223 replies to this topic

[Tarl Cabot]

1. Reduce how SHS/DHS affects the heat cap.
2. Use fewer intermediate threshold points for movement penalties, 2-3, same with other affects.
3. Would prefer using actual number but with a flexible heat cap, percentage instead of hard number could be used.
4. Have a soft shutdown threshold cut off point to override (85%ish) then a max cap shutdown to override with damage penalties and possible ammo explosion.

5. If a form of Ghost Heat is needed - remove the big hit, adjust the multiplier and allow it to affect when more than 1 weapon is fired, thus removing current weapon synergy. Example for Clans, GR+6ERML would have 7 weapon multiplier. IS, 3ERLL+6ML, 9 weapon multiplier.

Example Medium Laser 4 heat each. Fire 2ML = 2*4*multiplier = 9heat (this is an example)

[Khobai]

The only consequence of a real heatscale is ballisticwarrior online

people will start using nothing but ballistics, because theyre the only weapons that run cool enough to constantly avoid heat penalties

theres better ways to fix the laser meta that dont involve completely killing energy weapons and elevating ballistic weapons to godlike status.

Bush Hopper, on 25 September 2015 - 05:08 AM, said:

I proposed that already several times.

You would achieve two things:
1. The dudes who spam high laser alphas wouldn't be sure to get easily in cover or spam their next huge alphas because of targeting problems

2. Less boating and a more diverse mix of weaponry

1) nobody would spam high laser alphas if you suffered speed/targeting penalties for doing it. the whole laser vomit style of play would simply fall out of favor.

2) there would still be boating. ballistic boating. and there would be no diverse mix of weapons, just ballistic domination and maybe some backup lasers for if you run out of ammo.

3) clan mechs already lose 20% of their speed and half their internal DHS (which makes them overheat more) when they lose a side torso. Now you wanna pile even more heat/speed penalties on top of that? Side torso destruction might as well just be the same thing as death for clan mechs at that point. why even pilot a clan mech at that point?


Every time someone brings up the idea of heat scale penalties, they never have any solution for how to prevent ballistics from becoming the new dominant meta. because its exactly what will happen.

Edited by Khobai, 27 January 2016 - 08:04 PM.

[wanderer]

Khobai, on 27 January 2016 - 07:43 PM, said:

The only consequence of a real heatscale is ballisticwarrior online

Go ahead and slow down ROF on them, then. Gauss have a long reload cycle and are the coolest running big gun in the game, nothing saying you can't increase the cooldown on AC's as well if they become the supercoolrunning weapons of choice. If energy weapons are reasonably limited by heat but fire faster, and ballistics become a low-heat/long-reload option to fire instead, you're forcing people to consider their options. Slow, cool-running gun or rapid fire fast and hot? Heck, they already should slow down/increase damage on missiles, this just goes along wth the rest.

I've got no problem with slowing down the amount of fire going through MWO. Put in a real heatscale. Binary convergence instead of perfect convergence. People chainfiring for heat control vs. alpha striking constantly. Every gun not always being able to focus on a single hit location even at the most extreme ranges.

We might even be able to diminish the need for structure/armor quirks in the process.

[Khobai]

Quote

If energy weapons are reasonably limited by heat but fire faster, and ballistics become a low-heat/long-reload option to fire instead, you're forcing people to consider their options.

Wrong. youre not forcing people to consider their options. youre taking their options away. because medium lasers dont weigh very much, you can easy fit on a few lasers after you take your core ballistics. youd turn the game into "ballisticwarrior online plus how many medium lasers can I get away with firing before the penalties get insufferable"

Literally every single build will just become a ballistic boat to minimize heat buildup with a few medium lasers for backup/secondary weapons (2-3 lasers or however many lasers you can get away with before the penalties get unbearable).

It will seriously be even lamer than the current game. You will have no options whatsoever. Every mech will be rated based on its ballistic/energy viability (jagermechs and ebonjags will become the new top tier mechs). And every mech's build will be completely predetermined.

