265 replies to this topic

[qwerty878787]

Why is there a charge up for the Gauss? Makes it take too long to use unless the guy you aiming at is standing still. Now the AC's are better than the gauss because you don't have to charge them up. They need to get rid of the charge up on the gauss. It's not worth having anymore

[Core2029]

As the local spammer of the obvious thing nobody but me seems to care about... it also makes the gauss the only weapon that's incapable of chain firing... ...and some of us enjoyed doing that, believe it or not...

[Armace]

When I played Mechwarrior 4, Mad Cat mk II with dual Gauss Rifles was my weapon of choice since the moment of acquisition until the very end of the game, so one could accuse me of being sentimental towards Gauss Rifles... But let's be realistic:

- with 15 tons of weight (EXCLUDING AMMO!!!) Gauss Rifle is already THE HEAVIEST weapon in this game, heavier, bigger and weaker than dual ER PPC (2 x 7 tons = 14 tons, 2 x 3 slots = 6 slots, 2 x 10 dmg = 20 dmg), which mean, that if a Mech has Gauss Rifle on board, it's always being main weapon a Mech has on board, since there is no more tonnage for anything else.

- reload time used to be 4 seconds, additional 0.75s of charging up before each shot makes it THE SLOWEST weapon in the game, ex aequo with LRM20.

- it can run out of ammo (of which there is only 10 rounds/ton, btw).

- it can explode after being hit (WTF?!?).

So, summing up - Gauss Rifle, despite my emotional attachment wasn't really that good, even compared to other long-range weapons, and it was before this cursed charge time was introduced. You had practically one shot before long reloading, bullet travels slower, than PPC's blast, and its humongous size...

BUT NOW?!? When during fight, in the heat of a battle you must focus on target's position and motion across bumpy terrain, correct it accordingly to your position own and movement, remember about bullet delay in order to predict place of impact, but now you additionally have to consider anticipation for this short gap of time, when charged weapon is ready to shoot, and then, during this instance you have to make all the calculations to point your crosshair, release mouse button and pray, because hitting the opponent became nothing short of a miracle!!! THIS IS INSANE!!!

Charging time sure as hell will help even less in short-range encounters, where quick reaction and reflexes are essential.

I have an impression, that Gauss Rifle is a black sheep of "Ballistic weapons" family, whipping boy of game's creators, and not only due to my feelings toward Gauss Rifle I feel obliged to defend it, but also in order to introduce some balance into this game. I hereby appeal to programmers at Piranha Bites and Infinite Games - remove this idiotic charge up time!!! Allow people to play and enjoy playing at the same time!!!

P.S. Forgive my poor english, it is not my native dialect.

[Sunstar]

Gauss Rifle was balanced ppl might disagree but compared to LRM or ERPPC - I know it has long range, and non exploding ammo etc - but the charge just makes no sense at a game play level.

If you have a ping in the 200+ range - which i do as i'm in australia, then the weapon is pointless and useless. Makes me feel like i'm wasting money playing the game - as I have one of my favourite builds has a GR.

[The Boz]

Gauss is fine now.

[ReXspec]

The Boz, on 29 September 2013 - 09:40 PM, said:

Gauss is fine now.

An obvious troll, or bad sarcasm.

But seriously, I think the devs are getting too bogged down with the concept of "balance" and not realizing that, in the battletech universe, certain weapon systems were rendered either completely obsolete, or useful only in niche situations. This was also true for the previous mechwarrior games.

The Gauss is a compromise between a heavy-hitting, ballistic weapon system, and a low heat, low-caliber AC. Ergo, it is going to make certain weapon systems obsolete or under-par on certain mechs.

Plus there is NO justifiable reason the charge is on the Gauss rifle other then "balance." If they really want to balance the Gauss, then I propose this:

1. Take off the charge entirely.

2. Keep the charge, but have the charge last as long as the trigger is held down. This will fix the frustrating accuracy problems snipers are having with the weapon.

