98 replies to this topic

[Star Colonel Silver Surat]

El Bandito, on 09 June 2015 - 04:34 PM, said:

RNG should be removed from a MP only game such as MWO, as much as possible. That goes double for UAC jam chance.

Unfortunately every game of MWO starts with a massive RNG roll when matchmaker picks the two teams.

[Andi Nagasia]

Eldagore, on 21 June 2015 - 08:23 AM, said:

Bonus: People hate random in FPS.
Downside: Makes them stupid easy to use as most people use them, step out, rap off a bunch of rounds, step back to cool off or unjam.

IMO, it would take all the downsides of using UAC over normal AC out of the game. The bar style mechanic would be perfectly fine if the game was about mobile lances duking it out in intermittent cover like we saw in previous MW titles. In a 12 vs 12 game that maps funnel players into a camping arena, a bar just allows people to sidestep the drawbacks of the double rate of fire based on current "real" play.

As to OP's specifics:
You can't penalize bigger guns with more frequent jam rates, thats idiotic the bigger guns have heat/tonnage/ammo/cooldown times/range/slug velocity to balance them already. If the idea is to prevent boating: WHY? PGI hasn't had an issue with it, or we would have ghost heat on UAC5 boats, and we DO have ghost heat on AC10. If you want to try to supercede that, OK, I guess, but that adds another layer of complexity to your idea in regards to balancing.

Further, Each weapon gets it'sown bar correct? Otherwise, what, putting 4 on a king crab means you can fire them twice before the jam bar fills vs putting one on a Shawk means you can just go to town? That penalizes a legit loadout for the Crab and allows the Shawk to 100% sidestep the UAC vs AC downsides. Maybe I was looking at this wrong, but it looked like you were just going to add all the guns together for one bar. What if i put a UAC10 and UAC5 and UAC2 on? Should my UAC10 jam because I was spamming the UAC2?

Overall, I understand the desire for removal of randomness. I also think, if we put a mechanic like this in, it would be much harder to balance the UAC vs an AC based on just the jam bar. IMO, it would start off a bit OP, and PGI would attempt some tweaks to jam, which would end up making them "unusable" for some, creating some anger, and eventually we would end up with low jam chance and higher cooldowns or heat. I personally don;t want to go down that road, having seen UAC5's in and out of favor, to put it lightly, over the last couple years based mostly on jam rates(and at one time it didn't share a cooldown with AC5)

The only thing I would like to see is the guns coded to not be able to jam on the first trigger pull. maybe even the first double tap. Stepping out, and NOT EVEN FIREING THE GUN because it jammed before a slug was fired, now thats obnoxious ****. beyond that though, the unpredictability of UAC is the only thing that keeps regular AC5's on the IS side from being obsolete, and really, even with the jam chance, clan side the regular AC's dont compete at all based on the common player feedback here.

as per the rework any time you have over 50% of the bar filled it has a chance to Jam,
this way their will always be a jam chance over just a single double tap,

smaller UACs have Cause the bar to fill faster because of Balance,
other wise the lesser UACs(AC2-AC5) would take a it to their use,

no its just 1 bar for simplicity and ease of use,
regardless of how many UACs you have or the Type of UAC,

the jam Chance will never Exceed 95%,
so their is always a chance even with full bar you wont Jam,

remember all the numbers i have listed can be Changed,
as per PGI and how They want to Balance MWO,

[El Bandito]

Star Colonel Silver Surat, on 21 June 2015 - 08:30 AM, said:

Unfortunately every game of MWO starts with a massive RNG roll when matchmaker picks the two teams.

Small population.

[Mordric]

should have been a poll,, I love this idea

[Zordicron]

Andi Nagasia, on 21 June 2015 - 09:38 AM, said:

no its just 1 bar for simplicity and ease of use,
regardless of how many UACs you have or the Type of UAC,

Sorry can't get behind this. This would result in a couple things-

you would have to have said bar be coded to be scaled, as in, depending on how many AC you have equipped, or you have the issue I mentioned before about a King Crab with 4 maxing the bar out and a Shawk with one running around with no jam chance bypassing any balance we have between UAC5 and AC5.

