81 replies to this topic

[DaFurryFury]

I'm not the best player around but I play frequently enough to hold my own. This is a question that has been bugging me lately because I'm not entirely sure how it would be fixed.

Why is everything about the alpha strike these days? Isn't an alpha strike supposed to (usually) be a risky maneuver because it could result in instant shutdown? And mechs that ARE meant to alpha all the time usually didn't have the biggest load so they wouldn't be at much risk? It seems like any sustained fire build that I try to use gets smoked immediately. Even the big assault mechs that are supposed to be able to soak us SOME damage drop like flies to alpha build stormcrows and they keep firing like they aren't even at risk of overheating.

Is there no place for sustained fire mechs anymore? It seems like it's all builds that require as little facetime with the enemy as possible. Granted I understand that you don't always want to be looking face to face with the enemy but were in giant robots that are supposed to be able to endure some damage. It just seems like mechs that were once viable are just completely obsolete because they aren't built to fire as many weapons as possible at once but rather focus on a few weapons with lots of ammo and precision to deal damage over time.

It's probably just that I'm never a fan of insta-Gib strategies because in my experience with gaming those are usually the most overpowered builds. Currently the mechs I have the most success with are AC20 builds, Gauss builds, LPL builds, etc etc.... Will I ever be able to pull out my dusty Blackjack with AC/2s or cycled pulse lasers or my hunch4sp or anything similar again?

[Mcgral18]

Because not using an alpha strike spreads damage.

You don't want to spread damage. You want to core a hole in a specific component as fast as possible, with as little waste.


That calls for an alpha strike.

[FupDup]

Nobody builds sustained fire mechs because PGI made them almost impossible to build in the first place. This is the reason why MWO's heat system is the way it is. From the Book of Paul, Chapter 10, Verse 3:

Paul, in ATD #43 said:

Answer from Paul: There are no current plans to change the heat threshold towards TT values. Are we hard set against it? No, just at the moment there’s no need to do this.

Playing with a higher rate of cooling makes a lot more builds become heat neutral. A lot of heat neutral builds results in mid-range damage applied at a constant rate over time. This mechanism would be highly exploited by those with knowledge of building efficient heat neutral Mechs.

Translation: Steady damage over time is "exploitative" but huge spikes of instant damage are not, apparently.

Edited by FupDup, 08 December 2014 - 10:43 PM.

[Kirkland Langue]

Sorry but there is one DPS build which we all know and all love/hate/lovetohate

Dakkawolf.

[DaFurryFury]

Newb question: whats "TT"

Also, BullS! In old games I would always play mechs that build heat slowly and do steady damage. Why is that not a viable strategy now?

I have seen dakka wolf but it still seems to be the only exception because he can actually still do decent damage with a few shots since it has so many equipped. other "over time" mechs wouldn't have so much firepower more than likely.

Edited by DaFurryFury, 08 December 2014 - 10:50 PM.

[Brody319]

DaFurryFury, on 08 December 2014 - 10:46 PM, said:

Newb question: whats "TT"

Table top

[Monkey Lover]

Because killing them in 2 seconds means you live. Trying to kill them in 3 seconds means you die. When TTK is so fast we have no other options.

[Malcolm Vordermark]

The game is about quickly disabling enemy mechs. Ideally, this is done by doing as much damage as possible to a single important location.

Additionally, firing all your weapons at once gives you time to defensively torso twist while they recharge.

Theres really no reason to not build for alpha striking.

[DaFurryFury]

Mcgral18, on 08 December 2014 - 10:41 PM, said:

Because not using an alpha strike spreads damage.

You don't want to spread damage. You want to core a hole in a specific component as fast as possible, with as little waste.


That calls for an alpha strike.

I understand that but it seems like people are using this idea without any reprimands so there is little to mitigate the overuse of this strategy. I know it's the best strategy recently but it's quickly becoming the only strategy.

[Ursh]

Mcgral18, on 08 December 2014 - 10:41 PM, said:

Because not using an alpha strike spreads damage.

You don't want to spread damage. You want to core a hole in a specific component as fast as possible, with as little waste.


That calls for an alpha strike.

