57 replies to this topic

[Gas Guzzler]

I mean, would it? People still like to buy mech packs to bring in revenue, game balance is pretty good. TTK varies from very fast with mistakes to decently long with thoughtful play (people are engaging early and surviving the match, so it must be possible in some sense...). All the vocal people on the forums are playing the game anyway, even without Energy Draw.

No one is going to quit the game suddenly because of the status quo. People may get frustrated with the potential issues of a new system and decide to look elsewhere.

Is Energy Draw really going to make the difference between retaining new players? Or is it more likely more game modes and more thought put into Faction Play would be better than that?

It just seems like there is more of a downside in terms of community happiness with the game with releasing a gameplay shifting style of mechanic like this one, vs leaving things as is.

[Spleenslitta]

Dropping ED? I'd love to see it burn. As for GH....i never boat so i don't give a damn.
But i'd like GH / ED to be replaced with a system that isn't so.....mediocre. So boring.

Gas Guzzler, on 29 August 2016 - 12:28 PM, said:

TTK varies from very fast with mistakes to decently long with thoughtful play (people are engaging early and surviving the match, so it must be possible in some sense...).

I'm gonna sound very annoyed and bitter now....i'm not angry with you Gas Guzzler. I'm not saying you're wrong...on the contrary. You're right.
I'm just...annoyed by how people judge things before they even give it the slightest chance.

I've been doing things differently than others for years and i survive even so. You're right. It's all made possible with thoughtfull play.
Wanna know the problems that stops players from doing it all over the place? Most people are too impatient and narrowminded.
They tend to be incapable of reading a textwall about tactics, feints, psychological trickery and advantages of mixed range builds.

It cannot be explained with just a single sentence.

I made a guide on how and it's in my textwall guide link that is in my signature.
I go alone....i stay away from my team. Being near them tends to get me killed quicker.

But people are either too narrowminded to believe staying away from your team in a light or light medium mech is a good idea.
Or they cannot gather the courage to fight one of the biggest textwall monsters on the MWO forums.
One guy claimed he read and understood the contents of my 5 posts long guide within about 4 minutes.....

You press that link and look at the maps and rows of text inside those spoilerbuttons.
The complicated stuff start inside the second spoilerbutton in post 2#.....That map alone will make you think - What has he been drinkin'?
I'll bet you cannot understand what the heck is going on in my head within 4 minutes after clicking that link.
MWO: Forums - Non Meta Light Mech Tactics Guide.

Edited by Spleenslitta, 29 August 2016 - 01:08 PM.

[1453 R]

Short answer: yes.

Gas, I get that you hate the thought of having to not deal ninety damage a shot anymore, but people have been kvetching about the current system for as long as the current system has been the current system. Yes, at this moment Ghost Heat has been slap-patched and band-aided and hotfixed and shoehorned and shenanigans'd and otherwise kludged into something resembling balance, but let's face it - it's a fundamentally garbage system that has required three years to slap into something even vaguely resembling shape.

It offers zero capacity for scaling or individual tweaks of specific 'Mechs or specific weapons, it largely invalidates smaller or hardpoint-starved 'Mechs unable to get around Ghost Heat's numerous game-breaking loopholes, and also it's a horrific mess that takes multiple hours to explain to new players because IT MAKES NO GODS DAMNED SENSE. It's also an extremely binary system which has no impact on actual gameplay, as it is defeated in the 'MechLab rather than played with/around in-game. It is never acceptable or tactically appropriate to breach a Ghost Heat limiter; most competent players specifically build their 'Mechs to be incapable of doing so for this exact reason.

Furthermore, Ghost Heat does nothing whatsoever to curb the instagib one-shot attacks that are the real thing people complain about. People who kvetch about TTK aren't kvetching about TTK. Almost universally, the complaint is "I got my side torso alpha'd off in one shot from a Dire Whale/Kodiak/Stalker/Whatever, and I don't think that should be possible!" Ghost Heat does absolutely nothing to curb the ability of players to put ninety-damage gigapsikes downrange, as is proven by the fact that players constantly post new threads about that time earlier today when they took a ninety-damage gigaspike and were removed from the match before they got a chance to properly be in it.

