20 replies to this topic

[MeiSooHaityu]

Just throwing this out there and seeing how the community likes it. It uses an unpopular mechanic, but it seems like s descent idea.

First off, increase PPC/ERPPC velocity by 20 to 30%. The velocity is too low to be usable at this point without quirks.

Here is where it gets ugly...

Add a charge mechanic to the PPC/ERPPC similar to the Gauss Rifle. Have the charge time smaller than a Gauss so it is difficult (without a macro system) to link it with a gauss.

Have the charge limit currently with the gauss extended to the PPC or ERPPC and have it include the gauss as well. Basically a limit of two charge weapons charging at once allowed.

Charge Examples:
2 ERPPCs
2 PPCs
1 ERPPC and 1 PPC
1 PPC and 1 Gauss
1 ERPPC and 1 Gauss
2 Gauss

The PPC/ERPPC limit is included with the gauss so that even with a macro system, you still can only sync two high FLD weapons at once.

Lastly, possible replace some of the velocity quirks with a "no charge mechanic" quirk. That way if a mech is specialized around the PPC or ERPPC, it doesn't need to have the mechanic.

This overall allows the PPC / ERPPC to be more usable (velocity and maybe heat reduction), but at a cost similar to the gauss rifle. With a creation of a "no charge quirk", it can be even more user friendly on mechs that can have their FLD be more limited.

Side note: Honestly, they could have a no charge mechanic quirk for the Gauss too for the Grid Iron (and maybe offset with a slightly longer cool down).

Anyway...ideas?

[EvilCow]

I really dislike the charge mechanic, also, the whole idea was to desync PPCs from GRs.

[MeiSooHaityu]

EvilCow, on 13 January 2015 - 05:02 AM, said:

I really dislike the charge mechanic, also, the whole idea was to desync PPCs from GRs.

You missed the part about them having a different charge rate. It would make syncing gauss and PPCs difficult without a macro. Even with a macro, you could only fire 2 charge weapons at once limiting FLD potential.

I know the mechanic isn't terribly popular, but with the "no charge mechanic" quirk, mechs currently quirked for PPC/ERPPCs wouldn't have the mechanic anyway, it would just be in place for mechs without PPC quirks. Those mechs would have a faster projectile PPC with possibly less heat, but would have to sacrifice with the mechanic.

Just an idea.

[Mirumoto Izanami]

Charge should be on the PPC only, not the ERPPC, to simulate the soft minimum range that it has, similar to the gauss rifle. The ER PPC does not have a minimum range, and the downside is more heat.

[Wolfwood592]

Mirumoto Izanami, on 13 January 2015 - 05:22 AM, said:

Charge should be on the PPC only, not the ERPPC, to simulate the soft minimum range that it has, similar to the gauss rifle. The ER PPC does not have a minimum range, and the downside is more heat.

than let me change all the PPC quirks on mechs to ERPPC bc this would gimp them to hell.


I wouldn't mind have better velocity, but I would rather take 10% and no charge mechanic. Problem with PPCs right now are the over quirked mechs.

[MeiSooHaityu]

Wolfwood592, on 13 January 2015 - 05:25 AM, said:

than let me change all the PPC quirks on mechs to ERPPC bc this would gimp them to hell.


I wouldn't mind have better velocity, but I would rather take 10% and no charge mechanic. Problem with PPCs right now are the over quirked mechs.

Really the whole problem with the PPCs and ERPPCs is velocity. Now it is too low, do no one uses them outside of quirked mechs. Increase velocity, and now high alpha FLD builds (what caused the speed nerf to begin with) becomes an issue.

The idea behind the mechanic was a way to improve velocity, but create a way to limit its alpha potential.

Well, over quirked mech (singular). Of all the heavy PPC/ERPPC mechs, the Thud 9S is really the only debatable one. If I had my way, the Thud 9S quirks would be changed from ERPPC to PPC, but that is another argument all together.

[Cyborne Elemental]

I would love to see PPC and ERPPC velocities sitting right around 1250, for mechs like the AWS and TDR-9S, that speed just feels right.

If a charging mechanic is the last piece of the puzzle that "will work" in balancing out the weapon system, sure give it a try.

But then discussing the standard IS-PPC and reworking or changing the 90meter minrange needs to be discussed as well, and IMO what seems fair is a 0-90 meter ramp up, similar to how C-LRM's still allow damage to be dealt under its min range.

Has to be some tradeoffs.

Honestly I would rather see a convergence system figured out than keep adding more mechanics to what would otherwise not be OP weapons.

Edited by Mister D, 13 January 2015 - 07:25 AM.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Dear god, as if there was less reason to use a ERPPC, you want to add a charge mechanic to the mix?

