168 replies to this topic

[Joseph Mallan]

MischiefSC, on 21 January 2014 - 10:52 PM, said:

For a military perspective that's, what, barely a 3 round burst from an M240. You'd have trouble limiting yourself to 0.3 seconds of burst fire from any SAW, I don't think you can cut it that fine.

It's still a hammer hit, still a sudden burst of damage, just that it spreads slightly when combined with fast movement.

SAW round 5.56mm... AC20 rounds Up to 203mm. There is a huge difference in the size and weight of rounds in the example.


vs 155mm Ammo


BIG difference

[Khobai]

Quote

And all non-missile weapons start to act -- if not look -- the same.

Do you folks see where this is heading? ---> BORING!!!

Not at all. Ive already listed multiple ways for autocannons and PPCs to retain their uniqueness despite losing their pinpoint damage capability.

[Joseph Mallan]

Well he may have a point.

How exciting is:
Point and Click
Point and click (Hold)
Point and Click (follow)

I suggest reducing the beam duration to improve damage output for energy weapons, I don't worry about things like TTK cause I am not worried about how fast either you or I die. We should not live forever cause frankly Combat is supposed to be dangerous. So playing a game of combat should have risks. Make a mistake and you should pay for it.

[kapusta11]

Go ahead, turn ACs into DOT weapon. This will lead to either:
- People pairing them with lasers, then they will rage "OMG lasers are OP nurf them to the ground!!".
- AC will simply remain superior because they produce no heat.
- People will switch to whatever pinpoint weapon left (Gauss, or you want to make it DOT as well?)).
- People will switch to mlaser boats as they're more or less balanced (they do not reach heat cap so fast)

Go ahead turn PPCs into splash damage weapon. How many people using LBX do you see now?

You'll burry the problem even deeper.

[Prezimonto]

The answer is fairly simple.

If you want to carry the largest best weapons, they should be more limited to the types of mechs designed to carry them.

Make weapons take up hardpoints in addition to slots and tons. So an AC20 can only go on a location that has 3 hardpoints, 10slots and 14 tons free.

Only allow PPC's on locations that have 2 open energy hard points, 3 slots and 7 tons free. Want a PPC? It takes up both hardpoints.

Obviously, some hardpoint numbers might need tweaking, and perhaps the PPC should have 3 hardpoints required. I honestly think PGI started down this path and abandoned it at some point, so the system is mostly in place.

This would re-emphasize that different variants are purpose built for certain types of loadout (still customizable) and should actually encourage play of a wider variety of mechs. It would eliminate a lot of the issues this game faces with builds that have unusually large numbers of weapons. Individually, many of the weapons in this game are balanced pretty well against each other. It's when you can (and everyone does for no real penalty) multiples of weapons that really throw balance out of whack.
The main reason we have such weird builds is the rampant availability with no drawback of upgrades.... free tonnage = more weapons combined with no real way to increase defensive power vs. anything but LRM's.

Another way to indirectly tackle the issue is to give "stock" armor/heat sinks/engines some kind of defensive buff. Like increasing internal HP for the non-upgrades, and making FF a real defensive upgrade. Here's a thread I wrote up on this idea:
http://mwomercs.com/...-survivability/

This idea indirectly limits offensive power by making players make choices about defense vs. offense.

Edited by Prezimonto, 22 January 2014 - 05:54 AM.

[Voivode]

Now, I hated PPCWarrior Online as much as anybody, but PPCs aren't game breakingly unbalanced right now. In fact, I'd say they're the best they've been. The other day I saw a 4xPPC stalker in a match. You know what he did? He fired them 2 by 2 or 1 at a time. That is a sure sign that PPCs are fine as is.

[kapusta11]

The problem is that PGI forgot to turn dissipation up when they icreased rate of fire 2.5 times, this made all weapons that produce no heat (ACs) as people say OP. How can you compare ballistics with energy if one is underpowered from the start?

[Joseph Mallan]

kapusta11, on 22 January 2014 - 06:00 AM, said:

The problem is that PGI forgot to turn dissipation up when they increased rate of fire 2.5 times,

Yes this! A thousand times this!

[topgun505]

At first I scoffed at this idea but considering they are the same weight and size as a PPC this actually isnt totally outlandish and wouldn't invalidate existing builds (they wouldn't be quite canon, but oh well). It would be intetesting to see how this impacts the meta if we were to try this.

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 18 January 2014 - 01:34 PM, said:

could just remove the normal PPC completely.

