476 replies to this topic

[PFC Carsten]

Hawok79, on 13 November 2016 - 03:39 AM, said:

That´s wrong.
The CUAC 20 can jam on the first click and they'll do,its a bug.

If true, then that's worth fixing. Given PGI's speed, it can take up to a year or so.

Other than that...

Hawok79, on 13 November 2016 - 03:39 AM, said:

If the enemy mech moving at your 200m,you hit 2-3 components with 5 dmg.
Clan AC´s are skill based Weapons and very hard to use on moving or twisting enemies.
I'll would change it instantly for an AC 20...

A Jagermech with dual AC10 make 20dmg on the component it hit...Pinpoint,every 1,8 seconds.
Tell which Clanmech are able to to that?!

When will you people learn that the damage output is not the relevant value.
It is in which time,you can make Damage X on component Y,targeted!

It´s also wrong to evaluate a 4 CUAC10 KDK3 in Pug.Games who plays T1 against T5 and come with the argumentation : Uhuhu the KDK3 dominate the Leaderboards with blabla Points more ...KDK3 is OP...it is noob bashing,noting else.

Pgi call this "Overperformer" like Nova,Adder and the Kitfox,Ok seriously the Kitfox is really OP.
I call this ridiculous!And an other prof that they dont understand their own Game.

This Patch is a simple Clan Nerv!

... seems like you should play IS or use Gauss/PPC, if pinpoint is the only way for you to hit specific components.

[Rhialto]

Was about to buy the SB, I guess it's still a good buy as nothing really changed except I had hope that would be the one who kept original torso yaw.

[NoiseCrypt]

Great work with the balance design notes. Thanks.

[Hawok79]

PFC Carsten, on 13 November 2016 - 06:04 AM, said:

If true, then that's worth fixing. Given PGI's speed, it can take up to a year or so.

Other than that...


... seems like you should play IS or use Gauss/PPC, if pinpoint is the only way for you to hit specific components.

It is not: i dont able too..,more it is way harder to do and it takes more time.
E.g. Ac10 twist,shoot,twist and so on...is with an cuac not possible,the bullets spread if you move the torso.

If i play IS on Pugs with AC i had 50% more Kills ,I like them.

Pgi did fix bugs?

[Ukos]

interesting changes, although for the PPC changes I am surprised that you did not make swap around the ECM disruption periods between the ER PPC and standard so that you presented the players with a reasonable choice / benefit to the standard PPC as a trade off against it's minimum range (you could even have a fluffy explanation of this being due to the blast being more coherent / concentrated in the non ER version to satisfy lore)

[Gwydion Ward]

PFC Carsten, on 13 November 2016 - 02:35 AM, said:

Do UACs jam when you don't double-tap them? I think not.

Lets see.... What happens if i DONT try to doubletap... Lets look at the numbers shall we?

Clan UAC Cooldowns:

UAC2: 0.72
UAC5: 1.66
UAC10: 2.5
UAC20: 4

Jam Time: (after patch)
UAC2: 3
UAC5: 6.5
UAC10: 8
UAC20: 8

Total Cooldown if jammed:

CUAC2: 3.72
CUAC5: 7.16
CUAC10: 10.5
CUAC20: 12

Clan AC Cooldowns:

CAC2: 0.72
CAC5: 1.8
CAC10: 2.9
CAC20: 4.7


IS Cooldowns:

AC2: 0.72
AC5: 1.66
AC10: 2.5
AC20: 4

UAC5: 1.66

IS Jam Time:

UAC5: 6

IS Cooldown if Jammed:

UAC5: 7.66

So... what does all this spam mean?

Well for starters.. the Cooldown on the CUAC's vs the CAC's, when you simply hold down the fire button, has less than 1 second of a difference. The largest difference being with the CAC20 vs the CUAC20 at 0.7 seconds.

But what if i try to double-tap and jam? Which quite often happens on the FIRST attempt to double-tap? Well then we get a HUGE difference. With the smallest cooldown time now being 3.72 seconds, while the highest is a whopping 12 seconds.

Thats roughly 4-12 seconds that your weapon is nothing but dead-weight.

But.. what i i decide that this patch makes NON-Boating UAC use pointless? (which i honestly think it does), and i decide to use the NON-UAC clan weapons.

