89 replies to this topic

[Bagheera]

Kaldor, on 15 January 2013 - 12:28 PM, said:

Did you really have a problem with knockdowns? I know I didnt and Im betting most of the community back at that time did not either. It was a valid tactic. It forced people to play with some skill or develop skill. It was a bad decision. People make bad decisions all the time. All we can hope for is the return of the knockdown.

I was one of the very vocal people during the epic closed beta KD debates. I agree with you completely. I never had a problem with KD as a mechanic, and once the Dragon's "collision rating at 100 tons" error was resolved, knockdown was (technical glitches aside) very close to what it should have been in the first place.

I'm patient enough to wait for the fixes to be in, but I want charging damage and knockdown back in the game. Please.

[Kunae]

Tabrias07, on 15 January 2013 - 12:54 PM, said:

They were broken and very much not working as intended before. It made no difference how many you carried, you got the same lift.

And that part was expected, as I've said twice before in this thread, including in the post you quoted. It's a nerf, but an expected and accepted one because their initial implementation was a place-holder.

[Dirus Nigh]

Tabrias07, on 15 January 2013 - 12:21 PM, said:

Obviously TAG was such a good spotting tool with a range of 350.

450m actually. And yes the original range of 450m was solid. The only reason why it was increased was because of ECM. Because ECM has a non-detection field unless you are close to the ECM bubble. All that ECM mech had to do was rush towards a tagging spotter to nullify it. Again ECM has an ability it should not have. Which is the reason TAGs range was increased.

Quote

The entire point of ECM being limited to certain chassis is role warfare. ECM should not be on every mech, neither should BAP or TAG. If you want ECM you have to commit to taking the chassis that can carry it. The Jenner does not need ECM.

To clarify my stance in this discussion I am not saying that the jenner needs ECM. My argument is that no mech should need to have ECM. It should be equipment used by a player because they want their mech to suite a specific role. The fact that people are saying they need ECM is a big indicator that its effect is over whelming in the game.

Edited by Dirus Nigh, 15 January 2013 - 01:01 PM.

[Sandslice]

Bagheera, on 15 January 2013 - 12:21 PM, said:

Point of fact:

The following mechs are all limited by netcode to the same top speed regardless of their theoretical max engine rating:

Commando
Jenner
Raven*
Cicada*
Spider
CN9-D
Upcoming TBT-<variant with stock 300xl>


... and anything else that could theoretically go faster than 149 or whatever the netcode speed wall works out to be.

* - I think these have variants where their top speed is limited by engine size before netcode speed wall kicks in.

The regular 1.4 rule catches the Commando and Raven before they can hit the 8.5 netcode cap; only the Jenner, Cicada, and Spider are being held back by it. Basically, anything with a stock engine ratio of at least 7 (or a stock speed of over 110, if you want to think of it that way.)

[Oy of MidWorld]

Kunae, on 15 January 2013 - 11:21 AM, said:

Why do you hate people who like Jenners?

I don't hate people who like Jenners. I just hate Jenners.

[Bagheera]

Tabrias07, on 15 January 2013 - 12:54 PM, said:

They were broken and very much not working as intended before. It made no difference how many you carried, you got the same lift.

Kunae, on 15 January 2013 - 12:56 PM, said:

And that part was expected, as I've said twice before in this thread, including in the post you quoted. It's a nerf, but an expected and accepted one because their initial implementation was a place-holder.

The issue with the JJ debate here is that there were 2 levels of changes to JJs that happened concurrently.

We all know that JJs were previously broken in that you only needed 1 of them for max jump capacity. That change was a fix, was expected, and no one really considers it a nerf. When people are talking about the JJ "nerf" they are referring to the second set of changes that happened, again, at the same time as the expected fix.

The nature of that change was such that placing the maximum number of possible JJs on a given mech currently gives degraded jump performance over mounting a single JJ in the previous iteration. Also (and I cannot confirm this on all chassis), mechs such as the CTF-3D come stock with their maximum jump jets installed. This means that one can only reduce the jumping ability of certain chassis, not increase it. Today's notes on the Spider (one of them comes with 8, has a max of 12) tells me that this is not the case for all mechs. The bottom line is that mechs with their maximum number of potential JJs perform more poorly with respect to jumping than they did when they only needed to install a single JJ. That's a nerf.


TLDR:

JJ performance was tuned along with the "number of them that you need to install" fix. It is the performance tuning that is considered a nerf. Not the change to the number one needed to install. That was an expected fix.

Sandslice, on 15 January 2013 - 01:03 PM, said:

The regular 1.4 rule catches the Commando and Raven before they can hit the 8.5 netcode cap; only the Jenner, Cicada, and Spider are being held back by it. Basically, anything with a stock engine ratio of at least 7 (or a stock speed of over 110, if you want to think of it that way.)

Thanks guy! I knew I was slightly off on that, but there was enough "X is faster than Y" that was in error that I wanted to speak up. I'll go back and edit in your corrections.

Edited by Bagheera, 15 January 2013 - 01:13 PM.

[Tabrias07]

Bagheera, on 15 January 2013 - 01:11 PM, said:

JJ performance was tuned along with the "number of them that you need to install" fix. It is the performance tuning that is considered a nerf. Not the change to the number one needed to install. That was an expected fix.

I did not realize they did this. That's stupid.

[Havyek]

Kunae, on 15 January 2013 - 12:53 PM, said:

^ And that's semantics.

