198 replies to this topic

[Malleus011]

Yes, I'd like to see the heat mechanism revisited. I think 'mechs in general run too hot, and the idea that heat-neutral builds shouldn't exist was a mistake.

And I despise Ghost Heat.

I'd like to see multiple options tried on the test servers.

Edited by Malleus011, 21 January 2015 - 09:48 PM.

[Night Thastus]

Thoughts:

1: Remove ghost heat (biggest issue here, IMO, I feel that artifically stopping certain builds by insane heat penalties when they are already impractical is a terrible idea that limits creativity)

2: Increase heat penalties for being hot in general (Above 80%?) like you mentioned and overheating/shutting down especially. Running that hot shouldn't be a regular deal. All the penalties you mentioned and more should be added.

3: Make double heatsinks true double heat sinks (2x dissipation) (I'm aware this was tried when they first released, but with these other modifcations, I feel it's plausible, and beyond that, neccesary for the rest)

4: Make it so no EFFICIENCIES affect heat dissipation, what you get is what you get.

5: Make it so that mechs don't need a minimum of 3 heat sinks (all mechs, or mechs with certain layouts need a minimum of 3 extra heatsinks than the engine comes with stock)

6:Remove hardpoint-forced heatsinks on clan 'mechs (if they want them, they can still add them, of course)

7: Lower the cap significantly for heat

8: Perhaps study real life ballistics a bit? I'm pretty sure that while they generate heat, it's more of an issue of overheating the barrel, causing it to warp and become broken, as with real life guns. Can't fire real LMG's nonstop. Instead of making them overheat the mech (which although does take heat from the internal cooling system, should be minimal), I feel that firing too long duration-wise/friction-wise should cause the gun to overheat and either jam or become damaged to the point of breaking.

Think this list is too radical? Try it out. I'd love to see the results. It'd be a great experiment, even in a non-public setting. Sure, it's change, and change isn't fun for some people, and it takes getting used to, but it'd be an overhaul that would make the game more "fair" and make heat more logical.

EDIT: I meant efficiencies, not quirks. Quirks are OK as is, I suppose. (Except ER PPC Thunderbolt, damn you)

Edited by Night Wind, 22 January 2015 - 06:42 AM.

[Kilo 40]

Alistair Winter, on 21 January 2015 - 07:13 AM, said:

For example, when your heat indicator surpasses 70% your mech might start to move slower, your torso twist may be reduced, your arm movement speed may be slower. Maybe your HUD starts to flicker and your radar picks up ghost signals.

I have to say, I really REALLY want more things like this.

I want to see mech functionality change/degrade as the mech takes damage. slower movement(especially when clans lose a ST), HUD flicker, reduced twist speed, longer weapon recycle times, cross hair swaying, loss of individual weapons after so much damage instead of only losing weapons after the loss of an arm/ST, losing night/heat vision, windshield cracking, etc..

[Alistair Winter]

Well, so far there seems to be an overwhelming consensus. For everyone who says no to the idea in this thread, four or five say yes.

Now, the question is whether this is a similar situation as the ECM / LRM / Radar debate, where most people agree a change is needed, but they can't agree on what that change should be. I haven't done a count, but it does seem like most people would like to see multiple negative effects for mechs that run very hot, which would possibly stop people from cramming so many weapons on the mechs.

[monk]

I believe a serious reworking would probably improve the game significantly. But to start I'd be very happy even to see a penalty system applied for high heat. Try just leaving everything how it is right now, but start adding in quirks to the mech as heat reaches something like 50%. Adjust top speed, crosshair jerkyness, reduced turn radius, reduced arm speed, loss of convergence, loss of max range on weapons, random system failures (that reset when heat drops), steam in cockpit, power failures, alternate view mode failues (heat, nightvision), jj failures, ammo cooking, etc. There is so much that could be added in that would be fun.

The big issue would be helping players understand what is going on, but after a few rounds people would quickly catch on and realize there were costs to running hot instead of just shutting down and maybe taking bit or armor damage. Just have some of the displays show the player what is going on as well as the HUD so that it's clear. Yellow, orange, and red icons for each effect hitting you so you can see what's going wrong. Heat then becomes something that players can manage to maintain full effectiveness on their mech, but they can also take the chance of running extra hot in critical cases. Doing so, however, now applies various negative effects to their mech which will remain until the systems can cooldown and return to normal functionality. Run too hot for too long? Maybe you can even do permanent damage to certain systems, blow heatsinks, etc. The game now becomes about managing your heat, knowing when to take risks, and making wise decisions based on your battle experience.

