8 replies to this topic

[Demon Horde]

The constant weapon nerfing is geting highly annoying as weapon systems that once worked one way have to be re-learned because they now work a different way. The latest round of nerfs all targeted clan weapons. Instead of further nerfing of the clan weapon systems PGI should Roll out Reactive and Reflective armor types (maybe even amke it an IS thing only). This would give IS mechs a route to nerf a particular clan build in game with out actually nerfing the clan weapons. It would work simple as well. Reactive aromor could reduce ballistic/missle damage by 10-25% and reflective could reduce energy damage by the same ammount while providing slightly less protection from the alternate damage types (like 5-10%).

(Note my range suggestions are not suggestions that the armor should give a varied ammount of proection each hit , but I included ranges to give an idea of what ammount of protection should be conceivable from different armor types that would effectively nerf a build that is too heavy in one damage type.)

I just think PGi could try to come up with some creative in game nerfs that add to the MWO universe as opposed to just squashing player's builds by doing total weapon nerfs.

also finnally including Reactive and Reflective scenarios would help team immersion by setting up tactical scenarios where team mate X has to work on enemy Y, as opposed to every one on team just lumping up together to focus fire on "the big guy".

[Mirkk Defwode]

Too early in the timeline, this technology doesn't crop up till 3055 for Btech Lore. I know some of the timeline is currently being ignored but we're still roughly at 3049 for all the tech.

It'll roll around eventually though I'm sure.

[Demon Horde]

Mirkk Defwode, on 12 September 2014 - 09:09 AM, said:

Too early in the timeline, this technology doesn't crop up till 3055 for Btech Lore. I know some of the timeline is currently being ignored but we're still roughly at 3049 for all the tech.

It'll roll around eventually though I'm sure.

I highly dobut it matters that much , MW2 mecenaries the game that this game took so many cues from spiritually also includes those armor types in a game that was well before their BT pnp time line.

Further more its not to far fetched that those armor types could exsist already in BT, infact "reactive" armor DOES already exist in the modern REAL world. But again like you said this game has already broken cannon on the timeline , and other mw games have as well. in the end it boils down to what's best for game play not what is cannon. And i think this would be a superior alternative to weapon nerfing. that said the curent "game year" is 3051 NOT 3049. PGI said back in beta that 1 real day is equal to 1 game day. as it's been a bit over a year since the 3050 hologram item was released so yeah it's definitely 3051 now in game I see no reason why they could not have reactive and reflective armor "prorotypes" get out early.

I don't mean to come off as offensive to you if i do , but I'm jsut tired of every one throwing up "cannon" debates when game play matters more than some mythical cannon and for teh record I'm a battletech fan myself have played pnp BT for many years and i've played every MW game ever released (even those crappy arcadish xbox mechassault games). So this is not just me being a MW noob that knows nothing because i do know BT cannon.

Edited by Demon Horde, 12 September 2014 - 09:44 AM.

[Mirkk Defwode]

Demon Horde, on 12 September 2014 - 09:40 AM, said:

I highly dobut it matters that much , MW2 mecenaries the game that this game took so many cues from spiritually also includes those armor types in a game that was well before their BT pnp time line.

Further more its not to far fetched that those armor types could exsist already in BT, infact "reactive" armor DOES already exist in the modern REAL world. But again like you said this game has already broken cannon on the timeline , and other mw games have as well. in the end it boils down to what's best for game play not what is cannon. And i think this would be a superior alternative to weapon nerfing. that said the curent "game year" is 3051 NOT 3049. PGI said back in beta that 1 real day is equal to 1 game day. as it's been a bit over a year since the 3050 hologram item was released so yeah it's definitely 3051 now in game I see no reason why they could not have reactive and reflective armor "prorotypes" get out early.

I don't mean to come off as offensive to you if i do , but I'm jsut tired of every one throwing up "cannon" debates when game play matters more than some mythical cannon and for teh record I'm a battletech fan myself have played pnp BT for many years and i've played every MW game ever released (even those crappy arcadish xbox mechassault games). So this is not just me being a MW noob that knows nothing because i do know BT cannon.

They froze the time advance at some point last year until they get CW fully implemented. But yeah, they'll get that stuff in eventually.

I'd rather see other things be fixed first like the entire heat system. more diversity in the weapons systems, not meaning new weapons but more akin to manufacturer variations based on the existing ones. This is effectively a Mech MMO so giving more options to folks is a bit better, but a lot of this requires some core systems retooling.

[Demon Horde]

Mirkk Defwode, on 12 September 2014 - 10:15 AM, said:

They froze the time advance at some point last year until they get CW fully implemented. But yeah, they'll get that stuff in eventually.

