84 replies to this topic

[Homeless Bill]

Sephlock, on 24 June 2014 - 10:06 AM, said:

Wouldn't this make the slow, ponderous, Awesome-torsoed Dire Wolf... Rather poopy?

I guess it could have a few weapons for each situation... At the cost of vulnerability and mobility.

It doesn't force bracket builds; it just forces heavily-armed 'mechs to take two shots instead of one. The Dire Wolf can still pack an insane amount of weapony and bring it all to bear - it just wouldn't be able to vaporize another 'mech instantly. Additionally, since nearly every heavy and assault would be affected by this change, its relative standing wouldn't change.

FupDup, on 24 June 2014 - 10:07 AM, said:

Also, one footnote I might add is that the "energy" expended by JJs should be inversely proportional to the number of jets being fired. Basically, you'd use up less energy if you payed up the tonnage and critslots for more jets, and you'd be less efficient if you just went with a single jet.

I agree; at the very least, I wouldn't want to see five jumpjets penalized any more than one - at least not with the current state of things. I'm really glad they're holding off on jumpjet heat for this very reason. They need to make extra jumpjets worth the effort - not give players even more reason to cheese around with a single jumpjet.

[Maxx Blue]

Interesting idea, but I wonder if it is overly complicated. What do you think about getting rid of ghost heat and just setting hard caps on the number of weapons you can fire simultaneously in a given group? So, instead of ghost heat after two large lasers, if you put three or four in a group, only two will fire when you pull the trigger. That would actually let you FORCE players to limit their alpha damage rather than just hitting them with heat penalties if they still choose to do it anyway. For particularly powerful weapons like PPC's and Gauss, you could even limit them to one-at-a-time. They already do this with Gauss, so at some level the code exists to limit group-fire by weapon type. Also, it shouldn't be too terrible to indicate in the mechlab UI when you hover over a weapon 'max simultaneous fire: 3' or something like that to tell people how many they can shoot at once. You could add chassis-quirks so that certain chasis had different values (let the awesome fire 3 PPC's or what have you) if you want more flavor, or as a way to make junk mechs more desireable. Also, it doesn't require any extra HUD elements in-game.

I understand that you want something that works across all weapons systems, but I think the end results would look very much like a system that has hard caps, and if it didn't it might not be enough of a nerf to change the meta. I'm short on time at the moment, but if I get a chance I'll try to work through an example if I can find any concrete instances where your suggestion seems like it is going to break.

[Sephlock]

Homeless Bill, on 24 June 2014 - 02:02 PM, said:

it just wouldn't be able to vaporize another 'mech instantly.

. Catching a light mech JUST RIGHT and watching it DISINTEGRATE is MAGNIFICENT though.

Quote

I agree; at the very least, I wouldn't want to see five jumpjets penalized any more than one - at least not with the current state of things. I'm really glad they're holding off on jumpjet heat for this very reason. They need to make extra jumpjets worth the effort - not give players even more reason to cheese around with a single jumpjet.

They could make the higher "class" jump jets (the ones taken by heavier mechs) have the penalty, if only to avoid screwing over the Spider .

[Targetloc]

The one thing I really like about this suggestion is that it would provide an additional variable to balance gauss and AC5's without messing with their canon stats too much.


On the other hand, it still seems a lot more complicated than setting a fixed heat cap (that doesn't increase with more heatsinks) and dialling back outliers like the gauss and AC5 by adjusting their reload time.

Edited by Targetloc, 24 June 2014 - 02:42 PM.

[Kushko]

I like the OPs idea, but i absolutely hate knowing for a fact that noone at PGI will listen.

[Zyllos]

See that you are still at trying to fix problems foreseen back in Closed Beta, Homeless...but I just don't see it ever being fixed as PGI seems to be missing the idea of what a Mech is suppose to be allowed to do.

I can see the 5+ months that I have not been on has not changed a thing and the problems seem to be getting worse, especially with the release of Clans (who would have knew?).

Will continue to lurk and pop in time to time in hopes PGI sees the mistake and fixes these four obvious problems:

• Open Ended Hardpoints
  
• Pin Point Convergence
  
• Odd Heat Mechanics
  
• Weak Locking Mechanics

Keep fighting the good fight Homeless Bill.

