342 replies to this topic

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Koniving, on 06 February 2017 - 08:43 AM, said:

Now? The 6 has positive quirks... and the others...really don't have much if anything.

Huh, you may want to recheck the quirks for all those arms.
The Prime only gives 5 structure per arm.
The S has 9 structure per arm and gives a bonus of -5 heat gen for pulse (and with the 2E Breaker torso pod you can mount 9 cSPLs with these arms).
The A gives 9 armor per arm, 15% ERPPC velocity, and -6% ERPPC heat gen which still makes it the best pods for working with torsos.

Koniving, on 06 February 2017 - 08:43 AM, said:

However, imagine if this was the only set that could hold Heavy Medium Lasers?

You realize the Nova H will be a thing at some point right, which if memory serves has 5 HMLs in each arm.



Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of sized hardpoints, just not for the same reasons because it won't fix boating (what happens when we get things like the Blood Asp or Hellfire?).

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 06 February 2017 - 09:05 AM.

[cazidin]

Hey, Andi, I think I stole one of your ideas this time!

[Koniving]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 06 February 2017 - 09:03 AM, said:

Huh, you may want to recheck the quirks for all those arms.
The Prime only gives 5 structure per arm.
The S has 9 structure per arm and gives a bonus of -5 heat gen for pulse (and with the 2E Breaker torso pod you can mount 9 cSPLs with these arms).
The A gives 9 armor per arm, 15% ERPPC velocity, and -6% ERPPC heat gen which still makes it the best pods for working with torsos.

When they first came out for the positive, negative, etc.
You know, back when the Timber Wolf was loaded with negative quirks but you could get positive quirks on the arms with just one energy hardpoint?
Or when the Dire Wolf's single weapon arms had quirks really buffing them, giving you a reason to carry one of them to buff you.

Though you are correct, there are some quirks now which I had assumed didn't exist since on most of omnipods they don't exist still. My Summoners feel really let down that most of the single hardpoint options have almost nothing going for them for so long that I'm afraid to even look to see if they have anything now.

But now compare to something like 8 months back... Most of them stopped having quirks in favor of just the most. Currently there are no real quirks on most of the limbs for the Dire Wolf, but it used to be some 8 months ago that only the limbs with the most hardpoints had any quirks left to make handling so many easier... but when first released those had negative quirks, and the "few" had positive quirks.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 06 February 2017 - 09:03 AM, said:

You realize the Nova H will be a thing at some point right, which if memory serves has 5 HMLs in each arm.

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of sized hardpoints, just not for the same reasons because it won't fix boating (what happens when we get things like the Blood Asp or Hellfire?).

We'll never have a true fix to boating without a complete overhaul of the game from scratch... and even then you will still have some boating because some mechs are built specifically to boat.

Some mechs and vehicles are built to carry many of the same thing, I mean look at the SRM Carrier.

It isn't meant as a fix to boating, it's meant as a control. Ghost heat alone is also not meant to fix boating, it's a control to keep it from going overboard. Though the Dire Star shows that it doesn't work. And then there's this. And while that isn't as possible now, the fact is it shows that the current heat system is heavily flawed. We were supposed to instantly die if we get X% above 100%. But if we surpass that value drastically, we stay alive... and we keep ticking. For a bit it was actually true that you'd lose a percentage of health rather than a whole number, allowing you to Dire Star again...and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again...

We know PGI has little interest in actually fixing or even messing with the heat system. Sadly.
So what we need are more controls to reduce or prevent exploits.

And hey, the H is a given situation that is bound to happen. Combined with ghost heat that will do something. You'd only be able to do it with the H's arms or by using an H... breaking the 8/8 quirks, and the H's 8/8 quirks can be less generous.
But without that control, we'd have Primes running around with 12 of them + 8/8 quirk generosity as well as exploiting the quirks that might be on the prime arms.

See where I am going with this? It also better controls what quirks you can exploit. Though I'm aware that quirks will depend on the skill tree system soon.

In which... the H limbs can allow deadlier weapons...with something to keep you from truly exploiting them even with all your stacked quirks.

