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Paul Inouye said:
To curb boating with high alphas... we are testing a system that induces a heat scale when firing multiples of the same weapon within a specific time frame. The more weapons fired of the same type, the higher the scale climbs.
Possible internal damage on certain heat levels of the player's Mech. If you blast past your shutdown threshold and then some, you start to take damage internally.
Investigation items are not locked in and are exactly that... thoughts and tests. Do NOT go flying off the handle about how this won't work or that won't work until we make an official post. It will severely help your blood pressure.
Possible internal damage on certain heat levels of the player's Mech. If you blast past your shutdown threshold and then some, you start to take damage internally.
Investigation items are not locked in and are exactly that... thoughts and tests. Do NOT go flying off the handle about how this won't work or that won't work until we make an official post. It will severely help your blood pressure.
Hello Mr Paul and the rest of devs' team
I'm writing this post in an attempt to prevent you screw up the game again.With all respect,but your game balance tweaks so far caused more issues that helped;so sorry,but my blood pressure won't drop since I know you're wangling something of game mechanics which is not broken.I do fear the results of your 'inventions',remembering how it was with ECM,override shutdown system and laser recharge sound.
Really,guys,there is no problem described as boating,only whinnings of players whose can't understand Mechwarrior Online is differend kind of game than Hawken,Call of Duty and so.Well,and not so well designed heat system,truth be told.
At the beginning let's define what 'boating' is,and how it is balanced or imbalanced.
In common understanding,'boating' is carrying several weapons of the same type - so there are basically 3 types of boating:
Missile boating
Here we can talk about boating LRMs,SRMs and streaks.
LRM boats - I hope no one deny that boating LRMs if fine.Balancing factors are size and weight of bigger LRMs racks,as well as required pretty big ammunition stock.The core mechanic of missile flight too,as they require meaningful time to reach target while keeping lock on it.That's enough limiting factors in my opinion.
So devs,why you would punish these mechs?It is illogical,as there are many mechs that are meant to be LRM boats.Besides,LRM boats are usually very heat efficient,so your idea simply won't work for them.
SRM boats - the limiting factor here is range and spreaded damage.These builds are unable to shoot over magical 270m,moreover their effective range is practically point blank,especially for SRM6 launchers.For SRM6 heat is also a meaningful factor - I own A1 and run a splat cat,it is fairly hot build.Important thing is also that many mechs whose could equip 3 or more SRMs (except Catapults) has missile hardpoints in torso,which balances them even more due to torso pitch/yawn angles and torso twist speed (I just love to fight SRM atlases on these sheer hills on Alpine Peaks)
So I see no reasons to mess with SRM boating while it already has enough limitations.
Streak boats - well,in fact we are talking about Streak Cat A1 here.Only this streak boat may be somewhat problematic,but not due to carrying six SSRMs,but due to streak mechanic.The solution there is to reduce severly cockpit shaking/smoking,and that's all.Before splash damage breaking patch their flightpath were fine (I use streaks all the time),as they spreaded nicely around central/side torsos and sometimes limbs - if you devs will restore that behavior it'll be perfectly balanced.Streaks has limited range thanks to ECMs,even with tweaked BAP it will be mere 150m.Speaking about A1,it has own balancing factor - very large,easy to hit and not so heavily armored arms where its launchers lies.A balance factor is also SSRM damage - mere 5(I'm not considering current fixed value,as it is temporary fix for splash damage bug),same as medium laser.I doubt any sane person would say that 6 medium lasers unable to do pinpoint damage to specific component and range cut off to just 150 - 270m is overpowered.
Well,so SSRM boating is fine too,moreover as streak is low heat weapon it won't be affected by your ahem 'solution'.However,as mentioned streak missiles require some rework in mechanics,it is cockpit shaking/smoking and flightpaths.
Summarizing,'boating problem' just does not exist for this weapon type.The only issue here is streaks,but not related to boating itself.
