41 replies to this topic

[Sereglach]

Choppah, on 21 February 2015 - 01:33 PM, said:

3. Heat applied to target should remain less than heat gained from weapon. I think appropriate values would be 1 hps to armored sections, 2 hps for stripped. So at 3 hps generated from each flamer, the flamer mech would still overheat before the target, but now it will be a predictable linear increase instead of exponential.

4. These changes may necessitate the removal of increased crit chance, which I would be fine with, if only to have niche but usable weapon. However, if the changes above were not enough, I would love to see a armor debuff mechanic instead of crit chance. Example, 5% reduction in damage absorbed by armor per flamer, so 4 flamers after 1 second would reduce the effectiveness of armor by 20%. When the flamer stops firing, the debuff slowly wears off (10% a sec) capping out at 5 seconds max.

I was sort of following you, up until these points. In regards to point #3 . . . that is the biggest problem with the Flamer being a broken weapon in its current iteration. If you're going to mention TT numbers anywhere (which you did in point 2) then you need to acknowledge that flamers could do upwards of TWICE the heat damage as they generated heat for the user. If anything, flamers in MWO should retain a similar ratio to make them effective.

After all, unlike TT, getting within 90m to use them is no small task in MWO (especially since every other weapon in MWO has double range damage dropoff) . . . staying there to keep flamers on the target is another matter entirely. If it's a light or medium then it's going to be doing a drive-by burning . . . if it's a heavy or assault it is going to use the Flamers to diminish the damage-dealing potential of its target while the two duke it out.



As far as point #4, I'm not entirely against such a concept, but it'd be very convoluted and programming-heavy to implement. That is a bit detrimental to the concept, as it could cause performance issues. This is especially so because these debuff scripts you're talking about would need to be individualized for each component of each mech . . . and then tracked across all components of all mechs on the battlefield. That's a nightmare waiting to happen.

Besides, having a big armor debuff isn't really different from making Flamers a crit destroyer . . . now you're just making them an armor melter. Which, if you want to do that, then you should just up the base damage of the weapon. It's a simpler solution while not instituting performance-bogging scripts for debuffs into the game.

There have been many interesting ideas brought up in terms of making flamers interesting and useful. However, I very much side with Ambuscade that the changes and updates made to Flamers need to be simple, straight-forward, and maintaining the weapon's basic function as "point and spray". You also can't implement a bunch of scripting and programming heavy changes that are going to bog down performance. After all, just remember someone, somewhere will bring back the Flaming Hunchies and the 14 Flamer Nova Meltdowns. Not that I'm averse to this . . . but the data-heavy concepts that people are coming up with will cause problems for the game when those mechs come out to play.

[Choppah]

Sereglach, on 21 February 2015 - 03:04 PM, said:

I was sort of following you, up until these points. In regards to point #3 . . . that is the biggest problem with the Flamer being a broken weapon in its current iteration. If you're going to mention TT numbers anywhere (which you did in point 2) then you need to acknowledge that flamers could do upwards of TWICE the heat damage as they generated heat for the user. If anything, flamers in MWO should retain a similar ratio to make them effective.

After all, unlike TT, getting within 90m to use them is no small task in MWO (especially since every other weapon in MWO has double range damage dropoff) . . . staying there to keep flamers on the target is another matter entirely. If it's a light or medium then it's going to be doing a drive-by burning . . . if it's a heavy or assault it is going to use the Flamers to diminish the damage-dealing potential of its target while the two duke it out.

There is a fine line between effective and troll weapons. With the odd heat mechanics MWO uses, I would have to see it on the test server before I would be okay with something like 6 hps applied to target per flamer. Even with a 90% cap, for an energy boat, a light mech with flamers would be unkillable as a pre-BAP buff LRM boat vs ECM light. We really need to tread carefully with certain equipment invalidating whole weapon types. On top of this, if heat damage was a primary use/function, ballistic boats would be unaffected and the flamer would be super weak against them.

