17 replies to this topic

[Pjwned]

EDIT: Some of these suggestions are now (partially) obsolete, such as PPC velocity, AC10 which had its ammo count buffed, and clan lasers which may be facing a maximum range nerf; even ECM is targeted for a nerf which is amazing.

tl;dr: There isn't one, sorry; just how it is.

So, because I'm bored and I've been wanting to post my thoughts on overall weapon balance for a little while, I'm going to make a fairly long post about quite a few weapons. Not all of them need to be changed if you ask me, but a lot of them do need to be changed and that's why I'm here. I'm not going to comment on every weapon because like I said not all of them need to be changed, though I may have an opinion on why a particular weapon doesn't need to be changed.

The neat thing about a lot of these changes is that they're rather simple, so really the only hard part is convincing PGI to actually bother with any of it.

Here goes.

Inner Sphere ballistics:

AC10: No changes needed.

Reason: I know some people don't think the AC10 is good enough, but I don't really see too many problems with it and it's a pretty well-rounded gun. The projectile travels fast enough to hit something at max optimal range in under half a second, it has respectable DPS, it doesn't run super hot, and its range is pretty decent, so the AC10 gets my seal of approval.

Side note: I've heard people suggest that its weight should be lowered to 11 tons due to some inconsistency in the source material that I'm not too familiar with, and while that might be justified I also don't expect it to happen ever.



AC2: Lower its heat significantly, anywhere from 40-60% less heat would be great.

Reason: The AC2 runs ridiculously hot, and unlike every other ballistic in the game it's very impractical to run with other weapons like lasers or PPCs or anything else that's even remotely hot. This wouldn't be so bad if it did more damage, but it has the lowest DPS of all autocannons (as well as the lowest damage per heat by far) and it requires significant face time to deal any decent damage, so making it run nearly as hot as the AC20 (in terms of heat per second) is just dumb.

Side note: Light AC2 would be nice to see for mechs that don't want or need the super long range from AC2.



Gauss Rifle: Increase time to hold charged shot by at least double, or at minimum set it to 2 seconds.

Reason: If the gauss rifle is meant to be essentially a charged sniper rifle, then more time is needed to hold the shot before the charge dissipates. This would make the weapon less of a pain in the ass to use, whether you want to hold a shot because you know somebody is coming around the corner or you need time to adjust your shot at a long range target, and that's a good thing.

Side note: This would also eliminate a number of complaints about the weapon's charge-to-fire mechanic, though the people that want it removed no matter what will probably keep complaining.



LB 10-X AC: This requires a revamped critical hit system so that it doesn't suck so much ass, and possibly another spread reduction after that as well

Reason: The boosted crit capability does not make up for the pellet shot nature of the weapon. The only time this thing is decent is when it's quirked to hell and back with insane cooldown reductions, and that is just stupid.



Machine Gun: Increase damage back up to 0.1 per shot

Reason: Machine guns were needlessly nerfed down to 0.08 damage per shot when supposedly a fix was implemented so that 20% of the shots would no longer arbitrarily miss and to compensate the damage was nerfed by 20%, but this was not needed at all because machine guns were already pretty bad and they still remain bad.

Side note: This would also benefit from a revamped critical hit system

Clan ballistics:

I'm not going to comment on the "C-AC" weapon series because they're eternal placeholder weapons and will never be worth anything until PGI implements ammo switching, which is also never because they're incompetent.



C-Gauss Rifle: Needs an additional drawback such as slightly decreased projectile speed, slightly increased charge time, or significantly increased structure damage when exploding.

Reason: This is one of few weapons where it's objectively better than its IS counterpart in every way by being both smaller & lighter and it breaks the pattern of every other clan weapon having at least a small trade-off for such advantages.



All of the C-LB-X cannons need a revamped critical hit system to justify bringing them over C-UACs, just like the LB 10-X AC.



C-Machine Gun: No changes needed

Reason: It weighs half as much as its Inner Sphere counterpart, and while I realize that's not a very big benefit because it's only a 0.25 ton difference, it does add up when considering multiple machine guns (read: pretty much any build with machine guns) and it's still enough of a difference that I don't see it needing a buff unlike its Inner Sphere counterpart.

