385 replies to this topic

[Serpentbane]

I chose other, so I'll explain as requested.
I'm however lacy, so I'll just link to a thread I've made.
http://mwomercs.com/...29#entry4810229

[Tarl Cabot]

Duke Nedo, on 07 November 2015 - 04:17 AM, said:

.......

It's not an easy fix. Ideally you'd like builds on variants with only energy hardpoints to be viable, while at the same time not being overpowered when combined with 1-2 Gauss on a larger chassi. I believe a combination of mechanics are needed and I think energy drain could be part of it, perhaps together with a mild recoil for ballistics (to make them combine less efficiently with lasers being fired simultaneously), plus Wanderers suggestion about locking convergence on your locked target range (instead of the PTS range nerfs for unlocked shooting) and why not also adjustments to heat limits and dissipation. I just don't believe that changing heat alone will do the job.

The only real viable chassis for GR+lasers are Clan mech, primarily the Timberwolf model, as most have the speed/weight due to Clan XL engines, and even with each base variant switch out pods.

Though IS has more mechs, most are not as viable as the current preferred crop due to weapon placement, lack of hardpoints and type of hardpoints, as well as the need to utilize IS-XL engine for speed and weight savings, making them glass mechs.

The basis of all of that though is the Heatscale. The PTS has reduced the capacity of the C-DHS, though imho the capacity should be based simply on the # of heatsinks, regardless of type. That setting simply reduces the number of alphas in a time span. The next stamp would be to add at least 2 lower thresholds where the mech's speed/agility is reduced, forcing the player to consider whether or not to fire a full alpha it chain fire to prevent a drop in the mech's performance.

And the PTS reducing the percentage of the cooling/threshold skills, again the original version played into MW4-noheat servers. I am not sure if it should continue to be part of a mechwarrior's skill tree.

As for CoF, or something more similar to Masc/jumping jitter, base it at least on the speed of the mech with a condition: the effect would not be reduced until after a cooldown period at a lower speed.

[Brandarr Gunnarson]

@Duke Nedo:

Just to be sure, my suggestion has no bloom in it at all. It is, precisely, your shots go where you put them. It just puts them into different places according to where they are mounted.

I've written a few examples above, but here's the basics:

Reticle looks like this

[oxXxo]

The "o" are where the LA/RA hit, respectively. The small "x"s are where the LT/RT hit, respectively. The bid "X" is where your CT(and maybe missiles) hit.

That would absolutely reconcile pinpoint accuracy with breaking up alpha strike. It would also absolutely require great skill to do "sweep shots" and get all weapons to hit the same place.

I would still combine this with heat changes. I really like the idea of removing base heat capacity and leaving it all up to heatsinks!

[DivineEvil]

Duke Nedo, on 07 November 2015 - 12:57 AM, said:

Of course its a troll build, but with only heat restricting big alphas people would build crap like that and the tears on the forums would be glorious. It's an extreme example to illustrate a point, not the new OP build. You understand that. Remember that a 40 point pinpoint FLD caused enough tears that eventually led to the introduction of ghost heat.

What tears? Only with heat restrictions, such a build will be only capable of producing one alpha, after which that mech will become disfunctional. Considering the present situation, nobody is going to cry over a 100 ton, underarmored, underarmed mech, that is only capable of dealing 50 damage before overheating and dying, unless we're talking about the authors themselves.

40 PPFLD caused tears, Ghost Heat was implemented. Right now we have larger alphas, ghost heat doesnt neglect them. Summary: Ghost heat was a mistake, and large alphas we have now is allowed by oversized heat capacity. The problem with alpha-strikes is not that they exist, but that they are became a staple combat method, because they're not limited enough. Oversized heat capaciy allows several consecutive medium alphas and one ridiculous laser-based alpha strike, that doesn't overheats you.

The problem I see with your support for power pool, is that it's only reasonable if aimed to remove alpha-strikes entirely. Like Ghost Heat, it's a completely new mechanic, that will produce tears both from new players and battletech fans, that nobody will be able to customize, only to assert for few particular cases, where heat system does not and actually never were supposed to.

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I wasn't aware of exactly what you suggested tbh, I though it was the standard reduce heat cap/increase heat dissipation. With your suggestion I just have to go WHOAH, what did you just do to clan vs IS balance? You know clans can fit approaching 30 heatsinks, while IS fits about 2/3 of that.

