Risk/Reward is seriously broke - or: "Brawling is for chumps".

[HAARP]

Gauss: Don't reduce ammo. Gauss always had the advantage of a big ammo supply, and mechs like the Mk2 Prime would become useless with only 8 rounds in each Gauss.
I propose (you guessed it) the CBT way of balancing it.
1) When the weapon is destroyed, the capacitors explode (like a small ammo explosion)
2) It should be harder to aim the weapon below 60 meters. There's surely some way to emulate the to-hit penalty Gauss has below 60m in CBT in MWLL.
and maybe:
3) Hollander II should only carry 3 tons instead of 4 of Hgauss ammo

The ACs were always the kings of the ballistic world, and I say keep it that way. The Gauss still has it's place of course, but shouldn't be leading the pack.

(LRM PB: Maybe a minimum arming range on those LRMs? I don't know; allowing the PB LRM salvo has its pluses and minuses.)

Yes! I proposed that already in other threads. IS LRMs don't arm below 180m, so this would give the missileboats a real reason to run as soon as somebody gets near their arses. The funny thing is, 40 LRMs may not explode on contact with your armor, but may still knock you down in canon.
The question is whether Clan should suffer the same penalty. They don't in CBT, but as far as I understand, Clan and IS are supposed to be more or less equal in MWLL (which sucks btw)

I always strife for perfection, and that is the reason you'll always see me whining. Don't take it as an insult (this goes for the devs) but instead look at my sig.

 I know, man, I know. And I know, that current weapons balance is neither perfect, nor completely CBT. But, personally, I cannot see a better way to balance things in MWLL. Sure, a couple of tweaks here and there would be nice, but I think devs done a pretty good job in finding sweet spot between being canon and being playable.

I don't completely agree with that. More often than not, the game feels like it's not Battletech. As if it was intended to please the MW4 crowd, not the person who read the novels and played the tabletop game. I won't jump to conclusions as the game is far from done, but I'd like to counteract this development as early as possible.

[Threesan]

(...)
Gauss: Limiting gauss ammo doesn't make sense to me from a physical perspective, as the weapon derives its power not from the weight of the round so much as from the speed at which the projectile travels.
(...)

In nearly everything I agree with you. But the 'doesn't make sense to me from a physical/realistic perspective'-argument really (sorry) annoys the crap out of me.
Yes, you are right with your point. But bailing out as a full suited BA is ok? LRM-20 reloading same fast like LRM-5 is ok? HG firing while jumping is ok? Radar through hills is realistic? UAC firing double shots? A dozens of tons machine comes to a full stop after jj?

(sorry, wasn't meant personal, just the points which are in my twisted world absolut nonsense and no one cares and nearly no one argues 'that can't be')

Anyway, just my opinion.

Never claimed any of those other situations were right, though there are some things that help. The pilot->BA has behind it the argument of somehow simulating the presence of ground forces in the area without actually adding more players (take it for what it's worth). LRM20s don't reload as fast as LRM5s, unless you meant that they should, which is perhaps debatable -- the machinery for that could conceivably be heavier. Jump-gaussing would perhaps spin you, which could be rectified with counter-thrust, or perhaps you mean that there should be shake while jumping -- which is fine. I assume radar is the way it is because it was not easy enough to take terrain into account -- technical limitations, that I would assume will/would be fixed if the devs can reasonably do so. Multi-shot one-barrel cannons already exist in the real world. The JJ landing full-stop makes some sense from the perspective that the legs have to dedicate to stopping the Mech from crashing to the ground in a damaging way, and can't be taking steps while braking like that (although lower-alt drops could probably do without/less pause).

There are certain expectations on reality, and certain points about consistency and willful suspension of disbelief. I mean, how would you react to a version 0.2.1 whose only change was to add a playable bright pink tiger character that could run up and flip over Mechs? Sure, it might be entertaining, but it doesn't fit. The difference between that and this is only a matter of degree.

