545 replies to this topic

[Bilbo]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 18 July 2013 - 06:31 AM, said:

A bit? You can totally circumvent it. The good 4 PPC stalkers were already doing 2 ER PPC and 2 PPC's. So nothing changed for them this patch.
.......
The Heat System has done nothing so far except mess up uneducated, bad and new players.

To say the system is broken because people can circumvent it using a technique that the devs are not only aware of, but have planned for, is stretching it a bit. To call players bad because they aren't taking advantage of a technique that won't help them in the very near future is a little silly as well.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

MaddMaxx, on 18 July 2013 - 06:39 AM, said:

So your saying that on the 30th, the system will become unbroken then? Perfect. another 12 days is not long to wait...

And if think that the supposed High Alpha ranged Snipers, noted as the "smart" or "leet" or "min/maxers" among the rest of the unwashed masses are using SRM's to brawl now you are losing your perspective good sir.

That is both unlikely and absurd. Those same players have 12 days before they will have to adjust as well. What is wrong with others doing so in advance, given we know what is coming, you know, the information the Dev "communicated" to us.

An "active" reticule may sound good and all, but if Speed is one of the casual effects, what is a fast light mech to do in order to get any form of accuracy? Slow down and the wait 3-5 seconds to get a shot? You were not being serious with that idea right?

With the (er)PPC and PPC linked, then the ranged Mechs can still snipe, but they will have to deal with the added heat.

It has been advocated since early CB. Heat is the one factor that makes the playing field fair for all, and no, not everyone is going to be a build whiz but even those who are will need to build around the Heat. Doing so causes the lose of the other factors that make a truly solid build. Less of something else, like weapons, speed or armor.

If someone wants to run a 3 PPC Jenner, LOL, go for it, but don't complain if you get one shotted by a Small Laser.

The Dev will never beat the "circumventers". Best they can do is make the game fun for the rest of the Community.

You are putting words into my mouth. Which is normal for you I suppose.

I'm saying the system can't be the cause, because the system is flawed right now.

If you said to me after the 30th patch, that the heat system was causing more varied builds, I'd have a much harder time debating it.

Right now, it's broken and doesn't stop any of the vaunted PPC builds.

Thus the system cannot be the cause.

And I did not say anything about speed or any other variable for the active reticle. All I said was it takes 3-5 seconds of holding your reticle over your target to attain perfect convergence.

I'm more interested in the KISS method right now. If we want to add more variables later that's fine. But lets start with simple and see how it effects the game.

I'm guessing most of you forget the fact that we didn't always have instant convergence and it suddenly broke one day and PGI never bothered to fix it?

Bilbo, on 18 July 2013 - 06:45 AM, said:

To say the system is broken because people can circumvent it using a technique that the devs are not only aware of, but have planned for, is stretching it a bit. To call players bad because they aren't taking advantage of a technique that won't help them in the very near future is a little silly as well.

The best players take advantage of every technique available. Do you think people ripped seismic out because it's going to be nerfed on the July 30th patch?

That's not to say the best players won't fool around and see if the SRM changes did or didn't help out brawling.

But if you are running into a lot of crazy builds, it's because you are running into bad players. Not because of this heat system.

[Milt]

I'm not awake enough atm to express myself very well. This fix is like trying to fix diarreha with a butplug. sure it stopped the problem but it sure as hell didnt fix it. yes butplug is censored

Edited by Milt, 18 July 2013 - 06:50 AM.

[MechWarrior849305]

It needs a bit of tweaking, but in general it is fine. I'd put more than 0.5s in it and would add some more heat for SRMs with last damage buff, rather then only 1 point.

[Yankee77]

Bilbo, on 18 July 2013 - 06:45 AM, said:

To say the system is broken because people can circumvent it using a technique that the devs are not only aware of, but have planned for, is stretching it a bit. To call players bad because they aren't taking advantage of a technique that won't help them in the very near future is a little silly as well.

Exactly. Sure, at the top competitive level people might still stick to it, but I guarantee you most of these competitive players ALSO know that their build is going to end up in the dustbin soon, and many are no doubt trying out different builds to cope with it.

And of course, it's not like this system only nerfed PPC boating. It nerfed boating in general, and that's a good thing. We see less boomjagers, less LL boats, less LRM15 boats. And the boats we DO see have to cope with a big heat penalty if they don't stagger their shots.

Those are all good things, period. It may not be ideal, or the best solution, but it is an improvement, and one that the devs can actually tweak pretty freely (that's what all those dials are for). That's a good thing.