Hence why I also suggested restoring IS DHS critical slots to 2. Besides, 30 heatsinks is still 2xGauss tonnage and 60 crit slots of mech's capacity used. The capability itself does not suddenly means anything, and it's about IS/Clan balance. Right now, Clanners do not really need to equip nearly as many, coz they do not make that much difference anyway. 30 base heat capacity we have now is like having 21 nerfed external DHS on each mech, that doesnt give you any dissipation, but also doesnt takes up any tonnage or space.

You really should've looked up my suggestions at this point. It's weird how you're arguing against a position, having not a clue about it. It's like next door to your first post.

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What I am trying to get through here is that ballistics are affected differently by a heat cap than energy. Weight does not balance that out, seriously. Take some builds from metamechs.com. Not that I like all builds there, but it's something that people know and something that I didn't make up myself.

Weight is balancing it out. If it doesn't then critical size does. Like I've said, that's the whole point of differentiating into several types of weapons. The lightest AC/2 with ton of ammo takes roughly the same tonnage and space as the heaviest ER-PPC.

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http://mwo.smurfy-ne...15b2a641fb07f7a


This guy has an alpha of 77 damage @ 40 heat and 21 DHS.

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...e4e0903c4f0c280

This guy has an alpha of 49 @ 29 heat and 16 DHS.

Everything with Gauss and Energy will still be able to produce big alphas, while battlemechs with E only hardpoints will be at a disadvantage. Omnis will more or less always be able to conform to B+E alphas.

Eveyrone will be able to produce alphas accordingly to the amount of heatsinks they've equipped. Producing big alphas would instantly take out said mech out of combat state, as another alpha will overheat them long before laser burn is completed.

Timber Wolf example you've brought up is completely viable and balanced build. Placing that alpha will be very hard considering placement and differences in weapons used. Again, heat cap nerf will limit that loadout to one alpha, at which point second alpha will overheat it.

Same with DireWolf - one alpha, and a Left Torso screaming "I'm here! Shoot me to eliminate half of my firepower". After that, overheat and destruction.

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Just have a look at the smurfy table of Damage per Heat. There's a span from 0.67 to 15, so of course using heat only as a tool will have odd effects.

It will have the intended results. At this point I'm not sure if you're aware of the overall idea of BATTLETECH weapon disparity. Whenever you equip one weapon or another, you also embracing a limitation, that accomodates it.

When you take Energy weapon, you also take the heat burden, for perpetual ammo-independent performance and lower tonnage requirements.

When you take Missile weapon, you also take the factor of unreliability and damage spread, for higher damage/ton values and average tonnage/heat restrictions.

Finally, for each Ballistic weapon, you're also taking up the very large portion of your mech's tonnage and internal space with limited explosive ammunition, that restricts your potential damage output to a certain value, for a more focused damage and higher DPS. And when you're taking the Gauss, you're also equipping the most fragile weapon in the game, that will screw you over if exploded, with charge-up mechanic and lower DPS, for a highest effective range of pin-point damage.

That's the nature of BATTLETECH. Everything has it's own trade-offs. Nothing is bound to a single convoluted system, and there's no linear dependencies. Every weapon looks at tonnage, critspace and heat differently and has additional balancing limitations. The idea of mech' customization is to combine these powers and limitations into something effective.

And, as of now, heat limitations are extremely weak and incentivize the use of Energy weapons over anything else. They do not incentivize prolonged combat, due to nerfed dissipation, so the game is mostly about alpha-strikes now, and the fact, that you can equip enormous amounts of Energy weapons without too much relevance to Ghost heat, only magnifies the efficiency of Lasers.

Edited by DivineEvil, 08 November 2015 - 03:43 AM.

[Duke Nedo]

DivineEvil, on 08 November 2015 - 03:34 AM, said:

Lots of stuff.

This is not battletech. If you for a moment think that heat balances everything.... good luck.

In Mwo you have Boating and you have pin point accuracy and free customization, and real time. There isn't a drawback for everything, especially for the heavier mechs. Something else to consider is that the huge alphas now are not FLD.

Again, not defending ghost heat in its current implementation, just saying that balancing everything by heat is utopia.

Out.

[SethAbercromby]

1) Fix Heat cap to reasonable levels
2) Delayed Convergence
3) Burst fire ACs

[DivineEvil]

Duke Nedo, on 08 November 2015 - 05:03 AM, said:

This is not battletech. If you for a moment think that heat balances everything.... good luck.

Heat balances Laser-boating, and laser-boating is the source of extreme damage alphas.

Quote

In Mwo you have Boating and you have pin point accuracy and free customization, and real time. There isn't a drawback for everything, especially for the heavier mechs. Something else to consider is that the huge alphas now are not FLD.

