18 replies to this topic

[Creovex]

We need to take a moment and rework flamers. With the release of more lights and mediums (mech who can really ninja in there with this kind of weapon), it really hits home how useless this weapon is. Aside from the Adder I can't recall the last time I saw someone willingly take flamers over say a small laser.

Thoughts?

[Asrrin]

Creovex, on 18 February 2015 - 03:42 PM, said:

We need to take a moment and rework flamers. With the release of more lights and mediums (mech who can really ninja in there with this kind of weapon), it really hits home how useless this weapon is. Aside from the Adder I can't recall the last time I saw someone willingly take flamers over say a small laser.

Thoughts?

I once saw a hunchy with 8 flamers in Terra Therma.






...Yeah, his team lost...

[Satan n stuff]

Well ammo type toggle is supposed to be in the pipeline, I wouldn't say no to a flamer mode toggle. Let us toggle between heat and damage and then buff the weapon to a point where it's actually useful for both. No-one will ever want to use a weapon that does two things poorly at the same time, but a weapon that can do one of two things at any given time, and do it well? Now that's useful.

In other news, there's this thing called a PPC field inhibitor, and apparently it can be turned off. PGI might want to look into that while they're at it.

[Arctourus]

I'd love to see them do something useful. I remember in the MechWarrior 4 days when a couple of good flamer shots would really help you take down a more powerful, but heat intensive, mech.

[Cyborne Elemental]

Asrrin, on 18 February 2015 - 03:52 PM, said:

I once saw a hunchy with 8 flamers in Terra Therma.






...Yeah, his team lost...

I've done that

Remove the heat multiplier for sustained fire
Extend max range to match MG optimal range of 128 meters
Allow it to knock out NARC beacons from teamates and it might just be useful.

Damage wise and crit ?
Equivalent to MG's would be fine.

90% heatcap limit needs to stay, so you can never force an enemy into permanent shutdown.

Maybe disable "quick ignition" skill temporarily for 10 seconds after being flamed?

Edited by Mister D, 20 February 2015 - 05:34 AM.

[anonymous161]

Doubt this will ever be fixed...they still haven't fixed things that have been mass reported for years now.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

I'd start with just giving it a beam duration and cooldown. Then assign it either damage or heat damage.

Since the flamer is a plasma release from the reactor, that intense heat can't be good for the firing mech either; so a short burst of damage or heat with a period for heat to be controlled for the firing mech with a cooldown should be fine.

So say a beam duration of ~0.5 and a cooldown of ~2.25 might be a good starting point, then either up damage to give it the DPS of a Small Laser or a heat spike effect for overloading a target number of Heat Dissipation and/or Heat Capacity with the plasma burst.

[Lil Cthulhu]

Asrrin, on 18 February 2015 - 03:52 PM, said:

I once saw a hunchy with 8 flamers in Terra Therma.






...Yeah, his team lost...

I killed something on Frozen City with an 8 flamer hunchback once.......... once.




if I remember correctly, we still lost.

[Clit Beastwood]

Creovex, on 18 February 2015 - 03:42 PM, said:

We need to take a moment and rework flamers. With the release of more lights and mediums (mech who can really ninja in there with this kind of weapon), it really hits home how useless this weapon is. Aside from the Adder I can't recall the last time I saw someone willingly take flamers over say a small laser.

Thoughts?

but but but fun

[Christof Romulus]

Easiest way to fix flamers:
Remove the heat penalty for being stupid enough to equip the weapon.

So, instead of a weapon that generates more heat in the person USING the weapon than the one being consumed by a blazing inferno of plasma, the one being hit is the only one suffering a penalty.

Problem solved.

Naysayers: ZOMG WHAT? Then people will... use... the... flamer... Huh. I guess that's the point of the change, time to stop complaining.

[process]

Since they can be boated, they can't be too effective. Maybe like 1 flamer = 1 HPS on the user, and applies a +5% heat generation on the target for 5 seconds. Carrying multiple flamers stacks the effect with a diminishing return for a cap at +30% heat generation.

[Trashhead]

MWO is a game based on the Battletech-Universe; more specifically the Battletech TableTop game (a Strategy game).
I have never played that game, so the following info is what i have heard or read about.

Within this game the flamer had multiple roles.
one was to fight infantry (which was relatively powerful in aqud-size),
another one was to create fires, which would negatively effect any mech (check River City: stand in on of the fires and see your heat go up).

The flamer was therefore more a tactical weapon.

Without infantry or the ability to start fires (which would be jot enough so that players would avoid the burning area),
the flamer has no real use in MWO.

It was available in older MechWarrior games, such as MW2 (Ghost Bears Legacy Addon) and MW3.
In MW2-GBL the flamer was able to overheat enemy mechs so efficiently, that 2 or 3 shots forced then to shut down - making them easy prey.
In MW3 it was possible - given enough flamers - to cook enemy mechs to death with one salvo.

