1084 replies to this topic

[Itsalrightwithme]

And in the meantime PGI continues to refuse to bump PPC heat just a tiny bit to give us a break from PPCwarrioronline. They would rather bottleneck their design and development effort to introduce complex systems. So no to gradual adjustment and tweaking, yes to risky ventures that may or may not even be effective.

Seriously?

[MustrumRidcully]

Nebelfeuer, on 11 July 2013 - 03:55 PM, said:

You might want to get rid of the idea that a mech that carries a big weapon loadout is supposed to fire it repeatedly together.
Look at the stockloadouts and you will notice that most mechs are not capable of alphastriking repeatedly without getting heatissues. Though the method is differend the result will be closer to original rules in effect fo a good part of the weapons.

The current aproach may not be the best but it at least goes into the right direction and at least incentives to try differend loadouts then pure boating and pinpoint alphastrikers. It will probaly need a few adjustments like the ER/PPC fix anounced for the later patch and AC/gauss intergration and a few value adjustments but it might work out in the end.
An aproach closer to TT rules(heatchart+values and/or convergence) might solve the desired probles more efficiently though.

Here's the thing - those stock mechs can do this without needing an arbitrary extra heat production value. Heat is just simple addition, and comparing the result to a table to figure out the effect.

This is a convoluted solution.

But there is also the other misconception that mechs are supposed to overheat. Some mechs do. but the idea of heat is just to create an interesting design space when making mechs. You have a trade-off to consider - sustainability vs burst damage potential.

PGI's heat system is rigged for something else - you'll overheat eventually, because you sure as hell ain't gonna install 20 standard sinks or 10 DHS just to run 2 Medium Lasers (well, on a Spider you might have to). They seem to want everyone to overheat eventually and try to avoid people being able to build heat neutral mechs. But that's not necessary at all, because there is always a trade-off to consider - tonnage spent on sinks to become heat neutral is tonnage not spend on guns, ammo or armour that you might have needed in a critical situation,where a few points of heat wouldn't have hurt you that much.

PGI's heat system uses a high heat cap, which makes it difficult to actually achieve the kind of trade-offs the system needs. Those Quad PPC Stalkers aren't heat efficient in MW:O, they overheat fast. But they don't overheat fast enough, you can pull out 120 damage before you overheat even if you basically take no time to cool off.

But that is just the heat side of PGI problems. The reason Quad PPC Stalkers are popular is not just because they are "heat effective", so to speak - it's because 40 damage alphas to a single hit location is just too good to pass up. And this problem isn't really heat related. It's just that precise application of damage is very, very valuable in a game with multile hit locations with each their own hit points. You don't get any consolation prizes for shooting half the armour off of 3 locations. You get a prize for shooting off all the armour of one location.

This is the problem they need to fix, and they should find a solution that interacts with this directly, instead of indirectly via the heat system. Just note that their table doesn't include the Gauss Rifle, despite everyone in CLosed Beta remembering those Dual Gauss Snipers that got to circumvent the heat system problems and delivered pinpoint precise alphas. And that was without HSR! The only limit back then was probably the same limit that we have now with the AC/40 Jagermechs. It's just a 65 ton mech. There are still mechs that can bring 35 tons more to compensate these advantages. The Quad PPC Stalker had only 15 tons above it, and that seemed insufficient.

[Victor Morson]

I'd also have to ponder what the people responsible for balance have actually been doing for the past year.

By contrast:

Networking Department - HSR, upping our engine speed soon.
Mech creation teams - Made several 'mechs
Map creation teams - Made some of the best maps in the game to date
Sound team - Doing all kinds of neat new sounds
Visual team - Still doing a great job with the models and animations!
UI team - UI 2.0 will likely be a great improvement coming around soon!
Programmers - Lots of nice new stability and little touches! Plus they got diverted to 3PV by the people dealing with balance. And making pointless heat systems. So they've been busy getting run around.

Balance Guys - Nerfed a few things that are usable. Puttered around. Kinda put them back but not quite. Promises aggressive changes. Delivers aggressive randomness. Refuses to admit there's a problem. Stay the course! Ignore the icebergs!

One of these things is not like the other. Balance defines gameplay. Gameplay is the lifeblood of a game. Their decisions are dragging down a lot of hard, excellent work throughout the game at this point and I think if their death grip is in fact not released, they will drag the franchise down with them before they'll give some other ideas a shot.

