93 replies to this topic

[Waking One]

They just need to stop using TT values for everything and balance it around the real time game that it is.

[OneEyed Jack]

Pinselborste, on 13 June 2013 - 06:21 AM, said:

to balance the game it would need its own stats designed for realtime combat and aiming skill of a player instead of a dice.

The TT stats where made for a game that works totally different, and they where tested for those game mechanics and not a real time game.

PGI should have designed their own weapon stats that fit with the game mechanics of mwo, not use something that was never designed to work with those.

Again, that's useless. The only stats PGI have remained adamant on are tonnage and crits, and there's absolutely no reason those would have to be thrown out. Even the other TT stats aren't necessarily wrong in most cases if the mechanics are right. There's an IP. If they just throw out the IP and completely design Generic Mecha Game, they might as well have not paid all that money for the rights.

[Livewyr]

LOL Destined Ninja'd a post I was going to point some irony in. *whoosh* vanished.
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Anyways:
Front loaded/instant damage > DoT Always in FPS type games.

[keith]

Livewyr, on 13 June 2013 - 01:33 PM, said:

LOL Destined Ninja'd a post I was going to point some irony in. *whoosh* vanished.
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Anyways:
Front loaded/instant damage > DoT Always in FPS type games.

well even more in this game, u insta dam, then turn to the panel u want to get damaged. with a dps mech u really can't do that have to look right at target the whole time. UAC illy vs guass version, UAC u have to look the whole time getting only ct dam, dies much faster vs someone who can shoot. DPS means nothing in mechwarrior

[Livewyr]

keith, on 13 June 2013 - 01:39 PM, said:

DPS means nothing in mechwarrior

Absolute truth, right now especially.

(perhaps introducing heat penalties might change it a bit, but DPS will never be king)

[MustrumRidcully]

Purlana, on 13 June 2013 - 09:40 AM, said:

Those values are only relevant in a brawl. At long / medium range no one is going to stand in the open and trade shots with you.

Even in a brawl, higher alphas are more valuable because of torso twisting and spreading of DMG, which is why you don't see many people boating small lasers and SRM6s. I mean look at the chart, how many Splat cats and small laser boats do you see in game...?

Oh, sorry, I should have mentioend that the missile values are not up-to-date.

The Small Laser boat has another easy explaination - how many small lasers can you boat? The answer is - not enough. There is no point in running an 8 SMall Laser Awesome. It might be the most efficient weapon, but the total damage still isn't anything. If this was Mechwarrior 3, you might see a 30 Small Laser Boat ruining everyone's games.


WHat is true is that in brawls you still want to dish out your damage in short bursts. But you still need some DPS, because if you deal 80 damage and then hav eto wait for 10 seconds before you can afford shooting again, you're enemy has 10 seconds to shoot back. That's the difference the PPC Snipers enjoy when they are fighting at long range and while at that range, a 4-5 second alpha value is all they need to care about. They go into hiding afterwards, and their enemy can't do anything about it - until it is finally at brawling distance. At which point it might have already taken 2 or 3 hits and doesn't need multiple alphas anymore to go down.

[MustrumRidcully]

PanzerMagier, on 13 June 2013 - 10:42 AM, said:

So according to your "math"
small lasers are the best weapons in the game?
Wow, genius, you forgot range in your silly statistics...

Clearly you play too little and forum too much. Have you played some 8man premades recently? Or just pugged?
The ppc boats are everywhere and it takes nigh skill to make them effective. Do your obtuse statistics tell you that?
Or do you simply like a game where everyone just snipes, points and shoots, with no regard to complex weapon mechanics or gameplay balance...

You know there's this great game for your type, it's called call of duty.

Maybe if you didn't just assume that anyone else on the boards must be an *****, you could have thought about this a bit more and maybe figured something out.

Why are people not boating Small Lasers?

Because the largest number of SLs you can boat is worth 4.5 tons. That will likely make your mech underweight.
But think back to the grand old days when we didn't have Double Heat Sinks and you needed to boat not weapons, but heat sinks, to get anywhere? What did people run back then?

Hint: Why did PGI nerf engine limits on mechs again?

And about range:
Did you notice that I arranged the weapons not alphabetical, but by range?

Of course range matters. If the game was in any way reasonably balanced, the damage/weight efficiency should decline with range. It doesn't. It's pretty much a mess.


And as I said - the PPC is too good in the "Sniper Zone" - 4 second Alphas, but gets a lot worse outside it. If you increase its heat, it will be balanced int he sniper zone against other weapons, but worse outside it. That means it has no use at all, because any other weapon in its range will be just as good at sniping, but the PPC will be worse in any other role.

