461 replies to this topic

[BigMekkUrDakka]

Burpitup, on 17 July 2013 - 08:00 PM, said:

My goodness this game is getting boring. Same thing happened to Battlestar Galactica online. they made each side completely equal, listened to all the whiners and nerfed all the good builds. Then they wonder why no one plays it anymore. Same thing will happen here. They will make the game unplayable here too if they keep listening to all the whiners that can't stay alive.

indeed its boring, and that SUPER HUGE nerf to awesome, will stop playing till battlemaster released, right now its slowtard warrior online

[Alienfreak]

BigMekkUrDakka, on 21 July 2013 - 09:40 AM, said:

indeed its boring, and that SUPER HUGE nerf to awesome, will stop playing till battlemaster released, right now its slowtard warrior online

Don't you usually also cycle the PPCs in the Tabletop? So I'd say its working as intended.
And if you need it you can still fire 3 PPCs for 34 heat...

And the game is boring to you because you need more than one or two firegroups? QQ more.
Having allrounder builds with lots of firegroups and chainfiring is much less boring than your boring 5 LL or 4PPC builds that have only one firegroup and try to pinpoint someone elses CT...

Edited by Alienfreak, 21 July 2013 - 10:00 AM.

[IceSerpent]

Alienfreak, on 21 July 2013 - 09:57 AM, said:

Don't you usually also cycle the PPCs in the Tabletop? So I'd say its working as intended.
And if you need it you can still fire 3 PPCs for 34 heat...

What do you mean by "cycle the PPCs"? In TT an Awesome usually fires them in 3-3-2 pattern.

[Alienfreak]

IceSerpent, on 21 July 2013 - 10:13 AM, said:

What do you mean by "cycle the PPCs"? In TT an Awesome usually fires them in 3-3-2 pattern.

Firing 3-3-2 is cycling.

AWS-8Q

Firing 3 = 34.08 heat
waiting to recharge = 19.08 Heat
Firing 3 = 53.16 Heat
waiting for recharge = 38.16 heat
Firing 2 = 62.16 heat

Perfectly doable. But personally I would rather go 3-2-2 here.

And if you want to be closer to the TT feeling:
AWS-8Q

Edited by Alienfreak, 21 July 2013 - 02:12 PM.

[Tragos]

The new system - or at least it's result - is a major improvement in mech diversity. The approach is way to complicated though, at least in my opinion.

Double AC20: 23.52 heat instead of 12. Perfect - but why did you need an approach that uses TWO variables? Yeah, now it increases exponentially - but would a FIXED penalty per weapon really be a problem?

For example, a five SRM6 stalker has additional heat of 2.25 points for firing all 5 SRM6 at once. This could have been easily accomplished while using a +1 modificator for every additional srm (yeah, only +2.0 points...)

There are two possible solutions which just make the system easier to grasp while tweaking your mech - and not turning it into spreadsheet warrior online:

Either a linear approach: For each Weapon A fired above treshold B a penalty C is applied.
3SRM6: no penalty
4SRM6: penalty 1
5SRM6: penalty 2 (1 for each weapon)
6SRM6: penalty 3 (1 for each weapon)

Increasing: For each Weapon A fired above treshold B there is a penalty C applied - which is multiplied according to the count of weapons above the treshhold (sorry for the bad english, the example should explain it:)
3SRM6: no penalty
4SRM6: penalty 1
5SRM6: penalty 3 (1 for the first weapon, penalty 1x2 for the second weapon)
6SRM6: penalty 6 ( for the first weapon, penalty 1x2 for the second weapon, penalty 1x3 for the third weapon.)

This is a system which you should be able to grasp AT ONCE, since you need only 2 factors:
Treshhold and penalty.

To conclude: You want to implement stuff like third person view to help new players - but implement this system?

AT LEAST include a new function that calculates alpha-strike heat in the new interface and displays it - THAT would help.

Edited by Tragos, 21 July 2013 - 04:24 PM.

[Oznog]

Thermal Damage Makes Shutdown Useless!!

So now overheating over 100% damages you the same way ANYWAYS, regardless of whether you shutdown or not. Except if you don't Override, you'll be immobile and probably get killed.

Well then, is Shutdown really of any benefit to the player? From what I test-played, absolutely not. Mech became FAR more effective by repeatedly hitting 'O'.

But there's no option to Override Shutdown that LASTS. I keep hitting it, and sometimes don't hit it enough, and shutdown and get killed at the worst time. I wanna figure out how to make a macro that just registers as a repeated press of 'O', over and over.

