38 replies to this topic

[Nauht]

You guys doing the maths are forgetting the second stage - the boating penalties that still haven't been implemented yet.
And without numbers from PGI you can doodle made up numbers until the the cows come home.

You're also forgetting the psychological factor that will weed out the majority of boaters.
this is just like JJ shake - it stopped the masses but didnt stop the few that kept at it after realising you could still poptart, just fire when goign down when the JJ are off. Likewise the player who knows what he's doing with heat management will still boat and kill you.

It's clear this is just to test the waters out and so far it's working

[Caviel]

Nauht, on 02 July 2013 - 04:05 PM, said:

You guys doing the maths are forgetting the second stage - the boating penalties that still haven't been implemented yet.
And without numbers from PGI you can doodle made up numbers until the the cows come home.

Please tell me where the made up numbers are in my post, I'll be glad to go back and correct them.

Quote

It's clear this is just to test the waters out and so far it's working

Test what waters exactly? If by working you mean doesn't change anything from before the patch, sure, I guess. Worst case scenario, which is only done by poor heat managing clients, is 7 internal damage at worst for 180 target damage at best.

[Lootee]

For some reason this thread makes me want to go stand in one of the steam vents on Caustic to see how long it takes to blow up...

[General Taskeen]

Personally I found MW:LL 'overheat' systems better, which is what they are basing it off of without all the added affects. They just went with the basic damage CT and nothing else.

1. Heatsinks become degraded and then destroyed first when staying "in the red" (or over riding)
2. Staying even longer causes the ARMOR to melt off first
3. Staying even longer in critical heat then the armor is gone, the internals are next and you blow up.

All in that order.

Edited by General Taskeen, 02 July 2013 - 07:07 PM.

[Rebas Kradd]

I'm with Bill on this one. The solution is sensible, but the values are not enough to bring anyone's kill/death ratio down. And since it's K/D whores who are boating the PPC's anyway, stronger action is needed. Make the threshold 100%.

[Caviel]

Rebas Kradd, on 02 July 2013 - 07:10 PM, said:

And since it's K/D whores who are boating the PPC's anyway, stronger action is needed.

K/D has nothing to do with it. Your Elo hits a certain point and PPCs are the majority of what you see because of how good they are in comparison to everything else In competitive play, that's pretty much ALL you see on the opposing mechs.

Quote

Make the threshold 100%.

Wouldn't help without a PPC heat increase. An Elite unlocked 6 PPC Stalker after today's patch will still be below 100% after two back to back alphas (enough damage to kill lights and mediums, take a heavy to deep internal damage, and strip an Atlas CT of all it's armor and some internals), a 4 ER PPC version would just need to pause for 1-2 seconds between alphas to avoid 100% heat.

Looking at the numbers, even with a PPC/ER PPC heat increase back to TT values, you would just need to drop to a 3 ER PPC or 5 PPC setup to basically counteract the heat change.

[Dephylr]

Not big on math but in a 4ppc stalker i alpha struck around 95% and after starting back up from my shutdown saw that my CT had taken 2% damage from heat. I know that more penalties are to arrive eventually but that is hardly enough damage to dissuade me and most likely others from alphas.

[Deathlike]

I was initially annoyed... now I've adapted.

Useless change as intended™.

[Elizander]

Might give flamers more purpose

[Yiazmat]

the damage equation for weight + engine size is awesome. more damage the bigger each of those are, so less gimping of smaller mechs. What's totally un awesome is how little damage it deals out. I know this is only the first phase (pgi has a hard on for phases), but that damage needs to be trippled or even quadrupled. A big "you are going to die" kind of threat. not this "pffft, whatev, ppc's away! " From my own testing and congruent posts from other here, you can still alpha someone to death with impunity, mostly ignoring heat.

[Kmieciu]

In Mechwarrior 3 if you fired 6 PPC you would simply explode. In MWO you can fire them 3 times and take negligible damage.

While this damage mechanic is a good start, I would decrease the damage threshold to 100% and damage the external heat sinks as well as the internal structure. 7 damage might be insignificant compared to the internal HP of a Stalker, but 7 points of damage to every heat sink in your mech is a huge blow. Take 10 damage and your heat sinks will blow, and you're left with engine DHS only.

Also, not only the CT should take damage, but every component that contains heatsinks.

Edited by Kmieciu, 02 July 2013 - 11:17 PM.

