181 replies to this topic

[Requiemking]

Mech Ranger, on 20 July 2018 - 08:50 PM, said:

yes, i know it's good when u put a lot of them in pir-1 or mlx, but it is not simply because mg is too imba, it's bacause the quantity of mg they can carry is too many ,and those tiny mech r too fast and small to shoot back


Actually , if u think about it , machine gun is a kind of stupid weapon, low damage , loooooong face time, short range

although they r no heat , no limit, small weight ~, which means , it's hardly to find other weapons to coordinate except flamer~

so, the thing pgi should do is nerf pir-1 or mlx instead of simply nerf mg~

The thing is, the Piranha has similar issues to what the ACH did back before Engine Desync. There really isn't much you can nerf.

Edited by Requiemking, 20 July 2018 - 10:15 PM.

[Asym]

East Indy, on 20 July 2018 - 09:10 AM, said:

Yup. Something as simple as increasing the cone of fire per machine guns fired would do it perfectly: a small number would be accurate, many would be far less accurate, giving players choices not only about how to use hardpoints but which 'Mechs to pick since fewer hardpoints would have value.

But . . . PGI seems to still want to nerf individual weapons, giving the wheel another turn.

That's because they can't fix the programming without a huge expense. I'd bet that they don't have the time, staff or budget to fix Cryengine's on-going age problems....

It's all about revenue and has been from day one. What sells in a "Rock-and-Sock'em" robot game? OP robots. Build it; release it; it causes all sorts of OP damage; everyone wants it and buys it; they experience huge wins; PGI nerf's it to slow it down; they nerf it again; everybody abandons the mech; and, PGI offers a new OP mech.........over and over again.

ACH and the PIR are good examples. Nothing new here.

[Clydewinder]

just nerf all weapons. if a clan mech can run 12 machine guns, the IS mech that runs 2 needs to be punished

Edited by Clydewinder, 21 July 2018 - 05:35 AM.

[Weeny Machine]

Mystere, on 20 July 2018 - 11:17 AM, said:

Why apply that only on MGs and not ALL weapons?

because it would also affect other mech classes and not only lights and a few meds?


Just a very wild guess

[East Indy]

Mystere, on 20 July 2018 - 01:23 PM, said:

That's what I meant -- diminishing returns for each additional weapon fired.

Oh, I gotcha now! Yup: suggestions made here and here.

[thievingmagpi]

GH should trigger over 6 mgs.

So the baseline is 6. Anything above it (MLX) are still extremely potent but have to be a bit more wary of heat.

And stuff like the PIR is still effective but you just can't fire non stop and circle strafe enemies to death. A bit more of a crit exploiter.

Keep in mind the PIR is mi fav mech right now. It's just silly how well a mediocre player like me does in it.

[AEgg]

MGs require 100% face time, thus, MGs are basically trash weapons on lights unless your target ignores you. If the light hides at your feet, it's an easy target for your allies. A stopped light is a dead light.

You don't live through ignoring an assault that's in front of you, why should you live through ignoring a light that's behind you?

Weapons in MW:O don't crit through armor. If you're running 8 rear armor on an assault, it's entirely your fault if you start losing components. Had a medium or heavy gotten behind you, you'd have lost the entire torso instead of just a weapon.

[Mechwarrior1441491]

AEgg, on 21 July 2018 - 02:21 PM, said:

MGs require 100% face time, thus, MGs are basically trash weapons on lights unless your target ignores you. If the light hides at your feet, it's an easy target for your allies. A stopped light is a dead light.

You don't live through ignoring an assault that's in front of you, why should you live through ignoring a light that's behind you?

Weapons in MW:O don't crit through armor. If you're running 8 rear armor on an assault, it's entirely your fault if you start losing components. Had a medium or heavy gotten behind you, you'd have lost the entire torso instead of just a weapon.

No one is running any sort of back armour that can withstand mgs. HELL the front armour is BARELY adequate. MOving any to the back means you are simply melting all the faster from everything else as well.

MGS aren't where they need to be. It's cool that they are thinking about crap weapons and the mechs that use them, but it's fairly silly.

[Miocast]

MG's are fine as they are, MG boats is one and only legit playstyle that lights have left at their disposal...

