18 replies to this topic

[Stringburka]

One of the biggest and most common complaints that's been with this game since closed beta has been related to massive alphas, whether 4PPC, 9MLas, 6SRM6 or (in CB) huge LRM spamming.

Now, the devs have stated they want to stay reasonably close to TT as long as it doesn't make for a noticeably worse gaming experience. Here is one case where they did leave TT values and I think they left it so far behind that it itself became a worse gaming experience.

Right now, the game is to a large degree AlphaWarrior Online; like in previous titles, most weapons that are considered really good are really good because they can be used to get phat alphas.

This is how heat works in TT (simplified):
1. Every turn is 10 seconds. Each weapon is fired once per turn and causes it's heat. At end of turn, heat is reduced by 1 per single heatsink (2 per double heat sink).
2. If heat reaches 14, 18, 22, 26 or 30 heat the 'mech attempts to shut down. Shutdowns at lower heat than 30 can be overridden by the pilot to continue fighting (but there are penalties associated with this, such as dropping ~10 kph per five heat built up).
3. The hard heat threshold is 30; when you reach this, your engine shuts down, period. And have to wait until heat is back down to 14 to start up again.


This is how heat works in MWO:
1. The 10 second turn is split into 10 1-second increments. Rather than decreasing heat by 1 every 10 seconds, a standard heat sink reduces it by 0.1 every second (0.2 or 0.14 for DHS depending on placement).
2. There is no penalty for heat until you reach the heat threshold, and that threshold can be overridden (but you take internal damage).
3. The hard heat threshold is (with standard heat sinks) 30 + the number of heat sinks or (with DHS) 30 + 2*engine heat sinks + 1.4*extra heat sinks.
This means an average light 'mech with a 250 engine and DHS has a heat threshold of 50.


They also feared energy weapons would be overpowered, so they increased their heat (by about 1 for each weapon, some exceptions).

Now, I'm not saying we should go back to the TT values and penalties - fireing three medium lasers shouldn't drop you 20 kph. But what would happen if we simply took out the number of heat sinks from the heat threshold calculation, and returned the energy weapons to their lower TT values?

Your heat threshold is 30, simply. Go over that and you shut down. Fine-tuning weapon balance can be done with refiring speed as that isn't rooted at all in BT and can affect a lot of how a weapon plays out.

This would mean you can still bring a lot of weapons to bear at the same time, but if you do, you'll have to wait quite a time for them to cool down.

I think the following would change:
- There's no use in having a bazillion weapons usable in the same circumstances since you can't "stack" weapons as easily if they case heat. You can still alpha with 7 medium lasers but you'll nearly shut down from it and have to wait for them to reset. Thus, "boating" or high-alpha builds will be mainly snipers and assassins and can't take any prolonged fight.
- Snipers could still deal good damage but must wait longer between shots, unless using Gauss (due to this, gauss could need some cooldown increase).
- "Balanced" builds (those including different weapon types for different distances etc) would shine as they can use their heat at all ranges.

As an example, take the skillcat (note I'm NOT saying the skillcat is OP or whatever, it's an example of a single-purpose build that everyone knows. PLEASE don't turn this into a "skillcat is OP"/"skillcat is fine" thread). Currently a skillcat has a heat threshold of about 50. 6xSRM6 cause 24 heat, so it can do it's 90 alpha once, wait 4 sec (cooldown), 2nd alpha, wait 5 sec, 3rd alpha. With the new system, they can alpha once, then have to wait for 9 seconds, then can do a second alpha, then have to wait for 15 seconds for a third. They'll still be very dangerous assassins, and being ambushed by a skilled skillcat will still be hell, but it takes a lot more skill to use it, giving it a more fitting name.

However, the skillcat could drop two of those SRM-6 and a ton of ammo for two LRM-5, a ton of ammo (18 shots) and two extra DHS. This means they can engage enemies at any range, and when they get into combat they can do their alpha for 60, wait 4 sec (cooldown), 2nd alpha, wait 4.5 sec and do their 3rd alpha. Such a build is much more useful in a prolonged brawl, and has a ranged option, but doesn't have the true assassin skillz like the first one.

Now, this isn't a hard suggestion, but more of an idea on how to limit gameplay that apparently many don't like (due to the dozens of threads on issues related to alphas) that is up for discussion.

