Best way to deal damage?

Uac5's on a yen lo wang vs ac20 is a different story. Its a 50 ton medium mech and is best suited for hit and runs, dodging return fire and popping up for a moment to quickly fire and dance off.

Dual UAC5's work better on big assaults because they have the armor to stand there and dish the damage with additional weaponry.

Your issue with Yen Lo Wang is about trying to make a chassis play around a weapon type not playing the weapons loadouts around the chassis.

And yes of course removing alpha will hurt legit weapons and mechs but we need it, we have human beings playing. We we figure out an absolute min-max method of victory Everytime. Alpha strike is the #1 mechanic that leads to boating, pop tarting and potentially new metagame cheese moving forward.

So what you can only fire a few weapons at a time, play smarter.

Right now its fight fire with fire and that's boring as hell to me to be forced into metagame that's against everything the battletech universe is about. Starcraft manages to pull it off in a way of units that support eachother and counter others.

Right now mechwarrior online is basicly 'just make lots of Mutalisks and nothing else and that's all every competitive-hopeful player will have to do.'

 

Ultimately MWO and SC shouldn't even be compared as they aren't even remotely related in game play. RTS vs chasis based future combat sim. Nothing really to compare.

Removing alpha would solve absolutely nothing as I don't even have an alpha key assigned and do not need one to fire everything. Ultimately to effectively address all of these issues engines and weapons would require an output and required energy cost stat. Chassis would have power grids and suddenly we find ourselves in EVE online, everyone orbiting each other and hitting fire every now and then while we check the forums in the middle of a fight.

I see your guys points and there are some valid ones. Sadly I can not agree with the nerf mentality because something in the meta doesn't agree with peoples vision of how the game should be. As far as the balance issues around gauss/ppcheese ect sadly I have to relegate the entire thing to the realm of the perfect world argument. In a perfect world blah blah but the world never will be. The devs made it very clear last year ,when everyone was in this same outrage over gauss and AC20 cats, that it's not going to change. Part of the game is YOU figuring out how to counter these things. Running off crying nerf every time isn't going to happen nor is it going to solve anything, rather bring more problems.

I have been through this before too. The community goes whining over balance then one day you sign on your Undead Deathknight named Wraithwind who was a dual wield total evasion frost tank and find all your gear and hundreds of hours of raiding were thrown to the wind because the community cried till your build no longer exists and all your work was for naught. Go start from scratch with a new spec and rebuild or take your money somewhere else. I don't even need to mention which option I chose. If that happens here you will watch the community who's numbers are constantly in question drop by half over night. If that happens once here I am gone and will not look back. It wouldn't be BT or MW any more it would be something else entirely and thats not what I am here for. Thats what Hawken is there for.

 

There are two ways the devs could alter the game to make PPC/Laser boat builds less OP'd. They can either alter the heat scales for Energy weapons, to better mimic the original BattleTech game, or make the other weapon types better and more appealing to use. Personally, I think both should happen. PPCs, ERPPCs, ERLLas and LLas are all producing less heat than their TT counterparts at the moment (see Sarna Wiki for details). For example, a ERPPC in MWO currently produces 11 units of waste heat. In TT, the same weapon produces 15 units of heat. Ramp that up to a quad or hex boat Alpha Strike and watch the mech practically melt! Increasing heat values to more 'accurate' levels would make constant Alpha Striking impractical, so energy boat builds would lose their status as 'mega mechs' and people would have to come up with more creative builds to get around the problem of heat. Saying that, there are canonical Energy boat builds, such as the Supernova, Masakari and Hellstar, but these are either Clan tech and so aren't available or do not have the heat capacity to repeatedly Alpha Strike.

Also, LRMs are still underpowered, though that might be addressed in the May 31st update. If they had their fire-power increased to TT levels (e.g 20 points for an LRM20), more people would use LRMs in the support role. At launch, LRMs were very OP'd (I think LRM20s did 56 damage?) and guess what, people were tooling around in missile boats, raining death. As soon as they were nerfed, people stopped using them and started boating Energy weapons instead, so now sniping is the current order of the day. Its human nature to do what comes easiest.

Obviously, the game is still in its relative infancy, so eventually all/most of the problems will hopefully be ironed out. With the new update on the horizon, MWO could be set for some pretty interesting changes.

 

Well, Untamed, I do think PPCs need a bit of a nerf. Overall, though, I think what needs to happen is the game mechanics need to change to make it so that the high-alpha isn't so uber. Whether it's a buff to the other weapons, a buff to armor (making a burst shot less of a "OMG I WENT FROM FULL TO CORED!" and more of just getting a lot of damage in one spot), or some sort of other change (like making missiles not focus CT), something needs to happen, or else the game will basically devolve into "use these 4 weapons, or boat one of these 3, or you're bad."

