101 replies to this topic

[Mudhutwarrior]

I do okay with dual gauss. It should not be the end all in boats so its pretty close to what it should be. I do think that once charged it should hold it. Its dangerous to do that for long so it would balance it out. Dual gauss against a good team plays little and that would make it more effective at a cost.

[Leroifou]

Charge mechanic is fine. Cooldown just needs to come down to realign its DPS with that of other ACs.

Edited by Leroifou, 21 January 2014 - 05:04 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Mudhutwarrior, on 21 January 2014 - 04:56 AM, said:

I do okay with dual gauss. It should not be the end all in boats so its pretty close to what it should be. I do think that once charged it should hold it. Its dangerous to do that for long so it would balance it out. Dual gauss against a good team plays little and that would make it more effective at a cost.

Best TT Boat to my taste is a Thunder Hawk. 3 Gauss! Oh yeah!. Now here, the pin point convergence would make this a instant whinefest!

[Asmosis]

a longer charge hold time would invalidate the reason for having it in the first place, as it'd allow you to shoot from the hip instead of charging to take a shot.

[Mudhutwarrior]

Asmosis, on 21 January 2014 - 05:05 AM, said:

a longer charge hold time would invalidate the reason for having it in the first place, as it'd allow you to shoot from the hip instead of charging to take a shot.

It would also make you and instant fireball if hit.

[Skyfaller]

Dunno man, I'm pulling 600+ damage maps with dual gauss. Sniping and brawling alike. Best so far I did 1100'ish damage and took down 7 of them .

[Lightfoot]

Fix it so the Gauss Rifle desync can be used with a Joystick (longer charge-hold time?) and I will accept the Duke Nukem Sniper Rifle as a poorly imagined Gauss Rifle. But you know you should do better than this PGI, you can do better and you owe it to us. It really destroys the immersion of piloting a Mech, which should always be priority one for a Mech science-fiction game.

This DPS/payload tonnage chart shows why the Gauss Rifle nerf is actually uneeded. So probably it's actually something else that is broken. Other than the Gauss Rifle should take longer to recharge than an AC20 class weapon the only thing I can think of is we have no Map Selection or notice before we gear-up in Mechlab. MWO has no map tactical gameplay yet so the idea of an actual brawling vs. ranged loadout has not been tested or balanced. I would bet the AC20 wins most city matches over an un-nerfed Gauss Rifle though. Anyway, the proof is the chart, please note the Gauss Rifle's location at the bottom.



weapon................................DPS=DPS/ton of payload space.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
machine gun........................1.00= 2.0
ac2.......................................3.85= 0.64
ULTRA AC/5........................3.33= 0.37 to 0.67
ac5.......................................3.33= 0.41
lb 10-x..................................4.00= 0.36
ac20.....................................5.00= 0.35
ac10.....................................4.00= 0.33 dps/ton
gauss rifle.............................3.75= 0.25
5 sec recharge.....................3.00= 0.20

Clan Gauss Rifle..................3.75= 0.31
5 sec recharge.....................3.00= 0.25
Clan UAC 20........................5.00= 0.41 to 0.75

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Edited by Lightfoot, 21 January 2014 - 09:31 AM.

[A banana in the tailpipe]

ColonelMetus, on 21 January 2014 - 01:37 AM, said:

Gauss used to be a fun weapon to use. now its just 15 tons of {Scrap} that always explodes for no reason

That reason is because you got shot.

[East Indy]

Quote

This DPS/payload tonnage chart shows why the Gauss Rifle nerf is actually uneeded.

The problem wasn't on paper -- it was in-game, about the spirit of play. The Gauss was just tacked onto alphas for an extra 15 points of damage. That was dumb.

I've seen Gauss deployed with varied armaments, used seamlessly in that peculiar firing rhythm, and it's an impressive display of skill.

[Rashhaverak]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 20 January 2014 - 09:24 PM, said:

Keep trying.

its worth it.

