153 replies to this topic

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Moadebe, on 02 September 2025 - 10:48 AM, said:

This is not a 1v1 game and so that first point is irrelevant.

It isn't. This game isn't balanced around reducing the impact of focus fire. Do you honestly think you should be able to shrug off 3 assaults shooting at your medium? Sorry but that is ridiculous. At that point you might as well just make everything have 1-2s cooldowns because big damage weapons are just garbage because the game is all about abusing high DPS to deal remotely enough damage to stop even the tiniest aggression. Every engagement pretty much becomes a DPS check like in RPG games.

It's important because the lack of individual killing power is what emphasizes focused fire. If 1v1 TTK was shorter like in your more traditional FPS, focus fire is less important (still important because unfair fights is still the name of the game even in low TTK like Counterstrike whether it be crossfires, flashes, or off-angles).

Don't want to be gibbed, actually learn the maps, stop skylining and t-posing on ridges, and stop repeeking angles you KNOW are getting watched.

Edited by Quicksilver Aberration, 02 September 2025 - 01:15 PM.

[3DELWEISS]

The railgun keeps being BS. Disregarding the fact that it hits harder than two gauss together, when firing two gauss there is a chance that convergence makes it so they dont hit the same spot. This lands 40 damage on one component without issue (and that's without the fact it's not hard to charge-fire ppc-release gauss to land a 60 pinpoint + 14.5x2 splash damage alpha about 1km away if we want to look at absolute numbers).

Any light or medium who is caught mildly unaware by a target outside their sensor range can find themselves instakilled or near dead by the railgun alone (and don't tell me 'it just opens you', you know you can get crit'd if it opens the armor and damages structure, and take more damage and basically get F'd in some 'mechs.)

[Void Angel]

The railgun alone? Any Light or Medium? This is a math problem with graphics, and you have the wrong answer.

[Rhaelcan]

Moadebe, on 20 August 2025 - 08:00 AM, said:

SHHHHHHHHH

Dont say the forbidden statements because the cauldron thinks these high alphas are FINE and defend it....so....



There is a way to fire these weapons where that is a nil point.

"Defend it", meanwhile they nerf the void killer. They balance properly. Otherwise, why nerf the top performing mechs that are comp viable????



none of that had the amount of splash that this has with the potential for more (ppcs added into the mix.)



Where is that 7+7 splash coming from with that 2 gauss and erml build? Cause none of that splashes....

[1453 R]

Sigh.

This thread is a microcosm of the endless battle between "I should be able to absorb several full alphas from multiple assault 'Mechs while driving a Flea because getting instagibbed sucks!" and "Poking the wrong corner for half a second means you lose half your 'Mech because that's what skill means, deal with it!"

Can we just admit that nobody will ever be happy with the state of time-to-kill and there's no 'correct' answer, just the closest we can figure out for the game we still have?

[KursedVixen]

I question why the HAg 40 was so bad after it's first nerf especially now that we have the rail gun which despite being a mech specific weapon is so much worse.

[Void Angel]

...
The Railgun does outclass a single HAG/40 - as it freaking should, since it costs thirty fracking tons compared to the HAG/40's 16-ton cost.

If you actually use the valid comparison of two HAG/40s - which exists, right now, for Cbills, with no heat scale penalties - the HAGs compare very favorably in all metrics, aside from direct punch damage, and damage per heat. The HAGs have a theoretical refire time of 7.77 seconds, compared to the Railgun's 8.0. MechDB doesn't count the charge-up in its calculations, but that maths out to 5.15DPS. Each. The Railgun's total dPS is a flat 8.0; impressive, but it's literally 77.7% of the HAG's combined dps output.

The Railgun does more up-front punch, it's true - it's a different weapon, by design. But if you compare the Railgun mathematically to its close substitutes, you find that the only real objection people have is their own perceived danger from that 40-point initial punch. But the punch isn't that scary - the claim that it will "kill most Lights," or "open almost any Medium," is an outright lie, mathematically proven. Which is really the crux of the problem here: if the reasons given for an argument are demonstrably untrue, why is the argument being made?

Feels. That's all it is. People see the 40 points of pinpoint, and get sticker shock - then spend small amounts of their time rapping out nonsense claims to rationalize their feelings into "facts" they can use to demand the weapon be nerfed (and larger amounts of my time debunking their facts-agnostic nonsense.)

Don't be one of those people.

You can see the selective gameplay literacy of these arguments by how invariably selective they are. You can't - on any weapon - simply compare one gun to another, or even similar tonnages. That kind of comparison is instructive, but ultimately balance is about competing loadouts, not competing guns. And when you compare alternate loadouts, the Railgun is not the "clearly overpowered, pay to win" monstrosity that some would have you believe.

For example: the only support weapons available to the Railgun 'mechs are energy weapons; meaning either staggered pinpoint damage - or burn-time lasers. Which is why the reticle shake for the Railshark matters. The railgun by itself isn't that fearsome of a weapon. It's not bad, but it's not an IWIN Button. The Railgun needs other weapons to do well, and reticle shake means that its supporting lasers have to finish their burn before the Railgun cuts loose. This makes a big difference in the Railshark pilot's ability to put all of his damage on the target component (trust me, I know.) That's not the case for Gauss- and HAG-Vomit. And this is just one consideration.

