5 replies to this topic

[Lex Peregrine]

I want to throw in my ideias of how MWO's weapons should work, hoping PGI finds some of these usefull in any future balancing decisions:

Gauss Rifle, in my opinion, working as intended, please dont add weapon charge time, as the gauss is the true sniper weapon and charging delay would completely screw up sniping accuracy.

PPC, would much prefer it to be a beam weapon, and you can add the charge delay here. Beam duration maybe slightly higher than LL, increase damage a bit to counter charge delay and beam duration disadvantages. The PPC should not be a sniper weapon, it should be best used at medium range where you have bigger chances of keeping a target on your crosshair while you fire it, to deal the maximun damage. Due to this and the charge delay, the weapon looses effectiveness at short range unless your target is comming head-on, and for long range its best used for stationary or slow targets, and requires a good control (read "skill") of your mouse to keep it on target at those ranges.

Standard lasers, working as intended.

Pulse lasers, what I'll sugest is probably difficult to implement, but its something that would make pulse lasers more different than standard lasers, make them machine-gun style, but give each weapon its own heat-bar, so if you fire continuosly for too long it over-heats and is disabled for a while. Heat dissipation of each weapon should also be affected by the mech's overall heat level, if the mech is running cool the weapon will dissipate heat quicker too.

LB10X, working as intended in my opinion, with possibly tweaks to the firing cone if necessary.

ACs, sugest another big change, they should not fire a cannon ball, with larger AC firing larger ball, whatever. In my opinion, what they should do is fire a stream of large calliber rounds, AC2 fires 2 rounds, AC20 fires 20, in succession (not all at the same time), so to hit with an AC20 and do max damage you must keep the target in your sights for the duration of the shooting (try 2 seconds for AC20 maybe). This makes the ultimate mech killer harder to use, not so many lucky shots killing someone in the back with dual AC20 when you're running at 80kph and spoted a target for a split second. Also makes it dumb to mount one in a Raven as light mechs should keep moving and usually dont have targets on their sights for too long (hit and run), and makes it more usefull in an Assault mech that is supposed to be fighting other assaults.

Flamers and Machine guns, think they're working as intended, considered more anti-infantry weapons but there is no infantry in the game, not even light armor or elementals.

LRMs, I sugest two firing modes and damage should be increased as well as chances of only a percentage of a salvo's missiles hitting, long range arc should require longer lock-on time and missiles should hit a wider area around the target, similar to artillery (fire and forget, no need to maintain lock), capable of damaging multiple targets if enemy is grouped, especially if splash damage is added back. Direct fire if you have the target in your sights, shorter lock-on time, missiles will track the target as long as you keep the lock in a limited capacity (no break-neck turns like streaks), larger launchers like LRM20 will fire with larger spreads, so some missiles should miss depending on target size and speed, direct fire should be similar to srm but with the tracking capability (need range to make large turns, so firing at a light mech 400m away and running side to side is stupid).

Streaks, the way they work right now, I suspect when the clan SSRM6 is introduced it will become the ultimate light mech killer (if you mount 3 to 6 of them, do the math), what is PGI doing to balance this? Difficult subject as streaks always worked this way in previous games. Only ideia I have is to change their locking mechanism, in the lore if I remember right they're only supposed to fire when guaranteed to hit, but everyone would hate clicking the fire button and nothing happening just because the target computer decided they wouldnt hit for some reason. I think the easiest solution is to be required to maintain lock after firing, so no more getting a lock on a light as it passes by you, and see the missiles turn sharply to follow the target and hit his back. Also maybe make them slower than standard srm, so you need to keep the lock longer.

Done, fire-away!
Plan to post a new thread about my own idea of limiting alpha shooting for large pin point damage too.

[Firewuff]

Gauss - if it was anything like the table top its an awesome sniper weapon but your not putting it on haf the mechs it currently gets mounted on, its slow and caused the mech to almost completely power down when fired so no run and gun. 15 damage and practically no heat it needs balancing.

[CDLord HHGD]

Don't change my AC20! PPCs are fine. Most of the weapons are. Leave pulse alone too, don't need any more heat bars...

IF there was to be a change, I'd say, press and hold Gauss to charge, release to fire. The charge is good for ~4 seconds before the weapon itself starts taking damage from the held charge. Charge is immediate, but only fires on release where other weapons fire on press. This should add just enough to play h3ll with snipers without ruining the weapon.

[Lex Peregrine]

cdlord, on 03 September 2013 - 05:50 AM, said:

IF there was to be a change, I'd say, press and hold Gauss to charge, release to fire. The charge is good for ~4 seconds before the weapon itself starts taking damage from the held charge. Charge is immediate, but only fires on release where other weapons fire on press. This should add just enough to play h3ll with snipers without ruining the weapon.

Well congrats, they did almost as you say, and now the Gauss is even harder to use.
But I wont say I hate it, makes the gauss very hard to use at short range like it should, and requires more skill at long range. My big disappointment is with PPCs, all those nerfs, now they're useless like they were in the beggining.

Just check sarna's description of the PPC, it fires a BEAM of ions, and the inhibitor degrades performance at less than 90m, it doesnt say it makes it completely useless. Also mentions recoil.

Again, here's my view of how the PPC should work, those who agree please at least Like my post:

Press trigger to charge (less than a second) but unlike gauss it fires a beam and must keep pressing for the max duration of the beam (2 seconds for max damage?)
Making it a beam moves away from the "energy autocannon" idea, and reduces pinpoint damage all the time, depending on skill to keep the beam in the same area. Damage potential can even be increased, and the possibility of interrupting beam discharge by releasing trigger would reduce generated heat.
Target should also receive some heat while being hit, besides the other electrical effects.

[Kissamies]

I would prefer the PPC as "strobe" beam that strikes in a fraction of second, maybe with a charging time to balance it out. That way it wouldn't be an "energy autocannon" and also be different for continous beams of laser. Some sources do describe the weapon as "man-made lightning" or "straight lightning bolt" so it would fit.

[Lex Peregrine]

Kissamies, on 04 September 2013 - 01:32 AM, said:

I would prefer the PPC as "strobe" beam that strikes in a fraction of second, maybe with a charging time to balance it out. That way it wouldn't be an "energy autocannon" and also be different for continous beams of laser. Some sources do describe the weapon as "man-made lightning" or "straight lightning bolt" so it would fit.

I could go with that too! Anything but the projective ppc style.