61 replies to this topic

[Y E O N N E]

AngrySpartan, on 02 July 2017 - 08:33 AM, said:

Considering cooldowns and limited hardpoints:
yes, that's where Heavy's strenth is. But why would you ever put 3 HML/2HLL on a Shadow Cat if 3ERML/2LPL would be better in every way! More accurate, more DPS, more range, better heat efficiency. Eve in my suggested stat's they still have higher cooldown and lower DPS than pulse version, but same or slightly better than ER's. Noone can predict how they wil perform if they'll ever receive buff I want to see, that's why we have a PTS.

That's a nice academic comparison, but not a terribly useful one because the SHC can't do 3 ERML + 2 LPL. It can only bring 3 energy weapons, period. PGI has flat-out stated that they will not buff hardpoints on Omnis. It has been asked repeatedly. So in that light, I don't really have a choice. On the other hand, with 39-42 poke and lowered duration, it's already comparable to a BJ-1X but with the extra value-adds of jump jets and ECM. It doesn't need any more help at that point.

But like I said, I'm not inherently against a cool-down buff (my own tables have far and away more powerful takes on the Heavy lasers), but with shortened duration you may run into problems with Assault and Heavy boats that have "enough" heatsinks to quickly nuke a target with them if you don't also adjust the heat.

[AngrySpartan]

Yeonne Greene, on 02 July 2017 - 08:40 AM, said:

That's a nice academic comparison, but not a terribly useful one because the SHC can't do 3 ERML + 2 LPL. It can only bring 3 energy weapons, period. PGI has flat-out stated that they will not buff hardpoints on Omnis. It has been asked repeatedly. So in that light, I don't really have a choice. On the other hand, with 39-42 poke and lowered duration, it's already comparable to a BJ-1X but with the extra value-adds of jump jets and ECM. It doesn't need any more help at that point.

But like I said, I'm not inherently against a cool-down buff (my own tables have far and away more powerful takes on the Heavy lasers), but with shortened duration you may run into problems with Assault and Heavy boats that have "enough" heatsinks to quickly nuke a target with them if you don't also adjust the heat.

Well, slash - / - symbol meant to represent "or", not "and" I am perfectly aware what Shadow Cat is capable of

As the 3rd and 4th duels show, at the moment HLs aren't competitive on heavy and assault laser boats. Give'em a buff, and they still will be situational simply because of different range & heat. MPLs are waay better in DPS and heat efficiency, ER's have much better range and sync better with other mid to long range weapons like LPL or Gauss at their range brackets. That way there will be a choice, a choice "if I am willing to sacrifice range and heat efficiency for slightly bigger alpha?".

As it stands now, the choice is obvious - stick to conventional laser weapon and don't bother using Heavy lasers.

Edited by AngrySpartan, 02 July 2017 - 09:03 AM.

[Y E O N N E]

AngrySpartan, on 02 July 2017 - 09:03 AM, said:

Well, slash - / - symbol meant to represent "or", not "and" I am perfectly aware what Shadow Cat is capable of

As the 3rd and 4th duels show, at the moment HLs aren't competitive on heavy and assault laser boats. Give'em a buff, and they still will be situational simply because of different range & heat. MPLs are waay better in DPS and heat efficiency, ER's have much better range and sync better with other mid to long range weapons like LPL or Gauss at their range brackets. That way there will be a choice, a choice "if I am willing to sacrifice range and heat efficiency for slightly bigger alpha?".

As it stands now, the choice is obvious - stick to conventional laser weapon and don't bother using Heavy lasers.

Well, even that's not quite accurate. Your testing environment is a dueling environment, an even worse environment than 4v4 for seeing how useful a piece of equipment is because it's all about who gets the most damage in first and who doesn't screw up initiative management.

