44 replies to this topic

[Cerberias]

PPC's form the workhorse of any high alpha build, be it 2uac5/2ppc 1gauss/2ppc 1ac20/2ppc there will always be ppc's to give it a low tonnage no ammo high heat portion to the alpha (usually offset by low heat ballistics to give a good med ground for heat.

Gauss as it stands is NOT A SNIPER WEAPON. A charge time makes it a fire support weapon,as you must either pre-plan your charge or have the target in view for at least 0.75 seconds. This makes it {Scrap} in a competitive sniper war, as most targets will not be stupid enough to stay in view for that long, nor will you know where they are popping from to pre-charge gauss. A sniper weapon in most games will be a high damage single target INSTANT FIRE (unless you count zooming but you can hold that indefinitely) HIGH COOLDOWN weapon. Increase Gauss cooldown to 6-7 seconds and take away the charge timer and it becomes inferior to any of the AC weapons in a brawl, but it will outsnipe anything in the game because it can instant fire and the recharge time isn't a big drawback when you're not being punched in the face.

Now, the reasoning for giving ppc's the gauss is simple. It makes high damage alphas require skill or only ballistics to pull off easily.. this limits a lot of builds to be more 'rounded' as a lot of people will run screaming from the ppc's. To balance this, reduce the heat back down on ppc's to make them more rewarding for someone who can use them properly. The cooldown should also be changed slightly to keep the 4 second cooldown effective (0.75 sec charge on a 3.25 sec cooldown or similar) so they stay as a good alpha damage brawler weapon but lose a lot of effectiveness at 'popping' or getting off a big alpha and slipping back into cover.

[SirLANsalot]

I myself have thought of this. If the Gauss and the PPC got the charge mechanic swapped. It would be nice, but overall, not entirely necessary. Either way it doesn't matter, but still think the PPC mechanic wise should get it instead of the Gauss. Would make sense as the PPC is an energy weapon (hence the "charge") and the explosion of the Gauss due to the already charge capacitors.

Dose it need to happen? Not entirely.

[Curccu]

OI! DO NOT **** UP MY BELOVED GAUSS RIFLE!

[aniviron]

If PPCs get a charge mechanic, they need to return to pre-nerf state at 8 heat, 2000m/s projectile, no ghost heat and able to hit under 90m. As is, PPCs tend to see use mostly as a backup or complimentary weapon, either to round out a pair of AC5s or triplet of 2s, or backing up an AC20. Because they're so hot already it's rare to see them on any mech that relies on lasers or missiles for any other part of its damage output; making PPCs bad would only hasten the transition that is already happening on many mechs going from PPC + Autocannon to straight autocannon.

I'm also curious as to why you think that the charge time is a failed mechanic for gauss by not making it a sniper, but adding a charge to the PPC will make it a sniper weapon.

[SirLANsalot]

aniviron, on 22 October 2013 - 02:15 AM, said:

If PPCs get a charge mechanic, they need to return to pre-nerf state at 8 heat, 2000m/s projectile, no ghost heat and able to hit under 90m. As is, PPCs tend to see use mostly as a backup or complimentary weapon, either to round out a pair of AC5s or triplet of 2s, or backing up an AC20. Because they're so hot already it's rare to see them on any mech that relies on lasers or missiles for any other part of its damage output; making PPCs bad would only hasten the transition that is already happening on many mechs going from PPC + Autocannon to straight autocannon.

I'm also curious as to why you think that the charge time is a failed mechanic for gauss by not making it a sniper, but adding a charge to the PPC will make it a sniper weapon.

No.....just....no.

PPC are ment to be a mainline gun, or something to back up another slow firing mainline gun. Since they are far hotter, they will be one of those things.

a PPC doesn't backup an AC2 mech well, but it dose back up an AC5 mech. Why? AC2's are already "warm" weapons, they are still somewhat broken and do not give your mech (the poor heat system) time to cool down or keep cold while firing. However the AC5 DOSE do this, and dose it VERY well. It gives you good ROF without causing your mech to overheat, which is EXACTLY WHAT Ballistics are meant to do.

