1080 replies to this topic

[TehSBGX]

That Guy, on 22 December 2013 - 12:41 PM, said:

a better solution would be for ballistic weapons to have a small cone of fire. close range shots still will hit where you aim, but long range shots wont always hit exactly where you aim, spreading damage. especially when there are 3 PPC and heavy AC grouped together. after-all we accept cone of fire for missile weapons, MGs and LBX, why not a small one for ballistic weapons? a COF about the size of the arm reticule would do the trick

ballistic weapons deviate, that's just how they work. and it allows other ultra and later rotary ACs to be implemented with out breaking the game. those weapons can be less accurate.

Having a small cone of fire for AC's in trade for front loaded damage is pretty fair TBH. Also PPCs should have a larger one due to the weight difference, but thats just my opinion. :/

[Urdnot Mau]

Sandpit, on 22 December 2013 - 02:19 PM, said:

OR you leave it where it is because it's balanced now

Yes, and to prove your point, you'll record 1 match, and we'll all the the balanced game MWO is with all those blue lights crossing the map, followed by some bright yellow lights too.

There's a reason why it's not balanced: EVERYBODY who wants to be competitive runs THE SAME BS, and they NEVER get tired of it.

[Taco Grindr]

I think one of the main issues everyone is having with weapon balance is they are looking at weapons in a vacuum. These weapons are not meant to be compared this way. An AC and PPC combo may be perfect on an assault mech but for those of us that prefer Mediums ore even those that prefer lights, that may not even fit without having a low Alpha. sure I could fit an AC and PPC on my SHD but I found I can do a consistent 400+ DMG and 2+ kills with 2LLs and 4SSRMs.

Its not a matter of which weapon works best overall but which weapons work best on each class. There are light pilots that can top DMG/kill lists without using any of the pinpoint weapons. Lasers are light weight for good DMG. ACs are great for low heat, Missles are great for crit finding/armor softening. PPCs are high weight and heat for a good DMG pinpoint.

This argument keeps coming up and I cannot say that I agree I have seen 1200 DMG come from a light and >100 come from an assault. This game has many variables for every layer of combat and comparing raw numbers is far different then having players meet in game.

P.S. The LB 10-X is working as intended. It is not meant as a pinpoint weapon. It is a shotgun and good at crithunting.

Edited by Taco Grindr, 23 December 2013 - 01:36 PM.

[Lucky Moniker]

Taco Grindr, on 23 December 2013 - 01:31 PM, said:

I think one of the main issues everyone is having with weapon balance is they are looking at weapons in a vacuum. These weapons are not meant to be compared this way. An AC and PPC combo may be perfect on an assault mech but for those of us that prefer Mediums ore even those that prefer lights, that may not even fit without having a low Alpha. sure I could fit an AC and PPC on my SHD but I found I can do a consistent 400+ DMG and 2+ kills with 2LLs and 4SSRMs.

Its not a matter of which weapon works best overall but which weapons work best on each class. There are light pilots that can top DMG/kill lists without using any of the pinpoint weapons. Lasers are light weight for good DMG. ACs are great for low heat, Missles are great for crit finding/armor softening. PPCs are high weight and heat for a good DMG pinpoint.

This argument keeps coming up and I cannot say that I agree I have seen 1200 DMG come from a light and >100 come from an assault. This game has many variables for every layer of combat and comparing raw numbers is far different then having players meet in game.

^this and then some.
there's nothing wrong with ballistics, they are working perfectly fine, what you are complaining about is someone playing the game better than you. That is the entire point of this game, hit and try and not get hit in return. Ballistic weapons are so heavy compared to the damage they do per hit, that it makes up for the issues you are calling out tenfold. Its like calling someone a rocket n00b or hammer n00b in Halo. They are playing the game effectively, learn or move on.

[Noth]

Urdnot Mau, on 23 December 2013 - 01:28 PM, said:

Yes, and to prove your point, you'll record 1 match, and we'll all the the balanced game MWO is with all those blue lights crossing the map, followed by some bright yellow lights too.

There's a reason why it's not balanced: EVERYBODY who wants to be competitive runs THE SAME BS, and they NEVER get tired of it.

And that won't change. There will always be a best weapon or set of weapon. If it is not this, it will be that. If it is not that, it will be another thing. Basing balancing off the most skilled is stupid because there will always be something that is teh absolute best at that level.

Edited by Noth, 23 December 2013 - 01:46 PM.

[Tesunie]

Khobai, on 23 December 2013 - 12:45 PM, said:

Not really. The majority of house units and merc companies didnt have access to the facilities or resources to customize their mechs. You basically had to pilot what was given to you.

