118 replies to this topic

[Hexenhammer]

RacerX, on 09 November 2013 - 09:36 AM, said:

WHAT'S UP WITH LASERS?

Heat.

Edited by Hexenhammer, 10 November 2013 - 12:39 AM.

[Asbjorn Ironside]

RacerX, on 09 November 2013 - 09:36 AM, said:

Why does it seem that lasers are total garbage weapons now. AC seem to cut through armor like a hot knife through butter. LRMs are taking out mechs in droves. An yet when I shoot a horribly damaged mech with two Large Lasers and two Medium lasers in a red, unarmored torso section nothing happens. This isn't just one game and my aim is pretty good when the mech is shut down in 10 meters in front of me. I'm seeing this consistently in my matches. If I shoot something with twin AC/5s I'm coring folks. If I hit them with multiple lasers its like I'm shooting blanks. Is anyone else experiencing these types of issues?

Sorry OP I disagree. I use AC2's and ML's together and have a Battlemaster with LL's and AC's and Lasers work fine with me. In fact they work amazingly well when combined with Ac's. Use the Ac to chip away their armour and then a Laser is an easy one hit finish once their ct are is gone. At least that is what I have been doing in all my matches. IMO AC2's and AC10's are the best as they both work really well when properly used and used in conjunction with lasers. Hopefully they will remove the ghost heat issue with AC2's soon but that is another issue.
I'm sorry youre finding lasers so terrible. From my experience they are fine.

[Lupus Aurelius]

Marcus VII, on 10 November 2013 - 04:02 AM, said:

... and Lasers work fine with me. In fact they work amazingly well when combined with Ac's. ...

And if one's mech does not have a ballistic slot?

[Asbjorn Ironside]

I like my HBK 4P alot, it works great for me It took quite a bit of practice mind you so I got heat management right but once I did its just as effective as some of my ballistic-focused mechs. As much as I love AC's LL's just seem to **** imo. I have two on my Thunderbolt and I love it. Theyre just difficult to master

[EndlessBoogie]

So lasers are fine , only hard to master and ac´s are easygoing...

Guess what will happen...

[GRiPSViGiL]

Obvious case of user error.

[Victor Morson]

RacerX, on 09 November 2013 - 09:36 AM, said:

Why does it seem that lasers are total garbage weapons now.

I'll give you a clue as to the problem. You may need to call the Ghost Busters.

[Lupus Aurelius]

Victor Morson, on 10 November 2013 - 06:07 AM, said:

I'll give you a clue as to the problem. You may need to call the Ghost Busters.

Minor issue in comparison with the others:

-Beam duration and damage during duration
-Double HS that are 1.4 heat per 10 sec. dissipation
-Ballistics (other than machine guns and LBX) doing pinpoint damage, instead of burst damage from multiple rapid fired shells.
-Firing times modified from TT that, combined with heat mechanics, that totally borked the relationship between weapons
-Modifying said firing times, but leaving heat dissipation the same as the 10sec TT turn

Edited by Lupus Aurelius, 10 November 2013 - 06:40 AM.

[MadCat02]

Diego Angelus, on 09 November 2013 - 11:51 AM, said:

Yes if we look at it like that but if you add in ghost heat when firing more of them and add in weight and space it takes to add DHS it doesn't look so good when compared to ballistics.

You can fire 6 Mediums or 2 ER without ghost heat . Not hat hard . Also ACs are not hot in general unless you spam 3xAC2 which you shoulden't have in a first place .

Edited by MadCat02, 10 November 2013 - 07:16 AM.

[Frogfire]

I think the balance is good. If you can keep your ERLL on the same area, it will do its nine points of damage just as well as ballistics. Ballistics are hit or miss, where you can often swing your laser to do at least part of the damage.

Some of the problems might stem from the way people play. There is alot of standing still when taking aim, and even missile boats seem to be rooted - making them a choice target for any cannon. There is also alot of bigger boats, which makes for bigger targets.