Side note: If people were outraged about the Machine Gun having its damage bumped back up to 0.1 but not the C-Machine Gun, then both could be given equal treatment without it being a big issue because neither weapon is exactly amazing.



All C-UACs need to have their impulse value lowered because the amount of screen shake they cause just from firing 1 cannon is ridiculous.



C-UAC 10 & C-UAC 2: Same deal as their IS counterparts, the C-UAC 10 is fine and the C-UAC 2 needs to run less hot.

Inner Sphere energy weapons:

ER PPC: Very significant projectile velocity boost, up to 1750 m/s give or take at most 75 m/s

Reason: This thing runs insanely hot because of its high optimal range and to a lesser extent its lack of minimum range, but with its current projectile velocity it's very unreliable to hit targets out that far so nobody bothers using it unless they pick a mech with crazy ER PPC quirks, which is again stupid.



Flamer: It's hard to say where to begin because it's such a piece of crap, but making it deal more heat damage while not nuking your own heat into the stratosphere would be a nice start.

Reason: It's like a heavier, way hotter machine gun that barely does anything to the enemy on top of being the lowest range weapon in the game; NOBODY uses it except for Badders and joke builds.

Side note: Viable flamers would be a great way to counter excessive laser vomit



Medium pulse laser: Lower its heat value, whether that would be down to 3 heat or something slightly higher than that I don't know exactly.

Reason: See medium laser



Medium laser: Lower its heat down to 3

Reason: Medium lasers are supposed to be only 3 heat according to the source material, but it was nerfed up to 4 heat a long time ago due to some early-in-development woes and it was never reverted back to 3 heat despite the problem being fixed since a long time ago. Lowering the heat down to 3 would give the Inner Sphere the "workhorse weapon" that it's supposed to be as well as giving it more parity compared to the clans' higher range & higher damage lasers and establishing more of a distinction between the 2 tech trees.

Side note: A number of energy heat quirks would no longer need to exist with this change. Also, I realize the source material doesn't really mean a whole lot in this game since so many things are either changed completely or just not even a factor, but it does mean something and there's really not much of a reason to keep the medium laser hotter than it should be.



PPC: Slight increase in velocity, something like 50-200 m/s faster which would be 1,000-1,150 m/s velocity, return to scaling damage inside minimum range ala C-LRMs

Reason: Right now it takes a bit over half a second to hit a target at max optimal range, and considering it tends to run pretty hot (without overdone heat quirks anyways) it should be reliable enough that it hits a target at max optimal range in a bit under half a second. As for the scaling damage at minimum range, this is how it used to work a while ago but was then changed to deal 0 damage at 89m and 10 damage at 90m. This doesn't make sense for crap and scaling damage needs to return so that while PPCs will deal at least some damage at any range, there's still obviously room for counter play by getting up close and personal so that the PPCs deal reduced damage.

Side note: PPC velocity quirks would also be toned down or just removed in a number of cases due to this.



Small Laser: Heat reduction down to 1, slight duration reduction at 0.05-0.1 seconds.

Reason: Just like medium lasers, small lasers had their heat increased a while ago because of a problem that has long since been fixed, and it needs to be reverted back because small lasers are not very good and the heat increase hit them even harder than medium lasers. As for a duration reduction, the range on small lasers is pathetic even with quirks and modules, so if I'm going to bother being at such close range then the laser had better deal its full damage pretty damn quickly.



Small Pulse Laser: Heat reduction down to 1 or perhaps slightly higher, possibly a duration reduction as well although it's already rather short

Reason: Same reason as small lasers

Clan energy weapons:

C-ER Small Laser, C-ER Medium Laser, C-ER Large Laser: No changes needed

Reason: These are all obviously pretty solid weapons, but they're also pretty much balanced by higher heat and longer duration, and once medium & small (pulse) lasers are buffed appropriately then I think it would be fair to say that clan ER lasers are different but still equal.



C-ER PPC: Increase velocity significantly, up to 1600 m/s give or take at most 75 m/s

Reason: Just like the ER PPC, this thing is too damn hot to justify using much of the time when it likely won't hit its targets at max optimal range. However, even though it would be getting a buff, it would also not go fast as the ER PPC because it already has added (splash) damage as well as being lighter & smaller, and this is yet another opportunity to distinguish the 2 tech trees from each other because as it is now the C-ER PPC is simply better than its Inner Sphere counterpart.



