23 replies to this topic

[Anais Opal]

A long time ago, on a server far, far away

Began the MechWarrior Online Closed Beta...

It was dark times, dark times indeed, few 'Mechs, few weapons and no groups, many crashes and bugs in the arcane Magiks of the Code, but the Lords of Mount PGI and their disciples persevered, long they struggled and soon it was better.

Soon, they had more 'Mechs, more weapons, grouping but the arcane Code still had wonky moments with its magiks. Soon the disciples noticed that sometime their weapons did strange things, shots would cross at the wrong range, meet at the right range or miss entirely. They called upon the Lords of Mount PGI and said,

'Oh Lords, woe are we, our guns are not working correctly!'

And the Lords replied,

'Fear not faithful disciples, the magiks of convergence are thwarting us, but the secret group called the Programmers have created new magiks in their sacred halls. It is called Pinpoint and we bless this upon the 'Mechs of thee via the 'Mech Tree!'

And so the disciples rejoiced assured that the great magik of Pinpoint would sooth their woes.

Alas, the magiks did not work, things called 'trees' and 'building' thwarted the the arcane Code. Thus did the disciples rise up and say,

'Oh Lords, the magik of Pinpoint does not work!'

And the Lords said,

'Alas dear disciples, the Programmers cannot get the magik of Code working, we give you instead the powerful magik of Instant Convergence!'

And the disciples rejoiced, all their weapons hit their mark and it was Good.

Until, that fateful day that the first sniper was built. It was called the Gausskitty and it was mighty. Many a MechWarrior fell to the pinpoint accuracy of the Gausskitty and felt the pain of its dual Gauss sting.

'OP! OP!' the disciples cried. 'Lords, something must be done!'

And the Lords said,

'Fear not my faithful followers, with our blessed magiks we will make the Gauss rifle weak and explosive!'

And the disciples rejoiced, for many a Gausskitty exploded when their XL engines were ignited by the fiery demise of the mighty Gauss rifle. But.......

Then the Dual UAC5 Cat was born, and it was mighty! Many a 'Mech was chewed from head to toe by its mighty rate of fire!

'OP! OP!' the disciples cried. 'Lords, something must be done!'

And the Lords said,

'Fear not my loving disciples, we can use the arcane Code to make the UAC5 jam!'

And the disciples rejoiced, though many were upset because the UAC5 jammed very, very easily, but they persevered safe in the knowledge that the Lords of Mount PGI knew best.

Time went on, and the Code and Game slowly improved.

And then something wondrous happened,

Open BETA began, and the masses joined for stompy robot combat, and it was good.

Time went on, the Code grew, the number of ‘Mechs, Weapons and Maps grew and during this time was the birth of the Cataphract CTF-3D and with it was born the first Poptart and it was mighty! The masses thought this was fun, and didn’t pay much of a mind to the Poptart, the CTF-3D was weak and could be easily disposed of.

Time went on, and then was the birth of the Stalker STK-3F, and it was good. Though slow and ponderous, the mighty Stalker could mount six PPC’s and many a ‘Mech had its face crumpled under its withering power. But the masses thought this was bad, very bad.

The masses cried,

‘OP! OP! Lords something must be done!’

The Lords were unusually silent this time, but an enlightened few were whispering,

‘Convergence, convergence, convergence......’

And then something happened, something that shook everyone’s foundations to the core. A mightier than mighty Poptart was born.

The Highlander!

And the masses cried even louder!

‘OP! OP! Lords something must be done!’

And the Lords replied,

‘Fear not my faithful, we will use the magiks of Code to create Cockpit Shake!’

And the masses rejoiced, for the Poptart was dead, but those who could only point and click were dismayed they could no longer jump and shoot, and grumbled and raged in the Temple of the Forum,
but all the while the enlightened few who remembered ancient knowledge whispered,

‘Convergence, convergence, convergence......’

It was also at this time that PPC boats were upsetting many. Many ‘Mechs were falling to the might of the six PPC’s, and the pilots of the STK-3F were happy sniping away.

‘OP! OP! Lords something must be done! Make them run too hot!’

And the Lords replied,

‘Fear not my belligerent disciples, with our mighty magiks we can create The Holy Heat Penalty. With this powerful magik, if they fire more than two at once they’ll will burn in the fire of overheat!’

But the enlightened few who remembered ancient knowledge were louder,

‘Convergence, convergence, convergence....’

The masses rejoiced! But the sneaky Stalker pilots figured out how to thwart the wrath of the Holy Heat Penalty by mounting different types of PPC and for them this was Good. The masses looked on in wonder, still their ‘Mechs were being destroyed quickly, still they were being sniped to a fiery death.

‘OP! OP! Lords something must be done! They have thwarted your mighty magiks!’

And the Lords replied,

‘Fear not our belligerent faithful, we have created new and mightier magiks! The Holy Heat Penalty now has Weapon Linking! If the fire weapons of the same type and group they will burn for their defiance!’

And all the while, the enlightened few who remembered ancient knowledge were shouting,

‘Convergence! Convergence! Fix Convergence!’

And the masses scratched their heads in wonder, how could smaller weapons run as hot as larger weapons, it did not make sense!

‘Lords!’ they cried ‘What have you done!’

And the Lords replied,

‘We have answered your prayers, your rants, and your incessant whining! You told us Heat would make things better! You told us Heat was the answer to your woes! We gave you the mightiest of the mighty Holy Heat Penalty!’

And all the while, the enlightened few who remembered ancient knowledge were screaming,
‘Convergence! Convergence! Fix Convergence!’

The End.....

And the finality of this story is, while the masses cried Heat! PGI said OK. When the problem is instant convergence. The Community spoke, now the community must deal with their decision.

[Oshay]

Hot cocoa, forged in the fires of the Holy Heat Penalty™, makes this story even better.

[Archtype]

PPCS are still stupidly low. Speaking purely from a lore standpoint, this makes no sense. nothing carries 6 ppcs. why? because even if you found a way to slam them in, the heat scale in the turn you alpha would reach astronomical levels instantly blowing up your mech. Properly representing the idea that 6 ppcs is effectively two full weapons systems on an equivalently classed mech (eg awsome).

Convergence, convergence is something to chant for. Though it is important to remember that at one time there was also the need for a considerable amount of lead for a long shot, which is gone. You could leave convergence alone, so long as PGI moved back to creating weapons system as balanced but unique! if a ppc behaved in a significantly different manner than a gauss, the convergence point would matter significantly less to someone on the move and under fire. Sure they go right where you point them, but in exceptionally different time frames

[Dark Angel 79]

Amazing Story, Gripping even. I would say you might be on the way to a #1 Best Seller, Encore! Encore!

[Sharp Spikes]

GlycerineOxide, I am afraid your attempt at being funny and sarcastic kind of failed.
There are ways to significantly improve weapon balance through changes in heat system. It isn't community's fault, that PGI chose the worst imaginable way to attempt to do so and failed miserably.

[Anais Opal]

Next

The Ten Commandments of MechWarrior Online!

[Anais Opal]

Sharp Spikes, on 01 August 2013 - 05:34 PM, said:

GlycerineOxide, I am afraid your attempt at being funny and sarcastic kind of failed.
There are ways to significantly improve weapon balance through changes in heat system. It isn't community's fault, that PGI chose the worst imaginable way to attempt to do so and failed miserably.

Wasn't attempting to be funny, was being creative, some of us are some of us aren't, seems you misunderstood that, sorry if that got lost in translation somewhere.

I count 10 people that disagree with your first sentence, sorry your out voted

Anyhoos,

The problem with ERPPC's PPC's, Gauss AC20's and any combination of them doing pinpoint damage and coring out 'Mechs quickly, has, is and always will be, Instant Convergence.

In fact, I had a lengthy discussion yesterday with Niko Snow (while arguing over a forum ban, I can be a naughty girl sometimes) andhe indirectly indicated that it was indeed community feedback that lead to the current Heat implementation.

I'll say that again in case you missed it

indirectly indicated that it was indeed community feedback that lead to the current Heat implementation.

Have fun when someone builds a Clan Omnimech with 4xAC40's and cores your Atlas front to back with a 160 point alpha strike.

Enjoy!

Edited by GlycerineOxide, 01 August 2013 - 06:50 PM.

[Sharp Spikes]

GlycerineOxide, on 01 August 2013 - 05:59 PM, said:

Wasn't attempting to be funny, was being creative, some of us are some of us aren't, seems you misunderstood that, sorry if that got lost in translation somewhere.

Well, my English possibly failed me, but I understand thread title and opening post as an attempt to mock members of community who were criticizing PGI's balancing efforts. It isn't the case, right?

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I count 10 people that disagree with your first sentence, sorry you're out voted

Being arrogant [censored] I am, I could not care less if I am a minority or not

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The problem with ERPPC's PPC's, Gauss AC20's and any combination of them doing pinpoint damage and coring out 'Mechs quickly, has, is and always will be, Instant Convergence.

I understand that and agree. I think anyone who tried to think about it will agree.
But in answers to ATD #42 devs mentioned that it is hard to come up with working convergence-based solution for a purely server-authoritative game. As we don't have clans here yet, PGI could buy themselves some time to devise something by adopting some of the heat-based solutions offered by the community.

Quote

In fact, I had a lengthy discussion yesterday with Niko Snow (while arguing over a forum ban, I can be a naughty girl sometimes) and he indirectly indicated that it was indeed community feedback that lead to the current Heat implementation.

If community feedback was interpreted by PGI as a request to create heat-penalty system we're «enjoying» now, this game is doomed. There's no hope.

Quote

I'll say that again in case you missed it indirectly indicated that it was indeed community feedback that lead to the current Heat implementation.

Thanks for repeating. I am not stupid, I just look that way

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Have fun when someone builds a Clan Omnimech with 4xAC40's and cores your Atlas front to back with a 160 point alpha strike.

I'll say that again in case you missed it. I understand that convergence is the problem. It was in every mechwarrior game released so far and sadly it is in MWO. Something must be done about it. That doesn't mean that heat mechanics should be completely dismissed as a tool to balance weapons, and in no way justifies that masterpiece of pure idiocy that is called «heat penalty system».

Quote

Enjoy!

Oh, my joy knows no limits, because it's impossible to find limits of a thing that doesn't exist.

[Anais Opal]

Ah now that reply was better, it had wit! I like a guy with some wits.

Anyway,

Think PGI needs to go speak to the peeps at SoE.

They've had server authoritative cone of fire scaling accuracy mechanics for their games for what, 10 years? Planetside 1 + 2 for example.

Edited by GlycerineOxide, 02 August 2013 - 01:10 AM.

[Wesxander]

There was once players who played battletech minatures. Saying heat should not be problem for 6 ppc mech then show me a mech from 3050 with 6 ppcs. Show me one from 3055 technical readout. Yet you claim heat should not be an issue. So why have heat sinks then? Just put weapons in don't worry about heat as you can cool down fast enough. Alpha strike kill something cool down rinse and repeat. If you want get rid of pinpoint shooting, so be It. They could always put in a hit location table from battle tech eliminating the need for auto aimers but then all the "skill gamers" would cry foul. One the issues like it or NOT is HEAT being abused. There is no explosion penalty unless you override. 6 ppcs x 10 heat each =60 heat on the old battle tech sheet game you be in serious trouble for anything above 28 heat. 60 heat minus 24 max heat sinks = 36 heat someone should be rolling for engine explosion then. Again in classic battle tech show me a technical mech readout that had 6 ppcs or any combo there of say 4 ppcs 2 er large etc etc. It doesn't happen for a reason. There was one tank I think had 4 maybe 5 er ppcs but tanks in BT do not worry about heat. That's separate issue for them they have different rules for armor and heat as such.

Edited by Wesxander, 02 August 2013 - 12:37 PM.

[Jack The Ripper]

Heat penalties may not be perfect but they are a step in the right direction. I remember in the earliest days of closed beta the head hit boxes on most mechs were so big all you had to do was blast a guy in the face with an AC20 and it it was pretty much a one hit kill every time. You could sometimes find teams of mostly Atlases fighting a team of mostly Jenners. And after that it was the UAC5 with no jamming mechanic. Any attempt to make the game balanced is good as long as they don't overdo it.

Edited by Jack The Ripper, 02 August 2013 - 03:24 PM.

[TheSteelRhino]

There is no one solution.

Heat is a necessary part of the equation. Now I think the Heat scale should be more like tabletop, but plenty has already been said about heat

Pinpoint needs to go away. Period.
As far as convergence goes, your lousy inner sphere targetting system should be capable of being set to have weapon x converge with similar (all ppc for example) at a certain preset ranges. Target is inside that range, they have not converged. Outside the beams/bolts cross. Torso weps and arm mounted weps should be less likely to hit same area.

In short when weps are spread around a mech the trigonometry involved and the angles is different for each weapon leading to different targetting solutions

If you have 2 lasers, ppc , autocannon in same arm for exame then yes the targetting solution is much easier

Alpha strike shouldnt be the most effective way to fire. They should be the most DESPERATE way to fire

Edited by Rhinehardt Ritter, 02 August 2013 - 04:38 PM.

[Anais Opal]

ok ok ok, lets clarify some things,

This post is not about Heat it was a creative way to outline the fact that we ended up with a complex mish mash of heat scales and a severely overdone penalty system because the majority moaned and thought Heat was the answer to not being sniped to death in a matter of seconds. There are a couple of posts still going about the 2xERPPC/Gauss sniping which wrongly assumed the heat penalties would solve

Heat is a PARTIAL problem that I agree with.

The underlying instant convergence mechanic is the root of the 'omg! I've had my CT blown in two shots' ranting that was and is still going on.

With all the screaming about Heat, this was forgotten. This wee story attempts to serve as a reminder that you can pretty much fart about with heat to your hearts content but it will still not solve the QQ about being cored in a matter of seconds.

I personally think that many, many players aren't capable of looking deeper at an issue before they QQ or simply rant because something is flavor of the month to rant about then failing to apply intelligent reasoning as they jump on the band wagon.

That's my opinion after a year of playing MWO and reading some of the most outrageously ridiculous posts on the forums.

I mean someone actually wanted a healer class of 'Mech created, well that was like /facepalm of the most epic proportions. This isn't WoW afterall....

Edited by GlycerineOxide, 02 August 2013 - 05:40 PM.

[Asmosis]

Wesxander, on 02 August 2013 - 12:37 PM, said:

There was once players who played battletech minatures. Saying heat should not be problem for 6 ppc mech then show me a mech from 3050 with 6 ppcs. Show me one from 3055 technical readout. Yet you claim heat should not be an issue. So why have heat sinks then? Just put weapons in don't worry about heat as you can cool down fast enough. Alpha strike kill something cool down rinse and repeat. If you want get rid of pinpoint shooting, so be It. They could always put in a hit location table from battle tech eliminating the need for auto aimers but then all the "skill gamers" would cry foul. One the issues like it or NOT is HEAT being abused. There is no explosion penalty unless you override. 6 ppcs x 10 heat each =60 heat on the old battle tech sheet game you be in serious trouble for anything above 28 heat. 60 heat minus 24 max heat sinks = 36 heat someone should be rolling for engine explosion then. Again in classic battle tech show me a technical mech readout that had 6 ppcs or any combo there of say 4 ppcs 2 er large etc etc. It doesn't happen for a reason. There was one tank I think had 4 maybe 5 er ppcs but tanks in BT do not worry about heat. That's separate issue for them they have different rules for armor and heat as such.

well, with some basic TT math, 30 heat threshold + 19 DHS = 68 heat before reaching 100% in a turn. since all heat and heat sinks are applied simultaneously, you can quite easily use builds like we are using now in a TT ruleset. you can stay well under your 100% (for one turn at least) while firing off 4+ PPC's. you dont ever reach 120% heat with an alpha as heat sinks are deducted before heat penalties are applied.

why they dont get used is because they are bad when you can't target one section. they are not heat efficient, and strike random locations etc.

*edit*

I do agree that the current situation is as a direct result of the playerbase complaining about the perceived problem as much as the real one. While i dont like the current system it is admittedly better than the prevous scenario, and whatever system they chose, (heat, convergence, firing delay) there would have been an equally large outcry from the community.

Edited by Asmosis, 02 August 2013 - 06:21 PM.

[KhanRed]

Im not gonna lie, I was board with your creative writing... well written to an extent, but I fail to see the point, unless its "stop complaining, the devs cater to the weak and have no idea how to balance the game". You mention convergance, yet a good 25% of my PPC OR gauss fail to inflict any damage when they hit. YES its a hit, explodes on target, with no damage, its an issue with more than just myself. Sometimes they hit the rear and do damage to the front... I am quickly growing sick of this game, it pains me to say.

(PPC) HIT, HIT, HIT with no damage, and then heat is max... with a HE of 1.4 yah thats really OP. People complain about PPC, yet I would argue most energy weapons are UNDERpowered... expecially because of the new heat "balance". They have added rediculous heat penalties for alpha strike that affect STOCK MECHS, not just on energy but everything, for too many of a specific weapon (comming soon to combinations of weapons) just because a bunch of pugs cant play...

I am yet to see a single PGI person worth their tonnage play this game... most run light mechs. They got rolled with PPC in a game I was in; literally less than a week later the initial heat penalties showed up. No offence (well maybe some), but PGI "views" on balance are for the **** player because they themselves are **** players. I bet >75% of the people complaining are garbage players but talk on the forums non stop so they think they are experts. After the last patch I read they are going to increase heat on PPC and ERPPC EVEN MORE than they just did, in the near future! I hope you introduce the new pulse balance and see how that goes before just arbitrarily raising heat again...

Thats the beauty of the mech bay; Im able to put something together that works best for me... can't figure it out? THERE ARE BUILDS PUBLISHED ONLINE, its not rocket science and some varients ARE garbage, so it CAN be tough to get a good build sometimes, but if people keep complaining about OP were going to end up with a bunch of presets; hell were already there... PGI, you aren't telling me what to run and what not to run, but you sure are trying to dictate what I run with **** balances... based on the track record since closed beta (no not all balances were bad), anything super effective in ANY future will be nerfed.

HEY EINSTEIN... you dont want your CT cored in 2 sec? Don't stand out in the open for everyone to shoot you or run off all alone. If you peak over an area where a group of baddies are looking, youre going to get poped, period, end of story, go cry to mama. Ive seen Cataphract 4x stand in the open expecting to take down one of the 5 guys they are looking at; they die and say "F'n PPC's", I say youre "F'n Dumb". It doesnt matter what youre getting hit with at that point, if youre focus fired, you die almost 100% of the time. Ill do it from time to time... its not the weapons fault, its my own dumb *** when I do that, sometimes it pays off.

This game is ADVERTISED AS: THE SMART PERSONS SHOOTER, yet balance after balance, PGI proves otherwise... Its the idiots shooter... heat math makes no sense, end game damage math makes no sense... I can only imagine what PGI ISNT telling us about, I guarantee its not "nothing" (it wouldn't surprise me if they "tweaked" the volcano map trying to further reduce PPC boating; ironic timing otherwise, expecially with several other glaring issues this close to official launch). No wonder they won't publish how the rolls work for us to see. IM CONVINCED there is more intentional stuff (not bugs or balance issues) going on than we know about. I hope you read this PGI... I hardly ever get on the forums, nor do my friends.... there are alot of LOYAL, adult, MW fans out here that think you are handling the balance aweful, youre alienating us every time you **** balance like this, we arent dumb; youre balances have to be some of the least thought out balances Ive seen, most make no sence logicly aside from trying to punish the players that are "too good". How about a match maker that actually works, tonnage AND player experiance! You have had since closed beta to figure that one out and still havent, it should be easy if as many people play as claimed. Maybe you should focus on that rather than turning the game to ****?

All that being said, I only have one mech that runs PPC... many of these "balance issues" haven't effected me. Ive killed plenty of PPC boats, Im not afraid, I don't think they are OP... play smart and you win, thats all there is to it... PPL compairing this to TT game need to stop. Its impossible to compaire the two, mechanics are totally different; here I dont aim with dice. Also the convergance... it still takes talent to hit with all weapons if they are in arms/torso, unless your locked... then you cant aim up, down, or over with your arms so theres the trade off. People today are just sore loosers... every one expects to be the best all the time and thats just not the case.

While I agree with you Glycerine to an extent, but convergance is not the issue... my hit % is around 50% with both PPC and Gauss. Now Im far from the best sniper, but I regularly do large ammounts of damage, usually most on the team or lance, but I doubt many people have a rediculously higher % than that. If I had to guess, most people are around this mark. I think its more player intelligence. Ive seen people ignore an almost dead assult just to chase a light mech arond the corner into the swarm of baddies... and healer mech?!? Lol, I think you helped prove my point by bringing that up; its called a repair bay and I would be ok if they NEVER show up... /facepalm indeed!

Edited by KhanRed, 02 August 2013 - 07:56 PM.

[Anais Opal]

Thank KhanRed for that well thought out out response. Honest and to the point.

'Im not gonna lie, I was board with your creative writing... well written to an extent'

That was a good way of saying I didn't like it, but you did a good job of writing it. Thank you for that x

I agree on maybe 95% of the points raised, but maintain that convergence is responsible for burst high alpha damage that is crippling the game play, forgot about arm lock, that just exacerbates the issue.

We are one month from official launch and there are still may many many issues needing fixed first.

Khan's post outlines most all of them, and god yes I hope someone at PGI reads this, in fact with peoples permission I am going to raise a support ticket correlating the comments from this thread.

Please indicate your support for that in the comments below this post.

[Big Giant Head]

If everything is Okay, there has to be reason why large number of players are still complaining.

Edited by Big Giant Head, 03 August 2013 - 07:36 AM.

[Julius Septim]

Who cries?

Best thing they did actually was the Heat Penalty

My mean thoughts

i think what ppl cry about is a different thing called Package loss or Hit Detection.

But hey, better test 3PV then everything is better... NOT!!!

Edited by The Man of Steel, 03 August 2013 - 07:43 AM.

[KhanRed]

Packet loss isnt the issue. Heat penalty is the WORST balance ever Man of Steel... explain why my 3erppc alpha strike 30damage overheats almost instantly, yet I have another mech that alphas 50 and I can shoot over and over and over... better convergance too, not telling what it is... dont want it nerfed. ;P

Edited by KhanRed, 05 August 2013 - 06:40 PM.

[DeaconW]

KhanRed, on 05 August 2013 - 06:33 PM, said:

Packet loss isnt the issue. Heat penalty is the WORST balance ever Man of Steel... explain why my 3erppc alpha strike 30damage overheats almost instantly, yet I have another mech that alphas 50 and I can shoot over and over and over... better convergance too, not telling what it is... dont want it nerfed. ;P

2 PPC, 2 Gauss Cataphract? Oh, the nerf is coming to Gauss...just wait. It is ridiculous, but it is coming...the nerf-ragers are winning and won't stop til we can only fire one SL and one MG without incurring a penalty.