214 replies to this topic

[EmperorMyrf]

"Business ethics" aside, using economics as a balancing point can only go so far. It will be a limiting factor during the grind, but once true competitive play is introduced (it kinda already is, informally) all the economics are gone, simply because everyone is going to be bringing their best gear in order to win, not to make money. Once the win is far more important than the money, then economics as a balancing point is worthless.

However, if there was some sort of limit on how much a team can field in terms of Cbills then that might be acceptable, but only because it would behave as some sort of informal BV system.

[Suskis]

Frostbeast, on 27 November 2012 - 11:53 AM, said:

You buffed the Lrms even more!? They were really strong before but now it will get annoying even more. You americans must be really like explosions

I confirm LRM are now back to their full power. A brand new light mech (commando, or jenner) is destroyed at 1st blow. And this is correct, as I fire 80 missiles with Artemis

[BigMooingCow]

Malzel, on 30 November 2012 - 01:54 PM, said:

We're still talking about paying for perks like it's a bad thing, or implying that only the people who drop cash on the game can pilot the "good stuff," which just isn't true. Like I said earlier, a free player can accomplish everything that a paying player can, including running that super Artemis-equipped LRM boat. It can't be a matter of "pay to win," because that free player can "win" just as hard as the paying player. The free player just might not be able to afford it every single match, which is fine.

Malzel, on 30 November 2012 - 01:54 PM, said:

Besides, every LRM boat in existence can just abuse the 75% free ammo right now. If you have 1500+ missiles on your mech, that's still 1000+ missiles per game without ever paying a dime, so it's completely viable to run an LRM boat every single game without founders' or premium boosts, already. I feel like some people arguing against the re-arming costs just want to keep their cake and eat it, too. I'm sorry if that offends anyone.

Guilty as charged. The ONLY reason I'm doing fire support is because I can waste a few tons on my Atlas and make money while still using LRMs. If and when that design changes and I have to pay an additional $50K-$100K per round to rearm my missiles, I'm done with LRMs. I suspect most experienced LRM users will drop LRMs, too. This is a PERFECT example of balancing the game by the economy, and it's a Bad Idea as I think most of us agree.

From the Unintended Consequences file, this will also make Trial Mechs much more popular. Imagine a future day when the 75% free ammo is removed and LRMs are too expensive to use. There are few LRMs on the battlefield, until one week when they swap in the Cat A1. Suddenly everybody's got a GREAT fire support mech with lots of LRMs. For the next two weeks all we're going to see is LRMs sailing across the battlefield.

I think this is, erm, Double Bad.

(BTW, the Awesome Trial Mech we've got right now has led to an explosion of ER PPC usage... I hope PGI doesn't see these stats and conclude that ER PPC's are super popular and well-balanced!)

MustrumRidcully, on 30 November 2012 - 02:36 PM, said:

I wouldn't miss it a bit. LRMs need to be balanced on the battlefield, not by my bank. But I was also never a fan of death penalties in any game (but those are a bit of a special case, because here you can rightfully say -I already lost and am lying on the ground, why do you keep kicking me?)

Agreed. This concept of "you should lose money if you lose" is AWFUL. This is a team-based game, and your success depends HIGHLY on the strength of your team. If you tie my individual success to my team's skill, you're just going to **** me off when my team is filled with "noobs". You know how that story ends... elitism, an antagonistic playerbase, groups in search of unaffiliated players to stomp mercilessly. It's a subtle thing, but it's a community-poisoning design.

Just yesterday I was playing where someone was constantly complaining about noobs. We lost a few rounds because our teammates weren't all that good. And that was with the current design where we didn't lose cash overall on a loss (well, at least I didn't; I don't use XL or FF). I told my lancemate to just let it slide; they're probably just new players. One of them even stepped into one of my LRM barrages and gave me a team kill.

Now imagine if we all lost $100K because a Hunchback on our team ran into the river to meet slaughter instead of keeping the Jenners in check? My lancemate would have an aneurism, and to be honest I'd be pretty pissed, too.

Instead I'd make sure people never lose cash, even in a catastrophic loss. The worst you should end up with is a pittance for your troubles. And if you do well, you should earn a good amount of cash. Say, enough to buy a LL or a new SRM rack and some ammo. An average round should pay maybe half that.

