Joseph Mallan, on 21 January 2014 - 09:45 AM, said:
Convergent damage is ruining the game?
This being said, 1 PPC and 6 Mediums on a Battlemaster needs to be more powerful! 23 double heat sinks(38.2 heat dispatation) should handle 34 points of heat like a Boss. To top it off I even have the cool run efficiency and you just can't get energy boats to run right! I should not be overheating.
Joseph Mallan, on 22 January 2014 - 04:31 AM, said:
This being said, 1 PPC and 6 Mediums on a Battlemaster needs to be more powerful! 23 double heat sinks(38.2 heat dispatation) should handle 34 points of heat like a Boss. To top it off I even have the cool run efficiency and you just can't get energy boats to run right! I should not be overheating.
The fix to that is actually pretty simple, increase heat dissipation to 0.5 per heatsink (0.2 base * 2.5 (rate of fire increase)), 1 heat cap per internal heatsink and 2.5 per external. Now to shoot 2xPPCs simultaneously you need at least 5+ heatsinks, more if paired with ACs but they cool faster as all the other energy weapons.
Look PGI, I've fixed your garbage game.
4 LL and no heatsinks? pfffft this argument is the same every time. only thing that changes is how pilots rack on each-other for pointing out w/e meta or weapon is unbalanced.
THE PROBLEM IS PINPOINT. those 4 LL? you have to HOLD them on TARGET on top of using some none-existant chassis that can magically hold the 40 double HS that are needed to actually FIRE THEM at the same rate as autocannons.
autocannons SHOULD burst salvos so that you actually have to TRY to make it land on one spot THIS IS THE CRUX OF THE PROBLEM.
as far as im concerned the ONLY weapon that should be pinpoint is the Guass and ONLY because they gave it some "bow string pull release" mechanic. it would be the ONLY weapon with pinpoint but also the ONLY weapon that cant be "snap shot".
honestly if i imagine the GR as a giant sling that you spin up then release, it works better for me then imagining its a pull and release "bow". lol
what the op is pointing out is valid. the problem is even if you stack 4LL to try and match that ac20, there is no amount of heatsinks that will let that build work without coolshot.
its not just pinpoint its ghost heat too. autocannons basically have NO downside, and pairing them with PPCS is effectively adding extra AC10's with heat instead of ammo. so again the PROBLEM IS PINPOINT.
ammo? pffft you don't have to slog heatsinks in autocannon builds like your life depends on it. so one can always just endo up and stack the ammo in.
Joseph Mallan, on 22 January 2014 - 04:31 AM, said:
This being said, 1 PPC and 6 Mediums on a Battlemaster needs to be more powerful! 23 double heat sinks(38.2 heat dispatation) should handle 34 points of heat like a Boss. To top it off I even have the cool run efficiency and you just can't get energy boats to run right! I should not be overheating.
bam exactly what im talking about. my battlemasters are ONE OF THE MOST (redacted) up chassis i have seen. mostly because ......what the hell am i supposed to stick in 6-7 energy slots with ghost heat? cant do ML, if i stick anything more then 2 LL or 2 PPC im already pushing my heatscale off the charts if i want to use those other 4 energy.... hahahahahah. no...
actually its not funny in the least bit, i have a battlemaster with 3 erppc's and 4 small lasers..... ONLY so that the lasers push those erppcs to those high mounts so i can at least PEAK over (redacted) and pop enemies....... run away and cool off cuz i KNOW im not going to be able to slug it out with anything that has autocannons.......but i hate that (redacted), its so boring so gay so (redacted) up to have NO ENERGY WEAPONS BE VIABLE OVER PPCS.........
again the problem is pinpoint, ppcs are effectively the autocannons of energy because of their range and damage profile... oh and did i mention they are the only energy pinpoint weapons? why is EVERY SINGLE AUTOCANNON PINPOINT?
thats what people should be asking. why? what sense does it make to have a WHOLE CLASS OF WEAPONS UNIFORM?
energy has DOM and pinpoint. missiles have...... missile spam that doesn't work very well..
