100 replies to this topic

[wanderer]

Quote

The answer: Cone of Fire

Nope. This randomizes damage delivery, which is anathema to the hardcore.

You don't randomize where things hit, you just make sure that everything can't easily hit the same point at once.

We don't need to turn weapons into Streak racks of damage scatter to fix the problem- we just need the guy firing his line of LA/LT/RT/RA lasers off without targeting assistance (read: most trades) hitting in a similar line across his target (although given convergence towards a point further past the target, such a shot would likely be LT/CT/RT hits- and IMHO that's fine).

An alpha that hits two locations is already considerably less lethal than a 100% pixel-perfect shot. At longer ranges, that's probably across three even if you keep that crosshair steady on target.

Or to put it simply- what's going to be killing you faster- a Jagermech putting 30 points of gauss into one spot, or 15 into two different spots? Perfect convergence guarantees 30's, binary convergence means it's probably 15/15.

[LordKnightFandragon]

wanderer, on 26 January 2016 - 09:39 PM, said:

[/b]

Nope. This randomizes damage delivery, which is anathema to the hardcore.

You don't randomize where things hit, you just make sure that everything can't easily hit the same point at once.

We don't need to turn weapons into Streak racks of damage scatter to fix the problem- we just need the guy firing his line of LA/LT/RT/RA lasers off without targeting assistance (read: most trades) hitting in a similar line across his target (although given convergence towards a point further past the target, such a shot would likely be LT/CT/RT hits- and IMHO that's fine).

An alpha that hits two locations is already considerably less lethal than a 100% pixel-perfect shot. At longer ranges, that's probably across three even if you keep that crosshair steady on target.

Or to put it simply- what's going to be killing you faster- a Jagermech putting 30 points of gauss into one spot, or 15 into two different spots? Perfect convergence guarantees 30's, binary convergence means it's probably 15/15.

Who said the CoF had to be so extreme that it was SRM scatter shot!?

A Cof like Planetside 2 would fit perfectly, and even a CoF like Armored Warfare would suffice. Sure, it might make some of your 14 medium laser burst miss, but that isnt bad. This game above all needs some actual TTK reducing things, and stuff to make it more tactical, over rush forward lazing banks of 12 lasers per mech, melting assaults in 3 seconds flat, forcing PGI to give a 50t mech 350 internal structure....

[CDLord HHGD]

How about a real heat scale?

[wanderer]

Convergence really needs work, heat needs work too. Both can and should be part of the anti-Death Star-solution to the state of the game.

[xXBagheeraXx]

Lower heat cap. Thats what they should have done but did not. Lower heat cap to the point where 2 ERppcs would have been 90% heat or something like that.

They also needed actual detrimental effects to keeping your heat high, like busting heat sinks if you keep your reactor in the red too long, Or blowing yourself up for going over around 110% heat or so. If you've ever played MWLL a heat system like that in this game would have been pretty epic and would have killed the 4-6 ppc stalkers before thy giganerfed PPC's and added this bandaid ghost heat system that really needs to go.

[CDLord HHGD]

xXBagheeraXx, on 27 January 2016 - 02:06 PM, said:

Lower heat cap. Thats what they should have done but did not. Lower heat cap to the point where 2 ERppcs would have been 90% heat or something like that.

They also needed actual detrimental effects to keeping your heat high, like busting heat sinks if you keep your reactor in the red too long, Or blowing yourself up for going over around 110% heat or so. If you've ever played MWLL a heat system like that in this game would have been pretty epic and would have killed the 4-6 ppc stalkers before thy giganerfed PPC's and added this bandaid ghost heat system that really needs to go.

cdlord, on 27 January 2016 - 05:31 AM, said:

How about a real heat scale?

