18 replies to this topic

[Solahma]

I tried RAC5s and RAC2s for several matches and made a few determinations.

• The weapon system is extremely punishing and frustrating to use.
  
• Severely hurts situational decisions
  
• Has too many inconsistencies with its use
  
• Charge bar feels clunky

My impressions are the weapon system is that it will not see much use because it has so much stacked against it. Without factoring in the jam and charge bar, the weapon has lower velocity that makes it difficult to hold on-target. Another large down-side is the requirement to be staring at your target for the entirety of your volley until the weapon jams or you decide to stop firing it. Both of these characteristics are fine, but the rest of the mechanic needs some serious work.



I found myself WANTING to utilize and be aware of the jam-bar, but it was extremely frustrating to do. I spool up my weapon and already eat 1/4 into my jam-bar. If I decide the opportunity is gone for the shot and let go of the trigger I have to restart the spooling duration and it might already have build-up on the jam-bar. So making split second decisions is EXTREMELY punishing. You can't adapt to the battlefield situations as they develop.

We dive deeper. Whilst firing on a mech and building up the jam-bar, I might decide that I am done firing and let go of the trigger. But then something changes in the next second and I need to fire again. Now I have a nearly full bar that will be entirely full by the time the weapon is spooled up again.

This process has happened time and time again for me. Every match I found myself in situations where I was getting EXTREMELY frustrated with the system. It forced me to miss opportunities and made it impossible to react properly at times. You spool up and the mech goes behind cover? now you have jam-bar build up. Oh, 1s later another mech comes into sight? now you're already at a disadvantage.

The weapon itself, its stats, feel balanced. It's difficult to use and deal good damage with despite it's good DPS. This is due to my earlier statement that it requires you to stare and the velocity makes it a challenge to lead and hold your damage on-target. It feels like the stats support the weapon being balance with absolute ZERO jam or spool bar mechanic. But I can see that getting out of hand quick.

SUGGESTIONS:

• Remove the jam-bar build up from spooling entirely.
  
• Add an initial charge-up spooling mechanic that is identical to gauss rifles. Instead of "holding the charge" like a gauss rifle, it would begin firing.
  
• Remove any need to spool (charge) the RAC if there is ANY build up on the jam-bar. Spooling up (charging) would only be required if the weapon is idle with zero jam-bar.

Example: You see an enemy and it appears you'll have a shot. You spool up (charge) your RAC and begin firing. Your jam-bar begins to build-up. The target hides behind cover and you stop firing. Your jam-bar is not at 50% and begins recharging. Another enemy emerges from cover. You fire your RAC and it IMMEDIATELY starts firing again (or an extremely reduced spool time with zero build-up). Your jam-bar fills up to 100% and you decide to take cover and allow it to recharge. Meanwhile, you're mostly recharged and an enemy mech charges your position. You instantly can begin shooting at him as your jam-bar hasn't recharged fully.


I completely and honestly think this change would NOT break RAC, but rather be a minor enough change to improve its effective use as well as the enjoyment of using RAC.

Chris mentioned that this spool jam-bar build up was added to prevent abuse. What it ended up doing was make the weapon extremely ineffective to play. The charge mechanic of the gauss rifles would avoid this abuse as well, while not punishing people who are currently engaged.


Please consider this suggestion for the RAC mechanics.

P.S. What I found to be the most effective way to use a RAC is to never let go of the trigger so long as you have any chance of shooting something. Build the jam-bar until it jams. That way you've pushed to weapon to its limit and the jam-bar will recharge while it's jammed. You needed to wait until it recharged anyway to resume effective fire. It just feels silly that THAT is the most effective way to play them.

Reddit thread:
https://www.reddit.c...alk_about_racs/

Edited by Solahma, 29 June 2017 - 08:10 AM.

[Serious Table]

Agreed on all points. I think the suggestions provided here make the weapon much more enjoyable to use without over-increasing its effectiveness.

[FunkyT]

I agree, the spin-up shouldn't already work towards your jam bar. It's just counter intuitive.
I can absolutely see that the weapon will run hot quickly and jam eventually, which is simulated by the jam bar. But why would spinning up the barrels already increase the jam bar? Does this mean that the spinning engine alone incurs just as much heat as actually firing? That would be nonsense.

If the jam bar just wouldn't increase while spinning up, I feel the weapon would be much better to handle and would actually incentivise the player to not just pin down the firing button.
It would encourage you to sometimes let go of the firing button to avoid the bar filling up and maybe jamming your weapon. It would give the player some control over this otherwise random mechanic.

And I personally don't think that would lead to making the weapon abusable. Since you would still need to spend time spinning up the barrel after letting go of the trigger for just a moment, you couldn't "ride" the jam bar anyway, at least from how I see it.


