75 replies to this topic

[Sprouticus]

I missed the info on saving configs. Can someone explain in a little more details what Russ said (or give me a timestamp)?


Just going by what was posted above:

1) The frustration and time wasted is FAR more of a detriment to the game than any percieved loss of income.
2) If they did it right, they might MAKE more money (or make it a CBill sink). Just have the UI auto purchase any items in the config that you don't already own. Us lazy folks would be far more likely to spend CB if it was a one click insta build purchase.
3) I Dont understand the idea/issue with this impacting the purchases of mech(??). Sure, you might be able to make due with one omni mech, but all the IS mech variants are different. Unless PGI expects people to purchase multiple of the same variant (which will just never happen much).

[IceSerpent]

I Zeratul I, on 03 October 2014 - 11:32 AM, said:

The current system of ghost heat scaling encourages chain firing. It encourages heat management and fire control. It promotes things that take skill, discipline and restraint.

It doesn't promote anything of the sort. Chain firing means that you have to keep facing your target, so any "evasion" kind of skill becomes meaningless and your survivability depends solely on the amount of frontal armor you got. The fight deteriorates to simply squaring off against your opponent and squeezing the trigger until one of you dies - not much skill in that (or fun for that matter). The fire control part only requires a macro-creating "skill", assuming that setting a group to chain fire is not enough.

Quote

From my perspective, it seems as if those who dislike the heat scaling want to make things easier. They want to eliminate having to pace themselves and make a conscious effort to slow down the rate at which they fire their weapons to avoid overheating. They want to eliminate chain firing and have games devolve into hit-and-run alpha spamfests.

Hit-and-run is actually more difficult than chain fire, as it requires you to do the "run" part in addition to merely pulling the trigger. Pacing is very easy to automate, so no skill involved there.

[Sprouticus]

IceSerpent, on 03 October 2014 - 12:00 PM, said:

It doesn't promote anything of the sort. Chain firing means that you have to keep facing your target, so any "evasion" kind of skill becomes meaningless and your survivability depends solely on the amount of frontal armor you got. The fight deteriorates to simply squaring off against your opponent and squeezing the trigger until one of you dies - not much skill in that (or fun for that matter). The fire control part only requires a macro-creating "skill", assuming that setting a group to chain fire is not enough.



Hit-and-run is actually more difficult than chain fire, as it requires you to do the "run" part in addition to merely pulling the trigger. Pacing is very easy to automate, so no skill involved there.

Actually pacing while maintaining aim, timing, heat scale, situational awareness, etc is much harder IMO. Mind you I am no fan of ghost heat, but it IS the system in place. It is messy but it mostly fixes the boating issue. It doesnt fix the PPFLD issue, but that's another issue all together.

PGI's Dev time is much better spent on things that are more critical to long term success.

CW
maps
game modes

[IceSerpent]

Sprouticus, on 03 October 2014 - 12:34 PM, said:

Actually pacing while maintaining aim, timing, heat scale, situational awareness, etc is much harder IMO.

Only if you do it manually. Once you get a computer to do it for you...keeping LMB pressed is not exactly complicated.

Edited by IceSerpent, 03 October 2014 - 12:38 PM.

[Johnny Z]

I Zeratul I, on 03 October 2014 - 08:56 AM, said:

The more Russ talks, the more I like him.

There aren't a lot of people I can say that about.

I dont like you either.

[Joe Mallad]

Xarian, on 03 October 2014 - 09:22 AM, said:

Sized hardpoints would also kill the X PPC builds.

which in my opinion is a good thing. If a mech is truly designed to carry 2,3 or 4 PPCs or 2 Gauss or 2 AC-20, fine, great. Thats to be expected in MW and even in past games.

But in no way should we be seeing anything more than 4 PPCs on a mech of any size IMO. I would not even let people go more than 2 of the larger ballistic based weapons. no matter how many ballistic or laser hard points someone has on a mech. there should just be a hard cap on the number of these weapons you can have.

I dont care if you have a heavy or assault mech that has 8 laser hard points. You should only be allowed to mount up to 4 PPCs/ERPPCs, if you can manage to make it work. The same goes with the larger AC-20s UAC-20s and LBX-20s... max of 2 (mixing them counts too).

Edited by Yoseful Mallad, 03 October 2014 - 12:58 PM.

[LauLiao]

Scratx, on 03 October 2014 - 10:11 AM, said:

Doubling armor again isn't going to solve the problem. It's only going to make it so that you must use high pin-point FLD builds in order to crack the enemy before they crack you.

I don't want to feel like my weapons do no more than scratch paint off my enemies'.

Not to mention the impact on ammo dependent weapons. Most people have to carry anywhere from 2-4 tons of ammo per weapon that uses it now. Double armor and you double the amount of ammo those mechs have to carry.

[Russ Bullock]

If someone wants to make a true impact on PGI with sized hard points - pick a mech with lots of variants and lay out all the sizes for all the hard points on all the variants

Then compare that to the current game and come up with a true audit of what builds would still exist, which ones would disappear.

