550 replies to this topic

[xxx WreckinBallRaj xxx]

I told them months ago and various times to just double or triple the damage per bullet but cut back on the ammo box. They give you too many bullets and too little damage per bullet. Previous games did it better, bullets actually did damage, but you didn't get 2,000 per box. No idea why they decided to cut the damage down to nothing then give you a huge pile of ammo. They turned them into water pistols. Then later they decide to do this crit buff vs internals rather than just buffing the damage and slashing the ammo. So not only can they not get a very simple thing right first, but they also can't figure out how to fix it later. MGs now have proper damage vs internals but are still trash vs armor. Why couldn't they just get proper damage vs everything?

[Terror Teddy]

AdamBaines, on 14 March 2013 - 09:40 AM, said:

At least a small laser generates heat here. While a MG does not.

Ok, forgot to quote that part. Small weapons like SL and MG's tends to BE primary guns for 20-30 tonne mechs.

Also, while the MG does not generate heat neither does it BENEFIT from heatsinks.
The SL dont NEED to pack extra heatsinks to function - it already has 10 of them in the engine - or 20 with DHS.
MG's can never gain MORE ammo unlike the SL that can be cooled down more efficiently and essentially regenerate ammo.

Not generating heat is not always a bonus.

Besides, MG 0,4 DPS compared to SL 1 DPS - regardless of heat SL is terribly op for it's tonnage compared to MG's.
80 seconds for 1 SL to deliver 80 damage - 53,6 heat (80 heat removed by heatsink - 160 removed by DHS)
200 seconds for 1 MG to deliver 80 damage and then it's out of one tonne of ammo.

Bluten, on 14 March 2013 - 09:44 AM, said:

I told them months ago and various times to just double or triple the damage per bullet but cut back on the ammo box.

To be fair, I LIKE the continous fire instead of bursts - but the weapon need to do at least the same damage per tonne as other ballistics.

The DAKKA is fun but the reward is kinda insulting.

[Hou]

Hey, I just realized my post was probably pretty snide sounding and not productive. Let me expound in greater detail.

Everyone rattling for a MG buff is thinking about the issue incorrectly. You are viewing MWO as a product, which it is not, rather than a service, which it is. Battletech was a product. You were being sold a book with a set of rules that were supposed to make good sense. The reason you bought the book was because of the product. Services exist and monetize differently. TV, like MWO, is a service. The writers and directors and actors all want to make a good show, just like the devs do here, but the programming is not the reason television programming exists. Commercials are the reason that television programming exists. You have to keep that in mind, because gameplay is not the reason MWO exists. MC is the reason that MWO exists. Design decisions that are neutral in MC sales are relatively inert. Design decisions that would suppress MC sales are incorrect design decisions. MGs are going to remain useless because of this. Let's explore why.

MC sales are driven by a couple things, sale of mechs directly, sale of premium time, and soon - the sale of consumables. This is the selling of convenience. The sale of exactly what this community has said is acceptable to be sold. Consumables are shortly going to include the sale of coolant flushes. In light of that, buying and using coolant flushes must be a desirable action for the player. MGs are largely a backup weapon. Just like small lasers. Small lasers make heat and are effective. Using them as a backup weapon leaves in and enhances the usefulness of coolant flushing. MGs make no heat as a backup weapon. If they were useful you might decide to mount 2-3 MGs on your mech for when you are close to melting instead of needing to pound the flush button. This would be a good gameplay decision - if MGs didn't stink. This would suppress the desirability of the MC sale.

But coolant flushing will be available for CBills you say! Correct! Buried behind grind and still operating as a CBill sink - thus at least incentivizing the use of MC on premium time.

But MGs sucking takes a number of mech variants into the deep dark night of horribleness you say! Correct. Are you assuming it is a good business decision for all mech variants to be viable? It was in Battletech where they were hoping to sell you more miniatures and paints. It is not in MWO, where they are hoping to sell you convenience. That spider variant with 4 ballistic hardpoints? It's not supposed to be a fun ride. It's supposed to be a deliberate aggravation to you maxing out the basic EXP requirements on the variant you do want to run. GXP conversion costs what again? MC. Maxing out that horrible mech without having to run it in a bunch of matches is selling what again? Convenience. Again exactly what we have said is a desirable and acceptable thing to pay for.

