1386 replies to this topic

[RealityCheck]

Thanks for the feedback! Although I was hoping for it to be positve...
Still, feedback is better than no feedback

Anyhow, my proposal was merely a starting point as I bolded in the post. The aim was to pitch a "reasonable" buff to machine guns without being excessive. This is a topic I very much care about, thus why I post.

I see the cone of fire arguement, but I don't believe that justifies a larger damage buff. At the very least it supports reducing the amount of spray machine guns currently do. Just my opinion.

Keep up the conversation!!
RealityCheck

[Terror Teddy]

RealityCheck, on 11 April 2013 - 08:57 AM, said:

I see the cone of fire arguement, but I don't believe that justifies a larger damage buff. At the very least it supports reducing the amount of spray machine guns currently do. Just my opinion.

It was actually an angle I hadn't thought of before. Even if it would be buffed to the DPS of a small or medium laser they will never have pinpoint damage so the damage would be heavily spread out unless the enemy is shut down and you literally KISS IT to get close enough.

My main concern is that there is no light ballistic weapon for light mechs to use against OTHER light mechs.

Whenever I take a Spider with 4MG's and a Medium Laser I get outgunned easily by most other light mechs since their weapons do damage that is reasonable.

Yes, I COULD take a large laser in the chest but then I have to gimp the mech design to squeeze that in - which STILL makes 4/5 weapon slots literally useless.

[Pinselborste]

Esplodin, on 11 April 2013 - 07:45 AM, said:

Using those numbers, the SL is 3dps.



True, and I had not considered cone size compared to mech size. I'd be cool with removing the cone entirely and making it 2-3 DPS, but just a straight up damage buff is much easier to code.

if you look at the game files for weapon values, the cone is just a simple number wich takes about 5 seconds to change, you dont even need a programmer to change the values.

and about the sl, for updtime to achive the weapons dps you dont take the cooldown into account, the cooldown is used to calculate the dps, but not the ammount of time you have to aim.

so for the sl to achive its dps, it needs to be aimed for 0.75 seconds, while the mg needs to be aimed for 1 second. so the SL has 75% aimtime of the MG

Edited by Pinselborste, 11 April 2013 - 09:24 AM.

[RealityCheck]

I hear you Terror Teddy, I'm a die hard Cicada 3C pilot. I run 4x machine guns and 1x Large Pulse Laser for punch. I'm at an even greater disadvantage because my mech is bigger wih a CT that is really easy to hit.

RealityCheck

[Terror Teddy]

Pinselborste, on 11 April 2013 - 09:23 AM, said:

so for the sl to achive its dps, it needs to be aimed for 0.75 seconds, while the mg needs to be aimed for 1 second. so the SL has 75% aimtime of the MG

Agreed - Unfortunately it also has no spread so it most likely has +75% focused damage that the MG lack apart from the possibility of making welds across the enemy hull.

[LackofCertainty]

Esplodin, on 09 April 2013 - 10:25 AM, said:

Straw-man fallacy. Never have I seen anyone arguing for 10 DPS. Stop being ridiculous. I'm advocating for the largest DPS I've seen in any thread - 4, and I've not seen anyone argue for more.

Learn the difference between exaggerating to ridicule your opponent and the strawman fallacy. I said 10 DPS, because I think the people asking for a 1.5 weapon system (counting ammo) to deal 2-4dps are completely insane. Are you really okay with one MG doing as much damage as 4 SL's? If so, the spider that mounts 4 of those would be a complete monster. It'd have the equivalent of 16SL. (actually a little worse, since MG's require uninterrupted aim to deal the damage, but still) And since there'd be no heat concerns, that spider could toss on a LL too, and crank it's dps up to 18.12, which is more than most assaults have.

TL;DR
Not a strawman. If you want 4dps on an MG, you're too dense to be talking about balance.

[ErimXul]

Terror Teddy, on 11 April 2013 - 09:13 AM, said:

Yes, I COULD take a large laser in the chest but then I have to gimp the mech design to squeeze that in - which STILL makes 4/5 weapon slots literally useless.

Even with a LL you will get outgunned by any other light, I use an ERLL in my 5K and pray that other lights don't come for me unless they are already damaged a good bit or real bad.

I've done great with the mech, but I can tell you it wasn't the machine guns doing me any favors, it was the ERLL and staying at a distance. If the machine guns were better I would probably switch to a medium laser and throw in bap for fun.

[RealityCheck]

A 2-4 increase in dps seens to me a bit extreme. Asking for 0.8 or 1 dps is more reasonable. For instance, increasing dps to 0.8 (doubling current damage) would be a significant enough change to properly guage the improvement without being excessive.