LocationPacifica Training School, waiting for BakPhar shares to rise
Posted 22 January 2014 - 02:08 PM
I use both energy and ballistics; enjoy them both. I can't ignore that my long-range ballistic builds deal more damage and influence more player psychology in a short amount of time.
I think heat is about right; energy should always be a matter of pacing. How about trying, on the test server, either a 40% increase to all laser ranges or a 30% reduction in ammunition count for AC/2s and AC/5s?
Joseph Mallan, on 22 January 2014 - 05:14 AM, said:
Interesting... but it to early in the week for me to be crunching numbers!
The increase dissipation/reduce capacity concept has been around on the forums for quite a long time and the maths holds up. The problem is that PGI have an irrational fear of energy-based mechs, possibly as a result of MW4, but don't really seem to understand how their own game functions - see the '3s Jenner' argument against the +dissipation/-capacity concept that lead to the collection of malformed gremlins that constitutes the current ghost heat system.
Of course, this is my mistake. But i've never seen any energy builds doing so. Actually, I can hardly remember any pure energy mech killing me "from scratch". The best they can is either long and boring hit-and-running (which is quite rare) or killing already damaged mech.
While Jagermech should be renamed to "Rapebot 5k", as long as it just comes and rapes. It kills literally in 5 seconds, requiring no tactical skills at all. Just aim and shoot.
Like I said, energy weapons are light weight, giving you mass for a bigger engine, so you *can* hit and run. You might consider that a boring style of play, and if so, then don't equip yourself that way. What's so hard about that?
You deride your opponent in the Jagermech for having no tactical skill. Yet he was able to maneuver into a position that put you at a disadvantage and killed you in 5 seconds. What does that say about your level of skill, then?
If you don't want to have the time and patience to hit-and-fade to wear your opponent down, and prefer to force a sustained fight, then equip yourself with ballistics and have fun!
Like I said, energy weapons are light weight, giving you mass for a bigger engine, so you *can* hit and run. You might consider that a boring style of play, and if so, then don't equip yourself that way. What's so hard about that?
You deride your opponent in the Jagermech for having no tactical skill. Yet he was able to maneuver into a position that put you at a disadvantage and killed you in 5 seconds. What does that say about your level of skill, then?
If you don't want to have the time and patience to hit-and-fade to wear your opponent down, and prefer to force a sustained fight, then equip yourself with ballistics and have fun!
It's not a problem that I can be ganked and killed. The problem is that if ballistic does this, I'm dead in 5 seconds. With energy builds, enemy has to run around me for a minute to kill me.
Flanking an enemy like that Jagermech did requires no special skills. Just keep out of sight until you're close enough and then hold the trigger and keep reticle on the target.
You forgot, that with bigger DPS and the ability to shoot continuously until ammo depletes, ballistic has one more serious advantage: huge momentum that shakes enemy, and smoke effects making him blind. Once you're coming under fire of a simple AC/2, it becomes MUCH harder to aim and shoot, especially when you didn't see the target before the first shot. While energy doesn't have any effects, just direct damage (I think, it would be cool to add "noise" effect on a HUD of a mech hit by PPC: little noise for one hit and strong noise hiding HUD almost completely after a successfull second shot).
I've remembered the first BattleTech game I've seen, and installed old good Mechwarrior 3. I run some tests to compare energy with ballistic once more. I took shadowcat, stripped out everything, maxed out armor and started to run the same game with different weapons. The game was simple: a single Avatar with default build. I needed to kill him as fast as possible. He usually faced me, so I had to hit his front armor, aiming to CT. I didn't use CLAN equilment. Here are the boring numbers, comparing weight, time and overall performance:
Spoiler
1) AC/10 and 5 tons of ammo. I didn't even use half of them, but it's a common amount.
