19 replies to this topic

[Meep Meep]

So, watching a few of the sweaty streams there seems to be a growing consensus that the overall power creep might have went just a wee bit too far and is in need of reining in. Would you fine fellows like a nice round of global nerfs to relevel the playing field even if it means your chosen playstyle and mech fits might need some retuning and that some fits that are very strong might get normalized?

[1453 R]

Sure. If everything gets reined back, then no singular nerf will be nearly as painful. I honestly prefer sweeping, large-scale Nerf Patches that whammy half the game (whatever game it is) to individual stabs here and there. Huge whammies that hit half the game shake things up, makes stuff spicy again; individual nerfs mostly just suck.

Not what we're going to get of course, but still.

[Ttly]

If it's unquirking everything, wouldn't stuff that already has no/little quirks because they're pretty strong already would dominate?
That's why I'd rather have the underpowered stuff be buffed if anything.

And nerfing the equipments themselves seems like even more of an headache.

[Saved By The Bell]

just debuff little most played mechs (of elitists guys).

[Ttly]

Saved By The Bell, on 27 February 2025 - 10:35 PM, said:

just debuff little most played mechs (of elitists guys).

How many momths old are the Bullshark and Sovereign's ballistic arm pods (I've still legit never seen a real So8 4C-ERPPC Sovereign by the way) are again? It's pretty ridiculous how the former has only gotten nerfs now that it's out for cbux, and the latter hardly gotten any nerfs.
Really not beating the p2w allegations, and that's the thing stopping them from getting nerfs probably.

Anyway really though, up to me I'd just get rid of the Sovereign's So8 C-ERPPC HSL+2 (they're so hot that HSL+2 on them still needs you to max the -heat% skill nodes to even alpha without pretty much overheating apparently), nerf its armor quirk (it's more than the ANH that it shares speed profile with, also it has JJs even if it has worse hitbox than the ANH's monoboob, also it has actual torso twist speed for once so why the hell does it even have this much armor?), give it some heat quirks, and velocity, oh and get rid of the ballistic cooldown on the B-A pods (neither the BSK or the ANH needs -b.cd apparently so neither should it right?), just to see one that isn't just an UAC/LBboat.

There's also the MADII-Alpha being pretty much a better KGC-000B I guess that should probably be nerfed/KGC getting buffed.
You can run near similar loadouts on either the Alpha or the 000B yet the Alpha has better quirks+JJs.

Edited by Ttly, Today, 12:35 AM.

[Saved By The Bell]

well you know how hard to fight against Executor, full of lbx5, 1 vs 1

and that guy probably thinks, he is god of MWO or something

[1453 R]

Ttly, on 27 February 2025 - 10:00 PM, said:

If it's unquirking everything, wouldn't stuff that already has no/little quirks because they're pretty strong already would dominate?
That's why I'd rather have the underpowered stuff be buffed if anything.

And nerfing the equipments themselves seems like even more of an headache.

This "Buff everything ALL THE TIME and NEVER nerf anything because buffs are more fun!" approach is how you arrive at a MWO where every 'Mech moves 150+ KPH, has over two thousand points of armor, carries Dire Whale level weaponry and has the agility of a Flea.

At some point it's time to stop, reassess, rebalance, and pull back. If we've reached that point? Cool. My worries over M.A.S.C. adjustment are totally allayed if that's where we are.

[Samziel]

Ttly, on 27 February 2025 - 10:53 PM, said:

How many momths old are the Bullshark and Sovereign's ballistic arm pods (I've still legit never seen a real So8 4C-ERPPC Sovereign by the way) are again? It's pretty ridiculous how the former has only gotten nerfs now that it's out for cbux, and the latter hardly gotten any nerfs.
Really not beating the p2w allegations, and that's the thing stopping them from getting nerfs probably.

Anyway really though, up to me I'd just get rid of the Sovereign's So8 C-ERPPC HSL+2 (they're so hot that HSL+2 on them still needs you to max the -heat% skill nodes to even alpha without pretty much overheating apparently),

Bullshark should've been nerfed ages ago. And the Sovereign could use more nerfs. Btw, the ERPPC HSL+2 is probably meant for 2ERPPC+2Gauss rifles since their GH group is linked. Thats much cooler. But its not that good due the arms being so low.

[Bud Crue]

Meep Meep, on 27 February 2025 - 08:21 PM, said:

So, watching a few of the sweaty streams there seems to be a growing consensus that the overall power creep might have went just a wee bit too far and is in need of reining in. Would you fine fellows like a nice round of global nerfs to relevel the playing field even if it means your chosen playstyle and mech fits might need some retuning and that some fits that are very strong might get normalized?

What streams are you watching that suggest that there is a consensus that "overall power creep" has gone to far or for that matter that it even exists?

What mechs are so problematic that hurting all of the down stream mechs via "global nerfs" are justified? We really need to nerf the Panther 10P because some assault ballistic boat is OP?