[Hresvelgr]

Ruining Gauss won't fix sniper horde issue. Now people will be carrying bunch of AC2/5s, I don't even want to imagine what can be done to ACs to "fix" them after community will start whining.

P.S. Either remove that stupid charge feature or give me back all cbills spent on Gauss rifles

[Joseph Mallan]

qwerty878787, on 06 September 2013 - 09:48 AM, said:

Why is there a charge up for the Gauss? Makes it take too long to use unless the guy you aiming at is standing still. Now the AC's are better than the gauss because you don't have to charge them up. They need to get rid of the charge up on the gauss. It's not worth having anymore

The Charge up is for simulating the 60 meter minimum range a Gauss should have had.

[Prezimonto]

I love the increased speed. It's actually a sniper weapon now. The charge up is analogous to a scope in time that most FPS games give sniper weapons that fire at massive range. If they get rid of charge up how do you propose to balance the massive speed increase the round recieved?

Because it was in a good place before, and they added this to help desynchronize the PPC and Gauss, thereby changing the meta(which was stale and while this is a weird move it's good they did something). At the moment it's the only weapon in the game that feels like it hits like a sniper weapon. The ERPPC now runs too hot to reliably fire more than one for any length of time, and has a slower projectile speed. LRM's suck, and will continue to suck in most situations/matches as long as ECM can hard counter them at long AND medium range against a whole enemy team. ER lasers spread damage around at long range if the target is moving at all and do less damage and cost a lot of heat.

The Gauss rifle is still the best, most consistent weapon for doing long range damage, and is actually better in the role now with the increased projectile speed.

Stop trying to brawl with the Gauss and you'll be much happier. Treat it as true long range damage(around 660 to 1000) and it's still the best weapon in that range bracket. If anything, I think it should get a small max range boost up to 700 to 750 but that's not a huge deal. It's still fairly easy to rack up 400 damage with a single gauss rifle, and dual gauss builds wreck the enemy badly, and at great range, particularly when paired with improved zoom module. The only other tweak I could see would be to increase the hold time by .5 sec to maybe 1 sec. To much and you bring back ridge humping and jump sniping as the dominant meta, it's currently okay if you're good with the weapon, but a small increase might be acceptable.

Finally, remember that this weapon generates essentially no heat in the current heat system.... the one main factor that ALL other weapons deal with. That means it pairs with EVERY other weapon in the game including hot weapons like lasers and PPCS if you're good enough to juggle two actually different weapon systems.

Edited by Prezimonto, 30 September 2013 - 04:37 AM.

[Cpt Mooney]

the main thing this change does is renering it near to useless for players that dont use makros.
jumpsniping with a makro that puts an apropriate delay on ye ol ppc's grants the coherence, its basically like playing with some lag.

and for the sake of the players that dont use makros: at least increase the time until the dang thing powers down again.
more often than not, and desirable by any means, nothing happens when you release the mousebutton.

i agree with the op(regardless of his original name or the huge postcount), the drawbacks the gauss allready has do NOT justify the weight and bulkiness or the fact that the frickin thing explodes.
its balanced by its WHEIGHT that disenables you to carry decent sidearms/mass ammo/neat toys like ams on smaller mechs allready.

Edited by Cpt Mooney, 30 September 2013 - 06:47 AM.

[The Boz]

The gun exploding is an ADVANTAGE because the amount of damage is NOTHING compared to a normal ammo explosion, and Gauss ammo doesn't cook off.
Gauss is still working fine. I am hoping the devs release an early prototype Light Gauss so that I can put two in my Atlas' right CT, and go mech hunting...

[Joseph Mallan]

The Boz, on 30 September 2013 - 07:18 AM, said:

The gun exploding is an ADVANTAGE because the amount of damage is NOTHING compared to a normal ammo explosion, and Gauss ammo doesn't cook off.
Gauss is still working fine. I am hoping the devs release an early prototype Light Gauss so that I can put two in my Atlas' RT, and go mech hunting...

