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Also, keep in mind that adding a charge up doesn't nerf a weapon (unless you add it to the recycle rate without correcting for it), it just raises the skill cap above what some potatoes have the patience for. It doesn't actually bother the people who will abuse a weapon if it has good stats (see: cGauss).
It's not a charge you can control. You pull the trigger once and then you have to finagle with whatever else you want to fire before the time is up. That said, I will say that the spool-up is mostly for awesome factor and not for balance purposes. I don't mind it resulting in nothing more than a higher skill floor, that's fine. It's a high reward weapon, it
should have a high skill floor.
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But I don't think you have any idea how overpowered it would be to have a hitscan laser with 810 optimum that deals 10 damage in 0.25 seconds. That is outrageously overpowered in almost every scenario.
Did I not say 690 meters?
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Just to be clear, is this what you're suggesting?
- change PPCs into hitscan lasers
- 10 damage (cERPPC deals an extra 2x 2.5 splash)
- same heat as before
- 6.0s cooldown
- 0.25s burn duration
- 0.50s charge up time
- PPC (540 - 945m)
- ERPPC (810 - 1418m)
- cERPPC (810 - 1418m)
- pinpoint max DPS (burst DPS) is nerfed from 2.50 to 1.48 (decreased by 40%)
- sustained DPS stays the same, usually, depending on build (heatsinks, heat quirks)
No.
You are still jumping the gun. I haven't sat down to work out the exact numbers (maybe we need a longer cool-down, maybe the duration should be slightly longer), I was just throwing numbers I thought would be outrageous (6s cool-down was and sometimes still is considered outrageous on the Gauss). Maybe it
should be 8 seconds...that's not not unprecedented in MechWarrior. Maybe it needs to be 10 seconds. Maybe more.
There is no issue with the concept, but there are myriad issues with the specific implementation...which I never said was finalized. You are trying to compel me to argue in support of off-the-cuff numbers, which I will not do.
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Unless you have 21 heatsinks or more, you aren't even be able to fire a single pair of ERPPCs every 6.75 seconds (which is the recycle rate you proposed), so nerfing the cooldown from 4.0 seconds to 6.0 seconds like you did won't affect its sustained ranged damage output at all. Also, keep in mind that when it's paired with gauss, the fastest it can be fired now is every 5.75 seconds, and in reality it's rarely fired every time it's off cooldown. So really, the only thing that you've changed about it is that it's now is that it's a hitscan laser for 10 pinpoint damage with 0.25s burn duration at 810 meters optimum. That's absolutely crazy. And the only weakness is burst DPS, which would only be exploited in competitive league play when a brawl team rushes a PPC team?
You dramatically underestimate the gravity of having to stay exposed for at least 0.25 seconds. That 0.25 seconds made the cERLL go from god-tier to ****-tier. 0.25 seconds is what murdered the BJ-1X. 0.25 seconds is the difference between a pop-tarting Summoner with Loyalty pods versus one without. Hell, a shorter 0.15 second nerf murdered the isERLL, too.
I mean, really, have you ever counted it out? 0.25 seconds is a fairly
long interval. I can spread
some of the damage during that. Not a whole lot, but enough to reduce the total impact on one section for 'Mechs with smaller profiles. That is fairly significant.
And since 'Mechs are slow, even when considered fast, it means getting lit up way more than the current insta-pop PPCs allow. It means when you expose to fire, the ERLL+Gauss builds are going to do just as much damage in return, with about the same on one component and the rest can be considered equivalent splash.
Really, what these short-beam, long cycle PPCs do is require a greater usage of lasers to provide sufficient DPS at extreme to long range. The PPCs come into their own as tools for lighter 'Mechs that can't compete on DPS anyway to combat the heavier ones using single-shot burst and agility. Y'know, actually giving lighter 'Mechs a combat niche that can't be done better by heavier ones, something people have been clamoring for since forever, including and especially Leagues.
None of this exists in a vacuum though. There are other weapons which need adjusting, too. It's pointless to debate just the PPC as if it is the only thing that needs changing.
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If you make the duration any longer to fix this, than it becomes even more like a laser. At that point, you've accomplished nothing more then reducing diversity. PPCs have always been energy projectiles in the games, I don't know why you'd bother to change that now. It's their ballistic property that makes them different, fun, and challenging to use.
Why not change it? Why should it stay the way it is and has been?
The PPC we have now is an energy AC/10 that weighs a little over half as much, is less than half the size, has 26-37% better projectile speed, and runs cold enough when used in pairs that I don't give a damn about its heat efficiency. I don't call that diversity, I call that redundancy. And this is even true in TT.
If you
really gave a damn about making the weapon something special, then it should be a charging beam weapon dealing less pin-point damage and more splash damage while shorting out equipment including the HUD, BAP, AMS, and ECM. With a long cool-down. Firing a PPC should be an event, and so should getting hit by one, since they are held with such awe in the fluff.
You want an energy AC/10? Then lobby for the Plasma Rifle in MWO, because that's essentially what it is and it's a better one than the PPC since its special effect is a hell of a lot more interesting and meaningful than the PPC's.
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If I were in charge, the first thing I'd do is adjust jumpjets. Make it so that reticule shake (inaccuracy) persists longer after the jets are released, so that you must be in the air longer (and exposed to the enemy for longer) to get a shot off. Also, this creates a balancing mechanic that allows jumpjets to be buffed in terms of thrust or raw jump height. So you both make them more fun to use, but harder to poptart with. So that nerfs the following meta poptarts: HBK-IIC-A, NVA, SMN, TBR, NTG. Which pretty much only leaves the KDK-3 that needs dedicated nerfs. Incidental casualties (like the VND, BJ-3, PNT) can get their own buffs to make up for this jumpjet change.
I have suggested that multiple times in other threads. You have to scale it for mass or you nerf certain Lights and Mediums extremely hard, namely the Mist Lynx, Panther, and Shadowcat.
And, as you said, it doesn't to diddly to the KDK-3. PPC beams and longer cycle, however, do. Organically. Unlike quirks.
Unless you want a more radical idea like managing reactor output. There's some proper sim stuff right there. Fire lots of high-energy weapons, suffer longer cool-down since you ain't got the juice to recharge all of them at optimal rates. Want lots of DPS? Bring a mix of weapons, some high energy, some no energy. I should've kept that spreadsheet...