517 replies to this topic

[Featherwood]

Sorry, I was lazy to read entire thread and I mostly disagree with OP. Instead of regular nerf/buff, I'd prefer to see revamp of AC. I loved MW3 approach on autocannons - burst fire with adequate recoil and hits impact. It was even possible to overturn light or medium 'Mech with full salvo of AC20/Ultra20 - priceless!.

[Stardancer01]

I don't think auto cannons need a NERF
except a bit more recoil shake to the dealer

[Galenit]

DanNashe, on 03 April 2014 - 06:50 PM, said:

Damage drop off from 3x to 2x? I think that could happen without really changing the feel of weapons. It would actually seriously nerf the AC20.

I disagree with any suggestion about weight, ammo, or critical. Two of those would break cannon builds and are a non-starter, I am not sure why a lot of people don't quite get that. [E.g., stock mechs would crash the game :-p].

The ammo thing is just kind of a poor balancer, it's an attempt to make ACs heavier. It also reduces fun-factor (being Out of Ammo not fun).

If the AC20 gets its old speed back, its not nerfed, its put inplace at 270/540m pinpoint killing machine, not doing 10 damage at 540m anymore making the ac10 near obsolente ...

Ammo reduction would not break canonbuilds, it would make the builds more canon, you need backupweapons.
They have very few ammo, you have 1,5 times the ammo if you let out random hit locations vs aiming.
1/2 tt ammo would be canon compared to missileammo and 2x armor.


You have to make more choises, you have to decide or to sacrifice.
Thats more fun and diversity.

Do i shoot at 1200m (with 2x range) for 1 damage or should i wait until 600m for 5 damage?
With 10 (for 1/2 tt ammo) or 20 (for 1x tt ammo) shots a ton?
Its heavy damaged? Then i use my lasers and spare the ammo for a fresh enemy!
Maybe the one that has hit me 5x for 1 damage with his ac5 a few moments ago?
OR
There is something moving at 1200m (with 3x range), i try to hit it for 2.5 damage, i have 30 shots a ton, doesnt matter if i miss 1 or 5 or 10!

You have to make your shots count.
You have to decide when you need that damage, because if you spay and pray, its sure that you will run dry.

Edited by Galenit, 04 April 2014 - 12:36 PM.

[Kyle Wright]

I find it hilarious that PGI wants to nerf AC's. As is these weapons are an embarrassment compared to real life modern tank guns. How is it that a Ac10 has a max effective range of several houndred meters, when a Abrams M1A1 120mm tank gun can hit targets up to over a mile away. Dont get me started on the dreadful Ac20.

And for those that think they need to be nerfed, how about I just challenge you to use cover more and not standout in the open. The reason PUGS complain about people that drop in 4-mans or constant 12-mans is because we are way smarter then you. Dayin and day out I watch stupid pugs wander out in the open and sit their and trade fire with a lance of mechs. Then once our team starts losing they accuse the team of sucking. When in fact they died with in the first 2mins of a match like a chump. Called COVER and CONCEALMENT! There a reason modern military dont do the whole line up and march towards each other anymore... why? Because its F-ing ********. Id put someone new to the game that plays with a factions and learns from guys who do12-man matched frequently against someone who has played pug matches for the year and put money on the noob.

Further more PGI needs to focus on other crap right now like getting the so promised launch module and other goodies out to us instead of nerfing this game into extinction

[Archon]

Kyle Wright, on 04 April 2014 - 12:36 PM, said:

I find it hilarious that PGI wants to nerf AC's. As is these weapons are an embarrassment compared to real life modern tank guns. How is it that a Ac10 has a max effective range of several houndred meters, when a Abrams M1A1 120mm tank gun can hit targets up to over a mile away. Dont get me started on the dreadful Ac20.

And for those that think they need to be nerfed, how about I just challenge you to use cover more and not standout in the open. The reason PUGS complain about people that drop in 4-mans or constant 12-mans is because we are way smarter then you. Dayin and day out I watch stupid pugs wander out in the open and sit their and trade fire with a lance of mechs. Then once our team starts losing they accuse the team of sucking. When in fact they died with in the first 2mins of a match like a chump. Called COVER and CONCEALMENT! There a reason modern military dont do the whole line up and march towards each other anymore... why? Because its F-ing ********. Id put someone new to the game that plays with a factions and learns from guys who do12-man matched frequently against someone who has played pug matches for the year and put money on the noob.

Further more PGI needs to focus on other crap right now like getting the so promised launch module and other goodies out to us instead of nerfing this game into extinction

I absolutely agree. It makes NO sense that most puggers stand out in the open, get eviscerated and then WHINE about precision damage. In ANY other shooter if you don't make cover your best friend, you're DEAD in seconds flat. Why would gigantic walking tanks firing the most powerful weaponry available against each other be any different? And how does it make sense that in the year 3050 there wouldn't be precisely accurate ballistic weapons? Why wouldn't you strive to make your weapons as accurate as possible?

Play smart or eat dirt. Whining does not become anyone.

[Cimarb]

Roland, on 04 April 2014 - 10:28 AM, said:

Adding in manufacturer variance would be a total cluster-****.

If you can't balance 20 weapons, you sure as hell can't balance 200.

PGI has some issue with tweaking numbers regularly, but that doesn't mean it isn't easy to balance 200 weapons. All you have to do is have benchmarks and tweak numbers around that base. So if your weapon is an AC20, it should do ~20 damage in five seconds - as long as the numbers are within a margin of that, it will be balanced as a whole, but you could then have burst-fire on the high end (25) and bigger slugs on the low end (17)

3rdworld, on 04 April 2014 - 10:35 AM, said:

What they should be? So you think they should be worse than the complete waste of tonnage they are now?

Do you understand what balance is? Or are you just butthurt this game isn't TT a simulator.

They are most definitely not a waste of tonnage currently, and LOTS of people use them. It is probably the second most common AC currently, between the 5 (top) and 20 (3rd place)

[wanderer]

Mister Blastman, on 03 April 2014 - 01:02 PM, said:

Out of all the posts in this thread I haven't seen anyone ask the question so I'll go ahead and do it:

"Instead of nerfing Autocannons, has anyone considered nerfing Paul instead?"

Paul was exposed to a radioactive nerf gun, giving him his dev superpowers. Nerfing Paul only fuels his supervilliany.

[wanderer]

Khobai, on 03 April 2014 - 01:24 PM, said:

yes and no.

The AC/2 is unusably bad in battletech. It needed a buff going into MWO.

Ironically, giving AC's their Solaris VII-style ROF would have likely done the trick nicely. When you're using the delay rules from that, the AC/2 becomes considerably more effective.

Basically, if you said "guns fire on 1,2,3,4"-

AC/2's would fire on all turns. (1,2,3,4,etc.etc) Count to 11. You shot 11 times, 22 damage.
AC/5's and AC/10's would fire on 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11. You shot 6 times for 30 and 60 damage respectively.
AC/20's would fire on 1, 4 ,7, 11. You fired four times for 80 damage.

Tweak that a bit and you've got something more reasonable for MWO.

Kyle Wright, on 04 April 2014 - 12:36 PM, said:

I find it hilarious that PGI wants to nerf AC's. As is these weapons are an embarrassment compared to real life modern tank guns. How is it that a Ac10 has a max effective range of several houndred meters, when a Abrams M1A1 120mm tank gun can hit targets up to over a mile away. Dont get me started on the dreadful Ac20.

Because if we used real-life ranges and scaled lasers and the like accordingly, you'd have a smouldering crater for a CT from the other side of the map, never mind 1000m. Ranges are low so we don't need maps large enough to be countries for matches.

[Cimarb]

wanderer, on 04 April 2014 - 04:23 PM, said:

Ironically, giving AC's their Solaris VII-style ROF would have likely done the trick nicely. When you're using the delay rules from that, the AC/2 becomes considerably more effective.

