6 replies to this topic

[Summer Gleeson]

Greetings warriors of the sphere!
July is now behind us and I suppose as PGI promised, things are certainly different. For better, or for worse, or both? I suppose that is a matter of opinion and we certainly do not hesitate to offer those now do we?

Heat penalties:

The new heat penalty system is certainly doing its job and having a direct impact on the game. Granted new trends are surfacing to replace the old which could not be entirely unexpected. We are warriors after all, and in respect to that it is in our nature to find "the next best thing" when obstacles are in our way.

The heat barriers that are now in place have mixed reception and although it neutralized many of the "issues" that were hot topics for a long time not many are all that fond of the approach even if content with the results. While others are just all together furious believing the "aggressive way" was the wrong way to find balance.

I have noticed a trend however which I find surprising. Many warriors have made statements to the press that the common problems of boating and high alpha strikes we have seen in this genre believe that complex and complicated solutions are not required and a simpler approach should be taken. I find this a surprising reaction because despite the respect I have for our community we are not generally "simple".

There is a good argument to be had here though. Actually, perhaps argument is the wrong word warriors. We argue enough and more often than not gets out of hand. Thus, let us debate rather than argue shall we?

Are you happy with the aggressive changes to the heat system and the effect it has had on the game? Or do you believe a simpler approach would have done the job and offered more diversity?

Or another approach if you are on the fence: If you were the one in charge of weapon balance and as such being in a position where you could not be biased to one side or the other, what would your solution have been?

Test Servers and 3PV woes:
The test server has certainly been a welcomed feature from PGI, full of sneak peaks and goodies. Although I've gotten my metal hide handed to me more often than not in 12 vs 12, It was an interesting experience none the less.

3PV however is the hot topic trumping many things and as predicted the shouting is toward the "advantage" aspect regarding the field of vision it offers throwing off an already balance questionable field. Several warriors have posted examples of this and although there are disadvantages to being in 3PV , the vision it offers is certainly significant.

Personally I don't think 3PV is that big a deal like many others, but if I really think about it the decision to implement it in the first place months/weeks before launch when you consider everything else that needs to be completed or worked on (IE: Hit reg, UI 2.0, DX 11, collisions, 12 vs 12, weapon balance, CW) It just doesn't make any sense what so ever.

Launch will be happening with limited CW implemented, but we will have 3PV!!! Why? CW > 3PV I say. Should getting the core of the game stable and ready for launch not be first priority while "optional" features like 3PV that thus far has caused more controversy than anything else be on reserve? Personally I think the resources spent on 3PV in the last few months could have easily gone towards something more important...far more important and necessary rather than this charade that by all appearances few wanted in the first place.

There are plenty of posts currently on the board already arguing to the depths of hades 3PV. Feel free to share your opinion here if you wish but I am not really going that way. The direction I am headed is: Most of the people I see are utterly against 3PV.

Several weeks if not months ago there were several polls regarding 3PV and it's implementation where the results were very much against it. Granted, the total number of votes in these polls represented perhaps 3% of our player base overall so I suppose we can't say they speak for everyone.

It does however beg the question why those who are for the 3PV feature are so silent? We certainly do not hesitate to support our convictions so why are the bulk of the 3PV supporters "in the closet" if you will?

PGI, despite personal opinions would in no way invest the capitol, nor waste time and effort bringing in a feature they said they never would this close to launch unless their hand was forced by either the community or those whom they answer too (IGP perhaps?).

There must be a strong support for 3PV from somewhere or PGI would never had changed their stance on it. It is already stated the 3PV feature is optional, so it's not as if it is in anyway needed at the moment, and as already pointed out has the potential to divide the community bringing many questions of game play balance on the table yet again concerning its impact when there are still several others to work on.

Plenty are claiming PGI's whole reason for implementing 3PV was to attract new paying customers. That's something of a risk however isn't it being this close to launch? Why risk it at all if PGI wasn't sure of the support behind it?? Support that is the "Silent majority" if you will that also appears to be primarily invisible as well.

While it is true 3PV has been in every previous title, none of them have been exclusively an online game slated to center around Community Warfare rather than a PVP or multi-player option outside the PVE content. MW:O is different in that regard and whether it is agreed or not, 3PV from where I'm reading doesn't seem to be overly desired.

We've heard from the people who are against...I'd really like to hear from the people who are for it because they must be out there, and they must outnumber those against it. Of course, those people may be slammed for their opinion so If no one comments it would be understandable, but if they are truly the majority?

We've all seen plenty of arguments on these boards concerning many topics and there is no hesitation to argue for or against a particular one from a-z. I just find it rather odd that in the case of 3PV those against it are well outspoken and fill a stadium while those who are apparently for it seem to be few and far between. The topic of 3PV just doesn't fit the pattern of any feature or debate we have seen before.

Why? A smoke ring? Thoughts? Or by all means warriors....speak up and support 3PV if it is what you wanted!! The community needs to hear from you on this because from where I'm standing most of the community doesn't (or simply doesn't care altogether) making the turn around decision PGI made on it rather questionable.

I have no problems admitting if I am wrong, and if It is proven I am I will humbly apologize openly to the community. I do however firmly believe that If given the choice we would rather have seen CW, or hit registration "working as intended" for launch instead of an optional feature like 3PV which isn't bringing sept launch any closer to ready and hardly going to draw any new costumers over say, a tutorial!

Do you agree? Or 3PV all the way!!! Let me her your voice and see you on the battlefield warriors.

