223 replies to this topic

[Lyoto Machida]

Apnu, on 25 September 2015 - 12:17 PM, said:

I f*cking wish!

If we had to suffer slower, sluggish mechs, possible ammo cook-offs, and had targeting issues as we pushed up the heat scale before shutting down, we'd see an end to min/maxing boats. And that would be a good thing.

E-sports, bruh...

[CDLord HHGD]

FupDup, on 25 September 2015 - 12:19 PM, said:

Actually I suspect that you would instead see those min-maxing boats trying to find the best way to sidestep the system that they can. This is what happens with any balancing change, people just shift to new meta builds.

For the current meta, that means Gauss Rifles for high PPFLD damage at extreme ranges for no heat.

Two Gauss, let alone 4 Gauss, is AWFULLY expensive to any mech...... Weight and crits.... There aren't too many out there. The Gauss charge desyncs PPCs (though macros are used, that's another topic for discussion). If it's abused, additional measures can be taken. Again..

cdlord, on 25 September 2015 - 05:02 AM, said:

Now, is a 30 point threshold correct? Are my penalties too severe? I have no idea. This is a proposal for discussion.

[Apnu]

Lyoto Machida, on 25 September 2015 - 12:16 PM, said:

Revert ammo back to TT levels and you'd be more inclined to have to carry backup energy weapons. Not sure how many weapons got increased ammo counts aside from the AC10/20 but still...

Also, revert heat back to TT levels and get rid of ghost heat. Why are IS MLs still at 4 heat???

Further to that we could have true DHS again too. if our heat sinks consumed the heat of firing, moving, and jumping like they do in TT, so its safe run up to a certain number before we hit the scale, many of the questions here would be moot.

What people don't understand is the BT heat scale was taken after heat sinks were used in the heat phase. So if you had 10 single heat sinks and your movement plus weapons fire chewed up 12, you only went up 2 points on the heat scale. In my years of TT, I've never seen a player purposely push the heat scale past 10.

[CDLord HHGD]

Apnu, on 25 September 2015 - 12:22 PM, said:

Further to that we could have true DHS again too. if our heat sinks consumed the heat of firing, moving, and jumping like they do in TT, so its safe run up to a certain number before we hit the scale, many of the questions here would be moot.

What people don't understand is the BT heat scale was taken after heat sinks were used in the heat phase. So if you had 10 single heat sinks and your movement plus weapons fire chewed up 12, you only went up 2 points on the heat scale. In my years of TT, I've never seen a player purposely push the heat scale past 10.

The only question here is how long is a turn cycle? In TT it was 10 minutes. So maybe this hold true for 10 seconds? 5 seconds? I'm open to suggestions.

[pbiggz]

A real head scale and fixed weapon convergence would pretty much render Ghost Heat obsolete.

PS: in mechwarrior 2 that dh/dt bar on the bottom of the screen a bit to the right, was the heatsink stress bar. When you generated heat, it filled that bar, and if that bar filled up, you started to build heat in the proper heat bar. The bar is supposed to indicate how much you are taxing your heatsinks, so the more sinks you have, the more that bar can fill up before you generate real heat.

That was mechwarrior 2's answer to the heat problem. Mechwarrior 2 wasn't perfect, but taking precedents from past mechwarrior games is something PGI hasn't done for some reason, and the game has suffered for it. Im not saying copy the old games verbatim, but use some of those ideas, they aren't bad, they can be adapted.

Edited by pbiggz, 25 September 2015 - 12:28 PM.

[FupDup]

cdlord, on 25 September 2015 - 12:21 PM, said:

Two Gauss, let alone 4 Gauss, is AWFULLY expensive to any mech...... Weight and crits.... There aren't too many out there. The Gauss charge desyncs PPCs (though macros are used, that's another topic for discussion). If it's abused, additional measures can be taken. Again..

Switching your character to a heavy or assault mech solves the tonnage issue pretty quickly. Mechs that can't use them just might not get used, or would try to and get smacked around by their overlords.

The charge-up mechanism is over-exaggerated, even with no heat penalties it's the best ballistic in the game and one of the best weapons overall. If we indirectly nerfed the only weapons that can compete against the Goose Waffle, it stands to reason that its "competitivity" would increase even further.

Edited by FupDup, 25 September 2015 - 12:25 PM.

[Lyoto Machida]

FupDup, on 25 September 2015 - 12:19 PM, said:

Actually I suspect that you would instead see those min-maxing boats trying to find the best way to sidestep the system that they can. This is what happens with any balancing change, people just shift to new meta builds.

