340 replies to this topic

[Deamhan]

Heeden, on 10 March 2013 - 02:20 PM, said:

Firstly laser weapons only fit in to energy hard-points, no matter how many spare tons you have your ballistic slot will not fit a laser weapon. Also the other ballistic weapons are heavy - if I wanted to take a "proper" weapon I'd have to down-size my LLas for a medium and possibly drop speed or jump-jets to load more armour.

Secondly you seem to be assuming one-on-one situations where your strategy is geared towards stripping off weapons. I'm sure no-one disagrees that his is a poor strategy, MGs are more an opportunistic tool, if you see a mech with a vulnerable section you spray some machine gun fire and take out any equipment they have stored there. If you notice a section with red armour you weigh up the advantage of stripping it and taking out the weapons against getting a quicker kill. Small weapons like MLas can take a while to hit but you can strip ACs and L/SRMs whilst waiting for your primary weapon to cool-down.

Finally I disagree with the idea I should just take a better mech on principle. Not everyone wants to drive a 3L/Splat-cat/insert-fotm-mech-here. The great thing about this game is the ability to customise and experiment, and I'm thoroughly enjoying my jumping, sniping, occasionally fang-pulling Spider which has yielded some incredibly satisfying kills. True it may not compare favourably with the current crop of cheese but that doesn't stop it from being fun, which is the main reason I play this game.

My post was really just point out the flaw of the "test" with MGs. Yes, I realize that ballistics are heavy (even the AC2) in comparison to the MG. However, take the K2 as an example, there is are 4 energy and 2 ballistic. You are better off taking harder hitting energy weapons, or an extra heat sink than you are to take two MGs and ammo.

Shot of opportunity? If the enemy has a body part with the armor stripped, it is a better opportunity to try and destroy that body part with weapons that damage rather than just try and poke at their weapons with MGs. I have done my own tests with the MG and Flamer. I even started a thread about it...

http://mwomercs.com/...55#entry2030655

When equipping your machine, you should run out of crit space, or tonnage, or both. If you have crit space and tonnage then you need to consider putting on more HS or replacing one or more weapons with a more powerful counterpart. If you can't free up the space or tonnage for an AC2, then I'd recommend not using those ballistic slots and go with bigger lasers, bigger SRMs or LRMs, more ammo for the ammo based weapons you do have, etc.

I'm not talking cheese. I hate those cheese *** builds. I think they are an example of the gross imbalance that exists. But at the same time, there is such a thing as going the other way. These are troll builds. Packing flamers on energy hard points and MGs on ballistic hard points. You are doing your team a disservice.

Think of it. If there were two lights on a team that had just MGs. MGs are useless if there is armor on the target so until that first enemy gets its armor taken off, the team is essentially 8 vs 6. We all know how important numbers can be. Your odds of winning are significantly increased if you have a two man lead on your enemy. Of course the enemy isn't just gonna stand there and let you strip some armor off before they fire back. By the time those two lights become useful (even then it's marginal compared to the fact that damaging weapons can also crit and can simply remove a boat load of weapons by destroying a side torso completely and taking an arm with it), the enemy team has a head start on your own since they started with more effective fire power.

I would love to see the MG be a useful hard point filler when slot space and tonnage is low. I stand by my suggestion that is to roll back the crit rate to pre patch but let them by pass armor and go straight to damaging the structure.

[coolnames]

Deamhan, on 10 March 2013 - 03:58 PM, said:

My post was really just point out the flaw of the "test" with MGs. Yes, I realize that ballistics are heavy (even the AC2) in comparison to the MG. However, take the K2 as an example, there is are 4 energy and 2 ballistic. You are better off taking harder hitting energy weapons, or an extra heat sink than you are to take two MGs and ammo.

Thanks for your opinion. If 2 heatsinks work better for you, that is great!

stjobe, on 10 March 2013 - 03:56 PM, said:

And why should one weapon out of all the weapons in the game be relegated to a "not a primary weapon" status, comparable to modules and anti-LRM equipment? Especially when that weapon was exactly as deadly against 'mechs as an AC/2 in BattleTech?

stjobe, on 10 March 2013 - 03:56 PM, said:

in BattleTech?

...

stjobe, on 10 March 2013 - 03:56 PM, said:

No, they're not. They could be, if they did about two to three times as much damage as they currently do, but as implemented? No.

Be a bro, and realize that you are giving an opinion.

[IG 88]

in a actual match they worthless, and in the training ground mech have stock ****** armor
and have no c.a.s.e in shoulder to protect the ammo.

I kill them with a single shoot of a lrm 15 witch is impossible in a actual match

Edited by IG 88, 10 March 2013 - 04:10 PM.

