231 replies to this topic

[Burktross]

Interesting post, Op-- unlike fixing heat, this would also prevent Autocannon spam!
+100 internet tons, for PGI must see!

[Escef]

Virgil Greyson, on 04 April 2015 - 06:31 AM, said:

As I understand it, an alpha strike was something a mechwarrior used as a final resort, or a last "f you" to an enemy in a dire situation. In this game it seems to be a casual thing used in any situation.

Now I am not the most versed in the mechwarrior lore, but am I right in saying this?

The primary reason why lore is like this is because most mechs carry more weapons than they can safely fire. A classic example of this is the old RFL-3N Rifleman, which mounts 2xLL, 2xML, and 2xAC5 with a whopping 10 single heat sinks. Just one of those large lasers combined with the ACs maxes out the mech's heat dispersal capabilities. It is possible to overheat to shutdown on an alpha with this thing. The Classic 6R Warhammer fares little better on an alpha, despite its 18 single heat sinks; it just can't handle the 2xPPC, 2xML, 2xSL, 2xMG, and SRM6 all at once.

Virgil Greyson, on 04 April 2015 - 06:31 AM, said:

Yup, and I tell people not to do that because I've been on the receiving end several times. Partly because I'm too aggressive and always looking for an angle of attack. Far too often I've found not only the fight I was looking for, but three other fights as well. And unlike most mooks in the movies, they don't take turns.

[Vandul]

Wuts goin on up in heeyah?

[xImmortalx]

Why is it that for every god damn issue in the game, real or imagined, some genius has to go back to the Holy Books and start parroting things from there as if those things haven't been tried a hundred times before with no success?

Why are people still trying to apply stuff written in books for entertainment to a competitive environment where real people have to find the best and most efficient way to win?

Do you think increasingly more draconian restrictions will somehow allow you to relive what happened in those books?

More to the point, do you think continuously restricting more and more parts of the game will appeal to those players who don't give a hoot about the lore and just want a fun game to play?


How long will it take for people to find a way around whatever restriction you can think of and keep doing exactly the same thing they've been doing?

Have you even considered that what you imagine to be fun may in fact be nothing of the sort?

[Burktross]

xImmortalx, on 04 April 2015 - 06:57 AM, said:

Why is it that for every god damn issue in the game, real or imagined, some genius has to go back to the Holy Books and start parroting things from there as if those things haven't been tried a hundred times before with no success?

Why are people still trying to apply stuff written in books for entertainment to a competitive environment where real people have to find the best and most efficient way to win?

Do you think increasingly more draconian restrictions will somehow allow you to relive what happened in those books?

More to the point, do you think continuously restricting more and more parts of the game will appeal to those players who don't give a hoot about the lore and just want a fun game to play?


How long will it take for people to find a way around whatever restriction you can think of and keep doing exactly the same thing they've been doing?

Have you even considered that what you imagine to be fun may in fact be nothing of the sort?

Because there's only a certain amount of leeway allowed in deviation from source material.
Battletech® Game, right?

[Weeny Machine]

Too bad that they didn't take the TT heatscale with their soft-punishments. Not this all or nothing we have now.

The problem is that twofold: big alphas and conervgence

Stefka Kerensky, on 04 April 2015 - 05:22 AM, said:

From ancient ages.....
....an echoing voice.....

"....convergence...ence...ence...nce...."

PGI's answer: say what?

Edited by Bush Hopper, 04 April 2015 - 08:19 AM.

[Kuritaclan]

Escef, on 04 April 2015 - 06:28 AM, said:

Uh-huh. Too bad that the laser-vomit Timby has an Alpha in the mid-50s. The dreaded DoomCrow even lower. Even the semi-popular 2xERPPC/2xGauss Dire Wolf is only 50 points with an additional 10 to the flanking areas the PPCs hit. A little torso twisting and several mechs can take 3 or 4 hits from that with no armor breach.

Stop staring at the enemy, don't be the only guy he sees, and for the love of all that is holy, don't be the only guy on your team in front of 3+ enemies, it doesn't end well.

I have to agree with this. The so called "op-mechs" don't have high alphas at all - they all bring consistent damage and or high dps for brawl. If you try to build high alpha builds you come to weapon systems on clan side like srm, lbx, uac and many small to medium lasers and all wil behave diffrent and are open to much spread. So in the end, the alpha does many damage on the enemy over all sections but not that often much damage on a specific part. And those mechs who do so like 12 ErML Nova still be a Hell-Heat-Boiler. In the end it comes down to the enemy who do not twist and or just get caught in a bad spot (coming around corners where a high alha could be pumped into it in near to no range, where spread is lesser, than on ranges fights evolve normaly) and or have jsut bad luck.