[Red Shrike]

cdlord, on 27 January 2016 - 02:13 PM, said:

I supported it then, I still support it now. (I'm first post after OP )

[Lyoto Machida]

LordNothing, on 26 January 2016 - 12:11 AM, said:

ghost duration. you start stacking beams, and the reactor has a hard time keeping up, so the beams burn longer. this would also lengthen the total cycle time and lower dps. this mechanic would primarily effect energy weapons with the possible exception of ppcs (these would manifest as ghost cooldown) and flamers (which might just be exempt).

other weapon types would have their own mechanics. autocannons for example might have recoil effects that throw off aiming. they really shouldn't overheat at all with the exception of ac20s or builds with a lot of guns. recoil would stack, more guns more crosshair shake. you could either chain fire or fire a salvo and wait for the shake to stop. this would of course require acs and lasers to be on equal footing.

then missiles. how about ghost spread. fill up the airspace, missiles spread out abit to avoid hitting eachother. i would only apply this to lrms and streaks though, regular srms are somewhat limited by the fact that they have very short range and you must lead moving targets. they need to be big hitters to work.

Ghost reload - the more ammo you carry, the longer the reload time (overworked ammo feed system).
Ghost recharge - the longer you fire your jump jets, the longer it takes to recharge them (overworked plasma conduits or whatever).
Ghost interference - the more ECM you carry on a team, the lower the range of each one (due to interference or something).
Ghost range - the more you boat of a certain weapon type, the lower the optimum range becomes (due to reasons).
Ghost speed - the more you boat of a certain weapon type, the less quickly the projectile travels (again, due to reasons).

If we had ghost targets via using ECM, we could have ghost ghosting. The more ECM on your team, the less ghost targets presented to the enemy team as decoys (due to interference).

[Hans Von Lohman]

Long story made short was the 6 PPC stalkers that were killing the game as there really were only a handful of mechs that performed well. This was also much earlier than the quirks system as well to tweak mechs individually.

As for other options, lots of ideas were being tossed around by the community, but unfortunately we do NOT have one of the biggest variables at our disposal that the devs have. They know what can and can't be programmed into their game quickly and easily.

So, they just went with a penalty that used a pre-existing feature of the game. Heat. Now it does more heat than normal if players abuse the mech lab to get the min-max builds to just the 2 or 3 mech builds that are viable.

It may be a different story now with the quirks added to the game. In particular I want to know if quirks can be change on the fly, to be used as an alternative to ghost heat penalties.

However, if I had to design my own ghost heat replacement system, I would go with two different features. If you exceed a certain limit (about 30 damage alpha strike per second DPS), then your targetting system goes on the fritz with a message on screen similar to when an UAC jam happens, and missile and ballistic weapons have a random 0.2 to 0.5 second delay applied to firing, and energy weapons do less damage with an included feedback of different audio and colored beams.

[xXBagheeraXx]

cdlord, on 27 January 2016 - 02:13 PM, said:

Yep. That.

Heatsinks would not increas the cap either, just heat disspiation rate, so if you have freaking 27 doubles in your Warhawk prime you cool off REALLY quickly

I cant fire more than 2 ppcs at once because ill nuke my reactor but GOOD LORD i can chain fire them.....and you know...actually be dangerous with PPCS like the mech is supposed to be.

Damage is spread out and not front loaded but I can actually get the befnefit of the billion heatsinks I crammed into the bloody thing.

No need for cheesy targeting or "reactor overload" mechanics like Hans is suggesting and its not that hard to code.

Be really interesting if they started cooking off ammo like you are supposed to if you keep your mech too hot...

Movement penalties like in MW4...your molymer is not supposed to be that hot...

Targeting screen fuzzing out too...

[oldradagast]

LordKnightFandragon, on 26 January 2016 - 11:17 PM, said:

Who said the CoF had to be so extreme that it was SRM scatter shot!?

A Cof like Planetside 2 would fit perfectly, and even a CoF like Armored Warfare would suffice. Sure, it might make some of your 14 medium laser burst miss, but that isnt bad. This game above all needs some actual TTK reducing things, and stuff to make it more tactical, over rush forward lazing banks of 12 lasers per mech, melting assaults in 3 seconds flat, forcing PGI to give a 50t mech 350 internal structure....

Everyone always makes groundless assumptions when cone of fire is mentioned. They either just assume we're talking about turning every weapon into an LBX, or they scream about "not making this game as inaccurate as World of Warships / Tanks!" (In which, by the way, the guns are STILL far more accurate than the real-world artillery of the era they are simulating.)