I also understand that machine guns do not have same damage potential per ton of ammo (80 vs 150 as the norm). I'm not trying to be rude or hastily cut out anyone's ideas. My definition of "reasonable" is a meaningful change without being excessive about what is being changed.

Compromise between what we want and what the devs want should be the overall goal for buffing machine guns.
RealityCheck

[Kmieciu]

LackofCertainty, on 11 April 2013 - 09:40 AM, said:

Learn the difference between exaggerating to ridicule your opponent and the strawman fallacy. I said 10 DPS, because I think the people asking for a 1.5 weapon system (counting ammo) to deal 2-4dps are completely insane. Are you really okay with one MG doing as much damage as 4 SL's? If so, the spider that mounts 4 of those would be a complete monster. It'd have the equivalent of 16SL. (actually a little worse, since MG's require uninterrupted aim to deal the damage, but still) And since there'd be no heat concerns, that spider could toss on a LL too, and crank it's dps up to 18.12, which is more than most assaults have.

TL;DR
Not a strawman. If you want 4dps on an MG, you're too dense to be talking about balance.

It is difficult to compare Small Laser and Machinegun because of the difference in spread.

Take a look at this comparison (time measured to destroy a component)


Right now at 50 meters 4 MG can compete with 1 small laser. But at 89 meters 4 MG are inferior to ONE Small Laser. The SL has 1 DPS (if you take cooldown into accout). MG @ 4 DPS could compete with Small Lasers up to 50 meters. MGs would be better against bigger targets where as Small Lasers would be better for precision shots against a cockpit or a leg.

Small laser delivers 3 points of damage during 0.75 seconds. It is a high BURST weapon. That's why a successful Jenner pilot alpha strikes with his lasers, than torso twist to spread incoming damage. DPS weapons are ineffective against light mechs. AC10 is better against light mechs, than an AC2, despite the same DPS.

Even at 16 DPS the 4xMG Spider would have a hard time against the 6xSL Jenner. A Spider always has to face the enemy to deliver the full DPS. 6xSL jenner delivers 18 damage in 0.75 seconds. That's 24 BURST DPS. The Spider would hit each and every component, while the Jenner can concentrate on Spider's CT. Not to mention the Jenner having more armor.

Esplodin, on 11 April 2013 - 05:29 AM, said:

4) Most people's experience with the MG buff is from when the were erroneously critting at a rate OVER 100%. IOW, every shot critted. Confirmation bias prevents people from seeing the new reality, where even critting components has been fixed to the intended values.

When the MG buff was introduced, they made a slight error in the XML file:


@MachineGun
critDamMult="12.5" critChanceIncrease="0.14,0.8,0.3"

instead of:

@MachineGun
critDamMult="12.5" critChanceIncrease="0.14,0.08,0.03"

For two weeks the a SINGLE machine gun was able to do 16.5 DPS to the ITEMS. How many of you noticed that it was overpowered back then? I found it interesting when I shot an AS7-D in the exposed torso with 2 machine guns and it took less than 2 seconds to destroy both medium lasers.

Right now a single machine gun does 5.25 DPS against ITEMS. So it was "fixed" or rather "nerfed" by 300%.

My theory is that they tested in on their internal servers using the wrong numbers, found them decent enough, and rolled the changes onto public server.

Edited by Kmieciu, 11 April 2013 - 10:47 AM.

[HammerSwarm]

LackofCertainty, on 11 April 2013 - 09:40 AM, said:

TL;DR
Not a strawman. If you want 4dps on an MG, you're too dense to be talking about balance.

Why? that would require you to keep a precise target (which is impossible due to cone of fire) and is still limited by ammo? Now I would be happy with 1 dps, but 2 dps would be a dream. 4dps with cone of fire and the very limited range might be what it takes to get balance but the only way to see if for the devs to test it out. Or help us to see what their test indicate.

Serious question: I want to take a lighter weight gun than the A/C2 because 6 tons for my light mech would slow me down too much. What weapon is that?

[RealityCheck]

^^ The answer is....THE MACHINE GUN!

I would be happy with 0.8 or 1.0 dps. I believe its the most realistic pitch for a machine gun buff. If we can just convince them to make any damage buff, then we could all test the new mg and have some more constructive discussions rather then mostly speculation.

Not saying that this forum isn't constructive by any means of course
RealityCheck

[stjobe]

Kmieciu, on 11 April 2013 - 10:08 AM, said:

When the MG buff was introduced, they made a slight error in the XML file:


@MachineGun
critDamMult="12.5" critChanceIncrease="0.14,0.8,0.3"

instead of:

@MachineGun
critDamMult="12.5" critChanceIncrease="0.14,0.08,0.03"

For two weeks the a SINGLE machine gun was able to do 16.5 DPS to the ITEMS. How many of you noticed that it was overpowered back then? I found it interesting when I shot an AS7-D in the exposed torso with 2 machine guns and it took less than 2 seconds to destroy both medium lasers.

