479 replies to this topic

[Drunk Canuck]

Lasers are competitive, in the right hands. Half the tards who play this game can't seem to comprehend the range capabilities for them and therefor are incapable of wielding them properly. Quad ER LL Stalkers are the only counter to all the AC5 PPC poptarts out there right now. A good pilot can position the Mech in such a way that they always have a firing shot on a poptart and can fire a full 36 point alpha shot while the enemy Mech is in the air before having to duck into cover and cool off. In a competitive scenario, being able to whittle down enemies like that and playing the patience game is what wins you matches.

[Mr Blonde]

Peiper, on 07 January 2014 - 10:10 PM, said:

It's actually not an issue of which weapons are better or worse, though it has become that. The true problem has been with us since the beginning: Hard Point SIZE restrictions. The biggest, baddest weapons in the game only existed on certain mechs, or were highly specialized mechs (like the Hunchback). Since we can frankenmech everything, it's caused major balance headaches since the beginning. For example: the 3 PPC Awesome may be fat, but if you want to boat more than two PPC's, you'd have to take it - and it would be a blast, for all it's other drawbacks. But because so many other mechs can do the same thing, why take the flawed, fat, slow Awesome? Why take a single hunch Hunchback when you can take a double non-hunch K2 or Jagger? When the Annihilator has only a 35kph top speed, it doesn't seem so scary or broken, right? Well, if you brought in the Annihilator now, you'd have a quad AC/5ultra monster! It would move much faster, be totally armored, etc... If you restricted the hardpoint size to only LARGE weapons, the Annihilator would be stuck with it's giant guns and small engine...

Tweaking mechs in the mechlab is cool, but frankenmechs are for Solaris VII, not regular military or shoestring budget merc groups. Standardization is the key to all large militaries.

Okay, going back to my island...

I'm on the island with you, although I feel it necessary to change configurations to keep up with the Joneses. I'm not that much of a purist I guess. I've complained often though that there should be a queue for those who are running stock versions only. You could call it "Hardcore", except that has been applied to anyone rejecting the glories of 3pv.

[Varent]

Lykaon, on 13 January 2014 - 10:02 AM, said:

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.

lets for a second say that Jump jets dont exist. Take them out of the equation a moment and think about matches and how they occur.

You now have mechs that must remain exposed to deal damage and who must now torso twist to try to mitigate that damage. You can no longer simple damage incoming mechs without exposing yourself to fire and getting softened up in turn. This allows mechs to close, trading fire back and forth while the brawlers get involved in close.

In close fighting brawlers have all the advantages over heavy auto cannon and ppc as well as er large laser.

Keep in mind the predominant reason LRM are not used much anymore is because of the dominance of jump sniping as well. As you crest you expose yourself for a long period of time in wich you must either back down or turn and slope down again. This is even a longer period of time in the larger chasis mechs. Also Many of those mechs have hard points that force them to get up to waist level of exposure before moving back down again. These can easily be picked of by extended er large laser fire or lrm or simple return fire of autocannon and ppc as well.

Now again before my words are taken the wrong way. I am not wanting to kill the jump sniping meta. But I do feel JJ should be changed in a way to make it significantly harder and therefore force them to pay for the advantages they are incuring. For details look at the many many posts out there now since all these threads are now horribly intermingled.

[Mr Blonde]

Drunk Canuck, on 13 January 2014 - 10:06 AM, said:

Lasers are competitive, in the right hands. Half the tards who play this game can't seem to comprehend the range capabilities for them and therefor are incapable of wielding them properly. Quad ER LL Stalkers are the only counter to all the AC5 PPC poptarts out there right now. A good pilot can position the Mech in such a way that they always have a firing shot on a poptart and can fire a full 36 point alpha shot while the enemy Mech is in the air before having to duck into cover and cool off. In a competitive scenario, being able to whittle down enemies like that and playing the patience game is what wins you matches.

I beg to differ...I will take my Spider 5D against those poptarts any day of the week. When they can't track, and their PPC's do zero damage but they foolishly fire them anyway, the confrontation will last as long as it takes to drill through their rear torso armor. I rarely have any problem keeping a ML on target while it does its work (getting back to the OP).

[Joseph Mallan]

Varent, on 13 January 2014 - 08:01 AM, said:

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

We can't even balance 3 types of damage delivery, you speak nonsense sir!

[Varent]

Joseph Mallan, on 13 January 2014 - 10:10 AM, said:

We can't even balance 3 types of damage delivery, you speak nonsense sir!

Let go of your concept of balancing them and let the concept of diversity flow. Keep in mind this is a CW concept. That means you may go into a system and have only certain things available to you. So if weapons are destroyed you can only by X type of weapon there. This is a system to designed to make you have curious plus's or negatives depending.

[Joseph Mallan]

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

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".


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!

AC20 with a 203mm Slug should indeed be a heavenly hammer of the gods sir, and would always be the Weapon of choice for me over the high volume spray variant. ANd So long as I could have my single slug of pain you can have your AC2 in disguise!

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

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

Yes conversations should always either come to a compromise each side can bear to swallow, or a mutual understanding. You want a Rapid fire AC20 fine, you can have it, I'll take my slow thumper and meet you on the battlefields.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 13 January 2014 - 10:18 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Varent, on 13 January 2014 - 10:12 AM, said:

Let go of your concept of balancing them and let the concept of diversity flow. Keep in mind this is a CW concept. That means you may go into a system and have only certain things available to you. So if weapons are destroyed you can only by X type of weapon there. This is a system to designed to make you have curious plus's or negatives depending.

Well part of being Lyran is have High Caliber ACs!!! So if you wanna be a Marik FedRat with a tickle me Elmo AC20 Thats fine. I will stay in a house that makes Ballistic weapons heavy enough caliber that they can and do knock me on my Ash when I fire them!!!

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 13 January 2014 - 10:21 AM.

[Mister Blastman]

Drunk Canuck, on 13 January 2014 - 10:06 AM, said:

Lasers are competitive, in the right hands. Half the tards who play this game can't seem to comprehend the range capabilities for them and therefor are incapable of wielding them properly. Quad ER LL Stalkers are the only counter to all the AC5 PPC poptarts out there right now. A good pilot can position the Mech in such a way that they always have a firing shot on a poptart and can fire a full 36 point alpha shot while the enemy Mech is in the air before having to duck into cover and cool off. In a competitive scenario, being able to whittle down enemies like that and playing the patience game is what wins you matches.

Keep dreaming.

It isn't about whittling down, it is about killing quickly. Against a pro poptart, he'll barely show any of his mech long enough for your lasers to really start working.

Mr Blonde, on 13 January 2014 - 10:10 AM, said:

I beg to differ...I will take my Spider 5D against those poptarts any day of the week. When they can't track, and their PPC's do zero damage but they foolishly fire them anyway, the confrontation will last as long as it takes to drill through their rear torso armor. I rarely have any problem keeping a ML on target while it does its work (getting back to the OP).

You're playing against poor pilots. Good ones will take you out in one or two shots. If you do manage to get close enough, their AC5s will make short work of you.

[Lykaon]

Varent, on 12 January 2014 - 09:11 AM, said:

I think your confusing weapons and tactics. You want to change weapons to fit tactics instead of changing your tactics to fit weapons. Ive actually managed to use tactics, even in higher elo that allow for every weapons to be used in the game very effectively across the board with the exception of a few basic things. I would say that if all weapons are seeing use then there isnt a balance issue. Its the way weapons are supposed to be. Though as I said there are a few things simply not used that personally I feel could use some tweaking.

Large Pulse Laser.
Narc.

It could also be argued the large laser in general although it is sometimes used on atlas... about 50/50.

(not going into other equipment, just weapons)

No confusion at all.

Currently there is a glaringly obvious advantage to building mechs with ACs and PPC combined into weapon groups with a damage capacity of 30+.

This obvious mechanics advantage has created a meta revolving around how to best apply snapfire damage while avoiding the same. (poptarts and peeky shooty)

The strategy begins in the mechlab and persists to the battlefield.The results are that pug matches are almost identical in the general deployment and engagment areas the strategy is identical the tactics are the same.Go to X grid hide behind Y terrain feature peek out and try to hit more than you are hit.There is a tiny variance if there are more light mechs present but essentially it's always the same route and routine.

Sure you may have executed a tactic that made use of a weapon other than a pinpoint front loader but let's be honest here,would most of those tactics have just been made more effective if the weapons were pinpoint frontloaded damage?

With the exception of using indirect LRMs I can think of nothing that requires a less efficent damage dealing mechanic to succeed.

