64 replies to this topic

[Reno Blade]

Khobai, on 05 September 2018 - 11:00 PM, said:

Min range shouldnt exist on PPCs either, or any weapon for that matter. Its just not a fun mechanic.



I disagree with game mechanics that exist solely as skill barriers. There is no reason to discourage new players from using Gauss by placing it behind a skill barrier. Chargeup is a bad mechanic in its current form. It exists only to frustrate players and make them jump through extra hoops to fire the weapon.

IMO chargeup is not implemented in a way thats at all interesting or fun. Chargeup would make more sense if Gauss rifles had variable levels of charge. Like if you could fire them immediately for half damage or charge them up for full damage.



HGauss needs to either be limited to firing one at a time or have ghost heat on firing 2 at a time.

You cant fire two AC20s without ghost heat. Heavy Gauss should be no different.

Although both AC20 and Heavy Gauss should be buffed as singleton weapons.

I think there are two different angles to look at when talking about mechanics:
- fun and interesting weapon handling/mechanic
- balancing factors

Charge mechanics in general are used for Bow&Arrow and power-increasing attacks (as you described for your gauss charge idea).
If this is an interesting mechanic is a personal subjective feeling.
Balancing wise, it is not difficult, but it adds an element to the weapon that makes it easier for long range (as you don't need to move your cursor much for aiming) and harder for very fast brawling action (cause you need to learn to charge and release in the chaotic melee).
-> I would not consider this as a skill barrier, but as the intented range-related handling skaling.

Similar thing can be said about UAC bursts and even laser burns, which get more difficult when you can't move your aim fast enough in melee range, or for any ballistic in general when leading at longer ranges.

Now for Gauss having variable damage:
The community considers everything that is not maxed to be flawed.
Having players "gimp" their damage by low skill (not using charge) would make things worse than they are already, especially with newbs vs good players (average or above).

Thinking of PPC min range:
True the ramping dmg curve we had in the past was more interesting.
I don't remember if there was a bug, performance or just balancing, but it was changed to 0 dmg below 90m now.
Personally, i would prefere self-dmg when below range, as was in the original rules if the field-inhibitor was disabled (otherwise the PPC does no dmg below 90m).

Back to charge mechanic doing different dmg:
The best way to use it would be to add PPCCapacitors (similar to Artemis upgrades) which allows you to charge the Capacitor of the PPCs with additional 5 dmg and 5 heat (the heat is generated constantly until discharged).


Ghost heat:
It was always the goal to make single (or less numbers) better compared to the multiplied improvement of boated weapons.
The problem with the GH for Gauss is at the moment that it has not enough heat to realy work out without scaling like in Energy Draw (where we had energy consumption generating extra heat).
Having higher base heat AND ghost heat for multi shots would be my preference, so they handle like other ballistics.
-> BUT then the Gauss would only have three differences to the AC classes:
- higher velocity
- higher range
- charge mechanic
I'm very hesitant to limit Gauss to a single one with a hard limit and prefere penalties (side effects).

Other options:
Besides still thinking of Energy Draw tweaks, I would like to see:
1. Heat scale effects
---> slowing down movement, agility and mobility, even sensor lock speeds
2. Damage effects
---> firing too many weapons will slow your mech down because of the recoil (especially HGauss, as was in the lore)
3. Melee collision damage (without proper mechanics, just basic)
---> when colliding with a mech, you currently only get 0.1dmg or so, but if every collision would do 10% of your tonnage as damage to the other mech, this could simulate melee (charge)
and any hand actuator or melee weapon could increase the %.
if you also get some self dmg when colliding with buildings, the whole peaking and hiding would totally change, as you would scratch your armor off when slithering over a buildings surface.

[Khobai]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 26 August 2018 - 04:57 PM, said:

Why, why is making some weapons have a higher skill curve bad exactly?

Why is it good? What is the reason why gauss needs a higher skill curve? the only reason for keeping gauss at a higher skill curve is to avoid properly balancing the weapon and instead trying to limit its usage it through artificial scarcity. Thats a crap reason for chargeup to exist. Now if the chargeup mechanic was actually an interesting mechanic I might be inclined to feel differently, but the way it is now its a boring one-dimensional mechanic that adds nothing positive to the weapon.

I would rather see Gauss curve out at the same standard skill curve as other weapons but actually be a balanced weapon. Or at the very least make chargeup into a more interesting mechanic instead of the boring one-dimensional mechanic it is now.

