1386 replies to this topic

[RealityCheck]

Man Loler skates is going pyro today on this thread...
I actually had Garth drop in on the opposing team the other day. The moment people realized he was on he got lit up with ranting. It detracted heavily from the gameplay and I hated it. Still, with the way this machine gun balancing is going...sigh. Anyway, still planning on buying the Flea when it comes out. You can bet I'll be slapping machine guns on too.

RealityCheck

[Huge]

RealityCheck, on 21 April 2013 - 04:31 AM, said:

Man Loler skates is going pyro today on this thread...
I actually had Garth drop in on the opposing team the other day. The moment people realized he was on he got lit up with ranting. It detracted heavily from the gameplay and I hated it. Still, with the way this machine gun balancing is going...sigh. Anyway, still planning on buying the Flea when it comes out. You can bet I'll be slapping machine guns on too.

RealityCheck

It is the only time we know for absolutely sure he is actually reading what we're saying. Plus until he fixes his damn game then he better be ready to get heat for it.

If we can't enjoy it nether should he.

Also stop putting your name at the end of your posts. It is right to the left jesus christ. We can read.

[Loler skates]

Huge, on 21 April 2013 - 04:37 AM, said:

It is the only time we know for absolutely sure he is actually reading what we're saying. Plus until he fixes his damn game then he better be ready to get heat for it.

If we can't enjoy it nether should he.

Also stop putting your name at the end of your posts. It is right to the left jesus christ. We can read.

pretty much, devs can expect to get flack from me if i spot them in game when they are clearly slacking off in certain areas.

[Wildstreak]

Rashhaverak, on 14 April 2013 - 10:38 AM, said:

By the way, take the machine guns out on the training grounds and you get a very different experience. You can kill mechs very quickly on the training grounds with ammo explosions, and the weapons tear appear the opponent mechs. I don't know why the experience was so much different in the real game.

Because in matches, your targets refuse to stand still and cooperate with your goal to kill them.

RealityCheck, on 15 April 2013 - 11:35 AM, said:

Merchant, from your posts I get the sense your a reasonable guy. In light of this, I would like to pose a few questions to you.


1. Why do you believe the machine gun is working as intended?
2. Since this is beta, why not give the machine gun a small to moderate buff?
3. If you absolutely had to buff the machine gun, how would you do it?

The reason I ask is that you are one of the few who are opposed to a machine gun buff. Just like to pick your brain to see where your coming from.

RealityCheck

Edited: Double posting error
Sorry for any misinterpretations this may have caused. Was not intended to offend Merchant, just start a constructive dialog. My apologies.

1 - Because it was made to annoy and harrass, not be as competitive as some other weapons.
2 - Some other problems rate a higher priority to me like ECM Stealth.
3 - Kill the spread and allow half ton ammo lots. Honestly, I would ask for a better, more descriptive reason from PGI why they think it works as intended since they have given out too little information, that includes some other subjects.

stjobe, on 15 April 2013 - 12:07 PM, said:

So, you're ex-military are you? Since when is an inaccurate weapon a good weapon? Not to mention that the MG in BattleTech isn't designed as a primarily anti-infantry weapon; that is it's secondary function. Its primary function is to do damage to 'mechs.

Actually, anti-infantry IS its primary function. That is why so many stock designs use it more on anti-infantry Mechs, you don't see many larger Mechs carrying MGs despite its ability to damage Mechs. Sure, you can even mod a Mech in CBT to carry a bunch but there is a rational design logic followed about why larger Mechs are not mounting MGs.

HammerSwarm, on 16 April 2013 - 06:45 AM, said:

haha Oh the forums software, I feel your pain man.

Anyways of all your postings I wanted to focus on two sentances and I think they play off each other. Table top doesn't mention DPS because it's a turn based game. It's not important to factor in time when you're taking turns.

They are going to need to take liberties when converting things from table top to live action multi-player video game. So what I think their focus should be is on the focus of the spirit of what the weapon should do.

What is the spirit of the machine gun? the lightest ballistic weapon, it is an anti mech weapon the range is limited but not the effectiveness. What damage would make it effective? more than .6 in my opinion. After watching the video of the 24 dps spider I can say that 4 dps isn't as OP as you might think.

I think most people on this thread would agree that we'd like to know how the devs feel, what they are thinking, and what data they have to support their position that this thing is useful.

I agree with the last paragraph including on other topics. However some of the argument here is actually seperate arguments.

The rational of SDK-5K and CDA-3C needing this change is bogus. As I learned from being involved in game balance and design in other games, when a few untis using a weapon have problesm, you fix the units, not the weapon. There are other, bigger Mechs carrying a decent number of Ballistics, what happens when they have a buffed light weight MG? No mention or analysis.

