168 replies to this topic

[Falso]

I'm wondering what is going to happen to change MWO back to role warfare, variety of weapons use and viability.

There used to be more reasons to play something else, but frankly, until we have PPC's brought under control, why bring anything else?

The perfect storm of "stumbling blocks" of nearly unclimbable slopes (even with JJ's end up being hung-up on nearly every map by invisible barriers) and pin-point damage capability given to nearly any and all mechs Via PPC's has made for a very bland game experience.

If PPC's continue to be pin-point ballistic weapons that can be on nearly every mech, especially with paired with AC/5's, what is the point in using anything else?

With the ability to combine UAC/5's with PPC's on the HGN-733c, SHD-X and even 2x PPC's 40 ton cicadas, game play continues to be very one dimensional.

Six months ago things were much worse, and I like that there has been some limiting to the ability of 6 PPC stalkers to climb every high point and snipe with no real answer other than to boat PPC's too, but now it's gone just as far the other way.

You haven't stopped or limited the reward for using PPC's, and at the higher Elo's you are very lucky to ever see LRM's etc, etc.

The Gauss Rifle received a nerf to prevent syncing with PPC's and heat was adjusted, however, it doesn't take long for people to realize what weapons work, and what don't.

Now the latest adjustments have slowed the AC/20 and AC/10, I'm sure this was to discourage syncing the weaoons with the PPC too effectively, however, why hasn't the PPC (the real culprit) been more adjusted?

Gauss has an interesting feel for it, and because of the "charge cycle" has effectively retired it's self unless you have a build with 2 of them.

As I remember over the last year, the major concerns with balance always involves PPC's. but instead, it seems other than some very minor tweaks to heat and recharge time, the PPC is left as the clear winner in the Min Max game, and something else is nerfed.

Why the AC/10 which never gets used by 90% of the veteran players, and the AC/20 who is one of the few viable answers to the PPC meta now gets a nerf.

Why not do something to the common denominator here, The PPC's.

Add a charge time cycle on PPC's much like a a gauss rifle, and don't have it be a pin-point damage (one stop shopper).

No reason that an energy energy weapon made up of several energy particles shouldn't spread a bit (slight shot-gun efffect) instead of transferring all damage to ONE point.
There should be a "beam time" much like with lasers (maybe just 0.5 or .25sec long to prevent this from continuing to be PPC warrior.)

I think the best balance for this is to make the PPC's hotter again, and charge up like the Gauss before firing, and then you will see more variety in 12-man drops. The fragility of the Gauss has limited it's use considerably, why it also got such a heavy penalty for use IDK.

Do this, and you might see Brawlers come back in force.

I like a variety weapons.

Please give us something more than 2 - 3 mech variants with PPC's & (U)AC/5's

Thanks!

Edited by Falso, 18 January 2014 - 02:47 AM.

[Abivard]

Nerf it, nerf that, nerf this. just stop with the nerfs and learn to balance PGI!

[Abivard]

shorten laser beam duration by half.

Put AC 20/10 speed back where it was.

Take out shake from ac 2/5's

Add shake to ac 10/20

Increase LRM speed

[ratgoat]

Pretty much we're playing WWI online or trechwarrior online, jump sniping would have been pretty good in that situation. As long as we have game modes that allow this type of game play you can expect much of the same. Also ****** hit reg srms are really hurting any real alternative.

[Profiteer]

PPCs do not need a nerf.

SRMs and Pulse lasers need a buff.

Job done.

[meteorol]

Profiteer, on 18 January 2014 - 03:23 AM, said:

PPCs do not need a nerf.

SRMs and Pulse lasers need a buff.

Job done.

While Pulse lasers need a buff, this wouldn't change too much. Pinpoint damage will always be better than damage over time/spread damage
If they don't stupidly overbuff DoT/spread weapons in terms of damage, the pinpoint weapons will always be ahead.

I wonder what the game would look right now if they gave the charge mechanic to the ppcs instead of the GR for the sake of desync. There are only a few mechs that can carry dual gauss, with the CTF-3D being the only one who is able to have JJs.
Would we see only CFTs and Jagers?

Edited by meteorol, 18 January 2014 - 04:21 AM.

[JohnnyWayne]

Energy weapons over all especially Pulse lasers suffer from the bad heat system in mwo. PPC's "outperform" (not really though) because of their synergetic effect with low heat direct fire high DPS weapons, aka all AC`s.

AC's are cool, bring up high DPS in open combat and ammo explosions are no issue. If your armor gets destroyed, your internals will follow soon too. In "popup" engagements they are just backup weapons.

PPC's are hot like **** (especially with these laughable heatsinks and tabletop values) and put ab a good load of damage in short "popup" engagements. Loosing heatsinks is really an issue here. In open battles they are just backup weapons.

So I personally see two issues here:

Popup engagements: can be one sided forced by the use of Jumpjets. Jumpjets are too strong and if you stick to TT you can't fire your weapons midair. For MWO, I'd increase fall damage return to the former shake, give jumpjets a base heat they always generate and if you overheat midair they turn off and you fall down.

High DPS on smaller ballistics: Small ballistics are meant to deal less DPS for greater range than the bigger ones. Currently thats hardly the case. Weapon cycles are ~ 4 seconds and they should be brought to that. After that they can be rebalanced.


The heat system in general needs an overhaul, to make energy weapons more viable. Heat is currently a too limiting factor.

Abivard, on 18 January 2014 - 03:01 AM, said:

shorten laser beam duration by half.

Put AC 20/10 speed back where it was.

Take out shake from ac 2/5's

Add shake to ac 10/20

Increase LRM speed

You had me until the LRM's. If you have LRM - heavy enemys you have already a problem. We don't need to worsen this. Good player can already do terrible things with LRM's, but its a weapon that depends on the team. Poptarting is the reason they suck at the moment (no time to lock on).

