44 replies to this topic

[MauttyKoray]

Because my first response to this thread was literally made by a player that is the reason this game is slowly dying:
ANY POSTS NOT CONTRIBUTING TO THIS TOPIC WILL BE REPORTED, DO NOT QQ, DO NOT WHINE, DO NOT CRY, "ERMAHGERD WHY NERF?!" READ THE TOPIC IF YOU WANT, DISCUSS IT IF YOU WANT, SUGGEST CHANGES/ADDITIONS IF YOU WANT, OR JUST DONT POST.

This will consist of 2 parts:
-Firing Pattern
-Cooldown/Firing Mechanics

FIRING PATTERN

So first off is the pattern, which is currently divided not by weapon but by factions. The IS have a single fire (U)AC round while the Clans have instead a multi-round burst that splits the damage between them.

Suggestion:
1. Make all fire a burst.
2. Make all fire single shots, but as a result reduce cooldown and damage, resulting in the same DPS. Basing it off the cooldown/burst mechanic of the current CUACs.

(my preference)
Taking the second option could be worked as in making the AC20 fire 4 times as fast, but do 1/4 the damage per shot (as in the 5 damage in the already existing 4 round burst of the CUAC) while the AC10 would fire at 3.33 damage at 1/3 of its cooldown, and the AC5 at 2.5 damage at 1/2 its cooldown.

Either way it would remove the PPFLD from ACs which everyone loves to complain about. It would also make the larger ACs less likely to critically damage lighter mechs while keeping them useful. PPCs and Gauss would still be a large threat for that use.

Cooldown/Firing Mechanics

This is just about the actual cooldown/firing relation, not damage/bursts.

Suggestions:
1. For future balance, Sarna states that UACs can fire 2x the rate of standard and RACs can fire 6x the rate of standards, so having UACs only being able to 'double tap' at 1/2 their cooldown instead of instantly would make sense.

2. A combination of firing bursts for standard ACs and the lower cooldown/damage with increase fire rate for UACs could be used to make them function differently and keep a unique identity (instead of just UACs being double-tap ACs).

3. Compounding heat and jam chance on consecutive shots before the cooldown cycle finishes could be applied.

Edited by MauttyKoray, 27 June 2016 - 06:35 PM.

[Templar Dane]

Oh yeah, nerf autocannons because one recent mech uses them. While our laser overlords still reign supreme.

[MauttyKoray]

Templar Dane, on 27 June 2016 - 06:06 PM, said:

Oh yeah, nerf autocannons because one recent mech uses them. While our laser overlords still reign supreme.

What are you talking about? This isn't a nerf, at all. This is a suggestion of differences for the mechanics.

The difference between IS/Clan has always been annoying to me from a gameplay perspective switching between the two factions and I'm really not a fan of the ACs being basically useless on Clan mechs because UACs are literally just better ACs that allow multi-tapping.

Plus I'm looking at solidifying the mechanics into a stable spot and future-proofing them for when RACs come in so they can be easily balanced.

How bout you come down off your high horse and stop defending whatever mech that I have no idea what your talking about is and point out where exactly I would be 'nerfing' them? You mean splitting the PPFLD shot by lower the damager per round but increasing the rate of fire? Obviously all accompanying stats would be modified too, heat would be split, etc.

Just because something 'changes' doesn't mean its a nerd...oh but wait, you're an 'alpha-warrior' aren't you? All weapons on 1 or 2 keys right? Maybe 3 if you can manage pushing that many? Yes I'm people hostile cause I'm tired of shitheads like you coming into actual discussion topic and blabbering "QQ NERF/DONT NERF, I CANT PLAY UNLESS BY THINKING!".

Contribute to the topic or GTFO

----------------------------------------

Personally I'd like to see the burst mechanic on standard ACs and then the lower damage faster firing single shots on UACs, with accompanying stat adjustments and ammo/ton count to properly adjust for the changes. It would eliminate the PPFLD from ACs which currently IS has the advantage of IMO, and it would also differentiate (U)ACs and possibly bring both into play again and future-proof the inclusion of other IS UACs from replacing standard ACs.

Edited by MauttyKoray, 27 June 2016 - 06:42 PM.

[El Bandito]

Not gonna take your post 100% seriously until you also address the fact that Clan U/ACs are lighter and more compact than IS U/ACs. If you make them all burst fire, how are you gonna balance that difference?

Edited by El Bandito, 27 June 2016 - 06:39 PM.

[MauttyKoray]

El Bandito, on 27 June 2016 - 06:39 PM, said:

Not gonna take your post 100% seriously until you also address the fact that Clan U/ACs are lighter and more compact than IS U/ACs. If you make them all burst fire, how are you gonna balance that difference?

