490 replies to this topic

[TexAce]

Felix Dante, on 04 September 2013 - 08:25 PM, said:

I'm sorry to say I understand the need for the change to the Gauss, but my arthritis doesn't like it.

It's hard enough just puching the buttons and coordinate my hands to hit targets accurately...but now I can barely get a shot off. I went through an entire game with 40 shots of gauss ammo and used a total of 5 of them in the 10 minutes of fighting I did in my Highlander. I either didn't give the charge enough time to finish, or the charge timed out while I tried to aim the thing.

The new gauss system sucks IMHO. But it seems I may be in the minority again...

I understand the charge time, but can you just have the damn things automatically fire when they are charged ? Make that an option possibly?

Also: Since we aren't charging a Gauss Rifle until they fire now, doesn't that mean they shouldn't explode when hit unless they are charged for that split second? The whole reason they explode is that they are constantly "Charged" right? So how does that make sense?

I agree. After testing it out yesterday I think the window in which you can release the fire button to fire should be longer. Like 3 seconds or something. And the GR should only explode when charging, charged or during coooldown.

Edited by TexAss, 05 September 2013 - 04:38 AM.

[Blue Footed Booby]

Sable, on 04 September 2013 - 12:03 PM, said:

...
Glad Flamers are getting looked at, Personally i think if you have enough flamers you should be able to shut someone down. They don't do much damage themselves so a support mech could really do their team a favor by keeping an enemy overheated. I'm sure that could be annoying but then again if you have to use 6 flamers to do it, you're giving up quite a lot to run in a supporting role.

...

I'm looking forward to my 9 flamer hunchback being useful again. Not good, mind you: it was never good, and honestly if it's ever good there's probably something wrong. Still, it's stupid fun, emphasis on the stupid. :V

As for the patch, I'm pretty happy that the game is fun again and that the developer update post clearly explained the reasoning for the major changes and their place in the short-term plans for the game. It took long enough to get this patch that I'm not going to skip the now-customary jab (because seriously, ghost heat) but the changes this time around were good enough it'd be hypocritical (not to mention counter productive) for me to not say "this is what I've been wanting."

I'm still dubious about the delay mechanic, but from what I can tell it accomplishes its intended purpose as I'm no longer getting short-range bitchslapped with gauss spikes. Looking forward to the changes for other weapons.

Now how about some details on how community warfare and UI 2.0 are coming along?

Edit #3572: I'd still really appreciate a fix for the non-working AC2 heat fix, or even better just removing their penalty under the ghost heat system. If they ever receive an overhaul the heat penalties can be added back in, but as it is they're not good at all, and their only use case (silly dakka builds) aren't even fun because of the heat. Obviously my silly AC2 boat builds are lower priority than basically anything not involving massaging cockpit chairs.

Edited by Blue Footed Booby, 05 September 2013 - 05:03 AM.

[Edustaja]

eaglemaster42, on 04 September 2013 - 07:51 PM, said:

As a dual gauss jagersniper, I'm still averaging 600 dmg per match. The tweaks to the gauss definitely make it better for long range than brawling (especially with the improved zoom module!). The biggest difference i notice is that it forces me to stay out of cover longer to get my shot off when brawling (obviously encouraging me to stay at range). Overall I think the gauss tweak was a fair trade-off, tho I feel like the faster projectile speed might allow really good snipers to really deal some serious damage. I personally wouldn't like to see the charge time be any longer tho

Dual gauss Jagermech is the only platform on which the current implementation of the gauss is worth the effort/drawbacks. In essence you can counter both by doing 30 damage instead of 15 and having the arms so high that you don't have to expose yourself too much in order to get a good shot off.

Edited by Edustaja, 05 September 2013 - 04:50 AM.

