Heat is to generous and the Heatcurve should work that way that the cooling is better the lower you stay - run hot but pay for it.
10
Do The Majority Of Players Want To Change Mwo's Heat Mechanic?
Started by Alistair Winter, Jan 21 2015 07:13 AM
198 replies to this topic
#22
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- 86 posts
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Posted 21 January 2015 - 08:34 AM
There absolutely should be heat penalties like tabletop instead of this silly ghost heat. There should not be skills that change your heat disipation or threshhold either.
There should be a red line like there is for cars on your heat gauge. The farther you go into the red line your mech moves slower and your torso twist and arm movement goes slower as well. A chance of your ammo cooking off for each ton of ammo would be nice too but that might be a bit too random.
There should be a red line like there is for cars on your heat gauge. The farther you go into the red line your mech moves slower and your torso twist and arm movement goes slower as well. A chance of your ammo cooking off for each ton of ammo would be nice too but that might be a bit too random.
#23
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- The People's Hero
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- LocationDixie
Posted 21 January 2015 - 08:34 AM
cleghorn6, on 21 January 2015 - 08:25 AM, said:
How often does that happen to you? If you're getting consistently sniped at 1000m, your positioning is bad. Pro Tip: don't stand still in the open. Or at least, don't stand still in the place you just got sniped.
The system is in place and working now. None of the alternatives I've seen manage to solve all the problems of the current system, without introducing new ones. This might only be the least bad heat system but at least it's the least bad heat system.
It doesn't happen to me very much, I only stand still when I am relative sure I am under cover, and typing information to the rest of the team. But that does not change the fact that it can and does happen to anyone, sometimes.
Broken system is broken. I can live with that, but I'm never going to call a **** a diamond.
LOL, t-u-r-d was bleeped?
Edited by Hotthedd, 21 January 2015 - 08:41 AM.
#24
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- The Devoted
- 13,891 posts
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Posted 21 January 2015 - 08:36 AM
YES
ot:is that the beginning of a "Do the Majority of players want XXX" ? series
Basically its first the majority of forum users, since we are just a sample of the playerbase.
I guess all in all, many poeple want a balanced gameplay that is fun enjoyable and where skill does also have its place to be a factor.
/ot
The Heatdiscussion, the thunderbolt discussion, the nerf timberwolf and stormcrow discussion. They are all sideeffects of primarily mising the above mentioned. Or getting the above mentioned sthing violated to a specific degree.
The heta discussion, well, we had an initial heatsystem, then ghostheta came to balance some combinations vioaltd these and circumvented them, then quirks came, and partiale circumvented this again. In the end we have laods of fixes and changes. Thats a living process and normal in online games. What currently is totally bad with this is: It's getting supercomplicated. For someone being here beign part of the changes its every time a small new thing to lern adopt and live with. But for a new player this is a hell of complictaed things that partially do not make sense. Thats the point where its getting complicated.
Evertime the devs try to adjust something in the complicated system ther eis a lot of possible sideeffects that can occur and are probebly unpredictable, and so the sytsem may get more and more comlictaed by achiveing less and less what it was made for.
That is why I want to have a more easier heatsystem again, a total rework, preferably before steam release to not overhelm the mass with such a complicated thing. and now after all this time of MWO being live, we already gatehred a lo Information about what issues wie currently have, or which emchs are edgecases. and so a rework of the system into a new simplified one can by design already consider and include these cases. And so that new heatmechanic may then have less flaws but again a lot less complictaed.
more ot:
also you need to analyse your playerbase.
there are the "metatryhards" they are the supercompetitive people just gaming trying to mx anything. They are basically fine with any change coming, they seek out whats bets and use whats best.
there are the "easy toy to carry" gamers. they will deny anything being imbalanced, they rely on the positively imbalanced things (often pretending to be the above mentioned competitive gamers). While in fact a majority of their gaming performance comes from using the easy mechs, trying to tell everyone other mechs are fine in comparison. because if the others believe this, they may keept their advantage over others. They are most often thickheaded and not open to new ideas, especially in regards to their easy toy.
Then you have a range of standard gamers, they play the game they undertsand most of the mechanics. But they are divided into two groups:
The realists and the visonaries.
The realists are people who actually do provide proper feedback and changes, they argue with each other including facts and comparisons. They undertsand the game, its mechanics, they also understand the cause of the problem, their idea and most of the consequences of their idea.
Then you have the visionares, they also provide some proper feedback, but their ideas and wanted changes are often too "unwordly". they have epic ideas and suggestions, but most of them have flaws by sideffects they have not considered. Which then leads to solve a problem by creating another one. Or they are basically impossible by technological standards or by not knowing how Software development even works.
Both want the game to be better but they often come to conflicts by their different opinion how this is to achieve.
Then you have the "underhive" aka, casual palyerbase basically just people who play the game hardly having any idea about the game, and they hardly care. They never go to any forums and do not recognise any changes, They are happy as long as things don't get too extremely bad. And if they get bad, they just come and rant about what is bad, not knwoing why its bad or what may make it better. They just enjoy robos and shooting otherwise.
