92 replies to this topic

[chewie]

Quote

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.

Ok, Now I understand the rationale behind this, because a lot of folks were unhappy about K2's delivering 30 points to 1 location.

So in order to placate the masses in the name of *balance*, PGI smashed it to pieces.

They didn't just nerf it, they destroyed it.

People were going for your locations that have it housed in, before the patch. You had to twist the moment yo got your shot off or risk getting it shot out when your opponents next shots hit you.

In my Atlas's, the 3 variants that I have, 2 of which still run the big G.
EVERY TIME, I got in a (sub 300 mtr) brawl, that's the first thing people will go for. Not bothered by my mediums or SRM's. No, go for the Big Gun.

So now with the nerf, it gets shot out even quicker, while say a Streak Cat has no such weakness, beyond the inherent ability to get its ears shot off.

Please, restore this weapon to its pre-patch state. Or at least reduce the chance to get a crit on it.

We all know that the Gauss cat was a cheese build, that just happened to take advantage of what is meant to be the premier weapon in the game.

Please. Don't make other builds suffer needlessly because of 1 variant.

[Schlaung]

Long range sniper weapons are bad in a brawl? RABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLE

[Elder Thorn]

chewie, on 04 December 2012 - 02:43 PM, said:

In my Atlas's, the 3 variants that I have, 2 of which still run the big G.
EVERY TIME, I got in a (sub 300 mtr) brawl, that's the first thing people will go for. Not bothered by my mediums or SRM's. No, go for the Big Gun.

So now with the nerf, it gets shot out even quicker, while say a Streak Cat has no such weakness, beyond the inherent ability to get its ears shot off.

i loved my gauss atlas' too, but i think it was the right decision. Don't go brawl with a gauss, take 2 LBX 10 or an AC/20

[JayVrb]

[Tickdoff Tank]

I don't see any downside to the change. It did nothing to the balance of the weapon, which was not a problem to begin with. It just blows up easier. If you don't lose your armor then the change means nothing to you.

[Mims]

gauss mechs should rarely come under fire, if used correctly. and streakcats do have a weakness, ecm. with the ecm effect you cannt target anything. litteraly you cannot even see you enemys loadout.

[Xendojo]

Gauss is now much closer to what it should be. An incredibly powerful, but fragile weapon system.

[Xenroth]

chewie, on 04 December 2012 - 02:43 PM, said:

Ok, Now I understand the rationale behind this, because a lot of folks were unhappy about K2's delivering 30 points to 1 location.

So in order to placate the masses in the name of *balance*, PGI smashed it to pieces.

They didn't just nerf it, they destroyed it.

People were going for your locations that have it housed in, before the patch. You had to twist the moment yo got your shot off or risk getting it shot out when your opponents next shots hit you.

In my Atlas's, the 3 variants that I have, 2 of which still run the big G.
EVERY TIME, I got in a (sub 300 mtr) brawl, that's the first thing people will go for. Not bothered by my mediums or SRM's. No, go for the Big Gun.

So now with the nerf, it gets shot out even quicker, while say a Streak Cat has no such weakness, beyond the inherent ability to get its ears shot off.

Please, restore this weapon to its pre-patch state. Or at least reduce the chance to get a crit on it.

We all know that the Gauss cat was a cheese build, that just happened to take advantage of what is meant to be the premier weapon in the game.

Please. Don't make other builds suffer needlessly because of 1 variant.

But you already do know, that it should explode already earlyer, but was bugged? Thats the gauss dude ... in tabletop it also can explode, because this weapon generates no heat and the ammo cant explode, there has to be some disadvantage you know?

[chewie]

The point is this.

People would already target the location in order to take it out quicker before they nerfed it in order to reduce the amount of damage they'd take from it. Same as you would to the A1. Take its ears to stop it spamming SSRM's on chain fire.

So, is there a reason to nerf it? Not really.

Folks would adjust their play/targeting style to suit.

Dropping the HP and upping the chance of the weapon getting critted, just makes it a pointless weapon to take now.

