199 replies to this topic

[Mcgral18]

Hobgoblin I, on 18 July 2014 - 01:28 PM, said:

I think you need to play the game more mister blastman, and maybe also practice your reading skills. I already said if a fight begins at say 900m that I am dead. This would be why I don't walk around out in the open shouting my location and asking to be sniped. If I get hit by a snpier, I change my orientation and look for cover. Nowhere did I accuse McGral of not having skill, I opposed his idea that non PPC/gauss players couldn't have skill. You, however I accuse of making innane posts.

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opposed his idea that non PPC/gauss players couldn't have skill.

I don't believe I've ever stated this.

I simply don't agree with PGIs idea of "balance."

[Hobgoblin I]

Mcgral18, on 18 July 2014 - 01:32 PM, said:

I don't believe I've ever stated this.

I simply don't agree with PGIs idea of "balance."

It was about you saying a good PPC/gauss guy would twist and land all of his shots right where he wanted...not giving the chance that his target may also be skilled at torso twisting and hitting where he wants, thus avoiding CT only hits and landing most of his damage on his targets CT. The little blastman guy started trolling and I didn't specify better...sorry.

[Tezcatli]

Rhent, on 18 July 2014 - 07:30 AM, said:

Trying to use the literary books to justify game mechanics in here might as well be like telling your girlfriend that you read in penthouse letters that she would like surprise **** sex, your analogy is THAT BAD.

I'm just saying there's a case for it in the lore. It's not like we're strictly following the tabletop either.

[Joseph Mallan]

Tezcatli, on 18 July 2014 - 01:38 PM, said:

I'm just saying there's a case for it in the lore. It's not like we're strictly following the tabletop either.

However on teh CBT Forums there is a mantra. Lore is not rules.

[Tezcatli]

Joseph Mallan, on 18 July 2014 - 01:47 PM, said:

However on teh CBT Forums there is a mantra. Lore is not rules.

I'm just trying to add some flavor to their decisions. ;p

[Fleeb the Mad]

I'd be on board for the OP's suggestion. I acknowledge that there is an imbalance that needs attention, because I think that PPC/Gauss sniper mechs are too effective at close range. I also think this solution is the most effective than others already mentioned. More on that in a bit though.

I am in favor of this idea over others for two reasons. First, it's the simplest possible solution alongside changing the weapon cooldown. Very easy to implement without changing any of the mechanics of how the weapons work (cone of fire, randomness, etc. etc.). So they can try it out without having to do a lot of extra work.

Changing the cooldown's been suggested and is the simplest possible solution. It's changing one number, but I'm not for that for one reason. I don't believe in forcing Gauss and PPCs into roles as purely sniper weapons with longer cooldowns. Changing cooldowns would hurt any mech that carried them as part of a mixed loadout, which isn't the problem. It's also wouldn't have much effect on long-range sniping from cover. In my experience the issue isn't taking two or three successive volleys in a stare-down contest. If you get hit in the face by a guy who backs behind cover, cooldowns only mean they stay there a bit longer.

Second reason is that I think having to stagger fire limits sniper mechs without nerfing them in their role.

Maybe a 2 gauss/PPC limit has little influence in sniping. At range you can fire four PPCs in two groups before the first one hits. Entirely possible that an unaware target won't move in time for that to matter. An aware target may be able to react if they see the second shot coming. However I don't think that's the point. Having to stagger fire makes those PPFLD builds less effective at middle and close range where the target is moving a lot more. I think the reason they're so popular is because they're still fairly effective at defending themselves at close range against brawlers. Being effective at long, mid and short range puts mechs with more limited ability to deal damage at range at a disadvantage.

More limits would make it less painful for people to expose themselves from cover, and would bring front-load damage more in line with laser and missile weapons in their ability to inflict damage on a very brief exposure window. Encourages more mobility and gives brawlers some help, which I think is something MWO needs very much.

[ATao]

Make it so you can shoot 2ppc or 1ppc+gauss or 2gauss but not 3 of either simultaneously. But for the sake of god please remove gauss charge up!

[Deathlike]

Trauglodyte, on 18 July 2014 - 08:23 AM, said:

Get off of my build, y0, and go back to brawling. BRAWL BRAWL BRAWL!!!

I've kinda shelved the Shadowhawk-2D2 for brawling. The situation never seems to dictate it... so I'm left with converting back to a Streakboat.... I'd probably have to reconsider the 2K for better results (PPCs with SRMs or some awkward combo).

