116 replies to this topic

[IIIuminaughty]

Abrahms, on 04 December 2012 - 01:35 PM, said:

I'm sure most of you have seen the 30+ page threads on how the (heat/dmg/tonnage) ratios are broken in this game.

So you tihnk your voice will be the one they hear?

[Abrahms]

Vlad Ward, on 04 December 2012 - 02:47 PM, said:

The problem is that many of those threads seem to call for a complete heat system overhaul when such a system wouldn't do anything to fix the fundamental, intentional imbalance of energy weapons.

Want to lower the PPC's heat/shot? That's cool, man. Seriously. I'd be all for that. Same with the large laser. I may even support a damage/shot buff to both weapons (PPC 10>12 and LL 9>11) in addition to a heat decrease.

But some of the suggestions I see in those massive threads are just not well thought out. As we saw with the doubled heat dissipation + halved heat capacity scenario, a minor buff to PPC DPS (and, honestly, a nerf to their precision) results in massively overpowering the already stronger SL/ML/MPLs.

Its a lot easier to add +1 heat to small and medium lasers than it is to change the damage and heat of every single weapon in the game.

[Vlad Ward]

Abrahms, on 04 December 2012 - 02:52 PM, said:

Its a lot easier to add +1 heat to small and medium lasers than it is to change the damage and heat of every single weapon in the game.

Wait. Is your claim that Small and Medium lasers are overpowered rather than Large Lasers and PPCs are underpowered?

Because they already changed the damage of every single weapon in the game to balance them out with the Medium Pulse Laser.

Except the Large Lasers and PPCs, of course.

[TehArgz]

The dirty little secret is that weapons will never be 'balanced', there are too many variables and too many different players for balance to be possible. There needs to be some sort of parity with the weapons, but I am happy to see weapons that have different functions and different uses, different drawbacks and benefits.

PPC's need their EMP effect to have any idea where they actually stand in comparison to gauss or anything else.

If the EMP disrupts ECM, let alone any other effect, PPC's are probably going to be pretty useful all the sudden and feel the nerf bat.

Since a lot of argument over the heat rests on PPC's it is really premature to get to worked up about it.

I understand a lot of people have issues with the way heat is dealt with, it concerns me at times. I'm guessing the current balance of weaponry will shift significantly with the EMP, just like previous changes and additions have done.

[Aegis Kleais]

Vlad Ward, on 04 December 2012 - 02:53 PM, said:

Wait. Is your claim that Small and Medium lasers are overpowered rather than Large Lasers and PPCs are underpowered?

Because they already changed the damage of every single weapon in the game to balance them out with the Medium Pulse Laser.

Except the Large Lasers and PPCs, of course.

Ah, MPLs.... I remember that time.

Personally, I'd like to see a 10% damage boost to the LL; I think they pretty much nailed a sweet spot on it's heat. There was a time when 2LL was not viable on my HBK-4SP.

[Abrahms]

Aegis Kleais, on 04 December 2012 - 02:51 PM, said:

Balance is never a "we got it perfectly right on the first try", and you haven't even given the current implementation a full day of public testing. I know a lot of people talk as if balancing is as simple as doing a 1:1 port of Table Top rules to MWO, but it just isn't.

Yeah, but its been horribly broken for 6 months with no positive direction yet. PGI claims to want TT stats, yet by tripling ROF without changing the heat system they changed it as much as re-working every single weapon in the game.

The same "concepts" and relative powers and niches dont even exist because its been so thrown off. We ended up with nothing but Gauss, LRMs, SRMs, and small lasers due to everything else being useless and far too hot to function.

Sure, some weapons needed buffs from TT like the AC2. But to change the PPC and Gauss from being roughly a 1:1 (with of course niches, like the fact you can run underweight and hot with the PPC, or that the PPC makes a great filler weapon for a ballistic platform because it weighs only 7 tons and there are unused engine heatsinks) to the PPC being 50% of the gauss. Thats some serious fail.

We all knew that their claim to keep true to TT would require some changes, but they inadvertently broke and changed every single weapon in the game by totally disregarded the 1 ton per heat foundation of battletech.

[Aegis Kleais]

Abrahms, on 04 December 2012 - 02:57 PM, said:

Yeah, but its been horribly broken for 6 months with no positive direction yet. PGI claims to want TT stats, yet by tripling ROF without changing the heat system they changed it as much as re-working every single weapon in the game.

The same "concepts" and relative powers and niches dont even exist because its been so thrown off. We ended up with nothing but Gauss, LRMs, SRMs, and small lasers due to everything else being useless and far too hot to function.