As far as brawling with a Gauss goes, if someone's coming at ya, then what are you going to do. Turn tail and hope your faster than he is or start working him over as he closes and starts circling.....?

There was no need to change the weapon before, beyond the outcry about how OP it was on Catapults.

With that in mind, here's an old line for you guys then.

Gauss weapons stats were practically the same as TT stats.

Drop the LRM damage to be practically TT stats please. And the SRM stats too while your at it.

The balance was right before hand, now its not.

[Vovochka404]

The most funny thing, that k2, the reason of all cries, have too slim side torsos... They destroyed to rarely...
So now, k2 is the only mech that can equip this weapon without fear of it's destruction :-D

Edited by Vovochka404, 04 December 2012 - 03:08 PM.

[Sen]

The change makes perfect sense. Before, if you could throw it on a mech, you did. This morning I saw a HUNCH brawler build with. . you guessed it. . gauss.

If this change helps to keep gauss out at range where it was more or less intended, without nerfing damage or targeting, I'm all for it.

I just wish the maps were bigger so one could take better advantage of sniper builds.
[I said BETTER advantage. Hush]

[SL the Pyro]

Feh, I've personally never had any problem tearing Gauss Rifles off of CPLT-K2s. Hitting between the left/right torso and the accompanying arm isn't that hard if you come at it from the side and have good aim. Bonus points if the poor pilot had to use a XL Engine for the build, because wasting his Gauss will gravely wound him if not outright kill him.

As for the complaints about the nerf, I have no problem with it myself. The Gauss Rifle is a sniping weapon, not a brawling weapon; you're supposed to use it at a range where it's hard for the enemy to target it - and even if the enemy fires back with ranged weapons of their own, any weapons in the game that reach that far already did enough damage to blow up the rifle pre-patch. And as far as putting a Gauss Rifle on an Atlas goes, smart people usually go for the torso gun first anyway because it almost always houses the most destructive weapons (barring LLaser and LRMboat builds, or if you crammed Machine Guns into it for some reason). Seeing a Gauss round fire out of it shouldn't influence their decision.

The Gauss Rifle was always fragile and prone to going boom, so you should have compensated for that even before this nerf. Stealth-sniping and torso-twisting should've been common practice, and this patch hasn't changed that.

Edited by SL the Pyro, 04 December 2012 - 03:34 PM.

[Vreith]

all i can say, is the game compared to table top fires 3x faster to heat dissipation (ie heat sinks are still not configured correctly) and with what seems no intention to change them, high end lasers will always be no where near as good as ballistics as ballistic can fire 3x with 1 heat in case of gauss, PPC fires 3 times with same weight including sinks to counter heat as the gauss plus some ammo, so one produces 3 heat, the other 30, and has the same time to reduce the heat, ie gauss beats it by miles, let alone does more damage. sooooo until PPC gets CC and causes ECM style CC, its not worth its weight for damage and heat management because how fast the game wants you to fire vs heat dissipation.

so they NEED to make significant down sides to the high end ballistic so it doesn't outright destroy the high end energy builds by defacto, as they already by nature of the game have made low heat producing (ie Ballistics) with high damage builds the bee's nee's and so over time you will see more damage increases on the PPC's LL's and LPL's to counter act the rate of fire to heat generation that ballistics so easily conquer.

the only major upside of energy is no drop of projectile over distance. and don't get me started on how the PPC should have to charge up, and be like a laser, but not a projectile.that travels. this alone + CC it needs would right alot of its usless abilities ATM. but with the introduction of ECm im sure PPC's CC is not far away

which also leaves you with a another problem, low end ballistics still generate a bit of heat for what they do, so they weigh alot still, do less damage and still require ammo, in the same boat as PPC but other end of the scale IMO, but not as bad end as PPC's are atm

Edited by Vreith, 04 December 2012 - 04:05 PM.

[Sporklift]

My main issue with the nerf is the 3 damage part (which is like a mouse fart's worth) on a weapon that takes a lot of critical space and explodes (a bin of highly explosive ammunition has way more health than that). Plus it was only really a problem on one chassis and that due to the customization rules of this game and the shape of the K2 Catapult.