When people talk about maneuvering, tactics, strategic play, etc., they're all really just talking about using those things so you can get into a position to alpha the hell out of somebody a couple of times, and then slink away to cool down.

[zortesh]

Because damage now trumps potential damage later.

[DaFurryFury]

Rouken, on 08 December 2014 - 10:48 PM, said:

The game is about quickly disabling enemy mechs. Ideally, this is done by doing as much damage as possible to a single important location.

Additionally, firing all your weapons at once gives you time to defensively torso twist while they recharge.

Theres really no reason to not build for alpha striking.

I get that but should it really be so easy? It should at least put you at risk of overheating unless you have forgone additional firepower for heatsinks.

[Ursh]

FupDup, on 08 December 2014 - 10:43 PM, said:

Nobody builds sustained fire mechs because PGI made them almost impossible to build in the first place. This is the reason why MWO's heat system is the way it is. From the Book of Paul, Chapter 10, Verse 3:



Translation: Steady damage over time is "exploitative" but huge spikes of instant damage are not, apparently.

This is what, in my opinion, makes me hate the gameplay more and more. I like dps builds, designed to keep up sustained firepower over time. Unfortunately, this game isn't built for that.

Instead, it's hide, hide, hide, BLAM BLAM, hide, hide, hide, hide, BLAM BLAM, hide, hide, hide, hide, repeat until enemy team is dead. You know, sort of like this other FPS game I've heard all the cool kids play: Call of Duty.

[Malcolm Vordermark]

DaFurryFury, on 08 December 2014 - 10:57 PM, said:

I get that but should it really be so easy? It should at least put you at risk of overheating unless you have forgone additional firepower for heatsinks.

Whats easy about that compared to staring at your opponent chain firing weapons? I'd rather have the twist and shoot game play.

[Alistair Winter]

Some important reasons have been listed already.

Another important reason is the fact that your mech is basically as effective when operating at 90% heat capacity as 0% capacity. Unlike TT rules, the MWO game mechanics do not make your mech slower and harder to pilot when they're close to overheating. Overheating has very little risky of penalty, except getting shot at. Ammo explosions don't happen. You'll only take minimal internal damage unless you override.

And of course, there's convergence. With every weapon convering perfectly on a spot no bigger than a single molecule, there's no reason not to fire all the weapons at once. If weapons took time to converge, or torso-mounted weapons could never converge perfectly (which would give people a reason to put more weapons in the arms instead of running zombie builds) then players would be stupid to alpha strike except at point blank.

PGI seems very content with what they have now. It's a damned shame. I like this game, but it could be so much more.

[FupDup]

Alistair Winter, on 08 December 2014 - 11:04 PM, said:

Some important reasons have been listed already.

Another important reason is the fact that your mech is basically as effective when operating at 90% heat capacity as 0% capacity. Unlike TT rules, the MWO game mechanics do not make your mech slower and harder to pilot when they're close to overheating. Overheating has very little risky of penalty, except getting shot at. Ammo explosions don't happen. You'll only take minimal internal damage unless you override.

...

I appreciate the intentions of heat effects, but in the current gameplay it's extremely easy to climb up that heat scale, even with lots of DHS spam.

In TT, all you had to do to manage heat was to do a simple two variable subtraction of (Total Weapon Heat Per Turn - Total Cooling Ability) to determine how much heat you'd generate. Staying just under the first penalty (of 5 heat) was actually very very easy. I'd say the ideal amount of "heat per turn" would be somewhere around 1-4 points of net heat.

In TT, you could fire a PPC with 10 SHS and not have any penalties at all, you'd be at zero on the heat scale (if immobile). You could also design a cheese Clan assault mech to have 30 DHS and 4 ERPPCs, fire all of them in one turn, and end that turn with your heat scale still reading zero.


TL;DR: Making heat efficient mechs and managing heat in TT were very easy. But in MWO, we jump straight up the scale and cool off slowly over time instead of performing a math subtraction for what had the gameplay effect of "instant cooling".

