55 replies to this topic

[Snow Drift]

In the table top game, pulse lasers got a bonus to hit. This was described as being a result of letting out a long steady stream of laser pulses that the pilot could keep on target.

In MWO, it seems we have the dynamics of lasers and pulse lasers reversed. I love how they weapons have different character and are unique, but if you look at the pilot stats, it's clearly backwards in the area of higher chance to hit. I think my hit ratio with a normal laser is around 75-80%, where as a pulse is around 55-60%. The longer beam duration of normal lasers makes it a lot more likely to put SOME damage onto the target. The pulse lasers do well for more focused damage, but really that was the role of the normal lasers.

So can we swap the beam durations, and tweak the damage to compensate? Make pulse lasers pulse for about as long as the large lasers fire, and make the standard lasers fire a shorter beam? I think you'd match the intended difference between pulse and standard lasers better that way. This may make the standard lasers a bit more powerful in the hands of a good marksman, but damage could be tweaked to bring it in line with the desired power of the weapons.

In short, pulse lasers should be top on people's stats for percent hit, and normal lasers should be on par with other weapons. Do others have similar results on their stats, with normal lasers getting a higher hit ratio than pulses?

[Khobai]

I disagree with swapping the beam durations. All that would do is make standard lasers outright better than pulse lasers.

IMO the best way to fix pulse lasers is simply to increase the damage.

[Tezcatli]

I think it's already too established. In my opinion they should reduce the cooldown on pulse weapons to go along with the short duration so it can really stand out from regular lasers. Then it'll be a strong brawler weapon to go with it's incredibly short range.

Edited by Tezcatli, 26 August 2013 - 04:53 PM.

[Snow Drift]

It would make them more.. cannon like, I agree.. maybe they'd need to be reduced in damage a bit, but I think you could pump a bit more damage into the pulses (as compared to standard lasers) and have them shoot a machine gun of laser pulses. Good marksmen would be very effective with them, as they could keep that on target well.

Just seems reversed that normal lasers are better if you need help aiming (like against lights) and pulses are better for pinpoint damage.

I'd really like to hear what other peoples' hit ratios are with the two varieties. Maybe I just suck at aiming.

Edited by Snow Drift, 26 August 2013 - 04:55 PM.

[Shadey99]

I think the animation is fairly correct for Pulses, however I'm still of the opinion we should control the length of the duration these weapons have with max duration for each weapon. So hold down button and a medium laser fires a beam until it's 'charge' runs dry and the cooldown starts to recharge it. A Pulse weapon would fire pulses in the same fashion. The mechanics themselves would stay the same, but the player would have much more control and they would play a bit more like 'machineguns' becoming good at suppressive fire over a period of time.

The times may need reworked, but the way they are controlled feels off to me first...

[Shadey99]

Snow Drift, on 26 August 2013 - 04:54 PM, said:

I'd really like to hear what other peoples' hit ratios are with the two varieties. Maybe I just suck at aiming.

Well here are mine:
LPL - 87.53% - 50 matches
LL - 89.22% - 200 matches
MPL - 86.14% - 220 matches
ER LL - 82.71% - 120 matches
ML - 90.25% - 650 matches
SL - 71.85% - 100 matches
SPL - 75.82% - 10 matches

Edit to add number of matches listed for each weapon.

Edited by Shadey99, 26 August 2013 - 05:09 PM.

[Snow Drift]

So, I just suck. I'll blame it on me just learning how to aim. Yes. That's it.

My numbers we also off a little, but are pretty consistent:

Normal/ER laser: 77% +/- 1%
Pulse laser: 67% +/- 2%

I don't use small lasers of any type much. More variance for pulse since I don't use them as often as standard, so my data set is smaller.

Still, for me, a clear 10% improvement.

[Narcissistic Martyr]

No.

If anything pulse lasers need to do short bursts that deal their damage in one place.

i.e.

SPL 3 pulses with 1 damage each
MPL 4 pulses with 1.5 damage each
LPL 5 pulses with 2 damage each

I'd also give a slight bonus on damage if you hit the same section with multiple pulses.

To balance my pulse lasers you can alter pulse duration, recycle time, heat, etc.

In the end you'd have a unique weapon that serves a unique purpose instead of the current implementation which is like a normal laser with a slightly shorter duration.

[Hekalite]

I too have a lower percentage hit rate with pulse lasers, but I think that's because you have more time to sweep over a target with normal lasers. When I compare how much potential damage I put on target, my med pulse lasers are higher even though I have a lower percentage hit rate.

[Snow Drift]

Narcissistic Martyr, on 26 August 2013 - 05:09 PM, said:

No.

If anything pulse lasers need to do short bursts that deal their damage in one place.

i.e.

