66 replies to this topic

[Navy Sixes]

Of course, all of the above assumes you've got the tonnage to choose either. An AC/10 is a big-hitter for a medium mech. Sure, you can shoe-horn an AC/20 into a medium, but only at the expense of just about everything else. The 10 still has a place.

[Solnaga]

I actually partially like the nerf. Hitting a moving target at 500m with an A/C 20 is even more satisfying now

[Bhael Fire]

Solnaga, on 09 January 2014 - 09:54 PM, said:

I actually partially like the nerf. Hitting a moving target at 500m with an A/C 20 is even more satisfying now

I was mainly commenting on how this nerf has only solidified the AC/20 as the go-to ballistic weapon, which is probably not what they intended.

It's a shame, because the AC/10 had its own niche and now it is completely inferior to the AC/20.

[Captain Midnight]

LBX10 still seems good.

[Greyboots]

Honestly? I can't really say that I haven't been able to cope with the changes just fine. All they did was change projectile speed meaning you have to lead targets a little differently. As a 260 ping player I've had no trouble what so ever so all you guys on lower ping shouldn't be having any issues at all.

The only changes I've made are to two mechs, both PPC/AC10 combo mechs. I've just added weapon groups to fire them separately now. Meh. Sorry but I'm having a hard time believing that these changes were actually meant to change anything but rather to be "seen to be doing something about it".

Crazy crazy stuff. It's one of the reasons my wallet closed up to PGI this week.

Edited by Greyboots, 10 January 2014 - 02:17 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Sure the reduced velocity is a bummer, but it is within the realm of acceptability according to physics so I can accept the change with only a small grumble.

[JC Daxion]

Khobai, on 09 January 2014 - 02:26 PM, said:

Actually there was never really a reason to use the AC/10. The AC/20s range is so good that it still does 10 damage at 540m whlie the AC/10 starts doing less than 10 damage.

I guess you don't count ammo counts?

[Khobai]

Quote

think past the alpha. 10 was king on cycle time

No the 5 is king on cycle time. Anything the 20 cant do better than the 10, the 5 does better.

[Bhael Fire]

AC/5 and AC/20 are definitely kings of the ACs now.

Not much reason to use an AC/10 unless you can't fit two AC/5s or one AC/20.

[Mcgral18]

JC Daxion, on 10 January 2014 - 06:24 AM, said:

I guess you don't count ammo counts?

Well, the 150 damage per ton of the AC10 compared to the 140 damage of the AC20 isn't very big.

[Bhael Fire]

Mcgral18, on 10 January 2014 - 09:13 AM, said:

Well, the 150 damage per ton of the AC10 compared to the 140 damage of the AC20 isn't very big.

Especially the amount of "bang" for your buck you get with each round of AC/20.

[oldradagast]

Khobai, on 09 January 2014 - 02:26 PM, said:

Actually there was never really a reason to use the AC/10. The AC/20s range is so good that it still does 10 damage at 540m whlie the AC/10 starts doing less than 10 damage.

I can't quite agree with that.

While the 20 is generally better, the 10 does weigh 2 tons less (which sometimes matters) and I've found that while 3 tons of AC20 ammo is pushing it for getting through a match, 3 tons of AC10 ammo is just fine. So you might be looking at an effective 3 tons difference. There are also times when I like the more rapid fire of the AC10 (despite similar DPS) just to keep pressure on target or to hit a fast moving target.

Still, the Ac10 is the "red-headed stepchild" of the group. There was no need to nerf it, and probably no need to nerf the AC20, either, though I still use both.

[Roland]

Khobai, on 10 January 2014 - 07:22 AM, said:

No the 5 is king on cycle time. Anything the 20 cant do better than the 10, the 5 does better.

Agreed.
Previously there was a TINY advantage to the AC10, based purely on the fact that it shot out single 10 point chunks of damage compared to the 5... but even prior to being nerfed, the AC5 was generally a better choice anyway.

Now, it's a no brainer.. there's really no reason to bring the AC10.

[Roughneck45]

Well, there used to be a choice of going AC10's or AC5's, glad PGI cleared that up for us.