[Mister Blastman]

Hobgoblin I, on 18 July 2014 - 01:28 PM, said:

I think you need to play the game more mister blastman

lol

/thread

[Hobgoblin I]

Mister Blastman, on 18 July 2014 - 05:08 PM, said:

lol

/thread

another not innane post...thats egg on my face

[Mister Blastman]

Hobgoblin I, on 18 July 2014 - 05:13 PM, said:

another not innane post...thats egg on my face

Just for you.




Be angry with what I said. Be mad. Or not. I don't care. As far as I can tell you haven't been around this game for long and have some things to learn about it. That's how I see it.

[Hobgoblin I]

Mister Blastman, on 18 July 2014 - 05:16 PM, said:

Just for you.




Be angry with what I said. Be mad. Or not. I don't care. As far as I can tell you haven't been around this game for long and have some things to learn about it. That's how I see it.

It's quite embarrassing for you that you could be around for so long and not be able to see a thing.

[YueFei]

Hobgoblin I, on 18 July 2014 - 01:18 PM, said:

The range isn't the issue. I chose a short range build. Frontloaded pinpoint or LRM I would be helpless at range.

Going to the testing ground wouldn't help either. I carry 6 med lasers...I am fairly confident I can hold them to one location on a stationary target. Right there is 30 of the 35 opposing damage we were talking about.

I constantly do forget the beam duration in cycle time...lol

The desynch already happened with the charge time and weapon speed changes. At short range they become meaningless, but the you can always close to within the 90m PPC minimum.

The fact is I believe I can and have kept more than 35 points of my 73 point alpha on location in these instances. The long range weapons already suffer from weight and/or heat restrictions plus slot size. When looked at in the context of how they fit into BUILD, I don't see them as being equal to or superior to short range weapons in a brawl.

Even ignoring the fact that many go-to sniper builds outrange *and* out-run you, one big issue is heat efficiency. Look beyond how much damage you can do in a single blast, and look more closely at how efficient that damage is.

SRM6s, even with Artemis, only deliver about 65% of damage onto the intended hitbox.... when the intended hitbox is an Awesome's stationary CT facing you squarely. Against a moving, twisting, shielding target, that number can only go down. You generate 4 heat every time you fire an ASRM6, dealing 12.9 damage. That looks fantastic until you realize barely half of it will land on the intended hitbox. Against mechs with far better hitboxes that aren't shaped like Awesomes, some of those missiles can outright miss. Against an Awesome some missiles hit the arms and legs even at point blank range.

If you land half of it, that's an *effective* damage-per-heat of ~1.5.

Now look at your medium lasers. If you're an aimbot, and your victim never moves or twists, and the server's HSR is perfect on the hitreg, you'll deal damage at an efficiency of 1.25 damage-per-heat. As soon as you go against someone who is actively moving and twisting and shielding, especially against someone who has gotten good enough to successfully shield himself from the instantaneous damage application of PPC/AC/Gauss snap-shotted at him from other highly skilled players.... well, if you can land even half of that laser stream into the hitbox you want, that's a damage efficiency of 0.7 effective damage-per-heat.

You wanna know the damage-per-heat of the popular 2xPPC+2xAC5 combo? It's 1.36. And he's got more than double the range on you.

I often find myself redlining on heat in my HBK-4SP. Against weaker players who don't move defensively, I can often drop them just as I begin to overheat. But against superior players who stay loose and move smartly, I am *always* redlining on heat long before I can drop them.

The 2xPPC + 2xAC5 combo, with 15 DHS and double-basic pilot efficiencies, can be fired nine consecutive times every 4 seconds on a heat neutral map if you stand still and are willing to blow a cool shot. These builds can do much more than simply snipe defensively and camp in one spot. Some of the very best players move aggressively and actually push into the enemy with these builds. There's enough heat capacity in there, and they've got enough accuracy in hit percentage, to kill, cripple, or at the very least open up enemy mechs to finish off with sustained fire with the AC5s after they start to hit their heat cap.

2xASRM6 weigh the same as 1 AC5. It takes more crit slots and 2 hardpoints instead of 1. The SRMs will kill a stationary Awesome in Testing Grounds at 90 meters about 23% faster than it takes the AC5 to do it. And the SRMs will generate 250% more heat to get that kill.

That's a very very marginal TTK advantage, with the disadvantage of the massive inefficiency in damage application and damage-per-heat, and being outranged by more than double. Remember this is with equivalent investment in tonnage and a *greater* investment in crit space and hardpoints.

SRMs need to hurt more. A lot more. That may have less to do with the raw damage numbers and more to do with the concentration of the damage.

