199 replies to this topic

[Mister Blastman]

Nanoswimz, on 19 July 2014 - 02:13 AM, said:

But you already cant shoot ppc with gauss in the same time because of charge. Im tired of balance crutches that was never implented in old mechwarrior games. Ghostheat, jumpnerfs, that is total ****. I want apother hardcore MWO build. With old gauss, no ghostheat, 6ppc stalkers, 4gauss daishi and other funny stuff.

No?

Were you here for that? The game was M I S E R A B L E to play. Now, I'll give you this--ghost heat is horrible. But do it another way...

If we had a true Battletech 30 point heat cap... you'd never see a 6 ppc Stalker alpha striking. You'd see true penalties to getting hot, too. You'd also need true 2.0 double heatsinks, but, whatever. We might as well. The legened of the three second Jenner has long been proven a fantasy and not a literal demon lurking in your closet. And a change to the timing of the ten point cycle for the heatsinks. But all of these are better than ghost heat.

[Hobgoblin I]

YueFei, on 19 July 2014 - 01:01 AM, said:

Even ignoring the fact that many go-to sniper builds outrange *and* out-run you, one big issue is heat efficiency. Look beyond how much damage you can do in a single blast, and look more closely at how efficient that damage is.

SRM6s, even with Artemis, only deliver about 65% of damage onto the intended hitbox.

If you land half of it, that's an *effective* damage-per-heat of ~1.5.

<snip>

You wanna know the damage-per-heat of the popular 2xPPC+2xAC5 combo? It's 1.36. And he's got more than double the range on you.

<snip>

SRMs need to hurt more. A lot more. That may have less to do with the raw damage numbers and more to do with the concentration of the damage.

The problem is you are throwing out arbritrary numbers and skills into the equation. The skill of the attaker and defender effect both sides, not just my firing but his also. No one is arguing that the PPC/gauss build isn't more efficient but you can't ignore how much damage is done in a single blast. That is why the ghost heat bandaid was made in the first place. Splatcats and 6PPC stalkers were nerfed not because they had good heat efficiency, but because they could overwhelm mechs with 1 big damage shot.
The fact that certain builds could one shot half the mechs on the field was a problem that needed to be nerfed for the sake of gameplay but the 2PPC/gauss combo isn't going around one shotting everything that it sees. It is an extremely effective build. Nerf it and another build will take its place at the top of the competative scene...then these same people will beg PGI to nerf that build.
The 2 PPC/2 AC5 combo isn't the subject of this thread, but it probably is the next build that the OP would asked to be nerfed...the slippery slope continues.
I also believe SRM's need to hurt more...but the fix there is to make SRM's hurt more, not PPC/gauss hurt less.

Edited by Hobgoblin I, 19 July 2014 - 06:54 AM.

[xhrit]

Ideally I would like to see a power mechanic in addition to heat, like in Elite Dangerous.

Elite Dangerous not only has heat, but sized hardpoints, as wll as power distribution. For example, if your powerplant only put out 100 units of power, you can only fire a number of energy weapons at once that use under 100 units of power (minus how ever much power you are using for movement / sensors / life support ). You can turn off things like heatsinks, radar, and lifesupport to re-route more power to your weapons, but at the cost of not disipitating heat, not being able to lock on or track enemy targets, and running out of oxygen and dying.

Edited by xhrit, 19 July 2014 - 08:20 AM.

[YueFei]

Hobgoblin I, on 19 July 2014 - 06:52 AM, said:

The problem is you are throwing out arbritrary numbers and skills into the equation. The skill of the attaker and defender effect both sides, not just my firing but his also. No one is arguing that the PPC/gauss build isn't more efficient but you can't ignore how much damage is done in a single blast. That is why the ghost heat bandaid was made in the first place. Splatcats and 6PPC stalkers were nerfed not because they had good heat efficiency, but because they could overwhelm mechs with 1 big damage shot.
The fact that certain builds could one shot half the mechs on the field was a problem that needed to be nerfed for the sake of gameplay but the 2PPC/gauss combo isn't going around one shotting everything that it sees. It is an extremely effective build. Nerf it and another build will take its place at the top of the competative scene...then these same people will beg PGI to nerf that build.
The 2 PPC/2 AC5 combo isn't the subject of this thread, but it probably is the next build that the OP would asked to be nerfed...the slippery slope continues.
I also believe SRM's need to hurt more...but the fix there is to make SRM's hurt more, not PPC/gauss hurt less.

Arbitrary numbers?

