15 replies to this topic

[Elizander]

One thing about UACs is that they are fun to use, but we can't deny that a 100% damage increase is a bit too powerful. The problem with a weapon that is too powerful like this is that it has to be balanced with extremes to keep it in line, and let's face it... extreme jam chances and jam durations are just not fun and the RNG will just serve to annoy the players using these weapons.

Now we've been looking at range, jam chance, jam duration, pellet count, heat, cooldown and energy draw, but we're not addressing the main issue - Double Damage.

Since we're at the PTS stage of iterating things, a few suggestions might smoothen out the UAC experience while still emulating the jamming in some way. Numbers are arbitrary.


Suggestion 1: Remove double tap option, increase damage of UAC burst by 25%, increase CD.

• This will turn the UAC into a burst weapon at the expense of DPS.
  
• IS UAC/5 can have an extra pellet that does 2.50 damage shot after the first OR each pellet does 3.75 damage when you tap fire.
  
• Increase CD of the weapon by an appropriate amount.
  
• Increase ammo of the weapon by an appropriate amount (to make up for lost damage).
  
• In essence, the IS UAC/5 deals 6,.25 (if we go with 25% more) damage in a 2 shot burst and could have a CD increase of 25%-35% over the regular AC/5. Similar adjustments to clan UACs.
  
• Jam is removed, but emulated by longer CD.

Suggestion 2: Retain double tap, second burst is only 25% to 50% damage, ED or CD spike upon doubletap.

• This way it's more controlled. You get a slightly higher burst when double tapping at the cost of incurring a 2-3x increase on CD or a huge spike in Energy Draw or both.
  
• This allows players to retain control of their damage and they know they are effed if they double tap at the wrong time.
  
• Again, this makes the UAC a burst weapon over a DPS weapon as any attempt to use the extra damage will be met by longer CD and/or ED.
  
• Reducing the amount of damage that the 'double tap' does allows PGI to use more moderate (and less restrictive/unfun) mechanics to balance it out.

PGI can test other options that revolve around tweaking the extra +100% damage double tap gives and reducing it to a more manageable amount. If you can't imagine balancing a Large Pulse Laser that does 20 damage and keeping it fun, then you get the idea where I am coming from with reducing double tap damage.

Since MWO is an alternative universe of sorts, let's just say people are more practical here and don't go the extra OMGDAMAGES! and moderate the UACs so it doesn't randomly conk out on you during a fight.

Edited by Elizander, 16 September 2016 - 09:31 AM.

[Nutta88]

Another option that I'd been thinking about is having a quick reload delay for the second tap.

So rather than the instant reload and fire of the current mechanic, a double tap is just faster reload before firing. Having this reload delay would help spread UAC damage more. Making shells more likely to miss or spread damage to other components.

The length of double tap reload delay could be based on the number of shells. So maybe a delay of a 1 second for the 20? And .75 for the 10? .5 on the 5 and .25 on the 2. These wouldn’t mean a lot to hitting staionary or close target but would make it a bit harder to nail a component. So they could nerf the heavy damage to a single component they seem to be worried about.

The delay would need to be linked with reducing jam chance and duration.

[Karl Streiger]

Elizander, on 13 September 2016 - 01:05 AM, said:

One thing about UACs is that they are fun to use, but we can't deny that a 100% damage increase is a bit too powerful. The problem with a weapon that is too powerful like this is that it has to be balanced with extremes to keep it in line, and let's face it... extreme jam chances and jam durations are just not fun and the RNG will just serve to annoy the players using these weapons.

Now we've been looking at range, jam chance, jam duration, pellet count, heat, cooldown and energy draw, but we're not addressing the main issue - Double Damage.

Since we're at the PTS stage of iterating things, a few suggestions might smoothen out the UAC experience while still emulating the jamming in some way. Numbers are arbitrary.


Suggestion 1: Remove double tap option, increase damage of UAC burst by 25%, increase CD.

• This will turn the UAC into a burst weapon at the expense of DPS.
  
• IS UAC/5 can have an extra pellet that does 2.50 damage shot after the first OR each pellet does 3.75 damage when you tap fire.
  
• Increase CD of the weapon by an appropriate amount.
  
• Increase ammo of the weapon by an appropriate amount (to make up for lost damage).
  
