Posted 27 March 2013 - 08:48 PM
(Sorry, quotes don't want to work right now, and I'm not reworking my several hour post.)
Shumabot
In order of ease:
1. Make double heat sinks 1.0 in engine, 2.0 outside, making so that space was actually a meaningful consideration. I haven't done any testing with these numbers, and that could be too onerous to DHS, you run out of space pretty damn fast with dubs. These are spread sheet numbers. PGI could hotfix this with like two hours behind them. This would seriously shift the metagame away from energy boats, which at the moment would be great considering the sheer dominance of the ppc. It would probably hurt non ppc laserboats too badly, but then again those values can be fixed via a hotfix too. These aren't hard to change.End
This one I don't agree with. I think I know where you are going with this. You are trying to make a system for the DHS that doesn't reward people who take it just for the 10 (equal to 20) sinks in the engine. Am I right? I don't mind the thought behind it, and it would solve some of the problems, but however I think it would make the system even more confusing than before.
Personally, I feel this step should be 1.4 for Inner Sphere DHS, even in the engine. This will make the math for it a lot more simple. Larger mechs would barely benefit from DHS if they need a lot of them (Crit space to make up for the roughly 15 cooling from the engine instead of 20). It also would make larger or smaller engine sizes less relevant, as all sinks do the same inside or outside. All it will save is crit space with larger engines. Just my take if that is the problem you are aiming to solve.
Shumabot
2. Alter heat scaling so that capacity across the board is lowered but cooldown is greatly increased. Right now heat management is a joke. It's a system of containment, not of management. Most of the games powerbuilds can kill most of the others before overheating or function in a way that makes heat pointless (poptarts for instance). This is because heat is capacity first and recovery second, if a mech can take 80 heat and it takes 60 heat to kill something then there is no heat control system. If that same mech suddenly only had 40 heat capacity, but his guage emptied twice as fast it would force him to actually space out his shots (part of that alphastrike metagame people keep complaining about). With this change I would make it so that doubles would have twice the capacity but identical cooldown. A DHS mech would be able to fire bigger alphas longer, but wouldn't be able to sustain as well. This would be a much more major overhaul of the system.
End
I don't mind the current heat cap, but if lowered I can see this dropping a lot of the alpha build problems people complain about, and restore more balanced designs made for continual damage, to fill a role, or to poke hard and then wait and cool. Would slow down the matches more, which could be a good thing considering why armor got doubled after all.
Shumabot
I've thought of a few others, but they're mostly just permutations of these two. I honestly don't understand why they ended up with 2.0 1.4 for DHS numbers. Those are idiotic, anyone could see (and many did see) that they would lead to exactly what is happening now. A 1.5 mil tax on new mechs. I actually suspect it's an intentional tax meant to prolong the grind, but if it is it's a terribly thought out one that severely damages new players experiences with the game and punishes casual habituation.
End
I think the best way to resolve this would still be to have SHS increase cooling cap, making them better for a burst of damage but slower cooing, and have DHS have a lower cap but cool twice as fast. This would prevent alpha strikers from benefiting from DHS besides cooling faster even if they risk shut down more, and have SHS be more used for Alpha strikers, but be at more risk of being shut down longer when they do get too hot or shut down.
Personally, I think the payment for upgrades aren't bad, depending upon what might be done for CW and beyond. Right now, the game is incomplete and it, I will agree, doesn't make as much sense as it should besides as the proverbial tax at the moment.
Bishop Steiner
@Tesunie
Would love to, but admit, I have trouble looking atbheatsinks or any feature "on an island" as there are usually many factors at play. SHS are inferior to DHS, and are supposed to be. In the original model, after the introduction of doubles, they basically were the "economy" choice. Since we really don't have an economy per se, and no guarantee to one in CW, that makes them something of an orphan. And no economy model makes sense from an instaplay casual multiplayer perspective.End
I hope its a nice relaxing tropical island!
Joking aside, yeah. SHS in the current state is... out of place. Back when R&R was in, it really had a spot in the game. Now? Not so much. I hope they do something with CW to make SHS worth contemplating over DHS or something. I don't know. But it would be nice to see SHS have some kind of point and purpose, besides to be ridiculed. (Or to slightly increase your heat threshold but have slower cooling. Should test this sometime soon....)
Bishop Steiner
So how to mod them without breaking things further, or nerfing DHS in the process?
Efficiency would be one good model, potentially. I actually think the idea of singles having a better heat cap, while doubles disperse faster, might have merit. Or even the other way around, with doubles just allowing one a higher heat ceiling, but dispersal being the same, meaning that at shutdown a SHS mech would actually cool off and restart a lot faster from max load, but the DHS mrch could push much longer before running into shutdown/override scenarios, essentially. Something along either would actually give each a slightly differing level of viability, making each distinctly more viable for certain loadouts and playstyles.End
I could see that. Doubles having better efficiency though "higher max heat but same cooling" as singles. Still make them very nice. It's not completely true to lore, but it's such an interesting take that it could be explained easily as being more cool running efficient as you can shoot more without needing to stop and cool. But then, what keeps them from replacing SHS again in this system? Why would you take SHS? They would then have a lower heat cap and DHS would probably still have a better efficiency and no real reason to take them... Just what I'm thinking on the subject.
Bishop Steiner
Also the engine HS idea from Shumabot has some merit, though possibly I'd look at it a little differently. I agree its silly tye both take up the same amount of engine space, but different in the mech itself. Maybe whereas you can fit 1 SHS per 25 engine rating, make DHS occupy double the room in the engine, and allow 1 DHS per 50 pts of engine rating?
Then their space hogging WOULD be more consistent and make the space vs weight argument more viable. I also think it would severly curtail boating, because it would hurt the heat hogs, a lot. It might wreck some cannon builds, like the 9M awesome, but it's pretty much unplayable as a sustainable damage build anyhow, currently. But it might also allow all DHS to be used at true 2.0 efficiency, also. Someone with better modeling skills than I would have to confirm that, though.End
I could see this to. Larger sinks need more space, even in the engine. This could be one of the easiest fixes, as you would not need to change SHS for this to work. This would limit the number of max sinks you can place, especially in the heavier designs that have more tonnage than crits. It really would give SHS something to do, while not really taking too much away from the DHS. Would have to see how this would work before I could say too much on it.
Bishop Steiner
But, it would also open up a clear upgrade for clan tech DHS, by allowing them to fit the normal 1 DHS per 25 pts of engine, and their smaller crit footprint, in mech, which would still allow mechs like the Warhawk to be actually viable, instead of AlphaBombs.
What say you? These are just a few ideas based off this proposed, so certainly not saying they are perfect, but options for debate, if that can indeed be accomplished.End
I could see that too. Especially if they don't mix Clan and IS tech. It would still require a lot of balance I suspect, but this idea could also work. Of course, we don't know how the Clans will be implemented, so this is speculation, but good ideas too.
Joseph Mallan
You keep showing some kind of problem that I have 8 hours to post while I work.
End
I also can post while at work, so I tend to be on the forums a lot. It's a nice time passer, isn't it?
Joseph Mallan
If the Game dies you are right you won't have to deal with me, If the game succeeds, I intend to be here at least til Khan Osis's head rolls.
This we agree on. We need to have more content in the game.
End
I think most of us agree with this. CW hopefully will provide a lot of content, but that's speculation and we are really hoping here. I do hope that all this secrecy they are all hush hush about is something really big!
Thirdstar
That's not the point though. The stated intent of the contest was to build a Trial mech yes? What's the primary purpose of that? To teach newbies how to play.
Now no one can argue in good faith that the Dragon is a newbie friendly mech. It just isn't. Contest fails because Devs allow the Goons (and their pet Dev) to run rampant.End
I have to agree that the Dragon is not the easiest mech to learn to pilot, but the winning Dragon Trial I thought was well made. I voted for the Cataphrat as I felt it was a better training mech, but the Dragon was very nice too.
I don't think the Dragon won because of the Goons or a "pet Dev". I think it won because it had DHS, and XL engine, and a lot of other people have used that Dragon before who voted for it. I'm sure other people voted because they felt it was cool, nice to see a Dragon as a trial, or an easy kill in their opinion.
Some good points where made in this thread about the Dragon as a Trial mech, so I wont restate those same opinions. But, at the same time, I agree with you. As a training mech, I think there was better choices on the board.
Wintersdark
I'd definitely like to see something changed, because IMHO SHS's as they exist hurt new players but add little else to the game.
Yes, you can be successful with SHS, but this is not like discussing whether or not you should use a given type of weapon or not (as one can frequently see in, say, pulse vs. regular lasers). SHS and DHS lead to the same gameplay, but one lets you fire your weapons more often. In the present game implementation, DHS is simply better.
Lasers? Well, regular may be better overall, but at least Pulse lasers can bring a different style of play in - faster beam duration allows quicker turning after firing, easier to put all the damage in one spot, whatever - I don't want to start a debate about that.
DHS are nothing but a flat out numerical upgrade unless you've running more than 30 SHS, which is roughly where it's actually beneficial to use them. And that's not exactly common.End
Even when you use SHS in such quantities, you still even get ridiculed and told it can be done better. But, for the most part, agreed. There should be some reason, some give, for taking DHS. As it stands now, why not change over to this very rare tech? It's only in for the sake of game play, which I can agree with. But, I still feel things could be changed to make DHS be better, but not completely remove/replace SHS at the same time.
Wintersdark
So, given that... You don't want to nerf DHS, because that's a major change to how combat works. So, you pretty much must buff SHS, if you want them to be a choice rather than just "low level gear" and DHS's being a cash-sink upgrade.
Buffing SHS has the lovely side effect that it makes trial mechs suck less, which makes the new player experience better.
So.. yeah, that's really the only option. Buff SHS, or accept they are just there to allow DHS to be a cash sink.End
DHS should be better than SHS in some way. SHS could still have a mechanic to make them have a reason to be taken though, so it's a choice, but at the same time worth the upgrade cost to change them.
Then again, CW could make a reason (R&R or something akin to that) to field SHS instead of DHS. We don't know, and are really beta testing the play mechanics right now, and not the full game yet. I feel changing how SHS work slightly would help trials and new players, and leave it as an option (depending upon how it works if changed) for veteran players still over the DHS. I think we want them to have a nitch. Something to make them worth taking beside "lore". Though, I'm all for keeping things as close to lore as possible, I don't mind some small chances to improve game play mechanics at the same time.
Any other reasons for proposed changes? What bonuses or penalties do you think would happen if someone else's ideas where made into being for the changes (instead of your own)? Any other thoughts on how things could be changed to improve the system, without breaking too far out of the mold? I'd suggest coming close to lore, but if you are determined to break lore, why do you think it would be worth breaking from lore, and what would you do?
I think we are starting to get progress.
(Sorry. Wouldn't let me post this as quote openings didn't match quote closings, even though they did.)
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Atheus, on 27 March 2013 - 05:08 PM, said:
