108 replies to this topic

[Duke Nedo]

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.

Edited by Duke Nedo, 16 November 2016 - 01:06 AM.

[El Bandito]

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.

Edited by El Bandito, 16 November 2016 - 04:43 AM.

[The6thMessenger]

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

From the way people are whining about the change, one might think they have only a single UAC on their mechs and nothing else.

To be fair, its not like all of the UACs don't jam altogether. It did happened to me that My UAC10 x2 and UAC5 on my Dakka Wolf became jammed and i was practically unable to shoot.

But i do think that's part of boating UACs.

[kapusta11]

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?

[Duke Nedo]

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?

No, I just try to see things for what they are. People have concerns that PPC+gauss meta will be reinforced by this nerf, and that may be true. So if you want to be proactive you can either nerf the dps a bit for that as well, or buff dakka dps back by reducing that cooldown, but they the ttk-crowd gets going so.... pick your poison.

[kapusta11]

Duke Nedo, on 16 November 2016 - 03:12 AM, said:

No, I just try to see things for what they are. People have concerns that PPC+gauss meta will be reinforced by this nerf, and that may be true. So if you want to be proactive you can either nerf the dps a bit for that as well, or buff dakka dps back by reducing that cooldown, but they the ttk-crowd gets going so.... pick your poison.

Of course it will be reinforced. It doesn't meant that it should be nerfed just like ACs were, it means that the AC nerf was stupid. If quirkless Kodiaks still outperform other mechs then give them negative quirks.

[justcallme A S H]

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

This does it way better...

https://www.reddit.c...h_uac_analysis/

That said, my first game in a UAC5/10 KDK3 tonight, 1100dmg as usual... 2nd was ~850dmg or something.

You have to play slightly differently, but it is still a monster.

Edited by justcallme A S H, 16 November 2016 - 03:46 AM.

[Roughneck Cobra]

Problem happens when they create zero tech for the game since spawning under IGP.

Over tweaking of weapons.

[Mechi Messer]

Haven't made up my mind yet but here are first impressions:

-Dakkabear is still one of the Kings
-3+ UltraAC-builds feel not much different. Jamtimechange is noticable but did'nt break my builds.
-SingleUltras suffer quite a bit I guess but to be honest I rarely use these builds anyway. Never considered them viable. Maybe some people can post Single- and DoubleUAC builds that were pretty good before the patch. (Except Hunchi IIC dual cUAC10)

I don't like blanketnerfs but I expected worse.

[Willard Phule]

Nerf ACs....buff LRMs....seems obvious to me. We're dumbing down the game so the new players have a chance again. Happens every so often. Since PGI can't keep people separated based on skill (totally beyond them and they don't have the playerbase to even try), they try to buff the weapons you don't need to aim with.

[Duke Nedo]

kapusta11, on 16 November 2016 - 03:23 AM, said:

Of course it will be reinforced. It doesn't meant that it should be nerfed just like ACs were, it means that the AC nerf was stupid. If quirkless Kodiaks still outperform other mechs then give them negative quirks.

Well, you have to choose one out of two bads... either nerf some things (nobody likes nerfs I guess), or buff others (powercreep and ttk, which also nobody likes). Like many others have said, the bad decision was the second row of ballistics hardpoints on the KDK-3 but I think there is no turning back on that one.... 4x high B-mounts on a 100-tonner Clan battlemech, it doesn't get much worse than that.

justcallme A S H, on 16 November 2016 - 03:36 AM, said:

This does it way better...

https://www.reddit.c...h_uac_analysis/

That said, my first game in a UAC5/10 KDK3 tonight, 1100dmg as usual... 2nd was ~850dmg or something.

You have to play slightly differently, but it is still a monster.

For what it's worth, I did the same but just included cooldown modules/skills in addition to what he did.

[STEF_]

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.

I whine because this change encourgares boating, while I like to see mixed loeadouts in the battlefield.

Also, there are mechs in which you can put a uac10 and 3 tons of ammo as main weapon, and when it jams you are useless even though you can bring something else. Tipically in brawl and hard pushes you do need your main weapon to be active...not 10 seconds of sleep.

[Duke Nedo]

Stefka Kerensky, on 16 November 2016 - 05:11 AM, said:

I whine because this change encourgares boating, while I like to see mixed loeadouts in the battlefield.

Also, there are mechs in which you can put a uac10 and 3 tons of ammo as main weapon, and when it jams you are useless even though you can bring something else. Tipically in brawl and hard pushes you do need your main weapon to be active...not 10 seconds of sleep.

Not sure how it encourages boating.

