79 replies to this topic

[aniviron]

A preface to the explanation: contrary to what the OP states, pulse lasers function identically to regular lasers in terms of beam mechanics- they just have a shorter burn time and a prettier effect. When you consider that the only thing that makes pulse lasers better than regular lasers is the shorter firing time, you need to examine whether the shorter beam duration adds significant value to the weapon, given that everything about pulse lasers is worse than the normal ones, excepting that one stat.

Bhelogan, on 10 March 2014 - 06:03 AM, said:

On another note: Consider the average damage per hit. Looking at my statistics I get this:

2.8 -ML
3.7 -MPL

5.28 -LL
6.83 -LPL

Note, most ACs actually do higher than their rated damage per hit. The Pulse Lasers however in general are doing about a point more damage per hit (which we should expect from their raw damage number). I don't know if this is because I hit more often with them, or am more prone to use them in range, or if it is the crit issue I mentioned in the post above. But this is something to consider when choosing which weapon to equip as well.

Average damage per hit is a good place to start looking, but percentage out of total possible damage is really where the numbers get interesting. The 1 more damage per shot looks good on your mlas vs mplas shots, but it's 56% of max damage per hit for mlas vs 62% for the mplas- an increase of just 6% of on-target beam time at the cost of double the tonnage, more heat, and a shorter range. Again, the numbers for your large lasers are 59% vs 64%, just 5% better for the lplas for some pretty significant drawbacks.

Below I'll quote myself from the older thread, with my numbers there as well:

aniviron, on 25 February 2014 - 09:31 PM, said:

Out of every hit I have with medium lasers, I do 61% of my maximum possible damage averaged over thousands of shots for shots that hit; for that 1 second beam time, I am hitting for .61s. Out of every hit I have with medium pulse lasers, I do 61% of my maximum possible damage on every shot that hits, also averaged over thousands of shots; for the .6s beam time, I am hitting for .366s.

When I first found out that my damage percentages over hit shots were identical for pulse and normal lasers, I couldn't believe it. It felt like I should get much more damage per shot out of the pulse lasers! So I started to pay a lot of attention in game, and found that the advantage was really about as negligible as the numbers were suggesting, which means that, at least for me, pulse lasers are heavier, hotter, and shorter range, and confer exactly no advantage to make up for this. I switched everything that was using pulse lasers to normal lasers with more heatsinks and immediately saw a noticeable performance improvement; for everyone I have queried about this, they have also found that their pulse laser damage stats are within a percentage point or two of their normal lasers as well.

Still, more data is always good. If you want to find out if pulse lasers are doing anything for you, just take your total number of hits, and then multiply by the damage that the weapon does for a 100% hit. For normal medium lasers, that's 5, for MPL, it is 6. Then, take the total damage you've done with the weapon and divide by the number you just came up with in the previous operation; this will give you the percent of the damage you've done out of the total possible damage. Unless your pulse laser percent is significantly higher than your normal laser percent, you're not getting any benefit out of the shorter burn time.

Unless the data I've been getting gets a sudden and drastic turnaround, what I see is a 0-5% increase in total percent of damage dealt out of possible max damage from pulse lasers. Given that they sacrifice weight, heat, and range in exchange for being able to deal damage more efficiently and deliver a higher percentage of their damage per trigger pull than a normal laser, pulse lasers are absolutely not worth it right now.

As far as ways to make pulse lasers better go, my personal recommendation is to reduce cooldown significantly, by a third or more, to make them consistent DPS weapons. If you're dealing triple the DPS of a medium laser for double the weight and a frontloaded damage profile, that's a pretty good tradeoff. There's nothing wrong with high heat buildup if the damage is worthwhile; you get an overall weight savings by having to equip less weapons to frontload that damage, and can then equip more heatsinks to deal with that. That said, I would also be fine with a simple damage boost, or really any of the suggestions in the thread, including some of the more exotic ones like allowing continuous fire for continuous heat. Just about anything but what we have now would be good. The math shows that as a game mechanic, slightly reducing the burn time on pulse lasers has failed to do anything useful for them.

