47 replies to this topic

[Volthorne]

[*BEGIN MEGA-RESPONSE*]

Roughneck45, on 10 March 2014 - 01:40 PM, said:

Still using random mechanics as a solution though.

I think the best way to use them would be to give them a spin up time. The first shot or two would have a slower recycle than a standard AC5, but by the time you got to the third or fourth shot you would have a higher rate of fire than the standard, you would just have to hold the trigger down. Then either give it its own overheat bar that jams when reaching a threshold or have it generate more heat than normal after the first few shots.

Removes the random, forces you to remain exposed to get full effect and will either jam or make you over heat with extended use.

The problem with this method is what damage do you assign to each round? It can't be 5 because then no one in their right mind would use regular ACs, even with specialty ammunition types. To be honest, I was also thinking of borrowing the "overheat" mechanic from previous suggestions to use the MW:LL implementation, but it's not particularly suited to what is supposed to fire at twice the rate of the standard AC. You could, I guess, just not have any jamming at all under my implementation, but I'm not sure how that would work out.

stjobe, on 10 March 2014 - 01:41 PM, said:

That little trip down memory lane done, I fail to see what this proposal does that's worth the programming time? Oh, and firing 2x20 damage from a UAC/20 in a second won't be fun. Or it will, depending on which side of the gun you are.

Ah, see, that's where my suggestion would apply generally across all UACs. A UAC/20 wouldn't fire 20x2 as it does now, it would fire 10x2; An UAC/10 would fire 5x2 and an UAC/2 would fire 1x2. So you could still, in theory, get 20x2 from an UAC/20, provided you're using two of them, and the damage is almost always going to be spread across two locations, due to the two-stage firing (unless you're firing on an Atlas that is determined to stomp you flat and eat your hat).

CarlBar, on 10 March 2014 - 01:57 PM, said:

@Volthorne: This is what you get when the TT heat balance isn't properly transferred. UAC's are supposed to compete with double HS Energy weapons, not with normal AC's, the UAC 5 is supposed to be a complete replacement for the AC-5.

I don't give a single **** about heat. Not one. That's not what I created this topic about and that's not what we're discussing. I even left heat out of my revised stats ON PURPOSE. If you want to discuss heat go do it in a different thread.

Khobai, on 10 March 2014 - 02:43 PM, said:

UAC mechanics have to change because clans ONLY have UACs... and they shouldnt be forced to use autocannons that constantly jam and are IMO inferior to regular autocannons.

As I stated just above in this post, you could potentially take jamming completely out of my revision but I'm not sure how that would work out. Maybe good, maybe bad. I don't know as there's no way for me to actually test it (but my math supports that the best-case scenario doesn't change the DPS from its current 3.33).

Fierostetz, on 10 March 2014 - 02:53 PM, said:

There is no need for this suggested change. What we need is a finished game within which to use our weapons.

When clans arrive with their UAC/20s and you're taking 80 points of damage within two seconds, don't come crying to me. Or the forums, because if you don't care now, why should we care later? Jagoff.

Roland, on 10 March 2014 - 02:59 PM, said:

The most simple way to make it possible to balance uacs would be to make it such that their cool down was about half of a standard ac of the same caliber, but did about 0.7x the damage.

Then get rid of the jamming mechanic.

What you would be left with would be a weapon which could consistently put out more damage than its standard ac brethren, but which required more skill to actually land as much damage on target.

Bam! Balanced.

Not really? I mean, yes, the damage per shot goes down, but the DPS skyrockets. I don't know if you've run into an UAC5x3 Ilya lately, but they strip your armor really fast. Pretty much anything less than an Assault isn't a match for one.

[*END MEGA-RESPONSE*]

Edited by Volthorne, 10 March 2014 - 03:37 PM.

[stjobe]

Willard Phule, on 10 March 2014 - 03:13 PM, said:

Look, dude, I'm not trying to be argumentative...your name isn't "Sandpit," so I don't just arbitrarily take the opposite side of what you're saying.

I agree with everything you say from here...

