517 replies to this topic

[Reno Blade]

I think reducing max-range a bit (like 2x instead of 3x) is a good start, but not the only change needed.

Using burst fire would make the biggest & best change imho.
Lot harder to hit faster/further targets and also more difficulat to hit with all shells while jumping.
The fight of slow assaults vs each other would not change that much, but you could finally use twisting to spread damage better (like with every other weapon).

With burstfire and a bit lower max-range (drop off) you could even increase AC projectile speed again or change amount of ammo (up).

[C E Dwyer]

Coralld, on 21 March 2014 - 11:21 AM, said:

I am against the ammo location restrictions. I know some people scratch their head at how one gets ammo from the leg to said weapon. To be honest I always looked at it as a belt fed system like this...

I know that most of the art work don't show a belt feeder system on but I think that's mainly because the ammo is normally located where the weapon is and such no need for a belt feeder.

Disintergrating belt feed is the only way the ammo has a chance to work in mechwarrior, without nerfing the rate of fire big time to reflect replacing a drum or caset, but it still has to get past engines, Extremely hot likely to cause ammo to explode before it reaches the guns.

Joints..belt feed is only so flexible, pretty much all motion of a mech would jam a belt feed.

There has all ways been a massive reality gap in Battle tech Mech warrior.

Old table top there wasn't really much in it, AC's had extra weight and ammo that could explode energy weapons lighter generated alot more heat, wouldn't explode,


Taking a few rough examples

BT ac5 and medium lasers do the same damage the AC5 has twice the range of a medium laser.

Ac10 and Large laser have exactly the same range but the LL does 8 damage compared to an AC10..well 10 duh

An interesting note which I won't expand on Long range missiles had a 400 meter extra range on AC5.. so they were..actually long range..and not either joke weapons or rain storms but then in a semi sensible world the maximum load out was 40lrm in only a few mech designs (game stopped being semi sensible th moments clans arrived and it went into easy mode).

Now then back to the main point all weapons had a rate of fire of one because it was turn based, pc shooters don't have that limitation and this is the other big corner stone which PGI failed to grasp or totally ignored in the we know best mode, they have had since pretty much day one.


In MWO ballistic weapons have a vastly increased range and or DPS which is why the meta is so bullet shaped or missile at present., this will never change until balistics get range cut and or dps cut, its that old cause and effect they handed the game to the ac5 when they added ghost heat, to curb ppc crazy builds, which they had to add as an attempt to stop the pinpoint damage they caused by allowing mechs to carry 6 ppc, 3 gauss 60lrm yawn ywan..

best way of dealing with it isn't nerfing buffing any weapon the bottom line is what you can carry and until that is altered they can add this take away that and the game still won't balance

[Joseph Mallan]

hand Wavium and suspension of disbelief Cathy. It's needed to play ANY SciFi game.

[stjobe]

Joseph Mallan, on 02 April 2014 - 06:09 AM, said:

Shame on you. You edited out the word MOST from your argument.

I can't say I did, as that wasn't a part of the sentence I quoted.

Joseph Mallan, on 02 April 2014 - 06:09 AM, said:

Most Auto Cannons fire streams or Bursts.

"Most" in this case meaning "all but possibly one single variant of the UAC/20, and that one's debatable too".

I will concede (as I have before) that there's nothing in the lore or rules stopping autocannons from being single-shot (given that you want to fire a single 200 kg shell - or 142.8 kg shell in MWO), but again, the ACs in BattleTech are described as burst-fire in all but a single instance (and that may still be burst-fire as well, depending on how you interpret the word "shot").

And yet, every single AC in MWO is single-shot, and it gives them a very hard-to-balance edge over every other weapon system.

Take two imaginary weapons; they have the same weight, slots, damage, heat, ammo count - they are identical in all respects except one: One delivers its damage in one shot, and the other delivers its damage in ten shots over 1 second.

Which is the better weapon?

Until you understand this, I'm going to continue beating you over the head with it.

[Alaskan Nobody]

stjobe, on 01 April 2014 - 09:46 PM, said:

No, the ChemJet uses a four-round burst, as described in Era Report 3025:

I cannot remember which one - but Koniving found one (mounted on a tank) that fired a single round.
It was a point he kept bringing up when he was trying to get the AC turned into burst fire weapons though.
In other words I am throwing around 2nd hand knowledge so don't shoot me -especially not with any AC/20s

[Joseph Mallan]

stjobe, on 02 April 2014 - 08:31 AM, said:

I can't say I did, as that wasn't a part of the sentence I quoted.


"Most" in this case meaning "all but possibly one single variant of the UAC/20, and that one's debatable too".