[Bhael Fire]

oldradagast, on 10 January 2014 - 09:19 AM, said:

Still, the Ac10 is the "red-headed stepchild" of the group. There was no need to nerf it, and probably no need to nerf the AC20, either, though I still use both.

This.

I'm completely baffled why the AC/10 got whacked like it did. It was about as dumb as it would be to nerf the medium laser.

[MisterFiveSeven]

Bhael Fire, on 10 January 2014 - 08:21 AM, said:

AC/5 and AC/20 are definitely kings of the ACs now.

Not much reason to use an AC/10 unless you can't fit two AC/5s or one AC/20.

In MWO mech building logic, this means you need another PPC. PPC<AC20<x2AC5. The only weapons you should be using

[SgtMagor]

if you account for elevation (round falling closer to the ground) you can hit targets in the ac10 and 20 effective range. and in some instances mx range.

Edited by SgtMagor, 10 January 2014 - 09:32 AM.

[Khobai]

Quote

Agreed.
Previously there was a TINY advantage to the AC10, based purely on the fact that it shot out single 10 point chunks of damage compared to the 5... but even prior to being nerfed, the AC5 was generally a better choice anyway.

Now, it's a no brainer.. there's really no reason to bring the AC10.

Yep. Here are what ive identified as the 3 main problems with the AC/10.

1) The AC/10s range overlaps too much with the AC/20's range. On any mech that can use dual AC/20, dual AC/20 is outright better than dual AC/10. This can be fixed simply by decreasing the max range on the AC/20 or increasing the max range on the AC/10.

2) 12 tons and 7 crit slots:

• At 12 tons, the AC/10 is only 2 tons lighter than the AC/20, which has twice the damage potential. So any mech that can take a single AC/10 is better off with an AC/20 (provided it has a torso ballistic slot or no arm actuators)
  
• 7 crit slots prevents mechs from taking two AC/10s in the same location like you can with LB10Xs. If an Atlas could, for example, take two AC/10s in its side torso then the AC/10 would be a viable niche weapon.

Unfortunately theres no good solution for this one, since PGI wont change tonnage or crit slots. There are ways to artificially tweak tonnage/crit slots on ballistics by changing the ammo per ton. So PGI could give the AC/10 more ammo per ton to help reduce how much tonnage/crits have to be devoted to the overall weapon including ammo.

3) Crits dont matter as much as they should. The AC/10 is inarguably the best crit weapon in the game. Because it does 10 damage, it can destroy 1-3 items instantly on a critical hit. Combine that with the fact it fires much faster than PPCs and AC/20s, and its easy to see why the AC/10 is so good at destroying items. The problem? Crits just dont matter in this game. Entire locations get destroyed so fast that the ramifications of critting someones weapons never gets fully realized. So one way to make the AC/10 better would be to increase internal structure on all mechs, so crits matter more.

[Roland]

Well perhaps part of it, related to what you say with overlapping ranges, is the notion of reduced damage past the range of weapons.

If we made it such that weapons just did their damage to their range, and then did zero, instead of dropping off slowly, then you wouldn't have the issues you had with the 20 and the 10.. where the 20 was doing the same damage as the 10 at AC10 range.

If you just had weapons do their listed damage out to their effective range, then it would be a lot easier to use range to balance weapons.

[Khobai]

Quote

If we made it such that weapons just did their damage to their range, and then did zero, instead of dropping off slowly, then you wouldn't have the issues you had with the 20 and the 10.. where the 20 was doing the same damage as the 10 at AC10 range.

I personally feel giving weapons x2-x3 their max range, with the damage dropoff, benefits the game more than it detracts from it. Mechs move so fast thats its necessary to give weapons the extra range. Imagine how hard it would be to kill light mechs if all your weapons did zero damage past 270m.

I think its easier to just deal with the balance problems resulting from x2-x3 max range on a case by case basis. Right now the AC/20 vs AC/10 stands out as the biggest problem.

Edited by Khobai, 10 January 2014 - 10:03 AM.