532 replies to this topic

[General Taskeen]

Riddler9884, on 07 October 2013 - 09:25 AM, said:

They could probably get away with establishing a fixed heat cap and making DHS true DHS, but I think they are too far down the rabbit hole for that one. Can you imagine the work involved re-balancing all the weapons and Mechs? As it is there are a couple of mechs out there that need some TLC (Bad hitboxes - chief among them, oversized cockpit windows, has no distinguishing characteristics from other variants and less hardpoints).

Other games do it? Why can't PGI? Developers of other games, like Hawken recently said, "you know what, this is whole skill tree we have for Mechs just doesn't make sense, so hey we're going to redo the whole thing, k guys?" Blizzard is completely getting rid of their whole auction house for Diablo 3. So other developers do go back on what they say when their customers say, "dude, you really need to rethink this."

[Ngamok]

If an AC/10 + ammo weighs as much as a PPC or ER PPC, then we can talk. This is why ballistics weigh more because energy weapons need more heat sinks.

[AC]

Lupus Aurelius, on 07 October 2013 - 10:14 AM, said:

Weapon Hardpoints:

Until the introduction of omni-tech to the IS, there were the stock models only. Modifications cost dearly, and also could be the source for significant issues in running a mech. That’s fine for tabletop, but in a computer game, you want people to have some ability to customize their ride. But the current mechanics make all mechs basically omni-mechs. So long as there are open criticals in that location and you have the tonnage, you can fit any of that type of weapon in that location, up to the quantity limit.

Instead,hardpoints should not open to all the crits in that location. Besides the number of weapons of that type, there also needs to be a limit as to the number of crits that can be used for those weapon types. All of the crit slots in that location would no longer be able to fit that weapon type. So, having 3 energy on a right torso might mean there were only 6 energy crits there. You could fit 3 large lasers, 2 PPCs but not 3 PPCs, or a PPC/LL/ML. Same for ballistics and missiles, 2 ballistics in an arm, but only 5 ballistic slots, so you could fir 2 AC2, an AC2 and an AC5, but not 2 AC5s. Similar to the way it was in MW4.

These 2 mechanics combined would remove a lot of the boating issues, and actually force balanced builds. It would also make each mech more unique, giving more variety for lance compositions and not just seeing the same handful of mechs all the time, boating whatever the FOTM is. Chasis with heavy energy build would have higher base heat, so mech like the Awesome would actualy be able to do what it was designed for, be a PPC platform, Mechs with heavy ballistic builds might have lower heat, but more crit space for ballistic weapons. It would make each mech more unique, as well as more balanced in relation to each other. And also would help eliminate the ridiculous balancing by nerfing or adding unnecessary mechanics..

Approaching the historical issues by addressing the root causes, such as convergence, the heat system in general, and the fitting mechanics would have addressed those issues in a more accurate way. However, under the current mechanics, PGI is balancing by heat, therefore the premise of the OP.

I have argued for this since closed beta. I saw the issue with the K2 cat, and figured when more mechs came along it would only make the issue worse. Ghost Heat, Gauss Delay, JJ shake, etc were all bandaids for the generic slot system on the mechs. Not only that, but each chassis broke weapons balance early in open beta. PGI has wasted so much time and effort to keep the generic omni slots, when instead they should have made them more restrictive in the manner you suggest (which was my exact suggestion as well). This will only help their bottom line as well, because it will make the mechs unique and have value. Right now so many mechs are the same, there really is no reason to buy them. I am at the point where I am not buying any more mechs because there is really no reason to do so.

I hope they strongly consider your suggestion, because in the long run the generic weapon slot system will only continue to hurt them.

[Khobai]

ER PPC should be 12 heat. And they should balance the weapon in a way other than heat. Simply because weapons that run hot arnt fun to use.

[Odins Fist]

There was a huge river of tears over the ERPPC, that's why they changed it again...

It will be something else next week..

Just wait if they do Clan Tech weapons right, all of you people will be sobbing in your corn flakes, and nobody will want to run anything but Clan Tech after that.

Yeah, you know that Elephant in the room...

[KAT Ayanami]

The first thing I thought when I saw the first image with the ranges and other info was.

