1263 replies to this topic

[Ultimax]

1) I don't agree with any more nerfs to individual weapon systems, or using them together.
2) Find a solution for converge, I recognize that HSR issues means that this is difficult, but this has consistently been the primary root cause.
3) 750 projectile speed for PPCs is just laughable - This could possibly push PPCs into "awful" status.

Assuming the nerf goes through anyway...

3) 1s delay seems excessive. 0.25 or 0.5s should be more than sufficient to prevent convergence which is the actual issue not the damage.
4) As the Gauss charge up was implemented to de-synch it from PPCs, and nerfs to using these two systems together should remove the Gauss charge up nerf.

[Titus Ryan]

With all the problems they have had with HSR, trying to create convergence system seems unlikely, even though it would be great.

[JigglyMoobs]

If they go through with a ppc speed nerf all you will get is a long range clan erll meta. Having tried that in a few premades the last week I can tell you its about asas fun and exciting as watching grass grow.

[Roland]

Paul,
I would suggest that instead of convoluted mechanisms designed to deal with the flavor of the month, you instead refocus your efforts to deal with the real underlying cause of all of these problems.

The real cause of almost all of the balance issues you have with direct damage precision weapons is the fact that all weapons converge on a single point instantly.

If you address this, then you won't need silly mechanisms like ghost heat, or Gauss charging, or whatever system you are concocting to try and deal with ppc and gauss combinations.

At this point, you have likely wasted more time with these consistently unpopular changes in game mechanics. They alternate your existing player base, while simultaneously making the game far less accessible to new players.

It is time you cut your losses and deal with the problem properly, and stop trying to make these bandaid fix that will fail to deal with the problem.

[Wintersdark]

Alexander Carlile, on 02 August 2014 - 12:20 AM, said:

What it seams the devs are trying to counter, is the player abuse of macros to get the edge over others in game. There are those that use macros to fire gauss with one shot, and there is also a macro that fires the gauss with enough delay that PPC and the Gauss projectile hit at almost the same time. The same exists for the UAC preventing them from jamming. So do not complain about this changes they are trying to level up the game that is being abused by cheaters.

Oh, here we go again. Look, there is no advantage to be gained by macros. NONE.

You can NOT fire a gauss rifle without charging first: It looks like that when you're spectating because it doesn't show spectators the GR charging.

There is no reason to macro the charge/fire mechanic; that's just silly! You'd make it WORSE, because you'd lose control over when you fired. It's just hold to charge and release to fire, after all.

You could make a macro to fire the Gauss and PPC as the same time, but that's not an advantage: You can do it simply by holding LMB (gauss rifle) to charge, then releasing LMB and pressing RMB at the same time. Can you do that? Release one button and press another at the same time? Is it hard for you? If you DID macro it, so you can always fire both with one button instead of needing two, that'd be the extent of your gain... and if you wanted to be able to fire the PPC individually without a charge delay, you'd need a second keybind/group again anyways!

You know how else you can fire an Ultra Autocannon without jamming? JUST HOLD THE BUTTON DOWN. That's it. There's no macro for that.

There's no gain from macro's in this game at all. There never has been. Macro's don't, never have, and can not let you do anything you couldn't do manually in the first place.

Stop repeating mindless idiocy you hear from other people who have no freaking clue what they're talking about.

(All this from someone who doesn't use macros, but understands exactly how they work and is quite skilled at making them. I *would* use macros in MWO, if there was any gain from it whatsoever.)

Ultimatum X, on 02 August 2014 - 11:58 AM, said:

4) As the Gauss charge up was implemented to de-synch it from PPCs, and nerfs to using these two systems together should remove the Gauss charge up nerf.

Gauss charge is never going to go away. It adds "flavour" to the weapon. I'm not saying this is good or bad, but it's the reality - they'll never remove it.

Edited by Wintersdark, 02 August 2014 - 12:36 PM.

[Odins Fist]

So, nerfing the PPC and ERPPC to half particle projection speed..

Anyone else think this idea is not quite right?

[Kmieciu]

IS PPC is the best energy weapon you can put on a medium/heavy/assault mech. Once you master it, you cannot do better using lasers. Therefore it needs nerfing, and speed nerf is the way to go.
It will still be useful against slow moving targets, but lights and mediums will be able to dodge it more easily. And we need more lights and mediums on the battlefield.

[Felicitatem Parco]

Kmieciu, on 02 August 2014 - 12:38 PM, said:

IS PPC is the best energy weapon you can put on a medium/heavy/assault mech. Once you master it, you cannot do better using lasers. Therefore it needs nerfing, and speed nerf is the way to go.
It will still be useful against slow moving targets, but lights and mediums will be able to dodge it more easily. And we need more lights and mediums on the battlefield.

yes, you could dodge it.. just as easily as we can dodge an AC/10...

.... HOWEVER when they hit you with that PPC, it'll actually be 2PPCs and an AC/10 slug that traveled at the same speed and landed at the same place at the same time. 30 pinpoint damage made easy, thanks to a move that's meant to curb simultaneous weapons usage.

[Odins Fist]

Kmieciu, on 02 August 2014 - 12:38 PM, said:

IS PPC is the best energy weapon you can put on a medium/heavy/assault mech.

Therefore it needs nerfing, and speed nerf is the way to go.

It will still be useful against slow moving targets,

How about "NO" ok...
.

[Roland]

If you nerf the ppc, people will just migrate to the erll, since it actually does better damage anyway, and requires very little skill to use since it's hitscan.

[Lightfoot]

I use a Joystick and you can't aim the Gauss Rifle accurately enough within the one second firing window for it to be worth 15-18 tons of payload space. Maybe if it did 25-30 damage, but for just 15 damage it's not worth the added inaccuracy of the de-sync.

I realize many players have fits over getting their mechs taken out by the Gauss Rifle's abruptness, but it seemed normal to me coming from MechWarrior 3 and 4 multiplayer leagues.

That aside, I can't figure out how you would fire a Gauss Rifle and PPC together with the desync. I guess that is a macro?

PPCs are so hot why don't you just link PPCs and Gauss Rifles with Ghost Heat?

PPC speeds you suggest seem too slow, but there is the other issue that most MWO players do not move laterally under attack, but prefer instead to jockey back and forth over the crest of a hill. So slowing the PPCs down will not help them unless it is so overdone that the simulation value of MWO is severely harmed.

I can't visualize what 750 and 850 meters per second look like, but it seems the PPC is very heavily nerfed now. 10 damage, 10 heat, 7 tons, maximum two with no heat scale penalty, 90 meter minimum range. Compare to the Clan ER Medium 1 ton, 1 slot, 7 damage, 5 heat, 450 meter range, 6 max alpha (42 damage). These seem much more deadly than the PPC. And in gameplay they are by a whopping margin for me. But, of course they are not available to Inner Sphere mechs... but the PPC is. Do not ignore this tipping point.

And I bring this comparison up because the actual goal is to balance the weapons across a wide spectrum of mechs. I think there is too much, hysteria-?, about FLD pin-point weapons being some new sort of horror to be removed from MWO, but in Battletech/MechWarrior the FLD weapons have an accuracy boost and the DoT weapons get a damage boost. This variation allows players to use alternate strategies and styles that suit them and if they are balanced then everything comes down to individual skill and tactics. That adds great depth to MWO and MechWarrior.

[Reno Blade]

Roland, on 02 August 2014 - 01:18 PM, said:

If you nerf the ppc, people will just migrate to the erll, since it actually does better damage anyway, and requires very little skill to use since it's hitscan.

That would still be the intended effect.
Laser spreads damage and the target can mitigate by twisting and using cover.
The shooter also needs to stand in the open for the full time and look at the target if he wants the full beam on target.
This leaves shooters for ERLL and CERLL a lot more vulnerable than PPC, AC or Gauss who only need a split second exposure.
And their target can NOT mitigate any damage by twisting if the weapons are not desynced (either by projectile speed or other delay mechanics).

[JigglyMoobs]

Lightfoot, on 02 August 2014 - 01:46 PM, said:

I use a Joystick and you can't aim the Gauss Rifle accurately enough within the one second firing window for it to be worth 15-18 tons of payload space. Maybe if it did 25-30 damage, but for just 15 damage it's not worth the added inaccuracy of the de-sync.

I feel for you joystick users. One they there will be a joystick that's as precise as a mouse. In the mean time.......

Quote

I realize many players have fits over getting their mechs taken out by the Gauss Rifle's abruptness, but it seemed normal to me coming from MechWarrior 3 and 4 multiplayer leagues.

