29 replies to this topic

[Shadey99]

keith, on 05 August 2013 - 03:33 PM, said:

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 not so sure it would help LB-10X much, it scatters damage and does not do pin point which is what make shte metagame what it is.

Gauss yes, but gauss is:
a ) fragile
b ) weighs quite a bit
c ) uses up alot of critical spaces
d ) is hard to use in multiples (Gauss cat and Jager are exceptions, most other mechs can only mount 1)

keith, on 05 August 2013 - 03:33 PM, said:

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.

I don't see making people come out of cover a bad thing if pin point damage is reduced.

Also LRMs still have plenty of counters, while it may see more people wanting to run LRMs it's a safe bet that they won't prove any more effective.

Edited by Shadey99, 05 August 2013 - 05:24 PM.

[Shadey99]

Viktor Drake, on 05 August 2013 - 05:12 PM, said:

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.

From personal experience (And with a hit rate of over 90% with lasers) it takes 3-4 LL to equal the damage to a single location that a PPC has. This is not a placebo, but simply testing in actual game play (pre heat changes). Also a LL has less range than even a normal PPC, let alone a ER PPC. Even a ER LL has a shorter range than a ER PPC. 6 ML roughly equal 2xPPC as well, but range is also horribly shorter.

Pin point damage, fire and forget firing, and enhanced range are the reasons PPCs rule the current meta along with Gauss (which has those same 3 features in common, but with more negatives).

[Hellcat420]

lasers should keep their beam duration. they would be completely op otherwise. and yes i run er large lasers on my primary mech. ppc superiority over lasers is not a placebo effect, its how the hierarchy of energy weapons is supposed to be.

[IronChance]

Viktor Drake, on 05 August 2013 - 05:12 PM, said:

... 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.

Thanks for this well thought out and explained post, Viktor. Awesome! This part in particular makes a lot of sense. Currently, my Quickdraw has 2 ppcs, 2 medium lasers and an SRM6 pack and I'm finding that this example does indeed happen. I use the ppcs for good intimidation and aimed shots and then use the med lasers for the mop up surgery. I hadn't thought too much about what I was doing until you explained it so well.

However, your initial premise using math and your stats is not quite the same as my initial premise. I said "two players of equal of skill" and your stats come from facing a multitude of players of various skills. Therefore, I'm not sold on your overall argument, but it's good stuff to keep in mind nonetheless.

[Khobai]

Quote

. 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

Yeah but his entire argument is based on missing with the PPC. If you hit the enemy in the CT with the PPC it kill them instantly. Where you still have to hold the laser on them for 1/3 of a second.

Ultimately what it comes down to is this: if you can aim, PPCs are better. If you cant aim, Lasers are better. But of course we already knew that.

[Joseph Mallan]

Khobai, on 05 August 2013 - 05:17 PM, said:

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



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.

News Flash.
PPCs are supposed to be better than lasers. They were that way For. Ever. To make them equal to Lasers would be stupid. 1 PPC is fine, 2-3 PPCs hurt. More than that is very powerful. To many PPCs is OP. But the single PPC is not.

[MustrumRidcully]

Victor Drake said:

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.

Er... The laser have a higher accuracy because even if you just connect for a single pulse over their duration, it counts as a hit.

If you want to figure out how much damage you actually get out of your weapons, use this:

Take the number of shots. Multiply the number of shots with the damage of the weapon per shot. THis is your damage potential.
Now divide the total damage listed in your stats page for that weapon with your damage potential.
The result is your actual damage utlization. You'll likely learn that you aren't better with your lasers at all.

[Brilig]

I think pinpoint damage weapons have their place in this game. Making every weapon in the game behave the same way would be incredibly boring.

Your big pinpoint damage weapons (AC10, AC20, PPC, Gauss.) all have some pretty big drawbacks built in. Weight, critical space, ammo, and heat are all big costs associated with those weapons. Laser weapons, are all lighter, take up less space, and produce less heat. (Ignoring pulse for now since changes are coming.)

The only issue we have with pinpoint weapons right now is convergence. It allows you to fire them at the same time, and hit the same spot. If PGI can come up with a system to limit people from doing more than 20 pinpoint damage in a single shot(No more than an AC-20) things will be fine.

[Roadbuster]

Brilig, on 05 August 2013 - 11:38 PM, said:

The only issue we have with pinpoint weapons right now is convergence. It allows you to fire them at the same time, and hit the same spot. If PGI can come up with a system to limit people from doing more than 20 pinpoint damage in a single shot(No more than an AC-20) things will be fine.

I'll say it again, they should try giving PPCs a firing delay of 0,5-1,0s and look how that works.

Another idea was to add Gauss to the PPCs for heat penalty calculation. So if you fire 2 PPC and Gauss you will have heat penalty like firing 3 PPCs.

And Awesome should recieve a quirk to let it fire 3 PPCs without penalty!

[TexAce]

I wouldn't change anything except give ppcs a charging time. When you press fire you hear a charging sound and after half a second they fire. It will require more skill to shoot them all together with a gauss in one spot, and skill is what they need.

Oh and convergence, please remove instant pinpoint convergence

Edited by TexAss, 06 August 2013 - 02:53 AM.