Total mass: 42.5 tons.
Average engagement time: 45 seconds.
Comment: Aiming AC in MW3 is a little tricky, as long as mech's momentum is added to projectiles. They fly somewhere away from crosshair. I had to run around the mech, so first I took out side torso, because I couldn't hit CT. If I could hit CT directly, I would kill him faster, so the time should be expected a little smaller.
2) AC/20 and 5 toms of ammo.
Total mass: 44.5 tons.
Average engagement time: 15-20 seconds.
Comment: Things are little different in MW3: all AC have the same cooldown time, so AC/20 is just 2 tons heavier but twice as powerful. Damn thing tears apart everything. This is the best result.
3) 6 ML, 10 HS.
Total mass: 31.5 tons.
Average engagement time: 150 seconds (2.5 minutes).
Comment: 6 ML have the same DPS as AC/10, if the trigger is not released. I ran around mech a lot, being at shutdown threshold all the time, and pressing "override" after every third shot. Anyway, I still was able to shoot time after time. I don't think someone will ever run energy build with 10 single HS.
4) 6 ML, 21 HS.
Total mass: 42.5 tons.
Avegare engagement time: 50 seconds.
Comment: the same as above, but filled with single heat sinks until the same mass as AC/10 build is reached. Surprisingly, I have almot the same DPS and engagement time. Although I had to look after heat time after time.
5) 6 ML, 10 DHS.
Total mass: 31.5 tons.
Average engagement time: 50 seconds.
Comment: Once again I had to watch out for my heat, and I had to skip some % of shots. Still, I could shoot more or less often. Pressing the trigger all the way would lead to overheat and shutdown.
6) 6 ML, 20 DHS.
Total mass: 41.5 tons. All slots are full.
Average engagement time: 25-30 seconds.
Comment: This build takes all the critical slots available to mitigate heat effects. However, it's faster than any other energy build and faster than AC/10 build. But still, not more powerful than AC/20.
MechWarrior 3 might be unbalanced as well, as long as AC require quite a skill to hit hard, and lasers turn out to be a pinpoint weapon. But overall balance is more or less fair: with equal weights (AC+ammo VS Energy+heatsinks) both do equal damage. Ballistic could be tuned to have some more DPS to compensate ammo requirements, but unlike lasers it shakes enemy mech and is able to flip it on the ground easily (BTW, why MWO mechs never fall down?). On the other hand, energy requires watching at heat level to avoid heat shutdown or damage, but if all the bets are made on the energy, it becomes a powerful weapon, yet still hot.
The main difference of MechWarrior 3 heat system is that adding more heatsinks doesn't alter heat threshold. So a huge energy alfa-strike will most likely turn off the mech at once. But hot mechs cools down faster, and the more heatsinks it has, the faster this process is. With 10 DHS i needed around 10 seconds to cool down. The time I can spend in battle. Or I can shoot a little slower and still cool down.
In MWO mech takes A LOT of time to cool down, and if it still shoots something energy, it never actually cools down, no matter how much heatsinks it has. We have more heat threshold, which enable higher alfa strikes, but slower heat dissipation, which causes energy mechs to take cover all the time, and take additional damage in a pair of seconds when it appears from behind cover but isn't shooting yet because arms are still hidden.
BTW, switching to DHS costs additional 1.5M CB, which is a price of a pair of autocannons. With prices of ER PPC and ER Laser, and the necessity to install at least two of them (as well as any other enery weapon doesn't work alone), energy appears to be expensive, slow, hot, sometimes heavy (HS) and incapable of direct fights. It's too high price for a weapon that requires no ammo in 15-minutes fights.
It's not a problem that I can be ganked and killed. The problem is that if ballistic does this, I'm dead in 5 seconds. With energy builds, enemy has to run around me for a minute to kill me.
Flanking an enemy like that Jagermech did requires no special skills. Just keep out of sight until you're close enough and then hold the trigger and keep reticle on the target.