• In essence, the IS UAC/5 deals 7.50 damage in a 2 shot burst and could have a CD increase of 25%-35% over the regular AC/5. Similar adjustments to clan UACs.
  
• Jam is removed, but emulated by longer CD.

Suggestion 2: Retain double tap, second burst is only 25% to 50% damage, ED or CD spike upon doubletap.

• This way it's more controlled. You get a slightly higher burst when double tapping at the cost of incurring a 2-3x increase on CD or a huge spike in Energy Draw or both.
  
• This allows players to retain control of their damage and they know they are effed if they double tap at the wrong time.
  
• Again, this makes the UAC a burst weapon over a DPS weapon as any attempt to use the extra damage will be met by longer CD and/or ED.
  
• Reducing the amount of damage that the 'double tap' does allows PGI to use more moderate (and less restrictive/unfun) mechanics to balance it out.

PGI can test other options that revolve around tweaking the extra +100% damage double tap gives and reducing it to a more manageable amount. If you can't imagine balancing a Large Pulse Laser that does 20 damage and keeping it fun, then you get the idea where I am coming from with reducing double tap damage.


Since MWO is an alternative universe of sorts, let's just say people are more practical here and don't go the extra OMGDAMAGES! and moderate the UACs so it doesn't randomly conk out on you during a fight.

can you elaborate your first idea - have heard today the first time this idea and it is good.
Everything that removes randomness - and double tap is randomness is a good idea.

maybe you can use this table to show your changes:

typ	shots	dmg pellet	duration	cooldown
AC5	1	5	0	1.7
UAC5	2	3.75	0.15	1.7
CAC2	2	1	0.1	0.8
CUAC2	3	1	0.12	0.8
CAC5	2	2.5	0.12	1.8
CUAC5	3	2.5	0.14	1.8
CAC10	2	5	0.14	2.5
CUAC10	3	5	0.17	2.5
CAC20	2	10	0.17	4.2
CUAC20	3	10	0.2	4.2

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Elizander, on 13 September 2016 - 01:05 AM, said:

Suggestion 1: Remove double tap option, increase damage of UAC burst by 25%, increase CD.

• This will turn the UAC into a burst weapon at the expense of DPS.
  
• IS UAC/5 can have an extra pellet that does 2.50 damage shot after the first OR each pellet does 3.75 damage when you tap fire.
  
• Increase CD of the weapon by an appropriate amount.
  
• Increase ammo of the weapon by an appropriate amount (to make up for lost damage).
  
• In essence, the IS UAC/5 deals 7.50 damage in a 2 shot burst and could have a CD increase of 25%-35% over the regular AC/5. Similar adjustments to clan UACs.
  
• Jam is removed, but emulated by longer CD.

• Dealing 7.5 damage in a burst for the UAC5 is a 50% increase in damage potential compared to AC5s, and does 25% less than it currently does.
  
• Why does it need a longer cooldown, if the burst delay is long enough, and there are enough projectiles involved, it could still have the same cooldown and be balanced by the fact it has a duration, kinda like the balance between the cLPL and the cERPPC.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 13 September 2016 - 06:38 AM.

[Karl Streiger]

You need to keep somehow the tonnage balance.
A blant potential increase of 50% more damage for just one ton is already very good.

If you need a reduced cooldown depends on performance - so a PTS is necessary

I'm sure it is necessary when fighting assaults or heavys. But vs high agil targets the second shot might miss more often - no additional cooldown necessary because the UAC5 is less ammunition efficient.

You might tweak things with the duration between the shots.
The average damage based on accuracy for a ton of UAC5 ammo should be only 75% of the damage of a AC5.
Might be ~90dmg for the AC5 and ~70dmg for UAC5.

Anyhow the difference between clan acs and there ultra part have to be more serious

[Elizander]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 13 September 2016 - 06:37 AM, said:

• Dealing 7.5 damage in a burst for the UAC5 is a 50% increase in damage potential compared to AC5s, and does 25% less than it currently does.
  
• Why does it need a longer cooldown, if the burst delay is long enough, and there are enough projectiles involved, it could still have the same cooldown and be balanced by the fact it has a duration, kinda like the balance between the cLPL and the cERPPC.

1) Thanks~ wasn't paying too much attention to the specific numbers since those can be tweaked, but yeah, derped there.
2) Well, if it gets laser treatment with the CD restriction not running until the burst is done, then it should be factored into the CD increase, depending on how long the stream of projectiles last.