C-Flamer: Make it slightly worse than the (post-buff) Flamer? I don't know.

Reason: Obviously flamers need to not suck so much, but at half the weight of the Flamer the C-Flamer should have some kind of drawback relatively, like running slightly hotter or something.



C-Large Pulse Laser: Reduce its range to 545m

Reason: This weapon has a noticeable range disparity compared to its Inner Sphere counterpart, and it breaks the pattern of other comparable lasers. Both the C-SPL and C-MPL have a 50% range advantage over their Inner Sphere counterparts, but for some reason the C-LPL has a >60% range advantage over the LPL and that is dumb. Reduce the C-LPL range to 545m, and that is a (technically slightly less than) 50% range advantage just like other clan pulse lasers and that would be at least more fair.



It's debatable whether clan pulse lasers should be ER pulse lasers with the kind of range they have, because that's basically what they are right now aside from the C-LPL which needs its own nerf, but I'm not going to get into it too much because they are just as hot as the C-ER lasers and that is perhaps enough to justify it.

Inner Sphere missiles:

LRM 5 & LRM 10: Rework ECM to not be a jesus box.

Reason: One overpowered piece of equipment being a hard counter to an entire weapon system is stupid. Other than ECM, these weapons are fine.



LRM 15 & LRM 20: In addition to benefiting from an ECM rework, these bigger launchers need to have less spread so that they're worth bringing over smaller launchers, especially in the case of LRM 20.

Reason: Especially with bigger & heavier launchers, it's expected that they actually work most of the time (read: not being hard countered by the ECM jesus box) and that when they do work most of the missiles should land on target instead of being so spread out that it's a waste to bring such a big launcher.



SRM 2: Damage increased to 2.5 per missile, tighter spread with Artemis so that ASRM2 is worth using ever.

Reason: SRM damage is lacking and it needs to be improved more so that they're a real threat, and no 2.15 damage isn't good enough. As for ASRM2 in particular, just think "when was the last time anybody used ASRM2?" and it should be obvious why the spread needs to be tightened.



SRM 4 & SRM 6: Damage increased to 2.5 per missile

Reason: SRM damage is lacking and it needs to be improved more so that they're a real threat, and no 2.15 damage isn't good enough.



SSRM 2: In addition to streak missiles desperately needing a rework so that they don't spread damage literally all over the entire enemy mech, SSRM2 needs its damage increased back up to 2.5 per missile.

Reason: Nobody uses SSRM2 because it's trash, and as soon as its damage was nerfed to 2.0 per missile it stopped seeing any use in 99% of matches.

Clan missiles:

Short & simple section.

C-LRMs are fine the way they are.



C-SRM 2, C-SRM 4, C-SRM 6: No changes needed

Reason: Clan SRMs don't need a damage buff when they weigh half as much as Inner Sphere SRMs. This might sound a bit unfair, but even with IS SRMs at 2.5 damage per missile, C-SRMs still retain the advantage as far as damage per ton since for every 2 SRM tubes on IS mechs you can bring 4 SRM tubes on Clan mechs.



Clan streak missiles also need to be reworked so that it's not so hit or miss, but they do not need a damage increase for the same reason that C-SRMs don't need a damage increase either.

The End

It's possible I'm forgetting some things at the moment, but that's a pretty comprehensive list of weapon changes so I'll just leave it at that. There are other things that should be changed as well like ridiculous quirks and weapon modules literally being power creep modules and crap like that, but I'm mostly just trying to focus on weapon systems here.

Edited by Pjwned, 22 October 2015 - 12:31 PM.

[Juodas Varnas]

AC10 does need changing.
Give it a better sounds!
It sounds so wimpy, it's easily the wimpiest sounding Autocannon in the game. AC2 sounds meatier!

Other than that, i do agree with a lot of these changes, except for LRMs.

LRMs, in my opinion, should be reworked completely along with ECM:
ECM should work like it's supposed to lorewise, that is, only negate other electronic devices, like NARCs, TAGs, Artemis IVs, etc. It should not affect LRM/SSRM locks at all (apart from negating the before-mentioned electronics)

LRMs themselves should be balanced around direct fire (they were always supposed to be primarily a direct fire weapon as far as i recall), by increasing their projectile speed, lock-on speed and making the trajectory flatter. While at the same time removing the ability to shoot in-directly without appropriate spotting equipment (only able to lock-on targets that are affected by TAG and NARC) and should have increased spread of the missiles (spread should be larger than, let's say, a medium mech so, not all of them would hit the target).

