56 replies to this topic

[Podex]

Dude, that's brutal!

[Almeras]

Russ Bullock, on 09 September 2014 - 10:09 AM, said:

It's clear that if were going to make it a useful weapon in MWO we have to go back to the drawing board on it. I am just unwilling to distract any engineers atm to do so. We have some pretty big fish frying atm but as soon as I can we will look into it again.

making it useful is easy;
Jet of flaming jelly sticks to target (recharge = burn time)

It solves the need to focus part that gets flamer mechs killed. I'd also like to see inferno SRMs too since they work the same way.

[Bill Lumbar]

Russ Bullock, on 09 September 2014 - 10:09 AM, said:

It's clear that if were going to make it a useful weapon in MWO we have to go back to the drawing board on it. I am just unwilling to distract any engineers atm to do so. We have some pretty big fish frying atm but as soon as I can we will look into it again.

Seriously,

Thank you Russ for replying to the questions, not just this one but all that you have taken the time to reply to. I for one love the idea of using the flamer, and at first thought when I equipped my Nova with 12 of them the first time, I believed I could sneak in and blind the enemy and over heat them at the same time. It didn't work out like that most of the time, the few games i ran this build. Even as gimped as the flamer is, it was still fun!

I am sure everyone understands that buffing the flamers or re working them completely is not the top of the to do list right now. lol.

[Blakkstar]

Flamers are supposed to be bad. They're anti-infantry weapons. They're bad in TT for the same reason they are in this game...if they were actually weight-efficient, they would be the ultimate weapon in a game based around heat. Any mech that could inflict about 25+ heat per turn on an enemy would effectively remove it from the battle. Especially in MWO where it's impossible to miss with them because of no RNG.

Re-balancing the flamer should literally be the LAST thing on PGI's very long to-do list.

[Fut]

Blakkstar, on 10 September 2014 - 11:02 AM, said:

Flamers are supposed to be bad. They're anti-infantry weapons. They're bad in TT for the same reason they are in this game...if they were actually weight-efficient, they would be the ultimate weapon in a game based around heat. Any mech that could inflict about 25+ heat per turn on an enemy would effectively remove it from the battle. Especially in MWO where it's impossible to miss with them because of no RNG.

Re-balancing the flamer should literally be the LAST thing on PGI's very long to-do list.

But the flamer Mech also removes itself from the battle for the entire time that it's flaming at it's target. It also becomes a fairly easy target as it stands/circles it's target. I don't see where the problem really is... but maybe that's just me.

[CyclonerM]

Well, a good start could be making them overheat the enemy before your 'Mech, and not the opposite..

[Blakkstar]

Fut, on 10 September 2014 - 11:11 AM, said:

But the flamer Mech also removes itself from the battle for the entire time that it's flaming at it's target. It also becomes a fairly easy target as it stands/circles it's target. I don't see where the problem really is... but maybe that's just me.

That's not entirely true. You max out a mech's heat scale with flamers and you can run off. Meanwhile the target has to cool down and go through the startup sequence before it can do anything.

I don't really get the urgent need to buff flamers though. They have never been good in any version of TT or video game Battletech/Mechwarrior. I'm not really sure what the expectation is in making them better.

[Fut]

Blakkstar, on 10 September 2014 - 11:25 AM, said:

That's not entirely true. You max out a mech's heat scale with flamers and you can run off. Meanwhile the target has to cool down and go through the startup sequence before it can do anything.

Well that's true... I suppose it all depends on how long it'd actually take to overheat a Mech into shutdown.

[zortesh]

You cant overheat a mech into shutdown, 90% is max heat a flamer can push people upto, which is usally one shot from them causes shutdown.

Personally i think they could just up flamers to have a crit rate similar to machineguns, i mean spraying fire over people open components should blow up there ammo extremely well.

thou for flamer guys, heres a team winning with 4 flamer mechs.... in a stomp.( I die right at the start in a suicide charge.)

[Carrie Harder]

Blakkstar, on 10 September 2014 - 11:25 AM, said:

I don't really get the urgent need to buff flamers though. They have never been good in any version of TT or video game Battletech/Mechwarrior. I'm not really sure what the expectation is in making them better.

The same reason people argue for buffs to anything else. Some people just like seeing the number of viable playstyles being expanded.

[Kileek]

I'm not one for posting on forums but when one of the guys told me about this thread I felt that I had to reply...

I think the flamer is my favorite weapon in the game.

It's not about damage or heat but about distraction and discombobulation. I use it as a way of blinding the enemy allowing my team to press the advantage. It also makes me harder to hit as they have a hard time keeping track of me.

Nay sayers may not agree but I have finished many a match where I have been cussed by the enemy for flaming them. Now I may not do much damage but if someone gets upset enough to bring forth obscenities targeted at me and not the guys that are dropping missles and plinking away at them with ACs while I was getting in their face with the fire then I feel as though I have done my job.

I do not feel as though the flamers do enough to heat up the enemy but are effective at keeping the enemy from cooling down and I am okay with that.

Firestarters should be run with no less than two flamer.

