67 replies to this topic

[Extra Guac]

The6thMessenger, on 03 April 2019 - 11:59 PM, said:

The RAC5s, does a cumulative duration of 19.2113s while doing 76.875 damage, with an EDPS of 4.

You can't just take a calculation like this and then say that RAC5's have poor DPS.

If you expose your mech for 5 seconds, you can deal 54 damage, and then duck behind cover. Your effective DPS is the full 10.91 - that's pretty much the best case scenario. And it doesn't require redlining. So it's not really correct to say that RAC's only have high DPS when redlining. They have very high DPS for short durations.

In a perfect world, your RAC's would always deal 10.91 DPS under any combat situation (when your mech is exposed to the enemy). In reality it will fall somewhere between that number and your calculated EDPS of 4.

Also bear in mind that the original data file only uses a max of 3 decimal places, so it's unscientific to report calculated values going out more than 3 decimal places.

[B L O O D W I T C H]

The6thMessenger, on 05 April 2019 - 02:38 PM, said:

Consider this, 10s downtime to wait for a full bar gauge to dissipate, simmilarly 10s downtime to wait for a jammed weapon. This is a nobrainer, there is no extension of down time whether you let it dissipate or you have it jammed. Why is that hard to understand? If you aren't maximizing your redline, then you are losing out on DPS.

You're not there to kill, you are there to put out damage and sandblast with a chance to kill. You are also there to suppress, if you could put the shells near the cockpit.

Likewise, it doesn't need to be a whole 10s of continous firing time. The Jam-Bar dissipates waaay slowly for peeking. You could repeatedly poke in and out. But you do not have to wait for your jam gauge to dissipate, you could just redline it until you are forced to fully dissipate.

Honestly, i think you just don't want to understand.
It is situational. At times you want to red line and other times you don't want to get caught jammed up. Is that too difficult to comprehend?

The6thMessenger, on 05 April 2019 - 02:38 PM, said:

Well here's the thing, the point of general DPS, is that it works at a general level. Having 5 DPS for a 10-ton, versus 5 DPS on a 14-ton means it has similar damage potential, for a lighter equipment.

Why ignore the differences? Because these are assumed to be when the equipment is used properly, which I assume we don't want to balance by potato.

AC2 has a dps of 2,8
Gauss has a dps of 2,6
1 slot 6 tons vs 7 slots 15 tons

Excuse me for being potato but just by looking at the values you can't draw any conslusion because it doesn't factor in facetime, spread, pinpoint and whatnot.
Again, if you ignore the differences you get a skewed outlook which does not represent what happens ingame.

The6thMessenger, on 05 April 2019 - 02:38 PM, said:

I mean granted sure, of course, that's not what is happening in game. But ACs, UACs, and RACs are a matter of spraying enemies. It's not like Gauss that we capitalize on alpha damage, we have to operate on the assumption that ACs, at their best, are being sprayed.

Disagreed, at least for higher caliber ACs. UAC5 don't spray nearly as much as RACs do and if you spay with UAC5, AC5/10/20 you should pick up a different weapon. Clan ACs spay, part of the reasons they are not nearly as often used as Clan UACs.

Grus, on 05 April 2019 - 01:53 PM, said:

I'm assuming that the rac pilot doesn't know how to spin up BEFORE he comes around a corner?

You're also assuming that the UAC pilot is just standing still, waiting for a RAC pilot to kill him.
On equal terms, the UAC builds win when trading. That's how i engage RAC builds, i poke them without giving them a chance to return much fire.

[LordNothing]

im no big fan of mwo's jam mechanics. for uacs its too all or nothing. for racs, jamming shouldnt be rng based at all. in both cases the disadvantages can be lessened through boating. which in turn kills the effectiveness of those weapons on lighter mechs or the heavier guns that cant be boated well.

Edited by LordNothing, 05 April 2019 - 11:55 PM.

[Khobai]

LordNothing, on 05 April 2019 - 06:48 PM, said:

im no big fan of mwo's jam mechanics. for uacs its too all or nothing. for racs, jamming shouldnt be rng based at all. in both cases the disadvantages can be lessened through boating. which in turn kills the effectiveness of those weapons on lighter mechs or the heavier guns that can be boated well.

thats one more reason why RNG is bad.

because it requires you to boat autocannons in order to average out your DPS.

the game needs less incentive to boat weapons not more.

you should be able to take one or two UACs on a medium mech and have it be effective. But RNG jamming makes that really stupid right now. it also makes taking a single UAC20 on an atlas stupid because the thing jams so often. RNG jamming needs to be removed to bring better consistency to loadouts that arnt boating 3+ UACs.