Keeping the numbers climbing no matter what gives everyone a much more positive outlook on the game. It's not dog eat dog anymore, it's a collective effort to earn cash. Keep people feeling like they're winning, or at least treading water, and they'll be much happier. Make people feel like they're drowning in debt and they aren't going to throw real world money into the system, they're going to leave. I certainly don't need a GAME to make me feel financial difficulty. I can do that all by myself by buying too many MC points!

MustrumRidcully, on 30 November 2012 - 02:36 PM, said:

There is a recent dev post that suggests they are thinking about lowering the (ER) Large Laser beam duration and lowering the PPC heat and increasing its projectile speed. That sounds like a good move.

This is a very good idea. I don't know if I'd lower DURATION for LL's, because that makes them inch closer to the LPL, but ANY tweaks are welcome at this point. I think the devs need to just DO stuff with the weapons and see how the chips fall. Take a page from Valve, who used to adjust weapon balance in Team Fortress in every patch (any QWTF players here?). Today they've got EXCELLENT balance, and it's because they played with the numbers a LOT. We're all willing to test here, we just need PGI to give us some changes!

[MustrumRidcully]

LPLs weren't mentioned, but they definitely need a buff as well. Probably also heat and beam duration related. They have almost the same range as medium lasers, deal less than twice their damage at 7 times the weight...

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 01 December 2012 - 10:28 AM.

[EmperorMyrf]

MustrumRidcully, on 01 December 2012 - 10:27 AM, said:

LPLs weren't mentioned, but they definitely need a buff as well. Probably also heat and beam duration related. They have almost the same range as medium lasers, deal less than twice their damage at 7 times the weight...

If Pulse Lasers are going to be left as inefficient as they are (relative to their basic counterparts) then I feel the beam length needs to be no more than half of the basic beam length. The small pulse laser especially could use that quick burst, I'd go as far as to put it at 0.25 seconds of beam length.

Even on top of changing the beam length, I really think the SPL and LPL should have heat reduced or DPS increased. MPL seems about fine, besides the beam length, but the others are just not worth the extra tonnage to upgrade from basic to pulse.

Edited by EmperorMyrf, 01 December 2012 - 11:35 AM.

[BigMooingCow]

I realized I've been posting more about metagame balancing than mech and weapon balancing in this thread. I guess that's understandable, because most of the weapon balance problems in MWO are more about money than the weapons themselves, but I figured I should pivot to talk about weapons, not money. Here's some ideas I've been kicking around in my head about energy weapons. What do you all think?

"Normal" lasers have good firing mechanics. The durations are long enough that they hose their target somewhat, but not too much. I'd leave them largely untouched.

Pulse lasers look cool, but their durations are all way too long. In TT pulse lasers trade range, weight, and heat for ease-of-targeting. If those themes are the goal in MWO, beam duration is the primary way to improve ease-of-targeting. Right now pulse lasers are fairly useless. Look at the durations for lasers versus pulse lasers:

Small: 0.75 -> 0.5
Medium: 1.0 -> 0.75
Large: 1.0 -> 0.75

That's a tiny difference. Not enough to make a difference in aiming. You still get the same hose effect. Consider if instead you did this:


Small: 0.75 -> 0.1
Medium: 1.0 -> 0.2
Large: 1.0 -> 0.25

This way pulse lasers are a waste of weight, heat, and range (all VERY important stats), but when you hit with them, they almost always hit one spot on the mech. I think pulse lasers are still a difficult sell compared to traditional lasers, but this makes them much different than traditional lasers, adding some variety to energy builds.

With that change in mind, here's what I think about each individual weapon:

Small lasers: They're great as is. No changes.

Small pulse lasers: Shortening the duration makes this weapon a tool to keep scouts off your assault mech, which is what it SHOULD be. It's a highly accurate weapon to toss in to defend yourself at short range. It's still heavy and sucks up a valuable hardpoint, but that's a good tradeoff, I think.

Medium lasers: They're great as is. No changes.

Medium pulse lasers: Shortening the duration makes this a weapon powerful when fired in large groups, like it should be. It still puts out MASSIVE heat and weighs a lot for its DPS (four tons for 3.2dps versus four tons for 5dps for ML's), but I think you'd find brawlers using MPLs for close fighting, while ML's are general-purpose weapons. As it should be.

