721 replies to this topic

[DarkJaguar]

Aullido, on 01 July 2013 - 09:34 PM, said:

I don't mind wait 10 seconds for shot. In fact I will love it. For me Mechwarrior was a slow dance where every shot matters. I barely touched MW4, it didn't have the feeling and MWO either.

To PGI:

Implement joystick exclusive matches. I miss its use where stick and throttle made the difference, besides crappy aiming could bring back some of the old gameplay.

I think you may be in the minority there friend, but TT values do not mean 10 seconds per shot. I think a match would be much more exciting if an AC20 fired off 2 rounds per second at 1 damage each. Imagine all the autocannon tracers wizzing around the place.

[Aullido]

Yep, I know it won't be popular but I prefer a niche game than another quake.

I never have high hopes for MWO, being a MMO. I am a founder because I thought it could bring a solo game latter.

[DarkJaguar]

Aullido, on 01 July 2013 - 10:10 PM, said:

Yep, I know it won't be popular but I prefer a niche game than another quake.

I never have high hopes for MWO, being a MMO. I am a founder because I thought it could bring a solo game latter.

The main issue is that PGI isn't doing what would be popular if implemented. As many people that complain about every minor change, a complete rework like this would have to happen behind the curtains and drop all at once. If they piecemeal-ed it out bit by bit, the changes wouldn't work and they'd be so inundated with complaints that they would immediately revert back.

[Mister Blastman]

OP: Well said.

Now, I've decided to mirror the policy of PGI lately--I don't give a damn anymore. They don't. Why should I?

If they can perpetuate this broken piece of crap, well, I can perpetuate this broken lack of desire to play. I sure hope they are listening to you OP. They ignored soooo many good ideas on here.

[MustrumRidcully]

Where were you during Closed Beta, when we all already knew this?

Some caveat you can ponder about:
How much heat can a mech actually produce before he shutdowns?

This is one of the big "imbalancing factors" in M:WO right now. Back in CB, the amount of heat you could produce before overheating was "not enough" to make viable PPC builds. You'd overheat too fast, and got nothing done (aka killed). But now it's higher (it's not just a question of heat capacity, but also a question of heat dissipation youi can achieve between shots)

Some will say:" Just remove DHS then". But that's not a good solution. We can just lower the heat threshold and increase the dissipation so that you can't skimp on heat sinks as consequence-free as you can do it now.

[Zordicron]

As I write in most every "balance this" thread I read:

No. FIRST fix hit detection. THEN we can actually see what is not working, and what is sort of working, and what is working fine. Right now, nobody knows, because nobody can know. HItscan/multihit(missiles) weapons can for any shot lose 0-100% of the hit detection/dmg registered to the target, even though it shows up at stats at end of match. AC20, gauss, PPC also miss occassionaly. However, doing all dmg most of the time on a big number like an AC20 is immensly superior to hitting an average of 50% with a mediocre to large number like lasers all the time. So AC40 jagers, PPC boats and gauss/ppc rule, because they are reliably hitting for big numbers while simultaneously still being broken like the other stuff is.

Once hit detection gets fixed, we can see what is actually what and go from there.

[Funkadelic Mayhem]

why not a closed or half open letter? or just hey pgi? LOL over 30's will be the death of this game!

[Victor Morson]

Funkadelic Mayhem, on 01 July 2013 - 10:52 PM, said:

why not a closed or half open letter? or just hey pgi? LOL over 30's will be the death of this game!

Are you talking about age or something else?

I'll find it hilarious if you honestly think the problem with the game is people over 30 years old. Are you a die hard Logan's Run devotee or something?

[Funkadelic Mayhem]

Victor Morson, on 01 July 2013 - 10:59 PM, said:

Are you talking about age or something else?

I'll find it hilarious if you honestly think the problem with the game is people over 30 years old. Are you a die hard Logan's Run devotee or something?

Just keep laughing you way to hawken... LOL

[Unbound Inferno]

Exceptional write up.