The only down side I see to this would be if players couldn't easily identify what was going wrong and how to fix it. It would be nice to maybe have those negative quirk icons fill up like a health bar. The fuller they are, the longer it would take if you stopped everything, to cool down. Naturally you're rarely going to stop everything, but that would be the ideal case for cooling down. Various mechs could have their own primary quirks (things that are more sensitive) and so on. You could even add modules to help various systems from failing with high heat levels.

If you want to get crazy and add more detail to the system, you could even have things like heatsink placement affect the calculations on what systems fail. Got lots of hot weaponry in your torso? Add more heatsinks to the location to help facilitate cooling there. It won't solve all your problems, but it might help keep those weapons online and functioning closer to normal when your heat is reaching higher levels.

Also, I think it would also help improve the value of things like coolshot (I realize this is probably a bad thing to say...haha), but suddenly you have a use of things like that. Having a heat issue? Various systems not functioning as you need right now? Flood your system with coolshot to help quickly dissipate that hate and restore functions that are critical to your survival in the current moment.

Edited by monk, 22 January 2015 - 02:25 AM.

[Widowmaker1981]

Night Wind, on 21 January 2015 - 10:05 PM, said:

Thoughts:

1: Remove ghost heat (biggest issue here, IMO, I feel that artifically stopping certain builds by insane heat penalties when they are already impractical is a terrible idea that limits creativity)

2: Increase heat penalties for being hot in general (Above 80%?) like you mentioned and overheating/shutting down especially. Running that hot shouldn't be a regular deal. All the penalties you mentioned and more should be added.

3: Make double heatsinks true double heat sinks (2x dissipation) (I'm aware this was tried when they first released, but with these other modifcations, I feel it's plausible, and beyond that, neccesary for the rest)

4: Make it so no quirks affect heat dissipation, what you get is what you get.

5: Make it so that mechs don't need a minimum of 3 heat sinks

6:Remove hardpoint-forced heatsinks on clan 'mechs (if they want them, they can still add them, of course)

7: Lower the cap significantly for heat

8: Perhaps study real life ballistics a bit? I'm pretty sure that while they generate heat, it's more of an issue of overheating the barrel, causing it to warp and become broken, as with real life guns. Can't fire real LMG's nonstop. Instead of making them overheat the mech (which although does take heat from the internal cooling system, should be minimal), I feel that firing too long duration-wise/friction-wise should cause the gun to overheat and either jam or become damaged to the point of breaking.

Think this list is too radical? Try it out. I'd love to see the results. It'd be a great experiment, even in a non-public setting. Sure, it's change, and change isn't fun for some people, and it takes getting used to, but it'd be an overhaul that would make the game more "fair" and make heat more logical.

1) Erm, I think it does a job that is somewhat needed. Id adjust it (remove AC2 from the table entirely, increase LL and LPL count to 3, add IS MPL cap at 6)
2) Yeah agreed. Penalties for running hot is a good thing
3) I like this, would allow clan builds with 30 DHS to actually feel like they have the cooling they pay for
4) No. This would bring IS energy boats back to where they were before quirks, i.e. useless compared to ballistic boats.
5) ? they need a minimum of 10 heatsinks.
6) Eh, yeah ok.. would help the warhawk have some more build variety.
7) Lower by how much? I don’t like the idea of a low heat cap because it hinders energy too much and ballistics become the winner. If you then nerf ballistics and missiles to compensate its just nerfing all the things. At that point you could just increase armour instead.
8) UACs already jam, other ACs don’t really fire fast enough and MGs/AC2s don’t need nerfing.

[sceii]

I do not think heat system needs to be changed much.
I also do not think heat neutral mechs should exist (only with jokelike firepower).
But a small readjustment will be fine, like 15-20% swap from maxheat and cooling efficiency.
Heat penalties are terribad idea, you already have an emergency shutdown and override, first makes you an easy target, second have a high chance of killing you.
Ghost heat mechanics should be changed a bit, there are some cases where it is great (AC20) and some where it is bad(AC2).

[kapusta11]

Transfers to MWO pretty well if you ask me.

[sceii]

You got 30 max heat and 15DHS.
You shoot 3 PPC (no ghost heat)
TT style you heat for 30 and cool for 30, after turn you got 0 heat.
MWO style you heat for 30 instantly and shut down.
Get it?

