108 replies to this topic

[BLOOD WOLF]

Graugger, on 16 November 2016 - 02:52 PM, said:

I am beginning to suspect the main line units are dropping in the PTS system and intentionally altering their performance to get the results they want and thus manipulating the information being generated by the PTS.

that would be some conspiracy there, but I wouldn't put it past people. However never fear, even if they were doing that. The data would not be consistant with the other sets of data where people wouldn't be in that category.

it would be like looking at averages and seeing 1,2,1,3,2,1,2,4,66,1,2,3,4,3,1,3

Edited by BLOOD WOLF, 17 November 2016 - 04:28 AM.

[Duke Nedo]

Jun Watarase, on 17 November 2016 - 04:16 AM, said:

Im curious how PGI concluded that UACs were too good compared to the alternative (LBXs mainly) when most people would agree that it's the LBXs that are underwhelming...

If they just looked at damage done, then I guess all cUACs and UAC5s would have an inflated score relative to the useful damage done due to the steam of bullets + doubletap... another factor could be that the mechs boating cUACs are generally the heavier and the good mechs like KDK-3, DWF, NGR, TBR and EBJ (and the odd HGN-IIc or ON1-IIc), so compared to lasers that every kind of mech uses the weapon-stats could be skewed too.

On the other hand, especially dual cUAC10's were very potent imo, not only when boated on KDK-3 or DWFs.

And last but not least, it may not have been intentional to nerf dakka vs other weapon types, perhaps that was just normalizing collateral damage.

[Sopistan]

Dont forget the standar ac/5 heat increase, my poor DRG and RFL (and every other long forgotten ballistic mech) where "underperforming" before the patch and now they are burning furniture on the battlefield...

[Mech Croissant]

Duke Nedo, on 16 November 2016 - 01:02 AM, said:

There seem to be so many misconceptions and misleading statements being flung around so I just have to get this out of my system this morning.

• The UAC change is a normalization of the double-tap feature of UACs. Jam chance and jam duration only affects the double-tap, not the base DPS.

.........................OLD double-tap DPS gain................NEW double-tap DPS gain.....nerf%


UAC5..........................26.6%.....................................................18.0%.....................6.8%

cUAC2........................-7.9%......................................................16.2%..................-17.1% (buff)
cUAC5........................33.0%......................................................20.8%....................9.1%
cUAC10......................46.4%......................................................23.3%...................15.8%
cUAC20......................60.3%......................................................43.2%...................10.6%

• The average effect is that the DPS gain from double-tapping has been normalized from a spread of ~ -8-+60% to 16-43% (where cUAC20 is an outlier, the others are within 16-23%)
  
• This is not a ghost-mechanic, and it never was. It's a pure weapon performance normalization. It does not punish single UACs more than boated UACs. It may be perceived that way depending on how you build your mech and by how you play it (i.e. do you always double-tap, totally ignoring the situation on the battlefield?).
  
• What boating does is spread the jam probabilities between several weapons, meaning that you will experience closer to the average result, on average. That is, you less often gain a 100% DPS boost, and you less often get hit by all weapons being jammed, giving you a 100% DPS nerf. Both become less likely and you operate around the ~20% DPS increase. This makes it so that UAC boats can continue to mindlessly always double-tap in all situations more or less.
  
• What single-UAC use experiences is less reliability. That makes it more of a feast-or-famine weapon. You will experience full weapon lock-out more often, sure, but you also will be rewarded with a 100% DPS increase more often because your single UAC didn't jam. On average, you will still be at ~20% gain when double-tapping. This demands a little thought from the pilot. You can actually mitigate some of this and play the odds there and then on the battlefield by situational awareness. Double-tapping the first shot when committing to a brawl comes with a risk, though that risk is negligible if you have the option to recover in case of a jam.
  
• 8 seconds is long for cUAC10's and 20's. It is 3 secs longer than it used to be. It would probably have been preferable to instead increase the odds of a jam and keep the duration unchanged, in that case the chance should have been increased to ~27% (for cUAC10s) to give the same average DPS-boost, which is pretty high. Perhaps something in between had been the best. That said, it's not 12 seconds for all UACs like has been insinuated, that's misleading. You always have the cooldown, jam or no jam, so the jam time is a flat 8 seconds extra penalty for UAC10 and UAC20.

