92 replies to this topic

[Brain Cancer]

HAG's actually have superior clustering at close range and inferior at their long rangeband, meaning they're very much shotgunny in effect.

Silver Bullet gauss rifles function like an LB-15X that can't use solid shots- again, they don't suffer from cluster penalties at range.

[Shifty McSwift]

Lucifaust, on 07 August 2017 - 09:01 PM, said:

I've always been a heavy ballistics user, and I've tried just about everything. I can say with a degree of certainty that lbx in general is underpowered. It's a shame because they seem different and would be nice to have some other types of viable ballistics. Well, I always did my utmost best to make them work, but like others have said, they only shine against exposed components, but since the whole game is essentially armor stripping, lbx would only be any use late game. The nature of mwo battle favors early advantage. If one team gains a kill advantage in a match, likely, the extra standing mech will tip the scales even further in their favor. So yes, enemy team will have a lot of exposed mechs to fire at with your LBX, but you'll lose anyway.

Why? Instead of packing uac5's to punch through armor at decent range, you loaded dual lbx 5 like a tard to pitter-patter away impotently as your team dies around you.

Maybe they are working as intended. If so, I'm not impressed. Maybe they aren't, and I'm pointing out an already evident problem. All in all, I'd like to see a boost to IS/clan LBX in some way. Thoughts?

My thoughts on it mostly make many people flinch, but they are logically sound enough.
Mostly the point that Clan ACs fire in a stream, vs LBX, which fires in a single shot with spread, is an entirely balanced method of separating the two weapons, that has worked for clan in that regard very well.

It does not solve the issue of UAC being to strong, but my thoughts on that are based around the notion that; of course a double or nothing gun is going to be problematic, particularly when it is potentially the highest damaging weapon in the game, the UAC is the closest thing to generic crits that we have in this game, if you get unlucky you do normal damage (and then go into jam), if you get lucky you do double. This I will never really like, but of COURSE will always take advantage with the setup they have where it tends to cost nothing extra to have that potential AND extra ammo per ton.... So yeah the UAC ideal could use some baseline modding too. My suggestion there; reduce its potential, make it only capable of doing an extra 50% damage on a double volley, and if it jams have it deal 50% less damage (than its AC counterpart), then just double the cooldown when a jam occurs, this should level out its DPS against AC and LBX very well depending on jam chance, which makes its size fine, then just nerf its ammo in some way, to stop it just having free extra shots basically.

[Shifty McSwift]

So for example with a UAC 10, firing a single volley would actually deal 7.5 damage, with the second volley increasing that to 15 total if no jam occurs, if a jam occurs, the second set of 7.5 damage is halved (or not fired at all) and the gun goes into a doubled cooldown length.

Something along those lines anyway, just scaling it back some while still giving plenty of reason for its usage.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Shifty McSwift, on 09 August 2017 - 08:53 PM, said:

My thoughts on it mostly make many people flinch, but they are logically sound enough.
Mostly the point that Clan ACs fire in a stream, vs LBX, which fires in a single shot with spread, is an entirely balanced method of separating the two weapons, that has worked for clan in that regard very well.

It does not solve the issue of UAC being to strong, but my thoughts on that are based around the notion that; of course a double or nothing gun is going to be problematic, particularly when it is potentially the highest damaging weapon in the game, the UAC is the closest thing to generic crits that we have in this game, if you get unlucky you do normal damage (and then go into jam), if you get lucky you do double. This I will never really like, but of COURSE will always take advantage with the setup they have where it tends to cost nothing extra to have that potential AND extra ammo per ton.... So yeah the UAC ideal could use some baseline modding too. My suggestion there; reduce its potential, make it only capable of doing an extra 50% damage on a double volley, and if it jams have it deal 50% less damage (than its AC counterpart), then just double the cooldown when a jam occurs, this should level out its DPS against AC and LBX very well depending on jam chance, which makes its size fine, then just nerf its ammo in some way, to stop it just having free extra shots basically.

