68 replies to this topic

[Blackfoot]

The people that keep screaming about nerfing PPCs obviously werent playing back in closed Beta when everybody was screaming about buffing them.

There's nothing wrong with the PPC as it is now. It's just that alot of the other weapons suck.

If they would just get all the other weapons figured out the PPC would not be everyones go to complaint.

Everyone on these forums always cry delicious tears about how LRM's are insta win button. In reality the PPC is the easiest weapon in the game to use and LRMS some of the hardest.

So far, I have had none of the problems people keep complaining about with the PPC meta. I work with my team as much as I can and kill as much as I can and I am thoroughly enjoying the game. I don't see "boating" any weapon as a problem because theres always going to be pros and cons with boating on any mech, it just takes a smart player to play on your opponents weakness.

My spider eats 3ppc/guass highlanders for breakfast.

Edited by Blackfoot, 09 July 2013 - 05:33 AM.

[xDeityx]

Avengar, on 08 July 2013 - 11:56 AM, said:

the problem with them is boating.

There's a real easy way to see if the problem is boating: look at other non-PPC boats.

Is the medium laser HBK-4SP as scary as a PPC boat? No. Is a 6xSPL Jenner as scary? No. Is a 6xSRM6 CPLT-A1 as scary? No. What about an LRM boat stalker? No. A 4xLL Atlas, Dragon, Cataphract, or Quickdraw? Nope.

Seems to me the problem isn't boating.

[Aim64C]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 09 July 2013 - 04:45 AM, said:

Let me lay this out for you.

Let me lay it out for you.

What you've just suggested would completely destroy most canon builds. Period.

Combat would revolve around assaults.

The problem is that you are trying to turn the simple act of shooting a target into a "thinking" operation.

It's not. Killing is instinctual and fast. Preferably, you kill the target before he even knows he's in a fight.

The "thinking" aspect is how you set yourself up for that kill. The thinking aspect is juggling six different objectives and coordinating as a team. The thinking is in the fact that you can get the kill but fail the objective.

How you think this will work out is not, in the slightest, how it will end up working.

Which is why I hope PGI does exactly what you and others are asking for. Then you can see just how bad of an idea it is.

It worked in tabletop because you weren't in the mech. The movement, heat, and aiming penalties weren't real time. The environment wasn't real time.

Those same mechanics, applied to real time combat, will turn this into TurretWarrior even worse than previous titles did. Unless they leave LRMs as they are now (or actually make them useful)... then it will just be LRMWarrior with other weapons and chassis as an afterthought.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

I still don't get why it's "I BLAME PPC'S", "I BLAME BOATING", it's the MECHANICS OF THE GAME. The mechanics influence what works. The pinpoint convergence and high heat thresholds are what is creating PPC issues and boating.

You need to look at the underlying problems or it will just be a band-aid fix.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Aim64C, on 09 July 2013 - 05:37 AM, said:

Let me lay it out for you.

What you've just suggested would completely destroy most canon builds. Period.

Combat would revolve around assaults.

The problem is that you are trying to turn the simple act of shooting a target into a "thinking" operation.

It's not. Killing is instinctual and fast. Preferably, you kill the target before he even knows he's in a fight.

The "thinking" aspect is how you set yourself up for that kill. The thinking aspect is juggling six different objectives and coordinating as a team. The thinking is in the fact that you can get the kill but fail the objective.

How you think this will work out is not, in the slightest, how it will end up working.

Which is why I hope PGI does exactly what you and others are asking for. Then you can see just how bad of an idea it is.

It worked in tabletop because you weren't in the mech. The movement, heat, and aiming penalties weren't real time. The environment wasn't real time.

Those same mechanics, applied to real time combat, will turn this into TurretWarrior even worse than previous titles did. Unless they leave LRMs as they are now (or actually make them useful)... then it will just be LRMWarrior with other weapons and chassis as an afterthought.

You didn't lay anything out. You barely even explained your argument.

First major problem though KILLING SHOULDNT BE FAST IN MECHWARRIOR.

And how would it destroy "most" cannon builds?

The current game destroyed ALL cannon builds.

[Hysteria]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 09 July 2013 - 05:38 AM, said:

I still don't get why it's "I BLAME PPC'S", "I BLAME BOATING", it's the MECHANICS OF THE GAME. The mechanics influence what works. The pinpoint convergence and high heat thresholds are what is creating PPC issues and boating.

You need to look at the underlying problems or it will just be a band-aid fix.

