1080 replies to this topic

[Sandpit]

Turning ACs into a burst fire weapon defeats their advantages. You can argue "it's so fast it's negligible" but that simply isn't true. Burst fire and beam duration are the exact same mechanic just with different duration lengths.

Burst fire is LBX. That's exactly what you're asking for exact with a tighter grouping of projectiles. It simply nullifies the advantage of taking ACs. It would nerf them into a faster pulse laser with huge disadvantages of weight, crit slots, and ammo dependency.
Burst fire and convergence simply aren't the answer.

This is coming from a guy who runs a LOT of energy boats. I rarely run a ballistics mech (although I do use them when I feel like playing a different style)

[MustrumRidcully]

No, burst fire is absolutely not LBX. It doesn't matter how steady you can hold your crosshair on a target, it is impossible to hit the same spot with an LBX (or SRMs, or LRMs), because the weapon effect consists of multiple projectiles flying in an expanding pattern. THe only thing that gives you the chance is to fire it at point-blank.

Also, in contrast to a burst or beam, the LBX (and SRMs) also allow you to press the fire trigger and immediately run away or torso twist, no need to hold your weapon on target, the projectiles are already en route.

[Mister Blastman]

Guys, despite all the debates of for or against, a fact still stands:

Something MAJOR needs to be changed in the game balance system or as Rhent and others point out, the game will continue to be stale, stagnant and boring.

Load up on artillery and pack PPCs+ACs or else at the moment.

Battletech was never designed to allow pinpoint damage to single components from long range. I know, I know. The whole, "well our armor was doubled!" argument stating 15 = 30 still doesn't apply because, well, the doubled armor isn't helping at all.

The single most broken thing about this game at the moment is allowing pinpoint, convergent, instant direct damage in user-specified location; especially at long range (i.e. 500 meters+). This trumps all other weapon loadouts in the game at the moment and will forever continue to do so until drastic changes are made.

[Cimarb]

Syvarris, on 05 January 2014 - 10:51 PM, said:

I really like the max ammo capacity idea, it wouldn't hurt medium mechs like ammo per ton reductions, but I wouldn't be able to put say, ten tons of UAC/5 ammo in my Ilya with triple UAC/5's like I can right now, maybe something more (admittedly) sensible, like 6 tons or somesuch.

Max ammo capacity? No. What basis is there for this? It is an arbitrary restriction that will not change anything other than the sustainability of any ammo-based build.

Varent, on 05 January 2014 - 10:17 PM, said:

if you increase the dps you will lower the overall use of lesser autocannon.

Frustrating. I understand you are being devils advocate, but the utter lack of compromise or constructive rebuttal is irritating.

Do you not understand how autocannons are supposed to be classified? It has been explained many times already, but go read the sarna post about autocannons again if you can't remember. An AC2 should NEVER do more damage per second than an AC5, because if that was the case, it would NOT be an AC2. Damage per second is exactly what determines the class of autocannon - not caliber, not firing rate, not size, JUST damage in a set time period (DPS).

Now, having said that, actually look at the examples I listed and give a constructive rebuttal instead of disregarding it completely.

Noth, on 06 January 2014 - 05:41 AM, said:

So in essence you are turning them into lasers with recoil, flight time, ammo, more weight, chance of blowing up, and more time between damage ticks. What you propose is a damage over time, just the ticks are visible shells instead of in a beam. This would instantly make AC underpowered. The only thing going for ACs at the moment is the fact that they do all their damage upfront.

No, it's not the only thing. Autocannons give substantial screen shake, very low heat (well, it would be very low heat if they didn't have to nerf them indirectly with ghost heat because of their front-loaded damage and excessive range), and extreme range.

If autocannons are turned into burst fire weapons, ghost heat can be removed from them and flight time can be increased quite a bit to compensate. The same way Gauss was changed when delay was added.

mania3c, on 06 January 2014 - 06:11 AM, said:

It's good to see someone is using brain in this forum...

I would disgree.

Mcgral18, on 06 January 2014 - 06:17 AM, said:

No, what they have going for them is low heat high damage low recycle. Frontloaded just makes them that much better.

They should have low heat and low recycle, but the front-loaded damage has resulted in nerfs from ghost heat, removing the key advantage that ballistics are supposed to have over energy weapons.

mania3c, on 06 January 2014 - 07:00 AM, said:

First..I agree heat system has own issues and need to be corrected/fixed.. however for ACs..it would depend how long that burst would be.. some very short burst ..like 0,2 sec.. okay .. I can agree that it would still keep ACs different enough from lasers..but if we are talking about burst close to 0,5 sec.. just no..hitscan or burst.. it will make no difference (actually hitscan is more reliable and less luck based - better overall ..for user and target)

But we are talking about a short burst like that, with different manufacturers possibly giving different burst characteristics for variety. See my post from yesterday night regarding that.

