33 replies to this topic

[WolvesX]

Greetinges fellow BETA Testers!

Medium Laser | Small Pulse Laser

Tons 1 | 1 = equal
Slots 1 | 1 = equal

So. If the two basic points, which are important for building a mech, are equal, you may think that the performace could be - if they are different - are at least some kind of equal as well.

Now look at this:


Raw Damage 5 | 3 = Medium Laser wins
Range 540m | 90m = Medium Laser wins
DPS 1.25 | 1.09 = Medium Laser wins
HPS 1.00 | 1.09 = Medium Laser wins


Maybe I'm somekind of stupid but, I think that the medium laser is...

SIMPLY BETTER IN ALL IMPORTANT POINTS!

There is no reason, really no one, to use this weapon.

Some may argue now: But I can hit better with it.

Really?
Really???

A difference of 0.5 secs of beam duration makes you HIT BETTER ???

Dispite all the other points that make this thing inferior?

Its the tons, that doesn't make it viable imo. 0.75 or even 0.5 and a range nerf or something...

---

No reason to use this weapon, as it is with the MG (even after crit buff) or the Flamer (even after crit buff).

[Apoc1138]

your argument applies to all pulse weapons - they weigh 1 more ton and do 1 more heat for only 1 more damage and massively curtailed range... but some people do find that the decreased beam duration makes them more effective FOR THEM

if you don't like pulse weapons... don't use them and stop whining?

[jtyotJOTJIPAEFVJ]

It was a decent anti-light weapon before the lagshield was fully implemented and before its heat was doubled. It has a short cooldown and a short beam duration, making it good for shooting lights with your own light. I had a Jenner with six of them and they worked quite well. I haven't used them since the heat was changed though.

[WolvesX]

Apoc1138, on 23 January 2013 - 04:12 AM, said:

your argument applies to all pulse weapons - they weigh 1 more ton and do 1 more heat for only 1 more damage and massively curtailed range... but some people do find that the decreased beam duration makes them more effective FOR THEM

if you don't like pulse weapons... don't use them and stop whining?

Wouldn't it be more interessting for all if the weapons & equip would be balanced ?

[Craftyman]

Small pulse laser sounds cooler when fired than medium laser, therefore it is balanced (indeed a bit overpowered I'd say on the 4P 'music box')

[MonkeyCheese]

Bah ill take 4 small pulse lasers any day over 4 medium lasers on my speed tweaked jenner, on anything rocketing around at 150khp you dont want a weapon that will do more damage over time so therefore you have to hold the beam on the target for the full duration.

also for a dogfighting mech like that you dont need any kind of range.

[Apoc1138]

WolvesX, on 23 January 2013 - 04:14 AM, said:

Wouldn't it be more interessting for all if the weapons & equip would be balanced ?

the small pulse does less heat per shot and a shorter beam duration, for some people that makes it a better choice
1s vs. 0.5s is a massive bonus to being able to put all your damage on a single location and actually on the target mech at all for fast mechs

DPS and HPS are metrics that can be used to investigate weapon balance, however they are not the be all in a skill based game in the same way that they might be in a non-skill click and point adventure like WoW etc.

just because you don't appreciate the benefits it has does not mean that other people don't

if you don't like a weapon don't use it, pretty simple

Edited by Apoc1138, 23 January 2013 - 04:38 AM.

[MonkeyCheese]

Apoc1138, on 23 January 2013 - 04:29 AM, said:

the small pulse does less heat per shot and a shorter beam duration, for some people that makes it a better choice
1s vs. 0.5s is a massive bonus to being able to put all your damage on a single location and actually on the target mech at all for fast mechs

just because you don't appreciate the benefits it has does not mean that other people don't

if you don't like a weapon don't use it, pretty simple

Exactly this, for example you lock an atlas from a distance notice a certain spot has no armor left such as its front left side torso. So you make quick runs at the atlas and blast its weak spot with pulse lasers while still zooming past so that you don't get an atlas alpha shot in the face.

Pulling off the same thing with normal lasers and getting the full burst in is much more difficult.

[l33tworks]

MonkeyCheese, on 23 January 2013 - 04:20 AM, said:

Bah ill take 4 small pulse lasers any day over 4 medium lasers on my speed tweaked jenner, on anything rocketing around at 150khp you dont want a weapon that will do more damage over time so therefore you have to hold the beam on the target for the full duration.

also for a dogfighting mech like that you dont need any kind of range.