I am completely baffled by the fact it seems so difficult to just scale the damage to match the armor and figure out the arbitrary firing times to get those numbers to balance right.

One would assume that's like basic math or something.

[DarkJaguar]

MustrumRidcully, on 01 July 2013 - 10:27 PM, said:

Where were you during Closed Beta, when we all already knew this?

Some caveat you can ponder about:
How much heat can a mech actually produce before he shutdowns?

This is one of the big "imbalancing factors" in M:WO right now. Back in CB, the amount of heat you could produce before overheating was "not enough" to make viable PPC builds. You'd overheat too fast, and got nothing done (aka killed). But now it's higher (it's not just a question of heat capacity, but also a question of heat dissipation youi can achieve between shots)

Some will say:" Just remove DHS then". But that's not a good solution. We can just lower the heat threshold and increase the dissipation so that you can't skimp on heat sinks as consequence-free as you can do it now.

I didn't want to get too much into the actual mechanics of heat in my OP, but I'm glad you brought it up. In TT, the amount of heat you can "soak" with no penalty is the number of heatsinks (or DHSx2). Using those numbers, you could generate 10 heat in a moment with just your engine heat sinks, and then bleed it off at 1 heat every second (@ .1HPS per SHS, or 2 heat every second @ .2HPS per DHS) with no penalty. If you went above the heat soak capacity of your mech, you would run into the effects from this translated heat scale from TT...


So, looking at this scale, a 6 PPC stalker with 20 DHS could soak 40 heat, that would still put it at 20 on the heat scale, which is a pretty stiff penalty, as it's now immobile (even if it's not shut down) for a few seconds, plus a good chance for an ammo cookoff. That's after just ONE alpha. A 4 PPC stalker build with 20DHS would still be viable if only this portion of my post was taken into consideration, but in conjunction with everything else, the 4 PPC stalker wouldn't do well against a mech with a variety of weapons and a heat efficient build.

Edit: Almost forgot to add, at walking speed (2/3 max speed) you're generating .1HPS just with movement, at running (over 2/3 max speed) it's .2HPS. Not to mention jumping (1 heat point for every 30m jumped)

Edited by DarkJaguar, 01 July 2013 - 11:38 PM.

[MustrumRidcully]

DarkJaguar, on 01 July 2013 - 11:22 PM, said:

I didn't want to get too much into the actual mechanics of heat in my OP, but I'm glad you brought it up. In TT, the amount of heat you can "soak" with no penalty is the number of heatsinks (or DHSx2). Using those numbers, you could generate 10 heat in a moment with just your engine heat sinks, and then bleed it off at 1 heat every second (@ .1HPS per SHS, or 2 heat every second @ .2HPS per DHS) with no penalty. If you went above the heat soak capacity of your mech, you would run into the effects from this translated heat scale from TT...


So, looking at this scale, a 6 PPC stalker with 20 DHS could soak 40 heat, that would still put it at 20 on the heat scale, which is a pretty stiff penalty, as it's now immobile (even if it's not shut down) for a few seconds, plus a good chance for an ammo cookoff. That's after just ONE alpha. A 4 PPC stalker build with 20DHS would still be viable if only this portion of my post was taken into consideration, but in conjunction with everything else, the 4 PPC stalker wouldn't do well against a mech with a variety of weapons and a heat efficient build.

Edit: Almost forgot to add, at walking speed (2/3 max speed) you're generating .1HPS just with movement, at running (over 2/3 max speed) it's .2HPS. Not to mention jumping (1 heat point for every 30m jumped)

One crucial aspect to me is:

You can fire 4 PPCs about 3 times in 10 seconds and overheat on the third alpha.
20 DHS puts you at a heat cap of 64 (without any efficiencies) and a dissipation of 3.4/sec or 13.6 heat over a PPCs cycle time:
Alpha 1 at 0 seconds: 32 Heat
Alpha 2 at 4 seconds: 32 Heat + 32 Heat - 13.6 Heat = 50.4 heat
Alpha 3 at 8 seconds: 50.4 Heat + 32 Heat - 13.6 heat = 68.8 heat. => overheat (and only at 107.5 %of max threshold, far away from any heat damage penalty PGI has suggested so far.)

