52 replies to this topic

[heimdelight]

Antares102, on 03 August 2015 - 08:16 AM, said:

Several times PGI has done some experimental and temporary changes to check whether they are feasible.

If you don't mind me asking (if it's already been asked), when have they done this?

The issue with IS PPCs/ERPPCs is their velocity. The issue with cERPPCs is the amount of heat they generate per shot.

Increasing the velocity of IS PPCs would make them more viable, and they only 10 dmg. Slightly decreasing heat gen on cERPPCs would make them more viable, since the velocity they are at/damage they deal is a good trade-off.

[MrJeffers]

heimdelight, on 03 August 2015 - 01:22 PM, said:

If you don't mind me asking (if it's already been asked), when have they done this?

Just guessing but he is probably referring to Ghost Heat changes on AC2s, IS LL, and/or IS CW drop deck change to 250 tons and subsequent reversion back to 240 tons.

[heimdelight]

MrJeffers, on 03 August 2015 - 01:32 PM, said:

Just guessing but he is probably referring to Ghost Heat changes on AC2s, IS LL, and/or IS CW drop deck change to 250 tons and subsequent reversion back to 240 tons.

Yeah, it's definitely not something they do often. And I'm pretty sure the ghost heat for AC2s/ISLLs was changed after months and months of ghost heat being in the game. Upon the introduction of ghost heat, a third large laser caused ghost heat. That change was reverted not too long ago, and ghost heat introduced forever ago.

As for drop deck tonnages, those are probably in a different territory than weapon balance testing.

[MrJeffers]

heimdelight, on 03 August 2015 - 01:39 PM, said:

Yeah, it's definitely not something they do often. And I'm pretty sure the ghost heat for AC2s/ISLLs was changed after months and months of ghost heat being in the game. Upon the introduction of ghost heat, a third large laser caused ghost heat. That change was reverted not too long ago, and ghost heat introduced forever ago.

As for drop deck tonnages, those are probably in a different territory than weapon balance testing.

It hasn't happened very often but when they did the ghost heat testing roll-back on the AC2 and IS LL, they made the changes on the back end servers, not in the game client files. Testing grounds for example would still show the ghost heat affects but real matches would not.
I am not certain of the reasoning behind this; I assume because it would let them make changes without requiring patches pushed out to all the clients which perhaps gave them more flexibility in doing live testing or requiring using the test servers. After it had run on the back end for a few weeks and they gathered the data and feedback then they rolled the changes into the game client files.

[LordKnightFandragon]

1453 R, on 03 August 2015 - 11:43 AM, said:

From my understanding of TT, which is admittedly secondhand and limited...a single 'Mech taking heavy fire from 4 or more enemy 'Mechs all at once does indeed pretty much come apart in a single turn's fire, especially later on when the Sphere closes the Clan tech imbalance and gets things like rotary autocannons, heavy PPCs, and other junk. Hell, park most anything under 60 tons in front of a Devastator and it doesn't take multiple enemies to watch something come apart in a single turn's fire.

Two 'Mechs in MWO fighting a duel can and do take over a minute to kill each other, terrain and player skill dependent. But a single 'Mech taking focused fire from 4+ enemies is taking fire from more weight of weaponry than his entire 'Mech consists of. No amount of durability is going to stand up to that kind of pounding, and nor should it. If someone wants to hang their carcass out in plain sight in front of multiple enemies, swift and fiery death should be his lesson why not doing that is the superior idea.

Yeah and in this game, we get to mount and fire a lance worth of 1 turns fire on a single mech in this game...

6LL Stalkers, TBRs firing 2LL and like 4MLs. The old 6PPC Stalker......

Idk how TT heat works, but im sure even that isnt really possible. And more over, in TT, even if you did fire, I know you wont hit with every shot, as to hit modifiers and location die rolls and all that will almost ensure you dont land every shot in 1 spot. Granted, yes, I know even a fully armored Atlas CT only has like 64 CT and like 32 Internal...which even then isnt much, but its going to last longer then this game, despite double armor values.

Ive had my Warhawk go from full health to missing an entire torso from just a burst or 2 from a single or pair of mechs.....ive had my Hellbringer go from full health to missing an entire section and stripped across 3 in just 2 bursts. This with wildly moving around trying to twist damage away.....all twisting seems to do it let the guy have 3 sections of your mech vs jsut 1........and that is with max armor and doubled MWO armor......I tend to not expose my self to like 10 mechs....and even 1 mech can output insane damage.....

