116 replies to this topic

[Serpieri]

Ghost Heat is a broken mechanic - when it was first introduced it was only successfully in penalizing several stock mechs that had sufficient heatsinks to utilize its weapons loadout and brought about the Dakka overloads, which lead to more nerfs, more weapons added to ghost heat, and charge mechanics...and guess what it's still hasn't fixed the problem but it created several problems which resulted into the quirk system to assist mechs like the Awesome so that they can at least be viable but instead those so called quirks were given to a 65 ton mech.... and now we have another rebalance coming...

Some Advice PGI... STOP THE BAND AID - FIX THE HEAT SYSTEM.

[Knight Magus]

Serpieri, on 04 August 2015 - 11:56 AM, said:

Ghost Heat is a broken mechanic - when it was first introduced it was only successfully in penalizing several stock mechs that had sufficient heatsinks to utilize its weapons loadout and brought about the Dakka overloads, which lead to more nerfs, more weapons added to ghost heat, and charge mechanics...and guess what it's still hasn't fixed the problem but it created several problems which resulted into the quirk system to assist mechs like the Awesome so that they can at least be viable but instead those so called quirks were given to a 65 ton mech.... and now we have another rebalance coming...

Some Advice PGI... STOP THE BAND AID - FIX THE HEAT SYSTEM.

Seriously who at PGI decided it was ok for the Thunderbolt to outperform an Awesome?

[IronLichRich]

Or they could fix the heat system.

I don't think a fixed heat cap is a good idea, but starting at 20 then increasing based on the number of heat sinks you have up to a certain number sounds like a place to start.

[Duke Nedo]

No doubt people are unhappy with the heat system in general and ghost heat in particular... but if you assume that the entire heat system will not be redesigned at this stage (pretty fair assumption), how can we improve it?

[Knight Magus]

Duke Nedo, on 04 August 2015 - 02:05 PM, said:

No doubt people are unhappy with the heat system in general and ghost heat in particular... but if you assume that the entire heat system will not be redesigned at this stage (pretty fair assumption), how can we improve it?

Remove Ghost Heat - make double heatsinks true - 30 Heat - add movement/aim penalties and ammo explosions. And let's not forget if you decide to go over the 30 - you better hope your heatsinks can get you back down to 30 or say goodbye to your fusion engine.

[Kaeb Odellas]

I'd like to see a system where every weapon generates ghost heat when it's fired (say 33% of its base heat gen) that fully dissipates in less than a second, regardless of the number of heatsinks you have.

So a Medium Laser would generate 4 heat that is dissipated by heatsinks in the usual fashion and another 1.33 points that dissipate nearly instantly, but will still cause a shutdown and heat damage if it exceeds the maximum. A Large Pulse Laser would generate 7 points of normal heat, and another 2.33 points of ghost heat. This way, we avoid the awkward situation where firing 9 MLs at once generates more heat than firing 6 MLs and 3 LPLs, while still accomplishing the task the original ghost heat system was intended to do, which was to discourage massive alphas ripping apart smaller mechs instantly.

From a technical standpoint, you can explain it as the cooling system taking a second to evenly distribute the heat to the heat sinks, causing damage if the undistributed heat load is too great. It makes far more sense than the current system, at least.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

Duke Nedo, on 04 August 2015 - 10:21 AM, said:

I understand your arguments and having MWO play like that probably wouldn't scare me away... difficult to say if it would be more or less fun for me... but something I do know for certain is that it would be a huge game changer, for good or bad. Therefore I really really doubt that PGI would dare to do something like that this far out of beta for the core game. The core game is like the only thing keeping this game alive still....

Yeah, it's just that I've been looking into what can be tried, and I've been sharing some of my findings as I go along and read what others think.

Duke Nedo, on 04 August 2015 - 02:05 PM, said:

No doubt people are unhappy with the heat system in general and ghost heat in particular... but if you assume that the entire heat system will not be redesigned at this stage (pretty fair assumption), how can we improve it?

