271 replies to this topic

[dezgra]

Flamers need to obscure targets vision and sound like BBQ!

[wanderer]

Clearly, PGI does not into macros.

Or testing.

[Deathlike]

wanderer, on 16 February 2016 - 09:37 PM, said:

Clearly, PGI does not into macros.

Or testing.

There's also this "play their own game".

[wanderer]

MauttyKoray, on 16 February 2016 - 09:32 PM, said:

The videos are a joke.

Builds for both mechs aren't shown, you don't know how many heatsinks they have, the mech is also using FOUR FLAMERS. Other than things like the Nova, Gargoyle, Cicada, Locust, etc, that number is laughable.

You really haven't realized how much heat the new flamers inflict, have you? Minimally, each one has 10 Clan DHS (250 engine), even assuming no extra sinks.

The flamers are firing constantly to no real heat effect on the firer (thanks to the macro) yet effortlessly keeping the target (who again, has to have at least 10 Clan DHS (in the engine, no less) at 90% heatlock the entire time.

[Chuck Jager]

Solo - pugs
Just ran multiple matches in firestarters and ACHs with 2 flamers.

Yes with even 2 flamers it takes seconds to stun lock somebody, but after you fire twice you will shut down. I also had multiple matches where I could not really close a gap to get the flamers on my enemy because there were always 2 or more together.

You also have to watch your team shooting you in the back as you stun the poor sod. You also do not get credit for the kills where the enemy blows themselves up.

Now in group Q with a decent team the stunning may really help and the ranges are closer, but you still lose a ton of damage.

This really works well against srm lights if you are within flamer range because of the way the srms start wide and do not concentrate an area up close.

[Mcgral18]

MauttyKoray, on 16 February 2016 - 09:32 PM, said:

The videos are a joke.

Builds for both mechs aren't shown, you don't know how many heatsinks they have, the mech is also using FOUR FLAMERS. Other than things like the Nova, Gargoyle, Cicada, Locust, etc, that number is laughable.

I've done some testing of my own.

One set on a 10 TrueDub Hunch IIC (60 heat cap, 2.3H/s dissipation), with 1-4 Flamers and chainfire after initially bringing the heat up.


A second set on a 35 DHS Whale
93 heat cap, 6.61 H/s dissipation

It was what a single Flamer did (until overheat), and then what all 13 Flamers at once did.


Hunch test is less impressive, but still informative

Edited by Mcgral18, 16 February 2016 - 10:07 PM.

[Hit the Deck]

Mcgral18, on 16 February 2016 - 10:07 PM, said:

I've done some testing of my own.

One set on a 10 TrueDub Hunch IIC (60 heat cap, 2.3H/s dissipation), with 1-4 Flamers and chainfire after initially bringing the heat up.


A second set on a 35 DHS Whale
93 heat cap, 6.61 H/s dissipation

.....

This and the OP's experiment show that 4 flamers are pretty effective for bringing an enemy Mech's heat up to 90%. I think I'd like to put around 4 flamers on my brawlers when possible and then see if the flamers could raise their effectiveness in duels.

Edited by Hit the Deck, 16 February 2016 - 10:27 PM.

[Eider]

Just for the record i made a flame hunchie.. it could stun lock pretty effective with its 6 flamers and 3 sm pulses to keep hitting them. Feels like crowd control, in a few instances by strafing targets i could keep 3 mechs fairly well controlled. Yes my damage sucked but it was nice.

[Sereglach]

First off . . . I told you so . . . I mentioned this as soon as the patch notes came out . . . nearly a dozen times as I argued with people. I reported this exploit to PGI over a year ago and it was literally ignored because the weapon system was just that terrible. Now that it's been "fixed" this exploit is a gold mine for trolls everywhere.

However, despite what some people in this thread have said, the Flamer doesn't need to go. It just needs to be actually fixed . . . and not this crap that PGI has pulled. It can be done so in these simple steps:

1. Remove the heat "acceleration"/"scaling"/"exponential growth" mechanic, and the "delays" that go with it. Keep the weapon at flat fixed values.

2. Damage to 1.0 DPS, Heat Damage to 1.0 HDPS, Heat Generation to 0.5 HPS with no delays, no acceleration or growing values. Simple, flat, and fixed values.

