0.3.0 - dissatisfied

[~SJ~ Blhurr]

Bitch is the operative word here and that's as nice as I'll put it. I'm getting really sick of the sensationalistic and inflammatory post titles in the last week.  It's attention seeking IMO.  Are we working on journalism degrees here? Privilege, not entitlement.  Remember that.

[Aidan]

This is just another reason for a Mech Lab. Let the players decide what makes them happy. MWLL designs the toys and the players configure them for their fighting style. As long as the possible variants are in the hands of the dev team, the more you will get this negative press from the fan boys.

[NSallaNuto]

Another thing I noticed is that on those servers where there is the IS vs Clan mode the IS side has very few chances of winning. Is this intentional? the problem is that clan mechs mostly mount lots of the hard hitting weapons (gauss, lasers, ppcs), IS mechs generally all have an horrible mix of "DPS" weapons (ACs, SRMs, MGs, low end lasers etc), the weakened versions in 0.3.0 made matter even worse.

How the IS vs Clan balance is supposed to work? substantial balance or CBT like unbalance by design? the latter would not be much fun.

[Lucentdragon]

Hello all,
  I'm gonna give a little criticism myself as well,but first just let me say that i'm very impressed with what the dev team has done here.On a game play/functional mechanics level,this game is positively astounding.It' very polished (especially for a beta!!),and looks simply fantastic.Thank you for the hard work and letting us be here for the many hours of enjoyment!

 Now,My current impression of 0.3.0.As I can already see,mechs are back on the bottom of the barrel again =(.Mechs (in my humble opinion) are the probably the second most difficult(maybe the  most difficult,opinions may vary) unit to learn to pilot and fight effectively with.But why take a mech when i can take a tank,which has as much if not more armor than an equally tonnaged mech,and nearly as much fire power,AND doesn't have to worry about constantly being legged?  or why take a mech when I can take an aero and fly above the battlefield virtually undeterred while packing obnoxious amounts of fire power?


Side note on tanks:They are very very well armored now.Had a tank stare down and kill my vulture A in a head to head 1v1 fight earlier even tho i'd put,probably 6 gauss rounds into his side.Don't get me wrong,I'm really glad tanks are more viable now....but...well...don't even know what to say about that one.


Side note on aero's:I can see we are back in the age of the aero as well.I played a game of mirage a bit ago where 2 planes,a shiva and a sulla kept our entire force of probably 10+ mechs+tanks from even moving forward.They just dominated the entire playing field.Once again,don't get me wrong,hats off to those two,they were obviously at least decent pilots.But , here's the issue I have with it.THEY WOULD NOT DIE.We had at least 2 AA tanks(i was in 1 for a while as well),and of course any other mechs that tilted up to fire at them(love that by the way).Yet,they continued to just swoop without fear and wipe our forces from the map,1 run after another.There's just no way I can reason to myself why a plane would be able to fly straight down a canyon into the face of a force of 4+ mechs + 2 AA tanks....and not only live to tell about..but probably take someone out in the process! The planes are just entirely too hardy now.

[Toth]

Another thing I noticed is that on those servers where there is the IS vs Clan mode the IS side has very few chances of winning. Is this intentional? the problem is that clan mechs mostly mount lots of the hard hitting weapons (gauss, lasers, ppcs), IS mechs generally all have an horrible mix of "DPS" weapons (ACs, SRMs, MGs, low end lasers etc), the weakened versions in 0.3.0 made matter even worse.

How the IS vs Clan balance is supposed to work? substantial balance or CBT like unbalance by design? the latter would not be much fun.

To be honest its very unlikely to be balanced at this point, its more experimental to see how you guys like it and garner feedback.

As for your statement on "weakened versions" I have no idea what you mean. AC 10/20s are stronger then ever, SRM/Streaks are also stronger, and MGuns got a slight buff. The big difference is how long the mechs last.

[Toth]

Hello all,
  I'm gonna give a little criticism myself as well,but first just let me say that i'm very impressed with what the dev team has done here.On a game play/functional mechanics level,this game is positively astounding.It' very polished (especially for a beta!!),and looks simply fantastic.Thank you for the hard work and letting us be here for the many hours of enjoyment!

