90 replies to this topic

[Pjwned]

I would like to see clan gauss rifles toned down slightly, whether it be more explosion damage when critically hit or a very slight increase in charge time or something like that, because as of now it's just objectively better than IS gauss rifles.

Other than that I would still like to see the amount of time doubled to hold a gauss shot, right now you can only hold the shot for 1.25 seconds and that's way too short for what kind of weapon we're talking about.

[Joseph Mallan]

Jazzbandit1313, on 29 July 2014 - 08:54 PM, said:

even if you cant agree with me on that,you must at least be open to the fact that ppc+gauss pinpoint is ridiculous. If you dont even remotely think that, then there is no point in arguing as our viewpoints are completely opposite

Pin Point is something I have been against since Closed Beta. So technically you are agreeing with me on that.

[Jazzbandit1313]

Pjwned, on 29 July 2014 - 08:55 PM, said:

I would like to see clan gauss rifles toned down slightly, whether it be more explosion damage when critically hit or a very slight increase in charge time or something like that, because as of now it's just objectively better than IS gauss rifles.

Other than that I would still like to see the amount of time doubled to hold a gauss shot, right now you can only hold the shot for 1.25 seconds and that's way too short for what kind of weapon we're talking about.

i agree with the nerf part, but doubling the hold time? thats preposterous

[Joseph Mallan]

Pjwned, on 29 July 2014 - 08:55 PM, said:

I would like to see clan gauss rifles toned down slightly, whether it be more explosion damage when critically hit or a very slight increase in charge time or something like that, because as of now it's just objectively better than IS gauss rifles.

Other than that I would still like to see the amount of time doubled to hold a gauss shot, right now you can only hold the shot for 1.25 seconds and that's way too short for what kind of weapon we're talking about.

I don't think I'd be against a slight buff to the Explosive damage, 30-40 damage would be Ok to me.

[Pjwned]

Jazzbandit1313, on 29 July 2014 - 09:03 PM, said:

i agree with the nerf part, but doubling the hold time? thats preposterous

Er, in case it wasn't clear, I don't mean doubling the time needed to charge the shot, I mean how long you can hold the shot before it dissipates, which I think is too short now.

If that was clear, then why is it preposterous*? If you're trying to hit a moving target or you see somebody coming around a corner you should have more time to hold the shot, 1.25 seconds is nothing and if you try to hold the shot for a little bit too long then you lose the charge and need to hold the fire button down for another 0.75 seconds just to get it back, that shouldn't happen so quickly for a weapon like the gauss rifle.

Edited by Pjwned, 29 July 2014 - 09:10 PM.

[Mcgral18]

Joseph Mallan, on 29 July 2014 - 09:06 PM, said:

I don't think I'd be against a slight buff to the Explosive damage, 30-40 damage would be Ok to me.

It wouldn't affect Clans much, STD IS mechs would have to invest into CASE, and XL mechs are already dead so it doesn't make a difference there.

I don't think that would change too much in the current game. Mauler might change my opinion on that, though.

Edited by Mcgral18, 29 July 2014 - 09:12 PM.

[Joseph Mallan]

That would be nice, but I can see plenty of players who could take the extended charge and continue to combine Gauss/PPC with LESS pressure.

Mcgral18, on 29 July 2014 - 09:11 PM, said:

It wouldn't affect Clans much, IS mechs would have to invest into CASE, and XL mechs are already dead so it doesn't make a difference there.

I don't think that would change too much in the current game. Mauler might change my opinion on that, though.

CASE would not stop the Internal structure from taking damage just keeping it from spreading. 20 damage AFAIR is less than my Atlas Side structure(42)... which is again double the TT numbers.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 29 July 2014 - 09:14 PM.

[Khobai]

Quote

Not my problem. You are in a light Mech you are meant to be fragile Kho.

Then theres no reason to play a light or medium mech. Ever. So your reasoning is obviously flawed.

Light and medium mechs should be as good as heavies and assaults, because they all occupy an equal spot on the team. If pinpoint damage prevents them from being as good as heavies and assaults then pinpoint damage needs to be reduced. Its really that simple.

Because it should be obvious that were never going to get actual role warfare. So the best we can hope for is lights and mediums getting a reasonable buff to their survivability in the form of pinpoint damage being reduced across the board.

Edited by Khobai, 29 July 2014 - 09:29 PM.

[Pezzer]

My personal opinion is this.

Gauss Rifles don't produce enough heat/have enough drawbacks. My opinion is that they should produce more heat or the crit chance should be higher. Or maybe ammo could be reduced to 8/ton.