Ghost Heat is a bad, awful, crappy system that has needed to be replaced since it went into the game. Players here never stop bashing Piranha over the fact that they never 'rip off the band-aids' and try to implement new, fundamentally more correct/less awful systems in their place. Now they're doing exactly that...and people won't stop bashing them in an attempt to preserve Ghost Heat because they don't like not being able to instagib heavies anymore even though they've spent the last three years complaining about other people instagibbing their heavies.

Energy Draw is not going to be perfect out of the gates. It hasn't had three years to get zombified into something vaguely resembling proper balance yet. That's why it's in testing. It has been in public testing for barely more than a week.

Yes, it would in fact be terrible to drop a system Piranha's put months of resources into prototyping, without a proper test sequence, simply because tournament players are salty. Let's actually TEST this PTS thing, eh? Give them more than one revision, and remember that gut-punched feeling of inescapable loathing you first felt when Ghost Heat went live.

[ScarecrowES]

1453 R, on 29 August 2016 - 02:13 PM, said:

Ghost Heat is a bad, awful, crappy system that has needed to be replaced since it went into the game. Players here never stop bashing Piranha over the fact that they never 'rip off the band-aids' and try to implement new, fundamentally more correct/less awful systems in their place. Now they're doing exactly that...and people won't stop bashing them in an attempt to preserve Ghost Heat because they don't like not being able to instagib heavies anymore even though they've spent the last three years complaining about other people instagibbing their heavies.

Ok, so... ED is also a band-aid. Just getting that out of the way. By definitition, it's designed to cover up the fundemental flaws of the base heat system - hence, band-aid. Nothing about the base system or why it causes the problems it does has changed under ED. It's just a mechanic that adds another layer of complexity to an already broken system.

Also, this band-aid now includes the one it's supporters are trying to get rid of. As of PTS2, ED includes GH as a core mechanic. That's right... core mechanic. You now can't have ED without GH.

If you are stumping for ED, you're just stumping for a more complicated form of ghost heat which supporters acknowledge needs a LOT of work and is not nearly as balanced, currently as the live game with just GH alone.

I hate to have to point this out, but, it seems a shame not to.

[1453 R]

ScarecrowES, on 29 August 2016 - 02:20 PM, said:

Ok, so... ED is also a band-aid. Just getting that out of the way. By definitition, it's designed to cover up the fundemental flaws of the base heat system - hence, band-aid. Nothing about the base system or why it causes the problems it does has changed under ED. It's just a mechanic that adds another layer of complexity to an already broken system.

The base heat system is clearly incapable of performing the job players expect of it, i.e. limiting instagib potential to statistical outliers/things that happen to Locusts. Ghost Heat is also incapable of performing this function. ED does perform this function to a greater or lesser extent, revision-dependent. It may be a band-aid, but it eliminates a lot of additional, unnecessary band-aids whilst doing a better job of performing the tasks the players who're driving this test actually want from their system - i.e. limiting/eliminating instagib potential.

ScarecrowES, on 29 August 2016 - 02:20 PM, said:

Also, this band-aid now includes the one it's supporters are trying to get rid of. As of PTS2, ED includes GH as a core mechanic. That's right... core mechanic. You now can't have ED without GH.

Oh, knock that off already. What Piranha did in PTS2 was adjust values for individual weapons, something ED is capable of and Ghost Heat is not. That is a strength of ED, not a deterrent against the system's use. Yes, they phrased it in terms of "players want to be able to fire [X] number of [W] without penalty", but we're not back to Ghost Heat. A weapon's ED value can be plainly displayed in its tooltip (why it hasn't been yet I'm not sure, but they've said they're going to and I'll be p!ssed if this goes live without that information being added), and the explanation "firing more points' worth of weaponry than you currently have energy means you suffer a heat penalty, based on how high the overage is" gives new players the gist of the system in one sentence.

Remember "Ghost Heat: The Maths"? Which required multiple charts, graphs, and equations to try and explain, with numerous '4-step' processes that were actually six or seven-step processes?

Yeah. Why do you guys want to keep that so badly, again?

