130 replies to this topic

[Vahgus]

First off this is my preliminary opinion I'll add more when I get onto the pts.

I'm not really sure why they are worried about the cycle rate of guass rifles anyway. I like the idea of sacking the charge mechanic, because realistically were it being used today there's a good chance there would be two capacitor arrays anyway. One for firing the other for rapid recharge of the primary firing array.

There is also little point in firing at 1900 meters since you can barely aim with advanced zoom at that distance as it is.

I also think that the number limitation was a pointless modification for the guass rifle as well. I have one Dire Wolf with Quad guass rifles and unless it has an ecm defender it doesn't last long. I had to sac around half my armor to get the setup to work at all.

I'm glad the charge mechanic is gone, but are they really focusing on the problems that need to be fixed?

[Kirkland Langue]

When they first added the charge up effect - I stopped using gauss almost completely. Every now and then, I would give it a try and find that I was awful at it.

And then I saw someone using quad gauss on the kodiak. I just had to give that a try.. First I realized you can only fire 2 at a time - but more importantly, I learned that I was actually decent with a Gauss once Gauss was my primary weapon system. Every other mech I had tried to use it on, I just had a single gauss and trying to time the gauss charge at the same time as leading a target with PPC, was more than I could handle.

When I first dismissed Gauss as a weapon for me, I was kinda happy that it had the charge up - it made the weapon different.
But in reality, I think removing the charge up is better. It makes the weapon accessible to more people.

Does the change make the game more of a twitch based shooter? We're so far down that path that I think the question is pretty irrelevant. I'll never think of MWO as anything other than a twitch based shooter, until they get rid of perfect convergence.

[GenghisJr]

The Gauss mechanic makes it fun to use, leave it alone.

[Steve Pryde]

Well, saw a ptr stream and I wrote ******** with removal of gauss charge mechanic lol. Ptr at the moment runs without the gauss mechanic.

[Ex Atlas Overlord]

In my opinion removing the charge mechanic as instantly made the other ballistics weapons completely pointless...

I can bring AC20 (that insta blows the second armor is breached anyway) and have 1/4 the range.....
I can bring AC10, and do less damage at half the range...
I can bring 2xUAC5 and do less damage at less range....
I can bring 2xAC2 and do 1/3 the damage at roughly the same range...

Or I can bring gauss and get great damage, great projectile speed, great range, and no heat.

It's a no brainer with click and fire..... which is the whole reason they added the charge mechanic in the first place.

Edited by Ex Atlas Overlord, 18 August 2016 - 04:45 PM.

[ExAstra]

After having tried out the Gauss Rifle now, I can say that personally I welcome the change. I welcome the trade-off made of having the Gauss rifle be a bit more of a reactionary weapon at the cost of you losing presence on the battlefiled for a longer period of time due to the longer cooldown.

Does it feel like it has been nerfed with the cooldown? Yes. Do I mind? No. Do I like the Gauss Rifle nerfed without the charge up mechanic? Yes. Do I think it's perfect? No.

That's my say on it. I feel like it is more fitting of its role now - and while it is easier to use and more accessible for everyone, the long cooldown makes finding cover when under fire a lot easier.

Definitely hope to hear from more people after you get your hands on it. The Gauss Rifle is going to need lots of feedback in my opinion.

Edited by ExAstra, 18 August 2016 - 04:44 PM.

[jaxjace]

I saw gauss rifle changes, i lit up smiling open mouthed, saw it was actually getting nerfed as far as time between shots and even range of all things, i am sad again. Why cant we have nice things?

Anyways the power draw system at 30 is almost certainly not staying i mean come on, that should be the power draw of a light mech or something, 60-70 i could work with maybe. Then again it probably wont be as big of a penalty for going over the power draw as i think, it might just be a matter of a 10-15 percent heat spike.

All i know is cooldown modules are getting nerfed and thats pretty cool as far as newer players not being at a nearly 15 percent disadvantage.

[4EVR]

Personally, I really liked the charge-up mechanic. On the other hand, this'll make MWO play more like MW4/Mercs, which isn't really a bad thing either. Dual Light Gauss anyone?

If you want to make Gauss rifles easier to use, how about letting them be held charged-up for a little longer. That's really the only time the current system frustrates me sometimes. Although a way of cancelling the charge without firing may be needed in that case.

And in my perfect world, Gauss rifles should only explode for 5 million damage when they are hit while charged, not when they're just sitting idle.

[Solis Obscuri]

Mixed feelings - I liked the addition of a charge-up given the combined advantages of high potency, negligible heat, long range, low ammo explosion damage, and extremely high projectile velocity combination on the Gauss as a means of making it a little more challenging and encouraging its use as a sniper/marksman weapon rather than a dummy-proof weapon that's hard to miss (and near impossible to overheat) using.

That said, most 'mechs can't boat gauss or gauss + ppc unless they're pretty heavy, and the charge-up mechanic is much more punishing for lighter chassis (particularly mediums) trying to use gauss rifles than for big assaults or jump snipers, since the increased face time made them very vulnerable to high alpha or high dps builds.

I think the slower recharge as a replacement "trade-off" for the charge-up could be viable, provided the linked limit on firing gauss rifles or gauss rifles + ppcs remains.

[TELEFORCE]

They need to allow more than two Gauss rifles on a 'mech. Not only is it canon and allowed in BattleMech construction, but I hate to see build options limited.

