11 replies to this topic

[Rhent]

High Alpha damage in the game is a problem. Heat is not going to fix it. Why? As soon as there is a solid heat penalty put in the game, everyone will switch to UAC/5's, Gauss and AC/20's + 1-2 ERPPC's/PPC's as supporting weapons. And boom, you are right back where you started from, a high alpha problem, this time only limited by ammo not heat.

Simply put, the Dev's have to look at the amount of focused damage someone is allowed to put out immediately in the game and then decide how to control it.

For example, lets say the Dev's set up a system that for a single volley if you do more than 20 pts of damage your shots stands a good chance of of hitting other parts of the mech and you have to wait 1 second to do another focused blast and you see it visually on your HUD.

0-20pts damage hits where aimed
21-29 damage 25% chance to hit the heaviest armored part of the mech excluding the head
30-39 damage 33% chance to hit the heaviest armored part of the mech exlcuding the head
40-49 damage 50% chance to hit the heaviest armored part of the mech excluding the head
51+ damage 100% chance to hit the heaviest armored part of the mech excluding the head


Lets say there is an Atlas RS (1Gauss, 1 ERPPC, 2 PPC firing in one volley:

The Gauss round lands where it was aimed 15pts
The ERPPC blast puts the cumulative damage at 25 pts damage and it has a 25% to random
The PPC blast puts the cumulative damage at 35 pts damage and it has a 33% to random
The PPC blast puts the cumulative damage at 45 pts damage and it has a 50% to random

How would someone work around this? Firing Groups like we are supposed to be using in the first place. If you are using Gauss or AC/20 then you have to make the decision if you want to fire them with other weapons or not.

[Chemie]

Dual guass = gets around it
Dual AC20 = probably gets around it (I am assuming they will allow 2 of the same to fire).
Guass + 2 PPC = no problem either

So yes, you will still have 30-40 alphas out there.
It will stop 4 LL (which is legit in my mind) and 6 PPC (which is not) but like all attempts from PGI, it will fail to fix the underlying problem.

[Ralgas]

Gauss are the big issue, but as anyone will tell you 2 ac/20 runs rather hot in anything that can mount it due to the lack of cooling available after the weapon space it taken up. That said gauss are like strapping on a grenade as far as survivability goes. uac/5 will be hurt the most by any stacking weapon heat penalty as its rof will cause issues. As for focused dmg we need convergence timers back or raised (its still unclear if it's instant or not) andis needed on top of any of these issues.

Add to that ammo concerns once 12v12hits and its not as bigger issue as it may be now.

Heat penalties can still allow the extreme alpha's, but at the same time actually put in place a meaningful choice between using them chain fire

[Androas]

Hmm playing Star trek online lately, brought up an idea about the whole alpha/heat Situation.

(for those who dont know STO, everybody else, just skip it)
In STO, you have an energy level for your ship systems, and each energy based weapon
fired together (after the first) lowers your energy level for a short duration.
Now, weapons do their damage based on the Actual Energy level, meaning:
the more Energie weapons you fire together, the lower the actual damage of each one gets.
(in a very short version)

Why not add something similar to MWO, the higher your Mechs heat get, the lower your weapons damage output will be.

And yes, this is "somewhat" how it works in Battletech anyway (heat is affecting the to hit rolls, we dont have to hit rolls, so why not simulate thos problems this way?)

[Siegwald]

Androas, on 08 June 2013 - 04:29 AM, said:

Hmm playing Star trek online lately, brought up an idea about the whole alpha/heat Situation.

(for those who dont know STO, everybody else, just skip it)
In STO, you have an energy level for your ship systems, and each energy based weapon
fired together (after the first) lowers your energy level for a short duration.
Now, weapons do their damage based on the Actual Energy level, meaning:
the more Energie weapons you fire together, the lower the actual damage of each one gets.
(in a very short version)

Why not add something similar to MWO, the higher your Mechs heat get, the lower your weapons damage output will be.

And yes, this is "somewhat" how it works in Battletech anyway (heat is affecting the to hit rolls, we dont have to hit rolls, so why not simulate thos problems this way?)

Me likes! Me likes very much!!

[MustrumRidcully]

Ultra AC/5s are not exactly "alpha boat" material. if you want to get some damage out of them, you need to fire many shots.

And a 40 damage alpha at 270m range is not the same as a 40 damage at 540m. (OR even 60 damage at 540m).

But if you don't want heat to take care of this for the extreme ends...

What if, whever you fire a weapon in one particular location (left arm, center torso etc.), all weapons in other locations are put on a 0.2 second (server enforced) cooldown. SO you can effectively only group-fire or alpha weapons located in one hit location.

If you're lucky and your mech allows you to equip 4 PPCs in one spot, you can get a 40 damage alpha. But of course, you also have just one hit location that the enemy needs to target to completely neuter your mech. Which seems fair - there is a risk with that reward.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 08 June 2013 - 05:08 AM.

[Grisnir]

Androas, on 08 June 2013 - 04:29 AM, said:

Hmm playing Star trek online lately, brought up an idea about the whole alpha/heat Situation.