Karl Streiger, on 13 September 2016 - 05:33 AM, said:

can you elaborate your first idea - have heard today the first time this idea and it is good.
Everything that removes randomness - and double tap is randomness is a good idea.

maybe you can use this table to show your changes:

typ	shots	dmg pellet	duration	cooldown
AC5	1	5	0	1.7
UAC5	2	3.75	0.15	1.7
CAC2	2	1	0.1	0.8
CUAC2	3	1	0.12	0.8
CAC5	2	2.5	0.12	1.8
CUAC5	3	2.5	0.14	1.8
CAC10	2	5	0.14	2.5
CUAC10	3	5	0.17	2.5
CAC20	2	10	0.17	4.2
CUAC20	3	10	0.2	4.2

Well, this is just a table I put together quickly so there might be some inaccuracies. This is based on a simple formula of:

• Damage per burst +25% (AC fires for 100%, Ultra fires for 125%, but more pellets)
  
• Overall CD +30% (to reduce DPS, can be higher if unbalanced. Factors in non-Ultra CD+Duration with Ultra Duration based on what was listed on the table)
  
• Adjusted ammo. UAC20 ammo/ton increased to 150 damage from 140 damage.

From here you can see that it'll be a choice between higher burst (25% more damage per shot) as opposed to higher DPS. The DPS difference is only 5% right now, but can be adjusted higher OR Energy Draw/Heat of UACs increased.

Anyway, I hope you find this helpful. I wasn't planning on doing the hard numbers, but since you asked, here they are. And I might've gotten stuff wrong, so don't burn me at the stake.

EDIT: Forgot to round off some decimals, but you get the idea
EDIT2: Derped somewhere on CDs. DPS difference is actually just 4%ish. Just increase the CD

Edited by Elizander, 13 September 2016 - 11:52 PM.

[Karl Streiger]

Thx.

I just realized that i had choosen the wrong term for duration - the API term is volleydelay (currently 0.11 for all Clan ACs that fire more than one shot)
I meant the time between the shots - not the time between first and last shot.
So the UAC20 of my example might fire a 3 round burst in 0.4 sec
(Pretty sure the duration of 0.2 an 8shots - wouldn't be that good - because the burst would last a whole 1.4sec

Speaking of rounds - you should try to reduce the number of rounds - because it is important to keep the number of shots at a low level because of the HSR.

The bad part about this approach is - you hardly can fit the influence of the number of shots and the duration into a formula. So it depends on testing

[Elizander]

Karl Streiger, on 14 September 2016 - 12:33 AM, said:

Thx.

I just realized that i had choosen the wrong term for duration - the API term is volleydelay (currently 0.11 for all Clan ACs that fire more than one shot)
I meant the time between the shots - not the time between first and last shot.
So the UAC20 of my example might fire a 3 round burst in 0.4 sec
(Pretty sure the duration of 0.2 an 8shots - wouldn't be that good - because the burst would last a whole 1.4sec

Speaking of rounds - you should try to reduce the number of rounds - because it is important to keep the number of shots at a low level because of the HSR.

The bad part about this approach is - you hardly can fit the influence of the number of shots and the duration into a formula. So it depends on testing

Yeah, without all the numbers it's not possible so I just used what you had so that it could be used as an example of how it would look or how it can be calculated. I would like to think that if PGI is open to the idea that they would do their own math to make sure it works out and calculating every single thing out in great detail along with getting the estimates of weapon fire duration in-game sounds a little too close to paid work for me to do it when I have actual work that needs to be finished.

The math for the number of shots and the ammo is pretty simple. For Ultras they are all even so you can just halve the number of shots and adjust the damage per shell and ammo accordingly.

Edited by Elizander, 14 September 2016 - 01:52 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Elizander, on 13 September 2016 - 11:47 PM, said:

2) Well, if it gets laser treatment with the CD restriction not running until the burst is done, then it should be factored into the CD increase, depending on how long the stream of projectiles last.

The point is, both have similar recycle times (this value includes duration and such), you don't need to change one to have lower DPS because it has higher burst damage, because its burst damage is weaker by virtue of dealing damage through multiple projectiles that fire over a period of time rather than just a single PPFLD shot.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 14 September 2016 - 07:28 AM.

