81 replies to this topic

[Hauser]

Interesting, flamers this way work as damage suppression.

The first 10-15 seconds a mech can put out its alpha strike damage. After that without cooling down most builds are limited to approximately 5 damage per second. A mech with flamers forces a mech to either back off and cool down or limits his damage output.

[Coolant]

Tennex, on 16 May 2013 - 08:39 AM, said:

flamers shouldt just counter energy loadouts.
its going to be a bad mechanic.

PGI is really good at making these bad mechanics.

- if you get flamers, and you go up against someone using ballistic/missile weapons. you are screwed.
- if you get missiles, and you go up against someone who has ECM. you are screwed.


this is very binomial gameplay. its just bad game design.



It needs to simply increase the cooldown of weapons on the targeted mech

Where were you when they were making MW4:Mercs...you could've shared your great wisdom with the devs there too since it worked the way they are describing in MWO...

[hammerreborn]

Syllogy, on 16 May 2013 - 11:02 AM, said:

Personally, I think that a 2 Flamer / 2 Medium Laser / 2 SRM4 Jenner will be more effective than a 6 Flamer Jenner. Since you won't be able to stun-lock people, when they power up, if they have enough close range punch, they cab still put a whoopin on you before they overheat again. I would rather have something that can heat them up, and then do as much damage as possible before they can power back on.

Well, if what people are talking about and not linking to because screw showing where you get your info from, there will be damage past a certain threshold, so flamers will make people take internal damage from alphaing at 90%

[Sephlock]

I call this one the "BOOM, HEADSHOT!" I plan to exploit the bejesus out of this during the months it will take for them to re-nerf flamers into oblivion.

[80sGlamRockSensation David Bowie]

Spheroid, on 16 May 2013 - 08:07 AM, said:

Amazing, these are all sane sensible gameplay changes. Lets see if they can pull it off.

$200,000,000 CBills on either

1) They won't

2) This is the DirectX 11 announcement all over again. Remember when Bryan said we were getting that, last October...

Edited by mwhighlander, 16 May 2013 - 11:07 PM.

[Yankee77]

I expect flamers to get nerfed soon enough, if they are in fact able to shut down players.

Why? Because this makes Flamers an irritating weapon, whose primary effect is to frustrate the target.

In tabletop that's not an issue, because you're actually not in that cockpit and usually have plenty of other things to do. But in MWO, where controlling the mech is what you do, getting shut down by flamers is going to be extremely frustrating, and in time the forum rage will see flamers nerfed.

And I'd have to agree with it: any system whose primary purpose is to annoy and frustrate players has no place in modern game design. Same reason why CC is very limited in modern MMOs, and why ECM is so hated.

[Syllogy]

They won't be able to shut players down.

They will force players to pick their shots when they are being heated up though.

[Davers]

The usefulness of flamers will come down to how fast they can heat their opponent in the time it takes to do the first few alpha strikes. After that, it will be as if the opponent didn't have flamers at all. Once a mech burns through his heat capacity and enters an overheat/recover/alphastrike/repeat loop flamers will have no effect (other than minimal damage).

[Yankee77]

Syllogy, on 17 May 2013 - 07:10 AM, said:

They won't be able to shut players down.

They will force players to pick their shots when they are being heated up though.

I meant "shut down" as in denying them the ability to fight normally. At 90% heat you're not getting off any meaningful attack before you shut down. Even a couple of medium lasers will cause shutdown, after all.

That's frustrating, and irritating, and I doubt it'll be enjoyable.

That said, I hope I'm wrong, if it instead adds more tactical depth to the game wihtout being a source of frustration, then I'll be happy. I'm just not hopeful, because the whole point of flamers in the first place is to restrict a mech's actions.

[hammerreborn]

Itkovian, on 17 May 2013 - 07:21 AM, said:

I meant "shut down" as in denying them the ability to fight normally. At 90% heat you're not getting off any meaningful attack before you shut down. Even a couple of medium lasers will cause shutdown, after all.

That's frustrating, and irritating, and I doubt it'll be enjoyable.

That said, I hope I'm wrong, if it instead adds more tactical depth to the game wihtout being a source of frustration, then I'll be happy. I'm just not hopeful, because the whole point of flamers in the first place is to restrict a mech's actions.

Having the enemy team game after game consist of 5-6 assaults boating PPCs/Guass is frustrating, irritating, and without a doubt not enjoyable.

Their tears will be enjoyable.

Edited by hammerreborn, 17 May 2013 - 07:34 AM.

[Pinselborste]

General Taskeen, on 16 May 2013 - 09:09 AM, said:

MW3 Flamer is still better. Trying to balance the Flamer with its "always stream flame" functionality will cause problems no matter what in either direction. Copying the MW:LL MG and Flamer was a detrimental mistake for a Mech vs. Mech game like MWO regardless of "cool factor."

the flamer and the MG where viable in MWLL, its just that devs dont notice that using TT stats for some weapons and for some not doesnt work, should have balanced the weapons for a real time game instead of using numbers that where balanced for a TT game.

[MustrumRidcully]

Syllogy, on 16 May 2013 - 08:05 AM, said:

• A powered down enemy will not generate heat when hit with flamers, but will still take damage.

https://twitter.com/...990327016910848
https://twitter.com/...990377910571009
Links courtesy of Thontor.