[coolnames]

IG 88, on 10 March 2013 - 04:08 PM, said:

in a actual match they worthless, and in the training ground mech have stock ****** armor

I kill them with a single shoot of a lrm 15 witch is impossible in a actual match

Lack of armor in the training grounds is irrelevant to testing MGs for internal criticals

[IG 88]

coolnames, on 10 March 2013 - 04:11 PM, said:

Lack of armor in the training grounds is irrelevant to testing MGs for internal criticals

what i mean by that is that in a actual match you wont be be to torn up the armor like you did in your video

Edited by IG 88, 10 March 2013 - 04:13 PM.

[stjobe]

coolnames, on 10 March 2013 - 04:11 PM, said:

Lack of armor in the training grounds is irrelevant to testing MGs for internal criticals

Nobody's ever said MGs are bad at critting internals; they do about 5 DPS to components which is great.

The issue is that they only do 0.4 DPS against armour and internal structure, making them non-viable for several 'mechs that rely on them.

[Heeden]

stjobe, on 10 March 2013 - 04:16 PM, said:

Nobody's ever said MGs are bad at critting internals; they do about 5 DPS to components which is great.

The issue is that they only do 0.4 DPS against armour and internal structure, making them non-viable for several 'mechs that rely on them.

The thing is no mech should rely on them; the CDA variant with MGs uses a PPC, the CPLT has 2 PPCs and all Spiders are junk damage-dealers anyway with the 5K (MG variant) being at the higher end of their capabilities.

[coolnames]

stjobe, on 10 March 2013 - 04:16 PM, said:

Nobody's ever said MGs are bad at critting internals; they do about 5 DPS to components which is great.

The issue is that they only do 0.4 DPS against armour and internal structure, making them non-viable for several 'mechs that rely on them.

I don't recall ever saying (or reading others who are pro-MG use) I rely on MGs for anything. EDIT: other than destroying components

When I play a 4x MG build on my 5K or 3C, I rely on the single big energy weapon I put in those loadouts. That is what I rely on. The MGs supplement that single weapon. And since that is a 9-10 damage weapon, it means I need to rely on focus firing an enemy my team is already attacking (which is a good strategy for any mech).

Your issue of lack of DPS is just that: your issue (and many others here). If putting that weight somewhere else works better for you, great.

Edited by coolnames, 10 March 2013 - 04:28 PM.

[stjobe]

Heeden, on 10 March 2013 - 04:25 PM, said:

The thing is no mech should rely on them; the CDA variant with MGs uses a PPC, the CPLT has 2 PPCs and all Spiders are junk damage-dealers anyway with the 5K (MG variant) being at the higher end of their capabilities.

"Should" is in your opinion, the fact is that there are already 'mechs in the game that DO rely on them, like the SDR-5K or the RVN-4X, and more are coming (The FLE-15, what do you recommend it fill its ballistic slots with that is useful?).

And again, why is a single weapon relegated to being a non-primary weapon when every other weapon in the game can be used as a primary weapon? Why is ballistics the only weapon category without a light alternative? Why do you want to keep it this way?

[ICEFANG13]

I finally understand why the Cicada-3C, the Spider-5K, and the Raven-4X are the most powerful mechs in the game, and everyone runs from them.

[Heeden]

stjobe, on 10 March 2013 - 04:31 PM, said:

"Should" is in your opinion, the fact is that there are already 'mechs in the game that DO rely on them, like the SDR-5K or the RVN-4X, and more are coming (The FLE-15, what do you recommend it fill its ballistic slots with that is useful?).

The 5K relies on it's chest laser, the 4X has 2 MLas and a SRM6, the FLE-15 has 2 MLas, 2SLas and a Flamer. Those are the primary weapon systems for those chassis (except the flamer of course), if they are relying on their MGs for damage they are doing it wrong.

[Carrioncrows]

coolnames, on 07 March 2013 - 05:28 PM, said:

....

MG's are useless if they don't do damage and are a viable damage dealing weapon.

Here is the reason:

Why take a MG to kill components in a location when you could take actual weapons kill the location and every component in it.

The way MG's work is simply the worst waste of time and effort in the existence of any mechwarrior game.

You have to rely upon your team to strip the armor and then rush in there destroy components. Great job. Thanks for being useless and a detriment to your team.

Now get a real mech, with real weapons and actually do something of consequence.

At the end of the day.

I don't care about crits, I don't care about sounds what I care about is viability.

Flamers and MG's have all these bells and whistles that only in very rare and certain situations to they almost come close to redeeming themselves but sadly do not even in the best of circumstances.

Unless it does damage it isn't viable, and if it's not viable it has no place in this game.


And if they can't be used as a primary weapon then they have no business being in a B-Tech game. Because B-Tech, every weapon can be a main weapon.

It's not rocket science.
Useful - 2 DPS machinegun
Not Useful - 0.4 dps Machinegun but when a mech is cored it makes snowcones.

