87 replies to this topic

[Joseph Mallan]

Willie Sauerland, on 21 April 2013 - 04:18 PM, said:

The problem is not the alpha strike per se,
but the ability to overheat and not take any
penalties.

Fix the heat and you fix the problem.

Though I agree with Willie... AN Energy boat Like the 6PPC Stalker has very little to "hamper" it. Since we are in a system that is point and click would the DEVs have to make the crosshairs sway to simulate the effect of heat? I'm not disagreeing just wondering how to implement.

[3rdworld]

If you could actually dissipate 3-4 ppcs worth of heat people would just run 3-4 ppcs. Since you are going to overheat all over the place running 3 ppcs regardless of the number of heat sinks, you may as well run 5 ppcs and overheat just as much but do more damage.

Buff Heat Dissipation, Nerf Threshold, Institute internal damage for breaking 100%

This is the system they built. It is the bed, we must now sleep in it.

[Elder Thorn]

imo max weaponslot sizes are the way to go. If a slot is designed to hold a medium laser it should also be able to hold a small laser, but not a ERPPC.
I think this would help a lot, on the other hand it limits customisation but i still think it's worth it, or at least a try.

[Syllogy]

Caustic Canid, on 21 April 2013 - 04:05 PM, said:

OK. I'll start by saying and admitting that I too am guilty of alpha striking my weapons at enemy mechs. It's just too easy NOT to do. As this is the case, there are many cheese builds that can strip a mech of its center torso armor in two shots.

Uh... yeah?

Min-Maxing is a natural part of any game. Removing Alpha Strikes won't help that.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

There should be a scaled heat penality for firing all your weapons at the same time,

There's a reason mechwarriors in the lore only use it as a last ditch attack. I think too many people have grown used to being able to fire all your weapons all the time frankly.

Syllogy, on 22 April 2013 - 05:34 AM, said:

Uh... yeah?

Min-Maxing is a natural part of any game. Removing Alpha Strikes won't help that.

Quite true, but at the same point. Min-Maxing needs to be curbed to a degree.

It's why many, like myself, are backing the idea of harsher restrictions in the mech lab.

Elder Thorn, on 22 April 2013 - 05:08 AM, said:

imo max weaponslot sizes are the way to go. If a slot is designed to hold a medium laser it should also be able to hold a small laser, but not a ERPPC.
I think this would help a lot, on the other hand it limits customisation but i still think it's worth it, or at least a try.

Agreed, I support a +1 -1 system.

A medium laser spot could hold a large,medium pulse, or a small, or small pulse, but could not hold a large pulse, ER large, or PPC. as an example.

[Thragen]

Kobold, on 21 April 2013 - 04:47 PM, said:

This all goes back to how they decided to implement heat and weapon ROF.


Dev 1: "Firing weapons once per 10 seconds is dumb! Let's increase ROF!"
Dev 2: "But then people overheat super fast! Let's increase max heat!"


This change allowed for larger single-shot bursts without shutting down. In tabletop you could barely make a 4 PPC inner sphere assault mech that didn't shut down when it fired all three weapons. (A stalker with 20 doubles, 4 PPCs, and a 3/5 speed). If you tried to make the 6 PPC stalker, as noted above, you would shut down the very first time you fired them all, automatically.

Increasing heat dissipation speed while reducing the max heat would go a long way towards discouraging massively over-gunned mechs, and it fits the source material better.

I couldn't agree more. To summarize:

Tweaking convergence is not the solution.
Removing alpha strike is not the solution.
Toning down the heat threshold along with giving us DHS that truly double the heat dissipation only is the solution.

You can fix the heat threshold a couple of ways.

1. All mechs have the same heat threshold, heat sinks have no effect on the heat threshold ( just dissipation ). Any modifications to heat threshold are governed by pilot trees and / or modules.
2. You could drastically tone down the modification heat sinks have on heat thresholds and then allow modifications to heat threshold by pilot trees and / or modules.

Edited by Thragen, 22 April 2013 - 05:47 AM.

[Zyllos]

Here is a problem though:

I have asked the Devs several times on questions relating to this very issue and have brought up a solution on how to fix the balance between Alpha Strikes and Chain Firing/Group Firing.

The responses I got was ranging from "This idea is stupid. It would be impossible to play." to out right being ignored by the Devs. I brought up pin-point accuracy in AtD - 34 and got this answer:

Bryan Ekman, on 22 March 2013 - 07:08 AM, said:

Zyllos: With many discussions on convergence of weaponry, has there been any discussions on why/why not more variability should be added to weapon fire, thus spreading the damage more across a target?

A: We’ve removed randomness from weapon firing in favor of skill.

So, I brought it up in a different form so that they could not just answer it the same way, in both AtD - 35 and 36, and the question was just completely ignored.

