147 replies to this topic

[Koniving]

Monkey Lover, on 30 June 2017 - 06:20 PM, said:

Ghost heat is screwed up on racs right now. Any ghost heat makes it look like you have tons of weapons running.

Ghost heat isn't screwed on RACs, it's screwed on all weapons.

Prosperity Park, on 28 June 2017 - 02:36 PM, said:

The problem with staggered weapons restarting the 0.5 second window and incorrectly applying GH is a Global Bug, not a RAC bug.

Koniving, on 30 June 2017 - 06:06 PM, said:

The sad thing is some of us reported this bug back in the first week of it coming out. However it wasn't considered a problem as it had the side effect of also dealing with macros that 'churned fire too quickly' and 'gaming the ghost heat' by using a macro to time two PPCs 0.1 seconds after two PPCs. As such it was a 'feature'.

Now the feature is being intrusive on weapon systems so perhaps they will fix it. Or revamp ghost heat entirely (2.0 wasn't a terrible concept but it needed work).

Desynched ACs or firing more than 6 lasers too close together will also cause the issue.

The main thing was to prevent this.

Unfortunately, this is EXACTLY what RACs do when they fire and if they get out of sync, ghost heat. In fact it triggers regardless of being synced.
One RAC firing by itself is just fine, it never listens for ghost heat.
Two RACs firing and it goes "2 linked weapons are firing. If they fire again within 0.5 seconds, I must punish them." As it happens, every 0.5 seconds the RACs (regardless of type) fire 4 shots. So. You have fired, according to ghost heat's listener, "8 RACs" per half second.
8 becomes 16, 16 becomes 32, etc... because it never resets until you let go of the trigger.

If you fire 2 PPCs and then 2 PPCs 0.3 seconds later, and then 2 PPCs 0.4 seconds later, you've technically fired 6 PPCs at once according to ghost heat and are punished as such.

("Of it coming out" refers to when Ghost Heat was first introduced to MWO.)

Edited by Koniving, 30 June 2017 - 07:34 PM.

[x_Oryan_x]

Minimum Range reduced to 120 meters (from 180)

Glad to see this is being dropped but wonder if the minimum should be the same as PPC minimum range of 90 meters?

An idea on how to make it not have a min and make it feel different from the other missile launchers.

Have it have a the locking system for the mid to long range of it's range with the minimum of 120 but you can fire them with out locks. With out locks it has not minimum range but have a max range like SRM's for the 3 damage.

Make it's lock on time take longer than LRM's so they can be fire at close range and not lock on in the middle of a fight and do nothing. This also help keep LRM's more viably for mid and long range support since at mid range a ATM 12 would out damage a LRM 20.

Edited by x_Oryan_x, 30 June 2017 - 07:39 PM.

[Sereglach]

First off I'm disappointed, but unsurprised, that the Flamer Nodes and Flamers themselves are not being addressed, at all. You're now doing something with the nodes you told us was literally impossible to do without breaking the game, again, but at the same token you're making the values so small that they're literally useless. Therefore these nodes feel like an outright mockery to anyone that wants the Flamer to be a viable weapon system.

Can we please actually have the dialog that Russ was talking about for these weapons on changing their core functionality to fixed flat values and fixing Flamers, or is PGI just going to push these useless (yet potentially Flamergeddon 2.0 game-breaking if the values were made useful) nodes through while everyone's ogling the new shiny stuff?

---------------------------------------------------------------

That said, for these changes, here's my feedback that matches what many people were saying before these changes:

1. HMG damage doesn't need to be nerfed, only the crit multiplier. Set the damage back to 1.5 DPS and drop the Crit multiplier further to 4 from this new 6. HMGs should be highly effective against armor but bad for crits, LMGs should be highly effective crit machines but bad against armor, and standard MGs should be the middle ground. You're on the right track, but the DPS loss on the HMG was terribly unnecessary for a 1 ton weapon that also requires ammo (and gets 50% less ammo than the other MGs, I might add).

