1386 replies to this topic

[Kmieciu]

Gierling, on 09 April 2013 - 06:44 AM, said:

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.

I agree. The machineguns are so underpowered that even ona SDR-5K it's better to strip them and use the tonnage for jump jets and bigger engine. You will do more damage and score more kills by staying alive and poking the enemy with Large Pulse Laser from 300 meters than trying to score a critics.
Right now, a Machinegun is a handicap. It's a joke.

[RealityCheck]

Pretty much in the same boat with my Cicada 3C Kmieciu, except I'm way easier to hit...

RealityCheck

[Kmieciu]

How about, one again, we post our stats using machine guns and small lasers to better illustrate the problem.

I used 2x Machineguns on a Raven and 2x Small lasers on a Jenner. Here are my stats:


Machine Gun
00:57:35
11 matches
77 damage
1.35 damage/minute
7 damage/match

Small Laser
00:26:58
5 matches
238 damage
8,8 damage/minute
47,6 damage/match

So for me, a Small Laser is about 7 times better than a Machine Gun.

And I don't even use small lasers, because they are under powered compared to mediums :-)

Edited by Kmieciu, 09 April 2013 - 11:10 AM.

[stjobe]

So... MG stats.

I made a thread yesterday asking for you lot's MG stats, since my own seemed abysmal. Turns out I wasn't just a sucky MechWarrior after all.

The thread didn't last very long before the mods locked it and pointed us here, but 37 people did manage to post their stats, and here are the results:



On average the MG does 0.022 damage per projectile fired, and on average the MGs mounted on a 'mech contributes 19.89 damage per match.

Edited by stjobe, 09 April 2013 - 11:10 AM.

[Kmieciu]

stjobe, on 09 April 2013 - 11:09 AM, said:

So... MG stats.

I made a thread yesterday asking for you lot's MG stats, since my own seemed abysmal. Turns out I wasn't just a sucky MechWarrior after all.

The thread didn't last very long before the mods locked it and pointed us here, but 37 people did manage to post their stats, and here are the results:



On average the MG does 0.022 damage per projectile fired, and on average the MGs mounted on a 'mech contributes 19.89 damage per match.

So it turns out, that while I was using 2xSL as a secondary weapon (4xML were my primary source of damage) I did more damage per match than any of those 37 people using machine guns. And some of them practiced using them for hours and hundreds of matches.

So the conclusion is: the machine guns are fine, I'm a pr0 and you all should L2P ;-)

Edited by Kmieciu, 09 April 2013 - 11:21 AM.

[Orzorn]

Kmieciu, on 09 April 2013 - 11:20 AM, said:

So it turns out, that while I was using 2xSL as a secondary weapon (4xML were my primary source of damage) I did more damage per match than any of those 37 people using machine guns. And some of them practiced using them for hours and hundreds of matches.

So the conclusion is: the machine guns are fine, I'm a pr0 and you all should L2P ;-)

More damage per match with machine guns?

Please post a screenshot of your machine gun stat, then, please.

[Tickdoff Tank]

Orzorn, on 09 April 2013 - 11:25 AM, said:

More damage per match with machine guns?

Please post a screenshot of your machine gun stat, then, please.

You misunderstood him I think.

He was saying that he did more damage with 2 SMALL LASERS than the people using 4 MGs, on average.

[Orzorn]

Tickdoff Tank, on 09 April 2013 - 11:30 AM, said:

You misunderstood him I think.

He was saying that he did more damage with 2 SMALL LASERS than the people using 4 MGs, on average.

Ah, okay, I had that initial though but then dismissed it for some reason.

Yes, the data seems to show you would need potentially dozens of machine guns to approach even a few small laser's worth of damage in a single game.

[Utilyan]

Feels like.......well no one uses machine guns so why bother to fix it. No one uses machine guns cause they suck, they suck because no one uses them, a weapon no one uses so why bother to fix it....

You don't hear about complaints about the long tom.......because we don't have long toms.

Same way they could expect complaints about machine guns to go away........folks will stop using them altogether. That doesn't mean the problem went away.

You don't get much feedback that machine guns, narc and flamers don't work......cause people are not using machine guns, narc and flamers.