Clan SRMs are a different animal altogether, but that's because they weigh half as much as Inner Sphere SRMs.

[Blacksoul1987]

Joseph Mallan, on 18 July 2014 - 12:53 PM, said:

Light Mechs are meant to be fragile when swatted with heavy weapons. It is the nature of things. Lights give up a measure of durability to be nimble and fast. It is the natural order. If you die in lights like I do, then you are not a light Pilot and should reevaluate your place in the game.

I know my place its as a heavy/assault sniper pilot. Bad gameplay is bad gameplay even when its in my favor. Lights are becoming rarer and rarer with every bit of power creep we get.

[Blacksoul1987]

Mister Blastman, on 18 July 2014 - 11:54 AM, said:

I would like to see no more than 20 pts of pp fld allowed in the game. Yeah, that's extreme... but whatever. I'd rather see game diversity than an arms race to a single set of specific things being dominant.

In fact, dueling with rules that allow no more than 20 pts of pp fld is actually quite fun. The game dynamics change, dramatically. Surprisingly... in a duel...

Pulse lasers are superior.
SRMs are okay but still spread way too much to be the go-to weapon.
Autocannons have huge advantages.

PPCs aren't so bad in a duel if you use them as pairs but if you're slow, someone can close the gap on you and it is over. So, to use PPCs in a duel, the 'mech has to be fast or both of them have to be slow enough that you can do damage before the close. Once the close happens, whatever can fire the most often, with greatest accuracy and least spread wins if both players are equally skilled.

There's a lot more to it than that, of course. Otherwise dueling wouldn't be so fun.

20 ppfld is a limit I would like to see as well light mechs could survive and mechs with more firepower would need more exposure to utilize that firepower, a man can dream.

[Nanoswimz]

But you already cant shoot ppc with gauss in the same time because of charge. Im tired of balance crutches that was never implented in old mechwarrior games. Ghostheat, jumpnerfs, that is total ****. I want apother hardcore MWO build. With old gauss, no ghostheat, 6ppc stalkers, 4gauss daishi and other funny stuff.

[Blacksoul1987]

Nanoswimz, on 19 July 2014 - 02:13 AM, said:

But you already cant shoot ppc with gauss in the same time because of charge. Im tired of balance crutches that was never implented in old mechwarrior games. Ghostheat, jumpnerfs, that is total ****. I want apother hardcore MWO build. With old gauss, no ghostheat, 6ppc stalkers, 4gauss daishi and other funny stuff.

that's hardcore mode? more like roflstomp easy kill farming mode.

[Asmudius Heng]

Another convoluted addition no thanks.

If they REALLY wanted this to happen they would do this across the board and get rid of ghost heat.

Add a new measurement into the game called ENERGY.

Each weapon draws power from the reactor and each engine has THE SAME amount to stop silly engine increasing garbage.

You cannot fire weapons once the limit is reached, but it quickly comes down to force people to stagger shots. So firing two gauss would reach reactor hights as would 2 PPCs etc.

So instead of punishing people with an arcane ghost heat syste, you simply STOP people firing more than a certain amount of weapons at a time.

Restrictive? maybe yes - convulted - yes actually but less so than ghost heat.

This way you have a visible way to stop too many weapons firing at the same time forcing staggered fire, and you have heat on top of that to stop people continuously firing too much.

Energy to limit FLD PP spam
Heat to limit DPS overload spam

Done

Now you can sell more modules PGI! Have ones that reduce the time out on energy slightly or raise the bar marginally. Introduce quirks for mechs that need it like the awesome that get a lower energy draw from PPCs or something.

Surely this would be better and more visable than ghost heat AND other crap on top of that!!

[OneEyed Jack]

Reno Blade, on 18 July 2014 - 10:12 AM, said:

Yes I believe the game would be worse if we had no GH.
Even if only for PPCs, the effect was badly needed to reduce the 40 dmg alphas.
you could shoot 4-5 PPCs instead of the curent 3 (with GH).

Someone is bad at math or missed the part where they jacked up the base weapon heat and gave PPCs hard minimum ranges. 4 PPC alpha machines became the same type of bad troll build the old 6 PPC Stalkers were, without GH being required.

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3x double 20s makes you shut down
Try a Direwolf with 3 or 4 UAC20? instant shut down. Would be no problem without GH

No thanks. I'll pass on driving a mech with all short-range weapons that's slow enough to make using them a problem and turns bad enough that I don't really want to get that close. Balance isn't about finding the worst players in the game finding ways to bundle them in bubble wrap.

