108 replies to this topic

[FinnMcKool]

Khobai, on 30 June 2021 - 09:27 AM, said:

Again ecm only weighs 1.5 tons

its tonnage is not proportional to everything it does. and the list is extensive. it doesnt just reduce lockon time it does a bunch of other things too.

and again missiles boats are already carrying 20+ tons of launchers and ammo. forced to take bap. AND also forced to take counters to ECM? as well as a host of sensor skills. just to deal with something that only weighs 1.5 tons?

you dont see a problem with that?

ECM has always been heinously overpowered and it absolutely needs a nerf. Especially now that more mechs than ever have ECM. Its not uncommon to see 5-6 mechs on a team with ECM now. Multiple overlapping ECMs are not as easy to counter as you claim.

Its not complaining about nothing. Im complaining about ECM doing way too much for only 1.5 tons. And I am absolutely right. There is nothing else in the game that does as much as ECM does for only 1.5 tons. AMS, TAG, NARC, BAP, etc... none of those even come close.

And reducing ECM lockon time penalty from 50% to 25% is hardly going to cause LRMpocalypse IV

you do realize that its not just the ECM, its how you skill a mech also, if a mech has full Radar Dep, that is very powerful and it weighs nothing
ECM as everything else stands right now is pretty well balanced in my humble opinion
things are changing those guys are working to balance stuff lets give it some time,,, you should buy some ECM mechs try them out maybe a kitfox you would be a great help to your team and have a lot of fun.

[Ekson Valdez]

The topic of this thread is support weapons. Please stay on topic. Thank you.

[Monkey Lover]

MGs -.Is need buffed
Flamers - work fine
Tag - basically worthless. Maybe if it disabled stealth at all ranges
NARC - good place.
STREAK - IS need buff. Maybe increase in range.
Ecm- needs buff way to much need for skill points. Basically not worth taking.

Edited by Monkey Lover, 30 June 2021 - 01:41 PM.

[FLG 01]

Not a weapon, but BAP might be considered, too. Its weight and size are rarely worth a quicker paperdoll and short range ECM counter. Maybe a much quicker paperdoll...

The LAP on the other hand is on many of my Mechs, even those without lockon weaponry. (Not sure on the CAP.)

[Leone]

It also gives you a range boost to picking up mechs for targeting. Which can be useful for some folk.

~Leone

[justcallme A S H]

Dogstar, on 30 June 2021 - 12:58 AM, said:

MGs - work best when boated to the extreme
Flamers - don't do any damage, need three or more to work properly
Tag - not enough range, almost always better to use an ER laser instead
NARC - really heavy, limited ammo, slow firing
STREAK - heavy, weak, and difficult unless you have at least six of them

Your friendly Cauldron forum inhabitant and resident debunker - is at your service.

So I know we've discussed a few of these and I'll highlight below and general commentary.

• MGs - Agreed. Manny mechs have volume hardpoints make it hard. RoF quirks will come into play on some mechs with limited ballistics so watch out for that - definitely happening/on the radar.
  
• Flamers - They are really good at what they do - heating up mechs. 1-2 flamers is enough to get a mech to a cap of 90% rather fast for minimal tonnage. You bring 4 and oh boy - any mech you look at it gonna be cookin' and you can go and do this to 2-3 mechs at a time.
  
  There have been suggestions around more dmg, more crits etc - right now we aren't looking to touch them because of how strong they are at what they do. Even if they did a little more damage it would not do much.
  
  Added crits increase is off table. Reasoning is - they already fast heat-cap and if you then now are having weapons crit out as well - that is not FUN gameplay.
  
  If there is a workable suggestion / idea Cauldron would be all ears - most things need a mechanic change however.
  
• TAG - 750m as it is and that is affected by skill tree and mech quirks so you can get out to 900m on some mechs which gives them that flavour option. Is that not enough range? For 1T with great range and neutralises ECM while also helping allied mechs with lockspeed. It is very powerful for that 1T investment.
  I cannot say Cauldron has discussed anything around TAG as we deemed that to be fine.
  
