall and someone who does in fact believe they do have the best interests of MWO at heart, I say this to you: they don't want to talk to you, they don't want to hear from you, and they are absolutely and utterly uninterested in "Feedback."

Thanks for letting me know, Moadebe. And thanks for helping me prioritize my game spending for the future. No "NOT ONE PENNY MORE" nonsense, but this little peek behind the curtain has been absolutely illuminating.

I do want to address your experience a bit though.... I think the majority of people you were interacting with were not Cauldron. Cauldron members show up in blue or some of us are red (due to also having mod tags). I was actually addressing some of the more aggressive people when I asked that people keep things civil.

Tiyos only replied to you one point that the poll isn't a binding vote on the direction the balance decision should take. That has never been the way and never will be. It's a temperature gauge on how the community feels about MASC, just that. It was also the third time and third person he was addressing the results of the poll to so I'm not surprised he was a little abrupt.

In any case, thought I should clear that up.

[1453 R]

I appreciate that Blue, and as I said before I left, I absolutely understand that the poll was never meant to be binding.

To be clear myself, I have no issue with being told I'm wrong, or that points I've made/argued have been considered and dropped. Quicksilver was actually quite good about that. While I will always fundamentally disagree with the assertion that one must be a T1 Ultracomp in order to have any opinion on game design, balance, or play experience - an elite soldier does not always make an elite general, and vice versa - I know I am not dialed in enough on the specifics of MWO to have powerful opinions to offer on specific balance changes such as the M.A.S.C. nerf incoming, especially from my position of Lulzy T4 Whipping Girl. I try to stay Up enough to be able to speak to generalities, but as Pbiggz so sensibly put it in a different thread, I come to MWO on my own time and my own terms, enjoy it while I enjoy it, then drift away again to do something else for a while. Healthy for me, less useful for MWO-centric changes and discussions.

What I take fierce issue with is the ugly, mean-spirited pettiness, swaggercocking, and generally Maidenless Behavior I encountered in my day-odd there. I take your message about the non-Cauldron members of the server and acknowledge it, and I know Tiyos is likely tired of being pinged six hundred times a day by bad-faith yaybos who refuse to leave the man in peace to work. Frankly, Tiyos posts and interacts with the community more than most any dev I've seen in most any other game I've played for precisely that reason and has generally earned my respect for that. But man. It's never not a blow to the ego to be told to shut up and get out by a dev, however understandable those instructions are.

Anyways. Please do continue doing the best you all can do for MWO, and I absolutely wish you all the best of luck. I will simply be spending my time in Avowed (which I do highly recommend, if anyone is interested and on the fence about it) outside of a token effort to try and maintain my FMT-C leaderboard position sometime this week perhaps, and will absolutely be remembering this peek behind the curtain in the future.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

1453 R, on 24 February 2025 - 04:05 PM, said:

What I take fierce issue with is the ugly, mean-spirited pettiness, swaggercocking, and generally Maidenless Behavior I encountered in my day-odd there.

Lurk there longer (a year) and you'll learn that was a somewhat abnormally charged convo but also probably understand somewhat understand part of why there is some of that behavior; it's not an excuse, but if social media has proved anything, there probably should be some level of gatekeeping is necessary. There are people that will come in and spam or present their opinion and become entrenched that it needs to happen (not unlike mrmadguy). It's why so few in the cauldron honestly partake in the "containment" feedback discord. To be clear it also doesn't matter who you are either (as long as you aren't recognized), as I experienced the same thing last year.

Edited by Quicksilver Aberration, 25 February 2025 - 12:08 PM.

[GoodTry]

1453 R, on 24 February 2025 - 04:05 PM, said:

What I take fierce issue with is the ugly, mean-spirited pettiness, swaggercocking, and generally Maidenless Behavior I encountered in my day-odd there.

I apologize if I contributed to that. It was a weirdly heated discussion, and I didn't have the context that you were new to the discord server and play in tier 4. You had said "At the level of play the Cauldron cares about, everybody can hit those mechs perfectly fine," and I responded "Lol no. Not in Div A comp at least." I didn't mean to be mean spirited, the "lol no" part was because I play in Div A sometimes and cannot always hit strong light players, and others cannot always hit me. But in hindsight I see that it was much harsher than I intended.

I hope you come back to the Cauldron Feedback discord some time, as additional perspectives and discussion are always helpful!

Edited by GoodTry, 25 February 2025 - 10:32 AM.

[Cyborne Elemental]

MASC isn't the issue, hardly anyone uses it unless its fixed to the mech (clan mechs)

IS mechs besides Vulcan and Flea really just do not have either Pod space or Tonnage to spare as Cooling and Firepower is much more valuable.

