248 replies to this topic

[Coralld]

I have read every ones suggestions on how to fix the PPCs+Gauss... Ok, mostly every ones suggestions. I hear a lot of people saying that we need randumbness/cone of fire/non converging weapons/ so one and so forth... Let me say this, these suggestions will solve the pinpoint alpha problem. However, it will not fix PPCs and Gauss from being the go to weapons, if anything it will push more towards them and this is why. They are front load weapons dealing all their damage to that location. Laser weapons will be hampered because they do damage over time and will be unable to deliver their damage effectively where as front load weapons, as long as they hit, deliver ALL of their damage to that spot. Even the smaller front load weapons, AC2/5/UAC5 and possibly AC10 will be overshadowed by PPCs, Gauss, and AC20s because they simply do not deliver enough firepower for their required weight.

Now some will state that in TT, the randumbness of the dice roll kept everything balanced, even for lasers, and this is true, but also in TT lasers could be considered front load weapons because when they hit the enemy they did all of their damage to that location. This is why I am convinced that the vast majority of peoples ideas will end up doing more harm then good because people are so fixated on resolving the pin point alpha problem that they are over looking this simple flaw.

As I have stated in countless threads, boating isant the real problem, hell, even to some degree, neither is the pin point convergence. The real problem is not related to one thing, in fact, its multiple. I will list the problems below which I have seen most people agree on, being stated straight up or in the passing.

1: PPCs and ERPPCs are simply to damn good, they don't produce enough heat for their effectiveness and you can brawl with them which is really stupid sense these weapons are meant for mid to long range.

2: Combining PPCs with other high damage front load weapons, Gauss being the most common culprit, allows these heavy hitters to circumvent the current penalties in place.

3: Everyone screams that auto convergence is an issue, and they would be half right, but convergence isant the end all be all issue, the fact that its INSTANT is the problem.

My solution to fixing the problem.

1: Implement more and proper heat penalties, I'll let you guys imagine what they would be as there are many and the list is long.

2: Increase the amount of heat PPCs produce back to TT levels with ERPPCs doing 13 or 14 points of heat.

3: This idea I have is based off of BT canon but tweaked for MWO reasons. Every one knows that when PPCs are fired under 60ms they do next to no damage unless you take the safety system off line which then causes damage to the weapon, right? I say make it so that for the regular, as well as for ER PPCs, any and all weapons will take damage when alphad with a PPC type weapon, the PPCs too will take damage. Make it so that all weapons can survive up to 3 or 4 alphas when paired with a PPC before being destroyed.
Example- 2x PPCs alpha = fine. 3x PPCs alpha = heat penalty. 2x PPCs + Gauss alpha = weapon damage penalty. 1x PPC + 1x Gauss alpha = weapon damage penalty.
(Note, you can swap the Gauss out with any other kind of weapon other then another PPC and you will still incur the weapon damage penalty)

4: Make auto weapon convergence actually take time to converge instead of this instant convergence crap. The speed at which weapons converge is determined by weight class. Lights and Mediums will have faster weapon convergence where as Heavies and Assaults convergence time are significantly slower. This would help the Light and Medium class greatly, and make the "pin point" perk actually have a purpose.

But that's just my 2 C-bills.

[Saben Zero]

this argument is sort of silly, Vincent says PPC/ERPPC are the strongest weapon in the game by a margin that makes it foolish to take anything else with the expectation of victory, While the OP is saying they're really only strong when coupled with Gauss. The combination is of course the strongest weapon in the game by a margin that makes it foolish to take anything else with the expectation of victory.

Really, what we're advocating is a buff to everything but PPC/ERPPC and a doubling of internal structure across the board.

*drops mic*

[Matthew Ace]

Coralld, on 27 July 2013 - 07:48 PM, said:

I have read every ones suggestions on how to fix the PPCs+Gauss... Ok, mostly every ones suggestions. I hear a lot of people saying that we need randumbness/cone of fire/non converging weapons/ so one and so forth... Let me say this, these suggestions will solve the pinpoint alpha problem. However, it will not fix PPCs and Gauss from being the go to weapons, if anything it will push more towards them and this is why. They are front load weapons dealing all their damage to that location. Laser weapons will be hampered because they do damage over time and will be unable to deliver their damage effectively where as front load weapons, as long as they hit, deliver ALL of their damage to that spot. Even the smaller front load weapons, AC2/5/UAC5 and possibly AC10 will be overshadowed by PPCs, Gauss, and AC20s because they simply do not deliver enough firepower for their required weight.

