517 replies to this topic

[mogs01gt]

IMO the ammo needs to be more volatile. There needs to be downsides to carry a point blank damage weapon like ballistics.

[kapusta11]

Cimarb, on 11 April 2014 - 05:18 AM, said:

I'm not sure I get the sarcasm. The heat system is broken, but the front-loaded damage of ACs and PPCs is also a large problem, and happen to take advantage of the broken heat system as well.

You guys are so quick to blame FLD, pinpoint and other BS yet you can't even compare ballistics with lasers, how? 4x 6x large laser mechs are non existent, and even if they did DOT mechanic was not addressed in case of laser weaponry, AC2, for example, looks crazy OP on paper and by the TT standarts but in practice it's really far from being so, it has a spread based on player's accuracy that actually WAS addressed by increasing overall damage output.

Ultimatum X, on 11 April 2014 - 05:57 AM, said:

Let's take your concept, and have some fun theory crafting in a vacuum.

Team A has 12 mechs,
> all armed with 1 AC 5 (alpha potential of 5)
> they get 4 tons of ammo (120 shots, total DMG output limitation of 600 damage per mech)
Total 12 tons of weapon/ammo

Team B has 12 mechs
> all armed with 2x ER LLAS (alpha potential of 18)
> they get 2 tons of external DHS. (4.0 heat/s, 2.12 dissipation, time to overheat: 45s)
Total 12 tons of weapons/ammo

All of the mechs have the same tonnage (and therefore armor).

Do you still think it's so clear who would win?

Do you still think it "won't even be close..."?

Rough, but still very good example.

Edited by kapusta11, 11 April 2014 - 06:33 AM.

[Livewyr]

Cut the range to 2x..

AC20 doing more damage than AC10 at AC10's max range = silly.
Farthest any energy weapon can go is 1620 meters.. period. (And that's the super hot one.)

I could see the Gauss keeping the 3x range, to offset the silliness that is the charge up. ("Sniper" weapon)

[Cimarb]

Ultimatum X, on 11 April 2014 - 05:57 AM, said:

So in your opinion, if ACs are changed to spread their damage like a laser.

But they still end up with significantly worse ACC due to not being hitscan.

Do you still think that is a fair and balanced proposal?

Keeping in mind that Ton for ton, most ACs weight 2x more than their Alpha potential laser equivalent.

It's a simple question that so far, almost no one seems willing to address when they make their nerf proposals.

Accuracy is important, but a "hit" that does a fraction of a point of damage is not much of a hit. Regardless, you can always adjust individual autocannons damages to balance this, just like they have boosted LRMs to do 1.1 damage per missile instead of 1.0.

Ultimatum X, on 11 April 2014 - 05:57 AM, said:

Let's take your concept, and have some fun theory crafting in a vacuum.

Team A has 12 mechs,
> all armed with 1 AC 5 (alpha potential of 5)
> they get 4 tons of ammo (120 shots, total DMG output limitation of 600 damage per mech)
Total 12 tons of weapon/ammo

Team B has 12 mechs
> all armed with 2x ER LLAS (alpha potential of 18)
> they get 2 tons of external DHS. (4.0 heat/s, 2.12 dissipation, time to overheat: 45s)
Total 12 tons of weapons/ammo

All of the mechs have the same tonnage (and therefore armor).

Do you still think it's so clear who would win?

Do you still think it "won't even be close..."?

The less autocannons you have on each mech, the "closer" the match will be. That is the issue with the heat system, as it benefits lights the most and the larger your arsenal, the less effective you can be with it. Change your scenario to have 2-3 AC5s and the equivalent ERLL loadouts on the other side, and that is where you see the difference. Your example is just two 12-packs of light mechs - I'm talking about mechs that people actually compete with.

[Igor Draskovic]

YEAH DUDE nerf them as well and ALSO ummm add 4X armor but then make sure you increase the game duration to 30 min

[Ultimax]

Cimarb, on 11 April 2014 - 08:31 AM, said:

Accuracy is important, but a "hit" that does a fraction of a point of damage is not much of a hit.

That's exactly my point!



Is your laser accuracy better than your ballistic accuracy?

Mine is.


What if your ACs spread their damage like lasers? They will still be less accurate, they will now do even less damage than lasers.