This is why I always recommend changing the max heat threshold anytime people complain about ppcs. It would balance the game properly and it wouldn't even require changing any weapon heat values to begin with. Sure it may seem fun to be able to alpha strike multiple times in a row but honestly I don't think it should be able to happen more than once without shutting down. It would slow the game down and allow for longer more tactical fights. Of course people will still be sniping with ppcs, but it could be a little more under control by not allowing 4+ ppc alpha strikes multiple times in a row.

[Aim64C]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 09 July 2013 - 05:38 AM, said:

I still don't get why it's "I BLAME PPC'S", "I BLAME BOATING", it's the MECHANICS OF THE GAME. The mechanics influence what works. The pinpoint convergence and high heat thresholds are what is creating PPC issues and boating.

You need to look at the underlying problems or it will just be a band-aid fix.

Actually - the PPC is a completely unbalanced weapon within its core mechanics.

7 tons, 10 points of damage on contact, 3 critical spaces, 10 heat (I'm even bringing it back up to TT values).

Compare that to the AC10: 12 tons, 7 critical spaces, 10 points contact damage, requires ammo.

The most you could ever put on a mech is 4.

4PPCs is not hard to achieve on most heavies and assaults. But why aren't people complaining about the 4 large pulse laser boating spree? Same tonnage, fewer criticals, better damage (somewhat worse heat).... should be just as impressive, right?

Well - the mechanics of the weapon require you to track through 750 milliseconds. That gives the defending pilot half of a chance to do some damage mitigation in reaction and also means that dealing all damage to one component (or even to the mech) is somewhat rare.

Which is why the PPC reigns supreme even by comparison to autocannons.

Change the mechanics of PPC damage application - and you can bring it back into line.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Ok so then what happens when all the clan weapons come out?

Or the 50 different gauss/PPC types from later in the timeline?

Are we just going to keep doing this dance?

Mechanics, mechanics, mechanics.

You cannot fix this game by nerfing PPC's.

You can help curb the issue, but that's it.

[MaddMaxx]

Livewyr, on 08 July 2013 - 12:31 PM, said:

PPCs are fine! It's Boating that's the problem!

Ok.. so if PPCs are ok.. and boating is the real problem.. why aren't I seeing a bunch of AC10 boats?

(If the weapon is balanced, boating it is balanced- see 9ML Hunch)

Your Joking right? 7 slots vs 3 and 12 tons vs 7 (plus ammo)

The 9ML Hunchy has it own issues, let's not cross pollinate the issue.

[MaddMaxx]

Hysteria, on 08 July 2013 - 01:02 PM, said:

Despite all my hopes and dreams about heat threshold changes, I honestly believe PGI's solution to PPCs will be something close to this. Increasing the heat that drastically will make boating them very challenging, if not impossible. Keep your fingers crossed I guess.

The Dev have repeatedly stated that a Threshold changes would affect ALL weapons. When the issue is pretty much the (er)PPC why dump the whole apple cart to get rid of 2 bad apples.

PPC -> 10 and erPPC -> 13 sounds like a good start. 15 would be so brutal as to basically eliminate their use totally. That is also counter productive. We have enough weapons that are seen as useless already, not need to add to that List.

[Aim64C]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 09 July 2013 - 05:42 AM, said:

You didn't lay anything out. You barely even explained your argument.

You already explained everything that needed to be.

Movement is penalized for even small increments of heat. That throws lights out the window. They tend to rely heavily upon energy weapons and movement.

Movement penalizes accuracy - which also horrendously damages lights. Take the Seven-Foxtrot, it's going to pretty much be an unviable build. Not only does its laser fire become inaccurate, it also has to slow down simply by virtue of using the only weapons available to it.

Which means it can't even perform its role as a harasser.

Or the Swayback.

Which is why combat is going to gravitate even more heavily toward assaults. They are going to have the armor to take the damage of standing relatively still (so they can hit something) while packing the weapons to be able to deal high damage during the brief moments the player has a solid shot.

Quote

First major problem though KILLING SHOULDNT BE FAST IN MECHWARRIOR.

Killing is fast - period.

Why?

Every member of the opposition not on the field is less opposition. The quicker you remove it, the better. Players will naturally gravitate toward quickly killing a target.

Quote

And how would it destroy "most" cannon builds?

You already explained this. Movement penalizes accuracy. Heat penalties sap movement and accuracy.

That means high-alpha builds that operate in heat spikes. That also means standing still and waiting for the 'good shots' to maximize your killing potential.