Quote

As far as point #4, I'm not entirely against such a concept, but it'd be very convoluted and programming-heavy to implement. That is a bit detrimental to the concept, as it could cause performance issues. This is especially so because these debuff scripts you're talking about would need to be individualized for each component of each mech . . . and then tracked across all components of all mechs on the battlefield. That's a nightmare waiting to happen.

There is already variable damage mitigation via missile tube doors ingame. I'm not to sure how many more server resources it would take up to implement an armor debuff mechanic, but I can't imagine it would require that much more. Just anything to avoid weapons which are "You have armor? I can do nothing. You have no armor? Insta kill."

Quote

Besides, having a big armor debuff isn't really different from making Flamers a crit destroyer . . . now you're just making them an armor melter. Which, if you want to do that, then you should just up the base damage of the weapon. It's a simpler solution while not instituting performance-bogging scripts for debuffs into the game.

The idea was to invoke teamplay over RNG by a flamer mech debuffing a target's armor while another mech fires at the debuffed section to knock it out faster. Seeing as the devs don't explain mechanics thoroughly, it would be a lot of work for naught as most players probably wouldn't know how to use it or what was happening. This is why #4 was just in case the other buffs were not enough.

Edited by Choppah, 21 February 2015 - 03:50 PM.

[TwentyOne]

Why can't PGI buff the flamer?
What stops them from going into the game files and doubling the DPS?

[Choppah]

TwentyOne, on 21 February 2015 - 03:55 PM, said:

Why can't PGI buff the flamer?
What stops them from going into the game files and doubling the DPS?

Nothing is stopping them, but buffing damage to usable level would require a rethink of the increased crit chance. Which would then require a whole redo of what the weapon is and what it is supposed to do. Just one of those things where if you change one aspect, might as well go ahead and change the whole thing.

[Sereglach]

Choppah, on 21 February 2015 - 03:48 PM, said:

There is a fine line between effective and troll weapons. With the odd heat mechanics MWO uses, I would have to see it on the test server before I would be okay with something like 6 hps applied to target per flamer. Even with a 90% cap, for an energy boat, a light mech with flamers would be unkillable as a pre-BAP buff LRM boat vs ECM light. We really need to tread carefully with certain equipment invalidating whole weapon types. On top of this, if heat damage was a primary use/function, ballistic boats would be unaffected and the flamer would be super weak against them.

I'd agree with you here, except you're going overkill on your HDPS (Heat Damage Per Second) numbers. A Flamer doing 6 heat damage in TT doesn't translate to 6 HDPS in MWO. Very little about TT damage and heat translates into MWO. AC20's definitely do NOT do 20 DPS in MWO, for example. Also . . . funny enough . . . a round in TT is 10 seconds, not 1, so the numbers cited before are also inaccurate, but that is all a moot point in MWO discussions.

Regardless, it's the ratio to focus on . . . which would be a 2HDPS:1HPS, for sake of the argument. Now, I do agree that any numbers come up with should be tested for the right feel. However, if one can cripple an energy boat by boating flamers, then so be it, and I do personally feel they should be able to. There are some things to take into consideration with this -

1: That's going to be the death of a thousand paper-cuts (presuming NO ONE in their team comes to help them), because you're not going to be able to spam your flamers AND other damage dealing weapons at the same time (thus an advantage for the Ember having 4 Flamers and 4 MG's).
2: It's a bit of a balance in gameplay. The fact that it wouldn't do jack to ballistic boats is to be expected, and acts as a counter, just like Brawling is the bane of LRM boats, and Ranged engagements are the bane of Brawlers. It'll actually encourage players to contemplate their heat management a bit more if they know a nasty little fire-bat is going to cripple them in close quarters.
3: Also, the flamer boat wouldn't be able to keep the flamers on target forever . . . he'll need to cool off, too, and when he does that gives his opponent an opening.

Choppah, on 21 February 2015 - 03:48 PM, said:

There is already variable damage mitigation via missile tube doors ingame. I'm not to sure how many more server resources it would take up to implement an armor debuff mechanic, but I can't imagine it would require that much more. Just anything to avoid weapons which are "You have armor? I can do nothing. You have no armor? Insta kill."

Yes and No. You're talking about a constantly changing numeric variable that will fluctuate . . . missile doors are either ON or OFF and provide a fixed amount of protection. The missile doors are also only on certain parts of certain mechs. It would be a significantly higher drain on implement a debuff algorithm that is constantly fluctuating on every individual part of every individual mech and needs to be refreshed every .1 seconds (the rate at which flamers calculate their "impacts" on target). Am I saying it's not a creative idea or it's impossible? No. I'm just saying be wary of some concepts because they can cause bigger problems then you think.

Also, MG's and Flamers are NOT insta-kill weapons on internal structure. It still takes a significant amount of fire to wound internal structure. They're just "crit-hunter" weapons (although from my understanding and experience the crit-hunting aspects of the Flamer have been broken for some time). Regardless, the damage they do per individual crit is rather low . . . the larger aspect of their capacity is for destroying the components in that section. Given how mech internals function, this is actually a pretty lore-friendly aspect to add into MWO that is still different from TT. There's also a great video to watch on criticals, by Kanajashi, here, which helps prove how these weapons are not doing exorbitant amounts of damage to internal structure, but helps show how they damage components:

Choppah, on 21 February 2015 - 03:48 PM, said:

The idea was to invoke teamplay over RNG by a flamer mech debuffing a target's armor while another mech fires at the debuffed section to knock it out faster. Seeing as the devs don't explain mechanics thoroughly, it would be a lot of work for naught as most players probably wouldn't know how to use it or what was happening. This is why #4 was just in case the other buffs were not enough.

Again, it's a creative idea, and I'm not diminishing that fact . . . just pointing out issues it would probably have in implementation, and why I don't think it would be particularly effective or fitting for MWO. As Ambuscade points out . . . the weapon needs to maintain the simple effect of "point and spray" so that someone with minimal skill can still wield it and see some results.

[Sereglach]

Choppah, on 21 February 2015 - 08:45 PM, said:

Nothing is stopping them, but buffing damage to usable level would require a rethink of the increased crit chance. Which would then require a whole redo of what the weapon is and what it is supposed to do. Just one of those things where if you change one aspect, might as well go ahead and change the whole thing.

Not true; and it also depends upon what you consider a "usable level". A Flamer probably won't have the same damage potential as a medium laser, not without coming with a HUGE heat cost. On the other hand, having a modest damage of something like 1.0 DPS (which would still be a nearly 43% buff to current damage of .7DPS, and not outside the realm of reason) with a very solid heat damage generation is a very usable weapon system, for what it is supposed to do.

It mostly depends on the balance of the weapon system. They've already stated that they plan to crank the amount of heat that makes it to the enemy target. This will also probably (and SHOULD) dispose of the exponential scaling acceleration mechanics of the Flamer. That said, do not expect damage to be high. However, expect damage to be reasonable for a weapon that also has other utilitarian purposes.

On the other hand, if you're expecting something akin to 2-3 DPS to be "usable" . . . don't expect that to happen.

Edited by Sereglach, 21 February 2015 - 10:43 PM.

[Ambuscade]

First and foremost, I would like to thank you guys for all the support. The recent flurry of activity on the thread has got me really excited!

That aside, reading through some of the posts, I can't help but see suggestions on upping the flamer's damage. While I understand PvP demands damage, I still think the flamer's focus needs to be on the heat it induces. Pulse and standard lasers will always best it in the damage department (more range, more damage for less heat).

Ballistic oriented mechs will definitely be the most resilient to flamer attacks (guass rifles and machines guns don't even produce heat). Will they still be vulnerable? Yes, but only to a degree. Laser boats and missle boats will be much more vulnerable.

Now will that invalidate laser and missle builds? I don't think so. 1v1 scenarios are rare in MWO, which is where this kind of invalidation has the greatest potential of occuring. Otherwise if you play with your team, then you have allies to watch you back. If you isolate yourself, intentionally or otherwise, you are running the risk to be picked off (whether its an Ember mounting 4 ML or 4 Flamers, the effect is the same).

