70 replies to this topic

[BrockSamsonFW]

DerMaulwurf, on 05 November 2013 - 03:28 AM, said:

Two things:

1. The sustained DPS value on smurfi (still a great site) is useless. That is, because it cannot understand and calculate proper bracket fire. For example if you equip both a ER-PPC and 4 ML it will show a lower sustained dps than for either of these weapon systems on their own, although they are intended to be used separately in their respective range bands for sustained fire and only simultaneously in last-ditch alphas.

2. The Battlemaster's advantage is being able to load heat efficient ballistics on top of enough energy weapons to make your heat sinks glow. If you don't make use of that and only load up your crits with DHS that's your own failure.


I would be very careful with inducing sweeping changes just because some bad loadouts don't work out, when there are working ones available. People should be expected to build a mech to its strengths. Especially when the proposed fix to a non-issue poses the risk of creating real balance problems.

1: The 6xML example has no bracket issue. It's an apples-to-apples comparison that shows how little the damage scales with chassis tonnage.

2: Why should you have to take a ballistic weapon to be competitive? Why can't the lasers by themselves be competitive? The Battlemaster is the most heat efficient mech in the entire game and it should have to take ballistics to compete? What about mechs like the Awesome 8Q that CAN'T take ballistics? What are mechs like that supposed to do? Are those in the game for the purpose of being unplayable?

[BrockSamsonFW]

ShinVector, on 05 November 2013 - 03:56 AM, said:

Why are people overlooking the fact bigger mech can equip bigger engines with In engine DHS that run at true 2.0 ??
They should seriously make Assault Mech Online for you people.

My understanding is that only the 10 included heatsinks count as 2.0 dissipation heatsinks. The other heatsinks that you can put into the engine bay have the advantage of not taking up critical slots but I believe that they count as "external" 1.4 heatsinks for the purposes of heat dissipation.

Troutmonkey, on 05 November 2013 - 04:02 AM, said:

Wait, someone is seriously trying to say that Assault mechs are underpowered? How you not dropped at all lately!? It's all assaults and heavies, with a few broken spiders thrown in the mix. Weapons should not scale with the mechs. A light and an assault holding the same gun are firing the same gun, but the assault can hold bigger guns or more of the smaller ones (while also being able to take much more damage).

No, I am saying that LASERS are underpowered on heavy and assault mechs because they are all limited by the heat dissipation rate and not the quantity or size of the weapons you are taking. This is the entire point of this post. Larger mechs SHOULD be able to increase their damage by taking larger or more lasers.

[BrockSamsonFW]

LoPanShui, on 05 November 2013 - 01:36 PM, said:

Ballistics Damage vs Chassis Tonnage

A 30 ton Spider can only mount, at most, 4 MGs, 2 AC/2s, 1 AC/5 or 1 AC/10 on anything even remotely practical, and that is by the farthest definition of practical.

A 65 ton Jager can mount 6 MGs, 6 AC/2s, 4 AC/5s, 2 AC/10s, 2 AC/20s or 2 Gauss Rifles. As such a Jager can out DPS a Spider by at least 33%, and more like 75%.

Hi. This is MechWarrior, where there's this thing called balancing. A light Mech can move fast and is hard to hit, but is forced to use Lasers due to the exorbitant weight of ballistics and their ammo. In return, Lights tend to have much less range than heavies and overheat faster, forcing them to avoid prolonged engagements.

Heavies can mount many ballistics, which allows them much better heat management and range in return for being slower. They also mount lasers, usually as backup weapons for the heavier weapons the lights can't effectively use.

When the topic comes up that Lights are better at using light weapons than Heavies then the answer is YES. It's called diminishing returns. Everything about the Jenner is designed from the ground up to make the most use of lower weight lower crit slot weapons.

Heavies are better at using heavy weapons than Lights as well. Everything about the Heavy is designed from the ground up to make the most use out of heavy, high crit slot weapons.

