43 replies to this topic

[Sniper Fox]

So I am a very old school player of both Battletech and Mechwarrior. And I have been playing this game for a while with some brakes. I recetly swapped out my Clan ER Large Lasers for Clan ER PPCs and noticed that the PPCs were performing rather poorly.

When I looked at the stat card for the ER PPC i noticed something horrifying. The clan ER PPC only does 10 damage. The table top game and all of the Mechwarrior games gave the Clan ER PPC a damage of 15 heat 15. This was a great punch weapon but was heavy on heat. Now the the ERPPC is doing less damage then a large laser it is an utterly pointless weapon for the game. Also why is the ER Large laser doing 11 damage instead of 10?

Was this change intentional? Is it a stat card mistake? What was the reason for the change? Can you please buff the ER PPC back up to what damage its suppose to do?

[Giving Em The Business]

10 to the component hit and 2.5 splash damage to two adjacent components. Total damage 15

[Sniper Fox]

Ohh so there is a splash dmaage mechnic?

But does the IS ER PPC do the same?

[Nightmare1]

Sniper Fox, on 09 December 2015 - 01:47 PM, said:

So I am a very old school player of both Battletech and Mechwarrior. And I have been playing this game for a while with some brakes. I recetly swapped out my Clan ER Large Lasers for Clan ER PPCs and noticed that the PPCs were performing rather poorly.

When I looked at the stat card for the ER PPC i noticed something horrifying. The clan ER PPC only does 10 damage. The table top game and all of the Mechwarrior games gave the Clan ER PPC a damage of 15 heat 15. This was a great punch weapon but was heavy on heat. Now the the ERPPC is doing less damage then a large laser it is an utterly pointless weapon for the game. Also why is the ER Large laser doing 11 damage instead of 10?

Was this change intentional? Is it a stat card mistake? What was the reason for the change? Can you please buff the ER PPC back up to what damage its suppose to do?

Take a deep breath, relax, and repeat after me:
"This is not the board game. This is an FPS-style mecha shooter. As such, certain things simply won't transition well from the board game and will need to be redesigned."

Okay, now let's look at the PPCs of MWO:

IS PPC is the "standard" PPC. It has a 90-meter minimum range in which the PPC deals no damage. Generally speaking, the lowered heat levels generated by the PPC make it preferable to the IS ERPPC for use.

IS ERPPC is the Extended Range version for the Inner Sphere and has no minimum range. It's hot and not particularly useful because of that, except for certain Mechs that are quirked for it.

For the IS, only 10 damage is dealt with either the ERPPC or the PPC. The full 10 points of damage is dealt to the struck component without splash.

Clan ERPPC is the only type of PPC that the Clans get. Like it's IS counterpart, it has no minimum range. It's also very hot and it does deal a total of 15 points of damage. However, players complained that the damage was too front-loaded and overpowering, despite the significant heat disadvantages posed by CERPPCs, so PGI nerfed them to make the 15 points distribute as thus:

2.5 points to the left adjacent component
10 points to the center component
2.5 points to the right adjacent component

It's always left and right for the matching 2.5 damage. If a targeted component has no left or right component, then that damage is lost. Example:

A CT shot results in 10 damage to the CT and 2.5 damage each to the LT and to the RT. That's a total of 15 damage.
A LA shot results in 10 damage to the LA, 2.5 damage to the LT, and 0 damage because there is nothing to the left of the LA. That's a total of 12.5 damage.
A LL shot behaves in the same fashion as a LA shot (damage from legs transfers to the appropriate side torsos).

If a component is destroyed, then damage travels inwards at half-damage. Thus, a destroyed RT that's hit with a CERPPC would do the following:

0 damage to the RA
10 damage to the RT. However, since the RT is already destroyed, this damage is reduced to 5 and travels inwards towards the CT.
2.5 damage to the CT that combines with the 5 damage from the RT for a total of 7.5 damage to the CT.

The final result is 7.5 damage to the CT and 0 damage to the RA for a combined total of 7.5 damage.

I hope this helps answer your questions! Best of luck and remember, this isn't the board game, so you're going to find that there's a lot of differences. It's best to just let go of the board game as your idealized image and just kick back and enjoy MWO as-is.

