39 replies to this topic

[MonkeyDCecil]

Mcchuggernaut, on 28 September 2013 - 02:13 PM, said:

Why not? It isn't like they haven't already broken "cannon" a ton already. I'll take better gameplay with sightly warped cannon any day. This is an FPS/giant robot piloting simulator. TT rules won't all work for this kind of game without a little creative bending. I won't be outraged if in this game the pulse lasers weigh a ton less. I doubt anyone else would be either except maybe one angry uber-fan...

As I said in my post you can not change tonnage on weapons, because then you have to change how stock mechs come out. They will not do this. I personally do not care about TT. It is fun and has it place. Just not as a FPS/Sim giant robot game.

[Huntsman]

The SL could use a range increase but they're overall ok.

The pulse lasers don't just need a buff, but rather a total rework. SPLs, relative to SLs, are actually pretty decent, but MPLs and LPLs are another matter.

Edited by Huntsman, 29 September 2013 - 09:05 AM.

[RandomLurker]

Nik Van Rhijn, on 29 September 2013 - 07:28 AM, said:

But that applies to all lasers. So are you saying that all weapons have to be front loaded damage to be useable?
Increasing the range of the small laser to 120m would help that.
Small and Medium Pulse need about a 30% range increase and a slight decrease in pulse time.
Large Pulses need a decrease in pulse time and heat.
This would give them a useable place as alternatives for ordinary lasers. Both as a weapon for lights and for light hunters.

The fire duration/cooldown time on lasers is nowhere near the AC/2 style "stay pointing at the target at all times" issue. Also, the decreased pulse time is already extremely valuable. It means that pulses do double the damage for time-on-target. If you are/are shooting at a highly mobile target, this is very valuable. It's the difference between dragging a beam all accross a Spider's torso, turning it all yellow, or stripping armor off the legs. I'd use Pulses every time, if not for the severe range limitation.

[The Wee Baby Seamus]

Personally I've played LPLs quite a bit recently and really got to like them in conjunction with DHS heavy builds. Very precise, good and consistent damage.
The thing that bothers me with all the cries for a buff of the LPLs is that if you buff them, they'll be too good. If anything, reduce their weight to 5 tons to be on par with LLs and ERLLs, but i wouldn't touch anything else. You're just one tiny tweak away from making them overpowered.

Edited by The Wee Baby Seamus, 29 September 2013 - 10:34 AM.

[ArmageddonKnight]

None of them. individual weapon buffs and nerfs are just bandaids over a broken system.

The heat system is {Scrap}, the hardpoint system is silly (it needs restriction), and a mirriad of other issues that tbh, i cba to list and exaplin each one without sounding like a QQ post lol.

So yea, we dont need more weapon nerfs or buffs, nwe need a different heat and hardpoint system so that the system itself can be used to balance loadouts.

[DocBach]

I don't think it needs a buff in terms of damage, rather it needs some kind of feature to make it more advantageous than standard lasers, like a significantly shorter beam duration.

[Drehl]

PEEFsmash, on 28 September 2013 - 02:15 PM, said:

Every one of those weapons is weak right now. Duration length will never help, there needs to be a reduction in heat and increase in range to justify the extra tonnage of the pulse lasers, and Small lasers should have their range increased.

this.

imo they could:
double the range for spl and sl to 180m or even 200m
give the mpl the same range as the ml
slightly reduce the heat of the LPL


without hurting the balance to much.

[Team Leader]

RandomLurker, on 29 September 2013 - 02:04 AM, said:

I disagree heavily, because having to hold sustained fire on a target means you can't use cover, manuevers, twisting, etc and also use the weapon effectively. It forces you to stand with your CT facing the target the entire time. This will make pulse lasers into Noob Cannons, easy to use but abandoned almost completely by more skilled players.

Now, maybe the game could use a few Noob Cannons, but one that teaches you to use tactics that you'll have to completely unlearn later is not desirable.

Well, yeah. That's part of the trade off. Huge DPS for sustained uptime vs low DPS for burst damage. The AC2 needs a ton of uptime, but you don't see people complaining because it has such high DPS. Pulse lasers should be a niche, brawler specialized weapon. That would make them one.