Well.. the CAC's have a Cooldown that is less than 1 second slower than the IS counterparts.. with the highest difference being on the AC20 at 0.7 seconds. With 0 risk to jam. So i may fire less than one second slower than the IS, but at least i'll still be able to fire once every 4 seconds, vs having a deadweight weapon for anywhere from 3.72 seconds, to a whopping 12.

So yes.. when Tuesday comes, i'll be swapping out the UAC on ALL of my Non "Boating" Clan Mech's, and going over to the placeholder cAC's. At least then i'll be on 'even' terms with the IS.. rather than having the legs cut out from under me with a stupidly long jam-time+cooldown duration.

Did they need to address Clan UAC Boating? Yes.

Did they do it the right way? Hell no.

Did they solve "Lazer-vomit" by increasing the duration and Heat on every single individual laser? No.. they came up with 'ghost heat'.

Could they have done the same thing with UAC's? YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The better opption would have been to simply have the game check to see how many of each 'like type' UAC is equipped on a mech, and give that mech a increased chance to jam PER GUN, based on how many like-type UAC's were equipped.

For instance:

Standard Jam cance on a CUAC5: 17% (after the patch)

If(count.CUAC5 = 2)
set.jamchance=20%

Then just scale it up more for each 'extra' like-type weapon equipped.

THAT would help them counter the UAC Boating WITHOUT ruining the weapon for every single player who does NOT 'boat' UAC's.

Sadly though, PGI chose the 'easy' rout (which is simply changing a single variable in their database), rather than the more difficult rout (of actually adding in different code). And the end-effect is that they get their "anti-boating" fix.. but at the cost of making the weapon completely useless for anyone who does NOT boat.


*edited added thought*

Also.. on another note.

Not only are Clan's being pushed into using Non UAC weapons to avoid the stupidness of the new jam times.. But the cAC's take up an extra clit slot MORE than the cUAC's.

So we either get screwed over for NOT boating UAC's by having our primary weapon fubar'd for 4-12 seconds, or we lose a crit-slot for the ability to NOT have the risk of jamming, and being on 'equal' terms with IS by using the placeholder cAC's.

Edited by Gwydion Ward, 13 November 2016 - 03:04 PM.

[Hydrocarbon]

Here is the main problem with PGI's idea of balance: Tier 1 uses totally different strategies & builds vs [the perpetually stuck] Tier 5 folks.

Outside of the few actual disabled people, there is no other difference. Thus, looking at the PTS data & your own observations in T4 (as the main dev claimed he's in) have absolutely no bearing in T2 or T1. IMO the devs should challenge themselves to get into Tier 1 & see the actual difference before swinging the nerf bat.

My prediction is that tier 3-5 will turn into LURMageddon 2.0 and tier 1-2 games will see a big switch from UAC to Gauss/PPC warfare (less damage, same time to kill). Explaining your reasoning is great, but it can't alter the fact that a bad idea is anything different.

[Ironically Ironclad Irony]

I think this illuminates the uac for what it is: high risk/high reward.

We all remember when our uacs jammed at the worst possible time but can't be bothered to reminisce about all the time weabsolutely DESTROYED our targats because they didn't.

Bottom line, don't take em if you fear jamming. Or better yet mix your loadout so that its not possible to get a total jam...

[Graugger]

Hydrocarbon, on 13 November 2016 - 01:00 PM, said:

My prediction is that tier 3-5 will turn into LURMageddon 2.0 and tier 1-2 games will see a big switch from UAC to Gauss/PPC warfare (less damage, same time to kill). Explaining your reasoning is great, but it can't alter the fact that a bad idea is anything different.

So sniper warz again... Seems like PGI has a preference of sniping over brawling. Shows in most of the maps too.

[-Quiet-]

I don't mind if pgi band of block me for what I'm about to say!!!

**** you PGI !!! stop killing the game ...

[Mcgral18]

Gwydion Ward, on 13 November 2016 - 12:05 PM, said:

Well for starters.. the Cooldown on the CUAC's vs the CAC's, when you simply hold down the fire button, has less than 1 second of a difference. The largest difference being with the CAC20 vs the CUAC20 at 0.7 seconds.

You're forgetting the duration

The cAC20 has a 5.03s recycle, because 4.7+0.33
(or 0.11*(n-1)
n being number of shells (aside from when shell=1)

+.33
+.22
+.11
As the recycle doesn't start until after the last shell fires.