So, this is what the changes do. The rest is up to us, how do we choose to adapt in the mech lab and on the battlefield.



This is indeed a nerf to dakka-boats (10-15% dps nerf), but the main purpose should have been to normalize the double-tap gain from the different UAC variants. The cUAC10 got a disproportionally high gain from double-tapping compared to the other UACs (not counting the cUAC20 because it sort of sucks for other reasons. The double-tap gain on that is still huge). cUAC2's were completely broken before and lost DPS when doubletapping. This change has corrected this.

10-15% DPS nerf on dakka may motivate a small cooldown nerf on gauss+ppc, personally I wouldn't mind that. May be good for variety.

You are assuming, that UAC's only jam with double tabbing. Sadly, that is not true and only PGI knows why!

There is no reason for this weapon to jam if I'm only songle tab it, yet it does.

I figure that mechanic is easier to fix than the mechanics of the Lbx-Ac, where I could determine, if ammo loaded, to fire in cluster or spread.

Pls, PGI, fix the UAC's in that regard, that UAC's don't jam if used as normal AC (I know, in lore, the UAC, once jammed, would never unjam again......is it because of this, why also single tapping is penalized with jamming?).

[DrSaphron]

I run a Jade Kite with 5 UAC2s on it and since the update it actually seems MORE lethal than before, in fact I barely notice the jams any more because it dropped from 5 seconds to 3!

[Tarogato]

El Bandito, on 16 November 2016 - 01:32 AM, said:

From the way people are whining about the jam duration change, one might think they have only a single UAC on their mechs and nothing else. Having just 3xCERML to tag along means one will still have 21 damage alpha, which is far from being useless, when the UAC does jam.

Personally, if I'm running my UAC10 + 3meds Shadowcat and my UAC10 jams... I'm done. I have to sit in cover and wait for the gun to unjam, because if I'm a 45-ton mech trading with only 3meds, I'm going to lose those trades so it's not even worth going for shots at all until the UAC is back online so that you can pump out that extra 20 damage you need to win pokes.

[El Bandito]

Tarogato, on 19 November 2016 - 08:41 PM, said:

Personally, if I'm running my UAC10 + 3meds Shadowcat and my UAC10 jams... I'm done. I have to sit in cover and wait for the gun to unjam, because if I'm a 45-ton mech trading with only 3meds, I'm going to lose those trades so it's not even worth going for shots at all until the UAC is back online so that you can pump out that extra 20 damage you need to win pokes.

So don't poke until your AC is back online. Jam chance is also only 1/6. Which means your overall DPS is still gonna be 20-30% higher than single tapping.

[Tarogato]

El Bandito, on 19 November 2016 - 09:04 PM, said:

So don't poke until your AC is back online.

... hence the whine. When you're relying on a single gun to deal at least half your dps, it's infuriating for it to be unreliable. But buffing it into reliability makes that gun rather overpowered when boated.

Probably just means we need more jam chance quirks on mechs that can't boat but are likely to equip UACs.

[Ultimax]

kapusta11, on 16 November 2016 - 03:08 AM, said:

Yes, lets nerf Gauss and PPCs AGAIN, just because we nerfed ACs AGAIN, and once laser vomit becomes the meta AGAIN we will nerf it AGAIN, and then we will nerf LRMs... yep, you guessed it, AGAIN, cause why the **** not?

Do you by any chance have a friend named Paul?

It's both funny and sad because it's true.


The slow spiral to the bottom as PGI chases the lowest common denominator.

El Bandito, on 16 November 2016 - 01:32 AM, said:

From the way people are whining about the jam duration change, one might think they have only a single UAC on their mechs and nothing else. Having just 3xCERML to tag along means one will still have 21 damage alpha, which is far from being useless, when the UAC does jam.

This is a team game, and what a dakka boat brings to a team is mid-ranged aggression.

It supports pushes and it helps fend off brawl rushes.


Big DPS nerfs and long jam times basically makes that untenable and pushes more team focused players to just go hard on either all long range or all shorter range.


There's not much point to playing a dakka build that has to be timid and poke when you could just play something with more range and a bigger alpha that plays the same way.

