1080 replies to this topic

[Sandpit]

People don't use max dps. Feel free to check it out in smurfy. I've compared builds. I get more dps out of many of my energy builds than any ballistic build.
So the current ballistics are op mentalities are not conducive with a dps argument at all

[SirSlaughter]

Balance is balanced so far. What gives me some trouble is that an imbalance would cause the balance to became not so balanced.

[Tombstoner]

Sandpit, on 31 December 2013 - 11:25 AM, said:

People don't use max dps. Feel free to check it out in smurfy. I've compared builds. I get more dps out of many of my energy builds than any ballistic build.
So the current ballistics are op mentalities are not conducive with a dps argument at all

That's why i break it down to damage potential in 20 seconds/ton of weapon. since tonnage is the base currency for building a mech. a single ac-2 has a value of 13 almost 2x that of the ac-20 that has a 7. the ac-20 is so large you can only fit one into a section but the ac-2 can fit 12 into a torso. its prevalence is only limited by hard point availability. ton for ton the ac-2 has a better damage potentia and in the hands of skilled players shot hit rate is high also engagement ranges favor high hit rates.

In 20 seconds a single ac-2 will do 76.9 damage a single ac-20 will do 100. but the ac-2 is 1/2 the mass of the ac-20 so when boating. 3 ac-2's they do 231 damage in 20 seconds for 18 tones. show me a mech in game that can field 3 ac-20's.
2x ac-20 will net ya 200 damage for 24 tones. now all this is with out ammo. add in misses and the ac-2 is much more efficient in terms of damage potential since when your missing you stop firing. the ac-20 when ya miss you loose 40 damage vs 8-16. for the ac-2.

Heat wise the ac-20 wins with 60 vs.115 for the ac-2 but the game is designed to have a heat capacity. theses values are well within that cap and partially why PGI went with Ghost heat.

now add in damage drop off. all theses reasons are what people are referring to when they post about the disparity.

weapon damage done in 20 seconds/ton of weapon
ac-2 13
ac-5 8
ac-10 7
ac-20 7

what people are asking for is to bring the ac-2 inline with other auto cannons. .52 rate of fire is way too fast for the tonnage and crit size of the weapon.

Edited by Tombstoner, 31 December 2013 - 12:42 PM.

[Varent]

Tombstoner, on 31 December 2013 - 12:39 PM, said:

That's why i break it down to damage potential in 20 seconds/ton of weapon. since tonnage is the base currency for building a mech. a single ac-2 has a value of 13 almost 2x that of the ac-20 that has a 7. the ac-20 is so large you can only fit one into a section but the ac-2 can fit 12 into a torso. its prevalence is only limited by hard point availability. ton for ton the ac-2 has a better damage potentia and in the hands of skilled players shot hit rate is high also engagement ranges favor high hit rates.

In 20 seconds a single ac-2 will do 76.9 damage a single ac-20 will do 100. but the ac-2 is 1/2 the mass of the ac-20 so when boating. 3 ac-2's they do 231 damage in 20 seconds for 18 tones. show me a mech in game that can field 3 ac-20's.
2x ac-20 will net ya 200 damage for 24 tones. now all this is with out ammo. add in misses and the ac-2 is much more efficient in terms of damage potential since when your missing you stop firing. the ac-20 when ya miss you loose 40 damage vs 8-16. for the ac-2.

Heat wise the ac-20 wins with 60 vs.115 for the ac-2 but the game is designed to have a heat capacity. theses values are well within that cap and partially why PGI went with Ghost heat.

now add in damage drop off. all theses reasons are what people are referring to when they post about the disparity.

weapon damage done in 20 seconds/ton of weapon
ac-2 13
ac-5 8
ac-10 7
ac-20 7

what people are asking for is to bring the ac-2 inline with other auto cannons. .52 rate of fire is way too fast for the tonnage and crit size of the weapon.

Thing is... it has crazy dps but its balanced in that it takes a long time to get that damage, holding it on target etc.... that said it will be utterly and completely op if weapons do become streaming weapons.

[stjobe]

Varent, on 31 December 2013 - 11:21 AM, said:

Why would you use a low dps weapon like the ac10 or ac20 when you could just use the ac2 or 5 or uac5? Explain to me this good sir.

Same reason they do now: Higher per-projectile damage.

If an AC/5 did a five-burst of 1-damage shots, and an AC/20 did a five-burst of 4-damage shots, you only need hit with two of the AC/20 shots to out-damage the AC/5. And if you're good enough to hit with all five shots, you still do as much damage as you do now - and if you're even better and manage to get all those five shots on to the same section, the weapon works just like today.

