86 replies to this topic

[Gyrok]

Adiuvo, on 25 April 2014 - 12:26 PM, said:

The problem with low cap high dissipation is that it's in effect a buff to weapons with long cooldown times. IE, PPCs, AC20s, LRM20s... anything big really. Seems like the opposite effect of what the... loud people want.

Erm, it stops high alphas BETTER...

With Ghost heat a single AC20 will never overheat you.

With Ghost heat a single LRM20 will never overheat you.

With Ghost heat, a single ERPPC *might* overheat you if you carry very few heatsinks.

With the high dissipation low heat cap system the same above is true.

However...consider this:

You can currently fire 4 standard PPCs at once with Ghost Heat, you will overheat for about 2-3 seconds, but it can be done.

With hard cap @ 30, if you fired 4 standard PPCs at once, you would blow your reactor.

With current situations, you can fire 5 LL or 4 ERLL at once and not over heat, some builds can do it twice.

With hardcap @ 30, you would explode if you fired 4 ERLL at once or 5 LL at once.

With AC20, you get 3ish Alphas before overheating now...

With hardcap @ 30, you get 2 alphas before overheating.

See a trend...?

Plus, it would buff ALL energy weapons to bring them up on par with the other systems, which is a vastly needed change.

As it currently sits, you run energy weapons to fill during your ballistic/streak/SRM down time (with the exception of some chassis that are largely invalidated right now by ballistic mech chassis).

Energy boats would be FAR more viable with proper cooling. Almost to the point that ballistics would literally be optional instead of mandatory. What a crazy world that would be, 3 completely viable weapon system groups?? Unheard of!

Not trying to be mean or sarcastic, but hard cap does not do what you said, and ghost heat does not solve the issues either.

Edited by Gyrok, 27 April 2014 - 12:37 PM.

[Peiper]

Gyrok, on 27 April 2014 - 12:36 PM, said:

As it currently sits, you run energy weapons to fill during your ballistic/streak/SRM down time (with the exception of some chassis that are largely invalidated right now by ballistic mech chassis).

Energy boats would be FAR more viable with proper cooling. Almost to the point that ballistics would literally be optional instead of mandatory. What a crazy world that would be, 3 completely viable weapon system groups?? Unheard of!

Not trying to be mean or sarcastic, but hard cap does not do what you said, and ghost heat does not solve the issues either.

Well, I really enjoy energy boats, and while you can boat with missiles and ballistics, you cannot as effectively boat with energy weapons. That, however, is not so far from Classic Battletech, however. (Though, ammo explosions from overheating and taking damage were a lot more common and usually wrecked a mech unless you were down to less than a ton of your total ammunition load.) While ammo explosions do happen in MWO, they aren't as common as in classic battletech - maybe because it's impossible to get a critical hit when you still have armor, that you don't always get a critical hit when you don't have armor, and the crazy diminishing returns you get from targetting a part of a mech that is already wrecked (which is what you do in classic battletech to INSURE you get critical hits!)

Perhaps clan mechs, with their double heat sinks, will allow for more laser boating. Certainly, in lore, clan mechs had the potential to run a lot cooler and/or boat many more weapons. However, if you can boat more energy, you can also boat more missiles and ballistics, right? Will there be some sort of balancing factor to reverse the trend and make energy more viable? I'd like to know.

[Chemie]

I expect clan DHS to be same as S. They nerfed them for IS so clans would be even worse...

But even with no change to DHS, clan mechs will be game balance breaking (they carry way too much alpha); will make the new meta clan high pin point alpha from distance.

[Mcgral18]

Chemie, on 27 April 2014 - 01:54 PM, said:

I expect clan DHS to be same as S. They nerfed them for IS so clans would be even worse...

But even with no change to DHS, clan mechs will be game balance breaking (they carry way too much alpha); will make the new meta clan high pin point alpha from distance.

