68 replies to this topic

[OneEyed Jack]

I strongly object to the extra heat for weapons of the same type. It's not the extra heat that I have an issue with, but the idea of applying it only to weapons of the same type. It makes no sense that weapons of the same type would build extra heat, but weapons of different types, fired in the same period and with the same total base heat, wouldn't

[Nauht]

Tennex, on 16 May 2013 - 03:54 PM, said:

i thought they were trying to nerf Alpha builds? so the AC40 and the gauss bulid do not constitute alpha builds.

also your thought process is very short sighted.

Fact of the matter is the PPC was not boated until the Stalker came out.
and the AC20/Gauss is not boated.
Untill the Mauler/Annihilator comes out.

Dude, I'm just replying to your first reply about "gauss boats". Have you ever seen a gauss boat? I'm saying have 2 of a weapon does not make it a boat. Also I did ask if a mech has a GR + 3ppc, which weapon is being boated?
Nowhere in those notes did I read anything about nerfing alpha builds, just boating the same type of weapon.

My view narrow? I'm trying to keep at least 2 of the same weapons in game. Hell I reckon more heat on the boats is wonky. A weapon generates heat when it's fired. How does it suddenly know its with its buddies and decide to generate more heat if 2 or more are there but not if another weapon is fired in tandem. I was against this when they did it for the 9sl swayback and am against it now.

And you're wrong, there were plenty of ppc awesomes even right throughout beta. Then much later the stalker then HSR - those two just made it so much more common.

[Lykaon]

Overall the proposed solution is what I have come to expect from this development team.

Change something else instead of directly addressing the issue that is actual Boating.

Much like how ECM is being handled where they alter several features instead of just redesigning ECM this proposed change does nothing to really prevent boating.All I foresee is a series of alterations that adds unneeded complexity to the game's code.

How do you handle boating?

Well MW4 holds the key to this issue.

That game had a limited hardpoint system where any given battlemech would have hardpoints of specific type and size.
For example a mech may have a 4 slot energy hardpoint in it's arm.This hardpoint would hold 4 single slot items (like small or medium lasers) or 2 weapons that occupy 2 slots or any combination that did not exceed the hardpoint size limit.

What I propose is we take that system and adapt it for MWo.What I propose is somewhat more restrictive yet at the same time preserves the uniquieness of mech chassis varients.

What I am suggesting is a hardpoint has a weapon critical slot cap and each hardpoint may only mount a single weapon.

An example: Hunchback 4P weapon hardpoints.
Head 1 slot energy
CT no harpoint
LT no hardpoint
RT 6 single slot energy hard points
RA two slot energy hardpoint (may mount any laser weapon but lacks the space to fit a PPC)
LA is identical to RA
Legs have no weapon hardpoints

The above hardpoint layout preserves original mech's general intent the right torso can and ussually will mount a battery of light energy weapons.The arms however do allow for larger energy weapons to be fitted at the exspence of the tonnage to mount the larger weapons.

The proposed system creates some restrictions since it will be impossible to mount PPCs at all on a hunchback 4P however the 4P may alter it's weapons to include large lasers or large pulse lasers in the arm slots for example.

This proposal has the ability to preserve mech chassis intended roles yet still allow customization.

[Kitane]

The system will work just fine if the penalty starts when firing 3 weapons of the same type, boats will switch to 2-2-2 chainfire to manage heat and even the most extreme energy boats will manage.

And increased usage of chainfire will do a lot of good for the game. Alpha striking is right now a better choice if heat allows it, so anything that makes chainfire better at something like sustained DPS is a good thing.

edit: It should be a little more complex than just pairing weapons of same name. SRM2-6, LRM5-20, LLAS and ER LLAS, PPC and ER PPC should be treated as same weapons. And AC20 should probably deserve an exception from the rule and heat penalty should kick immediately when firing two at once.

Edited by Kitane, 16 May 2013 - 04:18 PM.

[Nauht]

Kitane, on 16 May 2013 - 04:13 PM, said:

The system will work just fine if the penalty starts when firing 3 weapons of the same type, boats will switch to 2-2-2 chainfire to manage heat and even the most extreme energy boats will manage.