2. Fix the MRM bug so the stream actually follows the crosshair. Otherwise these weapons are useless in a game where everyone is constantly moving.

3. Fix the RAC copy/paste Flamer mechanics so they don't share cooldown/jam rates. At the same time Fix the Flamers to remove these "pseudo cooldown" mechanics and make them fixed flat values. I had said in a theoretical pitch for RACs that the terrible Flamer pseudo-cooldown mechanic could have a use as a starting point for RACs jam mechanics . . . that doesn't mean you copy/paste it and call it good. It still needs a lot of work and fixing.

4. Change the Rockets to be like the MW4 MekTek launchers instead of suicide bomber weapons. Make the rocket number the ammo count and have them fire 1 rocket for 1 heat and 5 damage with a 1 second cyclic rate. This removes the suicide bomber aspect but still makes them viable weapons. Who cares about ghost heat if a 6 Missile Hardpoint Javelin can erase any 100 ton mech in competitive play and then go cap or die?

5. Set the Light PPC limit to 4 without ghost heat, not 3. People might think that's the change you've made from the wording, but it's not. You upped the non-ghost heat limit to 3 from 2; and ghost heat is triggered with the 4th Light PPC. Let people fire 4 at a time without ghost heat, as it just makes more sense that way . . . it creates an actual tradeoff between 2xPPC or 4xLPPC.

6. Completely remove minimum range on ATMs. They're supposed to do extremely high damage at point-blank range; and then drop off into LRM range. They're not as pinpoint as SRMs for brawling, they're not as ammo-efficient as LRMs at long range, but they're supposed to be a well rounded missile system for any range. These fail at doing that with their minimum range. It just needs to go away entirely.

Edited by Sereglach, 30 June 2017 - 08:07 PM.

[Tier5 Kerensky]

RAC 2 certainly needed something. I think it should have much better range though and the ghost heat limit of 2 was restrictive to assults, to make it appealing alternative to RAC 5. But now that RAC 5 also received increases, I think there's still no use for assult to take RAC 2.

MRM seemed about okay on first try, but they certainly can benefit from velocity speed as they are really difficult to hit with.

Quote

It is advised that anyone wishing to test the new Missile weapon systems on PTS to take the Artemis Guidance Mech upgrade to test currently intended spread test values.

That's slighly badly written. It should say to take artemis upgrade OFF. But I guess most people still understand the point.

Quote

MRM 14

Velocity increased to 400 (from 350)

Component Health increased to 15 (from 7.5)

That's a typo of course, should be MRM 40.


I was okay with ATM minium 180m range but I hope the reduction then increased the optimal range window, because that 90 meters range bracket was too small.

Edited by Teer Kerensky, 30 June 2017 - 08:33 PM.

[Brain Cancer]

This is some decent refinement going on here.

The IS UAC/10 is really turning into a winner, and the ATM at least now has a reasonably larger window of maximum damage. Still can't hit much at longer ranges with that velocity, but...

[Marius Evander]

" It is advised that anyone wishing to test the new Missile weapon systems on PTS to take the Artemis Guidance Mech upgrade OFF THE MECH to test currently intended spread test values. "

I think you missed a few words there.

"

• MRM 14
  
  • Velocity increased to 400 (from 350)
    
  • Component Health increased to 15 (from 7.5) "

MRM 40

[deathlord]

The tracking strength on ATMs is so poor that they won't be able to hit anything moving at sub-120 meters anyway. Might as well remove the min range.

Bug or feature? - magazine capacity skill does not affect light gauss ammo.

[Wattila]

Good changes overall, really like where this PTS is going.