Lets not cause extinction of a whole weight group just because of players who can't aim and have seriously small situational awarness. PIR, in the way they are, literally suicide bombers for a most part, you more likely to be oblitirated by lrms, streaks, meme insta gib heavy gauss or laservomit berfore you reach an enemy front or back.

[Weeny Machine]

I have played a lot of matches with a PIR-1 and I can tell you one thing: it is a feast or famine mech. If an enemy team does no positioning mistakes or a heavy and assault is aware of its surroundings, you get a little facetime up and then have to pull out or risk taking too much damage because a PIR is fragile. Not only that but it has to get very close and there are many ATM and LRM carriers out there which force you to run away from a victim.

That being said the PIR 1 is a first rate potato killer. People who are tunnelvisioning and have no idea how to twist pay the price. And you know what? That's fine. I hate these double standards on this boards. As Miocast pointed out: light mechs are so easily obliterated by many things. This is ok for heavy and assault jocks but hell breaks lose if a light mech punishes their mistakes because...well, because it is a light mech and they are entitled to a victory because they chose the heavier mech in the mechlab

There are so many means besides the above mentioned which can curb a PIRs effectiveness as well...
1. Use pinpoint damage weapons not just lol laser alpha lololol spam
2. If you suck at aiming a streak system is enough to deter any light from going after you - streaks literally hardcounter light mechs
3. Invest into the survival tree's crit reduction and realize that MGs are MUCH less effective suddenly


Seriously, if you have such problems against a PIR or light mechs it is more a problem with you and not with the mech or the mech class

Edited by Bush Hopper, 22 July 2018 - 12:07 AM.

[Y E O N N E]

FYI, the crit-rate reduction nodes from the skill tree do f*ck all to curb MGs critting out components.

[CFC Conky]

Hello all,

Took a PIR-1 out last night on Solaris City. Now I’m a very poor light mech driver, but I ended the match with three kills and just under 500 damage. Still, I wouldn’t say the mech, or it’s weapons configuration are overpowered. I was able to stay in cover until the enemy team was softened up and spread out, then was able to come in and hit and run. The Solaris City map is ideal for this.

If the other team had not become separated/out of position, it would have been much more difficult for me to hit them and survive. To borrow from an earlier post, fighting in a PIR is feast or famine.

Please bear in mind that my comments are based on T5-T4 solo queue quickplay, it might be very different in the higher tiers and/or faction play.

Good hunting,
CFC Conky

[Viking Yelling]

AEgg, on 21 July 2018 - 02:21 PM, said:

MGs require 100% face time, thus, MGs are basically trash weapons on lights unless your target ignores you. If the light hides at your feet, it's an easy target for your allies. A stopped light is a dead light.

You don't live through ignoring an assault that's in front of you, why should you live through ignoring a light that's behind you?

Weapons in MW:O don't crit through armor. If you're running 8 rear armor on an assault, it's entirely your fault if you start losing components. Had a medium or heavy gotten behind you, you'd have lost the entire torso instead of just a weapon.

I played a game with my arctic wolf. 5 srm 6, 4 srm 4. Ran up punched a timber wolf lost a lot of armor. In cover, all of a sudden a piranha lackidasically pops around the corner, turns on its 12 or so MGs and before I have time to even aim and fire every single weapon was critted put.

Piranhas are literal garbage to me. Its a mech that simply exploits the crit mechanic and should never have been added.
My proof is exactly in the implementation of the mech. MGs in lore are anti-infantry weapons. Most mechs only used 1-3 for close defense. MWO implemented them as a brawling defense in that they could disable enemies in close range. They then added the piranha that uses an anti-infantry weapon as a main weapon, with enough of them to literally equate 2 RAC-2s with more thab 10x the crit ability.

In the midst of PGI trying to "level power creep" they just broke damage per ton for light mechs. Now any balancing done to MGs will either have to be nerfs (making MGs even less of an option for mechs without the hardpoints for 12 MGs, there by removing them as a brawling weapon, IE, removing their purpose in the game for anything but 12+ mg piranhas), or buffing other mechs' MGs through quirks to have an efficency similar to 12+ MG piranhas. Nerfing piranha MG spam is pointless to the purpose of the mech and every mech having effectively 12 MGs is breaking.

[Pahrias]

how about a spread increase?

Bigger cone of fire for larger number of mgs. so for 6+ it would be a really big cone. totally spaying all over the mechs back would reduce the effectiveness.

