94 replies to this topic

[Brain Cancer]

The reason the LB-X's are flaming garbage isn't because they're crit-heavy.

They're flaming garbage because PGI cannot actually keep up with the construction system, and this burning trash fire will continue to grow with time until the problem at the heart of it all is fixed.

Split-crit weaponry. Ammo switching. LB-X's suffer from the failure of both, and both problems will screw with ever larger numbers of weapons until the time is invested in untangling the issues.

[pyrocomp]

Dago Red, on 14 June 2017 - 01:41 PM, said:

I'm not arguing that the the UAC won't be almost always the superior choice just that there is a small place that the LBX's could shine.

And what niche is that? At present there is no reason to take cLBX10 over cUAC10. The only reason to take two cLBX20 over two cUAC20 is ghost heat and velocity.

[Grus]

pyrocomp, on 14 June 2017 - 01:43 PM, said:

Maybe I'm just bad with cUAC20, but 2xcLBX20 I can use and 2xcUAC20 cannot. That GH ans projectile speed do really matter for me.

IS A.c. is superior (20) than clan for the simple reason ours is a butt of shots that can be spread and there's is a single slug.

[pyrocomp]

Grus, on 14 June 2017 - 01:43 PM, said:

If you guys are crying about the lbx20 I can't wait for the Heavy GAUSS salt.

Ahem. for HGR we do not have enough details to chew upon. At most - pure speculations. But LB series is here and is known in it's mechanics and function.

[Grus]

pyrocomp, on 14 June 2017 - 01:47 PM, said:

Ahem. for HGR we do not have enough details to chew upon. At most - pure speculations. But LB series is here and is known in it's mechanics and function.

mark my words... when the details of it become known.. IS will be crawling out of the salt mines..

[pyrocomp]

Grus, on 14 June 2017 - 01:46 PM, said:

IS A.c. is superior (20) than clan for the simple reason ours is a butt of shots that can be spread and there's is a single slug.

No that Boomjaeger was bad, just... cUAC20 can dish damage better. And at those ranges and with the way I play it - it does not matter. I'm bad with AC20 =).

Grus, on 14 June 2017 - 01:49 PM, said:

mark my words... when the details of it become known.. IS will be crawling out of the salt mines..

Maybe. But up until then most of the discussion about HGR is a pure speculation. And here we go with LBX.

[Metus regem]

Grus, on 14 June 2017 - 01:40 PM, said:

simple, clan tech was improved versions of IS tech. If the lbx20 is smaller than so should ours. It won't be a garbage weapon we have Lrms for that title. I'm trying to drive the point home that if you want to take a big gun that can crit very well then there will be drawbacks and you will have to adjust your build. I'm not being that I have to slow my LDK3 Way down to fit the build I want. I adapt and do what is needed to bring the setup I want with current mechanics.

'Cept it doesn't crit very well, that's the point. The crit damage it deals is not enough to actually kill a component in MWO, as even with a X9 multiplier, it still only deals 9 critical damage to a component, when the health of that component is 10. The crit damage system in MWO is binary it either kills it or it doesn't. I am not against a drawback, I am against it being total garbage out of the gate, because of something it has in TT, that it will not have here.

Thanks to Pyrocomp for this post:

Spoiler

pyrocomp, on 08 August 2016 - 11:42 AM, said:

Ahem.
If I do remember correctly...

Crits happen only on unarmored components. AC/10 and LBX have same rate of fire (1 shot per 2.5 seconds). Thus in your example 7 dmg per 2.5 seconds and 10 dmp per 2.5 seconds. LBX is less favorable. Armor (except the head) is twice the IS "health" (without quirks, those are pesky things this time of year). So you need to apply 2/3 of damage to the component before the component will go down. Thus for arbitrary 80 armor + 40 IS component (aka heavy heavy or light assault CT) there are 8 AC/10 shots and 12 LBX shots to strip armor. E.g. even if RNG hates you and give you no crits AC/10 will finish that component before the LBX will eat away armor.

