56 replies to this topic

[Pinkie Pie]

I'd say the best option would be to differentiate the flamer and make it do SOMETHING other than a weapon that does straight damage, as we have plenty of those.

For starters, I do think limiting the max number is a good idea, the fusion reactor can only sustain so many outlets after all. This lets you balance the weapon without worrying about "boating" cases. I propose the flamer remains dealing negligible damage to armor BUT with the distinction that it can crit ammo and heatsinks THROUGH armor.

The flavor is, since they don't want to permashutdown mechs because of fun, that instead the traditional heatgain of the weapon has to be represented another way. This is through damage to components that can "cook off" or be rendered inoperable. Destroying ammo and fusing heatsinks into useless slag.

[Big Tin Man]

Remove heat generation to the mech with the flamer (or drastically reduce)

Add the following ability:

Once target mech has hit max flamer heat threshold (90% iirc), continued flamer hits have chance to crit and destroy heatsinks through armor, probably in line with MG chance to crit internals. Think bursting coolant pipes and radiators. Critting ammo... this could lead to the further death of AC's. I don't like that very much.

Heat effects on target should continue to rise for 5-10 seconds after the flamer breaks off (think napalm stuck on mech buring off. No chance to crit heatsinks though)

Edited by Big Tin Man, 15 December 2015 - 11:51 AM.

[Clydewinder]

Flamers should fire sticky napalm that keeps burning.

[Robot Kenshiro]

Could use the good old Mech Commander get up and shoot fireballs.... could be neat and have a "Great BALLS of FIRE" event....lol

[Bellum Dominum]

Sigh. Do a search in the forums for flamers. You'll see this discussed about every 6mos. Flamers aren't going to be changed. They do damage + add heat to the enemy mech. Proven by videos I've posted to the forums myself. By TT rules flamers are only supposed to damage or add heat not both. So flamers are actually better here than they are in TT. Flamers are also crit weapons. As they deal damage every second on an exposed area this is a chance to crit every second on that location (again it works I know personally). I've gotten plenty of flamer kills.

Now all this said flamers are support weapons NOT primary weapons. They aren't meant to be primary weapons in this game nor TT.

As far as sticky napalm goes that would be inferno srms and I would absolutely LOVE for that to come along into the game so very badly!

[TLBFestus]

Flamers are tricky business.

What PGI has done to them is simply terrible.

To avoid over use or spamming of them I'd suggest making them a limited resource weapon (only some much flamer juice and your are done...Yes...I know it's not how they work in lore).

OR


A slow recharge weapon, like jump jets only significantly slower to build up enough "pressure" to be useful and then needing recharge time again.

[Bellum Dominum]

Oh to answer the OP. I'd fix the pilots that don't understand how to use flamers as the weapon it's self is incredibly powerful in the right hands.

Oh and one thing I forgot to mention about flamers: They blind the enemy mech if targeted on their cockpit and the user of the flamer is in range.

[Kaeb Odellas]

-Jack up the damage. Give it higher DPS than an SPL to compensate for the shorter range and constant burn time. 2 DPS or something. Give it a large cone-of-fire like MGs have. Flamers aren't precision weapons

-Keep weapon heat generation high but linear. The exponential heat curve is nonsense. Maybe 1.2 heat per second or something.

-Heat applied to target should be minimal when fired on an armored component. Armor should be able to absorb and dissipate the heat pretty well. Like 0.2 heat per second on the target.

-Against exposed internals, enemy heat generation should be higher. Perhaps tie it to the crit system, so crits add extra heat generation on the enemy. Give it a high crit chance as well. Flames should be very bad for sensitive electronics. It should also cook off any ammo it destroys for extra fun.

-To prevent stunlocks, perhaps give flamers "ammo" that slowly regenerates, so you can't fire them nonstop.

Edited by Kaeb Odellas, 15 December 2015 - 05:36 PM.

[Bellum Dominum]

Kaeb Odellas, on 15 December 2015 - 05:34 PM, said:

-Jack up the damage. Give it higher DPS than an SPL to compensate for the shorter range and constant burn time. 2 DPS or something. Give it a large cone-of-fire like MGs have. Flamers aren't precision weapons

-Keep weapon heat generation high but linear. The exponential heat curve is nonsense. Maybe 1.2 heat per second or something.

