29 replies to this topic

[Widowmaker1981]

Blakkstar, on 28 August 2014 - 05:45 AM, said:

Which in and of itself is absurd. Heat management has always been central to Battletech/Mechwarrior. Shutting down other mechs isn't "trolling", it's using a game mechanic to gain an advantage.

TT rules limit the effect to 1 active Inferno precisely to combat the other concerns about being able to perma-shutdown Mechs with them alone.

Battletech is a tabletop board game, in which the player normally controls several mechs, thus CC (crowd control, i used to play too many MMOs) weapons are acceptable. In an FPS a player controls only himself, and weapons that stop you doing anything are not a fun mechanic. Seriously, name one FPS style game that includes a crowd control weapon.

Also, heat management implies the victim of heat can do anything about it. If you're driving, say, a Banshee 3M, and a firestarter with 4 flamers runs up to you and heats you to 90% so if you fire any of your weapons you shut down, while picking you to death with 4 MLs, how did the player in the banshee have any chance to manage that situation?

[TyphonCh]

Blakkstar, on 28 August 2014 - 05:45 AM, said:

Which in and of itself is absurd. Heat management has always been central to Battletech/Mechwarrior. Shutting down other mechs isn't "trolling", it's using a game mechanic to gain an advantage.

TT rules limit the effect to 1 active Inferno precisely to combat the other concerns about being able to perma-shutdown Mechs with them alone.

Yes. Exactly why I want to see some kind of use to this otherwise boring weapon. I want to use it... I just... Can't

[PANZERKAT]

It's trolling when you have swarms of mechs shutting down other mechs. It takes away from the game and creates bad blood. An even worse feeling than someone getting head shot or lag death. We had our days with flamer in CB and it wasn't good for the game. Yes, it was a game mechanic, but it's meant as a sort of currency for the one piloting the mech, not your opponents to manipulate.

Same reason why knocking mechs over was taken out. It takes people out of match when they should be trading fire and maneuvering.

I think I'd be okay with inferno rounds if they had a 100% chance of exploding if the section with ammo is destroyed.

[General Taskeen]

The no brainer solution for PGI would be to copy the Flamer behavior from MW3 or MW4 that were far more useful than this game.

Change it from an "always on" when clicking fire, to a weapon that has a fast cool down that shoots out a burst of "flame" graphics that damage an opponent over a short duration (like a laser) and transfer heat to the target and leave behind a napalm like burning affect.

[Zapier]

Widowmaker1981, on 28 August 2014 - 06:17 AM, said:

Battletech is a tabletop board game, in which the player normally controls several mechs, thus CC (crowd control, i used to play too many MMOs) weapons are acceptable. In an FPS a player controls only himself, and weapons that stop you doing anything are not a fun mechanic. Seriously, name one FPS style game that includes a crowd control weapon.

Well, any game with concussion or stun grenades comes to mind. Planetside has them. A quick search seems to show Black Ops? Or some similar style CoD game with concussion grenades. I know these aren't the only ones either. Some or all R6 games had some form of them. So, CC weapons are definately part of even FPS gaming.

Now, that aside I do agree getting shut down all the time would be annoying and at times the flamers were certainly an annoyance in CB, but no worse than anything else in the game. The shaking from constant LRMs has always been an issue for some. Shaking from multiple AC/2's and 5's have always driven some people mad. Some do argue that these things need to be taken away (the impulse on the weapons) but personally that's part of the immersion of being in a big ass 20-100 ton mech. Weapons hitting you are going to shake you. Flamers flaming you are going to heat you up if you have poor heat management and no friends.

And speaking of friends, isn't that what it's about? I believe it was already stated that the current maps don't favor even good flamers. You'll need to be quick to effectively use them without getting utterly destroyed by mechs as you close the distance, so not everyone in the new 3/3/3/3 format will be in mechs that could wield them with troll results. When you could drop with potentially 2-10 guys all planning to run fast flamers sure it would have been a problem but they can't so if there happens to be even 3 or 4 flamers torching someone, then his friends should just blast the hell out of the guys doing it. If the one getting flamed has armor still, they should live for quite awhile and I don't know if anyone is wanting the flamers to do much more than they currently do aside from actually transfer heat in a meaningful way.

[Kaspirikay]

Lets just pretend flamers don't exist in the game.

[Corbon Zackery]

Flamers were a anti infantry weapon. You must understand that you don't get the full feel of Battletech playing Mechwarrior Online.

In Battletech there is infantry, tanks, navy ships, Helicopters, Turrets. Your only getting a taste of the Battletech with mech combat.

Flamers while devastating vs. Infantry have little to no strength. At some point we will have destroyable terrain and flamers will be used to create false sensor echo's. Burn buildings down or to create forest fires and will see a rash of pyromania.

But a simple example of how ineffective a flamer is. Grab a can a hair spray, and try to burn a hole in a pie plate. You won't get any results.

