23 replies to this topic

[kesuga7]

Ghost heat nerfed the 4 ppc stalker specifically

• 4 PPC stalker
  
• http://mwo.smurfy-ne...2ec692039b9248f

now later we have these sorts of builds

• 2 ppc , 3 AC 5 - Banshee
  
• http://mwo.smurfy-ne...f5f40ade69de05f

• 2 PPC , 2 AC 5 Victor
  
• http://mwo.smurfy-ne...c34a2978c65e5ef

• 2 PPC , 2 AC 5 highlander with standard engine
  
• http://mwo.smurfy-ne...264147ef716f975

• 2 ppc , 2 uac 5 highlander with standard engine
  
• http://mwo.smurfy-ne...8474bfbce58a20e

• 2 PPC , Gauss Highlander
  
• http://mwo.smurfy-ne...850996d8b826075

• 3 ppc , gauss , banshee , 17 doubles -
  
• http://mwo.smurfy-ne...b610ef79318e790

• 2 PPC , AC 20 - Victor
  
• http://mwo.smurfy-ne...cb1fac8dfcc8c1c

***************************************








Dual Gauss with standard engine - JMG
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...f6402daa8e20dc4

Dual Gauss with XL - 74.0 kph - JMG
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...5ce3c6fa293ce80

Dual gauss with standard at 64 kph - CTF
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...c34a2978c65e5ef

************************************************

builds i posted are roughdrafts
however its to compare a single mech build that was nerfed with ghost heat targeting it specifically
and compare it with the builds of today

This is not to rant on ghost heat, its just to see what took the 'powerfull' 4 ppc stalkers place -
/Better DPS??/ - /Better mobility/ - better heat - better close range capability while still maintaining or nearing its esteemed 40 pinpoint alpha strike

Edited by kesuga7, 18 May 2014 - 03:38 PM.

[3rdworld]

3PPC + Gauss 732

[kesuga7]

3rdworld, on 18 May 2014 - 06:49 AM, said:

3PPC + Gauss 732

added
however with the added charge up time and the decreased ppc speed
making it harder to use and less popular then the 2 ppc , ac 5 /near/closest same speed velocity builds

iv seen its popularity decline allot



here is 3 ppc and gauss banshee
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...b610ef79318e790

Edited by kesuga7, 18 May 2014 - 07:01 AM.

[JohnnyWayne]

AC2 Jagers were popular some time ago. Before heat penalties kicked in there too.

AC5/2 combinations on Jagers.

[SweetJackal]

kesuga7, on 18 May 2014 - 06:45 AM, said:

Ghost heat nerfed the 4 ppc stalker specifically

• 4 PPC stalker
  
• http://mwo.smurfy-ne...2ec692039b9248f

We are on the first point in the post and we already have revisionist history. Reality is Ghost Heat didn't kill the 4 PPC stalker, Ghost Heat doesn't punish firing 2 PPCs at a time. The 4 PPC Stalker would stagger fire volleys of 2 PPCs in order to control heat, even without Ghost Heat firing 4 PPCs was too hot to do in a live firefight. Firing all 4 PPCs was only done as a finisher move to strike a heavy killing blow to exposed internals.

So, why doesn't the 4 PPC Stalker dominate? PPC and ERPPC heat values were directly increased. In addition people were still figuring out builds, the 4 PPC build had a higher damage output to tonnage but it ran hot compared to it's competitor build: 2 Gauss + 1 PPC. The Front Loaded Pinpoint Damage was the same between them, 2 Gauss + 1 PPC just required a higher tonnage investment but could be fired practically non-stop until ammo was depleted. This continued until some of the nerfs were undone to the PPC, at which point the Meta shifted to 2 PPC + 1 Gauss, a loss of 5 damage but gaining 8+ tons on the design.

It wasn't until the Gauss charge up time got applied to the Gauss Rifle that we saw other ACs being used in place of the Gauss.

