127 replies to this topic

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Wintersdark, on 29 September 2016 - 08:20 AM, said:

Why would you die from it? You understand it's only 20 damage, right? And it's 20 damage located in a destroyed location, so it's subject to damage transfer mechanics.

For a Clan mech it shouldn't be subject to damage transfer because of CASE.

[FupDup]

ScarecrowES, on 29 September 2016 - 08:19 AM, said:

Are you sure about this last part? Cuz I lose my Gauss often on mechs like my EBJ where it's in the torso, and rarely do I ever die from it. If so, that explosion is simply too weak if you can just slough it off and keep going.

Dude, the Cauldron Born has CASE in all body parts. CASE is literally supposed to prevent internal explosions from hitting and killing your CT.

Working as intended.

[Wintersdark]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 29 September 2016 - 08:34 AM, said:

For a Clan mech it shouldn't be subject to damage transfer because of CASE.

hah lol right. I didn't actually pay attention the what mech he said there; just the overall game mechanic. My bad

But even on an IS mech, with gauss in a side torso, a side torso loss will trigger the 90% roll to see if the gauss explodes. If it does, that's 20 damage applied to a destroyed side torso, which is reduced in half (or did they change it to 40% or 60%? I forget, it's been a long time) when it's transfered to the center torso, meaning only 10 damage. So an IS mech with STD engine and ST gauss is in practically no danger from a ST gauss explosion.

Edited by Wintersdark, 29 September 2016 - 08:42 AM.

[Ultimax]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 28 September 2016 - 05:17 PM, said:

Or you could just remove the double tap feature all together and just make UACs burst fire ACs with a slightly higher damage potential. They don't have to do double damage.

They could also wrap it into the ED system and have double taps cost higher amounts of energy draw, or even scale (percentage or flat) the amount of ED on consecutive shots after double tapping.

The idea would be to not create a separate "jam bar" - but instead tie the double tapping either directly into heat, or a draw limit that forces a jam based on some amount of "allowed consecutive double taps". Maybe its 2 double taps, maybe its 4 - would require some testing.

[FupDup]

Ultimax, on 29 September 2016 - 09:09 AM, said:

They could also wrap it into the ED system and have double taps cost higher amounts of energy draw, or even scale (percentage or flat) the amount of ED on consecutive shots after double tapping.

The idea would be to not create a separate "jam bar" - but instead tie the double tapping either directly into heat, or a draw limit that forces a jam based on some amount of "allowed consecutive double taps". Maybe its 2 double taps, maybe its 4 - would require some testing.

That's basically the same gameplay outcome as a jam bar though, minus the UI element.

[Ultimax]

FupDup, on 29 September 2016 - 09:12 AM, said:

That's basically the same gameplay outcome as a jam bar though, minus the UI element.

Correct, and therefore its likely an easier sell. (low effort for the payout)

I wouldn't mind if it was a Jam bar.

Edited by Ultimax, 29 September 2016 - 09:19 AM.

[ScarecrowES]

You know, I actually totally forgot about inherent CASE on Clan mechs back there... haha.

Still... only serves to highlight how non-risky Gauss really is in MWO. We really should consider another option to add risk to the weapon, or consider changing base stats. Adding a bit of natural heat would go a lo g way to fix g this weapon.

[Ultimax]

ScarecrowES, on 29 September 2016 - 10:43 AM, said:

You know, I actually totally forgot about inherent CASE on Clan mechs back there... haha.

Still... only serves to highlight how non-risky Gauss really is in MWO. We really should consider another option to add risk to the weapon, or consider changing base stats. Adding a bit of natural heat would go a lo g way to fix g this weapon.

Yes, it should have heat, and low HP and explode, and a charge up time, a really long CD, and the worst DPS per ton of any ballistic in the game.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Ultimax, on 29 September 2016 - 12:06 PM, said:

Yes, it should have heat, and low HP and explode, and a charge up time, a really long CD, and the worst DPS per ton of any ballistic in the game.

