55 replies to this topic

[Davers]

wanderer, on 10 January 2015 - 10:54 PM, said:

Only if you're using the simplified rules that are tournament-standard.

"Heat-neutral" becomes a ruder situation when you actually track heat effects in anything except 10-second bites. In 2.5 second bites with the appropriate x4 (that is, autoshutdown is 120 points):

Awesome fires triple PPC blast. Accumulates 120 heat points. Dumps 28. 'Mech heat level rises to 92 (standard heat scale equivalent of 23). The Mech has a chance to shut down (avoid on 8+ on 2d6), is reduced to 1 movement point (-4 MP, actually but it's always allowed at least 1MP), and has a +3 to hit heat penalty. If it does shut down, it'll need a 4+ to restart the next turn and automatically restart the turn after that. Oh, and the PPCs will take 3 turns to recharge. Least you'll be cooled down and certainly restarted by then...

It'd be even more interesting with MWO, seeing as it checks heat effects every second or so. Heat actually is much tougher to manage when you don't get to ignore the effects for long enough to let your sinks get rid of it all.

Why doesn't TT tournament rules track heat like this normally? Cause it'd make a game so complex you'd need a computer to do all the calculations for, oh...a 12v12 match or it'd take hours per turn.

So we wouldn't be using the BT rules that most players know? Just the rules from some out of print supplement?

[Nothing Whatsoever]

Davers, on 10 January 2015 - 10:56 PM, said:

It would still be 210 damage before any real threat of penalties came in. That is a lot of damage even with doubled armor. With single heat sinks too mind you. Put in true DHS and it gets, well, twice as bad. (Well, not twice as bad as DHS take up more space.)

Based on TT, your max allowable heat spike would be equal to your heatsinks.

I'm not following with the value of 210, from which system is that generating from?

---

What I'm trying to explain is where the original BT damage values can be used as being the amount of damage they deal over 10 seconds, so the PPC is rated at 10 and the Clan ERPPC is rated at 15.

Therefore if they both have a cooldown at 4 seconds, then that translates to 4 Damage and 4 Heat on PPCs and 6 Damage and 6 Heat on ERPPCs.

With these values scaled in this manner, the original excess Heat Scale table could be applied where gaining 14 heat minus what the Heat Sinks have dissipated at once could then eventually lead to an override-able Shutdown.

The heat system in MWO does not necessarily need to be punitive, if weapons can be properly scaled to armor and internal structure values and I can see Auto Cannons needing a boost if we are able to utilize this sort of scaling from original values. Where currently in MWO they have rather large DPS buffs right now.

Also, with the sort of scaling I'm explaining right now, Heat Sinks could be 0.5 capacity on SHS and 0.7 on DHS to keep Capacity close, with Dissipation being 0.1 on SHS and 0.2 on DHS.

If I'm not being clear I can try to go into more details.

[EgoSlayer]

Praetor Knight, on 10 January 2015 - 10:25 PM, said:

IMHO, that is a cop-out.

How is it a cop-out when every one of your points is based on one of the two items I mentioned(rolling dice or ten second turns)?

Praetor Knight, on 10 January 2015 - 10:25 PM, said:

<snip>

For example, the fact that stock builds would often not work are symptoms of how weapons' rate of fire is much faster than what the heat system is set for. In other words the scaling between the systems is off. Sure players can learn to adapt (such as slap DHS on everything), but that still leaves flaws in place, with heat quirks being one newer way to indirectly address the issue adding to the long standing Cool Run and Heat Containment perks that double with gaining Elite on a mech.

CN: not using 10 second turns

Praetor Knight, on 10 January 2015 - 10:25 PM, said:

Another related issue is how the original game used a system to spread damage from weapons fire, where in MWO every shot is an aimed shot based on player skill.

CN: Not rolling dice to determine hit locations

Praetor Knight, on 10 January 2015 - 10:25 PM, said:

And due to how weapons can be fired together, we then got doubled armor to also deal with our rate of fire with grouped weapons. And that lead to other issues in how other systems got balanced after that, with added systems like Heat Scale (Ghost Heat) added in trying to lower grouped weapon damage some.

CN: Not using dice for hit locations and not using 10 second turns for heat


Don't get me wrong - there are problems with how PGI translated the rules to a real time game. But assuming putting everything to the TT rule set settings will 'fix all the mechs' is wishful thinking at best.

