247 replies to this topic

[FupDup]

With the Shad 2K, IMO I would combine the 2 SNPPC with either some MRMs or SRMs depending on what range you like to stick around at.

[MPhoenix]

Heavy Money, on 21 June 2022 - 02:00 PM, said:

For a long time? We've had the ability to fire 3 SNPPCs without ghost heat for less than a year.

Believe it or not that is a long time in many respects of gaming.

MWO has run for quite a while but for many games a year or just under is a substantial percentage of their lifespan as viable MMOs.
Granted some limp along for years, looking at you EQ, but they're not nearly the game or the draw they were.

[Nightbird]

MPhoenix, on 21 June 2022 - 02:00 PM, said:

You can but the delay necessary to avoid HSL changes the dynamic and lowers the chances of surviving.

With most mediums the snub trio was a 'peek, poke, vanish' weapons combo. Peek around a corner or hill, fire a single alpha blast and retreat before the opponent can return fire. Usually the opponent is larger with a much higher alpha capability.

Staggered fire, 2 pause1, changes things to peek, poke, pause, poke, eat a full alpha straight on, die.

There's no one here who doesn't know that the half second to one second pause facing an opponent to avoid ghost heat is easily the difference between a grazing shot on an arm and a striped CT or poppeed side torso.

If you in an alpha and retreat situation, heat isn't an issue since you will have time to cool down. Accept the 30% boost in alpha damage for some GH and walk away.

If you are in a protracted brawl, just fire 2+1 and again, 30% more DPS.

[LordNothing]

i feel like we have been down this road several times already.

at present you have the lppc either boated in large numbers or used on mechs with limited tonnage. its also got a role as a cheap ecm breaker as an alternative to narc or tag. it has a warm and comfy place in many of my builds. its only real downside is that its too much like the lppc and hppc in terms of its velocity and range.

the standard ppc is used in situations where moderate damage and lower heat are desirable. its usually not something you pair with a gauss or lgauss, it does not synergize well with those. its better used with the ac5 because of its similar range and velocity. closing that gap might be the way to go. its often used in 4x configurations where you either time the shots or ignore the ghost heat (usually in concert with ppc heat quirks).

the snub has a role as a cheap and dirty brawl weapon. i see it as potentially paired with a hgr, but more often you pair it with an ac20 instead. i feel like this is a comfy niche for it. havent given the last round of buffs a spin but i think i will be using these more as a result. still id rather it run cooler than to have higher damage to keep it in that ac20 supplemental role. you would probibly have to take it out of the hgr ghost heat group all together before people start pairing it with the snub. as a brawl weapon, i dont think it needs the added heat penalties.

erppc should be good at ranged trading and not much else. i feel like this should be the only one in the gr/lgr gh group.

the hppc is almost always exchanged for more of a lesser ppc, its the only one that really doesnt have a place right now. perhaps lower the gh multiplier so using 3 of them is more approachable. splash might also make it a better heavy hitting option.

linking gauss and ppc ghost heat i always felt was something that was more needed on the clan side, given the stronkness of ther cerppc at the time and the ability to find omnipod configurations that optimize their hill hump ability. i dont mind it being on the is side for pairity, but i dont think its a good fit for all gauss rifles nor all ppcs.

what the is needs are 2 ppc gh groups. one would be the erppc, gr and lgr. these would be more severe penalties. the hgr would go into a gh group with all the other ppcs except the snub, and these would have reduced penalty multipliers. any crossover between the groups would be acceptable as the weapons just dont synergize their velocities well and you would have to aim these seperately on moving targets for best results. tweaks to velocity and range should be employed across the board to emphasize the lack of synergy between the groups (and to differentiate the "sized" ppcs).

another thing id like to consider is the addition of blueshield equipment. i feel like this would enable ppc buffage in a way that can be countered by other's builds. sort of like how you can buff lerms and still have them kept in check by ams.

Edited by LordNothing, 21 June 2022 - 09:36 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Sounds good as long as the LGR keeps its cooldown. However I wish the AC10 would be brought in to these conversations since ideally that is combined with PPCs and HPPCs instead of LPPCs which is sort of indicative of the power of LPPCs (it doesn't help the cooldowns align).

Seriously though, can we just get rid of minimum range on the PPCs/HPPCs? Have we not suffered enough with this stupid mechanic?

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 21 June 2022 - 06:15 PM.

[Damien Tokala]

absolutely not. make it work like MW5, how MWO USED to work. a gauss rifle in canon, already holds its charge in the capacitors. this is why it explodes when critted. having to PRE charge our rifles means that there never was a charge, and they're now exploding on crit for no damn reason.