I think he meant undoing some of those bandaids, because they are all meant to control the one major weapon that escapes the heat balancing mechanic and thus why it has so many bandaids on top of it.

[Ultimax]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 29 September 2016 - 12:32 PM, said:

I think he meant undoing some of those bandaids, because they are all meant to control the one major weapon that escapes the heat balancing mechanic and thus why it has so many bandaids on top of it.

Much like ED is attempting to do (which I'm against) adding heat to it simply removes it from being part of mixed loadout builds.


If it had heat similar to a PPC or ER PPC, who would use it?

You wouldn't, you would load up on more tonnage & slot efficient energy weapons so you could load more heatsinks a bigger engine and not require any ammo.


The advantage of ballistics, including Gauss, is low heat per damage output. Once that changes, there wouldn't be much reason not to simply use energy weapons instead.

Edited by Ultimax, 29 September 2016 - 04:16 PM.

[Razorfish]

I am looking forward to the energy draw and the weapons nerfs.

Alphawarrior Online is not was Battletech should be.

It will also reduce the huge DPS chasm between most IS and Clan mechs.

[FupDup]

Razorfish, on 29 September 2016 - 04:49 PM, said:

I am looking forward to the energy draw and the weapons nerfs.

Alphawarrior Online is not was Battletech should be.

It will also reduce the huge DPS chasm between most IS and Clan mechs.

Spoiler alert: There's still gonna be alpha striking.

You can change which specific weapon combinations are used in those alpha strikes, but you're gonna have one heck of a time trying to make alpha striking itself into anything other than the optimal way to play.

[ScarecrowES]

Ultimax, on 29 September 2016 - 04:15 PM, said:

Much like ED is attempting to do (which I'm against) adding heat to it simply removes it from being part of mixed loadout builds.


If it had heat similar to a PPC or ER PPC, who would use it?

You wouldn't, you would load up on more tonnage & slot efficient energy weapons so you could load more heatsinks a bigger engine and not require any ammo.


The advantage of ballistics, including Gauss, is low heat per damage output. Once that changes, there wouldn't be much reason not to simply use energy weapons instead.

Well certainly we're not talking PPC-level heat. We'd be talking ballistic-level heat. What if we had, say... 4-5 heat? That's not going to break mixed builds, or gauss-centric builds. They'll run a little hotter, but that's pretty fair, right? But that'd hurt your gauss/ppc meta. And your gauss-and-a-mass-of-lasers meta. Would bring output in line with other ballistics, certainly.

It really wouldn't take much. And then yes, we can look at undoing some of the band-aids. The gauss has always fallen outside the traditional balance mechanics for MWO, and the inherent risk of the weapon from TT is largely mitigated under MWO's design choices. This is one of those occasions when it makes sense to deviate away from TT and do what's right for MWO. Lots of options for how to do this once we remove the need for TT parity on this one.

Personally, I'd like to focus the gauss on long range and remove a lot of its close-range utility. Normally the gauss has a 90m minumum range, like the PPC. I hate hard caps if we can avoid them, and I'd be perfectly happy if both the PPC and Gauss had 90m scaling soft caps. Or perhaps we revisit the 270m uncharged snap shot, and charge for range mechanic (or swap damage for range). Anything to better differentiate the weapon and make it work more intelligently for MWO.

Razorfish, on 29 September 2016 - 04:49 PM, said:

I am looking forward to the energy draw and the weapons nerfs.

Alphawarrior Online is not was Battletech should be.

It will also reduce the huge DPS chasm between most IS and Clan mechs.

Also... If you built your mech right, Battletech IS pretty much Alphawarrior On Paper.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Ultimax, on 29 September 2016 - 04:15 PM, said:

Much like ED is attempting to do (which I'm against) adding heat to it simply removes it from being part of mixed loadout builds.

It doesn't remove mixed builds, since the increased heat would be on par with an extra ERML or something like that so it would still be more efficient than an extra energy mech.