Still, I see the risk of making the flamer too strong. The most obvious source of abuse will be the inevitable boating of the weapon (I doubt 1-2 flamers are going to be a serious problem). We have ghost heat to curb this issue. We also have the heat cap we can play around with. Suppose the flamers hit the 90% cap too quick and the victim mechs can't resist effectively enough (the flamer is indeed too strong). Let's say we lower the heat cap, to say 85% to give the victim mech more breathing room to fight back. But, then you might say, well that's not fair, it defeats the point of the flamer.

Well remember when I said we could add debuffs that occur only when the heat cap is hit? Well, now we have a flamer system that hits the cap quick and will hit is quicker now that its been lowered. So, you get the those debuffs quicker. And whose to say that the debuffs only applie negative effects to the opposing mech? We can add in some bonuses to flamer performance as well, for instance:

• bonuses to crit chance/damage
  
• bonuses to heat induced per second
  
• bonuses to damage
  
• etc.

Now Sereglach has pointed out that we need to avoid overly complicated measures for balance. Quite true. However, we also need to allow for creative choices we can fall back on in case tweaking the numbers is not enough.


Again thanks for the support guys!
Regards Mechwarriors,
Ambuscade

PS - Remember that the trick for a viable flamer is balancing risk vs. reward.

Is a flamer build risky enough to ensure its not broken, but the reward great enough to justify the risk?

That's the ticket were looking for.

Edited by Ambuscade, 22 February 2015 - 06:52 AM.

[Molossian Dog]

I just want to write expletives on mountain sides!

[Ambuscade]

Welcome back fellow Mechwarriors! After a brief break (life issues can be so troublesome ) I'm back to continue my flamer campaign. So without further pomp and circumstance, lets get back on track!

Topic #4: Damage Over Time, Frontloaded, or Both

An idea that has cropped up on many a flamer balance thread is to make the flamer a front-loaded weapon. Basically, change it from a continuous firing weapon to one that delivers its payload in a single shot with a cooldown. Now, I'll be honest. I'm biased towards the continous fire of our current flamer. Not only is it graphically stunning, but it just feels right. But, like with the proposed dev removal of the blinding effect, I can compromise. So, the essense of this topic will be going over the merits and demerits of DOT and FLD for the flamer.

DOT Pros

• Promotes critseeking (all critseekers are DOT or spread their damage out)
• Allows bonuses for prolonged exposure (exponential heat gain on target)
• Already coded and implemented ingame (no new assests/coding required)
• Prevents the weapon from being used in an alpha strike
• Forces flamer attack to be focused on one target

DOT Cons

• Spreads damage (ineffective damage dealer)
• Heat generation difficult to balance (user/target)
• Requires 100% uptime, leaves user exposed
• Blinds the user, more flamers enhances the effect

FLD Pros

• Enables hit and run tactics
• Easier to balance (heat, damage, cooldown, etc)
• Raises skill cap (ability to aim)
• Requires fewer confusing mechanics (no exponential curves for anything)

FLD Cons

• Promotes the prevalent "alpha or go home" meta
• Allows flamer heavy builds to engage multiple targets
• Requires new code/assets (changing how the flamer fires)
• Gives mechs (Nova in particular) intimidating flamer alphas

Now I may have missed some, so please feel free to weigh in and make suggestions. My take on this little analysis is the continuous version is already here. Lets make it work first, stick with the assets and mechanics we have to make it better. The hit and run capability (particularly for lights) is a powerful pro for FLD. But, I don't like promoting the alpha heavy meta that already exists in MWO. The machine guns and flamers are the ONLY two weapons that possess continuous firing mechanics. I'd like that to stay.