Large lasers: Here's where energy weapons start to have problems, IMO. Large lasers work, but they're outclassed by ballistics and missiles. To make a LL heat neutral you need 17 SHS or 12 DHS. That's a MASSIVE increase from TT, and throws everything out of balance, especially considering recycle times are close AND DHS has been neutered. Look at comparable weapons, loaded for typical ammo and heat neutral:

LL - 2.12dps, 22 tons and 19 crits or 17 tons and 38 crits
AC/5 (2 tons ammo) - 2.94dps, 16 tons and 12 crits or 14 tons and 18 crits
LRM5 (2 tons ammo) - 2.77dps, 11 tons and 10 crits or 9 tons and 18 crits

Best case for LL's you're running DHS, but even then the LL is three tons heavier than the AC/5 and eight tons heavier than the LRM5 and the LL does less damage than either. And that's ignoring the Ultra AC/5, which is better still.

I feel LL's need a boost to make them a viable alternative to cannons and missiles. This is something PGI should do slowly and incrementally, so as to avoid LASERFEST 2013 with one big adjustment. Right now the LL produces 9 damage and 7 heat for a 3.25sec cooldown. I don't think increasing damage is wise; that would make the weapon something other than a LL. I say they should drop its heat somewhat. Drop its heat per shot form 7 to 6 and see what happens. That will let us use 10DHS instead of 12DHS to cool a LL, which is still worse than an AC/5, but less egregious.

Large pulse lasers: Large pulse lasers suffer similarly to LL; they require too many heat sinks to cool. A mech running two LPL's cannot possibly mount enough heat sinks to cool them, even if the entire rest of the mech is filled with DHS. This is a far cry from TT, where any mech that could possibly carry two LPL's could cool them with its base DHS. It's also MUCH worse than similar ballistic weapons. Compared to a LPL, an AC/10 weighs less, uses fewer crits (when heat balanced), fires more frequently, and has a much longer range. There's no reason to favor a LPL, whatsoever.

I feel LPL's need the duration boost I mentioned earlier, plus a reduction in heat. Lets start by reducing its heat per shot from 9 to 7 and see what happens. This will reduce the DHS it requires from 16 to 12, and make a brawler with two LPL's much more feasible. I don't think it will be enough to drive most people from other short range weapons like the ML, AC/20, and SSRM's, but maybe it will be enough that we could actually see one in use from time-to-time.

This is already very long, so I won't go into my thoughts on PPC's except to say I think they need a reduction in heat and a large increase in shot speed, so they're faster than any ballistic weapon, but not quite instant-hit. They need to be the scary weapons they were in TT until the Gauss came along and made everyone want to hide their cockpits in their CT.

Thoughts?

[EmperorMyrf]

BigMooingCow, on 01 December 2012 - 05:58 PM, said:

snip

I feel that 0.1s as a beam length for the SPL is a bit too short. If there was a hunchback running perpendicular to you at full speed, you could almost only hit his CT without correcting your aim. I feel that's just a little too tight. Even just a small increase to .15s would be enough, as that beam would drag across 3/4 of his entire torso without aim correction. Then adjust MPL to .2s and LPL to .25s. With someone who is a good shot and can keep the beam on one spot for long enough, it's potentially quite lethal. In addition, fast moving mechs that don't have the luxury to wait around for their beam to finish will appreciate that quick beam, and then we'll start seeing just a few more pulse lasers fielded.

Agreed on the rest, with the exception of LLs and LPLs. Reducing the LLs heat down to 6 gives almost the exact tonnage efficiency as the medium laser (.003 DPS/T difference). Honestly, I think they should be left alone, or at the very least brought to 6.5 heat.

I don't feel reducing the LPLs heat to 7 would be acceptable, though 8 would be alright. In the case of the LPL, for every point of heat less than its current heat you are increasing that weapons effectiveness by about 10%. If you were to couple the 2 heat reduction with its drastically shortened beam time then you would have swung the balance on the other side of the spectrum, imo.

Edit: fact check

Edited by EmperorMyrf, 02 December 2012 - 07:45 AM.

[StalaggtIKE]

I agree that LRM feels pretty strong right now. But I think it's ridiculous to call for a nerf with the release of the ECM right around the corner.

[Stingz]

EmperorMyrf, on 01 December 2012 - 07:33 PM, said:

Agreed on the rest, with the exception of LLs and LPLs. Reducing the LLs heat down to 6 gives almost the exact tonnage efficiency as the medium laser (.003 DPS/T difference). Honestly, I think they should be left alone, or at the very least brought to 6.5 heat.

I don't feel reducing the LPLs heat to 7 would be acceptable, though 8 would be alright. In the case of the LPL, for every point of heat less than its current heat you are increasing that weapons effectiveness by about 10%. If you were to couple the 2 heat reduction with its drastically shortened beam time then you would have swung the balance on the other side of the spectrum, imo.