 

I wasn't referring to just the magic alpha button.

I'm talking 1-2 second global cooldown on firing multiples of the same weapon type.

You can 'alpha' 4 medium lasers. 5th or more lasers be delayed a second.

You can fire up to 2 large lasers at once, anymore large lasers (pulse included) would trigger 2 second delay.

You can fire up to 1 'heavy' weapon such as Gauss or PPC. 2 second delay to fire another of same type.

The example way around this on say an assault is loading up a gauss, 2 large lasers, 4 mediums etc.

As for alpha itself to fire everything at once should be an 'oh shit' emergency button. Double the heat and weapons overload for 10 seconds after.



Or just get rid of double heat sinks and send us into the dark ages!

 

See the problem though is that ends up being a bandaid instead of a fix. Can't shoot more than X of Y? Okay, load your stalker up with 2 large lasers and 4 medium lasers. Can't shoot more than 1 guass or PPC? Okay, you nerfed poptarts a tad, but they still have gauss + PPC. What if they do ER PPC + PPC, is that the same? Or can they only fire one at a time?

Instead of bandaiding it, something needs to make the sustained-fire playstyle actually worthwhile over the burst-and-turn playstyle. As it stands, that's just not the case.

 

Honestly, Untamed, some things need to be nerfed rather than buffing everything else. Do you think medium lasers kill roughly fast enough? Then PPCs need to be brought down, because currently they out-damage 2.5 MLas at twice the range.

PPCs are broken - they fire far, far too often for the amount of pinpoint damage they do at long range. That's ultimately the only thing that needs to be nerfed - make them a sniper weapon rather than a superweapon.

[REDACTED]

 

To clarify, I never said buff everything, I said get over it because thats what the devs have already said.

Compared to how PPCs have been implemented in all of the other MWO games they have been nerfed. You still have a HUD when you get hit by one.

I have played EVE on-line off and on for a while. There was more shit talk in your reply than my statement about it and obviously you missed my point entirely. The point is you make all of these changes and you have a different game that isn't what we wish to enjoy here with an entirely different play style. [REDACTED]

 

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PPCs should not, on any plane of reasonable existence, have the highest DPS of any energy weapon. That is literally my only balancing complaint, which I think is a 100% valid complaint for anyone who has played any games of MWO in the past month.

Balancing pro-tip: when 90% of the player base abuses a single weapon/skill/mech/champion/spaceship/whatever, you should nerf that.

 

its also the heaviest and allrdy the hottest energy weapon in the Game - why should it NOT have the most dps?

I see plenty MLas, SRM6, Gauss, AC20 in competetiv Games out there, some Weapon has to be the best at any given Meta/Patch/Time.

One migth argue thet the Heat should be a lil bit higher.. maybe.. but PPCs are far away from "OMGPPCCSAREGOINGTOENDTHEWORLDRIGTHNOW"

 

PPC DPS shouldn't be the highest for the following reasons:

- They're the longest range energy weapon
- They have the highest alpha of any energy weapon
- They're the only energy weapon to deal pinpoint damage
- They can be poptarted with

When looking at a PPC, your first thought should be "sniper weapon". Drastically reducing the fire rate on it is the right way to go about achieving that. An ER PPC just shouldn't be beating a Large Laser in a stand still duel.

 

No, sorry ill disagree;

PPC needs 50% more crit slots
PPC does ~57,5% more Heat
PPC is ~40% heavier

In fact ERPCCs migth not beat LLAss in a standoff depending on the amount off Armor and the aviable Heatsinks.

They Way you argumenting LLas should be nerfed too bc they beat MLas in a stand still Duel.

 

I've played MW2 before this (and the expansions), and I remember PPCs in that game were blue balls of energy that travelled relatively slow, probably slower than all the ballistics. So I would not say they are nerfed compared to every other implementation.

Actually they need to be buffed a bit - I've had several hits not register, even when I'm running my 1xER PPC spider (yes, sometimes I miss, but sometimes I see sparks square in their face and their paperdoll doesn't even blink). That said, if Sniper Online continues, I'm pretty sure the devs are going to lose a lot of the playerbase. Mechwarrior, to me, is all about the mechlab, and if that boils down to how many gauss and/or PPCs I can fit on, the game isn't going to be very fun (and neither is this forum, if the usual response becomes "you should just put on Gauss/PPCs instead").

 

This isn't specific to just PPC or ERPPC... I've noticed it with almost every ballistic in the game.

