44 replies to this topic

[pencilboom]

in MW4 LBX actually does higher damage than it's AC counterpart..But to OP, I think you might love the weapon even more since the 21st may patch will make LBX even more accurate..LBX is getting 20% spread decrease

[Vassago Rain]

Svalfangr, on 20 May 2013 - 08:31 PM, said:

hmm maybe i should start a poll to see what most people feel on the subject.

Most won't feel anything.
It's an 800,000 c-bill gun, that's completely useless. The price tag means a lot of players haven't even considered trying it.

[Svalfangr]

Vassago Rain, on 20 May 2013 - 08:54 PM, said:

Most won't feel anything.
It's an 800,000 c-bill gun, that's completely useless. The price tag means a lot of players haven't even considered trying it.

For completely useless I still do quite well with it.

I average around 400-500 damage a match using it with 2 ML and 3 SRM4

[Zyllos]

The usefulness of the LBX is a direct indicator of how the critical hit system is implemented in the game.

This game allows players to place the majority of their shots onto a section, and those weapons all hit a single point in space. The critical hits is a percentage based system that happen when each hit happens.

The damage dealt to a section is 100% of the time when it gets hit.

The damage dealt to internal equipment is only ~24% (may be off) of the time. Then the hit is randomly on a internal piece of equipment.

Internal section range from like 10 points to 50 points.

Each internal equipment is generally 10 hp for each item in the section.

You can easily calculate that any weapon will remove a section off long before all the equipment in said spot is destroyed. But the problem is that the LBX just can not deal enough internal equipment damage in the same time frame of say, an AC/10, in destroying a section.

The only time the LBX actually becomes better is if the weapon is point blank, which is not the point of the weapon. It's meant to be terrible against armor due to only dealing a few points of damage to random locations. But when the LBX pellets ever hit an open armor section, things are getting destroyed.

It's just the issue is that it only takes 1 hit for weapons to be destroyed in CBT while MWO, you have to deal 10 points of damage. 1 pellet hit deals approximately 0.78 damage on average, or 7.8 damage per shot, on average, if all pellets hit a single open armor locations. An AC/10 deals approximately 6.2 damage per shot, on average, if the shot hits a single location.

You can see the issue here is that at the weapons optimal range, that AC/10 shot will always deal more to internal equipment than the LBX will due to cone-of-fire spread.

What should happen is that the LBX should be based on the idea of how many pellets, on average, should hit a section at it's optimal range. Then the damage to internal equipment should be upped to the same level as an AC/10 (similar weapon) based on the average number of pellet hits.

I also noticed too, going back and looking at critical hits, why does normal weapons get 25% chance for critical hits (1x) while the LBX gets 14% (1x)? All weapons should have the same weighted chance for critical hits, but it's the damage that is changed by a factor.

So, I think upping the damage to make it good at taking off a section quicker is the wrong way to go about balancing the weapon. All other weapons in the game need to be harder to pin point all fired weapons at the same time to hit a single location so that internal sections last longer and then make the LBX actually extremely good at destroying internal equipment due to the high damage it causes when only a few pellets hit.

That will make the weapon basically destroy all equipment internally if hit by LBX. The same could be said of SRMs and LRMs because they are spray weapons but their internal equipment damage is not in dire straights as the LBX or Machine Gun.

[Lynx7725]

I like the LB-X but fundamentally, the spread-out nature of the damage runs counter to the need to quickly drop the hammer on a location to kill mechs. It's fundamental; aside from letting LB-X cannons fire slugs, you aren't going to get around it.

The current issue I see is that LB-X has a niche; it's a crit-causing weapons from waaaaay out that can (in theory) disable an unarmoured mech. With the pellet spread, you can hit a mech with a single location bare from quite far away and still have a good chance of disabling something.

The problem is, it's damn near pointless at this time. Because the really important critical hits for this to work is actuators, sensors, pilot damage through cockpit hits, engine shielding heat increases, etc. All these are not in game. Having these effect would have a more detrimental effect on mech performance than a weapons destroyed result.

So you can only blow weapons and stuff up. And if I want to do that, I may as well just blow the whole torso off, which makes the game faster. Without a more comprehensive critical effects system in place, the LB-X and MGs just doesn't quite work out.

