69 replies to this topic

[General Taskeen]

MG's were for shooting at vehicles and Mechs to destroy their armor.

[jakucha]

MWO Forums: Status of Drama Queens

[Adridos]

jakucha, on 30 June 2013 - 09:51 AM, said:

MWO Forums: Status of Drama Queens

Edited by Adridos, 30 June 2013 - 09:53 AM.

[Nubsternator]

Sephlock, on 30 June 2013 - 09:33 AM, said:

No way? How about giving them a spread at the fringes of their range, with point blank range turning your mg into a buzzsaw? Basically, make it poopy at range, and an effective melee weapon (almost like a hatchet) . The only mechs that can mount six of them are the jagermech (which already has better options for dakka boating) and the spider (which desperately needs some).

Don't forget the Cicada.

[Cache]

As others have said, the solution to PPC boating is a heat scale. Period. Here's the TT scale:

Heat Level / Effects
5 / -1 Movement Point
8 / +1 Modifier to Fire
10 / -2 Movement Points
13 / +2 Modifier to Fire
14 / Shutdown, avoid on 4+
15 / -3 Movement Points
17 / +3 Modifier to Fire
18 / Shutdown, avoid on 6+
19 / Ammo Explosion, avoid on 8+
20 / -4 Movement Points
22 / Shutdown, avoid on 8+
23 / Ammo Explosion, avoid on 10+
24 / +4 Modifier to Fire
25 / -5 Movement Points
26 / Shutdown, avoid on 10+
28 / Ammo Explosion, avoid on 8+
30 / Shutdown

A 6xPPC Stalker can carry a max of 16 DHS. That's 32 points of heat dissipated in a 10-second turn. Fire 6 PPCs and you have 60 heat. 60-32=28. 28 extra heat. Apply the applicable effects from 0 to 28. Problem solved. Yes I know this isn't TT and strict TT rules don't work in this game, but the spirit of the rules will work extremely well. Negative heat effects are an important part of weapon balance. Heat, crit size, and weight form an important triangle. Remove or weaken one and the system doesn't work.

[Angel of Annihilation]

BatWing, on 30 June 2013 - 07:25 AM, said:

Point 1: Boating
Besides an ongoing slight adjustment to balance damage, heat and other weapon aspects, is it too difficult thinking that the solution that makes sense for boating is JUST making the weapons that are subjected to be boated LARGER. More Slots. IF IT DOESN T FIT IT CANNOT BE BOATED.
This is valid for any weapon that can be exploited. Some other adjustments may be required as well but the priority should be just make them bigger.

There is no issue with boating, rather there is an issue with people not wanting to learn tactics to deal with boating. While I do occassionally get my butt handed to me by a quad PPC burst or a AC/40 Jaggy, it is quite rare an occurance. Perhaps this is because I am alway aware of cover and don't typically just blindly walk straight at the enemy, perhaps it is something else but I just don't seem to have the problem with all the "boats" that people keep complaining about.

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Point 2: PPC Family
PPCs of any kind were supposed to be mostly Sniper weapons. Usually Sniper weapons have longer recycle than Assault short/medium range weapons. Apply this rule to PPC for God sake.
Also apply the rule that a PPC weapon is a BIG weapon! We see how the PPC looks like. Is a quite big Particle Cannon. It cannot be only 3 Slots. Make it Bigger so it cannot be boated, make it Slower as it should be being a Sniper energy weapon.
These 2 solutions would alrady reset the abuse actually rolling about the PPCs in general.

Ok where in any lore, novel or anything else battletech did it say that PPCs were solely intended for sniper roles? Not in any of the dozens of novels or sourcebooks I have read. Just because standard PPCs have a minimum of 90m does make them a long range only type of weapon, just like just because they have long range make the only a sniper weapon. What they are is a mid to long range energy alternative to an Autocannon that doesn't have ammo limitations but has massive heat limitations (compared to ACs). Just because people snipe with them doesn't make them a sniper only weapon either.

Quote

Point 3: Machine Guns ( the hilarioous joke in MWO)
IMO MGs should not even exist in this game. We do not have other weapons that make sense, such as UAC10s, Rotary ACs, Light Gausses and others but we DO HAVE Machine Guns.
MGs were in the story because you were supposed to shoot at Infantry and Light Armored Vehicles on the battlefiled. But .. wait a moment, we have neither here.
So, were the MG fits in the Mech scenario? The recent Buff of damage was the newest major BS could be done. Now Spiders and Jagers boated with MGs can tear apart well protected FULL ARMORED mechs. MGs were supposed to bounce away from armor. Make Critical if the location is "naked". NOT STRIP THE ARMOR AWAY.