Now, crits.
For LBX there is 33% no-crit chance, 39% single crit chance, 20% double crit chance and 8% triple crit chance, total 100% of al outcomes of each pellet. If some some random number rolls for a double crit (numbers between 71 and 92 on d100 if you like it dice style) then for that pellet there is two 4 dmg crits applied to random filled crti-slots within a hit-component. This damage goes to equippement only and is not apllied to anything else. Yes, not applied to anythin else. For 7 pellets under 200 m on a single component it yeilds to 0/5.46/5.6/3.36 additional damage to equippement. E.g. 14.42 dmg to equippement per shot. E.d. this guaranteed to take in a single shot anything lef alone there except AC/20. If there is anything else, then chances to kill something are drastically going down (too lazy at the moment to give a table of chances, but maybe a bit later in another post) as damage is not transferred between filled crits after beeing rolled and applied simultaneously. E.g. even with crit rolled there are reasonable chances that no equippement will get destroyed.

There is a 15% damage transfer from damage to equippement to damage to structure. This is 2,163 addintional dmg to structure above 7 done by pellets that totals to 9.163 dmg per shot.

Now goes AC/10. Chances are: 58% no-crit chance, 25% single crit chance, 12% double crit chance and 5% triple crit chance, total 100% of al outcomes. Additional damage with those chances on average is 0/2.5/2.4/1.5 that totals to 6.4 dmg on average shot. In real this leads to 10 dmg per crit. If you get this crit you anyway kill something on that component. This even adds somthing around 0.2-0.5 dmg from ammo explosions, but I'll skip that.
Now damage 15% transfer leads to additional 0,96 dmg to structure above 10 dmg done directly. Again LBX is at a disadvantage.

Now, dual LBX for 22 tons and 12 critslots (ammo is not factored) give you 12 dmg per 2.5 seconds (that is 4.8 dmg/s) against armored component, and 7.33 dmg pre second against unarmored components.
AC/20+MG for 14.5 tons and 11 critslots (ammo is not factored) give you 20 dmg every 4 seconds (that is 5 dmg/s with MG not firing) against armor and 5.48 dmg per second (MG not firing) against structure. MG has 4.32 damage to equippement per shot (43 per second is PGI really set their rate to 10, not 8 shots per second) and addiitonal 0,658 dmg per shot to structure (again 6,68 dmg per second if PGI really have MG at 10 round per second as they stated).

LBX looses to single AC/10, dual LBX looses to AC/20+MG. Why you state LBX is good? You like LBX, that's Ok, I like them too, but I cannot say they are in a good shape or there is any reason to take them other then 'damn, I like'em'.

EDIT: typos

That post highlights the issue with the LB-10X, and likely to be exacerbated by the LB-20X, AC/20 and UAC/20.... As it stands the LB-20X is not going to be a big gun, it is going to be a waste of development time and resources that could be better spent, with out doing something to make the weapon viable in the first place. That is what we are trying to achieve, making the LB-20X not total garbage out of the gate.

Combined with skills like high explosive in the skill tree really leads me to think that Paul really over values crits in MWO....

Edited by Metus regem, 14 June 2017 - 02:03 PM.

[Dago Red]

pyrocomp, on 14 June 2017 - 01:45 PM, said:

And what niche is that? At present there is no reason to take cLBX10 over cUAC10. The only reason to take two cLBX20 over two cUAC20 is ghost heat and velocity.

I literally just had two posts explaining that. Perhaps you could consider reading.

If your stance is that it's a niche that's not meta enough for you that's fine but it can perform.

[Metus regem]

Grus, on 14 June 2017 - 01:49 PM, said:

mark my words... when the details of it become known.. IS will be crawling out of the salt mines..

I rather think it'll be Clan pilots crawling out of the Salt mines to whine about the HGR, as it is IS tech....

