35 replies to this topic

[TibsVT]

Nightmare1, on 25 August 2014 - 09:29 AM, said:

Great, more heat nerfs.

My HBK-4P is appalled.

I'm sure it's no worse than piloting a Nova or Warhawk Prime. Or is it really that complicated to manage heat.

Nightmare1, on 25 August 2014 - 08:54 AM, said:

Furthermore, the weapon systems were more accurate in the books. Pilots had targeting computers that could lock portions of a Mech and fire into that particular spot. Pulse Lasers are an excellent example. In between each pulse, the computer would make micro-adjustments so that each successive pulse would strike close to or on top of its predecessor(s).

The noteworthy difference here is we have keyboards and mice, the game doesn't aim for us.

Edited by KelesK, 25 August 2014 - 09:49 AM.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

Nightmare1, on 25 August 2014 - 09:29 AM, said:

Great, more heat nerfs.

My HBK-4P is appalled.

Your first shot from cool would be perfectly precise. It'd only be a big deal if you fired too many lasers too quickly. As things stand now, there's no difference between firing at 3% heat, 30% heat, and 93% heat.

[Nightmare1]

Levi Porphyrogenitus, on 25 August 2014 - 09:42 AM, said:

Your first shot from cool would be perfectly precise. It'd only be a big deal if you fired too many lasers too quickly. As things stand now, there's no difference between firing at 3% heat, 30% heat, and 93% heat.

It still just nerfs energy Mechs needlessly. They already are non-competitive and challenging to play. Why tie the other hand behind their back?

[HlynkaCG]

DeathlyEyes, on 25 August 2014 - 07:55 AM, said:

Increase armor values to increase TTK. That way big alpha's can't 1 or 2 shot mechs. This will encourage high DPS mechs that don't overheat after firing twice.

That is what we have now.

Levi Porphyrogenitus, on 25 August 2014 - 08:00 AM, said:

Increasing armor values is a messy solution. Do you do it by %? That screws over lights and mediums. Do you do it by absolute values? That screws over heavies and assaults. Doubling should be sufficient, but with no limit to the concentration of damage on a single hitbox and with drastic rate of fire increases relative to TT it has only mitigated the TtK problem, not solved it.

DPR would increase the skill threshold significantly, since you'd have to manage your throttle, your heat, and your stability state in order to maximize your damage concentration. Putting each variable firmly in the control of the pilot means the overall skill cap goes up.

Agree completely

[HlynkaCG]

Nightmare1, on 25 August 2014 - 08:54 AM, said:

Additional note: This would greatly hinder the already severely nerfed Light Mechs. It would mostly hurt ballistics as well, with beam being fairly unaffected (no recoil to compensate) and missiles (lock-ons) not feeling it. In essence, it would nerf ballistics and fast-moving Mechs while slow moving beam and LRM boats would be unaffected.

Bad idea.

I disagree.

Ballistics tend to be lower heat and would thus be less effected than other weapons and most light fights occur at close range where deviation is less of an issue.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

Levi Porphyrogenitus, on 25 August 2014 - 09:42 AM, said:

Your first shot from cool would be perfectly precise. It'd only be a big deal if you fired too many lasers too quickly. As things stand now, there's no difference between firing at 3% heat, 30% heat, and 93% heat.

It nerfs ballistics and leaves energy and missiles too strong. No, it nerfs energy, and leaves ballistics and missiles too strong. No, it nerfs lights and leaves heavies and assaults too strong. No, it nerfs heavies and assaults and leaves lights and mediums too strong. No, it nerfs JJs and leaves ground-pounders too strong.

Each of the above is something I've seen from somebody in one of the many places this idea, or one essentially like it, has appeared. They are largely mutually exclusive, and that seems to suggest that the idea would be broadly balanced and effective.

What I don't think anyone can object to is that some kind of DPR system would increase time to kill while being both flavorful and interesting (good or bad interesting is up to the beholder).

[HlynkaCG]

Nightmare1, on 25 August 2014 - 09:29 AM, said:

Great, more heat nerfs.

My HBK-4P is appalled.

You prefer Ghost heat and Paul endlessly tinkering with Gauss mechanics?

Assuming you run your 4SP stock or near to it (as I do) this mecahnic would be a boon. It helps brawlers by encouraging shorter engagement ranges.

[Nightmare1]

HlynkaCG, on 25 August 2014 - 10:22 AM, said:

You prefer Ghost heat and Paul endlessly tinkering with Gauss mechanics?

Assuming you run your 4SP stock or near to it (as I do) this mecahnic would be a boon. It helps brawlers by encouraging shorter engagement ranges.

I run my 4P in a variety of builds for fun, none of them stock. Currently, it packs six MPLs and three flamers.

To me, this game is a leisure, fun thing to play. Unlike many of you hardcore players, I would like it to stay that way. When I sit down to play, I want to jump in a match and run a few rounds for kicks - I don't want to think too hard about the game. It has been my experience that what is "fun" for the hardcore players is less so for the larger masses of leisure gamers.

[HlynkaCG]

Nightmare1, on 25 August 2014 - 10:48 AM, said:

I run my 4P in a variety of builds for fun, none of them stock. Currently, it packs six MPLs and three flamers.

To me, this game is a leisure, fun thing to play. Unlike many of you hardcore players, I would like it to stay that way. When I sit down to play, I want to jump in a match and run a few rounds for kicks - I don't want to think too hard about the game. It has been my experience that what is "fun" for the hardcore players is less so for the larger masses of leisure gamers.

