68 replies to this topic

[SiriusBeef]

Ghost heat must go. I never much cared for fudge factors or sloppy math. Essentially it's use points to serious shortcomings in the current slot system. Among other things...

[Deathsani]

This system was somewhat logical in its inception but has made less and less sense the more I have looked into it. PGI if falling into a very basic design problem. They devised a complex solution, which means that they must continually make more and more complications if it is to remain viable. They need a simple fix for the alpha strikes and I have seen quite a few on the forums.

[JohnnyWayne]

The Boz, on 11 September 2013 - 08:28 AM, said:

"Everyone that disagrees with me is stupid."
What an excellent way to participate in a discussion.

Yeah? Quote the exact wording. Found the word "stupid" in it? No? Didn't think so.

If heat penaltys go, boating will be king again. Quality of gameplay was strongly increased by heat penalties... Moreover how can some people that never develeoped a game or programmed anything claim, that they themselfs have found a better solution than 20 more or less experienced gamedevelopers?
And why am I not finding a single solution in this thread?


Btw, Convergece is TT, not mechwarrior. Just saying.

Edited by JohnnyWayne, 11 September 2013 - 09:05 AM.

[Zyllos]

Ghost Heat is a stop gap measure to fix both pin point accuracy and weapon boating. The issue is that it does not do anything to allievate pin point accuracy and does little against weapon boating.

Weapons need to act in the following manner:

• Lasers aim in a pattern based on their physical layouts (think HBK-4P)
  
• Ballistics aim directly at the Torso/Arm crosshair they are based on
  
• Missiles naturally spray at the target, with SSRMs/LRMs randomly aiming at locations in groups of 1 SSRM/5 LRMs
  
• When firing any weapon, either singly or as a group, their aim produces a CoF based on movement but never deviate from that firing point until finished (Lasers for their beam duration, ballistics instantly, missiles do not apply)
  
• Each location (Head, L/R/C Torso, and L/R Arm) individually produce their CoF
  
  • ***EXAMPLE: if 2 Medium Lasers in the Left Arm, UAC/5 in the Right Arm, and 1 Large Laser and 1 PPC in the Right Torso all fired at the same time, the 2 Medium Lasers would randomly hit a location near the Arm crosshair in their physical pattern, the UAC/5 would randomly hit a location near the Arm crosshair (new location from the 2 Medium Lasers), and the Large Laser would randomly hit a location near the Torso crosshair in it's physical pattern while the PPC would CoF around the Torso crosshair (like the UAC/5 around the Arm crosshair)***
• Lasers have small CoF while ballistics have larger CoF, which means ballistics still have small CoF when standing still while lasers have no CoF but still fire in their physical patterns

Either way...

[Name140704]

Ghost heat is working as intended^tm

[Livewyr]

Alternative!

Ok, I think PPC boating has been fixed, by bringing the heat back to where it should be.
Lasers already have the nerf of being DoT weapons.
Ballistics are heavy

So missiles are really the big boating bullies:

Suggestion to curbing missile boating:
Rather than introducing some stupid ghost heat.. the more missiles fired within .5 seconds.. the more spread out.

Same spread area for LRM5, 10, 15, 20.. (all of them about half Assault mech size)

but if you launch 30 LRMs within .5 seconds.. the spread multiplies by 1.5, with 40 missiles it goes to 2x the spread size. (To a size that wouldn't all connect with an Atlas.. 45+ Several missiles would miss an Atlas.

Want some lore to go with it? Targeting system overload with too many warheads in the air at once.

So.. sure- you can fire LRM 50.. but most of them really aren't going to hit.. (unless you wanna be really clever and fire LRM 50 at a cluster of mechs humping eachother and hit multiple targets..)

Thoughts?

(EDIT: Obviously numbers are arbitrary and can be tweaked..more concerned with the concept)

Edited by Livewyr, 11 September 2013 - 09:12 AM.

