29 replies to this topic

[IronChance]

All energy/ballistics weapons have the ability to hit exactly what you are aiming at almost as soon as you press fire, except the "beam" lasers. Actually, even the pulse lasers have a fire duration, too. This seems to make these weapons much less preferable to the other weapons since you have to stare at your target with your core exposed while with other weapons you don't. Assuming equal pilot skill, the one using the burst damage weapons will always win.

I'm wondering - and this is really just something I'm putting up for discussion here, I'm not sure I'd go for it myself - if we should do away with beam duration entirely? Obviously, their damage values/heat/weight would have to be tweaked a little, but probably not that much.

Conversely, we could make ALL energy/ballistics have a fire duration. That is, all energy weapons either fire beams or multiple pulses and all ballistics fire multiple projectiles.

It just seems like optimal play dictates using fire-and-forget weapons over damage-over-time weapons and I don't see that changing unless the DOT weapons get pretty big buffs. If that doesn't happen, then maybe we should consider going all one way or another?

[Royalewithcheese]

IronChance, on 04 August 2013 - 02:23 PM, said:

Conversely, we could make ALL energy/ballistics have a fire duration. That is, all energy weapons either fire beams or multiple pulses and all ballistics fire multiple projectiles.

I think this is the way forward. If PPCs were short-duration beams, AC/20s fired in bursts, and so on, this seems to me like it would go a long way towards solving the pinpoint damage issues without the various solutions (ghost heat, COF, etc) that add extra systems on top of what already exists.

Edited by Royalewithcheese, 04 August 2013 - 02:31 PM.

[Shadey99]

I've argued there is at least some canon reasons to move ACs to DoT, just like lasers, before. It's not what one would call 'in fashion' though.

I'd like to see a test of very short duration pulse lasers first, halving the time they fire. If those work well then use the same system for PPCs. The only weapon I can't see finding some basis for this for is the Gauss rifle. But if we neutered the pinpoint accuracy of the 'PPC' part of PPC+Gauss combo then the best they could do is a 2xGauss build for pin point fire. Which mirrors the rage in designs come 3055 after having had several years to play with the weapon.

Edited by Shadey99, 04 August 2013 - 02:47 PM.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

Beam weapons have an element of advantage to them, too. Take light mechs. Especially with wonky hit detection, having a beam weapon to fire at the enemy's legs with can be invaluable, as you are consistently putting some damage on the legs while your buddy with his PPC might fail to hit at all.

Also, say you're in a brawl. Your enemy twists away to protect his exposed side torso and its volatile Gauss. You have lasers. If you fire a PPC or AC, you miss your chance to hit that side torso. With a laser, if he's not patient enough and twists back around too soon, you have at least some time to put damage onto that vulnerable side. Sometimes even one or two ticks of the laser are enough to do what you need them to.

Beams are very user-friendly, allowing for on-the-fly correction in aim. Sure they lose out a bit on lump-sum precision damage, but for most of my builds I prefer having lasers for dealing with enemy fast-movers and for that pin-point damage when an enemy has a component that just needs to be touched to take it out. That doesn't mean they are better than PPCs or ACs, just that they do some things better and some things worse.

As for the AC and the PPC, I like the idea of having a PPC do an electrical arcing effect with its damage. Have it to 5 damage to the impact point, then 3 damage to an adjacent location (jump, not splash, to avoid buggy mechanics), and finally 2 to a third location (chain lightning, essentially).

ACs should stay as cannons. Autocannon is short for Auto-loading cannon, which means any cannon that loads itself; MWO's ACs certainly qualify.

UACs should move to burst-fire guns. Give them different behavior that has higher DPS but less precision burst damage. You can eliminate or rework jamming. Reserve true full auto for RACs when they arrive on the scene. This makes them not just a better AC with a shorter reload time and lower ammo count (and the option to double-tap with jam chance) but something that actually serves a different battlefield role (sustained DPS rather than burst damage; sort of the laser of ACs if you will, while RACs would be the MG of ACs).

Alternatively, introduce manufacturer quirks. Maybe Defiance ACs are like the Lyran Scout Lance - single, slow, and really big shells that do full damage when they hit. Imperator ACs, on the other hand, might do 3-round bursts (each round doing 1/3 of the damage), but to compensate might have higher muzzle velocity. ChemJet cannons might be 1 round per point of damage (2-round burst for AC2, 20-round burst for AC20), with faster reload time (for something very close to continuous fire). Variant types would deviate from the manufacturer's baseline (UACs might be double-taps for Defiance guns, half the reload time for Imperator, and double cyclical rate for ChemJets).

That last is far more complicated, and would make UACs and LBXs far less systematized in performance, but would make for some incredible customization and flavor options.