And then you have the devs, sitting there having to sort out all the mixture of this people and their opinions trying to make people happy so that they are willing to open their wallets.
my personal opinion is the visionares together with the realists beign the best rgoup for truly improving the game.
why?
Well the competitive crowd is often the very good players, they can hardly see issues because even in more worse mechs they do well, and then they may deny a bit that there is an issue. Yet they should be able to see the issues, becaue in supercompetitive surroundings they all hop into those 4 "only competitive choices" But i guess at this point they don't think much about this, because they are too busy with "tryharding" (aka enhancing their skills). They only are a sorce for improvement when you would actively ask them by saying: "Hey guys why do you use this mech and not that mech?"
The easy toy gamers, they hardly provide much valid feedback, they try to protect their toy and do anything to "proof" nothing is wrong. and so they post that one out of 100 matches where a locust made 1000+ damage and say: "look its fine and good as a TBR, l2p."
The underhive? well they don't provide much, but if the complete underhive uproars, WOW; you just made some epically wrong with your entire game.
But the visionares and realists are basically the design team and the engineers companies do hire. The visionares are the guys brainstorming new ideas. They make aweosme concepts. That is often the moment new games appear with epic ideas and a crowdfunding. Phantasy does not know any limits. But you need the realists to bring the visionares back to the ground. They check the vision for what is feasable, they even check the vision for design holes, because often an idea in a vision is even preventing the vision itself by logical mistakes. The realists are also those who understand what you actually can do of said vision and what not. They do provide most valid feedback together that devs actually can use to improve the game.
A reason why some amazing game concepts fail is the visions are often bigger than what is possible.
People like the Wright brothers or Carl benz are people who unite both of these two groups in one person. Thats why they were able to create some really world changing things. They had visions but also were realists. And so they could benefit from both and create. Unlike the pure visionist, who would probably attach some feathers to a board and jump off a house - dead. Einstein and Newton for example were mostly realists. While discovering a lot things, they never had the big visions. They were making basic realistic discoveries that visionares later, together with realists made into inventions and devices.
btt
And so when we for MWO make suggestions we should always try to analyse the real issue (if its about an issue). Say what we idealistically would like to have and cut it to what we actually can have. Then after making this concept we need to reevaluate if this is still mostly furfulling the need we initially had and if this has some major flaws, sideffects or can it cause some problems. If it doesn't then it is a proper idea. If not, we need a new design or judge if the need we go for is important enough to accept the new issue we gonna have too.
Convergence is such a thing. It's a nice vision, but it fails by technical reasons we have in a online game. so please stop talkign about dynamic crosshair convergence, it is a dead horse and you should not put further energy into that, intead we should go on an look for alternate designs.
Hitreg is in a similar bordrline worrying state, where we should start to ask: "can the current way how some weapons are designed even ever work with the way the cryengine handles this?" fixing hitreg is a nice idea, but its not that easy. The cryengine is not suited, but we will hardly have a chance to switch to another engine, thats hardly feasable, and if we may make a lot of sacifices in trms of graphics we currently have.
and so back to the heat:
-30 heatreshold fixed, not improveable via skills.
-true DHS.
-remove all heat reducing quirks and replace them with more dissipation quirks.
-let it be on the testserver for 2 weeks (not a single day or such) so that people can test and play around with builds and stuff.
sidenote:
even hitreg may be positively affected by this because the system would prevent the mass spam of simultan fire of weapons.
ot:is that the beginning of a "Do the Majority of players want XXX" ? series
Basically its first the majority of forum users, since we are just a sample of the playerbase.
I guess all in all, many poeple want a balanced gameplay that is fun enjoyable and where skill does also have its place to be a factor.
/ot
The Heatdiscussion, the thunderbolt discussion, the nerf timberwolf and stormcrow discussion. They are all sideeffects of primarily mising the above mentioned. Or getting the above mentioned sthing violated to a specific degree.
The heta discussion, well, we had an initial heatsystem, then ghostheta came to balance some combinations vioaltd these and circumvented them, then quirks came, and partiale circumvented this again. In the end we have laods of fixes and changes. Thats a living process and normal in online games. What currently is totally bad with this is: It's getting supercomplicated. For someone being here beign part of the changes its every time a small new thing to lern adopt and live with. But for a new player this is a hell of complictaed things that partially do not make sense. Thats the point where its getting complicated.
Evertime the devs try to adjust something in the complicated system ther eis a lot of possible sideeffects that can occur and are probebly unpredictable, and so the sytsem may get more and more comlictaed by achiveing less and less what it was made for.
That is why I want to have a more easier heatsystem again, a total rework, preferably before steam release to not overhelm the mass with such a complicated thing. and now after all this time of MWO being live, we already gatehred a lo Information about what issues wie currently have, or which emchs are edgecases. and so a rework of the system into a new simplified one can by design already consider and include these cases. And so that new heatmechanic may then have less flaws but again a lot less complictaed.
more ot:
also you need to analyse your playerbase.
there are the "metatryhards" they are the supercompetitive people just gaming trying to mx anything. They are basically fine with any change coming, they seek out whats bets and use whats best.
there are the "easy toy to carry" gamers. they will deny anything being imbalanced, they rely on the positively imbalanced things (often pretending to be the above mentioned competitive gamers). While in fact a majority of their gaming performance comes from using the easy mechs, trying to tell everyone other mechs are fine in comparison. because if the others believe this, they may keept their advantage over others. They are most often thickheaded and not open to new ideas, especially in regards to their easy toy.
