110 replies to this topic

[Khobai]

You can do still do pinpoint damage even without jump jets. All jumpjets let you do is minimize damage you take In return. But pinpoint damage will still get abused regardless of whether mechs have jump jets or not. Nerfing jump jets isn't going to make pinpoint alphas any less effective. Players will just adapt and find new ways to abuse pinpoint damage like they always have. The only real fix is getting rid of pinpoint damage once and for all.

Nerfing jump jets = jumpsniping weaker but pinpoint damage still unbalanced on the whole.

Nerfing pinpoint damage = jumpsniping weaker and pinpoint damage finally balanced.

nerfing pinpoint damage is the obvious best course of action.

Edited by Khobai, 08 February 2014 - 08:52 AM.

[Varent]

Khobai, on 08 February 2014 - 08:41 AM, said:

You can do still do pinpoint damage even without jump jets. All jumpjets let you do is minimize damage you take In return. But pinpoint damage will still get abused regardless of whether mechs have jump jets or not. Nerfing jump jets isn't going to make pinpoint alphas any less effective. Players will just adapt and find new ways to abuse pinpoint damage like they always have. The only real fix is getting rid of pinpoint damage once and for all.

actually it will since it will take away half of that damage as those mechs are easier to flank. The exception being the ac40 jager wich is widely known for being a troll build and easy to kill.

[Khobai]

All a turning nerf to jump jets will do is force highlanders to always use streaks. Because they won't be able to turn fast enough to keep lights in their torso sights. It's just going to change the meta build not fix it.

[Varent]

Khobai, on 08 February 2014 - 08:57 AM, said:

All a turning nerf to jump jets will do is force highlanders to always use streaks. Because they won't be able to turn fast enough to keep lights in their torso sights. It's just going to change the meta build not fix it.

Not really it depends how you change them. If you alter them to the point that it makes Jump Sniping itself significantly different then you allow mediums and heavies to close distance without taking as much damage. Do that and then you have a brawling mech of the same weight going toe to toe with a heat heavy mech that loses half its damage at 90 meters.

gg.

[Navy Sixes]

3rdworld, on 07 February 2014 - 02:48 PM, said:

I am of the opinion that there is not just 1 right answer. I think there are many changes they could make to change the effectiveness of poptarting.

Very true. That's a very sophisticated and mature understanding of game balance. Please remember this when PGI doesn't fix something the way you think it should be fixed...

Deathlike, on 07 February 2014 - 02:50 PM, said:

Let's be honest, sometimes even people like PGI like to overengineer solutions to simple problems. Ghost heat is #1 in everyone's mind.

Some people just never get that.

[Roughneck45]

Khobai, on 08 February 2014 - 08:41 AM, said:

Nerfing pinpoint damage = jumpsniping weaker and pinpoint damage finally balanced.

nerfing pinpoint damage is the obvious best course of action.

This would not change mechs with JJ's being infinitely superior to those without, which is the real problem IMO.

They need to normalize the JJ's power so that the first one is not equivalent to 3 and you actually have to invest some tonnage in them to make it worth while.

Then maybe slow down the torso twist speed while you are jump jetting.

There is a lot of stuff they could buff/nerf, but I think JJ's are a good place to start. The investment/benefit ratio for them is way off, so something needs to be changed.

Edited by Roughneck45, 08 February 2014 - 09:39 AM.

[Jman5]

Khobai, on 08 February 2014 - 08:57 AM, said:

All a turning nerf to jump jets will do is force highlanders to always use streaks. Because they won't be able to turn fast enough to keep lights in their torso sights. It's just going to change the meta build not fix it.

Alright. All that isn't free. Three streaks + ammo + BAP = 7-8 tons and 6-7 slots. If they change jumpjets to require more than one on the 733C = 2-6 tons and 3 slots.

So theoretically if you have to run streaks and max jumpjets you're looking at an extra 9-14 tons of extra gear, and 8-13 slots. You can't just shrug that kind of cost off even on a 90 ton mech.

