145 replies to this topic

[Zergling]

Yeonne Greene, on 01 July 2017 - 01:13 AM, said:

Have to do it all at once, dude, or you end up doing it twice.

That'd require buffing the IS Gauss or nerfing the Clan Gauss though, which I don't see PGI doing anytime soon.

Hell, if I was balancing IS vs Clan, I'd pretty much go all the way and make them as similar as possible, and there is zero chance of PGI ever doing that.

Yeonne Greene, on 01 July 2017 - 01:13 AM, said:

It wouldn't be redundant because the regular Gauss can fit with an LFE or XL. The HGauss is essentially pigeonholed to Assaults for poke duty because they are the only 'Mechs with enough tonnage to run a STD engine and still bring meaningful complementary weapons.

Hmm, fair point.

But again, I doubt PGI would do that; they probably don't see Heavy Gauss being limited to standard engine/side torso mounts as being much of a drawback.

I'm kinda limiting my ideas for PTS weapon balance based on what PGI might actually do. And as much as I'd like the Heavy Gauss to have a 600 meter optimal range, I suspect they'll keep trying to force it into the short-range role, and it'll end up worthless as a result, because they also won't give it a 5.0 second or less cooldown that would make it competitive with the AC20.

Edited by Zergling, 01 July 2017 - 01:38 AM.

[TheArisen]

Zergling, on 01 July 2017 - 01:35 AM, said:

That'd require buffing the IS Gauss or nerfing the Clan Gauss though, which I don't see PGI doing anytime soon.

Hell, if I was balancing IS vs Clan, I'd pretty much go all the way and make them as similar as possible, and there is zero chance of PGI ever doing that.





Hmm, fair point.

But again, I doubt PGI would do that; they probably don't see Heavy Gauss being limited to standard engine/side torso mounts as being much of a drawback.

I'm kinda limiting my ideas for PTS weapon balance based on what PGI might actually do. And as much as I'd like the Heavy Gauss to have a 600 meter optimal range, I suspect they'll keep trying to force it into the short-range role, and it'll end up worthless as a result, because they also won't give it a 5.0 second or less cooldown that would make it competitive with the AC20.

Being forced to use a std engine makes the Hgauss effectively even heavier because you can't equip a lfe or xl. If Pgi can understand this then they might give it the buffs it needs to be worth it.

[Y E O N N E]

Zergling, on 01 July 2017 - 01:35 AM, said:

That'd require buffing the IS Gauss or nerfing the Clan Gauss though, which I don't see PGI doing anytime soon.

Hell, if I was balancing IS vs Clan, I'd pretty much go all the way and make them as similar as possible, and there is zero chance of PGI ever doing that.

I don't know that that is true. When you have a whole bunch of possible alternatives, you can stand to have the exact line-items be different in capability. Case in point, the ERML and isLL combo against the cERML and cLPL combo is pretty much dead-even on PTS.

On that note, if HPPCs got buffed to 15 PPFLD or if PGI raised the IS PPC/ERPPC ghost heat threshold to 3, then the isGauss can stay pretty much like it is.

[Zergling]

Yeonne Greene, on 01 July 2017 - 10:10 AM, said:

I don't know that that is true. When you have a whole bunch of possible alternatives, you can stand to have the exact line-items be different in capability. Case in point, the ERML and isLL combo against the cERML and cLPL combo is pretty much dead-even on PTS.

That becomes a nightmare to balance for, my head starts hurting just thinking about it.

It can be done, but it is a royal pain to try and calculate.

Yeonne Greene, on 01 July 2017 - 10:10 AM, said:

On that note, if HPPCs got buffed to 15 PPFLD or if PGI raised the IS PPC/ERPPC ghost heat threshold to 3, then the isGauss can stay pretty much like it is.

TBH, I'd like to see isPPC ghost heat limits set to a universal 30 damage threshold:
Heavy PPC (doing 15 damage) = 2
PPC/ER PPC/SN-PPC = 3
Light PPC = 6

They really can't make the Heavy PPC worth using without 15 damage, but they also can't make it balanced against 20 point ghost heat limit for the 10 damage PPCs if they give it 15 damage and 2 ghost heat limit.

