Do the math, and 3xPPC versus 2xGauss were both 30 dmg at roughly similar sniping range. They also, while considering engine heatsinks, weighs almost the SAME 40 tons for heat neutrality/enough ammo to last all game (or long enough in TableTop to kill stuff).
Note that they also were based on 10 second turns. With MWO roughly (round to 3.33) tripling the rate of fire, triple the heatsinks are required to keep the same proportions of weight to combat effectiveness. The Gauss went up 2 tons, the PPC went of 20 tons each. In the end, it took a 1:1 ratio and made the PPC half as effective per ton as the gauss.
(You dont NEED heat neutrality, but you should run cool enough to kill a mech before overheating unless youre in a fast mech that can escape like a jenner - even for sniping you can take enough ammo to fire on cooldown without worry, but a PPC can quickly force you to wait for 30+ seconds).
So how does PGI go about fixing this atrocious and obvious blunder? Hotch-Potch fixing. It works to some degree for the weapons around the middle. The small laser used to be king, the medium was strong, and the large laser was abysmal. Some tweak however by +1 or -1 dmg/heat hasnt "fixed" it but it at least made them closer to their original (and logical) proportions. We want all weapons to serve a purpose and place, why put them in the game otherwise?
This doesnt work however for the extremes. The Gauss was harmed maybe 5%, the PPC however lost half its effectiveness in the translation. The Gauss has never been, and still is not, overpowered. Its simply one of the few weapons working properly, with weapons like the PPC feeling "gimp" because, well, its tonnage was more than doubled to keep the same effectiveness.
How do they try to fix this? Leave the PPC as hot as the planet's core, meanwhile make the gauss a ticking suicide bomb.
* Set the health of the Gauss rifle to 3 points
* Set the chance that the destruction of a Gauss rifle will cause it to
explode to 90%s
What does this fix? Nothing. Its still the clear choice for most mechs. Instead it simply reduces the player's quality of life by reducing their overall health on that and nearby components by a large %.
tldr: "We cant figure out how to balance this game, so well just break good items or make them suicide so player's dont take them"
It still leads to imbalance. Good players will still enjoy non-stop 30 dmg alphas, bad players will continue to melt in PPC ovens and wonder why their KDR is so bad, and everyone else that tries to take a Gauss will wonder why they just died after two alpha strikes.
Great job.... simply amazing.
pro tip: if it aint broke, dont fix it (gauss). Fix what is broken - the heat system where heatsinks weigh 1 ton per 1 heat over 1 seconds. You cant triple the RoF and leave this in place without an entire overhaul (e.g. retuning the entire system, rather than hotch-potch 1 point fixes).
Edited by Abrahms, 04 December 2012 - 01:39 PM.