(and by the way, I was talking about MWO weapons, not TT weapons, so the MG cone of fire is very much a reality)

...To here:

Willard Phule, on 10 March 2014 - 03:13 PM, said:

But, I definitely agree with you that as far as the novels were concerned, there was a lot of confusion between them and tabletop. The crux of the matter is, at least as far as tabletop mechanics were concerned, an AC does X damage to a single location if you hit. If they change that in MW:O, then they are effectively changing the base mechanics of the game. Whether that's a good or a bad thing is debatable. It'd sure change that jumpsniper meta that's all over the place, that's for sure.

I never said there were any confusion between the novels and the board game; the novels described the lore, the board game had board game mechanics; nobody in their right mind wants to roll to-hit rolls for 100-round bursts of autocannon fire, so it was simplified to a single roll, hit or miss for the whole burst - but that was a simplification of the lore, where autocannons are always described as burst- or continuous-fire weapons. In neither the novels nor in MWO is that simplification needed.

Changing MWO autocannons to burst-fire won't change "the base mechanics of the game" any more than making lasers beam-duration did, and as we all hopefully agree, that change was one of the best ones PGI have done (even though it wasn't an original PGI idea, of course).

So, apart from a few minor niggles it seems we aren't in much disagreement at all. The main thing seems to be whether or not lore describes autocannons as single-fire; I contend that it does not, anywhere. They are ALWAYS burst- or continuous-fire.

Edited by stjobe, 10 March 2014 - 03:41 PM.

[Roland]

Volthorne, on 10 March 2014 - 03:37 PM, said:

Not really? I mean, yes, the damage per shot goes down, but the DPS skyrockets. I don't know if you've run into an UAC5x3 Ilya lately, but they strip your armor really fast. Pretty much anything less than an Assault isn't a match for one.

That's the point. That's what makes the weapon different, and yet not totally better, or totally worse.

By being a better DPS weapon (although with the numbers I presented, it'd only be a total of 40% higher, not exactly skyrocketing), but having a lower alpha strike, you create a NICHE for that weapon.

So that 3xUAC5 muromets would be able to crank out 40% more damage over time than the 3xAC5 version, but each shot would be doing HALF as much.. The result of this is that unless he's signficantly more skilled, the damage from the UAC5 version would spread much more, which has a dramatic impact on the overall effectiveness of the build.

Crankling out alphas of 10.5 damage, instead of 15, but doing them twice as fast, gives you a specific niche that build falls into.. but doesn't make it automatically better. There are many cases where you want the larger alpha strike. As we move into higher caliber UAC's, this will become even more a factor.

It might overall be a BIT better than the standard AC, but since it weighs more and takes more slots, that's not really unacceptable.

But I think that overall, having twice the recycle and doing 0.7x the damage would probably be a good basis for UAC's that were better in some situations, and worse in others, than standard AC's.

[Mcgral18]

Lets not forget how PGI envisioned MWO from the end of 2011:



Charge on the PPC, glorious dakka....working missiles. What a game that would have been.

Edited by Mcgral18, 10 March 2014 - 06:22 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Charons Little Helper, on 10 March 2014 - 01:47 PM, said:

UAC is in a good place right now.

It used to be A BLOODY ROTARY AUTOCANNON 5

You can ignore jam all you want. It still happens & lowers overall DPS.

For a few quick shots UAC is supieror - for more contant firing AC5 is.

Done.

If it ain't broke - don't fix it. (they still have several things that really need to be fixed - don't distract them)

FTFY

[Roland]

Mcgral18, on 10 March 2014 - 03:48 PM, said:

Lets not forget how PGI envisioned MWO from the end of 2011:



Charge on the PPC, glorious dakka....working missiles. What a game that would have been.

Weren't those videos originally produced by Smith & TInker, before PGI had the rights to the game? I thought that was put out by S&T back when they were planning on making the game themselves. The videos posted by MWO were put up in 2013, but I think those videos were actually originally posted up in 2009 by S&T.

That video you linked to though is kind of cool, in that it kind of looks like a pre-production version of the later teaser trailer that they put out (with the warhammer fighting the atlas).

I also find it funny that Harmony Gold showed up again to crap all over everything and issued C&D orders because of the warhammer in the video. F U Harmony Gold.