Edited by Nightmare1, 09 December 2015 - 04:22 PM.

[Koniving]

Sniper Fox, on 09 December 2015 - 02:08 PM, said:

Ohh so there is a splash dmaage mechnic?

But does the IS ER PPC do the same?

Specifically, it is a damage transfer mechanic (PGI experimented with splash damage but CryEngine has a hardcoded damage multiplier for splash damage, thus... you do splashy boom booms and a splash weapon such as an LRM might do 25 damage per missile instead of 1.X damage.)

The "splash" of damage is transferred very specifically to adjacent components. If there aren't two components to spread to, then 2.5 damage is lost. For example a hit to the arm will deliver 10 damage to the arm, 2.5 damage to the connected FRONT torso, and 2.5 is lost.

Only if it hits the rear directly can it spread to rear parts (can connect to arm from rear, but can't connect to rear from arm).

IS PPCs and ER PPCs do not share this mechanic. It is merely a way to eliminate 15 pinpoint damage from a weapon that is only 6 tons (and thus can be stacked up to 11 times).

[Nightmare1]

Good point about the rear damage. I neglected to mention that in my own reply.

[Giving Em The Business]

I forgot about the lost componenet part, but that's correct, no componenet no damage.

[Sniper Fox]

I built a mad cat to have 2 ER PPC and im trying tio figure out if its worth it.

[Koniving]

20 damage kinda pinpoint. Alternatively use two standard PPCs, slightly slower but 10 points of heat less per volley.

Making it 20 heat instead of 30.

[Ballimbo]

Nightmare1, on 09 December 2015 - 02:14 PM, said:

If a component is destroyed, then damage travels inwards at half-damage. Thus, a destroyed RT that's hit with a CERPPC would do the following:

2.5 damage to the RA
10 damage to the RT. However, since the RT is already destroyed, this damage is reduced to 5 and travels inwards towards the CT.
2.5 damage to the CT that combines with the 5 damage from the RT for a total of 7.5 damage to the CT.

The final result is 7.5 damage to the CT and 2.5 damage to the RA for a combined total of 10 damage.

Don't want to seem too picky, but
In this case (destroyed RT), there wouldn't be any RA left either. Summarized there would be only that 7.5 damage to the CT.

Or hm, wait a sec, would that damage to the destroyed RA again travel inward? So those 2.5 damage "splashing" to the destroyed RA travel for 1.25 damage again to the RT, which is still destroyed, too. So it travels further to result in 0.625 additional damage to the CT, for "grand-total" of 8.125 damage to the CT? Would be intresting to know

Koniving, on 09 December 2015 - 02:57 PM, said:

20 damage kinda pinpoint. Alternatively use two standard PPCs, slightly slower but 10 points of heat less per volley.

Making it 20 heat instead of 30.

Haven't the clans only got Clan ERPPCS? so no "alternative" there?

[Nightmare1]

Ballimbo, on 09 December 2015 - 04:18 PM, said:

Don't want to seem too picky, but
In this case (destroyed RT), there wouldn't be any RA left either. Summarized there would be only that 7.5 damage to the CT.

Or hm, wait a sec, would that damage to the destroyed RA again travel inward? So those 2.5 damage "splashing" to the destroyed RA travel for 1.25 damage again to the RT, which is still destroyed, too. So it travels further to result in 0.625 additional damage to the CT, for "grand-total" of 8.125 damage to the CT? Would be intresting to know

Ah, thanks for catching that, I was typing very quickly because I was in the middle of something else and shouldn't have been cruising the forums at all.

No, the damage would not splash on the missing arm and then travel inwards. It would just be lost.

[Koniving]

Ballimbo, on 09 December 2015 - 04:18 PM, said:

Haven't the clans only got Clan ERPPCS? so no "alternative" there?

He said he had a Marauder (MAD) right?

...Nevermind. "Mad Cat".

[Ballimbo]

Koniving, on 09 December 2015 - 04:29 PM, said:

He said he had a Marauder (MAD) right?

...Nevermind. "Mad Cat".