[Brainwright]

My honest opinion?  Long range dominates because most people are cowards.

I'm a dedicated brawler, and my greatest hindrance is that everyone else has found the best places to sit and wait for the enemy, and they camp there all through the game.

I think people will get a little less antsy with close range combat once some of the lag issues are fixed, particularly the one where frame rate is tied to lag.

Until then, no one's going to figure out that three, tightly-clustered mechs with AMS will withstand just about any missile barrage.

[Rakkis]

Since when are partisans useless against mech? I Pull out the AC5 one at the beginning of the match and get 1-2 kills easy, more if i have a mech supporting me, then its on to the partisan with RAC2 again 2-3 kill easy and more with mech support. yes i have to go back and reload a lot but otherwise it would be over powered.

I agree with PPC being under powered, but not gauss weapons being over powered, with exception of the Hvy gauss. Hollister II will own you in 2-3 well placed shots. If anything i think the armor needs to be increased with heavy and assault mechs. Realistically getting hit with lrms and fighting a light to medium mech shouldn't kill you before you kill the mech or do heavy amounts of dmg to it.

Aero's are fine, you just avoid the tanks and keep an eye on your aero's dmg meter most things can be avoid and dodged... I mean most kills are usually when your flying straight towards the vehicle/mech while it's facing you.

[(TLL)Sky_walker]

As I mentioned before, I would like to see the ammo supply of the gauss' reduced. The more I think about it how it work out in-game the more I like this idea.

IMHO it won't change anything to the topic you are most concerned of: Brawling (or at least that's the point I think you are concerned of - if not than sorry).

All Gauss units AFAIK can take quite nice pack of ammo, eg. 2 CGauss vulture takes 4 tons, Hollander A takes 3 tons. It's far more than enough to enter and exit the engagement without risking much - even if you'd turn down the bullets per to from 12 to 10 or 8 - it'd still be enough to snipe all the opponents without a problem like some guys do now. I don't see any significant impact into brawling by taking down the amount of Gauss bullets.

The ACs were always the kings of the ballistic world, and I say keep it that way. The Gauss still has it's place of course, but shouldn't be leading the pack.

Are you suggesting that Gauss does more damage than ACs do?
Gauss DPS according to Threesan calculations: 225
UAC20 DPS: 224
When you'll take into account the splash damage (which is huge for UAC20) you'll suddenly find that UAC20 does twice or triple the Gauss damage.
Ofq. Gauss rule at long range, but we don't play on flat ground where you are forced to go all the way to the enemy while being under fire.

I don't completely agree with that. More often than not, the game feels like it's not Battletech. As if it was intended to please the MW4 crowd, not the person who read the novels and played the tabletop game. I won't jump to conclusions as the game is far from done, but I'd like to counteract this development as early as possible.

I'd love to read the description of FPS simulator that feels like a BT!
Could you write up something like that? Perhaps some guys would get your points better, cause honestly - I have no idea what are you talking about - I'm not that good BT-wise.

[SquareSphere }12thVR{]

That feeling like a "sim" is too "FPS" generally comes from how fast people die.  For some, it's all about how the fight plays out in tactical moves that can be "well thought out" which makes a sim.  If it's run up and pull the trigger till it's dead, it's FPS ;-)

I would say that MWLL has the pace of a FPS but can be played as a complex sim by those players that have mastered many of the nuances (such as damage mitigation) which increases their "life" time.

[Taemien]

Here's my two cents.

Brawling has a sweet reward to it. But it has its place. I love AC20/10s and every variant of the two calibers. But I know that they can't be useful 100% of the time.

I've used the 2 AC20 Demolisher a few times to great effect against missile boats. What the hell can a catapult, vulture, or cougar do to that? Bail out and suck an autocannon round to its BA.

This doesn't always work, and you need a team to support you to get it to work. But once you notice that the oppoenents are getting too specialized you can go in with some autocannons and mess their world up badly.

