72 replies to this topic

[Obadiah333]

What the real reason behind the current meta is. NO, PPC's are not OP. NO, ERPPC's are not OP. NO, boating is not the reason either.

The problem (and this has been pointed out infinite times) is that the penalties for overheating are not severe enough. Why is poptarting / high alpha the current meta? Becuase there is no fear of overheating. Pop up, alpha strike, overheat, drop behind cover, shut down, restart - rinse and repeat. I'm only stating this becuase I'm tired of reading the Nth forum topic on why PPC's are too OP.

So, the fix, which we have been asking for since closed beta, is simple. MAKE PENALTIES FOR OVERHEATING MORE SEVERE. Possibilities as follows (again, many have been listed numerous times before):

1. auto ammo explosion - overheat to the point where you shut down, your ammo auto explodes
2. targeting penalties - add an overheat "shake" to the cockpit that is permanent, and gets worse with each overheat.
3. sluggishness - engines start performing less effectively, affecting speed, torso twist, etc.
4. Heat sinks damaged/destroyed - stressing anything to the point beyond it's normal capabilities usually results in that object being damaged in some way, shape or form. Start losing too many heat sinks, you will spend the whole match shut down as a target.
5. insert suggestion here

Everyone needs to stop dancing around what the issue really is. It's not boating, it's not PPC's, it's heat. Remember the outrage against cooling flush when it was first implemented? This is why - high alpha heat with no drawbacks. I don't think they are OP, but they are certainly contributing to a broken system that needs to be fixed. Has needed to be fixed for a long time.

[Mechteric]

1. I think the current "armor melting" thing that occurs when over 100% is fine enough (especially if once it starts damaging internals is where the ammo crit chance could happen), and it should also be applied even when not overridden while shutdown until under 100%.

2. reticle shake from being hot doesn't really make much sense, instead perhaps they could introduce some vision filters that makes everything blurry (like in other FPS games where your vision is blurry when you're close to dying).

3. definitely

4. yep

Edited by CapperDeluxe, 31 May 2013 - 10:28 AM.

[Victor Morson]

I don't agree heat is causing all these issues.

That said, I wouldn't mind more heat effects (and a more user friendly override button ; it sucks holding it down) and I do agree that those weapons are not OP. My biggest problems are: Gun balance, lack of tonnage/BV.

Again though, bring on more heat effects. I'm down with that. This whole game would change pretty rapidly if 'mechs slowed down when running hot. I wouldn't even mind visual effects like the cockpit smoking up or the windows fogging over.

Edited by Victor Morson, 31 May 2013 - 10:29 AM.

[jakucha]

I don't think ammo should explode, nor should HUD get messed up from heat. I do think high damage alpha weapons should get specific heat penalties for being fired at the same time too often though. Smaller weapons, like small laser alphas shouldn't be affected.

[Obadiah333]

I guess I should state that anything that brings you over 100% heat should cause serious problems, wether it's from high alpha strikes with ppc's or slowly cooking yourself to death with small lasers. The higher over 100% you go, the more adverse the effects should be.

[Joachim Viltry]

modifier to Fire definitely means targeting issues. maybe HUD filters, if not reticule shake/blink?

definitely loss of movement/mobility is a must, given how prevalent it is among the Heat scale penalties.

Edited by Joachim Viltry, 31 May 2013 - 10:40 AM.

[Felicitatem Parco]

Paul Inouye posted this inthe Command Chair thread about weapons balancing a little while ago:

Paul Inouye, on 16 May 2013 - 01:49 PM, said:

Under investigation right now:
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 scale climbs.

Possible internal damage on certain heat levels of the player's Mech. If you blast past your shutdown threshold and then some, you start to take damage internally.

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.

Post your feedback here: http://mwomercs.com/...cing-follow-up/

... so it looks like they are working on at least 2 typs of Alpha Penalties - the increased heatscale and an increased risk of internal damage.

Edited by Prosperity Park, 31 May 2013 - 10:39 AM.

[Bunko]

Blazing Aces fest!

I agree with Victor, we need some heat effects but the problem with the items you listed are it doesn't effect everyone:

1) Good, it already does, maybe we can have it more frequent, but Energy weapons don't use ammo and Gauss ammo doesn't explode.

2) Why would your cockpit shake when over heating? Makes more sense if using Jump Jets.

3) Maybe, but that will be odd in a Light chase and no one wants to shoot cause they will slow down....

4) This makes sense, same as ammo explosions, problem though is people don't care about heat sinks already, that's why we are discussing this. If they loose a couple heat sinks due to over heating, "oh well, weren't using them anyway."


I believe heat values on weapons need to be adjusted to TT levels, if this is done then less weapons will be able to fire, creating less Alpha damage which is the main reason people are getting all upset. MWO allows 1 extra high-end energy weapon to be fired for every 3 that TT allows for the same heat.

[Obadiah333]

Sorry I missed that PP. I'll continue my discussions there. However, the "possible internal damage" doesn't sound very promising or deterring.

[Jman5]

Obadiah333, on 31 May 2013 - 10:41 AM, said:

Sorry I missed that PP. I'll continue my discussions there. However, the "possible internal damage" doesn't sound very promising or deterring.

Internal damage is huge. Next time you play, override just before you overheat and then go over 100%. Watch as your internals self destruct your mech in seconds.

[Grand Ayatollah Kerensky]

I think it would be an interesting gameplay element if hot mechs "burned through" the maximum range of the enemy's thermals so that a hot-running poptarter would light up brighter than the sun from the other side of the map.