In TT it's abilities are well known:

18T
11 crits
25/20/10dmg @ 6/13/20 (180/390/600m) with a minimum of 4 (120m) this means a likely charge up time of 1 second
2 heat/shot
4sots/ton

That weapon is balanced around a standard engine and 11 crit slots, as it is a very impressive weapon system, it's likely MWO stats would get a damage fall off starting at 181m slowly dropping off to 0 at 1200m, considering the damage profile I can see it replacing the normal Gauss Rifle on a lot of IS mechs that mount GR's in the ST. How ever it is not part of this current topic and will warrant it's own later, for current we are talking about why the LB-20X for IS needs fixing before it is even put into the game in the vein hope that someone from PGI will see this and take the correct steps before it is too late.

[pyrocomp]

Dago Red, on 14 June 2017 - 01:57 PM, said:

I literally just had two posts explaining that. Perhaps you could consider reading.

If your stance is that it's a niche that's not meta enough for you that's fine but it can perform.

Literally, you stated that build that utilized dual LBX10 will benefit from use of a single LBX20 not mentioning that those mechs are heavily quirked for LBX10.
I do not need meta. I want LBX to be an option taken with some cosideration over playstyle, not after 'hell, I like shotties'. And I want than option to be on any mech, not only on those with `LBX quirks'.

[Dago Red]

pyrocomp, on 14 June 2017 - 02:04 PM, said:

Literally, you stated that build that utilized dual LBX10 will benefit from use of a single LBX20 not mentioning that those mechs are heavily quirked for LBX10.
I do not need meta. I want LBX to be an option taken with some cosideration over playstyle, not after 'hell, I like shotties'. And I want than option to be on any mech, not only on those with `LBX quirks'.

Who said ANYTHING about quirk's? Quirks are just gravy and subject to change but hardpoints are forever. It works just fine on non quirked mechs as well. It's really weight and and hardpoints that are the biggest limiting factor on what can run that setup and funny the LB20 would in fact help alleviate those a bit.

Even without quirks it's decently high rate of fire, ridiculously cool to run, ammo efficient, and hurts from further out than a lot of people realize.

I'm honestly not sure anything I run that on even has non generic ballistic quirks.

Edited by Dago Red, 14 June 2017 - 02:12 PM.

[Grus]

Metus regem, on 14 June 2017 - 02:02 PM, said:

I rather think it'll be Clan pilots crawling out of the Salt mines to whine about the HGR, as it is IS tech....

In TT it's abilities are well known:

18T
11 crits
25/20/10dmg @ 6/13/20 (180/390/600m) with a minimum of 4 (120m) this means a likely charge up time of 1 second
2 heat/shot
4sots/ton

That weapon is balanced around a standard engine and 11 crit slots, as it is a very impressive weapon system, it's likely MWO stats would get a damage fall off starting at 181m slowly dropping off to 0 at 1200m, considering the damage profile I can see it replacing the normal Gauss Rifle on a lot of IS mechs that mount GR's in the ST. How ever it is not part of this current topic and will warrant it's own later, for current we are talking about why the LB-20X for IS needs fixing before it is even put into the game in the vein hope that someone from PGI will see this and take the correct steps before it is too late.

https://mwomercs.com...gr-disscussion/

[pyrocomp]

Dago Red, on 14 June 2017 - 02:11 PM, said:

Who said ANYTHING about quirk's? Quirks are just gravy and subject to change but hardpoints are forever. It works just fine on non quirked mechs as well. It's really weight and and hardpoints that are the biggest limiting factor on what can run that setup and funny the LB20 would in fact help alleviate those a bit.

Even without quirks it's decently high rate of fire, ridiculously cool to run, ammo efficient, and hurts from further out than a lot of people realize.

I'm honestly not sure anything I run that on even has non generic ballistic quirks.

ROF is the same as of AC10. A meager 1 heat point does not make any difference in heat management. And AC10s does not have GH. 10% in range at which the LBX damge is distributed across multiple components... not sure than hurts. And about ammo efficiency... AC is all round better. Really. And the almost total absence of LB series from the gameplay also does tell the story. Plus, a single pilot that is good with something does not make it good. I run LRMs good and that does not make those excellent.

So, again, you can in the game see the LBX only on mechs with high specific LBX quirks which is an indication of general state of the LBX series.