[Gwydion Ward]

Mcgral18, on 13 November 2016 - 02:11 PM, said:

You're forgetting the duration

The cAC20 has a 5.03s recycle, because 4.7+0.33
(or 0.11*(n-1)
n being number of shells (aside from when shell=1)

+.33
+.22
+.11
As the recycle doesn't start until after the last shell fires.

Last time i used a CAC, they still fired only 1 shell at a time

Still.. 5.03 seconds, vs 12... which would you chose if it was your primary (single, non-boated) weapon?

The changes their making will only irritate the 'boaters', but it flat out destroys the risk/reward balance of carrying a single cUAC.

Edited by Gwydion Ward, 13 November 2016 - 02:21 PM.

[Insufficient Skill]

Gwydion Ward, on 13 November 2016 - 12:05 PM, said:

Lets see.... What happens if i DONT try to doubletap... Lets look at the numbers shall we?

Clan UAC Cooldowns:

UAC2: 0.72
UAC5: 1.66
UAC10: 2.5
UAC20: 4

Jam Time: (after patch)
UAC2: 3
UAC5: 6.5
UAC10: 8
UAC20: 8

Total Cooldown if jammed:

CUAC2: 3.72
CUAC5: 7.16
CUAC10: 10.5
CUAC20: 12

Clan AC Cooldowns:

CAC2: 0.72
CAC5: 1.8
CAC10: 2.9
CAC20: 4.7


IS Cooldowns:

AC2: 0.72
AC5: 1.66
AC10: 2.5
AC20: 4

UAC5: 1.66

IS Jam Time:

UAC5: 6

IS Cooldown if Jammed:

UAC5: 7.66

So... what does all this spam mean?

Well for starters.. the Cooldown on the CUAC's vs the CAC's, when you simply hold down the fire button, has less than 1 second of a difference.  The largest difference being with the CAC20 vs the CUAC20 at 0.7 seconds.

But what if i try to double-tap and jam? Which quite often happens on the FIRST attempt to double-tap?  Well then we get a HUGE difference. With the smallest cooldown time now being 3.72 seconds, while the highest is a whopping 12 seconds.

Thats roughly 4-12 seconds that your weapon is nothing but dead-weight.

But.. what i i decide that this patch makes NON-Boating UAC use pointless? (which i honestly think it does), and i decide to use the NON-UAC clan weapons.

Well.. the CAC's have a Cooldown that is less than 1 second slower than the IS counterparts.. with the highest difference being on the AC20 at 0.7 seconds.  With 0 risk to jam.  So i may fire less than one second slower than the IS, but at least i'll still be able to fire once every 4 seconds, vs having a deadweight weapon for anywhere from 3.72 seconds, to a whopping 12.

So yes.. when Tuesday comes, i'll be swapping out the UAC on ALL of my Non "Boating" Clan Mech's, and going over to the placeholder cAC's.  At least then i'll be on 'even' terms with the IS.. rather than having the legs cut out from under me with a stupidly long jam-time+cooldown duration.

Did they need to address Clan UAC Boating?  Yes.  

Did they do it the right way?  Hell no.

Did they solve "Lazer-vomit" by increasing the duration and Heat on every single individual laser?  No.. they came up with 'ghost heat'.

Could they have done the same thing with UAC's?  YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The better opption would have been to simply have the game check to see how many of each 'like type' UAC is equipped on a mech, and give that mech a increased chance to jam PER GUN, based on how many like-type UAC's were equipped.

For instance:

Standard Jam cance on a CUAC5: 17% (after the patch)

If(count.CUAC5 = 2)
set.jamchance=20%

Then just scale it up more for each 'extra' like-type weapon equipped.

THAT would help them counter the UAC Boating WITHOUT ruining the weapon for every single player who does NOT 'boat' UAC's.

Sadly though, PGI chose the 'easy' rout (which is simply changing a single variable in their database), rather than the more difficult rout (of actually adding in different code).  And the end-effect is that they get their "anti-boating" fix.. but at the cost of making the weapon completely useless for anyone who does NOT boat.

Now factor in Ghost Heat, which is MUCH less for non-ultra ACs. For example 4 cUAC10 are at 33.60 while four cAC10 are at 8.96. Ain't that nice?

[Punk Oblivion]

Gwydion Ward, on 13 November 2016 - 12:05 PM, said:

Lets see.... What happens if i DONT try to doubletap... Lets look at the numbers shall we?

