252 replies to this topic

[Sir Roland MXIII]

Hmm. Another possible penalty to pay for overheat? Cockpit gets so hot the pilot blacks out until the heat dissipates enough.

[Khobai]

Quote

I just don't see Gauss as an issue. That meta died out long ago

um it died out because of lasers being better. if you kill laser vomit (and capping heatscale WILL kill laser vomit) gauss will certainly make a comeback.

players will always gravitate towards whatever combination of weapons gives them the best mix of pinpoint damage and range for the least amount of heat.

that is a simple immutable fact. and capping the heatscale doesnt fix that problem because weapons like gauss exist.

Edited by Khobai, 28 February 2016 - 07:13 AM.

[Triordinant]

During one part of the Town Hall, Russ went on and on about how his vision of mech combat was all about slowly chipping away at an enemy mech's armor and components. That's how it was in TT BattleTech because it was rare for two of your mech's weapons to hit the same location on an enemy mech, let alone all your weapons.

There are only a few ways to replicate that in MWO: 1) getting rid of convergence, 2) cone of fire (both of which seem to be unpopular) and 3) severely limiting alpha strikes. MWO seems to be going with Option 3, only this time they're looking for a better way to do it than Ghost Heat and they want it to be so simple that newbies can instantly understand it.

[cazidin]

Khobai, on 28 February 2016 - 07:11 AM, said:

um it died out because of lasers being better. if you kill laser vomit (and capping heatscale WILL kill laser vomit) gauss will certainly make a comeback.

players will always gravitate towards whatever combination of weapons gives them the best mix of pinpoint damage and range for the least amount of heat.

that is a simple immutable fact. and capping the heatscale doesnt fix that problem because weapons like gauss exist.

Then the solution is simple. You can't charge more than one Gauss Rifle.

[Sandpit]

Khobai, on 28 February 2016 - 07:11 AM, said:

um it died out because of lasers being better.

it didn't though. It died out long before lasers were ever buffed into a position to be viable

[nehebkau]

Sandpit, on 26 February 2016 - 08:30 PM, said:

Says it all

Russ stated in townhall it's going away and new system is coming in

and apparently new system goes directly at reducing alpha

Ghost heat is going to be replaced by zombie heat. If you fire an alpha you will get permanent heat build-up that can only be removed by shutting down your mech. This is being done because Russ doesn't like cresting a hill and taking an alpha and dying.

Edited by nehebkau, 28 February 2016 - 06:14 PM.

[Khobai]

Quote

it didn't though. It died out long before lasers were ever buffed into a position to be viable

not really. you used to see gauss on every single clan mech. two if they could fit them.

gauss didnt die out until recently when it was nerfed into the ground with cooldown nerfs.

that cooldown nerf is what made lasers outright better.

[Sandpit]

Khobai, on 28 February 2016 - 06:14 PM, said:

not really. you used to see gauss on every single clan mech. two if they could fit them.

gauss didnt die out until recently when it was nerfed into the ground with cooldown nerfs.

that cooldown nerf is what made lasers outright better.

Gauss died out as a "meta" the second the charge mechanic was implemented, JJs and cockpit shake were adjusted. Lasers had nothing to do with it because the king of the battlefield has always been dakka up until a few months ago. The gauss craze died out well over a year ago at least

as far as outright better?

I don't know of a single laser that's going to deal 15 damage to a target at 1200 meters (or 30 if we're talking dual Gauss)

[Khobai]

Quote

I don't know of a single laser that's going to deal 15 damage to a target at 1200 meters

gauss cant do that either. gauss optimum range is 660.

ERLLs are more effective at 1200m than gauss is.

Edited by Khobai, 28 February 2016 - 06:26 PM.

[Sandpit]

Khobai, on 28 February 2016 - 06:24 PM, said:

gauss cant do that either. gauss optimum range is 660.

ERLLs are more effective at 1200m than gauss is.

Except they do DoT, not pinpoint damage

There's a huge difference in the way you use those two weapon systems and how they deal their damage. Lasers have heavy drawbacks in heat department.

and, ok 7 damage at 120 meters
pinpoint
and they've got a 2k velocity which is about as fast as you can get without being instantaneous

[Gas Guzzler]

Sandpit, on 28 February 2016 - 06:31 PM, said:

Except they do DoT, not pinpoint damage

There's a huge difference in the way you use those two weapon systems and how they deal their damage. Lasers have heavy drawbacks in heat department.

and, ok 7 damage at 120 meters
pinpoint
and they've got a 2k velocity which is about as fast as you can get without being instantaneous

Every comp team going for a long range deck takes ER LL, not Gauss. That should tell you something.

[Khobai]

Quote

Except they do DoT, not pinpoint damage

so what. youre stlil outdamaging gauss at that range even if its dot vs pinpoint.


gauss was ALWAYS a worse sniping weapon than lasers. because travel time vs hitscan and limited ammo vs unlimited ammo.

gauss was mostly useful at mid ranges when its dps was still decent enough to compete

but they made its dps horrible... so now its not good at dps and its inferior at sniping.