[Homeless Bill]

Rebas Kradd, on 24 June 2014 - 11:35 AM, said:

If this is just going to be a dev-bashing thread, I feel bad for Bill not actually getting any feedback on his idea.

Meh. Not a big deal. The memes are entertaining and feedback is overrated, particularly considering all the feedback I already got with the initial proposal. After a full year, I'm still doggedly convinced a system like this is the way to go, and I'm not so sure anyone could persuade me otherwise.

Maxx Blue, on 24 June 2014 - 02:11 PM, said:

Interesting idea, but I wonder if it is overly complicated. What do you think about getting rid of ghost heat and just setting hard caps on the number of weapons you can fire simultaneously in a given group? So, instead of ghost heat after two large lasers, if you put three or four in a group, only two will fire when you pull the trigger. That would actually let you FORCE players to limit their alpha damage rather than just hitting them with heat penalties if they still choose to do it anyway. For particularly powerful weapons like PPC's and Gauss, you could even limit them to one-at-a-time. They already do this with Gauss, so at some level the code exists to limit group-fire by weapon type. Also, it shouldn't be too terrible to indicate in the mechlab UI when you hover over a weapon 'max simultaneous fire: 3' or something like that to tell people how many they can shoot at once. You could add chassis-quirks so that certain chasis had different values (let the awesome fire 3 PPC's or what have you) if you want more flavor, or as a way to make junk mechs more desireable. Also, it doesn't require any extra HUD elements in-game.

That would either require an equal amount of work or have a very small effect. Hard-capping how many you can fire would work, but like my proposal, it would have to be shared between weapons. If it doesn't limit ballistic/PPC combinations, it's just as lacking as Ghost Heat.

And if it does link everything together, then all of the work I'm proposing would need to happen anyways, including a number in the Mechlab; the only difference would be the penalty itself, which would switch to certain-weapons-not-firing instead of a heat penalty. You wouldn't have to show it on the HUD, but that would be the only less complicated part.

I don't end up liking a hard cap because I think you should be able to do whatever the hell you want - it should just be balanced. If someone wants to fire off a 40-point alpha and cook to death, that's cool. If someone is willing to trade some extra heat for that clutch shot, I don't want to stop them. I think large alphas are overpowered - not illegitimate entirely.

[Punkass]

I would expect PGI to respond accordingly.



The problem is, I highly doubt PGI cares enough to listen to your well thought out idea about balancing the game. They didn't care last time, and I highly doubt that they care this time. For what it's worth Bill, I think the idea of engine threshold/draw, within the context of balancing out Ghost Heat, is a good one.

[Jenny Winters]

Hello. I am not going to bash the devs. There is a problem and Ghost Scale/Scale Heat is not the exact solution to address it. I hope PGI may at least give this suggestion a think-through. It is worth considering at the very least. Thank you.

[YueFei]

Yes.

[El Bandito]

This is 2014. PGI has the tools to make this game more like Battletech and less like generic FPS. They have less technical obstacles faced by the developers of previous MW titles.

The question is: Will they?

Edited by El Bandito, 24 June 2014 - 08:16 PM.

[Blue Shadow]

@Homless Bill, I like your idea and agree it would be a much bertter alternitive to gohst heat! If PP weapons are still an issue even with you idea, they (PPCs + ACs) could be given the Clan treatment. Say 8 pinpoint damage for all PPCs and the rest splash damage, multi shot ACs with the IS ones having fewer shots.....

[DYSEQTA]

Ambuscade, on 24 June 2014 - 12:13 PM, said:

Furthermore, heat penalties make the flamer more worthwhile. With it you can force an opponent to suffer heat penalties for as long as you can keep the pressure on. This would make it more tactical weapon, and not necessarily the stun locking monster everyone makes it out to be.

That's a good point.

[Mazerius]

I really hope the devs take a look at this idea, it deffinantly has merit.

[Ambuscade]

I've had another thought about this idea and flamers. A flamer attack could add to the energy "bar" of a target, simulating the heat based attack we already have. We can also make the flamer into a useful weapon and curb its abuse. To prevent excessive boating of the flamer we simply draw from lore and apply Bill's idea.

Quoted from Sarna.net about the flamer: " the standard Flamer taps into a BattleMech's reactor to produce heat in the form of a plasma release"

Therefore, we can prevent boating by applying the Ghost Heat idea (specifically for flamers as a natural side effect of the weapon system) and Bill's idea. Boating multiple flamer's causes extra strain on the engine because they tap directly into it. So,the more flamers you pack in, the more of an energy draw they impart to the user. This effect should be minimal with 1-2 flamers, moderate but manageable with 3-4, and extreme for 5 or more.