In a more normal match, or even 4v4, you have flanking shots and you have 'Mechs of non-like tonnage. While you may be happy to be blasting away at a target in your MAD IIC and spreading the damage from people ahead, I'm somewhere behind you or otherwise outside of your field of view in a Shadowcat reaming your side torso with a 40 point alpha that you did not see coming and that you have close to no chance of spreading. Or I'm shooting your leg from any direction and you aren't spreading that, either.

In that case, bringing 3x ERML or 2x LPL is flatly inferior to a pair of cHLL and an ERML because they deal only 75% of the damage and, in the case of the former, I have all of this extra tonnage that is being wasted. The closest approximation we have is three cERML with a cUAC/10, and that's actually a fine build especially against slower targets, but you pray to RNGesus every time you fire that the game will let you spit 41 and not 31. It takes about as long to do that as it does to fire a pair of cHLL in its current state, so on the net I'm trading ammo dependency and a couple points of damage for complete reliability for what is otherwise an equivalent payload.

[AngrySpartan]

Yeonne Greene, on 02 July 2017 - 09:16 AM, said:

Well, even that's not quite accurate. Your testing environment is a dueling environment, an even worse environment than 4v4 for seeing how useful a piece of equipment is because it's all about who gets the most damage in first and who doesn't screw up initiative management.

Exactly what I stated in opening comment before the footage. 1v1 is not equal to 4v4 or 12v12. There always be luck, skill and random factors in every game. That's why there are 2 Nova duels with mechs being swapped. It's a face-to-face weapon test in that particular situation, nothing more.

Your example is another particular situation, where pure alpha damage is more important. And in that particular situation HLs have advantage simply because higher damage. In fact in that particular situations RLs have advantage, but we do not compare them with HLs, cause in every other particular situation they have no use.

HLs aren't that different from conventional laser's (not like RLs different to lasers), "only backstabber's" or "only DPS" weapon is not possible, they will be used in different situations anyway. And though any weapon system should have it's strenghts and weaknesses, it should be comparable with others outside of these strenghts and weknesses. Ideally there should be no completely inferior weapons, like HSLs are completely inferior to microPLs.

Anyway, there is enough "sofa analytics" here, hopefully someone at PGi will listen to the feedback from the forum and will make conclusions.

Edited by AngrySpartan, 02 July 2017 - 09:50 AM.

[NiuqOteen]

The heat and duration feel high but are needed.
The range loss combined with the duration is why i will skip them.

If they had range somewhere between ER and standard they would become far more appealing to me.
Cool down and Duration Range seem fine comparing them to IS standard lasers, but feels punishing comparing them to Clan ER lasers.

Make the duration too low and they will become Alpha weapons, make the cool down to long and no one will touch them.

I do not have a solution, but they feel punishing to use.

[Y E O N N E]

AngrySpartan, on 02 July 2017 - 09:47 AM, said:

Exactly what I stated in opening comment before the footage. 1v1 is not equal to 4v4 or 12v12. There always be luck, skill and random factors in every game. That's why there are 2 Nova duels with mechs being swapped. It's a face-to-face weapon test in that particular situation, nothing more.

I only brought it up again because it seemed like you had forgotten it when you claimed "it's been tested," because it really hasn't. We know they are mediocre in 1v1. Okay, nice, but most weapons are mediocre in 1v1. Even the cMPL MAD-IIC would probably get demolished by a comparably weighty SRM boat, especially on a map with lots of cover and concealment for approach, but what does such a comparison really accomplish?

Quote

Your example is another particular situation, where pure alpha damage is more important. And in that particular situation HLs have advantage simply because higher damage. In fact in that particular situations RLs have advantage, but we do not compare them with HLs, cause in every other particular situation they have no use.

Why is high alpha being more important the "particular situation?" I can flip that on its head and say higher DPS is the "particular situation", because with laser boats you aren't typically bum-rushing into the enemy like your tests. More often than not, alpha damage is why you take lasers at all; it's really the DPS cases that are the special ones.

