179 replies to this topic

[Bishop Steiner]

Trauglodyte, on 06 January 2014 - 11:50 AM, said:

I'm alright with the PPC the way it is now. I do remember it splashing back even during hte first few weeks of Open Beta but it was still useful. ACs need some burst fire, though, so that they have some sort of consequence. The GR being the only physical single hit weapon is fine with its drawbacks. I figure, not being able to do any damage under 90m and paying a massive amount of heat is enough of a hinderance on the PPC.

I think the ACS are fine as is, honestly. The AC20 hits hard, but weighs a butload, has a horrible projectile speed and range and takes forever to cooldown. The AC10 has better speed, RoF and range, but does half the damage for only 2 tons less weight. The AC2 is kept in check by it's atrocious heat build up, and the 5 is nice, but not really dominating in any way, it's more the ultimate utility weapon, kinda like medium lasers.

Add in ammo requirement, and the part were you need some degree of skill to track and hit unlike Lasers, and i don't see the huge deal. (after all you miss with an ac20, you got a long wait to try again). Plus, burst fire just makes it deal damage like the lasers, which is specifically what PGI is trying to avoid, by making each weapon class deal damage uniquely. I like that.

[Trauglodyte]

Yeah. Admittedly, it is difficult, though, dealing with so much front loaded damage. Turning a corner and having your arm taken off by a PPCx2/AC5x2 mech is disconcerting. Is it my fault for being there? Maybe. But, the loadouts that we're allowed make it so that a lot of mechs are in trouble once you're in the cross hairs. Your beloved Hunchy isn't going to last more than 2 salvoes against that same Highlander build. Short of nerfing JJs, which is needed, and making PPCs and ACs spread more damage, what do you do? They're unwilling to touch convergence and the auto lock Arms to Torso makes convergence non-existant anyway.

[Drunk Canuck]

All I can say that is if PGI got off their duffs and nerfed the heat pool down 50%, high alpha builds would be gone, the need for ghost heat and heat penalties could be either reduced or even removed completely. Their inability to follow through with something I have said numerous times on their forums, shows their lack of interest in properly balancing the game. Getting rid of those meta builds would be a positive for the future of the game and would really allow for proper balance between Inner Sphere and Clan Mech's in the future. With their current plans for Clan implementation, they is far less customization with Clan Mech's and that if they really want players to use stock and more balanced builds rather then just sniper and high alpha builds and even promote the use of brawling, they should cut the heat pool in half and revert all weapons to canon heat generation numbers and remove all penalties. Firing two PPC's should put you near the limit of your heat threshold, not half way.

[Roland]

ManusDei, on 10 November 2013 - 06:07 PM, said:

Apologize for the long rant but it needs to be said.

I prefer to play according to my style and not what the communist regime would like me to build. I've played in many organized groups and some are more organized than others. One common theme reappears over and over ...group leaders believe they can be the best clan, merc corp, group whatever by using meta builds in competitive 12 man drops. Square peg, round hole.

I think that one thing that must be noted here is that there really isn't any such thing as a "meta build". For any given configuration of a game, certain builds will be most effective. This is just the nature of any game. Part of what you seem to be describing is more aptly described as a "flavor of the month" build.

These are builds which happen to be effective in the given meta environment of the game, and thus become popular.

The difference I'm talking about here is subtle, but important.... Certain aspects of the fundamental game mechanics will favor certain types of builds, and certain types of tactics. This meta environment isn't something which you can change. It is what it is, based on how the game is made.

What can be changed is how you personally deal with that meta-environment. Certainly there may be multiple different options for making an effective build (assuming the game is well designed). Different tactics can potentially leverage different builds, and the result can potentially be equally effective.

However, there are certain things which must be considered in this regard:

• An organized team must be able to function coherently. That means that there must be some unified perspective in terms of tactics and strategy. This will, in turn, mean that a drop commander will have specific requirements for a given pilot. Now, back when we played competitively, there was a high degree of trust between our DC's and our pilots, so these requirements basically came down to a description of capabilities, and the specifics of the mech loadout were left up to the pilot... because everyone had competently developed mechs which could effectively fulfill the role they were required. But it must be accepted that if you are playing in an organized group, you can't just do whatever you want. Hopefully, what you want to do is in line with what the drop commander needs you to do... but no competent team is going to play in a serious match where they just say, "Hay guyz! Just do whatever feels right!" That's not organized play.
  