[Dago Red]

pyrocomp, on 14 June 2017 - 02:29 PM, said:

ROF is the same as of AC10. A meager 1 heat point does not make any difference in heat management. And AC10s does not have GH. 10% in range at which the LBX damge is distributed across multiple components... not sure than hurts. And about ammo efficiency... AC is all round better. Really. And the almost total absence of LB series from the gameplay also does tell the story. Plus, a single pilot that is good with something does not make it good. I run LRMs good and that does not make those excellent.

So, again, you can in the game see the LBX only on mechs with high specific LBX quirks which is an indication of general state of the LBX series.

Or on mechs whose hardpoints restrict them to putting all ballistics in one torso which you cannot do with a regular AC 10 but you can with an LBX 10. That and when you stack multiples the weight savings add up. I mean what IS mechs have the combo of hardpoints to and weight to mount triple or double AC10?

Cataphracts, Maulers, and the Sleipner are all that really come to mind. I think warhammers and catapult K2's can do it as well but that seems fairly out of fashion.

Running a single is pretty much pointless on anything that's not quirked for it but then that's not really what i was talking about 20's replacing.

Looking at smurfy it's saying that the LBX's and regular 10's have the same heat and fire rate now but I could swear they used to have a slight edge in both. Did that change in a patch? I'm fairly certain the regulars used to be 3 heat 3 cooldown. For ammo efficiency and the like I was arguing them versus most other weapons systems not specifically standard 10's.

Edited by Dago Red, 14 June 2017 - 02:50 PM.

[Wintersdark]

Dago Red, on 14 June 2017 - 02:11 PM, said:

Who said ANYTHING about quirk's? Quirks are just gravy and subject to change but hardpoints are forever. It works just fine on non quirked mechs as well. It's really weight and and hardpoints that are the biggest limiting factor on what can run that setup and funny the LB20 would in fact help alleviate those a bit.

Even without quirks it's decently high rate of fire, ridiculously cool to run, ammo efficient, and hurts from further out than a lot of people realize.

I'm honestly not sure anything I run that on even has non generic ballistic quirks.

The LB10 is objectively worse than the AC10, which itself isn't a spectacularly great weapon. The 10 isn't better at literally ANYTHING than the AC10. The only reason to use the LBX version instead of the AC10 is because it's lighter and smaller, and as such can get you 10 damage with a lower tonnage/space investment. You go with the LBX 10's solely because you simply can't practically mount AC10's.

If you're using LB10's on mechs not quirked for it Cuz You Like It, that's fine, but it's a very poorly balanced weapon in MWO and always has been. They're not like shotguns in FPS's. A shotgun in an FPS does more damage close - implemented in MWO, an LBX 10 would have 10 pellets that do >1.0 damage each, so that when you fire at close range you get more damage than the AC10. Instead, you get the same damage - and worse, even with the crit damage bonus, it's actually LESS effective at critting out internal components.

At least clan side, LBX autocannons actually ARE better at critting out components, because the regular cUAC's spread damage with low-damage pellets too.

Dago Red, on 14 June 2017 - 02:46 PM, said:

Or on mechs whose hardpoints restrict them to putting all ballistics in one torso which you cannot do with a regular AC 10 but you can with an LBX 10. That and when you stack multiples the weight savings add up. I mean what IS mechs have the combo of hardpoints to and weight to mount triple or double AC10?

Cataphracts, Maulers, and the Sleipner are all that really come to mind. I think warhammers and catapult K2's can do it as well but that seems fairly out of fashion.

Running a pretty much pointless on anything that's not quirked for it but then that's not really what i was talking about 20's replacing.

Looking at smurfy it's saying that the LBX's and regular 10's have the same heat and fire rate now but I could swear they used to have a slight edge in both. Did that change in a patch? I'm fairly certain the regulars used to be 3 heat 3 cooldown.

People still rarely mount multiple AC10's not because of weight so much as because the AC10 isn't a very good weapon either(weight is a part of that, but the savings on the LBX don't make that better). If you can mount multiple AC10's, you'd be better off mounting multiple UAC5's (which are a better weapon), Gauss Rifles (again, better weapon), etc.

