92 replies to this topic

[Hoshi Toranaga]

What the PPC and ER PPC need is:
Serious reduction in heat. (Similar to Large laser and Large Pulse Laser, they are balanced in their weight already.)
Serious speed up in flight time of the "projectile".

[Hatachi]

*crosses fingers*

Please give me PPCs/ERPPCs that I don't hate myself for using.

I want to love near stock K2s and 8Qs, but the love isn't returned.

[Gunny McDuck]

Mister Blastman, on 15 November 2012 - 01:05 PM, said:

I do. It could quickly be exploited to keep people permanently knocked over.

Realism aside (giant robots in space?), that would be a legit tactic.

I'm in my 71 alpha strike Atlas, and Jenner runs into me and falls over, or I catch him with an alpha stike.
Either way, he goes down.
I fire again as he is getting up, and knock him off his feet again.
And again.....but by then I've done so much damage to his mech that it just flies apart into little bits....

Yeah, that makes sense to me.

Mister Blastman, on 15 November 2012 - 01:05 PM, said:

But, I will take your argument and provide a counter:
IF they implemented knockdowns due to projectile hits, I argue they should allow jump-jet users to avoid knockdowns altogether by jump jetting back onto their feet while falling over.

Now that would be pretty damned cool.
I'd buy that for a dollar.
Or make it some upgrade gyro system that you had to pay c-bills to put in.

Mister Blastman, on 15 November 2012 - 01:05 PM, said:

You should also be able to make your mech get up, somehow (non-macroable).

What do you mean by this?

[VoidConductor]

In my opinion Gauss Rifle needs some redesign something in this direction (example):

• Decrease rate of fire to 6 sec. (+ base damage adjustment (~ 18), to keep DPS around 3 dmg/s)
  
• Increase speed to ~ 2500 m/s
  
• Increase amount of ammunition (due to double armor) + 25-50% ?
  
• Add some shock wave firing sound (current GR version sounds like a air pressure gun in my laboratory )
  
• Further balancing by base damage (-> DPS)

For ER-PPC / PPC similar method (example):

• Decrease rate of fire to 4 sec.
  
• Increase travel speed to 10 - 50 km/s
  
• Small EMP effect to target (flickering HUD for 0,25 sec., nothing serious)
  
• Change to minimal range of PPC: damage to own mech
  
  (0 m - 100 % chance of damage also to own mech, 90 m - 0 % chance)
  
• increase base damage to sustain theoretical 3.25 DPS
  
• increase base heat to sustain theoretical 3 HPS (PPC) and 3.75 HPS (ERPPC)
  
• adding ionization sound, cracking sound (passing charged particles through air)
  
• further balancing by DPS / HPS

LL and ER-LL are fine, and have good ration of DPS/HTS:

• small buff of towards 2.5 DPS would be fine.

The basic Idea to keep long range weapons unique but still competitive, allowing better customization, and no more larger balance gaps due to chassis design (slot layout).

- Gauss and PPC burst weapons with high initial damage and longer reload.
- DPS and high fire rates domain would be finde with AC's and Lasers.
- LL /ER-LL as standard long range energy weapons with a good mix of DPS/t and burst damage.

Small energy weapons (smalls and meds) as fillers:

• decrease DPS/t to lower rates

LRM buff is okay. + 0.15 would be also fine (maybe a bit stronger impact)

AC speed increase is fine! (1500 - 2000 m/s). Additional Ammunition with +25 - 50 % / t would be also fine.

Edited by VoidConductor, 16 November 2012 - 05:21 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Weapon Balance

Weapons that are rated to do 5 points, DO 5 points. 10 pint weapons do 10 points, etc etc.

That is weapons balance.

Ok next issue?

[wanderer]

sokitumi, on 15 November 2012 - 12:47 PM, said:

Why even bother messing with Gauss rifles before fixing pretty much every other ballistic weapon?

Because they're also putting fixes in for most ballistics at the same time- this cycle, upping the projectile speeds?

And honestly, Gauss SHOULD be exploding more often. In TT, it's their primary flaw- hit Gauss, Gauss go boom. They could actually not reduce item HP on them as long as they exploded reliably when destroyed- which is a 100% result in tabletop.