[Drunk Canuck]

Mr Blonde, on 13 January 2014 - 10:10 AM, said:

I beg to differ...I will take my Spider 5D against those poptarts any day of the week. When they can't track, and their PPC's do zero damage but they foolishly fire them anyway, the confrontation will last as long as it takes to drill through their rear torso armor. I rarely have any problem keeping a ML on target while it does its work (getting back to the OP).

Any 2 ER LL light build works as a counter as well, some of our teams run 2 Rave 3L's with the 2 ER LL and a Stalker 3F with 4 ER LL as a backup, the Spider 5D isn't competitive in that role because of it's lack of heat dissipation compared to the Raven. Yes, it's jump capable and has ECM, but if you wind up in a light fight in a comp match, that Mech is far less valuable then you think because it's hard to hold those shots on a light and you aren't able to fire constantly. The triple MPL build is better for the 5D in comp play for that reason, lower alpha but better heat efficiency and does what it's supposed to. The 3L's are there to be the mobile eyes for the Stalker to help locate jump snipers and well, having 72 points of damage thrown at you by 3 Mech's when you pop up over a ridge can be devastating.

[Varent]

Lykaon, on 13 January 2014 - 10:29 AM, said:

No confusion at all.

Currently there is a glaringly obvious advantage to building mechs with ACs and PPC combined into weapon groups with a damage capacity of 30+.

This obvious mechanics advantage has created a meta revolving around how to best apply snapfire damage while avoiding the same. (poptarts and peeky shooty)

The strategy begins in the mechlab and persists to the battlefield.The results are that pug matches are almost identical in the general deployment and engagment areas the strategy is identical the tactics are the same.Go to X grid hide behind Y terrain feature peek out and try to hit more than you are hit.There is a tiny variance if there are more light mechs present but essentially it's always the same route and routine.

Sure you may have executed a tactic that made use of a weapon other than a pinpoint front loader but let's be honest here,would most of those tactics have just been made more effective if the weapons were pinpoint frontloaded damage?

With the exception of using indirect LRMs I can think of nothing that requires a less efficent damage dealing mechanic to succeed.

The sher fact that speed+SRM+Medium laser simple beats those weapons in one on one trade while in close? Heat efficiency alone and ability to circle overheating mechs makes those weapons greater at those ranges as upposed to high alpha. I will say keep in mind I am speaking purely ac10, ac20 and ppc. Those weapons are highly heat inefficient when trying to fire them over and over again in comparision to what I listed. They also are hard to track things when you are in a heavy or assault mech when someone is zipping around you at higher speeds.

If you want tactics that would succeed agaisnt this front load damage without jump jets. I would site a combination of tactics. LRM, Quick flanking. ER Large support. Keep in mind the ER large laser has a range greater then the ppc, ac10 and 20. So if you kept proper ranges you would only be fighting against ac5 grouped up at that point (if you simply are considering just the meta builds) and they would be forced to stand atop a ridgeline and fight. If you had multiple ER large laser boats you would out gun them heavily.

And thats just a few ideas off the top of my head with how things would change with a differentiation of Jump Jets. It would basically change everything and how 12 mans are conducted entirely.

[Lykaon]

Khobai, on 12 January 2014 - 09:25 AM, said:

No weapon should be pinpoint. Gauss shouldnt be pinpoint either. Pinpoint weapons are fundamentally broken in MWO. Its just not balanced to use armor values from a game with random hit locations and then give people the ability to aim for specific locations.

And making autocannons/ppcs do burst fire/splash damage doesnt make them anything like lasers. Autocannons would still deal damage in chunks rather than doing a constant amount of damage over time. Same with splash damage on PPCs, the PPCs are still doing chunks of damage. The only difference is all of the damage isnt going into one location, which its whats overpowered about those weapons. But theyd still be fundamentally different weapons, in how they apply damage.

You are correct in diagnosis the problem.It is a failure to supply supporting mechanics in MWo to support an armor mechanic derived from the table top game.

That is the mechanics failure that supports exploiting this weakness with pinpoint group fired weapons capable of dealing high volumes of damage to specific mech locations.

The weapons that are frequently seen as under performing lasers,SRMs and LRMs all emulate a support mechanic that is in general lacking in MWo.The weapons that are frequently called over powered are directly opposed to support mechanics.

A laser/missile launcher disperses damage emulating random hit location mechanics present in the table top.

A PPC or AC applies all damage in a singular concentration.This is opposed to dispersed damage as a support mechanic.

Now the problem is many of the support mechanics used for the table top armor mechanics are not remotely suitable for MWo.