So, if you're gonna do this, just give me an interface that allows 'O' to actually Override Shutdown until I say not to.

Frankly it was already messed-up. In my Trebuchet with 2x ERPPCs, it is possible to overheat past 100% with NO warning. This makes it really difficult to play, because you have to read the heat gauge before firing at all.

Heat protection, if anything, should only PREVENT thermal damage. That is, don't let me fire if doing so will throw my heat into "damaging" levels. That makes sense in the traditional "protect the user from himself" aspect of technology.

It's like the transmission of my car won't let me shift into Reverse on the highway in reality. But this MWO gameplay mechanic would still allow the transmission to go into reverse and grind the gears up, but as a safety feature pull your steering to the right and get you killed to resolve the "tranny in reverse" problem.

Edited by Oznog, 21 July 2013 - 04:27 PM.

[The Verge]

I've been enjoying the new heat mechanics. So far, there are only a few issues.
1. LL heat penalty does need to be revised. To what extent, probably 3 or 4 until a penalty happens.
2. AC2 HP does need to be fixed. It's such a weak weapon, It didn't need any penalty.
3. AC2 lag really messes with sniping. It needs a quick fix.
4. ML should have the penalty heat reduced, not the number of weapons until given a penalty.

People having issues, just keep trying different builds. Or, learn to do 3 things at once like the rest of us.
(watch map, heat gauge, reticle location on enemy mechs, and torso twisting.)

you can do any of these 3 things at the same time, and become a better pilot. I've had to do it, and have been rewarded with averages of 2 kills per match.

[Antarius]

V3rg3r3, on 21 July 2013 - 05:16 PM, said:

I've been enjoying the new heat mechanics. So far, there are only a few issues.
1. LL heat penalty does need to be revised. To what extent, probably 3 or 4 until a penalty happens.
2. AC2 HP does need to be fixed. It's such a weak weapon, It didn't need any penalty.
3. AC2 lag really messes with sniping. It needs a quick fix.
4. ML should have the penalty heat reduced, not the number of weapons until given a penalty.

People having issues, just keep trying different builds. Or, learn to do 3 things at once like the rest of us.
(watch map, heat gauge, reticle location on enemy mechs, and torso twisting.)

you can do any of these 3 things at the same time, and become a better pilot. I've had to do it, and have been rewarded with averages of 2 kills per match.

Only because you can manage is system dont essential means its a good system. Yes it "fixes" some issues, but this could have been done much simpler (ref. heatcap-change etc.).

For the people who cry because they cant use there awesome "like intented" (its a good question intended from who, mwo? TT-rulz?, you?), i use mine without problems (you dont have to shoot all 3 pccs at one time, you know?) i even used it fequently in the good old times with fire-delay and the old heat-generation and it was better in my opinion. (not easier)

BTT:
This System should be removed and a real simple system implemented, like heatcap reduction and convergence for weapons perfectly with motion-dependens. (yeah not easy to implement the last part)
for a start:
- change the heatcap, this will prevent extreme alphas with energieweapons (more dynamic fight == more fun)
- for the ac20... not sooo a big issue for me, but if you want bring the shot-delay back in place (better for ppcs too)
until a real divergence-system is in place.


(why i have the feeling the weapon balance was better a year ago?)

[Alienfreak]

V3rg3r3, on 21 July 2013 - 05:16 PM, said:

I've been enjoying the new heat mechanics. So far, there are only a few issues.
1. LL heat penalty does need to be revised. To what extent, probably 3 or 4 until a penalty happens.
2. AC2 HP does need to be fixed. It's such a weak weapon, It didn't need any penalty.
3. AC2 lag really messes with sniping. It needs a quick fix.
4. ML should have the penalty heat reduced, not the number of weapons until given a penalty.

1. LL penalty is fine in my eyes... its not large anyways... it has 7 base heat and 2.8 penalty... So you end up with 19.6 x multiplier.
For three fired we are looking into 3.428 heat penalty. For four we have 5.88+3.428 which still barely as much as a single laser generates. For five we have 8.82+5.88+3.28 which is finally breaking the LL heat barrier.

Ergo: LL penalty is fine. If you fire four you have the heat as if you had fired five. I don't see the big issue

2. AC2 Heat penalty is a bug and shouldn't be in. This has been stated MULTIPLE times and you can look it up at any official table. So why mention it here?

