62 replies to this topic

[krolmir]

An Idea for balancing dual Gauss+ Mechs would be to have a capacitor charge failure chance; basically the engine cannot meet the necessary power requirements, the slugs will not reach critical velocity and therefore do less damage, however, it should be based on range fired, so point blank alphas would be relatively unaffected. After which you could buff its health pool a bit, and lower its critical chance so it isn't a complete squish fest. Hell, this effect could work with firing a Gauss in conjuncting with more than one PPC, too. Since both weapon types historically, have a massive energy draw.

This in Conjuction with the heat Scale penalties, brings chassis like the Devastator, King Crab, Mad Cat mk. 2, ETC. down from the world of one button sniping and brawling wins. As well as making them viable candidates for future mech additions.

[Dark Shaman of Clan Ghost Bear]

These weapons draw on power from the Mech itself.
I've always considered adding a longer weapon recharge/cooldown rate for weapons that draw too much power at once.
Maybe if all Mechs has a 'Mana' bar to reflect available power for energy-using weapons, and have a fixed recharge rate for that mana bar, we can balance how many energy weapons can be blasted off at once.

[krolmir]

No other thoughts or ideas on balancing multiple ballistic energy assault mechs, the Clans are coming after all.

[topgun505]

You can't balance them via heat or damage values. So the only thing you could do would be recycle time. In TT each game turn = 10 seconds ... so if you really wanted to go to the extreme you could balance high alpha weapons like Gauss by giving them an increased recycle up to/including a full 10 seconds. Not saying thats the way to go. Just saying.

[jeffsw6]

I've said for months that gauss rifle ammo/ton is too high, and is the reason that relatively unskilled players "spray and pray" with gauss rifles. It should be a dedicated sniper weapon, not one that you can carry so much ammo with that you can afford to miss most of your shots and still be an effective contributor on your team.

[Gaan Cathal]

I voted in everything, because I can.


However, addressing your point more seriously...

Dual-gauss and dual PPC+Gauss isn't a problem, it really isn't. You can't keep neutering ranged firepower indefinitely or it'll just not be worth taking the weapons. 35 damage pinpoint is about the manageable point, 40 is where the game starts to break down. Rather than addressing specific weapon combinations, I'd much rather see the effectiveness of pinpoint damage reduced across the board in a 'soft counter' fashion by increasing Internal Structure (the value in massive-pinpoint-alpha building being the reduction of TTK to tiny values where spread-damage and DoT weapons can't catch up).

[Tezcatli]

Well it wouldn't be too bad an idea to increase the cooldown if you fire more then one Guass. But I really doubt that will go over well with many people. And not sure it would really fix anything unless the penalty was pretty harsh. Doesn't take much to step back behind cover and wait. But I guess it would let people close in easier.

[WarMonkey14]

i always thought this should be included with heat problems. as others have suggested, having a more TT heat scale (one in particular where you have a bar showing heat ur heatsinks can handle and then once you go above you run in risks of damage,ammo explosion, etc.) rather than have ammo and internal damage happen, which would be very often in this game where we need loads more ammo, i'd rather see this be the penalty for having too much heat.

energy weapons can misfire, where they do not shoot but still give you all the heat they would have generated normally.

missile and ballistic weapons can also misfire, but they do equal damage to whatever section they are in based on their damage (ac10 in LA would do 10 points of damage to LA) technically it makes sense to make this only do internal damage, but balance-wise it might be better to do regular damage

you could then still have over 100% factors like they have now for ammo explosion and internal damage if you are in override.

Edit: the balancing act would be the percentage chance you have based on how much extra heat you have for weapons to misfire

i also didnt add the damage factor for energy weapons since they should generate far more heat. if this becomes not enough of a risk factor, just make it where the energy weapon has a chance to also crit itself and be destroyed

Edited by WarMonkey14, 21 July 2013 - 08:06 PM.

[HRR Insanity]

Convergence. That's all.

http://mwomercs.com/...om-closed-beta/

[Antonio]

Gauss can be balanced with a higher recycle time since I do not think playing with heat for Gauss makes any sense. I can't really speak to the PPC/Gauss combo because I have not been playing much lately but I think heat can be increased for PPCs and the cooldown for Gauss increased.