Ballistic boating
Well,all complaints about this kind of boating regards mostly 2xAC20,2xGauss or 4-6x AC2.Maybe extreme whinners cry about 4xAC5 too.So,let's talk about each of these
2xAC20 - first of all,it is mere how single AC20 works in Battletech universe,and as we know there are plenty of mechs there capable to run with one AC20.And there are few known of having two AC20,which translates into Mechwarrior Online terms like some mech would have 4 of them.Imagine that
But in MWO,to get double AC20 a pilot has to make many sacrifices.At the beginning,only Cat K2 and Jaggermechs are able to equip two units.So the 1st limiting factor is chassis.
Another one is required tonnage;it comes not only from 14t for a single AC20,but also from rounds per ton (only 7).I have a Boomcat K2,and from my experience 42 AC20 rounds are the minimum required for it,which is 6t.So the total weight for both the guns and enough ammunition to operate is 34 tons (28t for ACs and 6t for ammo).More than half of available weight for K2/Jaggermech.Because the guns and ammo for them takes so much of tonnage there is not much left for engine,backup weapons and armor.Damn if it isn't a limiting factor.
3rd is size of AC20,what forces K2 users to use only standard engine;its size is limited due to weight factor mentioned above.This leads to low speed of a Boomcat,both running and turning.Jagermech has its own limiting factors,wide and opened side torsos not covered by arms which makes them unusually vunerable if XL engine is equipped,and due to having ballistic slots in arms it can't drop armor here like K2.
4th factor is effective range.That is limiting even more considering rather low speed of boomcats/boomjagers and size of maps.
So sure,double AC20 mechs have powerful strike,but at the cost of many compromises,also they require a good player able to overcome their weaknesses.There is no need to mess anything else to 'balance' these builds.
2xGauss Rifle - Well,for them all said about AC20 above is true except size,range and chassises able to mount 2 of them.But this weapon has invidual limiting factor which is fragility(only 3 hp) and 95% for dealing 20 internal damage on being destroyed.
So as above,it is fine balanced and needs no futher messing.
4x/6xAC2 - These builds,except requiring specific chassises (jaegers and phract 4x) have important weight limiting factor,just like AC20;I mean both the guns and enough ammo to fuel them - 5 AC2 with 2t ammo each weight 40t,more than two AC20 with ammo.But not only that,this kind of boat has major heat issues which means these builds require additional tonnage for heatsinks.Ah,and not to mention low burst damage.But most important limitation of such builds is close-range fight,it is just practically impossible to lead a target if being attacked by a light or fast medium mech,and they are forced to keep facing all these big,hard hitting heavier mechs without possibility to make defensive torso twists.
Summarizing,ballistic boats have even more limitations than missile ones.It is well balanced class,and requires no changes.I'd even say you could increase Gauss Rifle health up to 5 points to make if viable for brawling ambushers like hunchbacks,centurions or dragons
Energy boating
Well,it is well known we are talking about carrying 4 or more large lasers or ppcs here.So,what limits these builds have?
Weight - not so much.They are lighter than AC5 without ammunition.
Size - also not,they are pretty small as they ioccupy only 2-3 slots.
Range - naay,these are the longest range weapons in game.Only ppc due to having 90m minimum range has some limitation here,but not mattering much.
So the only one factor left is heat.And yes,all of these weapons are rather hot,generating much heat per alpha strike.But is that limitating them really?Not so much...
Not so much because after overheating the only which needs to be done it to override shutdown,make an alpha (especially for ppc whose deal all their high damage at once) and don't care about shutting down again.Then repeat and repeat...
So,in fact there is no sacrifice required for energy boats.LRM boats needs to surrender their self-defense capabilities and are limited by core LRM missiles mechanic,SRM/Streak boats have their hard limited range,2xAC20/Gauss boats have to give up much tonnage which leads them to being either slow or fragile...but energy boats laughs at their should be limitation which is heat generation.Only large laser boats are somewhat affected as they need this 1s to apply all of the damage.
