31 replies to this topic

[Amaterasu1963]

cmopatrick, on 17 November 2012 - 08:21 AM, said:

just a thought: this is a game where people want to see their weapons go off. at true relativistic speeds, you would not see the ppc activate and folks would wonder if it was working. think of it in the same context as the reality that one would not see a laser in clear air (and it would not work underwater), i would suggest these tweaks from real world for game play are part of the MW gaming tradition, if you will... folks want to know they hit the target without having to zoom in to see it glow or have a electrical corona.

By "instant" I mean that it reaches the target instantly like lasers do now. Lasers have a duration and do damage in pulses but the first one hits the target instantly; no travel time. The PPC's visual effect should still have a duration but the shot should hit the target instantly without travel time.

[Finestaut]

John Norad, on 17 November 2012 - 08:44 AM, said:

The answer to this is to increase Gauss cooldown, effectively reducing it's dps.
It should be bad at brawling, since it is a long range high damage weapon without heat issues. In most cases this wouldn't even have a big effect on actual gameplay, because people shooting at long range rarely fire their Gauss at max RoF.

Basically, the Gauss doesn't need high dps, the AC20 does.

I am so close to agreeing with you, except I think the solution is to reduce the cool down of the ac20. As a strictly short range, low rate of fire weapon, the poor AC20 is seriously punished by convergence right now. It also only narrowly edges out other ballistic weapons in terms of dps, despite being much, much harder to fit, and very limited in range. A boost to ROF would widen the dps gap and make it the clear winner at point blank range.

MustrumRidcully, on 17 November 2012 - 08:30 AM, said:

For ER PPCs - if they don't really intend to fix the heat system, they will need to alter the weapon in some way to make it worthwhile.
My idea would be: Raise damage per shot, but lower the rate of fire. This will make it a better sniper weapon. Say, set it's damage to 13 and lower its heat to 12, and give it a recycle time of 4 seconds. That would lower its DPS to 3.25 (Current PPC and ER PPC has a DPS of 3.33), but basically give it the same heat per second as the normal PPC - at an increased range and an improved alpha strike damage.

Wouldn't this make the ppc basically a hot gauss rifle? Rather than approach the 15 damage every 4 seconds watermark, let's try to find it a niche all of its own. Again, my answer is to make it shoot faster. Increase the rate of fire to 3 seconds or less, and boost the heat efficiency slightly, and the ppc becomes a very destructive "main gun". If the ER PPC gets the same upgrades, then it occupies a space between "fast, spread out damage" (LRMs and the ac2) and "slow, focused damage" (gauss).

More dakka is always better.

[Lyteros]

Why should the ppc / erppc be a own niche? I think its fine beeing the enrgy tree big gun with big range... the direct competitor to gauss. Since we have different layouts (energy / ballistic slots) this appraoch seems reasonable to me.

Of course, only as soon as the ppc becomes more then wasted tonnage.

[MustrumRidcully]

The (ER) PPC is a hot Gauss Rifle. And at its range, a high rate of fire isn't all that advantageous - you need to aim pretty well with PPCs, and having to fire every 2 seconds is not making that any easier.

They could make it an instant-hit weapon. That would set it apart notably from the Gauss, and make it superior to the ER LLs, for example, when it comes to sniping - hit-scan is pretty impressive. It oculd even keep its heat cost then perhaps. Being able to instant hit an enemy for 10 damage is an advantage no other weapon has. It is costly to do so due to the high heat requirements. The reason we currently don't have hit-scan weapons without beam durations is obviously to avoid the old "boating + convergence" weapons problem - glue together 8 Medium Lasers and cut off arms and legs. But the PPC is heavy and has a high heat demand - it may not be so easily abused for this purpose.

[Túatha Dé Danann]

One of the huge problems on projectile weapons is that you cannot aim with them properly. If they are only usable in the torso, they can only be used by your torso movement and not by the nice red cross you are using. I've searched for a mech that can mount its ballistic weapons in its arm but I rarely find one (by the way, the guide is wrong, the K-2 Cat got its ballistics in its torso - I've found that out AFTER I buyed that thing)

If this is fixed, then a good aim will overpower a bad aim. Until now the rate of turning alone defines if you can hit or not. Also, it would be nice if the mechs could look up and down a little wider. The angle is in my eyes a little too restricted.