The UAC line has a hard enough time competing against laser vomit builds. We should look to bring all ballistics up to the level of UACs rather than bringing them down. I'd suggest making the ACs single shot and increasing LBX damage. This would allow the Clans to have a frontloaded and non spread damage autocannon that is always reliable, a UAC for more spread but potentially more damage but RNG mechanics, then the LBX for more damage but not good at range. If normal ACs end up falling behind UACs they could get a cooldown decrease so that they have a little more DPS, but not more than a UAC does once jam rates are calculated. This would give the UAC the higher burst damage potential and DPS potential, but it would not be always reliable.

[Shifty McSwift]

Dakota1000, on 09 August 2017 - 09:02 PM, said:

The UAC line has a hard enough time competing against laser vomit builds. We should look to bring all ballistics up to the level of UACs rather than bringing them down. I'd suggest making the ACs single shot and increasing LBX damage. This would allow the Clans to have a frontloaded and non spread damage autocannon that is always reliable, a UAC for more spread but potentially more damage but RNG mechanics, then the LBX for more damage but not good at range. If normal ACs end up falling behind UACs they could get a cooldown decrease so that they have a little more DPS, but not more than a UAC does once jam rates are calculated. This would give the UAC the higher burst damage potential and DPS potential, but it would not be always reliable.

That is a valid way of looking at it I guess, but functionally I would prefer to just take a different approach, your (and many others) way increases PPFLD alphas substantially, in an attempt to "catch up" to lasers, but some of those weapon systems are way ahead of lasers in their damage for heat efficiency and ranges already, so how much catch up is needed there, and that is before you even buff LBX independently of AC... And it STILL leaves the question of "why is UAC just better?", or would you mean that all UACs fire in a stream wile all ACs fire in a single slug?

My way feels like a nerf for sure, to the systems of single slugs that people are used to, and hey I am not arguing that it wouldn't feel like that, but it creates a level of inherent balance with the weapon system distinctions there, from there the across class distinctions can be looked at, but ballistics still come out looking great vs lasers in most cases.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Shifty McSwift, on 09 August 2017 - 09:08 PM, said:

That is a valid way of looking at it I guess, but functionally I would prefer to just take a different approach, your (and many others) way increases PPFLD alphas substantially, in an attempt to "catch up" to lasers, but some of those weapon systems are way ahead of lasers in their damage for heat efficiency and ranges already, so how much catch up is needed there, and that is before you even buff LBX independently of AC... And it STILL leaves the question of "why is UAC just better?", or would you mean that all UACs fire in a stream wile all ACs fire in a single slug?

My way feels like a nerf for sure, to the systems of single slugs that people are used to, and hey I am not arguing that it wouldn't feel like that, but it creates a level of inherent balance with the weapon system distinctions there, from there the across class distinctions can be looked at, but ballistics still come out looking great vs lasers in most cases.

I'm suggesting that UACs fire in a stream exactly like they do now, no changes to them. All normal ACs would become single shot, IS and Clan, and LBX would get a 50% increase to pellet damage. To balance IS vs Clan, the IS AC and LBX would get lower cooldowns so they have higher DPS while the Clan one is lighter, UACs would remain as they are, IS ones having less shells per volley than Clan, IS UAC2 getting a cooldown and heat buff so that its equivalent to Clan since Clan one already is at only 1 shell per volley.

It wouldn't increase PPFLD at all, LBX is spread so its not PPFLD, and the Clan ACs would be no higher in damage than IS ones. Its also not really powercreep, just bringing up bad weapons to levels that we already have established ingame as good.

Currently Ballistics are only ahead of lasers in the damage for heat ratios. Lasers have more DPS per ton, more damage per ton, way way higher potential alpha strikes, and higher burst damage. For 12 tons you can have 2 HLL and 4 HML for a 76 damage laser alpha, for 12 tons of ballistics you get a CUAC20 with no ammo at best.

[Shifty McSwift]

Yeah I get the rest, and yeah that would help to make UAC distinct, but then, also just kind of make it crap vs AC slugs.