Sure, some weapons needed buffs from TT like the AC2. But to change the PPC and Gauss from being roughly a 1:1 (with of course niches, like the fact you can run underweight and hot with the PPC, or that the PPC makes a great filler weapon for a ballistic platform because it weighs only 7 tons and there are unused engine heatsinks) to the PPC being 50% of the gauss. Thats some serious fail.

We all knew that their claim to keep true to TT would require some changes, but they inadvertently broke and changed every single weapon in the game by totally disregarded the 1 ton per heat foundation of battletech.

Early on, I think PGI stated that they were going to use TT as a starting point, but understandably when converting it all over to a real-time simulation, there were going to need to be changes to adapt.

I see your point as far as that there are intricacies between certain weapon statistics that, once adjusted, have adverse affects on other items, and PGI might have hand their hand in many areas of weapon tweaking, but I see it as a global process of converting statistics that were designed around the TT implementation to how PGI feels they should operate in a real-time environment.

[The Cheese]

The AC/20 is a freaking beast nowadays. I don't know what the issue is with Gauss anymore.

[Abrahms]

Vlad Ward, on 04 December 2012 - 02:53 PM, said:

Wait. Is your claim that Small and Medium lasers are overpowered rather than Large Lasers and PPCs are underpowered?

Because they already changed the damage of every single weapon in the game to balance them out with the Medium Pulse Laser.

Except the Large Lasers and PPCs, of course.

Large laser already got +1 damage.

And no, nothing was claimed "overpowered" - the sense of being overpowered comes in perspective of its surroundings. To balance the heat would have copied TT mostly. If small and mediums are too good in a live environment due to being low weight, +1 heat would have helped put them in line with the real-time use of the other weapons. AC2 too weak? Increase ROF can help.

See, if TT was "mostly" balanced, and PGI wanted to keep as much battletech (wpns, loadouts, stock variants, etc) as possible, to break heat was a bad idea. It broke and changed everything. Much of battletech was in fact balanced. At least, in relation to range categories, a weapons tonnage was directly reflected by its damage, heat, and range.

MWO totally broke it. They could have kept proportions, and niche fixed weapons for the real-time environment. Instead they decided to throw a wrench at a piece of glass and shatter it into a million pieces. They are still picking up these pieces. They will never achieve balance with their current employees making the decisions that they are.

note: balance doesnt mean all weapons are the same, it means that per ton, each weapon has a place in the game. It also means that choosing each weapon is viable for its role. For example, if a Large Laser trumps a small laser at all ranges per ton, there is no reason to take a small laser, ever - that is unbalanced. If every scrub in the world takes SSRMs because they can beat a player with 10x more skill 99% of the time, thats not balanced. Basically when players start to lack options to win, and weapons are never used by informed and skilled players, then there is no balance.

[Salient]

Abrahms, on 04 December 2012 - 02:57 PM, said:

We all knew that their claim to keep true to TT would require some changes, but they inadvertently broke and changed every single weapon in the game by totally disregarded the 1 ton per heat foundation of battletech.

Ive never really given a **** about being true to TT, and neither should anyone else. The ONLY thing that matters is that the game 'feels' mostly balanced and is fun to play.

First off, upping damage doesnt make much sense, devs wanted longer battles, thats why they doubled the armor. Im all for that, dont need counter-strike meets mechwarrior gameplay.

Heat makes some weapons just not worth the tonnage. Pulse lasers and PPCs are victim to this issue. All the devs have to look at is how many founders are running their K2 Cats with the PPCs they came with. Lolz.

The Fix: PPC and Pulse laser tonnage needs to be dropped to allow for a few more heat sinks.

[Dukov Nook]

it's "Hodge Podge"

[DrAwkward]

Abrahms, on 04 December 2012 - 02:31 PM, said:

No, if you notice, I mention that the gauss was already nerfed from TT, it just took a very small 2 ton hit that is negated fairly easily. In fact, engine HSs do so for most builds. The PPC build took a 20 ton hit per PPC - no way any mech can cope with that.

What? The heat thing? You don't look at weapons in microcosm. Those heat sinks can be paired with other weapons. So you can:

1) Fit a single PPC for sniping, but have other weapons for close-in, like MLs and SLs.
2) Pair the PPCs with high-speed so that you can keep manuever in and out of combat.
3) Put them on a tank build, like the AS7-K that can mount heat-heavy and heat-neutral weapons simultaneously for maximum supporting fire.

If you can't wrap your head around that, then you might be happier just thinking of PPCs as support fire weapons. Direct-fire artillery that has high-heat, but no ammo costs and just got stronger thanks to ECM.

Quote

The gauss was only nerfed for baddies and PUGs. Its now a harder to use, harder to acquire, more expensive (deaded real eazy guyz) item. If Im on a good team though I can still pop damaged heads off at 800 meters with little to fear. The nerf doesnt do anything to gameplay until your armor is gone. It also affects your pocket book (PGI me wantz $$$ for a $10 quality indie game).