[Shadey99]

eaglemaster42, on 04 September 2013 - 07:51 PM, said:

As a dual gauss jagersniper, I'm still averaging 600 dmg per match. The tweaks to the gauss definitely make it better for long range than brawling (especially with the improved zoom module!). The biggest difference i notice is that it forces me to stay out of cover longer to get my shot off when brawling (obviously encouraging me to stay at range). Overall I think the gauss tweak was a fair trade-off, tho I feel like the faster projectile speed might allow really good snipers to really deal some serious damage. I personally wouldn't like to see the charge time be any longer tho

I find them to be horrible sniper weapons now, unless the target is literally standing out in the open rather than poptarting, peeking out from cover, or moving from cover to cover it is hard to fire within the charge period. Many maps have enough cover that a mech can move between 1 piece of cover and another in under 0.75 seconds.

It is much easier to dismiss the extra charge up time in brawling range where you can always see your opponent. A circling light can dip behind me, I charge and when he gets in front he dies. The timing is nearly perfect for that. Or I can expect a enemy mech around the corner (or with seismic see them) and charge as I move out from cover so it acts like snap firing before. What I cannot do is fire at someone peeking out from behind cover when he only exposes himself for half a second.

Even trying to maximize up time by constantly refreshing your charge the best you can possibly do is a 50% uptime and it's lower if you fire (and go on cooldown). The up time of the weapon needs to be at least 75% for a viable weapon and for a sniper weapon it should be higher. By 'up time' I mean how often the weapon can fire when you need it to.

[Sturmbringer]

I hate the new Gauss mechanic. I was a snapshot kind of guy and now thats completely gone. I switched to UACs for now till you nerf them too. Until then I hope other games I wait for are released. As someone else mentioned.. Im not your target audience anyway, so who cares right ?

[PyckenZot]

For pure gauss builds the new system is better. It forces controlled and thoughtfull triggercontrol, allows for collateral damage avoidance and ammo conservation. I do however believe, but have not tried out, that playing a gauss in a mixed build can be annoying (read. require some effort to master) at the moment.

This is easily the best patch I have seen so far and that combined with the statement on UACs (as was predictable and can be observed UACs are getting very popular now ) instills a renewal of my trust in you guys.

Edited by PyckenZot, 05 September 2013 - 07:32 AM.

[Faithsfall]

Sturmbringer, on 05 September 2013 - 06:15 AM, said:

I hate the new Gauss mechanic. I was a snapshot kind of guy and now thats completely gone. I switched to UACs for now till you nerf them too. Until then I hope other games I wait for are released. As someone else mentioned.. Im not your target audience anyway, so who cares right ?

I'm finding that most ppl have switched to a Uac/5 or ac/2 build, both of these strip armour faster than PPC's/ gauss ever did............ with a cockpit shake that severly hampers any meaningfull return fire, but then again ppl wanted this so i must be completly wrong.

[Ashmodaii]

I still use some conf with 2 ERPPC and feel fine with it, more heat, sure but that's the price for high power weapons.
Its the pilot who makes it a good or bad option.
The gauss tweaks sounds fun, I'll give it a try soon.
Impulselaser-gattling sounds to imbalanced for my opinion. I use them at some point and I'm happy with them like they are, I wouldn't suggest a tweak here.

[PappySmurf]

Iceash, on 05 September 2013 - 07:07 AM, said:

I'm finding that most ppl have switched to a Uac/5 or ac/2 build, both of these strip armour faster than PPC's/ gauss ever did............ with a cockpit shake that severly hampers any meaningfull return fire, but then again ppl wanted this so i must be completly wrong.

HAHAHAHA look fellas we have a comedian in da house (ARMOR) we have no armor it don't work I think it would not matter what you got hit with guass/ac5/ac2/whatever. Our group tested mechs with full armor/no armor/ferro armor and guess what the differences were so minimal it does not matter if you even have any armor on your mech. And we tested it with all the weapons.PGI is just a bunch or liars about the armor values I could show I had 384 hit points of armor in the mechlab but server side with all the overpowered weapons it would be closer to 84 hit points of armor. The mechs are like butter and this is truly a crappy mech game as far as actual gameplay and game time longevity in your mech. PGI fix the dammm armor and hitboxes then we will talk more weapon balance.