Although it might help removes some "problem builds" I wonder how many very good builds it might remove.

This is an exercise I that PGI will not have time for in the next couple of months as we work on CW phase 2.

[Zyllos]

Russ Bullock, on 03 October 2014 - 01:36 PM, said:

If someone wants to make a true impact on PGI with sized hard points - pick a mech with lots of variants and lay out all the sizes for all the hard points on all the variants

Then compare that to the current game and come up with a true audit of what builds would still exist, which ones would disappear.

Although it might help removes some "problem builds" I wonder how many very good builds it might remove.

This is an exercise I that PGI will not have time for in the next couple of months as we work on CW phase 2.

Already done, if I can find my post...just would have to update it for the current meta builds and new mechs released since then.

EDIT: Ya, that post was around one and a half years old, if not older.

Edited by Zyllos, 03 October 2014 - 01:45 PM.

[Hoax415]

Colby Boucher, on 03 October 2014 - 09:52 AM, said:

I agree that Russ not remembering progressive convergence is really surprising and more than a little annoying, but I also doubt anything will be done about convergence, ever. PGI seems like they're set on the matter and I really think that we should move on to worrying about other things.

What is most disturbing is that PGI seems to be resistant to talking about convergence or cone of fire, which leaves precious little left that can be done about pinpoint alpha which increasing armor values does not solve and can never solve no matter how much bonus armor you add on.

Scratx, on 03 October 2014 - 10:11 AM, said:

Doubling armor again isn't going to solve the problem. It's only going to make it so that you must use high pin-point FLD builds in order to crack the enemy before they crack you.

This 100%. Its maddening how people don't seem to get this.

Colby Boucher, on 03 October 2014 - 10:17 AM, said:

# of heatsinks affecting heat capacity is just silly and make the system overly complicated

I'd love to hear anyone present what positive effects the ability to increase your build's heat capacity has had on MWO gameplay.

Colby Boucher, on 03 October 2014 - 10:22 AM, said:

While I agree that making our mechs feel less powerful is not a good idea, doubling armor again does not make any weapon system any more or less effective than it is now, despite not necessarily feeling that way. Instead of certain builds one-shotting you, they would two-shot you. Instead of it taking 10 AC/2 shots to make a dent in someone's armor, it would take 20. And think of this - by that time, which mech would be better, heat wise? That mech that could two-shot you might just severely overheat by doing so, while the AC/2 mech would be perfectly fine and continue fighting. (bad example, one AC/2 isn't effective as it is)

What a horrible example. You've conveniently ignored rate of fire. You pretend that pinpoint alpha builds are heat monsters which in actuality they are often AC40 or dual gauss which have way less heat issues than SRM + ML with cooldown module builds.

Additionally you ignore the fact that pinpoint alpha will always 100% of the time be the king in a focus fire from multiple mechs to take down one target quickly king as long as you can pinpoint alpha in this game. No amount of armor changes that fact.

tl;dr you are wrong

Agent 0 Fortune, on 03 October 2014 - 10:38 AM, said:

The convergence discussion was a mystery. Stating that we cannot have non-pinpoint convergence because that is what his "Top Competitive Experts" say the game must have. The mere thought that if you fire 4 AC5 rounds from 900m and one hits the CT, 2 hit the LT and one misses complete was unacceptable. (NOTE the "Top Competitive Experts" should not be confused with the "The Chosen Player Council", even though there may be overlap between the two. the Experts decide what issues the Chosen get to debate and what issues don't).

Basically there is a stand of players who have a closer relationship with NGNG and PGI that somehow pretend that games like WoT or CS don't require skill or player skill matters less because they aren't 100% pinpoint shots 100% of the time.

You can find them mainly on /r/outreachHPG

Russ knows that TTK is a problem but somehow they seem to have convinced him that a cone of fire means that all shots just fly off at random all of the time and would take all player skill out of the game.

[Scratx]

Hoax415, on 03 October 2014 - 01:52 PM, said:

Basically there is a stand of players who have a closer relationship with NGNG and PGI that somehow pretend that games like WoT or CS don't require skill or player skill matters less because they aren't 100% pinpoint shots 100% of the time.

You can find them mainly on /r/outreachHPG

Russ knows that TTK is a problem but somehow they seem to have convinced him that a cone of fire means that all shots just fly off at random all of the time and would take all player skill out of the game.

To be fair, if we can find a good solution that avoids the CoF, it would be preferable. I am not a fan of CoF either, though I probably wouldn't mind seeing recoil-causing weapons to have one. (I can't see any reason why lasers should, though, they don't produce any recoil)

There is a reason why I think the better solution would be as I said before on another thread, just make a power budget stat that all weapons draw upon to fire to limit how many can shoot to begin with. Bam, no need for ghost heat and no longer necessary to worry about ridiculous alphas because nobody would have the power budget to execute them. Problem solved. Now instead of punishing people for "excessive alphas", you prevent them entirely.