Agreed, but it was possible with the right tools, facilities, resources and enough money. There was a reason it wasn't do so often. It wasn't because it couldn't be done, but because it was hard and expensive to do. In this game, it's "free" to change anything you want, takes no time to refit, and it is presumed that we all have the facilities to preform such actions.

As my brother says, and I agree, the most OP thing in this game is Mechlab. However, without mechlab, there would be no game (as in, few people would even want to play this game without a mechlab to customize their mechs as they see fit).

I could agree, and would love, a stock only option. Then we lore people would really be able to play out what we want, a more true to lore play style where stock mechs need to be used. Atlases would be slow and heavily armored again (instead of being so fast). The hunchback returns to being a rather brutal medium infighter. The Centurion comes back as a nice guard mech for your support line (there is a reason it has LRMs on it's chassis). Etc.

[Tahribator]

Lucky Moniker, on 23 December 2013 - 01:40 PM, said:

^this and then some.
there's nothing wrong with ballistics, they are working perfectly fine, what you are complaining about is someone playing the game better than you. That is the entire point of this game, hit and try and not get hit in return. Ballistic weapons are so heavy compared to the damage they do per hit, that it makes up for the issues you are calling out tenfold. Its like calling someone a rocket n00b or hammer n00b in Halo. They are playing the game effectively, learn or move on.

No. Someone boating ballistics in their jumpjet mech isn't really playing better than you. They are in fact choosing the easy way to have an instant advantage over everybody else in this game.

If lasers were competitive enough, we would see them more frequently in higher levels of gameplay. This is clearly not the case. There is a deep skill rift between ballistic and laser weapons and that's why people prefer the instant gratification of ballistics to harder usage of lasers.

[Turist0AT]

Wait what?! OP i think you need to go back TT. Its a mech game, offcorce you need to be able to slap some in the face with a heavy ballistic or heavy energy. Have you played any other computer mech games?

Plus in this game you get to shoot off body parts. Offcorse my AC-20 should be able to take off that arm. For that tonnage and low ammo count i dont expect anything less. And you should be able to have those pulses rolling like macheneguns and not waiting for heat to go down, wich is basically you standing there waiting (While the CTF-4X just eats you alive).

Edited by Turist0AT, 23 December 2013 - 02:03 PM.

[Galenit]

Lucky Moniker, on 23 December 2013 - 01:40 PM, said:

^this and then some.
there's nothing wrong with ballistics, they are working perfectly fine, what you are complaining about is someone playing the game better than you. That is the entire point of this game, hit and try and not get hit in return. Ballistic weapons are so heavy compared to the damage they do per hit, that it makes up for the issues you are calling out tenfold. Its like calling someone a rocket n00b or hammer n00b in Halo. They are playing the game effectively, learn or move on.

The work perfectly fine, but they are not balanced against the other weapons, perhaps thats why they work that fine. There is something wrong with them in relation to the other weapons:

"hit and try and not get hit in return" is not perfectly fine when we have one weapon with 1x range, one with 2x range and one with 3x range.
This would match if ballistics would have 2x range.
Just look at the weapons at the wiki and you will see that too.


You know tt has random hit locations, we have pinpointdamage and double armor and 1.5 times the ammo, thats 8/2*1.5=6 times the tt ammo for ballistics, 1.5 times the ammo for missiles and lasers have only 1.4 times heatsinks where double heatsinks should be.

Perfectly fine would be if ballistics would have only 1/4 tt ammo, thats what you need to do the same damage you can do in tt with that weapon to one location.
If you need more then that, you would be better of with random hit locations for ballistics.


2x range, 1/2 tt ammo and 35% ammoexplosionchance is what ballistics would bring in line with the other weapons.

Edited by Galenit, 23 December 2013 - 02:45 PM.

[Lykaon]

Almond Brown, on 23 December 2013 - 11:49 AM, said:

OK, let's see if we can beak this down to a finer grit.

• ACs fire stream of bullets.

The AC2 already fire a stream of bullets. To do any appreciable damage with one, you have to expose yourself. The response weapon(s) of choice is another *AC2/erPPC. Both require a steady hand to apply max. damage against a moving target. This removes the AC2 from the OP's complaint list.




The AC5 fires 1 shell every 1.5 seconds. To do any appreciable damage with one, you have to expose yourself for 3+ seconds. To carry 2 you have to use the same weight as a Gauss Rifle (+ ammo). The response weapon(s) of choice is another *AC5/AC2/Gauss/erLL/erPPC (x X). 5 points of damage, per unit, with 1.5 second exposure for 2 shots, for pin-point damage. All require a steady hand to apply max. damage against a moving target. This removes the AC5 from the OP's complaint list.