[Mawai]

Vermaxx, on 15 November 2012 - 11:34 AM, said:

Who ever said gauss changes were coming?

have a nice day

http://mwomercs.com/...apon-balancing/

Gauss Rifle is going to become very fragile.

• The Gauss Rifle is going to have it's internal health dropped substantially.
  
• Once armor surrounding a Gauss Rifle has been removed, there is going to be a high probability that the Gauss Rifle will detonate via critical hits when that component gets hit by enemy fire.

[MaddMaxx]

Kunae, on 15 November 2012 - 11:43 AM, said:

Currently it has zero chance to explode, right?

Whether it is actually working or not is an unknown, but the weapon code states ExplodeChance="0.6", and InternalExplosionDmg="20"

[Lyoto Machida]

Tickdoff Tank, on 15 November 2012 - 01:17 PM, said:

Why are you opposed to giving the Gauss more of a disadvantage? I see no real problem with making the gauss a far more fragile weapon than it is in TT. We have already increased the lethality of the gauss far beyond TT, to the point that there are not many reasons to *not* use a gauss. This upcoming change will at least give a reason to think twice about them. But the gauss will remain as effective as it is now untill it gets destroyed.

It's already fragile...add the minimum range back in instead.

[Kraven Kor]

Thontor, on 16 November 2012 - 11:21 AM, said:

all the minimum range does in TT is make it harder to hit with at close range... It still does full damage...

How do you implement that in MWO?

This.

And if you say "by making it do less damage when fired at a target under 90 meters" I will perform a Double Picard Facepalm Maneuver and weep for the future of humanity

[Black Templar]

Paul Inouye, on 15 November 2012 - 11:39 AM, said:

The Gauss Rifle has always been a fragile weapon. Even in TT, just hitting the weapon would make it explode doing an instant 20 damage.

this! is was wondering why nobody has pointed that out yet...

[Chemie]

What does "detonate" mean? Does is do CT damage? Does CASE stop it? If the gauss explodes and kills you, that is stupid. if it just dies, I am fine with that cuz after armor is gone, gauss is dead today already.

Making gauss glass cannon and torso exploding at high probability means there will only be K2 gauss out there. Basically, you take it away from hunchie, dragon and Atlas while doing nothing about gaussapaults.

Edited by Chemie, 16 November 2012 - 12:01 PM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Kraven Kor, on 16 November 2012 - 11:25 AM, said:

This.

And if you say "by making it do less damage when fired at a target under 90 meters" I will perform a Double Picard Facepalm Maneuver and weep for the future of humanity

Prepare for facepalm impact:

By making it do less damage whne fired at a target under 90m. That's exactly what they could do.

Why does this work - the end result of making hitting something harder in the table top is that you deal less damage. How do you make a weapon deal less damage in MW:O?
How about making it deal less damage?

Is it realistic, reasonably, believeable? Hardly. Yeah, I hear some people talking about overpentration and stuff like that... But then I want to see the Gauss projectile going through the mech (and potentially hit something behind him), if it doesn't, that idea is pretty much invalid. Would certainly be a cool effect - in the first 90m, 0-100 % of t he damage is transferred to the first target hit, and the remaining 100 to 0 % to the next target hit.

Still hardly a realistic effect.


I am not really in favour of minimum ranges though. Buff the other weapons (DHS 2.0 for everyone?), or nerf the Gauss Rifle main characteristics, ROF, damage or heat. (In order of preference.)

[DivineEvil]

Seems fair by me. These changes should get most things to the way they're supposed to be. I'm not sure if missile damage buff will make it more popular, but the rest makes perfect sense. Gauss as it is not is fine as long as there's viable alternatives.

And I can't wait for new MGs as well.

Edited by DivineEvil, 16 November 2012 - 12:39 PM.

[Lawler]

Tuhalu, on 15 November 2012 - 02:26 PM, said:

Sounds good to me. As long as "20 points of damage to internal structure" in MWO is relatively the same as it is in tabletop. Then mechs with XL engines will often die the moment their Gauss Rifle explodes as it takes the related torso with it... If the Gauss Rifle is arm mounted, on a Heavy or Assault mech, it may only nearly kill the mech

Assault mechs (specifically the ones at the upper end of the scale) can survive a 20 point ammo explosion, hence the usefulness of CASE in the location. An Atlas with a CASEd torso suffering a 20 point ammo explosion would simply loose it's back armor and most of the internal structure in the location. The rest of the components (namely the engine) would be safe unless or until another shot strikes the internals there.