FT4Y
Now that would be... sweet!

[The Boz]

Right, that's what I meant. Thanks.

[WarHippy]

Joseph Mallan, on 30 September 2013 - 04:16 AM, said:

The Charge up is for simulating the 60 meter minimum range a Gauss should have had.

How exactly does that simulate the minimum range?

[Ens]

make something more difficult to use and ppl will cry
....gamers these days

still a good weapon btw... and with the projectile speed buff it´s even easier now to hit lights with... even in close quarters
you just have to rethink your aiming

but i would love to see the light gauss too

[Joseph Mallan]

WarHippy, on 30 September 2013 - 07:31 AM, said:

How exactly does that simulate the minimum range?

Well hitting a Mech in close on TT with a Gauss has a penalty. Trying to shoot a Mech in close while waiting 1.5 seconds is... frustrating at best. And the closer the harder it is to "snap off' a shot at that Jenner nipping your ankles. It is a fair mechanic in this way to me.

[Mawai]

Well ... in my opinion the gauss rifle is ok right now for what it is supposed to be ... but it could use two tweaks.

1) The refire delay should be reduced ... 4 seconds plus charging is too long and has significantly nerfed the weapon DPS.
2) The firing window after charging should be slightly increased by 0.25 to 0.5 seconds.

I think these changes would improve the gauss without making it overpowered compared to the autocannons.

Other than that, I think the basic charge time addition to the gauss mode of play and the changes to gauss and PPC projectile velocity were both good and warranted.

By removing the instant fire feature from the gauss it has effectively reduced the gauss+2PPC alpha strike meta that had developed and the overall the game is better without it in my opinion.



FINALLY ... the gauss does NOT have a minimum range in TT. NOT ... I wish folks would quite citing this. Regular PPCs DO have an actual minimum range but gauss rifles have a to hit modifier to make it a little more difficult to hit with at close range. The delayed fire mechanic actually does simulate this effect reasonably well making the gauss rifle a little more difficult to use at close range in fast response situations.

Edited by Mawai, 30 September 2013 - 08:14 AM.

[elismallz]

ReXspec, on 29 September 2013 - 10:37 PM, said:

An obvious troll, or bad sarcasm.

I don't think that was a troll post, he probably thinks it's fine. I think it's fine.

[WarHippy]

Joseph Mallan, on 30 September 2013 - 07:59 AM, said:

Well hitting a Mech in close on TT with a Gauss has a penalty. Trying to shoot a Mech in close while waiting 1.5 seconds is... frustrating at best. And the closer the harder it is to "snap off' a shot at that Jenner nipping your ankles. It is a fair mechanic in this way to me.

I guess that is where we differ then because I find it easier to get that perfect shot up close on the passing light mech, and far more annoying to use at range. Running dual gauss eliminates most of the annoyance, but takes away from build diversity. I also find it lackluster in general when using only one in a mixed build during a fight. I just wish they came up with a different way to handle it because to me it just isn't an enjoyable mechanic.

[Detrimus]

I'm guessing they will revert this change, because it makes the Gauss Rifle absolutely terrible and here's why:

Using the Gauss with a charge-up time makes it really difficult to use in tandem with other weapons. There's an odd lapse in judgement when using a PPC which is click-to-fire and a G.R. The timing is a b*tch.

The skill required to use the weapon and maintain a high dps is the real issue, though. I can't tell you how many times I've had it charged up but miss my opportunity due to flow of combat. The way the game plays out makes using the weapon in its current form way more trouble than it's worth. With changes in elevation, popping in and out of cover and other variables, landing consistent hits (where you want them) is way too difficult.

Often times when I do finally unleash the shot, I end up hitting somewhere other than my desired target, such as a leg, or arm.

Really the weapon was pretty balanced before charge-up implementation. Great range, good damage, but heavy component (tonne-wise), fragile and requires ammo.