Cimarb, on 11 April 2014 - 08:31 AM, said:

Regardless, you can always adjust individual autocannons damages to balance this, just like they have boosted LRMs to do 1.1 damage per missile instead of 1.0.

Is that in any of the proposals to change ACs to burst (spread damage) fire?

It's possible I've missed it.

Cimarb, on 11 April 2014 - 08:31 AM, said:

The less autocannons you have on each mech, the "closer" the match will be. That is the issue with the heat system, as it benefits lights the most and the larger your arsenal, the less effective you can be with it. Change your scenario to have 2-3 AC5s and the equivalent ERLL loadouts on the other side, and that is where you see the difference. Your example is just two 12-packs of light mechs - I'm talking about mechs that people actually compete with.

Yes, but is that actually due solely to FLD or all of the issues with the heat system?

[Fut]

Ultimatum X, on 08 April 2014 - 06:25 AM, said:

A single Medium Laser at 1 Ton & 1 Slot deals a 5 point alpha.

Am I the only one who's still annoyed by the mis-use of terms on these Forums?
How can a single weapon fire an "Alpha"? Ugh......

Quote

An "alpha strike"is when a BattleMech attacks with all of its weapons at the same time. While extremely powerful, it dramatically raises the 'Mech's heat level, and after several successive alpha strikes most 'Mechs will shut down from overheating.

Edited by Fut, 11 April 2014 - 09:21 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Fut, on 11 April 2014 - 09:16 AM, said:

Am I the only one who's still annoyed by the mis-use of terms on these Forums?
How can a single weapon fire an "Alpha"? Ugh......

Actually Fut if a Mech only has one medium laser and fires it that is a text book Alpha Strike by definition.

Quote

a BattleMech attacks with all of its weapons at the same time.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 11 April 2014 - 09:26 AM.

[Ultimax]

Fut, on 11 April 2014 - 09:16 AM, said:

Am I the only one who's still annoyed by the mis-use of terms on these Forums?
How can a single weapon fire an "Alpha"? Ugh......

If you only have a single weapon, then you are "firing all of your weapons" at once.

The term is completely appropriate.

Would you prefer I use "firepower" from Smurfy's?

If you have 3 weapons that each add 5 points to your alpha potential, you get a 15 point alpha.




Let's not get caught up in semantics, shall we?

[kapusta11]

Fut, on 11 April 2014 - 09:16 AM, said:

Am I the only one who's still annoyed by the mis-use of terms on these Forums?
How can a single weapon fire an "Alpha"? Ugh......

Am I the only one who's still annoyed by people who've got the point but still write bullshit like that trying to discredit the opponent in the eyes of the rest ignoring valid arguments?

[stjobe]

Ultimatum X, on 11 April 2014 - 09:10 AM, said:

What if your ACs spread their damage like lasers? They will still be less accurate, they will now do even less damage than lasers.

A laser spreads its damage in 10 ticks over the beam duration. For the ML, that's 1.0 seconds to correct your aim and get some damage on target (and a "hit" in your stats).

The proposed burst-fire ACs would do their damage in 3-5 ticks over 0.3-0.5 seconds, that's half a second to correct your aim and get some damage on target (and a "hit" in your stats).

As for stats, when I correct my laser accuracy stats for damage done, my ballistics are roughly 10% more effective than my lasers in damage done to target.

[Ordellus]

Agent 0 Fortune, on 21 March 2014 - 09:41 AM, said:

(I wanted to make this a Poll, but either I am too dumb to figure out how to make one, or naive enough to believe a public forum was a good place for gathering consensus)

Paul said autocannons are getting an adjustment, what do you think it should be and why? (Note these changes only apply to autocannons, not other projectile weapons like Gauss and PPC).

• Reduce maximum range from 3x to 2x
  
• Reduce projectile speeds
  
• Increase Cooldown (lower rate of fire)
  
• Burst fire (beam-like damage)
  
• Reduce Ammo per ton
  
• Increase critical slots by 1
  
• Recoil (based on impulse)
  
• Ammo location requirements (ammo has to be in same component or adjacent component)
  
• Convergence (based on weapon tonnage)
  
• Increase drop-off rate of autocannon rounds (from Coralld)

*Ballistics ranges should be 1/2 of current (AC20 maybe not but that can be tweaked)
*Lrm max range should be doubled
*Laser range left alone.
*Cool down is fine.
*Projectile speed seems fine, if a little slow for the 20 (I've never used the 2, or 10)
*Could probably lose like 10% ammo per ton.
*Increased drop off ties in with decreased range.
*Specific ammo locations could work depending on what else (if any) was done

My opinion.