The funny thing is, with a lower heat cap they could fire even fewer weapons than IS without overheating. Ghost heat won't do a thing to prevent firing a mix of 12 lasers from a nova, which....will be devastating. For a salvo or two, before it takes 30 seconds to cooldown. Unless of course they link ALL weapons to ghost heat.

I am hoping for full 2.0, but realistically we can expect 1.4 external. A real shame.

[Trauglodyte]

The one thing that you're leaving out, Gyrok, is that with low cap/high dissipation, you still have to build in the ability to vent all of your heat before you actually apply things to the cap. In TT, your heat sinks vented a specific amount of heat. Anything after that was applied to the cap. So, if you were to apply that to MWO, with the fast firing rate, you'd need to have DHSs vent something like 4.0 per just to get things right. At that point, you're in the same situation that we are currently.

The only thing that low cap/high dissipation achieves is that it drastically slows the game down. And that is a great thing. But, the Awesome would never be able to alpha all three, which it could in TT. So, you're really punishing some stock builds that are already getting punished. Hard core heat and/or movement penalties is what we need. That and mech quirks would go a long way to helping things out.

[anonymous161]

What I want someone to personally ask him, is why they have a hiring now advertisement up for so long and somehow no one is filling up positions to help get the game moving faster. I find it hard to believe that this tiny team is the only ones that can work on the game, so either they lied and not really hiring, or something else is going on.

[Jun Watarase]

If you want energy weapons to cool better, make them cool during the beam duration time and see what happens. You dont need to mess with some low cap high dissipaton system for that.

Not to mention the low cap system would encourage more poptarting and sniping, since it would be very easy to overheat during brawls. But if you are sniping, you have ample time to cooldown.

It would also increase reliance on ballistic weapons. Hey why worry if you are going to overheat with the next volley when you can just keep firing with no worry of that?

Ghost heat is ******** because the penalty is not applied everytime you pull the trigger. Its only applied if you alpha them at once. Two AC20s are still ridiculously powerful regardless of whether or not you chain fire them, and even if there was ghost heat, people would still use them for the uber alpha factor. Who cares about running hot when two alphas are enough to completely wreck most mechs, and you can reverse behind a rock to cool down?

But eh, not like any of this will be read by PGI anyway.

[Featherwood]

Though I liked AC(C) approach described, it is how all AC should work in MW game, IMO. I still pray god to remove Paul from lead designer position somehow, I do not wish harm to Paul, but please let him leave MWO alone already. This guy is like mad monkey pursuing its own tail - he fights with problems which are consequences of the previous problems he did (in mechanics design - starting from primitive hardpoints system, pinpoint accuracy, awful ECM realization, Ghost Heat, and finishing with ELO/matchmaker).

Edit: forgot to mention here as well - in case if some stray dev reads it - best solution for PPC damage is to make it splash one instead of pinpoint. That could help to keep PPC(C) damage close to the lore and at least partially mitigate meta-problem, depending on splash area size and hit registration mechanic.

P.S. Peiper, thanks for transcription, keep it going, I hate to listen those sycophantic dialogues.

P.P.S. Ghost Heat is not Okay - we just have adopted to it. GH is step child of hardpoints system - fix HS system by implementing weapon size restrictions (a la MW4) and GH counter-mechanic won't be needed.

Edited by Featherwood, 27 April 2014 - 02:57 PM.

[Adiuvo]

Gyrok, on 27 April 2014 - 12:36 PM, said:

snip

You're not taking into account dissipation during the cooldowns, nor do you have a good sense of the actual heat generated by the weapons.

A PPC creates 10 heat, and has a ghost heat cap of 2. If you fire 3 PPCs you generate a total of 42.6 heat, an extra of 12. If you fire 4 PPCs, you generate 73.6, an extra of 33.6. The heat capacity of the old 732 build is 71.76. That's with 17 DHS. Firing 4 PPCs, or even 3, with 17 DHS is stupid and will leave you sitting there doing nothing for both your overheat time and your cooldown time. It's a dumb thing to discuss.

