25 replies to this topic

[Raven Mendes]

I know its a controversial topic but iam speaking my mind here, right now the ppcs only occupies 3 slots which in my oppinion its completly unbalance for the damage it deals, in comparisson with the ac10 (same damage model) which occupies 7 slots, not counting the ammo it requires, its a huge unfair advantage, making ac10 completly useless, what i say is to give more slots to the ppcs instead of 3, 5 or 6, well i would even go far and give the same slots as the ac10 to be fair, but with that would solve some problems with current meta, with more slots we cant put more heatsinks and would balance the gameplay, right now ppcs feels like cheating, just speaking my mind out, i dont have any fun lately with this ppc fest :| miss old brawler days

[VXJaeger]

I got better. Make that if one boats more than 2 PPCs, it makes a 25% chance to blow up your mech with single triggeruse.
*BOOM*
Bye bye PPC-boats.

[Sephlock]

How about we make the AC/10 better instead?

[Karl Streiger]

Mendes 85, on 04 June 2013 - 01:28 AM, said:

I know its a controversial topic but iam speaking my mind here, right now the ppcs only occupies 3 slots which in my oppinion its completly unbalance for the damage it deals, in comparisson with the ac10 (same damage model) which occupies 7 slots, not counting the ammo it requires, its a huge unfair advantage, making ac10 completly useless, what i say is to give more slots to the ppcs instead of 3, 5 or 6, well i would even go far and give the same slots as the ac10 to be fair, but with that would solve some problems with current meta, with more slots we cant put more heatsinks and would balance the gameplay, right now ppcs feels like cheating, just speaking my mind out, i dont have any fun lately with this ppc fest :| miss old brawler days

A single PPC alone will always ever be the better choice over the AC 10.
It will become interesting when you take 2...
2 PPCs vs 1 PPC and a single AC... should work on the same level.
More interesting 3 PPCs vs 2 PPCs and single AC 10 - based on heat the ballistic energy config will blast away the tripple PPC config.

Next to that...the AC 10 is superrior to the PPC below 90m and beyond 675m because the damage drop of for the AC 10 is more less as for the PPC.

Additional advantage for the AC 10 is the faster cycle time - and lower heat.

However PPC a simple stupid weapons actual...

[Nth Adonis]

The only thing that's need to happen to balance PPCs is to fix hitboxs so lasers and other things that hit more then one spot become viable again. That's why PPCs, AC/10 and AC/20 are so good all of a sudden and Lasers suck because since hitboxs are so messed up the best way to get a kill now is with something that will do a lot of damage to one place on a Mech, reguardless of where it hits.

[Livewyr]

Buffing every weapon to be as good as the PPC is a bad idea for two reasons.
1: Impossible: Short of making the AC10 weigh 7 tons, require no (explosive) ammo, and cutting it size in half, and then increasing it's heat a bit... no weapon is ever going to touch the PPC.
2: Making every weapon overpowered just means games turn into a ghost town, where stepping out from behind cover is a death sentence. Better idea: save PGI the trouble and just remove the armor...

---------------------------------------------------
Iron Savior.. quit being one-sided.
The PPC doesn't generate enough heat to make up for:
-Super bullet speed.
-Lighter than every ballistic except AC2 (I don't bother counting the MG)
-Smaller than every ballistic except the AC2. (again, MG's aside)
-Being longer range than every ballistic (except AC2/AC5/UAC5 in the case of reg PPC)
-NOT being an explosive weapon (like Gauss)
-NOT carrying explosive ammo (like every ballistic other than Gauss.)

A PPC, you can afford to take all the stupid long range shots because you will NEVER run out of ammo! (This will become even bigger in 12v12)

Quit acting a fool.
----------------------------------------


PPC's are stupidly overpowered.. they only had ONE weakness, which thanks to shortsightedness (on the part of a whining playerbase, and the caving of PGI) has been effectively removed.

Put the PPC heat back. You wanna fire something that does 10 damage at range over and over? Spend the crits, weight, and explosive ammo on an AC10.

