1263 replies to this topic

[Oderint dum Metuant]

HRR Insanity, on 11 June 2013 - 11:46 AM, said:

Adding heat for multiple weapons fired simultaneously does not fix the problem. It attempts to put limits on the problem using the heat scale. This will likely NOT address many of the other combined weapon builds that will become more prevalent after this change (2xGR, 2xAC20, 3-4xAC5, 3xUAC5, 4-5xAC2) unless the developers jury-rig additional heat to weapons that are supposedly low heat ammo limited weapons. Moreover, at present, some of the best configurations in the game use 3xPPC+GR; this configuration is completely untouched by the proposed fix and will remain dominant.

Summary: The proposed change does not address the ability to create alphastrikes/groups of damage and thefore will not slow down mech deaths, will not improve the metagame, and is largely a waste of developer time.

Stop avoiding the underyling problem; fix it by adding weapon spread in a logical fashion.

I agree with the points at large in this post, this system of heat application solves nothing does not fix the problem when most of the builds in use don't use more than 2,2 or 2,3 of the combination of weapons.

Adding weapon spread as in that link is still stupidly bad though.

[Caviel]

My $.02:

Streak SRM changes - Really invalidates Streak 2s if they start doing leg damage (2 damage to the left leg and right arm each? Yay?), although I can see the change being needed for upcoming Clan technology and Streak SRM6s.

Flamers and Machine Guns - Better, still not worth it. Takes way too long of focused fire of machine guns to do anything worthwhile from a damage perspective, even with this buff.

Quote

Pulse Lasers are being normalized to have their variances standardized between the different sizes. This is in preparation of them being tuned as we move toward launch. What this directly means is that for now, Small Pulse Lasers will have their damage increased to 3.4 and their heat reduced to 2.4.

Predicting the return of the 6 SPL Jenner complaints now. We've finally come full circle, early closed beta folks!

Quote

Large Pulse Lasers will have their damage increased to 10.6 but their heat is also increased to 8.5. This puts all 3 pulse lasers in alignment of having an approximate 1.25 variance for DPS and a 1.3 variance for HPS. Once this is implemented into the live servers, we will be looking at how they play out and making further adjustments as needed. (June 18th Patch)

For 1 more critical, .5 less heat, and .6 less damage, I can take a PPC that has a much better range (Albeit with a 90m minium) and no beam focus requirement since it works like a projectile.

Heat Damage at High Heat Levels - 150% should be insta-death or close to it. You've got the numbers, although this seems like a very high threshold to reach unless you are intentionally doing so.

Heat Penalty - This seems to be a needlessly complicated system that will be a nightmare to balance. It's a step in a direction, just not sure it's the right one. It does little to stop the 4 PPC mech, and adds a .5 second inconvenience to the 6 PPC stalker which can and will likely be macroed away.

I like that you are looking into resolving the complaint, I just can't help but think square peg and round hole with this solution.

Kitane, on 11 June 2013 - 11:25 AM, said:

Seriously, if there wouldn't be an immediate threat of damage to the internal systems, WHY would mech shut down when reaching 100% heat level?

Because 100% heat is the maximum safe heat level of the engine, not the maximum heat the engine can support without being destroyed instantly? That's my take on it. It's a good change, there's no penalty for firing 6 PPCs while already being at 90% heat, other than a long startup wait...

Banditman, on 11 June 2013 - 11:36 AM, said:

This is a good idea, and would dovetail in well with the system of "quirks" that already exists.

It makes for messy mech statistics that complicates the game for new players. Now in addition to torso twist and speed differences, you now have to track boating limits? There are many other simpler options presented that address the issue, and may even do a better job at it.

[edit: Proofreading changes]

Edited by Caviel, 11 June 2013 - 03:03 PM.

[Deathlike]

The great thing about the proposed changes... it doesn't affect the Stalker builds I used when I had them... nor the Cataphract-1X build I currently use that boats the same weapons.

