81 replies to this topic

[QuantumButler]

Because there is no cone of fire to spread damage like there would be in TT, or even some sort of weapon convergence system to ensure all weapons don't all hit the same pont you aim at, so alpha striking to destroy the thing ASAP is key.

[Widowmaker1981]

DaFurryFury, on 08 December 2014 - 10:57 PM, said:

I get that but should it really be so easy? It should at least put you at risk of overheating unless you have forgone additional firepower for heatsinks.

those stormcrows you speak of can alpha once on a heat neutral map, if they refire on cooldown they will shutdown with the 2nd alpha (unless its a gausscrow, they can go longer)

[Kiiyor]

Kirkland Langue, on 08 December 2014 - 10:45 PM, said:

Sorry but there is one DPS build which we all know and all love/hate/lovetohate

Dakkawolf.

The DakkaWolf is a bit of both, though. All it needs is a second or so to deliver some truly horrifying damage

[aniviron]

DaFurryFury, on 08 December 2014 - 10:53 PM, said:

I understand that but it seems like people are using this idea without any reprimands so there is little to mitigate the overuse of this strategy. I know it's the best strategy recently but it's quickly becoming the only strategy.

There's really nothing recent about it, people have been playing this way since closed beta.

As long as you can fire all weapons at once without penalty, it will be the best way to play, for a few reasons.

1: It means that you are doing all your damage at the start; if you do enough damage, you can kill your opponent to prevent return fire, or at least damage them enough to partially disable them.

2: Firing all at once means all the fire is grouped up as much as possible. Even if you don't hit what you're aiming for, destroying a component on a mech is nearly always superior to spreading out armor damage. Destroying components means your enemy loses weapons, heatsinks, etc, whereas they lose nothing for taking armor damage.

3. Alpha strikes reduce the amount of time during which you need to face your enemy. If you deal damage over time, you are required to aim directly at your opponent because you have to aim at them- this in turn means that you are presenting a direct frontal profile to your enemy, and they can choose where to fire back at your mech. If you alpha strike instead of spreading out your fire, then you can fire and twist to the side, which means you can direct incoming damage to the components you want it to hit.

[Dorion]

Kirkland Langue, on 08 December 2014 - 10:45 PM, said:

Sorry but there is one DPS build which we all know and all love/hate/lovetohate

Dakkawolf.

Please get ready for dakkacrab!

[Joseph Mallan]

DaFurryFury, on 08 December 2014 - 10:40 PM, said:

I'm not the best player around but I play frequently enough to hold my own. This is a question that has been bugging me lately because I'm not entirely sure how it would be fixed.

Why is everything about the alpha strike these days? Isn't an alpha strike supposed to (usually) be a risky maneuver because it could result in instant shutdown? And mechs that ARE meant to alpha all the time usually didn't have the biggest load so they wouldn't be at much risk? It seems like any sustained fire build that I try to use gets smoked immediately. Even the big assault mechs that are supposed to be able to soak us SOME damage drop like flies to alpha build stormcrows and they keep firing like they aren't even at risk of overheating.

Is there no place for sustained fire mechs anymore? It seems like it's all builds that require as little facetime with the enemy as possible. Granted I understand that you don't always want to be looking face to face with the enemy but were in giant robots that are supposed to be able to endure some damage. It just seems like mechs that were once viable are just completely obsolete because they aren't built to fire as many weapons as possible at once but rather focus on a few weapons with lots of ammo and precision to deal damage over time.

It's probably just that I'm never a fan of insta-Gib strategies because in my experience with gaming those are usually the most overpowered builds. Currently the mechs I have the most success with are AC20 builds, Gauss builds, LPL builds, etc etc.... Will I ever be able to pull out my dusty Blackjack with AC/2s or cycled pulse lasers or my hunch4sp or anything similar again?

Why wait till you are in trouble before you hit your enemy with your best punch? The idea that an Alpha Strike is "Supposed" to be a last ditch attack is just dumb. I have designed every Mech on TT to be able to either Alpha or long/short the weapons.

I like to subdue my opponents quickly with minimal chance of retaliation. You know one and done for the win.

[Col Kurtz]

I believe you are all mostly correct in the medium to short range. But a moving mech at medium to long range, alphas tend to miss. A moving DPS building can surpress and put alot of damage down range, while not worrying to much about aiming perfectly. I have racked up some good damage and kills with Cataphracts at distance with ac5s and kept a few mechs from leaving their hiddy holes with just a black jack and 2 ac2s.

But yes, alpha's are the main way to get the job done.

[Lily from animove]

easier to use esecially when come out of cover, fire all the weapons, retreat to cover for cooldown minimises the amount of time your opponent can shoot at you.