Exactly. A lot of the complaints seem to be coming from people who have never played multiplayer versus skilled human opponents. before. Do people really expect a skill human opponent to act like the AI in MW4? Or even more ridiculously, do people expect a simulation to work out like a board game? The problem is not that this game isn't like Battletech, the problem is that the board games, books and single player games give the entirely wrong impression of how real people would adapt to this fictional world.

So, what is the problem with PP/FLD?

• Does it lead to overly fragile mechs? No, not if you practice torso twisting, positioning and maneuver, and utilize terrain for cover.
  
• Does it make it too easy for people piloting certain weapon loads? No. To be able to look at the paper doll, aim instantly, sync PPC/Gauss and fire, while torso twisting, maneuvering and using terrain, is one of the most demanding tasks in the game. It is only ever easy versus people who are standing still. It is never easy against smart opponents.
  
• Is it preventing the utilization of other weapons? No, there are plenty of people using lasers, autocanons and LRMs. Those builds are all viable except at the highest levels of competition under specific rule sets.

As far as I can tell, there are only two reasons people are complaining:

• When better people show up in PPC/Gauss they are dying too quickly.
  
• When you take DOT builds you cannot trade favorably vs PP/FLD because you cannot torso twist like they can.

That's yet! Those are the only two issues. So instead of creating these byzantine things like desync - Gauss/PPC or ghost heat or cone of fire, how about just doing some thing simple:

• Buff all internal structures by 20%.
  
• Lower dwell times for all lasers except ER-LLs.
  
• Raise autocannon burst rates.

DONE.

That really is precisely what people want. It requires no complexity. Gives no extra server load. Creates no extraneous issues. People of all skill levels will simply live longer and fight longer. It will give those with even the slowest reflexes time to react and spread the damage at least a little and get in a few shots. Better players will still be able to benefit from their skills. PPCs and Gauss won't be slower than canon-balls flying out of civil war era howitzers and yet laser and other DOT users will be able to trade better. We won't be stuck with some god awful ERLL meta or LRM meta that will probably make people abandon the game in DROVES.

Make it simple folks. And if 20% doesn't do it, adjust the numbers until it works.

Quote

That aside, I can't figure out how you would fire a Gauss Rifle and PPC together with the desync. I guess that is a macro?

No just put Gauss on one mouse button, PPCs on the other. Hold Gauss, charge, release and press other buttons at the same time. It's simple to learn. Just takes a single day of practice.

Edited by JigglyMoobs, 02 August 2014 - 02:41 PM.

[XX Sulla XX]

Cant we just break with canon and add heat to the gauss and remove its charge system? Then it would not pair as well with the PPCs. If you had to you could add the gauss to the same ghost heat pool as the PPCs. With all the energy involved with a gauss it does make sense that it would creat more heat. It really is just an efficiency question. Just say more of the energy gets wasted as heat.

Then if Clan ERLLs are a problem just adjust duration and or heat.

Edited by XX Sulla XX, 02 August 2014 - 02:53 PM.

[Steel Scout]

If you're going to do it, I would go with the active charging mechanism. Slowing down the PPC just nerfs the weapon for others who may not be using it in a combo mechanism. It is purposefully designed as a long range weapon and slowing it down makes it less accurate at long range which shouldn't really be the end goal.

[stjobe]

JigglyMoobs, on 02 August 2014 - 02:30 PM, said:

So, what is the problem with PP/FLD?

It breaks the armour system, a system that was designed for spread damage.

Pin-point Accuracy, Instant Convergence, and Front-Loaded Damage is really the underlying problem as to why the devs have such a hard time balancing the weapons, and why we have our convoluted Ghost Heat system, Gauss Charge, and now suggestion 1 from the OP.

Sure, the naive and simplistic heat system also contributes (where's the escalating heat penalties, adding movement and accuracy penalties and risk of shutdown/ammo explosions as heat increases? Nowhere, that's where), but the main issue is, and always has been, the above Three Horsemen of the MWO Apocalypse:

Pin-Point Accuracy in and of itself wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for Instant Convergence and that some weapon have Front-Loaded Damage while most have not. FLD is simply better than spread damage, and instantly converged FLD with perfect accuracy is so much better than anything else it's actually amazing people still use weapons that aren't FLD. Twist to spread incoming damage? Impossible with FLD weapons, very effective against non-FLD weapons.

