114 replies to this topic

[Lostdragon]

Interesting idea, but I like the idea of being able to alpha strike. I just think it should be a last ditch effort to get a kill because weapon convergence should go down the tubes when you do it.

I was thinking about some of the MWO balance issues yesterday and one thought I had was to make PPCs frontload half their damage and do the rest in two ticks at 1 and 2 seconds after impact. Each armor section can only have one DOT effect at a time, so even if you hit the CT with 6 PPCs you are only going to do 35 damage (30 up front and 5 from the DOT).

There are of course a lot of drawbacks to this and it does nothing to address high alpha builds that don't use more than one PPC, but I think it would be an interesting mechanic to encourage more diversity.

[BatWing]

OP, first of all KUDOS for a well written post and this is a very good idea.

Sure, there are many ideas on the table right now, more or less everyone thinks thye have the "cure" to this cancer (me too for what that matter), however, this is one of the best ideas I saw so far, and I see how the game mechanic would improve with a forced chain fire for certain weapons.

Sure, it needs some adjustment. As someone said, due to some malefic boating, maybe CD by weapon # has also need to be implemented. The nasty SSRM boats and SRMs boats (if ever SRM will be back on the board) need to be evaluated and limited.

I hope PGI listen about a few valid ideas out there, and this is one of the most valuable IMO.

Well done. I will promote this post with my friends.

[East Indy]

If I understand it correctly — a 4-PPC group would fire the fourth after 1.5 seconds — it's a good idea.

Just don't be so ginger about introducing a GCD to medium/large lasers or SRMs, especially when used in numbers. Both weapons are too popular for the claims that they're precariously one nerf away from disfavor. Balance is anticipating where win-by-any-means players will go immediately after.

Coupled with hardpoint tiers, this could cinch the game up right.

[Koniving]

Nik Reaper, on 05 July 2013 - 07:34 AM, said:

@Koniving

But how does this help the peeka-boo meta that we have and that is by all rights the optimal way to do battle? ( minimal exposure max burst as short as possible and back to cover )

If there is a way to unload all the damage at once without blowing up or getting shutdown from 1 alpha it will still be the best way to play.

That'd be best handled between a combination of things addressing convergence. Namely ballistic and PPC recoil, the PPC splash mechanic Russ mentions in NGNG podcast 79 (which sounds similar to my own idea; but this requires them to fix the original CryEngine splash mechanic first). It'd take 7 damage and apply it to where you hit, and the rest of the "splash" would never exceed 10 total damage. So say you hit the mech CT, and the splash hits LT and RT. 7 CT, 1.5 LT, 1.5 RT. Bam, 10 damage.

ACs are already being addressed though it'll take awhile as they're literally making at least 4 new kinds of AC/20, don't know how many AC/10s, and it keeps going down to AC/5s, AC/2s, etc.

This only leaves Gauss Rifles. No one knows what will be done about them or if they'll be left alone, but when it takes 30 to 45 tons to carry 2 to 3 of them and how deadly they are to you for having them, probably they won't get variants.

Sadly we're not going to see that until after UI 2.0 earliest.

Check the second link in my signature. Bryan's said several times we're getting weapon variants. One of the most recent confirmations is that one manufacturer's variant of large lasers will have a purple hue. (Not much but yeah, PGI's known for being vague).

Edited by Koniving, 05 July 2013 - 07:59 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Lostdragon, on 05 July 2013 - 07:40 AM, said:

Interesting idea, but I like the idea of being able to alpha strike. I just think it should be a last ditch effort to get a kill because weapon convergence should go down the tubes when you do it.

I was thinking about some of the MWO balance issues yesterday and one thought I had was to make PPCs frontload half their damage and do the rest in two ticks at 1 and 2 seconds after impact. Each armor section can only have one DOT effect at a time, so even if you hit the CT with 6 PPCs you are only going to do 35 damage (30 up front and 5 from the DOT).

There are of course a lot of drawbacks to this and it does nothing to address high alpha builds that don't use more than one PPC, but I think it would be an interesting mechanic to encourage more diversity.

Compromise:
Chain-Fire is enforced.

Once every 10 seconds, you can choose to alpha strike.. All weapons not on cooldown right now (global or otherwise) immediately fire, without any convergence.

One Alpha Strike in 10 seconds is "canon"*, after all. Two or three... less so.


*) not that it really matters what's canon, what matters is what is balanced and allows gameplay variety.