Alphaing is too easy, since unlike previous MW games we have quite a high heatt treshold. Remember MW3 aif you fire 3 CERLL you already definately shut down. no matter if alpha or fired in a row. But in MWO you can fire quite a lot.

pinpoint, alpha will hit morelikely hit the same section, causing dmg where needed.

Most noticeable different between MWO and othr MW titles:

opponents accuracy and fairness.

MW titles were singlepalyer games, AI opps were not that accurate and often you wee either heavier or outnumbering them, so row after row did you defeated them with repairing inbetween at your MFB.

MWO is a 12vs12 last team deathmatch where conditions try to be fair. your mech is as awsome as other mechs. the only true difference is you and your skill.
And so the game follows the basic rules of shooters: shoot and don't get shot. Alpha builds heavily support this generic shooter tactics.

game would be different if true heat treshold would be 30 and DHS would dissipate heat faster without increasing treshold. because then the alpha nonsense with energywepaons would stop and energybuilds would be about constantly firing. But probably die off because of the Pinpoint Ballistics still following the shooter rules in general. Maybe it would be all about gauss, being able to have high dmg, low heat and range.

[Joseph Mallan]

Lily from animove, on 09 December 2014 - 06:31 AM, said:

game would be different if true heat treshold would be 30 and DHS would dissipate heat faster without increasing treshold. because then the alpha nonsense with energywepaons would stop and energybuilds would be about constantly firing. But probably die off because of the Pinpoint Ballistics still following the shooter rules in general. Maybe it would be all about gauss, being able to have high dmg, low heat and range.

I'm sorry Lily But if heat worked like it was supposed to, I would be ruling this game! I have over 700 Heat neutral builds for TT and another 300 that generate >5 heat per alpha.

My 3 Gauss 2 ERPPC Stone Rhino builds 3 heat per Alpha or 5 Running. 75 point alpha for 3 heat!

[Abivard]

Ursh, on 08 December 2014 - 10:59 PM, said:

This is what, in my opinion, makes me hate the gameplay more and more. I like dps builds, designed to keep up sustained firepower over time. Unfortunately, this game isn't built for that.

Instead, it's hide, hide, hide, BLAM BLAM, hide, hide, hide, hide, BLAM BLAM, hide, hide, hide, hide, repeat until enemy team is dead. You know, sort of like this other FPS game I've heard all the cool kids play: Call of Duty.

Which is one reason the high Alpha crowd hates LRM's with a passion and has lobbied long and hard for the massive nerfs we see to LRM's today.

[Joseph Mallan]

Abivard, on 09 December 2014 - 07:27 AM, said:

Which is one reason the high Alpha crowd hates LRM's with a passion and has lobbied long and hard for the massive nerfs we see to LRM's today.

I'm sorry have I ever lobbied against LRMs? I love Alpha Striking and support strong LRMs.

[Lily from animove]

Joseph Mallan, on 09 December 2014 - 06:35 AM, said:

I'm sorry Lily But if heat worked like it was supposed to, I would be ruling this game! I have over 700 Heat neutral builds for TT and another 300 that generate >5 heat per alpha.

My 3 Gauss 2 ERPPC Stone Rhino builds 3 heat per Alpha or 5 Running. 75 point alpha for 3 heat!

no you would not, because at the moment you fire you will jump up to 30 heat treshold, and anything further is dangerous. Then heatdissipation takes place. Play MW 3 to know it. TT simulates the round with weapon fire, but yet your round is 10 seconds?, meaning even if you fire all weapons at the same TURN, they are NOT an ALPHA, they are still fired in a sequence over that turn time while heatdissipation takes place.
While in MW3 heat happens when you fire the wepaon, at the same time heat dissipation takes place. But a big alpha will always exceed your heat treshold because you instantly accumulate all heat.

With your TT heat neutral builds you would in MW 3 basically create a mech able to shoot all the guns sequencially without ever overheating. But this would not mena you can alpha them all the time. And if you can, that build has not the absurd high alphas MWO has. So build a nova in MW3 and see how much you can alpha heatneutral.
Heatneutral means when the weapon cooldown is done and ready to fire again,then all the heat you generated by the shots is also already dissipated. This kind of alphas would be a lot lower than the alphas we currently have in MWO.