The moral of the story is that we'd have to make it a lot harder to overheat if we wanted to make heat penalties work in MWO. Otherwise, heat-generating weaponry would be gimped fairly hard and maybe that fabled ballistic meta would come true for once.

Edited by FupDup, 08 December 2014 - 11:16 PM.

[Alistair Winter]

FupDup, on 08 December 2014 - 11:11 PM, said:

TL;DR: Making heat efficient mechs and managing heat in TT were very easy. But in MWO, we jump straight up the scale and cool off slowly over time instead of performing a math subtraction for what had the gameplay effect of "instant cooling". The moral of the story is that we'd have to make it a lot harder to overheat if we wanted to make heat penalties work in MWO. Otherwise, heat-generating weaponry would be gimped fairly hard and maybe that fabled ballistic meta would come true for once.

So... more ghost heat for ballistics then

But yeah, the whole weapon balance would need to be looked at again. On the other hand, I think all the dominant meta builds since early 2013 have been relatively hot builds, except the gausscat. Squawk raven, splatcat, poptarts, laser stalker, boom jager, ppc stalker, laser vomit timber, splatcrow, dakkawolf. Haven't they mostly been rather hot builds? People used to continously overheat their poptarts in mid air, even.

[nitra]

Really in my opinon it all boils down to the one major problem of mwo .

pinpoint damage.

that is your reason.

as detailed in the above posts pin point damage is what makes the alpha strike critical in this game.

all other outlying issues are directly related to this.

if we had a superior damage model more aligned to the original vision of battle tech than your sustained fire build would be more relevant on the battlefield.

until something is done about pinpoint damage their will be lil need for sustained firing of weapons.

and dont look forward to that happening anytime soon as the player base is pretty much split on the removal of pinpoint.

[FupDup]

Alistair Winter, on 08 December 2014 - 11:22 PM, said:

So... more ghost heat for ballistics then

Paul wouldn't have it any other way.

Alistair Winter, on 08 December 2014 - 11:22 PM, said:

But yeah, the whole weapon balance would need to be looked at again. On the other hand, I think all the dominant meta builds since early 2013 have been relatively hot builds, except the gausscat. Squawk raven, splatcat, poptarts, laser stalker, boom jager, ppc stalker, laser vomit timber, splatcrow, dakkawolf. Haven't they mostly been rather hot builds? People used to continously overheat their poptarts in mid air, even.

I wouldn't classify the Lagshield Craven as a hot build. It's about middle of the road. As for Dakkawolf, those already use ballistic spam and can manage heat well enough if they don't pack on very, any lazors. Regardless of what we've seen in the past, what we'd see in the future would shift as it always has when the Wheel of Meta™ has been turned.

I still wonder what life would be like with a drastically cut down heat cap, but with drastically boosted dissipation rates to compensate. Most alphas couldn't be fired without an instant shutdown or getting close, and those that could avoid high heat are generally high tonnage anyways (ballistics). And the faster cooling would prevent energy/missile loadouts from being gimped in the crossfire.

If I could figure out how to get past a client error when modifying the game's XML files, I could try it out myself on the testing grounds...

Edited by FupDup, 08 December 2014 - 11:43 PM.

[YueFei]

FupDup, on 08 December 2014 - 11:39 PM, said:

Paul wouldn't have it any other way.



I wouldn't classify the Lagshield Craven as a hot build. It's about middle of the road. As for Dakkawolf, those already use ballistic spam and can manage heat well enough if they don't pack on very, any lazors. Regardless of what we've seen in the past, what we'd see in the future would shift as it always has when the Wheel of Meta™ has been turned.

I still wonder what life would be like with a drastically cut down heat cap, but with drastically boosted dissipation rates to compensate. Most alphas couldn't be fired without an instant shutdown or getting close, and those that could avoid high heat are generally high tonnage anyways (ballistics). If I could figure out how to get past a client error when modifying the game's XML files, I could try it out myself on the testing grounds...

You could test it out in private matches with all pilots adhering to an honor rule. If you know your MWO heat cap for a particular mech, you can calculate which percentage on the heat bar corresponds to 30 heat, every pilot voluntarily staying below that percentage, or manually shutting down if they exceed that percentage.

You know, for science.