57 replies to this topic

[Padic]

Lefty Lucy, on 08 April 2013 - 02:32 PM, said:

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.

To be fair, I can think of a third argument:
"Machine guns are incredibly easy to boat. If a single MG can do "competitive" damage, then 6 (or 4 or 2) MGs would be incredibly dangerous"

Of course, I'm not entirely sure why that argument applies to machine guns and not to small lasers.

[Davers]

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

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

This is the absolute worst argument. You might as well say that lighter mechs shouldn't be allowed to use ballistics.

Padic, on 08 April 2013 - 02:35 PM, said:

To be fair, I can think of a third argument:
"Machine guns are incredibly easy to boat. If a single MG can do "competitive" damage, then 6 (or 4 or 2) MGs would be incredibly dangerous"

Of course, I'm not entirely sure why that argument applies to machine guns and not to small lasers.

LOL Yeah, 6 PPCs? Fine. 6 Machine guns? THAT'S CHEATING!

[Paula Fry]

3050 we have ACs that fire Slugs the size of a Volkswagen and you Guys want to go to war with MGs......

[Khitull]

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

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

And yyou sir needf to get off the damn forums. This point has been made and obliterated

[Homeless Bill]

If they're really going all-in on criticals, they should at least make critical hits to components apply some damage to the internal structure as well. I love my 4MG Spider, but it's an absolutely terrible 'mech. Double the damage or do something.

Seriously, I'm sure you guys must have some decent stats to look at for weapon usage and everything else. You must realize that no one takes MGs, and if they do, they're bad. I'd bet Elo ranking is inversely proportional to how often that player mounts machine guns.

I can't believe a game designer any sober human being could look at machine guns right now and think, "Working as intended."

Edited by Homeless Bill, 08 April 2013 - 02:53 PM.

[Avimimus]

I'm more worried about flamers. They currently have no use (it'd be nice if they messed up the enemy's optics or something)

[Hedonism Robot]

I think some of the balance team actually plays without double heatsinks. I honestly have no idea how PGI can assume that MGs and Flamers are at a working point. Anyone who says they are anti infantry is being silly since thats not even in the game. I not once have said to myself, man I wish I equiped a flamer and MG cause we are just getting overrun by infantry.

[Tickdoff Tank]

Avimimus, on 08 April 2013 - 02:41 PM, said:

I'm more worried about flamers. They currently have no use (it'd be nice if they messed up the enemy's optics or something)

I agree, but I think we are best served by focusing our efforts at 1 mountain at a time

[Harmin]

I think that MGs are fine the way they are.

[Davers]

Avimimus, on 08 April 2013 - 02:41 PM, said:

I'm more worried about flamers. They currently have no use (it'd be nice if they messed up the enemy's optics or something)

Flamers are worse than machine guns. A Spider may take machine guns because it has to to use it's hard points. But for the same weight you could have taken a medium laser. There really is no excuse for taking flamers. Even though they do look cool.

[MuKen]

Padic, on 08 April 2013 - 02:35 PM, said:

To be fair, I can think of a third argument:
"Machine guns are incredibly easy to boat. If a single MG can do "competitive" damage, then 6 (or 4 or 2) MGs would be incredibly dangerous"

Yeah, if a single MG could do like 1 dps, then a JM6-DD could do SIX dps all the way out to a staggering 90m. OH MY GOD WE'RE DOOMED.

[Manny Rhyde]

i think machine gun damage should be 0.8 damage at least, that way they will lag behind in damage compared to small lasers, but do alot of damage quickly once interals are exposed. You want to take out a weakened mech as soon as possible which is what lights should be doing if there not scouting for enemies.

[Padic]

Avimimus, on 08 April 2013 - 02:41 PM, said:

I'm more worried about flamers. They currently have no use (it'd be nice if they messed up the enemy's optics or something)

Flamers are in a similar boat, but at least you have a broad array of good energy weapons you can put in that hardpoint slot instead.

Machine guns are unique because they are the only ballistic weapon that doesn't require a massive amount of tonnage to equip. This hits light mechs especially hard, but also impacts mediums and heavies with multiple ballistics slots. You have a bunch of hardpoints that cannot conceivably be used for anything but "crit seeking".

[stjobe]

Using my stats from when I leveled the SDR-5K, the mythical "6 MG Spider" (is that from the same stable as the "4-second Jenner" by any chance?) would do about 30 damage per match with its MGs.