Also the supposed idea of damage scaling to heat is just a fully kill to the heat system diffrent weapon system offer. For example Gauss paired with other weapons will cause Ghostheat, but why then even bring the Gauss, if it indirect produce GH because you combine it with your rest of weapon laodout, when all the pourpose of bringing 12 o 15 tonnes is to use the like zero heat generation.

Otto Cannon, on 04 April 2015 - 06:45 AM, said:

Lore alphas were not pinpoint.

Heat is being used as a bandaid on the gaping wound of pinpoint alpha damage. The solution would be a slight spreading of shots when weapons are fired together, which has been suggested many times. We can't have that though, because PGI say it isn't technically possible and would make hit detection even worse than it already is. Plus of course the people who would cry 'but muh skill' and use the false RNG strawman argument if the game was made more challenging by removing deathstar pinpoint.

So we're stuck with a ridiculous ghostheat system until PGI add something better, and they're unlikely to bother unless it makes more money than it costs.

The other way around at least for lasers it would become a relife. For example chainfire 5 Lasers would shorten the beam duration so the damage is more pin point, but since it is chain fired you may have higher spread for a longer hold time on a specific area of the enemy mech, while fire a group of Lasers would add up the beam duration with more Lasers fired, so without a steady aim you won't be able to hit a specific part full time and spread within the beamtime. However such things do not prevent bad players to run into bad spots, overheating at those or simply run into a pack of enemys/around corners instead of w8 to let them come and then focus with your "own pack" the one enemy peaking around/above etc..

Edited by Kuritaclan, 04 April 2015 - 07:36 AM.

[Phlinger]

Sticking more closely to a 30 max heat scale would allow many mechs that don't perform now to do really well. It would also allow for more diverse builds and not just laser vomit.

What ever happened to the Battletech where having 2 ppc's, 2 ML's and 2 MG's was more the norm and not the rarely found and horribad build.

[xImmortalx]

Burktross, on 04 April 2015 - 07:04 AM, said:

Because there's only a certain amount of leeway allowed in deviation from source material.
Battletech® Game, right?

Really? I always thought that applied to names, and art, not slavishly adhering to some ancient tomes made for a tabletop game that's nowadays only played out of nostalgia.

On a related note, it's extremely depressing to see how many people want MWO to just be their own private nostalgia machine when it could be so much more for so many more people.

[Madcap72]

xImmortalx, on 04 April 2015 - 06:57 AM, said:

Do you think increasingly more draconian restrictions will somehow allow you to relive what happened in those books?

Yes.










If you don't like it, play a differnt stompy robot game?

[Zerstorer Stallin]

Alpha strikes are a symptom of the problem. The only reason its so effective is you can make 6 large laser stalkers, 8 small pulse firestarters. The real problem is the unrestricted mech lab. For those who didn't play the board game no one would let players build their own mech with out restrictions or it was a terrible game and unfun for everyone who didn't "meta chesse" it up. Sound familiar?

We need restriction on what weapons can be replaced by what weapons on mech loadouts, and some sort of hard point restriction based on weight. Firestartes don't need 8 laser points FFS. Stalkers shouldn't be running around with 6 large lasers. It makes MWO more like CoD than a stompy robot of death game it should be. What is amazing is this has been discussed since CLOSED BETA, and PGI is basically ( IMO ) afraid of the back lash from the fly by night players. Mean while on the hard core fans keep drifting away. I was in a clan of over 200 at launch. There is about 12 left and I don't play with them either. Not because I didn't like them but really....why group at all unless you want to play the very BAD CW?

Also someone will chime in and say why do you play still? The answer is the same answer since CLOSED BETA... its the only battletech game left.... if your a fan you play .. and then pray someone in PGI will find a cure for the C.R.I.S. they are inflected with.

[Barantor]

xImmortalx, on 04 April 2015 - 07:44 AM, said:

Really? I always thought that applied to names, and art, not slavishly adhering to some ancient tomes made for a tabletop game that's nowadays only played out of nostalgia.

On a related note, it's extremely depressing to see how many people want MWO to just be their own private nostalgia machine when it could be so much more for so many more people.

I don't want it to be a nostalgia machine, I want it to be a good BATTLETECH representation in video game format which I believe was always the intent of the mechwarrior name.

It could just be hawken/robotech/heavygear if it didn't have battletech associated to it. The reason we have the mechs we do all links back to the lore of the game. It is like if you wanted the base TIE fighters to have shields and said 'screw the lore' to a bunch of folks whose sole reason to play the game is to be in star wars.

[Jaeger Gonzo]

http://mwomercs.com/...oats-and-clans/

Here you got the right answer, but dummy from PGI seams to not get it at all. They did not understood the sh/it, and they admitted it.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Its pretty incredible how long a mech actually lasts when its not lolphawarrior online.

