77 replies to this topic

[KuruptU4Fun]

senaiboy, on 26 June 2013 - 02:42 PM, said:

1. Whether the PPC is an issue or not is down to personal opinion. The reason we have these threads is to discuss this, not to say "I am right and you are wrong".

2. Let's say 6LL vs 4PPC, as Karl used as comparison? The weight, heat and damage output is roughly equal, but PPC boat has pinpoint damage while 6LL has damage over time. Would the LL Stalker still win? If both players are of equal skill, I would say no due to PPC boat's pinpoint damage and not having to keep crosshair on enemy the whole time (=more torso twisting). The PPC minimum range won't affect much unless the PPC Stalker is ambushed or caught unaware - or he can use 2ERPPC+2PPC for better brawling.

Jenner vs missile/PPC boat is not a fair comparison for obvious reasons, nor do I see its relevance to the PPC discussion.

You have your own opinion on PPC, but that doesn't mean those who have different opinions are "morons" or not worth listening to. They just see things from a different perspective. Being condescending does not prove your point has more basis.

Why is it no one adds the LPL into the comparison mix?

The only major difference between the two is range. A negligible one is time to target with the LPL's needing a .75 second to do full damage.

[senaiboy]

KuruptU4Fun, on 26 June 2013 - 02:56 PM, said:

Why is it no one adds the LPL into the comparison mix?

The only major difference between the two is range. A negligible one is time to target with the LPL's needing a .75 second to do full damage.

It's too early to use LPL as comparison, as they are undergoing a balance pass at the moment. It's generating too much heat in the current state - making it worse than either LL or PPC overall.

Edited by senaiboy, 26 June 2013 - 03:12 PM.

[MischiefSC]

It's not about a weapon being the best example in its class, it's about being the best in just about any class. PPCs are half the weight of Gauss and less than half the crit spaces. This allows their stacking in larger numbers.

Saying that yes, PPCs should be vastly (and they are vastly) better than lasers is disingenuous. What they are is a 1/2 weight, 1/2 crit space AC10 with unlimited ammo and double the heat.

If it was possible to boat 4 or 6 AC10s I'd have the exact same complaint. It isn't however, there is no pinpoint weapon other than the AC20 with the same damage-on-point potential - and two AC20s is as much as anyone can, or should, have. 6xPPCs is akin to 3xAC20s only with 3 or 4 times the range and no ammo limitation.

PPCs need that higher heat because of pinpoint accuracy otherwise they are OP relative to other beam weapons - as we're seeing now. They need their heat dialed up a bit to bring them into functional balance with beam weapons and their DOT effect. This needs done in concert with damage to internal structure from overheating and some sort of boating heat function.

The result is a better balanced game - along with buffed SRMs so that brawling has some potential again. Currently however PPCs + Gauss is the best brawler and sniper and boating design in the game. Not taking it gimps you. That's not a feature, it's a flaw.

[Lightfoot]

@ MischiefSC

PPCs have not changed from previous MechWarrior games, except they are hotter in MWO because of DHS 1.4.

Battletech Balance grants Energy and Ballistics different strengths and weaknesses that dovetail if you mix the two, so this is not something that needs to be nerfed/fixed. It is working as intended.

To the point, Ballistics are cool, big, and heavy, Energy is hot, compact, and light. That's core gameplay balancing. It's not an exploit. It's totally intended to be that way. It has always been that way. Balance has to come from some other aspect of the game.

Now you could turn the heat on PPCs back up if you went to all DHS having the same cooling value whether engine or external. You would just set the cooling value higher, say DHS 1.7 for all heatsinks. Then players wouldn't get one PPC for no heat penalty, which is what you seem to be saying is unbalanced.

[Karl Streiger]

CancR, on 26 June 2013 - 02:25 PM, said:

1) Most people with reading Comprehension know my position is A: The ppc it's self is fine, its not boating or ppcs that is a problem, but the ability to take the top tier tonnage and stack all the high damage weapons on them that is the problem.


