1258 replies to this topic

[Simbacca]

The simplest solution:

PPC/ERPPC + AC/Gauss cannot fire within 2 (or 1) seconds of each other.

[DeathlyEyes]

Yokaiko, on 29 July 2014 - 04:59 PM, said:

Which places an even higher value on pin point damage.

no it doesn't actually it places a higher value to DPS as mechs can get in close and use their higher DPS. Cone of fire actually does the same thing if you think about it. It takes more shots on target to kill a spot. This does it without randomizing it.

Edited by SLDF DeathlyEyes, 29 July 2014 - 05:10 PM.

[Wildstreak]

I understand concern on the Gauss + PPC combo but the changes affecting PPCs alone would hurt certain Mechs like the Awesome-8Q so this NEEDS to be on the test server before going live.

The option to fire 1PPC and have the 0.5 second delay would really mess up chain firing the 3PPCs on my AWS-8Q.

I am unsure of slowing the speed down.

I would like to know if a splash mechanic was considered and if rejected, why.

[DeathlyEyes]

Mcgral18, on 29 July 2014 - 05:01 PM, said:

Here's an idea....why don't we NOT make the long range weapons have the same cooldown as short range weapons?

If an SRM4 could fire twice in the same span the Gauss or PPC could fire in one, that could make a difference. As it stands, the majority of long range weapons handle fine up close, and deal the optimal damage, which is the PP FLD.

Try 5 seconds for Gauss and 6 seconds for PPCs. Just 1 and 2 seconds won't hurt very much.

What? Using the balancing ideas that Mechwarrior 4 got right? Unheard of.

[Yokaiko]

SLDF DeathlyEyes, on 29 July 2014 - 05:07 PM, said:

no it doesn't actually it places a higher value to DPS as mechs can get in close and use their higher DPS.

If I need 5 times the amount of time DPSing a target than I do just blowing off a side torso, that is not the case. This is the root of "clan balance" with the longer laser burns and burst fire ACs.

[Ace Selin]

As someone said earlier, if youre going this route, simply make it that PPCs & Gauss rifles cannot fire together, at all, no matter their respective numbers (even 1 & 1). Explain it as some type of energy draw and there you go. Even newbies will understand that mechanic.

And lets not penalise Gauss by itself any more, its already been nerfed. Considering the amount of weight it requires, lets leave it as is at least.

Edited by Ace Selin, 29 July 2014 - 05:12 PM.

[Hopper Morrison]

My thoughts? I let Mrs Evans answer:
http://youtu.be/_e08iD26Rj8

Just fix convergence.

[Alex Warden]

the whole "balancing" thing is getting nowhere. you guys just keep circling around the issues... and honestly, i can´t see that change with all the awkward ideas i´ve lately been reading from PGI...

[AEgg]

The first change is nonsensical if it only applies to this particular combination. It would be fine if, say, you couldn't fire ANY weapon while a guass was charging or a quarter second after it fires. That was a semi-common suggestion back when gausscats were killing everything. And I could live with it. The gauss rifle is a sniping weapon. In normal usage, not being able to fire anything else at the same time isn't a huge drawback. And it makes sense lorewise.

Limiting ONLY guass and PPCs together is stupid. It's far too narrow, makes very little sense, and is basically too complicated.

Reducing PPC projectile speed would probably make the PPC useless again. It went the first few years of the game being useless, I'd rather it didn't go back there.

If you have to punish PPCs, do it in a way that doesn't make them useless for "normal" builds. Maybe make PPCs treat all weapons fired at the same time as them as as PPCs. So if you fire a PPC and two AC5s, you get the equivalent heat of firing three PPCs. That would work nicely to limit PPCs to sniping weapons and effectively prevent boating them with low-heat weapons.

Short version:

Either make it so you can't fire ANYTHING at the same time as the gauss, or don't create that limitation. It makes no sense to the player.

OR

Make PPCs treat all weapons fired with them as other PPCs for heat purposes. Fire a PPC and two AC2s? You get three PPCs worth of heat.

Edited by AEgg, 29 July 2014 - 05:13 PM.

[AndyHill]

Look, I appreciate what you're trying to do, it's definitely the right problem to tackle. However, as mentioned in the OP, things are getting waayyy out of hand in the complexity department. Ghost heat alone is a convoluted mess, an entirely unnecessary layer of weirdness on top of the meta and these new ideas are going to make everything just so much worse. As you noted, the usability complexity (why the duck isn't my PPC firing!?!?) is probably even worse than what we had before.

Fortunately, this is how simple it really is: all of your efforts are trying to combat group firing of multiple weapons - and you are right to do so, that's by far the best tactic as well as fundamentally incompatible with BTech damage system. So stop people from firing groups of multiple weapons. It just doesn't get any simpler than that.

The problem is not the PPC nor Gauss or whatever becomes the next meta if you nerf those with bizarre rules. You're chasing a moving target and by the time you've gone through one round with all weapons ghost heated, fire delayed and whatever, the game's rules will be a total mess.

So how about just stop group fire for all weapons period, no ghost heat no weird fire delays, one rule to balance all weapons. And balance them you will, once it finally becomes possible when you can actually balance weapons instead of arbitrary groups of weapons against each other.

You've got the right target, but the weapon is completely wrong.

Edited by AndyHill, 29 July 2014 - 05:18 PM.

[Polojilarious]

Solution 1 is a complicated mess and a speed nerf would impact mechs like the dual ppc cicada or the freshly buffed awesome that aren't (ab)using a ballistic/ppc combo.