I am still a little worried that FLamers might become too good, but this is a feature that might avoid the risks.

ANd of course it remains to be seen how Flamers stack. The quoted feature won't do anything if a 8 Flamer Hunchback can effectively shutdown a mech in 2 seconds, but if it takes longer (and/or more mechs with 8 FLamers), then it could be okay.

Personally, I probably wouldn't risk making the crowd control component of Flamers. I'd have only made them more heat efficient and maybe more damaging.

[Syllogy]

Even if a 9 Flamer Hunch could bring a mech up to 90% in 2 seconds the damage output would be so low that it wouldn't really be worth it.

Edited by Syllogy, 17 May 2013 - 07:53 AM.

[Vasces Diablo]

I'll bet MC that the 90% threshold gets lowered at some point. It may not shut you down by itself, but anything you do at that point will. It's essentially a stun lock.

[Syllogy]

9 Flamers @ 0.4 DPS = 3.6 DPS

Stock Atlas CT = 94 Armor + 62 Internals = 156 Points

156 / 3.6 = 43.3 seconds of sustained fire to the CT in order to kill an Atlas.

Vasces Diablo, on 17 May 2013 - 07:55 AM, said:

I'll bet MC that the 90% threshold gets lowered at some point. It may not shut you down by itself, but anything you do at that point will. It's essentially a stun lock.

Not really. The lowest amount of Heat Threshold you can have is 40. (30 + 10 single heatsinks) Anything with doubles will have a minimum of 50.

Anything that generates less than 5 heat per shot can be fired with impunity. Even firing an AC20 would be a very short power down/up cycle.

Also, remember that you can manually power down to drain heat. A mech equipped with all Flamers can't do very much DPS, and they will also suffer from the heat that they generate.

Edited by Syllogy, 17 May 2013 - 08:03 AM.

[Kommisar]

First, I'll be harsh. If you are in one of the High-Alpha / High-Heat assault builds and you get yourself isolated to the point that a single mech boating flamers can shut you down and take you out... man, I can't find it in me to feel sorry for you. If the guy with those flamers can work that build, get in close and make it work; he's earned it. If you chose to go all high-heat, then yea, you have to accept the trade-offs.

Second, I don't think it will be all that effective. A light mech is going to have to keep the flamers on-target to make it work. That means, staying inside 90m of the target. Even if he is running in circles, he's going to be VERY predictable and a team mate can blast him in half. The flamer mech will be very vulnerable doing this.

As for the "frustration" has no place. That pretty much describes my entire Spider 5D mech I run. It is a giant, running, flying psychological warfare machine designed to frustrate enemy pilots and make them do stupid stuff. I never fight "fair" (as defined by most assault mech pilots). Should light mechs have no place in the game then?

[Yankee77]

Vasces Diablo, on 17 May 2013 - 07:55 AM, said:

I'll bet MC that the 90% threshold gets lowered at some point. It may not shut you down by itself, but anything you do at that point will. It's essentially a stun lock.

That's basically my concern.

If it turns out not to be the case, then kudos to the devs.

[Zerberus]

Itkovian, on 17 May 2013 - 07:21 AM, said:

I meant "shut down" as in denying them the ability to fight normally. At 90% heat you're not getting off any meaningful attack before you shut down. Even a couple of medium lasers will cause shutdown, after all.

That's frustrating, and irritating, and I doubt it'll be enjoyable.

That said, I hope I'm wrong, if it instead adds more tactical depth to the game wihtout being a source of frustration, then I'll be happy. I'm just not hopeful, because the whole point of flamers in the first place is to restrict a mech's actions.

Sorry bro, but I have to laugh hysterically before I answer....

Bottom line: If you`re (not you. spefically, this is a blanket statement) such a bad player or have such a cheesey build that you not only let someone with a flamer get UNDER 90 YARDS away from you (maxrange flamer 90 yards, max effective range 64(!) ), but actually can`t do anything to stop him from wailing on you for about 60 seconds, including running to your team, then you deserve every second of humiliation you`re about to receive.

My instictive thought in a (non-er) PPC cheesebuild would be to shut down manually for 15 seconds and let my heat dissipate to zero, then haul *** towards my team as fast as possible... it`S not like the flamer is causing significant damage, and he`s announcing his presence to your team with a huge swath of flame in front of his mech.

But yeah, that`s SOOO hard that flamers probably will be nerfed... but it won`t be because Flamers are OP, but rather because skill is and you don`t get it awarded like C-Bills.

Edited by Zerberus, 17 May 2013 - 08:52 AM.

[Khanublikhan]

I like the proposed change.

The statement of intent for flamers should be: "the flamer is a weapon that educates your opponent. Properly deployed, it teaches them heat management and weapon discipline. The strong counter to a flamer is teamwork / communication: always deploy with a wingman."

That said, I am not opposed to the idea of limited flamer fuel (it takes time to recharge from the reactor - similar to the way jump jets work).

[hammerreborn]

The thing about the 90% cap that confuses me is just that it's so...arbitrary >.>



Should make your mech melt. To hell with "stun locking" arguments. You let an entire team get within 64 meters of you, you explode now.