Edit: My apologies for the post being so long, it got away from me.
Right then, time for me to join the fray.
1) The stock Awesome 8Q comes with 3PPC's and a small laser as stock, when that is one of the trial mech's it is going to hardly be new player friendly - Especially when most of them will spend the first few games alpha'ing whilst learning the game. The same goes for the Awesome 9M which comes with 3ER PPC's.
There is also the Hunchback 4P champion mech and standard stock variants.
2) A max alpha of 2 LRM 15's is in-descriptive, does this mean you get a heat penalty for firing more than 30 at a time? Or would 2 LRM 20's suffer no heat penalty? If it is the former than there is also problems with the Catapult C4. If the latter then ignore this point.
These are my problems just with stock variants used by the newest of new players, now let's get on with the other stuff.
1) You aren't really fixing much, we can see you are attempting to promote players using more balanced builds however 2PPC + Gauss will still be useable and that is still 35 points of pinpoint damage, where as other builds that might have a chance of going toe to toe at the same kind of ranges (I.E large lasers) are getting slapped in the face with this system.
2) Limiting AC/20's to 1 I can understand however I think all you are really doing with that is taking out one of the few brawler types that can somewhat survive the current meta, I'd of added the 1 limit in later.
3) The DPS of a PPC is currently set to 2.5 with a range of 540 meters, reaching up to 1080 with damage drop off.
The DPS of an SRM 6 is currently set to 2.25 with a flat range of 270 meters.
My question is - Why doesn't a brawling weapon, that spreads damage out unless your practically hugging your opponent and has a very low range, needs ammo and (with Artemis and ammo weight restrictions taken into account) weights pretty much the same as a PPC have more DPS than the weapon that can easily hit from half the map away?
If you want brawling to feel useful to more players, it's going to need to be able to out DPS the long range builds - The heat penalties won't stop players from using PPC's, if anything I think it'll drive more into the arms of the PPC and Gauss combo, with large laser boats and the larger LRM boats out of the picture.
4) As others have said, what about the natural energy boating builds? If you are insistent on going down this path I would have a different set of numbers for these mech types (For example, allowing the Awesome 8Q to use three PPC's and then get punished on the 4th or four large lasers before getting punished on the 5th).
5) Looking at the numbers all I can read for brawling in an assault is "Right, your build must use SRM's (which don't work properly) to use up the free tonnage, using several large lasers to back up an AC/20 is no longer an option" - Sure, you could chainfire or fire more large lasers after 0.5 seconds, or whatever you do set the timer to, but 0.5 second is a lot of time in a brawl, the difference between a CT hit or a RT/LT hit and nobody wants to get hit in the CT.
And now, onto ballistics
Ballistics, expect possibly the Gauss, have taken a back seat - You do see AC/20's somewhat often, but I find them either on a dual AC/20 mech, the yen-lo-wang or an Atlas variant with only a few exceptions, this is because they are very heavy and require ammo. The AC/20 is a fine weapon really, circumstances are just throwing it to the side in favour of the much lighter weight and light/medium friendly PPC, offering only half it's damage but twice it's range with no risk of ammo explosions, it is also less than half it's weight when ammo is counted in.
Anyway, my point is that AC/5's and 10's are very underutilized, this is for a few reasons:
If you want DPS, you can AC/2's with their lower weight and much lower crit slot requirements. UAC 5's are also an option for their higher DPS than most other weapons, only being beaten by the much heavier and much shorter range AC/20, or the unfocused and easily avoidable damage of an LRM 20.
The AC/5's and 10's don't really serve much purpose right now, for alpha players go for Gauss or AC/20, and DPS I mentioned above - Having these as usable weapons might push people to go for DPS middle ranged weaponry.
Finally, for the LB 10X, you need to do something with that, it is obviously a brawling weapon but it has no real purpose right now, critting when a mech has it's internals opened up is relatively pointless as any group with even a fraction of teamwork will have that mech focused down before you even manage to knock off a single weapon with your crit hits (Same goes for machine guns and flamers).
I like the idea of the new system trying to promote balanced builds, but it isn't going to work, players will always find a way around any system you come up with.
High pinpoint alpha users will switch to 2PPC's and Gauss, a whole 10 points less damage per alpha but now they have less heat issues
and will probably have tonnage to upgrade their engine so now it is easier for them to keep distance on you, or switch to a standard to increase their survivability.
LRM boats will just have one LRM 30 on one group and the second LRM 30 on another group, 0.5 seconds, presuming that is still the cut off point, isn't exactly a long time to wait when you can hide behind a hill whilst still dealing damage.
You may of stopped, or at least made it more annoying, to play a dual AC/20 mech however they were one of the few brawling mech's I saw, they will probably be pushed into PPC and Gauss now or they will try brawling with other mech's and rage.
As for SRM's, three SRM 6 is actually a fair amount, it doesn't let them be boated by catapults, now if only they worked properly.
Just one more little thing for me now, I bought a Dragon - Flame awhile ago, the usual build for this is 4LL with an XL ~350, I hate it, and I am sure with this new system not even the 30% C-bill bonus will make me touch it, I'd rather use my dusty founders Atlas.
Edited by Chaosdrive, 11 July 2013 - 09:11 PM.
35
This topic is locked
Jay Z, on 11 July 2013 - 08:07 PM, said:
