33 replies to this topic

[Sephlock]

Jun Watarase, on 05 June 2013 - 07:47 AM, said:

I came back after a hiatus to play a few games and see how MWO has evolved over the last few months. Very impressed with things like netcode and UI, not so much on weapon balance. In particular, i'm really dissapointed that LRMs are completley invalidated by one or two ECM mechs hiding behind cover while the rest of their team focus fires any enemy ECM mechs that can disrupt their ECM umbrella. Nothing makes a match more lop sided than a team with LRMs vs a team with a ECM mech.

Well, for what it's worth, welcome back.

[Gaan Cathal]

Raso, on 05 June 2013 - 07:36 AM, said:

Of all the things you mentioned I want pulse lasers to get a pass the most. They're nothing more than beam lasers with a shorter range, hardly noticeable extra damage and a good deal extra heat. They need a complete over haul. That's just me, though.

They need a tonnage decrease, particularly Small and Medium Pulse. Sadly that'll probably make the neckbeards rage so loud they'll hear it in whatever hell dimension stock trial mechs are spawned from.


Also, CancR. Do you, y'know, actually know what CoD is? Just asking because you're not really, ah, using it in context there. At all. Even slightly.

Edited by Gaan Cathal, 08 June 2013 - 01:05 AM.

[One Medic Army]

I actually like where LPLs are at the moment. Mediums aren't too bad, need a slight boost.
SPL are just terrible, straight up inferior to both the SL and the ML.

If PGI was actually willing to decrease the tonnage of weapons (I could see if for pulse lasers, among others) I'd like to vote for the AC/2 to get a complete makeover. Right now if you include ammo and heatsinks it's heavier than the AC/5!

[Gaan Cathal]

One Medic Army, on 08 June 2013 - 01:10 AM, said:

I actually like where LPLs are at the moment. Mediums aren't too bad, need a slight boost.

Are you really telling me that 1pt damage and 3/4 length beam duration are worth doubling the tonnage of your weapons payload? To say nothing of the extra heat and reduced range, which would balance the advantages perfectly well tbh. On a light mech with a reasonable number of energy hardpoints you're going from 3-4 tons of laser to 6-8 (not even going to joke about a 6MPLAS 7F). It's not even close to a resonable tradeoff.

Edit: For the record that's about MPLAS, LPLAS seem more or less ok at the moment. Possibly because they aren't double the tonnage of the parent weapon and thus being more or less a sidegrade is acceptable.

Edited by Gaan Cathal, 08 June 2013 - 01:21 AM.

[One Medic Army]

Gaan Cathal, on 08 June 2013 - 01:20 AM, said:

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Are you really telling me that 1pt damage and 3/4 length beam duration are worth doubling the tonnage of your weapons payload? To say nothing of the extra heat and reduced range, which would balance the advantages perfectly well tbh. On a light mech with a reasonable number of energy hardpoints you're going from 3-4 tons of laser to 6-8 (not even going to joke about a 6MPLAS 7F). It's not even close to a resonable tradeoff.

Edit: For the record that's about MPLAS, LPLAS seem more or less ok at the moment. Possibly because they aren't double the tonnage of the parent weapon and thus being more or less a sidegrade is acceptable.

MPL needs some work.
Mainly I use them for (yes) the short burn time to help concentrate damage, the slightly shorter recycle, and the higher dmg.
If you calculate the dmg/second of beam you can see they're actually decent.
SL: 4Dmg/BeamSec
SPL: 6Dmg/BeamSec
ML: 5Dmg/BeamSec
MPL:8Dmg/BeamSec
LL:9Dmg/BeamSec
LPL:13.33Dmg/BeamSec

Which shows that an MPL is pretty much as effective against highly mobile targets as a Largelas, but at 2tons instead of 5 and with less range.
So pretty much only for shooting the crap out of lights and fast mediums. I use it on my own fast mediums so I can twist away more quickly.

Not saying it's good, but it's certainly not the worst weapon in the game, or even of the Lasers.

Edited by One Medic Army, 08 June 2013 - 01:26 AM.

[Nimura Nekogami]

to be honest.......i would like some sort of buff for the LPL`s.
the major issue is for me, theat they got outperformed of every other LL.

the Mechs that could use LPL`s are to slow to get fast enough in brawl range........think thats the main point why the used rarely.
(trying to higher the speed of my fATLAS didnt sound like a good idia. ^^)

[Soy]

I have a quad LPL 3D that goes 80, considering it has JJs, is that too slow to get into brawl range? Not rly.

LPLs are beast as ****.

Edited by Soy, 08 June 2013 - 01:40 AM.

[Rahnu]

I'll note that LPLs would be in a good place if and only if the PPCs' heat efficiency were to be nerfed back to their previous levels. As it is, the only trade-off for upgrading from a LPL to a PPC is the minimum range (since lasers do NOT allow your heat to dissipate until they stop firing, LPLs are actually less heat-efficient than PPCs). With a PPC you get instantaneous damage with a fast-moving projectile with nearly double the range.

Actually, that is my problem with a lot of the weapons in the game right now. They just look really bad next to PPCs. Large lasers especially suffer from this - in any actual combat scenario a PPC user will win against a large laser user thanks to the ease with which you can target individual subsystems with PPCs (and especially the ease with which you can take potshots at people without any chance of retaliation - jump jets are not even necessary for this).