We're just thinking about MGs the wrong way. We're thinking about them like people only concerned with game design, not business design as well. MGs are going to remain horribly underpowered. They did toss us a bone, one which appears to be working, in the form of the crit system. They've given MGs at least a nominal and niche use that will mollify the playerbase some by offering up a unique function. These are not the MGs that MWO deserves. These are the MGs that MWO needs.

Edited by Hou, 14 March 2013 - 09:51 AM.

[Jungle Rhino]

This is why they cannot receive a buff:
MACHINE GUN 25 29,144 13,395 45.96% 01:57:24 482

Yes that is right look at that e-peen nearly 2hrs of MG action for a whopping 482 damage!!

Whatever you do PGI DO NOT BUFF MGs. SDR-5K would just become totally OP.

[AdamBaines]

Terror Teddy, on 14 March 2013 - 09:48 AM, said:

Ok, forgot to quote that part. Small weapons like SL and MG's tends to BE primary guns for 20-30 tonne mechs.

Also, while the MG does not generate heat neither does it BENEFIT from heatsinks.
The SL dont NEED to pack extra heatsinks to function - it already has 10 of them in the engine - or 20 with DHS.
MG's can never gain MORE ammo unlike the SL that can be cooled down more efficiently and essentially regenerate ammo.

Not generating heat is not always a bonus.

Besides, MG 0,4 DPS compared to SL 1 DPS - regardless of heat SL is terribly op for it's tonnage compared to MG's.
80 seconds for 1 SL to deliver 80 damage - 53,6 heat (80 heat removed by heatsink - 160 removed by DHS)
200 seconds for 1 MG to deliver 80 damage and then it's out of one tonne of ammo.



To be fair, I LIKE the continous fire instead of bursts - but the weapon need to do at least the same damage per tonne as other ballistics.

The DAKKA is fun but the reward is kinda insulting.

Good points, especially the thing about generating heat not being a bad thing.....

Correct me if I'm wrong but don't the MGS have a higher chance of making a Critical Hit then a Small Laser?

[CancR]

1 DPS per MG is where MG should be, and flamers too!

PGI needs to drop all this bogus random crit nonsense and made a video game that feels like more a true battle tech video game.

[stjobe]

Deamhan, on 14 March 2013 - 09:39 AM, said:

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Machine_Gun

Well, it seems it was suppose to be 200 rounds per ton.

We get 2000 rounds per ton in game.

@ .04 dmg per round for a total of 80 dmg

Ah, but you forget two things:
1. BT worked on 10-second turns, so those 200 rounds took 2,000 seconds to go through.
2. The MWO MG has a 10 rounds per second rate of fire, making the 2,000 rounds last only 200 seconds. Which means the MG actually got a nerf of 90% of its BT ammo capacity, even though the number of bullets is 10 times higher.

A few other oddities:
3. 200 rounds * 2 damage = 400 damage per ton of ammo in BT.
4. 2,000 rounds * 0.04 damage = 80 damage per ton of ammo in MWO. Which means the MG actually got nerfed by 80% in damage per ton of ammo.

No other weapon got nerfed in both ammo per ton and damage per ton of ammo when converting from BT to MWO.

Not even going to go into the whole AC/2 getting a 20x damage buff while the MG only got a 2x even though they do the exact same damage in BT...

[FupDup]

Hou, on 14 March 2013 - 09:49 AM, said:

Hey, I just realized my post was probably pretty snide sounding and not productive. Let me expound in greater detail.

Everyone rattling for a MG buff is thinking about the issue incorrectly. You are viewing MWO as a product, which it is not, rather than a service, which it is. Battletech was a product. You were being sold a book with a set of rules that were supposed to make good sense. The reason you bought the book was because of the product. Services exist and monetize differently. TV, like MWO, is a service. The writers and directors and actors all want to make a good show, just like the devs do here, but the programming is not the reason television programming exists. Commercials are the reason that television programming exists. You have to keep that in mind, because gameplay is not the reason MWO exists. MC is the reason that MWO exists. Design decisions that are neutral in MC sales are relatively inert. Design decisions that would suppress MC sales are incorrect design decisions. MGs are going to remain useless because of this. Let's explore why.