This I kind of agree with. MGs really only exist in Battletech as a counter to Infantry or light armored vehicles. They are in no way shape or form true anti-mech weapons (Although in at least one Battletech Novel, they were used to take out a Locust, Wasp or Stinger can't recall which). However they are a Battletech weapon so need to be represented in game and at least have a bit of use. Also apparently they devs are kicking around the idea of NPC infantry and vehicles at some point so they might find a role in that.

Note: my opinions on boating and/or PPCs are solely the opinion of someone who has not, nor ever will run a 4 PPC stalker.

[Ningyo]

If they ant to add those all I think they should test them out on the test server (assuming they get it up), then at launch move the entire game timeline ahead to the 3060. This should not upset players that want to stick to a timeline much, and it would allow adding those weapons. (Note I am not sure exactly what these weapons would add or remove from the game, this is just a method of sticking to the timeline while adding them)


Personally while I feel you did hit on some of the issues you missed a few very major ones, and while some of your solutions might work, I think there are other better solutions that also stay more true to Battletech.

Biggest problems:
---New player mech inequality. Lets face it almost always trial mechs are very very awful. This is primarily because they are thrown up against all the min/maxed mechs.
My Solution: Stock mech mode this will please players that wish to pilot them, give new players a more level playing field, and allow min/max players to have fun with a new mech until they can afford all the upgrades for it. (Cons: Splits player base though may be offset by more players, hard to say. Also do you allow hero/champion mechs and would these unbalance it if you did?) Oh and this would be an extraordinarily easy mode to add should take under 1 hour of programming.

---Pinpoint Alpha: I find this to be the cause of most boating. Boating is primarily done because firing multiple weapons with the same range and projectile speed allows them all to hit the same point on an enemy mech. This mechanic also partially breaks the multiple armor point system battletech is based on as only certain locations are targeted on mechs.
My Solution: This is hard and many people like or dislike different ideas often both sides have good points and this will take careful work to fix properly. (I prefer Arm mounted convergence, or Docbach's methods most so far, hoping for something better but I think either would be an improvement)
Changing Convergence is one method (forms and community reaction outlined here: http://mwomercs.com/...48-convergence/) many of these methods are purely skill, although some have random factors that can be avoided in different manners. They do all tend to have some imperfection, though some have enough strong points much of the community would like to see them implemented.
Recoil is another option that comes in a few forms, the most likely to affect boating would be to make firing multiple (2 or more depending on weapon) projectile weapons including PPC at the same time would slightly throw off where your rounds go. this could be a random change, or a specific change in offset depending on implementation, this method also has people that like or dislike it and both sides have good reasons.
Other methods that have mostly been rejected or never gained support (these tend to have very major problems): removal of ability to fire multiple weapons at the same time (minimum 0.1 sec delay), doubling RoF and halving damage on all weapons, changing weapons with similar range/damage profiles to have vastly different projectile speed.

---HEAT: Many of the present balance problems are caused by a heat system that is very forgiving and has no range of penalties. The balance between SHS and DHS while true to battletech also does not help.
My Solution: dividing this into two sections
Heat Penalties: some need to be added, penalties to movement speed, and turning starting at 66-75% of max heat would allow for better balance of high heat energy weapons vs ammo dependent ballistic weapons. Also would give a boost to the rare more heat nuetral builds. These do not need to be huge penalties but should be significant enough you don't want to totally ignore them. Also putting more major penalties for extremely high heat 120% or more of max like damage to criticals or to internal structure would help with preventing supernova builds that just fire then shutdown.
Heat Sinks: Right now there is essentially no reason to ever use SHS (yes about 3-4 bad builds use them).
I would suggest the following changes:
SHS: stay the same
DHS: Raise heat dissipation to 2.0 : Reduce Heat threshold for engine and non engine DHS to 1.0
Pilot Skills: change Coolrun to add 0.1 (or 0.075) dissipation per heatsink instead of 7.5%
change Heat Containment: to add 0.1 to heat threshold per heatsink instead of 10%

---Boating:
My Solution: This really is caused by Pinpoint alpha for all direct fire weapons so I find modifying pinpoint alpha to be the proper solution, however if pinpoint alpha is not addressed.
Hard point limitations: normally comes in the form of restricting certain weapon hardpoints to weapons under a certain size preventing mechs from carrying 4-6 ppc loadouts. (Cons: this could further create impalance between mech chassis as some would be far better at carrying the optimal weapon loadouts)
Modifying weapons: changing the most powerful weapons to be less powerful or such is often proposed as a fix for this, in general this will just cause people to move to a different weapon that is now most powerful, as people boat because of weapon synergy mostly this really is not a fix (although modifying weapons can help overall balance).