And stuff the Light PPCs only having a ghost heat limit of 3... 15 damage alpha, who are they kidding?

Edited by Zergling, 02 July 2017 - 01:53 AM.

[Khobai]

Quote

They really can't make the Heavy PPC worth using without 15 damage

sure they can. they just need to lower the heat.

13/1/1 for 12.5 heat with a linear damage drop off instead of a 90m deadzone would be perfectly fine.

Compared to a normal PPC, for 3 extra tons and 3 extra heat you get 3/1/1 more damage and min range deadzone changed to linear damage dropoff (doing half damage or so inside that min range is way better than doing 0 damage). seems fair to me. Especially since it fires faster than the CERPPC, and with lower heat it could capitalize on that.

Quote

And stuff the Light PPCs only having a ghost heat limit of 3... 15 damage alpha, who are they kidding?

light PPC ghost heat limit should probably be 4. 6 seems to abusive to me.

but it still needs to be linked in the same group as all the other PPCs so you cant mix and match PPC types to circumvent ghost heat.

Edited by Khobai, 02 July 2017 - 03:06 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Lowering the heat is also a good way to boost the Heavy PPC a bit, without raising pinpoint damage.

Though this doesn't have much to do with Light and Heavy Gauss Rifles.

[Zergling]

Khobai, on 02 July 2017 - 02:53 AM, said:

sure they can. they just need to lower the heat.

13/1/1 for 12.5 heat with a linear damage drop off instead of a 90m deadzone would be perfectly fine.

Compared to a normal PPC, for 3 extra tons and 3 extra heat you get 3/1/1 more damage and min range deadzone changed to linear damage dropoff (doing half damage or so inside that min range is way better than doing 0 damage). seems fair to me. Especially since it fires faster than the CERPPC, and with lower heat it could capitalize on that.

I dunno, maybe it could work like that, but I'm really not sure.

Lower heat certainly would help to making it work though.

Khobai, on 02 July 2017 - 02:53 AM, said:

light PPC ghost heat limit should probably be 4

but it still needs to be linked in the same group as all the other PPCs so you cant mix and match PPC types to circumvent ghost heat.

Light PPC ghost heat limit at 4 would be fine with other PPCs at 2.

It certainly is possible to put weapons with different ghost heat limits into the same linked group (as with LRM5 vs other LRMs), but I'm not sure how that actually works.

Edited by Zergling, 02 July 2017 - 03:22 AM.

[Khobai]

Quote

It certainly is possible to put weapons with different ghost heat limits into the same linked group (as with LRM5 vs other LRMs), but I'm not sure how that actually works.

it counts as the most prohibitive weapon for ghost heat

so like if light and normal PPCs were linked in the same group, and you fired 2 light PPCs and 1 normal PPC, youd get ghost heat as though you fired 3 normal PPCs. It counts the light PPCs towards the normal PPC limit of 2.

but if all you had were 4 light PPCs (assuming 4 is the limit before ghost heat kicks in) then youd could still fire all four light PPCs with no penalty. because theres no normal PPC mixed in.

Edited by Khobai, 02 July 2017 - 03:23 AM.

[Zergling]

Khobai, on 02 July 2017 - 03:19 AM, said:

it counts as the most prohibitive weapon for ghost heat

so like if light and normal PPCs were linked in the same group, and you fired 2 light PPCs and 1 normal PPC, youd get ghost heat as though you fired 3 normal PPCs

Ah, thanks. That would certainly discourage mix-matching to try and bypass ghost heat.


