1080 replies to this topic

[kapusta11]

First:
It's a shooter not tabletop with a dice roll or rpg with splash fireballs.

Second:
While recycle times were lowered in MWO (weapons can fire twice as fast) heat dissipation remained the same, which makes all heat generating weapons fire at tabletop's effective rate of fire. Ballistics are not OP, you're just as blind as PGI.

[Tesunie]

Mr Terribad, on 22 December 2013 - 12:36 PM, said:

But then again, PGI only has a handful of employees still working there so.. I can't blame them for their snail-paced speed.

Did someone not read http://mwomercs.com/...e-inner-sphere/

Quote

First let’s discuss staffing and give you a little more insight into the effort going into MWO each and every month. This past year Piranha has averaged mid 50’s in employees with 45 full time developers that spend their entire day working on MWO content and features.

Development team:

- There is around 20 total staff working on content from maps, to `Mechs including hero, champion as well as skins and cockpit items. Remember all these staff do not contribute to features like CW and UI 2.0 they also do not drain away from those efforts
- 7 staff under production, developer support (internal QA), marketing and community management.
- This leaves 18 staff, all engineers to work on both live ops and feature development. And right there lies the key, if these 18 engineers could focus solely on feature development things would move much faster but these people have to also manage the live ops so there is always a constant stream of work involved to keep the game running smoothly, rollout patches, update the Patcher/Launcher, database management and other MWO tools. So the end result is you are only getting a fluctuating amount of full time effort from some portion of those 18 engineers to make the forward progress.

Final comment on staffing: People have noticed that we have been hiring lately and have speculated that perhaps were replacing people that are leaving Piranha. This is not the case at all; in fact we have not lost more than 1-2 staff to other opportunities in the past year which represents an extremely low amount of turnover compared to industry standards. It’s a very simple explanation that PGI is growing to accommodate more development capacity and nothing more.

Edited by Tesunie, 22 December 2013 - 09:20 PM.

[Rhent]

X3kutor, on 22 December 2013 - 06:29 PM, said:

There is no reason to change how the weapons work. Some weapons need some tweaking, most are working perfectly.
A/Cs are difficult to aim on a moving target to hit the exact component you are aiming for. It is difficult both at range and while brawling.

PPCs have limited effective range (when you shoot someone past this range, it registers a hit and does 1 damage). They also run very hot and make {Scrap} brawling weapons.

I think you should spend some time reevaluating your mech loadouts if you find your load out is not working well for you.
You should get in the habit of locking into targets, checking the enemy load out and playing tactfully accordingly.

PS, my favourite mech at the moment is a BLR with 2 PPC's, 2 A/C5s, 4 Mlas and XL375. So take my advice with salt.

The only mechs that are hard to hit with AC's are light mechs going at 125+ KPH that are serpentining at 750M+ out. I have little to no problems hitting all mechs with AC's, and frankly with the vast preponderance of AC's to me would make me thing that the vast bulk of players in MWO have no issues firing AC's and connecting. If AC's were such truly hard to hit with, then they would be used significantly less than they are now.

[Rhent]

Bhael Fire, on 22 December 2013 - 07:12 PM, said:

This thread is exciting and new!

The fact is, ACs would not be worth their weight, hardpoint and ammo restrictions if they did not offer frontloaded damage.

Autocannons are just fine. If they nerfed them, they would become pointless.

Lets do an example:

You have two weapons, both weapons do DOT damage over 0.75 seconds. The first weapon does 10 damage for 3 heat weights 12 tons and has 15 tons/shot and the other weapon does 10 damage for 15 heat for 7 tons and doesn't require ammo. You also are playing in a system that has extremely low heat dissipation but a higher heat cap.

If you don't take the first weapon, you might want to retake your high school logic course.

[stjobe]

Sandpit, on 22 December 2013 - 05:45 PM, said:

for ME, energy builds are "better" than ballistics.

Which is totally irrelevant to a balance discussion which tries to discern which weapon is *actually* better. That you suck with ballistics does not in any way, shape, or form make them balanced.

Edited by stjobe, 23 December 2013 - 12:59 AM.