Clan UAC Cooldowns:

UAC2: 0.72
UAC5: 1.66
UAC10: 2.5
UAC20: 4

Jam Time: (after patch)
UAC2: 3
UAC5: 6.5
UAC10: 8
UAC20: 8

Total Cooldown if jammed:

CUAC2: 3.72
CUAC5: 7.16
CUAC10: 10.5
CUAC20: 12

Clan AC Cooldowns:

CAC2: 0.72
CAC5: 1.8
CAC10: 2.9
CAC20: 4.7


IS Cooldowns:

AC2: 0.72
AC5: 1.66
AC10: 2.5
AC20: 4

UAC5: 1.66

IS Jam Time:

UAC5: 6

IS Cooldown if Jammed:

UAC5: 7.66

So... what does all this spam mean?

Well for starters.. the Cooldown on the CUAC's vs the CAC's, when you simply hold down the fire button, has less than 1 second of a difference. The largest difference being with the CAC20 vs the CUAC20 at 0.7 seconds.

But what if i try to double-tap and jam? Which quite often happens on the FIRST attempt to double-tap? Well then we get a HUGE difference. With the smallest cooldown time now being 3.72 seconds, while the highest is a whopping 12 seconds.

Thats roughly 4-12 seconds that your weapon is nothing but dead-weight.

So I am mainly a ballistics user, and this is how I see it.

I think people are looking at this the wrong way. Larger CUAC's have been OP compared to the smaller CUAC's for a long time. Look at the jam cooldown %'s and it makes sense.

currently:
CUAC20 jammed: 125% penalty
CUAC2 jammed : 694% penalty! For a weapon that has half the DPS and even MORE spread out damage!

New:
CUAC20 jammed: 200% penalty
CUAC2 jammed: 416% penalty

So IMO either CUAC2 should have an even lower jam penalty, or the CUAC20 should have an even HIGHER jam penalty. Higher front end damage coupled with high DPS SHOULD carry a big risk.

Having said all that, I think it would be a great idea to have each CUAC/UAC have a "jam percentage". And these are all added together to give the overall jam chance globally for all UAC's mounted on the mech. Maybe a UAC2 has 2% while a UAC20 has 8%. So mounting them together gives you a 10% chance to jam ANY UAC weapon. Then jam times are 200-300% of the normal weapon cooldown.

8% jam chance for a 12 second cooldown for a single AC 20 seems like a good risk/reward to me seeing your getting an extra 20 damage up front and can torso twist rather than stare down your opponent.

In any case, These changes (especially the heat changes) have made ME happy. Come Tuesday you better believe I will be doing some trolling with 8 X CUAC2's haha. But I will probably settle back into LBX boating, because I like shotguns and crits!

Edited by Punk Oblivion, 13 November 2016 - 03:18 PM.

[Gwydion Ward]

Also.. on another note.

Not only are Clan's being pushed into using Non UAC weapons to avoid the stupidness of the new jam times.. But the cAC's take up an extra clit slot MORE than the cUAC's.

So we either get screwed over for NOT boating UAC's by having our primary weapon fubar'd for 4-12 seconds, or we lose a crit-slot for the ability to NOT have the risk of jamming, and being on 'equal' terms with IS by using the placeholder cAC's.

[Carl Vickers]

Basically this patch kills the CUAC-10, over nerf much. They say the Jam chance was 14% odd, I call shennanigans, they jam a lot more than that.

I think upping the jam chance is a good move, upping the unjam time is bad. I understand PGI waning to increase TTK but there are better ways of doing it.

People call for diversity, the Night Gyr B variant is a ballistics mech, best loadout is 4 UAC 5's, you do tend to get quite a few jams and now waiting 6.5 seconds in a brawl, which is normally what FW ends up being, for them to unjam, bollocks I says.

Couldnt care less about KDK-3, stopped using it a while ago cause easy mode for suckers mech. The nerf on the rest of the chassis is plain silly. How many of the Battlemaster variants have the 60 degree torso twist, just the 1 from memory, why didnt PGI do the same thing for the Kodiaks. Bad decisions are bad.

The meta will change back to laser vomit, gauss and laser vomit and ppc/gauss poptarts. Yeah, lots of diversity there, gg PGI and people who think it is good for the game.

Edited by Carl Vickers, 13 November 2016 - 03:53 PM.

[Navid A1]

Punk Oblivion, on 13 November 2016 - 02:54 PM, said:

So I am mainly a ballistics user, and this is how I see it.