The AC10 fires 1 shell every 2.5 seconds To do any appreciable damage with one, you have to expose yourself for 5+ seconds. The response weapon of choice is another *AC10/AC2/AC5/LBX10/UAC5/erPPC/Gauss/erLL/LL/PPC (x X). 10 points of damage, per unit, with 5 second exposure for 2 shots, for pin point damage. It requires a steady hand to apply the 10 max. damage against a moving target. This removes the AC5 from the OP's complaint list.

The AC20 is THE heavy hitter of the Ballistics group and pays for it with weight/slots and a lack of ranged punch. To do max. damage with one, or 2, you have to expose yourself to your enemy for 8 seconds for 2 shots and do so at near point blank range. The response weapon(s) of choice is another *AC20/erPPC/erLL/LL/Gauss//LPL/PPC (x X). 20 (x 2) points of damage per unit, for pin point damage. All require a steady hand to apply max. damage against a moving target. The AC20 at 500m is basically an very heavy AC10. This removes the AC20 from the OP's complaint list.

P.S. *Response weapons have = or > range(s) out to Optimal range. Use it....

What was the complaint again?

The issue is not any one weapon it's more like...

AC20+PPC+PPC= 40 damage to one body location applied with one trigger pull in a very short period of time.

There are a number of combinations that are the prime perpetrators.

AC5+AC5+PPC+PPC Highlander
AC10+PPC+PPC Cataphract
AC20+AC20 Jagermech...etc and so on.

What you are describing is not what is done in practice.

What is done in practice is....

AC5+AC5+PPC+PPC poptart fire at apex and apply 30 damage to CT and drop to 100% cover so it doesn't matter what the response weapons are they will be shooting a hill or building or other obstruction because the target is in cover if they are not shooting.Then another poptart jumps from another cover point and puts another 30 damage into the CT the third poptart applied 30 points is a kill shot on anything that isn't an assault mech and even if it is an assault mech it is now rendered combat ineffective by having fewer health remaining than a light mech's baby toe.

Or twin 20 Jager pokes out and shoots hides while the AC's reload and pop out and shoots repeat.Only a total {Dezgra} stands around for 2 full reload cycles being exposed to enemy weapon fire for 8+ seconds.No skilled mechwarrior does what you said they do.

Also,8 seconds? on zero is one shot for 20 damage .5 seconds latter is shot 2 for 20 more,3.5 seconds for shot 3 shot 4 is on second 4.There is no need to load the first shot so the 4 second cooldown does not apply to the first 2 shots. and if you are doing it right you are firing two 20s instantly and under cover for 4 seconds for the reload.


What you describe is "labratory" conditions what is concerning is "field" conditions where your examples break down.

What is being suggested is to put in place a mechanic that prevents 30-40 point pinpoint alpha strikes applying crippling damage in one trigger pull.

Edited by Lykaon, 23 December 2013 - 02:51 PM.

[Bhael Fire]

Merchant, on 23 December 2013 - 01:23 PM, said:

False argument, that is like saying all Lasers are worthless because they do not do frontloaded damage. If that is what you are saying, then you are admitting ACs are stronger than Lasers thus making the point of imbalance.

No, that's not at all what it's like saying. You are not quite grasping what I am saying. ACs weigh more, take up more crit space and have limited ammo. Why would anyone take an AC if it behaved exactly like a laser?

They would need to lower the weight and crit space stats and increase ammo if they removed frontloaded damage on ACs...And even then, ACs would lose much of their flavor.

Right now, lasers and ACs are balanced fairly decently for two different styles of play.

[Rhent]

Turist0AT, on 23 December 2013 - 02:02 PM, said:

Wait what?! OP i think you need to go back TT. Its a mech game, offcorce you need to be able to slap some in the face with a heavy ballistic or heavy energy. Have you played any other computer mech games?

Plus in this game you get to shoot off body parts. Offcorse my AC-20 should be able to take off that arm. For that tonnage and low ammo count i dont expect anything less. And you should be able to have those pulses rolling like macheneguns and not waiting for heat to go down, wich is basically you standing there waiting (While the CTF-4X just eats you alive).

Setting AC's and PPC's to stream would not prevent you from slapping them in the face, it would force you to spend 0.75 of a second streaming your rounds into the mech. It would also open you mech up for return fire and give your opponents the ability to rotate torsos to limit the amount of damage, like ALL OTHER weapon systems in the game.