Also, ran the math for how the PPCs currently compare:
Light PPC = 5 damage, 5 heat, 4.00 cooldown, 1.25 DPS, 0.42 DPS/ton, 1.00 damage/heat
Normal PPC = 10 damage, 9.5 heat, 4.00 cooldown, 2.50 DPS, 0.36 DPS/ton, 1.05 damage/heat
Heavy PPC = 13 damage, 14.5 heat, 4.00 cooldown, 3.25 DPS, 0.33 DPS/ton, 0.90 damage/heat

With every weapon, DPS/ton goes down with heavier weapons, while damage/heat goes up with missiles, stays the same for autocannons, and goes down with lasers.
Lasers are the closest thing to PPCs, but that is ignoring that range also increases with bigger lasers, so damage/heat should probably go up with bigger PPCs as their range stays the same as with missiles.

So with 13 damage, the Heavy PPC DPS/ton is ok relative to the normal PPC, so it could be somewhat balanced if it's damage/heat was higher than the normal PPC.
Eg, lower its heat to 12, and its damage/heat ratio goes up to 1.08... it could probably do with a bit higher. 11 heat is 1.18 damage/heat, which is probably a bit high, so the the middle-ground of 11.5 heat for 1.13 damage/heat seems the best.


The alternative is to raise its damage to 15, but at that point it's DPS/ton is 0.38, higher than the normal PPC. To bring the DPS/ton back down would require increasing cooldown to about 4.5 seconds, for 0.33 DPS/ton.

And I'm not sure about damage/heat for a 15 damage alpha. Technically, it should still have a better damage/heat than the normal PPC... but would a 15 damage alpha really need any further buffs?

Edited by Zergling, 02 July 2017 - 03:24 AM.

[Y E O N N E]

Zergling, on 02 July 2017 - 01:53 AM, said:

That becomes a nightmare to balance for, my head starts hurting just thinking about it.

It can be done, but it is a royal pain to try and calculate.

You just need to think about it in terms of packages and capabilities instead of line items.

Like, I don't just look at what an ERML can do, I look at what an ERML does when it's brought in a certain number with a certain number of other weapons. I'm not looking at just 5 damage over 0.9 sec at 360 m for 4.5 heat, I'm looking at 52 damage over 1.1 sec at 360 m for 43.5 heat with 19 DHS and comparing it to 52 damage over 1.25 sec at 405 m for 44 heat with 26 DHS.

Quote

TBH, I'd like to see isPPC ghost heat limits set to a universal 30 damage threshold:
Heavy PPC (doing 15 damage) = 2
PPC/ER PPC/SN-PPC = 3
Light PPC = 6

They really can't make the Heavy PPC worth using without 15 damage, but they also can't make it balanced against 20 point ghost heat limit for the 10 damage PPCs if they give it 15 damage and 2 ghost heat limit.

And stuff the Light PPCs only having a ghost heat limit of 3... 15 damage alpha, who are they kidding?

I'm right there with you. Some people are deathly afraid of PPFLD from the HPPC, but we've already got worse in the game and it isn't going anywhere.

[Khobai]

Quote

I'm right there with you. Some people are deathly afraid of PPFLD from the HPPC, but we've already got worse in the game and it isn't going anywhere.

The justification that we already have worse in the game so its okay to add more of whats wrong with the game is a bad justification

[Zergling]

Khobai, on 02 July 2017 - 07:32 AM, said:

The justification that we already have worse in the game so its okay to add more of whats wrong with the game is a bad justification

Well, that'd really require that 'energy draw' concept the Devs played around with to kill high damage alphas.

Outside of that... they could add more weapons to linked ghost heat groups, like moving PPCs and Large type lasers to the Medium/Small linked group.
That doesn't solve Gauss Rifle alphas though; they'd have to set them to only a single Gauss charging at a time (obviously Light Gauss with its 8 damage would be allow to charge a pair).

That would reduce the 600 meter+ alphas from 50 damage (2x Gauss + 2x PPC) down to about 35 (1x Gauss + 2x PPC), while Laser alphas would drop from 66 (for 2x cLPL + 6x cERML) down to 52 (for 2x cLPL + 4x cERML).
TBH, I wouldn't mind reducing Clan Laser damage in exchange for less heat and duration, which would reduce the laser alpha further.