You can't get any better than to land 65% of ASRM6 damage on the Assault mech with one of the worst CT hitboxes in the game. Doesn't matter how hard you try. It can only get worse in a live environment, not better.

For lasers, consider that they have a 1 second burn time. Human reflexes are on the order of 150 to 200 milliseconds. Throw in a latency of 100 milliseconds. Even acting purely on reflex rather than anticipation, the victim has ample margin to shield against your shot *after* you've started firing you shot.

Splatcats weren't two-shotting people because of SRM damage. It was because of the bugged SRM *splash* implementation, causing each missile to do as much as 15 damage. Splatcats also overheated rapidly after 3 or 4 salvos, it's just that it usually didn't matter because their target was dead. Now that SRMs effectively have their splash removed, that can't happen anymore.

Damage-per-heat efficiency matters because if you're not being efficient, you'll overheat before you can drop the target. You'll have to slack your rate of fire once you're at the heat cap and your DPS goes way down.

The whole point of my talking about this is to highlight the huge inefficiency of IS SRMs, and the high inefficiency of IS Medium Lasers. So that despite the fact that these weapons should be vastly superior in a brawl compared to long range guns (as in, kills targets dead in half the time since they have less than half the range), in practice those weapons end up not really being better in a brawl compared to the long range guns.

Others and I have advocated for changes to SRMs in particular to buff them, but PGI seems scared to do it. They've made a hitreg improvement (which is more of a bug fix), and a small buff to spread and damage-per-missile to 2.15, but it's still not enough.

[Hobgoblin I]

YueFei, on 19 July 2014 - 09:21 AM, said:

Damage-per-heat efficiency matters because if you're not being efficient, you'll overheat before you can drop the target. You'll have to slack your rate of fire once you're at the heat cap and your DPS goes way down.

The whole point of my talking about this is to highlight the huge inefficiency of IS SRMs, and the high inefficiency of IS Medium Lasers. So that despite the fact that these weapons should be vastly superior in a brawl compared to long range guns (as in, kills targets dead in half the time since they have less than half the range), in practice those weapons end up not really being better in a brawl compared to the long range guns.

Others and I have advocated for changes to SRMs in particular to buff them, but PGI seems scared to do it. They've made a hitreg improvement (which is more of a bug fix), and a small buff to spread and damage-per-missile to 2.15, but it's still not enough.

I never said damage per heat efficiency didn't matter. I just said it wasn't the end all be all of the game. If it were then the machine gun would be the best weapon...all damage, no heat. Are they the best weapon in the game? Look beyond the heat efficiency to see how much damage is actually being done.

Again, I'm not arguing against a buff to certain short range weapons. This topic, however, is about nerfing the PPC/gauss combo. I would love to see an SRM buff but I don't need to see another nerf for it to make sense.

[YueFei]

Hobgoblin I, on 19 July 2014 - 10:32 AM, said:

I never said damage per heat efficiency didn't matter. I just said it wasn't the end all be all of the game. If it were then the machine gun would be the best weapon...all damage, no heat. Are they the best weapon in the game? Look beyond the heat efficiency to see how much damage is actually being done.

Certainly DPS and burst-damage are also factors, but most mechs designs generate appreciable heat as they fire weapons (outside of things like MGs and Gauss). So most mech designs are essentially machines that convert heat into damage. With MGs, it's spread damage, so even with decent DPS, it takes awhile to down a mech. With something like twin Gauss, your DPS-per-ton is quite low. Yeah your heat never goes up, but that just means you're never fully utilizing your "heat resource".

Quote

Again, I'm not arguing against a buff to certain short range weapons. This topic, however, is about nerfing the PPC/gauss combo. I would love to see an SRM buff but I don't need to see another nerf for it to make sense.

I don't necessarily want to nerf individual weapons. What I'd like to see is burst damage at a reasonable level, where both the shooter is challenged to make follow-up shots and the victim is challenged to make defensive piloting maneuvers to deny that shot or take it on a better location. To me, it provides an opportunity for meaningful interaction between players, and makes the game more interesting, instead of the damage of an entire salvo being dumped instantly into one spot in an all-or-nothing split second moment.

What is considered a "reasonable level" of pin-point FLD burst damage? At what ranges? Everyone has a different threshold.

As a thought experiment, you could make the game so that it's possible to do 200 PP FLD damage in a single shot, and it'd still be a game of skill. It'd just be a different kind of skill, more akin to tank combat where the first-to-see and first-to-shoot wins. A single shot would core an Atlas CT. You'd survive if you could turn an arm or a shoulder into it. But that's probably not the kind of game most players here signed up to play.