Having a liberal heatscale is what gives players the most options as far as what weapons to use. Having a strict heatscale reduces options significantly. The stricter the heatscale the less options you have. A strict heatscale is the absolute worst direction to take the game. Especially since it still doesnt fix any of the serious underlying problems like convergence. Convergence is still a major problem even with heatscale penalties. You can still fire Dual Gauss and 3 ERML and do 50+ pinpoint damage. Youve solved NOTHING as far as pinpoint alphas are concerned, youve just forced dependency on ballistics instead.

The biggest problem with weapons has always been convergence. If you fix convergence theres no need to even redo the heatscale anymore.

Quote

We might even be able to diminish the need for structure/armor quirks in the process.

You wanna diminish structure quirks? The best way to do that is just make ISXL survive side torso destruction. Then you can completely eliminate ALL of the IS structure quirks. Since ISXL sucking is the whole reason they exist in the first place.

Edited by Khobai, 27 January 2016 - 08:29 PM.

[wanderer]

Khobai, on 27 January 2016 - 08:13 PM, said:

Wrong. youre not forcing people to consider their options. youre taking their options away. because medium lasers dont weigh very much, you can easy fit on a few lasers after you take your core ballistics. youd turn the game into "ballisticwarrior online plus how many lasers can I get away with firing before the penalties get insufferable"

So basically, you're saying that heat shouldn't exist and laservomit should rule. Forever.

Because heat is what limits energy weapons. If heat has no real consequences in a single full-alpha blast, then it's pretty much a moot point in any game where you can duck into cover and cool down. Heck, it generally has no consequences for two or even three of those.

[Applecrow]

Bishop Steiner, on 25 September 2015 - 10:01 AM, said:

SRM6 AWS

Oh man...those were the days, especially when you could put a 400 engine in it. One of my all time favorites.

[no one]

Khobai, on 27 January 2016 - 07:43 PM, said:

Every time someone brings up the idea of heat scale penalties, they never have any solution for how to prevent ballistics from becoming the new dominant meta. because its exactly what will happen.

I can't believe that's true, that's not hard at all. DPS scaling on ballistics is as easy as adjusting rate of fire. Add in a decent convergence mechanic and balance is simple.

Not all ballistics are that cool for their damage either, only AC/5s and Gauss, which already get paired with heavy laser-vomit builds where there's tonnage for it because they improve alpha and dps without infringing on the alpha heat.

If you do a proper low cap high high dissipation heat system (see previous post) then lasers would still be extremely relevant as high dps, non-ammo dependent weapons, AND they could play more diverse roles. An erLL could return to being the accurate high heat, short burst sniper laser without out competing the large laser at close range because your limiting factor would shift more from alpha power to individual weapon performance. The large laser would have better d/s/h and the erLarge would have more accuracy and range.

If you make your alphas cost more, and dissipation rates matter more, people might start looking at range bracketing their weapons.

EG

"10 dhs for 1.4 h/s? Maybe for short range I'll do an ac/20 (+0.8 h/s) and two medium lasers (+.6 h/s), and with the tonnage left over I'll throw in an erLL for range (+1.2 h/s). "

instead of

"Oh, my heat capacity's 50? I guess I'll take 5 PPCs"
~and then ghost heat happens~

Edited by no one, 27 January 2016 - 10:00 PM.

[thehiddenedge]

This is basically what I feel the game needs. Maybe less severe movement penalties, but hud flicker and decreased weapon accuracy when hot. A smaller heat scale and less alpha strikes, while also fixing convergence for less pinpoint damage.

Weapon sway while moving, less convergence, less pinpoint.

I mean you read in the books all the time about weapon ranges being limited mostly due to the targeting systems being unreliable at long ranges. After all it's not you manually aiming, but telling the computer where to aim. There's going to be errors, especially while running hot.

making mechs overheat sooner isn't going to make ballistics or gauss the new meta. They are heavy and risk ammo explosions. Make ammo and gauss explosions more common. Make overheating damage weapons too.

Edited by thehiddenedge, 27 January 2016 - 10:01 PM.

[Squirg]

Khobai, on 27 January 2016 - 07:43 PM, said:

The only consequence of a real heatscale is ballisticwarrior online

people will start using nothing but ballistics, because theyre the only weapons that run cool enough to constantly avoid heat penalties

theres better ways to fix the laser meta that dont involve completely killing energy weapons and elevating ballistic weapons to godlike status.