Then you have a range of standard gamers, they play the game they undertsand most of the mechanics. But they are divided into two groups:
The realists and the visonaries.
The realists are people who actually do provide proper feedback and changes, they argue with each other including facts and comparisons. They undertsand the game, its mechanics, they also understand the cause of the problem, their idea and most of the consequences of their idea.
Then you have the visionares, they also provide some proper feedback, but their ideas and wanted changes are often too "unwordly". they have epic ideas and suggestions, but most of them have flaws by sideffects they have not considered. Which then leads to solve a problem by creating another one. Or they are basically impossible by technological standards or by not knowing how Software development even works.
Both want the game to be better but they often come to conflicts by their different opinion how this is to achieve.
Then you have the "underhive" aka, casual palyerbase basically just people who play the game hardly having any idea about the game, and they hardly care. They never go to any forums and do not recognise any changes, They are happy as long as things don't get too extremely bad. And if they get bad, they just come and rant about what is bad, not knwoing why its bad or what may make it better. They just enjoy robos and shooting otherwise.
And then you have the devs, sitting there having to sort out all the mixture of this people and their opinions trying to make people happy so that they are willing to open their wallets.
my personal opinion is the visionares together with the realists beign the best rgoup for truly improving the game.
why?
Well the competitive crowd is often the very good players, they can hardly see issues because even in more worse mechs they do well, and then they may deny a bit that there is an issue. Yet they should be able to see the issues, becaue in supercompetitive surroundings they all hop into those 4 "only competitive choices" But i guess at this point they don't think much about this, because they are too busy with "tryharding" (aka enhancing their skills). They only are a sorce for improvement when you would actively ask them by saying: "Hey guys why do you use this mech and not that mech?"
The easy toy gamers, they hardly provide much valid feedback, they try to protect their toy and do anything to "proof" nothing is wrong. and so they post that one out of 100 matches where a locust made 1000+ damage and say: "look its fine and good as a TBR, l2p."
The underhive? well they don't provide much, but if the complete underhive uproars, WOW; you just made some epically wrong with your entire game.
But the visionares and realists are basically the design team and the engineers companies do hire. The visionares are the guys brainstorming new ideas. They make aweosme concepts. That is often the moment new games appear with epic ideas and a crowdfunding. Phantasy does not know any limits. But you need the realists to bring the visionares back to the ground. They check the vision for what is feasable, they even check the vision for design holes, because often an idea in a vision is even preventing the vision itself by logical mistakes. The realists are also those who understand what you actually can do of said vision and what not. They do provide most valid feedback together that devs actually can use to improve the game.
A reason why some amazing game concepts fail is the visions are often bigger than what is possible.
People like the Wright brothers or Carl benz are people who unite both of these two groups in one person. Thats why they were able to create some really world changing things. They had visions but also were realists. And so they could benefit from both and create. Unlike the pure visionist, who would probably attach some feathers to a board and jump off a house - dead. Einstein and Newton for example were mostly realists. While discovering a lot things, they never had the big visions. They were making basic realistic discoveries that visionares later, together with realists made into inventions and devices.
btt
And so when we for MWO make suggestions we should always try to analyse the real issue (if its about an issue). Say what we idealistically would like to have and cut it to what we actually can have. Then after making this concept we need to reevaluate if this is still mostly furfulling the need we initially had and if this has some major flaws, sideffects or can it cause some problems. If it doesn't then it is a proper idea. If not, we need a new design or judge if the need we go for is important enough to accept the new issue we gonna have too.
Convergence is such a thing. It's a nice vision, but it fails by technical reasons we have in a online game. so please stop talkign about dynamic crosshair convergence, it is a dead horse and you should not put further energy into that, intead we should go on an look for alternate designs.
Hitreg is in a similar bordrline worrying state, where we should start to ask: "can the current way how some weapons are designed even ever work with the way the cryengine handles this?" fixing hitreg is a nice idea, but its not that easy. The cryengine is not suited, but we will hardly have a chance to switch to another engine, thats hardly feasable, and if we may make a lot of sacifices in trms of graphics we currently have.
and so back to the heat:
-30 heatreshold fixed, not improveable via skills.
-true DHS.
-remove all heat reducing quirks and replace them with more dissipation quirks.
-let it be on the testserver for 2 weeks (not a single day or such) so that people can test and play around with builds and stuff.
sidenote:
even hitreg may be positively affected by this because the system would prevent the mass spam of simultan fire of weapons.
Edited by Lily from animove, 21 January 2015 - 08:55 AM.
#25
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- The Patron Saint
- 511 posts
Member
Posted 21 January 2015 - 08:40 AM
Hotthedd, on 21 January 2015 - 08:34 AM, said:
Broken system is broken. I can live with that, but I'm never going to call a **** a diamond.
