74 replies to this topic

[kapusta11]

PGI clearly showed that they have no clue how to balance lasers during the Ghost Energy Draw play test. IS lasers were nerfed into the ground and were dealing as much damage as they generated heat, the same ratio FLD PPCs have, making the former inferior. Pulse lasers were made into a "DPS" weapon by reducing their damage without noticeable decrease in heat. Do PGI have any idea what DPS weapon means? Reality shows they don't. Is it that hard to look at your average AC boat, see how much dps it has and how much hps it generates and then estimate how much damage/heat pulse laser loadout of the same weight should have?

Looks like PGI are trying to slowly shove down everyone's throat all the changes from that blighted play test despite the overwhelmingly negative feedback. Lets hope it will bite them in their аsses hard enough to be more cautious at balancing the game they can't be bothered to play.

[LordNothing]

allow partial burn on some of the longer duration beams.

[Dogstar]

LordNothing, on 15 May 2017 - 12:25 AM, said:

allow partial burn on some of the longer duration beams.

I assume you mean that rather than it having a prefixed burn duration it instead has a maximum burn duration and you have to hold the trigger down to keep the burn going?

If so I heartily approve - although you'd also need to rework cool down times for partial burns so that you're not getting screwed by an inadvertent mouse click or an accidental double click

[LordNothing]

Dogstar, on 15 May 2017 - 12:42 AM, said:

I assume you mean that rather than it having a prefixed burn duration it instead has a maximum burn duration and you have to hold the trigger down to keep the burn going?

If so I heartily approve - although you'd also need to rework cool down times for partial burns so that you're not getting screwed by an inadvertent mouse click or an accidental double click

yea pretty much, for an example equip pulse lasers in mw3. i figure clan heavy lasers are going to have burn duration on the order of a couple seconds, and some of the beams in game already feel a tad long. you still would have to complete the cooldown to fire again, but you can also abort a burn if your target dies to save heat, or if a team mate walks in front of you, avoid melting them. pretty much a feature of everything with a burn time over a second and not specific to any particular laser type or size.

Edited by LordNothing, 15 May 2017 - 12:50 AM.

[Shifty McSwift]

LordNothing, on 15 May 2017 - 12:25 AM, said:

allow partial burn on some of the longer duration beams.

While I do enjoy the idea, perhaps that could be a feature reserved for heavy lasers?

I am definitely not against the general idea of it, for lasers though specifically, I don't think pulse requires it at all.

Edited by Shifty McSwift, 15 May 2017 - 12:49 AM.

[Ruslan Savelyev]

OP: You are dropping so many changes you might as well remake the whole game. Aside from a few outlying weapons, most everything is fine and has a niche already.

fat4eyes, on 14 May 2017 - 01:23 PM, said:

Clan SPLs need a nerf. The IS has nothing that can compete with them (except SRMs and even there Clan SRMs beat IS SRMs), and worse their max range puts them in competition with IS medium lasers. Or maybe buff IS SPLs and SLs instead, but they'd better be REALLY big buffs.

^ this. Clan SPL damage to heat ratio makes it just a flat out better weapon than the cERML or cMPL for almost all practical purposes. It does not make for interesting comp play, be it the CWX 1v1 or MRBC, to see brawls defined by cSPL boating, and it makes it impossible to balance IS 'Mechs short of massive overquirking. At 5 damage and 2.5 heat it would still be the best energy option for brawling. Maybe make it ghost heat at 8 instead of 6 to compensate and stealth buff something like the Viper and Kit Fox.

Maybe up the cERSL to 1.1 duration to further distinguish the pinpoint nature of the cSPL.

Apply the same formula/logic to the isMPL as PGI has with all other pulse lasers.

Every other *PL in this game has had its damage increased slightly over the lore amount to compensate for lack of increased hit chance, except the isMPL. ISLPL got +2 damage, isSPL got +1 damage. CLPL got +3 damage, cMPL got +1 damage, cSPL got doubled in damage. ISMPL should do 7 damage for 4.5 heat. As it stands now, the only reason to use the isMPL is if you have too much tonnage to play with and not enough slots. ISMLs and heat sinks or increased engine is almost always a vastly better build.

ISSL dropped to 1.5 heat would make it semi useful without encouraging anyone to boat them. ISSPL is actually not bad in situations and would be better in relation if the cSPL were not so absurdly good.

[Reno Blade]

Lasers are easy to use and hit, so even with very high alphas, the burn duration is the key value for how much damage you can do while moving (and target moves).
If we consider even non-Ghost heat limited alphas to become less of a problem, we can only achive this by increasing the skill needed to hit with the weapons.

That's why I was proposing these "nerfs" to all weapon systems in my original post:

Quoting from my existing 3060 tech rebalance thread including lasers:
https://mwomercs.com...g-3060-weapons/

Energy Weapon specific changes:

• E-1) Reduce Beam weapon cooldowns by ~30-50%
  
• E-2) Increase all beam durations by ~20-50%
  
• E-3) Increase Heavy Laser beam duration to 150% of IS counterpart
  
• E-5) PPCs (all classes) will gain a 0.5s - 1.0s fire-delay (auto charge)
  
• E-6) Only 2x PPCs can be fired/charged at a time
  
• E-7) PPC Capacitors are used as a separate weapon in the weapon groups to charge the extra 5dmg/5heat and generate permanent 0.5 heat per sec while charged – charge time as PPC cd
  
• E-8) Reloading 1x PPC, 1x LL/LP, 2x ML and 4x SL at a time
  
• E-8-EDIT: Additional weapon cooldown (e.g. 2nd PPC) is increased by 25% after the first set of weapons started reloading.

e.g. firing 4 PPCs (4s cooldown) would start cooldown on first PPC, then 25% (1 sec) later, the second cooldown starts and so on.

