15 replies to this topic

[Toxic Ogre]

What??? How can you double the armor of every Mech (from the original table top game), and not double the ammo (per ton) of every ballistic weapon to compensate?!?!?

Seriously, what is the thought process here? No wonder beam weapons feel so superior to ballistic weapons. Ballistic weapons have to carry so much more ammo than normal because of the double armor, that its almost foolish to consider using them. Besides not being efficient, you are running a real liability of ammo explosions. Common... this is simple math for game balance. If X = Y, then 2X = (?)Y [Solve for ?].

The same probably goes for missile ammo, but I'm not thinking about that at the moment. My rant is about the pathetic ballistic ammo ratio.

[Noth]

They've upped the ammo per ton, just not doubled it. technically it does not need doubled because unlike in TT you can place your shots, allowing you to kill with less shots.

[GODzillaGSPB]

I always thought it was a bit odd they changed the actual numbers. They're just numbers. They just could've announced that, internally, every point of armor now soaks up two points of damage to account for not having to roll dice. (Or maybe even announce nothing and simply do it. *g*)

This statement would've been long forgotten since and people would've accepted how the game works. And in my experience, it works great. It neither feels too long nor too short to kill a mech. It's just about right imho. It was the right decision.

Edited by GODzillaGSPB, 22 February 2013 - 09:43 AM.

[Solomon Ward]

I also think the ammo should be increased accordingly.

Made several threads about that in the past.

Atm it forces you to run lower engine ratings, xl instead or risking to run dry during a match.

This will be a bigger issue once 12 vs 12 is implemented.

[GODzillaGSPB]

Solomon Ward, on 22 February 2013 - 09:44 AM, said:

I also think the ammo should be increased accordingly.

Made several threads about that in the past.

Atm it forces you to run lower engine ratings, xl instead or risking to run dry during a match.

Sounds good. It forces people to be conservative. It rewards good aim. It rewards keeping your head in the heat of the battle.

Solomon Ward, on 22 February 2013 - 09:44 AM, said:

This will be a bigger issue once 12 vs 12 is implemented.

Yes...and no. If you play like you used to, it will. But if you'll be patient and show situational awareness, it will balance itself. More enemies but more allies. That means more allies shoot on more enemies. And that means that, when focusing fire, you have to shoot less on a single mech. But then there are more. It's plus-minus-zero.

Plus 12 vs. 12 will be limited to the big maps as far as I know. Alpine for instance. People will often split into groups, especially in Conquest. So it will be the same as before, too.

I don't believe it'll be a problem. And as of yet I managed with all of my mechs and all of them use ballistics. Yes, I do run out of ammo occasionally. But then my mechs are balanced builds, I have lasers for backup or missiles for secondary ammo based weapons.

[Ngamok]

Sorry, allocate more ammo and less other stuff for your builds.

[Khobai]

You can aim for specific locations in MWO. That means you're wasting 50% less ammo on random shots that hit arms and legs.

So...

Ammo x1.4 * Armor x0.5 * Aiming x2 = Ammo x1.4

So you're already getting the equivalent of 40% more ammo per ton compared to the tabletop game if you include both double armor and the fact that you can aim your shots at locations other than arms/legs. There's also the fact that if your aim is 100% in MWO then you will never miss whereas in Battletech you always have a chance to miss.

The problem with ballistic weapons isn't the ammo per ton. Its the fact they take up an atrocious amount of tonnage and crit slots and don't do enough DPS to justify it. Two PPCs/ERPPCS outperform an AC/20 in just about every way. And heat is generally non-issue when you only have two or less PPCs.

Edited by Khobai, 22 February 2013 - 10:17 AM.

[Lee Ving]

GODzillaGSPB, on 22 February 2013 - 09:50 AM, said:

I don't believe it'll be a problem. And as of yet I managed with all of my mechs and all of them use ballistics.

You know why they all use ballistics? Just gonna throw this out there, and I'm not entirely trolling: In order to be competitive you have to use ballistics because DHS don't work as duals, and you have to use a combination of heat-efficient & inefficient weapons to do proper DPS.

Edited by Lee Ving, 22 February 2013 - 10:11 AM.

[FactorlanP]

Wow! This thread is a blast from the past!

I haven't seen this discussion since fairly early in Closed Beta.