[Team Leader]

RandomLurker, on 29 September 2013 - 10:23 AM, said:

The fire duration/cooldown time on lasers is nowhere near the AC/2 style "stay pointing at the target at all times" issue. Also, the decreased pulse time is already extremely valuable. It means that pulses do double the damage for time-on-target. If you are/are shooting at a highly mobile target, this is very valuable. It's the difference between dragging a beam all accross a Spider's torso, turning it all yellow, or stripping armor off the legs. I'd use Pulses every time, if not for the severe range limitation.

Er, yeah that's kind of what I'm getting at. Pulse lasers need their mechanics reworked IMO, to be something like laser machine guns like you see in all the MW cut scenes and trailers. High uptime, high DPS, high heat, but worth it for dumping damage on someone at close range.

Edited by Team Leader, 30 September 2013 - 12:29 AM.

[xengk]

Pulse weapon should retain their heat, range, weight and damage.
But set all duration to 0.5 second and reduce cooldown by 1 second, this way you increase their damage potential without actually buffing their damage. In the duration it take a standard medium laser to fire twice, you probably can squeeze off 3 shots of medium pulse.
medium laser
fire(1s) + cooldown(3s) + fire(1s) = 5s, laser still on cooldown on 5th second.
pulse medium
fire(0.5s) + cooldown(2s) + fire(0.5) + cooldown(2s) = 5s, ready to fire 3rd shot by 5th second.

Pulse weapon should be a double edge sword, it let you pump out more damage in short duration but also risk cooking your mech.

[Roland]

OneEyed Jack, on 29 September 2013 - 12:33 AM, said:

I don't think pulses need a lot of help. I don't think most people properly appreciate the shorter duration, which I feel is a pretty considerable advantage for more mobile mechs, not to mention for shooting at highly mobile mechs.

While this is the intended purpose of the pulse lasers, it ends up being moot in practice.

The shorter beam duration means that more damage will land on a fast moving target. However, their ridiculously low range means that in many cases the range will REDUCE damage compared to a regular laser.

The net effect is that, in practice, under normal usage, pulse lasers actually end up doing less damage than their normal laser counterparts.

This makes them, ultimately, a waste of tonnage.

[Almond Brown]

Roland, on 30 September 2013 - 05:27 AM, said:

While this is the intended purpose of the pulse lasers, it ends up being moot in practice.

The shorter beam duration means that more damage will land on a fast moving target. However, their ridiculously low range means that in many cases the range will REDUCE damage compared to a regular laser.

The net effect is that, in practice, under normal usage, pulse lasers actually end up doing less damage than their normal laser counterparts.

This makes them, ultimately, a waste of tonnage.

How does Range effect DPS again? The middle sentence makes "zero" sense. Is it that the short range draws you closer to more targets than your intended, or that you can't hit a moving target with a "hitscan" type weapon after you close to its optimal range?

A very curious statement that. You trade the sweeping damage profile of the SL/ML at their range, for the instant hit profile of the SPL/MPL at the cost of their closer range.

Heat may be the one tweak that might work and not make them totally OP.

[Clit Beastwood]

I dunno - my jenner f with 6 spl is great at amputating mech limbs... and my stalker with 2LPL 2LL has held a 3.0-5.0 KDR since I built it. It's plenty heat efficient, and the final killing blow is almost always from the LPL. You can't stack the deck too far in their favor or you're going to see a thread saying "buff the standard SPL, ML, and LL to be competitive with the pulse lasers!" - just use what's there - if you don't like one of them, pick something else. There's lots of zappy laser things to play with.

Edited by Fierostetz, 30 September 2013 - 06:30 AM.

[Zyllos]

I think there are two ways you could balance Pulse Lasers. One is to remove one of the drawbacks of the weapon because the bonus of the weapon (+1 To Hit) is just too hard to implement in a real time game.