3. ML is fine.

Edited by Alienfreak, 22 July 2013 - 05:00 AM.

[Alienfreak]

Antarius, on 21 July 2013 - 06:11 PM, said:

Only because you can manage is system dont essential means its a good system. Yes it "fixes" some issues, but this could have been done much simpler (ref. heatcap-change etc.).

For the people who cry because they cant use there awesome "like intented" (its a good question intended from who, mwo? TT-rulz?, you?), i use mine without problems (you dont have to shoot all 3 pccs at one time, you know?) i even used it fequently in the good old times with fire-delay and the old heat-generation and it was better in my opinion. (not easier)

BTT:
This System should be removed and a real simple system implemented, like heatcap reduction and convergence for weapons perfectly with motion-dependens. (yeah not easy to implement the last part)
for a start:
- change the heatcap, this will prevent extreme alphas with energieweapons (more dynamic fight == more fun)
- for the ac20... not sooo a big issue for me, but if you want bring the shot-delay back in place (better for ppcs too)
until a real divergence-system is in place.


(why i have the feeling the weapon balance was better a year ago?)

Oh and I personally like the 2 ER PPC (in Torso) 3 ML (in Torso) and 2 LL (in the Arm) best anyway. Got decent sniping power, good tracking LL against lights and some serious extra sustainable punch for brawling (ML)

Edited by Alienfreak, 22 July 2013 - 05:16 AM.

[Brkojle]

Jacob Roamer, on 16 July 2013 - 10:22 AM, said:

I think it would be this:
8+8+8+7=31 heat for a 3 PPC alpa with the 7 being the penalty.

example: I tried 4 PPCs with stalker, Heat ration 1,48. If i shoot with all 4 PPCs heat jumps to 82%. Means, u r wrong.

[Alienfreak]

Brkojle, on 22 July 2013 - 03:26 AM, said:

example: I tried 4 PPCs with stalker, Heat ration 1,48. If i shoot with all 4 PPCs heat jumps to 82%. Means, u r wrong.

What is so hard about reading the manual?

http://mwomercs.com/...cale-the-maths/

[Tragos]

As I said above - that there needs to be a manual at all makes this system a mistake. Change the values so that you need no multiplicator and can use it on a glance, as mentioned above. And

- Include an "alpha strike heat" viewer in the new interface.

Edited by Tragos, 22 July 2013 - 06:57 AM.

[DeaconW]

Alienfreak, on 22 July 2013 - 03:54 AM, said:

What is so hard about reading the manual?

http://mwomercs.com/...cale-the-maths/

Thx for proving the point that this system is too convoluted.

1. You need to refer to a "manual" to understand it.

2. It's not actually a "manual", it's a forum post. What percentage of players peruse the forums looking for easter eggs that explain how the game works?

3. Imagine how off-putting this will be to new players, the lifeblood of any f2p game.

[Catamount]

DeaconW, on 22 July 2013 - 10:56 AM, said:

Thx for proving the point that this system is too convoluted.

1. You need to refer to a "manual" to understand it.

2. It's not actually a "manual", it's a forum post. What percentage of players peruse the forums looking for easter eggs that explain how the game works?

3. Imagine how off-putting this will be to new players, the lifeblood of any f2p game.

Having actually read the linked post in question, I gotta say I couldn't agree more. I'm fairly certain my calc final from a couple months back was more straightforward than this heat scale, and it certainly made more logical sense.

I mean, is this really the length they're going to go to to avoid simply balancing the heat from PPCs? By the time I sit down and figure out how this scale actually affects every individual weapon, and what it potentially means for each potential build, I'm going to feel like Stark from the The Avengers



This is in addition to the fact that this heat mechanic throws physics 101 out the window.

Edited by Catamount, 22 July 2013 - 11:21 AM.

[Oznog]

Tragos, on 22 July 2013 - 06:39 AM, said:

As I said above - that there needs to be a manual at all makes this system a mistake. Change the values so that you need no multiplicator and can use it on a glance, as mentioned above. And

- Include an "alpha strike heat" viewer in the new interface.

I agree. MW has a tradition of modeling mechanics on real-world aspects, in some sense or other. The heat thing is just counter intuitive. The heat is pooled, a persistent quantity. Fire weapons a millisecond apart, they combine. Fire them with the same key, they combine, but suddenly a bunch of extra heat comes out of nowhere. And the formula is crazy arbitrary and convoluted... if you fire multiple weapons, the higher-heat weapon is used to calculate heat... what is that even supposed to BE? Yeah I see the documentation and can work out the math, but it has no "feel" to it as a simulation.