So what did Ghost Heat do? It only affected Non-Meta builds that were still effective and hurt their ability to compete by reducing their efficiency or forcing the player to reduce their damage output to maintain heat efficiency. It's made things much more complicated with how it groups weapons, take a look at LRMs in general. Ghost Heat has done nothing positive for the game and doesn't keep a single abusive build from dominating as all Meta-Changes and Abusive Builds have been Nerf-Hammered by changes to the weapons directly, not an overall new system or mechanic.

[JohnnyWayne]

Woh woh woh, you are mixing up things. After heat penalties, the 4 PPC stalker was mostly gone and heat was increased from 8 to 9 and it's cooldown was increased to 4.

What came up next was the 2 (ER) PPC + Gauss meta. That resulted in increasing heat on PPCs from 9 to 10, decreased projectile speed and the gauss changes what included the charge mechanic and the buff of the projectile speed to 2000 m/s.

Overall heat penalties did what the pseudo DHS couldn't. What should we learn by it?

Well something like "synergy between same damage and other attributes like one weapon is low heat the other high heat can shift balance to the worse if ignored". This synergy is still ignored.

One more thing can be learned: "Balance issues by the root and don't affect other points that are no issue with it". Heat penalties balance by the root, pseudo DHS do not.

Heat penalties blocked some certain loadouts that harmed the gameplay but did not fix synergy effects between weapon systems. It mostly stays within the energy weapon section.

Edited by JohnnyWayne, 18 May 2014 - 08:11 AM.

[AntiCitizenJuan]

Gee, its almost like if we had some kind of sized hardpoint system, all of this could be avoided.
Oh well.

[JohnnyWayne]

Would lead to certain mechs are dominating the game and therefore just a different form of "meta".

[1453 R]

AntiCitizenJuan, on 18 May 2014 - 08:06 AM, said:

Gee, its almost like if we had some kind of sized hardpoint system, all of this could be avoided.
Oh well.

[FupDup]

AntiCitizenJuan, on 18 May 2014 - 08:06 AM, said:

Gee, its almost like if we had some kind of sized hardpoint system, all of this could be avoided.
Oh well.

While I myself am a proponent of sized hardpoints, they don't actually "get rid of" excessive builds per se. They just restrict those specific builds to chassis that can handle it, like the Devastator (2 PPCs + 2 Gauss stock!). Hardpoint sizes are a great method for creating chassis flavor (which is something we could use a lot more of), but they don't solve weapon balancing issues. Those have to be tackled separately.

[El Bandito]

The root of it all is PGI's inability to balance weapons individually, period. Then they try to cover it with some blanket Ghost Heat, pffft. And they never touched GH value again, even though by all accounts LLasers should have the limit raised to 3 and AC2 GH should be removed.


Still waiting on the Pulse, LBX, Flamer changes, and the AC2 range nerf was simply dumb.

Edited by El Bandito, 18 May 2014 - 08:28 AM.

[East Indy]

kesuga7, on 18 May 2014 - 06:45 AM, said:

This is not to rant on ghost heat, its just to see what took the 'powerfull' 4 ppc stalkers place -
/Better DPS??/ - /Better mobility/ - better heat - better close range capability while still maintaining or nearing its esteemed 40 pinpoint alpha strike

That's not quite accurate, once we accept that heat scale isn't at all comprehensive, thus subject to being circumvented by eventual player adaptation and game expansion. The current state of play took 10 months to develop.

We can debate over the reasons (wide chassis compatibility is the most sensible), but the fact is that in spring of 2013 powergaming loved PPCs, and showed little interest in other pinpoint combinations. Following heat scale, the PPC-Gauss combination rose to popularity until the September 2013 nerf; that led to PPC-AC/20, which was nerfed (with the AC/10, preemptively) in January 2014 and resulted in PPC-AC/5. Dual Gauss experienced small rises in usage but remained uncommon.

In March, the BNC-3E made a 35-point PPC-AC/5 pinpoint possible; the recent nerf to AC/5 velocity caused a higher-level trend back toward Gauss but generally had little effect on the rest of the player population.

JohnnyWayne, on 18 May 2014 - 08:12 AM, said:

Would lead to certain mechs are dominating the game and therefore just a different form of "meta".