The problem is superfast lights that do wonky things with massive acceleration deceleration and then amplify the issue with MASC.

Its a "Engine can't handle damage register" and low twist turn rates on mechs to keep them from tracking fast targets.. Problem.

[TheCaptainJZ]

If it comes to it for technical reasons, make it mandatory equipment and bake the stats into the variants. You'll lose the give and take of turning it on and off, but at least it won't cause hitreg issues.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Cyborne Elemental, on 25 February 2025 - 11:28 AM, said:

MASC isn't the issue, hardly anyone uses it unless its fixed to the mech (clan mechs)

People definitely use it, especially the aforementioned Vulcan. Not sure why you think people still hold disdain for MASC like it's 2016

[GreyNovember]

So, wait.

The problem is the MASC Feathering breaking people's ability to reliably hit it, right? NOT the top speed?

And Jump Jets used to do this, with Bunnyhoppping Timberwolves? ( Isn't that STILL something you can do, feather JJs to throw off exactly where someone will hit?)

Is it JUST because of the Firemoth and how new it is? Because there's been another 20 Tonner that can do this already in the game, with a more compact body frame.

[Tiy0s]

I clarified this on the Cauldron feedback server, but any potential MASC nerf will not hit the Fire Moth. The Fire Moth MASC was pre nerfed because of its top speed and uses a different set of MASC stats from other lights.

A normal MASC MK1 gives +150% acceleration and +140% deceleration speed. Flea, Commando, etc all get that bonus when use MASC, which over doubles their acceleration and deceleration for juking shots or "stutter stepping."

The Fire Moth MASC MK1 only gives +50% and +50% on accel/decel, we made that choice before the mech came out in light of its top speed. That's also the only thing keeping it from breaking hit registration, since a mech that fast is not meant to be able to accelerate and decelerate at those rates.

[Ttly]

Jank hitreg issue aside, are the MASC Lights really that overperforming that it warrants being nerfed?
I mean for the MASC Fleas, only the FLE-17 are really "overperforming" right?
And it's not like the MASC Commando is that much of an overperformer either.
Then you have Decadion and the MASC Urbie, hardly being that much of such as well.
Really though, let's say it did go through, what's the plan to compensate (if needed) for these variants then?
And also it seems rather money-grubbey timing to have this decision only after the Fire Moth was out.

Edited by Ttly, 25 February 2025 - 08:06 PM.

[GreyNovember]

Tiy0s, on 25 February 2025 - 07:45 PM, said:

The Fire Moth MASC MK1 only gives +50% and +50% on accel/decel, we made that choice before the mech came out in light of its top speed. That's also the only thing keeping it from breaking hit registration, since a mech that fast is not meant to be able to accelerate and decelerate at those rates.

Indirectly, this sounds like the response to all the claims of "It's broken I can't hit it" is "No it's not, it's you"

[Moadebe]

GreyNovember, on 26 February 2025 - 07:02 AM, said:

Indirectly, this sounds like the response to all the claims of "It's broken I can't hit it" is "No it's not, it's you"

Im just going to put this here... take with it what you will.

[GreyNovember]

Right. I'm taking it to mean that "It isn't broken, it was pre-nerfed specifically so it would not break it"

But the act of stutter stepping itself is not the concern, just MASC, so that implies if you just feather your throttle to accomplish something similar, it's fine.

[sycocys]

Ttly, on 25 February 2025 - 08:03 PM, said:

Jank hitreg issue aside, are the MASC Lights really that overperforming that it warrants being nerfed?

Really the most likely thing is that all the non-cauldron scrubs started fiddling about with masc and it's ability to interfere with hit reg so that advantage they've been trying to keep on the hush whenever someone complains about certain mechs taking way too much damage was trending toward a wider audience.

If we are going to lose out on a mechanic exploit advantage we have to debuff it so no one else can have it either because it would be unfair if it becomes widely known.

That's generally how I interpret these kind of Cauldron direction changes. Just sit on broken mechanics as long as possible until something happens that has other players starting to take advantage of it then it's time to nerf it.

[dario03]

Ttly, on 25 February 2025 - 08:03 PM, said:

Jank hitreg issue aside, are the MASC Lights really that overperforming that it warrants being nerfed?
I mean for the MASC Fleas, only the FLE-17 are really "overperforming" right?
And it's not like the MASC Commando is that much of an overperformer either.
Then you have Decadion and the MASC Urbie, hardly being that much of such as well.
Really though, let's say it did go through, what's the plan to compensate (if needed) for these variants then?
And also it seems rather money-grubbey timing to have this decision only after the Fire Moth was out.