And I'm not trying to. Really. I just don't see the need to allocate the kind of resources which would be required to redevelop the whole heat system, just in case something else is better. Even if we could categorically prove that a different system would be better (which we can't), I STILL wouldn't think it was worth the effort.
#26
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- The People's Hero
- 3,213 posts
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- LocationDixie
Posted 21 January 2015 - 08:44 AM
Many of the fixes proposed (heat cap and dissipation fixes) would not require too many resources to do.It is nothing more than value changes.
#27
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- Civil Servant
- 6,558 posts
Member
- LocationUSA
Posted 21 January 2015 - 08:46 AM
YES, all of my yes.
Running hot should be penalised along a slightly exponential curve, not "run 95% you're fine, run 99%, you're fine, run 104% press O, *POP* you're dead." I'm suggesting you should start taking very small damage over time above 90%, and having it increase from there until 100% is a legitimate risk.
If you want to ride the curve and risk damage, go for it. No extra penalty for crossing over 100%, just a continuation of the curve with the shutdown safety mechanism still in place.
Add tabletop crossovers like speed and weapon damage penalties into the mix and that would make things more interesting.
"Worried about new players?" That's what tutorials are for, and Russ expressed very clearly that this is something PGI is very concerned about getting into place before releasing to Steam.
"Speed/damage penalties? that would completely break the game!" ... there are these things called Numbers, and they can be Tweaked until Appropriate.
How to deal with alphastrikes? Brainstorming, feel free to add/critque: First, get rid of ghost heat, put all combinations of weapons back on equal ground. Now, reduce the threshold significantly so that all things run way hotter. Now increase heat dissipation significantly. Hey, now sustained DPS is the way to go and big alphas are actually really risky!
Running hot should be penalised along a slightly exponential curve, not "run 95% you're fine, run 99%, you're fine, run 104% press O, *POP* you're dead." I'm suggesting you should start taking very small damage over time above 90%, and having it increase from there until 100% is a legitimate risk.
If you want to ride the curve and risk damage, go for it. No extra penalty for crossing over 100%, just a continuation of the curve with the shutdown safety mechanism still in place.
Add tabletop crossovers like speed and weapon damage penalties into the mix and that would make things more interesting.
"Worried about new players?" That's what tutorials are for, and Russ expressed very clearly that this is something PGI is very concerned about getting into place before releasing to Steam.
"Speed/damage penalties? that would completely break the game!" ... there are these things called Numbers, and they can be Tweaked until Appropriate.
How to deal with alphastrikes? Brainstorming, feel free to add/critque: First, get rid of ghost heat, put all combinations of weapons back on equal ground. Now, reduce the threshold significantly so that all things run way hotter. Now increase heat dissipation significantly. Hey, now sustained DPS is the way to go and big alphas are actually really risky!
#28
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- Shredder
- 4,292 posts
Member
- LocationOhio
Posted 21 January 2015 - 08:50 AM
IMO heat needs re-worked. It needs to be a major focus when building mechs. Currently, its an after thought.
But IMO ammo explosions need look into as well since ballistic weapons are too dominate.
But IMO ammo explosions need look into as well since ballistic weapons are too dominate.
Edited by mogs01gt, 21 January 2015 - 08:52 AM.
#29
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- 2,980 posts
Member
- LocationVancouver, BC
Posted 21 January 2015 - 08:55 AM
They missed the concept that the Heat Scale was sort of like a penalty box in the Table Top game. You went there and got punished for pushing the limits. We don't have that check on all the alpha striking now, so there is that problem. Beyond that, Mechs are constantly in the red, with warnings and sirens galore. It becomes redundant and almost comical during the game.
I think they were faced with a few issues when they started out...
1. They wanted MW:O to be a fast-paced game, so having weapon cool-downs near ten seconds was a non-starter.
2. They wanted to have periods of savage combat followed by periods of 'cooling off' for the Mechs.
3. They wanted to allow players tons of freedom in the Mech Lab.
Combined, I don't think those concepts work half as well as they expected.
I think they were faced with a few issues when they started out...
1. They wanted MW:O to be a fast-paced game, so having weapon cool-downs near ten seconds was a non-starter.
2. They wanted to have periods of savage combat followed by periods of 'cooling off' for the Mechs.
3. They wanted to allow players tons of freedom in the Mech Lab.
Combined, I don't think those concepts work half as well as they expected.
Edited by StaggerCheck, 21 January 2015 - 09:02 AM.
#30
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- The Devoted
- 13,891 posts
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- LocationOn a dropship to Terra
Posted 21 January 2015 - 08:58 AM
cleghorn6, on 21 January 2015 - 08:40 AM, said:
And I'm not trying to. Really. I just don't see the need to allocate the kind of resources which would be required to redevelop the whole heat system, just in case something else is better. Even if we could categorically prove that a different system would be better (which we can't), I STILL wouldn't think it was worth the effort.
I doubt it's much effort it is just changing some database vallues to cap the heattreshold and change DHS values.. And the ghostheat penalties and values are also just some values to adjust. this is not a perfect test then, but it is enough to see how the people basically behave under this system. And get feedback what they think about it.
