43 replies to this topic

[Rhent]

The High Heat Cap system with slow heat dissipation has got to go. It leads to everyone trying to build the ultimate high pinpoint damage machine to use (abuse) the system.

With the newer mech builds coming out, 70 pin point Alphas are possible on all but the heat maps. At the very least, with how the heat penalties are, you can do two Alpha's, including using Coolant Flush to decrease the time and core an Atlas in under 10 seconds at close and not explode. I've already done this on River City with a fresh Atlas one on one (1 Alpha, 1 AC/20 blast, coolant flush, 1 Alpha while experiencing shut down but the Atlas exploded).

If this is the game the Dev's want, then good luck as more people upgrade their build outs.

An example of the high heat cap alpha build:

Banshee S:

Cold Map/Normal Map:
70 alpha strike (1 AC/20, 2 ERPPC, 5 ML + 13 DHS Engine and 2 DHS external) and not shut down at zero heat:

Hot Map:
65 alpha strike (1 AC/20, 2 ERPPC, 5 ML + 13 DHs Engine and 4 DHs external) and not shut down at zero heat

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...7f6f01a8af0cdee

Edited by Rhent, 17 March 2014 - 06:22 PM.

[Eddrick]

I was made that way so people would have to worry about Heat. Unlike, in MechWarrior 4. When you would only have to worry about Heat in the building process and never have to worry about it again. I had a Marauder that can SPAM multiple PPCs all day and never overheat. The Heat Cap in the game ways 40 and had fast Heat Disipation.

As long as I can fire 2 ERPPCs together and not overheat in one fire, I don't care what they do to Heat.

[Prezimonto]

Lot's of other issues feed this problem as well:

Internal DHS upgrades giving 2.0 cooling to 10 heat sinks allow mechs to free more tonnage for weapons.

Endosteel structure come with no real draw back for the wide margin of builds, which is free tonnage. In the setting this upgrade was a factory upgrade, you either bought you mech with it, or had to ship your mech back to the manufacturer where they literally stripped everything off the old skeleton and rebuilt the mech on the new skeleton. That's incredibly time consuming and expensive.

FF armor in the game is meant to be a defensive upgrade, but because it doesn't let you actual more more armor on your mech, it's really an offensive upgrade by freeing tonnage for more weapons.

All the upgrades were fairly rare technology, not easy to repair or find replacement parts, leading to longer down times, and more expensive maintenance, none of which is reflected in the game.

So, I would argue that while high heat capacity certainly is a factor in high alpha play, it's the rampant and unconstrained upgrades that actually allow a player to free enough tonnage to pack that man weapons on a mech with no real drawback (missing tons of armor).

Oh yea, ammo doesn't explode often enough: if ammo had 1Hit Point, people might think twice about packing 9+ tons of ammo on a mech to feed those 3 ballistics weapons.

[Rhent]

Eddrick, on 17 March 2014 - 06:13 PM, said:

I was made that way so people would have to worry about Heat. Unlike, in MechWarrior 4. When you would only have to worry about Heat in the building process and never have to worry about it again. I had a Marauder that can SPAM multiple PPCs all day and never overheat. The Heat Cap in the game ways 40 and had fast Heat Disipation.

As long as I can fire 2 ERPPCs together and not overheat in one fire, I don't care what they do to Heat.

So, a Banshee brawler with a 70 Alpha that can one shot a Jagger sporting an XL or even core with a CT hit is OK as long as you can fire 2 ERPPC's without over heating?

[Targetloc]

Certain elements certainly seemed a lot more balanced in closed beta before they released double heat sinks and massively buffed the mech XP trees.

As a medium you could actually harass assaults effectively if you attacked them after they were engaged both because they were much slower to turn, and it took them much longer to decelerate to get to their max turn speed. And even then, the effective heat cap was so much lower that they wouldn't necessarily be able to core you the instant they got a bead on you.

It was all a bit slower and more tactical because you couldn't count on being able to devastate a target and still have plenty of heat ceiling to spare. Now it's a race to cripple or kill first with the biggest opener, then worry about if you're the one that's actually going to get the kill on the shambling remains.