Edited by JohnnyWayne, 18 January 2014 - 04:41 AM.

[Tangelis]

Falso, on 18 January 2014 - 02:42 AM, said:

PPC'S ARE STILL THE META SIX MONTHS LATER

The AC shells whizzing past my cockpit or slamming into my chest greatly disagree.

[Charons Little Helper]

I think fixing SRMs would shift the balance more than people think at first glance. After all - even if they always registered properly, SRMs would still be imprecise.

If the SRMs are going to be imprecise - then other weapons that spread damage will be indirectly boosted. After all - if you aren't sure exactly what hitbox the bulk of the SRM hammer is going to hit - spreading the longer ranged laser damage to soften them up isn't so bad.

So builds will shift to either

1. Higher spread damage

2. Lower precision damage (like the current meta)

Yay variety.

(Similar things would happen if LRMs were guided to the 'bones' of mechs like streaks - though they'd have to rebalance them with increased damage & speed to compensate.)

Edited by Charons Little Helper, 18 January 2014 - 09:05 AM.

[Khobai]

Fixing SRMs wont really balance pinpoint damage. Mechs like the Highlander will just consider using SRMs instead of Streaks as their secondary weapons. But their primary weapons will still be PPCs/ACs, and those weapons will still be unbalanced.

The only way to balance pinpoint damage is to change how PPCs/ACs distribute damage. Either by changing convergence mechanics or by making the weapons spread damage around in the same way as SRMs/lasers.

[Lightfoot]

There are too many nerfs including PPCs actually.

The mechs are just too weak to be in a Battletech game. They have TT armor basically, (2x Armor for 2xRecharge of weapons) and the problem with this is that players are not 6-sided dice. They aim and shoot to bring enemy mechs down and very well. So for an interactive Battletech game the Mechs need more armor in the areas players shoot at, at no additional payload weight cost.

Another thing that might work very well is to have the Mech hitboxes overlap by a desired percentage to make CT coring less likely.

Once this is done MWO no longer needs to nerf group-fire, DHS, Gauss Rifles, the next big nerf, and players just take what they want on their mechs.

Unless the mechs get more armor MWO will just continue to annoy the player base and this is already proven by the past year and a half of over-nerfing balance moves. I am not playing right now because of the Gauss nerf and DHS 1.4. I'll be back at some point, but not playing much at all right now. There is really no reason for me to use Mechlab at the moment, the nerfs are just so numerous and pervasive. It's like PGI has chosen my loadout.

You might think it's a PPC problem, but it's really just all the other nerfs funneling players to the already over-nerfed PPC. The mechs are just too weak.

Edited by Lightfoot, 18 January 2014 - 10:57 AM.

[Too Much Love]

PPC is one of the most iconic and powerful weapons in the BT universe. It occupies its own place now both in terms of balance and in terms of lore.

[Mudhutwarrior]

PPC's have come back around because of the nerfs. Franky at the pace of nerfs here we should be down to slingshots by summer.

[Khobai]

A lot of the nerfs are just misguided. Like the recent AC/20 and AC/10 nerf.

We all know the AC/20 is a problem, so the AC/20 nerf was understandable, but the AC/10 nerf just makes no sense. The AC/10 was a weapon that very much needed a buff, and the ideal balance fix wouldve been one that nerfed the AC/20 while simultaneously buffing the AC/10.

What PGI shouldve done was lower the max range on the AC/20 from 810m to 675m, so the AC/20 would no longer be outright better than the AC/10. Not only would the AC/20 be weaker at sniping but the AC/10 would be indirectly buffed by comparison.

[Charons Little Helper]

Lightfoot, on 18 January 2014 - 09:16 AM, said:

Another thing that might work very well is to have the Mech hitboxes overlap by a desired percentage to make CT coring less likely.

All that would do is make precision damage be a higher skill cap.

Though on a similar vein - they could make it so that neighboring hitboxes which are still armored absorb a % (perhaps 10%) of the damage.

For example - if you hit the center torso at the start of a battle - it'd take 60% damage - 10% each shifted to the left torso / right torso / right leg / left leg. But only if they aren't cored. If the left torso & right leg are already cored - the center torso would take 80% damage.

This would make picking off arms & legs easier as they have fewer neighboring hitboxes. After all - a right arm would take 80% damage to start (10% shifted each to right front & back torso).

This would allow actual precision aiming & current convergence while having the same results both those plans want. Also - I'd think that it would take a lot less programming changes.

But - unlikely to happen.

Edited by Charons Little Helper, 18 January 2014 - 09:47 AM.

[Too Much Love]

Yeah, some people still can use PPC and AC20, lets degrade them as we did it with Gauss so nobody will take them seriously.

[Specops12]

PPCs (and ACs) will remain the meta until lasers receive some form of buff

[Mcgral18]

Frontloaded damage has been the meta for quite awhile, nothings going to change that unless the mechanics themselves are changed. All other weapon systems have a mechanic in place to spread that damage, not PPCs, not ACs.

[darkchylde]

Direct Damage will forever be the meta because of pin point convergence. The only real change is that PPC's now supplement the Ballistic Weapons which fire faster and run a lot cooler.

This Problem will also get much worse when clan tech is introduced until the core of the problem is dealt with.

Edited by darkchylde, 18 January 2014 - 12:18 PM.

[Mystere]

Rephrasing my now (in)famous words:

Nerf this, nerf that, I am really sick of this nerf {Scrap}!

My awesomes are worse than they have ever been due to all the nerfs to PPCs.

Edited by Mystere, 18 January 2014 - 12:47 PM.