106 replies to this topic

[Bishop Steiner]

kesmai, on 08 January 2014 - 12:23 PM, said:

so we are again at the point of the sized hardpoints and you know pgi just would not listen to this.
the basic idea of my suggestion was to take a bit spread into account when you use ac´s and i still think this is not totally of.
(and by the way i´d like to hear a 3 round burst from a 90mm ac ), but i can see this idea is not liked very much.



http://www.moddb.com...mander-omnitech

I could somehwhat get behind burst fire, if it was mor elimited. One thing with the burst sin MW3 and 4 is they were FAST and there for enot hard to keep on target. And I could possibly get behind like a 3 round burst, over ,25 seconds or so, but no more, and hoenstly, I think it still comes down to fixing problems that arent THE problems, but really jsut a symptom.

Varent, on 08 January 2014 - 12:25 PM, said:

THere is alot they could do for diversity. Personally I would love to see different manufactures of different AC. They have the manufactures listed in Sarna. Could make different ones have different CD. Perhaps slightly different heat, one a little bigger or smalller, more durable, less reliable... cost more cost less.... etc... etc... Would be neat, specially if they threw it into CW and made you rearm on planet only with what was available there.



<3

its actually one of the things MWTactics has doen right, IMO.

The thing is, that is something I think would have to be part of CW, and maybe even part of salvage. Because if you have varying little modifiers available on the free market , thats jsut more to balance, and more to minmax. But little quirks that maybe are faction manufacturer related, could be cool.

[Varent]

Bishop Steiner, on 08 January 2014 - 12:49 PM, said:

I could somehwhat get behind burst fire, if it was mor elimited. One thing with the burst sin MW3 and 4 is they were FAST and there for enot hard to keep on target. And I could possibly get behind like a 3 round burst, over ,25 seconds or so, but no more, and hoenstly, I think it still comes down to fixing problems that arent THE problems, but really jsut a symptom.

If it was a quick burst people would still complain. Players would get better and still land most of thre shots in one area and mechs would die still and there would still be people crying foul regardless because thats simply what gamers do. They wont stop complaining until its a long drawn out burst of shells that spreads the damage across a mech no matter your skill and truly takes out the skill component and makes the skilled pilots take a backseat to every other gamer just wanting to hop on for a quick drop thats not remoetly serious.

[Bishop Steiner]

stjobe, on 08 January 2014 - 12:39 PM, said:

You're forgetting the 1036 years of weapons development between now and 3050.

Look back 1000 years to 1000 AD and the most advanced weaponry is the bow and arrow. The Greeks have their Greek Fire, and the Chinese have started experimenting with explosives. Now imagine someone in 1000 AD talking about automatic radar-guided 57mm Bofors 4P naval guns, or GPS-guided Tomahawk missiles, or Leopard II MBTs, not to mention nuclear weapons...

And there's actually something closer to a lore representation of that Rheinmetall gun, but it's not an Autocannon, it's a Rifle (lore says they are "based on modern main battle tank main guns, and it has a -3 damage modifier against 'mechs). Those Rifles then in turn evolved into our Autocannons.

Always remember that there is zero connection between BattleTech weapons and actual, real life weaponry that you may or may not have personal experience of. Me, I've fired everything from .22 pistols to 120mm mortars, but that's neither here nor there in a discussion about game balance, now is it?

metallurgy is unlikely to change significantly more, we are at an endgame in some field s of research, whereas weapons 1000 years ago were jsut retreads of the last 4000 years, essentially. Unless we start manufacturing adamantium, steel is still goning to be steel, and chemicals will still only be able to explode so fast (this being the limiter to velocity in conventional shells, chemical explosion expansion has s finite rate).

Varent, on 08 January 2014 - 12:52 PM, said:

If it was a quick burst people would still complain. Players would get better and still land most of thre shots in one area and mechs would die still and there would still be people crying foul regardless because thats simply what gamers do. They wont stop complaining until its a long drawn out burst of shells that spreads the damage across a mech no matter your skill and truly takes out the skill component and makes the skilled pilots take a backseat to every other gamer just wanting to hop on for a quick drop thats not remoetly serious.

I think, the point is the QQers will continue to QQ, because the problem is their skill level, or lack thereof, more often than not, and not the game mechanics, no matter what is done to weapon systems. It's not like we are talking about egregious imbalances like the height of the ERPPC/Gauss jump meta, or LRMaggedon, etc. HAters gonna hate, cryers gonna cry.

[Varent]

please lets not go down the road of real life physics in a computer fantasy sci-fi game.... This is as pointless as citing sarna when in the end this isnt battle tech. Its a lose representation of it and they can do whatever they want with the game. The important part is making a functioning good game that at least a majority like and play...