MC sales are driven by a couple things, sale of mechs directly, sale of premium time, and soon - the sale of consumables. This is the selling of convenience. The sale of exactly what this community has said is acceptable to be sold. Consumables are shortly going to include the sale of coolant flushes. In light of that, buying and using coolant flushes must be a desirable action for the player. MGs are largely a backup weapon. Just like small lasers. Small lasers make heat and are effective. Using them as a backup weapon leaves in and enhances the usefulness of coolant flushing. MGs make no heat as a backup weapon. If they were useful you might decide to mount 2-3 MGs on your mech for when you are close to melting instead of needing to pound the flush button. This would be a good gameplay decision - if MGs didn't stink. This would suppress the desirability of the MC sale.

But coolant flushing will be available for CBills you say! Correct! Buried behind grind and still operating as a CBill sink - thus at least incentivizing the use of MC on premium time.

But MGs sucking takes a number of mech variants into the deep dark night of horribleness you say! Correct. Are you assuming it is a good business decision for all mech variants to be viable? It was in Battletech where they were hoping to sell you more miniatures and paints. It is not in MWO, where they are hoping to sell you convenience. That spider variant with 4 ballistic hardpoints? It's not supposed to be a fun ride. It's supposed to be a deliberate aggravation to you maxing out the basic EXP requirements on the variant you do want to run. GXP conversion costs what again? MC. Maxing out that horrible mech without having to run it in a bunch of matches is selling what again? Convenience. Again exactly what we have said is a desirable and acceptable thing to pay for.

We're just thinking about MGs the wrong way. We're thinking about them like people only concerned with game design, not business design as well. MGs are going to remain horribly underpowered. They did toss us a bone, one which appears to be working, in the form of the crit system. They've given MGs at least a nominal and niche use that will mollify the playerbase some by offering up a unique function. These are not the MGs that MWO deserves. These are the MGs that MWO needs.

I've got it! PGI can make a module that, once activated, buffs MGs for the duration of that round! It's genius I say, GENIUS!!!

Edited by FupDup, 14 March 2013 - 09:56 AM.

[Terror Teddy]

AdamBaines, on 14 March 2013 - 09:54 AM, said:

Good points, especially the thing about generating heat not being a bad thing.....

Correct me if I'm wrong but don't the MGS have a higher chance of making a Critical Hit then a Small Laser?

AFTER getting through armour, yes.

Find me many mechs that can use a usable amount of MG's for them to be effective in numbers to do any SIGNIFICANT damage in time.

Also, the tonnage in ammunition needed is increased EXPONENTIALLY for every MG. So while you increase the damage, you need more ammo.

Unlike the SL the MG cannot STOP shooting to get back ammo.

1,2 DPS is 4 MG's at 2 tonnes and require 4 tonnes of ammo just to last 200 seconds per gun.

Compare that to 1SL doing 1DPS for the equivalent 0,5 tonne against my above 6 tonne and you ALSO have no problem with heat since your 10 heatsinks fix that for you.

The crit bonus is a band aid since I cannot do any significant damage alone to USE that crit bonus in ANY 1VS1 battle against another equivalent tonnage - hell, a 25 tonne commando is more dangerous than a spider with MG's.

To low damage and too LONG to get through armour.

[Joseph Mallan]

Noobzorz, on 14 March 2013 - 09:13 AM, said:

I am sorry. I forgot myself and I was rude to you. So let me go back on what I said so we can start talking about this and hopefully why I can communicate to you why your proposal is inadequate. That's not an indictment of you, but your idea is not a good one. Further, if I propose that your idea is totally dumb and slap some happy faces on it as a substitute for civility , that makes me a passive aggressive douchebag, as it would make anyone who did such a thing. It is definitely an insult, and to suggest otherwise is to devolve into semantics. I'm guessing English is not your first language, but unless you are from some country I've never heard of, it's douchey there too, and people would not be amused by it. But forgive and forget, let's move on:

I will disagree with you as is my right in any discussion. My idea will work just fine using this games Mechanics. If you feel that way about you being a douchbag, I will not argue the point. English has been my native language for the last 47 years thank you.