[MeiSooHaityu]

LordKnightFandragon, on 13 January 2015 - 05:50 AM, said:

Dear god, as if there was less reason to use a ERPPC, you want to add a charge mechanic to the mix?

Do people use it now outside of the quirked mechs? Especially when the normal unquirked velocity is so slow an Urbanmech could outrun it lol.

Besides, I see a lot of Gauss Jagers, Cataphract, Catapults, and Grid Irons (although that gauss quirk on the GI is brutal) running around. Just saying.

Edited by MeiSooHaityu, 13 January 2015 - 06:02 AM.

[Koniving]

MeiSooHaityu, on 13 January 2015 - 04:48 AM, said:

Anyway...ideas?

Honestly I preferred a charge for the PPC over the Gauss Rifle to begin with.
Listen and watch that PPC charge in PGI's original concept of Mechwarrior.


No mass PP/FLD here.

But, since we are here...
Short of the "charge" on PPCs, PGI actually already had this idea.

Specifically the concept was the limit an amount of power specifically for Gauss Rifles and PPCs as an alternative to slowing down PPCs.
In this system the ability to fire PPCs and charge Gauss Rifles would cross in that if you were firing a PPC, then you could only charge one Gauss Rifle. You could not fire any PPCs while two Gauss Rifles are charged or within a certain amount of time of having fired two Gauss Rifles.

Essentially you could fire:
2 Gauss, and had to wait longer than 0.5 seconds before firing any PPCs (simply can't fire!)
Two PPCs (and had to wait longer than 0.5 seconds before any Gauss Rifles could be charged).
1 Gauss + 1 PPC (can be done at the same time or in sequence. Delaying them in sequence will cause the next weapon to be non-functional until more than 0.5 seconds after the last weapon fired).

The statement after this fact was: "The community's reaction is that this system is too complicated, and a speed reduction on PPCs is preferred."

Edited by Koniving, 13 January 2015 - 06:09 AM.

[MeiSooHaityu]

Huh, I had no idea a very similar idea had been discussed.

To me Koniving, I'd rather have PGIs idea you posted than an ultra slow PPC projectile.

Bummer it was passed up. I know many people hate the charge, but it seems like a worthwhile sacrifice to make a weapon useful on more than like 4 chassis.

[Ultimax]

No.

PPCs do not need a charge mechanic, and a heat cost, and a minimum range to still have a worse projectile speed than Gauss (even after 30% increase), do less damage than Gauss and have worse maximum range than Gauss.

[Mirumoto Izanami]

Wolfwood592, on 13 January 2015 - 05:25 AM, said:

than let me change all the PPC quirks on mechs to ERPPC bc this would gimp them to hell.


I wouldn't mind have better velocity, but I would rather take 10% and no charge mechanic. Problem with PPCs right now are the over quirked mechs.

I dunno about you, but Id rather have a small charge instead of a minimum range dead zone on my PPCs (provided they upped the velocity a fair amount).

Edited by Mirumoto Izanami, 13 January 2015 - 06:39 AM.

[LordKnightFandragon]

MeiSooHaityu, on 13 January 2015 - 05:57 AM, said:

Do people use it now outside of the quirked mechs? Especially when the normal unquirked velocity is so slow an Urbanmech could outrun it lol.

Besides, I see a lot of Gauss Jagers, Cataphract, Catapults, and Grid Irons (although that gauss quirk on the GI is brutal) running around. Just saying.

Yeah. you see Gauss mechs cuz the Gauss is a 1 heat weapon that paired together deals 30dmg. Also, its a near instant hit, requiring less aim and leading then a PPC. Only thing to contend with on a GR is the Charge, some choose to deal with it, others dont. But GR is a good weapon regardless. Plus Ghost heat, if the GR even has any is still basically nill, so there is absolutely no downsides to boating as many GRs as you can feasibly carry on your mech. Doing the same with a ERPPC, not so much.

The ERPPC on the other hand, is crap. Its hot as hell, and requires alot or Heatsinks to be paired with it to make it even remotely effective. Otherwise you get less effective RoF and damage on target then a KV2...Put just a little bit of pressure on a PPC user and you've got them beat, they will not be able to fire back at all, they will be shut down and ez meat. Their return fire wont hurt much

Its why I see no issue in the CERPPC being a 15dmg weapon. Its hot, slow velocity and requires alot of leading, vs the GRs instant hit speeds. It requires alot of heatsinks to back up just 1, never mind 2 or 3 or in some cases, 4... Have it be slow, hot, heavy, low damage to heat ratio AND a charge mechanic? Add a charge mechanic and you might as well remove the ERPPCs out the game, no one in their right mind would use it..cept maybe B33f just to troll us all or something.