I'd rather see other things be fixed first like the entire heat system. more diversity in the weapons systems, not meaning new weapons but more akin to manufacturer variations based on the existing ones. This is effectively a Mech MMO so giving more options to folks is a bit better, but a lot of this requires some core systems retooling.

well that would all be cool , but truth be told i'd rather seem them get to adding more game modes ASAP, particularly modes that are unique to mech warrior , such as convoy attack/defense , or drop ship attack/defense. But oh well , game modes do not put more money in dev's pockets so i doubt well see new modes any time soone especially not any that require unique coding due to the fact no one has ever done them in a pvp MMO before. I still think it's a mistake on PGI's part to not already have had some unique game modes. Look at the most sucessful online games and they generally offer some unigue play mechanics that you can't get any where else till some one starts cloning them. currrently the game modes offered are jsut jack jobs yanked from every FPSer. And I know it's a FPSer engine the game runs on, but that doesn't mean diddly look at every thing that has been done with UDK based games and cry engine is vastly more pwoerful than UDK. MWO is more a simulator not a FPSer.

Didn't know they froze the timeline. Thanks for letting me know. I don't see where heat is broken, seems fine to me except the laser nerfing they did (can't fire more than x number of lasers or get heat spike ect ect). manufacture variations would be awsome, but like more game modes it would require a lot of work that PGI effectively doesn't make money off of. I'll add to it though and say it would be awesome to see manufacture variants on engines as well.

[Mirkk Defwode]

Demon Horde, on 12 September 2014 - 05:30 PM, said:

Didn't know they froze the timeline. Thanks for letting me know. I don't see where heat is broken, seems fine to me except the laser nerfing they did (can't fire more than x number of lasers or get heat spike ect ect). manufacture variations would be awsome, but like more game modes it would require a lot of work that PGI effectively doesn't make money off of. I'll add to it though and say it would be awesome to see manufacture variants on engines as well.

Ghost heat is a good place to start, it's a system that doesn't and shouldn't exist. There are other solutions to this problem, I think implementing Ghost heat was just a lazy way of trying to limit a gameplay style that became dominate for a bit - The heat system in general could be entirely redone to allow for different risk/reward situations based on how a user chooses to customize their mech. I'd be for more of a desync in the behavior of heatsinks between Single and Double and have a two fold system

Heat Scale is a flat 20 points for all mechs - Engines and Heatsinks modify this value
Single Heatsinks raise the heat Scale by 1 point per heat sink and have a heat dissipation rate of .45 Heat per second (HPS)
Double Heatsinks raise the heat scale by .75 point per heatsink and have a heat dissipation rate of .8 HPS

Now heat effects would also have an impact on the mechs. at 50% heat your mechs movement speed is reduced by 25%. At 90% on the heatscale you gain a 1% chance of heatsink critical failure (for all heatsinks), every 5 seconds, which does a bit of internal damage and destroys the component. Now this check is also done against all of the components you have like that, so if you're unlucky it has the potential to have all of them destroyed at once, though that's extremely unlikely. A module can be equipped that reduces this chance to 0.25% or specific energy heavy mechs have a reduced chance of this as part of their designs as "quirks" since that system is in, like the Awesome would have it natively at 0.5% chance of a failure. The other side of this is you'll get UI warnings associated with this. Like passing 50% you'll get a systems warning that "heat is impacting motor control."

The only mechs that wouldn't be effected by this heat are ones with Triple Strength Myomer which was extremely rare - but they'd actually improve with the additional heat. Good thing we don't have that as a real system yet.

The rest of the current system of shut down and internal engine damage from overheating would stay much as it is.

Now as a baseline I took a heat dominate mech and used the TRO design to run against it. it should be relatively heat neutral as the TRO designed that way for tabletop.

Using existing heat values on weapons as well.

Awesome 8Q
With Single Heatsinks
Total Heatsinks: 28
Total heat Scale: 48 Points
Heat Dissipation Rate: 21.6 HPS
Heat generated in Alpha Strike: 32 points
Alpha Strike position on Heatscale: 67%

With Double Heatsinks
Total Heatsinks: 21 - Upgraded to a STD 290 Engine
Total Heat Scale: 35.75
Heat Dissipation Rate: 28.6
Heat generated in Alpha Strike: 32 points
Alpha Strike position on Heatscale: 90%

This is all just rough math so it isn't a perfect system, but the idea is to keep a relatively heat neutral but some residual carry over - now that residual carry over could be larger if people wanted to engineer that way but the idea is to keep these neutral. Ideally people shouldn't be constantly over 50% up their heatscale. Really losing that much heat in that time period is a bit extreme when it should be you dissipate that amount of heat over the course of 10 seconds but you see the general idea with the basic math there. I could do the grunt work to get this entire system mapped out, then do comparison checks against mech designs.