That's an extreme example, but it is just being used to demonstrate that it *is* possible for PP FLD to exceed any kind of reasonable threshold. So my question to the community is this: where do you draw the line?

If I were PGI, and dedicated to making this game an enjoyable experience for this community, I'd make a poll along those lines, I'd ask that question honestly and take the answer seriously.

Edited by YueFei, 19 July 2014 - 10:50 AM.

[Mcgral18]

Mister Blastman, on 19 July 2014 - 05:26 AM, said:

No?

Were you here for that? The game was M I S E R A B L E to play. Now, I'll give you this--ghost heat is horrible. But do it another way...

If we had a true Battletech 30 point heat cap... you'd never see a 6 ppc Stalker alpha striking. You'd see true penalties to getting hot, too. You'd also need true 2.0 double heatsinks, but, whatever. We might as well. The legened of the three second Jenner has long been proven a fantasy and not a literal demon lurking in your closet. And a change to the timing of the ten point cycle for the heatsinks. But all of these are better than ghost heat.

Only issue with those 2.0 heatsinks is...we already have them.

If you have 17 DHS or less, at any rate The 15% bonus to dissipation on the true engine 2.0s makes up for the 1.4s gimped dissipation.

For 17 DHS, you get a dissipation of 3.427, while TT/true 2.0s would be at 3.4 on the dot.

This bonus is greatest with only 10 engine 2.0 heatsinks, which net you 1.5 free heatsinks, at a dissipation of 2.3.

At 18 DHS, you're down to 3.588, while TT has 3.6 H/s. It gets progressively worse after that point.

[Hobgoblin I]

YueFei, on 19 July 2014 - 10:50 AM, said:

What is considered a "reasonable level" of pin-point FLD burst damage? At what ranges? Everyone has a different threshold.

As a thought experiment, you could make the game so that it's possible to do 200 PP FLD damage in a single shot, and it'd still be a game of skill. It'd just be a different kind of skill, more akin to tank combat where the first-to-see and first-to-shoot wins. A single shot would core an Atlas CT. You'd survive if you could turn an arm or a shoulder into it. But that's probably not the kind of game most players here signed up to play.

That's an extreme example, but it is just being used to demonstrate that it *is* possible for PP FLD to exceed any kind of reasonable threshold. So my question to the community is this: where do you draw the line?

The line was drawn once because of the 6 PPC stalker. 60 points was dropping mechs left and right. Now the meta we are talking about is 35 points (2 ppc's and one gauss rifle). An AC 20 does 20 points of PPFLD, one weapon firing once. Firing the 3 weapons in question does not triple that output or even double it. It does less than the 2 AC20 jaegers running around that can fire both barrells once without overheating. I suggest that 35 points is not over that line.

[TheRealAbray]

What's the effective range on those AC20s?

[YueFei]

Hobgoblin I, on 19 July 2014 - 11:15 AM, said:

The line was drawn once because of the 6 PPC stalker. 60 points was dropping mechs left and right. Now the meta we are talking about is 35 points (2 ppc's and one gauss rifle). An AC 20 does 20 points of PPFLD, one weapon firing once. Firing the 3 weapons in question does not triple that output or even double it. It does less than the 2 AC20 jaegers running around that can fire both barrells once without overheating. I suggest that 35 points is not over that line.

Why was it drawn at 60? 60 damage one-shots Lights and Cicadas, unless it hits a very front-loaded front-CT. Maybe one-shots a Blackjack through a side-torso. It doesn't one-shot anything 50 tons and above from the front.

The AC40 Jager has short range and the low projectile speeds means that if you're moving laterally at moderate range, the convergence between weapon mounts on opposite arms tends to cause the shots to hit different locations anyways.

Now we have 50 damage PP FLD from Dire Whales. Is that OK for people? It pretty much one-shots Lights if it hits either side torso, and does it at long range. If it hits a leg, the Light mech is instantly legged, and may as well be dead.

I am extremely leary of long-range pinpoint damage one-shotting Lights. It's one thing for a Light mech to get splattered up close by a single volley. It's quite another for it to happen at long range. If a Light mech cannot do one of his primary jobs of getting eyes on the enemy (which means the enemy getting eyes on him in return) even at long range, that's a problem. And due to a combination of human reflexes, HSR, and the fast projectile speeds, those shots can't be dodged on reflex. The Light mech pilot can maneuver evasively and hope to god the sniper misses, but he can't actually reactively dodge it.

I might feel differently if projectile speeds were slower and they *actually* could be dodged by the best Light mech pilots.