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Lasers are still in a bad space (worse than PPCs), but there are still people using a BM with 6 LL and alpha them with 99% heat (on cold maps) to good effect (killing people in 1-2 shot).
It's not that Lasers are as strong as PPCs, but alpha striking lots of them was way stronger than spacing your shots.
4+ LLaser can do a lot of damage and adding GH makes the shooter space the shots, or (if he wants to take the heat) deal with the penalties.
I use 3 LL builds (like Warhawk with 3ERLL, Gauss, 2SRM6) and I use 3 or 2 of them roughly equally often.

Oh, I use LL builds, too. However, I'm honest enough not to try double-speaking by suggesting the worst-off weapons in the FLD meta are both in a bad place and need to be forced to stagger fire. You can't have it both ways. Even if firing 6 LL alphas was actually a good idea (it wasn't before GH, it's now, and it wouldn't be if GH was removed), they'd still be worse than PP FLD weapons.

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SRM boats like the splat cat are the only ones really affected by the GH for SRM or Streaks.
If you have more than 3 SRM6, you can deal a lot of damage.
The effect of 24 SRM with 2 damage each, even with the missile spread, can be very devestating.

It also has extreme downsides, such as very high base heat, extremely short range, massive ammo requirements, and foregoing any kind of backup plan. Splatcats were only ever even good if they managed to outplay you before they ever fired a shot. And that was with the actual missile splash code busted nine ways from Sunday and doing many times the amount of damage they were supposed to do.

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Firing 4+ LRM 10/15 does a lot more heat than firing 2/2 groups.
It limits the amount of 50+ missile volleys, not the chainfired streams.

The effect on LRMs is negligible. While it's a better point than any other you've made thus far, it's not needed and would be a small price to pay to rid ourselves of this travesty. It could also be easily replaced by much better limits, specific to missiles, that would actually make sense.

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The Missile launchers over 2/5 are linked together and use the highest penalty. Nothing else to "make sense".

You're kidding, right? 30 missiles (3x10) causes GH, but 30 missiles (2x15) doesn't, and 40 missiles (2x20) causes none, either. Or 18 SRMs (6x3) causes no GH, whatsoever, but 16 (4x4) does. And worse yet, 10 SRMs (5x2) does as well! But you think that makes sense?!?! If that makes sense to you, then no wonder the rest baffles you so much.

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The AC2 was first affected (bugged) because of the short cooldown and has GH, to limit the stun-lock ability of macro'd 4-6 AC2s.
It is not very effective in dealing FLD pinpoint damage to one spot, but you could see nothing or shoot back at all, if you got into someones chaingun barrage.

That's complete and utter bullcrap. Not only is it diametrically opposed to what they claimed was the intention of GH (limiting alphas), but they didn't need nerfed in the first place. I played on both sides of the DAKKA as well, and not only was I alwaysable to continue fighting but, when I played it myself (hey, DAKKA is amusing as hell), anyone not newb enough to freak out at the tinkle of light damage could consistently ignore it long enough to end me messily. It never was a major threat, and with the entire weapon system nerfed to the scrap pile by drastically increased cooldowns and decreased ranges, it could really benefit from the dubious usefulness of scaring newbs and being entertaining.

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All these changes lead to more time to deliver your damage, or heat penalties if you still want to group fire.
It's a basic Risk vs Reward mechanic that gives the player the choice without removing the ability to do so.
It also gives you a reason to consider taking different weapons and not boat a single weapon (type).

That GH had not "fixed" everything is partly due to GH not ruling out all cases and party because players adapt, change builds, or just learned when they could take the risk (like your example with the LRMs, or my Example with the Laser).

IMHO ghost heat is not the bad voodoo many people believe it to be and not a band aid, but a "feature" for balance.
(same as the 2 gauss charge at the same time)

Ghost Heat defies all logic, reason, common sense, and anything else that has to do with actually using a brain. And worse, it is a band-aid, and one that doesn't even work to do what PGI (and apparently you) think it's doing, because the only weapons it actually places any real limits on are the ones that most need not to have those limits. The others either aren't noticeably limited by it, or are limited by other means to the point where GH becomes redundant and meaningless. And all of them could be better limited by other means that actually make sense.

[Edit]Or they could just fix the real problem and make all the band-aid(s) moot.

Edited by OneEyed Jack, 19 July 2014 - 04:42 AM.

[Nanoswimz]

Blacksoul1987, on 19 July 2014 - 02:27 AM, said:

that's hardcore mode? more like roflstomp easy kill farming mode.

Its more like original mechwarrior games, based around high alpha-strikes builds. If you can oneshot enemy, he can do it with you.