And increased usage of chainfire will do a lot of good for the game. Alpha striking is right now a better choice if heat allows it, so anything that makes chainfire better at something like sustained DPS is a good thing.

edit: It should be a little more complex than just pairing weapons of same name.

SRM2-6, LRM5-20, LLAS and ER LLAS, PPC and ER PPC should be treated as same weapons.

I liked your suggestion without the edit. That places yet another restriction on how the game is played as its edging towards more of a blanket type restriction.

[Kitane]

Nauht, on 16 May 2013 - 04:21 PM, said:

I liked your suggestion without the edit. That places yet another restriction on how the game is played as its edging towards more of a blanket type restriction.

Well as it was pointed out to me, PPC boats often use 2 ER PPC and two PPC, and my suggestion would allow firing all 4 at once without penalty.

[trollocaustic]

Quote

i just hope it doesnt heavily punish the energy builds. while leaving ballistic/missile builds alone.

So nerf the weakest weapontype while leaving god and regular weapons alone?

[Mister Blastman]

No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YOU DO NOT VIOLATE THE FIRST LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS!!! IT IS... LAW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Roland]

Lykaon, on 16 May 2013 - 04:07 PM, said:

How do you handle boating?

Well MW4 holds the key to this issue.

Did you even play MW4?
Because competitive play was dominated by ERLL boats.

[Vicro]

Should I be worried about my Hunchback 4P? Its a decent Mech, but I never felt he is over powered.

[RG Notch]

80Bit, on 16 May 2013 - 03:18 PM, said:

I somehow doubt that any "boating" penalty will be applied equally to all weapons. Any penalty that is meant to reduce PPC boating would kill the viability of a lot of energy heavy light and medium mechs.

Sure, I mean it's not like PGI has a track record for screwing things up when they "fix" something? I have no doubt that the "fix" will be as hamfisted as their track record of balance changes are just a see saw of FotMs.

[Ghost_19Hz]

Did they state exactly how this will be implemented? How close together timewise and how many you would fire to incur penalties? Because this would affect tons of current builds. Not sure if is good or not. Because ppc + guass, since guass has 1 heat it won't matter much. I know paul said the increased cooldown of ppc to four seconds wasn't balance related, but that also won't negatively affect the way that Mech type is played. Might help get all shots on target more in some cases. All i remember is him saying not to speculate the future change. is this what is needed to change the meta?

All i know was when SRMs were really powerful and i got caught by a sneaky srm mech while i was sniping it was game over. Now it's mildly annoying, and almost no one does it anymore.

[Keifomofutu]

They really need to scale the penalty for # of weapons based on weapons size.

For example will "boating" a 4 medium laser alpha incur the same percentage of heat penalty as boating 4 ppcs? Those jenner ML alphas are out of control after all.

[Aaren Kai]

Wha? The 'fix' for firing weapons of the same type at the same time is more heat? That is the solution? Alrghty then. Time to fire up the macro editor for my Jenny-F. Say a .01 delay?

Do they think these things through or just spin the wheel of d'oh and call it a day?

[Sephlock]

Anyway couldn't this end up making poptarting even more extreme, since people will start relying even more heavily on tactics that allow then to fire, then shut down in safety?

Unless they make the punishment for overheating very severe and the threshold very low, I could see that happening.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

Pale Jackal, on 16 May 2013 - 02:22 PM, said:

What are the nerfs besides affecting PPC refire rate? Though really, I think increasing heat would be a better way of nerfing PPCs. The real limiting factor is heat, not refire rate.

I guess, rarely, I might be able to get off two PPC volleys in a single jump, but producing more heat would force me to stay behind cover longer, and even more negatively affect my close up brawling potential.

A heat increase does not prevent two back-to-back volleys in 3 seconds. A cycle rate increase does. That extra second of waiting to fire can give a brawler a decisive advantage, or let that light move that extra bit of ground to get around a corner.