So, before any serious discussion on pin-point accuracy, alpha strikes, chain/group firing, and heat penalites, the entire community and developers need to acknowledge that there is an issue to begin with. If we all can not agree that there is an issue, nothing is going to get done.

Edited by Zyllos, 22 April 2013 - 05:47 AM.

[3rdworld]

Zyllos, on 22 April 2013 - 05:45 AM, said:

Here is a problem though:

I have asked the Devs several times on questions relating to this very issue and have brought up a solution on how to fix the balance between Alpha Strikes and Chain Firing/Group Firing.

The responses I got was ranging from "This idea is stupid. It would be impossible to play." to out right being ignored by the Devs. I brought up pin-point accuracy in AtD - 34 and got this answer:



So, I brought it up in a different form so that they could not just answer it the same way, in both AtD - 35 and 36, and the question was just completely ignored.

So, before any serious discussion on pin-point accuracy, alpha strikes, chain/group firing, and heat penalites, the entire community and developers need to acknowledge that there is an issue to begin with. If we all can not agree that there is an issue, nothing is going to get done.

I don't agree there is an issue with accuracy.

The issue: It is beneficial because of the way heat works to stack as many high heat weapons as you want. Using a smaller number of these weapons does not increase longevity because you cannot dissipate even a modest number of these weapons. And there is no penalty save for a short term "stun" for overheating.

Oh and they institute Coolant Flush Cool shot to make using more high heat weapons ever better.

Edited by 3rdworld, 22 April 2013 - 05:53 AM.

[KinLuu]

There is no issue with accuracy. There is a issue with the heat system. The heatcap is to high and the dissipation to low.

[Yokaiko]

I have a 8 button mouse.

I don't recall ever intentionally using the alpha strike key.......nor do I have alpha strike groups.

KinLuu, on 22 April 2013 - 06:10 AM, said:

There is no issue with accuracy. There is a issue with the heat system. The heatcap is to high and the dissipation to low.

Yes and no.

The way heat always hits your bar means even if you dropped down to 30 heat cap across the board, you would overheat a mech with 5 mlas in three cycles.

Disapation is to low, but I don't think crushing the heat cap would have have the effect most think it would. I would just return us to CB where Slas and gauss ruled the day because you could actually use them.

[Thragen]

Yokaiko, on 22 April 2013 - 06:12 AM, said:

I have a 8 button mouse.

I don't recall ever intentionally using the alpha strike key.......nor do I have alpha strike groups.




Yes and no.

The way heat always hits your bar means even if you dropped down to 30 heat cap across the board, you would overheat a mech with 5 mlas in three cycles.

Disapation is to low, but I don't think crushing the heat cap would have have the effect most think it would. I would just return us to CB where Slas and gauss ruled the day because you could actually use them.

Dropping the heat cap to 30 would be bad. But what about 40, 45, 50, etc... There's got to be a sweet spot in there somewhere.

[3rdworld]

Yokaiko, on 22 April 2013 - 06:12 AM, said:

Yes and no.

The way heat always hits your bar means even if you dropped down to 30 heat cap across the board, you would overheat a mech with 5 mlas in three cycles.

Disapation is to low, but I don't think crushing the heat cap would have have the effect most think it would. I would just return us to CB where Slas and gauss ruled the day because you could actually use them.

Depends what you think is an acceptable level of time to overheat for a normal level of firepower. Right now that level is so low that no one would consider using it.

Also EHS providing more benefit than additional heat sinks is stupid. Why make free heatsinks worth more than tonnage & crit heatsinks?

[Yokaiko]

The

Thragen, on 22 April 2013 - 06:19 AM, said:

Dropping the heat cap to 30 would be bad. But what about 40, 45, 50, etc... There's got to be a sweet spot in there somewhere.

The heatcap on a 6PPC stalker NOW is no more than 58, and likely less 14 would be with an XL, that would put the heatcap 55.6 with 16 on a totally stuffed turret (little standard engine) you are talking 58.4 for the heatcap.

Go down to 40 and three mlass hit the cap in 10 seconds flat.

None of which is actually an issue. My record over the weekend was three 6ppc stalkers killed in one game. In a standard Raven.

If you arent a big slow *** barn like an Atlas catching them out isn't that hard.

[Zyllos]

Yokaiko, on 22 April 2013 - 06:12 AM, said:

Yes and no. The way heat always hits your bar means even if you dropped down to 30 heat cap across the board, you would overheat a mech with 5 mlas in three cycles. Disapation is to low, but I don't think crushing the heat cap would have have the effect most think it would. I would just return us to CB where Slas and gauss ruled the day because you could actually use them.

Thragen, on 22 April 2013 - 06:19 AM, said:

Dropping the heat cap to 30 would be bad. But what about 40, 45, 50, etc... There's got to be a sweet spot in there somewhere.

