24 replies to this topic

[Bobzilla]

I don't feel any one weapon has a problem, and I don't feel boating is a problem. I do feel the game play suffers when you can concentrate high amounts of instant damage into one part of a mech. It takes away from twisting for damage mitigation, hit and run, and use of cover as only a split second is needed to land a kill shot.

I'm thinking a great solution, which does not nerf any weapons, is to have a velocity penalty dependant on the amount of the same projectiles being fired.

For example, 3 ppc's being fired at the same time, the first travels at the regular 2000, the second only at 1800 and the 3rd 1600. These are just arbitrary numbers, to be adjusted so in short range, the difference would be almost insignifigant but noticeable at longer ranges. It could even be adjustable so the more you have the larger the delay. So 1 PPC would travel at 2000 the 2nd at 1800 the 3rd at 1500 the 4 at 1100. Again arbitrary numbers.

What this would do is allow a player a chance to spread that damage at longer ranges. This would only apply to projectiles as lasers and missles already do spread damage. It also would not penalize the use of a single weapon, still punish those who remain static and overheat. It would increase the survivability of mechs which can be killed in one shot, as they will have better manouverability, while still giving them damage. Overall I think it would promote and reward piloting skills not just aiming skills.

I don't think this change is very large but may be enough to make a noticeable difference to current game play.



Edit

Perhaps my post wasn't clear enough,
In summary...
When mulitple projectile weapons of the same type are fired together at the same time, the velocity of each will be different. So up close there would be no change, but at larger distances, they would land at different times causing the damage to be somewhat manageable by the reciving target, unelss the target is just at a cold stop. It would not affect RoF, DPS, HPS, range, or anything with that weapon except for the velocity of the projectile and only when muliples are fired.

Edited by Bobzilla, 25 April 2013 - 06:25 AM.

[Jestun]

Boating alone (I.e. ignoring any imbalances between specific weapons) is not a problem, people who don't know the weakness that boat builds give and the ways you can counter them is the problem.

[Yokaiko]

I just got most kills in a Hunchback -4P

Its only got energy hardpoints, what exactly am I supposed to do with it.

[Bobzilla]

Jestun, on 25 April 2013 - 05:48 AM, said:

Boating alone (I.e. ignoring any imbalances between specific weapons) is not a problem, people who don't know the weakness that boat builds give and the ways you can counter them is the problem.

Yes, there is no problem with boating, as i've stated in the first line of the post. It's the long range, pinpoint, high alpha damage that i feel is hurting the gameplay.

Yokaiko, on 25 April 2013 - 05:51 AM, said:

I just got most kills in a Hunchback -4P

Its only got energy hardpoints, what exactly am I supposed to do with it.

It would only effect effect weapons that have a projectile mechanic, at long ranges. Unless you use it as a long range PPC boat, it would have no affect on you, even if you did you would have no change to range or heat or rof or dps, just a slight accuracy change at max ranges when you alpha'd.

[Vellinious]

Yokaiko, on 25 April 2013 - 05:51 AM, said:

I just got most kills in a Hunchback -4P

Its only got energy hardpoints, what exactly am I supposed to do with it.

You posted at 8:51am CST. Try that during US prime time....Hunchbacks have one purpose: target practice.

[Asmosis]

His point is, some variants are designed for one thing: boating. A1 is the other primary example.

OP doesn't seem to understand his own topic. As he stated, his problem isn't with boating. its with high damage projectiles i.e. he thinks high damage projectiles (PPC's, AC/20, gauss i'd assume) are OP or at least better than they should be.

Identify what the root cause of your concern is before putting up a poll.

Edited by Asmosis, 25 April 2013 - 06:34 AM.

[Vellinious]

Are they OP? I'm not so sure....there are definite draw backs to running those builds. They can be overcome...the guys I run with do it all the time. Is it challenging? For sure. But it can be achieved with the right tactics.

[Bobzilla]

Asmosis, on 25 April 2013 - 06:32 AM, said:

His point is, some variants are designed for one thing: boating. A1 is the other primary example.

OP doesn't seem to understand his own topic. As he stated, his problem isn't with boating. its with high damage projectiles i.e. he thinks high damage projectiles (PPC's, AC/20, gauss i'd assume) are OP or at least better than they should be.

Identify what the root cause of your concern is before putting up a poll.

'I do feel the game play suffers when you can concentrate high amounts of instant damage into one part of a mech'
Quote from my op . Its more the pojectiles at range doing the concentrated damage. The reson I feel affecting the long range version of this is because you can avoid the short range if your not pinned down as much. Where as rushing a sniper not only makes you vunuable to the sniper, it also puts you into the short range high alphas. So its more of a balance.

Edited by Bobzilla, 25 April 2013 - 06:42 AM.

[Mechteric]

Varying the projectile speed for the same weapon seems quite arbitrary and confusing. I think the devs will come up with something better than this, most likely adjusting HPS and DPS on PPCs.

[Bobzilla]

CapperDeluxe, on 25 April 2013 - 06:41 AM, said:

Varying the projectile speed for the same weapon seems quite arbitrary and confusing. I think the devs will come up with something better than this, most likely adjusting HPS and DPS on PPCs.

Which unfortunatly will just cause the nerf/buff cycle to go on. They just lowered the heat on PPC's and ERPPCs.

