106 replies to this topic

[Mcgral18]

Wintersdark, on 17 February 2016 - 02:34 PM, said:

What's the timing on the macro? I'm trying to work out the math with it.

As things currently stand - completely ignoring macro timing, just using in-game stuff - I'm actually pretty happy with how flamers work. As such, I'd strongly prefer to not ravage flamers as they currently stand to break a macro that isn't particularly powerful.

With the macro, how much heat is inflicted?

Not entirely known yet, but try toying around with the pause equalling (or slightly exceeding) firing time.
Or, shoot for 20 seconds, then fire after 10 seconds
Shoot for 20 seconds, fire after 22 seconds
Shoot for 20 seconds, fire after 40 seconds

To see if it's right or not.

[MischiefSC]

So it's important to remember that for a Flamer rebalance to work it needs to be consistently (if situationally) better than two extra MLs.

It needs to be good - good enough to shave 10-12 pts off your alpha. Not that it doesn't need dialed back but it needs to be good.

[pwnface]

Wintersdark, on 17 February 2016 - 02:39 PM, said:

That seems to be a bug that needs fixing, not a flamer design problem. How much heat does that generate on your target?

http://mwomercs.com/...oof-of-concept/

It seems like it is doing reduced heat generation on the target (which it should) but still a very significant amount of heat generated. I'm not sure how the math works out, you'll probably have to test it yourself.

I would recommend comparing time to get a mech to 90% heat using a full alpha burn versus time using only macro fire. I think the ultimately the most efficient way is to use a 1-2 second burn before starting the macro. This allows you to get a fast spike in heat while the macro allows you to shed your exponential heat multiplier "flamer memory" value as you finish getting them to 90%.

[Bilbo]

Wintersdark, on 17 February 2016 - 02:34 PM, said:

Here we go, chainfire testing, on an Adder stuffed full of DHS (as many as can physically fit, I forget exactly how many):



Observations:

1) At 30s, the heat generation chainfiring 3 flamers has exceeded the DHS's ability to dissipate.
2) After heatcapping, I pause for a couple seconds, then start firing 2 totally different flamers. This pause does not reset the increased heat generation: the increased amount of heat generation takes as long to go away as it did to generate.

Conclusions:

1) Barring strange timing macros (it MAY be possible to set up the timing in a heat neutral fashion, but I'd want to see what kind of heat that inflicted on your target as well) you cannot permanently cook someone with flamers. These can fire a long time, but ultimately that's only one flamer inflicting a flat amount of heat on your target - generally not enough to actually build heat (or only to build it very slowly) so it's not going to be a magic I-WIN button (as you still have to be within 90m, AND maintain 100% face time).

2) You build up the increased heat generation VERY quickly firing multiple flamers (not shown); once built, it still exists when chainfiring - however, as you're only firing one flamer at a time then, the resulting heat generation is of course much lower than when firing lots. Thus, you CAN fire lots of flamers to heat someone up, then chainfire to maintain it, but the amount of time you can maintain a target at 90% heat is substantially reduced in that instance.


What's the timing on the macro? I'm trying to work out the math with it.

As things currently stand - completely ignoring macro timing, just using in-game stuff - I'm actually pretty happy with how flamers work. As such, I'd strongly prefer to not ravage flamers as they currently stand to break a macro that isn't particularly powerful.

With the macro, how much heat is inflicted?

With the macro detailed here: http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__5024767
90% heat is inflicted on a target indefinitely.

Edited by Bilbo, 17 February 2016 - 02:57 PM.

[Roadkill]

I suspect the trick will be to macro sufficient flamers firing to produce the heat required to keep the target capped while only firing 1/3 of the time.

If flamers are 4.5 heat each, then 3 flamers firing as a group for 1/3 second and then being off for 2/3 second would generate 4.5 heat per second while never reaching the exponential heat curve on the firer. 4.5 heat/sec should be sufficient to keep most if not all targets capped at 90%.

And that still gives you 3 flamers to use to get the target to 90% quickly before starting the macro.

[Percy Veer]

OOh, I luv junk that speakz like ****! Baby-bell-end sweeit!

