34 replies to this topic

[SPNKRGrenth]

I consider small changes like that to be more of tweaks to an under tuned weapon, then fixing an outright broken or useless one. But I guess that irrelevant, considering they do need tweaking regardless. Give Clan LBs the same crit slot count as their UACs, tweak LB accuracy and critting ability, give them a universal heat efficiency advantage. Heck maybe even a small buff to cooldown or damage. Give heavy gauss a optimal range of 240 or so, have 6 shots per ton instead of 5 and whatever other refinements may been needed for them to be a relevant option.

I agree on bringing things in line so they serve their intended purpose and roll. I just don't see how making sure mechs can put them in arms or with light fusion engines hurts that. Unless IS LBs get a super buff of some kind, with Clan getting a matching buff of course, they won't be worth the extra limiting space they take.

Edited by SPNKRGrenth, 07 July 2017 - 08:19 PM.

[Metus regem]

Khobai, on 07 July 2017 - 07:29 PM, said:

Sure they do. The clan LB20X is 9 slots and its friggin horrible. 11 slots isnt the biggest problem with the LBX20.

And making the heavy gauss 10 slots doesnt fix its abysmal cooldown, range, or chargeup issues.

You are right, reducing the crits doesn't fix the the problems of the weapons, it just makes them less bad. Truly fixing these weapons requires more than I think PGI can reasonably do at this point given the limitations in their frankincode.

[xXJ35T3RXx]

I say leave stuff the way it is in the Lore. Heavy Gauss can't be mounted in arms since the recoil from a shot would tear the 'mechs arm off. And due to it's large size it can only fit in the side torso section of IS 'mechs with standard engines. If you deviate from the lore further and further, the game is less and less battletech and more just stompy generic robotic fighting machines.

[Widowmaker1981]

xXJ35T3RXx, on 12 July 2017 - 11:23 PM, said:

I say leave stuff the way it is in the Lore. Heavy Gauss can't be mounted in arms since the recoil from a shot would tear the 'mechs arm off. And due to it's large size it can only fit in the side torso section of IS 'mechs with standard engines. If you deviate from the lore further and further, the game is less and less battletech and more just stompy generic robotic fighting machines.

AC2: 1 slot, 6 tons
LBX2: 4 slots, 6 tons

AC5: 4 slot, 8 tons
LBX5: 5 slot, 8 tons

AC10: 7 slots, 12 tons
LBX10: 6 slots, 11 tons

AC20: 10 slots, 14 tons
LBX20: 11 slots, 14 tons

Lore, in this case, is stupid and designed by an idiot. Why is the LBX10 smaller and lighter and all the others bulkier and the same weight? The balance from an AC5 to an LBX5 should be the same as for the 10, so why the difference in weights?

[Aggravated Assault Mech]

Khobai, on 07 July 2017 - 07:29 PM, said:

Sure they do. The clan LB20X is 9 slots and its friggin horrible. 11 slots isnt the biggest problem with the LBX20.

And making the heavy gauss 10 slots doesnt fix its abysmal cooldown, range, or chargeup issues.

Uhh.. I would beg to differ.

Clan LB20X is good on the basis that it has a ghost heat cap of two. Even if LB20X is worse than an AC20 on a per-gun basis, it has stronger synergies- both ghost heat of two and a similar range profile and tempo to SRMs. You can just reference the number of Scorches running SRMs+dual LBX to see it's not some totally awful unusable weapon.

In any case, even if we assume LB20X would be worse than AC20 or UAC20 if they all had the same fitting, that's minutiae compared to the fact that an LB20X is effectively a 19t autocannon by virtue of being 11 slots. Unless fixing the "biggest problem" involves increasing the damage output by 40-50% to give it a similar DPS/t to an AC20 with an LFE, the 11 slot fitting on the LB20X makes it non-viable at a fundamental level. You'd literally have to buff it to the point where it's no longer a -20 class Autocannon anymore to overcome the 11 slot fitting.

There is not a single mech in the game that can use an LB20X that would not be better off with an AC20 or UAC20, because fitting an LB20X automatically sacrifices ~5t worth of ammo/speed/backup weapons.

Edited by Aggravated Assault Mech, 13 July 2017 - 06:29 AM.

[Widowmaker1981]

Aggravated Assault Mech, on 13 July 2017 - 06:23 AM, said:

Uhh.. I would beg to differ.