Because currently, i believe, that LRMs are simply anti-fun. I mean, does anyone actually find it fun to stand behind a hill and spam missiles at enemies you can't even see and only confirmation of you hitting them being a red reticle and some flashing on the paperdoll?
Neither being swarmed by missiles, being unable to neither fight back nor escape, just because your team ended up not having a single ECM-capable mech.
Making them a direct-fire weapon would make them more involving and most importantly more FUN.

Also UAVs should only provide intel (which would be blocked by ECM, instead of the other way around like it is now) and not allow in-direct fire.

Edited by Juodas Varnas, 14 June 2015 - 03:28 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Quote

Machine Gun: Increase damage back up to 0.1 per shot

Reason: Machine guns were needlessly nerfed down to 0.08 damage per shot when supposedly a fix was implemented so that 20% of the shots would no longer arbitrarily miss and to compensate the damage was nerfed by 20%, but this was not needed at all because machine guns were already pretty bad and they still remain bad.

This shows how many people DON'T fire Machine guns. Machine Guns vomit ordinance because they are not accurate weapons. Fired in short controlled bursts they have better accuracy, but the way they are fires in game Spray and prey fits.

Now i am all for a boost back to 0.1 damage, but Machine Guns are not an accuracy weapon.

[Pjwned]

Joseph Mallan, on 14 June 2015 - 03:25 AM, said:

This shows how many people DON'T fire Machine guns. Machine Guns vomit ordinance because they are not accurate weapons. Fired in short controlled bursts they have better accuracy, but the way they are fires in game Spray and prey fits.

Now i am all for a boost back to 0.1 damage, but Machine Guns are not an accuracy weapon.

Well, that inaccuracy is already simulated with the cone of fire on machine guns, but that's not what I was referring to exactly; perhaps I should have said "20% of shots would no longer not register properly" because PGI did (supposedly) implement some sort of fix for shots not registering and then as a result they nerfed machine gun damage by 20%.

[Pjwned]

Juodas Varnas, on 14 June 2015 - 03:24 AM, said:

Other than that, i do agree with a lot of these changes, except for LRMs.

LRMs, in my opinion, should be reworked completely along with ECM:
ECM should work like it's supposed to lorewise, that is, only negate other electronic devices, like NARCs, TAGs, Artemis IVs, etc. It should not affect LRM/SSRM locks at all (apart from negating the before-mentioned electronics)

LRMs themselves should be balanced around direct fire (they were always supposed to be primarily a direct fire weapon as far as i recall), by increasing their projectile speed, lock-on speed and making the trajectory flatter. While at the same time removing the ability to shoot in-directly without appropriate spotting equipment (only able to lock-on targets that are affected by TAG and NARC) and should have increased spread of the missiles (spread should be larger than, let's say, a medium mech so, not all of them would hit the target).

Because currently, i believe, that LRMs are simply anti-fun. I mean, does anyone actually find it fun to stand behind a hill and spam missiles at enemies you can't even see and only confirmation of you hitting them being a red reticle and some flashing on the paperdoll?
Neither being swarmed by missiles, being unable to neither fight back nor escape, just because your team ended up not having a single ECM-capable mech.
Making them a direct-fire weapon would make them more involving and most importantly more FUN.

Alternatively, LRMs could be the indirect fire weapon that they should be without gutting it completely by requiring special equipment for targeting, and people would need to bring AMS instead of relying on an ECM crutch.

Quote

Also UAVs should only provide intel (which would be blocked by ECM, instead of the other way around like it is now) and not allow in-direct fire.

Considering it's rather easy to shoot a UAV down, I don't see why.

[Navid A1]

Imagine how cool it will be if we had switchable ammo.

Clans could get switchable AC/LBX and IS could get switchable LRM ammo (IS has tons of LRM ammo types.. with different capabilities).... swarm missiles anyone?

Edited by Navid A1, 14 June 2015 - 04:13 PM.

