1386 replies to this topic

[Eric darkstar Marr]

MadPanda, on 09 April 2013 - 05:06 AM, said:

Have you heard about lasers? Do you know how much dps they do? Do you know that light mechs can already equip multiple lasers? Have you heard about the jenner that can equip 6 lasers? Have you heard about whining about the 6 laser jenner? Please explain in great detail how MG's that are buffed to do less damage than a small laser will suddenly be OMFG SO OP MG WARRIOR SPIDER ONLINE!

And just to add that heat is not a valid complaint. Nobody wants a copy of small laser. They should be different and the difference is small laser generates heat and the MG has to cope with ammo.

You missed the main points and all you have done is shown rage if you do not understand then you never will my friend and I am sorry for that.

I would also like to note that OMG 6PEWPEW Jenner has been that way since CB and nobody complained till recently. Get it yet?

[Stargoat]

It seems like MG threads are being closed, but not added to the list in the first post, so that list isn't actually representative of the discussion.

Edit: never mind, seems to be up to date now.

Edited by Stargoat, 09 April 2013 - 05:26 AM.

[stjobe]

Eric darkstar Marr, on 09 April 2013 - 05:01 AM, said:

if [MGs] did 1 dps a second the entire game would change but for such a negative way.

I can't tell if you actually believe that or if you're just being contrary for the sake of it.

Why (and how!?) would a 1 DPS MG (1.5 ton with ammo, continuous-fire mechanic roughly halving that DPS in practice) change the game any more than the 1 DPS Small Laser (0.5 tons, beam-duration mechanic) already have?

What is it that makes a 6 1-DPS MG 'mech so unthinkable when we already have the 6 1-DPS SL Jenner? Which nobody in their right mind complains about?

If you're worried by the crit bonus, by all means remove it. It's useless and only serves to stop the devs from giving the MG a damage buff; I'd love to see it gone for good. It was a stupid idea to start with since the MG never was any better at crit-seeking than any other weapon in BT.

[Roland]

The biggest reason to change MG damage is that we can try the game with the new damage, and if we don't like it, we can change it back.

We shouldn't be afraid to test out new damage settings, because the purpose of beta is to try new balance configurations. There's no risk involved in making the change, and there's no cost involved in changing a configuration file in the game's settings.

Just bump the damage up a bit, and let's see how it works. We can always change it back.

[Gevurah]

I've stood up for the utility of Machine guns after their buff but I will say that unless certain chassis (cough spider 5k) are given different hardpoints (unlikely), that trying to run it as a 'utility' mech is kind of ridiculous.

I mean look at representation of the mech. There's a reason people generally only run it or comparable mechs (raven 4x, cicada 3c) when they have to. Sure, there's a few die-hards, but most of them just level it and stop playing it.

So it affects in game variety because we're relegated to a caste of 'effective mech vs ineffective mech'. I'm not saying they don't do what they are intended - they do. Machine guns are great for utility. I've had much success on heavies/mediums by mounting 1-2 machine guns with some spare space to help with close up brawling. But it absolutely destroys the ballistic heavy light/medium platforms as being viable for more than a gimmick.

[Harmin]

MadPanda, on 09 April 2013 - 04:37 AM, said:

In one second your 4xMG's did 1.6dmg. I don't think you understand anything about this game.

Or perhaps it is you if you think that a bright yellow center torso only can take 1.6 damage. Why would you even bother writing such nonsense - in the hope that someone takes it at face value as long as you come across as if you know what you're writing about? if that's the way you operate you should consider a career in politics.

-Armin

[Roland]

Harmin, on 09 April 2013 - 05:37 AM, said:

Or perhaps it is you if you think that a bright yellow center torso only can take 1.6 damage. Why would you even bother writing such nonsense - in the hope that someone takes it at face value as long as you come across as if you know what you're writing about? if that's the way you operate you should consider a career in politics.

-Armin

He's pointing out that you only did 1.6 damage.. because that's, literally, the most that yoru 4 machine guns could have possibly done.

If the Atlas died, it was not as a result of anything YOU were doing. Someone ELSE killed it. You just happened to be shooting at it at the time.

[Harmin]

stjobe, on 09 April 2013 - 04:42 AM, said:

You've just discovered another of the many, many reasons why having the MG be a "crit weapon" is a bad, bad idea.

Ballistic lights aren't very resilient. Yet they are forced, by the nature of the MG they have no choice but to use, to get in close (inside 90m) to have any chance of getting some use out of those MGs.

Not only do they need to get in close where they're easier to hit, they also need to face their enemy at all times in order for the stream of bullets to do any appreciable damage. Which of course means their enemy - who probably uses non-useless weapons - has little trouble dispatching the "not very resilient" light.

Looking forward to more reports from your 5K adventures. It'll be interesting to see if it'll be as painful as mine were.

