28 replies to this topic

[Xevius Von Morrigan]

in Patch 1.3.410 the developers increase ammo per ton for the AC/10 (15 --> 20)...
... but nothing for the LB X-AC/10.

Is there any hope they will increase ammo per ton for this ballistic weapons?

[Joseph Mallan]

I am hoping for there not being a blanket Ammo Buff. Ammo dependence is supposed to have empty bins as a negative. I wanna still have to be concerned with it a little. 2-3 Tons of ammo is plenty for most fed weapons. 4-5 for AC20s.

[El Bandito]

PGI buffing the ammo count for regular AC10, which is arguably superior than the LB10X, while neglecting LBX shows their incompetence in balancing.

Joseph Mallan, on 31 July 2015 - 02:43 AM, said:

I am hoping for there not being a blanket Ammo Buff. Ammo dependence is supposed to have empty bins as a negative. I wanna still have to be concerned with it a little. 2-3 Tons of ammo is plenty for most fed weapons. 4-5 for AC20s.

Ammo needs on already heavy ballistics is one reason why the laser vomit meta is prevalent. PGI should at least buff the ammo count from +50% to +75%. BTW, 2 tons of ammo per ballistic weapon is nowhere near enough, unless you are boating machine guns.

Since energy weapons are receiving heat reduction quirks to mitigate their negative side, why shouldn't ballistic weapons get ammo quirks to mitigate their negative side?

Edited by El Bandito, 31 July 2015 - 02:53 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

El Bandito, on 31 July 2015 - 02:47 AM, said:

Ammo needs on already heavy ballistics is one reason why the laser vomit meta is prevalent. PGI should at least buff the ammo count from +50% to +75%.

BTW, 2 tons of ammo per ballistic weapon is nowhere near enough, unless you are boating machine guns.

Thats cause people spam fire! I rarely run out of ammo using 3 SRM6 and...4 tons of ammo. If 2 tons isn't enough bring 3.

Part of being a thinking mans game is deciding what you can make due without!

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 31 July 2015 - 02:52 AM.

[El Bandito]

Joseph Mallan, on 31 July 2015 - 02:51 AM, said:

Thats cause people spam fire! I rarely run out of ammo using 3 SRM6 and...4 tons of ammo. If 2 tons isn't enough bring 3.

Part of being a thinking mans game is deciding what you can make due without!

Mechs with energy heat reduction quirks spam fire too! Since energy weapons are receiving heat reduction quirks to mitigate their negative side, why shouldn't ballistic weapons get ammo quirks to mitigate their negative side?

Edited by El Bandito, 31 July 2015 - 02:57 AM.

[Paigan]

El Bandito, on 31 July 2015 - 02:47 AM, said:

PGI buffing the ammo count for regular AC10, which is arguably superior than the LB10X, while neglecting LBX shows their incompetence in balancing.
[...]

I'm strongly reluctant to such harsh and insulting statements about the people working "hard" (however hard that may be) to keep the game running and improve it, but in this case ... I can't help to agree.
There is no justifiable reason for it other than sloppiness/rush or incompetence (I rather believe the first, but that doesn't make it much better...).

A similar thing is the ammo<->armor discrepancy created by the armor buff.
No wonder lasers are so predominant when ammo weapons relatively speaking have their ammo reduced.

And the saddest thing is:
This would require no coding at all. Just some reading, testing, thinking and then changing some damn XML values.
It could be done right now today in a matter of hours.

Edited by Paigan, 31 July 2015 - 02:59 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

El Bandito, on 31 July 2015 - 02:55 AM, said:

Mechs with energy heat reduction quirks spam fire too! Since energy weapons are receiving heat reduction quirks to mitigate their negative side, why shouldn't ballistic weapons get ammo quirks to mitigate their negative side?

Energy weapons are meant to be spammable weapons! Anything with ammo is not. Mercs don't like Expendables It takes money out of their pockets. We get it for free.