We don't need a repeat of 50% colder weapons stacked at 5 to 10 of them at a time.

You must remember, this game is beyond fixing. There is nothing that they can do to fix it that wouldn't upset the community.

Spoiler

A new player I meant recently has already spent a hundred or so bucks on MWO collecting stuff that he likes. Turns he was a Battletech fan and asked when we'd get melee. I showed him a simple clip that was less than a minute long in which an Atlas's fist collides with my cockpit and knocks me down, with some gameplay. He asked me why the game looked so much better back then. I asked "Do you mean graphically?" He said no, "Gameplay." He told me he was amazed at how quickly the heat bar filled and cooled off and that none of the bad things with 6 to 8 lasers firing at once would be possible with it like was in that video. That the missile mechanics looked awesome. That the pace of the game was much more tenable and wanted to know if I had more... I even showed him videos of the problems from back then, from Streaks missing due to using actual physics instead of defying them, to teleporting from knockdowns, to prolonged bouts between assaults that in his words "Feels like two battleships slugging it out." And then he asked, "I want to play that game. It played a lot more like a sim than an arcade shooter."

If we give him and Battletech fans what they want, there's a lot of people who like the game the way it is and will be unhappy.

No matter what, there is no fixing this game.
There is only controlling it. Reducing exploits, reducing the many problems caused by PGI's interpretation of Battletech. After all, this ultimately is a "translation" of tabletop that was very poorly read into, throwing out many of the things that John Weisman had helped them with (

Spoiler

compare these trailers to MWO...


Charging PPCs due to field inhibitors; note that PPC capacitors would allow for longer charges; however charging PPCs has been a game mechanic since 1995 in the game Mechwarrior 3050, and a lore mechanic long before PPC capacitors became a thing, in time periods before they existed. The sheerly epic damage that they cause compared even to AC/10s on a per shot basis also tells us that PPCs are front loaded, unlike ACs and even lasers with their 0.1 to 0.2 second beams. Note that supposed AC/10... isn't devastating the War Hammer like its PPCs are to the Atlas. Ultimately it is the mass of missiles that is. After all, missiles are front loaded. ACs are not. Lasers are not. Bam, there goes all of our 72 damage in one shot issues. But PGI threw that out in favor of "surely 20 damage per round must mean 20 damage per shot."

When a round is basically a cassette or magazine.

Bam. Just got rid of the need for ghost heat. And for double armor/structure.
In fact, got rid of the complete reliance on XL engines.
This could easily flip the entire game upside down. But a "fix" of this level basically requires redoing the game almost from scratch.

) in favor of "Big cannons" "Massive damage" and a bunch of **** that makes no freaking sense, throwing 30+ years of balance, imperfect as it already was, right out the window.

All we can do is control it.
There's nothing else we could expect. And even controlling it might be too much to expect.

At least with sized hardpoints, PGI would have an even bigger selling point that could sell more mechs.

Edited by Koniving, 06 February 2017 - 10:52 AM.

[Koniving]

MechaBattler, on 06 February 2017 - 12:17 AM, said:

It's not really an exploit if you choose to take the heat penalty. You're just choosing to work with the extra heat. Unless someone is hacking, it's not really an exploit.

Sadly we probably won't get a rework on it any time soon. Since the playerbase is super against anything that messes with Alphawarrior Online.

Direstar.
That heat penalty throws it to over 1,300% heat when comparing that build to the heat it generates.
That is an exploit.
Especially when a number between 200 and 250% is supposed to instantly kill us.

However, if you go beyond that number so astronomically.... you can't just "instantly die."

So when one player using twin AC/20s dies instantly from doing it 3 or 4 times in a row...

While another can fire 13 Clan ER PPCs at the same time and NOT die the first time...and for a while... not die ever (now it's the second time).... there is an exploit.

All you need to do is make sure your shot will go past the instant kill point so dramatically that it doesn't kick in.

Edit: Admittedly the exploit is in the heat system, not ghost heat itself.
But because of this exploit, ghost heat doesn't work. In fact, it enables the exploit.