[MustrumRidcully]

Lasers having a beam duration is one of the best game balance decisions made by PGI ever, and is something that should be carried forward in future mechwarrior titles. It is an effective way to limit the power of alpha strikes (or group fire) with convergence. All your guns hit the same spot, but trying to hold them on the same spot is hard, and your enemy can actually do something about it by torso-twisting and moving.

It's conversely the reason why high damage single projectile ballistics (PPC, AC/20, Gauss) are so powerful in MW:O. Convergence + Group Fire means you deal lots of damage in a single spot, taking out individual hit locations with a lot less effort then trying to fire weapons seperately or holding a beam on target for 0.5 to 1 seconds. (And we're not even speaking of weapons that cannot possibly hit the same location due to inbuilt spread, like SRMs or LBX.)

Basically, any weapon dealing more than 5 damage per projectile (or should it be more than 1 damage per ton?) should probably get a firing duration equivalent, unless you otherwise limit group fire or convergence.

[Khobai]

Quote

Basically, any weapon dealing more than 5 damage per projectile (or should it be more than 1 damage per ton?) should probably get a firing duration equivalent, unless you otherwise limit group fire or convergence.

No. The entire reason AC/20s weigh 14 tons is because they do 20 damage to one location instantly. If you make AC/20s into a damage over time weapon, it defeats the whole purpose of it weighing 14 tons, when four medium lasers for 4 tons are equally effective (also 20 damage over time).

Honestly the problem isnt the AC/20, but rather the fact weapons converge on the same location. Because convergence turns two AC/20s into an AC/40. PGI allowing perfect convergence fundamentally changes battletech weapon balance by allowing you to combine smaller weapon systems into a larger, more effective weapon system.

Since PGI has basically said they refuse to fix convergence, because it would be too much work, the only thing we can really expect is a center torso armor increase or damage reduction in conjunction with the boating penalties for multiple weapons of the same type. Its not an ideal fix but its the only bone PGI is likely to throw us.

Edited by Khobai, 05 August 2013 - 12:37 AM.

[Roadbuster]

IronChance, on 04 August 2013 - 02:23 PM, said:

All energy/ballistics weapons have the ability to hit exactly what you are aiming at almost as soon as you press fire, except the "beam" lasers. Actually, even the pulse lasers have a fire duration, too. This seems to make these weapons much less preferable to the other weapons since you have to stare at your target with your core exposed while with other weapons you don't. Assuming equal pilot skill, the one using the burst damage weapons will always win.
...

Levi Porphyrogenitus, on 04 August 2013 - 04:26 PM, said:

Beam weapons have an element of advantage to them, too. Take light mechs. Especially with wonky hit detection, having a beam weapon to fire at the enemy's legs with can be invaluable, as you are consistently putting some damage on the legs while your buddy with his PPC might fail to hit at all.
...

As for the AC and the PPC, I like the idea of having a PPC do an electrical arcing effect with its damage. Have it to 5 damage to the impact point, then 3 damage to an adjacent location (jump, not splash, to avoid buggy mechanics), and finally 2 to a third location (chain lightning, essentially).

UACs should move to burst-fire guns. Give them different behavior that has higher DPS but less precision burst damage. You can eliminate or rework jamming. Reserve true full auto for RACs when they arrive on the scene. This makes them not just a better AC with a shorter reload time and lower ammo count (and the option to double-tap with jam chance) but something that actually serves a different battlefield role (sustained DPS rather than burst damage; sort of the laser of ACs if you will, while RACs would be the MG of ACs).
...

I agree that pinpoint damage with no delay is the problem of PPCs.
ACs and Gauss already have the balancing factor of high weight, explosive cannon and ammo. PPCs balancing factor should be heat, but this doesn't work well because most PPC users are snipers who just get into cover, wait for heat to come down, then move out and fire again.

Normal laser weapons are balanced pretty well, although ML heat could be reduced a bit. ER-Lasers also need a slight reduction of heat generation if PPCs stay as they are now.

Pulse lasers just run too hot and the beam duration is too long to have a big advantage over normal lasers. Therefore, I like the idea of reducing the beam duration of PL.

Changing UACs to shoot bursts with some spread sounds like a good idea too. Not many players I see use the UAC because of the massive jamming chance. Exception being the 3 UAC5 builds where you just use the lower cooldown.

The idea of PPCs dealing a part of their damage as pinpoint damage and a part as "arcing" damage on a random location is great. Would be nice if PGI would test this idea.

Regarding the differences of weapons from different manufacturers. I think PGI already stated somewhere that they were planning to do something like that.

EDIT:
Just something thrown in.
How about giving PPCs a firing delay of 0,5s?
This would force PPC snipers to stay exposed a bit longer, keep the crosshair on the target longer and reduce the chance of PPC+Gauss alphas hitting the same spot.

Edited by Roadbuster, 05 August 2013 - 12:59 AM.