Edit: fact check

Large Pulse often runs hot enough to make you pay attention to heat, since it's as hot as a PPC. If you want to buff L.Pulse, 8 heat seems about right.

It's already pretty good in med-close fights, and very good at tearing up light mechs. Since each pulse is a hitscan packet, there is much less they can dodge.

Pulse lasers feel like laser shotguns, cramming for more damage and accuracy. While skimping on range, weight and heat efficiency.

Edited by Stingz, 01 December 2012 - 09:38 PM.

[BigMooingCow]

EmperorMyrf, on 01 December 2012 - 07:33 PM, said:

I feel that 0.1s as a beam length for the SPL is a bit too short. If there was a hunchback running perpendicular to you at full speed, you could almost only hit his CT without correcting your aim. I feel that's just a little too tight. Even just a small increase to 1.5s would be enough, as that beam would drag across 3/4 of his entire torso without aim correction. Then adjust MPL to 2s and LPL to 2.5s. With someone who is a good shot and can keep the beam on one spot for long enough, it's potentially quite lethal. In addition, fast moving mechs that don't have the luxury to wait around for their beam to finish will appreciate that quick beam, and then we'll start seeing just a few more pulse lasers fielded.

Agreed on the rest, with the exception of LLs and LPLs. Reducing the LLs heat down to 6 gives almost the exact tonnage efficiency as the medium laser (.003 DPS/T difference). Honestly, I think they should be left alone, or at the very least brought to 6.5 heat.

I don't feel reducing the LPLs heat to 7 would be acceptable, though 8 would be alright. In the case of the LPL, for every point of heat less than its current heat you are increasing that weapons effectiveness by about 10%. If you were to couple the 2 heat reduction with its drastically shortened beam time then you would have swung the balance on the other side of the spectrum, imo.

Edit: fact check

0.1 might be too short, but I think it's worth a shot to see what the effect is. Anything that gets all the weapons back in the game is worth a shot. Right now the SPL and LPL are almost as rare as the NARC (I saw a NARC last night!).

Reducing the heat of the LL and LPL does threaten the mediums, and that might be reason enough not to lower its heat, but we're kind of up against a wall with these weapons now; they aren't all that useful. Especially the LPL. Personally, I think the mediums will be fine because they'll still do more DPS per ton, and you can fit them in as backup weapons on heavier mechs or as main weapons on lighter mechs... that's kind of their role in TT, too.

One thing is for sure: there are a lot of weapons in MWO that are vestigial right now. The game would be more fun if all the weapons were made useful. I'd love to see every weapon in use. It's cool we have an AC/2 now, for example, especially because a big part of its utility is that it is highly annoying.

[BigMooingCow]

Stingz, on 01 December 2012 - 09:37 PM, said:

Large Pulse often runs hot enough to make you pay attention to heat, since it's as hot as a PPC. If you want to buff L.Pulse, 8 heat seems about right.

It's already pretty good in med-close fights, and very good at tearing up light mechs. Since each pulse is a hitscan packet, there is much less they can dodge.

Pulse lasers feel like laser shotguns, cramming for more damage and accuracy. While skimping on range, weight and heat efficiency.

But there are multiple pulses, so you're not really gaining much. To illustrate, lets look at a full second of both weapons firing, in 0.1 second increments:

LL = 10%, 10%, 10%, 10%, 10%, 10%, 10%, 10%, 10%, 10%
LPL: 33%, 0%, 0%, 33%, 0%, 0%, 33%, 0%, 0%, 0%

You do have to hold your target for 0.25sec less with a LPL than a LL, but during the .75sec the LPL is firing you still have to hold the crosshairs on your target just like you do with a LL, so you're not really gaining anything.

Now, if there was just one pulse and all the damage came in that one pulse, LPL's would truly be hitscan.

Personally, I'd rather see the three pulses (it looks cool!) but make them happen much more quickly, so the overal firing time is extremely short. That would differentiate pulse lasers from lasers much more than now.

[EmperorMyrf]

BigMooingCow, on 01 December 2012 - 09:54 PM, said:

0.1 might be too short, but I think it's worth a shot to see what the effect is. Anything that gets all the weapons back in the game is worth a shot. Right now the SPL and LPL are almost as rare as the NARC (I saw a NARC last night!).

