190 replies to this topic

[MeiSooHaityu]

Bishop Steiner, on 13 September 2016 - 06:07 AM, said:

If Gauss had mondo heat, they could probably increase it's health, too.

That or halve it's detonation value.

As I see it, the charge mechanic is enough of an offset to add a little health or reduce the explosion damage of the Gauss.

Afterall, it feels like the whole reason the explosion is so violent (and weapon health so weak), was to stop dual Gauss builds from being so prevalent (especially in mechs where they were torso mounted with an XL). Now that the Clans have been out and they have free CASE everywhere and XL engines that can withstand a side torso loss, they can run dual Gauss setups without much worry of destruction.

Basically, as I see it, the weak Gauss Rifle seems like an out dated form of nerf that is negated by Clan tech (for Clanners anyway) and meant to discourage a 30 point alpha which has been surpassed as the norm a long time ago. Now it just seems to server no purpose but to prevent IS medium mechs from equipping it (a long with the crazy IS light build).

[Lightfoot]

Bishop Steiner, on 13 September 2016 - 05:48 AM, said:

Lightfoot, on 12 September 2016 - 10:33 PM, said:

No PGI has bowed to failure on making the Gauss Rifle work. They just accepted they can't have a Gauss Rifle in MWO. I mastered the charge mechanic, but it's not from Battle Tech and it screws over all the mechs that can't carry two.


this from the guy who spent the last two years raging that the charge up was impossible to use from their joystick?

Never said impossible, said it preponderantly favors the Mouse because it uses the same mechanic as drag and drop on the desktop. It's still a PIA with a joystick, but I can do it with my new joystick, even beat other Gauss mechs. Joystick is just the best way to experience MechWarrior and if you have not mastered the joystick you don't know which is best. I see players with obvious Mouse reticle movement missing shots I would hit with a simple snap-shot. Suit yourself though, just don't assume that a joystick is worse than a Mouse. Get a good joystick, master it, then see what you like best.

[Mechteric]

Personally I would loosen up the Gauss charge mechanic to make it friendlier to use (like shorter charge up time and slightly longer charge hold time).

However, I would do this at the cost of only being able to charge one Gauss at a time (unless the ED demand of the gauss stays high).

[Bishop Steiner]

Lightfoot, on 13 September 2016 - 06:18 AM, said:

Never said impossible, said it preponderantly favors the Mouse because it uses the same mechanic as drag and drop on the desktop. It's still a PIA with a joystick, but I can do it with my new joystick, even beat other Gauss mechs. Joystick is just the best way to experience MechWarrior and if you have not mastered the joystick you don't know which is best. I see players with obvious Mouse reticle movement missing shots I would hit with a simple snap-shot. Suit yourself though, just don't assume that a joystick is worse than a Mouse. Get a good joystick, master it, then see what you like best.

All I've said is that even with my 14 year old Microsoft joystick, it was no effort to learn the Gauss charge mechanic... a fact I used to refute all your complaints about the unfairness of the mechanic to joystick users.

When I see Tier 1 Comp Players aiming with Joysticks, I'll buy into them being "as good as a Mouse". In fact I would greatly prefer if MWO was more optimized for Joystick use, since they are much more immersive, and therefore fun.

CapperDeluxe, on 13 September 2016 - 06:20 AM, said:

Personally I would loosen up the Gauss charge mechanic to make it friendlier to use (like shorter charge up time and slightly longer charge hold time).

However, I would do this at the cost of only being able to charge one Gauss at a time (unless the ED demand of the gauss stays high).

Well, I have long said, that I felt that once a Gauss was charged it should hold it's charge until released, instead of the dumb artificial window. And that if they were going to use a "charge capacitor" as their excuse for the charge up, that the Gauss should ONLY explode while charged.

Mind you, to get to hold the charge would probably beg some sort of trade off, but I still don't believe the explosion bit to be off base.

[Mechteric]

Bishop Steiner, on 13 September 2016 - 06:24 AM, said:

Well, I have long said, that I felt that once a Gauss was charged it should hold it's charge until released, instead of the dumb artificial window. And that if they were going to use a "charge capacitor" as their excuse for the charge up, that the Gauss should ONLY explode while charged.

Mind you, to get to hold the charge would probably beg some sort of trade off, but I still don't believe the explosion bit to be off base.

I dunno, I really like the ability to decide not to fire the Gauss if I end up not having a good firing solution and conserve my ammo, and if the charge didn't go away on its own that ability would be lost. Though perhaps with a shorter charge time maybe you wouldn't have as many situations where the window of opportunity can escape during the charge time.

Edited by CapperDeluxe, 13 September 2016 - 06:31 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

CapperDeluxe, on 13 September 2016 - 06:30 AM, said:

I dunno, I really like the ability to decide not to fire the Gauss if I end up not having a good firing solution and conserve my ammo, and if the charge didn't go away on its own that ability would be lost.