So right away this shows there are inherent risk reward factors associated with the different heatsinks, a Single alphastrike from an Awesome using the Double Heatsinks would be it dangerously high on the heatscale and incur some risk from it for the heatscale itself has advanced risks. This could help curb some of the alphastrike behavior we see, but at the same time they're more likely to drop out of that risk zone more rapidly because the superior heat dissipation rate. Keep in mind just a proof of concept. The whole idea is to be able to get rid of ghost heat because it doesn't make sense to new folks and it's a fairly hidden system versus making a visible system thats easier for people to understand and to stop using it as a balance tool when honestly a lot of that should be done through recycle times on the weapons...

[Demon Horde]

Not sure what you mean by ghost heat?
Some of the old mech games worked like that with the overheating slowdown, But it wasn't at 50% heat.
That said the reason why I don't think heat is broken is because the heat system does it's job , which is : it makes players cosnider their loadouts as well as their fire rates. Saddly it has also some what become a tool for PGI to limit creative mech builds that relied on heat heavy components. It's really a mixed bag with me when i consider it in hind sight. Part of me now agrees with you that it is broken a bit , but at the same time for the most part it does the job it's there to do. I do miss having an Awesome loaded with 4 ERLlasers and the heat spike change made me sell my Awesome. Ask me the heat spike thing was the greatess pile of sh-- that PGI rolled out. and here is why:

1. Prior to the limit on lasers before a heat spike every kind of (IS) weapon system had the capability to stack up to ammout to 40 damage per shot , Ballistics you could toss on 2 AC 20's = 40 points alpha (this build is namely limited to a catapult not sure what other mechs could fit 2 ac20's). Missles you can pack on a barrage of LRM 20's to get well over 40 points of damage , and lasers you could go 4 ERLlasers. NOW with the heat spike only ballistics and missles can get 40 point damage alphas ( not counting those wicked clan med lasers on the novas). Sure you can still stack on 4 Llasers, but doing so you run the risk of blowing up yoru mech on the first alpha even.

2. with the roll out of the clan mechs and the fact that clan medium lasers nearly do the damage of a IS Llaser limiting Llasers to jsut two before a heat spike leaves IS laser builds severly underpowered comapred to clan laser builds. seriously consider this : IS Large lasers do about 9 damage each (not sure of exact ammount beena bit since i looked ) , clan medium lasers do 7 damage now square that upo in say two mechs an IS mech has 2 ERLlasers, (Thats 12 tons of lasers) and a clan mech has 4 ER medium lasers (thats only 4 tons of lasers) . the IS mech alphas damage around 18 points , the clan mech alphas damage at 28 points . even if you say the IS mech risk the heat death by slapping a third ERLlaser he is still 1 point below the damage of 4 much smaller clan lasers ( 9 + 9 + 9 = 27). So bassically to just barely match a clan mech's damage with lasers the IS mech has to slam 18 tons of lasers on compared to the 4 tons of the clanner , as well as risk massive engine failure from heat. I think PGI should at least seriously consider raising the limit of large lasers (for IS only) to 3 large lasers with 4 trigging the heat spike or just remove the laser limits all together and have no heat spikes again.

that said , as you can see you've changed my mind some , I agree that the heat system is damaged but not wholely broken as it still does serve it's basic function.

[Mirkk Defwode]

Demon Horde, on 13 September 2014 - 12:51 PM, said:

Not sure what you mean by ghost heat?

Ghost heat is a system put in place to prevent boating. Say you have 4 Large Lasers, well firing more than 2 at once causes ghost heat to varying degrees this could be up to an added 80% additional heat than what the weapons say they'll give for firing that in an alpha strike. This has been done to most energy weapons and currently this system has completely crippled the stock Nova Prime which by default is 12 medium lasers grouped in 2 groups of 6. Firing more than 4 generates a ton of additional heat on a mech that already had heat issues just firing the intended arm groups of 6 at once.

The point would be to work on a heat system overhaul that removes ghost heat but gets things more in line that firing an Alpha strike is still a risk and that shouldn't be done. Adding more things to the risk scale for that and making a dynamic heat scale would make it so mechs each feel more unique in their behavior and yield more balanced gameplay by limiting the pinpoint alpha behavior. Everything else could be managed through recycle timers on the weapons. Other factors need to go in to balancing them out, but solidifying the system that effectively regulates combat for everyone is the first real step to doing an overhaul on the balance which everyone feels is out of whack. the weapons need minor tweaks, this heat system needs a complete overhaul.

[Demon Horde]

ah i see you are are talking about heat spikes (which is what PGI calls your ghost heat) . ok yeah that part of the heat system, i can agree is broken. I hate the heat spikes or ghost heat as you call it as youc an tell from my previous posts. I wasn't sure if you were talking environment heat , which i thought was perfectly fine. don't you love how things can sometimes have two names?

oh and i'd say the nova is the least of mechs hampered by ghost heat/heat spikes. the ghost heat is more crippling to IS mech than any thing because medium clan lasers do almost the same dammage of IS large lasers and and you can fire 4-6 of them with out a heat spike while 2-3 IS large lasers cause really bad heat.

Edited by Demon Horde, 16 September 2014 - 03:00 AM.