[Obadiah333]

Yes, Yes. Shortly after this, let's implement gear check and flying mounts.

[WarWalta]

Genius!! Totally support this idea


and 3 thumbs up for the drawings!

[MustrumRidcully]

Obadiah333, on 05 July 2013 - 08:07 AM, said:

Yes, Yes. Shortly after this, let's implement gear check and flying mounts.

Gear Check is already in. When the computer says "All Systems nominal", that's the gear check.

Flying Mounts are absolutely needed, they are canon. But I don't think a single player should be able to have them, that's something for merc companies. Drop Ships are frigging expensive.

[Obadiah333]

MustrumRidcully, on 05 July 2013 - 08:12 AM, said:

Gear Check is already in. When the computer says "All Systems nominal", that's the gear check.

Flying Mounts are absolutely needed, they are canon. But I don't think a single player should be able to have them, that's something for merc companies. Drop Ships are frigging expensive.

Most excellent. I LOL'd.

[Lostdragon]

MustrumRidcully, on 05 July 2013 - 08:04 AM, said:

Compromise:
Chain-Fire is enforced.

Once every 10 seconds, you can choose to alpha strike.. All weapons not on cooldown right now (global or otherwise) immediately fire, without any convergence.

One Alpha Strike in 10 seconds is "canon"*, after all. Two or three... less so.


*) not that it really matters what's canon, what matters is what is balanced and allows gameplay variety.

I could get on board with that. The main concern I still have is how complicated this could potentially become and how frustrating it could be for new players. The game is already pretty overwhelming to someone unfamiliar with past MW games and having to know the different groupfire/chainfire mechanics for all the different weapons would add another layer of complexity.

I'd rather see them address these issues with convergence and a reworked heat scale, but we are at the point where something desperately needs to be done so if adding chainfire requirements is the path forward I would be ok with that.

[MustrumRidcully]

Lostdragon, on 05 July 2013 - 08:20 AM, said:

I could get on board with that. The main concern I still have is how complicated this could potentially become and how frustrating it could be for new players. The game is already pretty overwhelming to someone unfamiliar with past MW games and having to know the different groupfire/chainfire mechanics for all the different weapons would add another layer of complexity.

I'd rather see them address these issues with convergence and a reworked heat scale, but we are at the point where something desperately needs to be done so if adding chainfire requirements is the path forward I would be ok with that.

Lostdragon, on 05 July 2013 - 08:20 AM, said:

I could get on board with that. The main concern I still have is how complicated this could potentially become and how frustrating it could be for new players. The game is already pretty overwhelming to someone unfamiliar with past MW games and having to know the different groupfire/chainfire mechanics for all the different weapons would add another layer of complexity.

I'd rather see them address these issues with convergence and a reworked heat scale, but we are at the point where something desperately needs to be done so if adding chainfire requirements is the path forward I would be ok with that.

I think an aspect that is hindering "noobs" is the heat system - the stock mechs they have to start out with are twice or three times as hot as they ought to be, which makes playing them a lot harder than playing a customized mechs.The only hot mechs that are good are boating builds.
Changing the heat system is still something I think needs to be done, but it might not help us with the alpha boating situation in general. (It might address the PPC issue, but it won't deal with Gauss Rifles.)

Of course, there are lots of other things, too. Lack of a tutorial for example. When is the heat meter explained? Weapon Grouping? Arm Lock?

[Lostdragon]

MustrumRidcully, on 05 July 2013 - 08:30 AM, said:

I think an aspect that is hindering "noobs" is the heat system - the stock mechs they have to start out with are twice or three times as hot as they ought to be, which makes playing them a lot harder than playing a customized mechs.The only hot mechs that are good are boating builds.
Changing the heat system is still something I think needs to be done, but it might not help us with the alpha boating situation in general. (It might address the PPC issue, but it won't deal with Gauss Rifles.)

Of course, there are lots of other things, too. Lack of a tutorial for example. When is the heat meter explained? Weapon Grouping? Arm Lock?

They have said they were working on a better new user experience with UI 2.0 so hopefully that will include a tutorial on the things you mentioned.

As far as heat and such... I think if they set a static heat cap and increased heat dissipation that could help a lot. If they did this and re-implemented convergence based on throttle and heat it would solve a lot of issues. Also have a pretty big convergence penalty for alpha strikes.

If you set the heat cap to say 35 you could still fire 3 ERPPCs at once, but you would not be able to do that again for a few seconds without shutting down and suffering some stiff penalties.

[Coralld]

I really like this idea, its got my vote. The only thing I would change is that AC/10s also get 0 for the chain fire delay as they are used far less than any other AC out there. Or at least make it so the chain fire delay is even shorter, say like .10.

[Dexion]

Koniving, on 05 July 2013 - 07:10 AM, said:

Awesome sauce

Thanks for reminding us of those early days....

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Odd idea that sounds wrong, but actually makes sense.

[Stat1cVoiD]

Koniving, on 05 July 2013 - 07:10 AM, said:

Spoiler

It starts great, as it's pretty true. Though the reason is mainly because the mechs could not handle the heat. For example in tabletop 6 ER PPCs generate 90 heat. Your threshold is 30. But you can fire those 6 ER PPCs in a turn from a custom made stalker with an XL 340 engine and x heatsinks, because it spreads the fire out over the turn (10 seconds) and even then it rides on 80% heat or more (24 to 26 out of 30 typically). Even so it comes with high risks such as falling over, pilot losing consciousness, massive damage from falling over, loss of limbs, etc. Sometimes they can never get back up. If you're lucky you just sit for a turn or only walk to avoid blowing yourself up.

In MWO, we had to get to 150% heat to receive any damage. 200% heat to start receiving any real damage. 300% heat to explode. When, do you ever, reach 300% heat?

Luckily this latest patch has made it so that 120% causes CT damage, 150% seems to kill you. However this only addresses the massive

Spoiler

"ZOMG ALPHA ALPHA ALPHA ALPHA OVERRIDE ALPHA ALPHA ALPHA ALPHA ALPHA ALPHA ALPHA ALPHA SHUTDOWN, POWER UP ZOMG ONLY 2 DAMAGE FROM BEING TOO HOT, ALPHA ALPHA!!!"

spree people are on.

Next comes convergence. However since your goal was to handle alpha strikes, I think the job's partway done. To further it along, remove the raising threshold so we can't have heat thresholds of over 60. Last tested we had a threshold over 90 with 22 DHS. There's a reason for the huge gap between standard and double heatsinks.

Much simpler. If you want to Alpha, try it three times with 3 ER PPCs. I dare ya. Blew myself up without an override.

That said, I don't like the idea of a global cooldown. Without the rising heat threshold, we simply won't have the problem because your alpha limit for DHS would be the same for 10 Standard Heatsinks. Try it with 10 standard heatsinks and see what happens. Want to shoot once or twice and shut down, be my guest. I'll take you apart with my chainfired weapons.

It was simply a better time back then, when our heat threshold was so limited that alpha strikes came at such a high risk that everyone chainfires their weapons.

At the time, going over 110% was instant death. No gradual damage. Just....

Boom.

Heat is a balancing factor for Cadency, not for Burst-Damage. That means, even if you would raise the Heat or add more penalties, it wouldn't stop people from going for "One shot"- builds.
If PPCs wouldn't be viable anymore, they would go for Gauss or AC/20-builds, since their Heat generation is so low that no Heat Penalty would touch 'em.
Heat and GCDs would work very good together, since the first slows the Cadency down and the seconds denies skill-free Oneshotting... Both fill DIFFERENT roles in terms of balancing. It's not a rivalry...

Fraegar, on 05 July 2013 - 07:18 AM, said:

Spoiler

This is very similar to an idea I had. The main difference is the only weapons I think should be able to fire together are ones located in the same location of a mech, ignoring flamers and MG.

For example the HBK-4P can fire its 6 ML in its hunch all at once but the arm lasers would have to wait and be fired separately from each other with a fraction of a second wait.

This way only certain mechs and variants can actually take advantage of group fire.

Besides flamers and the MG I think every weapon and group should have a cooldown before it can be fired after another weapon. All weapons ranging from .25s to .5s where pulse lasers should be half that of normal lasers.


This to me feels like the best blend between battletech and mechwarrior of where in BT each weapon is always rolled for hit individually but you are allowed to fire multiple weapons at once in mechwarrior.

I don't see 9ML HBKs being any sort of over the top in the current Metagame... At least on higher ELO levels.
They just fall victim to pretty much every high Alpha build, thx to their short range and unfocussed damage.
But as said before, nothing is carved in stone. That means, if testing would reveal that MLs are becoming the new FotM, they could also get a small GCD, although i don't think that would be necessary.
Again:
The purpose of GCDs is NOT to tune the general DPS down. It is about denying high pinpoint damage to a single Component in ONE SHOT.
That means: If a HBK pilot manages to aim all Lasers for a whole second on a single Component, he deserves to deal a decent amount of damage, from my point of view...