Basically just a 25% cd increase per additional weapon loading at the same time.

This would reduce boating, but at the same time still giving enough power to heavier mechs when adding more weapons than smaller mechs.

Spoiler

Time 0 all 4 PPCs fired, PPC cooldowns are increased by 25% (1sec) for each additional PPC:
first PPC is ready after 4s (normal 4s cd),
second PPC is ready after 4+1 = 5s
third PPC is ready after 4+1+1 = 6s
fourth PPC is ready after 4+1+1+1 = 7s
an
d if the first PPC is fired again after 4s, it would get the same 3s increase (for 3 other PPCs reloading).

firing the same build in a 2+2 fashion would give one cooldowns of 4, 5 + 6, 7 + 6, 7 +6, 7 ...

comparing that to single or dual PPC volley:
1 PPC fired on cd would be every 4 seconds.
2 PPCs fired on cd would be:
first PPC is ready after 4s (normal 4s cd),
second PPC is ready after 4+1s = 5s
firing the fist PPC again after 4s would give it also a +1s as the second PPC is still loading.

so while a Dual PPC build could fire 2x PPCs every 5 seconds (4 dps), a Quad PPC build would fire 4x PPCs every 7 seconds (5.7 dps).
compared to flat 4s cooldown dps of 5dps (2x PPCs) and 10dps (4x PPCs).

so if firing boated weapons of the same type as fast as possible, will either spread out the shots (because of the delay in reload times), or the pilot needs to wait for the full cycle (e.g. 7s cooldown with 4xPPCs) before firing another Alpha.

Weapon changes:
Lasers:

SL 1.5s cd, 1.0s beam
erSL 1.5s cd, 1.2s beam
ML 2.0s cd, 1.4s beam
erML 2.0s cd, 1.6s beam
LL 2.5s cd, 1.8s beam
erLL 2.5s cd, 2.0s beam

cerSL 1.5s cd, 1.2s beam
cerML 2.0s cd, 1.6s beam
cerLL 2.5s cd, 2.0s beam

cHSL 2.0s cd, 1.5s beam
cHML 2.5s cd, 2.0s beam
cHLL 3.0s cd, 2.5s beam

SP, 1.0s cd, 0.7s beam
MP 1.5s cd, 1.0s beam
LP 2.0s cd, 1.3s beam

cSP 1.2s cd, 0.9s beam
cMP 1.7s cd, 1.2s beam
cLP 2.2s cd, 1.5s beam

cMicro 1.0s cd, 0.6s beam


PPCs:
PPC 4.0s cd, 0.8s autocharge -> velocity 1200 (unchanged)
erPPC 4.0s cd, 1.0s autocharge -> velocity 1300 (unchanged)
cerPPC 4.0s cd, 1.0s autocharge -> velocity 1300 (unchanged)
LPPC 3.5s cd, 0.5s autocharge -> velocity 1400
HPPC 4.5s cd, 1.5s autocharge -> velocity 1200
SNPPC 4.0s cd, 0.8s autocharge -> velocity 1100

Edited by Reno Blade, 15 May 2017 - 01:17 AM.

[Greyhart]

OK I think this should be a general change to the mechanics.

Pulse lasers should operate like machine guns. Hold fire for continuous stream of damage and heat.

That would make them different from PPCs, and lasers. Each category of weapon (PPC, Laser, autocannon etc) needs to work differently.

Edited by Greyhart, 15 May 2017 - 01:20 AM.

[- Pestilence -]

Gentleman Reaper, on 14 May 2017 - 11:10 AM, said:

isSL: Reduce heat to 1 or 1.5, decrease cooldown, possibly increase damage to 3.5.

cERSL: Remain more or less as it is now, maybe slight decrease in burn-time.

isSPL: Decreased cooldown

cSPL: Remains as is.

isML: Decrease heat to 3, decrease cooldown, slight decrease in burn-time.

cERML: Increase cooldown

isMPL: Decrease heat to 3.5, decreased cooldown, slightly increased burn-time

cMPL: Increased burn-time

isLL: Slightly reduced burn-time

isERLL: Increased cooldown, slightly reduced burn-time

cERLL: Decreased burn-time, decreased range, increased cooldown.

isLPL: Increased burn-time, increased cooldown

cLPL: Decreased range, increased burn-time.

Short version: Clans are OP. Nerf.

[Lupis Volk]

Shifty McSwift, on 15 May 2017 - 12:05 AM, said:

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.

Dam straight, you can never have enough darude.

[sycocys]

Unless you break lore and add a min distance roll-off nothing with the duration or cd will make laser choice anything more than how much tonnage you can accommodate.

[Khobai]

Quote

Pulse lasers should operate like machine guns. Hold fire for continuous stream of damage and heat.

I think so too. Pulse lasers should be rebalanced as dps weapons.