46 replies to this topic

[Kyle Polulak]

All Loadout/Mech Game Balance related posts will be merged into this thread for simplified reference and overview.

Please attempt to respond to the following questions in your responses:

• The weapon, upgrade, 'Mech, or variant affected.
  
• The specific stats of that loadout or 'Mech affected.
  
• A suggested change (increase/decrease) to the stats to improve balance.

[Flapdrol]

just a wild guess here, but since there was nothing in the patch notes:

streaks are too good and ecm decides who gets to use them.

[Nikoliy]

Lights are op without knockdowns...
Any mech with speed over 100kph is too easy to pilot without knockdowns
reintroducing knockdowns will resolve this imbalance

Edited by Nikoliy, 08 January 2013 - 01:35 PM.

[ArmageddonKnight]

Restrict Light mechs to 2 a team.

1 for scout frontline 1 to stay back with pack ..

or

2 frontline scouts

What ever they decide to do, its much better than having 4 lights mech cluster ***** the hell out of everyone.

Ether that or restrict maximum speed to somthing like 100kph. Thats still plenty fast enough.
And/or
Restrict light mechs to using Light weapons. (And do the same for other weight classes)

or go so far as to put more specific limitations on each mech.

i.e

Raven: Can equip up to 1 medium class weapon + 2 light weapons, or 5 Light weapons.

Light weapons being classed as Small lasers, SSRM 2's, SRM 2's, AC2's.

Then have each class of weapon do different damage depending on what its hitting. So a light weapon hitting an Assualt class mech would do say 30% of its normal dmg. but against another light it would do 100% dmg. A Assualt class weapon would do 180% dmg vs a Light mech..


and so on.

Makes sense IMO. You look at a Mech like the Catapult with 2 huge Gun mounts on the shoudlers for say .. PPC's ..or Large Lasers etc, or a Cataphract with 2 arms with HUGE guns for AC5's/AC10's and gauss rifles. Then see a light mech wielding one of the same weapons in a mount so small u can barely see it.. WHAT !?

I got nothing against light mechs.. i think they r great ..but they are so totaly broken right now, and can carry silly weapons.. its like having a speed boat in real life mounting a 16"/50 caliber Mark 7 gun like u find on the battleship Missouri.

[MavRCK]

Fix the netcode. People with poor lag and poor connections should not benefit from it.

Edited by MavRCK, 08 January 2013 - 03:14 PM.

[CmndoBrndo]

I think the Jenner JR7-D should receive ECM as originally planned. If the Raven can equip ECM and streaks, so should the Jenner. The Jenner has been utterly neutered.

[Flapdrol]

but giving the jenner D streaks would just serve to make that mech top dog agian.

nerf streaks
make ecm not block locks but only slow them down
make friendlies under enemy ecm still show on radar/hud

that'll be enough to make the other lights viable agian.

[Serapth]

Bah, you want to talk balance...

Premades are OP. Either put one on each side, or make a pug only queue.


But yea, ECM needs a nerf. Streaks need a nerf ( just make them not all hit CT ). Netcode, hitboxes, blah blah.

[Arsinist]

The major problem with this game as I see it is the fact that I have seen time and time again a Jenner with 4 to 6 med lasers do circles around an assault mech until it ultimately kills the assault this is definatly not how it should be ,it seems ridiculous that a 30 ton mech can kill a 100 ton mech almost effortlessly . Light mechs dont fear assault mechs they run straight to them . Whats the point of assaults if they have to fear scout mechs this is the single most annoying part of the game. If you can't fix the code then bring back the knockdown so you can kill small mechs again

[Frostblade]

i was hoping for an ecm balance fix and I hope devs aren't going to move on and forget that many players are still unhappy with ecm stealth and expect the fix is to take an ecm on your side or hope someone does.

Make ECM/BAP similar to MW:4. just works on the mech equipped with it and doesn't cause a huge dome of stealth to hide 2 lances of mechs. BAP can counter ECM instead of ecm vs ecm making ecm a necessity.
And take out the jamming of ecm. its very annoying to not be able to see your teammates on radar making everything LOS.

imo ECM does just way to much for 1 module. I suppose LRM's use to be a noobfest of "lrm's online" but overpowering ecm to counter lrm-fest is wrong and they should try to fix crazy lrm 90 degree turns and hits instead. lrm balance may need a re-tune. At least tone down the power of ecm if you can't rework it.

[Aidan Pendragon]

I had written up some thoughts and was looking for an appropriate spot to post them; this looks as good as any...

An Open Letter to Piranha Games

Dear Piranha Games folks,

I'm very impressed with Mechwarrior Online, both as a longtime Battletech fan and as a player of the past PC games. Extra kudos to you for making it effectively free to play. However, a couple issues have the game balance out of whack--compared to others of the genre--and are barriers to me, and I suspect others, wanting to invest real money in it. Because you're still in beta phase, I offer these suggestions in the hopes of making a good thing better.

