1263 replies to this topic

[VagGR]

Nasty McBadman, on 12 June 2013 - 09:18 AM, said:

Does this mean that a stock build Awesome-9M (3 ERPPC) is an abuser build?

no...but a 3PPC+ gauss is...so should they penalize the awesome stock build? no...but PPCs should be producing much more heat in the first place..im sure whoever designed the 9M stock variant didnt have 4-5 alphas before overheating in mind

[Fle]

compleetly agrred, balance prevail!

[Kraven Kor]

I do not like the proposed heat fix for "boats."

You need to somehow emulate the tabletop heat scale and penalties in MWO.

You need to set the heat guage such that up to 50% heat, no real problems. Above 50% heat, the mech should move and accelerate / decelerate, and turn slower. Convergence should be slower, arms should track slower, and target locks should be acquired slower.

Don't penalize boats.

Penalize heat. Which will, naturally, penalize most boats, excepting Gauss which seems less of an issue currently.

[HRR Insanity]

Aim64C, on 12 June 2013 - 05:24 AM, said:

I can't believe the plethora of responses in here that are just... so far off the mark it's insane. Including PGI's.

The problem - the only problem - is the hardpoint system.

The fix is simple. Give each 'hardpoint' a 2d grid to be filled with components that have a 2d space requirement. More similar to Mech Commander 2's system of handling components. Tonnage and criticals can be handled on a more global scale.

Mech 4's hardpoint setup was a little too restrictive - but the design really helped to give the various chassis their personality. At the same time, Assault mechs didn't run into near as much of a problem as they do in this game - and heavy mechs weren't as prone to exploitation of the hardpoint system.

Mechs like the Awesome could be one of the few with variants that support higher numbers of PPCs while a player in a Highlander can install two AC2's instead of almost being required to place a Gauss, AC20 or AC10 in that hardpoint to make it worth the investment.

For example - a PPC could be a 3x2 component while a large laser is a 2x2 - a 2x4 slot could hold two large lasers without opening up the option for a PPC to be installed there (since components would not be able to be rotated).

Thus - you expand your control and allowances over hardpoint loadouts while allowing players to customize their loadouts to a satisfying degree.

The problem, PGI, with the way you are trying to go about balancing weapons, presently - is that too many designs in Battletech just don't fit clearly within the distinction you wish to make. Is the BlackJack supposed to fire more than 4 medium lasers or 4 flamers at a time?

What about clan mechs like the Nova or Super Nova?

By adjusting the heat penalties to deal damage over 125% of heat capacity and implementing a better hardpoint system - the extreme point-alphas would begin to fall to the way-side (particularly as you began adjusting how heat capacity is derived).

Things like the AC40 cat/jager could be restricted out of existence (if desired) and such lethal builds restricted to Assault chassis.

These are things, PGI, that you should have thought about back in the "drawingboard" stage of this game. Many of the things you are having trouble with, currently, should have been well tested and resolved before your open beta.

Y'all need to get your **** together. You're a small developer. You don't have the resources to be mismanaging and misleading them.

Edit to address typo.

Wrong. Just like MW4, any hardpoint system will allow you to create 'optimal' builds within that system that will still deliver a maximal alphastrike within that system of limits. That alphastrike will still deliver pinpoint damage and will be better than a similar non-optimized 'Mech that isn't using a summed damage design.

You cannot fix pinpoint damage, alphastrikes, or the metagame by changing:

• individual weapon damage
  
• individual weapon heat
  
• individual weapon weight
  
• individal weapon size/including hardpoints
  
• the heat system
  
• etc

The only thing that will fix pinpoint damage and alphastrike builds... is something that limits the ability to combine weapons into single alphastrikes. The only way to do this is to implement some variant of weapon spread or decreased damage for GROUPS of weapons.

Everything else will fail because it does not address the fundamental problem.

[Ngamok]

MonkeyCheese, on 11 June 2013 - 04:44 PM, said:

Can you please remove the jumpjet shake now that the boating nerf is coming. That solves your high heat high damage overheating poptart fad, there is no need for the jumpjet shake with this new approach, I want my spider back...

