3 replies to this topic

[Felbombling]

Why do they fire this fast in the first place? I'm talking about AC/20s, Gauss Rifles, PPCs, Large Lasers and their ER versions. No wonder people are boating them. They are the naval guns of the BattleMech. They should be like a major investment on the firing line, but they're not. This game would be better served if the truly heavy weapons had a slower rate of fire, like seven to ten seconds. I know the first reaction of some Mechwarrior or FPS purists would be, "That would be boring!". No, actually, it would not. It would bring about more balanced, tactical play.

Some people are already scrolling down to the reply window to tell me how crazy/stupid I am, which is fine. They will miss the following explanation. The fact of the matter is that a game like World of Tanks can boast 40 million registered users, and their game mechanics often have people waiting upwards of fifteen seconds between shots with ONE GUN... and one gun only. If that game play style is so horrifically boring, how is it that they have that many registered players? Even if you take away half of them and assume they are no longer playing, that is still 20 million players. We have zero clue as to the number of people playing MechWarrior Online, but I would hazard a guess it does not approach anything close to WoT.

So, the question becomes, how do you appease the Mechwarrior players and the FPS players with a more 'exciting' experience, yet still maintain game balance with the slower heavy weapons? I think you do it with the smaller weapons like the Medium Laser, AC/5, AC/2, SRMs, etc. You keep them firing on a five second cool down or less, but adjust their damage output and ammunition levels to compensate. Ammunition levels are critical, because the reason many people end up boating things like PPCs is due to the extra tonnage we all have been allocating to ammunition. This takes weapons that require ammunition from independent systems to all-or-nothing investments.

Mind you, none of this works without a revamp of the heat system, a more restrictive Mech Lab that would put higher emphasis on the Hard Points, a slacking of the pin-point targeting system, a... um... you have to...

OMG, I just realized that this game is so fundamentally broken... deeply so, right down to the core! Raising PPC heat from 8 to 9 won't fix anything, but go ahead and give it a shot, PGI.

TL/DR: Aaaaaiiiiieeeeeeee!!!!!!!

[zhajin]

I think rate of fire in this game is to fast in general. ballistics seem to have a good range going from the ac20/gauss to the ac2, but could use a 50% bump or so across the board. missles and lasers should cover a broader range, giving more benefit to smaller missle racks, pulse lasers, and small lasers. and ppc should definitely be slowed, similar in speed to the ac20 and gauss.

Edited by zhajin, 29 April 2013 - 06:46 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

I know it is Physics and all but Auto Cannons of today fire hundreds and/or thousands of round per minute. Just sayin'.

[Thuraash]

This is a pretty good idea. I've already been advocating a major PPC RoF nerf. A lesser one for AC/20s and LBLs would be OK too, provided that LBLs were buffed a bit in damage to compensate. MBLs should also be slowed down some, but PLs should be left as-is. I think the nerf for non-PPC weapons should be small, though. Like 10% or 15%. PPCs need a 50%+ nerf.