1084 replies to this topic

[Lugh]

Phobic Wraith, on 12 July 2013 - 11:00 AM, said:

So wait, if we take damage at 100% heat regardless of all other factors, why do we shut down at all?

Because the damage isn't guaranteed to kill you and a reactor shutdown is designed to bleed heat off the reactor quickly while no reaction is generating MORE heat.....

[jakucha]

Phobic Wraith, on 12 July 2013 - 11:00 AM, said:

So wait, if we take damage at 100% heat regardless of all other factors, why do we shut down at all?

You only start to take damage if you stay above stay above 100 percent, so only builds that induce a lot of heat will get incrementally hurt. If you never shutdown it would allow players to continuously alpha (until they popped from internal damage). Making them shutdown puts a stop to that while also ensuring they get hurt by blasting past 100 percent.

Edited by jakucha, 12 July 2013 - 11:17 AM.

[Monky]

The community discussion has evolved on this and it should not be ignored - heat penalties are a poor method to balance the current meta.

They may, in some form, be a good idea on their own to minimize alpha strikes and promote diverse loadouts, however it will not affect the long range pin point alpha meta as often even in crazy configurations like the 6 PPC stalker, you fire and pull back to cover, mitigating any heat by simply waiting until it's cool before you send another death-blast toward the enemy.

What needs to happen is that each combination of weapons that adds to over 20 damage needs to suffer inaccuracy of some kind. It can be that they do not converge at all and just fire 'straight' (targeting computer overload), it can be that they suffer from a randomization effect (recoil from firing), whatever needs to be done to break up long range pinpoint alpha strikes, or we will continue seeing mechs with 2ppc 1 gauss simply potshotting with the heaviest armor they can take. This is what the game is right now and it is not healthy.

If you continue trying to tack on penalties for 'certain weapon combos' that simply shuffles people into the next best thing. Kill the hydra by addressing the core issue - the ability to plant huge strikes on one spot with ease at range.

[OznerpaG]

i'l post the same thing as i did in a now closed thread:

get rid of alpha strikes. 1 button press fires 1 weapon. you want to fire 4 ERPPCs you have to fire 4 times

keep in mind if you press the button 4 times fast you'l get 4 weapons firing almost at once, but at least there's a chance of human error in there. alpha strikes eliminate the human error so it makes it too easy

[Kin3ticX]

I got quite a few chuckles reading through the various responses to the heat changes.

"Stupid PGI. People are just going to get around this boating nerf by using VARIETY.. L.O.L."

No kidding......here's your sign!

In all seriousness though, probably some combination of a boating nerf and a pinpoint nerf will make the game better off.

Edited by Kin3ticX, 12 July 2013 - 11:37 AM.

[Mr G]

Why the same limit on large lasers as PPCs? That just seems like a silly needless nerf to me. PPC's are heavier, have a longer range, do more damage and are instant fire while large lasers have a beam duration. I could see a max alpha or 4 or even 3 as being reasonable, but 2? Come on really?

yeah srms should be buffed. That'll fix part of the problem. Taking cool shots entirely out of the game would be another piece of the puzzle. Srm buffs, no coolshots and adjusting heat for PPCs a little higher would probably make this whole max alpha thing unnecessary.

[Jman5]

last time I'll say this: Yes, buff SRMs, but...

DO NOT BUFF STREAK SRMS!

You will completely destroy the light v light and light v medium fight. Streaks does not have nearly as many hit registration issues, so this would be a double buff. Furthermore, you would be making lights even more fragile.

Now once you normalize hit registration issues so my normal SRMs can hit lights reliably we can talk about normalizing the damage. But until that time be careful about the streaks.

Don't ignore this or you will ruin everything good about this potential stop-gap measure.

[Marmon Rzohr]

Like the line of though, although i still think, less pinpoint dmg, more splash is a better way to go when it comes to PPCs.

Dmg above 100% heat is imho just silly. There's no point in going so far to nerf boat builds. It's realistic for mechs to overheat during battle. It's not realistic for them to take internal damage immediately after they go over 100% or close to 100%,2.

That's the point of an automatic shutdown !!!
The point where a mech shuts down is not the point it should start taking damage, but rather a point where a shutdown is initated to PREVENT damage to internals.

In other words this would make it a system like a safety valve that opens only when a boiler is already breaking apart !!!

[Phobic Wraith]

jakucha, on 12 July 2013 - 11:15 AM, said:

You only start to take damage if you stay above stay above 100 percent, so only builds that induce a lot of heat will get incrementally hurt. If you never shutdown it would allow players to continuously alpha (until they popped from internal damage). Making them shutdown puts a stop to that while also ensuring they get hurt by blasting past 100 percent.

No, I get that, shutting down is supposed to prevent damage from over heating. 'This 100% and damage starts...' nonsense relegates shutting down to penalty status. One that is completely avoidable by overriding the shut-down, That is unless I'm missing something. Is overriding shut-down not going to be an option?