Making the PPC have a Charge, will make a few things happen (both are good). One, you can line up that shot better while charging. Two, prevents accidental shooting of allies when that ***** walks in front of you. The second one is more profoundly happening now due to the weak Locusts running about. Just a single PPC shot will kill it, and I have TKed teammates by accident with the ERPPC on my battlemaster, because he walked up next to me and I didn't see him. With a charge, I could of held my shot, let him pass. This is whats been nice about the Gauss right now, and having the two swapped, would be very nice. As I said, not necessary, but would be nice.

[Cerberias]

when did i ever say it would make ppc's a sniper weapon? it would turn them into what the gauss is now, a fire support weapon - this would put gauss back into the sniper category by letting it snapshot. Im sorry but if you think a charge mechanic is 'fine' as a sniper mechanic you havent played in high enough elo.

[aniviron]

SirLANsalot, on 22 October 2013 - 02:24 AM, said:

No.....just....no.

PPC are ment to be a mainline gun, or something to back up another slow firing mainline gun. Since they are far hotter, they will be one of those things.

a PPC doesn't backup an AC2 mech well, but it dose back up an AC5 mech. Why? AC2's are already "warm" weapons, they are still somewhat broken and do not give your mech (the poor heat system) time to cool down or keep cold while firing. However the AC5 DOSE do this, and dose it VERY well. It gives you good ROF without causing your mech to overheat, which is EXACTLY WHAT Ballistics are meant to do.

Making the PPC have a Charge, will make a few things happen (both are good). One, you can line up that shot better while charging. Two, prevents accidental shooting of allies when that ***** walks in front of you. The second one is more profoundly happening now due to the weak Locusts running about. Just a single PPC shot will kill it, and I have TKed teammates by accident with the ERPPC on my battlemaster, because he walked up next to me and I didn't see him. With a charge, I could of held my shot, let him pass. This is whats been nice about the Gauss right now, and having the two swapped, would be very nice. As I said, not necessary, but would be nice.

The AC2 is a bit warm, but when fired in alphas to bypass ghost heat (what a weird sentence, but it's true) it's still a lot cooler-running than a similar payload of mlas or srms.

I'm not sure if I should laugh or cry that you want PPCs to have a charge time because teammates are walking in front of you when you're firing. By the same logic, since apparently a single PPC shot kills a locust, wouldn't removing the charge from gauss cause you to teamkill as well? For that matter, what's preventing them from walking in front of you anyway with the charging mechanic? Also, if a charge time would help a PPC by letting you line up a shot, why doesn't it help gauss letting you line up a shot?

Face it: adding a charge time to PPCs will make them even less common than gauss is now. At least gauss is still 15 damage instantly for 1 heat, but putting a charge on PPC is 10 damage for ten heat on a slow projectile that doesn't hit under 90m, and you want to give people even less reasons to use it.

[Cerberias]

Did you not read what I wrote or are you purposefully ignoring the and I quote 'To balance this, reduce the heat back down on ppc's to make them more rewarding for someone who can use them properly. '

Gauss are nowhere to be seen in this game, at high levels the only times people run gauss are to mess around with it, everyone else runs uacs/2ppcs or ac5/2ppc or ac10/2ppc because enemies don't generally appear in high level play for more than a split second unless you're engaged or pushing or catch them out of position. PPC's are everywhere to be seen in this game, almost every GOOD build runs 2ppc (unless its a light/medium because they dont have the tonnage)

Nerfing gauss just turns people to similar but slightly different weapon systems, 2ac5 is 10 damage for 2 heat with a 1.5 second recharge, argueably better than gauss was PRE NERF. It does more dps by far, reasonable heat and gives more cockpit shake. The downsides being that you lose 1/3 alpha damage and a slight heat increase. Nerfing PPC's is going to completely shake up the meta. I mean really, whats the main thing every competitive build has been running for the last X amount of time - ding ding ding, the answer is 2+ppc's. PPC's 'bulk out' an alpha by giving it an extra 10 pts for only 7 tonnes, with a good range to boot, and when you combine it with that high damage ballistic setup they compliment eachother perfectly giving both a good alpha (but not rediculous - see the old massed ppc builds), with a good heat management (but not rediculous, compared to say dual gauss etc..) . But it's ppc's that need to have the charge, because they're the cornerstone of these builds, not the gauss, not the uac5's not the ac20 but the ppc's.

