316 replies to this topic

[Wintersdark]

MauttyKoray, on 19 December 2015 - 12:47 PM, said:

Outside of giving the LBX a better crit potential (like it should) I have to agree with this proposal. There's just not a lot else that can be done to make LBX a decent weapon worth taking over a (U)AC. This goes double for the Clan version as its already plagued by multi-shot ACs and no one in their right mind would take ACs over UACs. Plus the fact that Clan ACs/LBX are supposed to be the same weapon with the ability to swap between ammunition (obviously a delay when swapping would have to be added, like causing the weapon to go into a cooldown) but that hasn't happened either.

Possible damage spread values:
5 - 3/1/1

10 - 6/2/2

15 - 10/2.5/2.5

20 - 14/3/3

The cAC2 is objectively better than the cUAC2. Just saying.

[Pariah Devalis]

Wintersdark, on 19 December 2015 - 12:51 PM, said:

The cAC2 is objectively better than the cUAC2. Just saying.

if it jams and you are actively staring, correct. Of course, the only thing I run UAC2 on is my Gatler, and given it is 35 tons it doesn't do a heck of a lot of stare down time. Fire until it jams or I'm noticed, move. Plus, it has really nice quirks for UACs that reduce the jam chance a little.

Frankly, all the C-UACs could use a very tiny reduction in jam chance, IMO. Off topic, though.

Edited by Pariah Devalis, 19 December 2015 - 12:57 PM.

[adamts01]

Or, let each pellet get a chance to crit, it can only get 1 crit, and the crit does the full 10 damage extra, or 5 or whatever size LBX you're running.

[InspectorG]

Pariah Devalis, on 19 December 2015 - 12:47 PM, said:

Still worthless past 250 meters, though. Also relies on quirks. Good weapon balance needs to stay within the weapons, not some band aid quirk system applied to specific mechs. Those should be reserved for edge case mechs to bring them in line when they are slightly under or over performing.

But its based of a Lore and crit system that MWO doesnt support.

LBX was brutal at range in BT if the enemy was opened up because the crit system was far more a factor in that game than MWO.
They were crit-fishers. 1 damage and lucky dice was all you needed for an engine crit/weapon destruction/etc...
MWO, crits are just icing on the cake - nice but just an extra. And heavier weapons do them better anyway in MWO.


Currently in MWO:
We have an agility nerf that favors lights(was needed)
Heavies/Assaults that not have more trouble tracing fast moving things up close.

This is where SRM and LBX come in.

Tweak LBX spread/velocity to make them good out to @300m. More range/velocity/concentration than SRM. Less boating, less ammo, less heat, more powerful vs open components.

As far as non-quirking weapons to viability. Dont matter. Players will use that one weapon on that one mech that does it best.
Thats a quirk problem not a mech weapon problem.

Like SRMs, a mech with 1M wont make a good SRM boat because: srms work best boated, srms may not synergize with other weapons. Quirk-role mechs where the whole reason to make more mechs viable. Remember when players only used one variant of a Chassis?
So if a few mechs need quirks to make LBX really good, who cares? Theme of MWO already, anyways.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

The easiest and most directly effective change would be to increase damage/pellet to 1.5 and iterate from there.

Damage arcing would be a decent mechanical stop-gap in lieu of something like air-burst canister rounds, and it is something that they've already gotten to work. It would be most useful as a way to give LB-ACs meaningful ranged punch.

[Navid A1]

There is only one small problem with the proposed method.
And that is, when i unload a juicy LBX20 shot into an enemy at point blank... i expect that component to be F*ed for full 20 damage.




Also...another major problem here... by changing LBX to this 'PPC' mechanism... you will make it impossible to get a hit on fast movers and you will miss alot.
currently we have actual spreading pellets. a ppc shot is just one big projectile with artificial splash!

Edited by Navid A1, 19 December 2015 - 02:04 PM.

[Pariah Devalis]

InspectorG, on 19 December 2015 - 01:05 PM, said:

But its based of a Lore and crit system that MWO doesnt support.

