243 replies to this topic

[Ecrof]

Did one of the Devs play the game once and get killed buy Ac/2s once and decide they are OP?

[Alwrathandabout42ninjas]

Ac2 is a terrible weapon to use now. Just tested it and I understand nerfing it down to 3 dps. But having ghost heat killing the 4x ac2 yager build plus lowering its range was a very bad move. That was one of the reasons to take it over an ac5. Now there is no reason to take it at all. Great weapon balancing guys, keep up the good work ( sarcasm ).

[Kusunoki Masashige]

PGI really change them back and the ac5 no a wise mod. also give ac2 more range

[Abivard]

Kusunoki Masashige, on 15 April 2014 - 12:31 PM, said:

PDI design team... needs to play more tabletop and then pull heads out of each other tail ends


AC 2 should have one of the longest ranges in the game. Look at tabletop specs start your basis there PGI

I am confused as why you quoted me?

Do you believe PGI should reduce the range on other ballistics before it does it to AC2's?

I agree! they should have just done it to all the ballistic weapons at once.

2X max range is good enough for Energy weapons, 2x should be all that Ballistics get, not the Extreme 3X range we have at present.

[Koniving]

Death to ze ghost heat! Death to ze ghost heat!

[Ultimax]

Khobai, on 15 April 2014 - 12:26 PM, said:

The point was to normalize autocannons. I was completely on board with lowering AC2 dps to 3. Because it was a bit silly for the AC2 to have the same dps as the AC10. Where paul lost me is when he decreased the range of the AC2? WHY? The AC2 is supposed to have long range. Also why was the AC2s heat not reduced?

Paul already told us.

The DPS that it is now, should have been even lower to be fully "normalized".

Obviously a 6 ton weapon that requires 2 to 3 tons of ammo doing even less DPS than that would be hard to justify, so he decided to nerf the range instead of nerfing DPS lower.



This should be a lesson to players that call for nerfs.

In the white noise of forum feedback you don't always get what you ask for - but you do reap what you sow.

Edited by Ultimatum X, 15 April 2014 - 12:39 PM.

[Khobai]

Quote

They are still 2 tons lighter, travel 2x faster, fire 2.7x the rate of the AC5 and only take up 1 slot compared to 4.
Most people who run AC2's run over 3 of them - if you are running under that you are not in an optimal build - compared to the AC5 which only ran 2 on most variants (exception being the Banshee) - as such the optimal AC2 builds are still fine

1) the tonnage savings is a moot point because of the heat. The AC5 runs so much cooler that you end up saving more than 2 tons in heatsinks.

2) yes projectile speed is the ONE advantage it still has. But thats not enough.

3) faster rate of fire is a disadvantage not an advantage. spread damage is outright worse than pinpoint damage.

4) 1 crit slot vs 4 crit slots again is a moot point because of the heat. The AC5 saves you more than 3 crit slots by not having to have as many external DHS.

5) running over 3 AC2s is pointless because of ghost heat. there is nothing optimal about that.

Quote

This should be a lesson to players that call for nerfs.

Who called for an AC2 nerf? Nobody. All of hate was directed at the AC5 and AC20.

Edited by Khobai, 15 April 2014 - 12:42 PM.

[Abivard]

I take it you enjoyed having the Ballistic range Exploit?

So much QQ when Exploiters lose their Exploits and crutches.

Now fix the rest of the ballistic Exploits please.

[FupDup]

Fire support builds are bad, so Paul nerfed them. Alpha-striking builds that jump/hump from cover, however, are perfectly fine and actually preferred by the Big-P.

[Trauglodyte]

Kaeb Odellas, on 15 April 2014 - 12:23 PM, said:

Yeah, I don't get it. Grouped AC2s were certainly dangerous pre-patch, if a little hot, but never so far as to be overpowered. Now they have worse range, lower DPS than the AC5, generate over twice the heat, all while requiring constant facing to maintain damage.

What was the point of all this?

I explained this to some of my clan mates last night and I'll share it with you guys: Based on the changes that they've made over the past couple of years, what I can see is that PGI wants the AC5 and Gauss Rifle to be the premiere long ranged ACs. An AC5 at range was always a better option than the AC2 - why spend 12 tons to do what you can do more with 8 tons at only a marginally longer range? The benefit of the AC2, due to the fast recycle time, was that you could put a couple of trigger pulls into a location before most, read "MOST", people could react. PGI turned it into a 6 ton machine gun and are, for lack of more adequate methods, reinforcing that change by reducing the maximum range on it.

It does kind of make sense in an extremely muddled Canadian sort of way. I don't disagree with it because it is a lighter option than the UAC5 which it now more readily resembles. So, you've got the long ranged AC5 and Gauss Rifle, the midrange AC10, the short ranged AC20, and the sustained fire mid/long ranged AC2/UAC5.

[RA2lover]

Cattra Kell, on 15 April 2014 - 12:33 PM, said:

They are still 2 tons lighter, travel 2x faster, fire 2.7x the rate of the AC5 and only take up 1 slot compared to 4.
Most people who run AC2's run over 3 of them - if you are running under that you are not in an optimal build - compared to the AC5 which only ran 2 on most variants (exception being the Banshee) - as such the optimal AC2 builds are still fine

ac2 is now completely useless.

both ac2s and ac5s have basically the same damage and endurance per ton now, but the ac2 generates 150% more heat(0.9 heat/s).

going heat neutral with an ac2 requires 15 heatsinks now(+weapon+1t ammo = 21t, 17 criticals), while doing the same with an ac5 requires only 6(+weapon+1t ammo = 15t, 11 criticals).

with double heatsinks, you need 11 double heatsinks on the ac2(35 slots), and 5 on the ac5(19 slots).

the only situation where an ac2 would be more efficient than an ac5 is when you don't have criticals to mount the ac5 instead.

the only situations where this is valid are when you have over 3 ballistic hardpoints(2 if arm mounted) on the same location(DRG-5N, JM6-DD, VTR-9B, BLR-1D, BNC-3E), which have enough hardpoints to be more effective with other weapons.