Basically, if you said "guns fire on 1,2,3,4"-

AC/2's would fire on all turns. (1,2,3,4,etc.etc) Count to 11. You shot 11 times, 22 damage.
AC/5's and AC/10's would fire on 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11. You shot 6 times for 30 and 60 damage respectively.
AC/20's would fire on 1, 4 ,7, 11. You fired four times for 80 damage.

Tweak that a bit and you've got something more reasonable for MWO.

That would work quite well. Just reverse engineer it to get the respective cool downs, and apply. You now have range decreasing proportionately to damage, which is how it should be.

[ManusDei]

What is the rationale for Paul Inouye wanting to nerf AC/2's? Paul does not say AC/2's in the vlog#3 but come on we all know what he is talking about. First Paul says the weapons are balanced but then wants to adjust autocannons because they are outperforming other types of weapons? Is this a case of paralysis by over analysis?

With that line of thinking Large lasers outperform Medium lasers so they will need an adjustment. Medium lasers outperform small lasers so they will need an adjustment. I have observed the way devs seems to have a particularly obvious bias for the PPC weapon and continues to want to make it the dominant weapon on the battlefield. The AC/2 balances the high damage weapons like the PPC. Nerfing autocannons will only make everyone switch to PPC and energy based weapons. It happened in the past with SRMs SSRMs and LRMs.

When weapons are nerfed they are abandoned almost completely just like they did with Streaks. Many people cried about streak boats back in closed beta because the rate of fire was to high and they cored out an enemy very quickly. In response the Dev's made the streaks target random hardpoints and longer cooldown period. As the Dev's continued to nerf the streaks they all but disappeared from the battlefield on all but the lights. The pendulum swings back the other way...the dev's realize hey nobody is using streaks anymore so what do they do? They increased the damage of streaks to 2.5 and viola everyone starts mounting them on their mech again.

Please tell me we aren't going to have to live through the same learning pains of discovering what happens when they overnerf a weapon. I have a particular bias for the AC/2 weapon because it is my weapon of choice against all challengers, meta builds, pop-tarts, and LRM boats. Just because I choose to put AC/2's on all my mech builds does not automatically qualify the weapon as OP. I simply do not enjoy energy based weapons or missile based weapon systems.

High DPS with Low Damage vs Low DPS and High Damage = Balanced Weapons

I thought MWO was about STRATEGY not about any particular weapon system.

Edited by ManusDei, 04 April 2014 - 06:08 PM.

[Cimarb]

ManusDei, on 04 April 2014 - 06:04 PM, said:

"I like AC2s"

You obviously didn't read any of the very well thought out posts in the last 19+ pages, and I'm not sure where anyone said it was just regarding AC2s, especially Paul.

[ManusDei]

Obviously Cimarb is making an assumption. When you assume you make an ass/u/me.

Let me assume the dev's played one match where they got beat down by autocannons then considered they neededa nerf but that Is my opinion, not an assumption.

Edited by ManusDei, 04 April 2014 - 07:58 PM.

[Kyle Wright]

ManusDei, on 04 April 2014 - 06:04 PM, said:

What is the rationale for Paul Inouye wanting to nerf AC/2's? Paul does not say AC/2's in the vlog#3 but come on we all know what he is talking about. First Paul says the weapons are balanced but then wants to adjust autocannons because they are outperforming other types of weapons? Is this a case of paralysis by over analysis?

With that line of thinking Large lasers outperform Medium lasers so they will need an adjustment. Medium lasers outperform small lasers so they will need an adjustment. I have observed the way devs seems to have a particularly obvious bias for the PPC weapon and continues to want to make it the dominant weapon on the battlefield. The AC/2 balances the high damage weapons like the PPC. Nerfing autocannons will only make everyone switch to PPC and energy based weapons. It happened in the past with SRMs SSRMs and LRMs.