---LRMs: (I don't find these to be a truly major issue, but they are talked about constantly and are not low priority) Presently at lower levels of skill many people find these to do too much CT damage, while at higher level of skill players find these to be too easy to nullify with good tactics.
My Solution: First based on a very large amount of testing since the recent patches (May and June ones) there is a damage bug on LRMs that causes higher damage to CT and lower damage to other locations. Fixing this will allow for either making them more accurate, or better at stripping armor on players that know how to shield their CT. Until this bug is fixed it will be very hard to perfectly balance them.
Secondly LRMs are specifically weak against snipers which outrange them. Since sniper style weapons are presently the most powerful this makes them seem worse than they are. Raising the power of some brawler weapons will also change the balance so these should be looked into before major LRM modifications (except maybe the bug fix) are made.

---Seismic Sensor: This needs nerfed bigtime and devs said they plan to so I will not put a solution unless they bungle it many threads have given them lots of good ideas if they need them already.

---Brawling Weapons: most of these are too weak compared to the long range weapons (tend to be similar damage overall) and either the longer range weapons need more drawbacks or these need more strengths.
Some in particular such as SRMs and Pulse lasers need some love. LB10X needs a major rework or massive buff.


I cannot guarantee all of these would work out perfectly, it always takes some work to fine tune major balance changes, but I think most of these would get the game a lot closer to proper balance and increase the quality of game play.

[Budor]

BatWing, on 30 June 2013 - 07:25 AM, said:

Now Spiders and Jagers boated with MGs can tear apart well protected FULL ARMORED mechs.

7/10, would read again

Edited by Budor, 30 June 2013 - 10:08 AM.

[jakucha]

MGs are too weak, MGs are too strong, make up your minds.

[stjobe]

BatWing, on 30 June 2013 - 07:25 AM, said:

Point 3: Machine Guns ( the hilarioous joke in MWO)
IMO MGs should not even exist in this game. We do not have other weapons that make sense, such as UAC10s, Rotary ACs, Light Gausses and others but we DO HAVE Machine Guns.
MGs were in the story because you were supposed to shoot at Infantry and Light Armored Vehicles on the battlefiled. But .. wait a moment, we have neither here.
So, were the MG fits in the Mech scenario? The recent Buff of damage was the newest major BS could be done. Now Spiders and Jagers boated with MGs can tear apart well protected FULL ARMORED mechs. MGs were supposed to bounce away from armor. Make Critical if the location is "naked". NOT STRIP THE ARMOR AWAY.

First off: I agree that the MG is a joke in MWO - but it's because it's so hilariously bad.

The MG was most definitely an anti-mech weapon in BattleTech in addition to being one of the best anti-infantry weapons available. It did as much damage to 'mechs as an AC/2, and 2-12 damage to infantry.

This whole "MGs should be useless against 'mechs" malarkey has zero support in BattleTech lore. None whatsoever. In Decision at Thunder Rift, chapter 12, Grayson Death takes out a Wasp by destroying its cockpit with - wait for it - a vehicle-mounted machine gun. Not even a 'mech MG, but a vehicle-mounted one.

The current MWO incarnation of the MG is getting better, but they're still not useful unless you mount six of them - and there's a single chassis in the game that can even do that, and it isn't a Spider. Your hyperbole of how a Spider can "tear apart" full armoured 'mechs is just that; hyperbole. In an actual match, that never happens. The SDR-5K is the weakest 'mech we can currently field, and much of that lies in the fact that it has to rely on the MG.

If I had my way, MGs would lose their crit buff and instead get a regular damage buff. Oh, and lose the spread. That might make them useful in packs of less than six.

Edited by stjobe, 30 June 2013 - 10:17 AM.