[caravann]

The charge for gauss is to stay and was added for balance.
I already suggested that clan gauss rifles shouldn't have the mechanic.
To make a reason why to play clan mechs since they have less tools or mechanics.
This would had been a compensation as clan mechs have only one gauss rifle.
The IS has light gauss and heavy gauss while clan is compensating with quality.
Charge up is learned by players that they eventually forgets it's there.
Clan mechs have less amount of pinpoint cannons compared to IS.
Inner sphere has Light and heavy ppc. Clan has ER PPC who is = heavy ppc + snub nose + ERPPC.
It's not the same situation like the LRM and Streak where one mechanic is relying on another.
There's a mechanic to replace the charge up for clan mechs and keep the charge up for IS mechs.

The changes open a new scene where LG+ISERPPC is replaced with a new situation of CERPPC + CGR

The CGR don't explode any longer but instead the CERPPC gets the charge up mechanic.

[PocketYoda]

Light ppcs and Gauss should have no ghost heat.

[MPhoenix]

Unfortunately it's not just the SHD that is affected by the SNPPC HSL.
There are at least 15 builds on Grimmechs ranging from 45 ton Blackjacks to 100 ton King Crabs built around the 3 SNPPC model. All of which are now invalidated.

[feeWAIVER]

MPhoenix, on 22 June 2022 - 10:05 AM, said:

Unfortunately it's not just the SHD that is affected by the SNPPC HSL.
There are at least 15 builds on Grimmechs ranging from 45 ton Blackjacks to 100 ton King Crabs built around the 3 SNPPC model. All of which are now invalidated.

And they will be replaced by better builds.
3 snubs was always too hot.
In their previous iteration, 8dmg snubs were way too heavy and way too hot. You'd always be better off with med pulses instead.
It was bad. It was dumb change to begin with, and bringing them back to 2 with a dmg buff is the correction to that mistake.

[FupDup]

feeWAIVER, on 22 June 2022 - 12:05 PM, said:

And they will be replaced by better builds.
3 snubs was always too hot.
In their previous iteration, 8dmg snubs were way too heavy and way too hot. You'd always be better off with med pulses instead.
It was bad. It was dumb change to begin with, and bringing them back to 2 with a dmg buff is the correction to that mistake.

Just to nitpick here, the heat was fine depending on the mech/build. One of my favorites was a Vindicator 1R with 3 Snubs, which could keep firing a lot longer than most other mechs out there while still packing quite a punch. Only issue was the knuckledragger mounts of the Vindi.

Don't get me wrong though, because as I said before I think Snubs will survive and so will the mechs that used them. Builds will just have to change a bit, like they always have and always will.

[Ihlrath]

Please for the love of god stop buffing the already ridiculous long range meta. They're under performing because nothing can keep up with the ERLL light show in every, single, match.

Long range, high alpha, pin point damage does not need to be buffed... yet again.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Damien Tokala, on 21 June 2022 - 08:35 PM, said:

absolutely not. make it work like MW5, how MWO USED to work. a gauss rifle in canon, already holds its charge in the capacitors. this is why it explodes when critted. having to PRE charge our rifles means that there never was a charge, and they're now exploding on crit for no damn reason.

The reason is because who cares about MW5 or realism, I want more interesting weapon mechanics, not more blandness of 7+ flavors of point-n-click PPFLD weapons. Each weapon type should have distinctive feels to them beyond just stats.

FupDup, on 22 June 2022 - 12:18 PM, said:

Just to nitpick here, the heat was fine depending on the mech/build. One of my favorites was a Vindicator 1R with 3 Snubs, which could keep firing a lot longer than most other mechs out there while still packing quite a punch. Only issue was the knuckledragger mounts of the Vindi.

Don't get me wrong though, because as I said before I think Snubs will survive and so will the mechs that used them. Builds will just have to change a bit, like they always have and always will.

Snubs were too hot for the damage and range that they played at IMO. I tried snubs on the Vindi's and pretty quickly went back to running double heavy PPC because man do you quickly miss the range of 540m optimal quickly.

I mean before the patch comparing 2 LPPC vs a snub nose:
2 LPPC = 11 damage for 9 heat with 540/1080 range
1 SNPPC = 8.5+1.5+1.5 damage (11.5 potential damage) for 7 heat with 270/630 range.

So roughly equivalent damage, but the SNPPC is doing damage more spread out for 2 less heat per shot. Which would be fine if the range drop off wasn't awful. I generally consider 50% damage the edge of effective range and comparing the two you get: 810m vs 450m. One has almost double the range compared to the other and 2 less heat just isn't worth that.

