47 replies to this topic

[Kaptain]

Can we please please please just start here:

Tarogato, on 16 September 2015 - 04:59 PM, said:

While I do like the idea of playing around with range profiles like the OP suggestions, I think a few other methods of balance should come first.

1. fix some of the heat values that PGI broke.
2. fix some of the damage values that PGI broke.
3. increase duration on Clan ER lasers if the above wasn't enough.
4. adjust ranges on Clan lasers if the above wasn't enough.

"What do you mean values that PGI broke?"

IS ML in tabletop deals 5 damage for 3 heat. PGI decided to make it cost 4 heat. (IS got nerfed)
IS SL in tabletop deals 3 damage for 1 heat. PGI decided to make it cost 2 heat. (IS got nerfed)
cERLL in tabletop deals 10 damage for 12 heat. PGI decided to give it 11 damage. (clan got buffed)
cSPL in tabletop deals 3 damage for 2 heat. PGI decided to give it 6 damage for 3 heat. (is that necessary?)
cMPL in tabletop deals 7 damage for 4 heat. PGI decided to give it 8 damage for 6 heat. (that's actually a nerf... )
cLPL in tabletop deals 10 damage for 10 heat. PGI decided to give it 13 damage. (wtf? really?)

Please?

Edited by Kaptain, 01 December 2015 - 11:24 PM.

[Widowmaker1981]

Kaptain, on 01 December 2015 - 11:23 PM, said:

Can we please please please just start here:


Please?

All large lasers got buffed compared to TT stats, because in TT they dont have burn times - all weapons have the same delivery system in TT.

The large lasers at those crappy TT stats simply wouldn't be used.

[Risen]

I recommend to change how the damage of lasers is distributed through the burn time.

Now the damage is evenly divided into "time ticks" and as long as you keep the reticule on a location X damage is appied there for Y ticks.

Give lasers a more skill based damage approach.
Make the first "time ticks" provide very little damage on the location and increase the damage per "time tick" for each tick on the location.
This way the laser can really "burn" its way through the mechs armour and twisting away damage would be a skill based defensive maneuver against it while keeping the reticule over the prefered location is also skill based.
If a location is hit again with the same laser, the damage starts at "time tick 0" again.

Clan lasers with their higher burn time just need more skill to inflict their full damage potential.
I hope I stated my idea as clearly as possible.

[Imglidinhere]

Lasers never grew even remotely close to ballistics and their only saving grace was that they had roughly equal range, a little shorter on average, and unlimited ammunition. If laser damages were halved, it'd solve most of the issues today. Let Clans have their range, but give Inner Sphere ER weaponry too to even up the playing field. Actually, the only time when lasers grew close to the level, and potentially beyond, of damage that heavier ballistic weapons did was when Clans brought out the Heavy Large Laser and Heavy Laser tech, and those do about what standard Large Lasers do RIGHT NOW.

The whole point of using ammo-fed weapons was because they dealt higher damage per shot/burst. If a Large laser does 9 damage, and weighs less than an AC/5 and has only 25% lower range, without the need or worry of ammunition shortages, then what's the point of using the ballistic weapon? I understand that 450m is a pretty big range cut compared to say... 600m, but it's not crippling and it's certainly worth the loss in range if you can forever batter away with more effective and consistent damage... and that's just the standard Large, not even the ER Large here, which effectively makes the AC/5 useless.

This game isn't based around consistent fire. Constant shots that eventually tear away at a mech's body. Not these, one-shot builds that core out IS Heavies with one alpha strike. In any other MechWarrior game, alpha strikes of this level were VERY rare, and used only to 'pop' mechs that weren't really worth the time standing there trading shots, like a Dire blowing away something small like a Wolfhound, that's reasonable. Assault vs Lights, alpha-strike one-shots... those are to be expected, but not against other assaults. That's just... dumb...

[Jollypillager]

It seems pretty obvious to me that if you want to reduce peek-a-boo and increase TTK you need to make the weapons not reward such behavior.

My vote is to pro-rate each weapon's individual damage and heat per shot so that they inflict their TT values over 10 seconds worth of firing.

i.e. a Large Laser that does 8 damage for 8 heat and which has a firing cycle of 2.5 seconds (4 shots per 10 seconds on continuous fire). Set it to 2 damage and 2 heat per shot. Now when someone tries peek-a-boo laser vomit with 4 of them they do a total of 8 damage and then either maintain facing and fire again, or duck back into cover having NOT insta-killed whatever it is they were shooting at.

Heat should be returned to 30 points of heat capacity with heat sinks reducing heat at a rate of 0.1 per SH and 0.2 per DH per second. Incoming heat from weapons fire should not apply it's heat all in one gob, but should give their heat at 10% of the total heat per second for 10 seconds.

So, using the large laser again, each shot would cause your 'Mech to heat up by 0.2 heat per second for the next 10 seconds. Fire it 4 times in a 10 second window and you will accumulate 8 heat, spread over a 20 second time period with a peak gain of 0.8 heat a second for the next 2.5 seconds right after firing the 4th shot.

If you have 8 heat sinks (0.8 heat per second of cooling), your heat meter will never move for this amount of firing, which is right in line with TT.

