105 replies to this topic

[Brain Cancer]

The most straightforward "buff" would be normalizing all MGs of a type in terms of range, cone of fire, etc...except you double the base ROF for IS MGs, meaning one IS MG will put out the firepower of two Clan MGs, for the same amount of ammo as the 2 Clan MGs do in the same amount of time. As the Clan MGs are half the weight and Clanners get a hardpoint advantage, everyone gets to do their dakka thing more or less the same.

And speaking of HMGs- yeah, they probably could use an ammo tweak, given the severe ammo hogging they do.

[Angus McFife VI]

Please god no, no more machineguns. No.

[Brain Cancer]

Dont LRM me please, on 05 February 2018 - 03:56 PM, said:

Please god no, no more machineguns. No.

It isn't "more machineguns".

It's just making X tons of Clan MG function the same way as X tons of IS MG.

Mancika, on 05 February 2018 - 03:56 PM, said:

Please give the game something with 24 mgs cuz apparently the new BS piranha is not op enough to destroy peoples gameplay experience. I already know of 4 guys quitting the game because of this piranha crap. Ridicoulos that some lights cut you in half in 2 seconds while assault are shot to crap hopelessly fast.

None of this would give you anything with more MG firepower than what we already have. It'd just mean that IS chassis could do the same sorts of things with MG mounts that Clan lights do.

Considering how much things have shifted towards Clanners on the light end of things, isn't that fair? Even with the change, there's no IS light that would deliver more MG damage than an Arctic Cheetah, with IS mediums being at best equal to a Shadow Cat MG boater in most cases, and generally on a far slower machine to exceed it, if you look at my earlier notes. Even then, even literally doubling IS MG firepower (that is, giving it the same firepower per ton as Clan MGs), you still only just equal the best of what's on the field as it is.

[Revis Volek]

Why if one side has something the other HAS to also have the same boring thing?

That is the definition of boring IMO. If you wanna use 6 LMG, MG or HMG on the IS side just bring an BJ-Arrow.

[Nema Nabojiv]

Brain Cancer, on 05 February 2018 - 01:20 PM, said:

Why don't six IS MG hardpoints equal the potency of 12 Clan ones, since the weight is the same?

Its all well and good as long as you thinking about dedicated MG boats.

But then it will turn out that every mech with three auxiliary ballistics will become an MG equivalent of what is now a Blackjack hero, and PPC Black Widow will have a Myst Lynx strapped to it, the idea stops being that bright.

Just ask for some 12mg IS light if you absolutely need to have something other than a piranha.

[The6thMessenger]

Hmm, what about +33% of both damage and range? I'd be satisfied if HMG has 150m of effective range.

[SeventhSL]

You can't balance around the fact that 1 20t Clan Mech can boat 12 MGs. The Piranha has a stupid amount of hard points and that is the real issue. We knew this way ahead of time. This is why I supported the Fire Moth over Piranha but everyone wanted the Piranha so PGI gave it to us.

I'm not saying we shouldn't buff/nerf MGs for one side or the other. I'm just saying that just because the Piranha gets 12 doesn't make it some new baseline that every other Mech and his dog must now meet.

[Bud Crue]

OP,
From the December patch:

Heavy Machine Gun
• Spread reduced to 1 (from 1.1)
• Range Increased to 100 (from 80)
• Max Range Increased to 200 (from 180)
• Crit Multiplier increased to 7 (from 6)

Clan Light Machine Gun
• Spread Increased to 0.7 (from 0.5)
• Crit Multiplier reduced to 8 (from 9)

Clan Machine Gun
• Spread Increased to 0.84 (from 0.6)
• Crit Multiplier reduced to 8 (from 9)

Clan Heavy Machine Gun
• Spread increased to 1.3 (from 1.1)
• Range Increased to 100 (from 80)
• Max Range increased to 200 (from 160)

Machine Gun Design Notes: These changes boil down to two things:

• General improvements for Heavy Machine Guns to bring them into better alignment with other Machine Gun types.
• A reduction in Clan Machine Gun secondary attribute effectiveness to better account for their lighter weight.