[Ordellus]

kapusta11, on 11 April 2014 - 06:28 AM, said:

You guys are so quick to blame FLD, pinpoint and other BS yet you can't even compare ballistics with lasers, how? 4x 6x large laser mechs are non existent, and even if they did DOT mechanic was not addressed in case of laser weaponry, AC2, for example, looks crazy OP on paper and by the TT standarts but in practice it's really far from being so, it has a spread based on player's accuracy that actually WAS addressed by increasing overall damage output.

Rough, but still very good example.

*I have a 4x ErLarge laser atlas with every other slot used to maximized heat..... it's ******* terrible. I meet a 4x AC5 jager walking around a corner, we both alpha each others faces twice, I overheat, he laughs and kills me.

If we're long range he pops his head over and puts 20 damage into my shoulder.... I fire a few lasers into his shoulder, but before my lasers are fired their full duration he's back behind cover.... rinse repeat, AC is better yet again.

*AC2s are good on paper AND in game. It's not the AC2s fault you can't ******* aim. That'd be the stupid cockpit shake and face fire from the other AC weapons.

*The example quoted was good. The laser team would get completely stomped every single time.

Everything is assuming equal playing skill on both sides, but what kind of comparison between weapons would it be if it wasn't an even playing field to begin with right....

...Oh wait, this is mechwarrior online.

Edited by Ordellus, 11 April 2014 - 10:30 AM.

[Ultimax]

stjobe, on 11 April 2014 - 10:07 AM, said:

A laser spreads its damage in 10 ticks over the beam duration. For the ML, that's 1.0 seconds to correct your aim and get some damage on target (and a "hit" in your stats).

If I understand your proposal correctly, ACs would be more akin to a Pulse Laser.

How would you propose to balance the AC's projectile vs. the Pulse Laser's Hitscan?

stjobe, on 11 April 2014 - 10:07 AM, said:

The proposed burst-fire ACs would do their damage in 3-5 ticks over 0.3-0.5 seconds, that's half a second to correct your aim and get some damage on target (and a "hit" in your stats).

You can conceivably, and barely, correct a Pulse laser during 0.6s.

Once a projectile leaves your cannon, there is no correcting you can do.

At 0.3s, I'll say that "correcting" would be well beyond the ability of the vast majority of players - including ones that consider themselves very good.

You would need to realize your mistake, lead the target and have the next projectile leave the barrel all within the space of 0.1s - as you have already pressed the "trigger" firing the full burst.


0.3s would be, generally speaking, a favorable value. I'm not arguing that it isn't.


However I feel your proposal needs to be reworked to balance for projectile vs. hitscan.

Hitscan is a completely superior aiming mechanism to a projectile - and I think being both spread and projectile would be a very unfavorable set of mechanics that would not be justified by the weight and slotting requirement of most ACs.

Edited by Ultimatum X, 11 April 2014 - 10:36 AM.

[stjobe]

I've stated repeatedly that adjusting the other weapon characteristics is a minor balancing issue, whereas FLD vs spread damage is a major balancing issue.

As long as they're given the possibility to spread damage by becoming burst-fire, we can look at and adjust the other variables later. Increased damage, lowered cooldown, adjust ammo counts up/down; all those are minor balance issues.

The one major balance issue that must be addressed is the FLD nature of ACs and PPCs.

Edit: Sorry, missed your first question: I think the fact that pulse lasers do more ticks than the proposed burst-fire (and in a longer period of time) may be balance enough; if it isn't, see above.

Edited by stjobe, 11 April 2014 - 10:41 AM.

[Ultimax]

stjobe, on 11 April 2014 - 10:39 AM, said:

I've stated repeatedly that adjusting the other weapon characteristics is a minor balancing issue, whereas FLD vs spread damage is a major balancing issue.