[stjobe]

Bishop Steiner, on 08 January 2014 - 12:55 PM, said:

we are at an endgame in some field s of research

If there's one thing we can learn from history, it's that research accelerates. Thinking we're in the "endgame" is a bit like that famous Bill Gates quote from the early 90's "640 kB RAM ought to be enough for anyone", or the IBM executive in 1943 that predicted a world market of about five computers.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

Maybe they should reduce the range of some or all ACs to 2x instead of 3x and increase lasers to 2.5x ?

[Trauglodyte]

DaZur, on 08 January 2014 - 10:36 AM, said:

Good lord... Imagine the level of QQ'ing if AC/20's issued 20 1-point rounds @ .5 second interval at a pull of the trigger.

... Now imagine the AC-40 Jager. Talk about an "area suppression" weapon!

I'm not even going to wander into the Clan Ultra-20 nightmare...

Makes you wonder, though, how they're going to add in the UAC2. The UAC5 that we have fires the second round 0.5s after the first, if you hold the button. The AC2 already fires every 0.54s so how are they going to give you enough time to add in the second round?

[Varent]

Bishop Steiner, on 08 January 2014 - 12:52 PM, said:

I could somehwhat get behind burst fire, if it was mor elimited. One thing with the burst sin MW3 and 4 is they were FAST and there for enot hard to keep on target. And I could possibly get behind like a 3 round burst, over ,25 seconds or so, but no more, and hoenstly, I think it still comes down to fixing problems that arent THE problems, but really jsut a symptom.


its actually one of the things MWTactics has doen right, IMO.

The thing is, that is something I think would have to be part of CW, and maybe even part of salvage. Because if you have varying little modifiers available on the free market , thats jsut more to balance, and more to minmax. But little quirks that maybe are faction manufacturer related, could be cool.

honestly if nothing else it would add a great 'feel' to the game and alot of imersion and would just be another neat way to balance things in CW.

[stjobe]

Trauglodyte, on 08 January 2014 - 01:20 PM, said:

Makes you wonder, though, how they're going to add in the UAC2. The UAC5 that we have fires the second round 0.5s after the first, if you hold the button. The AC2 already fires every 0.54s so how are they going to give you enough time to add in the second round?

I think it's safe to say they never thought that far ahead.

[Varent]

stjobe, on 08 January 2014 - 01:28 PM, said:

I think it's safe to say they never thought that far ahead.

Actually this would make the UAC2 just a solid stream of bullets. Would be kinda neat. Like a true large scale machine gun.

Super heat intensive though... but id use it myself on some mechs.

Edited by Varent, 08 January 2014 - 01:30 PM.

[DaZur]

Trauglodyte, on 08 January 2014 - 01:20 PM, said:

Makes you wonder, though, how they're going to add in the UAC2. The UAC5 that we have fires the second round 0.5s after the first, if you hold the button. The AC2 already fires every 0.54s so how are they going to give you enough time to add in the second round?

"Fairy magic"... is good an answer as any.

My money is wagered on loading the rounds. so instead of doing 1.0 per round they'd do 1.05 per round and the rest would be sound and particle effect smoke & mirrors.

[kesmai]

DaZur, on 08 January 2014 - 01:30 PM, said:

"Fairy magic"... is good an answer as any.

My money is wagered on loading the rounds. so instead of doing 1.0 per round they'd do 1.05 per round and the rest would be sound and particle effect smoke & mirrors.

at this point i must admit you may have a good point.
sounds like a pgi aproach.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

Does everyone around here just forget Mechwarrior 2? Mechwarrior 2's autocannon system worked on the burst fire mechanic, and it worked just fine.

At the end of the day though, nothing PGI does will balance weapons, because they don't want to balance weapons, they want to change the game based on what the deal of the week is so they can sell more hero mechs. I mean seriously, a Gaussback because the hero mech, and we nerf the AC20 and AC10... what other reason was there to nerf these weapons other than "Hey, we're selling a gauss based mech... let's nerf the AC's so it sells better."

There was no "Logical" reason to nerf these weapons, only the bottom line mattered in the nerf.

[Sandpit]

Jade Kitsune, on 08 January 2014 - 02:06 PM, said:

At the end of the day though, nothing PGI does will balance weapons, because they don't want to balance weapons, they want to change the game based on what the deal of the week is so they can sell more hero mechs.

And then we get gems like this offered up

[Bishop Steiner]

stjobe, on 08 January 2014 - 01:02 PM, said:

If there's one thing we can learn from history, it's that research accelerates. Thinking we're in the "endgame" is a bit like that famous Bill Gates quote from the early 90's "640 kB RAM ought to be enough for anyone", or the IBM executive in 1943 that predicted a world market of about five computers.

all things have limitations. If you think your understanding and abilities are going to continue to increase exponentially, you are mistaken. We have had the perfect storm in the last decade, especially with global communication to make things explode. After such a spark, things inevitably return to a more sedate rate.