LBX was brutal at range in BT if the enemy was opened up because the crit system was far more a factor in that game than MWO.
They were crit-fishers. 1 damage and lucky dice was all you needed for an engine crit/weapon destruction/etc...
MWO, crits are just icing on the cake - nice but just an extra. And heavier weapons do them better anyway in MWO.


Currently in MWO:
We have an agility nerf that favors lights(was needed)
Heavies/Assaults that not have more trouble tracing fast moving things up close.

This is where SRM and LBX come in.

Tweak LBX spread/velocity to make them good out to @300m. More range/velocity/concentration than SRM. Less boating, less ammo, less heat, more powerful vs open components.

As far as non-quirking weapons to viability. Dont matter. Players will use that one weapon on that one mech that does it best.
Thats a quirk problem not a mech weapon problem.

Like SRMs, a mech with 1M wont make a good SRM boat because: srms work best boated, srms may not synergize with other weapons. Quirk-role mechs where the whole reason to make more mechs viable. Remember when players only used one variant of a Chassis?
So if a few mechs need quirks to make LBX really good, who cares? Theme of MWO already, anyways.

For the record, I am not even bringing lore into it as heavily as Bishop might. I'm looking at usability. A weapon system that only works within a very tiny range bracket with that heavy a tonnage and crit investment is bad. Scattershot is bad for it. The quality of the weapon is, and will continue to be, bad. It will never utilize the range it should be able to utilize.

So change the system to something that instantly solves that. Sure, you won't barely scratch a light mech by shooting between its legs or barely missing it altogether. So what? If that was good enough to redeem the weapon, people would use it more often. It isn't, however.

Right now, it is an extreme close range autocannon that is heavy, bulky, and makes no use of its range. With a flak canister style implementation, which this proposal emulates with just a basic spread system, you get full access to its range, more value for the crits it inflicts, and easily tunable damage.

[MauttyKoray]

Navid A1, on 19 December 2015 - 01:22 PM, said:

There is only one small problem with the proposed method.
And that is, when i unload a juicy LBX20 shot into an enemy at point blank... i expect that component to be F*ed for full 20 damage.

therefore... i propose this: good at point blank and useful at all ranges: (similar for all LBX versions)

Things like this are problems. Complicated mechanics don't make a game fun when its not a full simulator style, and in combination with this game being a meld of tactics and shooter, trying to remember some random formula for damage and range is the icing on the bad idea cake. Its also part of the reason the MWO community is small. Heck, the maximum weapon ranges are comlicated enough, being able to shoot farther than the original maximum range (max effective range) has new players shooting things like small lasers a 200-300m not knowing if they'll hit because the game lets them hit past the displayed range for the weapon.

For mechwarrior vets and old BT junkies, its not hard to grasp. Even for a player brought in through a group, its far easier to understand it than the single player jumping in to see what the game is all about.

It also makes the game far harder to balance, as before weapons had definitive ranges and now with the range mechanic, quirks, modules, etc, everything is variable.

I'm not saying this is a bad idea itself, but it would much better belong in a full simulator, or even a more in depth partial sim than what we have now.

Edited by MauttyKoray, 19 December 2015 - 01:35 PM.

[Navid A1]

MauttyKoray, on 19 December 2015 - 01:33 PM, said:

Things like this are problems. Complicated mechanics don't make a game fun. Its also part of the reason the MWO community is small. Heck, the maximum weapon ranges are comlicated enough, being able to shoot farther than the original maximum range (max effective range) has new players shooting things like small lasers a 200-300m not knowing if they'll hit because the game lets them hit past the displayed range for the weapon.

For mechwarrior vets and old BT junkies, its not hard to grasp. Even for a player brought in through a group, its far easier to understand it than the single player jumping in to see what the game is all about.

It also makes the game far harder to balance, as before weapons had definitive ranges and now with the range mechanic, quirks, modules, etc, everything is variable.

That system is FAR FAR simpler than what we have for LBX right now.

but there is a BIG problem with it... and it is artificial splash for a single projectile... C-ERPPC has this, and it misses alot, specially in point blank where LBXs are used for

Edited by Navid A1, 19 December 2015 - 01:37 PM.