Personally, I think that the current damage per ton of ammo is fine. Just my opinion.

[KuruptU4Fun]

Lee Ving, on 22 February 2013 - 10:10 AM, said:

You know why they all use ballistics? Just gonna throw this out there, and I'm not entirely trolling: In order to be competitive you have to use ballistics because DHS don't work as duals, and you have to use a combination of heat-efficient & inefficient weapons to do proper DPS.

No, it's called making a balanced build. Or you either learn the metagame of heat management.

[MiG77]

FactorlanP, on 22 February 2013 - 10:12 AM, said:

Wow! This thread is a blast from the past!

I haven't seen this discussion since fairly early in Closed Beta.

Many current discussions were already discussed in beta. It is fun to read same arguments going on still

[Zyllos]

As far as I can tell, all ammo was increased in some form or fashion. While it not 100% balanced with the armor increase, it was increased.

[Critical Fumble]

GODzillaGSPB, on 22 February 2013 - 09:50 AM, said:

Sounds good. It forces people to be conservative. It rewards good aim. It rewards keeping your head in the heat of the battle.

But only for ballistics an missiles, not for energy weapons. Not that energy weapons should generate more heat, or that all ammo should be 2x TT values necessarily; but why should that extra incentive to not miss be there just for ammo based weapons?

[Noth]

Critical Fumble, on 22 February 2013 - 10:18 AM, said:

But only for ballistics an missiles, not for energy weapons. Not that energy weapons should generate more heat, or that all ammo should be 2x TT values necessarily; but why should that extra incentive to not miss be there just for ammo based weapons?

All ammo has already been increased. Laser doing damage over time requires you to have good steady aim to do the type of damage a ballistic can do (sorry spraying your laser all over the enemy mech is not good damage). PPCs run hot thus you don't want to miss or else you have to cool off for nothing. The incentives are all there, they are just a bit different.

[GODzillaGSPB]

Critical Fumble, on 22 February 2013 - 10:18 AM, said:

But only for ballistics an missiles, not for energy weapons. Not that energy weapons should generate more heat, or that all ammo should be 2x TT values necessarily; but why should that extra incentive to not miss be there just for ammo based weapons?

Good aim also applies to energy weapons. Even more so if you think about it. With a ballistic weapon, your aim has to be good just for a moment. Then you fire and hit the location you were aiming for.

Different with lasers. Your aim has to be good the moment you shoot, just like with ballistics, but it'd be best then to STAY on that location. Because lasers do their damage over the whole duration of the beam. And that's the tricky part.

Using the fired beam as a tracer, then move it onto the target and then spreading it from left to right torso...everyone can do this. Hitting directly after firing and staying on a specific part of a moving mech while you move yourself...that's not so easy.

[Critical Fumble]

GODzillaGSPB, on 23 February 2013 - 05:28 AM, said:

Good aim also applies to energy weapons. Even more so if you think about it. With a ballistic weapon, your aim has to be good just for a moment. Then you fire and hit the location you were aiming for.

Different with lasers. Your aim has to be good the moment you shoot, just like with ballistics, but it'd be best then to STAY on that location. Because lasers do their damage over the whole duration of the beam. And that's the tricky part.

Using the fired beam as a tracer, then move it onto the target and then spreading it from left to right torso...everyone can do this. Hitting directly after firing and staying on a specific part of a moving mech while you move yourself...that's not so easy.

Lasers are easier in some respects, and harder in others. They are harder for what you point out in your post, and that they have a higher heat:damage ratio than most ammo weapons. But they're also easier in that they travel instantly to the target (if state rewind does fix lagshield, that will be a major factor), they have a "grace" effect in that while you may miss or spread you still do some damage, and they have no ammo explosions to worry about.

But you misunderstand, I'm not talking about the firing mechanics, those are reasonably balanced as it stands. (Granted, I'm not fond of the pinpoint alphas and some projectile weapons might need more speed, but that's another story)

What I'm getting at is that the things that make you sweat missing is the heat you generate and the ammo you consume. So if you double armor values, but only bring ammo up to 1.5 of default, ammo users worry more about their shots than non-ammo users. So if that is a good thing, then shouldn't heat be brought up to 1.5 of default as well? It would make energy users more conservative, and bring non-ammo weapons and ammo weapons to a level.

~Devil's Advocate