16 replies to this topic

[Andross Deverow]

First of all.... I use PPC on alot of my mechs so dont think im complaining. I love em but... c'mon.


Now that the weapon has been made viable with the HSR and increased projectile speed im thinking the heat generation should be looked at again. Im thinking that the heat generation needs to be put back to their original levels.
Here are a couple reasons.

- Would help curb boating and make the game less boring as players would more than likely get into more brawls once in a while.
- PPC's were always something to be feared on the battlefield as they have always been a hard hitting weapon, but.... the tradeoff of heat was always a major concern. But not so much in this game for some reason right now.

- Would be a fair balance to the weapon simply because it is so good compared to other longer ranged weapons.

Opinions?

[Joseph Mallan]

Or just to TT levels if it was not that already.

[Buckminster]

I'm saying no.

I remember the fear of heat on PPCs. The lovely Warhammer, which would have to take the occasional turn to cool down, so that those two PPCs didn't overload the 18 heat sinks it had. I get it, I long for that.

I also understand the hate of the current boating meta. You'd NEVER put 6 PPCs on a mech. It'd take a stupid amount of heat sinks, and you'd have so many risks associated with running that hot. But with the current game design people are doing it, and successfully. We have to do something to fix it - and increasing PPC heat would do that, right?

Thing is, it hurts everyone. I run a K2 with twin ERPPCs and 20 DHS, which should be more than enough to keep me cool. But, it doesn't. It takes some time, but if I keep it up with those ERPPCs I will overheat. A design that should be heat neutral isn't, increasing the heat of PPCs only makes it more so.

The solution to boating does not lie in the heat system.

And the reason PPCs aren't feared is the double armor. It was an early decision that PGI made to counter the pinpoint aiming we have, and I feel that it was an ultimately bad decision that has caused more problems than it has fixed.

Edited by Buckminster, 01 May 2013 - 08:29 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

The solution to boating lies in the heat system, but not really in the heat of the PPC. Lower the heat capacity, increase the dissipation.

If PGI absolute is in love with its current heat system, the only other alternative is to normalize alpha strike damage potential of each weapon. Increase rate of fire but lower damage and heat per shot so that weapons keep their "old" DPS/HPS values, but you can't amass quite as much alpha strike ability.

That would mean stuff like lowering the PPC'S cooldown from 3 to 2, but also lower its damage per shot to 6.66 and heat per shot to 5.33. Same DPS as before, but now the alpha strike potential goes down from 60 to 40.
AC/20 could turn in a 15 damage and 4 every 3 seconds weapons, and Gauss Rifles into a 11.25 damage and 0.75 heat weapon every 3 seconds.

[Deathlike]

MustrumRidcully, on 01 May 2013 - 08:46 AM, said:

That would mean stuff like lowering the PPC'S cooldown from 3 to 2, but also lower its damage per shot to 6.66 and heat per shot to 5.33. Same DPS as before, but now the alpha strike potential goes down from 60 to 40.
AC/20 could turn in a 15 damage and 4 every 3 seconds weapons, and Gauss Rifles into a 11.25 damage and 0.75 heat weapon every 3 seconds.

I thought about this point about PPCs... and I don't think it would work the way that it is intended.

I chain fire my PPCs like I would play a sniper rifle in a different game. Your change, despite changing the "mechanics" of the ROF/heat only makes what I do better. Instead of it being strict alpha damage, it would be burst damage within a small window, which is already obscene the way I've gotten to use the current iteration of the PPCs, and doesn't solve the problem at all.

In fact, it would make already balanced weapons like med laser look worse vs assaults... and it doesn't take much to shoot down non-Raven 3L...

To the OP: It helps to put a REFERENCE POINT of what the former heat values were, so people can make an informed decision.

Edited by Deathlike, 01 May 2013 - 09:54 AM.

[Juodvarnis]

I vote yes.
They should return their speed back to TT values.

[MustrumRidcully]

Deathlike, on 01 May 2013 - 09:52 AM, said:

I thought about this point about PPCs... and I don't think it would work the way that it is intended.

I chain fire my PPCs like I would play a sniper rifle in a different game. Your change, despite changing the "mechanics" of the ROF/heat only makes what I do better. Instead of it being strict alpha damage, it would be burst damage within a small window, which is already obscene the way I've gotten to use the current iteration of the PPCs, and doesn't solve the problem at all.

