117 replies to this topic

[Inflatable Fish]

Khobai, on 28 October 2015 - 02:22 AM, said:

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.

you're assuming all major changes are done in a vacuum and no adjustments would be done to other systems to adapt to the changes. (yes I know we're talking about PGI here but this is how it *should* be done)

the simplest and most elegant solution to dual gauss would be to just make them unable to shoot more than one at a time. force a .5 sec delay between shots. then remove the inane trigger-hold mechanic and just leave it on a 1 sec charge-up. voila, dual gauss stops being the be all end all of weapon setups.

e: the above numbers are obviously just rough guesses, everything would have to be tested and adjusted.

e2: semi-related note: if we were going to have any changes to the heat system and/or gauss, weapon cooldown modules and quirks would probably have to go.

Edited by Inflatable Fish, 28 October 2015 - 05:13 AM.

[timaeus]

Spread mechanic tied to heat production? More heat more spread.

Lugh, on 28 October 2015 - 04:31 AM, said:

We HAD convergence mechanics in the game in closed beta. The whining and crying from the Call of Duty tryhards about having to wait to fire weapons and not being able to instantly hit what they were pointing at were so loud that we woke up one day and boom convergence gone. Pinpoint skill made useless in a single patch.

Convergence was removed because it wreaked havoc with HSR not because of CoD players whining

[pbiggz]

everyone is freaking out about bandaids but we did NEED to fix heat sinks and heat scale at one point, the heat scale we have now is really just a crude prototype of what heat scale was supposed to be.


Whether that will solve alpha damage or not is another issue, I think not, not entirely at least, it might murder lots of energy boat builds, specifically laser boats, but people will just switch to the next most effective thing, usually some combination of ballistic weapons.

[Kjudoon]

timaeus, on 28 October 2015 - 04:54 AM, said:

Spread mechanic tied to heat production? More heat more spread.



Convergence was removed because it wreaked havoc with HSR not because of CoD players whining

Actually, from what I've heard it was DYNAMIC convergence where every weapon tracked separately that tore up HSR, not just Cone of Fire or spread. We see the use of spread every day with LRMS, SRMs and LBx weapons. HSR doesn't die. It's not perfect, but it doesn't die.

Since PGI took the easy way out with AMS being a field with a radius of effect (which is why it ignores terrain and can shoot through objects) we can simplify matters with CoF where you don't track every gun, you give them a radius to randomly locate in. I still say there could be great coolness in "Scribbling" lasers across the targetting zone too.

Yes, TTK will go way up, and that's a good thing. Instagimp freaks shouldn't be catered to. There are many other games that do that. Go play them.


Oh, and yes, heat tied to spread? Yes. That's even lore.

Edited by Kjudoon, 28 October 2015 - 05:12 AM.

[pbiggz]

timaeus, on 28 October 2015 - 04:54 AM, said:

Spread mechanic tied to heat production? More heat more spread.



Convergence was removed because it wreaked havoc with HSR not because of CoD players whining

They removed it because they didn't know how to fix it and paul refused to do work, as usual.

[sycocys]

timaeus, on 28 October 2015 - 04:54 AM, said:

Spread mechanic tied to heat production? More heat more spread.



Convergence was removed because it wreaked havoc with HSR not because of CoD players whining

convergence was removed long before they implemented any sort of HSR system.

[MoonUnitBeta]

Alek Ituin, on 28 October 2015 - 02:13 AM, said:

NO.

MORE.

BANDAIDS.

It's not a bandaid. it's an expansion of resource management. It's a logical design element that takes some of the load and dependencies off heat scale, and catagorizes weapons in a more sensible way. It can affect cooldowns, it can affect burn durations, it can affect how many energy weapons you're able to fire all at once or over time. It promotes the full use and range of all, or more than one weapon type.
It also means that there’s better reason for weapon manufactures. Some use less energy, but burn longer, or shorter, or have less range, or more range and deal less damage. And these weapons can be combined to overcome some of the restrictions that all energy builds will face. They're not going to pack 6 larger lasers, but they'll be able to take lots of various ranged weapons (small, medium, large energy weapons), or very few large weapons.
Bigger engines can support a larger energy pool. Which means that you'll be weighing the pro's and cons of a small engine, and one or two large weapons, or a big engine, but weighing the pros and cons of less tonnage to work with, and thus less weapons. Much like how larger engines have more heat sinks, except surplus energy is weightless, and produced by the strength of the engine.

We can have that now with heat, but you’re balancing AC’s to Lasers in the same resource, and the only difference is one is PP, and the other is over time. It's a very fine line. When you separate them into their own resource pools you put them in different balance pools, and they're easier to balance as a whole as there becomes a greater encouragement to take an assortment of weapon types.
Ghost heat is a bandaid. A single purpose feature to fix only one thing, a quick fix.
This isn't a quick fix. It requires actual planning and design to implement. It also makes sense.

And so the lack of more sensible ways to manage your weapons, in my eyes, is a flaw, and things like ghost heat is a bandage to cover up the obviousness of these issues.

Edited by MoonUnitBeta, 28 October 2015 - 06:51 AM.