The PPC and AC's are the premier lazy mans weapon. We already went through:
SSRM Cat
SRM Splat Cat
PPC Sniper Fest (still here, they just added AC's)

The refire rate for AC's are out of synch now for their energy weapon compatriots, however the ability to only have to expose themselves for a split second and then go back to torso turning or popping behind a hill is pure and utter {Scrap}.

I've been playing Mechwarrior since MPBT on GeNIE under Rude Rich for Kurita. If you don't recognize that game, then you might want to back away from the credentials of whose been playing Mechwarrior the longest and has the most experience with the franchise. Hell I've been playing MWO 4 months longer than you as well. Before you try to pull the experience card take a second to read someones profile.

[Rhent]

Bhael Fire, on 23 December 2013 - 02:49 PM, said:

No, that's not at all what it's like saying. You are not quite grasping what I am saying. ACs weigh more, take up more crit space and have limited ammo. Why would anyone take an AC if it behaved exactly like a laser?

They would need to lower the weight and crit space stats and increase ammo if they removed frontloaded damage on ACs...And even then, ACs would lose much of their flavor.

Right now, lasers and ACs are balanced fairly decently for two different styles of play.

Why would anyone take an autocannon that they can fire 2X's faster with a lower heat rate and that fire longer over lasers. Really you are going with that line of reasoning? You write like a splatcat pilot discussing how they have to get within 100M before they are effective and they shouldn't get nerfed. I know your line of reasoning, I followed that line when I was trying to keep SRM's from getting nerfed.

You would be a complete and utter fool to pass up on streaming AC's over streaming energy weapons especially with ghost heat. You know what it would do? It would make poptarting a lot harder. It would force people to go out in the open when they snipe and be exposed for return fire. It would force people to try new strategies to cope.

[Galenit]

Bhael Fire, on 23 December 2013 - 02:49 PM, said:

They would need to lower the weight and crit space stats and increase ammo if they removed frontloaded damage on ACs...And even then, ACs would lose much of their flavor.

Right now, lasers and ACs are balanced fairly decently for two different styles of play.

Thats why i promote 2x range and only 1/2 tt ammo for them.
They will still be the pinpoint high damage weapons they are now, but for burstdamage and not at all ranges.
You have to make your shoots count!

Edited by Galenit, 23 December 2013 - 02:57 PM.

[Prezimonto]

Lykaon, on 23 December 2013 - 11:13 AM, said:

PGI's choice to pull the armor mechanics directly from the Battletech table top game while at the same time failing to place that mechanic into a an enviorment designed to support it's functioning.

http://mwomercs.com/...-survivability/

I would love to see the "stock" equipment give internal structure bonus HP, and FF armor actually be a defensive upgrade.

Certainly not a complete solution, but a good starting point. Rebalancing armor values to emphasize the torso (or just upping the torso armor numbers while lowering the tonnage per point) would be another way.

Alternative:

Develop a market based battle value system. Some weapon too good? Let the common usage drive up it's BV until it's not viable to use that weapon anymore.

Edited by Prezimonto, 23 December 2013 - 02:58 PM.

[Tesunie]

Rhent, on 23 December 2013 - 02:50 PM, said:

I've been playing Mechwarrior since MPBT on GeNIE under Rude Rich for Kurita. If you don't recognize that game, then you might want to back away from the credentials of whose been playing Mechwarrior the longest and has the most experience with the franchise. Hell I've been playing MWO 4 months longer than you as well. Before you try to pull the experience card take a second to read someones profile.

Although I understand the concept behind this, but overall MWO experience should not be too strongly considered in a discussion like this. It's nice to know some comparisons from previous versions of games, but overall most of it is relevant. Four additional months really isn't all that much more experience.

Overall, any experience from a previous version of MW is irrelevant besides as a sample comparison (this is how it use to be), but it has no baring on the current weapon balance, nor should it exclude those of us who may or may not have played these older editions of the game.

Lets try to keep this civil, shall we? It's okay to consider someone's overall experience, but it shouldn't be used as a way to "prove someone's point or superiority" in a topic. Even a new player might have some helpful information or observations about something we more experienced players may have missed. Sometimes, a fresher perspective is less biased and more clear...

Edited by Tesunie, 23 December 2013 - 03:07 PM.

[Lykaon]

Tesunie, on 23 December 2013 - 11:51 AM, said:

As for the rest, I'd like to just point out that most every other MW game has had hit locations like what you see on MWO, with very similar armor values as well (each section having a certain amount of health). Other than that, your analogy and facts seem correct from what I can read. (I will admit, I only glanced through your long post. Sorry. But it all looked right to me.)