SPL 3 pulses with 1 damage each
MPL 4 pulses with 1.5 damage each
LPL 5 pulses with 2 damage each

I'd also give a slight bonus on damage if you hit the same section with multiple pulses.

To balance my pulse lasers you can alter pulse duration, recycle time, heat, etc.

In the end you'd have a unique weapon that serves a unique purpose instead of the current implementation which is like a normal laser with a slightly shorter duration.

So, I get what you're saying about balancing pulse lasers and giving them a unique purpose, but does it not bother you that normal lasers are easier to hit with? I loved pulse lasers in Battletech. Used them every mech I had. Mostly cause I was more likely to get a hit, and I like consistent damage. I want them to be unique and useful here too, but I would have thought the roles reversed.

I don't think your idea is a bad one, I'm just more focused on how the ability to hit more frequently gets translated from tabletop to MWO. Seems they figured it out, but put that bonus on the wrong weapon. To me, at least.

If you ignore tabletop descriptions and go with real life pulse laser mechanics, you could have them do all the damage in a single short burst. But then it'd feel a lot like a PPC or autocannon with no flight time. Would be very deadly. And actually, would hit more frequently, since if your crosshairs were on the target, it got hit with the full power, instantly. Maybe that's a better path? Much shorter bursts, and fewer of them.

I'm just brainstorming here. Hopefully with the effect of making the pulse weapons more useful in the game.

[Narcissistic Martyr]

Snow Drift, on 26 August 2013 - 05:18 PM, said:

So, I get what you're saying about balancing pulse lasers and giving them a unique purpose, but does it not bother you that normal lasers are easier to hit with? I loved pulse lasers in Battletech. Used them every mech I had. Mostly cause I was more likely to get a hit, and I like consistent damage. I want them to be unique and useful here too, but I would have thought the roles reversed.

I don't think your idea is a bad one, I'm just more focused on how the ability to hit more frequently gets translated from tabletop to MWO. Seems they figured it out, but put that bonus on the wrong weapon. To me, at least.

If you ignore tabletop descriptions and go with real life pulse laser mechanics, you could have them do all the damage in a single short burst. But then it'd feel a lot like a PPC or autocannon with no flight time. Would be very deadly. And actually, would hit more frequently, since if your crosshairs were on the target, it got hit with the full power, instantly. Maybe that's a better path? Much shorter bursts, and fewer of them.

I'm just brainstorming here. Hopefully with the effect of making the pulse weapons more useful in the game.

Honestly, I'm not that concerned with sticking to TT in a literal sense of the word. In MWO the important thing with hit scan lasers is the ability to focus the damage so I feel that improving the damage concentration actually does a better job of filling bonus to hit for effective damage that is described in TT.

Like you described, a single short blast for 1/1.5/2 points of damage with rapid cycle and burst times would also be a good way to make pulse lasers unique and effective while retaining TT flavor.

[Snow Drift]

Narcissistic Martyr, on 26 August 2013 - 05:42 PM, said:

Like you described, a single short blast for 1/1.5/2 points of damage with rapid cycle and burst times would also be a good way to make pulse lasers unique and effective while retaining TT flavor.

Agreed. I'm thinking it would be maybe even more extreme, even fewer pulses/hitting even harder, but it's hard to say without testing it out thoroughly. Maybe give all of them 3 pulses, with 1.5, 2.5, and 3.5 points of damage. (Beefing them up a little). Or doing a little less damage and pulsing even faster for very concentrated fire.

[Glucose]

Guys, I think you shouldn't look at your accuracy of lasers. Instead you should take your Damage / Hit and see how close it is to the true damage

I'll start it off -

Medium Laser: Fired: 11,822, Hit: 10,854 Dmg: 34,449 -- which is 3.17 dmg/hit (63.4%) and 2.91dmg/shot (58.2%)
Med Pulse: Fired: 4505, Hit 3991, Dmg:14,716 -- which is 3.69 dmg/hit (61.5%) and 3.26dmg/shot (54.4%)

So for me, it appears I'm more accurate with the longer firing laser, which is surprising.

[Snow Drift]

Good point about Damage/Hit. Here's mine:

Medium Laser: Fired: 3,360, Hit: 2,582 (76.85%), Dmg: 7,625 -- 2.95 dmg/hit (58.8%) and 2.27 dmg/shot (45.4%)
Med Pulse: Fired: 546, Hit: 375 (68.68%), Dmg: 1,266 -- 3.376 dmg/hit (56.3%) and 2.31 dmg/shot (38.5%)

I wasn't surprised that you're more accurate with the longer firing weapon at all. It's what I would expect.

My data shows first, that I suck at aiming, but second, that I'm not only better aim with a standard laser, but I do more damage out of the potential possible damage than with a pulse laser. My sample size is lower with pulses, so maybe I just need more practice with them to get a larger data pool. But according to this, for me, pulse lasers are a lose all around.

