2
This topic is locked
http://mwomercs.com/...32#entry2436932
Quote
Heat Penalty
Last update, I let it be known that we would be investigating a heat penalty for high alpha builds. It is understood that this raised the eyebrows of the many but at the same time a lot of assumptions were made which should hopefully be cleared up here.
We considered the notion of doing a max heat threshold reduction but this would have ended up nerfing every weapon system and every Mech in the game. This is why the heat scale penalty path was chosen since it lets us address every weapon individually and also allows us to take into consideration all Mech builds.
How it works:
Last update, I let it be known that we would be investigating a heat penalty for high alpha builds. It is understood that this raised the eyebrows of the many but at the same time a lot of assumptions were made which should hopefully be cleared up here.
We considered the notion of doing a max heat threshold reduction but this would have ended up nerfing every weapon system and every Mech in the game. This is why the heat scale penalty path was chosen since it lets us address every weapon individually and also allows us to take into consideration all Mech builds.
How it works:
- We set a threshold of the number of weapons fired simultaneously. By simultaneously fired, we mean weapons of the exact same type being fired in under a 0.5 second time range. This 0.5 second time comes from the amount of time between weapon switches when Chain Fire is engaged. Chain Fire is a mechanism meant to help MechWarriors manage their heat and we do not want to punish those who use this mechanic.
- If a player fires a number of weapons beyond the threshold, the heat scale will increase significantly for every weapon fired beyond the threshold.
So, let me count the horrible, horrible ways that this is the single worst idea for a reactive low-ELO nerf in the entire game. I know a lot of you are already likely jumping to say what a glorious day this is, but if you are, you don't understand why "High alpha builds" were a problem in the first place.
- First and foremost: This punishes small 'mechs. If you bought a BJ-1X get ready to throw it in the trash, because the limit on numbers of guns will absolutely wreck it. This and other 'mechs were designed to boat large arrays of lasers, so forcing them to stagger that fire out will absolutely, positively kick light and medium pilots in the balls again.
- Most high alpha builds don't carry many guns anyway! Everyone rambles about the 6 PPC Stalker, which is clearly far worse than the 4 PPC Stalker. This will punish the bad build and not punish the good one; likewise the most common setup is 2 PPC, 1 Gauss, which this will not even impact. That's because small numbers of big guns are better at heavy damage, high focus hits than large numbers of small guns a lot of the time!
- This won't stop synergy. I've said it before, and I will say it again: If you cap how many of X weapon I can effectively run, I will simply run Y and Z that have similar firing characteristics. Stop me from running 3 PPCs and I'll run 2 PPCs and a Gauss; maybe 2 PPCs and 2 Gauss, 'mech depending. Stop me from running 5 Large Lasers and I'll run 4 and an ER Large. No matter how much you smash this, it will never stop it.
- Goodbye, Secondary Guns. Does your 'mech have backup weapons? Lasers or streaks in case they close the distance? Well if you pop those 3-4 backup guns, you're going to take a huge heat penalty now, despite the fact they likely carry less than a tenth of your firepower. I know I'm not going to want to eat surges of heat for firing a bank of small lasers.
- That's the whole point to some variants! In addition to the light variants that are damaged, but what about 'mechs like the Catapult A1? You've effectively rendered the 'mech worthless. What about a less popular example, the Awesome 8Q? No more PPC builds for that! Good thing nobody is using that laserboat Hunchback, too, because that's going to be a joke now.
- This won't stop the true problem. The reason "high alpha builds" have become such a subject of ire (among the non-frankenmech crowd even) has absolutely nothing to do with the number of guns being boated. It is almost exclusively because of a lack of weight restrictions in the game (Which was one of the longest running pre-beta threads on the MW:O forums, mind you, so I can't say some of us didn't see it coming) resulting in every single person driving a Stalker or Highlander.
- Twin Gauss is Coming. Sure the Jagger and K2 can do so, but they're fragile. The 4X can do it but it's slow. Around the corner is the Victor, that can likely sport 2x Gauss and PPCs. By attacking builds running more than one PPC, all you will do is force everyone here next. Again, alpha strikes are not the underlying problem!
The problem: Guess what, no matter what you do to alpha strikes or weapon arrays this won't make the problem go away. As long as 85-90 ton 'mechs are allowed to be the majority on the field, they will ALL hit so hard you will be unable to pilot anything else!
-
Please PGI, do not go this route. I know you login to the forums and see a million angry threads about alpha strikes and want to give your casual players what they want, but the problem is they honestly do not know what they want, if they're blaming that. They're blaming the very most superficial thing, firing multiples of the same gun, and not thinking through any of the other ramifications.
Do not throw lights and mediums under the bus here, in particular 'mechs designed for that very purpose.
-
So what do we really need?
Weight Restrictions. If everyone isn't driving a heavy or assault and mediums are pushed into the mix, 99% of this will go away overnight. I've heard lobbies might be apart of UI2.0 and my God I hope they are. Sacrificing over half your game content on the altar of a quick match button is not working out. I don't mind if there's a no restriction lobby, though!
More heat effects. I've always been a big fan of organically adding heat effects. If heat slowed your 'mech down more at higher levels, it would make a big difference and people may manage their high-heat builds accordingly. This alpha-nerf system on the other hand will not.
Most of all, a wider look at this and other issues. When the forums light up angry about a specific element, I think it's proven disastrous time and time again to just react directly to it (with a few exceptions, such as the consumable roll out plan) rather than facing the underlying causes. Everyone complains high alpha builds pretty much because some TT-Frakenmech players have screamed it loud enough that newbies who are tired of being cored by Assault 'Mechs that are running a few really big guns have chimed in.
As I've pointed out before, however, most of the good alpha builds aren't even running very many guns. At all. 3-4 tops - the NUMBER of guns has absolutely nothing to do with the problem. It's because, in general a small number of really big guns is better than a larger number of smaller guns if you have the weight to run it.
In Conclusion
Effectively this reactive concept is flawed from it's very conception. It's punishing the wrong 'mechs and doing nothing about the issues that are actually frustrating people.
I'd like to ask you this: What is this going to solve? Will it solve the upcoming Victor running 2x Gauss and 2x PPC? Probably not. Will it solve Highlanders running a Gauss and 2 PPCs? Almost certainly not. What about 1 Gauss and 3 PPCs? That still works...
... is this really to solve one 4+ PPC Stalker that's not very good anyway? Is it specifically designed to be anti-4 PPC, when that's not more effective than the other builds listed above?
Will this solve the fact that if everyone's in an assault, they'll all have massive damage output no matter what we do until they are made the minority?
If the answer is no, what is this going to solve?
Edited by Victor Morson, 11 June 2013 - 01:42 PM.