Mechwarrior 1 if I recall correctly didn't have PvP.So to support the derived armor mechanics one would simply modify the AI's damage dealing potentials to compensate for a lack of support mechanics.

Mechwarrior 2 and 3 had PvP and it also had the exact same issues we are having now with MWo.The only saving grace was the technology was more primitive 15 years ago and latency took up a lot of the slack to increase mech survival times.

Mechwarrior 4 actually had a different scalling for armor and weapon damage than Table Top it was derived from the table top but in essence the only similarity was body parts could be targeted seperately and armor was specific to body parts.The rate of fire damage levels and armor values were more in line with each other than what we have here.Also mechwarrior 4 had a more restrictive hardpoint mechanic that limited critical space and type of weapon system to specified locations on a mech.This is similar to some of the hardpoint restrictions being suggested for MWo by some players.

And even then MW4 had the exact same problems we have in MWo poptarts and long range alphas ruled the day with MW4 PvP.Again the saving grace was again 10 years ago latency exstended mech survival times by increasing the miss rates.But,MWo has Host State Rewind as a compensator for peer to peer latency issues and improvements are still coming to reduce latency related misses.


The previous MW games PvP did have the exact same issues with pinpoint alpha strikes and over whelming damage routienly aimed to desired locations the difference was the tech was not up to the challenge so latency was a balancing factor.

Take my word for it I played MW2-3 on dial up.

[Myomes]

Rhent, on 22 December 2013 - 12:33 PM, said:

The main flaw with weapons in MWO is:
-Focused instantaneous damage

Lasers, LRM's and SSRM's are implemented in a way that they are not game breaking.

However, PPC's and AC's are game breakers. No if's, and's or butt'. Why? It allows a player to do damage without exposing themselves to return damage. When you are firing a Laser, you have to expose yourself for a second to do concentrated fire, meanwhile you yourself are opened for concentrated fire. Meanwhile, with a PPC or AC, you locate an enemy mechs target signature, pop up in the air for 1 second, fire, then immediate hire OR you crest a hill and fire for a second.

All that has to be done to fix this broke game is to force AC and PPC's to do stream damage. The other solution is to force a charge up time like Gauss.

lol, I cant believe what I just read.

Weapons in TT had even MORE strict ranges and limitations than here. you already have decaying or falloff damage that doubles weapon ranges from TT so you can do a little damage at great range. In TT or prevous mechwarriors, if they were out of your weapons range, that was it. you had nothing until your piloting skill learned to take advantage of terrain or teammates to ferry enemies into your short range jaws.

The alternative is to build mechs like you see in stock TT; put multiple ranges on it to handle anything.

[Rhent]

Tesunie, on 23 December 2013 - 03:05 PM, said:

Although I understand the concept behind this, but overall MWO experience should not be too strongly considered in a discussion like this. It's nice to know some comparisons from previous versions of games, but overall most of it is relevant. Four additional months really isn't all that much more experience.

Overall, any experience from a previous version of MW is irrelevant besides as a sample comparison (this is how it use to be), but it has no baring on the current weapon balance, nor should it exclude those of us who may or may not have played these older editions of the game.

Lets try to keep this civil, shall we? It's okay to consider someone's overall experience, but it shouldn't be used as a way to "prove someone's point or superiority" in a topic. Even a new player might have some helpful information or observations about something we more experienced players may have missed. Sometimes, a fresher perspective is less biased and more clear...

Take some time and read the post I replied to. He stated that I should go back to Table Top and that I must mot have much experience with the MWO franchise. He tried to pull the experience card and it failed on him. I highly suggest that you send the poster an email and help him on posting etiquette rather than attempt to correct someone who simply stated basic facts.

[Bhael Fire]

Rhent, on 23 December 2013 - 02:53 PM, said:

Really you are going with that line of reasoning?

Yes...because it's the correct line of reasoning with regard to balancing autocannons in this game.

If they nerfed AC's nobody would waste their time with them and many ballistic-based mechs would become largely useless....pretty much like the A1 did when they nerfed SRMs.

If they removed front-loaded damage from ACs and made them operate like lasers (i.e. damage over time DPS weapons), the weight, crit space, limited ammo, and risk of ammo explosions would largely make them inferior to lasers — even with the fact that they run hotter than ballistics, lasers can fire indefinitely without risk of exploding if they get hit.

So, again I assert that unless they lowered the weight and required crit space, as well as increased ammo per ton for ballistics, nerfing frontloaded damage would pretty much make them useless.

Edited by Bhael Fire, 23 December 2013 - 03:26 PM.