2) This shows just how ignorant you are to both MW and BT rules. Both have their place in both MW games (including this one) and in BT. A PPC only boat, say, a stalker, gets into short range with a stalker with 6 LL (which will have a 48 Alpha, and much more heat efficiency as lower heat, less weight for more D/SH, and no minimal range will suddenly be doing much more more damage with 6 LL, and if they where to 1v1, the ppc boat loses.

So you think limit the tonnage available per game will fix PPC warrior.
So lets say 400t for 8 Mechs will not end up in 8 Hunchback running with 3 PPCs and killing each other with two shots? (not to mention that the 3 PPC Hunchback is the better mech when compared with a 6 PPC Stalker)
Duno if I'm naive or if you are.

I did not compare 6 PPCs with 6 LL i compared 2 PPCs with 3 LL or 4 PPCs with 6 LL if you like.
And in any option the PPCs are the better weapon.

I see the founder badge - means maybe there is the chance that you have played PPCs in the CB.
Only few (me including) have used PPCs back then - bad hit registration, high heat, slow projectile, firing delay - made the PPC the worst of all weapons (even MGs were better)
At this time if you were clever or not stubborn enough you used 2 LL over 2 PPCs all the time. Obviously PPCs were underpowered in comparison with PPC.

If you fail to see that - i really would forward you to check your reality.

So because of rules... your Jenner as you stat a victim of the heat nerf of the ML back in time...
that is because rules were not used accordingly to TT that is for Devs a guideline or a rule book - depends on the topic and the question.
A ML has to be supperior over the Large Laser at short range....until 90m - you should never think twice about the ussage of 3 Medium Lasers over a single Large Lasers...and ranges between 90 and 180m its a give and take between both weapons - above its clearly the Large Laser.

But with that linear not droping damage until its effective range - the MLAS is suddenly effective till 270m. Leaving the Large Laser remaining with 500% the weight 200% the crit - 266% the heat but only 160% the damage range.
So they had to nerf heat for MLAS and buff damage and heat for Large Laser.

Only because rules were ignored. So don't tell me someting about rules I know better... and please stop swearing, insulting, whining and raging like a child. If you are open to arguments prove it.

Edited by Karl Streiger, 26 June 2013 - 10:51 PM.

[xRatas]

Boating weapons is fine. We have as slight problem, when single weapon system is boated more than some other. Nerf the said system bit, and something else gets more popular.

IMO just roll back heat buff (4-6 PPC was doable back then, but much less popular, 2 PPC was not a heat problem). Increase weapon recycle for 1-2 seconds, until saturation is inside generally accepted limits. This also helps to offset extra heat a little bit.

Finally indroduce decent overheat mechanics, not this joke. Slowing mech movement(including torso) proportional to mech's heat, and no-one brawls with high alpha builds anymore.

Edited by xRatas, 26 June 2013 - 10:59 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Lightfoot, on 26 June 2013 - 07:56 PM, said:

@ MischiefSC

PPCs have not changed from previous MechWarrior games, except they are hotter in MWO because of DHS 1.4.

Battletech Balance grants Energy and Ballistics different strengths and weaknesses that dovetail if you mix the two, so this is not something that needs to be nerfed/fixed. It is working as intended.

To the point, Ballistics are cool, big, and heavy, Energy is hot, compact, and light. That's core gameplay balancing. It's not an exploit. It's totally intended to be that way. It has always been that way. Balance has to come from some other aspect of the game.

Now you could turn the heat on PPCs back up if you went to all DHS having the same cooling value whether engine or external. You would just set the cooling value higher, say DHS 1.7 for all heatsinks. Then players wouldn't get one PPC for no heat penalty, which is what you seem to be saying is unbalanced.