[El Bandito]

Joseph Mallan, on 31 July 2015 - 03:06 AM, said:

Energy weapons are meant to be spammable weapons! Anything with ammo is not. Mercs don't like Expendables It takes money out of their pockets. We get it for free.

That's right, we get ammo for free now. So what's wrong with spamming something that is free?!
This is MWO, not MW2: Mercenaries.

Repair and rearm had been tried and was a failure.

Edited by El Bandito, 31 July 2015 - 03:14 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

El Bandito, on 31 July 2015 - 03:12 AM, said:

That's right, we get ammo for free. So what's wrong with spamming something that is free?! This is MWO, not MW2.

Repair and rearm had been tried and was a failure.

Yeah but Ammo Dependance is something that is meant to be... problematic. You wanna bring ACs and Missiles... You better hope you brought enough ammo when you meet the enemy.

[Paigan]

Joseph Mallan, on 31 July 2015 - 03:06 AM, said:

Energy weapons are meant to be spammable weapons! Anything with ammo is not. Mercs don't like Expendables It takes money out of their pockets. We get it for free.

I hate to say it but all your argumentation is based on a false ... starting position or whatever the word is.

Ammo (damage per ton) was designed with the target armor in mind.
How much damage potential must there be in order to have a fair chance of cutting through enough armor before ammo runs out?
Also comparison with lasers etc. play a role.

When PGI doubled armor over night (which is a good thing) but did NOT double shots per ammo as well, ammo weapons naturally fell short of whatever balance there might have been (my personal opionion is that ACs in TT are ridiculously bad because too heavy, too big, etc., but that's another story)

The best example for this is the Shadow Cat Prime:
Fine in TT, but in MWO it just can't cut through enough armor to be a viable SHC build.

If the armor<->ammo balance would be a thing (double armor, double ammo), then your argumentation of using limited resources wisely would apply here. But as it is today, there is just not enough damage potential per ammo ton compared to the doubled armor.

[LordNothing]

i really didnt feel that the ac10 was in need of an ammo buff, i always considered it an underrated but fairly good weapon. it can kill lights in one shot through rear armor, or leg them and has respectable range and practically nonexistent heat. lb10 is also kind of underrated. its a great weapon for mediums where its hard to justify anything over a uac5. that extra ton and extra slot less than the ac10 gives you an extra ton of ammo at the same wight/slot cost, but the ac10 ammo buff kinda put it in the back seat.

ballistics are really unforgiving to bad aim. missing with an ac20 is costly, and those weapons only get 140 damage per ton. i would have rather seen ac20 move up to 4/8 for half/full ton. the range is too short for a heavy or assault (as a primary weapond, but it does complement other weapons well) and its too heavy for a medium with a decent ammo supply (and for lights all you got is a rather humorous troll build with only a few shots). only a few mechs carry it well. pretty much take all 10/20 lbs and acs and give them 160dmg/ton, smaller guns can stay at 150, they really dont need extra ammo unless you are boating them and you really shouldn't be boating.

Edited by LordNothing, 31 July 2015 - 03:23 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Paigan, on 31 July 2015 - 03:15 AM, said:

I hate to say it but all your argumentation is based on a false ... starting position or whatever the word is.

Ammo (damage per ton) was designed with the target armor in mind.
How much damage potential must there be in order to have a fair chance of cutting through enough armor before ammo runs out?
Also comparison with lasers etc. play a role.

When PGI doubled armor over night (which is a good thing) but did NOT double shots per ammo as well, ammo weapons naturally fell short of whatever balance there might have been (my personal opionion is that ACs in TT are ridiculously bad because too heavy, too big, etc., but that's another story)

The best example for this is the Shadow Cat Prime:
Fine in TT, but in MWO it just can't cut through enough armor to be a viable SHC build.

If the armor<->ammo balance would be a thing (double armor, double ammo), then your argumentation of using limited resources wisely would apply here. But as it is today, there is just not enough damage potential per ammo ton compared to the doubled armor.