Coming from someone who has played both sides, much of the clan has locked internals that also take up a lot of room and prevent large multi-AC usage.

The biggest violator of Clan ac weights in the Dire Wolf, other than that there isn't much. I fear IS ballistic mechs far more when playing than I do Clans due to the pinpoint. Also, IS UACs need to be added as well, which is the biggest 'power gap' of ACs in the game and much more of a factor in Clan/IS than the weights are.

I don't personally think the weight differences are as much of an issue as people like to make of them other than SRMs (which is pretty ridiculous). That could however just be my play experience. I also don't think changing both to burst and low damage/low cooldown style firing will be a problem like the high PPFLD was.

Edited by MauttyKoray, 27 June 2016 - 07:12 PM.

[Malachy Karrde]

I actually think clan UAC is balanced pretty well vs is AC. I don't believe any changes are necessary at this time. I would like clan regular autocannon to be addressed as there is no reason to use them at this time.

Edited by Malachy Karrde, 27 June 2016 - 07:24 PM.

[El Bandito]

MauttyKoray, on 27 June 2016 - 07:05 PM, said:

I don't personally think the weight differences are as much of an issue as people like to make of them other than SRMs (which is pretty ridiculous). That could however just be my play experience. I also don't think changing both to burst and low damage/low cooldown style firing will be a problem like the high PPFLD was.

It is a big issue. Which is why there are AC quirks for IS mechs. If IS ACs becomes burst fire like that of the Clan ACs, compensation is needed.

MauttyKoray, on 27 June 2016 - 07:05 PM, said:

Coming from someone who has played both sides, much of the clan has locked internals that also take up a lot of room and prevent large multi-AC usage.

Keep the balance issue between weapons only, cause there are tons of performance difference between individual omnimechs. The upcoming Night Gyr for example, can boat 3xCUAC10s no problem as a Heavy mech, something no IS Heavy can emulate without playing a Hero mech--and even then requires sacrificing a lot due to the heavier IS AC10s. What is locked in one omni-mech is not on another, hence the weapons must be balanced separately.

Edited by El Bandito, 27 June 2016 - 07:45 PM.

[Chuck Jager]

Funny I have always liked clan aucs while folks called them useless for spread damage.
The light hunting with them is a ton better, but they have almost always been considered subpar to single projectile.
SO should I feel good or worry that folks are feeling that they are too OP.

[Prof RJ Gumby]

Issues:
1. Less variety, as IS and Clan (u)ACs become practically identical
2. Big nerf to IS ballistics in general (who complains about IS ppfld? Some clanner4life? Mauler got nerfed already, wake up)
3. No concept of how to compensate for heavier IS ballistics

Verdict: bad idea. Sorry.

[kesmai]

Great idea. I really appreciate the depth of thoughts put into this magnanimously engineered proposal.

Can I have bacon cockpit items now?

[Pjwned]

1. The firing pattern doesn't need to be changed, and it's different between IS & Clan for a good reason. Either solution is just a senseless nerf to IS tech, whether directly or indirectly, and it's not needed.

2.1 I don't see the problem with instant double taps on Ultra Autocannons, but if you have to go on a crusade against the big, scary UACs then fine, maybe the double tapping can be toned down a little bit.

2.2 There's nothing wrong with UACs being more or less double tap ACs when UACs weigh more and take up more space.

2.3 This is just stupid, UACs already deal with cooldowns just like nearly every other weapon but you want to arbitrarily penalize pilots for finding a good target to rain bullets on? All this would do is make everybody double tap literally all the time because double tapping later on in an engagement would be even more likely to screw you over.

Overall this just sounds like a bunch of needless, arbitrary nerfs to UACs.

[lazytopaz]

Mauler gets nerfed and I suddenly get 1-1.2k dmg per match with it. Funny how those "nerfs" work. Maybe you should "nerf" those Clan UAC's too bcs they need it badly (translation : Clan UAC 5 sucks dust/gun powder from IS UAC5 exhaust pipes).

[Prof RJ Gumby]

lazytopaz, on 28 June 2016 - 01:10 AM, said:

Mauler gets nerfed and I suddenly get 1-1.2k dmg per match with it. Funny how those "nerfs" work. Maybe you should "nerf" those Clan UAC's too bcs they need it badly (translation : Clan UAC 5 sucks dust/gun powder from IS UAC5 exhaust pipes).

What are you smoking dude? Size increase and lowered ballistic quirks is not a nerf? Then what is it? I guess IS AC2s should get nerfed too, because I got a streak of 1000+ dmg games in a 6ac2 crab two weeks ago.