There is. For heavier mechs there's a drawback of larger hitboxes, which are easier to focus, and engine diminishing returns, resulting in lower mobility. Heavier mechs take more mass limit in group drops and in CW drop-decks. In vast majority of cases, two lighter mechs can achieve more, than one mechs of their combined mass can.

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Again, not defending ghost heat in its current implementation, just saying that balancing everything by heat is utopia.

Who's talking about everything? I only talk about high alphas.

Edited by DivineEvil, 08 November 2015 - 05:39 AM.

[Hotthedd]

SethAbercromby, on 08 November 2015 - 05:08 AM, said:

1) Fix Heat cap to reasonable levels
2) Delayed Convergence
3) Burst fire ACs

1) Yes. Heat sinks and heat pumps do not magically increase temperature thresholds of matter, only increase the speed at which the excess heat can be removed. Thermodynamics 101.

2) Unfortunately PGI has strongly stated that this is out. The claim is that delayed convergence mechanics increase the data stream too much for the servers to handle.
Please note: This is different than each shot hitting a different pixel, the servers already handle that in the instances of partially blocked shots, chain-fire, etc.
PGI needs to choose another method.

3) YES! I would add MGs to the mix as well. For full PPFLD there is the Gauss Rifle (which could be fixed by either a global cool down, longer recycle rate, decreased short range damage (due to incomplete separation of the sabot), and/or the inability to fire more than one at a time. PGI could also introduce slug ammo for the LB-X. This would make Ballistics the most versatile of weapons class. Ammo per ton would need to be increased with these changes, however.

[SethAbercromby]

Hotthedd, on 08 November 2015 - 06:28 AM, said:

2) Unfortunately PGI has strongly stated that this is out. The claim is that delayed convergence mechanics increase the data stream too much for the servers to handle.
Please note: This is different than each shot hitting a different pixel, the servers already handle that in the instances of partially blocked shots, chain-fire, etc.
PGI needs to choose another method.

I don't think delayed convergence would add too much over the already existing data stream. At it's most basic point it would be an object of focus all weapons are perfectly converged on. The only difference would be that this point of focus can only move a limited distance towards the target you've got in your cross-hairs.

To give arm weapons an additional incentive with this system I'd suggest a convergence speed of 200m/s while torso weapons only offer 150m/s. Arms would converge a 500m difference in 2.5 seconds, torso weapons would need more than 3.

The advantage of this system would be that convergence mechanics wouldn't need to change too drastically and patient aiming and preparation are rewarded with being able to land pinpoint shots, allowing for high risk and return for snipers at long range at the risk of being terribly converged when ambushed at close range, something that would probably put a few interesting changes into the meta.

Hotthedd, on 08 November 2015 - 06:28 AM, said:

3) YES! I would add MGs to the mix as well. For full PPFLD there is the Gauss Rifle (which could be fixed by either a global cool down, longer recycle rate, decreased short range damage (due to incomplete separation of the sabot), and/or the inability to fire more than one at a time. PGI could also introduce slug ammo for the LB-X. This would make Ballistics the most versatile of weapons class. Ammo per ton would need to be increased with these changes, however.

I disagree, having less pinpointed weapons would significantly increase the time to kill already and changing Gauss and PPCs to not work well together either would also detract from Pinpoint potential, again resulting in more damage being spread out and increasing the time it takes to kill an enemy 'Mech.

An energy draw mechanic would put a fairly hard lock onto those weapons. The rules wold be fairly simple:
- You can only fire one PPC at a time
- You can only charge one Gauss at a time
- After firing a PPC, you cannot fire another or charge a Gauss for 0.5 seconds
- While Charging a Gauss you cannot fire a PPC
- After firing a Gauss, you cannot fire a PPC or charge another Gauss for 0.5 seconds

Technically, this would make the Gauss charge redundant in that it would be no longer in sync with any other weapon for focused PPFLD.

[Hotthedd]

SethAbercromby, on 08 November 2015 - 06:50 AM, said:

I don't think delayed convergence would add too much over the already existing data stream. At it's most basic point it would be an object of focus all weapons are perfectly converged on. The only difference would be that this point of focus can only move a limited distance towards the target you've got in your cross-hairs.

To give arm weapons an additional incentive with this system I'd suggest a convergence speed of 200m/s while torso weapons only offer 150m/s. Arms would converge a 500m difference in 2.5 seconds, torso weapons would need more than 3.