[MeiSooHaityu]

LordKnightFandragon, the ERPPC/PPC has disappeared from the game already. Other than quirked mechs and the occasional Direwolf, no one uses them...at all. Like you said, they are too hot. They are also too slow.

Now, we can make them faster and cooler, but boating comes into play a long with things like PPC/Gauss combos.

Your idea for a Clan ERPPC is interesting, but it hits harder than lore I think (I think it's 10dmg). It also doesn't address IS PPC/ERPPCs. We could bump them to 15 dmg also and keep the heat and velocity where it is, but do you want to make quirked mechs like the Thud 9S even MORE dangerous?

Your main argument is because it is so hot and slow, the additional mechanic is going to make a non-exsistant weapon more non-exsistant.

If ERPPCs/PPCs received a break in heat and an increase in velocity (two thing brought on by excessive boating), by adding a charge mechanic, it would be that bad?

Ok, let's ignore the charge mechanic. How do we get a fast and cool PPC/ERPPC that can't be boated. There is ghost heat...ok.

Now, how do we keep the new PPC/ERPPC from being grouped with the gauss or (IS wise) being group fired with an A/C to circumvent ghost heat? Well, there in lies the problem. How?

That is the only reason I suggested what I did. A way to make a weapon usable while still preventing it from being linked with gauss as a way to circumvent PPC/ERPPC boating ghost heat.

[Ultimax]

MeiSooHaityu, on 13 January 2015 - 07:13 AM, said:

LordKnightFandragon, the ERPPC/PPC has disappeared from the game already.

Trading one bad mechanic (slow projectile speeds) for another (charge mechanic) isn't going to save it.


The only way this would be remotely tenable is if you roughly doubled current speeds, because leading a target and also needing a charge is just silly.

Gauss barely needs leading with it's speed (2000m/s), it's one of the reasons people will put up with the charge mechanic.

[blood4blood]

I'm completely opposed for one simple reason: charge mechanics do not add any fun to a game. I've taken gauss, I can use it to about the same effect as before, but it's just annoying and distracting to have to time the charge mechanic.

I'd rather see something like scaling damage for all PPC's so that at 0m it's 0% damage all the way up to 100% damage at optimal range for each type of PPC, then scaling back down to 0% as range goes over optimal, along with keeping the heat high, increasing projectile speed slightly, reducing the highest level quirks, and possibly increasing recycle times. No difference between regular and ER PPC's as far as the mechanic goes - they would still have different stats for range, heat, and damage to differentiate them. That way it would never be totally ineffective, but the heat/DPS balance would force PPC mechs to try to maintain optimal range at all times in order for it to be worth using them, and while they could be used in a brawl as a last-ditch effort, it really wouldn't be worth it due to high heat/low damage. Projectile speed could then be increased, and quirks reduced.

I've got ideas on gauss too, but I don't expect they'd be popular. First would be removal of the charge mechanic to make the weapon easier and more fun to use. Next would be to reduce the projectile speed to make it harder to aim. Then the ugly unpopular part: I'd make it take the same hardpoints as an AC 20 so fewer mechs could use it, then give it only 5 or 6 shots per ton of ammo (less than the AC 20's). The trade off there is pretty obvious: take a gauss for less damage but no heat and great range, or take the AC 20 with higher heat and damage but much less range. With the ammo/ton change gauss would take around the same total tonnage to carry sufficient ammo, but require more crits than AC/20 would, thus reducing the number of heat sinks that could be carried if someone wanted to pair up with PPC's. It's not a perfect solution by any means, and honestly, I'm not sure there is one, because the whole point of gauss and PPC has always been to be high PPFLD sniper weapons.

[Mirumoto Izanami]

re blood4blood:

I'm okay with charge mechanics on Gauss (and the idea of charge on PPCs) because that pretty much matches how they are on TT: long range weapons that take better than average skill to use in close.

A drastic retooling of the gauss as proposed completely changes what they are. Easy does not necessarily equal Fun.

[LordKnightFandragon]

MeiSooHaityu, on 13 January 2015 - 07:13 AM, said:

LordKnightFandragon, the ERPPC/PPC has disappeared from the game already. Other than quirked mechs and the occasional Direwolf, no one uses them...at all. Like you said, they are too hot. They are also too slow.

Now, we can make them faster and cooler, but boating comes into play a long with things like PPC/Gauss combos.

Your idea for a Clan ERPPC is interesting, but it hits harder than lore I think (I think it's 10dmg). It also doesn't address IS PPC/ERPPCs. We could bump them to 15 dmg also and keep the heat and velocity where it is, but do you want to make quirked mechs like the Thud 9S even MORE dangerous?

Your main argument is because it is so hot and slow, the additional mechanic is going to make a non-exsistant weapon more non-exsistant.