Both are scenarios that are not very desirable in MWO, since this is not PvE (like in MW2 and MW3) but PvP.

I would rather see PGi implement Infantry or the ability to set fire to th environment like in the TableTop game.
(No i am not a Lore-Humper, but i think the TT-game has something to it that MWo could benefit from.)

Edited by Trashhead, 18 February 2015 - 05:32 PM.

[LordNothing]

the purpose of flamers is to saturate an enemy's heat sinks to the point where they cant use their weapons. then the miniscule damage starts being effective since they are essentially helpless at that point and cant fight back. as a team tactic you can have lights flame a bunch of heavier mechs while other teammates take em out at their leisure.

if thats what flamers could do then they would be effective. right now lol.

you dont want to do a forced shutdown (well i do but i can except that not being a thing), so instead each flamer will take off 5-10% of the target mechs heat efficiency while the target is being flamed. obviously if you have a 13 flamer troll nova this would essentially mean the target is running with less than 0% heat effitiency (leading to forced shutdowns). so perhaps have a 1-2% penalty per additional gun, or each flamer additional flamer is applied against the previously reduced heat efficiency value. objective is you never reach zero.

the victim here could do something stupid like fire an erppc and shutdown (or suicide if they are in override), where as a smart player would counter with machine guns or a gauss. actually working flamers will reduce the appearance of laser spam boats by a great deal. i might even put the machine guns back on my cat-k2.

Edited by LordNothing, 18 February 2015 - 06:18 PM.

[Creovex]

Trashhead, on 18 February 2015 - 05:32 PM, said:

It was available in older MechWarrior games, such as MW2 (Ghost Bears Legacy Addon) and MW3.
In MW2-GBL the flamer was able to overheat enemy mechs so efficiently, that 2 or 3 shots forced then to shut down - making them easy prey.
In MW3 it was possible - given enough flamers - to cook enemy mechs to death with one salvo.

Both are scenarios that are not very desirable in MWO, since this is not PvE (like in MW2 and MW3) but PvP.

Nobody wants the napalm bomb of the past.... but at the same time, flamers should be a tactical weapon that does generate minimal damage (below its complimentary weight weapon , AKA small laser) AND DOES generate heat on the opponent. Flamers are the MGs (we trade Crit Multiplier for Target Heat Generation, a higher precent increase of heat applied to areas stripped of armor) of the Energy Weapon World!

Edited by Creovex, 18 February 2015 - 07:17 PM.

[Dawnstealer]

I run my BNC with 4 LPLs...and 3 Flamers. In CW, especially against the hot-running Clan mechs, it's devastating. Shuts them down quick and teammates can tear them up.

They need to generate less heat, though. They generate more heat for the shooting mech than the user.

[FupDup]

Dawnstealer, on 18 February 2015 - 07:23 PM, said:

I run my BNC with 4 LPLs...and 3 Flamers. In CW, especially against the hot-running Clan mechs, it's devastating. Shuts them down quick and teammates can tear them up.

They need to generate less heat, though. They generate more heat for the shooting mech than the user.

Flamers can't shut down enemies. The furthest they can go is raising them to 90% of their threshold, and it takes several moments for the effect to "wind up."

[Dawnstealer]

FupDup, on 18 February 2015 - 07:39 PM, said:

Flamers can't shut down enemies. The furthest they can go is raising them to 90% of their threshold, and it takes several moments for the effect to "wind up."

True, but you can get mechs so hot that shooting anything will overheat them and shut down. Especially a group of weapons. Especially Clan ERMLs, for example...

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

PGI, in this as in many other things, might do well to take inspiration from MechCommander.

Flamer: 1 ton. 1 critical slot. 5 damage. 5 heat. 90m/180m range. 5s cooldown. 3 heat to target on hit.

cFlamer: 0.5 ton. 1 critical slot. 5 damage. 5 heat. 90m/180m range. 5s cooldown. 2 heat to target on hit.

Make Flamers the lightweight, compact PPFLD energy option. It's a part of the weapon roster that's missing, and the current mechanic will never be worth bothering with no matter how PGI tweaks it, unless they open them up to stun-locking, which is a terrible idea that will almost certainly never happen.

Adding meaningful dynamic heat penalties beginning at 30-40% of max heat could make current Flamers more interesting, but they'll always remain a sub-optimal choice so long as they don't do any meaningful damage. The above rework allows them to retain some of their flavor, while also filling a hole in the weapon roster and giving them a unique place that offers a real trade-off between MLs, Flamers, and SPLs.

[LordNothing]

you could avoid a lot of troll loadouts by simply make them take 2 crits instead of one. sorta like what mw4 did.