None of that really adressed my point, If you're running a close range build this suggestion helps you more than it hurts.

[CocoaJin]

The so called "Heat nerfs" to accuracy could just as easily be balanced with ballistics by causing the recoil of ballistics to apply a target hair bloom every time it shoots. This way repeated use or alpha strikes with either weapon type results in reduced accuracy without proper pilot management.

In fact, one could argue that these mechanics would hurt poorly managed ballistic builds more, because once a ballistic build develops too much heat, they'd have the heat induced reduction in accuracy multiplying their recoil induced target hair bloom.

With respect to not needing to think too much...there isn't much calculus going on with respect to watching your cross hairs to Sid in managing weapons fire, or in the use fire groups to manage heat. It will all be second nature within a short period of time and is a fraction of the required thought that goes into typical play. I really dont buy the "don't want to think too much" argument regarding behind the scenes aiming mechanics that are represented by a cross hair bloom and partially managed by a heat gauge for which we are all already adept at using...unless you are one of those people who can't drive and utilize your speedometer to determine when to apply your brakes.

[Tim East]

It's like the original Deus Ex. I like it. Even if I do think it'll ruin my existing Locust build. Worst came to worst, I'd just switch my SPLs for flamers and rely on my opponent's accuracy penalty to save me.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

Tim East, on 25 August 2014 - 04:07 PM, said:

It's like the original Deus Ex. I like it. Even if I do think it'll ruin my existing Locust build. Worst came to worst, I'd just switch my SPLs for flamers and rely on my opponent's accuracy penalty to save me.

Properly implemented, if you're within, say, 50m and your heat isn't much past 50% you probably won't lose much performance except against other Locusts and Commandos and Spiders.

[Tim East]

I tend to end up running around 80% heat after an extended brawl, usually.

[carl kerensky]

Faktopus Osis, on 25 August 2014 - 06:21 AM, said:

For the love of all that is holy, yes.

In any Battletech/Mechwarrior novel, the way 'Mech combat is written is not "and then, Kerensky pitted the cockpit of a catapult from 1000 meters with her gauss rifles." No way, it's much more gritty, much more skin-of-your-teeth style reflex and compensation for the mech's inability to do much more than keep its balance.

Mechs taking hits to their internal CT SHOULD be falling over if the gyro is crit, they SHOULD be suffering huge accuracy penalties for moving at anything over 50% throttle. Running at top speed and delivering accurate fire is only something I've seen out of a legionnaire, which is literally a 50 ton gun platform in which every system is slaved to the mech's ONE weapon. (granted, that weapon is an RAC-5, or 6 standard ac-5s)

Make mechs slow down to shoot, make people think about heat, speed, and cover. THAT is what Mechwarrior is, not pinning the throttle to full and delivering accurate 700m shots with ppcs and gauss. NO weapons platform IN THE MECHWARRIOR/BATTLETECH UNIVERSE is capable of firing with that accuracy.

Calling current accuracy a 0 point - that accuracy should only be achievable when you're standing still at idle heat. THE END. A spider running at 150kph applying full erll burns exactly where they're aiming is not going to happen.

Also, I have yet to see any kind of movement from the cockpit of the mech. In 3rd person, the mech is bouncing a solid meter or two up and down with every step. Inside the mech, the pilot may move a tenth of that, and it's not even the pilot, it's the cockpit geometry around him. GET SOME HEAD BOB, PGI. move the reticle with each step, the mech is not a modern main battle tank like the m1a2 abrams, it takes steps, sways, bounces, and needs time to compensate for these things.

Running and jumping in a medium at 100kph, flying through the air, launching salvos of missiles, taking autocannon fire. . . it should not be this damn smooth.

Yes...YES....well said and bumped for posterity. Give me old school battltech back not some machined firefly with its ass on fire. These battles have to slow down.

[TibsVT]

Tim East, on 25 August 2014 - 04:07 PM, said:

It's like the original Deus Ex. I like it. Even if I do think it'll ruin my existing Locust build. Worst came to worst, I'd just switch my SPLs for flamers and rely on my opponent's accuracy penalty to save me.

To be fair pulse lasers would likely be on the lesser end of the spectrum to begin with as they are supposed to be more accurate. It would need to scale per weapon, not weapon type. SPLs for example would likely see a relatively small decrease in accuracy unless you're on the cusp of shutdown. It needs to be a system of pros and cons. Which could also be swayed by chassis quirks (e.g. the Hunchback's RT could have a decrease to ballistic weapon bloom).

For example a Spider running a single (ER)LL wouldn't suffer from too much however if it were to mount a second it would struggle at range. Obviously this would need to be countered by the beam duration remaining in the same place so that the pilot could still correct - I'm sure we can all agree a swaying beam just wouldn't be fun. Through doing this it allows a pilot to still correct a misaligned shot. Pulse lasers would have to work in a similar manner.

Autocannons would likely have to be balanced on a per-shot basis (for the sake of Clan ballistics primarily). The crosshairs widening little by little as heat is built. Larger autocannons would obviously suffer less due to the long cooldowns between shots that way brawlers gain a bonus once they close in. This way it begins to balance out those heavily ballistic loaded Dire Wolves that boat AC/2/5/10's.

LRMs would have to remain unaffected.

This is how I believe it should work (in a nutshell). I would also like to note that I'm not in favour of stupid amounts of bloom. Just enough for people to have to think before spamming/alphaing.

Edited by KelesK, 26 August 2014 - 12:15 AM.

[Solis Obscuri]

This feature should have been added before Open Beta.