125 replies to this topic

[Hokum]

Should be burst like Mechwarrior 3. The single shot autocannons are by far the weakest element in MWO's otherwise solid weapon modelling. I have little interest in piloting a Huchback because of this, or an Atlas for that matter. Autocannons used to feel cool and powerful to fire - you could unleash a literal stream of lead. Now they just feel like boring short range gauss rifles.

[Schmuddelkatz]

Id like to imagine an AC 20 firing full auto... there wont be any heat problems at all...

[Rinkata Prime]

Burst fire for autocannons it's an iconic feature of mechwarrior universe. It is the same as LRM swarm.
More accurate you are, more bullets hits the target, more damage dealed.
But now most of shots from AC/20 is just a waste of ammo. You can argue - "shoot better".
But if I really want to do a sniper shots I'll take a PPC or a Gauss Cannon - this are originally designed for sniper shots.
Autocannons are for burst fire only, because they are not cannons, they are AUTO cannons.

And the Ultra AC jam are more reasonable in burst fire, but now it's crap. I do not want to use an Ultra AC any more after I try it several times - no fun, no rush, no damage, only pain from jam lock at all.

Edited by Rinkata Kimiku, 15 November 2012 - 01:04 AM.

[Noth]

I so want auto cannons to just be lasers with all the down sides of ballistics and none of the upsides of lasers. Sounds fantastic and great for variety.

Seriously, all changing them to burst fire would do is turn them into lasers that are not hit scan, have to deal with travel times, deal with ammo restrictions, chance for ammo to blow up, weight more, take up more crits thus easier to knock out oh and lose their one advantage over lasers of being an upfront single location damage dealer. I would never take an AC over a laser again in the game.

I rather have direct fire split more evenly between single shot single location damage and dot damage than to have the vast majority being dot damage like what this would do.

Oh and then there is the massive re-balancing that would need to be done to a weapon system that is almost balanced. It would be a straight up step backwards.

Edited by Noth, 15 November 2012 - 01:05 AM.

[The Herrick]

Noth, on 15 November 2012 - 01:02 AM, said:

I so want auto cannons to just be lasers with all the down sides of ballistics and none of the upsides of lasers. Sounds fantastic and great for variety.

Seriously, all changing them to burst fire would do is turn them into lasers that are not hit scan, have to deal with travel times, deal with ammo restrictions, chance for ammo to blow up, weight more, take up more crits thus easier to knock out oh and lose their one advantage over lasers of being an upfront single location damage dealer.

sarna.net said:

Different manufacturers and models of autocannons have different calibers (25mm-203mm) and rates of fire. Due to this, autocannons are grouped into generic "classes" of autocannons with common damage ratings, with Autocannon/20s doing massive damage while having very short range.
An example of the rating system: the Crusher Super Heavy Cannon is a 150mm weapon firing ten shells per "round" while the Chemjet Gun is a 185mm weapon firing much slower, and causing higher damage per shell. Despite their differences, both are classified as Autocannon/20s due to their damage output.

Why not have both and allow players to choose if they want single shot or burst fire, you don't need to act like a condescending jerk then.

Burst fire could especially be useful against smaller, faster targets that you cannot reliably get a bead on, you use the first half of your weapon's burst to track them and then adjust your aim to hit them with the tail end of the attack. People did a similar thing in Tribes ascend with automatics, it made them significantly easier to aim and thus provided lower but far more reliable damage over single shot spinfusors.

Edited by The Herrick, 15 November 2012 - 01:15 AM.

[Rinkata Prime]

Laser is a beam - no bullet speed, no bullet spread, no ballistic.

And rebalance of a weapon system does not needed for making autocannons burst.
For example: AC damage is 10, if you fire 5 bullets in one burst, it will be a 2 damage of each one.
If you don't move you mouse and shoot a static target, you bring all 10 damage points to it.
If target moving and you make only 3 hits. It will be a 6 damage. If you miss, you miss all 10.

In mechwarrior 3 shooting from autocannons were the most epic moments of all gameplay.

