First, don't be wretched.
The fact we're having this discussion points to an earnest willingness on behalf of Tarogato and his group to present PGI with something that most of the community supports. While it might be easy to be dismissive or imprudent in the peanut gallery; to throw your hands up and declare the entire effort a bust if a single issue close to you doesn't go your way try your best to restrain those unworthy inclinations.
The amount of work Tarogato, Metachanic and Navid have put into this is exhaustive. And their efforts to HEAR everyone on these topics, frankly heroic. Certainly better than PGI has ever done, or attempted to do, and better than this community deserves. The goal is not to tear ourselves to pieces so that PGI can claim that we don't know what we want and therefore PGI can continue doing what they want. The goal is to demonstrate that community can, mostly, get behind something.
The community, being rather diverse, means we have people with many perspectives, emotions and ideas about how to do all this, and an effort to get most of them happy requires a great deal of COMPROMISE and requires the changes Tarogato's Folk make to be CONSERVATIVE in nature.
I know, I know, for a game filled with adults the concept of compromise is surprisingly hard to grasp, but it needs to happen. You won't get EVERYTHING you want, maybe most of what you want, but if you, or we, want anything that we want, it's still in all our best interests that some portion of these balance updates pass. The only people who should be against them are those who are in love with the current status quo.
Hopefully that's enough of preface to calm some of the rough waves thrashing about in the main thread, but I wont hold my breath.
Now, Gauss/PPC is being treated here separately from the main debate because its an extremely divisive issue. Unless a clear consensus can be established on this issue there is a good chance it'll be left out of the initial balance recommendations. This does not mean PGI wont be pressed to change it in the future, or that Tarogato's Gulag are giving up on it, just that there are other more widely supported initiatives they want to make sure happen before they tackle something as problematic as this.
Now, leaving out Gauss/PPC doesn't sit well with some people, so this topic will be our attempt to reach a consensus on the issue right now. If via voting in this poll and through careful debate one side or the other can muster significant support the Gauss/PPC matter can be either un-rolled back, or can be definitively tabled for the initial balance pass.
If this attempt at civil discourse, voting, and ultimately compromise is too much for you to handle as a presumably functional adult-human being then I put a pox upon your house and family and hope that all that is bright in your life withers away to dull despair, may ruin be your bedfellow and pain your only friend.
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AGAINST
I would rate the people against the PPC/Gauss as somewhat in agreement or inspired by Kanajashi's video on his concerns. They do not want the return of a weapon that was historically abused by skilled segments of the population. A large pin-point alpha at range with very little exposure time is a game play mechanic they see as inherently flawed. The sort of thing that exponentially increases the gap between the most skilled players in the game and the more numerous meat & potato player-base.
They believe the risk/reward aspect of it is skewed and do not want its return. They of course can further discuss and articulate their views in this thread, that is just my brief description of them as I understand them.
Furthermore, because of the way the game handles these things, if you allow players to bring 2ppc1gauss, it also means 1ppc2gauss will work. Which also means 3x PPC will work, which also means 2xGauss and 2x PPC will also work to a point. (3x GAUSS/ppc alphas mean we allow 3xERPPC alpha. Keeping the penalty on 3x cERPPC means we must allow 2x cGauss + 2xcERPPC Gauss)
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FOR
The players for a return of Gauss/PPC would first point out that many of the historic issues surrounding their previous strength have been mitigated. For instance Mechs running those builds have had their agility heavily nerfed, which means they are difficult to position, and if closed upon, they have very little chance of escape. They think it's an important play style with significant and workable trade offs between risk and reward.
They think with the high damage that laservomit is capable of producing, along with the potential return of SRM & med brawling that this balance pass might encourage, that the Gauss/PPC builds of yore will fill an important niche, but also have exploitable weaknesses to aggression.
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Discuss, and vote on what you want to see in this game. Make your cases, and remember, you're not trying to put the other side down for being selfish, elitist, bad/good at this game, dumb, etc. You're trying to CONVINCE them of your side. This isn't cable news, this is a real life DEBATE. If you really want what you think should happen, to happen, then you need to get the community on your side.
And if it doesn't go your way you're going to need to be okay with it. There's still a lot of good in the balance update and there is always tomorrow (unless you refuse to work together and burn this entire endeavor down so PGI never listens again and therefore destroy all future tomorrows because you're a petulant child in an adult's body)
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Due to forum limitations I cannot include the poll in this thread and so have made a seperate one for voting. Please use it to register your feelings on this matter. Let's actually see how the community feels.
Edited by Mech The Dane, 11 February 2018 - 11:05 AM.