No it doesn't. Please point out to me how any mech that mounts 2-3 PPCs and a Gauss and jump jets is being nerfed with this. I don't see any one of them that is affected. 3 PPCs fired = 0 penalty.

[Milt]

well that hgn with 3ppc guass didnt get cornholed like an erppc spdr did with the jj shake

[Damocles69]

If they are dead set on doing this it needs to be based on Mech and variant and not weapon type. I. E. Awesome can boat 3 to 4 PCs with no penalty while other mechs can't

Edited by Damocles69, 12 June 2013 - 10:15 AM.

[Skinflowers]

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.

What he said.

[Winterdyne]

Really don't like the heat balancing. At all.

I run a variety of mechs (hunches, spiders, catapults, highlanders) with all sorts of fits, so I'm not bitching about any articular build being penalised, just that this feels contrived and cheap.

I'd probably be happiest with the following mechanism:

Do damage straight to internals after 100% heat, in proportion to the heat over 100%. Scale the ratio of heat/damage to tune this. Damage should include a critical chance. I want to see ammo cooking off, heat sinks melting into slag, reactors going nova, and generally a bit more care in fire control. I don't think high heat should affect movement unless you actually start taking heat generation from moving into account (which should also probably consider deliberate running under-weight).

The number of boated weapons really doesn't concern me and hasn't since I started playing. If you're scared of splatcats or 6ppc stalkers, try, y'know, NOT STANDING STILL IN FRONT OF THEM.

[Skinflowers]

However, it's nice you seem to be, albeit tentatively, trying to address the alpha problem.

Right direction. Wrong solution.

[Dan Nashe]

Streaks: I'm not inherently opposed. However, this is a game where I can deliver 35 point precision shots. A weapon that deals damage anywhere I'm not aiming is doing nearly ZERO effective damage.Okay, that's an exaggeration. But if I do 50 damage to an atlas arm, and then blow off its torso, that 50 damage is no better than missing. As a result aoe random target weapons like srms and ssrms need to do serious damage per weapon slot/ton. I think after hsr, 3.0 will be the minimum assuming zero splash. Obviously if you put splash back in, it can't be 3 to each of several locations.

Right now, the death of srms is really exaggerating other issues. I boat lasers and ppcs because the missile slots on highlanders are useless for srms. With only 4 usable weapon slots, I HAVE to take big long range weapons. And I can't brawl effectively without good srms.

Long story short, change is perfectly fine to bring streaks in line with srms, but they all need to do a lot more damage than tabletop to match precision weapone (all energy and ballistics).

Flamers and mgs: no argument buffs good. Gameplay will tell if need more.

Pulse lasers: won't hurt the game. I understand it is prep for real balance. Awkward to change damage values though. In any event, I expect pulses will need 0.5 pulse time across the board to balance. (With same cds, this would provide the Slight dps boost they need). Personally Ithink this would make them feel really different than reg lasers, which would be awesome. I love different weapons really feeling different to fire.

Heat penalty: not bad. Don't expect it to impact the game much. But I believe in caution. Can be tweaked down gradually towards 100 percent. Maybe with scaling damage. I.e. 1 percent internal damage per 10 percent over, rounded up, or something.

Boating: will favor macros heavily without a major hud UI overhall. How is a new player going to chainfire weapon Groups? I.e. fire 6 lasers then fire 3 .5 seconds later. Complex mechanic for new players. I personally am fine with it, but I don't know how to communicate it in game to players.

The big question is: is it ok to run a 4 ac5 phract?
I rcommend some consistent damage based guideline, but it sounds like you've got that in mind.
2 ppcs (are er ppcs ppcs) seems fine.
Mls seems fine at six. I think your logic is sound. Hunchback is edge case, but a real consideration.
Singles for gauss and ac 20.
I don't know that this will really change the game. But whatevs.


EDIT: oh' 3 ppcs. So that's 30 damage alphas for mls and ppcs. That's a good point.
But maybe you have to put all weapons on one 30 dmage shared rule. Maybe a gauge in the cockpit showing "weapon stress" in the last 0.5 seconds. To nerf running gauss plus 3 ppc alphas and make it all consistent and rational (penalties over 30 damage/systems stress).