Then the erppc would be the only choice, it'd be a lot hotter to handle, and brawlers would have a lot mroe opportunity to shine with pulse lasers & such at closer ranges.

probably would be the best & easiest way to fix the current meta. The normal PPC is an ERPPC for all intents at 90-600m, and since a huge amount of battles take place in this range, and since you are getting such incredible heat efficiency from the PPC and the ac/5/uac5 class, or even gauss, it's fairly obvious why everyone is migrating into this platform of choice, because right now it is very powerful.

again its down to some systems still bypassing heat mechanics that force a pacing & rate of fire while being able to move 20-40 dmg in very fast intervals, ie every 1.5 seconds 20 dmg, every 3 seconds 40 dmg with quad ac/5 is basically a dual ac/20 jaegger without ghost heat for example.

if we had annihalator the quad ac/5 or uac/5 with current mechanics would devour this game, it might actually be good for the game right now as a pack of 8 quad uac/5 annihalitors is probably the only thing that could brawl/rush a mob of jumpsnipers.

if it werent for the jumpjets that is. jets continue to feed the hide behind indestructible object and fire meta, their design & their lack of heat penalties both support this meta.

ECM feeds this meta by shielding.

people seemingly are not willing to lose ECM and have lrms more useful for flushing. lrms with scouts and brawlers should be able to TAG & fflush stationary jumpsnipers. rock/paper/scissors.

current game design with ECM & ecm stacking, cover & radar mechanics is not allowing for this nearly as well as it should.

human psychology - hide, jump together, stay together, focus, and really here we are, PGI was forwarned many times, and we face exactly what we had in mech4 - dual gauss peeking wack-amole with highlanders instead of dual gauss Madcat MKII

btech:3025 jumpjets. collisions, DFA. tuning to ECM & scouting & LRM mechanics. nurfing of the PPC & the ac/uac5

for the past week ive toyed with various wierd mechs, awesomes, etc, stock type builds. W/L around 50%.

last night i min.maxed with 2 jumpsniping victors. we lost 2 matches of 20.

combat is too static and slow. lack of tonnage limits is a significant factor. 1-2 assaults and 1-2 hvy per team would see the meta shfit quite a bit towards more mobile and fun battles. stuff like CTF would really help too.

[Joseph Mallan]

topgun505, on 22 January 2014 - 07:37 AM, said:

At first I scoffed at this idea but considering they are the same weight and size as a PPC this actually isnt totally outlandish and wouldn't invalidate existing builds (they wouldn't be quite canon, but oh well). It would be intetesting to see how this impacts the meta if we were to try this.

Oh do you know what you are suggesting?

This kind of suggestion has been made for MGs and other "useless" weapons. It has not been received well at all in the past. Beware... flames are coming.

[990Dreams]

Is this a problem?

Edited by DavidHurricane, 22 January 2014 - 07:44 AM.

[Mystere]

Joseph Mallan, on 22 January 2014 - 05:03 AM, said:

Yeah but at least its boring in the opposite direction of DpS Ballistics! And who ever thought dying faster would be called ...Boring???

Don't get me wrong. I'm not concerned about dying faster. What I am concerned about is that my "Dakka! Dakka! Dakka!", "BOOM!", "Pew! Pew!" and "Woop! Woop! Woop!" will all turn into the same weapon with only the visuals and sound effects different. That is boring!

[Ryoken]

I still do wonder why ppl keep complaining about the PPC. The only thing I can imagine is that it may get splash damage so the hit location get like 7 damage and 3 damage are split to adjecent locations.

But - and this is a big but - the weapon type that currently is ruling/ruining the weapon balance are the Autocannons!
1. Pinpoint damage up to 20 points
2. Less heat than energy weapons
3. Very high DPS
4. No lock on target needed, therefore immune to ECM
5. Low visibility of projectile, as nothing tells the enemy "I'm sniping you" better than a bright Laser/PPC

So the Autocannons are to look for in the first place, and maybe turning them from beeing just one projectile into a short burst of multiple projectiles is a first step to adjust them by giving them the chance to spread damage. But also rate of fire may be something to think about.

As it stands ballistic builds have a major advantage! If backed up by ppc it is a bit better, but it is the Autocannons that bring in the cheese.

Edited by Ryoken, 22 January 2014 - 07:55 AM.

[Abivard]

There will always be a meta, trying to destroy meta just destroys whatever game it is in.
When all weapons do 1 damage and have a 1 second dot and generate suffcient heat to shut down a mech when it fires once, you will still hear whines from someone that the Meta sucks,it needs a nerf.

[Joseph Mallan]

Mystere, on 22 January 2014 - 07:51 AM, said:

Don't get me wrong. I'm not concerned about dying faster. What I am concerned about is that my "Dakka! Dakka! Dakka!", "BOOM!", "Pew! Pew!" and "Woop! Woop! Woop!" will all turn into the same weapon with only the visuals and sound effects different. That is boring!

So the same argument as I have if Ballistics are made DpS weapons. It is a fair rebuttal!