For Heavy Machine Guns we wanted to provide an across the board Range boost for both Factions, where the IS will be gaining a few additional enhancements to account for the heavier weight associated with their Faction's version of the weapons. For Clan Machine Guns we want them to carry the same general offensive punch as the IS variants per-weapon to play into the Faction's niche, but this needs to be balanced against the fact that their weapons come in at half the tonnage to their IS equivalents. For this pass, we are primarily targeting their spread values in a similar way to what we have done with Clan SRM launchers compared to their much heavier IS equivalents, but we have also slightly reduced the Critical damage multiplier to slightly reduce the speed at which mass Clan Machine Guns can strip an exposed locations components bare.

Based on the comments in the patch it seems to me they made the changes they made with full awareness of the tonnage difference between IS and Clan MG systems. In short, they don't care that " Clan MGs are half the weight. And the IS gets half the hardpoints". Yes, the Piranha wasn't in game then, but they knew it was coming and besides the discrepancy was well known and understood via the Crit Lynx and Cheetah vs any IS light, and yet they made these changes on the basis of

"For Clan Machine Guns we want them to carry the same general offensive punch as the IS variants per-weapon to play into the Faction's niche, but this needs to be balanced against the fact that their weapons come in at half the tonnage to their IS equivalents."

Abandon hope all ye who enter here.

Edited by Bud Crue, 05 February 2018 - 05:35 PM.

[Andi Nagasia]

Brain Cancer, on 05 February 2018 - 02:52 PM, said:

No, that's an attempt to completely rewrite the entire weapon balance system.

Machine guns. Just machine guns. KISS principle.

Yeonne Greene, on 05 February 2018 - 03:03 PM, said:

It also does literally nothing to address the problem: firepower delta.
I do not have any ammo concerns in my IS MG boats except when using HMG, and that's not an IS-specific problem. I also don't have any issue fitting the best IS energy weapons to go with these MGs

well if the Problem is Weight then my Solution would help MGs,
IS MGs would benefit from having 1ton of baked ammo(as its elevating 0.5ton & a Crit)
if its about needing more Harpoints, then i have to say MG Arrays?

Edited by Andi Nagasia, 05 February 2018 - 06:03 PM.

[JediPanther]

My Ember would love more 25% rof to its mgs. Drat every time one of these mgs threads start I want to bring out ember.

[Y E O N N E]

Revis Volek, on 05 February 2018 - 05:11 PM, said:

Why if one side has something the other HAS to also have the same boring thing?

That is the definition of boring IMO. If you wanna use 6 LMG, MG or HMG on the IS side just bring an BJ-Arrow.

6x MGs at 81 kph is not anywhere near as effective as 6x MGs at 156 kph. And if you put HMGs on an Arrow, you are doing it so very, very wrong.

Also, because all isMG boats are and have been trash long before the Piranha was ever announced. Ember, Arrow, Locust 1V/3V, Spider 5K. There really isn't a whole hell of a lot else these 'Mechs can do, and just quirking their meager energy hardpoints to god-hood is even more boring than making them effective with the MGs.

Andi Nagasia, on 05 February 2018 - 05:56 PM, said:

well if the Problem is Weight then my Solution would help MGs,
IS MGs would benefit from having 1ton of baked ammo(as its elevating 0.5ton & a Crit)
if its about needing more Harpoints, then i have to say MG Arrays?

The problem isn't generally weight, the problem is that I physically do not have the hard-points to get anywhere near the performance. You could make HMGs weigh 0.25 tons on a Locust 1V, it still wouldn't come at all close to the Piranha.

Arrays might help, but it's an overly complicated way of essentially getting more MGs. And you'd have to make it IS-only, otherwise then the Clans can just further multiply their hardpoints and we're back at Square 1.