We have "IS" weapons shooting further than 1500m!!!!! That would make "CLAN" weapons look like candy shooters!!!!! Once Clan weapons show up, they should be able to shoot base to base!

[Nryrony]

Ngamok, on 07 October 2013 - 11:42 AM, said:

If an AC/10 + ammo weighs as much as a PPC or ER PPC, then we can talk. This is why ballistics weigh more because energy weapons need more heat sinks.

I agree, yet atm you simply cannot put that much heatsinks into a mech. Take an Awesome, if he loads 3 ER PPCs, and runs SHS, he has the tonnage and the space to stack SHS to the roof, yet they are soooooo ineffective that hes better of with DHS, even if runs into the crit cap.

We need to balance heatsinks before we can have that kinda talk.

In addition, note that PPCs have a nice burst, yet the overall dps aint that great.

Overall, heavy/Assault mechs with ballistic slots are favored atm, if we are talking DPS or burst DPS.

Edited by Nryrony, 07 October 2013 - 02:10 PM.

[Rat of the Legion Vega]

Sorry, I don't agree at all with buffing ER PPCs, as much as I might want to for certain builds.

This thread could have been made in closed beta. In responding to concerns raised by this exact type of thread ("ERPPCs are too HOT!!!"), PGI buffed PPCs, created PPC armageddon for 6 months, and almost ruined the entire game.

Your analysis focuses on presenting how many heat sinks it would take to make ERPPCs heat neutral vs. ballistics. Heat neutrality is a flawed concept because most high ELO battles in this game are all about burst damage. Emerge from cover, fire an alpha, go back to cover, cool off while team mates cover you, repeat ad nauseum, gg close. Heat neutrality only really matters in a brawler build that is in continuous close range combat. Which is not the type of combat the ER PPC is designed for. Therefore how they compare to shorter range ballistics in that capacity is not particularly relevant to their combat effectiveness. Putting aside heat, the only 3 critical slot weapon in the entire game that can deliver 10 pinpoint burst damage at both close and very long range is the ER PPC.

Remember folks that the main ballistic sniping counterpart, Gauss, has also been heavily nerfed recently. If ER PPC gets less heat, it will dominate the sniping war, and by extension, the entire game again. It will once again become the only gun in the entire game worth using. Un-nerf Gauss as well you say? Then welcome back your ER PPC+Gauss Overlords.

So how about we just leave ERPPCs the way they are for a little while longer to give other weapons a chance to shine again.

They sill need to cool off.

Maybe in 2014 they can be re-examined. Just in time for the 7 PPC Battlemaster.

Khobai, on 07 October 2013 - 12:33 PM, said:

ER PPC should be 12 heat. And they should balance the weapon in a way other than heat. Simply because weapons that run hot arnt fun to use.

Weapons that run out of ammo aren't fun to use either. I demand unlimited ammo and PGI can balance ballistic weapons some other way.

.

Edited by Rat of the Legion Vega, 07 October 2013 - 03:05 PM.

[Lupus Aurelius]

Rat of the Legion Vega, on 07 October 2013 - 02:46 PM, said:

Your analysis focuses on presenting how many heat sinks it would take to make ERPPCs heat neutral vs. ballistics. Heat neutrality is a flawed concept because most high ELO battles in this game are all about burst damage. Emerge from cover, fire an alpha, go back to cover, cool off while team mates cover you, repeat ad nauseum, gg close. Heat neutrality only really matters in a brawler build that is in continuous close range combat. Which is not the type of combat the ER PPC is designed for. Therefore how they compare to shorter range ballistics in that capacity is not particularly relevant to their combat effectiveness. Putting aside heat, the only 3 critical slot weapon in the entire game that can deliver 10 pinpoint burst damage at both close and very long range is the ER PPC.

No, it does not, go back and read it again.

Lupus Aurelius, on 06 October 2013 - 10:13 AM, said:

...
[Analysis]
...
In no way am I advocating that ERPPCs should be heat neutral or near heat neutral. ERPPC heat needs to be lowered back down to 12, or possibly 13, and the ghost heat penalty needs to be increased for ERPPCs used beyond 2 volley fired, to prevent excessive boating. The other option, however, is that the AC10, AC5/UAC5, and Gauss be brought more in line with the current profile for the AC2. This would “balance” out these systems.