So, what are your thoughts?

EDIT: Removed incorrect statement of heat in relation to speed. Thanks Thontor and Bhael Fire for pointing this out.

Edited by Stringburka, 03 March 2013 - 04:33 AM.

[Demon Horde]

really don't see an issue here , even with double heat sinks any time you stack serious hardware on mechs you still get ton's of overheating from doing alpha dumps . as for all the people complaining about the "alpha" issue I think they are just as likely to complain regardless of what PGI does to or doesn't do to change it. Lastly Mechwarrior while being based off battle tech is not battle tech , battle tech was a pen N paper game. mMechwarrior above all else is a robot simulator game, not a simulation of board game.

People **** and maon when they get spammed by AC 2's , they **** and maon when they get spammed by gauss riffles. they **** and moan when they spammed by med lasers. point is people **** and moan regardless. They do it beause they are sore losers not because there is any actual merit to their argument (rather or not there is or isn't any merit).

[Adridos]

This is a pretty hefty subject.

On one hand, Mechwarrior games were always about a simple fire until overheat, override, wait and repeat, but we could just as well throw it out of the game and noone would actually notice, since any build worth it's salt doesn't care about it anyway.

On the other, when I got to play MW:T on one occasion, I actually did notice the heat and immediately had toimplement it to my tactics for separate mechs and it felt much more like an actual mechanic, rather than a simple size restriction to prevent the most mad of builds.

[MustrumRidcully]

THe reason we have it is probably because the devs probably missed some mathematical aspects involved in the real time conversion.

In Battletech, an "alpha strike" is usually described as firing all weapons together, often a risky proposition due to the high heat this will yield. But the Battletech rules only describe turns, which are 10 seconds long. So while many associate a narrative with them that really all weapons fire together at the exact same time, the rules would not require that- it could just as well mean the weapons fire all at different times, as long as they do it within those 10 seconds (and could, barring overheating the mech and damage, repeat it in the next 10 seconds).

Now, but because they thought all the weapons need to be able to fire together, a static heat threshold of 30 wouldn't do it. If you got 3 PPCs, no matter how many heat sinks you'd have, you would always overheat on an "alpha", because it would take some time until the heat sinks could dissipate some of that heat. So they decided - let's frontload this, and raise the heat threshold by the number of heat sinks.

But this actually alters a lot. If we pretend you had 6 PPC mech in the table top, with 30 heat sinks, you would be able to fire 3 of them all together without having gained any heat at the end of the turn. But if you fired all 6, you would overheat at the end of the turn (automatic shutdown)..
In MW:O however, you would have a heat capacity of 60. This means you could indeed fire all 6 together, and only be extremely close to overheating. And you'd definitel ynot be overheat 10 seconds after.

This allows mechs in M:WO to considerably front-load their damage.

A more reasonable approach would have actually been keeping the max heat capacity static at 30. THen,t hey could have raised the rate of fire from a hypothetical 1 shot per 10 seconds to current values, but also lowered the damage and heat per shot in kind (so a weapon firing every 5 seconds would deal half damage and heat per shot). This would actually still allow that 3 PPC mech to shoot something we narratively associate with an alpha strike (e.g. all weapons firing together), without breaiking the mech's heat capacity, simply because he'd fire less often.

This would still allow front loading damage a bit, but at higher cost.

But I guess it's too late for PGI to fix it. If they were able to see this problem and willing to fix it, they should have long done it, instead of tweaking heat or damage of weapons piece by piece.

[Zyllos]

Another issue is that DHS is giving way too much threshold. They should provide the same amount of threshold as SHS, +1.0.

DHS dissipation rate also needs to be normalized from 0.2 and 0.14 outside the engine to 0.17 everywhere.

[Zyllos]

Thontor, on 02 March 2013 - 06:32 AM, said:

it's not that simple..

in TT, if you have 30 heat sinks, you can fire weapons who's heat adds up to 59 and still not have a guaranteed shut down. at the end of the turn you'll have 29 heat.

in MWO if you have 30 heat sinks, you can fire weapons who's heat adds up to 59, and still not have a guaranteed shutdown... 10 seconds later you'll have 29 heat

TT also has the 30 + your heat sink cooling per turn (10s).. same as MWO

they are the same, in theory


in practice it works out a little differently because you can fire faster than every 10 seconds, and you don't have to fire fire all your weapons, or select weapons, at the same time

bottom line is that they didn't just pull the 30+heat sinks thing out of their butt... it's a direct translation from TT..