Edited by EgoSlayer, 10 January 2015 - 11:42 PM.

[Davers]

Praetor Knight, on 10 January 2015 - 11:19 PM, said:

I'm not following with the value of 210, from which system is that generating from?

---

What I'm trying to explain is where the original BT damage values can be used as being the amount of damage they deal over 10 seconds, so the PPC is rated at 10 and the Clan ERPPC is rated at 15.

Therefore if they both have a cooldown at 4 seconds, then that translates to 4 Damage and 4 Heat on PPCs and 6 Damage and 6 Heat on ERPPCs.

With these values scaled in this manner, the original excess Heat Scale table could be applied where gaining 14 heat minus what the Heat Sinks have dissipated at once could then eventually lead to an override-able Shutdown.

The heat system in MWO does not necessarily need to be punitive, if weapons can be properly scaled to armor and internal structure values and I can see Auto Cannons needing a boost if we are able to utilize this sort of scaling from original values. Where currently in MWO they have rather large DPS buffs right now.

Also, with the sort of scaling I'm explaining right now, Heat Sinks could be 0.5 capacity on SHS and 0.7 on DHS to keep Capacity close, with Dissipation being 0.1 on SHS and 0.2 on DHS.

If I'm not being clear I can try to go into more details.

210 damage is from 7 alpha strikes of 3 PPCs each.

It's kind of funny how in trying to 'make the game more like TT' you have to go and create a whole new batch of rules and weapon stats that are entirely different from TT.

[ApolloKaras]

Canon.... Dat locust hieght

[Mcgral18]

Saxie, on 10 January 2015 - 11:34 PM, said:

Canon.... Dat locust hieght

Height isn't always a terrible thing.

Look at the Shaq Hawk and the NopeVa. One is as tall as a Victor; the other is as wide as an Awesome.


One is significantly better off than the other (for hitboxes). Besides...look at those paper thin legs.

Edited by Mcgral18, 10 January 2015 - 11:42 PM.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

EgoSlayer, on 10 January 2015 - 11:24 PM, said:

How is it a cop-out when every one of your points is based on one of the two items I mentioned(rolling dice or ten second turns)?

CN: not using 10 second turns
CN: Not rolling dice to determine hit locations
CN: Not using 10 second turns.

Don't get me wrong - there are problems with how PGI translated the rules to a real time game. But assuming putting everything to the TT rule set settings will 'fix all the mechs' is wishful thinking at best.

Its from scaling the original into a real-time format. There will be deviations here and there, but there can also be much done to stay true to the original intentions.

For example, we are the Mechwarriors, so Gunnery and Piloting is in our hands.

In regards to gunnery, where every shot we are making will tend to be an aimed shot. Therefore all of the to hit modifiers cannot work well since you can have players all over the spectrum in this regard compared to P&P TT without applying those.

And we have very few Piloting aspects with needing to stand up after getting shredded for 20+ damage or running on pavement, with MWO simply having us not to run into building or others, but where such mistakes barely even matter.

And we also have immortal gyros! Nonetheless, I can see how annoying it will be losing your gyro and then trying to stand up and move for an entire match with all of those potential falls afterwards!

But armor, weapons and heat can be scaled against each other in a way that can keep true to how BT combat was and remain fun and challenging for us being those Mechwarriors.

Davers, on 10 January 2015 - 11:25 PM, said:

210 damage is from 7 alpha strikes of 3 PPCs each.

It's kind of funny how in trying to 'make the game more like TT' you have to go and create a whole new batch of rules and weapon stats that are entirely different from TT.

Ah, 30 damage a turn, thanks for restating that for me.

---

And yeah, it is kinda funny in a way; but for me it is also vital, so that we can retain as much of the BT essence as possible while allowing players to fill the role of a Mechwarrior!

Coming from Fallout, I have little issue with making adaptions to better translate the game into a different format, but then again, I am nuttier than a big horner dropping!

[ApolloKaras]

Mcgral18, on 10 January 2015 - 11:41 PM, said:

Height isn't always a terrible thing.

Look at the Shaq Hawk and the NopeVa. One is as tall as a Victor; the other is as wide as an Awesome.


One is significantly better off than the other (for hitboxes). Besides...look at those paper thin legs.