Useful. <-----> Not useful.

Easy as Pie.

[General Taskeen]

Sigh, I am sick death of this discussion and the circular logic there-in

TT;

Small Laser - Weight 0.5 Tons - 3 Damage - 2 Heat - 10 Second Turn
Machine Gun - Weight 0.5 Tons - 2 Damage - 0 Heat - 200 Ammo Per Ton - 10 Second Turn
(Both Have The Same Range)

MWO;

Small Laser - Weight 0.5 Tons - 3 Damage - 2 Heat - (Straight-up TT Interpretation, but fires faster due to real-time)
Machine Gun - Weight 0.5 Tons - 0.04 Damage - 0 Heat - 0 Cool Down - 1,000 Ammo Per Ton - Niche Crit Buff Application (Non-Linear TT Interpretation; poor damage value inherent of 0 cooldown and 1,000 ammo per ton)

(Both have the same range)

The MG damaged Mech Armor. It is the size of two friggin real-life 30mm Gau-8 Cannons. It was 80% more effective from the original game compared to MWO (and 92% of the weapons in MWO have a straight TT interpretation, progressed damage buff, and can damage armor). It was not a 'buffed' crit-seeker. End of story. Facts, not opinions.


Here is a novel idea. How about the Small Laser gets a good de-buffing to 0.06 damage for anti-infantry duty. It'll be great as a crit seeker.

Edited by General Taskeen, 10 March 2013 - 05:23 PM.

[coolnames]

Carrioncrows, on 10 March 2013 - 05:09 PM, said:

. . . .

Thanks for watching the video, reading the OP, reading the thread, and then writing your informed opinion!

General Taskeen, on 10 March 2013 - 05:10 PM, said:

Sigh, I am sick death of this discussion and the circular logic there-in

TT;

Small Laser - Weight 0.5 Tons - 3 Damage - 2 Heat - 10 Second Turn
Machine Gun - Weight 0.5 Tons - 2 Damage - 0 Heat - 200 Ammo Per Ton - 10 Second Turn
(Both Have The Same Range)

MWO;

Small Laser - Weight 0.5 Tons - 3 Damage - 2 Heat - (Straight-up TT Interpretation, but fires faster due to real-time)
Machine Gun - Weight 0.5 Tons - 0.04 Damage - 0 Heat - 0 Cool Down - 1,000 Ammo Per Ton - Niche Crit Buff Application (Non-Linear TT Interpretation)
(Both have the same range)

The MG damaged Mech Armor. It was 80% more effective from the original game compared to MWO (and 92% of the weapons in MWO have a straight TT interpretation, progressed damage buff, and can damage armor). It was not a crit-seeker. End of story.

Circular logic indeed. Another person citing TT values...

Look, I know the game is largely based off of TT. I know the MGs are different from their implementation in TT. That is not the point of my thread. The point is to get someone with a biased opinion of them to think a bit outside the box on how to get such an *underpowered, lame, no range, cool sounding, blah blah* weapon to work in their loadout and gameplay. If you can't make it work, then you can't make it work.

Edited by coolnames, 10 March 2013 - 05:18 PM.

[Heeden]

Carrioncrows, on 10 March 2013 - 05:09 PM, said:

MG's are useless if they don't do damage and are a viable damage dealing weapon.

Here is the reason:

Why take a MG to kill components in a location when you could take actual weapons kill the location and every component in it.

I have 3 tons and 4 ballistic slots to play with. What weapon should I take that is superior to the MG?

Quote

The way MG's work is simply the worst waste of time and effort in the existence of any mechwarrior game.

You have to rely upon your team to strip the armor and then rush in there destroy components. Great job. Thanks for being useless and a detriment to your team.

I scout, I snipe, I frequently get 2 or 3 larger mechs trying to chase me down. I don't rely on team-mates stripping armour but if they do I capitalise on it when I can.

Quote

Now get a real mech, with real weapons and actually do something of consequence.

And this is what it keeps boiling down to. I don't care about fotm cheese mechs. I don't want a splat-cat, 3L or whatever the min-maxers decide is viable. I like jumping around and sniping in my spider, and with that build the MGs make good utility that could not be replaced by a "real weapon".

[AC]

Heeden, on 10 March 2013 - 05:17 PM, said:

I have 3 tons and 4 ballistic slots to play with. What weapon should I take that is superior to the MG?



I scout, I snipe, I frequently get 2 or 3 larger mechs trying to chase me down. I don't rely on team-mates stripping armour but if they do I capitalise on it when I can.



And this is what it keeps boiling down to. I don't care about fotm cheese mechs. I don't want a splat-cat, 3L or whatever the min-maxers decide is viable. I like jumping around and sniping in my spider, and with that build the MGs make good utility that could not be replaced by a "real weapon".