Furthermore, I am concerned about the power of a FLD flamer. In particular how it can allow a mech like the Nove (boating 12 or so flamers at once) to engage multiple targets (firing in groups to facilitate this). Such an ability has the potential to debilitate multiple mechs at once. Is this too much power? Even if engaging multiple targets isn't as feasible as I think it is, there is still the sheer power of the alpha to be concerned with. A twelve flamer alpha (using Levi's proposed numbers posted in this thread) would generate 36 heat on target, 60 heat on self. Now, that heat would get capped at 90% of the target's threshold, but still that's an insane alpha (with insane self heat generation). Just something to keep in mind.

Thanks for tuning in and your continued support. In the coming days I will be cranking out Topic #5: My Personal Take on the Flamer.

Regards Mechwarriors,
Ambuscade

[Sereglach]

I hope that they do NOT use a FLD Flamer. That would ruin the feel and style of the weapon, in my opinion. It'd also leave the MG as the only continuous firing weapon in the game. On top of that, any infantry decimation ability the Flamer would have in the future would be ruined (PGI jokes about setting little people on fire . . . but they have also said it will happen, it's just a matter of when), because you wouldn't be able to spray a large area to sweep away infantry . . . you'd only be able to hit one pinpoint location (or a very tiny area based on "beam duration"). Despite the flamer's beautiful spraying visual effect, it only hits a tiny pinpoint. If you put a Flamer and a TAG next to each other, that little pinpoint location the TAG is hitting is the same pinpoint location the Flamer's spray is hitting.

Personally, I think they should save any concept of FLD Heat Generating weapons for the Plasma Rifle and Plasma Cannon . . . which we may eventually see in MWO. They are "Clan Invasion" era weapons, so it's not out of the question. The Clan Invasion Wave III collection is already pushing the timeline a bit by using mechs that weren't put into production until 3052.

Edited by Sereglach, 03 March 2015 - 09:27 AM.

[Ljusdahl]

I propose a blowtorch-like flamer that uses jump jet fuel(you wouldn't need JJ's, just either or both). No ghost heat, instead they will be naturally limited by the fact that JJ fuel replenishes at a slow rate. A low number of flamers guarantee continuous fire and would be best DPS per ton, white having several flamers makes it more of a quick hit & run burst weapon.

Part 2 of this madness: Flamers generate thrust while the 'mech is in the air. This would add mobility to JJ-capable 'mechs, especially lights. There would be so many interesting uses for this. Softening falls, jumping faster/longer/shorter, or changing your trajectory to make you harder to hit or reach higher ledges easier.

As for offensive capability, I think it should still be a vulture weapon, preying on weakness. It might be interesting if the damage dealt is dependent on armor percentage of the component it hits. For example, 0.5 DPS when armor is at 100%, 1 DPS at 50%, and 2 DPS at 0%. No other convoluted mechanics needed, other than adding heat to the target.

[Trashhead]

I remember how Flamers worked in games like MechWarrior 2 and 3.
In MW2, two or three 3 shots would shut down any enemy mech while generating no heat for you, so you could use the weapon to keep an enemy shut down while you destroyed him with your other weapons.
In MW3 you could boat Flamers and DESTROY an enemy mech with 1 or 2 salvos.

Totally OP. Certainly not the way to go.


So, if the Flamer needs to be improved to become a more viable weapon in MWO-terms,
i think giving it a higher Crit.-Chance against internals is the best way to go without making it OP.

However, there is another option most people seemed to forget: to ask what the Flamers ORIGINAL purpose was (in the TableTop-game).
I know, almost noone here wants to be reminded where MechWarrior comes from - a 30 year old strategy board game, played with dices - but i think the TT-game had aspects that could make MWO more interesting, too !... unless you want to play a First-Person-Shooter with mechs, that is.