[Mcgral18]

Joseph Mallan, on 29 July 2014 - 09:13 PM, said:

CASE would not stop the Internal structure from taking damage just keeping it from spreading. 20 damage AFAIR is less than my Atlas Side structure(42)... which is again double the TT numbers.

It would stop the leftover 30 damage from spreading into your CT, which is very handy. Your gauss doesn't explode willy nilly, it requires at least 5 damage...which can be overkilled by over 50. 30 IS is quite a bit, and I'd be very willing to spend .5 tons to prevent that 90% explosion chance.

[Jazzbandit1313]

Pjwned, on 29 July 2014 - 09:08 PM, said:

Er, in case it wasn't clear, I don't mean doubling the time needed to charge the shot, I mean how long you can hold the shot before it dissipates, which I think is too short now.

If that was clear, then why is it preposterous*? If you're trying to hit a moving target or you see somebody coming around a corner you should have more time to hold the shot, 1.25 seconds is nothing and if you try to hold the shot for a little bit too long then you lose the charge and need to hold the fire button down for another 0.75 seconds just to get it back, that shouldn't happen so quickly for a weapon like the gauss rifle.

No, i understand completely. If anything, the hold time for being able to release the shot should be reduced. 1.25 is an eternity relatively.

[Elizander]

Shhh. Leave my Gauss Rifle alone.

Well, they buffed my Awesome so I guess you can start complaining about Gauss now.

[Khobai]

the whole chargeup mechanic on gauss should be removed anyway. the majority of the player base hates it.

Gauss should either do 33% splash damage like the CERPPC or maybe the damage on gauss should be lowered to 10 and gauss should have a random chance to penetrate armor and damage internals directly.

but the chargeup mechanic needs to go.

[Y E O N N E]

The sophisticated

Pezzer, on 29 July 2014 - 09:18 PM, said:

My personal opinion is this.

Gauss Rifles don't produce enough heat/have enough drawbacks. My opinion is that they should produce more heat or the crit chance should be higher. Or maybe ammo could be reduced to 8/ton.

I can get behind the heat increase. A weapons-grade Gauss Rifle still has tons of capacitors and other electrical components that get incredibly hot during use. Similar to an electric laser, actually, which also has to build a charge before firing.

[Pjwned]

Jazzbandit1313, on 29 July 2014 - 09:23 PM, said:

No, i understand completely. If anything, the hold time for being able to release the shot should be reduced. 1.25 is an eternity relatively.

It seems pretty clear that the intent is for the gauss rifle to be essentially a souped up sniper rifle, if you require them to charge the shot (which is fine, but...) then they need enough time to adjust the shot. Have you used gauss rifles much and seen what a pain in the ass it is to use under anything less than ideal conditions because of how little time it has to hold the shot? I'm not saying it's not a powerful weapon, because it is, but if it's too frustrating to use then that's really lame, especially because it's a rather unique weapon now.

It sucks to not have enough time to adjust the shot because if you just haphazardly fire then the significant re-fire cooldown sets in and you easily may have shot at a component that had no importance or even just completely missed. The other thing is that if somebody decides to pop-tart against a gauss rifle then it would be easier to land a gauss shot on them, which is the way it should be because there's already not much risk for taking enemy fire while pop-tarting.

I've given some arguments for why the hold time should be increased, I'd like to see some reasons why it shouldn't be (or even decreased further, which I do not agree with in the least) since I haven't seen any yet.

Khobai, on 29 July 2014 - 09:29 PM, said:

the whole chargeup mechanic on gauss should be removed anyway. the majority of the player base hates it.

Gauss should either do 33% splash damage like the CERPPC or maybe the damage on gauss should be lowered to 10 and gauss should have a random chance to penetrate armor and damage internals directly.

but the chargeup mechanic needs to go.

If it should just be removed simply because "the majority of the player base hates it" then I don't really think that's a good enough reason, there are already PPCs if you want a long range, pinpoint snap-fire weapon, I don't really see why we need what (was) would essentially be a ballistic clone of PPCs.

It would be less hated if there was more time to hold the shot, and perhaps it would be warranted to reduce the charge-up time a little bit (though I don't exactly agree with this) and/or reduce the re-fire cooldown due to it taking a rather large nerf in that regard after the charge-up mechanic was introduced. I would much rather see it adjusted in other ways before seeing it go back to the way it was, not to mention that with the charge-up mechanic it keeps the high pinpoint damage PPC + gauss combo a little bit in line by making it harder to use.

Edited by Pjwned, 29 July 2014 - 09:48 PM.