[Pariah Devalis]

Navid A1, on 19 December 2015 - 01:36 PM, said:

That system is FAR FAR simpler than what we have for LBX right now.

but there is a BIG problem with it... and it is artificial splash for a single projectile... C-ERPPC has this, and it misses alot, specially in point blank where LBXs are used for

It misses a lot because of wonky HSR, not because of the mechanic. It seems to fail to register on IS ERPPC as well. Maybe its related to the projectile velocity? Missing packets?

[Summon3r]

would love to see an LBX buff of any sort, +1 op....

what would be really nice is if when you shot a mech you could dissable actuators or sensors or just about anything (i endorse RNG btw )

[InspectorG]

Pariah Devalis, on 19 December 2015 - 01:22 PM, said:

For the record, I am not even bringing lore into it as heavily as Bishop might. I'm looking at usability. A weapon system that only works within a very tiny range bracket with that heavy a tonnage and crit investment is bad. Scattershot is bad for it. The quality of the weapon is, and will continue to be, bad. It will never utilize the range it should be able to utilize.

Agreed except on implementation.

MWO is basing their balance system on quirks. Tweak spread and velocity to make it good to 300m or whatever. Boost dmg vs structure. Boost crit viability.

To add a whole other system needing coding and testing seems a bit extraneous at this point. Canister idea seems cool but what kind of coding/hitreg issues it gonna have?

We know tweaking quirks works and pellets work, they just arent tweaked enough. Why not start with that?

[Pariah Devalis]

InspectorG, on 19 December 2015 - 01:40 PM, said:

Agreed except on implementation.

MWO is basing their balance system on quirks. Tweak spread and velocity to make it good to 300m or whatever. Boost dmg vs structure. Boost crit viability.

To add a whole other system needing coding and testing seems a bit extraneous at this point. Canister idea seems cool but what kind of coding/hitreg issues it gonna have?

We know tweaking quirks works and pellets work, they just arent tweaked enough. Why not start with that?

That's the thing: the code already exists, it is already tested, and it already works (when HSR decides to play nice). No new code, and it would resolve the usability of the LB line of weapons. Permanently. Essentially a copy pasta with crit damage modifiers being changed.

Edited by Pariah Devalis, 19 December 2015 - 01:42 PM.

[Navid A1]

Pariah Devalis, on 19 December 2015 - 01:40 PM, said:

It misses a lot because of wonky HSR, not because of the mechanic. It seems to fail to register on IS ERPPC as well. Maybe its related to the projectile velocity? Missing packets?

Negative!

Even with PERFECT HSR... (and i mean, PERFECT), you will miss an LBX shot to a lights legs, if it goes between the legs... one positive point of the current LBX cannon is that it actually fires 20/10/5 pellets... real pellets. Even if you aim between a light's legs, you will get hits on both legs... that is how LBX should be!

[Pariah Devalis]

Navid A1, on 19 December 2015 - 01:43 PM, said:

Negative!

Even with PERFECT HSR... (and i mean, PERFECT), you will miss an LBX shot to a lights legs, if it goes between the legs... one positive point of the current LBX cannon is that it actually fires 20/10/5 pellets... real pellets. Even if you aim between a light's legs, you will get hits on both legs... that is how LBX should be!

If they could code it to start spreading at X distance to a target, it would be the best of both worlds, and I'd love it. But guess what? I'm looking to K.I.S.S. Kiss is what gets done, and what works for all but edge cases. No new code, no wonky mechanics, no charts and graphs. Simple hit with splash that any new pilot or old can understand.

[MauttyKoray]

Navid A1, on 19 December 2015 - 01:36 PM, said:

That system is FAR FAR simpler than what we have for LBX right now.

but there is a BIG problem with it... and it is artificial splash for a single projectile... C-ERPPC has this, and it misses alot, specially in point blank where LBXs are used for

The proposed system would make the system significantly more complicated for an action-shooter semi-sim that this game is. Like I said, its not a bad system but it creates too much number management for how the game plays. On top of that I think it would make the LBX far inferior to an AC because of your damage proposal. I agree the split damage projectile is not the best method, but as I said the only better change would be to fix its critical damage usage on internals.

