424 replies to this topic

[Joseph Mallan]

wanderer, on 08 January 2014 - 09:29 AM, said:

Autocannons, canonically were -never- single shot weapons.

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Autocannon

"Autocannon in a class vary by manufacturer and model. With the fluffed number of shells and caliber being specified, no Autocannon has been specified to be one shell fired for each "round" or burst of fire."



UAC's and rotaries fire at even higher numbers of shells, delivering them at higher speed and in larger numbers. UAC's represent "pushing the envelope" for single-barrel guns (thus the jams), while rotaries use the refinements in building AC's to build something that delivers up to 6x the burst-fire rate of a standard AC- but even a standard AC is firing a burst of shells, albeit in some cases as small as a 3-round one.

150mm Cannon average rate of fire is 4 rounds per minute or one ever 15 seconds.
203mm Cannon can fire at 10 rounds per minute! Once every 6 seconds. (odd that it is faster than the smaller bore!)

[ReXspec]

wanderer, on 08 January 2014 - 09:29 AM, said:

Autocannons, canonically were -never- single shot weapons.

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Autocannon

"Autocannon in a class vary by manufacturer and model. With the fluffed number of shells and caliber being specified, no Autocannon has been specified to be one shell fired for each "round" or burst of fire."



UAC's and rotaries fire at even higher numbers of shells, delivering them at higher speed and in larger numbers. UAC's represent "pushing the envelope" for single-barrel guns (thus the jams), while rotaries use the refinements in building AC's to build something that delivers up to 6x the burst-fire rate of a standard AC- but even a standard AC is firing a burst of shells, albeit in some cases as small as a 3-round one.

Ah your right... but there are single shot AC's on TT. So, we can conclude that the devs may be basing the mechanics on the AC's on the TT model.

[kesuga7]

ReXspec, on 08 January 2014 - 09:36 AM, said:

If you buffed the PPCs projectiles to where they're supposed to be as well and removed ghost heat, they would easily be on par with ballistics.

Basically the mentality of my proposal is to buff everything to a balanced level, and make everything consistent with TT. Another thing that would help as well is incorporating more or less slot numbers based on the type of mech, and incorporating design quirks in mechs. Like on the TT, certain mechs excelled in certain aspects of mech combat (such as reduced lock times, faster heat dispersion, etc.) but were poor in others (such as low turn speed, low heat-dispersion, etc.). If you incorporated these elements, we would probably have an extremely balanced mechwarrior game--and one that is fun to boot.

Design quicks are already ingame (Hunchbacks turn faster ,Arm response Etc.) but they are MOVEMENT only what piranha needs to start adding is heat and lock on times and more like you stated
(like make the 733c highlander have slightly worse heat dissapation/Twist rate due to the 40 missle ports it can carry already)

The Jaeger mech Designed as a anti aircraft mech just was flatout turned into dakka wagon's powerfull enough to take out any assault so giving the jaeger mech a twist rate nerf it would better reflect its vertical oriented weapons and design
And the famed 3 PPC awesome which is outclassed by pretty much any heavier tonned mech due to not having weapon sizez/ slot number limits to give each mech its own uniqueness


Well even WITH ghost heat your seeing many highly effective PPC+AC builds
So if you buffed projectile speed on both well then its going to be super sniper and 80-600+ meter weapons

Lets say Laser's and Srm's got buffed your still going to have to get within 270 meters to use the most common SRM and medium lasers
however back in closed beta when all the weapons were strong that was great
guess im just having a hard time visualing a slower rate of fire and armor values after so much MW:O

EDIT:

ReXspec, on 08 January 2014 - 09:57 AM, said:

Ah your right... but there are single shot AC's on TT. So, we can conclude that the devs may be basing the mechanics on the AC's on the TT model.

