74 replies to this topic

[Swarmy]

Oh, I would love star wars style laser show. on the run unleashing volleys and watching them fly and hit things... I wouldnt even care if I hit an enemy, I would just spray and pray... and spray... and then make an O face... OH YA!

[Lightfoot]

Well the energy imbalance resolves itself once the new tech arrives and IS gets ER Mediums almost as good as Clan versions. I would be more concerned with how they will balance RACs than the energy weapons. I.S. will be OP with the new weapons. Clan Heavy Lasers are too hot for MWO's heat nerfs. You would never run 2 Heavy Large Lasers in MWO, thats like 36 heat right there. But they should be purple. I like purple.

[Elizander]

They probably had too much overlap with their ideas for the new lasers and needed to change things up. :3

[El Bandito]

Just buff IS SL and IS SPL. That's the first thing I will ask. IS SL has so little damage that its sole function in this game is to prop up other weapons onto higher mounts. IS SPL range is pitiful, in addition to being weak.

Edited by El Bandito, 14 May 2017 - 04:02 PM.

[sycocys]

Khobai, on 14 May 2017 - 12:32 PM, said:

but heat penalties dont solve that.

youd just have people using dual gauss and still doing huge alphastrikes while avoiding heat penalties because gauss generates next to no heat.

I'm 110% positive I said that guass would still need a solution. This is how you start to actually handle energy weapons, and my suggestion to the thread about what to do with energy weapons.

My first thought on Guass is that you make it do significantly less damage if you are moving or have high heat and reduce its velocity/max range based on how fast your mech is moving. Those two things would push it towards being a specialized sniper weapon, and give it a downside that could offset its damage potential.

-- Having an energy system would be a great thing as well, and if it was tied to engine size could actually be a tool to help further balance out Clan vs IS tech. That's the kind of depth of stuff that you need in the game mechanics to help balance things, especially when you are attempting to make a system that balance asymmetrically.

I don't think for a minute PGI is capable of either quite frankly, but that's the suggestions I have for energy weapons, and a possible approach to guass.

[Shifty McSwift]

What's with the idea of reducing all the laser burn durations OP? You are basically suggesting to buff all lasers immensely, which I don't think is the idea so much as creating better definition between energy roles.

With that in mind I would suspect to see something like normal and er lasers burn duration increased, or stay near the same as now, while having their ranges extended by good margins. Then pulse could have its burn time reduced logically, with a slight reduction in range rates. And cough make all ppcs splash cough (ok that one is a personal choice idea but hey, this is the place).

At least in that case you end up with well defined roles, with laser as high range, long burn and pulse as low range, low burn.

I think that is what they mean by better definition there, not necessarily those exact changes, but changes that ensure the roles they are used in.

[Mcgral18]

A few simple tweaks
First off, buffing the terrible lasers

Secondly, trying a more radical pulse approach...and make the Clam Pulses more like Pulses, and less like Heavy Lasers


isSmall Laser

Reduce heat to 1 (from 2)
Reduce cooldown from 2.25 to 1.50

Total cycle from 3s, down to 2.25s
DPS from 1 DPS up to 1.33 DPS

Potentially a damage buff to 4, for a decrease to another one of these buffs...because 2 SLs should be better than 1 ML
But at least this helps their DPS a bit, in fact being completely marginally superior to the isML


isSmall Pulse

Pulse lasers changing from shorter beam normal lasers, to something more DPS oriented
Also gaining DPS (at the cost of upfront damage)

Damage from 4 to 2.5
Cooldown from 2.25 to 1.0
Duration from 0.5 to 0.2

Cycle time of 1.2s
DPS from 1.45 up to 1.875
Dam/tick from 0.8 up to 1.125...but this isn't particularly useful because it's so little


As you can see, a radical change


isMedium Laser

Heat down from 4 to 3
GH from 6 to 8 (40 dam, to the 42 of cERMLs and 48 of cMPLs)

Start there...it's not a fantastic weapon, maybe a 300M range buff (from 270), but iterate on this one




Pulse Lasers would all change to the tiny duration, smaller damage values (but also higher damage application)
More radically different to normal Lasers, and opens up the Heavy Lasers to...not be the same as Clam Pulse Lasers (rather, take their spot)

ERLL would take a damage nerf, and duration buff
Similar Dam/tick would remain.

[Shifty McSwift]

Mcgral18, on 14 May 2017 - 10:35 PM, said:

Duration from 0.5 to 0.2

That burn time is honestly scary, I think 0.4 is as low as it should ever go, but in that same vein, for pulse it should also never go higher than 0.9 IMO. Slot all the pulse sizes burn durations between 0.4 and 0.9, and bring down their ranges to make them at most mid range weapons.

0.2 just seems like it won't only give barely any twist time protection, it is too close to ppfld, plus it gets outside advantages in such a reduction, like heat dissipation bonuses and a lowered cooldown rate as a result of reduced burn time.

[Kmieciu]

My bet is that PGI will nerf lasers across the board and we'll be back to PPC&ballistic meta.

[Mcgral18]

Shifty McSwift, on 14 May 2017 - 10:53 PM, said:

That burn time is honestly scary, I think 0.4 is as low as it should ever go, but in that same vein, for pulse it should also never go higher than 0.9 IMO. Slot all the pulse sizes burn durations between 0.4 and 0.9, and bring down their ranges to make them at most mid range weapons.