Edited by Cerberias, 22 October 2013 - 03:11 AM.

[FinsT]

enemies won't appear for more than a split of a second? Really? Well, might be true if we talk enemies in lights; but any heavy popping its head out to snipe a bit, - does not have so quick engine as to stop and then pick significant reverse speed in less than a second. Add some time for them to initially pop out, too. It's definitely more than 1 second in total. Which means, lasers are an ooption. And since ERLL has more range than PPC, weighs 2 less tons, produces less heat per point of damage, and has lower cooldown time, - i can't see why PPCs could exactly be the only cornerstone there can be. Especially considering that at a long range (say, 750 meters), PPC's projectile would take 0.5 seconds to simply _arrive_ there; if enemy is always gone, it'd deal ZERO damage. While ERLL would happily be melting the face of the opponent for up to said 0.5 seconds, and even if the enemy breaks LoS exactly at 0.49s mark, - ERLL will still be able to deal half of its damage (4.5 points of damage). And, of course, ERLLs does not have a minimum range, on top of all the above.

PPCs are a cornerstones? Really? For boosting one's alpha, really? Man, it really depends. See about ERLLs above. Plus, if heat management (due to a particular mech design, other weaponry required, etc) is a too big problem, - there are LLs, too, since they give substantially less heat than both ERLLs and PPCs (per point of damage), and are still at 9 points per shot. Comaparable to PPC range, too. If tonnage is a problem (say, one is going 3xUAC/5 on a jager), then even MLs can be a backbone of one's alpha. Ever met a full punch of 4xML 3xUAC/5 jager? The thing spits out 50 points of damage in a second (1st second, no jams, 1 second for MLs to deal full damage), 20 of which is MLs, and the other 30 is 3x2 UAC/5 shots. Now, replace these 4 MLs with a single PPC (can't fit two PPCs due to tonnage restraints of Jager), - cripling your armor for 3 more tons with that, - and what your alpha becomes? 40. With a longer cooldown with that, too. Sure, MLs are much shorter range, but 50 alpha at 270 OR 40 alpha at 540 (with 3 less tons of armor to get that higher range of a single PPC in the setup, as compared to MLs) - is one non-trivial choice.

Edited by FinsT, 22 October 2013 - 03:56 AM.

[SirLANsalot]

Reducing the heat on PPC's is what I really was saying NO to as well.

Heat is what makes the PPC.....the PPC. The Benefits of the weapon is very low tonnage and small crit space but you pay in very high heat. The reason we had sooooooooooo many PPC's out there was when they were cooler, they were easy to take. The heat that is supposed to keep that weapon in check wasn't there, or was easily dealt with. Which is why your seeing SOOOO many more people whine about how "hot" the PPC is and are shifting to more ballistic weapons, which is a good thing. Ballistics have there own drawbacks besides tonnage and crit, its the ammo. When you don't have to think about ammo, you can just shoot willy nilly and not care what you hit, but when you have to make those shots count for something. Thats when you start to become a better player, and a better pilot, its the progression of SKILL.




So no, do not touch the heat of the PPC, it is fine where it is. It means players will have to make a CONSCIOUS decision to take one knowing they will have to deal with the heat one way or another.

[rageagainstthedyingofthelight]

Yeah, the last thing this game needs is more powerful ballistics. Have you tried taking ANY ballistics's mech head on with an energy mech? No, of course you haven't because that would be suicide.