[stjobe]

Roland, on 10 March 2014 - 03:54 PM, said:

Weren't those videos originally produced by Smith & TInker, before PGI had the rights to the game? I thought that was put out by S&T back when they were planning on making the game themselves. The videos posted by MWO were put up in 2013, but I think those videos were actually originally posted up in 2009 by S&T.

That video you linked to though is kind of cool, in that it kind of looks like a pre-production version of the later teaser trailer that they put out (with the warhammer fighting the atlas).

I also find it funny that Harmony Gold showed up again to crap all over everything and issued C&D orders because of the warhammer in the video. F U Harmony Gold.

Kinda-sorta... It's sketched out a bit in ye olde Dev Blog 0: Reboot.

I'll sum it up:
2008 - 2010 Work on "Mechwarrior" - cancelled project
2010 - 2011 Work on Duke Nukem Forever
Winter 2011 - Started working on Mechwarrior Online.

So that trailer was for the cancelled "Mechwarrior" project, not "Mechwarrior Online".

Oh, and yep; F U Harmony Gold.

[Willard Phule]

You know what really boggles my mind....I'm not a mathematical genius or a programmer or anything but....they managed to "get it right" for MW2, MW3 and MW4. You never saw half the complaining about OP weapons or balance or stuff like that with those games....and yet, here we have MW:O and they can't seem to get anything right. What's the deal?

I never..NEVER...had these problems with any of the other titles. Go figure. I'm about to re-install MW4 and see if I can't fix the graphics so I can play a game I enjoy.

[Roland]

Willard Phule, on 10 March 2014 - 04:09 PM, said:

You know what really boggles my mind....I'm not a mathematical genius or a programmer or anything but....they managed to "get it right" for MW2, MW3 and MW4. You never saw half the complaining about OP weapons or balance or stuff like that with those games....and yet, here we have MW:O and they can't seem to get anything right. What's the deal?

I never..NEVER...had these problems with any of the other titles. Go figure. I'm about to re-install MW4 and see if I can't fix the graphics so I can play a game I enjoy.

Er.. You either never played those games, or you just don't remember them.. Because they all had MASSIVE balance issues.

Honestly, despite my constant criticisms of MWO at this point, I don't pretend like the older MW titles were better really.

The biggest problem of MWO for me at this point, is simply that it's a huge pain to simply play it with my friends. If that one thing was fixed, and we could easily drop together? I'd actually be pretty happy with MWO.

I can actually list all of the balance issues of the prior titles if you want... but trust me, there were massive balance problems. You probably just never played those games competitively online, and thus never knew about the balance issues.

[Kaeb Odellas]

I kind of want to see them fire in a burst of three smaller shells. So you get 3 shots of 1.67 damage apiece coming out in one quick burst, but give it a shorter cooldown (1.2 seconds?) between bursts than the standard AC5.

So the standard AC5 will get pinpoint 5 damage on one location every 1.5 seconds, and the Ultra deals 5 damage every 1.2 seconds, with a chance to scatter damage between components.


Either that, or give the Ultra the ability to front-load damage if desired, and penalize the player on the back end.

So the user can use it like a normal AC5, but with the option to fire again after .5 seconds, and again after another .5 seconds, totaling 3 shots in the span of a second. After the last shot, the gun has a much longer cooldown (up to 4 seconds) depending on how quickly the user fired a second or third shot. Also, holding the fire button down will maintain the standard rate of fire. You must tap the fire button again to double or triple-tap

This allows the cannon to deal a lot of damage in a short amount of time if needed, but prevents it from really ripping someone up in a prolonged burst, or jamming on first or second shot. It will remove the randomness of the current mechanic.

Or, you could have a similar system to above, but allow the cannon to just "build up" up to 3 shots to rapid-fire, with 1 shot loading every 1.75 seconds. So it has huge DPS up front, but slowly loses out to the standard AC5 in a prolonged fight. Again, holding the trigger will make it fire at the recharge rate (in this case, every 1.75 seconds), and rapidly tapping the trigger fires your full load.

[Koniving]

For a multi-shot version of the UAC/5...

Let's say it's a 3 shot burst = 5 damage weapon (akin to the GM Whirlwind/5).

You get off 3 shots, and then the ultra mechanic lets you do a second burst while the primary cassette (magazine) is reloading.