[Waking One]

heh... the damage is ridiculously low

needs to start immediately at 100% and be much heavier depending on the % (as in, at 100 only little but 150 or so heavy heavy damage), also affect bigger mechs more than lights (i know it doesnt make sense in a physics sort of way but gameplay is more important imo)

[Reptilizer]

Lightfoot, on 02 July 2013 - 12:44 PM, said:

Yes, if your Mech shutsdown it may take damage now even if you do not hit override restart.

So, no more energy boats. No more 6xPPC Stalkers.

The only alpha boats will be Ballistic ones. 2xAC20. SRMs, SSRMs.

It's not major damage, but it seems to scale with how hard you push the heat range. You will self-destruct after about 10 minor shutdowns, more or less.

Which game do you play again? Mine is called MWO and PPC-boating works perfectly fine there. 4-6PPC Atlai/Stalkers still rule the battlefield, one shot and one shutdown a time. Still are top scorer at the end of the match.

Or was your post sarcastic?? It was pure sarcasm, right? Right???

[Lykaon]

Homeless Bill, on 02 July 2013 - 12:50 PM, said:

Wrong. Took out my 4xPPC Stalker and crushed some kids. Hill-humping and pinpoint cheese is still in full effect.

Yep I can confirm 2 PPCs and 2 ER-PPCs still alive and well.The 6x PPC stalker was never the ideal PPC boat it's the one I just mentioned 4X PPC or split ER and standard PPC very managable heat and it melts mechs.

This entire concept is a typical PGI "fix".Trying to repair one broken aspect by wacking at everything but the real issue.

The real issue is two fold.

1: We have pinpoint accuracy with every weapon in a group no matter where those weapons are mounted on the mech.Convergence is essentially nigh instantanious and is uneffected by movement.

This convergence mechanic as it is now has clearly illistrated the problems with taking the table top game's mechanic for distinct armor values for each body location yet using nothing to prevent pinpoint alpha strikes.We have one of the table top game's mechanics but have none of the mechanics used to balance this mechanic.Why do we have this situation?

2: The mechlab allows for to much customization and bottom line there needs to be more restrictions on Hard points.

Each Hardpoint should have two characteristics.

One: Type- energy,ballistic,missile or omni
Two: Maximum critical slots available to that hardpoint.

Address those two issues and this alpha strike assault mech meta goes away

Edited by Lykaon, 03 July 2013 - 03:07 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

NinetyProof, on 02 July 2013 - 01:07 PM, said:

Or everyone could just *pay* attention to their heat? and not decide to alpha when they are sitting at 90%?

Yea ... bad players will be bad and will end up cored from the inside out.

Lrn2ManageHeat?

But isn't that the goal -force people to avoid overheating, so no one gets off another cheap alpha with no consequence but another win for his team?

The question to me is if it is really that noticeable. And in the end, it affects not just alpha boats. Every mech gets hot, unless you're driving a Gauss Boat. Are PPC boats really uniquely bad at overheating, do they really get an extra mile in terms of heat that no one else goes?

Because if not, then the solution might just lower the ceiling across the board, for every weapon user. Though in some cases it can be enough. If your 4-PPC Stalker can'T afford a 4th alpha to bring the damage to 120 and core a heavy, that heavy might still not be at his heat limit and fire another shot, that brings his damage up enough to have the potential to core the Stalker.

That's the theory behind lowering the heat cap in the first place. But this penalty might not scale well enough for it to achieve the same result.

[shellashock]

at least they lowered the damage threshold to 120%. Can you imagine how stupid this change would be if they kept it at the initial 150% threshold. Personally, I think his change has been long overdue, but it needs to be tweaked as usual. PGI must be pretty concerned over making things too strong to start, so they leave everything weak until people complain then buff them like crazy.

[Lostdragon]

I played a few matches in a 3 PPC + GR HGN 732 last night. I pushed the heat envelope to see this in action and the damage was pretty negligible. It did make me pay a bit more attention to heat and I chainfired in a couple of situations where I might have just dealt with a shutdown before but overall my play changed very little. Since this build uses only 3 PPCs it will be unaffected by the upcoming boating penalties as outlined so far, so my reign of alpha striking terror will continue.

[scJazz]

I think it is definitely worth pointing out that this Heat Damage isn't intended to be THE "fix" for PPCOnline. Just one part of it.

[ErikModi]

By-the-by, I know what to call it when a 6PPC Stalker overheats and kills itself.

Hindenberging.

Too soon?