21 replies to this topic

[Foxfire]

to give PGI an excuse to gimmick it up?

I felt that the UAC/5 was in a good place before with the 25% chance to jam and the buff that it received has yet to make any sense to me... unless it was done intentionally.

[Homeless Bill]

It wouldn't shock me, but I'd have taken a change in mechanics any day. Random jam chance is uninspiring, and the fact that it was better than the AC/5 at the AC/5's job was pretty depressing.

I don't think launch was the time to be changing weapons and balancing everything, but hey... better than nothing.

[FupDup]

This random thing has got to go because it makes the weapon's behavior too inconsistent and not to mention removes control from the player. At some times you may get very lucky dice rolls and get to go full-auto for 10+ seconds straight. Other times, the dice won't be on your side and you'll jam up instantly. That kind of {Scrap} shouldn't be happening.

UACs need to use a system very much like that of MWLL where they get their own little "heat" meter and will always jam if they reach the end of that meter (and never jam if they are kept under the limit). Also, they should be broken up into multiple shells. Having single-shell, full-auto, RNG UAC/10 and 20 is going to absolutely break balance if they keep using the current mechanics.

[Foxfire]

I know that it is probably too late in development to revisit the core mechanic of AC's.. but I do think that they should be streams of slugs instead of one massive shot that does X damage.

I think if they did that, then it'd be a much easier damage type to balance.

IIRC, the only ballistic weapon types that did their damage in one hit were LBX's in slug mode and Long Tom's.

[ColourfulConfetti]

I get the feeling it was planned on being given a temporary buff as a way to help sell more Ilya muromets and firebrands when the sale came around, the one going on now that has both the firebrand and Ilya 30% off I mean. I might be making PGI out to more sleezy than they really are but I have a suspicion this buff was planned in coordination with the sale.

[Devil Fox]

PalmaRoma, on 13 September 2013 - 03:28 PM, said:

I get the feeling it was planned on being given a temporary buff as a way to help sell more Ilya muromets and firebrands when the sale came around, the one going on now that has both the firebrand and Ilya 30% off I mean. I might be making PGI out to more sleezy than they really are but I have a suspicion this buff was planned in coordination with the sale.

PGI have a tendency to create a meta then sell a hero mech that can abuse said meta just before the expected nerf to that meta comes to town. Look at the Highlander sale during the height of assault class poptarting, and now the Muromets and Firebrand at the height of the UAC5 meta after killing the rival guass rifle. Much like the X5 and Wang were on sale come the medium tweaks...

PGI in my eyes have always created and held a meta they want to push out more content with during sales that can use it...

[PPO Kuro]

They buffed the UAC5 on Tuesday, and today (Friday) the Ilya is on sale. Strange coincidence or planned to boost sales before launch...

I really don't understand what PGI is doing.

[LegoPirate]

first, the ilya has been on sale like 4 times before. second, the uac buff was like 2 weeks ago, and they already announced a nerf. pretty poor timing on their part acutally.

[Dan Nashe]

Eh. The 25 percent chance meant that macro firing as more dps than double firing.
While that is a valid design decision, at 25% the risk was almost never worth the reward.

On the other hand there was some reason to believe that double fire's lack of precission might have balanced out its higher dps, with the small chance still being a risk.

Also, responding to chance IS a skill. There are smart and dumb ways to play with a jam chance weapon.

As a further note, it is easier to balance a low jam chance than a high one. With a low jam chance, it is balanced on the assumption that 7 shots without a jam are common. Making statisticwl outliers (15 shots without a jam) much less likely to determine a fight's outcome.

Personally, I would set both the ac 5 and uac 5 at a 1.25 recycle.
Then give the uac 5 a 12.5 percent jam chance and keep the 5 second jam.
That way the ac 5, single shooting the uac 5 and double shotting the uac 5 all produce 4.00 dps on average.
(Someone can doublecheck my math)

I would also lowe the other awesome ac, the 20, to a 5 second recycle.
That would make all acs 4 dps.
Still more than all energy weapons and gauss.
But not overpowered (I.e., they'd be at ac 10 and ac 2 levels).

I would use all 5 acs at that level and probably the lbx too.

[infinite xaer0]

um, the uac5 was still really good before the decrease in jam rate; it's the nerfs to the PPCs and the GR that shifted people to use the uac5 even more, and not the weapon's respective buff.

[ColourfulConfetti]

infinite xaer0, on 13 September 2013 - 03:43 PM, said:

um, the uac5 was still really good before the decrease in jam rate; it's the nerfs to the PPCs and the GR that shifted people to use the uac5 even more, and not the weapon's respective buff.

I think it was a combination of the fall of the sniper meta and the temporary buff to the Uac5, the fact that both the sniper meta nerf and the UAC5 buff came at the same time made me raise an eyebrow, when the sale of the firebrand and ilya came along, why didn't they buff the other ac weapons btw? It is suspicious they were making an all ready strong weapon, even better and not touching the neglected ac 2 ac5 and ac 10 which are fairly worse in comparison I think. They were basically making themselves a new established meta with that buff I think.