If we were to cut the damage of a streak srm2 in half........it would still be a greater weapon then 4 machine guns and you would get a flood of complaints about it being nerfed.

[MustrumRidcully]

Orzorn, on 09 April 2013 - 10:42 AM, said:

I'm just not entirely sure what concerns related to buffing machine guns are reasonable. If the concern is that higher machine gun damage means their criting powers are too strong, then the answer is to simply reduce their crit abilities.

The most reasonable concern I can come up with is that they worry about how the MG scales. How will it work on an Omni Mech that could, say, fit 16 of the buffed Machine Guns?

My answer would be: Lower its ammo efficiency. (E.g. less ammo/ton, or more specifically. Less damage per ton of ammo). If that is necessary at all. If it stays at the current bad efficiency of 80 damage per ton, but the individual MG having twice the current damage, you need to "boat" machine gun ammo, instead of heat sinks. And there is no way around it, you don'T have "engine machine gun ammo" that could help you out here like it can with energy weapons.

[DemonRaziel]

Utilyan, on 09 April 2013 - 11:54 AM, said:

You don't get much feedback that machine guns, narc and flamers don't work......cause people are not using machine guns, narc and flamers.

The thing is, that while NARC and Flamers suck about as much as machine guns do, players at least have other viable alternatives for the Missile/Energy hard points at the similar weight/size.

Sadly, there are no alternatives for the Spider 5K's 4 ballistic hard points...

[Stargoat]

MustrumRidcully, on 09 April 2013 - 11:58 AM, said:

The most reasonable concern I can come up with is that they worry about how the MG scales. How will it work on an Omni Mech that could, say, fit 16 of the buffed Machine Guns?

My answer would be: Lower its ammo efficiency. (E.g. less ammo/ton, or more specifically. Less damage per ton of ammo). If that is necessary at all. If it stays at the current bad efficiency of 80 damage per ton, but the individual MG having twice the current damage, you need to "boat" machine gun ammo, instead of heat sinks. And there is no way around it, you don'T have "engine machine gun ammo" that could help you out here like it can with energy weapons.

Lowring damage/tonne of ammo is a pretty bad idea, it actually needs to be buffed. MGs can do up to 80 damage per tonne, while most ballistics can do 150-160 or so. The MG also takes longer to reach that theoretical max damage/tonne than other ballistics.

Here's what I think should happen...

Scenario 1: MG buffed to .12 damage per shot, same rate of fire, half ammo per tonne.

Scenario 2: MG buffed to .6 damage per shot, doubled rate of fire, same ammo per tonne.

In both cases, the accuracy should be increased, and a slight buff to range (+50%?) would be nice, too. Scenario 1 is probably the better solution, as it would mean less hit calculations to make in any given period of time.

[Orzorn]

MustrumRidcully, on 09 April 2013 - 11:58 AM, said:

The most reasonable concern I can come up with is that they worry about how the MG scales. How will it work on an Omni Mech that could, say, fit 16 of the buffed Machine Guns?

My answer would be: Lower its ammo efficiency. (E.g. less ammo/ton, or more specifically. Less damage per ton of ammo). If that is necessary at all. If it stays at the current bad efficiency of 80 damage per ton, but the individual MG having twice the current damage, you need to "boat" machine gun ammo, instead of heat sinks. And there is no way around it, you don'T have "engine machine gun ammo" that could help you out here like it can with energy weapons.

I still don't see the concern. What kind of magical machine guns would we be creating that are suddenly so much better than taking small lasers?

Remember, machine guns will still have to fire for the entire time to deal any given amount of damage. Lasers have burn time, which is actually an advantage in this comparison. If you want to look at how much damage a small laser does per second per burn, it would be 4 damage per second (3 damage over .75 seconds, or 1 damage per .25 seconds). For the same amount of firing time (.75 seconds), a machine gun does a pathetic 0.3 damage. This means that small lasers have much greater control over their damage in a 10 second period than machine guns do. Any time a machine gun user stops firing, they lose so much damage potential, whereas lasers have cooldowns, yet high damage during burn time, allowing a user to maneuver, hide behind buildings, and torso twist.