Dakota1000, on 09 August 2017 - 09:22 PM, said:

It wouldn't increase PPFLD at all

Yeah it would man, all ACs suddenly single slug and boosted LBX damage definitely would increase PPFLD alphas, LBX have spread true, unless you fire them at specific ranges vs specific targets, then they are the same equivalent as a single slug.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Shifty McSwift, on 09 August 2017 - 09:30 PM, said:

Yeah I get the rest, and yeah that would help to make UAC distinct, but then, also just kind of make it crap vs AC slugs.



Yeah it would man, all ACs suddenly single slug and boosted LBX damage definitely would increase PPFLD alphas, LBX have spread true, unless you fire them at specific ranges vs specific targets, then they are the same equivalent as a single slug.

I'm saying that the PPFLD alpha strikes would be no stronger than things we already have in game.

Clan would get the AC10 for mid range PPFLD which could be paired with dual ERPPC to get a 30 damage strike, same as dual gauss. The Dire Wolf could pair dual gauss with dual AC10s for 50 damage alphas but be limited by ammo, have very large difference in shell velocities, be only on a very slow mech, and be split between torso and arms, unlike the old gauss+ERPPC combo. Some mechs could go with dual AC10s with dual ERPPCs for a 40 damage strike on the Clan side, but they can already do that on the IS side with dual AC10s and dual ERPPCs or by using 2 HPPCs and an AC10.

All the PPFLD builds would be very heavy and have considerable velocity differences, and they are all worse than the dual gauss + dual ERPPC build.


If we're going to say that at specific ranges LBX is basically PPFLD we can say the same for SRMs or rocket launchers. Rocket Launchers easily allowing alpha strikes above 70 with just 2 launchers that can be fired through ghost heat, quad ASRM6 providing 48 damage for 10 to 16 tons, much more damage per ton than LBX puts out. I find that LBX should be the most powerful weapon up close, its up there with some of the heaviest guns for up close and becomes pretty bad against things over 150m away. Someone paying the weight to bring 2 of those things then manages to get into short range against an enemy should be able to spit out a hard 60 damage alpha against an enemy. I disagree with ghost heat on dual AC20s while we're at it.

[Shifty McSwift]

Dakota1000, on 09 August 2017 - 10:02 PM, said:

I'm saying that the PPFLD alpha strikes would be no stronger than things we already have in game.

Clan would get the AC10 for mid range PPFLD which could be paired with dual ERPPC to get a 30 damage strike, same as dual gauss. The Dire Wolf could pair dual gauss with dual AC10s for 50 damage alphas but be limited by ammo, have very large difference in shell velocities, be only on a very slow mech, and be split between torso and arms, unlike the old gauss+ERPPC combo. Some mechs could go with dual AC10s with dual ERPPCs for a 40 damage strike on the Clan side, but they can already do that on the IS side with dual AC10s and dual ERPPCs or by using 2 HPPCs and an AC10.

All the PPFLD builds would be very heavy and have considerable velocity differences, and they are all worse than the dual gauss + dual ERPPC build.

Condensing the current clan ACs into slug shots alone will increase PPFLD, and yes boosting the damage percentage on a splat based weapon will do the same.

Dakota1000, on 09 August 2017 - 10:02 PM, said:

If we're going to say that at specific ranges LBX is basically PPFLD we can say the same for SRMs or rocket launchers.

To an extent yes, they are not the archetypal PPFLD weapon, but we have no true PPFLD weapons to begin with, even gauss has travel time and lasers have burn time, making them PPFLD to varying degrees or at least in part, similarly to spread splat weapons and their effective ranges.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Shifty McSwift, on 09 August 2017 - 10:07 PM, said:

Condensing the current clan ACs into slug shots alone will increase PPFLD, and yes boosting the damage percentage on a splat based weapon will do the same.

I stand by what I said, in that it doesn't increase PPFLD beyond anything we have currently in terms of how effective they are, it just allows for more build options for people to pick with various pros and cons instead of the single meta.

Shifty McSwift, on 09 August 2017 - 10:07 PM, said:

To an extent yes, they are not the archetypal PPFLD weapon, but we have no true PPFLD weapons to begin with, even gauss has travel time and lasers have burn time, making them PPFLD to varying degrees or at least in part, similarly to spread splat weapons and their effective ranges.

