267 replies to this topic

[Sable]

wow the OP is definitely experiencing some nerd rage about ppcs. I'm glad the devs are looking into some kind of work around as some players seem dissatisfied with the high alpha builds. It shows that they are listening to the community. Although i do not personally think there's anything wrong with it outside taking internal damage for shooting your heat so far past your maximum threshold but the devs already said they are going to be introducing a system for taking damage for doing just that. So to me its just a matter of patience.

Don't know if Paul will look at this again but before the announcement i thought 2 things should happen to change PPCs to make them more "fair use" without nerfing them directly.

1. PPC cooldown needed an extra second
2. PPC projectile speed needed to slow down some.

And to my surprise the devs are doing 1 of these very things. The slower firing reduces dps without reducing total alpha damage which is what i like for my awesome 9M but also having to shoot slower indirectly buffs PPCs in the way of not over heating as easily. You'll have an extra second to cooldown between shots.

The PPC projectile speed i think would change a lot of things for the better. In previous mechwarrior titles PPCs although having the potential super long range always traveled slower than our current iteration. The insta-snipe ability they are now would be made much more skillful as you would have to time your shots for impact and would make the PPC more of a medium range weapon. The reason the projectile speed was buffed to begin with as i understand it was because people just weren't able to hit other mechs that well. But with HSR for projectile based weapons we've seen the effectiveness go through the roof.

I hope you get a chance to read this paul and appreciate your hard work. I understand its not a complete game yet but you haven't let me down with each new patch.

Edited by Sable, 18 May 2013 - 07:51 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

MCXL, on 18 May 2013 - 07:15 AM, said:

And hey, look at that! There is a link in my signature that has roughly 30 pages dedicated to just that sort of topic

That's. like, crazy! This heat system topic is brand new, to have such a large discussion happen before so long ago!

[hammerreborn]

jeffsw6, on 18 May 2013 - 12:13 AM, said:

Some may not have read the statement from Paul, To curb boating with high alphas... we are testing a system that induces a heat scale when firing multiples of the same weapon within a specific time frame. The more weapons fired of the same type, the higher the heat scale climbs.

I think this a hugely stupid reaction to PPC boating. It also doesn't affect jump-jet PPC mechs (Highlanders, CTF-3D, etc) because gravity brings them under cover.

In order for it to affect PPCs appreciably at all, it is going to have collateral damage which will adversely affect a number of mechs and popular builds which are not causing massive QQ or driving players away from the game. Here are a few:

• 6 ML Jenner and numerous other lights
  
• Hunchback 4P (like, any sane build for it)
  
• Several Awesomes
  
• Stalkers with multiple SRMs, LRMs, MLs, MPLs, SLs for side-weapons, you name it
  
• Quad AC/2 Jagermech (already very limited by heat)
  
• DRG-FLAME (common to run 4 ML, MPL, or LL)
  
• CN9-AL
  
• 4/5ths of CDAs if using MLs or similar
  
• AS7-D
  
• AS7-RS
  
• CPLT-A1, CPLT-C4 (almost everything you'd want to use them for)
  
• COM-TDK
  
• HGN-733

Oh, gee, did I just list half the mechs in the game, which "boat" many of the same weapon commonly, and are not over-powered? Yes, I did.



Another fine example of how unbelievably foolish PGI can be! If they approach it this way, they must either cripple 50 common, reasonable builds in order to nerf PPC/ERPPC boats, while still not affecting the jump-jet ones; or not do enough, but gimp all those other mechs/builds a little more anyway.

http://mwomercs.com/...07#entry2355607

I should have just made my entire post in 48 points font but that wouldn't sufficiently express my outrage.

You could you know, always not alpha in every single one of those builds. Sets of 3 for each arm in the Jenner, for instance. Chain fire the hunchback, or once again break them up into smaller sets.

Alphaing all day every day is bad.

You're argument essentially comes down to "MY ALPHA GOOD THEIR ALPHA BAD DON'T HURT MY ALPHA!"

How about we all just not alpha every shot?

Edited by hammerreborn, 18 May 2013 - 08:10 AM.

[MCXL]

MustrumRidcully, on 18 May 2013 - 08:09 AM, said:

That's. like, crazy! This heat system topic is brand new, to have such a large discussion happen before so long ago!

Every time we talk it turns into a circle jerk Munstrum.