[Vassago Rain]

Svalfangr, on 20 May 2013 - 09:03 PM, said:

For completely useless I still do quite well with it.

I average around 400-500 damage a match using it with 2 ML and 3 SRM4

It's not the LBXthat does your damage, man.

Lynx7725, on 20 May 2013 - 09:14 PM, said:

I like the LB-X but fundamentally, the spread-out nature of the damage runs counter to the need to quickly drop the hammer on a location to kill mechs. It's fundamental; aside from letting LB-X cannons fire slugs, you aren't going to get around it.

The current issue I see is that LB-X has a niche; it's a crit-causing weapons from waaaaay out that can (in theory) disable an unarmoured mech. With the pellet spread, you can hit a mech with a single location bare from quite far away and still have a good chance of disabling something.

The problem is, it's damn near pointless at this time. Because the really important critical hits for this to work is actuators, sensors, pilot damage through cockpit hits, engine shielding heat increases, etc. All these are not in game. Having these effect would have a more detrimental effect on mech performance than a weapons destroyed result.

So you can only blow weapons and stuff up. And if I want to do that, I may as well just blow the whole torso off, which makes the game faster. Without a more comprehensive critical effects system in place, the LB-X and MGs just doesn't quite work out.

It barely has any range, due to the spread nature. Even when they tighten it, it still won't have any range.

[Lynx7725]

Vassago Rain, on 20 May 2013 - 09:24 PM, said:

It barely has any range, due to the spread nature. Even when they tighten it, it still won't have any range.

Heck it got legs man. It's just that when it gets there, it patters off your windscreen like so much rain. Without the crit effect -- or a better set of crit effects, nobody would bother with it.

[Karr285]

how about they make the LBX's the only weapons in the game that can destroy weapons before the armour is gone.

even Im not sure if Im trolling with this one, lol.

[Asmudius Heng]

Vassago Rain, on 20 May 2013 - 09:24 PM, said:

It's not the LBXthat does your damage, man.



It barely has any range, due to the spread nature. Even when they tighten it, it still won't have any range.

Exactly, which is why they should make its damage up close more brutal and give the weapon a niche - take an LBX to infight, with the option to spray mechs at range (might do soemthing if they are armour stripped but meh), or take an AC10 and do good damage at most ranges bt not as good in knife fighting range

[Kaspirikay]

LockeJaw, on 20 May 2013 - 05:00 PM, said:

You realize that would make it an LB 12X or LB 12.5X right? 10 single damage pellets. 10 total damage. Hence the 10 in its name.

Tomorrow the cone is getting decreased 20% to make it more effective at medium range. Give them some time to keep tuning it.

Okay let's let naming get in the way of balance.

[DegeneratePervert]

LBX isn't useless, as long as you want to play to have fun. Dual LBX phracts, Jagers, etc, are all very fun to run, and you can feel the rage from people that you end up killing with it.

If you care about winning, then be prepared for a bad time. Try-hards and premades will crap all over you.

[Svalfangr]

How about instead of messing with Crit or whatever we just give it a simple damage buff..... like i said earlier....

[DegeneratePervert]

Svalfangr, on 20 May 2013 - 10:06 PM, said:

How about instead of messing with Crit or whatever we just give it a simple damage buff..... like i said earlier....

Eh... I like the whole "AC/10= 10 damage" model they have now, since it makes it pretty easy to identify threats logically. A cooldown decrease or an ammo per ton increase would be better in my opinion. I'd really like to see this thing become the premier brawling weapon.

[Svalfangr]

DegeneratePervert, on 20 May 2013 - 10:14 PM, said:

Eh... I like the whole "AC/10= 10 damage" model they have now, since it makes it pretty easy to identify threats logically. A cooldown decrease or an ammo per ton increase would be better in my opinion. I'd really like to see this thing become the premier brawling weapon.

So rather than buff it in the most sensible way you would rather stick to broken damage numbers so that it matches the name.

Sigh.

How about this.

The LB 10-X the 10 in the number of Pellets, not the damage.

There. Better? Hopefully.