[Agent 0 Fortune]

I don't think the problem is the heat, it is the inability to stack enough heat sinks. Currently most mechs are limited to about 8 DHS plus whatever they can stuff in their engines, with mechs topping out in the 20-22 range (34.0-36.8 effective HS). What if DHS were reduced to 2 critical slots and weapon heat was kept the same? Mechs could stack 7-8 more DHS, allowing them to carry upwards of 30+ DHS (48 effective HS).

[FupDup]

Agent 0 Fortune, on 07 October 2013 - 03:34 PM, said:

I don't think the problem is the heat, it is the inability to stack enough heat sinks. Currently most mechs are limited to about 8 DHS plus whatever they can stuff in their engines, with mechs topping out in the 20-22 range (34.0-36.8 effective HS). What if DHS were reduced to 2 critical slots and weapon heat was kept the same? Mechs could stack 7-8 more DHS, allowing them to carry upwards of 30+ DHS (48 effective HS).

Would that make Clan DHS 1 slot?


But really, another option is to just increase heat dissipation (cooling) rate and nerf the capacity, which would allow for energy builds to have a lot more stamina (can fire a lot more often instead of just a few alphas) at the downside of not being able to fire everything all at the same time (at least if your heat per alpha was over 30 or so, that is).

[JimboFBX]

the fact of the matter is that a mech with both energy and ballistic hard points is capable of being better than an equivalent mech with only energy hard points.

that's by design, and makes perfect sense. You trade heat for high tonnage and limited ammo, so naturally being able to use both simultaneously makes you powerful.

the thread is stupid and is snowballing from people with no idea what they are talking about feeding off of each other because they share the same incorrect beliefs

[krolmir]

Wow, after reading many off base topics in here, I'm ready to post. I used to be an AWS-9M pilot, then they totally killed the ERPPC. It was ridiculously hard to take down an Atlai in my Awesome, it required skill and tactics. Now its almost impossible, all because of the insane heat. So lets talk comparison, my 70 ton dual A\C 10 Phract, Standard 255, 10 DHS, and 7 Tons of ammo on terra therma. As long I don't fire my medium lasers, I can fire over a ton of ammo without overheating, that's 160+ damage, eyes closed hold the trigger down and don't give a damage. Heat is my last concern. My Awesome 2 ERPPCs, 325 Standard, 21 DHS, and a back up ER Laser. I can fire my 2 ERPPCs twice before the heat warning, 3x if I wait an extra second or two after cool down is up to land my self at 90%+ heat.  One of these things is not like the other. I have to agree with the OP, ERPPCSs could easily be cooled down to 13 without any I'll effect.  People say PPCs don't require skill, I call BS, balistics don't require skill outside of aiming; heat management what's that. I want a ballistics heat increase, make them 50% hotter from the A\C 5 up at a minimum. As the OP and many others pointed out, we have traded one Armageddon for another. We don't have balance, and won't until hit detection is fixed. Then real balancing can begin. Oh, one last bit of math, my 8 External DHS require 24 critical slots, plus 6 more for the ERPPCSs, for what can be described as inadequate heat dissipation; versus the 29 slots on my Pracht for 2 A\C 10s, 7 tons of ammo, 2x Case and excellent heat dissipation.

Edited by krolmir, 07 October 2013 - 04:44 PM.

[MischiefSC]

12mans and higher Elo games are packed full of jump-snipers using gauss and PPC/ERPPC or AC10 + PPC/ERPPC. PPCs are still terribly effective and people still use them. It's just harder now and not inherently, no question superior to every other weapon setup.

Go drop against 12 Highlander gauss/AC10 + PPC/ERPPC mechs. In fact go drop in 12 mans for a few matches and you will do just that. Then, after a 14 minute sniping match with 1 frenzied minute of rushing you'll see exactly why PPCs are where they are and why they should be.

They are a sniper weapon and a very tactical one. With a well coordinated team they still dominate. Lasers take a full second on target and the moment you are in view to shoot someone with them 4 people are dropping PPC/Gauss/AC10 rounds onto the same part of your torso while you're still waiting for your lasers to run their 1 second burn.

PPCs have never been this well balanced. Not in this game or MW4 even as they are right now. Of all the concerns I could/would bring to PGI right now PPCs are not one of them.