• NARC - This is an interesting one. Cauldron have discussed a mechanic change although we obviously cant do that right now - that is the true desire. Changed such that once a mech received "X" damage the NARC beacon falls off/wears off. So you cannot be under NARC for 30-45s and constantly barraged with missiles until you die - that just not FUN.
  
  
  NARC RoF - Feels fine @ 7s cooldown. It is very strong and given how long it lasts you can have 3-4 NARC beacons active at any given time. Does the game really need more?
  NARC ammo - Interested to hear why you think ammo is low. 16 shots and you can increase that via skill tree, that is huge. You generally need 2T max for QP with is ~40 shots. I cannot say a ammo buff has been discussed as being needed.
  NARC Tonnage - IS NARC 3T - cNARC 2T. Cauldron has not altered the tonnage of any weapons to date, crit slots yes, not weight. A slippery slope to start perhaps.
  
• SSRMs - Covered -> HERE. We would like to overhaul SSRM in terms of mechanic change just like Flamers (and others). As that currently isn't possible there needs to be balance between instant-nuking of Lights/Meds which is not FUN vs SSRM doing not much at all to anything. Next pass should find a fair balance between the two. If it doesn't - we'll rebalance it again!

Hope that clarifies. Let me know your thoughts.

[Leone]

Okay, my thoughts,

Machine guns, I kinda hate the cone of fire, makes it hard to focus a location whilst running about inna light, that said, my aims kinda crap anyways, so it's prolly saving me from failed shots just as much. Seems fine.

Flamers, they're great when I'm brawling with 'em, and annoying when someone else is. I've mastered the fine art of holding my fire and letting my mates scrap flamer lights offa me, as well as returning fire once I've the heat to do so. the 90% heat cap seems solid, can't complain.

Tag. Eh, I use it on a few clan missile mechs, but for the most part I'd rather take another backup laser. My aim's bad enough I can't keep tag on a stealth mech long enough to matter, but no amount of buffing save for even quicker lock time'd save me there, and I'm not sure how balanced insta locked tag's be. I'm thinking my lights'd end up fearing streaks again.

Narc, I've... not really used since I got back... I reserve the right to hold judgement.

Streaks. I've lost one light mech to a streak boat since April. One. Outta over 100 matches in lights according to Jarl's. They need help, ya'll are working on it, I'll give 'em a test again next patch.

~Leone.

Edited by Leone, 30 June 2021 - 04:11 PM.

[LordNothing]

a lot of these require a mechanics change.

machine guns are great when massed and useless by themselves. a lot of mechs with < 4 hardpoints have mg quirks. you can buff those quirks as a pretty straightforward fix. but i dont think these quirks are the right way to fix it, makes the weapons hard to tweak as part of a balance pass, as you not only need to tweak the weapon values but all the quirks as well. most players simply omit the machine guns on those builds anyway and if they want to use them they use a saturation platform like the flea or piranha. changing the weapon from hitscan to projectile would make it possible to use a ghost spread mechanic so you can trade saturation for precision with different numbers of guns.

give flamers their old damage from before their mechanics overhaul, but let them keep their new heat mechanics.

ive been a proponent for tag steering for years, one of the devs informed me during a pts that there are technical reasons why this is not possible (likely hsr related). its something id love to see. but in lieu of that id give the tag a bit more capabilities in reguards to countering stealth/ecm.

narc just needs buffs. i like Khobai's solution.

streaks can be fixed by decreasing lock times at ranges < 180m. since the lock mechanics are global this would also provide a small buff to atms when inside their short range and clan lrms inside min range. im not sure if that is a good or bad thing, atms got hit a little hard in the cauldron weapons patch. however if its a problem, make the fast lock range < 120 instead. im fine with streaks sucking at longer ranges, thats not really what they are for. better interaction with tag would also be a good idea. at some point i used to use tag with my streak boats when it still provided a lock time boost, but idk what it does for it now on my streak mechs i swapped it out with a laser that can hurt things or removed it entirely.