Terciel1976, on 20 January 2014 - 09:36 PM, said:

+1. I've really just learned to use it. And it's deadly. The projectile speed is just glorious. Worth learning.

Hmmm, given the advice and leaning opinion on this matter, perhaps I have not given myself enough time to learn the charge mechanic properly. I think I'll give it another two weeks, keep at it, and see if something improves.

Thanks everyone, for your viewpoints on the matter. You 've given me some good ideas, I think, on builds and use of the gauss.

[divinedisclaimer]

Rashhaverak, on 20 January 2014 - 02:33 PM, said:

I give up. I've spent two weeks trying to make a dual gauss sniper work, but it just doesn't. The physical makeup of the mech isn't the problem, it's the weapon itself. To many missed shots from the charge mechanic; too many misses waiting for the thing to charge up, and too many lining up the shot and having the charge expire. Unless the opposing team is stupid and sits motionless, the gauss misses more shots than it hits. And all the time your not shooting, having your opponents firing AC/2/5 or PPC at you. It's just too hard, and not worth it. Oh, and forget it if a light gets on your butt...

Gauss is so bad I'd rather pilot an SRM mech.

It's you.

[Almond Brown]

Leroifou, on 21 January 2014 - 05:03 AM, said:

Charge mechanic is fine. Cooldown just needs to come down to realign its DPS with that of other ACs.

From reading, it is those "other AC" weapons and their grossly high DPS that have sent so many to the "Wailing Wall of OP Doom" it seem unlikely to think that adding yet another Ballistic with mega OP DPS will really be of much benefit in helping with the over-arching "doom and gloom" that is being prophesied here about the current AC weapons class.

[thesleepyslam]

My favorite build is Dual Gauss on K-2. I used to run that with 4 small lazers but then I swapped to no backup weapons. I've done 1400 matches with this build, and have played it since the start of open beta. My average damage with this build over those 1400 matches is 419, with a 1.88 ratio. The way I use gauss, is I try to attack people when they are 1100-800 meters away. The strategy is to attack from such a long range, that they can't lock on to me. I carry 80-90 rounds on my build for this reason. I run out of ammo 1/6 matches.

I feel like I'm one of the more qualified players to criticize this weapon. I would say the only thing that needs to change is to decrease it's cooldown to 3.5-3 seconds. Other balancing ideas I like are increasing it's charge hold and decreasing it's crit rate and explosion damage.

[Void Angel]

Void Angel, on 21 January 2014 - 12:58 AM, said:

/sigh. He's misinterpreting your statements because he's looking too hard for a logical kill to your argument instead of giving you the benefit of the doubt - just as you're doing to him.

Actually, now that I review it, he was looking for a logical kill to Isp's argument - my error. I blame Spiders. Still, my point stands.

Cerberias, on 21 January 2014 - 02:06 AM, said:

Actually Void, thats not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying that Gauss got hugely nerfed,

So you're not saying that the Gauss rifle changes are a net nerf, because you're saying that the Gauss rifle got nerfed? I characterized your conclusion as being that the changes overall reduced the effectiveness of the weapon - a nerf. I did not indicate degree.

Cerberias, on 21 January 2014 - 02:06 AM, said:

Not sure how I'm only reading in what I want to see.. I'm simply cutting down any arguments I see that make no sense. I agree with his arguments regarding 'needing a second gauss to make it work' but there are no good 2 Gauss builds that can take any sort of damage, which generally aren't the builds seen in comp play. I also agree that the Gauss should not be a close range brawler weapon, which is why I would take away the charge and then increase the cooldown to say 6ish seconds. Sniper weapons don't 'charge' they shoot slower and shoot when you click, imo.

No one has told you you are reading in only what you want to see - you made that up, by reading it into what you actually were told. What I told you was that you were not giving fair treatment to his overall argument. Just as he mischaracterized an overall opinion (that the charge mechanic is a huge nerf regardless of the projectile speed) as being "contradictory" by cutting out a cherry-picked fact (the changes to the Gauss included a buff to projectile speed,) and ignoring the context, you said, "You also say you disagree with me claiming that its a nerf, then agree with my points regarding that it is a nerf" - ignoring his actual argument, which was that the nerfs do not substantially outweigh the buffs, and claiming that his argument "doesn't make sense."