[Snowhawk]

I often use lasers (or beam-weapons) and I really like them. But since everyone is running around with projectile weapons I see clearly that lasers have a downside with their beam-duration. And now, since we have the 1 Gauss + 2 Ppc meta game lasers are like "soft weapons". The people learnd to spread the damage with torso twisting and they are just laughing about the lasers.

I would not suggest to remove the beam effect.... but what if we could shorten the beam duration? Maybe 0.8 seconds for standard lasers and 0.6 seconds for pulse lasers. From my point of view this would be fair....

[Purlana]

You would need to rebalance the weapons for this to work. The AC/10 will becomes even more worthless, and totally replaced by the Ultra AC/5

Edited by Purlana, 05 August 2013 - 04:50 AM.

[Unbound Inferno]

The only weapons I have ever seen that deal all up-front damage should be LRM & SRM missiles and Gauss on impact.

If other weapons were duration the relative effect could help even out the playing field and allow other weapons to become more useful.

[IronChance]

Thanks for the replies everyone! It's nice to see people discussing the dominance of burst damage with reasonable and well thought out ideas instead of a bunch of posts saying "L2P n00b" or "QQ". I agree with almost everything that's been mentioned except for the idea of "fixing" convergence. While I understand the concern about this, it seems any randomization of shot impact or other fix would greatly punish high skill players. I think good aim should stay an important part of good play, but we definitely need to give players of ALL skill levels more of a reason to play with other weapons besides those found in the PPC/Gauss meta. I don't mind being headshot by a really good pilot, that seems fair to me, but facing an entire team outfitted with those weapons is just getting boring, regardless of skill level.

[Mystere]

It is probably too late for such a change. Note that in addition to modifying weapon mechanics, the weapon models will probably also need to be changed.

[Will Pike]

I know I am committing a great heresy by mentioning the abomination called Mech Assault, but I liked the way they did ppc's...to get the full power of the weapon, you had to hold down the trigger and wait for the weapon to fully charge. This would reduce the rate of how often you can fire a fully powered alpha. You could still fire faster if you wanted to but your shots wouldn't have near the power

[keith]

doing this would help make guass and lbx seem like the best wep. lbx would get a huge buff because each pellet does its own dam of 1, no way to make it dot. i'm also not in favor of making the game make u come out of cover even more. more dots u have the more u stay out, the more lrms will be used.

[East Indy]

I don't know if I'm sold on the concept, but for the sake of argument, I might arrange it like this:

1) PPC/ER PPC beam duration set to 1.0 seconds.
2) Gauss Rifle cycle time set to 5.25 seconds.

[Blackadder]

Changing weapons so they all have hitscan is not something i would like, i prefer the diversity of different weapons having different characteristics. its just a matter of balancing them out, which pgi refuses to do, because they refuse to alter reload time, and refuse to alter ranges at all, amongst other things.

[IronChance]

Blackadder, on 05 August 2013 - 04:09 PM, said:

Changing weapons so they all have hitscan is not something i would like, i prefer the diversity of different weapons having different characteristics. its just a matter of balancing them out, which pgi refuses to do, because they refuse to alter reload time, and refuse to alter ranges at all, amongst other things.

Yeah, I guess that would be my preference, too. I'd like to see different players excel with different weapons b/c of taste and proficiency, rather than what we have now, which is "go optimal or might as well go home." I doubt we can achieve that kind of balance, though. Right now, I'll just take anything that breaks the current meta.

[Joseph Mallan]

it is perfectly fine that some weapons do damage over time and some smash you now. We should leave well enough alone.

[Angel of Annihilation]

IronChance, on 04 August 2013 - 02:23 PM, said:

All energy/ballistics weapons have the ability to hit exactly what you are aiming at almost as soon as you press fire, except the "beam" lasers. Actually, even the pulse lasers have a fire duration, too. This seems to make these weapons much less preferable to the other weapons since you have to stare at your target with your core exposed while with other weapons you don't. Assuming equal pilot skill, the one using the burst damage weapons will always win.

I'm wondering - and this is really just something I'm putting up for discussion here, I'm not sure I'd go for it myself - if we should do away with beam duration entirely? Obviously, their damage values/heat/weight would have to be tweaked a little, but probably not that much.

Conversely, we could make ALL energy/ballistics have a fire duration. That is, all energy weapons either fire beams or multiple pulses and all ballistics fire multiple projectiles.

It just seems like optimal play dictates using fire-and-forget weapons over damage-over-time weapons and I don't see that changing unless the DOT weapons get pretty big buffs. If that doesn't happen, then maybe we should consider going all one way or another?

Its a placeb effect.

PPCs and ACs are much harder to hit with than lasers. Unlike lasers and unlike your opening statement they do not have the ability to exactly hit what your aiming at. This is because you have to actually lead your target, time your shots and hope the enemy doesn't zig when you thought they were going to zag.

