479 replies to this topic

[Varent]

Khobai, on 12 January 2014 - 04:55 PM, said:

Of course they do, because theyre overpowered, and the vast majority of gamers like using weapons that are overpowered. It makes them feel elite and special when they do 40 points of damage to someone's center torso.

We need balanced weapons before all other considerations. Making weapons different comes after making them balanced.

Actually that's not the case. A lot of gamers that play fps use a lot of different weapons. While there will be 'elite' players that will choose to use only one weapon that helps emphasize there own personal skill that is not a reason to remove a weapon. If that was the case there would be no sniper rifles or rifles in general in any FPS. This is not the case. While they can be popular at times they are not everything. Also they tend to die to short range weapons, which if you want an mwo comparison. Brawlers.

[Khobai]

Quote

A lot of gamers that play fps use a lot of different weapons

Absolutely. Because in those games the different weapons are balanced.

In MWO the weapons arnt balanced... thats why you see PPCs, AC/20s, and AC/5s on everything. Pinpoint damage is king right now.

Any game that has unbalanced weapons will see players trend towards those weapons. Take warframe for example... almost everyone uses the Soma as their main weapon, because its outright better than most other weapons.

Although in fairness, warframe has more of a tiered weapon system, so the Soma should be better than lower tier weapons. While in MWO, all weapons are essentially part of the same tier. Since you dont progressively unlock weapons, it means all weapons should be roughly the same power level. Otherwise whats the point of giving us the choice of customization if those choices arnt equal? It just makes choice an illusion.

Edited by Khobai, 12 January 2014 - 05:15 PM.

[Varent]

Khobai, on 12 January 2014 - 05:08 PM, said:

Absolutely. Because in those games the different weapons are balanced.

In MWO the weapons arnt balanced... thats why you see PPCs, AC/20s, and AC/5s on everything. Pinpoint damage is king right now.

Any game that has unbalanced weapons will see players trend towards those weapons. Take warframe for example... almost everyone uses the Soma as their main weapon, because its outright better than most other weapons.

Although in fairness, warframe has more of a tiered weapon system, so the Soma should be better than lower tier weapons. While in MWO, all weapons are essentially part of the same tier. Since you dont progressively unlock weapons, it means all weapons should be roughly the same power level. Otherwise whats the point of giving us the choice of customization if those choices arnt equal? It just makes choice an illusion.

actually they are balanced, they are unbalanced because they are put into situations that MAKE them unbalanced. The weapons themselves are fine with the exception of a few minor changes to the large lasers. Your percieving an unbalance because of how they are being used with jump jets unless you are reffering to there strength versus lights in which case they should in fact be scary to them.

[Cimarb]

Khobai, on 12 January 2014 - 02:31 PM, said:

Gauss should be nerfed too. There should be no instadamage pinpoint weapons at all. Pinpoint damage will always be abused as long as it exists in any form.

IMO gauss should "spiral" through mechs like high velocity rounds typically do, and it should hit several different locations, maybe even give it a tiny chance of punching through armor (like through armor crits in battletech).

Theres other options for reducing pinpoint as well, but I personally think this is the easiest way for PGI, and even they should be able to implement it within the span of a month or two. Unlike what other people are suggesting, like redesigning the entire weapons system from the ground up to include cone of fire. Something definitely has to be done about pinpoint damage before clan tech comes out though.

I actually think Gauss would be fine as the only FLD weapon. It is the weapon that has lore supporting it actually working as front-loaded damage and I think it would be fine to keep a single weapon that functioned like that, especially since it has to charge first. It is very niche, and would work because of that.

Varent, on 12 January 2014 - 06:40 PM, said:

actually they are balanced, they are unbalanced because they are put into situations that MAKE them unbalanced. The weapons themselves are fine with the exception of a few minor changes to the large lasers. Your percieving an unbalance because of how they are being used with jump jets unless you are reffering to there strength versus lights in which case they should in fact be scary to them.

Quit with the jump jet comments, please. Take FLD out and jump sniping disappears.

[Varent]

Cimarb, on 12 January 2014 - 07:13 PM, said:

I actually think Gauss would be fine as the only FLD weapon. It is the weapon that has lore supporting it actually working as front-loaded damage and I think it would be fine to keep a single weapon that functioned like that, especially since it has to charge first. It is very niche, and would work because of that.



Quit with the jump jet comments, please. Take FLD out and jump sniping disappears.

quit with the FLD commends, alter jump jets and the jump sniping actually becomes tolerable. It works both ways, Ive been testing it with friends and it works quite well.