Useless change as intended.

Edited by Deathlike, 11 June 2013 - 02:46 PM.

[Lentil]

Increased heat penalty for 'boating' would not be my preferred mechanic, but it has the potential to work. I'm concerned that having a per chassis (or per weapon) 'boat' limit will appear arbitrary and subjective (e.g. expecting a lot of "wah! you nerfed my perfectly reasonable build but not their OP one").

I'd rather see a limit on convergence/accuracy so that 9 weapons can't possibly hit exactly the same spot. This is particularly relevant to the instant-hit-sniping game (which PGI previously declared they wanted to avoid due to the MW4 metagame). If the 6 PPCs spread their damage around the mech, there wouldn't be as much incentive to boat them. It is the one-shot-(kill/maim) mechanic that is to be avoided. Only in a computer simulation is such laser-like precision of multiple control systems possible. (Ironically 'laser-like precision' doesn't apply here because the duration of the laser leads to damage spread except at very high skill levels.)

Also please recognize that weapon 'boating' is a natural effect of the desire to reduce pilot workload in the simulation environment. In TT, the player was equally likely to aim and hit with any of 5 different kinds of weapons. In MWO, it's far more difficult to manage a mixed loadout because of multiple recycle rates, lead times, etc. So it's natural to want N-weapons on one aimpoint. Don't penalize the convenience factor, particularly for new players.

Glad to see you're taking action though. Good luck!

[HarmAssassin]

Quote

[color=#959595]What a silly system. Just return the weapon heat levels to TT. Smaller weapons will have lesser heat resulting is allowing more boating ( hence 6 ML rule ) and larger weapons will have more heat resulting is fewer boating ( hence 3 PPC rule ).[/color]

[color=#959595]Smaller Laser weapons are 25% hotter than TT right now.[/color]
[color=#959595]Bigger Laser weapons are 25% cooler than TT right now.[/color]


[color=#959595]Just use the system that has been in place for almost 30 years now, that includes heat penalties btw[/color]

That would make too much sense.

[Felbombling]

I have just about given up... there is zero connection between the real core reasons behind extreme weapon boating and this response to it.

[HRR Insanity]

DV McKenna, on 11 June 2013 - 02:42 PM, said:

I agree with the points at large in this post, this system of heat application solves nothing does not fix the problem when most of the builds in use don't use more than 2,2 or 2,3 of the combination of weapons.

Adding weapon spread as in that link is still stupidly bad though.

Yeah, your opinions on the topic of weapon spread are well known. Do you have an alternative proposal to deal with the underlying issue?

If not...

[Tor6]

This is a non-solution.

I'm not even sure where the 150% of heat = damage thing would even apply. The ONLY mech build that isn't a complete joke that is even capable of that to my knowledge is the 6-ppc stalker. And even that build isn't good, just irritating if you're a light or medium and happen to be hit by his shot before he overheats.

That they said that lowering the heat cap and buffing dissipation would nerf all mechs bothers me because it tells me the devs haven't really thought much about this whole problem. Capping heat capacity at 30 (which ALL mechwarrior games to date have done unless I'm mistaken) would make high heat high alpha builds like 4+ ppcs nonviable because they've instantly overheat on firing. The awesome could barely handle it. BUT builds which use a smaller number would still be fine because even though it'd nerf spike damage (Which is the current problem) DPS would be really unaffected. You'd cool down much faster but also build up heat faster. You'd need to manage your heat level more and it would help reign in 'shoot till you overheat and then just hide' gameplay in favor of having to manage your heat throughout the battle. Which I think would be a positive change.

Also what is so hard about simply putting the PPCs heat back where it was supposed to be in the first place? The only reason it got a buff in the first place was because it was borked and you couldn't hit anything with it. Now that its working properly it badly needs its heat put back at 10 because as it is its better than most other weapons in the game at everything.

Finally I think the boating penalty thing is a terrible idea. It's totally unintuitive and won't even stop most of the high pinpoint alpha builds out there. If the AWS is gonna be able to rock 3ppcs like it should, there is NOTHING stopping the ubiquitous 3ppc+gauss highlanders and gauss + PPC atlas, misery, phract, victor, ETC. ALL it will do is slightly nerf the 4ppc stalker. 5 and 6 ppc stalkers already suck and this will make them suck more. But they weren't too much of a factor anyways because they spend most of the round shut down and vulnerable.

If you really want to deal with unbalanced heat systems and weapons FIX THE HEAT SYSTEMS AND WEAPONS. Cap heat at 30 and actually balance the weapons in relation to eachother and not in a vacuum like you seem to be doing. I mean putting the LPL to 8.3 heat? Really? :/

[aniviron]

GLAD THEY ARE FINALLY NERFING THE 8MLAS HUNCHBACK STOCK CONFIGURATION THOSE THINGS HAVE BEEN RAMPAGING ALL OVER THE BATTLEFIELD IT IS ABOUT TIME

[Cache]

Too many posts to weed through to see if this was asked. Sorry if I'm repeating...

Can you clarify whether the limit is imposed per weapon equally across all chassis, or whether it is based on individual chassis?




I would much rather see the limit based on individual chassis and believe it would be a great addition to quirks. I believe doing so will bring even more depth to the game while allowing many largely-ignored chassis and variants to shine where they are supposed to shine. For example: Awesome 8Q and 9M are the only stock variants with 3 PPC/ERPPC. They should have a higher limit for those weapons. Variants with large ballistic weapons should have a higher limit than those with smaller--Hunchback 4G is built for high-heat ballistics, the Raven 4X and Cicada 3C are not. Most Stalkers carry 2 large energy weapons, let that be their limit. Those with fewer get fewer.

I do think the 150% limit is reasonable considering the proposed heat penalties. Someone trying to chain-fire 6 PPCs at 90% is going to shut down before all of them fire. Override will damage them immediately, and an alpha should put them over the 150% limit. Will have to see how it plays out.

[John MatriX82]

And so nothing will happen for 6 ppc boats, they'll simply shoot 3 at once, heat up even less, the only "difficulty" is to slap the second tiplet into the same spot (which sometimes isn't absolutely hard at all).

6 MLs yes, 7 no.. 3 PPCs are ok, how about multiple LL's, 5xLRM15 stalkers? I guess you just showed up two examples rather than covering the whole boats.

Btw, SSRM changes are way appreciated.

I'll give a shot to the new pulse lasers, but I still pursue the idea that actual heat/range/dmg ratios are fine. What's not is their weight. 6 tons for LPL, 1,5 for MPL and 0.75 for SMPL (it's weird I know but it must be different from Smlas) would incentivate their use much more imho, because they are too heavy and too crippled in range to be a good alternative to MLs and LLs.

Edited by John MatriX82, 11 June 2013 - 02:59 PM.

[dyndragon]

The post Paul made unfortunately doesn't tell us what they were specifically trying to tweak and fix, so I'm going in with these assumptions:

• Trying to fix focused damage problem with boated weapons
  
• Trying to fix high heat alpha builds that have no real disadvantage, other than periodically shutting down (non issue at range)
  
• Trying to balance heat and damage output in a way that is not too complex so they can code it and meet the release date, and still makes sense to players.

I'm aware of TT rules, and I believe it was said before that the TT rules for heat penalties were too complicated. This proposal, however, I think is even MORE complicated, and I can't imagine being in PGI's position and having to balance all the different permutations of chassis, weapons, heat thresholds, etc. This is pure craziness. And then when the clans show up?!

My feedback is this:
The TT rules are simple, easy to tweak (and hopefully easier to code), understandable, and should deal with all 3 assumed points. You don't even need to implement ALL of them to gain the desired effects and fix the parts of the game that have issues.

