117 replies to this topic

[Hit the Deck]

FupDup, on 27 October 2015 - 09:46 PM, said:

But you have to get that 0.5 tons from somewhere...2.5 tons of ammo? The build I listed before assumed 3 tons of ammo.

FupDup, on 27 October 2015 - 09:46 PM, said:

But you have to get that 0.5 tons from somewhere...2.5 tons of ammo? The build I listed before assumed 3 tons of ammo.

Either 2.5t of ammo or you strip one of the arms completely to carry 3t: ADR-A

[JigglyMoobs]

Gas Guzzler, on 27 October 2015 - 09:22 PM, said:

Pot, meet Kettle.

Seriously, now its "zOMG ridiculously high laser vomit alpha" next it will be "zOMG PPFLD I can't handle it nerf it!!". Its a known cycle.

Yeah, and somewhere in there will be a week of LRM meta and every person on every server will be going OMFG MISTAKES NOOZE! and it will be gone for another two years.

Feels like we've been here before....

[COOL HANDS]

You mean PGI is actually going to tone down the noob alpha, I'll e believe it when I see it. Of course the meta junkies are not going to like their crutch being removed.

Edited by COOL HANDS, 27 October 2015 - 10:50 PM.

[Gas Guzzler]

JigglyMoobs, on 27 October 2015 - 10:44 PM, said:

Yeah, and somewhere in there will be a week of LRM meta and every person on every server will be going OMFG MISTAKES NOOZE! and it will be gone for another two years.

Feels like we've been here before....

Indeed, lets call it the Circle of Whining. Or CoW.

COOL HANDS, on 27 October 2015 - 10:48 PM, said:

You mean PGI is actually going to tone down the noob alpha, I'll e believe it when I see it. Of course the meta junkies are not going to like their crutch being removed.

Yes and the meta junkies had to rely on huge alphas since forever right?

Edited by Gas Guzzler, 27 October 2015 - 10:57 PM.

[Curccu]

FupDup, on 27 October 2015 - 08:46 PM, said:

Well, the Adder can actually do Gauss + 3 tons of ammo + 3 ERSL, making it the only light able to make an actually presentable (but still not optimal) Gauss build.

Rise of the Adder meta?

Hit the Deck, on 27 October 2015 - 09:39 PM, said:

Gauss+2ERML has better synergy at range.

The 'Mech is indeed the best Gauss Light due to Clan Tech and it obsoletes the Hollander before it even arrives. Too bad because I like the Hollander....

I prefer Gauss with 2 tons of ammo and 3 ERML, its surprisingly good.

I'm fan of hollander also but yeah DOA?

[SpiderMom]

I wasnt aware there WAS a problem with laser alpha vomit. Is there? Maybe if all the other options in this game were not completely ***** useless you wouldnt see it as much. Just a thought. Ill keep enjoying my 8 hard point laser mech. Make missiles not suck or give me an 8 hard point balistic and some heavy gauss and I wouldnt have to use nothing but lasers?

The entire debate is absolutely stupid. Yes, an alpha strike should hurt. Who are the ******* complaining about it? Wouldnt a simpler solutions be to just multiply cycle time by 1.5 after an alpha instead of making things more complicated with heat sinks. There are so many things broken with this game its idiotic to be redesigning heat right now. The fact that time is being wasted on this instead of providing actually useful builds other than all laser is a joke. It seems pretty obvious that PGI doesnt want you using anything other than lasers

Edited by SpiderMom, 27 October 2015 - 11:11 PM.

[Kjudoon]

SpiderMom, on 27 October 2015 - 11:07 PM, said:

I wasnt aware there WAS a problem with laser alpha vomit. Is there? Maybe if all the other options in this game were not completely ***** useless you wouldnt see it as much. Just a thought. Ill keep enjoying my 8 hard point laser mech. Make missiles not suck or give me an 8 hard point balistic and some heavy gauss and I wouldnt have to use nothing but lasers?