[Thuzel]

mwhighlander, on 10 September 2013 - 06:19 PM, said:

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?

I hate to sound like a troll, but

"Because PGI"

Seriously, a lot of their ideas on balance are extremely short-sighted and that was glaringly obvious the day they released ECM as the equivalent of a tactical nuke. Since then, PGI has only made it worse with CT seeking, damage clustering, screen shake, etc... As of now, LRM's are so incredibly situational that balancing them for moderate use is next to impossible. They're very overpowered in the right situation and very underpowered when not, so the result is a bipolar mix-up.

[TB Freelancer]

I'm just tired of wild meta changes from one direction to another because PGI makes grossly incompetent balance changes, which have spawned things like ghost heat, new mechanics, soft counters, multiple and substantial changes to a single weapon without the first clue how it will perform on live servers, etc.

Over a year in, wild balance changes like that are just plain depressing and create a handful of problems for everyone they 'solve'. I've been around long enough the see LRMS go from OP to suck and back again several times over. I'd be hard pressed to think of a weapon that wasn't way out of whack at one time or another because PGI would nerf the snot out of multiple stats on one type of weapon and heavily buff a few characteristics of another....

....and the game of balance whack-a-mole goes round and round with a new OP weapon rising with every cycle and weapons that were good suddenly sucking eggs.

Edited by TB Freelancer, 11 September 2013 - 10:10 AM.

[Levon K]

I voted Other:

I agree that Ghost Heat as it is implemented now is convoluted.

I also agree that the introduction of Ghost Heat has curbed boating. It's forcing me to think about my builds and choose a variety of weapons (just so that I don't have to think about the convoluted Ghost Heat implementation).

[3rdworld]

The Ghost heat was incredibly short sighted.

You make 4 PPCs non-viable. Cool. So that just pushed everyone to 2PPC+1ERPPC + Gauss highlanders.
Link PPCs. Now everyone just runs 2ERPPC + Gauss.

So implement a terrible gauss charge mechanic. Now everyone uses UACs. And now UACs are getting nerfed on the 17th.

It is like PGI has no vision of the future. They make changes then seem completely surprised by the results.

Like giving the 732 an extra energy hardpoint. That was one of the dumbest things I have ever seen.

Edited by 3rdworld, 11 September 2013 - 11:10 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

3rdworld, on 11 September 2013 - 10:41 AM, said:

It is like PGI has now vision of the future.

But, but the warfare blogs! That was a vision of a future we could all believe in!

I hope the marketing guy that wrote those got a fair share of the Founder's money. And I also hope he isn't working on Star Citizen now.

[Taemien]

GalaxyBluestar, on 10 September 2013 - 06:31 PM, said:

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.

Weapons were not balanced in previous titles. In MW2, PPCS, ACs, Gauss, and Missiles were useless. You went lasers or you didn't do anything. In MW3 you went lasers (NOT pulse lasers) or UAC20s, all other weapons were incapable of hitting anything in multiplayer. MW4 got a bit better, however LRMs couldn't hit much, neither could SRMs, SSRMs did anemic damage for their heat/tonnage. Medium and Small Lasers (and their pulse, X, and ER counterparts) were anemic as well.

In MWO we have what? Maybe flamers that are anemic, and maybe small lasers and small pulse aren't performing well (but they are still heads and tails over MW4's if you can believe it). I'm almost going to say you didn't play the previous games. Or have a foggy nostalgic view of them.

Royalewithcheese, on 10 September 2013 - 06:56 PM, said:

We're all part of the "vocal minority" that posts on forums and reads patch notes. But I'm pretty sure we've all had silent majority experiences. Here's one of mine:

Back when I played TF2, it was quite a while before I learned that rocket jumping had a special mechanic that made it more optimal than you would think if you didn't know that mechanic existed. However, in TF2, rocket jumping isn't a core mechanic if (like me) you main Heavy and Engie, so you can do just fine with the basic knowledge that sometimes Soldiers and Demos use explosives to jump and you need to be ready for that.