Factors I'd look at testing first, out of series of tests. The idea being to set Capacity in stone to mimic the original, then adjust Dissipation and Heat Scale Penalties, to where the Heat System can experience improvements:

Reduce gifted Capacity from 30 down to 14
Disable Heat Containment or transfer bonus to Dissipation
Remove Heat Generation Quirks temporarily for the first stage
Structure in Heat Effects to mimic the original scale
SHS provides
1.0 Capacity and
0.15 Dissipation (up to a total max of 0.20 / 0.25, through testing)
DHS (inside and outside the Engine) provides
2.0 Capacity and
0.3 Dissipation (up to a total max of 0.40 / 0.50, through testing)

So as Dissipation is raised, also make sure that Heat Effects that are tied to Dissipation keep pace, such as Heat from Movement (Walking, Running, Jumping), Environmental effects, effects from weapons and so on.
Ease Heat Scale Penalties as needed, as these new variables are tested out, with the intent of revising the buckets and amount of penalty for them to kick in.
Consider disabling Cool Run and Heat Containment and removing Heat Gen quirks permanently, if Dissipation is tested to work well at 0.20 / 0.25 for SHS and 0.40 / 0.50 for DHS.

This way Capacity remains variable to mounted HS, Dissipation can pick up the slack it is supposed to, and have Heat Scale remain as a minor system for outliers.

---

Examples and Tables of how the existing Meter would display this info below.

Spoiler

So taking the stock AWS-8Q, it would have a max Capacity of 42 to shutdown and Dissipate 4.20 Heat a Second in the first stage of testing. Then if it needs more base dissipation or even Heat Quirks and adjustments to Heat Scale Penalties, apply them ln stages as needed after testing and feedback.

Spoiler

A stock Warhawk Prime would have a max Capacity of 54 to shutdown and Dissipate 6.00 Heat a Second. Then if there is a need for more base dissipation or even Heat Quirks and adjustments to Heat Scale Penalties, apply them in stages as needed after testing and feedback.

Spoiler

[Duke Nedo]

Praetor Knight, on 04 August 2015 - 04:54 PM, said:

Yeah, it's just that I've been looking into what can be tried, and I've been sharing some of my findings as I go along and read what others think.



Factors I'd look at testing first, out of series of tests. The idea being to set Capacity in stone to mimic the original, then adjust Dissipation and Heat Scale Penalties, to where the Heat System can experience improvements:

Reduce gifted Capacity from 30 down to 14
Disable Heat Containment or transfer bonus to Dissipation
Remove Heat Generation Quirks temporarily for the first stage
Structure in Heat Effects to mimic the original scale
SHS provides
1.0 Capacity and
0.15 Dissipation (up to a total max of 0.20 / 0.25, through testing)
DHS (inside and outside the Engine) provides
2.0 Capacity and
0.3 Dissipation (up to a total max of 0.40 / 0.50, through testing)

So as Dissipation is raised, also make sure that Heat Effects that are tied to Dissipation keep pace, such as Heat from Movement (Walking, Running, Jumping), Environmental effects, effects from weapons and so on.
Ease Heat Scale Penalties as needed, as these new variables are tested out, with the intent of revising the buckets and amount of penalty for them to kick in.
Consider disabling Cool Run and Heat Containment and removing Heat Gen quirks permanently, if Dissipation is tested to work well at 0.20 / 0.25 for SHS and 0.40 / 0.50 for DHS.

This way Capacity remains variable to mounted HS, Dissipation can pick up the slack it is supposed to, and have Heat Scale remain as a minor system for outliers.

---

Examples and Tables of how the existing Meter would display this info below.

Spoiler

So taking the stock AWS-8Q, it would have a max Capacity of 42 to shutdown and Dissipate 4.20 Heat a Second in the first stage of testing. Then if it needs more base dissipation or even Heat Quirks and adjustments to Heat Scale Penalties, apply them ln stages as needed after testing and feedback.

Spoiler

A stock Warhawk Prime would have a max Capacity of 54 to shutdown and Dissipate 6.00 Heat a Second. Then if there is a need for more base dissipation or even Heat Quirks and adjustments to Heat Scale Penalties, apply them in stages as needed after testing and feedback.

Spoiler

Nice work!

Just have to say that I believe that this would be quite major changes. Some of it really nice though!

There is one thing though. In my head, boating is a binary thing. If you can do it without penalty, people will do it... So in the examples above, the Warhawk could without any penalty fire 4x cLPL in one 52p alpha at 40 heat, right? The 8Q could fire 4x PPC at 40 heat without any penalty if he started a 0 heat?

Edited by Duke Nedo, 04 August 2015 - 11:27 PM.

[Cerberias]

The reason you don't **** with weapon spread is because random game mechanics have no place in any sort of competitive game. It would instantly kill any competitive aspect this game may have had, any currently going and bar off that aspect of the gaming community from even attempting. All the best e-sports are rarely or very limited in their luck because people want to feel like it's being decided on skill rather than the roll of a die.