Edited by Livewyr, 04 June 2013 - 03:25 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

To understand why PPCs required 3 crits and AC/10s 7, you need to go back to the source

In Battletech, a mech needed one heat sink per point of heat a weapon would produce. 1 heat sink takes 1 crit slot.

A PPC produces 10 heat. That's 10 slots for heat sinks, and 3 for the weapon, for a total of 13.
The AC/10 produces 3 heat. That's 3 slots for heat sinks, and 7 for the weapon, for a total of 10. Add a bit of ammo ,and you go up to 11 to 13.
The AC/10 was in effect a bit less crit-intensive, actually. It's real crit limitation was that you needed these 7 slots in one piece, and of course, it was one big target for critical hit, while someone with PPCs could be lucky and lose a bunch of heat sinks before he loses the weapon itself.

Anyway, let's forward to MW:O. In this game, an AC/10 produces 3 heat per shot, but it produces this heat every 2.5 seconds, so it effectively needs 12 heat sinks to negate its heat. The PPC produces only 8 heat per shot right now, but it does so every 4 seconds, so it's actually at 20 heat sinks to negate the heat.

By this "math", the PPC now really sucks.
But this isn't the end of the things that changed, so let's not get hasty!

Let's say you had 4 PPCs in the table top. You produce 40 heat, which would require 40 standard heat sinks if you wanted to negate that heat. Maybe you'd skimp a bit. If you just install 5 heat sinks less, you'd already suffer heat penalties after the first alpha. After the 3rd alpha, you're already risking overheating, but also suffer serious penalties.

In M:WO, however, we have no heat penalties, only a heat cap of 30 + heat sinks. That means even if you just had 20 standard sinks (or 10 double heat sinks), you could fire a salvo and not overheat, and you wouldn't suffer any penalty either. If you manage to equip 20 DHS, you'd be at heat cap of 64. That's 2 consequence free alphas.

And there is more. Table Top was played in rounds which were segmented into different phases. Movement and Firing were seperate phases, that meant both sides positioned its mechs, and then took at turn shooting each other. You couldn't move->shoot->move without your enemy also getting to shoot at you. So neither "poptarting" or "steptarding" were not really possible in the way they are in MW:O. In MW:O, you can manage to pop out, shoot and hide before the enemy reacts. In TT, you granted your enemy at least one turn to shoot back.

So, by eliminating a host of risks and penalties a TT PPC shooter would have had, the PPC becomes now more powerful so that the original stats may not work as well as they used to. Either we add some of the risks and penalties back in (for example, lower the heat cap substantially), or we alter the stats. IN the latter case - it might be easy to say "just raise PPC heat", but we have noticed above that it's not all sunshine for the PPC either - it needs twice as much heat sinks as it used to negate its heat. IF we actually succeed in making it less viable as an alpha strike weapon, we might kill it off entirely, instead of just nerfing it.

[Tombstoner]

A concept i like to use is called a cost function. basically you have a set number of points you assign to different stats.
things like damage,use of ammo. range , heat generated. ideally two weapons are the same if they have the same cost but different stats. I used to think this is what was occurring behind the curtain at PGI. I have given up on that.

Selecting any weapon to alter affects all weapons and should not be done lightly. whats missing is an accuracy co-factor.
This adds more freedom in adjusting stats, but it doesn't exist in the game. The game lacks a cohesive set of rules.
Thus balance has become subjective/floats with the hit detection code and collected data with game play by the Devs.

[AnnoyingCat]

Let pgi throw PPC out the window like LRM

Edited by AnnoyingCat, 04 June 2013 - 04:32 AM.

[Syllogy]

I see many times more AC20 Jagers than PPCs.

[FiveDigits]

Syllogy, on 04 June 2013 - 04:31 AM, said:

I see many times more AC20 Jagers than PPCs.