The entire debate is absolutely stupid. Yes, an alpha strike should hurt. Who are the ******* complaining about it? Wouldnt a simpler solutions be to just multiply cycle time by 1.5 after an alpha instead of making things more complicated with heat sinks. There are so many things broken with this game its idiotic to be redesigning heat right now. The fact that time is being wasted on this instead of providing actually useful builds other than all laser is a joke. It seems pretty obvious that PGI doesnt want you using anything other than lasers

See, this misses the entire point.... well not really, it reverses the entire point. To make the rest of the game that IS balanced against each other, you need to nerf the laservomit. Also, if you haven't been playing a long time in this, or are ignorant of the lore from the original TT that this game has been doing it's best to disavow itself from, seeing the problem is often not easy. I've seen this with other games too. Alpha strikes were supposed to be acts of last resort because you often risked blowing up or at the very least shutting down when it was done.

Heck, the heatscale in TT caused gradual degredation in the ability to play, so this whole "Run Hot or Die" stuff would kill you quicker than if you actually played more lore based.

But playing smart doesn't seem to be what the CoD junkies want. The game's too slow and too hard to kill targets, so things got min/maxed into builds that should not be allowed in game. So now we have Mech of Doody. Not Mechwarrior and certainly not Battletech.

You want to make all other builds equal? End perfect convergence. Balance increased in one move. Players here generally don't want balanced matches or challenges. The want their favorite super mech to roflstomp all day long with the illusion of loss or challenge there to assist with their ego and only the path to certain victory is in question not whether or not victory is attainable at all. And as the Dread Pirate Westley pointed quipped "anyone saying anything different is selling something."

[Weeny Machine]

Xetelian, on 27 October 2015 - 08:36 PM, said:

We'd end up with Ballistic-warrior and I think the lighter mechs would be the most effected.

I am not sure about that. Ballistics weigh a lot and...people need suddenly to aim and not point and click. This will cause a nice spread by itself.

You are right about the light mechs, though. They should be kept viable.

Mystere, on 27 October 2015 - 08:53 PM, said:

I've been practicing with gauss rifles and PPCs. Now it looks like that's going to pay off.

Same here. However, I predict a river of tears when suddenly some Laz0rz-Alpha-Warriors have to figure in velocity all of a sudden

COOL HANDS, on 27 October 2015 - 10:48 PM, said:

You mean PGI is actually going to tone down the noob alpha, I'll e believe it when I see it. Of course the meta junkies are not going to like their crutch being removed.

No worries, there are crutches for everyone! You can't aim? Here is your LRM and SSRM system. Have fun now! Oh, too bad that the latter will wreck the light mechs totally (and to some degree meds).

Edited by Bush Hopper, 28 October 2015 - 12:23 AM.

[Kassatsu]

Cap heat at 30, go back to standard BT values for just about everything. And for the love of god, lose the ghost heat.

Test it for a few months with actual players, see what happens. Balance things as needed.

I think we learned the hard way not to just go and change EVERY SINGLE VALUE IN THE GAME because it "didn't translate well" from a tabletop perspective. Better yet, make ALL autocannons actual autocannons - All the fears of the game instantly becoming all about ballistic weapons are gone because now you have to stay on target just like with lasers, and the tradeoffs are as they should be - Tonnage and ammo consumption in exchange for not needing nearly as many heat sinks for better short-term damage with nowhere near the longevity of an energy-heavy build, the range of an LRM build or the short range burst damage of an SRM build. All PPCs and gauss could either have a lengthy reload time to offset their massive spike damage, or fire more often over X seconds for less damage (triple fire rate for 1/3 damage? I don't know, sniping wouldn't be much of a strategy if you had to hit 3x as many times... Oh wait, HP values would be back to the original numbers).

I for one was fine with MW3's balance. I have no doubt it had issues, I am after all looking back on what, almost 20 years ago? My not-so-recent attempts at running the game on a modern PC had less than satisfactory results so I can't really say for sure.

Feels wrong to even be having a discussion like this in a "released" game. This is beta at best.

[TheCharlatan]

I really like the idea of a different heat scale.
There are, however, the following problems to address:

• Light mechs: light mechs need to have high firepower (because this game is, and stays, focused on firepower) and a reduced dissipation is terrible for them. They basically would need to only resort to hit&run tactics.
  
• Unfriendly heat: right now, we have an advice telling us that we are about to overheat. With a reduced capacity, we would often find ourselves pushing 50-80% heat each alpha. Which means that you will have newbies overheating constantly, as they have no advice on when they are going to overheat if the fire. This is easily solvable with either Bitchin'Betty announcing various heat thresholds (25-50-75) or by being able to set a certain threshold as "unsure" and recive a feedback from the UI when we are above that threshold.
  
• Dakka Warrior: right now, DPS mechs are beaten by high alphas and cold blood. A Dakka-Wolf is easy to kill in a good mech, because you can spread damage and alpha his huge CT. But if the alphas go down, the Dakka will reign supreme: high DPS and low heat. This is a problem mainly on the dire wolf, the only mech that can truly boat UACs, while the King Crab and Mauler lag a little bit behind. This is harder to solve, and could require some tuning on UACs, that have a potentialy incredible DPS.

[TheCharlatan]

Kjudoon, on 28 October 2015 - 12:13 AM, said:

You want to make all other builds equal? End perfect convergence. Balance increased in one move. Players here generally don't want balanced matches or challenges. The want their favorite super mech to roflstomp all day long with the illusion of loss or challenge there to assist with their ego and only the path to certain victory is in question not whether or not victory is attainable at all. And as the Dread Pirate Westley pointed quipped "anyone saying anything different is selling something."

While i agree that a convergence change would be awesome, it apparently will never happen because hit-reg would die.
Please stop asking or it, it's like asking for the moon: it won't happen.

Reworked heat scale on the other hand is a workable solution, IF pgi decides to listen to us.

[Greyhart]

I don't see why if lasers are limited right by heat i.e. should be very dangerous to do high damage in one shot.

Ballistics could be balanced with a cone of fire so their damage is spread.

So lasers accurate but can't drop high damage in a short time.

ballistics are less accurate etc etc

[KuroNyra]

Kjudoon, on 27 October 2015 - 09:46 PM, said:

The solution isnt heat unless you want more mechanics that take us farther from the source material. Instead the solution that too many l33ts do not want is spreading all direct fire damage like an lbx srm or yes... Lrm. The method HOW it spreads can be debated but the necessitynkf this raw function is not honestly debatable.

And it's closer from what is what in the books and in the tabletops. But ho well... People don't want cone of fire and stuff like that because... Reasons?

[Kjudoon]

TheCharlatan, on 28 October 2015 - 12:47 AM, said:

While i agree that a convergence change would be awesome, it apparently will never happen because hit-reg would die.
Please stop asking or it, it's like asking for the moon: it won't happen.

Reworked heat scale on the other hand is a workable solution, IF pgi decides to listen to us.

It's not asking for the moon. It's functional in dozens of other games out there more successful than this one.

KuroNyra, on 28 October 2015 - 01:44 AM, said:

And it's closer from what is what in the books and in the tabletops. But ho well... People don't want cone of fire and stuff like that because... Reasons?

A few people don't want cone of fire because they want what they're used to in FPS games that are incompatible with the concepts of Battletech and by extension Mechwarrior. And then there's the players out there who found the 'cheat code' or 'exploit' or whatever you want to call it for easy mode victory. Laservomit/Gauss-ERPPC spam and now they're either addicted to it and won't willingly give it up and will leave if their fix is taken away, are unwittingly profiting by using it, or knowingly profiting by it and won't give up the gravy train.

Oh... and if it wasn't easy mode, people wouldn't be doing it so much. If people want hard mode, use crappy mechs and weapons.

Edited by Kjudoon, 28 October 2015 - 02:08 AM.

[KuroNyra]

Kjudoon, on 28 October 2015 - 02:07 AM, said:

It's not asking for the moon. It's functional in dozens of other games out there more successful than this one.



A few people don't want cone of fire because they want what they're used to in FPS games that are incompatible with the concepts of Battletech and by extension Mechwarrior. And then there's the players out there who found the 'cheat code' or 'exploit' or whatever you want to call it for easy mode victory. Laservomit/Gauss-ERPPC spam and now they're either addicted to it and won't willingly give it up and will leave if their fix is taken away, are unwittingly profiting by using it, or knowingly profiting by it and won't give up the gravy train.

Oh... and if it wasn't easy mode, people wouldn't be doing it so much. If people want hard mode, use crappy mechs and weapons.

Counter Sttrike use a cone of fire.
Hawken use a cone of fire,

Mechwarrior use one in tabletops and books.
The only problem is because there is different kind of weapon with different placement. But that can be worked out.

[Alek Ituin]

MoonUnitBeta, on 27 October 2015 - 09:10 PM, said:

Implement Energy/Power Supply to regulate Energy based weapons. Energy weapons use this gauge as primary resource, and AC's/ missiles use heat as primary resource.