Not to mention unless you play a very fast medium there's little to no chance to stay behind a heavier mech for long.

Lights were brutal back then, but HSR also wasn't in. Hard to say what the meta would be if things had kept in that direction, but I was happier with the longer back and forth engagements.

[TehSBGX]

Heatcap of 30 with high dissapation would be amazing, but it just isn't gonna happen

[Khobai]

Quote

The High Heat Cap system with slow heat dissipation has got to go. It leads to everyone trying to build the ultimate high pinpoint damage machine to use (abuse) the system.

Pinpoint damage would still be a problem even with fast dissipation.

What leads to everyone building pinpoint damage machines is pinpoint damage itself. Pinpoint damage is overpowered in MWO because the armor values come from a game with random hit locations. And going from random hit locations to perfect aiming causes a breakdown of game balance.

Quote

Heatcap of 30 with high dissapation would be amazing

Not really. That would change the meta back to gauss to avoid the heat. But pinpoint damage would still exist and be abused.

The only viable solution is to eliminate pinpoint damage on weapons by adding damage spread mechanics. Splash damage for PPCs, burst fire for ACs, and possibly lower damage for gauss but give it a chance for some of that damage to penetrate armor and damage internals directly

Edited by Khobai, 17 March 2014 - 06:35 PM.

[Lukoi Banacek]

I think pinpoint damage, FLD and immediate convergence leads to pinpoint damage "problems" more so than the heat cap.

If you fix heat cap issues, people will still build pinpoint damage high-alpha builds, they'll just trigger them less often. Won't really change the meta.

Someone chain firing LL's will still get outdone by someone chain firing FLD weapons anyway, it will just stretch the current meta out, not "fix" it.

[Rhent]

Khobai, on 17 March 2014 - 06:27 PM, said:

Pinpoint damage would still be a problem even with fast dissipation.

What leads to everyone building pinpoint damage machines is pinpoint damage itself. Pinpoint damage doesnt work in MWO because the armor value comes from a game with random hit locations. And going from random hit locations to perfect aiming causes a breakdown of game balance.

Pinpoint isn't going away, however putting in a heat system where you could 30 damage at a time at range and 40 damage at a time at brawl would be possible with a 30 pt heat system. As it stands now, I laugh my butt off at the heat system. I repeatedly overheat to get the kill and I never die from an engine explosion.

[Lukoi Banacek]

Rhent, on 17 March 2014 - 06:30 PM, said:

Pinpoint isn't going away.

Neither is high heat cap.

So, if we're going to theorycraft, why not try to get PGI to address the core problem and not a contributor?

[Amsro]

Lukoi, on 17 March 2014 - 06:31 PM, said:

Neither is high heat cap.

So, if we're going to theorycraft, why not try to get PGI to address the core problem and not a contributor?

The Heat cap is too high, and that is an easy change. What is your "easy" pinpoint solution? I like to hit where I aim, because I can aim.

[Rhent]

Lukoi, on 17 March 2014 - 06:31 PM, said:

Neither is high heat cap.

So, if we're going to theorycraft, why not try to get PGI to address the core problem and not a contributor?

High Heat cap is extremely easy to implement, changing weapon convergence not so. Hard cap the limit to 30 heat and increase the heat dissipation. Most of the problems in the game are now fixed.

Of course, three shotting an assault and one shotting a heavy are now possible with the current high heat cap.

[FupDup]

@Multiple People:
Neither pinpoint damage nor high heat caps are going away, because PGI doesn't like to redesign gameplay mechanics that really ought to be redesigned. None of the other problems like the arm's race, borked ECM, or a terribad rewards structure are going away, either. And crappy weapons balance will probably be around for quite a while as well.

If we want to talk about what PGI wants to/can do, that doesn't leave us with a very bright future. It's actually really depressing if you think about it. I think I'll go cry now.

Edited by FupDup, 17 March 2014 - 06:46 PM.

[Lukoi Banacek]

Amsro, on 17 March 2014 - 06:36 PM, said:

The Heat cap is too high, and that is an easy change. What is your "easy" pinpoint solution? I like to hit where I aim, because I can aim.