That depends on how you measure performance. If by average stats then no, only the Urbie is a bit above average (well light average, but not by much). The Commando was just over average but just got nerfed so will probably go back to its under average performance. Rest are under but Flea-17 is close.

Now if you go by performance of a player with high level experience that could change. But its also going to depend on the player and their opinion. Personally I would still say no because I can I maintain similar averages in non-masc lights. Also for masc lights that can be strong I would say theres other things that could be done first. For example the Commando can do a lot better than its stats say but the best build on it is snub (er)small lasers. It currently has heat 10%, I would change that to laser heat which would nerf the best build instead of all builds and other masc lights.

But its not so much based on performance. The calls for nerfs are more about the play style. Some like to have the variety in play style that masc adds, some don't like to play against it because those mechs are harder to hit. And some claim the issue of hitreg, personally I think it can affect it, but not as much as some claim. In my own experience of recording and checking what I thought was hitreg issues was often not. Was more often a bit of delay on paper doll update, spread damage more than thought, damage applied actually did make sense after checking again (stuff like structure quirks can throw off estimates of what is and isn't one-shot away from death), or I just simply missed by a bit. And times where I did find what I think was hitreg issues have often been on non-masc mechs and often bigger mechs. I put up a youtube short showing some on a Night Gyr a while back.

sycocys, on 26 February 2025 - 11:26 AM, said:

Really the most likely thing is that all the non-cauldron scrubs started fiddling about with masc and it's ability to interfere with hit reg so that advantage they've been trying to keep on the hush whenever someone complains about certain mechs taking way too much damage was trending toward a wider audience.

If we are going to lose out on a mechanic exploit advantage we have to debuff it so no one else can have it either because it would be unfair if it becomes widely known.

That's generally how I interpret these kind of Cauldron direction changes. Just sit on broken mechanics as long as possible until something happens that has other players starting to take advantage of it then it's time to nerf it.

I don't think theres been any big finds of masc tech lately. What it does and how to use it has been pretty well known for a while. If there had been I would expect to see an uptick in usage on a mech like the Flea-17 but the Flea-17 have been declining in qp usage over the last year.

[kalashnikity]

1453 R, on 24 February 2025 - 10:23 AM, said:

As I understand it from what extremely limited conversation I saw in said Discord (as the overall mood seemed to be "we discussed this yesterday, there's nothing more to say, shut up and go away"), the idea seems to be that at high levels of play, stutter-stepping and/or feathering M.A.S.C. has replaced feathering jump jets as the means du jour of artificially warping one's hitboxes and spreading damage in a weird way that's difficult to compensate for. The accel/decel profile of 'Mechs like the Flea also still causes hitreg issues, as just because they've pushed CryEngine and their hitreg solutions to their limits doesn't mean they're stable at those limits. M.A.S.C. ultralights redline hitreg, and M.A.S.C. everything else offers survivability boosts no other equipment does purely because of the system's accel/decel. Ultracomps don't even really care about the speed or turning boosts, it's almost purely the accel/decel boost and that boost's ability to throw off their hitboxes that's the issue at stake. the only reason the speed boost is even a thing is because feathering M.A.S.C. to rapidly vary the 'Mech's top speed and engage in accel/decel shenaniganry that way allows the same hitbox jankery. The Cauldron wants to address this but is expressing some degree of reluctance/caution in the matter. Which is strange, because I specifically asked if they were keeping in mind the cost to M.A.S.C.-dependent 'Mechs like the Flea if the system was nerfed, and was quite sternly told A.) to mind my own business, and B.) that no, it was not a consideration at all. If that's the attitude, I have to wonder why they're expressing any reluctance to hammer M.A.S.C. the way they're looking at.

then nerf accel/decel, AND give us our turn radius back, at least for for lights and mediums.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

kalashnikity, on 26 February 2025 - 02:48 PM, said:

then nerf accel/decel, AND give us our turn radius back, at least for for lights and mediums.

Turn radius is the highest it's ever been across the board. Only during the dreaded changes of 2021 (around the same time if not the same patch that introduced the Clan ERHPPC) could I find where turn radius was ever really nerfed on MASC. I couldn't find when a lot of those changes were undone but I have to assume they were undone around a similar time frame as the rest. Either way, it's higher than it ever was between release in 2016 and the change in 2021.

The biggest changes to MASC is the drain/fill rates in 2021 that seem to have been kept which took MASC from 7.5s of usage with a 37.5s recharge (both are higher if you go above the safe limit which was also increased in 2021) to ~18.9s of usage and the same for recharge which was a huge buff (if you ask me, was too much of one).

Edited by Quicksilver Aberration, 26 February 2025 - 04:54 PM.