Edited by Lily from animove, 21 January 2015 - 08:59 AM.
#31
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- The Defiant
- 328 posts
Member
Posted 21 January 2015 - 08:58 AM
Let's say you doubled the heat generation of every weapon in the game. Ok, now the Gauss Rifle is once again the undisputed king. Zero times two is still zero. Anything that can mount a Gauss Rifle is good, anything that can't is trash. All light mechs are very low tier since they can't even effectively contribute to fights any more since their damage potential for every match is cut in half (they have to spend twice as much time cooling down).
So nerf the Gauss rifle, and the AC/20 is now king. It runs a lot hotter, but with enough heat sinks, you can still blow people up real fast. Nerf the AC/20, it's the AC/10. Nerf the AC/10, it's the Ultra AC/5. Nerf the Ultra AC/5 and AC/5 for good measure, and now you finally get to the AC/2 which is already pretty bad at double heat, and with ghost heat intact.
After that people would probably resort to SRM and LRM spam which is neither precise nor concentrated. Sure LRMs don't do much damage, and are very inefficient if you double their heat generation, but if you can't have accuracy, precision, or concentration, you can at least have range. Nerf LRMs and SRMs and you now basically have no weapons left untouched as energy weapons already run super hot, and the pace of the game finally slows down to a level that some might enjoy, but I personally would hate.
If you want to increase the TTK, you can't do it without re-balancing almost everything in the game, otherwise the meta simply shifts to the next most powerful thing, and other things get completely broken relative to everything else. For example, If you just arbitrarily double armor and internal structure of every mech, or halved the damage of all weapons, missile and ballistics suffer greatly because now they need to carry twice as much ammo to kill the same amount of people as they previously did. Then people figure out that fast DPS brawlers are king since you have a lot more time to catch up on damage taken closing the gap, and people stop using low dps, longer ranged weapons such as large lasers and gauss rifles all together because they can't even leg or kill anyone before the gap is closed and they get murdered. The game would devolve into wars fought with mechs using small pulse lasers and boat loads of heat sinks versus mechs using AC/20s or SRMs and boating silly amounts of ammo.
tl;dr version : You can't make dramatic changes to a core mechanic of the game this late in it's lifecycle without having to change a whole bunch of other things to retain some semblance of overall balance.
So nerf the Gauss rifle, and the AC/20 is now king. It runs a lot hotter, but with enough heat sinks, you can still blow people up real fast. Nerf the AC/20, it's the AC/10. Nerf the AC/10, it's the Ultra AC/5. Nerf the Ultra AC/5 and AC/5 for good measure, and now you finally get to the AC/2 which is already pretty bad at double heat, and with ghost heat intact.
After that people would probably resort to SRM and LRM spam which is neither precise nor concentrated. Sure LRMs don't do much damage, and are very inefficient if you double their heat generation, but if you can't have accuracy, precision, or concentration, you can at least have range. Nerf LRMs and SRMs and you now basically have no weapons left untouched as energy weapons already run super hot, and the pace of the game finally slows down to a level that some might enjoy, but I personally would hate.
If you want to increase the TTK, you can't do it without re-balancing almost everything in the game, otherwise the meta simply shifts to the next most powerful thing, and other things get completely broken relative to everything else. For example, If you just arbitrarily double armor and internal structure of every mech, or halved the damage of all weapons, missile and ballistics suffer greatly because now they need to carry twice as much ammo to kill the same amount of people as they previously did. Then people figure out that fast DPS brawlers are king since you have a lot more time to catch up on damage taken closing the gap, and people stop using low dps, longer ranged weapons such as large lasers and gauss rifles all together because they can't even leg or kill anyone before the gap is closed and they get murdered. The game would devolve into wars fought with mechs using small pulse lasers and boat loads of heat sinks versus mechs using AC/20s or SRMs and boating silly amounts of ammo.
tl;dr version : You can't make dramatic changes to a core mechanic of the game this late in it's lifecycle without having to change a whole bunch of other things to retain some semblance of overall balance.
#32
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- The People's Hero
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- LocationDixie
Posted 21 January 2015 - 09:04 AM
Skarlock, PGI has already doubled the amount of ammo/ton...
I guess they could have used your exact advice before doing that.
I guess they could have used your exact advice before doing that.
#33
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- The Referee
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Rum Runner
- LocationPHX
Posted 21 January 2015 - 09:08 AM
Alistair Winter, on 21 January 2015 - 07:13 AM, said:
- Reducing heat treshold. Right now, you overheat at 38 heat points without basic skills. 45.6 heat points with double basic skills. Some people want to reduce the treshold to 30 or below, even for mastered mechs.
- Giving DHS and SHS different functions. For example, DHS would be restored to true dubs (double the effect of single heat sinks instead of 1.4x) with a lower heat treshold, while SHS would have a significantly larger treshold. You would choose SHS or DPS based on your build and playing style.
- Removing Ghost heat altogether. This isn't really a fix in itself, but many people see it as part of what's wrong with MWO's heat mechanic.