1) nobody would spam high laser alphas if you suffered speed/targeting penalties for doing it. the whole laser vomit style of play would simply fall out of favor.

2) there would still be boating. ballistic boating. and there would be no diverse mix of weapons, just ballistic domination and maybe some backup lasers for if you run out of ammo.

3) clan mechs already lose 20% of their speed and half their internal DHS (which makes them overheat more) when they lose a side torso. Now you wanna pile even more heat/speed penalties on top of that? Side torso destruction might as well just be the same thing as death for clan mechs at that point. why even pilot a clan mech at that point?


Every time someone brings up the idea of heat scale penalties, they never have any solution for how to prevent ballistics from becoming the new dominant meta. because its exactly what will happen.

I could not disagree with you more.

[Karl Streiger]

I love theory crafting warriors.
And Khobai has his point when ammunition storage or ammunition supply is not a problem - ballistic and missile weapons are the better choice. Heck I would say that the DPS generated by ammunition feed weapons is much to small - yeah i know what you are thinking.... but the challenge is not the weapon its the ammunition supply.... given the option to load tons and tons of ammo removes the sting of ammuniton (onyl explosion is an issue) for example my BW runs 4 AC 5 with 270shots - i was not yet able to spend all its ammunition heck i didn't even get a 25% warning. Even in extend fights where i just used spray and pray style combat.
If i would be locked on 120shots or even 80shots things would be more interesting.
And there we are - to get a working heat balance mechanic also have to fore a limit for ammunition supply.


another idea: is to get a dynamic heat dissipation level based on the size of the target. the bigger the mech the better the dissipation. (with big i really mean the size of the hitboxes not the tonnage of the mech)

[Kjudoon]

I like it but without the chance of ammo explosion you just reinforce the ballistic meta and make the cause king.

There is no way most of the competitive community will put up with anything messing with their crosshairs either. The underhive alpha warrior will complain non stop about not being able to alpha all day long and map voting will never see any map that iisnt a refrigerator.

[Beatle1]

I'm all in with this idea but you guys do realize that PGI is such a shite company that they don't even read the forums for the past 2 maby even 3 years now. I don't even think the forum has a moderator (atleast after reading dozens if not hundereds of forum posts i never seen one). The idea is great ... but PGI doesn't care, they never did , they never will.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

Khobai, on 27 January 2016 - 07:43 PM, said:

Every time someone brings up the idea of heat scale penalties, they never have any solution for how to prevent ballistics from becoming the new dominant meta. because its exactly what will happen.

You mitigate ballistic builds by lowering overall ammo counts and increasing reload times.

It's not exactly rocket science to figure out how to mitigate it.

[kapusta11]

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

One thing MWO is lacking is a proper heat scale with consequences. Right now, we got a heat threshold that is modified by the number of heatsinks we equip. In TT, there was a set ceiling to that threshold with penalties along the way. Below is my interpretation of the TT/CBT heat scale as it would apply to MWO. I took the CBT penalties and matched them up with their MWO equivalent (or closest or most sensical to me). Now, is a 30 point threshold correct? Are my penalties too severe? I have no idea. This is a proposal for discussion.

This is not how heat system worked in TT.

[Greyhart]

If only someone would ask this sort of question at the townhall meeting.

But that's not going to happen.

[wanderer]

Karl Streiger, on 28 January 2016 - 12:35 AM, said:

I love theory crafting warriors.
And Khobai has his point when ammunition storage or ammunition supply is not a problem - ballistic and missile weapons are the better choice. Heck I would say that the DPS generated by ammunition feed weapons is much to small - yeah i know what you are thinking.... but the challenge is not the weapon its the ammunition supply.... given the option to load tons and tons of ammo removes the sting of ammuniton (onyl explosion is an issue) for example my BW runs 4 AC 5 with 270shots - i was not yet able to spend all its ammunition heck i didn't even get a 25% warning. Even in extend fights where i just used spray and pray style combat.
If i would be locked on 120shots or even 80shots things would be more interesting.
And there we are - to get a working heat balance mechanic also have to fore a limit for ammunition supply.

And notably, AC ammo is 50% more shots per ton than it started. Give a UAC/5 it's original 20 shots per ton and that's one easy tweak. Slow it's RoF. There's another.

[Karl Streiger]

wanderer, on 28 January 2016 - 03:04 AM, said:

And notably, AC ammo is 50% more shots per ton than it started. Give a UAC/5 it's original 20 shots per ton and that's one easy tweak. Slow it's RoF. There's another.

While its counter intuitive to reduce the RoF of a cannon it could work.
For example the Quad BW....the RoF is 40 RpM (1.494 cooldown)
270 shots for 4 AC 5 last for 101 seconds

Dropping the RoF towards 20 RpM (cooldown 3.3) - you can also drop the ammunition towards 4.5tons. But of course the DPS is reduced from ~13 to ~7 so you may drop one or two ACs for energy weapons - also limiting the ammunition storrage.

The hard part would be to find the sweet spot. Best practice would be to run a Black Widow with 4 AC 5s vs a Black Widow with say 2 Large Laser or PPC + 2AC5 and the mix build have to win. And the mixed build also should be able to win vs a pure energy build of 4 large laser / PPCs....
while the first you balance the no heat producing build over the RoF of his weapons you balance the no ammunition build using heat.
Question is penalty's or the current system with just shutdown at 100% - but in this case you need much tweaking.

[Tarl Cabot]

1. Many of the IS mechs are ballistic/missile-centric with a few energy hardpoints for secondary weapons, set in low hanging HP, lower torso or low hanging arms. Unfortunately to make use of that IS-XL are needed, which then makes those IS mechs glass cannons.
2. Most of the heat scale penalties would really come into play once range has been closed. At range, being able to fire a laser TIC and have it slow you down either a little bit or a lot would depend on how many weapons were fired which would then determine how quickly you are able to get back into cover.
3. With actual heat-related penalties, PGI would have a purpose to revise the heat sink dissipation rate. This is likely one of the major factors of why all DHS are not true DHS.
4. The longer range/harder hitting energy weapons should also their cooldown timer increased.
5. Removing or heavily modifying Ghost Heat.
6. Removing the movement penalty from 1 ST destroyed C-XL engine.

If PGI were to ever make any changes to the heatscale by adding penalties it should be done in sections, instead of all at once like they did with Ghost Heat and the damage when exceeding the Heat cap. They should have done the damage after heat cap first.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 28 January 2016 - 07:15 AM.

[Barantor]

Lyoto Machida, on 25 September 2015 - 12:19 PM, said:

E-sports, bruh...

Announcer: Welcome to the first annual MWO tournament of champions!

Fast forward to the end of the match:

"Ken Intowabe has high heat, I don't know if he is going to be able to take out Jeb Bush with this next volley."

"Jeb Bushed missed with his lasers, his heat is really high! He is trying to limp behind that building away from Ken!"

"Ken is going all out! He is firing his lasorssssss! Success! He is at the absolute top of the heat scale but he barely managed that win!"

Anything can be exciting, making it difficult to go all out all the time is part of any game, even LoL.

I fully support the idea cdlord has put forward with some refinements and testing.

Also concerning Ballistics being 'king' the thought is that ammunition could be brought back down and ammo explosion chances would increase. Risk vs Reward should play out with mech builds and tactics. If it is still too much the IS could always get the multi-shot cannons like the clans have....

Edited by Barantor, 28 January 2016 - 07:41 AM.

[Jables McBarty]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but ammunition explosions do already happen.

Also I overheat pretty frequently when chain-firing my 3xAC5s in my MAD-3R.

Ballistics are already limited by ammo and size restrictions. It's hard to boat ballistics because they take up much more space and tonnage than lasers. You need to put ammo on. You need to pay attention to where you store ammo so it doesn't explode and kill you (ammo explosion in my right arm destroyed my ISXL side torso last night).

Even when ammo explosions happen, if they don't kill you they can deprive you of the use of that weapon. Take my MAD-3R again. 3xAC5 in right torso, half ammo in LT, half ammo in RA. If I lose LT i'm still alive, but I've lost half my ammo.