Hardly impressive if you ask me.

Theoretical DPS for 6 MGs is 2.4. Meanwhile, the theoretical DPS for a 6 SL Jenner is 6.0 - and nobody has the slightest issue with a 6 SL Jenner.

[Davers]

MuKen, on 08 April 2013 - 02:45 PM, said:

Yeah, if a single MG could do like 1 dps, then a JM6-DD could do SIX dps all the way out to a staggering 90m. OH MY GOD WE'RE DOOMED.

And only if he hit with every round. Not to mention the HUGE downside of not being able to torso twist to spread out damage the whole time.

[TheMadTypist]

I don't get why they always insist on going on about "Oh but imagine what happens to an atlas's rear armor?". it was the excuse they gave us for Double Heat Sinks and now it's the excuse for MG's? The Four Second Jenner exists, already. Have we seen a sudden disappearance of atlases on the field? The very reason we see so many aguments for changing the machine gun is because making weapons critseekers doesn't actually make them useful.

Besides, people are asking that MG dps be higher, but most say still less than a small laser- so a 6 mg Spider would be about as dangerous behind an atlas as the 6 small laser jenner (with or possibly without Dubs) is now- with the added bonus that the spider has to stay focused over one component while the jenner can turn and dodge between shots.

If the atlas is stuck in a 1v1 situation with that light, somebody, somewhere, screwed up, and the jenner/spider SHOULD be reaping the rewards of that- that's the damn thing's job. Stop using the role of the light to create specious augments about why you won't consider changes.

[Davers]

stjobe, on 08 April 2013 - 02:47 PM, said:

Using my stats from when I leveled the SDR-5K, the mythical "6 MG Spider" (is that from the same stable as the "4-second Jenner" by any chance?) would do about 30 damage per match with its MGs.

Hardly impressive if you ask me.

Theoretical DPS for 6 MGs is 2.4. Meanwhile, the theoretical DPS for a 6 SL Jenner is 6.0 - and nobody has the slightest issue with a 6 SL Jenner.

I want access to PGI's stable of mechs. They are holding out on on the good variants it seems.

[Roland]

Quote

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!

I'm imagining that it still wouldn't be super effective, even if a spider could mount 6 MG's.

I mean, let's consider this for a moment.... You can keep it on all the time. Is that a good thing? That is, is that a beneficial quality for a weapon?

It's essentially a laser at that point, with an undetermined discharge duration. You can continue to dump damage while you keep the trigger pulled.

What does that mean? It means that it functions EXACTLY like every other weapon in the game at that point, only it discharges its damage slower. That is, you could take another weapon, like a medium laser, and just hold the trigger down.. and it'd continually fire on the target, over and over again.

The only difference is that with most other weapons, you'd only need to keep the reticle on the target at the times when the weapon is actually firing, whereas with the machine gun, you'd have to keep the weapon on the target 100% of the time.

This isn't a good thing. This makes the MG WORSE, not better, than other weapons.

The ability to dump damage out constantly isn't a beneficial quality, unless the amount of damage its dumping is higher than other weapons.

Currently, the amount of damage it generates is trivially low.

You could bump up the MG damage a HUGE amount, and still have it be lower than most other weapons in terms of overall DPS... and the MG would still be inferior to most weapons, because you'd still need to keep the reticle pointed at a specific panel 100% of the time to generate that damage.

As it is now, even if you are able to use the MG PERFECTLY, and keep the rounds on target 100% of the time, the DPS is still lower than anything else in the game. This makes it nonsensically useless.

[Davers]

The machine gun is the only weapon that cannot core 2 Atlases in a match, if they let you. 15 minutes just isn't enough time.

[Deathlike]

Hedonism Robot, on 08 April 2013 - 02:43 PM, said:

I think some of the balance team actually plays without double heatsinks. I honestly have no idea how PGI can assume that MGs and Flamers are at a working point. Anyone who says they are anti infantry is being silly since thats not even in the game. I not once have said to myself, man I wish I equiped a flamer and MG cause we are just getting overrun by infantry.

Bryan said in his coolant post that he personally uses 19 SHS in his K2.

The A1 Trial Mech posted for the Build A Heavy Mech competition has 15 SHS IIRC.

That is all that needs to be said.