1 reply to this topic

[K1ttykat]

Currently there's just no reason to fire anything but all your weapons at once at an enemy player. Very occasionaly an enemy might be so close to death that you can finish them off with a weapon or two but that's not very often.

To create more variety and an element of risk/reward, the top ~20℅ of a mechs heat capacity should dissipate more quickly.



So basically if your heat is between 80%-99.99% you dissipate heat faster. If you can keep your heat in that range you will enjoy a higher constant DPS (due to increased dissipation). The way to keep in that range is to carefully group fire weapons. Go over and you overheat, go under and you start to lose your advantage.

With the bonus placed at the top of the heat scale rather than the bottom, the player is more committed to group fire. If the situation changes, they're going to have to wait to cool down before they can switch back to alpha striking.

I don't expect this will cause everyone to switch to group fire and it shouldn't. Both alpha strikes and group firing should have a use.

Inevitable Objections:
To address the two inevitable objections: "but but tabletop heat penalties" it's a terrible idea for MWO. Keeping your heat low doesn't involve any risk or skill, it's just not shooting very often and if you go over not much happens. Mist importantly, if you need to wait to cooldown between every shot to avoid penalties, the best place to do that is in cover. We don't need more static gameplay. Next "just decrease capacity" this has the same effect of making gameplay more static by increasing reliance on cover. The best way to use cover is to peek and alpha which is what people want to reduce.

Edited by K1ttykat, 17 October 2015 - 02:12 AM.

[Nesutizale]

I agree with you that the current system basicly forces you to do the shoot/hide system as there is just an on/off system in place.

Where I differ is that bringing back the TT version of the heat table would be a lesser risk/reward system then a "the more you heat up the better" system.
In the case you discribe I would simply get two weapongroups in place. One to bring me up to the 80% range in one or two salvos and then a group that keeps that level all the time.
That isn't anything different to createing fireinggroups that keep you at 99% so you don't shut down.
Also my Alpha and group are basicly the same and from what I see when watching others play its pretty much the same. People equip and group weapons so they allways keep close to 90% heat.

Thats why I would prefere the tabletop heat table over the current system.
There you have more steps in between the final shutdown. Building a mech that is allways cool would mean that you have to sacrifice one or two weapons or armor or something else just to free space for heatsinks.
Here comes the first part where you take a small risk. You can't alpha as hard as someone who is willing to take an early panelty.
Next point is that if you decide to use weapons that generate more heat then you can dissapate, you can easly get in the situation where you know that just one more shoot would most likely bring down your target but then you would risk paneltys...so do you risk it or not?
That is realy a risk/reward system.

Lets take for example the Nova stock Prim (from here on I take the TT values as I don't have the MWO values in my head)

It has 18 DHS = 36 heat dissapation, firing all 12 ERM = 60 heat = 24 heat overflow.
Current system = no problem => no risk /no reward
Your system = Greate I just got a bonus => no risk / just a reward
TT system = are you kidding me? I will never fire 12 at the same time except the enemy is shut down. => Very high risk / basicly killing everything in your path.....very high reward.

So if I am not the risktaker, I would have to drop either some Lasers or the jumpjets or armor to fill in more heatsinks...and if I can't do that, because of slot restrictions I have to get creative with weapon grouping and firing.
On the other hand I could go and mix my weapons. Keeping 6 Lasers but switch the rest for SRM or LRM for example. This would lead to more diversity in loadouts overall.

Thats why I vote for bringing back the TT heat table.