[pwnface]

Roadkill, on 17 February 2016 - 02:54 PM, said:

I suspect the trick will be to macro sufficient flamers firing to produce the heat required to keep the target capped while only firing 1/3 of the time.

If flamers are 4.5 heat each, then 3 flamers firing as a group for 1/3 second and then being off for 2/3 second would generate 4.5 heat per second while never reaching the exponential heat curve on the firer. 4.5 heat/sec should be sufficient to keep most if not all targets capped at 90%.

And that still gives you 3 flamers to use to get the target to 90% quickly before starting the macro.

I'd really like to know if a 1 to 1 ratio is enough to keep your mech heat neutral though. If that is the case you can effectively bring 50% efficiency flamers for 0 heat. Not a bad deal.

Essentially 2 tons 2 slots for 1 heatless flamer with infinite usage. You could toggle a macro on at the start of your match and leave it on all game.

Edited by pwnface, 17 February 2016 - 03:01 PM.

[Wintersdark]

Ok, spamclicking to avoid increasing the heat gain rate works:



But I'm still curious how much heat that actually inflicts on the target?

[Bilbo]

Wintersdark, on 17 February 2016 - 03:03 PM, said:

Ok, spamclicking to avoid increasing the heat gain rate works:



But I'm still curious how much heat that actually inflicts on the target?

90%

[Wintersdark]

MischiefSC, on 17 February 2016 - 02:43 PM, said:

So it's important to remember that for a Flamer rebalance to work it needs to be consistently (if situationally) better than two extra MLs.

It needs to be good - good enough to shave 10-12 pts off your alpha. Not that it doesn't need dialed back but it needs to be good.

Exactly why I'm STRONGLY pushing caution.

Flamers need to be, as you said, roughly equal to medium lasers; or at least in that you'd actually consider one or the other. If Flamers are objectively worse than medium lasers (I still think they are, honestly) then they're not an issue, even if you can glitch around the heat generation.

I'd far rather see situationally useful flamers(even if not good from a competitive standpoint) than them continuing to just be utterly useless.

See: The LBX. It's bad, and needs to be fixed. But it's not useless, it's just decidedly not optimal. You can still make people dead with LBX's, and people do so all the time. That's better than how flamers were. Currently, they seem somewhat usable, but not good. That's an improvement over "utterly useless".

Bilbo, on 17 February 2016 - 03:06 PM, said:

90%

90% isn't an answer, Bilbo.

How much heat per second does it generate? Is it just enough to hold someone at 90%? Or can you push someone up to 90% doing that?

I'd expect you could hard-burn to get them up then maintain that way - I haven't had it done to me yet, but would like to see.

If so - and it's likely - then it definitely needs to be fixed; but it's still not really a problem. The firing mech isn't doing much of anything else while burning, and all it's doing is preventing the target mech from firing lasers. The firing mech at the same time must maintain 90m range and 100% face time. I've yet to see flamers actually work out better than simply coring someone.

Edited by Wintersdark, 17 February 2016 - 03:10 PM.

[Wintersdark]

Also, HOW MANY flamers spam-clicked are required to hold someone at 90% (assuming normal DHS counts)? I highly doubt one will; 2, 3? 4? These are important questions.

[Mcgral18]

Wintersdark, on 17 February 2016 - 03:11 PM, said:

Also, HOW MANY flamers spam-clicked are required to hold someone at 90% (assuming normal DHS counts)? I highly doubt one will; 2, 3? 4? These are important questions.

I've got Premium if you want to test it.

Whether target or shooter, I can record my perspective.

[Bilbo]

Wintersdark, on 17 February 2016 - 03:08 PM, said:

Exactly why I'm STRONGLY pushing caution.

Flamers need to be, as you said, roughly equal to medium lasers; or at least in that you'd actually consider one or the other. If Flamers are objectively worse than medium lasers (I still think they are, honestly) then they're not an issue, even if you can glitch around the heat generation.

I'd far rather see situationally useful flamers(even if not good from a competitive standpoint) than them continuing to just be utterly useless.