Okay. Let's say the jam chance is 20%.

You do the main 3 shots. That's fine. The 'double tap' 4, 5, 6 rounds in that firing sequence are 1 (6.67% chance to jam) 2 (6.67%) and 3 (6.67%) totaling approximately 20%. You'd obviously jam less often, but there's 3 tries to jam because of the secondary three-round burst.

It'd be 10% per double-tap shot if it's a 2 round burst. Though click-on click-off sounds iffy. A simple 2 round burst would be better. 2.5 damage per shot. Totals 5 damage for a 'single firing' and the 'double tap' would shell out another 2 rounds with a 10% chance each (if it's 20% chance now).

Of course, expanding out a UAC/2 would be 1 damage per shot, but 2 shots per trigger pull and 2 shots on the double tap too. A UAC/10 would be 2 shots of 5 damage each. A UAC/20 would be two shots of 10 damage each.

That makes the HBK-IIC a bit less terrifying when you consider the UAC/20 + UAC/20 combination it comes with stock.

[Mirkk Defwode]

SuckyJack, on 10 March 2014 - 02:42 PM, said:

The real question will be how will they set a difference between Rotary Auto Cannons and Ultra Auto Cannons?

Standard Autocannons and Ultra Autocannons can be setup to operate of Cassetes or Magazines of ammo, while the RAC once introduced could be a constant feed.

There are ways to get it to work, just means the entire weapons system needs an overhaul.

Even then there is a happy middle ground to be had between the proponents of "Burst-Fire" Mechanics and the "Single-shot" Mechanics - just needs a lot of work.

[CarlBar]

Volthorne if you'd disengaged your inner moron and engaged your brain when you read my post you'd have seen i wasn't talking about heat at all, But hey, inner moron ftw.

Let me try and break it down for you one more time with minimal mention of heat.

UAC's and LBX ballistics are supposed to compete against double heatsink energy weapons, (missiles are oddball, between special munitions and enhancements like Artemis and basic functionality factors they keep up), they're not supposed to be in any way shape or form anything less than outright superior to their non-Ultra/LBX counterparts. Because their lesser bretheran are balanced for a single HS environment and un-enhanced missiles and the like. Two totally different classes of weapon for two totally different threat enviroments.

If PGI hadn't screwed the Heat system and nerfed the hell out of missiles and hit reg like they have you'd actually see DHS Energy weapons and Artemis/Streak Missiles being superior to basic Ballistics and the UAC5, (And LBX10 if allowed to fire solid shot), would simply be the ballistics options that kept up, (alongside Gauss, but that's another story), sure until we get LBX or UAC versions of the 20 and 2 we'd have a serious deficiency, but that's what you get when you hurl mass DHS, (And UAC and LBX), into a tech base that traditionally didn't have them in anything like that quantity.

Edited by CarlBar, 10 March 2014 - 05:32 PM.

[xMEPHISTOx]

Charons Little Helper, on 10 March 2014 - 01:47 PM, said:

UAC is in a good place right now.

It used to be freakish overpowered vs AC5.

Yeah, I too think that they are in a good place...and in my experience far out perform the AC5's by a considerable amount. I play a 733c w/2ppc/2uac5 and a 9b w/2ppc/2ac5 and the 733c has a much higher dmg per match than the 9b. And the weapon stats show the same, a higher dmg per match going to uac5's by over a 100dmg pts/round.

[Navy Sixes]

Willard Phule, on 10 March 2014 - 01:35 PM, said:

Now, if they came out with a 2 stage UAC5 "improved mechanics" module that lowers the chance of a jam, I'd be all over that.

This.

But why stop at 2 stages? Do all five, like they're supposedly going to do for the other weapons. Let each one reduce the jam-chance by 1-2%. So after a big investment of C-Bills/XP, those committed to UACs will end up with a 5-10% reduction to the jam-rate, which is where they were after the latest buff (before the latest nerf).

Roughneck45, on 10 March 2014 - 01:40 PM, said:

Still using random mechanics as a solution though...

Yes. Yes it does. That should never change. You strap on a pair of UACs and, if the jam-gods are kind, you can shred an assault's CT in about 5 seconds. If the jam-gods frown on you, not so much. That's the deal.