- Substantially bigger penalties for overheating. Far greater damage to internal components and far greater risks of cooking ammo, leading to internal explosions.
- Negative effects from running hot. 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. The idea is to make it difficult for people to constantly run hot and also to punish people who rely on repeated alpha strikes. Apparently, alpha strikes were not common in TT or BT novels (can someone confirm?)
I'm ok with the first two. A different heat threshold may create some unique game play situations.
I don't see a reason to get rid of ghost heat. It has a purpose, and the first two options will help minimize even more the times that GH needs to take effect. It'll be an edge case event if it gets used.
The random damage for running at high heat shouldn't happen. I'm ok with things like more damage or reduced performance, but no RNG effects from running at high heat levels.
Just my thoughts.
#34
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- The Devoted
- 13,891 posts
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- LocationOn a dropship to Terra
Posted 21 January 2015 - 09:08 AM
Skarlock, on 21 January 2015 - 08:58 AM, said:
Let's say you doubled the heat generation of every weapon in the game. Ok, now the Gauss Rifle is once again the undisputed king. Zero times two is still zero. Anything that can mount a Gauss Rifle is good, anything that can't is trash. All light mechs are very low tier since they can't even effectively contribute to fights any more since their damage potential for every match is cut in half (they have to spend twice as much time cooling down).
So nerf the Gauss rifle, and the AC/20 is now king. It runs a lot hotter, but with enough heat sinks, you can still blow people up real fast. Nerf the AC/20, it's the AC/10. Nerf the AC/10, it's the Ultra AC/5. Nerf the Ultra AC/5 and AC/5 for good measure, and now you finally get to the AC/2 which is already pretty bad at double heat, and with ghost heat intact.
After that people would probably resort to SRM and LRM spam which is neither precise nor concentrated. Sure LRMs don't do much damage, and are very inefficient if you double their heat generation, but if you can't have accuracy, precision, or concentration, you can at least have range. Nerf LRMs and SRMs and you now basically have no weapons left untouched as energy weapons already run super hot, and the pace of the game finally slows down to a level that some might enjoy, but I personally would hate.
If you want to increase the TTK, you can't do it without re-balancing almost everything in the game, otherwise the meta simply shifts to the next most powerful thing, and other things get completely broken relative to everything else. For example, If you just arbitrarily double armor and internal structure of every mech, or halved the damage of all weapons, missile and ballistics suffer greatly because now they need to carry twice as much ammo to kill the same amount of people as they previously did. Then people figure out that fast DPS brawlers are king since you have a lot more time to catch up on damage taken closing the gap, and people stop using low dps, longer ranged weapons such as large lasers and gauss rifles all together because they can't even leg or kill anyone before the gap is closed and they get murdered. The game would devolve into wars fought with mechs using small pulse lasers and boat loads of heat sinks versus mechs using AC/20s or SRMs and boating silly amounts of ammo.
tl;dr version : You can't make dramatic changes to a core mechanic of the game this late in it's lifecycle without having to change a whole bunch of other things to retain some semblance of overall balance.
So nerf the Gauss rifle, and the AC/20 is now king. It runs a lot hotter, but with enough heat sinks, you can still blow people up real fast. Nerf the AC/20, it's the AC/10. Nerf the AC/10, it's the Ultra AC/5. Nerf the Ultra AC/5 and AC/5 for good measure, and now you finally get to the AC/2 which is already pretty bad at double heat, and with ghost heat intact.
After that people would probably resort to SRM and LRM spam which is neither precise nor concentrated. Sure LRMs don't do much damage, and are very inefficient if you double their heat generation, but if you can't have accuracy, precision, or concentration, you can at least have range. Nerf LRMs and SRMs and you now basically have no weapons left untouched as energy weapons already run super hot, and the pace of the game finally slows down to a level that some might enjoy, but I personally would hate.
If you want to increase the TTK, you can't do it without re-balancing almost everything in the game, otherwise the meta simply shifts to the next most powerful thing, and other things get completely broken relative to everything else. For example, If you just arbitrarily double armor and internal structure of every mech, or halved the damage of all weapons, missile and ballistics suffer greatly because now they need to carry twice as much ammo to kill the same amount of people as they previously did. Then people figure out that fast DPS brawlers are king since you have a lot more time to catch up on damage taken closing the gap, and people stop using low dps, longer ranged weapons such as large lasers and gauss rifles all together because they can't even leg or kill anyone before the gap is closed and they get murdered. The game would devolve into wars fought with mechs using small pulse lasers and boat loads of heat sinks versus mechs using AC/20s or SRMs and boating silly amounts of ammo.
tl;dr version : You can't make dramatic changes to a core mechanic of the game this late in it's lifecycle without having to change a whole bunch of other things to retain some semblance of overall balance.
gauss needs a lot more tonnage still, and laserbuilds would have more dps than now, just not the initial high damage. Ac 20's are very range limited, and with better heatdissipation poeple would also again use ERLL more instead of boating MLs +LPL's since they can not fire them alltogether anymore. and so they use what is bets for that range. and when you have the AC 20 opponent you will try to stay out of range. But currently the ML + LPL meta is often so competitive that you rush into the ac20 range and start doing horrible big amounts of damage ebfore the AC may do so too.
lrms spam? sure if they an't lrms are bad and still stay bad. srm's maybe but they still spread and when we wouldn't have that amazingly crazy amounts of ammo, people would not boat ballistics and instead bring more backup E-weapons.
and funfact: the change is not as dramatic as you think, because there is nearly no coding involved, if any, all the values of weapons are somewhere in databses/datasheets and can be adjusted in a rather short amount of time. Further the high heat tresholdsystem caused so many "adjusmtents" that it just tries to resimulate a lower heattreshold, with the exception that it still has some holes allowing the high alphas all the adjustments tried to prevent. And so we are closer to the system as you may think.