That said, I completely agree with some sort of revised ghost heat system, the current one is a pathetic excuse for a mechanic. It's hard to learn for new players, makes little sense, and skews game balance in very specific directions.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

Duke Nedo, on 04 August 2015 - 11:02 PM, said:

Nice work!

Just have to say that I believe that this would be quite major changes. Some of it really nice though!

There is one thing though. In my head, boating is a binary thing. If you can do it without penalty, people will do it... So in the examples above, the Warhawk could without any penalty fire 4x cLPL in one 52p alpha at 40 heat, right? The 8Q could fire 4x PPC at 40 heat without any penalty if he started a 0 heat?

Yeah it could be possible, where the mech would need to be stationary, on a neutral or cold map and would likely struggle on a hot map to fire that many at one time if we no longer have Heat Scale Penalties. But say on the Awesome it would need to strip armor, mount Endo and keep that 240 engine or maybe an XL to have that many SHS and 4 PPCs.

Then if it would carry DHS it would still need to strip armor to fit 4 PPCs and 20 DHS with a bigger Standard engine like say a 275. At that point it would have ~400 armor, and it's Capacity would be 54, the starting Dissipation would be 6.00 and the HPS of four PPCs would be around 10.00 (or higher with any cooldown boosts remaining), so the build would not be able to sustain firing all four for too long and would still need to stagger them.

With four cLPLs the HPS on those would be around ~9.15 and would need like 30 DHS to be Heat Neutral, so a Clan mech, like a custom Warhawk would only be able to fit 28 DHS total, so 8.4 Dissipation and 70 Capacity, which can be problematic.

So potentially, that's where Heat Scale penalties could still stick around with MWO, and where it should determine the penalty according to the damage being dealt instead of applying to exceeding counts for weapons in different buckets. And I think that there can remain one set of Penalties for IS tech and a second set for Clans. (and I'd also look to restore cLPLs to 10 damage each and then maybe shorten duration a tad)

That way I can see the penalty kick in for combos beyond 30 damage, but the added penalty would be different between Clan and IS tech due to the max level of Heat Capacity that can be attained.

---

In my sleepy state, I just thought of the possibility for an alternative, that say only the first 24 DHS provide capacity up to a hard cap of 62 (or pick a lower value as necessary and SHS could be up to a max of 48 SHS to hit the value of 62); the fact that we have poor dubs shows that there can be a split made as necessary, to help with balancing this sort of thing.

And that's why we'd need to test these kinds of ideas out!

[Widowmaker1981]

Knight Magus, on 04 August 2015 - 03:38 PM, said:

Remove Ghost Heat - make double heatsinks true - 30 Heat - add movement/aim penalties and ammo explosions. And let's not forget if you decide to go over the 30 - you better hope your heatsinks can get you back down to 30 or say goodbye to your fusion engine.

So you mean, if you equip a single ERPPC and fire it, EVER, you have -50% movement and a 50% chance to shutdown, plus accuracy modifiers immediately?

That sounds absolutely hilarious, id never equip an energy weapon ever again, laugh my ass off at those who do and blow the crap out of them with heatless AC5s and Gauss.



Maybe people should think this crap through before suggesting we implement an instantaneous 30 heat cap from a game that HAS NO INSTANTANEOUS HEAT CAP BECAUSE ITS NOT REAL TIME, AND THEREFORE DOES NOT NEED ONE!

Edited by Widowmaker1981, 05 August 2015 - 12:42 AM.

[Serpieri]

Widowmaker1981, on 05 August 2015 - 12:39 AM, said:

So you mean, if you equip a single ERPPC and fire it, EVER, you have -50% movement and a 50% chance to shutdown, plus accuracy modifiers immediately?

That sounds absolutely hilarious, id never equip an energy weapon ever again, laugh my ass off at those who do and blow the crap out of them with heatless AC5s and Gauss.



Maybe people should think this crap through before suggesting we implement an instantaneous 30 heat cap from a game that HAS NO INSTANTANEOUS HEAT CAP BECAUSE ITS NOT REAL TIME, AND THEREFORE DOES NOT NEED ONE!

Yeah. that's not how it works. Maybe do some research?

[Black Arachne]

Widowmaker1981, on 05 August 2015 - 12:39 AM, said:

Maybe people should think this crap through before suggesting we implement an instantaneous 30 heat cap from a game that HAS NO INSTANTANEOUS HEAT CAP BECAUSE ITS NOT REAL TIME, AND THEREFORE DOES NOT NEED ONE!