For the current meta, that means Gauss Rifles for high PPFLD damage at extreme ranges for no heat.

Cooldown figures aren't locked in stone (though with PGI, they may as well be).

Apnu, on 25 September 2015 - 12:22 PM, said:

Further to that we could have true DHS again too. if our heat sinks consumed the heat of firing, moving, and jumping like they do in TT, so its safe run up to a certain number before we hit the scale, many of the questions here would be moot.

What people don't understand is the BT heat scale was taken after heat sinks were used in the heat phase. So if you had 10 single heat sinks and your movement plus weapons fire chewed up 12, you only went up 2 points on the heat scale. In my years of TT, I've never seen a player purposely push the heat scale past 10.

It's kind of funny how pushing the game back towards TT would solve some balancing problems. The issue is that the people making this game don't understand the game itself or the universe it comes from. I guess when all you see are Canadian dollar signs, it's hard to think about anything else.

[Apnu]

FupDup, on 25 September 2015 - 12:19 PM, said:

Actually I suspect that you would instead see those min-maxing boats trying to find the best way to sidestep the system that they can. This is what happens with any balancing change, people just shift to new meta builds.

For the current meta, that means Gauss Rifles for high PPFLD damage at extreme ranges for no heat.

Yeah, that happened in TT too. I knew a few players who min/maxxed the hell out the system. (imagine facing a 12 MG light mech, so damn annoying!) No matter what the game, there will always be min/maxing cheese balls and their wannabes.

But the game would change signficantly. Instead of following the video game MW tradition of "alpha strike so hard you kill the thing in one shot, then shut down" meta, things would be far more balanced.
We already have heat neutral mechs, look at the dual GR Jager.

While I find the B.S. snipe-fest that's the meta now very annoying and the definition of douchebaggary. Its not hard to break. The team needs to get to the sniper's flank and disrupt them, then the main force can assault their position and crush them. Granted getting PUGs to do that is herding cats, but that't a different discussion.

[CDLord HHGD]

FupDup, on 25 September 2015 - 12:25 PM, said:

Switching your character to a heavy or assault mech solves the tonnage issue pretty quickly. Mechs that can't use them just might not get used, or would try to and get smacked around by their overlords.

The charge-up mechanism is over-exaggerated, even with no heat penalties it's the best ballistic in the game and one of the best weapons overall. If we indirectly nerfed the only weapons that can compete against the Goose Waffle, it stands to reason that its "competitivity" would increase even further.

Oh, I know this isn't the end-all solution, but taking us back to TT in this regards fixes a lot of other things that have gone wrong (Ghost Heat anyone?). I'm sure people would LOVE the excuse to dust off their K2's.

I don't want to go into other ways PGI can further balance based off this suggestion though. For a strong house, you need a good foundation and I think starting here will do that.

[Apnu]

cdlord, on 25 September 2015 - 12:23 PM, said:

The only question here is how long is a turn cycle? In TT it was 10 minutes. So maybe this hold true for 10 seconds? 5 seconds? I'm open to suggestions.

Yes, that's an issue when trying to take a turn based TT game and make it into a FPS. I don't know the answer.

[Widowmaker1981]

cdlord, on 25 September 2015 - 12:16 PM, said:

Did you like READ the paragraph preceding the chart? Damn.....



Ok, so here's the topic over in Feature Suggestions.

http://mwomercs.com/...at-scale-ideas/

Ok, my bad, i read it wrong.

Yes, 30 cap with that penalty table is too severe. I would propose a buffer of DHSx2 (or x1.4) with no penalties, then the 30 point heat scale you propose after that.

Edit:

Actually, my preferred solution would be to completely change the heat system, and have weapons generate their heat over the course of 10 seconds as opposed to upfront. Then have each DHS remove 0.2 heat per second and have a value showing current heat generated per second vs heat dissipated per second. If the heat generated exceeds the heat dissiapted, then the heat bar rises, and you have a 30 point bar as you describe, with penalties as you climb it. You would probably need to introduce a power draw system limiting the max energy alpha in combination.

Edited by Widowmaker1981, 25 September 2015 - 12:47 PM.

[CDLord HHGD]

Widowmaker1981, on 25 September 2015 - 12:38 PM, said:

Ok, my bad, i read it wrong.

Yes, 30 cap with that penalty table is too severe. I would propose a buffer of DHSx2 (or x1.4) with no penalties, then the 30 point heat scale you propose after that.

Thank you.