[Guizan Dixie]

OK, my take on the Gauss rifle issue, first I must note that I never group my Gaussrifle(s) with any other weapon, and have no mechs having both Gauss and PPCs. Also I don't even have any key assigned to alfastrike as I tend to make mechs having both long and short range weapons.

I am all OK with the 0.75 second delay before firing, I wish it was a bit shorter to help me fighting against mechs playing peekaboo. My main problems are other aspects of the change.

1) The time the GR stay charged is too short, I am old and a bit slow in aiming, also at times I play using a joystick and then it is even worse. This makes me fail firing the gun alteast half of my attempted shots.The time should be increased atleast to 3-4 seconds to allow extra for high ping players and us old people.

2) The audio for charging and charged is hard to hear when you are taking fire or people fire close to you, also as I tend to use a headset for Teamspeak it is easy to miss Gauss sounds. Thus I miss the ready to fire signal on a regular basis.

3) This leads me to the visual feedback, the small green square is very easy to miss. I need something more visual.

4) The overall cycle of 0,75 seconds charge + 1,25 seconds window to fire, followed by a 4 second reload time (if I managed to fire) decreased the potential DPS with a minimum of 18% (if I manage to fire immediatly after the weapon is charged) I think the reload time should be decreased with the same abount of time that the charge takes to keep the DPS constant.

5) Finally, a discharged Gauss rifle should not explode. The reason for the explosion is stated to be the charged capacitors.

Personally I don't mind holding down the button and fire on release, but it could be potentially bad for those with arthritis and also it is a bit unintuitive for newcomers.

I see two alternatives for controlling charge and fire, one is that the first press starts the charging and that a second press release the charge. Another alternative is to have one key to start charging, and another one to fire the gun.

Edited by Guizan Dixie, 05 September 2013 - 07:49 AM.

[Faithsfall]

PappySmurf, on 05 September 2013 - 07:38 AM, said:

HAHAHAHA look fellas we have a comedian in da house (ARMOR) we have no armor it don't work I think it would not matter what you got hit with guass/ac5/ac2/whatever. Our group tested mechs with full armor/no armor/ferro armor and guess what the differences were so minimal it does not matter if you even have any armor on your mech. And we tested it with all the weapons.PGI is just a bunch or liars about the armor values I could show I had 384 hit points of armor in the mechlab but server side with all the overpowered weapons it would be closer to 84 hit points of armor. The mechs are like butter and this is truly a crappy mech game as far as actual gameplay and game time longevity in your mech. PGI fix the dammm armor and hitboxes then we will talk more weapon balance.

PappySmurf, on 05 September 2013 - 07:38 AM, said:

HAHAHAHA look fellas we have a comedian in da house (ARMOR) we have no armor it don't work I think it would not matter what you got hit with guass/ac5/ac2/whatever. Our group tested mechs with full armor/no armor/ferro armor and guess what the differences were so minimal it does not matter if you even have any armor on your mech. And we tested it with all the weapons.PGI is just a bunch or liars about the armor values I could show I had 384 hit points of armor in the mechlab but server side with all the overpowered weapons it would be closer to 84 hit points of armor. The mechs are like butter and this is truly a crappy mech game as far as actual gameplay and game time longevity in your mech. PGI fix the dammm armor and hitboxes then we will talk more weapon balance.

Armour is the English spelling, the same a favour, it's just been bastardised by the american language so armour UK/armor US

[PappySmurf]

Iceash, on 05 September 2013 - 07:59 AM, said:

Armour is the English spelling, the same a favour, it's just been bastardised by the american language so armour UK/armor US

Friend it don't matter if its spelled armor or armour it still don't work in this game Like I said PGI are liars and the mechlab values don't reflect the server side values on armour/armor hitpoint values or weapons hitpoint values.