Quote

My 3 Gauss 2 ERPPC Stone Rhino builds 3 heat per Alpha or 5 Running. 75 point alpha for 3 heat!

see thats the issue, with 30 trehsold, you would now shut down, becasue 2 PPC's are already 30 heat, + 3 more. but alpha means fired together, means exceeding the heattreshold. and then, how long is a turn in BT TT? I remember 10 seconds right? which means in MWO terms if translated right, the next alpha you could fire is after 10 seconds. Not even a good build at all. But balanced becasue you pay highalpha for a lot of cooldown time.

compare it to a nova, 12CERML, with 30 heat treshold it can fire 6 lasers for 42damage without shutting down. yet it has 18DHS, meanign 36 heat dissipation. and some is gone for engine heat.

rebuilding the nova and adding 4 DHS by dropping 4 CERML, means 8 more heat dissipation. giving the nova enough heat dissipation to fire nearly 8 lasers and being able to cool them down. That is also heat neutral and would in TT terms generate only 2 heat for an "TT alpha" of 56dmg. But remember this is not an true alpha since that all is happening within 10 seconds of the turn.
Yet with a fixed heattreshold in MWO it could not alpha them, becasue that would mean at the moment of alpha you exceed the 30 and get 40 heat. A shutdown would take place + probbaly internal damage. Yes heatneutral build but not alphaable build. Still in MWO terms, one can fire a alpha of 6 and later 2 more.

becaue a DHS means dissipating 2 heat/10seconds, or 0,2heat/second. Not sure how many heat engines eat in TT now, but basically if you fire that 6CERML alpha you need to wait until further 10 heat are dissipated to fire the next two lasers together. this would mean its basically possible to do so after maybe 1 second?. (22*0,2=11heat - whatever engine needs for cooldown). Not an alpha, still heat neutral within those 10 seconds.

heutneutral =/= alphaable, I hope you understand that now.

MWO decided to go another model, they amde the hetatreshold grow with amount of Heatsinks and give DHS only 1.4 heatsink. This created extremely high heta tresholds and less heta dissipation. Which consequently leaded to high alpha builds to a stupid degree. To fix this they impelmented ghosthat. But some builds can make workaround to ghostheat like TBR with 4CERML + 2LPL. This is a total of 0 heta which would not be alphaable at all. yet in MWO you can easily alpha this 2x in like 4 seconds probelmatic at all and making the typical laservomit alpha builds.
If the system would be 30treshold + true dissipation it would be different.
typical MWO tibmer

24 heatsinks = 48 dissipation, so the build would eb heat neutral as well since the alpha is 40 heat.
But instead of nowdays spam 2x alpha within 4seconds and retreat for cooldown the build would have to be played differently.

you can fire 4cerml + a single LPL. then you are at max treshold. and you need further 10 heta before being able to fire the last LPL. menaing 48*0,2*x=10. this means the second LPL cna be fired a bit later than 1second after the alpha.

So while people would still be able to build plenty of heat neutral builds, the amount of alphas would reduce a lot since they cna not make weird mixes between ballistcis and energyweapons. DWF with 2 Gauss and 8CERML can alpha that stuff. with 3 treshold, it would not be able to do this.
And when a mech is not build heatneutral, and after firing hsi wapons and having not dissipated to 0 heta, he will not be able to fire such an alpha again without exceeding the treshold now even further. so when your build is not hetaneutral you can not fire all the stuff even sequencially. But you cna pakc a lot more firepower than you cna dissipate and be prepared for different situations, more heatefficient SL's for cqc and less heat but range efficient LL for range. because eben without being heat neutral the heat efficiency of SL would beat a PPC build in CQC since exactly this efficiency.

Hope that helped you explaining why a fixed heat treshold cna be a very good balance to high alphas, while it does not lower a mechs firepower (heat neutrality), but changes the way how a mech has to distribute the firepower over time.

[Joseph Mallan]

Lily from animove, on 09 December 2014 - 07:30 AM, said:

no you would not, because at the moment you fire you will jump up to 30 heat treshold, and anything further is dangerous. Then heatdissipation takes place. Play MW 3 to know it. TT simulates the round with weapon fire, but yet your round is 10 seconds?, meaning even if you fire all weapons at the same TURN, they are NOT an ALPHA, they are still fired in a sequence over that turn time while heatdissipation takes place.
While in MW3 heat happens when you fire the wepaon, at the same time heat dissipation takes place. But a big alpha will always exceed your heat treshold because you instantly accumulate all heat.