- Light Gauss feels really satisfying to use, but the DPS (~2.13) is still too low to be competitive. Also might want to look at explosion damage, two in a ST will blow up your entire mech when they go. Also, ammo nodes don't work on light gauss ammo.
- I think it's safe to say the Heavy Gauss isn't going to be particularly OP. It's totally eclipsed by the UAC20 below 300m, so it should be safe to increase the optimal to something like 320m.
- As much as I like them, UAC20s need ghost heat. They destroy everything within 350m atm.
- The bigger MRM launchers are a bit underwhelming compared to 10s and 20s due to worse spread characteristics. Velocity buff is nice, but it's mainly the spread, and the stream fire, that limit ranged effectiveness.
- RACs will be garbage regardless of how much the DPS is buffed. They're just too unwieldy to use, and ghost heat limits their use to lighter mechs. There is also no reward for managing the jam bar - it's always better to keep firing until the weapon jams.

The RACs seem to be designed for fights that don't happen in MWO.

- They cannot punish pokes, so they're useless for area denial.
- They require constant face time to deliver their full DPS which just doesn't happen very often. And if you stop firing for any reason, the barrels have to spin-up again which costs you 1/5 of the jam bar.
- Pushes are about the dream scenario for RACs. Yet, even if you get to unload on some heavy for 5 seconds uninterrupted, it's still only about 100+ damage spread over the torsos after which your RACs will jam and you die.
- The sustained DPS per ton of any combination of RACs is terrible. You get about 5 seconds of sustained fire with RAC5s until the jam bar is full. At that point you either wait 10 seconds for the jam bar to reset or fire until jam and wait 10 seconds for the jam to clear.

TLDR; There is no reason to pick RACs over UACs ever. The jam bar is too small/fills too quickly, and spinning up the weapon is too costly if you have to stop firing for whatever reason. It would make more sense to force the spin-up delay only when the bar is empty, and keep the barrels spinning until the bar is empty again. I realize the idea is to combat macroing, but what's the point if it makes the weapon useless to the 99% who don't use mouse macros.

Edited by Wattila, 30 June 2017 - 10:47 PM.

[Aramuside]

Koniving, on 30 June 2017 - 07:23 PM, said:

Ghost heat isn't screwed on RACs, it's screwed on all weapons.





Desynched ACs or firing more than 6 lasers too close together will also cause the issue.

The main thing was to prevent this.

Unfortunately, this is EXACTLY what RACs do when they fire and if they get out of sync, ghost heat. In fact it triggers regardless of being synced.
One RAC firing by itself is just fine, it never listens for ghost heat.
Two RACs firing and it goes "2 linked weapons are firing. If they fire again within 0.5 seconds, I must punish them." As it happens, every 0.5 seconds the RACs (regardless of type) fire 4 shots. So. You have fired, according to ghost heat's listener, "8 RACs" per half second.
8 becomes 16, 16 becomes 32, etc... because it never resets until you let go of the trigger.

If you fire 2 PPCs and then 2 PPCs 0.3 seconds later, and then 2 PPCs 0.4 seconds later, you've technically fired 6 PPCs at once according to ghost heat and are punished as such.

("Of it coming out" refers to when Ghost Heat was first introduced to MWO.)

It certainly is on Laser AMS as even with the changes using three basically means you're unable to do anything else at all. RIP my support cover.

Cadoazreal, on 30 June 2017 - 08:25 PM, said:

" It is advised that anyone wishing to test the new Missile weapon systems on PTS to take the Artemis Guidance Mech upgrade OFF THE MECH to test currently intended spread test values. "

I think you missed a few words there.

Well thats what is confusing me ... if the MRM's are getting the benefit of taking Artemis without having it currently... that's going to be an awful spread without.

[xeraphin]

grml666, on 30 June 2017 - 10:31 PM, said:

ATMs should NOT primarily focus on center torso. See/compare with LRMs and Streak Missiles. However I would like to see the closed beta LRM flight animations. Why don't using it for MRMs or ATM?

AMS completely guts the weapon system, ATMs in their current state still need more help

[Aramuside]

xeraphin, on 30 June 2017 - 11:48 PM, said:

AMS completely guts the weapon system, ATMs in their current state still need more help

Curious why?

Presuming you're not referring to against triple AMS systems where really you should struggle.

