55 replies to this topic

[Ngamok]

You know what, if you people stop hiding behind whatever it is you hide behind and learn about the game it wouldn't be confuding. I've been playing online games since 1991 and I had zero problems learning how to play this game within the first week it came out. Even with all the new stuff added, IT IS NOT HARD TO FIND THE INFORMATION.

Every game today almost requires you to go online and find out about the game and what new features they are adding. I mean they even send you an e-mail with the patch notes (though I think the past 2 months I haven't gotten one). It's not like the good ole days when every game came with a player manual. Every game today ships with just a basic sheet that tells you how to install the game. That's it. Now stop needing your hand held and find the information here on the forums. Also, every game played there are helpful people that will give you the information. Stop pretending the information is hidden. The Command Chair and Announcements tabs are there for a reason.

Hexenhammer, on 12 August 2013 - 10:21 PM, said:

Right now the game feels like Calvin Ball with strange imaginary rules that no one can follow but everyone is expected to obey

But I love Calvin Ball.

+100 for mentioning the all time best comic strip ever.

Edited by Ngamok, 13 August 2013 - 06:05 AM.

[AC]

I agree with some of the OP. I would love to see machine gun style pulse lasers. They can have the same DPS, but allow constant firing. In Battletech Pulse lasers increased your chance to hit because they constantly fired (pulsed). This would really help us to hit those lights, but each pulse would do low damage.

Also, the secret heat rules are dumb. They added them in to stop boating.... but the boating was only in place because of the lame weapon system they have in place. You can swap machine guns and AC20's interchangably. You can swap small lasers and PPC at a whim.

This is NOT how it should be. The weapons slots should have size limitations. I can build identical loadouts on so many chassis now the game is getting boring. It also eliminates the special nature of certain chassis. Like AC20 on hunchies and Victors. Twin PPC (not quad, or twin gauss, or twin AC20) on K2 catapults. Mixed loadouts on stalkers.... Stalkers are currently the ultimate boats. 8ML on 4P hunchies (that it currently can't fire without shutting down)

Please PLEASE fix the slot system so that chassis are unique. It would make weapons balancing MUCH easier for PGI as well. The boating is what is causing all the weapons balance issues. Fix the slot system and you balance weapons and chassis simultaneously.

[Tarrasque]

Kunae, on 13 August 2013 - 05:56 AM, said:

You mean the patch notes that only provide a snippit of what was actually done, and tend to be horrifically incomplete, leaving off critical changes?

Critical changes like...? Can you give an example of a single 'critical change' that was not posted in patch notes?

To the point you're defending, if someone cannot be expected to take the time to understand a game they're playing, it's going to be difficult to become good at it. If one expects to just absorb every aspect of a game through osmosis, they're probably going to suck at it regardless.

[Ngamok]

Johnny Reb, on 13 August 2013 - 12:00 AM, said:

The 2 erppc+guass is the direct result of the ghost heat for ppc. Most efficient current acceptable loadout, with no ghost.

What? The 2 ER PPC + Gauss was there since the inception of the Cataphract 3D. And the Highlanders allowed the 3 ER PPC + Gauss. It is not the direct result of ghost heat. Those builds were popular with players before ghost heat even came into play. Would you say that the 6 PPC Stalker people switched over to the 2 ER PPC + Gauss build? Probably so. Stop blaming ghost heat for this.

[AC]

Ngamok, on 13 August 2013 - 06:12 AM, said:

What? The 2 ER PPC + Gauss was there since the inception of the Cataphract 3D. And the Highlanders allowed the 3 ER PPC + Gauss. It is not the direct result of ghost heat. Those builds were popular with players before ghost heat even came into play. Would you say that the 6 PPC Stalker people switched over to the 2 ER PPC + Gauss build? Probably so. Stop blaming ghost heat for this.

They are a direct result of PGI not having a good slot system on the chassis. Mechs are NEARLY omni mechs right now.