With your TT heat neutral builds you would in MW 3 basically create a mech able to shoot all the guns sequencially without ever overheating. But this would not mena you can alpha them all the time. And if you can, that build has not the absurd high alphas MWO has. So build a nova in MW3 and see how much you can alpha heatneutral.
Heatneutral means when the weapon cooldown is done and ready to fire again,then all the heat you generated by the shots is also already dissipated. This kind of alphas would be a lot lower than the alphas we currently have in MWO.



see thats the issue, with 30 trehsold, you would now shut down, becasue 2 PPC's are already 30 heat, + 3 more. but alpha means fired together, means exceeding the heattreshold. and then, how long is a turn in BT TT? I remember 10 seconds right? which means in MWO terms if translated right, the next alpha you could fire is after 10 seconds. Not even a good build at all. But balanced becasue you pay highalpha for a lot of cooldown time.

compare it to a nova, 12CERML, with 30 heat treshold it can fire 6 lasers for 42damage without shutting down. yet it has 18DHS, meanign 36 heat dissipation. and some is gone for engine heat.

rebuilding the nova and adding 4 DHS by dropping 4 CERML, means 8 more heat dissipation. giving the nova enough heat dissipation to fire nearly 8 lasers and being able to cool them down. That is also heat neutral and would in TT terms generate only 2 heat for an "TT alpha" of 56dmg. But remember this is not an true alpha since that all is happening within 10 seconds of the turn.
Yet with a fixed heattreshold in MWO it could not alpha them, becasue that would mean at the moment of alpha you exceed the 30 and get 40 heat. A shutdown would take place + probbaly internal damage. Yes heatneutral build but not alphaable build. Still in MWO terms, one can fire a alpha of 6 and later 2 more.

becaue a DHS means dissipating 2 heat/10seconds, or 0,2heat/second. Not sure how many heat engines eat in TT now, but basically if you fire that 6CERML alpha you need to wait until further 10 heat are dissipated to fire the next two lasers together. this would mean its basically possible to do so after maybe 1 second?. (22*0,2=11heat - whatever engine needs for cooldown). Not an alpha, still heat neutral within those 10 seconds.

heutneutral =/= alphaable, I hope you understand that now.

MWO decided to go another model, they amde the hetatreshold grow with amount of Heatsinks and give DHS only 1.4 heatsink. This created extremely high heta tresholds and less heta dissipation. Which consequently leaded to high alpha builds to a stupid degree. To fix this they impelmented ghosthat. But some builds can make workaround to ghostheat like TBR with 4CERML + 2LPL. This is a total of 0 heta which would not be alphaable at all. yet in MWO you can easily alpha this 2x in like 4 seconds probelmatic at all and making the typical laservomit alpha builds.
If the system would be 30treshold + true dissipation it would be different.
typical MWO tibmer

24 heatsinks = 48 dissipation, so the build would eb heat neutral as well since the alpha is 40 heat.
But instead of nowdays spam 2x alpha within 4seconds and retreat for cooldown the build would have to be played differently.

you can fire 4cerml + a single LPL. then you are at max treshold. and you need further 10 heta before being able to fire the last LPL. menaing 48*0,2*x=10. this means the second LPL cna be fired a bit later than 1second after the alpha.

So while people would still be able to build plenty of heat neutral builds, the amount of alphas would reduce a lot since they cna not make weird mixes between ballistcis and energyweapons. DWF with 2 Gauss and 8CERML can alpha that stuff. with 3 treshold, it would not be able to do this.
And when a mech is not build heatneutral, and after firing hsi wapons and having not dissipated to 0 heta, he will not be able to fire such an alpha again without exceeding the treshold now even further. so when your build is not hetaneutral you can not fire all the stuff even sequencially. But you cna pakc a lot more firepower than you cna dissipate and be prepared for different situations, more heatefficient SL's for cqc and less heat but range efficient LL for range. because eben without being heat neutral the heat efficiency of SL would beat a PPC build in CQC since exactly this efficiency.

Hope that helped you explaining why a fixed heat treshold cna be a very good balance to high alphas, while it does not lower a mechs firepower (heat neutrality), but changes the way how a mech has to distribute the firepower over time.

And My Sinks would almost instantly drop me back to Heat neutrality Lily. That 30 on the scale was for Heat above and beyond what the sinks vented during heat phase (2-3 seconds of a turn). So after the sinks vent if I have 30 heat I shut down. Not immediately after I shoot.

A FULL TURN is 10 Seconds, Heat phase was only a few of those seconds.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 09 December 2014 - 08:54 AM.

[Mechteric]

The heat system in the game pretty much encourages you to fire as much as you can then hide behind cover. Brawlers often just run too hot.

[Jody Von Jedi]

There is a place for DPS mechs that can't alpha strike repeatedly.

Here

http://mwomercs.com/...k-mech-mondays/

and here

http://mwomercs.com/...era-wednesdays/

Team speak is required.

Jody

[PappySmurf]

First thing you need to understand OP this is not MechWarrior or Battletech.MWO is a lame FPS with mech skins that caters to the high alpha bulds with heat neutrality. Just think of BattleField- Planetside-cod games with mechskins and the big constant fire assault gun wins.