Apoc1138, on 23 January 2013 - 04:29 AM, said:

the small pulse does less heat per shot and a shorter beam duration, for some people that makes it a better choice
1s vs. 0.5s is a massive bonus to being able to put all your damage on a single location and actually on the target mech at all for fast mechs

DPS and HPS are metrics that can be used to investigate weapon balance, however they are not the be all in a skill based game in the same way that they might be in a non-skill click and point adventure like WoW etc.

just because you don't appreciate the benefits it has does not mean that other people don't

if you don't like a weapon don't use it, pretty simple

lol what I find funny is it seems contrary to the intended design and userbase understanding that the short beam duration is a positive aspect of the pulse lasers its actually a negative aspect for me.

The shorter beam duration means I have less time to find out where to shoot so i will spend more of the shot missing than hitting.

[Apoc1138]

l33tworks, on 23 January 2013 - 04:52 AM, said:

lol what I find funny is it seems contrary to the intended design and userbase understanding that the short beam duration is a positive aspect of the pulse lasers its actually a negative aspect for me.

The shorter beam duration means I have less time to find out where to shoot so i will spend more of the shot missing than hitting.

you mean because of broken netcode or the fact that you are playing from the other side of the planet?
so we should balance weapons based on a bug and then rebalance them when the bug is fixed? or just balance all weapons based on some users having a dodgy connection?
I'm sure that would be very productive

Edited by Apoc1138, 23 January 2013 - 04:55 AM.

[Sifright]

you guys realise the medium laser does almost twice the damage?

The fact that the beam duration is twice the length means nothing when taking that into account for aiming purposes.

so what if you need to hold the beam on the location a touch longer given that 0.2s of beam duration more with the medium means you are doing more damage than the small laser can do at all.

The OP is right there is never a reason to take the small pulse over a medium any one saying otherwise is [REDACTED]

Yes thats right you guys defending the SPL are [REDACTED]
Let me math it out for you.

1 second duration 5 damage.
For every .1 second the beam is held on the enemy you do .5 damage.

at .1 second the small pulse laser has done .6
at .1 second the medium has done .5


at .2 second the small pulse laser has done 1.2
at .2 second the medium has done 1


at .4 second the small pulse laser has done 2.4
at .4 second the medium has done 2


at .4 second the small pulse laser has done 3
at .4 second the medium has done 2.5


at .6 second the small pulse laser has done 3
at .6 second the medium has done 3


at .8 second the small pulse laser has done 3
at .8 second the medium has done 4

at 1 second the small pulse laser has done 3
at 1 second the medium has done 5



you guys are saying the massive downsides of the small pulse over the medium are worth it because of the potential to do .5 damage more than the medium at the .5 of a second of beam duration held on an enemy mech?

If you can't see how thats stupid given even the scenarios you've cherry picked to make the SPL have a possible advantage i can't help you.

Edited by Dakkath, 23 January 2013 - 08:18 AM.
cleaned up insults

[MonkeyCheese]

If people are this uptight about using small pulse lasers at all, well then I shall just keep killing people with them.

[Apoc1138]

Sifright, on 23 January 2013 - 04:47 AM, said:

at 1 second the small pulse laser has done 3
at 1 second the medium has done 5

and at 2.75s the pulse has done 6 damage and the medium has done 5
unless cooldown starts at the end of beam duration, in which case at 3.25s the pulse has done 6 and the medium has done... oh yeah, still 5

I don't use small pulses, I don't use small anything because I do prefer the range of a medium
however, I'm not blind enough to start dishing out insults at people if they choose to play differently to me

Edited by Apoc1138, 23 January 2013 - 05:06 AM.

[Sifright]

Apoc1138, on 23 January 2013 - 05:00 AM, said:

and at 2.75s the pulse has done 6 damage and the medium has done 5
unless cooldown starts at the end of beam duration, in which case at 3.25s the pulse has done 6 and the medium has done... oh yeah, still 5

Okay shall we be more honest in the scenario then?

the medium laser fires first because he can engage the target much earlier than the small pulse laser user can.

Ergo the medium laser likely has at least .5 a second over the small laser user and likely a little more.

meaning that at the time frame you are specifying the medium laser has 6.25 damage done.

[Apoc1138]

Sifright, on 23 January 2013 - 05:11 AM, said:

Okay shall we be more honest in the scenario then?

the medium laser fires first because he can engage the target much earlier than the small pulse laser user can.