Personally I think that light mechs should not engage with heavies or assaults up close. They aren't - and shouldn't - be able to stand with them toe to toe. That this causes pain for a variant which relies on 4 hard points used by 90m weapons I will not dispute. But to me that isn't an argument against machine guns but against light mechs in brawl situations and perhaps against the decision that there are only 3 variants of spiders.

-Armin

[Eric darkstar Marr]

Okay lets look at the old TT rules on weapons:



If you notice what the DPS of a MG is 2 with 200 ammo per ton the trade off in TT is the range. Now why would someone take a AC/2 over a MG with the current meta of the game?

You get so much more with MGs then AC/2s and with no heat we will look at the Jager The DD would mount 6 x MG with 5 tons of Ammo and 2 x LLs with a standard 315 engine and near max armor FF and Endo even has CASE to stop explosions (which would be 400 per ton of ammo) JM6-DD

So we will say it goes off the TT 12 DPS from the MGs alone paired with the LLs its another 4.24 dps so a total of 16.24.

So tell me how this would be a good thing for the game? Tell me how they made a bad judgement by nerfing the lightest cheapest ballistic to a reasonable level for current game play.

Yes it differs from TT yes they tried to make it a lot weaker then a AC/2 to make AC/2 viable since most people do not play a range game.

Please inform me how a 0 heat half ton 2 dps weapon on a mech is not over powered in how almost everyone plays the game.

[Suprentus]

Eric darkstar Marr, on 09 April 2013 - 06:00 AM, said:

Okay lets look at the old TT rules on weapons:



If you notice what the DPS of a MG is 2 with 200 ammo per ton the trade off in TT is the range. Now why would someone take a AC/2 over a MG with the current meta of the game?

You get so much more with MGs then AC/2s and with no heat we will look at the Jager The DD would mount 6 x MG with 5 tons of Ammo and 2 x LLs with a standard 315 engine and near max armor FF and Endo even has CASE to stop explosions (which would be 400 per ton of ammo) JM6-DD

So we will say it goes off the TT 12 DPS from the MGs alone paired with the LLs its another 4.24 dps so a total of 16.24.

So tell me how this would be a good thing for the game? Tell me how they made a bad judgement by nerfing the lightest cheapest ballistic to a reasonable level for current game play.

Yes it differs from TT yes they tried to make it a lot weaker then a AC/2 to make AC/2 viable since most people do not play a range game.

Please inform me how a 0 heat half ton 2 dps weapon on a mech is not over powered in how almost everyone plays the game.

I'm sure it's already been suggested to make the DPS on the MG about equivalent to a Small Laser, not an AC/2. That makes all the sense in the world, if you ask me. I don't want everything 100% faithful to TT.

[Kurayami]

Harmin do you honestly believe that MG's are working as intended when i can kill anything faster using any other weapons around (aside flamers - those are not weapons) than while using any number of MG's to seek crits? 4sl will kill any structure way faster than mg will crit kill anything inside - i tested this so many times while piloting raven.

insane spread cone - no pinpoint damage+misses
ultra slow projectile speed - no high speed combat (jnr can outrun bullet. working as intended yes)
no damage against armor
mythical crits which kill mechs way slower than conventional weaponry

What the point on insisting that this is specialized weapon that have very special niche when this whole thing is useless?

Eric darkstar Marr 2dps weapon with range of 90m slow projectile speed and spread granting you 50% miss chance+hits spreading all over target. totally op right.

honestly i think most of people who imply mg being"ok" never ever tried them.

Edited by Kurayami, 09 April 2013 - 06:15 AM.

[Lorcan Lladd]

PGI could probably tweak MG properties just in time for the next patch to let us test the weapon in practice; perhaps we could start at 5x base damage, 10x projectile speed and 2x effective range?

Harmin, on 09 April 2013 - 05:48 AM, said:

-snip-

Eric darkstar Marr, on 09 April 2013 - 06:00 AM, said:

-snippety-

Assuming ideal conditions with uninterrupted line of sight, perfect accuracy and damage concentration at the Center Torso, it would take a Jenner with 6x Small Lasers about 26 seconds to destroy an Atlas at full armor from the front and 14 seconds to destroy it from the back.
If the same 'Mech could be equipped with 6x MGs and were required to perform the same feat, it would have to engage the enemy for about 110 and 63 seconds, respectively.

Naturally, in actual firefights, the situation is very much different and the MGs will spread damage inaccurately all over the Atlas, even more so than the Small Lasers; in addition, the Light 'Mech will be exposed to enemy fire during most of the engagement, and the chances that the Light will be destroyed or disabled before the Atlas is down are high, especially for the 'Mech with MGs.

