479 replies to this topic

[SaJeel]

Lasers are effectively medium power high skill weapons. ACs on the other hand are low skill high power weapons, that is bad game design right there.

[Sandpit]

SaJeel, on 08 January 2014 - 06:15 PM, said:

Lasers are effectively medium power high skill weapons. ACs on the other hand are low skill high power weapons, that is bad game design right there.

I'd actually differently on that
Lasers are lower skill. They're easier to aim by their nature because you don't have to be extremely accurate and still get hits. The damage is on par with other weapon systems though. Damage isn't really the issue. How the damage is delivered is what everyone is really arguing over
Ballistics are high skill. They are hit or miss. If you aren't spot on with aiming and/or leading a target then you do no damage at all wasting your ammo.

[Varent]

Foxfire, on 08 January 2014 - 05:36 PM, said:

And that is more of an issue with the current mechanics of jumpjets than it is with any weapon type right now.

and its the primary issue in the game.

[Noesis]

Sandpit, on 08 January 2014 - 06:25 PM, said:

I'd actually differently on that
Lasers are lower skill. They're easier to aim by their nature because you don't have to be extremely accurate and still get hits. The damage is on par with other weapon systems though. Damage isn't really the issue. How the damage is delivered is what everyone is really arguing over
Ballistics are high skill. They are hit or miss. If you aren't spot on with aiming and/or leading a target then you do no damage at all wasting your ammo.

Not entirely true.

Weapons damage is not on a par, ballistics have been shown to have higher potential DPS.

How the damage is delivered is a useful point however, which also shows laser under performing against ballistics and correctly as a point I would say that given other balancing factors this is the more determinable inequality as a disparity of potential.

Ballistics are point and click, Low skill. Lasers are point and click but then hold to maintain damage delivery, higher skill and face time.

Despite lasers being more accurate their potential has been found to be less despite this factor when comparing these values accordingly, this associated with their overall delivery mechanics.

Edited by Noesis, 08 January 2014 - 06:41 PM.

[wanderer]

It might be better said that ballistics are point, shoot, turn.

Lasers are point, shoot, hold, giving you precious moments to pump a ballistic/PPC round right where you want it before turning to spread the laser damage across multiple armor locations. Ballistic weapons have been dreaded since the original boom-boom K2's first showed up, but they're also the only weapon type to really maintain the effective, pinpoint damage that frankly kills best and fastest in MWO. It takes more skill to aim the average AC, but it's not THAT tough and the results are potent.

Lasers will get you some damage, but it's the dakka that brings the kills- well, that and PPC fire. How soon we forget the age of the six-gun Stalker.

[Cerberias]

How are ballistics low skill weapons? They have a projectile speed as opposed to 'hits where your cursor is', if you miss you miss completely, with no chance of getting any damage at all, unlike lasers which can correct. I'd say more along the lines of Lasers are more dependent on target skill, and have a much more average damage source, as they can correct their beam or even have the beam fall off target mid-stream. They're probably more consistent than ballistics, which are low skill at close range, for sure, but when you account things like torso twisting, shot leading, high ranged combat, jumpsniping which is inherent to the projectile nature, youve got a much higher skillcapp than lasers.

Essentially what I'm saying is, Lasers are reliable, Ballistics can either be used very badly or very well, with discernable gaps of performance in between. They're definitely more powerful, and they've very hard to mitigate, which gives even a bad player a chance to do a large chunk of damage to a location if they are accurate enough. They just make people pay attention more than lasers, which are more insipid and slow.

[Myomes]

conversely, you cannot correct for the damage not landing all in the same place.

with double armor and DoT lasers, a single or pair of medium lasers just isn't scary. Does anyone worry about a commando or raven with 1-2 medium lasers? Stock builds are a joke, which means even MORE boating to overcome the deficiency of lasers.

Sure, you might miss a shot with an AC, but when it hits, it actually HITS. When you "aim well" and get a hit with a laser, you're just doing a third or less damage every single time. The bigger the engine size, the more agility and speed the enemy has to throw off the laser easy.

An AC20 that hits once out of 2-3 times pays for itself. one or two medium lasers that hit for 0.2 seconds for 1/3 of the damage all the time, and then cant even be accurately applied to the same place every time, is far far worse. thats why you boat 5+ lasers, just to get that 5 instant damage which actually means something. Or take LRMs and not have to deal with either the nerfing to AC or the crapfest of lasers.

I can see what is beginning to take shape. They are basically turning the game into Lights = medium = heavy = assault, so essentially they'll have no need for tonnage limits in the future. They're trying to "balance" the game so that someone can pick a flyweight mech and have the same battlefield fighting power as someone picking a medium or an assault. In other words, it's turning into "mechbrawl", and less mechwarrior. Yet even as they do this, they are thoroughly encouraging boating as the only effective means to apply damage, and thus encouraging boat lights with ML spam and SSRM spam to remain competitive.

Edited by Myomes, 08 January 2014 - 09:23 PM.

[Khobai]

Quote

I'd actually differently on that
Lasers are lower skill. They're easier to aim by their nature because you don't have to be extremely accurate and still get hits.