(...)

The speed at which weapons converge is determined by weight class. Lights and Mediums will have faster weapon convergence where as Heavies and Assaults convergence time are significantly slower. This would help the Light and Medium class greatly, and make the "pin point" perk actually have a purpose. But that's just my 2 C-bills.

Although I'm an advocate of having convergence, this guy is probably right with PPC and Gausses still being the go-to even if there is (I never considered about that).This guy knows his stuff.

And before anyone continue raging that Convergence meant adding a COF... No. It can also mean no convergence until you actually target something, taking varying amount of time (depending on what weapons are being used) to get pinpoint.

[Kushko]

Cone of fire and randomness is definitely NOT the way to fix anything in MWO.

As far as i see it (even though noone is responding to my posts anymore because they're too hopped up by the convergence discussion), we need 3 things to change that will fix a great deal of the MWO balance and fun issues:

• Minor tweaks to some weapons that slightly overperform (in the lines of the +1 heat to ppcs)
  
• Bigger tweaks to weapons that should be used for short range brawling to give short range fits a higher risk/reward style. Drastically reduce the range in weapons like pulse lasers, AC20s and other heavier ballistic weapons (aside from gauss) and increase their damage to compensate. At the moment the only weapon that says "if you let me get close you are going to get hurt" is the SRM and we need more weapons focused in to that gameplay style to counter/combat the popularity of long range sniper builds.
  
• Increase both internal and armor hit points by a large margin (50-100%). This will have several very positive effects on the gameplay. Firstly it will reduce the usefulness of the alpha strike (especially the high heat alpha strike) and put them more in to line with the sustained dps heat efficient builds. Secondly, the time you can stay alive in an engagement is currently far too low and will only get worse once 12v12 is implemented. One wrong move and you will most likely be insta killed. Higher hit points will make for a far more tactical and engaging combat and it will give more meaning on choosing which part you want to strike on a mech (shoot the arms off and such instead of knowing it will only take you a second or two longer to core a mech and knowing shooting at any other part is in most cases not worth the trouble/time) and also give extra meaning to subsystem destruction (currently in most cases if one of your subsystems is destroyed you are seconds away from death anyway and people on both sides of the fight dont really care about or notice subsystem destruction...how many times do you go in to a fight thinking "im gonna take that weapon system out", or "im gonna take his ecm out" instead of just shooting to kill and if a weapon pops in the process its just a slight mostly unnoticeable bonus).

Ok, thats that, feel free to go back to your convergence/randomness/TT heat rules discussions.

*edit* One more thing to add; If internal&armor hit points are increased, then ammo per ton should also be increased by a similar margin across the board for all ammo based weapon systems.

Edited by Kushko, 27 July 2013 - 08:50 PM.

[Taemien]

2PPC + Gauss is not a new config. Everyone acts like it is, but its been around since Closed Beta. It didn't work too well back then, and I doubt it will now. Well it works 'well enough' but thats only because this community has a very hard time with piloting. I don't know if its due to a 'why bother' attitude or just pilot ineptness. I think its alot of the former leading to the latter.

It seems the majority of players encounter a cookie cutter design and one of two things happens. They best it, or they don't. If they best it, the analyze it and call for the loadout to be underpowered or even ridicule players for even bothering to use it. If they get trounced, then they do pretty much the same thing, except they call it OP or even ridicule the players using it for being cheap, or both.

I would love it for the majority of players to take a different route and simply look for ways to counter configs they see that are becoming more and more common, sort of like the OP suggests. But unfortunately its a bit easier in most forum goer's minds to just spew a bout of venomous and annoying posts to get the devs to make changes for them, failing that they resort to ridicule of their fellow players for being cheap/easymoding/ect.

But to answer the original question at hand on how to counter the said configs, fast moving mechs utilizing high dps close range weapons works very well. Jenner wolf packs work well, especially if you throw a raven in the mix.

