30 replies to this topic

[Allouez]

So, I was thinking the other day at how you could possibly balance out the laser meta right now. I see a lot of complaints about high damage alpha strikes with pinpoint damage that can shred mechs very quickly (and have been on the giving and receiving end of this many times). This may have been thought of before and I just missed it, but what if every weapon had a power rating and you had a maximum power output for your mech?

For example, your mech has 1000 kW of power available for weapons. You want to put 4 large lasers on your mech, but each large laser requires 300 kW to shoot it. Your first option is you can shoot 3 at a time (total 900 kW power draw) and then shoot the 4th one after the first three finish firing so you don't exceed the 1000 kW available power. Or, you could do a 4 LL alpha strike, which requires 1200 kW, but you do reduced damage (and reduced heat generation), kind of like a brown-out. If you fire two lasers, then before they are finished you fire the other two, you get a brown-out when they are all firing so still do reduced damage overall.

The power requirement wouldn't be just for lasers. Ballistics and missiles also require power, but the draw would be much less. If you try to alpha strike with more power than is available and you have ballistics or missiles on your mech, they maybe they just wouldn't fire until you have power available?

My initial thought was to tie the amount of power available to the size of your engine. You want more available power for your weapons? Put a bigger engine in. As you put bigger engines in, you have less available weight for weapons, so it keeps things in check. The challenge with that is for clan mechs where you can't swap out engines, I would have to think about that a bit more to keep it fair. Another option would be to just tie the available power to the chassis size, but there are issues with that as well.

It's still a physics-based system, and I think with enough thought and planning it could work, but I'm sure there are plenty of drawbacks I'm not thinking of? Any thoughts/ideas?

[Random Carnage]

Yup. Done to death. It's the engine rating power consumption thing that has been around since day dot.

Nice thought though.

[LordNothing]

the problem with lasers really isnt anything to do with the lasers themselves, they are pretty balanced when used in sane configs. the problems are entirely from hardpoint inflation which allows you to use your entire heat bar to get an insane alpha (which you can totally defeat in a brawl if you can survive 2 alphas). gh2 should fix that.

Edited by LordNothing, 27 April 2016 - 03:09 AM.

[S 0 L E N Y A]

Sounds like what most people are speculating the new system will be like.

No sir I dont like it.
Please stop fixing this game until it is broken

[adamts01]

Is there any time frame on the new system? Or any new news at all? I can't wait till alpha warrior online is gone. Anything but this, please.

[XxXAbsolutZeroXxX]

Your idea is the abstract equivalent of having small, medium and large hardpoints for ballistics, energy weapons and missiles. Having size limitations per weapon is pretty much the same as having power requirement limitations. MW4 had this type of system which limited what type of weapon could fit in a hardpoint and prevented boating of PPC's, AC20's, large lasers and other heavier tonnage weapons.

Like for example the wolfhound. In MW4 the wolfhounds right arm was the only energy hardpoint large enough to mount a large laser which limited it to mounting only 1 large laser at maximum. Being able to mount only 1 large laser and hardpoint restrictions in general could promote less sniping and more brawl type meta.

Sometimes it helps to remember lasers (for the most part) can only deliver pinpoint damage against targets that aren't moving.

I don't mind things being the way they are. I'm sure if PGI introduced hardpoint sizes or some other type of restriction there would be people protesting claiming that PGI ruined the game the way they did after ghost heat was introduced. They would feel like something had been taken away from them and that tends to provoke hostility.

Edited by I Zeratul I, 27 April 2016 - 04:43 AM.

[Karl Streiger]

Power = Heat

Create a propper heat system you don't need energy... well i have written a long theoretical proof - but this topic is gone as well as the subforum - reason : cause forum

[DrxAbstract]

I Zeratul I, on 27 April 2016 - 04:40 AM, said:

Your idea is the abstract equivalent

You rang?

[Carl Vickers]

I think to help hurt the laser meta you could drop damage from laser weps by 30%. Leave everything else where it is.

People would then start mixing builds when they lose 30% of their 50+ damage alpha

Problem solved

[Noesis]

Reduce heat capacity, correct heat dissipation.

Potentially introduce heat penalties at higher heat though needing to slightly rebalance some existing higher heat tuned weapons as a result based on this introduction.

This will reduce/eliminate some alpha strikes and apply more longevity with managed weapon use.

Don't need to introduce a further mechanism similar to heat with power settings. And not all energy laser weapons need to be tarnished with the same brush or considered out of balance.

In other news: there will always be meta no matter what you do, players will find the preferences based on what works even if it is comparing 97% to 98%. This doesn't mean there is a huge problem with game balance as a result that needs a whole new mechanism to correct, especially one that does not introduce any real benefit but ends up adding to game running operation overheads. Especially if that processing resource could introduce new gameplay features that applies a new set of tactics to use that might skew the meta. E.g. Mines, smoke cover, Cyclops computer.

Other corrections such as internal armour quirks on the meta mechs or resizing on some oversized mechs can equally have an effect to how the meta operates, it shouldn't always preclude other mechanisms to just focussing on the "weapons".

Edited by Noesis, 27 April 2016 - 05:07 AM.

[GreyNovember]

Carl Vickers, on 27 April 2016 - 05:02 AM, said:

I think to help hurt the laser meta you could drop damage from laser weps by 30%. Leave everything else where it is.

People would then start mixing builds when they lose 30% of their 50+ damage alpha

Problem solved

Yeah, screw laser lights that only have energy hardpoints.

MAKE EM TAKE BALLISTICS AND MISSILES AND PPCS!

