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Now I'm not here to complain about gauss and the way it's implemented in the game. I think, overall, it's a (sorta) well balanced weapon. I've used the early, no-charge gauss and seen how overpowered it was, so I do have a point of reference when it comes to gauss balance.
Today when i was dropping with A. Winter, I (just for kicks) mounted a couple gauss to my Phract 3D and headed to Alpine. It was almost as if gauss had never changed to a charge mechanic, and was still easy as ever to use. The pros well outweigh the cons for this weapon, especially in a DW or WH where they have plenty of other armaments if a GR gets destroyed. I was averaging 600 damage, 3 kills, 6 assists per round. Not spectacular, but still pretty damn good. It seems to me that gauss is still slightly easier to use than PGI intended in the first place. The charge mechanic was a hard thing to learn to use efficiently, at first, but now that all the griping about it is over, it's really not that hard to use. In some cases, it proved more useful than the old gauss click to shoot, as it helps me center my shot(s) when sniping. During my gameplay, it seemed so satisfyingly easy to peak a corner with the right side of my phract and pop a couple of tungsten slugs into my enemy lightning quick, then retreat. Now I may be biased because I am fairly vigilant when it comes to protecting my torsos and spreading the damage, so I might have a little better survivability than the average gauss-boater. In pair with some PPC's (or a singular) Gauss is still the pinpoint king (taking into account all ranges)
Before my own opinions about change with gauss, lets lists the pros and cons of this weapon:
Pros:
-15 damage
-Huge Range
-High projectile speed
-Negligible heat
-Relatively good ammo/ton
-Relatively small amount of occupied slots compared to similar-damage weapons
Cons:
-Expensive
-Easiest weapon to be crit and destroyed
-Once destroyed, explosion mechanic
-Relatively heavy
Grey area: (Not Pros or Cons, but worthy notes)
-Charge mechanic (I find it useful, IMO)
-Inability to fire more than 2 rifles at once
-Same recycle time as its oafish brother, the AC/20
Let's look at some of these cons up close.
Expensive - Most players will be able to grind out 600K or 1.2M C-bills within a couple hours, so it is fairly attainable for any player. This is kind of a temporary con if you're poor.
Easiest Weapon to be Crit and Destroyed - Like i said above, it is fairly easy to protect your fragile gauss rifles if you know how to move your mouse from right to left. Heck, i guarantee 20%-40% of players don't even really aim for a specific place when fighting a mech, let alone a gauss wielding mech. Obviously more skilled players will notice a gauss and literally hunt that part of the enemy mech until its gone. Maybe I've just been picking the right fights during my 25-30 game exposé/experiment with dual gauss boating, but it seems that they are rarely destroyed more often than any other component of my mech.
Relatively Heavy - Is anyone honestly going to complain about 5-10 KPH being traded in for dual gauss? Its the perfect trade-off for sniping because you really don't move that much anyway.
To me, the explosion mechanic is the only real threat and serious con of the gauss rifle, leaving the pros to heavily outweigh the con(s)
This here is my main quarrel with this weapon. Being a long time player of this game, Finding a choke point with a couple enemies in it and pumping several volleys of gauss into their arms and CT's was just a bit too easy and quick. There may be some people that think the gauss rifle is the single hardest weapon in the game to use, and that may be true for you. But after extensive use, I guarantee any player with a decent skill set can manage using the gauss rifle very efficiently and quite effectively without many drawbacks)
Now this is where your interpretation comes into play. Did PGI mean the gauss rifle to be a long range ONLY support mech? Did they expect it to become the bane of all hill-peakers' torsos everywhere?
I'd like to brainstorm here. The best idea I've come up with for balancing this weapon perfectly, is to give energy weapons a slight nerf during and slightly after firing a gauss or two (two would compound the effect) Let's have gauss rifles do more than just dim the lights in the cabin and make a funky noise. I think that during charge up of a gauss rifle and for 2-3 seconds after firing, energy weapon damage from the same mech should be nerfed about 15%-20% This allows gauss to be a more risky weapon to fire, as a light could sneak up, making the fight a bit tougher due to lowered energy damage. Also, PPC's combo damage would be slightly reduced, making the insanely easy-pinpoint alpha a bit less, well let's be honest, overpowered. I mean come on, torso cherry red armor from peeking once and not seeing the DW 900 M out? PGI PLS
Besides a slight energy nerf during use, I believe a higher recycle time of 4.5-5 seconds would be good for balance. Twin gauss allows you to throw a ridiculous amount of no-heat damage downrange pretty darn quickly. The recycle and charge may seem like an eternity for some, but I felt it was a bit too fast to be balanced.
Just anther idea, why not make the charge time 1 second and the hold time 1 second. Currently it is .75 and 1.25. This would clearly make the weapon harder to use, and force the player to use the charge mechanic more efficiently. Seeing as there is a 1.25 second hold time right now, with fast enough leg movement (Jager or Phract) you could pop off shots as easy and quickly as you please from many angles. Just ready your shot while peeking, then let go while reversing. This is not the way that PGI intended the charge mechanic to work, as the peeking method above makes the gauss rifle seem like its old self again. (insta-shot)
These proposed cons would be unavoidable, unlike most of the cons explained above.
Anyway, I digress as this has officially become a TL:DR post. I hope we can discuss this issue and brainstorm ideas about the Gauss Rifle and it's current state of balance within MWO. Thanks for reading.
Sincerely,
A pissed off Awesome pilot with no side torso armor 1 minute into the game
P.S. that was only partially sarcastic
Edited by Jazzbandit1313, 29 July 2014 - 08:05 PM.