[CocoaJin]

Don't try to make things what they aren't. I applaud PGI for including equipment for thoroughness even if the particular combat scenerios(actually it's just one...battle-in-a-bottle, arena play-date) doesn't exactly benefit their conventional use. I'd rather leave them in as intended and then allow us to improvise other uses for them, than to pervert them into something else and throw off balance or create an exploit.

Flamers are primarily anti-infantry, area clearing and area denial systems...their secondary and improvised use is as a means of transferring heat to an opponent as an anti-mech system. They are not primarily anti-mech weapons and as such, I have no qualms with their use against mechs being inefficient.

Perhaps there will be future content that provides a truly effective role for Flamers. Ideally, CW would provide AI infantry and Elemental units that can be deployed or are spawned as scripts in defense of certain locales and objectives...basically small, mobile defense turrets. The use of flamers and MG would be a very effective method for clearing such targets.

I dont anticipate the inclusion of destructible and dynamic state objects which would allow for setting an area on fire, and thus denying the area from enemy mechs due to the threat of incurring heat.

[InspectorG]

KOMMISSAR KITTY, on 28 August 2014 - 05:12 AM, said:

If they introduced a sort of "quirk slot" system to further customize our mechs, I don't see any mechs being flamer friendly. Introducing a large list of innate abilities you can buy and slot with a combination of General XP and C-Bills for training, underwhelming elements could become useful for certain pilots. Perhaps calling it "Advanced Training" or something along those lines.

Aww man. Dont get me started on the module system. Ive created posts with numerous ways to use modules for lights to generate a role for them. Recon type stuff.
I dont see how they can make flamers worthwhile as a major weapon. The modules we have add an extra foot-and-a-half, why bother?
The best flamers can be, so far, is an energy machine gun that can blind newbs. Modules/quirks that increase crit chances/damage is about the only thing i personally would even consider.

CocoaJin, on 28 August 2014 - 09:19 AM, said:

I dont anticipate the inclusion of destructible and dynamic state objects which would allow for setting an area on fire, and thus denying the area from enemy mechs due to the threat of incurring heat.

Exactly.
Though, one CAN pray for the Arrow iv system to be able to drop landmines. About as area-denial as i think PGI would ever go.

[wanderer]

Blakkstar, on 28 August 2014 - 05:45 AM, said:

Which in and of itself is absurd. Heat management has always been central to Battletech/Mechwarrior. Shutting down other mechs isn't "trolling", it's using a game mechanic to gain an advantage.

TT rules limit the effect to 1 active Inferno precisely to combat the other concerns about being able to perma-shutdown Mechs with them alone.

This is no longer correct, nor has it been for over a decade.

The way it originally worked, Inferno SRMs added +6 heat for 3 turns (30 seconds) +1 turn for every additional Inferno round that hit while the "burn" was active.

That changed in the modern rules- each Inferno round adds 2 heat per hit, to a maximum external heat penalty of +15 (from all sources- from weather through Inferno/Flamer hits).

Note that while +15 heat (1.5 heat/sec) is plentiful, it's not enough to overwhelm anything save a seriously damaged DHS design or SHS design (LOL) with sheer "fire"-power- and in TT, a flamer set to heat mode deals -zero- damage and puts out 3 heat for every two it delivers. In MWO, flamers don't have alt-mode and instead deliver a mediocre mix of heat and damage.

It's not frickin' tough to fix flamers, especially when and if someone at PGI gets the capacity to actually code a weapon that fires dual-mode (LB-X's, anyone?).

1) Flamers no longer fire a continual cone of flame in all modes. In "heat mode" it's as shown now, in damage mode it's a short lick of plasma.

2) Damage mode flamers deal 2 damage over a .5 sec duration, with a two second cooldown. Heat mode flamers add a .2/sec external heat penalty to the target 'Mech per flamer- again, the maximum additional heat penalty is equal to 1.5 heat/second. If a flamer is fired in damage mode, it's cooldown carries over to switching to damage. If a flamer is being fired in heat mode, it will begin a 2-second cooldown when the trigger is released.

3) Damage mode flamers cause an immediate 3 heat to the firer when triggered. Heat mode flamers cause a .3/sec INTERNAL heat penalty to the user as long as the weapon is being fired (meaning that yes, it stacks with external effects) per flamer.

Amusingly enough, the Hellbringer would be flamer (and Inferno) resistant under this system, giving it an interesting and useful quirk.

Far as Infernos go, you can actually manage to split the old and new rules for MWO- have one Inferno SRM hit apply .2 heat/sec external heat penalty as a "debuff stack" for 6 seconds, to a maximum of 1.5 heat/sec. (which it shares with flamers and map-based heat effects). Additional hits with Infernos reset the 6-second debuff.

Inferno-loaded 'Mechs would follow the -old- ammo explosion rules due to the volatile nature of the payload- high heat % triggering potential explosions and high odds for detonation when damaged, to reflect the risky nature of such weapons. It'd also mean an Inferno-packing 'Mech would be most vulnerable to it's own medicine.