[William Knight]

PappySmurf, on 05 September 2013 - 08:09 AM, said:

Friend it don't matter if its spelled armor or armour it still don't work in this game Like I said PGI are liars and the mechlab values don't reflect the server side values on armour/armor hitpoint values or weapons hitpoint values.

PappySmurf, on 05 September 2013 - 07:38 AM, said:

HAHAHAHA look fellas we have a comedian in da house (ARMOR) we have no armor it don't work I think it would not matter what you got hit with guass/ac5/ac2/whatever. Our group tested mechs with full armor/no armor/ferro armor and guess what the differences were so minimal it does not matter if you even have any armor on your mech. And we tested it with all the weapons.PGI is just a bunch or liars about the armor values I could show I had 384 hit points of armor in the mechlab but server side with all the overpowered weapons it would be closer to 84 hit points of armor. The mechs are like butter and this is truly a crappy mech game as far as actual gameplay and game time longevity in your mech. PGI fix the dammm armor and hitboxes then we will talk more weapon balance.

It sounds like you are letting multiple people hit you in just one location, armour does matter.

[Blue Footed Booby]

Iceash, on 05 September 2013 - 07:59 AM, said:

Armour is the English spelling, the same a favour, it's just been bastardised by the american language so armour UK/armor US

Spelling wasn't standardized on either side of the pond until after the colonies separated from Britain. Neither country has any real claim to the more correct spelling. If we're posturing, though, let me point out that all those unnecessary u's reflect French interference with proper English.

PappySmurf, on 05 September 2013 - 07:38 AM, said:

words

o_o
I'd agree there are some pretty big issues with time-to-death but you might actually be insane. Seriously, that post was bizarre.

Edited by Blue Footed Booby, 05 September 2013 - 08:48 AM.

[PappySmurf]

Blue Footed Booby, on 05 September 2013 - 08:45 AM, said:

Spelling wasn't standardized on either side of the pond until after the colonies separated from Britain. Neither country has any real claim to the more correct spelling. If we're posturing, though, let me point out that all those unnecessary u's reflect French interference with proper English.



o_o
I'd agree there are some pretty big issues with time-to-death but you might actually be insane. Seriously, that post was bizarre.

Insane? why because I want to play a true MechWarrior simulation game where my mech is actually tough and not made of butter and dies so quick? or im insane because on my other accounts I have been with PGI/MWO at the beginning of closed beta? or the fact our group regularly tests weapon/armor values on all mechs from all patches to see the truth of what PGI codes into the game? Please by all means go do your own testing? take all the mechs =Full armor=No armor=Full ferro armor and have team mates shoot them with all the weapons in the game and look at the percentages of armor loss for each then come back and tell me if armor in this game works? and what differences in the 3 you find? im sure after hours of testing you will find what your armor value in mechlab says you have in hit points will be much different than actual game play. So please try to respond with a IQ higher than 45?. P.S don't forget to capture the raw data from client to server so you can see the actual real values.

Edited by PappySmurf, 05 September 2013 - 09:13 AM.

[East Indy]

I'd suggest the Ultra AC's drawback take advantage of the ability to model in time, since gameplay has already departed from the punishing tabletop rules.

Instead of randomly jamming, what if UACs cycled more and more slowly when used constantly, and returned cycle time to normal during a couple seconds' pause? Overall fire rate could be calculated to match the rate currently factoring in jams, rewarding disciplined bursts.

[Blue Footed Booby]

PappySmurf, on 05 September 2013 - 09:07 AM, said:

Insane? why because I want to play a true MechWarrior simulation game where my mech is actually tough and not made of butter and dies so quick? or im insane because on my other accounts I have been with PGI/MWO at the beginning of closed beta? or the fact our group regularly tests weapon/armor values on all mechs from all patches to see the truth of what PGI codes into the game? Please by all means go do your own testing? take all the mechs =Full armor=No armor=Full ferro armor and have team mates shoot them with all the weapons in the game and look at the percentages of armor loss for each then come back and tell me if armor in this game works? and what differences in the 3 you find? im sure after hours of testing you will find what your armor value in mechlab says you have in hit points will be much different than actual game play. So please try to respond with a IQ higher than 45?. P.S don't forget to capture the raw data from client to server so you can see the actual real values.