[Chemie]

OP: Good post but PGI is not listening. You might as well talk to the hand dude.

Fact is that ERPPC should be 11 or 12 based on the range but because of the new minimum range for PPC, they had to make it higher otherwise PPC is useless. Either way, they made ER useless. 15 heat is plain crazy.

Maybe make ER have same minimum and then make them 11 or 12 heat?

Edited by Chemie, 07 October 2013 - 05:05 PM.

[Nebelfeuer]

So higher elo players and 12mans are generally still not able to counter sniperbuilds??! Guess it was extrem talent and skill that brought some of them there,was it?

Besides talk is about ERppc here not the normal ppc. There may be better aproaches, and some of them where mentioned in this tread, but with the current system in place a reduction of heat(-2 or -3) for ERppc is definitely needed to make it perform on a level with other weapons again.

Oh and beside critslotreduction for heatsinks would unproportunally help big mechs with the tonnage to do so, keep in mind that there is medium and light mechs aswell.

2-3 more points of heat per shot then a standard PPC will allready keep a PPC attractive enough compared to ER variants so I do not see neeed for further "adjustments" here. 13 Heat was allready borderline and extreemly inconveniant for most builds not relieing on Gauss as secondary weapon.

Edited by Nebelfeuer, 07 October 2013 - 05:19 PM.

[Karl Streiger]

Sry - that i have to dig out the AC 10 problematic....

Yes the AC 10 is supperior in direct comparison to the ER-PPC - even the PPC if you mind, but thats exactly how it should be.
The average medium or light mech is not able to mount a AC 10 - so all that supperiority doesn't work for this units.

Please keep in mind that a ER-PPC over range deals 50% more damage as a PPC... when you measure the damage of a weapon each 10m - the ERPPC deals 1210dmg the PPC deals 805dmg (look into the Weapon BV calculation of Heavy Metall to understand that approach)

Done the same for LLAS vs ERLLAS -> here we have also 50% more damage - but only 20% more heat.
So the equivalent in heat for the ER-PPC would be 12.

But seriously does anybody say that the ER-LLAS is imba and need a heat nerf?

Just for fun i also measured the damage on range per heat point:
50 for the MLAS
86 for the LLAS
106 for the ERLLAS
80,5 for PPC
80,6 for ER-PPC

That means that the PPC vs ERPPC are perfectly balanced. You want the advantage of the ERPPC - you have to deal with the additional heat burden. A heat buff for the ER-PPC will simple destroy this balance.

So instead of buffing the ER-PPC a closer look towards the ER-LLAS is necessary.

[MustrumRidcully]

General Taskeen, on 07 October 2013 - 11:32 AM, said:

Other games do it? Why can't PGI? Developers of other games, like Hawken recently said, "you know what, this is whole skill tree we have for Mechs just doesn't make sense, so hey we're going to redo the whole thing, k guys?" Blizzard is completely getting rid of their whole auction house for Diablo 3. So other developers do go back on what they say when their customers say, "dude, you really need to rethink this."

Though, to play PGI's advocate, PGI ditched the whole Repair & Rearm thing when it didn't work out.

So there might still be hope.

[CravenMadness]

Actually, repair and re-arm would be something to use as an argument against buffing ppcs again... Making it so that you have to repair those highly explosive gauss guns, or renew the ammo spent every match for the Ac's would throw an extra variable into the equation and emphasize the bonus of running energy weapons that don't require ammo and are only destroyed if you lose that body part.

[Zephiris]

i may be wrong, and correct me please, but;

would it count, that the ppc weapons are the only ones that can temporarily knock out ecm on an enemy mech and by keeping that in mind, using other weapons like medium lasers and stuff, until the er/ppc is eventually needed again to knock out the next ecm mech in case there are any more, or the one from before recovers?

i think the ppc and erppc are quite more valuable as a tactical weapon, not just as an offensive weapon... that is why i like to carry an erppc in my ctf-3d along my lb10x and ac5 and some mediums...

i can live with the heat it generates, as long as i can disable that ecm atlas behind that hill and make the lurms rain on them...

just saying...

Edited by Zephiris2, 08 October 2013 - 05:04 AM.