In fact, it would make already balanced weapons like med laser look worse vs assaults... and it doesn't take much to shoot down non-Raven 3L...

To the OP: It helps to put a REFERENCE POINT of what the former heat values were, so people can make an informed decision.

I think you're discounting what it means to have to shoot twice for the same damage. Regardless of how fast your cooldown is -shooting twice means the need to aim twice. IT means time passes between shots, time the enemy can move - intentionally or unintententionally. 2 x 10 damage is 20 damage, but it might be 10 damage to the left torso and 10 damage to the center torso, isntead fo 20 damage to the center torso or 20 damage to the left torso. Or 10 damage to the Head and 10 damage to the CT, instead of 20 damage to the head. The likelihood of two shots in sequence hitting the exact same spot as one shot is almost always lower then one shot hitting the exact same spot.

More than that, if you have to fire your weapons every 2 seconds, that means every 2 seconds, you're looking at the enemy. IF you need 0.25 seconds to look towards your enemy and shoot at him, that's now 0.25 seconds looking at the enemy, exposing your CT and H to him, every 2 seconds instead of every 3 seconds. That means more opportuntiy for the enemy to shoot you back where it hurts.

The more shots you need to make to deliver the same damage, the more spread out the damage will invariably will be, and the more you will have to expose yourself to the enemy.

And that's a good thing. That's exactly what we want if we want high firepower builds to have weakness.

[Dan Nashe]

The issue doesn't seem to be heat per shot weapon stats though.. I mean, ER PPCs have probably the worst heat to damage ratio in the game already. IF there's an issue, it's that you rarely die from overheating. And there's no penalty to being at 95 percent heat. Although I did once kill a guy by strategically over heating with my back to him. He alphad so hard the heat caused him to blow up, winning the game for our team. But I don't know, jaegerbombs do 40 damage wnd can fire more volleys before overheating. And ppc stalkers counter poptarts, so that's good, Right? And does anyone really think the 4 ppc highlander is the most dangerous/best highlander build?

And last though since it's relevant, I would still enjoy the game if there were a .25 second global cooldown preventing firing multiple weapons at a time, being but I do not believe this solution is acceptable to PGI, so I think high alpha is here to stay. (P.S. you can't defeat a gcd with multiple buttons or a macro. It is not just chainfire. It is a coded restriction).

Course that would still reward big weapons. But two ac 20s is not an ac 40.

Edited by DanNashe, 01 May 2013 - 10:52 AM.

[Deathlike]

MustrumRidcully, on 01 May 2013 - 10:36 AM, said:

I think you're discounting what it means to have to shoot twice for the same damage. Regardless of how fast your cooldown is -shooting twice means the need to aim twice. IT means time passes between shots, time the enemy can move - intentionally or unintententionally. 2 x 10 damage is 20 damage, but it might be 10 damage to the left torso and 10 damage to the center torso, isntead fo 20 damage to the center torso or 20 damage to the left torso. Or 10 damage to the Head and 10 damage to the CT, instead of 20 damage to the head. The likelihood of two shots in sequence hitting the exact same spot as one shot is almost always lower then one shot hitting the exact same spot.

More than that, if you have to fire your weapons every 2 seconds, that means every 2 seconds, you're looking at the enemy. IF you need 0.25 seconds to look towards your enemy and shoot at him, that's now 0.25 seconds looking at the enemy, exposing your CT and H to him, every 2 seconds instead of every 3 seconds. That means more opportuntiy for the enemy to shoot you back where it hurts.

The more shots you need to make to deliver the same damage, the more spread out the damage will invariably will be, and the more you will have to expose yourself to the enemy.

And that's a good thing. That's exactly what we want if we want high firepower builds to have weakness.

The problem is I am not discounting it at all. Most of the targets (outside of fast lights and decent poptarts) are exposed long enough to survive the 3 second cooldown. Lowering it further despite the damage reduction only accelerates what I do better. Maybe I'm thinking sustained damage than burst damage.. the point is.. there will be more short/mid range shotgunning with PPCs (not ERPPCs) if you adjust the cooldown to favorable levels (with obvious adjustments to other things).