Unlikely, considering how players are finally testing basic 'Mechs against each other with an actually functioning game in stock matches, and results show that — not unexpectedly — the chassis with the most powerful deliveries (Awesome, Hunchback) pay a price in easily targeted profiles.

I agree with FupDup that some work would be necessary (I'd say further prevention of FLD duct-taping), but sized hardpoints put the game in a much more reasonable place, the least of which involves removing heat scale.

[Graugger]

4 PPC Banshee, and I hear you can even cram a gauss into it if you feel like it.

Sheogorath "Cheese for everyone!"

[Lostdragon]

SuckyJack, on 18 May 2014 - 07:54 AM, said:

We are on the first point in the post and we already have revisionist history. Reality is Ghost Heat didn't kill the 4 PPC stalker, Ghost Heat doesn't punish firing 2 PPCs at a time. The 4 PPC Stalker would stagger fire volleys of 2 PPCs in order to control heat, even without Ghost Heat firing 4 PPCs was too hot to do in a live firefight. Firing all 4 PPCs was only done as a finisher move to strike a heavy killing blow to exposed internals.

So, why doesn't the 4 PPC Stalker dominate? PPC and ERPPC heat values were directly increased. In addition people were still figuring out builds, the 4 PPC build had a higher damage output to tonnage but it ran hot compared to it's competitor build: 2 Gauss + 1 PPC. The Front Loaded Pinpoint Damage was the same between them, 2 Gauss + 1 PPC just required a higher tonnage investment but could be fired practically non-stop until ammo was depleted. This continued until some of the nerfs were undone to the PPC, at which point the Meta shifted to 2 PPC + 1 Gauss, a loss of 5 damage but gaining 8+ tons on the design.

It wasn't until the Gauss charge up time got applied to the Gauss Rifle that we saw other ACs being used in place of the Gauss.

So what did Ghost Heat do? It only affected Non-Meta builds that were still effective and hurt their ability to compete by reducing their efficiency or forcing the player to reduce their damage output to maintain heat efficiency. It's made things much more complicated with how it groups weapons, take a look at LRMs in general. Ghost Heat has done nothing positive for the game and doesn't keep a single abusive build from dominating as all Meta-Changes and Abusive Builds have been Nerf-Hammered by changes to the weapons directly, not an overall new system or mechanic.

This guy gets it.

The only way to change the meta at this point is to implement some sort of change that makes it much harder to make multiple FLD weapons hit the same spot. When the poorly conceived ghost heat system failed miserably at this PGI was forced to do things like the Gauss charge up and changing projectile speeds of the FLD weapons. This has not worked either as players just moved on to the next best thing, which was PPCs and (U)AC5s. Some patient and skilled people even still do quite well with dual Gauss, I got one shot through a rear side torso by one in a Firestarter the day before yesterday.

The types of things that can accomplish this are re-implementation of convergence, reticle bloom, or similar mechanics that ultimately result in a predictable cone of fire. The only other alternative is the removal of all FLD.

[Captain Stiffy]

7 PPC banshee is better

[Agent 0 Fortune]

AntiCitizenJuan, on 18 May 2014 - 08:06 AM, said:

Gee, its almost like if we had some kind of sized hardpoint system, all of this could be avoided.
Oh well.

Sadly I predict we will see a Cloud-based platform jumper map for poptarts before we see a Stock queue option. Unless PGI figures out a way to (re)sell stock mechs. LIke a certified stock, un-editable mech, similar to their champion mechs, only fun.

[Sarlic]

I call it meta horing. It's bad these days. Look at the Cidadas for example.

[Lykaon]

East Indy, on 18 May 2014 - 08:23 AM, said:

That's not quite accurate, once we accept that heat scale isn't at all comprehensive, thus subject to being circumvented by eventual player adaptation and game expansion. The current state of play took 10 months to develop.

We can debate over the reasons (wide chassis compatibility is the most sensible), but the fact is that in spring of 2013 powergaming loved PPCs, and showed little interest in other pinpoint combinations. Following heat scale, the PPC-Gauss combination rose to popularity until the September 2013 nerf; that led to PPC-AC/20, which was nerfed (with the AC/10, preemptively) in January 2014 and resulted in PPC-AC/5. Dual Gauss experienced small rises in usage but remained uncommon.

