183 replies to this topic

[Macbrea]

Why are people complaining about the C-Bill for MC you have been able to do that from the beginning. Nothing prevents me from buying an Atlas and selling it immediately. Nothing from the beginning has prevented that.

[Kilo 40]

Zanathan, on 15 April 2014 - 03:37 PM, said:

I might have missed the memo but I thought the launch module was scheduled for this patch (15th April).

It was delayed 2 weeks. Its set for April 29th. There is a command chair post about it.

[B3RT]

The True Story of the AC/2 Nerf:



Me: PGI, I was so worried about you! The forums... told me terrible things!
PGI: What things?
Me: They said... you destroyed the balance. That you... killed Autocannons!
PGI: The forums are trying to turn you against me.
Me: They care about us.
PGI: Us?
Me: They know. They want to help you. PGI, all I want is community warfare.
PGI: Community warfare won't save you. Only my new powers can do that!
Me: But at what cost? You're a good company, don't do this!
PGI: I won't lose you the way I lost Garth. I am becoming more powerful than any game developer has ever dreamed of, and I'm doing it for you. To protect you.
Me: Come away with me. Help me fix this game far away. Leave everything else behind while we still can!
PGI: No. Don't you see? We don't have to run away anymore! We no longer have to hide our love for arbitrary balance changes. I am more powerful than IGP, I... I can overthrow them! And together, you and I can rule the Inner Sphere! We can make things the way we want them to be!
Me: I don't believe what I'm hearing! The forums were right... you've changed! You have turned to the dark side! You're not PGI anymore!
PGI: [with a growing angry look and voice] I don't want to hear any more about the forums. The forums turned against me. Don't you turn against me!
Me: [crying] PGI, you're breaking my heart! You're going down a path I cannot follow!
PGI: Because of the AC/2s?
Me: Because of what you've done... what you plan to do! Stop! Stop now... come back... I love you!
[PGI looks beside B3RT and sees the forums standing at the ship's exit overhearing them]
PGI: [enraged and paranoid] Liar! You're with them! You brought them here to kill me!

[Fiveohmike]

[Miley Osiris on Speed Twerk]

It's time to fire Paul and bring in a guy who actually understands the game he should be balancing. The community has lost all faith in PGI's ability to run the game.

[LORD ORION]

Kjudoon, on 15 April 2014 - 12:17 PM, said:

Honestly they should fall out of the sky in a ballistic arc like badmitton birdies and explode on impact with the ground dealing damage there.

It is weird right now, they literally just disapear at 1000m,
Aggro a missile turret, step back to 1010m and the LRMs vanish into thin air before hitting your mech

[Rushmoar]

Well I don't know what stability work they did but I dc'ed 3 times in under 30 minutes so almost unplayable for me atm. Hope others are doing better then I am. Cheers and good luck.

Edited by Rushmoar, 15 April 2014 - 08:10 PM.

[BLOOD WOLF]

Just got on, using a hunchback with triple Ac/2. gonna see how they do for me.

Edited by BLOOD WOLF, 15 April 2014 - 08:15 PM.

[Mister Blastman]

gavilatius, on 15 April 2014 - 03:49 PM, said:

it was pushed back to I think June or another 90 days due "internal problems"

it was mentioned in the podcasts I think but all I heard from NGNG-108 was "OUR LEAGUE IS THE BEST, IT IS GOING TO BE THE BEST, YOU JUST WAIT AND SEE, LOOK AT ALL THE STUFF WE HAVE PLANNED BUT DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO, WE HAVE BIG PLANS FOR MWO, JUST YOU WAIT AND SEE" from the mouth of Russ and Sean Lang.

I kinda stopped listening 3 minutes through.

Wait... no private matches at the end of this month?

I never listen to NGNG because of all the usual propaganda.

[Wolfways]

"Fixed an issue where the defense turret is able to lock on enemies shielded by ECM."
The only issue was that they were the only LRM's that were working correctly

[Kilo 40]

Mister Blastman, on 15 April 2014 - 08:18 PM, said:

Wait... no private matches at the end of this month?

I never listen to NGNG because of all the usual propaganda.

it comes out on April 29th.

No idea where he came up with June. I suppose he may have got it from all the usual propaganda here in the forums.

[BLOOD WOLF]

Mister Blastman, on 15 April 2014 - 08:18 PM, said:

Wait... no private matches at the end of this month?