[Carl Vickers]

GreyNovember, on 27 April 2016 - 05:06 AM, said:

Yeah, screw laser lights that only have energy hardpoints.

MAKE EM TAKE BALLISTICS AND MISSILES AND PPCS!

Srry dude, didnt thiink about the laser only lights. In that case see post from Neosis, best way.

[Ex Atlas Overlord]

GreyNovember, on 27 April 2016 - 05:06 AM, said:

Yeah, screw laser lights that only have energy hardpoints.

MAKE EM TAKE BALLISTICS AND MISSILES AND PPCS!

I know it's almost like this guy wants them to skirmishers that have to whittle their larger, slower opponents down using clever piloting and skill...

What is he ******* crazy?

[Saltychipmunk]

I agree about heat cap and dissipation being a core issue

The way i see it the primary failings of the current system can be attributed to 3 things

1 not enough armor to survive the current alpha meta ( 100+ alphas)
2 individual heat sinks dont offer enough heat dissipation to make attrition builds reasonable
(attrition builds are builds are builds that have fewer weapons and more heat sinks so that they are able to continuously fight)
3 The heat capacity of mechs is too high.


To address these 3 things this is what i feel should be done:

increase the armor values per ton. by 50% for assults and 25% for all other mechs (why 50% for assults) because they are too damn easy to hit right now and naturally need more armor.


Next increase heat dissipation of all heat sinks. normal heat sinks should be 1.5 , and doubles should be 2.2

Then finally reduce the heat capacity of all mechs by 40%


What this will do is punish high alpha mechs that rely on boating a shitload of weapons because
A their alphas wont one shot mechs
B their heat dissipation will be inferior to mechs that take less weapons but more heat sinks
C their high alphas will have a much higher chance of heat coring themselves .

But this will reward builds that do take fewer weapons but more heat sinks to get a higher heat neutral set up.



this i think is a better way to tackle this as it doesn’t involve dicking around with individual weapons that really are only an issue when boated by the dozen anyway

Edited by Saltychipmunk, 27 April 2016 - 05:57 AM.

[Noesis]

Saltychipmunk, on 27 April 2016 - 05:54 AM, said:

I agree about heat cap and dissipation being a core issue

YES

Quote

increase the armor values per ton. by 50% for assults and 25% for all other mechs (why 50% for assults) because they are too damn easy to hit right now and naturally need more armor.

No, proportional increases at best as this already skews things in favour of assault mechs.

50% of 100 armour in the CT is an extra 50 points needed to get through. For mediums this is perhaps half that, and by comparison I would say that mediums have more to worry about with being hit for their size with the pinpoint application of weapons when applied to their relational armour values. This you have to consider when the weapon output for assaults will be comparitively more than mediums, so overall this even with an equalised % increase in armour actually nerfs lighter mechs.

[FupDup]

Why do people keep asking for engine-based power? Do you people realize that a large number of the best meta builds in the game use large XL engines right now? You're literally increasing the gap between meta and sub-par builds, because only very few mechs with small engines are effective (e.g. Mauler).

Big engines already provide more than enough benefits to make them more common than smaller engines. There is very little "drawback" here.

Also, having energy require much higher power than other weapon families basically turns power into an exact clone of what HEAT already does. Just use heat and you'll accomplish the same thing already.

[Alan Davion]

Saltychipmunk, on 27 April 2016 - 05:54 AM, said:

1 not enough armor to survive the current alpha meta ( 100+ alphas)

I'm sorry, 100 point damage alpha strikes? What freak of a mech is capable of that much damage?

That much damage would instantly destroy 90% of my mechs, the exception being my Atlas and Dire Wolves.

[Alan Davion]

FupDup, on 27 April 2016 - 06:31 AM, said:

Why do people keep asking for engine-based power? Do you people realize that a large number of the best meta builds in the game use large XL engines right now? You're literally increasing the gap between meta and sub-par builds, because only very few mechs with small engines are effective (e.g. Mauler).

Big engines already provide more than enough benefits to make them more common than smaller engines. There is very little "drawback" here.

Also, having energy require much higher power than other weapon families basically turns power into an exact clone of what HEAT already does. Just use heat and you'll accomplish the same thing already.

Problem is, PGI has shown time and again that they are either unwilling, or incapable of putting the heat scale in its proper place. This rumored power draw system is just the latest example of it. Granted the power draw system will probably work better than their ridiculous ghost heat mechanic, but I doubt it will seriously affect the alpha-strike-laser-vomit-meta for very long.

A month, maybe two at the most, and people will have found a way around it.

[DrxAbstract]

Alan Davion, on 27 April 2016 - 06:42 AM, said:

I'm sorry, 100 point damage alpha strikes? What freak of a mech is capable of that much damage?

That much damage would instantly destroy 90% of my mechs, the exception being my Atlas and Dire Wolves.

Bro do you even Meta?

[GreyNovember]

Ex Atlas Overlord, on 27 April 2016 - 05:54 AM, said:

I know it's almost like this guy wants them to skirmishers that have to whittle their larger, slower opponents down using clever piloting and skill...

What is he ******* crazy?

It's less about lights having less firepower, and more about light having less firepower, and no alternative loadout.

Oxides and J2Cs are still perfectly happy with this arrangement; in fact they now have less to fear from other lights. So you traded laser lights for spread burst damage lights.

Whereas things that can actually take heavier weapons, will, or take longer ranged weapons to make up for it.

DrxAbstract, on 27 April 2016 - 07:10 AM, said:

Bro do you even Meta?

I can't tell if you're serious or not. Is a short ranged, DoT, Spread Alpha really that scary?