[Vincent Quatermain]

JohnnyWayne, on 27 July 2013 - 05:29 PM, said:

Already took that into account, you still need 18 DHS to run a full loadout with 2 ER PPCs. And even then its overheating in real combat all the time.

"Full loadout"? Are we moving the goalposts here by adding in other un-named weapons onto the mech?

Go into training grounds on a heat neutral map with 2 ERPPC, 1 Gauss and 14 DHS. Hold down the fire buttons until you overheat and count the number of alphas. Three before overheat if you fire on cooldown. Four if you are picking your shots. In other words, an easy kill on basically any mech. If you have a lance of those and concentrate fire, the enemy will go down like bowling pins.

JohnnyWayne said:

Newsflash: 11/18*100 = 61.111%. So I'm right, you are just too stupid to see the equation the other way around.

/facepalm

The relevant comparison was extra weight of Gauss vs. extra damage of Gauss (64% vs 50%). If you want use less weight of PPC vs. less damage of PPC (61% vs. 67%), go ahead -- but don't mix and match. Notice how when you use math correctly you find that either way the PPC is more tonnage efficient.

JohnnyWayne said:

ECM? Was ECM ever an issue to you?

It is a benefit that PPCs have, that Gauss does not. It is helpful to be able to knock out ECM so that you or another mech can lock that target. Not a huge benefit these days, but it is a benefit.

JohnnyWayne said:

Also notice that you can continuously fire your gauss rifles, while you cant with 2 ER PPCs.

Uh huh, and that matters in the rare cases when you can't disengage and no one is focusing -- i.e. the cases where you're screwed anyway.

JohnnyWayne said:

You wont have crit slots for that. You gave yourself the reason for that. 1 or 2 heatsinks extra are also already in the equation. I have exactly 2 crit slots left together with ES.

Typical mech has 9x2 + 12x2 + 2x2 + 1 slots = 47 free slots
ES + 2 ERPPC + Gauss + 3t ammo = 30 slots
You have room for up to 5 out-of-engine heat sinks, plus two JJs!
Accounting for the 1 to 4 in-engine sinks in a decent heavy/assault, you have room for 16-19 DHS, depending on the mech. You only need 14, or 15 after the joke heat nerf.

JohnnyWayne said:

If you group fire them, your damage is partly spread (as for all weapons).

What are you talking about? Are you saying that there is no pinpoint alpha?

JohnnyWayne said:

This solely shows how ignorant you, are you insulting little *****. Almost no idea what you talking about and not willing to see the game as a whole.

You mean the game where Ferro is ever worth taking? Which game is that, because it ain't MWO?

JohnnyWayne said:

You made your point clear and you are obviously not willing to think again and equally obviously not capable of approaching thoughts of others as shown with the weight equation.

Yes, my point is clear. I know the actual numbers. You don't. That is abundantly clear.

JohnnyWayne said:

All you want is to destroy a mid/long range direct fire support weapon that can be (and currently IS) used for sniping, because of sniping.

No, I want to bring it into line with the other weapons. We could also BUFF all of the other weapons, and then adjust the armor/structure points until mechs fall down at the proper speed. The problem is that the relative value of PPCs is too high.

JohnnyWayne said:

You don't want the game to evolve to its best state and make as many weapons viable without making them op.

That IS my goal. However, it is now well established that you do not understand this game in its current state. If you don't know what is broken, you cannot fix the problem.

Edited by Vincent Quatermain, 27 July 2013 - 10:17 PM.

[Monlex]

For all the nay sayers of a "convergence" fix, please explain to me why you dont like it?

[Xandre Blackheart]

splash damage should be 75% of the damage for each weapon and plotted randomly for each weapon firing.

4ppcs in the CT? 10 damage CT and 7.5 x 4 hits randomly allotted spreading out from the ct. (that includes the head bozos)

[Khobai]

Quote

Really, what we're advocating is a buff to everything but PPC/ERPPC and a doubling of internal structure across the board.

Which causes problems of its own. Lasers and other weapons that spread damage would become effectively useless if you were to increase armor or internal structure. Unless you radically buffed the damage of these weapons to compensate for the increased armor/structure.

