127 replies to this topic

[Targetloc]

Khobai, on 04 June 2014 - 05:46 PM, said:

If someone wants to build a Stalker with 4 PPCs and alphastrike them all at once, there should be NOTHING preventing them from doing that.

Why?

[Khobai]

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Why?

Because the entire point of the mechlab is customization and placing artificial limits on customization is entirely self-defeating.

If youre going to restrict customization with systems like ghost heat, why not make the game stock mechs only?

[Koniving]

1453 R, on 04 June 2014 - 05:35 PM, said:

Or you could equip an AC/20, even with burstfire adjustment, and fire it all day every day for more DPS than those four medium lasers, and rather than riding the ragged edge of thermonuclear detonation for firing four frickin’ medium lasers, you’d just pwninate entire games all day long. Or at least all energy-based machines all day long, which wouldn’t take long because they’d vanish from the face of Creation. Light ‘Mechs without SRM hardpoints vanish altogether because firing the only weapons they can mount means they run a serious and unavoidable risk of turning into background radiation, even if they don’t actually exceed their heat limits.

The penalties as listed are too harsh. These are war machines – they’re meant to be able to stand up to adverse conditions and handle their own weaponry enough to get the job done. We all strive to stay under the heat cushion as much as possible – if you make it so the heat cushion tops out at the bottom of the heat bar, then only those ‘Mechs which generate zero heat remain viable.

Don’t do that. I like light ‘Mechs, and lasers, and builds that don’t center on nothing but autocannons Q_Q…

MWO does that anyway.

Okay pack on an AC/20. Assuming a low burst number like 5 (what they'll do with Ultras).
30 threshold.
Fix AC/20 heat back to 7 instead of 6.
14 DHS (typical dual AC/20 build).
We're just gonna use 1 AC/20. 4 second recycle rate.
Lets assume the burst is 1 second long for fun and simplicity.

14 DHS * 2 = 28 cooling in 10 seconds / 10 = 2.8 cooling per second.

5 shots = 7 heat. 5 shots done in 1 second. 3 second reload time.
5 cycles per ton (instead of 7).

Here we go!
0 seconds. Fire. 7 heat.
1 second. -2.8 heat.
2 seconds. -2.8 heat.
3 seconds -2.8 heat.

Yes. This is heat neutral. It's lore, too. But it's one AC/20.
That guy down the road? 20 damage pinpoint. 2 PPCs. He's got 15 DHS.
0 seconds, fire 2 PPCs. 20 heat (66.67%). This guy isn't carrying an AMS system, no ammo. No explosion risk. Shutdown only occurs if he maintains this heat. No lasers to maintain it with and he'll need to be above 43% for more than seconds.
1 second. -3 heat. 17 heat.
2 seconds. -3 heat. 14 heat. (He's safe).
3 seconds. -3 heat. 11 heat.
4 seconds. - 3 heat. 8 heat. (He could fire now but that's not smart. Though he could fire 1 PPC and be just fine!)
5 seconds. - 3 heat. 5 heat.
6 seconds. - 3 heat. 2 heat. (He'll probably fire now).

You're doing 4 damage per shot, scattered all over the place. Yes, you're running heat neutral. But he shot once and did 20 damage in one spot. And he runs pretty damn well. He'll kill you a LOT faster than you can kill him. And he's using 14 tons in energy weapons, and the tons you spent in ammunition he spent on heatsinks.

Also don't forget he's got better range and you've got horrendous recoil.

This is pretty much a TT staple. Not quite seeing the issue. (Also note most AC/20s are between 10 and 15 shots).

Edited by Koniving, 04 June 2014 - 06:10 PM.

[Sprouticus]

Khobai, on 04 June 2014 - 06:03 PM, said:

Because the entire point of the mechlab is customization and placing artificial limits on customization is entirely self-defeating.

If youre going to restrict customization with systems like ghost heat, why not make the game stock mechs only?

That is an all or nothing fallacy Khobai.

You can restrict build based upon lots of things: ghost heat, hard points, heat scale, max engine size, etc. And you still end up with balance (relatively speaking).

If you made it no holds barred, you would end up with everyone running AC5/PPC/Ac20 combos with the max engine size possible. And thats it.