Quote

For starters, stop using turns. They are meaningless. This is mechwarrior. Use seconds. It is the standard method of communicating, and you are going to confuse people and make them think you are some kind of nutjob. It's an arbitrary and pointless unit of time, and you should not be using it. That's all there is to say about that. You will be received a lot better if you just use DPS.

For starters ten seconds is the recycle time used in this Game for heat and will work well for comparison of weapon damage side by side when also factoring in Cool downs and thus a good measure of damage over a period of time.

Quote

Second, MGs do not weigh 0.5 tons, since you need to take ammo in 1 ton allotments. Effectively, a machine gun weighs more than 0.5 tons, and likely 1.5.

I do not count the ammo into the weapon weight and never have, it is a semantic at best.

Quote

Third, low cycling times are actually an incredibly bad thing That is an extremely important consideration you are not taking into account. That means to be doing the full DPS, you must be on target the whole time, and you cannot be rotating your torso to spread damage.

As to why I included a faster cyclic time for the Machine gun. One of teh issues in this debate over the months is that a MG has to stay on target for a long time to do any considerable damage, so breaking it down into burst like a laser where the time on target is still a factor but does not need maintained continuously so you can take a moment to twist and such. So giving the MG bursts of damage instead of continuous streams will work better.

Quote

Fourth, the range on the machinegun is virtually nonexistent. That is an extremely important consideration you are not taking into account, especially when you keep comparing it to the AC/2. Moreover, most mechs do not have the hardpoints necessary to field vast arrays of them, which sort of obvious the possible complaint about overpoweredness. You would still need to hug people to do damage with the MG.

As it should be. The velocity of the small bullet is probably assumed by the games designer as dropping off quickly to where it would not penetrate the Mechs Armor. That is at least my assumption.

Quote

Fifth, and this is also critical, there is no obvious low ton replacement for the MG. It is not an enormous leap up from an SRM 2 to the mighty SRM 6, at 1 to 3 tons. The medlas is also barely larger than the smallas (which is why the small laser is virtually nonexistent and why 0.5 ton balancing arguments are kind of moot, since they all suck anyway) at 1 ton instead of 0.5 tons. By contrast, if you have an open ballistic hardpoint, you need to sink a whopping 6 tons into an AC/2. You can't just find a spare 5.5 tons anywhere you look. For this reason, the MG needs to be a passable secondary weapon.

you just gotta accept this harsh game reality that the MG was not meant to be a Mech wrecking weapon. The hard point system is specifically for keeping players from over boating as in some other renditions of the is game. I know it is flawed but it is a necessary evil. I never in 25 years of TT play boated 12 mediums on a Mech (the nova is an Exception as I didn't design it!).

Now I had it pointed out that my Dps was off in my push for a better machine gun. I never used Dps in any games I played so I will acknowledge that failure. My intended MG Buff would actually be 1.6 Dps which is in line with the Small laser, and SRM2. the smallest weapons for their respective type. So a Mech with 4 MGs would be throwing 6.4 DpS and that adds up to 64 damage in 10 seconds you are exceeding the damage of an AC2 (6 ton weapon).

This even though the MG was weaker than a Small Laser by 1/3 the damage. I have suggesting the MG to actually more powerful than a weapon that has been better for almost 3 decades!!

[AdamBaines]

Terror Teddy, on 14 March 2013 - 10:00 AM, said:

AFTER getting through armour, yes.

But thats kind the point of the weapon right? Do the crit damage once section has been cracked open? Waste less of my precious AC/10 ammo to exploit that crack, and use the MGS.

Also some good points about the AC/2 vs. Machine Guns made here. Some point have been made that will make me rethink if the MGs should receive a buff, even if a minor one.