#1. What happened to my sensors?: This is the first 'Mech-type game I've played--and I've played a lot--where you can't get any reliable radar or minimap fix on your opponents, even at the shortest ranges. Once you do, this flimsy contact is lost once they step behind a rock or building. This reduces a lot of matches to what I saw one teammate refer to as "Giant Stealth Ninja Robots" instead of tactical 'Mech action; namely, who can sneak up behind opponents and back-shoot them while their radar shows nothing? That's fine for a FPS, but silly for this setting; 'Mechs have radar, cameras, and seismic sensors and should be able to detect anything up close and many things that aren't.

Solutions: Make it easier to show and track enemies, at least up close. If a 'Mech steps directly behind you--or anywhere within say a 200m radius--it should show up right away. Make this a feature of the Beagle Probe, if nothing else.

#2. ECM and the ghost 'Mechs: I was recently rereading a classic Battletech novel where a character developed the mystical ability to avoid any computer weapon locks on him. This was confined to a handful of people and apparently written out of the canon later, but in MWO it's alive, well, and widespread thanks to ECM. I can be staring at an enemy but unable to get any kind of lock or even bracket/target data; meanwhile he's under no such compunction and usually blasting me (often with LRMs, see #3).

Solution: Classic Battletech rules had ECM jamming Beagle probes, Artemis, and Narc Beacons, and nothing else. It should do the same here, not prevent any kind of lock. I could live with it also slowing but not stopping missile locks. If anything, ECM should be a rough beacon for sensors, because it's basically a high-powered radio emitter.

#3. LRMs or ICBMs?: I regularly find myself being shredded alive while under a missile lock by people unseen halfway across the map (who half the time have ECM so I can't return fire; see #2). The main problem is that missile damage is too high: damage charts say an LRM-20 does about 3 times the damage of a PPC. It should be more like 2 times as per the balance worked out in classic rules. A second problem is that LRMs home far more than they should, making evasion difficult. These are supposed to be dumb-fire weapons. A third problem is that the blast/shake effects on the cockpit are too severe: one LRM-20 flight, let alone two, will severely throw off your aim and darken your vision, making it that much harder to defend yourself.

Solutions: LRM damage needs to be lowered proportionally to match other weapons at a similar ratio as in classic Battletech. Non-Artemis or Narc LRMs need to have much less homing ability; their speed to target should be increased to compensate, and they should fly to where the target is expected to be when they arrive (and have a higher chance of missing if it isn't). And blast/shake effects need to be toned down.

#4. Light 'Mechs are not fragile enough: I imagine the near-doubling of armor ratings compared to classic rules was to make games longer and more enjoyable. With light 'Mechs, though, it's taking things too far because of their speed. A Raven now has about half the armor of an Awesome or Stalker but can literally run rings around it and kill it fairly easily with back shots. By contrast, I can paint it repeatedly with multiple large lasers--when I can hit it--and not kill it. One light 'Mech, let alone two or three, are a match for any assault, which flies in the face of Battletech's rules and spirit.

Solution: Armor values for light 'Mechs need to be reduced, even halved. One or two PPC/large laser blasts needs to start doing internal damage. Lights should be for recon, not Atlas-killers, and live or die by their speed alone. They need to fear assaults, not the other way around.

Thanks for the consideration, and for making a fun game.

Edited by Aidan Pendragon, 09 January 2013 - 07:31 PM.

[Sandslice]

ArmageddonKnight, on 08 January 2013 - 02:52 PM, said:

Restrict Light mechs to 2 a team.
1 for scout frontline 1 to stay back with pack ..
or
2 frontline scouts
What ever they decide to do, its much better than having 4 lights mech cluster ***** the hell out of everyone.

Would break team-building.

Quote

Ether that or restrict maximum speed to somthing like 100kph. Thats still plenty fast enough.
And/or
Restrict light mechs to using Light weapons. (And do the same for other weight classes)

Speed restriction would break (by over-engining) the Spider, Jenner, and Cicada. Weapon restriction, based on your definition of "light 'Mechs," would break every single stock Light config, while offering NO solution to ECM/SSRM. Therefore your idea is at once unworkable and a pod of juffo-wup.

Quote

Raven: Can equip up to 1 medium class weapon + 2 light weapons, or 5 Light weapons.

Light weapons being classed as Small lasers, SSRM 2's, SRM 2's, AC2's.

Breaks stock configs. Will not implement.

Quote

Then have each class of weapon do different damage depending on what its hitting. So a light weapon hitting an Assualt class mech would do say 30% of its normal dmg. but against another light it would do 100% dmg. A Assualt class weapon would do 180% dmg vs a Light mech..

Will not happen.

Quote

and so on.