---

Again, there are a VERY few specific builds that are better off with LBX's, but that's not because the LBX is in any way better but because it's physically impossible to run 10's. That's a VERY limited selection, though. Off hand, ignoring mechs that benefit from strong LBX quirks:

DDC w/ 2xLBX10 and srms (still not necessarily an optimal build for the mech)
Shadowhawk LBX10/SRM brawler (simply can't mount an AC10)

Edited by Wintersdark, 14 June 2017 - 02:52 PM.

[Dago Red]

Wintersdark, on 14 June 2017 - 02:49 PM, said:

The LB10 is objectively worse than the AC10, which itself isn't a spectacularly great weapon. The 10 isn't better at literally ANYTHING than the AC10. The only reason to use the LBX version instead of the AC10 is because it's lighter and smaller, and as such can get you 10 damage with a lower tonnage/space investment. You go with the LBX 10's solely because you simply can't practically mount AC10's.

If you're using LB10's on mechs not quirked for it Cuz You Like It, that's fine, but it's a very poorly balanced weapon in MWO and always has been. They're not like shotguns in FPS's. A shotgun in an FPS does more damage close - implemented in MWO, an LBX 10 would have 10 pellets that do >1.0 damage each, so that when you fire at close range you get more damage than the AC10. Instead, you get the same damage - and worse, even with the crit damage bonus, it's actually LESS effective at critting out internal components.

At least clan side, LBX autocannons actually ARE better at critting out components, because the regular cUAC's spread damage with low-damage pellets too.



People still rarely mount multiple AC10's not because of weight so much as because the AC10 isn't a very good weapon either(weight is a part of that, but the savings on the LBX don't make that better). If you can mount multiple AC10's, you'd be better off mounting multiple UAC5's (which are a better weapon), Gauss Rifles (again, better weapon), etc.

---

Again, there are a VERY few specific builds that are better off with LBX's, but that's not because the LBX is in any way better but because it's physically impossible to run 10's. That's a VERY limited selection, though. Off hand, ignoring mechs that benefit from strong LBX quirks:

DDC w/ 2xLBX10 and srms (still not necessarily an optimal build for the mech)
Shadowhawk LBX10/SRM brawler (simply can't mount an AC10)

A fair few Cyclops and Marauders can also make use of it as well.

Anyway the point was never the LBX 10's are a superior weapons system and therefore 20's will also be super sweet. I was simply pointing out that within the already small niche of single torso double LBX 10 build's that the 20 could have some utility in replacing that and freeing up weight.

Since the thrust of this thread seems to be that they're terribly and universally worse than every other option. Because I would be shocked if they mess with the critical size so making the best of what you have and all that.

Too many people in gaming in general not just specifically here don't seem to have a lot of room in their worldview for anything between optimal and straight up garbage.

[pyrocomp]

Dago Red, on 14 June 2017 - 03:03 PM, said:

A fair few Cyclops and Marauders can also make use of it as well.

Anyway the point was never the LBX 10's are a superior weapons system and therefore 20's will also be super sweet. I was simply pointing out that within the already small niche of single torso double LBX 10 build's that the 20 could have some utility in replacing that and freeing up weight.

Since the thrust of this thread seems to be that they're terribly and universally worse than every other option. Because I would be shocked if they mess with the critical size so making the best of what you have and all that.

Too many people in gaming in general not just specifically here don't seem to have a lot of room in their worldview for anything between optimal and straight up garbage.

In this logic the MGs are a niche weapon since you can mount those in CTs on numerous mechs. Well, yes, you can. It does not make MGs comparable to GRs. Exxageration, yes, but still. Pointing that LBX20 will be usefull for Mechs that cannot fit twin AC10s also points than LBX20 is not worth taking unless you are forced to.

[Dago Red]

pyrocomp, on 14 June 2017 - 03:09 PM, said:

In this logic the MGs are a niche weapon since you can mount those in CTs on numerous mechs. Well, yes, you can. It does not make MGs comparable to GRs. Exxageration, yes, but still. Pointing that LBX20 will be usefull for Mechs that cannot fit twin AC10s also points than LBX20 is not worth taking unless you are forced to.