It is messy, but hopefully is something they have plans on communicating properly with UI 2.0 (which has great visual **** when it comes to weapon stats), so the newer players can grasp the dangers of boating.

[MaddMaxx]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 18 July 2013 - 06:48 AM, said:

You are putting words into my mouth. Which is normal for you I suppose.

I'm saying the system can't be the cause, because the system is flawed right now.

If you said to me after the 30th patch, that the heat system was causing more varied builds, I'd have a much harder time debating it.

Right now, it's broken and doesn't stop any of the vaunted PPC builds.

Thus the system cannot be the cause.

And I did not say anything about speed or any other variable for the active reticle. All I said was it takes 3-5 seconds of holding your reticle over your target to attain perfect convergence.

I'm more interested in the KISS method right now. If we want to add more variables later that's fine. But lets start with simple and see how it effects the game.

I'm guessing most of you forget the fact that we didn't always have instant convergence and it suddenly broke one day and PGI never bothered to fix it?

The best players take advantage of every technique available. Do you think people ripped seismic out because it's going to be nerfed on the July 30th patch?

That's not to say the best players won't fool around and see if the SRM changes did or didn't help out brawling.

But if you are running into a lot of crazy builds, it's because you are running into bad players. Not because of this heat system.

I did not put words in your mouth at all, you agreed with the poster who said those things and added the KISS caveat a simpler starter kit. So you disagree with the Speed and other actions that have been equated with Doc's proposal then? Wait, sorry, more words in your mouth I suppose.

The best way to debate is to state your stand and then refute those of others that disagree. You continue to state that you don't like an "incomplete" system, despite knowing it is incomplete. What is the point in that?

It always comes down to the "bads". The poor crappy "elo" "bads" are ruining MWO for all the "Leet' players. Perhaps they should publish ELO and get rid of all those bads right? They are ruining the game ffs. Oops, sorry. Did it again.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Itkovian, on 18 July 2013 - 06:57 AM, said:

It may not be ideal, or the best solution

It is messy

See I guess this is where we diverge. My expectations are much higher.

You are ok with them flinging crap at the wall, hoping it sticks and maybe just maybe explaining/fixing it to be better later.

That's just a giant waste of time and manpower, and why we are in this situation in the first place.

It's why CW isn't going to be done for release as well.

It's a bad way to run a game/business.

MaddMaxx, on 18 July 2013 - 06:59 AM, said:

I did not put words in your mouth at all, you agreed with the poster who said those things and added the KISS caveat a simpler starter kit. So you disagree with the Speed and other actions that have been equated with Doc's proposal then? Wait, sorry, more words in your mouth I suppose.

The best way to debate is to state your stand and then refute those of others that disagree. You continue to state that you don't like an "incomplete" system, despite knowing it is incomplete. What is the point in that?

It always comes down to the "bads". The poor crappy "elo" "bads" are ruining MWO for all the "Leet' players. Perhaps they should publish ELO and get rid of all those bads right? They are ruining the game ffs. Oops, sorry. Did it again.

I run 2 LRM 10's and a 2 MLas Centurion build. I'm a bad. I'm not leet.

It's a choice on my part.

ELO is broken, the matchmaker is broken, it's a terrible way to do anything.

But what I can do is see that PGI is doing things poorly.

I don't know if Doc's version will work, I'd like to see it put in and test the hell out of it. It's certainly better than what PGI is doing now.

So is Homeless Bill's.

If you've noticed I don't participate in those threads very much because I have no faith in PGI making the right decision at this point.

They can't even implement a public test server properly.

[LTGear]

You know what they should make 2 servers of MWO, 1 server with the 29th patch and 1 server with the 30th patch so our likes and your likes don't meet coz i do not deserve heat penalty on my ac40's! not two epople are alike. Make 2 servers of mwo!

[Nicholas Carlyle]

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

You know what they should make 2 servers of MWO, 1 server with the 29th patch and 1 server with the 30th patch so our likes and your likes don't meet coz i do not deserve heat penalty on my ac40's! not two epople are alike. Make 2 servers of mwo!

My impression originally of the public test server was they were going to have it on all the time and use it to test various ways to balance the game.

The best thing they could have done is implemented this heat system on the test server and tested it for 2 weeks to see if it helped.

Then they should have tried a convergence system and tried that for 2 weeks.

Then lower the maximum heat threshhold and tried that.

So many bad decisions.