Edited by Khobai, 05 April 2019 - 10:25 PM.

[ShiverMeRivets]

Gamuray, on 04 April 2019 - 02:33 AM, said:

Instead of a jam bar for UAC's, just make it so if you fire once you get normal cooldown, fire twice and you get double cooldown time. Literally same dps as an AC of the same caliber, but with a bit of added function for the extra tonnage cost. No RNG jam, no crazy DPS, easy peasy.

For UACs - this exactly.

For RACs I absolutely agree with the idea to jam them immediately when the jam bar is full & turns red. This makes the jamming absolutely predictable and manageable. This will work out as another resource excacly the same as the heat bar limits lasers - fire until filled, then retreat to cool off / ramp down.

[The6thMessenger]

Deepfryer, on 05 April 2019 - 03:29 PM, said:

You can't just take a calculation like this and then say that RAC5's have poor DPS.

.....

In a perfect world, your RAC's would always deal 10.91 DPS under any combat situation (when your mech is exposed to the enemy). In reality it will fall somewhere between that number and your calculated EDPS of 4.

Well, in perfect world too, you don't miss your other AC shots, your LRMs land, your SRM is focused at a single component, Gauss and other stuffs also lands. This is consistent, systematic error. Similarly, we also don't balance by potato, so there should be a standard, and that is when the weapon is at it's best.

Tell you what, also, in reality, it's likely that you'd miss a lot of your RAC shells too, more so with the standard ACs, so yeah, it has even poorer non-redline EDPS.

The RAC5s don't always deal 10.91 DPS, that is just the instances you are allowed to shoot. The point of taking the Jam dissipation/duration like a CD is supposed to show that even if the RACs have high upfront damage, it's not something you could do constantly anyways in comparison, netting to a lower EDPS -- if you do not redline.

Deepfryer, on 05 April 2019 - 03:29 PM, said:

Also bear in mind that the original data file only uses a max of 3 decimal places, so it's unscientific to report calculated values going out more than 3 decimal places.

... That's irrelevant. We're not here for extreme specifics, we're here to tell something. Such as if theres calculated. 0.8923% chance when it's just 0.892% within the XML, it's not that important because it still adequately explain the "infinitessimally small chance", regardless of when exclude the 0.0003%.

Toha Heavy Industries, on 05 April 2019 - 06:41 PM, said:

Honestly, i think you just don't want to understand.

It is situational. At times you want to red line and other times you don't want to get caught jammed up. Is that too difficult to comprehend?

Okay, let me tell it to you straight. You don't have to, but you ARE losing on DPS when you don't redline, and when you redline, you aren't extending your downtime anymore than you will when you are trying to dissipate a full-gauge.

And get caught jammed up? The problem of RACs is their poor jam-dissipation/duration with the situation, that if you are trading, you eventually build up the Jam-Gauge anyways. The ability to shoot a few shells below the redline isn't exactly that relevant if you just have a chance jamming at redline and you are to reach it in a few shots anyways.

You don't have to maximize the DPS, but the thing is that you still get more in redlining the damn thing than otherwise.

Toha Heavy Industries, on 05 April 2019 - 06:41 PM, said:

AC2 has a dps of 2,8
Gauss has a dps of 2,6
1 slot 6 tons vs 7 slots 15 tons

Excuse me for being potato but just by looking at the values you can't draw any conslusion because it doesn't factor in facetime, spread, pinpoint and whatnot.

Again, if you ignore the differences you get a skewed outlook which does not represent what happens ingame.

Disagreed, at least for higher caliber ACs. UAC5 don't spray nearly as much as RACs do and if you spay with UAC5, AC5/10/20 you should pick up a different weapon. Clan ACs spay, part of the reasons they are not nearly as often used as Clan UACs.

Again, here's the thing, we apply the ACs on their own uses, such as you can't just compare a Gauss to what an AC5 or RAC5 does. Sure, Gauss have lower CD and lower DPS, but it shines on long-range high damage.

This is not the case with many ACs, that's why it's applicable, because DPS is relevant on DPS role. Why is that hard to understand?

Toha Heavy Industries, on 05 April 2019 - 06:41 PM, said:

You're also assuming that the UAC pilot is just standing still, waiting for a RAC pilot to kill him.

We assume a lot of things, because the point is not balancing by potato. But sure, okay, harder application should warrant higher rewards. Similarly -- just throwing it out there, we could make things easier, such as shorter spin-up and faster projectile speed.

Toha Heavy Industries, on 05 April 2019 - 06:41 PM, said:

On equal terms, the UAC builds win when trading. That's how i engage RAC builds, i poke them without giving them a chance to return much fire.