I can say without a doubt there's a few people in PGI's programming department that understand the game balance better than whoever all is responsible for primarily balancing it.

"It's a beta!" won't be an excuse for much longer and much of this they could have fixed months ago. Which leads to the frightening conclusion that they don't want to admit much if it is broken in the first place. Otherwise we'd be seeing some other changes in this "aggressive" patch. Ho-hum half-buffed SRMs could have at least come with a half hearted attempt to stop kicking the Large Pulse Laser.

Edited by Victor Morson, 12 July 2013 - 02:42 AM.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Victor Morson, on 12 July 2013 - 02:37 AM, said:

I'd also have to ponder what the people responsible for balance have actually been doing for the past year.

By contrast:

Networking Department - HSR, upping our engine speed soon.
Mech creation teams - Made several 'mechs
Map creation teams - Made some of the best maps in the game to date
Sound team - Doing all kinds of neat new sounds
Visual team - Still doing a great job with the models and animations!
UI team - UI 2.0 will likely be a great improvement coming around soon!
Programmers - Lots of nice new stability and little touches! Plus they got diverted to 3PV by the people dealing with balance. And making pointless heat systems. So they've been busy getting run around.

Balance Guys - Nerfed a few things that are usable. Puttered around. Kinda put them back but not quite. Promises aggressive changes. Delivers aggressive randomness. Refuses to admit there's a problem. Stay the course! Ignore the icebergs!

One of these things is not like the other. Balance defines gameplay. Gameplay is the lifeblood of a game. Their decisions are dragging down a lot of hard, excellent work throughout the game at this point and I think if their death grip is in fact not released, they will drag the franchise down with them before they'll give some other ideas a shot.

Uh i seem to remember something about there being 1 balance guy, with input from maybe a handful of others.

I might have been dreaming tho!

[Angry Viking]

Oh god, we need to use chain fire, PGI HOW COULD YOU? ./popcorn

[Victor Morson]

Angry Viking, on 12 July 2013 - 02:43 AM, said:

Oh god, we need to use chain fire, PGI HOW COULD YOU? ./popcorn

Chain fire will set off the heat issue just as easily as group fire.

I wish I could watch you spit out your popcorn.

DV McKenna, on 12 July 2013 - 02:40 AM, said:

Uh i seem to remember something about there being 1 balance guy, with input from maybe a handful of others.

I might have been dreaming tho!

Honestly I'm not sure if it's Russ or Paul's fault, or both of their faults, we're in this shape and I don't want to blame the wrong guy. It could be Garth's, he does list game balance. They haven't been clear who's got primary say.

Whoever it is needs to stop. For the love of God man, he needs to stop. Maybe he's good at other things. Maybe he's a great asset to another part of the team. Move him there. Get him the hell away from weapon balance.

Edited by Victor Morson, 12 July 2013 - 02:47 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

FupDup, on 11 July 2013 - 05:04 PM, said:

I never noticed, then. Do keep in mind though that you're knighting for people that don't care about your preferred play style/weight class (lights). In fact, they're probably going to keep their current pattern of doing nothing or making it worse.


Just something to ponder.


The alpha cap is just a poorly conceived band aid. It doesn't fix the underlying issues and is also easily avoided to boot (macros, 2 ERPPC + 1 Gauss, 2 Gauss + 1 ERPPC, etc.).

I cannot fully agree here.

Everything you do to circumvent will reduce your effective pinpoint damage. If you pick PPC and Gauss, you have different projectile speeds to consider, it's only not a concern if the target is stationary. The latter could already be a problem, though.
Macros do the same thing - you are forced to chain-fire, even if you make it with a custom macro instead of the PGI chain-fire. That again, forces you to spread your damage.

The main problems are:
- In transparent and completely arbitratry. It's making the system more complicated and violates KISS.
- It doesn't actually address all kinds of pinpoint convergence group fire boat monsters. Gauss are completely unaffected, for possibly the only reason because Gauss is not a heat intensive weapon.
- It does affect builds that do not actually pose a problem from the alpha strike view, or at least a far lesser problem. Lasers don't need a harsh penalty at all, simply because they have a beam duration of 0.5 to 1 seconds in which you will inevitably spread damage.

The system achieves its end if it manages to lower your effective ability to deliver pinpoint damage. But it also has side effects (nerfings things that never needed nerfing), and it does so in a needlessly complicated manner. And there isn't even any sign that the penalties received are actually fair.

