1258 replies to this topic

[PhoenixFire55]

Sure, lets forbid firing Gauss+PPCs at the same time. Lets also forbid firing more than one AC same time. And while we are at it, lets also forbid firing more than 2 lasers at the same time. As for the final coup de grace to this game, lets forbid firing more than one missile launcher in 5 seconds.

Sounds reasonable to me, just like your suggesions.
[/sarcasm]

[BOWMANGR]

I'm going to blow your mind right now so be prepared.

PPC change proposal:

1} Reducing PPC projectile speed so that it indeed desyncs enough from the Gauss projectile for ranges above ~300m but not as drastically as Paul proposed
2} Reduce PPC/ER PPC Heat
3} Add a 0.25sec charge up time to it.

The Gauss already has a 0.5 sec charge up. If you desync the projectile speeds and add a charge up mechanic to PPC you effectively make it a skill weapon that cannot be easily combined with Gauss or even any AC weapon, you kill poptarts and leave this role for the people who ACTUALLY have skill because poptarting needs to be a pilot skill instead of the easymode it is right now.
I propose a generous PPC Heat reduction to compensate for the non-meta PPC builds which will get nerfed along the meta builds if you change the PPC values. The meta mechs don't really care about Heat so much anyway, they just try to dump as much damage as possible on a single spot. You need to address this fact to solve the problem.


I also believe that the TTK of mechs should be GENEROUSLY increased to make the game more fun. Increase c-Bill rewards to compensate for longer matches. People who enjoy killing mechs in two shots should move over to Call of Duty and let the others have tons of fun. The reason I play MW:O over other shooters is the more slow and tactical approach of battles but if this instant frontloaded 40+ damage salvos continue for long it is going to be just a generic shooter. Please make the mechs feel like Juggernaughts and not paper dolls like they feel like now. Make maneuvering while brawling be as good a skill as aiming so that you can FEEL that it is your skill that counts and not if you are lucky enough to hit a single pixel with 50 damage, in essence a Headshot mechanic. Those asking for headshots should just go play something else.

[PhoenixFire55]

Quote

understand that that both of these mechanics seem fairly heavy handed but it's time to bring this weapon combo into alignment with the other combinations of weapons.

So the fact that an LRM boat can spam missiles non-stop for 25-30 seconds and dish out about 240 dmg that goes over and around cover within that timespan without any need for aiming and exposing yourself doesn't bother mr. Paul Inouye. But the fact that inside same 30 seconds some Gauss-PPC combo does 105 dmg that is perfectly stopped by cover while it requires precise firing control to sync and accurate aiming as well as exposing your mech does?

When was the last time mr. Inouye played the game? Better yet when was the last time mr. Inouye played the game against people with Elo > 500? For how much longer will the game balace be in the hands of people who have no clue?

[IraqiWalker]

Vanguard319, on 29 July 2014 - 09:39 PM, said:

if that is the case, why are you so terrified of having something like a reticule bloom system? It would level the playing field, and make the game about real skill, and not about who has the sickest gaming peripherals. As for myself, due to my situation irl, I don't even have a mouse. Every kill I have scored since closed beta has been with a laptop keyboard and touchpad.

I'm not terrified of that at all. In fact I think movement should impair aim a bit, and convergence should be incremental, instead of instant.

However, I was talking about the game "not requiring skill" when in fact it does. movement impact might be more realistic, however, I don't know how the community will receive it.

Ace Selin, on 29 July 2014 - 10:02 PM, said:

Have you ever fired a gun? Because bullets dont always hit where you aim.
For long ranged shooting (done by rifles) you need to take into account what your zero is as well as the temperature, humidity, elevation / barometric pressure & wind resistance. For very distant targets even gravity is taken into account.
Different types of ammo can affect your trajectory as well.
For long distance targets often holdover is required - you dont shoot bang on the target as most rifles are not zerod in at say 800 yards.
(We wont discuss the targets motion).

Taking account for factors such as wind velocity, and direction, plus bullet drop is all part of aiming. So yes, bullets go where you aim, if you can aim right. I don't see what your point is.

