78 replies to this topic

[Hammerhai]

And I remember the rants about PPC heat and how underpowered they were compared to ballistics in CB pre HSR. So, PGI obliged and now we don't like what we got eh? Ah well.

It is not the PPC. It is boating that is the problem. Plain and simple. People gaming the system. The problem is the jerks in this game. Of which there are many.

[BillyM]

HOST STATE REWIND HAPPENED!

--billyM

[xRatas]

Hammerhai, on 14 July 2013 - 11:06 AM, said:

And I remember the rants about PPC heat and how underpowered they were compared to ballistics in CB pre HSR. So, PGI obliged and now we don't like what we got eh? Ah well.

It is not the PPC. It is boating that is the problem. Plain and simple. People gaming the system. The problem is the jerks in this game. Of which there are many.

It's just a bad system. Any competitive rules system always gets broken more or less. Good ones bend but will not break. Really, still time before the launch to revamp the hard point system, too bad they are doing the bubblegum fixes already.

Game needs to provide competitive and balanced environment to be successful PvP title, so blame not the people for trying their best, blame the weak rule set that doesn't really support varied designs.

[Angel of Annihilation]

Lefteye, on 14 July 2013 - 10:20 AM, said:

As odd as this sounds, you know what would make sense and would help with balance? To have the "bullet" to take like a couple tenth of a second, or even up to half a second, to fire. As if the energy were charging up and could not be ready to fire the instant you hit fire. Pretty much as it was (for technical reasons though) in closed beta. That used to make it pretty hard to hit with PPCs and would balance things out a bit without having to slow down the projectile.

Problem with this solution? It isn't fun. Nothing worse than having a weapon lag on you by design. Too bad. Because I agree, PPCs as they are now are just too good. Mind, Gauss are the same thing (slower projectile isn't that much of an issue when you are good with it), but at least you can't have more than two (which is the equivalent of three ppc anyway) and they can run out of ammos, and they explode easily.

PPC needs to be changed, this is for sure. Given that they can't change projectile speed and they can't change range, I think they should and actually have to work with two other factors.

Heat and cooldown. Either they raise the heat on it, or raise the cooldown to 5 or 6 seconds. It's a high-power high-efficiency all around/sniper weapon. Make it the slowest weapon in the game. Try with 6 seconds cooldown and see what happens. Still viable for long range alpha sniping, but less omnipresent as a good-for-all-situation high hitting weapon.

GOD NO!!!

That would be a worse fix than even adding heat or nerfing damage. For example, ever try to hit anything with a Centurion using SRMs WITHOUT locking open the missle tube doors? Yeah forget it, that 1/2 second delay made them completely unusable which is why we now have a feature to lock open the doors. Same goes for PPCs or Gauss if you have any lag whatsoever. Occassional the game goes out of sync on me and there is a noticeable delay between clicking the button and the weapon actually firing. Completely unusable when that happens.

[Lefteye Falconeer]

That's why I said (and I agree) that would be a terrible fix
If I could vote, I'd vote for a little more heat, and a longer cooldown.

[SkyCake]

Ya. .. I like 1300 m/s for ppc

But no idea how ac/2 is still 2000

[keith]

Hammerhai, on 14 July 2013 - 11:06 AM, said:

And I remember the rants about PPC heat and how underpowered they were compared to ballistics in CB pre HSR. So, PGI obliged and now we don't like what we got eh? Ah well.

It is not the PPC. It is boating that is the problem. Plain and simple. People gaming the system. The problem is the jerks in this game. Of which there are many.

ppc were kinda bad in CB because of bad reg. if pgi wasn't herp a derping they would take them back to original stats and see how they would do. u know that .5-2 sec delay add in slower travel time kinda made them bad back then. so they took off heat because u fired more often and buffed travel to make it easier to hit. makes u wonder y they can't undo what they've done...

[Orzorn]

PPC heat back to 10
ERPPC heat back to 15

Don't implement the garbage heat stacking system. Honestly, I'd rather we see heat sinks no longer give bonus to the heat cap and just have 30 be the heat cap, and DHS give 2.0 heat dissipation. ERPPCs literally could only be fired two at a time, and with 15 DHS, it would take 10 seconds to dump that heat.