A large laser generates 7 heat, and has a ghost heat cap of 2. Firing 4 of them at once generates 37.41 heat, an extra of 9.41 due to ghost heat. Pre ghost heat an alpha of 36 that's not even pinpoint was never a big deal. What caused problems was the 6LL Stalker, which was 54 damage at only 42 heat. Given a bit of cooldown period it was not difficult to toss out 108 damage in a short period of time. Let's say you have a hard cap of 30 (which is a horrid idea for energy boats). You're still going to have 36 damage alphas often, which is more than the standard 2xAC5/2xPPC we have now. I don't think that's a problem, but since you're the one advocating this system I imagine you do.

An AC20 only generates 6 heat. You can never overheat with it now. With a hardcap of 30 you would get 5 alphas minimum, and since you want to up the dissipation, coupled with the AC20s long cooldown you would never overheat with it, still. The same applies to the PPC (except you can actually overheat with 2xPPC currently).

This whole discussion is coming from the viewpoint that there is undoubtedly something *broken* about AC5s and PPCs. I play this game competitively and I, along with just about everyone I've talked to about this, doesn't particularly have a problem with game balance as it stands, short of that the lack of SRMs causes everything to be out of whack. You're already required to use multiple weapon systems with the AC5/PPC mechs, and unless you're in close range or timing your shots you won't even be getting damage on the same component with those. Brawling has it's weapons in the AC20 and AC10, and hypothetically brawlers have a massive DPS advantage over snipers due to SRMs. That SRMs are currently borked is the primary reason brawling isn't viable. TTK is long enough as is in a sniper fight assuming high enough skill. Watch this for an example.

Edited by Adiuvo, 27 April 2014 - 03:04 PM.

[Deathlike]

Let's humor that 732 build for a second.

Running that 732 build for a moment...

It would dissipate 3.4 heat per second, assuming those were true doubles with a 30 pt heat cap.

Let's forget for a moment whether or not you shutdown (technically you would automatically do that on a hot map, most likely running and jumping).

To cool that mech down until a usable state for the next alpha, it would take 8.82 seconds (30 / 3.4).

In this game, running that same build, you have a base heat capacity of 59.8, with efficiencies buffed, it is @ 71.76.

Now, obviously it is stupid to outright just alpha that build due to ghost heat (and there are ways around that. At the peak of the PPC meta (before ghost heat), heat generation was @ 8 for PPCs and 12 for ERPPCS. So, each alpha would only generate 24 pts of PPC heat (Gauss is negligible, but you can do that math if you wish).

Let's drop ghost heat for a moment, since that obviously prohibits this build from working properly. It would generate at least 30 pts of PPC related heat when ghost heat is not applied. This actually LESS than 50% of the entire heat capacity of that build. The heat dissipation is 2.98 heat per second. So, while now takes almost 5 seconds for everything to cooldown (Gauss Rifle charge is factored in, and for the sake of argument is rounded up for easy math), the mech would have cooled down almost 15 points of heat in 5 seconds of which 30 was generated by the PPC.

I'm not justifying ghost heat, but when the heat capacity compared to the standard 30 in which this was based on AND that the cooling effect of non-truedubs are in effective, you have a heat capacity system that can almost indefinitely sustain itself over the time that you need it to operate.

If you take a more realistic build like say the 4 ERL Stalker, it would probably suffer less... or even the 4 PPC Stalker (when it fires in pairs avoiding Ghost Heat). I'll do the math for that later.

Edit: The dissipation numbers I used did not factor in Coolrun, but that's just to get you the basic idea.

Edited by Deathlike, 27 April 2014 - 03:34 PM.

[Gyrok]

Trauglodyte, on 27 April 2014 - 02:16 PM, said:

The one thing that you're leaving out, Gyrok, is that with low cap/high dissipation, you still have to build in the ability to vent all of your heat before you actually apply things to the cap. In TT, your heat sinks vented a specific amount of heat. Anything after that was applied to the cap. So, if you were to apply that to MWO, with the fast firing rate, you'd need to have DHSs vent something like 4.0 per just to get things right. At that point, you're in the same situation that we are currently.

