92 replies to this topic

[Mystere]

And we have another thread titled:

Remove Single Heatsinks From The Game

And yet people here accuse PGI of thinking that "core players" really do not know what they want.

Edited by Mystere, 26 March 2013 - 11:43 AM.

[Teralitha]

More heat management and penalties is the way to go. A good start to that would be changing double heat sinks. But how?

I was thinking about it... and I suggest making all engine heat sinks unchangable. let them operate as single heat sinks even if someone upgrades to double for the standard engines. (XL engines should get the double heat sinks by default, it would be fair since they are easier to destroy)

Then, every double heat sink added beyond the hard coded engine heat sinks can be 2.0 or 1.4 or whatever...

Double heat sinks take up more crit space... so why is it logical that they can fit in a standard engine and not occupy more space? They should only be allowed to be outfitted with XL engines.

Edited by Teralitha, 26 March 2013 - 11:49 AM.

[Fenix0742]

Mystere, on 26 March 2013 - 11:42 AM, said:

And we have another thread titled:

Remove Single Heatsinks From The Game

And yet people here accuse PGI of thinking that "core players" really do not know what they want.

Except the other thread is running up 32 pages now. Clearly this thread is just a riffing off the success of the other, and both make valid points: Heat is a numbers game, and DHS>SHS. It would be nice if the devs could look past the simplicity of the arguments and see that the complaint from BOTH parties is "the heat system is pretty one-dimensional. What could be done to make it more interesting and provide an interesting choice between the two types of heatsinks?" Instead they ask "what can we do to sell more MC"

[Thirdstar]

This is a bad thread OP and you should feel bad.

[Alois Hammer]

Thirdstar, on 26 March 2013 - 11:52 AM, said:

This is a bad thread OP and you should feel bad.

OP, like the devs, only listens to the voices in his head that tell him how fantastic he is and as such doesn't care.

[Kdogg788]

I'm not sure I can agree with any of these threads. Just way too much discombobulated postings. Too many game scientists and game balancers. More penalties and harder heat management on one side vs. others arguing that there should be less penalties and making it easier. Two factions, opposing points of view, therefore what we have now for the time being is ok. The other side keeps saying they need to make it easier on the "new" player by making it harder to overheat. Make it easier to overheat and the gap between experienced and new will be worse.

Thirdstar, on 26 March 2013 - 11:52 AM, said:

This is a bad thread OP and you should feel bad.

I won't go this far. "X is bad and you should feel bad" quotes and topic titles are a bit much dontcha think? So in short, learn to use and enjoy what we have because it has evolved into a system that is not that bad, and cross your fingers that clan tech isn't going to bork us five ways from Sunday.

-k

[Teralitha]

Thirdstar, on 26 March 2013 - 11:52 AM, said:

This is a bad thread OP and you should feel bad.

Nope, you should feel bad for being ignorant. I feel good because I know I am right.

[xDeityx]

Vassago Rain, on 26 March 2013 - 11:30 AM, said:

Cost as a balancing factor is terrible, and you all got to see just how terrible it is live until they removed RnR. It doesn't work.

Cheap stuff is strictly n00b hurdles. I have zero problems with this, but wish more guns and items were useful, period. Based on the source material, I have very little hope for this, however. People will learn not to take old ACs when we get UACs and more LBX.

There's...nothing wrong with this. Straight upgrades do what they're supposed to. Devs try to hide a straight upgrade as a sidegrade, in this case, dubs? Uhmmm, I don't think that's how it works.

It works great if you have the possibility of losing the assets you purchased. It is only terrible when you use a WoW/EverQuest-style economy where the only things that get taken out of economic circulation are consumables and materials, but never the permanent items that players obtain. EVE used the destructible-items model and it worked fantastically. People chose not to bring the good stuff into combat knowing there was a possibility they would lose it. Others (who were usually rich) chose to risk the good stuff to increase their chances of winning.

This model fits almost perfectly into the BattleTech universe because it was exceedingly common in 3050 for battles to be fought with pieced-together 'mechs that didn't have all the flashy stuff that we see in a common MWO match. In high-Elo games it's common to have 100% of 'mechs running with DHS. Gameplay should always come before lore but in this case the concept of losing gear fulfills both.

The problem with having noob-hurdles in a game is that they don't take any less development time on average, but the crappy stuff just doesn't get used in game. PGI can't afford to be inefficient with their development time, so noob-hurdles to test valuation skills are a bad path to go down. If PGI spent 100 development hours on the machine guns, then the machine guns should be viable. If they can't be viable because of their stats, they should be viable because of their price. There should be an economical metagame going on so that even if you lose a match, you might still come out on top in c-bills because you managed to destroy 50-million c-bills worth of assets even though you lost your whole team, but your whole team was only worth 10-million c-bills worth of 'mech, equipment, and weaponry.

In the current system, single heatsinks are just a stepping stone to double heat sinks. With the attrition/destructible assets system the single heatsinks have intrinsic value because of the risk vs. reward of taking them into battle.

The pricing in the game would need to be totally revamped in order for an EVE-style system to work though. And players would probably need to be defaulted a stock Flea or a Spider that they could never lose.

[Teralitha]

Kdogg788, on 26 March 2013 - 11:56 AM, said:

I'm not sure I can agree with any of these threads. Just way too much discombobulated postings. Too many game scientists and game balancers. More penalties and harder heat management on one side vs. others arguing that there should be less penalties and making it easier. Two factions, opposing points of view, therefore what we have now for the time being is ok. The other side keeps saying they need to make it easier on the "new" player by making it harder to overheat. Make it easier to overheat and the gap between experienced and new will be worse.



I won't go this far. "X is bad and you should feel bad" quotes and topic titles are a bit much dontcha think? So in short, learn to use and enjoy what we have because it has evolved into a system that is not that bad, and cross your fingers that clan tech isn't going to bork us five ways from Sunday.

-k

Nope, I just want the playing field to be level. Both new and old players should have to deal with heat management equally. Then the only difference will be skill, instead of tech upgrades. its one of those things that is good for the game, though no one seems to want, just like little kids... they want more candy, but more candy is bad for them.

Someone has to grow up and say NO! NO MORE CANDY. Now go to your room.

Edited by Teralitha, 26 March 2013 - 12:02 PM.

[Thirdstar]

In light of your edited OP and the the rest of your comments I'd like to say..

This is a bad thread OP and you should feel bad.

[Teralitha]

Thirdstar, on 26 March 2013 - 12:03 PM, said:

In light of your edited OP and the the rest of your comments I'd like to say..

This is a bad thread OP and you should feel bad.

But I feel good, because I know I am right, and you are wrong. Now go to your room.

[Fenix0742]

xDeityx, on 26 March 2013 - 11:57 AM, said:

It works great if you have the possibility of losing the assets you purchased.

And you just sank your own argument. This is a F2P game, where you can just buy an atlas for $30. A risk/reward style economy doesn't work no matter which side of the line you put bought mechs: if they're not able to be lost then that undermines the economy, and if you can lose them, then there is no incentive to pay real money for them, crippling the game's funding.

Cost balancing it TT works because you select your whole field of mechs: you can either pick a bunch of cheap ones, a few expensive ones, or a mix of both. However, when a person is driving each mech, how do you justify one person getting a good mech and everyone else driving bad mechs?

[Thirdstar]

Teralitha, on 26 March 2013 - 12:04 PM, said:

But I feel good, because I know I am right, and you are wrong. Now go to your room.

I'm sure that sounded all clever in your head.

You're still bad and your thread is bad.

[Protection]

Mystere, on 26 March 2013 - 11:42 AM, said:

And we have another thread titled:

Remove Single Heatsinks From The Game

And yet people here accuse PGI of thinking that "core players" really do not know what they want.

Read some of my thread -- it's about not wanting one dimensional flat upgrades, but rather meaningful player choice in the game.

[Darkfire66]

Make Single heatsinks weight half a ton, have dbl sinks actually do 2 cooling per ton, with 3 slots you can save half a ton at the expense of a crit slot, or get 1.5 tons for 3 units of cooling.