When weapons are nerfed they are abandoned almost completely just like they did with Streaks. Many people cried about streak boats back in closed beta because the rate of fire was to high and they cored out an enemy very quickly. In response the Dev's made the streaks target random hardpoints and longer cooldown period. As the Dev's continued to nerf the streaks they all but disappeared from the battlefield on all but the lights. The pendulum swings back the other way...the dev's realize hey nobody is using streaks anymore so what do they do? They increased the damage of streaks to 2.5 and viola everyone starts mounting them on their mech again.

Please tell me we aren't going to have to live through the same learning pains of discovering what happens when they overnerf a weapon. I have a particular bias for the AC/2 weapon because it is my weapon of choice against all challengers, meta builds, pop-tarts, and LRM boats. Just because I choose to put AC/2's on all my mech builds does not automatically qualify the weapon as OP. I simply do not enjoy energy based weapons or missile based weapon systems.

High DPS with Low Damage vs Low DPS and High Damage = Balanced Weapons

I thought MWO was about STRATEGY not about any particular weapon system.

I totally agree. For instance, ive been running dual guass in my firebrand and have had issues with running out of ammo as well as being nerfed with the charge fire. Im starting to think 2 erppcs with maybe ml back up is better. No delay fire, less weight, i can just run more heatsinks in place of all the damn ammo i need. Then guess what the devs will come back and nerf PPcs yet again.

[Featherwood]

Mister Blastman, on 03 April 2014 - 01:02 PM, said:

Out of all the posts in this thread I haven't seen anyone ask the question so I'll go ahead and do it:

"Instead of nerfing Autocannons, has anyone considered nerfing Paul instead?"

Man, I've been warned too many times for critiquing that incompetent placeholder of a lead game designer (though, I confess, I used quite harsh language few times), but catch this for your idea:

Spoiler

Nothing could help MWO better than sacking (okay, dismissal will do too) of Paul Inouye the Fairy! Though getting rid of Russ would help almost as much, IMO. They both contribute from the wrong side.

[kesuga7]

well autocannons are good against all mechs including lights
(where lasers and missles are subpar vs lights compared to autocannons)

Good vs all mechs of any size and speed and boasting allot of range without obvious heat issues (excluding AC 2's )

so yeah i would say they need a nerf

x1.5 Max range
Slightly higher chance to crit - but not near gauss rifles
about 25% higher cooldown

Do not follow the convergance pattern

where you fire your autocannons from/hardpoint location is where they will shoot at towards a wall and not converge on crosshair - that could be a nerf on its own and would still be as good as they are now

[Strum Wealh]

Cimarb, on 04 April 2014 - 05:35 PM, said:

wanderer, on 04 April 2014 - 04:23 PM, said:

Ironically, giving AC's their Solaris VII-style ROF would have likely done the trick nicely. When you're using the delay rules from that, the AC/2 becomes considerably more effective.

Basically, if you said "guns fire on 1,2,3,4"-

AC/2's would fire on all turns. (1,2,3,4,etc.etc) Count to 11. You shot 11 times, 22 damage.
AC/5's and AC/10's would fire on 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11. You shot 6 times for 30 and 60 damage respectively.
AC/20's would fire on 1, 4 ,7, 11. You fired four times for 80 damage.

Tweak that a bit and you've got something more reasonable for MWO.

That would work quite well. Just reverse engineer it to get the respective cool downs, and apply. You now have range decreasing proportionately to damage, which is how it should be.

Already on it...
.

Strum Wealh, on 13 September 2013 - 06:09 AM, said:

In all fairness, the PPCs' recycles are about twice as fast as they would be under the Solaris' 'Mech Duel Rules.

