102 replies to this topic

[KoalaBrownie]

Better yet if they want to prevent people boating small calibre autocannons then give them the minimum range they're supposed to have from TT.

[Zergling]

Archangel.84, on 21 November 2016 - 09:01 AM, said:

"A bad idea" is having standard Clan ACs at all. They've never had standard ACs - it was Ultras, or LBX, both of which were a straight upgrade over the standard AC. The Ultra could fire double the shells, and the LBX could switch between standard slug and shotgun. The existence of "standard Clan ACs" is probably the biggest "WTF is this?!?!" in the game.

The problem is that even if LBX could swap between slug and shotgun, UACs would still be the superior option in a game like MWO.

[Angel of Annihilation]

Zergling, on 21 November 2016 - 02:07 PM, said:

The problem is that even if LBX could swap between slug and shotgun, UACs would still be the superior option in a game like MWO.

Don't know if I would agree. Clanner have been asking forever for a single shot AC and I know for a fact many would have switched out their UACs for one even prior to the nerf.

The problem is, people keep pointing to the DPS of Clan UACs over and over but they rarely ever talk about its less obvious disadvantages. Those disadvantages are spread damage and face time requirement. In alot of ways Clan UACs are very much like lasers. You fire a stream of shells and to maximize damage you have to hold your aim exactly were you want on target or else you spread damage all over the enemy mech. Also when your holding this aim, you are out in the open and a target.

Standard ACs on the other hand don't have this issue. You can easily pop out, aim, fire and retreat or twist or whatever which reduces your face time substantially and can have a dramatic effect on survivability.

So you say UACs would still be superior but while they might have superior DPS, I think many would chose the superiority of snap shooting, pin point damage offered by single slug ACs if given the chance.

[Lyoto Machida]

KoalaBrownie, on 21 November 2016 - 01:47 PM, said:

Better yet if they want to prevent people boating small calibre autocannons then give them the minimum range they're supposed to have from TT.

Minimum range in TT is supposed to simulate the difficulty of hitting something up close. You want delayed weapon convergence (which we used to have in MWO), not an absolute minimum range.

PGI would probably just put it in as a minimum range for AC2s where they don't do any damage at all under 120m...which doesn't make sense for an AC round.

[Zergling]

Viktor Drake, on 21 November 2016 - 02:50 PM, said:

Don't know if I would agree. Clanner have been asking forever for a single shot AC and I know for a fact many would have switched out their UACs for one even prior to the nerf.

Sorry, I meant burst of solid shots like the current cACs and cUACs.

If they had single shots like Inner Sphere ACs, then yeah, they probably would have a place, but would risk being overpowered unless they had far longer cooldown than IS ACs (and probably longer than cUACs).
And unless they made the cLBXs fire faster when in cluster mode, it would effectively render them as slug shot only, as nobody in their right mind would use cluster over slug.

If the cLBXs in slug mode fired a burst of shots like current cACs and cUACs, they would still be inferior to cUACs due to lacking a double-burst option.
Pretty much the only way to balance them would be to give the cLBXs a much faster CD than cUACs, to the point that cLBXs are the DPS option while cUACs are burst/alpha damage.

Now that I've thought about it, I've realized it could work, but I still doubt PGI has the competence to pull that off without breaking the balance further.

Edited by Zergling, 21 November 2016 - 03:11 PM.

[KoalaBrownie]

Lyoto Machida, on 21 November 2016 - 03:02 PM, said:

Minimum range in TT is supposed to simulate the difficulty of hitting something up close. You want delayed weapon convergence (which we used to have in MWO), not an absolute minimum range.

PGI would probably just put it in as a minimum range for AC2s where they don't do any damage at all under 120m...which doesn't make sense for an AC round.

Doesn't make sense for a PPC or an LRM either but it's there. Why one and not the other.

[Y E O N N E]

KoalaBrownie, on 21 November 2016 - 09:45 PM, said:

Doesn't make sense for a PPC or an LRM either but it's there. Why one and not the other.

It actually does make sense for LRMs: arming time.

[Lyoto Machida]

KoalaBrownie, on 21 November 2016 - 09:45 PM, said:

Doesn't make sense for a PPC or an LRM either but it's there. Why one and not the other.

PPCs used to scale in damage but then they restored them to TT standards again. They should damage you on an inverse relationship to how close you are to the enemy under that 90m circle (ie: if you're at 30m, you take 66% of that PPC damage and the enemy takes 33%). Maybe half that damage to you in the way of feedback should be directed at the PPCs themselves and the rest to the component they are stored in.

