55 replies to this topic

[Khobai]

Quote

SRMs require aiming

I fail to see your point. They train monkies to play FPS games. Aiming is not difficult. Weapons that require aiming are not difficult to use. SRMs give the most power for the least skill of any weapon other than LRMs. Good piloting also mitigates streaks as well, when I see a D-DC with streaks, I don't go within 270m of him in a light mech unless I have ECM superiority or backup from teammates. But if that same D-DC has SRM6s, I don't go near him at all

Quote

SSRMs are only blocked by a feature present on 5 variants in the entire game

You can choose what mech to play. If you choose a mech without ECM and then get attacked by streaks, thats your own fault. Simple as that. Streaks are 100% hard countered by ECM. If you have more ECM you shut down streaks 100% of the time. Its unfortunate PGI has designed their game to revolve around ECM, but thats how it is...

Streaks may be easier to use than SRMs, but their power level is not even close to that of SRMs, because they can be 100% hard countered by ECM. SRM6s give much more power for the comparatively low skill required to use them.

Edited by Khobai, 21 March 2013 - 06:03 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

We actually now have tools to figure out how effective we are with weapons.

For example, me and 3 weapons:
1) AC/20: Accuracy is 62.04 % after 38 matches and 461 shots taken.
2) Medium Laser: Accuracy is 88.07 % after 43 matches and 1165 shots taken.
3) SRM6: Accuracy is 552.32 & after 50 matches and 7662 missiles.

This might suggest that SRMs and AC/20s are harder to use. But the laser accuracy is actually not a good figure, since even a brief contact with the enemy and most of the damage being directed into air or the ground will trigger as a hit. For a more detailed view, we can also look at the expected damage from the number of shots and the actual damage:

1) AC/20: 461 * 20 = 9220 possible damage, actual damage 5864: 60 %
2) Medium Laser: 5825 possible damage, actual damage 2733: 48 %
3) SRM6: 19155 possible damage: 47 %

That means that I am actually more accurate with the AC/20 than with MLs and SRM6. That suggests to me that beam weapons with a duration are actually harder to use than ballistic weapons. This isn't what I expected.

[FunkyFritter]

MustrumRidcully, on 21 March 2013 - 05:57 AM, said:

We actually now have tools to figure out how effective we are with weapons.

For example, me and 3 weapons:
1) AC/20: Accuracy is 62.04 % after 38 matches and 461 shots taken.
2) Medium Laser: Accuracy is 88.07 % after 43 matches and 1165 shots taken.
3) SRM6: Accuracy is 552.32 & after 50 matches and 7662 missiles.

This might suggest that SRMs and AC/20s are harder to use. But the laser accuracy is actually not a good figure, since even a brief contact with the enemy and most of the damage being directed into air or the ground will trigger as a hit. For a more detailed view, we can also look at the expected damage from the number of shots and the actual damage:

1) AC/20: 461 * 20 = 9220 possible damage, actual damage 5864: 60 %
2) Medium Laser: 5825 possible damage, actual damage 2733: 48 %
3) SRM6: 19155 possible damage: 47 %

That means that I am actually more accurate with the AC/20 than with MLs and SRM6. That suggests to me that beam weapons with a duration are actually harder to use than ballistic weapons. This isn't what I expected.

It could also mean that you fire your lasers at more speculative targets because missing with a couple of med lasers is less important that whiffing your ac20 shot.

[PurpleNinja]

Punches.

[Thorqemada]

Imho damage shows the powerlevel of a weapon and not the skilllevel.

[MustrumRidcully]

FunkyFritter, on 21 March 2013 - 06:01 AM, said:

It could also mean that you fire your lasers at more speculative targets because missing with a couple of med lasers is less important that whiffing your ac20 shot.

Yes, that could also be. We can compare to how things are with the Large Laser and the Large Pulse Laser instead perhaps? For those, heat is more punitive and risky shots cost you more than with a regular ML.

Large Laser: 83 % Accuracy; 461 x 9 = 4149 expected damage; actual 2092 => 48 %
Large Pulse Laser: 84 % Accuracy; 791 * 10 = 7910 expected damage, actual 4728 => 60 %
AC/5: 62 % Accuracy; 58 * 5 = 290 damage; actual: 177 = 61 %.

ML and LL are surprisingly close at 48 %. The Large Pulse Laser that has a 0.25 seconds lower duration is at 60 % damage utilization.

Is that because the LPL is even hotter than the ML and LL, or is it because of the shorter duration? I think it's due to the latter.
Likewise, AC/5 is not as "important" as the AC/20, and even has a faste rprojectile speed, yet similar hit probability. Though I only used the AC/5 in 10 matches for 58 shots, so it's not very representative yet for me, I think.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 21 March 2013 - 06:10 AM.