This allows you to put in all of the negative heat effects from TT starting at 5 heat and going on up. It also seriously penalizes those who cannot manage their weapon's usage...since the heat gain is "smeared" over a 10 second period, it is possible to have your "Mech shut down and still be gaining heat, both increasing the shut down length AND exposing you to potential ammo explosions / core meltdowns (which I would put in at, say, 50 heat).

If you were to do all of this AND get rid of instant pin point accuracy then you would be golden...in TT (which we are supposedly emulating here) a perfectly skilled gunner (2+ to hit) shooting at a stationary target at long range without cover (4 point shooting penalty) needs a 6+ to hit...in other words he MISSES 27.78% of the time AND his damage is randomly spread across the entire target. In MWO he would not only hit 100% of the time, but would hit the exact component he was shooting at with all of his weapons to boot. These are not the same result at all and until you fix the accuracy issue TTK is going to be stupidly low with no amount of band-aiding able to overcome it.

***EDIT***

If the concern is that a 2 damage large laser will "look funny" to those who know Battletech, include a "Damage per 10 sec" and "Heat per 10 sec" stat line where people will be able to see those TT numbers.

Edited by Jollypillager, 30 December 2015 - 07:16 PM.

[Imglidinhere]

keith, on 22 November 2015 - 03:01 PM, said:

u can't. it will just be a cycle of nerfing. no lasers ppl will just go to pinpoint weps. which ever is best, be it ppc, ac 5,10 or 20, or guass. then they will remain top dog for X amount of time. then cycle of nerfing will hit next best wep.

Lasers were ALWAYS weaker than ballistics. There's no reason why a large laser should do the damage of an AC/10. Really, that exact point is the very reason why mechs melt so fast.

[Inglix]

Prof RJ Gumby, on 23 November 2015 - 01:17 AM, said:

What if a certain nerf to lasers, whatever nerf that would be, by some miracle or pure luck, will turn out to NOT be an overnerf and lasers will end up not being useless, but just similar in effectiveness to auto cannons and PPCs/Gauss? Like, you know, this weapon is better in this and that weapon is better in that, pick what you prefer/basing on what do you want to do in battle?

Hard to imagine I know, but hey, it happened in other games, let's just believe it could happen in MWO too.

People don't want that though, it's easier for them (and the developers honestly) to scream: "OMGWTFBBQPWNAGE NERF IT!"

Seriously, it's the way most online games are. Rather than establish roles for weapons, rather than use a standard HPS/DHPS (easily viewable) system to limit OMGWTFBBQPWN alpha striking, it's round after round of nerfing.

Are lasers so OP? Well yes they can be OP, in their element. Just like a gauss rifle or other slug weapon. Just like a missile All weapons are OP in a certain element.

Lasers run hot, sucks to be a laserboat on a hot planet. However, on a cool planet, the ROF of a laserboat (chain, not alpha striking all the time) should be pretty high. The DPS should be high on a cold planet: yes higher than a ballistic, and probably higher than missile boat.

Gauss (insta-fire) has a recharge time, oh and it explodes pretty much the easiest of any weapon if it takes a crit, but you can shoot it 3 miles or more. The recoil is a -expletive- but hey, you can throw that slug supersonic across half a map. Find some cover.

AC's are great, unless you run hot and cook off the ammo. Also large slugs tend to behave badly (tumble) outside their design range. Also reload time, recoil, et al.

PPC's (honestly) should use the laser mechanic. Your throwing charged particles in a stream, not bullets. This might even fix the clan PPC issue.

Missiles are great direct fire weapons, decent locked (TAG, NARC, LOS lock by the launcher), but only marginal indirect fire (aka artillery splatter) without special Thunder / SWARM ammo. Just remember, it takes time to fire off 40 missiles because heat at launch is insane. We ripple fire MLRS for a good reason.

Every weapon should have a detriment when fired. Guess what? They do even in real life! Granted treating PPCs with the laser mechanic is kind of a double duty thing: A cheap mechanic fix for the clans and unify the "penalty for fire" mechanic. However, let's look at the penalties:

Lasers/PPCS: run hot, alpha striking bad idea on HPS/DHPS scale, a terrifyingly bad idea on a warm/hot map

Ballistics: Explosions, and recoil. RECOIL MOTHERF***ER screwing with accuracy. The bigger the slug, or in the case of gauss because it's utilizing charged plasma to move the slug down the barrel. We're talking about railguns, not coil guns here. Coil guns would be like the machine gun of this class of weaponry: great against unarmored targets, not so great against a battlemech's armor. Of course a coil gun has near zero recoil to a mech. A rail gun? Look at this and tell me there's no recoil. You want to alpha strike? Accuracy will go to pot fast.

Missiles are hot and suffer other penalties depending on the type of fire. Some of those penalties are due to flight time (more time for AMS to intercept), others because it becomes (in non-LOS lock) artillery splatter. You don't want one sending it's missiles directly at you though, they're fast (faster than currently coded) and really hard to knock out completely.

Remember, weapons should have roles. Weapons should not really need nerfs.

[Drunk Canuck]

Nothing will change until PGI listens to players who aren't a bunch of clueless fools, and many of them here don't understand what is truly wrong with the game.