In March, the BNC-3E made a 35-point PPC-AC/5 pinpoint possible; the recent nerf to AC/5 velocity caused a higher-level trend back toward Gauss but generally had little effect on the rest of the player population.



Unlikely, considering how players are finally testing basic 'Mechs against each other with an actually functioning game in stock matches, and results show that — not unexpectedly — the chassis with the most powerful deliveries (Awesome, Hunchback) pay a price in easily targeted profiles.

I agree with FupDup that some work would be necessary (I'd say further prevention of FLD duct-taping), but sized hardpoints put the game in a much more reasonable place, the least of which involves removing heat scale.

the current state play that took ten months to develope is not all that accurate.We need to look way back at closed beta with the first FLD king the Gauss kitty (cat).

This is essentially the grand daddy of all these shifts through builds that utilize FLD alpha strikes. the K2 with twin gauss was the first "problem" build that utilized a FLD mechanic to overwhelm the armor mechanics.

That was around 20 months ago where beta testers identified a poor relationship between front loaded damage mechanics and the armor mechanics.But back then there were only a tiny handful of chassis and one that could hold twin gauss or produce effective 30 point front loaded damage alpha strikes (lack of DHS made tripple PPC to hot with the at the time poor hit detection)

Way back then many testers suggested that this may evolve into a serious issue it was at that time that sized hardpoints first came forward as a design solution.

Since closed beta and the days of the Gausscats the name of the game has been evolve a means of placing as much front loaded damage in one spot as possible.The Dev response has been to bandaid fix issues that ultimatley fail to fix the issue yet force evolution of the FLD arms race.

Since it seems obvious that the game developers do not want high volumes of FLD being flung about (they keep slapping on bandaids) why don't they take a different approach,how about directly effecting the undesired mechanic.Remove the prevelance of FLD weapons by altering those weapon's mechanics.

[M0rpHeu5]

As the devs stated That you want to make the game like battletech where the aplha strike is a rare one time thing, imstead of adding delays and staff that makes weapons unlikely to be used do this:

1st you can lower the time that the ghost heat applies to 100ms, after all any deference of time will break the pinpoint alpha

Each and every weapon will be connected and will have a tier value that will determine with how many weapons will be able to fired penalty free
Flamer -> 0 poinys
(pulse)SLaser -> 0 points
(pulse)MLaser -> 6 points
(Pulse)(ER)LLaser -> 10 points
(ER)PPC -> 15points
Machine Gun -> 0 points
AC2 -> 3 point
(U)AC5 ->9 points
AC10/LB10XAC ->18 points
AC20 ->30 points
Gauss rifle ->30 points
(Steak)SRM ->1.5 points per missile
LRM -> 1 point per missile


Mechs according to tonnage will be able to fire deferent tier of alpha strikes heat penalty free
20-25tones -> Max Alpha 21 points
30-35tones -> Max Alpha 24 points
40-45tines -> Max Alpha 27 points
50-55tones -> Max Alpha 30 points
60-65tones -> Max Alpha 33 points
70-75tones -> Max Alpha 36 points
80-85tones -> Max Alpha 39 points
90-95tones -> Max Alpha 42 points
100tones -> Max Alpha 45 points

For every extra weapon point a mech shoots it will be heated by 1 more heat point and there the aplha problem is gone forever

For example the gausscat that shoots 2xGauss rifles(60 points) which is 27 points above it's potential will get 27 extra heat so instead of 2heat it will get 29 heat

Every mech will be able to fire ONE weapon penaltyless
e.x.: A raven will be able to shoot a gauss without the penalty but a gauss+small laser will give heat penalty

Of course there should be ingame tutorials that explains this to the new player

Edited by M0rpHeu5, 18 May 2014 - 11:18 AM.

[East Indy]

Lykaon, on 18 May 2014 - 10:48 AM, said:

the current state play that took ten months to develope is not all that accurate.

It's exactly what happened. Your post tangents on times and events I didn't even cover, then references generalities we agree with.