You should follow your own post if you think this can't be applied.

[Widowmaker1981]

Serpieri, on 05 August 2015 - 12:48 AM, said:

Yeah. that's not how it works. Maybe do some research?

You are right - it is NOT how it works. How it works (in TT) is you fire the ERPPC, and your heatsinks dissipate the heat before you check the heat scale. Assuming you had 15 SHS you would dissipate all of the heat and suffer no penalty whatsoever.

However in a real time game, you fire the ERPPC and gain 15 heat instantly, putting you at 15 on the heat scale (following the post i quoted's idea), and causing you to suffer the penalties for being at 15 on the heat scale. See the difference? That is why heatsinks add to heatcap, because that is what they do in TT, as an abstraction.

[Widowmaker1981]

Black Arachne, on 05 August 2015 - 12:58 AM, said:

You should follow your own post if you think this can't be applied.

It obviously COULD be applied, and would just as obviously kill all weapons that generate heat in favour of weapons that do not.

The only way i could see it working would be if, instead of generating heat instantly, weapons generated heat over a set time period, allowing the heat sink dissipation to keep up with the heat generation (Eg fire ERPPC, generate 1.5 heat per second over the next 10 seconds)

[Serpieri]

Widowmaker1981, on 05 August 2015 - 12:59 AM, said:

You are right - it is NOT how it works. How it works (in TT) is you fire the ERPPC, and your heatsinks dissipate the heat before you check the heat scale. Assuming you had 15 SHS you would dissipate all of the heat and suffer no penalty whatsoever.

However in a real time game, you fire the ERPPC and gain 15 heat instantly, putting you at 15 on the heat scale (following the post i quoted's idea), and causing you to suffer the penalties for being at 15 on the heat scale. See the difference? That is why heatsinks add to heatcap, because that is what they do in TT, as an abstraction.

22 DHS - 44 Heat

Real Time - you fire 4 ERPPC's - generating 60 heat - 44 are dissipated - leaving 16 heat over - shutdown check - movement and aim now impaired for when your weapons are off cooldown.

Edited by Serpieri, 05 August 2015 - 01:10 AM.

[Widowmaker1981]

Serpieri, on 05 August 2015 - 01:09 AM, said:

22 DHS - 44 Heat

Real Time - you fire 4 ERPPC's - generating 60 heat - 44 are dissipated - leaving 16 heat over - shutdown check - movement and aim now impaired for when your weapons are off cooldown.

Erm , what?

WHEN is the heat dissipated, if its real time? instantly, somehow? or would the mech spend a brief time at 60 on the heat scale before the heatsinks worked, causing it to instantly die?

[Knight Magus]

Widowmaker1981, on 05 August 2015 - 01:06 AM, said:

It obviously COULD be applied, and would just as obviously kill all weapons that generate heat in favour of weapons that do not.

The only way i could see it working would be if, instead of generating heat instantly, weapons generated heat over a set time period, allowing the heat sink dissipation to keep up with the heat generation (Eg fire ERPPC, generate 1.5 heat per second over the next 10 seconds)

Last time I checked weapons went on a cooldown when fired - now you would have a point if every time I clicked my gun it would fire - leaving no time at all to dissipate.

[Widowmaker1981]

Knight Magus, on 05 August 2015 - 01:19 AM, said:

Last time I checked weapons went on a cooldown when fired - now you would have a point if every time I clicked my gun it would fire - leaving no time at all to dissipate.

The initial 15 heat from the ONE FIRING of the weapon is what i am talking about. Its not about whether the heat is dissiapted before i want to fire again, its about the fact that ever firing your weapon would have a chance to shut you down.

This is an incredibly simple concept and if you dont get it by now i give up.

Please try to understand that TT rules make each turn an abstraction of 10 seconds of time, and thus cannot be directly ported into a real time game without alterations.

Edited by Widowmaker1981, 05 August 2015 - 01:26 AM.

[Serpieri]

Widowmaker1981, on 05 August 2015 - 01:13 AM, said:

Erm , what?

WHEN is the heat dissipated, if its real time? instantly, somehow? or would the mech spend a brief time at 60 on the heat scale before the heatsinks worked, causing it to instantly die?

Your mech would dissipate heat the moment it's gained - in TT all this took place in a single round. Heat Penalties affected the next round or in the case of real time - the moment your ERPPC is off cooldown to fire again.