Edited by Jman5, 08 February 2014 - 10:37 AM.

[Trauglodyte]

There are a lot of movie parts in play that make things bad.

- JJs are broken and have been since beta
- hard points are messed up and allow us to have too much freedom
- the heat model is broken simply because it doesn't penalize people from mismanaging their resources (ie, it isn't a thinking man's shooter if you don't have to think about it)
- instant convergence exasperates the issues above

PPCs don't really need to be splash and it would, to a point, make them much worse when you factor in the heat and travel time involved. Making them splash would cripple the already hurting ER PPC. ACs could maybe be set to burst fire like the Machine Gun in that they fire one round every 0.1s. But, does that really solve anything? Heat is a problem because the only down side is shutting down and the small amount of damage that comes with it. The biggest issue, as has been said in this thread, that thread, and every other thread near about, is that, disregarding all of the above, I can put a mac truck worth of damage through the eye of a needle.

By the way, for those talking about the PPC back in Beta and how nobody used them, you also need to remember that they were at 10 heat when we didn't have even 1.4x DHSs, the velocity was set at 900m/s so current AC10 speed, they did splash for a small amount of time, and there was no HSR which meant that you had to lead people with lasers and using ballistic type weapons on anyone outside of about 90m was impossible without an extreme amount of luck.

[Deathlike]

Tycho von Gagern, on 08 February 2014 - 09:22 AM, said:

Some people just never get that.

The difference is that I would have never deployed ghost heat in the state that it is in. I would have done something a tad more elegant, and a little more intuitive.

It doesn't make a difference, since PGI is not budging from its own POV.

[Bishop Steiner]

Trauglodyte, on 08 February 2014 - 11:05 AM, said:

There are a lot of movie parts in play that make things bad.

- JJs are broken and have been since beta
- hard points are messed up and allow us to have too much freedom
- the heat model is broken simply because it doesn't penalize people from mismanaging their resources (ie, it isn't a thinking man's shooter if you don't have to think about it)
- instant convergence exasperates the issues above

PPCs don't really need to be splash and it would, to a point, make them much worse when you factor in the heat and travel time involved. Making them splash would cripple the already hurting ER PPC. ACs could maybe be set to burst fire like the Machine Gun in that they fire one round every 0.1s. But, does that really solve anything? Heat is a problem because the only down side is shutting down and the small amount of damage that comes with it. The biggest issue, as has been said in this thread, that thread, and every other thread near about, is that, disregarding all of the above, I can put a mac truck worth of damage through the eye of a needle.

By the way, for those talking about the PPC back in Beta and how nobody used them, you also need to remember that they were at 10 heat when we didn't have even 1.4x DHSs, the velocity was set at 900m/s so current AC10 speed, they did splash for a small amount of time, and there was no HSR which meant that you had to lead people with lasers and using ballistic type weapons on anyone outside of about 90m was impossible without an extreme amount of luck.

having flashbacks to my first MWO drop..... running a trial AWS-8Q in Closed Beta. *shudders*

After the way the Awesome played in TT and MW4 (where in Vengeance it was one of my favorite rides...... 3 clan ppcs and a streak 6, and look out world!), would have thought it a good safe choice. Well. Almost instant overheat, and then even after I quickly figured out the heat scale (not helped by my first match being on Caustic), to sit there and pound shot after shot after shot on target, and register barely ANY damage, between the non existent hit registration, and the splash.......... *cringes and cries a little*

Worst part was the Devs on the forums "nothing wrong with the PPC they work great......::"

Jman5, on 08 February 2014 - 10:34 AM, said:

Alright. All that isn't free. Three streaks + ammo + BAP = 7-8 tons and 6-7 slots. If they change jumpjets to require more than one on the 733C = 2-6 tons and 3 slots.

So theoretically if you have to run streaks and max jumpjets you're looking at an extra 9-14 tons of extra gear, and 8-13 slots. You can't just shrug that kind of cost off even on a 90 ton mech.

sadly, in the Kingdom of Forums, rational facts are powerless against the QQ!