[Hobgoblin I]

YueFei, on 20 July 2014 - 12:09 AM, said:

Why was it drawn at 60?

I didn't draw the line, PGI did with ghost heat as an intentional fix to the 6 PPC stalker. That ship has already sailed. If the gauss and erppc of the direwolf are one shotting lights and mediums at a good clip, I imagine PGI will change travel speeds again to try to stop that. To me ghost heat is bad enough (saying i can't fire X amount of my weapon even though I would otherwise have the heat sinks to do it), I don't want to be told I can't fire different types of weapons at the same time.

Edited by Hobgoblin I, 20 July 2014 - 01:27 AM.

[OneEyed Jack]

Mister Blastman, on 19 July 2014 - 05:26 AM, said:

No?

Were you here for that? The game was M I S E R A B L E to play. Now, I'll give you this--ghost heat is horrible. But do it another way...

If we had a true Battletech 30 point heat cap... you'd never see a 6 ppc Stalker alpha striking.

The typical 16-17 DHS 6xPPC Stalker could very well alpha, and might not even shut down. Probably, but not definite. The 30pt BT heat gauge doesn't even start until you first subtract the entire dissipation capacity of the Heat Sinks. One thing it could never do is kill itself from overheat damage, unless you managed to squeeze in some ammo somewhere.

Hobgoblin I, on 19 July 2014 - 11:15 AM, said:

The line was drawn once because of the 6 PPC stalker. 60 points was dropping mechs left and right.

Hyperbole much?

6 PPC Stalkers would occasionally get a good shot in on a small enough mech, and land it in the right place, to get a one-shot. More often, it would hit a location it could blow through or that didn't disable the mech (blow off an arm). And then it would hide behind a terrain piece an hope nobody came looking for payback any time soon. 60 points doesn't actually one-shot much that could be hit reliably with it, and most of the things it could one-shot were actually more dangerous to the Stalker than it to them, because they could close fast and eat it alive at short range. By far more of a scare factor, troll build than an actual contender.

[pwnface]

The 4ppc stalker was always more dangerous than the 6ppc stalker. The 6ppc stalker was a troll build that could one shot a mech but wouldn't have the heat to engage anything else for a long time.

Back to topic: I seriously hope they don't link the gauss/ppc in any way to nerf different builds.

Edited by pwnface, 20 July 2014 - 04:15 AM.

[Khobai]

Quote

Back to topic: I seriously hope they don't link the gauss/ppc in any way to nerf different builds.

Unfortunately they need to link gauss/ppc to prevent 35-50 damage pinpoint alphas. However they should also lax up on some of the stupider ghost heat penalties to promote build diversity. There is no good reason why large lasers and large pulses are limited to 2. Or why SRMs are limited at all.

Edited by Khobai, 20 July 2014 - 05:15 AM.

[Hobgoblin I]

OneEyed Jack, on 20 July 2014 - 03:45 AM, said:

Hyperbole much?

6 PPC Stalkers would occasionally get a good shot in on a small enough mech, and land it in the right place, to get a one-shot. More often, it would hit a location it could blow through or that didn't disable the mech (blow off an arm). And then it would hide behind a terrain piece an hope nobody came looking for payback any time soon. 60 points doesn't actually one-shot much that could be hit reliably with it, and most of the things it could one-shot were actually more dangerous to the Stalker than it to them, because they could close fast and eat it alive at short range. By far more of a scare factor, troll build than an actual contender.

I personally didn't have a problem with them staying, but with the shear number of drops made, the "occasional" good shot ruined games for many people. It didn't have to be a headshot...60 points can punch through torso armor even on some assaults then then you had the chance for crits. The "one shot and you are out of the game" phenomenon was much more common then and PGI felt it was at too high a rate.

[AllSystemsNominal]

XX Sulla XX, on 17 July 2014 - 10:39 PM, said:

Would be nice to have those included but the AC 10 is not that bad with PPCs. Its a bit hot and the speed of the shells are a bit slow compared to Gauss. And the new JJ changes have an effect with heat and having to take more or just not use JJs etc. So its not perfect but its a good start and its already coded and can just be turned on.

Again its not perfect but its already one and can just be turned on.

There's nothing high risk about using a dire wolf.

[Lukoi Banacek]

XX Sulla XX, on 17 July 2014 - 10:32 PM, said:

I was listening to the new NGNG podcast and Russ said they already have the code in game and tested but turned off to make it so you can only fire two PPC or Gause at a time or a combo of each. I think they should turn it on. And yes just explain it as a limit on energy and charging. It is what I have been asking for a limit on long range front loaded pin point damage. This will cut it down to something much more balanced. It will only effect PPC and Gause. This along with the jump jet changes we have will go most of the way to balancing things. So lets just turn it on.

