Orzorn, on 21 February 2013 - 10:02 AM, said:
Well, they could have always doubled armor and still did the fire rate vs damage vs heat division so that we basically had the same weapon damage in 10 seconds. We'd still have needed an ammo increase to make up for that (we'd be firing 3 times the rounds for the same amount of damage). Also, doubled armor with 10 second-based damage would make games last...quite a while.
At the very least, it would have prevented many of the heat related issues we've seen with having to balance all the weapon's heat. Not saying we wouldn't have had some of those, but it would have helped a lot.
AC/2 would have still have been garbage with converted stats, for instance. It was always bleh against mechs in the TT.
I think I'd still like to see some sort of high-heat penalties in MWO. Riding the heat curve forever is part of what makes balancing certain weapons so difficult.
In a game like MWO, DPS (damage per second) is one of the most important stats in the game. And since you have to aim, being able to
place that damage is also extremely important.
In your proposed system, an AC/5 would
only do 5 damage every ten seconds, divided into who knows how many shots: We'll say 5 (thus turning it into the worst weapon in the game). An AC/10 only does 10 damage every ten seconds, divided into 3-4 shots. Meanwhile, an AC/20 still does a whopping 20 damage every ten seconds, divided into only two shots apiece.
Do you see the problem? Not only is the straight DPS much, much higher for an AC/20, but due to the much lower number of shots needed to deal that damage, it's also much, much easier to put
all of that damage on the target. It would be absolutely pointless to use the small weapons if you could afford
at all to put in a larger one, because they would be better in every conceivable way. They would deal
more damage
more consistently
all the time.
As it is now, we only have half of that situation. It's easier to deal 20 damage with an AC/20 round than it is with an AC/5 or AC/10, but due to their much fast fire rate, they can keep up in damage.
Edited by Mackman, 21 February 2013 - 10:23 AM.