337 replies to this topic

[Yokaiko]

Shumabot, on 10 April 2013 - 09:09 PM, said:

Part of the problem with this game is that its core mathematical basis, weapon scaling, weapon implementations maps, graphics, and game modes are all broken at the exact same time and are all based off of eachother when achieving balance. There is literally no solution to this games problems that don't involve a lot of major overhauls.

Bingo double or single heatsinks aren't the issue they are a symptom, all removing doubles would do is make the game gauss + slas warrior again.

Single heatsinks suck, I remember putting 27 SHS on an awesome, that wasn't enough to run two PPCs at any reasonable rate. Barely covered one really.

PGI has failed at calculators since go.

Edited by Yokaiko, 11 April 2013 - 04:45 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Lets see
TRO3025= Published 1986 Lvl 1 Tech
TRO2750= Published 1989 Lvl 2 Tech IS Doubles introduced
TRO3050= Published 1990 Clans

We have had double sinks in every MW Title I have played. Clan doubles in fact. and they all worked just fine. Several titles won best of titles with normal armor and clan weapons.

What we need is Heat sinks taken off the 10 second round. A TT Round was walk shoot recharge/vent 22 single sinks allowed this to happen if you had 2 PPCs and ran. That does not work here, because the DEVs increased cyclic rate of weapons by an average of 2.5 times but left Sinks with the handwavium 10 second "Fluff". Sink venting time needs buffed, so do double sinks. If sinks worked faster (like weapon cyclic rates do) we could use single sinks effectively. Would doubles be better? You bet they would, but they would not be a must have.

I turned a Pretty Baby into a Thug. Coolest running Mech (-2 heat per turn Alpha/running) Guess what? It shut down thanks to weapon/heat cyclic rates. That should not happen! Yokaiko's Awesome should never have over heated with the load out he posted!!!

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 11 April 2013 - 05:18 AM.

[Roland]

The game is actually far more balanced now that DHS have been introduced. You see more weapon variety than you did when only single heat sinks existed.

Hell, in MW4, ALL the heat sinks were essentially double heat sinks... and a lot of the weapons (basically, every ballistic weapon) did significantly more damage than their TT counterparts.

Like LBX10... tons of folks used LBX in MW4... why? Because it did 14 damage rather than 10. Likewise, the LBX20 did 24 damage, I believe. They were modeled far more simply, but even so I think it illustrates some fairly simple changes that could be made to make that weapon far more useful... just increase the damage per pellet to 1.4.

Quote

I turned a Pretty Baby into a Thug. Coolest running Mech (-2 heat per turn Alpha/running) Guess what? It shut down thanks to weapon/heat cyclic rates. That should not happen!

This statement is totally false.

MWO gives you, the pilot, the OPTION to fire at different rates. This means that you can essentially regulate your heat, and choose to run significantly hotter with a given weapons loadout.

This is not a bad thing.

This is something that adds depth to the game by forcing the pilot to make a decision that is more complex than "did my weapons recycle? then fire them".

[Joseph Mallan]

Roland, on 11 April 2013 - 05:21 AM, said:

This statement is totally false.

MWO gives you, the pilot, the OPTION to fire at different rates. This means that you can essentially regulate your heat, and choose to run significantly hotter with a given weapons loadout.

This is not a bad thing.

This is something that adds depth to the game by forcing the pilot to make a decision that is more complex than "did my weapons recycle? then fire them".

It's not totally false Roland, Just as yours is not totally true. There are and should be heat efficient designs that can in fact fire with little to no worry of heat. Most should of course require a bit of... finesse.

A 5 second cycle time on Sinks would make them so you can fire groups of weapons with lil fear of Overheating. 24 single sinks should allow me to fire my 4 Medium(16 heat) lasers infinitely. BUT you would still have problems Alpha striking your full compliment of weapons. Heat just is not handled right, yet.

[Roland]

Quote

There are and should be heat efficient designs that can in fact fire with little to no worry of heat. Most should of course require a bit of... finesse.

