70 replies to this topic

[Lindonius]

Nik Van Rhijn, on 28 November 2013 - 03:09 PM, said:

I prefer my 4P swayback with 9SPL - even with the speedcap it can work. It is also a great light defence - ECM has no effect.
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...4861b880803b120

You seem to have misplaced some armour on your centre torso there bud.

[stjobe]

Nik Van Rhijn, on 28 November 2013 - 03:09 PM, said:

I prefer my 4P swayback with 9SPL - even with the speedcap it can work. It is also a great light defence - ECM has no effect.
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...4861b880803b120

And, funny as that build may be, it still overheats after five alphas (17 seconds - four alphas or 12 seconds without pilot skills).
Compare that to a standard 4G AC/20+2ML build which has the same alpha.

Seriously; 18 DHS on that thing an if it fires six times back-to-back it shuts down. That's two DHS for every SL it has. How can anyone argue with a straight face that this isn't broken?

[Drunk Canuck]

I think having the range severely nerfed on AC2's and both AC5 and Ultra AC5's would put them into a better line, however the fire rate of the AC2 needs to be dropped significantly to prevent the quad AC2 JM6's with macros from being able to severely damage you before you can close the range for a weapon like the ER Large Laser to really start being effective. I know in MechWarrior Living Legends they made it so that Autocannons all deal more damage at closer range and they actually made it so that the UAC5, RAC5 and standard AC5 cannons all did more damage at closer ranges because people were using them as ranged sniping weapons while still dealing larger amounts of damage.

[hercules1981]

Drunk Canuck, on 28 November 2013 - 03:45 PM, said:

I think having the range severely nerfed on AC2's and both AC5 and Ultra AC5's would put them into a better line, however the fire rate of the AC2 needs to be dropped significantly to prevent the quad AC2 JM6's with macros from being able to severely damage you before you can close the range for a weapon like the ER Large Laser to really start being effective. I know in MechWarrior Living Legends they made it so that Autocannons all deal more damage at closer range and they actually made it so that the UAC5, RAC5 and standard AC5 cannons all did more damage at closer ranges because people were using them as ranged sniping weapons while still dealing larger amounts of damage.

Making changes to weapons because of an outside program, (macros) is the stupidest thing to do. They should just outlaw Marcos if it's such a problem. The fire rate for the ac2s has to be this high it is the weakest weapon in the game per shot besides a machine gun. Oh and running straight at someone that has u ranged is a noob move.

Edited by hercules1981, 28 November 2013 - 05:55 PM.

[Wintersdark]

Drunk Canuck, on 28 November 2013 - 03:45 PM, said:

I think having the range severely nerfed on AC2's and both AC5 and Ultra AC5's would put them into a better line, however the fire rate of the AC2 needs to be dropped significantly to prevent the quad AC2 JM6's with macros from being able to severely damage you before you can close the range for a weapon like the ER Large Laser to really start being effective. I know in MechWarrior Living Legends they made it so that Autocannons all deal more damage at closer range and they actually made it so that the UAC5, RAC5 and standard AC5 cannons all did more damage at closer ranges because people were using them as ranged sniping weapons while still dealing larger amounts of damage.

Oh, god, not this again:

1) Macros do not make AC2's fire faster or do more damage. All you can do is stagger their firing so it appears they are firing faster, but they're not. Instead of getting hit for 8 damage every .5 seconds, you hit for 2 damage every .125s, for example. Same DPS.

2) Doing the above post-ghost heat will overheat your mech absurdly quickly. This is because the game counts each gun fired in less than .5s towards ghost heat, so after 5 seconds the Ghost Heat calculation on a quad AC2 Jag firing as above considers you to be firing all 40 shots as a single alpha strike.

[Nastyogre]

Lightfoot, on 27 November 2013 - 08:45 PM, said:

The Mechs are just too weak. They need to create a Battletech balanced game with no Ghost Heat, working Gauss Rifles, DHS 2.0 (full) then either reduce the damage the weapons do across the board or increase the toughness of the Mechs.

Why? Because Battletech set the three weapon types to be roughly equal, but each with a different weakness and strength. This adds a third layer of strategy to MechWarrior where the map enviornment can grant superiority to one of the weapon types. Thus, if players know they are preparing for a hot map like Tourmaline, they will take mostly cool Ballistic weapons. Conversely if they are preparing for Frozen City, they would take mostly Energy weapons to gain the benefits of that enviornment.

Right now, MWO is just all AC's and Ghost heat and DHS 1.4 is such a severe burden that the sub-zero maps grant no advantage to increasing the energy weapon loadout.