#35
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- The Nimble
- 5,136 posts
Member
- LocationPlymouth, MN
Posted 21 January 2015 - 09:10 AM
YES!
To this.
To this.
Kuun, on 21 January 2015 - 07:24 AM, said:
In TT there were heat-scale effects:
Why did Paul have to go and invent a bunch of asinine bullcrap instead of just going with something like what's in BattleTech TT already?
Why did Paul have to go and invent a bunch of asinine bullcrap instead of just going with something like what's in BattleTech TT already?
#36
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- Little Helper
- 2 posts
Rookie
Posted 21 January 2015 - 09:10 AM
Yes, yes yes.
The current heat system is crappy (DHS always better than SHS), counter-intuitive and not efficient.
The proposed system would be a huge improvement compared to the current one.
The current heat system is crappy (DHS always better than SHS), counter-intuitive and not efficient.
The proposed system would be a huge improvement compared to the current one.
#37
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- Storm
- 10,823 posts
Member
- LocationBergen, Norway, FRR
Posted 21 January 2015 - 09:10 AM
Heffay, on 21 January 2015 - 09:08 AM, said:
The random damage for running at high heat shouldn't happen. I'm ok with things like more damage or reduced performance, but no RNG effects from running at high heat levels.
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.
#38
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- The Hungry
- 1,465 posts
Member
Posted 21 January 2015 - 09:11 AM
Rather than a rework of the heat system (Cleghorn6 has a good point of the system being difficult to comprehend if you aren't a tabletop buff and are trying out the game). I'd like to see something else done to minimize the PPFLD in a way that allows ghost heat to be removed.
1) IS autocannons need the split shot treatment. However, the difficult balance of IS vs Clan also depends on IS autocannons being better than Clan autocannons while also being heavier and bulkier. So leave the ISAC2 as is, ISAC5 split into two shots, same for ISAC10, split the ISAC20 in three. That way they are no longer PPFLD but the IS version retains a balancing advantage in the way it deals damage while being heavier/bulkier than Clan versions.
2) This leaves the only PPFLD weapons as Gauss and PPC/ERPPC. This is fine to have. Simply inflate the cooldowns of these two weapons systems. An 8 second cooldown for gauss (perhaps with adjustments to the charge up or outright removal of it) and a 6 second cooldown for PPC/ERPPC (with a significant increase in projectile speed) would be reasonable thing to do.
The above items are simpler for non-hardcore TT players. Perhaps even combine these with a moderate drop in shutdown heat threshold so that alpha striking in general becomes less attractive. Anyways, that's my two cents.
1) IS autocannons need the split shot treatment. However, the difficult balance of IS vs Clan also depends on IS autocannons being better than Clan autocannons while also being heavier and bulkier. So leave the ISAC2 as is, ISAC5 split into two shots, same for ISAC10, split the ISAC20 in three. That way they are no longer PPFLD but the IS version retains a balancing advantage in the way it deals damage while being heavier/bulkier than Clan versions.
2) This leaves the only PPFLD weapons as Gauss and PPC/ERPPC. This is fine to have. Simply inflate the cooldowns of these two weapons systems. An 8 second cooldown for gauss (perhaps with adjustments to the charge up or outright removal of it) and a 6 second cooldown for PPC/ERPPC (with a significant increase in projectile speed) would be reasonable thing to do.
The above items are simpler for non-hardcore TT players. Perhaps even combine these with a moderate drop in shutdown heat threshold so that alpha striking in general becomes less attractive. Anyways, that's my two cents.
#39
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- The Referee
- 6,458 posts
Rum Runner
- LocationPHX
Posted 21 January 2015 - 09:13 AM
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.
Those are the things I like in your proposal. Ammo cook-off was the thing I didn't like.
#40
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- 79 posts
Member
Posted 21 January 2015 - 09:13 AM
Yes, I would like to change MWO's heat mechanic. See below for some thoughts on the proposed changes.
#1 Reducing heat treshold. Right now, you overheat at 38 heat points without basic skills. 45.6 heat points with double basic skills. Some people want to reduce the treshold to 30 or below, even for mastered mechs.
A: First, let's be clear, the numbers above for heat threshold don't factor in how many heat sinks you are carrying in your mech. As a general statement, I am in favor of lowering the heat threshold to a fixed value that is possibly modified by pilot tree skills. At this time, I don't have a set value in mind as to what that value should be and I am willing to try many different heat thresholds on the test server.
