69 replies to this topic

[TruePoindexter]

Coming back to this after a few months hiatus I do find this discussion interesting - if a bit silly.

Being frank you should fire in the way that makes sense at the time. If an alpha strike makes sense - do so. If chain firing or firing a sub grouping of weapons makes sense then do that instead. I frequently swap my laser groups in and out of chain/group fire to control and mitigate heat. This lets me skew my burst damage a little higher for low heat situations while scaling back a little when heat levels get high. In the end we should all pursue whatever methods maximize our damage output without compromising other aspects of play (survivability, mobility, and heat efficiency).

[Taemien]

its already balanced. Chain fire lets you use more weapons.

6 PPC Stalkers, get two shots before shutting down.

4 Large Laser Atlas RS gets unlimited

120 damage is the maximum damage the Stalker can do. That won't kill the Atlas, and thats assuming they get all of the weapons to hit the same location, PPCs can be tricky vs lasers

The time before the Stalker can fire again (while still being immobile and then shutting down again) he'll be dead to those lasers from that heat neutral configuration.

6 PPC Stalker = 2 shot wonder. Only effective when its unknown.
6 SRM Catapult = lawl
LRM boats = Too Vulnerable
Gauss Boats = don't exist, two Gauss is too little damage to worry about.
Large Laser Boats = only threatening to balanced builds when heat neutral, meaning only 4 of them, no harder to deal with than any other balanced build if they are.

Your worst nightmare builds:

Anything mounting a primary weapon and tri/quad medium lasers. But they aren't boats and are not alpha striking.

[DKTuesday]

TruePoindexter, on 27 March 2013 - 11:24 AM, said:

Coming back to this after a few months hiatus I do find this discussion interesting - if a bit silly.

Being frank you should fire in the way that makes sense at the time. If an alpha strike makes sense - do so. If chain firing or firing a sub grouping of weapons makes sense then do that instead. I frequently swap my laser groups in and out of chain/group fire to control and mitigate heat. This lets me skew my burst damage a little higher for low heat situations while scaling back a little when heat levels get high. In the end we should all pursue whatever methods maximize our damage output without compromising other aspects of play (survivability, mobility, and heat efficiency).

Welcome back. However, threads like this, and worse, are commonplace these days.

What I don't get is why the game has to be "balanced" to accommodate people's inadequacies. You have terrain, allies, etc. There is no need to face hug an enemy Mech and then complain when you get alpha'd to death. Both styles have their merit, individually and combined. I am not a pro player by any means, but I do know the difference between game imbalance, and when I play poorly.

Edited by DKTuesday, 27 March 2013 - 11:44 AM.

[TruePoindexter]

Taemien, on 27 March 2013 - 11:38 AM, said:

Your worst nightmare builds:

Anything mounting a primary weapon and tri/quad medium lasers. But they aren't boats and are not alpha striking.

Very true - staggering between the "primary" weapon and then supplementary lasers is lethal.

EDIT: Case in point here are some load outs I use:

1 Gauss 3 ML
1 UAC5 5 ML
3 AC 5 3 ML
1 AC20 5 ML

I do see a pattern

Edited by TruePoindexter, 27 March 2013 - 11:44 AM.

[TruePoindexter]

DKTuesday, on 27 March 2013 - 11:42 AM, said:

Welcome back. However, threads like this, and worse, are commonplace these days.

What I don't get is why the game has to be "balanced" to accommodate people's inadequacies. You have terrain, allies, etc. There is no need to face hug an enemy Mech and then complain when you get alpha'd to death. Both styles have their merit, individually and combined. I am not a pro player by any means, but I do know the difference between game imbalance, and when I play poorly.

I think it's the fact that the way MW plays is so different from how lore depicts mech combat. Mechs in TT and lore tend to have versatile load outs and fire only small subsets of weapons at a time. However this is at odds with maximizing efficiency and indeed real life. Specialization and optimization are key and the behavior of MWO's top players reflects this.

[Trauglodyte]

Alpha striking is really only an issue when it comes to single weapon or same range weapon boating. At that point, it is just damage overload without the ability to do anything about it.

[Zyllos]

DKTuesday, on 27 March 2013 - 11:42 AM, said:

Welcome back. However, threads like this, and worse, are commonplace these days.

What I don't get is why the game has to be "balanced" to accommodate people's inadequacies. You have terrain, allies, etc. There is no need to face hug an enemy Mech and then complain when you get alpha'd to death. Both styles have their merit, individually and combined. I am not a pro player by any means, but I do know the difference between game imbalance, and when I play poorly.

There is no inadequacy here. While I may not be a top tier player, I am pretty sure I am above the average player.

You can see how alpha strikes are used in the top tier of game play. They do this so that all damage is pin-pointed onto a single point. But the Battletech rules (which MWO mostly follows) breaks down when you can do this.

