121 replies to this topic

[Lightfoot]

Ghost Heat is overdone for Energy Weapons which already generate high heat. This has turned MWO into a Ballistics-only game at the competition level. That's the mech you use when you 'must' win, not the one you beta test. Once CW is up you will see what I mean.

I think that's the 50th time I have said this. Check the forums and everyone wants to nerf AC's now, but what really needs to happen is a lowering of the two Heat Nerfs, Ghost Heat and DHS 1.4. Your goal, PGI, is to make the stock AWS-9M work at a competitive level, meaning competes with AC2's, a similarly ranged ballistic weapon. It can't be that hard, it's just an Inner Sphere stock mech. Clan tech Energy Mechs will be no-sale junk if you can't make the AWS-9M work nominally well.

Clan Mechs are all Omni-mechs so they will all have at least one omni-slot. I am planning to put a second Clan Ultra AC20 in all my Madcat's omni slots. CLAN UAC20's, 12 tons, 8 criticals. So you need to figure out some better way to balance the damage output of the mechs. Heat nerfs won't work on Clan Tech. Okay, that's the hundreth time I have said that. MWO will be much better with a balanced approach to damage reduction and massive Heat Nerfs won't get you there. Heat is baked into Battletech as one of three balancing factors, but the other two are hard to nerf. You couldn't make a Ghost Weight nerf, for instance, and expect anyone to continue supporting MWO.

I would just dump Ghost Heat and DHS 1.4 and cut the damage the weapons do in half. That way the weapons would do about the same damage as they do in a Battletech full Turn.

Edited by Lightfoot, 02 December 2013 - 02:11 AM.

[Drunk Canuck]

Lightfoot, on 02 December 2013 - 01:50 AM, said:

Ghost Heat is overdone for Energy Weapons which already generate high heat. This has turned MWO into a Ballistics-only game at the competition level. That's the mech you use when you 'must' win, not the one you beta test. Once CW is up you will see what I mean.

Energy weapons aside from pulse lasers are in a good place in my opinion. ER PPC's could due with a tiny bit of heat reduction but not more then 3% of total heat generation for firing the weapon.

You know, it's kind of interesting how this game even has pulse lasers right now. If you read all the original books, pulse lasers aren't mentioned until Blood Legacy, book two of the Blood of Kerensky trilogy which is the second wave of the Clan invasion. All Inner Sphere energy weapons are PPC's or standard lasers. The Inner Sphere did not actually have access to Extended Range weaponry until 3051 when Wolf's Dragoon's started producing them for the armies of the Successor States to help in their fight against the Clans. Since Wolf's Dragoon's is a break off of the Wolf Clan, they have had access to much of the technological superiority for 50 years, but never shared it with anyone else without risking exposure. And the pulse lasers the Clans use are implied to have longer range then a standard Inner Sphere laser equivalent which doesn't really make sense when you look at PGI's development of weaponry. If and when we do get Clan Pulse Lasers, they should logically generate less heat and have more range while doing more damage then IS lasers.

Edited by Drunk Canuck, 02 December 2013 - 08:14 AM.

[Warrior UK]

With the ghost heat in place it makes the three PPC Awesome a bit lame for newer players that do not have the Cbills to change the build after buying, yes removal might bring back the six PPC Stalker and other dreadful mechs, a nerf on the ghost I think would be better just to make the Awesome a bit more playable, this is the reason why I have voted yes.

Noticed a mention about the charge on the Gauss, it takes practice to get good with this, leave as is in its own class, I think the only way to resolve this matter is to have the Light Gauss Rifle with NO charge with less range than its big brother.

[Dirus Nigh]

Ghost heat is one of the few features in the game I think need to be out right removed. There were other factors that caused mechs like the six, and four PPC/ERPPC stalker, or PPC/Guass to dominate the game.

PPC/ERPPCs had their heat lowered from ten and thirteen to eight and 11.

The number of heat sink on a mech determines the auto shut down threshold.

Damage drop off rates at over effective range is shallow.

Weapon convergence speed is high.

ERPPCs lack a min range.

The lack of consequence for over heating a mech and forcing a shutdown, or over riding a shut down.

These factors made high alpha, high heat builds work with out a proper risk. The PPC class weapons had their heat raised to TT values, and extreme heat now damages a mech. This when a very long way in controlling those types of builds. This is exactly the kind of solution the game should have. However some of the other factors still exist and effect the game.

[Corvus Antaka]

ballistics need tuning. 4 ac/5 is pretty much 0 heat and ammo isnt a problem when everyone is dead. Same for dual uac/5, ac/20, you fire energy till you get hot, then stick to the ballistic.

ballistics need more heat per shot and some ghost heat multipliers for boating still to bring pilots to a more difficult choice of heat efficiency vs firepower.

the pinpint dmg of dual PPC and their low heat is also a minor factor, but mostly its because the ballistics are so low heat and 1 jumpjet is the coolest to run too just adds to this sillyness.

a lot of this suffering still leads right back to the high heatcap, slow dissapation and lack of ability to builds heat efficient vs firepower hvy, firepower heavy is simply such a better choice 99% of the time.

i ran my quad erppc stalker, ghost heat has had very negligable effect on it except to curb the 40 dmg pinpint alpha. while this is awesome, as you guys note, the dual ppc 1 ballistic or 2 combo totally circumvents the entire ghost heat mechanic while giving that exact same 40 dmg pinpoint strike that ghost heat mostly "fixed"

Edited by Colonel Pada Vinson, 03 December 2013 - 11:31 PM.

[Karl Streiger]

Remove Ghost Heat - without replacement? NO
Remove Ghost Heat - with a working heat system - YES

[ToxinTractor]

Cementblade, on 24 November 2013 - 08:25 AM, said:

victor pretty much summed it up for ghost heat.

Yea ghost heat feels like the "OH **** FIX IT NOW" way of doing it.

I think they should go back and tweak/update those rules a bit- heck if they have to drop them together then so be it. just as long as they prevent some of those awful builds from coming back. 6ppc stalker is not missed- 60 damage alpha is a bit stupid when a mech isnt really punished for it. The 90m min range on the ppcs is not much of a draw back and after seeing how folks manage heat. the high heat argument isnt that great.

Ill take a 4 damage alpha over a 60 one any day.

[Diego Angelus]

ToxinTractor, on 07 December 2013 - 07:12 AM, said:

Yea ghost heat feels like the "OH **** FIX IT NOW" way of doing it.

I think they should go back and tweak/update those rules a bit- heck if they have to drop them together then so be it. just as long as they prevent some of those awful builds from coming back. 6ppc stalker is not missed- 60 damage alpha is a bit stupid when a mech isnt really punished for it. The 90m min range on the ppcs is not much of a draw back and after seeing how folks manage heat. the high heat argument isnt that great.

Ill take a 4 damage alpha over a 60 one any day.

They should go back and rework it by removing and using proper soluton to deal with boats.

[Livewyr]

I'd like to remove ghost heat.. in favor of ways to manage the issue more sensibly.

Missiles: Exponential spread (pretend the targeting system can't handle the simul-load.
Energy: Extend the beam duration (pretend the mech's power production can't handle 4 LL at full power, so they go to 60% strength and take longer to deal the damage.)

Ballistics already have weight/damage issues. (but drop their over range to 2x instead of 3x.. except for Gauss.. the charge up provides enough handicap.)

[990Dreams]

Arrggh, ghost heat is reality people! It is how heat behaves.

[Lyoto Machida]

Degalus, on 24 November 2013 - 03:16 AM, said:

Im Happy with the Ghostheat. My Mechs was always "balanced" and the game dont changed for me after Ghostheatpatch.
Oh wait it does! I never saw a 6xPPC stalker anymore and only a handfull Splatcats.
Sry but a No from me.

Oh yes...the ol "Ghost Heat fixed the 6x PPC Stalker/Splatcat" argument again...

[Apache1990]

I remember back in MW3, if I fired 4-5 ERPPCs at the same time, I outright exploded. I'd say the lower heat cap was rather effective (without heat from nowhere coming in to play at all).

[Bacl]

I love how some people here are saying thet ghost heat stopped the boaters. If we take a stalker with 4 PPc its a boat, a jager with 2 Ac 20 its a boat, you can really boat with 2 weapons?! Now all i see is a huge Ac fest all around the map, if ( like me) you enjoyed the energy side of the game and that over the 24 mechs you have in your garage only 5 or them can load an AC well your options are quite limited. A spider with 4 msg is a boater but yet no ones complains about it or a Victor with ac 20 and 4 medium lasers " OMG HES BOATING MED LASERS!"