See: The LBX. It's bad, and needs to be fixed. But it's not useless, it's just decidedly not optimal. You can still make people dead with LBX's, and people do so all the time. That's better than how flamers were. Currently, they seem somewhat usable, but not good. That's an improvement over "utterly useless".


90% isn't an answer, Bilbo.

How much heat per second does it generate? Is it just enough to hold someone at 90%? Or can you push someone up to 90% doing that?

It's simply an unrefined version of the macro, as detailed in the post I linked to above.

"edit. Hate macros? You can do this without macro, just try:

Its just about burning flamers for 4 second or so, like count up loud:

"one, twoo, three, fooo" and stop.

Then press mouse button for around 0.2 seconds, I tell you humans are very good at 2/10 of a second its just "press, see effect, release" thanks to our natural reaction time for something you see and act on.

Follow this with longer wait, like anything between 0.3-0.4 seconds and press mouse again. It will never go into linear heat gen mode, because you are at cooldown longer than activation."

Holding a mech at 90%, while generating no heat yourself, seems broken to me. Especially considering the number of mechs that can not only take 4 flamers but also other weaponry to boot. I've not played against it yet though.

[Wintersdark]

Mcgral18, on 17 February 2016 - 03:16 PM, said:

I've got Premium if you want to test it.

Whether target or shooter, I can record my perspective.

K, just doing another test first, also have premium so that'd be great. I want to see how practical it is without a macro. Basically, it's important to me to confirm if a macro is the problem, or if it's really easy to manage without. Too often, macro's get "boogiemanned" with such things, and that's annoying.

[Wintersdark]

Wintersdark, on 17 February 2016 - 03:21 PM, said:

K, just doing another test first, also have premium so that'd be great. I want to see how practical it is without a macro. Basically, it's important to me to confirm if a macro is the problem, or if it's really easy to manage without. Too often, macro's get "boogiemanned" with such things, and that's annoying.

Righto. If you've got a moment, I'd like to give that a try. Testing things with an actual "combat practical" nova build.

4MG, 6 SPL, 6 Flamers. Cut through an AS7's CT reasonably quickly. I want to see what the heat-on-target is like with that.

[Wintersdark]

Bilbo, on 17 February 2016 - 03:19 PM, said:

It's simply an unrefined version of the macro, as detailed in the post I linked to above.

"edit. Hate macros? You can do this without macro, just try:

Its just about burning flamers for 4 second or so, like count up loud:

"one, twoo, three, fooo" and stop.

Then press mouse button for around 0.2 seconds, I tell you humans are very good at 2/10 of a second its just "press, see effect, release" thanks to our natural reaction time for something you see and act on.

Follow this with longer wait, like anything between 0.3-0.4 seconds and press mouse again. It will never go into linear heat gen mode, because you are at cooldown longer than activation."

Holding a mech at 90%, while generating no heat yourself, seems broken to me. Especially considering the number of mechs that can not only take 4 flamers but also other weaponry to boot. I've not played against it yet though.

Absolutely.

However, this is why I'm actively testing it. I just need someone to let me attack them in a private match to see how well it actually works in a combat situation with a usable fighting build (though not a full on duel, because I don't want to have people's twisting skills and whatnot complicating things).

If it's broken in practice then that's certainly a problem. Russ is discussing it on twitter now, and they're investigating this actively.



I'm able to prevent the heat generation just tapping the button (see video above), so I just need to see that from the target's perspective in my smalls/flamers/mg's nova to see if it's able to cut someone up WHILE holding them at 90% heat.

It may be that the Flamer is inflicting it's heat in ticks (like lasers do) and you're ultimately aiming to just hit the target with one tick (virtually instant), then stop firing for [time between ticksx2] which would easily avoid the heat gain, then hit them with one tick again. That would inflict (optimally) 50% overall heat: thus 6xflamers would be like 3xflamers held on 100% of the time with no increasing heat gain as they're not firing more than they are firing.

You could optimize it more if you knew the time between ticks, by only tapping fire just at the ticks, which could approach 100% heat generation, but the timing would probably be impossible due to ping etc. Conceptually, it makes sense though.