You would have an UAC20 jamming because someone spammed a pair of UAC5's. NO THANKS. When you have one bar, you remove RNG and replace it with an inability to use trigger grouping and discipline to control your jams and weapon use. Again, no thanks.

here's a realistic example: I have a mech with 2x UAC5, and an UAC20. I am firing my UAC5's at an enemy out at 600M from some decent cover, got a good bead on him so I am pushing this "bar" up to say 75%. Then, an ECM DDC appears to my left, about 300M away from around a corner and starts to lay into my DWF pal. I turn to fire my big UAC20 into him to help my DWF pal out, AND IT JAMS ON THE FIRST TRIGGER PULL WITHOUT FIREING because my bar was high. NO THANKS. I don;t want guns I havent even used being jammed by other weapons, especially considering the differences in usage between UAC2-20's.

I also still feel even making it so anything over 50% creates a chance for jam, you still have people using UAC5's for short bursts and steppig back to cover to cool off. It might not sound bd on the surface, but it basically completely circumvents the balance between UAC and regular AC by allowing a couple shots at double rate of fire, with zero chance to jam. That leads to the stuff I mentioned earlier.

The only thing I personally want for UAC is to remove the chance to jam on trigger pull 1, that is to say, before the gun is even fired. it shoud not jam if I dont even double tap it, much less if I dont even get to fire it once. They currently can do both of those things. If I double tap it, and it jams on the very first double tap, so be it. If that bothers you guys, you should be mounting regular AC's.

otherwise, if we want a greatly reduced jam rate, then they have to add cooldown time or heat or both. We have already been down that path in the past and no one liked it. SO:

Code the guns to not jam unless double tapped, and if double tapped, it has to fire at least two slugs before the gun locks up. No more of this double tap instant jam without any slugs BS we have now.

If we want some kind of build up bar, we will REQUIRE balance changes, because the guns will superceed the regular AC's in every way in actual play. The only way around that is to lower your 50% to say 15% and ramp it immensely from there, otherwise you just gave everyone the OK to mount double dmg ACs without penalty vs regular ACs.

[Khobai]

Quote

Unfortunately every game of MWO starts with a massive RNG roll when matchmaker picks the two teams.

Actually if MWO just picked completely random people... balanced tonnage... and balanced the amount of ECM on both teams... the teams would be better balanced than the way the ELO system works. ELO hurts more than it helps IMO.

[Bishop Steiner]

Anyone with one whiff of Common Sense will say "NO".

Yes, the Church of Skill will now scream loudly that "RNG is the antithesis of skilL", whilst, as always not grasping that real skill is being able to overcome and adapt to that which you cannot control. Go ask any real pilot or shooter just what an abundance of control, what lack of being influenced by things beyond their control there is in any situation. Yes, even today, soldiers in the field, have weapons jam, ammo fail, and other equipment malfunctions. War is not a firing range. It's dirty and violent and tends to not be kind to your gear.

Now, on to the nuts and bolts.

Why "NO" to the Bar? For one thing, when in combat, one doesn't have a "Jam-O-Meter" telling them their Machine Gun is about to lock up. Soldiers around the world would LOVE it if their assault rifles, tanks, etc all could give them a nice redline like warning before the crap hits the fan.

But here's the thing. The UAC is not meant to be a constant double rate burst cannon. Essentially 2 AC5s, for the cost of 1 plus a whopping 1 ton. WooHoo!!!!

No. The concept of the UAC, is a Standard AC5, that one can essentially "redline" or push past it's normal specified operating "RoF", but at the risk of malfunction. Essentially, you are pushing it beyond the limits it's engineered to handle for any length of time. And rejoice. Were this TT, once you jammed, that would be it. It's technically supposed to be out of commision until your friendly neighborhood Tech can fix it.

So, no. We already have one that is more "user friendly" than it's technically supposed to be.

If one had a Jam Bar, all it would mean is that for 1 tom more, you'd have an AC5 that you could double tap until you hit the redline, then run at single fire rate until it "cooled down". So it would be a pure, unequivocal upgrade to the AC5 in every single way.

And could you just imagine the endless dakka we could get from Direwolves, with SIX UAC5s that they could just comfortably game the Jam Bars on. Heck, if they simply set them up at 2-3 perf fire group, they could keep one set essentially double firing indefinitely, whilst the other *gasp* is firing at single fire for part of that time.

So, NO, simply No to this rubbish.

