78 replies to this topic

[Victor Morson]

Nauht, on 02 July 2013 - 06:08 PM, said:

So you know the threshold numbers do you?

We all know boating penalties are coming. I'm just saying theres no point in nerdraging about it until we get firm numbers.

They could make the threshold for ML 9 or less or more.

I don't know and sure as **** you dont.

Open your mind and read the link.

There is literally NO threshold on ANY weapon that will fix the current situation. People will just go to high-synergy weapons instead. The heat bump kicking in at 4 for PPCs is hilarious, as that tiny heat bump won't even impact 4 PPC Stalkers.

You want to try to defend their screwed up system, but no matter how you try to think about it, it's got more holes in it than Bonnie and Clyde's famous automobile.

PS: We've waited. We've seen. We don't need to wait and see to say "Things are not going well."

Edited by Victor Morson, 02 July 2013 - 06:15 PM.

[StandingCow]

Roland, on 02 July 2013 - 06:13 PM, said:

What's funny is that I'm seeing a lot of 6 PPC builds tonight, and it doesn't even seem to be phasing them anyway.

So lolz to that.

That is even worse, it means it is punishing people that have no idea how to manage their heat... so just the newbs/bads.

[jakucha]

Victor Morson, on 02 July 2013 - 05:55 PM, said:

You mean the dumbest anti boating system ever published on this website or possibly committed to the written word that does absolutely nothing about snipers while punishing already underpowered builds?????

That one??

You continually post this in threads and ignore that it was only an idea, and that it wouldn't affect under-powered builds because it would only target specific weapons. Stop trying to create bandwagons.

[Victor Morson]

StandingCow, on 02 July 2013 - 06:15 PM, said:

That is even worse, it means it is punishing people that have no idea how to manage their heat... so just the newbs/bads.

It's not a bad change.. but it won't fix a single problem we have.

The fact PGI thought it would scares me.

[Valore]

Victor Morson, on 02 July 2013 - 06:14 PM, said:

PS: We've waited. We've seen. We don't need to wait and see to say "Things are not going well."

Exactly. If you ordered a coupe, and you see at the factory they've prepared a car frame with 4 doors, I'd say you don't have to wait before putting your hand up and asking them what they've been smoking.

[Victor Morson]

jakucha, on 02 July 2013 - 06:15 PM, said:

You continually post this in threads and ignore that it was only an idea, and that it wouldn't affect under-powered builds because it would only target specific weapons. Stop trying to create bandwagons.

It was an idea released in an official capacity that had a huge outcry against it, and yet, not one confirmation of it's continuation or cancellation. Combined with Paul's mention of "systems" this seems to fit.

And they specifically talk about capping the medium laser in the post. In great detail. Including how the Swayback can fire more of them. Are medium lasers our pressing problem?

Again there is literally NO threshold value to set on a specific weapon that will do any good. NONE. It cannot be done because the core idea is horrible. You can't tweak what's already broken.

Edited by Victor Morson, 02 July 2013 - 06:19 PM.

[jakucha]

Victor Morson, on 02 July 2013 - 06:17 PM, said:

It was an idea released in an official capacity that had a huge outcry against it, and yet, not one confirmation of it's continuation or cancellation. Combined with Paul's mention of "systems" this seems to fit.

And they specifically talk about capping the medium laser in the post. In great detail. Including how the Swayback can fire more of them. Are medium lasers our pressing problem?

Again there is literally NO threshold value to set on a specific weapon that will do any good. NONE. It cannot be done because the core idea is horrible. You can't tweak what's already broken.

6 medium lasers isn't much of a cap. PPCs are mentioned to be at an even lower cap to hit a heat penalty. Heat won't fix alpha problems on its own though, convergence and other penalties combined with heat are the answer.

People are also treating this patch addition like it's supposed to fix the alpha problems and that's completely false.

Edited by jakucha, 02 July 2013 - 06:24 PM.