This is not a valid way to critique an argument. No word has a meaning outside of context, and the overall gist of what your opponent is saying needs to be considered. This does not mean that you cannot point out inaccurate statements, improper logic, or contradictory claims - after all, I've just done so to you. Rather, it means that you have to take care to consider the claim as a whole, to avoid playing semantic games like:

"Interesting.. a speed decrease to an AC 10 or 20 is a "nerf" (BS IMO, but that`s the term this community prefers to use in their hyperbolic posts)

Yet the gauss gets a speed INCREASE, and it`s also a "nerf".

Logically, that does not compute."

The above is an asinine, arrogant, and amateurish failure at logical argument - but it's an easy trap to fall into in more subtle ways.

Edited by Void Angel, 21 January 2014 - 01:09 PM.

[Jon Gotham]

Asmudius Heng, on 20 January 2014 - 05:10 PM, said:

longer held charge would help immensly. You would not be able to snap shoot as well as an AC, but you could build charge then move out of cover and take a shot and retreat like a sniper. Or hold your shot and save your ammo etc.

The cooldown time could be reduced a little too - apart form that I like that it is differentiated but the short charged up window is frustrating beyond words.

The counter argument is that if you had a longer charge window then you could sync fire it with ACs and PPCs etc too easily which is a valid concern, but i dont think it would change the meta that much - having better brawling weapons that get up in a gauss users face would really show the gauss short range weakness with a charge up, let it be good at the long game.

+1 for sensible post.

[KharnZor]

Lightfoot, on 20 January 2014 - 08:51 PM, said:

MWo's Gauss Rifle is from a first person shooter. Nothing to do with Battletech and the science fiction of Battlemechs. MechWarrior's top goal is to immerse the player into believing they are piloting a 31st century Battlemech and the Gauss Rifle desync breaks that immersion and shoots the player over to Quake, QuakeWarrior.

Not only that, but the desync as is, is not usable with a joystick which can't drag-click-release a mouse button. So it is totally Quakewarrior and turns MWO into just a glitchy first person shooter.

If the Gauss Rifle needs to be charged, it needs to be charged like a 31st Century Battlemech weapon!!! It holds the charge until the pilot powers it down or a normal time limit occurs, like 10-20 seconds. It is not a twitch weapon! It has to convince the player into believing they are harnessing a powerful force to apply it to a futuristc weapon system. That's called game immersion.

You never played Quake did you?

[Lightfoot]

Shame shame if you support the Gauss Rifle desync. It's really just the same Sniper Rifle lifted out of Duke Nukem and dropped into MWO. I want something more related to Battletech and MechWarrior. More functional, more Battletech sci-fi. We as the supporters of MWO deserve more than this. Do it right PGI.

[Cerberias]

Quote

So you're not saying that the Gauss rifle changes are a net nerf, because you're saying that the Gauss rifle got nerfed?

Thats the same thing. You were claiming in your previous post that neither of us were saying the gauss got nerfed. -

Quote

What you and he both are trying to say is that you believe the Gauss Rifle changes were or were not (respectively) an overall nerf

Unless we have a drastically different understanding of the English language, you claimed that we were both saying Gauss didn't get nerfed, when my point was that it did, overall. The projectile speed is a tiny buff, and does very little to counteract the large nerfs.

Quote

He's misinterpreting your statements because he's looking too hard for a logical kill to your argument instead of giving you the benefit of the doubt

To me, this means that we're only seeing what we want to see in the opposing arguments ignoring and positive parts of the arguments in favour of only combatting the negative. I may have used a slightly hazy phrase choice, but what I meant was that we were only reading the parts of the argument that we wanted and ignoring the rest, exactly what you asserted we were doing.