Edited by Deathlike, 01 May 2013 - 11:14 AM.

[Lee Ving]

PPCs aren't the problem, HGN FOTM and missile nerf are.

No one would be hanging out in one spot with pre-nerf LRM levels + a couple of missile stalkers.

[NinetyProof]

Dead Horse is Dead ... quit beating it.

You did not make a salient argument that the PPC, on it's own, with the 90m limitiation, is not balanced. Why not? Why you not argue that a single PPC, on it's own, is unbalanced? Because we both know that the PPC is balanced ... heat to damage to weight wise, it's not OP on it's own.

You try to hide / couch your real issue ... ALPHA from multiple PPC's ... or even ALPHA in general.

The issue with ALPHA's is simple ... there is no heat penalty for firing multiple weapons at the same time.

To the best of my knowledge, right now, there is no penalty incurred for firing two or more weapons at once.

I also believe that the intent from PGI is to change that at some point and that is what is needed to balance the whole "Alpha" issue, be it PPC's, LRM's (once they don't suck), LL's, etc, etc.

So, stop asking for individual weapons to be nerfed because of Alpha and start asking for the fix, that is already planned, to be completed / rolled out.

Edited by NinetyProof, 01 May 2013 - 11:54 AM.

[Leiska]

MustrumRidcully, on 01 May 2013 - 08:46 AM, said:

The solution to boating lies in the heat system, but not really in the heat of the PPC. Lower the heat capacity, increase the dissipation.

This is the issue. Heat generation is fine, it's the heat cap that's a problem.

[Tennex]

an inbetween would be nice

[FireSlade]

We cannot use TT to balance this issue even though it would make things easier. The heat values set in TT were made to balance a game that took 10 second turns. By messing with the alpha fire as some people have mentioned, would cause more issues and solve nothing since people will find a way to circumvent the alpha strike. I believe that if we raise the ability of heatsinks and allow them to cool slightly faster and lower their ability to raise the heat cap would drastically help. If 6 PPC shutdown a mech for a long period and damaged it in two shots then people would not alpha fire as much you may see people dumping 2 PPCs for DHS to curb the heat and they may chain fire instead. It is amazing all the horrible builds relying on high alpha damage as their main point, that have little to no heat management (constantly shutting down). Stock builds that boat like the Hunchback-4P, Blackhawk (Nova), and the Supernova are meant increase the rate of fire at the cost of being heat inefficient not have a super high alpha strike.

Edited by FireSlade, 12 May 2013 - 08:49 AM.

[Sergeant Miles]

Ok.. I have to agree. I do not know the actual formula for how this is figured. but he heat and overload factor = self destruct most be considered. I played the orginal games, and what you can do with PPC in this game is different. If you over heat ANY engine to often you will destory it.

So if they can't fix how these guns work.. they would have to do it for ALL over heating.

Lets remember that it NOT the gun that is overheating.. humm perhaps it should for some?

It's our engines and all those component that aren't designed to tale contunious overheating.. just some.

I can see this different ....if heat sinks were attached to weaopns or whatever and heat is spread that way.. but no.. it's not.

Cumlative heat buildup is what I'm talking about.

But weapons next to each other do not share heat? Yea is shunted to another area of the mech..but thier is still a slight buildup.. in the surounding materials and air of all things that produce heat.

How do you get ride of this excess buildup.. either you change the guns.. or the whole Mech.

[Hans Von Lohman]

I would rather see PPCs do a 3 round burst instead of a single shot.

That might help with the PPC boats that seem to nail you but good every time you see one.

[RolfS]

The heat system is simply wrong. Right now you can't fire quad ppc or er ppc using an atlas with 33 heats sinks. Thats simply wrong, if you have got the heat sinks you should be able to use quad ppcs (at least in an Atlas). At the moment the physics is bent in such a way that in practice you have almost zero choice when it comes to customizing mechs. It is boring as it is. Mechs from battletech were always built to look cool, even under BT rules they were weaker than tanks. It is a problem when game design doesn't recognize that and try to pretend BT rules weren't bad to begin with. Right now firing two ppc increases heat to 20% in my Atlas while firing 3 ppc makes 60% heat and firing all simply overheats it, thats wrong and makes MWO hard and boring to play.