The only time i used rediculous ammounts of ammo was when I was carrying 2 LRM20s on my (F)Atlas. 11 tons. My fave mech right now has 4 tons of SRM ammo for 3 6racks and 4 tons of AC20. That is perfect to last me through an entire game almost always. And that will net me up to 4 kills and 6 assists. How much more ammo do you think I need?

As to teh SCat. Well since Clanners don't Duel like they were designed to, yeah, they do get a bit screwed. But if they want more ammo they can remove a medium laser and fix the ammo problem.

Again, Thinking man's game means you need to think about what you want to bring and the consequences of your decisions.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 31 July 2015 - 03:21 AM.

[Lily from animove]

El Bandito, on 31 July 2015 - 02:47 AM, said:

PGI buffing the ammo count for regular AC10, which is arguably superior than the LB10X, while neglecting LBX shows their incompetence in balancing.



Ammo needs on already heavy ballistics is one reason why the laser vomit meta is prevalent. PGI should at least buff the ammo count from +50% to +75%. BTW, 2 tons of ammo per ballistic weapon is nowhere near enough, unless you are boating machine guns.

Since energy weapons are receiving heat reduction quirks to mitigate their negative side, why shouldn't ballistic weapons get ammo quirks to mitigate their negative side?

wrong, laservomit is because clan AC's spread due to not being a one bult gun.
laservomit exists because hardly any medium mech or light heavy mech can properly equip enough dakka, since (U)AC's are quite heavy.

El Bandito, on 31 July 2015 - 02:47 AM, said:

PGI buffing the ammo count for regular AC10, which is arguably superior than the LB10X, while neglecting LBX shows their incompetence in balancing.



Ammo needs on already heavy ballistics is one reason why the laser vomit meta is prevalent. PGI should at least buff the ammo count from +50% to +75%. BTW, 2 tons of ammo per ballistic weapon is nowhere near enough, unless you are boating machine guns.

Since energy weapons are receiving heat reduction quirks to mitigate their negative side, why shouldn't ballistic weapons get ammo quirks to mitigate their negative side?

as if every mech has gotten heat reduction quirks.

Paigan, on 31 July 2015 - 03:15 AM, said:

Ammo (damage per ton) was designed with the target armor in mind.
How much damage potential must there be in order to have a fair chance of cutting through enough armor before ammo runs out?
Also comparison with lasers etc. play a role.

true PGI simply took TT values for ammo, and TT ammo was designed for TT battles, which includes TT armor AND TT hitspread. But in MWO there is hardly any hitspread as in the TT, people here are deadly accurate compared to the TT. And this accuracy causes TTK to bee too low and ammo being anyways too plenty. and so PGI doubled armor.

And when people screem not havign enough ammo while they have ammo for 600dmg or more available, they should think about what they do, if they run out of damage without having serverly crippled the other team.

Edited by Lily from animove, 31 July 2015 - 03:27 AM.

[El Bandito]

Lily from animove, on 31 July 2015 - 03:21 AM, said:

wrong, laservomit is because clan AC's spread due to not being a one bult gun.
laservomit exists because hardly any medium mech or light heavy mech can properly equip enough dakka, since (U)AC's are quite heavy.

And those mechs such as Shadow Cat can equip the dakka, if they can also have ammo to go with it. Hence the reason for thread. Ballistics are already heavy enough.

Lily from animove, on 31 July 2015 - 03:21 AM, said:

as if every mech has gotten heat reduction quirks.

Enough mechs have gotten heat reduction quirks to matter. Compare that to ZERO ammo boost quirks.

Edited by El Bandito, 31 July 2015 - 03:25 AM.