So MWO misses the bigger strategic picture because it relies too heavily on a couple of heat nerfs that also make ACs so effective.

I can't disagree more. We already play with doubled Armor. You want weapons to do less?
Lengthen the recycle time of all weapons substantially, force people to target and not just blaze away. Reintroduce collisions, elim ghost heat and introduce non-pinpoint firing. THEN you have a thinking man's game.

It would allow brawlers to close but if they had to wait 10 sec to fire that ac 20 again? then the range beast runs past, spins and hammers the brawler.

You would try and hold a line, not just wade it like the drones do now.

[Rorvik]

Sandpit, on 28 November 2013 - 09:00 AM, said:

Weight

Weight isn't really a trade off. If I put 2xAC20s in a Jager, what's the trade off in weight? That I can't put two more AC/20s in it? You can build a Jager with 2xAC/20s or with 4xLPLs. The weapons damage, ranges and weights are roughly the same; there's no real trade off in weight here.

Sandpit, on 28 November 2013 - 09:00 AM, said:

Crit Clots

Granted, due to their size they are easier to crit, but that presumes you can pour enough direct damage onto that section. With a ballistics, you can, but with laser and missile damage being spread all over the place, it's rather difficult.

Sandpit, on 28 November 2013 - 09:00 AM, said:

Ammo Dependent

Technically true, but is this truly relevant? I run an HBK-4G build with 2xLL and an LB 10-X with 45 rounds of ammo and I think I can count on one hand the number of matches I've run out of ammo. Same with my AC/20 YLW with 28 rounds of ammo. As long as you don't waste your ammo and bring enough for a typical match, it's not an issue.

Sandpit, on 28 November 2013 - 09:00 AM, said:

Ammo Explosions

Put them in the leg. No one ever goes for the legs unless you are a light mech. Also, if you're in an AC/40 Jager, you're running an XL engine. By the time an ammo explosion is likely to occur in your torso (assuming you didn't put it in the legs), it's just as or more likely that you're XL engine is going to get crit.

Sandpit, on 28 November 2013 - 09:00 AM, said:

Hit or Miss

It's really not that hard to hit with an AC/20, especially since you'll be using it in closer quarters. And even then, you're trading "hit or miss" mechanics for "pin point, instant" damage, so at least in this regard, the ACs are balanced.

Where it's unbalanced is the range you can still do high damage at. You can aim at far away targets, hit them, and do significant damage, but lasers and missiles cannot. Right now:

Ballistics: high range, very accurate
Lasers: low to mid range, low to moderately accurate

What it should be:

Ballistics: very accurate, low to mid range
Lasers: low to moderately accurate, high range

Edited by Rorvik, 28 November 2013 - 08:49 PM.

[Koniving]

The other problem is reasonably true, and if the weapons were not single shot the concept of tracer rounds could work rather well.

Sascha Kohlmann, on 27 November 2013 - 02:52 PM, said:

Problem: Players get sniped on long distances with AC with nearly no time to react if fired uppon
Cause: Ac hit over long distance with extreme accuracy, speed and damage
Solution suggestion: Reduce the accuracy of AC when fired in short succession (to encourage players to shot in short salvos instead hitting the trigger until the target is down [like when fireing when jumping the bullet lands a bit off centre]. Also reduce drastically the damage an AC is doing when exceeding its maximum range.

But for this issue.. That's sort of the idea. At the same time, I also think all weapons are far too accurate. Have you ever watched a mech walk? None of them should be even remotely as accurate while moving at high speeds. Switch to third person, look at a point on the ground and watch your crosshair as you move at different speeds. Notice how it bobs with every step, and matches the animation of your mech perfectly? Now do the same thing in first person. Notice how it ignores all movement and remains perfectly stationary in the center of your screen?

We call this "head-bob." Where the area that you as the player are targeting 'bobs' or hobbles with, in this case, the mech. It is what makes firing during rapid movement inaccurate even in games that do NOT have a 'cone of accuracy'. Your shots are precise at wherever the crosshair is even during the bobbing. This means while moving you have to time your shots, and different mechs move and bob differently.

Here. I'm discussing it during one of Lordred's videos in which he presses third person and notices it. The link is time skipped to it. It is by far the simplest solution to pinpoint accuracy and 'sniping' at high speed. It would also encourage slower moving mechs, as the slower you move the more accurate you are when shooting, which would then be a 'soft' improvement to host state rewind (lag compensation) as well as hit detection.