I like that.

I think its time to revise my old tome for current numbers and some gameplay changes.

[Ralgas]

Jackson Jax Teller, on 18 May 2013 - 08:31 AM, said:

Once its in the game it tends to be too late. Other than collisions and LRM's ability to be a weapon system, have they removed anything from the game that was implimented badly? And Collisions was yanked because the devs got humiliated in a video lol

coolant implementation? As was said, wait until there's an official post on it, not a "we're thinking about it" by-line in something semi-related

[Weaselball]

Paul already covered the basic "Duh's" with his replies, but here's my 2cbills anyways:

Who says that they're going to increase the heat-scale that medium lasers, or medium pulses, or AC5's or AC2's or anything else out, aside from PPC's or Large Lasers etc?

When I read Paul's original post, my thoughts weren't "Well they're going to just make ALL weapons bad with this change," as the OP's seems to be. It was "well they're probably going to make it detrimental to firing 3+ PPC's within 3-4 seconds of each other, but they won't touch the weapons that aren't being abused or are otherwise fine."

Sit back. Calm yourself. Wait for more information before raging.

[Joe Mallad]

@ Paul... I've said it before and ill say it again.

All of this boating and trying to fix it could have been avoided if you guys would just put restrictions/size limits on the weapon hard points. Let the Stalkers have its 5 and 6 energy hard points but make standard and large hard points. Give the stalker with 6 energy hard points 4 standard hard points that anything up to medium lasers can go into and give it 2 large energy hard points that anything up to ERPPCs can go into.

This would still allow 6 medium laser builds or 4 mediums and 2 large lasers or 4 mediums/pulse and 2 PPCs of some kind. This still allows for some boating up to medium laser weapons and still give some good heavy fire power capability but takes the heavy boating out of the picture. You guys really need to go back and rethink the hard point structure. This would fix the big weapon boating.

Edited by Yoseful Mallad, 18 May 2013 - 08:58 AM.

[Alpha087]

Well first of all. OP posted out of context, as the following was at the bottom of the page,

"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."


And second, if you're running around boating all of those different mechs, then that's just too bad isn't it? Though I severely doubt whatever change they do would actually even nerf half of what the OP listed, I don't think it would be a bad thing if they actually did.

And whatever players would 'rage-quit' from the nerfing of their boats, is probably nothing in comparison to the number of players, both new and veteran, who have already stopped playing because of how this game has become a competition of who can cram the most of a certain weapon into a chassis. The fact that the devs are trying to force players to make mech builds that are more on-par with what BattleTech is suppose to be, rather than letting it devolve into a generic FPS with mechs, is a good thing.

tldr: Stop whining and learn how to play without boating.

[Joe Mallad]

Alpha087, on 18 May 2013 - 08:57 AM, said:

Well first of all. OP posted out of context, as the following was at the bottom of the page,

"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."


And second, if you're running around boating all of those different mechs, then that's just too bad isn't it? Though I severely doubt whatever change they do would actually even nerf half of what the OP listed, I don't think it would be a bad thing if they actually did.

And whatever players would 'rage-quit' from the nerfing of their boats, is probably nothing in comparison to the number of players, both new and veteran, who have already stopped playing because of how this game has become a competition of who can cram the most of a certain weapon into a chassis. The fact that the devs are trying to force players to make mech builds that are more on-par with what BattleTech is suppose to be, rather than letting it devolve into a generic FPS with mechs, is a good thing.

tldr: Stop whining and learn how to play without boating.

i agree with you 100% on this but like all the other issues PGI has had to correct over time in Beta... The boating issue is also an issue they created by not putting major thought into their hard point system from the start. They even said it themselves that the gamer will find and exploit whatever they can because its the nature of the gamer. The hard point system as is... Is majorly being exploited lol

[hammerreborn]

Yoseful Mallad, on 18 May 2013 - 08:56 AM, said:

@ Paul... I've said it before and ill say it again.

All of this boating and trying to fix it could have been avoided if you guys would just put restrictions/size limits on the weapon hard points. Let the Stalkers have its 5 and 6 energy hard points but make standard and large hard points. Give the stalker with 6 energy hard points 4 standard hard points that anything up to medium lasers can go into and give it 2 large energy hard points that anything up to ERPPCs can go into.