But that's the thing.. your metric of what constitutes a "heat efficient design" is misguided.

For instance, the Awesome you described is heat efficient... but being heat efficient doesn't mean you can fire all of the weapons as fast as they recycle. This is mainly because they all recycle very fast, and do a huge amount of damage.

For a given "heat neutral" configuration from TT, you can fire at an equal rate to TT and be heat neutral.. You just have the added capability to temporarily crank up your damage to a much higher rate, while running hotter than neutral.

Again, this is giving the pilot the ability to adjust his damage output on the fly, and it makes the game much better.

For instance, a PPC in MWO fires at a rate of 3.3 times the firing rate you'd have in TT... so, of course it generates more heat if you fire at that rate, because you're doing more than 3 times the damage.

If you want to run a given configuration in a heat neutral manner, you just need to fire the weapon less often. This is left up to you, as the pilot.

[Shumabot]

Roland, on 11 April 2013 - 05:45 AM, said:

But that's the thing.. your metric of what constitutes a "heat efficient design" is misguided.

For instance, the Awesome you described is heat efficient... but being heat efficient doesn't mean you can fire all of the weapons as fast as they recycle. This is mainly because they all recycle very fast, and do a huge amount of damage.

For a given "heat neutral" configuration from TT, you can fire at an equal rate to TT and be heat neutral.. You just have the added capability to temporarily crank up your damage to a much higher rate, while running hotter than neutral.

Again, this is giving the pilot the ability to adjust his damage output on the fly, and it makes the game much better.

For instance, a PPC in MWO fires at a rate of 3.3 times the firing rate you'd have in TT... so, of course it generates more heat if you fire at that rate, because you're doing more than 3 times the damage.

If you want to run a given configuration in a heat neutral manner, you just need to fire the weapon less often. This is left up to you, as the pilot.

And then the guy who made a mech using heat capacitance allowing him to alpha you to death before he overheats (splat cats, quadppc+gauss atlas, ac40 cat/jag, lrm60 stalker, etc) beats you every time. "being skilled wit heat usage" is nonsense. If you can't continuously fire your weapons at their maximum DPS and you're not a sniper build then you need to drop weapons and put in more heat sinks. If your build can't do that then its a bad build. This is why the Jenner F is eternally the runt of the litter, it can't handle its weapons and "skilled heat management" just means "permanently lower dps". part of being good at this game is riding the edge of what a mech is capable of and knowing how to not go over it in the mechlab. "Skilled heat control" is wasted tonnage. Hence why the games best builds don't really have to deal with it.

Also, you guys need to drop the TT comparisons, this game isn't the TT game and the TT game directly pressed into a first person sim would be a dysfunctional mess even worse than we have now.

Edited by Shumabot, 11 April 2013 - 06:17 AM.

[Roland]

Quote

If you can't continuously fire your weapons at their maximum DPS and you're not a sniper build then you need to drop weapons and put in more heat sinks. If your build can't do that then its a bad build.

Eh, I have to disagree (although perhaps to a lesser extent given your addition of the caveat "if you're not a sniper build").

Generally, the most effective builds tend to run hot.. because, while they cannot fire all of their weapons as fast as they recycle, FOREVER, they can do so for quite a while and create spike damage.

It requires that you be able to either kill a target or disengage prior to overheating.

For instance, a mech like a 4PPC stalker cannot fire all of its weapons constantly, forever.. .but it can fire them enough to kill targets, and then cool down. This kind of fits into your caveat though, where it's generally going to be a sniper build.

However, the key point here is that it's really NOT ideal to run mechs that are perfectly heat neutral.. because you are essentially limiting your ability to deliver higher damage over a short period of time, in order to achieve constant damage output which really isn't generally that useful in practice anyway, since most mech engagements don't involve you just holding down the fire button for the entire game.

[Shumabot]

Roland, on 11 April 2013 - 06:22 AM, said:

Eh, I have to disagree (although perhaps to a lesser extent given your addition of the caveat "if you're not a sniper build").