Sandpit, on 06 January 2014 - 07:54 AM, said:

Turning ACs into a burst fire weapon defeats their advantages. You can argue "it's so fast it's negligible" but that simply isn't true. Burst fire and beam duration are the exact same mechanic just with different duration lengths.

Burst fire is LBX. That's exactly what you're asking for exact with a tighter grouping of projectiles. It simply nullifies the advantage of taking ACs. It would nerf them into a faster pulse laser with huge disadvantages of weight, crit slots, and ammo dependency.
Burst fire and convergence simply aren't the answer.

This is coming from a guy who runs a LOT of energy boats. I rarely run a ballistics mech (although I do use them when I feel like playing a different style)

Burst fire is NOT LBX. LBX is spread, while burst is duration. Yes, you can spread it around over that duration, but LBX cannot possibly do all of its damage to a single hitbox from more than a 100m or so, regardless of how steady your aim or the opponent are.

I run primarily autocannon builds, and my #1 mech for many months was the Heavy Metal with the 2ERPPC+Gauss cheese build before I even knew it was cheese. I have now changed it to a 2AC5+ERPPC build because I don't like the delay change, but it is essentially the exact same build with very similar results. I love my dakka and front-loaded damage is my forte, but I would like that to change because I don't like how "cheesy" I feel playing it. I also have an AC40 firebrand that I play daily, my phracts are all autocannon boats, etc etc etc.

I am not trying to nerf autocannons. I want them to stay powerful. I am just trying to find a solution to the front-loaded issue where a lucky hit can go all the way through an assault mechs armor no matter how much torso twisting and piloting skill is involved.

[A banana in the tailpipe]

I found the best way to keep the game from getting stale is to play it in burst amounts.

[Sandpit]

Mister Blastman, on 06 January 2014 - 09:11 AM, said:

Guys, despite all the debates of for or against, a fact still stands:

Something MAJOR needs to be changed in the game balance system or as Rhent and others point out, the game will continue to be stale, stagnant and boring.

Load up on artillery and pack PPCs+ACs or else at the moment.

Battletech was never designed to allow pinpoint damage to single components from long range. I know, I know. The whole, "well our armor was doubled!" argument stating 15 = 30 still doesn't apply because, well, the doubled armor isn't helping at all.

The single most broken thing about this game at the moment is allowing pinpoint, convergent, instant direct damage in user-specified location; especially at long range (i.e. 500 meters+). This trumps all other weapon loadouts in the game at the moment and will forever continue to do so until drastic changes are made.

For every player that posts this there's another player who disagrees.

The absolutes of "take ACs or else" are just completely untrue. I'm walking proof of that.

[Wildstreak]

Mister Blastman, on 06 January 2014 - 09:11 AM, said:

Guys, despite all the debates of for or against, a fact still stands:

Something MAJOR needs to be changed in the game balance system or as Rhent and others point out, the game will continue to be stale, stagnant and boring.

Load up on artillery and pack PPCs+ACs or else at the moment.

Battletech was never designed to allow pinpoint damage to single components from long range. I know, I know. The whole, "well our armor was doubled!" argument stating 15 = 30 still doesn't apply because, well, the doubled armor isn't helping at all.

The single most broken thing about this game at the moment is allowing pinpoint, convergent, instant direct damage in user-specified location; especially at long range (i.e. 500 meters+). This trumps all other weapon loadouts in the game at the moment and will forever continue to do so until drastic changes are made.

Agreed. Sadly, my only other idea I do not know how to discuss because I would compare it to a game in Closed BETA thus NDA and there would probably be little effort to even try it.

Wraith05, on 05 January 2014 - 09:23 PM, said:

This I could agree with.

As for those replying to me about the burst fire thing. I honestly am ok with the burst fire idea IF they can make the actual mechanics different from laser. By that I mean the full damage over a time difference mechanic. I just want the 3 weapon classes to have mostly distinct mechanics with 1 or 2 cross over weapons like the PPC or LBX.

edit: maybe something as simple as a max ammo capacity per weapon type? So say you couldn't go above 21 AC20 shots (even if 2 were equipped).

This has always been something of a goal for me to consider. I never said I wanted AC change to make it do DoT the same as a laser. It all depends on the number of shots in a burst that should be kept low so the burst does take less time than a laser beam duration.