People are not going to be moving around and shooting at each other under your proposed mechanics. They're going to fire 4 PPCs, waddle back at 40% of their 32kph max speed into cover, and wait for their heat to go down so they can get a decent shot in.

Quote

The current game destroyed ALL cannon builds.

Not exactly. A series of bad decisions did. PPCs should not have been tampered with until the implementation of Host State Rewind. ECM completely shuts down the use of missiles - and over simplifies the role of information warfare (not to mention with components like BAP performing merely identical to TT rules while ECM gets all kinds of additional bonuses and considerations to information warfare).

A few others worked in there - but the fact remains that plenty of other MechWarrior titles and projects have utilized the same convergence system and canon builds not been completely invalidated.

[MaddMaxx]

Orzorn, on 08 July 2013 - 01:30 PM, said:

That's sort of what I meant, but I didn't form it right. HSR fixed two of those issues, and the other was some odd PPC projectile shape or something that gave it splash. Because as far as I remember, PPC's never officially had splash.

True. The PPC never ever had Splash. It was a nice, cool graphic effect that simulated splash. Since both weapons are 10 pt'rs, making the ER version 15 Heat will simply relegate it to the shelf. be vary careful what you ask for, or look stupid having to come back looking for a reduction, to get it back off the shelf, that could take many months...

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Aim64C, on 09 July 2013 - 06:13 AM, said:

You already explained everything that needed to be.

Movement is penalized for even small increments of heat. That throws lights out the window. They tend to rely heavily upon energy weapons and movement.

Movement penalizes accuracy - which also horrendously damages lights. Take the Seven-Foxtrot, it's going to pretty much be an unviable build. Not only does its laser fire become inaccurate, it also has to slow down simply by virtue of using the only weapons available to it.

Which means it can't even perform its role as a harasser.

Or the Swayback.

Which is why combat is going to gravitate even more heavily toward assaults. They are going to have the armor to take the damage of standing relatively still (so they can hit something) while packing the weapons to be able to deal high damage during the brief moments the player has a solid shot.



Killing is fast - period.

Why?

Every member of the opposition not on the field is less opposition. The quicker you remove it, the better. Players will naturally gravitate toward quickly killing a target.



You already explained this. Movement penalizes accuracy. Heat penalties sap movement and accuracy.

That means high-alpha builds that operate in heat spikes. That also means standing still and waiting for the 'good shots' to maximize your killing potential.

People are not going to be moving around and shooting at each other under your proposed mechanics. They're going to fire 4 PPCs, waddle back at 40% of their 32kph max speed into cover, and wait for their heat to go down so they can get a decent shot in.



Not exactly. A series of bad decisions did. PPCs should not have been tampered with until the implementation of Host State Rewind. ECM completely shuts down the use of missiles - and over simplifies the role of information warfare (not to mention with components like BAP performing merely identical to TT rules while ECM gets all kinds of additional bonuses and considerations to information warfare).

A few others worked in there - but the fact remains that plenty of other MechWarrior titles and projects have utilized the same convergence system and canon builds not been completely invalidated.

Good lord, you took something that was a very basic overview and tried to respond as if it was the end all be all of the idea.

Go read Docbach's thread.

FFS.

[MaddMaxx]

xDeityx, on 09 July 2013 - 05:34 AM, said:

There's a real easy way to see if the problem is boating: look at other non-PPC boats.

Is the medium laser HBK-4SP as scary as a PPC boat? No. Is a 6xSPL Jenner as scary? No. Is a 6xSRM6 CPLT-A1 as scary? No. What about an LRM boat stalker? No. A 4xLL Atlas, Dragon, Cataphract, or Quickdraw? Nope.

Seems to me the problem isn't boating.

With the exception of the LRM and LL, limited Range keeps those others in check. Even the LL only has half the useful range of the (er)PPC. LRM's are Missiles, they fly at 1/16 the speed and simply do not play the same way.

Apples to Oranges good sir. Apples to...

[Aim64C]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 09 July 2013 - 05:53 AM, said:

Ok so then what happens when all the clan weapons come out?

Accuracy penalties aren't going to fix that, either.

Quote

Or the 50 different gauss/PPC types from later in the timeline?

The HAG is a gauss LBX.

The only one that poses any kind of a challenge is the PPC, and that is because we treat it like an autocannon or gauss rifle.

Quote

Are we just going to keep doing this dance?

Mechanics, mechanics, mechanics.

You cannot fix this game by nerfing PPC's.

You can help curb the issue, but that's it.

The solution to your problems: http://mwomercs.com/...g-the-mechanic/

Clan ERPPC fixed before it even arrives.