I'm not debating that Heat Cap can help, but I am pointing out that it does not fix the underlying problem.

I like to hit where I aim too, but I could accept changes to the game that would slow or hamper convergence...you fire singly, you get what you aim for...you try to converge too many weapons at once, it takes longer to line up (i.e. like the targeting computers described in canon do) or you get weapons hitting in relation to each other (i.e. my torso mounted weapons land the fixed distance from the arm mounted weapons). Either option is just as "easy" to implement as changing the heat cap and both would attack the underlying problem.

Heat cap changes slow the pace of the game, but don't change the meta. I'd be fine with that mind you, but again, not the point I'm making.

p.s. let's not leave out the other components I mentioned in the unholy trinity here...FLD can be "easily" changed as well by making AC's act like canon AC's and PPC's having a core/splash component.

As FDup notes however, it's pretty immaterial. PGI does not seem inclined to fix either of these issues so again it's just nerd-rage and theorycraft around here most of the time.

Edited by Lukoi, 17 March 2014 - 06:46 PM.

[Khobai]

Quote

High Heat cap is extremely easy to implement, changing weapon convergence not so. Hard cap the limit to 30 heat and increase the heat dissipation. Most of the problems in the game are now fixed.

Except theyre not fixed at all. You can still do 30-40 pinpoint damage with a hard cap of 30 heat. Gauss only generates 1 heat.

[Rhent]

Lukoi, on 17 March 2014 - 06:43 PM, said:

I'm not debating that Heat Cap can help, but I am pointing out that it does not fix the underlying problem.

I like to hit where I aim too, but I could accept changes to the game that would slow or hamper convergence...you fire singly, you get what you aim for...you try to converge too many weapons at once, it takes longer to line up (i.e. like the targeting computers described in canon do) or you get weapons hitting in relation to each other (i.e. my torso mounted weapons land the fixed distance from the arm mounted weapons). Either option is just as "easy" to implement as changing the heat cap and both would attack the underlying problem.

Heat cap changes slow the pace of the game, but don't change the meta. I'd be fine with that mind you, but again, not the point I'm making.

Pin Point convergence with heavy hitting weapons with slower weapon velocities (ppc, ac/10, ac/20) was adjusted. People can still get around that via brawling. If the heat cap was set in such a way that at range, that pin point was 30 and 40 at brawl, I could live with that.

[Lukoi Banacek]

Rhent, on 17 March 2014 - 06:47 PM, said:

Pin Point convergence with heavy hitting weapons with slower weapon velocities (ppc, ac/10, ac/20) was adjusted. People can still get around that via brawling. If the heat cap was set in such a way that at range, that pin point was 30 and 40 at brawl, I could live with that.

And yet PPC's (one of your slower weapons) is part of the UAC/AC5/PPC meta that abounds, which argues that slower weapon velocity did not in fact cripple those weapons as you imply. For that matter, AC10s and even 20's are making a comeback, much like the Gauss has among the casual crowd as they've gotten some reps and gotten better at firing/aimpoints to make use of those weapons again at longer rangers.

People said the Gauss was crippled by the charge feature, and yet here we are a few months later with people having adjusted to things and using them just fine...in fact Gss/PPC Mechs are even making a comeback.

[Khobai]

Quote

People said the Gauss was crippled by the charge feature, and yet here we are a few months later with people having adjusted to things and using them just fine...in fact Gss/PPC Mechs are even making a comeback.

Correct. And lowering the heat cap to discourage use of PPCs just forces people towards Gauss. It wont make pinpoint damage go away. It will just change the meta back to Gauss.

The only fix for pinpoint damage is to remove pinpoint damage.

[Mister Blastman]

Rhent, on 17 March 2014 - 05:53 PM, said:

10 seconds

10 seconds?!??!

But if they do that, a Jenner will be able to core an Atlas in THREE seconds!!!!!!


OOOhhh Nooesss the hooorrr0rz!!111111111one

[Lukoi Banacek]

don't get me wrong...I'd settle for something like this over nothing in terms of fixes, but ultimately I don't think any of it's going to happen, so why not debate fixes to the true problem.