PPFLD just means pin point frontloaded damage. It is any weapon that puts all of its damage into a single location guaranteed. The only PPFLD weapons are all Gauss rifles, AC2, AC5, AC10, AC20, UAC2, UAC5, CUAC2, CAC2, LPPC, PPC, ERPPC, SNPPC, and HPPC. Its always going to put all its damage into one spot no matter what range bracket its in.

Travel time has no effect on what is PPFLD or not, lasers are pin point but in no way frontloaded, LBX and SRMs are frontloaded but in no way pin point, even at point blank ranges, if you fire at the section between two hitboxes your damage will be split into both rather than going into one with a true PPFLD weapon.

Combining both pin point and frontloading into damage allows the player to pick out what segment they want to hit and deal damage to that one section in particular while also allowing them to avoid taking damage to one segment in particular. Its greatly increases poptarting, brawling, and poking effectiveness due to the lack of face time while keeping accuracy.

Even at 30 damage a shot from LBX it would not be overpowered in any way due to the horrible range limitations present in LBX. Long range is the meta, you can tear people apart before they get into range and once they're in range they may have an advantage in terms of their weaponry, but they won't keep it for long with how much damage they've taken before they get into range to use it. I'm looking to give these weaker brawling weapons substantial buffs so that the brawling niche can compete with the longer range meta in terms of reliability rather than requiring a full team of brawlers to push in against an uncoordinated team for it to work, as currently a coordinated long range team dominates a coordinated brawl team.

[Shifty McSwift]

Dakota1000, on 09 August 2017 - 10:23 PM, said:

Travel time has no effect on what is PPFLD or not, lasers are pin point but in no way frontloaded, LBX and SRMs are frontloaded but in no way pin point, even at point blank ranges, if you fire at the section between two hitboxes your damage will be split into both rather than going into one with a true PPFLD weapon.

Except in extreme examples where burn times are so low on lasers that they act as the equivalent of PPFLD vs many mechs, and similarly with srm/LBX where if you get close enough, the spread is negligible. It doesn't make them PPFLD by the same definitions but it can be so close its basically the same thing.

But we are just arguing semantics really here, the main point of departure is that you want to take the direct buff path, where I would prefer to take a roundabout nerf path. Both are valid opinions.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Shifty McSwift, on 09 August 2017 - 10:41 PM, said:

Except in extreme examples where burn times are so low on lasers that they act as the equivalent of PPFLD vs many mechs, and similarly with srm/LBX where if you get close enough, the spread is negligible. It doesn't make them PPFLD by the same definitions but it can be so close its basically the same thing.

But we are just arguing semantics really here, the main point of departure is that you want to take the direct buff path, where I would prefer to take a roundabout nerf path. Both are valid opinions.

Pretty much, we disagree with each other's means and ends. We'd dislike to see each other's opinions be added to the game, but yeah, they're opinions alright. I'm mostly just tired of everything good getting nerfed into mediocrity, making everything terrible makes it balanced, true, but it also sucks for all the players involved, as nothing's fun anymore, there is no outplaying the enemy as everything is too weak to make sneak attacks work out, a single player is not as powerful as he once was, so the forces must just blob up and win by attrition, having great accuracy and hitting your shots repeatedly becomes worth less and less as the number of shots it takes to bring an enemy down goes up and up. I'd rather see some boosts to things to make more tactics viable other than long slug fests.

[Jun Watarase]

Snowbluff, on 09 August 2017 - 04:05 PM, said:

Simple solution:

Fake it. Give them that old razzle dazzle.


Fixed spread. All you need. If the spread is the same when it leaves the barrel as when it hits, it'll simulate the effect of having it be an airburst round. It's simple. Just zombify the MRM or LRM code, change the projectile, tighten the spread, then boom! LBX.

Assuming PGI knows how to do fixed spread...