[Saben Zero]

Khobai, on 28 July 2013 - 01:03 AM, said:

Which causes problems of its own. Lasers and other weapons that spread damage would become effectively useless if you were to increase armor or internal structure. Unless you radically buffed the damage of these weapons to compensate for the increased armor/structure.

*picks mic back up*

sorry for the melodramatics, couldn't resist

that's a good point, and while I am advocating a buff to lasers, I feel that the game will shift in workable playstyle enough with those suggested changes that the new problems will be a refreshing change, and we might even get closer to a balanced game.

part of what makes the current stale balance so very stale is it's longevity. we've had these issues for months now, another stale balance would be a welcome change at this point. (for like two weeks anyway)

[Satan n stuff]

This is exactly what I predicted would happen with the implementation of boating penalties, players switched from 4-6 PPC to the other popular sniper config, and we still have the same problem with high precise long range alpha strikes but now with ridiculous restrictions making a canon build ( AWS-8Q ) even worse than it already was. Most of my mechs aren't even affected by the penalties but this system has done exactly nothing to make the game more playable for anyone who isn't a sniper, which makes me wonder why do we even have it? It's just another poorly conceived balancing "solution" with faults that were obvious from the outset that got implemented anyway because the devs are too proud to back down when they really should. After all we're just the players, what do we know right? And of course even such a scathing comment by a normally mild-mannered player won't for one second make the devs consider that perhaps they actually are wrong because that would be admitting defeat. Never mind that the supposed goal is to create a game that appeals to as many people as possible and is entertaining enough to keep those people spending money on it. Now let's see how long it takes for this to get deleted, because no matter how eloquent your rant against the devs, disagreeing with them automatically makes you wrong, even though you're one of the people who pay them to work on this game and not screw it up.
I really hope PGI will eventually get the message and start working on solutions that actually fix the problems they intended to fix.

[Ozric]

Monlex, on 28 July 2013 - 12:06 AM, said:

For all the nay sayers of a "convergence" fix, please explain to me why you dont like it?

Basically, it's because any serious convergence 'fix' would only affect new players. Everyone else will adapt, and nothing will change. It's not that convergence couldn't use a bit of tweaking, it's just that it's not the magic bullet that some people seem to think it is.

Also, there's nothing wrong with 2 PPCs and a Gauss. The synergy is there by design.

[JohnnyWayne]

Coralld, on 27 July 2013 - 07:48 PM, said:

I have read every ones suggestions on how to fix the PPCs+Gauss... Ok, mostly every ones suggestions. I hear a lot of people saying that we need randumbness/cone of fire/non converging weapons/ so one and so forth... Let me say this, these suggestions will solve the pinpoint alpha problem. However, it will not fix PPCs and Gauss from being the go to weapons, if anything it will push more towards them and this is why. They are front load weapons dealing all their damage to that location. Laser weapons will be hampered because they do damage over time and will be unable to deliver their damage effectively where as front load weapons, as long as they hit, deliver ALL of their damage to that spot. Even the smaller front load weapons, AC2/5/UAC5 and possibly AC10 will be overshadowed by PPCs, Gauss, and AC20s because they simply do not deliver enough firepower for their required weight.

Now some will state that in TT, the randumbness of the dice roll kept everything balanced, even for lasers, and this is true, but also in TT lasers could be considered front load weapons because when they hit the enemy they did all of their damage to that location. This is why I am convinced that the vast majority of peoples ideas will end up doing more harm then good because people are so fixated on resolving the pin point alpha problem that they are over looking this simple flaw.

Thats also a pretty good point against convergence. Devs stated that they want weapons to feel and be different. And I'll say it again, in my opinion this does not belong into a mechwarrior game. If you want something like this you should play Mechwarrior Tactics, it says Mechwarrior but its a TT adaption...

Roland, on 27 July 2013 - 06:29 PM, said:

Pardon me? What are you talking about here?

Sry, was quite late yesterday, I meant chain fire of course.

Edited by JohnnyWayne, 28 July 2013 - 03:40 AM.

[Monlex]

Thanks for answering, can you please elaborate on the way you would adapt to Homeless Bill's Solution and DarkJaguar's proposal?