Edited by Koniving, 06 February 2017 - 10:45 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Koniving, on 06 February 2017 - 10:42 AM, said:

That heat penalty throws it to over 1,300% heat when comparing that build to the heat it generates.
That is an exploit.

That's not an exploit because that build is untenable thanks to that heat it generates. Sure they could make it auto-explode when you reach a high enough percentage (like at 150% heat), but the point is that it hurts the DPS of a build that tries to boat and that is the most important aspect in encouraging mixed builds.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Koniving, on 06 February 2017 - 10:15 AM, said:

My Summoners feel really let down that most of the single hardpoint options have almost nothing going for them for so long that I'm afraid to even look to see if they have anything now.

That's because people were using those quirks from those single hardpoints and combining them with the torso mounts. That's why many of those quirks got moved to the torso pods.

Koniving, on 06 February 2017 - 10:15 AM, said:

But now compare to something like 8 months back... Most of them stopped having quirks in favor of just the most. Currently there are no real quirks on most of the limbs for the Dire Wolf, but it used to be some 8 months ago that only the limbs with the most hardpoints had any quirks left to make handling so many easier... but when first released those had negative quirks, and the "few" had positive quirks.

That's because they decided they wouldn't do negative quirks, and on a mech that is at the very least performing above average, the idea of giving it positive quirks just isn't really entertained. Don't get me wrong, I kinda wish they had given them more flavor or would entertain giving those single hardpoint sections quirks, but it becomes really hard to balance. Which is partially why I think they should either ditch the mister potatohead concept or just give hardpoint inflation to pods that are poor performing.

Koniving, on 06 February 2017 - 10:15 AM, said:

We'll never have a true fix to boating without a complete overhaul of the game from scratch... and even then you will still have some boating because some mechs are built specifically to boat.

That's because boating isn't necessarily a problem, it is a problem when every mech tries to/can boat and it is the optimal way to build mechs.

Koniving, on 06 February 2017 - 10:15 AM, said:

Though the Dire Star shows that it doesn't work.

The Dire Star is proof it does work because it is a joke build that dies after one shot........whether it dies instantly or not, it still dies.

Koniving, on 06 February 2017 - 10:15 AM, said:

we'd have Primes running around with 12 of them + 8/8 quirk generosity as well as exploiting the quirks that might be on the prime arms.

You won't see Primes running around with 12 of them because you can only fit 5 in the arm.....I know you are trying to use it as an example, but you will probably want to find a different example.

Koniving, on 06 February 2017 - 10:15 AM, said:

At least with sized hardpoints, PGI would have an even bigger selling point that could sell more mechs.

This I agree with, more restrictions allow for more diversity and flavor with regards to chassis choices, but they also need to reduce the variant count by a lot.

[Andi Nagasia]

as i said Heavy lasers as ive described them, as i hope they are implemented can be balanced with Ghost heat,
you wouldnt fire 12 HSL if its ganna shut you down, it leaves you open and easy to get killed,

[Koniving]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 06 February 2017 - 11:03 AM, said:

That's because people were using those quirks from those single hardpoints and combining them with the torso mounts. That's why many of those quirks got moved to the torso pods.

Their solution is to instead quirk mainly multiple-hardpoints rather than single hardpoints... that isn't an improvement, at least the single hardpoint would reduce how many weapons they had.

My solution to that came up many times over during the past few years. Lock Quirks To Specific Limbs.
If X quirk for an ER PPC is designed to encourage you to use an ER PPC... then lock it to the limb that has the ER PPC, and let it be nowhere else.
The Thunderbolt is a prime example of this. 50% cooler heat generation. "O_O! ZOMG! Must have!" went the community.
But.... Nope.
We instead threw on 3 to 5 or however many we felt we could get away with, pushed ghost heat because laugh in its face when it is neutered by 50%... and just freaking wreck ****... requiring buffs to the Clans to compensate... which now PGI is feeling the heat from even though it is misdirected at the engines. Having used Clan mechs after the heat change, it really is fairly punishing and we do not need to homogeneous the game any worse than it is. It needs flavor for the two sides beyond a HUD color change. So, what if quite simply the quirk was only effective on that one hardpoint on that one limb and nowhere else?

