281 replies to this topic

[FupDup]

Purlana, on 27 February 2014 - 09:35 AM, said:

Why is it different? Just because an inventory item is invloved...?

I'll try this again. When you unlock speed tweak, you don't need to unequip regular speed from your mech. It simply adds on effectiveness to your existing mech. When you buy dubs, you need to remove all of your existing singles. Also, singles and doubles are considered two different items in the mechlab. Mechs with speed tweak and mechs without speed tweak, however, are not separate items. They are the same mech, just with a +10% speed attribute added to it.


For buying doubles to be truly analogous to unlocking speed tweak, the upgrade would simply add +100% capacity and +100% dissipation attributes to the single heat sinks already mounted on your mech. But, the upgrade doesn't work that way. It's replacing it with an entirely different piece of equipment.

[Joseph Mallan]

Really good explaination Fup. Great way defining the difference.

[FupDup]

Joseph Mallan, on 27 February 2014 - 09:35 AM, said:

Fup Why hasn't it been complained about like this in all the time MW and CBT have been played? I never heard this much Gimme in 30+ years of gaming!

Well, this MW game in particular probably sees more complaining because it's being developed as a PvP multiplayer game exclusively. The previous MW's were primarily developed as single player games with MP tacked on as a bonus. They only had to eliminate the most gamebreaking issues because they were made to be played alone most of the time, and against derpy AI opponents. But MWO is PvP only, and any issues that exist get magnified as a result of it (because people take advantage of them to gain an edge).

Edited by FupDup, 27 February 2014 - 09:48 AM.

[FupDup]

Bobzilla, on 27 February 2014 - 09:36 AM, said:

The main idea was the upgrade part, would it be more clear if I said module? There is no reason to balance a mech with mods vs mechs without mods as there is no reason to not equip a mods, which you spend cbills on.

Altho the DHS show in your inventory, the ability to use them is an upgrade. They are an upgrade, not a separte inventory item, you can't use SHS and DHS at the same time, as they are the same but one is upgraded. If you could use them both at the same time, they would be 'a separate item'.

Modules are still not a completely accurate analogy here. Your mech starts with zero modules and you get to plug some in when you make enough GXP/spacebucks. You aren't replacing anything, you're simply adding on new things. With heat sinks, however, your mech does start with some and you have to rip them out in order to use the better ones.

[Purlana]

FupDup, on 27 February 2014 - 09:48 AM, said:

Modules are still not a completely accurate analogy here. Your mech starts with zero modules and you get to plug some in when you make enough GXP/spacebucks. You aren't replacing anything, you're simply adding on new things. With heat sinks, however, your mech does start with some and you have to rip them out in order to use the better ones.

Unless you start with the better ones, which most mechs will eventually.

Question: What's the plan when clan DHS appear?

Edited by Purlana, 27 February 2014 - 09:58 AM.

[FupDup]

Purlana, on 27 February 2014 - 09:57 AM, said:

Unless you start with the better ones, which most mechs will eventually.

In which case, the singles still sit lonely and unloved in the inventory.

Edited by FupDup, 27 February 2014 - 09:58 AM.

[Kaeb Odellas]

Joseph Mallan, on 27 February 2014 - 09:35 AM, said:

Fup Why hasn't it been complained about like this in all the time MW and CBT have been played? I never heard this much Gimme in 30+ years of gaming!

In CBT, an individual mech's effectiveness doesn't matter as much for balance concerns, since the player is typically controlling multiple mechs. You just add up battle value and balance that.

Since Mechwarrior limits the player to just one mech each round, suddenly individual mechs matter. Battle value doesn't work here, since no one wants to pilot some old junker just so someone else on his team can pilot a better mech.

[o0Marduk0o]

You all are totally wrong!

You can archive better cooling with SHS!
The maximum of 26 DHS is outclassed by 43 SHS while you can slot up to 55 SHS in a single mech!

PGI should nerf SHS or I quit!

[Purlana]

o0Marduk0o, on 27 February 2014 - 09:59 AM, said:

You all are totally wrong!

You can archive better cooling with SHS!
The maximum of 26 DHS is outclassed by 43 SHS while you can slot up to 55 SHS in a single mech!

PGI should nerf SHS or I quit!

Can I have your stuff?

[IceSerpent]

Purlana, on 27 February 2014 - 09:57 AM, said:

Question: What's the plan when clan DHS appear?

Clans don't use SHS and there will be no mixed tech according to PGI, so no plans are necessary.

Kaeb Odellas, on 27 February 2014 - 09:59 AM, said:

Battle value doesn't work here, since no one wants to pilot some old junker just so someone else on his team can pilot a better mech.

BV matching doesn't force one to pilot an old junker, it merely ensures that for each better mech on your team there is one better mech on the other team, and for each crappy one on your team there is a crappy one on the other team. You can pilot whatever you want, if you end up with 12 good mechs, your opponent will also have 12 good ones.

[Joseph Mallan]

Kaeb Odellas, on 27 February 2014 - 09:59 AM, said:

In CBT, an individual mech's effectiveness doesn't matter as much for balance concerns, since the player is typically controlling multiple mechs. You just add up battle value and balance that.

Since Mechwarrior limits the player to just one mech each round, suddenly individual mechs matter. Battle value doesn't work here, since no one wants to pilot some old junker just so someone else on his team can pilot a better mech.

You don't play CBT do you? I can make a perfectly balanced BV game that totally favors one side. you last arguments don't address the fact that MW:O are not as good as they are on TT. Before you fires your next shot on TT your sinks vented. So unlike here a Awesome could fire all day if it fires 3 PPC and then 2 PPCs. Never over heating. That is with 28 single sinks. That is how you fix single sinks you speed up how fast they dissipate heat. 11 single sinks allows a PPC to fire non stop, 13 allow a Archer to rain LRMs till its Bins run dry. That will make Single sinks what they are meant to be. That is the only fix they need.