So, what was the Flamers original purpose ?
Introduced in 2025, the standard Flamer taps into a BattleMech's reactor to produce heat in the form of a plasma release.[3] An extremely short-ranged weapon, the Flamer is devastating against infantry, however damage done against other 'Mechs and vehicles is negligible, though it can raise the enemy unit's heat levels. The Flamer is also often used to set ambient objects such as trees aflame, making it useful for burning forests or cities in order to slow the enemy down or cover friendly movements. A clear example of such is the Firestarter BattleMech.
Quote: http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Flamer

- kill infantry
- slow down enemies
- cover friendly movement

All options we do not have in MWO.
We have no infantry here, not even BattleSuits like the Elemental
We also can not set fire to things. This would be a very interesting options, especially in City-Maps (which we also don't have; River City is a step in the right direction, but not even close to what i would call a "City".)

If you don't think a Fire would not stop a your mech, you are right. Not even Lava does (see Terra Therma).
But if you take a closer look at River City, you can find, at the Landing Platform where the gazelle Dropship is waiting... near a Warehouse.. a small crater with a fire burning in it.

Load that map, walk into the fire, and watch you heat-meter.
It goes up - not by much, maybe 10, 15 % - but that is what i am talking about.

Allow us to create fires like this in a bigger scale, double the heat, and watch your Enemy think twice about walking into a burning street.
Of cause it will not stop an enemy, but depending on his Load-out he will have problems firing all his weapons.
Triple the heat a fire can generate, and most mechs have serious problems - especially the dreaded Laser-Boats.

So, in short, there are two ways to go:
Either adept the Flamer to the MO-Environment
or
adept the MWO-Environment to the Flamer.

I would like to see what would happen if PGI tries option 2.

[Anyone00]

Someone may have already suggested this idea in this thread: but what if flamers could destroy heat sinks (including in engine ones; shs being nigh-impossible to take out and dhs being made of tinfoil) and cause ammo explosions on overheated mechs even through armor?

[dimachaerus]

Personally, the way I'd fix flamers is to have it apply not just extra heat to the enemy mech, but also reduce it's ability to disipate heat. Heat sinks can't transfer heat away as easily when the outside temperature is higher, and blasting some poor sod with a burst of fire is going to be even worse than that. Lets say you've finally snuck up on that rat ******* smashing your teammates from afar with PPC's, you ready your flamers and WHOOOOOOOOSH, you start the barbecue:

Current function: You tickle them a bit and their heat may raise a percent or two before they turn around to blast your face off. You gotta scoot or else you're hosed because, lets face it, Flamers are not really a heavy mech weapon with 90m hard cap range. So you scoot, and hey presto, that 2% heat you gave him are gone and he's back to business. Though I will say that shooting the ground between you and your target as you run away works nicely to make a smokescreen.

My iteration: Same situation, except this time, washing him all over with fire doesn't just tickle him and add 2% to his bar, it applies a short (lets say, 5 second) "burn" to his mech. What this does is continue to raise his heat a little, but also reduces his ability to disipate that heat. Of course as those seconds tick away he cools off and is back in business, but lets say you decide to stick around cause flamers are now "useful", and you keep the flames on him for longer. The burn debuff stacks, until his Heatsinks aren't really able to handle the extra heat, they can keep his mech functioning (heat cap still in place at 90%) but until the outside of his mech starts to cool (debuff wears down) he can't realiably disipate any waste heat from his weapons or else he's gonna shut his mech down.

More flamers add more raw "heat" and stack the "debuff" faster, but instead of being able to just hold the trigger down and continuously flame away, you'd have a capacitor, or "fuel" tank that charges up over time meaning you can sustain them for a good while, but not indefinitely.

Would also be badass if we could not only set other mechs on "fire" like that, but leave burning patches on the ground for a short time, say 10-15 seconds that reduce heat disipation abilities.

[DivideByZer0]

For me, the simple fact is: Flamers cause more heat to the originating mech than they cause to the target mech. It would be like if every time you fired your 5 damage laser at another player, it did 10 damage to you in turn. Just not a smart decision.

[Ambuscade]

Topic #5: My Take on the Flamer
Lots of interesting ideas up here since the last time I checked in. Pretty cool to see some new faces along with them. I been thinking long and hard on how I would balance flamers, so today I'm going to take a crack at it.

