39 replies to this topic

[Sybreed]

101011, on 12 May 2014 - 01:39 PM, said:

But what about the Firestarter, with its 8 flamers? After five seconds, you would have 40 of these debuffs. Even if it were a 1% increase per stack, that would be 40% extra heat, which would cripple most 'Mech builds that do not rely upon ballistics.

are you new to gaming?

Debuffs usually have a max limit, so put it at 4 or something and problem is solved. And while it does cripple your ability to derp-alpha, you can still run back to your teammates

wanderer, on 12 May 2014 - 03:37 PM, said:

Honestly, flamers need to go from continual fire to being the alt-mode guns they are in TT.

There's the cloud-of-plasma "heat gun" mode and the focused "damage" mode- in TT, flamers either do one or the other, not both at once and not as some continual blast of heat source. Unlike MG's that don't care about heat, the exponential overheat on flamers is....well, not all that appealing.

Give it a bit of critseeking ala the MG in damage mode but make it a "fireball" rather than a continual blast of flame, let it simply generate 2 heat on a single hit in heat mode and simply spit out a cloud of flaming plasma at the target that deals no actual damage. Slow down it's fire rate to medium-laser levels or so rather than the constant shake-and-bake it has now and apply ghost heat for 2+ so rapidfiring for heatlock still causes the same "you cook faster than they do" problem.

sure, it still works with my idea

[Lyoto Machida]

Alcom Isst, on 12 May 2014 - 03:28 PM, said:

My problem with this strategy is that to continously blind a player, you have to either hold still or accelerate and accelerate across the front of the flamed mech. In either method and as a Firestarter, if you stay in one place you will be shot dead either by the mech you are flaming or one of his 10 allies (there was one disconnect). If you don't stay in one place you can blind an enemy mech for a second or two at most, and then evade away, performing a distraction that is far more useful than your flaming.

Lol!

[Strum Wealh]

Pygar, on 12 May 2014 - 03:06 PM, said:

TBH, Flamers have always been in the game just for the sake of "fluff" (for the sake of having them in the game, just to be there for "anti-infantry" or the occasional fire for effect gimmick) but they have always been kind of useless...in table top they did a couple points of damage and a couple points of extra hit per turn- enough heat to make you consider maybe firing less weapons next turn but not overheating you to the point of meltdown. (unless you pushed yourself almost to melt down and then got shot by a flamer)

I have mixed feelings about them in MWO- I'd love to see them be more than a novelty... but, they are doing a great job at being anti-infantry (Do you see any infantry? I didn't think so...there you go, thank you Flamers, lol) and at the same time, I don't want to see them be the new FOTM/Meta/"Everybody has to have at least one on their mech or they must be an idiot" piece of equipment.

I think my biggest disappointment with MWO flamers is that they don't actually light things on fire.

As a point of clarification, Flamers (both the standard Engine-fed variety & the ammunition-fed "Vehicle Flamer") could deal two points of damage or two points of heat to a target in TT - by rule, Flamers could not deal both damage and heat to a target.

• "Flamers can cause heat or damage at the discretion of the controlling player. Some weapons have the capacity to do both." (Total Warfare, pg. 213)
  
• "A plasma cannon delivers no damage, aside from 2D6 points of heat, to ’Mechs, aerospace fighters and small craft during the Heat Phase." (Total Warfare, pg. 139)
  
• "In addition to its standard Damage Value of 10, a plasma rifle delivers 1D6 points of heat to ’Mechs, aerospace fighters, and small craft during the Heat Phase." (Total Warfare, pg. 140)
  
• "Infernos deliver no standard Damage Value. Instead, depending on the target unit type, they deliver heat or automatic chances for critical damage, or they automatically eliminate troopers." (Total Warfare, pg. 141)

Flamers had the ability to deal damage or heat to a target, Plasma Rifles (available in 3068) could deal both damage and heat to a target, and both Plasma Cannons (available in 3069) & Inferno Missiles (in-timeline for SRMs; available in 3053 for LRMs) could deal heat to a target but could not deal damage at all.

Since we already know that PGI is working on multi-mode weapons (so that the Clan LB-X ACs can fire both slug rounds & cluster rounds), perhaps Flamers could be re-implemented so that they could have both a "Damage Setting" (continuous fire; 1.0 DPS to target, 0.0 HPS to target, 1.5 HPS to firing unit) and a "Heat Setting" (continuous fire; 0.0 DPS to target, 1.0 HPS to target, 1.5 HPS to firing unit), and maybe even a third "Hybrid Setting" (continuous fire; 0.5 DPS to target, 0.5 HPS to target, 1.5 HPS to firing unit) as well?

[Koniving]

Very simple solution.
Hotshot variant flamers.

Fires a FIREBALL. Hits target. Splashes and sets target on fire.
Heat builds up for x amount of time, at x amount of heat per second.
Takes x amount of time to recharge. A time longer than the set amount of time the fire burns the mech. It cannot be fired while recharging. Give it a ballistic mechanic.

