Hans Von Lohman, on 17 April 2014 - 03:48 PM, said:
Sorry, but the Autocannons of BattleTech don't need to change that radically. I think it is fine to keep it simple.
Also, there will eventually be more types of autocannons that do shoot rapid fire thing like Rotary Autocannons and Hyper Assault Gauss rifle.
I would NOT change the current autocannons to be giant machineguns for the reason that it leaves it open for the other types of guns later on.
All ACs are rapid fire. Some just fire faster. UACs fire twice as fast, at the risk of jamming for the match. Of course, that's a pretty poor mechanism for a FPS, so it was changed.
Hans Von Lohman, on 17 April 2014 - 03:48 PM, said:
Sorry, but the Autocannons of BattleTech don't need to change that radically. I think it is fine to keep it simple.
Also, there will eventually be more types of autocannons that do shoot rapid fire thing like Rotary Autocannons and Hyper Assault Gauss rifle.
I would NOT change the current autocannons to be giant machineguns for the reason that it leaves it open for the other types of guns later on.
Welp... The above was for single armor.. I.e. translating Battletech's weapons with Battletech lore to create a Battletech experience. You're in a Shadowhawk with 2D2 104 points of armor (instead of MWO's 208 stock). Or you're in an Atlas with 304 points of armor (instead of MWO's 608). It really matters then and those weapons are still incredibly powerful despite that nature.
Mind you, there were several types of autocannon in each class if you wanted variety. Certainly more variety than here.
Spoiler
Automatic (no delayed reload time, belt fed). You choose how much ammo to spend. An example here using MWO's ammunition limits, a Crusher Super Heavy Cannon AC/20 with its 7 count, (10 shots = 20 damage) then you'd have 70 shots. (Since the Crusher has 3 manufacturers and they do compete there's an automatic version right there). It'd pump out a shot every 0.4 seconds with the first shot at 0, and the last shot at 3.6 seconds, repriming and firing the next cycle at 4 seconds exactly.
Burst fire, where you pulled the trigger and it dumped an entire cassette of ammunition and spent a while reloading. To fit in MWO's firing cycle, it'd have to spit out 10 shots and then reload and firing again within 4 seconds. So it could be a second-long burst, or a 3 second burst, and whatever the case whatever time is remaining is spent reloading.
If you stretch the lore just enough, take a 185mm cannon and say it's an AC/5 (as the 185mm Chemjet Gun fires 4 shots of 5 damage each), and there's your single shot. But then something would have to be done to balance it out.
There are more than 18 variants of AC/20. 18 different, very unique, autocannon 20s for mounting on mechs and tanks.
Aside from that, there is this data from actual calculated shots/damage that can fit in a 10 second window for comparison. This being the core reason we needed double armor and why PGI was considering quadruple armor briefly.
This was one day before Paul's announced AC/2 and AC/5 nerf.
AC/2, 38 damage in 10 seconds. UAC/2, 78 damage in 10 seconds. (2 extra compared to double since there's a failure to fire the last shot in one case at the cutoff point. Otherwise both would be up by 2 more on top of this.) (UAC/2 in TT does 4 damage in 10 seconds.) RAC/2, 228 damage in 10 seconds. (RAC/2 in TT does 12 damage in 10 seconds)
Flamer, 7 damage in ten seconds.
MG, 10 damage in 10 seconds. (All 3 of these are supposed to do 2 damage in 10 seconds).
Small laser 12 damage in 10 seconds. (3 damage in 10 seconds)
AC/5, 30 damage in 10 seconds. (5 damage in 10 seconds) UAC/5, 65 damage in 10 seconds. (UAC/5 would do 10 damage in 10 seconds in TT.) RAC/5, 205 damage in 10 seconds exactly. (RAC/5 would do 30 damage in 10 seconds in TT).
Medium laser, 10 damage in 10 seconds ( 5 damage in 10 seconds)
AC/10, 50 damage in 10 seconds (10 damage in 10 seconds). UAC/10, 100 damage in 10 seconds (perfectly timed to fire all shots). (UAC/10 would do 20 damage in 10 seconds in TT.)
PPC, 30 damage in 10 seconds (10 damage in 10 seconds).