Gas Guzzler, on 29 July 2014 - 10:38 PM, said:

Try telling a light pilot they have to slow down to shoot accurately.

And really it is more or less what people want. Everyone references TT and how you roll dice to determine where shots go and that's why the TT armor system works and pinpoint accuracy breaks the game and blah blah. Dice rolling is essentially streak mechanics, and what the TT armor system is designed for.

As a light pilot, I have no problem with having my speed when going over 80% impact my aim. When i'm zooming around 150Kph I'm still shooting with good accuracy, which makes little sense. It should be impacted my high speed. The mech should be shaking and becoming unstable, instead of being so smooth and stable that I can pick which eye ball to burn with my ML.

[Grifthin]

This will probably get buried in this thread but I like the First Proposed fix. The projectile speed nerf will kill mechs that rely on PPC's like the Awesome. The first fix seems good. I'd even expand it to include ALL Ac's above the AC2. That way one could fire no more than 1 PPC in combination with AC5/10/20's, Gauss etc.

Edited by Grifthin, 30 July 2014 - 12:56 AM.

[ebea51]

Sounds good.
Its good to hear something is being done.

Its not changing the PPC from a AC10 that is a ballistic weapon that is smaller, lighter, has better ranged, has a faster projectile and has unlimited ammo... but since PGI doesn't want to change the character of the PPC (which does make the PPC standout/have a characteristic different from the other energy weapons), this is a good compromise that makes a lot of sense.

I don't think it is tooo complicated.
Maybe it is for people that build single weapon group mechs... but everyone has learnt and adapted to the gauss charge and ghost heat and multi-weapon heat penalties fine.
They will adapt to this fine.

It makes sense that high energy weapons would drain mech systems when used so that if you used a heap of other high power weapons that other high power systems/weapons wouldn't be able to function.

However, the 'energy cap' (ill call it) system (I believe) may/could be implemented onto all energy weapons too (not just 'high' energy weapons) to simulate collective energy-draw by a high number of energy weapons. For example:
1) Its fair that you fire more than 2 Large Lasers you get ghost heat but you could implement Energy-Cap on them so a maximum number of Large Lasers you can fire simultaneously to 4.
2) Its fair that you fire more than 4 Medium Lasers you get ghost heat but you could implement Energy-Cap on them so a maximum number of Medium Lasers you can fire simultaneously to 6.
etc, etc....

You could raise this Energy-Cap by running larger STD or XL engines.

You could introduce CAPACITOR modules which decrease the recharge time for Energy-Cap.


But overall I think it is an EXCELENT idea that will help slow the pace down, make mechs feel more armoured and increase the feeling of 'battle of attrition' which (for me) typifies BattleTech and MechWarrior.

I would LOVE to see the system implemented!!

[Alkarel]

My first post after more than a year of MWO. It seems I was part of the famous "silent majority".

Well... The idea of slowing down the PPC projectile is just a BAD idea.

First, a PPC cannot be slower than an AC. It is just physically ridiculous.
Second, this nerf will affect every mech using PPCs, not only the meta-oriented ones.

Third, this nerf will affect IS mechs more than Clan mechs. CERLLs are a very strong weapon: Clan players can just switch from CERPPCs to CERLLs still being extremely powerful. An IS player does not have an adequate back-up.

At last, i'm really tired of PPC nerfs. Just stop working on them. If you continue nerfing every single weapon used in competitive game, you will end up in nerfing flamers.

So please, continue to work on the first mechanic and don't touch PPCs.

[Lex Peregrine]

There would be no need for this if the game used the cone-of-fire system, so weapons didnt hit exacly where they're being aimed at, with variance depending on speed, jump jets, weapon impacts and mech characteristics.

Also you might consider making the PPC a beam/projectile hybrid, lower projectile speed to 1000 (or not) and add a short beam duration.

This game is too heavy on ballistic type weapons, even ACs should work as a projectile stream, with AC20 firing 20 shots in sequence (no interruptions) while uAC20 firing 10 shots of 2 projectiles each (cutting discharge time in half which is the ideal advantage of uAC). Gauss should be the only weapon that gives full damage on the same impact area. Then there would be no need for ghost heat and skill would play a larger role as even an AC20 must be kept on target during disharge to have full effect.

