57 replies to this topic

[Tickdoff Tank]

In Ask the Devs #35 Mr. Ekman spoke of the Machine Gun. Below are the relevant statements.

Quote

CCQ 3: Why is Machine Gun damage so low?
A: Partly due to the nature of how MGs work in the TT rules, partially due to how we chose to make it useful. When equipping a MG, keep in mind that it is not meant to burn through armor but is very useful for tearing up internals (crits). Bumping MG damage will turn it into a laser that can be kept on with no heat penalty until it runs out of ammo. Now imagine the devastating effect that a 6 MG spider could do to the back of an Atlas! We are still investigating balance of the MG but don’t expect any significant increase in damage.

Quote

Maxx Blue: What is the desired role for machine guns, and do you feel they are currently working as intended? In casual play I'm having a hard time determining if they are hurting the enemy in any meaningful way.
A: They are working as intended. They do not pose a real threat to a fully armored `Mech, however once damage, machine guns are deadly against internal components.

Quote

oldhasu: When ammo is destroyed by a critical hit, sometimes it explodes. Sometimes not. How does this calculated? What is the percentage of the probability?
A: There are two different times that ammo can explode. If an ammo bin is destroyed by a critical hit (each bin currently has 10 health), there is a 10% chance that the ammo remaining in that bin will explode. When a location, such as the right torso, is destroyed, each ammo bin in that location that had not already been destroyed by crit hits has an individual 10% chance to explode. There are two exceptions to this. The first is that, if you have ammo stored in your arm, and your arm falls off when your side torso is destroyed, there is no chance of the ammo exploding. The other is that Gauss Rifle ammo never explodes. However, all the explosion rules also apply to Gauss Rifles, except that they have a 90% chance of exploding.

I understand that, in your opinion, the MGs are "working as intended". I respectfully suggest that you reevaluate your intentions.

The MG is not a useful weapon. It does not do enough damage to justify mounting it. I realize that it is "crit seeking", but even in this it falls short. In the time it takes for the crit-buffed MG to strip an internal I could have used a real weapon to do the same thing and do it while also hurting the mech I was shooting at.

MGs have ALWAYS been able to damage a mech. Their damage was equal to an AC2, 1 point less than a small laser, in TT. I do not expect MGs to be buffed to the level of our current AC2, but leaving the MG at it's current state is a bad decision.

In TT, many light mechs make good use of MGs, both for stripping armor, and for "crit seeking". The MGs damage is balanced by the low weight, large ammo reserve, no heat and limited range. In MWO the MG has no advantage. Forcing the MG into the role of "crit seeker" is artificially gimping many stock mech designs. The Spider 5K, Cicada 3M (is that the right one? don't remember right now) both have 4 ballistic slots. The only thing that they can reasonably mount there are MGs. But you are better off NOT MOUNTING THEM than you are with them on your mech. The risk of ammo explosion outweighs the usefulness of the weapon.

Please, for your love of the game, please look at MGs again. Make them useful. Buff their damage. Let us try it with the buffed damage for 1 patch cycle. If you wish, have a hotfix ready to drop on us if the MGs suddenly become "OP". But MGs in their current state are a joke, and no weapon in MWO should be a joke.

Tickdoff Tank

Ps. We can talk about flamers and the LBX later.

Edited by Tickdoff Tank, 08 April 2013 - 01:51 PM.

[Darius Deadeye]

Completely agreed. Still insisting MG's are ok either means they play very differently than most of the playerbase, or they haven't analysed their "telemetry" numbers quite like they should.

He did however also mention that if any particular topic creates multiple threads and attention, eventually they will look into the root of the problem. Just keep throwing out posts like this, eventually they will get it.

I always ponder whether they don't have statistics on which weapons are used and which aren't, and I would imagine very, very, very few people use MG's and that those that use them only do so for fun. On top of that, any weapon stats on those that use MG's would prove all the points previously made, that machine guns are inferior in every possible way. "Crit seeking" is never worth it (which is an artform entirely on it's own, peeling off the armor of the section you assume the weapon you want to destroy is in, and THEN focusing the machine gun on that particular section for x time), compared to whatever else you could use that tonnage for.

[Tickdoff Tank]

Darius Deadeye, on 08 April 2013 - 01:57 PM, said:

He did however also mention that if any particular topic creates multiple threads and attention, eventually they will look into the root of the problem. Just keep throwing out posts like this, eventually they will get it.

Full disclosure: That statement is part of my impetus for making this thread. The other part is that I am loathe to see a fun weapon remain in such a pitiful state.

