PhoenixFire55, on 08 May 2016 - 08:06 AM, said:
Sigh .
We've talked about instant automatic convergence that allows huge alphas into the same component a million times, but PGI will never stray away from it because they are 1) too dumb to implement a proper mechanics in the first place 2) their ****** servers won't be able to cope with additional load of calculating convergence.
In TT one gauss rifle or one CERPPC can instantly kill any mech via a headshot. I'm sure people bringing TT into this discussion will surely like that to be the case in MWO as well, eh?
Actually, yes. Yes I would.
See, before I begin I must first inform you that Battletech tabletop also suffers an absolutely horrendous pinpoint frontloaded damage problem as opposed to the lore as well. However this is because tabletop is -- and the tech manual literally states as much -- "an expedited summary of events in slices of 10 seconds that is not to be taken as a perfect example of how battletech works.". Paraphrased. Will have the exact quote later today.
With this fact stated, I can explain myself.
PGI ****** up from the very beginning by not reading about each weapon. Or if what Reddit claims Thomas (weapon designer) had to say before he left PGI, Russ stated some design directions that overode the lore by saying (paraphrased) " I want huge guns with huge bullets.". Whichever the case things went downhill really quick from the beginning of the transistion from MW5 to MWO.
Instead of weapons that produce 1x damage over slices of 5 seconds with 5 second buffers, we had weapons that would go up to a record of 38x the "expedited" tabletop rate. To deliver damage 38 times faster than the already "sped up" rate of tabletop... Think about this. Is it any wonder stock builds are hardly worthwhile? (The weapon was the first iteration of the AC/2 where a single AC/2 would outperform an AC/10, and mechs always packed them in pairs for the win).
I know. You want to know what this has to do with instant kills with a single Gauss rifle.
There are four classes of actual pinpoint FLD weapons in lore. Gauss. Particle Projector Cannons. Missiles. Rifles. Everything else required 2 to 100 shots to deliver their full damage rating (short of mgs as they churned out hundreds to thousands of bullets). With limited exceptions all displayed as flawed systems (such as the bombast laser, Binary Laser Cannon), it is exclusively the Gauss, PPC, Rifle and Missile classes that were FLD at all.
Of them:
The Gauss rifle is a volatile weapon that so long as it was powered for use it could explode with ease from through armor crits. This explosion would be 20 damage. This when mounted on an arm would unconditionally rip off the arm of even a 65 ton mech like the Ebon Jaguar or Thunderbolt.
Ppcs have a minimum accuracy range (not min damage range). This is actually charge up related (post-90s lore, original lore was it was so heavy and hard to swing around). With proper mech threshold for heat, max of 3 with an almost guaranteed slowdown at once but spamming 6 reg ppcs in a chain is possible in 10 seconds without shutting down with proper timing and the right number of DHS. Even then, implement TT's realistic heatsink taxing and if you surpass the capacity of your heatsinks in their own threshold and you risk coolant failures disabling or even destroying some of your heatsinks. But short of the Gauss Rifle, nothing else in this timeline has more FLD.
Missiles (pretty straight forward). No spam issues as missiles as reload times vary between 2.5-4 seconds for speed loading units and 7 seconds for slower ones.
Rifles are antiques based on late 21st century tank cannons. Single shot, FLD. (Gee, sounds like mwo's I.S. autocannons!). Problem is short of the projectile speeds from a Gauss Rifle, large shells cannot pierce "Modern Armor" as well so the overall damage potential is reduced by a generic 3 units (to keep it simple, direct blows and glancing blows still have additional effects that allow unlikely weapons to still produce damage under the right conditions.
Autocannons... I could spread lots of lore about these weapons from sizes to how light and reg versions could work together and how what brand you choose could give you options between reload speeds, cassette(magazine) size, reg AC double fire abilities, the list goes on and on. I'll leave it at incredible missed opportunity. Instead I will say why these weapons don't suffer the problems of Rifles. ACs use smaller shells propelled at better speeds fired in rapid succession. Yes, damage per bullet is in decimals to whole numbers plus decimals, but the rate of fire allows them to compete with or surpass the shells from Rifles and generally run cooler too. Yes Rifles surpass them with Pinpoint FLD, but ACs as a dps weapon are superior.
Lasers. These are the middle ground. Variants range from 0.1 second shots to a maximum of 2 second burns. Large lasers benefit from being more FLD than medium and small lasers. However when one large laser variant does 9 damage in 2 or 3 shots (4.5 or 3 damage per shot), a medium laser does about 4 to 8 shots in the same amount of time (at 1.25 to 0.625 damage per shot). Also note that weapons requiring longer burn times would be doing more damage per shot albeit not as quick-and-done as a shorter shooting laser.
Pulse lasers run hotter and do more damage. They also have accuracy bonuses. This is because unlike standard lasers, pulse lasers fire several shots in a sequence, ranging up to 20 shots. This exchange of dps-style damage allow the overtime damage to surpass the more FLD style lasers and the heat doesn't build up as quick so the higher heat is manageable.
Now apply this with the same pinpoint system we already have. Would we ever have had a problem with mass alphas, provided the proper mech threshold condition I already mentioned and the heatsink melting which was originally part of MWO, and even with 1x armor, 1x structure, the time to kill would dramatically increase in larger firefights. Tactical and dynamic gameplay would reach much greater highs as would depth and meta potential. Yet 1 vs 1 battles would be roughly in the same ballpark as right now... And finally, good aim and skill would be rewarded with the ability for JoeSniper over there to net a headshot on an Atlas using a Gauss Rifle in a 35 ton Hollander!
That is... If PGI were competent in design and read the source material from the beginning!
(Edit; originally typed on an android and it changed some words to wonky stuff. Fixed.)
Edited by Koniving, 13 May 2016 - 09:51 AM.
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