Navid A1, on 27 November 2023 - 08:49 PM, said:
Also, if you want to compare, then sure, if you are ok with it, we can make HAG40 have 2 heat, fire every 2 seconds without charge up, but we give it LBX5 spread.
Is this the kind of argument that persuades people making actual balance changes to the game? Spare me, and kindly try not to play dumb.
Look, 'the spread of the weapon makes the weapon feel bad to use' isn't coherent. Plenty of other weapons have spread, and people still use them. HAGs can't be stacked to quite the same degree as most other weapons, sure, because the gauss charge mechanic limits the number you can fire at once, but two HAG30s is still eight pellets, twin HAG40s is still twelve, and a second volley would double those to sixteen and twenty-four respectively (and there are machines that can do quad HAG30s to get that second shot off very quickly).
That's enough for perfectly reasonable spread
if you accept that you're firing a spread weapon at someone and not a precision one. The balance changes are trying to nerf the weapon in every way except spread and it's just... it's silly. Put spread back on it -- hell, you can even set up the mechanics of it such that the spread doesn't apply to the first shot to guarantee a bit of consistency if that's so important to you -- and see where
that puts things in terms of balance.
Or I guess you could just keep cranking the knob on heat and rebalance the ammo of every other ballistic and also nerf heatsinks and so on, but what a silly way to approach things. You'll need to get the HAG30 up to about 25-30 heat, I figure.
Further, the problem with HAGs isn't (as much) in the 500m bracket. They're extremely potent there, just as they are at long range, but it's at long range where they offer an absolutely unsurpassable alpha-strike capability. There is
no other way in the game to get the kind of long-range alpha HAGs offer -- especially when you stack lasers atop -- and that's why hitting the long-range aspect of them with spread is, I think, very important.
The more I think about it, actually, the more I like the idea of forcing them to be fired essentially alone by, instead of using spread, adopting the HGR recoil mechanic. If you co-fire with lasers, which is currently where things are breaking, they'd dance all over the enemy machine right alongside your gauss rounds. If you want precision with the lasers you'd have to stagger-fire, increasing your exposure window and effective volley duration and so giving your target more opportunity to twist damage or fire back. You couldn't do cERPPCs effectively because you'd either be trading off a second HAG for the cERPPC (which is a bad trade) or you're eating the cERPPC HSL penalty, which'd suck. Lockon weapons might evade the screenshake, but they all suck anyway.
That leaves your options for thickening your HAG alpha probably being autocannon and SRMs. SRMs are short ranged so don't offer the midrange synergies that you say you're concerned about and clan autocannons are in competition for the ballistic hardpoints and critical slots. And, with their velocity and cooldown mismatches with the HAGs, they wouldn't synergize nearly as well as lasers currently do.
Edited by foamyesque, 27 November 2023 - 09:51 PM.
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