If ERPPCs/PPCs received a break in heat and an increase in velocity (two thing brought on by excessive boating), by adding a charge mechanic, it would be that bad?

Ok, let's ignore the charge mechanic. How do we get a fast and cool PPC/ERPPC that can't be boated. There is ghost heat...ok.

Now, how do we keep the new PPC/ERPPC from being grouped with the gauss or (IS wise) being group fired with an A/C to circumvent ghost heat? Well, there in lies the problem. How?

That is the only reason I suggested what I did. A way to make a weapon usable while still preventing it from being linked with gauss as a way to circumvent PPC/ERPPC boating ghost heat.

The boating issue goes beyond any single weapon. It stems from our near pointless heat scale that basically allows you to boat and fire alot more then you normally would.

http://mwomercs.com/...at/page__st__20

that page 2, 1st post, that is what I would change and a rough idea as to why.

We can buff and nerf weapons all day long, and people will keep on keepin on with the boating until a mechanic is put in place to curb it, dissuade us from doing so or out right stop it. Its not a weapon problem, it really is a heat scale and peoples obsession with always working the Meta problem.

Yeah, a faster, 15dmg CERPPC might be OP, if boated. But the more you boat, the more heat you gain, the more heat you gain, the more vulnerable you really are. Sure, the Direstar is good for a trollzy 1 or 2 kills, but in practicality, its a joke build that should not be used when making balance decisions. When im on about a 15/15 CERPPC, I generally mean a serious person who is not about troll builds. either chain firing or duo firing them.

I run a WHK-P, now elite with 27DHS and a CD5 module on the CERPPC. I have been playing it a bit, and while in your head, the 4CERPPC sounds deadly, it just isnt. Dealing 10dmg for 15 heat, slow like it is is no "effective", its not "balanced". The ERPPCs do not need further gimping nerfs, they need straight up buffs, and giving the clans 1 more PPFLD weapon to their wonderfully giant arsenal of currently ONE(1) PPFLD weapon, is not going to break the game.

Most Clan mechs cannot even safely boat more then 2 CERPPC and that is if they want to dedicate the rest of the mech to DHS, or if they want to play the vastly inferior game of fire, shutdown, fire shutdown...and currently for what? 20dmg? You shut yourself down over and over for 20 dmg? really? Seems stupid imo. Sure, you can sit in the back taking chain fired pot shots, but due to speed, that is neither deadly, nor really accurate. So, playing to the ERPPC's "Strength" is not even a good option. Its not punchy enough.

So, its why I keep advocating for a CERPPC of 15/15 with a 20% velocity buff. For the IS, if they lost most of their ERPPC quirks, I could see buffing their ERPPC to be maybe a 12/13.5 weapon as well. Give them identical ranges, but the CERPPC is the more punchy of the 2, while still maintaining the "Hotter" Clan paradigm. Cuz, I mean, its not like the IS cannot fall back on a wide array of other PPFLD weaponry, or lasers that deal, negligibly less damage in half the time of Clan lasers.

Might people boat CERPPC? Prolly, for a time. Until they realize its a decent build, but even a punchy ERPPC build will still be beat out by more heat efficient builds. My Warhawk cannot out DPS anything, and I think its one of the most heat efficiency mechs in the game, it can fire 7 times, only 8,9 and 10 if I fire and wait, fire and wait....Lets take just my SCR, I have 4 ML and a LL in it, I can fire 10-12 times and not worry a bit about heat.

Now, lets do this math even with a 15dmg PPC, 7shots, 105dmg, im hovering at like 95% heat(and yes, its about that hot after 7 shots), less then 300m from a nice mobile medium mech with a swarm of lasers....meanwhile, he can deal like 50 some damage, firing about 3x as often for about 4x as long. People will end up finding out the punchy PPC builds are fun, deadly, but not the end all be all loadout they want it to be. Mechs like the 9S need to be nerfed, that kind of stuff should not even exist. What is supposed to be a hot, long range, punchy weapon does in no way, belong being endlessly group fired from 50% further away then a Clan mech.

[blood4blood]

Mirumoto Izanami, on 13 January 2015 - 08:33 AM, said:

re blood4blood:

I'm okay with charge mechanics on Gauss (and the idea of charge on PPCs) because that pretty much matches how they are on TT: long range weapons that take better than average skill to use in close.

A drastic retooling of the gauss as proposed completely changes what they are. Easy does not necessarily equal Fun.

I agree that easy != fun in every case. I disagree about the effect of the charge mechanic - it's not particularly challenging to use, it's just annoying, and I find it simpler to use in a brawl anyway, where precise timing and accuracy is less important. That said, I don't particularly like the changes I suggest for gauss, they're just a compromise idea given how PGI appears to feel it has to nerf snipers in favor of brawlers to please the majority.