[Khobai]

Quote

Also, there's nothing wrong with 2 PPCs and a Gauss. The synergy is there by design.

Again... were using numbers from battletech. You cant use numbers from battletech and then have precision aiming and expect it to be balanced. It doesnt work that way.

MWO either has to get away from using battletech numbers (i.e. increasing armor/internals or adding damage reduction) or it has to move back towards battletech (i.e. fixing convergence, adding random cone of fire, and eliminating pinpoint alphas).

[Blackadder]

Until the long range instant damage weapons are given some disadvantages nothing will change. Currently, PGI states they cant put in convergence,due to lack of resources, and are unwilling to make changes to some numbers that appear to be set in stone. A big part of the problem is the players themselves, who do not want changes that impact the way they play the game.

Since pgi is basically taking convergence off the table, it comes down to putting in some hard caps on heat, actual hard caps on range limits, removing group fire, revamping how armor works(making armor more general), limiting mech customization, or in general other options that players will not like. PGI seems to be stuck though, attempting to try to create work arounds that only cause more problems, or fail to fix problems that need to be addressed.

[JohnnyWayne]

You don't have to destroy alpha loadouts. You just have to weaken them.

Oh, to that convergence discussion: Its not like that solely balanced TT. As far as I know in TT people almost excluseivly used stock loadouts. "Otherwise mechs were just metalbags stuffed with weapons" and noone wanted to play with you.
In the next step, convergence people will tell us to use stock loadouts only, once convergence is in and it doesn't work.^^

MWO needs to develope some sort of own way to handle balance issues.

Edited by JohnnyWayne, 28 July 2013 - 04:31 AM.

[Lightfoot]

I am always amazed on how many players wish to re-write MechWarrior because they personally don't like something.

MechWarrior gives players alot of freedom to play as they wish and it will always be thus.

The reason for this is that in MechWarrior the map terrain controls what loadouts will be successful, not players on the forums expressing their favorite and least favorite gameplay.

May it always be so.

2xPPC and Gauss is just something you don't like. The projectile speed is different so if players group-fire these at a distance all you have to do is move laterally to spread the damage. So your problem is solved.

Edited by Lightfoot, 28 July 2013 - 06:59 AM.

[DaZur]

Christ... (Looking for the mic that someone keep dropping)...

The apex weapons don't need to be crippled and combining them doesn't either... Apex weapons are supposed to "be" apex weapons, be it in games, TT or lore. They're OP because they are the pinnacle weapon in the game.

The problem is the cycle-time of these apex weapons (PPC, Gauss) do not have a large enough disparity between them and the remaining middling weapons.

As is, a stack of PPC or a combination of PPC + Gauss can reach out and touch someone at range for a 20- 60 pinpoint {Dezgra} slap. Thats not a problem... That's what they are supposed to do. The problem is the fact that a pilot can fire off 3 to 5 of these in short order, so short in fact the target mech has little recourse.

Additionally the fact that these apex weapons cycle-time are too similar to the middling weapons, it creates the logic of "why should I take a middling weapon for brawl-range when I can continue to use my front-loaded ranged weapons and use them as effectively with little down-side."
Solution is to increase the cycle-time of the apex weapons... maybe even 2-fold.

This allows them to continue to fulfill their battlefield role as a ranged support weapons, diminishes their ability to be used as an area suppression weapon and severely nerfs their effectiveness inside brawl-range, thereby intensifying use of the middling weapons.

Damn it.. wish I had a mic to drop.

Edited by DaZur, 28 July 2013 - 07:38 AM.

[Taemien]

Monlex, on 28 July 2013 - 12:06 AM, said:

For all the nay sayers of a "convergence" fix, please explain to me why you dont like it?

Its not possible:

miSs, on 12 July 2013 - 02:28 PM, said:

Answer from Paul: Weapon convergence is a tough nut to crack. We want to keep the number of random “dice rolls” to a minimum, and network synchronization can become unpredictable when trying to determine a convergence point that may or may not be moving. It will be necessary to make the convergence point calculation server authoritive and that can cause a desync due to the fact that the simulation runs at different frequencies on the server and client.

http://mwomercs.com/...vs-42-answered/