At least with the Small Lasers the Jenner has a chance to evade fire and perform Jump Jet maneuvers to get behind the Assault 'Mech; however, there is no cooldown time for the MGs, which means that they must be fired constantly in order to prevent yet more exposure.
MGs are horrible weapons from offensive and defensive standpoints both.

Assuming 40% accuracy for MGs and 80% accuracy for Small Lasers in a real battle situation, the values change to 269 and 159 seconds versus 32 and 18 seconds.

Also take into consideration that only horrible 'Mechs are currently able to equip multiple MGs; 'Mechs which would be far more vulnerable than our hypothetical Jenner and you'll realize that MGs need a significant buff to become useful.

This discussion isn't about Light 'Mechs serving the role of Strikers as opposed to Scouts and Harassers - it's not about the different roles of 'Mechs and weapons in tabletop or MWO, either, though it should be noted that in tabletop BattleTech MGs are actually viable weapons, comparable to Small Lasers.

No; this discussion is all about MGs in MWO and how they've shamed the class of light weaponry!

[Iacov]

imho mgs would either need the possibility to crit the engine (making it a good finisher-weapon) or at least half of a small lasers dps (and that's my lowest bar of expectations)

because currently as it is...2 tons for 2mgs and ammo are 2 tons that could either be invested in a larger engine or weapons that actually hurt the enemy

i love MGs (and equip them) because I love the sound they make and the eventual chance to destroy internals - but having MGs actually do damage...that would be fantastic!

i think "crying" for a dps increase that is equal to small pulse lasers is a bit too much, considering that MGs do not generate heat (but can run out of ammo) and that they are crit-seekers...
a fine tradeoff for the crit seeking would be 0,75 times the dps of a small laser - i'd be fine with that for having a balanced weapon (remember, that mgs will be powerfull as soon as we have engine-crits)

[Orzorn]

Eric darkstar Marr, on 09 April 2013 - 06:00 AM, said:

If you notice what the DPS of a MG is 2 with 200 ammo per ton the trade off in TT is the range. Now why would someone take a AC/2 over a MG with the current meta of the game?

You get so much more with MGs then AC/2s and with no heat we will look at the Jager The DD would mount 6 x MG with 5 tons of Ammo and 2 x LLs with a standard 315 engine and near max armor FF and Endo even has CASE to stop explosions (which would be 400 per ton of ammo) JM6-DD

So we will say it goes off the TT 12 DPS from the MGs alone paired with the LLs its another 4.24 dps so a total of 16.24.

But that's wrong. That's 2 damage per round, and a round represents 10 seconds. That means a TT machine guns damage per second is actually 0.2 damage per second.

The current MWO machine gun deals 0.4 damage per second, a 100% increase. Wow, one might say, 100%, so they're even better in MWO! But that's not true. Armor was doubled, meaning machine guns basically do their TT damage per second, which would be fine, except that all other weapons in the game have faster fire rates, meaning their damage per 10 seconds is almost tripled! For instance, the small laser does 1 DPS, meaning its damage per 10 in MWO is 10, whereas its damage in the TT is 3!

I haven't been suggesting 2 DPS for the machine gun. This is simply a math miscalculation on your part, and thus, a misunderstanding. I would personally suggest that even 1 DPS would not be that great, although would be a huge improvement, for these reasons:

• Machine guns spread their damage
  
• Machine guns must fire continuously to deal the same damage in 10 seconds as a small laser would deal in 3 seconds of firing

As for those who would claim that heightened damage would make their current crit seeking multipliers overpowered, then the simple answer is to lower their multipliers.

Edited by Orzorn, 09 April 2013 - 06:37 AM.

[HammerSwarm]

Hayashi, on 09 April 2013 - 02:17 AM, said:

We're seeing a massive increase in the number of Machine Gun threads in multiple forums which is starting to block out nearly every other discussion out there. While this is clearly an issue of contention with so much activity, the current state whereby we can't see any other threads because of the number of Machine Gun threads is not desirable either.

My problem is that when I am putting together a medium or a light mech and I am looking to fill out the ballistics slots I am left with zero flexibility between the 6 ton ac/2 and nothing. I say nothing because loading machine guns is near useless. How near to useless is it? one machine gun firing at a 40 armor component would take 100 seconds of continuous fire. The mech with the most ballistics slots at 6 would take 15 seconds of continuous fire. That same Jager-DD with ac/20 could shoot and strip that same armor in a single volley. A single A/c 2 could strip that armor in 10 seconds. Six A/c 2 could strip that armor strip that armor in 2 seconds.

Machine guns are at an obvious DPS disadvantage.

Range? ha that's a joke. Machine gun has the worst range of any weapon aside from the small laser.

So they deal nominal damage, have terrible range, and are the only option for a ballistics slot less than 6(7) tons. They weigh more than a small laser .5(1.5) tons. Is it any wonder people complain about them?

