42 replies to this topic

[Victor Morson]

I read with the DHS change they're planning to nerf Pulse Lasers in the terms of adding more heat to them. Don't do this!

Pulse Lasers finally have hit the sweet spot, in particular Large, where they've gone from worthless to niche to finally a main stream, top tier weapon. Yes, they're very good - that's why I say they're top tier - but I don't mean they're overpowered. They have huge range reductions and massive weight already giving them plenty of drawbacks against regular lasers.

No, I mean they're in line with the other top weapons right now: LRMs, Gauss, standard Lasers, Streaks, etc. They fill a "close range/hit scan" role and if anything, the Small Pulse Laser could do with a small buff or heat reduction.

Yes, with the new DHS you will be able to run cooler than before on some designs, but not enough to justify this. If you increase the heat on these weapons you will suddenly make their faults stand our far more (again, the extra weight and loss of range are big, big deals!) and throw them back in the worthless category. I can justify 7 tons and plenty of extra heat sinks to manage a LPL right now, but if it's even 10% hotter I can't.

Just stop! You've fixed them already PGI. They're spot-on. If you buff them anymore I'd be in favor a nerf and if you nerf them anymore all you're doing is taking them off the top of the equipment pile.

Right now it's my strong opinion that no weapons need a nerf right now. Weapons need buffs. If you want to tweak weapon balance, the Ultra AC/5, LBX/10, AC/20, PPC, ER PPC and Flamer, Machine Gun, NARC Launcher and maybe even standard SRMs need your attention badly. They all need buffs to be on the same league as the best weapons in the game right now (Gauss, Large Lasers, Medium Lasers, Streak SRM2s, LRMs and possibly AC/5s now). We really, really do not need the selection of "good weapons" to shrink even more, we need it to grow.

[pedropars]

More heat to pulse lasers would just kill it again...

[Victor Morson]

pedropars, on 02 November 2012 - 03:50 PM, said:

More heat to pulse lasers would just kill it again...

Exactly my concern. I've been saying how glad I am that Pulse Lasers are back as a viable weapon, esp. the Large Pulse, for weeks now; it's an entire new category of weapon available for competitive play.

They're going to shoot that square in the foot with this.

[New Breed]

I posted a topic as well..

it will just shoehorn people to use more missiles, not a good thing. or Gauss.

[Breacher]

i looked at what they were going to do to pulse lasers and had the exact same reaction. when i first read that they had found some long standing bug that would have a significant impact on play i assumed (wrongly so) that it was going to be a reduction in heat. i don't see how they could feel that upping the heat on any of the pulse weapons is a good idea since they are hardly used as it is.

[Hexenhammer]

ER lasers ARE dead. When is the last time anyone's put an ER laser on their mech?

And now they want to screw Pulse with more heat? Oh well. Give it another 2 months and the only weapon people will be using is the QUIT button. Oh wait. People already are.

Edited by Hexenhammer, 02 November 2012 - 04:03 PM.

[Victor Morson]

Hexenhammer, on 02 November 2012 - 04:02 PM, said:

ER lasers ARE dead. When is the last time anyone's put an ER laser on their mech?

I do, often, for long range support. The reason is that it is a hitscan weapon that can hit out to 1350. As such it's a great "poking" gun to setup with at extreme range against a camping team and just keep chipping away until they're forced to move.

It's very, very niche though. ER Large would not be too good in a regular PUG game, but it has a purpose.

Hexenhammer, on 02 November 2012 - 04:02 PM, said:

And now they want to screw Pulse with more heat? Oh well. Give it another 2 months and the only weapon people will be using is the QUIT button. Oh wait. People already are.

I think this is a bit of an overreaction, but yeah, bascially having more and more weapons fall into the "garbage" pile is bad. It leads to a lot of angry posts about things like "Gauss being overpowered!" when really, it's only that a huge number underpowered, making anything properly balanced look OP.

Edited by Victor Morson, 02 November 2012 - 04:06 PM.

[Psikez]

I just fell in love with pulse lasers and I'll be tossing them right back into the dust bin on the 6th along with the 5 million cbills I've now basically wasted on DHS

[Victor Morson]

Ghost Bear, on 02 November 2012 - 03:59 PM, said:

I posted a topic as well..

it will just shoehorn people to use more missiles, not a good thing. or Gauss.