PPC/ERPPC get splash damage (already mentioned in an NGNG episode here)
or
My idea: PPC/ERPPC shoot a stream of ions (as per the lore) such that they are still fire-and-forget, but not all of the damage lands in one place unless the target is standing still. The stream is maybe a meter or two in length.


PGI implementing the heat system will not address the fact that the PPC is a brutally efficient weapon as it is. 8 heat, 540 meter range, 7 tons, 10 damage. That heat is not appropriate for its weight and range. It just isn't.

[One Medic Army]

As someone who uses 2x PPCs in many of his builds: yeah, they totally need a nerf, right now they are better than Large Lasers.
Being able to unload all of your damage instantaneously to a single place is much better than having a steerable beam that lasts 1sec.

[Conraire]

Sable, on 13 July 2013 - 08:27 PM, said:

Title says it all, can we slow down the projectile speed on PPCs already. I'm sooooo sick of being instant cored from 1000m. If they were as slow as ac20s they'd be much harder to hit with at such extreme ranges. They are the easy button right now. I don't have a problem with their damage or heat but they should be harder to use.

The new "heat scale" isn't going to cut it completely either, they are just too good.

When are people going to get their heads out of their butts, and realize it's not the projectile speed of the PPC's thats the problem??? It doesn't matter what speed they travel, people will adapt their aim to it, just like I use to back before they buffed it, and HSR. The only other thing I could say, would be to add a 1 second charge time before firing the bolt. That way it puts the fire rate at 5seconds which mirrors the doubled armor values.

And to be specific you're actually effectively shooting a lightning bolt at a person when you fire a PPC... Now how fast do those move in the real world??

And the issue with all weapons and most of the balance in this game, has come down to improperly implemented heat mechanics. And we have another half baked, broken fix coming in soon to not fix the real issues. For example the medium laser heat penalty..... There are only 3 mechs that are even capable of fitting more than 6 medium lasers in the game right now.... Hunchback 4p(9e), Awesome 8q(7e), Blackjack 1x(8e). And 2 out of 3 of those are meant to be able to be completely heat stable by canon rules. So effectively they're doing a fix that won't do anything to fix the problem. And still make it impossible to competitively run most medium mechs.

Which is, put the weapons back to their original heat and damage values, 10 on the ppc, and 15 on the erppc. Fix the heat scale to properly reflect battletech heat mechanics, as in 100% heat equals the effective number of heatsinks you have+4. And anything over that you start taking movement, convergence/accuracy penalties, shutting down, ammo baking off, Cockpit dmg, etc.

[AntiCitizenJuan]

Mystere, on 13 July 2013 - 09:20 PM, said:

I worked on weaponizing energy-based devices (i.e. lasers, particle accelerators, plasma) during the late 20th and early 21st Centuries. Does that count?

I'm the governor of New York and I dont believe you

[Training Instructor]

Yep, it's not about skill at all. I can work my tail off to get a lot of damage in a blackjack 1x or Jagermech with 4xLlaser and 4xMGs.

Or, I can take one of my mastered stalkers out of the garage and stick on 2xERPPC and 2xPPC and go on a coring fest where anyone on the enemy team playing a semi-balanced mech is afraid to poke their head out from behind a building.

Amazingly different experience using completely ******** convergence on a mech that can't actually move its arms side to side, just like the f**king Jager can't move its arms side to side. My preferred Jager doesn't use ac40, but I have used it in the past, and I think it's absolutely ridiculous that it can converge those arms at all, when they were never meant to.

[One Medic Army]

Conraire, on 14 July 2013 - 02:30 PM, said:

When are people going to get their heads out of their butts, and realize it's not the projectile speed of the PPC's thats the problem??? It doesn't matter what speed they travel, people will adapt their aim to it, just like I use to back before they buffed it, and HSR. The only other thing I could say, would be to add a 1 second charge time before firing the bolt. That way it puts the fire rate at 5seconds which mirrors the doubled armor values.

And to be specific you're actually effectively shooting a lightning bolt at a person when you fire a PPC... Now how fast do those move in the real world??

Long-distance shooting becomes harder with slower projectiles.
The longer the time the projectile is in the air, the more time there is for the enemy mech to change direction, speed up, slow down, or twist; all of which change the location of the hit, or possibly make the shot miss entirely.