3. 2 Flamers will counter 10 true-dubs in a mech. It won't heat it up, but it will prevent cooling. This provides a nuisance. However, it's still costing the wielder half as much heat generation, himself. This causes a need for controlled streams/firing.

4. The values are low enough to allow the Flamer to function as a sustained-fire-stream weapon, as initially designed for the game.

5. Exploit is fixed and removed . . . no more trolling potential. Heat damage cannot be inflicted without causing actual heat for the wielder.

It's a simple fix that I've advocated PGI to do for over 2 years, now. The sad part is that it took the Flamer being turned into a godly troll weapon for other people to see the problems in PGI's convoluted implementation.

EDIT: Oh, and if anyone wants to take those values to Russ on twitter, I'd appreciate it. He's been getting railed on there over the situation and is in damage-control mode. He might be receptive to the simple solution . . . finally.

Edited by Sereglach, 16 February 2016 - 10:54 PM.

[Curccu]

Revis Volek, on 16 February 2016 - 04:48 PM, said:

Why flamers are even still in this game is beyond me, they are made to light things on fire and kill infantry, two things we cant have in game or wont even have in game.

Flamers need to just go, im tired of all this BS over a weapons systems that doesnt even really have a place in the game. We talk about wasted time and resources, can we file the past 4 years of flamers and anything done to them as useless yet?

Why people still think Lore or TT should have any influence in this game is beyond me.

JDMjump, on 16 February 2016 - 10:52 PM, said:

Confirmed, PGI doesn't do any internal testing.

They might, but they definitely don't have people in testing who would try to break or abuse system within game rules.

[Vyx]

IMO, if the flamer is seen as a weapon that vents heat from the engine onto the target, then you should have to have excessive heat to vent in order for it to work.

If you have no heat on your heat scale, it shouldn't function. If you do, then a portion of your heat should dissipate per tick as you project it onto the target. The amount of heat transmitted to the target should drop-off with distance. Point blank might convey 60% of your projected heat to the target, max range might convey near 0.

In this way, the weapon would be balanced simply and in accordance with physics.

---

If the flamer were seen as a chemical weapon (like a flame thrower or a napalm projector), then it should have ammo -- perhaps 40 seconds of burn time per ton. Fuel.

Just as lasers leave burn marks on buildings and snow and such, the chemical flamer should leave an animated fire effect on objects for a few seconds. If that object is a mech, it might add heat to that mech for the time it is considered to be "on fire".

Regardless, when out of fuel, the weapon is done. Balance.

Edited by Vyx, 16 February 2016 - 11:57 PM.

[Curccu]

pbiggz, on 16 February 2016 - 06:03 PM, said:

GD: FLAMERS HAVE SUCKED FOR YEARS PLS BUFF
PGI: *buffs flamers*
GD: OMG FLAMERS OP PLS NERF

Issue is (as usual with every "InsertWeaponNameHereArmageddon" so far) they don't buff them a bit and see how they work, instead they give them buff which is like 2-5 times more powerful than old version

Wildstreak, on 16 February 2016 - 09:03 PM, said:

@coe7, interesting, now take it a step further.

You show this only requires 4 Flamers on a Nova with 12. Since you only need 4, rebuild with other weapons. Now use the Flamer trick combined with weapon fire in a 1 v 1, what happens.

14!!! 14 flamers on my nova!
We tried that with Coe7 by driving SRM griffins. I had 2 flamers, Coe7 didn't, I won every game without real effort... and we are pretty even in terms of skill.

[xRatas]

If I can park a xl rifleman in front of atlas, battlemaster or daishi, forget torso twisting, moving or any other survival concept and then wreck them with 4 flamers and 2 lbx10, I think we might have a problem... Just happened a few times last night.

[PocketYoda]

MauttyKoray, on 16 February 2016 - 09:32 PM, said:

The videos are a joke.

Builds for both mechs aren't shown, you don't know how many heatsinks they have, the mech is also using FOUR FLAMERS. Other than things like the Nova, Gargoyle, Cicada, Locust, etc, that number is laughable.