I will concede (as I have before) that there's nothing in the lore or rules stopping autocannons from being single-shot (given that you want to fire a single 200 kg shell - or 142.8 kg shell in MWO), but again, the ACs in BattleTech are described as burst-fire in all but a single instance (and that may still be burst-fire as well, depending on how you interpret the word "shot").

And yet, every single AC in MWO is single-shot, and it gives them a very hard-to-balance edge over every other weapon system.

Take two imaginary weapons; they have the same weight, slots, damage, heat, ammo count - they are identical in all respects except one: One delivers its damage in one shot, and the other delivers its damage in ten shots over 1 second.

Which is the better weapon?

Until you understand this, I'm going to continue beating you over the head with it.

Just like TT!

Also as I have said before, All>most>some. Most could mean all but one! I do not want to lose that one.

To me the one delivering the damage in one shot... Bu tthe folks who love that AC2 and AC5 would disagree which is their right as the are throwing the same weight of ammo as my Single shot AC20. AND they are doing it for less tonnage and Space and for an increase in heat!

[stjobe]

Joseph Mallan, on 02 April 2014 - 08:41 AM, said:

I do not want to lose that one.

Of course you don't, since that one makes all the other ones obsolete.

And that discrepancy is the actual weapon-balance reason why you have to give it up.

I wish it wasn't so; I wish PGI could fix convergence or do something about pin-point aim, but they can't and/or won't. The only way left for them to balance ACs and PPCs is to make them spread their damage - like every other weapon in the game - and the easiest way to do that is to re-implement them as burst-fire and beam-duration weapons.

Even you know that makes sense, Joe

[Nik Van Rhijn]

Alternatively you give certain mechs - like the Atlas, Hunchback 4G and Yen lo wang a "special" hardpoint that takes a 1 shot AC20. If limited like that it could be playable.

[stjobe]

Nik Van Rhijn, on 02 April 2014 - 12:23 PM, said:

Alternatively you give certain mechs - like the Atlas, Hunchback 4G and Yen lo wang a "special" hardpoint that takes a 1 shot AC20. If limited like that it could be playable.

Except for two things:

1. Those 1-shot ACs would be better than any other ACs due to how they deal damage.
2. The HunchbackTomodzuru Autocannon Mount 20 180mm AC/20 should fire 5-shot bursts according to lore (Era Report 3052), and the DeathGiver 100 100mm AC/20 on the Atlas should fire 10-shot bursts according to lore (Heir to the Throne).

So either way you want to look at it; from a lore perspective or from a game-mechanic perspective, MWO does ACs wrong and it's hurting the game.

Edited by stjobe, 02 April 2014 - 01:24 PM.

[Deathlike]

I haven't really followed this thread... but am I wrong in thinking that the AC nerf was already issued in the first March patch? It's the patch where people wondered why the heck AC10s and AC20s were nerfed (moreso the AC10 than the AC20).

Edit: Never mind, it was changed in the first patch of the year.

Edited by Deathlike, 02 April 2014 - 01:47 PM.

[Coralld]

Deathlike, on 02 April 2014 - 01:41 PM, said:

I haven't really followed this thread... but am I wrong in thinking that the AC nerf was already issued in the first March patch? It's the patch where people wondered why the heck AC10s and AC20s were nerfed (moreso the AC10 than the AC20).

Edit: Never mind, it was changed in the first patch of the year.

Nope, in the Dev blog #3 I do believe Paul commented on that the TTK is to short and that they are looking at the ACs as a whole to be retune, but he didn't give any specifics on what that retuning is.

Edited by Coralld, 02 April 2014 - 02:47 PM.

[Deathlike]

Coralld, on 02 April 2014 - 02:44 PM, said:

Nope, in the Dev blog #3 I do believe Paul commented on that the TTK is to short and that they are looking at the ACs as a whole to be retune, but he didn't give any specifics on what that retuning is.

I should've just use this to be more clear.

Paul's great at being vague. Then the results will be unleashed and the complaining will commence.

[Cimarb]

stjobe, on 02 April 2014 - 08:49 AM, said:

Of course you don't, since that one makes all the other ones obsolete.

And that discrepancy is the actual weapon-balance reason why you have to give it up.

I wish it wasn't so; I wish PGI could fix convergence or do something about pin-point aim, but they can't and/or won't. The only way left for them to balance ACs and PPCs is to make them spread their damage - like every other weapon in the game - and the easiest way to do that is to re-implement them as burst-fire and beam-duration weapons.