All a cone of fire needs to do is be random enough to end the idiocy of being able to constantly put a pile of lasers, Dual Gauss, or whatever damage all on the same component at stupidly high ranges. Once one gets into close range, the cone will rarely even be noticeable unless you're intentionally trying to aim for the very outer edge of the mech's hitboxes just to risk a miss so you have something to complain about.

As for the "hard-core" people who hate cone of fire because of it "not being skill-based", they are full of it. They claim to be "hard core" and "skillful," and they all they do is run the easiest point-click-kill builds they can possibly find. So much "skill" in laser vomit, what with the instant damage all on one pixel at stupidly high ranges... right... And we'll also forget that nearly every other successful shooter game out there uses a cone of fire of some sort, AND tabletop rules and Lore do NOT support the nutty notion of mechs easily putting all their damage on one location. People want the game to be "more like Battltech," but heaven forbid anyone takes away their laser-vomit easy button.

Edited by oldradagast, 27 January 2016 - 03:47 PM.

[wanderer]

Quote

Ghost reload - the more ammo you carry, the longer the reload time (overworked ammo feed system).
Ghost recharge - the longer you fire your jump jets, the longer it takes to recharge them (overworked plasma conduits or whatever).
Ghost interference - the more ECM you carry on a team, the lower the range of each one (due to interference or something).
Ghost range - the more you boat of a certain weapon type, the lower the optimum range becomes (due to reasons).
Ghost speed - the more you boat of a certain weapon type, the less quickly the projectile travels (again, due to reasons).

If we had ghost targets via using ECM, we could have ghost ghosting. The more ECM on your team, the less ghost targets presented to the enemy team as decoys (due to interference).

[Bobzilla]

lower heatcap favours bigger mechs that can fit multiple ballistics (heavy class is arguably best already). it hurts brawling most as well (arguably hardest tactic already).

[Hans Von Lohman]

oldradagast, on 27 January 2016 - 03:44 PM, said:

Everyone always makes groundless assumptions when cone of fire is mentioned. They either just assume we're talking about turning every weapon into an LBX, or they scream about "not making this game as inaccurate as World of Warships / Tanks!" (In which, by the way, the guns are STILL far more accurate than the real-world artillery of the era they are simulating.)

All a cone of fire needs to do is be random enough to end the idiocy of being able to constantly put a pile of lasers, Dual Gauss, or whatever damage all on the same component at stupidly high ranges. Once one gets into close range, the cone will rarely even be noticeable unless you're intentionally trying to aim for the very outer edge of the mech's hitboxes just to risk a miss so you have something to complain about.

As for the "hard-core" people who hate cone of fire because of it "not being skill-based", they are full of it. They claim to be "hard core" and "skillful," and they all they do is run the easiest point-click-kill builds they can possibly find. So much "skill" in laser vomit, what with the instant damage all on one pixel at stupidly high ranges... right... And we'll also forget that nearly every other successful shooter game out there uses a cone of fire of some sort, AND tabletop rules and Lore do NOT support the nutty notion of mechs easily putting all their damage on one location. People want the game to be "more like Battltech," but heaven forbid anyone takes away their laser-vomit easy button.

I am fine with this idea. In fact, it is similar to the concept that ECM and targeting in general ought to be more important and changed. The idea is to have no convergence (aka a sort of cone of fire) when you don't have a lock on your target.

I would also be OK with that same thing happening if you exceed an arbitrary damage maximum, such as 30 DPS per second or firing too many of a single type of weapon. If you do that, then you get a spread of fire instead of pin point fire, but no extra heat.

The explanation is similar to the board game. If you exceed too much heat, your mech targeting gets worse. Here the difference is that you don't get it from just the heat level itself, and that other weapons like AC-5's and Guass Rifles also will trigger the effect.

[Lyoto Machida]

Bobzilla, on 27 January 2016 - 04:13 PM, said:

lower heatcap favours bigger mechs that can fit multiple ballistics (heavy class is arguably best already). it hurts brawling most as well (arguably hardest tactic already).

