129 replies to this topic

[Ryoken]

In the current meta it is a lot of synced PPC&ACs for several reasons. Both weapons do deliver pinpoint damage. Similar projectile speed (exsp. AC5&PPC). And in case of the AC the extreme DPS.

So as it has been discussed in the NGNG Stream (http://www.nogutsnog...8c42d65e7d4e577) to desync those two weapons, as they did desync the Gaussrifle with its charging mechanism.

Autocannons are a tad out of line in my opinion. As soon as you have ballistic hardpoints on a mech, it is put ACs on it ftw. And as soon as you put ACs on there the damage per match gets up to the roof. Therefore they should be looked at first when it comes to rebalancing/desyncing. One suggestion would be to change ACs from making pinpoint damage with one projectile into firing a burst of projectiles with each shot and therefore make them spead damage.

PPCs nowadays work fine according to my observations. (But er-ppcs could need some love as they are hardly seen because of the heat problems) Never the less one way to also desync the PPC from the powerfull pinpoint-syncspeed-combo that rules the current meta could be to derive the PPCs of their pinpoint damage as well. For example they could do some splash damage to adjecent locations as the particle containing bubble splashes on the enemy mech armor. Like 7 damage to the hit location and splitt the remaining 3 points of damage to adjecent locations.

Then there are jump jets that need another look to. As it is jump jets do not provide an additional way of mobility but also and very much an additional way of fighting - jumpsniping.

Concerning balancing Jumpjets and heat I just wanted to add that in TT, even if you jump only one hex, the minimum heat generated is 3! not 1! So maybe heat may be some tool of adjustment.

Also rules for building mechs could be changed. As it stands now most mechs only mount one jumpjet to minmax its use. So maybe also giving a minimum of 3 jumpjets may be a way to tool around.

I also like the ideas of recharge and precharge time discussed, or even more JJ-shake.

So what do you guys think? And please try to be polite and constructive, insults and capslock do not bring us any further.

Cheers, Ryo

Edited by Ryoken, 15 January 2014 - 06:10 PM.

[DocBach]

I like the idea for jump jets incurring a large increase of heat at the beginning of each jump.

[Goose]

Not bad, but I think unfeathered landings should involve a lot of damage … And not just to the legs, nether: Fall down onto your face.

Dragon Bowl yourself? Yes.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

I'd look at, if can be created, having a global chain-fire set to cap a specific damage value to try and desync those weapons.

If the heat scale penalty can be created, I figure that we can look at different chain-fire enforcement limits.

Could even look to have three separate values for projectile, hit-scan and missile, where the absolute highest damage cap would remain at 27.3 with a mixed loadout.

Spoiler

So say, the damage cap could be set for projectiles at 20.1, hit-scan at 27.3, and missiles at 24.1 (and I'm open to suggestions, just starting with these numbers to explore the idea), then we could look at what combos would not be affected.

With the projectile cap value of 20.1 then we can still group fire:

• 4 AC/5 for 20 damage
  
• 2 (ER)PPC for 20 damage
  
• 1 PPC and 1 AC/10 or two AC/5 for 20 damage
  
• and so on

With the hit-scan cap value of 27.3 then we can still group fire:

• 5 MLs for 25 damage
  
• 3 ER LL or LL for 27 damage
  
• and so on

With the missile cap value of 24.1 then we can still group fire:

• 4 LRM 5 for 22 damage
  
• 3 SRM 4 or 2 SRM 6 for 24 damage
  
• and so on

And these numbers can be easily adjusted to simply control damage beyond ~25+ damage, and any exceptions, exclusions, and/or exemptions can be applied as needed.

And doing something like that would also only space shots between 0.4 to 0.5 seconds apart anyway, so it's only going to slightly spread damage out a bit more in most engagements. So the delay can also be extended to 1 second or more if absolutely necessary.



As for Jump Jets, The first thing I'd like to see with Jump Jets is to standardize the height they can take us, how fast we reach that height, possibly set a different heat value when they are used, and maybe also tie the acceleration to reach that height.

Spoiler

So height could be like this:

• 1 JJ - 30 M
  
• 2 JJ - 60 M
  
• 3 JJ - 90 M
  
• 4 JJ -120 M
  
• 5 JJ - 150 M
  
• and so on

That would give the SDR-5V the ability to jump to 360 M with 12 JJs for example.

Setting the heat value could be 1 heat per JJ, or whatever is fair to set.

Jump Jet acceleration could be tied to the Engine Rating and weight of the mech, so that a light with an XL 300 can accelerate faster than an Assault with an XL 300 for example.