[Sandpit]

stjobe, on 23 December 2013 - 12:38 AM, said:

Which is totally irrelevant to a balance discussion which tries to discern which weapon is *actually* better. That you suck with ballistics does not in any way, shape, or form make them balanced.

rofl
it has everything to do with "balance"
If your statements about ballistics being op and lasers being up were true, I couldn't regularly do several hundred points of damage per match and obtain multiple kills because energy weapons wouldn't be able to perform like that. If ballistics were "op" then I'd be able to just run through and own with them.
I exagerrate a bit when I say I "suck" with them I suppose. I can use all of the weapons, I just do better with energy. My AC20 highlander does pretty well, as does my AC10 build.
Balance is subjective unless there's a true unbalance. LRMpocalypse? THAT was an example of a weapon being op. Ballistics are not op in my opinion. You're welcome to disagree with that, but that doesn't make me wrong. The fact that several others, as well as PGI DO agree with me does seem to indicate that they aren't op though. At least in their eyes as well.

[Rhent]

Sandpit, on 23 December 2013 - 01:51 AM, said:

rofl
it has everything to do with "balance"
If your statements about ballistics being op and lasers being up were true, I couldn't regularly do several hundred points of damage per match and obtain multiple kills because energy weapons wouldn't be able to perform like that. If ballistics were "op" then I'd be able to just run through and own with them.
I exagerrate a bit when I say I "suck" with them I suppose. I can use all of the weapons, I just do better with energy. My AC20 highlander does pretty well, as does my AC10 build.
Balance is subjective unless there's a true unbalance. LRMpocalypse? THAT was an example of a weapon being op. Ballistics are not op in my opinion. You're welcome to disagree with that, but that doesn't make me wrong. The fact that several others, as well as PGI DO agree with me does seem to indicate that they aren't op though. At least in their eyes as well.

I regularly run a 2 PPC 2 LL stalker that on average pulls 500 damage. I also run AC's as well. The PPC's and the AC's do the bulk of my damage and get the kills, not the LL's.

That being said, AC's are horribly unbalanced now. Why?
-Rate of Fire and non-existent heat compared to Energy weapon equivalents.

Compare the AC/10 to the PPC and get back to me. The only drawback to the PPC is the 90M minimum range, thats it. By the time you equip the DHS to run PPC's, you find that you can fire those 2 PPC's about every 8 seconds and run realtively cool, while you can run a single AC/10 every 2.5 seconds and never have a heat problem.

You would be an ***** not to run an AC/10 or AC/20 in place of a single PPC if you can afford to use it. If you aren't familiar with the basic stats of mechwarrior and that is why you are taking your stance, then please visit the link below.

http://mwo.gamepedia...ategory:Weapons

[MustrumRidcully]

Sandpit, on 22 December 2013 - 05:45 PM, said:

what kind of data would you like? A screenshot of my stats in my energy boats?

I don't care about your personal stats, or anyone else's personal stats.

I would care to see statistics on the full population of players. Damage Achieved vs Damage Potential by weapon. Win/Loss by weapon selection. Weapons selection by Elo rankings.

[Blurry]

Sandpit, on 22 December 2013 - 12:40 PM, said:

Maybe because not everyone agrees with this opinion? I'd wager to guess that at least as many that argue your side argue against it. There's a lot that think weapons are very well balanced in their current form. Feel free to peruse the other dozen or so threads on this subject.

No-
just the same tired people coming into the forums doing the same dumb thing over and over?
arent you tired?

Besides you really think weapons are balanced - great for putting that point forward - have some hyperbole:

This is PGI - We dont Balance, We dont Program, We do arty - buy buy buy!

Ya they really dont care - but buy clan mechs please - and dont forget to be golden!

[Rhent]

kapusta11, on 22 December 2013 - 09:12 PM, said:

First:
It's a shooter not tabletop with a dice roll or rpg with splash fireballs.

Second:
While recycle times were lowered in MWO (weapons can fire twice as fast) heat dissipation remained the same, which makes all heat generating weapons fire at tabletop's effective rate of fire. Ballistics are not OP, you're just as blind as PGI.

First:
This is a mecharrior game, not Halo. Splash damage exists all over the place: Lasers, LRM's, SRMS

Second:
Weapons in MWO do NOT fire twice as fast. Lets look at the AC/10 and PPC, that are damage analogues between the AC and Energy weapon family. The AC/10 fire rate is 2.5 seconds and the PPC fire rate is 4 seconds and a TT turn is 10 seconds. Now, I'm not sure what your schooling is or if you are suffering from dyscalculous, However, the AC/10 does not fire "twice as fast" as you wrote, it fires 4X's as fast as TT and the PPC fires about 2 1/2X as fast at TT.

