56 replies to this topic

[Yellonet]

This is a very simple way to try and balance lasers with other weapons, it would be very easy for PGI to implement this on a test server.

Simply: Double all laser durations.


Why?
Because lasers have more advantages than any other kind of weapon and not enough drawbacks - that's why lasers are the premium meta weapon.
This idea would balance lasers by giving them a clear drawback - difficulty to put damage on target quickly.

This should effectively end the insta-kill laser vomits, while laser vomit would still be effective it wouldn't kill as fast because the target gets more time to move and twist to spread the damage.

And as lasers are the most common and effective weapons, this should also increase TTK.

So, PGI, could we test this on some test-server in some of the balance passes?

Edited by Yellonet, 25 September 2015 - 04:03 AM.

[Wintersdark]

No.

And no, before jimmies are rustled, not because I'm all up in my laser vomit - I'm a ballistics man at heart.

But as we learned with the 2s burn ERLL, that leads to crappy game play. Lots of unintentional friendly fire from people walking through beams/defensive twisting while firing leading to beams sprayed all over allies/firing mechs accidentally underestimating burn times and walking their beams into friendlies. Long beam durations are not fun.

I'd love to see the end of laser vomit (and people using "vomit" for everything) but this is not the way.

Making lasers worse, or other things better, that's fine. But making lasers less fun (for the firing mech AND his allies) is not the way to go.

[Monkey Lover]

Maybe not double but I like the idea. It would spread a lot of damage decreasing ttk.

If ff is a issue maybe it would help break up the murder balls.

Edited by Monkey Lover, 25 September 2015 - 06:14 AM.

[Coralld]

Monkey Lover, on 25 September 2015 - 06:13 AM, said:

Maybe not double but I like the idea. It would spread a lot of damage decreasing ttk.

If ff is a issue maybe it would help break up the murder balls.

Agreed, doubling the duration is way too harsh, probably no more than 50% at most.

[Skarlock]

Not a bad suggestion, but there's a few major problems as I see it. If you nerf lasers as a whole, I think light mechs will suffer disproportionately compared to other chassis. Medium and small lasers are one of the only weapons light mechs can feasibly take because they cost very little tonnage. Consider how bad a locust or commando is, and then double its laser duration. Now it's basically unusable. Even firestarters, ravens, and arctic cheetahs would struggle to contribute at all to a fight because they'd be exposing themselves for way too long to just get off 1 full alpha. Medium mechs would also feel a painful punch as many of the lower weight mediums would simply not be able to fight effectively since they can mount maybe 1 ballistic weapon effectively, and are often forced to rely very heavily on lasers to up their damage. On the other hand, heavies and assaults that have good ballistic heavy options would be the new meta. PPCs would also be much more popular, and clan gauss would probably be the outright king of firepower options. IS would be even weaker due to the fact they can't boat ballistics like clan mechs can due to all the tremendous weight inefficiencies of IS tech.

[Paigan]

My advice:

Complete rebalance of the moronic Battletech rules like

- every mech having the same amount of space for weapons
- no proper hardpoint size
- no different damage types, armor types, etc.
- ammo weapons that generate massive amount of heat
- no energy balancing resource (where ammo weapons would excel as they require none, safe for the gauss)
- ammo weapons being ridiculously heavy and big
- missing "smaller" ammo weapons like medium and heavy MG.

Oh wait! Then it wouldn't be Battletech anymore.

So continued moron-rules it is!

Edited by Paigan, 25 September 2015 - 06:22 AM.

[Yellonet]

Wintersdark, on 25 September 2015 - 05:58 AM, said:

No.

And no, before jimmies are rustled, not because I'm all up in my laser vomit - I'm a ballistics man at heart.

But as we learned with the 2s burn ERLL, that leads to crappy game play. Lots of unintentional friendly fire from people walking through beams/defensive twisting while firing leading to beams sprayed all over allies/firing mechs accidentally underestimating burn times and walking their beams into friendlies. Long beam durations are not fun.

Yeah, laser only firing while you hold the button, problem sovled.

And no, buffing everything else would decrease TTK, who the hell wants that?

Monkey Lover, on 25 September 2015 - 06:13 AM, said:

Maybe not double but I like the idea. It would spread a lot of damage decreasing ttk.

If ff is a issue maybe it would help break up the murder balls.

This nerf to lasers would be a relative buff to other weapons, ballistics and PPC's would have a more important role as pin-point weapons.

[John1352]

You're on the right track, but doubling it is (probably) way too much. Duration of all med and large lasers should be increased by ~10%. After a fortnight or a month, it will become clear whether that was enough (are players still using mostly lasers?). If other weapons are being used more than lasers, maybe scale it back to 5%. If lasers are still overused, increase the duration another 5-10%.