I see PPCs on

• Awesomes
  
• Atlas RSs
  
• Blackjacks
  
• Highlanders
  
• Spiders
  
• Stalkers
  
• Trebuchets

And you are seeing more AC20 Jagermechs than all these mechs combined. I doubt that.

[MaddMaxx]

Tombstoner, on 04 June 2013 - 04:04 AM, said:

A concept i like to use is called a cost function. basically you have a set number of points you assign to different stats.
things like damage,use of ammo. range , heat generated. ideally two weapons are the same if they have the same cost but different stats. I used to think this is what was occurring behind the curtain at PGI. I have given up on that.

Selecting any weapon to alter affects all weapons and should not be done lightly. whats missing is an accuracy co-factor.
This adds more freedom in adjusting stats, but it doesn't exist in the game. The game lacks a cohesive set of rules.
Thus balance has become subjective/floats with the hit detection code and collected data with game play by the Devs.

After you exit the MechLab, there is no way to enforce a cohesive set of rules other than punishing players for certain play-styles, just because others may not like it, so what happens when that so called cohesive rule-set begins to infringe on how you like to play the game?

This is a war game. Everyone has the same Tools available. The fact that not everyone wants to use the Tool-set the same does not mean things are not pretty cohesive as is.

[Joseph Mallan]

Mendes 85, on 04 June 2013 - 01:28 AM, said:

I know its a controversial topic but iam speaking my mind here, right now the ppcs only occupies 3 slots which in my oppinion its completly unbalance for the damage it deals, in comparisson with the ac10 (same damage model) which occupies 7 slots, not counting the ammo it requires, its a huge unfair advantage, making ac10 completly useless, what i say is to give more slots to the ppcs instead of 3, 5 or 6, well i would even go far and give the same slots as the ac10 to be fair, but with that would solve some problems with current meta, with more slots we cant put more heatsinks and would balance the gameplay, right now ppcs feels like cheating, just speaking my mind out, i dont have any fun lately with this ppc fest :| miss old brawler days

You cannot compare apples and oranges. A PPC is 2 tons heavier than a large laser does 2 points more damage. It only needs to be 3 crits. Before you go anywhere, The only PPCs I field are on a Blackjack-3

[Satan n stuff]

FiveDigits, on 04 June 2013 - 04:44 AM, said:

I see PPCs on

• Awesomes
  
• Atlas RSs
  
• Blackjacks
  
• Highlanders
  
• Spiders
  
• Stalkers
  
• Trebuchets

And you are seeing more AC20 Jagermechs than all these mechs combined. I doubt that.

You forgot the Jenners, Ravens, Commandos, Cicadas, Centurions, Dragons, Jagermechs, Catapults, Cataphracts, other Atlai and I'm sure there's a few PPC Hunchbacks out there too.

[FiveDigits]

***** n stuff, on 04 June 2013 - 05:42 AM, said:

You forgot the Jenners, Ravens, Commandos, Cicadas, Centurions, Dragons, Jagermechs, Catapults, Cataphracts, other Atlai and I'm sure there's a few PPC Hunchbacks out there too.

Yep, they're rather omni-present at the moment. I just listed the most common go-to chassis.

[Iron Savior]

Dixie Normiss, on 04 June 2013 - 02:45 AM, said:

The only thing that's need to happen to balance PPCs is to fix hitboxs so lasers and other things that hit more then one spot become viable again. That's why PPCs, AC/10 and AC/20 are so good all of a sudden and Lasers suck because since hitboxs are so messed up the best way to get a kill now is with something that will do a lot of damage to one place on a Mech, reguardless of where it hits.

This. Splashing entire enemy mech < destroying right arm.

Very few people do it, but you would be surprised how powerful a team is once it learns to focus down AC/10/20/Gauss/PPC cent arms, hunch RTs, and atlas RTs, and then move onto the next mech and ignore kills. Suddenly a team with 2 AC20s and 4 gauss becomes a team with no ACs and no gauss.

Once I take command and tell my team to strip you of your primary arms (PPC, Ac10/20, Gauss, etc), my team > your team.