Now, does the UAC need to be addressed? YES.

But like many things, not in such a shortsighted, hamfisted manner.

What are the REAL issues with the UAC?

1) It sometimes will jams on the first trigger pull. This should NEVER happen, ever, period, the end. As long as it is fired using the normal cooldown, it should never ever jam. That needs to be fixed, no two ways about it. Only when one overrides the cooldown to double-tap, should there be a jam chance. And yes, it should stay RNG. It's not perfect, but it's the best we have, currently to represent the random chance. If you keep redlining your car, you really never can tell what damage you have done from behind the wheel, or exactly when it's going to fail. But if you keep doing it, eventually, yes, it WILL fail.

2) Inner Sphere UAC5 should be Burst Fire, like Clan UACs. Yup. I said it. They should have one less projectile than the Clan version, and the attendant shorter burst duration, but they absolutely SHOULD be burst. This makes a nice bridge to C-UACs.....but more importantly sets the table for the eventual introduction of Inner Sphere UAC2/10/20s. Double Tap PP-FLD is just a very very bad idea.

And about C-UACs. Yes, the shorter burst is a big boost. But they are not quite there yet. As a sub-caliber Autocannon, it not only makes sense for the projectiles to be faster, but it would make them considerably more useful at range, and enhance the ability to try to keep all the shells on target.

Also, the UAC 2? Should be a single projectile. As they stand the UAC2 and LB-2X are both pretty ridiculously pointless. I also think the UAC20 should be 4 projectiles, not 5, in the burst.

[CyclonerM]

Bishop Steiner, on 21 June 2015 - 10:08 PM, said:

Stuff

Not sure about the 1 projectile for the UAC/2, but i 100% agree on the rest.

[Bishop Steiner]

CyclonerM, on 22 June 2015 - 04:34 AM, said:

Not sure about the 1 projectile for the UAC/2, but i 100% agree on the rest.

Yeah, I know, but a 2 dmg projectile is marginally more useful than the current two 1 pt projectiles. UAC2s are pretty bad, LB-X2s, worse. Not really elegant, but something needs to be done, ya know?

[Kmieciu]

Kristov Kerensky, on 11 June 2015 - 10:44 AM, said:

You can flat out state that the Adder is an OP super Mech, that doesn't make it so, anymore than telling me that unjamming uACs aren't OP makes it real.

We HAD that, they did NOT jam, ever, and they were OP as hell. Even after they first added the jamming, it could easily be bypassed by using a macro that totally circumvented the jamming mechanic, and they were OP as hell still.

You can't argue that they weren't, they WERE, this wasn't just the opinion of a few players, this was a playerbase wide opinion AND PGI agreed, data showed the non-jamming uAC5 was OP, so they changed how the jamming mechanic works and you can't bypass it anymore.

There's a reason the DakkaWhale uses uAC5s and not AC5s, there's a reason so many of us use uAC5s on our ballistic Mechs instead of AC5s. They are more powerful, pure and simple. Go on, keep trying to tell us how removing the jamming function's random action will not make them OP, considering we've BEEN down that road already and we know exactly what's waiting at the end of it.

You are probably the type of guy who dates his ex's aren't you?

You are 100% correct. UAC5s are already better than AC5, because for 12,5% more weight you get 26% more average DPS.
If you've got cover, you can get up to 100% more DPS and just hide in case of jamming.

[MeiSooHaityu]

I agree with Bishop. I think the random jam mechanic is fair (especially for a 1 ton improvement over the standard A/C5). The gun is effectively overtaxed and just can fail at any time. The first trigger pull jam is BS, do maybe that can be addressed, but that's it.

I know people are going to hate me for this (what's new, right?), but isn't MASC kind of the same thing as an Ultra Cannon. I mean MASC over stresses the artificial muscle that moves a mech for added speed. I thought it also had a random fail chance in the field. It could cripple a mech and/or destroy the MASC system.

I'm sure there are people who know far more about MASC than me, but I figured it would have a random chance to do leg damage no matter how often or long it was used.

Sorry for the deviation on topic, it just got me thinking about a seemingly similarity between Ultras and MASC when it comes to the risk in overtaxing a system to make it perform better with a risk.