Longtoms have their risk. Just pulling out of the mechbay on some maps is enough risk to warrant its reward. They are the most vulnerable tank in the game. A single puma can run in passive and take you out. An APC powered down behind your base can spawn a point of elementals to shred you to pieces. And what the hell do you do when ASF come out of the blue (no pun intended)?

Aerospace Fighters. Let me tell you something. If one is tearing you a new one, you're just being outplayed. Those pilots are taking the riskiest role in the game. My life expectancy against 0 opponents while piloting a ASF is about one minute. Those things are hard to pilot. Thus the reward they give should be what it is. Leave ASF alone. The counters are there and fine right now.

Missiles boats can be countered easily. If you find your brawling mech/tank getting wasted trying to get to them, you're just being outplayed. The other team is effectively using a mix of fighters to maximize their kills. This is how the game works.

Remember when you are gibbed, it doesn't always mean there is an imbalance. It just means the tactic you thought of using just isn't going to work at that time. Switch tactics. There is no one tactic that will always work or even be average all the time. What sounds good on paper or in your mind when sitting on the john usually goes to shit during a change in the fight. Sometimes all it takes a slightly different placement of a Hollander II, or someone using a PPC config of a Catapult (that you didn't see until you were dead or sometimes not even at all, "what the hell killed me?") when you thought it was a Missile Boat (done this a few times, see 3 catapults and decide to ambush them with a Puma Prime or Demolisher and find one of them is a PPC Catapult, holy hell that sucks).

One thing you cannot expect is to run to the front line, target an enemy and think he targets you back and he's the only one you have to fight, with everyone else targeting their own peeps for a group of duels... Doesn't work like that, the moment you come over a hill, everyone's focus is on you and to make you look at dirt.

Sometimes there is no variant to counter another variant. Sometimes its position.

One problem I have with players wanting balance changes is occasionally they act as if they are god's gift to a Public Game. As if their tactic or choice of mech is infallible and when it eventually fails or even fails repeatedly against something they think it shouldn't, that its a imbalance that needs to be fixed. I'm not claiming the OP is doing this. But its something to watch out for.

Right now I can't think of anything that is out of whack. I think missles, LTs, and hvy guass are fine (my preferred weapons are normal guass, PPCs, and autocannons). The only change I'd like to see the regular PPC cause less heat to the firer then ERPPCs(if it does already, then tone it up a bit more). When I get toasted ingame I switch what I'm doing. If I can't find a way to beat the enemy tactic I just go 'oh well, they've got us this round.'

The only  tactic I don't like is team stacking. I don't mind players playing with friends, but when you got one clan on one side and Pick-ups on the other, its not very fun. But I haven't seen this. I think players like kicking their friends' butts.

[(TLL)Siilk]

2) It should be harder to aim the weapon below 60 meters. There's surely some way to emulate the to-hit penalty Gauss has below 60m in CBT in MWLL.

 There is no sane way to do that. I remember a whole thread on that topic and best minds of MWLL community haven't been able to came with sufficiently good solution for that. Sure, you can make Gauss and PPC to do no or reduced damage below said 60m, but it would make no sense, as for both weapons' damage should dissipate with range and be at it's maximum at point blank ranges. And, as we have a targeting mechanics where all weapons are tied to torso movement and fire at one point, crosshair that is, there's no way to implement Gauss targeting slower than other direct fire weapons.
 
 You must understand, that many CBT limitations and quirks make no sense at all, when looked at from first person perspective. CBT to-hit and damage are abstract values on paper, but when you take them to a simulation, some of them begins to look completely bizarre, so devs had to came up with slightly different implementation of weapons to keep the spirit of original CBT balance.

[=KoS=Zeus]

I'd just like to point out that DPS is a very poor way of gauging weapon power in a game that is all about burst damage.

There is a reason why people gravitate toward Hollandar II A's SCats and 6 ERLBL Novacats, they have INCREDIBLE burst damage. This means that for the minimal amount of exposure time they are inflicting maximum damage.