[Noth]

The Herrick, on 15 November 2012 - 01:14 AM, said:

Why not have both and allow players to choose if they want single shot or burst fire, you don't need to act like a condescending jerk then.

Burst fire could especially be useful against smaller, faster targets that you cannot reliably get a bead on, you use the first half of your weapon's burst to track them and then adjust your aim to hit them with the tail end of the attack. People did a similar thing in Tribes ascend with automatics, it made them significantly easier to aim and thus provided lower but far more reliable damage over single shot spinfusors.

Why not have both? Because we don't need both right now. There are much much more pressing matters in the game and balance is often bad enough we do not need more balancing issues thrown into the game. Maybe someday, way down the line when most bugs have been smashed, match making is working properly, community warfare is running stable, etc.

Right now the weapons have some nice niches. You want to reliably hit fast movers for some damage, you bring lasers, you want to drop as much damage onto a spot at once, you bring ACs, you want to soften up targets you bring LRMs. You want to do heavy damage to the entirety of a mech you bring SRMs. You want to swat lights, you bring SSRMs. It's not all balanced but every single one has a role with strengths and weaknesses that make them unique and balance is getting rather close between most of them.

Rinkata Kimiku, on 15 November 2012 - 01:17 AM, said:

Laser is a beam - no bullet speed, no bullet spread, no ballistic.

And rebalance of a weapon system does not needed for making autocannons burst.
For example: AC damage is 10, if you fire 5 bullets in one burst, it will be a 2 damage of each one.
If you don't move you mouse and shoot a static target, you bring all 10 damage points to it.
If target moving and you make only 3 hits. It will be a 6 damage. If you miss, you miss all 10.

In mechwarrior 3 shooting from autocannons were the most epic moments of all gameplay.

You just described exactly how the lasers work here. Damage over time, and they don't have the disadvantages of ballistics. They would have to be rebalanced. between how many shots, how fast, damage per shot,travel times, ammo, etc, it would all need rebalanced. It is never as simple as just saying it fire five rounds that do 2 damage each.

Edited by Noth, 15 November 2012 - 01:22 AM.

[Rinkata Prime]

It is not a world of tanks, It's a Mechwarrior.
http://battletech.wi...wiki/Autocannon

Quote

Why not have both? Because we don't need both right now. There are much much more pressing matters in the game and balance is often bad enough we do not need more balancing issues thrown into the game. Maybe someday, way down the line when most bugs have been smashed, match making is working properly, community warfare is running stable, etc.

But that is true.


Originally lasers and autocannons has two different problems: limited ammo from one side and overheating from another.
The difference lies in combat style.
With burst fire autocannons you can make a rush attacks, but you can't do a long fight (because of limited ammo).
With lasers you can't do a rush attacks (because of overheating), but you can do a long fight.

Edited by Rinkata Kimiku, 15 November 2012 - 01:37 AM.

[RAM]

Slug/Burst should be selectable – ideally on the fly.


RAM
ELH

[Rinkata Prime]

I think not, it must be burst fire only, and like it was in previous versions of Mechwarrior, lower calibers with shorter bursts, i.e. burst length of AC2 is shorter than burst length from AC20.

[SpiralRazor]

Garth Erlam, on 07 May 2012 - 10:39 AM, said:

Basically, this.

No, not basically this... High ping combined with bad netcode and your nonsensical server side authentication makes the current form of AC firing unusable by anyone with lag.

MW3 and MWLL have NO problems with there AC's inflicting damage, even concentrated damage...its all in how fast you make the rate of fire of that burst(stream of damage packets).

Let me tell you that at 32ms ping, i would MUCH rather have an AC/20 that fires a VERY rapid stream of 5 shells for 4 damage each under the current system, as id be landing at least some of my damage vs very often missing all of it...And i could spray down some damage on Light mechs as well as opposed to being mostly unable to hit them as it is now.

[SpiralRazor]

Noth, on 15 November 2012 - 01:21 AM, said:

Why not have both? Because we don't need both right now. There are much much more pressing matters in the game and balance is often bad enough we do not need more balancing issues thrown into the game. Maybe someday, way down the line when most bugs have been smashed, match making is working properly, community warfare is running stable, etc.