Reno Blade, on 06 September 2018 - 11:58 AM, said:

The community considers everything that is not maxed to be flawed.
Having players "gimp" their damage by low skill (not using charge) would make things worse than they are already, especially with newbs vs good players (average or above).

Thats simply not true at all.

Because its purely optional. Youre gaining the option to gimp your damage in exchange for being able to fire immediately. While still retaining the same ability to chargeup for full damage. There is no other way to view that than as a buff. It makes the chargeup mechanic much more interesting by giving it flexibility.

Although that added flexibility should come with the downside of Gauss actually having to generate heat (less heat if not charged and more heat if fully charged). Which shouldve always been the case.

Edited by Khobai, 06 September 2018 - 01:18 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Khobai, on 06 September 2018 - 01:05 PM, said:

Why is it good? What is the reason why gauss needs a higher skill curve?

Maybe because it makes personal growth more interesting? Maybe because having every weapon be simple to use makes the game boring (hit scan only weapons)? Maybe because it isn't just about higher skill curves?

Khobai, on 06 September 2018 - 01:05 PM, said:

the only reason for keeping gauss at a higher skill curve is to avoid properly balancing the weapon and instead trying to limit its usage it through artificial scarcity.

Lolwut, a weapon doesn't get excused for being more powerful just because it has a higher skill curve UNLESS it impacts its reliability because weapons that are less reliable have to have increased power (though there is a cutoff in which weapons swing to wildly between unreliable and over-powered, see LRMs).

Also, the idea that Gauss is imbalanced because of chargeup is a baseless claim. You remove the chargeup and you lose the boosted velocity, it's as simple as that (well for Clan Gauss and Heavy Gauss that is).

Khobai, on 06 September 2018 - 01:05 PM, said:

its a boring one-dimensional mechanic that adds nothing positive to the weapon.

It's not supposed to add something positive or negative, it's meant to change how you would use the Gauss rifle compared to standard weapons, which it does.....

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 06 September 2018 - 02:04 PM.

[Khobai]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 06 September 2018 - 02:02 PM, said:

Maybe because it makes personal growth more interesting? Maybe because having every weapon be simple to use makes the game boring (hit scan only weapons)? Maybe because it isn't just about higher skill curves?

I agree that other weapons are boring too. Especially lasers.

I have suggested numerous game mechanics to make other weapons more interesting too.

Like using an energy bank mechanic for pulse lasers. Basically allow pulse lasers to fire very fast but each time it drains energy from their energy bank, which would replenish itself over time, but slower than the weapon can drain it.

Gauss is hardly the only boring weapon in the game. Theres lots of boring weapons that should have better game mechanics.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 06 September 2018 - 02:02 PM, said:

It's not supposed to add something positive or negative, it's meant to change how you would use the Gauss rifle compared to standard weapons, which it does.....

that is false. go back to the patch notes that explain why chargeup was added. PGI's reason for adding chargeup was not to make gauss "different". It was to make it more difficult to use gauss rifles so it would be harder to combine it with other weapons like PPCs. It was added solely as a skill barrier and frustration mechanic. PGI themselves said so.

Edited by Khobai, 06 September 2018 - 02:14 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Khobai, on 06 September 2018 - 02:07 PM, said:

that is false. go back to the patch notes that explain why chargeup was added. PGI's reason for adding chargeup was not to make gauss "different". It was to make it more difficult to use gauss rifles so it would be harder to combine it with other weapons like PPCs.

Actually, the patch notes don't say anything: https://mwomercs.com...40-03-sep-2013/ However, they also added it to change how easy it was to use at brawling ranges which it actually succeeded at doing while the reason you described actually failed.

Paul had more information on this post: https://mwomercs.com...moving-forward/

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 06 September 2018 - 02:21 PM.

[Khobai]

that just corroborates what I said. they added chargeup to be a skill barrier. paul even said it made gauss require more skill to use.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Khobai, on 06 September 2018 - 03:58 PM, said:

that just corroborates what I said. they added chargeup to be a skill barrier. paul even said it made gauss require more skill to use.

Except it doesn't unless you specifically take things out of context:

Quote

Testing has proven that while the mechanic takes a bit to get used to, it is very effective at defining the Gauss Rifle as a long range sniper weapon. While it is meant to be a long range weapon, the Gauss Rifle is still usable at short range. It just requires a much higher skill shot rather than a simple point and click.