So in a perfect situation you get a weapon that still puts 20 damage into one location, but in the vast majority of cases you'll instead have a weapon that does 20 damage to a couple of locations, and in worst case you'll just do a portion of its damage, with the rest of it missing the target.

So you see, reworking ACs to burst-fire doesn't lower their damage or make them useless, it just raises the skill bar to put all that damage into one section of the target. The AC/20 still does twice the damage of the PPC, and more that twice the damage of the LL.

It also helps immensely with the pin-point instant-damage alpha problem; no more instant 40 damage to one location. You may actually torso twist to spread damage even from ballistics. The matches would become longer and more tactical since several currently popular tactics would be rendered less useful and 'mechs would live longer, and finally PGI can stop trying to balance instant-hit weapons with damage-over-time weapons, since they all would be more-or-less spreading their damage over time or space (energy and ballistics over time, missiles over space).

Finally, a disclaimer: I'm not arguing for burst-fire ACs and beam-duration PPCs to make anyone's game worse; I'm not arguing it for making my own preferred play-style better. I'm not even arguing it because of any love or hate towards the current mechanics. I'm arguing this because I believe it would make the game as a whole better and more balanced; more fun for everyone, including you.

There would still be differences in weapon types, it would just eliminate the enormous advantage ballistics currently have of putting all their damage into one section.

Varent, on 31 December 2013 - 12:43 PM, said:

Thing is... it has crazy dps but its balanced in that it takes a long time to get that damage

That's not how Damage Per Second comparisons work...

Varent, on 31 December 2013 - 12:43 PM, said:

that said it will be utterly and completely op if weapons do become streaming weapons.

Most of us aren't asking for streaming weapons, we're asking for burst weapons. Also, it goes without saying that weapons would have to be rebalanced if that reworking were to happen.

Edited by stjobe, 31 December 2013 - 12:48 PM.

[Varent]

stjobe, on 31 December 2013 - 12:44 PM, said:

Same reason they do now: Higher per-projectile damage.

If an AC/5 did a five-burst of 1-damage shots, and an AC/20 did a five-burst of 4-damage shots, you only need hit with two of the AC/20 shots to out-damage the AC/5. And if you're good enough to hit with all five shots, you still do as much damage as you do now - and if you're even better and manage to get all those five shots on to the same section, the weapon works just like today.

So in a perfect situation you get a weapon that still puts 20 damage into one location, but in the vast majority of cases you'll instead have a weapon that does 20 damage to a couple of locations, and in worst case you'll just do a portion of its damage, with the rest of it missing the target.

So you see, reworking ACs to burst-fire doesn't lower their damage or make them useless, it just raises the skill bar to put all that damage into one section of the target. The AC/20 still does twice the damage of the PPC, and more that twice the damage of the LL.

It also helps immensely with the pin-point instant-damage alpha problem; no more instant 40 damage to one location. You may actually torso twist to spread damage even from ballistics. The matches would become longer and more tactical since several currently popular tactics would be rendered less useful and 'mechs would live longer, and finally PGI can stop trying to balance instant-hit weapons with damage-over-time weapons, since they all would be more-or-less spreading their damage over time or space (energy and ballistics over time, missiles over space).

Finally, a disclaimer: I'm not arguing for burst-fire ACs and beam-duration PPCs to make anyone's game worse; I'm not arguing it for making my own preferred play-style better. I'm not even arguing it because of any love or hate towards the current mechanics. I'm arguing this because I believe it would make the game as a whole better and more balanced; more fun for everyone, including you.

There would still be differences in weapon types, it would just eliminate the enormous advantage ballistics currently have of putting all their damage into one section.

for the weight restriction it would not be anywhere near what is proper.. you would have to reduce the weight ot the ac20 and 10 and maybe slots to bring them in line. But then why should we even call it mwo in those cases? Might as well just call it brawlers on line really

[Tombstoner]

Varent, on 31 December 2013 - 12:43 PM, said:

Thing is... it has crazy dps but its balanced in that it takes a long time to get that damage, holding it on target etc.... that said it will be utterly and completely op if weapons do become streaming weapons.

Its not balanced its very heat/damage efficient, that's one benefit for having a high fire rate. you do start with a small deficit in comparison with the dual ac-20 but it makes up for it quickly. add in rocking and once again the ac-2 has issues in-comparison with the other 3 auto-canons.

If streaming weapons are added then there damage needs to be scaled such that they do the same damage in x time as the slug versions. same with rocking effects. The ac-2 is practically a streaming weapons as it is.