So, when did ballistics get the heat reduction too? I'm not seeing it. Lasers now generate MORE heat, not less. Also as lasers are not pinpoint damage but PPCs are PPCs are an ammo-less ballistic weapon unlike all other energy weapons and should be balanced as such. They're not and hence are superior to all energy weapons. Which is why lasers, which do DOT instead of pinpoint, are even more out of balance.

So, let me clarify -

Ballistics - no heat reduction at all for DHS changes or anything else. Correction - AC20s got a 1 point heat reduction.

Lasers - given damage over time, spreading their damage over locations and reducing their effective damage to single locations or even damage on the target at all.

Large Lasers - Damage up 1 point, heat down 1 point.
Medium Lasers - Damage same, heat up 1 point.
Small Lasers - Damage same, heat up 1 point.

LPLs - Damage up 1.6, heat down 0.5. Again, DoT meaning full damage on same target unlikely.
MPLs - Damage same, heat up 1 point.
SPLs - damage up 0.4, heat up 0.4.

PPCs - Damage same, heat DOWN 2 POINTS.
ERPPCs - Damage same, heat DOWN 4 POINTS.

So let's make this perfectly clear. DHS have nothing to do with it. Lasers were given DOT, not pinpoint, damage. They had their heat generation increased, not decreased. PPCs, conversely, deliver damage like ballistics and had a considerable heat reduction.

Here are two links:
MWO weapon balance
Tabletop weapon balance for reference, this is where the metrics started.

So lets make this perfectly clear -

PPCs got a considerably buff over other energy weapons by instant pinpoint damage and then another one by a significant heat reduction. Lasers, conversely, got a significant damage nerf by DOT and almost universally got their heat generation increased. Ballistics, conversely, got no buffs or nerfs at all.

PPCs are out of balance with all other weapons in the game. It's not an opinion. There isn't a justification for it. It's math. Simple math. If the intent is to skew weapon balancing to make it 'get PPCs if you can, otherwise there's this other second rate stuff for you' then that's fine. Make it clear that weapons are not so much balanced for different roles but instead tiered as something to progress through with PPCs being at the top of the energy and effectively the ballistics field.

Or.... you can put PPCs back into balance with every other weapon in the game, make them a good sniper choice but a legitimate tradeoff compared to brawling weapons (which lasers are) instead of the best all around weapon.

[Karl Streiger]

MischiefSC, on 26 June 2013 - 11:32 PM, said:

MWO weapon balance
Tabletop weapon balance for reference, this is where the metrics started.

But that are only stats.
You have to keep in mind that the TT values differ much more:
those values represent a more or less balanced round based game with 2d6 - representing a 10s cylce - playing on small maps to keep playability up.

The values didn't tell you: if the 10sec cycle is 1 shot - is it 2 shots - 3, 4, 5,6,7?
The values hardly tell you what those range brackets mean (they mean a weapon that deal 6dmg - may deal at medium range only 5dmg and at long range only 3dmg.

If you dare - take a look at the link in my signature - there are some draws and lines to make the problem visible what is linked with PGIs "lets do it" mentality to "just" take weapons values from TT and doe some minior tweaking -

[MischiefSC]

Karl Streiger, on 26 June 2013 - 11:44 PM, said:

But that are only stats.
You have to keep in mind that the TT values differ much more:
those values represent a more or less balanced round based game with 2d6 - representing a 10s cylce - playing on small maps to keep playability up.

The values didn't tell you: if the 10sec cycle is 1 shot - is it 2 shots - 3, 4, 5,6,7?
The values hardly tell you what those range brackets mean (they mean a weapon that deal 6dmg - may deal at medium range only 5dmg and at long range only 3dmg.

If you dare - take a look at the link in my signature - there are some draws and lines to make the problem visible what is linked with PGIs "lets do it" mentality to "just" take weapons values from TT and doe some minior tweaking -

Weapon ranges didn't drop off in TT. Missiles had a chart which was also used for LBX weapons using scatter shot ammo to determine how many projectiles hit.

