Joseph Mallan, on 09 December 2013 - 06:49 AM, said:
I will say it again.
10 seconds was for both team to do everything in a "turn"!
That included vent heat
Me
Move
Fire
Physical
Vent
Enemy
Move
Fire
Physical
Vent
10 seconds
What we have is
Move (constant)
fire fire fire
10 seconds to vent!
What bothers me is that
a group of people thought this was perfectly fine!
It would still be on the drawing board if I had been in that meeting!
There's nothing wrong with this. Moving from a TT game to a FPS game this was what needed to happen.
The problem is that it just wasn't done very well.
In the TT game there was rigid balance. Energy weapons were powerful but restrictive. ACs were less powerful but unrestrictive (long range, work at short range, non-heat restrictive). Turn-based warfare also made lots of ammo senseless because the game never went for enough turns to use all that much.
In MWO? We see a turnaround. ACs are clearly the best weapons on offer despite their weight and critical restrictions. The ability to fire continually makes large amounts of ammo sensible. This means that "backup weapons" like Medium Lasers etc are no longer there to create heat problems for ballistic heavy mechs. One ton of ammo is a far better choice because you no longer have the turn-based gameplay to provide a logical upper limit to the amount of ammo you can use.
We see the same exponential growth in the viability of all ammo-using weapons. Exponential growth in the viability of energy weapons is undesirable because of light mechs and pinpoint. So we actually see a degradation every time Energy weapons get powerful. Beam durations instead of pinpoint, heat shuffling maneuvers clearly designed to hit energy weapons harder than ballistics, etc.
Why do I say that? Well:
There's the whole pinpoint Vs over time Vs spread damage (srms, MGs, LRMs) debate. It's been done to death so I doubt I need to explain it. A change that favoured ACs.
Then there's DHS. When they increased armour, they increased AC ammo amounts. I don't have a problem with that in isolation. However, then they added Double Heat Sinks they chose to go with 1.4x on all non-engine heatsinks. Firstly this favoured ACs because all the heatsinks you need are pretty much on the engine. It effectively closed the gap between ballistics and energy weapons on "critical slots". Secondly, it created a disparity between ballistics and energy because Enegry Weapons effectively had their ammo reduced by this move when ACs got an increase.
Then there's Ghost Heat.
Now.
1 ER Large Laser = 5 tons. This is significant. Energy weapons are lighter than their ammo-using counterparts for lower DPS. An AC5 weighs an extra 3 tons BUT gets a DPS increase of 1.21 to compensate. 8 tons of Large Laser is worth 3.39 DPS where the AC5 is 3.33.
So it's actually pretty close. 2 AC5's is worth about 3 Large Lasers. In DPS AND tonnage (once you consider the ammo/hs needed to power each it's about right). One combination will overheat you, the other will run out of ammo eventually.
Until you add friggin Ghost Heat. The pair of AC5's can fire continuously and not overheat with a 250 motor and DHS. Easily.
The question is what happens here? The Energy mech now has to pop in and out of cover to control their heat while the AC mech can just keep piling it in. The problem with this is that the mech popping in and out of cover is ALWAYS the one that takes the most damage when both are piloted by skilled players.
So Ghost heat now creates a serious disparity between 2 previously "fairly even" setups. Not on paper,
in the game. In the game is where it counts.
Ghost heat isn't a "bad idea", it's actually a rather clever one. But it's
poorly implemented. It's all very arbitrary and rushed and based entirely on an "on paper" theory that disintegrates as soon as it hits combat.
Now. Thaoretically I can drop one of my ER Large Lasers and take a PPC to avoid ghost heat. The resulting heat is as close to the same with a slight increase in DPS. BUT I have to find 2 tons and a critical slot to do that. Move down in weapons? It's an
energy hardpoint. The next step down is the medium pulse laser for 2 tons or a medium for 1 ton. 3-4 tons extra and no hardpoints to fill. Sigh.
So I'm left trying to find more ways to get rid of heat. So, I move to an XL engine which saves me tons AND allows more heat sinks to be hidden on the motor. So not only do I have to have a mech that can't keep up in the damage stakes, I also have to take a mech that is, by default, much more fragile through the XL engine. DHS aren't enough because in their infinite wisdom they made DHS 1.4x meaning engine heat sinks are more valuable AND they allow me to have an extra heat sink of 2 through weight or through criticals through shoving it on the engine.
On the huge mechs where you can actually afford to be putting in a STD 320 where you can hide 2 HS on the engine? That's great. Smaller mechs? Nope. XL or be able to barely cool yourself in Terra Therma or Caustic.
It's become patently clear that the devs are either incapable of considering cause and effect or simply lack the time to do so in the development process.
So time after time after time we see where shifts have simply pounded energy weapons into the ground. THAT is why ERPPCs are too hot. Because the devs took step after step which eventually made it necessary. The simple fact is that the PPC was only ever so prolific because of pinpoint damage. Every other energy weapon, pound for pound, has a higher DPS.
PPC/ERPPC DPS = 2.5
7 tons of large laser/ER large laser = 2.968 DPS.
7 tons of Large Pulse = 2.75 DPS.
7 tons of Medium Pulse = 5.84 DPS.
7 tons of Medium Laser = 8.75 DPS.
And so on.
Players did not make 5 PPC stalkers.
Devs made 5 PPC stalkers. They slowly but surely drove players to it. Just like they've driven everything to the "new meta" of 2 AC 2 PPC pop tarts.
Because PPCS, ER or otherwise, WERE NEVER THE ISSUE. They had problems and needed change, I always thought they were OP, but it never should have been as severe as it was and it never should have been expected to fix any game problems to begin with.
The sooner the devs stop reacting to symptoms and start fixing the underlying problems the better off we will all be.
Edited by Greyboots, 12 December 2013 - 03:43 PM.
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