Next thing is the heat management. Currently, it feels like all weapons produce too much heat. While a well placed alpha can overpower a newbie, I still think that this is not the way how it should work. Place an alpha strike on an enemy that is shut down --> deserves to die. But until now, I have to shut down at least 4 times a match, 3 if I rely on ballistic and missile weapons and use the lasers only for 100% hits. If I compare the heat management with the other games I played so far, I think that we should reduce the overall heat generation by 25% - and then we are good to go.

Gauss is a problem, but I also think that it is balanced. One solution could be a huge recoil from the weapon, so that you have to really readjust your aim and cannot fire two double strikes and insta-kill a medium or heavy mech. I think that it is also a good idea to give this weapon a minimum range, but for that increase the maximum range.

In order to make PPC worth, they need an additional effect or two. Shaken the enemy and distort the sensor-lock may be good. But right now, lasers are far more useful. Less heat, same damage, more accurate, less tonnage.

Last but not least: One fix for the lrm-problem could be a longer lock for the missiles. Even if you lose the enemy, the missiles were fired with lock on and may track it further. Artemis could increase this effect and should also be more accurate.

Yeah, I think thats it for now.

[Grits N Gravy]

I have never been a fan of any of the heat systems in any of the Mechwarrior video games. I have always felt that the translation of function of the heat system has always been misunderstood by developers.

The primary purpose of heat in tabletop wasn't a dps or damage cap. Most mechs could destroy each other in 2 salvos, by firing half of their weapons. If heat were really meant to cap damage it would have been much higher in TT, so as to prevent 2 weapons from being fired at once. Heat's real purpose is to stop players from gaming the to hit system by throwing many to hit location rolls.

If you could fire all your weapons in a turn, you would go around coring each other out in a turn, because the hit location tables give u a 1 in 5 chance to hit the center torso. Heat caps the amount of weapons you can fire at once. Thus preventing you from throwing enough rolls to game the system. The Heat's systems primary roll in table top is really an accuracy nerf, not a damage limiter.

I'm fine with dev's vision for how long matches should last. But achieving it via the heat mechanics is really an obtuse way of going about it which handcuffs balancing attempts. Take the PPC for example, it is worthless because it's functional sustained DPS is so low due to the heat it generates, which also reduces the functionality of the other weapons you may have on board. If you just limit re-fire rates and damage you achieve the same results and reduce the unintended consequences of weapon balancing.

The heat and damage stats are always the sticking points of any mech video game. Most of the time the games just end up being heat management online. You really don't need a heat system in video game version of Batteltech to balance it, nor does it really add any value to the player experience. It's really just a hold over system from a dice based game, that should be either be totally reworked or jettisoned in a video game setting. As it has no purpose that isn't achieved by better forms of game balance.

Edited by Grits N Gravy, 17 November 2012 - 10:41 AM.

[Túatha Dé Danann]

Well, for one part the heat management is there to balance weapons out - so there IS a reason. If you take an AC/10 or a large Laser, what difference do you find? First, the AC/10 needs MUCH more tonnage (and space), it also needs ammunition, it also is not a direct fire weapon (so you have to aim on a forward point) and the range is reduced. Besides the heat, there is no way why you would favor an AC/10 over a large laser. And now it makes more sense to have a heat system. It was build to balance the weapons out. You are forced to use a mixture of weapons, because only with lasers, you overheat all the time which drops your dps by a very large amount. With only missiles, you are dead if the enemy is near you when LRM - or you are dead if the enemy is far away (SRM). If you just use ballistics, your mech will underperform, because they take up too much tonnage for their damage output.

You are forced to use a well performing mixture and you are forced to master them all - this is good, because it puts in a lot of space between a newbie and a master - aside from steering and aiming.

Still, the heat is too much right now.

Edited by Shevchen, 17 November 2012 - 11:39 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Shevchen, on 17 November 2012 - 11:36 AM, said:

Well, for one part the heat management is there to balance weapons out - so there IS a reason. If you take an AC/10 or a large Laser, what difference do you find? First, the AC/10 needs MUCH more tonnage (and space), it also needs ammunition,

Well, absent of heat, the stats could have looked differently - ACs could be much lighter, and only with ammo get up to the weight of a similar energy weapon.

But I think the heat system is for more than just limiting damage output - it's creating build choices and tactical choices. Build choice - do I build a mech that is less likely to overheat or do I rather go for more potential damage output - and during a match, do I risk overheating now or rather not deal so much damage to get into a better position.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 17 November 2012 - 11:49 AM.

[BoomDog]

MustrumRidcully, on 17 November 2012 - 09:34 AM, said:

The (ER) PPC is a hot Gauss Rifle. And at its range, a high rate of fire isn't all that advantageous - you need to aim pretty well with PPCs, and having to fire every 2 seconds is not making that any easier.