[Sable]

these all seem kinda bias to your opinion. I disagree with you on about half of these changes. The only thing i could find that i totally agreed with was the rework to ECM.

[Y E O N N E]

Apart from SRMs, these are pretty much just flavor changes.

[Vandul]

Yeah, you lost me at "suck so much ass".

[Mcgral18]

Joseph Mallan, on 14 June 2015 - 03:25 AM, said:

This shows how many people DON'T fire Machine guns. Machine Guns vomit ordinance because they are not accurate weapons. Fired in short controlled bursts they have better accuracy, but the way they are fires in game Spray and prey fits.

Now i am all for a boost back to 0.1 damage, but Machine Guns are not an accuracy weapon.

He was talking about the laser hitreg fix.


Our MGs are lasers with a CoF, if you didn't know.

[Pjwned]

Sable, on 14 June 2015 - 05:04 PM, said:

these all seem kinda bias to your opinion. I disagree with you on about half of these changes. The only thing i could find that i totally agreed with was the rework to ECM.

That's nice I guess, not really much to consider if you just say "I disagree" though.

Yeonne Greene, on 14 June 2015 - 05:15 PM, said:

Apart from SRMs, these are pretty much just flavor changes.

Right, lowering heat on medium lasers, increasing PPC velocity, increasing damage on machine guns, reducing the range on C-LPL, etc...clearly that's not actually rebalancing anything.

I don't understand what you expect if you think those are just "flavor changes."

Vandul, on 14 June 2015 - 05:19 PM, said:

Yeah, you lost me at "suck so much ass".

Do you want me to go into detail why the critical hit system in this game does "suck so much ass," or do you just want attention?

Edited by Pjwned, 14 June 2015 - 10:27 PM.

[EvilCow]

A good set of suggestions. I would modify the LBXes as follow:

1) +20% damage. ACs are always better, there is no real advantage for having spread. In MW4 those had +40% increase and nobody complained. Spread would remain as-is. The weapon would become interesting for close range, ACs would be better at medium/long range.
2) All models always fire 10 bullets. LBX2 firing two bullets looks a bit ridiculous. I would like to see a small cloud for all models.

[Y E O N N E]

Pjwned, on 14 June 2015 - 10:25 PM, said:

Right, lowering heat on medium lasers, increasing PPC velocity, increasing damage on machine guns, reducing the range on C-LPL, etc...clearly that's not actually rebalancing anything.

I don't understand what you expect if you think those are just "flavor changes."

Your changes maintain the current status quo whereby Clan-tech provides the user greater speed, range and damage with lower resource usage without providing the Inner Sphere any viable options to counter with. That's why it's just flavor changes. Lowering heat on IS lasers doesn't really do much for anything other than Light 'Mechs, increasing PPC velocity and MG damage are blanket changes that benefit both sides, though with a slight Clan bias since a Clan 'Mech can cool a full-heat ERPPC better than an IS 'Mech can.

And no, the Clan lasers are not balanced by longer duration or higher heat. We've gone over this a thousand times: Clan lasers do greater damage per second over the duration of their burn than Inner Sphere lasers do, meaning you can pull off of the target sooner than an IS 'Mech and still have done the same damage as a full burn with the Inner Sphere option. Worse, they have higher max damage, which conflicts with longer range when trying to balance equipment.

[Mcgral18]

EvilCow, on 14 June 2015 - 11:06 PM, said:

A good set of suggestions. I would modify the LBXes as follow:

1) +20% damage. ACs are always better, there is no real advantage for having spread. In MW4 those had +40% increase and nobody complained. Spread would remain as-is. The weapon would become interesting for close range, ACs would be better at medium/long range.
2) All models always fire 10 bullets. LBX2 firing two bullets looks a bit ridiculous. I would like to see a small cloud for all models.

1.2 damage pellets would be good.


If PGI wanted them to be crit weapons, they'd need to change the 2x crit dam multiplier to 5x.


Currently, it takes 5 crits to destroy most items. At 5x, it would only take 2. Give the LB2x potential (each pellet can deal up to 3 crits, 6% chance), while making the LB20x something GOOD at critting. Obscenely so.
I think that would be fine, or at least test it.


Also gives that 15% crit damage to Internal Structure bonus damage.