[StandingCow]

Victor Morson, on 02 July 2013 - 06:16 PM, said:

It's not a bad change.. but it won't fix a single problem we have.

The fact PGI thought it would scares me.

I am not so sure they thought this would fix anything... at least I hope not. I think it is a good change that should have been in the game anyway... if you go over 120% heat... you should take damage.

There are a lot of good suggestions floating around on how to fix the problem though... one was the convergence idea. PGI is pretty slow to react to balance changes though, especially this high alpha issue.

Edited by StandingCow, 02 July 2013 - 06:23 PM.

[Roland]

StandingCow, on 02 July 2013 - 06:15 PM, said:

That is even worse, it means it is punishing people that have no idea how to manage their heat... so just the newbs/bads.

I think it's mainly folks testing it, to see exactly how much it hurts you.

Turns out not really that much.

[Hexenhammer]

What ever happened to heat slowing mechs down and making it harder to aim, early shutdowns and worse, ammo explosions? Laser boats don't have ammo but if there is a real risk of shutting down for 3, 4, or 5 maybe 6 six seconds at 80% it might curtail alpha strikes.

Ammo explosions might be extreme because it will favor laser boats but reduced aim and slower movement will impact everyone equally and it can be part of a greater solution.

[jakucha]

Hexenhammer, on 02 July 2013 - 06:28 PM, said:

What ever happened to heat slowing mechs down and making it harder to aim, early shutdowns and worse, ammo explosions? Laser boats don't have ammo but if there is a real risk of shutting down for 3, 4, or 5 maybe 6 six seconds at 80% it might curtail alpha strikes.

It's this way in Mechwarrior tacitcs, the other Mechwarrior IGP title. I'm predicting this minor internal damage change is opening way for other non-damage related heat penalties.

[Aim64C]

Valore, on 02 July 2013 - 05:57 PM, said:

You've missed the entire point.

We're not asking for people who manage heat to be penalised.

We're pointing out that this 'fix' which was directly intended to attempt to fix boating, namely boating of high heat weapons, aka PPCs, only punishes poor users of PPCs.

The players who are good with PPCs will never encounter this problem. They are the ones that are basically singlehandedly steamrolling everyone right now.

So its a fix that completely missed the point, hence I'm not sure why they even bothered in the first place.

Honestly, I don't think this patch was supposed to address "boating."

It was to put more emphasis on heat management on the whole.

The best "Anti-boating" that can be done is to size weapons appropriately and develop a slotted hardpoint system that sets an upper limit to weapons like the PPC based on the chassis. That PPC upper limit would be different from, say, a large laser or small laser upper limit.

That way - mechs like the awesome could really be 'awesome' for being able to fight with 3-4 PPCs, but other chassis would still be just as viable because they aren't told to "pick a total of three of the following smaller munitions: ..." Six medium lasers could plausibly punch you in the face if you get too close to an Atlas. Or six machine guns could greet you from the same torso section on another variant.

But a single AC10 or PPC is all that's going to fit on that section if you want to go big.

That's how you 'fix' boating.

Nauht, on 02 July 2013 - 06:04 PM, said:

And i said wait for combined boating and overheat penalties.

Sure a 6 ppc stalker could fire once then probably shutdown or it might take damage after one volley. We wont know until both are in and in sync with each other.

The penalty might be so great that boating would just not be worthwhile or efficient for serious pilots.

Besides if it has the intended effect of culling the noob masses even trying out a ppc boat then thhat cuts down another ppc boat.
I think that a good player would kill you regardless of what he chose.

Their proposed system is the most ******** idea for addressing boating on these forums. Period.

"Well, the hunchback's hunch is supposed to fire six medium lasers - so we'll just say that firing more than six medium lasers on a hunchback starts to generate a heat penalty."

Because the two medium lasers on the arms aren't supposed to fire, too?

How the hell are they going to apply that logic to the Nova (Blackhawk)?