Clan LB20X is good on the basis that it has a ghost heat cap of two. Even if LB20X is worse than an AC20 on a per-gun basis, it has stronger synergies- both ghost heat of two and a similar range profile and tempo to SRMs. You can just reference the number of Scorches running SRMs+dual LBX to see it's not some totally awful unusable weapon.

In any case, even if we assume LB20X would be worse than AC20 or UAC20 if they all had the same fitting, that's minutiae compared to the fact that an LB20X is effectively a 19t autocannon by virtue of being 11 slots. Unless fixing the "biggest problem" involves increasing the damage output by 40-50% to give it a similar DPS/t to an AC20 with an LFE, the 11 slot fitting on the LB20X makes it non-viable at a fundamental level. You'd literally have to buff it to the point where it's no longer a -20 class Autocannon anymore to overcome the 11 slot fitting.

There is not a single mech in the game that can use an LB20X that would not be better off with an AC20 or UAC20, because fitting an LB20X automatically sacrifices ~5t worth of ammo/speed/backup weapons.

Not to mention the fact that the main reason the scorch uses the LBX over the UAC or standard AC is because its FLD not stream. The IS AC20 is single shot, invalidating that reason.

[MustrumRidcully]

I have to agree with Khobai that the crit slots aren't the real issue, the issue is that they are not good enough as weapons to warrant 11 or 10 crit slots. The extra range of LBX is completely neutered by the damage spread, and the spread itself makes the weapon weaker already.
A regular AC or an Ultra AC will serve you better.

Buffing the damage or lowering the cooldown and lowering the heat might get the weapons closer to something useful. Though a fundamental problem for the LBX-2 and LBX-5 will be the that they also pay a high price for a range that they can't really fully utilize thanks to their spread.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 13 July 2017 - 09:30 AM.

[SPNKRGrenth]

Oh no the amount of crit slots they take is still a genuine problem, just not the only or biggest problem. I see TT rules and lore thrown around like a magic measure, tabletop tabletop tabletop. Well you know two VERY important things in tabletop that aren't in this game? Ammo swapping and crit sharing. Those are an important part of the balance, of which ammo swapping has been confirmed will NEVER be in this game.

So for those who want to go by tabletop rules and numbers, of which I can understand wanting to, then why are you okay with IS ACs having slug rounds? Only LBX ACs should have slug rounds, while standard and ultra ACs should all be stream fire. AC20s should have to rapid fire anywhere between 10-20 shots to get their full damage out, like in lore. Arguing for lore is fine, heck I think lore is really cool, but please don't be blind about it.

If all ACs and UACs were made to be proper stream fire weapons to get their damage rating out, and all LBX ACs fired single shot slug rounds for full damage, then the argument for LBX ACs keeping their wonky crit slot count would be legit. Frankly I'd be all for something like that, were it to happen. But I doubt it, HIGHLY doubt something like that will happen.

So, IS LB20X, 11 crit slots in MWO. No crit splitting, no ammo swapping, not even proper cluster rounds. Why would anyone even use it? There is no reason to, not one, it's a dead on arrival weapon if no stats are changed to reflect the more limited balancing parameters. Would PGI be able to give them proper cluster rounds? That fire as a canister and burst like flak at their target once close? If they could, that would be both awesome AND lore friendly. If not, then the easiest thing to start with, is dropping their crit slots to 10, or I even dare say 9 to reflect them being weaker than AC20s. No it doesn't fix or improve the weaknesses of the weapon, but it DOES let people actually use the thing to get a feel for it without having to run a standard engine.

UAC20s are 10 slots, and they're a straight up upgrade. Those are fine for balance? Then how would a 10 slot LB20X be so terrible to fit anywhere an AC20 or UAC20 would?

[Metus regem]

xXJ35T3RXx, on 12 July 2017 - 11:23 PM, said:

I say leave stuff the way it is in the Lore. Heavy Gauss can't be mounted in arms since the recoil from a shot would tear the 'mechs arm off. And due to it's large size it can only fit in the side torso section of IS 'mechs with standard engines. If you deviate from the lore further and further, the game is less and less battletech and more just stompy generic robotic fighting machines.

TT rules doe not equal lore.

Find me one line in any novel or lore fluff that references a weapons critical space requirement, you may find some that reference weight, but none that reference crit spaces.

In the case of the isLB-20X, MWO lacks two critical rules that made it passible in TT, crit splitting and dual ammo types.