 Now,My current impression of 0.3.0.As I can already see,mechs are back on the bottom of the barrel again =(.Mechs (in my humble opinion) are the probably the second most difficult(maybe the  most difficult,opinions may vary) unit to learn to pilot and fight effectively with.But why take a mech when i can take a tank,which has as much if not more armor than an equally tonnaged mech,and nearly as much fire power,AND doesn't have to worry about constantly being legged?  or why take a mech when I can take an aero and fly above the battlefield virtually undeterred while packing obnoxious amounts of fire power?


Side note on tanks:They are very very well armored now.Had a tank stare down and kill my vulture A in a head to head 1v1 fight earlier even tho i'd put,probably 6 gauss rounds into his side.Don't get me wrong,I'm really glad tanks are more viable now....but...well...don't even know what to say about that one.


Side note on aero's:I can see we are back in the age of the aero as well.I played a game of mirage a bit ago where 2 planes,a shiva and a sulla kept our entire force of probably 10+ mechs+tanks from even moving forward.They just dominated the entire playing field.Once again,don't get me wrong,hats off to those two,they were obviously at least decent pilots.But , here's the issue I have with it.THEY WOULD NOT DIE.We had at least 2 AA tanks(i was in 1 for a while as well),and of course any other mechs that tilted up to fire at them(love that by the way).Yet,they continued to just swoop without fear and wipe our forces from the map,1 run after another.There's just no way I can reason to myself why a plane would be able to fly straight down a canyon into the face of a force of 4+ mechs + 2 AA tanks....and not only live to tell about..but probably take someone out in the process! The planes are just entirely too hardy now.

Depends on the tank, the demolisher is expensive and meant to be more than a match for a Vulture.  Also Mech legs are only slightly weaker than their CT now, so legging should be more of a challenge. I actually had ATs bugging me at release saying no one would use tanks as they are so I think its a little too early to tell.

As for aeros... sounds like we're pretty damn close to getting it right. Our new policy on aeros is when both sides bitch we got it right, and between AT/Beta feedback sounds like we're almost there. As for the situation you described, if you really had 2 dedicated AA tanks I find the above a little hard to believe. Shiva's have more armor now, but are still flying boats. If they get shot up on an inward pass, its very very hard for them to survive, especially with more than one AA on them. Anyways we'll have to wait and see with more feedback.

[Lucentdragon]

  Fair enough.These are after all just my first impressions of the new game,and maybe I've just gotta re-learn.Like I said,I'm glad the tanks are a force to be reckoned with now(not sure offhand which one it was that I was fighting).

 I think what makes planes so hard to swallow as opposed to tanks is the feeling of being completely helpless against them.With a tank I can fight it out and whoever is better at what they are doing is likely going to win.That's cool.But with a plane,they swoop outta nowhere(especially with the new radar functionality) from 1.5k in the air,blast half your armor off(if not outright kill you),and off they go without you even being able to give a halfway decent return,much less fear of any real reprisal.It's highly frustrating.

 I know,get some team mates,AA tanks,this isn't a solo game and all that.And that's fine and dandy.But even AA tanks seem pretty ineffective against them now.

 Well,none the less,just my opinion.Anyways,thanks again for all the hard work and the amazing game you guys have produced.I do indeed appreciate it.

[Bowrrl]

I don't see how anyone could complain about the Mad Cat Prime. After seeing this thread I took one for a spin on Inferno and that thing is a beast at 400-800 meters. I grouped the MPLs and MGs to 1, LBLs and MBLs to 2 and the LRMs to 3 and it was great.

Its a Heavy Mech that moves like a Medium and comes equipped with weapons that allow it to do respectable damage at any range. Whats not to love? If anything it running a little hot is probably the only major drawback.

[Perk]

How the IS vs Clan balance is supposed to work? substantial balance or CBT like unbalance by design? the latter would not be much fun.

Eventually I'd like to see it balanced by cost.  Clan has better tech, IS mechs cost less and thus they can field more heavy/assault mechs.