Edited by LordKnightFandragon, 03 August 2015 - 02:48 PM.

[1453 R]

I'm not sure how you expect that to change, really.

In TT, a Devastator has 14 DHS, which means it sinks 28 heat a turn. If I understand the rules properly, that gives it both Gauss rifles (2 heat), both PPCs (20 heat, total 22), and two of its four medium lasers (6 heat, total 28 heat), neutrally. That's a 60-point strike (15 + 15 +10 +10 + 5 +5), which would translate to a 120-point strike in MWO's system, taking into account double armor and such.

A 120-point strike hitting you doesn't need to land all in one spot to absolutely ruin your day. And that Devastator can fire that strike every turn. He can add ten more damage if he wants to risk a few minor heat rolls and get his last two lasers in play. At that point you're basically done, and probably dead.

TT is far more brutal and unforgiving of positioning mistakes than a lot of folks realize. There's a reason Zellbrigen, which basically forces asinine, extremely idiotic play, was considered a proper balance to the overwhelmingly powerful Clan tech back in the day, even if it was one that didn't end up working.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

1453 R, on 03 August 2015 - 03:25 PM, said:

I'm not sure how you expect that to change, really.

Spoiler

In TT, a Devastator has 14 DHS, which means it sinks 28 heat a turn. If I understand the rules properly, that gives it both Gauss rifles (2 heat), both PPCs (20 heat, total 22), and two of its four medium lasers (6 heat, total 28 heat), neutrally. That's a 60-point strike (15 + 15 +10 +10 + 5 +5), which would translate to a 120-point strike in MWO's system, taking into account double armor and such.

A 120-point strike hitting you doesn't need to land all in one spot to absolutely ruin your day. And that Devastator can fire that strike every turn. He can add ten more damage if he wants to risk a few minor heat rolls and get his last two lasers in play. At that point you're basically done, and probably dead.

TT is far more brutal and unforgiving of positioning mistakes than a lot of folks realize. There's a reason Zellbrigen, which basically forces asinine, extremely idiotic play, was considered a proper balance to the overwhelmingly powerful Clan tech back in the day, even if it was one that didn't end up working.

That is also if the mech is stationary since Heat is generated with movement, so typically the MLs would be kept in reserve as a backup, and then the mech would typically have a hard time hitting the same spot with all of the weapons on the same turn unless the target was immobilized some how.

---

But still, there are bunch of things off with MWO. First, Capacity is way too high, Dissipation is actually close to original values with 2x Cool Run boosting it, and weapons pump out way more damage and heat.

Something that should be considered is looking at that original damage rating as damage done over 10 seconds.

So what if we use MWOs cooldowns and have those original values as benchmarks to rescale damage and heat?

Spoiler

(I'm sure there could be other variables adjusted, but keeping weapons feeling the same and adjusting damage and heat is what I think should be tried first, and it doesn't have to be to 100% values, we could easily keep them close to 200%, where many value are currently above 250% and beyond.) Ammo Counts would naturally be adjusted accordingly to keep either the original or MWOs damage per ton.

So at a 4.00 base cooldown that gives us:
Gauss at
6.00 Damage / 0.40 Heat / 20 or 25 shots per ton at that damage
PPCs at
4.00 Damage / 4.00 Heat
MLs with 0.90 duration and 3.00 Cooldown are at
1.95 Damage / 1.17 Heat

A stationary Devastator firing everything together would deal 23.9 damage, generating 11.14 Heat every 4 Seconds.

So it would need DHS Capacity to be at 0.8 each for a total of 11.2 to handle that Heat Spike with it's Heat Sinks. And would need a dissipation of 2.785 to stay Heat Neutral, so DHS Dissipation at 0.2 would provide 2.8 a second and be enough.

Then there could be the added Heat Table added to that where gaining an additional excess heat up to a max of 25.2 would shut the mech down (and would be equal to the value of 14 in the original plus the HS capacity).

So if armor stays at doubled values such a combo from a single mech should still be devastating and even more so if armor gets undoubled, plus existing opportunities for quirks, Mech Tree Efficiencies and Modules would further increase the rate that damage is applied and have the Heat Table be climbed if firing too much.

Another example, an Annihilator with 41 SHS and 4 PPCs, firing every 4 seconds that 16 would need Capacity to be at 0.4 per SHS for a total of 16.4, and a dissipation of 0.1 would be enough to handle the PPCs with a Dissipation of 4.10 against an HPS of 4.00. The main deal is that it is only dealing 4 damage each PPC to a total of 16 with MWO's convergence.