Then we can tweak the shake to where having too few Jumps Jets from the max that can be mounted, increases screen shake.

So a CTF-3D has stock set up of 4 Jump Jets, so mounting only one limits jump height to 30 M and has a shake penalty of +75% to a standard value for screen shake.
Mounting two reduces the penalty to +50%, three reduces penalty to +25%.
Mounting the four, there still will be screen shake and no penalty, but it is slightly reduced from where it currently is, since the mech was designed to use that number of Jump Jets.

The same should work for Jenners 1 JJ, 30 M but 80% penalty. 2 JJ 60 M, 60% penalty and so on to the max value.

Mechs that can mount a higher max than their stock loadout of Jump Jets should still get any height bonus like the SDR 5V or VTR-9K, but the penalty for mounting less should be calculated from their stock numbers.

Otherwise, simply prevent weapons from firing when Jump Jets are in use due to the energy draw from the engine.

[Mystere]

Ryoken, on 15 January 2014 - 05:52 PM, said:

As it is jump jets do not provide an additional way of mobility ...

What do lights do with jump jets then, use them as decoration?

That's the problem with all of these "nerf JJ" threads. They are targeted specifically to hit the poptart "problem" without ever even considering their effects on light mechs. Why don't we just get rid of light mechs, seeing that people do not even seem to acknowledge their existence?

And as a final solution to end all of these balance threads once and for all, let's just all have Urbanmechs armed with two machine guns each. Or is that not enough too?

[Asmudius Heng]

All sounds reasonable to me though I would not allow ACs to spread too much damage, the pinpoint damage is kinda one of thier main advantages now ...

All weapons should involve a certain amount of skill to bring it to its full potential, ACs have lead time and bullet drop but it is probably not enough of a skill barrier for the advantages yes.

Jump sniping is valid, but it should be more difficult IMO and I love jump sniping.

[Warge]

Ryoken, on 15 January 2014 - 05:52 PM, said:

In the current meta it is a lot of synced PPC&ACs for several reasons. Both weapons do deliver pinpoint damage. Similar projectile speed (exsp. AC5&PPC). And in case of the AC the extreme DPS.

So as it has been discussed in the NGNG Stream (http://www.nogutsnog...8c42d65e7d4e577) to desync those two weapons, as they did desync the Gaussrifle with its charging mechanism.

What's about simple solution: short bursts for ACs?

[White Panther]

I would like to improve the brawling weapons first before any more nerfs happen. I don't think the "pinpoint" with the PPC/AC is that big of an issue, only to people not moving properly otherwise the damage can be spread much better than the big alpha strike mechs before the nerfs took place.

[RamsoPanzer]

The problem of this all comes with the design. It takes too much time for a brawler to engage a sniper group so sniping is always the best option. For a brawler to be effective, much speed is needed, but that will reduce his loadout and consequently his firepower and heat management making it so useless. A sniper doesnt need speed to work well. Maps are too big, with many obstacles, only good for sniping and mechs get stuck everywhere.
Long rage weapons are powerful at both long and close ranges. Brawling weapons are only good at very close ranges and they dont work good, see SRMS and hit detection.

Edited by RamsoPanzer, 15 January 2014 - 06:28 PM.

[Lightfoot]

The solution is fix the Mechs, not nerf every weapon in MWO. They doubled the fire rate so halve the damage rate. Or, make the mechs tougher in the areas players shoot at. This was actually done in MW4 to the mech's arms and was a smashing success over MW3's fly-away arms that exploded on the first hit.

I think it is the only solution for MWO that is guarenteed to end the nerf fixes everything approach that MWO has nurtured into being. Make the CT's, Side Torsos, and Legs tougher than Battletech says they should be at the same weight value as is now. As has been mentioned, MechWarrior is different from Battletech Tabletop and it's dice roll targeting. Players know what to shoot at and they do, very well, Dice don't know anything and shoot blindly.

Edited by Lightfoot, 15 January 2014 - 06:35 PM.

[Mystere]

White Panther, on 15 January 2014 - 06:18 PM, said:

I would like to improve the brawling weapons first before any more nerfs happen. I don't think the "pinpoint" with the PPC/AC is that big of an issue, only to people not moving properly otherwise the damage can be spread much better than the big alpha strike mechs before the nerfs took place.

And I myself don't think poptarts are even a problem.

[Goose]

Warge, on 15 January 2014 - 06:15 PM, said:

What's about simple solution: short bursts for ACs?

'Cause they do nice clots of damage in exchange for being heavy.