[Karr285]

Im most concerned that they changed a few weapons to improve them because of how hard it was to hit with them (PRE HSR) ie, large lasers got +1 damage (should also probably be reduced back to its original damage value of 8), PPC got a giant increase to flight speed and heat reduction. (this was also before DHS)

HSR comes in makes hitting much much easier, then they either;
a. forgot to put them back to where they were.
b. dont want to or
c. dont care.

and you can say putting their heat back to where it was would make them useless Im going to ask, how many ppl use 4X PPC or 3 ER PPC, because the total heat for those combo's is 32 and 33 respectively which is apparently useable, but with the original heat values 3 PPC would be 30 and 2 ER PPC would be 30.
So the original Heat values would remove a single PPC from either build and the Speed reduction would reintroduce the skill factor to the PPC as currently at 2000 m/s its kinda to easy to hit with for what it does (ie makes hitting at range harder while not really changing the close-medium bracket)

Not really seeing how the original heat bracket makes them useless. Maybe to use PPC's you might have to actually put a few more Heat sinks on the mech or you might have to actually think "do I really want to use this or my other weapons instead of just alpha striking"

Edited by Karr285, 13 June 2013 - 02:39 PM.

[Purlana]

MustrumRidcully, on 13 June 2013 - 02:04 PM, said:

And as I said - the PPC is too good in the "Sniper Zone" - 4 second Alphas, but gets a lot worse outside it. If you increase its heat, it will be balanced int he sniper zone against other weapons, but worse outside it. That means it has no use at all, because any other weapon in its range will be just as good at sniping, but the PPC will be worse in any other role.

There is only 1 other real "sniping" weapon, and that's the GR. 12 man groups are going to downgrade the GR because of ammo limitations.

Edited by Purlana, 13 June 2013 - 03:31 PM.

[OneEyed Jack]

Karr285, on 13 June 2013 - 02:38 PM, said:

Im most concerned that they changed a few weapons to improve them because of how hard it was to hit with them (PRE HSR) ie, large lasers got +1 damage (should also probably be reduced back to its original damage value of 8), PPC got a giant increase to flight speed and heat reduction. (this was also before DHS)

HSR comes in makes hitting much much easier, then they either;
b. dont want to

PGI has a phobia about putting something back where it was, previously, regardless of whether or not it may have been right, but only not working correctly due to other issues. Look at their roundabout method with LRMs.

PGI: "Whoops! We broke it!"
Players: "Put it back until you find out what went wrong, then fix it right."
PGI: "Nope! Can't go backwards! Instead, we'll nerf it to uselessness while we come up with and implement an entirely new idea. Shouldn't take more than a couple months."

[Khell DarkWolf]

OneEyed Jack, on 12 June 2013 - 09:12 PM, said:

Saying something this incredibly stupid pretty much invalidates anything else you say. If you don't play by rolling your face across your keyboard, then you could get the same effect by... I dunno.... fire discipline? Slowing them down doesn't make them more heat efficient, it just makes idiots take a little longer to overheat. Heat efficiency would mean the same result for less heat, or better results for the same heat (or somewhere between the two). Lower results for the same heat does not qualify.

Any person can have fire discipline, but you didn't look deeper into what I have already shown in this thread.

OneEyed Jack, on 12 June 2013 - 09:12 PM, said:

Slowing them down doesn't make them more heat efficient, it just makes idiots take a little longer to overheat.

OneEyed Jack, on 12 June 2013 - 09:12 PM, said:

Heat efficiency would mean the same result for less heat, or better results for the same heat

1x Medium Laser: 5 DMG, 4 Heat, 3 second cooldown w/ 1 second beam duration = 4 actual seconds cooldown time, 1 Ton, 1.25 DPS (Damage / (Cooldown + Beam duration) = DPS), 1 HPS (Heat / (Cooldown + Beam Duration) = HPS), Range: 270 to 540 Falloff

1x PPC: 10 DMG, 8 Heat, 4 Second cooldown w/ 0 beam duration (its a projectile), 7 Tons, 2.50 DPS, 2 HPS, Range: minimum 90 @ Optimal 540 - 1040 Falloff

To compare, you have to use 2 Medium lasers:

2x Medium Laser: 10 DMG, 8 Heat, 3 second cooldown w/ 1 second beam duration = 4 actual seconds cooldown time, 2 Tons, 2.50 DPS, 2 HPS, Range: 270 to 540 Falloff
1x PPC: 10 DMG, 8 Heat, 4 Second cooldown w/ 0 beam duration (its a projectile), 7 Tons, 2.50 DPS, 2 HPS, Range: minimum 90 @ Optimal 540 - 1040 Falloff

The difference?

You can pay 5 extra tons for a projectile energy weapon, that can shoot 810 Meters more, is the same in heat cost, same in cooldown, same in damage, same in doing damage per second if you want to constantly use it and does its damage immediately on impact.