A minimum burn of .5s or something totally avoids that, though; so long as you can't fire a flamer for less than tick+time_between_ticks.

[Mcgral18]

Wintersdark, on 17 February 2016 - 03:25 PM, said:

Righto. If you've got a moment, I'd like to give that a try. Testing things with an actual "combat practical" nova build.

4MG, 6 SPL, 6 Flamers. Cut through an AS7's CT reasonably quickly. I want to see what the heat-on-target is like with that.

3 Flamers on my Nova has reliably made people stop shooting, overheat, or override and die. Even 2 on my Cheetah has had similar results.


Only racked up 4 headshots...but they're coming along.


You want it done on one of the neutral, hot and cold maps? Just to see how significant that +/-25% heat cap is.
On neutral, you can fire 3 SPLs with 21 DHS.

[Prof RJ Gumby]

MischiefSC, on 17 February 2016 - 02:43 PM, said:

So it's important to remember that for a Flamer rebalance to work it needs to be consistently (if situationally) better than two extra MLs.

It needs to be good - good enough to shave 10-12 pts off your alpha. Not that it doesn't need dialed back but it needs to be good.

Not exactly.
You don't need alpha to kill an enemy who is overheated or running away from you because you keep him at 90% heat. This is 12vs12 game, you could have 0dmg but instantly eliminate enemies by overheating them and you will make your team win every time. Yeah, 0 dmg suck, but then in a group/CW you could switch who is the walking flamer.

Also, you have 10 less alpha, but you can "steal" hundreds of damage from the enemies, forcing them to chainfire slowly instead of alphaing. So from situation like 50alpha you vs 50 alpha enemy, you go to 40 alpha you vs 10 alpha enemy. It still totally favours you.

[Wintersdark]

Quote

Holding a mech at 90%, while generating no heat yourself, seems broken to me. Especially considering the number of mechs that can not only take 4 flamers but also other weaponry to boot. I've not played against it yet though.

It IS broken, but it's not very severe, depending on how this test works out. After all, holding 90m with someone isn't easy (that's REALLY close) when people are rarely alone - it's REALLY easy for their buddies to tear you apart.

That's what makes this hard in practice.

Then, even when tapped, 6 flamers do generate heat. It doesn't increase, but it's still enough to stop you from cooling (unless I'm tapping more than I need to!) so the question is:

Can you actually kill someone in a reasonable time frame WHILE holding them at 90% heat.



Ok, just did a test in which my video recording software failed utterly, but here were the results:

Nova, 6 ERSL, 4MG, 6 Flamers, vs. well cooled Black Knight laser vomit build with Terciel.

Firing the flamers with just a quick tap roughly once per second could hold him at 85-90% heat. Doing that, I would cool, allowing me to fire the 4 machine guns and 6 ERSL's pretty much all day without effort.

He was able to return fire, but only by overriding shutdown, as any amount of laser fire would push over 100% heat.

I suspect he may have been able to chainfire medium lasers, but chainfired mediums have no chance against 4mg/6ersl's.

[Wintersdark]

Mcgral18, on 17 February 2016 - 03:53 PM, said:

3 Flamers on my Nova has reliably made people stop shooting, overheat, or override and die. Even 2 on my Cheetah has had similar results.


Only racked up 4 headshots...but they're coming along.


You want it done on one of the neutral, hot and cold maps? Just to see how significant that +/-25% heat cap is.
On neutral, you can fire 3 SPLs with 21 DHS.

I wasn't able to get video but was able to get a decent "real world" result. The tapping aspect is definitely broken and needs to be addressed.

I'm absolutely conclusively convinced that it's a matter of heat generation in ticks and exploiting the space between the ticks.

It's of limited impact right now because of the limitations of the circumstances that it can be used, but it's not an OP exploit that's handing out IWIN candy.

I'd like to get some video from both sides to share with Russ, but as things stand I'm pretty confident with my conclusions.

Edited by Wintersdark, 17 February 2016 - 04:21 PM.