[Sandpit]

aniviron, on 10 March 2014 - 10:23 AM, said:

A preface to the explanation: contrary to what the OP states, pulse lasers function identically to regular lasers in terms of beam mechanics- they just have a shorter burn time and a prettier effect.

uhm that's EXACTLY what I said....

[aniviron]

Sandpit, on 10 March 2014 - 10:28 AM, said:

uhm that's EXACTLY what I said....

Ah. my apologies, I must have misread it. Been a while since I slept.

[Sandpit]

aniviron, on 10 March 2014 - 10:33 AM, said:

Ah. my apologies, I must have misread it. Been a while since I slept.

No prob

Sometimes I get a little "wordy and lengthy" with my thoughts and I even confuse myself lol

Just wanted to clarify that I actually agree with what you were saying in that regard which is actually why I'd like to see it change and made more unique. I really do think we've got some good ideas going on in here though

[Trauglodyte]

Sandpit, on 09 March 2014 - 04:54 PM, said:

Ok so I've always had a nagging problem with MWO's pulse lasers. Before I dive into this keep in mind I know this isn't TT and things are different in an FPS game so things have to work a little differently for various reasons. They way pulse works now is by simply changing the beam characteristic slightly. Instead of a steady constant beam, it's more of an MG style weapon with multiple bursts per shot. That's ok I guess but it really doesn't offer anything unique over regular lasers when it comes to trade-offs in choosing between the two weapon systems. I've always felt they would be more useful and viable if the core mechanic worked differently. Right now the differences between pulse and standard are minimal at best for reduced range, extra heat, more weight. R= Recycle Time D= Damage DPS= D per second H=Heat HPS= H per second S= Slots T= Tonnage OR= Optimum Range (Hexes for TT stats) MR= Max Range L= Duration (Length of beam duration) Cost = Cbills cost N= N/A (Not Applicable) MWO stats R D DPS H HPS S T OR MR L Cost Medium laser: 3 5 1.25 4 1 1 1 270 540 1 80,000 Medium Pulse: 3 6 1.67 5 1.39 1 2 200 400 .6 120,000 TT stats R D DPS H HPS S T OR MR L Cost Medium Laser: N 5 N 3 N 1 1 4-6 7-9 N 40,000 Medium Pulse: N 6 N 4 N 1 2 2 4 N 60,000 Ok now as I stated earlier direct translations from TT won't work for everything so please understand that I'm not saying "Well TT did it this way so we should have an exact replication of that here in MWO" I'm just wanting to show how the trade-offs in TT compared to MWO really make the pulse lasers here feel a little less "worth it" most times. They're not a very unique weapon. Instead of the current mechanic I have always felt that reducing the beam duration and reducing recycle time slightly would make a huge difference in pulse viability. Instead of an MG type mechanic with multiple bursts I think they would be much more viable if they still had a single beam just a shorter duration. Include a slightly faster recycle time and essentially what you have is a slower energy version of the UAC. The new recycle time would still make heat a major factor when using them but also give them an "edgier" feel in that when you're down an arm, your CT is almost cored, and that Atlas is bearing down on you, you can risk the heat to get more shots fired off and either take him down first or at least do enough damage to help out your team. Now you have a pulse laser that fires faster, is heavier, has reduced range, and puts out a much higher potential DPS for more heat as trade-offs. I would start off by having the beam duration at about half that of a standard laser with a recycle time of 2.0. That means with three of them you could potentially have a true MG like effect for short periods of time before over heating. It would put them into a more unique category and help distinguish them as a completely different weapon system. They would almost be like a "bridge" between ballistics and beams. You get a short beam duration which still spreads damage but has more of a pinpoint feel to it while having the benefits of instant hit of beams. Weapon modules could be introduced that increased range for heat, heat for damage, all kinds of stuff. What do you guys think?

mwhighlander, on 09 March 2014 - 09:34 PM, said:

Welcome to the bandwagon as to why pulse lasers in MWO are total shit. We've been saying basically what you just did in that they should be some type of hybrid gap between ballistic and laser, acting more like "Laser Machine Guns" as they are described in canon (Notable on laser AMS systems) PGI only implemented them as a shorter beam duration standard laser because it was supposed to be a filler mechanic for later alteration. They never fixed them and this is why they are still shit.