My team might as well be invincible once they have this advice. Your team might as well be disconnected.





Victory is almost assured once I take command and bestow Athena's and Sun Tzu's gifts to my men. These gifts are the knowledge of battle.

[Iron Savior]

PPC jenners, spiders, cicidas. My team will laugh at you. You're a waste of 35 tonnage for the purpose of fielding a 7 ton weapon. My victory is already assured! Our victory is assured.


A spider, jenner. Haaaah! You jump. I wait. You land. I aim. You stall. I alpha. Before momentum takes place, I break you. The very laws and properties of physics desert you; lending their forces to mine own! You become so much dust in the wind. LIKE YOUR TEAMMATES. We bed your wives before the sun sets. Once dawn breaks, they thank us for taking them from such weak willed men.



A quad PPC awesome. Such a powerful enemy! Such powerful cardboard! See how it folds in half before my onslaught. You are but paper in the face of my AC/10 utility knife. I never stop laughing as you die. The very last sound you hear is not the crack of PPCs, but the thunder of my laughter!

My team thus far is invincible!

I will be bedding your wife before noon. I will mistreat her, and laugh at her, and hurt her. And she will thank me for it. Because you are like cardboard before my might! And oh how my might makes her moist. Adolphus Gustavos was invincible. So shall I be, when faced with such simple opponents.




You talk of math, and numbers.


Well I talk of experience and conquest! My Lord's Will is done! Yours is but naught!





Think what you will. You're only coal for my fire.

Edited by Iron Savior, 04 June 2013 - 06:34 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Iron Savior, on 04 June 2013 - 06:32 AM, said:

PPC jenners, spiders, cicidas. My team will laugh at you. You're a waste of 35 tonnage for the purpose of fielding a 7 ton weapon. My victory is already assured! Our victory is assured.


A spider, jenner. Haaaah! You jump. I wait. You land. I aim. You stall. I alpha. Before momentum takes place, I break you. The very laws and properties of physics desert you; lending their forces to mine own! You become so much dust in the wind. LIKE YOUR TEAMMATES. We bed your wives before the sun sets. Once dawn breaks, they thank us for taking them from such weak willed men.



A quad PPC awesome. Such a powerful enemy! Such powerful cardboard! See how it folds in half before my onslaught. You are but paper in the face of my AC/10 utility knife. I never stop laughing as you die. The very last sound you hear is not the crack of PPCs, but the thunder of my laughter!

My team thus far is invincible!

I will be bedding your wife before noon. I will mistreat her, and laugh at her, and hurt her. And she will thank me for it. Because you are like cardboard before my might! And oh how my might makes her moist. Adolphus Gustavos was invincible. So shall I be, when faced with such simple opponents.




You talk of math, and numbers.


Well I talk of experience and conquest! My Lord's Will is done! Yours is but naught!





Think what you will. You're only coal for my fire.

Your posts are funny.

[Petroshka]

Iron Savior, on 04 June 2013 - 06:15 AM, said:

This. Splashing entire enemy mech < destroying right arm.

The irony, of course, is that the best way of destroying the right arm is by using a PPC/Gauss combination.

[JSparrowist]

Iron Savior, on 04 June 2013 - 06:15 AM, said:

This. Splashing entire enemy mech < destroying right arm.

Very few people do it, but you would be surprised how powerful a team is once it learns to focus down AC/10/20/Gauss/PPC cent arms, hunch RTs, and atlas RTs, and then move onto the next mech and ignore kills. Suddenly a team with 2 AC20s and 4 gauss becomes a team with no ACs and no gauss.

Once I take command and tell my team to strip you of your primary arms (PPC, Ac10/20, Gauss, etc), my team > your team.

My team might as well be invincible once they have this advice. Your team might as well be disconnected.

Victory is almost assured once I take command and bestow Athena's and Sun Tzu's gifts to my men. These gifts are the knowledge of battle.

LMFAO AND you liked your own post. *sigh*