To be competitive and get a lot of kills now you need a 1 shot killer and wait for the target to almost be dead and 1 shot them the lame way PGI has changed the rewards system has made the game much worse for the casual or new player.

[Kh0rn]

It if it helps at all I play a lot of my weapons with out a constant Alpha. Then again I do have like 6 different fire groups so I can fire different weapons at different times depending on the situation.

[Roland]

DaFurryFury, on 08 December 2014 - 10:46 PM, said:

Newb question: whats "TT"

Also, BullS! In old games I would always play mechs that build heat slowly and do steady damage. Why is that not a viable strategy now?

I have seen dakka wolf but it still seems to be the only exception because he can actually still do decent damage with a few shots since it has so many equipped. other "over time" mechs wouldn't have so much firepower more than likely.

In old games, you were probably just playing against AI opponents, and thus it didn't matter that your mechs were trashboxes.

Because, to be clear, in all prior mechwarrior incarnations alpha damage was always the chief design principle that dictated a mech's utility on the field. It's also why, way back in beta, we were able to tell Paul with ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY that without a functional weapons convergence system, you were going to run into major balance problems from high alpha mechs... and, low-and-behold, we were absolutely correct. Derp.

The only type of mech that can effectively provide utility for a non-alpha build, is one designed to juggle opponents with knock... but every time such a mech design has appeared in MWO, PGI has nerfed the crap out of it, because "it's not fun to be knocked". But, really, this is the only time that there is ever utility in a mech that isn't dumping all of its damage out at once.

We used to run similar mechs back in MW4 periodically, generally as close range brawlers with LBX10's and flamers. Once they got close to a target, they basically ruined it, since most players abused the clan ERLL, and ran very hot... You could juggle them with the LBX10's (which were actually useful weapons in MW4), and continually knock their shots off target, while shutting them down with the flamers.

But because Paul's game design ideas preclude any of these tactics as "unfun", you are left with a one-dimensional game where the alpha-strike is the only effective build.

This in itself isn't automatically terrible, but the problem is that Paul's design ideas push the game into this direction, but then PGI decides that this is somehow bad... and then implements various other garbage ideas to try and prevent alpha strikes. So they end up having mutually exclusive design goals with increasingly complex (and ineffective) implementations to try and create a game where people can't use non-alpha tactics, but also aren't using alpha tactics.

[Virgil Greyson]

Roland, on 09 December 2014 - 08:09 AM, said:

In old games, you were probably just playing against AI opponents, and thus it didn't matter that your mechs were trashboxes.

Because, to be clear, in all prior mechwarrior incarnations alpha damage was always the chief design principle that dictated a mech's utility on the field. It's also why, way back in beta, we were able to tell Paul with ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY that without a functional weapons convergence system, you were going to run into major balance problems from high alpha mechs... and, low-and-behold, we were absolutely correct. Derp.

The only type of mech that can effectively provide utility for a non-alpha build, is one designed to juggle opponents with knock... but every time such a mech design has appeared in MWO, PGI has nerfed the crap out of it, because "it's not fun to be knocked". But, really, this is the only time that there is ever utility in a mech that isn't dumping all of its damage out at once.

We used to run similar mechs back in MW4 periodically, generally as close range brawlers with LBX10's and flamers. Once they got close to a target, they basically ruined it, since most players abused the clan ERLL, and ran very hot... You could juggle them with the LBX10's (which were actually useful weapons in MW4), and continually knock their shots off target, while shutting them down with the flamers.

But because Paul's game design ideas preclude any of these tactics as "unfun", you are left with a one-dimensional game where the alpha-strike is the only effective build.

This in itself isn't automatically terrible, but the problem is that Paul's design ideas push the game into this direction, but then PGI decides that this is somehow bad... and then implements various other garbage ideas to try and prevent alpha strikes. So they end up having mutually exclusive design goals with increasingly complex (and ineffective) implementations to try and create a game where people can't use non-alpha tactics, but also aren't using alpha tactics.

If this is true, it sounds like there is a serious disconnect between the various design teams.

[zagibu]

The problem is that there is currently no downside to high burst damage builds. And it seems hard to introduce one. More severe heat penalties would only partially solve the problem, because some of those builds don't have heat problems.

One feature that could change this to great effect would be the introduction of AI units, e.g. infantry swarms and tanks. High burst damage builds would be helpless against them, because their focused damage with long cooldown would make them overkill single units and not be able to dispatch the required numbers quickly enough.

Unfortunately, I don't think PGI is currently capable to implement such a feature.