Edited by Khobai, 28 February 2016 - 06:36 PM.

[Mech Jager]

Khobai, on 27 February 2016 - 08:25 PM, said:

33 is way too low. that would be stupid.

all that would accomplish is making dual gauss/laser reign supreme

if you cap heat then gauss becomes new meta.

I think that you should not be able to fire weapons while the gauss is charging. Right now I fire my lasers while it is charging and let go at about the end of the laser duration. There is no real penalty for the face time and the charge, because I would have had the same face time firing the lasers.

The mechanic of ghost heat does mirror a threshold for cooling found in many machines, but they limited it to specific weapons for balance. Any change will be a new mechanic that will still be a nerf even if it does help the game. Folks will not like it.

[Sandpit]

Gas Guzzler, on 28 February 2016 - 06:32 PM, said:

Every comp team going for a long range deck takes ER LL, not Gauss. That should tell you something.

??

what does that have to do with the inaccurate statement that the Gauss "craze" died out because lasers were buffed, when it died out about a year before lasers were buffed???

[Khobai]

Quote

what does that have to do with the inaccurate statement that the Gauss "craze" died out because lasers were buffed, when it died out about a year before lasers were buffed???

it didnt die out though. clan mechs were using gauss all the time. because 12 ton gauss was awesome. until they nerfed it and it wasnt awesome anymore.

Quote

I think that you should not be able to fire weapons while the gauss is charging.

gauss does not need to be nerfed even more. its already been nerfed into the ground practically.

under an oppressive heat cap system, if you nerf gauss again then people will just switch to autocannons. and then youll have to nerf autocannons too.

its better just not to have an oppressive heat system in the first place and avoid having to nerf most ballistic weapons into the ground to make the oppressive heat system work as intended.

again a better system is one that spreads damage around more evenly to different hit locations.

Edited by Khobai, 28 February 2016 - 06:42 PM.

[Sandpit]

Khobai, on 28 February 2016 - 06:39 PM, said:

it didnt die out though. clan mechs were using gauss all the time. because 12 ton gauss was awesome. until they nerfed it and it wasnt awesome anymore.

which is why it died out as being so common, not because lasers were buffed
Those nerfs and mechanics came looooooooooooooooooooong before anything was done significantly to lasers.

[Mech Jager]

Still using gauss on my Twolf with 4 mplas, HBR and my Ebonj does great with dual gauss. It works great in many clan mechs because it can be stuck in a torso without instant death and still have a fast XL.

It may not be as Comp worthy as once before, but it is not a forgotten weapon. It is just not doable on many mechs both IS and Clan with IS getting the shorter stick.

[Sandpit]

Khobai, on 28 February 2016 - 06:39 PM, said:

again a better system is one that spreads damage around more evenly to different hit locations.

I think that's on the player. That's a key skill and strategy to develop. Not being able to put 50+ points on a single hit location before the player even has time to twist and spread is an issue though.

If PGI solves the high alpha constant shooting, then pinpoint damage becomes less of an issue. This didn't become a huge issue until alphas became the "normalized" way to fire your weapons. Chain fire used to be heavily encouraged and heat management was taught to new players.

Now, not so much and nit's in large part because of the heat scale. Without any penalties it simply becomes a gauge to let you know how close you are to shutting down. Without limitations on alpha strikes it then becomes a two-fold problem and led directly to the game play issues we have now.

Russ seems to want to get MWO back to the whole "pick an opponent apart" game style. All we can do is theorycraft at this point but I really do encourage everyone to listen to at least the part of the townhall where Russ discusses this.

Toss in the fact that he was about 3 sheets to the wind at this point (as were NGNG lol) and it really sounded like he was getting into a lot more information than he probably would have normally.


P.S.
I was one of the ones complaining about you guys and it wasn't because you were drinking and having fun, it was because we were getting tired of you guys rambling for 20 minutes without asking any questions only to ask questions that had already been cited weren't going to be asked which led to VERY few (I think 3 maybe?) community questions being asked.

So again, it wasn't the drinking and goofing, it was the fact that we were getting irritated that the only portion of the townhall dedicated to us and our concerns and questions wasn't run well at all. That's the whole point of a townhall. Otherwise what you have is nothing more than a Vlog

[Sandpit]

One thing suggested last night by another player I was dropping with was an actual heat cap of some kind. If you hit that heat cap you've taxed your heatsinks beyond their capability and you shut down. Could be an interesting way to help mitigate alphas while not being too detrimental to other firing solutions

[TKSax]

Sandpit, on 28 February 2016 - 06:47 PM, said:

which is why it died out as being so common, not because lasers were buffed
Those nerfs and mechanics came looooooooooooooooooooong before anything was done significantly to lasers.

Sandpit you are wrong here, Guass was Still heavily used after the Charge mechanic was put in, and only fell out of favor when the Cool down was upped in the (Jan2016?? patch) to 5.5 and now down (Feb2016 Patch) to 5.0.