181 replies to this topic

[stjobe]

Tombstoner, on 18 July 2014 - 02:58 AM, said:

Designing your game around the paradigm that heat neutral mechs are bad and then letting the 2x gause cat and 4x mg spider exist. - head explodes.

First off, I agree that heat neutrality isn't inherently a bad thing, contrary to what Paul believes, and that many TT builds are in fact heat neutral (especially lights and mediums); but using the 4xMG Spider as an example here? IIRC, when that thing was introduced MGs did 0.4 DPS and had no extra crit bonus.

Even now, with 0.8 DPS and a large crit bonus, I don't think the Spider is an issue at all. The GaussCat or 6xMG Jager might be (but the Jager also has 2xPPC or 2xLL that does the heavy lifting on that build), but the Spider and MG? Bad examples.

Heat neutrality is not the devil PGI seems to think it is; their heat system, their perfect aim, their convergence system, and their insistence on front-loaded damage for some weapons are much more troublesome than a 'mech that can fire all its weapons at once.

Alpha striking isn't a problem; alpha-striking all your damage instantly into one location is.

[Blacksoul1987]

stjobe, on 18 July 2014 - 04:00 AM, said:

First off, I agree that heat neutrality isn't inherently a bad thing, contrary to what Paul believes, and that many TT builds are in fact heat neutral (especially lights and mediums); but using the 4xMG Spider as an example here? IIRC, when that thing was introduced MGs did 0.4 DPS and had no extra crit bonus.

Even now, with 0.8 DPS and a large crit bonus, I don't think the Spider is an issue at all. The GaussCat or 6xMG Jager might be (but the Jager also has 2xPPC or 2xLL that does the heavy lifting on that build), but the Spider and MG? Bad examples.

Heat neutrality is not the devil PGI seems to think it is; their heat system, their perfect aim, their convergence system, and their insistence on front-loaded damage for some weapons are much more troublesome than a 'mech that can fire all its weapons at once.

Alpha striking isn't a problem; alpha-striking all your damage instantly into one location is.

well even if it didn't hit the same location alpha strikes would still be a problem just that it would be much less. alpha striking FLD weapons is what makes DPS weapons and DOT weapons nearly useless. when I fire all my weapons at once I back into cover cause there is no need for me to eat any of your dps.
Edit: it is also the biggest reason varied loadouts are typically inferior to boats

Edited by Blacksoul1987, 18 July 2014 - 04:10 AM.

[Tombstoner]

Blacksoul1987, on 18 July 2014 - 04:04 AM, said:

well even if it didn't hit the same location alpha strikes would still be a problem just that it would be much less. alpha striking FLD weapons is what makes DPS weapons and DOT weapons nearly useless. when I fire all my weapons at once I back into cover cause there is no need for me to eat any of your dps.
Edit: it is also the biggest reason varied loadouts are typically inferior to boats

This would then be a good argument for all weapon having the same cycle rate. it changes everything into flat FLD weapons. in terms of cycle rate only not for damage delivery over time. The pulse duration for lasers is arbitrary and is in effect a burst effect. The shorter the pulse duration the more like FLD they become. something that all weapons should have had from the get go.

[Blacksoul1987]

Tombstoner, on 18 July 2014 - 04:35 AM, said:

This would then be a good argument for all weapon having the same cycle rate. it changes everything into flat FLD weapons. in terms of cycle rate only not for damage delivery over time. The pulse duration for lasers is arbitrary and is in effect a burst effect. The shorter the pulse duration the more like FLD they become. something that all weapons should have had from the get go.

not really still makes boating the go to superior way to build a mech and it would be rather bland

[Sandpit]

Blacksoul1987, on 18 July 2014 - 03:58 AM, said:

The movement speed penalties if adjusted properly would be the biggest limiter in effectiveness of hill humping alpha builds. but what about gauss? very low heat and a huge contributer to alpha

This isn't designed to "stop the meta". Gauss and all ACs are more heat efficient at the cost of weight, slots, and ammo dependency.

By implementing something like this they do away with ghost heat. They bump heat penalties across the board. Bump JJ heat production and you immediately mitigate poptarting while leaving lights and meds with their mobility to do what they do.
Heat like what I've described solves a lot of those issues without trying to come up with 50 workarounds. Jusy a quick recap
Ghost heat
Gauss mechanic
Trajectory speeds
JJ nerfs and tweaks
And probably a few others I've forgotten about
All geared to mitigate poptarting and high damage alphas.