Vs. Cheap to stack in weight, 3 tons less, 810 meters less, does it damage over 1 full second and can spread, same in heat cost, same in cooldown, same in damage, same in doing DPS.

So can we go back?

OneEyed Jack, on 12 June 2013 - 09:12 PM, said:

Heat efficiency would mean the same result for less heat, or better results for the same heat

OneEyed Jack, on 12 June 2013 - 09:12 PM, said:

Saying something this incredibly stupid pretty much invalidates anything else you say.

[JP Josh]

i was generally surprised i could take heat sinks off my commando which had a erppc on it.... i now have two small lazers and a erppc to play with >


agreed they need to change heat to mid way between old and new values and see what that does.

[Pinselborste]

OneEyed Jack, on 13 June 2013 - 12:57 PM, said:

Again, that's useless. The only stats PGI have remained adamant on are tonnage and crits, and there's absolutely no reason those would have to be thrown out. Even the other TT stats aren't necessarily wrong in most cases if the mechanics are right. There's an IP. If they just throw out the IP and completely design Generic Mecha Game, they might as well have not paid all that money for the rights.

the Battletech IP is the art the lore and so on, and not some stats from a rule book.

TT stats arent wrong with the right mechanics, but the mechanics they are right with are those from the TT game and not the ones from MWO.

[Joseph Mallan]

Pinselborste, on 14 June 2013 - 02:59 AM, said:

the Battletech IP is the art the lore and so on, and not some stats from a rule book.

TT stats arent wrong with the right mechanics, but the mechanics they are right with are those from the TT game and not the ones from MWO.

i'm sory are you for or against raising the heat back up to TT Levels. Cause right now PPCs have more bang for the buck than they ever had in all the years they have been shot at an enemy Mech.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 14 June 2013 - 03:13 AM.

[Pinselborste]

Joseph Mallan, on 14 June 2013 - 03:13 AM, said:

i'm sory are you for or against raising the heat back up to TT Levels. Cause right now PPCs have more bang for the buck than they ever had in all the years they have been shot at an enemy Mech.

i would say add 1 point of heat and see how it works, since rebalancing of all weapons for a realtime game will not happen.

[Smoke Dancer]

Having read the above posts it is actually becoming very clear that the real problem is the boating of large weapons. I think there needs to be serious consideration for limiting the size of weapons that can be placed in a mech so that weapons are limited to certain designs. This would prevent the boating of large weapons and encourage people to mix up the way they play the game. It would also create role warfare as it would mean large packs of missiles being limited to designs that are based around them e.g. the catapult and trebuchet. I agree that the PPC needs to be tweak but they are symptomatic of a wider problem that PGI haven't addressed - PEOPLE. People make the game and people can break it. As games developers they should know that rules and limitations are important. Slot sizes limits would generate variety and it is that variety that creates a sustainable game play environment.

[Glythe]

MustrumRidcully, on 13 June 2013 - 08:41 AM, said:

As you see, the PPC is really better than most weapons when you look at its damage output for tonnage over 4 seconds. 60 damage is easy to deal in 4 seconds.

If you raise its heat, you make the PPC only be able to complete in the 4 second segment with other weapons. That means it will be mostly useless and outperformed by most other weaponry.

What you are neglecting to mention is that no other weapon will so readily deal all the damage to the same spot over and over again. Ballistics require lead time due to slow travel velocity but the PPC is super easy to aim since the velocity was increased by a metric f-ton.

I used to practice hitting people moving at 800m with the AC/20 even though it didn't do damage. That's a really hard shot with that weapon but it's a complete and utter joke with the PPC. Oh and you still deal good damage with the PPC of course.

The bottom line is that short range weapons need to be a better choice for close range fighting than the ERPPC. They aren't going to tweak laser damage or heat at this point (looking at dev comments) so the only option is nerf the PPC.

[Gallowglas]

Threads like this really serve to remind us why, despite what we think about PGI's balance attempts, "the community" can be pretty bad about judging balance too.

[BillyM]

NO U! The heat reduction on PPC's was needed when PPC's had the following:

1-Fire Delay
2-Slower Projection Speed
3-No-Host-State-Rewind

...it now has all of those things and kept the heat reduction.

We asked for the heat reduction, I'll give you that, but we never asked for them to keep it once they fixed the following 3 detractors.

--billyM

[Joseph Mallan]

Pinselborste, on 14 June 2013 - 04:02 AM, said:

i would say add 1 point of heat and see how it works, since rebalancing of all weapons for a realtime game will not happen.

And one point may even be enough! But they at least need to start to work on this before they go an make a stupid Oh if you ire more than X of one weapon you get extra heat. That is just kinda stupid.