83 replies to this topic

[GreyNovember]

Voice of Kerensky, on 05 August 2025 - 07:20 PM, said:

PGI, if any of you decide to find out the reason for the steadily decreasing number of active players, here is some food for thought.
I went to play MBO on a day off. I played for three hours. I played 14 matches. Only in two of them did I end up on the winning team. My gaming experience: for 12 losses, there were only two wins, that is, the loss/win ratio is 6:1. Considering that on weekdays I can devote no more than an hour to the game (and that is a maximum of 5 battles), do you think I would want to spend this hour on a game that with a high probability can only give me a loss?
With all my sincere respect to you, PGI. Perhaps in one of the next patches you will remember about team balance?

"I lost a bunch and this is your fault fix it"

[w0qj]

Guys, I surmise that this new IS/Clan Railgun shoots 4 pellets per shot,
meaning that the damage/splash profile per pellet is 3 / 10 / 3.

New Weapon:
IS & Clan: Railgun, Total damage+splash profile 12 / 40 / 12 (speculation: 4x pellets [projectile shells] per shot?)

KursedVixen, on 05 August 2025 - 06:36 PM, said:

only if the HAg 40 gets it's 40 pinpoint damage back.

• Damage: 40 pinpoint + 12 splash on each side

Edited by w0qj, 05 August 2025 - 07:51 PM.

[Ttly]

w0qj, on 05 August 2025 - 07:47 PM, said:

Guys, I surmise that this new IS/Clan Railgun shoots 4 pellets per shot, meaning that the damage/splash profile per pellet is 3 / 10 / 3. New Weapon: IS & Clan: Railgun, Total damage+splash profile 12 / 40 / 12 (speculation: 4x pellets [projectile shells] per shot?)

Nothing in the announcement supports that it's a burst weapon.
Also it has the HGR shake.
Not that it'd stop you from putting the railgun+2large laser in the same weapon group to shoot it mid laser-burn since screen shakes doesn't really affect mid-burn lasers.

Oh and its 20 heat still lets you alpha with the 2large+4medium lasers.
https://mwo.nav-alph...b46cf0b6_CUSTOM
https://mwo.nav-alph...726737a1_CUSTOM
Add in 1-2 extra heat sinks to simulate Cool Run skill nodes and the heat dissipation quirk or whatever.
So yes, it's like 60-80 accurate alpha damage every 10 seconds (that also has a lot of range) or so with minimum exposure needed, because uhhhhhhhhh

Edited by Ttly, 05 August 2025 - 11:08 PM.

[LavaDa1shi]

Voice of Kerensky, on 05 August 2025 - 07:20 PM, said:

PGI, if any of you decide to find out the reason for the steadily decreasing number of active players, here is some food for thought.
I went to play MBO on a day off. I played for three hours. I played 14 matches. Only in two of them did I end up on the winning team. My gaming experience: for 12 losses, there were only two wins, that is, the loss/win ratio is 6:1. Considering that on weekdays I can devote no more than an hour to the game (and that is a maximum of 5 battles), do you think I would want to spend this hour on a game that with a high probability can only give me a loss?
With all my sincere respect to you, PGI. Perhaps in one of the next patches you will remember about team balance?

I don't wanna be mean but that sounds like a skill issue to me.

I don't group too often, and I generally take QP very casually and I can very easily keep a WL of about 1.5 - 2

[D V Devnull]

Will9761, on 05 August 2025 - 04:54 PM, said:

A Railgun compensating for the lack of a Thumper Cannon is a fair compromise. The only question is, how much damage will it do?

KursedVixen, on 05 August 2025 - 06:36 PM, said:

• Damage: 40 pinpoint + 12 splash on each side

And that's a Grand Total of deadly 64 Damage being dealt... Seems a tad much, since it could One-Shot too many of the Light Mechs without regard to angle, like this person indicates...

Doc13, on 05 August 2025 - 02:14 PM, said:

If "I hate burning through structure/lights" was a gun :V

...and particularly when things were never supposed to be that easy unless the Light Mech's pilot was leaving it sitting unusually dead still...