[Silentium]

I think the ballistics are just generally harder to use given trigger and target lag. At least all damage is applied when they hit, which is nice

[Josef Nader]

Khobai, on 21 March 2013 - 05:50 AM, said:

I fail to see your point. They train monkies to play FPS games. Aiming is not difficult. Weapons that require aiming are not difficult to use. SRMs give the most power for the least skill of any weapon other than LRMs. Good piloting also mitigates streaks as well, when I see a D-DC with streaks, I don't go within 270m of him in a light mech unless I have ECM superiority or backup from teammates.

You just brought up the counter to your own argument. SRMs are dead useless outside of 270m, and they don't deal anywhere near solid damage unless they're within 100m. If you aren't prepared to deal with the splat cat before he rushes up on you, you need to pack more ranged firepower.

Khobai, on 21 March 2013 - 05:50 AM, said:

You can choose what mech to play. If you choose a mech without ECM and then get attacked by streaks, thats your own fault. Simple as that. Streaks are 100% hard countered by ECM. If you have more ECM you shut down streaks 100% of the time. Its unfortunate PGI has designed their game to revolve around ECM, but thats how it is...

Streaks may be easier to use than SRMs, but their power level is not even close to that of SRMs, because they can be 100% hard countered by ECM. SRM6s give much more power for the comparatively low skill required to use them.

And SRMs are only completely overpowering on the 6 cat (and due to a bug currently affecting all missiles). They aren't any more powerful than the equivalent tonnage of medium lasers (for more tonnage, actually, because you have to have ammo and less precision). Even the 6 cat is pretty tame compared to previous catapult iterations... like the Raid Boss streakcat earlier in beta that never missed, always hit Center Torso, and dealt 30 damage every few seconds.

Besides, ECM is not good enough to warrant playing chassis I don't like just so I can take advantage of it.

[MustrumRidcully]

Silentium, on 21 March 2013 - 06:14 AM, said:

I think the ballistics are just generally harder to use given trigger and target lag. At least all damage is applied when they hit, which is nice

What do your statistics say? What weapon do you get the most damage out of per shot attempted?

[Denolven]

Khobai, on 21 March 2013 - 05:50 AM, said:

I fail to see your point. They train monkies to play FPS games. Aiming is not difficult.

You sure are blind/ignorant, aren't you. The vast majority claims that they find aiming difficult (most of us aren't 16 anymore). So please speak for yourself and say "not difficult for me".

Edited by Denolven, 21 March 2013 - 06:32 AM.

[SmokinDave73]

Interesting poll I personally love PPC's and have done since closed beta. I think PPC are very well balanced now and have a high skill level to use them at their highest potential. I love chain firing PPC's into atlas to disable their ECM its one of the many lpeasures of being a PPC sniper. I basically run PPC's on every mech I can even spiders

[Onmyoudo]

Small Ballistics are easily the most difficult weapon to use. I voted Streaks and SRMs as the easiest; I find LRMs fairly easy to use but have seen more than enough people streaming them into hillsides and buildings to know that timing and position are large factors in using them successfully. I mostly use PPCs and heavy energy, and at the moment LRMs because they're super OP.

[Egomane]

Your poll is flawed!

I have multiple choice on the first two questions, which should only have one answer unless someone considers them all equal.

If I use all weapons equally, I have no chance to answer that, because the last question is one choice only and this answer is not included.

How am I supposed to answer any of your poll questions?

[Barghest Whelp]

Voidcrafter, on 21 March 2013 - 05:11 AM, said:

Also - here are my general stats:


You can now note how efficent the machinegun is
Sidenote:
My accuracy with the ballistics is this bad, because about 50% of the time I am either firing at 600<-->1300m range on moving targets, or I'm firing at suspicious blue dots in the distance, which often turns to be either in cover, dead or some random smoke.
With the missiles on my heavy I ordinary stay around 100-200m and I got ARTEMIS on only one mech this far. Don't know how bad it is.
But 2100 shots and 70 damage... man... I don't know how to react

Edit: forgot to mention the "heat test" shots at the begining of some rounds.
Edit2: I misread the MCG(MechCommander Gold) as something related with the machinegun, sorry
I really think it is very underrated game for it's time, even for nowadays - I always carry a flash drive around, when I gotto go out of town, away from my gamer PC, with MCG on it - it stores the saves there, and it's a good timesink.
Great game.

Yeah, I love that game. Ihave it on my laptop for those times when I'm in a place with no internet connection. I never get tired of it.

But yeah, they really ought to give the MG some kind of meaningful boost. As it stands, I'd rather leave those krits empty than load 'em up with MG's. After all, it's a friggin half ton machine gun. Not the kind of rubbish browning M60 used to take down infantry platoons.

They probably fire HE rounds anyways, which means they have the ability to shred some armour off a mech. It's ablative armour after all.

[Revorn]

Funny no one uses Streaks as most used Weapons, are there no Streakcattas around anymore?

[Joseph Mallan]

First question needs a none of the above choice. I have used all the weapons in the game, none need more than point and click.