Are all Lasers 1 second in beam duration?

Syvarris, on 05 January 2014 - 10:43 PM, said:

I somewhat agree with AC's doing steaming damage, that's in fact supported by canon, and the TRO and any other supplied definition of an AC. But a PPC doing streaming damage completely ruins the point of a PPC. If it does streaming damage, then it becomes a laser. The ENTIRE point of a PPC is that it fires a ball of particles at something.

It could always do a splash effect, half to three quarter damage on target, the rest splashed into adjacent areas.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

Sandpit - how may mediums or the lighter end of heavies do you run on a regular basis? I've seen you refer to your stalker builds on a regular basis but not much else. Front loaded damage and the game rewarding kills/damage so highly are a major reason for go big or else.
As someone whose mechs nearly all carry ballistics (except for the LRM boats) and an almost exclusively medium pilot I can see the problem.
With regard to the opposition to ballistics most of it seems to come from you and Varent.
Very good pilots can get kills and do damage with practically any mech/weapon combo, it doesn't mean that no changes are or should be made. Just as you shouldn't nerf everything to satisfy the really bad pilots.

[stjobe]

Sandpit, on 06 January 2014 - 07:54 AM, said:

Burst fire is LBX.

No. Have some ASCII-art, perhaps it can server to lessen the confusion:

This is LBX (parallel projectiles all hit the target at the same time):
-
-
-

This is burst-fire (serial projectiles hit the target one after the other):
- - - - - (cooldown) - - - - -

This is beam-duration (continuous beam):
---------- (cooldown) ----------

This is continuous-fire (or streaming, you fire for as long as you hold down the trigger):
--------------------------------------

The difference between beam-duration and burst-fire is the number of ticks vs the number of projectiles, and the length of the beam/burst. A LL, for instance, does 10 x 0.9 damage ticks in 1.0 seconds. A hypothetical burst-fire AC/20 could do e.g. 5 x 4 damage projectiles in 0.5 seconds.

The LBX uses a wholly different system where all projectiles travel side-by-side like missiles, and spread like missiles randomly over the target.

[Sandpit]

Nik Van Rhijn, on 06 January 2014 - 11:09 AM, said:

Sandpit - how may mediums or the lighter end of heavies do you run on a regular basis? I've seen you refer to your stalker builds on a regular basis but not much else. Front loaded damage and the game rewarding kills/damage so highly are a major reason for go big or else.
As someone whose mechs nearly all carry ballistics (except for the LRM boats) and an almost exclusively medium pilot I can see the problem.
With regard to the opposition to ballistics most of it seems to come from you and Varent.
Very good pilots can get kills and do damage with practically any mech/weapon combo, it doesn't mean that no changes are or should be made. Just as you shouldn't nerf everything to satisfy the really bad pilots.

I have and do run everything across the board. I run my Shawks and Tbolts
I currently have a raven I am enjoying
I've played Hunchies, jenners, commandos, BJs (I really like the champion), Cents, Dragons, you name it. I run energy boats on what I can and other stuff on variants that I can't.

I use my stalker and Bmasters as example because I run them more often simply because it's fun to boat 5+ LLs and go to town. I run ballistic based mechs and even LRM boats. As much as I love my energy builds I step "outside" my comfort zone fairly regularly just so I can see how other things work and learn more about different builds and such.
You can say it's "me and varent" but that's simply not true and you have to know that from this thread alone. If you think we are the only 2 people in all of MWO that take our stance well............ ok then.........

[Allen Ward]

My Thunderbolts also run pretty well as Med Laser boats. But they are definitely inferior to ballistic builds, especially ballistic boats. Its the nature of medium and light class (and to some degree heavy) to not be able to boat ballistics, instead lasers mixed with missiles. On the other hand, heavies and assaults can boat lasers too as they have the room and tonnage for mounting the required DHS. lights and mediums die faster by massive ballistic fire than by laser beams sweeping all over them. Hitting them with ballistics is no longer as hard as it once was, people have become better, you can add modules like gyro stabilizer, too. There are many parameters that can lead to imbalance in a system...

The best prove for me is: people flock towards ballistics and only a few players stick to lasers (probably doing pretty well with them). Although the mob is not always making the brightest decisions, it always does what is currently and apparently the best for him. It is very good at "feeling" what to use, although most people don't even think about damage ratings, beam duration and stuff like that. They simply play missiles - and find that no one is spotting for them, then they switch to lasers and find that 90% of the mechs can't handle the heat and damage is mediocre as it is hard to aim steadily, then they turn to ballistics and find that they can do wham damage with simple mouse clicks, aim, shoot, destroy. So what do you choose? The lasers because they light up the sky so beautifully? The missiles because you hate running around all the time and love to get backstabbed by flocks of spiders?