[Tw1stedMonkey]

No need to reduce the damage just change ppcs and the larger ACs to do splash damage. For the ppc say 5 damage to the targeted component and 2.5 to the 2 adjacent sections unless (though arms and legs have only 1 adjacent component so it would need to be a 60-40 split instead or something) and something similar for the ac/20. Maybe keep the ac/10 as pinpoint since it seems to be a fairly weak choice currently for it's weight. IDK about the gauss, but I think it would be perfect as long as you can only charge one gauss rifle at a time (to stop dual gauss becoming THE build to go to).

EDIT: Also just change the screen shake mechanic for JJ apply for the entire duration of air-time or just to all cases of a mech falling through the air.

Edited by Tw1stedMonkey, 08 February 2014 - 07:02 PM.

[Jman5]

It's not that giving it a pseudo-splash damage is a terrible idea. It could work and that would reduce the power of the PPC/Autocannon builds.

My problem is that it's a complicated solution that requires more dev time.

Here are questions that would have be answered, engineered and programmed into the game.

1. How would the damage split in every single case? Will extremity shots always splash into front armor or back armor? Would you have to engineer special detectors hitboxes to judge whether the splash should hit the back? Will it ever splash onto the cockpit as secondary damage (wouldn't that be OP?)

2. How would splash damage work when a component is destroyed? Would 50% of the splash transfer inward like normal? Or would you do 100% to the remaining component you hit?

3. How are critical hits going to work? Would splash apply crits? Oh man, you would have to completely re-engineer how critical hits work just to make this function properly.

I don't believe doing damage to a single point is necessarily bad or OP. It's being able to do too much damage to a single point in one alpha that's bad. Reduce the damage of that pinpoint alpha and you weaken a lot of overpowered builds.

[ImperialKnight]

cockpit shake up, cockpit shake down. problem solved. JJs should only be used for mobility.

P.S. You don't actually HAVE to shake the cockpit that much, just make the targeting go all over the place. or just make the weapon convergence while dropping really crappy such that the rounds go all over the place.

[Tw1stedMonkey]

Jman5, on 08 February 2014 - 09:10 PM, said:

It's not that giving it a pseudo-splash damage is a terrible idea. It could work and that would reduce the power of the PPC/Autocannon builds.

My problem is that it's a complicated solution that requires more dev time.

Here are questions that would have be answered, engineered and programmed into the game.

1. How would the damage split in every single case? Will extremity shots always splash into front armor or back armor? Would you have to engineer special detectors hitboxes to judge whether the splash should hit the back? Will it ever splash onto the cockpit as secondary damage (wouldn't that be OP?)

2. How would splash damage work when a component is destroyed? Would 50% of the splash transfer inward like normal? Or would you do 100% to the remaining component you hit?

3. How are critical hits going to work? Would splash apply crits? Oh man, you would have to completely re-engineer how critical hits work just to make this function properly.

I don't believe doing damage to a single point is necessarily bad or OP. It's being able to do too much damage to a single point in one alpha that's bad. Reduce the damage of that pinpoint alpha and you weaken a lot of overpowered builds.

To make it simple just make every attack 3 individual instances of damage, with all that applies to instances of damage (all 3 are counted as 1 ppc shot, just with different damage values.) Make the splash have a least 1/2 crit chance.of the main hit. In cases of destroyed components, crit chances, etc. all count as one shot and regular damage transfer and crit rules apply. in the case of rear hits, CT hits the LT and RT, in RT/LT the splash hits CT and RA/LA. in the case of legs or arms, just make both "splash" shots hit the adjacent torsos. I don't feel like it should be all that difficult. They have already linked armor location in the damage transfer situations. Reducing damage without also reducing fire rates will hurt the viability of the weapon. I would however be all for like reducing the damage per projectile without reducing dps (unless that dps is already a bit high).