You just have to focus for a short period of time with the AC20 to land 20 damage, which takes 2 large and a full second with lasers. But try to hit a light on the move with that same AC20, and you might find you are just making pretty holes in the ground. Even a dodging jager at full speed can prove a difficult target to hit from a few hundred meters away.

I would never leave home without at least one energy weapon. I would rather drop a ton of ammo for a ML, so I still have options if my ammo runs out. The laser is often better against fast mechs, or to track up to that wounded shoulder with the XL.

[Mawai]

Just to add 2 cents ...

My experience lately is that there may be a hit detection issue with lasers. There appears to be hit detection issues with the other weapon systems .. it isn't surprising that lasers suffer the same way. However, the problem is harder to diagnose with lasers since instead of hit or miss you get part of the beam duration hitting and other parts missing ... so it almost always does some damage to some part of the mech. It is easy to write this off as aiming issues or the fact that DOT weapons can hit multiple components ... but I would say that at least a portion of the issue is hit detection.

With ballistic weapons ... they either hit or miss ... so a AC's easily core mechs when they hit. Lasers on the other hand ... part of the duration hits and part misses.

PGI should be able to resolve this issue with a properly set up diagnostic client and server. It isn't a simple problem but it should be possible to identify situations where the weapons should hit (in a test environment) and then trace back why they did not. This should be done with scripted clients in a controlled test environment ... start from stationary and move up to a circle strafing scenario. Unfortunately, it isn't clear that PGI has the available manpower to properly diagnose and debug this issue in a timely fashion (maybe they should consider outside contractors to look into specific bugs ).

[Khobai]

Quote

It's not that AC is broken, it's that the beam/missile equivalent aren't on par with it

Actually it is the ACs that are broken. Almost everyone agrees damage is too high. Buffing lasers/missiles to be on par with AC would result in damage being even higher, which would not be a good thing. AC and PPC pinpoint damage needs a huge nerf.

[nehebkau]

The Solution to Energy weapon 'spread' vs AC pinpoint damage is easy to deal with.

1. Assuming that (most of the time) you spread out your laser fire over a portion of the target rather than delivering it to 1 direct point.
2. Assuming that spread vs. pinpoint is the only real difference in weapon performance.

Find out the percent of laser fire that typically goes where you want it to go in a fight across all mech weights. (meaning that your spread may be 80% across lights and 10% across assaults)

Increase reload times for AC weapons by the average percent spread. This means that actual POINT SPECIFIC DPS is now equal. It means that I still wouldn't like to get AC40d to the core, but there is some wiggle room before that becomes an AC80 to the core.


For example:
If, across the board, only 50% (pulled the number out of my *** and the actual value would have to be investigated) of laser fire goes where directed due to firing mechanics set
reload times as follows:
AC2: Current 0.52 New: 0.78
AC5: Current: 1.00 New: 1.50
UAC5: Current: 1.00 New: 1.50
AC10: Current: 2.50 New: 3.75
LBX10: Current: 2.50 New: 3.75
AC20: Current: 4.00 New: 6.00
Gauss: Current: 4.00 New: 6.00

It would make it a tiny bit more difficult to play the bigger ACs but they would stil be nice "wanna piece of me!" weapons.

<<DANGER>> <<inbound don't nerf my AC DPS QQs>> <<DANGER>>

Edited by nehebkau, 10 November 2013 - 09:23 AM.

[Whatzituyah]

Victor Morson, on 10 November 2013 - 06:07 AM, said:

I'll give you a clue as to the problem. You may need to call the Ghost Busters.

Whoops I called them!
http://www.youtube.c...e&v=m9We2XsVZfc
They said they couldn't solve my ghost heat problem

That joking aside I really think ghost heat is a problem because what is the new meta? Lrm and Ballistic basically.

Edited by Whatzituyah, 10 November 2013 - 09:48 AM.