Large Pulse Lasers a viable option compared to the PPC based on target profile (understandably - the proposed changes to the PPC would make it far more impractical to use against lights and mediums while preserving good damage against larger targets).

Autocannons are largely already balanced because of the size requirements and ammunition costs. Not to mention range considerations.

With a simple re-think to 20 years of PPC function - the weapon falls back into the realms of reasonable. Still fearsome - but reasonable.

Many of the other balance issues in the game will be rounded out by multi-objective matches that take place on maps larger than our tiny Alpine map. Warfare isn't just about killing people. It's also about feeding your own and starving the opposition, or arming your own and disarming your foes.

Though there's still a considerable discrepancy in information warfare, and I question the logic used to "balance" the pulse lasers against each other - but those are minor in comparison.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Ahhh I didn't realize why it was a waste talking to you till now.

You have some crazy convoluted idea that has no basis in any mechwarrior game before it to fix PPC's.

My bad.

[Livewyr]

MaddMaxx, on 09 July 2013 - 06:00 AM, said:

Your Joking right? 7 slots vs 3 and 12 tons vs 7 (plus ammo)

The 9ML Hunchy has it own issues, let's not cross pollinate the issue.

Well yes.. Line 1: I was joking.

[xDeityx]

MaddMaxx, on 09 July 2013 - 06:19 AM, said:

With the exception of the LRM and LL, limited Range keeps those others in check. Even the LL only has half the useful range of the (er)PPC. LRM's are Missiles, they fly at 1/16 the speed and simply do not play the same way.

This really doesn't matter. Are they boats? Yes. Are they a problem? No. Therefore, boating isn't a problem.

MaddMaxx, on 09 July 2013 - 06:19 AM, said:

Apples to Oranges good sir. Apples to...

We're comparing different boats. Did you want me to just compare PPC boats to PPC boats? This is nonsensical.

[Aim64C]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 09 July 2013 - 06:28 AM, said:

Ahhh I didn't realize why it was a waste talking to you till now.

Because both of us have such important things we should be doing.

Quote

You have some crazy convoluted idea that has no basis in any mechwarrior game before it to fix PPC's.

My bad.

Introducing a charge mechanic while treating PPCs as a sort of pulse laser with an altered per-'clock' delivery cycle is not at all outside of lore descriptions of PPCs.

It was actually MechWarrior that treated the PPC as a crazy convoluted piece of equipment. A particle projector cannon shoots a beam of projectiles at velocities next to the speed of light. That is why a somewhat kinetic element exists to their damage.

Giving them a slight damage over time aspect (just like lasers and pulse lasers) with a better damage delivery profile makes them superior to lasers, but more unwieldy with the charge mechanic.

If you, also, want to be technical - Autocannons come in a wide variety of makes and models. The game groups them together under general categories. Some AC5s behave like a rapid-fire weapon with rounds described as 'stitching' across the hull. Others are described as being larger bore cannons compared to AC2s, delivering damage in a single punch.

It's quite funny, though.

"All of the previous MechWarrior games have had this problem!"

With the 'boating' of lasers and other instant damage weapons. Almost everything behaved similar to an autocannon in the old days. "The problem is convergence."

Lasers have been 'fixed' regarding accuracy/convergence, since they don't deal all of their damage up-front. Ballistics kind of have to have decent accuracy to be competitive (why else would you bother to bring along a stupidly heavy, bulky, and ammunition hungry weapon?). Missiles... well - they should have mechanics that address all of the missiles homing in on one spot.

The PPC is the main outlier.

Suggesting a re-think of its mechanics is blasphemy...

The only solution worth merit is to replace the age-old targeting system with a new one that makes standing around beneficial to your accuracy.

*shrug*

Just remember. You reap what you sow.

[Purlana]

xDeityx, on 09 July 2013 - 05:34 AM, said:

There's a real easy way to see if the problem is boating: look at other non-PPC boats.

Is the medium laser HBK-4SP as scary as a PPC boat? No. Is a 6xSPL Jenner as scary? No. Is a 6xSRM6 CPLT-A1 as scary? No. What about an LRM boat stalker? No. A 4xLL Atlas, Dragon, Cataphract, or Quickdraw? Nope.

Seems to me the problem isn't boating.

The AC/40 boats are a better comparison. High Alpha, Pinpoint convergence, Instant DMG. (Only thing it's missing is the range, AC/40 boats would be a terror if they had more range) It's not just boating, it's boating weapons with particular attributes.

Edited by Purlana, 09 July 2013 - 07:28 AM.