22 replies to this topic

[Ph30nix]

PGI needs to make beams alittle more viable. (i do NOT think PPC"s need a nerf in anyway they are a very well rounded weapon in a sea of broken to handicapped weapons)

i mean right now

PPC

10 damage (instant on hit)
8 heat
540 range
7 tons
3 cooldown
3 crit slots

ERPP

10 damage (instant on hit)
11 heat
810 range (with a MAX of 1620)
7 tons
3 cooldown
3 crits slots

now compare to beams

Large laser

9 damage (spread over duration of beam)
7 heat
450 range
5 tons
3.25 cooldown
2 crit slots


er large

9 damage (spread over duration of beam)
9.5 heat
675 range
5 tons
3.25 cooldown
2 crit slots


now if you take out the differnce in how damage works, all 4 of these weapons seem very well balanced to each other, they seem to have realy reasonable give and take for for what they offer. More heat for more range, less tonnage/crits for less damage sounds great on paper.

but once you factor in that the damage for lasers is spread out over time and no instant.... then wow Lasers look pathetic in comparison. again im not saying PPC's should be nerfed. they seem to be the one weapon PGI DEFAINTLY has right. they should use that as their cornerstone and fit from their.

looking at my weapon stats, comparing most used versions of the wepaons (PPC and Large laser)
i have an average damage per hit of 5.1 with large lasers and an average damage per hit of 8,6 with my PPC's (because shots that destroy a section only do the damage take to destroy section so if it had 9 health left shot could only do 9 damage)
stats
PPC 183 10,503 4,954 47.17% 13:39:42 42,947
LARGE LASER 135 4,925 3,725 75.63% 09:43:55 19,201

even with the fact my large laser had a almost 30% higher accuracy rating....

yea yea i suck im sure thats fine.

im just pointing out, beams need some loving so that people dont feel they are a waste to take and will start choosing them over ppc's again.

personaly i think lowering their heat is a decent choice, or maybe shortening beam durations put the standard lasers to Pulse laser duration and lower pulse lasers alittle farther with their cooldown remaining the same.

or maybe just lower recharge of pulse and standard lasers alittle. i dont know something.

they dont feel or seem too far off target but they need a slight tweak.

do that and PPC's wont be seen a a MUST HAVE weapon for alot of people, then once LRM's are back to where they should be poptarting will have a predator which will drive even more people away from ppc's.

Edited by Ph30nix, 10 May 2013 - 08:59 PM.

[jeffsw6]

I disagree with your opinion in most ways. Also, you've ignored range penalties for damage. This contributes to why your PPC damage doesn't average to 10 per hit.

[idle crow]

Beam duration is the biggest problem with all lasers. A counter balance to lowering the beam duration would be increasing the recycle time.

[El Bandito]

OP, you forgot that laser cooldown does not start until the beam is finished.

So in reality LLasers for example, need to wait 4.25 seconds to shoot instead of 3.25 as advertised.

Go test it yourself with a watch.

Edited by El Bandito, 11 May 2013 - 05:53 AM.

[mike29tw]

Personally I have no problem with beam duration. Large laser is still my go-to weapon on most mechs.

To get people off PPC though, maybe PGI should buff ERLL. I mean look at that, it generates more heat and do less damage over a spread out area, who would use that over a PPC ??

[Adridos]

Ph30nix, on 10 May 2013 - 08:59 PM, said:

(i do NOT think PPC"s need a nerf in anyway they are a very well rounded weapon in a sea of broken to handicapped weapons)

A weapon that negates one of the core mechanics of the game is broken.

Namely, PPCs can instakill, destroying all the notions of torso twisting to protect from damage as well as modular targets (a nomral weapon has to concentrate fire one one point of the mech... a PPC boat needs just to hit the target and it's dead or severely crippled).

[OneManWar]

I was using PPC's back when they 'sucked' at a higher heat and slower projectile speed (1200 as opposed to 2000 I believe). Needless to say I'm a beast with them now, it really does almost feel like easy mode. While I do think they were weak before, now especially with the ECM kill I think it's a bit much. PPC's are iconic in the Battletech universe and we should see lots of them, but now everyone and their mother has them. Light, medium, heavy, assault... I see Spiders and Jenners running around tossing PPC's out left and right. I used a commando before the buffs with a PPC, but it was more as a joke and to practice but now these people are running serious builds. I'm not against a light sporting a PPC (the panther does exist) but when a Jenner comes at you with 2 something is wrong. LOL.

[Tor6]

PPCs should be toned down because it's not -fun- to have massive walking turrets housing 4 ppcs cleaving the side torso off any mech smaller than a heavy in one shot. Mech battles are supposed to last a bit longer than they currently do, with the various combatants maneuvering, firing on one another and gradually taking damage till they fall. A medium mech emerging from cover only to suddenly lose half their armament in one shot is exactly what drives people away from those chassis. Chassis which are supposed to be the most, not least numerous. If every weapon is boosted up to the level PPCs are at battles will just become lightning skirmishes where one unit falls damn near instantly. Things simply should not progress that fast, as it'll just drive people further into playing either Assaults or lights. Those will become the only viable weight classes (which we're already seeing).

[Edson Drake]

This. Again. Well there's nothing wrong with the PPC, the lack of variety in weapons is to blame.

I am practically forced to use PPCs because my favourite weapons(missiles) are horrible. I like lasers, they're awesome, but the wait is too long compared to PPCs. If it had about half the time needed to inflict damage it would be better. While you're spraying that laser over the target he's destroying you with 2X AC20, Gauss, ERPPCs, etc.

[Tesfurdo]

jeffsw6, on 10 May 2013 - 11:08 PM, said:

I disagree with your opinion in most ways. Also, you've ignored range penalties for damage. This contributes to why your PPC damage doesn't average to 10 per hit.