Makes sense IMO. You look at a Mech like the Catapult with 2 huge Gun mounts on the shoudlers for say .. PPC's ..or Large Lasers etc, or a Cataphract with 2 arms with HUGE guns for AC5's/AC10's and gauss rifles. Then see a light mech wielding one of the same weapons in a mount so small u can barely see it.. WHAT !?

Yes, the CPLT-K2 has large-looking PPCs; but the Awesome's torso PPCs look like wrong-facing jump jets, and the Stalker's blistering array of lasers is nestled in the torso and don't really break the 'Mech's profile that much.

Art doesn't necessarily have to match performance.

Quote

I got nothing against light mechs.. i think they r great ..but they are so totaly broken right now, and can carry silly weapons.. its like having a speed boat in real life mounting a 16"/50 caliber Mark 7 gun like u find on the battleship Missouri.

By "lights," you mean the AC/20 Raven (I'm not sure if a Gauss Raven is feasible.) They're not the problem - they're kinda like the Hollander or Blitzkrieg, more self-propelled gun than BattleMech. The problem of lights is that the Commando and Raven (base engine ratio of 6) can mount ECM and Streaks, and also boost their engine ratios to the same rough 150kph cap as the ECM-less Jenner.

Only the Cicada and Spider should have the highest speed cap, followed by the Jenner, and only behind these the ECM carriers. That's what I would change for lights, anyway.

[Sandslice]

I'm having a loadout issue, which is apparently recurring.

Chassis: AWS-8R
Loadout:
Std. 240 engine
Standard armour (unchanged from stock)
Standard chassis
Double heat sink upgrade. 7 external DHS mounted (RA, 2 RT, 2 LT, 2 LA)
2 ER PPC (RA)
4 SRM-6 (2 RT, 2 LT)
Ammo (SRM) 2 CT, 2 RL, 1 LL
CASE (RT)
TAG (HD)

I am unable to launch this 'Mech due to "not enough heat sinks." As far as I can tell, I have 16 DHS.

[Khell DarkWolf]

I wish to propose feedback and change suggestions to some of our current weaponry and equipment.



Small Pulse laser:

• Recycle cooldown time reduced to: 2 seconds from 2.25

Medium Pulse Laser:

• Recycle cooldown time reduced to: 2.75 seconds from 3
  
• Beam Duration reduced to: 0.50 seconds from 0.75 seconds
  
• Damage reduced to: 5 from 6

Large Pulse Laser:

• Recycle cooldown time reduced to: 3 seconds from 3.25
  
• Beam Duration reduced to: 0.50 seconds from 0.75 seconds
  
• Heat generation reduced to: 8 from 9
  
• Damage reduced to: 9 from 10

These changes open the dynamics of segregating Damage per second tradeoff for range vs heat, ton vs fire rate. There currently isn't too much usage in trading a standard laser to switching to pulse.



While we have standard lasers, Pulse lasers in this manner will (could) cycle faster but the tradeoff being:

• Weighing more trades off for the lower beam duration
  
• Shorter beam duration and higher fire rate in real time sim still = immediate and hotter heat usage in the long run
  
• Bridges the Damage per second bridge in laser weaponry

Flamer:

• Generates double/triple the heat to the intended target of the user's "Flamer" heat consumption
  
• Applies damage splash (if it did not already do so)
  
• Applies a fire graphic after effect, roughly on location of the mech that it was hit (only after constantly using the flamer for an x amount of seconds onto the mech target)
  
• While the enemy mech is visually on fire, it reduces the heat dissapation of the mech for a few seconds then dies out (Effect does not stack)
  
• Might want to look into upping damage from 0.4 to 0.5 or 0.6

Flamer in this fashion is now a real viable utility weapon in terms for what it can do.









Guardian ECM Suite:

• Removal of complete mini-map signal jam so friendies can still see each other on their minimaps. This causes too much chaos in trying to figure out where your buddies went under an ecm bubble.
  
• Mechs under ECM jam can see their teammates within their 180 meter radius on minimap, but cannot see outside that until they have left the jamming zone
  
• Friendies outside 180 meters of the ECM jamming zone can see their teammates that are inside a jamming radius, but only if they themselves are within 180 meters of their teammate that is being jammed
  
• Visuals: you can make your minimap flicker when ECM jammed, but as stated above. Allow you and your team to see each other on the minimap with the restricted variables I have suggested.

Angel ECM Suite:

• When introduced (can look into later), could operate like todays current in-game ECM suite mechanics with tweaks

To find a happy medium, I enjoy the ECM suite. It comes with its own advantages and disadvantages but some of things to look here:

• Being in a real time sim, every player solely depends on their mini-map for coordination and information. Never mind the fact you need to visually aim and spot, because that is the purpose of having to use/counter ECM
  
• Limiting the way we have usage of our mini-map is one thing, but completely throwing our friendly mech pilot locations out the door is another. This change should bring a nice medium to both ends of the spectrum as it will be less chaotic to teams in a cluster mess up.

