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El Bandito, on 17 December 2015 - 10:59 PM, said:
You are putting too much stock on Alpha Strikes. Know that in your so highly valued Battle Tech lore, Alpha Striking was the rare occasion, rather than the norm, like what we have now. Even if PGi removes big alpha strikes from the game, I guarantee you MWO will still go on without a hitch. Probably for the better. I personally embrace longer TTK.
Sure, there are alternatives such as CoF and delayed convergence, but they are out of PGI's programming league.
Khobai, on 17 December 2015 - 10:42 PM, said:
which is different from ghost heat how? because thats what ghost heat does... forces you to chain fire your weapons. the only difference with power draw is that all weapons are basically in the same ghost heat group, making it more oppressive, and harder to circumvent. But ultimately both are horrible systems that seek to artificially limit how many weapons you can fire simultaneously.
disallowing alphastrikes is ridiculous. And thats exactly what a power draw system would do. it would eliminate alphastriking from the very game that coined the term "alphastrike". alphastriking IS battletech and getting rid of it eliminates one of the fundamental concepts of the game.
alphastriking isnt the root cause of the problem so it makes no sense to implement systems which treat it as such. The root cause of the problem is perfect aim/convergence; when all of a mech's weapons are allowed to hit the same location and utterly obliterate that single hit location. the problem is a lack of damage distribution mechanics and damage not being spread evenly enough across the hit locations of mechs.
alphastriking in battletech was perfectly balanced due to the fact that each weapon rolled a randomized hit location. But MWO skips that randomized hit location step and allows players to place all that damage in any one location of their choosing. And that right there is what causes the breakdown of the whole system. Im not advocating anything as ridiculous as random hit locations, but I do feel the game needs to implement more mechanics that help distribute damage across different hit locations (burst fire ACs, splash damage PPCs, longer burn times and lower damage on lasers, etc...). Thats a much better and more intuitive way to balance weapons that doesnt eliminate one of the very premises the game is based on (alphastriking).
My proposal for power draw put another bar onto the HUD right next to the heat bar. If you alpha strike and went over your limit your targeting computer could not handle the load and thus give up resulting in convergence turning off and the weapons shooting everywhere like with JJs. Or just spreading a bit depending on amount of overload.
The fundamental difference to current ghost heat was that it was extremely easy to understand and visualize. Ghost heat is the exact opposite. No new player can get a grasp on it.
Question how is the multiplier for streaks in ghost heat? Where is the table? Do you have the link? Do I have to go to an external site (smurfy) to actually see the numbers? See how crazy that is? It's a total mess. It's nowhere explained and not one of the new players gets it fully.
Thags the biggest reason why it has to go and get replaced by something that everyone gets after looking at it. It would take literally one sentence to explain it.
"Firing alpha strikes can result in a massive power draw which the fusion engine inside the mech can not handle and which shuts down several components inside the mech like the targeting computer and others." There. Done. Understood.
And just use the damage of each weapon as its power load. Make the cap somewhere around 40 points and call it a day. This way you easily know that if you alpha above 40 damage points you risk losing your convergence. The 40 damage points power load cap can be a variable per chassis if needed. This would also allow double heat sinks to get their real 2.0x multiplier back since not so much would depend on just heat as the balance tool.
Edited by TexAce, 18 December 2015 - 01:52 AM.