[Angel of Annihilation]

Cache, on 30 June 2013 - 09:55 AM, said:

As others have said, the solution to PPC boating is a heat scale. Period. Here's the TT scale:

Heat Level / Effects
5 / -1 Movement Point
8 / +1 Modifier to Fire
10 / -2 Movement Points
13 / +2 Modifier to Fire
14 / Shutdown, avoid on 4+
15 / -3 Movement Points
17 / +3 Modifier to Fire
18 / Shutdown, avoid on 6+
19 / Ammo Explosion, avoid on 8+
20 / -4 Movement Points
22 / Shutdown, avoid on 8+
23 / Ammo Explosion, avoid on 10+
24 / +4 Modifier to Fire
25 / -5 Movement Points
26 / Shutdown, avoid on 10+
28 / Ammo Explosion, avoid on 8+
30 / Shutdown

A 6xPPC Stalker can carry a max of 16 DHS. That's 32 points of heat dissipated in a 10-second turn. Fire 6 PPCs and you have 60 heat. 60-32=28. 28 extra heat. Apply the applicable effects from 0 to 28. Problem solved. Yes I know this isn't TT and strict TT rules don't work in this game, but the spirit of the rules will work extremely well. Negative heat effects are an important part of weapon balance. Heat, crit size, and weight form an important triangle. Remove or weaken one and the system doesn't work.

However this heat scale is based on TT heat values which we absolutely do not have. In TT I should be able to fire 2 ER PPCs completely heat free with just 15 DHS. In MWO your lucky to be able to fire them 3 times before Overheating.

So I will be more than happy to take TT heat penalities, providing of course that my 2 LL, 2 ML, Gauss Cataphract will be completely, 100% heat neutral at 14 DHS cause it sure as hell isn't possible with the current heat scale in game.

[Ningyo]

@Victor Drake true, but if we do that we need to make all your weapons have a 10 second cooldown at which point guess what MWO is fairly close to TT, the faster fire rate is what throws that off, and the Heatscale being similar to TT is what keeps them from al being rapid fire death machines.

[Kunae]

jakucha, on 30 June 2013 - 10:12 AM, said:

MGs are too weak, MGs are too strong, make up your minds.

According to PGI, this conversation means that MG's are balanced.

[Roland]

Unfortunately, in this case, the only people who think the MG is anything other than terribad are folks who don't really understand what is happening in the game.

[Tor6]

I can't take anyone who posts about how machine guns are only designed only for infantry seriously because they lack the ability to read.

[Curccu]

I think my MGs are still missing 3DPS compared to AC2, which is supposed to do same dmg.

[Odins Fist]

[KingCobra]

Only thing I agree with the OP on is PGI's lack of understanding that any weapon's over the amount of 2 per mech is a bad idea. As in only 2 ppc or 2 guass or 2 LRM per mech any configurations with more than 2 weapons per mech is a boat. A annihilator in MW4 could hold 16 machine guns but 2 machine guns in MWO = 16 in MW4 as far as firepower. So MWO weapons are so overpowered compared to the mechs armor or defensive abilities its just sick. The old Mektek mod for mw4 was a prime example of overpowered weapons but even it was more balanced then MWO. But yet again were like where do we start with PGI's bad ideas.PGI moved from one bad patch after another never really understanding that a more defensive style game where mechs are much more maneuverable and armor does work on the mechs and longevity is the key to better game play not just point and shoot high damage alphas and boating configurations that make the game unplayable and unenjoyably.

Edited by KingCobra, 30 June 2013 - 11:35 AM.

[BatWing]

I cant freaking believe that from this post the only thing a large majority get to discuss and debate about is the stupid MACHINE GUNS!!! Really ???

OK, my bad, i made a mistake to even think to talk about it.

I was thinking that it was obvious my major concern was about boating and PPC solutions, but really all of what ppl can read is stupid MGs and make a debate about it.

OK, i m going to edit the first post, i will remove the MG comment because it is really ridicolous to still get these replies about MGs.

THen i hope some different audience can articulate some valid alternative to the remaining 2 points.

TO people instead who replied and focused on what makes really sense and is a priority, thx for your help and your valid point, maybe one day we will get somewhere.

[PEEFsmash]

LOL MACHINEGUNS ARE RUINING THIS GAME.

It's impossible for machineguns to ruin this game. If they were gone entirely, they would only be missed by 3 competitively insignificant mechs.