I agree completely that the concepts between TT and MWO don't translate perfectly - they certainly do need tweaked, especially given the nature of pinpoint accuracy. The point however is that in that tweaking the PPC has been buffed to be considerably superior while the viability of lasers have been reduced by comparison at the same time.

You could make lasers do full damage on target instant delivery and reduce their heat by 26% like PPCs got.

You could do the same thing for ballistics - give everyone a 26% heat reduction off base heat.

But then the game would be all about what's the biggest thing you can fit since heat loads are reduced by a quarter - which is, essentially, what's happened with PPCs.

Just to make sure the horse is properly beaten into the ground and any and all calls of 'PPCs are balanced/it was because of DHS/whatever' are pointed out to be incorrect, PPCs got a massive heat reduction and in pinpoint damage vs DOT a big damage buff compared to all other energy weapons and are, as such, out of balance with all other weapons in the game.

[pencilboom]

PPC needs to go back to closed beta state. Less projectile speed, more heat.

[Karl Streiger]

MischiefSC, on 27 June 2013 - 05:30 PM, said:

Weapon ranges didn't drop off in TT. Missiles had a chart which was also used for LBX weapons using scatter shot ammo to determine how many projectiles hit.

I knew that they didn't drop off... if you didn't used TacOps for LBX, Laser or Missile damage the range bracket didn't have any effect on the damage.
But another look under the hood...
If your weapon hit with a chance of 100% at short range - it has a average damage at short range of the listened weapon value.
If you weapon hit only with 50% chance at long range - its on the average only half as effective.

So in theory when you want to remove the calculation of range brackets you can multipy the chance to hit with the weapon damage - so you will have the average damage of this weapon.

But not only this - you also can normalize all range brackets into one for general use Point Blank up to 50m- short range up to 200m. MediumRange unto 400m Long Range unto 800m - above extreme range.
ER-Large Laser: 8,8,7,5,2
Medium Pulse Laser: 6,4,2,1
LRM 20:7,11,11,8,3
Gauss:14,15,15,13,11,4

I have done this calculations - and I'm pretty sure that they will work in TT well - however there is one problem remaining - your weapon hit more often - they do less damage on hit - but head shots or critical hits occure at chances of 1 out of 30 shots.

I really would like that MWO had made some similar calculations in the beginning - but to simple take TT - damage, and max Range

[MischiefSC]

Karl Streiger, on 27 June 2013 - 11:18 PM, said:

I knew that they didn't drop off... if you didn't used TacOps for LBX, Laser or Missile damage the range bracket didn't have any effect on the damage.
But another look under the hood...
If your weapon hit with a chance of 100% at short range - it has a average damage at short range of the listened weapon value.
If you weapon hit only with 50% chance at long range - its on the average only half as effective.

So in theory when you want to remove the calculation of range brackets you can multipy the chance to hit with the weapon damage - so you will have the average damage of this weapon.

But not only this - you also can normalize all range brackets into one for general use Point Blank up to 50m- short range up to 200m. MediumRange unto 400m Long Range unto 800m - above extreme range.
ER-Large Laser: 8,8,7,5,2
Medium Pulse Laser: 6,4,2,1
LRM 20:7,11,11,8,3
Gauss:14,15,15,13,11,4

I have done this calculations - and I'm pretty sure that they will work in TT well - however there is one problem remaining - your weapon hit more often - they do less damage on hit - but head shots or critical hits occure at chances of 1 out of 30 shots.

I really would like that MWO had made some similar calculations in the beginning - but to simple take TT - damage, and max Range

Okay, I get what you're talking about. Increased difficulty to hit caused by range reducing the total number of hits and relative damage per turn to fire averaged out.

The problem though is that pinpoint accuracy makes such calculations null - complicated by lasers having DoT and PPCs/ballistics having instant damage. The result being that compared to projectiles lasers are already at a disadvantage. The problem being that as a ballistic PPC has a huge advantage - slower fire delays and more heat are not as significant a disadvantage as lower range, ammo requirements and more crit slots (reduced ability to boat).

