258 replies to this topic

[Joseph Mallan]

stjobe, on 09 March 2014 - 10:53 PM, said:

As I've told you elsewhere, "I like to keep these weapons mechanically superior to all other weapons" is NOT a play style.

Correct, but the reason behind it is. The damage done is a Mechanical issue, Some players like High damage slaughter fest play style. Other like to dance the Scars. I can do both, I prefer crushing my enemy/opponent in a loud gratuitous military fashion. It is actually a play style. It was once called "Munchkin"

[wanderer]

Changing AC's to burst fire isn't reducing the damage delivered. It simply prevents you from carving through armor at a rate that makes every other weapon type vastly inferior by comparison. An AC/20 still hits for 20 damage...it simply no longer can automatically plant the entire 20 in one spot repeatedly. TTK drops through the cellar if damage doesn't spread- the infamous "3 second Jenner" being a great example of this...because it fired all it's lasers while stationary at a stationary target, insuring zero spread.

Tabletop prevents the damage system from being broken by randomizing hit locations to spread damage. Weapons that fail to do so are deemed broken and fixed in MWO, with even LRMs getting this multiple times.

It's past time for the AC and PPC, which are broken in favor of players that use them much as SRMs were.

[Joseph Mallan]

The real complaint is the Convergence of Multiple AC/PPC. Not the base damage of a single AC10 or PPC. AC20 should hurt like Hel, cause it is a BFG and if you have light armor it should scare the crap out of you to see it light up while pointing at you.

[wanderer]

Quote

The real complaint is the Convergence of Multiple AC/PPC.

Once again- you can't fix convergence, it breaks the MWO engine. Straight from the devs. You can mix weapon velocity- but that's why boating multiple AC/5's is so brutal as it is. They're fast enough that even with a 200ish difference in velocity vs the PPC, the difference in convergence is minimal on a moving target anyway- and if changed enough to matter, people would simply dominate with boated AC/5's or AC/2's.

The fixable problem is "weapons that deliver all damage instantly to a single location". There are only two weapon types that remain with said problem- the AC, and the PPC.

[Joseph Mallan]

wanderer, on 10 March 2014 - 06:30 AM, said:

Once again- you can't fix convergence, it breaks the MWO engine. Straight from the devs. You can mix weapon velocity- but that's why boating multiple AC/5's is so brutal as it is. They're fast enough that even with a 200ish difference in velocity vs the PPC, the difference in convergence is minimal on a moving target anyway- and if changed enough to matter, people would simply dominate with boated AC/5's or AC/2's.

The fixable problem is "weapons that deliver all damage instantly to a single location". There are only two weapon types that remain with said problem- the AC, and the PPC.

I like where you came at this from.
If they can give us perks to converge FASTER, they can be capable of making Nerfs to make it work slower as well. Its not a one way street.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 10 March 2014 - 06:47 AM.

[Willard Phule]

Joseph Mallan, on 10 March 2014 - 06:41 AM, said:

I like where you came at this from.
If they can give us perks to converge FASTER, they can be capable of making Nerfs to make it work slower as well. Its not a one way street.

or...and I know this is going to sound weird...what about projectile size. Not visual size but the size of the object hitting the mech?

Oh...I'm going to have trouble describing this...I think one of the problems with the Spider may come from the hitboxes being smaller than the object hitting them, sometimes. Like the PPC ball. It seems that if you nail a Spider dead center, it does damage to all 3 torsos. Does that make sense?

So...what if the whole "convergence" issue could be mitigated with changing the "size" of the projectile. If an AC20 hits more than one location, it's damage is split between the two.

Oh, nevermind. I can't explain it properly.

[Joseph Mallan]

Phule that almost sounds like splash damage.

And as a counter Our biggest AC shell is 8" shell. Now I stand 6'2" and an 8" shell would indeed hit all three of my torsos... But an 8" shell on a 2 story tall robot would be a bit smaller by comparison.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 10 March 2014 - 07:36 AM.