No one is talking about 10-15 heat, but something like 5-7.5 would be justifiable given its power compared to the AC20, which would allow it to drop some of the bandaids (like lower DPS and fragility at the very least).

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 29 September 2016 - 05:17 PM.

[ScarecrowES]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 29 September 2016 - 05:14 PM, said:

It doesn't remove mixed builds, since the increased heat would be on par with an extra ERML or something like that so it would still be more efficient than an extra energy mech.

No one is talking about 10-15 heat, but something like 5-7.5 would be justifiable given its power compared to the AC20, which would allow it to drop some of the bandaids (like lower DPS and fragility at the very least).

Yup... we're basically talking about putting it on par with other ballistics. Are mechs that have gotten used to abusing a heatless gauss going to perform a little worse? Sure. It's going to be a bit harder to spam those gauss on top of hot energy builds. As it should be. But certainly with minor adjustments even these builds will perform nearly at their norm with a gauss of moderate heat. And doing this may allow us to justify ditching the explosion, charge, or long cooldown. Maybe with other minor nerfs, we can justify doing a few of those things.

[Ultimax]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 29 September 2016 - 05:14 PM, said:

It doesn't remove mixed builds, since the increased heat would be on par with an extra ERML or something like that so it would still be more efficient than an extra energy mech.

No one is talking about 10-15 heat, but something like 5-7.5 would be justifiable given its power compared to the AC20, which would allow it to drop some of the bandaids (like lower DPS and fragility at the very least).

Would this be with, or without Energy Draw as as system in the game?

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Ultimax, on 30 September 2016 - 06:15 AM, said:

Would this be with, or without Energy Draw as as system in the game?

It could be both so that they don't have to inflate the energy draw when they undo one of the nerfs, but preferably without since I don't like energy draw either.

[Ultimax]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 30 September 2016 - 06:45 AM, said:

It could be both so that they don't have to inflate the energy draw when they undo one of the nerfs, but preferably without since I don't like energy draw either.

Well, I'm looking at it in the context of energy draw going live - which is happening probably no matter how we feel about it.

Even if the Gauss wasn't "specially penalized" with a higher draw per point of damage (as it is now on PTS) - it would still be FIFTEEN energy draw to fire a single Gauss Rifle.

That leaves very little else that you can fire with it simultaneously before generating heat penalties, which at that point I would be against any kind of heat increase for the weapon to normally fire.


I also think it's a bit of a stretch (even under our current game mechanics) to think that having the weapon having 5 heat per shot would see a reduction of CD time, no charge up, and lower chance to explode/more health.

Edited by Ultimax, 30 September 2016 - 08:18 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Ultimax, on 30 September 2016 - 08:18 AM, said:

That leaves very little else that you can fire with it simultaneously before generating heat penalties

Even now you wouldn't really fire anything on top of Gauss because of heat penalties, so the only thing this does is give dual Gauss salvos more heat so they can remove some of the other penalties so that you can mount them on more mechs and give them potentially lower sustained DPS.

Ultimax, on 30 September 2016 - 08:18 AM, said:

I also think it's a bit of a stretch (even under our current game mechanics) to think that having the weapon having 5 heat per shot would see a reduction of CD time, no charge up, and lower chance to explode/more health.

If it had 7.5 heat, it certainly would, because the advantage of ignoring heat as a balancing mechanic is gone.

[Calbearpig]

I think the new system is moronic. a 25 ton locust has as much "energy" as a 100 ton dire wolf. Why would I want to drive the whale anymore if I have the same alpha limit as a locust? I'd be using all my extra tonnage for heat sinks to offset the penalty. They should at least make energy scale with the engine or the tonnage to make this make sense. Even if ED stuck to the original goal of nerfing alpha size, it makes no sense than an atlas should have the same penalty free alpha as a jenner.

I totally agree with Ultimax. This seems to just be going off the rails with the nerfing and ruining the fun of the game to cater to the lowest common denominator.

Edited by Calbearpig, 30 September 2016 - 10:21 AM.