87 replies to this topic

[Khanublikhan]

Thank you Jack for the precise explanation.

[Zerbob]

Right now there are some of the more...explosive results for excess heat. Once your 'Mech goes past 100% right now you will start taking internal damage and you can get ammo explosions (one of my best games ever involved a 2v2 in the Caustic caldera where 1 guy on each time boiled his ammo off).

While I think this system would be cool, I don't think the main population of MWO would appreciate it. It would be cool to incorporate these into a sort of "hard core" mode where there is increased realism (look at WarThunder's tiered system).

I for one would also love to see an expanded critical hit system, such as damaged actuators and such. I love in the TT when there's a 'Mech with a blown hip, a limp arm but it uses that 1 last torso laser to finish off your opponent who is in the same boat.

[Roland]

Roadbeer's correct in that it would slow the rate of play, with current weapons loadouts..although I think that folks would likely just switch to more heat efficient loadouts.

Generally, all of my builds run crazy hot.. because there's little penalty for running so hot.

When I run my PPC boat stalker, I shut down fairly frequently.. but often, it doesn't matter, because I shut down in the process of killing the enemy mech that I was engaged with. It's not a GOOD idea to shut down, but it's not really penalized much at all.. and certainly when I'm riding the edge at the top of my heat bar, it's not penalizing me at all for it.

[darkfall13]

I'm not so sure how well this would work, I agree with Roadbeer, it would probably slow combat down considerably. Heck just take the ER-PPC K2, even losing as much weight as possible and stuffing it with heatsinks you spike your heat pretty considerably. Or the Swayback, pretty much could only do 1 alpha (say about 40% or 50% heat) then just chainfire for the rest of the match since even at that level you're into several hit and movement modifiers.

raygun, on 11 April 2013 - 11:44 AM, said:

Im surprised no one has done this but; go into a mech training map, hit shutdown override and blast away past your heat threshold. Stuff happens to the mech when run in heat override. How do people not test these things out?

Yup I've blown myself to bits many times trying to squeeze in just one more shot.

[Khanublikhan]

Zerbob, on 11 April 2013 - 11:48 AM, said:

...While I think this system would be cool, I don't think the main population of MWO would appreciate it...

Let me counter that. Which would be more fun?

• Fighting on heroically, with difficulty, with fancy graphics and sounds to show you're overheating.
  
• Being shutdown (tediously and momentarily ineffective).
  
• Exploding only (permanently ineffective).

The system as it stands, is apparently, binary.


To reiterate: heat penalties on an opponent could:-

• turn off that opponents ECM (oh look, balancing pesky ECM just became easier).
  
• turn off that opponents BAP (oh look, he lost you on sensors, you manage to hit and fade).

and so on. The Heat table and its effects could be used as another tool for balancing.

Edited by Khanublikhan, 11 April 2013 - 12:00 PM.

[ArmageddonKnight]

The longest a match lasts is 15 minutes ..thats not slow ..unless u have ADD you should be fine with it.
So if increased heat penalties slow matches from , in my views, an average game time of 7 minutes, to an averag game time of 12mins+. Then great.

I think there may just be alot of 'expressive' and loud individulas out there with short attention spans, likely young and/or young at gaming (only played games of the 00's onwards) that are more inclined to play short fast passed games over the more tactical variety. if im mistaken with this here comment then there really is no reason to dislike longer lasting matches.

[Jonathan Paine]

We could limit heat penalties to only kicking in when mechs have exceeded 90% of their heat capacity. 90-100 less movement, glitchy instruments, sensors, showing up at extreme range on thermal etc. Forced shut down at 100-110, but no damage. Overheat past 110, damage to internal structure akin to override.

Would keep the pace of the game (mostly) the same, but really penalize taking that 6 ER PPC shot at 95%

[Arete]

I'd like some kind of heat table to be implemented aswell. Not as severe as the TT heat table, but similar.

[Ugg]

Roland, on 11 April 2013 - 11:50 AM, said:

Roadbeer's correct in that it would slow the rate of play, with current weapons loadouts..although I think that folks would likely just switch to more heat efficient loadouts.

Generally, all of my builds run crazy hot.. because there's little penalty for running so hot.

When I run my PPC boat stalker, I shut down fairly frequently.. but often, it doesn't matter, because I shut down in the process of killing the enemy mech that I was engaged with. It's not a GOOD idea to shut down, but it's not really penalized much at all.. and certainly when I'm riding the edge at the top of my heat bar, it's not penalizing me at all for it.