The only big question here is, will the MWO population accept it over Ghost Heat? I cannot answer that one.

[Colby Boucher]

Hoax415, on 03 October 2014 - 01:52 PM, said:

What a horrible example. You've conveniently ignored rate of fire. You pretend that pinpoint alpha builds are heat monsters which in actuality they are often AC40 or dual gauss which have way less heat issues than SRM + ML with cooldown module builds.

Additionally you ignore the fact that pinpoint alpha will always 100% of the time be the king in a focus fire from multiple mechs to take down one target quickly king as long as you can pinpoint alpha in this game. No amount of armor changes that fact.

tl;dr you are wrong

Despite your rather harsh wording that seems to be the norm on these forums, (and I'll admit it's actually better than some...)

Point taken. I think I'm just getting desperate with PGI refusing to do anything significant.

[Hoax415]

My fault. It was a rushed and frustrated response to the fact that there are so many threads on this topic and somehow so much confusion about what pinpoint alpha is. How pinpoint alpha affects the game.

Most importantly its frustrating that this simple fact is lost on people:

IF, the more weapons you fire at once, the more damage you do to a single spot on an enemy. THEN, in a team based game where enemies have location based hitpoints, firing as much damage as you can in a single shot will ALWAYS BE YOUR BEST PLAN.

Its a simple relationship and as we see with ghost heat and countless weapon nerfs. You can change what the best weapon(s) or combination of weapons are to take advantage of pinpoint alpha but that's all you can accomplish without changing that first if statement.

Edited by Hoax415, 03 October 2014 - 02:15 PM.

[Hoax415]

Scratx, on 03 October 2014 - 02:07 PM, said:

To be fair, if we can find a good solution that avoids the CoF, it would be preferable.

[snip]

just make a power budget stat that all weapons draw upon to fire to limit how many can shoot to begin with.

You implement a power budget system and instantly the "meta" build is whatever the strongest pinpoint alpha is that can be fired by the power budget.

Power budget does exactly what ghost heat does just with more absolute limits. Its a system for mech designers to work within when designing the most powerful and effective pinpoint alpha builds they can.

[Kahoumono]

Look at us, they have already won. This game is billed as the thinking mans shooter yet we are applauding for merely hinting at minor changes with no real impact. The end result is that they won't steer the game away from the high alpha one button mash. The boating of weapons have little to do with heat, its about convergence and you can't fix that with heat or higher armor values. Simplest solution is diminishing returns, if the 4th weapon will do next to nothing when you alpha then people think twice about boating weapons and have to learn to manage more weapons types or groups ...although realistically this cannot fix the X ppc + X AC combo. I want to see more weapons diversity, more heat management and some heads roll cause in the real world people get fired for making bone head mistakes. Until then my wallet remains shut.

Quirks is an interesting idea but with the way information is disseminated it would take way too much effort to

[terrycloth]

It's only the best plan if you can repeatedly hit the same spot. Otherwise it's no better than splattering damage everywhere because you're doing that anyway.

So, massed laser fire works best for me if I want pinpoint damage because it'll actually hit where I want. PPCs and ACs and Gauss, I'm lucky to hit the mech at all.

[Scratx]

Hoax415, on 03 October 2014 - 02:20 PM, said:

You implement a power budget system and instantly the "meta" build is whatever the strongest pinpoint alpha is that can be fired by the power budget.

Power budget does exactly what ghost heat does just with more absolute limits. Its a system for mech designers to work within when designing the most powerful and effective pinpoint alpha builds they can.

Yes, but if you tune the values such that nobody can really do more than ~30 point alphas, it makes the problem a lot more manageable. It's stuff like 40-50pt pinpoint alphas that really break things. Or 100+ spread alphas, those also dish out so much horrible pain it doesn't really matter it's not pinpoint.

Solving the root of the problem would work as well and that is indeed instant convergence. However, that doesn't come without its own can of worms.

[Hoax415]

Fine you make it so that you can only fire 3 PPC's at once because power draw and remove ghost heat.

How long does it take for power to restore? .5 sec? 1 sec? 5 sec? It restores instantly right? Or are you suggesting what basically amounts to a second resource that has to have a bar like heat?

You think that builds designed around FLD alpha are now worse than sustained fire builds? Seriously?

You know what is now bad in your system? Any build that is designed around delivering a ~30 point alpha as often as the power system allows one to.

Edited by Hoax415, 03 October 2014 - 02:36 PM.

[Kassatsu]

Agent 0 Fortune, on 03 October 2014 - 10:38 AM, said:

"Top Competitive Experts" "The Chosen Player Council"

Sigh... They really did go through with that, didn't they?

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

kapusta11, on 03 October 2014 - 09:59 AM, said:

Russ thinks that 6xPPC Stalker creates an issue but Heat Scale is not very important, I call it a gg.

gg close even

Kassatsu, on 03 October 2014 - 02:38 PM, said:

Sigh... They really did go through with that, didn't they?

They havent yet, especially when its like 100 ppl (even though theres been a pseudovote and it was much less than that)