Apart from that, RAC 2s and RAC 5s should probably get separate ghost heat counters. Pairing for example 2x RAC 2 with 1x RAC 5 now results in ghost heat already, which is kinda stupid.
With these changes to ghost heat, we could probably boat 2x RAC 2 and 2x RAC 5 on something like a King Crab. And I don't even think that would be overpowered, since the weapons rack up immense heat even without ghost heat penalty, and you would have to stuff the mech to the brim with ammo for both weapons and heat sinks, to keep yourself in the fight.
I think that would result in some serious dedication for the ultimate dakka, exchanging an optimized loadout for just pure fun.
Of course, that's just my opinion. I might not see something about it, that could actualy break game balance.

[Solahma]

I would advise fixing the core mechanic that is causing the weapon to perform poorly before messing with ghost heat, spread, or other weapon stats. If the jam-bar and spooling mechanic were changed, we'd need to re assess where it stands for balance.

[Esarai]

Agreed with Solahma on all points. The weapon, while entertaining for its sheer volume of fire, is very difficult to use effectively.

[Reyyvin]

I agree with some of the OPs points.

When the RAC is spooling up, it should not contribute to the jam bar - it is very frustrating to spool up, target disappears, then spool up again and your bar is full. Instead, I would suggest the following
a) have the spool time not contribute to the charge time. Have the charge bar size reduced by the equivalent of 1 spool duration
similar to OPs suggestion, to discourage people constantly spooling, have it that there is a minimum reload/reset time between spooling. For example, if you spool up, then stop, you need to wait 1-2 seconds before you can start spooling again.

If the RAC is changed to be less prone to jamming, please revisit the jamming issue with Clan UACs... now IS knows the pain.

[TKSax]

FunkyT, on 29 June 2017 - 08:29 AM, said:

I agree, the spin-up shouldn't already work towards your jam bar. It's just counter intuitive

Chris Lowery stated this was to keep a macro from being used to just keep the rac's spun up.

[BallSabre]

TKSax, on 29 June 2017 - 11:00 AM, said:

Chris Lowery stated this was to keep a macro from being used to just keep the rac's spun up.

But that's ********, you can't do that with a gauss either as far as I'm aware.

Green bar is spool, and if you lift trigger it disappears instantly.

Then comes the yellow bar and if the trigger is held or clicked while in this area the weapon will shoot.

So clearly the only way to "keep it spun up" is by using ammunition all the time.

[Solahma]

TKSax, on 29 June 2017 - 11:00 AM, said:

Chris Lowery stated this was to keep a macro from being used to just keep the rac's spun up.

Yes, I remember that and raised my eyebrow.
It's a very poor reason to affect the weapon's mechanics in such an intrusive way.

You can also avoid abuse by having a gauss-like charge initially that builds-up to fire, then diminishes completely when you let go. A mechanic like that can't really be macro'd or ridden.

Edited by Solahma, 29 June 2017 - 11:17 AM.

[Ced Riggs]

TKSax, on 29 June 2017 - 11:00 AM, said:

Chris Lowery stated this was to keep a macro from being used to just keep the rac's spun up.

But that's dumb. Even contemporary gatlings are pre-spun when expecting engagements.

[Esarai]

TKSax, on 29 June 2017 - 11:00 AM, said:

Chris Lowery stated this was to keep a macro from being used to just keep the rac's spun up.

Hmmm... that's a problem. I think it could be solved by forcing the gun to fully spin down if you release the trigger during the spin-up cycle.

So, modifying Solahma's suggestion, the firing process would look like this:

• Player presses and holds fire key, starting spin-up cycle.
  
• If the player releases during spin up (with 0 jam), they need to wait both for spin-down and a second spin-up.
  
• Once fully spun-up, the RAC begins firing and filling the jam bar.
  
• When the player releases the key, the RAC begins spooling down and the jam bar emptying.
  
• If the player presses fire again while the jam bar is > 0, the RAC spools up from its current spool value.

This does allow the weapon to be held spun-up without emptying the jam bar, but if the bar is fully emptied it will require a complete spin-up to begin firing, giving the player a choice between firing immediately but for a short duration or waiting for the full cycle for maximum damage potential.

Another alternative could be to penalize repeated firing taps while the jam bar is at 0 with a constant jam penalty, forcing players to commit to firing or wait.

[Solahma]

Thanks for the suggestions! I really hope PGI can tweak a few things and make RACs more viable to use. The general weapon is very cool and fun to play, but as highlighted in the OP, it really needs some changes to make it worth taking compared to other ballistic weapons.

[FunkyT]

I agree, the fear of macro abuse could likely be crossed out by making the spooling down into a set timeframe. If you could not circumvent the spool down time, a macro probably would make no sense at all to use and wouldn't need to be considererd when tweaking the weapon.