[El Bandito]

Ultimax, on 19 November 2016 - 09:10 PM, said:

There's not much point to playing a dakka build that has to be timid and poke when you could just play something with more range and a bigger alpha that plays the same way.

Jamming mechanic is what PGI had rolled with, and if we dial it back again, CUACs will become superior than any of its relatives yet again. Since I want to see both sides' tech brought to equal competence, I am with PGI on nerfing the CUACs. The jam duration could be lowered at the expense of even more jam %, but CUAC nerfs were completely justified.

[Ultimax]

El Bandito, on 19 November 2016 - 09:32 PM, said:

Jamming mechanic is what PGI had rolled with, and if we dial it back again, CUACs will become superior than any of its relatives yet again. Since I want to see both sides' tech brought to equal competence, I am with PGI on nerfing the CUACs. The jam duration could be lowered at the expense of even more jam %, but CUAC nerfs were completely justified.

1) The AC is an inferior weapon vs. many other weapons for many reasons. It simply has zero ability to fill in for how UACs were actually used.

2) CACs are not a real weapon, PGI using them as a comparison is one of the dumbest things we have seen. It would be like inventing a heavy mech that only has 2 hardpoints and then using it to justify nerf-hammering other normally designed mechs.

They implemented this moronic weapon, gave it the worst possible combination of stats - then forgot about their existence for over 2 years and now have decided that CUACs are over-performing compared to them.




Effectively PGI used flawed logic, assuming people only use UACs because they are superior to standard type ACs - the reality is those ACs are not competitive with other weapon systems either.

Too much tonnage, too much crit space, ammo-reliance, DPS is too low to make up for how low the Alpha is compared to big alpha options.


Nerfing UACs will not see people go to those non-competitive alternatives, specifically because they are already non-competitive.

Players will simply play the few remaining boats that can still make it work or they will switch to other weapon systems.



Which is why this balance pass was a failure.

Edited by Ultimax, 19 November 2016 - 10:12 PM.

[El Bandito]

Ultimax, on 19 November 2016 - 10:11 PM, said:

Effectively PGI used flawed logic, assuming people only use UACs because they are superior to standard type ACs - the reality is those ACs are not competitive with other weapon systems either.

Funny how before Clans hit, the AC5 was a perfectly viable weapon to use. Besides IS AC5 is here to stay. Therefore it should be equally powerful as same tonnage ballistics. And to do that one can either buff AC5, which will decrease TTK, or nerf the others, which will increase TTK.

Same balancing should go to Clan Gauss and all other Clan weapons and equipment that have clear advantage over their IS counterparts, with little of no downsides.

Edited by El Bandito, 20 November 2016 - 12:16 AM.

[Duke Nedo]

Mcgral18, on 17 November 2016 - 02:05 AM, said:

I'd say take it straight from MWLL

Jam bar, firing adds to it (not only double tapping, all firing, period)
That way, you remove RNGeesus, and provide a SET limit to how much damage can be output in X time

Ultras are for burst damage, while ACs are for prolonged.
Maybe add an additional shell to Ultras...or remove from from cACs, or just fix their damned cooldowns(!)

Bar drains when not fired for X period.
If the bar does reach the top end, add 3-5-12-, whatever, penalty to resetting.
5s, plus drain time, should be fine as a penalty.

It would need to be tested. How much damage is acceptable? Shorter cooldown than normal ACs? Or, half damage-half cooldown?
Double damage, at more spread, for a limited period of time. Eh, maybe.

While I think that some of the rage is a bit exaggerated, the best solution is probably to seriously modify the jam mechanics. Something along these lines would be more under control, fully agreed!

I think the current nerf put the UACs better in line with each other, and with IS ACs and with laser vomit. The only thing lacking is to balance it vs PPC/Gauss, so I'd still advocate a slight nerf to PPC and Gauss CD, say 10%. If we do that we will have achieved longer TTK over all and better balance between weapons systems as well as the different flavors of ACs and UACs.

Finally they'd need to fix cACs and IS ACs so that they are all relevant. I guess the roles could be divided so that UACs have lower reliable dps but with double-tap burst potential, while ACs would have a higher but reliable dps. I don't know if there's another way to justify both... perhaps make IS UACs fire streams of bullets like cUACs, but that would increase the need to modify the base stats a lot due to their heavy weight compared to clan UACs... they's need a serious CD boost if stream-fired. Similarly clan ACs would need really poor CD if they were firing single shots. Good thing is that it would distinguish them from ACs and justify both.

