7 replies to this topic

[Erebus Alpha]

At the moment, the flamer seems to be a terrible, terrible weapon. It does very poor damage to armor and internals alike, and inflicts nearly useless amounts of heat to enemy targets.
  
As such, I propose the following changes to the flamer:
  
- Extend maximum range to 180 meters (keep optimum range at 90 meters)
- Give the Flamer a 1 second 'burn time', just like a laser, across which it applies damage
- Give the Flamer a 2 second recycle time
- Implement a narrow field of fire, as is the case with LBX autocannons and machineguns, for some modest damage spread.
- Buff it so it does 6 points of damage over the 1 second burn time.
- Increase the heat to 4.5.
  
With these changes, the medium laser will still likely be the preferred brawling weapon, with more range, higher alpha, better heat efficiency, and pinpoint-accuracy. The Flamer will outperform the medium laser in sustained DPS within 90 meters and when engagement with the enemy lasts longer than 0.83 seconds.
  
It's worth noting that in lore, flamers are effectively plasma guns, siphoning superheated plasma off of the mech's fusion reactor. They are not chemical flamethrowers. They work in a vaccuum and in oxygen-free environments, because the stream of orange stuff is not fire in any way. It's supposed to be a miniature sun shot out of a nozzle, not the hairdryer for battlemechs that it currently is..

Edited by ABFalcon, 26 November 2014 - 04:48 AM.

[The Massive]

Just make the Flamer heat the enemy as fast as it heats you. Then we'll use them.

[Nightmare1]

Flamer isn't supposed to be an attack weapon, but a suppression weapon. It is designed to heat up enemy Mechs and interfere with a pilot's ability to effectively combat you. They also have crit values similar to MGs.

In my opinion, Flamers are fine as they are in all respects except the rate at which they heat up enemy Mechs compared to your own. They should be removed from Ghost Heat, and their heat scale should be altered so that they increase enemy heat at a rate at least twice that of your own. Until that happens, they will remain a fun, if silly, weapon that has little functionality or usefulness in combat.

[Erebus Alpha]

The reason why flamers neither currently nor never will cause targets to gain statistically significant heat is because it's mathematically impossible to balance them so.
  
A flamer that generates just slightly noticable heat would begin to utterly obsolete (and by proxy, remove from gameplay) the entire genre of energy weapons. Energy builds, such as the Warhawk Prime, already operate on razor-thin tolerances to any changes in heat dissipation - much less heat infliction.
  
If a flamer deals enough target-heat to even slightly affect missile and ballistic builds, not only have energy weapons been obsoleted many times over, but you will also have MASSIVE balance issues as the dominant brawling meta consists of flamer-heavy builds that perma-overheat the enemy.
  
  To reiterate:
  
The flamer does not now, nor ever can, do enough heat to affect an enemy. The only reason it causes heat buildup at all is for immersion reasons.

Every way that it is mathematically possible to change the flamer to be effective and balanced demands zero or near-zero heat infliction to the target.

Edited by ABFalcon, 30 November 2014 - 05:03 PM.

[Nightmare1]

ABFalcon, on 30 November 2014 - 04:54 PM, said:

Every way that it is mathematically possible to change the flamer to be effective and balanced demands zero or near-zero heat infliction to the target.

I disagree. Simply increase the heat build up rate in an enemy Mech and you're good to go. PGI already capped the total amount of heat that can be generate by Flamers at 90%. It simply takes too long to reach that threshold with Flamers in their current state.

As far as Flamers becoming OP, their short range limitation will prevent that. We will see them equipped on Lights, troll builds, and brawlers that want the extra heat insurance against their enemies. However, I highly doubt that a slight tweak to their rate of heat-up in enemy Mechs will cause them to become overpowered.

[Catalinasgrace]

While I really do not care about flamers doing damage, I do think they should heat up targeted mechs more. I think they should remove the 90% cap to be honest...

Perhaps

1 - builds heat up but nothing too serious

2 - builds up enough heat that you don't want to stick around

4 or more should in fact be able to shut a mech down and keep it pinned.


I also think that they should have a chance "somehow" to cause ammo explosions...

[Erebus Alpha]

A slight tweak in applied heat will not make it a worthwhile weapon. A tiny buff to near-zero still causes near-zero heat.
  
Flamer heat balancing has a hard, binary breakpoint: The heat they cause will either be insignificant, or game-shattering. As much as it pains me to say it, no middle ground exists. If a flamer build, or a group of flamer-mechs, is ever effective enough to shut down a target and keep them shut down for any length of time, they will simply overheat their target, and headshot them with repeated bursts from a small laser. I would rather go back to 6-PPC stalkers and lagshield-invulnerable lights than deal with an apocalyptically bad flamer-overheat-headshot meta.
  
Assuming that the devs completely change the system by which weapons generate heat, and heat sinks dissipate heat, so that flamers can heat targets by meaningful amounts without apocalyptically breaking the game, you still run into another glaring issue:
  
- If a single flamer is useful and balanced, a flamer boat is OP.
- If a flamer boat is balanced, a single flamer is useless, and a team of flamer boats is OP.
- If a team of flamer boats is balanced, a single flamer boat is useless. A single flamer is laughably useless.
  
The flamer pretends to mathematically obstruct retaliation, but fortunately, fails miserably in doing so. It has to fail. No weapon should ever mathematically obscruct retaliation.
  
Heat-application-to-target is a fun idea, but it will never work in any heat system which is not deliberately based around heat-inflicting weapons from the very beginning.
  
Let's not forget that, according to reality and physics, the lasers in TT, MWO, and every other mechwarrior game are powerful enough to melt and vaporize metal. The reason why getting shot with a laser doesn't make your heat go up is because it's a bad mechanic and could never be balanced as such. We should stop pretending that flamers can defy math, and balance them as damage-causing weapons.

Edited by ABFalcon, 01 December 2014 - 11:27 AM.

[SockSlayer]

Its now 2022, this is still pretty good idea. Especially on the max range being 180m, while optimum stays 90m.