Your proposed changes are (my feedback and opinion, again) opaque, add complexity to the game (with your system, you are implying that we are going to have to refer to a forum post that tells us chassis+weapon combination=heat penalty because there's no way in hell I can remember all that), and introduce "fictional" heat that does not necessarily make sense when IN the game. Again, your approach seems to be the untested sledgehammer method, whereas I think the TT heat penalties are more subtle and don't cause anyone to absolutely stop their playstyle now, and it affects ALL mechs equally.

As I recall, TT rules go something like this:

At:

• >X% heat, aim suffers slightly
  
• >X+Y% heat, aim suffers more, speed reduction
  
• >X+Y+Z% heat, aim suffers even more, even more speed reduction, random damage to random internal
  
• >X+Y+Z+T% heat, all the above, plus more movement or rotational penalties with random damage to random internal, chance to blow ammo (hey, make CASE more of a strategic and important decision!)
  
• >100% heat, chance to blow ammo, shutdown but can be overridden
  
• etc....to >125% heat, chance to meltdown core
  
• >150% heat, BOOM (I wouldn't actually suggest this as part of the MWO though--well, maybe a chance to explode outright).

Aim penalty could be illustrated by a flickering HUD, or, just use that random divergence you introduced with JJ in increasing amounts. That fixes point 1, not for the first shot at 0% heat, but it won't let someone continuously abuse it. In my opinion, this balances the player ability to place shots where he wants them, but not abuse the system to do it repeatedly.

High alpha builds can no longer just alpha strike with no risk, other than minor damage, nor can they alpha strike with 100% precision. This deals with point 2 regarding no risk heat management.

The TT rules are a simple set of rules that apply the same EVERYWHERE, and, at least having never seen the source code of your game, should be a simple routine to code since it does not require complex logic and knowledge of what kind of mech + what kind of weapons+ timing of weapons, etc etc to code. Just "if heat > x%, increase weapon divergence, slow mech y%, etc." It's a gentle tweak that can be illustrated easily without reading manuals or memorizing formulas through HUD warnings ("WARNING: Heat at X%, with illiustrative effects that demonstrate what happens to your mech--ex. HUD flickering, reticle expanding or swaying, flashing speed indicator to show you aren't running at max speed, so forth). This should maintain the spirit of point 3.

I seriously hope you reconsider this, or else I think you will be drowning yourself in whack-a-mole balancing everytime some new tech or chassis is released. Or, you'll be dealing with obsolete weapons and chassis that are never used because of some heat penalty issue.

Edited by dyndragon, 11 June 2013 - 02:57 PM.

[Deathlike]

aniviron, on 11 June 2013 - 02:53 PM, said:

GLAD THEY ARE FINALLY NERFING THE 8MLAS HUNCHBACK STOCK CONFIGURATION THOSE THINGS HAVE BEEN RAMPAGING ALL OVER THE BATTLEFIELD IT IS ABOUT TIME

Let's eliminate all mediums from being viable!

Oh wait...

Cache, on 11 June 2013 - 02:53 PM, said:

Too many posts to weed through to see if this was asked. Sorry if I'm repeating...

Can you clarify whether the limit is imposed per weapon equally across all chassis, or whether it is based on individual chassis?

From the post, it's all about weapon loadouts (specifically boating weapons)... nothing to do with chassis, hardpoints, or variants.

Edited by Deathlike, 11 June 2013 - 03:00 PM.

[Xenroth]

PPC's currently have 8 and ERPPC'S only got 11 Heat per shot. They should be brought back to 11 Heat for PPC's and 14-15 for ERPPC's already this would have an impact you will notice and might be a better fix for the problem than nerfing boating at all, this punishes especially medium mechs like the blackjack and hunchback!

[scJazz]

Heat stacking how wonderful...

I for one welcome our soon to be Gauss Rifle carrying Overlords!

Great so the basically useless SSRM2s on my SmartCat are going to dive for frickin legs and arms preferentially? Soooo ummmmm... alright look I'm going to give this one a pass for now but stay tuned!