I ran the Ember in the HHoD quarter bellum tournament and used it primarily as means of distraction to great effect. (The two videos below were taken from Khajja but you can see the distracting effect the flames have on the other team as I'm playing to keep the other team looking around while the guys move in)
http://youtu.be/JBWF...fAcM434aIrT5THw

http://youtu.be/Y_53...fAcM434aIrT5THw

Here's an ember run with a couple of guys... those things are too much fun
http://youtu.be/wHNH...cQ6AZNkg6MHurkA

but watch out for a rather odd bug that I ran into while running the 12 flamer supernova
http://youtu.be/ad7n...cQ6AZNkg6MHurkA

I'm not saying that this is a great weapon but don't write it off just because it's not for you... in the right hands it can be effective in team play

Edited by Kileek, 10 September 2014 - 05:43 PM.

[Tezcatli]

If only you guys could apply a dot mechanic that deals damage and heat if you can land the flamer long enough.

[Past]

The only use I've found is on my LCT-1V i found after i replaced the medium laser i had on the CT hard point with a flamer my survivability went up in 1v1 situations I even plan on getting it the whole 5 meter range module for it one day.
I always think how funny would if be if for no reason at all they did a single patch cycle with flamers at 1000M range maybe around April 1st hehe visually that wold look pretty amazing.

[Crunk Prime]

Flamers locking people up at 90% max is fine. The issue is that they heat your own mech up MORE than the enemy after a certain point.

After messing with them in game a while back it seems like if an enemy mech is at 0% heat, the flamers will do almost nothing to them. Seems like the hotter an enemy mech is to begin with, the easier it is to heat them up with flamers. Same goes for your own mech. Firing them when you are cool does almost nothing. Fire a bunch of other weapons till you are at like 50% heat and then try firing your flamers. They suddenly jack your heat up really fast.

All that really needs to be done with them is to reduce how much heat they produce in your own mech while firing them. Get rid of the stupid exponential heat mechanic where the longer you fire them the more heat they start making. Its a terrible mechanic. Make them put out a set amount of heat for every second its fired on your own mech, and the enemy mech.

The other thing it needs is the same 90% heat limit on your own mech. So if you heat a guy up to 90% heat, you are also maxed out at 90% heat while firing your flamers. So now it becomes a kind of close range knife fight where both mechs are vulnerable to enemy fire and cant risk overheating by firing hot weapons because they will overheat. Any mech that comes strolling in shooting flamers will become a priority target.

As it is right now firing flamers is almost a complete waste of time because you can easily overheat yourself while the enemy mech sits at 90% heat and laughs in your face and shoots you when you overheat yourself with your own flamers.

As for these changes making them too over powered? Because you would lock yourself in at 90% heat using flamers, youd be pretty limited in what you could do while flaming enemys. You'd basically be a supporting mech that flames enemys while your teammates do the big damage. Anybody running in trying to be a flamer boat would have to sacrifice valuable energy hardpoints, and no matter how many flamers they'd have they'd still only be able to heat enemys up to 90%.

Would light mechs with 2 flamers chasing down slow mechs and roasting them up to 90% heat be overpowered?

Edited by Crunk Prime, 10 September 2014 - 07:36 PM.

[CocoaJin]

I'd would be great if they could be used for area denial and as a visual/sensory screen. So this way, a fast light could charge ahead and set large areas on fire in order to hide team movements from visual and IR sensors...also they could make an area prohibitively hot for opposing mechs to use as cover/ambush/sniper locations, etc.

This way, flamers would still have a function without having to pervert them into being used as an effective, primary, anti-mech weapon. Any use against mechs would remain purely improvised and inefficient as a secondary anti-mech weapon.

[KillerTKE]

Since we don't have infantry- plasma can be electrically charged and therefore act as a short-range anti-ecm and/or a heat-inducer like it is now in addition have it randomly fire the targeted mechs weapons (<5% chance per second). Face to face flamer might become dangerous, but fun.

[CocoaJin]

KillerTKE, on 10 September 2014 - 07:53 PM, said:

Since we don't have infantry- plasma can be electrically charged and therefore act as a short-range anti-ecm...

I think it would work the other way around. Plasma was investigated by the USA and actively tested by the Soviets as a means of stealth (if you were willing to ignore the fact you glow like a shooting star as you flew by in their case)...so id think it would be used as a weak, localized ECM. I could see it being modeled as visual static/distortion on the view screen for any mech(including the flamer) close to the source, or when facing the source at an intermediate distance.

[Xarian]

Russ Bullock, on 09 September 2014 - 10:09 AM, said:

It's clear that if were going to make it a useful weapon in MWO we have to go back to the drawing board on it. I am just unwilling to distract any engineers atm to do so. We have some pretty big fish frying atm but as soon as I can we will look into it again.

Useful information, and honest but unfortunate. I'm not sure that you'd have to go back to the drawing board; you could probably get away with just improving the heat coefficients until a better solution can be implemented (decrease heat cost to mech using flamers, increase heat dealt to enemy mechs). Minor balance tweak from an engineering standpoint.

You know what weapons would be good for frying fish? Just sayin.

[Joseph Mallan]

Russ Bullock, on 09 September 2014 - 10:09 AM, said:

It's clear that if were going to make it a useful weapon in MWO we have to go back to the drawing board on it. I am just unwilling to distract any engineers atm to do so. We have some pretty big fish frying atm but as soon as I can we will look into it again.

That's actually a good answer Russ. But to make it a useful weapon would make it terribly exploitable. We already have a effective 1 ton 1 crit energy weapon.

[Blood Rose]

In TT they where used to murder infantry. And I mean REALLY MURDER. We need AI Infantry in MWO...