58 replies to this topic

[Unbound Inferno]

Sybreed, on 11 July 2013 - 08:51 AM, said:

but the first alpha will never miss, that's a problem. It's only a band-aid solution to the real problem that is convergence.

Let's take a look at a 'fixed' situation then.

4x PPC = 40 heat

Heat threshold 30, add say 20 DHS.

If they fix the heat system as its been suggested before with DHS offering only half capacity for double dissipation we'll get a max threshold of 40.

Stalker fires accurate alphastrike - and overheats.

If you Overheat the penalty of reticle shake in effect. Overheat was slight so negligible damage, but the engine starts to run sluggish slightly.

Your reticle is shaking, the next alphastrike as you move into position misses the intended CT and instead hits an arm. You overheat. How much depends if you waited to cool off completely.

Overheat penalty of even more reticle shake in effect. Overheat was slighly more as you were moving at the time so sone minor damage. You engine runs a bit more slowly.


See the trend? You lost it like that. With 21 DHS you could sustain one shot without overheating on most normal maps or cold maps, but you'd be forced to wait to cool off completely or risk shutting down. A hot map is death incarnate for you.



I said it before, and I'll say it as much as needed - fix the heat threshold, return PPC/ERPPC heat back to where it should be and add penalties. That'll fix it.

Edited by Unbound Inferno, 11 July 2013 - 09:19 AM.

[Khobai]

Quote

I disagree. Alpha strike obviously raises your heat levels to the max heat output of all weapons. Assuming that you don't devote significant resources (heat sinks) to creating a more heat-neutral build, the threat of INSTANTLY facing overheating consequences should have the opposite effect on player thinking.

There are no consequences. I pop out, alpha strike, retreat into cover, experience penalties while my mech is hunkered down safe from harm. All your heat penalty suggestion accomplishes is encouraging poptarting even more. Because you wont want to get caught out in the open while suffering penalties to movement. Congrats your idea kills brawling completely and turns the game into poptartwarrior online.

Heat is not the problem. Perfect convergence of weapons is the problem. That is all that needs to be fixed.

Edited by Khobai, 11 July 2013 - 09:23 AM.

[IceSerpent]

Donnie Silveray, on 11 July 2013 - 08:23 AM, said:

In lore example, the Clan Warhawk (Masakari) strots out with 4 ERPPCs. It is specifically said it can't fire all at once else it'd shutdown/blow up. This is a clan mech that can't handle 4 ERPPCs, granted it's just fluff and lore. Still, I don't think an IS mech should be able to wield 4 PPC ERPPC without having some kind of discernable punishment. The simplest way is just to simply nerf their heat, make it higher.

It's a bad example - in the novels Warhawk actually can alpha strike with all 4 without shutting down. In TT game it can't, but TT is set up in such a way that having weapons in the arm gives you a much wider firing arc on the corresponding side, so the role of Warhawk changes from being able to core the target with 4 ERPPCs to being able to fire 2 of them off to the side. Nova is set up the same way.

[jeffsw6]

FuriousRGD, on 11 July 2013 - 08:07 AM, said:

At any range you *should* have to cycle weapons if they have to manage heat effects. Firing 4 PPCs should have serious consequences regardless of range.
...
Saying that certain weapons having advantage at long range is broken design is not true by itself.

Firing 4 PPCs will never have consequences at range, except preventing you from taking a follow-up shot. It does not matter if you have reticule shake at 60% heat because the guy with 4 PPCs is doing a 40 dmg alpha. These heat-effects will actually ENCOURAGE installing a 5th PPC, and getting closer to overheat on the first shot, because they will have to wait longer between shots and will want to spend all that time behind cover, and maximize the time they expose themselves with a bigger alpha.

Further, you say that in all cases, maps allow brawlers to close range. That is obviously wrong. Alpine. Tourmaline. Caustic. Even on Forest Colony and River City, it's hard to close on a PPC boat.

Finally, I'm saying that a weapon having advantages at EVERY RANGE is broken by design. It's why PPC is dominant. If its minimum range was 180m instead of 90m, and it did zero damage inside 180m like LRMs, the game would be different. There is certainly a happy medium between zero damage <= 180m, and the current situation, deprecating damage < 90m. But today, you have very little chance of closing within 90m on a PPC boat on most maps.

Unbound Inferno, on 11 July 2013 - 08:30 AM, said:

Increasing heat adds a reticle shake. Higher heat, more shake. Overheating permanently adds a small shake every time, so overheat enough and you'll never shoot straight.

All this does is make huge alphas more important. Snipers can easily retreat behind cover, thus, it represents a buff to them vs brawlers who can't easily retreat from their opponents when they choose to engage, and find themselves out-gunned (or overheating.)

[Hellcat420]

i think there should be stricter heat penalties but first heat capacity should be set at 30 for all mechs and not be increased by heatsinks.

[Unbound Inferno]

jeffsw6, on 11 July 2013 - 09:27 AM, said:

All this does is make huge alphas more important. Snipers can easily retreat behind cover, thus, it represents a buff to them vs brawlers who can't easily retreat from their opponents when they choose to engage, and find themselves out-gunned (or overheating.)

That is only partially true. Read up some, if the heat threshold doesn't allow certain builds to do those alphastrikes it mitigates a ton.

Take the PPC stalker with 20 DHS, its heat capacity if its fixed is 40 - one alpha overheats it. ERPPC is out of the question as you can't make it up to the required 60 there.

That limits the engagement range to that of LRM distance which is comparable to PPC - but at that range PPC damage is weak. The effective range of PPC is inside brawling distance.


The game meta changes alot by doing that since they can't spam ERPPC at leisure to keep mechs back.

[Cybermech]

anything to involves the "cone" effect normally is easily manipulated in most games.
Long range weapons in any game that work just as good in close range are normally top tog.
In plenty of games using a sniper rifle as a shotgun with ease always leads to problems.
Higher heat will help reduced the overall effectiveness of long range weapons in close range combat.

[Bunko]

I think what's adding to the confusion here is the thread is not about Alphas it's about heat and it's consequences it doesn't have in MWO.

You can easily make a build with cannons that do high Alphas and not generate much heat doing it.

Problem with Energy weapons + Alphas is it's easy to do cause energy weapons don't weigh a lot, don't take many crits, and don't use ammo that limits shots and adds additional weight. Only negative effect from using energy weapons is heat. Without real heat consequences, as the OP stated, you are making it easier on energy builds that don't give a damn about heat eff. Adding to that PGI lowered the amount of heat resulting in firing most of the energy weapons, making it even easier for these builds to be usable on the battlefield.

[Cache]

I very much agree with the OP. I posted nearly the same thing almost two weeks ago. Here and here. This is just a copy/paste because I feel it it worth repeating. (Of course I do, but at least I didn't 'like' my own post.)


As others have said, the solution to PPC boating is a heat scale. Period. Here's the TT scale:

Heat Level / Effects
5 / -1 Movement Point
8 / +1 Modifier to Fire
10 / -2 Movement Points
13 / +2 Modifier to Fire
14 / Shutdown, avoid on 4+
15 / -3 Movement Points
17 / +3 Modifier to Fire
18 / Shutdown, avoid on 6+
19 / Ammo Explosion, avoid on 8+
20 / -4 Movement Points
22 / Shutdown, avoid on 8+
23 / Ammo Explosion, avoid on 10+
24 / +4 Modifier to Fire
25 / -5 Movement Points
26 / Shutdown, avoid on 10+
28 / Ammo Explosion, avoid on 8+
30 / Shutdown

A 6xPPC Stalker can carry a max of 16 DHS. That's 32 points of heat dissipated in a 10-second turn. Fire 6 PPCs and you have 60 heat. 60-32=28. 28 extra heat. Apply the applicable effects from 0 to 28. Problem solved. Yes I know this isn't TT and strict TT rules don't work in this game, but the spirit of the rules will work extremely well. Negative heat effects are an important part of weapon balance. Heat, crit size, and weight form an important triangle. Remove or weaken one and the system doesn't work.

[And the follow up, 2nd post]


The heat gain/dissipation system is different here than in TT. I'm not arguing that we go to the TT system for that. It's the overheat system with penalties that I believe we need. There are adjustments to MWO's heat system that can be made to slow things down a bit, as I've heard that the devs feel a Mech dies too quickly. (Couldn't cite a source for that and I may have heard wrong.)

Increase the cool-down of all weapons by a bit and raise heat for all by a little bit more. Then add a second heat meter alongside the first on the HUD. The first meter shows your safe heat. Go over that and it registers on the second. The second meter shows how deep in the penalty box you're sitting. Allow for the chance of penalties every ~5 seconds you're on that scale. Slowed movement and erratic crosshairs would be automatic, the severity determined by amount of heat. Ammo explosions would be random as they are now with critical hits, giving a greater chance the further up the scale. Shut-down could be a timed thing--you'd be given ~1 second to hit override at the bottom of the scale and ~1/4 second just below the top. Hit the top and you're automatically shut down for 5-10 seconds.

[Yiazmat]

Also,  remember the warhawk isn't the only clan mech that was centered around the erppc. Hellstar. And it was built to perpetually alpha them.  who says you can't make a ghetto hellstar out of a warhawlk? a mad cat?  a daishi? I'll bet my house people will do 4 erppc's and ~30 cDHS in any of these things.


*edit* thanks Roland, wasn't paying attention there.  Fixed.
And heat will be laughed at.

Edited by Yiazmat, 11 July 2013 - 11:00 AM.

[Roland]

Yiazmat, on 11 July 2013 - 10:17 AM, said:

a mad cat? a timber wolf?

Nerd alert:
Those are the same mech

[jeffsw6]

Unbound Inferno, on 11 July 2013 - 09:41 AM, said:

That limits the engagement range to that of LRM distance which is comparable to PPC - but at that range PPC damage is weak. The effective range of PPC is inside brawling distance.

I don't understand what you are trying to say. I originally thought you meant that PPC is weak *outside* of brawling range, but that is obviously not true.

Can you clarify?

[Angel of Annihilation]

I honestly think your heat pool should be 100% determined by the amount of heat sinks you have on your mech. If you have 16 DHS, your heat pool is 22.4, 20 DHS your heat pool is 28. This pool would rapidly dissapate based on how many heat sinks you have equiped. If you keep your weapons within this heat pool you don't overheat. If you don't then you have concequences.

For example, with 16 DHS in a 2LL, 2ML build, I Could fire 2 LL and 1 ML without heat concequences, however if I fired 2 LL and 2 ML, I would then generate more heat than I can disappate and thus my mech would start incurring penalties, right up to the point I reach Overheat. Reaching overheat would be a bad thing (ie ammo cooking off, engines exploding, etc).

The we use a Quad PPC example mounting 20 DHS. I could fire two PPCs without penalty to rate of fire or heat and 3 with only slight penalties but 4 simultanously would spike my heat way up the scale and possible push me into overheat. 2 Quad bursts in a row would probably cause my mech to explode.

However in the Quad PPC example you could stagger pairs of PPCs and keep a high sustained rate of fire because the heat levels rapidly disappate. It would be fire a pair..one, one thousand, two one thousand, fire the second pair...one, one thousand, two one thousand, fire pair..... so on and so forth while still retaining the option of firing a 40 point alpha IF/WHEN needed.

This is really pretty much how TT worked and I really don't quite understand why it couldn't be implemented in game.

Edited by Viktor Drake, 11 July 2013 - 10:39 AM.

[jeffsw6]

People have suggested reducing heat capacity, and perhaps increasing heat dissipation rate if needed, like once a week since I started reading this forum.

It was always a good idea. It still is. It's a simple and obvious counter to high-alpha meta. Why they won't try it ... who knows?

The nice thing about lower heat cap is it actually buffs brawlers (who are always on the edge of overheating, and waiting for heat to go down so they can shoot again) relative to extreme-range energy-boats AND it encourages mixed builds. If there is no longer any reason to carry 6 PPCs, you have room for some SSRMs or whatever. That's good, isn't it?

[Master Q]

Donnie Silveray, on 11 July 2013 - 08:23 AM, said:

In lore example, the Clan Warhawk (Masakari) strots out with 4 ERPPCs. It is specifically said it can't fire all at once else it'd shutdown/blow up. This is a clan mech that can't handle 4 ERPPCs, granted it's just fluff and lore. Still, I don't think an IS mech should be able to wield 4 PPC ERPPC without having some kind of discernable punishment. The simplest way is just to simply nerf their heat, make it higher.

Secondly I agree we need these overheating penalties though I have to say that heat management in MWO is rather rough in STABLE builds. My Atlas regularly overheats if I abuse its 4MLs, even with many double heat sinks due to me constantly straddling 80%+ heat threshold in the middle of a battle. My heat capacity is quite impressive but my mechs can't dissipate for their lives at this point. I don't want to endorse any specific numbers, but there needs to be more heat penalties and effects to dissuade high burst alpha builds in the mechlab before going into battle.

Granted that the stated purpose of the Warhawk's design is to do two other things:
- be able to fire at least one PPC at any opponent in a 360 degree arc (torso twist + one arm arc).
- be able to keep going with one or both arms stripped at negligible loss of firepower. The stock 7-laser Nova Cat is the same way, it doesn't fire an alpha strike but you can take an arm off and the general pilot response is "so what, I still have the other arm left."

You'll find that many, many of the tabletop designs have dangerous or outright suicidal alpha strike heat because they're supposed to confine their weapons to optimal ranges, e.g. firing the LRMs at 600+ meters only and then switching to a bank of MLs at closer ranges.

[FuriousRGD]

jeffsw6, on 11 July 2013 - 09:27 AM, said:

Firing 4 PPCs will never have consequences at range, except preventing you from taking a follow-up shot. It does not matter if you have reticule shake at 60% heat because the guy with 4 PPCs is doing a 40 dmg alpha. These heat-effects will actually ENCOURAGE installing a 5th PPC, and getting closer to overheat on the first shot, because they will have to wait longer between shots and will want to spend all that time behind cover, and maximize the time they expose themselves with a bigger alpha.

Further, you say that in all cases, maps allow brawlers to close range. That is obviously wrong. Alpine. Tourmaline. Caustic. Even on Forest Colony and River City, it's hard to close on a PPC boat.

Finally, I'm saying that a weapon having advantages at EVERY RANGE is broken by design. It's why PPC is dominant. If its minimum range was 180m instead of 90m, and it did zero damage inside 180m like LRMs, the game would be different. There is certainly a happy medium between zero damage <= 180m, and the current situation, deprecating damage < 90m. But today, you have very little chance of closing within 90m on a PPC boat on most maps.


All this does is make huge alphas more important. Snipers can easily retreat behind cover, thus, it represents a buff to them vs brawlers who can't easily retreat from their opponents when they choose to engage, and find themselves out-gunned (or overheating.)

Look. Long range weapons are long range weapons. By design, long range weapons have long range as an advantage. However, they by design need disadvantages to offset this. IMO Gause is OK because it is heavy, has a ton of crit slots and is absolutely a breeze to destroy. PPC, ERPPC and ERLL are SUPPOSED to generate a ton of heat to offset range. Right now, they dont generate enough heat IMO. Also, as I said in the OP, there are almost NO consequences to overheating. So, on this point, I AGREE with you that PPC and ERPPC need to generate more heat to balance the positives.

Sniping SHOULD be part of this game. Anybody trying to COMPLETELY nerf long range play should go back to call of duty. However, all I'm saying is that under ANY circumstance, firing 4 PPCs should leave you shut down and helpless with effects that linger until you cool down.


I don't see how this encourages another PPC lol. If anything, adding another PPC and waiting to get up close just plays into the hands of brawler builds!! PPCs have a minimum range.

ERPPCs need a massive increase in heat IMO. They need to generate almost tabletop levels to offset the MASSIVE range and NO MINIMUM range. As stated earlier, in TT PPC generates 10 and ERPPC 15 heat per shot!

So, add them together, I think that increasing heat on PPC and especially ERPPC in addition to having overheating consequences that actually matter will contribute TREMENDOUSLY to turning around the mindsets towards boating PPCs *and* to alpha strike.

It won't ELIMINATE THEM, but it will make it far less advantageous and will begin to add negatives to offset the tremendous reward. That's what's missing here that heat consequences can contribute to fixing: negatives to alpha striking and boating to balance the overwhelming positive.

[Training Instructor]

Unreal convergence is the key to balancing, not heat. Heat plays a big part, but it's convergence that is killing this game.

[Seddrik]

The problem right now is NOT overheating, but convergence (i.e. high alphas hitting one pinpoint location at medium to long range). Increasing heat will affect brawling, not sniping. This suggestion will not help solve the problem, but make it worse.

[FuriousRGD]

Training Instructor, on 11 July 2013 - 11:05 AM, said:

Unreal convergence is the key to balancing, not heat. Heat plays a big part, but it's convergence that is killing this game.

That's why I say it's a key factor but not the only one. What if, as stated earlier, it's like the tabletop where generating above various ranges of heat causes your targetting computer to struggle and your convergence is affected as just one of several possible consequences?

Even in an alpha strike situation, you'd get one good shot then shut down immediately. When you come back online you are still overheated so your mech has movement penalties and aiming consequences such as slowed or shaking reticle and slowed convergence. This is all in addition to keeping PGI's internal damage for passing certain heat thresholds.

I personally think that accumulating negatives like this will promote cycling weapon groups so you can maintain SUSTAINED fire which will ultimately do more damage than a one-shot then shutdown alpha. Once people realize you can do more damage with sustained fire, alpha striking will become a last resort as it should be.

[mike29tw]

jeffsw6, on 11 July 2013 - 07:59 AM, said:

You have to realize that heat-effects will cripple brawlers and will basically have no impact on snipers.

The problem with the game right now is snipers are the most powerful role, and brawlers the least.

I'm not saying heat-effects are foolish, but that the meta-game needs to be fixed, and implementing heat-effects right now would make it worse.

So we introduce heat effects, AFTER nerfing PPC's heat. Problem solved!!

jeffsw6, on 11 July 2013 - 10:48 AM, said:

People have suggested reducing heat capacity, and perhaps increasing heat dissipation rate if needed, like once a week since I started reading this forum.

It was always a good idea. It still is. It's a simple and obvious counter to high-alpha meta. Why they won't try it ... who knows?

The nice thing about lower heat cap is it actually buffs brawlers (who are always on the edge of overheating, and waiting for heat to go down so they can shoot again) relative to extreme-range energy-boats AND it encourages mixed builds. If there is no longer any reason to carry 6 PPCs, you have room for some SSRMs or whatever. That's good, isn't it?

This post makes too much sense.

Training Instructor, on 11 July 2013 - 11:05 AM, said:

Unreal convergence is the key to balancing, not heat. Heat plays a big part, but it's convergence that is killing this game.

Seddrik, on 11 July 2013 - 11:09 AM, said:

The problem right now is NOT overheating, but convergence (i.e. high alphas hitting one pinpoint location at medium to long range). Increasing heat will affect brawling, not sniping. This suggestion will not help solve the problem, but make it worse.

Of course, because it's all those lasers and AC5s CONVERGING their shots that are ruining the game.
Oh wait, they're not.