However, Front-Loaded Damage in and of itself wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for Instant Convergence. A 50-point Dual Gauss + Dual PPC alpha would hurt a hell of a lot less if it came as 15+15+10+10 damage hitting 2-4 locations instead of just one.

Instant Convergence is worst of the issues, and it cannot be solved with the current HSR implementation.

There is, however, an extremely simple solution that could be coded up and introduced in the next patch if PGI so desired: Disallow more than one weapon from firing at once by adding a short (or even very short) global cooldown on all weapons; 0.1-0.3 seconds would likely be enough to spread weapons fire enough to make it hit different sections on a moving target from a moving firer.

The "all weapons fire at once" alpha strike concept isn't even in BattleTech lore; it can't be a holy cow that must be preserved at all costs. Kill it, and you won't have a need for either of the systems in the OP, nor for Ghost Heat.

[Shae Starfyre]

Because it may be possible to Macro the mechanics (not an expert; but I would hate for it to be implemented to find out it is easily managed with a macro), the slow down seems more appealing to me.

However, the speed must be managed in such a way that it doesn't come close to other weapons so that synergy cannot be achieved.

I assume the 50% reduction takes this into account and that all other posters who suggest a different speed is hoping that it will synergize with another weapon, thus putting us back in the same boat (I am not sure what these different speeds are, just want to point out that the best intentions can be lead by our devious natures).

Edited by Aphoticus, 02 August 2014 - 03:46 PM.

[Wintersdark]

Aphoticus, on 02 August 2014 - 03:42 PM, said:

Because it may be possible to Macro the mechanics (not an expert; but I would hate for it to be implemented to find out it is easily managed with a macro), the slow down seems more appealing to me.

However, the speed must be managed in such a way that it doesn't come close to other weapons so that synergy cannot be achieved.

I assume the 50% reduction takes this into account and that all other posters who suggest a different speed is hoping that it will synergize with another weapon, thus putting us back in the same boat (I am not sure what these different speeds are, just want to point out that the best intentions can be lead by our devious natures).

Not everyone is devious and angling to get Their Favourite Loadout buffed. In fact, you'll find most of us long time folks are pretty dedicated fans who are much more interested in the long term health of the game. After all, we've got LOTS of mechs, LOTS of weapons, we can adapt to whatever changes quite easily.

I'm not even a founder (and as such didn't get a huge MC lump, or founders mechs), I don't play *nearly* as much as many, but I've got 66 mechs (well, to be honest, had - I recently sold 6, taking me down to 60). It doesn't matter to me what changes, what's good or what's bad, as I'll probably still have the best mechs in the game no matter which that is.

And the macro thing? Just stop. There's NOTHING in this game right now improved by macros. Nothing. Not only can everything easily be done without them, but in almost every case they're a net disadvantage.

Unless such complex tasks as pressing the left mouse button and holding it, then releasing it and pressing the right mouse button at the same time is somehow hard for a person to manage; but if that IS hard for them (physically disabled?) macros aren't giving them an advantage that others don't have.

[Wintersdark]

Sandpit, on 02 August 2014 - 11:23 AM, said:

instead of a hard limit though if you changed convergence so that it "jumps" just slightly if you fire multiple large weapons. Lasers aren't the issue and that would hurt lasers. If you fire
more than 1 AC20
2 AC10
2PPC
3 AC5
4 AC2

then your convergence gets knocked off target just slightly. Just enough to allow a savvy pilot to spread the damage from one central location to possibly 2. That's the simplest and easiest way I can think of to solve the issue. Requires no "ground up" coding, doesn't limit players from being able to boat and even alpha, but it does cost a little in the accuracy department.

See: Li Song's suggestion here: http://mwomercs.com/...enalty-proposal

And the more formal writeup: https://docs.google....=h.akdmy98i2w0o

Edited by Wintersdark, 02 August 2014 - 04:01 PM.

[Kristov Kerensky]

stjobe, on 02 August 2014 - 03:38 PM, said:

The "all weapons fire at once" alpha strike concept isn't even in BattleTech lore; it can't be a holy cow that must be preserved at all costs. Kill it, and you won't have a need for either of the systems in the OP, nor for Ghost Heat.

You obviously don't know the lore very well...makes me wonder if you know it at all considering some of your other posts where you mention the lore and are totally backwards as well.