If you could stack 3 AC10s as easily as you could stack 3 PPCs it wouldn't be the same issue. You can't though. PPCs give you the biggest damage on target per alpha strike with best ability to boat (lowest number of crit spaces required). Also insanely high projectile speed, making them considerably more accurate than any other weapon - even Gauss.

PPCs are OPed compared to every other weapon. Again, that's not an opinion, it's math.

[Zervziel]

What really needs to be done is the PPC needs to be nerfed, gauss needs to be nerfed, the AC 10 needs to be nerfed because reasons and my AC20 needs to let out a rainbow cloud of sparkles whenever it fires on it's new 700 meter trajectory.

.....what's with the weird looks?

[Blue Hymn]

As a pilot of the Awesome...
I don't know where I should stand. On one side, I can kind of understand the problems with over abundance of ppc stalkers (job stealers they are, that is) and its high damage value per shot.

On another side...since I mainly pilot an Awesome which is primarily a long range ppc boat...

See my dilemma?

[Ialdabaoth]

Hardpoint restrictions.

You know you want to.

Allow one level of upgrade (any kind of small laser -> any kind of medium, any kind of medium -> any kind of large, any kind of large -> any PPC), or any level of downgrade. That way people still have plenty of upgrade options, but the only 'mechs that can PPC boat are Awesomes, like God intended.

[MischiefSC]

Zervziel, on 28 June 2013 - 07:28 PM, said:

What really needs to be done is the PPC needs to be nerfed, gauss needs to be nerfed, the AC 10 needs to be nerfed because reasons and my AC20 needs to let out a rainbow cloud of sparkles whenever it fires on it's new 700 meter trajectory.

.....what's with the weird looks?

No. What you're doing is called reductio ad absurdum. It's a logical fallacy where you attempt to belittle the value of an argument by falsely correlate it to something ridiculous or blow it out of proportion into something absurd.

PPCs are not balanced and need their heat increased or otherwise nerfed.

Blue Hymn, on 28 June 2013 - 08:06 PM, said:

As a pilot of the Awesome...
I don't know where I should stand. On one side, I can kind of understand the problems with over abundance of ppc stalkers (job stealers they are, that is) and its high damage value per shot.

On another side...since I mainly pilot an Awesome which is primarily a long range ppc boat...

See my dilemma?

I do - best solution? Heat increase for PPCs but give the Awesome a buff to heat dissipation. Lots of surface area, its heatsinks should be more effective. Such things can and should be balanced on a chassis by chassis basis. This gives more precision in balancing and creates a broader, more interesting balance of mechs.

[Shadowsword8]

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

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?

It seems you want a game where there's only 3 weapons.


Achieving balance is a mite more complicated than just keeping the three most popular weapons at the same level.

[pencilboom]

Lightfoot, on 26 June 2013 - 07:56 PM, said:

@ MischiefSC

PPCs have not changed from previous MechWarrior games, except they are hotter in MWO because of DHS 1.4.

Battletech Balance grants Energy and Ballistics different strengths and weaknesses that dovetail if you mix the two, so this is not something that needs to be nerfed/fixed. It is working as intended.

To the point, Ballistics are cool, big, and heavy, Energy is hot, compact, and light. That's core gameplay balancing. It's not an exploit. It's totally intended to be that way. It has always been that way. Balance has to come from some other aspect of the game.

Now you could turn the heat on PPCs back up if you went to all DHS having the same cooling value whether engine or external. You would just set the cooling value higher, say DHS 1.7 for all heatsinks. Then players wouldn't get one PPC for no heat penalty, which is what you seem to be saying is unbalanced.

In MechWarrior 3, PPCs travels a LOT slower than the current one in MWO. Relatively close to the one we had back in closed beta.