Category 1 ("Delay 0" - 0.0 to 2.5 seconds)

• MG
  
• AMS
  
• AC/2

Category 2 ("Delay 1" - 2.5 to 5.0 seconds)

• Flamer
  
• Small Laser
  
• Medium Laser
  
• Small Pulse Laser
  
• AC/5
  
• AC/10
  
• LB 10-X
  
• UAC/5
  
• SRM-2
  
• SRM-4
  
• SRM-6
  
• SSRM-2
  
• Narc

Category 3 ("Delay 2" - 5.0 to 7.5 seconds)

• Large Laser
  
• Medium Pulse Laser
  
• AC/20
  
• Gauss Rifle
  
• LRM-5
  
• LRM-10
  
• LRM-15
  
• LRM-20

Category 4 ("Delay 3" - 7.5 to 10.0 seconds)

• PPC
  
• ER PPC
  
• ER Large Laser
  
• Large Pulse Laser

Under the Solaris rules, PPCs and ER-PPCs (along with ERLLs and LPLs) would have had a cooldown between 7.5 and 10.0 seconds (versus 4.0 seconds for MWO).

Personally, I would have preferred if they had actually used the 'Mech Duel Rules as a general guide for cooldowns.
For example, just looking at the Category 4, we could have had something like this:

• LPL - ~7.5 second cooldown
  
• ERLL - ~8.0 second cooldown
  
• PPC - ~9.0 second cooldown
  
• ER-PPC - ~9.5 second cooldown

Likewise, we could have used variation within the above categories to do something like (for example):

• giving the AC/20 a ~5.5-second cooldown (for an average of 3.63 DPS and 1.27 HPS), and giving the Gauss Rifle a ~7.25-second cooldown (for an average of 2.07 DPS and 0.14 HPS), or
  
• giving the AC/5 (and UAC/5) a ~2.75-second cooldown (for an average of 1.82 DPS (or 3.63 DPS for a double-fire UAC/5) and 0.36 HPS (or 0.73 HPS for a double-fire UAC/5)) and giving the AC/10 (and LB 10-X) a ~3.75-second cooldown (for an average of 2.67 DPS (for both the AC/10 and the LB 10-X), and 0.80 HPS for the AC/10 & 0.53 HPS for the LB 10-X), or
  
• giving the AC/2 a ~1.25-second cooldown (for an average of 1.60 DPS and 0.80 HPS) and leave the MG where it is (firing ten 0.10-damage bullets per second, for an average of 1.0 DPS).

Thoughts?

[Strum Wealh]

Kyle Wright, on 04 April 2014 - 12:36 PM, said:

I find it hilarious that PGI wants to nerf AC's. As is these weapons are an embarrassment compared to real life modern tank guns. How is it that a Ac10 has a max effective range of several houndred meters, when a Abrams M1A1 120mm tank gun can hit targets up to over a mile away. Dont get me started on the dreadful Ac20.

The M256 120mm Smoothbore Gun, the main gun of the Abrams MBT, has a maximum effective range of approximately 3000 meters.

The 120mm GM Whirlwind AC/5 (the dorsal gun of the MAD-3R Marauder) fires three-shell bursts of 120mm shells and has an effective range of 18 hexes.
Under standard BattleTech rules, one hex equates to 30 meters and the AC/5's effective range (18 hexes) equates to the familiar 540 meters.
Under BattleForce rules, one hex equates to 180 meters and the AC/5's effective range (18 hexes) equates to 3240 meters (which, obviously, compares far more favorably with real-world ranges).

Likewise, using BattleForce scaling would also mean that TT LRMs (at 8.33 kg/missile & with an effective range of 21 hexes (630 meters for CBT, 3780 meters for BF)) would also compare more favorably with their real-world counterparts (the FIM-43 Redeye - 8.3 kg/missile & an effective range of 4500 meters).

However, using BF scaling for MWO would mean that even the smallest maps would have to be at least 10000 meters (10km) in diameter, once extreme ranges & damage drop-off were taken into account.

[kesuga7]

science and battletech don't play nice

[Kjudoon]

Give all ballistics random hit circle targetting a la World of Tanks plus recoil. Bye bye pinpoint accuracy, hello chance to miss regularly like missiles and no more double gauss/AC40 headshots.

Give actual pinpoint accuracy to lasers only; that is of course spread out over time.

Return LRMs to 175.

Fix SRMs hit reg.

Balance achievement much closer between all systems.

Edited by Kjudoon, 05 April 2014 - 01:12 AM.