Nope. Lasers are definitely higher skill. The fastest way to destroy enemy mechs is to shoot them repeatedly in the same location. Its much harder to hold a laser on the same location for the entire beam duration than it is to aim an autocannon and pull the trigger. Lasers might have higher accuracy than autocannons, but its precision, not accuracy, that kills mechs. And autocannons have far better precision than lasers.

Furthermore lasers require you to hold them on the target for the ENTIRE beam duration. That means while youre firing lasers youre exposed more to incoming fire. So using lasers also requires more situational awareness than using instant damage weapons like PPCs/AC20s.

Edited by Khobai, 08 January 2014 - 09:27 PM.

[Myomes]

Khobai, on 08 January 2014 - 09:14 PM, said:

Nope. Lasers are definitely higher skill. The fastest way to destroy enemy mechs is to shoot them repeatedly in the same location. Its much harder to hold a laser on the same location for the entire beam duration than it is to aim an autocannon and pull the trigger.

Lasers do have higher accuracy, but its precision that kills mechs. And autocannons have far better precision than lasers.

Furthermore lasers require you to hold them on the target for the ENTIRE beam duration. That means while youre firing lasers youre exposed more to incoming fire. So using lasers also requires more situational awareness than using instant damage weapons like PPCs/AC20s.

yeah, in other words, DoT lasers are ********. Well, lets not be too hasty in saying that. the way PGI implemented it is ********. The full retardation comes in the fact that it's got a Stepped behavior. You must hit the spot at exactly the right timing within the beams duration to get the damage.

If, for example, lasers did 1 damage every .1 second for .5 seconds, then they might actually be worthwhile in groups of less than 4.

Edited by Myomes, 08 January 2014 - 09:30 PM.

[Myomes]

SaJeel, on 08 January 2014 - 06:15 PM, said:

Lasers are effectively medium power high skill weapons. ACs on the other hand are low skill high power weapons, that is bad game design right there.

you're confusing low skill with competitive. Saying aiming with a ballistic weapon doesn't take skill is like saying I fart cheese.

[Craig Steele]

Lasers vs Ballistics and skill, really depends on your viewpoint.

One argument is that to unlock the full destructive power of a laser you must be able to hold the beam on target for the full duration, but if your focus is on just doing "some" damage than not so much skill is required.

Balistics need a highly skilled player to unlock full damage (ie, ensure every ammo count hits the target).

It really depends on whether you are comparing one trigger pull, vs 2 minutes brawl , vs a 15 minute match. Both weapons have Pro's and cons depending on where you want to draw the line.

I don't see how anyones right or wrong unless you are saying that highly skilled pilots using either weapon will unlock their chosen weapons full destructive power.

Personally I think the ballistics are the more powerful weapons due to the laughable durability of mechs in this game. But thats just my personal view and takes nothing away from the skill of a player except to say that an average player will get more kills / C-Bills / XP with balistics than lasers on average simply because mechs melt faster.

[Varent]

They both require skills. Those skills vary at many levels and elo. That said its not a mter of wich weapon requires more skill.. what its a matter of is the weapons being of use in different areas and at different times. Every weapon has its place.

[Mekwarrior]

Yes with lasers you can usually do some damage even if you miss at first by moving the mouse, but with ACs if you don't get a hit you do no damage.

Edited by Mekwarrior, 08 January 2014 - 10:45 PM.

[Myomes]

Mekwarrior, on 08 January 2014 - 10:45 PM, said:

Yes with lasers you can usually do some damage even if you miss at first by moving the mouse, but with ACs if you don't get a hit you do no damage.

only if the laser is on the target during the "damage tick". If the laser glances on the target in-between the damage ticks, you can actually have the laser do NO damage while it moves across an enemy.

[Mekwarrior]

Oh, interesting how often is the damage tick?

[Vox Scorpus]

Ah Ballistic weapons vs energy weapons. Used to have that conversation years ago playing TT.

How about you fix lasers so they do damage back the way they used to! A laser is a tight beam of light. Light is fast.
The laser beam isn't "on" for a time like in MWO. It's fast, very fast, faster than a bullet fast (get my drift). Where did these long duration laser beams come from? If it was fired "on" then immediately "off" - the damage would happen all in one location increasing the damage effectiveness back to TT which might solve the complaints. Yes no more spraying the laser around hoping for a few damage points. Wow you mean we have to aim to hit something? YEP!

And where does it say you can only have one weapon type?
A well rounded weapons layout should have Ballistic and Energy. High heat? Shoot your guns. Ammo getting down there? Shoot the lasers.

Don't hinder one group of weapons because another isn't set up right (to late [patch 1-7]).

What direction do we want this game to go? Are we gonna fight with AC5's that do damage like a MG? Do we shut down from heat by firing one med laser? Keep up the weapons nerf and ghost heat and it won't be MechWarrior anymore. It'll be Medieval Warrior.

[Sug]

Just from my personal weapons stats, my beams have about 90% accuracy but only do 50% of their potential damage per hit. My ballistics have about 50% accuracy but do about 90% of their potential damage per hit.