[Fate 6]

I agree with all your suggestions for the most part, but I think that PPCs are a little overpowered compared to other energy weapons, especially when you consider that lasers do not begin dissipating their heat until they are done firing. PPCs put all the damage in one place, are hard to miss with considering the projectile speed, and are not much hotter than large lasers.

I also should mention that having a high heat cap is an issue. Firing 6 PPCs doesn't overheat a mech. The pilot skill tree certainly makes the issue worse.

[oldradagast]

It's not the PPC, IMHO. The only reason they are focused on as the root of the problem is because folks can't bring 3 Gauss Rifles on a mech - yet.

The real issue, IMHO, is perfect weapon convergence on a single pixel at any range. If you can alpha strike a target half-way across the map and put all the damage on one spot, that's a problem and in no way feels right or makes for fun game-play. note that I'm NOT in favor of any of the funky, cumbersome "manual convergence using the mouse wheel" ideas I've seen tossed around - the last thing this game needs is another hurdle for new players and another feature that rewards sitting in once place or writing up macros to do your work for you. I do, however, feel that it shouldn't be that easy to put all damage in one spot at huge ranges. Maybe add a cone of fire or something...

The heat penalty ideas aren't bad, though I don't like penalizing all instances of firing lots of similar weapons at the same time since that basically just punishes nearly everyone who plays the game (since mechs are really meant to have multiple weapons of the same type and most people aren't going to run with 6 weapon groups.) It does nothing to reduce the superiority of pinpoint alpha strikes.

Edited by oldradagast, 31 May 2013 - 03:01 PM.

[Pater Mors]

Along with permanent damage from blowing past 100% heat, I'd also like to see penalties applied for constantly running very hot, say above 80% for more than 10 seconds. These should be temporary penalties to things like speed and torso twist and go away once you cool down.

80% heat for 10 secs - Speed drops to 75%
12 seconds - torso twist speed reduced to 75%
14 seconds - targeting interference, radar ghosting, HUD blur
15 seconds - engine speed drops to 50%

Penalties are removed once the Mech cools to below 25% heat.

[Pater Mors]

Jman5, on 31 May 2013 - 10:53 AM, said:

Internal damage is huge. Next time you play, override just before you overheat and then go over 100%. Watch as your internals self destruct your mech in seconds.

The problem is that this only happens when you use override. If you never override you will never suffer damage and that makes zero sense. You can potentially blow past 150% heat without overriding and the only penalty you'll get is a long shutdown period. If you're halfway across the map behind some rocks, that really means no penalty at all.

The penalty for overriding should be death 99% of the time. Override should have nothing to do with actual heat management. Override is a last resort for that moment when you are screwed already and you want to get in that last Alpha before you die in a blaze of glory, hopefully taking that ******* with you. It should be almost completely impossible to survive blowing past 150% of your heat cap under any circumstance.

Edited by Pater Mors, 31 May 2013 - 03:40 PM.

[Soy]

oldradagast, on 31 May 2013 - 03:00 PM, said:

[...]bring 3 Gauss Rifles on a mech[...]

...

...

:|

*wanders off, mumbling*

Edited by Soy, 31 May 2013 - 03:40 PM.

[Ralgas]

Pater Mors, on 31 May 2013 - 03:38 PM, said:

The problem is that this only happens when you use override. If you never override you will never suffer damage and that makes zero sense. You can potentially blow past 150% heat without overriding and the only penalty you'll get is a long shutdown period. If you're halfway across the map behind some rocks, that really means no penalty at all.

The penalty for overriding should be death 99% of the time. Override should have nothing to do with actual heat management. Override is a last resort for that moment when you are screwed already and you want to get in that last Alpha before you die in a blaze of glory, hopefully taking that ******* with you. It should be almost completely impossible to survive blowing past 150% of your heat cap under any circumstance.

The other problem is the system is complete rng atm. Courtesy of Koniving...

(starts @ 9:40)

120% should be internal dmg, override or not. 140% should be blown motor, as per out of bounds.

[Tarl Cabot]

With what PGI said they were reviewing, the actual damage to a mech instead of using more of the ideas on the heat scale, it makes one wonder if PGI is not able to setup code that would have several different effects on a mech at the same time....

Joachim Viltry, on 31 May 2013 - 10:36 AM, said:

modifier to Fire definitely means targeting issues. maybe HUD filters, if not reticule shake/blink?

definitely loss of movement/mobility is a must, given how prevalent it is among the Heat scale penalties.

[p00k]

i actually....sort of agree with OP, in that i think heat is ultimately the issue. i'd rather a more punishing heat scale than this reticule shake thing that won't make any difference ($5 says they make you shake only during JJ burn; and if they don't, way to screw over jenners and spiders). no need for all these complicated consequences though; if you overheat, the systems that heated you take item damage. overheat from a single shot PPC? that ppc takes item damage. overheat from a 4ppc alpha? all 4 ppc's take item damage. keep it simple, weapons that overheated you take as much item damage as hwo much heat they generate. so after 2 overheats with a ppc, you lose the ppc. overheat once with ER PPCs and you lose em. overheat with mlas 3x and you lose em.

(note, this is from someone who has wholeheartedly embraced the poptart meta while it's dominant:

[p00k]

Pater Mors, on 31 May 2013 - 03:38 PM, said:

The problem is that this only happens when you use override. If you never override you will never suffer damage and that makes zero sense. You can potentially blow past 150% heat without overriding and the only penalty you'll get is a long shutdown period. If you're halfway across the map behind some rocks, that really means no penalty at all.

heh, played around with a build that overheats in a single alpha. overheated. cooled back down to 90soemthing%. alpha'd again (i.e. clearly over 180%). eventually cooled down again. no internal damage