I don't understand what motivated this mechanic. "Alpha Strike" wasn't overpowered, it comes with a price of leaving a person with no weapons until the cooldown, and a bunch of weapons with different ranges, shot speed, even different aiming points (arms vs torso directions) make it a questionable move. And leaves them with a bunch of heat.

Edited by Oznog, 22 July 2013 - 12:27 PM.

[Alienfreak]

Oznog, on 22 July 2013 - 12:20 PM, said:

I agree. MW has a tradition of modeling mechanics on real-world aspects, in some sense or other. The heat thing is just counter intuitive. The heat is pooled, a persistent quantity. Fire weapons a millisecond apart, they combine. Fire them with the same key, they combine, but suddenly a bunch of extra heat comes out of nowhere. And the formula is crazy arbitrary and convoluted... if you fire multiple weapons, the higher-heat weapon is used to calculate heat... what is that even supposed to BE? Yeah I see the documentation and can work out the math, but it has no "feel" to it as a simulation.

I don't understand what motivated this mechanic. "Alpha Strike" wasn't overpowered, it comes with a price of leaving a person with no weapons until the cooldown, and a bunch of weapons with different ranges, shot speed, even different aiming points (arms vs torso directions) make it a questionable move. And leaves them with a bunch of heat.

1. Lol wat?

MW has some weirdo battlemechs that fight like knights in a weirdo lost tech universe. They fight with Lasers in an atmosphere and cannot get SSRM to work with greater as 2. They cannot make targeting computers at all.
What single aspect about MW is modeled around "mechanics on real-world aspects"?

MW just uses arbitary rules on a Mecha TT game with a weirdo universe behind it.


2. And alpha strikes were HEAVILY overpowered. Your whole argument makes no sense at all. I fire my LL into your face. Now it has a cooldown. This doesn't change at all whether I fire 5 at once in your face or 5 after one another. Except that you will more likely drop sooner if I just alpha them into you.

[TekGnosis]

This is using a Rube Goldberg machine to solve a simple problem that really only exists because of another problem.

Regardless of whether it's effective, results in 'balance', etc, it violates KISS fundamentally. It is non-obvious, and needs to be carefully explained to even otherwise advanced pilots. Should have been off the table just from that alone.

All of this has a simple solution: Fix HEAT in general. (please).

I'm going to base this off this old board game about big fighting walking tanks nobody ever heard of. It was called Battletech. In this old Battletech game, there were heat penalties for going above 0 on the heat scale. Now, that was turn-based and folks get really riled up trying to 'convert' ideas from that to real-time but this particular concept is really the easiest to do out of all of them. Battletech was NOT flawless and was NOT balanced, but it was pretty close and the model was sound in spite of stat differences between individual components.

In a 'turn' of 10s you could generate as much heat as you had heat sink capacity with no impact, but if you went over it the penalties started. These included slowing down, poor aim, risk of ammo explosion, and random shutdowns. Now, MWO doesn't use 10s 'turns' it uses around 4s or so, as most of the weapons are around 2.5x firing rate (or more). Armor is doubled, which is slightly less than the increase in damage/time so its 'close' to a 'net to 0' if we want to leave those other imbalances off the table. For this, I'm going to use 5s as the time scale for heat points to dissipate because we have to pick something, and it matches with the doubling of armor.

The current system, with very low ongoing heat dissipation rates and very high heat scales with no impact until actual shutdown results in the following behavior: Pilots optimize to 'dump' heat as rapidly as possible to reach the top of the scale, then are reduced to a very very low ongoing rate of activity until out of combat long enough to bleed off that heat. Assuming you ignore the weird 'alpha cap' mechanic, and the pilot is using E.g. 2xERPPC, 2xERLL or something, one gets about 3-4 alpha strikes before running out of heat scale and disengaging. This encourages alpha striking implicitly as a mechanic.

This old system looked like this. The x+ numbers and modifiers with based on 2d6, so max 12 with a distinct curve toward the higher numbers for the chances of success. Now, these numbers are arbitrary but the guideline is pretty clear. At halfway in to your 'overheat' scale you're moving half as fast, shooting as if you were running even if standing still, risking ammo explosion, and possibly shutting down at random.