The only thing that low cap/high dissipation achieves is that it drastically slows the game down. And that is a great thing. But, the Awesome would never be able to alpha all three, which it could in TT. So, you're really punishing some stock builds that are already getting punished. Hard core heat and/or movement penalties is what we need. That and mech quirks would go a long way to helping things out.

Trauglodyte, on 27 April 2014 - 02:16 PM, said:

The one thing that you're leaving out, Gyrok, is that with low cap/high dissipation, you still have to build in the ability to vent all of your heat before you actually apply things to the cap. In TT, your heat sinks vented a specific amount of heat. Anything after that was applied to the cap. So, if you were to apply that to MWO, with the fast firing rate, you'd need to have DHSs vent something like 4.0 per just to get things right. At that point, you're in the same situation that we are currently.

The only thing that low cap/high dissipation achieves is that it drastically slows the game down. And that is a great thing. But, the Awesome would never be able to alpha all three, which it could in TT. So, you're really punishing some stock builds that are already getting punished. Hard core heat and/or movement penalties is what we need. That and mech quirks would go a long way to helping things out.

If you return weapons to TT heat values, then using the TT heat scale would allow the awesome to alpha all 3 ERPPCs.

[Davers]

Daekar, on 26 April 2014 - 03:47 PM, said:

You're certainly welcome to your opinion, but I completely disagree with pretty much everything you said or implied.

They aren't elected officials, selected to be your mouthpieces. They are some battletech-obsessed guys that started a fan podcast and did it well enough that the devs wanted to work with them to do tutorials and such. They're not your representatives and they don't try to be. They don't claim to be. God knows you don't need a representative, the forums offer plenty of space to express yourself.

And that is the problem. They started out as fans, but now they work for PGI. Maybe they believe everything they say. Maybe they really do think every one of PGI's ideas are really good. But you can never be sure they aren't just toeing the company line and thats what hurts them.

And they do pretty much claim to be representatives of the 'league play' community.

[Diablobo]

Thanks for the summary Peiper. I'm thankful that you sacrificed your sanity to sit through their mutual admiration society meeting.

[Gyrok]

Adiuvo, on 27 April 2014 - 02:54 PM, said:

You're not taking into account dissipation during the cooldowns, nor do you have a good sense of the actual heat generated by the weapons.

A PPC creates 10 heat, and has a ghost heat cap of 2. If you fire 3 PPCs you generate a total of 42.6 heat, an extra of 12. If you fire 4 PPCs, you generate 73.6, an extra of 33.6. The heat capacity of the old 732 build is 71.76. That's with 17 DHS. Firing 4 PPCs, or even 3, with 17 DHS is stupid and will leave you sitting there doing nothing for both your overheat time and your cooldown time. It's a dumb thing to discuss.

A large laser generates 7 heat, and has a ghost heat cap of 2. Firing 4 of them at once generates 37.41 heat, an extra of 9.41 due to ghost heat. Pre ghost heat an alpha of 36 that's not even pinpoint was never a big deal. What caused problems was the 6LL Stalker, which was 54 damage at only 42 heat. Given a bit of cooldown period it was not difficult to toss out 108 damage in a short period of time. Let's say you have a hard cap of 30 (which is a horrid idea for energy boats). You're still going to have 36 damage alphas often, which is more than the standard 2xAC5/2xPPC we have now. I don't think that's a problem, but since you're the one advocating this system I imagine you do.

An AC20 only generates 6 heat. You can never overheat with it now. With a hardcap of 30 you would get 5 alphas minimum, and since you want to up the dissipation, coupled with the AC20s long cooldown you would never overheat with it, still. The same applies to the PPC (except you can actually overheat with 2xPPC currently).