[Paigan]

Lily from animove, on 31 July 2015 - 03:21 AM, said:

[...]
true PGI simply took TT values for ammo, and TT ammo was designed for TT battles, which includes TT armor AND TT hitspread. But in MWO there is hardly any hitspread as in the TT, people here are deadly accurate compared to the TT. And this accuracy causes TTK to bee too low and ammo being anyways too plenty. and so PGI doubled armor.

And when people screem not havign enough ammo while they have ammo for 600dmg or more available, they should think about what they do, if they run out of damage without having serverly crippled the other team.

Okay, that is a good point. Higher accuracy and therefore less ammo required.

However that still leaves two problems as I see it:
1.)
The problem that lasers have no ammo and therefore benefit fully from the deadly accuracy, unpenalized as opposed to ammo weapons. Why punish the one type and not the other? As a consequence, lasers would have to get MUCH more heat, so that you can really only fire them rarely and not spam them constantly.

2.)
Whenever I equip ACs and I DARE to only take along 1 ton ammo, it runs out incredibly fast.
E.g. AC2: 75 shots. You REALLY have to shoot a lot with this thing at every slightest opportunity to make it work, which in turn means a lot of missed shots. And at long range (~900m) to use your range advantage to the full and outrange anything that can kill you quicker than you it. Which means even more misses. And for all those naturally required misses, you get what, 75 shots? Even if you hit 100%, the maximum damage potential is 150 damage.
If I compare it to my beloved ERLL, I laugh the AC2 in the face. Similar range, perfect accurary, smaller, lighter, no ammo. Doing 150 damage with an ERLL is no big deal (~14 full hits). With an AC2 with 1 ton ammo... impossible.
It would need ~150-200 shots per ammo ton to make it work. Not 75.
OR 2 tons less weight so that you can equip more ammo for the same weight.

Similar with AC5u or AC20u:
Dakka, dakka dakka (not to forget jam, jam jam and jam jam jam in between). Out of ammo.
Compare it to LPL or MPL and you'll break in tears.

AC20u might feel like a "big P3nis gun" and it CAN work IF you get really lucky (dakka dakka, kill), but overall, it sucks immensely compared to lasers and a big reason for that is the extremely limited ammo.
I mean: 7 shots for a giganticly huge weapon? You MUST assume to at least miss with 2 shots. Leaving you with a damage potential of around 100 damage. I can't waste half my mech to deal 100 damage tops with that half.
Again: If it had like 20 shots per ton instead of 7 OR would weigh like 5 tons less, then it might work ammo-wise.

Edited by Paigan, 31 July 2015 - 03:56 AM.

[Khobai]

Quote

but nothing for the LB X-AC/10.

Yeah the LB10X needs the same ammo increase the AC10 got. Just for consistency. Because LBX ammo doesnt weigh anymore than standard ammo. They should both get the same amount of ammo per ton.

Quote

I am hoping for there not being a blanket Ammo Buff. Ammo dependence is supposed to have empty bins as a negative. I wanna still have to be concerned with it a little. 2-3 Tons of ammo is plenty for most fed weapons. 4-5 for AC20s.

Increasing ammo per ton is one of the ways PGI can make ballistic weapons weigh less. The AC10 for example was always outright inferior to the AC20... it weighs 2 tons less and does HALF the damage.

The AC10 really needed the ammo per ton increase. So does the AC2. So do SRMs/SSRMs since they never got the 50% ammo increase that all other ammo using weapons got in the first place.

Other ammo weapons are fine though. We dont need a blanket ammo increase. Just a selective ammo increase for certain weapons that need a bit of a buff.

Quote

wrong, laservomit is because clan AC's spread due to not being a one bult gun.
laservomit exists because hardly any medium mech or light heavy mech can properly equip enough dakka, since (U)AC's are quite heavy.

exactly. laser vomit exists because most clan mechs dont have enough tonnage for ballistics due to their massive engines eating up most of their pod space.

the way I see it there are TWO possible solutions:

1) introduce lighter weight ballistics weapons. there are a couple canon weapons that could work like mech rifles, mech mortars, machine gun arrays, etc...