Edited by sceii, 22 January 2015 - 05:09 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

sceii, on 22 January 2015 - 05:08 AM, said:

You got 30 max heat and 15DHS.
You shoot 3 PPC (no ghost heat)
TT style you heat for 30 and cool for 30, after turn you got 0 heat.
MWO style you heat for 30 instantly and shut down.
Get it?

No military would field a weapon that was that broken. And Heat should not shut a Mech down like that. There should be a a time delay if you are at 30+ for a few seconds Shut down, otherwise you stay powered up if you reach 29 before the time limit.

[Lily from animove]

sceii, on 22 January 2015 - 05:08 AM, said:

You got 30 max heat and 15DHS.
You shoot 3 PPC (no ghost heat)
TT style you heat for 30 and cool for 30, after turn you got 0 heat.
MWO style you heat for 30 instantly and shut down.
Get it?

but your tt is 10 seconds a turn and you cna MWO stlye fire 3 ppc and stay below 30 heat. within 30 seconds.

Edited by Lily from animove, 22 January 2015 - 05:20 AM.

[Galenit]

Alistair Winter, on 21 January 2015 - 09:10 AM, said:

People keep bringing up RNG as a counter-argument in these threads, but keep in mind that while TT did rely on dice, there's no reason why this game would have to. The things I mentioned in the OP would be entirely constant and predictable, no random numbers involved. For example, lose 10% speed at 70% heat, lose 25% speed at 80% heat, lose 50% speed at 90% heat. Not random, no lottery, you still have a skill-based game.

Ammo explosion is random,
and they should have some random elements in heatpenaltys too,
like ammo explosions or ghostblimps, but combined with a threshold and scaling.
Like if you are over 75% heat, you get 3% chance of ammo explosion for every 1% heat over 75%.
(If you have 75% heat, you have a chance of 3% that your ammo explodes, if you have 100% heat, you have a 75% chance of ammo explosion. The chance should be counted every 1 (?) second to do not stress the system to much.

Other numbers should be scaling with a threshold.
Like if you have more then 50% heat, you will lose 1 (?)% max.speed for every 1% heat over 50%.


Possible effects that can be scaling or random:
Turn and yawn of torso,
movement of arms,
movement speed,
ammo explosion,
ghost blips on radar,
radar flicker,
hud flicker,
increased jamchance,
increased recycle time,
r will mark a random enemy in fov,
systems can randomly active or deactive (ams, ecm, override),
betty chanting random bitching (maybe mixed from different sentences?)
reducing of heat dissipation,
destroying a heatsink,
losing r marked enemy,
...

[Joseph Mallan]

Lily from animove, on 22 January 2015 - 05:20 AM, said:

but your tt is 10 seconds a turn and you cna MWO stlye fire 3 ppc and stay below 30 heat. within 30 seconds.

Then the MW:O Turn should be shortened to reflect Real time of MW:O.

[CyclonerM]

Joseph Mallan, on 22 January 2015 - 05:48 AM, said:

Then the MW:O Turn should be shortened to reflect Real time of MW:O.

Longer recycle times for weapons?

(8 sec ERPPCs in MW4, i am looking at you..).

Edited by CyclonerM, 22 January 2015 - 05:54 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

CyclonerM, on 22 January 2015 - 05:53 AM, said:

Longer recycle times for weapons?

Or this!

[Jaeger Gonzo]

Just to add support post.
Yeah we want real heat scale. The Battletech one if someone don`t remember what is actually playing.

[sceii]

Jaeger Gonzo, on 22 January 2015 - 05:55 AM, said:

Just to add support post.
Yeah we want real heat scale. The Battletech one if someone don`t remember what is actually playing.

I play real time mecha shooter. It is not a turn based game.

[kapusta11]

Ok here is how it should be:

Edited by kapusta11, 22 January 2015 - 06:05 AM.

[Egomane]

Alistair Winter, on 21 January 2015 - 07:13 AM, said:

So my question is: do you all want a major change to how heat works in MWO?

I don't care how heat works in MWO. I'll adapt and do my best with the system provided to me. Each suggested system so far has one or more weaknesses. Changing the system will just move the problem to being something else.

So my answer is: No!

[Lily from animove]

Egomane, on 22 January 2015 - 06:01 AM, said:

I don't care how heat works in MWO. I'll adapt and do my best with the system provided to me. Each suggested system so far has one or more weaknesses. Changing the system will just move the problem to being something else.

So my answer is: No!

and now please tell us the weaknesses. and bring some facts and not juts: ballistics will be OP, because thats an opinion not a fact based statement.