Brawlers tend to be equipped with DPS weapons, specifically because in the act of brawling the enemy becomes completely exposed. At this point your DPS weapon can actually catch up to the burst damage weapons.

The example that a Gauss Rifle has a DPS similar to the UAC20 makes my head spin. The Gauss Rifle only needs to fire 1 shot, ONE, in order to equal the firepower of 2 AC20 rounds, and it does it all to the precise location it hits, no splash. This is accepted as logical? The AC20 is supposed to be a monster weapon in its own right, out damaging a Gauss Rifle by a significant margin. The UAC20 is twice as devastating.

I understand that the Devs had to balance things around the ballistic weapons having arc and ranges beyond what is BT canon (no pun intended), but the AC is a much more difficult weapon to use than a gauss as it has slower travel speed, drop off and in the UAC variants you have to plan around two rounds coming out and potentially missing with one of them. Right now the AC/20 feels like how an AC/10 should function, IMHO.

At any rate, the point of my post is that DPS is a poor method of tracking weapon balance because MWLL is a game about limited exposure time and maximum burst damage. Until that changes, the brawlers who have their weapons balanced by DPS are hosed. Once the brawler weapons do significantly more DPS, then we will see an increase in the number of players that attempt brawlers as the risk/reward is much closer.

[HAARP]

The ACs were always the kings of the ballistic world, and I say keep it that way. The Gauss still has it's place of course, but shouldn't be leading the pack.

Are you suggesting that Gauss does more damage than ACs do?
Gauss DPS according to Threesan calculations: 225
UAC20 DPS: 224
When you'll take into account the splash damage (which is huge for UAC20) you'll suddenly find that UAC20 does twice or triple the Gauss damage.
Ofq. Gauss rule at long range, but we don't play on flat ground where you are forced to go all the way to the enemy while being under fire.

See Zeus' post down there, he summed it up pretty well

I don't completely agree with that. More often than not, the game feels like it's not Battletech. As if it was intended to please the MW4 crowd, not the person who read the novels and played the tabletop game. I won't jump to conclusions as the game is far from done, but I'd like to counteract this development as early as possible.

I'd love to read the description of FPS simulator that feels like a BT!
Could you write up something like that? Perhaps some guys would get your points better, cause honestly - I have no idea what are you talking about - I'm not that good BT-wise.

That feeling like a "sim" is too "FPS" generally comes from how fast people die.  For some, it's all about how the fight plays out in tactical moves that can be "well thought out" which makes a sim.  If it's run up and pull the trigger till it's dead, it's FPS ;-)

I would say that MWLL has the pace of a FPS but can be played as a complex sim by those players that have mastered many of the nuances (such as damage mitigation) which increases their "life" time.

Among other things. I might write something down when I get home, but right now I'm giddy like a little schoolgirl after reading today's news

2) It should be harder to aim the weapon below 60 meters. There's surely some way to emulate the to-hit penalty Gauss has below 60m in CBT in MWLL.

 There is no sane way to do that. I remember a whole thread on that topic and best minds of MWLL community haven't been able to came with sufficiently good solution for that. Sure, you can make Gauss and PPC to do no or reduced damage below said 60m, but it would make no sense, as for both weapons' damage should dissipate with range and be at it's maximum at point blank ranges. And, as we have a targeting mechanics where all weapons are tied to torso movement and fire at one point, crosshair that is, there's no way to implement Gauss targeting slower than other direct fire weapons.
 
 You must understand, that many CBT limitations and quirks make no sense at all, when looked at from first person perspective. CBT to-hit and damage are abstract values on paper, but when you take them to a simulation, some of them begins to look completely bizarre, so devs had to came up with slightly different implementation of weapons to keep the spirit of original CBT balance.