-OR-

2) allow clan mechs to change their engine ratings (but not engine type), this would free up tonnage, and allow clan mechs to use ballistics more readily.

For either solution to work youd probably have to nerf the range on clan lasers too. Their range is way too long and it just causes IS mechs to have to have super quirks to compete... which means lower TTK across the board. Nerfing clan lasers means less IS quirks are needed which means improved TTK.

Edited by Khobai, 31 July 2015 - 03:58 AM.

[stjobe]

All other balance discussion aside, I fully support the LB 10-X getting the same ammo per tons as the AC/10.

There's simply no reason for it to have 15 shots/ton when the AC/10 got buffed to 20. It is already a worse gun in almost every way.

Edited by stjobe, 31 July 2015 - 03:55 AM.

[Cyborne Elemental]

Energy weapons are prevalent and superior because of Quirks & Cooldown modules, they're superior in every way vs ballistics except for heat.

Ballistic ammo counts would be fine as is if Laser vomit wasn't so buffed up.

That was the tradeoff, ballistics giving huge boosts to DPS at the cost of a huge tonnage investment and limited munitions for lower heat.

Energy for reliability and endurance at the cost of heat.

That is the way it played out alot in Lore, ammo dependent mechs would be frontline and kill stuff fast, but not have the endurance to last, the mechs that survived to fight until the end were always the energy boats.

But now between clan superiority, and overquirked IS mechs, its all out the window IMO.

We don't need more ammo, we need all these cooldown quirks and modules need to be flushed down the toilet or we'll never see balance.

[Joseph Mallan]

Khobai, on 31 July 2015 - 03:45 AM, said:

Yeah the LB10X needs the same ammo increase the AC10 got. Just for consistency. Because LBX ammo doesnt weigh anymore than standard ammo. They should both get the same amount of ammo per ton.



Increasing ammo per ton is one of the ways PGI can make ballistic weapons weigh less. The AC10 for example was always outright inferior to the AC20... it weighs 2 tons less and does HALF the damage.

The AC10 really needed the ammo per ton increase. So does the AC2. So do SRMs/SSRMs since they never got the 50% ammo increase that all other ammo using weapons got in the first place.

Other ammo weapons are fine though. We dont need a blanket ammo increase. Just a selective ammo increase for certain weapons that need a bit of a buff.

AC 10 is I think Perfect. Now the new amount of Ammo I question I don't run out of ammo with an AC10 using 3 tons. AC2 (75 rounds per ton!!!) needs better trigger control not more ammo. This is spray and prey players wanting more ammo.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 31 July 2015 - 04:27 AM.

[Lily from animove]

El Bandito, on 31 July 2015 - 03:24 AM, said:

And those mechs such as Shadow Cat can equip the dakka, if they can also have ammo to go with it. Hence the reason for thread. Ballistics are already heavy enough.



Enough mechs have gotten heat reduction quirks to matter. Compare that to ZERO ammo boost quirks.

No, the reaosn why the SHC cna not equip enough dakka is the shitiy fixed equipment, same as in the NVA, to many fixed crap blocking one or 2 more tons of vital ammo. but a few mechs do not judge a ammo buff across the entire board, because it would increadibly buff those other mechs getting too much ammo, and going either to laod more weppons or bigger dakka. And then in comrapsion mechs like the SHC will still suck.

tehre is always a mech on the edge not getting ACX + enough tonnage, so someone will always comllain, shifting those edgecases around won't solve that.

@Paigan, lasers ARE limited, heat is their limit, and what matters in MWO is DPS and heat efficiency.

Compare an AC 5 with a laser of same range, and now tell me whcih will deliver a longer sustained dps if you put the same amount of lasers for this range in your mech?
So unless you sit in one of the overquicked IS mechs your heta is already heavily restrickting your damage.

and if you compare AC 20's with lpl's lol, hardly a valid comparison, why do you think do all those atlas wield AC 20's and not laods of LPL's? becasue the AC 20 has that deadly purpose those LPL's can't.