PGI, there are simpler solutions! Your design is wrong and you're trying to over-complicate things just to fix your design decisions.

[Daddy Pig]

50% speed decrease sounds terrible, I'm not sure about the other solution but don't do this please.

[POWR]

I personally think that the projectile speed is the most easily understandable way to make things come more into line with eachother. It'll reduce effective engagement distance for PPCs, and as such discourage the combination of gauss+PPC, due to the inherent danger for the gauss user of being in close quarters combat.

Also it'll make PPCs an energy weapon that'll sit at the point between LL/ERLL and long-range ballistics giving it a good tradeoff in the "instant" one-point damage delivery vs. range vs. heat.

The other mechanic is interesting, but I think it'll just be overly complicated and error prone.

Reducing the projectile speed might also be beneficial for the network code of the game. At least in the past (and in other games) high speeds make things difficult.


And people, don't come with knee-jerk reactions to the sentence "50% reduction". 1500m/sec is extreme and part of the whole sniping meta problem. The fewer weapons like this that exist the less power a snipe build will be able to frontload and as such it'll end up taking more skill and in general make the game more enjoyable for everyone.

Props for 50% reduction. It's STILL very fast and you'll still be able to pinpoint fire at people at near max sensor range.

Edited by POWR, 30 July 2014 - 01:42 AM.

[POWR]

Lex Peregrine, on 30 July 2014 - 01:26 AM, said:

There would be no need for this if the game used the cone-of-fire system, so weapons didnt hit exacly where they're being aimed at, with variance depending on speed, jump jets, weapon impacts and mech characteristics.

Also you might consider making the PPC a beam/projectile hybrid, lower projectile speed to 1000 (or not) and add a short beam duration.

This game is too heavy on ballistic type weapons, even ACs should work as a projectile stream, with AC20 firing 20 shots in sequence (no interruptions) while uAC20 firing 10 shots of 2 projectiles each (cutting discharge time in half which is the ideal advantage of uAC). Gauss should be the only weapon that gives full damage on the same impact area. Then there would be no need for ghost heat and skill would play a larger role as even an AC20 must be kept on target during disharge to have full effect.

PGI, there are simpler solutions! Your design is wrong and you're trying to over-complicate things just to fix your design decisions.

Except your solution here is pretty dull, basically turning everything in to beamweapons. There's a different skill requirement for hitting movement targets with the IS AC20. The projectile speed reduction will make everything much better.

[Vassago Rain]

Lex Peregrine, on 30 July 2014 - 01:26 AM, said:

There would be no need for this if the game used the cone-of-fire system, so weapons didnt hit exacly where they're being aimed at, with variance depending on speed, jump jets, weapon impacts and mech characteristics.

Also you might consider making the PPC a beam/projectile hybrid, lower projectile speed to 1000 (or not) and add a short beam duration.

This game is too heavy on ballistic type weapons, even ACs should work as a projectile stream, with AC20 firing 20 shots in sequence (no interruptions) while uAC20 firing 10 shots of 2 projectiles each (cutting discharge time in half which is the ideal advantage of uAC). Gauss should be the only weapon that gives full damage on the same impact area. Then there would be no need for ghost heat and skill would play a larger role as even an AC20 must be kept on target during disharge to have full effect.

PGI, there are simpler solutions! Your design is wrong and you're trying to over-complicate things just to fix your design decisions.

It's too heavy on ballistics because the other options are jokes.

SRMs, up until like a month ago, didn't work. They simply didn't work.
LRMs are a go big or go home deal. You wanted to take one big launcher? Hahaha, what a scrub!
Lasers are effectively side-arms. They are hot, duration based, and apply damage too slowly to matter.
Hybrid guns like the LBX are effectively crippled thanks to half-baked implementation. I should want to upgrade my ACs to LBXs, but because they combine the worst aspects of missiles with ballistics, there's no real point.
Flamers?