[MrZakalwe]

AC, on 13 August 2013 - 06:16 AM, said:

They are a direct result of PGI not having a good slot system on the chassis. Mechs are NEARLY omni mechs right now.

yup and that isn't a bad thing.

Being able to alter mechs is one of the selling points of a game like this.

[aniviron]

Johnny Reb, on 13 August 2013 - 12:00 AM, said:

The 2 erppc+guass is the direct result of the ghost heat for ppc. Most efficient current acceptable loadout, with no ghost.

The 2 (er)ppc + gauss was the first popular sniper poptart build in open beta. It has been with us since the CTF-3D hit the field; it got a lot worse after that when mechs that could jam in even more PPCs started to get in on the 'fun,' but nothing was ever done to lessen the effectiveness of 2ppc 1gauss except for jj shake. It just turns out that even though that build has been popular for about five or six months, the changes that were supposed to fix high precision alphas didn't address the build that started it all, a build with some serious staying power because, well, it's good.

[Ngamok]

AC, on 13 August 2013 - 06:16 AM, said:

They are a direct result of PGI not having a good slot system on the chassis. Mechs are NEARLY omni mechs right now.

No. People gravitate towards the easiest common denominator of what works. Ever since the CTF-3D, everyone looks at a mech and asks themselves, can I put 2 ER PPC + Gauss in this? If the answer is yes, they do it. If the answer is no, they ask themsleves, how many PPCs can I stuff into this. Every new mech that came out since has had builds with this in mind. That's why when the Trebuchets first came out people were pop tarting with them with 3 PPCs. That's why when the Quickdraws first came out people were pop tarting with them with 4 PPCs. With the exception of the 7K for the Treb, if they had a ballistic hard point, they might have a Gauss but being lighter chassis and the Gauss being 16 tons minimum with ammo, they would load it.

[Lykaon]

Kunae, on 13 August 2013 - 05:23 AM, said:

Raising heat on PPC's/ERPPC's back to canon levels, and reverting SRM damage/spread back to January, would have fixed both the "pop-tart" issue, and the "pinpoint-alpha" sniper issue, with one brush-stroke.

Neither of these alterations would have fixed the actual problem.

Increasing PPC/ER-PPC heat woudl likely encourage "poptarting" since this technique allows for the safest means of firing and then cooling.The other likely outcome would be a reduction from 3 PPC + 1 Gauss to the current 2 PPC + 1 Gauss that ghost heat created.

The reason is even with increased heat the single best way to kill a mech is to deal as much damage to one spot as often as possible.And that is a result of the interactivity between damage application mechanics and the armor mechanics.Altering heat (either a flat increase or with Ghost heat) does not alter this interaction in any way.

Back in January it was finally discovered (and I suspected for a while) that the projectile splash damage mechanics was behaving in an undesireable way.Essentially what was going on was a single 2.5 damage SRM would hit a target and "splash" a 3.4 meter radious with damage.This would frequently apply damage values in excess of triple the desired values.

This of course was the reason for there ALWAYS being 6X SRM6 Catapults present in every match.The build exploited a broken mechanic and performed so far beyond expectations and projections it became a staple build.

On "paper" the Splatcat did 90 points per alpha strike but in reality depending on target sizes it was dishing out up to 200 or more damage per alpha.

This was broken and needed to be repaired.(granted there has been some feet dragging on this repair in my opinion)

I get what you were thinking,that making the prospect of massive ppc alpha strikes to hot coupled with making light weight brawling weapons effective would have balanced the books so to speak.

The facts are this would not have panned out.The actual results would have been that mechs would be using two distinct builds either optimized pinpoint damage or massive SRM alphas.The underlaying issue would still persist and as we all know PGI's ghost heat system has also failed to effectivly repair the issues with the added bonus of making the game even more complex with hidden mechanics.