[Ryoken]

Abivard, on 22 January 2014 - 07:56 AM, said:

There will always be a meta, trying to destroy meta just destroys whatever game it is in.
When all weapons do 1 damage and have a 1 second dot and generate suffcient heat to shut down a mech when it fires once, you will still hear whines from someone that the Meta sucks,it needs a nerf.

Agreed with that. There will always be a meta/optimal build. Therefore it nonsense trying to destroy a meta/the meta or whatever.

It's rather a question of minimizing the discrepancies between the weapon systems usefullness with each patch. So ever finer adjustment will be made.

[Abivard]

Ryoken, on 22 January 2014 - 08:03 AM, said:

Agreed with that. There will always be a meta/optimal build. Therefore it nonsense trying to destroy a meta/the meta or whatever.

It's rather a question of minimizing the discrepancies between the weapon systems usefullness with each patch. So ever finer adjustment will be made.

The best way to do this is by increasing the viability of other weapons by improvements, not nerfing the top one down.

I am unaware of any game that has succeeded in weapons balance by nerfing from the top.

[Mystere]

I think people are grossly underestimating the developer cost of transforming ACs into "burst" (aka. "DPS") weapons. Instead of demanding that PGI change weapon mechanics, and as such delay further the other stuff, why not have them give us more goodies instead?

Why not have different types of armor, with each type specialized in partially mitigating the damage produced by a particular type of weapon? Doesn't that sound more interesting?

As for those wanting to turn some of the PPC's damage into splash, I am going to have to ask for something in exchange ( ). I want PPC hits to feel like EMP blasts:

• I want your display (don't forget that you are supposed to be wearing a neurohelmet) to experience interference.
  
• I want your HUD to temporarily disappear.
  
• I want you to lose current locks.

Also, have PGI give us smoke, mines, napalm and white phosphorus, impact and air burst artillery, impact and cluster bombs. Heck, have them bring back Greek Fire!


As you can see, we don't have to "nerf" everything. We can just have more really nice things instead.

(Edit)
I have a few other things that I already mentioned in another thread:

• Reduce ammo per ton
  
• increase chance of ammo explosion
  
• increase free-fall damage

The first two are "nerfs", but in any case ...

Edited by Mystere, 22 January 2014 - 09:02 AM.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Abivard, on 22 January 2014 - 08:23 AM, said:

The best way to do this is by increasing the viability of other weapons by improvements, not nerfing the top one down.

I am unaware of any game that has succeeded in weapons balance by nerfing from the top.

Actually the best way is to first fix the underlying game mechanics that are causing most of the weapon issues.

Adjusting weapons up or down doesn't do anything until you fix the real problems.

And adjusting weapons up or down isn't bad, as long as they are the correct adjustments.

What we should be focused on first and foremost is the heat system. While the number one issue is convergence, PGI cannot fix it. Between the engine they chose and their lack of skill, they cannot add a convergence system.

So with that in mind, they need to revisit the heat cap. Paul in his infinite wisdom posted that heat neutrality was bad and didn't want to change the heat cap. Of course he did this without posting any of the methods he used to come to this conclusion. Nor did he bother to read most of the feed back telling him he was wrong (as per usual).

They should lower the heat cap substantially while upping dissipation to compensate. This has the immediate effect of limiting what you can do with an alpha.

Sure you can fire one, but odds are you are going to over heat and shut down immediately. Especially if you are sporting multiple energy weapons.

That leaves chain firing, which basically helps limit the convergence problem documented above.

This of course would also mean we get rid of Ghost Heat...which would be great.

Another underlying issue we need to examine is ammo. Right now everyone is able to pack in enough ammo to last an entire match without any drawbacks. Ammo explosions are very rare, and AC's are very low heat plus pinpoint. So you'll have to either cut ammo down or create a situation where packing a lot of ammo could be very dangerous.

These are just two VERY easy to code fixes that would change the dynamics of the game and would help us achieve balance without having to do crazy weapon adjustments.

[Abivard]

Why do ballistics have no recoil?
They do shake when they hit, even these tiny little ac2 slugs shake my 100 ton mech when they hit, silly as it sounds I know.

I would bet most of you would drop a 12 ga shotgun if you tried to shoot it off hand, or maybe end up giving yourself a black eye or bloody lip. Now try doing it with one in each hand, on full auto and see where them rounds go. Hurt yourself? probably, hit anything you were trying to?

It is doubtful you did hit, maybe that very first shot came somewhat close but you know it is just as likely that you lost track of your target during that little exercise and will now need to reacquire it.

But things work differently in this magical world of MWO, only the target of fire is affected, the shooter is immune to physics and the target has enhanced affects from a spatial anomaly that distorts time and space around any target. or so PGI leads us to believe.