The damage for a machine gun would have to be truly outrageous for its size for me to be concerned about it being any issue. The nature of its firing mechanics means you always lose out on damage unless you're literally holding down the trigger and pointing at the enemy the entire engagement.

[DemonRaziel]

MustrumRidcully, on 09 April 2013 - 11:58 AM, said:

The most reasonable concern I can come up with is that they worry about how the MG scales. How will it work on an Omni Mech that could, say, fit 16 of the buffed Machine Guns?

Even disregarding the uninterrupted firing times required to maintain their theoretical damage potential, those 16 MGs would also require a crap-load of ammo, or else they will burn trough it in a heartbeat. That is an additional cost, that would reduce the overall effectiveness of such a build compared to even a similar amount of small lasers.

[101011]

In the thread created by stjobe (now locked and directed here), I decided to try out the machine guns myself, for 10 matches, with this build: CTF-4X

Here are the results:

• 39 damage-loss-0 weapon critcal hits
  
• 38 damage-win-1 weapon critical hit
  
• 25 damage-loss-1 weapon critical hit
  
• 29 damage-loss-0 weapon critical hits
  
• 21 damage-win-0 weapon critical hits
  
• 76 damage-win-2 weapon critical hits-1 kill
  
• 46 damage-loss-3 weapon critical hits
  
• 28 damage-loss-0 weapon critical hits
  
• 14 damage-win-0 weapon critical hits
  
• 17 damage-loss-0 weapon critical hits

For a total of:

Average damage per game = 33.3. Divide by 4 = 8.25 damage per gun per game
Winrate = 4/10
0.7 critical hits per game
0.1 kills per game

Now, I may not be a stellar player, but a weapons system that performs this terribly, especially when said weapons are quadrupled, really needs a rework. To compare, I played 10 more matches in another build which is identical to my 4X build in everything but chassis and has the MG's swapped for Small Lasers (in different locations), and the ammo swapped for heat sinks.

CTF-1X

The results are here:

• 253 damage-win-0 critical hits
  
• 198 damage-loss-0 critical hits-1 kill
  
• 187 damage-win-0 critical hits- 2 kills
  
• 56 damage-loss-0 critical hits
  
• 89 damage-win-0 critical hits
  
• 105 damage-win-0 critical hits
  
• 63 damage-win-0 critical hits
  
• 0 damage-win-0 critical hits (didn't see a single enemy, somehow)
  
• 91 damage-win-0 critical hits-1 kill
  
• 103 damage-loss-0 critical hits

Now, the total results are:

Average damage per game = 114.5. Divide by 4, you get 28.6 damage per gun per game
Winrate = 7/10
0 critical hits per game
.4 kills per game

So the small laser does roughly 3.4 times the damage the machine gun does, for only 0.7 criticals a game. Is that really worth it? I don't think so, something here needs to change. I'll leave that to the other members of the community and the Devs to work out.

A great thank you to all the hardworking developers of this game, who brought Mechwarrior back after a decade of nothing!

[HammerSwarm]

DemonRaziel, on 09 April 2013 - 12:52 PM, said:

Even disregarding the uninterrupted firing times required to maintain their theoretical damage potential, those 16 MGs would also require a crap-load of ammo, or else they will burn trough it in a heartbeat. That is an additional cost, that would reduce the overall effectiveness of such a build compared to even a similar amount of small lasers.

in the theoretical system with 16 machine guns the dps at current would only be 6.4 doubling said damage would only be 12.8 for 16 hard points. The idea that 16 machine guns would be a more viable build than say 16 small lasers? or medium lasers? etc. is fallacious from the start.

Don't give them an inch man.

[stjobe]

A tale of two Spiders

So, I've now taken my three Spiders through Basic efficiencies. My 5D I did before the new stats were introduced, but I started the 5K and 5V after the new stats, so I thought I'd do a comparison of the two.

First, the loadouts:
SDR-5K: ERLL, 4xMG
SDR-5V: 1xML, 1xTAG

Then, the stats:





As you can see, there was no big difference in how long it took to unlock all Basic efficiencies; 37 matches for the 5K and 34 for the 5V. The difference was that the 5V was much more fun. The 5K didn't ever feel fun to play, and I suspect it was because the MGs were so useless.