Edited by LordNothing, 30 June 2021 - 08:41 PM.

[pattonesque]

machine guns in small amounts would be an extremely good investment ... if this game had infantry

[Heavy Money]

pattonesque, on 01 July 2021 - 07:43 AM, said:

machine guns in small amounts would be an extremely good investment ... if this game had infantry

Even then, can't you just sweep them with lasers?

[Khobai]

machine guns do double damage to infantry if you go off battletech rules

thats basically the only use for machine guns in battletech

[FupDup]

Heavy Money, on 01 July 2021 - 08:27 AM, said:

Even then, can't you just sweep them with lasers?

Or even just ignore them outright, because (AFAIK) the best anti-mech weapon that infantry can carry is a one-shot SRM2 that only has a max range of 90 meters.

[Alex Morgaine]

Captain Caveman DE, on 30 June 2021 - 11:46 AM, said:

ECM is a giant problem ..
that is: if you ONLY play lockon-stuff, you got no TAG and you're only doing IDF. anybody else? don't care about ecm very much.

having problems with ecm? try a direct-fire-approach, as you should in the first place.

Even better is when you can view enemies at 2-300m, blind fire at thier feet and watch the panic as the missiles rain down on them since they thought ecm was all they need and didn't bring ams :3




Infantry? Well basic infantry, but Iirc motorized units can drag 2 ac20s (one attacks worth of weapon at 1 soldier =1 ton equivalent so at full 28 personnel...] iirc, and anti mech trained units you don't want near your precious legs...

Edited by Alex Morgaine, 01 July 2021 - 03:06 PM.

[Drenath]

Re: Streaks
Homing mechanism can be nice for chasing very fast mobs but damage spread/lock time makes them only worse than regular SRM's generally, yet streaks are more tonnage. And half of the lights you would shoot them at have ECM/Stealth you get interference with and they won't even fire.

Proposal: Make them more like regular SRMs

Same damage
Same cooldown
Same TONNAGE
Let me fire without a lock and it acts like regular SRM

How they're different:
+1 crit slot
Missiles track toward point of aim when you have a target locked (with R, not missile lock) So basically they are smart weapons that are dumb-fire and post-guided. Holding your lock/point of aim will increase chance of a hit and help them find a particular component. This makes them much more effective at doing what they are supposed to do - kill lights because you can fire pre-lock and they aren't hard-countered by ECM/Stealth. Could also enable you to do cool stuff like shoot them at your locked target while your lasers/etc fire at whatever is on your cursor

Edited by Drenath, 01 July 2021 - 06:07 PM.

[LordNothing]

pattonesque, on 01 July 2021 - 07:43 AM, said:

machine guns in small amounts would be an extremely good investment ... if this game had infantry

thats what mwll did, a lot of mechs had a couple machine guns just to splatter battle armor. any weapon with splash also worked (and a lot of weapons had splash).

Edited by LordNothing, 01 July 2021 - 07:01 PM.

[The6thMessenger]

The problem with weapons like machineguns is that if you buff them with respect with single users, you also buff boats, maybe enough to be a problem. If you balance them with regard to boaters, then the other non-boats would have little firepower that it's not enough to bother. If you nerf the boaters, then that defeats the point of boating -- I mean, what's the point if it's not going to have said significant jump in effectiveness?

I think the only way to make MG more effective and worthy of use machine-guns at any class is just to allow boating of them in the first place, or at least the simmilar effect, and that is by reworking MGs into Arrays. Like a Piranha from 12B down to 4B and equipped with 4 MG arrays, with each MG Array having the power of 3 MGs.

MG Boats like Piranha and Fleas have more than just the boating that makes them effective, it is also their agility and small size. A 12-MG heavy or assault of reduced mobility and forward speed ain't going to be as effective as a Piranha, so I'm not that concerned.