[Gas Guzzler]

Well this thread is turning into a "No more bandaids, here is this super simple obvious thing that will fix everything".

[COOL HANDS]

Tom Sawyer, on 28 October 2015 - 03:51 AM, said:

How about allowing a mech to alpha then initiate a cool down timer like weapons currently. So you can alpha once, then fire your guns or lasers single or in groups just no all out alpha.

And if you do alpha then have it so the regular cool down time doubles for your guns.

Call it having your mech computers and systems having to reset having done that.

​Now this is and idea I can get behind, what bothered me about the constant alpha striking as of late is their is no penalty for over usage. Sure they overheat and shutdown eventually but I've seen people alpha strike several times before even reaching that point. Best suggestion I've heard so far.

[Gas Guzzler]

COOL HANDS, on 28 October 2015 - 08:21 AM, said:

​Now this is and idea I can get behind, what bothered me about the constant alpha striking as of late is their is no penalty for over usage. Sure they overheat and shutdown eventually but I've seen people alpha strike several times before even reaching that point. Best suggestion I've heard so far.

How dare I fire 3 LLs with my Crab all at once. What an obscene alpha strike. Crutch!

Or those Spider 5Vs with one LPL. That mech needs to be penalized for alpha striking! Crutch!

You guys say "Oh alpha striking is so terrible" but what is the alpha strike? If I put a machine gun on my laser vomit Timber Wolf, all of a sudden my 54 point laser burst is no longer an alpha. On the other hand, a Mist Lynx with an ER PPC alphas all the time (what a crutch huh?)

So yeah, where does the idea come from that alpha striking is so terrible? It can't be the books. I know for a fact that the CSJ Dire Wolf that Phelan Wolf fought during Operation Bulldog fired 3 cLPL and Gauss together over and over again (not technically an alpha because he had two Streak-6s, but for MWO's sake, those streaks would just be DHS), and Phelan himself alpha'd all 7 of his lasers as soon as the ER MLs were in range (not the MGuns though, so I guess that makes it okay??). Both of these MechWarriors walked out of their mechs on crutches of course.

Edited by Gas Guzzler, 28 October 2015 - 08:37 AM.

[FupDup]

Gas Guzzler, on 28 October 2015 - 08:35 AM, said:

How dare I fire 3 LLs with my Crab all at once. What an obscene alpha strike. Crutch!

Or those Spider 5Vs with one LPL. That mech needs to be penalized for alpha striking! Crutch!

You guys say "Oh alpha striking is so terrible" but what is the alpha strike? If I put a machine gun on my laser vomit Timber Wolf, all of a sudden my 54 point laser burst is no longer an alpha. On the other hand, a Mist Lynx with an ER PPC alphas all the time (what a crutch huh?)

So yeah, where does the idea come from that alpha striking is so terrible? It can't be the books. I know for a fact that the CSJ Dire Wolf that Phelan Wolf fought during Operation Bulldog fired 3 cLPL and Gauss together over and over again (not technically an alpha because he had two Streak-6s, but for MWO's sake, those streaks would just be DHS), and Phelan himself alpha'd all 7 of his lasers as soon as the ER MLs were in range (not the MGuns though, so I guess that makes it okay??). Both of these MechWarriors walked out of their mechs on crutches of course.

It also doesn't come from the TT game itself, because many mechs can fire most or all of their weapons without suffering many penalties, or sometimes ANY penalties.

My classic favorite is the Hellstar, the ultimate king of cheese. 4 Clan ERPPCs with 30 DHS to keep them 100% heat-neutral in TT, with the armor of an Atlas and speed of an average heavy. Just keep firing everything, all day...

[Mystere]

timaeus, on 28 October 2015 - 04:54 AM, said:

Convergence was removed because it wreaked havoc with HSR not because of CoD players whining

What if I say it was both, that the former was a timely gift to placate the eSports crowd?

Edited by Mystere, 28 October 2015 - 08:43 AM.

[Mystere]

I have just one word to say:

Convergence

[DAYLEET]

PTS 2 helped with Alpha, it also help balance both side, i hope they keep it that way. People who claim they will now use PPCs forget that they use lasers because of the match score. Ive been using ppcs all this time and it's feels less rewarding even though you are potentially much better for your team. And If you are really good with ppcs(likw some of you were some times ago) to get qq's, all the more power to you and im happy for you.

[Almond Brown]

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.

The PTS has Heat Sink changes on it already. Slight but changes so that means PGI are listening but apparently no one Test on the PTS because.. BS reasons. So they NAG on oblivious...

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.

stuff

Please list a half dozen of those "other games" that provide each player with as many as 12 weapons to fire as they see fit? Please.

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.

When was the last time you played Hawken? Does anyone play Hawken full time anymore?

[Almond Brown]

Khobai, on 28 October 2015 - 02:46 AM, said:

What about a mechanic that redistributes a portion of the damage done to a location outward to an undestroyed adjacent location n a completely non-random way?

So like if your mech's side torso gets hit, 25% of the damage might get transferred to the arm or leg (whichever is closer to the point of impact). But the transfer would only occur if the arm or leg was undestroyed.