Well only the heaviest and very stable mechs such as the kingcrab (or kingcrab like mechs) and atlas could mount single shot 203mm's

[ReXspec]

kesuga7, on 08 January 2014 - 10:00 AM, said:

Design quicks are already ingame (Hunchbacks turn faster ,Arm response Etc.) but they are MOVEMENT only what piranha needs to start adding is heat and lock on times and more like you stated
(like make the 733c highlander have slightly worse heat dissapation/Twist rate due to the 40 missle ports it can carry already)

The Jaeger mech Designed as a anti aircraft mech just was flatout turned into dakka wagon's powerfull enough to take out any assault so giving the jaeger mech a twist rate nerf it would better reflect its vertical oriented weapons and design
And the famed 3 PPC awesome which is outclassed by pretty much any heavier tonned mech due to not having weapon sizez/ slot number limits to give each mech its own uniqueness


Well even WITH ghost heat your seeing many highly effective PPC+AC builds
So if you buffed projectile speed on both well then its going to be super sniper and 80-600+ meter weapons

Lets say Laser's and Srm's got buffed your still going to have to get within 270 meters to use the most common SRM and medium lasers
however back in closed beta when all the weapons were strong that was great
guess im just having a hard time visualing a slower rate of fire and armor values after so much MW:O

EDIT:


Well only the heaviest and very stable mechs such as the kingcrab (or kingcrab like mechs) and atlas could mount single shot 203mm's

Agree with everything here except for the Awesome. Actually, that mech's design quirk is that it had a large sillouette (in TT terms, that meant you didn't need to roll as high to high it) and it had poor heat dissipation because of it's hot weaponry.

Other then that, if you need a good example of what it would be like to play with relatively slow-firing mechs, just play MW4.

Not only did RoF reflect closely to TT, but hardpoints were also restricted based on mech size. In other words, depending on the mech design, certain slots in the mech could hold bigger weapons based on the number of slots available in the mechs. As of yet, the hardpoint restrictions are accurate, but the number of slots available based on mech size/design have been virtually untouched.

[Lightfoot]

FupDup, on 07 January 2014 - 10:56 AM, said:

Diversity is indeed a great thing, and we need a lot more of it in MWO, but I don't think that Battletech's balancing achieved that. In TT, your choices for most fights were the PPC, Medium Laser, and Gauss Rifle. Some other weapons like the AC/20 has situational uses, but most of them were simply not worth it much of the time. BT was horribly skewed in favor of only a handful of weapons.

And MWO is no better, it just changed the weapons to AC2's and Medium Lasers, so I guess it's worse diversity.

This isn't a table-top dice game anyway and we won't really know weapon balance until we know what map we are going to before Mechlab.

I liked MWO much better about a year ago. Everything was working except LRMs and you saw great diversity in the mechs people brought. There were just as many Gauss Rifles as AC2 Jagermechs. There were all types of missiles. Lot's of PPCs, but MWO has always had such sucky Large Lasers with one second durations. Lower the duration to 0.5 seconds and they would have replaced the PPC in a day.

Anyway, my point was that PGI is killing MWO with nerfs now. What makes MechWarrior great is you can go into Mechlab and re-invent your personal gameplay style in a minute or two and be just as competitive, but in a new way. If the devlopers limit you to just AC2's and MLAS MechWarrior gets boring after just a few matches per week.

[Fut]

FupDup, on 07 January 2014 - 03:15 PM, said:

Most people asking for weapon balance do not want absolute "equalization," we just want each piece of equipment to fulfill some kind of purpose that makes it worthy to put on your robot.

Bingo

[ReXspec]

Fut, on 08 January 2014 - 10:17 AM, said:

Bingo

This was best represented at the announcement of the clans...

What people seem to forget is that most (though not all) weapons that the IS had were made obsolete by the clans. I appreciate the devs want to balance the clans, but that doesn't mean they need to give EVERY weapon system IS has a use by nerfing everything into oblivion.

Edited by ReXspec, 08 January 2014 - 10:40 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

kesuga7, on 08 January 2014 - 10:00 AM, said:

Design quicks are already ingame (Hunchbacks turn faster ,Arm response Etc.) but they are MOVEMENT only what piranha needs to start adding is heat and lock on times and more like you stated
(like make the 733c highlander have slightly worse heat dissapation/Twist rate due to the 40 missle ports it can carry already)

The Jaeger mech Designed as a anti aircraft mech just was flatout turned into dakka wagon's powerfull enough to take out any assault so giving the jaeger mech a twist rate nerf it would better reflect its vertical oriented weapons and design
And the famed 3 PPC awesome which is outclassed by pretty much any heavier tonned mech due to not having weapon sizez/ slot number limits to give each mech its own uniqueness


Well even WITH ghost heat your seeing many highly effective PPC+AC builds
So if you buffed projectile speed on both well then its going to be super sniper and 80-600+ meter weapons

Lets say Laser's and Srm's got buffed your still going to have to get within 270 meters to use the most common SRM and medium lasers
however back in closed beta when all the weapons were strong that was great
guess im just having a hard time visualing a slower rate of fire and armor values after so much MW:O

EDIT:


Well only the heaviest and very stable mechs such as the kingcrab (or kingcrab like mechs) and atlas could mount single shot 203mm's

The AC20 of a Hunchback removed 1 1/4 tons in a single shot... not single burst.

