50 replies to this topic

[LordNothing]

VeeOt Dragon, on 30 November 2023 - 10:01 AM, said:

well that or a macro that does all the work of cycling for you (ie setting it so that it automatically resets after a given amount of time so all you need do is hold the button down until you are ready to shoot.). one of the many reasons i consider macros as low lvl cheating even if PGI allows it.

a simple macro, no. i needed a state machine and accurate timing. you need to know the weapons charge time, hold time and cd. you need to run a state machine (you need memory) and you need timing. i wrote mine in c++ and ran it on an arduino as a virtual keyboard and use a low pass filtered arcade button to trigger it.

first you need a timing model for your guns, numbers for charge time, hold time, and cd (all after quirks/skills for your build). i put the gun timings, the key to fire the group, some bitflags and a timestamp in a struct, and set up one per gun. initially these are all put in a "ready pool" via one of the bitflags.

when a start function is called, pointed to the appropriate struct, a timestamp is set and the virtual button is pressed. it is then held until timestamp-time exceeds the charge time its ready to fire, when it exceeds the charge+hold time the cycle is complete the virtual button is released and it needs to be cycled again, its flagged as ready. if it fired during the cycle its flagged as fired, the timestamp is set to expire after a cd cycle, and when that timestamp expires its flagged as ready.

then you also have to maintain a charge pool (effectively the first 2 guns with the charge flag set). essentially 2 guns cycling 180 degrees out of phase. with two guns this is pretty straightforward, call the start function on the first gun, wait 1/4 of the combined cycle time for both guns, and start the second, both being restarted when they complete their cycle. this will continue in lockstep until you fire. with more than 2 you can start charging the next immediatly after the last was fired. the old weapon goes into cd, and a ready-flagged weapon gets promoted to charging. in this case charging is started immediately. this gives you more autocannon like timings (turning gauss into a dps weapon). however this puts the timings out of phase and the next shot may not be guaranteed. timings can be adjusted to move them 180 degrees apart in phase over a few cycles of the state machine by inserting small imperceptible delays.

firing is simply accomplished by pushing the button, this scans the struct array for guns flagged as charged, and forces a release of the associated button. holding the button causes this to run every cycle so you can get a nice staccato out of it. is it worth it? no not really. you get one instant firing gauss rifle and a follow up shot, or a string of well timed shots, you have just turned a ppfld weapon into a dps weapon, or a poor mans hag. you are better off with an actual hag.

i think i would rather have new gauss charge limit rules. you give gauss a rating based on its damage, from lgr being a 1 to the hag40 being a 4 (1per 10 damage). so long as the sum rating for all weapons fired does not exceed 5 you can charge them (2 hgr, a hag 30 and 20, but not 2 30s). charge time is rating * 0.3, maxing out at 1.5s and and 0.3s minimum. you might have a minimum threshold under which weapons fire instantly, this makes sense if you want to add things like magshot or apgauss, though single lgrs might also qualify when used singularly or in chain fire.

[torsie]

Opinion of inexperienced rookie newbie greenhorn who loves those big boom boom booms. Now that I know what HAGs are, the only way how you can die to them, is when you carry 2 and they get hit and explode you up!

Especially by those pesky laser pointers turning you orange all over from opposite side of map. I demand crusade against laser pointers!

I have 2 thoughts: Can weapons in this game have minimal range? So you must use them for long range? aaand number #2 what if they shot all those tiny projectiles at once? I have seen there is another weapon that does that, but at short range, so this would be the long poke?

Edited by torsie, 04 December 2023 - 01:21 PM.

[LordNothing]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 01 December 2023 - 04:43 PM, said:

I'd disagree, I'd actually say the DHS nerf has been necessary since before 2018 because well, Clan tech has been able to mount more DHS on average than IS mechs and their weapons really aren't that different in DPH when factoring in range as well. I mean the entire reason the BLC was added was an attempt to "equalize" IS laser vomit to Clans albeit not in the best way.

Ultimately, when you have a side that is able to mount significantly more heat sinks, has near equivalent heat efficient weapons, and worse is 2018 removed somewhat of a diminishing returns property of heat sinks (by "normalizing" heat sinks internal to the engine and external) yeah it isn't a shock necessarily that Clan laser vomit outperformed.

72 point alphas all around, no ghost heat. no ttk problem. nothing to see here. these aren't the droids you're looking for. move along.

at that point you only need enough heat sinks to not explode. high alpha builds like these are fire once and duck. eat a little override damage, we got that heat damage skill now. delete a leg, a side torso, a head. never mind if you peak the ridge you might lose something. this makes the player base timid and it hurts overall gameplay. i dont know why this supplemental workhorse weapon class needs to be so powerful. nerf the whole lot by 25%, special emphasis on the midrange lasers, less on rangy lasers, a lot less on smalls. maybe move the ghost heat limits down by one. you can always give hsl quirks to hardpoint starved mechs that couldn't pack a 50-point if it wanted to.

of course that only solves that problem, you do it and all the other weapons will sort themselves into the meta slots because of all the accumulated buffs. and you would need to start peeling those away. then being less timid people get hit by missiles, and they will want those nerfed. do all that stuff and then you justify a hag nerf to keep 'em in line. im glad i dont have to untangle that ball of twine.

Edited by LordNothing, 04 December 2023 - 03:45 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

LordNothing, on 04 December 2023 - 03:41 PM, said:

i dont know why this supplemental workhorse weapon class needs to be so powerful.

While I've toyed around with idea of some weapons being supplemental weapons, in this game there is no supplemental weapon and it all comes down to lights vs the rest. Lights being effective hinges on small/medium laser weapons being powerful. The problem is when it comes to larger mechs that can boat them either with larger weapons or just boat larger weapons in general. The other problem is that you can't overnerf because again, assaults have to be threatening to justify their size, otherwise you get the MW4 problem where assaults just didn't offer enough over heavies, you can specialize and get better hitboxes and speed.

Which has led me to two thoughts:
* Separate weapons for each weight class
* Throw the TT tonnage system away to condense the weight classes (which helps solve the structure/armor issue that plagues lights as well)

2nd option is probably my most preferred if we were ever to get MWO2, but option 1 would be interesting.

[LordNothing]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 04 December 2023 - 04:46 PM, said:

While I've toyed around with idea of some weapons being supplemental weapons, in this game there is no supplemental weapon and it all comes down to lights vs the rest. Lights being effective hinges on small/medium laser weapons being powerful. The problem is when it comes to larger mechs that can boat them either with larger weapons or just boat larger weapons in general. The other problem is that you can't overnerf because again, assaults have to be threatening to justify their size, otherwise you get the MW4 problem where assaults just didn't offer enough over heavies, you can specialize and get better hitboxes and speed.

Which has led me to two thoughts:
* Separate weapons for each weight class
* Throw the TT tonnage system away to condense the weight classes (which helps solve the structure/armor issue that plagues lights as well)

2nd option is probably my most preferred if we were ever to get MWO2, but option 1 would be interesting.

i more or less agree that all weapon types should be equal. "supplemental workhorse" seems like a downplay of its intended role, but with the lightweight options that make it easy to add 30 damage to practically any build. even when only 4 lasers were common they were already pulling significant weight. lasers were well suited to this job. you cant use a ballistic in the same exact way unless its a machine gun, and those aren't exactly blatant force multipliers that various kinds of medium lasers are.

but the way i see it they arent anywhere near equal. lasers are clearly dominant and the ballistics are taking the workhorse role without being as big of a force multiplier due to their carrying requirements. its effectively the weapon you use when your lasers are running a little too hot. the constant velocity and ammo buffs ballistics have been stacking, on weapons i felt were in a good place. most players dont complain when their preferred weapons get buffed but i find it a bit alarming. if these buffs were meant to bring it in line with the dominant class, thats only going to make ttk worse in general.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

LordNothing, on 04 December 2023 - 06:01 PM, said:

the constant velocity and ammo buffs ballistics have been stacking, on weapons i felt were in a good place.

To be fair, I would be careful with conflating these buffs with power creep though. Ammo buffs are because ammo has been less than consistent across the board and ammo has unfortunately been a historical way of buffing/nerfing weapons when it really shouldn't have ever been because ammo comes down to just being a tax to running a weapon. Honestly I'm of the opinion that with MWO2, just make everything unlimited ammo because it is a build tax that you might circumvent for gimmicky one-shot builds normally. Ultimately the only real difference between energy and ballistic in Mechwarrior is that ballistics are typically more heat efficient for the tonnage (so you spend tonnage to trade burst damage for sustained).

Velocity as well makes weapons more consistent at range, so what may have been only useful against slow mechs at a certain range is now more consistent against all mechs at a certain range. Velocity buffs have diminishing returns, at a certain point they matter less and less especially if your range isn't be increased with it (you might be able to land it on larger mechs at longer range with buffed velocity, but you also might be doing reduced damage as well).

Ammo does lend itself to power creep though in the sense that you need more ammo to chew through more armor/structure (ie offense and defense has been getting buffed in tandem to keep TTK somewhat normal).

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 04 December 2023 - 07:26 PM.

[LordNothing]

i dont mind there being a build tax if it differentiates weapon types. ballistics are supposed to hit hard and the price for that is weight and ammo. lasers are supposed to be the endurance workhorse, the weapon you always have because it runs forever. its tax is heat and the need for sinks. but they are clearly punching above their weight class, so ballistics get tax cuts as a form of equity. if ballistics start working like ppcs, then why not just use ppcs? now you have watered down those as well. guided missiles sit on a shelf most of the time, because they are as powerful as the player base can accept and there are usually stronger options because of the power creep. unguided missiles are just another form of lbx. no real fundamental mechanic difference except the non use of damage falloff. just a whole lot of boring normalization.

make the taxes worth paying and take a good hard look at ways to mitigate powercreep, which you have to be delusional to not acknowledge its existence.