If they feel that removing the jam bar progress of the spool up duration would overtune the weapon, they could just shorten the length of the jam bar accordingly.
Since the spool up fills roughly 1/5 of the jam bar, removing this fill up would effectively increase the guaranteed damage you will get out of RACs by about 20%.
If that's too much, just shorten the bar by that much. That's been proposed in other threads on here and is really the most logical course.

[Solahma]

Been playing RACs this morning. The changes haven't changed my opinion. It has just made them better in that small window of opportunity you MAY or MAY NOT get during a match. They still need work.

I think most people's opinions have remained the same. So don't judge less talk about RACs as agreement with the changes and that they are in a good place. They are not.

[Captain Grayson Lighthorse]

I've tried both RACs and they are really pretty much useless in battle. Definitely NOT worth the tonnage and crits required to carry them. The Ultra AC/2 or Ultra AC/5 will vastly out perform the RACs. The RACs are an EXTREMELY disappointing weapon, at least so far in actual game play. Even the RAC5 is not much more than a long-range heavy machine gun. It's damage is only 1.5 even after 1st day PGI damage increase nerf. It should be 5 damage per shot for the RAC5 and 2 for the RAC2.

The way the RACs are supposed to work:
It starts firing immediately (slowly) and increased the rate of fire as it spins up. (Heat occurs here because it's firing).
It's supposed to do 5 damage per shot with 1 point of heat generated per shot.
Heat is its enemy. As it fires and builds heat the chances of a jam increase more and more.

The way "I" would like to see them work is:
They spin up immediately and fire a 6 round burst of shells doing 5 damage and 1 point of heat each fired round. The fire rate should be a little slower than it is now, say around 1.5 to 2 shots per second.
There is a 2 to 3 second delay after firing 6 rounds for the gun to reload.
It then fires 6 more rounds.

This cycle repeats as the heat scale builds to the jam point. (i.e. full bar). If you don't run it to full bar, NO JAM! If the RAC is run until jam it stays jammed for 5 to 6 seconds. This would allow the player to have control over the weapon instead of PGI. Increasing the number of RACs to 4 that can be carried and fired before incurring the stupid ghost heat would be a good thing.

This would let the player have an effective weapon and do a "pulsing" of firepower with the 6-shot bursts.

These changes would make the weapon worth carrying in your 'Mech. If they leave it as it is now, with the pathetic 1.5 damage per round, it's nothing more than a long range heavy machine gun and is pretty much useless in real battle situations.

Also, the "damage capability" that is reported in the 'Mech Lab is a joke. This reading is supposed to be the amount of damage that your 'Mech can inflict in ONE alpha strike. There is no way that these puny RACs can generate that much damage in one alpha strike; even if you have several of them.

RACs should not build up heat just spinning up the barrel. The heat is generated by FIRING the weapon, not spinning up the barrel.

These RACs as they are now require constant face time. All this does is get your 'Mech destroyed with the low damage output they do. And, since they deal damage like a machine gun, it is very easy for your opponent to torso twist slightly and spread the damage you're doing all over their 'Mech. Their pinpoint weapons, (even missiles) will tear you apart long before you reduce their 'Mechs armor enough to destroy them, or even tear off a component.

The RACs are suppose to be DEVASTATING WEAPONS!!! Not these pathetic things they are now.

Edited by Captain Grayson Lighthorse, 03 July 2017 - 11:50 AM.

[Appuagab]

I agree, it really feels like RACs were balanced without taking their mechanics into consideration at all.

EXTREME INCONSISTENCY is what makes them so fundamentally broken. There's enough coin flipping in MWO already (matchmaking).

I suggest to replace spin-up requirement with slowly increasing fire rate so they could be utilized just like regular autocannons if needed. This should deal with free jam buildup and lack of versatility issues while basically keeping the same balancing mechanics and same rate of initial DPS buildup.

[Tyroki]

Remove the damn ghost heat.
They generate enough heat individually that using more than a few comes with it's own downsides.

[Khobai]

heres how Id fix them:

RAC should fire twice as long before jam bar reaches the end

and it should automatically jam 100% of the time when the jam bar reaches the end

[Chuck B]

well I have tested the Rac's abit. I think the mechanics behind them are here to stay so here are my recommendations.


over all

1. Increase the jambar cool down if the bar is under 1/3 filled. This would help for those times your shots are spoiled before you start firing and release the trigger.

2. Increase the velocity to 1750 for the Rac2 and 1250 for the Rac5.


3. 2 options on damage improvement.

1. Keep the heat and jam fill up the same, but increase the damage to 1DPP for the Rac2 and 2.5 DPP for the Rac 5.

or

2 Reduce the heat and jam bar fill up, but only increase the dame to .75 DPP for the Rac2 and 1.5-1.75 DPP for the Rac5

DPP = Damage per pellet/projectile.

.

Edited by Chuck B, 03 July 2017 - 06:02 PM.