Exactly! Everyone walks the line of shutting down. Or full alpha shutdown with minimal consequences - That's boring IMHO.

As for slowing the game down...Maybe, but only if they don't adjust the heat mechanic down a bit. Isn't heat running at 3x what it should be? and "double" heat-sinks at 1.4x?

[shabowie]

Roadbeer, on 11 April 2013 - 11:17 AM, said:

...but as has been shown time and time again, converting a TT game into a 3D Real time environment, requires you throw some stuff out the window...

The biggest balance issues in the game all revolve around where they departed from TT, so I disagree.

Also people have shown with math how some of the stuff thrown out could have been better converted.

Edited by shabowie, 11 April 2013 - 12:16 PM.

[Khanublikhan]

ArmageddonKnight, on 11 April 2013 - 11:54 AM, said:

The longest a match lasts is 15 minutes ..thats not slow ..unless u have ADD you should be fine with it.
So if increased heat penalties slow matches from , in my views, an average game time of 7 minutes, to an averag game time of 12mins+. Then great.

I think there may just be alot of 'expressive' and loud individulas out there with short attention spans, likely young and/or young at gaming (only played games of the 00's onwards) that are more inclined to play short fast passed games over the more tactical variety. if im mistaken with this here comment then there really is no reason to dislike longer lasting matches.

Thank you for the comments, ArmageddonKnight. I agree. If the heat table effects were introduced appropriately the length of the match changes should be minor. Enjoyment of players might also actually increase because they are being educated on how heat works (the heat table is working as an inbuilt tutorial is a good way to look at it.)

[Lostdragon]

I can confirm that overheating can cause your ammo to cook off. Happened to me last night on Caustic in my dakkaphract. The weird thing about it was I had already started back up and was moving when my ammo exploded, I figured something like that would happen pretty quickly after the alpha that spiked your heat.

[hammerreborn]

Implement heat penaties, watch guassbuilds become the exclusive builds used.

[Khanublikhan]

Do any of you have additional ideas on what would make a good heat effect? i.e. how can you show heat / effect a mech, in a computer game? How can you keep it fun? (running with the idea that is a built in tutorial system).

[Gregore]

This is in already, at least partially.

When you overheat you shut down. If you override the shutdown you take heat damage to your internals, a randomly selected location (or always my head in the case of the stalker), you also run the risk of cooking off your ammo.

So this is in, just nothing related to tohit points or movement speed. Not sure how you would hinder someones ability to shoot, maybe make it so their mouse overheats and is scalding to the touch.

[Khanublikhan]

hammerreborn, on 11 April 2013 - 12:13 PM, said:

Implement heat penaties, watch guassbuilds become the exclusive builds used.

They could always... break with canon... and have gauss weapons ...generate (some) heat too.
Maybe, those 'weapons who cannot be named', also...

Edited by Khanublikhan, 11 April 2013 - 12:17 PM.

[Roland]

hammerreborn, on 11 April 2013 - 12:13 PM, said:

Implement heat penaties, watch guassbuilds become the exclusive builds used.

Eh, I dunno.... because things like PPC snipers would still be viable, even with heat penalities.. as long as they stayed at range.

Certainly, various AC's would become more useful as well.

[aniviron]

Worked great in canon, wouldn't work so well in MWO without a major weapon rebalance. Heat table really comes into effect after a lot of prolonged firing on most builds in TT; but given the comparatively high fire rates and low dissipation rates coupled with fairly low heat capacities, you are going to see a lot of problems. These movement penalties begin to kick in after just one or two shots in most builds with any energy weapons larger than a small laser in MWO, which would turn this game into a molasses simulator.

The worst part is, this is all taking into account players using optimized mechs with DHS and 1.3+ heat eff. Those trial mechs are going to become walking suicide boxes.

[Captain Stiffy]

[Trauglodyte]

Here is the thing. You can implement this and it would be fine for those of us who are veterans of the MW series and have played Battletech in the past. But, it would become increasingly frustrating for new players because they'd have no idea what was going on. Furthermore, you can't really add this to the game when DHSs aren't cooling as they should.

Personally, I think the impact on heat sinks, HUD, and movement should be added when you overheat and be a permanent impact as engine damage. HUD twitches and shutting down of sensative equipment would be fine as your heat scales.