While PLs may look good when compared to their baseline weapons, the truth is, right now, even the baseline lasers are poor choices when compared to the power of the PPC. In exchanges between mechs with nothing but lasers, they tend to last quite a long time relative to exchanges between mechs with PPCs where torso twisting essentially becomes a non-factor.

Also,

One Medic Army, on 08 June 2013 - 01:25 AM, said:

MPL needs some work.
Mainly I use them for (yes) the short burn time to help concentrate damage, the slightly shorter recycle, and the higher dmg.
If you calculate the dmg/second of beam you can see they're actually decent.
SL: 4Dmg/BeamSec
SPL: 6Dmg/BeamSec
ML: 5Dmg/BeamSec
MPL:8Dmg/BeamSec
LL:9Dmg/BeamSec
LPL:13.33Dmg/BeamSec

Which shows that an MPL is pretty much as effective against highly mobile targets as a Largelas, but at 2tons instead of 5 and with less range.
So pretty much only for shooting the crap out of lights and fast mediums. I use it on my own fast mediums so I can twist away more quickly.

Not saying it's good, but it's certainly not the worst weapon in the game, or even of the Lasers.

That's not even close to making up for having a (slight) heat, 33% range, AND 100%/40% weight disadvantage. If anything, all of their Dmg/BeamSec values should be at least double the baseline values to make up for all of their disadvantages. If they had that they would at least be strong brawling alternatives to the baseline lasers that you could use to fight PPC users on some level, as opposed to the current situation where the ONLY reason to take them is to fight fast mediums and lights (and even then, that's only assuming you have trouble tracking with the baseline lasers in the first place).

Edited by Zyrusticae, 08 June 2013 - 08:24 AM.

[Braidedheadman]

Jun Watarase, on 05 June 2013 - 07:47 AM, said:

I remember people mentioning all of these in the closed beta last year. We never got official word on any of these issues.

I came back after a hiatus to play a few games and see how MWO has evolved over the last few months. Very impressed with things like netcode and UI, not so much on weapon balance. In particular, i'm really dissapointed that LRMs are completley invalidated by one or two ECM mechs hiding behind cover while the rest of their team focus fires any enemy ECM mechs that can disrupt their ECM umbrella. Nothing makes a match more lop sided than a team with LRMs vs a team with a ECM mech.

Someone with a TAG and a pair of stones between their legs offsets this problem. I don't see why ECM is a problem or why LRM boats should get a free damage/points ride from behind cover using a weapon that requires no skill whatsoever to use. This game has larger issues than ECM doing what it was meant to do. A whole team LRM boating is a team that's doing it wrong.

[Tor6]

The poor Raven 4x and 2x are still waiting for their max engine rating buffs.

[Deathlike]

LPL needs a range boost IMO.

MPL could serve to have a heat reduction (it's way too hot) with perhaps a slight damage increase.

SPL.... it needs to be reworked badly. It does the same damage as the SL, with the lower duration that is effectively irrelevant due to tonnage. It has the same range as the SL yet it generates more heat. Why bother with the SPL when you have the medium laser?

Edited by Deathlike, 08 June 2013 - 11:55 AM.

[cyberFluke]

Zyrusticae, on 05 June 2013 - 09:58 AM, said:

Just played a game where I got cored in two salvos by a Jagermech sporting AC/40s.



I am absolutely sick of this junk. Something is very, very wrong when Hawken does a better job of keeping the TTK reasonable and making you feel like you're in a walking tank (as opposed to a walking glass cannon). It also makes a running joke of the devs' paranoid fear of reasonably powerful machineguns, medium laser boats, and so on. Would normal, functional 2.0 double heat sinks and medium lasers with reasonable heat generation actually be worse than dying in a couple salvos from AC/40 and PPC boats? Somehow, I doubt it.

One of biggest pet peeves with this game is the often trotted out "The devs have said this...." when it directly contravenes what we can all see plain as day in the Real World. The Dual AC20 mechs are the perfect example of this.

Edited by cyberFluke, 08 June 2013 - 12:14 PM.

[Jun Watarase]

Braidedheadman, on 08 June 2013 - 11:47 AM, said:

Someone with a TAG and a pair of stones between their legs offsets this problem. I don't see why ECM is a problem or why LRM boats should get a free damage/points ride from behind cover using a weapon that requires no skill whatsoever to use. This game has larger issues than ECM doing what it was meant to do. A whole team LRM boating is a team that's doing it wrong.

No weapon in the game requires skill to use unless you are trying to tell me that mousing over and clicking left mouse 1 is hard. Most weapons miss not due to lack of skill but due to poor netcode (gotta love a light mech soloing a lance of assaults).

The entire point of LRMs is that they can fire indirectly to support teammates without requiring LOS. Take that away and you have very ****** PPCs/gauss rifles that require a tag to function and have huge minimum ranges.

Edited by Jun Watarase, 08 June 2013 - 06:19 PM.

[Sephlock]

Jun Watarase, on 08 June 2013 - 06:18 PM, said:

No weapon in the game requires skill to use unless you are trying to tell me that mousing over and clicking left mouse 1 is hard. Most weapons miss not due to lack of skill but due to poor netcode (gotta love a light mech soloing a lance of assaults).

The entire point of LRMs is that they can fire indirectly to support teammates without requiring LOS. Take that away and you have very ****** PPCs/gauss rifles that require a tag to function and have huge minimum ranges.

But but I've been told that people who use ppcs and lasers are steely eyed warriors, like the warriors of old, whereas LRM users are craven pushbutton cowards who can easily core an Atlas D-DC with a single LRM 10 volley.