82 replies to this topic

[InnerSphereNews]

Greetings MechWarriors,

We will be rolling out a hot-fix today, Thursday February 18th, scheduled for 4:00 PM PST [Midnight UTC], with the following fixes:

• Flamers will now remember the rate at which they were generating heat within the firing 'Mech, for a period of 4.75 seconds after a Flamer is disengaged. If a Flamer is engaged within that 4.75 second time frame, the rate at which the Flamer generates heat in the firing 'Mech will continue from where they left off. After that 4.75 second time frame (if no Flamer has been engaged) the heat generation value will decrease as usual, according to the cooling efficiency of the 'Mech.

• Note: The rate at which a Flamer generates heat in the firing 'Mech is a shared value, and applies to all equipped Flamers.

• This adjustment should address the issue where pilots could 'feather' or macro-ize Flamer trigger inputs to a point where they effectively became 'heat neutral'. A graph showing the approximate effect of this 'feathering', along with the effect of the above change, can be found here.

• Fixed an issue with DirectX auto-detection with certain GPUs. • Fixed an issue where grouping of Weight Classes was not working correctly in Solo queue. • Fixed an issue where the LCT-1V [P] was missing the Machine Gun Rate of Fire +20% Quirk. • Fixed an issue where Energy Quirks for certain Inner Sphere variants were greater than 10%:

• HGN-733P • RVN-4X • WHM-6D • WHM-BW • ZEU-9S

• Fixed an issue where the Beam Range Boost for the Targeting Computer MKII was 4% instead of 5%. • Stalker: Fixed an issue with the appearance of LRM-5 and SRM-6 weapons. • Stalker: Fixed an issue with the appearance of hardpoint caps in the Right and Left Arm.

The maximum estimated downtime required for this hot-fix will be approximately 30 minutes.

When services are restored you will be required to apply a small patch.

[FupDup]

So if I'm interpreting this correctly, does this mean that Flamers still have their exponential heat ramp-up over time on both the user and target?

I really think the exponential effect should go... Make it a static heat per second value both ways.

[Wintersdark]

FupDup, on 18 February 2016 - 03:41 PM, said:

So if I'm interpreting this correctly, does this mean that Flamers still have their exponential heat ramp-up over time on both the user and target?

I really think the exponential effect should go... Make it a static heat per second value both ways.

On the user, not on the target.

Flamer effects on the target are flat rate but it doesn't matter, because that rate is high, so you heatcap an opposing mech in just a couple seconds regardless.

Heat on the firing mech does increase, but it really should: It's pretty mild initially allowing you to heat cap someone and hold them there for a little while, but it prevents you from just locking them down forever.

Here's how it works just holding down the trigger with a single flamer burning (chainfire == firing one flamer constantly)



Each flamer is inflicting a flat 4.5 heat per second. You can see how the heat gain lingering effect works too, as I pause after heating up then fire the other two flamers.

Edited by Wintersdark, 18 February 2016 - 03:59 PM.

[Sky Hawk]

Yee! Hot-Fix! MWO Patch without a Hot-Fix is like,.... a 12 vs 12 match, without a single DC-er..... it is not MWO anymore...



Beside that.. I think, Flamers generating too mutch heat on a target... Overheating 60-100 tonnes of steal and other stuff in just some seconds? Thats just crazy.. even a nuclear reactor couldn't do that... and a 1 tonne Flammer can? Really?

[MoonUnitBeta]

Excellent! Thanks for the hot fix.

Nice to hear such quick changes to the Stalker already!

Edited by MoonUnitBeta, 18 February 2016 - 04:09 PM.

[Deathlike]

It's good to know all the other squirrelly quirks are still in place.

[FupDup]

Wintersdark, on 18 February 2016 - 03:57 PM, said:

...but it really should...

No, it really should not.

For balancing, they can increase the static heat per second value on the shooter to be closer to the HPS on the target if need be. Or, they could reduce the HPS on the target instead. Or meet somewhere in the middle.

Exponential increase over time is an absolutely, positively dumb mechanic that enables things like this to happen:



That situation in the video is pretty much indefensible. Exponential heat is a bad idea and whoever thought of it should feel bad.

Edited by FupDup, 18 February 2016 - 04:13 PM.

[Groovdog]

Step in the right direction but I would bet its still not enough. It is just gonna defeat the macros and min-maxers best efforts. Still going to overheat people too fast. Better hope you have a big alpha because when u hit 90 you are gonna need to alpha the person down quickly before you get laser vomitted to death.

Edited by Groovdog, 18 February 2016 - 04:18 PM.

[Gentleman Reaper]

Sky Hawk, on 18 February 2016 - 03:58 PM, said:

Yee! Hot-Fix! MWO Patch without a Hot-Fix is like,.... a 12 vs 12 match, without a single DC-er..... it is not MWO anymore...



Beside that.. I think, Flamers generating too mutch heat on a target... Overheating 60-100 tonnes of steal and other stuff in just some seconds? Thats just crazy.. even a nuclear reactor couldn't do that... and a 1 tonne Flammer can? Really?

I agree, heatlocking a mech is something that should only happen if you're persistent enough, but having only a few tons do this makes Flamers far too powerful. A single Flamer should only be as effective as another 1 ton weapon, like an ML or SPL.