The AWS-8Q with 28 SHS would have be able to handle 11.2 Heat against a generated 12 from three PPCs, so repeatedly firing three would climb the scale. And the base Dissipation of 2.80 is just 0.2 below the HPS value of 3.00.

The Warhawk Prime with 20 DHS would have a Capacity of 16 before registering excess heat, so firing 2x cERPPCs would generate 12 Heat, three would be 18 Heat. And a Dissipation of 4.00 would handle a firing pattern that would alternate between two and three cERPPCs.

The Adder Prime would be able to safely fire a Single cERPPC with it's HS Capacity of 8.8 and 2.2 Dissipation, and occasionally fit in the second one.

---

So those values are basically keeping them to the metric of their Damage rating being over 10 seconds. And since MWO currently has so much doubled, we could possibly see values like:
Gauss 12 Damage / 0.8 Heat / 4.00 Cooldown | PPCs 8 Damage / 8 Heat / 4.00 Cooldown and so on.

Otherwise we could see SHS Capacity stay at 1.0, DHS stay at 2.0 and reduce the gifted 30 to 14 and have Dissipation doubled to better match our damage and heat output.

So, whatever the case may be, the main thing for me is that it is all too common to see mechs fire until shutdown, and do so multiple times, it just bugs me and also promotes the shoot and hide style and fire all the things styles, when the Heat Scale and generous Heat values allows excessive damage output. If this was simply two players controlling various forces then sure lets just run with it. But since we are in 12 v 12 matches controlling the actual mechs and have various imbalances, then we need to explore ideas to improve MWO.

17 DHS currently can provide a Capacity of 71.76. If we look at 2 LPLs and 6 MLs, that's an Alpha of 52 damage for 38, just as high as can be seen with Clan weapons (where cLPLs really never needed an extra 3 damage and so on for various weapons). And in such a case Heat Scale does not affect this weapon combo.

If we did not see a gifted 30 to capacity, instead saw 14, and had Heat Contain not boost Capacity, that value would be 48 (43.8 with poor dubs). Also, if that was 10 Heat LPLs and 3 Heat MLs, it still would be 38 Heat, but Lights and Mediums using MLs, stuck with poor dubs, that also that would not carry more than one LPL would benefit from the original 3 Heat also.

So I'd expect to see some improvements with tweaks to the Heat System, and then possibly allow further weapons rebalancing from there.

[Y E O N N E]

heimdelight, on 03 August 2015 - 01:22 PM, said:

If you don't mind me asking (if it's already been asked), when have they done this?

The issue with IS PPCs/ERPPCs is their velocity. The issue with cERPPCs is the amount of heat they generate per shot.

Increasing the velocity of IS PPCs would make them more viable, and they only 10 dmg. Slightly decreasing heat gen on cERPPCs would make them more viable, since the velocity they are at/damage they deal is a good trade-off.

You've lost me there; IS and Clan ER PPCs have precisely the same velocity and precisely the same heat gen. If you are counting the quirks, including them in an analysis is not going to provide an accurate report of how the weapon itself performs.

[Moldur]

Clan PPCs are just so damn hot. Many times a PPC build has become a "Slap 2 cLPLs on there" build.

If they did do 15 damage pinpoint, it might affect that decision.

Edited by Moldur, 03 August 2015 - 11:24 PM.

[Weeny Machine]

1453 R, on 03 August 2015 - 11:43 AM, said:

From my understanding of TT, which is admittedly secondhand and limited...a single 'Mech taking heavy fire from 4 or more enemy 'Mechs all at once does indeed pretty much come apart in a single turn's fire, especially later on when the Sphere closes the Clan tech imbalance and gets things like rotary autocannons, heavy PPCs, and other junk. Hell, park most anything under 60 tons in front of a Devastator and it doesn't take multiple enemies to watch something come apart in a single turn's fire.

Really? Depends how good the people playing are. If people are smart enough to position themselves that way that the opponent gets a lot of negative modifiers, the mech survives easily if the RNG gods are not totally against you.

Last we played (3025 timeline) a mech survived 3 turns against the focus fire of 3 mechs. The trick was to have the other position themselves that way that no one was able to reach close range without being focused themselves.

In MWO it is different: you will get hit. Especially thanks to idiotic high laser spam alphas.