(for those who dont know STO, everybody else, just skip it)
In STO, you have an energy level for your ship systems, and each energy based weapon
fired together (after the first) lowers your energy level for a short duration.
Now, weapons do their damage based on the Actual Energy level, meaning:
the more Energie weapons you fire together, the lower the actual damage of each one gets.
(in a very short version)

Why not add something similar to MWO, the higher your Mechs heat get, the lower your weapons damage output will be.

And yes, this is "somewhat" how it works in Battletech anyway (heat is affecting the to hit rolls, we dont have to hit rolls, so why not simulate thos problems this way?)

was suggested many time in differed variation, people don't like it because it deviate too much from battletech

[Felbombling]

When I first read about PGIs potential 'fix' for weapon boating, I could not help but think it was convoluted. For a year they've read suggestions in the forums on how to fix it or what would happen if the heat system and weapon convergence were not looked at seriously. Here we are, a year in, and it is every bit as bad as we all predicted it would be.

[Jonneh]

I agree with your conclusion.

I'm not sure about your solution though.

You are right, if they nerf "boating" alpha builds with all of the same weapon, we'll just see more 1 gauss, 1 ppc, 1 ac20 etc builds which are just as bad. I'm not sure what you can do to control the burst from builds like this, or if it is even necessary.

The main problem with PPC boating isn't that its particularly difficult to deal with if you ask me. Its the fact that they are effective at all ranges. Super long range as well as point blank. This means its an "easy" way to play and farm cash/xp, which means people will gravitate towards it and take away from the diversity of the game.

Lets face it, the 2x ac20 or 2xgauss builds are just as annoying, but at least they are limited by ammo. (and ammo explosions)

Personally I think the only way to put an end to "alpha spam" builds would be to add some penalty or limitation to firing all your weapons at once. A cooldown, followed by a global cooldown for each weapon group is one example of this. If you force a 6xPPC boat to fire all its PPCs in 3 groups of 2 then you're at least making it such that they have to "aim" more, and obviously makes it much easier to evade at close range.

Convergence is another good thing to look at. Making it so that firing all your weapons at once adds a random trajectory alteration to some or all of your weapons, like JumpJets currently do. Alpha strikes become a close range "desperate" measure then, instead of a sniper mechs standard way to fire.

Edited by Jonneh, 08 June 2013 - 07:06 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Quote

You are right, if they nerf "boating" alpha builds with all of the same weapon, we'll just see more 1 gauss, 1 ppc, 1 ac20 etc builds which are just as bad. I'm not sure what you can do to control the burst from builds like this, or if it is even necessary.

It's not as bad. A Guass, a PPC and an AC/20 all have different projectile speeds. Unless they manage to always catch your enemies standing around and not moving, they will not fire these as alphas - each weapon needs a different lead. And thus, the damage will be spread, and you'll have more chances to react to the attacks.

It can still be effective, but it makes it a bit harder. And that's, I think, sufficient. We don't want to remove the ability to deal damage and equip heavy weapons. We just not want it too effective, too easy.

[Jonneh]

MustrumRidcully, on 08 June 2013 - 07:13 AM, said:

It's not as bad. A Guass, a PPC and an AC/20 all have different projectile speeds. Unless they manage to always catch your enemies standing around and not moving, they will not fire these as alphas - each weapon needs a different lead. And thus, the damage will be spread, and you'll have more chances to react to the attacks.

It can still be effective, but it makes it a bit harder. And that's, I think, sufficient. We don't want to remove the ability to deal damage and equip heavy weapons. We just not want it too effective, too easy.

It only makes it harder at extreme range, which is still only part of the problem. At brawler range those builds are arguably worse than the current 6 PPC builds, because they do so much damage for so much less heat.

Personally I think they need to look again at all the weapons and make sure each of them has a "role". PPCs, if they are intended to be a long range snipe weapon, shouldn't be just as effective and easy to use at close range. They could do this by giving them a minimum range, with a large damage drop off within that range.

The same can be said for some of the other sub-par weapons like SRMs. They have a 270 range, and do less damage than a single PPC. What is the point in using them? You may as well have a mech with a PPC instead right? (Obvious weight, ammo and heat arguments aside for now). Surely they should be high damage brawling weapons. In-accurate and hard to "focus" on a single torso section, but high damage.

Pulse lasers could do with the same. If they're meant to be shorter range but higher DPS/HPS, then expand that niche for them.

What all this could end up doing is allow people to tailor builds to a playstyle, but leave each niche of weapons with their obvious drawbacks (and therefore counters).

Rock paper scissors you say? Not really. People can choose to specialize and be a "sniper" or a "brawler", but there is nothing stopping people who want a balance of weapons from trying a broader playstyle with a mix of weapons.

None of that will happen though when the most effective and "easiest" way to play is to load up as many long range, high dps and accurate weapons as possible. Which is the current PPC philosophy.

[MustrumRidcully]

Quote

It only makes it harder at extreme range, which is still only part of the problem. At brawler range those builds are arguably worse than the current 6 PPC builds, because they do so much damage for so much less heat.

At short range, the enemy is hardly surprised by your attacks, and just by keep moving and twisting, he will spread damage around. Snipers benefit from being hard to see before they took a shot.