So,there is the core of the problem - broken heat system which has no consequences for overheating and overriding,not carrying >=4 ppcs/large lasers.And bugged too,as I blew up several times while running my Jenner F when used override shutdown,and never while piloting Stalker 3F with 4 ppcs.
So devs,I do ask you to solve the real issue here,not boating which is not broken in core.Deal with the root cause not make some shorcut fixes.
So,now it is known what needs to be fixed.But how?
Paul and the rest of the team,there is no easy and short way.There are few complex steps which needs to be done,some of them would require experimental tweaks tested in practice.
1) At the very beginning,fix missiles ASAP,I mean splash damage bug,restoring old damage amounts(1.7 for LRMs,2.5 for srms) and flightpaths for streaks,as well as writting better ones for SRMs so they no longer fly in strange cutting cross formation.That will balance current dominated by PPCs meta,I'm sure.Do not mess anything wih ppcs cooldown,or introduction penalty for shooting 4 ppcs/large lasers/etc untill this is done!
2) Reimplement override shutdown system,as the current one just sucks in terms of intuitivness.Let pressing 'o' have 2 functions - if a mech is overheated then Betty must announce 'override shutdown' then power up mech (well,talking in short as it was before patch in 29.01.2013?Can't find past patch notes).If a mech is not overheated,a overheat prohibition system should be launched with appropriate Betty message "overheating disabled" and timer on HUD showing how many seconds left to end overriding.
3) Utterly remove Coolshot item from the game,as it creates imbalance in no heat penalty for energy boats even futher than it is.Give back all GXP spent for that item in Pilot Tree,
4) Then whole heat system has to be redesigned and rewritten.Current one makes canonical builds like Hunchback 4P with 8 mediums 1 small laser invalid.I'll speak about that below.
5) New heat system must be tested before introducing into the main game on that mentioned public test server,as it is big core mechanic change.
Proposed changes to heat system
At the beginning I'd like to remind that in my opinion there should not be limitations for carrying any type of weapon.A mech is able to equip 6 ppcs?Fine.9 medium lasers?Sure.6 large lasers?Why not?No build should be penalized.
However there MUST be consequences for overheating and overriding,serious enough so the players would rather avoid them whenever possible.
So,at the first the heat system redesign
Here are the principles which should be taken while creating anew heat system:
1) Canonical builds have to work without overheating.Yes,I mean all these 3 ppc Awesomes,6 medium lasers Jenners,8 ml hunchbacks and so on.
2) It should not prevent using any possible in MWO loadout except extreme cases (four or more er ppcs,5 or more er large lasers etc)
The first change should be making double heat sinks really double in dissipation.Then a some rework on heat theshold needs to be done - while I like your concept that heat sinks increases it,I think the amount of that increase have to be rethinked.I propose that each heat sink and double heatsink outside engine would increase it by 1.0;double heatsinks in engine should increase the cap by 2.0 as it is now.
Of course,these are just starting numbers,to find exact ones much testing on the public test server is required.
Anyway,the core idea behind that is - if you wish to alpha strike many ppcs/large lasers,even 6,you may to do so,however not more than once,twice,three times at most without overheating.And you don't want to overheat because of...
overheating penalties
We have already a penalty for overheat,our mech is immobilised and unable to shoot back for few seconds.It is fine and can be very dangerous in overheated in front of an one or more enemies,but that is not enough.
Here are my few ideas what other penalties could be introduced:
1) Overheat damage counter.Each consecutive overheat after 1st?2nd?3rd?since 1st? must deal internal damage to mech components (with a chance of critical hits of course,possibly leading to gauss/ammo explosions for example
) inceased 2x during each next overheat.The 1st overheat damage should deal say 5 damage,the next one 10,then 20,40 and 80 (if anyone will survive that long).Exact numbers have to be determined during testing.Or better approach,a some percentage of Central Torso health should be taken as starting overheat damage penalty value,that would make lights and assault taking similar amount of damage in terms of their total health.After all,jenner would feel 20 damage much more than atlas which is not desired.2) This counter could not be kicked in if overheating was not so big (say up to 130% of the heat thershold,exact level needs to be discovered during testing on public test server)
3) And on the opposite,great exceeding heat treshold should increase the counter by more than 1 step causing appropriate to that step damage.Like 130%-140% +2,140%-150% +3,150%-160% +4 etc
These changes (lesser heat treshold and overheat punishment) will deal with many hot energy carriers - they will be no longer able to alphastrike and don't care about overheating.Sure,they could do that once or twice,but it'd be far better for them to wait for cooling down.Meanwhile the changes won't hurt builds which use only one or two ppcs/large lasers,and these whose usually don't overheat too much over threshold (6ml jenners,8 ml hunchbacks etc).Also I hope it is clear now why Coolshot item must be removed.