Inflammatory opinion at best, short-sighted incompetence at worst. You'll have to try harder than just some pidgin-english amalgamation of leet-speek if you want to get your point across. You could have made a valid argument, but instead let your neckbeard-rage get the best of you.

Quote

What should be fixed? HEAT - then the gauss would suddenly lose its "overpowered" gloss for all the "noobz." They would finally realize that the heat system is the only thing. Hypothetically if heatsinks were buffed 10x, the gauss would be the worse weapon in the game. Its all about heat and tonnage requirements.

This is what I was talking about before with the idea about multiple solutions:
You think that every weapon sucks but Gauss Rifles. PGI then nerfs Gauss Rifles to be in line with the other weapons. You cry "Noooooo!" because you think the other weapons should have been buffed to match the Gauss Rifles. Both could be viable, but you are coming off looking like you're only mad they didn't use your changes.

Quote

This "fix" changes nothing. I will continue to snipe with impunity. However my brawler Atlas will no longer carry one. The Atlas has such a huge side torso that some cheese A1 SSRM boat (which are now much weaker thanks to ECM) or uber-lagfesting-Jenner that cant fall down could strafe by for 15 seconds and gib it before they take more than 1 hit's worth of damage.

So, if your Atlas can't brawl with it, then maybe K2's that dropped arm-armor and ran an XL won't be able to run into the fray with it's teammates like they could yesterday?

Maybe they will have problems dealing with those Jenners and Commandos that successfully flanked it?

Maybe all close-in weapons just got a buff now that ECM is encouraging people to brawl instead of hurl LRMs?

[Bullseye69]

There is a lot of broken things in game and has been since closed beta that still not fixed. I am jenner i can cap or I can spot or I can annoy other mechs, With ECM i can't spot anymore at 700 meter couldn't get lock on on any of their 5 mech that was in visual sight, Tried to use solid rock in caustic to protect against weapon fire and still taking damage so no using terrain since you can take damage thru it. Jenner can't mount ecm so we can't close range till we can do damage, so the only use I have is to try to base cap but since ECM negates my radar I don't know that anyone coming till they fire and I am dead so wondering what purpose my FOUNDER Jenner has now.

If your not traveling in a big ball with someone that has ECM your meat for LRM heavy teams, There now are no balance so the opposing team can have 8 Atlas DC with ECM and your screwed, The only good thing on ECM is that screwes with the streak kitty but since my jenner, hunchback ,centurion and Cataphraact can't mount ECM stilled screwed when I encounter Streak Kitty and since Streak Kitty take a lot less skill to get kill and kill your opponent you are still bound to see a lot of them on the battlefield.

I know that it only phase 2 but that not doing my cbill account any good since I taking more damage than I get money to repair so guess I have to take a break while they fix the whole mess and find the balance since right now there is no balance.

[Abrahms]

Dukov Nook, on 04 December 2012 - 03:16 PM, said:

it's "Hodge Podge"

http://www.thefreedi....com/hotchpotch

[RumRunner151]

FAIL. The nerf to gauss was due to the new hero mech, not weapon balance.

[Thuzel]

All this debate over DHS and heat... Either way, it's very evident that large energy weapons are much less effective than ballistic or missile builds due to the heat system as implemented.

The simple, obvious cause is that PGI doesn't want builds using primary energy weapons to be as competitive as ammunition consuming builds. The reason for that isn't forthcoming, but some of us can hazard a guess.

What PGI is banking on, is that those of us that want to use those builds (God forbid us ever trying to use 2 or 3 ER PPCs) will be outnumbered by those that just don't care. Sure, PGI will lose people, but they'll probably make up for that in increased revenues from everyone else. E.g. So long as most people are burning ammo, PGI has a great motivator for pushing premium accounts.

Personally, I think it just makes the game a lot less interesting because I can't field a lot of the builds I love. By the way, I'm not a laser boater either, I love ballistics and missiles just as much as the next guy. But in the end, it just means I (and a lot of people like me) will get bored and move on to another game.

[RG Notch]

Abrahms, on 04 December 2012 - 01:41 PM, said:

The developer's may give a rat's booty to balance or how good the game is, but players think otherwise.

A dev will simply snub this, but a new player will either be informed as to how to optimize their mech better, or simply move on to another game. If enough players role one thing (reflects in PGI's statistics) or simply quit because they realize the developer's dont care, they might actually start caring.

Yup if those things happen they might care, you posting the same crap over and over sure isn't working huh??

[Garth Erlam]

Abrahms, on 04 December 2012 - 01:41 PM, said:

The developer's may give a rat's booty to balance or how good the game is, but players think otherwise. A dev will simply snub this, but a new player will either be informed as to how to optimize their mech better, or simply move on to another game. If enough players role one thing (reflects in PGI's statistics) or simply quit because they realize the developer's dont care, they might actually start caring.