[Miken]

I don't understand!
Perfectly working 12x12 dont released, and stupid unbalanced heat penalty otherwise!?!? *facepalm*

[CommanderCaps]

This "solution" looks to me like the lazy way out.
Instead of building a real hardpoint system and going for a variant based max alpha (i.e. the AWS can boat 3 PPC without a problem because the mech was designed that way, just look at it for gods sake) they do this copout.

Proper hardpoints with sizes could fix so many problems this game has, and I dont know why they wont add it in.
How about, instead of worrying about people boating PPCs and large lasers and giving them stupid heat gimps, you just go hey, no mech should be able to load up 5-6 PPCs, or 5-6 Large lasers because thats plain stupid. Instead you can either take 4 medium lasers or 2 large lasers, or 2 mediums and 1 large, etc, etc.

[RapierE01]

The main questions ist. How high will the penality be? 6x PPC Alpha = Heat 200%?

"Say Adios Mr PPC Boat"

I think its a good Way to balance Weapons. Its a Step away from the COD like Gameplay of today. Players need to have an eye on their Heat and their Weapons Loadout. Not Only "Alpha Alpha Alpha"

Maybe next step is that over 100% of Heat your Ammunition can explode. That would be nice

Edited by RapierE01, 12 July 2013 - 02:56 AM.

[Victor Morson]

Another reason the OP is hilarious:

"HEY GUYS I FIXED BOATING!"

Can we have SRMs back?

"No because of BOATING!"

............

I'm not even really exaggerating.

[MustrumRidcully]

Victor Morson, on 12 July 2013 - 01:56 AM, said:

Oh and one more thing getting overshadowed by the stupid heat system..



There are a million ways to prevent a 6 SRM6 Catapult from working properly, but doing this just means smaller quantities of SRMs - like 3 on a Cent - won't be worthwhile in the process. You're screwing over weapons because you've given 'mechs an ability to over boat, which is just adding ammunition to the slot-limit argument.

SRMs really are going to likely need 2.5 to work, or somewhere close to it, in anything less THAN a boat like that. If you allow a 'mech to take a crazy combo, then balance the weapon around that combo, it will only ever get used IN a combination like that. That is why it is a terrible idea. If you had hardpoint levels you could make the A1 carry mostly SRM4s or something to compensate.

If your "internal testers" ever talked to anyone on the outside they might see that. It's also why what you are seeing in your internal tests don't reflect reality. The likely viability of a 6 SRM6 Splatcat - esp. with the ludicrous heat changes - is likely to be next to nill, nullifying it's "high risk, high reward" damage. Just because your internal testers don't have the experience to exploit the things weaknesses doesn't mean that this situation is very likely in even moderately skilled pug games as it is more likely to shutdown every shot than kill you. Besides, there are plenty of builds that kill - and will continue to kill - in 3 alphas that don't even involve PPCs, anyway.



Nope, you are going to precisely see how many Gauss and PPCs we can cram into it and still be heat effective.

Given 3 PPCs is supposed to be a "notable heat difference" (if it's anything like how airstrikes are "highly damaging" I'm guessing not much) and it's not bad until 4, 3 PPC + 1 Gauss will continue to rule.

Previously we had to fear twin AC/20 boats, Large Laser boats, Ultra boats.. builds all on the cusp of being viable with just a slight buff. But not anymore. They are now leagues inferior.

Thannnnnnnks Paul.

A random question I have is who these internal testers are? I don't mean in terms of names, but how they usually play the game. Do they actively follow the meta and learn the tricks of the trade and the FOTM? Or are they the same people we see in that "Paul your balance sucks" video, or in the 2-TAG screenshot? (No offense to that Dev, he had a few very enlightening posts on technical aspects of MW:O, you certainly know your job on the software side of things.)

[Victor Morson]

MustrumRidcully, on 12 July 2013 - 03:02 AM, said:

A random question I have is who these internal testers are? I don't mean in terms of names, but how they usually play the game. Do they actively follow the meta and learn the tricks of the trade and the FOTM?

Almost positively not. They are primarily bug testers, looking for hard bugs in the game. Every time they are used for balance testing they seem to have very little insight into how the actual game plays out, much like the developers present in the video. I do not blame them; balance testing isn't their primary job and without being allowed "into the wild" or taking input from people who are, they are simply going to form balance opinions divorced from the game's reality.