Removes the flamer exploit of alternating flamers. Removes the stunlock threat feasible from a mech with 12 or fewer energy hardpoints. Still allows multiple flamer mechs to stunlock, which should be a viable strategy as it requires a group coordination.
Maintain the original range limitation.

Problem solved.

Edited by Koniving, 14 May 2014 - 05:24 AM.

[Captain Stiffy]

When I read "an idea for flamers" I thought a whole different thing for at least a moment.

But yeah. Flamers and machineguns both in BT SUCK except for very specific scenarios.

MG's suck because if your MG ammo gets hit kiss that side of your 'mech goodbye.
Flamers suck because... they have always sucked. They have MG range and do little damage. Better than MG's because no ammo but for a light weapon the heat sucks. Medium Laser is almost always a better option. Drop 16 points of armor if you must.

Too bad CRYENGINE IS TOTAL FING GARBAGE and destroyable environments will never happen unless they are custom coded.

[wanderer]

Captain Stiffy, on 12 May 2014 - 06:11 PM, said:

When I read "an idea for flamers" I thought a whole different thing for at least a moment.

But yeah. Flamers and machineguns both in BT SUCK except for very specific scenarios.

You have never seen an opponent cry until you pulled out a literal dice-rolling box and told him you were firing forty-two machineguns at his 'Mech at pointblank range. When he expected an LRM-boating Archer.

(The large laser was just the cherry on top.)

MG's and flamers in modern Battletech TT mostly serve as infantry killers, with flamers also being handy for igniting terrain- in TT, being able to spread smoke and block LOS can effectively negate many long-range setups simply by making it impossible to line up a target through the fire and smoke before they're in your face. Of course "anti-infantry" in TT translates to "rip up internals" in MWO, and redoing flamers to be "shots" rather than a constant blast would let you fix a lot of their issues.

[InRev]

wanderer, on 12 May 2014 - 07:13 PM, said:

You have never seen an opponent cry until you pulled out a literal dice-rolling box and told him you were firing forty-two machineguns at his 'Mech at pointblank range. When he expected an LRM-boating Archer.

Your story of "Ghetto" the Archer still makes me grin whenever I think about machineguns.

[Trauglodyte]

Fierostetz, on 12 May 2014 - 03:23 PM, said:

But they're not fluff! They really do work! I like to use them to annoy meta mechs while my team pounds them. Most people will chase a squirrel. Most people will chase a shiny. Almost everyone will chase a shiny squirrel

Especially one as god awful ugly as yours

[Joseph Mallan]

Sybreed, on 12 May 2014 - 01:35 PM, said:

So, it's an accepted consensus that flamers suck. They sucked before, they still suck now.

The problem is that PGI is afraid, and with somewhat good reason, that a flamer heavy mech can stunlock any opponent. Considering that light mechs can easily close in and flame you, it's understandable that we don't want OP flamers.

What if, instead of increasing slowly your heat, it gave you a "debuff" that increases the heat generated by your weapon firing? And said debuff is stackable

For example: 1 flamer flaming you for 1 second = 1 debuff. 1 flamer flaming you for 2 seconds = 2 debuffs. 2 flamers flaming you for 1 second = 2 debuffs. And so on

Each stack of the debuff gives a 15% increase in heat generated when firing.

Does numbers can be changed as needed, but I think that would be a decent way to make flamers a CC weapon (crowd control) without stunlocking anyone.

Flamers sucked for 30+ years, they should probably continue for another 30!

[Sybreed]

Joseph Mallan, on 13 May 2014 - 11:19 AM, said:

Flamers sucked for 30+ years, they should probably continue for another 30!

Well, I tried MW:T and I played vs a lance that had a light mech that stacked flamers. It literally kept shutdown one of my mechs and was a little bit OP IMO. Flamers aren't completely "bad". They sure are in MWO and I agree they should be a CD weapon like other energy weapons, but that doesn't mean they should suck because they've sucked before. I mean, they're in the game, so we might as well make them a worthwhile weapon

[Jack Avery]

Meh, I say quit worrying about trying to make some convoluted heat-delivery mechanic for them and just up the damage to something noticeable.

I mean, seriously, they have a range of, what, 64 meters? And that's MAX range, too. If you are getting that close to your target, you deserve to melt some armor.

[wanderer]

And since I don't have a flamer story to match up with Ghetto the Machinegunner, I shall add to this thread with giant robots SINGING about fire.

[Dawnstealer]

What would fix flamers is have them do all the things they do now, but generate .5 heat for every 1 they inflict (as opposed to the 1:1 mess that's there now). Seriously, you're more likely to overheat if you USE flamers than if you get hit with them.