I never listen to NGNG because of all the usual propaganda.

fail

[Wolfways]

Solis Obscuri, on 15 April 2014 - 04:54 PM, said:

Lower DPS than the AC/20, actually, and with a tendency to spread damage over any kind of moving target, and a worse heat/damage ratio than any of the other ballistic or missile systems? AC/2s were more entertaining than deadly.

But I guess any weapon system that delivers damage in any form other than massive pinpoint alpha strikes has to get nerfed out of the game before we get Clan ERPPCs and Clan Gauss Rifles.

It's supposed to have a lower dps than an AC20, hence the 2 and 20.
AC20 = highest dps, shortest range
AC10 = lower dps, longer range
AC5 = even lower dps, even longer range
AC2 = lowest dps, longest range

The only range change needed was making all AC's have a max range of 2x optimal range. But of course PGI...

[doodlemander]

So am I understanding this correctly? The new mechs are temporary(1 week) phoenix mechs? As in fake hero mechs with the same 30% cbill bonus and special paint job? Anything else special about them?
I started playing after the original phoenix offer so I don't know much about them.
I was wanting a hero locust so this might be my sort of answer.

[Whiteagle]

Battlecruiser, on 15 April 2014 - 11:30 AM, said:

i'm glad srm's were buffed and autocannons were nerfed

I'm not...
I can understand the Cooldown nerf on the AC/2, but why in the hell was the max range nerfed?

Joe Decker, on 15 April 2014 - 11:43 AM, said:

CBills for MC will lower the Activity ingame. Will make it even harder for the Gamemaker to create balanced Teams and we will see even more Roflstomps. Cannot agree to that. AC2 Range Nerf is much too extreme. Down to 1800 til 1900 Meters maybe. Down to 1440 is unrealistic. No Reason anymore to choose the AC2 over the AC5. Last Reason that remained was the better Range. With this Nerf you Guys made the AC2 obsolete.

Why did it even NEED a range nerf?
Thing only does one damage a shot at 2000m, and it still has ghost heat...

Joe Decker, on 15 April 2014 - 11:54 AM, said:

Those are just other Reasons.

If People can buy CBills for MC they don't have to play for their CBills. This WILL reduce the Activity. Simple Logic.

Well I'll still grind...

...Because I'm sure as hell not going to give them any money...

Archon, on 15 April 2014 - 12:31 PM, said:

I'm very frustrated about the changes to the AC's, especially the speed nerfs. Please consider reverting these changes and stop trying to overbalance weapons that are already fine. It seems like whichever weapon happens to be even moderately effective ends up getting nerfed. It's really sucking the fun out of this game.

Hell, was the AC/2 EVER Effective?
Seriously, it already had ghost heat, so you couldn't group a huge number of them, it's the hottest Autocannon, and NOW it barely outfires an ER Large Laser...

shad0w4life, on 15 April 2014 - 01:33 PM, said:

Not sure why the AC complaints, no one on has ever sat at 1700M and helped their team spamming, AC2 within 1000M yes it's great.

I did...
It's how one keeps a Blackjack from getting cored...

dwwolf, on 15 April 2014 - 01:34 PM, said:

May I ask why long range AC/2 fire was nerfed ? It's not like the DPS was even near good at long range. It was annoying because of the impacts but thats about it.

Indeed, before I could at least be happy that I helped keep the enemies head down plinking at them, now they'll just ER Laser boat me...

cSand, on 15 April 2014 - 02:06 PM, said:

Yes

At that range you were doing at most 1 damage, probably less due to dropoff.

So yea

tiny nerf

is not a


big deal

It only DOES TWO DAMAGE at MAX!!!

The only reason to take the thing in the first place was that it:
A: Fired Fast (Which BEFORE the nerf was dangerous due to high heat generation and Ghost Heat)
B: Had the longest range in the game, allowing you to support by plinking enemies so they'd keep their heads down.

[Ghostchips Condensate I and II]

So SRMs work better now? i like that. The AC2 users probably miss that suppressive fire they had, i know i do, & when i meet one on the other team it is not scary anymore.

[Koniving]

The Fresh Prince of New Avalon, on 15 April 2014 - 06:55 PM, said:

It's time to fire Paul and bring in a guy who actually understands the game he should be balancing. The community has lost all faith in PGI's ability to run the game.