It is like the time I spent involved at Amarillo Design Bureau (ADB) where they make some combat games based off Star Trek (the original, not the later stuff like Borg, Ferengi, etc.) and they had a starship combat shooter of their board game much like Mechwarrior is to CBT.

You take a race like the Federation, lots of ships of different classes all using the Photon. If a few ships had problems involving damage based on Photons, they did not fix the Photon, they redesigned the few ships. I have seen them do this in other cases such as when they had to fix an Orion ship found to have problems regarding Phasers, they did not fix the Phaser, they fixed the ship design.

To fix a weapon, the problem has to be universal to almost all designs.

If only a few units suffer, then you fix the unit designs not the weaopn.

Further, if you suffer from few weapon choices, you find a new weapon to propose without violating canon.

[Loler skates]

Merchant, on 21 April 2013 - 05:35 AM, said:

Because in matches, your targets refuse to stand still and cooperate with your goal to kill them.


1 - Because it was made to annoy and harrass, not be as competitive as some other weapons.
2 - Some other problems rate a higher priority to me like ECM Stealth.
3 - Kill the spread and allow half ton ammo lots. Honestly, I would ask for a better, more descriptive reason from PGI why they think it works as intended since they have given out too little information, that includes some other subjects.


Actually, anti-infantry IS its primary function. That is why so many stock designs use it more on anti-infantry Mechs, you don't see many larger Mechs carrying MGs despite its ability to damage Mechs. Sure, you can even mod a Mech in CBT to carry a bunch but there is a rational design logic followed about why larger Mechs are not mounting MGs.


I agree with the last paragraph including on other topics. However some of the argument here is actually seperate arguments.

The rational of SDK-5K and CDA-3C needing this change is bogus. As I learned from being involved in game balance and design in other games, when a few untis using a weapon have problesm, you fix the units, not the weapon. There are other, bigger Mechs carrying a decent number of Ballistics, what happens when they have a buffed light weight MG? No mention or analysis.

It is like the time I spent involved at Amarillo Design Bureau (ADB) where they make some combat games based off Star Trek (the original, not the later stuff like Borg, Ferengi, etc.) and they had a starship combat shooter of their board game much like Mechwarrior is to CBT.

You take a race like the Federation, lots of ships of different classes all using the Photon. If a few ships had problems involving damage based on Photons, they did not fix the Photon, they redesigned the few ships. I have seen them do this in other cases such as when they had to fix an Orion ship found to have problems regarding Phasers, they did not fix the Phaser, they fixed the ship design.

To fix a weapon, the problem has to be universal to almost all designs.

If only a few units suffer, then you fix the unit designs not the weaopn.

Further, if you suffer from few weapon choices, you find a new weapon to propose without violating canon.

Nothing, they still wouldn't be worth taking over the larger AC weapons which have better alpha strikes and engagement ranges.

[stjobe]

Merchant, on 21 April 2013 - 05:35 AM, said:

Actually, anti-infantry IS its primary function. That is why so many stock designs use it more on anti-infantry Mechs, you don't see many larger Mechs carrying MGs despite its ability to damage Mechs. Sure, you can even mod a Mech in CBT to carry a bunch but there is a rational design logic followed about why larger Mechs are not mounting MGs..

Actually, you're wrong.

1. There were MGs in BattleTech before there were infantry. The only target we had were 'mechs. And the MG did 2 damage versus those, same as the AC/2 but with shorter range. Then when infantry got introduced in CityTech, the MG got a large bonus to damage versus infantry (2d6 infantry hit) - but it still retained its 2 damage versus 'mechs.

2. There's lots of heavier 'mechs carrying MGs. Off the top of my head; Thunderbolt (65t), Crusader (65t), Battlemaster (85t). In MWO, with its harpoint systems, those 'mechs could put a serious ballistic weapon there instead. The reason we're talking so much about the lighter 'mechs is because they CAN'T do that. They don't have the tonnage.

So, you see, the ones that are forced into taking these useless crit-weapons as primary weapons are the ones least suited to it. Low armour and high speed doesn't mesh well with a need for getting up close and personal OR the need for continuously facing the enemy. Especially not if the weapon they rely on doesn't actually DO anything worthwhile to bring down the enemy.

If the MG did decent damage, perhaps these light ballistic 'mechs wouldn't collect dust.

Edited by stjobe, 21 April 2013 - 06:19 AM.

[Terror Teddy]

Merchant, on 21 April 2013 - 05:35 AM, said:

To fix a weapon, the problem has to be universal to almost all designs.
If only a few units suffer, then you fix the unit designs not the weaopn.
Further, if you suffer from few weapon choices, you find a new weapon to propose without violating canon.