OK, bro. The fact that you don't give your enemy credit for making a good move, or acknowledge that you made a mistake that gave him the opportunity, means there's just no chance you're going to learn anything.
If it was that easy to keep out of line of sight on any map, all the time, every single time, this game would be a simple brawlfest every single game. But it ain't, because people scout, get 12 pairs of eyes on different parts of the map, etc.
I already told you the solution to your issue. If you don't wanna run energy weapons, then don't. Nobody forces you to. If you don't wanna wage a hit-and-run guerilla war, then don't. Equip yourself with ballistic weapons and go to town.
OK, bro. The fact that you don't give your enemy credit for making a good move, or acknowledge that you made a mistake that gave him the opportunity, means there's just no chance you're going to learn anything.
If it was that easy to keep out of line of sight on any map, all the time, every single time, this game would be a simple brawlfest every single game. But it ain't, because people scout, get 12 pairs of eyes on different parts of the map, etc.
I already told you the solution to your issue. If you don't wanna run energy weapons, then don't. Nobody forces you to. If you don't wanna wage a hit-and-run guerilla war, then don't. Equip yourself with ballistic weapons and go to town.
When I run on HBK-4SP, I often try to sneak behind and do some kills. The best I can is just a series of pew-pew shots from 4xLL. After the first shot the enemy turns around. If i'm lucky enough to sneak behind someone busy killing someone else, I'm able to make 2-3 successfull shots from behind, which still doesn't do much. Thing that really helps me - twin SRM6. Additional 24 dmg really help. And the most kills, components destructions and actually damage is done with SRM.
When I make the same with a Jagermech ally, he just pops up and starts to shoot, killing all the targets before I can make something useful. I just need much more time to do the same damage. I'm limited either in hardpoints or heat.
Thing is independant of tactic. If I see that ballistic mech is aiming at me, I'd better run away at once, as long as I'm most likely to lose most of my armor while peeling around... well... 20 armor from him? If I see energy mech aiming at me, I know I can make some damage and I'll most likely deal more dmg than receive. If I start to shoot somebody who's not aiming at me, I have around 2-3 seconds of time before the fight comes into ordinary stage of 2 mechs spitting at each other with whatever they have.
When it comes to CPLT-K2, things are much, much worse. Thing is heavy, bulky and should stay as far as possible. I'm almost unable to use sniper tactic (do 2-3 successfull shots with no back fire and change my position), as long as my position is easily predictable. If I stay closer to my team, I'm most likely the first target to hit. If I find a good vantage point, enemies quickly run there, and I'm dead.
I tried to use CPLT with dual PPC. 3-4 series of shots lead to overheat, so I pop up, shoot and go back. And wait around 10-15 seconds, while my teammates do kills. Cold maps give me around 5 shots. Dual ERPPC are even worse. Third shot leads to "HEAT LEVEL CRITICAL". I waste time retreating, then I get more damage while popping back.
I switched to 2xLL, sparing 2 dmg for additional space, weight and the ability to exclude movement extrapolation. I needed someting to put in side torsos. I've tried AC/10, twin AC/2 and finally - gauss. These builds work much better, but the most damage is done with ballistic weapons. The only advantage LLs have - they're mounted quite high, so I can shoot from the other side of the hill without exposing myself much.
Energy works good for small mechs. They can approach, alpha out their energy and run away to cool down before the enemy turns around. I've tried to run a trial vecsion of cicada with lots of ML. Thing is very good at hit-and-runnng, I was able to make 300+ dmg and 3 kills in the first match, although this was an easy game from start. But the heavier the mech becomes, the less its speed, and the less effective energy weapons become. Heat simply can't be mitigated no matter how hard you try. This is incorrect.
I like playing with energy weapons. But I guess I'll have to switch my heavier mechs to ballistic and leave energy for small spamming robots.