[Strum Wealh]

Mirkk Defwode, on 04 April 2014 - 09:02 AM, said:

stjobe, on 03 April 2014 - 09:16 PM, said:

I disagree. It's half a day's work.

To get the current weapons converted to have a very small burst fire setup it'd take about a half day including cursory tests to ensure they work properly.

If we wanted to expand on the weapons and add manufacturer variance it'd probably take a good month to properly created, implement, and test internally before pushing out to the general public.

Strum Wealh, on 24 March 2014 - 02:21 PM, said:

Already got you covered!

Strum Wealh, on 20 March 2014 - 03:20 PM, said:

IMO, the way it "should be done" would result in both the "braaap" and "boom-boom-boom" variations being available.

The typical BT autocannon fires between three (3) and ten (10) shells per burst.
Assuming all ACs within a given class (e.g. "Class 20 Autocannon" includes each of the AC/20, LB 20-X, UAC/20, and so on) had the same burst duration, the fire effect becomes a function of the number of shells per burst.

For example, the 185mm ChemJet Gun (mounted on the Demolisher tank) fires a four-round burst, while the 150mm Crusher SH Cannon (mounted on the Hetzer combat vehicle) fires a ten-round burst; if the burst duration for all class 20 ACs were set to, say, 0.70 seconds (slightly longer than the burst duration of the Pulse Lasers), the ChemJet would fire four 5-damage shells spaced at at 0.175s intervals for 0.70 seconds while the Crusher would fire ten 2-damage shells spaced at 0.070s intervals for 0.70 seconds.
Likewise, the 120mm GM Whirlwind AC/5 (mounted on the MAD-3R Marauder) would fires a three-shell burst, and would fire three 1.667-damage shells spaced at 0.167s intervals for 0.50 seconds, while a hypothetical 10-shell-burst AC/5 would fire ten 0.50-damage shells spaced at 0.050s intervals for 0.50 seconds.

Such burst-fire ACs would then be subject to spread as a function of distance, such that all of the individual shells would fall within some defined radius at the weapon's optimal range (e.g. an AC/5 would have a "95% Radius" (R95) of 1 meter at a range of 620 meters, while an AC/20 would have a R95 of 1 meter at a range of 270 meters).

This would also have the advantage of allowing PGI to introduce variations/models within the AC family, such that there would be a meaningful difference - and a meaningful choice - between taking a ChemJet AC/20 and a Crusher AC/20.

Personally, I would have used the following values:

• AC/2: 0.40 second burst duration, 1.25 second cooldown (2.00 damage per burst, 1.60 DPS, and 0.80 HPS)
  
• AC/5: 0.50 second burst duration, 2.75 second cooldown (5.00 damage per burst, 1.82 DPS, and 0.36 HPS)
  
• AC/10: 0.60 second burst duration, 3.75 second cooldown (10.00 damage per burst, 2.67 DPS, and 0.80 HPS)
  
• AC/20: 0.70 second burst duration, 5.50 second cooldown (20.00 damage per burst, 3.63 DPS, and 1.27 HPS)

Each AC family (AC/2, AC/5, AC/10, and AC/20) would then have different models with different shell-per-burst counts.
For example:

• a "Chemjet 185mm Gun" AC/20 (used on the Demolisher tank) would fire a four-shell burst over a 0.70-second burst duration (or, one shell every 0.18 seconds @ 5.00 damage per shell), and would fire a new burst every 5.50 seconds
  
• a "Crusher Super Heavy Cannon" AC/20 (used on the Hetzer combat vehicle) would fire a ten-shell burst over a 0.70-second burst duration (or, one shell every 0.07 seconds @ 2.00 damage per shell), and would fire a new burst every 5.50 seconds
  
• a "Kali Yama Big Bore" AC/20 (used on the HBK-5M Hunchback) would fire a six-shell burst over a 0.70-second burst duration (or, one shell every 0.12 seconds @ 3.33 damage per shell), and would fire a new burst every 5.50 seconds

And so on and so forth.