-Heat applied to target should be minimal when fired on an armored component. Armor should be able to absorb and dissipate the heat pretty well. Like 0.2 heat per second on the target.

-Against exposed internals, enemy heat generation should be higher. Perhaps tie it to the crit system, so crits add extra heat generation on the enemy. Give it a high crit chance as well. Flames should be very bad for sensitive electronics. It should also cook off any ammo it destroys for extra fun.

-To prevent stunlocks, perhaps give flamers "ammo" that slowly regenerates, so you can't fire them nonstop.

#1 It has similar dps and crit chance as mgs. It is already a cone weapon (although it used to spread across any enemy mech more and I do wish this would return but I understand why they changed that).

#2 Even the exponential heat generation from flamers is 'divertable'. Again more experience with flamers and you'd already have figured this out. Again see the other threads about flamers and you'll see the answer to this non-issue issue.

#3 Flamers add heat to an enemy mech more by working it's way in between the 'kinks' in the armor than direct applied heat to surface.

#4 See #3 Exposed or not means nothing in terms of heat applied to target. As far as higher crit chance versus exposed sections of a mech... that's already the case with all weapons. It also blows up ammo like any other weapon but has the chance to do so each and every second it's held on the exposed section of the mech.

#5 Stunlocks are prevented by the exponential heat gain of the flamer and the top end heat to target. 90 or 95 max a mech can be heated up to by a flamer being used on it. Pretty sure it's just 90 now and I'd like to see it go back to 95 but it doesn't need to.

Seriously folks do yourself a favor and look over the other threads on flamers before suggesting any 'improvements' to flamers. They've been messed with back and forth a lot the first few years of this game and the current way they work is by far the best. I've said it on other threads and I'll say it here:

Go ahead and give me all your suggestions. I'll happily throw my flamer back on my Spider and listen to you all scream HAX! I'll even record it and post those videos as well. Seriously I just popped my flamer back on not but a couple of weeks ago and had to take it back off because the newer players have no clue how to cope with a flamer being used properly against them. It was fun, even a bit funny, but as much as I come across as a total jerk I actually am not and am just trying to help out.

There is a lot to learn about flamers on those other threads. I'm glad to see people interested in their use. Make use of that information LONG before you go trying to make suggestions for changes that I can promise you aren't going to happen anyways. Dev's have chimed in on this discussion already, even on the 'town hall meetings'. Flamers are not even a topic of discussion because they are about the only thing about the game that can be said is a well working weapon not in need of any sort of 'balancing' today.

[Tekran]

TT rules for flamers were horrible: 1 ton, 1 crit, 90m range, 3 heat, 2 target damage (or alternatively 2 heat to target). Horribly inefficent unless the map was largely forest or you were roleplaying. MWO is great and feels like BT/MW, but it's not fair to compare it to TT game other than in concept, art and termonology.

I agree that the current MWO flamer implementation can allow you to use them very effectively for blinding and/or critting. I like toying with flamers, but they're not exactly competative and I feel it's safe to say that most would rather just fill that space with another MLAS. How many MWO FS9's actually field multiple flamers or any at all? I'd guess next to none. Slight improvements may help push the weapon back onto some of the mechs and out of the inventory stores. TLBFestus, I really like your JJ-type recharge bar idea over other "ammo" options.

* i've read many flamer posts as I've lurked over the years, i still contend flamers need a slight boost...

Edited by Tekran, 15 December 2015 - 06:38 PM.

[Kaeb Odellas]

Death Drow, on 15 December 2015 - 06:04 PM, said:

#1 It has similar dps and crit chance as mgs. It is already a cone weapon (although it used to spread across any enemy mech more and I do wish this would return but I understand why they changed that).

#2 Even the exponential heat generation from flamers is 'divertable'. Again more experience with flamers and you'd already have figured this out. Again see the other threads about flamers and you'll see the answer to this non-issue issue.

#3 Flamers add heat to an enemy mech more by working it's way in between the 'kinks' in the armor than direct applied heat to surface.

#4 See #3 Exposed or not means nothing in terms of heat applied to target. As far as higher crit chance versus exposed sections of a mech... that's already the case with all weapons. It also blows up ammo like any other weapon but has the chance to do so each and every second it's held on the exposed section of the mech.

#5 Stunlocks are prevented by the exponential heat gain of the flamer and the top end heat to target. 90 or 95 max a mech can be heated up to by a flamer being used on it. Pretty sure it's just 90 now and I'd like to see it go back to 95 but it doesn't need to.