ScarecrowES, on 29 August 2016 - 02:20 PM, said:

If you are stumping for ED, you're just stumping for a more complicated form of ghost heat which supporters acknowledge needs a LOT of work and is not nearly as balanced, currently as the live game with just GH alone.

I hate to have to point this out, but, it seems a shame not to.

I'm stumping for a proper testing cycle. You guys have been stumping for Piranha to excise the system since before it went on testing. Ghost Heat is bad. The base heat system clearly can't do what people want it to do and thus, for purposes of this discussion, is also bad. ED has the potential to be better. Let's see where it goes, shall we? It ain't live yet, let it live on the PTS for a while longer while we and Piranha both gnaw on it for a while.

[Tiantara]

- ED don't have GH in it. Because heat penalty after depleting ED pool can be changed individually to each weapon, not to group of weapon. More of it, it can cap damage not by heat, but through penalty of exceeded energy. Think that penalty is something like GH not truly correct. It's penalty for each DAMAGE point you do over Energy Draw pool. Stay in energy pool - and you save from penalty. Not like you got more heat because you just have more than one similar weapon.

[Gas Guzzler]

1453 R, on 29 August 2016 - 02:13 PM, said:

Short answer: yes.

Gas, I get that you hate the thought of having to not deal ninety damage a shot anymore.

Stop right here.

Cut the BS. There is not a single mech I use regularly that does more than 54 damage per alpha (and even that is rare), and those mechs are significantly outclassed by mechs with much lower alphas.

This is about hampering all sorts of mechs, not even alpha mechs, but burst mechs as well. The fact that you can't even take advantage of the full burst DPS of 2 UAC10s under energy draw is an atrocity to me, let alone using other weapons with those UAC10s. Firing in series isn't a solution, it just means its not worth using.

You may think its a great idea that a Dire Wolf can't do more than ~30 damage at a time, but that sounds like a joke to me. If you can't see the side effects of what Energy Draw is proposing, then you are demonstrating a CLEAR lack of understanding of this game's mechanics.

And you can totally break the Ghost Heat limiter with cLPLs and cERLL, its not that bad. I think for the cLPLs, its actually less punishing with Ghost Heat than it is for PTS 2 Energy Draw.

The funny thing is, all the specific weapon tuning you are talking about is a sham. All that "tuning" just represents a shift in whatever weapon is boated at high level play. Its a bad joke. Those 90 damage giga spikes aren't even a thing anymore. Put the boogeyman to rest. Dual gauss, laser vomit Dire Wolves have been shelved. Quad UAC10 Kodiaks have been shelved. Insta-gibs not related to mass focus fire don't happen unless you are either a light mech standing still or a medium mech that gets shot in the back.

I don't want to wait 2 years for PGI to get Energy Draw figured out and be balanced. Chances are it will never actually be balanced, because certain boated weapons will be better than others. The weapon balance on the live servers is pretty good.. we don't need to throw that away. If they want to replace ghost heat with a better system, then that's great, but this isn't it. Better visibility doesn't make it better, nor does nerfing already sub-optimal builds, while leaving some of the better mechs unaffected.

1453 R, on 29 August 2016 - 02:40 PM, said:

Oh, knock that off already. What Piranha did in PTS2 was adjust values for individual weapons, something ED is capable of and Ghost Heat is not. That is a strength of ED, not a deterrent against the system's use.

Ghost heat isn't capable of treating different weapons differently? So I can fire 6 PPCs without ghost heat just like I can fire 6 MLs without ghost heat? Since when?

[Tiantara]

Quote

Ghost heat isn't capable of treating different weapons differently? So I can fire 6 PPCs without ghost heat just like I can fire 6 MLs without ghost heat? Since when?

- If you take each weapon by 1-2 and group them, GH can't limit them all by heat or make them do more heat because, as I remember, all weapons gets same GH coefficient. Like if all weapons was same weapon. In ED you can up some weapons ED draw and make impossible to use that weapon in any group or with any amount of same weapon. Like that.

Edited by Tiantara, 29 August 2016 - 02:50 PM.

[AnTi90d]

..from Scarecrow's poll, it looks like PGI/MWO will have more players and thus more sources of revenue by dropping Energy Draw.