Even you know that makes sense, Joe

I'm not quite so absolute, though I 99.99999999% agree with all of your well-informed posts otherwise.

You CAN still have a single-shot AC of each type, but the downside has to balance it against all the burst-fire types. For instance, if the single-shot has a really long cooldown. Say the burst-fire AC20 does 25 damage "per turn" (whatever time span we are judging it by) and the single-shot AC20 does 16 damage "per turn". That way, you are giving up a considerable amount of overall damage by lumping it into one hit.

[wanderer]

Quote

past engines, Extremely hot likely to cause ammo to explode before it reaches the guns.

There's a reason engines carry so much shielding and always have a "built-in" 10 heat sinks, and controlling thermal leakage is part of it.

Heck, there's 'Mechs in TT that had flaws in said shielding that could result in torso weapons overheating, jamming, or causing ammo explosions- but normally that's not the case.

[AntiCitizenJuan]

Still would prefer them to be rapidfire weapons.
AC20 becomes scary as **** at close range,
AC5s and AC2s become long range AA and suppression weapons with close range capabilities
AC10 becomes the middleground

Adjust damage per shot based off of time intervals

ACs fire X shots over Y amount of time

Edited by AntiCitizenJuan, 03 April 2014 - 08:48 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

AntiCitizenJuan, on 03 April 2014 - 08:47 AM, said:

Still would prefer them to be rapidfire weapons.
AC20 becomes scary as **** at close range,
AC5s and AC2s become long range AA and suppression weapons with close range capabilities
AC10 becomes the middleground

Adjust damage per shot based off of time intervals

ACs fire X shots over Y amount of time

Is an AC2 scarier at close range then a present AC20? I don't think so. That is what you are saying/suggesting. I don't find an AC2 scary... at any range.

[AntiCitizenJuan]

Joseph Mallan, on 03 April 2014 - 08:53 AM, said:

Is an AC2 scarier at close range then a present AC20? I don't think so. That is what you are saying/suggesting. I don't find an AC2 scary... at any range.

Its not, but I'm not seeing AC20's much anymore in my ELO bracket, which I'm assuming is at least at the average skill level.
2 and 5s are the most common type used. The 20 is supposed to be one of the premier brawling weapons, so it should be very efficient and better at close range than its more common AC5 counterpart

[Joseph Mallan]

AntiCitizenJuan, on 03 April 2014 - 08:57 AM, said:

Its not, but I'm not seeing AC20's much anymore in my ELO bracket, which I'm assuming is at least at the average skill level.
2 and 5s are the most common type used. The 20 is supposed to be one of the premier brawling weapons, so it should be very efficient and better at close range than its more common AC5 counterpart

I think it is a matter of DpS Juan. One AC20 does 5.0DpS but two AC5 can throw 6.66DpS (...I do like that number!) and 2 AC2 throws 7.7 DpS. So the damage over time olks like the whole higher DpS vs us FLD players who like to smash faces and break mechs with heavy hitting weapons.

[East Indy]

Cathy, on 02 April 2014 - 06:52 AM, said:

In MWO ballistic weapons have a vastly increased range and or DPS which is why the meta is so bullet shaped or missile at present.

The problem isn't range or DPS; it's pinpoint. Nobody worries about one AC/5.

Break the duct tape and only then is the problem solved.

Quote

this will never change until balistics get range cut and or dps cut, its that old cause and effect they handed the game to the ac5 when they added ghost heat, to curb ppc crazy builds, which they had to add as an attempt to stop the pinpoint damage they caused by allowing mechs to carry 6 ppc, 3 gauss 60lrm yawn ywan..

Your timeline is off, and that's coloring your results.

Heat scale discouraged the highest all-energy or energy/ballistic groups. Gauss charge discouraged PPC/Gauss. Velocity nerfs discouraged the highest extant energy/ballistic combo (AC/20) and preempted the first refuge (AC/10) and forced use of the last remaining (AC/5).

No matter the methods, the meta has moved to smaller and smaller, or less efficient, pinpoint volleys.

[Joseph Mallan]

I hate less efficient volleys!

stjobe, on 02 April 2014 - 08:49 AM, said:

Of course you don't, since that one makes all the other ones obsolete.

And that discrepancy is the actual weapon-balance reason why you have to give it up.

I wish it wasn't so; I wish PGI could fix convergence or do something about pin-point aim, but they can't and/or won't. The only way left for them to balance ACs and PPCs is to make them spread their damage - like every other weapon in the game - and the easiest way to do that is to re-implement them as burst-fire and beam-duration weapons.

Even you know that makes sense, Joe

Then why are AC5s an AC2s so popular Jobe?