MustrumRidcully, on 05 July 2013 - 08:04 AM, said:

Spoiler

Compromise:
Chain-Fire is enforced.

Once every 10 seconds, you can choose to alpha strike.. All weapons not on cooldown right now (global or otherwise) immediately fire, without any convergence.

One Alpha Strike in 10 seconds is "canon"*, after all. Two or three... less so.


*) not that it really matters what's canon, what matters is what is balanced and allows gameplay variety.

As stated before, I am not a huge fan of inconsistent game mechanics... This might just complicate the game too much or even encourage even more camping, where both teams wait for their 10 secs to finish in order to fire their "Doom"-shot. :/
It is also in contrast with the "Bulletstorm",...

Coralld, on 05 July 2013 - 08:49 AM, said:

I really like this idea, its got my vote. The only thing I would change is that AC/10s also get 0 for the chain fire delay as they are used far less than any other AC out there. Or at least make it so the chain fire delay is even shorter, say like .10.

Do you really think that quartering a second is not enough and it has to be made this accurate?
I mean who would really see a difference between 0.1 sec and 0.25 sec anyway,...
I think this might just make this system more inconvinient with little in return...

-------

Very constructive discussion!
Not much trolling or trash talk in here. Thx guys!

Edited by Stat1cVoiD, 05 July 2013 - 11:19 AM.

[Torban]

I honestly didn't think I would like it but... I kinda do. You've thought it through fairly well.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

@op.

Honestly it's a good idea, it allows all weapon to shine, it also helps mitigate hotter builds by allowing cooling between weapon shots.

it WOULD adjust the game to a more DPS focused game than the instant damage builds we have now... But while that can get annoying getting rocked around by AC's, I'd frankly prefer it to the instant shot meta we currently have.

That being said, I think PGI would have to put a hard rule on macros, as I've seen more than one person say that macro's that get around firing limits are fine. [which is bull, because these limits are in place for balancing reasons.] Right now PGI has said Macro programs are fine. Yet it's a 3rd party software ment to circumvent limitations of the game. [which most would consider cheating.]

[Kmieciu]

Jade Kitsune, on 05 July 2013 - 11:36 AM, said:

That being said, I think PGI would have to put a hard rule on macros, as I've seen more than one person say that macro's that get around firing limits are fine. [which is bull, because these limits are in place for balancing reasons.] Right now PGI has said Macro programs are fine. Yet it's a 3rd party software ment to circumvent limitations of the game. [which most would consider cheating.]

If the GDC were server side, no macro would circumvent them.

[MustrumRidcully]

Jade Kitsune, on 05 July 2013 - 11:36 AM, said:

@op.

Honestly it's a good idea, it allows all weapon to shine, it also helps mitigate hotter builds by allowing cooling between weapon shots.

it WOULD adjust the game to a more DPS focused game than the instant damage builds we have now... But while that can get annoying getting rocked around by AC's, I'd frankly prefer it to the instant shot meta we currently have.

That being said, I think PGI would have to put a hard rule on macros, as I've seen more than one person say that macro's that get around firing limits are fine. [which is bull, because these limits are in place for balancing reasons.] Right now PGI has said Macro programs are fine. Yet it's a 3rd party software ment to circumvent limitations of the game. [which most would consider cheating.]

I think there is some misconception on the topic.

That chain fire uses a 0.5 second delay (I believe it's 0.5 seconds, could be wrong) is not a balancing thing. It'S just a delay PGI has set for chain fire. They could also just make it a variable you can set in the Options dialogue (but we all know how long it takes for something to change with the UI.)

That the AC/2 uses a 0.5 second recycle time can:
- Not be gotten around with macros
- Makes Chain-Fire completely inadequate for someone using AC/2s, because chain fire makes it impossible to sue more than one AC/2 as its full rate of fire. (This even true if you use something else than AC/2s). That's just dumb. AC/2 might be one of the very few weapons where group fire doesn't really provide a huge advantage, because you're shooting all the time anyway (at least until you overheat, which happens ridicilous fast for a ballistic weapon), and you get the neat Dakka-Dakka feeling - and a bit of more shaking the enemy with gunfire.

Of course Global Cooldowns belong in the category of cooldowns that macros can't circumvent (and if they do, it's a bug and using it would be an exploit.)