[Wraith 1]

RIP RVN-4X.

I'd say RIP Highlander, but it was a Highlander before the fix too.

[S 0 L E N Y A]

RIP Flamer Meta.... (maybe)
we hardly knew ye

[John1352]

FupDup, on 18 February 2016 - 03:41 PM, said:

So if I'm interpreting this correctly, does this mean that Flamers still have their exponential heat ramp-up over time on both the user and target?

I really think the exponential effect should go... Make it a static heat per second value both ways.

Agreed, flat rate would be easier to use and balance. I'd take the heatcap down to 80-85% too.

Edit: This isn't going to ruin flamers, they'll just change to being used right at the start of an engagement and turned (and left) off once the enemy is hot.

Edited by John1352, 18 February 2016 - 04:20 PM.

[Wintersdark]

FupDup, on 18 February 2016 - 04:12 PM, said:

That situation in the video is pretty much indefensible. Exponential heat is a bad idea and whoever thought of it should feel bad.

The situation in that video is ridiculous and irrelevant, because you're not just wandering around constantly flaming nor do you have any need to.

The heat gain mechanic prevents permenant lockdowns which would otherwise be possible unless flamers generated much more heat on the firing mech than the target mech.

Otherwise, you'd just need better dissipation than your target and you could heatcap them forever (or switch from one mech to another to another, constantly heatcapping them.

With the accelerating heat gain, it's totally irrelevant until you've been firing the flamers for a while, then it forces you to back off. It stops long term lockdown, and that's a good thing.

That it creates a wierd situation with a 57 sink single-flamer assault mech just doesn't matter.

[ZachMan119]

I was just starting to have fun!

[Wintersdark]

John1352, on 18 February 2016 - 04:18 PM, said:

Agreed, flat rate would be easier to use and balance. I'd take the heatcap down to 80-85% too.

Edit: This isn't going to ruin flamers, they'll just change to being used right at the start of an engagement and turned (and left) off once the enemy is hot.

A 80-85% cap would be a good thing, and is on the table as a potential nerf if necessary. I think it'd be good, personally, opening up the doors a bit on what can be fired once you've been heatcapped without allowing any alphas.

[ZachMan119]

Oh sweet it's back online!

[FupDup]

Wintersdark, on 18 February 2016 - 04:20 PM, said:

The situation in that video is ridiculous and irrelevant, because you're not just wandering around constantly flaming nor do you have any need to.

The fact that the game even allows it to happen in the first place is utterly redunkulous.

Wintersdark, on 18 February 2016 - 04:20 PM, said:

The heat gain mechanic prevents permenant lockdowns which would otherwise be possible unless flamers generated much more heat on the firing mech than the target mech.

Otherwise, you'd just need better dissipation than your target and you could heatcap them forever (or switch from one mech to another to another, constantly heatcapping them.

With the accelerating heat gain, it's totally irrelevant until you've been firing the flamers for a while, then it forces you to back off. It stops long term lockdown, and that's a good thing.

I have an idea.

It's a very radical idea.

Are you ready for this?

Brace for impact.

It's coming.

Here it comes...

Why not just make them generate a higher (static) heat on the user than they do now?

There you go, there's your limiter. The user can't keep Flaming forever because they'll reach their own threshold.


And of course, there's already the 90% hard limit so that the victim can still move around and fire low-heat weapons no matter what happens, while the user can go all the way to 100%.

Heat by itself is the natural damage limiter in the game for nearly all mechs, it doesn't have to have any convoluted exponential equations.

-----

Alternatively, you can reduce the heat on target because 4.5 per second for just one Flamer is pretty damn high. For reference, a Clan mech with 23 DHS (10 TruDubs) cools off at 4.54 heat per second...

Edited by FupDup, 18 February 2016 - 04:31 PM.

[ZachMan119]

Hey, was the name "Hot-fix" supposed to be a pun?

[Wintersdark]

FupDup, on 18 February 2016 - 04:27 PM, said:

The fact that the game even allows it to happen in the first place is utterly redunkulous.

I just don't see why you feel it's such an issue. I sincerely don't see why you feel it's a problem at all.

Quote

Why not just make them generate a higher (static) heat on the user than they do now?

There you go, there's your limiter. The user can't keep Flaming forever because they'll reach their own threshold.

You could, but it would be a huge nerf, or allow protracted burning.

I'm absolutely - currently, if it turns out I'm wrong, I'm fine with that - of the feeling that with a 90m hard range cap, Flamers are extremely situational. As such, they need to be very effective in that situation, or they're garbage.

This allows a lighter mech to close, burn, then have lots of heatcap available to fight (dissipation not being a strong suite of smaller mechs), WHILE preventing long-term "tackling". Higher static heat would mean they could close, burn, then do nothing else.

The flamer needs to be as useful as a Medium Laser on the balance of things. A medium laser can make a worthwhile contribution at many times the range, and is ALWAYS useful. If left with just a medium laser, you can kill. If left with just a flamer, you can look silly.

[Omaha]

LOL People just stop trying to boat them ppl. Bring some other weapons. So you can actually dmg something, while heating up the situation.