Maybe this is a way of keeping the future introduction of highly beardy ballistic heavy machines from being 100-ton-end-all-quadgaussed-monsters, without banning them completely. Thus it might be viewed as an investment in the future balance of the game without taking away from the variety of different mechs available from the Battletech universe.

Balanced or not, 3 damage really limits it to things with lots of spare armor, since the current map design make staying out of close combat for long rather difficult considering the current advantages enjoyed by lights.

[XBigBenX]

I used the gauss often in my AS7. But after the Patch i have to ask to rename this weapon. It should been called
Gauss-Suicide-Rifle. Wondered myself how easy it's to blow up an entire AS7 only by destroy the Armor on his right torso and just 1 another Shot and an Assault-Mech is gone.
True, it was been easy to take this weapon out of the game before this patch, but the point is it now takes the whole Mech with it.

[XBigBenX]

Vreith, on 04 December 2012 - 04:00 PM, said:

[...]

the only major upside of energy is no drop of projectile over distance. and don't get me started on how the PPC should have to charge up, and be like a laser, but not a projectile.that travels. this alone + CC it needs would right alot of its usless abilities ATM. but with the introduction of ECm im sure PPC's CC is not far away

[...]

Mhh that point isn't correct. Even Gauss losses dmg over distance, as every other gun to i guess. Up to optimum Range the is no loss, and between optimum and maximum is a significant decrease in dmg. The only reason why Gauss do more dmg over a big distance is the high maximum range(1980m).

Edited by XBigBenX, 04 December 2012 - 04:10 PM.

[Vreith]

XBigBenX, on 04 December 2012 - 04:02 PM, said:

I used the gauss often in my AS7. But after the Patch i have to ask to rename this weapon. It should been called
Gauss-Suicide-Rifle. Wondered myself how easy it's to blow up an entire AS7 only by destroy the Armor on his right torso and just 1 another Shot and an Assault-Mech is gone.
True, it was been easy to take this weapon out of the game before this patch, but the point is it now takes the whole Mech with it.

AC/20 only CC able Balistic now, i tihnk the intent with the devs is to give it back its spot on the field. i already used it on my Yen-Lo-Wang all the time, in either case, but i did take out of all my slow mechs, if you can't get into range of AC/20, no point having it. but now that it is "THE" big boy of damage and you need so much space to use it, and it is the only one that does good CC i dare say it will be used more often. it also bring the guass closer to a PPC/ER LL in balanceing

XBigBenX, on 04 December 2012 - 04:08 PM, said:

Mhh that point isn't correct. Even Gauss losses dmg over distance, as every other gun to i guess. Up to optimum Range the is no loss, and between optimum and maximum is a significant decrease in dmg. The only reason why Gauss do more dmg over a big distance is the high maximum range(1980m).

no i mean no drop to the shot, not the damage drop

Edited by Vreith, 04 December 2012 - 04:14 PM.

[Snib]

Schlaung, on 04 December 2012 - 02:47 PM, said:

Long range sniper weapons are bad in a brawl? RABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLE

long range sniper weapons don't exist in a game with firing delay, with massive latency and terrible motion prediction.

[Scarlett Avignon]

Snib, on 04 December 2012 - 04:22 PM, said:

long range sniper weapons don't exist in a game with firing delay, with massive latency and terrible motion prediction.

Tell that to the dozens of mechs I've lost to people sniping with Gauss Rifles. They were a little strong, and they got a little nerf. I don't see the big deal.

[Careless_Ocelot]

I feel that the nerf was the wrong approach to the balancing of the gauss rifle. Gauss rifles should have a system in place to keep with the lore's minimum range. Just like a PPC, a Gauss is supposed to be less effective up close. I was hoping they would implement a system that would make close range gauss combat less practical, but still possible such as a zoom-only firing mode. Now its a punishment to what I feel are the mechs that weren't the focus of the hate. An atlas trying to be a multi-tasker with a gauss in the loadout is now towing around a huge liability. But it's still new. We'll see how players adapt in a few days to the change.