In the end....some mechs were meant to be a recon platform. If you dont want to Recon, then get in something heavier or in the same class with the hard points you like.

Thank God we are in Beta. I would hate to see these discussions if this was an Alpha product :-)

[Terror Teddy]

AdamBaines, on 14 March 2013 - 10:12 AM, said:

But thats kind the point of the weapon right? Do the crit damage once section has been cracked open? Waste less of my precious AC/10 ammo to exploit that crack, and use the MGS.

I can understand that logic but I have a hard time accepting taking ONE of the weapons and completely changes it from it's original design - to be a short range assault weapon for light mechs.

Why HAVE mechs with 4 ballistic points when they can ONLY use it as a crit assistant weapon since they most likely will ever need ONE of them.

Not to mention that light mechs have literally no viable alternative without crippling the build.

It's like taking a Small Laser and turn it into a TAG laser and tell people it's supposed to be used only in specific circumstances and let the LRM guys do the killing.

[Pinselborste]

AdamBaines, on 14 March 2013 - 10:12 AM, said:

But thats kind the point of the weapon right? Do the crit damage once section has been cracked open? Waste less of my precious AC/10 ammo to exploit that crack, and use the MGS.

Also some good points about the AC/2 vs. Machine Guns made here. Some point have been made that will make me rethink if the MGs should receive a buff, even if a minor one.

In the end....some mechs were meant to be a recon platform. If you dont want to Recon, then get in something heavier or in the same class with the hard points you like.

Thank God we are in Beta. I would hate to see these discussions if this was an Alpha product :-)

you seem to forget that if you use your ac 10 on an side torso without armor instead of the mg and use the weight of the mg for more ac10 ammo, your build would be way more effective.

if you destroy the whole side torso instead of critting out the weapons in it with the mg, you would also take out the arms.

[Esplodin]

Giving the MG the same DPS of an AC2, 4 dps, is not broken. MG trade a significant weight reduction and 0 heat compared to an AC2 for:

1) 90m range. (aka collision death close)
2) ToT (time on target) of 100%
3) Cone of dakka, not precision targeting

Compared to a small laser:

1) 90m range
2) ToT of 25%
3) 1 ton less weight

ToT is crucial for a properly piloted light. With hit detection improving (and only getting better) all strafing runs are: I'm up, he sees me, I'm gone. (The only chassis that can survive the circle of death is a raven, and it is a stupid maneuver anyway.) Small laser (and MPL) is great for this, since it dumps damage in .75 seconds, and cool down DOES NOT MATTER because I'm no longer on target and scrambling away while the weapon recycles.

With a MG, comparatively, I'm doing .75 second bursts with the same tactics just to keep the numbers similar - although it is not too big of a stretch. That reduces the effective DPS to 3 (compared to the effective DPS of a SL of 4 based on ToT). It is even further reduced by keeping 90-75m away from target (to minimize bad habits of running through targets), which will spread damage to just about all enemy facing sections, as well as the surrounding terrain. My stats for MG are about 50% hit rate - which would yield a terrifying 1.5 DPS to all facing hit boxes of the enemy. Or put another way, about 1.2 damage per MG strafing run compared to 3 for a SL. Of course if they let me stand there I could get 4DPS, which would promptly get me lasered into a pile of slag.

Effective DPS matters way more then potential DPS in every case for a real time sim. Think of it this way. Potential DPS on an ERPPC is 3.33, but in combat it is less over the course of a match because you have to stop firing at some point due to heat. Sure its capable of hitting that DPS, but the real world (lol) performance will always be less.

Edited by Esplodin, 14 March 2013 - 10:58 AM.

[Terror Teddy]

AdamBaines, on 14 March 2013 - 10:12 AM, said:

But thats kind the point of the weapon right? Do the crit damage once section has been cracked open? Waste less of my precious AC/10 ammo to exploit that crack, and use the MGS.

Ok, but why take 6 tonnes of MG's when I can take ANOTHER mech at the same weight and use X6 small lasers for 3 and add 3 heat sinks.