Good observation.

And this translation would be fine if there was heat penalties. Right now though, firing all those weapons together gives you penalty at all (except having to watch your next firing of weapons). So, as explained above, front loading damage becomes easy as there is no draw back from doing this.

[Stringburka]

Demon Horde, on 02 March 2013 - 03:25 AM, said:

really don't see an issue here , even with double heat sinks any time you stack serious hardware on mechs you still get ton's of overheating from doing alpha dumps .

You can alpha for quite a while before overheating with a decent amount of heatsinks. If you have just 4 extra DHS, you can alpha 3 PPC's (which is a very heavy armament, it's weapons weighing more than many light 'mechs do) nearly three times in a row. And in the current system, you can fit that on like a 40 ton 'mech without issues.

Quote

People **** and maon when they get spammed by AC 2's , they **** and maon when they get spammed by gauss riffles. they **** and moan when they spammed by med lasers. point is people **** and moan regardless. They do it beause they are sore losers not because there is any actual merit to their argument (rather or not there is or isn't any merit).

This isn't an argument at all. I've posted an idea, provided an argument for that idea, and showed math to give examples of the result. Your response doesn't contain any useful info or counterargument at all, and is just rude, to be honest. I mean, the only one here sounding "moany" is you.

Adridos, on 02 March 2013 - 03:43 AM, said:

On one hand, Mechwarrior games were always about a simple fire until overheat, override, wait and repeat, but we could just as well throw it out of the game and noone would actually notice, since any build worth it's salt doesn't care about it anyway.

On the other, when I got to play MW:T on one occasion, I actually did notice the heat and immediately had toimplement it to my tactics for separate mechs and it felt much more like an actual mechanic, rather than a simple size restriction to prevent the most mad of builds.

Yeah, I think it'd be nice if MWO got away from the whole AlphaWarrior that was king in MW3 and 4 (dunno about the earlier, never played them).

Thontor, on 02 March 2013 - 06:32 AM, said:

it's not that simple..

in TT, if you have 30 heat sinks, you can fire weapons who's heat adds up to 59 and still not have a guaranteed shut down. at the end of the turn you'll have 29 heat.

in MWO if you have 30 heat sinks, you can fire weapons who's heat adds up to 59, and still not have a guaranteed shutdown... 10 seconds later you'll have 29 heat

TT also has the 30 + your heat sink cooling per turn (10s).. same as MWO

Thanks for your post.
That is true, and your post was very good, but there is a difference: Alpha's don't really work in BT like they do in MWO. In BT, weapons are considered fired for those whole 10 seconds, not just a second and then it's over; the same can be replicated in MWO even with my proposed change, more or less.

Say we want to fire 10 medium lasers (just because it's an easy example) and we have 10 DHS. In TT, this would add 40 heat and subtract 20 heat, ending up at 20.
In MWO, the same can be done by fireing one laser per second (or two lasers every two second). Heat would go up an average of 2 per second, ending up at 20 at the end of those ten seconds.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that a BT alpha is fireing each weapon once during a 10 second period, and that's why the threshold is as it is; the heatsinks are cooling the weapon at the same time as it's fired.

Consider the effect over several 10-second periods in BT vs MWO, assuming you tabletop alpha during all turns:
BT: 1st turn, 0 +40 -20 heat; 2nd turn, 20 + 40 -20 heat = 40 heat, shut down.
MWO now: 1st turn, 0 +40 - 20 heat; 2nd turn 20 +40-20 heat = 40 heat; 3rd turn 40+40-20 heat; 60 heat, shut down.

Quote

Good stuff

Lots of good stuff in here. Yes, I've also thought about that split damage/heat down, but I guess that is too late to change now. Heat threshold levels could be altered though, without having to rework everything else.

[Ialdabaoth]

Zyllos, on 02 March 2013 - 07:51 AM, said:

Another issue is that DHS is giving way too much threshold. They should provide the same amount of threshold as SHS, +1.0.

