4 replies to this topic

[Sable Dove]

miSs, on 23 August 2013 - 08:28 AM, said:

Something that was brought up by the community was to decrease the maximum heat threshold while improving the efficiency of heat sinks. The problem with this is that it does very little to high damage alphas. Yes it increases the time between alphas but not the limitation of damage as what Heat Scale does.

Evidence that PGI does not inhabit the same reality as the rest of us. They have come to the conclusion that increasing heat dissipation and decreasing the heat threshold will cause players to use large alphastrikes, but less frequently. This is, as we all know, the exact opposite of reality.

If they made this change, players would have to chainfire heavy weapons in order to not cook themselves, and there would be a significantly greater emphasis on sustained DPS, rather than simply abusing the highest alpha that isn't arbitrarily penalized.

[FupDup]

But clearly players with knowledge of using the mechlab would exploit this!!!1!1!!!

Edited by FupDup, 23 August 2013 - 07:16 PM.

[Homeless Bill]

FupDup, on 23 August 2013 - 07:10 PM, said:

[Donnie Silveray]

Do you have proof that PGI is wrong, by chance? You're not the one in the office running the numbers.

Not against dissipation and capacity overhaul, but I don't see your ideal working out. I saw it a lot in some PS2 era Armored Core games. Mechs would often pack a super low capacity generator but have an insanely high recharge rate. Said mechs often utilized very very large energy weapons and burst pretty darned hard or packed insanely fast thrusters but with smaller weapons. Said mechs could keep this up almost indefinitely. How exactly would lowering cap and increasing dissipation dissuade alpha striking? All it means is a player would have to wait. Sure a 6PPC stalker build would probably fry itself, but what of builds made specifically to grind the edge while delivering the highest alpha possible?

I did the some math but I cannot really convert TT values into MWO real time values very easily. More or less assuming firing 2 ERPPCs thrust you into 50% heat but rapidly returns to 0 within 5 seconds.... I'm not sure how it'd work in MWO since 5 seconds feels like a LONG time in the game. However assume that one can fire 3 ERPPCs without 'shutting down' guarantee, while firing 4 guarantees shutdown, possibly taking core damage due to scaling heat penalties by approaching 100% heat.

We're still talking a 30 damage alpha at 800+ range every 5-8 seconds to cool to 0. 40 damage at 800+ range every 10+ seconds if said mech barely scrapes the 100% threshold and doesn't take internal damage badly and cooling to 0.

Secondly let's address what this does for gameplay. If you have 15 DHS and fire one ERPPC at 15 heat, assuming due to the doubled fire rate in MWO means doubled dissipation rate, a single ERPPC shot will instantly cool to 0 in 2.5 seconds. So a mech can fire off an ERPPC with no penalty at 800+ range and even with a 5 second cooldown, the ERPPC is perfectly cooled off.

My prediction: Perhaps less alpha striking, but long range weapons will still be king due to being easily cooled off in rapid fashion. Sure brawlers will be FREAKING SCARY, but brawlers have to get there first under a gradual barrage of perfectly aimed PPC fire. Not heavy alpha strikes granted, but a constant spray over time from several mechs. We'd still be stuck in a sniper's game.

Edited by Donnie Silveray, 23 August 2013 - 08:11 PM.

[Sable Dove]

Well, since the current heat threshold is roughly 50, minimum (slightly less if you use a sub-250 engine), that means just about any mech can fire 5 PPC, or 4 ERPPCs without overheating (ignoring the 'ghost heat' penalties). If they got rid of the free heat cap (30), then you could fire two PPCs simultaneously, or just one ERPPC. With higher dissipation, this results in the ability to still pack a lot of firepower, but it cannot be fired all at once.

And that's the key point. Having to fire their weapons separately leads to the damage being more spread out, giving mechs a better chance of surviving when moving from cover to cover, or while advancing on a target. One would not be able to simply fire a single 35-damage shot at a target the moment they peek out of cover, meaning that you can risk exposing yourself briefly, and only take a little damage, rather than a crippling, unavoidable blow.

Even then, large alphas would still be possible, but it would require additional heatsinks. Alpha damage would be lower, and chain/stagger firing would become much more practical.

Even if we doubled heat dissipation, a mech with 10DHS would only be able to fire one ERPPC at a time, and the second firing would be at least 1 second after the first. After which, it would be at least 3 seconds between firings. So yeah, a build with 2ERPPCs can fire indefinitely, but it would be a shot, wait a second, shot, wait 3 seconds, shot... Overall DPS is largely unchanged because the heat is being managed before the weapon's cooldown, but it is dealing no more than 10 damage per shot, and shoots no less than 3 seconds apart.



And that's actually a light interpretation of the idea. Even better would be a fixed heat capacity (about 20; 24 after the pilot skills), and heat sinks only affect dissipation (at approximately double their current values). This means that it is impossible to alpha 2 ERPPCs (2 PPCs are just barely okay, on certain maps, if standing still), but chainfiring them is fair game almost indefinitely.

I can see how PGI came to the conclusion that it will just slow down the alphas. The problem there being that they're almost certainly only considering how to implement it in the worst way possible, rather than the ways that would make it effective. I suspect their idea is to cut heat capacity by maybe 10-15, and increase dissipation by some factor. What they need to do is cut heat capacity by no less than 60%, while increasing dissipation by roughly the same amount (maybe a little less, since time to kill is a bit short at the moment).