Sure, if you have 4x cUAC5's you will most of the time get an average dps increase from doubletapping which is 10% less than before the nerf. But, you will also hardly ever experience the full 100% dps increase because 1 or 2 of these cUACs will be jammed. If you only roll with a single cUAC10 for example, then you are either enjoying full 100% dps increase, or you jam and suffer 100% weapon lockout. So it becomes either or, but on average neither better nor worse. As a brawler that would be a problem, but honestly, do you brawl with a single UAC?

Mixed loadouts give you the same kind of redundancy DPS from your support weapons that you would get from additonal UACs so I can't see why this would encourage boating. Almost the opposite, if you rely only on doubletapping UACs you take a risk, but the mixed loadout will never suffer complete weapons lockout...

Edited by Duke Nedo, 16 November 2016 - 09:15 AM.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

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.

I'll take my UAC20 Adder for example, 1 UAC20 and 3 ER small lasers. If the UAC20 becomes unreliable and jams for long periods of time then it would be in my best interest to just swap out the UAC20 for a couple SRM6s and upgrade the lasers and cooling due to the extreme weight savings.

The only thing keeping it viable on that chassis would be the high ballistic quirks, though when RNGesus demands that I suffer and I get two jams quickly with the very high jam durations then I'm out of luck.

There's a lot to be said about reliability, if one gun is 10% weaker but the other gun jams 5% of the time, you can learn to deal with a weakness, but not a random chance.

[Duke Nedo]

Dakota1000, on 16 November 2016 - 09:40 AM, said:

I'll take my UAC20 Adder for example, 1 UAC20 and 3 ER small lasers. If the UAC20 becomes unreliable and jams for long periods of time then it would be in my best interest to just swap out the UAC20 for a couple SRM6s and upgrade the lasers and cooling due to the extreme weight savings.

The only thing keeping it viable on that chassis would be the high ballistic quirks, though when RNGesus demands that I suffer and I get two jams quickly with the very high jam durations then I'm out of luck.

There's a lot to be said about reliability, if one gun is 10% weaker but the other gun jams 5% of the time, you can learn to deal with a weakness, but not a random chance.

That's actually a pretty good example of why the UAC-mechanic is bad design to start with... what you have there is a 35-ton light mech with an alpha of 55, RNG permitting. That's pretty damn insane. Only reason that is not OP is that cUAC20s are such bad weapons because spray and slow velocity... but you could imagine IS UAC20 or IS UAC10s working in the same way... that would probably light up these forums!

I used to do something similar on SMNs way back before quirks to make them work. One version rolled with UAC20+4x SRM4s for a whopping 72 point alpha on hardpoint-starved mech. Not enough ammo to be very effective but it was quite fun.

That double alpha feature for little or no cost, only controlled by a dice-roll is a rather borked mechanics if you ask me.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Duke Nedo, on 16 November 2016 - 09:57 AM, said:

That's actually a pretty good example of why the UAC-mechanic is bad design to start with... what you have there is a 35-ton light mech with an alpha of 55, RNG permitting. That's pretty damn insane.

I do agree that there could possibly be a mechanic other than pure RNG for those UACs.

Though 55 alpha isn't all too insane for 35 ton clan mechs now a days. I could also run 4 ASRM6 and a small pulse laser and have 54 alpha with no jam chances. Then if we were to look at the Jenner IIC SRM boating ability we can go higher.

I'm just saying that build diversity is going to go down a bit as UACs look much less appealing and SRMs are standing strong and are exceptionally lighter and are frontloaded, where as the UAC(20s especially) require some face time, enough for someone to pop you with some of the PPCs that are now also looking better in the meta.

Edited by Dakota1000, 16 November 2016 - 10:12 AM.

[Duke Nedo]

Dakota1000, on 16 November 2016 - 10:06 AM, said:

I do agree that there could possibly be a mechanic other than pure RNG for those UACs.

Though 55 alpha isn't all too insane for 35 ton clan mechs now a days. I could also run 4 ASRM6 and a small pulse laser and have 54 alpha with no jam chances. Then if we were to look at the Jenner IIC SRM boating ability we can go higher.

I'm just saying that build diversity is going to go down a bit as UACs look much less appealing and SRMs are standing strong and exceptionally lighter and are frontloaded, where as the UAC(20s especially) require some face time, enough for someone to pop you with some of the PPCs that are now also looking better in the meta.

The SRM builds spread damage a bit more, but yeah, they are sure more effective (both before and after the UAC nerf though). I wouldn't say that Adder build is dead though, the jam chance for cUAC didn't change, it's 17% still, only the duration was increased. I never played that build, but I would assume that you don't commit and tank much but rather poke and back-stab, so you have some speed and as long as you are near cover you could probably use that lockout-time to cool down a little in cover anyways, or? It's probably much worse for something like a KDK-SB that uses cUAC20 or perhaps Orion-IIc or something like that. I don't know really, I can't think of any build where I use a single cUAC20. I think I used the LBX20 and SRMs on my SB in the end before parking it in the mastered-mech-cemetery.

For cUAC-10s I always use 2 or more, and I don't really brawl with them, more like poking with 2x cUAC10+4x cERML or similar. For these builds the chance increased by 1%, but the duration increase is hefty! But since I mostly poke with them though I have not abandoned them either.

I don't know. At least from my perspective nothing was really broken. At least none of the viable pre-nerf builds I can think of, or any build I am using.

[M T]

Id say get rid of chance based weapons as a whole. Just make difference between (U)AC's how much the DPS is is spread around amount of bullets, more bullets more cockpit shake, less bullets higher pinpoint.

And keep DPS the same.

There, balanced.

Nobody cares about a jam chance mechanic when they are in a fight.

Edited by M T, 16 November 2016 - 10:24 AM.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Duke Nedo, on 16 November 2016 - 10:23 AM, said:

The SRM builds spread damage a bit more, but yeah, they are sure more effective (both before and after the UAC nerf though). I wouldn't say that Adder build is dead though, the jam chance for cUAC didn't change, it's 17% still, only the duration was increased. I never played that build, but I would assume that you don't commit and tank much but rather poke and back-stab, so you have some speed and as long as you are near cover you could probably use that lockout-time to cool down a little in cover anyways, or? It's probably much worse for something like a KDK-SB that uses cUAC20 or perhaps Orion-IIc or something like that. I don't know really, I can't think of any build where I use a single cUAC20. I think I used the LBX20 and SRMs on my SB in the end before parking it in the mastered-mech-cemetery.

With the Adder I'll often be poking rapidly, it probably won't completely kill the build, but if I'm unlucky it will end with me getting killed because an enemy pushed my position and my gun jams for longer than my armor can hold up.

I used single UAC20 on my Orion IIC A and my Spirit Bear, neither of those mechs have any ballistic quirks and both are brawlers who have to commit. Its a liability to bring a UAC for those builds now and swapping to an LBX20 might make more sense, could throw in a couple medium lasers to keep some minor ranged ability that the UAC20 used to give that the LBX lacks.

I also liked using the UAC20 with 6 small pulse lasers in the Stormcrow and Executioner or a UAC10 plus 4 ASRM6 on my Timber Wolf, but in all these cases just throwing on 6 more small pulse lasers to replace the UAC makes a lot more sense.

I do like the idea of just giving a straight nerf to the UACs but removing the jam mechanic. Just give them the double tap ability but make the cooldown 25-50% longer than the IS variant, this way you have more DPS overall, its consistent, but it still has to deal with the IS ACs that are pinpoint and are often quirked high enough to nearly match DPS.

[Cy Mitchell]

I agree with you on the intent of the changes. What I am not sure about is the unintended impacts. For example; my best scoring Hellbringer is a UAC20/4 erml build. I use it for mid-range and brawl. When brawling I double tap often due to trying to deal the most damage possible in the shortest amount of time to prevent him from killing me first. Having that UAC20 offline for 12 seconds under those circumstances would spell death. I cannot see me taking that Mech into that scenario anymore. I also have the same build except using a UAC10/4 erml. Same situation. I could still use that for mid-range and just single tap or double tap if cover is near but not in a brawl.

Just as a side note: I got my new Stormcrow hero last night and threw a 2xUAC2/cLPL/cERML build on it just to try the UAC2s. I took it to testing grounds and started killing target Mechs. The weapon jammed on the first double tap three times, it jammed after two double taps twice and once it did not jam until the fifth double tap. Of those jams, three times it jammed both UACs at once. The rest of the time I just single tapped to see how long it would take to kill the target that way.

Honestly, I was surprised how quickly the guns tended to jam while double tapping. It made me wonder if the chance to jam percentage was not actually a lot higher than listed. If not, then I just have rotten luck with RNG. I had never used UAC2s prior to that test. I will switch them out for a couple UAC5s on that build and just use 2xERML because I was not impressed with the 2s.I may try the 2s on a lighter Mech like the new KitFox hero.

I do not think that cooldown should stack on top of jam duration. If jam duration is going to be increased this much then cooldown should begin immediately after the last shell is fired from the cannon.