Reducing the heat of the LL and LPL does threaten the mediums, and that might be reason enough not to lower its heat, but we're kind of up against a wall with these weapons now; they aren't all that useful. Especially the LPL. Personally, I think the mediums will be fine because they'll still do more DPS per ton, and you can fit them in as backup weapons on heavier mechs or as main weapons on lighter mechs... that's kind of their role in TT, too.

One thing is for sure: there are a lot of weapons in MWO that are vestigial right now. The game would be more fun if all the weapons were made useful. I'd love to see every weapon in use. It's cool we have an AC/2 now, for example, especially because a big part of its utility is that it is highly annoying.

Well having the large laser encroach on the medium lasers territory is an issue, but I think it's more the fault of the medium laser than anything else. They received a very large nerf when their heat was increased to 4. I get why they did it, since you can pack several of them on for high concentrated alphas. I felt if convergence were severely limited we'd be able to give the ML some of its efficiency back (and maybe the SL? it doesn't really need help) which would allow the large laser to have its heat buffed without stealing the role of the ML (same goes for LPL).

I've already made a thread about torso weapon convergence twice now, so I won't do it again. But basically if torso weapons were limited to an angle of 0.25 degrees then it would not allow the 9 lasers of the HBK-4P to converge on any single point short of 450m. Long and medium range weapons remain unaffected, while boatable short range weapons lose the advantage they get from being stacked together. Good stuff all around.

And I agree on wanting to see every single weapon fielded. Tbh I don't really like the state that the AC/2 is at, and not just because of their impacts (its getting changed soon anyways). I'm certainly glad that it's being used so much (for the first time ever) but it just feels wrong. Its HPS and DPS are both far too high (mostly HPS) imo. If the recycle time were to be decreased from .5 to .35, its damage halved, its ammo/ton doubled, and its heat per shot quartered then I think it would be perfect. You have the RoF to lay suppressing fire with even just one AC/2, with great heat efficiency and a great DPS for the tonnage spent. The overall DPS/T of the weapon would shift from .145 to .185, meaning it's significantly more efficient than before and can finally compete ton for ton against the AC/5, without having that absolutely ridiculous DPS.

[Tolkien]

BigMooingCow, on 01 December 2012 - 10:14 AM, said:

...
Agreed. This concept of "you should lose money if you lose" is AWFUL. This is a team-based game, and your success depends HIGHLY on the strength of your team. If you tie my individual success to my team's skill, you're just going to **** me off when my team is filled with "noobs". You know how that story ends... elitism, an antagonistic playerbase, groups in search of unaffiliated players to stomp mercilessly. It's a subtle thing, but it's a community-poisoning design.

Just yesterday I was playing where someone was constantly complaining about noobs. We lost a few rounds because our teammates weren't all that good. And that was with the current design where we didn't lose cash overall on a loss (well, at least I didn't; I don't use XL or FF). I told my lancemate to just let it slide; they're probably just new players. One of them even stepped into one of my LRM barrages and gave me a team kill.

Now imagine if we all lost $100K because a Hunchback on our team ran into the river to meet slaughter instead of keeping the Jenners in check? My lancemate would have an aneurism, and to be honest I'd be pretty pissed, too.

Instead I'd make sure people never lose cash, even in a catastrophic loss. The worst you should end up with is a pittance for your troubles. And if you do well, you should earn a good amount of cash. Say, enough to buy a LL or a new SRM rack and some ammo. An average round should pay maybe half that.

Keeping the numbers climbing no matter what gives everyone a much more positive outlook on the game. It's not dog eat dog anymore, it's a collective effort to earn cash. Keep people feeling like they're winning, or at least treading water, and they'll be much happier. Make people feel like they're drowning in debt and they aren't going to throw real world money into the system, they're going to leave. I certainly don't need a GAME to make me feel financial difficulty. I can do that all by myself by buying too many MC points!
...

Amen. If you still made a pittance (10k-50k ish) after rearm-repair even if you lose would fix this economic meta balance issue. Also from the point of view of free versus pay players this would mean that once a free player had earned the same equipment as a pay player they would be just as effective.

This is exactly what the community should want as I for one do not want players on my team who are just there to earn Cbills (by running a cheap, badly equipped mech) rather than being there to win.

[MustrumRidcully]

StalaggtIKE, on 01 December 2012 - 07:50 PM, said:

I agree that LRM feels pretty strong right now. But I think it's ridiculous to call for a nerf with the release of the ECM right around the corner.

The problem in my opinion is that the result of ECM + Strong LRMs may be an extremyl fragile balance - or basically no balance at all.