Ergo the medium laser likely has at least .5 a second over the small laser user and likely a little more.

meaning that at the time frame you are specifying the medium laser has 6.25 damage done.

if you are running a light mech and the other guy gets a chance to fire first then you are doing it wrong

making up scenarios to consider game balance is a faulty premise... the scenario you should consider when making choices is what YOU would do with either mediums or pulses... so if YOU prefer to attack from 100m+, then choose mediums, if you like to run up close generally behind someone AND you find that reduced beam duration means you hit more in difficult to hit circumstances, choose small pulses, or even normal small lasers

if anything, the only change I would make to the small pulse would be to reduce it's cooldown even further to say 2.2, but the devs seem to like sticking to whole numbers for heat, damage and quarter second increments to cooldown for lasers and 2.0 would be too much of a buff
with the parameters the devs have set themselves, there isn't a small buff you could make to the small pulse that wouldn't then make if OP compared with the small laser

Edited by Apoc1138, 23 January 2013 - 05:22 AM.

[Sifright]

Yes because the Small laser and the Small pulse laser doing exactly the same damage makes perfect sense.

for the extra half tonne in weight between the two weapons the small laser is basically exactly the same.

Small Laser Recycle 2.25 Damage 3 dps 0.75 heat 2 HPS 0.5 slots 1 tons 0.5 range 90m Max range 180m BD .75

Small Pulse Laser Recycle 2.25 Damage 3 DPS 0.8 Heat 3 HPS0.8 Slots 1 tons 1 Range 90m Max 180m BD .5

explain again why there is any reason at all to take the SPL over a standard Small laser?

It does barely any more damage over time is double the weight...

Seems a bit **** compared to anything you measure it against.

Basically the small pulse needs a buff. adding .5 damage to the whole of the beam would make it non ****.

Edited by Sifright, 23 January 2013 - 05:29 AM.

[WolvesX]

Yup, a slight buff in regards to dps.

[GODzillaGSPB]

I think the pulse-versions of lasers should weight exactly the same as the normal versions and should use up the same crit space (which they do, just adding this to make it complete). Their shorter range and higher heat (maybe increase if not high enough) should balance things out. Maybe even shorten the beam duration to flesh out the main reason for pulse lasers: More damage in a shorter time.

[Jack Corvus]

These threads are silly. The standard medium laser is the mid-short range workhorse, that is better for most mechs in most situations than anything else. It is supposed to be that way, because this is BattleTech, not a shooter meant for professional play, and we're not looking to make every single weapon equally wonderful and equally as much of a workhorse.

But there are still great reasons to use the pulse variants. Pulse variants are much better at hitting targets flitting past your vision. More significantly, pulse variants on torso-mounted points are really, really good for people who torso twist a lot because you can spend even less time facing your opponent waiting for the beam to finish and more time twisted away to shield your vulnerable points. But you don't use them if you're just looking for a good workhorse.

[Aym]

Sifright, on 23 January 2013 - 04:58 AM, said:

you guys realise the medium laser does almost twice the damage?

The fact that the beam duration is twice the length means nothing when taking that into account for aiming purposes.

so what if you need to hold the beam on the location a touch longer given that 0.2s of beam duration more with the medium means you are doing more damage than the small laser can do at all.

The OP is right there is never a reason to take the small pulse over a medium any one saying otherwise is [REDACTED].

Yes thats right you guys defending the SPL are stupid. Flat out [REDACTED].

Let me math it out for you.

1 second duration 5 damage.
For every .1 second the beam is held on the enemy you do .5 damage.

at .1 second the small pulse laser has done .6
at .1 second the medium has done .5


at .2 second the small pulse laser has done 1.2
at .2 second the medium has done 1


at .4 second the small pulse laser has done 2.4
at .4 second the medium has done 2


at .4 second the small pulse laser has done 3
at .4 second the medium has done 2.5


at .6 second the small pulse laser has done 3
at .6 second the medium has done 3


at .8 second the small pulse laser has done 3
at .8 second the medium has done 4

at 1 second the small pulse laser has done 3
at 1 second the medium has done 5



you guys are saying the massive downsides of the small pulse over the medium are worth it because of the potential to do .5 damage more than the medium at the .5 of a second of beam duration held on an enemy mech?

If you can't see how thats stupid given even the scenarios you've cherry picked to make the SPL have a possible advantage i can't help you.

Do you have a source for your linear damage model? I'm not convinced it's quite as you describe.
Also most people are not doing the DPS math correctly as SPL has a faster cool down. .5sec beam duration with a 2.25 sec cool down allows you to shoot many more times before running to hide, bleed off heat, or whatever when compared to a 1 sec beam duration and a 3 sec cool down.
I am not advocating the SPL over the Mlas in general, however if is viable situationally and that is a solid design goal for all weapons in MWO. Some tweaks will probably make it more viable and arguably that will be a good thing.

Edited by Dakkath, 23 January 2013 - 08:19 AM.
quote cleanup