See that's funny because machine guns used to be legitimately kind of ok if you could get a bunch of them going. Now they're still funny but mostly just for annoying people.

Your counter solution to finding the rare places where it can shine is what? Praying that PGI will fudge size and weight of components for the first time in the game? Howling in impotent rage?

If we're lucky they'll tweak the heat and if we're STUPID lucky they'll try that 1.2 damage a pellet buff they waffled on like a year ago. And I would welcome either or both. There's also possibility of the spread reduction nodes getting stronger at some point if they realize everyone's just skipping them. Frankly they do need it but doom and gloom aint improving anything.

Edited by Dago Red, 14 June 2017 - 03:26 PM.

[Wintersdark]

Dago Red, on 14 June 2017 - 03:03 PM, said:

A fair few Cyclops and Marauders can also make use of it as well.

Anyway the point was never the LBX 10's are a superior weapons system and therefore 20's will also be super sweet. I was simply pointing out that within the already small niche of single torso double LBX 10 build's that the 20 could have some utility in replacing that and freeing up weight.

Well, no, because the dual LBX10 torso works [not as well as an AC20, but well enough] because it allows that 20 damage at an increased range and fire rate and decreased heat vs. an AC20. Swapping out a pair of LBX10's for an LBX20 is a flat downgrade - you get all the downsides of an AC20 without the upsides of the dual 10's. As such, you'd just go to an AC20 or uAC20.

Quote

Since the thrust of this thread seems to be that they're terribly and universally worse than every other option. Because I would be shocked if they mess with the critical size so making the best of what you have and all that.

Too many people in gaming in general not just specifically here don't seem to have a lot of room in their worldview for anything between optimal and straight up garbage.

I'm first in line to differentiate "viable" and "optimal" - that's why I mentioned dual lbx10 builds in the first place. It's not optimal, but it is viable.

The problem is, with the current paradigm, LBX autocannons are significantly worse than solid-slug autocannons. It's more complicated Clan side of course, but for the IS... There's no reason you'd rather run an LBX20 vs. an AC20 unless there are some really substantial changes going on - 1 less heat isn't going to cut it.

Dago Red, on 14 June 2017 - 03:20 PM, said:

See that's funny because machine guns used to be legitimately kind of ok if you could get a bunch of them going. Now they're still funny but mostly just for annoying people.

Your counter solution to finding the rare places where it can shine is what? Praying that PGI will fudge size and weight of components for the first time in the game? Howling in impotent rage?

If we're lucky they'll tweak the heat and if we're STUPID lucky they'll try that 1.2 damage a pellet buff they waffled on like a year ago. And I would welcome either or both. There's also possibility of the spread reduction nodes getting stronger at some point if they realize everyone's just skipping them. Frankly they do need it but doom and gloom aint improving anything.

1.2 damage per pellet would make LBX autocannons worthwhile.

More spread reduction won't. The spread hurts LBX's, but isn't really the problem.

For the new LBX's to be worthwhile, they'll need really significant changes from what's likely (1.2 damage per pellet is definitely a significant change)

---

As it stands, the isLBX10 is a dumpster-fire of a weapon. In the hierachy of MWO weapons, it's really close to the bottom.

You ONLY run an LBX now because:

1) You don't care it's garbage and think it's fun
2) You have no better options (very uncommon)
3) You've got quirks which make it not garbage.

Edited by Wintersdark, 14 June 2017 - 03:40 PM.

[El Bandito]

pyrocomp, on 14 June 2017 - 05:38 AM, said:

Now, this is good news. Now, let's see how's that will play out. I'm with 'shotgun' option.

Unfortunately Chris has no immediate plans of touching the LBX issue. Here is what he told me.

Quote

No changes planned at the moment.
Focus right now is on the Energy weapon re-balance for the June patch, the new tech for July, and addressing any outlier 'Mechs from the introduction of the skill tree last month.
We are obviously going to be paying close attention to the overall weapon balance post July, and will make improvements where we feel we have to, but we cannot commit to anything at this moment regarding what weapons those will be until we can see what the landscape post New Tech launch puts us.