If necessary, repeat until the duration is doubled

It's better to progressively shift the balance, observing the results as you go.

Edited by John1352, 25 September 2015 - 06:35 AM.

[WatDo]

No. Hell no. Please no?

Instead, why not change it to where the damage increases over time, rather than dealing flat damage as the laser is on target?

As we have it now, lasers deal damage instantly as they're fired (which leads to hill humping laserboats popping off an alpha for 15 instant damage and ducking down while their lasers continue to fire at the ground) and continue to do sustained damage for the whole duration.

I suggest the damage starts miniscule and ramps up per "tic" on the laser duration, dealing more damage toward the end.

This would prevent someone peeking over a hill, alphaing with 15 lasers for an instant ac-20 and ducking down, as you need the laser to be on target for the duration for any real damage. You know, like a laser. This would make them easier to spread aswell. Maybe give them a click extra damage to compensate.

[CDLord HHGD]

How about a real heat scale?

Shameless cross reference.

[Yellonet]

Skarlock, on 25 September 2015 - 06:17 AM, said:

Not a bad suggestion, but there's a few major problems as I see it. If you nerf lasers as a whole, I think light mechs will suffer disproportionately compared to other chassis. Medium and small lasers are one of the only weapons light mechs can feasibly take because they cost very little tonnage. Consider how bad a locust or commando is, and then double its laser duration. Now it's basically unusable. Even firestarters, ravens, and arctic cheetahs would struggle to contribute at all to a fight because they'd be exposing themselves for way too long to just get off 1 full alpha. Medium mechs would also feel a painful punch as many of the lower weight mediums would simply not be able to fight effectively since they can mount maybe 1 ballistic weapon effectively, and are often forced to rely very heavily on lasers to up their damage. On the other hand, heavies and assaults that have good ballistic heavy options would be the new meta. PPCs would also be much more popular, and clan gauss would probably be the outright king of firepower options. IS would be even weaker due to the fact they can't boat ballistics like clan mechs can due to all the tremendous weight inefficiencies of IS tech.

In a way I think it would balance out, yes, lights would have to use more face time, but that would is true for every class using lasers, so while other classes can use big ballistics, the light has its speed to make it a difficult target for those weapons.
So, I really don't think much of the overall balance (if there really is such a thing now) between classes would change much.
Sure, laser snipers such as the RVN-3L would suffer, but it's nothing that a bit of quirking can't fix if desired.

WatDo, on 25 September 2015 - 06:38 AM, said:

No. Hell no. Please no?

Instead, why not change it to where the damage increases over time, rather than dealing flat damage as the laser is on target?

As we have it now, lasers deal damage instantly as they're fired (which leads to hill humping laserboats popping off an alpha for 15 instant damage and ducking down while their lasers continue to fire at the ground) and continue to do sustained damage for the whole duration.

I suggest the damage starts miniscule and ramps up per "tic" on the laser duration, dealing more damage toward the end.

This would prevent someone peeking over a hill, alphaing with 15 lasers for an instant ac-20 and ducking down, as you need the laser to be on target for the duration for any real damage. You know, like a laser. This would make them easier to spread aswell. Maybe give them a click extra damage to compensate.

With the same duration, how is this any different than what we have now?

[Mcgral18]

Fix SRMs; make them better than lasers at 20M, you might see fewer lasers.


Buffs PPCs; you might see different mid range combat options.

[Yellonet]

cdlord, on 25 September 2015 - 06:40 AM, said:

How about a real heat scale?

Shameless cross reference.

That's something that affects all weapons across the board, and I don't see it solving the "problem" with insta-win alphas, just that you can't do it as often.

Mcgral18, on 25 September 2015 - 06:49 AM, said:

Fix SRMs; make them better than lasers at 20M, you might see fewer lasers.


Buffs PPCs; you might see different mid range combat options.

PPC's are good enough, it's lasers that are too good.

[Ultimax]

Here's how I would balance lasers with other weapons.


1) Increase PPC & ER PPC velocity to 1500 m/s.
2) Increase all AC & UAC velocities by approximately 100-200m/s each.
3) Increase SRM velocity & reduce spread
4) Reduce LB AC spread, increase damage per pellet, improve crit seeking ability
5) Remove LRM Indirect Fire ability, massively improve them to compete with direct fire weapons (velocity, spread) & require higher risk and higher effort

Edited by Ultimatum X, 25 September 2015 - 06:56 AM.

[CDLord HHGD]

Yellonet, on 25 September 2015 - 06:51 AM, said:

That's something that affects all weapons across the board, and I don't see it solving the "problem" with insta-win alphas, just that you can't do it as often.


PPC's are good enough, it's lasers that are too good.

Well, it's not perfect and open to modification certainly. I've been down this road. I don't want to take people's alphas away, I want to make them as risky as they are supposed to be.