The advantage of this system would be that convergence mechanics wouldn't need to change too drastically and patient aiming and preparation are rewarded with being able to land pinpoint shots, allowing for high risk and return for snipers at long range at the risk of being terribly converged when ambushed at close range, something that would probably put a few interesting changes into the meta.

I wasn't disagreeing, I was merely stating the reasons PGI gave that it was removed.

SethAbercromby, on 08 November 2015 - 06:50 AM, said:

I disagree, having less pinpointed weapons would significantly increase the time to kill already and changing Gauss and PPCs to not work well together either would also detract from Pinpoint potential, again resulting in more damage being spread out and increasing the time it takes to kill an enemy 'Mech.

Which is exactly the point. Nobody can complain about being hit with ONE gauss rifle slug.

TTK is too low. Pinpoint precise Alpha strikes are inconsistent with the BT universe and with physics. Pinpoint precise single weapons are no problem.

SethAbercromby, on 08 November 2015 - 06:50 AM, said:

An energy draw mechanic would put a fairly hard lock onto those weapons. The rules wold be fairly simple:
- You can only fire one PPC at a time
- You can only charge one Gauss at a time
- After firing a PPC, you cannot fire another or charge a Gauss for 0.5 seconds
- While Charging a Gauss you cannot fire a PPC
- After firing a Gauss, you cannot fire a PPC or charge another Gauss for 0.5 seconds

Technically, this would make the Gauss charge redundant in that it would be no longer in sync with any other weapon for focused PPFLD.

The only problem I would have with this is that it has nothing to do with BattleTech, however from a purely video game standpoint it is a workable solution.

[SethAbercromby]

Hotthedd, on 08 November 2015 - 07:12 AM, said:

The only problem I would have with this is that it has nothing to do with BattleTech, however from a purely video game standpoint it is a workable solution.

Technically, that rule exists in lore, it was just never really used much further. You need to consider that TT turns simulate a period of 10 seconds and PPCs and Gauss' are simply assumed to be out of sync through heavy energy draw. However, since all weapons had trouble hitting similar spots, even with a parallel-mount on the same arm, this was primarily used in the books to explain how an Awesome could fire all 3 of it's PPCs without instantly overheating.

[Hotthedd]

SethAbercromby, on 08 November 2015 - 07:24 AM, said:

Technically, that rule exists in lore, it was just never really used much further. You need to consider that TT turns simulate a period of 10 seconds and PPCs and Gauss' are simply assumed to be out of sync through heavy energy draw. However, since all weapons had trouble hitting similar spots, even with a parallel-mount on the same arm, this was primarily used in the books to explain how an Awesome could fire all 3 of it's PPCs without instantly overheating.

Works for me.

Another solution that you touch on would be to have all weapons in MW:O do the TT values of damage and heat over 10 seconds. (For example: a gauss rifle could fire twice over ten seconds doing 7.5 damage and 0.5 heat per shot.)

[SethAbercromby]

To be honest, I don't particularly mind the increased damage per time. It's something we as players have learned to work with and I wouldn't consider it to be game-breaking. As for now, I'm focusing my attention on convergence and the heat-scale as my primary points of where balance should begin, then we can still argue about the finer details.

[Hotthedd]

SethAbercromby, on 08 November 2015 - 08:00 AM, said:

To be honest, I don't particularly mind the increased damage per time. It's something we as players have learned to work with and I wouldn't consider it to be game-breaking. As for now, I'm focusing my attention on convergence and the heat-scale as my primary points of where balance should begin, then we can still argue about the finer details.

Oh, I have no illusions that PGI would ever do that. Honestly, I cannot believe they even considered that triple rate of pinpoint group fired weapons arrays would be an issue.

[KahnWongFuChung]

I and many others have had a solution we had topics and posts on this at the start o Closed Beta when mechs were being blown away I'm almost 1 shot every battle. And that solution was just get rid of the Alpha Shot mechanism altogether let players use the weapons cycle mode with a grouping of 2 weapons only per group and a mode cycle time of 4-6 seconds in between shots.

Many of us even tested this and it slowed the ttk down made the game funnier per battle and made players actually use skill and tactics to win battles not just a Alpha Death Ball approach. But PGI and Devs are deaf and dense when it comes to players making core game suggestions and they wont implement anything they there self's don't want to play in MWO.

So basically MWO has resorted to a FPS game like COS point and shoot high damage alphas and yo don't need much skill or tactics to be good just good at hitting one spot on a mech chassis.

