77 replies to this topic

[Damocles69]

so many convoluted and complicated solutions to PPC boating. would it be so hard to nerf PPCs and buff SRMs a bit so they compete with the AC 20? why is this so hard?

[Livewyr]

It would mean reversal of a PGi decision.. therefore it is impossible, they like their track record and will maintain it.



(Closest they've come is removing the Ally info blocking from ECM)

[DocBach]

the PPC by itself is in a good place. the problem is three or more of them being able to be fired, in conjunction with out weapon systems, all into one neat hole.

[zhajin]

It almost seems like they have completely different groups handling the balancing of different weapons, or at least a developer with split personality disorder. it takes months for the to tweak and test MG buffs, but they go all out on PPCs and think they are good. Same situation with LRMs vs SRM, LRMs get buffed and nerfed with almost ever patch, SRMs are barely touched...

this is one of the major reason i have little faith in PGI balancing the game. they dont even have consistent strategy to attack the problem.

[Mad Dog Morgan]

They really shouldn't. What they should do, however, is add a minimum range to ER PPC's, buff SRM damage to 2.0, fix SSRMs/LRMs tracking, and improve Medium Pulse Lasers. Modify machine guns so that they're not awful, and make flamers useful in combat. They don't generate nearly enough heat on the enemy. Even if it isn't like that in TT, ER PPC's need to have a minimum range like their shorter-range brethren, sitting at 120m instead of 90m. This would incentivize/improve brawling and close-range fighting quite a bit.

[Livewyr]

DocBach, on 26 June 2013 - 07:05 AM, said:

the PPC by itself is in a good place. the problem is three or more of them being able to be fired, in conjunction with out weapon systems, all into one neat hole.

Sorry Doc, have to disagree with you here.

Compare PPC to AC10
7 tons vs 12
3 crits vs 7
UA vs limited explosive ammo
8 heat versus 3 (only attribute mitigated by Double heat sinks and a larger engine)
540 range vs 450
2000 speed vs 1100
90min versus 0

Lots of advantages.. not much disadvantage.
Need to kick the heat back up, that's what kept it in check.

(And then add heat penalties for the overall meta)

[DocBach]

AC/10 has a faster reload rate - make the projectile speed a little faster and drop the AC/20's range and the AC/10 would be a good weapon. The AC/10 isn't a bad weapon because of PPC's, its a bad weapon because AC/20's do everything it can do plus double the damage at close range.

Raise the PPC's heat up a little, I agree with.

[Corvus Antaka]

many considerations here, the heatscale, when a mech should overload/blowup, etc etc etc.

yes, it is that hard, and you just have to wait while PGI fixes it.

[Petroshka]

DocBach, on 26 June 2013 - 07:16 AM, said:

AC/10 has a faster reload rate - make the projectile speed a little faster and drop the AC/20's range and the AC/10 would be a good weapon. The AC/10 isn't a bad weapon because of PPC's, its a bad weapon because AC/20's do everything it can do plus double the damage at close range.

Raise the PPC's heat up a little, I agree with.

i can't fit ac20s in the arms of my cataphract...

[DocBach]

Doesn't make the AC/10 a better alternative than the AC/20 - its not like you are stuck using just that cataphract in this game, so people naturally gravitate to the chassis that cane fit the weapons they want, where they want them.

[Livewyr]

Heat needs to go back up definitely.

I can put 3 PPCs in the side torso of my HGN-732... even WITH an XL..
How many AC10s can I fit on there.. just going on size, let alone weight. Even before Ammo.

[1453 R]

PPCs aren't a problem in ones and twos. Or even threes, for Awesomes which are supposed to be able to deliver heavy salvos of long-range fire. It's Stalker pilots who insist on bringing a stupid number of the things that're causing problems. Killing PPCs as competitive weapons is not the way to go, just like how killing SRMs wasn't the way to deal with Splattercats.

