Gauss mechanics change and their affect on builds

This will provide an interesting challenge for pinpoint alpha snipers with the 1x Gauss, 2x (ER)PPC combo although for Macro people it will be a simple simple macro script...

Button #1 Down: 0.75
Button #1 Up: 0.76
Button #2 Down: 0.76

Blamo, you now just charged your gauss for the .75 seconds and then fired your Gauss (on Button #1 for Group #1) and your PPC (Button #2 for Group #2) all at the same time as soon as the .76 second hits.

As for jump snipers? They will simply use 3PV, spot the enemy, switch back to 1PV, press their charge/fire macro button, jump and release. It might take a little timing to get good at it but you bet folks will figure out the timing PDQ.

 

Seems to me like the PPC should be the one charging...

 

They are ruining their own game.

I don't really care; I ain't the baby's daddy.

Truth is, both you and I highly doubt any top players will have any issue adapting to new convoluted garbage mechanics. Since, you know, we've been doing that for the previous 274/X/? nerf passes.

I'm at the point of actually laughing out loud when I read updates for this game.

DON'T GET ME WRONG, I'm not gonna sit here and cry chicken little or crusade some agenda to 'fix' the game or voice my concerns in some melodramatic way. I'll just humbly move the fuck on to something else worth playing for entertainment value. This is just a game, a beta, after all.

It's getting harder and harder to care about 'jumping' when you've asked them 'how high?' 10 times now and each time you've jumped, they somehow get all Newtonian on your ass and raise the gravity repeatedly. :|

 

I agree with Michael and Soy: this seems easily adaptable for a jump sniper.

You have to shoot on the fall down already, so just initiate the Gauss charge during the jump (before hitting the apex), and you should be good2go for the shot on the way down. Will take slightly more micro to play with the gauss, but still, far from nerfing jump sniping / PPC+gauss firing.

This should be easy to do for anyone with Megaman X experience (or, insert any of like 5000 90s era games with charge up mechanics )

 

I could see them going so far as to putting in a "canon" reason; the gauss requires so much energy to fire that no other weapon can fire with it till after it has discharged its projectile.

 

In order to propel lump of steal with a magnetic field a high amount of energy is needed, which is why the guass gun has a capacitor ... which is why the gun explodes instead of the ammo. If you want to see a real life Gauss weapon in action, google seach "navy rail gun".

 

This is a miserable idea. No starting player is going to know WTH to do with this. Change the PPC and Gauss flight mechanics or (shudder) put them in the same heat tax bracket, but don't do this.

 

Right, i get that, but in previous games and such it was always the PPC requiring a charge, not the gauss...so why is MWO different?

 

Assuming my memory is working, the only weapon that needed charging in a Mechwarrior game was the Bombast Laser from Mechwarrior 4... that thing was a POS.

 

Well, as long as this do not result in a lower DPS of the weapon I am fine. Charging seeems fun really, as long as I can recharge quickly I am happy.
macro saves the day.

But yeah charging PPC is better than charging Gauss. I mean, there is a reason for it being heavy.

 

Yikes, no more punting lights with my gauss.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPAuROv-5nc

Video of gameplay and the PPC that needs to be charged. IDK if yall consider mechassault a big time Mechwarrior game but it IS apart of the franchise and for years we used to have to charge PPCs. all the while the Gauss was instant shot.

 

With the rumored Gauss rifle mechanics change what will that do to our beloved builds? I've read where the Gauss will be a "charged" weapon meaning it has to be charged before it can be fired and that charge only lasts so long without firing before it needs to be charged again. Seems to me the DPS would drop through the floor as well as the shots of opportunity becoming more rare.

 

I don't think there will be any change at all...

I think there will be a lot of new mice being bought so that people can get the macro software and then begin to counter a lot of the changes LOL

For instance; if the new change is a press and hold-to-charge style change?

BUTTON1DOWN: 0.75
BUTTON1UP: 0.76
BUTTON2DOWN: 0.76

This would charge your gauss and then release it, or fire it, at the same time as your PPCs in group #2.

Essentially there will be no changes to how the hardcore players play their games. This may cause some of the newer jump snipers or pinpoint alpha guys to have issues with their high alpha damage builds.

Another potential change are things like what Soy is doing. Simply remove your Gauss and add 2x LLas or 2x ERLLas in the place of the Gauss. It isn't quite as easy to use a build like that but it is close to being just as effective with NO fancy schamncy macro required.

 

My first thought as well. Mechassault was the first XBL game that I rigorously played, and even though not a mech sim, was a ton of fun.