Or the 4x AC2 Jaeger? Does it get a penalty? Is it too "boating OP?"

Or a C1 that opts for 2 LRM20s as opposed to 1 LRM15?

This - while they are trying to place modular weapon systems in the game to reflect customized loadouts - including resizing of tubes and weapon modules.

It's the worst idea ever presented on the forums (even before PGI said anything about it), and should never have been taken seriously.

[xDeityx]

Victor Morson, on 02 July 2013 - 06:17 PM, said:

It was an idea released in an official capacity that had a huge outcry against it, and yet, not one confirmation of it's continuation or cancellation. Combined with Paul's mention of "systems" this seems to fit.

I remain cautiously optimistic that it won't go in as described at all. Half an hour or so into one of the last NGNG podcasts (sorry for the vagueness, hopefully someone else can link to it...I just clicked a link in another post) Russ Bullock mentioned something about being dubious about the changes that Paul came up with because they weren't intuitive for new players. So there's a tiny glimmer of hope.

[Caviel]

xDeityx, on 02 July 2013 - 08:30 PM, said:

I remain cautiously optimistic that it won't go in as described at all. Half an hour or so into one of the last NGNG podcasts (sorry for the vagueness, hopefully someone else can link to it...I just clicked a link in another post) Russ Bullock mentioned something about being dubious about the changes that Paul came up with because they weren't intuitive for new players. So there's a tiny glimmer of hope.

And that it could be avoided by a simple macro to inject a half second pause.

Or totally defeated by altering weapons. Can't fire 3 or more ER PPCs without a penalty? No problem, I'll take 2 regular and 2 ER PPCs and still alpha with all 4. PPCs lumped together? No problem, swap some out for Gauss or ER Large Lasers. Whatever it takes to skirt just below whatever arbitrary limit they designate per variant.

We've already theorycrafted the idea to death on the forums.

The heat changes are a good thing, although not implemented with enough repercussion, and do nothing to solve the problem.

[YueFei]

This change was probably designed to prevent the exploit of continuing to alpha after shutting down, without suffering severe internal damage.

You shoot, overheat and shutdown, then wait on PPC cooldown, manually power-up while still over 100% heat, make a snapshot, and then manually shutdown again. Since you're only powered-up for a split second, you take only a small amount of internal damage. Rinse and repeat. I heard about this from another player. Then I tested this myself in Testing Grounds, and confirmed that it can be done. I was clumsy my first time attempting this, but even then I managed to fire off several more massive alphas before dying.

It's the kind of thing you could do to pour DPS that you are *not* supposed to be able to pour into a fight at a distance when you are not being fired upon. This self-inflicted damage once past 120% heat will fix that exploit.

[Funkadelic Mayhem]

They should have changed it to where you can only equip 2 ppc on any one mec. Or 2 or 3 of any one weapon for that matter. Go play the walking hot water heater mech game!

[Lykaon]

StandingCow, on 02 July 2013 - 06:09 PM, said:

This change ended up punishing the gimmicky 6 PPC silly builds, it did nothing to good high alpha PPC builds like the 4 PPC stalker.

I second this. I was piloting a Stalker F last night with 2 ER-PPC,2 PPCs and AMS and was routinely making 4 kills and I am not profficent I just put this thing together recently.I would not shut down doing it either.

It was pretty much point and click collect kills.

[Shadowsword8]

What this change means is that pure energy boats can't brawl anymore. Not against something that has a Gauss.

Which leave....right, sniping....

[FupDup]

Shadowsword8, on 02 July 2013 - 09:29 PM, said:

What this change means is that pure energy boats can't brawl anymore.

My Catapult K2 would like to disagree with this statement.

[SpartanFiredog317]

Solution to PPC Online:

1.) SRM/SSRM Damage to 2.5
2.) Up LPL damage to 12, shorten beam duration and boost optimal/max range to 400/750
3.) Make PPC take 2 additional crit spaces (5 total)