Another thing that just occurred to me would be to add spread for each simultaneous pinpoint projectile being fired at once, with exponentially increasing spread based on weapon damage per shot. ie fairly significant spread for 40 points of damage fired at once such that it has a shotgun effect to hopefully force some damage to other locations, but mostly insignificant spread for ~10-20 pinpoint damage except at longer ranges. Also have this multiplied by if the shooter is in the air when firing. Explain it as some sort of overloading of the recoil compensators or something (idk lore well enough to know how the mechs function on that level.)

Edited by Tw1stedMonkey, 08 February 2014 - 10:03 PM.

[Jman5]

Roadbeer, on 08 February 2014 - 09:17 PM, said:

Sorry I'm late.

How dare you suggest something that goes against the cannon values.

May the rules lawyers and lorewhores defoliate your genitalia with needle nose pliers and duct tape!

[mike29tw]

Regarding pin-point vs. JJ...... both sides have made some really good argument. I'm starting to think that the problem doesn't lie only in pin-point or JJ......

Let's nerf both.

[EvilCow]

I would leave the Gauss the only weapon with pure pinpoint damage.

PPCs and ACs should have a percentage of the damage applied as splash in surrounding sections. For example 50-50 for the PPC and 70-30 for ACs (pinpoint-splash).

In order to compensate PPCs could have back their gradual damage reduction under 90mt.

[Joseph Mallan]

I have used PPCs for months on end. What I haven't done is abuse the massing of them. 1-2 PPCs work exactly as intended (If you ignore Convergence). I have used a single PPC on multiple builds and I dont read complaints of OP. I have used double PPC and still no complaints of OP. Addin a third weapon with awesome Advance targeting computer like Convergence and TaDa! Complains abound.

[meteorol]

Don't believe it would be a good solution.

The problem is not the PPC itself.
PPCs and ACs are superior because they have the inherit advantage of pinpoint damage. First and foremost this is an issue with the basic gameplay mechanics, and not the balance of a single weapon.

A single PPC is not OP. If you look at 10 pinpoint damage... well the AC10 has this aswell. How many "NERF AC10" threads have you seen lately?
Add a second PPC and an AC20 or two AC5, and you suddenly get a "weapon" that can pretty much end the game for a medium mech with two shots. Still, non of those weapons is OP from a balance point of view.
It's their combination and they way they apply their damage that make them the "meta".

When it comes to pinpoint damage... well pretty much everything has been discussed in hundreds of thousands of threads.

[Trauglodyte]

Again, splash isn't a bad idea but it doesn't necessarily solve anything. If you can still mount 4-6 of them and only have to marginally pay attention to heat, then having them splash didn't solve anything. Furthermore, you make the PPC a semi-acceptable weapon for long range fire and crappy up close, which is fine, but then you turn the ER PPC, which is hotter than a Caustic Valley, Tourmaline, and Terra Therma three way, into utter garbage because you pay 15 heat for a long ranged energy ***** slap. Very few use them now and it would become even less with the change.

I swear, I keep saying this in just about every thread:

1. Remove the Lock Arms To Torso - it was intended to help new player but has been abused and bastardized by the meta community to get around the JJ nerfs

2. Fix JJs so that they're not as monstrous as they are now (needs a longer thrust and recharge w/ a turn nerf based on a static number for the JJ class instead of being locked into the mech's ground based turning rate and more heat)

3. Work on current weapons that are NOT in the meta (ie. LRMs, SRMs, and Pulse Weapons)

4. Add in heat based penalties once mech exceeds 40% of its heat capacity. These would include:

• the reduction of all non-heat sink based efficiencies up to -200% of current (if owned)
  
• HUD flicker and removal
  
• current JJ spread applied as a mech heats up to 200% of current

The last one is the biggest and most effective way of changing the current game. We have the mechanic in game already but probably 99% of the population doesn't even realize it. In the June 6th patch, JJs were altered to cause cockpit shake, reticle shake and *drum roll* add arm based weapon spread. We just need to apply this to the game as an on going environmental constraint. If we can get the game there doing just that, then talking about adding splash or burst mechanics may just end up being academic.

Edited by Trauglodyte, 09 February 2014 - 12:47 PM.