This would still allow 6 medium laser builds or 4 mediums and 2 large lasers or 4 mediums/pulse and 2 PPCs of some kind. This still allows for some boating up to medium laser weapons and still give some good heavy fire power capability but takes the heavy boating out of the picture. You guys really need to go back and rethink the hard point structure. This would fix the big weapon boating.

Because hard point restrictions are bad. They do nothing. With the current setup, we have cataphracts, highlanders, atlas, and now a stalker all using gauss + ppcs.

Restricting hard points further just makes the one mech that can equip guass + ppcs the only mech played, which would probably be an atlas. So essentially you cut customization and variety in the game to nothing.

Not to mention I'm pretty sure a stalker comes stock with 4 large lasers (don't quote me on that) so that variant just becomes the premier energy boat mech, and awesomes likely the ppc boats of choice.

At least we have a choice with this setup.

Yoseful Mallad, on 18 May 2013 - 09:02 AM, said:

i agree with you 100% on this but like all the other issues PGI has had to correct over time in Beta... The boating issue is also an issue they created by not putting major thought into their hard point system from the start. They even said it themselves that the gamer will find and exploit whatever they can because its the nature of the gamer. The hard point system as is... Is majorly being exploited lol

And it still will be even with hard point restrictions...

[Sassori]

This has been hashed over and over and over since closed beta.

The problem is pin point accuracy. The BattleTech/MechWarrior system is /not/ designed around pin point accuracy. Ever. Weapons need to have larger targeting reticules based on the range they're trying to aim at and they all need individual reticules.

If you have 6 medium lasers, for example, they all need to have individual target points based on their position on the mech, and those target points need to not be precise pinpoint accurate. Trying to hit a specific location is supposed to be /hard/ it's not supposed to be easy, especially at range!

This will make matches last longer and kill snipe boating as an overwhelming tactic. Missiles gain use again and everything is balanced.

This whole idea that this will somehow negate skill is flawed. This will promote unit tactics, working as a team, focusing fire, and stop the gung ho cowboys right in their tracks.

But, everyone keeps wanting to treat this like it's a FPS instead of a tactical sim.

[Sassori]

Christopher Dayson, on 18 May 2013 - 09:15 AM, said:

This has been hashed over and over and over since closed beta.

The problem is pin point accuracy. The BattleTech/MechWarrior system is /not/ designed around pin point accuracy. Ever. Weapons need to have larger targeting reticules based on the range they're trying to aim at and they all need individual reticules.

If you have 6 medium lasers, for example, they all need to have individual target points based on their position on the mech, and those target points need to not be precise pinpoint accurate. Trying to hit a specific location is supposed to be /hard/ it's not supposed to be easy, especially at range!

This will make matches last longer and kill snipe boating as an overwhelming tactic. Missiles gain use again and everything is balanced.

This whole idea that this will somehow negate skill is flawed. This will promote unit tactics, working as a team, focusing fire, and stop the gung ho cowboys right in their tracks.

But, everyone keeps wanting to treat this like it's a FPS instead of a tactical sim.

The hard point system is a key part of the /balance/ to the weapons. By having pinpoint fire, they had to increase the amount of armor per ton to /try/ and extend game play because they also reduced weapon reload times so that our mechs are like ninja robots firing constantly rather than the tromping godzilla's they're supposed to be, unleashing hell but not at a blistering pace.

Well perhaps not the hard point system per se but at least the weapon slot system but... back to my point. With ballistic weapons not getting the same effective damage per ton of ammo, their whole balance system is throne off, which is also promoting these crazy gauss builds.

The way heat is building up because weapons fire much faster than they should while still generating as much or more heat as they did in the game the system is based on also promotes Gauss > all.

So really... it is a compound issue, but, I don't think it's the hardpoints. I think it's specifically pin point accuracy forcing additional armor which reducecs the effectiveness of weapon fire so weapons need to be sped up but their heat isn't reduced.

Another option to fix things is reduce damage /and/ heat proportionately to reload/recharge times at a scale of 1 shot per 10 seconds but... really... they're going to keep throwing bandaids at this and just try for as much money as they can while they can.

This is all stuff we told them in closed beta.