[stjobe]

Joseph Mallan, on 10 March 2014 - 05:44 AM, said:

Correct, but the reason behind it is. The damage done is a Mechanical issue, Some players like High damage slaughter fest play style. Other like to dance the Scars. I can do both, I prefer crushing my enemy/opponent in a loud gratuitous military fashion. It is actually a play style. It was once called "Munchkin"

The problem is that the "play style" you like is unbalanced; it's an advantage that doesn't seem to be possible to compensate for in a reasonable way (either the single-hit AC is still better than the burst-fire variants and then nobody will use the burst-fire ones, or it is worse and then nobody will use the single-hit ones - either way there's little point in keeping both).

The AC/20 would still do 20 damage a trigger pull if it was burst-fire, it just wouldn't do all 20 damage to a single location.

Joseph Mallan, on 10 March 2014 - 06:41 AM, said:

I like where you came at this from.

It's what I've been telling you for months, Joe... Nice to see that you finally get it.

We can't fix convergence, so we have to fix instant damage. That, sadly, means your BFG will have to go, because it has a mechanically built-in advantage that can't be compensated for in any other way than making it not do all its damage in one hit.

You'll still have a weapon that does 20 damage per trigger-pull though, so don't sweat it too much

Edited by stjobe, 10 March 2014 - 09:33 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

stjobe, on 10 March 2014 - 09:31 AM, said:

The problem is that the "play style" you like is unbalanced; it's an advantage that doesn't seem to be possible to compensate for in a reasonable way (either the single-hit AC is still better than the burst-fire variants and then nobody will use the burst-fire ones, or it is worse and then nobody will use the single-hit ones - either way there's little point in keeping both).

The AC/20 would still do 20 damage a trigger pull if it was burst-fire, it just wouldn't do all 20 damage to a single location.


It's what I've been telling you for months, Joe... Nice to see that you finally get it.

We can't fix convergence, so we have to fix instant damage. That, sadly, means your BFG will have to go, because it has a mechanically built-in advantage that can't be compensated for in any other way than making it not do all its damage in one hit.

You'll still have a weapon that does 20 damage per trigger-pull though, so don't sweat it too much

That play style is perfectly balanced by the fast and furious Dervish fighters. You give up durability for speed and blurring flurries of attacks. Death by paper cut takes time. Death by 12 Lbs Sledge... over before you know it! As long as there are folks like me that play style needs as much love as any other.

And I said I like where he's coming from. Which in my overwork addled mind meant, I like how he approached the argument, It doe not mean I agree with him. My apologies if that was how it read.

I like where you are coming from all the time, even when I am disagreeing with you. Specially when I am disagreeing with you. Because you come at the argument not as a personal attack but as a puzzle to be solved.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 10 March 2014 - 09:44 AM.

[stjobe]

Joseph Mallan, on 10 March 2014 - 09:40 AM, said:

That play style is perfectly balanced by the fast and furious Dervish fighters. You give up durability for speed and blurring flurries of attacks. Death by paper cut takes time. Death by 12 Lbs Sledge... over before you know it!

Nobody's trying to make the ACs deal their damage in "paper-cut" style; the proposals generally are for a very short-duration burst; just enough time to spread the damage out a bit on a moving target or give the target at least a chance to spread the incoming damage a bit - you know, just like you can with all the other weapon types?

Fire at a stationary or slow-moving target and you'll have zero issues putting all your damage in a single location; if you can do it with lasers you will be able to do it even easier with burst-fire ACs.

Joseph Mallan, on 10 March 2014 - 09:40 AM, said:

As long as there are folks like me that play style needs as much love as any other.

A weapon class having an inherent game engine-mechanical advantage is not a play style. The play style you love would be just as viable with short-duration bursts from ACs - nobody's talking about reducing the 20 damage the AC/20 does. It just needs to go from being a sledgehammer to being a jackhammer.