This whole discussion is coming from the viewpoint that there is undoubtedly something *broken* about AC5s and PPCs. I play this game competitively and I, along with just about everyone I've talked to about this, doesn't particularly have a problem with game balance as it stands, short of that the lack of SRMs causes everything to be out of whack. You're already required to use multiple weapon systems with the AC5/PPC mechs, and unless you're in close range or timing your shots you won't even be getting damage on the same component with those. Brawling has it's weapons in the AC20 and AC10, and hypothetically brawlers have a massive DPS advantage over snipers due to SRMs. That SRMs are currently borked is the primary reason brawling isn't viable. TTK is long enough as is in a sniper fight assuming high enough skill. Watch this for an example.

You are not taking into account the math I am referencing. I am not, honestly, diametrically opposed to high alphas. I run jump snipers and play competitively...but the issue lies in the fact that mechs get burned down quickly in the current meta. PGI complains TTK is too short now. Hence the completely ridiculous AC2 nerf that was somehow justified by numbers on paper.

Additionally, let us now consider that with a hard heatcap of 30 the DUAL AC20 build or AC40 build would be able to alpha just twice. Yes, you can take cooling into account if you would like, but you would still maybe get 3 perhaps 4 on a cool map if you alpha'ed on cooldown.

Now, you must also consider that ghost heat arbitrarily puts crazy restrictions on things like MLs and MPLs...those were not really even problematic before. They are supposed to be a bread and butter brawling weapon...but due to excessive heat added plus ghost heat, they are now only effective in small numbers (completely invalidating several chassis of the medium class in the process).

Edited by Gyrok, 27 April 2014 - 04:17 PM.

[Sybreed]

Fut, on 25 April 2014 - 11:44 AM, said:

I really don't understand this...
With lower cap and higher dissipation, the chance of dying is still there. Why would they remove the Internal Damage from Overheating if they increased heat dissipation? ******* PGI sometimes *Headscratch*

and there's a lot more chances that you die if you keep overheating

[Trauglodyte]

Quote

If you return weapons to TT heat values, then using the TT heat scale would allow the awesome to alpha all 3 ERPPCs.

All of the weapons in game, except for just a few (laser family), are at TT heat levels. I think what you meant to say is return the weapons to TT recycle times. If that is the case, then the game is a 10s boring snooze fest.

[Cattra Kell]

Davers, on 27 April 2014 - 03:56 PM, said:

And they do pretty much claim to be representatives of the 'league play' community.

Except thats false. The only ones who can honestly claim comp status is Jager and myself and its also why we asked Jager to join us
Do we promote the comp scene? Yeah all the time. But we never claimed to be comp reps. That would be Magician, pwn, and rex who we keep in close contact with.

[Trauglodyte]

Cattra, I'm not saying that you guys "claim" anything. But, that doesn't mean that what is said and asked on the pod cast isn't extremely important and that it doesn't carry weight/sway. That isn't so much the fault of NGNG but just the way media, of all forms, is. Does that make sense?

[Mcgral18]

Trauglodyte, on 28 April 2014 - 06:14 AM, said:

All of the weapons in game, except for just a few (laser family), are at TT heat levels. I think what you meant to say is return the weapons to TT recycle times. If that is the case, then the game is a 10s boring snooze fest.

Now, that's just not the case. All PGI had to do was retain the correct TT ratio. If you make them fire faster (as you should) you need to cut the damage and the heat by the correct amount. PGI did none of that, hence why lasers are so bad with 3x heat.

Lets take the gauss and AC20 as an example. Gauss could keep a longer cooldown for more damage. 12 damage at 7 second cooldown?

AC20 could fire 4 times in the 10 second period, each shot doing 5 damage. So, 2.5s cooldown and heat would then be ~2 per shot.

[Trauglodyte]

I get that, McGral. But, you've also got to look at it from the stand point of how the community might react if PGI released the game and the AC20 wasn't doing 20 damage, the PPC wasn't doing 10 damage, etc. There is a massive line to walk between offering up a good game that is/can be/might be balanced and keeping to the core Battletech game. Go in either direction too far and you've pissed off the people that are paying your bills.