I don't have a point to make I just found that interesting.

That being said I never used ballistics until the end of October this year when out of boredom I bought a DD Jag and was shocked how effective it was even in stock form. There's just no comparison. Pinpoint damage is where it's at.

[Sug]

Vox Scorpus, on 09 January 2014 - 12:35 AM, said:

Where did these long duration laser beams come from? If it was fired "on" then immediately "off" - the damage would happen all in one location increasing the damage effectiveness back to TT which might solve the complaints. Yes no more spraying the laser around hoping for a few damage points. Wow you mean we have to aim to hit something? YEP!

Beam duration needs to be lowered. It is a fact. Do you hear me Sandpit?? It is a god. Damn. Fact.

Instant damage might be a little too much though. I'd do 0.50s for LLs and 0.25s for the rest with lowered cds on pulses.

That would still allow for some damage spread at long range with big beams while making smaller ones good for brawling. Right now a medium laser has the same cd as an AC20 but I can spread the damage around to every part of my target if I tried. It's ********.

Edited by Sug, 09 January 2014 - 12:51 AM.

[Nihtgenga]

It's really hard to impossible to compare 1:1, since the weapon types do have different characteristics. Below the bottom line, however, some things can be clearly stated:

1st - Range advantage for ACs:

An AC deals damage up to triple range, Lasers to double. So e.g. an AC/20 round will have 10 damage dealt at up to 540m range with comparable reload/recharge times to LL/ERLL, which can deal only 9 damage. Any meter further opens up the gap even more, so any AC has a much wider range profile, making it more versatile. Where your long-range weapon ERLL delivers already no damage anymore, the brawling gun AC/20 still does at least 5 damage, which is half of the optimum of the ERLL.

2nd - Exposure advantage for ACs:

As mentioned, firing an AC (or PPC) does require to expose yourself for a lot less time than firing a Laser. This effect is squared by the fact that the needed exposure time effect is valid for both the attacker AND the defender. This also leads to...

3rd - Detection advantage for ACs:

Detecting a mech firing a Laser is easy, counter-fire can be initiated easily and precisely without requiring sensor detection; just follow the beam. Detecting a mech firing an AC is much harder, as the round has a distance-depended fall-off and the muzzle flash is much shorter and difficult to detect e.g. behind vegetation. This allows for much better hit-and-run possibilities.

4th - Alphastrike "Ghost Heat":

You can deliver significantly much more punch in a single 5-10sec attack with ACs, as they have less base heat. Would be a no-brainer, if there wouldn't be PGIs "Ghost Heat". As Ghost Heat is calculated by the base heat of the weapon, the EFFECTIVE heat buildup when using several weapons in short sequence differs a lot more between the low-heat ACs and the high-heat Lasers than their properties from the weapon tables suggest.



For the rest of the properties like weight, ammo dependence, base heat etc., I'd call it a rough (rough, because also the ammo consumption drawback varies more in MWO than in TT) draw between the systems, also regarding the aiming ("all-or-nothing" damage with more difficult aiming of the AC versus "hose-em-down" damage distribution with easier aiming of the Laser). Even a hybrid exists, which combines AC advantages with easier targeting in exchange for wider damage distribution: LB/X-10...

---

So, what is the TL:DR?

ACs currently DO have certain advantages over Lasers, which has clearly to be stated. In my opinion, this emerges to a significant part from PGIs not fully coherent own interpretation of the TT values, which leads to reoccurring adjustments without solving the balancing issues to a satisfactory degree (It had a reason behind that the velocity of the AC/20 and AC/10 rounds have been lowered even more in the last patch, after months and months of previous adjustments). However, until PGI takes off the blinders and gets to the point to not solely look at one or a few weapons when adjusting, I doubt that this will be resolved.

[Lagster]

My personal opinion from experience is that lasers are non-competitive because of the heat system in MWO. The way it was meant in btech, ballistics and lasers were mostly balanced because where ballistics had tonnage needed for ammo, lasers had tonnage needed for heatsinks. And the way TT worked was that it was possible to build a heat-neutral laser-heavy mech if you jammed enough heatsinks in, so things were fine that way.

But in MWO, even with 20 DHS you won't be heat neutral with a laser heavy build. What happens then is that even ignoring the pinpoint vs DOT issue, laser builds reach the heat threshold very quickly, then are forced to slow down and cool down while the AC jager dakkas on at max DPS. Just mess around in Smurfy's and you'll soon realise that sustained DPS is much, much higher with ballistics than with lasers. And that matters big time in a multi-mech brawlfest.

Even ton for ton, take 2 AC5s with 6 tons of ammo (22 tons, 6.6 dps, heat neutral). To get that DPS, you can use either 3 large lasers with 7 extra double heatsinks (hardly heat neutral, slight range disadvantage and not alpha-able) or 5 med lasers which have a serious range disadvantage.

Although I suspect if PGI allowed mixtech, clan DHS would make laser assaults a lot more viable. But by then they'd have to contend with UAC20s.