Try it yourself, its well known if you tap flamers or chain them you get no heat, and enemies do.. No one cared before because they were ****, now they are insane people care...

[Hit the Deck]

Vyx, on 16 February 2016 - 11:44 PM, said:

IMO, if the flamer is seen as a weapon that vents heat from the engine onto the target, then you should have to have excessive heat to vent in order for it to work.

If you have no heat on your heat scale, it shouldn't function. If you do, then a portion of your heat should dissipate per tick as you project it onto the target. The amount of heat transmitted to the target should drop-off with distance. Point blank might convey 60% of your projected heat to the target, max range might convey near 0.

In this way, the weapon would be balanced simply and in accordance with physics.

The heat is from inside of the reactor not the Mech's internal (which is what your heatbar displays).

The heat could be used to heat compressed air gathered from the surrounding (in space it still functions because each Mech carries some kind of combustible material) which is then expelled as a jet.

[Rushin Roulette]

The real problem with PGI is they have absolutely no idea how to balance anything. Whenever they change anything, they seem to be doing it with several committees that do not communicate with each other.

For the flamers it was probably one committee one for looks, one for damage and one for heat.
Clan/ IS balance? One committee for Clan one committee for IS

If PGI were to try to balance a set of scales which was off by 50g on one side... the committee on the left side would decide to remove 50g from their side to balance the scales, while the committee on the right wide would decide to add 50g to their side to balance the scales. Both committees are going at the problem logically, but due to their failure to communicate what each side is doing or planning, they end up with the same unbalance as they had before, just on the other side.

[Widowmaker1981]

Mystere, on 16 February 2016 - 06:16 PM, said:

If you let a Mech with a 90m-range weapon get close to you, I'd think you did something wrong.

A 140 kph mech with ECM? On MWO maps? are you stupid, or just being deliberately obtuse because you like being that way?

Stunlocks (which this is) have no place in a FPS. Period. PGI will remove this total idiocy soon, because if they don't their game will die. Until that time i will disapprove and ignore this stupidity by only playing dakka and gauss.

Edited by Widowmaker1981, 17 February 2016 - 12:58 AM.

[Lily from animove]

xMADCATTERx, on 16 February 2016 - 03:36 PM, said:

An idea put into game without adequate testing? Seems like it. Who are the "yes" men who, if there is actually testing, simply nod their head to their PGI overlords?

Stop treating your very expensive game like a test server. You've "launched" it a few times now and it's on steam yet you persist on dropping terrible untested dynamics into the game with your fingers crossed. Not even sure who would think a flamer this powerful is a good idea. It's a weapon better used against elements your game will never have.

1: Setting things on fire.
2: Infantry.

Take it out of the game if you can't find a valid use for it.

Stun locks in MWO isn't good for game play.

I think no one ever considered testing extreme builds, they made this test with only builds of one maybe 2 flamers and said: "is fine"

Ultimax, on 16 February 2016 - 04:48 PM, said:

Phil is unfortunately useless for balance discussions.

He was basically the Quirks Evangelist, and then he was anti-50% quirks - even after telling me in PMs that specific mechs were "fine" and now he is imagining "a world without quirks".

Thats becasue some typical people think in black white patterns, its either all or nothing, and so go their opinions. Quirks were never wrong, only chosen values were wrong, some to small for some mechs, some too high. Quirks will be needed to create proper chasss balance. But they need to be chosne more careful and adjusted in small steps.

Edited by Lily from animove, 17 February 2016 - 01:40 AM.

[Ulris Ventis]

I totally agree on this one. Since the patch I had 4 situations where a light burned my clan *** and I couldn't cooldown on my own. Insane. Then I see this..

[Satan n stuff]

Ulris Ventis, on 17 February 2016 - 01:44 AM, said:

I totally agree on this one. Since the patch I had 4 situations where a light burned my clan *** and I couldn't cooldown on my own. Insane. Then I see this..

Don't try to cool down. Override, then alpha and shutdown manually, wait for the weapon cooldown. power up and repeat. Also try to get at least one alpha in before the flamer mech closes to range so you don't waste all that heat capacity.

Edited by Satan n stuff, 17 February 2016 - 02:15 AM.