When you have lots of guns, the Heavies are redundant. When you don't, they aren't. It is exactly that clear-cut. They could be better in that niche, but there really isn't much nuance to it.

Quote

HLs aren't that different from conventional laser's (not like RLs different to lasers), "only backstabber's" or "only DPS" weapon is not possible, they will be used in different situations anyway. And though any weapon system should have it's strenghts and weaknesses, it should be comparable with others outside of these strenghts and weknesses. Ideally there should be no completely inferior weapons, like HSLs are completely inferior to microPLs.

Anyway, there is enough "sofa analytics" here, hopefully someone at PGi will listen to the feedback from the forum and will make conclusions.

Agreed on the concept, I just think you are expecting a weapon whose traits make it a poor choice on an Assault because it leaves you under-weight, by design, and drawing the wrong conclusion. The HSL is awful, through and through, but the other two have use and they aren't far off from where they ought to be.

[phoboskomboa]

Preface saying I'm an IS player, but I do own a lot of clan mechs and I find them fun.

My biggest problem with the heavy lasers is they are just the same thing the clans already had too much of with no variety other than different numbers.

Heavy lasers need a different mechanic. Many have been suggested. My personal favorite is a continuous burn, making them a clan version of the RAC. The clans didn't get a whole lot of fun new toys to play with, and a new type of weapon (that's not just lurms with different ranges and damage values) would give their players more to experiment with.

Other options would be:

Giving them damage cones and increased crit chances, making them laser LBX.

Giving them a charge duration like a gauss followed by a very fast (but not instant) burn time.

Giving them a partial continuous burn, where they function as is (with adjusted stats as necessary) but you can just let go of the trigger to stop firing, allowing them to cool down faster and not generate their full heat when you can't use their full burn.

Overall, I just think the same old weapons are quite stale, and the game could use some new mechanics, especially on the clan side, where they got very little on this patch.

[MechTech Dragoon]

I love heavy lasers, and have since forever. I was expecting a different approach with them though.

A. they should cause electrical interference for 0.2-0.5 seconds upon activation before actual laser firing (similar to how ppcs should interfere with electronics if hit with 3+reg ppcs, 4+light ppcs, or 2+heavy ppcs (less probably with capacitors).

B. In all of the art for any mech that has a heavy laser equipped, its a massive weapon, bigger than ppcs. Approximately the size of an LBX-20. for heavy large, size of a ppc for heavy medium, and about the size of a medium laser for a heavy small. Which leads me to think that beam width should be much larger than regular clan er lasers, resulting in its damage to be spread out over multiple locations on most mechs. Similar to an LBX autocannon, in that the range is decent, but there is a large amount of spread, making them ineffective for trying to take down a target at range.

and, with the above changes, C. Beam time for heavy lasers should be shorter than regular clan er lasers (closer to IS values), solidifying their value as more of a close range weapon. Cooldown times should remain long, given their obvious power.


Heavy lasers were made by the clans, to take down large targets. Its a short range heavy/assault killer. So that's what i want out of them, a big, heavy, high heat laser cannon. Not a regular laser with a longer burn time.


These changes would result in heavy lasers being inaccurate, (which they are supposed to be) with short range and wide spread, making them very ineffective versus lights, mediums, and some heavys because of missing shots all together because of interference/ short beam time, and long cooldown. However solidifying their usefulness against larger targets, where their components are large enough to take the full damage on a specific spot from the large beam.

[AngrySpartan]

phoboskomboa, on 02 July 2017 - 10:35 AM, said:

Heavy lasers need a different mechanic. Many have been suggested. My personal favorite is a continuous burn, making them a clan version of the RAC. The clans didn't get a whole lot of fun new toys to play with, and a new type of weapon (that's not just lurms with different ranges and damage values) would give their players more to experiment with.

Don't make unrealistic expectetion's and you won't be dissapointed by the results. Lasers are lasers.

