121 replies to this topic

[Corvus Antaka]

my 4 ERPPC stalker loves this thread. cant wait to blast everyone with quad PPC again for 40 damage at 900 meters.

I can still run the mech well with ghost heat, without it it'll be like x-mas all over again.

oh yeah, and the dual ac/20 jaegger will be everywhere again too no doubt.

[990Dreams]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 27 November 2013 - 01:27 AM, said:

my 4 ERPPC stalker loves this thread. cant wait to blast everyone with quad PPC again for 40 damage at 900 meters.

I can still run the mech well with ghost heat, without it it'll be like x-mas all over again.

oh yeah, and the dual ac/20 jaegger will be everywhere again too no doubt.

Psssshhhhh. I run dual AC/20 Jagers all the time. Anyways, removing ghost heat is kind of stupid. I think that it will ruin the game a little.

[MajorLeeHung]

Iv always advocated building balanced mechs. I personally have never used a 6xPPC boat or anything like that but I think ghostheat is kinda lame. Let ppl drive what they wanna drive.


edit: I lied. I do have a 2xAC20 Jager. I fail

Edited by MajorLeeHung, 27 November 2013 - 09:54 AM.

[990Dreams]

My about me has a full argument about ghost heat.

Edited by DavidHurricane, 29 November 2013 - 02:57 PM.

[Blue Footed Booby]

Degalus, on 24 November 2013 - 09:54 AM, said:

1. How does that stop the 6xerppc stalker? Without Ghostheat he could fire one salvo without overheating like before. Sure the second shot need little more cooldown but he can still alpha them. Dont want the Stalker PPC nightmare again.
...

The six PPC stalker was never good. It has never not been bad. It is, was, and likely always will be awful. It's a gimmick build through and through that is trivially easy to counter by anyone capable of both paying attention and counting to one, since after one salvo it has to either sit there staring at the enemies or fire again and promptly explode. Can it kill someone before it dies? Absolutely, but it's rare for it to get more than one, and trading a kill for a mech is not a good thing. At the very best it contributes nothing to the team while weighing a whole lot more than many mechs that are dramatically more effective.

You may disagree with this assessment. That's ok, but you need to actually justify that position. You can't just wander into the thread, assert that hex stalkers were a huge problem, and then expect everyone to take that as indisputable fact.

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 27 November 2013 - 01:27 AM, said:

my 4 ERPPC stalker loves this thread. cant wait to blast everyone with quad PPC again for 40 damage at 900 meters.

...

Quick: how much heat would 4 PPCs generate now without ghost heat? Remember that PPCs got nerfed separate from ghost heat.

Quote

oh yeah, and the dual ac/20 jaegger will be everywhere again too no doubt.

The suggestion in the OP doesn't end with "...and then never adjust any weapons ever again." The whole point of the thread is that ghost heat did a crappy job of solving the problems it was intended to address while adding a whole bunch of new problems.

[Fooooo]

Blue Footed Booby, on 29 November 2013 - 03:57 PM, said:

Quick: how much heat would 4 PPCs generate now without ghost heat? Remember that PPCs got nerfed separate from ghost heat.

I have a hard time with 2ERPPCS and 22DHS on a flame. 4ppcs is 10 more heat per alpha than the 2ER's and I get about 3 or 4 alphas before shutdown with 2ERS.

All without ghostheat having any effect.

I agree Im not sure its even really needed now that they changed ppcs heat, you can't really boat more than 2ERPPCS or 3PPCS effectively.....and as you said, it jsut caused a bunch of new problems.....

[990Dreams]

Gauss darn it you guys...

Ghost heat should have been implemented once they added technology to the game (i.e advanced descriptions of Battlemech operations). Heat is an accumulative effect. It has to build up. Of course, there are more variables, but that is beside the point. You have to learn how to balance your Mech's heat.

[Drunk Canuck]

Mellifluer, on 26 November 2013 - 12:16 AM, said:

"heat sinks get overwhelmed"

facepalm.....
your heatsinks get overwhelmed in TT when you try to cram 4 erppcs in a mech and fire with only 10 standard heat sinks because your expecting 10 heatsinks to cool 40+ heat. either the builders intention was a joke or he had no concept of how mechs are designed.

so i say (why i have to i don't know)
if a mech makes 30 heat from its weapons but also has 30 heat worth of heat dissipation then it can fire its weapons all day long, chain fired or alpha striking. it doesn't matter because it was built with enough heatsinks to handle it. there is no "saturation of the heatsinks" going on in a properly built mech.

"saturation of the heatsinks" <- also does not happen, its about temperature differentials. the larger the delta (temp dif vs surface area contact) between two surfaces the faster the heat moves to total equilibrium relative to the thermal resistance of those two elements(which changes with various factors).

what happens when heatsinks "overheat" is that whatever they are cooling, overheats and likely melts.

the heat-sinks themselves are not really "damaged" or get "overexerted" by too much heat. eventually they melt physically too but what really happens when a mech's fusion engine containment fails and is no longer able to contain/manage its own heat (usually a result of battle damage) and heat (or other things that reside in a fusion engine) then spews into the mech melting and destroying internal parts and eventually the engine itself goes critical and boom.

fukoshima is a perfect example, the heat containment system failed because of the hurricane and BOOOM the cores went thermal blasting the roofs and the walls off of the containment buildings and spewing all sorts of nasties into the open.

but i bet the physical heat exchangers in fukoshima are still somewhat intact (even if not operational).

however, mechs are built to use their heat sinks to maximum efficiency. thus why you find many mechs in TT that can only fire their long range weapons in a given turn, or their med+short range weapons in a turn.
but never that ac-20 with a 2x PPC's. no no no. in TT the low heat limit makes all sorts of mechs IN THIS GAME completely unmanageable in a way ghost heat couldnt even dream of.

QQ is not valid in real war. they don't really nerf weapons/builds because they seem overpowered. i mean we only have been making smaller atom bombs since the 60's right? or wrong? better or worse tanks/aircrafts/ships since WWII?

rather in real life and in TT mechs became more and more pointed to their purpose and in essence much more powerful and deadlier then old school stock mechs.

ghost heat says your heat bar is a total lie. that's all. ghost heat is not good/bad/indifferent. it just blatantly lets you know that your heat rating is total bullocks. ->truth <- my problem with it, completely BS game element, not steeped in science and battletech lore but some strange... idk words escape me.

that is why people are having issue with ghost heat is because the interpreted interaction with this phenomena appears to come from dimension X folding in on itself and that this collapse manifests itself in our dimension as ghost heat. no reason no rhyme, nothing for us mechheads that crunch these numbers religiously.

so why even have a heat bar at all? i mean its all relative anyway hot, cold... all the same in its own way right?



i mean is there any defence really for this? really? the smallest guns next to small lasers and machine guns? make the MOST heat? bah. people can QQ all they want about "it fixes this or that" all the time avoiding the fact that ghost heat MAKES more problems THEN it solves.

I run AC40 Jagers and can deal with the ghost heat. If you can't manage heat, you suck *** at this game. It's the first thing that determines the skill of a pilot both in the game and in the series as a whole. Adapting to the environments, knowing when to fire and how frequently can allow you to avoid overheating and having ghost heat problems. Honestly this game is as balanced as it is going to get aside from dual UAC + dual AC2 dakka Jagers who just sit there and cockpit shake you from 900 meters and do tons of damage.. People need to suck it up and learn to play.

[Lightfoot]

Ghost Heat or DHS 1.4. The two together are too much for MWO to simulate Battlemechs correctly.

If Ghost Heat is kept it needs to be a net amount per weapon DPS, give or take. Right now it's just a nerf for large energy weapons and nothing else. That's not a MechWarrior game. You will eliminate about one third to one quarter of Battletech's Mechs.

[Lightfoot]

@'Drunk Canuck'

ROFL!

I think we all just Learned2Play with mostly autocannons, but that's not MechWarrior, it's GunWarrior. I will continue to press PGI to make MWO more faithful to Battletech. They use the stock Mech loadouts so they must want to emulate Battletech. Meaning my Awesome didn't suddenly sprout AC20's to compensate for Ghost Heat.

[Victor Morson]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 27 November 2013 - 01:27 AM, said:

my 4 ERPPC stalker loves this thread. cant wait to blast everyone with quad PPC again for 40 damage at 900 meters.

With the heat output you'd make, I find this acceptable. The DPS would be so vastly reduced when cooling is taken into consideration from the previous version - to say nothing of the velocity change which is a huge deal - this would be an entirely balanced assault.

Edited by Victor Morson, 01 December 2013 - 04:37 PM.

[Khobai]

Quote

my 4 ERPPC stalker loves this thread. cant wait to blast everyone with quad PPC again for 40 damage at 900 meters.

I can still run the mech well with ghost heat, without it it'll be like x-mas all over again.

oh yeah, and the dual ac/20 jaegger will be everywhere again too no doubt.

1) remove ghost heat
2) add splash damage on PPCs (and lower their heat)
3) make autocannons burst fire

fixed.

The problem is PGI doesnt seem to understand their own game mechanics. They dont understand how detrimental and outright broken pinpoint damage is. And they dont understand that spreading damage around is the best and simplest way of fixing it. Ghost heat was overcomplicated, completely contrived, and ended up hurting the weapons that werent broken far more than the ones that were.

Edited by Khobai, 01 December 2013 - 04:47 PM.

[Victor Morson]

Also we should at least agree to this: Even if you like or dislike the idea of Ghost Heat, it is still the most poorly thought out, illogically linked and ridiculously random system with absolutely no UI in either Mechlab or in game to manage it, ever conceived.

And also that of all the ideas to limit single-weapon alphas, which I oppose in general, this was the absolute worst and most poorly thought out one.

So even if you think the idea of it is good (it isn't), you have to at least agree the execution is a train wreck of stupidity.

Edited by Victor Morson, 01 December 2013 - 04:41 PM.

[990Dreams]

Ghost heat needs a UI display. Problem solved.

[Victor Morson]

DavidHurricane, on 01 December 2013 - 04:43 PM, said:

Ghost heat needs a UI display. Problem solved.

While I don't believe it'd solve the problem (it needs to go), I do absolutely agree that if it's staying, it needs a freaking clear in-game UI and also warnings that appear in mechlab.

[990Dreams]

Victor Morson, on 01 December 2013 - 04:52 PM, said:

While I don't believe it'd solve the problem (it needs to go), I do absolutely agree that if it's staying, it needs a freaking clear in-game UI and also warnings that appear in mechlab.

Okay, ghost heat is the unfortunate reality of thermal behavior (thermodynamics). I can post an explanation if you want one. But yeah, the Smurfy UI is good, why can't PGI do it (just saying)?

[Aleksanteri Bekker]

Lightfoot, on 01 December 2013 - 04:34 PM, said:

I will continue to press PGI to make MWO more faithful to Battletech.

Then you should be pushing for Stock Only. Allowing mostly-free loadout customization without any mechanics to try and keep things balanced overall is just looking for easy minmaxing.

I see plenty of energy weapons in every single match. I use energy weapons on every single one of my 'mechs. But I never boat them. I guess thats why I'm not bothered at all by "ghost heat". Stop trying to munchkin everything and you'll be fine.

Victor Morson, on 01 December 2013 - 04:40 PM, said:

Also we should at least agree to this: Even if you like or dislike the idea of Ghost Heat, it is still the most poorly thought out, illogically linked and ridiculously random system with absolutely no UI in either Mechlab or in game to manage it, ever conceived.

And also that of all the ideas to limit single-weapon alphas, which I oppose in general, this was the absolute worst and most poorly thought out one.

So even if you think the idea of it is good (it isn't), you have to at least agree the execution is a train wreck of stupidity.

I've seen your post making points about why Ghost Heat is "the WORST. POSSIBLE. THING.", but I haven't seen any of your own proposals. Not saying you haven't made any, I just haven't seen them. Since you believe that its soooooo obvious Ghost Heat is "the WORST. POSSIBLE. THING", I'm interested to see how you would incentivize a more balanced-loadout meta compared to pre-GhostHeat.

[Void Angel]

Cementblade, on 24 November 2013 - 08:25 AM, said:

victor pretty much summed it up for ghost heat.

Victor Morson, on 16 November 2013 - 05:22 PM, said:

Before people jump in saying how it fixed 6 PPCs stalkers or more "LOL You just want 4 PPCs again LOL!" I would like to remind people of all the reasons Ghost Heat is the single worst game design element ever committed to a game:

• Absolutely no UI. No indicators as to Ghost Heat limitations, when it kicks in, how much it has kicked in, etc. are given to players outside of that small hardcore handful of us that read the forums and/or spend time in Smurfy's. This is while they try to appeal to a casual demographic, no less.
  
• Rewards Macros and External Programs. Due to reason #1, the half-second timer isn't even indicated to the player so they know when it is safe to fire again. Thus most good players running boated weapons turn to macros to time it for them, while more casual players lose damage by trying to count it in their head, risking firing too early and cooking themselves.
  
• Many weapons nerf'ed that weren't problems. 9 MedLas? Not a problem. 4 Large Lasers? Not a problem. 4 AC/2? Not worth noting. Yet, these were all implemented hard and fast and have not been tweaked once.
  
• Completely illogical linking. 1x LRM20 3x LRM10 = 4x LRM20 Ghost Heat for 50 missiles. 2x LRM20 2x LRM5 = 0 Ghost Heat for 50 missiles. The list continues. Should ER Large and Large Pulse really be linked together?
  
• It's massively overly complicated. I know where the limits start and learned all the bizarre linkage rules, like how LRM5s are exempt, Streaks don't count towards a limit, how LPL and ER Large share a pool, etc. But then we get to the actual heat calculation which.. God help you. All most of us deal with is "Over X = Bad." But there is no rhyme, reason, or clarity at any given time as to why some ghost heat is so much worse than others, without complicated charts from the developer (that made things even worse) and large tables of numbers that actually at least show us some results (3rd party fanbase).
  
• Most of all, it didn't really work. What ultimately killed the PPC boat was fixing the XML data file for the PPCs. 4 PPC Stalkers - which were far better than 6 - continued until the day that happened, as did the general PPC Meta. There was a sharp drop in boat builds after Ghost Heat arrived but almost all of them were by people who didn't understand the rules for it and overcompensated with horrible builds. Twin AC/20 builds remain popular and pinpoint damage wasn't impacted in the slightest, just different weapons were used for it.

Well, #3 and #4 have some weight to them, but I have some problems with other points. In fact, numbers 1, 2, 4, and 5 are really much the same thing (and arguments to improve the system, not to abolish it.) There isn't anything about the system that can't be streamlined, which is not to say that couldn't use streamlining.

As for #6, you can make the argument that it didn't work perfectly, but it most certainly did work. It's not just the builds you didn't see any more - it was how the builds were used. You can walk onto the battlefield right now and see a 4xERLLaser Stalker - but he's not unloading all of those lasers at once any more. Similarly, while you did see 4xPPC Stalker builds after the Heat Scale system, they were noticeably less effective than before - because of the increased heat. The fact that additional nerfs were needed and implemented to drag PPCs back down into sanity doesn't erase the effect that the Heat Scale had in its own right. While different weapons are used to achieve pinpoint damage, it is far harder to match high-alpha weapons with near-identical ballistic characteristics, and the tonnage cost for doing so is generally higher than before.

Really, the actual problems with Heat Scale boil down to these points:

• It's undocumented in the UI. This is a huge issue, and one that should be corrected - with UI 2.0. PGI chose not to spend resources to update the current UI with the Heat Scale data. I don't know if that's the best choice, but hey, they didn't discuss it with me when they made the decision. The end result is that you don't have any indication in the mechlab or in matches that you're in danger of incurring Heat Scale penalties.
  
• It's fracking weird. Since the Heat Scale is set up on a per-weapon basis, there's not an overall rule that applies to all weapons. Since the UI doesn't help at all, you have to keep all these rules and connections between rules in your head, or else refer to out-of-game resources. This is a huge pain in the assets.
  
• It seems like it will be complicated to balance. From a design perspective, the Heat Scale system allows PGI to include the synergistic benefits of high-alpha builds into its weapon balancing on an individual basis; on the down side, the Heat Scale system adds a lot of additional variables to weapon balancing. I don't know that I'd want to have all those extra relationships to account for - though I'm not the one that has to use the system. Since we don't participate in the balancing ourselves, it's difficult to tell how much this actually affects balance difficulty in practice.

Every other objection I've ever heard about Heat Scale boils down to the belief that an alternate system would have done the job better. Which may well be true, don't get me wrong here - I really don't like Heat Scale. However, the Heat Scale system is not a game-ending horror of a mechanic. Once those first two bullet points are addressed, and they can be, the major difficulties with Heat Scale would be solved. Maybe we'll see that in UI 2.0; I hope so, but I haven't seen any PGI posts on it. Regardless, whether we like the Heat Scale system or not, it's important to be accurate on what is (and is not) wrong with it - if we want our opinions to be listened to.

PS: "Listening" is not a euphemism for agreement. Just because [insert complaint] has not been removed/changed/added doesn't mean PGI "isn't listening to us."

[Mazgazine1]

If Ghost heat was for pinpoint damage WHY THE HECK ARE SRMS ON IT?!

SRMs are as unpinpoint as you can get.. and yet firing more than 3 srm6s results in it..

Ghost heat needs to be revised or removed..

[Void Angel]

It's not just for pinpoint damage. SRMs do so much damage at close range that their spread damage isn't that important.