[Roadbeer]

mirrimon, on 09 November 2013 - 12:07 PM, said:

Often you are not really sacrificing much offensivly due to limited hardpoints. If the choice was an ac20 and 1 ton of ammo or 10ml and some heatsinks, that would swing more in favor of the energy.

You may not be sacrificing much offensively, but you are taking a huge chance defensively by loading on a lot of explosive material that has a chance of doing more damage to you than your opponent ever will.

In another thread I discuss this 80 tube Stalker I have with around 2k in ammo... it's not competitive, it's just fun. 8 times out of 10, when I get taken out, it's from an ammo explosion.

Edited by Roadbeer, 10 November 2013 - 11:07 AM.

[Sandpit]

My stalkers and Bmasters would disagree with the OP. Regularly doing over 500 damage and a positive K/D ratio running energy boats would seem to say otherwise. I don't play them the same way I play a ballistics or LRM support boat either though. With energy weapon it's very important to not charge in and think you're going to win a straight up brawl against ballistics. If your'e running in and trying to flat out outbrawl a mech built for high pinpoint damage, you're going to lose. If you use cover, peek in and out, move locations, and be a little more ninja-like you'll have much more success.

If you're running a short range energy based mech, then you wait for your team's pinpoint brawlers to move in or for the enemy to close before you swoop in. You're not designed to go toe to toe with that but you ARE built to survive.

I run laser boats just fine and do quite well with them. That simple statement invalidates any claims that lasers are useless, up, or any other such statements. If I can effectively use them, then that means anyone can. If a player is unwilling to adapt their tactics and playstyle to use them effectively, then that's a pilot error and not the weapon system or mechanics.

[Corbon Zackery]

In order to make sure laser weren't dominate in the game they pulse there damage over a few sec or 2.

This can lead to what I call water pistol effect were the 5 points of you Medium laser damage is spread over several areas or the 8 points of a Large laser are spread over several sections of a mech.

Movement increases the effect.

[Taemien]

Lupus Aurelius, on 09 November 2013 - 11:37 AM, said:

Lasers are not suppose to be spread damage over time. TT, they were pinpoint, and the other MW games as well. Please do not state your opinion as a fact.

MWLL had beam durations for their Lasers and ER Lasers. Heavy Lasers even had longer beam durations than normal. In TT lasers were not pinpoint, they hit a random location like any other weapon. For game balance they hit all the same location. But this wasn't the case in lore. Lasers are frequently described as cutting ribbons through armor, sometimes going across different locations.

The problem we are seeing with weapons, is as the game evolves and they fix certain bugs, the changes in HSR don't keep up (they require testing to get right), so those need to be updated with any network changes they make. PGI's biggest mistake was going with CryEngine.

If this was a subscription game, they could even possibly go with client side hit detection. That is actually something I support. All weapons would always work. But many of you can't afford that.

[Corbon Zackery]

If laser were direct damage I could boat 5 of them for 25 damage and 15 heat. Even with 10 double heatsinks at 1.4 is 14 heat dissipation. So your looking 3 to 6 shots before overheat with all damage going directly to one spot. That's what we call a dominate weapon.

Now I do believe the graphic mechanics need to be changed for Pulse and regular lasers they should be swapped around.

Laser beam itself needs to be tighter more compact with ionization glow. It should look like your carving into the armor. Almost like the ship phasers in Wrath of Kahn

Edited by Corbon Zackery, 10 November 2013 - 01:24 PM.

[Khobai]

Quote

In order to make sure laser weren't dominate in the game they pulse there damage over a few sec or 2.

Which is fine. The problem is they didnt stop to think that autocannons/ppcs might become dominant for the same reasons. Autocannons need to be changed so they burst fire more and spread out their damage across multiple locations. PPCs should also do splash damage to spread their damage. Its the only way plausible way to nerf pinpoint alpha without introducing RNG into the game. The DoT/splash doesnt need to be nearly as extreme as lasers, but these weapons have to spread damage more, or they will always be dominant.

Edited by Khobai, 10 November 2013 - 01:36 PM.