Edited by PalmaRoma, 13 September 2013 - 03:49 PM.

[Royalewithcheese]

PPO Kuro, on 13 September 2013 - 03:36 PM, said:

They buffed the UAC5 on Tuesday, and today (Friday) the Ilya is on sale. Strange coincidence or planned to boost sales before launch...

I don't think PGI understands the meta enough to intentionally manipulate it to that degree

[Corvus Antaka]

it's a big conspiracy to keep you on the forums

[Deathlike]

PalmaRoma, on 13 September 2013 - 03:28 PM, said:

I get the feeling it was planned on being given a temporary buff as a way to help sell more Ilya muromets and firebrands when the sale came around, the one going on now that has both the firebrand and Ilya 30% off I mean. I might be making PGI out to more sleezy than they really are but I have a suspicion this buff was planned in coordination with the sale.

Apostal, on 13 September 2013 - 03:35 PM, said:

PGI have a tendency to create a meta then sell a hero mech that can abuse said meta just before the expected nerf to that meta comes to town. Look at the Highlander sale during the height of assault class poptarting, and now the Muromets and Firebrand at the height of the UAC5 meta after killing the rival guass rifle. Much like the X5 and Wang were on sale come the medium tweaks...

PGI in my eyes have always created and held a meta they want to push out more content with during sales that can use it...

Coincidence?
http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__2747031

Or I'm just that good:
http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__2745505

[Devil Fox]

Deathlike, on 13 September 2013 - 04:32 PM, said:

Coincidence?
http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__2747031

Or I'm just that good:
http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__2745505

Actually it's a highly noticeable trend, since they can't stop the meta-gaming (which you saw with months of the poptart meta), they probably planned ways to create FoTM meta's instead that would allow the promotion and sale of content. Hence we're now going to go down a line of buff/nerf hammers to various weapon systems to attempt and bring their new champions and hero mechs into the limelight.

The real skill now is in predicting what weapons will be the next fotm, and what their trying to sell to the silent majority.

[Deathlike]

Predicting the next FOTM only requires you to know two things:

1) What mech is being sold next.

2) What weapons got buffed.

#2 is easy, but #1 leads to #2. #2 makes #1 easy to figure out...

Remember SRMs not named the SRM6? They got a buff. Why is that?

They are planning to sell the Cent-A Champion on "launch day". Hmmm.. what could possibly make it "a selling point"?

[Dr Herbert West]

The UAC5 buff would have been fine in the context of the PPC/GR sniping meta. UAC5s were underpowered relative to PPC/GR combinations.

Of course, instead of just buffing the UAC5, the devs, in true PGI fashion, buffed the UAC5 while simultaneously triple-nerfing the PPC into oblivion, introducing ghost-delay for the GR (thusly nerfing it except in 2xGR configs), and as a result of the two former nerfing sniping into oblivion (sniping, the main counter balance for ranged DPS builds).

[Angel of Annihilation]

I think it was buffed because it need to be buffed.

Played a match last night where I literally had 5 single shot jams in a row, then at least a couple more later in the fight. All in all I think I managed to fire 13 rounds of UAC/5 total, that is how useless it was at a 15% Jam rate.

Now granted, that was a fluke but honestly, probably 7 out of 10 times, the most I can fire a UAC/5 without a Jam is 4-5 times and it usually jams when I most need it to work. Yes occassionally I get a positive fluke where I can sting off 15 shots in a row and this can be devestating, but these definately get balanced out by the negative ones like I mention above.

The problem with the UAC/5 is that it is tied to the RNG and when someone gets killed by one of the rare positive flukes where someone managed to rip them apart with two UAC/5s that don't jam, they are going to remember it and them come running to the Forum to post how OPed they are. I mean, your obviously NOT going to notice it, if they fired one round then jammed so over time it is going to appear that UAC/5s are ungodly OPed. Think about this for a bit.

[PPO Kuro]

Viktor Drake, on 14 September 2013 - 08:23 AM, said:

I think it was buffed because it need to be buffed.

Eh no. The DPS of the weapon as it is now is almost the same as an freaking AC20 with more then double the range (600 vs 270)

And about jamming, that's why they use 2 or more of them. Then amount of time it takes for you to be dead under fire of a 3 x UAC5 bearing loony is ludicrous. If you're piloting a slow mech and you run into one of these mechs your toast, unless you have a similar build.

[Joseph Mallan]

Homeless Bill, on 13 September 2013 - 03:06 PM, said:

It wouldn't shock me, but I'd have taken a change in mechanics any day. Random jam chance is uninspiring, and the fact that it was better than the AC/5 at the AC/5's job was pretty depressing.

I don't think launch was the time to be changing weapons and balancing everything, but hey... better than nothing.

how couldn't a gun that fires twice as fast not be better?