13 replies to this topic

[Ialdabaoth]

So, we all hate ghost heat, but we can't seem to rally around a good alternative.

Since ten different competing ideas are better than nine, here's my latest thoughts:

1. If you do not fire weapons simultaneously, there should be no penalty. Aiming skill should be rewarded, but pinpoint alpha is just too powerful.

2. The old method of dealing with missile spam - limiting the total number of simultaneous missile tubes that missiles could come out of - worked just fine. Returning to that system for missiles is better than ghost heat.

3. For direct-fire energy and ballistic weapons, everyone keeps talking about 'convergence', but convergence is a no-go due to how PGI coded host state rewind. So how about this:

When multiple ballistic or energy weapons are fired simultaneously, the game sorts them from highest damage to lowest. The highest-damage weapon is not modified at all. Each further weapon has its aim adjusted ('cone of fire' style) by an amount equal to 0.1 degrees times the amount of damage of all weapons above it in the list - halved if you have the Pinpoint skill. Ballistic weapons and energy weapons are each processed separately, and machine guns and flamers are exempt.

So let's say I fire a PPC (10 damage), a Large Pulse Laser (9 damage), and three Medium Lasers (5 damage each). The PPC will hit exactly where I'm aiming. The Large Pulse Laser will deviate by up to 1 degree of arc (10 x 0.1) in a random direction. The first Medium Laser will deviate by up to 1.9 degrees of arc ( (10 + 9) x 0.1) in a different random direction. The second Medium Laser will deviate by up to 2.4 degrees of arc ( (10 + 9 + 5) x 0.1) in a third random direction, and the third Medium Laser will deviate by up to 2.9 degrees of arc in a fourth random direction. With Pinpoint, the Large Pulse deviates by up to 0.5 degrees, the first Medium Laser by up to 0.95 degrees, the second by up to 1.2 degrees, and the third by up to 1.45 degrees.

If I also fire a Gauss Rifle (15 damage), an AC/20 (20 damage), and three AC/2s (2 damage each), the AC/20 will hit straight-on, the Gauss Rifle will deviate by up to 2 degrees, the first AC/2 will deviate by 3.5 degrees, the second by 3.7 degrees, and the third by 3.9 degrees. With Pinpoint, the Gauss Rifle deviates by up to 1 degree, the first AC/2 by up to 1.75 degrees, the second by up to 1.85 degrees, and the third by up to 1.95 degrees.

Note that if you're playing with a 90 degree field of vision, 5 degrees is roughly the width of the fully locked-on missile reticle. So if the center of that reticle as your aim point, a deviation of 2.5 degrees could hit anywhere inside that circle.

So if you want to focus your fire, either chain-fire or get closer.

Or, if you're Clan, mount a targeting computer. With this system, the TC can finally be recoded to do what it was originally supposed to do - focus fire on a single location. It's incredibly simple programming to just have the deviation of each weapon divided by (1 + TC power), so that a Mk 1 TC halves your deviation, a Mk 2 cuts it to 33%, a Mk 3 to 25%, and so on.

For weapons fired nearly-simultaneously, divergence can 'decay' by 50% every 0.1 seconds after a weapon fires, and disappear completely within 0.4 seconds. So if you fire the large pulse laser 0.1 seconds after the PPC, it will diverge by up to 0.5 degrees instead of 1 degree. Fire it 0.2 seconds later, and it will diverge by up to 0.25 degrees. Fire it 0.3 seconds later and it will diverge by up to 0.125 degrees, and fire it 0.4 seconds later and it will hit right where you're aiming.

The code for weapon divergence already works (witness the machine gun), it shouldn't interact weirdly with host-state-rewind, and the algorithm for determining how to deviate weapons is dead simple. And it solves the pinpoint problem much, MUCH better than ghost heat does.

(In fact, I wouldn't mind going back to the original pre-doubled armor values of the closed beta, if such a system were implemented.)

Edited by Ialdabaoth, 12 September 2015 - 11:21 AM.

[Aleksanteri Bekker]

I admit I like your idea of weapons de-converging when fired simultaneously. You always read in the novels where a pilot fires multiple weapons and everything seems to hit different parts of their target. Sure, novel flavor shouldn't have a direct impact on gaming experience and mechanics, but battles in the novels seem more intense than they do in MWO where we all know all of my enemies ERLL's are going to hit my right torso.

However, I support ghost-heat as an idea to limit or penalize boating. Whether its the most effective or best solution, I can't say. I haven't read a single suggestion on these forums that ever sounded better, so I'm happy keeping it as it is.

But +1 to your convergance ideas!

[Spleenslitta]

A totally new way of replacing Ghostheat. Not bad. I would want a simpler method but i can see the effort you put into your idea.
I've always supported removing convergence for torso mounted weapons.
Some say having convergence on arm weapons will only make those mechs popular while other won't get used.

When we like the looks of a mech we stick with it despite other mechs having advantages. We're a stubborn lot like that.
With the new update weapon quirks will be gone to be replaced by info gathering and internal structure quirks.
That might be easier to balance but it will not cure the boating problem.

[Tarogato]

I'd much rather have some sort of convergence system instead of ghost heat.

[Ialdabaoth]

Note that what I've described isn't "convergence"; it's more "cone of effect". We've been told before that convergence hacks cause problems with HSR.

[Nightmare1]

...Or, we could just remove Ghost Heat from everything except Lasers and see where that puts us. I think that alone would go a long way towards balancing the game.

[RedMercury]

How about ghost damage. Instead of penalizing aim, just scale the damage of weapons beyond the allowed number. Say, 2 PPCs do full damage, the third will do 8, and any additional after that does 4.