[NinetyProof]

Quotee OP Here.

I originally made the post in response to another "Alpha Should be Removed" post. As usual, the person was arguing that it's *harder* to chain fire, ergo, purist game players should only chain fire and Alpha should be removed or severely degraded cause only n00b players with no skill use Alphas.

My post was an attempt to bring up the *other* reason why Alpha's are good ... mainly, torso twisting to spread incoming damage around. And to point out that only n00b unskilled players will chain fire *all* the time providing a stationary torso target (even if your legs are moving).

Chain firing will always carry the burden of providing a stationary torso target to your enemies. Yes, there are times when chain fire is appropriate, but the reality is that Alpha is generally the best way to kill a Mech ... Maxium Concentrated Damage on a single point of armor.

Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out ... and torso twisting during weapon CD helps to mitigate incoming damage ... nto to mention maybe spotting some stalker approaching from the side that didn't show up on your radar yet :-).

BTW ... a mod "redacted" the phrase: Typical "Liberal" Mindset from the original post. Too bad the internet Lives on forever.

[Teralitha]

ninetyproof got some things right, and some wrong.

Heat is the balancing factor for BIG alpha strikes. And thats how the game is currently. You want a bigger alpha strike that can fire nonstop? pack on more weapons, but wait, wont that make you overheat? NO< just upgrade to double heat sinks and buy coolshots.

That is where the root of that issue is.. Heat.

Everything else he said about alpha striking and hiding your torso's etc is all true.

[Rhent]

Dishevel, on 27 March 2013 - 08:39 AM, said:

All I would really want is the ability to set chain timing.
This would not affect the firing rate of the weapon itself just the rate between trigger pulls on the chain.
That way you could set the chain rate of 4xAC/5s on a group to one quarter of the fire rate of the weapon itself so as to give yourself a constant sustainable firing rate. Or you could choose 0.1 seconds and have all 4 go off in .4 seconds. with a wait before the first is ready to fire again.
Choices are good.

Buy a mouse that supports macroing, Logitech or Razer are two of the mainline companies that offer macroing. You can set when and how often your weapons fire w/ a delay.

[Rakashan]

Zyllos, on 27 March 2013 - 08:21 AM, said:

Ignoring on how you achieve the above, would it not be better to balance Alpha Strikes and Chain Firing instead of Alpha Striking always being just straight better in almost every situation? The only time Alpha Strikes are bad is if using one would shut you down.

Let's not ignore how you achieve the above. From your post it is impossible to tell if you know exactly what benefits you gain regarding heat when you are chain firing. Without getting into it, what change would you make to weapons that would allow you to know whether you were chain firing or alpha firing and once you knew, what change would you make to their output?

I ask because I can't think of a damn thing you could do to balance the two situations and that leaves this topic in the realm of pipe dreams, not rational discussion. If you have an idea what could be done I'd be happy to discuss it but I'm not going into a discussion which boils down to "how many people would like the a numerically impossible system".

[Pater Mors]

I almost never alpha strike, the main reason being that the builds I create don't need it/won't be effective with it. That being said, if I created a build that I thought would function better using Alpha strikes, you can bet your butt that I will throw everything I have at you, any time I feel it's gonna count.

[Zyllos]

Rakashan, on 27 March 2013 - 12:46 PM, said:

Let's not ignore how you achieve the above. From your post it is impossible to tell if you know exactly what benefits you gain regarding heat when you are chain firing. Without getting into it, what change would you make to weapons that would allow you to know whether you were chain firing or alpha firing and once you knew, what change would you make to their output?

I ask because I can't think of a damn thing you could do to balance the two situations and that leaves this topic in the realm of pipe dreams, not rational discussion. If you have an idea what could be done I'd be happy to discuss it but I'm not going into a discussion which boils down to "how many people would like the a numerically impossible system".

Weapon Convergence is Leading to Game Imbalance

You can view high end gameplay (8 mans) and see the benefits and heat differences between Chain Firing and Alpha Striking.

Chain Firing is non-existant. Alpha strike builds are rampant. This is because there is no benefit to chain firing weapons because all the damage lands onto a single location when you alpha strike, so why ever keep your torso facing your target for them to hit just to maintain heat when you could just load up on better weapons/mechs which allow you a way to pin-point all that alpha striking damage?

Edited by Zyllos, 27 March 2013 - 01:06 PM.

[PANZERBUNNY]

The fact that cool shot is in the game means they don't really care about balancing alphas. They are alright as is.

You don't really WANT to get into close range with other mechs unless you are built to survive and close that distance.

There's a reason why most infantry fights aren't always denerating into bayonet charges and rifle butts to the face. Apply the same principle to mechs.