The increase dissipation/reduce capacity concept has been around on the forums for quite a long time and the maths holds up. The problem is that PGI have an irrational fear of energy-based mechs, possibly as a result of MW4, but don't really seem to understand how their own game functions - see the '3s Jenner' argument against the +dissipation/-capacity concept that lead to the collection of malformed gremlins that constitutes the current ghost heat system.
Oh I wasn't saying anything about the veracity of the math... just that I don't wanna be number crunching to prove something is or isn't fun.
If you have to resort to math to prove you're not having fun, you really don't have a feel for games.
I'd like to have hardpoints at the rear side of the mechs also. But not the same for all classes. Lights, being smaller, have none, mediums 3 at each side, heavies 6 at each side and 3 at center, and assaults 9 in all rear positions.
Sont reall mind the numbers, ppl who like math can make those right, and some testing would be in place. But these extra slots would free up space for heat sinks and ammo.
How ever, and this is the neat part. Rear torso have a lot less armor than front. And parts in the rear could go critical much faster. So, loosing rear heat sinks would be a ***** as the mech gets really hot, and ammo explotions would be a reall danger for balistic and missle boats.
This would decrease the heat issue, but also open for new tactics.
Well, one solution. Might not be the best, but some thing have to be done. And discussing skills in this thread is just dumb. It has nothing to do with this issue.
Lasers = good place right now
ballistics = good place right now
heat = good place right now
SRMs = could use a look at hit registration
Except for pulse lasers, which suck.
And the LB-10X, which sucks.
LRMs need the same hit registration pass as SRMs, though it isn't as obvious with them.
Heat isn't too bad. It would be better if they lowered capacity and increased dissipation, but I can live with what we have.
That said, I do agree with your main point, which is:
Sandpit said:
The game, overall, is very well-balanced at the moment. Please do not continue implementing easy buttons for those that simply cannot or will not adjust. Those of us that actually look for a challenging game appreciate where the game is now.
I don't know how people think that AC balance is good right now. The problem is that ammo isn't really that big of an issue. So, you ran out of ammo and are useless, but if you are not totally incompetent at targeting, you have done 500-1000dmg. No one really expects more. AC weapons have good range and are very accurate.
What sucks about this situation is that for example jagermech or cataphract acboat will destroy about any other mech heavier than itself if we take supposed 1-on-1 and the enemy is energy based, regardless of range.
Now if the only downside is just the ammo, how is this in good balance when we accept the fact there is enough ammo to do 500-1000dmg.
The real losers in this situation are lasers, which should do much better damage to compensate. I think we shouldn't touch PPC/ERPPC as long as ACs are downtuned somehow.
My idea:
A) Make ammocount vary in AC.s. Make it randomly give you 50-100% of the current ammo/ton when the match start.
or
lessen ac damage and cockpit shake from ac hit. Raise laser damage.
or
C) remove the accuracy on acs, make them like 3 shot burst(damage divided on shots) and make it have decent recoil.
A little word about heat dissipation.
Stock HBK-4H with 13 SHS at Caustic valley cools down at the rate of TWO PERCENT A SECOND standing still (1% while running)! At the same time, overheat comes during second alpha strike (single alpha gives 70% HEAT).
In other words, current heat system makes some stock (!) builds unusable.
Mech has 6% heat being stationary.
Single AC/10 shot gives 7% heat. I've spent all my 30 shots to get less than 45% heat firing non-stop. This is 300 DMG BTW.
Twin ML shot at once give 17% heat. 9 shots from 2xML turn the mech off. This is 90 dmg.
3 shots from 4ML make 99% heat. This is 60 dmg. Then I have to wait for more than a minute to cool down.
I'll have to grind up and spend another 1.5kk for DHS upgrade
6
Joseph Mallan, on 21 January 2014 - 09:45 AM, said:
lessen ac damage and cockpit shake from ac hit. Raise laser damage.