[Karl Streiger]

hercules1981, on 28 November 2013 - 03:15 PM, said:

A weapon that has ammo and needs to lead targets should be a better weapon when used well because it takes more skill to use it. And to those complaining about getting shot at 1200 meters away, one statement of advice keep your head down always even if you think u r far enough away from the enemy shame on u for running around in the open like a dope.

Good joke - did you realize that one of the major critism of PGI weapon balancing was that they moved in a circle.
Currently the weapon stats are near those values they had in the Closed Beta....And did anybody did use PPCs or AC 5s or AC 10s in Closed Beta (some people did, but the most did use Laser)
And You should have been part of Closed Beta or at least the first month of Open Beta to remind that - although there wasn't ghost heat - SHS did not allow to mount multiple Large Laser and use them.

So what happended? Why are ACs currently that often in use - while hardly anybody did use them back there?
The answer is simple - take a Victor, Highlander, Dragon and mount in one arm a PPC in the other a AC 5 - go to training ground and try to hit targets with snapfire while you are crossing in front of them. (make it without Lock On - made it with Lock On - made it with SnapFire - made it with carefull aiming)
And if you are not complete awesome - you should realize that hardly any of your shots hit where you did aim - when only using snap fire (point n click)
HSR happens and with HSR came the removement of convergence time (you should know that silly 4th Elite Perk that nobody need anymore - that was once the most important skill -for Mechs like CTF-3D and Dragons)

Stiletto, on 28 November 2013 - 07:54 PM, said:

I can't disagree more. We already play with doubled Armor. You want weapons to do less?
Lengthen the recycle time of all weapons substantially, force people to target and not just blaze away. Reintroduce collisions, elim ghost heat and introduce non-pinpoint firing. THEN you have a thinking man's game.

It would allow brawlers to close but if they had to wait 10 sec to fire that ac 20 again? then the range beast runs past, spins and hammers the brawler.

You would try and hold a line, not just wade it like the drones do now.

You also could cause imbalance - to create a real difference between Long Range Weapons and Short Range weapons.
To have a real choice between a Large Laser and Large Pulse Laser.. A choice between Gauss or AC 20 (without GaussCharge)
My idea is simple - increase the DPS of Brawling Weapons but decrease the Damage on Hit. For Long Range weapon decrease the DPS but Increase the Damage on Hit.

Edited by Karl Streiger, 28 November 2013 - 11:50 PM.

[Tolocamp]

I cannot believe that one of the most prominent and ridiculous "features", i would adress it as a bug is not causing an outcry in the forums as far as i can tell.

Firing an AC2 at a 20-30 ft tall collossus of metal is, concerning physics, like throwing marshmallows at a hummer, the screenshake caused by this is frankly said ridiculous. Farting in your pilots seat would probably disturb your aim more then an AC5 or AC2 should.

The only issue i have with AC2s and AC5s is that they are treated as if a freackin' train just hit your mech and not a maybe 40-80mm caliber 4-6 pound shell, no matter how fast that thing goes, if it was not using antimatter as ordnance the screenshake is absolutely insane and needs to be reduced to the point that you barrely notice it. Cockpit hits ? Okay make me shake, but anything else should'nt be of any concern.

Worst thing. PGI makes this bug even generate more useless grind by coming up with a module to reduce that horrible idiocy, draining your wallet of precious C-bills.

AC10 and AC20 should throw you around a bit, okay. but no matter how many or how often an Ac2 or Ac5 hits you, even in a locust, that kind of funfair shaking would never ever happen. Only situation would be that mechs use HE shells. But seriously thats not like 100 or 200 mm of steel like on a tank nowadays we're talking about. Using HE shells against the kind of armor a mech is protectet by would equal throwing baked marshmallows.

So please PGI, reduce the screenshake on those small AC's make it a progression from MG-AC20. Anything else is a joke and i really consider all "Dakka" builds at this points exploiting something really stupid.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

stjobe, on 28 November 2013 - 03:35 PM, said:

And, funny as that build may be, it still overheats after five alphas (17 seconds - four alphas or 12 seconds without pilot skills).
Compare that to a standard 4G AC/20+2ML build which has the same alpha.

Seriously; 18 DHS on that thing an if it fires six times back-to-back it shuts down. That's two DHS for every SL it has. How can anyone argue with a straight face that this isn't broken?

I don't hang around in a medium long enough to get that many alphas off. also I don't always Alpha (blasphemy I know). It's run as a change of pace from my 4G and is good for annoying lights.