• The reason that certain builds become common is that they are in fact effective in the current meta environment. Likewise, certain builds are just trash. A good build won't make a bad pilot great, and a bad build won't make a great pilot bad.. but for any given pilot, no matter what his skills, certain aspects of the game's design will impose restrictions on the effectiveness of any particular mech design.

So, what we can then gather from this is that you you need to be able to effectively fill some particular role, and the better the team the more demanding they will be on how well you fulfill that role. You can't do whatever you want, and you can't take substandard configurations for a given role just because you think they are neat-o.

For instance, if you are being tasked with long range fire support, then you can't bring a bunch of short range weapons. Why? Because the drop commander is going to be leading the team in a particular way, and trying to force a particular fight. If the team is specifically trying to position itself for a long range engagement, and you can only operate at short range, then you are a detriment to the lance (assuming you are specifically being tasked as a close range support mech designed to hang back until needed).

Likewise, for any given role, certain builds are simply better than others. Now, even in its fairly unbalanced state, there tend to be multiple options for a given role, but there are also builds which are clearly bad. To demonstrate the point, we can look at a build decision which really has no subjective component; double heat sinks. In essentially every single case, if you are running single heat sinks your mech is straight up inferior compared to one running double heat sinks. There is no tradeoff component. It's just BAD.

There are various weapons in the game, and configurations of those weapons, which really do fall into the same category. They are simply BAD builds. An issue with this, once you get to that level of complexity, is that you start to get into evaluations which may have (or are at least perceived to have) more of a subjective component. The problem is, a lot of the time the idea that it's subjective stems entirely from ignorance on the part of the observer. They THINK that a given build is effective, but it's not, and can be effectively proven as such. Various weapons and builds fall into this category, and folks run them because they don't really understand the game to the degree where they can see how inferior those builds are. Often, they are misguided by focusing on incorrect metrics, or not really fully considering what is going on. For instance, an LBX 10 will result in high damage numbers... but it's mathematically an inferior weapon. You can clearly prove that it is going to be less effective at the only thing that matters, which is killing mechs. But many users continue to use them, because "they do well with them", failing to really do a full comparative analysis of those builds against other alternatives. We've even seen folks post videos that they believed showed them using LBX effectively, which actually clearly showed the inherent ineffectiveness of those weapons. They simply weren't noticing the right things.. For instance, they were killing targets in the video, but it was taking FOREVER to do so. To the extent that almost any alternative build would have killed the target sooner, and really the only reason they didn't die to the target was because the target was incompetent and running an even worse build.

So, the long and short of it is that no matter how hard you wish for a build to be effective, if wishes were horses then beggars would ride. There is an actual science to building mechs, and as a result some builds will be good and some will be bad.

[Bishop Steiner]

Drunk Canuck, on 06 January 2014 - 01:23 PM, said:

All I can say that is if PGI got off their duffs and nerfed the heat pool down 50%, high alpha builds would be gone, the need for ghost heat and heat penalties could be either reduced or even removed completely. Their inability to follow through with something I have said numerous times on their forums, shows their lack of interest in properly balancing the game. Getting rid of those meta builds would be a positive for the future of the game and would really allow for proper balance between Inner Sphere and Clan Mech's in the future. With their current plans for Clan implementation, they is far less customization with Clan Mech's and that if they really want players to use stock and more balanced builds rather then just sniper and high alpha builds and even promote the use of brawling, they should cut the heat pool in half and revert all weapons to canon heat generation numbers and remove all penalties. Firing two PPC's should put you near the limit of your heat threshold, not half way.

seriously? Um, I was here with cool running PPC and no ghost heat. The Alpha Meta was WORSE.

What they need is to nerf heat threshold, and buff the DHS to true 2.0 heat dispersion.

[Bishop Steiner]

Trauglodyte, on 06 January 2014 - 12:44 PM, said:

Yeah. Admittedly, it is difficult, though, dealing with so much front loaded damage. Turning a corner and having your arm taken off by a PPCx2/AC5x2 mech is disconcerting. Is it my fault for being there? Maybe. But, the loadouts that we're allowed make it so that a lot of mechs are in trouble once you're in the cross hairs. Your beloved Hunchy isn't going to last more than 2 salvoes against that same Highlander build. Short of nerfing JJs, which is needed, and making PPCs and ACs spread more damage, what do you do? They're unwilling to touch convergence and the auto lock Arms to Torso makes convergence non-existant anyway.

Disagree again.