I personally prefer the 'shot' style of the LBX as it is, which makes it a far more trustworthy weapon against thing like light legs as someone above mentioned. I'm much bigger on simply fixing the critical damage usage of the weapon, as that was its niche at the cost of the spread and damage split between the shot.

Edit: Also, I don't have a lot of issues with hit registration. I would assume a lot of this comes from latency problems. When playing on the australian server I've seen some wonky damage allocations before and rarely even full negations. However that's running at 250+ ping.

Edited by MauttyKoray, 19 December 2015 - 01:56 PM.

[Navid A1]

Pariah Devalis, on 19 December 2015 - 01:45 PM, said:

If they could code it to start spreading at X distance to a target, it would be the best of both worlds, and I'd love it. But guess what? I'm looking to K.I.S.S. Kiss is what gets done, and what works for all but edge cases. No new code, no wonky mechanics, no charts and graphs. Simple hit with splash that any new pilot or old can understand.

I know what you are saying...

but it brings more flaws than fixes.
You see... to make viable you are even adding more complication (spread at X m ) which contradicts with simple code changes. And that is even with perfect hit detection.

We have wonky hit detection now....so..
The most obvious effect would be missing an LBX shot under 100m and wasting your ammo... because of HSR! and fake splash mechanic

[Navid A1]

MauttyKoray, on 19 December 2015 - 01:48 PM, said:

The proposed system would make the system significantly more complicated for an action-shooter semi-sim that this game is. Like I said, its not a bad system but it creates too much number management for how the game plays. On top of that I think it would make the LBX far inferior to an AC because of your damage proposal. I agree the split damage projectile is not the best method, but as I said the only better change would be to fix its critical damage usage on internals.

It is the simulated fake splash on a single projectile that is the problem here (and its a big problem that coases pariahs and my proposals to NOT work)


regarding complexity... complexity for players? ... or the game?
if you meant the players ... then yes...it may be complex for players to understand.
but for the game?... nope... simulating fake splash and hit detection on a SINGLE projectile is far far easier than doing it for 20 projectiles at the same time.

MauttyKoray, on 19 December 2015 - 01:48 PM, said:

I personally prefer the 'shot' style of the LBX as it is, which makes it a far more trustworthy weapon against thing like light legs as someone above mentioned. I'm much bigger on simply fixing the critical damage usage of the weapon, as that was its niche at the cost of the spread and damage split between the shot.

Exactly... it seems we are on a same page!

(that is why i'm saying that the OP's and my proposals have a major flaw)

Edited by Navid A1, 19 December 2015 - 01:58 PM.

[Pariah Devalis]

Navid A1, on 19 December 2015 - 01:49 PM, said:

You see... to make viable you are even adding more complication (spread at X m ) which contradicts with simple code changes. And that is even with perfect hit detection.

I... disagree? Entirely? The damage would be consistent, and be stable, regardless of range. It isn't a spread at X meter code. It's a simple percentage split of the total damage among central and adjacent to impacted location. If the crit damage modifier is enough to compensate for the armor damage reduction at impact point, you have a gun that still works at the start of the game, but only shines near the end.

[Navid A1]

Pariah Devalis, on 19 December 2015 - 01:57 PM, said:

I... disagree? Entirely? The damage would be consistent, and be stable, regardless of range. It isn't a spread at X meter code. It's a simple percentage split of the total damage among central and adjacent to impacted location. If the crit damage modifier is enough to compensate for the armor damage reduction at impact point, you have a gun that still works at the start of the game, but only shines near the end.

detecting the impacting location is the thing that makes this problematic...
with current hit detection (lets say a perfect hit detection even), i can afford shooting towards a running light's legs and get several pellet hits.

with your proposal, its either a hit (with simulated spread) or no hit at all... even if the graphical FX pellets show hits on the target.

Edited by Navid A1, 19 December 2015 - 02:04 PM.