188 replies to this topic

[Lightfoot]

I hit lights with a Gauss plus Lasers, but no matter.

I did see a player who had the Gauss Rifle synced with ERPPCs today. Guess it's just a macro.

Also, you hear all the complaints about LRMs? Well the Gauss Rifle is the main anti-LRM weapon. Without the charge-up of course. With the charge-up you will be locked and fired on. That leaves just PPCs as an LRM counter-weapon. The way Gauss Rifles are countered is with faster firing or more powerful auto-cannons. That's why the Gauss Rifle recycle needs to be slower than AC's.

[BigFatGator]

Lightfoot, on 07 June 2017 - 02:49 PM, said:

I was just in a match and after losing my mech I was spectating a MAD IIc with a Gauss Rifle and 2 ERPPCs. The ERPPCs were overheating badly on Frozen City, but they would not fire the Gauss Rifle even at really fat assaults. I typed in the chat, "when you overheat switch to the Gauss Rifle."

A MadIIC with 2cPPC and one GR? That seems like a crappy build unless the reason they were overheating was some more lazors on it in addition.

That said, I like the charge mechanic for flavor but wouldn't cry if it went away.
It's not that hard to figure out.

[Valdarion Silarius]

Valhallan, on 10 June 2017 - 07:26 PM, said:

It was never supposed to be a fun mechanic, the entire point of it was to make gauss hard to use because otherwise everyone would ignore AC's.

This statement isn't necessarily true since there were plenty of mechs that utilized autocannon load outs in the pre-charge up gauss rifle older build of the game. What attracts people to autocannons over gauss rifles is simply tonnage restrictions, dps and ammo availability. That's why you have MX-90 mauler builds that stack AC2's over gauss rifle MX-90 builds. Because it makes more sense for players to alpha 6 autocannon 2's that give you a constant long range dps with very little heat build up with more ammo vs having only 2 gauss rifles that can dish out 30 damage periodically for example.

I'm starting to believe that the charge up time is more of an identity crisis with the weapon system for people that are defending the stupid mechanic over field use practicality. I can carry only so many rounds of gauss rifle ammo over how much I can stack with alphaing AC2's with much more ammo. Trying to say that the charge up time is a clutch to encourage more people to use autocannons is just as ridiculous as the statements from the people trying to defend the mechanic as a whole.

[Shifty McSwift]

Arnold The Governator, on 11 June 2017 - 06:23 PM, said:

Trying to say that the charge up time is a clutch to encourage more people to use autocannons is just as ridiculous as the statements from the people trying to defend the mechanic as a whole.

You think? I would say that people suggesting that gauss doesn't need any counterbalancing are the silly ones. I mean it does almost the highest damage at the best natural velocity, for the lowest heat and pinpont instant damage.

Plus what about the point that has been made several times, that it is simply a design to stop people twitch-firing with the strongest weapon in the game?

[Valdarion Silarius]

Shifty McSwift, on 11 June 2017 - 06:34 PM, said:

You think? I would say that people suggesting that gauss doesn't need any counterbalancing are the silly ones. I mean it does almost the highest damage at the best natural velocity, for the lowest heat and pinpont instant damage.

Plus what about the point that has been made several times, that it is simply a design to stop people twitch-firing with the strongest weapon in the game?

Look at MW:LL and how that game handles gauss rifles. Even though the mechs have locked equipment, you never see anyone complaining about twitch-firing nor pop tarting over hills when they get ct'ed or killed with a mech headshot. It takes a considerable amount of skill hitting an opponent that goes over 70 kmph and dealing sustained damage in that one area. I will use the pre-charge up gauss rifle build from the past MW:O as an example.

I used to run dual Jagermech gauss rifles back in the day. This was before the introduction of the clans. Gauss rifles were considerably extremely fragile weapons, where people made glass canon builds around their Jagers to be effective long range support mechs. Players that counter dual gauss Jagermechs knew where to shoot to disable the mech out of combat. Simply by making the weapons themselves fragile with a longer cool down time in between shots would stop people from abusing them as brawling weapons.