Edit: Dont't forget that ballistic make the biggest bang in the game. I guess that helps a lot in choosing them over bsssss or swooooosh.

Edited by Allen Ward, 06 January 2014 - 12:17 PM.

[Sandpit]

Allen Ward, on 06 January 2014 - 12:15 PM, said:

The best prove for me is: people flock towards ballistics and only a few players stick to lasers (probably doing pretty well with them). Although the mob is not always making the brightest decisions, it always does what is currently and apparently the best for him.

I'd say easiest as opposed to best for them. The best thing to do is learn how to use ALL weapons proficiently so as to not limit your play style and abilities.
That's why I'm so deadset against all the "nerf this it killed me" threads. Most of us (at least I'd like to think it's most, even if it isn't I'm going to assume the best) don't want an easy button which is what a lot of the nerf threads equate to wanting in my opinion

[Khobai]

Quote

Turning ACs into a burst fire weapon defeats their advantages.

No it doesnt. The traditional tabletop advantage of ACs is less heat generation. The advantage of ACs was never meant to be instant damage vs damage over time. That advantage was created by MWO's flawed system and should be purged by converting ACs into burst fire weapons.

[Tombstoner]

Khobai, on 06 January 2014 - 12:56 PM, said:

No it doesnt. The traditional tabletop advantage of ACs is less heat generation. The advantage of ACs was never meant to be instant damage vs damage over time. That advantage was created by MWO's flawed system and should be purged by converting ACs into burst fire weapons.

Also superior range in the case of the ac-2: longest ranged weapon in 1st ed.
Over all damage potential was higher then energy weapons but balanced by lower heat and ammo dependance.
many mechs used both systems because you never want a mech that runs out of ammo. lots of mechs had the Token small laser for that or a med f they could spare the tonnage. Thus lots of stock designs suffer from the lack of boating optimization.

As it is damage is jacked through the roof such that ammo only becomes important when you have derpy team mates.

[Cimarb]

Honestly, are my posts so horrible the opposition doesn't feel they are worth debating constructively, or so good they are scared to debate constructively? I would like someone to answer my points without a "don't touch my boomstick cause I think it's fun" comment, lol.

[Lostdragon]

Sandpit, on 06 January 2014 - 09:30 AM, said:

For every player that posts this there's another player who disagrees.

The absolutes of "take ACs or else" are just completely untrue. I'm walking proof of that.

If they had another weekend tourney focused on heavies like they used to do you think you could win the Catapult ladder with a Jester?

[mania3c]

Khobai, on 06 January 2014 - 12:56 PM, said:

No it doesnt. The traditional tabletop advantage of ACs is less heat generation. The advantage of ACs was never meant to be instant damage vs damage over time. That advantage was created by MWO's flawed system and should be purged by converting ACs into burst fire weapons.

Yet..laser's disadvantage was inaccuracy .. accuracy penalty was transfered as a beam duration.. so in fact.. making AC beam weapon is removing it's advantage comparing to lasers//

Edited by mania3c, 06 January 2014 - 02:53 PM.

[Lostdragon]

mania3c, on 06 January 2014 - 02:53 PM, said:

Yet..laser's disadvantage was inaccuracy .. accuracy penalty was transfered as a beam duration.. so in fact.. making AC beam weapon is removing it's advantage comparing to lasers//

Then something was lost in translation.

[stjobe]

mania3c, on 06 January 2014 - 02:53 PM, said:

Yet..laser's disadvantage was inaccuracy .. accuracy penalty was transfered as a beam duration.. so in fact.. making AC beam weapon is removing it's advantage comparing to lasers//

What are you talking about? Lasers had no more or less accuracy than ACs in TT, there's no "accuracy penalty" to transfer.

[mania3c]

stjobe, on 06 January 2014 - 03:09 PM, said:

What are you talking about? Lasers had no more or less accuracy than ACs in TT, there's no "accuracy penalty" to transfer.

I played TT maybe once or twice..so I may be wrong of course..but isn't beam duration in MWO to somehow "simulate" accuracy system from TT? I am pretty sure devs already said beam duration was introduced as conversion of the accuracy system from TT ..

Okey.. I may be wrong that lasers are less accurate.. however..they hit instantly..compared to "travel time" od ACs ammunition..