If I have miss applied Bill's idea, please correct me nicely

Ambuscade

[BigBadVlad]

I'm reading this and I'm wondering about how simple this would be really. It comes across to me as another set of values in the game for engines and all weapons, jump jets and whatever else is decided upon as drawing energy from the engine.

So you could just have all engines create the same amount of energy, 100 for example. Or seems to me bigger engines should get a higher energy value perhaps?

Now all weapons are going to get a new set of numbers "energy draw". So when you are building a mech you are going to have keep in mind a whole new set of numbers. Well if I build this 2PPC 4 med laser mech how much energy is it going to have while using the PPC's? How quickly will it recover energy if i only use the medium lasers? 1 PPC at a time? etc...

Don't get me wrong, it does sound interesting but it sounds somewhat like what a proper heat system should work like.

I would like to see a gradual heat penalty system like tabletop had. 110% heat? 25% reduced speed. 120% heat? Targeting reticule is glitching, disappearing, heck make the whole hud start glitching! etc.

As for the reign of the jump snipers, I suggested the idea of more risk for jump snipers by creating a system where there is a variable chance of mechs falling down when jumping in another thread in this sub-forum.

Edited by BigBadVlad, 25 June 2014 - 07:52 AM.

[Carrioncrows]

Good idea

But like the flamer all the forum posts in the world will not get it changed.

The reason is simple: That ship has sailed.

They are working on other things.

Perhaps when Mechwarrior Online: 2 comes out.

Edited by Carrioncrows, 25 June 2014 - 07:57 AM.

[Homeless Bill]

Sephlock, on 24 June 2014 - 02:27 PM, said:

. Catching a light mech JUST RIGHT and watching it DISINTEGRATE is MAGNIFICENT though.

They could make the higher "class" jump jets (the ones taken by heavier mechs) have the penalty, if only to avoid screwing over the Spider .

You could certainly make Energy Draw different based on jumpjet class, but I don't think it would be necessary. No light is able to equip enough weapons to overload the reactor with current numbers. This is really a system that leans more on heavies and assaults because they're the ones that can mount enough weaponry.

Jenny Winters, on 24 June 2014 - 06:39 PM, said:

Hello. I am not going to bash the devs. There is a problem and Ghost Scale/Scale Heat is not the exact solution to address it. I hope PGI may at least give this suggestion a think-through. It is worth considering at the very least. Thank you.

And thank you. Always nice to see a lurker come out of hiding.

Ambuscade, on 25 June 2014 - 07:23 AM, said:

I've had another thought about this idea and flamers. A flamer attack could add to the energy "bar" of a target, simulating the heat based attack we already have. We can also make the flamer into a useful weapon and curb its abuse. To prevent excessive boating of the flamer we simply draw from lore and apply Bill's idea.

Quoted from Sarna.net about the flamer: " the standard Flamer taps into a BattleMech's reactor to produce heat in the form of a plasma release"

I could be misunderstanding, but it seems like you're talking about making the Flamer attack the Energy Threshold, rather than directly adding to the heat. This would effectively limit how much an opponent could fire without incurring a heat penalty. If that's what you're talking about, I really like it.

If the user was only hit with half of the Energy Draw as the target, it would always be worth taking; furthermore, it would prevent it from turning into a stunlock since they wouldn't directly affect heat. I think the way to balance multiple flamers would just be to implement diminishing returns. For instance, one flamer would cause 20 Energy Draw on the target (10 for the user), two would cause 35 Energy Draw to the target (20 for the user), three would cause 45 Energy Draw to the target (30 for the user), four would cause 50 Energy Draw to the target (40 for the user), etc.

[YueFei]

Back to the top with ye.

This would add a totally new dimension along which weapons could be balanced, which makes it easier to balance the weapons overall...

[Yokaiko]

El Bandito, on 24 June 2014 - 08:11 PM, said:

This is 2014. PGI has the tools to make this game more like Battletech and less like generic FPS. They have less technical obstacles faced by the developers of previous MW titles.

The question is: Will they?

Answer is no.

We have been screaming about a LOT of this since BETA.