[Gyrok]

Jazzbandit1313, on 29 July 2014 - 07:16 PM, said:

Ever since the clans were introduced, we have been seeing a lot of folks cram dual gauss rifles in whatever they can. This is because, obviously, the Direwhales and Warpigeons have good HP layouts for it. There's finally a couple of assault dual separate ballistic mechs, and they are both clam mechs. I believe that is what made the push back to dual gauss builds. Now, this isn't to say there weren't any pre-clan patch. There were plenty, but after the invasion, I'm seeing more and more IS and Clam dual gauss'ers. Kitties, Jagers, Phracts and what have you. (and the occasional gausscicada) The amount of DW and WH with dual gauss and some sort of energy layout is at least 30%-40% from what i see. (I play at least 5-10 rounds per day)

Now I'm not here to complain about gauss and the way it's implemented in the game. I think, overall, it's a (sorta) well balanced weapon. I've used the early, no-charge gauss and seen how overpowered it was, so I do have a point of reference when it comes to gauss balance.

Today when i was dropping with A. Winter, I (just for kicks) mounted a couple gauss to my Phract 3D and headed to Alpine. It was almost as if gauss had never changed to a charge mechanic, and was still easy as ever to use. The pros well outweigh the cons for this weapon, especially in a DW or WH where they have plenty of other armaments if a GR gets destroyed. I was averaging 600 damage, 3 kills, 6 assists per round. Not spectacular, but still pretty damn good. It seems to me that gauss is still slightly easier to use than PGI intended in the first place. The charge mechanic was a hard thing to learn to use efficiently, at first, but now that all the griping about it is over, it's really not that hard to use. In some cases, it proved more useful than the old gauss click to shoot, as it helps me center my shot(s) when sniping. During my gameplay, it seemed so satisfyingly easy to peak a corner with the right side of my phract and pop a couple of tungsten slugs into my enemy lightning quick, then retreat. Now I may be biased because I am fairly vigilant when it comes to protecting my torsos and spreading the damage, so I might have a little better survivability than the average gauss-boater. In pair with some PPC's (or a singular) Gauss is still the pinpoint king (taking into account all ranges)

Before my own opinions about change with gauss, lets lists the pros and cons of this weapon:

Pros:
-15 damage
-Huge Range
-High projectile speed
-Negligible heat
-Relatively good ammo/ton
-Relatively small amount of occupied slots compared to similar-damage weapons

Cons:
-Expensive
-Easiest weapon to be crit and destroyed
-Once destroyed, explosion mechanic
-Relatively heavy


Grey area: (Not Pros or Cons, but worthy notes)
-Charge mechanic (I find it useful, IMO)
-Inability to fire more than 2 rifles at once
-Same recycle time as its oafish brother, the AC/20


Let's look at some of these cons up close.

Expensive - Most players will be able to grind out 600K or 1.2M C-bills within a couple hours, so it is fairly attainable for any player. This is kind of a temporary con if you're poor.

Easiest Weapon to be Crit and Destroyed - Like i said above, it is fairly easy to protect your fragile gauss rifles if you know how to move your mouse from right to left. Heck, i guarantee 20%-40% of players don't even really aim for a specific place when fighting a mech, let alone a gauss wielding mech. Obviously more skilled players will notice a gauss and literally hunt that part of the enemy mech until its gone. Maybe I've just been picking the right fights during my 25-30 game exposé/experiment with dual gauss boating, but it seems that they are rarely destroyed more often than any other component of my mech.

Relatively Heavy - Is anyone honestly going to complain about 5-10 KPH being traded in for dual gauss? Its the perfect trade-off for sniping because you really don't move that much anyway.

To me, the explosion mechanic is the only real threat and serious con of the gauss rifle, leaving the pros to heavily outweigh the con(s)

This here is my main quarrel with this weapon. Being a long time player of this game, Finding a choke point with a couple enemies in it and pumping several volleys of gauss into their arms and CT's was just a bit too easy and quick. There may be some people that think the gauss rifle is the single hardest weapon in the game to use, and that may be true for you. But after extensive use, I guarantee any player with a decent skill set can manage using the gauss rifle very efficiently and quite effectively without many drawbacks)

Now this is where your interpretation comes into play. Did PGI mean the gauss rifle to be a long range ONLY support mech? Did they expect it to become the bane of all hill-peakers' torsos everywhere?