It's time for pgi to admit they made a few booboos. It happens. They tried their way. None of it has worked really well and just created overly complicated systems and mechanics that create yet another hurdle for new players to jump just to understand basics of the game

[Belorion]

In TT, the "Alpha" took place within a 10 second time period. In MWO it takes place instantaneously. I would have split all the weapons up to do damage over a 10 second time perior if I had been designing MWO but I didn't so I deal with what there is.

Alphas are indeed dangerous, but they just make you play more cautiously.

People complain too much.

[Sandpit]

Belorion, on 18 July 2014 - 06:27 AM, said:

In TT, the "Alpha" took place within a 10 second time period. In MWO it takes place instantaneously. I would have split all the weapons up to do damage over a 10 second time perior if I had been designing MWO but I didn't so I deal with what there is.

Alphas are indeed dangerous, but they just make you play more cautiously.

People complain too much.

There's a big difference between complaining and offering solutions to help fix it when pgi has shown after 2 years their ideas aren't working

[Tombstoner]

Sandpit, on 18 July 2014 - 06:38 AM, said:

There's a big difference between complaining and offering solutions to help fix it when pgi has shown after 2 years their ideas aren't working

Well they work from a certain point of view, but then require special rules to keep the wheels from falling off. Its easier to gerrymander a fix then it is to redesign a game system:ghost heat. Besides alphas wouldn't be as bad as they are if the conversion from TT to fps was done right. Friends and family night- where they used TT time frames: 1 shot per 10 seconds and lacked the pew pew factor. So they jacked up the rate of fire 250%across the board and didn't change anything else.

The critical error is not correcting for the increased rate of fire by lowering damage and heat relative to your cooling time frame. 10 damage and heat every 4 seconds is 25 damage 25 heat every 10 seconds or one TT turn. This perverts what little game balance tt had from day one. later armor was doubled leaving a 50% increase in damage output relative to TT.
so yea mechs die faster then needed due to conversion error that's easily fixable.

A TT ppc does 10 damage in 10 seconds and fires once. For MWO change the rate of fire to 4 seconds and the damage/heat must go down to 4/4. exact same damage as TT but with the much needed PEW PEW and no need to jack up armor across all mechs. This inadvertently simultaneously and disproportionally gave light a major buff. Why, its way easier to hit an atlas then a spider. armor protection and speed interact with mech size producing survivability.

[SolasTau]

@Tombstoner, about AC2's and TT Metas:

Yeah. In TT, 8 damage over a full 10 second turn isn't terrible. I figured it had something to do with the AC2's high rate of fire coupled with very good range and low heat. Still, you have to admit, devoid of any other context, "AC2's had to be nerfed" sounds ridiculous on its face.

Also, a meta will take shape in any game. Even if this particular issue were fixed, it would just destroy or damage the existing paradigm. Either the existing meta would adapt, or a new one would rise and take it's place. It's just like the ongoing discussion / complaining with LRMs. They're either OP or useless depending on who you ask, which is where we get into skill calls. What you have and what you do with it are not equal things.

But once again, we're talking about that TBS -> FPS gameplay conversion. I think you've directly hit it-that working with a DPS based lockout per weapon is really the only way that it would resolve all the issues. However, at least to me, something like that sounds immediately like a lot more work to actually fix at this stage in development, hence we get all these contrived systems.

I'll say this for sure. I don't envy the guys at PGI for choosing to undertake this project. BT and MW fans are all pretty much gearheads at one level or another. Part of what we love about BT or MW is the ability to build your own giant robot, and that means having a reasonably advanced understanding of the rules behind that entire process. Whether you're building in the mech lab for the first time or you're a seasoned mech designer in the graph paper world of BattleTech, we all need to know the rules we play by and build by, which leads to a much higher level of scrutiny in regards to any changes that occur in that system.

At least we no longer wonder why the computer is whining that criticals aren't assigned.

[Blacksoul1987]

Sandpit, on 18 July 2014 - 06:21 AM, said:

This isn't designed to "stop the meta". Gauss and all ACs are more heat efficient at the cost of weight, slots, and ammo dependency.

By implementing something like this they do away with ghost heat. They bump heat penalties across the board. Bump JJ heat production and you immediately mitigate poptarting while leaving lights and meds with their mobility to do what they do.
Heat like what I've described solves a lot of those issues without trying to come up with 50 workarounds. Jusy a quick recap
Ghost heat
Gauss mechanic
Trajectory speeds
JJ nerfs and tweaks
And probably a few others I've forgotten about
All geared to mitigate poptarting and high damage alphas.