I know, i used the term "resource", that must mean I want MWO to be an ARPG. Please.

The heat scale needs tuning, but I'm not a believer at all that heat scale is ever going to be perfect. It's a basic scale/meter that has a finite amount of ways to function, and each of those ways comes with their pros and cons. I don't think there'll ever be a balance where heat scale will work well with everything, or will ever be able to be made to work well with everything (ghost heat was a good attempt and has its place).

Really, we should have a secondary scale that helps manage a range of other weapons. Which can be balanced and tuned appropriately. It wouldn't make it a "Well should I go all energy, or all AC?" It would be a balance of "I can afford AC, they don't take energy, but using these will overload my heat thresholds, now I should look into energy weapons.", and vise versa, "my powersource won't support these 10 medium lasers, maybe it would be best if I went with 1 large, 2 med, and 3 small lasers.. or I could look into using the Balistic/Missile hardpoints if my mech has them."

I think it's obvious at this point that I care very little about what's table top rules, and I'm more concerned about the well being of the game. I feel it makes good sense that a mech can only support a certain amount of lasers, or energy demanding weapons. Mech have infinite power at the moment. That is why we have no trouble dishing out huge laser alphas.
When the energy runs out, guess what, your 8 med pulse laser alpha is going to cut out short, dealing only the damage of what 5 or 6 would have done. But now you have a crazy long cooldown on everything as you wait for your system to recharge the lasers, or replenish surplus power.

NO.

MORE.

BANDAIDS.

[TheCharlatan]

KuroNyra, on 28 October 2015 - 02:09 AM, said:

Counter Sttrike use a cone of fire.
Hawken use a cone of fire,

Mechwarrior use one in tabletops and books.
The only problem is because there is different kind of weapon with different placement. But that can be worked out.

I'm not saying it's not possible.
I'm saying that it would take A LOT of work. A lot of work that would stop all other development and risk even not being liked by the player base (people will start going "i'm sick of being RNG-hit to the head" and stuff like that).
If i were PGI, i would never even think about investing time and resources in something that risky.
Again, don't ask for stuff that is not realistic.

Edited by TheCharlatan, 28 October 2015 - 02:16 AM.

[Kjudoon]

KuroNyra, on 28 October 2015 - 02:09 AM, said:

Counter Sttrike use a cone of fire.
Hawken use a cone of fire,

Mechwarrior use one in tabletops and books.
The only problem is because there is different kind of weapon with different placement. But that can be worked out.

The point remains, Cone of Fire is a valid and necessary solution. I still maintain the majority of those who do not want it profit from it in some manner. Customizability, which is both this game's biggest achievement and best feature is also it's greatest curse with our current system.

Edited by Kjudoon, 28 October 2015 - 02:21 AM.

[Khobai]

Quote

NO.

MORE.

BANDAIDS.

This. We all know what the problem is: Convergence. just fix it. Its that simple.

Bandaids dont fix anything. Double armor fixed nothing. Ghost heat fixed nothing. No bandaid in the history of this game has ever fixed the problem. So why would a heatscale bandaid work?

In fact its already been explained why lowering the heat cap wont fix anything. Because it just makes dual gauss supreme as the only weapon that can still do high pinpoint damage for low heat. The game literally becomes gausswarrior online at that point.

Quote

Counter Sttrike use a cone of fire.

Hawken use a cone of fire,

cone of fire works in those games because you only have ONE weapon.

cone of fire is stupid in a game where you fire multiple weapons at once. plus it introduces RNG to a game that shouldnt have RNG.

A better solution is just to have a portion of damage transfer to adjacent locations. You get all the benefits of cone of fire except its completely non-random.

Edited by Khobai, 28 October 2015 - 02:25 AM.

[Kjudoon]

TheCharlatan, on 28 October 2015 - 02:15 AM, said:

I'm not saying it's not possible.
I'm saying that it would take A LOT of work. A lot of work that would stop all other development and risk even not being liked by the player base (people will start going "i'm sick of being RNG-hit to the head" and stuff like that).
If i were PGI, i would never even think about investing time and resources in something that risky.
Again, don't ask for stuff that is not realistic.

I don't see any of that when I've played other games with RNG. I suspect that'd be a very contrived complaint... similar to dying by arty headshot which was an error in splash damage.