The problem, as other people have mentioned, is that there are other viable things for people to fall back on. If gauss gets nerfed, people will mix ppcs with other ballistics just like they always have. It'll be a slightly larger problem for clan mechs on account of clan acs being terrible, but they have other options. If ppcs get nerfed too hard, c-erll+gauss and dual gauss mechs will dominate, and that'll be even more boring than the current meta.

If, for some reason, only the specific combination of ppc+gauss gets nerfed, we'll still be seeing mechs running around with dual guass, 2ac5+2ppc, ac20+2ppc, gauss+erppc+3erml, and however many erlls and gauss rifles they can cram on their clan mech of choice. While the given solution would indeed kill the dreaded cheesewhale, mechs would still be running around with 30 and 40 point alphas while other 30 and 40 point alphas are arbitrarily restricted.

TL:DR; Both options suck and won't solve the problem that you're trying to solve.

[ReguIus]

Get rid of arm lock and up the PPC cooldown.

Skilled players will bash noobs anyway so why the hell not...

[SirLankyIII]

If we're going to go with using energy draw to restrict guass and ppc why not go all the way and apply it to every weapon system. Give each weapon an energy rating and let it organically restrict the combinations of weapons that can be fire at the same time or is quick succession. It's less complicated and it doesn't hinge on creating a whole list of rules that can be easily subverted, it might even make fraken builds more effective than boated builds.

As for solution two, it's only going to punish players using single or duo ppc builds i.e. adders which can use all the help they can get, and shift everyone use to mixing the ppc with ballistics again.

Edited by SirLankyIII, 29 July 2014 - 05:18 PM.

[Yokaiko]

The cheese whales would go away and dakka whales would be even more surpreme.

[Asmudius Heng]

In addition to my post about limiting high energy weapons via something more transparent.

Someone mentioned that the reload speed of long range weapons should be longer, or short range weapons be shorter, or both.

This is not going to solve this issue but since the main culprits are good at long an shot range basically you need the DPS of a brawler to be better by comparison.

This does not solve the issue of long range sniping high pinpoint alphas of course but it is a part of the wider balance discussion.

[AssaultPig]

It seems to me there is a simple solution: just expand the splash mechanic to IS PPCs, and shift the damage away from the pinpoint target and more to the splash.

So, rather than IS PPCs current 10 pinpoint damage, they would do 5 to the component they hit and 5 'splash' to an adjacent component (or 2.5 to two other components, whatever.)

Clan ERPPCs keep their current splash mechanic, but more of the damage should splash.

I actually think clan ERPPCs should have their damage reduced in general, but that's another topic

[Pekiti]

So the ERPPC, a weapon made of charged particles and plasma, will now fly through the air only slightly faster than an AC/20 round?

I assume you intend to release the Hatchetman and other melee-capable mechs in the same patch? Because we are rapidly approaching the point where hand-to-hand combat sounds pretty appealing - and more effective.

[FearNotDeath]

Great change my mad dog in future thanks you that it won't have an entire side torso blown off in a Mouse1 click.

[Greyboots]

Let the madness ensue....

As much as the current state of affairs annoys the crap out of me, I still think these are bad ideas.

As for slowing PPC projectiles: no. PPCs are one of the main ways to combat these mechs. Slowing PPC projectiles would make it harder to get rid of them so no.

You know what makes this so bad? The ridiculously severe PPC nerfs. Kind of ironic really. The best way to combat these mechs is smaller, more mobile mechs with decent weaponry. The "go to" weapon for this job would be the PPC. Light enough to arm a couple of medium mechs sufficiently to sit at a range which is difficult to hit while lobbing PPC fire at a much larger and slower target.

Exactly how I used to kill 6xPPC stalkers with 2 ERPPCs on a blackjack. Stay at 800ish meters so I'm as small as possible, keep on the move, firing 2 PPCs to their 6. I hit a LOT more often and was outside the 750m range for TAG to pick me up for the LRM boats. I had plenty of time to break LoS against incoming missiles and make them miss.

Now? ERPPCs have been nerfed into oblivion, JJ changes gimped the mobility even more. It's no longer a viable tactic. What do I do now? Sit at 700m in an ECM light with a TAG and let the LRM guys do the heavy lifting.

Quote

[color=#00FFFF]One of the other solutions I've been looking at is slowing down the PPC projectile. What this gains is the ability of a target 'Mech to spread incoming damage more effectively by twisting its torso out of the line of fire. The number I've been toying with is 750m/s for PPCs and 850m/s ERPPCs(IS and Clan). Now if you're wondering what the current speed is, it is 1500m/s. So yes... that is a 50% decrease in projectile speed for PPCs.

[/color]

You're kidding, right? First of all, twisting your torso means you won't be firing back nearly as often. This means you have to have alpha strike mechs to combat alpha strike mechs. Isn't this what you are trying to GET AWAY FORM?

Additionally, it's not only these mechs I've gotta close in on... It's them AND THEIR TEAM MATES... These sorts of comments coming from a Dev are VERY worrying because this is not a 1 Vs 1 game.

I actually opened my wallet over the weekend just gone after having it closed for months. Now I'm beginning to regret that decision.

[DeathlyEyes]

Yokaiko, on 29 July 2014 - 05:09 PM, said:

If I need 5 times the amount of time DPSing a target than I do just blowing off a side torso, that is not the case. This is the root of "clan balance" with the longer laser burns and burst fire ACs.

With a longer PPC recycle time and more armor you can close to range and absolutely wreck a mech that is using PPCS. Hell my unit has been wrecking meta lately using SRMs already even with bad terrain movement and bad map design.

Edited by SLDF DeathlyEyes, 29 July 2014 - 05:22 PM.