The meaning behind this is that it is still very effective as a long range weapon, but that the charge-up doesn't remove it from being able to be used at short range, it just requires more skill to use it at shorter range. Now the last part is wrong on his part because it just made the weapon more unwieldy (because of the "skill" required at shorter ranges is greater) at shorter ranges, which is fine, it accomplished the goal of making Gauss less viable at shorter ranges.

Basically it boils down to this, almost any weapon that isn't hitscan PPFLD is going to have some skill barrier. That skill barrier can and does impact where it is effective. In the case of projectile velocities, that impacts its usefulness at certain ranges. Chargeup makes a weapon harder to use in brawls because of the lack of snapshots so that most people avoid using it as a brawling weapon like they did once upon a time. It also makes it less apt to responding to harassment lights.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 06 September 2018 - 05:42 PM.

[Sh0t]

Never understood this, even in TT. Gauss weapons would require more heat than normal ballistics by far.

Give MGs heat, too.

[Mister Maf]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 26 August 2018 - 05:57 PM, said:

While RL in this case supports the argument for heat to be added to Gauss, I want to make it clear that balance and mechanics trump whatever is in reality. If a change is inspired by real life and fits within the mechanics of the game then fine, but I don't want this to derail into discussion about how things are in real life because in the end, that doesn't matter. What does matter is that Gauss breaks the single system aimed at controlling damage output, heat. Due to it circumventing heat, a bunch of other mechanics have been tacked on in an effort to control Gauss and at the end of the day it has been simply flawed and caused more issues than it has helped.

In other words, we need to finally give Gauss heat and dropped all the tacked on mechanics aimed at balancing it (outside of Gauss charge-up because firing behavior flavor is important). Basing heat of charge up also doesn't really make sense given how Gauss works (only stays charged-up for a certain period) and can in fact make the 2 skills aimed at extending that charge up worthless (since now they would incur heat penalties). Just make it based on firing the weapon and be done with it, after all the whole point of heat is to limit damage, not limit charging a weapon up (and having the charge up in the first place is more of a limiting factor than adding heat to the charge).

The ways in which the real-life laws of physics do not apply to the Battletech universe are too numerous to count, especially as they are presented in MWO. They can certainly be used as an inspiration for a mechanic or balance, but really gameplay in this franchise has always trumped reality when the two are at odds with each other.

I think a simple solution would just be to give the gauss rifle family heat values in various percentages to the AC/20. For example, give the regular gauss a heat value equal to half of an AC/20's heat. That way, a single one shooting has a negligible impact, but a pair of them would be noticeable in combination with a laser drill, slightly reducing the brawling capacity of such builds because their sustain DPS would be lower. Heavy gauss could have, say, three quarters of the AC/20's heat, or even an equal amount. That would make dual HGR builds still deadly, but they would need to be more considerate with their shots.

Overall the gauss family would still have an extremely favorable heat:damage output ratio, but it wouldn't just be heat-free damage on top of a bunch of lasers. IMO this would be just enough to bring them into line, or at least a tame place to start from.

Edited by Mister Maf, 21 September 2018 - 08:53 PM.

[Yondu Udonta]

You guys are just bad at gauss that's why you are asking for a nerf on it because you guys can't take advantage of its PPFLD. If gauss vom is the issue, learn to twist your torsos. If you keep eating gauss rounds you should stop staring down gauss mechs. If you are going up against a HG mech keep your distance. Simple enough.

[Bloodwitch]

gauss, worst dps ingame, goes poof the moment someone looks at it, heavy, low on ammo, chargeup, ghostheat.

Yea suuuure, nerf it more.

[Throe]

[deleted by user]

Edited by Throe, 09 November 2018 - 11:32 AM.

[Aleksandr Sergeyevich Kerensky]

The following idea I am about to make is a terrible one, but I’ll post it anyway (even though it’s bad).

How about PGI removes the forced charge mechanic. It can now fire the instant you click the button, but it has 15 heat (25 heat if it’s heavy gauss)... but if you hold down the button, it slowly reduces the amount of heat it would create the longer you hold the button down until you release the shot.

This gives the player choice on if they want a snap shot at high heat, or a charged shot at low heat?

Or, suggestion 2) firing gauss restricts the usage of coolshot for a short duration after firing. (Both this idea and my previous one is terrible, I know... but just an idea)

[Akillius]

Kunato Developments, on 23 September 2018 - 12:58 PM, said:

gauss, worst dps ingame, goes poof the moment someone looks at it, heavy, low on ammo, chargeup, ghostheat.

Yea suuuure, nerf it more.