Brawling depends in large part on accurate, short-term damage output. A PPC doing 10 damage every 3 seconds does the same amount as an AC20 over those 3 seconds. Increasing cycle time to 4 means that in that same three second period, it only does half the damage of the AC20.

What a change to cycle rate does is reduce the ability of PPCs to function as brawling weapons, and limit their ability to tag elusive targets (that extra second can be the difference between life and death when moving between cover).

Aaren Kai, on 16 May 2013 - 06:06 PM, said:

Wha? The 'fix' for firing weapons of the same type at the same time is more heat? That is the solution? Alrghty then. Time to fire up the macro editor for my Jenny-F. Say a .01 delay?

Do they think these things through or just spin the wheel of d'oh and call it a day?

I believe they said "in a short period of time" when talking about adding heat while firing multiples of the same weapon. This would suggest that your macro would be useless.

Edited by Levi Porphyrogenitus, 16 May 2013 - 06:09 PM.

[Odinson]

Well, I'm curious to see how this stuff gets implemented and if it works out.

My ideas on "boating" were as such:

Say an engine generates a certain amount of available "power" for energy weapon systems, for the sake of argument I'll say the engine's rating divided by 10. Then, energy weapons use an amount of power equal to the damage they deal, and no matter how many energy weapons fire the damage is capped at the amount of available power... or anything firing beyond that limit gets diminishing returns, though I prefer the first.

So, a 'Mech with a 400 engine could fire 4 ER PPCs or 4 lg. pulse lasers simultaneously, but no more. Does that still result in a high damage output? Yes, but no more so than a pair of AC20s and only marginally more than a pair of Gauss Rifles, and the heat production of that many weapons at once is already pretty restrictive. Remember, in a way, causing yourself to overheat is already a balancing factor: you either shut down, or your engine/ammo explode from excessive heat.

Then, regarding missiles (and I think, from my experiences so far, that the "boating" issue here is primarily SRMs) I think the following would work fairly well: The first SRM rack in any location reloads at normal speed. Additional SRM racks in the same location add 50% to the reload time per rack mounted in that location. SO:
1xSRM6 in the right arm = 4 second reload time per rack
2xSRM6 in the right arm = 6 second reload time per rack
3xSRM6 in the right arm = 8 second reload time per rack
and
1xSRM6 in the right arm + 1xSRM6 in the left arm = 4 second reload time per rack
2xSRM6 in the right arm + 1xSRM6 in the left arm = 6 second reload in RA, 4 second reload in LA

To make a semi "modular" system like the battlemechs in MWO have, I imagine each location would have a primary ammo feed that would have to be shared by the weapons of like type in that location, so this is somewhat "realistic." I would theorize it reduces the fire rate of missiles sufficiently to make them less devastating, though admittedly does nothing to restrict the number mounted. Asymmetrical groupings of missiles would have the added effect of forcing the racks to fire in a staggered order unless the pilot waited to fire until ALL racks reloaded.

Just ideas. Don't know how feasible any of this would be or how difficult to implement, so it may not be reasonable, but there you are.

[boomshekah]

Also stated in the same thread:

Quote:

"...Investigation items are not locked in and are exactly that... thoughts and tests. Do NOT go flying off the handle about how this won't work or that won't work until we make an official post. It will severely help your blood pressure. "

Just saying...

[Sam Slade]

This could work; so long as it is scaled with weapon size, mech tonnage and number of weapons.

To my mind, two PPCs does not a boat make... 3 PPCs is pushing it(unless your in a mech made fot it*cough* Awesome). 4 PPCs and you're headed out of port not mechbay.

Personally I hope this change encourages more people to use mixed mech builds. It'd also be good if the threshhold into Boatland involved a HEFTY heat increase. The the change between 2 PPCs and 4 PPCs is a bloody big one.

Add Flamer power to this and I see those Jenner-Ks swapping a pair of lasers for a pair of Flamers.

[HRR Insanity]

The proposed fix doesn't fix the problem. It attempts to add a downside to one class of weapons.

It will result in 2GR+1PPC/ERPPC becoming the dominant meta.

They need to fix groups weapon damage, not mess with the heat system.