82 replies to this topic

[Tiantara]

I'm just thinking, what if change or add mechanic to flamer based on NARC. Just launch some round with high-temp exploding liquid on target within 90-120m like NARC with same slow speed and same low amount of ammo (7-13 per tonn with all that negative effect like all other ammo) for burning enemy mech for limited time. Burning time and efficiency will depend on:
1. Speed of mech (faster - shorter burns, slower - longer)
2. Amount of armor (more - slower heating)
3. Amount of heat-sink (more - less heating)
Also - that weapon recharge change to rate when it uses like tactic weapon. Also it can be balanced with such negative effects like exploding and overheating users of that weapon in case of critical damage. That prevents of installing it on heavy and assault mech, but greatly supports medium and some of light, helping to put into "sleep" some tactical targets.

[Wintersdark]

Sereglach, on 19 February 2016 - 07:41 AM, said:

The convoluted and obscene layers of mechanics that PGI has put in place to "manage" a weapon system and its associated exploit are completely contradictory to the weapon itself.

1. The Flamer of MWO is designed to be a stream fire weapon. Now, because of these mechanics they put in place, it's not really a stream fire weapon, it's a weapon that now has a convoluted mechanic to impose a pseudo-cooldown because of the flawed implementation of its own heat mechanics. Layers of awkward mechanics and implementation do not make a good or functional weapon system.

It's pretty simple in use, very obvious and straight forward. The longer you burn someone, the more heat you generate on them, and on yourself.

Pretty clear, really. You may call is awkward, but seriously, I'm not seeing it. I'm right there with disliking a lot of PGI's needlessly complicated fixes (yay, ghost heat!) but this one isn't a terrible thing.

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2. The scaling heat mechanic isn't really functional. This "Band-Aid" fix proves that. The weapon would be exceptionally more functional and useful if PGI just took the simple solution on fixing the weapon system, instead of piling on more and more complicated and obscene metrics onto a system that's flawed from the beginning.

It certainly seems functional to me. Works very predictably in my tests. This fix just removes an exploit(being able to abuse how stream fire and laser's "tick" method of damage, which is probably simply a cryengine thing) and makes the weapon function as it's intended to. It's not a "band-aid" at all.

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3. Flamers are supposed to do physical damage. It doesn't need to be huge amounts of damage, but it should at least be putting out DPS akin to a MG or Small Laser. It wouldn't be hard to actually have it do physical damage, either, if they actually fixed the problems that the weapon system currently still has . . . namely the scaling heat mechanic.

Why? The scaling heat mechanic doesn't impact it doing damage: it could just as easily do non-scaling damage. But honestly, I agree with PGI here in having it do zero damage. That keeps it being a useful too, BUT not something you want to boat.

When you want to use flamers, you have to decide how much actual damage output you want to sacrifice to gain "crowd control".

It makes a few flamers useful, but their utility doesn't scale linearly. It's the ONLY weapon system in the game that boating doesn't simply make better.

Finally, if they just did damage instead of heat, they'd just be bad small lasers. Yay. We've LOTS of small energy weapon options (small laser, medium laser, small pulse, medium pulse) and machine guns as well. We don't need another, that doesn't bring anything to the game.

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4. EDIT: Oh, and another huge and glaring issue is that this "fix" still creates a weapon that can be fired in bursts for zero heat, which is just WRONG.

Not zero heat. It still generates heat, just not much. But those bursts also inflict only a small amount of heat.

You keep going off about something being "wrong" or a bandaid, or whatever - your argument keeps circling back to them being bad because of the scaling heat - but you don't really have a reason why scaling heat is bad outside of you just not liking it for some reason.

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If PGI had gone with a proper fix we'd have a weapon that'd generate some heat on the enemy, but never have the ability to stun-lock anyone. It'd do modest damage, enough to make it useful. It'd generate heat for the wielder . . . even if the trigger is "feathered" or macro'd . . . and there'd be no exploits that would have had to been dealt with OR poorly implemented scaling heat mechanic. THAT would put the Flamer in the spot it's supposed to be in, and not the mess we currently have.

You can't stun lock anyone here.

"Stun Lock" is grossly misleading. At the very most, you can prevent someone from firing a subset of weapons, or more than one at a time. They can still move freely, however, and it's virtually impossible to keep someone in that state unless you're 1v1, and then just killing them is a better plan. Scaling heat puts a hard cap on how long you can do it, too.

