Quicksilver Kalasa, on 25 November 2023 - 09:06 PM, said:
I mean you can't really convince them unless they are new and actually have desire to get better. "If it killed me it's OP" is the motto of the lower tiers sometimes. There is something to say for certain things being a little too EZ in lower tiers, but IMO blue lasers is not one of them (LRMs or HAGs are tho, ie things that farm damage really easily but taper off in higher tiers).
i think it really comes down to what is an acceptable alpha? depends on the weapon, its effective range, and its mechanics of course, but big alphas still kill. you cant reduce ttk without reducing those alphas. its certainly not dps, which is more dangerous to those using it than to the players on the receiving end. so what should the maximum penalty free alpha be?
i dont think numbers above 60 are viable if we want to reduce ttk. 50 i think would be better. these are still well into mech crippling territory. there are a lot of penalty free alphas in this range. hags top out at 60. 50 is around where dumbfire missiles top out and hgauss of course. at 40 is where most single type autocannon boats top out, lerms as well. single type lasers top out at 36. atms around 30 in their short range bracket. ppcs are in the 20-30 range. streaks top out at 36 or so (i dont understand why brawly guided weapons are nerfed harder than ranged guided weapons).
things get ridiculous when you start stacking different ratings. hgauss gives you some overhead for energy weapons. there are some uac boats that mix 10s and 5s and can dump huge alphas on a double tap in the 60+ range. but none of these have anything on lasers.
dire can break 100 for a brawl vomit alpha, no gh (doesnt even shut down, and thats without nodes). midrange can get up to 72 (76 if you count medpulse as midrange). erll is the only one where gh actually is useful keeping the alpha at 22/27 depending on tech base. but its easy to fade your lasers around that by holding half your alpha for a half a second. of course crossing weapon types can get more alpha, but thats usually not considered meta for being unwieldly.
so it always makes me question why a demonstrably easy to use weapon type with almost identical mechanics across the board with high stacking potential still tops the alpha shenanigans at mid range when there are hard to use brawl weapons that cap out a lot lower. hags get pretty close but their charge and high z-spread kind of counter act that, erlls have to spread their burn time for their alphas. im not saying we ban huge alphas if they apply penalties but i think those penalties need to be implemented in a way where 60+ point alphas come with some diminishing returns.
e: some clean up and corrections, removed redundant information, misfigured the streak numbers, and a reference to a paragraph i removed or lost before the original post. as usual i blame lizzy the desk cat.
Edited by LordNothing, 26 November 2023 - 03:21 PM.