[LordKnightFandragon]

1453 R, on 03 August 2015 - 03:25 PM, said:

I'm not sure how you expect that to change, really.

In TT, a Devastator has 14 DHS, which means it sinks 28 heat a turn. If I understand the rules properly, that gives it both Gauss rifles (2 heat), both PPCs (20 heat, total 22), and two of its four medium lasers (6 heat, total 28 heat), neutrally. That's a 60-point strike (15 + 15 +10 +10 + 5 +5), which would translate to a 120-point strike in MWO's system, taking into account double armor and such.

A 120-point strike hitting you doesn't need to land all in one spot to absolutely ruin your day. And that Devastator can fire that strike every turn. He can add ten more damage if he wants to risk a few minor heat rolls and get his last two lasers in play. At that point you're basically done, and probably dead.

TT is far more brutal and unforgiving of positioning mistakes than a lot of folks realize. There's a reason Zellbrigen, which basically forces asinine, extremely idiotic play, was considered a proper balance to the overwhelmingly powerful Clan tech back in the day, even if it was one that didn't end up working.

We do so by in a way forgetting about TT 10s or w/e. Instead, keep the double armor, give us a low cap heat scale with lesser dissipation, longer Cool downs, based on the size and power dmg/heat ratio of the weapons, wiht GR, AC20 being some of the longest CD, but best heat/dmg ratio weapons. THen PPCs being just behind them in CD. Make it where, sure, you can mount all those guns, but you might not be able to realistically, or safely fire them all, all the time, like we have it now.

More like Clix from wizkids, you typically could fire 1 time, depending on if your assaulting or not, maybe 2 at max and your stopping for a turn to cool off and clear your heat. Heat was a severely limiting factor in that game, and really, it should be here to. Were not firing 7.62mm LMGs...were firing 120-150mm several ton anti battlemech weaponry, that should be really hot and actually take awhile to cool down.

If Wizkids had followed the MWO theme of making heat so trivial, a Hellstar, which in that game had upwards of a possible 10 dmg per shot, would be totally dominating. As it was, the Hellstar was severely limited by heat, having an insanely poor heat dial, getting checks on its 2nd click after green. Most mechs had Green, clear, clear, some had amazing heat, green, clear, clear, clear....

and in Clix, shutting down basically meant death in the following turn. FOr all people hated about that game, I loved its overall playstyle. Heat was a seriously limiting factor to heavy firepower.

THat would be how i would expect it to change. Not nerfing the damage on the weapons, but lowering how much we can safely sustain and output, with a heavy emphasis on heat management.

Bush Hopper, on 04 August 2015 - 12:18 AM, said:

Really? Depends how good the people playing are. If people are smart enough to position themselves that way that the opponent gets a lot of negative modifiers, the mech survives easily if the RNG gods are not totally against you.

Last we played (3025 timeline) a mech survived 3 turns against the focus fire of 3 mechs. The trick was to have the other position themselves that way that no one was able to reach close range without being focused themselves.

In MWO it is different: you will get hit. Especially thanks to idiotic high laser spam alphas.

And PP, and double ranges, so your never really out ranged...

[Widowmaker1981]

People saying our heat system is not harsh and allows way more firepower than TT are just wrong.

EBJ-PRIME

That mech, in MWO, is hotter than the sun and overheats on the 3rd refire. In TT, it generates 46 heat from firing all of its weapons and dumps 50 heat every turn from its heatsinks. it is 100% heat neutral and can literally never suffer any adverse penalties from heat in TT, and that is taking into account the worse damage/heat stats from TT.

Tell me again how TTs heat system is harsher than MWOs? Its ridiculously easy to build heat neutral mechs in TT.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Widowmaker1981, on 04 August 2015 - 03:07 AM, said:

People saying our heat system is not harsh and allows way more firepower than TT are just wrong.

EBJ-PRIME

That mech, in MWO, is hotter than the sun and overheats on the 3rd refire. In TT, it generates 46 heat from firing all of its weapons and dumps 50 heat every turn from its heatsinks. it is 100% heat neutral and can literally never suffer any adverse penalties from heat in TT, and that is taking into account the worse damage/heat stats from TT.

Tell me again how TTs heat system is harsher than MWOs? Its ridiculously easy to build heat neutral mechs in TT.

After hearing about how TT heat system works, I can see how it to is basically nothing as well.....except it does have more penalties if you somehow end the turn with heat.....

I like the Clix heat system better.....instant and sometimes fatal consequences for poor heat management.