Back in the day when Chris would slash and burn whole weapons systems (often repeatedly) because of one or maybe two over performing outlier mechs (usually the ones that had more and/or higher hard points than any others), all it did was ensure that the outliers remained superior while other non-optimal mechs that relied on the weapon system(s) in question became even less viable than they were before.

Yes there is power creep which I am sure some will argue and that perhaps the data even supports is demonstrable in select mechs (mostly on the extreme ends of the tonnage scale) but I can't see how "global nerfs" will do anything to address those select mech's perceived power creep, while history has shown that global nerfs is a guaranteed way to make everything other than those over performing outliers less viable and less fun to play relative thereto. As low as the population is atm, I can't see how making more mechs less fun to play (possibly the majority of mechs) will do the game any favors.

Edited by Bud Crue, Today, 12:58 PM.

[Meep Meep]

Bud Crue, on 28 February 2025 - 12:55 PM, said:

What streams are are suggesting that there is a consensus that "overall power creep" has gone to far or for that matter that it even exists?

What mechs are so problematic that hurting all of the down stream mechs via "global nerfs" are justified? We really need to nerf the Panther 10P because some assault ballistic boat is OP?

Back in the day when Chris would slash and burn whole weapons systems (often repeatedly) because of one or maybe two over performing outlier mechs (usually the ones that had more and/or higher hard points than any others), all it did was ensure that the outliers remained superior while other non-optimal mechs that relied on the weapon system(s) in question became even less viable than they were before.

Yes there is power creep which I am sure some will argue and that perhaps the data even supports is demonstrable in select mechs (mostly on the extreme ends of the tonnage scale) but I can't see how "global nerfs" will do anything to address those select mech's perceived power creep, while history has shown that global nerfs is a guaranteed way to make everything other than those over performing outliers less viable and less fun to play relative thereto. As low as the population is atm, I can't see how making more mechs less fun to play (possibly the majority of mechs) will do the game any favors.

I said growing and no names cause that's rude. This isn't to call anyone out it's just to gauge how our dear forumites feel about the subject. They have their own sweaty version going on in the discords.

[Bud Crue]

Meep Meep, on 28 February 2025 - 12:58 PM, said:

I said growing and no names cause that's rude. This isn't to call anyone out it's just to gauge how our dear forumites feel about the subject. They have their own sweaty version going on in the discords.

"growing" gotcha. Growing or shrinking or whatever, I think the historical consensus is that making global nerfs in this game is more often than not a bad idea. Yes, we can play around with what "global" means here, but I think more often than not big broad across the board nerfs (i.e. global nerfs) have almost always resulted in merely maintaining the status quo (in terms of what mechs are considered OP, meta, get played the most, or whatever metric we are using here, while making everything else less fun to play. There are certainly exceptions (e.g., I think one can argue ghost heat as a "global system" made sense, and maybe even made the game better in some ways; and yet, even here, HSL modifiers were instituted to help deal with the exceptionally bad or give some mechs a niche that the global nerf would have otherwise made impossible).

I really don't want to see us fall back to the 2016-2018 era of the game where we get month after month of nerfs to entire weapons systems or whatever because of one or two perceived OP mechs, while all others not part of the problem were rendered into dross. That's what I fear "global nerfs" will do (again).

[Meep Meep]

One might argue that 'global' nerfs reset the stage to pick and choose which mechs are 'flavor of the month' again so we can have another nice power creep journey without floating things into the absurd. There isn't much farther they can push the game now in its twilight years so might as well make what use of its remaining time as possible?

[Bud Crue]

Yeah, maybe, but what's really absurd these days? I'd argue there are only a few mechs/builds that are occasionally flabbergasting to deal with. If the powers that be think giving them a selective nerf or two, fine; it's the whole notion of hurting everything via "global nerfs" for the sake of dealing with those few that I really don't like, and which I think would drive even more players from the game if such nerfs were undertaken.

[Meep Meep]

Bud Crue, on 28 February 2025 - 01:40 PM, said:

Yeah, maybe, but what's really absurd these days?

Time to kill comes to mind. There are so many mechs floating around with huge alphas across every class. The new fire moths can get up to 65 alpha that they can fire two or even three times before heat capping and thats on top of 209kph masc with the option of ecm on top of it all and thats just ~one~ light. Many lights can pack mucho pewpew with very little drawback and this extends to every class. So if there were to be a global set of nerfs it should be geared towards increasing time to kill. Then we can go down the merry road of larger and larger alpha all over again.

[Ttly]

1453 R, on 28 February 2025 - 06:08 AM, said:

This "Buff everything ALL THE TIME and NEVER nerf anything because buffs are more fun!" approach is how you arrive at a MWO where every 'Mech moves 150+ KPH, has over two thousand points of armor, carries Dire Whale level weaponry and has the agility of a Flea. At some point it's time to stop, reassess, rebalance, and pull back. If we've reached that point? Cool. My worries over M.A.S.C. adjustment are totally allayed if that's where we are.