DISCLAIMER: the numbers I will be using are not the numbers I advocate for actual implementation. They are used to portray the relative intention of how I would balance flamers.

First, I would like to outline some basic principles that flamers should adhere to. The most important of these is what I like to call "The Flamer Law of Diminishing Returns." Consider the standard bell curve. The Y-axis represents flamer performance and the X-axis represents the number of flamers equipped. The tails represent 1-2 flamers/7+ flamers respectively. The peak of the bell curve represents 4-6 flamers. Basically, 4-6 flamers offer optimal performance (the best trade off between heat gain and performance). The tails represent the builds that are serviceable (i.e. not useless) but present drawbacks. For 1-2 flamers it is the lack of performance because you are using fewer flamers. For 7+ flamers its the high heat gain that is the issue.

Next, is the fact that heat gain on self should not be exponential. Each flamer produces a flat amount of heat per tick or second of firing. To curb boating, ghost heat is used to add to the heat each individual flamer produces.

Lastly, heat on target should start at a base value. The longer the flamer is kept on target (and on target only so you can't "warm up" your flamers by firing them at nothing) the more heat the flamer outputs. This heat increase can either be linear or exponential. In either case, there will be cap to how much heat an individual flamer can produce (may also be affected by ghost heat where the cap is lowered from its base value the more flamers you fire at the same time).

To demonstrate my overall idea, I will give three examples (one for each case: 1-2, 4-6, and 7+ flamers) with sample numbers.

Case #1: 1-2 Flamers

Damage: 0.04 per tick (0.4 per sec)
Heat on Target: 2 heat per sec
Heat on Self: 0.5 heat per sec

Here we have a very low damaging weapon that runs pretty cool and generates a modest amount of heat on target. 0.5 and 2 heat per sec are the base values for all flamers. Please note as I stated above, ghost heat will be playing a large role. For one or two flamers, no ghost heat will be applied. But, for the other two cases there will be ghost heat.

Desired Result: A useful single weapon that can add heat to a target, add a minor boost in damage, while limiting the impact on your heat gain. Valuable for brawlers that want to curb the amount of firepower coming off their target. At the same time that single flamer doesn't inhibit your weapons fire too much.

Case #2: 4-6 Flamers

Damage: 0.4 per sec
Heat on Target: 2 heat per second
Heat on Self: 1.0 heat per second (0.5 GH per flamer)

Now once we bump the number of flamers to 4, ghost heat really kicks in. Each flamer now produces double the base value. This serves to curb the overall burn time you have on the flamers. However, you still get a pretty nice bang for your buck in terms of performance.

Desired Result: 4-6 flamers represents a more dedicated flamer boat, but likely comes with additional backup weapons or equipment to supplement the build. More of a mech's loadout is allocated to combat the increased heat load. More thought is required to produce a viable tradeoff between the heat and performance (but quite doable).

Case #3: 7+ Flamers

Damage: 0.04 per sec
Heat on Target: 2 heat per second
Heat on Self: 1.5 heat per second (1.0 GH per flamer)

Anything above 6 in my opinion is straying into "excessive" boating. As such the heat cost for such builds is particularly high. The heat gain per flamer is now 3x the original value. Significant investment in heatsinks is required. Any other weapons with even a moderate heat gain is out of the picture.

Desired Result: 7+ flamers represents the super flamer boats. While capable of intense bursts of heat on target, they are remarkably unwieldy. The law of diminishing returns applies the most here. Trying to balance the performance with the tremendous heat gain will be challenging. The question "Is this worth it?" will be the critical criteria of the build.

The above is the basic framework I envision for flamers. Once (or if) implemented, we begin to gauge flamer performance. If they are underperforming still, perhaps we can add some of the debuff ideas many have suggested. For now we need to keep it simple. Finally, please understand the numbers above are just placeholders. They convey an overall idea, nothing more. Thank you for your continued support.

Regards Mechwarriors,
Ambuscade

Edited to omit examples.

Edited by Ambuscade, 24 March 2015 - 05:48 AM.