[AC]

And why can ppl poptar with the Trebs? Because there is no slot size limitation. They can swap medium lasers for PPC. The weapons have critical space requirements for a reason. How hard would it be for PGI to say that an energy slot can hold weapons up to 2 critical spaces. Or a ballistics slot can hold weapons up to 5 critical spaces. This would allow easy mech modification and customization, but it would eliminate all the boating and the "how many PPC and gauss can I fit" that goes on now.

[MrZakalwe]

Lykaon, on 13 August 2013 - 06:30 AM, said:

Neither of these alterations would have fixed the actual problem.

Increasing PPC/ER-PPC heat woudl likely encourage "poptarting" since this technique allows for the safest means of firing and then cooling.The other likely outcome would be a reduction from 3 PPC + 1 Gauss to the current 2 PPC + 1 Gauss that ghost heat created.

The reason is even with increased heat the single best way to kill a mech is to deal as much damage to one spot as often as possible.And that is a result of the interactivity between damage application mechanics and the armor mechanics.Altering heat (either a flat increase or with Ghost heat) does not alter this interaction in any way.

Back in January it was finally discovered (and I suspected for a while) that the projectile splash damage mechanics was behaving in an undesireable way.Essentially what was going on was a single 2.5 damage SRM would hit a target and "splash" a 3.4 meter radious with damage.This would frequently apply damage values in excess of triple the desired values.

This of course was the reason for there ALWAYS being 6X SRM6 Catapults present in every match.The build exploited a broken mechanic and performed so far beyond expectations and projections it became a staple build.

On "paper" the Splatcat did 90 points per alpha strike but in reality depending on target sizes it was dishing out up to 200 or more damage per alpha.

This was broken and needed to be repaired.(granted there has been some feet dragging on this repair in my opinion)

I get what you were thinking,that making the prospect of massive ppc alpha strikes to hot coupled with making light weight brawling weapons effective would have balanced the books so to speak.

The facts are this would not have panned out.The actual results would have been that mechs would be using two distinct builds either optimized pinpoint damage or massive SRM alphas.The underlaying issue would still persist and as we all know PGI's ghost heat system has also failed to effectivly repair the issues with the added bonus of making the game even more complex with hidden mechanics.

Ghost heat hasn't solved all the problems but it has helped greatly.

They have said they have something in the pipeline to make firing PPCs and Gauss together not optimal.

[Gulinborsti]

Johnny Reb, on 13 August 2013 - 12:00 AM, said:

The 2 erppc+guass is the direct result of the ghost heat for ppc. Most efficient current acceptable loadout, with no ghost.

The 2xERPPC + 1xGauss was there before the heat penalty system

MrZakalwe, on 13 August 2013 - 12:44 AM, said:

The 2ERPPC Gauss mechs were around before ghost heat.

Easy solution would be to include Gauss rifles in the same heat penalty bracket as PPCs.

Not sure if it's the right solution but it would work.

The 2xERPPC + 1xGauss is no problem, it never was. 50 - 60 pinpoint alpha builds are a problem but they are gone for good thanks to the heat penaltiies.

Kunae, on 13 August 2013 - 05:23 AM, said:

As with JJ-shake, the "ghost heat" penalty was a completely unnecessarily complicated system to add to this "game".

Raising heat on PPC's/ERPPC's back to canon levels, and reverting SRM damage/spread back to January, would have fixed both the "pop-tart" issue, and the "pinpoint-alpha" sniper issue, with one brush-stroke.

The JJ shake made life harder for poptarts, as did the heat penalties for ridiculous high alpha damage boats.
Both fixed the problem, complicated or not. Mission accomplished.

MrZakalwe, on 13 August 2013 - 06:18 AM, said:

yup and that isn't a bad thing.

Being able to alter mechs is one of the selling points of a game like this.

Fully agreed, the price to be paid for solving the boating issue by hard point restrictions is too high. Customization makes fun and keeps people experimenting. You can still build 6 PPCs Stalkers or other ridiculous loadouts, heat penalties are preventing you to play such cheese builds effectively.