[FupDup]

Lightfoot, on 08 January 2014 - 10:09 AM, said:

And MWO is no better, it just changed the weapons to AC2's and Medium Lasers, so I guess it's worse diversity.

This isn't a table-top dice game anyway and we won't really know weapon balance until we know what map we are going to before Mechlab.

I liked MWO much better about a year ago. Everything was working except LRMs and you saw great diversity in the mechs people brought. There were just as many Gauss Rifles as AC2 Jagermechs. There were all types of missiles. Lot's of PPCs, but MWO has always had such sucky Large Lasers with one second durations. Lower the duration to 0.5 seconds and they would have replaced the PPC in a day.

Anyway, my point was that PGI is killing MWO with nerfs now. What makes MechWarrior great is you can go into Mechlab and re-invent your personal gameplay style in a minute or two and be just as competitive, but in a new way. If the devlopers limit you to just AC2's and MLAS MechWarrior gets boring after just a few matches per week.

I never said that MWO was much better.

Anyways, the AC/2 and ML are not the only viable weapons in the game. If anything, the AC/2 is actually a little underwhelming because it has such tiny frontloaded damage (spreads damage horribly). Our current meta is still the same even after the nerfs from yesterday: a pair of PPCs combined with some sort of large Autocannon or a pair of AC/5. The only real change is that some people who used AC/10 and AC/20 pre-patch will probably switch to 2 AC/5. That's about it, really.

Edited by FupDup, 08 January 2014 - 10:32 AM.

[Sandpit]

wanderer, on 08 January 2014 - 09:29 AM, said:

Autocannons, canonically were -never- single shot weapons.

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Autocannon

"Autocannon in a class vary by manufacturer and model. With the fluffed number of shells and caliber being specified, no Autocannon has been specified to be one shell fired for each "round" or burst of fire."



UAC's and rotaries fire at even higher numbers of shells, delivering them at higher speed and in larger numbers. UAC's represent "pushing the envelope" for single-barrel guns (thus the jams), while rotaries use the refinements in building AC's to build something that delivers up to 6x the burst-fire rate of a standard AC- but even a standard AC is firing a burst of shells, albeit in some cases as small as a 3-round one.

Piloting skills were never meant to be defined by player ability
http://www.sarna.net...kill_Roll_Table

What's this got to do with anything? Well nothing really. That's the point. This isn't Sarna, nor is it TT. We need to get away from the "In TT" arguments. TT should be at the core of fundamental ideas and I understand many are just using them as examples but this is not TT. The TT examples hold no more water than what I just shared. We need to move away from the TT mentality

[Joseph Mallan]

Sandpit, on 08 January 2014 - 10:45 AM, said:

Piloting skills were never meant to be defined by player ability
http://www.sarna.net...kill_Roll_Table

What's this got to do with anything? Well nothing really. That's the point. This isn't Sarna, nor is it TT. We need to get away from the "In TT" arguments. TT should be at the core of fundamental ideas and I understand many are just using them as examples but this is not TT. The TT examples hold no more water than what I just shared. We need to move away from the TT mentality

Ok we are trying to rapid fire a cannon firing up to a 8" 280lbs shell! That has a cyclic rate of 1 shell every 6 seconds present day. I for one want my 8" 280 lbs of destruction over the burst fire a bunch of lil munitions at you approach. AND I am willing to face the same return fire from you!

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 08 January 2014 - 10:52 AM.