[Cimarb]

Great complaining, but this thread is a waste. Go here to discuss weapons:

Cimarb, on 08 January 2014 - 09:27 AM, said:

We already have several lengthy discussions going on about this. Quit being lazy and making new threads: http://mwomercs.com/...w-with-weapons/ is a good one to join, for instance

(Let's see how long I have to do this before getting banned or the thread merged...either of which would be better than arguing this discussion over again...)

[Roland]

Jade Kitsune, on 08 January 2014 - 02:06 PM, said:

Does everyone around here just forget Mechwarrior 2? Mechwarrior 2's autocannon system worked on the burst fire mechanic, and it worked just fine.

Mechwarrior 2 only played a burst ANIMATION. The actual fire was just a single blob of damage.

[Trauglodyte]

Bishop Steiner, on 08 January 2014 - 12:52 PM, said:

I could somehwhat get behind burst fire, if it was mor elimited. One thing with the burst sin MW3 and 4 is they were FAST and there for enot hard to keep on target. And I could possibly get behind like a 3 round burst, over ,25 seconds or so, but no more, and hoenstly, I think it still comes down to fixing problems that arent THE problems, but really jsut a symptom.

My initial thought about making ACs burst fire was that you triple the ammo but have each shot be a 3 round burst with each round firing every 0.15s. Ask yourself: how much damage do you "splash" with the Small Pulse Laser if you've ever used it? Very little because it fires so fast that you're able to keep your damage in one spot. If you do rake, it is more because you're going really fast, turning really fast, firing at a really fast target, or all of the above. In that case, you're able to land most of your damage versus missing with all of it with the current AC mechanics. Therefore, firing your ACs in the span of 0.45s can't be a horrible thing. I coudl be wrong, though.

Here is my overall line of thinking. Roland pointed out, and it has been something that we've all talked about and seen in game, that it isn't so much the single weapon but the alpha landing of a lot of big weapons. What is the AC20 versus 2 PPCs and 2 UAC5s? This leads us to the problem of convergence and the lack of work of it by PGI. They know it exists as an issue but they've done nothing to work on it and have already acknowledged that the convergence efficiency doesn't even work. We also all want weapons that work differently because everything being vanilla makes for a bland gaming experience. And finally, we know that heat is a big ol elephant in the room because it has no impact on the overall game. So, we've got 4 issues that impact the game with each one causing issues independently and jointly. So, which one do you work on the most? I really don't envy PGI in this position because it isn't like the Left Ax issue with Berzerker based classes in DAoC or the Ret Bomb Paladins in WoW.

Edited by Trauglodyte, 08 January 2014 - 02:33 PM.

[Asmudius Heng]

MustrumRidcully, on 08 January 2014 - 11:08 AM, said:

Since the weapon glue effect that has plagued Mechwarrior titles for so long is not going away in this game, we need other solutions.

I think a weapon that can deal 20 points of damage every 4 seconds has still a good battlefield use. Even if that damage comes in a burst of 5-10 projectiles over less than a second. And it might allow us to avoid the worst effects of weapon glue.

Let's not forget that in the TT, a Large Laser also delivers 8 damage in one single blow, which is a big reason to use it, and later we had Heavy Lasers that also mostly were about more damage per shot. Would you turn these lasers into single damage projectile weapons because their main job is to deal more damage per shot (at the price of tonnage and heat)?

I agree with this, and for once I disagree with Roland.

While the single location hit thing is a key benefit of ACs as they have a lot of other drawbacks, I think that a burst fire AC would work to allow a skilled player to land more shots on location target and gaining all the damage benefits. It would make them different to PPCs and gauss rifles and give a little more risk reward to them.

I do think the burst should be very short, much shorter than a laser but just enough to require a bit more consideration for the shot.

Would this kill ACs? No I don't think so, I think they might need to buff the ammo a little more maybe, or change the damage etc but number so an be tweaked if the mechanic is providing the intended effect which is the make it harder to deliver pinpoint damage to exact locations. .not impossible, just more difficult.

However this cannot exist in a vacuum, people will gravitate even more to PPCs so they might also need some sort of change.

The game design idea is that to reap the most benefits from a weapon you need to apply a certain level of skill ... People are abandoned the gauss because it is now harder to use, but if it was the only one to be able to applying pinpoint damage people might come back to it.

The key issue is of course stacking weapons together to form super weapons which is much easier for energy weapons to do than ballistics, but without convergence we are going to be stuck with different ways of dealing with this.

I can live with either, but I think it makes sense to apply some sort of skill to overcome spreading your damage for most weapons as the only way to combat in inherent change in accuracy from TT to MWO

Lets not forget that the triple range of ballistics is a good advantage as well even if they did spread damage a little

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

Roland, on 08 January 2014 - 02:30 PM, said:

Mechwarrior 2 only played a burst ANIMATION. The actual fire was just a single blob of damage.

Wrong, each individual hit was modeled... you're thinking MW4. But thanks for playing.