0.2 just seems like it won't only give barely any twist time protection, it is too close to ppfld, plus it gets outside advantages in such a reduction, like heat dissipation bonuses and a lowered cooldown rate as a result of reduced burn time.

That's why it's such a small damage value

Highest Sphere E hardpoint count is 9?
That's a super scary 22.5 damage alpha? At 90M?
Or, 11.25 Dam/tick...which is scary

3 isLPL has a 4.9 Dam/tick right now, at ~5x the range
The isSPL needs a reason to exist, you know

Kmieciu, on 14 May 2017 - 10:57 PM, said:

My bet is that PGI will nerf lasers across the board and we'll be back to PPC&ballistic meta.

I am fully expecting an isLPL nerf...which will make me sad
Especially since I don't really play Spheroid mechs anymore. They just have too many downsides compares to my Clam Damage Hoses

[Lupis Volk]

I want the ability to pick my colours.

[Agent 0range]

in general
Er lasers longer cool down, shorter beam duration higher heat(long range accuracy with low dps)
standards longest beam coolest per damage middle cooldown(middle of the road but cool)
pulses much shorter duration shorter range average heat(good for brawling)

[Shifty McSwift]

Lupis Volk, on 14 May 2017 - 11:00 PM, said:

I want the ability to pick my colours.

Could be fun but for the sake of gameplay please go nooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

[Dogstar]

Increase burn times and decrease cool down across the board while keeping DPS roughly as is.

For me the perceived problem is that lasers, when compared to other weapon systems, are too good at letting you do a big alpha and then hide while you cooldown which means you are not getting a balanced risk/reward ratio across different weapon types and leads to over boating of lasers.

[Shifty McSwift]

Mcgral18, on 14 May 2017 - 10:59 PM, said:

That's why it's such a small damage value

Highest Sphere E hardpoint count is 9?
That's a super scary 22.5 damage alpha? At 90M?
Or, 11.25 Dam/tick...which is scary

3 isLPL has a 4.9 Dam/tick right now, at ~5x the range
The isSPL needs a reason to exist, you know

SPL always has inherent high value in itself as the lowest possible range weapon in the laser bracket, lowest heat for damage exchange (at a low rate). Shooting at anything under your optimal range is technically wasteful unless it is the lowest possible optimal range weapon, where you are fully maximising your damage/range for heat exchange.

That value is put in question by the fact IS has the regular small laser, but I would argue that that is indicative of the need to scale out the small laser in functionality, if it had higher burn time, longer range (from what it is now) for example the distinction becomes noticable and the .5 burn time becomes very critical. It doesn't necessarily need to go lower there.

[Shifty McSwift]

Dogstar, on 14 May 2017 - 11:07 PM, said:

Increase burn times and decrease cool down across the board while keeping DPS roughly as is.

For me the perceived problem is that lasers, when compared to other weapon systems, are too good at letting you do a big alpha and then hide while you cooldown which means you are not getting a balanced risk/reward ratio across different weapon types and leads to over boating of lasers.

Don't forget increasing burn times also increases the cooldown remember, so doing both has a cumulative effect. I agree though and think that burn time is a big part of the beneficial nature of laser vomit, general increase in those rates extends TTK with laser vomit, it is as simple as that.

[Shifty McSwift]

Ruar, on 14 May 2017 - 10:19 AM, said:

PPCs are going to be interesting. Should they be thought of as long range weapons or should their role change? Will the pending addition of new PPC types dictated a preemptive change to the versions we already have?

I definitely agree that the PPC related changes will be of great interest, and they should be considered with the highest regard here. PPFLD is always going to be the most efficient method of dealing your damage so they have to be scaled out in the most restrictive ways from other weapon choices.

I honestly think that the PPCs (that we have now), shouldn't be comparable in range to ERLL, ERLL should have that role as the highest possible range energy weapon considering how it deals its damage, i.e. you always tend to get some damage with the no travel time, but the amount of damage you deal from the burn to the location you want is more dependent on your targets reaction time, which is a good way to have extreme range damage work.

So to me that would put PPC as a mid range weapon by nature, that can be extended a bit with ER upgrade (or for clan just work as a slightly higher than mid range weapon).

In terms of the stats of PPC overall though, there needs to be a standardisation in how PPCs fire, the base velocity, heat and way damage is dealt, should be standardised across the clan/IS divide, making choices to boost velocity in particular with skills, or TCs or quirks much more critical and noticable in game.

[Lupis Volk]

Shifty McSwift, on 14 May 2017 - 11:04 PM, said:

Could be fun but for the sake of gameplay please go nooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Screw you gameplay i want to re-enact a pink floyd concert

[Dogstar]

Shifty McSwift, on 14 May 2017 - 11:15 PM, said:

Don't forget increasing burn times also increases the cooldown remember, so doing both has a cumulative effect. I agree though and think that burn time is a big part of the beneficial nature of laser vomit, general increase in those rates extends TTK with laser vomit, it is as simple as that.

I kind of meant something like this:

Current : [---burn---][------cool------]

Change: [------burn------][---cool---]

Same overall period (i.e. DPS) but with more time burning than cooling. Ideally I'd like burn time for beam lasers to be continuous but that would really upset the meta laser crew

Edited by Dogstar, 14 May 2017 - 11:47 PM.

[Shifty McSwift]

Lupis Volk, on 14 May 2017 - 11:45 PM, said:

Screw you gameplay i want to re-enact a pink floyd concert

Lupis' vision of the future for laser vomit victims.

At least we can die dancing to synchronised techno music. Needs a darude sandstorm kill horn.