The problem IS universal to all designs that can carry ballistics - The weapon is underperforming even in PGI's designated role - crit seeking. It's not even good at that.

Not a "few" units suffer - ALL units that can carry ballistics suffer - just because some are heavier and can carry OTHER ballistics does not mean that they dont suffer WHEN they decide to carry MG's.

Fixing unit design might also be problematic since they are so tied up into the stock design mechs loadout.

Still, some redesign would be possible - like allowing the 5K to have 2 energy torso slots and only 1 ballistic slot per arm.

Proposing NEW weapons is also a problem due to the timeline. If they decided to push the game to 3068 I'd have no problem since we would have several light weapon options. But as it stands, not in 3050.

Also, the harrass and annoy designation and purely anti-infantry weapon I disagree with.

[Critical Fumble]

Main reason the MG wasn't often used as a 'mech-to-'mech weapon - the same reason flamers and small lasers were rarely used seriously in that capacity: range. To close to use the things on someone, you have to pass through the optimal firing range of all their weapons first. Even if you had two similar mechs, one with 10 MGs (20 damage) and one with an AC/20 (20 damage) the one with MGs would be at a disadvantage first because the AC/20 has 6 more hexes of possible range, and second that the AC/20 damage is focused into a single location. There's also the danger of getting forced into melee by the other mech, which is a BAD thing if your strength is in point-blank weapons but you are unprepared for melee.

The real humor in arguing from the weapon's place in TT, though. That's the fact that they're not really concerned about keeping everything in parallel to TT effects. If that were the case, they would have left the AC/2 with a 3 second cooldown like most weapons - keeping its damage over time in line with the AC/20 at about one tenth its damage. The fact that they did that is a good thing for a variety of reasons, but it boggles my mind that they won't show the same consideration for machine guns.

Furthermore, changing a few variants around won't actually fix the deeper problem that's been exposed by the way MGs were handled. The fact that there isn't a light ballistic worth having deeply damages their "a hardpoint is a hardpoint" design to the point where they would need a fairly complicated model to balance hardpoints on mechs. Doable, of course, but if they ever add in more weapon content it could result in breaking the model yet again. The simplest, most reliable, and most effective answer is to add in lightweight ballistics that are at least passable at killing other mechs. It doesn't even have to be the MG, that's just the quick, obvious solution.

(To be honest, I'm not familiar enough with TT tech to know what, if any, post 3050 weapons they could add in without imbalancing the game. Though it seems like you could just make a ballistic version of the SL and ML, dramatically reducing the heat/burst but requiring ammo)

[FupDup]

Critical Fumble, on 21 April 2013 - 06:42 AM, said:

(To be honest, I'm not familiar enough with TT tech to know what, if any, post 3050 weapons they could add in without imbalancing the game. Though it seems like you could just make a ballistic version of the SL and ML, dramatically reducing the heat/burst but requiring ammo)

One option would be the mech-sized Magshot: http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Magshot

It's basically what would happen if a Small Laser and a Gauss Rifle had a baby. It's 0.5 tons, has identical range to a Medium Laser, does 2 damage per shot, and has 50 shots per ton (that makes 100 damage per ton, and ammo per ton always gets buffed in MWO anyways so it be 75 shots). Unfortunately, it doesn't come in until 3072.

Edited by FupDup, 21 April 2013 - 07:23 AM.

[FrostCollar]

FupDup, on 21 April 2013 - 07:14 AM, said:

One option would be the mech-sized Magshot: http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Magshot

It's basically what would happen if a Small Laser and a Gauss Rifle had a baby. It's 0.5 tons, has identical range to a Medium Laser, does 2 damage per shot, and has 50 shots per ton (that makes 100 damage per ton, and ammo per ton always gets buffed in MWO anyways so it be 75 shots). Unfortunately, it doesn't come in until 3072.

If we finally decide to break from the timeline, the Magshot would be a swell idea and I heartily support its inclusion. Before that however, the MG is all we have, so for the sake of small ballistic mechs it has to be buffed.

[ICEFANG13]

One time a friend of mine said that if MGs were buffed to 1 DPS, almost all Atlas would have 1 (if they could have room for 2 ballistics), using it, and then torso twisting. I told him it was irrelevant. Ignoring extremely short range, and ammo, and damage spread, and looking at the classic Atlas-D-Brawer we know, it was not important.

In the 1 second of fighting (and not torso twisting, which is after that 1 second), these weapons would have a DPS of:
4 Medium Lasers: 20
1 A/C-20: 20
2 SRM-6 (preextremenerf): 30

Damn add that 1 from the MG and we would break the game completely. Suddenly Atlas with 1 MG added on would have 71 1 second DPS, that's so broken.