Gauss Rifle, 30 damage in 10 seconds (15 damage in 10 seconds).
Large Laser, 27 damage in 10 seconds (8 damage in 10 seconds).
LPL, 31.8 damage in 10 seconds (9 damage in 10 seconds).
AC/20, 60 damage in 10 seconds (20 damage in 10 seconds) UAC/20, 140 damage in 10 seconds. (UAC/20 would do 40 damage in 10 seconds in TT. The Hunchback II-C Clan mech sporting twin UAC/20s would do a total of 80 damage in a single turn. In the only lore source I've found so far, it's described that each UAC/20 requires firing 6 shots to do 20 damage, and can double its firing speed to pump out 12 damage in the same time frame [at risk of jamming] to churn out 40 damage.)
Hm. That's just one of each weapon. You sure that something akin to multi-shot weapons is not necessary? Because otherwise that UAC/20 is just gonna be 2 shots, and so far every clan mech EXCEPT the Timber Wolf can carry 6 ballistics and mount large ballistic weapons.
Nikolai Lubkiewicz, on 17 April 2014 - 02:24 PM, said:
Pretty good analysis and interesting suggestions.
Like with all gameplay balance changes, it's going to take a bit of time to see if the hard numbers match up with the theory, but we feel pretty confident in the changes made so far.
Thanks for the reply.
I think a lot of times the reasoning behind certain balance changes aren't spelled out for the player very well. I am currently playing a little diablo 3 right now and one of the interesting things they started doing is adding a "philosophy" bullet point to give the players a chance to understand where they're coming from in terms of balance changes. So instead of just changing the DPS of crusader's wrath spenders they start off saying: 'hey the wrath spenders aren't working out, so here are our changes to certain spender skills that reflect this philosphy...'
Perhaps in the future, you guys might put a little more time explaining the "why" of balance changes and not just the "what." It might cut down on the hate and not force players to read between the lines.
All except the ERLL piece. If lasers were alpha pinpoint I would agree. But being DOT weapons I really don't see them as being a problem, especially since they are covered by ghost heat as well. Nerf the LL and ERLL any more and LL-users will just flock back to PPCs.
All except the ERLL piece. If lasers were alpha pinpoint I would agree. But being DOT weapons I really don't see them as being a problem, especially since they are covered by ghost heat as well. Nerf the LL and ERLL any more and LL-users will just flock back to PPCs.
The only time ER LL can be scary is when you are on Skirmish on a big map against a fresh ECM Raven with two of them at the end.
If players start talking about laser convergence again … Does it actually mean anything this time around, after having learned to do the defensive twist, many months ago?
All except the ERLL piece. If lasers were alpha pinpoint I would agree. But being DOT weapons I really don't see them as being a problem, especially since they are covered by ghost heat as well. Nerf the LL and ERLL any more and LL-users will just flock back to PPCs.
I agree with much of this and may add also that Jman I did like your post it makes lots of sense, but the subject with er larges comes into play and that's the problem now u may need to mess with another weapon and that is the last thing this game needs. A forever circle of changing weapon stats. I think with Srms back in the picture and maybe a slight buff to damage making them a real viable weapon again then nefing ppcs just a bit to about 11.5 heat get some data on that is really the way to go. Over use of ppcs and under use of Srms is what has been hurting this game for a while so getting the 2 weapons to more neutral grounds is what pgi needs to do in my opinion. Not really screwing around with other weapons that may open up a new can of worms such as u said.
I think the AC 2 and AC 5 could also do with a slight minimum range as they have in Battletech, say 45m, half the PPC's min range. It would give a nice window for SRM's and Medium Pulse Lasers.
Nikolai Lubkiewicz, on 17 April 2014 - 02:24 PM, said:
Pretty good analysis and interesting suggestions.
Like with all gameplay balance changes, it's going to take a bit of time to see if the hard numbers match up with the theory, but we feel pretty confident in the changes made so far.
Balancing by numbers works great when everything is within shouting distanced of being balanced.
(The numbers tell you where to tweak)
Balancing by numbers is horrible method for balancing when things are dramatically out of wack, then you end up nerfing and buffing weapon systems that are perfectly fine. (AC's, LRM's) And completely ignoring the weapons systems that actually need help and adjustments.