Generally, the most effective builds tend to run hot.. because, while they cannot fire all of their weapons as fast as they recycle, FOREVER, they can do so for quite a while and create spike damage.

It requires that you be able to either kill a target or disengage prior to overheating.

For instance, a mech like a 4PPC stalker cannot fire all of its weapons constantly, forever.. .but it can fire them enough to kill targets, and then cool down. This kind of fits into your caveat though, where it's generally going to be a sniper build.

However, the key point here is that it's really NOT ideal to run mechs that are perfectly heat neutral.. because you are essentially limiting your ability to deliver higher damage over a short period of time, in order to achieve constant damage output which really isn't generally that useful in practice anyway, since most mech engagements don't involve you just holding down the fire button for the entire game.

That's true, and none of the mechs I listed other than the ac40's are heat neutral. The point of "heat management" being designed in the mechbay and not handled in the game is still true though. A mechs maximum dps before throttling its heat considered against its raw DPS largely denotes its power in the current game. The current heat systems do not work well, double heat sinks are a pure upgrade and they create haves and have nots while making weapons like small lasers worthless and heat intensive builds like quadppc powerful due to outrageous heat capacitence. Of course when you nerf sinks suddenly AC40/uac5/missile spam gets better against heat intensive weapons and those weapons are already good.

The system needs a grounds up overhaul.

[Joseph Mallan]

Roland, on 11 April 2013 - 05:45 AM, said:

But that's the thing.. your metric of what constitutes a "heat efficient design" is misguided.

For instance, the Awesome you described is heat efficient... but being heat efficient doesn't mean you can fire all of the weapons as fast as they recycle. This is mainly because they all recycle very fast, and do a huge amount of damage.

For a given "heat neutral" configuration from TT, you can fire at an equal rate to TT and be heat neutral.. You just have the added capability to temporarily crank up your damage to a much higher rate, while running hotter than neutral.

Again, this is giving the pilot the ability to adjust his damage output on the fly, and it makes the game much better.

For instance, a PPC in MWO fires at a rate of 3.3 times the firing rate you'd have in TT... so, of course it generates more heat if you fire at that rate, because you're doing more than 3 times the damage.

If you want to run a given configuration in a heat neutral manner, you just need to fire the weapon less often. This is left up to you, as the pilot.

Its that recycle time that is mucking up things. Sinks should be done venting around the same time I am ready to fire. Plus If I have more sinks than heat generated I should be able to stay neutral without have 2.5 times as many sinks as heat my Alpha generates. Weapons cyclic and heat dissipation are not properly balanced yet. It isn't as simple as just fire less. 28 sinks should keep a Awesome firing on a 3/2 cycle all game. That is heat management. Atlas D should be able to fire 2 Mediums and the AC20 with no heat issues all game. As it stands the heat system we have now, these are the most useless war machines I have ever seen. My Atlas should not come close to overheating firing my 2 large and Gauss packing 17 double sinks(34 points of dissipation). SInks need to be faster, somewhere between where it is now and what I call perfect.

[Thorn Hallis]

I am, on 09 April 2013 - 06:44 AM, said:

Statistics, something your post completely ignores. You know in that game, anyone exceeding roughly a 58% win rate, is the top 3 %. Here, W/L ratios exceeding 70 are pretty common. They have balance. You dont. Lets compare community sizes now.

And now go figure what tanks those 3% are driving..."they" have balance? Haha, yeah. And the Iraq has WMDs.

[Roland]

Quote

Its that recycle time that is mucking up things. Sinks should be done venting around the same time I am ready to fire.

But it's not mucking up anything. You can simply CHOOSE NOT TO FIRE.

The control is being put in your hands. You seem to be suggesting that somehow the game would be better if it just didn't let you fire, but all you are doing at that point is removing a level of control from the pilot... that doesn't improve the game at all.

[Blackadder]

Teralitha, on 10 April 2013 - 05:29 PM, said:

Actually... take out double heat sinks, and the problem of balance is resolved.