[Judah Malganis]

Quote

MGs in lore are anti-infantry weapons.

There is such a misconception regarding the idea of MGs as an anti-infantry weapon, it's ridiculous. In BT lore, MGs, micro/small pulse lasers, flamers, and SRMs all have the benefit of being anti-infantry weapons. From the point of view of game mechanics, that means they do BONUS dmg when used against infantry. Never does it imply or state that they are weak vs mech armor. In fact, SARNA entries explicitly state that MGs are effective vs mech armor, and their stats reflect that standard MGs do as much damage as an AC2, but at a much shorter range. Their ammo count ensures they are the highest dmg per ammo ton ballistic weapon in the game. PGI did us a service with current MG stats. If they were faithful to BT rules, they'd do AC2 DPS. Imagine the terror if that was how they worked in-in-game.

From the Piranha entry in Sarna:

Quote

The Piranha's main threat is its twelve Series XII Rotary Machine Guns. These are a serious threat to any foe on such a speedy 'Mech, especially if a Star of Piranhas operate in a pack, and such a large array allows the 'Mech to chew through an opponent's rear armor almost instantly. They are most deadly, however, to unarmored infantry, capable of wiping out an entire company in seconds.

The entry does state that the mech is deadly vs infantry, but it also shows that they are also deadly vs mechs that get caught with their pants down. And the base Piranha has 12 MGs, 2 ER Meds, and 1 ER Small, so no, not all mechs just carry 2-3 MGs. There's many examples of mech variants carrying 6+ if you're willing to look through the Sarna list.

If you don't like Piranhas or MGs and feel they need a change, that's fine. But stop being disingenuous about how MGs work in BT.

Edited by Judah Malganis, 22 July 2018 - 11:59 AM.

[Y E O N N E]

Pahrias, on 22 July 2018 - 11:15 AM, said:

how about a spread increase?

Bigger cone of fire for larger number of mgs. so for 6+ it would be a really big cone. totally spaying all over the mechs back would reduce the effectiveness.

They get at face-hugging range already with the current spread. An increase would have to be so obnoxiously large to have any effect that the 'Mech itself becomes useless.

[5th Fedcom Rat]

Yeonne Greene, on 22 July 2018 - 11:37 AM, said:

An increase would have to be so obnoxiously large to have any effect that the 'Mech itself becomes useless.

I think making the Piranha useless is the ultimate intent of many posters in this thread....

Personally, I think the problem lies with mg crits period, not just 6+ boats.

I run into tons and tons of people in Solaris using 2-6 machine guns on all manner of mechs simply to get the cheap crits.

Even in QP, there's usually an MG boating Jagermech in every match.

I would massively reduce the crit potential of the weapon and give it a tiny damage boost, and it would still be decent but much less cheap and annoying.

For that matter, LBX should have its crit potential reduced as well.

Edited by 5th Fedcom Rat, 22 July 2018 - 12:00 PM.

[x Deathstrike x]

5th Fedcom Rat, on 22 July 2018 - 11:49 AM, said:

I think making the Piranha useless is the ultimate intent of most posters in this thread....

Wouldn't be the first time MWO cry-babies destroy mechs they cant handle.

[Y E O N N E]

5th Fedcom Rat, on 22 July 2018 - 11:49 AM, said:

I think making the Piranha useless is the ultimate intent of most posters in this thread....

Personally, I think the problem lies with mg crits period, not just 6+ boats.

I run into tons and tons of people in Solaris using machine guns to get cheap crits.

Even in QP, there's usually an MG boating Jagermech in every match.

I agree, the crit mechanic is just ridiculous right now. Even LB-X critting is obnoxious, and it's simply not fun to lose weapons so quickly. All of this talk about raising TTK, but nobody seems to want to acknowledge that a weaponless 'Mech is essentially a dead 'Mech (mission-killed) and that it's easier and faster than ever to mission-kill a 'Mech.

I want to see crits reduced dramatically and a slight damage and/or spread buff to keep the weapons effective as normal firepower (i.e. I really want to use LMGs but they are just so weak that it's not worth it even with 6 of them)

Can't corroborate the MG-boating Jagers, though, lol. Most Jagers I see are of the Boom or dakka variety.

[Jackal Noble]

2 Large pulse and your flavor of MGs on the JAG-DD. friggin nasty.