-----

If ED is kept:

.. increase my play time (and possibly spending) into MWO. 48 votes [28.24%]


.. decrease my play time (and possibly spending) into MWO. 60 votes [35.29%]

If the ED is killed:

No change to playerbase. 120 votes [70.59%]


..decrease to the playerbase. 50 votes [29.41%]

-----

It's a bad business decision to not drop Energy Draw.

People will leave MWO if ED lives. People won't leave MWO if ED dies.

A company would have to be run by a blithering idiot to make a decision that is guaranteed to chase away customers.

Edited by AnTi90d, 29 August 2016 - 02:54 PM.

[ScarecrowES]

Tiantara, on 29 August 2016 - 02:41 PM, said:

- ED don't have GH in it. Because heat penalty after depleting ED pool can be changed individually to each weapon, not to group of weapon. More of it, it can cap damage not by heat, but through penalty of exceeded energy. Think that penalty is something like GH not truly correct. It's penalty for each DAMAGE point you do over Energy Draw pool. Stay in energy pool - and you save from penalty. Not like you got more heat because you just have more than one similar weapon.

What, then, is the actual difference between saying - in GH - that 4 SRM launchers is the most you can fire simultaneously before incurring heat penalties, and - in ED - saying we've tuned draw values to allow 4x SRM6 launchers (thus 4 of any SRM launcher) to be fired without incurring heat penalties, even though that's clearly 48-52 damage, not 30? To my mind, that's literally the same thing.

ED was supposed to be a system that closed the loopholes and removed the complexity of GH, right? One rule - don't fire more than 30 damage at once. Except, these weapons, which we've tuned to this percentage because we only want you to be able to fire 2 at once. Oh, and these ones, because we feel like you should be able to fire 3 not 2... well, wait, now we want you to be able to fire 4. And of course these ones, because you should probably not be able to fire more than 5 of those.

And I guess while we're at it, we don't like that you can fire these ones and these other ones together and not get a big penalty. And these ones, while there's nothing wrong with them stat-wise, just feel too useful for us... so we need to change those too. And these ones, because even though they're working as intended, are still not that good.

At this point, ED is literally just GH with a fancy new bar. That it creates the same rule not by specifying it directly - but by adjusting specific stats and variables to make it so - is immaterial.

[Gas Guzzler]

1453 R, on 29 August 2016 - 02:13 PM, said:

Yes, it would in fact be terrible to drop a system Piranha's put months of resources into prototyping, without a proper test sequence, simply because tournament players are salty. Let's actually TEST this PTS thing, eh? Give them more than one revision, and remember that gut-punched feeling of inescapable loathing you first felt when Ghost Heat went live.

What evidence do you have that the issues are simply "Tournament players being salty"? As per the usual, just defacing an argument that doesn't agree with yours. I will test whatever they put on the server, I'm just saying, if it is either this restrictive, or there is no reason to do anything other than boat AC5s or some other ED efficient weapon, or both, its a disaster, and will leave us with about as much relative variety as we had in the poptart era.

Is it so hard to believe that players who spend hours and hours testing things to figure out the best mechs and loadouts for a particular situation might have a better handle on the game mechanics and balance than those who just play around in the solo queue with whatever they want? Just maybe? And that just maybe, they can see beyond that 4v4 PTS with no matchmaker and full of people trying out different random loadouts?

[ScarecrowES]

AnTi90d, on 29 August 2016 - 02:54 PM, said:

..from Scarecrow's poll, it looks like PGI/MWO will have more players and thus more sources of revenue by dropping Energy Draw.

-----

If ED is kept:

.. increase my play time (and possibly spending) into MWO. 48 votes [28.24%]


.. decrease my play time (and possibly spending) into MWO. 60 votes [35.29%]

If the ED is killed:

No change to playerbase. 120 votes [70.59%]


..decrease to the playerbase. 50 votes [29.41%]

-----

It's a bad business decision to not drop Energy Draw.

People will leave MWO if ED lives. People won't leave MWO if ED dies.

A company would have to be run by a blithering idiot to make a decision that is guaranteed to chase away customers.

I included those questions specifically to see what the reaction to the community in either case would be - as the business perspective is a very important consideration. After all, this game exists to make money. What impact does this system have on play time and revenue, long term?

Note that if ED gets put in, PGI stands to gain little favorable interest from players, most of that tepid. Meanwhile, the percentage of the community that will react the same or worse is much larger, and they feel more strongly negative about it. Meanwhile, if we just stick with ghost heat, it stays business as usual for PGI. More that 70% of players saying they'll just keep on playing? Ouch.

Combine those with the metrics produced as to whether players feel ED promotes build variety better than GH vs those who think that a system SHOULD promote build variety, and the metrics for those who think ED will produce better matches, etc. Interestingly, though about 50% of players have a tepidly favorable opinion of ED overall compared to GH, not nearly that much wants PGI to invest more effort into further developing the system. Not much in ED's corner here, sadly.

So yeah, from a business perspective, ED is much more likely to hurt PGI's pocketbook than help it. Then again, if PGI could be relied upon to make changes in a way that actually would benefit their pocketbook, the game would be in a much different state. I wouldn't put it past the powers that be to shoot themselves in the foot.

Granted, not everyone who stamps their feet and threatens to take their ball and go home will do so. Much of that is guaranteed to be hyperbole... I wouldn't expect ALL of the people who say they'll reduce play time to do so any more than those who say they'll increase will do so. However... spending money on the game? You can bet this will be impacted, more likely in the negative direction than positive, as those trends tend to go.

Edited by ScarecrowES, 29 August 2016 - 03:14 PM.

[Tiantara]

- Funny thing that many people make decision about mechanic by testing it in Training grounds with few builds or... in few Quick Game queue battles with radome builds without even thinking what to test and how. Or even change build to new one.

Quote

People will leave MWO if ED lives. People won't leave MWO if ED dies.

More funny here that people who think that ED bad - judge by videos and other people comments or even try to build totally new mechanic don't even trying current on PTS.
A see really few players on PTS2 and I'm here nearly each evening. Also on live server nearly all players. All want their leaderbords... planets... no one care about new mechanic. All problems starts when system go to live and without proper tests and tweaks... well...

We all have great opportunity to make what we have now better use current tool as springboard to better numbers for each weapons to make them balanced and useful for each builds and, as well, make each mech playable.
But no... I see nerly empty server and few really curious pilots who want try new and test it.
Did you know that here is map with different temperature zones? Where test of mech from that map?
Where battles 8 vs 8?
Where post about results of that battle?

I write everything I found on PTS. If it good - ok. If it bad - I describe it too. Now I even make short video. Nearly week I searching for way to make PPC vital weapon not long cooldowned over-hot gun which shortly would be changed to LPL and eat all ED points. Check every build which can use 3 of them and how they affected if ERPPC become limited to only 2.
Check not only heat, but speed of cool off. That's why new test penalty number of 1 too much.
Want better ED than it now? Go check it, find way how to improve. Because it just a tool. And every tool need to be adjusted!

[Gas Guzzler]

Tiantara, on 29 August 2016 - 03:19 PM, said:

- Funny thing that many people make decision about mechanic by testing it in Training grounds with few builds or... in few Quick Game queue battles with radome builds without even thinking what to test and how. Or even change build to new one.

More funny here that people who think that ED bad - judge by videos and other people comments or even try to build totally new mechanic don't even trying current on PTS.

I dropped on the PTS for hours the first evening, after that I couldn't get matches so I stopped, but I get how the system feels, that isn't an issue for me.

[Tiantara]

Gas Guzzler, on 29 August 2016 - 03:21 PM, said:

I dropped on the PTS for hours the first evening, after that I couldn't get matches so I stopped, but I get how the system feels, that isn't an issue for me.

- Yeap PTS1 have more people. Now here less. I try to collect together as much as possible and always open for battle in Private Lobby. Battle 8 vs 8 on PTS1 was great. Now... I hope we can collect at least 16-32 pilots to make test more close to real combat with different tonnages, builds and mech.

[ScarecrowES]

Gas Guzzler, on 29 August 2016 - 03:21 PM, said:

I dropped on the PTS for hours the first evening, after that I couldn't get matches so I stopped, but I get how the system feels, that isn't an issue for me.

In fairness, PTS1 was actually a little more fun because people hadn't quite figured out the NEW loopholes yet. People were actively trying new things, so variety was actually pretty nice, if you could wade through the PPFLD to get there. PTS2 kinda took a nose-dive once players figured out what, exactly, the new paradigm was. Variety didn't last very long.

[Gas Guzzler]

Tiantara, on 29 August 2016 - 03:25 PM, said:

- Yeap PTS1 have more people. Now here less. I try to collect together as much as possible and always open for battle in Private Lobby. Battle 8 vs 8 on PTS1 was great. Now... I hope we can collect at least 16-32 pilots to make test more close to real combat with different tonnages, builds and mech.

I was referring to PTS2.. the first night there were matches.

PTS1 had matches for a few days at least.

[1453 R]

Gas Guzzler, on 29 August 2016 - 02:44 PM, said:

This is about hampering all sorts of mechs, not even alpha mechs, but burst mechs as well. The fact that you can't even take advantage of the full burst DPS of 2 UAC10s under energy draw is an atrocity to me, let alone using other weapons with those UAC10s. Firing in series isn't a solution, it just means its not worth using.

You can do it. You can't do it every three seconds. Again, Ghost heat is a binary ******** system. It exists as a 'MechLab consideration, not an in-game mechanic you can play around. If your 'Mech is even capable of breaching Ghost Heat limits, most players would consider it a failed design.

Words cannot readily describe how putrid Ghost Heat is. They really can't.

Gas Guzzler, on 29 August 2016 - 02:44 PM, said:

You may think its a great idea that a Dire Wolf can't do more than ~30 damage at a time, but that sounds like a joke to me. If you can't see the side effects of what Energy Draw is proposing, then you are demonstrating a CLEAR lack of understanding of this game's mechanics.

Dire Whales can deal ~2x to 4x the damage of every other non-Kodiak 'Mech in the game. They also have the best armor/structure in the game. yes, they're immobile slugs that can be played around, but heavy and assault 'Mechs being able to double, triple, or more the firepower of any medium or light 'Mech is absolutely a contributor to the overly top-heavy nature of the current game. Neither base heat nor Ghost Heat acts as any realistic kind of limiter on fatbros' abilities to instagib anything below fifty tons, and to cripple most anything with a single heavy spike.

Considering you're also accusing me of being an incompetent hack unable to see my own feet through my sheer, overwhelming scrubness, lemme ask you, Gas - would any competitive player ever take a medium or light 'Mech in any situation or circumstance at all, whatsoever, if most of the usual competitive formats didn't force them to?

I'm betting no. Because larger 'Mechs have enormous advantages in both firepower and durability that the mobility advantage of smaller machines simply cannot readily offset - and I say this as a rabid fan of my lovely new Vipers and someone who has tried very hard, over the years, to be a pretty dedicated fastbro pilot.

In a Viper, I have to outplay a Whale for over a minute to bring it down, I have to play flawlessly to do it, and I have to pray it doesn't have help. The Whale only has to hit me once. Once. In a game dominated by combat without any meaningful objective play, that doesn't seem particularly balanced to me. Maybe it's time to see what happens if the Whale has to hit things twice.

Gas Guzzler, on 29 August 2016 - 02:44 PM, said:

And you can totally break the Ghost Heat limiter with cLPLs and cERLL, its not that bad. I think for the cLPLs, its actually less punishing with Ghost Heat than it is for PTS 2 Energy Draw.

"It's not that bad" in ultracomp 'Mechs with thirty-seven heat sinks and moving 55kph with their 255 engine. In 'Mechs that actually work outside of hyperstratified 8v8 tournament play with strictly enforced tonnage/weight class limitations? In the Mosh Pit where the rest of the game lives? Breaching a Ghost Heat limiter pretty much means you die.

Gas Guzzler, on 29 August 2016 - 02:44 PM, said:

I don't want to wait 2 years for PGI to get Energy Draw figured out and be balanced. Chances are it will never actually be balanced, because certain boated weapons will be better than others. The weapon balance on the live servers is pretty good.. we don't need to throw that away. If they want to replace ghost heat with a better system, then that's great, but this isn't it. Better visibility doesn't make it better, nor does nerfing already sub-optimal builds, while leaving some of the better mechs unaffected.

I don't want to play another two years with the radioactive @$$-stain that is Ghost Heat still poisoning my MWO game, either. I get the feeling I'm going to have to, though.

Gas Guzzler, on 29 August 2016 - 02:44 PM, said:

Ghost heat isn't capable of treating different weapons differently? So I can fire 6 PPCs without ghost heat just like I can fire 6 MLs without ghost heat? Since when?

Ghost heat sees absolutely no difference whatsoever between one medium laser and six medium lasers, or anything in between. Fire seven medium lasers and it throws a literally volcanic fit, but fire six medium lasers and Ghost Heat doesn't exist for you. Fire six medium lasers, two large lasers, two AC/10s, a Gauss rifle, a PPC, two LRM-20s, three SRM-6s, an MRM-40, a HAG-40, an Arrow VI, your Titan's Laser Core, your Karasawa beam rifle, and your Hellfire Shotgun(s) at your enemy, all at the same time, and Ghost Heat doesn't exist for you. Sure, that's currently theoretically impossible...but really, does it need to be possible to illustrate the fact that Ghost Heat is bad, it should feel bad, Piranha should feel bad for implementing it, and we NEED NEED NEED NEED NEED NEED NEEEEEED to get rid of it already?

Gas Guzzler, on 29 August 2016 - 02:59 PM, said:

What evidence do you have that the issues are simply "Tournament players being salty"? As per the usual, just defacing an argument that doesn't agree with yours. I will test whatever they put on the server, I'm just saying, if it is either this restrictive, or there is no reason to do anything other than boat AC5s or some other ED efficient weapon, or both, its a disaster, and will leave us with about as much relative variety as we had in the poptart era.

Is it so hard to believe that players who spend hours and hours testing things to figure out the best mechs and loadouts for a particular situation might have a better handle on the game mechanics and balance than those who just play around in the solo queue with whatever they want? Just maybe? And that just maybe, they can see beyond that 4v4 PTS with no matchmaker and full of people trying out different random loadouts?

I'll ask again, then: what's the solution, Gas?

The current game largely invalidates 'Mechs below seventy tons. Ghost Heat doesn't even limit alpha damage anymore - the limits have slipped far enough that you could probably eliminate Ghost Heat altogether with no replacement system and not see much change in the game. Sure, PPCs might be a bit more popular again, but you can already throw out as absolutely much damage as you like. Ghost Heat hasn't been a real factor in increasing TTK, limiting instagibs, or controlling the game's damage output for many months now. Piloting anything that can't take multiple 50-damage shots is highly contraindicated, what with Sphere 'Mechs having three times their native durability in quirks and Ghost Heat limits being effectively void without actually letting players do what they like on a 'Mech or avoiding the "6 MLs is fine, 7 MLs is suicide" issue.

I'm clearly too brain-damaged down here in T3 to have any idea how to pull my pants on in the morning, let alone suggest fixes for the game or express an opinion that isn't "bluuughhghghh hahahaha funny birdie!". Got to leave it to our Magnificent T1 Overlords to tell us all what's best for us. A'ight, will do - what's best for us, Gas?

[cazidin]

Yes. Dropping Energy Draw would be a waste of development time, resources and frankly would lead us back to Ghost Heat. I don't want that, and we both know that PGI won't drop ghost heat. Energy Draw is a good system and it can work, the numbers just need to be tweaked a bit further.

Do not drop a system because you dislike it, try and fix it first.

[ScarecrowES]

cazidin, on 29 August 2016 - 04:02 PM, said:

Yes. Dropping Energy Draw would be a waste of development time, resources and frankly would lead us back to Ghost Heat. I don't want that, and we both know that PGI won't drop ghost heat. Energy Draw is a good system and it can work, the numbers just need to be tweaked a bit further.

Do not drop a system because you dislike it, try and fix it first.

*shrug*

http://mwomercs.com/...ference-survey/

No strong support, not meeting stated basic design goals, and very good possibility that putting it on the live server will cost PGI money. All VERY good reasons to drop it.

Though I wouldn't want PGI to give up. There are better systems out there.

And by the way... that last line of yours can go both ways, can't it?