Fixing Pulse Lasers is pretty easy, if they'd just do it.

Small Pulse Laser (current): 3.4 damage, 0.5 duration (1 pulse per 0.1s), 2.25 recharge
Small Pulse Lasers (suggested): 0.68 damage, 0.1s duration, 0.45s recharge; can bank up to 5 pulses

Basically, when you launch, your Pulse Laser is fully charged. When you see a target, you can choose to press and pop off one pulse like a MG and have that pulse recharge 0.45s later. OR, you can unload 1-5 pulses and then have each one recharge every 0.45s. It provides the user the ability to peck at your target or you can unload the full fury when the target gives you the best opportunity. Right now, we've just using hotter and faster lasers. What we want is something that is actually an upgrade over base technology and that provides the benefit to the user for the increased weight cost and reduced range downside.

[Sandpit]

Just a quick response I'll flesh out more later but wanted to get it down before I forget it.

pulse kinda like Traug suggested. You can hold it down to chatter fire like an MG or just click once to fire a quick shot low damage low heat. Very basic but I'll explain more later

[Trauglodyte]

Sandpit, on 10 March 2014 - 10:47 AM, said:

Just a quick response I'll flesh out more later but wanted to get it down before I forget it.

pulse kinda like Traug suggested. You can hold it down to chatter fire like an MG or just click once to fire a quick shot low damage low heat. Very basic but I'll explain more later

My only real question is much like yours, mwh's, and everyone else's: Why are we still saddled with lazy weapon design? I'd be fine with it if PGI would explain their design intent. I can grumble and not like it because it isn't what I want but at least I can appreciate the line of thinking. I mean, we've got 4 prior Mech Warrior titles along with two Mech Commander titles and MW:LLs. If they can't copy and/or adjust their weapons because of Cry Engine, then that is pretty bad. But, if they're wanting to go in a different direction due to flavor or personal design, then that is something enitrely different.

Edited by Trauglodyte, 10 March 2014 - 10:56 AM.

[Deathlike]

Trauglodyte, on 10 March 2014 - 10:54 AM, said:

My only real question is much like yours, mwh's, and everyone else's: Why are we still saddled with lazy weapon design? I'd be fine with it if PGI would explain their design intent. I can grumble and not like it because it isn't what I want but at least I can appreciate the line of thinking. I mean, we've got 4 prior Mech Warrior titles along with two Mech Commander titles and MW:LLs. If they can't copy and/or adjust their weapons because of Cry Engine, then that is pretty bad. But, if they're wanting to go in a different direction due to flavor or personal design, then that is something enitrely different.

My answer to the question is always "because PGI", since there's no indepth thought into the implementation.

The only real way they can remotely make this viable is literally redoing the mechanics altogether and probably make it the meta for a while (I WILL EMBRACE THE WUBWUB META)... but right now, no effort is being made that I'm aware of.

[Ultimax]

As a new player I'm glad I came across this thread, as I was initially stumped at the design of standard vs. pulse lasers.

Basically, I couldn't come to terms with why you would want to accept several drawbacks (Heat/HPS, Tonnage, Range) for 1 benefit (Dam/DPS) - especially with a mechanic like Ghost Heat.

I suppose at least its a consolation that my initial reaction wasn't out of line with other players see.