But it looks like I could hit it in the leg with an Lb 2x, and the Gyro overloads and falls down lol

[wanderer]

Davers, on 10 January 2015 - 11:01 PM, said:

So we wouldn't be using the BT rules that most players know? Just the rules from some out of print supplement?

Out of print but still legit- and the reason it's out of print is because frankly, the scale of 1 turn = 10 seconds is about as detailed as the game can get in pen and paper form without bogging down. At 1: 2.5 seconds the game gets to be so much record-keeping without a computer that more than 2-3 on each side bogs down seriously. Thus, they didn't bother doing more with the Solaris VII-scale rules- leaving them to gather dust as far as new product was concerned.

Oddly enough, we happen to have a Battletech game here that does all the record keeping on a computer, which allows us to do things on a smaller scale without that problem. We even have the direction the game goes in given that smaller scale thanks to Solaris VII, and that gives us a stable, rules-tested (heck, I should know I WAS one of those people back at Origins 91!) benchmark to work into MWO's even smaller scaled system.

[EgoSlayer]

Praetor Knight, on 10 January 2015 - 11:48 PM, said:

Its from scaling the original into a real-time format. There will be deviations here and there, but there can also be much done to stay true to the original intentions.

For example, we are the Mechwarriors, so Gunnery and Piloting is in our hands.

In regards to gunnery, where every shot we are making will tend to be an aimed shot. Therefore all of the to hit modifiers cannot work well since you can have players all over the spectrum in this regard compared to P&P TT without applying those.

Translation: Pulse lasers and targeting computers are useless tonnage.

Praetor Knight, on 10 January 2015 - 11:48 PM, said:

And we have very few Piloting aspects with needing to stand up after getting shredded for 20+ damage or running on pavement, with MWO simply having us not to run into building or others, but where such mistakes barely even matter.

And we also have immortal gyros! Nonetheless, I can see how annoying it will be losing your gyro and then trying to stand up and move for an entire match with all of those potential falls afterwards!

But armor, weapons and heat can be scaled against each other in a way that can keep true to how BT combat was and remain fun and challenging for us being those Mechwarriors.

Translation: We need RNG for pilot checks and hit locations.

You are basically saying that we need to apply the TT values and then ignore the fact that items that are resolved with dice rolls in the TT game either need to be ignored, or re-created as RNG elements. It's not a solution. And if you are proposing something else (which I haven't seen), it's a complete revamp of the game which isn't going to happen 1 year post beta.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

EgoSlayer, on 11 January 2015 - 12:09 AM, said:

Translation: Pulse lasers and targeting computers are useless tonnage.

Pulse Lasers can retain a different identity though. Their Hallmark was accuracy in dealing damage at shorter range.

I'm my case I'm crazy enough to prefer exploring hit-scan laser dakka; meaning the capacity for more very short pulse beams and durations to deal damage compare to regular and ER Lasers with longer beams and durations.

Easy example being to set ER Large to the longest beam duration, Reg Large to second longest and Pulse Large to the shortest.

Using IS examples heat is ranging from 8 to 12 heat with all weapons keeping current beam and cooldown durations with heat and damage scaled down to 10 a second.

Targeting Computers can easily retain their current MWO values including the original stipulations of carrying a TC, one TC ton for every five tons they control, plus more as necessary and so on.

Quote

Translation: We need RNG for pilot checks and hit locations.

You are basically saying that we need to apply the TT values and then ignore the fact that items that are resolved with dice rolls in the TT game either need to be ignored, or re-created as RNG elements. It's not a solution. And if you are proposing something else (which I haven't seen), it's a complete revamp of the game which isn't going to happen 1 year post beta.

Okay this area is really going to depend on what you are factoring and what is allowable by the game engine.

I have no problem needing to right my mech after get hit with a certain amount of damage and appropriately cycling through certain options that will prevent me from shooting due to priority until my mech is ready to use its weapons.

So say if I drunkenly run into a building or into a mech in my Commando, there can be static expectations that the game's physics can assign as to the next appropriate time that the player can assign new commands to the mech to be able to stand back up and/or keep moving depending on what the player did or had done.