As for LRMs, I think we already have enough crying about them. I'd personally love to see that 180m restriction removed but then we'd never hear the end of it.

[KoalaBrownie]

Yeonne Greene, on 21 November 2016 - 09:56 PM, said:

It actually does make sense for LRMs: arming time.

Long Range Missiles, Battletech Tech Manual p.229
"Inner Sphere launchers, which derive their impressive range from a ballistic launch angle, are notoriously less accurate close-in, especially when compared to their smaller and more compact Clan rivals."

The MWO blurb about arming times is mumbo jumbo.

[visionGT4]

Viktor Drake, on 21 November 2016 - 02:50 PM, said:

So you say UACs would still be superior but while they might have superior DPS, I think many would chose the superiority of snap shooting, pin point damage offered by single slug ACs if given the chance.

You'd also be entitled for that single slug cAC to have superior tonnage and crit space requirements to the IS equivalent aswell right?

[Karl Streiger]

KoalaBrownie, on 22 November 2016 - 12:33 AM, said:

Long Range Missiles, Battletech Tech Manual p.229
"Inner Sphere launchers, which derive their impressive range from a ballistic launch angle, are notoriously less accurate close-in, especially when compared to their smaller and more compact Clan rivals."

The MWO blurb about arming times is mumbo jumbo.

not funny - we had this LRM flight path in closed beta -

[lazytopaz]

And quote from the end of the movie : "Sean - oh no the UAC's they are so nerfed! lolololo"

Even Sean disses piggy.
SO yeah, why did PGI again s#it on people who don't boat UAC's?

(BTW Ultraviolet looks like a beast from that movie)

[Lyoto Machida]

KoalaBrownie, on 22 November 2016 - 12:33 AM, said:

Long Range Missiles, Battletech Tech Manual p.229
"Inner Sphere launchers, which derive their impressive range from a ballistic launch angle, are notoriously less accurate close-in, especially when compared to their smaller and more compact Clan rivals."

The MWO blurb about arming times is mumbo jumbo.

I think that's your problem with this game...tabletop. You gotta let that go. The sooner you realize that PGI is not really going to stick to lore on everything, the sooner you'll be at peace.

Nothing you've posted in the last week or so hasn't been said numerous times here already. Unless you're going to get on Twitter, you're pretty much wasting your time here.

I'm all for removing the LRM minimum range, btw...you somewhat cannibalize the role of IS SRMs by having LRMs with no minimum range though.

[Mcgral18]

lazytopaz, on 22 November 2016 - 01:16 AM, said:

And quote from the end of the movie : "Sean - oh no the UAC's they are so nerfed! lolololo"

Even Sean disses piggy.
SO yeah, why did PGI again s#it on people who don't boat UAC's?

(BTW Ultraviolet looks like a beast from that movie)

Because when you play more than Potato Land, you cannot afford to be worthless for 10+ seconds
That, and the UAC20 was never a viable choice in the first place (at 9s), the +3s is just insult to injury


They can still kill things, much like AC2s, LRMs and LBx ACs, but they are not a serious choice. Gauss rifle reigns supreme for Ballistics...still
Nothing really changes, aside from fewer options past Potato Land.

[Zergling]

KoalaBrownie, on 22 November 2016 - 12:33 AM, said:

Long Range Missiles, Battletech Tech Manual p.229
"Inner Sphere launchers, which derive their impressive range from a ballistic launch angle, are notoriously less accurate close-in, especially when compared to their smaller and more compact Clan rivals."

The MWO blurb about arming times is mumbo jumbo.

Other sources state it is due to arming delays; there are even optional 'hot-loading' rules for Inner Sphere LRMs that allow them to remove their minimum range in exchange for other penalties.

Although to be fair, those sources and rules are older than Tech Manual, so the arming delay reason might have been retconned as too unrealistic.

Edited by Zergling, 22 November 2016 - 01:51 AM.

[Duke Nedo]

lazytopaz, on 22 November 2016 - 01:16 AM, said:

And quote from the end of the movie : "Sean - oh no the UAC's they are so nerfed! lolololo"

Even Sean disses piggy.
SO yeah, why did PGI again s#it on people who don't boat UAC's?

(BTW Ultraviolet looks like a beast from that movie)

Mcgral18, on 22 November 2016 - 01:29 AM, said:

Because when you play more than Potato Land, you cannot afford to be worthless for 10+ seconds
That, and the UAC20 was never a viable choice in the first place (at 9s), the +3s is just insult to injury


They can still kill things, much like AC2s, LRMs and LBx ACs, but they are not a serious choice. Gauss rifle reigns supreme for Ballistics...still
Nothing really changes, aside from fewer options past Potato Land.