[Elizander]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 14 September 2016 - 07:28 AM, said:

The point is, both have similar recycle times (this value includes duration and such), you don't need to change one to have lower DPS because it has higher burst damage, because its burst damage is weaker by virtue of dealing damage through multiple projectiles that fire over a period of time rather than just a single PPFLD shot.

The CUAC10 on the Kodiaks pretty much showed us that damage is damage and there is a tradeoff to differentiate the weapons and give them different roles instead of just something being outright better. This is comparing UACs to UACs and not PPCs or Gauss Rifles. The CD increase is based off the UAC's non-ultra equivalent base CD.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Elizander, on 14 September 2016 - 12:52 PM, said:

The CD increase is based off the UAC's non-ultra equivalent base CD.

Oh, don't use that, because the cACs are a joke for more than that reason, use the IS AC5 and UAC5 as the basis for that (they have the same cooldown). The cACs need to be redesigned to make them more interesting compared to ultras (like making them single shots).

[Elizander]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 14 September 2016 - 12:57 PM, said:

Oh, don't use that, because the cACs are a joke for more than that reason, use the IS AC5 and UAC5 as the basis for that (they have the same cooldown). The cACs need to be redesigned to make them more interesting compared to ultras (like making them single shots).

Balancing these weapons are based on their actual implementation. If you want to change CACs to something else mechanically, that would be better off on a thread on its own for PGI to review.

[Karl Streiger]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 14 September 2016 - 12:57 PM, said:

Oh, don't use that, because the cACs are a joke for more than that reason, use the IS AC5 and UAC5 as the basis for that (they have the same cooldown). The cACs need to be redesigned to make them more interesting compared to ultras (like making them single shots).

Well when you take this proposed route:

I just take your valleys Elizander somehow
the CAC20 vs UAC20.
You have 4 shots delivered in 0.45sec (0.15volleydellay) each deals 5 damage. You might have 30 rounds per ton (so yes one round is only half as long as you don't mount 2 tons) - you can fire 7.5times

now the UAC20 deliveres 8 shots in 0.7sec (0.1 volley dellay) each deals 2.5dmg - the ton still has 30 rounds you can only fire 3.75 times)
The difference to the current mechanic is the ammunition efficency - you can't shoot the UAC like the standard AC you aways have to use the total amount of ammunition.

---

One thing PGI didn't seem to realize is that the things how damage is applied in CBT is an abstract. The top down mechanic could have been a good alternative (BattleForce or BattleSpace weapons) there the Artemis IV is just a modificator for more damage - no stuff like spread and other mechanics. Same the LBX dealing only ~6.3dmg (clumsy to search for the value now) per volley the accuracy is still better in comparison with other ACs.
The UACs deal 150% damage of their cousins but for twice the ammunition needs.

And I think when you can the double tap mechanic and concentrate on 150% damage but less ammunition
as well as concentrating on the accuracy and reduced damage for LBX rather then to calculate each shot shell on its own - you can have the same or even a better game (including HSR and player satisfaction)

[Nutta88]

I think all AC should fire multiple rounds... current AC are more like rifles than auto anything.
Having multi shot AC would make ballistics easier to balance on crits and weight, as you could use volleydelay and cooldown to split them. While all AC are front loaded it makes UAC and AC very different beasts.

Having the double tap use 200% ammo for only 150% damage seems a pretty good balancer to me... The second tap successfully fires only 50% of the rounds with double the volleydelay of a single. Due to the feeder overheating, rejecting 50% of the ammo.

Ballistics dps can then be based around weight and crits. So a UAC could give better DPS for lower ammo efficiency if you double tap, but lower dps than an AC if you just single tap.

[Reno Blade]

Nice ideas.
adding additional bullets give skilled players the ability to deal more damage, while its not just a flat dps increase by double tap per cd.

also possible to just add "jam" duration ( 50-100% of cooldown, e.g. 2-4s for Uac20 ) after each double tap, so you can choose to deal double damage, but have longer cd, without random chances.

personally, the more bullet option would be more fun, but thedouble tap is bettwr to balance.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Reno Blade, on 16 September 2016 - 06:10 AM, said:

personally, the more bullet option would be more fun, but thedouble tap is bettwr to balance.

Both are easy to balance.