Compared to their standard counterparts:

SPLas
113% Damage
124% DPS
120% Heat
130% HPS
200% Tonnage
100% Range

MPLas
120% Damage
133% DPS
125% Heat
139% HPS
200% Tonnage
74% Range

LPLas
117% Damage
130% DPS
114% Heat
126% HPS
140% Tonnage
78% Range

Edited by Ultimatum X, 10 March 2014 - 12:33 PM.

[Sandpit]

Trauglodyte, on 10 March 2014 - 10:43 AM, said:

Fixing Pulse Lasers is pretty easy, if they'd just do it.

Small Pulse Laser (current): 3.4 damage, 0.5 duration (1 pulse per 0.1s), 2.25 recharge
Small Pulse Lasers (suggested): 0.68 damage, 0.1s duration, 0.45s recharge; can bank up to 5 pulses

Basically, when you launch, your Pulse Laser is fully charged. When you see a target, you can choose to press and pop off one pulse like a MG and have that pulse recharge 0.45s later. OR, you can unload 1-5 pulses and then have each one recharge every 0.45s. It provides the user the ability to peck at your target or you can unload the full fury when the target gives you the best opportunity. Right now, we've just using hotter and faster lasers. What we want is something that is actually an upgrade over base technology and that provides the benefit to the user for the increased weight cost and reduced range downside.

This gave me an idea

You would have two firing modes essentially. You could tap it like an MG and pop off quick multiple shots of "micro" beams (intended to mean very short small beam duration so you would essentially have a laser "bullet" for lack of a better term) or you could use them cyclic with those "bullets" firing out at an extremely fast rate. It wouldn't have a designated duration like the current mechanic. (You hit the button once and it fires out x amount of beams) but you'd be able to hold the button down. They added a charge mechanic to Gauss so I don't think it's beyond them to be able to add in a mechanic that works like many other games with the heat of the actual weapon itself.

The longer you hold the button down the hotter the weapon itself becomes (which is completely independent of your mech's overall heat, note that this doesn't mean it doesn't generate "normal" heat as well but just that it works independently for pulse lasers specifically alongside normal heat accumulation) the slower it begins to fire. If it overheats then it "jams" like UAC style and then requires a cool down period while it "unjams".

It would still generate heat as usual within the mech itself but also have a heat for the weapon itself. So if I want to hold that button down and have an "MG pulse laser" going on I can, but I'll have to deal with mech heat and weapon heat. Obviously this would all be scaled to the different sizes (small, medium, large) so each one would still have a different firing rate, heat, etc.

Essentially you have a laser that works more like a fast firing ballistic but has heat issues for those that want to just lay on the trigger.

Example: (all numbers are just for example purposes and ease of understanding how the mechanic could work)

LL = 1 beam 5 seconds long 5 heat 5 damage 5 second recycle time.

LPL = Multiple beams for as long as a player holds down the trigger. Each "bullet" does 1 damage and generates 1 heat to the mech itself. It also generates 2 heat to the weapon. The weapon has a heat scale and when as the weapon overheats from firing in a cyclic manner the RoF slows to 3/4, then half, then 1/4, then "jams" and shuts down like the UAC does now. The recycle time in between "bullets" could be .75 for a cool weapon and slow down from there.

Again, those numbers are purely for example purposes and would all have to be tested to find a good balance spot but I hope that helps explain my thoughts on it.

Essentially what this would do is give pulse lasers a mechanic that puts them in a unique spot between standard lasers and ballistics

[wanderer]

Incidentally, in the parallel thought processes between TT and MWO players- actually, there are what is known as VSPL's- the Variable Speed Pulse Laser. So much tech, so much time till it's in production...

[and zero]

Just to clarify sandpit; last time I checked pulse lasers were not actually a series of shots. The visual shows you that, but actually they fire in exactly the same way as a normal laser with the same exact hit-scan coding.

Also, "working as intended"-yea, if pgi intends for them to be useless and not even remotely competitively viable. ******* pgi.

edit: not to mention boring. The "balance changes" they have been doing have only been bringing them even closer to parity with normal lasers. For ***** sake WOW IS THAT EXCITING.