It's time for pgi to admit they made a few booboos. It happens. They tried their way. None of it has worked really well and just created overly complicated systems and mechanics that create yet another hurdle for new players to jump just to understand basics of the game

so..you remove ghost heat and remove gauss mechanics....why would I not just run 3 gauss 1 erppc and never ever ever come close to any heat penalties?
Edit: I like your heat penalty system but all things considered it wouldn't fix things in a way that I would be happy with. there are things that I find problematic that you may find perfectly fine but just as you fight to improve your enjoyment of the game so must I.

Edited by Blacksoul1987, 18 July 2014 - 11:19 AM.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

We've been doing this circle jerk for years now. I'm over it.

Just going to continue playing casually, and spend a little bit of money each year.

I don't think this particular problem is ever properly going to be fixed.

[Blacksoul1987]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 18 July 2014 - 11:18 AM, said:

We've been doing this circle jerk for years now. I'm over it.

Just going to continue playing casually, and spend a little bit of money each year.

I don't think this particular problem is ever properly going to be fixed.

only proper solution I ever saw was Homless Bill's targeting computer overload. But considering you can consistently crash servers with too many machine guns I think its safe to say that the calculations required for his fix would not work well with server authorization.

[Sandpit]

Blacksoul1987, on 18 July 2014 - 11:09 AM, said:

so..you remove ghost heat and remove gauss mechanics....why would I not just run 3 gauss 1 erppc and never ever ever come close to any heat penalties?
Edit: I like your heat penalty system but all things considered it wouldn't fix things in a way that I would be happy with. there are things that I find problematic that you may find perfectly fine but just as you fight to improve your enjoyment of the game so must I.

Because with a heat system and scale like what I described would allow pgi to make slight adjustments on individual examples like yours.
Adjust cool down slightly
Increase heat here and there
Etc.

Until there are actual heat penalties in place other than a shutdown that you can override, this issue will persist.
Ghost heat never touched the problem because it has zero affect on a diverse payload. It only affected boating a single weapon. It also had negative effects on light mechs and stock builds.
All ghost heat did was cause it to go from 3 gauss and 1 ppc like your example to 2 gauss and 2 ppc to circumvent ghost heat. It was a poorly thought out system. I won't even go into how it was never announced until after players wanted to know why they were overheating.

I honestly feel they never put it in the patch notes or announced it because they knew it would never be embraced by their customers and there were too many other viable solutions presented by customers.

It's easier to say they can't change it now. It's easier to deny that other systems were better. It's just another example of paul not listening and being stubborn and arrogant costing them happy customers and costing us time delays with resources that could have been better spent

[Joseph Mallan]

Blacksoul1987, on 18 July 2014 - 11:09 AM, said:

so..you remove ghost heat and remove gauss mechanics....why would I not just run 3 gauss 1 erppc and never ever ever come close to any heat penalties?
Edit: I like your heat penalty system but all things considered it wouldn't fix things in a way that I would be happy with. there are things that I find problematic that you may find perfectly fine but just as you fight to improve your enjoyment of the game so must I.

I would think Tonnage limitations would keep you from 3 Gauss and a PPC. Presently A Dire Wolf can carry that. I personally preferred 3 Gauss and 2 ERPPC on my Stone Rhino, but a Dire can't use Endo to allow more ammo.

It is mind boggling that we cannot open the CoF when firing more than one weapon. If we could than we would not need this damn Gauss limit.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 18 July 2014 - 12:31 PM.

[SolasTau]

Just because I can... since so many people have misconstrued my post with ME being whiny about the current meta, let's touch on that.

The first thing is... I don't care about the current meta. Read that again if you have to, I'll wait. We good? Is your head done spinning about such blasphemy? No? Too bad.

The reason I don't care is because I enjoy being able to line up a big salvo of doom as much as the next guy. However, I've always felt boating weapons was a good way to limit your combat effectiveness. Now, I'm like most BT players in that I wonder what some of the game designers were thinking when they made the stock mechs presented in the tech manuals. Some of those mechs are great, and others are... yeah. But none of those mechs really 'boat' weapons other than the Nova, and when you look at how the Nova used it's tonnage, tons of CER M Lasers just becomes the obvious choice. In the case of the Catapult in the 3050 tech manual, it doesn't even run LRMs-it runs an Arrow IV. It is an artillery unit, so of course it's "boating"-there's no room on it for much else.

To me, the game as it stands is a fun FPS shooter with a very annoying matchmaker that groups me and my friends who got me to play this with them into groups of advanced and borderline pro gamers who probably are dropping 4 hours or more a day. I'm lucky if I can put in an hour a day right now because of how work is at the moment. The heat system feels wonky to me, and actually, earlier in this thread someone explained to me WTF they did. See Wallbanger.

