68 replies to this topic

[Victor Morson]

As we all know, the whole much hated concept of "Ghost Heat" - an incredibly complex, hidden set of rules that amount to "X weapons overheat you" - has been a bane of the game for some time. It came about to combat the 6 PPC Stalker and "future problems" and to "lower alpha damage." In the end, the only thing it has ever accomplished was knocking out the PPC Stalker.

We all said if the PPCs were fixed, the whole system wouldn't be necessary.

... we are here today, now. PPCs are fixed. Whatever phobia of editing the XML files seems to have gone away, and we're finally getting a really fun meta game. However, the elephant in the room is how much Ghost Heat is actually damaging that meta game right now, with little to no benefit: Blocking groups of inferior light ACs, large lasers, and even medium laser arrays; all builds that would be a both viable and fun if they weren't gimped.

If another pinpoint alpha issue comes up, we can always have that weapon addressed, as PPCs were. If a 6 PPC were made today, it would likely explode without Ghost Heat, and would positively be a terrible setup even for new players.

Speaking of which, that is also why I am saying this. Not only is math behind Ghost Heat completely non-nonsensical with it's pairings and limitations (resulting in perfectly fine massive alpha builds even now; while blocking far less damaging ones - i.e. 2x LRM10 1x LRM20 = 3x LRM20 Ghost Heat for the same number of missiles as 2x LRM20 with 0 heat), it's incredibly confusing - in particular since it is currently a hidden stat without checking external wikis - and something that will only massively damage the game for new players.

The very new players that everything else is trying to accommodate. I see them all the time, overheating steadily because nothing at all indicates to them Ghost Heat is wrecking their 'mech. When I let them know they always are puzzled and say heat efficiency showed fine.

TL/DR: Ghost Heat wouldn't be needed if the guns were being fixed. And the guns are now being fixed! Thus, the system can no longer be justified at all. It needs to go. Let's see some Large Laser builds again, guys!

Edited by Victor Morson, 10 September 2013 - 02:22 PM.

[Statius]

I've said many other places: revamp heat sinks to affect dissipation only and give a little heat reduction to the area they are located it (to give SHS a chance) and give real heat penalties.

It can be done. Satyagraha anyone?

[General Taskeen]

ECM is still a convulted mess, so my hopes aren't set too high.

Most other games devs swallow their pride and remove things that don't make sense and start over.

Of course, the Devs can prove me wrong by removing it, but that's their ballpark.

[Victor Morson]

If someone is voting, it'd be neat if they'd post why. I'm curious why those voting in favor of Ghost Heat think it's necessary now? It's literally not preventing anything. The individual weapons have been balanced as such now that a penalty isn't needed.

[ObsidianSpectre]

Ghost heat is an abomination.

[infinite xaer0]

well, the thing is, ghost heat does provide a good system for selectively controlling the effectiveness of specific weapon combinations without nerfing those weapons for single use or lesser boated use (or whatever is necessary for balancing). However I will agree that as things stand now, some of the boating limits don't make any sense, and should be adjusted, and it would be nice if there were chassis specific limits too

[Taemien]

Complex? I wouldn't say that. Here's a link to a table:

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...eapon_heatscale

You'll know how much heat a number of weapons will generate. Just because max alpha of PPCs is 2, doesn't mean you can't fire 3, you just need to increase your heatcap above 42. Which is a few double heatsinks (I'm sure some of you would have alot more then a few).

A buddy of mine uses an Atlas with 4 Large Lasers (has been for a while). Even with ghost heat he's able to nearly fire them at will for as long as he wants. Every so often he needs to let it cool for a second or two. But he's double over the so called 'limit'.

When people say they hate on 'ghostheat' they act as if there is an actual alpha limit, rather than a heat increase. Heat increases can be countered with heatsinks. Can even still use 6 PPC Stalkers. Just can't alpha them.

[semalferuzA]

I agree that the information needs to be put into the in-game Mech Lab but I think the heat penalties should stay as is. At the very minimum it encourages more diverse builds or skilled weapon management. AC2's need to be addressed. Weapon linkages may need to be examined.

The system really isn't that complicated once you have basic information. All you really need to know as a basic player is that firing 3 ppcs is bad and 2 is not. If you want to try to boat a weapon then it behooves you to learn more about the heat system.

Edited by semalferuzA, 10 September 2013 - 03:07 PM.

[Arnold J Rimmer]

I voted against, because GH is a damn silly idea. It's opaque, undocumented, and illogical. It's practically impossible to work out without help as a fresh player.

Leaving the hard cap on the heatscale and perhaps some tweaks to the hardpoint system would have been a far better solution, imho. But, I'm not the development team. I still enjoy the game, as the only build I ever made that would have come up against the GH scale was my HBK-4P, and I stopped using it long before GH was a thing. I never subscribed to the meta in the first place.

It also hurts stock builds - the 4P and several Awesome chassis being relevant to MWO and springing to mind. But there are plenty of other canon variants that boat GH-affected weapons.

[Victor Morson]

Taemien, on 10 September 2013 - 03:00 PM, said:

Complex? I wouldn't say that. Here's a link to a table:

Try explaining a newbie that they can have 3 SRM6, but not 4 SRM4, or they take massive heat. Try explaining that two LRM10s and a 20 will spike your heat, but two 20s will not and two 10s will not. Try explaining how it links together with each weapon system, and that they need to go to an external site to know what will fry their 'mech.

It's needlessly complex, with most of the complexities just being huge loopholes to work around. It serves no purpose if you adjust the individual guns, as they finally have done!

infinite xaer0, on 10 September 2013 - 02:51 PM, said:

well, the thing is, ghost heat does provide a good system for selectively controlling the effectiveness of specific weapon combinations without nerfing those weapons for single use or lesser boated use (or whatever is necessary for balancing). However I will agree that as things stand now, some of the boating limits don't make any sense, and should be adjusted, and it would be nice if there were chassis specific limits too

Another good way is weapon edits and hardpoint restrictions. You know, a way everyone's in favor of?

[Royalewithcheese]

Taemien, on 10 September 2013 - 03:00 PM, said:

Here's a link to a table:

If you can't explain it without a table, it's complex. If the table's third-party, it's complex and poorly documented.

[Lyoto Machida]

Taemien, on 10 September 2013 - 03:00 PM, said:

Complex? I wouldn't say that. Here's a link to a table:

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...eapon_heatscale

You'll know how much heat a number of weapons will generate. Just because max alpha of PPCs is 2, doesn't mean you can't fire 3, you just need to increase your heatcap above 42. Which is a few double heatsinks (I'm sure some of you would have alot more then a few).

A buddy of mine uses an Atlas with 4 Large Lasers (has been for a while). Even with ghost heat he's able to nearly fire them at will for as long as he wants. Every so often he needs to let it cool for a second or two. But he's double over the so called 'limit'.

When people say they hate on 'ghostheat' they act as if there is an actual alpha limit, rather than a heat increase. Heat increases can be countered with heatsinks. Can even still use 6 PPC Stalkers. Just can't alpha them.

Victor Morson, on 10 September 2013 - 03:42 PM, said:

Try explaining a newbie that they can have 3 SRM6, but not 4 SRM4, or they take massive heat. Try explaining that two LRM10s and a 20 will spike your heat, but two 20s will not and two 10s will not. Try explaining how it links together with each weapon system, and that they need to go to an external site to know what will fry their 'mech.

It's needlessly complex, with most of the complexities just being huge loopholes to work around. It serves no purpose if you adjust the individual guns, as they finally have done!



Another good way is weapon edits and hardpoint restrictions. You know, a way everyone's in favor of?

Royalewithcheese, on 10 September 2013 - 03:51 PM, said:

If you can't explain it without a table, it's complex. If the table's third-party, it's complex and poorly documented.

Ah, yes...the ol' "3rd party table formula explanation" that new players are sure to find. These new players have it too easy nowadays.

Last night, I watched a fairly fresh Stalker get taken out by a one legged Raven with an open CT. It was immensely frustrating to watch from the perspective of the Stalker and made me wonder why a guy whose only experience in MWO was his previous hour of play was in my ELO bracket.

Of course, I'm happy to smash on new players that end up in my ELO bracket for whatever reason...it's the only way for PGI to gather data on things like this.

[aniviron]

First time I have ever seen a poll that includes 'comedy third option' where that choice was not winning by a large margin.

[Monky]

Ghost heat is a mess. I can see that it was implemented to hurt clan tech in the long run, but hell, if that's the case, let it just hurt clan tech. By the time someone gets their hands on a clan mech anyways they should know enough about how the game works to be able to understand it (provided it is actually explained in game).

Stick to traditional weapon balancing for the IS weapons and for crying out loud consider ditching extra heat capacity at least on double heatsinks.

Edited by Monky, 10 September 2013 - 04:45 PM.

[ObsidianSpectre]

Getting rid of ghost heat is probably the easiest thing PGI could do to restore my faith in them as a company. They've already gone a long ways towards fixing things the right way, and getting rid of the convoluted system which seems designed to merely sweep balance problems under the rug would help demonstrate a commitment towards getting the right fixes in, as well as a willingness to back away from their mistakes (and mistakes happen frequently in game design, I am totally capable of forgiving them for mistakes).

[xenoglyph]

KILL IT WITH......ICE!?

[Taemien]

Ahh the new player argument. See if this was 1999, I'd agree with you all. But we have Google. We have these forums. And of course.. we have the site I linked which many in the community use, and others like it.

How many of you are new to the franchise? You figured it out, why can't your peers? Oh and there's the training grounds. Any noob that goes in there and fires a ton of weapons and blows up will figure.. hey.. I need to drop weapons and add heatsinks. Then add enough to fire what they want to fire.

Want to try to argue my points again? This time try another angle then that of new players. Cause you know, people don't stay new forever, they learn and eventually become vets. Or perish. Either way, they aren't part of the equation.

[80sGlamRockSensation David Bowie]

Victor Morson, on 10 September 2013 - 03:42 PM, said:

Try explaining that two LRM10s and a 20 will spike your heat, but two 20s will not and two 10s will not.

And on top of that, how LRMs are a complete over complicated waste that shouldn't be in a state they are at all. What was so wrong about how MechWarrior 2 through Living Legends handled Missiles? You know, no minimum range bs for the sake of table top and fire and forget. Why can't we have LRMs that aren't a complete joke without having to boat them?

[Khobai]

Ghost heat is a {Scrap} fix, but it does do what its supposed to, you dont see Stalkers firing 6 large lasers at once... which is exactly what you would see without ghost heat. Instead of PPCs it would just be large lasers.

The problem is you cant just get rid of ghost heat without first implementing some other kindve solution for boating. And any number of other solutions are better than ghost heat.

[GalaxyBluestar]

all previous MW titles had as much or better weapon balance as this game does but without making up your own set of random rules.

GH stands as a piller of fail to balance what others in the past did and it also stands in place of stuff we should've had by now. it's one of many pillers that says PGI is stubburn and foolish, please kick me in a review collum.