This is really not true at all. If we remove DHS all that happens, is people roll back mechs to pre existing builds that were used during SHS reign. It will not impact boating other then the type of weapon being boated. It will extend the life of combat, because people will not reliably be able to put out as much alpha strike damage, but beyond that it wont resolve the issue. Snipers will just convert to dual gauss builds, with cats, phracts & jagers all using it.

While i agree that heat needs some work, personally, i feel they either need to put in hard limits on weapons in terms of min/max ranges, to force people to use more varied builds, or put in some kind of limit or diminishing return on using the same type of weapon. IE:1st ppc is 7 tons 3 crit slots, 2nd is 7.5 tons 4 crit slots, 3rd is 9.5 tons 5 crit slots.

However, neither of these things will resolve clan tech which is going to be very problematic to try to implement on a weapons & equipment basis. Omni mechs would be bad enough, but once you start adding in ER clan lasers, clan DHS with 2 crit slot etc etc, the power creep is going to become very bad.

[Teralitha]

Ghogiel, on 11 April 2013 - 02:44 AM, said:

I too miss being a gausscat overlord.

I miss killing them. They were weak vs any average pilot and above.

[Teralitha]

Yokaiko, on 11 April 2013 - 04:45 AM, said:

Bingo double or single heatsinks aren't the issue they are a symptom, all removing doubles would do is make the game gauss + slas warrior again.

Single heatsinks suck, I remember putting 27 SHS on an awesome, that wasn't enough to run two PPCs at any reasonable rate. Barely covered one really.

PGI has failed at calculators since go.

misconception there is because of the ten second refire rate in TT. Weapons recycle much faster here, but the heat sinks are still the same as TT.

But disregarding that, before the DHS were put in, I though the game balance was pretty good. If you think of the raven 3L... just what kind of weapon builds would be viable on it if it only had single heat sinks?

Edited by Teralitha, 11 April 2013 - 09:02 AM.

[Aim-Bot]

Indeed

[Yokaiko]

Teralitha, on 11 April 2013 - 09:02 AM, said:

But disregarding that, before the DHS were put in, I though the game balance was pretty good. If you think of the raven 3L... just what kind of weapon builds would be viable on it if it only had single heat sinks?

Pretty good?
You mean when you were basically crazy to put a large laser or PPC on anything not an assault, and even then you didn't because if a fast mech closed on you, you would end up rear cored while you were over heated?

Gauss in every ballistic slot, everywhere, because an AC20 ALONE overwhelmed 14 SHS in 5 shots.

A slight damage increase on the missiles and weapon balance will be close to as good as it is going to get.

Edited by Yokaiko, 11 April 2013 - 09:10 AM.

[jeffsw6]

brock0, on 10 April 2013 - 02:14 PM, said:

They have no room to tinker, because if they screw something up, the people who are paying to play this game (whoops, paying to play this beta) will get annoyed and leave.

Like they have no room to introduce a ton of new crash and HUD bugs, driving away huge numbers of players because they cannot roll that patch back, because it included new Hero mechs that people paid $30 for?

Like nerfing streaks to the point that they are totally useless?

Yokaiko, on 11 April 2013 - 04:45 AM, said:

PGI has failed at calculators since go.

Seems pretty clear to me.

Blackadder, on 11 April 2013 - 08:16 AM, said:

This is really not true at all. If we remove DHS all that happens, is people roll back mechs to pre existing builds that were used during SHS reign. It will not impact boating other then the type of weapon being boated.

That change would be a huge nerf to every light mech (remember, missiles are almost useless now; and they can't carry any useful ballistics.) Oh, and Stalkers. And Awesomes. Basically, a small number of mechs who can make good use of ballistic weapons would benefit hugely from removing DHS. Suddenly, only 1/5th of the variants in the game would be remotely useful.

On the other hand, the Machine Gun is perfectly balanced. That must mean that every other weapon is massively over-powered. Nerfing heat sinks will have the hidden effect of buffing the one weapon that doesn't generate any heat when fired.

Edited by jeffsw6, 11 April 2013 - 09:15 AM.