[Theodor Kling]

Ok the Poll is about SRMs and the discussion about the new boating heat? Why not split those 2 completely seperate discussions?
Anyway on SRMs: Balance them when hits register. Everything els is a waste of time and effort, ok not that much time since it's just a number in some file.

So is the boating heat. Ok, they are gradually making heat more of a liability with the new dmg and the lowered threshold for that. So together with more work in that direction it might actually work partly. I for one would prefer a convergence or accuracy related solution, but whatever works...

But as long as hit detection is as buggy as it is ALL resources going into balancing that go beyond changing a heat or dmg value in some file are a waste of time and resources. Everyone able to do so should work on hit detection. Suppose the balance team has no clue about that part of the engine.. well let them use their time on other stuff: CW, mech desinh, Clan, UI, whatever. But wasting time to find solutions to balancing problems that might look pretty different with working hit detection is just a waste. Sure some problem will stay, maybe even get worse if all hits register.. but we can't really know until it happens, so please stop wasting effort on that.

[Inveramsay]

Sadly this does nothing against the 1gauss 2erppc snipers.

I don't think there is that much wrong with the srms themselves at the moment, problem is by the time you've gotten close enough to actually use them you will have been lrmd and ppcd to oblivion

[Nebelfeuer]

Jakob Knight, on 12 July 2013 - 02:24 AM, said:

Except that putting together a mech with those loadouts -did- require thought, in that the person was analyzing what worked best in the environment MWO provided. Now, in addition to the unrealistic restrictions imposed by the Hardpoint system, these people are being told that they can't have their configurations because they are 'too good'. It is also interesting that some of the heaviest hitting weapons (UAC/5, Guass Rifle) are excluded from these restrictions while similar weapons (PPCs) are penalized heavily. It is hard to say that mounting 3 PPCs is overguning a mech, but having 3 AC/10s is not.

Though i agree mostly on the first part of you post and would have liked to see a solution that adresse all weapons alike I have to disagree on the other parts of your post

Jakob Knight, on 12 July 2013 - 02:24 AM, said:

Also, this system will make quite a few stock designs impossible to run (HBK-4P, BLR-1G, ect). While we have heard there will be chassis modifications to this system, none are included in the notes to date, so might as well be considered to not exist at this time. Putting this system into test without all the chassis modifications also in place creates a flawed testing environment at the least if they are to be implemented, and destroys the use of normal, unmodified battlemechs if they are not.

Splitting heateffective fire into groups instead of onebutton alphastrikes as the baseline for normal behavior does not destroy the usefullness of any stockmech. or custombuild. It makes it a bit more challenging to manage the recources and that is a good develpment.

Jakob Knight, on 12 July 2013 - 02:24 AM, said:

My own opinion is that players should be required to come up with tactics and strategies to defeat the challenges posed to them in the game within the rules of the game, and not seek always to have the game developers change the game so they do not have to. This is a road to mediocrity rather than challenge.

So accepting one set of restrictions aka rules is ok and another is not? That does not make sense, does it?

[Yenisey]

Quote

Taking damage beyond 120% heat.
[color=#959595]This value is going to be reduced to 100%. Depending on how long you're in a state of overheat will determine how much damage you take. If you overheat by 1 point and are only in overheat for a very short amount of time, you probably won't take any damage at all.[/color]

It would also be great to add the destruction of heatsinks in case of overheating!

[Mechteric]

I don't like much the idea based on a minimum X number of allowed weapons. Its complex and arbitrary to be honest.

Rather I had a previous idea that would make much more sense. I'm on a tablet so I can't go linkit but it was based on a proper heat curve that started low for all weapons at 2 and increased from there. Bigger weapons had bigger curves and smaller ones lower.

[Mudhutwarrior]

It would be nice if those of us who don't have a PHD in mechwarriors could understand what to do in builds. All this crap on top of all the other crap works fine for the few that know this game intimately but for the rest of us were screwed.

PGi is just proving that they cant see the forest for the trees. No one wants to invest in such a steep learning curve except the geeks who are into that.

[Deathlike]

It's equally hilarious that the poll is biased...

If people are truly expecting something different... I apologize in advance (even on the 30th)... because there will be more of the same.

I had already built a design because I equally hated LL boating (which wasn't entirely useful) and PPC boating (which had its own sets of issues) and it's easy to minimize the proposed system.. and it's doable on a Stalker.

Ultimately, this system is already broken before its implementation.