30 Automatic shutdown
28 Ammo Exp. avoid on 8+
26 Shutdown, avoid on 10+
25 –5 Movement Points
24 +4 Modifier to Fire
23 Ammo Exp. avoid on 6+
22 Shutdown, avoid on 8+
20 –4 Movement Points
19 Ammo Exp. avoid on 4+
18 Shutdown, avoid on 6+
17 +3 Modifier to Fire
15 –3 Movement Points
14 Shutdown, avoid on 4+
13 +2 Modifier to Fire
10 –2 Movement Points
8 +1 Modifier to Fire
5 –1 Movement Points

So lets look at what we get after choosing 5s basis of dissipation against that scale with an example.
Note that the ERPCC I'm using here are at 15 heat, which is about where they'll be nerfed back to if PGI ever remembers why they buffed them to this low heat in the first place (hint: server-side delay making nobody use projectile weapons, to they buffed to give incentive to PPC use). You can pretend this is 6xERPPC at current values if you want, the effect is similar.

15 DHS = 30 heat every 5s dissipated or 6h/s.
4xERPPC = 60 heat alpha. nearly around 90% chance of automatic shutdown, all but immobile, and nearly impossible to aim. Any ammo is blown up.
4s later heat is around 6 on OH scale, PPC are available to shoot but this would be a really really bad idea since even movement is still slowed and it's HOT in the cockpit.
6s later everything is nice and cool, if nothing happened in the meantime.

Bit of a self-correcting problem, no?

Nothing stopping the pilot from sending 30 heat downrange every 5s... forever. That's fine, and the exact efficiency can be tuned. Good for brawling, makes damage spread around the panels. 6xML with 16DHS... alpha alpha alpha forever while running. Yep, I'm OK with that; 16DHS is a lot.

Got 24 DHS on your mech? fine, 48 heat every 5s, you can alpha your 4xLL all day long. I'm OK with that, since the only way to do it is to use up every bit of a 85 ton chassis to support 4 lasers. Let people make choices like that on their own.

[jollyrancher1]

I have seen nothing but an improvement in game play since the heat change. Now I feel competitive in my brawlers not just my snipers. Scouts are also now a bit better as there are less snipers and getting hit by a 35 or 40 damage pinpoint alpha is survivable in a light.

[Tolkien]

The heat scale has lessened some problems in the short term, but is very likely to completely break and need revision in the medium term. Also the high pinpoint alpha hasn't been addressed, people are just rotating their builds to include a gauss rifle rather than all PPCs. I think the only mechs that I have seen change are stalkers and boom jagers, for other mechs it's business as usual mostly.

Case in point: While the heat scale complications have temporarily made me replace an AC20 with a Gauss rifle on my boom jager, this is only a 12.5% reduction in alpha hit for a massive complication in trying to explain to a new player what is going on.

It has also pre-emptively broken some stock mechs (king crab - 2x AC20's, hunchback iic - 2x Ultra AC20's), and done nothing to stop people from putting lots of damage in 1 place with builds including 2ppc and a gauss rifle. This bandage/patch/kludge hasn't fixed the high pinpoint alpha.

Since weapon damages have stuck very close to tabletop so far, it is probably safe to assume that clan ERPPCs will do 50% more damage than the current models while weighing much less and taking up less internal space. This will allow clan heavies to mount 2 easily in addition to a gauss rifle or two (clan gauss rifles do the same damage but are again much lighter and more compact).

Some clan mechs (bane/kraken) mount 4x Ultra AC10's as stock, or 10x Ultra AC2's if you want long range dakka.

For the above reasons I think the heat scale adjustments have at best caused minor tweaks to loadouts without fixing the pinpoint damage problems, while also adding a significant layer of complexity that will be a pain to explain, keep up to date, and represent in UI2.0, while also breaking stock builds, doing very little to address the superiority of future clan weapons in the long term and not actually fixing the problem in the present.

I give it a C-



edit: Since I don't want to complain without trying to be constructive, I highly encourage the devs to read the mega thread posted by homeless bill dealing with fixing convergence by adding recoil/inaccuracy based on how many weapons and what type of weapons are fired near in time to each other. His idea gives a great way to get the clan targeting computer into the game and to further differentiate chassis in a way that is actually a lot less complicated to explain than the heat scale/multiplier/cap triumvirate that has just be slammed in. *Something* is needed to spread damage around for the sake of the gameplay.

Edited by Tolkien, 23 July 2013 - 12:53 AM.