[AC]

And why shouldn't PPC and Gauss be used together? It is used together on legitimate TRO builds. PGI is breaking these builds with their complex rules. Hunchie 4P comes to mind, so does the Awesome 8Q.


Let's look at the oldest broken chassis, the K2 Catapult. There were gaussapults, quad PPC a pults, AC20 a pults. None of these should be possible. If PGI limited a weapon slot by critical space it would fix anything.

The arm energy slot can have 3 critical spaces, the torso energy slots can be 2 critical spaces, and the torso ballistics slots can be 5 critical spaces.

This would allow the stock config along with, 4LL, two AC2 +2PPC, 2AC5+2PPC, etc etc..... all decent configs.... what it would prevent are the broken configs the ghost heat system tries to address. No more dual gauss, dual AC20, 4PPC, etc....

A staight forward slot system that players can see in the mech lab is both simple and fixes the balance issues.

[Dawnstealer]

There's definitely some weirdness in the implementation of some features. First off, this is a really fun game and I enjoy playing it, but it seems like PGI takes some very...odd...solutions to the problems.

Moldy Hobo seemed to point out that the problem is less heat and more about convergence. After playing this game for a little under seven months, I tend to agree. The fact isn't that you're getting hit with a trio of PPCs and a Gauss: it's the fact that all 45 points are hitting the exact same location, instantly, no matter the distance.

Something that would be far more elegant would be to have a series of dots on your screen that represent the currently selected weapon group. The more weapons "live" in that group, the more dots there would be. Their natural state would be pointing straight ahead, so if you had every weapon on your mech "on" at the same time (an Alpha, in other words), it would be a pretty spread out line of dots.

The longer you hold your reticle on target, the more they'd pull together and converge. The more weapons you have live, the longer it would take. The longer the distance, the longer it would take. If you had your weapons on chainfire, it would only consider it one weapon and it would hit that spot precisely.

This would make a Targeting Computer useful, would make the Pinpoint perk more useful, and would give the Clans the edge in ranged combat with faster convergence at range (since they think brawling is "icky").

[AC]

Gulinborsti, on 13 August 2013 - 06:45 AM, said:

Fully agreed, the price to be paid for solving the boating issue by hard point restrictions is too high. Customization makes fun and keeps people experimenting. You can still build 6 PPCs Stalkers or other ridiculous loadouts, heat penalties are preventing you to play such cheese builds effectively.

MW4 had a slot limitation system and yet it was a popular game and you could still build crazy configs. What it prevented over MW3 was broken configs like 70ton mechs taking 3 AC20's. You don't have to lose creativity when you implement certain balancing limitations.

Edited by AC, 13 August 2013 - 07:00 AM.

[Gulinborsti]

The "weird thing" is usually sitting in front of the PC, trying "weird things" to find a flaw in the game mechanics while seaching for the "most efficient" build that makes the weirdo OP.

Freedom of customization opens the door for cheese, heat penalties adds another level of balancing mechanics without restricting Mech customization.

[Dawnstealer]

AC, on 13 August 2013 - 06:46 AM, said:

And why shouldn't PPC and Gauss be used together? It is used together on legitimate TRO builds. PGI is breaking these builds with their complex rules. Hunchie 4P comes to mind, so does the Awesome 8Q.


Let's look at the oldest broken chassis, the K2 Catapult. There were gaussapults, quad PPC a pults, AC20 a pults. None of these should be possible. If PGI limited a weapon slot by critical space it would fix anything.

The arm energy slot can have 3 critical spaces, the torso energy slots can be 2 critical spaces, and the torso ballistics slots can be 5 critical spaces.

This would allow the stock config along with, 4LL, two AC2 +2PPC, 2AC5+2PPC, etc etc..... all decent configs.... what it would prevent are the broken configs the ghost heat system tries to address. No more dual gauss, dual AC20, 4PPC, etc....

A staight forward slot system that players can see in the mech lab is both simple and fixes the balance issues.

I've always thought this was a better idea than limiting the type, although it makes sense to have both as the plug-and-play nature of the Clan omnimechs is a big perk of those builds. Having weapon slots that limited both type and size would be perfect.

You could always put a smaller weapon in a designated slot, but a larger one would be impossible.

[zolop]

Ngamok, on 13 August 2013 - 06:07 AM, said:

You know what, if you people stop hiding behind whatever it is you hide behind and learn about the game it wouldn't be confusing. I've been playing online games since 1991 and I had zero problems learning how to play this game within the first week it came out. Even with all the new stuff added, IT IS NOT HARD TO FIND THE INFORMATION.

Every game today almost requires you to go online and find out about the game and what new features they are adding. I mean they even send you an e-mail with the patch notes (though I think the past 2 months I haven't gotten one). It's not like the good ole days when every game came with a player manual. Every game today ships with just a basic sheet that tells you how to install the game. That's it. Now stop needing your hand held and find the information here on the forums. Also, every game played there are helpful people that will give you the information. Stop pretending the information is hidden. The Command Chair and Announcements tabs are there for a reason.

But I love Calvin Ball.

+100 for mentioning the all time best comic strip ever.

Agree and I been having more fun with this game as late. If the OP finds this game confusing please goto the training grounds on this page. The reason why they put in the heat system as is, is for people that would build 6 PPC stalker builds that would alpha with no real penalty. Now the OP can still alpha with PPCs, even with 6 if you wanted to but your at a dis-advantage with internal damage and a really long wait time to cool off.

To the OPs points the heat threshold range 0-2 could be more informative, like to the OP stated "Full Alpha will leave you 68% of your current heat threshold". But I do not mind this system either of 0-2. It just should have been explained better by ingame Tutorials for MWO. I want to mention that if a kid this, why is it so tough for the OP? Maybe this gneration doesn't take time to learn a game thats not a shooter? Syndicate was so much better as a isometric game and so was the fallout series (I am generation back, born 1979), yet turned them into mainly FPS for this generation.

Map is not confusing...
The Enemy information and map screen is fine, if a ally can see a enemy with his radar so can a ally. This works so that Support fire from mechs with LRMS can fire indirectly. Now siesmic overlapping enemy positions on the map would help if it was a different color and the enemy positions were kept as bold.

Ngamok, on 13 August 2013 - 06:22 AM, said:

No. People gravitate towards the easiest common denominator of what works. Ever since the CTF-3D, everyone looks at a mech and asks themselves, can I put 2 ER PPC + Gauss in this? If the answer is yes, they do it. If the answer is no, they ask themsleves, how many PPCs can I stuff into this. Every new mech that came out since has had builds with this in mind. That's why when the Trebuchets first came out people were pop tarting with them with 3 PPCs. That's why when the Quickdraws first came out people were pop tarting with them with 4 PPCs. With the exception of the 7K for the Treb, if they had a ballistic hard point, they might have a Gauss but being lighter chassis and the Gauss being 16 tons minimum with ammo, they would load it.

Agree

Edited by zolop, 13 August 2013 - 07:26 AM.

[AC]

Gulinborsti, on 13 August 2013 - 06:59 AM, said:

The "weird thing" is usually sitting in front of the PC, trying "weird things" to find a flaw in the game mechanics while seaching for the "most efficient" build that makes the weirdo OP.

Freedom of customization opens the door for cheese, heat penalties adds another level of balancing mechanics without restricting Mech customization.

That is my point. Why not have a straight forward slot size limitation rather than a faulse sense of freedom. The ghost heat penalty breaks stock configs and is convoluted. In the end it has the same effect as a slot size limitation...it just appears to allow more freedom.

[Xanquil]

Even though I am not against hard point limits. That wouldn't "fix" the pinpoint alpha issues we have. At the same time the ghost heat system didn't fix it either. It just made things a bit more convoluted. I wonder what the next "big fix" is going to bring. Mabe PPCs doing damage to the firing mech if more than one is fired with in one second of each other? (feedback lol)