Jackhammers are cool too, you know

Joseph Mallan, on 10 March 2014 - 09:40 AM, said:

And I said I like where he's coming from. Which in my overwork addled mind meant, I like how he approached the argument, It doe not mean I agree with him. My apologies if that was how it read.

Oh. Well, I'll just have to keep hitting you over the head with reason, logic, and facts then until you relent

[Joseph Mallan]

stjobe, on 10 March 2014 - 10:01 AM, said:

Nobody's trying to make the ACs deal their damage in "paper-cut" style; the proposals generally are for a very short-duration burst; just enough time to spread the damage out a bit on a moving target or give the target at least a chance to spread the incoming damage a bit - you know, just like you can with all the other weapon types?

Fire at a stationary or slow-moving target and you'll have zero issues putting all your damage in a single location; if you can do it with lasers you will be able to do it even easier with burst-fire ACs.


A weapon class having an inherent game engine-mechanical advantage is not a play style. The play style you love would be just as viable with short-duration bursts from ACs - nobody's talking about reducing the 20 damage the AC/20 does. It just needs to go from being a sledgehammer to being a jackhammer.

Jackhammers are cool too, you know


Oh. Well, I'll just have to keep hitting you over the head with reason, logic, and facts then until you relent

Even with Jackhammers you have
This:

And then you have this

guess which one I wanna use Jobe???

As to making me relent... I have been playing and fighting this way since the 70s Jobe... You'll crack before I will. I am Polish and Irish raised by an Italian and a Slavic...Stubborn is in my DNA and my upbringing.

If my bosses at work and my loving wife cannot get me to change my stripes what chance do you have

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 10 March 2014 - 10:28 AM.

[Davers]

Not sure where the whole 'mechs die too fast compared to TT' comes from. Most matches in MW:O would be 60 turn games in TT. If you reduced RoF or damage drastically we better extend the timer another 10 minutes.

[stjobe]

Joseph Mallan, on 10 March 2014 - 10:24 AM, said:

Even with Jackhammers you have
This: [pic of AC/5]
And then you have this [pic of AC/20]

guess which one I wanna use Jobe???

You can have the big one, that's what I'm telling you. What you can't have is this:



When other people have to make do with this:

[Corvus Antaka]

ac's are too heat efficient and have way to much ammo relative to energy weapons. quad ac/5 = king

ERPPC is just fine. normal PPC needs some balancing, a minor heat tweak perhaps.

all else is basically fine. once it shifts to 3x3x3x3 even with jumpsniping the simple fact your cutting out 3-6 assualts with massive firepower will give everyone more tactical options. ie brawling when you only have 3 enemy jumpsnipers in assaults to deal with, and less overall teamfirepower will in itself help dramatically.

for the gauss id like to see firing more than 1 gauss at a time cause a 25% chance of jam/explode/whatever similar to uac perhaps, thus promoting more link fire over straight out no heat 30 dmg hole punching every 5 seconds.

ideal is that we never see over 20 dmg in 1 shot, and if more than 20 dmg per mech is pushed out a heat penalty is taken. this type of ghost heat solution would have dealt with boats & mixed mechs abusing alphas, and forced players to make real choices in diversity, instead of just shifting to 2 uac/5 and 2 PPC, finding a new 30-40 dmg alpha that hasnt yet been tweaked for ghost heat yet.

simpler system too. iirc ghost heat was to allow for adjusting balance on the fly, but it doesn't seem we've seen much of that happening despite the obvious meta. hopefully the coming months will give us some new adjustments to bring back LRMS & other playstyles more again, and have these playstyles actually be viable & competitive at endgame.

[Mcgral18]

Davers, on 10 March 2014 - 10:49 AM, said:

Not sure where the whole 'mechs die too fast compared to TT' comes from. Most matches in MW:O would be 60 turn games in TT. If you reduced RoF or damage drastically we better extend the timer another 10 minutes.