Ever since the mechanic was introduced I had no reason to use my Jagermechs anymore (but that was on top of the horrible hitboxes it had). Since MW:LL is the only comparable mechwarrior multiplayer game right now that has an active online player base, we can gauge how gauss rifles work in that game. Again, no one complains about the mechs that have gauss rifles and JJ's that pop tart over hills. They are indeed powerful, no heat weapons, but are extremely fragile by nature and can be disabled by an opponent who knows where to shoot to disable them. You close in a support sniper mech, circle strafe around them and fire at the right weapons and it's gg for them.

By having a charge up time with gauss rifles as the OP already said, it discourages newer players from using them. Look at other games like CS:GO and TF2 (games that PGI tried to model their e-sport vision off of). You never hear of players complain about powerful the AWP is from a competitive level. TF2 has an sniper rifle charge up mechanic that holds its charge when zoomed in with the Sniper class, and optional lower dps sniper rifles that don't use the charge up feature at all.

I would rather have the charge up feature removed from MW:O, but I would consider using gauss rifles again if PGI added a feature like if they held their charge as a optional skill tree node. On top of the lore unfriendliness it delivers to the game (again, this is the only mechwarrior game that has this feature), overall imo it's not that fun to use as a long range support weapon.

[Valhallan]

Again, MWLL isn't really a fair comparison simply because of the existence of BV (ticket cost/deploy cost/resource cost not sure what they call it now in-game), it's not just that they are stuck in stock loadouts. It's that even if gauss/lrms (i remember the days it was considered op )/clantech/variant x are stronger than their counterparts they generally pay for it by being more expensive for the team/player to deploy. MWO doesn't have any such balancing, there is 0 logistical concerns, which means the weapons need to be balanced against one another in field performance. CS:GO has a similar deal with the AWP costing a mint to purchase, TF2 makes the sniper do poor damage unless your charged (or of couse headshotting), gauss doing 5 damage only unless charged? i can live with that.

People picked autocannons because the team decided to go with a push/brawl strat, aside from gauss booming in your deathtrap ISxl ST this was the only reason to do it. And in the pre-clan/quark days there was less firepower being slung around the no man's zone making this a better option than it is now.

Charging the sniper depends on the situation 1v1? sure yea, but when its 8v8 or 12v12 charging the no man zone/staring on the hill is suicide.

[Goldmarble]

Biggest complaint, as it doesn't make any sense:

If you need to charge up the GR before you fire....Why does it explode when destroyed? I understand it from TT rules, cause the GR is always charged. In this game, it is only charged when you fire.

From a reality standpoint, and utterly contrary to TT....Why the hell does the GR not generate heat? It takes a massive amount of power to employ, just like any other energy weapon, but it generates, effectively, no heat? Logic.

[Vxheous]

Lightfoot, on 11 June 2017 - 04:08 PM, said:

I hit lights with a Gauss plus Lasers, but no matter.

I did see a player who had the Gauss Rifle synced with ERPPCs today. Guess it's just a macro.

Also, you hear all the complaints about LRMs? Well the Gauss Rifle is the main anti-LRM weapon. Without the charge-up of course. With the charge-up you will be locked and fired on. That leaves just PPCs as an LRM counter-weapon. The way Gauss Rifles are countered is with faster firing or more powerful auto-cannons. That's why the Gauss Rifle recycle needs to be slower than AC's.

You pre-charge your gauss before you peek a corner, and let it go just as you fire the ERPPC to get them to sync, doesn't require a macro. If I'm expecting someone to be around a corner/over cover/etc, I'll start feathering my gauss charge (just tap the mouse key constantly so it's not fully charged, but pretty much ready to go) There's also the trick of setting your gauss onto all the other weapon groups that you don't use, so that your reticle has all the various weapon group boxes light up green when your gauss is charged (this really helps initially with learning gauss muscle memory)

Edited by Vxheous Kerensky, 12 June 2017 - 08:29 PM.