As long as they're given the possibility to spread damage by becoming burst-fire, we can look at and adjust the other variables later. Increased damage, lowered cooldown, adjust ammo counts up/down; all those are minor balance issues.

The one major balance issue that must be addressed is the FLD nature of ACs and PPCs.

And I disagree with you completely.

Hitscan vs. Projectile is not "a small variable". Point and click vs. Leading is not "a small variable".

It is easily as large of an issue as spread vs. FLD.




The fact that you do not seem to recognize this in your proposals is exactly why I am not in favor of them.


You are not comparing the weapons fairly.

You can not compare a hitscan 0.6s pulse weapon to an FLD Projectile weapon - remove the FLD and make it a pulse while also remaining a projectile.



You can try to handwave it away here on the forums, but that doesn't really add credibility to the proposal.

Edited by Ultimatum X, 11 April 2014 - 10:45 AM.

[kapusta11]

If you increase laser damage by 30% to address damage spread, if you fix heat system allowing energy weapons to be heat neutral as long as you have enough heatsinks, if you remove ghost heat energy weapons WILL become just as good as ACs. Saying that FLD is bad in FPS game is the weirdest thing I've ever heard, there is no need to remove it because you CAN balance projectile FLD mechanic with DOT Hitscan.

How is buffing weapon that no one uses will increase TTK? And even then if you want to increase TTK you might as well just increase armor values without turning AC's into laser weapon with different animation. Lack of weapons with different mechanic will bore people and we don't have enough weapon diversity in the first place.

[Cimarb]

Ultimatum X, on 11 April 2014 - 09:10 AM, said:

That's exactly my point!



Is your laser accuracy better than your ballistic accuracy?

Mine is.

Accuracy is determined differently between lasers and autocannons, so it is an unfair comparison. Because lasers are hitscan, the entire beam is considered a hit or miss, even if 9/10 of the ticks hit or miss. For instance, an ERLL does 10 points of damage. If you only "hit" with one tick of the laser, you did 1pt of damage. If you "hit" with the entire beam, you did 10pts of damage with the same accuracy. That is why StJobe was talking about efficient damage in his comparison.

You can have 100% accuracy with ERLLs, and 10% accuracy with AC10s, and still do more efficient damage with the ACs due to a horrible time-on-target of your lasers (where you only hit with one tick per "hit"). That doesn't teen take into account that 10 ticks of a laser could potentially hit every single hitbox of a target due to movement, which makes your efficient damage even less efficient compared to the single-spot damage of an AC.

Ultimatum X, on 11 April 2014 - 09:10 AM, said:

What if your ACs spread their damage like lasers? They will still be less accurate, they will now do even less damage than lasers.

If the ballistic has the speed of an AC2, or slightly quicker, it will have the same accuracy PER TICK/SHELL as a laser. Because of the different method of determining a hit, as I detailed above, you will still have much different stats if you only look at accuracy.

Ultimatum X, on 11 April 2014 - 09:10 AM, said:

Is that in any of the proposals to change ACs to burst (spread damage) fire?

It's possible I've missed it.

I don't know that it was specifically said, but I believe I mentioned the general idea in the post you can see in my signature. Tweaks to specific data in the weapon characteristics, such as flight time, damage per shell, etc can easily be made whenever needed, so that hasn't really been discussed much.

Ultimatum X, on 11 April 2014 - 09:10 AM, said:

Yes, but is that actually due solely to FLD or all of the issues with the heat system?

Everything is connected (Agents of SHIELD reference). You can't change single things in a vacuum. The horrible heat system has caused a lot of other issues and "fixes that are actually issues", but the heat system was set up this way partially (or completely) because they needed to prevent people from doing tons of FLD at a high rate of fire. So, convergence, FLD and heat all contributed to this current conundrum. We can't do anything about convergence, according to PGI, so we have to do something with the other two - preferably both.

Ordellus, on 11 April 2014 - 10:28 AM, said:

*I have a 4x ErLarge laser atlas with every other slot used to maximized heat..... it's ******* terrible. I meet a 4x AC5 jager walking around a corner, we both alpha each others faces twice, I overheat, he laughs and kills me.

If we're long range he pops his head over and puts 20 damage into my shoulder.... I fire a few lasers into his shoulder, but before my lasers are fired their full duration he's back behind cover.... rinse repeat, AC is better yet again.