[Corvus Antaka]

PGI does not have time to "try" a convergence system. we are 2 months from release now. Nevermind that convergence is a bad idea for game pace and flow.

The solution works perfectly to cut down pinpoint 1 hit location alphas. 2 days of playing on production since tuesday have been more fun than the entire last month of gameplay. I enjoyed my 4 ERPPC stalker and dual ac/20 jagger while it lasted. They are still totally viable mechs. the Awesome with 3 ERPPC is still totally viable too. just because a mech comes with 3 PPC does not mean it cant take a minor heat hit when all 3 PPC are fired at once.

damage has already spread more.

yes, issues remain. but overall it is an elegant solution to the problem of pinpoint dmg, it maintains a solid heatscale, and it allows PGI to penalize builds with a drawback that have an obvious advantage in alpha pinpoint dmg. before this patch these builds had no drawbacks, now they do.

Over and over, 1 more time - you can still alpha. you can easily fire every .5 seconds to avoid the penalty.

And really it acocmplishes the same thing convergence would have - spreading damage around the mech.

now, if more of you would run faster mechs that are harder to CT core rather than slow assaults, and when we see tonnage limits it'll work even better. Some of you say .5 seconds means nothing i can just fire 2/2, well, go ahead. i see a difference, now a stalker only hits my RT with 20 dmg, then my right arm, because my mech is moving and he cant put 2 shots in a row in the same spot.

if you twist you can spread damage even more. this creates the desires TT effect of spreaidng damage/virtual convergence and amazingly allows for pilot skill to spread & negate damage.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Um, I'm pretty sure you do realize that non-instant convergence was in the game, and it was during times when people felt the game was the most fun.

So you are just flat out making things up now.

Also while I have you...

What happens when an assault is released that can mount 2 Gauss and 2 PPC's?

Edited by Nicholas Carlyle, 18 July 2013 - 07:20 AM.

[Corvus Antaka]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 18 July 2013 - 07:20 AM, said:

Um, I'm pretty sure you do realize that non-instant convergence was in the game, and it was during times when people felt the game was the most fun.

So you are just flat out making things up now.

Also while I have you...

What happens when an assault is released that can mount 2 Gauss and 2 PPC's?

hopefully ppc/gauss will be linked

not sure what you mean by non instant convergence unless you are discussing the lock arms to torso feature with i as well disagree with that even locked the circle needs to float an inch until it settles into the X. but ive been here since CB and i dont recall a convergence system beyond this.

[East Indy]

Quote

But if you are running into a lot of crazy builds, it's because you are running into bad players. Not because of this heat system.

So each of us was somehow consigned to a new player pool, when just the day before, gimmick builds frequently made up a third to half of every drop?

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 18 July 2013 - 07:24 AM, said:

hopefully ppc/gauss will be linked

not sure what you mean by non instant convergence unless you are discussing the lock arms to torso feature with i as well disagree with that even locked the circle needs to float an inch until it settles into the X. but ive been here since CB and i dont recall a convergence system beyond this.

Originally, weapons did not converge immediately.

At some point, I'm not exactly sure which patch, they broke the convergence system and suddenly weapons were instantly converging.

There were no patch notes or anything, it just suddenly stopped working.

Some people made posts about it, but nothing really came of it, PGI didn't bother to comment.

Ahhh so now we are arbitrarily linking the Gauss Rifles and PPC's too?

GREAT!

East Indy, on 18 July 2013 - 07:26 AM, said:

So each of us was somehow consigned to a new player pool, when just the day before, gimmick builds frequently made up a third to half of every drop?

The matchmaker is honestly terrible.

There are people here seeing all cheese alpha, and some people seeing more variety.

The only explaination is that some people, during their play times, are getting matched with a lot of bad players.

[mack sabbath]

I'm just happy that my balanced but effective build is no different after the Patch than it was before, except my SRM 6 got buffed.

Sorry for your luck 6 PPC Stalkers (I'm also an STK pilot), but just like those poptarts, you had to know this level of cheese couldn't be allowed to drive off new players forever.

Seriously people.

Edited by Die Primate Die, 18 July 2013 - 07:32 AM.

[Vaktor]

I agree that it is not that intuitive of a fix but I like the diversity in weapon systems I am seeing so far...

I am a little confused by the AC/20 heat cap though... I never play them myself but I never was too afraid of them myself as if I was stupid enough to get to close or if they where smart enough to get real close then they deserve the 40 points of damage.