Right now it is more useful to take ANYTHING than it is to take MG's. Up your engine, add heat sinks, AMS, or whatever.

And I have yet to see anyone explain away why you would WANT a weapon that takes out internal components rather than taking a real weapon that just destroys the section and everything in it.

Edited by AC, 10 March 2013 - 05:27 PM.

[coolnames]

Heeden, on 10 March 2013 - 05:17 PM, said:

And this is what it keeps boiling down to. I don't care about fotm cheese mechs. I don't want a splat-cat, 3L or whatever the min-maxers decide is viable. I like jumping around and sniping in my spider, and with that build the MGs make good utility that could not be replaced by a "real weapon".

Dude, I super appreciate your posts. Well written and logical...pretty much identical to how I feel about the subject.

I have played many builds including a many variants and loadouts referred to as 'cheese.' (I even named my 3L Cheese )

They have lost their appeal...so I have been trying tough builds, including some of the ones that we have been discussing. And I have been finding success in many of them! It is all in good fun

[Heeden]

AC, on 10 March 2013 - 05:26 PM, said:

Right now it is more useful to take ANYTHING than it is to take MG's. Up your engine, add heat sinks, AMS, or whatever.

AMS is less useful to me than MGs because I go from sneaking and hiding to up-close shooting, and 1.6dps > 0dps.

Quote

And I have yet to see anyone explain away why you would WANT a weapon that takes out internal components rather than taking a real weapon that just destroys the section and everything in it.

It's true I would prefer a weapon that could knock out a whole section instantly, but it's pretty hard fitting AC-20s on a Spider.

[Heeden]

coolnames, on 10 March 2013 - 05:29 PM, said:

Dude, I super appreciate your posts. Well written and logical...pretty much identical to how I feel about the subject.

I have played many builds including a many variants and loadouts referred to as 'cheese.' (I even named my 3L Cheese )

They have lost their appeal...so I have been trying tough builds, including some of the ones that we have been discussing. And I have been finding success in many of them! It is all in good fun

My only regret is I mastered my Dakkaphract before reading your post. It has 2MGs which I used to fire off for the hell of it but I never really paid attention to it damaging weapon systems.

Loving the SDR-5K though, damage and kills-wise it is far inferior to my Jenners, but rushing around and sniping is fun and nothing gives as much satisfaction as going toe-to-toe with a mech 2-3 times your size because you vapourised all of its weapons :-)

[Carrioncrows]

coolnames, on 10 March 2013 - 05:17 PM, said:

Thanks for watching the video, reading the OP, reading the thread, and then writing your informed opinion!

I did. Then I promptly disregarded it.

Intelligent uselessness is still useless.

Heeden, on 10 March 2013 - 05:17 PM, said:

I have 3 tons and 4 ballistic slots to play with. What weapon should I take that is superior to the MG?

Any of them, all of them. AC2, AC5, AC10, LB10-X, UAC5, Guass....the list goes on and it turns out the Spider can fit all of them except for the AC20.

Quote

I scout, I snipe, I frequently get 2 or 3 larger mechs trying to chase me down. I don't rely on team-mates stripping armour but if they do I capitalise on it when I can.

So you run circles around the map as other people shoot at you occasionaly doing 2-3 damage with your large laser and wait till someone's armor goes down to jump on it. Why not just take a jenner, raven, commando or another spider variant and outright kill them. Or slap a LB10-X on that Spider and kill those heavy mechs instead of doing a flash dance everytime you see a red triangle?

Look, being forced to use a bad weapon doesn't make that weapon redeemable when the clouds part, sunshine comes down and for a brief moment that weapon was viable, because 99% of the time it's still a bad weapon.

I own a Spider-K, I like it. I don't run mg's on it because i also happen to like being "EFFECTIVE"

If you think being effective entails more than the damage and kills at the end of the match, then you're in the wrong game. Not your fault, not my fault it's the way the game is currently built and implemented. *shrug* If you are not doing damage you are not doing much, this game doesn't have the diversity and size of maps to make doing anything else viable.

Quote

And this is what it keeps boiling down to. I don't care about fotm cheese mechs. I don't want a splat-cat, 3L or whatever the min-maxers decide is viable. I like jumping around and sniping in my spider, and with that build the MGs make good utility that could not be replaced by a "real weapon".

I could care less about min-maxing, what I care about is the Machine gun being a viable weapon which allows me to use "ALL" of my mechs to their potential. Instead I have to slow a Spider -5K down to 101 kph just to be able to "DO" something that amounts to more than just making noise.

This utility you speak of is nothing more than an illusion based upon the hope that you are doing something.... sadly you are not.

Recognize that.

Realize it.

And once you do, do what "MOST" people are doing...."ASKING PGI TO CHANGE IT"

Don't be content to eat rotten bread and call it cake.