Yup and since Gauss already generates ghost heat https://mwo.smurfy-net.de/equipment

If it was to also generate heat from firing then it must be more on par with AC10 and AC20...
1. Upon firing any gauss there is to be a bright flash + maybe a blue or green smoke.
2. Upon firing any gauss by enemy forces, they create a blimp on radar that slowly fades in 3 seconds.
3. No explosion from critical hits.
4. Removal of "charge up" mechanics.
5. No limit to number fired simultaneously.
6. No screen shake when fired.

GAUSS RIFLE = heat 4.5, cool down 3.1s, ghost heat 5, ammo/t 16
HEAVY GAUSS RIFLE = heat 9, cool down 5.5s, ghost heat 10, ammo/t 6
LIGHT GAUSS RIFLE = heat 2, cool down 2s, ghost heat 2.5, ammo/t 30
The extra range is accounted for by the extra slots, +extra weight, +Type of firing mechanics; autocanon vs gauss.

*Points 1 and 2 above are must haves, its the lack of direction from where the firer is hiding that makes gauss annoying.

That all seems fair now doesn't it.
Good, glad thats all settled.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Aleksandr Sergeyevich Kerensky, on 27 September 2018 - 02:08 PM, said:

The following idea I am about to make is a terrible one, but I’ll post it anyway (even though it’s bad).

How about PGI removes the forced charge mechanic. It can now fire the instant you click the button, but it has 15 heat (25 heat if it’s heavy gauss)... but if you hold down the button, it slowly reduces the amount of heat it would create the longer you hold the button down until you release the shot.

This gives the player choice on if they want a snap shot at high heat, or a charged shot at low heat?

Actually I'm okay with chargeup being tied to heat more so than damage given that it feels similar to ghost heat where if you can afford the extra heat you can alpha, but again, that gives it potentially more flexibility than you would really like. It feels better than making it tied to damage, but I can't really explain why.

[Bloodwitch]

Max Rickson, on 27 September 2018 - 03:52 PM, said:

Yup and since Gauss already generates ghost heat https://mwo.smurfy-net.de/equipment

If it was to also generate heat from firing then it must be more on par with AC10 and AC20...
1. Upon firing any gauss there is to be a bright flash + maybe a blue or green smoke.
2. Upon firing any gauss by enemy forces, they create a blimp on radar that slowly fades in 3 seconds.
3. No explosion from critical hits.
4. Removal of "charge up" mechanics.
5. No limit to number fired simultaneously.
6. No screen shake when fired.

GAUSS RIFLE = heat 4.5, cool down 3.1s, ghost heat 5, ammo/t 16
HEAVY GAUSS RIFLE = heat 9, cool down 5.5s, ghost heat 10, ammo/t 6
LIGHT GAUSS RIFLE = heat 2, cool down 2s, ghost heat 2.5, ammo/t 30
The extra range is accounted for by the extra slots, +extra weight, +Type of firing mechanics; autocanon vs gauss.

*Points 1 and 2 above are must haves, its the lack of direction from where the firer is hiding that makes gauss annoying.

That all seems fair now doesn't it.
Good, glad thats all settled.

How about a 50/50 chance for it to explode every time it fires?

Edited by Kunato Developments, 03 October 2018 - 12:14 PM.

[Tesunie]

Kunato Developments, on 03 October 2018 - 10:03 AM, said:

How about a 50/50 chance for it to explode every time it fires?

Simple.

NO.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

Gauss has a Very hard Charge Mechanic ...for me with acustic Problems not useable
gauss has less Ammo per Ton
Gauss is a Glasscanon thats destroyed the half mech by damage

what now Heat ? thats nerfs the AC5 less against lasers ...lasers no ammo ,no ammo explosion risk , no many slots like ACs

when a Guy has the skill to use Gauss ...comes the whiners thats to stupid with her own Tactic against that...when im stand in Range thats im hit from Gauss -my fault , when im not move in circle in brawl and go facetanking to a Gauss -my fault ..when im not use R to seeing the guy has Gauss-my fault

Edited by Old MW4 Ranger, 09 October 2018 - 06:43 PM.

[Karl Streiger]

Well... when Gauss has heat you could drop the charge timer.... because the charge timer only made it into the game because ghost heat would not have been an issue with 1 heat.

now with Gauss linked to PPCs, because charge up is not an issue when you played the gauss long enough
(did i ever mentioned that I wished my PPCs had charge time too - i like the mechanic....
trigger aim release - of course when you do aim trigger release you are screwed....

[Y E O N N E]

Desyncing from PPCs is not at all why the Gauss has a charging mechanic.