You have ECM? LRMs become highly ineffective. You don't have ECMs? LRMs are OP.

I would prefer if these technologies worked less extreme. If you have neither AMS nor ECMs, LRMs should be powerful (maybe a little more than other weapons even, since other weapons don't have such counters at all). With AMS or EMS, they should become less powerful (compared to other weapons), and with both together, they should become also lose another bit of power. But they shouldn't feel useless at any point. You should be able to use LRMs against someone that uses both AMS and ECM and without any TAG aiding you, but you should also be able to deal with an LRM that is supposrted by TAG, NARC and Artemis.

[Kmieciu]

PGI could decrease the heat of PPCs and ERPPCs by one point every week and wait for "PPCs are OP" threads.
We would see them in one or two months :-)

[BigMooingCow]

EmperorMyrf, on 01 December 2012 - 10:19 PM, said:

I've already made a thread about torso weapon convergence twice now, so I won't do it again. But basically if torso weapons were limited to an angle of 0.25 degrees then it would not allow the 9 lasers of the HBK-4P to converge on any single point short of 450m. Long and medium range weapons remain unaffected, while boatable short range weapons lose the advantage they get from being stacked together. Good stuff all around.

I like "flavor" in the weapons. AC/2's being harassment weapons (which is what they are in TT!), LRMs being aim-free weapons given to pilots without proper twitch reflexes (again, mirroring real life), pulse lasers having short durations to make them play differently than lasers... these kind of secondary characteristics that go beyond simple DPS, HPS, and range make each weapon unique and interesting, which makes every match a unique experience with threats that are not just about damage numbers. (ie: "4X is AC/2 spamming the ridge!" or "Streakcat chasing my Raven!")

Limiting convergence would add even more flavor to the game, similar to how variations in torso twist and arm movement make certain mechs better at certain jobs than they might otherwise be. (And PGI, listen up! People buy more mechs this way!) A Hunch 4P has the advantage (and disadvantage) of having all its weapons in a single location, which makes convergence at range less of a problem; its shots will all always land in the same place, whereas an Awesome 8Q has its lasers spread amongst its torso, arms, and head.

I love how arm weapons work versus torso weapons in MWO; do you use a Cataphract's AC/2's in your vulnerable arms, or a Catapult's AC/2's in your protected torso with slower aiming?

I'm all for making convergence a real issue in the same vein. I don't know that I'd like to see a mech like the 4P not be able to hit a single point with all its torso lasers, but it might be interesting to see a laser in the LT and RT be unable to converge to a point under a certain range. Even more interesting if convergence were based on weapon range. Say a SL can deflect 30°, a ML 20°, a LL 10°, and a LPL 20°. This would make long range weapons less useful at short range, and require you to balance yet another factor in your mech and weapon choices.

Arms would need to be excluded from deflection limits if the mech has upper arm actuators, since arms are essentially flexible weapon mounts in Battletech.

As with other changes I think introducing very slightly limits and inching them up would be the way to go. We don't want dramatic changes at this point, we want weapons to each have unique quirks.

EmperorMyrf, on 01 December 2012 - 10:19 PM, said:

And I agree on wanting to see every single weapon fielded. Tbh I don't really like the state that the AC/2 is at, and not just because of their impacts (its getting changed soon anyways). I'm certainly glad that it's being used so much (for the first time ever) but it just feels wrong. Its HPS and DPS are both far too high (mostly HPS) imo. If the recycle time were to be decreased from .5 to .35, its damage halved, its ammo/ton doubled, and its heat per shot quartered then I think it would be perfect. You have the RoF to lay suppressing fire with even just one AC/2, with great heat efficiency and a great DPS for the tonnage spent. The overall DPS/T of the weapon would shift from .145 to .185, meaning it's significantly more efficient than before and can finally compete ton for ton against the AC/5, without having that absolutely ridiculous DPS.

The AC/2 is tough. It needs to do the damage it's doing now to be a useful weapon. It's 6 tons and requires at least two tons of ammo to function. With lower damage you're devoting a large portion of your mech to what's essentially a machinegun.

That said, the amount of damage they do overshadows AC/5's, and draws near to UAC5's. At a longer range. Its disadvantage is heat and ammo consumption, but it's lighter, so you can almost balance that out.