2x armor, 3-20 times fire rate...armor just can't keep up.

[Khobai]

Quote

Not sure where the whole 'mechs die too fast compared to TT' comes from. Most matches in MW:O would be 60 turn games in TT. If you reduced RoF or damage drastically we better extend the timer another 10 minutes.

The TT equivalent to MWO would be triple the rate of fire, double armor, having automatically hitting weapons instead of to-hit rolls, and allowing mechs aim at whatever locations they want. That would result in much shorter TT games... a 10 round game would only be 3-4 rounds.

[Trauglodyte]

Abivard, on 07 March 2014 - 10:46 PM, said:

The situation: AC's and PPC's, both can do pinpoint direct damage. Mounting more than one enables convergence factor, this acts as a multiplier. They have very long ranges. No need to rehash all the views and counter views, you all should understand the basic background of this problem, and it is indeed a problem. I have hesitated to even suggest this to now, but....... Is it time to revisit the damage that is done per shot by these weapons? I fear that the only real workable solution at this point is to lower their damage per shot. The RoF increase PGI saw fit to give them along with the realities of Real time FPS has given them a synergy that is far beyond the spirit of the weapon. A 20% ? reduction in damage per shot of all AC's, PPC's and ERPPC's is perhaps the best way to do this with out throwing something else way out of whack. The Time To Kill (TKK) is increased ONLY for these weapons. Once one variation from canon is allowed (Mechlabs making IS mechs essentially OMNI mechs Ghost-Heat, to PGI's version of ECM) The excuse that 'we can't do that, it violates canon' argument flies right out the window! This also should only take a few minutes of actual 'coding' to adjust damage values. So.... what are the reasons NOT to do it like this anyways? (BESIDES it is not canon)

I haven't read through this because, and this is just a funny educated guess, it rehashes the same thing that has been mentioned in every thread up to this point. The point still stands that convergence is the problem. But, it seems like a lot of people don't know the specifics so I'll rehash them:

• We're stuck with instant convergene because it was either keep convergence or fix HSR (PGI chose the latter)
  
• Weapons are, for the most part, balanced but instant convergence just increases damage potential of FLD
  
• Ghost Heat wasn't meant to limit convergence impact but to limit heat based convergence impact and alphas
  
• Convergence CAN be fixed without the traditional FPS cone of fire
  
• PPCs aren't broken and are, by point of design, heat limited (see Ghost Heat)
  
• ACs aren't really broken but are being abused due to being able to put them in any ballistic slot

The easy ways to fix this:

• Add in heat/speed/damage (% remaining from your mech's life) range finder/convergence spread (see JJ nerf)
  
• Expanding on step 1, bring in efficiency reducing heat penalties (they were in TT, bring 'em back)
  
• Add in ballistic size limiter (see missile tube count) or different AC characteristics based on manufacturers
  
• Add in some form of recoil on non-Gauss ballistics

In four semi-easy steps, you've made the game less "omg alpha to the same spot" and forced some of that thinking that was trying to be sold to us in this futuristic battlemech thinking man's shooter.

[Gallowglas]

Vlad Dragu, on 08 March 2014 - 10:44 AM, said:

This is mechwarrior, not Joust.

Man, it isn't? I guess that explains why jumpjetting onto a Raven's head wasn't killing them. I also wondered about the lack of a "flap" hotkey. My bad.

[stjobe]

Gallowglas, on 10 March 2014 - 12:41 PM, said:

I also wondered about the lack of a "flap" hotkey. My bad.

We do have a "flap" hotkey - at least on 'mechs with missile doors!

*ba-dum-tish!*

[Gallowglas]

stjobe, on 10 March 2014 - 12:43 PM, said:

We do have a "flap" hotkey - at least on 'mechs with missile doors!

*ba-dum-tish!*

Well played, sir.