10 replies to this topic

[Kaeb Odellas]

So Flamers have finally gotten some attention after years of neglect, but what about the other stinkers in our arsenals? I'm talking about:


Machine Guns: Still terrible! They were pretty nice back when they did 1 DPS and crit like crazy, back when Embers were actually dangerous. PGI was probably right to nerf their crit damage but went too far in their nerfs. Their cone of fire is so wide, they can't land all of their shots on the CT of an Awesome from 120m. That's pretty damn bad. Sure they generate no heat, but I'll take an SPL over an MG and half a ton of ammo pretty much any day.

How I'd fix them: Eliminate the cone of fire and up DPS to 1. Maybe leave Clan MGs COF in place since they're half the weight.


IS Streak-2s: IS Streak boats are pretty much entirely obsoleted by the advent of Clan Streak-4s and Streak-6s. Even ignoring the larger launchers, Clan S-SRM2s are a straight upgrade over the IS version, featuring longer range, lower tonnage, and otherwise identical characteristics. I think the only advantage the IS version has is slightly faster missiles. Other Clan missile systems have more pronounced downsides compared to IS that keep them in check.

How I'd fix them: Increase rate of fire. All IS missile systems have faster cooldowns than their Clan counterparts with the exception of streaks, so let's change that. It would also be nice if Clan streaks had the same ripple-fire effect that their LRMs have, so they don't quite instantly explode IS lights.


IS Small Lasers: The Clans utterly dominate in the Small and Small Pulse laser category. The Clan ER small laser is 66% more powerful, has a 66% longer optimal range, and is only 50% hotter, making it more heat efficient than the IS Small. That's pretty gross. The 0.25s duration increase is pretty negligible in practice. The Clan SPL is effectively an IS SPL with +50% to every stat but tonnage, slots, and cooldown. Also pretty damn gross. Clan ERMLs and MPLs are at least less heat efficient than their IS counterparts.

How I'd fix them: Heat would be a good first step towards fixing the SL and SPL. Bringing them down to 1.5 heat makes them more heat efficient than their Clan counterparts. I'd also bump up their range a notch and their cooldowns and durations a tad.


LB-X Autocannons: The only advantage the Clan LB-X autocannons have over the Ultras are more front-loaded damage, but that's negated by their terrible spread and the Ultra's higher DPS potential. They're not great.

How I'd fix them: Reduce their impact area by half and boost damage to 1.2 per pellet.


IS ER PPCs IS ERPPCs are too damn hot. Clan ERPPCs are just as hot but they at least benefit from being lighter, smaller, and that marginally useful extra 2.5-5 points of splash damage. IS ERPPCs have nothing of the sort, and are pretty much entirely useless without heavy quirks.

How I'd fix them: Reduce IS ERPPC heat to 12 and standard PPC heat to 9. Maybe give the ERPPC some kind of heat damage like flamers have. That would be interesting.


AC2s: Reducing their heat a tad was a step in the right direction, but not nearly enough to make them actually viable without big cooldown quirks. A cooldown module is another step, but a weapon shouldn't need a 3 million C-bill module to become decent. PGI knocked down their DPS because they felt it shouldn't have the same DPS as the AC5, but that's ridiculous. The AC5 doesn't need 100% facetime to deal damage like the AC2 does, and the AC2 has far greater chance to scatter damage than the AC5.

How I'd fix them: Give them at least equivalent DPS to the AC5. Maybe more. AC5s still put out better pinpoint damage and are still far more heat efficient.


What does everyone else here think?

[El Bandito]

During my 3 years of MWO life, I had proposed many times the fix to the weapons you have listed above, in many ways similar to your idea. However, due to PGI's inaction, I loathe to waste my time typing them here again.

Instead I will just say that PGI should buff the weapons themselves, instead of foolishly using excessive amount of quirks to prop up their terribadness, for only limited amount of mechs.

PS: Regarding IS SSRM2s, I really think PGI should introduce IS SSRM4/6s, timeline be damned.

Edited by El Bandito, 16 February 2016 - 12:18 AM.

[Ace Selin]

how about adding Ghost Damage to these weapons.
Anytime 2 are used you get extra 10% damage, 3 = extra 20%, 4 = extra 30% damage & 5 or more are extra 40% damage.
This is sure to get players to boat these weapons too.

[Kassatsu]

Ace Selin, on 15 February 2016 - 11:59 PM, said:

how about adding Ghost Damage to these weapons.
Anytime 2 are used you get extra 10% damage, 3 = extra 20%, 4 = extra 30% damage & 5 or more are extra 40% damage.
This is sure to get players to boat these weapons too.

Just imagine if they did that with MGs AND buffed their DPS to 1. Urbies with 4 MGs dealing a whopping 5.2DPS with one arm.

[Spheroid]

Inner Sphere steaks need to be buffed to 2.5 damage per missile for all current and future lanchers. The damage output is just too low.

Edited by Spheroid, 16 February 2016 - 12:18 AM.

[Prof RJ Gumby]

Machine guns: 1.0dps
PPCs: -1 heat to all
IS streaks: introduce 4s already

nuff said.

[jjm1]

All the standard autocannons should not even be in the list.
LBX are pointless compared to their UAC equivalents. You could double their damage and they would still be worse.
In practice the big clan Autocannons seem to be completely inferior to the IS ones because of the requirement to land multiple shots.
MGs are terribad. Trying to remove already weakened components in a game where even assault mechs can be cored in seconds by big alpha laser boats is just... yeah. May as well try and ram them.

[Thunderbird Anthares]

IS dont "have" other Ultras
IS has UAC5 and LBX10.. and SSRM2... thats it

we cannot choose, clans can - and in the light of the patch - "some" of the buffs (relatively speaking) that Clans get today seem outright ridiculous to me...

[Davegt27]

lets not change anything

you will just make things worse

[Pjwned]

I made a thread a while ago about my ideas on how to balance various weapons, and looking back I'm actually somewhat surprised to see that a few of those ideas were at least partially implemented, but PGI still has a ways to go.

I'll just quote the parts of that thread that are still relevant.

Pjwned, on 14 June 2015 - 03:08 AM, said:

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.

AC2 does have lower heat now but it still needs to have its heat lowered further.

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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 *** 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.

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.

The relatively recent gauss cooldown nerf is still overdone and should be reverted.

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LB 10-X AC: This requires a revamped critical hit system so that it doesn't suck so much ***, 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.

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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

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.

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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.

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

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

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.

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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.

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.

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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.

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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.


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.

And there you go, weapons that are currently crap are now better as well as slight nerfs for a couple weapons that are a little bit too good.

Edited by Pjwned, 16 February 2016 - 03:43 AM.

[jaxjace]

Preaching to the choir, several threads like this have been posted over the years.

I think a nerf to lasers would also be in order, as well as a velocity buff to ppcs and putting the gauss back to where it was

LBX shouldnt do more dmg but it should be viable, back to the drawing board.