I don't like Kunae. He's obviously anti-semantic (see what I did there?)

[Bagheera]

Tabrias07, on 15 January 2013 - 01:21 PM, said:

I did not realize they did this. That's stupid.

In my, admittedly limited personal testing, this does seem to be the case. Others who have used more JJ mechs than I have complained of similar results.

I had the same reaction, initially, that you did to the discussion. When I tried some JJ mechs after the changes I found the difference to be notable.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

The K is by far the worst Jenner. It is exactly like an inferior D (lose a missile HP, gain FF and a module slot, totally not worth it). The only reason ever to drive one is so you can get elite/master with the other two Jenners.

Giving the K ecm would fix that problem. Suddenly, it'd have an actual place in the Jenner line-up. The D and F would retain their superior weaponry, but the K would finally have an actual purpose.

I am all for giving the K ecm. I'd even go a step further, however, and give one variant of every mech ecm capability. It would encourage diversity amongst the roster, and would actually boost the play of the other variants too (since you'd need to play them to unlock elite/master).

[Kunae]

Tabrias07, on 15 January 2013 - 01:21 PM, said:

I did not realize they did this. That's stupid.

Yep. It was a very, very disappointing day.

Even with all of the other passive-nerfs that the Jenner had endured to that point, it was still fun to run around in, occasionally...

After that? Barely worth the effort, as you may as well just play a Cicada, for all the good the JJ's did for you. (And I really do not like the Cicada.)

[Screech]

So just to be clear here, there is no valid reason for the Jenner getting skipped over for an ECM variant.

[Kunae]

Screech, on 15 January 2013 - 02:20 PM, said:

So just to be clear here, there is no valid reason for the Jenner getting skipped over for an ECM variant.

That pretty well sums up my point.

[Wispsy]

I am all in favour of this idea but please not the K :/ they were going to put it on the D anyway right? Now JJ have been made so horrible the D would be fine with it :/
Personally I prefer my F but I would still rather run a Jenner then a raven

[Dirus Nigh]

Screech, on 15 January 2013 - 02:20 PM, said:

So just to be clear here, there is no valid reason for the Jenner getting skipped over for an ECM variant.

Well yes and no. The devs took the advice of the community that the jenner D with ECM would be dominating. The known speed of the jenner, with streaks and adding in the known (at the time) abilities of ECM made it a valid concern. In my mind the raven 3L proves the point. The ravens speed is slightly less than the jenner and it has one less laser. With 3 medium lasers, 2 streaks and ECM the raven is a terror in any match. The jenner would only be marginally better. The bases of the concern was (is) not the jenner it's self but how the streaks and ECM work as they do now.

The difficulty of fighting light mechs in general is due to lag problems. That is a known issue and is being worked on. As with the swayback and heatsinks it will be fixed. However the combination of ECM as it is now, and streaks as they are now, are a large portion of the problem.

Edited by Dirus Nigh, 15 January 2013 - 03:44 PM.

[Goose]

We where carping about ECM plus jump jets, at the time.

The new Spider should be proofing the issue, as we speak …

[Novawrecker]

Kunae, on 15 January 2013 - 11:21 AM, said:

Where is the ability to put ECM on a Jenner?

Why would anyone ever play a Jenner now, if you don't?

Why do you hate people who like Jenners?

*playing a violin in the background*

Garcon, monsieur would like more frommage avec his whine ...


IF it gets one, they'll assign it as soo. In the mean time, there are plenty of bad *** Jenner pilots that do not carry one, nor do they need it to keep doing the awsome job they are continuously doing.

Learn from them ....

[Clay Pigeon]

Dirus Nigh, on 15 January 2013 - 12:58 PM, said:

450m actually. And yes the original range of 450m was solid. The only reason why it was increased was because of ECM. Because ECM has a non-detection field unless you are close to the ECM bubble. All that ECM mech had to do was rush towards a tagging spotter to nullify it. Again ECM has an ability it should not have. Which is the reason TAGs range was increased.



To clarify my stance in this discussion I am not saying that the jenner needs ECM. My argument is that no mech should need to have ECM. It should be equipment used by a player because they want their mech to suite a specific role. The fact that people are saying they need ECM is a big indicator that its effect is over whelming in the game.

If we had canon guardian ECM it wouldn't be as big of an issue. What we have now is closer to angel ECM, but more powerful (and lighter).

[Falso]

Why not just run your Jenner tandem with another ECM light or two?

Lots of people are and having good results.

I think the main reason that Jenners didn't get ECM is because then nearly everyone would have continued just running Jenners, and I like a variety of light mech heads for my trophy room, gets boring when they are all the same.

Giving ECM to the Raven with the current net code & ECM as is in the game has made it the new "Jenner", but that by all means doesn't mean it's unable to stand against a raven, just can't go "easy mode" with streaks like the Raven.

I really think we lost a lot of players to the 4-man only MM phase, so that probably killed off more Jenners (and every other pilot type) than anything.

Don't worry, the Raven will loose it's crown once the new net code and knock down is reintroduced.

[Nankam]

Jenners are far from useless at the moment. The Jenner F, with its 6 laser hardpoints, is a great light/Raven 3L killer. The Jenner D with four lasers and two srms makes for a good hit run mech against larger mechs.

Having said that, the K should have ECM. It's basically a Raven 3L with one fewer missile hardpoint and one more laser hardpoint.