11 replies to this topic

[Rasengetsu]

To sum up what many people (on both sides) have been saying about PPCs here: Clicky Linky

PPCs have a sort of weird niche that some people seem to like even though by all mathematical and organic standards they are sub-par to other weapons of equivalent tier. Essentially, they are very light Gauss/AC10 weapons with "unlimited" ammo, but due to the sheer nature of their high heat generation and the cool down period of said heat you essentially end up shooting less than you would the limited ammo weapons in an entire match.

Their ghost heat limit of 2 forces them to never achieve any sort of meaningful damage in comparison to other weapons and even if such a limit weren't in place, their heat is too high and their damage too low so you're always better off simply using other weapons, such as large lasers, to do the exact same thing and damage they would be used for but better. The 3 newer variants are a good step in the right direction but still don't level the playing field enough to make them a considerably appealing addition to a 'Mech's arsenal and are at best situational. Their only real advantage is PPFLD (Pinpoint Front-Loaded Damage) and weight, but Large Lasers weigh less and deal the same damage for less heat and are hitscan. They are basically the skinny man's Gauss/AC10.

Even so, some people argue that PPCs have a place in the game in their current state or are scared that buffing these PPFLD weapons would revive the instant kill wombo-combo blasts and while I don't agree with them I do share some concerns on whether or not it would be possible to strike a balance between making them better and breaking the 'Mech-iverse.

It should be noted that when I propose better stats and/or bonus effects, I am not asking them to double in damage or anything of the sort but a rather sensible upgrade to match same-tier weaponry in terms of overall performance and usability.

As examples, some ideas that were thrown around and could be combined were:
Additional splash damage
Damage over time effect
Secondary damage burst
Temporary map/radar deactivation
Miscellaneous malfunctions


TLDR;
Many people think PPCs are crap. Some people like them the way they are. Others are scared of buffing PPFLD. I think there's room for some reworking to make everyone happy.

Edited by Rasengetsu, 10 November 2017 - 06:18 PM.

[The6thMessenger]

Rasengetsu, on 10 November 2017 - 06:04 PM, said:

Many people think PPCs are crap. Some people like them the way they are. Others are scared of buffing PPFLD. I think there's room for some reworking to make everyone happy.

I personally think they are fine. Issues could be ironed out, but as a pseudo AC with unlimited ammo offset by high heat is fine.

[Athom83]

As Messanger said here (and I said on the thread you linked), they are an infinite ammo AC/10 that weighs less. Sure, maybe they could have another bonus effect like momenarily stunning the movement of an enemy it hits (personally think that all weapons that impact force should do that, but for the sake of the argument lets just say only PPCs get it). However PPCs don't need a rework as they follow how they should be, PPDF energy weapon that creates a significant amount of heat and deals a good chunck of damage for a relatively low tonnage.

Edited by Athom83, 13 November 2017 - 07:13 AM.

[The Basilisk]

PPCs are fine but there has to done something to do away with this stupid notion of carrying a bunch of laserpointers that magicaly start to work as a single overpowered weaponsystem instead of a buch of firelighters.

[dwwolf]

I could wish for a smaller PPC hit box.....they catch on everything......coupled wit bad terrain collision boxes.

[Ziogualty]

Having "infinite ammo" is not enough to justify the downsides.

I have many "AC10" primary weapon mechs and honestly they almost never run out of ammo in a normal match. Yes it can happen, but is very rare.

As lore says, some sort of "electrical side-effects" should be introduced to give this weapon his unique role.

[The6thMessenger]

Attank, on 14 November 2017 - 06:48 AM, said:

Having "infinite ammo" is not enough to justify the downsides.

Yes it does.

Attank, on 14 November 2017 - 06:48 AM, said:

I have many "AC10" primary weapon mechs and honestly they almost never run out of ammo in a normal match. Yes it can happen, but is very rare.

So what? We got ac10 builds too, and they run out of ammo. Take my AC10 Urbie.

Look man, weapons fill roles, they have specific niches. Two aren't supposed to compete.

Attank, on 14 November 2017 - 06:48 AM, said:

As lore says, some sort of "electrical side-effects" should be introduced to give this weapon his unique role.

It's MWO, TT values isn't necessary.

[MechanicalWraith]

Firstly, and obviously, PPC's need hitreg fixing before rebalancing... If by some miracle PGI gets that far, I'd recommend giving PPCs a charge-up mechanic (linked with Gauss charge limits) to completely separate them from Gauss for PPFLD purposes - that's a more intuitive change than linking them for ghost heat, and can't be circumvented by simply firing Gauss a split-second after the PPC. With that done PPCs can get tweaked as an individual weapon system rather than being tethered to the hatred of pop-tarting PPFLD boats bearing Gauss-PPC combos.

Now for the bad news: the devs don't like being wrong, from the years of forum threads I've read the general consensus appears to be that PGI can't admit their projectiles are fundamentally flawed. From ingame appearances, namely tunneling of all projectile types through even stationary targets in PvP and the testing grounds alike, I can only conclude that they're doing something really monumentally silly - teleporting collision primitives or hulls instead of simply firing a raycast along the projectile's path to get a hit. (this may happen if you derive from a class that's meant to bounce and slide around the world, like an FPS game's hand-grenade for example)

In general, raycasting is very cheap in terms of performance when compared to using volumes, and the fact that it'd give the projectile an infinitely small Radius is more of a benefit with MWOs terrain scale than a drawback as this would eliminate the situations where a laser can graze a wall and still work, but a projectile weapon on the other arm explodes in your face...

[valrond]

I voted for better stats, but really, what it needs is to change the amount for ghost heat.
You can have now something like 78 alpha on a 2 cHLL and 2 cERML.
You can only do 20 damage alpha with PPCs (30 with Heavy PPC)
The Ghost heat should stay like it is for HPPCs, increased to 3 with PPCs and ERPPCs (which works with canon stock loadouts like the Awesome), and something like 5 or 6 with Light PPCs. If you combine these, you take the lower ghost heat count (ex: If you fire a Heavy PPC, you can only like one other PPC, If you fire a regular PPC, you can link 2 more non-Heavy PPCs).

[Guile Votoms]

It would be nice if they would scramble sensors and deactivate night/heat vision to give them a more tactical edge.
It would also be nice if you could toggle the minimum range off like in the lore, but with the drawback of them scrambling your own sensors, ECM etc.

[Karl Streiger]

PPC as a weapon is fine - but the clipping is what kills the weapon

[Damnedtroll]

Terrain clipping is horrible. It's the only flaw that i see about them, it's looking like the projectile is 20m wide... a little twig, a leaf or anything in a general path of the projectile, sometimes not even close, like a couple of meter just block the weapon. Hit registration look damaged too.

For the rest, i like the effects and other stuff.

valrond, on 11 December 2017 - 11:18 AM, said:

I voted for better stats, but really, what it needs is to change the amount for ghost heat.
You can have now something like 78 alpha on a 2 cHLL and 2 cERML.
You can only do 20 damage alpha with PPCs (30 with Heavy PPC)
The Ghost heat should stay like it is for HPPCs, increased to 3 with PPCs and ERPPCs (which works with canon stock loadouts like the Awesome), and something like 5 or 6 with Light PPCs. If you combine these, you take the lower ghost heat count (ex: If you fire a Heavy PPC, you can only like one other PPC, If you fire a regular PPC, you can link 2 more non-Heavy PPCs).

Yeah battlemech variant with stock payload of 3 ppc or more should have a reduction of ghost heat...