[ReXspec]

Sandpit, on 08 January 2014 - 10:45 AM, said:

Piloting skills were never meant to be defined by player ability
http://www.sarna.net...kill_Roll_Table

What's this got to do with anything? Well nothing really. That's the point. This isn't Sarna, nor is it TT. We need to get away from the "In TT" arguments. TT should be at the core of fundamental ideas and I understand many are just using them as examples but this is not TT. The TT examples hold no more water than what I just shared. We need to move away from the TT mentality

If we need to "move away from the TT mentality" then the devs need to be more consistent about what type of gameplay they are going with.

On one hand, you have single-shot AC weapons that have rules based on TT...while on the other, they produce more heat for the sake of game balance based on a warped perception of what each weapon's purpose is.

If Paul cites TT sources for valid reasons for nerfing/buffing weapons or NOT changing a particular bit of gameplay because he disagrees with a TT mechanic or a mechanic from a previous MW4 game, then he needs to say that he isn't following any time-tested methods for gameplay mechanics or balance.

Yes. MWO is not TT or MW4, but you or I can't ignore the time-tested methods of balance present in both games that could potentially fix the countless woes that plague MWO.

[wanderer]

ReXspec, on 08 January 2014 - 09:57 AM, said:

Ah your right... but there are single shot AC's on TT. So, we can conclude that the devs may be basing the mechanics on the AC's on the TT model.

Let's try this again. Autocannons fire bursts of shells. All Battletech AC's fire bursts of shells. Mechwarrior simplified this to a single shot, but canonically, there are no autocannons in the BT universe that are single shot in any way, shape or form.

http://en.wikipedia....wiki/Autocannon

There's the definition for a real AC, and Battletech ones operate the same way, being fed cassettes of ammo (each cassette being one "shot") that gets fired in a burst at the target- the number and size of such shells varying by gun, even if they effectively deliver X amount of damage as a generic term. That is, a smaller caliber AC firing more shells at the target and a larger caliber AC firing fewer shells per burst have the same damage rating- both are "AC/5", despite getting to the point of blasting a 'Mech in slightly different terms.

A single shot, mechanically loaded ballistic weapon in Battletech is a -rifle-, the historical predecessor to the autocannon and generally inferior to it in damaging a 'Mech.

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Heavy_Rifle

Sandpit, on 08 January 2014 - 10:45 AM, said:

What's this got to do with anything? Well nothing really. That's the point. This isn't Sarna, nor is it TT. We need to get away from the "In TT" arguments. TT should be at the core of fundamental ideas and I understand many are just using them as examples but this is not TT. The TT examples hold no more water than what I just shared. We need to move away from the TT mentality

We can replace autocannons with FBC's (Fluffy Bunny Cannons) too, and have them deliver the same damage. Problem solved, yaaaaaay!

What, fluffy bunnies splattering your 'Mech and destroying it would ruin the game? Well, so are single "shot" autocannons. Heck, spreading the damage love by making it a burst is going AGAINST the way it delivers damage in TT, which is to a single location. Wedding the way a weapon works in TT with function in MWO is how we should go here, and eliminating the AC's ability to automatically deliver it's full damage instantly to one point should work just fine with the "burst" concept. It's how we balanced beam weapons since beta, and the concept works just fine with AC's- especially considering what AC's canonically fire to begin with.

[MustrumRidcully]

ReXspec, on 08 January 2014 - 10:21 AM, said:

This was best represented at the announcement of the clans...

What people seem to forget is that most (though not all) weapons that the IS had were made obsolete by the clans. I appreciate the devs want to balance the clans, but that doesn't mean they need to give EVERY weapon system IS has a use by nerfing everything into oblivion.

Especially since it doesn't solve the problem that IS tech was obsolete and you didn't want it in your mech if you could avoid it. The goal needs to be creating differences between weapons that are not imbalanced.
The CLan weapons used to be superior in pretty much any way to IS equivalanets - more damage, more range, less weight. Instead, they need to have some attributes better than the IS weapon and others worse.
A Clan ER PPC might be lighter than the IS ER PPC, but otherwise have the same stat, and a lower rate of fire.
A Clan LRM might have no minimum range, but a lower range and a lower rate of fire.

IF they start nerfing IS LRMs because Clan LRMs would be OP, that would be utter bullsh*t. They'd still make IS LRMs worse than Clan LRMs. They could stop all the fine-tuning and just give everyone 50 % extra armour then, then TTK with Clan weapons would also stay as TTK is now with IS weapons, and IS weapons would still be inferior .