*AC2s are good on paper AND in game. It's not the AC2s fault you can't ******* aim. That'd be the stupid cockpit shake and face fire from the other AC weapons.

*The example quoted was good. The laser team would get completely stomped every single time.

Everything is assuming equal playing skill on both sides, but what kind of comparison between weapons would it be if it wasn't an even playing field to begin with right....

Exactly. You have to use heavies and/or assaults in your example, because they are capable of using multiple ACs/PPCs at once, which is what the issue is about.

Ultimatum X, on 11 April 2014 - 10:45 AM, said:

And I disagree with you completely.

Hitscan vs. Projectile is not "a small variable". Point and click vs. Leading is not "a small variable".

It is easily as large of an issue as spread vs. FLD.

I addressed this above. You are using "projectile" in far too loose of a term. If you change ACs to burst-fire, they would have very short flight times similar or better than an AC2. The only time it would make a difference is at extreme ranges (over 1000 meters or more), at which point you are doing more suppressive fire than accurate fire anyways.

Ultimatum X, on 11 April 2014 - 10:45 AM, said:

The fact that you do not seem to recognize this in your proposals is exactly why I am not in favor of them.

You are not comparing the weapons fairly.

You can not compare a hitscan 0.6s pulse weapon to an FLD Projectile weapon - remove the FLD and make it a pulse while also remaining a projectile.

You can try to handwave it away here on the forums, but that doesn't really add credibility to the proposal.

Think of a Laser as an AC with tracers. You only hit during the actual tick, which is quicker than you can see to be honest, and the "non-tick" portion of the laser is essentially flight time. The only real difference is that the laser has flight time AFTER the tick, where ACs have it BEFORE the tick. Whether you are doing lasers (1--1--1--1--1--1--1--1--1--1--) or ACs (--1--1--1--1--1--1--1--1--1--1), it doesn't really make much difference when that is all happening in the span of a second (or less).

kapusta11, on 11 April 2014 - 11:35 AM, said:

If you increase laser damage by 30% to address damage spread, if you fix heat system allowing energy weapons to be heat neutral as long as you have enough heatsinks, if you remove ghost heat energy weapons WILL become just as good as ACs. Saying that FLD is bad in FPS game is the weirdest thing I've ever heard, there is no need to remove it because you CAN balance projectile FLD mechanic with DOT Hitscan.

How is buffing weapon that no one uses will increase TTK? And even then if you want to increase TTK you might as well just increase armor values without turning AC's into laser weapon with different animation. Lack of weapons with different mechanic will bore people and we don't have enough weapon diversity in the first place.

You can balance FLD with DOT hitscan, but currently they are not balanced. To be balanced, the DOT has to do considerably more damage in the same span as the FLD weapon, where the efficient damage is all done to the same area for purposes of comparing.

That means that the laser does enough damage to the RT of a target (consider that "on target" only if it did damage to that section) to make it balanced with an AC doing damage to that same RT. Currently, a laser does damage all over a target, with the percentage "on target" being determined by the gunner's as well as target's combined skills.

We have a wide variety of weapon systems currently, from sustained damage flamers and MGs to area spread damage missiles and LBX to hitscan lasers and finally projectile autocannons and PPCs. Even amongst those categories, you have a wide variety of weapons, with the AC2 being nearly instant flight time all the way up to LRMs taking nearly six seconds to reach a maximum distance target. Making autocannons burst-fire, as detailed in the post in my signature, would allow even GREATER diversity amongst the autocannons, as you currently have four variants of the AC20 in game, NOT four distinct autocannon classes like there should be.

[Ultimax]

Cimarb, on 11 April 2014 - 01:00 PM, said:

Accuracy is determined differently between lasers and autocannons, so it is an unfair comparison.

Because lasers are hitscan, the entire beam is considered a hit or miss, even if 9/10 of the ticks hit or miss. For instance, an ERLL does 10 points of damage. If you only "hit" with one tick of the laser, you did 1pt of damage. If you "hit" with the entire beam, you did 10pts of damage with the same accuracy. That is why StJobe was talking about efficient damage in his comparison.

It's not an unfair comparison, imo - because he is looking to change ACs to be "tick" weapons. (or pulse, or burst)


Pulse lasers are a 0.6 pulse weapon, with 3 pulses.