[Khobai]

Quote

An AC5 at range was always a better option than the AC2 - why spend 12 tons to do what you can do more with 8 tons at only a marginally longer range?

Yes but that was also completely wrong.

For the same reason its wrong that the AC20 does more damage than the AC10 at the AC10s optimum range.

The AC2 should do more damage than the AC5 at the AC2s optimum range.

That would be proper autocannon balance. But it would require getting rid of x3 max range on ballistics and lowering their max ranges to x2.5 or maybe even x2.

Edited by Khobai, 15 April 2014 - 12:52 PM.

[Kusunoki Masashige]

Abivard, on 15 April 2014 - 12:36 PM, said:

I am confused as why you quoted me?

Do you believe PGI should reduce the range on other ballistics before it does it to AC2's?

I agree! they should have just done it to all the ballistic weapons at once.

2X max range is good enough for Energy weapons, 2x should be all that Ballistics get, not the Extreme 3X range we have at present.

No i fairly agree with you its odd how they balance weapons nothing seems to have a rhyme or reason. if they revert back to tabletop ranges and leave i there then all that really needs to be done is adjust cycle time and velocity. Tweak that stuff in increments

[Rebas Kradd]

FupDup, on 15 April 2014 - 12:40 PM, said:

Fire support builds are bad, so Paul nerfed them. Alpha-striking builds that jump/hump from cover, however, are perfectly fine and actually preferred by the Big-P.

You must not have noticed the AC/5 speed nerf. They're no longer pinpoint with the PPC.

[Ironwithin]

Khobai, on 15 April 2014 - 12:26 PM, said:

The change is that the AC2 is now outright worse than the AC5. There is no reason to use it ever. At least before the AC2 had a very niche role. Now its just useless.

They prefer to be called "use-impaired", it's less offensive. You wouldn't want to make those poor, little, useless AC2s cry now, would you ?
Oops.

[CrashieJ]

Gadammit PGI,

I AM AN AC2 USER
I DAKKA AND POKE PEOPLE AT 1.5x LRM RANGE
I WAS THE SOFT-COUNTER TO LRM BOATS
I WAS GOOD AT WHAT I DID
AND YOU TOOK THE ABILITY AWAY FROM ME

good job PGI, now I'm stuck using AC5s and PPCs for the time being,

[Trauglodyte]

Khobai, on 15 April 2014 - 12:47 PM, said:

Yes but that was also completely wrong.

For the same reason its wrong that the AC20 does more damage than the AC10 at the AC10s optimum range.

The AC2 should do more damage than the AC5 at the AC2s optimum range.

That would be proper autocannon balance. But it would require getting rid of x3 max range on ballistics and lowering their max ranges to x2.5 or maybe even x2.

I'm not arguing that, Khobai. And that crap with the max range on the AC20 needs to be fixed, either by nerfing it or extending out the 10/LB10.

What I'm saying is that PGI seems to be grouping the ACs based on their vision of its intended use. What we've got is:

Rapid Fire - AC2/UAC5
Ranged Rife - AC5/Gauss Rifle
Brawling Fire - AC10/AC20
Stupid Fire - LB 10-X (lol, had to )

Prior to the change, there was no real discrepancy between the AC2 and AC5 because both had the same DPS with ranges that were relatively the same. You had to decide what to do with your build based on the weight you wanted to dedicate. Yes, there was MUCH more to it than just that but this is what they were trying to fix. Furthermore, there wasn't any real difference between the AC2 and the Gauss Rifle because both had about the same range and both fired at the same velocity. In otherwords, the only thing that the AC2 had in relation to the AC5 and the GR was that it fired so much faster. So, what they did in the change was change it so that it had a lighter niche (ie, firing really fast) vs. the UAC5 but wasn't so similar to the AC5/GR that people didn't want to take it.

One other thing, very few people actually used the AC2 because of it's supreme range. I said this in the feedback thread. What people used it as was in groups so that they could fire really fast and chew through armor. PGI read the writing on the wall and decided to make it more akin to how it was being used and less how TT indicated it to be used. This change, for all that we may not like it, is our own fault.



PS> Btw, I am NOT white knighting this change. I'm just trying to look at it based on the environment of the game. I think that is really what we, the community, need to do a better job of doing.

Edited by Trauglodyte, 15 April 2014 - 01:05 PM.

[Parliment]

So I see it this way moving my builds from dps based to high alpha again..... time to rebuild all my poptarts. have fun everyone

[Ecrof]

Was the recent nerf to Ac/2s preparing for ultra Ac/2s. I'm trying to wrap my head around why Ac/2s were nerfed, can any one think of a logical reason.

[DeathlyEyes]

Trauglodyte, on 15 April 2014 - 12:59 PM, said:

One other thing, very few people actually used the AC2 because of it's supreme range. I said this in the feedback thread. What people used it as was in groups so that they could fire really fast and chew through armor. PGI read the writing on the wall and decided to make it more akin to how it was being used and less how TT indicated it to be used. This change, for all that we may not like it, is our own fault.

The fact of the matter is PGI can't simply change values on a weapon to make it match what the bulk of the community is using the weapon for. There will always be a minority effected and the reasoning behind the change doesn't quite make sense. It effects a small number of users arbitrarily. The fact that the AC5 now has a longer range than the AC2 makes practically no sense at all. Not only that but the DPS difference between the AC5 and AC2 is nearly negligible, which is unusual. Forking out the extra tonnage for the AC5 doesn't make a whole lot of sense anymore.