Yeah, I realize that only PGI has the hard data to fit this in where it would do the most good. I imagine there's a 10-20 "point" buffer before you hit "1" on my scale. Something like that,

[wanderer]

The only reason I wouldn't go with blurred vision is the corresponding RL headaches and motion sickness this would produce. Just give a random ammo critical location each tic a small (.1 -> .3 damage/sec) amount of damage, meaning eventually, staying hot will give you a chance of cooking off some ammo.

Have additional heat sinks "stretch" the bar a bit- a base 100% overheat bar might be the equivalent of "110%" with enough sinks or more, just to give 'Mechs with a large cooling system a bit more ability to handle heat spikes.

MWO desperately needs a real overheat system rather than the crude stopgap it's been suffering with for years, giving us crud like ghost heat and helping to skew weapons balance.

[Night Thastus]

If you're going to drop the heat cap to 30, you'll need to make double heatsinks TRUE double heatsinks and remove ghost heat.

As well, ammo explosions should certainly be a thing at 25 heat +.

In general, I would tone down the penalties a bit. Make it a little easier for people to adjust. Otherwise, its' decently cool.

[Apnu]

Lyoto Machida, on 25 September 2015 - 12:25 PM, said:

Cooldown figures aren't locked in stone (though with PGI, they may as well be).



It's kind of funny how pushing the game back towards TT would solve some balancing problems. The issue is that the people making this game don't understand the game itself or the universe it comes from. I guess when all you see are Canadian dollar signs, it's hard to think about anything else.

I like Canadian money, its cute.

[Lyoto Machida]

FupDup, on 25 September 2015 - 12:25 PM, said:

Switching your character to a heavy or assault mech solves the tonnage issue pretty quickly. Mechs that can't use them just might not get used, or would try to and get smacked around by their overlords.

The charge-up mechanism is over-exaggerated, even with no heat penalties it's the best ballistic in the game and one of the best weapons overall. If we indirectly nerfed the only weapons that can compete against the Goose Waffle, it stands to reason that its "competitivity" would increase even further.

Has anyone considered an enforced minimum zoom level for dual Gauss mechs? An idea just popped up in my head about it from this thread so I made a post about it specifically:

http://mwomercs.com/...g-the-chargeup/

Remove the chargeup feature that some people complain about (not myself) and make the default zoom 1.5x when carrying one or more Gauss rifles to simulate the minimum range and difficulty in brawling with it.

wanderer, on 25 September 2015 - 12:43 PM, said:

The only reason I wouldn't go with blurred vision is the corresponding RL headaches and motion sickness this would produce. Just give a random ammo critical location each tic a small (.1 -> .3 damage/sec) amount of damage, meaning eventually, staying hot will give you a chance of cooking off some ammo.

Have additional heat sinks "stretch" the bar a bit- a base 100% overheat bar might be the equivalent of "110%" with enough sinks or more, just to give 'Mechs with a large cooling system a bit more ability to handle heat spikes.

MWO desperately needs a real overheat system rather than the crude stopgap it's been suffering with for years, giving us crud like ghost heat and helping to skew weapons balance.

So how do all these "motion sickness" people deal with all the screen shake from LRMs and ACs currently?

[wanderer]

Quote

In my years of TT, I've never seen a player purposely push the heat scale past 10

3025-era designs were often stock-statted to ride those overheats to the razor edge.

Take the Rifleman. It's twin AC/5 + twin LL + twin ML was 2+16+6 =24 heat, meaning an alpha strike would JUST (24-10) risk shutdown. The Marauder was similar- twin PPC + twin ML + AC/5 = 27 heat (-16 heatsinks) meaning it could just precisely pull a running alpha strike once without shutdown, run again and fire it's AC for a little suppression fire the next turn, then be cold again for the next barrage.

[Apnu]

cdlord, on 25 September 2015 - 12:21 PM, said:

Two Gauss, let alone 4 Gauss, is AWFULLY expensive to any mech...... Weight and crits.... There aren't too many out there.

And yet I've been seeing them quite a bit lately. Had several drops this week against a 4xGR DWF. So much cheese.

[wanderer]

Quote

So how do all these "motion sickness" people deal with all the screen shake from LRMs and ACs currently?

Poorly. Of course, we've already winnowed most of those out,but given how people tend to run hot in MWO, constantly staring at a blurry screen is gonna be a headache ready to happen.

[CDLord HHGD]

wanderer, on 25 September 2015 - 12:52 PM, said:

Poorly. Of course, we've already winnowed most of those out,but given how people tend to run hot in MWO, constantly staring at a blurry screen is gonna be a headache ready to happen.

I get what you're saying, but they don't HAVE to run that hot.

It all depends on the severity of what's applied. I only said "severe" to set it's relation to the others. Severe could be jsut a minor annoyance.