(MG's, Flamers, large pulse lasers, medium pulse lasers, small pulse lasers, LRM's, SRM's, Streaks, Narc, Tag, Command console, Artemis, AC2, A10, AC20, PPC and ECM)
Everything is not fine, instead of truly testing weapons in beta by taking them to highs' and lows and even different methods of dealing damage here we are trying to balancing Square pegs into Round holes (By numbers no less)
AC/2 - Cooldown - 1.25 / Heat - 1.25 / Range - 650 / Max Range - 975 / Speed - 1150
AC/5 - Cooldown - 2 / Heat - 2.5 / Range - 500 / Max Range - 750 / Speed - 950
AC/10 - Cooldown - 3.5 / Heat - 6 / Range - 400 / Max Range - 600 / Speed - 825
AC/20 - Cooldown - 6 / Heat - 10 / Range - 250 / Max Range - 375 / Speed - 625
I mean its a heavy ammo dependent weapon so why should it be better than an ammo independent weapon right?
And instead of having the ghost heat on ACs dependent on the number of ACs why not the number of consecutive shots fired like 5 AC/2 shots and you get 2 ghost heat every shot until you've fired 10 then you get 3 extra heat per shot and so forth.
Let's look at the DPS with the proposed changes...
AC/2 - 1.6
AC/5 - 2.5
AC/10 - 2.85
AC/20 - 3.33
Ehhh, ehhh is this good? You get a .9 DPS increase from AC/2 to AC/5, a .35 increase of a 5 to a 10, and then a .48 increase from a 10 to a 20. Of course if the ghost heat comes from number of shots then the larger ACs will instantly be buffed over their smaller cousins cause they don't need to shoots as much... or if they do the mech doing the shooting won't last long enough for it to become an issue. Looking here the range drops as firepower increases whereas it is the opposite for energy weapons.
Now the AC/2 would be slightly longer range than a large laser, the AC/5 would be like the medium laser, the AC/10 would be range comparable to a large pulse and the AC/20 would be similar in range to a medium pulse.If you are going to nerf something that's OP then bury it for good I say, make it ridiculous to complain about any further. Also you might notice that the range drop off to damage comparisons might make an AC/10 as good at range as the AC/5 at its optimum. Solution - every 10% of the distance between the optimal range and the max range the bullet loses 20% of its damage.
LocationPeriphery of the Inner Sphere, moving toward the core worlds with each passing day.
Posted 20 April 2014 - 06:05 AM
Jman5, on 17 April 2014 - 11:32 AM, said:
I know a lot of people have been taking a giant dump on the latest AC/2 balance changes, but I'll take the contrarian point of view and argue that it's a great change for the game as a whole.
Does it make sense to have the AC/2 max range under the AC/5? Not really. Having one or two autocannons with 2x range while the rest have 3x range is unintuitive. However, I'm hoping that this is just the test case to gather performance metrics before a greater change to all autocannons.
So what does a mechwarrior game look like where autocannons have 2x range versus 3x range?
1. An indirect buff to Brawling Builds
By cutting autocannon range down by 1/3 and significantly increasing damage drop off you shrink the average combat ranges dramatically. Now instead of taking damage from 2 km away, you're taking the same amount of fire at much closer ranges. This makes it easier to close the gap for brawlers and get into range to hard counter PPC jump snipers (sub 90m).
2. Increase Time to Kill by decreasing overall damage.
People don't really think about this much, but a huge amount of autocannon damage is done past their optimal ranges. However, because the damage drops off linearly at 3 times the optimal range, it is a very very slight transition. Energy weapons on the other hand have a 2x max range so the damage drop off is much more severe.
Despite the fact that both Medium lasers and AC/20 have identical optimum range, the medium laser drops off incredibly quickly zeroing out at 540 meters. The AC/20 keeps going strong all the way out to 810 meters. You see similar effects with other comparable weapons.
By making damage drop off faster you encourage people to fight more in their optimum range. It will also have the effect of making those ultra long range shots hurt less as you close the gap.