If this is implemented on the live server as it is here, you can kiss the Thunder Hawk and some Annihilator variants good bye, as well as 3-4 Gauss Kodiak and Dire Wolf configurations.

I don't mind there being a penalty for having more than two Gauss rifles on a 'mech, a penalty of firing only two at a time as we have now. But I think outright removing the ability to mount more than two Gauss rifles on a 'mech is very extreme.

[Malleus011]

Always hated the gaussbow mechanic and am quite pleased to see it gone.

[1453 R]

TELEFORCE, on 18 August 2016 - 05:11 PM, said:

They need to allow more than two Gauss rifles on a 'mech. Not only is it canon and allowed in BattleMech construction, but I hate to see build options limited.

If this is implemented on the live server as it is here, you can kiss the Thunder Hawk and some Annihilator variants good bye, as well as 3-4 Gauss Kodiak and Dire Wolf configurations.

I don't mind there being a penalty for having more than two Gauss rifles on a 'mech, a penalty of firing only two at a time as we have now. But I think outright removing the ability to mount more than two Gauss rifles on a 'mech is very extreme.

Fire four Gauss Rifles under Energy Draw as listed here. 60 damage, 30 damage over the ED limit, and so a 15-point heat spike.

Gauss Rifles generate 1 heat when fired. So in total, your 60-damage snapfire instasplode gigaspike murder-alpha, applicable at almost any range and with near-instant projectile velocity...costs 19 heat. 19. Less than firing three Clan medium lasers.

Sure, you're technically locked out of firing other weapons while that 30-point deficit recharges, but only if you don't override your shutdown. Not that it matters - by the time the seven seconds your Finger of God takes to cycle have elapsed, you'll have recharged 140 energy. More than sufficient to fire another 19-heat execution.

Gauss Rifles are just too good to allow players to use en masse like that, regardless of other considerations. Even if only the fattest of fatbros can load three or four gauss and make effective use of them, those fattest-of-fatbros will be able to pretty much completely bypass Energy Draw and deal completely heat-free megaspike alphas to whomever they damn well please. Can't be having that.

[LordNothing]

the problem with charging is it kind of relegates gauss rifles to boat builds. the mechanic is pretty much unobtrusive when its the only weapons you got ant charging doesn't bother me. you can dual goose all day and not give a rats buttocks about charging. but when you have other weapons, things get complicated. you have to alternate between lasers and and missiles and all the other goodies you have on your mixed build. take away charge and you might actually see people putting a single gauss next to a few lasers and missiles on mixed builds.

[Davers]

I feel I'm back to the early days of MWO where everyone put gauss on everything and only fools used ac20. Ac20 gets hit with base heat, and is even more punishing than gauss on energy draw.

[ExAstra]

jaxjace, on 18 August 2016 - 04:46 PM, said:

I saw gauss rifle changes, i lit up smiling open mouthed, saw it was actually getting nerfed as far as time between shots and even range of all things, i am sad again. Why cant we have nice things?

Anyways the power draw system at 30 is almost certainly not staying i mean come on, that should be the power draw of a light mech or something, 60-70 i could work with maybe. Then again it probably wont be as big of a penalty for going over the power draw as i think, it might just be a matter of a 10-15 percent heat spike.

All i know is cooldown modules are getting nerfed and thats pretty cool as far as newer players not being at a nearly 15 percent disadvantage.

Give any mech a power draw of 70 and you have effectively removed the entire point of the energy draw system. While I don't think all mechs will necessarily stay at 30, I think 20-40 is where most of them will find themselves.

[Plouf]

I hate that they removed the charge for the gauss. now everybody will mount a gauss instead of a ac20. charge up mechanic allowed the weapon to fit his role as mid-long range weapon.

[ExAstra]

Davers, on 18 August 2016 - 05:35 PM, said:

I feel I'm back to the early days of MWO where everyone put gauss on everything and only fools used ac20. Ac20 gets hit with base heat, and is even more punishing than gauss on energy draw.

Gauss rifles had a 4 second cooldown back then. It's nearly 7 seconds now - Gauss are a lot less useful as soon as your enemy closes within 500 meters.

Coincidentally, that is when having AC/10s and AC/20s start being useful.

[1453 R]

LordNothing, on 18 August 2016 - 05:31 PM, said:

the problem with charging is it kind of relegates gauss rifles to boat builds. the mechanic is pretty much unobtrusive when its the only weapons you got ant charging doesn't bother me. you can dual goose all day and not give a rats buttocks about charging. but when you have other weapons, things get complicated. you have to alternate between lasers and and missiles and all the other goodies you have on your mixed build. take away charge and you might actually see people putting a single gauss next to a few lasers and missiles on mixed builds.

People used Gauss Rifles on mixed builds before. Frankly in an Energy Draw system it makes even more sense - you can't deliver all your damage at once no matter what you do, so people can take a bit of extra time to fiddle with their firing.

I seriously don't understand how so many people have had so much trouble managing the Gauss charge mechanic. Does it really defeat people's lizard brains so much to try and program a finger to hold the button for half a second?

[Hunter Watzas]

Having played for an hour or so in the public test server. Gauss Rifles are indeed powerful and in combination of other things brought back the 2PPC Gauss combo.

I both like and dislike the charge mechanic and there are plenty of reasons for both sides. However the combination of pin point weapons makes it unlikable with the current no charge time.

[WarHippy]

I am happy to see the charge up gone and I am okay with the shorter ranger, but that cool down is rough. Maybe if they didn't nerf the mods for cool down as well it would be okay'ish, but even then that is rough.