Bishop Steiner, on 26 March 2013 - 06:31 AM, said:
@Altheus
Lets see.... Still running my CN9-D bone stock. If missiles stay as weak as current, that'll change, but it ain't the SHS that are the dealbreaker. I average 2 kills and 400 damage in it, so while not a world beater, I hardly feel handicapped. Of course I'm sure you guys all average 5-6 kills every match, with your optimized specials, which makes me wonder why you care what your teammates are packing, since you guys do all the heavy lifting anyhow.
Am I saying it's better by having SHS? NOPE. But I've never felt the need to spend the money to upgrade, either. I also do rather well running the HBK-4J, CTF-1X, AWS-8T and even do pretty good in a stock K2. In all cases, DHS is an improvement, but oddly, the ammo stores are far more a limiting factor than the SHS.
In fact, the general crap nature of trials ain't the SHS, but because the doubled armor has made most stock loadouts, and definitely ammo stores, inadequate. The simple fact that everyone builds their "optimized" customs around the alpha strike (traditionally reserved for desperation or coup de grace), instead of sustainable fire aggravates thing.
The
CN9-D has 10 SHS bone stock. This is how you run it? The 2 medium lasers alone would overheat you pretty quickly on either of the hot maps, and I'm sure you know just how many times you'll need to shoot someone with 2 medium lasers to even give them a mild headache.
The only way this mech doesn't benefit substantially from DHS is if your play style involves so much running and hiding your team mates take all the enemy fire, and only stepping out to take your pot shots when you are sure they're not focused on you. This strategy (and corresponding mech design) buckles when you don't have a strong team to carry that weight, or any time you face a group of "optimized" mechs that force a position you can't retreat from and blow you away with sheer firepower. At its best, the mech can only sustain a measly 2.67 dps without the LRM, which becomes a respectable 5.33 if you add DHS. Regardless, even if that is your play style, you can't seriously tell me you never get the overheat warning on the hot maps. That overheat warning is telling you you should have upgraded to DHS if you wanted to finish killing that mech in front of you.
All those other mechs you listed also see similarly enormous increases in performance which can be leveraged by novices and veterans alike. A
K2 firing PPC's with only 20 SHS? Be serious. If you "do pretty good" in that mech, you're ready to solo drop against a lance in a
K2 with DHS.
My primary concern is the new player experience, though. New players will get in that mech, look for an enemy, then try to shoot him to death. They'll fire their LRMs from 50m away, and do all sorts of other things we experienced players know not to do. The problem is, he doesn't have the requisite knowledge to carefully manage the severe limitations of SHS to achieve even a modicum of success. Maybe he'll learn, but here's the thing: Chances are the guy that new player is shooting at not only knows not to fire his LRM's from 50m, he also doesn't have those severe heat limitations because he designed his mech not to. That's why new player instantly gets his head blown off while he's looking at the ground in an offline mech.
This game has terrible new player retention. There
is a reason for that. You have decided for yourself that it has nothing to do with people disliking the ridiculously tight heat budget in trial mechs who don't stick around long enough to discover the options. I think you'd have to be crazy not to suspect it. It's a free to play game. People show up with 0 investment other than the time it took to download it. If the game doesn't prove to be fun, it's on to something else. First impressions are massively important, and this game makes a TERRIBLE showing of it - not ONLY because of SHS, but my bet is that annoying heat management made a significant contribution to a substantial number of players walking away before even getting out of trial mechs.
10