Edited by Tickdoff Tank, 08 April 2013 - 02:45 PM.

[Fishbulb333]

"Now imagine the devastating effect that a 6 MG spider could do to the back of an Atlas!"

where can I obtain this mythical 6 ballistic hardpoint spider? I want one.

ps - Machinegun damage is still borked.. Too low, unless you let some/all of the crits apply to engines, then it might work as is...

[Tennex]

buff the MG

its all the lights have for their ballistic hardpoints.

i will be happy when MG light mechs are as threatening as small laser jenners. and why shouldn't they be?

Edited by Tennex, 08 April 2013 - 02:03 PM.

[MuKen]

The fundamental problem is PGI has an inflated sense of how useful "tearing up internals" is. They're right, MGS are good at that. Too bad doing that is not useful, compared to having weapons that can just blow off the section altogether.

I remember when Sirlin was developing Street Fighter 2 HDR. His approach to balancing things would be to get together with all the top players, and ask them what was wrong. If they said anything was too powerful or too weak, he'd have them play him in a match, and he'd use the weak character or they would use the strong character so they could show him. I think PGI should consider this. Just get in a machine gun build and duel players with other builds of the same chassis, so they can get owned repeatedly until they understand.

[Tickdoff Tank]

Fishbulb333, on 08 April 2013 - 02:02 PM, said:

"Now imagine the devastating effect that a 6 MG spider could do to the back of an Atlas!"

where can I obtain this mythical 6 ballistic hardpoint spider? I want one.

ps - Machinegun damage is still borked.. Too low, unless you let some/all of the crits apply to engines, then it might work as is...

That apocryphal 6 MG Spider would not be doing a lot of damage, even with the MG buffed to 1.2 DPS each. (Triple what it currently is). Why? Because to do your full DPS you need to keep hitting the same location, and if you are moving a lot (like all spiders do) then you are going to have a VERY hard time concentrating the damage to one spot. If you can do that, then you DESERVE THE KILL.

[Vahnn]

I agree that MGs seem lackluster, but I have never heard anyone present this case in favor of the current MG function:

Salvage Bonus

Sure, you could destroy that RT on that Atlas, removing his ballistics and anything still attached to his right arm. But if you strip the armor, then destroy the weapons with MGs, leaving the chassis intact, will the additional Salvage Bonus be enough to warrant such tactics?

7500 CB for destroying a section of a mech is a huge amount of CB, and it's the main thing I go for when attacking an enemy mech. But with tight, coordinated team play, could critting weapons potentially yield more money for the entire team using this method?

[Darius Deadeye]

Tickdoff Tank, on 08 April 2013 - 01:59 PM, said:

Full disclosure: That statement is part of my impetus for making this thread. The other part is that I am loathe to see an fun weapon remain in such a pitiful state.

I am mostly amazed that not one single of the hundreds of different suggestions for improving/changing/making viable the machine gun have even been put into consideration. Surely one of hundreds of ideas put forward would inspire a "hmm, maybe we should have a closer look", since people woulnd't be discussing, suggesting and complaining to the extent they already have, if mg's weren't obviously useless. As is the case with flamers and lbx, but lets stick with mg's for now.

[Davers]

There was another question- one where the Devs said than engine criticals were coming. That could actually make machine guns (and flamers) much more useful. If they could kill an Atlas' engine faster than someone could just core him.

But the LBX is WAY too heavy to be just a crit seeking weapon. It needs to be much more useful.

[Darius Deadeye]

Vahnn, on 08 April 2013 - 02:07 PM, said:

I agree that MGs seem lackluster, but I have never heard anyone present this case in favor of the current MG function:

Salvage Bonus

Sure, you could destroy that RT on that Atlas, removing his ballistics and anything still attached to his right arm. But if you strip the armor, then destroy the weapons with MGs, leaving the chassis intact, will the additional Salvage Bonus be enough to warrant such tactics?

7500 CB for destroying a section of a mech is a huge amount of CB, and it's the main thing I go for when attacking an enemy mech. But with tight, coordinated team play, could critting weapons potentially yield more money for the entire team using this method?

Absolutely, but come on. The amount of micromanagement involved in this is ridiculous. Lets not forget the amount of tonnage the enemy would then have to fill in 'the blanks' your mg's left in your setup, making their setup superior by default. And you would have to strip off the armor of every mech, then the weapons, then a killing blow. You would have to coordinate this, so that no one went for the kill untimely or focused on the wrong section, etc, etc, etc. Maybe the best 8 players in the game could pull this off if they where really really desperate for that extra 10k c-bills pr match

[Sybreed]

agreed, and what I find strange is that Bryan says they're looking for some kind of polarizing opinions on different weapons... and when opinions get to that point that usually means the weapon is well balanced.

Everyone agrees MGs suck, same for flamers and LB-X.

[Vahnn]

Darius Deadeye, on 08 April 2013 - 02:11 PM, said:

Absolutely, but come on. The amount of micromanagement involved in this is ridiculous. Lets not forget the amount of tonnage the enemy would then have to fill in 'the blanks' your mg's left in your setup, making their setup superior by default. And you would have to strip off the armor of every mech, then the weapons, then a killing blow. You would have to coordinate this, so that no one went for the kill untimely or focused on the wrong section, etc, etc, etc. Maybe the best 8 players in the game could pull this off if they where really really desperate for that extra 10k c-bills pr match

I don't know, man. I recently joined a clan and regularly drop in 4-mans on voice comms. Such coordination is simple. With a little practice, it shouldn't be too difficult. Some of the guys I roll with prefer to take out the legs anyway, especially on heavier mechs. For instance, on an Atlas, strip the rear LT and RT ammo, blast it with MGs so it can't use its most powerful weapons (ballistics/missiles), then destroy the legs to avoid destroying all the other parts.

Trust me, if you run premades on comms with competent players who are actually willing to think and work together, such coordination is not impossible.

Salvage Bonus: http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/68166-salvage-bonus/

I can see that adding up pretty quickly. Worth investigating, if you ask me.

[Tickdoff Tank]

Davers, on 08 April 2013 - 02:09 PM, said:

There was another question- one where the Devs said than engine criticals were coming. That could actually make machine guns (and flamers) much more useful. If they could kill an Atlas' engine faster than someone could just core him.

But the LBX is WAY too heavy to be just a crit seeking weapon. It needs to be much more useful.

You are correct, but I still don't think it will be enough. If they make damage to actuators crippling then it *might* be enough, but even then, other weapons can destroy the stuff as fast as an MG while still doing useful damage.

[Zyllos]

I would still want Machine Guns and LBXs to stay as the critical seeking weapons that they should be.

The issue lays with the amount of damage they cause for critical hits and the amount of HP equip has.

Machine Guns should deal at the very least, 1.0 damage when a critical hit happens.

Ammo bins should not have 10 HP and only a 10% chance to blow up when losing 10 HP. Lose the 10% chance of ammo explosion for removing a section, that gives weapons which hit really hard a better chance of causing an explsion from both dealing high damage and causing a critical hit and a chance for destroying the section. Destruction of a section is bonus enough.

[DarkDevilDancer]

But MG are meant to be sucky they are designed to kill infantry not mechs.

[Tennex]

critical health is a horrible balancing mechanic.
it only accounts for 1/3 of a mech's healtsh since double armor. And god knows everybody focuses the person with 1/3 health.

On paper it sounds good. but in practice critical health has no play

[Tickdoff Tank]

DarkDevilDancer, on 08 April 2013 - 02:28 PM, said:

But MG are meant to be sucky they are designed to kill infantry not mechs.

Incorrect. Learn more about the history of MGs in Battletech, then come back,

Edited by Tickdoff Tank, 08 April 2013 - 02:31 PM.

[Lefty Lucy]

Let's just get both sides of this argument out of the way right now:

"But MG are an anti-infantry weapon, we're lucky they do any damage to armor at all"
-They have always done full damage to armor since before infantry even existed in TT BT.

"They're crit seekers, making them do more damage is OP"
-In TT a MG has exactly the same "crit seeking" potential as a PPC. In MWO allowing them to only have a significant effect after armor has been stripped makes them barely functional because once a mech is that low it's more useful to just blow off the part anyways.

[Noobzorz]

Vahnn, on 08 April 2013 - 02:07 PM, said:

I agree that MGs seem lackluster, but I have never heard anyone present this case in favor of the current MG function:

Salvage Bonus

Sure, you could destroy that RT on that Atlas, removing his ballistics and anything still attached to his right arm. But if you strip the armor, then destroy the weapons with MGs, leaving the chassis intact, will the additional Salvage Bonus be enough to warrant such tactics?

7500 CB for destroying a section of a mech is a huge amount of CB, and it's the main thing I go for when attacking an enemy mech. But with tight, coordinated team play, could critting weapons potentially yield more money for the entire team using this method?

No, because the cost of having mechs carry MGs for salvage purposes into battle means you die more often and lose more matches.