I said it seemed insane because it's a long, rambling, and oddly-written wall of text that's extremely suspicious and hostile of anyone who disagrees and is in need of a few paragraph breaks. I assume you're foreign and angry rather than actually crazy but the post reads like something from Timecube. I realize now it's out of line to give a person grief for their writing like that, and I apologize. I suppose it's only fair you call me stupid after I called you insane.

Sticking purely to the content of your post: you talk about lies, and while I agree with the conclusion (time-to-death being too short) none of the other tests I've seen back up the armor numbers having so little correlation to the amount of damage needed to remove the armor*. This suggests that either something was wrong with your tests, or that there's some pretty weird bugs at work that were added with the last patch, rather than a web of lies on PGI's part. Really it's the lying angle that strikes me as over-the-top.

*I'm not going to post the data because it's all housed in the private goon hangout, but I assume goons and your buds aren't the only folks checking this sort of stuff.

Edit: In any case I'd love to read more about your findings. Have you started a thread somewhere?

Edited by Blue Footed Booby, 05 September 2013 - 09:45 AM.

[Sereglach]

I must say that I greatly appreciate the changes to the PPC and Gauss Rifle weapon systems. They have been truly defined into their role and, with the other changes of the last few patches, MWO has felt like a brand new game. I thank PGI for their current improvements and advancements for MWO.

As far as flamer balancing goes, I cordially suggest PGI taking a look at the write-up linked in my signature and found HERE. I broke down the current flamer functionality and how it can be effectively reworked into a balanced weapon even in single weapon use. The exponential stacking mechanic has been extremely painful for the weapon in how it forces mechwarriors to use it. It also makes a single flamer completely and utterly useless. That hurts a number of mechs out there, but I think can be easily fixed using the default weapons handling system of every other weapon in the game.

I thank PGI and any readers for their time and consideration.

[Dan Nashe]

I am not sure the gauss change defines its role. I find it much easier to use in a brawl now than at range. At range I have to aim carefully or I have to quick shot. The very short window mwans I can't do the former well, and the charge means I can't hit mechs peeking out f cover as well.


In a brawl against any non-light, I am firing a weapkn on cd as fast as I can, so the charge up is just part of the recycle time and the window is fine because I always want to release instantly for maximum dps.

In short, the mechanic penalizes sniping far more than brawling. If you put this mechanic on the ac 20 it would hurt the weapon less.

Now, the speed helps.

As for the uac 5, keep the jam chance low, raise the recycle time. There's no reason for it to have double fire and a lower recycle than the ac 5.

I Absolutely agreeit needs a nerf but please make it gradual. Don't raise the jam chance, increase recycle time and reduce ammo or velocity all in one patch.

It's better than all other acs except maybe 20 if you only have one hard point or are under 65 tons, but it's not much better than ppcs and lasers.I

[GargoyleVine]

never thought as the Gauss as a point and shoot weapon. Sniper weapons do not have charge times, if anything a ppc should charge not a gauss. I feel like i am shooting an air-soft rifle now. Also why the change to ppc doing no damage under 90m? So much for all the brawlers that took a lot of time to build mechs around that. Not sure what is with the change to Gauss, it does not make sense to me at all. It has made my Dragon 5N(C) A PILE OF {Scrap} which i spent good money on and really helped me get into mwo a lot and be an effective pilot. First the 3rd person view thing which is {Scrap} (and im an old mechassault player) then you go screwing with Gauss.
Please re-set it back the way it was, feels like your going backwards, not forward.

Thanks, GargoyleVine