I don't get what's with all this negativity. Which competitive builds were destroyed by the UAC nerf? The dakka-boats? Then the same people say that boating was not affected (though it clearly was, they were nerfed by 10-15%), and the same people also say that they were never competitive, it's all Gauss+PPC... cUAC5s were only nerfed by some 10%. cUAC2's were repaired and buffed. Single UAC perform the same as boated UAC (i.e. 6 adders with 1 cUAC5 have the same DPS as 1 DWF with 6 cUAC5s), it's all up to how much weapon redundancy you build in the mech lab and in which situations you choose to double tap.

You could call the cUAC20 nerf unnecessary, because the weapon was not good to start with. It was bad for other reasons though, it was bad because of slow velocity and slow stream of bullets. It's double-tap bonus was the strongest in the game, there was an average gain of 65% dps before the patch, now it's down to some 40%, still by far the strongest double-tap since all other UACs are in the 20-25% range. I agree cUAC20s could use a buff, but don't buff the jam rates, they are more normalized now and makes sense, buff the base stats of the weapon. I'd go for the time it takes to launch the stream of pellets, or decrease the number of pellets. (Edit: you could also reduce the GH for cUACs, that's another big reason they suck, since they don't sync with any other weapon you can use to get around GH.)

The most serious nerf was for cUAC10's and I think that was called for. You got a huge benefit from double-tapping them, and they brought a disproportional amount of damage potential for the tonnage compared to other weapons.

Right now Gauss+PPC are more alone at the top, leading to less variety (if there ever was one), but over all more weapons were moved towards average performance (like SRMs, LL, ERLL, cERML, ML, LPL, cLPL, AC5s, UAC5s, cUAC5s etc).

What Paul did was that he forgot to also adjust Gauss, PPC, machineguns, SLs, ERLLs, SPLs and LBXs accordingly, to move these closer to the average.... again. To me this is clearly two steps forward, one step backwards. One or two more steps forward and we have real progress. That's why I preach to finish the job rather than whine over a change that was in isolation a good change.

Optimal would have been not to change things in isolation, that's for certain!

Edited by Duke Nedo, 22 November 2016 - 03:43 AM.

[Y E O N N E]

KoalaBrownie, on 22 November 2016 - 12:33 AM, said:

Long Range Missiles, Battletech Tech Manual p.229
"Inner Sphere launchers, which derive their impressive range from a ballistic launch angle, are notoriously less accurate close-in, especially when compared to their smaller and more compact Clan rivals."

The MWO blurb about arming times is mumbo jumbo.

Irrelevant. You said it doesn't make sense, which is false because there is a reason for it that is entirely plausible. Whether or not it is what BattleTech says makes no difference to that end.

[KoalaBrownie]

Lyoto Machida, on 22 November 2016 - 01:23 AM, said:

Nothing you've posted in the last week or so hasn't been said numerous times here already.

That's how things change genius. Weight of opinion.

Yeonne Greene, on 22 November 2016 - 10:56 AM, said:

Irrelevant. You said it doesn't make sense, which is false because there is a reason for it that is entirely plausible. Whether or not it is what BattleTech says makes no difference to that end.

Can't even admit when you're wrong huh? This is a licensed product. The licensed material is always relevant.

[Y E O N N E]

KoalaBrownie, on 22 November 2016 - 03:16 PM, said:

Can't even admit when you're wrong huh? This is a licensed product. The licensed material is always relevant.

I would admit I am wrong if I were actually wrong. Your previous statement made no bones about sticking to the source, though, so you lose. You simply said it doesn't make sense, but it does. The nature of a relatively slow missile that relies on an arming warhead to deal damage is fundamentally different from a munition which uses pure kinetic energy through projectile velocity to do its work.

Now, you know what really doesn't make sense? LRMs being less accurate up close. Locks should be stronger up close, for starters, and they could fire them flat to lower time to target. It isn't neuro-science, it is ballistics 101. So, really, BT is the one with the BS excuse, not MWO.

[Lyoto Machida]

KoalaBrownie, on 22 November 2016 - 03:16 PM, said:

That's how things change genius. Weight of opinion.

Wow...you must be a candidate for MENSA yourself.

Obviously not, or you'd be on Twitter trying to get something done and not posting here in the forums. You seem to be new but will figure out how things work around here eventually.

Do us all a favor and buy a mech pack or ten along the way, please.