Edited by DanNashe, 12 June 2013 - 10:05 AM.

[Ulvric]

I posted this suggestion in response to the suggestion below from reddit:
This makes more sense than an arbitrary number attached to a weapon: A number attached to the unique variants. Instead, you'd add another meter to the screen next to heat threshold. Maybe a power meter. You'd make their power meter only so big and have each weapon absorb a limited mount of power that would be replenished when the weapons were more than halfway done with their cooldown. If they don't have the power, they can't fire. Hitting the alpha-strike key could fire all of your weapons but would have some sort of detrimental effect on your mech for an extended period of time.

Quote

Lore for the Battletech universe. I find it strange that they have not used this when they tend to stick pretty rigidly to the lore in most other respects. I'll give a rundown for those who have never read the books.
There are a lot of Battletech novels but the original 12 are considered the "classic" ones and set much of the groundwork for the setting and technology of the universe. Now the last 3 books are called the Blood of Kerensky trilogy and they cover the events of the Clan invasion starting in 3049. As you can see anything in these books then directly applies to our current timeline. Now there is a specific fight in these books where one of the main protagonists ends up fighting a trial where one of his opponents is his rival. His rival comes to the fight with 2 Gauss rifles and lasers and the protagonist starts a internal dialogue explaining a limitation of the Gauss weaponry he is facing.
Now bear in mind these are Clan mechs and way more advanced than what we have. He explains that large powerful weapons like the Gauss draw massive amounts of power and overwhelm the reactors power systems meaning that the mech can typically only supply enough power to fire one at a time. As a result it causes the computer to cycle the weapons at intervals meaning that when the pilot press the fire button there is a delay before the mech fires it's next weapon.
Now if this was implemented into the game it would pretty much solve the Alpha strike problem overnight. Class certain high power weapons like the PPC and the Gauss a "High Power Draw" weapons which means when you fire one you cannot fire another weapon of the same class for 0.5 seconds afterwards while the computer normalises powers levels.
It is honestly a very elegant and simple solution that is also Lore appropriate and is already in the books.

[VagGR]

ok im going to say this again...the awesomes were designed to carry 3 PPCs yes..but they were not designed to fire those PPCs alpha after alpha with little to no regard at their heat efficiency...the original design of the awesome carrying multiple PPCs has nothing to do with the current meta state and PPCs being what they are in MWO, a video game and not a table top game.

so please stop bringing that example up all the time....yes 3 PPCs + 1 gauss is a problem right now..same as 4/6 PPCs

[kuangmk11]

Please reconsider adding a real heat system. At 150% you should just blow up. Lower heat thresholds across the board. No silly weapon limits, no hardpoint sizes. Just a scale of increasing problems. You know, like its suppose to work. Something like this:

100% - Shutdown. Heat must be below 75% to restart. Heat sinks operate at 50% efficiency due to no cooling circulation. For every percentage point above 100% there is a 1% chance of critical failure.

90% - movement reduced by 50%, ammo explosion risk. Shake/cone of fire

80% - movement reduced by 35%, ammo explosion risk.

70% - movement reduced by 20%,

60% - movement reduced by 10%

50% - movement reduced by 5%

Shutdown is pretty much a death sentence, but you get plenty of warning. Force people to really manage their heat.

[K Storm]

ManDaisy, on 11 June 2013 - 11:06 AM, said:

Personally I think the heat penalty based on weapon amount is a bad way to go. Deciding how many weapons constitutes a heat penalty is very arbitrary, at best based on personal opinion.


150% heat also seems WAY too generous. 125% would be much more realistic as many more mechs other then the most min maxed variants would have fall into this category.


What I would suggestion is a system where max heat generated at once, decreases the effectiviness of heat sinks, rather then create more heat.

20 heat = no reduction to heat sink ability
25 heat = 5% heat sink reduction = for 3 seconds
30 heat = 10% heat sink reduction = for 5 seconds
40 heat = 20% heat sink reduction = for 10 seconds
50 heat = 30% heat sink reduction = for 15 seconds

and so on. As for how long the reduction reduction period last, that would be based on personal prefferance.