XkrX Dragoon, on 02 July 2017 - 10:49 AM, said:

A. they should cause electrical interference for 0.2-0.5 seconds upon activation before actual laser firing (similar to how ppcs should interfere with electronics if hit with 3+reg ppcs, 4+light ppcs, or 2+heavy ppcs (less probably with capacitors).

B. In all of the art for any mech that has a heavy laser equipped, its a massive weapon, bigger than ppcs. Approximately the size of an LBX-20. for heavy large, size of a ppc for heavy medium, and about the size of a medium laser for a heavy small. Which leads me to think that beam width should be much larger than regular clan er lasers, resulting in its damage to be spread out over multiple locations on most mechs. Similar to an LBX autocannon, in that the range is decent, but there is a large amount of spread, making them ineffective for trying to take down a target at range.

Books are books, Tabletop rules are rules. Don't expect fictional description to match rules of a board game, books usually written by people who never played it (like M.Stackpole's iconic trilogy).

Heavy lasers in tabletop aren't that good either (because of how tabletop handles different range targeting first of all) - there are always better alternatives, but that's another story.

Anyway, I also like the idea of Heavy laser's to inflict ECM like effect on you when fired, gives them some lore feeling. However, this poll shows that 2/3 of players who responded wouldn't bother to use HLs upon release. HLs need some love.

[Damnedtroll]

Maybe make the enemy mech smoky diminishing is capacity to shoot enemy and be easier to find when it with Hlaser

Found Heavy large laser quite good but the other ones have not enough range and to much heat for the damage to compete with the Ermed and Ersmall.

Edited by Damnedtroll, 03 July 2017 - 09:56 AM.

[Twinkleblade]

XkrX Dragoon, on 02 July 2017 - 10:49 AM, said:

I love heavy lasers, and have since forever. I was expecting a different approach with them though.

A. they should cause electrical interference for 0.2-0.5 seconds upon activation before actual laser firing (similar to how ppcs should interfere with electronics if hit with 3+reg ppcs, 4+light ppcs, or 2+heavy ppcs (less probably with capacitors).

B. In all of the art for any mech that has a heavy laser equipped, its a massive weapon, bigger than ppcs. Approximately the size of an LBX-20. for heavy large, size of a ppc for heavy medium, and about the size of a medium laser for a heavy small. Which leads me to think that beam width should be much larger than regular clan er lasers, resulting in its damage to be spread out over multiple locations on most mechs. Similar to an LBX autocannon, in that the range is decent, but there is a large amount of spread, making them ineffective for trying to take down a target at range.

and, with the above changes, C. Beam time for heavy lasers should be shorter than regular clan er lasers (closer to IS values), solidifying their value as more of a close range weapon. Cooldown times should remain long, given their obvious power.


Heavy lasers were made by the clans, to take down large targets. Its a short range heavy/assault killer. So that's what i want out of them, a big, heavy, high heat laser cannon. Not a regular laser with a longer burn time.


These changes would result in heavy lasers being inaccurate, (which they are supposed to be) with short range and wide spread, making them very ineffective versus lights, mediums, and some heavys because of missing shots all together because of interference/ short beam time, and long cooldown. However solidifying their usefulness against larger targets, where their components are large enough to take the full damage on a specific spot from the large beam.

For some reason I now imagine heavy laser as little deathstars mounted on my mech. They could make it so that a heavy laser beam is actually 3smaller beams focused together.This would automatically spread the damage more depending on beam thickness if you might say so.

[AngrySpartan]

Twinkleblade, on 03 July 2017 - 09:54 AM, said:

For some reason I now imagine heavy laser as little deathstars mounted on my mech. They could make it so that a heavy laser beam is actually 3smaller beams focused together.This would automatically spread the damage more depending on beam thickness if you might say so.

Lore sidenote: Heavy lasers are constructed from 2 cores of regular lasers, combined together, hence the damage and heat output of almost 2x normal lasers and their accuracy penalty in TT.