The high heat cap was to maintain the same heat scale from CBT with dissipation rates. If you can dissipate 0.2 heat per second, then your suppose to add 2.0 to the capacity so that in a 10.0s chunk of time, you can go over the CBT heat scale within that amount of time and not suffer the same consequences (which are actually only at 100%). The issue is that players can front load all that heat into an instant point in time to give themselves as much damage as possible at that instant point.

So, even if you changed the heat dissipation and capacity, players will modify their loadouts to find the highest pin-point strike damage to minimize exposure to DPS builds. Almost all DPS builds spread their damage across several locations, thus making their builds inefficient when compared to other builds which can place their damage onto a single point. This is why people play builds which can focus all their damage onto a single point.

Why do you want your weapon fire to hit an armored location if your aiming at another location that is unarmored? This is the delimma of DPS builds vs alpha strikes. That pin-point accuracy allows for players to ignore locations they do not want to deal damage to.

Edited by Zyllos, 22 April 2013 - 06:37 AM.

[3rdworld]

Yokaiko, on 22 April 2013 - 06:31 AM, said:

The

The heatcap on a 6PPC stalker NOW is no more than 58, and likely less 14 would be with an XL, that would put the heatcap 55.6 with 16 on a totally stuffed turret (little standard engine) you are talking 58.4 for the heatcap.

Go down to 40 and three mlass hit the cap in 10 seconds flat.

None of which is actually an issue. My record over the weekend was three 6ppc stalkers killed in one game. In a standard Raven.

If you arent a big slow *** barn like an Atlas catching them out isn't that hard.

without mastery they are around 58. With elite heat containment that is bumped to 70

[Yokaiko]

3rdworld, on 22 April 2013 - 06:38 AM, said:

without mastery they are around 58. With elite heat containment that is bumped to 70

True, even then, its 48 for a 6PPC alpha, you shutdown for a good long while on the second one. Capping at 40 wouldn't be a good idea, you would be JUST under the threshold with 4 mlas in two cycles.

.....no matter how many heatsinks you have.

Edited by Yokaiko, 22 April 2013 - 06:44 AM.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

in the TT, a Heavy Mech 3-4 fields go far, which are 120 m, which would be in 10 seconds, with 10 rounds, this would be 100 seconds! Mech which survived the tabletop in these 10 rounds, as most live longer in MWO, also thanks to double armor! Do we want to fire for 30 minutes to a 'Mech to knock him soft or too slowly kill by accident hit / crit? just because some do not want to die quickly (or at all) or because they want the other to adapt their game and slow responsiveness?

translated from german

im TT kann ein Heavy Mech 3-4 felder weit gehen , das sind 120 m , das wären in 10 sekunden ,bei 10 Runden wären dies 100 Sekunden ! welcher Mech überlebt den im Tabletop diese 10 Runden ,da leben die meisten in MWO länger ,auch dank doppelter Panzerung! Wollen wir 30 Minuten auf einen Mech feuern , um ihn langsam weich zu klopfen oder durch einen Zufallstreffer/Crit zu töten? bloss weil einige nicht schnell sterben wollen (oder überhaupt nicht) oder weil sie wollen ,das andere sich ihrer langsamen Spiel und Reaktionfähigkeit anpassen sollen ?

[3rdworld]

Yokaiko, on 22 April 2013 - 06:43 AM, said:

True, even then, its 48 for a 6PPC alpha, you shutdown for a good long while on the second one. Capping at 40 wouldn't be a good idea, you would be JUST under the threshold with 4 mlas in two cycles.

.....no matter how many heatsinks you have.

Depends what the dissipation is and how long you think that build should be able to fire before it overheats with how many heat sinks.

If you think it should be able to shoot for say 60 seconds without stopping before it shuts down with say 14 heat sinks

40 HCap / 60seconds = .67 HPS

So since 4 MLs = 4 HPS - .67 HPS = 3.33 Heat Dissipation with 14 heat sinks. Which means each DHS needs to provide .23 HDPS for that to be the normal amount of heat dissipated for a mech. (actually that would only provide 51.28 seconds because I rounded the .67)

But the idea is this.


With a lower cap/high dissipation, using many high heat weapons at once, still causes you to overheat as dissipation requires time, and weapons build heat instantaneously. But using an "acceptable" number of these weapons does not cause you to overheat because your dissipation will cover the initial heat from the alpha before the weapon is recharged.

That is how it should have been balanced, instead using few of these high heat weapons causes you to overheat in around the same amount of time as many of them do because the dissipation is so poor and the cap is so high.

Edited by 3rdworld, 22 April 2013 - 06:59 AM.

[Ozric]

We should definitely remove Alpha Strikes, and we should also remove Chain Fire.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

remove all weapons and all enemy Player