Colonel Pada Vinson, on 18 July 2013 - 07:17 AM, said:
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.
That is the peak of PGI's incompetence. Not ours.
Community Warfare is listed as "Late Design/Early Production."
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.
That should have been its state three months before the Open Beta began. Hell - many would argue that should have been its state when the closed beta began!
A launch date shouldn't even be on the table.
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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.
It's a stupid system, and you know it.
4 Large Lasers? Nope. That's a build that needs to be penalized.
6 Medium pulse lasers? That's fine. No penalty, there.
Keep in mind - when people were complaining about the "boomcat" (AC40 cat), saying that it was stupid that people could turn machineguns into AC20s - the developers said that was the kind of customization they wanted to support. So they put their art team to work to "make it look right."
Yet, here we are - the developers have turned around and said: "On second thought... because we're not going to fix our hideous hardpoint system, we're going to implement this idea."
Because a weapon system that is so large you can only plausibly mount four on a mech at any time, that takes up 14 tons a pop, and requires ammunition at a frighteningly close range.... needs to be 'controlled.'
That's why we don't have any assaults with so much as a machine-gun on an opposing arm from an autocannon. Because the devs don't want 2 gauss or 2 AC-whatever assaults running around. Yet, in creating their hardpoint system to 'balance' MechWarrior... they never considered that every God damned medium laser on an Assault can (and likely will) become a PPC (unless it's on the head or center torso).
Of course - it doesn't help that the PPC (which has never had its firing and damage mechanics revisited) can achieve the same damage for the same tonnage with 60% of the critical space with absolutely zero ammunition concerns.
Because PGI decided to dabble with the heat system even further and design mechs to overheat - 4 PPC alphas (which should damned near shut you down - let alone 6) became viable and even preferable to stagger-firing lasers amidst a brawl (since heatsinks affected your cap almost more so than they affected your dissipation).
The problems this system is designed to 'fix' can be just as easily addressed by playing with the heat capacity and dissipation values.
Apparently - the previous MechWarrior titles knew a little bit about what they were doing.
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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.
... Seriously?
What builds 'deserve' to be penalized?
This is going to be an endless crusade. So my 8 Clan ER Medium Pulse Laser Nova gets put on the list of "yeah, don't want that **** running around without a heat penalty." - So I drop 3 of them (5 CERMDPLSR) and add 6 CERMDLSR to alpha with them.
Well ****.
Can't have that. So we're going to link medium lasers and pulse lasers together... that will only get six months to get 'right.'
In the mean time, I've dropped down to 2 medium pulse lasers, 4 medium lasers, and 2 large lasers. All clan (so they are ER).
This is without considering this thing is an omnimech - it is still within its canon hardpoint allotment.
Now you've got to link all of that together and figure out what heat scaling to apply to what and under what circumstances (since it applies if I link-fire within a 0.5 second period, too - and what if the large laser comes before the medium laser that breaks the penalty - or the large laser after the medium laser is what breaks the penalty?)
Then you're going to have people running LBX 10s with SRM6s. And we can't have that, either.
Why not just give everyone small lasers and be done with it?
Colonel Pada Vinson, on 18 July 2013 - 07:24 AM, said:
hopefully ppc/gauss will be linked
See above.
You're insane.
MaddMaxx, on 18 July 2013 - 08:47 AM, said:
Or perhaps the game could simply apply Penalties to those who would min/max that customization, using the same weapons in clusters, with the explicit intent of firing them
ALL at the same time...
See above.
That begins a never-ending crusade to determine "how many weapons fired at the same time is too many waeapons?"
Is my Jenner firing too many lasers at the same time?
It IS a rather small mech to be firing four lasers for a possible 20 point alpha.
And Should I be able to fire my SRM4 just before-hand? I mean - that's an alpha strike of every weapon I have. Shouldn't that come with some kind of penalty, or something?
I can already see the QQ once this crusade forces everyone into knife-fight ranges and my Jenner is running the ****** train on them. I -can- down assaults in a hell of a hurry (especially with my Foxtrot).
The logic behind all of this is just silly. I can get an 18-point alpha using medium pulse lasers out of each arm of my BJ-1X. But to get a 40 point alpha, a 24 total ton (plus ammunition) piece of equipment that can only fit in the arms of certain mechs needs to be penalized even further by having over 500% heat applied to it when it fires?
But the same 36 point alpha from 4 large lasers is too much and needs to be penalized (even though it comes at a cost of 20 tons as opposed to 12).
"Well, Aim, it has to do with range..."
Let me stop you there. SRM6s producing more than a 36 point alpha are too much - even though a good percentage of those missiles completely miss, not to mention dust their damage all over the mech.
So it has to do with range? SRMs even have the additional penalty of ammunition.
The system is completely arbitrary and it's going to spawn a never-ending crusade to add weapons and
weapon combinations to the list of "needs heat penalty." At the same time - there will always be a quest to lessen the heat penalty on 'out of date' penalties because new ones have come along.
Which is why I refer to it as: "Wheel of Stupid."
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