[El Bandito]

Glucose, on 26 August 2013 - 06:19 PM, said:

Guys, I think you shouldn't look at your accuracy of lasers. Instead you should take your Damage / Hit and see how close it is to the true damage I'll start it off - Medium Laser: Fired: 11,822, Hit: 10,854 Dmg: 34,449 -- which is 3.17 dmg/hit (63.4%) and 2.91dmg/shot (58.2%) Med Pulse: Fired: 4505, Hit 3991, Dmg:14,716 -- which is 3.69 dmg/hit (61.5%) and 3.26dmg/shot (54.4%) So for me, it appears I'm more accurate with the longer firing laser, which is surprising.

Nothing surprising considering the fact that shorter ranged weapons miss many times due to the enemy moving out of range.

As for the OP's suggestion, I support it. However, PGI really doesn't give a damn about canon when it comes to weapons. Too bad.

Edited by El Bandito, 26 August 2013 - 06:41 PM.

[Narcissistic Martyr]

Glucose, on 26 August 2013 - 06:19 PM, said:

Guys, I think you shouldn't look at your accuracy of lasers. Instead you should take your Damage / Hit and see how close it is to the true damage

I'll start it off -

Medium Laser: Fired: 11,822, Hit: 10,854 Dmg: 34,449 -- which is 3.17 dmg/hit (63.4%) and 2.91dmg/shot (58.2%)
Med Pulse: Fired: 4505, Hit 3991, Dmg:14,716 -- which is 3.69 dmg/hit (61.5%) and 3.26dmg/shot (54.4%)

So for me, it appears I'm more accurate with the longer firing laser, which is surprising.

Good idea.
Accuracy: % Damage/hit %damage/shot
MPL: 79% 51% 40%

ML: 88% 48% 48%

SPL: 78% 65% 51%

SL: 63% 55% 35%

From my data it looks like I'm better in general from a damage%/shot perspective with ML than MPL but I'm way better all around with SPL. However, I do better damage/hit with pulse lasers in general. Now we just need a few thousand more data sets and we can conclude something meaningful.

[80sGlamRockSensation David Bowie]

Khobai, on 26 August 2013 - 04:48 PM, said:

I disagree with swapping the beam durations. All that would do is make standard lasers outright better than pulse lasers.

IMO the best way to fix pulse lasers is simply to increase the damage. Actually make them a different weapon

FTFY

Narcissistic Martyr, on 26 August 2013 - 05:09 PM, said:

No.

If anything pulse lasers need to do short bursts that deal their damage in one place.

i.e.

SPL 3 pulses with 1 damage each
MPL 4 pulses with 1.5 damage each
LPL 5 pulses with 2 damage each

I'd also give a slight bonus on damage if you hit the same section with multiple pulses.

To balance my pulse lasers you can alter pulse duration, recycle time, heat, etc.

In the end you'd have a unique weapon that serves a unique purpose instead of the current implementation which is like a normal laser with a slightly shorter duration.

its not the first time this idea has come around.

Edited by mwhighlander, 26 August 2013 - 09:23 PM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Don't let your laser accuracy stat fool you. A laser counts as hitting a target if it just touches the enemy for a single moment. If 80 % of your time your laser hits the ground and 20 % it hits the enemy, that's a hit.

If you want to figure out your real accuracy, do this:
Take the number of shots you took with your laser. Multiply this with the damage to figure out your damage potential. Then look at the damage dealt for that laser, and divide this value by the damage potential. The result describes your real accuracy. Or at least, it comes closer to it, since this will also include a damage drop-off from range.

I would not be surprised if you'd find that your accuracy between pulse and regular laser is not that different.

[xengk]

I think the normal and pulse laser mechanics should stay as it is.
However, give pulse laser shorter fire duration and faster cooldown, but retain their heat, range and damage.
This way pulse get to fire more often in a brawl at the risking of frying the user.

meanwhile, on accuracy.
LPL 85% (1,390 fired, 7,157 dmg) average 5.1 dmg ~51% actual accuracy
LL 83% (12,319 fired, 52,284 dmg) average 4.2 dmg ~46% actual accuracy
MPL 83% (3,412 fired, 10,085 dmg) average 2.9 dmg ~48% actual accuracy
ML 83% (34,902 fired, 79,000 dmg) average 2.2 dmg ~44% actual accuracy
SPL 84% (209 fired, 386 dmg) average 1.8 dmg ~60% actual accuracy
SL 74% (4,171 fired, 4,862 dmg) average 1.1 dmg ~55% actual accuracy

Edited by xengk, 26 August 2013 - 10:54 PM.

[OneEyed Jack]

Crp-tastic range, higher heat and more weight.... and you want the pulses to be longer than normal lasers? Are you insane?!?! Or is this just a sneaky way of trying to get nice, short pulse durations without the drawbacks?