Alpha's work as Alpha's should work, as a calculated risk. I've blown myself up on non-override using ppc's because I was just so close to killing some one. The problem with gauss was that it didn't generate heat and you could add it to any alpha with no penalty and because with the absence of any real ammo explosion danger, there is no downside to boating as many ballistics as you can carry on your mech.

Heat is already too high on PPC's (more than one ER is unusable even with 21 heat sinks you can only fire them twice without waiting for cooldown). No on is firing more than 2, they have huge recharge rate (making them a liability in close combat) and are already a "secondary" weapon. No energy weapon has near the "stopping" power of guass (or more commonly dual guass) especially when you can't fire 3 LL's without a heat penalty.

The charge time is the price you pay for a extreme damage/no heat weapon.

[Cerberias]

Alrighty, where do I start Fin. Firstly, at high ELO the only shots people will generally be taking outside of a brawl, will be either jumpjet sniping or stalker popping, which is very hard to counterfire at the best of times, and even if you do they have a good chance of doing the same to you - only they'll be hitting you with a 30-40 point alpha to the exact same location - most of the time. You, return firing with your lasers, will most likely do spread damage (good poptarts don't jump up and down on a straight vertical line, and once a poptart takes a shot they will usually torso twist, spreading a good portion of your damage to their shield torso or extremities, and a 'popping' stalker will only expose the most miniscule area of their mech, while maintaining a good range gap to avoid return fire).

Thats the main reason 'good' players have an issue with lasers, because they require you to stare at your opponent for a whole second. Thats a second where you aren't twisting your torso at all, so you're essentially opening yourself up for not just return fire from that specific person, but also anyone else in the vicinity. The instant alpha player (who in most cases needs to use ppc's or dual heavy ballistics to achieve this) will start torso twisted, flick their torso over to you, take a shot, and twist back (most players will have jumpjetted going sideways to avoid crotch shots, and will only be firing on the decent of the fall, and will be back to being torso twisted by the time they have landed). What this means is that youve got maybe a split second where you can hit CT reliably, and a lot of time where you're less likely to hit their 'gun' side (see highlanders) and much more likely for your shot to hit the 'shield' side. This is generally why you will only see lasers on fast mechs, or stalkers (because they dont have to expose themselves much at all and can generally attack from cover with near impunity, and even then they're still subpar to ppc's for the job, and only run because of the ghost heat penalties and minimum range making it too much of a liability to being rushed, something in which it is already very weak due to it's high heat damage source, i.e. no ballistics, on the misery you will still see good players running ac20/2ppc or similar) and you wont see lasers on highlanders. It is also extremely hard to poptart with lasers and keep your beam on the enemy for the duration, and you have to once again, expose yourself for longer.

Once again, I have to be a {Richard Cameron} about it, and I can only talk about my own experiences in the competitive MWO tournaments being run by the community. I have not, and will not ever base a balance decision based on a pug, because lets face it, you can run almost anything, have a good game and do well in a pug. In a comp game you will get gobbled up and spat out in anything that doesn't revolve around the meta. I will however say that a lot of the high end groups have been doing trial runs with dual ERLL scouts, as return fire isn't much of an issue - try hitting a moving spider at ~700m under ECM and see how you go, they're hard to engage upon and they can do damage while scouting, and of course being spotted isn't a big deal as a scout. But once again, it's on a mech that is light enough to not be too worried about 'facing' the enemy because they're less worried about being hit altogether.

One last thing - a jager isn't a good mech at the best of times, and a triple uac5 has an XL engine. An XL jager is the mech I would consider the most fragile. The amount of times you see one coming or they're slightly popped up and all you have to do is put two 40+ point alphas into your side torso and you're dead. TWO SHOTS LOL. (or three if your alphas less than ~40) If you ever see an XL jager in a comp game, someones trolling.. or bad. I hope this explains why you don't use lasers over PPC's.