Of course the true DPS of the weapons is a lot lower (ie if you don't twist and think of maximum power).

4 Medium Lasers: 5
1 A/C-20: 5
2 SRM-6: 7.5

Oh gee that Machine gun, that requires constant exposure to reach its 1 DPS would be game breaking oooooooo! The Atlas that herp derps straight on constantly is a dead Atlas.

[TOGSolid]

Loler skates, on 21 April 2013 - 05:41 AM, said:

Nothing, they still wouldn't be worth taking over the larger AC weapons which have better alpha strikes and engagement ranges.

The Jager DD will be able to carry the ballistic equivalent to six small lasers.

WHATEVER SHALL WE DO!? AHHHHHHHH!!!! THE OPNESS! I CAN'T TAKE IT!!!

Edited by TOGSolid, 21 April 2013 - 11:33 AM.

[Varnas]

TOGSolid, on 21 April 2013 - 11:30 AM, said:

The Jager will be able to carry the ballistic equivalent to six small lasers.

WHATEVER SHALL WE DO!? AHHHHHHHH!!!! THE OPNESS! I CAN'T TAKE IT!!!

[TOGSolid]

Varnas, on 21 April 2013 - 11:33 AM, said:

See, see what you've done Loler!? You scared a cat with this insane suggestion of making machine guns even remotely decent! You monster!

[Loler skates]

TOGSolid, on 21 April 2013 - 11:35 AM, said:

See, see what you've done Loler!? You scared a cat with this insane suggestion of making machine guns even remotely decent! You monster!

oh man... i'm so sorry

[Kmieciu]

AC/2 was pretty useless in Battetech. 2 damage per turn for 6 tonnes? Totally not worth it.

And then the Devs just waved the magic wand and made it 20 times better in MWO. It may not be a top-tier weapon nowadays, but it's useful.

I'm still hoping machine guns will get the same treatment some day. They only need a couple of minute changes to the stats.

PS. Clan Ultra AC/2 might be a nice weapon. 8 DPS for 5 tonnes? I like.

Edited by Kmieciu, 21 April 2013 - 12:23 PM.

[Deathlike]

Every single time people refer to the Spider-5K and don't think MGs are a problem, please share a build that consistently nets you a win or a decent shot at winning a match (outside of just capping) or at least contributing some decent firepower.

Mind you, noone seems to complain about the lame disparity between the Spider-5V and the Spider-5D because the 5V still can use some decent weaponry despite a lesser # of energy hardpoints that are available. If you can't use MGs on a 5K, then the only options start from the AC2.... and that is 12 times the weight of the MG (not factoring in ammo).

I stopped trying to point out the Cicada-3C and Raven-4X because TBH there are some actual OPTIONS that they can use given their current hardpoints.. the Spider-5K has a CT energy hard point, limiting what weapon can be used to "open a hole" in the enemy AND 4 ballistic hardpoints... which you have to "figure out" a "useful" ballistic can be stored in it.

It should not take a genius to figure out that the Spider-5K as currently constructed has no alternative... not a different variant to grind with (like the Cicada-3C has) or a decent option (I used a UAC5 with 2 meds on a Raven-4X to some degree of success)...

[FrostCollar]

Deathlike, on 21 April 2013 - 01:25 PM, said:

It should not take a genius to figure out that the Spider-5K as currently constructed has no alternative... not a different variant to grind with (like the Cicada-3C has) or a decent option (I used a UAC5 with 2 meds on a Raven-4X to some degree of success)...

Since the Flea is coming, this point doesn't seem to have sunk in. Heaven help anyone running in an MG-dependent variant

[RealityCheck]

Deathlike, on 21 April 2013 - 01:25 PM, said:

It should not take a genius to figure out that the Spider-5K as currently constructed has no alternative... not a different variant to grind with (like the Cicada-3C has) or a decent option (I used a UAC5 with 2 meds on a Raven-4X to some degree of success)...

The thing that gets me is that you shouldn't have to resort to heavier ballistics for the Cicada-3C and Raven-4X because machine guns can't pull their weight. It isn't a valid excuse to say that particular varient is fine just because you can mount better ballistics. The machine gun should be able to compliment what you plan on doing with the mech (within the weapon's constraints). The Catapult K2 can use them in case the enemy closes within his PPC's minimum range of 90m, which happens to be where the optimum range for the machine guns start.

Huge, on 21 April 2013 - 04:37 AM, said:

Also stop putting your name at the end of your posts. It is right to the left jesus christ. We can read.

Its my style of posting, I'm not trying to troll...
RealityCheck

[TOGSolid]

It's not just light mechs either. What the hell is a Dragon 5N or Hunchback 4G supposed to do with three ballistic slots? Not having a viable small ballistic is hurting far more than just the light mechs.