[DivineEvil]

SethAbercromby, on 08 November 2015 - 08:00 AM, said:

To be honest, I don't particularly mind the increased damage per time. It's something we as players have learned to work with and I wouldn't consider it to be game-breaking. As for now, I'm focusing my attention on convergence and the heat-scale as my primary points of where balance should begin, then we can still argue about the finer details.

To be fair, convergence is not a big issue as well. When we're talking about missiles, we're not talking about convergence. When we're talking about ballistics, then convergence fares fine - firing at standing targets punishes these targets for being static; Firing at moving targets requires leading, at which point weapons converge on distant points, not on a target, which makes it highly unlikely to hit the same point, including the case of double-gauss, and the longer the range, the harder it is to even hit with all the weapons in the volley; Even on short ranges some weapons require leading, and ones that don't still require you to continuously keep your aim on the component. An edge-case AC/40 might be a terrifying thing, but in the end it's extremely demanding, fragile, short-ranged and fairly heat-intensive loadout, that still requires leading against most targets and counting each shot. Ridiculous Ghost-Heat values haven't made it balanced - it simply made it unviable.

Convergence is problematic only for Lasers, and yet again it's the problem of how many you can land with alpha-strike without overheating; Right now it's so loose, that an ability to spread damage by torso-twisting or shielding it with a second arm isn't helping as it used to. If you consider proper heat limitations for laser-vomiters, convergence is not actually such a big deal, in my opinion. Besides, removing base heat capacity not only would remove the viability of laser-vomit, but will tone down

Edited by DivineEvil, 08 November 2015 - 09:41 AM.

[Hotthedd]

Precision convergence of multiple weapons IS a problem, not only for lasers (which you actually CAN torso twist to mitigate, unlike FLD weapons).
Just nerfing lasers will only push the player base to a different weapon, it doesn't solve the issue of being able to instantly aim multiple weapons to one component, which should be very difficult instead of super easy.

[SethAbercromby]

DivineEvil, on 08 November 2015 - 09:18 AM, said:

To be fair, convergence is not a big issue as well. When we're talking about missiles, we're not talking about convergence. When we're talking about ballistics, then convergence fares fine - firing at standing targets punishes these targets for being static; Firing at moving targets requires leading, at which point weapons converge on distant points, not on a target, which makes it highly unlikely to hit the same point, even in the case of double-gauss; Even on short ranges some weapons require leading, and ones that don't still would require you to continuously keep your aim on the component.

The issue with double Gauss is that it still puts 30 points of damage into whatever it hits, even if that isn't the same as intended. That's why energy draw is such an often-suggested mechanic to help reigning it and the PPC in a little without needlessly punishing the use of multiple weapons of that type. Delayed convergence still rewards good use with all weapons, but also asks the user to keep their aim steady for a certain period of time for maximum effect, so snap-shots and jump-sniping would become a lot less effective and generally pull combat a little closer together where Medium Lasers and SRMs get to pull their weight..

[DivineEvil]

SethAbercromby, on 08 November 2015 - 09:37 AM, said:

The issue with double Gauss is that it still puts 30 points of damage into whatever it hits, even if that isn't the same as intended. That's why energy draw is such an often-suggested mechanic to help reigning it and the PPC in a little without needlessly punishing the use of multiple weapons of that type. Delayed convergence still rewards good use with all weapons, but also asks the user to keep their aim steady for a certain period of time for maximum effect, so snap-shots and jump-sniping would become a lot less effective and generally pull combat a little closer together where Medium Lasers and SRMs get to pull their weight...

Not exactly. Like I've said, it's only capable of hitting the same component if the target is still (doesn't require leading due to direct convergence), or if it's fairly close (doesn't require leading due to short flight time).

When you require leading, then there's nothing that guarantees you hitting a single component. Leading requires you to aim at the point in front of the target, and depending on circumstances that can remove convergence entirely (if aiming off beyond the horizon). It also makes it possible for your target to change speed, which will make you miss completely. On fairly short range, on the other hand, you're exposing yourself to the potential critical explosion, which is the one most major drawback, that keeps Gauss away from being the best Ballistic weapon of them all.

At this point it's the question of specific case of Gauss balance, not the convergence in general. Some can argue for other weapons, but in the end there are other negative factors, especially the difference in projectile velocity, which makes other ballistic weapons to suffer from leading even more than a Gauss. Convergence is only a problem in theory, but in practice I can't imagine or recall out-of-the-blue situation where Ballistics felt over-board accurate.

Edited by DivineEvil, 08 November 2015 - 10:34 AM.

[SethAbercromby]

Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal.
(Sorry, I only get to use them this often)

Seriously though, just because you think it's fine doesn't mean that it's actually good.