My only other issue really is that, based on how I interpreted the rules in TT, the only variant of Jump Jets I've ever seen that makes sense in everything BattleTech that ISN'T the board game is Mech Commander, where if you hit J and click where you want them to jump, they ROCKET out to that spot. It's not to say a mech couldn't slowly hover, but when one considers a move action, you can move your full ground speed in a turn (which takes all 10 seconds in the turn) AND fire jump jets, so that tells me right there that Jump Jets make you go pretty fast for a short burn as opposed to not even quite allowing you to carry forward momentum and stalling out in mid air before doing anything useful. In this, they aren't really jump jets so much as they are a basic mobility addition to help mechs navigate sticky (re: terrain that a computer game makes you get stuck on) terrain. The lighter mechs certainly do get viable jump action out of them, but even they aren't rocketing around.

Those are MY issues. This Alpha Strike business however is PGI's bag (and evidently a big topic in the community), and all I'm saying is that if they want to fix it, they need to go to the base systems to restore that balance rather than doing a ton of ineffective tiny tweaks to weapons.

[Sandpit]

directional JJs are how they should have been implemented if they wanted to use the TT system. Putting out more of a forward thrust would also mitigate poptarting. Moving forward, in the air, with screenshake, while your opponent is moving (if they're not moving I have no sympathy for the guys who stand still out in the open) makes it much more difficult to do effectively. It also would have given lights and meds a lot more mobility in this regard so it would have killed 2 birds with one stone

[Nick Makiaveli]

FupDup, on 15 July 2014 - 02:53 PM, said:

Well, given various builds I've used across several chassis, and being shot at by the red team in-game, they currently are the main mode of attack for many builds. Mission not accomplished.

Also, IIRC, Paul said in a NGNG podcast that heat was created to reduce the amount of damage from big alphas...not to make alpha'ing a last resort.

Posts like this are why I stopped coming here.

Dude you are totally missing the points......PGI's, Sand's....not even sure you are passing the Turing Test....

[FupDup]

Nick Makiaveli, on 18 July 2014 - 03:43 PM, said:

Posts like this are why I stopped coming here.

Dude you are totally missing the points......PGI's, Sand's....not even sure you are passing the Turing Test....

Hi.

[SolasTau]

Sandpit, on 18 July 2014 - 03:30 PM, said:

directional JJs are how they should have been implemented if they wanted to use the TT system. Putting out more of a forward thrust would also mitigate poptarting. Moving forward, in the air, with screenshake, while your opponent is moving (if they're not moving I have no sympathy for the guys who stand still out in the open) makes it much more difficult to do effectively. It also would have given lights and meds a lot more mobility in this regard so it would have killed 2 birds with one stone

And this is PRECISELY why I advocate sticking closer to the balance precedent of the table top system. Does it have problems? Sure. What doesn't? But it elegantly deals with several of the issues that will/do crop up in a real time system because of that little human behavior thing.

That's kinda' the most perplexing thing to me about a lot of this stuff. PGI has experience as a production studio, they know game theory, and they're familiar with how a game is basically a system to guide human behavior into a regulated form for a contest. The only conclusions I have for the current state of things in regards to the meta that developed are either they botched their research on actions players would take driven by how the game plays, OR they decided at one point or another internally that this is how they like the game playing and it didn't become an issue until it got out in the wild and surprise surprise, people started screaming bloody murder about being one shotted by snipers. The implementation of things feels more deliberate than incidental. Just ask the poor sods I cut to ribbons last night in my Nova.

[Sandpit]

SolasTau, on 18 July 2014 - 10:29 PM, said:

And this is PRECISELY why I advocate sticking closer to the balance precedent of the table top system. Does it have problems? Sure. What doesn't? But it elegantly deals with several of the issues that will/do crop up in a real time system because of that little human behavior thing.

That's kinda' the most perplexing thing to me about a lot of this stuff. PGI has experience as a production studio, they know game theory, and they're familiar with how a game is basically a system to guide human behavior into a regulated form for a contest. The only conclusions I have for the current state of things in regards to the meta that developed are either they botched their research on actions players would take driven by how the game plays, OR they decided at one point or another internally that this is how they like the game playing and it didn't become an issue until it got out in the wild and surprise surprise, people started screaming bloody murder about being one shotted by snipers. The implementation of things feels more deliberate than incidental. Just ask the poor sods I cut to ribbons last night in my Nova.

I think it was a combination of "we know best" and, as you stated, botched data collection. After seeing a few of their data collections and such, it was apparent to a few in the community that know data collection, that their data collection methods were....... well they were less than stellar lol

So I they based some of their decisions on poor data and then were too stubborn to admit they goofed.