This does leave questions...

• Why was such a seemingly "Pay-To-Win"-grade weaponry like this "RailGun" introduced into MWO's environment at all, since it's going to be locked on a BullShark Legendary (and later, a Hero version) Mech with seemingly no (C-Bills) version of such a Weapon ever to appear?
  
• Will things like the "Spinal-Mount Heavy Gauss Rifle" which I've heard of elsewhere get introduced into MWO's environment at all, in order to properly respond against the "RailGun"s introduction here?
  
• What penalty effect happens (as it seems like there should be one on that "RailGun" for how powerful such weaponry will be) if those "RailGun Mount"(s) get knocked out because someone blasted away the Side Torso(s) of that BullShark Mech during battles? (It seriously would not be fair if the "RailGun" Mounts are both gone but that Weapon receives no penalty with how powerful such an item is!)

...because the introduction of such a "RailGun" Weapon really leaves one to wonder about things. Including particularly when regarding how PGI's MWO Staff is going to handle any negative reaction from a mass of people who backlash, and then leave MWO entirely over anything perceived as "100% Pay-To-Win" in game mechanics. We've already got one person worrying about it, and several along with them, like so...

Alstren, on 05 August 2025 - 01:35 PM, said:

Oh this isint going to be incredibly toxic on emerald or tourmaline. Might even finally kill the game.

...and that usually is never good for MWO's future at all. We've already had several rounds with MWO of mass exodus, and I really do not think either that this game can take one more.

~D. V. "now added to the list of people worried by that 'RailGun' weaponry item over MWO's continued future" Devnull

[LordNothing]

fitting mech for jumping the shark. even more fitting if it has jj.

[Saved By The Bell]

"Clan LRMs now fire missiles in pairs. This effectively cuts their duration in half."

this one is good, I almost never use clan lrms for this reason

Rail gun, well. Should we limit 2 Hgauss to fafnir only, like it should? Well, too late for it.

Edited by Saved By The Bell, 05 August 2025 - 09:17 PM.

[Ttly]

Saved By The Bell, on 05 August 2025 - 09:16 PM, said:

"Clan LRMs now fire missiles in pairs. This effectively cuts their duration in half."

this one is good, I almost never use clan lrms for this reason

Rail gun, well. Should we limit 2 Hgauss to fafnir only, like it should? Well, too late for it.

The damage alone isn't the problem, it's that it also has more everything else and better mount placement compared to either the HGR Fafnir (save for raw hitpoint count and ECM/Stealth armor sure) or Duelist.

As for the LRM shorter burst, it's kind of whatever. The HSL change for LRM10 is also whatever since if you have that much hardpoints for LRM10s you could just as well use LRM15+LRM5 for similiar tube count and less weight which is more of an issue with how LRM10s not having much to make up for its bad tube:tonnage, could at least have better damage per heat the same way MRM20s does.
Similiar issue with LRM20s, but at least 20s has the excuse of "only taking up 1 hardpoint", though between it and LRM15Artemis (which has almost the same weight and slot cost), I'd prefer the latter just because velocity actually matters on LRMs for getting hits at all.

Edited by Ttly, 05 August 2025 - 11:01 PM.

[Voice of Kerensky]

LavaDa1shi, on 05 August 2025 - 08:09 PM, said:

I don't wanna be mean but that sounds like a skill issue to me.

I don't group too often, and I generally take QP very casually and I can very easily keep a WL of about 1.5 - 2

I understand what you're want to say. I'm not one to deny that I'm not at the top of the list of the most skilled MWO players. However, if you look at my stats on Jarl's List, you'll see that my K/D rating is much higher than 1.0 in the vast majority of cases. Does that mean that my skills aren't that bad? And in the vast majority of games, I do more to win than necessary? But my K/D is always higher than my W/L. And given this, I again come to the conclusion that the balancer is not doing its job.
But even if we assume that I'm a weak player, then a logical question arises: isn't it the balancer's job to form teams in such a way that even a weak player gets a balanced gaming experience?
And I'm not surprised that with this approach to team formation, the activity of old players drops, and new players don't stay in MWO. A game that punishes you with losses is unlikely to have and develop its popularity.
Perhaps it is not obvious to someone, but people come to shooters for the most part wanting to win.