True. But we aren't just talking about trading, we're talking about the UACs and RACs as a whole.

It's pointless to argue which would win which application, because the point was is the weapon being powerful enough to attract a different approach.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 06 April 2019 - 02:22 AM.

[B L O O D W I T C H]

The6thMessenger, on 06 April 2019 - 01:58 AM, said:

Okay, let me tell it to you straight. You don't have to, but you ARE losing on DPS when you don't redline, and when you redline, you aren't extending your downtime anymore than you will when you are trying to dissipate a full-gauge.

And get caught jammed up? The problem of RACs is their poor jam-dissipation/duration with the situation, that if you are trading, you eventually build up the Jam-Gauge anyways. The ability to shoot a few shells below the redline isn't exactly that relevant if you just have a chance jamming at redline and you are to reach it in a few shots anyways.

You finally caught up to the point i tried to make, finally.
Yes, i do not need to redline all the time, again it is situational.
If i sit in a comfortable position and can spray RACs on a target, while having space to retreat or teammates covering me, i sure will redline every single RAC i have. That is the situation you keep painting.
But that is not the only situation you can find yourself in.

I give you an example what i do when i play my triple RAC2 bushwacker.
If i don't know if i get engaged while spraying someone, i will usually not redline.
If i want to keep someone busy i will stop firing a single RAC at about 5 seconds in, redline the 2 others as much as i can, once jammed, i spin up the cooled down remaining RAC, rinse and repeat. Not running full red line DPS output because the substain i get is much much more worth then having 5-8 extra seconds of DPS of a single RAC.

I can also take the opposite as an example, i've watched a marauder pilot unloading triple RACs, extending and walking after his target, once he jammed up, he was exposed and it cost half his mech trying to survive 10 seconds without being able to return fire at least.

Again, it is all situational. It's not the RACs fault in this situation, it's the decision of the pilot to put himself in that situation for a bit of extra DPS.

I see this behavior from UAC users all the time too.

MCII-B cutting corner, instantly doubletapping all the UACS only to caught attention and look stupid while all weapons jammed up. Bad choice for the situation, should have not double tapped.

But, hey, negative effect kicking in -> "my weapons jammed, i died" -> conclusion: UAC jams bad.

Like i said earlier, UACs are NOT ACs with double DPS and if folks would finially start threat them for what they are and what they do, (regular AC with the OPTION to double tap including semi random jams) their perception would change.

The6thMessenger, on 06 April 2019 - 01:58 AM, said:

You don't have to maximize the DPS, but the thing is that you still get more in redlining the damn thing than otherwise.

You get more damage in that situation, that is not what i am arguing against. Thing is that folks red-line RACs while actively engaging, all of them, at once. Only then they noticed they overextended, and they get bitting in the butt for it. Extra DPS for 3-4 seconds firing leads to getting shafted by the enemy team (because the RAC user usually was already exposed for 10 seconds or more).

I wrote this first because i wanted to point out that it's often the pilots fault and not the jamming mechanic that they percieve it so negatively. Negative bias is a thing.
I've stated that and that is what this whole convo build up to, guess it got lost in context a page or two ago.

The6thMessenger, on 06 April 2019 - 01:58 AM, said:

Again, here's the thing, we apply the ACs on their own uses, such as you can't just compare a Gauss to what an AC5 or RAC5 does. Sure, Gauss have lower CD and lower DPS, but it shines on long-range high damage.

This is not the case with many ACs, that's why it's applicable, because DPS is relevant on DPS role. Why is that hard to understand?

Yes omg, you can't compare gauss and AC2 solely on DPS, that was the whole point.
Although, i'd argue that AC2/5 and to a degree 10 as well as all clan ACs and UACs and IS UAC 2/5/10 are dps roles.
Gauss has a lower cooldown? Typo i guess. I'd also argue that the AC2 shines on long-range high damage too. Depending on usage of course.

We're on the same page, tho. Back on topic.

I see the ammo clip "?" based solution popping up often here, how are clips getting handled when they're not empty yet? Does the pilot needs to reload manually? shoot the remaining 10 shells into the air?
It's not the worst approch, but it has some plotholes imo.

I can see that emptying the remaining ammo in a clip leads to the exact same gameplay errors i see now when folks overextend for a bit more of redline dps. As in, might as well unload those remaining shells into an enemy before i reload.

Edited by Toha Heavy Industries, 06 April 2019 - 04:57 AM.