Also, arbitrary comparison is arbitrary. Clan ballistic workhorse is CUAC10, not CUAC5. I could reverse the table and claim clamz OP because IS AC10 can't match CUAC10.

[lazytopaz]

Up until IS gets their UAC 10. I'll be your first source of "clan tears" to fill that cup.

[adamts01]

What's wrong with ACs/UACs? A single UAC10 on my Adder with 4spl is good. It's not great. Why do you want to nerf my Adder?

[LordNothing]

i actually want longer bursts on everything. because thats what an autocannon is supposed to do. tick rate is kind of a severe limitation, as you have to spawn the shells on the tick. i actually want all autos to have a 4 round minimum, you can probibly go up to 9. id actually like to see bursts closer to 15-20 rounds but in a very short time, but i dont think thats possible* with the tick rate of 0.11.

im thinking something like acs doing 5-8 round bursts with ultras doing the same in 2 passes (the first pass is free, and the second is jammable on a ramping curve), each doing the same damage as the ac salvo (2x potential damage). you could keep the double tap, but i think it would be better to have a press and hold system instead. if you press and release before the free part of the salvo completes, you fire in ac mode and the cd starts and you dont get to fire again until its over. however if you press and hold through the entire free pass, you enter ultra mode and the gun continues to fire the second half of the burst (its uninterrupted so it feels like one solid burst). you can release when you want the gun to stop firing, interrupting all remaining shots on the jamming pass and starting the cd. since the jamming chance is ramping up, you can release early to greatly reduce your chance at jamming.

smaller 2 class autos might benefit from an entirely different mechanic, since such rapid fire is hard to control in the same way as above (it also adds a little thing called variety). the keyword here is rapid fire. instead of doing 2 damage in one shell or a pair of 1 damage shells, im thinking a 0.31 damage shell every 0.11 seconds. ultras would do the same but with 0.62 damage shells and a 2% jam chance every shell. you could theoretically do 30+ damage before a jam occurs (this would also take over 5 seconds of face time). ultra 2s have no ac mode at all.

another alternate uac2 mechanic (to differentiate it from a rac2) is to fire salvos in pairs. you get 2 free salvos at 2 damage each and no jam possibility, if you double tap (or use the press and hold mechanic) you get 2 more 2 damage salvos, both with a jam chance. this gives you the time to manage your jam chance better since the double salvos take twice the time to complete.



*you can actually fake it by spawning multiple shells per physics frame, like how lbs work, except in the case of autos the flight paths would be parallel for the most part, and the shells would be spaced out as if they were fired between frames, and their time to live adjusted accordingly. you could have 2 or 3 shells per frame which would allow you to squeeze of a lot of rounds in a very short time. because physics code is fun, at least if they have control over this stuff at all.

Edited by LordNothing, 28 June 2016 - 02:34 AM.

[ScarecrowES]

Please... let's change the mechanics on a selection of weapons most players would agree is the best balanced and differentiated clan/is weapon set in the game.

[LordNothing]

the only reason i want the uac mechanics changed is because my finger gets sore. also that is a thinking mans shooter should be the antithesis of it being button masher, which some uac builds certainly make it feel like.

Edited by LordNothing, 28 June 2016 - 05:17 AM.

[Hit the Deck]

MauttyKoray, on 27 June 2016 - 06:04 PM, said:

Suggestion:
1. Make all fire a burst.
2. Make all fire single shots, but as a result reduce cooldown and damage, resulting in the same DPS. Basing it off the cooldown/burst mechanic of the current CUACs.

Quote

The difference between IS/Clan has always been annoying to me from a gameplay perspective switching between the two factions

I don't agree with either option because contrary to your opinion, I like IS and Clan to have different flavor. That some of their weapons function differently is a good thing (for gameplay reason and not for balance).

[LordNothing]

5s 10s and 20s are well balanced, at least the ones that arent cacs, and some would argue lbs (i actually like them now). the biggest problem imho is the entire 2 class. the is version is on the edge of viability, the cac2 is just a better sounding version of it. hard to use on smaller mechs because of ammo limitations, not very effective on 6x boats because of the same reason and heat.

i really think there needs to be differentiation between the ac2 and the cac2. like for example make the clan version fire 1 damage shells at 0.36 second intervals. that would be kind of neat. forget that its a placeholder for something that will never come.

the ultra2 is just bad, i actually prefer the lb2 (it at least has a cd module). you loose a lot of damage when that ultra2 jams if you account for the probable amount of time the gun is jammed, the lb2 and cac2 weapons have better dps. it at least needs a mechanics tweak (shorter jam time) or something like what i suggested a few posts up. when it does work its a pain in my knuckles.

Edited by LordNothing, 28 June 2016 - 05:38 AM.