It is a hitscan weapon.

If any single pulse hits, it boosts your ACC rating.

This part we agree on.


However, part of the reason the ACC is so high is because it is a hitscan weapon.

This means you are always extremely likely to hit with some part of the attack.

From my own data, the duration of the attack appears to be not as much of a factor as my ACC with pulse lasers is actually very close to my ACC with Lasers - even though the duration of the beam is 40% shorter.




Remove FLD from ACs.

Suddenly they are weapons that become a pulse weapon, just like pulse lasers - but without hitscan benefits.

The only manually aimed, projectile based spread damage weapons we have are: SRMS & LB 10X.

Neither of those are in a great place imo.

EDIT: I forgot machine guns!

Cimarb, on 11 April 2014 - 01:00 PM, said:

I don't know that it was specifically said, but I believe I mentioned the general idea in the post you can see in my signature. Tweaks to specific data in the weapon characteristics, such as flight time, damage per shell, etc can easily be made whenever needed, so that hasn't really been discussed much.

Yes, you did address that. I do appreciate and recognize that.

Cimarb, on 11 April 2014 - 01:00 PM, said:

I addressed this above. You are using "projectile" in far too loose of a term. If you change ACs to burst-fire, they would have very short flight times similar or better than an AC2. The only time it would make a difference is at extreme ranges (over 1000 meters or more), at which point you are doing more suppressive fire than accurate fire anyways.

How can you guarantee that they would have very short flight times?

I don't see that included in any proposals, outside of you recognizing it.


I think my use of them projectile is appropriate.

When you fire on a target with a hitscan weapon, you do not have to lead the target. You place the reticle directly onto them, and keep it there.

Range, target speed, your speed, angle are all irrelevant. Firing the weapon sees it instantly connect with the target, unless you screw up, move the mouse cursor, etc.

When you fire on a target with a projectile weapon, you have to lead the target.

It depends on how far they are, how fast they are moving, how fast you are moving, their angle compared to yours. I'm not a great shot, it tends to take me 1 or 2 misses before I can correct and get on target.


stjobe is assuming that this is a non-issue. I'm saying it is an issue, and is easily as big of an issue as FLD vs. DoT.






I wanted to respond to your other points, but I need to head out - sorry!

Edited by Ultimatum X, 11 April 2014 - 01:40 PM.

[stjobe]

Ultimatum X, on 11 April 2014 - 01:37 PM, said:

stjobe is assuming that this is a non-issue. I'm saying it is an issue, and is easily as big of an issue as FLD vs. DoT.

Yes, I'm saying it is a non-issue for two reasons:

1. Aiming is a skill; whether you're firing a hit-scan or flight-time weapon, it is something you can learn and get great at. I'm not very good at it (as you'll see shortly), but there are some freakishly good shots out there.

2. Accuracy isn't as interesting as effectiveness; have a look at these numbers:

Raw stats (archived)
AC/10: 1,531 fired, 805 hit, 52.58% accuracy, 8,129 damage
LL: 10,605 fired, 8,765 hit, 82.55% accuracy, 40,953 damage

Damage per hit
AC/10: 10,1 (101% of 10 damage)
LL: 4,67 (51.89% of 9 damage)

Effectiveness (damage per hit percent * accuracy percent)
AC/10: 53.1%
LL: 42.83%

At first glance, the LL looks to be the more accurate weapon, with its 30% lead in accuracy over the AC/10, but when one takes into account that each hit from the LL only does less than half the damage that the AC/10 hit does, it becomes clear that the AC/10 is actually 10% more effective at dealing damage than the at first sight more accurate LL.

Even though I hit 30% more often with the LL, I do so little damage with each hit I need to hit more than twice for every time I hit with the AC/10 to do the same damage - and those two LL hits will likely never hit the same location, being 4.25 seconds apart. But the AC/10 puts 10 damage in one location, guaranteed. At range, on a moving target, from a moving 'mech. Every time it hits.

No other weapons than the ACs, PPCs, and Gauss Rifle can do this. Every other weapon spread their damage in some fashion. This is one major reason why the ACs and PPCs are so popular, and why I stand by my conviction that they need to lose their FLD if we're ever going to have at least a semblance of weapon balance.