It's irrelevant if everyone moves in straight lines at a set speed, but once people start trying to move evasively it does matter.

Real world and physics arguments are irrelevant, therefore they shall be ignored.

A Heat bump, say to 9 and 12 would be good as well, but I think making PPCs harder to use would be a good start.

[EchoMike]

I posted this in the Heat Scale Feedback thread: Much of my thoughts on feed back have been already mentioned in the 40+ pages...however If PGI is going to go ahead with their silly heat scale max alpha nonsense they could at least look in to nerfing the PPC/ERPPC a wee bit. As mentioned, even with the PPC/ERPPC family grouping for heat scale, competitive players will just switch to 2X PPC + Gauss to make a 35 damage bullet. The PPCs do too much damage for a infinite ammo weapon relative to their heat output and projectile speed. In my opinion to reduce the effectiveness PGI should: Add at least +1 heat to the PPC/ERPPC, reduce the projectile speed by 10%-20%, or incorporate a 'splash' mechanic that will would distribute 20%-25% of it's damage on to an adjacent hit box.

[Dirkdaring]

Sable, on 13 July 2013 - 08:27 PM, said:

Title says it all, can we slow down the projectile speed on PPCs already. I'm sooooo sick of being instant cored from 1000m. If they were as slow as ac20s they'd be much harder to hit with at such extreme ranges. They are the easy button right now. I don't have a problem with their damage or heat but they should be harder to use.

The new "heat scale" isn't going to cut it completely either, they are just too good.

A PPC might barely scratch your paint at 1000m.
An ERPPC will dent your mech at 1000m.

Try putting more than 5 armor in your CT if you are getting cored by ERPPC at 1000m.

[Fulcrom Kerensky]

Dirkdaring, on 14 July 2013 - 04:50 PM, said:

A PPC might barely scratch your paint at 1000m.
An ERPPC will dent your mech at 1000m.

Try putting more than 5 armor in your CT if you are getting cored by ERPPC at 1000m.

I believe at 1000m erppc does 4 damage.

[Dirkdaring]

Fulcrom Kerensky, on 14 July 2013 - 05:04 PM, said:

I believe at 1000m erppc does 4 damage.

Thats not bad for that far.

But how is the OP getting cored, repeatedly, by them at 1000m and as he says 'instantly'? Inquiring minds want to know!

[One Medic Army]

Dirkdaring, on 14 July 2013 - 05:25 PM, said:

Thats not bad for that far.

But how is the OP getting cored, repeatedly, by them at 1000m and as he says 'instantly'? Inquiring minds want to know!

Gauss+2ERPPC would deal about 19-20dmg at 1000m.
If he's standing still and taking repeated hits, or he's being shot at by a large group it might happen.

More likely he says 1000m, but he means closer to 600-700m, and by instantly he means "within 10-20 seconds".

[Nubsternator]

we need the PPC and ERPPC a downside to use. Either make it a beam-like effect or make it fragile like the Gauss. Every other gun has a downside to use. AC20? Slow projectile and limited range and ammo. Smaller ACs have more range, faster projectile, but harder to continually hit the same spot. Lasers? Non-Pinpoint damage. Missles? SRMs have a hard 270m range, LRMs have a minimum 180m.

PPCs NEED a downside. Right now, there is none.

[Fulcrom Kerensky]

Nubsternator, on 14 July 2013 - 06:00 PM, said:

we need the PPC and ERPPC a downside to use. Either make it a beam-like effect or make it fragile like the Gauss. Every other gun has a downside to use. AC20? Slow projectile and limited range and ammo. Smaller ACs have more range, faster projectile, but harder to continually hit the same spot. Lasers? Non-Pinpoint damage. Missles? SRMs have a hard 270m range, LRMs have a minimum 180m.

PPCs NEED a downside. Right now, there is none.

PPC's have a minimum range (90 meters) which is a downside. ERPPC's have higher heat, the most I would say to do to ERPPC's would to be add a little more heat. Honestly the knee jerk reactions and glossing over facts is just absurd.

Edited by Fulcrom Kerensky, 14 July 2013 - 06:13 PM.