[El Death Smurf]

Teralitha, on 26 March 2013 - 11:03 AM, said:

Who really wants to search for old topics that may or may not be relevant?

if the last topic about this same thing isn't relevant... this one is less so.

[Thirdstar]

Teralitha, on 26 March 2013 - 10:47 AM, said:

Someone has to grow up and say NO! NO MORE CANDY. Now go to your room.

You can't be serious eh OP? This is some sort of Meta Troll right? Some sort of roundabout sarcasm? Subtle satire perhaps?

[xDeityx]

Fenix0742, on 26 March 2013 - 12:07 PM, said:

And you just sank your own argument. This is a F2P game, where you can just buy an atlas for $30. A risk/reward style economy doesn't work no matter which side of the line you put bought mechs: if they're not able to be lost then that undermines the economy, and if you can lose them, then there is no incentive to pay real money for them, crippling the game's funding.

Cost balancing it TT works because you select your whole field of mechs: you can either pick a bunch of cheap ones, a few expensive ones, or a mix of both. However, when a person is driving each mech, how do you justify one person getting a good mech and everyone else driving bad mechs?

That is definitely a problem, but it isn't insurmountable. To be fair, you can purchase currency in EVE with real money (no idea if it's legal or not, but you can do it at prices that are arguably more reasonable than PGI's prices in MWO), yet that system still works.

In order for an EVE-like economy to work you would need to take MC out of the picture for purchasing 'mechs and limit it to cosmetics and premium time only. I think this might be the dealbreaker for PGI because they aren't making enough money from their overpriced cosmetics. I think in the long run they would end up making more money, but PGI hasn't demonstrated that they think long-term otherwise they wouldn't have made promises to leave coolant and 3PV out of the game.

I understand that this is a pipedream, but it's not because it wouldn't work. It's because PGI doesn't have the ability to pull it off.

[Esk]

Grayseven, on 26 March 2013 - 10:54 AM, said:

Hate to say it, but I have to use heat management with DHS for some builds.

The problem isn't DHS, it's the weakness of SHS and the way heat is done in MWO. They need to revisit the heat mechanic and come up with a better system.

At no point should a 6PPC mech be safe from explosion after an alpha just because they don't restart. That much heat should damage the engine before it shuts down...

Agreed, heat is just terrible done atm imo, I'm still iffy about the AC spam.
So many thins just not balanced in different ways atm.

[Vassago Rain]

xDeityx, on 26 March 2013 - 11:57 AM, said:

It works great if you have the possibility of losing the assets you purchased. It is only terrible when you use a WoW/EverQuest-style economy where the only things that get taken out of economic circulation are consumables and materials, but never the permanent items that players obtain. EVE used the destructible-items model and it worked fantastically. People chose not to bring the good stuff into combat knowing there was a possibility they would lose it. Others (who were usually rich) chose to risk the good stuff to increase their chances of winning.

This model fits almost perfectly into the BattleTech universe because it was exceedingly common in 3050 for battles to be fought with pieced-together 'mechs that didn't have all the flashy stuff that we see in a common MWO match. In high-Elo games it's common to have 100% of 'mechs running with DHS. Gameplay should always come before lore but in this case the concept of losing gear fulfills both.

The problem with having noob-hurdles in a game is that they don't take any less development time on average, but the crappy stuff just doesn't get used in game. PGI can't afford to be inefficient with their development time, so noob-hurdles to test valuation skills are a bad path to go down. If PGI spent 100 development hours on the machine guns, then the machine guns should be viable. If they can't be viable because of their stats, they should be viable because of their price. There should be an economical metagame going on so that even if you lose a match, you might still come out on top in c-bills because you managed to destroy 50-million c-bills worth of assets even though you lost your whole team, but your whole team was only worth 10-million c-bills worth of 'mech, equipment, and weaponry.

In the current system, single heatsinks are just a stepping stone to double heat sinks. With the attrition/destructible assets system the single heatsinks have intrinsic value because of the risk vs. reward of taking them into battle.

The pricing in the game would need to be totally revamped in order for an EVE-style system to work though. And players would probably need to be defaulted a stock Flea or a Spider that they could never lose.

I played utopia for close to 15 years. Eve is for little girls in comparison.