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Second, I doubt my ideas will be very popular, being perceived as "too rooted in the TT rules" or "not accurate to the TT rules enough", depending upon which side of the MWO Forums political spectrum you fall. Critiques are welcome but please keep it constructive. "Ur idea sucs b/c I hate it" helps no one.
Had to get that out of the way up front.
Also this is a TL;DR post so if you have no patience, you may want to go back to Angry Birds now and skip this topic.
Those caveats aside, I've been thinking about heat, as it relates to gameplay, balancing Clan tech so it won't be so insanely overpowered when it hits the shelves, and dulling the teeth of energy-boating a bit, without making all-energy setups nerfed to an unpleasant degree.
First, an analysis of where I think previous MW games went wrong in terms of handling heat.
Previous MW games generally made heat sinks far more effective than they should be. In MW2 you can hammer away for a good 5-10 seconds with the trigger down on a large pulse laser (doing gods know how much damage, probably 100-200 points) before you get into the red and then with around 30-ish heat dissipation you're back at nil heat within a few seconds.
Just as an experiment I loaded up MW2 in DosBox, set up a Dire Wolf with 10 ER Large Lasers plus 25 double heat sinks, and with group fire on, I barely even spiked into the red, and was back to 0 heat after 9 seconds. Just for clarification, that's 120 heat and 100 damage. I was ripping Summoners apart like they were made of paper. I fired on a Kit Fox and it just ceased to exist. Now that's e-boating.
By tabletop rules I'd be at about 70 heat the first time I fired, forcibly shut down twice over, and according to the extended heat scale in Max Tech, probably have just killed my pilot. Even if I survived, I'd be out of action for two whole rounds while I cooled off.
Clearly, they were letting us get away with too much.*
In MW4 the consequences for heat seem to be even more minor.
MW3 seems to have come closest to getting it right. Having your 'Mech actually explode if you heat-spiked was over-the-top (I do not want to see 'Mechs exploding for any other reason than an ammo cookoff in MWO. Please, no Stackpoling.), but hilarious nonetheless.** That said, the heat system generally felt "about right", except that double heat sinks were too effective. Once you upgraded to DHS in the campaign, heat essentially stopped being an issue unless you were e-boating or using MASC.
Now, as to my proposal:
1.) Heat buildup should occur before the effects of heat sinks come into play. When you fire a medium laser, your heat load instantly goes up to 3, regardless of how many heat sinks you have. This reflects the way heat is portrayed in many of the novels (even relatively heat-efficient 'Mechs are extremely uncomfortable for their pilots when energy weapons are fired).
2.) Heat sinks dissipate heat at a rate of 1 point per sink (2 for doubles) per 10 seconds, as in the TT game. Said another way, you cool 0.1 heat per second per sink. Yes, it's painfully slow compared to previous MW games, but that is the point. Just because your weapons recycle in a few seconds does not mean you should be holding down the trigger and firing all damn day. Under this system an AS7-D Atlas dissipates 2 heat per second, a Timberwolf Prime dissipates 3.4 heat per second, and a UM-60R Urbanmech dissipates 1 heat per second.
2a.) Walking and running generate no heat, but jump jets generate 1 heat per second.
2b.) Submerging in water at least to your 'Mech's waist dissipates 1 heat per second. This is effectively a whole extra 10 heat sinks. It makes bodies of water extremely valuable from a tactical perspective.
3.) The negative effects of being overheated happen after the 'Mech has been hot for a certain period of time, not instantly. This is reflected in the TT game, as the overheating effects don't happen until the next round of play. It also explains why you can fire an ERPPC without blowing yourself to smithereens. By the time you would have been hot long enough to cause problems, your heat sinks have already had several seconds to dissipate the heat load.
3a.) The practical implementation of overheating effects (pulled from the level 3 Max Tech heat scale):
1+ heat: You lose 2 km/h of top speed for every point of heat, down to a minimum of 10 km/h. Speed is lost/restored at a rate of 2 km/h per second (much faster than the board game, but it will have a more noticeable effect this way).
8+ heat: After 5 seconds at 8 heat or more, your reticle starts to "jump around" as with MW3 sensor damage. A few pixels at first, then becoming increasingly off-the-wall as your heat goes up until it's bouncing all over the screen and finally just disappears at 29 heat.
14 heat: This is the maximum heat level to restart after a shutdown. After 5 seconds at 14 heat or more a "shutdown clock" also starts up on your HUD with a 15-second countdown. Every point of heat above 14 drops the count by a second. You can hit the override before the countdown finishes, unless you spike to 30+ heat, which is an instant shutdown.
19 heat: if the 'Mech has ammo onboard, an "ammunition temperature" warning appears on your HUD and there is an audio warning. After 10 seconds, there is a 1% chance per second of an ammunition explosion until you drop below 19 heat.
30 heat: after 5 seconds at 30+ heat, you are forcibly shut down even if you attempt to override. If the shutdown timer had already started and you reach 30 heat, shutdown happens instantly. Once you are shut down, heat sinks operate at 1/2 capacity until you can power up again.