Yeonne Greene, on 02 July 2017 - 06:51 AM, said:

You just need to think about it in terms of packages and capabilities instead of line items.

Like, I don't just look at what an ERML can do, I look at what an ERML does when it's brought in a certain number with a certain number of other weapons. I'm not looking at just 5 damage over 0.9 sec at 360 m for 4.5 heat, I'm looking at 52 damage over 1.1 sec at 360 m for 43.5 heat with 19 DHS and comparing it to 52 damage over 1.25 sec at 405 m for 44 heat with 26 DHS.

Yeah, it requires a whole set of additional calculations on top of what I'm already doing, which is pretty hard to do, especially considering all the other tech differences.

Yeonne Greene, on 02 July 2017 - 06:51 AM, said:

I'm right there with you. Some people are deathly afraid of PPFLD from the HPPC, but we've already got worse in the game and it isn't going anywhere.

Given IS Large Pulse is already doing 30 damage alphas (and was doing 33 before recent nerf), I don't see how 30 alpha with sluggish PPC projectiles would be that big a deal.

It'd be a nice buff to triple PPC Awesome's too!

Edited by Zergling, 02 July 2017 - 07:59 AM.

[Y E O N N E]

Khobai, on 02 July 2017 - 07:32 AM, said:

The justification that we already have worse in the game so its okay to add more of whats wrong with the game is a bad justification

Only if you consider having what's already in the game to be bad. Which I don't, not strictly speaking. It's bad mostly because it's one-sided.

[Khobai]

Quote

Given IS Large Pulse is already doing 30 damage alphas (and was doing 33 before recent nerf), I don't see how 30 alpha with sluggish PPC projectiles would be that big a deal.

because gauss combod with PPCs is never just 30 damage. its 50+

Quote

Only if you consider having what's already in the game to be bad. Which I don't, not strictly speaking. It's bad mostly because it's one-sided.

well many people do consider whats in the game now to be bad. Even PGI does. which is why they were doing the whole energy draw system to limit you to firing 30 damage of weapons at the same time. Its also why practically every mech that can dual gauss/dual has been hit with the nerf hammer, although its still not enough.

PPFLD is definitely a problem and not one we need to make worse.

Edited by Khobai, 02 July 2017 - 08:30 AM.

[Y E O N N E]

Khobai, on 02 July 2017 - 08:28 AM, said:

well most people do consider whats in the game now to be bad. Even PGI does. which is why they were doing the whole energy draw system to limit you to firing 30 damage of weapons at the same time.

Define "most people", because that sounds an awful lot like a number being pulled out of thin air.

The only 'Mech that's particularly egregious with the 50 PPFLD is the Night Gyr, and that's because it can jump. The rest all have glaring weaknesses that are more easily exploited when they do the PPFLD thing, namely being huge, slow, and stiff.

And at any rate, with 15 damage HPPCs or triple PPC, the IS still can't do 50 long-range PPFLD except by doing the same exact built the Clans do: 2x PPC + 2x Gauss. Close range is a non-issue, the risk required to execute offsets the reward of success.

[Khobai]

Quote

Define "most people", because that sounds an awful lot like a number being pulled out of thin air.

yeah I changed it to "many" people because I knew youd say that. but the relevant part is that PGI themselves recognize theres a problem hence why they were working on energy draw to limit PPFLD to 30 damage.

Quote

The only 'Mech that's particularly egregious with the 50 PPFLD is the Night Gyr

for now. but the more PPFLD weapons you add the worse its going to get.

if we know the 50 PPFLD Night Gyr is a problem, it seems prudent to me not to create more similar problems.

I personally feel PGI needs to do a much better job of cracking down on PPFLD and not allowing combinations of similar yet different weapons to circumvent ghost heat.