[Varent]

Tombstoner, on 31 December 2013 - 12:52 PM, said:

Its not balanced its very heat/damage efficient, that's one benefit for having a high fire rate. you do start with a small deficit in comparison with the dual ac-20 but it makes up for it quickly. add in rocking and once again the ac-2 has issues in-comparison with the other 3 auto-canons.

If streaming weapons are added then there damage needs to be scaled such that they do the same damage in x time as the slug versions. same with rocking effects. The ac-2 is practically a streaming weapons as it is.

it is a streaming weapon, period.

[stjobe]

Varent, on 31 December 2013 - 12:46 PM, said:

for the weight restriction it would not be anywhere near what is proper.. you would have to reduce the weight ot the ac20 and 10 and maybe slots to bring them in line.

Why? What is "proper"? If "proper" is "20 damage to one location" then we're stuck, aren't we? And in that case, you really should start arguing for making lasers instant-damage as well, because in the TT (where I'm guessing people get the "20 damage to one location" hang-up from), lasers do all their damage to one location as well.

But MWO has shown that lasers work really, really well as beam-duration weapons, and since they could do the translation I see no reason why especially autocannons (which have always been described as burst-firing in lore) couldn't do the same.

[Sandpit]

A dps over time just isn't viable when you have to increase it past a few seconds.

Using an example that requires 20 seconds is irrelevant. I've yet to stand toe to toe with anything out in the open for 20 seconds doing continuous damage.
It's simply not a realistic scenario for this game.
A dps of 20 is better than a dps of 10. There's no amount of math that changes that.
I can front load damage on an energy build by dropping in 7LLs and do a higher alpha or I can drop in 6 and extra hs to have a higher dps and sustainable rate of fire

[Varent]

stjobe, on 31 December 2013 - 12:55 PM, said:

Why? What is "proper"? If "proper" is "20 damage to one location" then we're stuck, aren't we? And in that case, you really should start arguing for making lasers instant-damage as well, because in the TT (where I'm guessing people get the "20 damage to one location" hang-up from), lasers do all their damage to one location as well.

But MWO has shown that lasers work really, really well as beam-duration weapons, and since they could do the translation I see no reason why especially autocannons (which have always been described as burst-firing in lore) couldn't do the same.

They have been described as slugs as well. Not just burst fire. That said lasers will have there place once community warefare comes regardless and the lack of need for ammo become more prevalent. 'balancing' a weapon based off damage alone and capabilities is kinda silly they all are designed for different things. And yes, it is from the original game.

[Mcgral18]

Varent, on 31 December 2013 - 12:59 PM, said:

They have been described as slugs as well. Not just burst fire. That said lasers will have there place once community warefare comes regardless and the lack of need for ammo become more prevalent. 'balancing' a weapon based off damage alone and capabilities is kinda silly they all are designed for different things. And yes, it is from the original game.

They've also been described as knocking a 100 ton atlas to the ground by firing a single slug when it is not braced. It was mounted on a 100 ton tank designed to take out other 100 ton mechs, or on mechs specifically designed to handle the recoil, not humanoid.

[stjobe]

Varent, on 31 December 2013 - 12:59 PM, said:

They have been described as slugs as well. Not just burst fire.

A single "probable" as opposed to the multitude of sources describing burst- or auto-fire ACs is hardly of the same magnitude.

Varent, on 31 December 2013 - 12:59 PM, said:

That said lasers will have there place once community warefare comes regardless and the lack of need for ammo become more prevalent. 'balancing' a weapon based off damage alone and capabilities is kinda silly they all are designed for different things.

There will more than likely never be a time when ammo is an issue; at least PGI hasn't even hinted at a game mode where you have to play several battles without re-arming.

Varent, on 31 December 2013 - 12:59 PM, said:

And yes, it is from the original game.

Thought as much. So what are your thoughts about lasers being beam-duration? Isn't that wrong?

[Varent]

Mcgral18, on 31 December 2013 - 01:02 PM, said:

They've also been described as knocking a 100 ton atlas to the ground by firing a single slug when it is not braced. It was mounted on a 100 ton tank designed to take out other 100 ton mechs, or on mechs specifically designed to handle the recoil, not humanoid.

well the smallest one that mounted it effectively was the urban mech. So apparently its doable by at least a 30 tonner that wouldn't have too much ability to brace.

[Almond Brown]

MustrumRidcully, on 30 December 2013 - 12:08 PM, said:

That's why I said comparing with the "Potential Damage" of the weapon. It's a question of how much percentage of the damage the weapon can possibly deal you actually inflict.