Also, I have to add that while I have been trying to run Gauss for a week or so, as soon as I play against decently skilled players, the gauss gets shat on. Ive had 1200+ damage games with the gauss over the last week. Does that make it good? Hell no. It makes it good against bad players. The charge up really hinders the gauss against a non-charge up build in a 1v1 situation, it's simply too clunky to use well against an enemy that is unpredictable and doesn't stay in view for more than a split second. I just end up trading my ppc's with maybe 1/5 hits landing with the gauss (because I saw jj smoke and precharged, generally) and they win the battle over time.

Edited by Cerberias, 22 October 2013 - 03:14 PM.

[GalaxyBluestar]

SirLANsalot, on 22 October 2013 - 04:09 AM, said:

Reducing the heat on PPC's is what I really was saying NO to as well.

Heat is what makes the PPC.....the PPC. The Benefits of the weapon is very low tonnage and small crit space but you pay in very high heat. The reason we had sooooooooooo many PPC's out there was when they were cooler, they were easy to take. The heat that is supposed to keep that weapon in check wasn't there, or was easily dealt with. Which is why your seeing SOOOO many more people whine about how "hot" the PPC is and are shifting to more ballistic weapons, which is a good thing. Ballistics have there own drawbacks besides tonnage and crit, its the ammo. When you don't have to think about ammo, you can just shoot willy nilly and not care what you hit, but when you have to make those shots count for something. Thats when you start to become a better player, and a better pilot, its the progression of SKILL.




So no, do not touch the heat of the PPC, it is fine where it is. It means players will have to make a CONSCIOUS decision to take one knowing they will have to deal with the heat one way or another.

ppcs/ erppcs heat is fine but GH is a bandaid to the real problem, knocking out CT's too fast, big hitboxes alphas/group fire having convergence etc. ballistics are the new newb weapons you can carry enough ammo to rip up 20 mechs and afford some misses and there's no heat holding you back. try and run a laser boat and you'll be out of heat containment in 2 salvos and will have to find a retreat to cool for ages, that's why ballistics mechs just charge you laughing they know energy mechs can't fight back now and missle mechs have to rely on support or they'll suffer the same too. ballistics DOES not equal skill. no more than ppc's because both are pinpoint front load damage weapons. so either balance the rate a CT can be taken out or find a way to make all weapons dish out simillar damage at a simillar rate which i don't think anyone really wants but for now ballistics is no skill, compared to builds around the other two systems you're almost getting 3 salvos for every 1 of theres. this is pgi's balancing the "skill" buck just gets passed on from {not including HSR failier and potarting forever dictating the terms of the fight} streaks to ecm to missles to lasers to ppcs/gauss and now...



and newbies are just being told follow the meta... game is really full of ballance. skills for ballistics yeah right! pug in an energy boat and learn the skills of heat managment whilst still being plinked and cockpit shaken cause ammo isn't holding anyone back.

Edited by GalaxyBluestar, 22 October 2013 - 09:29 PM.

[LordDread]

this is what i said when they first talked about the charge timer, it should be on the ppc's, and that if it was put on the guass, then it shouldn't explode unless it was charged at the time it was destroyed, just doesn't make sense otherwise

[Cerberias]

I don't see anything impressive about that screenshot, nor does it pertain in any way shape or form to the topic (that I can understand). You should never ever balance things based on pug games, pugs are stupid, they play poorly, use bad builds and run into horrible positions and complain about what they think is imbalanced but is usually just whatever they've died to a few times recently - i.e. they have no idea about the game, that screenshot shows just how much of a pug you are. Please, read the entire topic - and PLEASE REPLY TO THE ACTUAL TOPIC ASWELL.

Also, I'm confused by the calls that the charge time makes people more accurate with the Gauss? How? You didn't HAVE to snapshot the Gauss before, you had the option, now you don't have the option.

Edited by Cerberias, 22 October 2013 - 10:00 PM.