Having all the direct-fire weapons look and feel the same would be boring …

[Jaeger Gonzo]

I think homelessbill idea was best

[Mechteric]

If Gauss weren't so terrible right now then it wouldn't be all AC's. There's just no other choices besides machine guns, and those are also terrible (for general use).

Edited by CapperDeluxe, 16 January 2014 - 07:07 AM.

[Foxwalker]

So you are saying turn all ACs into LBXs? Please don't do that. Yep, the Gauss desync was so good, I can no longer use them at all. Absolutely terrible mechanic. I do not jump snipe. I do use Jump Jets for mobility and for fighting. By the way this is an identical thread to one that was moved to "Features"

[Damocles69]

OK, this topic has been disscused to death. There are some hard truths that we as a player base need to come to terms with.
PGI WILL NEVER REAMOVE PINPOINT DAMAGE
Your weapons will always hit where you aim. The have said this over and over. That's fine, pinpoint only really becomes a problem when you combine with JJs. Look at all the other mech that can mount ppcs and small boar ACs. An atlas with ppcs and 2 UACs (not scary) a 733C with the same (OMFG I'm going to win all the things) a Battle master with ppcs and ACS (not scary) a victor with the same arrorment (I'm here to kick *** and chew bubble gum... and I'm all out of gum). Any cataphract and the cataphract 3d.

The point I am trying to make is that when ppcs and are in conjunction with each other on mech without jjs they are really not a that great. When combined with jjs they become an issue.

Jump jets are the thing that is out of sack. Their first problem:
WAY TO MUCH BANG FOR YOUR BUCK
For the low investment of 1 JJ your highlander can become an effective pop tart. 1 JJ is all that is ever required to turn mech mounting pinpoint weapons into effective poptarts. That is an investment of .5 tons for mediums, 1 ton for heavies and victors and 2 tons for highlanders. This allows these mech to load up on weapons, armor, ammo, and heatsinks cause these mech to be HIGHLY efficant.

Step one should be to make jump jets apply thrust proportionately according to the number you have. When you start making these mech to take more jjs to lift off the have to scrifce other things.

I say we start here and see what happens

[Khobai]

Quote

All sounds reasonable to me though I would not allow ACs to spread too much damage, the pinpoint damage is kinda one of thier main advantages now

So give them a different advantage, because pinpoint damage is broken.

[Clit Beastwood]

Maybe everyone could focus less on making the game easier and more on making themselves better. Some people aren't as good at some things as other people- it's a fact of life. Don't keep making a game easier and easier just because a subset of users aren't capable of doing well. Rather than constantly nerfing things, I'd rather pgi focus on matchmaking so everyone can play against a similar skill bracket. Player A kills 6-7 mechs per drop and has a huge win loss record - player B has the same mechs and weapons available but can't grasp how to use them and gets 0 kills and 200 dmg/match. Is it the games fault player b doesn't use the testing grounds to learn to move/shoot better? We're going to get to the point where "everyone's a winner!" because some users can't accept that their poor performance could actually be their fault. Jump jets are fine - use them or don't. I can't ski, so I keep the heck off the dang mountain- I don't complain that skiers should get wacked out curved skis. Do some self analysis, track your stats, and strive to improve yourself - don't expect pgi to make everyone worse so you can be competitive.

[Varik Ronain]

I dont have as much a problem with poptarting as many others appear to have. But I am one of the noobs who love lrms and the catapult. I can fire indirectly if needed to hit people behind cover, I have scouts that can get locks... I have a handy dandy UAV that also helps me flush out poptarting snipers. I may not have all the experience of the people who have been here since beta but I have piloted the same catapults in over 1500 drops and I think I have a handle on the basics of the game. Use more UAV and learn to appreciate your LRM allies! If they are pop tarting in one place it is not very difficult to position your artillery missile barrages to flush them out.

[Too Much Love]

First of all, it's not the weapons problem. It's normal, that you can do pinpoint dmg, its funny to jump and shoot.

What do you suggest, nerf everything the ground, so all weapons would become equally ineffective? Make JJ useless? What fun would it be? I shoot well, I like to shoot and destroy the part which I aim at. I dont't want to pointlessly fire at each other no matter what weapon I use. I like to feel the difference.

The problem is not the weapon. If there is any problem at all is absence of tonnage limits and tonnage balance. If 4 men's team would be limited by, lets say, 250 or 270 tonns, you won't see 4 coordinated high level hgn 733c. Even if they take 2, the other 2 would be lights. It will solve the problem automatically.

So, lets implement tonnage limits first and talk weapons balance second. IMHO, except pulse lasers everything is more or less balanced.