The Railgun might need a nerf, or it might not, but if the HAG/40 doesn't suffer much in a reasonable-tonnage comparison, and meshes with supporting lasers better than the most-freaked-out-about weapon in the game today... that's probably why it got the nerf, right?

Edited by Void Angel, 28 September 2025 - 09:58 PM.

[Moadebe]

1453 R, on 28 September 2025 - 03:23 PM, said:

Sigh.

This thread is a microcosm of the endless battle between "I should be able to absorb several full alphas from multiple assault 'Mechs while driving a Flea because getting instagibbed sucks!" and "Poking the wrong corner for half a second means you lose half your 'Mech because that's what skill means, deal with it!"

Can we just admit that nobody will ever be happy with the state of time-to-kill and there's no 'correct' answer, just the closest we can figure out for the game we still have?

Nah nobody will ever be happy about this game considering we are all nerds wanting the best for something we are passionate about. Yet cannot agree on how to achieve that. Would be nice to meet somewhere in the middle of things, but we know that wont happen.

[Void Angel]

Moadebe, on 29 September 2025 - 09:11 AM, said:

Nah nobody will ever be happy about this game considering we are all nerds wanting the best for something we are passionate about.

Maybe some of us. But remember, there's also the Professionally Angry crowd that mounted a disinformation campaign against the Steam Launch, made alt accounts to teamkill newbies, and actually got MWO banned as a discussion topic from the Star Citizen forums...

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Moadebe, on 29 September 2025 - 09:11 AM, said:

Would be nice to meet somewhere in the middle of things, but we know that wont happen.

One could argue that's what doomed MWO, it tried to be that middle ground and failed to appease all of them. The studio behind Helldivers 2 has a motto that seems pretty apt for this: "A game for everyone is a game for no one."

[BlueDevilspawn]

Quicksilver Aberration, on 29 September 2025 - 01:12 PM, said:

One could argue that's what doomed MWO, it tried to be that middle ground and failed to appease all of them. The studio behind Helldivers 2 has a motto that seems pretty apt for this: "A game for everyone is a game for no one."

Very apt comparison. There were complaints about difficulty (as one example) as people were upset when new drop dynamics made level 10 harder. The devs response? "There are 9 other levels below that to pick from." Which serves both the crowd that wants harder stuff and the crowd that is happy playing at a certain level. Ultimately, taking difficulty down to a lowest common denominator would've limited the interested the population.

[Moadebe]

Quicksilver Aberration, on 29 September 2025 - 01:12 PM, said:

One could argue that's what doomed MWO, it tried to be that middle ground and failed to appease all of them. The studio behind Helldivers 2 has a motto that seems pretty apt for this: "A game for everyone is a game for no one."

The thing about HD2 is that there are many different grades of difficulty and its PVE. It has a system in place where there CAN be that separation of "hey i just wanna relax today and just shoot some bugs" and the "Ok im going on a murder spree in the max level....we die we die....lets GO!" I am aware of the discourse that was happening. People didnt want it too easy for the challenge, but the casuals wanted to go higher. The main issue was the samples and unlocking things. Which got to a decent point eventually.

The main difference with here is this is strictly pvp so human opponents mix that up completely. Plus there is not enough separation between the casual and hardcore to where the people who WANT to be casual can be while the ones who want more of a challenge can have that. Both mix frequently and causes frustrations for both.

Both look at the other as ruining their experience. So the disdain grows, and nobody can agree on anything. There is a balance in the two and can be achieved (which is exactly what HD2 has done by having the higher difficulties.) We just wont see it here in MWO due to the type of game it is and how tiers are currently set with its current pop.

[Void Angel]

You're forgetting time. There's not enough of a population to separate the best players, from the average players, from the guys who're mad about the lack of steering wheel support. But there was, perhaps - once. And that's why the tense in the post you're quoting is important.

Edited by Void Angel, 29 September 2025 - 10:18 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Moadebe, on 29 September 2025 - 06:31 PM, said:

The main difference with here is this is strictly pvp so human opponents mix that up completely. Plus there is not enough separation between the casual and hardcore to where the people who WANT to be casual can be while the ones who want more of a challenge can have that.

So there's a few things to mention here:

• This isn't a new complaint, this has been going on since closed beta and even during the "height" of MWO which may have been around steam release (but hard to know because PGI never releases any numbers). I remember all the whining about poptarts back in the day when the population WAS large enough to see lobbies full of tier 1s at least in prime time NA.
  
• The population is too small now to even try to split the queues into some sort of ranked/casual at this point (and ranked has it's own issues, soup queue is problematic there as well).
  
• Matchmaker exists to try and separate new/bad players from the good ones a non-issue, and does not get near enough credit at doing just that. At a certain point though, players will get chased away one way or another, whether it be queue times, lack of a challenge, or being put against good players. Out of all the ones that kills a game, I'd be willing to bet that queue times is the biggest killer of games. There's no longer running joke in this game than the spinny wheel.

Edited by Quicksilver Aberration, 29 September 2025 - 06:51 PM.