I don't know what the answer for the AC/2 is. I think everyone went gaga over it when the Cataphract 4X came out. I think people have also fled that 4 AC/2 build because PGI completely crippled the Cataphract's arms. (I did... I don't use my Phract anymore.) I'm happy AC/2's are in use, and I hope they don't neuter them too much. It's a unique weapon, and now that the honeymoon is over I'm starting to see only a few people use it, but those that do tend to do so effectively.

One thing is for certain: the poor ******** that use the AC/2 to harass people tend to draw a LOT of fire. I know I concentrate all my fire on knocking those a-holes out of match so they can't plink me endlessly. It's not a wise move tactically to focus on a low damage fire support mech, but MAN they're irritating! And that's speaking as someone who has one sitting in his garage.

Tolkien, on 02 December 2012 - 02:34 AM, said:

This is exactly what the community should want as I for one do not want players on my team who are just there to earn Cbills (by running a cheap, badly equipped mech) rather than being there to win.

Agreed! I hate to see games where people are playing a sort of meta game apart from the main stated goal of the game. Deathwish scouts and missile boats who throw 60 LRMs at a zombie mech to get a kill aren't helping the team win the game, they're out to make money.

I get very few kills, because I pilot a support mech and SUPPORT my teammates. I sit at a safe distance with LRMs and either LL's or AC/2's and watch the battle unfold. When a scout comes charging in I soften him up before he can reach our heavies. They can then pop him easily before he circle stafes them to death. I try to keep Gausscats and other snipers from poking their heads out by throwing missiles and lasers at them. When I see someone in a duel with another mech that isn't an overwhelming victory I try to see what they're aiming at and add some fire to make their job easier. And if I see other missile boats on our team I try to coordinate focused fire.


I bring a lot of mechs down near death, and someone else picks them off. That works for me, because I know if I've fired my entire battery of LRMs to good effect and am hitting with most of my LL or AC2 shots, I'm doing some major damage. And beyond that, if I can shape the flow of battle by preventing scouts and snipers from doing their work, I'm helping the team a lot more than if I put my blinders on and blasted one mech to hell while the battle raged around me.

I do this because I'm a terrible brawler. I'll let people who still have their twitch reflexes go for AC/20 headshots while sprinting at 80kph, and I'll try to keep them alive while they do, because I sure can't manage it!

MustrumRidcully, on 02 December 2012 - 04:37 AM, said:

The problem in my opinion is that the result of ECM + Strong LRMs may be an extremyl fragile balance - or basically no balance at all.

You have ECM? LRMs become highly ineffective. You don't have ECMs? LRMs are OP.

I hope that's not how it works! We don't need a 100% chance to win or lose like rock/paper/scissors. We need ECM to be a pain in the butt so fire support hollers at the brawlers to take out the jammers to make their life easier.

To be honest I'm a little worried that ECM might make life as fire support too difficult. There's not a lot they can do to make keeping missile locks harder without making missiles EXTREMELY difficult to use. I'll wait to see how they do it before I say any more, but it's going to be a tricky thing to balance.

On the other hand, it will be HIGHLY awesome to see a Raven 3L in its dedicated non-combat scout role. Especially if the matchmaker tries to ensure there is only one ECM/BAP/TAG Raven per team. I'd LOVE to see electronic warfare become a central part of MWO, and I hope they've got features in the game to make it a fun, active job for the Raven pilot, not just an umbrella of jamming and probing to wander around with.

Kmieciu, on 02 December 2012 - 08:01 AM, said:

PGI could decrease the heat of PPCs and ERPPCs by one point every week and wait for "PPCs are OP" threads.
We would see them in one or two months :-)

YES! This is what we need! Small increments every patch, and an ear to the forum for feedback! They're doing this with LRMs right now, and I think it's working wonderfully. People need to be less.....passionate with their opinions about LRMs, but a tweak from 1.7 to 1.8 damage and letting it sit for a couple weeks is an EXCELLENT way to balance the game!

[EmperorMyrf]

BigMooingCow, on 02 December 2012 - 09:23 AM, said:

The AC/2 is tough. It needs to do the damage it's doing now to be a useful weapon. It's 6 tons and requires at least two tons of ammo to function. With lower damage you're devoting a large portion of your mech to what's essentially a machinegun.

That said, the amount of damage they do overshadows AC/5's, and draws near to UAC5's. At a longer range. Its disadvantage is heat and ammo consumption, but it's lighter, so you can almost balance that out.