I have a feeling these changes were not thought out in the mindset of a player who's trying to win. The bottom line is if you nerf guns that are on the "good choice" pile you just force players to other "good choice" pile weapons.

If you keep nerfing and nerfing, people will just keep going to the least crappy weapon.

If you buff weapons no one likes to bring them up to the level of weapons that people do, as long as you don't surpass their effectiveness or walk over a niche, you encourage far more player choice and see more diversity out there.

Nerfing lasers, in particular pulse, will accomplish nothing but annoying people who like that style of play and forcing them to move to the next good weapon, which again, will be called "overpowered" by everyone continuing to use sub-standard gear.

Psikez, on 02 November 2012 - 04:09 PM, said:

I just fell in love with pulse lasers and I'll be tossing them right back into the dust bin on the 6th along with the 5 million cbills I've now basically wasted on DHS

You and me both. I'll admit I'm posting this thread out of a love for Pulse Lasers, but it's not a "My favorite toy is being fixed!" kind of scream; it's more that, after months and months of closed beta, they finally fixed them so that weapons like the LPL were a viable, not-get-you-laughed-out-of-the-game weapon... then they proceed to break them for absolutely no reason two weeks later.

Edited by Victor Morson, 02 November 2012 - 04:14 PM.

[Psikez]

Victor Morson, on 02 November 2012 - 04:12 PM, said:

I have a feeling these changes were not thought out in the mindset of a player who's trying to win. The bottom line is if you nerf guns that are on the "good choice" pile you just force players to other "good choice" pile weapons.

If you keep nerfing and nerfing, people will just keep going to the least crappy weapon.

If you buff weapons no one likes to bring them up to the level of weapons that people do, as long as you don't surpass their effectiveness or walk over a niche, you encourage far more player choice and see more diversity out there.

Nerfing lasers, in particular pulse, will accomplish nothing but annoying people who like that style of play and forcing them to move to the next good weapon, which again, will be called "overpowered" by everyone continuing to use sub-standard gear.



You and me both. I'll admit I'm posting this thread out of a love for Pulse Lasers, but it's not a "My favorite toy is being fixed!" kind of scream; it's more that, after months and months of closed beta, they finally fixed them so that weapons like the LPL were a viable, not-get-you-laughed-out-of-the-game weapon... then they proceed to break them for absolutely no reason two weeks later.

It'll be good when the cataphract and jaegermech are in so I can see how many different gauss mechs I can collect

[Onyx Rain]

I admit that I had some concerns that fixing the dhs in the engines would allow for some super OP builds, but I expected any fix to increase their usefulness significantly from what it is now, not nerf it in some some builds. The 1.4 value seems way to low. Maybe 1.6-8 would be better. My understanding is the 1.4 value will actually make some builds currently using dhs less heat efficient? .... That is just silly.

Even in builds where the new 1.4 value may give you a bit more cooling, the pulse laser heat change If I read it right will negate much of that in many builds if they end up running hotter. I mean part of the point of using dhs is to carry bigger hotter weapons and pulse lasers were running plenty hot IMO.

I really feel this is a step backwards PGI. I agree with those who would have liked to see them fixed and allowed to keep their 2 rating....not 1.4, especially with the pulse laser changes. Then tweak it from there if everything is super OP.

Essentially for many builds PGI has just repackaged the current broken system and made a new system that overall is about functionally equivalent (especially if pulse lasers are going to run hotter)... and called it a fix!?!?!?!?!?

Edited by Onyx Rain, 02 November 2012 - 04:33 PM.

[Relic1701]

It's not a nerf, they are finally fixing them!

[Arcturious]

I very much agree that they have to fix the bug. You can't have maths in there that works differently for some things and not others. It makes any future additions or testing skewed and has to be fixed.

HOWEVER - I believe this fix should kick off a complete review and overhaul of energy weapons. Who cares about Pulse Lasers, they are already broken.

Think about it from the trial / new player perspective. Already on a standard trial mech with 2-3x Medium Lasers, you can only fire them 4-5 times before shutdown. Even chaining you overheat very, very quickly.

