80 replies to this topic

[ricardox]

Must be my day for making new threads.. must be bored. Said in another thread but wanted to get people's opionion...

The alphas have come down from 60 (stalker) to 40 (AC40 jager/cat) to 35 (Gauss+2PPC) to now.. likely 30...

What is the acceptable alpha?

[Dudeman3k]

well, in whole honesty an "alpha" should only be used in times of desperation... not the defining factor in total damage output. the culprit in this is the pin-point accuracy. making armor and weapon diversity obsolete.

to answer your question, no alpha is acceptable... it just shouldn't be.

[Allekatrase]

Dudeman3k, on 26 August 2013 - 05:35 PM, said:

well, in whole honesty an "alpha" should only be used in times of desperation... not the defining factor in total damage output. the culprit in this is the pin-point accuracy. making armor and weapon diversity obsolete.

to answer your question, no alpha is acceptable... it just shouldn't be.

I don't think this makes any sense. I see what you're saying, but you're defining "alpha" as firing all of your weapons at once. Alpha should actually refer to the amount of damage of an initial volley that arrives near the same time. This is the problem that keeps being "addressed." The fact that a lot of damage can be front loaded. If you don't front load any damage at all then you aren't doing any damage at all and that makes for a very boring game. So, what is an acceptable maximum amount of damage to put out nearly instantaneously, regardless if it encompasses all weapons equipped or not?

[Jman5]

ricardox, on 26 August 2013 - 05:30 PM, said:

Must be my day for making new threads.. must be bored. Said in another thread but wanted to get people's opionion...

The alphas have come down from 60 (stalker) to 40 (AC40 jager/cat) to 35 (Gauss+2PPC) to now.. likely 30...

What is the acceptable alpha?

It's a little more complicated than that. A high alpha is not necessarily overpowered or unfair, but is dependent on precision and range. An LRM user that can do 20 damage over several components is less powerful than 2 ER PPCs that can do 20 damage on a single component. An AC/20 that can do 20 damage at 270 meters is less powerful than 2 PPCs that can do 20 damage at 500 meters.

So in summary, a short range AOE weapon like the SRM/LB10-X can do a lot of alpha damage without being overpowered while a long range precision weapon ER PPC or Gauss should have more restrictions when it comes to alpha damage.

[Khobai]

Given that medium mechs are the most susceptible to pinpoint alphas, it stands to reason that pinpoint alphas should be balanced primarily with medium mechs in mind. Specifically side torso armor is what we need to look at, since most mediums are forced into using XL engines, in order to carry competitive weapon loadouts.

A 50 ton medium has about 36 front side torso armor and 24 internal structure. So it can absorb roughly 60 damage before it suffers an XL destruction.

So I would say even 20 pinpoint damage is too much coming from anything other than an AC/20.

[Dudeman3k]

Allekatrase, on 26 August 2013 - 05:39 PM, said:

I don't think this makes any sense. I see what you're saying, but you're defining "alpha" as firing all of your weapons at once. Alpha should actually refer to the amount of damage of an initial volley that arrives near the same time. This is the problem that keeps being "addressed." The fact that a lot of damage can be front loaded. If you don't front load any damage at all then you aren't doing any damage at all and that makes for a very boring game. So, what is an acceptable maximum amount of damage to put out nearly instantaneously, regardless if it encompasses all weapons equipped or not?

An "alpha" is firing all your weapons at once. Firing weapons that arrive near the same time would be "grouping" (like grouping your MedLas to left click, PPC to right click). What we have now in most cases is the absence of "grouping"... there is no need when diversity is a liability.

say I have 2 ERPPC's and 4 Med Las. I group my PPCs and MedLas separately. Soon I realize I never use those MedLas in favor of the ERPPC (because the heat difference isnt by much) so I take out those 4 MedLas and replace them for a larger engine and heat sinks. Now I'm strictly "alpha'ing" the PPCs and doing much more (being able to dissipate heat better AND run faster with a pinpoint, high damage weapon system).

Laymen terms: no point in have multiple weapon groups when a single type will be more beneficial (in favor of more speed + heat sinks). THAT makes for very boring short games.... hell, just a very boring game.

Edited by Dudeman3k, 26 August 2013 - 06:16 PM.

[Royalewithcheese]

The whole "nerf alpha" thing is a red herring, IMO. Oh, no, robots with multiple weapons can shoot all those weapons at once! Whatever shall we do?

Edited by Royalewithcheese, 26 August 2013 - 06:48 PM.

[DocBach]

I don't think there should be a limit on the amount a 'Mech can alpha strike beyond heat.

That said, I don't think that every gun should hit the same panel on a 'Mech, and I believe heat should have more of an effect on a 'Mech's performance.

[Allekatrase]

Dudeman3k, on 26 August 2013 - 06:12 PM, said:

An "alpha" is firing all your weapons at once. Firing weapons that arrive near the same time would be "grouping" (like grouping your MedLas to left click, PPC to right click). What we have now in most cases is the absence of "grouping"... there is no need when diversity is a liability.

say I have 2 ERPPC's and 4 Med Las. I group my PPCs and MedLas separately. Soon I realize I never use those MedLas in favor of the ERPPC (because the heat difference isnt by much) so I take out those 4 MedLas and replace them for a larger engine and heat sinks. Now I'm strictly "alpha'ing" the PPCs and doing much more (being able to dissipate heat better AND run faster with a pinpoint, high damage weapon system).

Laymen terms: no point in have multiple weapon groups when a single type will be more beneficial (in favor of more speed + heat sinks). THAT makes for very boring short games.... hell, just a very boring game.

While I can agree that it's an issue, it doesn't really apply to the topic at hand. In your example he had the ERPPCs and the med lasers equipped to start with. In most cases he was only using the ERPPCs. Call it grouping or alpha, his initial pinpoint damage doesn't change between your two scenarios. When "alpha" is being discussed it is almost never in respect to weapon diversity but instead in relation to time to live of the target as high damage precise alpha removes mechs far more quickly than "intended."

While I appreciate your perspective and believe it has merit, I believe it is ultimately irrelevant to the debate the original poster had hoped to pursue.

Edited by Allekatrase, 26 August 2013 - 07:11 PM.

[Stoicblitzer]

pgi already decided for you.

[Profiteer]

Enough to kill a newb in one shot so he comes to the forums and cries for a nerf.

[Mycrus]

20pts - 4 med lazors on my COM-TDK

[RetroActive]

These forum lemmings will never be satisfied with any type of alpha. As you said, It's come down from 60, 45 and 40 to 35 JUST LIKE THEY REQUESTED and they still aren't satisfied. Literally the day after the higher alphas went away, there was a thread in gameplay balance complaining about 35 pt alphas. It really makes no logical sense to me.

It mostly stems from the super vocal minority who wants everything to be exactly like their failed book franchise from the 80's that they refer to as "canon" like it's some sort of sacred text.

[HereticalPsycho]

Mycrus, on 26 August 2013 - 07:52 PM, said:

20pts - 4 med lazors on my COM-TDK

And no one would bat an eyelid at that alpha because while its a solid amount of damage and you will have no issues tearing people apart, your pin point alpha comes from a skill at aiming and staying on target. The important part about that is that the effectiveness of your alpha scales with your skill, meaning that theoretically it should be ok across all elo's, not just hits one point so long as you can aim even remotely ok.

[Mystere]

Use whatever weapon combination you can get away with.

[StaIker]

ricardox, on 26 August 2013 - 05:30 PM, said:

Must be my day for making new threads.. must be bored. Said in another thread but wanted to get people's opionion...

The alphas have come down from 60 (stalker) to 40 (AC40 jager/cat) to 35 (Gauss+2PPC) to now.. likely 30...

What is the acceptable alpha?

It is not a number. It is a ratio of firepower to armor or in other words a desired survivability. A mech should be killed by 3 or 4 alpha strikes to its CT when hit by its own weapons. Anything else leads to unbalanced combat.

[I am]

12?

[Agent 0 Fortune]

RetroActive, on 26 August 2013 - 07:57 PM, said:

These forum lemmings will never be satisfied with any type of alpha. As you said, It's come down from 60, 45 and 40 to 35 JUST LIKE THEY REQUESTED and they still aren't satisfied. Literally the day after the higher alphas went away, there was a thread in gameplay balance complaining about 35 pt alphas. It really makes no logical sense to me.

It mostly stems from the super vocal minority who wants everything to be exactly like their failed book franchise from the 80's that they refer to as "canon" like it's some sort of sacred text.

Big alpha strikes didn't go anywhere, they are still in the game. Try a Gauss + 2xER Large Laser + 2xLRM20, thats a 57 point alpha. Or an AC20 + 2xSRM6 + 2 Large Pulse Laser, thats a respectable 65 damage.

Or do you mean the PPC/Gauss alpha strikes? Those were a little too easy-mode, and when there is low skill requirement needed to run a cookie cutter sniper, the majority tend to flock to it, and ultimately the lack of variety ends up killing the game.

PGI wisely decided to get out ahead of this one. I don't know that I would have picked the same solution ('heat-tax' & 'power-up'), but it was better than doing nothing.

[MustrumRidcully]

Royalewithcheese, on 26 August 2013 - 06:48 PM, said:

The whole "nerf alpha" thing is a red herring, IMO. Oh, no, robots with multiple weapons can shoot all those weapons at once! Whatever shall we do?

Build a game system where the mechs can handle this and you're not screwed over if you just one group of weapons (say, an AC/10 with 2 Medium Lasers and 2 SRM6) and not if you use another group of weapons (say, 4 PPCs or 2 Gauss Rifles).
Or build a game system where weapons don't fire all at once. There is no reason to need to, we can come up with any battletech-logical* explanation why it's just not possible to fire all weapons in the exact same moment, including offering no explanation and just saying "the game works better that way".


I would probably say that a single volley of shots, dispensed over 0.5 seconds, shouldn't deal more than 20 damage to one location. That puts the AC/20 as a top weapon. You can achieve this with enforced chain-fire delays, you could do it with convergence/divergence mechanics that spread out shots across a well-definable area, you could do it with cone of fire...


*) battletech-logical is not real logical, because real logical would say mechs are a bad idea and a waste of resources and we should just keep using tanks.

[XFactor777]

My atlas has a 56 point alpha I haven't heard anyone complain about it being too much (but the 45 point 3ppc+gauss was insane) so there is that. in other words it's a L2P issue for how high is acceptable, if you have a 100 point alpha my job is to not let you get a good shot after that shoot you to death while you cool off.