[East Indy]

Quote

There are people here seeing all cheese alpha, and some people seeing more variety.

Obviously, the bitter-clingers will mix PPCs until servers go down. The shifts to Stalkers and Highlanders will be mitigated eventually by tonnage limits, and the Cataphract is a mixed performer. I've seen some Junkie Jagers trying to find a ballistic buddy for their remaining AC/20, but they're neither popular nor effective.

Vinson's correct -- limits to Gauss in alphas will pretty much put this meta to bed.

[hammerreborn]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 18 July 2013 - 07:04 AM, said:

See I guess this is where we diverge. My expectations are much higher.

You are ok with them flinging crap at the wall, hoping it sticks and maybe just maybe explaining/fixing it to be better later.

That's just a giant waste of time and manpower, and why we are in this situation in the first place.

It's why CW isn't going to be done for release as well.

It's a bad way to run a game/business.



I run 2 LRM 10's and a 2 MLas Centurion build. I'm a bad. I'm not leet.

It's a choice on my part.

ELO is broken, the matchmaker is broken, it's a terrible way to do anything.

But what I can do is see that PGI is doing things poorly.

I don't know if Doc's version will work, I'd like to see it put in and test the hell out of it. It's certainly better than what PGI is doing now.

So is Homeless Bill's.

If you've noticed I don't participate in those threads very much because I have no faith in PGI making the right decision at this point.

They can't even implement a public test server properly.

Doc and Homeless Bill's ideas are terrible and the fact that so many people seem to be lining up to get on their knees for it is one of the reasons I hope the devs never listen to these forums.

If you're going to **** with convergence either make it random and lose everyone that wants to play a game that requires skill and aiming, or you make it fixed and make guass + PPC + Lrms the only things worth bringing....OH WAIT THATS WHAT IT IS NOW

[oldradagast]

From an absolute design viewpoint, it is rather clunky and random, and I suspect it is not currently explained anywhere in the game at all. It also doesn't currently address dual Gauss builds or ones that mix 2 PPC's and 2 ERPPC's. I also think LRM20's should have been affected, though I'm not sure if anyone actually boats them.

That being said, from what I've seen, it is working and helping the meta. Since the patch, I've seen a small, but noteworthy drop in total number of assaults and far fewer Stalker Snipers. AC40 Jagers have practically vanished vs. showing up 2 out of 3 matches. So, despite the non-ideal nature of the fix, it has helped, IMHO.

[tuffy963]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 16 July 2013 - 03:10 PM, said:

I'm surprised so many people seem to like it.

I'm curious about what they specifically like about it?

...

My position is that PGI thinks this is a good "functional" balance fix, meaning it is getting the results many of us were looking around the boating problem.

Here are the opportunities lost when the devs focus on an approach that is too pragmatic (read: short term focus):

• Lacks precedence - We can't find any past examples of this in MW lore or BT games that have come before this fix. I am fine with PGI adding to the lore, but every addition should be carefully considered as it can enrage traditionalist and confuse casual players (more on this in my later points).
  
• Lacks an plausible fictional principle - Related to the first point, the game is stronger when you can relate game balance to lore. Having a plausible MW universe lore item explaining this change helps players accept the change and continue to suspend disbelief. These balance issues represent an opportunity for PGI to inject another thoughtful game concept that helps balance the game play experience. A good example of this is the when they added the concept of hardpoints, a plausible concept that helps players understand the balance issue in the context of the MW universe.
  
• Lacks strong foundation - The system also lacks an logical internal consistency beyond "We need to fix boating". This means it will be difficult for players (and devs) to logically extend this fix as the game content grows (clan weapons which have even less heat may not be as deeply affected by this heat penalty system). This will lead to needing a redesign of this balance mechanism, eventually.
  
• Lacks documentation - Besides the patch notes, this fix are not easily identified in the game. It is not reflected in the mech design screens, neither is there any in cockpit indicators that help players understand the implication of same type weapon heat penalties. This leads to confusion of players who can't understand why their mech is behaving a certain way. This point is the least important as it can be eventually be fixed without a redesign of the whole balance mechanic.

PGI continues to demonstrate they are pragmatists. From my perspective, it is clear they continue to choose expedient answers over complete answers. This is a savvy business perspective. The downside is that it lacks vision for the larger product (MWO universe) and can limit the game's potential.



In summary: Good short term fix. Not going to cut it in the long term.

Edited by tuffy963, 18 July 2013 - 08:13 AM.