Fut, on 08 January 2014 - 10:17 AM, said:

Bingo

Clarification: Noob Trap or dead weight is not a purpose we deem useful.

[Roland]

Quote

Let's try this again. Autocannons fire bursts of shells. All Battletech AC's fire bursts of shells. Mechwarrior simplified this to a single shot, but canonically, there are no autocannons in the BT universe that are single shot in any way, shape or form.

EVERY AUTOCANNON IN BATTLETECH FIRES A SINGLE SHELL.

None of the fluff matters. None of that is actually in the rules set.

Each Autocannon does all of its damage in a single shot. It doesn't matter what you actually imagine is taking place while rolling the dice and doing the calculations.. because from the perspective of the rules and balance, it is doing it as a single shot. There is no burst, there is no spread. One "hit".

[Sandpit]

Joseph Mallan, on 08 January 2014 - 10:51 AM, said:

Ok we are trying to rapid fire a cannon firing up to a 8" 280lbs shell! That has a cyclic rate of 1 shell every 6 seconds present day. I for one want my 8" 280 lbs of destruction over the burst fire a bunch of lil munitions at you approach. AND I am willing to face the same return fire from you!

Come on Joe, you know I don't want burst fire. I hate that idea when it comes to ballistics

[ReXspec]

wanderer, on 08 January 2014 - 10:56 AM, said:

Let's try this again. Autocannons fire bursts of shells. All Battletech AC's fire bursts of shells. Mechwarrior simplified this to a single shot, but canonically, there are no autocannons in the BT universe that are single shot in any way, shape or form.

http://en.wikipedia....wiki/Autocannon

There's the definition for a real AC, and Battletech ones operate the same way, being fed cassettes of ammo (each cassette being one "shot") that gets fired in a burst at the target- the number and size of such shells varying by gun, even if they effectively deliver X amount of damage as a generic term. That is, a smaller caliber AC firing more shells at the target and a larger caliber AC firing fewer shells per burst have the same damage rating- both are "AC/5", despite getting to the point of blasting a 'Mech in slightly different terms.

A single shot, mechanically loaded ballistic weapon in Battletech is a -rifle-, the historical predecessor to the autocannon and generally inferior to it in damaging a 'Mech.

The TT game defines an AC differently then the canon does. That was my point.

[Sandpit]

ReXspec, on 08 January 2014 - 10:54 AM, said:

they produce more heat for the sake of game balance based on a warped perception of what each weapon's purpose is.

Exactly. YOu kinda answered your own thoughts with this right here

[ReXspec]

Sandpit, on 08 January 2014 - 11:09 AM, said:

Exactly. YOu kinda answered your own thoughts with this right here

I should've tacked an asterisk on to that statement.

"Balance" is not balance when it is based on a warped perception of how a game should play, or a specific mechanic in that game should work.

It especially doesn't help when the devs are being almost completely ambiguous as to their reasons behind particular design and gameplay choices.

To top THAT off, it helps even less when what we have seen thus far as far as there gameplay design and balance choices go have been completely horrendous.

Edited by ReXspec, 08 January 2014 - 11:19 AM.

[wanderer]

Roland, on 08 January 2014 - 11:03 AM, said:

EVERY AUTOCANNON IN BATTLETECH FIRES A SINGLE SHELL.

None of the fluff matters. None of that is actually in the rules set.

Each Autocannon does all of its damage in a single shot. It doesn't matter what you actually imagine is taking place while rolling the dice and doing the calculations.. because from the perspective of the rules and balance, it is doing it as a single shot. There is no burst, there is no spread. One "hit".

And so do lasers. Note that MWO lasers do NOT deliver their damage in a single point instantly.

What I am saying is that MWO AC's should follow the same model, and that fluffwise using a burst of shells to represent this is actually better both fluffwise and mechanicswise for MWO. And if you wanna quote rules at me:

AC's in tabletop can sweep multiple adjacent hexes, splitting their damage between them (Tactical Operations). At "normal" fire rates. Unless a wizard did this, that gun's firing multiple shells per "shot" regardless of the effect on the target.

They can "double-tap" like an Ultra at a higher rate of failure. (Again, Tac Ops) You roll on the cluster hits chart, and just like Ultra-mode AC's and rotaries, you roll for how much of the burst hits and which locations.