I'd like to brainstorm here. The best idea I've come up with for balancing this weapon perfectly, is to give energy weapons a slight nerf during and slightly after firing a gauss or two (two would compound the effect) Let's have gauss rifles do more than just dim the lights in the cabin and make a funky noise. I think that during charge up of a gauss rifle and for 2-3 seconds after firing, energy weapon damage from the same mech should be nerfed about 15%-20% This allows gauss to be a more risky weapon to fire, as a light could sneak up, making the fight a bit tougher due to lowered energy damage. Also, PPC's combo damage would be slightly reduced, making the insanely easy-pinpoint alpha a bit less, well let's be honest, overpowered. I mean come on, torso cherry red armor from peeking once and not seeing the DW 900 M out? PGI PLS

Besides a slight energy nerf during use, I believe a higher recycle time of 4.5-5 seconds would be good for balance. Twin gauss allows you to throw a ridiculous amount of no-heat damage downrange pretty darn quickly. The recycle and charge may seem like an eternity for some, but I felt it was a bit too fast to be balanced.

Just anther idea, why not make the charge time 1 second and the hold time 1 second. Currently it is .75 and 1.25. This would clearly make the weapon harder to use, and force the player to use the charge mechanic more efficiently. Seeing as there is a 1.25 second hold time right now, with fast enough leg movement (Jager or Phract) you could pop off shots as easy and quickly as you please from many angles. Just ready your shot while peeking, then let go while reversing. This is not the way that PGI intended the charge mechanic to work, as the peeking method above makes the gauss rifle seem like its old self again. (insta-shot)

These proposed cons would be unavoidable, unlike most of the cons explained above.

Anyway, I digress as this has officially become a TL:DR post. I hope we can discuss this issue and brainstorm ideas about the Gauss Rifle and it's current state of balance within MWO. Thanks for reading.

Sincerely,

A pissed off Awesome pilot with no side torso armor 1 minute into the game

P.S. that was only partially sarcastic

Nope, Gauss is fine, always has been, PPCs are not fine...but Gauss...Gauss is great...

[Gyrok]

Khobai, on 29 July 2014 - 09:17 PM, said:

Then theres no reason to play a light or medium mech. Ever. So your reasoning is obviously flawed.

Light and medium mechs should be as good as heavies and assaults, because they all occupy an equal spot on the team. If pinpoint damage prevents them from being as good as heavies and assaults then pinpoint damage needs to be reduced. Its really that simple.

Because it should be obvious that were never going to get actual role warfare. So the best we can hope for is lights and mediums getting a reasonable buff to their survivability in the form of pinpoint damage being reduced across the board.

Actually, no light should be as good as any medium, it should probably be half as good as a heavy, at best, and about 25% as effective as an assault mech.

They should die from a single AC20 round, they should get nearly legged by a single PPC, and they should be 40 kph slower.

If you cannot see how brokenly OP they are in comparison to what they should be, then perhaps piloting light mechs and medium mechs is not for you...?

I can run mediums, if I got nailed and taken out quick, I guess I was out of position.

Funny thing is, on these forums, when that happens, people come in here and complain it is the fault of the weapon that they were too stupid to not be out of position. Hell, I am a pretty damn good player and I screw up...yet...all these underhive players on the forums are automagically perfect and never screw up and it is the fault of the weapon...MOST CERTAINLY NOT their own.

Sounds like a gun control argument, to be honest...and the underhive is thankfully less successful in getting the 2nd amendment nerfed in real life...

Let us not make the same mistakes here that were made in the past by asking for something we do not want....

Edited by Gyrok, 29 July 2014 - 10:07 PM.

[Daddy Pig]

Jazzbandit1313, on 29 July 2014 - 07:16 PM, said:

Ever since the clans were introduced, we have been seeing a lot of folks cram dual gauss rifles in whatever they can. This is because, obviously, the Direwhales and Warpigeons have good HP layouts for it.

Warhawks can't do a good dual gaus, you trow away 10 tons of extra heatsinks that can't be removed.
Duirewolf is the only clan mech that can do a decent one, but in this case the problem isn't the dual gaus itself but all the other weapons it can mount with them.

[Khobai]

Quote

Actually, no light should be as good as any medium, it should probably be half as good as a heavy, at best, and about 25% as effective as an assault mech.

Of course they should be as good they occupy an equal slot on the team.

If theyre not as good why play them?

[Gyrok]

Khobai, on 29 July 2014 - 10:08 PM, said:

Of course they should be as good they occupy an equal slot on the team.

If theyre not as good why play them?

Because you like them...because they are fast...because they scout better...because it takes FAR more skill and you like the challenge,...

Pick a reason...but they should not be equal...EVER.