[1453 R]

GoodTry, on 25 February 2025 - 10:31 AM, said:

I apologize if I contributed to that. It was a weirdly heated discussion, and I didn't have the context that you were new to the discord server and play in tier 4. You had said "At the level of play the Cauldron cares about, everybody can hit those mechs perfectly fine," and I responded "Lol no. Not in Div A comp at least." I didn't mean to be mean spirited, the "lol no" part was because I play in Div A sometimes and cannot always hit strong light players, and others cannot always hit me. But in hindsight I see that it was much harsher than I intended.

I hope you come back to the Cauldron Feedback discord some time, as additional perspectives and discussion are always helpful!

Eh. It was a cluster all around, no single voice is to blame. But to clarify the statement I made in said cluster:

T4 players like me miss light 'Mechs because we're bad at aiming. Note that in my case it's not "SMOL MEK BAD!!" and Noob Panic Defeatism - I will absolutely turn and engage such 'Mechs with all due ferocity no matter what I'm piloting, and I generally skill my big fat assault bros with both Anchor Turn and Torso Speed to help dogfight lights. But I'm still kinda precisely the opposite of a crack shot.

'Div A Comp', whichever that is, presuming its top-level comp? They miss light 'Mechs because they were made to miss. Because the light guy juked at precisely the right time and managed to actively dodge fire, or move in such a way that the heavier enemies can't physically get their guns on the smaller target. Guys at that level do not "miss" targets. Hell, most of the time the Ultracomp guys I've seen talk about it consider solidly hitting the component next to the one they were aiming for to be a "miss", even if that shot mission-kills a lighter 'Mech through shoulder blowout or just crippling its defenses.

It's why light 'Mech balance is so fraught, as I understand it. Down in pub tier with me and the rest of the normies, simply moving quickly is a powerful shield, and moving at all erratically is practically a cheat code. I've experienced it plenty of times myself, especially in the new Fire Moths - jump in for an exploratory probe, discover six enemy 'Mechs, panic, juke wildly on the way out with M.A.S.C. running while being pelted by half the team, escape...largely fine. Or at least intact enough to continue playing the game. Against an Ultracomp team, literally no physically possible amount of jukes would save me from getting melted down into themed dinnerware in the space of 'bout five seconds. Tuning light 'Mechs to be good-but-not-overwhelming in the Mosh Pit without making them utterly worthless in Ultracomp is incredibly difficult.

I suppose M.A.S.C. doesn't help with that, really.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

1453 R, on 27 February 2025 - 07:15 AM, said:

'Div A Comp', whichever that is, presuming its top-level comp? They miss light 'Mechs because they were made to miss. Because the light guy juked at precisely the right time and managed to actively dodge fire, or move in such a way that the heavier enemies can't physically get their guns on the smaller target. Guys at that level do not "miss" targets.

Not quite, I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding of aim, velocity, and movement that most people forget or don't understand. When you are aiming with projectiles, you have to lead your target, but when you are leading a target that can change trajectory rather fast, you are no longer just leading, you are predicting/guessing. Mechs that can change direction rapidly (ie super accel and/or decel) can make that challenging especially if they have small/thin hitboxes (Vulcan is probably one of the most spindly mechs around) since unlike bigger mechs, a rapid shift in direction might shift damage from your left to right torso for example or something like that.

The ability to make the right "read" or prediction is definitely a skill, but it's limited in how good you can really become for mechs that can shift rapidly like MASC lights/mediums. To fix the more egregious stuff, you either nerf the accel/decel or start upping velocity on projectile direct fire weapons.

[1453 R]

Kinna what I meant by juking at the right moment. I know what you mean, tryin'a land damage on stuff like Fleas from 500+ out is usually up to piloting error on the Flea's part more than aim on the shooter's part because they can decide to simply not be where the pain is going.

The issue will be on where the line is decided to be between "acceptably evasive" and "egregious." Stutter-stepping Fleas and Vulcans are held to be egregious. A'ight. What about Black Lanners? Hellfires? Shadow Cats? 'Mechs that aren't as spindly and nimbly-bimbly as Vulcans or Fleas, and which Div A Ultracomps can effortlessly hit precisely where they want to hit with 100% accuracy if L33t J00ks aren't involved?

Ferroblast is honestly a great example - it has the speed of a 30-tonner with the mobility profile of a 65-tonner, and as I've joked to my circle of buddies? Ferroblast's full name is Ms. Ferro "In-Over-Her-Head" McBlast due to her extreme propensity for MASCercharging into a situation her agility profile is not prepared to get her back out of. Are we prepared for half the M.A.S.C. 'Mechs in the game to join Ferroblast in that tendency due to losing too much agility to get back out of bad situations their theoretically heightened movement speed allows them to get into?