6 DPS VS 1,2 - yes, you gain heat but your damage to internals when you crack them open is 5-6 times as large.

[AdamBaines]

Terror Teddy, on 14 March 2013 - 10:16 AM, said:

I can understand that logic but I have a hard time accepting taking ONE of the weapons and completely changes it from it's original design - to be a short range assault weapon for light mechs.

Why HAVE mechs with 4 ballistic points when they can ONLY use it as a crit assistant weapon since they most likely will ever need ONE of them.

Not to mention that light mechs have literally no viable alternative without crippling the build.

It's like taking a Small Laser and turn it into a TAG laser and tell people it's supposed to be used only in specific circumstances and let the LRM guys do the killing.

I will agree with the point that some platforms like you mentioned above are not viable here as the game is not becasue they are not meant to be mech fighters. The 4 ballistic on a light that cant even support anything larger then a MG does not make sense in the game, as its presented now. But as we progress in BETA and get closer to a Alpha more mechanics will come come out that will balance things more for these sorts of platforms. One thing is for sure....Clan tech will have people screaming at one another once its introduced :-) No one but ardent, staunch IS supporters will want to run a Dragon when you can run a Loki or MadCat :-)

To one of your other points about TAG........
I think its a lot of fun going out with tag and lighting people up for the LRMs to drop the rain on just sporting a few Small Lasers and AMS :-)

[Terror Teddy]

AdamBaines, on 14 March 2013 - 10:27 AM, said:

To one of your other points about TAG........
I think its a lot of fun going out with tag and lighting people up for the LRMs to drop the rain on just sporting a few Small Lasers and AMS :-)

Yea, but would you be happy if they replaced Light Lasers with TAG - because that's essentially what they've done with MG's. To be the assistant to someone else.

TAG - Assist LRM's
MG's -Assist those who do damage and then crit things.

[AdamBaines]

Pinselborste, on 14 March 2013 - 10:19 AM, said:

you seem to forget that if you use your ac 10 on an side torso without armor instead of the mg and use the weight of the mg for more ac10 ammo, your build would be way more effective.

if you destroy the whole side torso instead of critting out the weapons in it with the mg, you would also take out the arms.

Agreed.

Keep in mind that you have to be less precise with the MG and have way more opportunity with all of the rounds of ammo that you get with the investment to crit hit. If your in a light, most likely your gonna be running around full speed so you not getting the snot knocked out of you :-) Not as much room for precision. if I'm using the AC10.... I'm usually further away. Lights specialize in close quarters.

But what you say has merit and makes sense.

[Critical Fumble]

Point worth noting: a buff to MGs by way of increased ammo consumption would make it more effective while also creating more of a strain on the user.

For instance, right now a 1:1 ratio of MG to ammo takes 200 seconds to empty. With five tons per gun, you could hold down the trigger from start to end of a match and still have ammo left over. You'd never use that much practically, maybe one to one half tons of ammo per MG if you were using it actively.

But if was, say, 40-60 seconds of ammo per gun per ton you'd need substantially more ammo. It would strain the tonnage limits to some extent, and more importantly, explodes if it get crit-ed.

AdamBaines, on 14 March 2013 - 10:12 AM, said:

In the end....some mechs were meant to be a recon platform. If you dont want to Recon, then get in something heavier or in the same class with the hard points you like.

That's really not what's going on here.

Different weights and configurations allow you to do different things, most lights and some mediums can fill a recon role, while heavies and assaults pack more weapons and armor for front line combat. However, in the absence of a weight class, the "best fit" fills that role. If there are no lights or mediums, heavies become recon; if there are no heavies or assaults, mediums become front line mechs.

The issue is that because of how hard points work, there are some "recon" mechs that can't fulfill a combat role versus other mechs of similar tonnage.

Also you mean "release", not alpha. If beta is the dweeby teenage state of a piece of a product, alpha is the drooling infant state that needs a diaper on at all times.

[jay35]

MGs are there to give people with extra Ballistic slots and tonnage something to throw on to help increase internal crit percentage a bit once their other weapons have cracked through armor. They're not intended to be boated or actually do significant damage on their own.