If you're giving a Battlemaster 6 Medium Lasers and nothing else it's just as ludicrous as jamming an AC/20 into a Raven. It can work, and it's surprising, but you're failing to utilize the inherent advantages of the chassis as a whole.

Medium laser effectiveness caps out around 6. Diminishing returns after that make any medium laser after 6 less effective than the others simply due to heat sink worries. The 7th medium Laser is really only about 75% as effective, the 8th 50%, the 9th 25%. They do the same amount of damage, but even without ghost heat you've hit a threshold (19+ heat) that make the dissipation of the excess heat, even without the ghost heat mechanic, for those extra lasers more trouble than they're worth.

Because of this effect of diminishing returns the medium laser's effectiveness is soft capped at the 45 ton range. A Hunchback with 6 MLs can carry nearly the same number of heatsinks as a Battlemaster with 6 MLs, making taking them for the heavier Mech not only suboptimal, but rather ludicrous because the Assault can be much more effective utilizing weaponry designed for its class, which makes better use of its superior tonnage.

Essentially, you are correct in your hypothesis but incorrect in your conclusion. You assume that because Assaults make poor use of lasers that they should receive a buff when, in actuality, because assaults make poor use of lasers you should be taking different weaponry that's designed with that class in mind.

I can agree with most of this. Thanks for discussing the issue intelligently.

I guess the biggest issue that I have is what happens with the mechs that can't do that? I mean look at the brand new Jester that they are doing. It simply doesn't have the option to mount these other weapons and it's not the only mech with this limitation. Taking more lasers or larger lasers doesn't help that much because the you are either limited by ghost heat or heat dissipation rate, so what do you do?

Unfortunately right now the answer is that you use a different mech.

[ShinVector]

BrockSamsonFW, on 05 November 2013 - 09:50 PM, said:

My understanding is that only the 10 included heatsinks count as 2.0 dissipation heatsinks. The other heatsinks that you can put into the engine bay have the advantage of not taking up critical slots but I believe that they count as "external" 1.4 heatsinks for the purposes of heat dissipation.




No, I am saying that LASERS are underpowered on heavy and assault mechs because they are all limited by the heat dissipation rate and not the quantity or size of the weapons you are taking. This is the entire point of this post. Larger mechs SHOULD be able to increase their damage by taking larger or more lasers.

Thank you. I stand corrected and something wasn't really aware of.

Big mechs can carry can 4 to 6 Large lasers with enough heat sinks to keep them cool.
However since Ghost Heat boating them has proven to not as effective.

Any can't find the screen shot where I did 1.7K..
This used to be the damage potential of Quad Large Lasers with decent HSR before ghost heat. Pop tarting high alphas wasn't too popular then as well.

Edited by ShinVector, 05 November 2013 - 11:21 PM.

[Khobai]

Quote

Also not taking into account survivability and its role as an Assault

I kill battlemasters by myself in 15-20 seconds. But my entire team cant kill a Jenner in 20 seconds. Pretty sure the Jenner wins on survivability.

The reality of the game is that you have light mechs running out in the open evading damage like crazy while assault mechs are forced to cower behind rocks and poptart.

Because the game punishes assault mechs for being in the open, any assault mech that doesnt have jumpjets and cant poptart ends up being at an inherent disadvantage. Thats why the Highlander and Victor are the best two assaults by far.

Edited by Khobai, 06 November 2013 - 12:35 AM.

[ShinVector]

Khobai, on 06 November 2013 - 12:25 AM, said:

I kill battlemasters by myself in 15-20 seconds. But my entire team cant kill a Jenner in 20 seconds. Pretty sure the Jenner wins on survivability.

The reality of the game is that you have light mechs running out in the open evading damage like crazy while heavy and assault mechs cower behind rocks and poptart.

..... Dude this is all due to poor hit detection + lag in the game and less due to people ability to hit fast and small mechs.