 

I am considering finally retiring my G5 for a Kone+ or a Corsair M65.... all in the name of MWO
Wouldn't be the first time I updated just for a Mechwarrior Game
-CH Pro
Mechwarrior
Mechwarrior2
-Saitek X45
Mechwarrior3
Mech4 (MekTek)
Not to mention various system hardware updates all in the name of Mech


[quote author=Michael link=topic=3076.msg19052#msg19052 date=1377704996]
Another potential change are things like what Soy is doing. Simply remove your Gauss and add 2x LLas or 2x ERLLas in the place of the Gauss. It isn't quite as easy to use a build like that but it is close to being just as effective with NO fancy schamncy macro required.
[/quote]

I have scrapped the gauss on the majority of my builds. I find it too... clunky up close, and this modification to it's dynamic isn't going to make me want it back. I'd much rather have a bank of AC2's. They are faster, have good range & and don't blow up.

 

Almost a second for charging up ? This pretty much restricts useful Gauss scenarios to "blow up the remaining afk guy at the enemy base". Good luck hitting anything moving, tho.
Well - it's beta. They are entitled to testing and tweaking, the problem is that they might be tweaking the wrong way. Wouldn't be the first time this happens to a game studio. Star Trek Online had perfectly fun fast-paced and rewading pvp ground combat. They basically killed it with their "enhancements" - I cancelled my pre-order, never bothered to buy the game. Tried it when it became f2p and 'lo! ground combat was still non-existant. I hope PB doesn't fall into the same pit here. They also have to be careful not to come across as the nerf-slap-happy guys. Nerfs are evil. Nobody really likes to be nerfed into the ground - not for doing anything wrong but for playing the game too well.

 

Hi everyone, long-time reader, first-time poster. Sorry in advance for the wall of text.

I feel like the incoming nerf will still make for a usable gauss rifle. The charging solution to the min-max problems with PPC/guass might not be the best way to achieve the desired results (i.e. bringing these weapons in-line with other, less-used "brawling" weapons systems), but will at least discourage players from ONLY building with these weapons in mind.

From a distance of, say 550m, against a slow-to-medium-relative speed target whose relative motion to your cockpit is parallel, a charge-to-release time of somewhere in the neighborhood of two seconds shouldn't make them unusable. Sure, this will greatly reduce their effectiveness against lights, but hey, maybe try a weapons system that is better suited for that task.

From that same distance (550m) against pretty much any size/speed target where the relative motion is perpenidcular (what we in the Coast Guard refer to in radar vernacular as CBDR: closing bearing, decreasing range; basically a head-on situation) the charge time should be negligible.

Basically, to put it in Star Wars, I used to bullseye womprats in my T-16 back home, they're not much bigger than two meters.

Essentially, I feel like this nerf *might* do what it's hoping to: prevent (or limit) the use of all of these similarly ranged, high damage weapons as the go-to build for EVERY situation. I know that I can't be the only person who's bored with the current min-max, high-efficiency model.

Still a better solution, IMHO, would be stiff minimum ranges on these weapons, effectively relegating the super-high damage and prescision alpha strike builds to the dedicated sniper. This, coupled with different cycle/reload times for the weapons (maybe wildly different?) would stop basically everyone from brawling with these weapons, and would make mounting them a potentially difficult choice for any mech in non-competitive play. I don't think they need to go away entirely, they just need to not be the best choice for every situation. A minimum range of 90m for guass (like PPCs) and AT LEAST 90m for ER PPCs (although I don't think that doubling that number to compensate for the huge effective range would be out of the question) seem like reasonable figures to help bring them in line with other weapons systems.

I know the current min-max builds are all rocking PPC/Gauss combos. I try not to let this bring out my nerdrage, but it sometimes does. The number of times that I see people with gas pedal controls, arm lock engaged, and gauss + PPCx2 putting up big numbers in PUGs is a little alarming. So I quote you here only to say that I don't think we can call min-maxing gauss + PPC alpha builds "playing too well" unless we're prepared to say that the goal of MWO is to build the highest-damage alpha strike mech, in which case we're declaring that at least 50% of the mechs in this game (specifically those who cannot mount the lol alpha strike builds) are not useful. A game built on role warfare shouldn't be rewarding play styles that emphasize brute-force min-maxing, with constant alpha strikes and a general lack of concern for overall company or lance balance.

tl;dr: The nerf might suck, but it's better than no nerf at all, because the only people who aren't sick of gauss + ppc x2 are the people who are using it exsclusively.

Standing by for flaming.

::::: edit for grammar correction :::::