[MustrumRidcully]

The DPS increase for the Light Gauss Rifle is a good start, but I strongly suspect that it will also need a bit of a buff to its base damage. The DPS itself is not critical at long range, what you need is single shot damage since you usually don't get to fire on cooldown.

[xeraphin]

Aramuside, on 01 July 2017 - 12:23 AM, said:

Curious why?

Presuming you're not referring to against triple AMS systems where really you should struggle.

No, it was just against 1 LAMS at around 250m, more than half of my 24 ATM tubes were shot down by a single LAMS. Even LRMs would have done better as they are less affected by AMS

[Appuagab]

Tweaking stats won't help ATMs. They are complete garbage because they are just LRMs with slightly altered stats. This game DOES NOT NEED MORE LRMS. This game needs LESS LRMS. Fix ATMs' mechanics or clans are going to get completely cucked in upcoming update.

[Ery]

Are the RACs working with cooldown reduction?

[Widowmaker1981]

Toaster Repair Pony, on 30 June 2017 - 05:40 PM, said:

So is firing a RAC 2 and a RAC 5 supposed to produce insane amounts of heat? Same if two of the same RAC is fired in an offset, like 2 separate weapon groups. Yet If I fire 2 RAC 2's or 2 RAC 5's in the same group, it produces significantly less heat.

Does that seem right to you?

its because they fire at an insane rate any slight out of sync (which is bound to happen with a 2 and a 5) causes ghost heat to think you are firing more guns than you are, i think.

The solution is to remove ghost heat from RACs. they sync terribly with any gun, so ghost heat like this means that assaults cant use them effectively at all, even if it wasnt bugged.

[AngrySpartan]

1. For once I like approach of gradual changes and not up and down overreacting, well done.

2. ATM minimum range: 120-90-60 minimum doesn't make any difference. It's still a deeply flawed weapon (compared to SRMs and even Streaks) at close range even with minimum range removed completely. Besides, ATMs with minimum range cannot be called ATMs - call them glorified LRMs or whatever, but that's just against the nature of weapon system!
Can we actually test it without minimal range at all? There are dozens of solutions how to balance them without minimum range. With it still in place, however it's just repackaged LRMs and there is no point to test another LRM weapon.

3. ATM missile hitpoints: maybe it's too early, but it's way too vulnerable to AMS. At 200m 16-20 missliles from 24 get shot down by single AMS (could be AMS nodes active, who knows).

4. Thank you! thank you for dropping minimum range of HPPC!!! This is just awesome!!!
Can you do the linear 90 (180) - 0 damage reduction for all PPCs and IS LRMs??? And remove clan LRMs minimum at all? Please...
And can you make them true linerar? 34 shots at 45m to strip atlas arm is not equal to 7 shots at 90m times two.

5. Heavy lasers are still useless. Their duration and cooldown should be adequate to the intended range brackets!!! And now both are way beyond adequate. If someone is reading this, here's the link to proper reasoning for that

Edited by AngrySpartan, 01 July 2017 - 02:43 AM.

[jjm1]

Just start over on RACs. Start over.

[scp]

how bout testing to see if we can lower the cooldown and/or duration for the heavy lasers
since as they are now, even tho they are powerful, they can't do much

i was thinking of these values:

cooldown:

• heavy small = er medium laser
  
• heavy medium = 4
  
• heavy large = 4.5/5

duration:

• heavy small = as is

• heavy medium = er large laser/1.4 (i mean the er large can already deal more dmg with added range bonus and weight/critical size is already somewhat evened out with the heat output)

• heavy large = as is or if you went with the 4.5 value increase the duration to 1.6

[ADI84000]

atms should have no minimum range and act as a srm under 200 meter make it so we can fire it without any guidance a dug straight line fire and make it have max dmg then they are a usefull combo between srm lrm and streak if not they are just streak lrm and not atm also velocity needs to increase
if ... under 300 meter ... can fire with or without lock ... then do 3 damage
if .... over 300 meters fire only with lock then do... x damage
come on its not that hard....