[Moriquendi86]

Sorry Paul but I don't like both solutions. The gauss + PPC lock is too complicated and arbitrary. Reducing speed of PPC projectile will harm also other mech builds and make this weapon drastically ineffective.

I do have a suggestion inspired by "Warrior: En Garde" BT book how it could be handled differently and maybe also replace heat scale being a little simpler.

In that book Mechwarriors refer to heat meter being in green zone, yellow zone and red zone which could be easily adapted to MWO.
Green zone would be up to 40% of maximum heat, its safe zone and players would suffer no penalties while operating mechs in this area.
Yellow zone would be between 40% and 85%, at this point mech is pretty hot so heat dissipation would be slower and firing more than 2 weapons of any type at the same time would generate additional heat.
Red zone would be above 85%, at this point heat dissipation would be significantly reduced and firing more than one weapon of any type at the same time would generate additional heat. As a stretch goal I would add visual representation how high heat affects pilot and mech, for example darkened screen, blured vision, flickering hud, steam in the cockpit.

All numbers and effects are examples only and could be tweaked without sacrificing general idea of this system.

[Clownwarlord]

[color=#C7C7C7]DAMN $%*&^%$%#^%#(*&)&^*%@!@#!)&^%@!$@#! ... They better not mess with my PPCs they can **** up the Gauss all they want BUT LEAVE MY PPCs ALONE![/color]

[color=#C7C7C7]That is my opinion. As for the mechanics between the charging and firing it is fine with me between gauss and ppcs but still again don't mess with the ppcs when they are by them selves.[/color]


[color=#C7C7C7]OK I have an idea![/color]

[color=#C7C7C7]The Gauss and PPC need to be broken up because the combo is to deadly right? Yes, well sorta.[/color]

[color=#C7C7C7]Either way I have a solution. An on off switch on the Gauss this on switch will auto charge the rifles so you can shoot it when its charged (even snap fire), but what it does is disallow any other energy based weapon to be fired while this is switched on. So when you switch it off you drain the charge of the Gauss Rifles and when that happens you can use your energy weapons.[/color]

[color=#C7C7C7]Now what this also does is if the gauss rifle is damage to explode it will not unless it was charged at the time of the damage. (otherwise ti just goes dead and wont be used).[/color]

[Kamies]

PPC is already too hot for brawling. Now you are going to make it too slow for sniping. Please explain what PPC is supposed to do in this game.

[Heeden]

I'd prefer a solution where certain weapon systems have a short, shared cooldown so for example Gauss, PPCs and maybe AC-20s can not be group fired, and using one locks out the rest for 0.2 - 0.5 seconds (random number). Maybe give some chassis the ability to ignore that restriction (preferably mechs with low-slung weapons such as PPC Awesomes).

[Therrinian]

The energy based mechanic seems complicated and awkward to work with.

The projectile speed I think falls in line with the previous incarnations of the PPC and I'd feel much more comfortable with.

Its a cool blue beam of death, if it hits you, you get burnt. However it required lots of pilot skill to execute efficiently.

Skill is rewarded and I like that.

[Cest7]

Can you do a linear speed degradation for the PPC? 1500m/s @ 0m, 700m/s at 540m? This would force a change in aim for long shots on moving target with PPC+Gauss.

Also plz buff the gauss recycle to 3.25 seconds.

[Almeras]

Milt, on 29 July 2014 - 03:42 PM, said:

I really can't say I'm fond of either. I would rather see the PPC fire something like a "bolt" of energy with a defined length so that you could spread damage.

This^

maybe front weighted and something like 6,2,2

[meteorol]

POWR, on 30 July 2014 - 01:40 AM, said:

Props for 50% reduction. It's STILL very fast and you'll still be able to pinpoint fire at people at near max sensor range.

Do you realize that said 50% reduction will pretty much cut down the PPC to ac20 speed? You call that "very fast" for a weapon that has a 90m min range and causes 10 heat per shot? About as fast as a weapon with a 270m optimum range? It would make the PPC the second slowest projectile weapon, with nothing but the 270m brawling ac20 being slower.

You call that "very fast"? What is slow in your opinion if i might ask?

Edited by meteorol, 30 July 2014 - 02:28 AM.