[Eddrick]

Lets not make the Awesome less used. It was made to boat 3 PPCs.

[Bobzilla]

Eddrick, on 25 April 2013 - 06:54 AM, said:

Lets not make the Awesome less used. It was made to boat 3 PPCs.

It wouldn't cause this, as any other mech that boats 3 ppcs will be affected the same, but only at range. The awesome having a higher speed would actually make it more useful as it would better mitigate the damage from other slower long range builds.

[Eddrick]

Bobzilla, on 25 April 2013 - 07:00 AM, said:

It wouldn't cause this, as any other mech that boats 3 ppcs will be affected the same, but only at range. The awesome having a higher speed would actually make it more useful as it would better mitigate the damage from other slower long range builds.

The Awesome was the main consern. But, my favorite Mech is the Catapult-K2. Which comes stock with 2 PPCs.

I load my Catapult-K2 with four PPCs because the system allows it. An idea someone has of limiting the Hardpoint size to stock size would reduse it to two PPCs instead of four.

Redusing the projectile speed wouldn't change the fact I am a/prefer to Snipe. I would still fire the two PPCs in the Catapult-K2s arms atleast. Want to reduse accuracy of snipers without it being confusing to new people: Reduse Weapon Convergance.

Edited by Eddrick, 25 April 2013 - 08:11 AM.

[Bobzilla]

Eddrick, on 25 April 2013 - 08:09 AM, said:

The Awesome was the main consern. But, my favorite Mech is the Catapult-K2. Which comes stock with 2 PPCs.

I load my Catapult-K2 with four PPCs because the system allows it. An idea someone has of limiting the Hardpoint size to stock size would reduse it to two PPCs instead of four.

Redusing the projectile speed wouldn't change the fact I am a/prefer to Snipe. I would still fire the two PPCs in the Catapult-K2s arms atleast. Want to reduse accuracy of snipers without it being confusing to new people: Reduse Weapon Convergance.

The only problem i have with messing with convergance, is it turns to a miss or hit scenario as appose to at least one going where your aiming at its normal speed and only the the others in the alpha having a chance to miss or be mitigated.

[Bloody Moon]

Voted no, this makes no sense. There are plenty of ways to use the current balancing tools to change problematic weapons. But in case a new mechanic is necessary then it should be logical.

Slower projectile speed with more weapons is anything but logical, if i try to shoot 2 pistols at the same time the bullets won't be slower, the problem will be with my aim only.

It is a good thing that you try to find solutions, but this is a bad idea.

[Bobzilla]

Bloody Moon, on 25 April 2013 - 09:15 AM, said:

Voted no, this makes no sense. There are plenty of ways to use the current balancing tools to change problematic weapons. But in case a new mechanic is necessary then it should be logical.

Slower projectile speed with more weapons is anything but logical, if i try to shoot 2 pistols at the same time the bullets won't be slower, the problem will be with my aim only.

It is a good thing that you try to find solutions, but this is a bad idea.

I know logically it doesn't make much sense, a explanation could be made up, but the current balancing tools can't affect solely boating or not effect the use of a single weapon.

[Eddrick]

Bobzilla, on 25 April 2013 - 08:52 AM, said:

The only problem i have with messing with convergance, is it turns to a miss or hit scenario as appose to at least one going where your aiming at its normal speed and only the the others in the alpha having a chance to miss or be mitigated.

I would rather not shift the Meta to everyone boating Large Lasers. The steady aim requiered for Sniping can easly be used to hold a Laser on a single spot. Lasers are also more user friendly. Making it possible for more people to boat Lasers instead of PPCs.

Lets fix the problem instead of just changing it to a differant one.

Edited by Eddrick, 25 April 2013 - 11:39 AM.

[MasterErrant]

yet again the problem with boating is the lack of heat penalties and multi weapon precision as well as extreme range precision. these are easy fixes for the devs I imagine (Assuminf they want them fixed) and logical which (I
m sorry) you suggestion isn't.

[Bobzilla]

Eddrick, on 25 April 2013 - 09:35 AM, said:

I would just rather not shift the Meta to everyone boating Large Lasers. The steady aim requiered for Sniping can easly be used to hold a Laser on a single spot. Lasers are also more user friendly. Making it possible for more people to boat Lasers instead of PPCs.

Lets fix the problem instead of just changing it to a differant one.

Thats my point, you can aim a bunch of lasers at a target, but it gives the targeted pilot an option to twist/move to spread that damage out as lasers don't land all of their damage in one spot. Granted if your a good enough pilot you can adjust for this and it becomes more a skill vs skill situation.

Edited by Bobzilla, 25 April 2013 - 11:40 AM.

[Kristina Sarah McEvedy]

I don't see Boating in and of itself as a problem. Boat Builds are actually quite inferior to multi-faceted ones. The problem right now is that the weapon balancing is a bit skewed, so things like LRM Boats in a good team (if you get a match that doesn't have enemies with ECM) will absolutely wreck.

However I don't see a problem with things like PPC or Gauss boats. Gauss Boats are difficult to pull off and are horrible at close range due to their long reload time (and given that only an Heavy or Assault Mech could pull this off, they wouldn't have speed or maneuverability on their side either). PPCs have similar problems, but suffer even more from Heat (and Heat Generation and Dissipation in this game is pretty skewed right now too).