Now, some interesting data points from the above stats:

The four MGs on the 5K did 581 damage during those 37 matches, or 15.7 damage per match (3.92 damage per MG per match). The ERLL did 81.1 damage per match.

The single ML on the 5V did 1,701 damage in 34 matches, or 50.0 damage per match. More than three times the damage of quadruple MGs, from a single ML.

Could someone (preferably someone from PGI) tell me why the MG doesn't need a damage buff again?

Edited by stjobe, 09 April 2013 - 02:27 PM.

[Eddrick]

As stated in my topic that I removed dew to it being locked with nothing usefull in it. I do not like useing MGs. But, I am in favor of a MG damage buff. For the sake of giving Light Mechs a Light Balistic Weapon. As it is much better then some of the alternatives I have seen.

I will not support any action to change Mech construction rules. As in doing so. It opens the need to go over everything within said rules.

I'm ok with making an original weapon. But, it must be done very carfully. We don't need somthing like the "Clan RailGun" MechTek made for MechWarrior 4: Mercinaries, here.

The Devs seem to be looking for a way to balance the MG without just making a flat damage buff. This is our chance to give some suggestions that are consalidated in one place to make it easy to find..

[Deathlike]

Eddrick, on 09 April 2013 - 02:32 PM, said:

The Devs seem to be looking for a way to balance the MG without just making a flat damage buff. This is our chance to give some suggestions that are consalidated in one place to make it easy to find..

Flat damage buff is optimal, but the only creative way of doing it is by "raising" the damage multiplier on MGs through time fired or spent firing at the target, incrementally up from its current base damage. For example... every second that an MG is streaming fire to a target, the damage would double (or maybe 50% or 1.5 times that). So, if you were to spend time "exposing" yourself (which is always the MG's inherent tradeoff), you would deal more damage. This would allow for the MG to do a lot more than its current DPS would indicate AND use it in a way that allows for some interesting behavior. A way to modify this (for balance purposes) would be the time must be spent on hitting a location to increase the damage and limit it to say like 5-7 seconds worth of MG fire to obtain maximum damage.

The way to limit this behavior would be through ammo, as limiting it would also limit the potential of the tweak itself.

That's one of the few creative ways I could come up with.

I had a different suggestion before, using the "crit" bonuses as something applied to normal damage... that could work, but making it random isn't exactly optimal (especially for recordings).

[TwigTech]

I'm disappointed by the current state of MGs. That being said, I'd like to throw my hat into the ring and suggest some ways to possibly fix this.

Firstly, I disagree that a MG cannot deal similar damage to a Small Laser. Yes, it might not have nearly enough heat, but a small laser puts out all of its damage up-front with its cooldown factored into the DPS. This means that the small laser can provide much more up-front firepower, while the MG would have to retain consistent accuracy to compete. Furthermore, the MG is limited by ammunition.

The critical hit mechanic is interesting, but I don't think it's viable in the current state of MWO. You need sufficient firepower to strip a mech's armor, and many mechs which are forced to carry multiple machine guns simply don't have the hard points or up-front damage to even expose those weak points. Furthermore, once a portion of an enemy mech is exposed it's almost always quicker and more effective to outright blast the weak point with conventional weaponry than to get within range and chip away at its components with machine guns. It's a specialty which is so situational, reliant on random / unfavorable odds and so dependent on dealing damage in the first place that it almost never comes into play. I definitely don't think that it should be the central purpose of the machine gun - I feel it should be a side-benefit, much like how PPCs disable ECM or heavier ballistics induce cockpit shaking.

What I would like to see is a machine gun that has greater heat, greater damage, and the range properties of a proper ballistics weapon rather than the 2x range of an energy weapon that it seems to currently have. I think the crit capability should be maintained, but I'd like to see the machine gun suffer from sustained fire - either an increase in the cone of fire the longer it's fired (such as typical machine gun fire in FPS titles), or perhaps a mini-cooldown mechanic after too much sustained fire (i.e. the machine gun "overheats" and "shuts down" like a mech). Either way, I strongly feel that it desperately needs a damage buff. The critical damage mechanic, if it can be improved, is an interesting side-benefit but not something I want to see as a core function in a weapon.

Edited by TwigTech, 09 April 2013 - 03:13 PM.