[Lucifaust]

Dakota1000, on 09 August 2017 - 09:02 PM, said:

The UAC line has a hard enough time competing against laser vomit builds. We should look to bring all ballistics up to the level of UACs rather than bringing them down. I'd suggest making the ACs single shot and increasing LBX damage. This would allow the Clans to have a frontloaded and non spread damage autocannon that is always reliable, a UAC for more spread but potentially more damage but RNG mechanics, then the LBX for more damage but not good at range. If normal ACs end up falling behind UACs they could get a cooldown decrease so that they have a little more DPS, but not more than a UAC does once jam rates are calculated. This would give the UAC the higher burst damage potential and DPS potential, but it would not be always reliable.

^Dakota knows what's up
This is exactly what I'd like to see in the game to bring underpowered IS/clan LBX up to the level of other ballistics.

[Shifty McSwift]

Lucifaust, on 10 August 2017 - 02:32 PM, said:

^Dakota knows what's up
This is exactly what I'd like to see in the game to bring underpowered IS/clan LBX up to the level of other ballistics.

I think it is regular clan ACs that get the shortest end with the current system, most people are actually willing to sacrifice the pinpoint stream for splat, or else they just go a UAC as it is usually so much (potentially and in general mostly) better for seemingly no reason

In that equation (for clans currently) it is only a sort of need to either buff the AC distinction from UAC in some way, or scale back the UAC to make it comparable in different ways to AC.

[Lucifaust]

Shifty McSwift, on 10 August 2017 - 02:47 PM, said:

I think it is regular clan ACs that get the shortest end with the current system, most people are actually willing to sacrifice the pinpoint stream for splat, or else they just go a UAC as it is usually so much (potentially and in general mostly) better for seemingly no reason

In that equation (for clans currently) it is only a sort of need to either buff the AC distinction from UAC in some way, or scale back the UAC to make it comparable in different ways to AC.

I wholeheartedly agree.

But I would not encourage any more nerfs. We have enough of those. We need buffs.

I, personally, only use regular AC on troll builds where the ac wont jam and screw up my macro (lol). They're pretty mediocre considering UAC can do double damage and potentially get away with it. But that's another matter deserving its own thread. I do agree about the splat vs pinpoint in terms of clan though

Since clan lbx contain the only heavier clan ballistics that fire one round, I sometimes take it over AC longingly wishing to mimic superior IS AC. However, the 1-shot splatness of clan lbx is offset by LBX's general weakness. sigh, come on pgi

Even for IS, LBX is weak. lol when it's even weak on IS side, not just clan, you know it's serious

Edited by Lucifaust, 10 August 2017 - 07:14 PM.

[scadateck]

Lots of articulate discussion here, but what I would like is:

MOAR LB20!!! BECAUSE MOAR LBs!!

[Pjwned]

Fox With A Shotgun, on 07 August 2017 - 10:25 PM, said:

What I don't get is why they have to insist on 'crit seeking' LBXes. When a mech is opened, it's very rare that crits come into play for very long before the entire component goes poof.

Probably because:

1) They're supposed to be crit seeking weapons--with the cluster rounds anyways.

2) They would be fine if critical hit mechanics weren't dogshit.

Quote

Why can't they just do a damage falloff on LBXes? Start it at 1.4 damage per pellet at 0m (14 damage for LBX10, or 28 for LBX20, etc) ramping down to 1.0 damage per pellet at one-third of max range, and then flat from there (as the spread takes care of damage falloff from that point on, given its current spread pattern). That would give it an extremely powerful short-range punch, while letting the standard ACs, ultras or RACs work better at mid-long.

Nah.

[Khobai]

Quote

What I don't get is why they have to insist on 'crit seeking' LBXes. When a mech is opened, it's very rare that crits come into play for very long before the entire component goes poof.

because internal structure is way too low

internal structure gets destroyed way too fast compared to the crit health on weapons/equipment.

[Spheroid]

Through armor crits would fix that. MW2 had that in 1995. Also had an impact fuzed exploding canister round instead of a non-lore shotgun implementation. Again in 1995.

Edited by Spheroid, 11 August 2017 - 08:31 AM.