[Pinselborste]

Paul, why not decrease the heatcap and increase heat dissipation granted by HS and DHS?

the PPC fire rate reduction affects mechs with only 1-3 PPCs like the awesome way more than the 6 PPC stalkers that strip the armor of a location with a single hit.

the reason for this is that the damage you can deal before overheating is way higher for the 6 PPC stalker with its low ammount of heatsinks than for the awesome with its high ammount of heatsinks.

not to forget that the damage is easier to focus for the stalker. if you would reduce the heatcap to 35 for example, and greatly increase heat dissipation the game would require more balanced loadouts, compared to the massive focus on high alpha damage we have right now.

also, weapons could need better balancing, especially the weapons that use ammo like the autocanons, just increasing ammo and firerate doesnt help, damage increase would be a good addition, if the AC2 for example would deal 3 damage per shot but with the same damage per second, wich can be done with lower firerate it would be way better.

It would have different effects:

the damage can be focused easier

the enemy can react better cause of less explosions covering the screen

it would be worth more for the 6 tons the gun needs without ammo

and the last thing, it would run cooler than other weapons wich should be an advantage of the ballistic weapons since they need nearly half their weight for ammo to be used for a full match.


balance should be more important than a number from a TT rulebook or a weapons name.
Those weapon stats where made for the game mechanics used by the TT game and not for a real time game that will be made more than 20 years later.

Edited by Pinselborste, 18 May 2013 - 09:46 AM.

[Joe Mallad]

hammerreborn, on 18 May 2013 - 09:04 AM, said:

Because hard point restrictions are bad. They do nothing. With the current setup, we have cataphracts, highlanders, atlas, and now a stalker all using gauss + ppcs.

Restricting hard points further just makes the one mech that can equip guass + ppcs the only mech played, which would probably be an atlas. So essentially you cut customization and variety in the game to nothing.

Not to mention I'm pretty sure a stalker comes stock with 4 large lasers (don't quote me on that) so that variant just becomes the premier energy boat mech, and awesomes likely the ppc boats of choice.

At least we have a choice with this setup.



And it still will be even with hard point restrictions...

i can care less if a mech can mount 2 PPCs and a Gauss. Most heavy and Assault mechs should be able to run load outs like this. It's mech being able to mount 5 or 6 PPC that is the major problem. I can see an Awesome or even a Stalker maybe running with up to 4 PPCs but that should be the max limit.

[cyberFluke]

Rhent, on 18 May 2013 - 01:14 AM, said:

@Paul
1st) What constitutes boating?
-I'm running Misery w/: 1 Gauss, 2 ERPPCs, 3 ML. I can snipe at long range and when they close I have focused fire at close range.
-I'm running Misery w/: 1 AC 20, 5 ML, 1 SRM6. I can focus fire all but the SRM6 on one narrow target.

In both of those builds above, I can unload an ungodly amount of focused fire, About 50 on a target and sustain it for a few rounds.

2nd) Putting in a sliding heat penalty for firing weapons of the same type probably won't fix the issue.
-The most popular sniper build is: 1 Gauss + 2 ERPPC's. Would the scale apply to 2 PPC's?
-Another popular sniper build is: 2 Gauss. how are you going to scale 1 heat?
-Light mechs running 6 ML, what will happen to them?

3rd) Shut down mechanics are easily avoided.
-I am part of the Native Kuritan Rid Humping Stalker movement. I can get up on a ridge, and unload 3 volleys of 4 PPC's blast and on my 3rd volley I start moving backwards and when I shut down I fall back on the hill and I can't be hit even though I'm shut down. Instead of falling back, as soon as I shut down I should stop dead in my tracks in the open so I can be shot. If Poptarters on overheat had a good chance of falling forward out of cover, that would help fix that mess as well.
-Poptarters will purposely go up on their 3rd volley to Jump, shoot then overheat and fall to safety behind the ridge.
-The damage to the internals is a good idea.

4th) The real issue is CONVERGENCE
-Rethink convergence amongst the weapon positions. I honestly have no clue on how to even suggest implementing this. However, if say someone can get about 40% damage to where they are aiming and the 60 still hits but in in close proximity, that would probably fix a lot of the boating issues AND would increase game time so people don't die as fast.

I agree with your sentiment here.