[Teralitha]

Yokaiko, on 11 April 2013 - 09:10 AM, said:

Pretty good?
You mean when you were basically crazy to put a large laser or PPC on anything not an assault, and even then you didn't because if a fast mech closed on you, you would end up rear cored while you were over heated?

A lit bit of exaggeration there. But yes it kept the game honest, and raised the bar on skilled play. If you were the heavy/assault with a large damage high heat weapons, you were required to be more skilled to be successful because missing your shots and overheating meant you could shutdown and die to the faster lighter, low damage mechs.


Is this not how the game was originally designed to have a high skill cap for players wanting to drive heavy/assaults? IS that not how it was in canon? Did not only the best pilots in battletech get to drive the bigger mechs? It doenst now... any noob can drive those big mechs with big guns with little worry about heat or being skilled. With the introduction of DHS, the skill cap hit the floor.

Roland, on 11 April 2013 - 05:45 AM, said:

But that's the thing.. your metric of what constitutes a "heat efficient design" is misguided.

For instance, the Awesome you described is heat efficient... but being heat efficient doesn't mean you can fire all of the weapons as fast as they recycle. This is mainly because they all recycle very fast, and do a huge amount of damage.

For a given "heat neutral" configuration from TT, you can fire at an equal rate to TT and be heat neutral.. You just have the added capability to temporarily crank up your damage to a much higher rate, while running hotter than neutral.

Again, this is giving the pilot the ability to adjust his damage output on the fly, and it makes the game much better.

For instance, a PPC in MWO fires at a rate of 3.3 times the firing rate you'd have in TT... so, of course it generates more heat if you fire at that rate, because you're doing more than 3 times the damage.

If you want to run a given configuration in a heat neutral manner, you just need to fire the weapon less often. This is left up to you, as the pilot.

I understand this view, but I dont agree with it based on my experience playing MWO. I see it having the opposite effect than intended. Instead of making it harder to control your heat by firing faster a few times at the risk of shutting down, instead it just lets you kill enemy mechs faster, and once dead, you have all the time you need to cooldown before you burst kill the next enemy.

From your example... fire PPC once in 10 seconds to remain heat nuetral, or fire 3 times in ten seconds, and then wait for 10 seconds and your heat is gone again.

Where in TT in those 20 seconds you fire the PPC 2 times and remain heat nuetral
Where here in those 20 seconds you fire 3 times in the first 10 seconds, AND remain heat nuetral after cooling for ther next 10 seconds.

I believe there is enough pauses between combat for those kinds of builds to burst enemies down without having to worry about heat or... IE... the easy button for noobs. In other words... no heat management skill required.

The idea looks good on paper, but in practice has the wrong effect. This is why I say remove double heat sinks, and bring back heat management skills.

Edited by Teralitha, 11 April 2013 - 09:32 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Roland, on 11 April 2013 - 07:58 AM, said:

But it's not mucking up anything. You can simply CHOOSE NOT TO FIRE.

The control is being put in your hands. You seem to be suggesting that somehow the game would be better if it just didn't let you fire, but all you are doing at that point is removing a level of control from the pilot... that doesn't improve the game at all.

It's not really though Roland. I can Choose not to fire for roughly 7 seconds(most cyclic rates are around 3 seconds). And die in the process. It is no the smart choice, nor is the heat Mechanic implemented well. I want heat to be a factor (why I am suggesting a 5 recycle) but right now it is to long a wait to be really combat effective for stock Mechs, and as I keep saying 4 medium laser (16 heat) should be heat neutral with the effectively 34 points of dissipation. On a 5 second interval I'd have to wait 2 seconds to fire instead of 7. Seven seconds is an eternity in the heat of the game.

[Yokaiko]

Roland, on 11 April 2013 - 07:58 AM, said:

But it's not mucking up anything. You can simply CHOOSE NOT TO FIRE.

Yeah, that was the argument back in closed beta, you chose not to fire, I'm going to be busy using my more efficient build to blow you apart.