39 replies to this topic

[FupDup]

EgoSlayer, on 20 December 2014 - 10:45 AM, said:

My TW example was that the exact same build with more dissipation is more powerful, not trying to build two TW's in the current system where one has more dissipation.

But the construction system doesn't let you have the same build with more dissipation. If you want more dissipation you have to reconfigure the build. Where would you get that extra tonnage for the heatsinks? You'd have to remove guns/equipment to get that tonnage, which means less upfront "burst" damage. It's a tradeoff.

EgoSlayer, on 20 December 2014 - 10:45 AM, said:

I'll try again, and your 1 on 1 is a bad example.

There are for simplicities sake three main reasons to disengage.
1) repositioning
2) under fire/avoid damage
3) At/near heat threshold/can't combat

There are plenty of times where one, two, or all three are in effect.
But in a fur ball, even in today's environment, there are also plenty of times where only #3 is in effect. Where you are not under fire, have free shots, and the enemy is unable or unwilling to retaliate. And these situations are where the "unbalanced boogeyman" changes the game and drops the TTK. The SPL Firestarter vs the lone DW for example.
End even more, everyone's time in #3 is reduces, so everyone can reengage faster so all combats get shorter.

"Too much of a good thing" means everyone can spend more of their time shooting, it doesn't matter if 80% of the time it's a wasted benefit, because its the 20% of the combat time that matters.

In case I didn't make it clear enough yet, when I'm talking about net heat I'm not talking about massively spiking up from 0% threshold to 70% threshold. Even having just a wee little bit higher heat per second than cooling per second counts, i.e. an arbitrary example of a build with 3.5 cooling per second but 3.75 heat per second qualifies.

I'm not saying that heat efficiency is bad. I'm saying that you don't want to have your threshold at 0% for the entire fight. Going a little above 0% heat is fine. Being able to fire for a decent period is good. I like efficient builds like muh precious 4 LPL + 27 DHS Warhawk. But being able to hold down the trigger for 15 minutes uninterrupted is fairly pointless. It's possible (and practical) to be heat efficient without being totally heat neutral.

The best way I can sum it up is:
All heat neutral builds are heat efficient, but not all heat efficient builds are heat neutral.


If a loadout has more than 1 weapon/weapon type mounted, the way it can still contribute damage during "situation #3" is by simply not firing every weapon at the same time until it cools down enough to fire da big gunz. I.e. a loadout with SRMs and lasers might hold off on the lasers for a salvo or two while still using the SRMs. The basic design principle for such a build would be for an alpha stirke to generate heat faster than the dissipation rate while having one individual weapon group generating less heat than the dissipation rate. So, it would fire alphas until it gets high up on the heat bar, then only fire that one group while it waits for the next full alpha to be possible (without shutting down).

The ERML/ASRM6 Timberwolf is a popular example of this, with a full alpha heating it up fairly quickly but the SRMs used without the lasers generating less heat than the mech dissipates.


Not every salvo needs to be a full alpha strike.

Edited by FupDup, 20 December 2014 - 11:10 AM.

[EgoSlayer]

FupDup, on 20 December 2014 - 11:01 AM, said:

<snip>

OK, we are not even talking about the same thing so I'll let this die.

Edited by EgoSlayer, 20 December 2014 - 11:14 AM.

[FupDup]

EgoSlayer, on 20 December 2014 - 11:13 AM, said:

OK, we are not even talking about the same thing so I'll let this die.

[Ens]

-50% heat generation for ERPPC´s is just insane. Period.

Tone it down to AWS-9M levels......far more reasonable

[AEgg]

Were you to increase heat dissipation, there would STILL be no reason to build a heat neutral mech.

Why? Because you could simply drop some heatsinks and add some hotter weapons instead. Thus still be fighting in exactly the same way, but doing more damage for it.

It's simply more effective to do all your damage upfront, then cool off, than it is to do damage over time. It doesn't matter how much heat efficiency you had. Even if no weapons produced any heat it would still be better to fire a shot then reposition than to stand and fight. Because if you stand in combat you're exposed constantly, and thus taking more damage from the people who aren't.

[Telmasa]

There are two reasons to not even think twice about a game-wide heat dissapation buff.

IS Wub boats, and Clan Laserbarf boats.


Personally alot of the quirked mechs seriously need their buffs to be capped at no more than 25% sum total.

[Tyman4]

Ironically, if PGI wanted to prevent the zerg rush that is community warfare, reducing TTK for rush tactics would actually make sense. Not saying I agree that only increasing heat dissapation is good but....

Tyman

[Slow and Decrepit]

I would rather see PGI double the armor values to help raise the ttk numbers and help out the new players. I think it would be accepted with less people going off the deep end as I think changing the heat scale would...

[MauttyKoray]

Matthias Malthias, on 20 December 2014 - 07:09 AM, said:

This topic is nothing new. But it does say something about the potential for change if we have been using the same broken system for nigh on 3 years.

Heat and dissipation thereof has been one of the primary issues of this game since weapon firing rates were doubled; yet dissipation was kept the same. The current implementation is extremely problematic; both from a build variety point of view and most importantly, from a new player experience point of view. The fact of the matter is that if you want to build a mech that actually works in the current game, you must run Double Heat Sinks.

• Canon variants mounting single heatsinks are almost entirely paper tigers. The AWS-8Q running the stock build is utterly incapable of dissipating its heat - you cannot fire any more than 1 single PPC without building heat. Yet, observe its heatcap: 58.00 - you can alpha strike with all 3 PPCs, wait 2 seconds, then alpha strike again to overheat. 60 pinpoint damage output is absolutely insane - you just have to wait a "mere" 20 seconds to do it again.
  
• In-Engine heatsinks being "true dubs" - 0.2 dissipation times 10 once 250 engine rating has been reached are the most slot efficient source of dissipation. So much so that using single heatsinks means an additional tonnage burden of 10 tons more of single heatsinks to match dissipation.
  
• Heatcaps in this game are out of control. Double heatsinks, providing 40% higher dissipation out of the engine and 40% higher heatcap, make most meta builds hit around 60+ heatcap on average. It promotes massive alpha striking. Mechs that should theoretically be unable to alpha strike can do so. Sometimes, and especially now with the quirk system, do so 2-3 times
  
• The result is hugely decreased time to kill and a massive emphasis on pinpoint, frontloaded damage; then veering off to cool down. Zero weapon convergence time doesn't help. The hardpoints system with no limitation of the number of slots a weapon takes up also doesn't help. A Ballistic mounting that would hold a machinegun in the TRO (Technical Read Out) can just as easily hold an AC/20.

Consider also the new player experience. A new player, with no mechs to his name; runs a trial mech, with single heatsinks. Let's say, this one. He enters the game, with no real tutorial experience, fires his weapons a few times, and overheats within 20 seconds and dies. With overheating now also causing random internal component damage; this is even worse for the new player; because single heat sink dissipation means he'll be taking heat damage far longer than DHS would let him take. Consider that 3 years into the game we have yet to see, in game, how much heat per second our build dissipates. Instead players have to rely on online tools like smurfy, unofficial, unendorsed and not linked at the login screen to figure out if their build works in the first place. That's utterly stupid.



The current heat system drives imbalance in the form of massive alpha striking, drives down build variety (especially now, post quirks), and drives away new players. It wasn't tenable in 2012 when players spoke up, the situation got worse with the introduction of Clan Mechs, and post Quirkening and all the imbalance that entails, the situation is even more critical.

So what is needed is a massive rework of the heat system. People should be able to fire 1 weapon on cooldown on 10+ SHS without building heat. Any less is a severe diminishing of the new player experience.

A better heat system would entail the following:

• Heatcap starts at 30 and should be hard to increase beyond that. Single heatsinks give 0.15 heat/second dissipation; and Double heatsinks, 0.2. None of this in-engine 0.2; out-of-engine 0.14 stupidity.
  
• Additional (out of engine) Single Heat Sinks (SHS) should provide 0.15 heat per second dissipation; and +0.4 heat cap. Thus, there are occasions where running an engine with 25 lower rating would be justifiable. Not only that but to actually make running SHS worthwhile. Even this buff would still make canon mechs build heat; but slowly. Of all changes, this is of biggest benefit to the new player experience. It also makes 2 SHS better than 1 truedub DHS in terms of dissipation - if you have the tonnage. By reducing the heatcap contribution of SHS heatcap is also harder to "boat". You're going to need 2.5 (3) tons of external SHS just to get to 31.
  
• Bonus heatcap should be a luxury; not the status quo. Alpha striking should always be of last resort; never the opening volley.
  
• In-engine SHS and DHS provide dissipation, but no additional heatcap. If you want to increase heatcap by boating SHS, you're going to need the slots for it; and the tonnage.
  
• Double heatsinks (DHS) provide "true" 0.2 heat/second dissipation in or out of engine, but no additional heatcap. Thus, you now have a true dichotomy of choice. If you want to play fire support/LRM boat/Snipe, you will want SHS. You can alpha (once), but you will take a while to cool down. If you want to brawl, you will want DHS. You can fire things constantly; but with a heatcap of only 30, a single alpha strike will shut you down.

Overall, any reimplementation of the heat system needs to discourage alpha striking to up the time-to-kill (TTK). It increases the skill floor if you can consistently hit the same spot on an opponent repeatedly over time despite torso twisting and LOS.



The new heat system needs to provide an experience to new players that is (almost) as competitive as mechs customised to role and min-maxed. I don't think I've ever played a game that has been as so actively discouraging to new players as MWO. Stock builds are really bad right now. If the community is to grow, the new player experience must improve.

As a last point; MWO wouldn't have needed so many balance tweaks in the first place if only they had gotten the heat system right in the beginning. The values we have right now, especially for Energy Weapons, are so out of whack that they're not even recognisable. Large Pulse Lasers have 30% less heat and 22% more damage (in game they're 7 tons, 7 heat, 11 damage). It's so divergent from tabletop values because the heat system was so borked in the first place.

Also, there needs to be a place in the Mechbay UI that lets us see Dissipation of Heat per Second ingame; and the heat/second of every weapon. Seriously. It's been 2 years. UI2.0 was an utter failure in my view because it still lacks this feature.

ಠ_ಠ WUHT

None of you realize that this guy right here just fixed the heatscale. This post coupled with looking at the hideously bloated armor values on mechs could actually possibly return this game to a true realization of a battletech inspired MechWarrior game. Oh my god its making me drool.

Edited by MauttyKoray, 20 December 2014 - 01:59 PM.

[Slow and Decrepit]

Is it worth it if it causes PGI to lose a lot of it's player base? I'm not so sure that we have it to lose...

[Alek Ituin]

beleneagle, on 20 December 2014 - 02:07 PM, said:

Is it worth it if it causes PGI to lose a lot of it's player base? I'm not so sure that we have it to lose...

Yes.

Because then we'll have a real BT game. You'd need to think about everything: What weapons you bring, how much HS to load, what engine size you need, how many weapons you can fire at once, weapon rotations that keep you in the fight longer, throttle setting, positioning... Setting a 30 Heat Cap is not only smart, but in line with basically every other BT/MW game out there. As it is now all you have to do is think "What do I need to do not to shutdown with each alpha strike?" because we have no heat penalties.

The fact you wouldn't have 60+ heat caps means you're barred by only being able to fire 30 heat worth of weapons before cooling off. At most, that's 40-ish damage, but I've always said the Gauss Rifle needs heat (lots too, it's an energy based kinetic weapon, they get hot IRL). Boating penalizes itself unless the pilot is smart, and when you add in harsh heat penalties for creeping past 50% heat... Nobody who's worth a damn will creep past 50% heat. Ergo, no more PPFLD Alpha Strike "Fire Everything!" bulls**t, less emphasis on PPFLD builds, and more emphasis on heat efficient long endurance builds.

Edited by Alek Ituin, 20 December 2014 - 02:19 PM.

[Matthias Malthias]

Darwins Dog, on 20 December 2014 - 10:05 AM, said:

I agree with most of your post, except that the trial mechs are all Champion mechs now. As far as I know they all come with DHS. This would be true of when they buy their first mech, but the trials, at least, are good builds.

If the heat system had been implemented correctly in the first place, would there have been a need for "Champion" re-builds of canon mechs in the first place? Consider the length of time the game went without Champion trial mechs. I would argue that the game's population would be significantly larger round about this time had Trial mechs running SHS actually worked in the first place.

Also consider build variety. Yes, the Champion mechs are competitive. Because they all run DHS. Does that seem right to you that out of the box, people have to fork out several hundred thousand C-Bills just to make the upgrade from SHS to DHS so the mech they buy works?

The current implementation of SHS simply leaves it unusable in almost every situation. Consider this: Firing 3 Medium lasers on a build that dedicates 15 tons out of 50 (30% of its entire mass) builds heat. Yet that same build can fire 8 Mlas, then 5 to hit 52/53 heatcap and veer off to cool down and do it again. I should know; because that was exactly what I was doing for 8 games until I got the Cbills together to upgrade to DHS.

The current mechanics of heat in this game are driving massive pinpoint alpha striking; be it SHS or DHS. Yes, in-universe, the introduction of DHS rendered SHS essentially redundant. But again, the minimal heatcap of 30 meant that Mechs could fire only 3-4 weapons per turn before risking heat penalties. DHS simply allowed hotter weapons to be fired while building less heat; at the cost of more slots.

A new system that gives both SHS and DHS similar but subtly different roles is what's required; because the current one isn't defensible. It does not drive good gameplay. If 30 heatcap was all that was available to players, would the era of jump-sniping with 3 ER-PPCs have persisted for as long as it had; and all the attendant heat nerfs and Jump Jet nerfs? How about now, where you can boat 7 MPulse, alpha strike twice in a row for 84 pin point front loaded damage and still have 16.4 heatcap left to chainfire before your next alpha?

As a last point, I'll leave you with this: With the implementation of Ghost Heat to discourage boating - in part driven by 60+ heatcaps - is this ridiculously huge table of heat penalties a real fix to a boating problem? Or a symptom of an utterly broken system in the first place?

[Rampancy]

... Am I seriously the only person glad that an Awesome chain-firing 3xPPC as fast as possible isn't heat neutral? Because that's what the "30 heat threshold! TT dissapation!" proponents are asking for.

Not to mention that the TT heat threshold was WELL above 30 in the first place (in fact, the MWO heat mechanics mimic this pretty well) because heat is tabulated at the END of the turn, not at the start.

[cSand]

why are people so twisted over PPCs?

even with buffs,
they move slow as balls and don't line up well with other weapons




Judging by these kinds of threads (of which there are many) you'd think both teams just stand in a line and blast each other like some crazy version of rock em sock em robots


YOU HAVE LEGS PEOPLE







USE THE LEGS

[kapusta11]

It's not about dissipation only, there supposed to be Heat Scale penalties, like in TT, to keep mechs away from becoming OP. But whatever, I'm not going to explain how it worked and where PGI went wrong if you don't want to listen.

Edited by kapusta11, 20 December 2014 - 11:46 PM.

[Tarogato]

We need to DECREASE heat dissipation. Things are way too cool and TTK is way to fast.

Longer battles, please. More tactical heat management, please.

Heat/override penalties that borrow mechanics from TT heatscale, please.

Please.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Then in addition to lowering the heatscale, increasing TTK due to RoF, buffing the CERPPC to 15/15, we can also add recoil to weapons that should have it. Cuz sorry, even a mech isnt going to be firing an auto cannon with absolutely no recoil whatsoever. MW3 has Recoil on it's PPCs and alot on the Gauss Rifle.

So if an old ass game like that can add it, there should be no good reason why it cant be added in MWO....unless modern game engines all suck, are horribly limited and well...just suck....im beginning to get the picture that the old game engines were better...lol. Atleast old games the HUD didnt lag the hell out of the game, MWO, it does....why?

Edited by LordKnightFandragon, 20 December 2014 - 11:59 PM.

[Matthias Malthias]

RampancyTW, on 20 December 2014 - 11:17 PM, said:

... Am I seriously the only person glad that an Awesome chain-firing 3xPPC as fast as possible isn't heat neutral? Because that's what the "30 heat threshold! TT dissapation!" proponents are asking for.

Not to mention that the TT heat threshold was WELL above 30 in the first place (in fact, the MWO heat mechanics mimic this pretty well) because heat is tabulated at the END of the turn, not at the start.

If you read my original proposal; you'll note that even with 0.15 HPS dissipation SHS; firing 2 PPCs will still build heat. The AWS-8Q would have 4.2 dissipation per second (2.8 with current 0.1 HPS/SHS); whereas 2 PPCs build 5 HPS. So heat is still a problem. And again, the problem is not only that heatcaps are so ludicrously huge in this game but also that the current mechanics reward overwhelmingly an opening alpha strike.

That the TT heat threshold could be above the theoretical 30 also ignores heat penalties and also that engine heat in MWO is essentially ignorable. Running hot in TT even risked ammo cook-off; not just mech shutdown like we have in MWO. It's entirely routine in MWO; if not optimal, to be hitting 80% or even more of heat threshold; to really push the mech's DPS to its absolute limit.

If running at say, 60% threshold was punishable by say, slowing the mech down or torso twist/arm movement it would already punish alpha striking as an opening move. If 90% also constricted peripheral vision to reflect pilot discomfort you can bet that people would try to avoid firing more than 2-3 weapons at a time.

But again, the question of "heat neutrality" shouldn't figure into whether this would certain make mechs OP or not. Numbers can and should be tweaked so that firing multiple weapons should build heat. Even the AWS-9M had to volley fire 2-1-2 in the Tabletop to avoid building heat. Doing so in MWO would still build heat even in my proposal.

[Joseph Mallan]

EgoSlayer, on 20 December 2014 - 03:20 AM, said:

Time to Kill (TTK) would drop seriously with just a heat dissipation change. Many more changes would be required to make it viable, like reducing the heat capacity as already mentioned. But that probably wouldn't be enough by itself as heat neutral or near neutral builds wouldn't be affected by a lower cap.

And you are against taking less time to kill your opponents? Really?

FupDup, on 20 December 2014 - 11:01 AM, said:

Not every salvo needs to be a full alpha strike.

Mine do. Cause thats how I roll!

[Tyman4]

-Mattias " if not optimal, to be hitting 80% or even more of heat threshold; to really push the mech's DPS to its absolute limit."
Also, unless I'm confused heat dissapation increases with a larger difference in absolute heat yes? Therefore running hotter should actually cool you down faster? Physics and stuff whoopie

Tyman