So the drawbacks of Pulse Lasers are:

• Heavier
  
• Shorter
  
• Hotter

One of those drawbacks can't be touched, and that is the heavier drawback. So either make it have the same range as a weapon of the same type or make it produce as much heat as a weapon of the same type.


Another way to fix Pulse Lasers is to make them have completely different mechanics. I have seen many players tout making them act like machine gun lasers. It's an interesting concept.

Edited by Zyllos, 30 September 2013 - 06:35 AM.

[FupDup]

Almond Brown, on 30 September 2013 - 06:17 AM, said:

How does Range effect DPS again? The middle sentence makes "zero" sense. Is it that the short range draws you closer to more targets than your intended, or that you can't hit a moving target with a "hitscan" type weapon after you close to its optimal range?

A very curious statement that. You trade the sweeping damage profile of the SL/ML at their range, for the instant hit profile of the SPL/MPL at the cost of their closer range.

Heat may be the one tweak that might work and not make them totally OP.

Once weapons exceed their listed optimal range, their damage begins to decrease. Since most fights take place beyond 90/180/300 meters (pulse ranges from least to greatest), this means they do less than their listed damage value in those cases.

[Roland]

Almond Brown, on 30 September 2013 - 06:17 AM, said:

How does Range effect DPS again? The middle sentence makes "zero" sense.

Beyond optimal range, weapons damage degrades linearly.

How can you have played since Nov 2012 and not know this?

[Iacov]

LPL needs a heat reduction, then it would be fine as is, but right now there's no reason to go for a LPL, when there's an ERLL around...most times your better of with long range options
but i found the LPL to be very effective when i'm in CQC with my K2...but they run hot as hell...could keep firing the erppc instead for that amount of heat...

the SLas/SPLas need a range increase, then they are fine!

MPLs feel quite balanced at the moment

[Almond Brown]

FupDup, on 30 September 2013 - 06:40 AM, said:

Once weapons exceed their listed optimal range, their damage begins to decrease. Since most fights take place beyond 90/180/300 meters (pulse ranges from least to greatest), this means they do less than their listed damage value in those cases.

This is what was written.

Quote

The shorter beam duration means that more damage will land on a fast moving target. However, their ridiculously low range means that in many cases the range will REDUCE damage compared to a regular laser.

What does that statement have to do with sub-optimal range drop off? All Laser/Ballistics have that and one should always try and fight at any weapons optimal range, regardless of that range is. If not, then all weapons with ranges below 600m are a waste...

[Roland]

Almond Brown, on 30 September 2013 - 08:32 AM, said:

What does that statement have to do with sub-optimal range drop off? All Laser/Ballistics have that and one should always try and fight at any weapons optimal range, regardless of that range is. If not, then all weapons with ranges below 600m are a waste...

Because the range of the pulse lasers is only half of that for the standard lasers.

This means that with standard laser, a large percentage of the time you are going to be able to deal more damage to targets than you would with the pulse lasers.

The pulse lasers are only able to do their full damage when inside the very small radius of their terrible range. From a practical perspective, in actual usage, this is not going to be the case 100% of the time (indeed, given their terrible range, this is usually NOT going to be the case). As soon as you move beyond the optimal range of the pulse lasers, then suddenly the regular lasers are actually doing MORE damage when both weapons are held on target the whole time... A little bit further out, and the fact that the pulse laser has a shorter duration becomes moot, because even accounting for the standard laser perhaps delivering a smaller percentage of its damage due to the longer impulse time, it'll still end up doing more damage than the pulse laser because the pulse laser has lost more of its damage to range anyway.

In practice, standard lasers will tend to do better damage overall, because they give you a wider variety of situations where you can land damage. In any real world fight, these situations will arise.

Couple that with the fact that you are essentially paying additional tonnage and heat for pulse lasers, in order to do less damage, and their lack of utility becomes obvious. There are very few cases where pulse lasers are useful at all.

[Harkonis]

Leave the weight, make the range and damage and heat the same as the normal version. Make it quicker cooldown. Right there you've added a weight to potential damage balance. They will generate more heat over time due to the fact they can fire more quickly. Tweak heat up a bit if needed for balance.