[Lynx7725]

I don't think using just damage numbers to differentiate a weapon is the best way to go about it, to be honest. It's certainly one way, just that, well, you end up with an escalating arms race, and there is this other factor that you have a limit on how different you can make a weapon based on damage. 10 points vs 11 points isn't going to matter that much.

The other side of the weapons balancing act needs to be looked at too. If you make LB-10X more damaging, why take the AC10? LBX is lighter, more shots per ton IIRC, now more damage. Might as well toss the AC10 away, since it's a sure-upgrade.

I personally prefer to tweak on other effects/ specials. Crit effect is one. How about a little more splash damage than an AC, so we can a shotgun + splash effect AND crit. Intention is to make a close to mid range LB-X on a damaged enemy somewhat effective, which promoting a weapons mix that sands armour at long and crits at medium. Thus, as the game progresses and the range decreases, the LB-10X player grinds the enemy performance down.. effectively, the LB-10X becomes a debuff weapon, rather than a kill weapon.

[Vassago Rain]

Lynx7725, on 20 May 2013 - 11:25 PM, said:

I don't think using just damage numbers to differentiate a weapon is the best way to go about it, to be honest. It's certainly one way, just that, well, you end up with an escalating arms race, and there is this other factor that you have a limit on how different you can make a weapon based on damage. 10 points vs 11 points isn't going to matter that much.

The other side of the weapons balancing act needs to be looked at too. If you make LB-10X more damaging, why take the AC10? LBX is lighter, more shots per ton IIRC, now more damage. Might as well toss the AC10 away, since it's a sure-upgrade.

I personally prefer to tweak on other effects/ specials. Crit effect is one. How about a little more splash damage than an AC, so we can a shotgun + splash effect AND crit. Intention is to make a close to mid range LB-X on a damaged enemy somewhat effective, which promoting a weapons mix that sands armour at long and crits at medium. Thus, as the game progresses and the range decreases, the LB-10X player grinds the enemy performance down.. effectively, the LB-10X becomes a debuff weapon, rather than a kill weapon.

If your weapon is useless as a weapon, then it doesn't matter how many litle bonuses it has.

LBX needs to be a real FPS shotgun, or they add the slug ammo.

[Cferre]

Vassago Rain, on 20 May 2013 - 05:31 PM, said:

Because it's an FPS shotgun that doesn't do any real damage. It needs to do at least 2 per pellet, or it's gonna stay worthless.

Said that in a match once... Response; " But it would then be a LBX20!!'' ...Jezus ******* christ.

[Roland]

DegeneratePervert, on 20 May 2013 - 10:06 PM, said:

LBX isn't useless, as long as you want to play to have fun. Dual LBX phracts, Jagers, etc, are all very fun to run, and you can feel the rage from people that you end up killing with it.

If you care about winning, then be prepared for a bad time. Try-hards and premades will crap all over you.

I'm honestly baffled that someone could say something so ridiculous.

"This weapon's perfectly fine, unless you want to win."

THAT MEANS THE WEAPON IS GARBAGE, DUDE.

[Satan n stuff]

Get behind enemy mech, strip rear armor, fire a shot or two at internals, watch pretty ammo explosion. If the target is still standing finish it off or ignore it if there are more important targets around. It's pretty straightforward really.

[General Taskeen]

Lynx7725, on 20 May 2013 - 11:25 PM, said:

I don't think using just damage numbers to differentiate a weapon is the best way to go about it, to be honest. It's certainly one way, just that, well, you end up with an escalating arms race, and there is this other factor that you have a limit on how different you can make a weapon based on damage. 10 points vs 11 points isn't going to matter that much.

Simple balance.

MW:LL Example

* All LB-X guns do massive damage at their extended range for both IS and Clan, but fire much slower
* All Autocannons fire very fast at their intended range for both IS and Clan, but for lower damage

Result: LB-X have a massive bonus to burst damage, while AC's have a higher DPS

AC/10 - 272 DPS (193.9 Damage Per Shell) - 80 Rounds Per Minute ; LB 10-X - 162 DPS - 12 Rounds Per Minute (10 Pelletsx81.3; 813 Potential Damage) <-easy to see the difference, the number values are abritrary