Simply linking PPC and Gauss in the same group would be acceptable. If Ghost heat is going to stop people from firing more than two PPCs or two CLPL/CHLL at the same time then it should certainly stop someone from firing two PPCs and two gauss at the same time. You should not be able to circumvent ghost heat by mixing different weapons, that has always been an exploitable loose end of the ghost heat system that needs to be tied up.

Edited by Khobai, 02 July 2017 - 08:43 AM.

[Y E O N N E]

Khobai, on 02 July 2017 - 08:37 AM, said:

yeah I changed it to "many" people because I knew youd say that. but the relevant part is that PGI themselves recognize theres a problem hence why they were working on energy draw to limit PPFLD to 30 damage.




for now. but the more PPFLD weapons you add the worse its going to get.


if we know the 50 PPFLD Night Gyr is a problem, it seems prudent to me not to create more similar problems.

It won't get worse, and it won't because the weapons we are talking about have limitations that don't exist on the Night Gyr:

A Gauss and two HPPCs would only be 45 damage, with zero splash, to the Night Gyr's 50+10.

A Gauss and two HPPCs has an effective range of 600 m to the 730 m on the Night Gyr.

A Gauss and two HPPCs deals less damage under 90 m.

A Gauss and two HPPCs can't be run on any 'Mech that can feasibly jump.

A Gauss and two HPPCs on any 'Mech that could jump would require an isXL and all the drawbacks that incurs.

A Gauss and two HPPCs runs extremely hot for less damage than two cGauss and two cERPPCs and only comparable damage to two cGauss and one cERPPC (which is 28 tons versus 35).

A Gauss and two HPPCs has less output when running hot than two cGauss and even a single cERPPC.

So I have to ask:

How many people do you think pop-tart? Out of the people who pop-tart, how many do you think are unaware of how good the NTG is at it? Hell, just consider PPFLD: how many people do you think do it and how many do you think are unaware of how good the other known Clan chassis are at it? Do you honestly think that allowing the IS to have a similar, but still inferior, combination is really going to increase the number of people using that type of load-out?

I don't see it as a problem, because the power cap hasn't been changed and because I am not convinced that the people who want to do it aren't already doing so with an already superior tool.

Quote

I personally feel PGI needs to do a much better job of cracking down on PPFLD and not allowing combinations of similar yet different weapons to circumvent ghost heat.

Simply linking PPC and Gauss in the same group would be acceptable. If Ghost heat is going to stop people from firing more than two PPCs or two CLPL/CHLL at the same time then it should certainly stop someone from firing two PPCs and two gauss at the same time. You should not be able to circumvent ghost heat by mixing different weapons, that has always been an exploitable loose end of the ghost heat system that needs to be tied up.

It's not a loose end, it's a feature of the design. The point is to compel you to use combinations that have a good amount of give and take relative to the pure boats you can do without ghost heat. And it generally works well. Two PPCs and two Gauss is 44 tons for the Inner Sphere; if I've managed to dedicate that much of my resources to that load-out, sacrificing speed and cooling and a non-trivial amount of armor even on a Mauler, I damn well better be able to fire it together. The bigger issue is that the Clan version of that combination is only 36 tons, meaning it can run faster, colder, more durably, and with the potential for add-on capabilities like jump jets. Even with twin HPPC dealing 30, the IS only get the faster and more durable part of that trade.

[Khobai]

Quote

It won't get worse, and it won't because the weapons we are talking about have limitations that don't exist on the Night Gyr:

it will get worse. especially when the annihilator and other new mechs come out. And when people figure out what combinations of mechs and the new tech work best.

PPFLD is a blight on the game and it needs to be eliminated. Simple as that.

Allowing 50+ PPFLD alphas fundamentally breaks the current armor system. Just because the Night Gyr can do it isnt justification for other mechs being able to do it. It just means the Night Gyr shouldnt be able to do it.

I would just link PPCs and Gauss in the same ghost heat group. problem solved. That stops 90% of the current and future abuse right there.

