9 replies to this topic

[l33tworks]

So with the announcement that PGI will shorten the cAC burst time separation interval for a supposed buff, it got me really mad that all these fine adjustments are happening non stop since the game has been out, players and PGI can never agree what the "right" value is, but they have never thought to let the Player decide what they want.

I personally prefer a longer duration time, for either clan ACs or Lasers.

Everytime there is a decrease in duration time for Lasers Or clan ACs, its not a buff to me, its a NERF.

Why?

Because it does not suit my circumstances and my play style. Having a poor connection to the server means registering hits is a hit and miss affair (excuse the pun), so I prefer to have a longer time to readjust my aim to a location where I see hits are being registered. With a shorter duration time for ACs or a shorter laser burn time, the damage is out the door before I even have a chance to see if damage is being applied, and if its not registering, by the time you see the crosshair is not red, its too late your damage is wasted and your heat is up and your ammo is down. Repeat this cycle 1000s of times and it gets frustrating.

The people that have good connections prefer a shorter interval because its more advantageous for them to pop out of cover, unload all their damage as fast as possible and then pop back into cover.

By constantly reducing burn time and burst intervals, instead of it being a universal buff, its only a buff to those who can make use of it, NOT a global buff. Its a nerf to players like me that need more opportunity to adjust their aim to do the damage.

So why not make a system where the player can choose what suits them best. Give us a balanced option to be able to choose duration vs heat on weapons.

What i mean is you should be able to choose, maybe on a slider on a 1 to 10 scale

Between BURST INTERVAL and HEAT GENERATED
where the shorter the burst interval, the more heat is generated per cycle.

OR for lasers

BURN TIME and HEAT GENERATED, or MAX DISTANCE
Where the shorter the laser burn time, the more heat generated full weapon per cycle.

Edited by l33tworks, 19 April 2015 - 06:11 PM.

[FupDup]

Fun fact: For lasers, increased duration actually reduces their heat because your heat is spread out over the whole duration. This is why the Clan ER Large Laser used to be such a very cold running weapon, because of having such a longass duration.

For Clan ballistics, they don't really need longer. I'd only take longer if some kind of counter-buff was given to me at the same time, like an obnoxiously massive velocity boost, or faster reload, or a lot less jamming. Less heat would be not really worthwhile because they're already cool running by virtue of being ballistics.

Edited by FupDup, 19 April 2015 - 06:11 PM.

[l33tworks]

Wrong. A longer duration time for lasers does NOT decrease their heat, they have the exact same heat generation. The only reason you think a longer burn time means the weapon produces less heat is because more time is passing giving your mech longer to cool down, but this is all at the same time you are exposing yourself to enemies for a longer time, you are spreading damage more etc and more time is passing which is the principle of how a mech cools itself, over time. So there is nothing magical or advantageous that makes a longer laser burn time produce less heat, its just the natural passage of time.

With what I am saying, people that are always screaming about burn times being too long can have their lower burn time at the cost of some more heat, and insane people like myself can have the inferior use of much longer burn times and Clan AC durations for more spread damage with the redeeming feature of less heat, less jamming, faster reload, whatever.

You can have a faster reload, less jamming etc too if you wish. I am just saying PGI should let players adjust these values to suit their playstyles.

Edited by l33tworks, 19 April 2015 - 06:20 PM.

[Xetelian]

I don't even fire the full duration at the enemy, I fire what I can then dodge/turn to shield or cover as quickly as I can.

Lengthening the duration of these lasers is a silly idea and therefore shouldn't be taking serious.

[FupDup]

l33tworks, on 19 April 2015 - 06:19 PM, said:

Wrong. A longer duration time for lasers does NOT decrease their heat, they have the exact same heat generation. The only reason you think a longer burn time means the weapon produces less heat is because more time is passing giving your mech longer to cool down, but this is all at the same time you are exposing yourself to enemies for a longer time, you are spreading damage more etc and more time is passing which is the principle of how a mech cools itself, over time. So there is nothing magical or advantageous that makes a longer laser burn time produce less heat, its just the natural passage of time.

Longer beam duration spreads out the weapon's heat over a longer period of time, which means that your heatsinks have more time to catch up. Back before the CERLL was increased to 10 heat, it was a surprisingly cold weapon because its 8 heat was spread out over 1.5 seconds, which made it easy for heatsinks to handle. At 2.0 duration and 8.5 (or 9?) heat, it barely even raised your heatbar if you fired one, if your bar even raised at all. On my Warhawk, I could actually fire 1-2 Clan ERLL and lose heat while firing, instead of gaining. The Clan ERML was also once very cool running, even better than the regular Medium Laser while it had 1.3 second duration.

Longer durations do in fact facilitate heat management for lasers. Yeah there's exposure time issues when you get up to 1.5 seconds or higher (CERLL), but that's besides the point.

l33tworks, on 19 April 2015 - 06:19 PM, said:

With what I am saying, people that are always screaming about burn times being too long can have their lower burn time at the cost of some more heat, and insane people like myself can have the inferior use of much longer burn times and Clan AC durations for more spread damage with the redeeming feature of less heat.

You can have a faster reload, less jamming etc too if you wish. I am just saying PGI should let players adjust these values to suit their playstyles.

The problem here is that being able to derp around with the variables ourselves would make things a lot harder to balance because of inconsistency from one player to another.

[bad arcade kitty]

yeah, i see
a longer duration on lasers is sometimes more useful than shorter

also for the clantech you sometimes can choose, for instance, a freezing hand or a lower duration hand

[l33tworks]

FupDup, on 19 April 2015 - 06:27 PM, said:

The problem here is that being able to derp around with the variables ourselves would make things a lot harder to balance because of inconsistency from one player to another.

No it wouldn't, it would make balance a lot more muddled and subjective because every time someone complains, people would just reply, "well its your fault for using such and such setting". It would actually let PGI off the hook.

The only arguing point would be something like, "having a longer duration does is not worth it compared to short", or "short burn time is too hot compared to long", in which case all you would need to do is adjust the trade off values a bit, and theres only so much you can do with that, so balancing would be easier imo on the whole.

But think of the benefits. So much more variety in game play with such little work. The currents weapons are getting stale and this would add a much needed new aspect to the game without actually having to add new weapons. And when new weapons do come, it will be even better.

Edited by l33tworks, 20 April 2015 - 02:07 AM.

[El Bandito]

Instead of that, I want IS ACs to have stream-fire. Perhaps 1 slug for AC2, 2 slugs for AC5 and AC10 and 3 slugs for AC20. No more dual AC20 insta-crippling a Light mech. PPFLD nature of IS ACs and PPCs in general need to be removed or limited, in order to give them good velocity buffs. Will help more people to play Light mechs if they do not get blown up so easily.

[Wild Hamster]

This thread reminds me of mw3 pulse lasers

[FupDup]

Wild Hamster, on 20 April 2015 - 05:55 AM, said:

This thread reminds me of mw3 pulse lasers

Those were so damn fun, even if they might be sub-par in MWO. It might be a fun mechanic to use on IS X-Pulse Lasers to make them feel really different, but they'd need other stat buffs to make up for it.