Yes, and I accept that. But in that case, wouldn't the Gauss need another disadvantage at short range? Because all that counts in a brawl is DPS, and for that it currently doesn't matter whether you take a UAC20 or Gauss (ignoring splash damage, because the Gauss can more easily hit the CT and CT only)
Except that with a Gauss, you can also hit the light mech 800m away beelining towards you. It's not fair (TM)

But let's see what the next patch brings. I'm really looking forward to it now!

[7.[WD]Ragor]

(...)

The ACs were always the kings of the ballistic world, and I say keep it that way. The Gauss still has it's place of course, but shouldn't be leading the pack.

Are you suggesting that Gauss does more damage than ACs do?
Gauss DPS according to Threesan calculations: 225
UAC20 DPS: 224
When you'll take into account the splash damage (which is huge for UAC20) you'll suddenly find that UAC20 does twice or triple the Gauss damage.
Ofq. Gauss rule at long range, but we don't play on flat ground where you are forced to go all the way to the enemy while being under fire.
(...)

You wrote it by yourself: Gauss rule at long range and got close to equal damage to th AC-20 round.
Where is its drawback? Don't come with the (non-canon ) splash. For me personally I got close to no benefit by the splash (except shooting BA) since I fire/aim always at the same component (for sure not the legs) -> What do I care about the splash?!? I don't care if the enemies mech was total red when his CT breaks or if the rest is still green. CT ripped, job done. For me its no change in my style of fighting if I use a Gauss or an AC. Except that the Gauss is much easier to aim thx to a faster speed of projectile plus the suprerior range.
Splash is only thankful for shooting at overrange (AC-20 aiming at 550-900m)

[Flyingdebris]

gausses don't need some kind of minimum range handicap.  The ACs just need to be better at tearing up close range.  The difference between gauss and acs should be like the difference hierarchy between a  designated marksman rifle and an assault rifle.  The prior can function great at long and pretty well at short range  where as the latter is amazing at short and medium.

[Taemien]

2) It should be harder to aim the weapon below 60 meters. There's surely some way to emulate the to-hit penalty Gauss has below 60m in CBT in MWLL.

 There is no sane way to do that. I remember a whole thread on that topic and best minds of MWLL community haven't been able to came with sufficiently good solution for that. Sure, you can make Gauss and PPC to do no or reduced damage below said 60m, but it would make no sense, as for both weapons' damage should dissipate with range and be at it's maximum at point blank ranges. And, as we have a targeting mechanics where all weapons are tied to torso movement and fire at one point, crosshair that is, there's no way to implement Gauss targeting slower than other direct fire weapons.
 
 You must understand, that many CBT limitations and quirks make no sense at all, when looked at from first person perspective. CBT to-hit and damage are abstract values on paper, but when you take them to a simulation, some of them begins to look completely bizarre, so devs had to came up with slightly different implementation of weapons to keep the spirit of original CBT balance.

Something to add to that is in BattleTech isn't it assumed that a computer actually does the targeting for the pilot and he pulls the trigger when it lights up? This is why a mech with damaged sensors is unable to fire any of its weapons I do believe.

It wouldn't be as fun in a MechWarrior game if it was set up like that. Thus the different changes that are not canon.

[7.[WD]Ragor]

gausses don't need some kind of minimum range handicap.  The ACs just need to be better at tearing up close range.  The difference between gauss and acs should be like the difference hierarchy between a  designated marksman rifle and an assault rifle.  The prior can function great at long and pretty well at short range  where as the latter is amazing at short and medium.

A simple 'yes'.

>>> The Great Post of Wisdom <<<

[(TLL)Siilk]

gausses don't need some kind of minimum range handicap.  The ACs just need to be better at tearing up close range.  The difference between gauss and acs should be like the difference hierarchy between a  designated marksman rifle and an assault rifle.  The prior can function great at long and pretty well at short range  where as the latter is amazing at short and medium.

 My thoughts exactly. Powerful and precise Gauss and tricky to shoot but UBERPOWERFUL AC20.