Nope... just make it a simple double tap mechanic, instead. 1 tap, charge, 1 tap, fire. I'd suggest a "decocker" mechanic, but we know how easily confused PGI gets when programming, so I wanted to keep it simple.

But it does accentuate that no one answer makes everyone happy.

Edited by Bishop Steiner, 13 September 2016 - 06:32 AM.

[B L O O D W I T C H]

Bishop Steiner, on 13 September 2016 - 06:31 AM, said:

Nope... just make it a simple double tap mechanic, instead. 1 tap, charge, 1 tap, fire. I'd suggest a "decocker" mechanic, but we know how easily confused PGI gets when programming, so I wanted to keep it simple.

But it does accentuate that no one answer makes everyone happy.

And how do i decharge it if i decide not to fire it? have you thought this through?

[Lightfoot]

Bishop Steiner, on 13 September 2016 - 05:57 AM, said:

LOL! Uh...no.

It was the combination of 2x PPC/ERPPC with Gauss that caused them to add the charge up (Hint: It was one of the many steps taken in their ham fisted attempt to nerf Poptarts...none of which were capable of using 2x Gauss at the time)... since the charge up does nothing to hinder firing 2 Gauss together. Then after the clan invasion and people playing around with 3-4 Gauss DWFs that they added the mechanic to limit it to only able to fire 2x Gauss at a time.

It's much easier to have an argument taken seriously, when one actually has their facts straight, instead of guessing or maki

I know this, usually I refer to the charge-up as the de-sync charge-up, but it was also to block 2xGauss from replacing most ballistics, you remember that gripe, but when the Gauss Rifle has the same recycle as an AC20, that is what you get. They don't need the charge-up, they need to just block the weapon combinations they feel should not be allowed. This would not include matching PPCs with a Gauss Rifle though. This is a standard combination fully allowed in Battle Tech. The charge-up really changes nothing except most players don't know what to do to overcome the de-sync effect.

I am not sure it was to block it's use with jump-jets that far back in time, but that is a side effect. I think you should be able to use the Gauss Rifle on a Shadow Cat while jumping. It was quite a lot of fun on the Test Server! All that fun, all lost to a stupid charge-up mechcanic.

[HammerMaster]

Bishop Steiner, on 13 September 2016 - 06:31 AM, said:

Nope... just make it a simple double tap mechanic, instead. 1 tap, charge, 1 tap, fire. I'd suggest a "decocker" mechanic, but we know how easily confused PGI gets when programming, so I wanted to keep it simple.

But it does accentuate that no one answer makes everyone happy.

.

See now that is an excellent comprimise. But yes coding. Someone is always going to complain. Nonetheless I'd prefer no charge. And if you do have charge. No explosions should occur when not charged.

[Bishop Steiner]

Toha Heavy Industries, on 13 September 2016 - 06:49 AM, said:

And how do i decharge it if i decide not to fire it? have you thought this through?

Yes, I have. Even mentioned it in that post, but it's probably too tough for PGI to figure out. But since it would leave you know more vulnerable to gauss explosion than you are now, I don't see it as being that big a deal, either. Especially since it would allow you to reflex fire your Gauss, if you chose. But hey, feel free to get snarky.

Lightfoot, on 13 September 2016 - 06:52 AM, said:

I am not sure it was to block it's use with jump-jets that far back in time, but that is a side effect. I think you should be able to use the Gauss Rifle on a Shadow Cat while jumping. It was quite a lot of fun on the Test Server! All that fun, all lost to a stupid charge-up mechcanic.

Actually, plenty of people can and do use their GRs now, while jumping. It just takes practice.

[HammerMaster]

Well we can go at this all day and I can assert any valid reason I can but I'm not getting on rubbit or tweeter to challenge their PTS changes and I am not confident they will listen here.

[vocifer]

I'm laughing hard from all these threads. People react so much on any PTS change as if it's being patched into the game next week.

This is "Energy Draw" PTS, not the "Gauss Charge" one, OK!

Some changes are implemented in order to ease comparisson or remove secondary factors from equation.
Like the gauss charge, it was TEMPORARILY removed so testers could link Gauss with another weapons and test the alphas. It's not like they could not macro this or just time their shots, it would've just being unnecessarily complicated. So PGI turned it off for first sessions so you can test a perfectly timed alpha. That's it! And that's where it ends!

Edited by vocifer, 13 September 2016 - 07:08 AM.

[Nightops25]

I get the need for a charge mechanic to prevent stalemate/poptart.

However, if the gun has to be charged up to use, there is no reason for it to explode when hit and un-charged. If the gun was charged up holding a shot, by all means a crit makes sense then.

Also the usable window is too small between charge and capacitor discharge, with poor indication of the shot being ready.