All we have rigt now are a mix of one Ac and 2 PPc or large lasers, i barely see any brawlers except for the Atlas. All the games are the same, you get sniped because only a handlfull of weapons are viable, its always the same builds copy pasted on a different chassis, the mechs who cant run that well are in trouble since they dont have that all mighty formula. For the record those who complain about the 6PPc Stalker never played it obviously, yes it was fun to 1 shot a light mech on the perfect moment but that build was awful, the 4PPc was much better but it also had a weakness that AC boat dont have now; minimum range. Those who says that the 4PPc stalker was too strong should turn
.a corner and face a jager with 4 AC ( whatever the combination), it will melt your face way before that stalker can fire that next 4 PPc salvo. Yet people always take the "evil stalker" as refrence because that period was truly the drakest hour of MWO with our roles and specialist builds ( note the sarcasm here).

I gave this game 250$ to encourage them from the very very beginning without even knowing how it would play out. Since they didnt delivere i have the right to be angry and express my feelings about the situation. For all those who didnt spend a dime on this and dont even know a thing about the lore, the gameplay of the franchise and are newcomers who have the balls to complain on the forum because they want to turn this into a generic and tasteless first person shooters like CoF or BF ( gj btw your almost there) by saying that a totally legitimate gamestyle is OP i will say GO F**K YOURSELVES! You managed to make the devs remove the only damn things that was making the game interesting which was the possibility to forge your own custom giant robot that fits your playstyle. Now its only PPC's coupled with a canon, srm pff they dont worth it and lrm are a joke unless you have 3 or 4 boats on your team to deliver the goods, guess what if you get close to them? Hint hint.

Its a grim game now and i can barely believe that it was my favorite one up to last summer. Its not even the question with the money, it is just the huge dissapointment when you see the devs push away the fans who supported this game and the lore itself for the vast majority who dont even know about it and simply want a regular shooter with robots.

Edited by Bacl, 01 February 2014 - 06:50 PM.

[Osric Lancaster]

Yes, remove ghost heat. Replace the current system with the following system -

1 - Reduced the heat cap.
(The amount is debatable, but) At a guess I'd say a 150% reduction? (I need to find some maths on this) or so should work fine. A three PPC Awesome with 30 equivalent heat sinks and 0 heat should avoid overheat shutdown when alpha-striking. ( That is, of course, without the aid of ghost heat. )
2 - Increase heat dissipation across the board by an equivalent amount. Single heatsinks should not require that you hold your mech perfectly still before it starts too cool off in Caustic or Therma.
3 - Increase external Double heatsinks to 1.6 efficiency. Ultralight and under-engined 'Mechs get a lil' love.
4 - Have the heat cap per single heat sinks be high enough that massed single heatsinks confer an advantage in heat cap when similar levels of dissipation are achieved by double heatsinks.
(Pay attention, now. This will be on your finals.)
5 - Reduce dissipation rate by 3% for each 5% of heat capacity. At 100%, or overheat, your heatsinks would be working at 40% efficiency. Alpha-striking therefore reduces your effective DPS by spiking your heat.

0 - Instant weapon convergence needs to go right out if we ever want to balance gauss rifles and low heat precision weapons.

Edited by Osric Lancaster, 26 February 2014 - 10:38 PM.

[HUBA]

ghost heat is a very good solution against to powerful alpha strike builds but the current implementation need some fixes and it need a different solution for ballistics. To say it simple if you fire to many lasers you fuse will blow. so don't fire it all together.
The ghost heat need to be shown in th weapon group config and should be more constant (2 weapons = ghost heat , 3 weapons = more ghost heat)
BTW AC2 work as intended

[Dan Nashe]

Ghost heat is fine.
It doesn't affect most builds. It's good where it does affect things.
Making the 8-9 ML builds fire in two groups is a good thing.
It only adds a little bit of skill to the double AC20 mech (which is good, that 0.5 seconds apart is a big game changer); still prevents triple PPC snipers (they would still exist without ghost heat).

My only complaints:
Large Lasers & ER Large Lasers should NOT share with Large Pulse Lasers.
LPLs are so darn hot, the 2 LPL, 1 LL build isn't OP, nor is the 2 LPL, 1 LL.
2 LPL 2 LL stalkers are the worst possible config. That's 40 heat - I don't think it needs it.

Caveat: if you dramatically reduce LPL heat, I retract my statement.

Also: it's not well communicated in the game like it is on Smurfys. You almost just need a link in game to the smurfy's main page. You really really need all the information easily and clearly summarized on a single web page like that. One click, and I've got every piece of info I need to build the mech on one page.

Edited by DanNashe, 03 March 2014 - 06:05 PM.

[Lightfoot]

I say replace Ghost Heat with Mech destruction when you cross a certain redline, which would be more than normal configs could generate.

The real problem is MWO is supposed to be based on Battletech, but the Mechs are not tough enough to take Battletech levels of damage, especially when dialed up to 2x recharge. PGI's response has been to nerf Energy weapons heavily and beyond reason in order to lower net DPS. They need to make mechs like the AWS-9M function with only minor overheating because Battletech says this is how it worked and this is balanced.

Players seem to complain most about weapon convergence and PPC, AC20's etc. And hence, Ghost Heat was born, but all Ghost Heat does is affect Heavy and Assault mechs that carry groups of large energy weapons. It has little effect on Ballistics which run very cool.

Turning every group-fire into a shotgun blast is not the answer to convergence because then you just never miss. So I am thinking now the best way to make Mechs tougher and tougher to weapon convergence specifically (the true reason for Ghost Heat) is to have all the hitboxes overlap so that on most hits damage is transferred to other sections, but on a bullseye hit the damage goes into that one section. And get rid of Ghost Heat.

I myself have no problem and never did have a problem with damage in MWO. MWO was at it's best last April before all of these shenanigans PGI embarked on started.

Players continue to make the mistake of arriving at some perch and not moving and so they get cored in about 10-15 seconds. This is likely the side-effect from Mouse control where you just want to park and move your cursor around. That's not how MechWarrior works. Once you move laterally it gives you spreading of weapons fire based on projectile speed. De-Convergence created by the pilot. You will likely still get hit, but they likely will start to miss too and if they fire "mass-alpha" the hits will be spread across the mech and a lot will miss. Depending on speed. And this is your core piloting skill. You don't need PGI to add Ghost Heat to save you from what you have always had the power to save yourself from.

So Ghost Heat just reinforces bad piloting and makes players demand more nerfs because standing still or moving straight at your target will always get your cored-out in a few seconds. And PGI can't fix that, it's how the game dynamics work. They can make the mechs tougher though and maybe players would learn good piloting faster with the damage slowed down a bit by that.

[Lightfoot]

I just wanted to add one thing that might help. As I just said moving laterally breaks up convergence and spreads damage across the mech especially from alpha-strikes, but thinking back to earlier games, especially MW3 where you had to be able to attack and move laterally due to extremely powerful LRMs, it does not come naturally. You have to train the skill and many players don't understand that they need to do this. So maybe this needs to be in the tutorial? It seems obvious, but many players may not be aware that they need to do this.

Anyway, rule one is you never go straight at your opponent.

[no one]

Osric Lancaster, on 26 February 2014 - 10:32 PM, said:

*snips*

Victor Morson, on 01 December 2013 - 04:40 PM, said:

*snips*

I am stealing this.

And that bit about penalties to movement before overheat that may or may not have come from this thread.

Lightfoot, on 07 March 2014 - 08:32 AM, said:

*snip* is to have all the hitboxes overlap so that on most hits damage is transferred to other sections, but on a bullseye hit the damage goes into that one section.

Sorta already does this with damage transfer? You hit a 'destroyed' section and part of the damage goes inward. I think the only way to fix convergence is to have weapons be slower to focus on enemies. Especially torso mounted guns, but guns in arms without actuators too? Not really sure how to work that without making actuators optional on some 'Mechs. I am le tired.

As far as ghost heat fixing convergence for things like lasers. . . yeah, no point to that since they hose damage all over the place and you can twist to avoid damage to your squishy bits. Same deal with missiles, to an extent.

Edited by no one, 15 March 2014 - 06:42 PM.

[Gleech]

Just to chip in, I think ghost heat is a good thing, since I think preventing K-large-energy-gun boats from being good is a worthy goal, and that ghost heat does a good job of punishing people for just jacking lots of the same gun on their mech. On the other hand, I think that the combination of that and reducing the effectiveness of DHS is a little heavy since it makes what I would think are reasonable energy builds harder to work; the fix I'd rather see is turning the efficiency of DHS up to something like 1.6 or 1.7, so shutdowns on more reasonable energy-heavy builds are rarer.