All that lore staff is irrelevant till HLs will receive some buff. That's a test server after all!

PS. PGI is not known for making last minute changes, infotech, energy draw and skill tree PTS showed that clearly. I highly doubt we'll see any changes after next PTS iteration.

[Damnedtroll]

AngrySpartan, on 03 July 2017 - 12:40 PM, said:

Lore sidenote: Heavy lasers are constructed from 2 cores of regular lasers, combined together, hence the damage and heat output of almost 2x normal lasers and their accuracy penalty in TT.

Clan Heavy laser and IS binary laser share a lot of characteristic in TT, one of them is they are not really good weapon...

IS binary is 2 laser fused together, range 5/10/15 12 damage 16 heat and 9t
Clan Heavy large laser 5/10/15 16 damage 18 heat and 4t

We will see what they will do with the feedback, heavy large are quite potent assault mech armor drill .

Edited by Damnedtroll, 03 July 2017 - 04:24 PM.

[50 50]

Personally I like the continuous beam idea as this is very simple to implement but maintains all of the characteristics of the weapon being:
High damage - if you can keep them on target the damage adds up
High heat - having a continual heat build up makes the weapon tricky to manage
Low accuracy - keeping your crosshairs on a target let alone a particular section of armour is difficult and the continual beam will mean that damage will more than likely be spread around the place due to movement and twisting.

In the end the various numbers can be tweaked and other factors such as something like the RAC jam chance added should the weapon need balance. But having a different way to use them would be much more interesting and it's not such a difficult thing to do.

[AngrySpartan]

50 50, on 03 July 2017 - 07:32 PM, said:

Personally I like the continuous beam idea as this is very simple to implement but maintains all of the characteristics of the weapon being:
High damage - if you can keep them on target the damage adds up
High heat - having a continual heat build up makes the weapon tricky to manage
Low accuracy - keeping your crosshairs on a target let alone a particular section of armour is difficult and the continual beam will mean that damage will more than likely be spread around the place due to movement and twisting.

In the end the various numbers can be tweaked and other factors such as something like the RAC jam chance added should the weapon need balance. But having a different way to use them would be much more interesting and it's not such a difficult thing to do.

If 1,6 seconds duration is not contineous enough to you, I don't know what is. RACs aren't supposed to work like they are in MWO, they are just ACs with very high firing rate. IMO it's a failed experiment and they will be highly situational. MWO is not a game where staring at the enemy will be effective anytime soon, that's exactly the reason why long burn duration is such a bad thing for HLs

HLs already pay for increased damage with range and heat. And cooldown higher than regular laser's is a necessary evil, otherwise HLs DPS will be just insane (though currently cooldowns are still way higher than I think they should be!). All that makes HLs a "poke" weapon by definition. You go in, fire, go out. Less time you stay in sight, more efficient weapon will be. Of course HLs does not need to be pinpoint, or even accurate,because of their high damage (that would be unhealthy for the gameplay), but they need to be comparable to other clan energy weapons, ER models in particular.

[Crazy Falcon]

I agree with the author. It is necessary to remake with RAC.

[Damnedtroll]

RAC more a suppressing weapon than a damage weapon... i kind of use them to blind enemy when i need to cool down and hide in some bush...

They harass a lot but need a little tweak in damage to be useful, damage of uac5 for uac2 and higher damage for uac5.


Small heavy and medium heavy kind of useless... ermed and ersmall much better.

Edited by Damnedtroll, 05 July 2017 - 05:27 AM.

[50 50]

Here's something for you.
When you measure the damage and heat per second for the weapon, the lasers almost come out identical.
To get the value you have to consider that the 'total' duration is from when you start firing the weapon to when you can fire it again.
eg:
Damage/second = Damage/(Duration + Cooldown)
You do the same for heat.