True. I've just calculated my PPC damage per hit and it came out at a little over 9.95 per hit. Can I call that 10?

[MustrumRidcully]

I don't think we really want to have more pin-point precision in the game. AT least not with the current damage values. If you think along these lines, you should turn the PPC into a weapon with beam duration.

[Flyby215]

Return PPCs to their Mechwarrior 2 speeds then we'll see how often they get used

[cyberFluke]

Edson Drake, on 11 May 2013 - 12:58 AM, said:

This. Again. Well there's nothing wrong with the PPC, the lack of variety in weapons is to blame.

I am practically forced to use PPCs because my favourite weapons(missiles) are horrible. I like lasers, they're awesome, but the wait is too long compared to PPCs. If it had about half the time needed to inflict damage it would be better. While you're spraying that laser over the target he's destroying you with 2X AC20, Gauss, ERPPCs, etc.

Almost, the problem is **NOT** the PPC, it's the fact that a number of 'mechs can boat them better than a 'mech that was **designed** to boat them, without **any** penalties at all.

The AWS chassis was designed from the ground up to boat PPCs (primarily). However, due to the current mechlab system not having any kind of size on a hardpoint, (and the devs have said isn't gonna happen either in the last ATD) a stalker for example can mount more PPCs, more efficiently than any of the AWS variants.

This is the failing that's causing the problems. The stalker can mount more PPCs more efficiently, and the highlander is a damn sight harder to kill than the AWS, and has JJs, and ballistic mounts. If the only mech that could boat PPCs was the Awesome, do you really think we'd have this kind of problem? I'm not trying to argue that the AWS should indeed be the only PPC boat, just saying that other mechs are doing the job better than a designed from the ground up, dedicated PPC chassis.

[Adridos]

Flyby215, on 11 May 2013 - 03:52 AM, said:

Return PPCs to their Mechwarrior 2 speeds then we'll see how often they get used

They were good on the pre-whine buff values. No need to go further than that.

[ZippySpeedMonkey]

No, PPC's do need a tweak.....

A simple solution would be 1 more point of heat generation per shot, and a min range of the ER PPC's of 120, as it stands there is no real downside to taking them...

[Ngamok]

Gonna have to agree to slow the PPC back down to 1200 m/s but I would still raise the cool down up to 4s. The extra second would make getting off quick succession shots off a little better and get them closer to beam weapon times.

[Ph30nix]

ZippySpeedMonkey, on 11 May 2013 - 07:00 AM, said:

No, PPC's do need a tweak.....

A simple solution would be 1 more point of heat generation per shot, and a min range of the ER PPC's of 120, as it stands there is no real downside to taking them...

so the massive heat rating isnt a downside? i have 2 on my treb and i can get off 3 shots before i have to stop or overheat your idea would knock that to 2 then wait a few before my third.

also the point of ERPPC is THEY DONT HAVE THE MINIMUM RANGE PENALTY!

[Tesfurdo]

Ph30nix, on 11 May 2013 - 11:51 AM, said:

so the massive heat rating isnt a downside? i have 2 on my treb and i can get off 3 shots before i have to stop or overheat your idea would knock that to 2 then wait a few before my third.

also the point of ERPPC is THEY DONT HAVE THE MINIMUM RANGE PENALTY!

They also have longer maximum effective distance.... so they would still have an advantage if a minimum range was added,

[Tor6]

Ph30nix, on 11 May 2013 - 11:51 AM, said:

so the massive heat rating isnt a downside? i have 2 on my treb and i can get off 3 shots before i have to stop or overheat your idea would knock that to 2 then wait a few before my third.

also the point of ERPPC is THEY DONT HAVE THE MINIMUM RANGE PENALTY!

Have you thought that maybe 50 ton poptarts armed only with PPCs is a symptom of the problem? Spiders and commandos taking PPCs, Cicadas taking PPCs, etc is all a sign that PPCs NEED WORK. They're flat out better than their competitor weapons on account of receiving buffs to put them in a workable stat (when they were borked). Now that they've been fixed, those buffs have made them far far better than they should be. And no heat isn't a huge consequence on a mech as fast and maneuverable as a jump-capable Treb.

[Coralld]

Perhaps creating a new stat box for mechs, lets call it "Heavy Hard Points" which shows how many heavy weapons can be placed on a mechs ballistic, energy, and missile hard points as well as how many heavy weapons it can carry over all. The heavy weapon line up would be, Gauss, AC/20, LRM20s, LRM15s, SRM6s, Streaks, LLs, and PPCs.
Some mechs may not be able to have any heavy hard points at all... ECM mechs, I'm looking at you in particular.

So lets take a HBK 4G for example, the heavy hard points would look something like this...
1 HHP (Heavy Hard Points)
Ballistic 0/1
Energy 0/1
Missiles N/A

Now lets try the STK 3F...
4 HHP
Ballistic N/A
Energy 0/2
Missiles 0/2

Or how about the AWS 8Q
6 HHP
Ballistic N/A
Energy 0/6
Missiles N/A

I hope this helps to explains my heavy hard point system.
This would fix the bloat boats that's for sure and make some of the less used mechs more appealing. However, PGI said that they wouldn't go down that rout, but who knows, PGI has flipped flopped on so many things its hard to say.

I am also in favor of actual heat penalties, such as if your heat spikes over 70% your mechs movement and torso speed becomes slower and if your mech has arms, they become sluggish until your heat is under 50%. I also like the idea that every time you over heat all of your heat sinks lose 5% of their heat dissipation and every time you hit the override it lowers their effectiveness by another 5%, using the coolant shots also make you lose another 5%, just to name a few of the possible heat penalties.

Just throwing ideas out there.

Edited by Coralld, 11 May 2013 - 03:13 PM.