The other thing they need to fix is rocket launchers because that compounds the PPFLD damage problem as well when you can shoot someone for 50+ damage then follow up with rocket launchers that weigh almost nothing and instakill them. You can take out a 100 ton mech instantly and its quite frankly stupid. Is that the game you wanna play? its not the game I wanna play.

Quote

It's not a loose end, it's a feature of the design.

no its definitely a loose end. thats why energy draw was going to limit you to 30 damage of weapons at a time. if PGI thought it was fine they wouldnt have actively invested resources in the energy draw system which was created specifically to prevent the loopholes that ghost heat allows.

Quote

A Gauss and two HPPCs would only be 45 damage, with zero splash, to the Night Gyr's 50+10.

I just played a game on PTR 10 minutes ago where I took two heavy gauss and a heavy PPC on a sleipner and I killed an undamaged archer in one shot with a 65 damage alpha.

You can one shot other mechs with combinations of weapons on PTR right now. That kindve crap shouldnt be allowed. So yeah I agree with Kanajashi that Heavy Gauss needs to be limited to 1 charging up at a time. That and rocket launchers need a hard cap on how many can be fired.

Edited by Khobai, 02 July 2017 - 09:47 AM.

[Y E O N N E]

Khobai, on 02 July 2017 - 09:26 AM, said:

it will get worse. especially when the annihilator and other new mechs come out. And when people figure out what combinations of mechs and the new tech work best.

No, it won't. The Annihilator has geometry problems that render it DoA and it can't do anything we can't already do better on a Mauler or even a King Crab except triple or quadruple UAC/10, which isn't PPFLD and will honestly still pale compared to what you can do using an MX90, two UAC/5, and three AC/5. The Mauler can do 50 PPFLD already, but when was the last time you ever saw it being run, let alone run well?

You are inventing a boogeyman that's already been superseded by a different one.

Quote

PPFLD is a blight on the game and it needs to be eliminated. Simple as that.

That's one opinion. On the other hand, ACs would be completely and totally useless without it. See also: cAC.

Quote

Allowing 50+ PPFLD alphas fundamentally breaks the current armor system. Just because the Night Gyr can do it isnt justification for other mechs being able to do it. It just means the Night Gyr shouldnt be able to do it.

I would just link PPCs and Gauss in the same ghost heat group. problem solved. That stops 90% of the current and future abuse right there.

The Night Gyr is the only 'Mech doing it that is breaking the game. Nothing else will ever be able to do what the Night Gyr can do except another Clan 'Mech that is a Night Gyr in all but name. Even the Nova Cat won't do it as well as the Night Gyr.

And there are issues linking those two:

Can't fire more than any two: meta goes to dual Gauss. NTG wins.

Can't fire a Gauss with two PPCs: meta goes to dual PPC: meta swaps to twin PPCs with some form of conventional ballistic, NTG still wins, might see more IS 'Mechs with AC/5.

Can't fire more than one of either with any other: meta goes to lasers.

Start linking all ballistics with PPCs: PPCs become useless because their output sucks alone and if they get buffed, they obsolete the ACs anyway. Or they obsolete the ERLL.

[Khobai]

Quote

That's one opinion. On the other hand, ACs would be completely and totally useless without it.

yeah but im not talking about eliminating PPFLD completely. just the combinations of weapons that allow you to do 50+ PPFLD.

Thats pretty much specifically gauss/PPC combinations.

Quote

Start linking all ballistics with PPCs: PPCs become useless because their output sucks alone and if they get buffed, they obsolete the ACs anyway. Or they obsolete the ERLL.

you only need to link gauss with PPCs. other ballistics generate heat, or in the case of clans other ballistics arnt even PPFLD. its the fact gauss generates little or no heat that makes it problematic because it has extremely high affinity with high heat PPCs.

the whole problem here is that gauss violates one of the fundamental rules of battletech. The rule that says the more damage a weapon does the more heat it should generate.

so just link gauss/ppc in the same group and leave it at that. other ballistics are fine they dont need to be linked in with ppcs.

Edited by Khobai, 02 July 2017 - 09:55 AM.