[WolvesX]

I have to apologize!

... running fun builds.

... using unviable los and weapons.

... suck just for the lols.


AND providing PGI false data it seems of there game by doing so it seems.


HEREBY, I swear an oath:

Form now on, I will abuse the **** out of the balance system. No more fun builds, no more unviable weapons.

6 ER PPC STK is a joke build and you know it.

2 AC40 JAG is a joke build and you know it.

PGI must have false data about there game to come up with suchs ideas.

• Nerfing Large Pulse Lasers
  
• NO word about SRM
  
• No buff for the MPLs
  
• Heat Penalty System: WOW that IS waht MWO really needs... more hidden laws.

BOW TO YOUR 1 GAUSS & 3 PPC OVERLORDS

Edited by WolvesX, 11 June 2013 - 03:06 PM.

[Victor Morson]

I strongly encourage everyone to read this topic, as it was gaining too much steam out of this thread and got shut down.  There was a lot of worthwhile information.

First I want to say one thing:  Even if you like or dislike Alphas as a concept, let's table our mutual argument for the moment.  This is less a fight about alphas and more a fight about a really really immensely terrible way of trying to deal with them.

-

That said, I'd like to point out that this fix will do absolutely nothing to the majority of snipers.  Aside from the 2x Gauss capable Victor is around the corner, most run a mix of Gauss and PPC on a small scale.  This doesn't impact Highlanders or Stalkers or anything else that everyone and their grandmother is driving without weight restrictions.

Instead, this punishes things like medium laser boats that are already on the cusp of extinction.

So my problem boils down to this:  This fixes absolutely nothing.  This damages many things.

Edited by Victor Morson, 11 June 2013 - 03:05 PM.

[NRP]

@PGI
I think this is a terribly misguided idea. You are taking what is a fun and addictive game and making it less so. Making crazy builds is really what sets MWO apart from other games (for me at least). What you are proposing to do is going to marginalize your game's uniqueness.

I'm sure you know Titan Fall is just around the corner. It has mechs and that "COD" game play that literally tens of millions of gamers know and love. In my opinion, you cannot afford to water down your game in this way and still hope to compete for gamers' money and attention.

Edited by NRP, 11 June 2013 - 03:36 PM.

[Inkarnus]

keith, on 11 June 2013 - 12:50 PM, said:

this is a horrible idea. paul is 1 of the worst balance devs i have seen ever. if u get rid of the 4-6 assault mechs per match, don't have to worry about the massive alpha boating problem. instead makes up these half assed systems

keith, on 11 June 2013 - 12:50 PM, said:

this is a horrible idea. paul is 1 of the worst balance devs i have seen ever. if u get rid of the 4-6 assault mechs per match, don't have to worry about the massive alpha boating problem. instead makes up these half assed systems

why are you so hatefull?
its the first steps on a way that very much can lead
to a far better gameing experience as now
and for what PGI said
that they dont want to much excessive
changes put in at a time
i support it since it will lead with
tweaks slowly to the path
we all want it going
and on a side note what
do you know wich changes
they already planned but
didnt release already
so this values seem
fine as a beginning step
to slowly let the player base
adapt to it and tweak from
there

[technothrakon]

Don't try to create equality of effect by tinkering with streak hit location so each limb is given an equal probability as the entire combined torso combined. That just sounds silly.

I don't buy the logic behind decreasing the torso weighting for SSRMs. If a streak is targeting the RT and the target twists so that their CT is actually hit, why is that a condition you need to balance? It appears to be a "stuff happens in war" situation.

Your analysis shows that streaks don't target center torso but there's a net effect that they hit there because of the current piloting strategies employed to avoid damage. It seems unwise to try to adjust the game so it attempts to create equality of effect because pilots are using detrimental avoidance strategies against streaks.

The other strategy, changing the 'lock points' to be more solidly in the center of the targeted component, is the right way to balance this.