Right now the weapons have some nice niches. You want to reliably hit fast movers for some damage, you bring lasers, you want to drop as much damage onto a spot at once, you bring ACs, you want to soften up targets you bring LRMs. You want to do heavy damage to the entirety of a mech you bring SRMs. You want to swat lights, you bring SSRMs. It's not all balanced but every single one has a role with strengths and weaknesses that make them unique and balance is getting rather close between most of them.



You just described exactly how the lasers work here. Damage over time, and they don't have the disadvantages of ballistics. They would have to be rebalanced. between how many shots, how fast, damage per shot,travel times, ammo, etc, it would all need rebalanced. It is never as simple as just saying it fire five rounds that do 2 damage each.

Youve argued this before, and you are wrong...Its exactly that simple. The only part of that equation that would need balancing, is how fast that packet of 5 shots is fired...because that will control your panel spread. To close together and you have the current incarnation, too slow and you have a weapon that scatters damage TOO much. It would be easy to find that sweet spot, certainly findable within 3 patches(4-6 weeks).

[Noth]

SpiralRazor, on 15 November 2012 - 01:51 AM, said:

No, not basically this... High ping combined with bad netcode and your nonsensical server side authentication makes the current form of AC firing unusable by anyone with lag.

MW3 and MWLL have NO problems with there AC's inflicting damage, even concentrated damage...its all in how fast you make the rate of fire of that burst(stream of damage packets).

Let me tell you that at 32ms ping, i would MUCH rather have an AC/20 that fires a VERY rapid stream of 5 shells for 4 damage each under the current system, as id be landing at least some of my damage vs very often missing all of it...And i could spray down some damage on Light mechs as well as opposed to being mostly unable to hit them as it is now.

If you are missing very often with a 32ms ping, the problem lies with you. I run anywhere between 80-120 ms ping and can hit most my shots. If you want to spray damage, take lasers or chain fire AC2s. that is pretty much their role in this game. This game has flipped the roles of lasers and ACs. Other MW games the lasers were instant damage and the ACs were dots. they flipped these to essentially nerf laser alpha strikes and reward players who were good shots with ACs.

[Rinkata Prime]

But how ppl play in Battlefield with all of this automatic weapons with huge spreads and rates of fire?
There must be a solution.

[The Herrick]

RAM, on 15 November 2012 - 01:38 AM, said:

Slug/Burst should be selectable – ideally on the fly.

The problem with this is it makes the UI more complicated, also I personally think that the choice between burst and single shot should be a bigger decision than flipping a switch. It should be something you have to consider while building your mech, although this would probably require PGI to implement a system to save loadouts and swap between them in the mech lab otherwise it would be a pain to have to trip your guns every match.

What Rinkata said is also true, really Lasers have very few drawbacks as it is, heat is the only real one and this doesn't really counter the fact that lasers are much easier to aim and far cheaper to maintain. Allowing a slight overlap between the two weapon types doesn't really do much harm, and it will make ballistic slots on smaller mechs that cannot easily fit gauss more desirable (the smaller ACs should also really be a lot lighter, AC/2 is far too heavy for what it does).

If nothing else it would allow more diversity in the battlefield, currently the pool of weapons used on custom mechs is quite small. It gets a little stale when you can more or less guess exactly what weapons your opponent has before even locking them. Variety is the spice of life afterall.

[Noth]

SpiralRazor, on 15 November 2012 - 01:55 AM, said:

Youve argued this before, and you are wrong...Its exactly that simple. The only part of that equation that would need balancing, is how fast that packet of 5 shots is fired...because that will control your panel spread. To close together and you have the current incarnation, too slow and you have a weapon that scatters damage TOO much. It would be easy to find that sweet spot, certainly findable within 3 patches(4-6 weeks).

No, it is never that simple that simple. You also ignore the fact that making them burst makes them lasers without the benefits of the lasers and all the downfalls of ballistics and takes away their one advantage over lasers. You have a dev posting in this thread exactly why they have AC single shot (for the upfront single location damage) a game design reason. The weapon types have their niches and roles currentlya dn they are good and provide variety. Burst fire ACs remove variety and just makes worse lasers.