Honestly, I had to look it up
if the "mad cat" actually is the timberwolf. Back then I had played the TT in German (still got the technical readouts, 25 years since, my gosh ) and there the mechs have other names (german ones, but also other "english names", god knows why, even the chassis-abbrevations are different...). And with clan 'mechs, those two names (IS/Clan) don't really help, either. Over in the german subforum some guys still use those "german" names. Frankly, it's a mess.

[Night Thastus]

All PPC's are crap. Too hot, need to have solid aim, and do little damage. Clan ERPPC's are likely the best out of the bunch with their 15 damage (even if 5 is splash). That's the highest heat/damage ratio of any PPC.

[Khobai]

Quote

All PPC's are crap. Too hot, need to have solid aim, and do little damage. Clan ERPPC's are likely the best out of the bunch with their 15 damage (even if 5 is splash). That's the highest heat/damage ratio of any PPC.

Not anymore. Clan ERPPCs suck now that clan heat capacity was nerfed into the ground.

[Neput Z34]

The only mech that i would ever consider running C-ERPPCs is a WHK-A/Prime

[Sniper Fox]

Thanks for the explinations guys. I do see hoe heavily the Clans have been nerfed and it makes me very sad. Im really unsure as to why they have been hammered so hard. But like any MMO game the deveopers always seem to over nerf. Looks like the same hapened here.

[Void Angel]

Sniper Fox, on 09 December 2015 - 07:18 PM, said:

Thanks for the explinations guys. I do see hoe heavily the Clans have been nerfed and it makes me very sad. Im really unsure as to why they have been hammered so hard. But like any MMO game the deveopers always seem to over nerf. Looks like the same hapened here.

Actually, the Clans tend toward superiority when played well in the competitive style - that's part of why they've won both Battle of Tukkayyid events held thus far. The reason for the relative nerfing of the Clans from their supertechnological tabletop version was twofold:

First, unlike tabletop, in MWO you only have one 'mech per player at a time. This introduces problems if you try to balance the tabletop capabilities against the Inner Sphere: if you use BattleValue, there's a big disparity in relative tonnage, matchmaking, etc;^* if you use different team sizes, that might work - but now one side bestrides the battlefield like a Titan, while the other team plays the jackals trying to swarm them over with superior numbers. In short, it might be fun to play the Ogre, or it might be fun to play the opposing army - but it's not so much fun to play one unit in the opposing army.

Second, if you talk to the designers and older players, you'll find strong testimony that BattleValue never really quite worked in tabletop anyway. One of the designers is on record as saying the Clans' supertechnology was a balance mistake - and that the long range capabilities didn't really make sense for the Clan focus on individual dueling, either.

The Clans are actually equivalent to the Inner Sphere at this point - their weapons and Omnimech upgrades retain that low-space, long-range flavor, but the Inner Sphere's tech base has advantages of its own. It's not a perfect system, but it is pretty well balanced, which is vital in this game format.

PS: Clan heat capacity isn't "nerfed into the ground." One of the differences between Tabletop and MWO is that adding heat sinks also increases the amount of heat you can accumulate before shutdown. Last Patch, PGI introduced some changes to the way Inner Sphere and Clan heat sinks compared; the Clans got slightly increased heat dissipation, and decreased heat capacity compared to the Inner Sphere. The numbers look big if you don't run the math - but a Clan Omnimech with 20 double heat sinks will have a heat capacity of 61 points before shutdown, and an Inner Sphere 'mech would have 65. Woo. The Adjective Animal's heat dissipation, however, is slightly higher. It's still a net nerf to the Clans, but it's not the Mother of All Nerf Hammers.

Edited by Void Angel, 09 December 2015 - 09:55 PM.

[Tarogato]

Yes, PGI has decided to change weapon stats for seemingly no reason at all. Like you said, the ERLL doing 11 damage instead of 10, the cLPL dealing 13 damage instead of 10, etc etc. Here is a table I made to show the differences between BattleTech stats and the MWO stats, look at the "comparison" columns: https://docs.google....#gid=1360686414

Edited by Tarogato, 10 December 2015 - 12:03 AM.

[Lily from animove]

Neput Z34, on 09 December 2015 - 06:33 PM, said:

The only mech that i would ever consider running C-ERPPCs is a WHK-A/Prime

but its so lovely to play