They could make it an instant-hit weapon. That would set it apart notably from the Gauss, and make it superior to the ER LLs, for example, when it comes to sniping - hit-scan is pretty impressive. It oculd even keep its heat cost then perhaps. Being able to instant hit an enemy for 10 damage is an advantage no other weapon has. It is costly to do so due to the high heat requirements. The reason we currently don't have hit-scan weapons without beam durations is obviously to avoid the old "boating + convergence" weapons problem - glue together 8 Medium Lasers and cut off arms and legs. But the PPC is heavy and has a high heat demand - it may not be so easily abused for this purpose.

I'm a fan of this idea. It would be a nice advantage to cancel out the huge heat disadvantage. Being able to move and shoot accurately at the same time would be pretty handy. Something the Gauss struggles with.

[Grits N Gravy]

Shevchen, on 17 November 2012 - 11:36 AM, said:

Well, for one part the heat management is there to balance weapons out - so there IS a reason.

MustrumRidcully, on 17 November 2012 - 11:45 AM, said:

But I think the heat system is for more than just limiting damage output - it's creating build choices and tactical choices.

Heat is just the arbitrary choice for a system to achieve tactical dynamics because it was in TT. It's actually the worst system for trying to create balance and tactical choice because it is so pervasive. Tweaking the heat on a few items generally has huge repercussion thorough the whole system. Look what upping the heat 1 point on the medium lasers did to the heat efficiency of the stock mech builds. There are hundreds of ways that ballistics could have been differentiated from lasers, besides beam time. You could have added a clip dynamic to ballistics, so that they would have had more burst DPS but lower sustained for example. Even gone as far to redesign the weights, damage and rate of fire. Those decisions are just as arbitrary as using the heat scale to create tactical dynamics, because the heat system was never really meant to create that dynamic either.

With a heat scale is there that much of a real choice? I would argue that there isn't. People tend to gravitate to a few builds because they tend to be the most effective in terms of sustained DPS. When you use heat to tune balance, you end up making everyone DPS/Heat Per Second relativity equal in a uninteresting way. Or in the case of our game you have a few decent weapons and the rest are worthless. Either way there isn't much tactical pluralism.

Your not designing your mech in terms of a series of tactical decisions. Mech design in MWO tends to revolve around packing on the most effective weapons in the most efficient means. Which is why you see, mechs built around specific weapon platforms. IE gauss/ streak cats, laser boats, LRM boats. MWO is just min maxing because weapon balance is built around the heat system. The only mechs where u put a varity of weapons on are the ones that force you to do so via hardpoint/crit slot restrictions. Even then they tend to end up pretty uniform across the variant.

If your going to make arbitrary decision when making game, at least give yourself the tools to balance a game properly and precisely without creating a series of unintended consequences .

Edited by Grits N Gravy, 17 November 2012 - 01:10 PM.

[Túatha Dé Danann]

Well, if we introduce omni-mech later on, then this problem gets even more brutal, because the ones who have the money can create a one-hit-killer, while the rest will die until they can affort this mech. Why do we have the weapon group restriction? Because without, we would see those Atlas running around with two AC/20 and some other funny stuff, which is just unbeatable.

I like the balancing of the dev team... and while I have to say that it is far far away from perfect, this is the only reasonable option to limit those insta-kill builds. We already have a problem with the gauss-pult. I tried to counter it with an AC/5-pult, but it won't work very well. You have to fire at a constant rate to hinder the enemy to fire at you - but you will not always hit.

Same to the LRM-boats. If used with a good spotter, they are a wall of death. (But I am more fine with that than the gauss-pult)

Like I said, we need something that puts the gauss-pult at a disadvantage, while we leave the normal gauss-mechs on a normal level. One option is a recoil, the other option is a minimum range, the third option would be reducing the traveling speed. Nevertheless, this all affect normal gauss users too.

I'm out of ideas on this one.

[Belorion]

OpCentar, on 16 November 2012 - 02:05 PM, said:

We shall see about LRMs, my C4 with 2xLRM20s+Artemis+TAG is waiting.

Though I don't think 1.8 damage will be enough, maybe for LRM15s where the spread isn't so bad.

Damage was never the issue with the latest nerf. Its the combination of a difficult trajectory, reduced damage, and the fact that lrms can now be dodged. I would rather they adjust the trajectory, or the ability to dodge them over giving them a damage boost.