Seriously folks do yourself a favor and look over the other threads on flamers before suggesting any 'improvements' to flamers. They've been messed with back and forth a lot the first few years of this game and the current way they work is by far the best. I've said it on other threads and I'll say it here:

Go ahead and give me all your suggestions. I'll happily throw my flamer back on my Spider and listen to you all scream HAX! I'll even record it and post those videos as well. Seriously I just popped my flamer back on not but a couple of weeks ago and had to take it back off because the newer players have no clue how to cope with a flamer being used properly against them. It was fun, even a bit funny, but as much as I come across as a total jerk I actually am not and am just trying to help out.

There is a lot to learn about flamers on those other threads. I'm glad to see people interested in their use. Make use of that information LONG before you go trying to make suggestions for changes that I can promise you aren't going to happen anyways. Dev's have chimed in on this discussion already, even on the 'town hall meetings'. Flamers are not even a topic of discussion because they are about the only thing about the game that can be said is a well working weapon not in need of any sort of 'balancing' today.

I don't want to be that guy, but what tier are you where flamers can in any way be construed as "effective"?

[man du]

Add Infantry!

[Graymalkin]

I think it would be kind of cool if you could use flamers to pop ammo on a target. If you hold it long enough over the right hit location, there's an increasing % chance of cooking off any ammo in that section and starting a chain-crit. Range is so short that this would be a dangerous tactic, but one that could really make it important to protect your assaults.

[Prof RJ Gumby]

There's some nice ideas here.

And here's mine:

1. To deal with latency/traffic issues:
- limit the number of 'ticks'
As this is a very specific weapon that damages in sort of an arbitrary way (by heating the enemy up), there might be much less ticks that in case of lasers/MGs. 2/sec would be fine. 1 would be stretching it, but still workable. To make it more realistic etc., 1st tick would not deal damage
- make it actually pinpoint in terms of damage
It does not sound that strange if we assume that a mech is designed to deal with a lot of heat and only the centre of the cone is actually hot enough to harm them anyway.

2. To make it viable, but not just another typical damage dealing weapon
- heat rise to target remains rather small and capped
- no damage to armor, damage to internals through armor
Just as it kinda works now, excessive heat or strain (from masc) damages an internal, while the armor is intact (armor is not afraid of high temperatures.
- damage based on target's heat
That's my main point here. I believe it would make things quite interesting when dealing with or against flamers + add a bit of discouragement to staying on the edge of overheating all battle long. Flamers' dmg would depend on target's heat, eg. in the following way:
EDIT: 0-25% heat - 0,5 dmg/s
25-50% heat - 1dmg/s (/EDIT)
50-75% heat - 2 dmg/s
75-100% heat - 4 dmg/s
>100% - 10 dmg/s
Imagine the implications. Ability to punish almost-overheated enemies by jumping them in the right moment, energy boats having to deal with close-in flamer mechs very carefully (finally an argument for having a flamer instead of a laser!), maybe even deciding not to shoot, but reatreat to friends instead of shooting back and getting fried... Correctly implemented, flamers could be a kind of self-balancing tool similarly to how AMS work (AMS-LRM fluctuations that we sometimes see: the better the LRMs -> the more AMSs shows up -> the more LRMs get worse and less attractive -> the less AMSs are used -> what makes LRMs more useful...). Flamer boats would be potentially very dangerous to energy boats, but very inefficient against heat neutral builds that use gauss/AC5s and 10s/ machine guns (if the latter would be viable ). Also, with flamers working like that, there would be an incentive to make a lower-alpha/better heat management energy boats, just to eliminate the risk of getting helpless against a light flamer wolfpack...

EDIT: also, low damage vs unheated opponents would limit the possibility for trolling and relentless wolfpacking -> jumping a heated up laser boat would be very effective, while on the other hand the target, if not caught heated up, would be able to retreat to friendlies without shooting back much instead of being automatically fried because wolfpack -> options, thinking man's shooter etc.

Edited by Prof RJ Gumby, 12 February 2016 - 01:02 AM.

[LordNothing]

i would start by making them capable of burning things.

[TELEFORCE]

Aren't flamers supposed to be adjusted in the upcoming February patch? I'd like to see what's in store.

[LordNothing]

yip, figure this is just a speculation type thread.