60 replies to this topic

[Gentleman Reaper]

Here's my opinions on how some weapons in the game should be rebalanced. Bear in mind that this is simply my opinion, I'm always willing to lend an ear to someone who has a different idea, so please don't be "that guy" and tell me that one of my ideas are stupid without providing info as to why and what would be a better way. I'd like to thank Scout Derek and Sandpit for the suggestion of splitting up my original post into segments as well as how to make everything here easier to read, as I have little experience making posts on these forums. Please keep it civil in here and bring your own ideas on how else certain things can be balanced.

I'd like to thank Scout Derek and Sandpit for the suggestion of splitting up my original post into segments as well as how to make everything here easier to read, as I have little experience making posts on these forums.

Small laser:

Spoiler

How it is now:
Pretty good for its weight, but make it ever slightly easier to focus damage.
How it should be changed:
Shorten the laser duration a bit, the SL should be a knife to the SPL being a scalpel, making it easier to focus its low damage on a single point.

Clan lasers:

Spoiler

How they are now:
Clan lasers have been the point of argument on game balance since the introduction of the Clans in MWO. They have much greater range and damage over their IS counterparts, so much so that the longer laser burn time does little to balance them, as their effect with hitting larger and slower targets are virtually non-existent, making them have extremely powerful and long ranged alphas that can quickly cripple heavier mechs.
How they should be changed:
I know this might be a controversial opinion, but I think PGI should not rely completely on Table Top values for these weapons (although quite a few things were already changed, like pulse laser damage). Clan lasers should have their damage and range reduced, with the burn time reduced as well to make them easier to damage smaller and faster mechs. Here's how I think the damage and range values should be:
ER Small Laser: 4 damage, 180-190m optimal range
Small Pulse Laser: 5 damage, 140-150m optimal range
ER Medium Laser: 6 damage, 360-370m optimal range
Medium Pulse Laser: 7 damage, 290-300m optimal range
ER Large Laser: 10 damage, 690-700m optimal range
Large Pulse Laser: 11 or 12 damage, 540-550m optimal range

PPC/ERPPC:

Spoiler

How it is now:
More or less a slower firing AC-10 with unlimited ammo, the PPC is but a shadow of its former self. The rather slow velocity makes this weapon extremely difficult to land hits at long range, a role it's supposed to excel at, and, with the exception of mechs with large PPC velocity buffs, is tossed aside for the more-or-less equally damaging , longer ranged, lighter, cooler, and instantly hitting ER Large Laser.
How it should be changed:
Increase the velocity to be comparable to its pre-nerf values, with a slower cycle time and maybe even a charge mechanic a la Gauss Rifle to make the PPC a proper sniper weapon that requires good aim to land hits.

Clan ERPPC:

Spoiler

How it is now:
Functionally identical to its IS counterpart, with the exception of dealing 5 splash damage to surrounding components. I'm not really a fan of how this was implemented, as it has no real effect on accurate shots, but otherwise makes it superior to the IS PPCs.
How it should be changed:
Make it deal 12 direct damage, but with either higher heat and/or slower cycle time and/or longer charge time compared to the IS PPC. This makes the Clan ERPPC a more powerful weapon, but requires more patience and accuracy to get the most out of it.

Flamer:

Spoiler

How it is now:
Since the last patch, the flamer went from a low damage piece of crap to an even lower damaging piece of crap that generates a large amount of heat on target mech. While I'm happy that the flamer has more of a role now, the new mechanics in place are far too convoluted to make this a reliable weapon, and I feel the heat damage it causes is far too high for a 1 ton weapon.
How it should be changed:
Restore the damage back to how it was before, give it fixed heat generation rather than the confusing no-heat time limit, and lower the heat damage it causes. I feel that it should take persistence and a decent number of flamers to hamper a high heat mech, with a single flamer simply slowing down heat dissipation, 2 flamers stopping it, and 4 flamers being able to heat up a mech in about 4 or 5 seconds. This makes it so that a stock Firestarter should be able to accomplish the role it's meant for effectively. To balance the IS Flamer vs the lighter Clan Flamer, make the Clan version have slightly lower range.

Autocannon/2:

Spoiler

How it is now:
It's come a long way since the beta days, it used to be a powerful dakka weapon with its 0.5 second cycle time, then that was nerfed and the weapon fell into mediocrity, then it was buffed again with decent crit damage potential.
How it should be changed:
Hard to say, it feels weaker on lighter mechs, since they have to stay in the open to get its full damage potential, but heavier mechs can hoard multiple AC/2s, allowing devastating dakka builds like the 5 or 6 AC/2 Maulers. My idea was having its cycle time like it used to be, with maybe a lower velocity to compensate, but I think the cooldown quirks that lighter mechs currently have is the best outcome.

Autocannon/5:

Spoiler

How it is now:
Sort of the ugly duckling of the family, the AC/5 has no real strengths to make it stand out over the other ACs, especially the AC/2. You get only marginally better DPS than the AC/2 (3.0 vs 2.8), as well as identical damage per ton of ammo (150).
How it should be changed:
Increase RoF slightly, so that its DPS hovers around 3.2, and either increase its ammo per ton to 32 shots (160 damage per ton) or lower AC/2 ammo to 70 shots per ton (140 damage per ton).

Autocannon/10:

Spoiler

How it is now:
It now possesses the highest damage per ton of ammo of any autocannon in the game (200 vs the closest being the AC/2 and AC/5's 150).
How it should be changed:
Decrease ammo per ton to 17 or 18 (depending on how much ammo the AC/2 or AC/5 will have.

Autocannon/20:

Spoiler

How it is now:
Has by far the lowest ammo per ton of any of the autocannons (at 140), which makes little sense with the drawbacks of this weapon, like the heavy weight, low cycle time and limited range.
How it should be changed:
Increase ammo per ton to 9 or 10 (180 and 200 damage per ton of ammo respectively), depending on how the other ACs are tweaked.

Clan Autocannons:

Spoiler

How they are now:
Probably the only Clan weapons that are inferior to their IS counterparts, the burst fire is the big deal breaker, as it makes it difficult to focus damage and adds to the cycle time.
How they should be changed:
Lower C-AC/2 RoF slightly so it has less DPS than the IS version. Make the C-AC/5 single shot, with also slightly lower RoF than IS version. Make the C-AC/10 a two round burst. Make the C-AC/20 a three round burst.

LB-X Autocannons:

Spoiler

How they are now:
Complete and utter crap, the spread on these guys makes them not worth using at any range, as even near point blank you might have a pellet or two still not hit the component you're aiming for.
How they should be changed:
Their optimal range should be the point where you're able to get all the pellets to hit the CT of something like a Centurion, making the LB/2-X and LB/5-X relatively accurate. This spread would make normal ACs better weapons past optimal range, but LB-Xs be able to deal large amounts of critical damage to exposed components within it, and making them ideal for dealing with fast lights. This is the best way to balance them short of overcoming the technical hurdles of switching ammo types.

Ultra-Autocannons:

Spoiler

How they are now:
Really uncomfortable to use, as no-one like having random chance dictate how a fight goes, but otherwise overpowered should you be lucky enough or have quirks to lower the chances of a jam.
How they should be changed:
Firing again before the full cycle cooldown is finished triggers a longer cooldown, with Clan UACs having the same DPS whether you double-fire it or not, and IS UACs having slightly better DPS with double-firing to make up for the extra tonnage. The advantage of this is that you can burst fire, then turn away while you go through the long cooldown, giving an actual use for UACs without relying on chance and making them overpowered.

Gauss Rifle:

Spoiler

How it is now:
Relatively balanced, but otherwise annoying to use, as the charge mechanic is tedious and frankly doesn't make sense, or else the weapon shouldn't be able to explode if the capacitors aren't charged.
How it should be changed:
Remove the charge mechanic (with the PPCs having it instead), and lower the velocity to about 1700-1800, making it more difficult to pull off snap shots on distant targets, and preventing another Gauss-PPC meta. Lower RoF of the Clan Gauss so that it's not flat out superior to the IS version.

Machine-Gun:

Spoiler

How it is now:
One of the worst weapons in the game, the low damage and low range doesn't make it worth closing the distance just so you can get critical damage on an exposed component. Since this is pretty much the only ballistic weapon you can mount on a light mech, you end up with mechs like the Locust-1V where you can only rely on a single energy hardpoint, as getting close enough to use MGs is a death sentence.
How it should be changed:
Drastically increase thespread and range of the MG, to around 200-300 meters. I know TT has always had MGs as extremely short range weapons, but this makes no sense realistically as high caliber machine guns have decent range and velocity in real life. An acceptable range like this would make MG lights be able to engage targets more carefully, while making MGs much more attractive on heavier mechs to finish off targets at medium range.

LRMs and C-LRMs:

Spoiler

How they are now:
They are surprisingly well balanced to each other, with the stagger fire making up for the lighter weight of the Clan LRMs. The main issue with them is the inaccuracy of the larger launchers, especially the LRM-20, which way too often has missiles completely miss the target, making most people choose LRM-15s over it.
How they should be changed:
Decrease the spread on LRM-20s and maybe LRM-15s to match that of the LRM-10.

SRMs and C-SRMs:

Spoiler

How they are now:
Just like with LRMs, the larger of the launchers, namely the SRM-6, ends up being rather inaccurate compared to SRM-2s and 4s. Unlike with the LRMs, Clan SRMs have little disadvantage over IS SRMs, with IS SRMs only having slightly higher damage per missile, leading to a negligably higher DPS (3.2 vs 3.0).
How they should be changed:
Tighten the spread on SRM6s (maybe SRM4s too) and increase the cooldown time on Clan SRMs to lower the DPS, since they're easy to boat.

Edited by Elit3 Nick, 09 March 2016 - 01:28 PM.
I merged threads, should look better now.

[Sandpit]

I'd really suggest you break those into multiple threads. You're going to have a miserable time trying to keep your thread on topic when you're covering that much information across that many different systems in the game.

[CDLord HHGD]

I like most of what you have to say. Kinda lost me at moving away from TT though. First, we'd have to be at TT values to move away from it, and second, moving away from it is what I believe how we got into this mess.

[Gentleman Reaper]

Sandpit, on 09 March 2016 - 11:57 AM, said:

I'd really suggest you break those into multiple threads. You're going to have a miserable time trying to keep your thread on topic when you're covering that much information across that many different systems in the game.

Breaking it up in which way? One thread for weapons alone?

[Scout Derek]

Elit3 Nick, on 09 March 2016 - 12:01 PM, said:

Breaking it up in which way? One thread for weapons alone?

In a way yes, such as a thread for Weapons, a thread for equipment, and a thread for the engine.

Plus the lack of usage of the spoiler function is really tough on people who just want to respond to one topic on this.

If you don't know how to use it, you first go [.spoiler] (without period, to prevent it from making it at this point), move the text/ picture you want after it, and then at the end, put [/spoiler].

It should look something like this:

Spoiler

If It comes out like this, you did it correctly

I can do it for you if you like.

[Sandpit]

Elit3 Nick, on 09 March 2016 - 12:01 PM, said:

Breaking it up in which way? One thread for weapons alone?

well, each section there you listed above?
Breaking it down as much as possible will help you manage the thread in the longrun and keep it on topic. You've got some good ideas up there, but the majority of people here aren't going to read through that entire post and are going to pick out one or two subjects they feel are important to them and you're going to wind up with 50 different discussions going on in your thread

[thehiddenedge]

I'm not sure I'm going to trust someone who calls themselves eilt3...



See what I did there?
Instead of focusing on the content of your post, I instead resorted to personal attacks. This is because on some level I feel insulted that you would expect me to read all of that text and make an intelligent reply.

Nah it's not really that bad, but there are some people...

You make some good points, but there's so much to even cover to keep a focused discussion going. I'm also going to have to agree with what cdlord said. Straying away from TT is part of what got us into this weird place we are right now as far as balance.

[CDLord HHGD]

thehiddenedge, on 09 March 2016 - 12:25 PM, said:

I'm not sure I'm going to trust someone who calls themselves eilt3...



See what I did there?
Instead of focusing on the content of your post, I instead resorted to personal attacks. This is because on some level I feel insulted that you would expect me to read all of that text and make an intelligent reply.

Nah it's not really that bad, but there are some people...

You make some good points, but there's so much to even cover to keep a focused discussion going. I'm also going to have to agree with what cdlord said. Straying away from TT is part of what got us into this weird place we are right now as far as balance.

Actually, compared to some of the wall-o-texts I have seen on these forums, this one was well organized and read quickly. 10/10.
I'm on the fence about spoilers. While it would reduce the first impression wall-o-text, it would also necessitate more mouse clicks. If I wanted that, I'd log into the game...

[Scout Derek]

err, I'm going to combine your two threads, unapprove the old first post as well, standby...

Done, should look better now, no?

Edited by Scout Derek, 09 March 2016 - 12:33 PM.

[thehiddenedge]

cdlord, on 09 March 2016 - 12:28 PM, said:

Actually, compared to some of the wall-o-texts I have seen on these forums, this one was well organized and read quickly. 10/10.
I'm on the fence about spoilers. While it would reduce the first impression wall-o-text, it would also necessitate more mouse clicks. If I wanted that, I'd log into the game...

Nah, I was just giving him a hard time. It was actually organized pretty well for a forum post. There's just so many different topics to branch out on there. I don't know where to start.


Small lasers I can totally agree with a shorter duration time. Last time I looked there wasn't much of a gap between small and medium.

I was actually comparing Clan lasers to IS lasers yesterday and current numbers are pretty balanced right now. They have longer duration and higher heat to match, but they also do more damage and have longer range. I think the real problem here is less efficient Clan heatsinks, not the lasers themselves.

PPC's do need higher velocity and I could even settle for a slightly longer cooldown, but no charge mechanic. They are already losing out compared to Large Pulse Lasers. Clan PPCs doing 12 direct damage doesn't sound too bad.

AC2's could use less heat in my opinion, that's my only real complaint. AC's in general could use a slightly higher velocity, but I feel ammo is fine except for the 20 being kinda low. LB-X's yeah, ideal spread at optimum range makes sense, I agree with you there.

Gauss rifle... Hopefully if they are implementing a power draw mechanic they could get rid of the charge time and instead make it power hungry. I don't mind the charge up mechanic, but I like not having it more. I was reading Blood Legacy last night and the part where Phelan and Natasha test out to be warrior's made a power draw seem like a very interesting idea.

Edited by thehiddenedge, 09 March 2016 - 01:02 PM.

[Gentleman Reaper]

This thread now (apparently) focuses on weapons.

thehiddenedge, on 09 March 2016 - 12:34 PM, said:

Nah, I was just giving him a hard time. It was actually organized pretty well for a forum post. There's just so many different topics to branch out on there. I don't know where to start.

Using my ancient Xbox gamertag has become a habit, although I'm heavily considering finally changing it to avoid such potential insults.

[Nerdboard]

Personally I disagree with many of the changes/issues you adress.

Many things on your list (example: gauss, ac/5) are absolutely fine in my opinion and should not be changed in any way (unless different balance changes throw them into a completely different environment compared to the current state of the game).

I completely agree that Command Console, C.A.S.E and BAP could use an overhaul. (other thread now)

Slight correction to your comment about machine guns: Machine guns do not have any bullet velocity. They hit instantly. They do however have a spray effect (a cone of fire if you will) which you would probably want to reduce instead in order to increase their effective range.

Edited by Nerdboard, 09 March 2016 - 12:47 PM.

[Sandpit]

Elit3 Nick, on 09 March 2016 - 12:39 PM, said:

This thread now (apparently) focuses on weapons.

Just trying to give you some tips to help you be able to keep your thread on topic and constructive. Trust me, there will be plenty who will derail. I'll try to give some thought to responding to some of your ideas later this evening, but I like your thoughts on a few things listed above

[Gentleman Reaper]

Nerdboard, on 09 March 2016 - 12:46 PM, said:

Personally I disagree with many of the changes/issues you adress.