[Alex Warden]

rageagainstthedyingofthelight, on 22 October 2013 - 11:46 AM, said:

Yeah, the last thing this game needs is more powerful ballistics. Have you tried taking ANY ballistics's mech head on with an energy mech? No, of course you haven't because that would be suicide.

Alpha's work as Alpha's should work, as a calculated risk. I've blown myself up on non-override using ppc's because I was just so close to killing some one. The problem with gauss was that it didn't generate heat and you could add it to any alpha with no penalty and because with the absence of any real ammo explosion danger, there is no downside to boating as many ballistics as you can carry on your mech.

Heat is already too high on PPC's (more than one ER is unusable even with 21 heat sinks you can only fire them twice without waiting for cooldown). No on is firing more than 2, they have huge recharge rate (making them a liability in close combat) and are already a "secondary" weapon. No energy weapon has near the "stopping" power of guass (or more commonly dual guass) especially when you can't fire 3 LL's without a heat penalty.

The charge time is the price you pay for a extreme damage/no heat weapon.

i can only second this statement. plus it´s really not a problem to fire a gauss, i don´t really know why people whine so much about it...
probably because they can´t poptart with it properly (which i know some people still manage to do) ...

about ppc: well i think enough people already said it, but again. it´s already hot as hell, which makes them a powerful but a risk/profit weapon.

the gauss needed the chargetime, i know that many disagree. it was too powerful without a real downside (the stupid bandaid solution of very low HP aside).

Now it´s still a high precision, high velocity, extreme range, very high pinpoint damage, no heat, non explosive ammo weapon which has to be aimed for merely a second... if that´s too hard for you...well, no one can help you

[Deathz Jester]

So wait the OP is crying about the gauss being nerfed because this isn't Sniperwarrior Online? People crying about the gauss charge mechanic are the ones that suck so horrendously with it they feel the need to cry about not being able to use it. A tiny, charge mechanic should not "break" the weapon for you, if it does then I challenge your ability to play the game.


.75 seconds is it? is that too long for your wittle finger to hold a button?

[Cerberias]

Gauss isn't hard to poptart with, the issue as I see it, is that why the hell would you run a gauss if your build can run dual ac5 instead? Instant shot >>>>>>> charged shot, you have a much higher damage per second so it's good for a brawl aswell - not to mention the cockpit shake accompanied by the dakka. You lose a slight amount of alpha damage, and a slight amount of heat management. Changing PPC's to charge instead of gauss will simply make all the 'high alpha instant damage' builds have a charge mechanic, instead of Gauss - I honestly wouldnt care about the mechanic - I mean I still use gauss - but as long as all the builds that served the same purpose were in the same boat.. i.e. ppc's having charge.

Edit: Holy {Scrap} people get some reading comprehension before you post, its embarrassing for you all. Harlequin - Gauss is not bad, I think it definitely has its place (hell, ive been running it for the last week almost straight) - my point is that it is NOT a sniper weapon, a pair of AC5's is both a better sniper weapon AND a better brawl weapon due to the instant fire nature. Giving PPC's charge time puts all of these builds in the same boat, instead of just singling out gauss centric builds. I also will mention that at low/average elo this is probably not an issue, people stand still more, use cover less, generally just play worse. Gauss at high Elo isnt even worth taking - and once again, if you can show me a high ranked team that is willing to run Gauss as it is - ill eat my hat.

Please guys, read the post the first time, getting sick of reiterating my point because over 50% of the replies to this topic have been utter drivel.

Edited by Cerberias, 22 October 2013 - 10:22 PM.

[Alex Warden]

well afaik PGI mentioned that they would add more "weapon specific characteristics/ mechanics" to other weapons as well, so we might see ac´s and ppc´s getting some "specials" as well as the gauss has now... the game´s not done by far

[Relic1701]

Cerberias, on 22 October 2013 - 02:47 AM, said:

this would put gauss back into the sniper category by letting it snapshot.

And here was me thinking Snipers have patience, and line up their shots!