R&R would help curb people running up all the time.

Personal survival SHOULD be a goal, but currently that isn't the case.

Edited by PANZERBUNNY, 27 March 2013 - 01:06 PM.

[Rakashan]

Zyllos, on 27 March 2013 - 01:03 PM, said:

Weapon Convergence is Leading to Game Imbalance

You can view high end gameplay (8 mans) and see the benefits and heat differences between Chain Firing and Alpha Striking.

Chain Firing is non-existant. Alpha strike builds are rampant. This is because there is no benefit to chain firing weapons because all the damage lands onto a single location when you alpha strike...

I know what the benefits of chainfire are. They actually do exist but they pale in comparison to the benefits of alpha striking as demonstrated in the quote in your original post. You can actually define them very well mathematically instead of just watching 8-mans and being uninformed about anything that typical 8-mans are not doing.

If I understand the proposal that you linked to, you have two parts. The part about not allowing multiple weapons to fire out of a single "port" is a non-issue assuming that PGI gets their graphics working the way they want and shows a weapon on the skin for every weapon mounted in each hardpoint. May or may not happen, but implies that this is something they are trying to make go away anyway.

The other half of the proposal, about convergence, is an interesting idea but is not much of a solution, to be honest. It does one of two things, neither of which are particularly rewarding to gamers. One option is for every offset to be systematic (what you called "weapons fire straight forward") which equates to nothing actually hitting the center of the crosshair (unless the center torso actually does hit instead of being high or low). This would impact the accuracy of chain-fire as well making all damage more spread and still resulting in a configuration that favors alphas since they would still be more clustered than allowing for the enemy to twist or otherwise dodge chain fire. The other is the "cone of fire" solution which makes all fire inherently inaccurate again resulting in "hit the same side of the mech" or "scatter all over the mech". All the same logic still applies, you've just slid further out the scale toward "less focused" for all damage.

The one condition that is interesting in this kind of discussion would be a situation in which accuracy, presumably in some sort of "cone of fire" set up, gets worse the more weapons a mech is firing. It's an interesting idea but it leads to a situation where tuning the amount of time between shots that affects accuracy would have a significant impact on what kind of loadout was viable and what was not. For example, the AC40 Jagger can probably stagger fire to avoid suffering loss of accuracy but the quad AC2 build cannot. Heck, a single AC2 might chain fire fast enough to impact itself depending on the timing you chose. Seems a wide-reaching change all in the attempt to punish alpha strikes.

[DegeneratePervert]

This is silly. Chainfire and Alpha Striking are already balanced. On my 3x UAC/5 Muromets, I chainfire most of the time, to avoid jams and to better use my available ammo. However, if the opponent is standing still, I'll alpha into his head a few times and headshot him.

I use chainfire all the time when I'm near 80% heat to keep my damage up, especially when brawling.

[Bubba Wilkins]

Zyllos, on 27 March 2013 - 12:36 PM, said:

There is no inadequacy here. While I may not be a top tier player, I am pretty sure I am above the average player.

You can see how alpha strikes are used in the top tier of game play. They do this so that all damage is pin-pointed onto a single point. But the Battletech rules (which MWO mostly follows) breaks down when you can do this.

It's not possible to do perfect pinpoint damage except when both you and your target are standing still. Lasers DOT mechanics make that type of effectiveness near impossible at all but the closest of ranges. Pulse lasers are easier, but there are still multiple pulses and hence not a one shot deal. Ballistics are easier in that they are a single impact, but at that point your fighting slower projectile speeds and ballistic curves.

Frankly, the weapons and mechanics render your "pinpoint damage" argument null and void.

Edited by Bubba Wilkins, 27 March 2013 - 01:36 PM.

[TruePoindexter]

Zyllos, on 27 March 2013 - 12:36 PM, said:

There is no inadequacy here. While I may not be a top tier player, I am pretty sure I am above the average player.

You can see how alpha strikes are used in the top tier of game play. They do this so that all damage is pin-pointed onto a single point. But the Battletech rules (which MWO mostly follows) breaks down when you can do this.

This is why MWO has different damage/armor values for its weapons.

[FupDup]

TruePoindexter, on 27 March 2013 - 11:43 AM, said:

Very true - staggering between the "primary" weapon and then supplementary lasers is lethal.

EDIT: Case in point here are some load outs I use:

1 Gauss 3 ML
1 UAC5 5 ML
3 AC 5 3 ML
1 AC20 5 ML

I do see a pattern

...2 SSRM2 3 ML?

Edited by FupDup, 27 March 2013 - 01:49 PM.

[TruePoindexter]

FupDup, on 27 March 2013 - 01:48 PM, said:

...2 SSRM2 3 ML?

Indeed - ML's are by design the ideal supplementary weapons.