/snub

Damn, he got me!

(In all seriousness, PPC/ER PPC issues aside, I think the weapon balance is pretty decent. In that I get PM's complaining about SL, ML, LL, LRM, SRM, SSRM, UAC-5, etc, all being OP, all day long )

Bullseye69, on 04 December 2012 - 03:26 PM, said:

With ECM i can't spot anymore at 700 meter couldn't get lock on on any of their 5 mech that was in visual sight

(From patch notes) Disrupts enemies sensors (targeting system), as well as targeting communication (sharing of targeting information) within 180 meters.

[Abrahms]

DrAwkward, on 04 December 2012 - 03:18 PM, said:

What? The heat thing? You don't look at weapons in microcosm. Those heat sinks can be paired with other weapons. So you can:

1) Fit a single PPC for sniping, but have other weapons for close-in, like MLs and SLs.
2) Pair the PPCs with high-speed so that you can keep manuever in and out of combat.
3) Put them on a tank build, like the AS7-K that can mount heat-heavy and heat-neutral weapons simultaneously for maximum supporting fire.

If you can't wrap your head around that, then you might be happier just thinking of PPCs as support fire weapons. Direct-fire artillery that has high-heat, but no ammo costs and just got stronger thanks to ECM.



Inflammatory opinion at best, short-sighted incompetence at worst. You'll have to try harder than just some pidgin-english amalgamation of leet-speek if you want to get your point across. You could have made a valid argument, but instead let your neckbeard-rage get the best of you.



This is what I was talking about before with the idea about multiple solutions:
You think that every weapon sucks but Gauss Rifles. PGI then nerfs Gauss Rifles to be in line with the other weapons. You cry "Noooooo!" because you think the other weapons should have been buffed to match the Gauss Rifles. Both could be viable, but you are coming off looking like you're only mad they didn't use your changes.



So, if your Atlas can't brawl with it, then maybe K2's that dropped arm-armor and ran an XL won't be able to run into the fray with it's teammates like they could yesterday?

Maybe they will have problems dealing with those Jenners and Commandos that successfully flanked it?

Maybe all close-in weapons just got a buff now that ECM is encouraging people to brawl instead of hurl LRMs?

Trying to call language demeaning while simultaneously demeaning the poster. Classy.

Yes, I can wrap my head around the fact the heatsinks can also be used for back-up weapons, other wpn groups, etc.

What you fail to wrap your head around was that the PPC and Gauss used to be a 1:1 ratio. The PPC now is half that. The only reason to take a PPC is because your mech lacks ballistic slots to take a gauss instead. No assault mechs have enough ballistic slots to make a PPC worthwhile to take up engine heatsinks (maybe we will some day). The 70 to mech with multiple ballistics caps out at 2 gauss with the rest ammo (Catapult does similar job with better torso guns and endosteel arms). Awesome cant do it, and the Atlas cant mount more than 1 gauss.

My changes? Oh, what, that I can note that simply making the Gauss break on contact and kill you did little to change the game? Its simply keeping it out of the hands of bad players, at best. It doesnt change how I play other than that my Atas wont use it. My Kat will still brawl with it because I can move 64k kph with 80+ shots and my side torsos are hard to hit. The Atlas is a deathtrap and the side torsos are super easy targets. I always aim right for the right-torso on any atlas.

You can insult me as much as you want but Im still right. I will still snipe and brawl with Gauss Kats. Bad players will be hushed away from the Gauss, and little changes. PPCs still hotter than the sun's surface, Gauss still escaping the broken heat system (which gets people to wrongfully call it overpowered). If they nerfed the gauss then small lasers and missiles would just remain dominant. The problem is that the heat keeps ppcs, AC20, and large laser weak. The rest of the weapons are mostly OK for the most part (still, that makes roughly 1/3 of them useless).

[Abrahms]

Garth Erlam, on 04 December 2012 - 03:37 PM, said:

/snub

Damn, he got me!

(In all seriousness, PPC/ER PPC issues aside, I think the weapon balance is pretty decent. In that I get PM's complaining about SL, ML, LL, LRM, SRM, SSRM, UAC-5, etc, all being OP, all day long )



(From patch notes) Disrupts enemies sensors (targeting system), as well as targeting communication (sharing of targeting information) within 180 meters.

!!!!

A response! With some added humor - all nerd raging aside, I think everyone wants this to be a great success. Seeing nothing but LRM/SRM/Gauss/AC5/small laser for months sucks content out of an already arid game.

Make both the net code and sufficient utility of all weapons a priority. WithOUT weapon cost, c-bills, etc, being the balancing factor.