[Tuhalu]

Gunny McDuck, on 16 November 2012 - 02:54 AM, said:

I'm in my 71 alpha strike Atlas, and Jenner runs into me and falls over, or I catch him with an alpha stike.
Either way, he goes down.
I fire again as he is getting up, and knock him off his feet again.
And again.....but by then I've done so much damage to his mech that it just flies apart into little bits....

Yeah, that makes sense to me.

The problem is that the system does not translate.

In the TT, falling over from weapons damage happens AFTER that rounds weapon fire and BEFORE movement the next round. Movement the next round happens BEFORE more weapons fire. So in the TT, the usual effect of falling over is a little extra damage + lose a little movement speed (resulting in a tiny increase in the chance of enemies to hit you). In the TT you need to take 20+ damage over 10 seconds, but in this game you'd have to represent it as taking something more like 40 damage in 2 seconds. Also, the chance for an average pilot to get knocked over by that is only 28% (much less for the better pilots!).

In this game, you fall over for 5-8 seconds and are an absolute sitting duck.

You could translate some of this, but that sitting duck effect that you get in a real time game is simply far more powerful than is appropriate.

An effect of appropriate deadliness would be to instantly reduce the mechs current speed by 2% for every 5 damage to a maximum of about about a 30% speed loss (which would take 75 damage over a very short period of time!). Speed would return to the throttle setting as per normal acceleration rates for the mech. So even a 30% speed loss would be nullified in 2-3 seconds.

[Sprouticus]

I question whether you have to bump BOTH the chance of losing the weapon (lower iHP) AND make losing the weapon have a greater impact (20 dmg to internals).

As others have pointed out, it would not help with K2's due to smaller torso sections (for those who think the torso hitbox is ok, compare hitting the torso on a hunchback vs a K2). If the would just tweak the torso section on the Catapult and then EITHER lower the iHP or add the explosion, it would fix gauss completely IMO.


Again, I will point to other mechs. Taking out a torso on a Hunchie, an Arm on a Dragon or Cent is fairly easy to do. You can strip the gauss in seconds. A good gauss pilot can protect the weapon, but they have difficulty returning fire in that situaiton (especially hunhie pilots). The issue with the gausscat is a COMBINATION of hitboxes, hardpoints and weapon.

tl;dr:

Widen torsos on K2
Fix other balistics & PPC's
put in EITHER the lower iHP or the explosion, not both.

[SpiralRazor]

Vermaxx, on 15 November 2012 - 11:34 AM, said:

Who ever said gauss changes were coming?

have a nice day

read more.

Missiles need to go back to 2.0.

a .1 buff wont do it, sorry.

[Tuhalu]

Lawler, on 16 November 2012 - 01:03 PM, said:

Assault mechs (specifically the ones at the upper end of the scale) can survive a 20 point ammo explosion, hence the usefulness of CASE in the location. An Atlas with a CASEd torso suffering a 20 point ammo explosion would simply loose it's back armor and most of the internal structure in the location. The rest of the components (namely the engine) would be safe unless or until another shot strikes the internals there.

I think you are underestimating how painful a 20 point explosion is... In the tabletop at least, an Atlas has only 21 points of internal structure in the left and right torso. Considering you need to do at least 1 damage to get a crit, that means the torso with the Gauss Rifle and CASE is destroyed and the attached arm is removed. A fast mech with a ~25 points in a precision alpha strike could take out half an Atlas' firepower in one go. To me, that sounds like a really significant risk!

Side Note: If in fact, Internal Structure has been increased compared to the tabletop game, then they should probably increase the damage from a Gauss explosion to keep it at that level of scary.

[LethalMezzle]

I like that Gauss Rifle nerf idea. I still think they need an increased cooldown to 5 or maybe 6 seconds, however.

Rest of the tweaks seem good - Flamers/MGs and PPCs getting a buff is excellent.