What is needed is directional JJs, not nerfing the already nerfed JJs once again. Will the MetaRapists continue to abuse it? Yes, but Directional JJs will give people like me who are pilots first and not pixel punchers, a reason to mount JJs, and brawl, and such.

And further nerfing weapons is not the answer. Heck the HBK is supposed ot be in trouble if it blindly stumbles across a HGN. Be glad we have double armor so that it lasts as long as it does.

Until PGI gets the Memo, and introduces Sized Hard Points and Situation CoF, these problems will persist until all weapons are nerfed into DPS paper cut duals. And when that happens, me and most of the serious players will be gone.

Sized Hardpoints actually increase role and build diversity, and can be massaged to make any chassis viable and attractive... for certain roles. The current customization is the heart of the inbalance issues.

As for CoF, yes the so called skilled players will howl... but if they had real skill, they would learn how to compensate. Instead they want to brag about how mousing over a pixel is skill.

A situational CoF on the other hand (Jumping, (Up AND Down, though reduced on the downside), Moving 75% of max speed or higher, beyond optimal range and when running high heat) means its not simple point and mash. I don't care what gyros you have, a combat vehicle on flank speed over rough terrain is not as accurate as one firing stationary from defilade. You should have accuracy issues. Jumping should be obvious. Heat is supposed to fry your targetign system, hence accuracy is reduced. But the range is the biggy. All weapons (save missiles) have between 2 and 3 times their TT ranges. And I am fine with this. But those TT ranges should be their optimal range. Out to double range there should be a minor CoF such that a center of mass shot might tag a side torso or head instead, but that head shots would be tricky, as they should be. At triple range (aka the ballistic issue) the Cof should increase such that a center mass shot on a Commando has a small chance of missing, and a huge target like an Atlas, might get arm hit. And one has a chance of a total miss on a head shot or arm shot at that range. Why? Because variables DO happen.

And yeah, i think the accuracy issues should stack, at least to some degree. When I Highlander can make a running jump shot with a Gauss at near 2 kliks and headshot another moving mech, it's just ridiculous. A sniper should be able to make that shot, but jsut like any true precision shot, one should be nerfed by being near immobile.

Real skill is knowing the variables, and making the most of them.

Also, such a scenario actually gives a very GOOD and easy way to implement the Clan targeting computer as it would simply need to reduce the effects of situational CoF.

[Roland]

Bishop Steiner, on 06 January 2014 - 01:38 PM, said:

What they need is to nerf heat threshold, and buff the DHS to true 2.0 heat dispersion.

To be clear, you realize that for the vast majority of builds, buffing DHS external to the engine to 2.0 dissipation is going to have a fairly trivial impact on the actual heat efficiency of the mech, right?

I mean, I see tons of folks clamoring for DHS to be full doubles, but given that the in-engine heat sinks are already doubles, on most mechs the change simply wouldn't actually do much.

Don't get me wrong, for that exact reason I'm baffled as to why they would have bothered making them only 1.4... but I think anyone who expects making the external sinks be 2.0 is going to result in some significant change hasn't really done the math.

[Roland]

Bishop Steiner, on 06 January 2014 - 01:52 PM, said:

Yes, but Directional JJs will give people like me who are pilots first and not pixel punchers, a reason to mount JJs, and brawl, and such.

Eh, recall that we have actually already had other mechwarrior titles with directional JJ's. The combat ended up being much more akin to what you see in an armored core type game.

JJ's then become effectively required equipment, even moreso than they are now, because they then dramatically improve ANY mech's ability to fulfill ANY role. So, effectively, you make any mech not capable of carrying JJ's useless.

Additionally, I think that you are mistaken in your belief that it would somehow harm pilots who focus on their gunnery. I suspect that the opposite effect would take place, and you'd see a dramatically wider gap between folks who were good shots, and folks who were bad... because everyone will become harder to hit, so folks who are bad shots will just become that much worse.

Honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about directional JJ's. I believe that Thomas said they already have some of the coding for it in there (or perhaps it was someone in closed beta who discovered the configuration data for them). They may have a good effect, but it could also be bad... all we know is that it would have a fairly profound impact on the overall balance.

[FupDup]

Bishop Steiner, on 06 January 2014 - 01:38 PM, said:

seriously? Um, I was here with cool running PPC and no ghost heat. The Alpha Meta was WORSE.

What they need is to nerf heat threshold, and buff the DHS to true 2.0 heat dispersion.