I very, very rarely see anyone using Flamers. About as much as MG's really as they generate more heat on you than they do the enemy. It's like shooting yourself in the foot repeatedly with a gauss rifle, you'd be stupid to do it. I never see ER Lasers, as anyone who takes them once overheats in two shots and never takes them again.

I am even already only seeing Pulse lasers infrequently. Everyone uses Small, Medium or Large as they are currently the only viable energy weapons in the entire loadout.

If this change goes ahead, combined with the catastrophic nerf to double heat sinks, WITHOUT a major review announced into energy weapons I just can't see how they will be of any use on anything other than fluff builds or very, very niche roles in premades only.

[EDIT] Removed references to standard lasers being modified as this was incorrect. Left in the commentary on energy weapons in general.

Edited by Arcturious, 02 November 2012 - 07:21 PM.

[hashinshin]

I think seeing as how pulse lasers are NOT popular and are NOT considered overpowered by most (any?) people that they're fine. The sacrifices made for them (massive weight, more heat, less range) for minimal increases in damage seem fine as is.

[Devils Advocate]

What you get right now is your damage delivered in .75 seconds instead of 1.0 seconds and 1 more point of damage for the medium and large pulse lasers. What you pay for it right now is 1/3rd of your range and 1 or 2 extra tons of weight respectively. It's already a bad tradeoff, designed primarily to assist brawlers slightly with run-by attacks, but if you add a 33% heat penalty over their non-pulse counterparts on top of the other tradeoffs you're just ruining any rationalization for using the weapon. That's basically where we are with PPCs and the AC20 right now, weapons that were designed to be especially dangerous to counter their impracticality in extended combat but just ended up shadowing the Gauss rifle when they pulled out the minimum range penalty.

[Vlad Ward]

Medium and Large standard lasers won't have their heat adjusted.

I drive a pulse boat that I've sunk over 35,000,000 c-bills into (21,000,000 for the boat, 7,000,000 each for alternate variants for Elite perks). This nerf will hurt me bad.

The problem in a nutshell: Ballistics and Missiles were both heavily buffed because Pulses have been broken since Day 1. Fixing the Pulses now means Ballistics and Missiles will be sitting around with now-unnecessary buffs that leave them significantly overpowered.

Want to retain the balance you've worked so hard for?

Change all pulse laser heat values to 0.8 TT (as opposed to the effective 0.75 they were operating with previously).
Then change all standard laser heat values to 0.75 TT.

This would bring the Medium Pulse Laser to 4 heat/shot and the Medium Laser to 3 heat/shot.

Nerfing the least-used, least-powerful weapon type twice in one patch is a tad reckless.

[Capp]

Relic1701, on 02 November 2012 - 04:39 PM, said:

It's not a nerf, they are finally fixing them!

Technically yes. However, they seem to have balanced them according to their bugged status so fixing the bug is going to unbalance them, effectively nerfing them.

I already don't use pulse because they don't seem to be worth it to me. So it technically doesn't effect me, yet I'm still displeased about it. I hope they retune them afterwards, but considering they're nerfing DHS before they even get them to work properly, my hopes are not up.

I prefer energy weapons, myself... apparently PGI doesn't like them.

[Pesht]

Pulse lasers have always been terrible on heat, not only because of the heat they generate, but because of the opportunity cost you pay by having them be twice as heavy as a normal laser, which often times mean you can fit even less heat sinks. Add in the range reduction, and they've been a weapon you have to build an entire mech around and even then it's debatable if it's worth it. With an increase in heat when they're already super hot weapons with less weight available for heatsinks as well, will completely kill an entire class of weapons.

[HurlockHolmes]

Pulses and small lasers getting a nerf huh? Good, I wanted to see even more missile and guass spam.

I mean, who wants to have fun playing with a varied and diversified 'mech and weapon loadout?

Nope, not me!

[Psikez]

HurlockHolmes, on 02 November 2012 - 06:16 PM, said:

Pulses and small lasers getting a nerf huh? Good, I wanted to see even more missile and guass spam.

I mean, who wants to have fun playing with a varied and diversified 'mech and weapon loadout?

Nope, not me!

look forward to my dual guass K2, dual gauss cataphract, dual gauss jaegermech....