The sad irony is, in order to do the nerf Paul had to get permission from Russ, after making a case about how autocannons are just obscenely overpowered.

O.o; Russ might be the one that needs to go. He wants autocannons that do lots of damage in a single shot because it looks cool.

Meanwhile, the lore is that they are automatic and burst fire weapons that fire -- and mind you not just one but MANY -- tank rounds until sufficient rounds are fired down range to meet the damage rating. So they would look even cooler while being much easier to balance due to not being max upfront damage anymore.

Inner Sphere's largest Mech or Tank mounted AC/20 is the 4 shot Chemjet Gun (TRO-3026), 185mm at 5 damage per shot.
What MWO is featuring is "Rifles", the obsolete technology ditched and dumped because a single shot modeled off of old tanks couldn't do jack. The one Heavy Rifle I found in lore is described as "190mm." It fired a single shot, took a while to 'prime' to fire again, and does 9 damage. However, against 3050 military grade armor, it only does 6 damage. It happens to weigh 8 tons.

Meanwhile your average AC/5 is between 40mm (that's 20mm above mech-mounted machine guns) to a maximum recorded (so far) size of 120mm. That 120mm AC/5 is the GM Whirlwind/5 (Hunter ridge & Wolves on the border) and is described as a 3 shot burst to deal 5 damage (each shot dealing 1.666666666666667 damage).

That's 3 shots of this, having to hit one place, to deal 5 damage.

The AC/2 ranges from 30mm (10mm higher than an MG) to 80mm. Here's a middle ground at 40mm.

Quote

Autocannons range in caliber from 30mm up to 203mm and are loosely grouped according to their damage versus armor.^[1] The exact same caliber of shell fired in a 100 shot burst to do 20 damage will have a shorter effective range than when fired in a 10 shot burst to do 2 damage due to recoil and other factors.

Now mind you, the 'ammo count' is not an actual count of the individual bullets but of the 'uses' it has. More specifically for the burst fire sort each 'payload' is loaded in a cassette (magazine) that is ejected after its emptied. In the GM Whirlwind/5's case a ton of ammunition (since source gives '15' units when MWO gives 30) would have 15 cassettes and thus 15 uses of the AC/5. Considering each 'use' is 3 shots you'd actually have 45 rounds per ton. In another case with the Imperator-A 80mm AC/5 (Price of Glory) it's a 5 shot automatic-fire gun with each 'shot' doing 1 damage. If it were a burst fire, it'd have 15 cassettes, each cassette would have 5 shots, for a total of 75 shots. Since it's a chain fed automatic, it simply has 75 shots per ton and an AC5's 'cooldown rate' is how long it takes to make 5 shots.

If you're wondering what AC/20 requires a 100 shot burst, it happens to be the Victor's Pontiac 100.
As for the AC/2 that requires 10 shots? Whirlwind-L AC/2 (30 to 32mm) on the Blackjack-1.

So with a glimpse of that, how powerful are 20mm machine guns? Well while people frequently refer to the Gau-8, that is unfortunately incorrect as that's an AC/2 sized weapon at lighter tonnage (got to remember the barrels for AC/2s are huge and long and half the weight of the weapon system, plus feeding plus ejection and then component materials and so on). Well here's a glimpse. That's the correct caliber. Ultimately, an MG managed the same damage as an AC/2 in 10 seconds from source (that being 2 damage), but unlike the AC/2 which had to stop and cool and reload the machine gun could squeeze off non-stop. Its range issues had to do less with recoil and more with the fact that in the books they are tilted downward at the ground so that the pilot could fire them without even paying attention to what he's aiming at and keep his wits about him for real threats.

But that's...just a rant from someone sick of PGI spitting on the lore. We don't have SRMs in MWO, we have glorified short range MRMs SRMs have soft-locked guidance and chase after NARC beacons! Why the heck do you think the Kintaro or the Raven 3-L have NARC? To mark enemies for LRMs? Pfft as if! It's to mark enemies for their SRMs!!

...Sigh.
Oh well.

Sadly Russ can't go. He's the CEO of PGI.

Edited by Koniving, 15 April 2014 - 10:32 PM.

[Sarlic]

Do people actually know how hard it is to balance a game?

Thanks for the patch.

[Colonel Fubar]

I guess we will find out one way or the other.

[NocturnalBeast]

SRMS are viable again! Thanks PGI, it has been a long time coming. I can finally take my 4SP out again!