If we are going to have an energy draw system, let's do it right. Weapons need a recharge value, and a maintenance cost. Where it takes a set amount of energy to make a laser/ppc/gauss ready to fire, then for every cycle/turn/second it sits at ready there is a maintenance cost to keep it there. Still keep a cooldown time for the weapons, just this is a mechanic for that. If a weapon has a 4s chooldown time, then over that 4s it needs to draw Y energy per second. If that amount of energy is not available from the reactor, then generate additional heat as a response to the additional energy demands.

So your engine/reactor would produce energy and heat at given rates based on it's size. Movement costs energy (based on % throttle) Bigger engine produces more power and lets you move faster, trade-off is in weight. Heat sinks give you more heat capacity before overheating, and dissipate heat faster. Arming/reloading/charging a weapon system costs energy. Keeping a weapon ready to fire costs a small amount in maintenance (here the Gauss would differ, put a heavy maintenance value on it, so a shot could only be held a short while before power draw makes it not viable). Discharging a weapon would usually have a small energy draw tied to it, because it would generate whatever heat is tied to the weapon, and start the heavy draw of the reload/recycle mechanic.

[B L O O D W I T C H]

Lightfoot, on 13 September 2016 - 06:52 AM, said:

I know this, usually I refer to the charge-up as the de-sync charge-up, but it was also to block 2xGauss from replacing most ballistics,

Err no. simply no.

Not many mechs could carry dual gauss.
I think only the ilya jokebuild could sport 3 with virtually no armor.
There was no block for 2x gauss, never happens.
The only block came when the direwolf hit the scene and was able to sport quad gauss.
PGI just locked anything past the 2nd gauss from charging at time.
It had nothing to do with the actual chargeup itself.

Bishop Steiner, on 13 September 2016 - 06:56 AM, said:

Yes, I have. Even mentioned it in that post, but it's probably too tough for PGI to figure out. But since it would leave you know more vulnerable to gauss explosion than you are now, I don't see it as being that big a deal, either. Especially since it would allow you to reflex fire your Gauss, if you chose. But hey, feel free to get snarky.

Didn't meant to get snarky. You only mentioned a "decocker" and i am asking you how that decocker should work.
auto decocking? an additional button for decocking? Do you think it would be more userfriendly then the chargeup we have now? i highly doubt.
And i am already able to reflex fire my gauss rifles. i charge while aiming, i precharge in anticipation, u'know situational awareness and reading and guessing possible enemy movements. Quirky stuff that makes gaussgameplay unique currently.

Then again, i consider myself as one of the 0,1% gaussuser masterrace. I can effectively use 2 gaussrifles with 2 firing groups (independently wooo) and backup lasers on top of it. Part of the reason i don't get all butthurt about the chargeup.

And yeah, if i go dual gauss, i do it on the sidetorsos of an XL engine based IS mech (while playing "highway to the dangerzone" on an endless loop). If you go gauss, go big or go home.

Granted, it took me countless minutes on the training grounds to truely master "the art of gauss" (i say countless but that mainly comes from the fact that i can hardly count past 2).

[RussianWolf]

yet another reason to stay away from this game.

stupid mechanics in game that can easily be countered by macros.

[B L O O D W I T C H]

RussianWolf, on 13 September 2016 - 07:57 AM, said:

yet another reason to stay away from this game.

stupid mechanics in game that can easily be countered by macros.

Nah, you gotta be a real potato pleb to have the need for a gauss macro to make that weapon work.
i've got no issues with gaussmacros since they do not provide any benifit.
It literally is for folks who can't let go of a button in less then 2 seconds. Being that servere handcapped with a playerskill hovering about the level of monkey islands "point and click" adventure.. i'd say let'em have it.
(i'm not talking about you guys who can perfectly handle the chargeup but are just to darn lazy to do it )

Macroing a hexa ultra ac 5 build.. that is a different story

[Lightfoot]

I don't like the charge-up, they should get rid of it, but it's just sauce for the goose now because most players can't make it work. I can make the charge-up Gauss work at any range against all weapons. Better than short range. So that's what I mean, the charge-up only hinders new players and about 70 percent of MWO players. It's not fair to them. A bad deal.

[Lyoto Machida]

RussianWolf, on 13 September 2016 - 07:57 AM, said:

yet another reason to stay away from this game.

stupid mechanics in game that can easily be countered by macros.

You got a Gauss macro that will let you cancel the shot? If so, post a link.

If those don't exist, seems like a macro is actually a disadvantage for Gauss.

[Mystere]

Lyoto Machida, on 13 September 2016 - 10:55 AM, said:

You got a Gauss macro that will let you cancel the shot? If so, post a link.

If those don't exist, seems like a macro is actually a disadvantage for Gauss.

Will this do?

[B L O O D W I T C H]

Mystere, on 13 September 2016 - 11:13 AM, said:

Will this do?

Joystick ppl...