Machine Guns:

• Damage increased to 0.5 from 0.04
  
• Invisible Crit modifier roll changed to 50% 1x crit, 0% 2x crit, 0% 3x crit

Machine guns need some love, badly. I feel something like these changes may be a start in the right direction to trying to balance a weapon that is considering the junky of junk of the junk pile.




TAG:

• Add a toggle on/off feature for the TAG and/or add a 7th weapon group for only toggle utility weapons

Streak SRM 2:

• Equip tonnage increased to: 2 from 1.5

All Streak SRM and standard SRM:

• SRM per rocket damage reduced to: 2 from 2.5
  
• All SRM variants Heat Generation increased by: +1 heat each

Reason behind my suggestion for Streak SRM changes are for the fact that:

• SSRM's deal too much for how little they tradeoff in ton for ton vs. current laser weaponry in light and medium class mechs
  
• SSRM's are too cheap effective for heat mechanically opposed to current lasers to compete for light mech vs light mech match ups having to expand great amounts of tons in heatsinks to try to balance against SSRM light mechs
  
• The sad truth is lasers are supplemental weaponry to ballistics and missiles. Lasers do not make good primary weapons for mechs with having to sacrifice so much in heat sinks, heat management, even before tallying up the combined total in tonnage to match just Two SSRM's on an opposing light mech. Streaks with the current advantages being used by light mechs (and usually the ECM variants) push and bully out other light and medium mechs that depend so much on only being able to use laser weapon loadouts with no ballistic or missile hard points

[shotokan5]

It was my understanding that the next patch heat on lasers would be reduced and a bump given to their damage to counter the ssrm and srm . laser mechs are right now too hot to run effectively for the most part. ecm and lrm is a tough combo. Counter gauss rifle but having taken away damage made it ineffective against such targets to bad is great counter at long range. even after 4 on target shots using gauss, lrm's and mech unaffected your mech destroyed.

[xxx WreckinBallRaj xxx]

They made a new thread for balance feedback when they did absolutely nothing to address any of the balance issues they've already heard about all last month. Should we just copy and paste everything we said last month, straight into here, then? ECM still OP as hell. BAP/NARC still worthless. After 5 weeks of waiting, nothing has been done to help. I'll hold back my surprise. At this point the balance in the game has probably been wretched for longer than the time they even spent designing the ECM in the first place, which would be sad if true.

[Khell DarkWolf]

Quote

Please attempt to respond to the following questions in your responses:

• The weapon, upgrade, 'Mech, or variant affected.
  
• The specific stats of that loadout or 'Mech affected.
  
• A suggested change (increase/decrease) to the stats to improve balance.

Endo Steel and Ferro Fibrous:

• There needs to be a way to customize the slots of which you place the dynamic structure/armor slots.
  
• Currently there is a bug that even if you have tonnage space and crit space to place something (I.E. you have 6 crit slots and could in theory place something in an arm). The dynamic slots purposely squeeze into slot areas of which they won't let you equip anything of when you COULD equip (arms, torso) and then purposely leave open smaller crit space hardpoints empty such as the head with 1 slot and center torso and legs with 2 slots where you would not be able to equip anything in the first palce.
  
• Because of this, the dynamic slots limit your ability to SQUEEZE as much crit and ton space as you can since it's placing them on their own.

This needs to be fixed, if the arguement is that every hardpoint has to have a structure slot then it is mute because you can torsos filled with weapons and ammo while other areas will have structure slots and then some others do not.

[SpaceODC]

Why not using 2 slots for medium laser and 3 for large ? Maybe the lights will use the small laser, now they can have assault mech power, have less armor but are extremely fast

[Kmieciu]

SpaceODC, on 09 January 2013 - 11:42 PM, said:

Why not using 2 slots for medium laser and 3 for large ?

Because that would invalidate stock mechs?

[Regina Redshift]

Khell DarkWolf, on 09 January 2013 - 05:13 AM, said:

• SRM per rocket damage reduced to: 2 from 2.5
  
• All SRM variants Heat Generation increased by: +1 heat each

I don't see why a nerf to SSRMs should effect normal SRMs. At the very least, SSRMs should have the same absurd flight path as the normal SRMs. If they are still going to fly arrow-straight, then we need to make streaks do less damage, like 1.5 that of LRMs as opposed to twice that of LRMs.


It's also absurd that my MLAS cycles as slowly as my Gauss Rifle. 1 sec beam + 3 sec cooldown = 4 second cooldown. At least from where I'm standing.

At 6 tons and 1 heat, AC2s are still a joke. I'd rather they did 0.5 heat or something. Right now the SSRM far out damages it.