I don't think any one weapon is OP. I think the issue is boating them. The only exceptions to this are the mechs purpose built for boating and that's where stock supportive quirks can come into play.

[Yellonet]

John1352, on 25 September 2015 - 06:33 AM, said:

You're on the right track, but doubling it is (probably) way too much. Duration of all med and large lasers should be increased by ~10%. After a fortnight or a month, it will become clear whether that was enough (are players still using mostly lasers?). If other weapons are being used more than lasers, maybe scale it back to 5%. If lasers are still overused, increase the duration another 5-10%.

If necessary, repeat until the duration is doubled

It's better to progressively shift the balance, observing the results as you go.

I just think that a few percent won't make a difference, I don't even think 50% would make all that much difference as there are already an even larger spread in duration among lasers right now. So if 1.5 second duration lasers are usable now, they will be later as well, just that it will be the smaller lasers that have such a duration. The largest lasers would obviously be more difficult to use, but I don't see that as a bad thing.

Ultimatum X, on 25 September 2015 - 06:55 AM, said:

Here's how I would balance lasers with other weapons.


1) Increase PPC & ER PPC velocity to 1500 m/s.
2) Increase all AC & UAC velocities by approximately 100-200m/s each.
3) Increase SRM velocity & reduce spread
4) Reduce LB AC spread, increase damage per pellet, improve crit seeking ability
5) Remove LRM Indirect Fire ability, massively improve them to compete with direct fire weapons (velocity, spread) & require higher risk and higher effort

Much more work than my solution and effectively halving TTK at the same time...

cdlord, on 25 September 2015 - 06:56 AM, said:

Well, it's not perfect and open to modification certainly. I've been down this road. I don't want to take people's alphas away, I want to make them as risky as they are supposed to be.

I don't think any one weapon is OP. I think the issue is boating them. The only exceptions to this are the mechs purpose built for boating and that's where stock supportive quirks can come into play.

Well my idea certainly does not take any alpha away, it just makes them take longer and as such being more dangerous and more difficult to use.

[CDLord HHGD]

Yellonet, on 25 September 2015 - 07:00 AM, said:

Well my idea certainly does not take any alpha away, it just makes them take longer and as such being more dangerous and more difficult to use.

I remember the forum wars when PGI increased the duration of the Clan lasers the first time.

Side note: Wonder if anyone has a timeline of these forums? Would make an interesting read.

[Mcgral18]

Yellonet, on 25 September 2015 - 06:51 AM, said:

PPC's are good enough, it's lasers that are too good.

No, PPCs are still nerfed too hard. Increase their cooldown, increase velocity.


Most lasers are good; a handful are too good. Touch those down, but your proposed blanket nerf kills so many robots. 1.5s duration SMALL PULSE LASER.

10% to a select few? Alright. But not to the entire family. isSL is already dead.

cdlord, on 25 September 2015 - 07:01 AM, said:

I remember the forum wars when PGI increased the duration of the Clan lasers the first time.

Side note: Wonder if anyone has a timeline of these forums? Would make an interesting read.

There's that one PGI timeline; didn't Deathlike have it in his sig?
Not quite the same thing.

[Yellonet]

Mcgral18, on 25 September 2015 - 07:04 AM, said:

No, PPCs are still nerfed too hard. Increase their cooldown, increase velocity.


Most lasers are good; a handful are too good. Touch those down, but your proposed blanket nerf kills so many robots. 1.5s duration SMALL PULSE LASER.

10% to a select few? Alright. But not to the entire family. isSL is already dead.



There's that one PGI timeline; didn't Deathlike have it in his sig?
Not quite the same thing.

SP Laser would get 1 second as it's 0.5 now. Not too bad IMO.
And it would be the same for everyone! If two laser boats go up against each other, nothing really changes, but it changes when laser goes up against something else, and that's the whole point.

Also, I'm not saying that this is a solution to all problems with weapon balance, it's an idea to bring lasers as a whole closer balanced against other weapon types. Of course other modifications can be done to certain weapons as well.

Edited by Yellonet, 25 September 2015 - 07:08 AM.

[John1352]

Yellonet, on 25 September 2015 - 07:00 AM, said:

I just think that a few percent won't make a difference, I don't even think 50% would make all that much difference as there are already an even larger spread in duration among lasers right now. So if 1.5 second duration lasers are usable now, they will be later as well, just that it will be the smaller lasers that have such a duration. The largest lasers would obviously be more difficult to use, but I don't see that as a bad thing.

PPCs have only had velocity nerfed since the poptarting meta. (I think it was the jumpjets that really killed it) Some lasers have had duration reduced, pulse lasers have had a big buff. I see a lot more clan large pulse lasers around than clan er large, and I'd say the duration has a lot to do with it.

Play with CERLL a bit and see if you find that the +40% duration makes a big difference.