[Dramborleg]

At that point why give doubles better cooling at all? The disadvantage of doubles is that they take up 3 times the slots.

[Joseph Mallan]

IceSerpent, on 27 February 2014 - 10:18 AM, said:

Clans don't use SHS and there will be no mixed tech according to PGI, so no plans are necessary.



BV matching doesn't force one to pilot an old junker, it merely ensures that for each better mech on your team there is one better mech on the other team, and for each crappy one on your team there is a crappy one on the other team. You can pilot whatever you want, if you end up with 12 good mechs, your opponent will also have 12 good ones.

Having that old Junker let me bring a better pilot/gunner so I could put more rounds on target than someone piloting new hotness. How do we apply that lil quirk in a game where My skillz shuld be awesome?

Dramborleg, on 27 February 2014 - 10:22 AM, said:

At that point why give doubles better cooling at all? The disadvantage of doubles is that they take up 3 times the slots.

Cause 10 doubles let me have 6 mediums instead of just 3 and still be heat neutral.

[Dramborleg]

Varent, on 26 February 2014 - 01:29 PM, said:

Double Heat sinks are a direct upgrade.

They dont need to be balanced with single heat sinks.


This is akin to literally taking two handguns, and giving one an extended clip. They are not balanced and not supposed to be.

If you want the upgrade pay for it.

See, this reasoning is stupid. Why exactly should they not be balanced? Why should the player have to play a couple rounds in a "non-viable" build to get the money to make it viable? How does this improve the game or make it more fun? Playing more should allow the player access to meaningful choices, not meaningless, unequivocally better options.

[FupDup]

Dramborleg, on 27 February 2014 - 10:22 AM, said:

At that point why give doubles better cooling at all? The disadvantage of doubles is that they take up 3 times the slots.

The thing is, the 10 dubs in your engine take up the exact same amount of space as 10 singles in the engine do. That trivializes the extra critical slot cost until you get to absurdly large numbers of singles packed in (i.e. 43+ singles).

[Joseph Mallan]

Dramborleg, on 27 February 2014 - 10:27 AM, said:

See, this reasoning is stupid. Why exactly should they not be balanced? Why should the player have to play a couple rounds in a "non-viable" build to get the money to make it viable? How does this improve the game or make it more fun? Playing more should allow the player access to meaningful choices, not meaningless, unequivocally better options.

Why don't I just start with full plate armor and a Magic sword in RPG MMOs?

[Purlana]

Dramborleg, on 27 February 2014 - 10:27 AM, said:

See, this reasoning is stupid. Why exactly should they not be balanced? Why should the player have to play a couple rounds in a "non-viable" build to get the money to make it viable? How does this improve the game or make it more fun? Playing more should allow the player access to meaningful choices, not meaningless, unequivocally better options.

You mean like the horrible trial mechs I had to pilot back in beta?

[IceSerpent]

Joseph Mallan, on 27 February 2014 - 10:24 AM, said:

Having that old Junker let me bring a better pilot/gunner so I could put more rounds on target than someone piloting new hotness. How do we apply that lil quirk in a game where My skillz shuld be awesome?

Joseph, you are forgetting that in TT total BV has two components - mech BV and pilot BV. In MWO there's no pilot BV, so we can use BV schema (not a verbatim copy of TT one obviously, as we have different game rules here) to represent the mech quality and Elo rating to represent pilot quality. I don't see any problems here. Heck, we can even rename Elo to "pilot BV" just for giggles.

[Kaeb Odellas]

Joseph Mallan, on 27 February 2014 - 10:20 AM, said:

You don't play CBT do you? I can make a perfectly balanced BV game that totally favors one side. you last arguments don't address the fact that MW:O are not as good as they are on TT. Before you fires your next shot on TT your sinks vented. So unlike here a Awesome could fire all day if it fires 3 PPC and then 2 PPCs. Never over heating. That is with 28 single sinks. That is how you fix single sinks you speed up how fast they dissipate heat. 11 single sinks allows a PPC to fire non stop, 13 allow a Archer to rain LRMs till its Bins run dry. That will make Single sinks what they are meant to be. That is the only fix they need.

So you're saying singles should be viable? Great! We agree on that! So our only argument here is the implementation.

[Xarian]

There are a couple of things that I'd like to see change:
- DHS take up 2x or 3x critical slots when adding to the 'free' slots in the engine (spillover would go on the center torso critical slots).
This would make the DHS critical slot penalty more meaningful on mechs using big engines, and would not appreciably affect smaller mechs.

- Added SHS weigh slightly less (say, 0.8 instead of 1). Would not affect engine weights.
This would make them more viable on ballistic-heavy builds and builds that don't need much heat dissipation, but still need some (i.e. any mech not using MG).

- Water having more effect, so SHS in the legs being more effective.
Takes advantage of their only using 1 critical slot, which is pretty much the only advantage to SHS.

- Engine SHS getting a buff
Currently engine DHS are 100% more effective than SHS, whereas non-engine DHS are only 40% more effective than SHS. This means that DHS users have to use even fewer extra heat sinks than they otherwise would. Solution: give engine SHS a 43% buff to show that engine heat sinks are *always* more effective. DHS retain their 40% effectiveness bonus across the board. Effectiveness would break down like this:

Current:
Non-engine SHS: 1.0
Engine SHS: 1.0
Non-engine DHS: 1.4
Engine DHS: 2.0

Altered:
Non-engine SHS: 1.0
Engine SHS: 1.43
Non-engine DHS: 1.4
Engine DHS: 2.0