Which would (in theory) raise TTK, as not everyone is good at leading shots.

[Bobzilla]

Longer ttk Isn't worth throwing weapon and chassis balance out of wack imho.

[wanderer]

Lyoto Machida, on 27 January 2016 - 06:42 PM, said:

Which would (in theory) raise TTK, as not everyone is good at leading shots.

Not to mention you can adjust ROF. If energy weapons are fast firing but cause the most heat, ballistics can be slower-firing and cause the least HOT. After all, the biggest, most heat-friendly gun in the game is also the slowest to fire.

[Ratpoison]

Every time someone says "cone of fire" I vomit in my mouth a little bit. People really don't understand the consequences of such a decision.

oldradagast, on 27 January 2016 - 03:44 PM, said:

As for the "hard-core" people who hate cone of fire because of it "not being skill-based", they are full of it. They claim to be "hard core" and "skillful," and they all they do is run the easiest point-click-kill builds they can possibly find. So much "skill" in laser vomit, what with the instant damage all on one pixel at stupidly high ranges... right... And we'll also forget that nearly every other successful shooter game out there uses a cone of fire of some sort, AND tabletop rules and Lore do NOT support the nutty notion of mechs easily putting all their damage on one location. People want the game to be "more like Battltech," but heaven forbid anyone takes away their laser-vomit easy button.

Nice, a whole paragraph of nonsense strawmanning just to ignore opposing opinions. Well done, you should be in politics.

[DerMaulwurf]

Hans Von Lohman, on 27 January 2016 - 02:29 PM, said:

Long story made short was the 6 PPC stalkers that were killing the game as there really were only a handful of mechs that performed well. This was also much earlier than the quirks system as well to tweak mechs individually.

[...]

No it didn't. 4PPC Ttalkers were eating the 6PPC ones for breakfast, lunch, coffee and dinner.

The actual problem had been that PGI just kept on piling band-aid buffs onto the PPC, because it didn't really work pre-HSR. When HSR fixed the underlying issue that had held PPCs back, they panicked instead of rolling back the PPC buffs.

And no, there is no explanation other than panic, because even the AC/2 got ghost heat. Which BTW is the reason why the AC/2 still has no cooldown module. Because with the module and the old stats, a single AC/2 would have given itself a ghost heat penalty.

[patataman]

FupDup, on 25 January 2016 - 08:21 PM, said:

For ammo explosions in particular, I'm going to get flamed so hard for saying this but I think that heat-induced ammo explosions would actually have some bad consequences for balancing.

If somebody is using a loadout that mixes energy weapons with either missiles and/or ballistics, they will generate significant heat and thus trigger the explosion penalty, and probably die.

But if somebody is using a loadout that boats purely energy/lasers, they might generate a lot of heat but they will be completely immune to explosion penalties because they have no ammo to explode in the first place.

Ballistic boats technically are at risk of the ammo explosions, but many of them have such low heat output that they don't have to worry about triggering the ammo explosion penalty. There are a few Ghost-Heat ones that qualify as being hot, and those would of course see even less use than they do today.

Missile boats have significant heat output and have ammo that is liable to go boom, so they get double penalized.

Basically, mixed loadouts and missile loadouts get hit when they don't deserve to get hit, while lasers are completely immune and some ballistic loadouts can often sidestep it.

You are right, ammo explosions would affect every build except pure energy boats.

What if heat affects lasers?

Let's say the laser lenses can degrade when exposed to high temperatures for too long. So, if the mech temperature is past a certain threeshold and the laser is fired, it has a chance to became inoperative. Or if that is too punishing, the damage output for the weapon is reduced. (To compensate for the risks of ammo explosions, and this way the lasers become less reliable if you don't watch your heat )

I don't really know how heat would affect the PPC's, but i think with the current PPC state, they don't need more nerfs. If anything, it would be cool to be able to override the field inhibitors manually to fire inside the 90 meters min range, at the risk of damaging your mech.

Edited by patataman, 28 January 2016 - 05:45 AM.