[Mech Croissant]

Duke Nedo, on 17 November 2016 - 12:59 AM, said:

One should also remember that we always have the option not to double-tap. Not double-tapping is in practice trading ~20% extra DPS for 100% reliability.

If it only were so! But it isn't since single tapping is jamming the weapon as well. There is no 100% reliability with the uac.....maybe that's why PGI introduced the cAC?

[Mech Croissant]

Rampage, on 16 November 2016 - 09:51 PM, said:

I will not be double tapping UAC5s unless it is a killing blow and no one else is close by to jump me.
.

It does not matter if you double-tap or not, the weapon can jam anytime used. Single-tapping only makes sense in order to save ammo, it surely doesn't avoid jamming!

[Duke Nedo]

Mech Croissant, on 20 November 2016 - 05:09 AM, said:

If it only were so! But it isn't since single tapping is jamming the weapon as well. There is no 100% reliability with the uac.....maybe that's why PGI introduced the cAC?

I just went into the mechlab and tested 6x cUAC2, 5x cUAC5 and 4x cUAC10 and they volleying 20 times each and jammed exactly 0 times with all of them on the first shot, or when keeping the trigger pressed. On the double-tap I jammed: 19%, 23% and 17.5% respectively. Sounds feasible for a sample size that small.

If they jam on the first shot on the live server it's somehow related to latency I would expect. Can't say it's something I've seen happening a lot... have a video of it?

[Tier5 Kerensky]

Uh no the jamming only happens when trying to fire again while in cooldown, that's called double tap.

[Mech Croissant]

Duke Nedo, on 20 November 2016 - 05:56 AM, said:

... have a video of it?

I can try and make one.

[Duke Nedo]

Tarogato, on 19 November 2016 - 08:41 PM, said:

Personally, if I'm running my UAC10 + 3meds Shadowcat and my UAC10 jams... I'm done. I have to sit in cover and wait for the gun to unjam, because if I'm a 45-ton mech trading with only 3meds, I'm going to lose those trades so it's not even worth going for shots at all until the UAC is back online so that you can pump out that extra 20 damage you need to win pokes.

Tarogato, on 19 November 2016 - 09:08 PM, said:

... hence the whine. When you're relying on a single gun to deal at least half your dps, it's infuriating for it to be unreliable. But buffing it into reliability makes that gun rather overpowered when boated.

Probably just means we need more jam chance quirks on mechs that can't boat but are likely to equip UACs.

While I am sure that's a fun build, I think that it's an informed decision you make in the mechlab when you make a build with a heavy reliance on a single heavy cUAC.

Then you make another informed decision when you decide to double-tap it.

I see it's attractive to get double dps, but it comes at a cost. We can't expect double dps and then become angry when it jams 17% of the time. The 8 secs is excessive, I agree. Something like 20% jam chance and 6 seconds would have been easier to cope with... but in any case, this is what UACs are. Feast or famine. When you famine 17% of the shots, don't forget you feast the other 83% and take double alpha for granted.

Sure, PPC/Gauss is better and more reliable, but that is not really the fault of the UACs imo. They are pretty nicely balanced towards different flavors of cUACs (and cUAC2's were unbroken), towards ACs, lasers and SRMs imo. If PPC and/or Gauss is too strong, just give it some extra CD and be done with it.

Mech Croissant, on 20 November 2016 - 06:35 AM, said:

I can try and make one.

I also have some rare memory of something like that happening, though very rare. I am totally open towards that there may be a bug where for example the server has not cleared your gun status and thinks that you double-tap when you in fact did not...

[Mech Croissant]

Teer Kerensky, on 20 November 2016 - 06:03 AM, said:

Uh no the jamming only happens when trying to fire again while in cooldown, that's called double tap.

Wrong! As a noob, I didn't know how to double tap an uac.....I just assumed they would be ultra......so I solely songle tapped an yet still they jammed.

Having read this thread I thought to myself....mnhh, maybe they changed it, so just two days ago I mostly single tapped and only if I had a 100% clear shot at the enemy did I double tap. Weapon froze no matter what!