Many things on your list (example: gauss, ac/5) are absolutely fine in my opinion and should not be changed in any way (unless different balance changes throw them into a completely different environment compared to the current state of the game).

I understand, like I said with Gauss, it's more or less balanced the way it is, what I proposed was simply an alternate way of balancing it, so that it's a bit less annoying. As for AC/5s, I can do with keeping the RoF the same, but at least add a few more shots per ton to at least make it a bit more attractive on heavier mechs over massing AC/2s, which has higher DPS and the same damage potential with a ton of ammo.

Nerdboard, on 09 March 2016 - 12:46 PM, said:

Slight correction to your comment about machine guns: Machine guns do not have any bullet velocity. They hit instantly. They do however have a spray effect (a cone of fire if you will) which you would probably want to reduce instead in order to increase their effective range.

I was not aware of this, Smurfy lists the speed at 100, which does seem a bit odd, as that would make the rounds travel significantly slower than an AC/20 round.

[Mcgral18]

A couple notes: the MG has no velocity, it's hitscan like a laser. Unless you just want the particle effect faster, velocity does nothing for performance.

Range is mostly useless as well because of the CoF.
My suggestion is return the damage to 1 DPS and remove (or significantly reduce for the Clam MG) the CoF.


Reducing AC2 ammo and even AC10 is not a positive change. UAC10 one could make an argument, but 200 Dam/ton feels good.
Although I'm curious...why do you want different dam/ton values between the AC5 and AC2? 75*2=150 and 30*5=150
The AC2 certainly doesn't need a nerf.

[Gentleman Reaper]

Sandpit, on 09 March 2016 - 12:47 PM, said:

Just trying to give you some tips to help you be able to keep your thread on topic and constructive. Trust me, there will be plenty who will derail. I'll try to give some thought to responding to some of your ideas later this evening, but I like your thoughts on a few things listed above

The "apparently" comes from me thinking that I had created a new thread, only to see the same replies as before, I probably edited this thread without realizing it.

[Mcgral18]

For cACs, I'd keep the bursts as they are but improve performance.

Make them fly faster, with cool downs in line with their respective class (lel, 5.03s cAC20 recycle)

[Scout Derek]

Elit3 Nick, on 09 March 2016 - 12:56 PM, said:

The "apparently" comes from me thinking that I had created a new thread, only to see the same replies as before, I probably edited this thread without realizing it.

I did, I merged the thread and did some editing.

[Gentleman Reaper]

Mcgral18, on 09 March 2016 - 12:55 PM, said:

A couple notes: the MG has no velocity, it's hitscan like a laser. Unless you just want the particle effect faster, velocity does nothing for performance.

Range is mostly useless as well because of the CoF.
My suggestion is return the damage to 1 DPS and remove (or significantly reduce for the Clam MG) the CoF.


Reducing AC2 ammo and even AC10 is not a positive change. UAC10 one could make an argument, but 200 Dam/ton feels good.
Although I'm curious...why do you want different dam/ton values between the AC5 and AC2? 75*2=150 and 30*5=150
The AC2 certainly doesn't need a nerf.

It's more with buffing the AC/5 and AC/20's dam/ton, the AC/2's round reduction was if the AC/5's ammo/ton remained the same. I feel the AC/5 should have at least something over the AC/2, which is 2 tons lighter, has greater velocity, more range, and the same damage potential as the AC/5, not leaving much in its favor short of being able to twist away while the next round cycles.

Scout Derek, on 09 March 2016 - 01:00 PM, said:

I did, I merged the thread and did some editing.

Oh you sneaky fox you...

[Mcgral18]

Elit3 Nick, on 09 March 2016 - 01:02 PM, said:

It's more with buffing the AC/5 and AC/20's dam/ton, the AC/2's round reduction was if the AC/5's ammo/ton remained the same. I feel the AC/5 should have at least something over the AC/2, which is 2 tons lighter, has greater velocity, more range, and the same damage potential as the AC/5, not leaving much in its favor short of being able to twist away while the next round cycles.



Oh you sneaky fox you...

And yet, the AC5 is far superior to the AC2.

It's among the best isAC, when boated (and especially when quirked).