overriding shutdown
Hmmm,there are 2 ideas here:
1) Override has it's own counter working similar to that for overheating (dealing damage on overriding,maybe first 1-3 overheats per match has no penatly)
2) Override deals no damage but instead increase overheat damage internal counter by 1 as well as lower 'safe' heat theshold exceed limit by X%,say 10%
Idea 2 would punish high heat aplhastrikers greatly while also not allow other mechs whose don't exceed the treshold greatly to not care about overhearing at all.Few overrides,and even those small treshold crossers would have to be very carefull...or else
Some mathematical calculations:
Assume such stalker equipping 6 ppcs as test platform and all my proposed changes are implemented.Such mech would have:
Heat treshold = 30 + 20 engine DHS + 7 dhs outside = 57
Dissipation = 0.2*17 = 3.40 heat/s
Alphastrike heat = 6*8 = 48 heat
1st alpha => heat level 48/57,around 85% heat treshold.
weapon cooldown 3s,during which the heat will drop down to 37,8/47,~ 66%
2nd alpha => heat level 85,8/57, ~150,40% heat treshold.Shutdown and due to great exceeding heat theshold the counter is set on the 3rd level,which means 20 internal damage.It would hurt,it might destroy a piece of equipment,but won't kill fully healthy mech,not even cripple it.This time
But if the stalker pilot would dare to override shutdown and fire alpha 3rd time it would take at least 160 internal damage (overheat penalty couter on the 6th level) and blow himself up.End the story.To be more funny,both attacking and attacked mech would take the same damage in that scenario - 180 points.To be more hilarious,the defending mech could survive the encounter if it would spread damage between arms/side torsos thanks to defensive twists
while ppc boat would be punished for overheatingFinal conclusions:
So as you see Paul,mine solution would prevent high heat energy alpha stikes without any care while not denying such builds and not punishing any others.Peoples will still be able to ride their beloved high heat builds,however they would have to pay great attention to use them wisely.Players whose choose sustained DPS way would have advantage over high alpha strikers thanks to true 0.2 dissipation for DHS.
That is a true solution for a core problem.Not any cockpit shakes during using jump jets - poptart sniper is a legal build in Mechwarrior universe.Not any illogical and atrifical fix like extra heat for firing X ppcs/large lasers (someone mentioned Energy Preservation rule to you).
However,it would take months of intense work to make it right,yet sooner or later you'll have to face all the flaws of your current heat system.As I'm a programmer like you,I'd rather write things right instead making strange fixes,especially when my forecast about putting missiles back to the line will end era of poptart/ppc Warrior Online.Only when that won't change things then some temporary fixes like this for missile splash damage has been made may be considered.
Kind regards,
MasterBLB
And at the end...
I'm confident I may make such statements as I have practically each variant of jenner,catapult,cataphract,atlas,stalker,raven 3l and highlander 732, and I've piloted and fought against all these so called "broken and imbalanced" builds since very beginning of open MWO beta.Boomcats/jagers,gausscats/jagers,splatcats,poptarts,I've found none of these overwhelming under all circumstances so much I'd always lost to these.There was always a way to exploit their weaknesses,but to do so someone have to learn them instead keep whinning "OMG,booooating is OP!"
Edited by MasterBLB, 19 May 2013 - 03:33 AM.