JediPanther, on 05 February 2018 - 06:14 PM, said:

My Ember would love more 25% rof to its mgs. Drat every time one of these mgs threads start I want to bring out ember.

And then you remember its torso pitch is non-existent.

[Humpday]

I wish my Huggin worked like my Piranha...
Can we buff the Huggin a little pleasseeeeeee

Edited by Humpday, 06 February 2018 - 08:10 AM.

[FupDup]

To play devil's advocate, saying 12 Clan MGs = 6 IS MGs is not a completely equal comparison at all because the Clan MGs will need to spend more tonnage on ammo, more critslots on the MGs and ammo, and more hardpoints. Therefore, the 12 Clan MGs do in fact occupy more resources than the 6 IS MGs.

I'm not saying the current balance is fine, I'm saying that you need to make better comparisons.

Personally I would rather find an "asymmetrical" solution to MGs and other Clan vs. IS balance rather than "heavy thing is superior, light thing is inferior" because that's boring and uninspiring as hell (also, always making heavy guns clearly superior with no drawback other than tonnage will indirectly impact weight class balancing because obviously certain mechs can carry heavier guns than others).

For example, maybe one faction's MGs can have longer range while the other gets more DPS. Maybe one faction can have better crit damage but worse anti-armor. If we're really crazy, one faction could have burst-fire MGs that are better for hit-and-run alphas but worse in sustained combat. Etc. You know, creative things.

Edited by FupDup, 05 February 2018 - 06:47 PM.

[Deathlike]

Why bother balancing the game when the balance overlord couldn't make heads or tails of basic math?

That "IS superiority", reflected in how much it doesn't appear in high level play. It's a miracle they even exist!

[PocketYoda]

IS can't have nice things just ask Russ..

[Spheroid]

As a Clan loyalist why do you wish increased lethality from your enemy? Is not your ultimate goal to claim Terra and take the title of ilClan?

If you want a harder challenge just play drunk or high as much of the player base does. That is much simpler and more quickly expedited solution.

Edited by Spheroid, 05 February 2018 - 09:03 PM.

[Khobai]

IS machine guns are already stronger than clan machine guns

IS machine guns do more crit damage
IS machine guns have better spread
IS machine guns have more crit health

How much more do you think .25 tons is worth?

Because while IS machine guns do technically weigh twice as much as clan MGs, the actual tonnage difference is only 0.25 tons. And 0.25 tons isnt going to buy you a whole lot more than they already get.

Really the difference is trivial at best. Because there is no IS light mech that can boat enough machine guns for the tonnage difference to even add up.

IS isnt inferior to clans because their slightly stronger machine guns weigh a fraction of a ton more.

IS is inferior to clans because CDHS are way better, CFF/CES is way better, CXL is way better, and specific clan weapons like clan gauss are way better.

people need to focus more on getting the real problems fixed. not crying about fractional tonnage on machine guns. because thats just LOL.

Edited by Khobai, 06 February 2018 - 10:59 AM.

[InvictusLee]

Just give HMG more range on the IS side and call it a day.

Also give flamers on bothsides an actual damage per second that isnt heat related, like melting armor or crits...

[Sigmar Sich]

There is also an interesting technology, MG Array. I think it is beyond our timeline (which year is it now? 3058?).
If you have one MG, you add 0.5 ton of a duct tape, and you can add another MG. So in one hardpoint you can have 2 or 4 machineguns. Which would help IS mechs, which usually do not have many ballistic hardpoints.

[Destoroyah]

I think if they increased damage for all IS MGs by 0.2 a sec, increased ammo by 50%, and range by 30m. That would be a good starting point to see how things pan out. It needs to be taken into consideration IS lights that mount MGs stock usually have MG rate of fire quirks most are only 10-20% more if they have fewer B hardpoints.

Edited by Destoroyah, 05 February 2018 - 11:22 PM.