200 kph commandos/4xAc5 Atlas (maybe 5, I would have to do the math) with JJ's

[Khobai]

Quote

You can restrict build based upon lots of things: ghost heat, hard points, heat scale, max engine size, etc. And you still end up with balance (relatively speaking).

But you end up with balance at gunpoint that strips away the freedom to play the mechs you want.

Quote

If you made it no holds barred, you would end up with everyone running AC5/PPC/Ac20 combos with the max engine size possible. And thats it.

Not if you fixed pinpoint damage and balanced the weapons properly. Pinpoint damage is the only reason those weapons are preferential and pinpoint damage is the exact thing im advocating against.

Besides thats what we have now. Dragon Slayers with Dual AC5s/Dual PPCs which completely circumvent the intended purpose of the ghost heat system. Ghost heat does not apply to those mechs at all, but a three PPC Awesome gets penalized? The system just doesnt work.

Quote

200 kph commandos/4xAc5 Atlas (maybe 5, I would have to do the math) with JJ's

I didnt say anything about lifting speed caps or removing hardpoints. Just removing ghost heat really. And balancing the weapons themselves so ghost heat is no longer required.

Edited by Khobai, 04 June 2014 - 06:20 PM.

[Targetloc]

Khobai, on 04 June 2014 - 06:03 PM, said:

Because the entire point of the mechlab is customization and placing artificial limits on customization is entirely self-defeating.

If youre going to restrict customization with systems like ghost heat, why not make the game stock mechs only?

Ghost heat is terrible and needs to go away. I think we all agree on that.

I wouldn't aim for heat penalties that would be a hard limit on customization. I'd aim more towards making the choices more distinctive.

Energy weapons (being lighter when there's not enough dedicated heatsinks) have the potential for higher burst or DPS at the cost of movement and targeting penalties when over-taxed.

Ballistic weapons would have a lower, but more sustained damage, with the risk of catastrophic ammo explosions.

Mixed builds would have the advantage of being able to step up damage more than pure ballistic builds, but also have to be careful they don't cook off their own ammo when pushing themselves.

If the heat threshhold and penalties were done right.

[A banana in the tailpipe]

As long as they do something to cut down on all the PPC spam. It was really bad before and I don't even want to imagine how it is now after the ballistics nerf.

[Reitrix]

I'm curious. If Convergence was turned off while Jump jets were engaged, would that kill poptarting?

[FupDup]

Reitrix, on 04 June 2014 - 07:13 PM, said:

I'm curious. If Convergence was turned off while Jump jets were engaged, would that kill poptarting?

Yes. It would probably, however, also kill jump brawling.

[WazOfOz]

A lot of quotes from TT rules here. If it's jump snipers people wanna nerf simple, in TT firing & jumping are 2 separate moves. So make it that unless a MWO mech has at least 1 foot on the ground they cannot fire their weapons.

[Reitrix]

FupDup, on 04 June 2014 - 07:14 PM, said:

Yes. It would probably, however, also kill jump brawling.

Jump brawling is a thing? Whenever someone tries to jump in a brawl they just go up over my head. I've never seen anyone jump in a brawl as anything other than an "oh god get the hell out" maneuver.

I do enjoy legging SHawks when they do it, but a skilled jumper in a brawl wouldn't have any issues planting a shot on target in a jump without convergence. Sure, you wouldn't have perfect accuracy, but you're jumping, why would you have perfect accuracy?

[Mcgral18]

Reitrix, on 04 June 2014 - 07:13 PM, said:

I'm curious. If Convergence was turned off while Jump jets were engaged, would that kill poptarting?

HGNs and Dragon Slayers wouldn't be affected too hard. All right side mounted, the PPCs would still likely hit the same component since they are mounted vertically on the HGN. Arms may still hit, but not necessarily the same hitbox.

[Rhent]

Khobai, on 04 June 2014 - 06:03 PM, said:

Because the entire point of the mechlab is customization and placing artificial limits on customization is entirely self-defeating.

If youre going to restrict customization with systems like ghost heat, why not make the game stock mechs only?

