1263 replies to this topic

[Tetatae Squawkins]

The single biggest problem with the proposed changes is that it hurts mediocre small/medium weapon boats while doing almost nothing to stop the actual problem of a few high damage assaults and heavies with big guns.

Tonnage limits on drops would fix half the problem as everyone would not have to bring a high alpha assault just to keep up. The resulting gameplay would be more varied and fun.

[Vaan]

crabcakes66, on 11 June 2013 - 11:39 PM, said:

The single biggest problem with the proposed changes is that it hurts mediocre small/medium weapon boats while doing almost nothing to stop the actual problem of a few high damage assaults and heavies with big guns.

Tonnage limits on drops would fix half the problem as everyone would not have to bring a high alpha assault just to keep up. The resulting gameplay would be more varied and fun.

I think that is quite a simple yet efficiency solution!!

[Troa Barton]

you make the exception for the hunchie, but a 4 ppc stalker isn't sacrificing much to do that build. the stalker can mount a lot more than 3 ppcs and not with much difficulty. the platform is designed to be a cannon. i agree with anything over 4 that's pushing it. this will kill any ER ppc builds, you'll only see them on blackjacks FB's PB's and the occasional light..
do you people not knowsubtly?

I mean im sorry i am a good shot, i put myself in a support role and know when to engadge.
im also sorry that the occasional ***** stares at me long enough to get the cockpit shot out from under him.
im sorry i cause so much qq being a better player than the norm.
generally when i kill someone with ppcs they didnt engage correctly. stood out on a ledge. stopped in a light or getting killed by someone else.
rocking ppcs if im alone im dead. these people who wine about it don't realize how careful you have to be.

i dont know heck weed out the people who wont know how to wait half a second.. easy pickings for me. but this doesn't make any sense for realistic builds.

the 6ppc stalker is an alpha build, alpha builds do need to be addressed. builds that sacrifice everything for burst damage are the problem.

oh that and lrm's hitting my center when i have my back to them.. that's just stupid.
you're telling me that in a future where my phone has a better zoom and rotating barrel ac's jam, they have missiles that will core me and leave the rest a little dinged up?

how about fixing elo to where it takes into account what mech you're in?
making a map pool that doesn't promote boating.
ping spikes, game crashes, the UI and the myriad of other problems that need to be addressed to the game in general and not to appeal to whining scrubs that don't know how to play as a team? dont know their role, or make "interesting life decisions".

[Havok1978]

FupDup, on 11 June 2013 - 04:40 PM, said:

Do you seriously believe that?

if the 130% heat threshold was implemented instead of 150%, sure. second alpha would almost insure they would cook like they are supposed to. btw if you qoute me, qoute me, dont take part of what I said and leave out the rest.

[MustrumRidcully]

I like the damage from overheating mechanic, but I believe they might have made the limit far too generous.

Mech with a heat cap of 58 and 2.84 heat dissipation per second (~16 DHS)
1st 6 PPCs salvo: 48 heat.
2nd 6 PPC salvo: 48 heat - 11.36 heat + 48 heat = 84.64 heat => 145 % heat.

Getting over 150 % seems to require basically alphaing shortly before reaching the max threshold, with a hefty energy load.
With DHS, the minimum heat threshold is 50. To reach 150 %, you need to fire weapons worth 25 heat at your heat thresold. This ain't that easy.

BigMekkUrDakka, on 11 June 2013 - 11:20 PM, said:

correct me if i wrong but LPL already have best DPS of all energy weapons(same damage as PPC but 3.25 sec cooldown), and beats some of ballistic weapons aswell so asking to buff those even more is like to ask for another "instakill" build, and if u say that theirs range is joke i will say that ac20/ac40 effective range is a joke as well, and pulse have almost the same "pinpoint" damage so be careful with yours wishes

How many LPL boats do you see right now?

DPS isn't everything. Weight and heat matter a lot. The LPL weighs the same as a PPC, produces similar heat ,but has far less range, and also is a beam weapon, thus tends to spread its damage.

Solomon Ward, on 11 June 2013 - 11:31 PM, said:

A very inelegant band-aid solution to boating.

Icing on the cake : This garbage idea came initially from the community.

No. It did not.

I remember reading about a heat boating penalty in the Closed Beta Forums, in a developer post. I did see no evidence that someone among the players actually suggested it in the first place. Some players liked the idea, though.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 11 June 2013 - 11:56 PM.

[RapierE01]

What about PPC and ERPPC? Does an Alphastrike of 3 ERPPC and 3 PPC generate the 40 heat penalty or not?

Edited by RapierE01, 11 June 2013 - 11:51 PM.

[Havok1978]

Victor Morson, on 11 June 2013 - 04:41 PM, said:

I think the general arc of this announcement was amusing; it started out with a lot of people coming on just to gloat over the death of alpha strikes, only to realize that this basically doesn't solve what's killing them at all, but sure does mess them up.

I'm still trying to figure out how we got to this point. How did a system get designed that literally exists to do the exact opposite of what it was pitched to do?



Someone hasn't read the thread.

no I read it, i just dont see 6 ppc stalkers or etc going into alpha overheat being combat effective anymore at that point. i mean unless you want to alpha then sit and derp around till your heat drops to near 15% before an aplha can made again which 6ppc stalkers dont do...

[Mahws]

Jumping on the heat solution is not best solution bandwagon.

Just reduce the heat cap whilst increasing heat dissipation by the same amount. Sudden spikes in heat from alpha striking large energy weapons now causes instant shutdown, whereas normal weapon fire is completely unchanged.

Way simpler way to nerf alpha strikes. Without crippling the Jenner/BlackJack/Hunch.

[Fiona Marshe]

As many have stated; wrong direction.

Individual weapon balance is a juggling act between damage/heat/weight/ammo. Pilots should choose how they implement their weapon loadout on a group basis.
Changing the heat scale is *much* more balanced approach, as it is up to the pilot to manage their heat. This also covers future weapons being introduced (Clan and Advanced/Experimental), without having to rebalance every weapon every time a new one arrives.

[Solomon Ward]

MustrumRidcully, on 11 June 2013 - 11:50 PM, said:

No. It did not.

I remember reading about a heat boating penalty in the Closed Beta Forums, in a developer post. I did see no evidence that someone among the players actually suggested it in the first place. Some players liked the idea, though.

Thanks for clearing that up.

i came late to the closed BETA party so i missed that and just read the rechewed Echo of this idea.


Restricted Hardpoints -while taking much more effort to implement -would have been the solution of my choice.

Edited by Solomon Ward, 12 June 2013 - 12:02 AM.

[Victor Morson]

A summary of the reaction to this announcement:

Edited by Victor Morson, 12 June 2013 - 12:00 AM.

[Faydeaway]

Damage at 125%.

Shutdown at 100%.

Speed reduction starting at 80% heat threshold.

Vision impairments (screen dimming or blurring) and/or piloting/shooting delays at high heat levels as your mechwarrior struggles to cope with heat stroke.

I don't understand why the devs keep trying to shoehorn machineguns and flammers in as viable mech vs mech weapons but whatever.

Discussing pinpoint accuracy vs reticle dispersion in this game is touching the third rail. However, it's the underlying issue and boating is just the symptom of the problem. The suggested "fixes" might reduce some of the boating we're seeing but it won't cure the problem. The next meta strategy will still focus on the quickest and easiest way to core out the center torso.

The current meta views any damage striking any other part of the mech as wasted damage. This is so jarring because in TT mechs are often reduced to shambling wrecks before they are knocked out of the fight. Not so in MWO, most often mechs are knocked out with nearly all their weapons and components still intact and a good portion of their armor still intact everywhere except for their CT.

Until this game mechanic or "flaw" (depending on your viewpoint) is addressed then boating will just resurface as some other type of game balance issue that needs to be addressed so mechs can't be cored so easily.

After all, the change to jj shake wasn't because jj are OP, it was because targeting while jumpjetting was too flipping accurate. Think about that for a second. You had to modify the jumpjet mechanic to nerf the unbelievable level of accuracy players have in this game.

Now we're looking at even more tuning and modifications to mech armament layouts to address, you got it, the unbelievable level of accuracy we have in this game.

It's rearranging the deck chairs as your jumpship drops in too close to a planetary gravity well.

[Blackadder]

The proposed changes either make no sense or do not go far enough to institute some kind of restriction. Heat cap needs to be a more integral part of the game, not a simple number of 150% of heat cap, which frankly will not solve the issue, as most experienced players usually avoid going to such a high heat cap the majority of the time.

Anti boating mechanic will not solve anything in its current design, it will just force players to rethink builds to get around your limitations, namely as others have already stated by combining large autocannons with high damage energy weapons, and gauss rifles.

My typical 2 PPC/ERPPC 3D, does 36-38% heat per alpha strike. There is no way i will ever reach heat cap using this build, and no way i will ever suffer anti boating heat. if you limit it to 2 ppcs, i will just revamp my mech to run GR+2 ppc and still do 35 points of pinpoint damage at 540 meters, and 15-20 at 900-1200.

This type of setup works for every mech in the game, with the exception of pure energy hardpoint systems. So in reality what you do is nerf mechs and varients that least need it, with the exception of the stalker, and avoid addressing the issue in any meaningful way while adding complicated game rules to the game that will further drive away new players who struggle to understand the game anyway.

In no way shape or form do any of the changes with ssrm, pulse lasers, boating mechanics, or heat cap really do much to change the game or address problematic issues. Medium mechs and light mechs will still lose all the armor on a hardpoint section in one alpha after these changes were introduced, and be just as useless as before, with the added benefit that the staple of light mechs combat value will now be eliminated because SSRMs will be useless.

PS: Please Read Victor Monsoon's post and follow it within limits. Players understand how to work the game better then anyone

PPS: please put in a test server and let players test all your proposed changes and let them provide feedback and find bugs before they are introduced into the game for gods sake.

[Wintersdark]

Overall, the changes look good, but I'm very concerned with the group fired heat penalties.

There are two major problems with this approach, and they are not problems that can be addressed by balancing tweaks.

The First Problem: Wait, what, huh? I'm confused!

This is, in my opinion, the biggest problem with the whole concept. It'll be extremely difficult to communicate this effectively to a new player. A simple tip such as "Firing multiple weapons of the same type simultaneously can have heat penalties." doesn't begin to help, because the system must be highly arbitrary and - from a new players' perspective - essentially random. Particularly if (and they will) the values change due to balancing. You're adding another whole (and wholly unnecessary) weapon statistic.

How is the new player going to know that he can fire 6 medium lasers at 5 heat each, but the 7th will generate more? If he does learn that, won't he be even more confused when just firing 4 PPC's suddenly generates extra heat?

Of course, he probably won't know, and quite likely will never learn - this creates a "skill divide" that's not really fair - it's a level of "skill" that is in essence simply knowing a bunch of arbitrary limits; that you should fire 2 PPC's, wait half a second, then fire the other two, rather than 4 at once. But firing 3 at once is fine.

The Second Problem: All your macros are belong to me!

First, a disclaimer: I have nothing whatsoever against macros. I don't think they are cheating, nor do I think PGI should prohibit their use (because that's a fool's errand at best). However, what PGI *SHOULD* do is create systems that don't require macros for optimal use. The system outlined above does indeed require these macros.

It's basically pushing the "steady fire your UAC without accidentally double shooting and jamming" into every single ********* weapon.

You don't want to chain fire, because you DO want maximum burst damage. So you need to fire the maximum size group of weapons, wait the minimum amount of time to fire the next group without penalties. So, lets just use PPC's because they're the current whipping boy - though any weapon would do - and assume 3 is the limit.

Frank and Bob have 6PPC stalkers. Frank is manually timing his shots, 3, half a second wait, then 3 more. Bob has a macro to do this at exactly .5s. Bob will push higher DPS than Frank, and if Frank tries to compete, he'll fall into the spot where 50% of his shots happen a tiny of a fraction too fast and.. Oops! Heat penalties!

This system makes macro's highly advantageous. Currently, they are only an advantage for UAC5's (to get maximum jam-free DPS). With this system in play, they become advantageous for every weapon with "anti-boating" limits.



In short, please don't do this.

There are several other good solutions in this thread, I won't bother repeating them here.

Edited by Wintersdark, 12 June 2013 - 12:27 AM.

[Havok1978]

something else that makes me ROFL... for people who are complaining this will make it overly complicated and dont understand the system... they sure seem to understand it pretty well...

it means you can't run around alpha, alpha, shutdown, alpha... theres gonna be alot more time running around cooling down and bitching about the heat on your ppc boat before you can attempt to 1 shot someone again.

and generally its the same 4 trolls in their tinfoil "oh noes" edition armor leading the crusade.

want to build a mech? try pairing a medium laser with an LPL, hey thats 2 different weapons with same behaviour...

"omgzorz... i just dont understand this!? time to QQ some more about my PPC boat nerf that will totally destroy all three game mechanics i am versed with"

learn to pilot a mech and shoot with skills, not boat an i win build.

Edited by Havok1978, 12 June 2013 - 12:34 AM.

[aniviron]

Havok1978, on 12 June 2013 - 12:33 AM, said:

something else that makes me ROFL... for people who are complaining this will make it overly complicated and dont understand the system... they sure seem to understand it pretty well...

it means you can't run around alpha, alpha, shutdown, alpha... theres gonna be alot more time running around cooling down and bitching about the heat on your ppc boat before you can attempt to 1 shot someone again.

and generally its the same 4 trolls in their tinfoil "oh noes" edition armor leading the crusade.

want to build a mech? try pairing a medium laser with an LPL, hey thats 2 different weapons with same behaviour...

"omgzorz... i just dont understand this!? time to QQ some more about my PPC boat nerf that will totally destroy all three game mechanics i am versed with"

learn to pilot a mech and shoot with skills, not boat an i win build.

I will get right on pairing a large pulse laser with a medium laser on the HBK 4P. Let's see here, to make up for the seven ton LPL, I only need to remove seven mlas, leaving me with just those two guns. Yeah, sounds reasonable.

[BR0WN_H0RN3T]

Actually, someone above raised a good query. Do ER variants of PPCs and LLs stack with std version when the heat penalty is considered? I'd think not but if not why not? Please clarify.

[Capt Cole 117]

I proposed a heat scale months ago and I'm very pleased that such a system is being added, although the heat damage should start at less then 150%.

crabcakes66, on 11 June 2013 - 11:39 PM, said:

The single biggest problem with the proposed changes is that it hurts mediocre small/medium weapon boats while doing almost nothing to stop the actual problem of a few high damage assaults and heavies with big guns.

Tonnage limits on drops would fix half the problem as everyone would not have to bring a high alpha assault just to keep up. The resulting gameplay would be more varied and fun.

No, the heatscale will effect all mechs equally, and tonnage limits would not make high alpha mechs weaker, only force people to use light/medium mechs that would be cannon fodder for the alpha boats.

[Ansel]

This remindes me of the UAC-5 minigame to unjam it.

Well if you can't use a macro you're screwed, have fun not being able to shoot "exactly" at that 0.5 second threashold lol.

Incompentent design is becoming a trademark of PGI it seems.

[Victor Morson]

Havok1978, on 12 June 2013 - 12:33 AM, said:

"omgzorz... i just dont understand this!? time to QQ some more about my PPC boat nerf that will totally destroy all three game mechanics i am versed with"

I don't think we are the ones who don't understand this man. I'm sorry but you don't have even the slightest realistic expectation as to how this will play out. You're not even screwing my 3 PPC 1 Gauss Highlander over at all with this.. the current top tier meta won't be hurt.

If you think this will hurt anything other than 6 PPC Stalkers (which suck anyway) you clearly have not been paying attention. This hurts exactly two things: Them, and lights/mediums. That is all.

Edited by Victor Morson, 12 June 2013 - 12:45 AM.