I think people are looking at this the wrong way. Larger CUAC's have been OP compared to the smaller CUAC's for a long time. Look at the jam cooldown %'s and it makes sense.

currently:
CUAC20 jammed: 125% penalty
CUAC2 jammed : 694% penalty! For a weapon that has half the DPS and even MORE spread out damage!

New:
CUAC20 jammed: 200% penalty
CUAC2 jammed: 416% penalty

So IMO either CUAC2 should have an even lower jam penalty, or the CUAC20 should have an even HIGHER jam penalty. Higher front end damage coupled with high DPS SHOULD carry a big risk.

Having said all that, I think it would be a great idea to have each CUAC/UAC have a "jam percentage". And these are all added together to give the overall jam chance globally for all UAC's mounted on the mech. Maybe a UAC2 has 2% while a UAC20 has 8%. So mounting them together gives you a 10% chance to jam ANY UAC weapon. Then jam times are 200-300% of the normal weapon cooldown.

8% jam chance for a 12 second cooldown for a single AC 20 seems like a good risk/reward to me seeing your getting an extra 20 damage up front and can torso twist rather than stare down your opponent.

In any case, These changes (especially the heat changes) have made ME happy. Come Tuesday you better believe I will be doing some trolling with 8 X CUAC2's haha. But I will probably settle back into LBX boating, because I like shotguns and crits!

Sorry, I can not take this seriously because of false logic.

- Larger UACs has never ever been OP. That sentence invalidates your post. Certain mechs were OP because o their ability of boating UACs in large numbers on high hardpoints. If you need to boat something as heavy as a large UAC to be effective, then there is a problem with UACs being sub-optimal weapons!

- Wrong analogy again when you are comparing penalties between UAC2 and UAC20. A single UAC2 is not the main weapon system on a mech (unless boated in large numbers which makes jamming nearly irrelevant). However, a single UAC20 is often used as the main gun on a mech. You can not "Boat" UAC20. Given the range a UAC20 is supposed to be used, a 12 second jam is death for a UAC20 user, as he usually do not have any other worthwhile weapon to sustain in close combat. That is certain death penalty for bringing a UAC20.
Right now, UAC20 jams like crazy and is unreliable already... this change would be a nail in the coffin.

- Also you are wrong about a UAC20 doing 20 damage up front. UAC20 is many things... but up front damage is not one of them.

This whole disciussion is to tell PGI not to gut a weapon system only because one and only one mech variant is able to abuse it. Its about telling them not to go full kneejerk towards the easiest get away regarding these changes.

Edited by Navid A1, 13 November 2016 - 03:48 PM.

[vibrant]

Punk Oblivion, on 13 November 2016 - 02:54 PM, said:

So IMO either CUAC2 should have an even lower jam penalty, or the CUAC20 should have an even HIGHER jam penalty. Higher front end damage coupled with high DPS SHOULD carry a big risk.

You're assuming ceteris paribus -- all else being equal. However, it is absolutely not. The weapons are used in completely different circumstances. CUAC2, if it's used at all, is a long-range weapon. If your weapons jam, damn, you stop firing for a while, maybe duck and hide before poking out again. I can't see any way it would add danger to the mech, aside from having a marginally lower DPS overall.

CUAC20, however, is a very short-range weapon requiring a lot of dangerous face-time. If the weapon jams for 8 seconds... and it's your main source of damage (which is probably is, considering the weight of it)... what are your choices? Continue fighting with maybe 20-40% of your firepower - and likely die? 8 seconds is a looooong time in a brawl. Turn and run... exposing your rear... and likely die? There are no good options. Yes, statistically, it would make sense. But looking at the circumstances they're used it, it feels very unfair to effectively sentence a brawler to a possible death for a single weapon jam.

Edited by vibrant, 13 November 2016 - 03:49 PM.

[I cant want to]

a lower jam chance that accumulates with the number of weapons mounted would have been a much more sensible way to go, as it would encourage more mixed builds and discourage boating

but this is pgi - where half measures and over reaction are par for the course

[Navid A1]

PGI employee: "some of these players are bringing up valid points... maybe we should see what they say"
Balance overlord: "good, good... let them feel the burn. that is what they get for playing bowling with my catapult. there is more where that came from..."
PGI employee: "?"
Balance overlord: "working as intended... they are just whiners on an island.. back to work"