So bigger alphas would take longer to cool, with any weapon mix.


This current system also fails to deal with mixed weapon high heat alpha builds. For example, you have y SRM6 boats which also include lasers, ppcs and ballistics. Individually these weapons would not constitute boating. Together however they do.

I like your comment regarding the 125% threshold instead of 150%, but reduction in heat sink efficiency with greater heat breaks the suspension of disbelief. The greater the difference between heat sink temperature and the temperature of the environment it's dissipating heat to, the more efficient the heat sink becomes. This is derived from physical law, and proven in real world tests.

[DirePhoenix]

HRR Insanity, on 12 June 2013 - 09:45 AM, said:

The only thing that will fix pinpoint damage and alphastrike builds... is something that limits the ability to combine weapons into single alphastrikes. The only way to do this is to implement some variant of weapon spread or decreased damage for GROUPS of weapons.


Everything else will fail because it does not address the fundamental problem.

They could do this if they implemented a WoT-like "accuracy cone" that expands the more you move (and contracts if you hold still). You could even narrow the cone and/or modify how fast the cone contracts/expands by "skilling up" if you wanted. (this would also get rid of the dreaded "aimbotters")

...However, I'm sure that there is a vocal component of forum players that don't want that.

Edited by DirePhoenix, 12 June 2013 - 10:26 AM.

[WildeKarde]

Could be interesting for the heat but we'd really need to see it in practice to judge how it affects gameplay.

For ballistics the simple solution would be to increase the cooldown on multiple ones firing. Two AC20's or 2 gauss for example in a single shot double their cooldown. Simply from trying to reload multiple weapons at the same time.

[FupDup]

Is it just me or is Soy liking pretty much every single post in this entire thread?

Edited by FupDup, 12 June 2013 - 10:35 AM.

[MaddMaxx]

Milt, on 12 June 2013 - 09:26 AM, said:

ok, in tt a ppc does 10 dam for 10 heat. in mwo a ppc does 25 for 20heat. with armor being at a dbl value from TT. this is one of the better balanced wpns in game. now look at the ac/5 tt 5 damage for 1 heat mwo 34 dam for 6.66 heat. in the tt game ppc's were amazing if you could handle the heat. ac/5 were meh but didnt have any heat problems.

Am I reading that first line wrong? Milt, in MWO, a PPC does 10 damage for 8 heat, a erPPC does 10 for 11 (current build)

I am totally unsure how you can even get 25 damage with a 10 pt weapon system.

[hammerreborn]

Thedrelle, on 12 June 2013 - 09:33 AM, said:

I don't think people are getting what they mean by 150% overheat damage. As it stands in the game, anything over 100% will damage the mech if it's running. powering down stops this damage.

I think what PGI is talking about is that if you override and fire a large heat alpha, and push your heat over 150%, you will take damage to your CT EVEN IF YOUR POWERED DOWN. this is to counteract abuse of the override feature.

PGI, please confirm or deny this, your post was unclear.

Also, everything here looks good, the damage increase to the pulse lasers are going to make them dangerous!

also also: Shadowbie, What PGI is saying is that the weapon boat limit will be specific to the type of weapon as well as the specific mech variant. where most hunchbacks would have a limit of 4 lasers, the 4P would have a higher limit, as it's designed to fire everything in it's hunch. so no worries, your hunch or blackjack shouldn't be affected overmuch.

No, we all completely understood it, but 150% is as a certain bearded fellow might say, TOO DAMN HIGH!

Other than this heat penalty stuff, a 6 PPC stalker would be hardpressed to break 150% damage, let alone a 3 PPC/Guass, 4PPC, or even the rare 5-6 LL builds. They just don't generate that much heat to go over 100% unless they are at 99 and max alpha.

Not to mention even in the case that they do 6 ppc at 90%, that'll only put you around 160, and you should drop below the threshold rather quickly.

Reducing the cap penalty to 125% would have a much more detrimental effect on the high alpha high heat builds.

Still does nothing about the traditional 3 ppc + guass though.