DHS dissipation rate also needs to be normalized from 0.2 and 0.14 outside the engine to 0.17 everywhere.

Actually, if you reduce the threshold to +1.0, just setting dissipation to 0.2 everywhere would be fine.

SHS vs. DHS should have no affect on threshold; it should only affect dissipation.


Likewise, adding movement and targeting effects would be nice. The easiest would be something like:

1. -1% speed and -2% acceleration per 5% of heat threshold (so at half your shutdown threshold, you're at -10% speed and -20% acceleration; just before you shutdown you're at -20% speed and -40% acceleration). This is enough to be noticeable, but not enough to be crippling.

2. -1% convergence speed and -2% radar range per 5% of heat threshold, so with a base radar range of 800m, you'd drop to 90% convergence speed and 640m radar at half your heat threshold, and drop to 80% convergence speed and 480m radar just before shutting down. Again, enough to be noticeable, without being crippling.

3. A "fog effect" or "bloom effect" rendered as an overlay on your IR sensor mode, that increases in opacity as your heat goes up.

Edited by Ialdabaoth, 02 March 2013 - 12:47 PM.

[Corvus Antaka]

The theory is that if we had true double heatsinks & double dissapation in general but half the heatcap, one could build much more heat balanced mechs that would never overheat. Instead PGI has gone for making this more challenging, every mech builds heat over time.

imho cutting the heatcap but 25% and leaving all else the same could help, but more likely just adding heat to certain weapons or even better a multiplier so that when big alpha strikes happen the mech builds more heat than just the added values could work.

Overall the system is good right now, if flamers get a buff light mechs may very well become terrors for 4-6ppc mechs. potentially cutting the heatcap 25% could remain a future option for PGI in any event.

[MasterErrant]

in TT if you read carefully the "Heat limit and fire rate are controlled be software interlocks. each weapon will only fire once per heat management cycle. in the fiction warriors often ovverride this limits manually and occasionally blow themselves up. you can overheat a mech with what would be a perfect heat profile in tt in seconds in this game. there needs to be an incremental degradation of speed and performance in MWO just like the TT. this is one of the reasons why fast lights and meds are so overpowered in this game. in TT a light running at the limit of it's heat envelope is so impaired it dies quickly.

that and the lack of terrain/traction ground pressure physics...A light mech running at 100+KPH on pavement should look like a biker who lost an argument with asphalt

[Bhael Fire]

Stringburka, on 02 March 2013 - 12:59 AM, said:

4. Walking/running, AFAIK, doesn't affect heat.

Actually, the engine generates heat the faster your throttle is set.

http://mwomercs.com/...0089-breakdown/

[Donas]

I've brought this up a few times in the middle of threads, glad to see a thread devoted to it finally.

Fully support graduated heat penalties. Accuracy loss, speed loss, immobility, ammo explosions, all before max heat.

Great ideas.

[Zyllos]

Donas, on 02 March 2013 - 05:26 PM, said:

I've brought this up a few times in the middle of threads, glad to see a thread devoted to it finally.

Fully support graduated heat penalties. Accuracy loss, speed loss, immobility, ammo explosions, all before max heat.

Great ideas.

I agree.

Accuracy loss can't be implemented because everything is pin-point. But decreasing torso turn speed, arm movement speed, reduction of maximum speed, and finally random damage would be a good start.

[Donas]

Zyllos, on 02 March 2013 - 06:38 PM, said:

I agree.

Accuracy loss can't be implemented because everything is pin-point. But decreasing torso turn speed, arm movement speed, reduction of maximum speed, and finally random damage would be a good start.

Sure it can! Same way as other games do it. Your target reticle becomes larger ( a circle instead of pinpoint ) and your shot deviates randomly within that circle when you are in overheat. the base circle become larger and larger as your mech accrues additional heat and penalty, and thus the randomization of where each weapon aims also becomes less precise.

I understand that the mechanic of installing a size changing reticule would be a pain, but this is one place where a direct snatch of the targetting mechanic from WoT would work brilliantly. Movement decreases precision. Heat could do it just the same.

[Zyllos]

Ya, I can see why PGI went with not implementing 0.2 dissipation for DHS.

But I am hoping they will balance DHS across the mechs. Because it is just helping mechs which only mount 10 DHS in the engines. It is also hurting smaller than 250 rating engines.

[Khobai]

Yeah light mechs benefit too much from DHS compared to other weight classes because they don't run external DHS. They need to normalize DHS at 1.7

[Void2258]

The bigger issue with all this is that all the stock and trial mechs are directly from the TT books. Which means they are configured on the assumption that heat works as in the TT game. So they are nearly unplayable in stock form, since they overheat FAR too much to be brought into a game vs mechs with any customization.

[Demon Horde]

Stringburka, on 02 March 2013 - 12:18 PM, said:

You can alpha for quite a while before overheating with a decent amount of heatsinks. If you have just 4 extra DHS, you can alpha 3 PPC's (which is a very heavy armament, it's weapons weighing more than many light 'mechs do) nearly three times in a row. And in the current system, you can fit that on like a 40 ton 'mech without issues.


This isn't an argument at all. I've posted an idea, provided an argument for that idea, and showed math to give examples of the result. Your response doesn't contain any useful info or counterargument at all, and is just rude, to be honest. I mean, the only one here sounding "moany" is you.


Yeah, I think it'd be nice if MWO got away from the whole AlphaWarrior that was king in MW3 and 4 (dunno about the earlier, never played them).


Thanks for your post.
That is true, and your post was very good, but there is a difference: Alpha's don't really work in BT like they do in MWO. In BT, weapons are considered fired for those whole 10 seconds, not just a second and then it's over; the same can be replicated in MWO even with my proposed change, more or less.

Say we want to fire 10 medium lasers (just because it's an easy example) and we have 10 DHS. In TT, this would add 40 heat and subtract 20 heat, ending up at 20.
In MWO, the same can be done by fireing one laser per second (or two lasers every two second). Heat would go up an average of 2 per second, ending up at 20 at the end of those ten seconds.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that a BT alpha is fireing each weapon once during a 10 second period, and that's why the threshold is as it is; the heatsinks are cooling the weapon at the same time as it's fired.

Consider the effect over several 10-second periods in BT vs MWO, assuming you tabletop alpha during all turns:
BT: 1st turn, 0 +40 -20 heat; 2nd turn, 20 + 40 -20 heat = 40 heat, shut down.
MWO now: 1st turn, 0 +40 - 20 heat; 2nd turn 20 +40-20 heat = 40 heat; 3rd turn 40+40-20 heat; 60 heat, shut down.



Lots of good stuff in here. Yes, I've also thought about that split damage/heat down, but I guess that is too late to change now. Heat threshold levels could be altered though, without having to rework everything else.

not being rude dude just stating a fact nor was i saying that you you were arguing ,it is a facf though that gamer's in any game will moan and cry about all manner of rediculous things. i was merely stating that using the number of complainers is not a good backing to your statment. because even if your system was implemented people would still moan and cry. nothing about my post was directed at you so there is no reason for you to take my post as "being rude" let's keep this freindly peace bro .. or mech war

[Jimskiavic]

Donas, on 02 March 2013 - 05:26 PM, said:

Fully support graduated heat penalties. Accuracy loss, speed loss, immobility, ammo explosions, all before max heat.

Donas, on 03 March 2013 - 08:47 AM, said:

Your target reticle becomes larger ( a circle instead of pinpoint ) and your shot deviates randomly within that circle when you are in overheat. the base circle become larger and larger as your mech accrues additional heat and penalty, and thus the randomization of where each weapon aims also becomes less precise.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes! You ought to be trying to keep your heat under say 50% (or somewhere around there), where your mech will operate pretty much optimally. But if you really want/need to push it for a while, you've got that leeway (and quite a bit of it) - just with increasing penalties and risks.

A slightly left-field (and not strictly TT) idea: dissipate heat from each weapon like an S-curve (very slowly initially - say for a second or two - then a rapid drop, easing off). Combine this with gradated heat penalties and it would encourage more selective use of weapons (a la chain-firing) rather than alpha strikes, as you effectively get a heat spike from each weapon. Too many spikes at once and you'll throw yourself into a very high heat level (and its associated penalties), but spread your firing out more and you can keep your heat at a more even level.
Thoughts? Flaws in the idea?