What's there to nerf on the meta variants already? Most of their strength comes from a combination of hardpoint bloat, placement, and already has little amount of quirks (yet there are still variants [i.e WHM-IIC-ML, Ballistic Sovereign pods, VGL-RI] that benefits from those AND quirks left alone for whatever reason) outside of durability ones, yet still are already pretty strong because hey, more guns is really just that much of a benefit.
And really? Rather than pulling these variants down, I really think it's better to put other variants up instead, as quirkless vehicles which you'd get from nerfing the "overperformers" are just a bunch of boring grey blobs, not to mention some people would be whining about how "Oh I paid for this and now it got nerfed, I hate this game!", and giving underpowered variants quirks to accentuate their specialization to a more viable level of performance would instead bring more variety to the game.
Also something something reducing the amount of noob-trap options in the game by making more vehicles less of an hangar ornament bricks thus indirectly buffing the less-skilled playerbase that don't know any better rather than nerfing the tryhards by bricking their overperforming toys that they paid 20$ for.

Edited by Ttly, Today, 04:29 PM.

[1453 R]

Soooooooooooo...............you're all for the version of MWO where everything moves at Fire Moth speeds, has Atlas durability, has Bane-level firepower, and also I presume has no heat and infinite ammo?

Frankly it is time and past time for some stuff to come back down. ALL assault agility, in general, needs tuning. - the entire weight class is too nimble for the horrifying firepower it brings. Certain assaults can retain more or even most of their agility depending on specific cases, but the average typical Giga Ultrabloat assault 'Mech needs to pay for that reconkulous 150-damage alpha with a lack of agility. Firepower as a whole needs to come back down - they've been slowly relaxing Spooky Heat for years with various HSL+whatever quirks, those need to become much more rare even if that means a lot of my favorite designs stop working and Spooky Heat in general needs to be tightened up if it's going to be the primary dampener on Super Ultra Stupid Alphas. I should not own as many 'Mechs as I do that can fire three heavy large lasers at once, even if triple HLL builds are some of my favorite hitters.

[kalashnikity]

Power creep is the bane of all games and (especially) Science Fiction series in general.

[kalashnikity]

Why do I get the feeling LRMS will be the first to get nerfed?

Here is an idea, leave them as is, and nerf everything except LRMS.

[Ttly]

1453 R, on 28 February 2025 - 04:29 PM, said:

Soooooooooooo...............you're all for the version of MWO where everything moves at Fire Moth speeds, has Atlas durability, has Bane-level firepower, and also I presume has no heat and infinite ammo? -snip-

That's quite a leap of an assumption, everything moving at FMT speed? Atlas level of hitpoints on everything? No one's saying buff everything to that extreme, speaking of which I did remember the STK-War Emu of all things getting a durability buff to that degree out of nowhere which is still ridiculous that it even got a pass in combination with the STK's hitbox you ask me.
Saying that buffing the likes of Cyclops (outside of Sleipnir which is apparently doing just fine running the same 4LB10 loadout over and over apparently) and Gargoyles (when was the last time you seen one doing well in a match?) to be a lot more viable (or worth playing at all on the Gargoyle's case with the recent ammo buff) than currently to be a balancing disaster is just ridiculous.
You can also look at the Javelin, look at it and weep. That's also an example of a vehicle that the balancing team has pretty much forgotten and went out of viability just because of that. Or say, the Assassin, or the Vulcan variants that isn't the MASC+PPC one. Or hey, most So8 Clan omnis, oh and the Panther.
The IFR-B is like the least played variant in the game too apparently, at like 60 games through November-January if you go by the usage sheet.

As for the other stuff though I'd agree that HSLs should be more strict in general and +HSL quirks as band-aid buffs should be a lot more limited outside of very few variants (the KDK-1 and 5 with its +HSL is certainly not doing that well apparently, and the DWF-A is so-so for a 48.6kph-er), or they should be as glass as the Bane I guess? Though for the agility part I'd say the current state is generally okay even if some chassises have them in excess though yes, if I had my way I'd have people be forced to play with arm-lock off and use arm weapons as workaround though, no free tonnages from dearmoring arms and lack of arm actuators should be considered a downside rather than an upside for freeing up slots.
On the other hand you do have to thank the B.HSL+1 for making MDD-C and MDD-BA to be much more viable, a bit too much on the latter arguably even.

Edited by Ttly, Today, 07:12 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Ttly, on 28 February 2025 - 06:21 PM, said:

Or hey, most So8 Clan omnis

So8 Clan omnis have been buffed in several occasions, that said, why are we saying they need buffing? They run entirely counter to the whole benefit of omnis, that is omnipods. They don't get hardpoint inflation at all like battlemechs, nor are they able to change internals/armor/engines out. Please stop suggesting that So8s need "balancing" unless it is deleting the concept as a whole.