I dare you try to kill any Battle master in 15-20 secs in a light mech !
It is possible but it will take a great deal of guts, situational awareness and guts.

This was take yesterday evening.. Only possible because at lower ELO levels, some assault mech pilots really suck.

[Khobai]

Quote

..... Dude this is all due to poor hit detection + lag in the game and less due to people ability to hit fast and small mechs.

Of course. Im not saying lights arnt underpowered compared to heavies/assaults. What im saying is that its stupid that lights are the tanks in this game while heavies/assaults are the ones hiding and popping out of cover. Its the complete opposite of how it should be. That was my point.

[DerMaulwurf]

BrockSamsonFW, on 05 November 2013 - 09:41 PM, said:

1: The 6xML example has no bracket issue. It's an apples-to-apples comparison that shows how little the damage scales with chassis tonnage.

2: Why should you have to take a ballistic weapon to be competitive? Why can't the lasers by themselves be competitive? The Battlemaster is the most heat efficient mech in the entire game and it should have to take ballistics to compete? What about mechs like the Awesome 8Q that CAN'T take ballistics? What are mechs like that supposed to do? Are those in the game for the purpose of being unplayable?

1. My intent was to point out the limits of the metric. I mentioned bracket fire as an easily understandable example where adding weapons results in increased damage in the game and a reduced "sustained dps" value at the same time. There are more such effects and summed up the displayed value is only weakly correlated to in-game performance.

2. I concede this point. The Awesome-8Q is in a very rough spot, as it can only increase its range, but cannot add much damage output. However you should evaluate if your proposal is only helping this kind of mech instead of lifting the performance of all assaults, which will leave the 8Q in a relatively weak spot.

[Troutmonkey]

BrockSamsonFW, on 05 November 2013 - 09:50 PM, said:

This is the entire point of this post. Larger mechs SHOULD be able to increase their damage by taking larger or more lasers.

They can. My Stalker can easily equip 6x LL and enough heats sinks to boot, and enough armour to soak return fire. My Jenner certainly cannot do that. Saying that Ghost Heat is the biggest problem for enery right now, and somehow the nerf against PPC has put them at the top energy weapon yet again. All of my Stalkers run x2 PPC plus Med lasers for backup, and Streaks for killing lights. Weapons should not be scaled on mech size, it's really a terrible idea.

[Nryrony]

BrockSamsonFW, on 03 November 2013 - 08:05 PM, said:

I wanted to bring up something that I haven't really seen mentioned yet. It's the fact that you don't really gain a proportional amount benefit as you put more tonnage and critical slots into a laser-based weapon configuration. I don't claim to be the best writer or number-cruncher for this but I think that I can at least make enough of a point to get people discussing the situation. Consider, for example...


A 35 ton Jenner (http://mwo.smurfy-ne...9719f2ca74690b5) with 6xML and 18 DHS. The weapon system requires 14 tons and 30 critical slots which results in a 30 damage alpha and 3.9 sustained DPS.

An 85 ton Battlemaser (http://mwo.smurfy-ne...01f497d15632952) with 6xML and 25 DHS. The weapon system requires 21 tons and 33 critical slots which results in a 30 damage alpha and 5.1 sustained DPS.


We've gone from a 35 ton chassis to an 85 ton chassis and increased our weapon configuration by 7 tons and 3 critical slots, and yet we've only gained 1.2 sustained DPS. We have gained nothing in terms of alpha, range, or any other weapon-based factor. So for a huge increase in chassis size and weapon tonnage we've gotten only a small increase in performance. Some of you may have noticed that we still have quite a few tons to work with though, so lets take advantage of this and increase the weapony a bit.


An 85 ton Battlemaster (http://mwo.smurfy-ne...e0f3304133ed338) with 4xLL and 22 DHS. The weapon system requires 32 tons and 26 critical slots which results in a 36 damage alpha and 4.57 sustained DPS.


Comparing once again to the 35 ton 3xML Jenner, our chassis is 50 tons heavier and is using weaponry that requires 18 more tons and 4 less critical slots. In return we get 0.67 more sustained DPS and a 6 point higher firepower value that we can't actually use because ghost heat forces us to split it into two lower-damage volleys. All we really gained is 180m of optimal and 360m of maximum range. This is an benefit indeed, but consider this...


A 35 ton Jenner (http://mwo.smurfy-ne...552d1c9270ebe0b) with 1xLL and 3xSL. The weapon system requires 12.5 tons and 23 critical slots which results in an 18 damage alpha and 3.84 sustained DPS.


Both mechs have the same max range and although the Jenner can only hit with half of it's damage at long range it's still a meaningful amount. It also does 0.73 less sustained DPS, so it's not as good as the Battlemaster there either, but it's not that big of a difference and we're comparing a 35 ton light mech with 12.5 tons and 23 critical slots worth of weaponry to an 85 ton assault mech with 32 tons and 26 critical slots of weaponry!

That is a HUGE difference in chassis weight and weaponry tonnage for a relatively minor difference in performance. In fact if you compare almost any chassis with almost any laser-only loadout you will get very similar results. Most configurations will have a 15 to 30 damage alpha and 3.5 to 4.5 sustained DPS and it doesn't matter which chassis you take or how many tons or critical slots you put into it.

The result of this relatively flat damage across all configurations is that lasers are either underpowered on heavy and assault mechs or overpowered on light and medium mechs. I think this is one factor in why external DHS have 1.4 instead of 2 heat dissipation. Most mechs carry roughly the same amount of heatsinks so a straight buff to dissipation rates would increase the DPS across all chassis weights equally and and the lighter mechs would become absurdly powerful.

So how do you fix this? I won't claim that these are the best solutions or that they have no drawbacks but a few ideas to begin the discussion could be...

• Scale the external heat dissipation rate by the mech tonnage. Instead of a flat 1.4 dissipation rate you could do something like 1.5 for a 50 ton mech, 1.75 for a 75 ton mech, and 2.0 for a 100 ton mech. For mechs lower than 40 tons they could have a the existing 1.4 as a minimum value or they could let it scale lower depending on how the balance works out. This is a very fast and easy change to make and the formula can be tweaked to give exactly the right balance across chassis weights.

• Decrease the heat generation but increase the weight of lasers. This would shift the limiting factor away from heatsink count (which is capped by flat critical space across all mechs) and make it more about the quantity and size of the weapons themselves.

• You could increase the dissipation rate but increase the weight of heatsinks. Instead of everyone being limited by critical slots and taking almost the same amount of heatsinks regardless of mech, smaller mechs would get the current dissipation rate with fewer heatsinks while larger mechs with extra tonnage could take more heatsinks and get a higher dissipation rate.

I'm sure some of you have some really great ideas that would work very well, so what does everyone think?

The problem isn't the lasers itself, but it is the heat a heatsink can cool.

Since you get a lot of heatsinks from your engine, every mech with a decent engine will be able to fire a certain amount of energy weapons, no matter if its a light or an assault.

However, since you can only put a very limited number of additional heat-sinks into your mech and their cooling ability is low at best, you simply won't be able to cool certain energy builds. Even 6 med-lasers are a challenge for a heavy/assault mech to cool.

In theory they should simply be able to mount 2-4 large lasers and additional energy weapons as med lasers. But heat-wise this will become very hard too cool.

This is an additional reason why ballistic weapons are favored by the current meta. Yet this is nothing new.

[Kunae]

What the whole point of this thread should be about is the correcting of DHS to a full 2.0 everywhere. We've had this idiocy of 1.4 DHS for a year now, and it only hurts heavies and assaults to have them there.

Make all DHS 2.0 and it will actually make the heavier mechs use of DHS where it should be.

[Krivvan]

BrockSamsonFW, on 05 November 2013 - 09:41 PM, said:

2: Why should you have to take a ballistic weapon to be competitive? Why can't the lasers by themselves be competitive? The Battlemaster is the most heat efficient mech in the entire game and it should have to take ballistics to compete?

OF COURSE!

And you also seem to believe that there's only one kind of energy weapon in the game. Assault mechs can take Large Lasers (I do agree with others that the ghost heat threshold for them is too low) and PPCs.

What you're saying is like saying "Why can't small lasers by themselves be competitive on Assault mechs? That just isn't balanced right?" It's the same problem with people insisting that LRMs should work on Light mechs.

Edited by Krivvan, 06 November 2013 - 07:52 AM.

[Mechteric]

Looking at only the weapons loadout of a mech without also considering its physical size, total armor, and maximum speed seems pretty useless. Battlemaster != Jenner. Next!

[Hillslam]

I think you can forget about anything being changed to unnerf the Assaults. People without the memory of CB won't know that its actually been at the top end that the power curved has been progressively flattened. Each new feature benefited the mediums and especially the lights more.

As it should - PGI has to do everything it can to push the user base down into the medium and light chassises to align to lore and keep a variety on the battlefield.

So forget them rolling back any ofthe long standing assault nerfs.

what IS an issue is the problem with energy boats. They are gimped atm due to ghost heat, and that has nothing to do with chassis weight.

[LeShadow]

BrockSamsonFW, on 04 November 2013 - 10:59 PM, said:

When was the last time you saw an Awesome that was competitive? When was the last time you even saw an Awesome at all?

Saw one yesterday. Murdered it horribly even though it's team was winning.

Err, on topic: While I'd agree that DPS isn't a very good indicator, it does scale about the same as max. heat threshold, which is important. So it's probably the wrong variable to look at, but that doesn't really invalidate the point, IMHO.

Troutmonkey, on 05 November 2013 - 04:02 AM, said:

A light and an assault holding the same gun are firing the same gun, but the assault can hold bigger guns or more of the smaller ones (while also being able to take much more damage).

Actually, they usually can't hold more smaller guns. That's kind of the point of this hardpoint system, you know.

Edited by LeShadow, 06 November 2013 - 09:40 AM.

[stjobe]

BrockSamsonFW, on 03 November 2013 - 08:05 PM, said:

• Scale the external heat dissipation rate by the mech tonnage. Instead of a flat 1.4 dissipation rate you could do something like 1.5 for a 50 ton mech, 1.75 for a 75 ton mech, and 2.0 for a 100 ton mech. For mechs lower than 40 tons they could have a the existing 1.4 as a minimum value or they could let it scale lower depending on how the balance works out. This is a very fast and easy change to make and the formula can be tweaked to give exactly the right balance across chassis weights.

No, light 'mechs get short-changed on heat cap and dissipation already, due to them often having sub-250 rated engines and therefore not 10 full 2.0 DHS.

A 195-rated engine (which I still run in some of my Commandos) come with 7 full 2.0 DHS, then I have to add another three 1.4 DHS to that, for a total of (7 * 2.0 + 3 * 1.4) 18.2 heat, instead of the 20 I'd get if the obligatory first 10 heat sinks were all true 2.0.

It's a small difference, petty even (and it's petty of PGI to leave it in), but it's irritating enough.

And now you want to lower lights' heat cap and dissipation even further?

Hell no. If anything, those first ten heat sinks should be 2.0 no matter if they come with the engine or have to be purchased afterwards. In fact, all DHS should be 2.0, the myth of the 4-second Jenner has been thoroughly disproven to everyone but PGI, together with the 6 MG Spider myth.

[Deathlike]

stjobe, on 06 November 2013 - 08:45 AM, said:

[/list]No, light 'mechs get short-changed on heat cap and dissipation already, due to them often having sub-250 rated engines and therefore not 10 full 2.0 DHS.

A 195-rated engine (which I still run in some of my Commandos) come with 7 full 2.0 DHS, then I have to add another three 1.4 DHS to that, for a total of (7 * 2.0 + 3 * 1.4) 18.2 heat, instead of the 20 I'd get if the obligatory first 10 heat sinks were all true 2.0.

It's a small difference, petty even (and it's petty of PGI to leave it in), but it's irritating enough.

And now you want to lower lights' heat cap and dissipation even further?

Hell no. If anything, those first ten heat sinks should be 2.0 no matter if they come with the engine or have to be purchased afterwards. In fact, all DHS should be 2.0, the myth of the 4-second Jenner has been thoroughly disproven to everyone but PGI, together with the 6 MG Spider myth.

Well, the only engines I used for the Commandos are the 200XL, 225XL, and 235XL. I didn't bother getting the 210XL (bought the 200XL only) since I didn't need it and I was recycling engines from the BJs. The heat issue is annoying, but considering only the Commando and Locust are primarily affected, it is a very small section of Lights affected...

However, I did recently convert someone to liking Commandos, on a 2v1 (2 Locusts vs 1 Commando) and I survived the double team outright (unfortunately lost the match miserably).

Oh Lolcusts.

Edited by Deathlike, 06 November 2013 - 09:07 AM.

[stjobe]

Deathlike, on 06 November 2013 - 09:06 AM, said:

Well, the only engines I used for the Commandos are the 200XL, 225XL, and 235XL. I didn't bother getting the 210XL (bought the 200XL only) since I didn't need it and I was recycling engines from the BJs.

200: 8 x 2.0 DHS, deficit: 1.2 heat
225: 9 x 2.0 DHS, deficit: 0.6 heat
235: 9 x 2.0 DHS, deficit: 0.6 heat

Either way you slice it, you're short-changing the lightest 'mechs for no good reason.

Deathlike, on 06 November 2013 - 09:06 AM, said:

The heat issue is annoying, but considering only the Commando and Locust are primarily affected, it is a very small section of Lights affected...

Yes, as if the two lightest 'mechs really needed pointless petty nerfs like this...

There's no justification for not removing this petty artificial limit, at least for the 10 first heat sinks.

[Krivvan]

Deathlike, on 06 November 2013 - 09:06 AM, said:

However, I did recently convert someone to liking Commandos, on a 2v1 (2 Locusts vs 1 Commando) and I survived the double team outright (unfortunately lost the match miserably).

Locusts man. I remember being completely pissed at myself for losing to 5 Locusts in my Jenner (did take 4 of them down though...)

[Deathlike]

stjobe, on 06 November 2013 - 09:17 AM, said:

200: 8 x 2.0 DHS, deficit: 1.2 heat
225: 9 x 2.0 DHS, deficit: 0.6 heat
235: 9 x 2.0 DHS, deficit: 0.6 heat

Either way you slice it, you're short-changing the lightest 'mechs for no good reason.

Well, I believe the speed cap is necessary since they have yet to get that desired engine upgrade completed which very likely requires UI 2.0 to come online first...

Quote

Yes, as if the two lightest 'mechs really needed pointless petty nerfs like this...

There's no justification for not removing this petty artificial limit, at least for the 10 first heat sinks.

TBH, I think they should change the DHS rule to allow the external HS requirement (for < 250 engines) to be added to the engine, thus saving crits and allowing full cooling benefits to exist. You could still put the SHS and Clan DHS in the legs as you wish though...

Krivvan, on 06 November 2013 - 09:18 AM, said:

Locusts man. I remember being completely pissed at myself for losing to 5 Locusts in my Jenner (did take 4 of them down though...)

People keep asking for tonnage limits and use the Lolcust as a "tonnage saving" mechanic for tonnage limits and right now... they are so hopeless compared to anything bigger than itself. It's worse than Commandos back in the day where ECM ruled.

Edited by Deathlike, 06 November 2013 - 10:07 AM.