Edited by Antonio, 21 July 2013 - 08:56 PM.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

Are people still QQing about the Gauss? The thing is heavy, fragile, and dangerous (to the user). It explodes 90% of the time when destroyed, it has a relatively low dps, and is a lackluster brawling weapon due to its long reload time.

Sure, the Gauss is long range and low heat, but its range, per-hit damage, and heat are more than balanced by its size, weight, and explosive vulnerability.

Find something reasonable to QQ about, please. Gauss has been fine for a goodly while now.

Edit - PPCs and ERPPCs could use a point or two of extra heat each, and should have their projectile speeds divorced from each other, but that has no bearing on the Gauss.

Edited by Levi Porphyrogenitus, 21 July 2013 - 09:02 PM.

[Alex Warden]

HRR Insanity, on 21 July 2013 - 08:10 PM, said:

Convergence. That's all.

http://mwomercs.com/...om-closed-beta/

this, plus seperate barrels for each weapon, especially those in the same location. each weapon in a mech should be modelled and function as a seperate weapon and not as a doubled or tripled single weapon...each with it´s own convergence... imho

[Zordicron]

100M minimum range.

Snipe weapon should not be worth a pile of dung at facehug range.

[Vox Scorpus]

Don't mess with the Gauss + PPC combos or the individual weapons themselves. Even though MWO is a separate entity by far from the TT, it is modeled after it. If we have the devs constantly adjusting weapons because we don't like to get killed by them so we call them unbalance or unfair then eventually instead of killing mechs we'll just be slapping them down with harsh language. The goal of the game is destruction (except for the conquest and capping). If a mech or a boat seems to powerful or is kicking *** in a match then gang up on it! This is a team game after all!

[Dephylr]

Gauss is fine, move on.

Vox Scorpus, on 21 July 2013 - 09:36 PM, said:

Don't mess with the Gauss + PPC combos or the individual weapons themselves. Even though MWO is a separate entity by far from the TT, it is modeled after it. If we have the devs constantly adjusting weapons because we don't like to get killed by them so we call them unbalance or unfair then eventually instead of killing mechs we'll just be slapping them down with harsh language. The goal of the game is destruction (except for the conquest and capping). If a mech or a boat seems to powerful or is kicking *** in a match then gang up on it! This is a team game after all!

That is what happened to me (ganging up) I was dropping people on the enemy team, so the last 4 enemies decided to kick my face in. Worked pretty well.

[Mystere]

Give everyone Urbanmechs armed only with two machine guns and fighting in a single 100 meter by 100 meter square and totally flat map. This should end all "nerf <anything>" threads like this one.

[Entail]

God the idea of nerfing gauss after all the nerf bats already are insulting

I really thought this was annoying when people did this but...I have no choice:
Learn to play.

Gauss is heavy and very fragile. You can easily take a gauss
off a mech. Learn to aim? I always take it off first. Ammunition is short, the cycle time is looooonnggg.

[ObsidianSpectre]

We really don't need more ridiculous penalties to apply when players field "too many overpowered weapons". Maybe we should consider trying out making the weapons not be overpowered at some point, instead of worrying about people who use too many at once?

Edited by ObsidianSpectre, 22 July 2013 - 12:40 AM.

[Gulinborsti]

I'd rather not see any more background systems to address boating.

Actually 2 PPC + 1 Gauss / 1 PPC + 2 Gauss builds are a lot less frightening as 4-6 PPC boats.

The new heat penalties seems to work already - at least from my observations - and the gameplay is a lot more entertaining lately. With some more tweaking and adjustments to the heat penalties there is enough room for improvements.

Edited by Gulinborsti, 22 July 2013 - 12:51 AM.

[xCico]

Eldagore, on 21 July 2013 - 09:28 PM, said:

100M minimum range.

Snipe weapon should not be worth a pile of dung at facehug range.

Why ballistic weapon should have min. range? Gauss would lose any sense of buying and putting to mech, to me gauss is balanced fine.