Goes from 0.3 extra damage per crit up to 0.75, as in nearly double (1.75 VS 1 when you score one crit). 2 crits would deal 1.5 damage, 3 crits 2.25.

[Pjwned]

Yeonne Greene, on 14 June 2015 - 11:22 PM, said:

Your changes maintain the current status quo whereby Clan-tech provides the user greater speed, range and damage with lower resource usage without providing the Inner Sphere any viable options to counter with. That's why it's just flavor changes. Lowering heat on IS lasers doesn't really do much for anything other than Light 'Mechs, increasing PPC velocity and MG damage are blanket changes that benefit both sides, though with a slight Clan bias since a Clan 'Mech can cool a full-heat ERPPC better than an IS 'Mech can.

And no, the Clan lasers are not balanced by longer duration or higher heat. We've gone over this a thousand times: Clan lasers do greater damage per second over the duration of their burn than Inner Sphere lasers do, meaning you can pull off of the target sooner than an IS 'Mech and still have done the same damage as a full burn with the Inner Sphere option. Worse, they have higher max damage, which conflicts with longer range when trying to balance equipment.

So basically your issue is clans vs IS and not the weapons themselves, which is part of the thread but not really too much focus on it. Additionally, the Inner Sphere have lower heat & lower duration lasers, pinpoint autocannons, and cluster fire LRMs, so if you say IS has nothing viable to counter with even after I suggest multiple changes to make IS weapons in particular more viable, I'm not going to take you very seriously.

It's not just flavor changes just because you come in and whine about clans being too powerful, and additionally I did suggest that the clan gauss rifle should have an additional drawback as well as buffing the C-ER PPC but still making it slower than the ER PPC.

Mcgral18, on 14 June 2015 - 11:41 PM, said:

1.2 damage pellets would be good.


If PGI wanted them to be crit weapons, they'd need to change the 2x crit dam multiplier to 5x.


Currently, it takes 5 crits to destroy most items. At 5x, it would only take 2. Give the LB2x potential (each pellet can deal up to 3 crits, 6% chance), while making the LB20x something GOOD at critting. Obscenely so.
I think that would be fine, or at least test it.


Also gives that 15% crit damage to Internal Structure bonus damage.

Goes from 0.3 extra damage per crit up to 0.75, as in nearly double (1.75 VS 1 when you score one crit). 2 crits would deal 1.5 damage, 3 crits 2.25.

This is a huge part of why the critical hit system in this game is so bad, almost every piece of equipment in the game has 10 health so that even when an LB-X cannon shot completely shreds the insides of a component, nothing gets destroyed because LOL HALF TON AMMO PACKS WITH 10 HEALTH; the fact that crit padding is always a good strategy really highlights how bad the system is.

What the LB-X cannons need is a critical hit system that actually makes sense and doesn't have a massive bias towards weapons that do 10+ pinpoint damage.

Edited by Pjwned, 15 June 2015 - 01:08 AM.

[Vandul]

Pjwned, on 14 June 2015 - 10:25 PM, said:

Do you want me to go into detail why the critical hit system in this game does "suck so much ass," or do you just want attention?

If you want to present a logical, sensible argument that people will read and take seriously, its best to keep snarky remarks, anecdotal data, and cursing out of your presentation. Otherwise, it looks like you are the one seeking attention.

[Pjwned]

Vandul, on 15 June 2015 - 06:33 AM, said:

If you want to present a logical, sensible argument that people will read and take seriously, its best to keep snarky remarks, anecdotal data, and cursing out of your presentation. Otherwise, it looks like you are the one seeking attention.

Pretty sure the one who doesn't contribute anything to the discussion is more likely to be seeking attention.

[Zfailboat]

I like a lot of the changes you have mentioned here for the adjustments to the individual weapons. However I think this would be to much work for PGI based on how much attention they currently give to the finer details of the game.

Now if we are strictly talking about balancing the clan vs IS weapons (not mechs) I think the first and easier step would be make them all weigh the same.

if all the weapons weighed the same (keeping the same crit slots) you have IS with - lower heat - lower range - more crit slots. and Clan with longer range - higher heat - less crit slots. all in all a quick, relatively easy adjustment. (you would need to give a few clan mecs a quirk or 2 to make up for this - EG MR Gargles)