[-K H A N]

PTW BS. Much lol.

Edited by -K H A N, 05 August 2025 - 11:42 PM.

[shadow cat]

I thinks this weapons will break a bit the game mechanics, it's too much damage at long range.
I strongly dislike the concept and I recomend to not to release the mechs.

Edited by shadow cat, 06 August 2025 - 04:46 AM.

[kapusta11]

LavaDa1shi, on 05 August 2025 - 08:09 PM, said:

I don't wanna be mean but that sounds like a skill issue to me.

I don't group too often, and I generally take QP very casually and I can very easily keep a WL of about 1.5 - 2

Then why the hell is he in tier 1 with w/l and k/d ratios of 1? Same tier as superstar players with w/l and k/d ratios of 3-5. This game should have just 2 tiers: top 1% and everyone else, because everyone else is closer to each other than they are to the very top and it doesn't really matter how you mix them. Only when you put 2-3 superstar players on one team and then "balance" it with the same amount of "tier 1" mech dads on the other do you begin to have problems. Weight doesn't matter, tier doesn't matter, only presence or absence of superstar players. The only reason for match maker to wait should be to find another such player to balance teams, everything else should be relaxed.

I came back after years of not playing to check things out and grab free stuff and it has been stomp after stomp with the winning team posting ggs afterwards, a bizarre experience to say the least. I'll probably stay for another month then gtfo. Zero $$$ from a returning player, how's that for a business model.

[Ballistic Panicmode]

Voice of Kerensky, on 05 August 2025 - 07:20 PM, said:

PGI, if any of you decide to find out the reason for the steadily decreasing number of active players, here is some food for thought.
I went to play MBO on a day off. I played for three hours. I played 14 matches. Only in two of them did I end up on the winning team. My gaming experience: for 12 losses, there were only two wins, that is, the loss/win ratio is 6:1. Considering that on weekdays I can devote no more than an hour to the game (and that is a maximum of 5 battles), do you think I would want to spend this hour on a game that with a high probability can only give me a loss?
With all my sincere respect to you, PGI. Perhaps in one of the next patches you will remember about team balance?

My question about the matchmaker is: does it make any effort to balance the 2 teams against each other, or does it assemble 2 teams independently of each other? The match quality suggests that a team is being assembled around T1 players, another team assembled around T4 players, then they're being thrown into a match together.

When you have four teammates doing less than 100 damage, especially using assault mechs, It's just not a matter of "getting good."

Edited by Ballistic Panicmode, 06 August 2025 - 04:06 AM.

[Ballistic Panicmode]

Ttly, on 05 August 2025 - 07:58 PM, said:

Nothing in the announcement supports that it's a burst weapon.
Also it has the HGR shake.
Not that it'd stop you from putting the railgun+2large laser in the same weapon group to shoot it mid laser-burn since screen shakes doesn't really affect mid-burn lasers.

Oh and its 20 heat still lets you alpha with the 2large+4medium lasers.
https://mwo.nav-alph...b46cf0b6_CUSTOM
https://mwo.nav-alph...726737a1_CUSTOM
Add in 1-2 extra heat sinks to simulate Cool Run skill nodes and the heat dissipation quirk or whatever.
So yes, it's like 60-80 accurate alpha damage every 10 seconds (that also has a lot of range) or so with minimum exposure needed, because uhhhhhhhhh

If it is instant 40 damage pinpoint with no convergence issues, I predict it eventually being nerfed to something like 16/30/16 due to the increase in headshot kills.

[Ttly]

Ballistic Panicmode, on 06 August 2025 - 04:12 AM, said:

If it is instant 40 damage pinpoint with no convergence issues, I predict it eventually being nerfed to something like 16/30/16 due to the increase in headshot kills.