Honestly I would've like to see the range be a bit more inline with how the accuracy worked in TT. So the SNPPC should have better range but have a steeper drop-off than most. So something more like 405m/675m (50% extra range from TT) or 540m/900m (100% extra range from TT, which is typical with weapons in this game).

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 22 June 2022 - 03:43 PM.

[LordNothing]

Ihlrath, on 22 June 2022 - 02:35 PM, said:

Please for the love of god stop buffing the already ridiculous long range meta. They're under performing because nothing can keep up with the ERLL light show in every, single, match.

Long range, high alpha, pin point damage does not need to be buffed... yet again.

either buff squirrels so there is a valid counter and/or let er lasers have diminished damage at close range to encourage closing in. make it so if you choose to camp you can only camp (bracket builds are still an option though).

thinking something like 50% damage at 0 range ramping up linearly to 100% damage at half of optimal range.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

LordNothing, on 22 June 2022 - 05:29 PM, said:

either buff squirrels so there is a valid counter and/or let er lasers have diminished damage at close range to encourage closing in. make it so if you choose to camp you can only camp (bracket builds are still an option though).

thinking something like 50% damage at 0 range ramping up linearly to 100% damage at half of optimal range.

If the goal is to just slow down ER spam, hit it with incrementally more heat nerfs because this impacts more than just DPS during the brawl, but also more critically the approach. The approach is what can make or break a push against ERLL spam. Typically once the brawl starts the goal of an ERLL spam team is to scatter from the murderball to increase the time it takes for the murderball to gobble each of your team and thus give you the chance to apply pressure, that is to say the ramping damage shouldn't matter too much until the murderball comes to get you and damage ramp up is no different than min range in my book.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 22 June 2022 - 06:29 PM.

[Meep Meep]

After playing around with snubs last night I found that using one on the locust 1v was pretty troll.

Snubcust

Skill Tree: aff5fdfdf76de38470a08c141ec207420405a00000042024a0647e4820103

Wait till mid to late game before getting aggressive and you can farm open components left and right.

The lmg crit nerf didn't seem to matter too much as it stripped stuff out fairly quick even with only two of them and now they do full crits out to almost 700m depending on quirks and skills.

[caravann]

I know people think hitting with heat penalties will work but the guns are staged in faction play where you make a suicide pact with a mech with lower tonnage to kill bigger mechs. The ppc are common in faction play where it's faster than lasers on defeating opponents. Small pulse lasers are too short for faction play and ERPPC is a wasted space since no encounter ends up into sitting on a hill. Machine guns takes too long for faction play, lasers are shooting too slow to ensure the kill first. snub worked decent before the changes and was a tool in faction play. It was still a gun used in faction play where suicide pacts are made. I shoot you with enough guns to kill you in a single shot and you kill me because I have no armor and uses XL engine. Even if I would put on armor it wouldn't protect against the next opponent in the pipeline.

The new stats are merely manipulation. You see those numbers and it makes you tick.

[evil kerensky]

Go for it. Like everyone else,I'll just use ppc/ac10 or 5, and nothing will be all that different. Good change idea.

[Dauntless Blint]

This simply removes fire power from higher weights and moves it to lower in general.
Standard or ERPPC's will replace Snubb's as a main choice and some niche hybrid LBX/AC + Snubb combo's might appear.

I'm more perturbed by ERLL + Gauss than PPC's personally.

I would like to see AC's (5's &10's) get some heat redundancy? cooldown? something, who knows.

The IS standard Gauss cool down could use a little buff to make it relevant.



I'd like to go back to the old wild west of no ghost heat and bring back the fear component to the game even though it's a no no, at least as an event for instance.

Any other idea's would probably get dismissed.
Otherwise just remember the principals of false confirmation bias.

Edited by Dauntless Blint, 26 June 2022 - 10:07 AM.

[Dogstar]

Rather than increasing base damage I'd like to see all PPCs doing splash damage instead. Adding or increasing splash damage to all PPCs would make the wepon type have a unique and interesting feature and allow it be balanced to do more damage overall without increasing the deadliness of PPFLD boats.

The C-ERPPC with it's 2.5+10+2.5 is an excellent example as is the SNPPC

A 20% increase for the (IS) ones would be would be about right:

PPC to 1+10+1
HPPC to 1.5+15+1.5
LPPC to 0.5+5+0.5

I've missed out the ERPPC because I can't remember it's stats offhand but the same principle should apply