Khobai, on 31 July 2015 - 03:45 AM, said:

Yeah the LB10X needs the same ammo increase the AC10 got. Just for consistency. Because LBX ammo doesnt weigh anymore than standard ammo. They should both get the same amount of ammo per ton.



Increasing ammo per ton is one of the ways PGI can make ballistic weapons weigh less. The AC10 for example was always outright inferior to the AC20... it weighs 2 tons less and does HALF the damage.

The AC10 really needed the ammo per ton increase. So does the AC2. So do SRMs/SSRMs since they never got the 50% ammo increase that all other ammo using weapons got in the first place.

Other ammo weapons are fine though. We dont need a blanket ammo increase. Just a selective ammo increase for certain weapons that need a bit of a buff.



exactly. laser vomit exists because most clan mechs dont have enough tonnage for ballistics due to their massive engines eating up most of their pod space.

the way I see it there are TWO possible solutions:

1) introduce lighter weight ballistics weapons. there are a couple canon weapons that could work like mech rifles, mech mortars, machine gun arrays, etc...

-OR-

2) allow clan mechs to change their engine ratings (but not engine type), this would free up tonnage, and allow clan mechs to use ballistics more readily.

For either solution to work youd probably have to nerf the range on clan lasers too. Their range is way too long and it just causes IS mechs to have to have super quirks to compete... which means lower TTK across the board. Nerfing clan lasers means less IS quirks are needed which means improved TTK.

Well, AC 2 and AC 10 have big issues in the comparison table. ROF and heat should be adjusted here to make them more appealing. AC2 should only have 0.5 heta per shot, but it has as much as an AC 5. It needs to fire twice as fast to sustain the same dps, which emans it is twice as hot. Not a good thing at all. The weight saving on this is hardly worth it, since your AC2 mech rapidly overheats if you try to boat them. Additional on the AC 2 means spreading damage more than AC5. This comparison was lost already on the paper. The bit more range does not outweight this. And especially the cooldown module on AC 5 makes it even more superior, because you can shoot faster with nearly no diwnside since the additional heat is just a small delta. While Ac2 gardly benefits by being too hot already.

Ac 10 well, the AC 10 has a lot issues caused by its performance in delta.

Ac 10 weights 12t. so 50% MORE than the AC 5. but hardly gets a significant increae in DPS: only 14%. - therefore its hardly wth to use a AC 10 over an AC 5.

Ac 20 weights only 2 tons more than the AC 10. (16,67%) but gains 25% more DPS. This makes switching from AC 10 to 20 a very appealing thing, if not even madotory, given the mech has the tonnage for this.

AC 20 vs AC 5 thats 75% more weight, but its 66% more DPS. This is a very reasonable scaling here. AC 5 and AC 20 are quite good in balance.

So as you can see, the efficiency gain in weight comparison between Ac5/10/20 are just making the AC 10 look bad. VERY bad, and ammo changes will harldy make it more appealing. They could for the AC 10 reduce the cooldown a bit to 2.3 or 2.2 seconds. Then the AC 10 would buff up in dps by better % and the entire delta tonnage invenstement may be worth to use it.


So an across all baords ammo buff will still cause people to use AC 5's and 20's yet they may spned the tonngae they cna save now for an additonal lasers (especially the cool AC 5 builds). It doe snot count laservomit, it just adds lasers onto mechs not using them, or using kess currently.

Mister D, on 31 July 2015 - 04:01 AM, said:

We don't need more ammo, we need all these cooldown quirks and modules need to be flushed down the toilet or we'll never see balance.

they indeed brought more imbalance. First because they make boating more appealing, second because the have the same % No matter what module it is, but this is not treating weapons equally, since some benefit more from this than others.

Edited by Lily from animove, 31 July 2015 - 04:33 AM.