I played (abused) 4 PPC stalkers to the max when they were viable. I played (abused) splat cats to the max when they were viable. I also got bloody damn tired of having only a few very limited builds being the only build viable. The Dev's are trying to FIX weapons to the point where there is no ALPHA build to the point if you don't use it, you are screwed. Being able to do a 40 pt pin point alpha at range with no ammo and minimal heat (back when PPC's weren't 10 heat and no ghost heat existed) forced everyone who wanted to be competitive towards certain builds.

Changing the heat to a 30 pt threshold AND greatly increasing the heat dissipation rate, would allow energy builds that don't break 30 heat to do very well. As it stands now, you can fire 2-3 volleys with energy builds and then you need to sit and wait for your heat to dissipate, which leads to turtling. Turtling is killing this game, I'm bloody sick of it.

Lastly, the devs finally adding some damage to jump snipers legs who fall w/o saving fuel for their JJ's is one thing to help tamper down the blasted jump snipers. If the devs are smart, they will make it where the damage percentage greatly increases with weight class, such that lights take existing damage, mediums take slightly more damage, heavies take a significantly noticable amount of damage and assaults if they fall 6-8 times w/o fuel they lose a leg.

[FupDup]

Reitrix, on 04 June 2014 - 07:22 PM, said:

Jump brawling is a thing? Whenever someone tries to jump in a brawl they just go up over my head. I've never seen anyone jump in a brawl as anything other than an "oh god get the hell out" maneuver.

I do enjoy legging SHawks when they do it, but a skilled jumper in a brawl wouldn't have any issues planting a shot on target in a jump without convergence. Sure, you wouldn't have perfect accuracy, but you're jumping, why would you have perfect accuracy?

Well, there are a lot of people out there who have trouble hitting flying targets that aren't going at assault mech speeds. The point is, we need some kind of solution that doesn't have any "collateral damage" so to say. Paul's nerf gun is mighty inaccurate, sort of how the agility nerfs to Highlanders and Victors hurt short-medium range builds on those mechs a lot more than it hurt poptart builds for them.

[Reitrix]

FupDup, on 04 June 2014 - 07:34 PM, said:

Well, there are a lot of people out there who have trouble hitting flying targets that aren't going at assault mech speeds. The point is, we need some kind of solution that doesn't have any "collateral damage" so to say. Paul's nerf gun is mighty inaccurate, sort of how the agility nerfs to Highlanders and Victors hurt short-medium range builds on those mechs a lot more than it hurt poptart builds for them.

How about limiting convergence to 350 Meters while jumping? As in your weapons will only converge up to a point 350 meters in front.
Jump sniping from 700+ is made difficult, good players with a ton of practice could still land accurate shots, but Jump brawlers (how is that even a thing?) are still fine inside that brawl window.

Edited by Reitrix, 04 June 2014 - 07:45 PM.

[FupDup]

Reitrix, on 04 June 2014 - 07:45 PM, said:

but Jump brawlers (how is that even a thing?)

Since brawling in general is so marginalized ATM, it's not a full-fledged thing so much as something that long-medium range builds are "jury rigged" for.

Reitrix, on 04 June 2014 - 07:45 PM, said:

How about limiting convergence to 350 Meters while jumping? As in your weapons will only converge up to a point 350 meters in front.
Jump sniping from 700+ is made difficult, good players with a ton of practice could still land accurate shots, but Jump brawlers (how is that even a thing?) are still fine inside that brawl window.

I dunno about the exact numbers, those would need some testing. The overall idea isn't bad, just for some reason it doesn't light up the "me gusta" lightbulb in my head. I dunno why.

[Dirus Nigh]

Kaldor, on 04 June 2014 - 11:58 AM, said:

Lets hope they dont...

How will you effectively bring all these modifiers to the table without totally pissing everyone off?

Movement: Doable. -5% speed and acceleration per "movement point"?
Modifier to Fire: How? We dont roll dice. There are no CoF mechanics in game
Shutdown: Pretty much in place allready
Ammo Explosion: Yeah, because ammo explosions are so common anymore...


And yes, I understand they are used when you get above what your heat cap is.

You dont get it. No one is saying literally taking a turn based table top game and literally putting its mechanics into the game. People have been suggesting the concept and logical consequences of heat build up to be implemented into MWO.

The question is how do you take the concept of reduced performance due to heat build up in a real time FPS/SIM? The table top game gave an incremental penalty to the movement point of a mech. in MWO this could be represented by reducing the top speed of the mech by a percentage based on how high the mechs heat level is.