 

Yeah, and missiles.

Wow, when I started this thread I was just rambling about the best way to deal damage within the current systems, and then I kind of devolved into a rant about the current systems. Didn't turn out the way I planned...but great discussion nonetheless.

 

Re: Ballistic shenanigans. It's comedy when half of the PPCs on your PPC boat phase through me. It's tragedy when my lone AC/20 phases through you. Had both happen to me last night.

I've been thinking about poptarting, and I had two revelations. The first is that jumping doesn't seem to throw off the Newtonian arc. The velocity of the 'mech. If you are strafing, the shot should travel laterally with you. Likewise, on the way up or down from a jump, round should fly high or smack into the earth accordingly. Balancing lateral and vertical movement will make pop-tarting more difficult and less popular. PPCs don't follow Newtonian arcs, they just fly straight. This should hold true while jumping as well, this will make it impossible to aim PPCs and ballistics at the same target.

The above tweaks will make PPCs even more effective, so we'd have to bring their heat back up a bit.

This brings me to my second realization. High-alpha weapons should have some sort of drawback to boating. Something to match the fact that high-dps weapons come with massive heat penalties to boating.

1xAC/20, 1xGauss or 2xPPC doesn't bring out the nasty, but several will. So, the AC/20 and Gauss should have some recoil that knocks your speed back, if you're standing still it could impart a brief backwards movement. The more big guns you carry, the more recoil it imparts. Macros and smart throttle setting can counter this somewhat, but these 'mechs only accelerate so fast. For PPCs, they should fuzz your HUD, and if you shut down with a fuzzed HUD, it doesn't recover.

I realize that these open up areas for other exploit, but a 'mech using a dual AC/20 shot to slow down and dodge LRMs is funny.

PS: One does not simply change tonnage and crit slots. I'm not that hardcore, but a PPC weighs 7 tons and takes up 3 crit slots. I'll probably get over it, but it'll annoy the hell out of me for a while. (Also, how do you handle a 'mech that becomes overweight/critted in the MechBay once you roll out a patch like that). Sorry, but weight and crits, once rolled out, are written in stone.

PSS: Or, hell, we could make PPCs glass weapons like the gauss is, that'll knock it off a bit.

 

PATCHER INITIALIZING
Check PPC < 4 SLOTS = POP (HAPPYFACE)
Check PPC = 4 SLOTS = HAPPYFACE
HAPPYFACE = "All your weapons systems are correctly adjusted. Please check your inventory for any removed items and reapply"

 

I agree it wouldn't be too hard to implement, but personally I think that tonnage, damage, and crit slots should remain the same (in most cases; SPLs should do 4 damage). Heat, cooldown, and range are okay to adjust.

It's interesting you bring up recoil, because anyone who knows anything about real-world ballistics knows that a firearm imparts the same recoil onto the target as it does onto the shooter - the only difference is that you get a 1-pound pistol or several pound rifle accelerating from the shot, whereas the target gets a 150-grain bullet already traveling at speed. So it's funny when my AC/20 Raven-4X doesn't recoil from shooting the AC/20, but the Atlas I hit rocks back. That said, I don't think recoil is the answer, as I don't see it doing much to dissuade people from boating big guns.

The Newtonian Arc thing might dissuade poptarting, but it would also make run-and-gun a lot harder. Probably moreso than poptarting when you can fire at the top of the arc. So I say that's not a good way to stop poptarting.

 

My two cents:

PPCs should have their heat increased again, but not to their previous, useless levels. Their ROF should also be nerfed slightly.

A teammate of mine said that in Battletech novels the PPC was a area of effect weapon that distributed its damage over a 15 meter sphere. I'm not huge on lore, so I don't know if this is true, but I think this would be an interesting way to balance the PPC (although it doesn't address big ACs) because you wouldn't have the pinpoint alpha to one component, but spread out damage over a whole mech. It would be easier to hit people, sure, but your hits might not be as effective. Obviously the numbers would have to be tweaked, but it is something to consider.

For the large bore ballistics vs the small bore ones, maybe maps/ gamemode can help here. If a map is an open plateau rather than a hilly desert, the DPS and range of the AC2, UAC5 and AC5 might be more useful. Also, since you can fit a bigger engine in if you use smaller weapons, gamemodes similar to king of the hill or capture the flag (from a central flag cap point) might not make the weapons themselves more useful, but the builds that use those weapons might get buffed a bit. But this isn't an easy problem to fix.

Also, poptarting might drop off a bit once LRMs are viable again. Good scouts can call targets and let LRMs rain death on jumping Highlanders.