Nerfing the heat capacity is a good idea, but DHS being only 2.0 isn't quite good enough. Basically, right now we have a high capacity and slow dissipation. What you're asking for is low capacity and slow dissipation, which massively nerfs the daylights out of energy builds. The current dissipation of a "Truedub" is 0.2 per second, which is not even remotely enough to compensate for a low capacity. I'd say that the cooling per DHS (mounted anywhere) needs to be at least 0.3-0.4 to keep energy builds viable with lowered capacity.

[Prezimonto]

gavilatius, on 05 January 2014 - 04:48 AM, said:

incentives to not use builds and weapons used by the majority

Lower weapon costs on the market
Lower repair costs for mechs
Lower ammunition prices
Better experience bonuses

Done, problem solved.

You need to tie out of game benefits to in-game benefits or it won't work. If everything in the game added to a mech's total battle value and you allowed those numbers to change (weekly or even monthly) based on the market then you'd actually get traction with changing how people play.

Look at the failed implementation of Repair and Rearm. Because it had no in-game effects tied to it, it quickly became broken. This wouldn't be a problem if the game had deeper play, if it was a true MMO with a real setting and economy but it's not. RnR would be much better if it was tied to in-game play as well, but I doubt they'll ever do it.

[Lightfoot]

True, but find something new that works really well and everyone will whine for it to be nerfed and it's the new meta that's ruining the game. That's how those metas start.

[Bishop Steiner]

FupDup, on 06 January 2014 - 02:37 PM, said:

Nerfing the heat capacity is a good idea, but DHS being only 2.0 isn't quite good enough. Basically, right now we have a high capacity and slow dissipation. What you're asking for is low capacity and slow dissipation, which massively nerfs the daylights out of energy builds. The current dissipation of a "Truedub" is 0.2 per second, which is not even remotely enough to compensate for a low capacity. I'd say that the cooling per DHS (mounted anywhere) needs to be at least 0.3-0.4 to keep energy builds viable with lowered capacity.

actually, true 2.0 DHS would be double the dissipation of a single heat sink. Which is how they are supposed to be. And the threshold has always been static in battletech. Hence it gives a slight buff to reasonable sustained fire, but severely impacts the high alpha/overheat crowd even more.

[Bishop Steiner]

Roland, on 06 January 2014 - 02:21 PM, said:

Eh, recall that we have actually already had other mechwarrior titles with directional JJ's. The combat ended up being much more akin to what you see in an armored core type game.

JJ's then become effectively required equipment, even moreso than they are now, because they then dramatically improve ANY mech's ability to fulfill ANY role. So, effectively, you make any mech not capable of carrying JJ's useless.

Additionally, I think that you are mistaken in your belief that it would somehow harm pilots who focus on their gunnery. I suspect that the opposite effect would take place, and you'd see a dramatically wider gap between folks who were good shots, and folks who were bad... because everyone will become harder to hit, so folks who are bad shots will just become that much worse.

Honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about directional JJ's. I believe that Thomas said they already have some of the coding for it in there (or perhaps it was someone in closed beta who discovered the configuration data for them). They may have a good effect, but it could also be bad... all we know is that it would have a fairly profound impact on the overall balance.

I honestly feel they would not hurt things. I feel it would open up options, because right now, 90% of JJ use is either quick terrain scaling, or poptarting. The one thing I do know is the current poptart meta is once again dominating, even if the weapons used had to change. But I could be wrong. I do know that even with the poptart meta in MW4 multiplayer, I was able to use those JJs to do crazy things and short circuit the poptarters more often than not. But I will admit that the MW4 jjs might have been too maneuverable, since we are going for hte driving a tank feel in MWO. That said, it makes snes to have directional jjs (especially with mechs with them in their legs) but that their agility and such would be limited. After all, I am not talking the ability to change direction appreciably mid jump (they are supposed to bbe essentially a ballistic launch, save for mechs like the >Spider which had some control., or the stalking spider that could change direction)), just the ability to do that ballistic launch backwards or sideways as the need dictates.

[FupDup]

Bishop Steiner, on 06 January 2014 - 04:22 PM, said:

actually, true 2.0 DHS would be double the dissipation of a single heat sink. Which is how they are supposed to be. And the threshold has always been static in battletech. Hence it gives a slight buff to reasonable sustained fire, but severely impacts the high alpha/overheat crowd even more.

The dissipation of an SHS is currently 0.1 per second. Double that is 0.2 per second, which is the same as the 10 engine DHS we have now. That is barely a buff at all to sustained fire. Builds that only use the engine sinks don't get any buff at all. Note that my proposed numbers assume that SHS would be half of them (i.e. buffing DHS to dissipate 0.4 heat per second would result in SHS dissipating 0.2 heat per second correspondingly).