For example If the mechs temperature reaches a certain point the max speed would be reduced by X% for every Y% on the heat scale. Other effects can also be introduced such as acceleration/deceleration, torso speed, arm tracking, weapon convergence, mech turn radius, and so on. Sensors can also be effected.. Target locks, target data, target detection, and target retention can be effected.

The key is to make these things a gradual effect that the player will notice and have to compensate for, with out making it crippling.

[YueFei]

Khobai, on 04 June 2014 - 05:22 PM, said:

Except ive already explained to you why a 30 threshold wouldnt work: Gauss rifles.

Gauss rifles allow you to do 30+ pinpoint damage while completely circumventing the lower heat threshold.

Pinpoint issues would not instantly be gone. Players would just be instantly forced into using Gauss.

Gauss Rifles can be balanced by recycle time. That's probably the best way. Because heat is not an issue for Gauss, and burst-fire will never be implemented for it because it's supposed to be a single projectile.

Increase recycle time as needed until it is balanced.

That cements Gauss as a premier sniping weapon. In a situation where you can hit hard and then fade away long enough for the Gauss to reload again before you pop out for another shot, it'd be outstanding. If forced into a sustained engagement, its lack of DPS will be its undoing. I dunno how long the reload time should be to make that happen, but it should be possible to eventually balance it that way.

Reign in burst-damage potential from PPCs with a fixed heat cap as Koniving outlined, and compensate with true DHS. Make Medium Lasers 3 heat again instead of 4. Remove Ghost Heat. Now you can shoot 9 Medium Lasers in a single strike without shutting down. And you'd be able to fire them more often than you can now.

Put in Koniving's max-armor per-mech-variant proposal.

Then implement Wanderer's burst-fire mechanic proposal (where different mech variants have different bore-sizes, just like missile hardpoint tube counts). A Jagermech can mount AC20, but it'll fire in a much longer burst with smaller projectiles doing less damage per projectile. And paper-thin armor. A Hunchback's AC20 will fire in a much more savage, shorter burst, and be better armored than most Shadowhawk variants.

[wanderer]

WazOfOz, on 04 June 2014 - 07:16 PM, said:

A lot of quotes from TT rules here. If it's jump snipers people wanna nerf simple, in TT firing & jumping are 2 separate moves. So make it that unless a MWO mech has at least 1 foot on the ground they cannot fire their weapons.

People don't apparently read ALL the rules then. Battletech has multiple levels of rules complexity- while one cannot fire in midair under the simplified, tournament-level rules, there most assuredly ARE rules for jump shots in Tactical Operations.

But even then, it doesn't need to be frickin hard. Just keep the inaccurate gun shake regardless of whether jets are active as long as the 'Mech is in the air. Problem solved.

And gradual heat effects should have been in since beta. Ammo could simply take damage from high levels of overheat- which although it might cause an ammo explosion, it also might simply destroy ammo, leaving someone who burns out their 'Mech without anything to shoot. Overheat could also simply reduce a 'Mech's effective engine rating when at high levels, leaving the 'Mech not only slower, but more sluggish to simulate targeting penalties from TT. "Meltdown" damage should be reserved for shoving your heat levels past 100% (override-level shutdowns)- and the "chance for shutdown" at lower levels can be tossed in this case. The realtime nature of MWO makes those far more crippling than they would be in TT, and the other heat effects will do plenty.

We can then take ghost heat and shove it out an airlock.

[Lily from animove]

Eddrick, on 04 June 2014 - 11:11 AM, said:

I hope they go that rought, too. However, people seem to misunderstand, that Heat Scale doesn't kick in till after you generate more Heat then what your Heat Sinks can handle. It happens at the end of the Turn in TT. I can generate 37.5 (45 if you count Heat Cap boost) Heat with 19 MWO DHS, with Elite Efficiencies, before that Heat Scale kicks in.

yes it would be great, since it would finally generate something people have to "manage" really. Do I really need 4 ER LL, or maybe only 3 and 5more heat sinks? What kind of risk Am I willing to go into by heating above a certain level.

But I wonder how much this would affect Gauss as possible new Meta, since gauss would rarely care about any heat.