Edited by LordNothing, 05 December 2023 - 04:39 AM.

[An6ryMan69]

Luminios, on 28 November 2023 - 10:05 AM, said:

HAGs have been in the game for a couple months now and they have been nerfed again and again. I think after the latest patch they are probably in a good place. I personally played mostly the HAG20, which have arguably changed the least since their release.

Honestly, I think they might even have gone a bit too far in toning HAGs down, as a lot of what made them perform so well had nothing to do with the weapon and all with the player base. The game is shaped a lot by how styles of play and weapons are perceived. Brawl is completely viable and even strong, but even in an event queue with 25% extra speed and 50% extra armor people are playing extremely scared. I think with HAGs it is similar. Yes, they make the alpha of that hagvom mech look big and scary, but the weapon is hot, heavy, charges and has duration without being hitscan. If you have just some movement lasers and HAG are going to spread as one takes time to reach the target while the other doesn't.

90% of why you are doing so poorly against HAGs is that you just stand there and take it. https://imgur.com/pZoN7LO

You're under-representing the battlefield effect of HAGS, from pinning down enemies at extreme range, to very effective punishers of anyone caught in the open out to pretty long range, to being brutal from-behind backstab weapons.

Take a look at how HPG plays now - if one side has a couple of HAG snipers on the wall early, everybody on the other team basically needs to get to the basement or die.

And even a clan medium, like a Veagle, can run HAG20x2 and ERMLasx3 and still have jump jets and good speed and mobility. Can't think of anything in the IS lineup can stand up to that, except maybe a triple RAC2 Bushwhacker if everything goes it's way. In real life a good Veagle pilot wins this one 90% of the time though.

Even if you are more of a stats kind of player - A HAG20 is lighter than a completely vanilla inner sphere AC10, does twice the damage, has more range, more velocity, and is much easier to get hits with. Yes, one is IS and one is Clan....and that doesn't mean anything. If its in the game, its in the game, and so it's a completely fair comparison.

Edited by An6ryMan69, 05 December 2023 - 11:01 AM.

[torsie]

An6ryMan69, on 05 December 2023 - 10:52 AM, said:

Take a look at how HPG plays now - if one side has a couple of HAG snipers on the wall early, everybody on the other team basically needs to get to the basement or die.

I suck at this game and I still can plink at people with them successfully, so I dont want to argue about how good they are, since that is weeeeell beyond my knowledge.

But on that grey map with walls, its always laser pointers up there .

Now when I think about it, I very rarely meet someone using them its usually that funny big chicken with those tiny stubby arms, but not much beyond that. And I do a lot of watching of other people, since I am usually, uhm, indisposed, rather quickly, so I have a lot of time for spectating .


And the super big one with the little head on top ! (the big one is ANNIHILATOR but I cant find the chicken)

Edited by torsie, 06 December 2023 - 05:54 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

LordNothing, on 05 December 2023 - 04:37 AM, said:

i dont mind there being a build tax if it differentiates weapon types. ballistics are supposed to hit hard and the price for that is weight and ammo. lasers are supposed to be the endurance workhorse

While that is the spirit of the lore, its not realistic in TT and it definitely doesn't make sense in terms of MWO or really PvP MW in general. Maybe if we get a newer mechwarrior it will be focused less on energy being lightweight but heat inefficient weapons and more on weapon firing behaviors to make weapons distinct (gauss charge, RAC spin up, cone spreads, cylinder spread, homing, penetration, splash, trajectory, hitscan, projectile, etc, etc). Obviously each one has its own benefit and can be used a bit differently as range and damage potential is also a part of that as well. Maybe with having some "supplemental" weapons that offer boosts in one of those three at a high cost of heat inefficiency and/or a really long cooldown.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 05 December 2023 - 12:08 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

An6ryMan69, on 05 December 2023 - 10:52 AM, said:

Take a look at how HPG plays now - if one side has a couple of HAG snipers on the wall early, everybody on the other team basically needs to get to the basement or die.

ERPPC poptarts or Gauss/ERLL can generally pin down HAG snipers on the wall either from the opposite wall or just in the middle from general poking positions (just don't over-expose to the lower half of the opposite side). Mid range can generally apply pressure as well from the stronger middle positions as well. Going to the basement with no planned progression is just playing the game of who is least patient and willing to throw away their mechs to end everyone's suffering. It's fine if you are using it as a cover to approach defensive positions, but hiding there is just bad, please stop being one of those people.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 05 December 2023 - 03:57 PM.