[The6thMessenger]

Toha Heavy Industries, on 06 April 2019 - 04:49 AM, said:

You finally caught up to the point i tried to make, finally.
Yes, i do not need to redline all the time, again it is situational.
If i sit in a comfortable position and can spray RACs on a target, while having space to retreat or teammates covering me, i sure will redline every single RAC i have. That is the situation you keep painting.
But that is not the only situation you can find yourself in.

Finally caught up? I do get what you are saying, but the problem is that you aren't getting what I am saying.

Thing is that, that is the best situation that you should be getting yourself in to, else you're just gimping yourself. The highest output should be considered when balancing RACs because people can maximize that, and the best part is that they do.

The "you don't have to" argument isn't getting us anywhere and is quite frankly irrelevant. We balance by ceiling because people tend to reach that ceiling and the difference does make an impact.

Toha Heavy Industries, on 06 April 2019 - 04:49 AM, said:

I give you an example what i do when i play my triple RAC2 bushwacker.
If i don't know if i get engaged while spraying someone, i will usually not redline.
If i want to keep someone busy i will stop firing a single RAC at about 5 seconds in, redline the 2 others as much as i can, once jammed, i spin up the cooled down remaining RAC, rinse and repeat. Not running full red line DPS output because the substain i get is much much more worth then having 5-8 extra seconds of DPS of a single RAC.

Well, here is another example with a RAC5 Urbie.

We will trade for a bit > I have to hide now they could see me (jam bar isn't filled) > I show up again to shoot (jam-bar prefilled = shorter firing time, now I have to redline to maximize my engagement)

Toha Heavy Industries, on 06 April 2019 - 04:49 AM, said:

Again, it is all situational. It's not the RACs fault in this situation, it's the decision of the pilot to put himself in that situation for a bit of extra DPS.

But, again, you ARE losing out on DPS. You don't have to shoot when you can't, such as when you are behind cover. But when you could, you ought to shoot to maximize your DPS, else you are wasting your output. That's practically like not double-tapping with UACs, you're wasting your tonnage if you aren't double-tapping it, because the double-tap is the source of increased damage output that you paid with your build.

While it's optional, it actually fits with a lot of situations, and it's what the weapon is build for. Why is that a hard concept?

Toha Heavy Industries, on 06 April 2019 - 04:49 AM, said:

Like i said earlier, UACs are NOT ACs with double DPS and if folks would finially start threat them for what they are and what they do, (regular AC with the OPTION to double tap including semi random jams) their perception would change.

Now if they don't jam, they have double DPS, and they have MORE dps than ACs effectively. And that's why the RNG could either be a ***** or a god.

Toha Heavy Industries, on 06 April 2019 - 04:49 AM, said:

You get more damage in that situation, that is not what i am arguing against. Thing is that folks red-line RACs while actively engaging, all of them, at once. Only then they noticed they overextended, and they get bitting in the butt for it. Extra DPS for 3-4 seconds firing leads to getting shafted by the enemy team (because the RAC user usually was already exposed for 10 seconds or more).

But they don't have to over extend. The problem with RACs is that they will get redlined because the poor dissipation rate usually nets positive jams with trades. Similarly, there are mechs such as RAC5 Urbies that are capable of flanking and getting safe long bursts.

Toha Heavy Industries, on 06 April 2019 - 04:49 AM, said:

Yes omg, you can't compare gauss and AC2 solely on DPS, that was the whole point.

Although, i'd argue that AC2/5 and to a degree 10 as well as all clan ACs and UACs and IS UAC 2/5/10 are dps roles.
Gauss has a lower cooldown? Typo i guess. I'd also argue that the AC2 shines on long-range high damage too. Depending on usage of course.

Yes, but the point is that you CAN compare RACs with UACs and ACs, because they are at an extent overlapping similar roles, if not completely the same. So your concern about simple DPS/EDPS comparison is rather unfounded.

Toha Heavy Industries, on 06 April 2019 - 04:49 AM, said:

I see the ammo clip "?" based solution popping up often here, how are clips getting handled when they're not empty yet? Does the pilot needs to reload manually? shoot the remaining 10 shells into the air?
It's not the worst approch, but it has some plotholes imo.

I can see that emptying the remaining ammo in a clip leads to the exact same gameplay errors i see now when folks overextend for a bit more of redline dps. As in, might as well unload those remaining shells into an enemy before i reload.

Well, It's dumb. It's basically just the worse version of jam-bar/overheat-bar.

There are plenty of games with working overheating-MGs that proves the concept to be usable, there's no need to complicate it. A halved Jam-Dissipation and Duration with 100% Jam-Chance would work better.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 06 April 2019 - 06:37 AM.