Doing something worthwhile with convergence or otherwise altering the 100% precision of weapons will help solve the sniper/boating issues far more effectively in my opinion. The problem isn't so much the fact that so much damage is being thrown, but it's all hitting the same section of the mech. The entire game design of BattleTech/MechWarrior isn't built that way. Damage is expected to be much more spread out, if you even hit at all. This is how the game fundamentally works, it's why 'mechs have sections that contain the different parts that they do, so that as the mech takes fire, different parts cease functioning and the 'mech becomes more challenging to use. What's the point of CASE if your assault 'mech's centre torso gets cored in three shots, for example?

100% accurate fire is the root of the problem here. Changing it doesn't have to remove skill either. Numerous methods have been discussed on the forums, describing a plethora of ways to add more required skills than a twitch reflex and the ability to point and click.

[General Taskeen]

The Dev said it is a thought and in testing, although I much prefer they also test this:
Fix Heat Threshold

Redeveloping heatsinks, heat, and heat threshold, may take more time, but I think that effort would be well worth the time to make happen and actually make more sense.

Edited by General Taskeen, 18 May 2013 - 09:43 AM.

[cyberFluke]

Yoseful Mallad, on 18 May 2013 - 09:36 AM, said:

i can care less if a mech can mount 2 PPCs and a Gauss. Most heavy and Assault mechs should be able to run load outs like this. It's mech being able to mount 5 or 6 PPC that is the major problem. I can see an Awesome or even a Stalker maybe running with up to 4 PPCs but that should be the max limit.

I do also agree that for the sake of 'mech variety and maintaining the intended purpose and flavour of the range of available 'mechs, hardpoint sizes really need considering. Should you really be able to mount an ERPPC where there was a small laser? Should you really be able to mount an AC20 where there was an MG? Not if you want any semblance of that role warfare stuff that supposedly forms a "pillar" of the game...

[MustrumRidcully]

Christopher Dayson, on 18 May 2013 - 09:30 AM, said:

The hard point system is a key part of the /balance/ to the weapons1

They might try it to make it such, but it fundamentally can't do this job. The problem is that there are canon mechs that are designed as boats. Unless they carefuly avoid all canonical boat configurations of mechs (which would also require removing several mechs we already have from the game), you cannot escape this problem. Should we ever get Omnimechs, the problem will get worse, because those are supposed to be completely freely configurable in their omni pods.

It's a futile approach. The only thing hard points can give us is distinction between different mech variants, and enforcing their aesthetics or maybe their role (but the latter is currently not done. You can turn an LRM boat into an SRM boat, and that is definitely not role-preserving. It is aesthetics-preserving, however).

Balance the weapons themselves. That's the first step to mitigate the advantages of boating - avoid that using multiples of one OP weapon, you get the power advantage multiplied.
Then figure out how you ensure that you don't want all weapons at once at once to maximize the benefits of convergence. Lowering the heat cap is a relatively easy approach to do that. Raising the heat dissipation to keep energy weapons useful would help, and would also buff stock mechs (even those that use Single HEat SInks). At least now heat generation and heat dissipation are closer to the rate these mechs were designed for.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 18 May 2013 - 09:51 AM.

[cyberFluke]

General Taskeen, on 18 May 2013 - 09:42 AM, said:

The Dev said it is a thought and in testing, although I much prefer they also test this:
Fix Heat Threshold

Redeveloping heatsinks, heat, and heat threshold, may take more time, but I think that effort would be well worth the time to make happen and actually make more sense.

Man, serendipity strikes.... This, with the above two points I've agreed on would perfect what we have so far in my not so humble opinion.

• Change 100% accurate aiming to something with more depth.
  
• Add some hardpoint size limitations. (ie. Not all hardpoints need a size limit?)
  
• Rework heat. (Less heat capacity, more dissipation)

With missiles getting the attention they need atm. We'd just need the planned content and bugfixes to launch I reckon.

Edited by cyberFluke, 18 May 2013 - 09:55 AM.

[IceSerpent]

Paul Inouye, on 18 May 2013 - 12:40 AM, said:

@jeffsw6: If you're going to quote me, please at least complete the 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."

Paul, this idea by itself is DOA because it will be circumvented by either alpha striking with different weapons (i.e. PPC + ERPPC + Gauss) or by creating a macro that chain-fires N PPCs just outside that specific time frame. Not to mention that lighter mechs will run into a serious problem due to not having a wide variety of weapons to choose from. Oh, and AC20 boats will be kings of the battlefield, because they don't care much about heat.