[wanderer]

Oddly enough, having Gauss be the only FLD with their current mechanics wouldn't be bad at all. The charge mechanism also makes them a bit of a challenge to poptart with, and given the bit of shake, even a tight burst would get a bit of spread at range if you're shaking and going vertical at the same time with AC's if they fired a stream of shells vs. the non-canonical "single shot" we have now.

And burst-fire also means that autocannons suddenly perform differently on every chassis, if it's done right. High-caliber mounts like the Hunchback would deliver tighter damage than strapping an AC/20 to a Blackjack where it's AC/2 used to be, but then you'd have yourself a long stream with good velocity that would have excellent odds for catching a fast target with some decent damage, even if it'd be tougher to focus that damage unless stationary on the 'Jack.

[R Razor]

Every single weapons related issue could be mitigated, if not outright solved, if PGI would just implement hard point restrictions in some manner. As it stands now, innersphere mechs are borderline clan mechs.

If they would give each weapon a "size class" rating and apply the same to the hard points, place restrictions on what mech size could carry the largest class of weaponry and top it off with tonnage restrictions I believe you'd see a lot more variety in the game and a lot less "ppc / ac-x" junk out there.

[Joseph Mallan]

Khobai, on 12 January 2014 - 04:55 PM, said:

Of course they do, because theyre overpowered, and the vast majority of gamers like using weapons that are overpowered. It makes them feel elite and special when they do 40 points of damage to someone's center torso.

We need balanced weapons before all other considerations. Making weapons different comes after making them balanced.

How do you balance weapons yet keep them different?

Fast cycling low damage weapons (DpS) that over time, deal as much damage as the slower heavy hitting weapons! That is balanced That allows for players to have different styles of play! Making every thing streaming DpS is just dumb!

[Cimarb]

wanderer, on 13 January 2014 - 04:11 AM, said:

Oddly enough, having Gauss be the only FLD with their current mechanics wouldn't be bad at all. The charge mechanism also makes them a bit of a challenge to poptart with, and given the bit of shake, even a tight burst would get a bit of spread at range if you're shaking and going vertical at the same time with AC's if they fired a stream of shells vs. the non-canonical "single shot" we have now.

And burst-fire also means that autocannons suddenly perform differently on every chassis, if it's done right. High-caliber mounts like the Hunchback would deliver tighter damage than strapping an AC/20 to a Blackjack where it's AC/2 used to be, but then you'd have yourself a long stream with good velocity that would have excellent odds for catching a fast target with some decent damage, even if it'd be tougher to focus that damage unless stationary on the 'Jack.

Exactly. The amount of variety that could be brought to autocannons would be amazing. Such an opportunity for them, especially with CW coming up, to really make a difference between manufacturers.

R Razor, on 13 January 2014 - 04:22 AM, said:

Every single weapons related issue could be mitigated, if not outright solved, if PGI would just implement hard point restrictions in some manner. As it stands now, innersphere mechs are borderline clan mechs.

If they would give each weapon a "size class" rating and apply the same to the hard points, place restrictions on what mech size could carry the largest class of weaponry and top it off with tonnage restrictions I believe you'd see a lot more variety in the game and a lot less "ppc / ac-x" junk out there.

No, all that would do is limit every single person from building the mech they actually want. Hardpoints themselves are accepted to make the variants differentiated, but limiting them even more would be horrible for anyone that enjoys customizing their mech (which is 99% of the playerbase).

[Cimarb]

Joseph Mallan, on 13 January 2014 - 06:30 AM, said:

How do you balance weapons yet keep them different?

Fast cycling low damage weapons (DpS) that over time, deal as much damage as the slower heavy hitting weapons! That is balanced That allows for players to have different styles of play! Making every thing streaming DpS is just dumb!

You are being too extreme. An autocannon is classified by the damage it does over time - that is the defining characteristic. Whether it is two 10-damage shells in 0.2 seconds, then a 3.8 second cooldown, or ten 2-damage shells in 4 seconds with no cooldown, they would both be an AC20 because they do 20 points of damage in the time period. There is a huge difference between how those two weapons deliver damage, yet they are both the same class autocannon. Technically, we currently have four versions of the AC20 already in game - every autocannon does roughly 20 damage in 5 seconds, meaning they should all be classified as AC20s.

Having a variety of manufacturers making different firing rates of the same class would bring a huge amount of diversity, none of which would be like lasers for many different reasons. You could still have your big boomstick, though they would hit more like current AC5s (or maybe AC10s even), and other people may choose a more Gatling gun type that shoots a steady spray of shells for suppression like a current AC2 (or long range MG).

It would also be beneficial for PGI, as they could make CW mean much more by limiting the use of some manufacturers. It could even be tied to different calipers of ammo, so they could make certain planets very important to hold if you want to not pay a huge premium for ammo (though that would require RnR be brought back).