Yesterday in a game in my WHK, I watched as a KGC walked across alpine, got surrounded by myself in a 4x LPL WHK and like 3 other mechs and commenced to last like 30 seconds under concentrated fire from us all. At the end of that game I watched as our last Orion was surrounded by like 4 enemies, firing like mad into him and he lasted almost a minute, every single spot on his mech was stripped, red or missing before he finally died. Ive even seen my own Warhawk get every spot on it stripped and red before finally dying.

[Rebas Kradd]

Recapping the proposed solutions and why they don't work:

* Removing convergence: Customer satisfaction issue for PGI, casual players want their weapons going where they're pointing, most players don't want randomness, also a hitreg issue.

* Hardpoint restrictions: Game is designed around wide-open customization, wouldn't solve the problem anyway.

* Ghost Heat (including the OP's version): Arbitrary, confusing, poorly documented, inelegant.

* Removing Ghost Heat: Customer satisfaction issue for PGI, exacerbates FLPPD combos like 6PPC Stalker.

* Weapon balancing: Impossible with varying hardpoint setups between chassis.

* Battle Value: Yeeeaahhh, just all kinds of problems with that,

Out of all these, I honestly have to say that Ghost Heat is least damaging to the game. All it really requires is for the armchair designers to quit grinding their teeth over things that piss them off.

HOWEVER, there does remain one solution: Lower the heat cap. It's a simple change, requiring no brand-new global systems, and it doesn't even necessarily have to be reduced by all that much. Also, get rid of arm lock, or perhaps keep it as a new cadet perk.

Edited by Rebas Kradd, 05 April 2015 - 09:40 AM.

[Weeny Machine]

xImmortalx, on 04 April 2015 - 07:44 AM, said:

Really? I always thought that applied to names, and art, not slavishly adhering to some ancient tomes made for a tabletop game that's nowadays only played out of nostalgia.

On a related note, it's extremely depressing to see how many people want MWO to just be their own private nostalgia machine when it could be so much more for so many more people.

Actually the TT is still alive and kicking. The rules for the 3025 timeline are, imo, one of the best found in TT games.

[Burktross]

xImmortalx, on 04 April 2015 - 07:44 AM, said:

Really? I always thought that applied to names, and art, not slavishly adhering to some ancient tomes made for a tabletop game that's nowadays only played out of nostalgia.

On a related note, it's extremely depressing to see how many people want MWO to just be their own private nostalgia machine when it could be so much more for so many more people.

You're jumping to conclusions dude. I for one have no nostalgia to possibly base my conclusions off of. Only recently have I started playing TT, and frankly, there are components of it that could go a long way for this game.

[Yokaiko]

Ronyn, on 04 April 2015 - 07:40 AM, said:

Sticking more closely to a 30 max heat scale would allow many mechs that don't perform now to do really well. It would also allow for more diverse builds and not just laser vomit.

Wrong,

You do understand that an Awesome at a full run gained a whooping 4 (7 if you fired the slas for some reason) heat per round in TT that is with its 28 SINGLE heat sinks. Because you added up the heat for the round and then the LEFTOVER was applied to the heat scale.

MWO is real time, so that is the heat cap, more heatsinks more heat cap, exactly the way TT did it just modled in real time.

Where PGI screwed up is that the firing rates are 2.5 (PPC/Guass) to 18 times (AC2) the firing rates against the same 10 second heat cycle. The idea being to keep TTK down, which went over like a **** in a punch bowl EVEN in closed beta with ONLY SHS, people were alphaing parts off of Atlases when there were only 4 mechs in the game.

This is where double armor/structure came into play.

People cry about x3 PPCs now, imagine that against half armor values, in TT you could use an Awesome to basically shut down an entire corner of the map, there wasn't much that could stand up to its raw firepower.

[Spleenslitta]

Night Thastus, on 04 April 2015 - 05:27 AM, said:

There is a far easier solution, one that I and several others will repeat until it is goddamn implemented:
Follow the lore

1: Drop the heat cap (it's currently around 2 to 3 times higher than in lore)
2: Remove ghost heat entirelly
3: Add high penalties for running hot (ghost blips on radar, ammo cooking off and exploding, myomer and actuators slowing down/locking up/etc)

Bam. Entire problem solved like that. It's lore friendly, removes the need for invisible heat, and stops people from alpha-striking because doing so makes your life a nightmare in older games.

Good luck getting PGI to change their minds though. They're so stuck in their ways about ghost heat and the heat cap that they aren't going anywhere but backwards soon.

This is something i've wanted so long. Even though it would hurt my playstyle a lot because i use hot builds i still want this.

Unfortunatly Night Thastus is right. PGI won't do this because they are too focused on ghost heat.
I don't get any ghost heat because i got a bit of everything so i don't mind it, but i still want it gone since it makes no sense.

[Burktross]

Madcap72, on 04 April 2015 - 07:46 AM, said:

Yes.










If you don't like it, play a differnt stompy robot game?

Well, that's the brash way of putting it, but yes.
Immortal, I'm legitimately curious. Have you ever tried TT?