[NSallaNuto]

Toth, weaker weapons or strengthened mechs do not make much difference IMO, both ways you have to work harder to make your kill using weapons that make damage over time, accurate weapons can still core or leg you quite easily.
ACs/SRMs/MGs/SPLs are simply not practical vs lasers and gauss rifles that can simply rip you apart from a safe distance. It is not different than in MW4, there long range, hard hitting weapons ruled, my impression is that we are going to follow the same route.

Of course this is my opinion, time could prove me wrong.

[Toth]

Toth, weaker weapons or strengthened mechs do not make much difference IMO, both ways you have to work harder to make your kill using weapons that make damage over time, accurate weapons can still core or leg you quite easily.
ACs/SRMs/MGs/SPLs are simply not practical vs lasers and gauss rifles that can simply rip you apart from a safe distance. It is not different than in MW4, there long range, hard hitting weapons ruled, my impression is that we are going to follow the same route.

Of course this is my opinion, time could prove me wrong.

We aren't going any direction, this is iterative balance with no percise pre-planned target    The lasers take longer just like the ACs. Thats is why we have a beta. This isn't a commercial release, we get to listen and update, no one in suits telling us it isn't cost effective. I've seen way more brawling with close up heavy weapons than I've seen at any point in 0.1.0 or 0.2.0. That being said we'll have to see how things play out over the next week or so.

[Rally]

Bitch is the operative word here and that's as nice as I'll put it. I'm getting really sick of the sensationalistic and inflammatory post titles in the last week.  It's attention seeking IMO.  Are we working on journalism degrees here? Privilege, not entitlement.  Remember that.

Um, what exactly is the problem? I've titled it "dissatisfied" because that's how I felt about 0.3.0 at that time. I don't think I'm entitled to anything, I'm just describing how I feel about this new version. I do want some things, but I won't mind if the devs decide they won't grant my wishes. Anyway, why am I even explaining myself to you?

[KingLeerUK]

If you had two dedicated AA tanks going up against a Shiva and he was presenting for any length of time the Shiva should not survive the encounter.  This was tested time and time again in the internal Alpha pre-release and so long as the AA users were competent and had a reasonable awareness of their surroundings they could lock out the sky over their area of the map.
 
I think somebody was not as accurate with their fire as they might have like to have thought.
 
As to Demolishers, they are meant to be an imposing opponent for anything short of an Assault 'Mech.  Demolishers have a lot of armour because they tend to have lower mobility than 'Mechs, cannot mount as many weapons, cannot perform AA duties, and will die when any one of their single components are destroyed.  Compare this to 'Mechs that have better mobility, the can lose an arm or even a side torso component and still function, mount more weapons, and have better pitch elevation to counter aero threats.  To this last point, any 'Mech will gain an additional elevation advantage when crouched.  Certain 'Mechs like the Puma, Hollander and Novacat are considered "AA" 'Mechs and have an additional default elevation bonus, and almost a ridiculous AA capability when crouched.
 
As Toth has already mentioned, balance is an ongoing and iterative process and this is our first public outing with the newly developed system.  It will most certainly change as we are still classified as a beta.  Thankfully, we now have a robust and easily accessed tool to make global or categorical changes to all aspects of the balance without hours of manual refactoring.

[(TLL)KitLightning]

Bitch is the operative word here and that's as nice as I'll put it. I'm getting really sick of the sensationalistic and inflammatory post titles in the last week.  It's attention seeking IMO.  Are we working on journalism degrees here? Privilege, not entitlement.  Remember that.

Um, what exactly is the problem? I've titled it "dissatisfied" because that's how I felt about 0.3.0 at that time. I don't think I'm entitled to anything, I'm just describing how I feel about this new version. I do want some things, but I won't mind if the devs decide they won't grant my wishes. Anyway, why am I even explaining myself to you?

You where compelled by the Blhurr and its bhlurry powers?

*Rally use the Fluff* *The Fluff is within you - resist the Bhlurr*

[Deathbane]

I think the madcat prime is horrible rape.

It has long range missiles, alot of them, and powerful up close attacks.

Its a jack of all trades, playing it that way and exploiting the situation ive made it work wonders for me on frostbite.