If you really wanted, you can still boat, but with diminishing returns.

This doesn't affect aim so it is compatible with HSR.

It prevents instead of punishes boating, unlike ghost heat.

[Ialdabaoth]

Reducing damage doesn't feel right at all. There should always be aesthetic considerations when choosing between possible gameplay balance solutions.

[Draykin]

Somehow, I feel that putting a CoF on lasers isn't right. Also, how does this affect missiles? Streaks? LRMS? The things that lock on? Also, how would this affect LB-X guns? Or C-(U)ACs? Would each 'shot' deviate individually? Or is the whole burst/blast considered as one projectile?

[Surn]

Limit the available energy per engine. You can't boat if you don't have the spare energy.

.

[no one]

The chimp simple solution to convergence would be to have direct fire weapons not converge at all unless you have a soft target lock. (Simply reticule over target and fire or press R)

The next level of implementation would be giving weapons a harmonization ranges and convergence speeds. Eg. - Say a Gauss can change it's harmonization point between targets at 1000m and 1200m in .5s, but needs 3s to switch between a target between 400m and 200m, and can't focus inside 120m.

MechregSurn, on 13 September 2015 - 07:38 PM, said:

Limit the available energy per engine. You can't boat if you don't have the spare energy.

The heat system could easily accomplish this. The garbage placeholder system we have now is overdue for an overhaul.

Here's the cliff notes version of the heat system we should have -

1 - Low heat buffer [capacity for heat before overheat penalties kick in]. Base buffer of ~7 heat, plus roughly 0.5 points of buffer per single heat sink and 0.7 point of buffer per double heat sink. Say you could reduce capacity to 0.6 per Clan DHS.

2 - 26 point overheat scale with escalating penalties, for targeting, movement and heat dissipation*, with chances of forced shutdown, ammo explosion and pilot** damage at higher levels of overheat.

3 - A 75 to 100 percent heat sink dissipation rate increase.

4 - Weapon heat divided into categories to create a more interesting and involved heat management system.
a - instant: The instantaneous heat spike caused by a weapon when it fires.
b - duration: Heat per second delivered while a weapon is firing.
c - recharge: Heat per second delivered during the weapon's recharge cycle.
d - charge: The heat/second cost of charging or keeping a 'Mech weapon or system charged. Eg Gauss, Jumpjets, etc.

. . . and that's more or less it, except for a bit of weapon balance. ***

* Ergo, alpha striking costs you dps
** Not Structure. Structure damage from overheat has always been a bad idea, since it hurts 'Mechs disproportionately across weights.
*** I explored this topic a lot a while back and there's probably stuff I've left out or presented poorly, but to hell with it. My tolerance for futility is shot.

[Spleenslitta]

no one, on 14 September 2015 - 12:45 AM, said:

My tolerance for futility is shot.

We're in the same boat then.
I sent a PM to Paul regarding my thread on how to balance and introduce Rifles to MWO without touching weight, crit slots, base damage, heat or range.
I kept close to the lore when it comes to firerate and shell velocity too. Slow firerate and velocity just like the lore says.
Even the dang penalty to armor is nearly completly untouched. Only adjusted it by 0.5 damage. That is all.....0.5 damage.

He hasn't read it yet and i sent it on the 9th last week. I think i'll send it to Tina too. She seems nice enough to actually give a damn.
If she doesn't....well then i know Rifles ain't even slightly interresting to the developers.
As a matter of fact if Tina doesn't give a damn Alex will be the only guy left who actually has my full trust amongst the developers.
Alex cannot go wrong no matter what he does.

[Firewuff]

Hsr has nothing to do with convergence for ref. That is not a big deal to track the state of the weapons.

The easiest solution is torso weapons dont converge at all or do only at their optimim range. This makes arm weapons more valuable and as a balance reduce internal structure on the arms. Its mitigates the convergence issue etc. There should also be min convergance ranges to stop stupid things like lasers coming out of guns at 45 deg when firing at a light at their feet.

Do that. Reassess the issue. But i think it would largely fix it.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

Fixing Heat Capacity and at least restoring Damage and Heat to weapons are other elements.

So remove or change Heat Containment that gives a 20% boost to Capacity.

Reduce the gifted 30 Capacity to 14 matching the original scale at 2.5x scaling for the first override-able shutdown.

Then SHS can remain at 1.0 Capacity each, and whatever for IS and Clan DHS (Preferably 2.0 for IS at least with Clan maybe seeing a slight nerf as necessary).

This way an Elited, but stock AWS-8Q has 28 SHS for 42 Capacity instead of 69.60

An Elited, but stock AWS-9M with 20 DHS would have 54 Capacity instead of 76.80

An Elited and custom WHK-Prime could stick up to 28 DHS with four ERPPCs, so at 2.0 thats 70 Capacity; at say 1.6 thats 58.8 instead of 90.24.

And to compensate, I can see a boost to Dissipation being possible and necessary. At the very least bring SHS to 0.2 each, all IS DHS to 0.35 each and Clan DHS to 0.25 each.

Although I'd like to see how SHS at 0.25 IS DHS at 0.4, and Clan DHS at 0.3 feel.

---

With restoring Damage and Heat,
C-ERLL goes to 10 Dam, 12 Heat
IS ERLL goes to 8 Dam, 10 Heat
IS LL goes to 8 Dam, 8 Heat
C-LPL goes to 10 Dam, 10 Heat
IS LPL goes to 9 Dam, 10 Heat

And so on. Then simply have Damage per Tic be equalized with the Classes so ER Class would have the longest beam durations, and Pulse the shortest.

could start at these values and see how it works in practice:


And this would only be the base values, where beam duration quirks can still play a role on needy mechs.