41 replies to this topic

[Petroshka]

CancR, on 26 June 2013 - 03:26 PM, said:

It's not boats that are the problem
It's not PPC(s) that are the problem

The problem is that the game is ruled by builds that deploy easily aimed, high damage, pinpoint accuracy, long range alpha strikes.

[Lootee]

There's nothing wrong with a light mech packing a PPC.

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Panther
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Jackal
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Talon
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Pack_Hunter

PPCs are the most common big gun in BattleTech and the default 10 (D)HS that mechs come with are enough to fire it every turn. Where MWO goes wrong is allowing you to duct tape 4-6 of the things together and fire them in 1 shot and all hit in the same place. (Soon you'll see 7 of them on the Battlemaster, oh joy)

If your aim is on target in MWO you have a near 100% chance of hitting the same body component 6 times in a row. If your aim is on target in BattleTech you have a 1 in 46656 chance of hitting the same body part 6 times in a row.

That's just a horrible interpretation of the material this game is supposedly based off of. How about some nice probability somewhere in between? The forum is full of suggestions on ways to fix the problem.

Edited by PanchoTortilla, 26 June 2013 - 04:00 PM.

[Petroshka]

1 PPC on a light. no worries.

6 PPCs on a stalker. OMGLOL

[Agent 0 Fortune]

Changes that took PPC from a horrible weapon to a premier and overused weapon.

Ballistic speed - changed from 800 to 2000. At this rate the projectile speed makes the PPC way too easy to use. Set projectile speed at 1200 may be the only step required.

HSR – clearly this is a good thing, it just so happened to resolve a number of reliability issues with the PPC making it instantly more popular.

Coolant Flush – A tool that helps enables heat boats, allowing them to quickly recovery if threatened, or perform the double pump chump shot.

Heat – The heat of the PPC/ERPPC has been lowered multiple times, presumably to encourage more people to use this weapon. Increasing the heat by 1-2 points would should have little impact on players sport 1 or 2 PPCs, especially considering the increased cooldown time (which created a net reduction in heat per second). However increasing the heat alone will probably not dissuade PPC boats who generally must pause between shots anyway.

Heat Cap and Cooling Mechanics – next to ballistic speed this is probably the most effective place to limit heat boat (alpha strikers). Currently high Heat Cap is a huge benefit to heat mongering mechs allowing a vast pool to exhaust before worrying about shutdown. A number people have suggested a fixed lower heat cap, and (more) penalties for overheating, and I tend to agree. However it will also push players toward the most heat efficient weapons (like medium lasers), so a careful balance needs to be struck to keep the long range burst weapons with short range efficient weapons or we will end up trading all the snipers in for ‘fastback’ style brawlers.

TL;DR
Reduce the projectile speed of PPC to 1200, the increased difficulty may be enough to steer some people to other weapons.

[CancR]

Dude42, on 26 June 2013 - 03:44 PM, said:

I'm not sure I follow. With tonnage limits wouldn't it just become about packing as many PPCs into the allowed tonnage limit? For example, if the team tonnage limit was 500 tons, wouldn't they just find out the highest number of PPCs+Guass rifles that you could cram into a 500 ton limit? Wouldn't it then become Spreadsheet Warrior? We'll have formulas for calculating "max PPCs" or "Max Combined Alpha" for a given tonnage limit.

While I would love tonnage limits for other reasons, I don't see how it would help stop CheeseWarrior Online.

I'm sure you don't

Next time you get time, open up mech lab and look at the mechs you could buy in MWO and think about what you put in a lance w/200 tons.

For some reason you dont understand how different mechs are hard counters to other mechs and how that would change the meta of the game from game to game. A missile boat can beat a sniper, a brawler beats a missile boat, Scout/harrass beats sniper, sniper could go either way against against scouts.

This is a real simplified version of the meta, but hopefully..You get the point. The players just need to grow a set and actually branch out and try.

[Dude42]

CancR, on 26 June 2013 - 04:58 PM, said:

I'm sure you don't

Next time you get time, open up mech lab and look at the mechs you could buy in MWO and think about what you put in a lance w/200 tons.

For some reason you dont understand how different mechs are hard counters to other mechs and how that would change the meta of the game from game to game. A missile boat can beat a sniper, a brawler beats a missile boat, Scout/harrass beats sniper, sniper could go either way against against scouts.

This is a real simplified version of the meta, but hopefully..You get the point. The players just need to grow a set and actually branch out and try.

200 tons = 3x 4 PPC Quickdraws and a Flea. We don't need the Flea, he's just there to fill the 4th slot and take up those pesky 20 tons. Probly can mount at least 1 PPC on one tho, when they release them. I'd actually be content to drop with just the 3 QD's against the 200t lance of your choosing.

Hell, I bet even 4 of these can beat most balanced lances at 200 tons.

Edited by Dude42, 26 June 2013 - 05:31 PM.

[CancR]

You need one more synapse to fire off....The lightest mech in the game is a commando at 25 tons which would put you 5 tons over.

[Dude42]

CancR, on 26 June 2013 - 05:40 PM, said:

You need one more synapse to fire off....The lightest mech in the game is a commando at 25 tons which would put you 5 tons over.

Flea is confirmed as going to be released... I also said I'd be content without it. If you really can't stand 3v4... then I'll take the 4 trebs, if you absolutely cannot wait for the flea to come out.

http://mwomercs.com/...tlemech-16-flea

Edited by Dude42, 26 June 2013 - 05:47 PM.