The Pulse lasers work out the best but being heavier and taking up the extra space there is a trade off.
But to compare the ER Large Laser vs the Heavy Large laser from the initial PTS iteration it worked out as:

ER Large
DPS = 2.16
HPS = 1.96

Heavy Large
DPS = 2.08
HPS = 2.21

However, in this last iteration we saw some reductions to the durations. (Medium and Smalls also had an increase in cooldown time).
It is now:
DPS = 2.12
HPS = 2.25

We are not really changing anything with the small tweaks of the numbers.
The ER Large laser does everything better so while the heavy laser has some big numbers to throw at us, it's all just an illusion.

Hence the suggestion to actually make the weapon function a little differently so it's not trying to squeeze into such a tiny bracket of difference.
Granted, facing your target for too long is not a great thing for your own survival.
But if we really wanted the heavy lasers to fit into their own role we should have a go at making them function differently.
Which is the idea behind the continual beam.
It also means just changing the numbers to make it work, it's not like we need to invent an actual new mechanic for it.

Consider this concept:
Heavy Large Laser
Duration: 1 second
Damage: 2.12
Heat: 2.25
Cooldown: 0 seconds
By removing the cooldown value, the duration becomes a minimum length that the weapon will fire for, and you don't get much out of it for a single tap. But removing the cooldown means that if we hold the trigger the weapon will fire continuously.
It will take 8 seconds to do the 16 damage so perhaps those numbers aren't great and the weapon might feel very weak as a result but it's actually doing the same amount of damage in the same amount of time.

Where the real difference comes in is with the existing function of condensing that damage into it's duration, and then having the extended downtime where you get to twist and wander about. That suggests that for the inherent risk of having to keep your target in the crosshairs it's not a great trade off.
What if the values were more like 4 dps and 4 hps for that 1 second?
Or, perhaps it might work better if the heavy lasers didn't have ghost heat. What would it be like firing multiple heavy large lasers at the same time?
Those are more of a question on balance.

The idea though is to give the weapons a different way of functioning so they feel different to use and fill a different role while maintaining the intent.

At the moment, if we tweak the numbers one way, they will be too similar to ERs, tweak them the otherway and they are too similar to Pulse.

While it's on the test server, it would be interesting to at least give it a go.

[AngrySpartan]

Damnedtroll, on 05 July 2017 - 05:26 AM, said:

RAC more a suppressing weapon than a damage weapon... i kind of use them to blind enemy when i need to cool down and hide in some bush...

Why do you need to walk to the 100th floor by foot if there is an elevator? Why do you need to suppress the enemy if you could kill them right away?

@50 50
Yep, I think I messed up HPS for HLs a bit, it doesn't take into account duration indeed, so they will be a bit better than stated in my numbers.
Anyway, HLs would never be similar to ERs, because they have -40% of range, the will never be too similar to pulses, because pulses have very short duration and weight a lot more. Consider HLs as an option, trade something to receive something. There is no need to reinvent the wheel for them, what is needed is some tweaks to their stats, duration & cooldown first of all.

If you really want contineous beam, there is a Bombast (someday in the game maybe) laser in lore, there are RACs in game already. That's not how HLs supposed to work and I really don't like the idea to stare at the opponents to do damage.

Edited by AngrySpartan, 05 July 2017 - 06:34 AM.

[Tim East]

Wasn't the entire point of heavy lasers that they were supposed to be high heat high damage up close and personal weapons? The duration being so long makes them pretty nearly worthless in the brawl, which is where they're supposed to be your big punch.

I would like to input for consideration:
1. Make the duration much much much shorter. Maybe a few more much's.
2. Reduce the damage past optimal range in a fashion similar to pulse lasers, if not even more sharply.

This would result in a weapon limited to mid-range at best, but give the clans something that if not directly comparable to the awesomeness that is the IS LPL, is at least useable against high-speed low-drag brawlers like Vipers and Locusts.