Edited by and zero, 10 March 2014 - 07:32 PM.

[Sandpit]

and zero, on 10 March 2014 - 07:27 PM, said:

Just to clarify sandpit; last time I checked pulse lasers were not actually a series of shots. The visual shows you that, but actually they fire in exactly the same way as a normal laser with the same exact hit-scan coding.

Also, "working as intended"-yea, if pgi intends for them to be useless and not even remotely competitively viable. ******* pgi.

well that's what I'm hoping we can do with this thread

[and zero]

Sandpit, on 10 March 2014 - 07:30 PM, said:

well that's what I'm hoping we can do with this thread

Yes, some great ideas in your post. However, I fear the only thing this thread [and me having read it in my weekly forum check] will do is make me want some whiskey

[TehSBGX]

I've had the feeling that is beam duration was roughly 20% shorter on Pulse lasers, they'd be worth taking.

[Sandpit]

and zero, on 10 March 2014 - 07:37 PM, said:

Yes, some great ideas in your post. However, I fear the only thing this thread [and me having read it in my weekly forum check] will do is make me want some whiskey

Well we can only try to stay constructive and kick around ideas and hope they like some of our ideas

[Sug]

I agree with everything the OP said because I said it over a year ago : /

[Sandpit]

Sug, on 10 March 2014 - 07:47 PM, said:

I agree with everything the OP said because I said it over a year ago : /

I understand just about none of these ideas are "original" and if someone else has had the same or similar ideas that's cool but I'm hoping if we can keep a strong on-topic and constructive thread we can get the ear of a dev or two

[Mcgral18]

Sandpit, on 10 March 2014 - 08:03 PM, said:

I understand just about none of these ideas are "original" and if someone else has had the same or similar ideas that's cool but I'm hoping if we can keep a strong on-topic and constructive thread we can get the ear of a dev or two

You know it's pretty rare for them to check in on a forum post. One or two over the past week?

I've heard twitter occasionally gets results? I guess you'll make a post linking this there after more discussion?

[80sGlamRockSensation David Bowie]

Trauglodyte, on 10 March 2014 - 10:43 AM, said:

Fixing Pulse Lasers is pretty easy, if they'd just do it.

Small Pulse Laser (current): 3.4 damage, 0.5 duration (1 pulse per 0.1s), 2.25 recharge
Small Pulse Lasers (suggested): 0.68 damage, 0.1s duration, 0.45s recharge; can bank up to 5 pulses

Basically, when you launch, your Pulse Laser is fully charged. When you see a target, you can choose to press and pop off one pulse like a MG and have that pulse recharge 0.45s later. OR, you can unload 1-5 pulses and then have each one recharge every 0.45s. It provides the user the ability to peck at your target or you can unload the full fury when the target gives you the best opportunity. Right now, we've just using hotter and faster lasers. What we want is something that is actually an upgrade over base technology and that provides the benefit to the user for the increased weight cost and reduced range downside.

Paul will never "just fix" anything. He's clueless and only know what a nerf bat is.


His concept of "fixing things" is to nerf everything enough or break it until it sucks as much as all the other crap that is desperately screaming for fixing.

aniviron, on 10 March 2014 - 10:23 AM, said:

And yes, I'm aware of the "Imperius fiasco" He's in The Remnant with myself. PBiggz got Russ to Unblock him after realizing who he was...

Sandpit, on 10 March 2014 - 10:47 AM, said:

Just a quick response I'll flesh out more later but wanted to get it down before I forget it.

pulse kinda like Traug suggested. You can hold it down to chatter fire like an MG or just click once to fire a quick shot low damage low heat. Very basic but I'll explain more later

You mean something like this, where it actually acts like a "Machine gun laser" depending on how long you hold the trigger down?

Edited by mwhighlander, 10 March 2014 - 10:25 PM.