The amount of damage they do overshadows every weapon save the AC/20, double fired UAC/5, and LRMs (which is expected anyways). It's also not heat efficient at all, requiring 20 heat sinks to keep it heat neutral. So to have an AC/2 at 50% heat neutrality you need to dedicate maybe 18-20 tons just to that single weapon system. That to me is a large portion.

The jagermech stock model is going to have it really rough when it gets in. Heat draw of 5.3 HPS on the main guns with the ability to sink only 1 HPS, so you can only fire your guns a little more than 1/5th of the time. On top of that, only 1 ton of AC/2 ammo is available, and it is meant to supply two guns. It really really needs to have its ammo per ton at least doubled. In almost every stock model I've seen that carries an AC/2, only 1 ton of ammo is given for every 2 guns.

With my proposed fixes, the DPS drops from 4 to 2.86, and the HPS drops from 2 to 0.7. In addition, ammo per ton is doubled. This means what used to require 18-20 tons of dedicated tonnage now only requires 11-12 tons. The stock Jagermechs main guns now only have a heat draw of 2.7 HPS, not including the 1 HPS being sunk. So now you can fire your main guns over 1/3 the time, and will have accumulated more damage over time than the current Jagermech situation.

Like I said previuosly, because the RoF is increased the AC/2 can have an even firmer grasp on its suppression fire role and remain the king of its niche. So the flavor of the weapon remains while the over the top stats of the weapon are brought to reasonable and managable levels, especially for stock models.

[MustrumRidcully]

If they reduce the knock of the AC/2 (whicht hey have announced), it will not be a real suppression weapon anymore.

Personally, I think I would prefer if they simply forgot that the "2" in AC/2 stood for its damage. The Heckler & Koch P8 doesn't deal 8 damage on any scale that I am aware of, and neither does the M16 deal 16 damage - it's just a model name. Why not the same for ACs. Then they could give the AC/2 more damage per shot and lower its rate of fire, so it becomes better to use.

If they need to, they can rename the Autocannons to "Light", "Medium", "Heavy" and "Assault" Auto Cannons, just like their current Double Heat Sinks should be renamed to "Enhanced Heat Sinks" (or maybe XL Heat Sinks?) and not Double Heat Sinks if they don't give double of anything (not even crit slots!)

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 02 December 2012 - 11:05 AM.

[StalaggtIKE]

MustrumRidcully, on 02 December 2012 - 04:37 AM, said:

The problem in my opinion is that the result of ECM + Strong LRMs may be an extremyl fragile balance - or basically no balance at all.

You have ECM? LRMs become highly ineffective. You don't have ECMs? LRMs are OP.

I would prefer if these technologies worked less extreme. If you have neither AMS nor ECMs, LRMs should be powerful (maybe a little more than other weapons even, since other weapons don't have such counters at all). With AMS or EMS, they should become less powerful (compared to other weapons), and with both together, they should become also lose another bit of power. But they shouldn't feel useless at any point. You should be able to use LRMs against someone that uses both AMS and ECM and without any TAG aiding you, but you should also be able to deal with an LRM that is supposrted by TAG, NARC and Artemis.

I mostly agree with you.

My point is that we should first wait and see how things work out between the two (LRM + ECM).

[Kmieciu]

The sad thing is, that there is a K2 catapult in the background firing a PPC. A new player might get an impression, that it`s a good weapon, only to be sorely disappointed...
I`ve played for about 3 hours today and haven`t seen anyone being successful with them. The top scoring players use LRMs, SSRMs, medium lasers, Gauss, sometimes AC20.
Some guy tried to snipe me with dual PPCs from 800 meters. The first salvo criss-crossed due to convergence bug, the second and third missed due to slow projectile speed, because i was walking backward and forward. The next salvo did hit me, but the paper doll didn`t register any damage. The final salvo struck me in the center torso, but due to damage drop-off my armor only turned yellow. He did not fire another, because our LRMs killed him.
Direct fire weapons SHOULD be more effective than indirect fire weapons because it`s more difficult to coordinate and focus fire with them. With LRM you just say "focus alpha - tagged!" and everyone within 1000 rains death on him. When all your friends use direct fire weapons it`s much more difficult to maintain line of sight to the target.
In my opinion when there is no cover direct fire weapons should win against indirect fire weapons. And today we LRM - rushed every opposing team that depended on direct fire weapons. Even at Caustic Valley LRMs dominate every direct fire weapon.
ECM will not change much. It will add a phase to the fight where we TAG people carrying ECM and eliminate them, then procede as always.

Edited by Kmieciu, 02 December 2012 - 02:01 PM.