Sharp Spikes, on 01 November 2013 - 05:17 PM, said:
Do you need to lay four apples on a table and count them on fingers to know that 2 and 2 apples = 4 apples?
For example: heat limit with 10 DHS = 50, with elite heat containment it's 60. heat dissipation speed with elite coolrun is 2*1.15 = 2.3 HPS. 2* AC/20 alpha strike produces 23.52 points of heat with heat penalty and has reload time of 4 seconds. 23.52*3-8*2.3=52.16<60
Question: Will Heat Scale prevent Jagerbomb from being effective?
Answer: No. On most maps Jagerbomb will still be able to deliver 120 pts of pinpoint damage before it overheats.
Note that one doesn't need to «implement and observe» it in game, one needs to have arithmetic skills of a third-grader to see this. So it is quite possible to see some ideas being non-viable even without implementing them and observing the results.
Agreed, it is possible to answer a specific question like the one you posed with the raw figures. Looking at the raw figures will, as you say, let a person of minimal or better intelligence determine how many times a specific loadout can be alpha-striked without overheat without the need to load up the game and play.
What it won't tell you, and this, I'm afraid, is where I'll have to agree with Merz on this one (assuming that this was the point he was trying to make) is whether changing how the raw numbers interact would make a difference to things like immersion and, dare I say it, fun. These latter two factors are subjective and personal to the player, and as such, are difficult to quantify or present in any algorithmic or formulaic way.
Bearing this in mind, I am of the opinion that the devs should, as Merz suggests, implement whatever changes they see fit and see how they play out with the numbers and formulae being available to those in the community who want them. Where I disagree with Merz is in his suggestion (and, indeed, PGIs current practice) that such changes should be implemented directly in the LIVE ENVIRONMENT. This is what a Public Test Server implementation is intended for! Bugfixes are one thing, and pushing them direct to live is AOK by me, but anything that is intended or likely to change the meta should be play-tested before going live.
Sharp Spikes, on 01 November 2013 - 05:17 PM, said:
You try to portray it like there are no more people who have «valid concerns» here, like anyone who criticize PGI's decisions «seek to do personal harm or embarrassment to individual developers and the company as a whole, and openly express desire for the product to do poorly.» It is untrue.
Besides there is very little desire (if any) in the community to see this particular game to do poorly. There is great desire to see good BT based mech sim, delivered either by PGI or by someone else.
A lot of people, I dare to say vast majority of players want significant changes to the meta and understand that changes are required to achieve balanced gameplay. For example, at the peak of poptart-fest the very people who used jump-sniper builds prayed for PGI to do something to stop it. Cause it was (and still is) boring.
I do not remember any forum-wide campaign against any particular weapon nerf or buff, do you?
You can try to use «Heat Scale»-induced fray as an argument but it is a different matter. «Heat Scale» is universally (sans all ten #FFFFFF knights) despised because it doesn't do what it supposed to do and has unintended consequences that make the game less balanced.
Yes, and No... I think there is, perhaps, an element of language barrier getting in the way here. There are, and always have been, forum posters raising valid and genuine concerns in a constructive and positive way. In the earlier days, these were such a majority of "negative" posts that it was a refreshing change from many other game fora. As time has progressed the percentage of "negative" posts that have retained this constructive approach has diminished. They remain the majority, but the number of posts with distructive undertones (and I am not, for one moment, suggesting that this is something you are guilty of) has increased enough that they are becoming noticable and potentially damaging to the game and its playerbase.
And as for there being no forum-wide campaign against a specific weapon nerf/buff aside from ghost-heat, there may not be anything else (so far) that evokes that level of displeasure, but I don't think this is what Merz was trying to say. I think the point he was trying to make is that the tone of the response to any changes the devs make (by a minority of the forum posters, to be sure, but still a noticeable minority) is heading towards a level where the devs may be reluctant to think outside the box and make any risky changes, no matter how beneficial they could pan out, for fear of eliciting even greater levels of vitriol here.
And you're right that the response to Ghost-heat is pretty-much the only forum-wide campaign we have seen in response to a weapon change the devs have made, but there is a very understandable reason why this one change deserves so much attention when compared to others. Ghost-heat was a pretty unique change, in as much as it hit a wide variety of weapons simultaneously. There have been outcries over other weapon nerfs (most recently that I've noticed is Gauss-charging), but because they only affect a single weapon / class of weapon, the number of affected forum posters is going to be less, resulting in a reduced outcry. Are you suggesting that such concerns should be considered any less valid? (That being said, are you seriously trying to suggest that you haven't noticed any form of outcry about 3pv???)
Sharp Spikes, on 01 November 2013 - 05:17 PM, said:
You wasted used 3 large paragraphs above to depict critically-minded forum members as a scum led by «politically-motivated brosefs seeking to cash in on the rage's currency to their own ends», and discarded my feedback because I can count without use of fingers and willing to learn not only by trial-and-error method. Your opinion is quite clear: «Those who object are wrong. Because they are bad.»
Ok, no problem, but it means that any critical remark automatically makes a person who made it a bad person. You know, the very act of coming to this forums means that he/she became a part of vocal minority that lives on an island and quite possibly not a target demographic of the game...
So, you consider that it is not worthy to speak to us or to listen us, what kind of «signal/noise» ratio are you talking about now? We are the noise, what is the signal?
Stats from the servers? We do not «interfere» with them. And, by the way, stats show that SRMs are rarely used, so they are underpowered, right?
And here I disagree (although it is probably just because I'm reading it in a different way)...
If a user is complaining on the forums over something (s)he has experienced, that's fine by me. I'll even go so far as to say where the change has been detailed and the poster has run the figures themselves without experiencing the change in live play, they too have a right to voice their concern. But what I do not agree with is posters who have seen others on the forum berating a dev / change and have taken it upon themselves to add their voice in a "...what (s)he said!" manner, seemingly just to conform to a given groupthink.
Sharp Spikes, on 01 November 2013 - 05:17 PM, said:
Ah, that lil' qute personal attack in the end. Like a cherry on top of a cake. You know, I was horribly tempted to answer you in the same fashion, but decided to ignore this obvious provocation. Try harder.
And again, I agree... Having a pop at your sig was a cheap shot! As a result of seeing your sig on previous posts, I've looked at the site. It's an interesting (dare I say, exciting) concept. That being said, it's neither BattleTech, nor MechWarrior. Therefore, unless your sig is meant, at least part, in jest or as friendly encouragement to PGI to improve (which, to be honest, is how I read it), then Merz does have at least half a point to make here!
[Edited to correct spelling/grammar in a couple of places... there are probably a few I've missed. Go easy on me, caffeine levels dwindling!]
Edited by Galil Nain, 01 November 2013 - 10:33 PM.
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