Right now a single machine gun does 5.25 DPS against ITEMS. So it was "fixed" or rather "nerfed" by 300%.

My theory is that they tested in on their internal servers using the wrong numbers, found them decent enough, and rolled the changes onto public server.

That's a very plausible theory, and would go a long way towards explaining why they think the MG is "working as intended" when anyone that plays with them on the live servers can clearly see they aren't.

[Deathlike]

stjobe, on 11 April 2013 - 11:05 AM, said:

That's a very plausible theory, and would go a long way towards explaining why they think the MG is "working as intended" when anyone that plays with them on the live servers can clearly see they aren't.

Using "flawed #s" to determine balance is...

/facepalm

I do recognize those were the bugged #s, so my earlier experiences during those times "accurate" that MGs did what they do at that time. They were "too effetive".

The current iteration "as correct, but nerfed" is a complete joke. They shred crits "OK" (better than no crit buffs), but not at the same speed the bugged versions were.

Consider the following: The bugged version of the MG values pretty much made ALL critical hits AT MINIMUM to be ALWAYS WORKING @ DOUBLE. The corrected version of the MG values changed the values to "what they should be", and so crits aren't happening at the same "OP" rate that it did before.

Edited by Deathlike, 11 April 2013 - 11:22 AM.

[Zerikin]

There is no role in this game for a weapon that cannot remove armor at least as effectively as a small laser. There are mechs in dire need of an effective machine gun. Lights with 2+ hardpoints, mediums with 3+ hardpoints, heavies with 4+ hardpoints. Even if it did the same DPS as a small laser did right now with no other changes you still would not see very many MGs due to the range. Increasing the base range to 135 or 150 would be a good start along with the same DPS as a small laser.

[Kmieciu]

Bryan Ekman, on 22 March 2013 - 07:08 AM, said:

Ask the Devs #34

Zyllos: With many discussions on convergence of weaponry, has there been any discussions on why/why not more variability should be added to weapon fire, thus spreading the damage more across a target?

A: We’ve removed randomness from weapon firing in favor of skill.

Then why do the machineguns are using random cone of fire and spread damage across multiple locations?

[Eddrick]

If MGs atleast did the DPS of a Small Laser. I might consider putting it on my Catapult-K2 for when it is running hot. To get some extra damage in while I am waiting for the Mech to cool down.

Kmieciu, on 11 April 2013 - 11:43 AM, said:

Then why do the machineguns are using random cone of fire and spread damage across multiple locations?

Good question.

[xenoglyph]

Looking forward to an update on this, the thread is racking up the views.

[Alilua]

How many pages does it take to get through to the center of a pgi dev?
idk I've never done it...

[RealityCheck]

xenoglyph, on 11 April 2013 - 01:24 PM, said:

Looking forward to an update on this, the thread is racking up the views.

A direct result of them locking all the other threads and funneling everyone who cares about the issue here. Seems to me there are quite a few of us

RealityCheck

[Krzysztof z Bagien]

One more chart.

Compared single machine gun to single small laser. Time shown above is average time required to destroy a weapon in given component for selected mechs. This does not include time to strip armour from component! Stock mechs are used as targets, in most cases they only have one weapon in any given location. Notice that for weapons located in center torso time to destroy by MG fire is significantly longer (because engine takes most of critical hits that currently have no effect on engines, actuators etc.). Time to destroy component is shown for reference - for SL it is often equal to the time reqired to destroy a weapon, that means that weapon wasn't succesfully crited before component destruction. Notice that for light mech time required to destroy component by SL is shorter than time to destroy a weapon in this component using MG.

As mentioned above - this chart shows values for components with already removed armour and does not show time needed to do so. Just for comparition: you need about 44 seconds to strip armour from stock Commando's center torso front using single MG. Small laser can do it in about 14 seconds. In general - max armour value on any component is two times greater than that component HP, so we can safely assume that time to remove armour from component would be two times higher than time required to destroy it listed above (Eg: Atlas' arm with full armour - MG would need roughly 178s of constant fire to strip armour, and than 11 seconds more to destroy ML located there, so total time would be about 189s [over 3 minutes! not to mention that it would take more than one ton of MG ammo]. Single small laser would destroy that arm in about 75s - almost three times faster!)
On a side note: in training grounds MG fire rate is slightly lower than 9 shots per second (not 10 as officialy stated). Some guys tested it in live game and it is even lower there. That reduces MG usefullness even further.

Edited by Krzysztof z Bagien, 11 April 2013 - 02:07 PM.