We want every weapon out there to be a useful, viable choice. Right now, I'd say we're pretty close overall given the rest of the systems surrounding the actual heat scale. Not there, but close. I'm in the lower tolerance/increase dissipation camp for fixing Stalkers and other high-heat alpha builds rather than this...questionable group-fire penalty they're working on, but what the hell. Let's try it. If it's junk, we'll see about getting it pulled. That's what betas are for. Even if this is a messed-up sort of beta.

[Roland]

Damocles69, on 26 June 2013 - 06:59 AM, said:

buff SRMs a bit so they compete with the AC 20?

Really, SRM's shouldn't compete with the AC20.

I'm not sure why anyone would think that they should.

[Livewyr]

PPCs at their original heat would be competitive

(They weren't before, because of the horrid PPC convergence, splash damage and just overall hit detection...now they have all that and a bag of chips)

[Zyllos]

DocBach, on 26 June 2013 - 07:05 AM, said:

the PPC by itself is in a good place. the problem is three or more of them being able to be fired, in conjunction with out weapon systems, all into one neat hole.

While I think the PPC/ERPPC needs to add +1.0 to the heat, I agree with this statement that is this the major factor.

Also, I would suggest adding ripple firing to SRMs and upping the damage to 2.0.

[Syllogy]

Please, tell me how to nerf it in a way that won't make it worthless.

[Sephlock]

If you want them to nerf PPCs just find some way to convince them that PPCs are a type of missile.

[hammerreborn]

Yes. There are only a few ways to implement weapon changes, Heat, DPS, Damage, Convergance

Heat - Effects everything that runs one or two PPCS (spiders, some ravens, some mediums like centurions), and does not really effect the boaters (as they are shutting down behind hills from poptarting or using stalkers) UNLESS the heat is raised in such a way that it becomes impossible for 4 or more PPCs to be fired simultaneously without shutting down.

For your information, to shut down a 4 PPC stalker with 18 DHS on fire would take (30 + 20 + (8*1.4))*heat containment bonus (10%?) = 67.32 heat, or 17 heat a PPC. 17 Heat would make a PPC useless on all but assault mechs.

A heat cap nerf would be a far better option than nerfing the heat of the PPC (for instance, making all heat sinks count as singles for heat cap calculations would drop the stalker from 67.32 cap to 53, and PPC heat can go down to 13.2 if you want an autoshutdown at this level. Not to mention making stacking single heat sinks somewhat viable for mechs such as the awesome which when using a XL engine has plenty of crit slots and tonnage to drop into singles as you are now sacrificing cooling for a higher heat cap limit).


DPS: Increasing the cooldown once again effects mechs with 1 PPC rather than 4-6. Not to mention that by steadily increasing the PPC cooldown, it actually makes them more heat efficient, nullifying any changes to their heat cost, making a change to both meaningless for high alpha boaters because they are typically behind cover when firing.

Damage: Once again, even a 20% decrease to PPCs damage (making it 8 instead of 10) still leaves boaters with a 32-54 point alpha, which at the end of the day is still better than 2 guass rifles while making that spider switch to a large pulse laser because 8 damage isn't going to kill ****.


Convergance: Never going to happen.

Edited by hammerreborn, 26 June 2013 - 08:06 AM.

[Coralld]

PPC heat needs to go up by at least 1 point to make it 9, or just put it back to 10. ERPPC on the other hand REALLY needs to go up as its currently only doing 11 heat. At the very least the ERPPC heat needs to be at 13.

As some here have pointed out in this thread, as well as so many others, the heat of the PPCs back then were never really an issue, the issue was hit detection, which have been for the most part fixed. But with all the buff it was given to help it compensate for the hit detection errors is now just flat out to damn good. It needs to be brought back into line. Also, we need some real heat penalties implemented as well.

[Syllogy]

If you want to balance PPCs, you have to do it in a way that does not completely gimp them when you compare them to other weapons.

Edited by Syllogy, 26 June 2013 - 08:15 AM.