I know lots of people have other suggestions on how to do it. But this code is done and in the game. All they have to do is turn it on. So lets turn it on today

Let of know of exact ways you think this will help or hurt game play. I know there are other solutions people like better. But this is already coded and in the game not turned on. And we already have this kind of rule set with the limit on Gauss.

On the pod cast he starts talking about it around 15 minutes or a bit after.
http://www.nogutsnog...hp?topic=2220.0

Except the meta is truly PPC/AC5 or variations thereof. Pretty soon you'll be allowed to chainfire only. Maybe that would create balance, Idk. But I certainly think it might kill the game a bit.

[POOTYTANGASAUR]

LOL you are buttmad over getting sniped. Hate to tell you but they will not add that limit. The reason why? PGI is stupid and horrible at balancing. But not stupid and horrible enough to make it so sniper weapons are totally useless. The DPS of lrms is already double, range is higher, heat is lower, more dmg worth of ammo can be carried (disregarding ppcs), you dont need LOS, all lrms except the 20 weigh MUCH less (depending on how much you boat). So why nerf ppc/gauss further? They already nerfed ppc RoF and heat, made it so they cannot deal damage AT ALL under min range, slowed projectile speed, added BS charge to gauss, limited the amount of gauss that can be fired at once. I mean when are you going to start compensating with the enemies skill with your skill? Rather than being buttmad and flaming on the forums on how OP they are. Just learn to play well.

I run srm brawlers, mlas brawlers, ac20 brawlers, ac10 brawlers, ac5/uac5 brawlers, "meta" snipers (with minimal poptarting), dual gauss, dual gauss and dual ppc (on a jager). I do just as well in my brawlers if not better than in my snipers, i do not use lrms. You just need to play carefully and instead of walking through open areas and getting picked at, stick to walls and cross openings as fast as possible.

You are just lucky that we dont have masakaris from lore, you would be much more buttmad if we had the devastator, or if we had the hellstar (4 erppcs, 30 dhs, xl350+). PGI has dumbed down the game as much as possible trying to cater to bad players, and at some point it has to stop. Soon we wont even be able to damage eachother, it will just be a mech racing sim FFS.


EDIT: Also for mechs like the Victor 9S if PGI doesnt want everyone to field meta why dont they fix the srm tubes? If you CANT run a brawler effectively you will obviously take meta, why cripple yourself for no reason? They also nerfed the mobility of the Victor but the awesome (same weight) still handles like a medium mech. So you nerf mobility, and cripple brawling potential and wonder why people run meta? (also not saying everyone would run brawlers but lots more would)

Edited by POOTYTANGASAUR, 20 July 2014 - 08:08 AM.

[Gyrok]

XX Sulla XX, on 17 July 2014 - 10:32 PM, said:

I was listening to the new NGNG podcast and Russ said they already have the code in game and tested but turned off to make it so you can only fire two PPC or Gause at a time or a combo of each. I think they should turn it on. And yes just explain it as a limit on energy and charging. It is what I have been asking for a limit on long range front loaded pin point damage. This will cut it down to something much more balanced. It will only effect PPC and Gause. This along with the jump jet changes we have will go most of the way to balancing things. So lets just turn it on.

I know lots of people have other suggestions on how to do it. But this code is done and in the game. All they have to do is turn it on. So lets turn it on today

Let of know of exact ways you think this will help or hurt game play. I know there are other solutions people like better. But this is already coded and in the game not turned on. And we already have this kind of rule set with the limit on Gauss.

On the pod cast he starts talking about it around 15 minutes or a bit after.
http://www.nogutsnog...hp?topic=2220.0

AC/PPC is unaffected by this change...seems like a watered down solution to part of a problem...

AllSystemsNominal, on 20 July 2014 - 07:43 AM, said:

There's nothing high risk about using a dire wolf.

There is certainly high risk...you run a DW and I will bring an ember, and we shall see who kills who first shall we?

[Coralld]

Gyrok, on 20 July 2014 - 08:05 AM, said:

AC/PPC is unaffected by this change...seems like a watered down solution to part of a problem...

https://twitter.com/...567693386129409
https://twitter.com/...568179971526656

As I said before in the thread, link nerf PPCs and Gauss would solve part of the problem, and when PGI makes IS ACs burst as well, most of the PPFLD meta cheese will be done away with.

Edited by Coralld, 20 July 2014 - 08:22 AM.