[Koniving]

Captain Stiffy, on 12 May 2014 - 06:11 PM, said:

But yeah. Flamers and machineguns both in BT SUCK except for very specific scenarios.
MG's suck because if your MG ammo gets hit kiss that side of your 'mech goodbye.
Flamers suck because... they have always sucked. They have MG range and do little damage. Better than MG's because no ammo but for a light weapon the heat sucks. Medium Laser is almost always a better option. Drop 16 points of armor if you must.

Technically MGs, Flamers, and AC/2 all had the same damage in the same time frame in BT.
That is in 10 seconds, all 3 did up to 2 damage each. The difference was range. And yes, Medium Lasers were a better option because it 1) had more range and 2) had more damage in 10 seconds (5 instead of 2), but 3) had more HEAT.

After all, 1 medium laser caused 5 damage and 3 heat in 10 seconds; but nothing says it was only fired once. Just that it was applied to one location.

There's variants of different ACs ranging from 3 shots (General Motors Whirlwind/5; 120mm and of the largest caliber that remain in the AC/5 category) to 100 shots (Pontiac 100; an AC/20 mounted on Victors), and all of them with damage per unit of time mechanics. Yes in tabletop they all just did 2, 5, 10, or 20 damage to one body part. In more advanced rules you could 'split fire' between two targets. But ultimately the lore basically puts them out as very low to no heat weapons great for spamming lots of heavy weapons fire.

There are very few weapons in BT that are upfront damage. This includes Missiles, Gauss Rifles, and PPCs. These -- with special exceptions -- deliver all their damage into a single location, and take FOREVER to fire again.

Of course expecting MWO to be balanced by that is expecting too much. After all, it'd mean that while its range is incredible, an AC/2 would take between 4 and 10 shots to do 2 damage in any 10 second period of firing until arriving at 2 damage. An AC/20 may take between 4 and 100 shots, but it pumps them out much faster racking up 10 times the damage of an AC/2 within the same period of time. This keeps MGs, which are 20mm machine guns, and flamers competitive with the AC/2, however while AC/2s require at most 10 shots landed on target the MG may require 200 bullets to land on target.

More on this here.

...but yeah, intelligent balancing isn't gonna happen here.

My point though was that while as a weapon the AC/2, MG, and Flamer were never MEANT to be good against mechs, they were meant to be on equal terms. In this case equal terms as of a pre-AC/2 nerf would be an AC/2, Flamer, or MG being able to do 38 damage within 10 seconds in MWO.
Terrifying, isn't it?
Right now the MG does 10 damage in 10 seconds.
The flamer, sadly, not even 7 damage in 10 seconds and not enough heat to even slow down an enemy's cooldown.

While not my video, I've done this with 27 DHS, and even 50 SHS, and can still overheat.

The bug in the video btw is an MWO mechanic that rarely gets mentioned called Heat Retention.
Medium Lasers suffer from it too.

[Joseph Mallan]

Sybreed, on 13 May 2014 - 12:56 PM, said:

Well, I tried MW:T and I played vs a lance that had a light mech that stacked flamers. It literally kept shutdown one of my mechs and was a little bit OP IMO. Flamers aren't completely "bad". They sure are in MWO and I agree they should be a CD weapon like other energy weapons, but that doesn't mean they should suck because they've sucked before. I mean, they're in the game, so we might as well make them a worthwhile weapon

How long ago? New TT rules cap flamer/external heat increases to +6. So either someone cheated, or...

wanderer, on 13 May 2014 - 06:42 PM, said:

And since I don't have a flamer story to match up with Ghetto the Machinegunner, I shall add to this thread with giant robots SINGING about fire.

My daughter partied with those guys at a local SteamPunk Con!

[Blood Rose]

FupDup, on 12 May 2014 - 03:44 PM, said:

WTB viable Flamers.

Am i the only one that notices the heat only starts to rise ONCE he starts shooting the enemy. Up until then the heat is at a steady 2%

[AlmightyAeng]

Fierostetz, on 12 May 2014 - 03:23 PM, said:

Most people will chase a squirrel. Most people will chase a shiny. Almost everyone will chase a shiny squirrel

Don't deny it...if you saw this dude you'd chase him until you lost him.

[FupDup]

Blood Rose, on 14 May 2014 - 05:13 AM, said:

Am i the only one that notices the heat only starts to rise ONCE he starts shooting the enemy. Up until then the heat is at a steady 2%

That's because the heat gain starts out small and increases exponentially. It takes a while to "wind up" so to say. By the time I reach the Centurion, the "rev up" has started to get high enough for the heat bar to display.

[AlmightyAeng]

FupDup, on 14 May 2014 - 07:27 AM, said:

That's because the heat gain starts out small and increases exponentially. It takes a while to "wind up" so to say. By the time I reach the Centurion, the "rev up" has started to get high enough for the heat bar to display.

I thought it was because they only generated heat if they're on target...

[FupDup]

Ghost Badger, on 14 May 2014 - 08:51 AM, said:

I thought it was because they only generated heat if they're on target...

For the person getting shot, yes. For the guy firing the Flamers, the heat generation starts the moment you click the mouse.