[Sereglach]

Your base premise is pretty good, and I think it has a sound basis. Using standard "ghost heat" (properly referred to as heat scaling . . . but of course even the devs have used the terms interchangeably) mechanics, I think it's fair that boating massive amounts of flamers should have diminishing returns. However, I think they should fall within the realms of standard heat scaling, and that we don't need to make a special set of heat scales specifically for flamers. Personally, I'd say as far as heat scaling goes, it should fall within the realms of the Medium and Small laser families . . . anything more than 6 and it starts to kick in. Granted . . . you can use a harsh multiplier to make the diminishing returns of boating have a very rapid impact.

Now, as far as "priming" or "warming up" a flamer. I have to disagree with you, there. I'd do away with all of the acceleration mechanics of the flamer, and stick to flat numbers. It's much easier to follow, and even a low skilled and/or low information player should be able to look at the flamer in mechlab and know exactly what it is going to do on a mech. Currently the Flamer is the only weapon that doesn't do this. For the flamer you're left with an ambiguous weapon that has a mechlab listing of a Heat of 1 and a Heat Damage of 1 . . . yet when you slap it on the mech your heat efficiency plummets into the dirt. Not to mention what happens to your mech once you start spraying flamer plasma into your enemy's face. For someone who doesn't know how the weapon functions it doesn't make any sense.

No matter what happens to the flamer, the resulting effects and stats should be simple to use, yet require great skill and practice to master.


Now . . . has anyone heard any further news on the progress of the flamer's reengineering?

[InspectorG]

Interesting topic !

Im torn between:

A. Crit seeking nightmare. 3 damage to armor, 7 damage to HP - all items in component Simultaneously!
Has a 2 second burn time and a 5 second cooldown. Focus on Brawlers and Vultures.

B. Debuff target's Heat dissipation rate. Burn time is 1 second, if you keep all of the duration on a target enemy they lose 33% dissipation rate for 8 seconds. Could be a brutal counter to lazor vomits. 5 second cooldown for the flamer. 3 damage per hit no crit bonus.
Should this discourage lazor vomits in a brawl too much you could nerf it a bit OR lower ammo HP and up crit chance on ammo for ballistic/missile builds

Solutions do have to be kept with the likely event of boating in mind. Diminished returns or redundancy can be used.

[Euklides]

I might have missed someone mentioning this, but with some testing you can see that chainfire allows one or more flamers to be active and still allow cooling. The bigger the chainfire group is the quicker the cooling is, when I am being silly and running a 12 flamer 4mg nova the practice of chainfiring two groups of six flamers practically shows no heat dissipation inefficiencies except on but the hottest maps. And according to test subjects the receivers heat is locked though not gaining.

But it is ridiculous to expect that you need around 8 or more flamers in order to make use of the weapon within a reasonable time frame, as even 12 flamers leaves your victim most of the time with enough time to contemplate his/hers fate, usually that involves fighting first, then running towards team mates. Their demise if they don't have any heat neutral build is more based on the fact of how long they have spent fighting or how long the distance is to their team. Less on the ability of the flamer boat, although positioning is a skill that has to be strongly regarded when engaging at the moment.

Let alone the fact that the range and the duration required makes it really hard to engage when deathballing occurs, as soon you show your pretty flamers in a brawl, alone or not, you become a beacon of hope for all those without a clear target to shoot.
So picking off stragglers and isolated energy snipers simply becomes the only reasonable use, that might never occur in a match giving you a feeling of hopelessness as you watch your team mates fight at the normal ranges.

Edit: spelling

Edited by Euklides, 25 March 2015 - 04:08 AM.

[stalima]

the flamer would be fine if its heat didnt begin to overheat YOUR mech stupidly fast after prolonged use... i mean theyre low damage, shortest of short range AND cant even overheat an enemy on their own... i dont see the need for the exponential heat gain.

and when i say their heat generation is bad i mean you can fire 6 flamers on a thunderbolt for near 20 seconds and still watch it just medium pulse laser you to death without ever overheating.