Some maths:
Current (1.4 external dubs):
11 DHS = 2.14 cooling
12 DHS = 2.28
13 DHS = 2.42
14 DHS = 2.56
15 DHS = 2.7
16 DHS = 2.84
17 DHS = 2.98
18 DHS = 3.12
19 DHS = 3.26
20 DHS = 3.4

2.0 "True" DHS everywhere:
11 DHS = 2.2
12 DHS = 2.4
13 DHS = 2.6
14 DHS = 2.8
15 DHS = 3.0
16 DHS = 3.2
17 DHS = 3.4
18 DHS = 3.6
19 DHS = 3.8
20 DHS = 4.0


...Which is an improvement, but not by a staggering amount. The problem is that the cooling increase from 2.0 external dubs is not as large in magnitude as the effect of cutting down the capacity. If you nerf and buff something at the same time, and the nerf is larger in magnitude than the buff, then the net overall effect of the change is a nerf. One step forward, two steps back, in other words. The high capacity is the only thing keeping builds with more than 2-3 basic lasers or missiles competing. Dissipation HAS to be faster than 0.2 per second per dub to compensate for the massive impact of cutting down the capacity. Otherwise, all of those "AC Meta" threads would come true, because we'd have slow dissipation and low capacity. We don't need both low, we need dissipation to be FAST and the capacity to be low.


Even the current "true" DHS in the engine dissipate too darn slowly. Take, for instance, a well-balanced Shawk build with a UAC/5, 4 SSRM2, 2 ML, and 10 DHS (no externals). It can, surprisingly, climb the heat bar at fairly crazy rates right now due to how painfully slow our current cooling rates are. It probably shouldn't be able to be truly heat neutral per se, but it reaches the top of the heat bar waaaaaaaaay too fast for that type of a build. The only builds that are supposed to run hot are the ones that are spamming energy and/or missiles, particularly those with high pinpoint damage. A balanced build like that Shad simply does not deserve the current heat burden it has.

Edited by FupDup, 06 January 2014 - 04:42 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

FupDup, on 06 January 2014 - 04:40 PM, said:

The dissipation of an SHS is currently 0.1 per second. Double that is 0.2 per second, which is the same as the 10 engine DHS we have now. That is barely a buff at all to sustained fire. Builds that only use the engine sinks don't get any buff at all. Note that my proposed numbers assume that SHS would be half of them (i.e. buffing DHS to dissipate 0.4 heat per second would result in SHS dissipating 0.2 heat per second correspondingly).


Some maths:
Current (1.4 external dubs):
11 DHS = 2.14 cooling
12 DHS = 2.28
13 DHS = 2.42
14 DHS = 2.56
15 DHS = 2.7
16 DHS = 2.84
17 DHS = 2.98
18 DHS = 3.12
19 DHS = 3.26
20 DHS = 3.4

2.0 "True" DHS everywhere:
11 DHS = 2.2
12 DHS = 2.4
13 DHS = 2.6
14 DHS = 2.8
15 DHS = 3.0
16 DHS = 3.2
17 DHS = 3.4
18 DHS = 3.6
19 DHS = 3.8
20 DHS = 4.0


...Which is an improvement, but not by a staggering amount. The problem is that the cooling increase from 2.0 external dubs is not as large in magnitude as the effect of cutting down the capacity. If you nerf and buff something at the same time, and the nerf is larger in magnitude than the buff, then the net overall effect of the change is a nerf. The high capacity is the only thing keeping builds with more than 2-3 basic lasers or missiles competing. Dissipation HAS to be faster than 0.2 per second per dub to compensate for the massive impact of cutting down the capacity. Otherwise, all of those "AC Meta" threads would come true, because we'd have slow dissipation and low capacity. We don't need both low, we need dissipation to be FAST and the capacity to be low.


Even the current "true" DHS in the engine dissipate too darn slowly. Take, for instance, a well-balanced Shawk build with a UAC/5, 4 SSRM2, 2 ML, and 10 DHS (no externals). It can climb the heat bar at fairly crazy rates right now due to how painfully slow our current cooling rates are. It probably shouldn't be able to be truly heat neutral per se, but it reaches the top of the heat bar waaaaaaaaay too fast for that type of a build. The only builds that are supposed to run hot are the ones that are spamming energy and/or missiles, particularly those with high pinpoint damage. A balanced build like that Shad simply does not deserve the current heat burden it has.

I dont think they should get a buff for the engine heat sinks. Run a build that is functional though hot on 10 SHS. Run the same build with 10 DHS. The difference is noticeable.

The last thing we need is higher rates of fire, since already people have been clamoring to double the armor AGAIN, or even more comical to turn all weapons into dps paper cut weapons.

Maintaining or slightly improving a mechs sustainable fire rate, while reducing the ability to rely on alphas (since alphas were supposed to be desperation ploys) is the idea.

[FupDup]

Bishop Steiner, on 06 January 2014 - 04:43 PM, said:

I dont think they should get a buff for the engine heat sinks. Run a build that is functional though hot on 10 SHS. Run the same build with 10 DHS. The difference is noticeable.

Of course there's a huge difference, but both of them dissipate heat at glacially slow rates. Even 3 measly lasers can crank up the heat on a 10 DHS mech, even though in BT you could handle that with just 10 SHS (no, I'm not asking for us to have the same heat capabilities of TT because those could be quite crazy at times, I'm just making a point about how heavily taxed our sinks currently are).

A mech with 10 SHS on a normal map can currently handle exactly 1 (one) Medium Laser (1 heat per second). If you're on a hot map, that single ML will create a net heat higher than what 10 SHS can cool. That is seriously, severely borked. Being able to run 3 ML with just 10 SHS would most likely be too much, but there is simply no excuse for a lone ML to create heat faster than 10 single sinks can dissipate it.

Bishop Steiner, on 06 January 2014 - 04:43 PM, said:

The last thing we need is higher rates of fire, since already people have been clamoring to double the armor AGAIN, or even more comical to turn all weapons into dps paper cut weapons.

Maintaining or slightly improving a mechs sustainable fire rate, while reducing the ability to rely on alphas (since alphas were supposed to be desperation ploys) is the idea.

You're still missing the point. Energy weapons and most missiles are going to climb a fixed low capacity at a very fast rate (and they already climb our current high scale too quickly in many cases). The problem is that with slow dissipation, you're going to be stuck at high heat for a while (just like we are now). So firing 3 Medium Lasers a few times in a row is going to put you to the brink in a very short amount of time, and then you have to watch paint dry until you can fire again. It means that using anything other than ballistics for sustained fire would be impossible, because their low heat output per shot means that they won't reach the capacity limit very soon.

The point of increasing dissipation rates is to equalize the effect of cutting the cap, for the purpose of energy and missile weapons to remain viable. You'd reach the capacity just as fast, but the difference is that you would also cool back down somewhat quickly. What slow cooling combined with low cap does is simply nerf everything that isn't boating ballistics. There are not any overpowered missiles in the game right now (Streaks are kind of borked but not OP by any means) and the majority of energy weapons are fine as well (some may argue otherwise for the PPC)--they don't need to be nerfed.

The only thing that needs to be nerfed is alpha-striking. Not lasers, not missiles, just alpha striking exclusively. What SD + LC does is nerf alpha striking AND missiles and lasers. We don't need a sledgehammer for this heart surgery, just a scalpel.


On a side note, the current balance of energy versus ballistics is completely bass-ackwards from the way it has "historically" been. Ballistics were usually the one-night-stand powerhouse burst (can fire a lot of them at once without overheating) that couldn't be sustained too long (due to ammo) and energy weapons were usually the highly sustainable option that had less burst-damage due to their heat output. In MWO, ballistics are the current sustained-damage weapon type because they can cope with slow dissipation, whereas our high capacity leaves energy weapons relegated to high-burst. If we keep slow dissipation...energy weapons still won't be sustainable past a few ML.

Edited by FupDup, 06 January 2014 - 05:26 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

FupDup, on 06 January 2014 - 05:01 PM, said:

Of course there's a huge difference, but both of them dissipate heat at glacially slow rates. Even 3 measly lasers can crank up the heat on a 10 DHS mech, even though in BT you could handle that with just 10 SHS (no, I'm not asking for us to have the same heat capabilities of TT because those could be quite crazy at times, I'm just making a point about how heavily taxed our sinks currently are).

A mech with 10 SHS on a normal map can currently handle exactly 1 (one) Medium Laser (1 heat per second). If you're on a hot map, that single ML will create a net heat higher than what 10 SHS can cool. That is seriously, severely borked. Being able to run 3 ML with just 10 SHS would most likely be too much, but there is simply no excuse for a lone ML to create heat faster than 10 single sinks can dissipate it.




You're still missing the point. Energy weapons and most missiles are going to climb a fixed low capacity at a very fast rate (and they already climb our current high scale too quickly in many cases). The problem is that with slow dissipation, you're going to be stuck at high heat for a while (just like we are now). So firing 3 Medium Lasers a few times in a row is going to put you to the brink in a very short amount of time, and then you have to watch paint dry until you can fire again. It means that using anything other than ballistics for sustained fire would be impossible, because their low heat output per shot means that they won't reach the capacity limit very soon.

The point of increasing dissipation rates is to equalize the effect of cutting the cap, for the purpose of energy and missile weapons to remain viable. You'd reach the capacity just as fast, but the difference is that you would also cool back down somewhat quickly. What slow cooling combined with low cap does is simply nerf everything that isn't boating ballistics. There are not any overpowered missiles in the game right now (Streaks are kind of borked but not OP by any means) and the majority of energy weapons are fine as well (some may argue otherwise for the PPC)--they don't need to be nerfed.

The only thing that needs to be nerfed is alpha-striking. Not lasers, not missiles, just alpha striking exclusively. What SD + LC does is nerf alpha striking AND missiles and lasers. We don't need a sledgehammer for this heart surgery, just a scalpel.


On a side note, the current balance of energy versus ballistics is completely bass-ackwards from the way it has "historically" been. Ballistics were usually the one-night-stand powerhouse burst (can fire a lot of them at once without overheating) that couldn't be sustained too long (due to ammo) and energy weapons were usually the highly sustainable option that had less burst-damage due to their heat output. In MWO, ballistics are the current sustained-damage weapon type because they can cope with slow dissipation, whereas our high capacity leaves energy weapons relegated to high-burst. If we keep slow dissipation...energy weapons still won't be sustainable past a few ML.

I don't feel there needs to be that much equalization. A medium laser does 5 damage for 1 ton, with no ammo. A PPC the same as an ac10, for 5 tons less. The tax for being light, is the heat. The heat scale is not so horrible one cant function with lasers and such now. But what it doesn't do is punish those who abuse the alpha enough.

THAT is my point.

[FupDup]

Bishop Steiner, on 06 January 2014 - 05:30 PM, said:

I don't feel there needs to be that much equalization. A medium laser does 5 damage for 1 ton, with no ammo. A PPC the same as an ac10, for 5 tons less. The tax for being light, is the heat.

Aren't you the main advocate for the AC/10 being superior to the PPC over time?

We also have to remember that any heat sinks added to the build are part of the "effective weight" of any weapon, just as ammo increases the "effective weight" for missiles and ballistics. On paper, running 6 ML looks like only 6 tons of weapons for 30 points of damage. In game, you're gonna need more than the 10 engine DHS to run them, which makes it a lot more than 6 tons and 6 slots. And they'd still make just as much heat under fast dissipation, the difference is that 3 Medium Lasers probably wouldn't cook you (assuming DHS) unless you're on a hot map.

We also can't forget that ballistics don't have most of their TT weaknesses in MWO. For instance, ammo can last for quite a while if you don't totally skimp on it. Ammo explosions are not as deadly here because we can place it wherever we want (i.e. head and legs) and it only has a 10% chance to explode when blown up (components also have health here instead of being instantly destroyed upon being critted). The up-front weight and slot costs for ballistics are certainly still higher than lasers, but the "effective weight" for lasers has been massively increased due to our relatively weak heatsinks. Ballistics got a slight effective weight increase of their own in the ammo department, but it's a proportionally smaller increase than what lasers got.


And another factor is that energy weapons in MWO have a beam duration (excluding PPCs), which results in more damage spreading than they had in TT. Ballistics, however, are just as pinpoint as they were in TT (excluding MGs). And then we also have rate of fire increases that were higher for ballistics than lasers (this part I'm okay with, because most ballistics sucked in TT; I just want stronger heatsinks), so their damage per alpha is the same but their damage over time is greater. And to put a cherry on top, they have 3x max range increase, compared to 2x range for energy weapons (and 0x for missiles).


TL, DR: There are a lot more variables in the equation than just the upfront weight and slot costs. We can't just say "lasers are lighter" and leave it at that, because the picture is a lot bigger than that.

Bishop Steiner, on 06 January 2014 - 05:30 PM, said:

The heat scale is not so horrible one cant function with lasers and such now. But what it doesn't do is punish those who abuse the alpha enough.

THAT is my point.

And my point is that the slow dissipation makes lasers and such very hard to sustain over time, even though lasers are supposed to be the quintessential weapons built for sustainability. They're the "Energizer Bunny" of Battletech, or at least that's what their intention was (wacky TT heat scale made them just as good at burst as most ballistics, with extra advantages on top of that). The sad irony is that SD + LC does certainly reduce their alpha ability, but at the same time it hinders them from reaping that sustainability advantage. If anything, bursts would still be the best way to use lasers due to paint-drying dissipation rates, the difference is that the bursts would just be a lot smaller. They would still suck in prolonged engagements, which goes against the ideology of the energy class as a whole.

Edited by FupDup, 06 January 2014 - 05:58 PM.

[Trauglodyte]

Dammit, Bishop. I have the microphone and you don't so you will listen (and agree with) everything damn word I have to say.

As to what said Roland, I have two comments:

• Very eloquently put.
  
• You are very correct in what you said.

Case in point to #2, I saw someone mention the RHoD leagues in another thread and decided to look up some of the videos. The one that I watched today was the RHoD season 2 finals between Swords of K(something) and Steel Jaguars. In all of the matches on the Twitch stream, the two teams were running a combination of dual PPC dual AC Highlanders, PPC AC Shawks, PPC AC Practs, and Jenners (Fs and Ds). The only real difference between make-ups was when the tonnage limits changed. But, it was only ever those four mechs. Now, the color commentators did mention that SJR did sometimes run other mechs which included the Hunchy (the only one that they spoke of) which I imagine was the 4G with the AC20. But, the one thing that I noticed was one of the matches was in River City Night. SoK broke up their team of 6 HGHs and 6 Jenners splitting the citadel facing the harbor with the HGHs on the left and the Jenners going high. SJR countered by doing the same thing and pitted their HGHs against SoK's. This turned into a battle of squirrel vs. squirrel and jump sniper vs. jump sniper. Here is the thing, though. If only one of the Highlanders from SoK had been, say, the 733P with 2 PPCs and 2 LRM15s and one of the Jenners had, knowing the build, gone up top and dropped a UAV, SoK might have won that because SJR's HGHs were huddled in the water hugging the citadel ramp wall. There was absolutely no need for all of them to be the current a-typical meta jumper and a single LRM boat would have wrecked face. Further in the matches, you could see how a single LRM boat would have heavily impacted the battle. But, what happened was all of the fights came down to who had the most Jenners left, who could throw the most arty and air strikes most accurately, and whose side had the best poptarters.

Basically, the point that I'm trying to make there is that you don't need to adhere to the current meta. It is only what it is because of the mechanics by which we play and because "monkey see, monkey do". You can break the meta with simple changes while still being affective. Or, at least I think that you can. Someone could argue with me on that. But, as Roland so nicely put, Drop Commanders want their players to do specific things and that can't be done by builds that sway from that intent. Right now, PPCs + ACs + JJs gets the long ranged fire support done very well while risking very little in return. That isn't to say that LRMs don't have a place and they do, especially in the above observations. That also isn't to say that other mechs aren't viable because apparently AC Hunchies and BJs are (I hate the AC20 BJ, though, but that is only because of the idiocy that is ACs right now). I imagine that a Gauss ECM Cicada could work, that an SRM Wolverine with an AC could work, etc. But, you've got to have a good pilot using the mech and the mech's design has to be within the standards set by the DC. If it is too much of a liability, it won't work or won't be allowed to be used. My clan's DC is more than happy to let anyone run anything that they want, from Locusts to Dragons to Awesomes and everything else. All the pilot needs to do is to show that it can perform the task, do it well, and not be a hinderance.

[Roland]

Bishop Steiner, on 06 January 2014 - 04:22 PM, said:

actually, true 2.0 DHS would be double the dissipation of a single heat sink. Which is how they are supposed to be. And the threshold has always been static in battletech.

The key point you're missing here is that in battletech, while your total heat capacity is fixed, heat is only added to your mech after all heat dissipation has been applied. Thus, if you have 15 DHS, and you fire 3 PPC's, you have generated ZERO heat.

Thus, in battletech, adding heat sinks DOES have the effect of essentially increasing your capacity, because it directly reduces the amount of heat that is applied to that capacity. In reality, it effectively has the same effect that adding heat sinks does in MWO. While the system isn't perfect currently, there actually WAS some rationale applied that led to the current system.