I know it really bugs people who want a "sure thing" on the battlefield, want a DPS stat they can plug into a spreadsheet with confidence. I feel you, but that's not what the UAC is, full stop.

If you want a sure 5 points of damage with a slower ROF, run a straight AC5. If you want less damage but a faster ROF, run an AC2. If you want both, and you aren't risk-averse, you run a UAC and you roll the dice.

Edited by Tycho von Gagern, 10 March 2014 - 06:00 PM.

[Krinkov]

My solution, click once and the ultra AC5 does 5 damage +1.5 second cool down. Click a second time, ultra AC5 does 5 damage and adds another 1.5 seconds to the cool down. If the ultra AC5 is fired twice during the initial 1.5s cool down, you must wait the out the 1.5 + 1.5 second cool down to fire again. This would get rid of the random jam mechanic completely.

This gives the ultra the same dps as a standard AC5 but lets you front load damage. The larger ultras could be forced to not be able to fire the second shot till the first cool down is half over or whatever delay would be balanced.

For example, an ultra AC20 could fire one shot every four seconds or fire two shots with a space of two seconds between followed by a six second cool down.

Edited by Krinkov, 10 March 2014 - 06:08 PM.

[General Taskeen]

I wish I could mod this game

To deal with huge damage weapons, I would just adjust the pinpoint damage down

AC/2 - 5 burst
AC/5 - 3 burst
AC/10 - 2 burst
AC/20 - 2 burst

UAC2 - 5 burst, 2x better CD
UAC5 - 3 burst, 2x better CD
UAC10 - 2 burst, 2x better CD
UAC20 - 2 burst, 2x better CD

Increase fire rates where necessary, and give all AC's an barrel heat mechanic, once the barrel is fully "hot" (visualized on the weapon group bar) the gun just jams making the player wait until it unjams. No Random Dice Period.



As is, we all know what they are going to do. They are going to throw all the UAC's in with the same mechanic as the current UAC/5 (X damagex2 TT) and the forums will roar in thunder (predictably) when lucky players are doing 10x2 damage with UAC/10's and 20x2 damage with UAC/20's. Since TT damage rarely ends well in a MW game, and see already.

Edited by General Taskeen, 10 March 2014 - 06:30 PM.

[Amsro]

1.Make AC/5 and Ultra AC/5 the exact same in single fire mode. This is already in place. Nice.

2.When you hold down the trigger the UAC/5 acts 100% as a AC/5. Makes sense you don't ALWAYS want to double shoot.

3.If you want to double shoot this requires double tapping the trigger.

4.The heat ramps up quickly when double tapping, triple the heat to be exact. Same heat as an AC/10. (really it is more to due Heat Per Second.)

Take the random chance to jam out , and in its place add a extra heat for extra damage option. Risk/Reward.

[Bhael Fire]

@ OP: I am not fond of reducing damage by half and doubling fire rate, or any sort of RNG for jamming. Doing so would essentially reduce it to a heavier and bulkier version of the standard AC2 with less ammo and shorter range...and the potential to get jammed. So...No thanks.

This is how I've suggested it to be implemented for quite a while:

1. Double Fire / Jamming: Remove RNG jamming and replace with a double-click to double-fire mechanic. That is, if the button is pressed twice during its recycle time it will double-fire. If the player spams the fire button more than twice within the recycle period it jams for 10 seconds. This would keep the iconic lore of UACs jamming while replacing the RNG with a skill-base mechanic. It operates like a standard AC/5 if the button is held down or only pressed once during the recycle time.

2. Increased Heat: When double fired, the second shot has a heat of 5 (instead of 1). Basically, twice the heat of an AC/10 when it's double fired. This helps offset the fact that it's 3 tons lighter, less bulky, has longer range, and is slightly faster than the AC/10 but has the potential to put out similar damage (if the player has steady aim or the target is stationary).

However, I could see a multi-shot burst mechanic being implemented with success...as long as it incorporated a jamming mechanic (to keep in the spirit of the original TT rules) AND didn't use RNG for that jamming mechanic.

[Roland]

Dramatically increased heat for double firing isn't a bad idea.