Add 10 % heat cap from efficiencies, you reach a capacity of 70.4, and you can alpha a 4th time even.
Alpha 4 at 12 Seconds: 68.8 heat +32 Heat - 13.6 Heat = 87.2 heat => overheat (and at 123 % of max threshold, this might reach the critical heat damage region mentioned somewhere.)

That's a potential of 120 to 160 damage in 12 seconds. There are not many builds that can compete with that, and 160 damage is enough to core any Atlas.

I understand why the heat threshold is 30 + heat sinks. If it wasn't, you could not possibly fire anything more than 3 PPCs together, and there are mechs in lore that can alpha 3 PPCs. But the math doesn't work out with this. By allowing 3 PPCs to alpha once, you also allowed 6 PPCs or 4 PPCs to alpha multiple times within a 10 second time frame.

The table top rules do not actually require that an alpha occurs within a single millisecond. It occurs in a 10 second turn. So maybe a mech like the Warhawk or the Awesome 8Q or 9Q actually chain-fires all weapons in this 10 second turn, with just enough time between shots to allow the dissipation to catch up and allow the next PPC hit?

A fixed threshold at 30 would then also work for MW:O.

[DarkJaguar]

MustrumRidcully, on 01 July 2013 - 11:58 PM, said:

One crucial aspect to me is:

You can fire 4 PPCs about 3 times in 10 seconds and overheat on the third alpha.
20 DHS puts you at a heat cap of 64 (without any efficiencies) and a dissipation of 3.4/sec or 13.6 heat over a PPCs cycle time:
Alpha 1 at 0 seconds: 32 Heat
Alpha 2 at 4 seconds: 32 Heat + 32 Heat - 13.6 Heat = 50.4 heat
Alpha 3 at 8 seconds: 50.4 Heat + 32 Heat - 13.6 heat = 68.8 heat. => overheat (and only at 107.5 %of max threshold, far away from any heat damage penalty PGI has suggested so far.)

Add 10 % heat cap from efficiencies, you reach a capacity of 70.4, and you can alpha a 4th time even.
Alpha 4 at 12 Seconds: 68.8 heat +32 Heat - 13.6 Heat = 87.2 heat => overheat (and at 123 % of max threshold, this might reach the critical heat damage region mentioned somewhere.)

That's a potential of 120 to 160 damage in 12 seconds. There are not many builds that can compete with that, and 160 damage is enough to core any Atlas.

I understand why the heat threshold is 30 + heat sinks. If it wasn't, you could not possibly fire anything more than 3 PPCs together, and there are mechs in lore that can alpha 3 PPCs. But the math doesn't work out with this. By allowing 3 PPCs to alpha once, you also allowed 6 PPCs or 4 PPCs to alpha multiple times within a 10 second time frame.

The table top rules do not actually require that an alpha occurs within a single millisecond. It occurs in a 10 second turn. So maybe a mech like the Warhawk or the Awesome 8Q or 9Q actually chain-fires all weapons in this 10 second turn, with just enough time between shots to allow the dissipation to catch up and allow the next PPC hit?

A fixed threshold at 30 would then also work for MW:O.

Mustrum, I think you may have misinterpreted something I wrote.

If the heat table I linked is applied with the ideas I gave earlier, a PPC can NOT generate more than 10 damage over a 10 second period. Additionally, if a mech's power output is goverened by engine size/chassis limitations sure you could fire 4 PPCs in 10 seconds, but not at the same time. This would spread the damage out a bit. Now let's get back to where you were. A PPC that can fire 4 times in 10 seconds would deal 2.5 Damage and 2.5 heat per shot. A lot more manageable for players than the current numbers, right?