Example from my own personal statistics:
AC/20: 6143 shots fired, 3890 hits, 63.32 % accuracy, 77,146 damage
Medium Laser: 6,651 shots fired, 5,814 hits, 87.42 % accuracy, 16,822 damage.

A Medium Laser deals 5 damage per shot, so each hit should contribute 5 damage to the total damage value. But it does not, because a laser is counted as "hit" when you just touch with a single damage tick on a target, and you can also fire beyond normal range, losing damage. The damage per hit of a ML for me lies by around 2.9 damage (total damage divided by hits.). That is only 58 % of the possible damage.

An AC/20 (using the same math) turns out to deal 19.83 damage per hit. An AC/20 hit is always a real hit, so the only damage drop off that is possible here is the one from range. It's not much, as you see. (Some people also report of seeing damage figures above 20. The theory is that this is the result of the game also counting ammo explosions as damage you inflicted to a target.)

We can continue the math and also test out how much damage per shot fired each weapon inflicts. (In case you want to claim that hits with an AC/20 are harder to achieve and therefore I will have more misses.)
The ML sits around 50.6 %, the AC/20 at 62.8 %. I call this "damage utilization", how much of a weapons potential damage by shots fired you actually inflicted.

From everything I've seen shared in statistics between players, the trend is the same (though many are better shots than me.) And it's not just AC/20 to ML, it is more general trend.
There are other factors influencing damage utilziation. For example, weapons with a faster rate of fire often perform worse than weapons with a slower rate of fire, probably because people have (or at least take) less time to take aim.

With this small sample and from previous discussions on the subject it does appear that Energy weapons generate anywhere between 40-55% of their actual damage potential as an average.

Perhaps reducing the Beam times, based on total individual Energy based stats, (the Dev would have them) could bring the Energy line, back into line, with their Ballistics cousins. Although that may also increase TTK and that is not what we really need.

Edited by Almond Brown, 31 December 2013 - 01:07 PM.

[Mcgral18]

Varent, on 31 December 2013 - 01:04 PM, said:

well the smallest one that mounted it effectively was the urban mech. So apparently its doable by at least a 30 tonner that wouldn't have too much ability to brace.

I am willing to bet that is not a single shot AC, but a burst fire...as described in the lore, on Sarna, in the books, etc...

The pair of UAC20s on the hunch IIC were 6 shot, not single shot for example. I believe the one mounted on the Victors were 100 shot, but that would be hard for the netcode to calculate.

Edited by Mcgral18, 31 December 2013 - 01:07 PM.

[Varent]

stjobe, on 31 December 2013 - 01:03 PM, said:

A single "probable" as opposed to the multitude of sources describing burst- or auto-fire ACs is hardly of the same magnitude.


There will more than likely never be a time when ammo is an issue; at least PGI hasn't even hinted at a game mode where you have to play several battles without re-arming.


Thought as much. So what are your thoughts about lasers being beam-duration? Isn't that wrong?

see thing about the lasers is... I actually don't think people would like them how they really should have been implemented.... They proby jsu should hve been like flamers but a longer duration of damage, but you can just hold them and hold them and hold them. adding damage without stop. Pulse lasers should have been constant streams as well. Upside would be constant damage and more overall dps, but more heat and more time holding on target... I dunno that would be my thought but that's purely from lore...

[Rhent]

Almond Brown, on 31 December 2013 - 01:06 PM, said:

With this small sample and from previous discussions on the subject it does appear that Energy weapons generate anywhere between 40-55% of their actual damage potential as an average.

Perhaps reducing the Beam times, based on total individual Energy based stats, (the Dev would have them) could bring the Energy line, back into line, with their Ballistics cousins. Although that may also increase TTK and that is not what we really need.

Its called using Ghost heat to fix PPC's that set everything off balance.

[stjobe]

Varent, on 31 December 2013 - 01:04 PM, said:

well the smallest one that mounted it effectively was the urban mech. So apparently its doable by at least a 30 tonner that wouldn't have too much ability to brace.

I will have to have some source on the Urbie's AC being single-shot. AFAIK the only AC/20 being described as possibly single-shot is the UAC/20 on the Cauldron Born.

Edited by stjobe, 31 December 2013 - 01:11 PM.

[Nemesis Duck]

I hope they don't make any changes.

Has anyone pointed out that you can only mount the PPC and AC combos on bigger, slower mechs, and that gives them their advantage against smaller, faster mechs? Other variables are being ignored, so this is nonsense in the context of the whole.

On a locust, I can mount 5 MLs but cannot mount a PPC and 2xAC/5, yet a locust is fast and very manueverable. Hmmm.....