[Archtype]

does anyone remember the Battletech/Mechwarrior beta from years ago? i believe it was 3025, online multiplayer. I cannot even find a reference to it.

zoomed shots were random effectively. Just like jumpjets add shake to a cockpit, zooming adds a slightly random trajectory. As i recall, head shots in this game were so brutal that the devs removed the cross hairs from the zoom mode in an effort to change meta. Sadly they did nothing to change the accuracy on the first pass, this left industrious gamers taping dental floss to their monitor bezels to retain the cross hairs in normal view. The effect was when zoomed you had cross hairs again. they eventually made some changes, but the game was doomed by that point. (I want to say this was just before microsoft aquired the ip).

TL:DR getting rid of alphas is not a solution, variety is good, high alpha content does not make sense and this is balancing issue (heat, accuracy penalties) e.g. it makes sense you can fire one weapon on target over great distances - several though should be a more skilled feat, see jump jet shake and the change in meta from poptarting. Looking forward to people eating crow over this heat/alpha issue.

Edited by Archtype, 12 July 2013 - 11:52 AM.

[Bilbo]

Phobic Wraith, on 12 July 2013 - 11:44 AM, said:

No, I get that, shutting down is supposed to prevent damage from over heating. 'This 100% and damage starts...' nonsense relegates shutting down to penalty status. One that is completely avoidable by overriding the shut-down, That is unless I'm missing something. Is overriding shut-down not going to be an option?

It takes longer to dissipate heat when powered up. So you are actually better off shutting down. The damage takes place whether you are shutdown or not.

[Crockdaddy]

Sybreed, on 11 July 2013 - 11:17 AM, said:

Stalkers will just have to switch from 4 PPCs to 2 PPCs + 2 ER PPCs.

/facepalm

Most Stalkers have done this long ago. At least one's with any clue how to play.

[Kamenjar]

I am not so sure about 2LL penalty. Large lasers require much more exposure out of cover to be effective. IMHO the limit on the large lasers should be probably 4 to give good balance.

[Phobic Wraith]

Bilbo, on 12 July 2013 - 11:52 AM, said:

It takes longer to dissipate heat when powered up. So you are actually better off shutting down. The damage takes place whether you are shutdown or not.

Yes, but less damage than if someone is shooting at me? I get what the devs are doing, I understand the mechanic, I just think that's a bad mechanic.

[OznerpaG]

if this whole argument is over the ERPPC being too accurate for either it's weight or it's heat then maybe the simplest solution is to make the ERPPC do 15 heat like in the original rules or increase it's weight. lasers spread their damage everywhere, PPCs have a minimum range and guns/missiles are heavy/need ammo

[Pinselborste]

why cant SRMs get buffed to 2.0 in the next week patch?, its just a single number to change in an .xml file, and than you can test it by firing srm 2 at the enemy, die and check your damage. change that needs about 5 minutes.

[Ridir Semii]

CrockdaddyAoD, on 12 July 2013 - 11:54 AM, said:

{snip}Stalkers will just have to switch from 4 PPCs to 2 PPCs + 2 ER PPCs.{/snip}

Most Stalkers have done this long ago. At least one's with any clue how to play.

they have also said that the PPC and ERPPC will be the same anyway, so 2PPC + 1 ERPPC still breaks the heat, leave 4 ERPPC on that stalker, just dont fire more than 2, but at least you will have no minimum range with them.

I prefer we balance before we buff anything, but that is MHO

[Aim64C]

Bilbo, on 12 July 2013 - 11:52 AM, said:

It takes longer to dissipate heat when powered up. So you are actually better off shutting down. The damage takes place whether you are shutdown or not.

Yes, that's the theory. The reality is that you don't dissipate heat -that- much more efficiently.

The main reason why you didn't want to overheat your mech was because you would, you know, STOP MOVING in the middle of a mass of fusion powered death machines designed to kill each other.

Hitting over-ride was a way to prevent that often fatal mistake by risking things like ammo explosions (because they haven't come up with thermally stable chemical propellants even though they could control the weather) and damage to internal systems from the increased heat.

With this... there's... just absolutely no reason to not be constantly mashing the over-ride, other than a few idiots who would alpha while over 100% because they don't gaheet it.

Basically, it punishes new players even more. Not only do they get builds that use single heat sinks with convoluted weapon grouping systems that are quite difficult to use on a relatively basic optical/laser mouse, they also get to shut down in the middle of a group of players trying to kill them while taking internal damage.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Over.

[Darkside7777]

******* jesus ******* christ. Did they really think that the option of NOT increasing SRM damage would win? Are they delaying the damage increase until next patch just because of this stupid vote? SRMS SHOULD destroy larger mechs quickly, that gives mediums and lights a fighting chance against the assault spam.

[Victor Morson]

Whoever is working on balancing MW:O needs to step down before they drag the whole game down with them.

It is clear now they have no idea what they are doing at all and have far too much pride to admit it.

Edited by Victor Morson, 12 July 2013 - 12:58 PM.