Case in point. My accuracy with a PPC or ER PPC is roughly 61%. My accuracy with a Large or Medium laser is roughly between 82%-84%. This is because your laser always hits exactly where you have the cursor (crosshair) placed on the enemy mech. No lead or timing is nessary to HIT with the laser as it is a true "pinpoint accuracy" weapon.

The skill with a laser however is keeping the beam on your target for the full duration since it takes roughly 1 second to do full damage.

Additionally, the laser, unlike the PPC or AC, will apply partial damage even if the beam drifts off target. The PPC/AC on the other hand produces zero damage if you totaly miss your target.

Lets do a bit of math. LL does 9 damage, PPC does 10. I fire 100 shots.

At 82% accuracy I hit 82 times out of 100 with my LL. That is 738 damage. At 61% accuracy with my PPC I hit 61 out of 100 times for 610 damage. Therefore the LL does roughly 21% more damage than the PPC. (For less weight and better heat management I might add but that is another discussion).

Now let talk about damage spread. The laser being a duration weapon has a tendency to spread damage when it hits more than the PPC. For example, you fire the PPC at and enemies CT and hit that CT, you score 10 damage but with the LL you fire at an enemies CT, you hit that CT but he moves a bit during that 1 second duration and you only do 6-7 damage to the CT + 2-3 damage to his right torso as well.

This is why people claim PPCs are better.

However often with a PPC you will not hit your intended CT target. Instead you hit the arm or the right torso for example. This is also an example of damage spread. Now unfortunately this stat is not tracked so we don't know how many of those 61% of hits I manage with a PPC actually hit the target I intend to hit vs how many hit adjacent targets instead. What we do know however is this happens and often.

The point here is that PPCs also suffer from damage spread so spread is something that happens to all weapons, not just lasers. This is important to concept so and you can't dismiss it if you want to discuss PPCs/ACs vs lasers. Also, we can pretty much determine that LLs actually do more damage than PPCs as determined by the accuracy figues so that only leaves concentrated damage as a factor.

Lets define concentrated damage. It is being able to put the most damage exactly where you want that damage to go which is usually the CT.

The question then becomes does a PPC/AC actually put more concentrated damage on a target even considering the fact it is less accurate and suffers damage spread as well?

The answer is not really. Lets take the damage figures I came up with. 738 vs 610. As mentioned this is a 21% difference in damage. This alone would account for much of the "Spread" people claim is an issue with lasers vs PPCs. Additionaly damage adds up. That unintentional spread could very well drift to a side torso, opening it up for a final shot to take out an XL equiped mech. This is bonus damage above and beyond what the PPC can do. Further, as I mentioned, you will not always hit the CT with your PPC either. For example, if you need 3 damage to the CT to finish off killing the enemy mech but your PPC hits a side torso instead, you still need 3 damage to kill the enemy. The laser user on the other hand is likely going to get at least some of the beam into the center torso and it only needs 1/3 of a seconds duration to finish off the enemy. Additionally even if the beam hits the side torso instead due to whatever reason, you have an entire second to "Correct your aim" and get it into the CT for the kill. With a PPC you never get a second chance to correct your aim.

In conclusion, as I mentioned with my opening line. PPC superiority is a placebo effect. It is a big, bright blue bolt of energy that produces very dramatic effects when it hit you. Lasers are just some tiny, little line of something feels like a tickle, that is until you look down and see your guts pouring out. You notice PPCs, you rarely notice Lasers, therefore the PPCs are the big, bad wolf doing all the damage. This is what people think when they see PPCs. The reality is both weapons are pretty balanced against each other and just require different skills to use.

Additionaly as I mentioned just a tiny bit early, there is still the fact that LLs are lighter and more heat efficient to content with but again that is a different discussion. However just keep these facts in mind when you think about it.

Edited by Viktor Drake, 05 August 2013 - 05:14 PM.

[Khobai]

Quote

The point here is that PPCs also suffer from damage spread so spread is something that happens to all weapons

Not quite. Spread is when a weapon splits its damage between two or more locations. Lasers spread damage while PPCs do not.

Quote

PPC superiority is a placebo effect.

It mostly certainly is not a placebo effect. PPCs are outright better than lasers because their damage is frontloaded rather than damage-over-time. That makes PPCs much more effective at punching through armor in a single location.

Furthermore, PPCs have no beam duration, which means you can pop out of cover, fire your PPCs off, then immediately retreat back into cover. Whereas using lasers exposes your mech to incoming damage for the entire beam duration. There is far less risk of exposure involved in using PPCs.

Lastly, ERPPCs have outright superior range to all lasers weapons.

PPCs are just plain better than lasers, and no amount of denial, or voodoo math is going to change that fact.

Edited by Khobai, 05 August 2013 - 05:25 PM.