[Moira]

Good post DarkJaquar.

Im just going to add to this nice points list of posts that while trying to move from 10sec interval (TT) to actual gameplay isnt just something that you can easily do. I give PGI a hug for even trying =) what I have been missing from TT in MWO is this more heat one does do, more it slows that Mech down - ergo reactor is running overly hot and simply cant create more power to move the mech, and same idea when your firing weapons. Little slows would actually be good.

[ApolloKaras]

Good well thought out post

I'm with you on Convergence and the heat penalty.

I'll be blunt, there are going to be translation issues between a table top game and a live action one. Damage per second is going to be one of those. No one wants to shoot an AC 20 4 times over 10 seconds @ 5.0 each. Your games would last at least 30 minutes long with the current armor. You are placing more emphasis on focus fire in a game where we have no voice comm also. If I wanted to play TT, I'll go into the closest and drag my things out. This isn't table top, and we cant look @ the TT rules to tell us what the damage/recycle times should be.

I do however like the non TT idea of total engine output power, but there are going to be issues with that too. Lets look @ the energy heavy 4P, max engine is 260. I have a Raven with an XL 295... The 260 isnt going to put out nearly as much power as the XL 295. The 4P would actually need more power but the max engine size is 260... Even in TT however there were no rules against me putting 3 ER PPCS on a 35 STD engine. God forbid I would fire them all I wouldnt get cooled down lol.

edited: clerical error lol

Edited by Saxie, 02 July 2013 - 01:10 AM.

[The Cheese]

Can you imagine the screen shake if something like this was to go ahead? You'd pray for the days of the 5xAC/2 macro Jager or 6 x LRM5 A1 to return...

[Unbound Inferno]

Doesn't have to be screen shake. That's just poor planning - the trick is in the accuracy shift from the heat. That alone would fix a TON of the issues at hand.

[Victor Morson]

DarkJaguar, on 01 July 2013 - 11:22 PM, said:

I didn't want to get too much into the actual mechanics of heat in my OP, but I'm glad you brought it up. In TT, the amount of heat you can "soak" with no penalty is the number of heatsinks (or DHSx2). Using those numbers, you could generate 10 heat in a moment with just your engine heat sinks, and then bleed it off at 1 heat every second (@ .1HPS per SHS, or 2 heat every second @ .2HPS per DHS) with no penalty. If you went above the heat soak capacity of your mech, you would run into the effects from this translated heat scale from TT...


So, looking at this scale, a 6 PPC stalker with 20 DHS could soak 40 heat, that would still put it at 20 on the heat scale, which is a pretty stiff penalty, as it's now immobile (even if it's not shut down) for a few seconds, plus a good chance for an ammo cookoff. That's after just ONE alpha. A 4 PPC stalker build with 20DHS would still be viable if only this portion of my post was taken into consideration, but in conjunction with everything else, the 4 PPC stalker wouldn't do well against a mech with a variety of weapons and a heat efficient build.

Edit: Almost forgot to add, at walking speed (2/3 max speed) you're generating .1HPS just with movement, at running (over 2/3 max speed) it's .2HPS. Not to mention jumping (1 heat point for every 30m jumped)

I've been advocating convergence based on heat level for a long time. I love the idea: It borrows from the source material, feels fitting into the universe and yet has a very practical purpose in a first person sim game and isn't some obligatory "I must have it, it is in TT!"

I think it'd solve a ton of issues while, very critically leaving accuracy up to the player and their heat management. It allows for some randomness, while still giving player full control. It's a simple and elegant solution (along with engine / torso slowdown) that would solve a huge swath of problems in one move.

[Flapdrol]

convergance and the heat system is the reason ppc boats rule.

[Victor Morson]

Flapdrol, on 02 July 2013 - 01:29 AM, said:

convergance and the heat system is the reason ppc boats rule.

The fact that most other weapon systems were either meganerf'ed or never were good in the first place doesn't hurt, either.