Quote

you said, "You also say you disagree with me claiming that its a nerf, then agree with my points regarding that it is a nerf" - ignoring his actual argument, which was that the nerfs do not substantially outweigh the buffs, and claiming that his argument "doesn't make sense."

This was in regard to him saying that it was no longer a brawling weapon, which was the essence of my argument. Almost all weapons work well against a bad enemy under little to no pressure, its how they stand up in a real life situation that matters. This is of course IMO, but I really can't see why you would ever want to look at a weapon only when you're playing against unskilled enemies.. especially when Gauss falls off hard against good enemies using low exposure time tactics (i.e. poptarting). This is pretty much the reason why 'all AC' mechs with multiple small calibre AC's arent viable, because they don't keep together under fire, as they have to stay 'staring' at the opponent which promotes bad play.

I was also referring to the points he were making, which were mostly non-logical statements from his own personal experience. Such as;

Quote

I may be lucky, but when I need it , it`s there. Again, always on "charging up" status.

Quote

My ADD diagnosis and the advent of home computer gaming happened more or less at the same time

Quote

I have to disagree. However, this may have something to do with the fact that I have been computer gaming for about 30 years total, the last 20 of those in some (semi-)competitive or testing fashion. But yes, a small CD nerf is infact present, though it really is minimal, around .5 sec.

I use the gauss like the Minigun in UT. It`s "always spinning up" unless I specifically plan to execute a rare jumpsnipe, in which case I`ll time the spinup to coincide with the planned apex of the jump The result is:

These are all 'personal experience' arguments, with a great amount of bias, and bad science to back it up. It can't 'always be spinning up' there are times where you need it and it won't be there. Its called the charge time, when you see an enemy as your charge runs out, or at the start of a charge. I don't see anything to debate there, its a fallacious biased argument.

The only buff gauss has recieved was a small increase to projectile speed. When he agree's with me that it's no longer viable as a brawler, and that you essentially need to use two of them, his argument point has changed. Essentially, he starts off trying to argue one point, then switches his mind. Unless he's trying to argue that the projectile speed increase outweighs the increased difficulty of the weapon as a brawler, and the increased difficulty of single gauss builds. -

Quote

Yes, it`s no longer a truly effective and dangerous brawling weapon.

Quote

and more importantly can`t viably be com,bined with any weapon other than a second Gauss.

If he is trying to argue that the speed increase does outweigh all of these negatives, in which case I think he needs to review his case.

Quote

(BS IMO, but that`s the term this community prefers to use in their hyperbolic posts)

Of course it's a nerf, there is no positive here in this particular 'balance' change, and a nerf to me means something that takes power away from a weapon. Neither of us called this a large nerf, its a very small one but it is still a nerf..

Edited by Cerberias, 21 January 2014 - 03:19 PM.

[ImperialKnight]

LOL at the attempts to make camp sniping easier. Deal with it. The Gauss was made intentionally more difficult to use. Why should we make it easier for people to sit behind a rock sniping? The weapon deals 15 damage, has near instant projectile speed and produces no heat. L2P

[Cerberias]

The problem is Knight, that it wasn't the Gauss being OP in the first place, it was a combination of JJ sniping, PPC's and imo to a lesser extent Gauss. So now we have a situation where people have just taken Gauss out and replaced with 2xAC5, with only a very slight loss of sniper power, for a large increase in brawling power. If they'd just nerfed JJ sniping or PPC's we wouldn't be in this situation, as only one mech can realistically run Dual gauss as a poptart, and that mech is super squishy because of it. Lose either of your Gauss and theres a large chance you'll just pop from the chain reaction + XL engine.

@DivineDisclaimer

Is that supposed to be impressive? You beating on a few semi-braindead enemies from a flank, while they dont torso twist, and neither do you for that matter. Like I've said in my previous posts, any weapon can do well against {Surat}, it's true measure is against skilled enemies. Hell, half of them were just like HERRR ILL STAND STILL. No, just, no.

Edited by Cerberias, 21 January 2014 - 03:30 PM.