[CancR]

4 trebs hardly is that scary.

1 cat 1 treb 1 hunch 1 jenner>4 trebs. Hell, i'd take 4 hunchbacks over 4 trebs.

[Dude42]

CancR, on 26 June 2013 - 05:58 PM, said:

4 trebs hardly is that scary.

1 cat 1 treb 1 hunch 1 jenner>4 trebs. Hell, i'd take 4 hunchbacks over 4 trebs.

You know all 4 trebs have 4 ERPPCs right? Lets do it

Should be a fun match... Because together we 1 shot anything you can field. You know we can coordinate and use teamwork with the Trebs too right? Just sayin... You're assuming we all must not be able to aim or call targets...or all not have seismic...or something. Counting on a lag shield to save the Jenner while we all waste time shooting at it and let a missile boat smash us? What? I'm not sure I get your plan, we out range your missile boat, and 1-shot it too... I would like to assemble a team and battle it out tho. Just to see if you can prove your point.

Remember this when we have lobbies, and private matches, because I consider this a challenge.

And I'd like to see what you'd mount on 4 hunchies that would even be able to get within 270 meters of 16 ERPPCs. I've never seen an effective long range hunchback.

Edited by Dude42, 26 June 2013 - 06:09 PM.

[KuruptU4Fun]

Wow a lot of testosterone replacing intelligent conversation in this thread, somebody(ies) needs to take a break from the forums and chill the heck out.

[FactorlanP]

KuruptU4Fun, on 27 June 2013 - 09:44 AM, said:

Wow a lot of testosterone replacing intelligent conversation in this thread, somebody(ies) needs to take a break from the forums and chill the heck out.

Yup... I gave up on the thread.

[MaddMaxx]

Livewyr, on 26 June 2013 - 01:42 PM, said:

Dunno if you noticed.. PGI reads on volume, not so much on quality of responses.

as if they have a choice...

[MaddMaxx]

Sheraf, on 26 June 2013 - 02:15 PM, said:

Interesting idea . If your heatsink has a chance to be damaged from overheat, that will prevent mass use of PPC yet doesn't affect any other type of weapons. Why don't we implement this insetad of heat penalty? It makes sense that your heatsink is damaged upon overheating

I wish I had thought of that. I would have added that the first to go would be your Engines DHS's.

[Bors Mistral]

What if instead of changing base heat again, we play with the damage fallout in the min range a little?

Give ERPPC a 90m min range, and bump the regular PPC min range to 160m. I think it's perfectly OK for that weapon class to be awesome at long and mid range, but it needs to be a good deal weaker in a brawl.

[MaddMaxx]

Petroshka, on 26 June 2013 - 03:50 PM, said:

The problem is that the game is ruled by builds that deploy easily aimed, high damage, pinpoint accuracy, long range alpha strikes.

Easy fix then. Remove both the Heavy and Assault Class BattleMechs. Done, fixed.

[Mechteric]

MaddMaxx, on 27 June 2013 - 10:03 AM, said:

Easy fix then. Remove both the Heavy and Assault Class BattleMechs. Done, fixed.

That's called "Conquest" mode

[MaddMaxx]

Dude42, on 26 June 2013 - 05:15 PM, said:

200 tons = 3x 4 PPC Quickdraws and a Flea. We don't need the Flea, he's just there to fill the 4th slot and take up those pesky 20 tons. Probly can mount at least 1 PPC on one tho, when they release them. I'd actually be content to drop with just the 3 QD's against the 200t lance of your choosing.

Hell, I bet even 4 of these can beat most balanced lances at 200 tons.

Those have a 17% heat efficiency. Pretty sure they would be toast as soon as they fired twice and then shut down for 15 seconds.

[Jonny Taco]

Tennex, on 26 June 2013 - 01:15 PM, said:

i don't see why it would be so hard to increase PPC/ERPPC's heat by say 10%

I can't really see a problem with pumping both ppc's heat by 1 point. I'm also one of the player that strongly beleives a heavy handed heat nerf (+2 to 3) would strongly nerf the weapons on the non abusive chasis as the poster below you questions.
The only real problem I see with just a one dimensional nerf as you propose is that it will most certainly not have an impact on the mechs that are boating them atm, this needs to be done by more layers of complexity.

These "layers" can really be implemented in two distinct ways. Layers that directly impact gameplay, via additional "active" mechanics. An example of this would be the proposed alpha heat pen that has been discussed in deatail in the past few days... The other are layers that indirectly effect gameplay such as additional restrictions in how a mech is fit. For example, introducing a maximum weapon size for each weapon hardpoint within the current crit slot system would directly effect high alpha builds w/o nerfing the weapon's use in singles or doubles which are not an issue.

The most important thing atm is for us and the dev's to determine what is the real issue with ppcs atm. Is the problem that the stats on the individual weapon are too strong? Or are they simply too east to boat? I'd personally lean to the second but in the end, it's up to the devs to decide.

Edited by lartfor, 27 June 2013 - 10:29 AM.

[Bunko]

By raising the heat on PPCs you do punish anyone using PPCs, but that "punishment" is multiplied the more they have equipped. Heat on larger energy weapons ( including LLs ) needs be increased 25% to match TT values again while small energy weapons ( MLs/SLs ) need heat reduced 25% to match TT values.

There's been an increase of "Light/Medium Mechs Are Useless" threads, heat values on weapons is causing this. Larger mechs can carry the heavier energy weapons easier and are being allowed to fire more often due to lower heat.