[Andi Nagasia]

Bishop Steiner, on 21 June 2015 - 10:08 PM, said:

Stuff

i agree on some points and Disagree on others,

but i never intended to fully remove the Jam Chance from UACs,
i think their should always be a Slight Jam Chance with all UACs,
that said ive reworded the Topic to its easier to under stand,

[Bishop Steiner]

Andi Nagasia, on 22 June 2015 - 05:52 AM, said:

i agree on some points and Disagree on others,

but i never intended to fully remove the Jam Chance from UACs,
i think their should always be a Slight Jam Chance with all UACs,
that said ive reworded the Topic to its easier to under stand,

That's cool, I just feel any sort of predictable, visible "bar" simply opens it up for easy abuse, and totally removes the point of the UAC, which is to be only slightly better than the AC5. That 1 ton (12.5% weight increase) is supposed to buy you 1) slightly better range, something PGI decided to do the flip of. AC5s were supposed to have a range of 18 hexes (540 meters) UAC5s, 20 hexes (600 meters) and 2) an "emergency mode" where one could override the usual cooldown to slam two shots (or bursts) offs in rapid succession.

The tradeoff is that because it is not a RoF the weapon is truly spec'd for, it has a chance of failure. That chance, because of a number of variables,to the human eye, is random (there is no true random, there are merely events where we can't predict all the variables).

Removing that variable makes the UAC5 a massive upgrade over a standard AC. Because now, if one is remotely conscious, there is no way one jams the UAC. So you double tap until hitting the danger zone, then single tap. All gain, no pain. Too much improved for a mere 1 ton.

Having a lesser one that escalates into a major one is not an all bad idea (though the Skill Lords will cry about any RNG, even 1%) but unnecessarily (IMO) complicates a system that is mostly fine as is. If it never jammed first tap, it would, indeed, be "working as intended". Well, that and if they gave it it's range advantage back.

Edited by Bishop Steiner, 22 June 2015 - 06:03 AM.

[LordBraxton]

Jam bar - 1 Please keep it random. If you want, remove the chance to jam on the first shot, or change it to 5%-15%-25% etc per shot, so firing 1 or 2 double taps is low jam chance, but it gets really high quickly from there.

Edited by LordBraxton, 22 June 2015 - 06:10 AM.

[Tombstoner]

One Medic Army, on 09 June 2015 - 08:36 PM, said:

Why not just have UACs fire at 2x the fire rate of the usual versions, until a bar fills, then they can't fire at all until the bar empties.

Makes UACs better burst, but no better over time.

Very simple i like it. when the bar fills you have a chance of jamming. jamming = time to unjam longer then time to cool off. This lets the player move up and down a heat capacity much like how mechs work.

[Speedy Plysitkos]

no, just simple NO.
UAC5 are fine, REMOVE tarded gauss firing.

[Herr Vorragend]

I'm with bishop Steiner. The uac5 should never jam at the first shot.
Maybe they could adjust the numbers a bit. Have jam quite often.

The mechanic of chaining the jam rate to the heat isn't a good idea. This would lead to even more frustration than the jam rate alone does. Maybe there should be a chaining to the numbers of uacs (of the same kind) that are equipped. But only minimal like about 5%per gun.
Lets say: a global jam rate of 10% (for one gun) and every more adds 5% on top of that

[Andi Nagasia]

It's still an independent jambar,
How hot your Mech is does not affect your jam chance,
This Bar just represents your jammed chance in the heat of your UAC's barrel,
The bar still works the same the only thing that's changed is Fluff description,

[Fuggles]

the clan UAC2 is the best example of why random jam chance sucks hard for UACs. go ahead boat them, run as many as you want. they will all jam within a few seconds wich for a long range sustain fire weapon is absolutely pointless.

they fire so often they are just going to jam, to compensate they need to be normalized jam chance (ie see how many firing events happen in 10 seconds for the standard and adjust the rest accordingly to get an equivelant jam chance over time)

a jam bar would essentially accomplish the same thing.

Edited by Fuggles, 22 June 2015 - 07:37 AM.

[GeistHrafn]

Herr Vorragend, on 22 June 2015 - 06:26 AM, said:

I'm with bishop Steiner. The uac5 should never jam at the first shot.

^This.
When running a 3xUAC5 build, under no scenario should ALL THREE jam on the first shot! I've had this happen. Honestly, I haven't touched UAC's since.