If you actually read the link that I submitted that is the actual firing tables, you'd have an understanding of how Piranha implemented different firing rate to differentiate weapons but they kept the same tonnage, crit space from TT. They mucked around with the heat and range, but the fire rate they widely increased or decreased damage. Again, looking at our friend the AC/10, it is equivalent to an AC/20 in TT after factoring in doubled armor for a 10 second turn now. Something is seriously wrong with the damage output in MWO.

[Joseph Mallan]

stjobe, on 22 December 2013 - 04:19 PM, said:

The second reason is a lore reason; Autocannons are, and I quote,

Can we dance the scars with lasers? Are they truly an elegant, accurate weapon? As I see them right now they are not quite the weapon to use when trying to hit specific locations. ACs are presently better. A laser should have a shorter beam duration to get more damage on target, That would help things along from where I'm sitting.

[Rhent]

Joseph Mallan, on 23 December 2013 - 07:14 AM, said:

Can we dance the scars with lasers? Are they truly an elegant, accurate weapon? As I see them right now they are not quite the weapon to use when trying to hit specific locations. ACs are presently better. A laser should have a shorter beam duration to get more damage on target, That would help things along from where I'm sitting.

For lasers to keep their DOT capabilities, while AC's get the ability to do all the damage in one spot, shortening the duration for lasers won't do much. If lasers had an across the board 25%-33% damage increase, while maintaining the same heat and beam duration would make lasers competitive.

Overall, AC are simply the superior weapon. If AC's were switched to stream damage, they would still be a better weapon than energy weapons for damage, but at least they wouldn't be glaringly superior to energy weapons now.

[Joseph Mallan]

Rhent, on 23 December 2013 - 07:29 AM, said:

For lasers to keep their DOT capabilities, while AC's get the ability to do all the damage in one spot, shortening the duration for lasers won't do much. If lasers had an across the board 25%-33% damage increase, while maintaining the same heat and beam duration would make lasers competitive.

Overall, AC are simply the superior weapon. If AC's were switched to stream damage, they would still be a better weapon than energy weapons for damage, but at least they wouldn't be glaringly superior to energy weapons now.

Guess we will just have to disagree then. They are different not better. Convergence is what makes ACs look more formidable. Fix that and we would not have such an outcry against point of impact weapons.

[Rhent]

Joseph Mallan, on 23 December 2013 - 07:52 AM, said:

Guess we will just have to disagree then. They are different not better. Convergence is what makes ACs look more formidable. Fix that and we would not have such an outcry against point of impact weapons.

Things Piranha will not change/try:
-Convergence
-Low heat cap / high heat disspation

[Fut]

Rhent, on 23 December 2013 - 08:00 AM, said:

Things Piranha will not change/try:
-Convergence
-Low heat cap / high heat disspation

I think you're right about this... and it makes me weep.

[Rhent]

Fut, on 23 December 2013 - 08:03 AM, said:

I think you're right about this... and it makes me weep.

Yup. They have been willing to make sweeping changes to weapon functionality though.

[Joseph Mallan]

Rhent, on 23 December 2013 - 08:00 AM, said:

Things Piranha will not change/try:
-Convergence
-Low heat cap / high heat disspation

Fut, on 23 December 2013 - 08:03 AM, said:

I think you're right about this... and it makes me weep.

I am with Fut on this!

[Zyllos]

As long as weapons fire "duct tapped" together and always fire perfect every time, front loaded damage will rule the game.

It will always be this way, as it has been in the past MW games. There, lasers even fired like they do now in MWO, so it was even worse.

There is no other way around it. Change how grouped weapons fire together and introduce some type of cone mechanic or there will be no meaningful balance between weapon systems.

[Haji1096]

Does anyone know why PGI will not change convergence ? Have they given an actual reason....or series of reasons.

[Zyllos]

Haji1096, on 23 December 2013 - 08:10 AM, said:

Does anyone know why PGI will not change convergence ? Have they given an actual reason....or series of reasons.

I have heard two reasons, but it would be hard to give you citations on it.

• Undo stress on calculating firing paths of individual weapons at the same time (both server and client wise).
  
• Weapons should hit exactly where players want them to aim, to keep skill.