[Khobai]

one way to buff machine guns without buffing the piranha would be to give the piranha negative machine gun quirks

its not an ideal use of quirks but I cant think of another way you could buff mgs without buffing boats

[Xhaleon]

Flamers are supposed to be anti-infantry weapons like MGs. Here we had to emphasize an MG's soft strength (critting) into a hard mechanic so that they're worthwhile in a mech vs mech game. However MWO went all in on the heat gimmick of the Flamer and it has been a back-and-forth as to how well it should do that job since its a fine line separating uselessness and shutdowns / overheats. I think it would be alright if Flamers were to be rebalanced to be more like energy (ammoless) versions of MGs and deemphasized their heat mechanic a bit; treat that as an added benefit rather than the core driving function. MW5 makes the MGs less of a crit weapon and more of an anti-building tool, which meant Flamers automatically fit in alongside them.

The6thMessenger, on 01 July 2021 - 09:05 PM, said:

I think the only way to make MG more effective and worthy of use machine-guns at any class is just to allow boating of them in the first place, or at least the simmilar effect, and that is by reworking MGs into Arrays. Like a Piranha from 12B down to 4B and equipped with 4 MG arrays, with each MG Array having the power of 3 MGs.

Arrays are actually a good idea. There's no need to change the hardpoint system for specific mechs, instead add in MG Arrays as separate weapons. The "array" component weighs half a ton and is supposed to sync the MGs into a single hit location, which isn't a problem in MechWarrior, but I think its a fair price to pay for a big mech to be able to "cheat" and mount large numbers of MGs in its few Ballistic slots. Obviously for a small mech like the Piranha that already has many B slots there's no point in trying to take MG Arrays because it won't be able to afford the weight tax anyway.

-----
On a separate note, I'd say MGs need more range. Tabletop needs to have truncated ranges to be playable on a table but the MG accurate ranges are REALLY short. Like dang.

[Khobai]

I think they could probably increase the range of MG and HMG to 180/360 and increase the range of LMG to 270/540

Whenever possible they should stick with 90m increments for weapon ranges because it helps develop different range bands and weapons with similar range bands can synergize together. Right now the weapon ranges seem kindve arbitrary and all over the place.

Like why was 130m chosen for the machine gun? thats kindve an odd number.

Im not sold on the idea of machine gun arrays though. The last thing we need is more lights like the piranha. That thing was a mistake not something we need to replicate more of.

Captain Caveman DE, on 30 June 2021 - 11:46 AM, said:

ECM is a giant problem ..
that is: if you ONLY play lockon-stuff, you got no TAG and you're only doing IDF. anybody else? don't care about ecm very much.

having problems with ecm? try a direct-fire-approach, as you should in the first place.

No LRMs should absolutely be a viable playstyle. Players with attitudes like yours is part of the problem.

The whole point of using LRMs is IDF. There is no other reason to use them. Because as soon as youre forced to DF LRMs other weapons become better alternatives. DF LRMs still arnt good enough compared to other DF weapons to justify their usage.

ECM could definitely use a bit of a nerf.

Edited by Khobai, 01 July 2021 - 10:43 PM.

[Captain Caveman DE]

Khobai, on 01 July 2021 - 10:33 PM, said:

No LRMs should absolutely be a viable playstyle. Players with attitudes like yours is part of the problem.

The whole point of using LRMs is IDF. There is no other reason to use them. Because as soon as youre forced to DF LRMs other weapons become better alternatives. DF LRMs still arnt good enough compared to other DF weapons to justify their usage.

ECM could definitely use a bit of a nerf.

Lurms already are a viable playstyle. to the point that they're too good if used with proper matching of mechs & teamwork (read: FW).
the fact that YOU won't play to their strenghts is a YOU-problem, not a lrm-problem, and certainly not an ecm-problem.

Edited by Captain Caveman DE, 02 July 2021 - 03:05 AM.