#2 Giving DHS and SHS different functions. For example, DHS would be restored to true dubs (double the effect of single heat sinks instead of 1.4x) with a lower heat treshold, while SHS would have a significantly larger treshold. You would choose SHS or DPS based on your build and playing style.
A: I am against this idea because it would probably be very confusing to the casual player base.
#3 Removing Ghost heat altogether. This isn't really a fix in itself, but many people see it as part of what's wrong with MWO's heat mechanic.
A: I am not sure how I feel about this one. At some point, if your heat threshold is low enough, you don't have to worry too much about the high pin point alphas that dominate the meta now. Low pin point alphas don't bother me overly much. I think ( not 100% sure ) the other reason we have Ghost Heat is that Paul isn't too keen on boating in general. I think we need to try to change Paul's perspective on this if we can. For example, the HBK-4P was designed to be an energy boat. Note, I am not against alpha strikes or boating in general. I just dislike the high pin point alphas that dominate the current meta. In my opinion, with the current meta, this game is anything but "A thinking man's shooter...."!!!!
#4 Substantially bigger penalties for overheating. Far greater damage to internal components and far greater risks of cooking ammo, leading to internal explosions.
A: I am not sure about this one. If I had to choose, I would probably come out against this one because these new consequences will depend on some random number generator.
#5 Negative effects from running hot. 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. The idea is to make it difficult for people to constantly run hot and also to punish people who rely on repeated alpha strikes. Apparently, alpha strikes were not common in TT or BT novels (can someone confirm?)
A: I am willing to try some of this out but I reserve the right to at some point say enough is enough. I am not sure where that point is without trying some of these penalties out first hand.
As a BT fan, there was never any doubt that I was going to try this game out. But, when this game was first advertised, it's tag line of "A thinking man's shooter... is what really appealed to me the most!!! I think we need to put quick "thinking" back into the game.
As a player in my mech, the decision to take action should require thought:
-- Do I have enough threshold to fire?
-- Will my new threshold subject me to penalties I can or can't deal with?
-- Will I cool off in time to fire again and finish off the mech I am engaged with?
-- Do I need to manuver / evade / torso twist ( pilot skills should matter more )?
Edit: I forgot to put my Yes or No vote at the top of my post.
#1 Reducing heat treshold. Right now, you overheat at 38 heat points without basic skills. 45.6 heat points with double basic skills. Some people want to reduce the treshold to 30 or below, even for mastered mechs.
A: First, let's be clear, the numbers above for heat threshold don't factor in how many heat sinks you are carrying in your mech. As a general statement, I am in favor of lowering the heat threshold to a fixed value that is possibly modified by pilot tree skills. At this time, I don't have a set value in mind as to what that value should be and I am willing to try many different heat thresholds on the test server.
#2 Giving DHS and SHS different functions. For example, DHS would be restored to true dubs (double the effect of single heat sinks instead of 1.4x) with a lower heat treshold, while SHS would have a significantly larger treshold. You would choose SHS or DPS based on your build and playing style.
A: I am against this idea because it would probably be very confusing to the casual player base.
#3 Removing Ghost heat altogether. This isn't really a fix in itself, but many people see it as part of what's wrong with MWO's heat mechanic.
A: I am not sure how I feel about this one. At some point, if your heat threshold is low enough, you don't have to worry too much about the high pin point alphas that dominate the meta now. Low pin point alphas don't bother me overly much. I think ( not 100% sure ) the other reason we have Ghost Heat is that Paul isn't too keen on boating in general. I think we need to try to change Paul's perspective on this if we can. For example, the HBK-4P was designed to be an energy boat. Note, I am not against alpha strikes or boating in general. I just dislike the high pin point alphas that dominate the current meta. In my opinion, with the current meta, this game is anything but "A thinking man's shooter...."!!!!
#4 Substantially bigger penalties for overheating. Far greater damage to internal components and far greater risks of cooking ammo, leading to internal explosions.
A: I am not sure about this one. If I had to choose, I would probably come out against this one because these new consequences will depend on some random number generator.
#5 Negative effects from running hot. 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. The idea is to make it difficult for people to constantly run hot and also to punish people who rely on repeated alpha strikes. Apparently, alpha strikes were not common in TT or BT novels (can someone confirm?)
A: I am willing to try some of this out but I reserve the right to at some point say enough is enough. I am not sure where that point is without trying some of these penalties out first hand.
As a BT fan, there was never any doubt that I was going to try this game out. But, when this game was first advertised, it's tag line of "A thinking man's shooter... is what really appealed to me the most!!! I think we need to put quick "thinking" back into the game.
As a player in my mech, the decision to take action should require thought:
-- Do I have enough threshold to fire?
-- Will my new threshold subject me to penalties I can or can't deal with?
-- Will I cool off in time to fire again and finish off the mech I am engaged with?
-- Do I need to manuver / evade / torso twist ( pilot skills should matter more )?
Edit: I forgot to put my Yes or No vote at the top of my post.
Edited by Thragen, 21 January 2015 - 01:28 PM.
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