Furthermore, what if it wasn't weapon specific? So if you wanted to do something stupid like a small pulse laser, go right the heck ahead... But at least there's nothing encouraging you to boat the crap out of what is so overbuffed that you still have less heat than someone who didn't have quirks and fewer of that weapon.

Quote

The Dire Star is proof it does work because it is a joke build that dies after one shot........whether it dies instantly or not, it still dies.

It didn't used to. They had to fix that after a year.
As I said, it originally could do it again and again to a record of 7 times, if you are willing to wait 2 minutes between each shot to cool off (and this was actually with a 6 ER PPC Stalker). The Stalker could do it since 2014, but of course waiting that long was a pain. It took 'higher' punishment, the release of Clans, the astronomical hardpoint inflation (or in this case just combining so many hardpoints), and the exploitation of the heat system to allow the Dire Star to get away with it 6 times originally and with significantly less wait (we quickly learned that if we did the 2 minute wait we died automatically once we cooled to what was estimated to be around 250% heat), so often we did less than 10 seconds of waiting in between and only died because our cherry red torso and lack of armor proved a nice meal to a bored Locust that we missed.

Now it dies anyway, because the "%" health reduction oversight was fixed to a fixed amount, preventing the Catch 22 of having lost 90% of 90% of 90% of 90% of 90% of 90% of 90% of 90% of 90% of 90% of 90% of 90% (endless loop) of 1 HP. That fix didn't happen until somewhere in 2015. Then it became a true joke build, rather than a viable troll build.

--

I came here because I thought I saw an example of ammo explosion without damage from one of my closed beta videos, but after rewatching just now I realized it was just out of bounds.

I'll keep looking. Unfortunately because of the NDA of half of closed beta I didn't keep most of my vids that I realized after the ban was lifted because I was afraid I'd get in trouble for them. It'd be a lot easier to find examples if that wasn't the case (I know one of them included a damaged actuator, the famous assumed "convergence glitch" where a damaged left arm was firing way off to the side with the other three medium lasers instead of on target... while using a Catapult K2.)

Seriously though. If they brought that one detail of the old heat system back, where components (not just ammo but all components) could receive damage for riding high levels of heat (I would say 80% and higher, having it start in decimals and accumulate to a whole point per second on a random piece of equipment as you go up) would do some serious wonderment in deterring weapon setups that accrue massive heat, as well as make heat management matter that much more.

---------

Andi Nagasia, on 07 February 2017 - 03:29 PM, said:

as i said Heavy lasers as ive described them, as i hope they are implemented can be balanced with Ghost heat,
you wouldnt fire 12 HSL if its ganna shut you down, it leaves you open and easy to get killed,

As you described them though, and with ghost heat as it is...
You can fire 12 HSL with a ten DHS mech (elited under current skill tree) 0.5 seconds apart and not get shut down because you fall below the shutdown threshold, even with standard ghost heat -- since standard ghost heat wouldn't apply due to the firing circumstance.
Just as you can with 12 smalls.
Sure it is pretty warm. Dauntingly so if we were to factor in engine heat and a hotter map.
But it won't shut you down, because you can fire them in sets of 6.
In fact, (without ghost heat) you'd hit 76% heat for a 10 DHS Nova firing them all at once. With that 0.5 second cooling in between... well I was a little slower but I didn't even hit 70%.

My point is you're not seeing my point. The ghost heat is meaningless as a control, you have 72 damage going down range in no greater than 1.5 seconds depending on beam times, less than given your descriptions.
This is assuming that heat is buffed up to 4 per laser akin to how PGI treats small and medium laser weaponry by adding 1 heat to each weapon's stock.
As such... ghost heat is irrelevant, and the damage still remains.
Basically we're talking about near-instant death of ANY Inner Sphere mech anything short of assaults via side torso shot, and even then a headshot by ONE of these sets of 6 would nearly instantly kill ANYONE.