32 heat: after 5 seconds you have a 1% chance per second of blurred vision. After your vision blurs, you have a 1% chance per second of blacking out from heatstroke until heat drops below 32. If you black out, you wake up when heat has dropped to 14 or less.
35 heat: after 10 seconds at 35 heat or more, there is a 1% chance per second of a random system taking a critical hit from the heat load until you drop below 35 heat.
45 heat: if your 'Mech has ammo onboard, it explodes after 5 seconds at 45 heat or more.
Well, for starters it means Alpha Strikes are a big risk, but potentially one with big rewards. It's no longer about how much heat you can handle without deleterious effects, but rather about how much you can afford to fire before something dire happens. A Nova Prime firing all 12 ER Medium Lasers at once will spike to 60 heat, and is cooling at a rate of 3.6/second. You won't explode, but even if you can go dip in a lake you have about 5 seconds before you find yourself standing around doing nothing for a good 5 seconds or more, during which time your opponent's teammates will probably not take pity on you. Regardless, that's a good 10 seconds-ish where you aren't firing anything at all. Better hope you made good on those laser shots.
Second, the risk of pilot blackouts and critical hits makes it a very risky strategy to e-boat. The 10-ERLL Dire Wolf I mentioned earlier can generate 120 heat in one volley. After 5 seconds of dissipating at 5 heat/sec, it's still at 95 heat and is now dissipating only 2.5/sec. You're out for nearly a minute and will almost certainly be killed. That said, if you fire one ERLL every 2 seconds, you'll be putting out a handsome 5 dps until Judgement Day, and you can certainly afford to spring 3 of them at once on an enemy who gets too close, which will wreck his whole day. 3 10-point damage clusters will chew right through a light 'Mech and a lot of mediums.
In any case, assault-class e-boats poptarting around and alpha striking will not fare too well unless the player is skilled enough to be extremely mindful of his heat curve. Going way into the red on heat doesn't just stop you from shooting for a moment, it has dire consequences. It will take finesse to pull off, and that alone should take some of the "cheapshot" stigma away from it.
My next proposal is a bit more controversial, as it requires altering some weapon stats. It's intended to address the overwhelming advantage of Clan weapons. Clan weapons are lighter, more compact, longer-ranged, more damaging and in some cases have more ammunition than Inner Sphere ones. If we mess with that, it will seriously ***** with the game's relationship to lore (this is a whole different argument, lest I digress). That said, if MWO allows unfettered access to Clan gear, everyone will toss their IS stuff in the trash. Furthermore, proposals to limit Clan access have so far met with a lot of screeching and feces-tossing (no offense to any hardcore Clan Fire Mandrill roleplayers out there), so balancing Clan equipment is a must.
So, to address this problem I propose increasing the heat and recycle times of Clan weapons. Clan Energy weapons on average do about 50% more damage than IS energy weapons (with the exception of pulse lasers, which have their own advantage), so I would suggest raising the recycle time of Clan energy weapons by about 45%, ie just enough that Clan weapons have a slight DPS advantage over IS weapons, but their damage will come in larger groups (a Clan PPC easily removes a 'Mech's head, after all, and an IS PPC only has a slight chance of doing the same, and that is an advantage in itself).
Clan Ballistic and Missile weapons are generally not more damaging than their IS counterparts, but they are lighter, permitting more weapons and ammo to be carried. A 20% increase in reload times for Clan ammo-based weapons wouldn't make them unusable.
Not being able to fire as rapidly will offset the Clan player's ability to pack more weapons on a 'Mech somewhat without taking away his range and damage advantage, and it will encourage accurate shooting from Clan players rather than spamming.
Second, increase the heat generation of all Clan weapons, from the ER small laser to the Gauss rifle, with the sole exceptions of the machine gun and Narc beacon. Combined with the stricter heat system and reload time adjustments proposed earlier, this will force Clan players to manage their weapons wisely, as is consistent with the lore since Clan pilots have more training and typically don't mind running their 'Mechs hot.
I would propose increasing the heat of all Clan autocannons and the Gauss rifle by 1, all missile weapons by 2, and energy weapons as follows: ERSL and SPL +1, ERML and MPL +2, LPL and ERLL and ERPPC +3. Triggering two Clan ERPPCs at once is already going to ruin the other guy's day. If you don't know what you're doing it should ruin yours too.
This makes Clan 'Mechs into even bigger glass cannons than they already are, which should relieve the pressure on IS players a bit. It also has the effect of making Clan weapons a less obvious upgrade for IS 'Mechs. Yes, swapping out that PPC for a Clan model will get you bigger damage clusters and enough room to add an extra heat sink, but is it worth the increased recycle time? Can you make the shots count enough to justify the change?
*this may not be obvious to most people, but MW2 did have random damage locations and to-hit rolls. Weapons miss at point-blank range and shots fired at an arm often hit the opposite leg. Funny how there was never a big crowd complaining that MW2 was no fun because the dice got in the way.
**I still remember the laughter of my 14 y/o self the first time I hit numpad-enter and alpha striked in a Nova prime in MW3. Mushroom cloud? Priiiiceless!
Edited by CaveMan, 16 November 2011 - 12:33 AM.
