116 replies to this topic

[AJ Frost]

Now if I remember correctly, the old Solaris rules allready reduced the round time to three seconds, and introduced recharge cycles which basically meant: Yeah, fire your weapon more often than in the 10 second Battletech round but they produce triple the heat.
They just took those adjustments. or would you rather be able to fire your weapon once every ten seconds like in normal battletech?

Edited by AJ Frost, 04 December 2012 - 03:47 PM.

[Abrahms]

Note: Around June in closed BETA I put in thousands of matches. Now I play maybe 3 a week to test a patch note. You start to also see a lot of the same names in game, with 99% of BETA friends list never online.

I dont want this result to be mainstream. I would like to be interested again.

[Red squirrel]

Ok the Gauss might explode but then the Gauss ammo is explosion save...

I can agree with OP to the extand that PGI seems to just not work on balance at all.
Look at PPC, Flamers and Machine guns for example. There has been no change at all over the last ~10patches.
I mean we are in beta when else would be a good idea to test stuff.
If you compare weapon balance to the tests they did on the economy. (One week you get millions, that next week you loose money even when winning a game..etc) you can come to the point that money is interesting to PGI while weapon balance is not.

I do not want to say what the right/best changes would be. But there should have been something just something.

[FallenFactol]

You should relax OP. I think things keep getting better. Go play table top or MegaMek and see why gauss's can be dangerous to yourself.

[Diablobo]

Count me in the triple heat Battletech is no fun camp.

[SamizdatCowboy]

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

(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 )

Garth there's a quote about the BBC (sadly couldn't find it at the moment) that basically they know they're being impartial when both sides of an issue complain they're biased towards the other side.

Same idea with weapon balance I think... if you're getting a relatively equal number of OP complaints about all the weapons I think that's actually a pretty good indicator of weapon balance

Edited by SamizdatCowboy, 04 December 2012 - 04:25 PM.

[Thuzel]

StrataDragoon, on 04 December 2012 - 02:51 PM, said:

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

Not speaking for him, but why shouldn't it be? If he feels the issue is important, then he is in the right to speak his mind.

Or do you mean that everyone that disagrees with the powers that be should just remain silent?

[Abrahms]

Thuzel, on 04 December 2012 - 04:29 PM, said:

Not speaking for him, but why shouldn't it be? If he feels the issue is important, then he is in the right to speak his mind.

Or do you mean that everyone that disagrees with the powers that be should just remain silent?

typically those that cant come up with decent arguments resort to bashing - its pretty clear to see with objective math why the heat system needs serious help, but it doesnt get it. Instead were stuck with OVENsomes and LAVApults for default loadouts.

[aspect]

I was going to read the OP and try to contribute to this thread but I started tuning out when the "because tabletop" argument came into play.

Also, my K2 has 2 PPC's and 2 Gauss Rifles. Mind blown? I think so.

[Abrahms]

aspect, on 04 December 2012 - 09:37 PM, said:

I was going to read the OP and try to contribute to this thread but I started tuning out when the "because tabletop" argument came into play.

Also, my K2 has 2 PPC's and 2 Gauss Rifles. Mind blown? I think so.

means either A)you have no ammo or B ) when you fire the PPCs they never cool off.

[Star Colonel Mustard Kerensky]

Abrahms, on 04 December 2012 - 09:39 PM, said:

means either A)you have no ammo or B ) when you fire the PPCs they never cool off.

That and he probably only has something silly like..... 1 ton of ammo.

[MustrumRidcully]

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.

There are so many different threads on this topic. Some for tweaks, some for a complete overhaul. I posted my rebalance with tweaks and no further heat sink adjustments in the last patch's weapon and mech balance thread for example. Maybe I should make it into its own thread.

[CryonicSuspension]

aspect, on 04 December 2012 - 09:37 PM, said:

I was going to read the OP and try to contribute to this thread but I started tuning out when the "because tabletop" argument came into play.

Also, my K2 has 2 PPC's and 2 Gauss Rifles. Mind blown? I think so.

1 armour point in each leg. Yeah... totally mind blown LOL

[MustrumRidcully]

AJ Frost, on 04 December 2012 - 03:43 PM, said:

Now if I remember correctly, the old Solaris rules allready reduced the round time to three seconds, and introduced recharge cycles which basically meant: Yeah, fire your weapon more often than in the 10 second Battletech round but they produce triple the heat.
They just took those adjustments. or would you rather be able to fire your weapon once every ten seconds like in normal battletech?

Solaris did create 2.5 turns, and had heat sinks dissipate 1 heat each turn, and they had a heat scale that reached quadruple the height of the table top heat scale.

It did make mistakes, however. For example, the PPC can only fire every 4 turns effectively for 10 damage and 40 heat (all heat values were quadrupled), while the Medium Laser can fire every 2 turns for 5 damage and 12 heat. That meant that a medium laser was even better than in the table top, where it could only deal 5, not 10 damage, per 10 seconds.

The most sensible could possibly have been to also quadruple all armour values, and have the Medium Laser deal 10 damage every 2 turns and the PPC 40 damage every 4 turns.


But at least they didn't make the mistake of increasing weapon firing rates without also increasing the heat dissipation rate.

[Thorn Hallis]

People should say goodbye to the idea that every patch during beta is balanced.

[PurpleNinja]

Did Gauss changed?

[N0MAD]

There is one thing you do not add to any of those math stats you keeps quoting OP. The map, in ALL MW games we have had maps with different climates, you know what they say Horses for Courses. So they lower heat on certain weapons and what happens on a cold planet? i will let you think about that. We are in a beta with 4 maps maybe others arent wearing Blinkers and looking at the overall picture are you? In MW2,3 and 4 we had to look at outfits for our mechs when fighting in particular climates and armed up acordingly. Acording to your own statement you have been riding this horse for a long time (horse theme here) and looked at in in a broader sense. In ALL MW games quite often the diference between a great pilot and a good pilot was heat management..

[Dwigo]

I still fail to see the logic behind tripling rate of fire, doubling the armor and then leaving everything else as it was. If everything was working fine with normal rates why wouldnt they just triple everything if they wanted to make it faster, not just rate of fire?

[Taiji]

You need a TTK that is acceptable.

You need a fire rate that is acceptable.

You need heat management on the field for most stuff - not just in the mechlab.

Did I miss anything?

Edited by Taiji, 05 December 2012 - 03:22 AM.

[WardenWolf]

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

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

Garth, can you elaborate on exactly how you understand this to work? Because it feels very different from what you describe here and what you said when we were chatting in-game the day before the patch.

What it sounds like you are saying above is that if an ECM equipped mech is with 180m of your mech then it goofs up your targeting, but what I read in the notes and experience in-game is that if the enemy mech is withing 180m of their own (friendly) ECM-equipped mech then I cannot target them unless I am within 200m (1/4 of the normal 'radar' range).

The problem I have with this is that if the enemy team is smart and sticks together you cannot effectively get target info (loadouts, damage readings, etc) on them outside of close-range brawl distances. That means long-range snipers have to go entirely by visual cues, which aren't always accurate (due to lag, etc). Even mid-range combat at large and medium laser distances is greatly disrupted. It feels like all of this is forcing the game to be a close-range slug-fest, which isn't the style of play that many of us like.

Can you comment on this?