Summer Gleeson
Merc Net News.

[Joseph Mallan]

Summer the heat "Fix" isn't. It is arbitrary. It was not applied with the Canon Builds in mind. It Punishes the Awesome for being designed with 3 PPCs. And the penalty for 2 AC20s is ridiculous. 2 AC20 creates 12 heat but the penalty is double that. I can have a AC20 and Gauss do 5 less damage but no heat penalty. It is just stupid. The issue isn't the Alpha it is the Convergence of that Alpha.

3rd Person... Well I saw what I didn't want to see. I saw a picture of 3PV, where a Mech behind a Butte on River City could know which way the enemy was circling and be ready for him. Where if the view was 1st Person... this would not be so simple.

[Purlana]

3rd Person view doesn't add up. Nerf seismic and then allow 3PV? Logic???

[Lord Perversor]

Joseph Mallan, on 04 August 2013 - 12:13 PM, said:

Summer the heat "Fix" isn't. It is arbitrary. It was not applied with the Canon Builds in mind. It Punishes the Awesome for being designed with 3 PPCs. And the penalty for 2 AC20s is ridiculous. 2 AC20 creates 12 heat but the penalty is double that. I can have a AC20 and Gauss do 5 less damage but no heat penalty. It is just stupid. The issue isn't the Alpha it is the Convergence of that Alpha.

3rd Person... Well I saw what I didn't want to see. I saw a picture of 3PV, where a Mech behind a Butte on River City could know which way the enemy was circling and be ready for him. Where if the view was 1st Person... this would not be so simple.

i know plenty of PPL who while playing TT they liked to use his awesome with a 2-1-2-1 for heat neutrality despite the canon build allowing him to use 3x once if the need arise.

Also it's ok if you fire an ac/20 and gauss at once for pinpoint dmg, maybe at short range but at 175 greater the difference between weapons makes your pinpoint innacurate.

PGI heat penalty it's a way to delay the pinpoint alpha while still allowing such alphas pay a price, not the end of all boating ingame.

[Dracol]

Interesting read. Well written OP. One aspect of 3pv we players are not privy to are the emails PGI may have received from players who tried the game but did not find it enjoyable.

As much time as we spend on the forums, it's the people who take the extra effort to write the devs that, IMHO, have more weight. People familiar with the franchise who enjoyed the 3pv aspect of prior games may have been disappointed when they were forced into 1pv. These people may have been writing to PGi and stating how they would love to again enjoy the franchise but could not do to the lack of 3pv.

Personanly, I'll be dropping in the hardcore mode but if 3pv is able to keep new players interested in this f2p enough to spend real cash, then good for PGI. Normal/hardcore mode from what I have heard has worked for the battlefield franchise. From a business perspective I can totally understand their reasons to utilize the already built in 3pv that the cry engine ships with.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

So long as 3PV is restricted to "instant action" casual mode and any campaign CW play is in "hardcore" mode in 1PV only I don't see any problems with it, especially implemented as-is. I would love to see the drones be destroyable, and switching between modes should have a cool down (so you're stuck in whichever mode you switch to for a minimum amount of time, say 30s or so). Aside from that, if it doesn't impact CW or e-sport game modes then I don't care if people use it or not.

As for the heat tax, it is complicated, obscure, confusing, and unhealthy. You mentioned a simpler way, and here is my take on that: soft heat penalties as you climb the heat scale.

What does that mean? As your heat goes up, your max speed, turn/twist/arm reflex rates, and your accuracy drop. The % decrease in performance scales with your current % of max heat. This by itself would severely impact high-heat pinpoint-alpha build, making it far more of a trade-off if you want to get consistent, pin-point damage on a target. If you fire on the cool down your heat is high and your shots deviate (more as you run hotter). If you wait to cool off all the way first then your shots are precise, but your rate of fire drops a goodly bit. What's more, if you push your heat too high then you can't respond well to trouble. You can't turn your torso to spread damage, you can't evade since you steer and move so much more slowly, and your backup weapons aren't going to be all that accurate either (assuming you have any to begin with).

The benefits of such a system are manifold. It's obvious through gameplay what is happening. It is easy to understand - the hotter you get the worse your performance is. It's predictable - the same % on the heat scale causes the same % decrease in performance across the board, regardless of chassis or weapon. It's systematic - it affects everything the same, with the only variables being how much heat you can absorb (dissipation and capacity, determined by heat sinks) and how much you generate (your decisions regarding weapon loadout and usage). No charts or graphs or fancy mathematics are required to explain it.

[Tangelis]

In terms of the heat penalties I don't think it needed to be as aggressive. Levi's view is interesting, I also think restricting some hard point sizes can go a long way too, but that would probably be a lot of work.

As far as 3rd person is concerned I'm rather "whatever" about it, preferring to wait and see how it plays out before jumping to any conclusions. Just for the record I'm not for it being in CW, but casual play I don't think matters much.

This though:

Summer Gleeson, on 04 August 2013 - 12:02 PM, said:

I do however firmly believe that If given the choice we would rather have seen CW, or hit registration "working as intended" for launch instead of an optional feature like 3PV which isn't bringing sept launch any closer to ready and hardly going to draw any new costumers over say, a tutorial!

Completely agree.

Maybe Dracol is right in regards to private messages to PGI and there may very well be a lot of support for 3rd person.
But I am part of that bandwagon that CW should be higher on the list of "let's get this in for launch." A new game mode wouldn't hurt either.

Unless it's all in the works, I know I know, but they have done a lot under our noses of late.