Random hit locations and other accuracy limiters are not a desired mechanic for a sim/shooter.Player skill needs to be a defining factor in performance.

Squeezing all weapons into similar damage application mechanics reduces tactical diversity in weapon choices.

If a Laser requires the gunner to retain aim over the duration of the beam how is this different from a gunner needing to retain aim over the duration of the AC's burst fire?

The tactical application is nearly identical.The AC loses the tactical option of snap fire it becomes a clone (mechanics wise) to laser hit scan mechanics.

This fix has a cost of losing tactical flexability in weapon choices.


My suggestion is we start looking at the other end of the equation to find a solution.Up until now nearly every discussed solution is derived from altering weapons to suit the armor mechanics.How about altering armor mechanics to suit weapons?

[AaronWolf]

Joseph Mallan, on 13 January 2014 - 10:21 AM, said:

So if you wanna be a Marik FedRat...

...

Joseph Mallan, on 13 January 2014 - 10:21 AM, said:

...wanna be a Marik FedRat...

...

Joseph Mallan, on 13 January 2014 - 10:21 AM, said:

...Marik FedRat...

*Sharpens knives just for the one day you uncross that "Marik" in your text*

And I am going back to observing this thread now...

[Drunk Canuck]

Mister Blastman, on 13 January 2014 - 10:23 AM, said:

Keep dreaming.

It isn't about whittling down, it is about killing quickly. Against a pro poptart, he'll barely show any of his mech long enough for your lasers to really start working.



You're playing against poor pilots. Good ones will take you out in one or two shots. If you do manage to get close enough, their AC5s will make short work of you.

Since you don't play comp, and if you do, your team isn't exactly highly rated, I wouldn't expect you to know or understand what weapons are competitive and which aren't. And since I already explained why they are competitive, I will just leave it as is since you choose to argue with someone on a top 10 comp team. Since the AC20 nerf, running it with PPC's is pointless. We run LRM's in comp matches and have success with them, hell we run all sorts of abortion builds against teams better then us and we win. It's all about skill and tactics, but since you know nothing of our teams or how we play, you aren't in a position to question our builds.

[Varent]

AaronWolf, on 13 January 2014 - 10:46 AM, said:

...




...




*Sharpens knives just for the one day you uncross that "Marik" in your text*

And I am going back to observing this thread now...

for lore purposes alone, I dont like Marik either. That said. This amused me greatly.

[Mister Blastman]

Drunk Canuck, on 13 January 2014 - 10:47 AM, said:

Since you don't play comp, and if you do, your team isn't exactly highly rated, I wouldn't expect you to know or understand what weapons are competitive and which aren't. And since I already explained why they are competitive, I will just leave it as is since you choose to argue with someone on a top 10 comp team. Since the AC20 nerf, running it with PPC's is pointless. We run LRM's in comp matches and have success with them, hell we run all sorts of abortion builds against teams better then us and we win. It's all about skill and tactics, but since you know nothing of our teams or how we play, you aren't in a position to question our builds.

Excuse me?

I could join any and every of the top teams at a moments notice. All I'd have to do is ask. Not top 10... top 1 or 2. Since you decided to make an audacious post, I'm making an equally audacious reply.

Know who you are speaking to before you talk. In this case, you haven't the slightest clue.

I've killed more top pilots in all my years of playing Mechwarrior than I care to count. Newsflash: YOU are not one of them. I have a short-list of top pilots beside me and you're not on it. Your team did well in RHOD, but you, as an individual, fail to scare me.

Please go away. Thanks.

Edited by Mister Blastman, 13 January 2014 - 10:55 AM.

[AaronWolf]

Varent, on 13 January 2014 - 10:50 AM, said:

for lore purposes alone, I dont like Marik either. That said. This amused me greatly.

"If you can't be useful in a discussion, atleast be funny." -Some Random Comedian.

[Joseph Mallan]

AaronWolf, on 13 January 2014 - 10:46 AM, said:

...




...




*Sharpens knives just for the one day you uncross that "Marik" in your text*

And I am going back to observing this thread now...

You are on my boarder... keep them knives sharp baby!

[Felicitatem Parco]

So... if Laser weapons' biggest drawbacks are damage spread, forcing a pilot to be exposed during the beam, and lack of frontloaded application...


... then all 3 of those symptoms would be alleviated by a shorter beam duration. Why is this idea not more widely supported? I see very few people suggest a simple beam duration reduction.