Those two rules for TT took an 11 crit weapon and made it okay, crit splitting made it take the most restrictive firing arch, there are also several mechs in lore (and TT rules) that take advantage of that, two big ones are the Bushwacker 1L and Nightstar 9SS. Now we are getting a PGI version of the NSR-9SS, they removed the arm mounted LB-20x and gave it a UAC/20 in place, also changed it the NSR-9S... It is still a made up variant, to cover a gap that their code prevents them from making.

As for the HGR, I'd like to see them make a special hard point type just for it, and then reduce the crits to 9 or 10, so that we could see a mech like the Crusader 8S that uses an isXL and a HGR that has the HGR crit spilt between the LT and CT.

My point about a reduction in crit spaces doesn't hurt a single lore build, not in any way, shape or form. Reduction in weight does how ever.

Considering that most of the weapons in this game exist in an .XML flie, nothing is stopping PGI from adjusting any weapon stats as they see fit, the only thing that seems to be holding them back (aside from their own code) is a bunch of people clinging to a table top rule set that has not seen a rule overhaul in 30 years. Now don't get me wrong I both love and hate the fact that like Palladium system, modern Battletech is still compatible with the first 3025 TRO ever printed, the one that didn't give the Hatchet-man a hatchet as at the time, there were no rules for melee weapons.

[VonBruinwald]

Khobai, on 07 July 2017 - 07:29 PM, said:

Sure they do. The clan LB20X is 9 slots and its friggin horrible. 11 slots isnt the biggest problem with the LBX20.

My Dual LBX-20 MDD disagrees.

[Khobai]

Quote

My Dual LBX-20 MDD disagrees.

And Ive done 600 damage with my machine gun kitfox. It doesnt mean machine guns are good. If I played my arctic cheetah in the same game I probably wouldve done 800+ damage.

And if you took something better than LBX20 on your MDD youd probably do well in excess of 600 damage. Id argue its holding you back from doing even more damage.

Quote

Oh no the amount of crit slots they take is still a genuine problem, just not the only or biggest problem.

And I didnt say they shouldnt ever change crit slots. I just said that it should be a last resort. They should try everything else they can to fix the weapons first.

I mean I kindve like the fact that PGI hasnt changed crit slots/tonnage on weapons and has preserved the integrity of stock mechs.

Edited by Khobai, 13 July 2017 - 11:38 AM.

[MechaBattler]

The IS LBX20 requires a standard engine. Just let that sink in. You not only have to pay more slots, but you can't use an XL or LFE.

If they're gonna make equipping it so limiting. It needs to perform better. With all of the draw backs of a heavy gauss, it's still going to be better than IS LBX20.

[MustrumRidcully]

The implicit Standard Engine requirement kinda means the weapon weighs effectively more than its own weight, but even that can be priced in by making the weapon combat statistics better, rather than adjusting its size.

[Kaptain]

xXJ35T3RXx, on 12 July 2017 - 11:23 PM, said:

I say leave stuff the way it is in the Lore. Heavy Gauss can't be mounted in arms since the recoil from a shot would tear the 'mechs arm off. And due to it's large size it can only fit in the side torso section of IS 'mechs with standard engines. If you deviate from the lore further and further, the game is less and less battletech and more just stompy generic robotic fighting machines.

Considering there are many mechs that mount LBX20s in the arm (and PGI is NEVER going to give us crit splitting) what you just said is: "I don't want lore build to exist in this game, because of the lore"

Not to mention the requirement of using a std with the LBX20 is a HUGE disadvantage. So much so that: "I don't want anyone to use the LBX20 from table top because I like tabletop soo much." would be a fitting interpretation of your desires.

Balance>Tabletop. Variety>TableTop. LBX arm Brawlers>Tabletop. IMO.

[Y E O N N E]

xXJ35T3RXx, on 12 July 2017 - 11:23 PM, said:

I say leave stuff the way it is in the Lore. Heavy Gauss can't be mounted in arms since the recoil from a shot would tear the 'mechs arm off. And due to it's large size it can only fit in the side torso section of IS 'mechs with standard engines. If you deviate from the lore further and further, the game is less and less battletech and more just stompy generic robotic fighting machines.

You do realize that BattleTech is cobbled together from choice bits and pieces of other, more distinct mecha IP, making it as generic a stompy robot franchise as it can already get, right?