Solutions?
I wrote a thread about grouping multiple machine guns together in a single hard point and calling them twin or quad linked machine guns. Many other people have offered many suggestions both cannon and not cannon of things we could do. I've come to the place where the solution may have to be non cannon because this is a real time FPS not a table top 3rd person turn based strategy game.

The solution must have the following qualities:

• It must fill the gap between 0 and 6 tons to offer ballistics mechs that have lower tonnage some options other than to hamstring themselves with a single A/c 2.
  
• It must balance heat/dps/range. Currently as A/C get smaller the range increases, and as the fire more rapidly the heat increases. Other than the A/C 5's they have a consistent 4 dps. The current machine gun offers nothing. 1/10th the damage, 1/8 the range of an A/c 2, and 1/12 the tonnage.
  
• it can't be useless in one role, that leads to another role. Armor comes before criticals If criticals bypassed armor then there would be something to this. As currently comprised the mechanic is useless. A machine gun can critical an unarmored section. If my team mates strip the armor first. I have to rely on them for this. Where as their weapons can strip armor and then are equally useful at tearing up internals. The slowness of my ability to strip armor doesn't counter balance against what they can do to internals therefore machine guns are not balanced in this way.

It's pretty clear to the people who play this game that machine guns are not useful. It's clear they aren't good enough to make us happy with using them as an option. Critical seeking isn't nearly as cool as the devs seem to think it is or we'd be using it.

[DemonRaziel]

Harmin, on 09 April 2013 - 05:48 AM, said:

Personally I think that light mechs should not engage with heavies or assaults up close. They aren't - and shouldn't - be able to stand with them toe to toe. That this causes pain for a variant which relies on 4 hard points used by 90m weapons I will not dispute. But to me that isn't an argument against machine guns but against light mechs in brawl situations and perhaps against the decision that there are only 3 variants of spiders.

While you perhaps have a valid point regarding Lights in brawls (they were not meant to do this, even though many do with a great success), the thing is that some chassi simply have no other choice. Not just the 5K, but also the 4X and the 3C are forced to equip MGs if they are to utilize their ballistic slots and these weapons are only somewhat effective when used continuosly at short range.

Eric darkstar Marr, on 09 April 2013 - 06:00 AM, said:

So tell me how this would be a good thing for the game? Tell me how they made a bad judgement by nerfing the lightest cheapest ballistic to a reasonable level for current game play.

Yes it differs from TT yes they tried to make it a lot weaker then a AC/2 to make AC/2 viable since most people do not play a range game.

Please inform me how a 0 heat half ton 2 dps weapon on a mech is not over powered in how almost everyone plays the game.

Nerf compared to the original TT numbers - good. But nerf that severe - bad. Because while they managed to make the AC/2 viable, they also completely invalidated MGs and with them all the low-tonnage ballistics-focused chassi (best represented by the 5K, that is simply a pain to play).

[Rebas Kradd]

Sifright, on 09 April 2013 - 05:51 AM, said:

About to get mod hammered for bumping all the 500+ post mg discussion threads. Continue the good fight people. Get this useless weapon system buffed properly!

Hey there Mr. Martyr Complex, I just clawed my way out of the pile of MG threads you left cluttering the GD forum so I could inform you that your MG crusade is now becoming an inconvenience to others. When Bryan Ekman said they look for "trends", I don't think that was permission for people to start flooding forums with identical threads and drowning out every other topic. It's an abuse of your voice as a community member, and if you continue encouraging this kind of behavior, I honestly hope you do get mod-hammered.

[Gierling]

It needs to be brought up again that the opportunity cost is far too high. Each Machinegun fitted contributes so little to ANY builds effectiveness that it is UNIVERSALLY better to remove the MG and use the tonnage/crits for some other purpose. There is NO config which can be thought up with a MG that cannot be made better by removing the MG and adding something else.

[Egomane]

Sifright, on 09 April 2013 - 05:51 AM, said:

About to get mod hammered for bumping all the 500+ post mg discussion threads. Continue the good fight people. Get this useless weapon system buffed properly!

O/

Rebas Kradd, on 09 April 2013 - 06:41 AM, said:

Hey there Mr. Martyr Complex, I just clawed my way out of the pile of MG threads you left cluttering the GD forum so I could inform you that your MG crusade is now becoming an inconvenience to others. When Bryan Ekman said they look for "trends", I don't think that was permission for people to start flooding forums with identical threads and drowning out every other topic. It's an abuse of your voice as a community member, and if you continue encouraging this kind of behavior, I honestly hope you do get mod-hammered.

This is not the place to discuss this! In fact, the whole forum isn't the place to discuss moderator actions (see the Code of Conduct for more information).

I talked to Sifright and he agreed to stop the bumping.

[B E E L Z E B U B]

damn you, well played.