In MWO, ghost heat is a core mechanic. It completely changes what mechs you buy, what you put on your mechs, and how you pilot your mechs. If we're going to compare (for instance) playing a Stalker in MWO vs. playing a Soldier in TF2, I would even go so far to say that for casual players, knowing how ghost heat works is significantly more important than knowing how rocket jumps work.

There was something similar in MW3. My first matches were rough. I couldn't hit anything. I couldn't understand that I had to lag shoot. So you know what I did? I asked. "Why can't I hit anything?" I was told I had to lag shoot. I didn't know what that was, so I asked. I was told to shoot ahead of the mech by 1-3 mech lengths because of latency. I learned, I got better, and eventually became a hardcore player because of it.

Ghost heat is a little easier to manage then lag shooting. At least in the training grounds one can see how badly firing weapons will effect them. Besides I still don't buy the new player argument and here is why:

This is not a happy friendly holding hands type game. There's plenty of Coop games out there. This is not one of them. When I launch into a game there is 12 Opponents on the other side that I have to beat. And I know their sole focus in life that that moment is to deny me that victory. They are there to win, as well as I. They aren't there to make me happy nor and I to make them happy.

When a new player comes into the game, they have to make a choice upon getting their *** handed to them. And they WILL get it handed to them. They can quit. And many will. They don't have the competitive desire to stay. There is nothing wrong with that. Or they will rise to the challenge and see why they are losing and go and figure out why they are losing and see what they need to do to win.

To give an analogy, its like a bunch of guys at a basketball court at a local park. You can tell the competitive players. They've divided themselves up into teams and are playing the game. You can tell the ones who don't have that competitive drive, they're taking turns shooting baskets on another court or the other side (some of these might be waiting their turns as the teams might be full, but you get the idea).

Are these competitive players super hard core? No.. they aren't. They aren't playing for the NBA. They are just having fun. Competition can be casual and fun. But in today's culture, people are used to getting a medal for getting last place. Schools, parents, and governments cause this ideal. This very eye opening whenever they encounter a game online that is focused on competitive play. Just like the basketball court. And like I said, they either rise to the challenge, or they leave the court.

This is why I don't buy the new player argument. New players will quit or rise to the challenge. And we have to ask ourselves, do we want non-competitive players to stay? I don't. I like the playerbase to stay competitive. I don't think non-competitive players are bad or wrong in what they want. Its just that they have literally thousands of other games they could be playing.

As for players wanting a non-competitive mech game. You had MW, MW2, MW2mercs, MW2GBL, MW3, MW3PM, MW4, MW4BK, MW4mercs for that. Yes they threw us a bone for multiplayer, but that was always as an afterthought. This is our first multiplayer focused game. Let us have this one. You all can have the next one. Then you'll still be ahead by 6 titles. Thats more then fair.

[Lostdragon]

Tamien, I think your point of view is very short sighted. MWO needs non-competitive players to survive. Any game that wants to be an esport and/or make it past the first couple of years does. Those players are the ones who are the spectators for the competitive teams. They are the ones who inject new revenue into the game.

MWO will not last one year from launch if the only people playing it are the dedicated hardcore competitive people. Why do you think they have added things like the tutorial and 3PV? They need to attract and maintain a large playerbase to keep the game alive and continue development.

That being said I think that PGI needs to rethink its strategy for attracting and keeping new players. The best way to do that is to have a game that is well balanced around strong fundamental mechanics that are easy to learn but difficult to master. You make the barrier to entry low to get people interested, but you make the skill cap high to keep them interested. You don't ignore your existing playerbase, you execute the vision of the game you sold them and if you make a great game they will bring their friends who will bring their friends.

[Taemien]

Lostdragon, on 11 September 2013 - 11:47 AM, said:

Tamien, I think your point of view is very short sighted. MWO needs non-competitive players to survive. Any game that wants to be an esport and/or make it past the first couple of years does. Those players are the ones who are the spectators for the competitive teams. They are the ones who inject new revenue into the game.

MWO will not last one year from launch if the only people playing it are the dedicated hardcore competitive people. Why do you think they have added things like the tutorial and 3PV? They need to attract and maintain a large playerbase to keep the game alive and continue development.

That being said I think that PGI needs to rethink its strategy for attracting and keeping new players. The best way to do that is to have a game that is well balanced around strong fundamental mechanics that are easy to learn but difficult to master. You make the barrier to entry low to get people interested, but you make the skill cap high to keep them interested. You don't ignore your existing playerbase, you execute the vision of the game you sold them and if you make a great game they will bring their friends who will bring their friends.

The point of tutorials and 3PV was to train new players ones that are new to the franchise. NOT the ones who prefer to spend hundreds of hours in Skyrim alone.

Do you get that? Do you get that we're never going to appease the single player gaming crowd? And why should PGI when they decided to go the multiplayer only game route? Even if they added a single player campaign, you wouldn't retain them. They want to play by themselves without competition. Meaning such campaigns will HAVE to cost money and no one is going to pay for that when the game is advertised as Free to Play.

As I said before there's literally thousands of single player titles. Let us competitive players (casual and hardcore alike), have our competitive game. You don't see me doing dumb sh-- like going into the Skyrim forums and reaming Bethseda and EA about why there is no PVP in it. Why would single players come here and do nearly the same thing to MWO?

If you don't like competition, seriously go download Steam, spend about 5-10 bucks (or nothing, as there's tons of free games there now) and be happy there. Seriously ****. You all will be happy, and we will be happy.

[D A T A]

weapon system is completely broken, it advantage mess linked weapons and stupid push, I GIVE S complete rebalance suggestion in my post

[East Indy]

As a poke in the eye of players who ultimately don't care about the spirit of the game and want to one-shot other players, it's fine with me.

[MisterFiveSeven]

For anyone that thinks ghost heat is fine...

http://mwomercs.com/...an-explanation/

^Found that for you.

Finally, to weapon hardpoint restrictions:

THEY ARE A BAD IDEA
THEY WILL LIMIT THE NUMBER OF VIABLE MECHS
PEOPLE WILL ONLY PLAY VARIANTS THAT GIVE THEM THE HPs THEY WANT
BAD IDEA IS BAD

PGI does a lot of dumb stuff, but their responses to this cry have been absolutely spot on.

[Royalewithcheese]

Taemien, on 11 September 2013 - 11:25 AM, said:

There was something similar in MW3. My first matches were rough. I couldn't hit anything. I couldn't understand that I had to lag shoot. So you know what I did? I asked. "Why can't I hit anything?" I was told I had to lag shoot. I didn't know what that was, so I asked. I was told to shoot ahead of the mech by 1-3 mech lengths because of latency. I learned, I got better, and eventually became a hardcore player because of it.

Ghost heat is a little easier to manage then lag shooting.

The fact that your analogy for ghost heat is broken netcode speaks volumes.

[Avalios]

Wow a few people actually voted to keep ghost heat? Small %, but i'm surprised anyone ever would consider that a good idea.

[Taemien]

Royalewithcheese, on 11 September 2013 - 03:49 PM, said:

The fact that your analogy for ghost heat is broken netcode speaks volumes.

Yes because I can actually overcome something like netcode. Most people here can't handle having their boat builds nerfed. Hell we have a large number of Skyrim players that can't handle people shooting back at them.

"Oh noes! People can shoot me in a multiplayer game. Oh noes, people can beat me in a game. Oh noes, I can lose! PGI needs to fix immediately. We casual carebears can't handle this. We need more tutorials and bots to shoot at! We need to do happy and caring things with other players, not compete. Everyone should get a win at the end of the day just for logging on."