And / or if the player is dumb or unlucky enough be in front of an AS7-D-DC with an AC/20 and three ASRM-6s and receive enough damage to drop the mech on its bum, then they can at least have a reasonable expectation of when they will be able to get back up to be able to move around again for as long as the remaining armor and IS health can hold up for in said match.

[Jaeger Gonzo]

Keep in mind excellent HomelessBill targeting computer idea, that would deal with many mentioned problems with elegant, fps friendly and true to lore way.

[Triskelion]

Am I really the only one that thinks that the game is in a pretty decent place at the moment? Aside from the deathballing inherent to most high-TTK games and game balancing tweaking that could be used for AC2s/flamers/etc, things are looking pretty good. We have a well-rounded tier list, Clan/IS balance isn't atrocious (though obviously not perfect), and personally, I haven't been alpha'd down in a pretty long time.
I mean seriously, who actually gets quad PPC dumped anymore? Is that still happening? Are there really people out there who are still playing with the steering wheel underhive and have come into contact with people who overheat on a single alpha? I can see chain firing, but even then if you're out of cover you're SOL anyway.

Nobody actually plays like that, it's all mindless theorycrafting that isn't actually seen the vast majority of the time. The scariest alpha you'll be looking at from a practical perspective is double gauss/PPC supplemented by Large laser, which isn't nearly as terrifying because it's almost always on a fatty that can be avoided, or that can be torn apart by a single light. If you're running into boated short range weapons, staying with the team is a good way to avoid that (or simply backing off and trying to reposition. If you built in such a way that you can't deal with something with a lot of short range firepower, you either A) built to other strengths or built badly. Shame on you).

People seem to think that battletech and MWO are the same game. They ARE NOT the same game. They are based on the same idea, and have similarities, but certain things simply do not translate.

Let's say we finally get a BT-like heat scale. Two identical mech builds with identical pilots, even with pinpoint weapons will not perform anything like each other. Having the possibility to not even overheat when maxed out is beyond silly. This is, without exception, something that caters to people that are not good at managing a system, as it introduces random chance where it didn't previously exist, and doesn't add anything that requires the player to be better at the game to excel. This will also cause players to play very conservatively for fear of getting a bad roll in the system, and would make gameplay utterly boring. Plus, anything that removes power from players and puts it into a RNG makes the top end of play utterly frustrating, where everything is played on the margins.

Let's say it's a modified system that has specific penalties at specific heat levels. Wanna guess what happens? People figure out how to exploit it to generate builds that either alpha as cool as possible, or DPS as cool as possible. All that does is shift whatever flavor of the month meta is going on further, and doesn't need to happen. You will end up with the exact same behavior, because at the end of the day, players will always figure out how to gain the most power whilst spending the least effort. That's not an insult, that's part of what makes gaming good.



TL:DR: The wheels on the bus go round and round. These threads get made every time somebody gets stripped or headshotted, and rather than fix their own gameplay they want to make the game less interesting. Things aren't perfect in MWO, but damn it they are pretty good and they are getting better by the day.

Edited by Triskelion, 11 January 2015 - 09:45 AM.

[Navy Sixes]

I don't think canon is the answer. If we were going by lore, there would be no "Cooter's Garage" mechlab where you could pull apart any mech and drop whatever upgrades you wanted into it instantly. You'd get one stock mech, and it would be determined by a RNG; most mechwarriors got the family mech they inherited, and they made the best of it.

I do agree with others who have mentioned geometry/scale. I play a lot of mediums, and I can tell you that scale is where that class really got screwed. No medium should be bigger than a heavy. No heavy should be bigger than an assault. No exceptions.

[ztac]

Ignoring core rules is not such a bad thing as a board game is nothing like a PC game (rolling dice turn taking etc. etc. ) But quite often they use the core rules to justify something and end up with a mish mash . If they sat down from the very beginning and worked out how they wanted every weapon to work within a set of rules and wrote down why they did it that way they may have got somewhere.

It's all quite simple really , If you have a balanced equation in maths the act of adding or taking away anywhere will make that equation unbalanced. And adjusting anywhere requires you to balance it somewhere else .. so why even bother?

The real problem was in getting it right in the first place!

Edited by ztac, 11 January 2015 - 02:44 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

mogs01gt, on 10 January 2015 - 05:28 PM, said:

LoL that would make a lot of mechs extremely OP.

You say extremely OP I think Powerful. I like powerful.