Its like a completely non-random version of cone of fire. And it directly addresses convergence by spreading damage out more across the hit locations of the mech.

kindve but not really. reticle shake is full loss of weapon control.

cone of fire still gives you partial control over the weapon. the accuracy usually only gets bad if you fire for prolonged periods. and usually it gets worse if youre moving and better if youre stationary or crouching.

but cone of fire wouldnt really work for mwo because you fire multiple weapons at once. cone of fire is really only good for games where you fire one weapon at a time. It would end up being way too random of a mechanic and RNG has no real place in MWO.

I believe an armor-side mechanic that redistributes damage to adjacent locations is a much better solution.

While the theory here is sound, when missing an arm, then all further transfers go to the CT? That would be bad...

What about no more than 2 weapons on any 1 Group and Alpha firing everything is simply not permitted. If a players macros multiple groups to fire within .1ms, the system just keeps its base chain fire cycle of .5s between groups, (like weapons inside groups) and fires them one after the other with a .5s delay.

sycocys, on 28 October 2015 - 02:50 AM, said:

Hopefully they get brave enough to add heat scale penalties on top of this.

And I hope they don't. We are driving KILLING machines. Getting to 30% heat and then slowing to a ******* crawl because of it? Then even worse at 45% Heat. Absolute BS...

Edited by Almond Brown, 28 October 2015 - 09:19 AM.

[Almond Brown]

Jetfire, on 28 October 2015 - 04:15 AM, said:

Heat Cap and dissipation are not the core issue.

The lack of scaling heat penalties is the biggest contributor to high alpha play and low TTK. As you produce more heat you should suffer increasing encumbrance up unto the point that you begin to take damage to internals.

Penalty examples:
25% Heat - 15% CD increase to all weapons
50% Heat - 15% top speed decrease, 15% slower accel and deccel
75% Heat - 30% top speed decrease, 30% slower accel and deccel and 30% weapon CD increase
95% Heat - HUD flickers out, loss of radar function and targeting

Those are just example values but could be tuned to give the desired result so that High Alpha play is a risky proposition rather than the norm. Leaving you unable to run away effectively or continue returning fire. This would encourage sustained controlled fire.

Add in fixed max range weapons convergence for torso weapons (and arms lacking lower actuators) and TTK would probably be right about where you would expect for giant tanky mechs.

Ummm, nope. Using a BattleMech to do BattleMech things and getting Punished for doing so is a TT game thing, and does nothing to make a RT game like MWO even close to more entertaining. So, thanks but No thanks. Thanks.

[Mystere]

Khobai, on 28 October 2015 - 02:22 AM, said:

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.

Why is it stupid? The "kick" produced by firing multiple weapons all at the same time ought to create misalignment.

Khobai, on 28 October 2015 - 02:22 AM, said:

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.

I'd rather have cone of fire implemented as a gaussian distribution.

But in the end, I still prefer fixed convergence.

Edited by Mystere, 28 October 2015 - 09:40 AM.

[Khobai]

Quote

Why is it stupid? The "kick" produced by firing multiple weapons all at the same time ought to create misalignment.

its stupid because its not how battletech works. mechs are designed to fire multiple weapons at once without misalignment. you should be able to fire all your weapons at once without half of them missing the target.

the problem with cone of fire is it doesnt just shift your damage over to an adjacent location. cone of fire will actually make your weapons veer COMPLETELY off the target so they miss. Thats why i dont like it.

I think my solution is better because all your weapons still hit, and all the damage is accounted for, the damage just gets distributed across the mech using a damage transfer mechanic.

Almond Brown, on 28 October 2015 - 09:21 AM, said:

While the theory here is sound, when missing an arm, then all further transfers go to the CT? That would be bad...

I said damage would transfer outward.

CT->ST->arm or leg (whichever is closest to point of impact)

So say 25% of damage would transfer outward to an undestroyed adjacent location.

Quote

the simplest and most elegant solution to dual gauss would be to just make them unable to shoot more than one at a time. force a .5 sec delay between shots. then remove the inane trigger-hold mechanic and just leave it on a 1 sec charge-up. voila, dual gauss stops being the be all end all of weapon setups.

Then ill just use quad AC5s. You gonna nerf them too? Why dont you just nerf all ballistics into the ground because thats what youd have to do with an idiot idea like halving heat capacity.

Players will always use whatever weapon gives them the most pinpoint damage for the least heat. Thats why lowering the heat cap is stupid and wont fix anything... because it makes ballistics king... and then the cycling of nerfing weapons would keep continuing with having to nerf ballistics into the ground.

Edited by Khobai, 28 October 2015 - 10:07 AM.

[Gas Guzzler]

Mystere, on 28 October 2015 - 09:36 AM, said:

Why is it stupid? The "kick" produced by firing multiple weapons all at the same time ought to create misalignment.

Lasers have no kick.

What would be cool though, is for ballistics, towards the end of the match due to the mounting system starting to fatigue under repeated use if the guns started to shoot off of the reticle by a certain degree. Not a random CoF, but say maybe it starts aiming 1-4% higher based on how many times its been fired. More of a simulation aspect than anything else, but you can skill your way around it if you are familiar with the system.