3. Makes lasers and other energy weapons more desirable.
In my opinion lasers are some of the most balanced weapons in the game. Their damage over time beam make them a challenge to use properly. Moving at 100+ KPH it can be quite difficult to get the entire beam to not only connect with the target, but hit the same component. If you don't believe me, record a game as a light and then rewatch the fights in slow motion. You'll probably see your lasers bouncing all over the target spreading damage inefficiently. Their heat requirements also really force players to balance their heat carefully.
4. This kills the poptart
Ok kill is a strong word, but it noticeably weakens their ability to dish out damage and makes their weaknesses more easily exploitable.
Let's take a classic two AC/5 + two PPC Victor Dragon Slayer.
Currently it's damage per alpha looks a little something like this:
0-90 meters: 10 damage
91 - 540 meters (optimal range): 30 damage
810 meters (PPCs half damage): ~ 19 damage
1080 meters (PPCs zero out): ~ 6 damage
1160 meters (AC/5 half damage): 5 damage
1700 meters (AC/5 zero out): 0 damage
Now let's create a hypothetical scenario where AC/5s zero out at 1240 meters instead of 1700 meters.
0 - 90 meters: 10 damage
91 - 540 meters (optimal range): 30 damage
810 meters (PPC's half damage): ~ 17 damage
1080 meters (PPC zero out): ~ 3 damage
1240 meters (ac/5 zero out): 0 damage
A couple damage difference may not sounds like much, but if you're shooting 100 ac/5s (not uncommon for a good jump sniper) you're talking 100-200 potential damage taken out of the game per mech. And the AC/5 isn't even a true triple range autocannon. The differences in other autocannons receiving a 2x range would be even more stark.
5. Balance concern about the ER Large Laser emerges
Unfortunately balance is never done in vacuum. Nerfing one thing indirectly buffs another and vice versa. Making autocannons less capable at long range makes the ER Large Laser stand out more. Lowering the heat requirements of the weapon while increasing the heat requirement of the ER PPC has made the ER LL a fearsome alternative to jump sniping. If PGI goes through with nerfing the range of autocannons, they are going to need to look at how this weapon is performing as well. Otherwise it could be a go-to choice for too many builds.
I disagree completely with your entire analysis.
(1) Autocannons for the most part are only marginally effective past their optimal ranges now with the velocity nerfs. It is rather difficult to aim a half mech high with an AC10 @ 600m and still try to hit with anything else while shooting.
(2) AC2 in TT was the longest ranged weapon in the game, the DPS was also not overpowered because it required you to expose yourself FAR longer to do that same 40 damage that a AC20/2xPPC jump sniper can in 1 second.
(3) Energy weapons, especially front loaded PPCs, are the most unbalanced weapons in the game. For most of them, the current heat values are too high, and the lack of maximum range to effectively remain at safety from LRMs on all but 3 weapons impacts usefulness. This is why people play AC/PPC builds...
(4) Once again, another flawed analysis. Jump snipers do not shoot beyond 500m if they are any good, and typically are much closer range than that. I know, I jump snipe a lot since they broke my victor, and I do not do it past ~400-500m as it becomes less effective. The issue with jump sniping is not the range at which it occurs, but egress/regress from cover with high pinpoint damage alpha strikes. I suppose you think the Victor changes did anything to nerf jump sniping as well? If you do, you are wrong, it can still move quickly, and jump. All the mobility nerfs did was to make brawling victors unviable.
(5) ERLL is not really a "top performing" weapon...it is only used now because it generates less heat than PPCs, and even then it is only in builds where standard PPCs are unviable for one reason or another. All the lesser beam weapons currently run too hot, and PPCs are broken with front loaded damage.
If you want to bring brawling back eliminate high damage pinpoint alpha strikes. That is how you fix this game, and that is my personal opinion as a game developer. I am not going to go into length about making charts, etc. However, your suggestions are terrible and do nothing to change the status quo of this game...just like the many other suggestions from the forums and "tweaks" from the developers.
No PPCs are canned enough as it is with a rather slow velocity and extraordinarily high heat generation. ACs are the issue here and need to be buried before they break the game any worse. There is absolutely no reason a mech that has JUST AC/20s or AC/5s can bury an assault mech in toe to toe combat!
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Hans Von Lohman, on 17 April 2014 - 03:48 PM, said:
