1263 replies to this topic

[soapyfrog]

The main issue with boating is the pinpoint alpha-strike, not really the heat... just add some deviation for each weapon fired together; make the deviation amount small but enough to spread damage over multiple components at decent range, make the deviation greater for big hard-hitting weapons, less/negligible for small weapons.

Firing 6 PPCs together at range might even result in a few total misses out of the salvo, whereas firing 9 medium lasers close in would spread the damage only a little more than usual.

The heat thing is overcomplicated/kludgy and addressing the wrong problem anyway.

[arghmace]

"We considered the notion of doing a max heat threshold reduction but this would have ended up nerfing every weapon system and every Mech in the game."

Umm... no. If you would buff the heat dissipation by a corresponding amount the "normal" mechs wouldn't really suffer at all. It would just make shooting 4 PPC's all at once impossible if you for instance set the heat cap to 30. You could still run 4 PPC's if you didn't alpha them. With the faster dissipation you could fire 2 and 2 quite well.

Anyway the main problem are the Stalkers combined with the fact that hard points don't have size limits. Stalkers are supposed to have a huge load of med lasers and srm's. Not full of PPC's and LRM20's. There's no sense in the fact that a STK-5M with 10, 10, 7 and 6 launch tubes makes for a better LRM boat than Catapults with lots of tubes since they're actually designed with big LRM launchers in mind.

Edited by arghmace, 13 June 2013 - 07:02 AM.

[ElLocoMarko]

Will UI 2.0 inform us of these limits somehow so that we can build and group weapons appropriately?

I had an idea about boated pinpoint weapons. If identical weapons fired simultaneously were given a small firing delay such that 6 PPC's (or dual big ballistics) went off like machine gun fire instead of one burst, it would implicitly spread out the damage on a moving target. 6 PPC would create a beautiful fan effect too. Dual big ballistics would make an incredibly satisfying one-two punch noise.

Edited by ElLocoMarko, 13 June 2013 - 07:13 AM.

[MavRCK]

jozkhan, on 13 June 2013 - 02:21 AM, said:

What really makes no sense from a game design perspective is that There is already a system in place for heat

and the fix is to create multiple new systems to run on top of this, why not just use the existing heat system.

Firing alpha strike of say 6 medium lasers in your example is already penalised in terms of the fact any alpha suffers the heat penalty of firing all those weapons at once. You know 'running hot'

Spamming Alpha also has an effect: shutdown

Any fix needs to stick to these principles not come with a mech variant chassis and weapon system special rules submanual.

You created the the cheese option of over ride and coolant flush by the way.

Just make the shutdown ceiling a harder one if you must. The designers suggestions are a pandoras box in terms of unintended consequences that are going to take gameplay further away from where we all want to be going.

It's becoming crystal clear that 'Launch Date' is going to be an extension of beta for a very long time.

^^ This

[Skinflowers]

It would be nice if we could get the dev thoughts on convergence at least. I can guess and spculate on the reasons for the lack of comment on it but i'd only be guessing.

Hearing their thoughts would be useful to know where the issue figures in the great scheme of "fixing things."

[Slambot]

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I like the idea of penalizing the 60 point alphas from the ppc boats. They really kinda break the game. I like the ssrm changes. Really, the easiest solution is just to have ppc's and er pps do their tt heat and damage and have a regular 30 point heat scale, which increases 1 point for both regular and double heat sinks (ie. 10 heat sinks of any type buys 10 more cap points) with massively increased dissipation. This will slow down the alphas and make the game seem faster while slowing it down.
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[Drenzul]

Was thinking about coming back to this game.... then saw this...

Seriously, a heat penalty for firing multiple weapons? Possibly the most ******** idea I've seen on the forums so far...

It doesn't address the issues, it doesn't solve anything. Nothing here will stop 2x 6ppc boats insta-popping an enemy mech.

[AlmightyAeng]

FupDup, on 12 June 2013 - 10:34 AM, said:

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

It's because he finds all the tears salty and delicious.

[Rattlehead NZ]

Drenzul, on 13 June 2013 - 08:34 AM, said:

Was thinking about coming back to this game.... then saw this...

Seriously, a heat penalty for firing multiple weapons? Possibly the most ******** idea I've seen on the forums so far...

It doesn't address the issues, it doesn't solve anything. Nothing here will stop 2x 6ppc boats insta-popping an enemy mech.

I agree that such a short time between shots isn't going to stop these builds. Just give you 0.5 seconds extra to react to the second volley of PPC's. Just incur the penalty to the threshold from the beginning and be done with it.
Variety is what this game needs. Imagine playing BF3 and having an M4 as your primary, an M4 as your secondary and while we are at it lets have an M4 for a side arm. Screw grenades and just throw M4's at people as well. Now imagine how boring that would be and now look at the state of MWO.

[PropagandaWar]

While it’s cool that they are taking strides this seems like an exploitable solution. Instead they should take a page out of TT where it regards heat and the effects it has on a mech. Albeit not mimicking it entirely as this is a completely different animal.

Once a mech starts hitting a certain percentage stuff should start happening such as:
*At 85% heat crosshairs start to blur and cockpit gets fuzzy. Getting hot in that mech.
*At 95% heat Electonics is acting wonky Weapon convergance cease to exist starts acting normal again when it drops back to 50
*At 85% heat Mech Slows down movement by 20% (including Torso). The mynomer is getting sticky and electrical currents are not getting from point a to point be quick enough.
*At 80% heat Weapon recycle time slows down by 10%, at 90% heat recycle time takes 30% longer.
*At 95% 2% chance of heat sink malfunctioning
When shutdown takes place or override more drastic things occur.
Shutdown have a 5 percent chance to blow a heat sink or slow movement down by x percent and /orweapon recycle time.
On Overides or heat threshold over 125% there should be a 25% chance to lose multiple heatsinks, blow engine, Have weapons malfunction and possibly fuse Torso.

[DocBach]

PropagandaWar, on 13 June 2013 - 09:06 AM, said:

While it’s cool that they are taking strides this seems like an exploitable solution. Instead they should take a page out of TT where it regards heat and the effects it has on a mech. Albeit not mimicking it entirely as this is a completely different animal.

Once a mech starts hitting a certain percentage stuff should start happening such as:
*At 85% heat crosshairs start to blur and cockpit gets fuzzy. Getting hot in that mech.
*At 95% heat Electonics is acting wonky Weapon convergance cease to exist starts acting normal again when it drops back to 50
*At 85% heat Mech Slows down movement by 20% (including Torso). The mynomer is getting sticky and electrical currents are not getting from point a to point be quick enough.
*At 80% heat Weapon recycle time slows down by 10%, at 90% heat recycle time takes 30% longer.
*At 95% 2% chance of heat sink malfunctioning
When shutdown takes place or override more drastic things occur.
Shutdown have a 5 percent chance to blow a heat sink or slow movement down by x percent and /orweapon recycle time.
On Overides or heat threshold over 125% there should be a 25% chance to lose multiple heatsinks, blow engine, Have weapons malfunction and possibly fuse Torso.

wait, you mean have heat cause actual, negative effects on a 'Mech for overheating rather than just stack more heat on to grouped weapons? Absurd, it could never work! They would have to reinvent a whole new system for that!

Edited by DocBach, 13 June 2013 - 09:09 AM.

[Rhialto]

Hey, while thinking on heat problem there was something about (ER)PPC always coming back in my mind.

I was thinking of a new way of implementing (ER)PPC because as it is now, I think it's not logical to walk with a PPC or ERPPC charged in a 'fire ready' state all the time. Having all that energy stored and ready to fire could very well blow up if hit and instantly destroy a component, and expose all nearby teamates to the enemy due to the nature of disabling electronic devices like a teammate with an ECM.

I won't explain it all here as it only cover a part of the heat problem discussed here but I invite you to go read my suggestion on how, I think, (ER)PPC should work.

[Tezcatli]

150% does seem too lenient. If 100% shuts you down for fear of blowing up. Shouldn't 150% blow you up?

I think the heat penalties are a step in the right direction. And the unique setups for certain mech variants make them more unique and possibly provides a window for variants that are considered "Weak".

But even so. We have to see this in game before we can really get a measure for it's effect. But at the very least it doesn't hinder the freedom of mech customization.

[AVERN]

Do not read above, may be someone already said it:

heat penalty is wrong way i think

we need slots!
example:

-stalker hand have 2 energy hardpoint
-every energy hardpoint must have their own max limit of weapon crit slots
-so. stalker's hand must have only 4 crit slots for energy weaponry
-so you can instal LL+LL (2+2) or PPC+ML\SL\... (3+1) and not PPC+PPC (3+3>4)

cause of;

In BT - RAVEN can not wear AC-20 but in MWO it can >_<
-> limit ballistic crit slots on raven to 1\2\3

and every mech in game must be reworked in this way

KEY of the post: BIG GUNZ(3+ crit slots) CAN NOT be installed in hardpoints for SMALL GUNZ(1 or 2 crit_slots)

sorry for my nurglish (bad english) never learn it.

[Shumabot]

Welp, this games dead in the water now. The heat penalty mechanic is complex, pointless, utterly arbitrary, stupid, and illogical. Will you start making random and stupid exceptions when mechs like the black hawk or masakari show up so that their stock builds don't detonate? All you had to do was implement hardpoint sizes, it's a golden bullet for boating, increases variety, and makes different mech variants stand out from eachother strongly.

Instead you took the laziest, stupidest, and most controversial solution just to punish the 4PPC stalker. The highlander uses 3PPCs and a gauss rifle, lets be honest, this is a nerf to the 4ppc stalker and the 4ppc stalker only. You could have adjusted its hit boxes, made it larger, changed its hardpoint layout, there were a million things you could have done. Instead you just went with an awful and arbitrary mechanic that I trust you'll do exceptionally poorly explaining to new players. This company is lazy and lacks any sort of forethought and that has never been more visible.

Edited by Shumabot, 13 June 2013 - 09:45 AM.

[arghmace]

Shumabot, on 13 June 2013 - 09:41 AM, said:

just to punish the 4PPC stalker.

Well even the Stalker can use 2 ER PPC and 2 PPC, so no problem there. I agree that this is a way too complex and weird mechanic that opens the Pandora's box, as someone stated.

[Malyshus]

ssm, on 12 June 2013 - 03:01 AM, said:

It's too late to rewrite entire mechlab. Also - how MW4-style mechlab would prevent boating?



You can argue that Annihilator is bad example, but as far as I remember you could do things like that with lots of the mechs. In MWO those that couldn't boat would still be useless, and we'll be back to square one.




I'm pretty sure that heat penalties proposed by Paul are really aimed not at Swaybacks and 6xPPC Stalkers, but at upcoming Clan Mechs - Novas, Masakaris etc.

Dunno, but maybe it'll work?

Am I the only person who has noticed this 'boating' example from MW4 style mechlab is an assault mech WITH NO ******* ENGINE???

Kind of easy to skew things in favor of your argument when you drop the single heaviest piece of equipment from the mech. Just sayin'.

[FupDup]

Malyshus, on 13 June 2013 - 10:16 AM, said:

Am I the only person who has noticed this 'boating' example from MW4 style mechlab is an assault mech WITH NO ******* ENGINE???

Kind of easy to skew things in favor of your argument when you drop the single heaviest piece of equipment from the mech. Just sayin'.

Actually, you can't remove the engine in MW4. You can downgrade the rating, but you can't take it out. The stats on the top aren't very good representations of how the game actually works. The Annihilator in particular has a minimum speed of 37.2 kph for engine downgrading.


Another error is that TT wouldn't let you shove in 2 Clan LBX20's in a single arm or any other spot because they take up 9 crits each. MW4 doesn't have critical spaces at all.

Edited by FupDup, 13 June 2013 - 10:34 AM.

[Shumabot]

FupDup, on 13 June 2013 - 10:32 AM, said:

Actually, you can't remove the engine in MW4. You can downgrade the rating, but you can't take it out. The stats on the top aren't very good representations of how the game actually works. The Annihilator in particular has a minimum speed of 37.2 kph for engine downgrading.


Another error is that TT wouldn't let you shove in 2 Clan LBX20's in a single arm or any other spot because they take up 9 crits each. MW4 doesn't have critical spaces at all.

I think when most people imagine a successful hardpoint size system they're imagining the current PGI implementation with one more restriction, that being the concept of large or small slots. Ergo the machinegun spot on a catapult would be a "small" ballistic hardpoint and could fit anything from an ac5 and below, whereas the PPC arm on an awesome would be "large" and could fit a large laser or larger energy weapon. Otherwise the current system would stay unchanged.

This gives the game developers an easy mechanic to prevent large and small weapon boating while still giving relative slot freedom. It also allows for variants with similar layouts to have very different playstyles as a quickdraw with 3 large missile slots and 4 small energy slots would play very differently than one with 3 small missiles, 2 small energy, and 2 large energy. Aside from providing balance it would greatly increase build diversity and would make mechs feel legitimately unique, rather than the current situation where every jagermech uses the exact same setup because its the best one.The current system hurts creativity and diversity because if you aren't playing what is "best" you're handicapping yourself and what is "best" tends to be identical regardless of what mech you're using.

Edited by Shumabot, 13 June 2013 - 11:45 AM.

[OneEyed Jack]

Shumabot, on 13 June 2013 - 11:43 AM, said:

I think when most people imagine a successful hardpoint size system they're imagining the current PGI implementation with one more restriction, that being the concept of large or small slots

This gives the game developers an easy mechanic to prevent large and small weapon boating while still giving relative slot freedom. It also allows for variants with similar layouts to have very different playstyles as a quickdraw with 3 large missile slots and 4 small energy slots would play very differently than one with 3 small missiles, 2 small energy, and 2 large energy. Aside from providing balance it would greatly increase build diversity and would make mechs feel legitimately unique, rather than the current situation where every jagermech uses the exact same setup because its the best one.The current system hurts creativity and diversity because if you aren't playing what is "best" you're handicapping yourself and what is "best" tends to be identical regardless of what mech you're using.

Bull-****.

You claiming that "most" people support that lame-arse idea doesn't make it so. It applies primarily to people that think MW4 was the epitome of mech gaming. Most certainly not a majority opinion.

And such a system would be a long way from offering any actual diversity. Sure it would make individual variants more different from each other, at the cost of any real options within a variant. Those slots would pigeonhole the variants into carrying only certain certain weapons, since only certain weapons make any sense in them. The only real option would be not filling slots, which wouldn't be a very good option because you don't have a larger slot somewhere else to make up for it.

Might as well remove Mechlab altogether and just run a stock-only game, since there wouldn't be any significant variance.