The Herrick, on 15 November 2012 - 01:58 AM, said:

The problem with this is it makes the UI more complicated, also I personally think that the choice between burst and single shot should be a bigger decision than flipping a switch. It should be something you have to consider while building your mech, although this would probably require PGI to implement a system to save loadouts and swap between them in the mech lab otherwise it would be a pain to have to trip your guns every match.

What Rinkata said is also true, really Lasers have very few drawbacks as it is, heat is the only real one and this doesn't really counter the fact that lasers are much easier to aim and far cheaper to maintain. Allowing a slight overlap between the two weapon types doesn't really do much harm, and it will make ballistic slots on smaller mechs that cannot easily fit gauss more desirable (the smaller ACs should also really be a lot lighter, AC/2 is far too heavy for what it does).

If nothing else it would allow more diversity in the battlefield, currently the pool of weapons used on custom mechs is quite small. It gets a little stale when you can more or less guess exactly what weapons your opponent has before even locking them. Variety is the spice of life afterall.

AC2 is one of the highest dps weapons in the game. What creates variety is difference yet balance. GR is too powerful and needs brought down. Once that is done you will see a lot more variety in weapons brought to the battlefield. No need to recreate the wheel.

[Rinkata Prime]

But lasers must be worse to compare with autocannons.
If you don't limited on ammunition you must be nerfed to compare to those who are limited on ammunition.

And there is a one another thing to compare lasers and autocannons.
Long range lasers deal more damage than close range lasers.
But long range autocannons deal less damage than close range autocannons.

And really sorry, It's hard to me to debate on english.
I hope you can understand my ugly explanations.

Edited by Rinkata Kimiku, 15 November 2012 - 02:18 AM.

[Noth]

Rinkata Kimiku, on 15 November 2012 - 02:10 AM, said:

But lasers must be worse to compare with autocannons.
If you don't limited on ammunition you must be nerfed to compare to those who are limited on ammunition.

With the current setup, a good shot will kill faster with and AC than someone with a lasers because the damage is so concentrated rather than spread. Being a good shot with the ACs allows you to take fewer shots and kill very very fast. This will become easier as the netcode and convergence improves. It is so satisfying to line up an AC20 shot and watch it just take the head off a speeding commando.

The lasers get there strength from being easier to stack and boat and hit with. In turn it's much harder to do their full damage to one area of the mech. It's actually currently a really nice dynamic between the weapons.

Edited by Noth, 15 November 2012 - 02:15 AM.

[SpiralRazor]

Noth, on 15 November 2012 - 02:01 AM, said:

No, it is never that simple that simple. You also ignore the fact that making them burst makes them lasers without the benefits of the lasers and all the downfalls of ballistics and takes away their one advantage over lasers. You have a dev posting in this thread exactly why they have AC single shot (for the upfront single location damage) a game design reason. The weapon types have their niches and roles currentlya dn they are good and provide variety. Burst fire ACs remove variety and just makes worse lasers.



AC2 is one of the highest dps weapons in the game. What creates variety is difference yet balance. GR is too powerful and needs brought down. Once that is done you will see a lot more variety in weapons brought to the battlefield. No need to recreate the wheel.

Man, you just dont get it.... I think its a failure of reading comprehension on your part.

And I countered Garths comment quite succinctly.

[Noth]

SpiralRazor, on 15 November 2012 - 02:15 AM, said:

Man, you just dont get it.... I think its a failure of reading comprehension on your part.

And I countered Garths comment quite succinctly.

No you didn't. You listed two issues that when improved also improve the current ACs. Then you listed two games which have the lasers as the instant damage and the ACs as the dot damage, the exact opposite of the design of this game.

ACs have their role as heavy single hitters. If you are good with them you can kill extremely fast. At 32ms you should be able to hit very easily with these outside of lag shielded lights. You want to glance damage things, take lasers. The fact that different weapons have different strengths and don't do the same things encourages taking multiple weapon types which brings in variety in builds.