Today Mechwarrior Online nerfed the AC 2.
Basically why?
Well I have the following suspicions. Mechwarrior online held two tournaments lately Mediums verse the World and Faction Challenge. In that they had rewards for the top players that scored highly on their formula.
Guess what, there was cheating. Thats not really a surprize.
But I’m sure something came out of that investigation, into how people cheated and what were truly successful players. To what lead that success was most likely that it was the AC 2 was the weapon of choice.
I didn’t play in the Faction Challenge. I did do a lot of analyst competing in the Mediums verse the World.
Best results, Shadow Hawk, 3 AC 2s and nothing else. Rank 139, sadly only top 5 won. I was only 700 points away from the winner. Now I’m old and my APM sucks these days. I’m sure if I was 25 again and put more time into the game, I would of been in the top 5. But who cares when there were numbers to crunch!
I took different designs and checked the number after each match, looking for the best weapon combo for a weight class. And the AC 2s were great performers. Right after that was AC 5s.
Sure my Science was not perfect, and a Case Study doesn't mean anything. There is something to the AC 2s builds.
Recycle Rate
|
Damage
|
DPS
|
Heat
|
Optimal Range
|
Max Range
| |
Autocannon 2
|
.52
|
2
|
3.85
|
1
|
720m
|
2160m
|
1) Range
Its the longest range weapon in the game. So this means that you can engage targets from any point. This is important the Tournament, because dealing at least 1 damage to each enemy scores you a lot of points for scoring assists kills.
2) Fire Rate
Insane. Its fast, real fast. This making it easy to adjust your shots. Especially at long range.
3) Accurate
The AC doesn’t deviate from where you aim it. So where you aim, you hit. This is really powerful, as you can scan enemies for weak points and shoot only those weak points out for chance to blow off limbs and sections. Maximizing your ability to get a kill.
These 3 things means you can mount a x4 Scope, and snipe. Looking for open shoulders to rip off arms with the shoulders, boosting your overall damage for what little damage the weapon does.
So pouring into the data of these two tournaments, I’m sure there was was a pattern to the winning mechs... AC 2s.
Sadly, how they nerfed the AC 2s was, well terrible game design.
Autocannon/2
- Cooldown increased to 0.669 (up from 0.520) bringing DPS to 2.99
- Max range falloff reduced to 1440 (down from 2160).
What should of been done? Well... glad you asked!
Add Dispersion
That means the father the round flies the higher the chance it wanders off the point you aimed at. After the Optimal Range, the rounds wobble. World of Tanks does a great job of this, and its detailed a ton in their wiki.
Add a Minimum Range
Right now AC 2s are good at any range. What they need is a weakness and a minimum range is the answer. This means that the weapon deals no damage at close range. The price for having the longest range in the game, is no damage at short range.
Right there problem solved. At long range it can still do damage, but you cannot snipe a specific location of your target. So the light damage of the AC isn't that powerful for killing. And Light and Fast Mechs that close in, are really scary. Now you won’t see people only running AC 2s, but a gambit of weapons to cover the AC 2s weaknesses.
Comments
Post a Comment