In the exampled Nova H from Quicksilver's argument... If we did have a hardpoint system that was sized, and could lock/restrain such things...
Then at least one arm of the Nova would only produce 30 damage instead of 36, not instantly killing "anything" by way of a single arm due to a limit of 5 HSL instead of 6.

Even if we conjured up some ghost heat exception, say limiting 5 or 4 or 3... then would it be an exception that excludes regular ER small lasers? You could just pair them and do that much better. If it did include, would the limit now be lower than 6 for small lasers?

Ghost heat isn't the answer to every problem. In fact it is hardly an answer at all, just a step of control that is by PGI's own admission in need of a "2.0" revamp.

Edited by Koniving, 11 February 2017 - 11:18 AM.

[Y E O N N E]

Koniving, on 11 February 2017 - 11:13 AM, said:

The Thunderbolt is a prime example of this. 50% cooler heat generation. "O_O! ZOMG! Must have!" went the community.
But.... Nope.
We instead threw on 3 to 5 or however many we felt we could get away with, pushed ghost heat because laugh in its face when it is neutered by 50%... and just freaking wreck ****... requiring buffs to the Clans to compensate... which now PGI is feeling the heat from even though it is misdirected at the engines. Having used Clan mechs after the heat change, it really is fairly punishing and we do not need to homogeneous the game any worse than it is. It needs flavor for the two sides beyond a HUD color change. So, what if quite simply the quirk was only effective on that one hardpoint on that one limb and nowhere else?

You've got your history all wrong here. The Thunderbolt 9S had its god-mode ERPPC quirks for all of about two weeks, after which point they got nerf-hammered. ER PPC remain usable on it in pairs, but you haven't seen ER PPC Thuds proliferating the battlefields at all since then. The TDR-5SS with the MPLs lasted a fair while longer, and I would say it was perhaps a bit overly potent with 351 meter MPL, but after the range reduction to 297 it was fine.

At no point did PGI ever buff the Clans to compensate for Thunderbolts. Not even once. I don't even think them setting the two DHS equal to each other has anything to do with trying to buff Clans against the IS except to streamline the system and allow them to focus on alternative methods that are in development.

[SlyJJ]

Andi, I think we're all eagerly awaiting the new tech- but how are the IS UAC's going to work for the filler tech? Will they be two shots as per IS tech, or quad shots like the Clan UACs?

Also I'd kill for a Fafnir, and I'm willing to pay if you're willing to accept bribes....

[Andi Nagasia]

SlyJJ, on 12 February 2017 - 03:28 PM, said:

Andi, I think we're all eagerly awaiting the new tech- but how are the IS UAC's going to work for the filler tech? Will they be two shots as per IS tech, or quad shots like the Clan UACs?

Also I'd kill for a Fafnir, and I'm willing to pay if you're willing to accept bribes....

im assuming the IS UACs will work like their Clan Counterparts,
the change being i think they will fire 1 less Shell per UAC Burst,
(UAC2=1Shell)(UAC5=1Shell)(UAC10=2Shell)(UAC20=3Shell)

Edited by Andi Nagasia, 12 February 2017 - 08:16 PM.

[SlyJJ]

Andi Nagasia, on 12 February 2017 - 04:36 PM, said:

im assuming the IS UACs will work like their Clan Counterparts,
the change being i think they will fire 1 less Shell per UAC Burst,
(UAC2=1Shell)(UAC5=1Shell)(UAC10=1Shell)(UAC20=1Shell)

Something tells me you didn't mean to suggest all UAC's would fire one shell.... I'm guessing UAC10s and 20s for IS will fire 3 shots rather than 4?

[Andi Nagasia]

SlyJJ, on 12 February 2017 - 06:04 PM, said:

Something tells me you didn't mean to suggest all UAC's would fire one shell.... I'm guessing UAC10s and 20s for IS will fire 3 shots rather than 4?

oops my mistake Copy Past Error, it should be
(UAC2=1Shell)(UAC5=1Shell)(UAC10=2Shell)(UAC20=3Shell)

[SlyJJ]

Andi Nagasia, on 12 February 2017 - 08:16 PM, said:

oops my mistake Copy Past Error, it should be
(UAC2=1Shell)(UAC5=1Shell)(UAC10=2Shell)(UAC20=3Shell)

Ok great. Question now become will the IS UAC's occupy more critical spaces? Something like a UAC would make the king crab a viable brawler, but if it occupies more crit spaces you wont be abl to mount them on the arms of any IS mech.

[Y E O N N E]

SlyJJ, on 13 February 2017 - 12:10 PM, said:

Ok great. Question now become will the IS UAC's occupy more critical spaces? Something like a UAC would make the king crab a viable brawler, but if it occupies more crit spaces you wont be abl to mount them on the arms of any IS mech.

Only the UAC/2 and 5 occupy more slots than their standard counterparts.

[Andi Nagasia]

Yeonne Greene, on 13 February 2017 - 01:56 PM, said:

Only the UAC/2 and 5 occupy more slots than their standard counterparts.

Personally im hoping they model all the LBX off of the IS LBX 10(-1 Crit -1Ton)

[Metus regem]

Andi Nagasia, on 08 March 2017 - 02:03 PM, said:

Personally im hoping they model all the LBX off of the IS LBX 10(-1 Crit -1Ton)

Doesn't work for the LB-2.... As the normal AC/2 is 1 crit...

I'd be happy so long as the LB-2 doesn't tke 300% more crit space than the normal AC/2, other wise it is going to be overly punished in MWO, thanks to how MWO never implemented LB's correctly. And I'm not talking about ammo switching, rather canister shot, not a shot-gun effect...

[Andi Nagasia]

Metus regem, on 08 March 2017 - 02:10 PM, said:

Doesn't work for the LB-2.... As the normal AC/2 is 1 crit...

I'd be happy so long as the LB-2 doesn't tke 300% more crit space than the normal AC/2, other wise it is going to be overly punished in MWO, thanks to how MWO never implemented LB's correctly. And I'm not talking about ammo switching, rather canister shot, not a shot-gun effect...

I know that,
but i mean 1Crit 5Tons, could help with its viability,

and would also help balance LBXs with single Shot IS ACs,

[Metus regem]

Andi Nagasia, on 08 March 2017 - 02:23 PM, said:

I know that,
but i mean 1Crit 5Tons, could help with its viability,

and would also help balance LBXs with single Shot IS ACs,

If it's 1 crit 5t is better, but still less of a choice should the LAC/2 be made available.

[J0anna]

You forgot reactive and reflective armor which should reduce it's respective damage (Both available by 3063), each can reduce it's respective damage by 50%.

RACs should work like a gauss, the longer it charges, the more slugs it expels. A RAC 5 can shoot up to 6 slugs (each doing 5 damage) so a fully charger RAC would do 30 damage, but might take 2 seconds to fully charge, Imagine a Mauler with 4xRAC 5's...120 to the face.

Actually you might be able to get 4xMRM 40's on a Stalker (7 crits each)....yum.

When the IS gets ER lasers, all ER lasers should go back to 2x range, since clans can never mount regular lasers, regular lasers should be relegated to the dust heap.

Mcgral18, on 12 July 2015 - 07:06 PM, said:

Your Heavy Lasers are simply too fantastic...they're nearly double the performance of their IS normal counterparts.

Heavies should have longer burn times than Pulse Lasers!


Keep their TT optimal range, but drop their falloff damage to 0.5, so the HML deals 10 damage at 270M, but nothing at 405M (while an unquirked isML will deal 2.5)

Increase their burn time to slightly above their ER counterparts (aside from the ERLL).

NO!!! The whole purpose of creating new weapons was to make mechs more lethal. Weapon advancement should NOT be more of the same. Nobody should expect a Abrams Tank to perform like a Grant. You develop the new weapons to be better than the old weapons, not more of the same with a different colored beam/projectile.

For those who whine about TTK (not me, I'm fine with current TTK, or even reduced), make the bonuses in the armor/structure tree more effective, so you spend more there and less in weapons.