[StonedDead]

Can fix the whole thing by eliminating the ability to change the weapons that a chassis comes equipped with. No more boating, no more high alpha meta. Want more ammo or HS, buy a smaller/XL engine or lose armor.. A lot of the weapon effectiveness threads could be answered with this. Things would play out a lot differently if we didn't have IS omni mechs. IMO, should have tried that before even giving us the option to change our loadouts. Still a lot of things that can be tinkered with in Mech Lab without being able to change weapons. Also makes mech chassis matter more, instead of just weapon options being the crucial deciding factor.

[Joseph Mallan]

Cimarb, on 13 January 2014 - 06:46 AM, said:

You are being too extreme. An autocannon is classified by the damage it does over time - that is the defining characteristic. Whether it is two 10-damage shells in 0.2 seconds, then a 3.8 second cooldown, or ten 2-damage shells in 4 seconds with no cooldown, they would both be an AC20 because they do 20 points of damage in the time period. There is a huge difference between how those two weapons deliver damage, yet they are both the same class autocannon. Technically, we currently have four versions of the AC20 already in game - every autocannon does roughly 20 damage in 5 seconds, meaning they should all be classified as AC20s.

Having a variety of manufacturers making different firing rates of the same class would bring a huge amount of diversity, none of which would be like lasers for many different reasons. You could still have your big boomstick, though they would hit more like current AC5s (or maybe AC10s even), and other people may choose a more Gatling gun type that shoots a steady spray of shells for suppression like a current AC2 (or long range MG).

It would also be beneficial for PGI, as they could make CW mean much more by limiting the use of some manufacturers. It could even be tied to different calipers of ammo, so they could make certain planets very important to hold if you want to not pay a huge premium for ammo (though that would require RnR be brought back).

So an AC2 is/can be an AC20 Which it is here Cause an AC2 does do as much damage as an AC20 in MW:O... overtime. AC20 DpS=4 Vs AC2 DpS=3.8, AC5 is 3.3 DpS and an AC10 is 4.0 DpS. Energy weapons need a better DpS, as a PPC is a 2.5 DpS and should be on par with an AC10!

[Varent]

I agree, according to manufacturers however there was also weapons that do FLD (this includes AC). One could also argue the same with lasers however wich would also bring an interesting degree of diversity with some lasers doing instant damage while others take a longer time to stay on target. You could also make different rang variatons and perhaps moderate the beam with the damage coming closer to the start or the end where the majority of it is.

This would satisfy both sides of the argument and allow for changes that would let you choose how much money you wanted to spend and what weapons you could pick up in an area for use once a weapon was destroyed. Etc etc.

That is all thought process towards CW however.

[Joseph Mallan]

Varent, on 13 January 2014 - 07:11 AM, said:

I agree, according to manufacturers however there was also weapons that do FLD (this includes AC). One could also argue the same with lasers however wich would also bring an interesting degree of diversity with some lasers doing instant damage while others take a longer time to stay on target. You could also make different rang variatons and perhaps moderate the beam with the damage coming closer to the start or the end where the majority of it is.

This would satisfy both sides of the argument and allow for changes that would let you choose how much money you wanted to spend and what weapons you could pick up in an area for use once a weapon was destroyed. Etc etc.

That is all thought process towards CW however.

Sure, but some things may not be better to complicate. Leaving the mix with RNG missiles, DpS lasers and FLD for ballistics is a good baseline. Now when Heavy Lasers come out maybe have them as FLD energy damage. It could simulate the lack of accuracy they were given on TT.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 13 January 2014 - 07:40 AM.

[R Razor]

Cimarb, on 13 January 2014 - 06:34 AM, said:

No, all that would do is limit every single person from building the mech they actually want. Hardpoints themselves are accepted to make the variants differentiated, but limiting them even more would be horrible for anyone that enjoys customizing their mech (which is 99% of the playerbase).

No, it would limit peoples ability to build nothing but AC / PPC meta mechs and actually bring variety to the game. For every COD player that quits because he couldn't build such a mech, another player would join and enjoy the variety of balanced mechs and game play available were such as system in place.

As it stands now, this game went from a simulation to a FPS and the majority of the kids playing it want nothing more than to exploit the poor implementation of weapons loadout / heat system that what passes for a game design team has put into this game.

[Varent]

Joseph Mallan, on 13 January 2014 - 07:39 AM, said:

Sure, but some things may not be better to complicate. Leaving the mix with RNG missiles, DpS lasers and FLD for ballistics is a good baseline. Now when Heavy Lasers come out maybe have them as FLD energy damage. It could simulate the lack of accuracy they were given on TT.

Either way the possibilities are endless. And it would give a very nice feel to the game.

[Cimarb]

Joseph Mallan, on 13 January 2014 - 07:11 AM, said:

So an AC2 is/can be an AC20 Which it is here Cause an AC2 does do as much damage as an AC20 in MW:O... overtime. AC20 DpS=4 Vs AC2 DpS=3.8, AC5 is 3.3 DpS and an AC10 is 4.0 DpS. Energy weapons need a better DpS, as a PPC is a 2.5 DpS and should be on par with an AC10!

Mostly, yes. An autocannon is classified by its DPS, as you mentioned, and it has nothing to do with caliber or firing rate. All that matters is the amount of DPS (or whatever other timeframe you use). I offered several variations to show this a few weeks ago and need to find it so I don't have to rewrite it.

Autocannons in their current implementation are ALL class 20/autocannons, since they all do roughly the same DPS. If they were normalized, an AC2 should only do 2 damage in the same time that an AC5 did 5 damage, an AC10 does 10 damage, and an AC20 does 20 damage. Instead, we have "super light AC20", "light AC20", "medium AC20" and "regular AC20".

Varent, on 13 January 2014 - 07:11 AM, said:

I agree, according to manufacturers however there was also weapons that do FLD (this includes AC). One could also argue the same with lasers however wich would also bring an interesting degree of diversity with some lasers doing instant damage while others take a longer time to stay on target. You could also make different rang variatons and perhaps moderate the beam with the damage coming closer to the start or the end where the majority of it is.

This would satisfy both sides of the argument and allow for changes that would let you choose how much money you wanted to spend and what weapons you could pick up in an area for use once a weapon was destroyed. Etc etc.

That is all thought process towards CW however.

I have to point out that a single slug was a "possible" exception, not the rule, but I wholeheartedly agree with the rest. I think lasers would be cool to differentiate with manufacturers as well, and you could even have different colors for them as well as what you mentioned. The sky is the limit on this sort of variety, and I really hope PGI doesn't drop the ball and go the easy route by just naming and pricing them - we need actual characteristics differences!

[Varent]

Cimarb, on 13 January 2014 - 08:15 AM, said:

I have to point out that a single slug was a "possible" exception, not the rule, but I wholeheartedly agree with the rest. I think lasers would be cool to differentiate with manufacturers as well, and you could even have different colors for them as well as what you mentioned. The sky is the limit on this sort of variety, and I really hope PGI doesn't drop the ball and go the easy route by just naming and pricing them - we need actual characteristics differences!

We agree on something then. We should do this more often Cimarb

[Cimarb]

Varent, on 13 January 2014 - 08:17 AM, said:

We agree on something then. We should do this more often Cimarb

Would love to! Now come over to the light side and let's get a damage delivery solution that doesn't involve non-weapon systems, lol

[Lykaon]

Varent, on 12 January 2014 - 06:40 PM, said:

actually they are balanced, they are unbalanced because they are put into situations that MAKE them unbalanced. The weapons themselves are fine with the exception of a few minor changes to the large lasers. Your percieving an unbalance because of how they are being used with jump jets unless you are reffering to there strength versus lights in which case they should in fact be scary to them.

The jump snipe tactic is only a result of evolution.The reason for the poptart is to enhance the effectiveness of delivering massive pinpoint strikes while limiting exposure to receiving more of the same from the enemy.

So let's say we "fix" the jumpjet and alpha interactions. What do we still have remaining? 30-40 point alpha strikes still being the best means of dealing damage,lasers and missiles still being secondary to pin point front loaded damage weapons like PPCs and ACs.

Even if we manage to fix jumpsniping to enhance brawling the brawling is still doing the same meta with the same weapons that will fall into a pattern of repetative tactics supporting a narrow meta game revolving around exploiting a mechanics issue.


The only way I can think of to repair this mechnics failure is to alter the perameters of how damage is applied.

Some people have suggested altering weapons to be burst fire or splash damage etc.This again is focusing on the weapons and not the application of damage to armor.

If we change ACs to burst fire we have repaired the pinpoint damage issue at the cost of making ACs a tactical clone of lasers and as a result we lose diversity.

If however we retain the firing characteristics and pinpoint damage that the AC class of weapons have but alter how the armor is effected by the damage we retain the tactical diversity of snap fire weapons.

If for example ACs/gauss/PPC/ER-PPC weapons inflicted 100% damage values to armor but a lower value to internals the Pinpoint damage weapons would be ideal "can openers" that have a set strategic purpose as armor defeating weapons with the down side of reduced effects against internal structure and internal components.

Some other alterations would be needed to create a support structure for this mechanics alteration like increased internal structure values and improved component hit points and an enhanced critical hit mechanic.