Eventually could mean anything from 6 months to more than a year, especially for some moneymaker like this.
Sure took longer for the HAG80 Maul to get nerfed in the past too.

Edited by Ttly, 06 August 2025 - 04:40 AM.

[Alstren]

D V Devnull, on 05 August 2025 - 08:14 PM, said:

...and that usually is never good for MWO's future at all. We've already had several rounds with MWO of mass exodus, and I really do not think either that this game can take one more.

~D. V. "now added to the list of people worried by that 'RailGun' weaponry item over MWO's continued future" Devnull

Extremely long range precision weapons that can one shot you from across the map without you having any way of fighting back is one of the reasons I don't play most shooters and why Iv stuck with MWO soo long. I guarantee this will kill the game unless they nerf it into the ground.

[Aivazovsky]

Voice of Kerensky, on 05 August 2025 - 10:49 PM, said:

But even if we assume that I'm a weak player

Judging by your jarls over the last 8 months, you are an average player for tier 1. You have win rate of 54%, which is normal for an average player, so matchmaker is working as it should. You just got a losing streak, got upset, went on tilt, started playing worse, but decided that the matchmaker was to blame... $hit happens, take a break and move on. You'll be back to winning half the time, which is what you deserve and what's fair.

[KS Highlander]

Ok, I'll pull on my flame-resistant underwear and post.

I used to play lights exclusively. Doing good years back as speed is life. Don't stop, keep moving and live. Then weapon hardpoint inflation hit. And bigger mechs. More armor. And lights had to really be loaded up to do damage on these beasts. I slowly stopped playing lights as these big monsters had so much firepower that the 'one shot' was real, and the joy of running full bore wore off.
Now add a weapon that can one shot Mediums and some Heavies. I see folks saying if you are worried about this, your skill is not there. I see folks saying this will kill the game.
New things can be scary or at least worrisome. This sounds like a major game changer. HPG will now be a huge snipper fest with these monsters perched on the walls, picking off everything. Long range meta just broke.

Until these actually get into the game, no one really knows what will happen. We can all be armchair warriors and speculate. But until the mech pops in, no one knows for sure. Hopefully gameplay will be more balanced than the stats show. If not, then these mechs will fall to a handfull of players and weaknesses will be found. And as with the Bane can be easier to kill if you know where to pop it. Time will tell.

[D V Devnull]

Alstren, on 06 August 2025 - 04:47 AM, said:

Extremely long range precision weapons that can one shot you from across the map without you having any way of fighting back is one of the reasons I don't play most shooters and why Iv stuck with MWO soo long. I guarantee this will kill the game unless they nerf it into the ground.

Kind of leaves one wondering why they didn't do "Spinal-Mount Heavy Gauss Rifle" instead, huh? At least then one could choose equipping it instead of having a perma-locked item, similarly to how we currently do for those XL & LFE types of Engines on those various Mechs we're playing with. And at least they could have had a whole world better in balance out-of-the-box as well... Unfortunately for all of us, it seems that PGI's MWO Staff don't get this whole thing of Mech-locking new equipment like a "RailGun" is only hurting their game. Even these other items like "SuperCharger", "Partial Wing", "Improved Jump Jets", and "Mech Shields" all do not feel as if they were implemented properly, as even these should have been available to a wider range of Mechs which already exist.

~D. V. "Wishing those currently in PGI's MWO Staff had not used this approach of unique item locking..." Devnull

[Ttly]

KS Highlander, on 06 August 2025 - 05:31 AM, said:

Until these actually get into the game, no one really knows what will happen. We can all be armchair warriors and speculate. But until the mech pops in, no one knows for sure. Hopefully gameplay will be more balanced than the stats show. If not, then these mechs will fall to a handfull of players and weaknesses will be found. And as with the Bane can be easier to kill if you know where to pop it. Time will tell.

There are pre-existing builds that fills similar niche/role in the game already (and performs well to boot), it doesn't take "until it's actually in the game" to point out how it's better than them.
Like the TSP Summoner being a Crael but better everything thanks to mixpod builds.

Edited by Ttly, 06 August 2025 - 06:09 AM.