That's not "stun locking", not even close. Stun locks are bad in video games because it wrests control of the character from a players hands continually. That's bad. This doesn't do that. Simply being unable to fire much without risking shutdown/overheat damage is nothing like that. The "Flamed" player has LOTS of active options to pursue while being attacked be flamers.

I've killed three mechs now, while flaming me, simply by putting a heavy alpha in their face. Not so good for lasers, as they'll overheat/shut down before the full burn, but whatever. There are other weapons in the game than lasers.




Or, we could just have another boring and ultimately useless variant of the small laser. Yay.

[Asmosis]

Tarogato, on 18 February 2016 - 09:15 PM, said:

You never need range quirks for AC/2 anyways. Stock standard AC/2 has 720m optimal... how often do you legitimately find yourself shooting at mechs from beyond 720m? What AC/2 benefits from the most is cooldown, velocity, and heat gen.

Alpine maybe. Doing max damage outside lrm range on a spider is fun, but I wouldn't really call it legitimate use. you know how everyone takes pot shots at the opposing team, but neither side registers damage?

Some people have a real aversion to taking damage of any sort so even an ac2 round dealing damage at 2km range is enough to make slow mechs walk into cover, and delay their arrival by a minute or so. uncontested fire can be a big de-motivater.

[Sereglach]

Wintersdark, on 19 February 2016 - 03:34 PM, said:

It's pretty simple in use, very obvious and straight forward. The longer you burn someone, the more heat you generate on them, and on yourself.

Pretty clear, really. You may call is awkward, but seriously, I'm not seeing it. I'm right there with disliking a lot of PGI's needlessly complicated fixes (yay, ghost heat!) but this one isn't a terrible thing.

Sorry, but you're absolutely wrong there. YOU know how it functions because YOU have read patch notes and are on the forums a lot. Where is there a tooltip in game that explains how this weapon functions and how it works? How -in game- can a player understand this weapon system? Hell, there's even tooltips in game that explain "Ghost Heat" . . . but there's nothing for this weapon system and its convoluted mechanics. The average player, the kind that isn't on the forums and isn't religiously keeping up on game updates/news and patch notes isn't going to have any sort of intuitive interface that explains this weapon system in its current implementation. PGI even had to set up a special little graph to link to on the forums, because they couldn't effectively explain it in words, themselves.

EDIT: Forgot to mention . . . the especially egregious elephant in the room here is the fact that the Flamers cannot be activated at all, even a slip of the trigger, for 4.75 seconds before their heat buildup resets . . . however there's absolutely nothing indicating that in it's use. That's the absolute worst part of this. Newer or uninformed players can easily blow themselves up (via overheat shutdowns or uneducated use in combat) with these and they'll never understand why. /EDIT

Wintersdark, on 19 February 2016 - 03:34 PM, said:

It certainly seems functional to me. Works very predictably in my tests. This fix just removes an exploit(being able to abuse how stream fire and laser's "tick" method of damage, which is probably simply a cryengine thing) and makes the weapon function as it's intended to. It's not a "band-aid" at all.

Slapping on an extra layer of complexity into an already poorly implemented mechanic that had glaring loopholes which were reported over a year ago is a Band-Aid. Just because it works as "expected" in tests that are specifically working within the realms of many layers of convoluted mechanics and rules doesn't make it a well functioning weapon. A gravel quarry could load all of the dump trucks with wheelbarrows, and shovels . . . but that's not even remotely the best way to do things . . . however it "works". That's what we have here.

Wintersdark, on 19 February 2016 - 03:34 PM, said:

Why? The scaling heat mechanic doesn't impact it doing damage: it could just as easily do non-scaling damage. But honestly, I agree with PGI here in having it do zero damage. That keeps it being a useful too, BUT not something you want to boat.

That's something we'll just have to disagree on. The weapon is fully capable of doing damage in TT, and it should be doing damage here.

Wintersdark, on 19 February 2016 - 03:34 PM, said:

When you want to use flamers, you have to decide how much actual damage output you want to sacrifice to gain "crowd control".

It makes a few flamers useful, but their utility doesn't scale linearly. It's the ONLY weapon system in the game that boating doesn't simply make better.

Finally, if they just did damage instead of heat, they'd just be bad small lasers. Yay. We've LOTS of small energy weapon options (small laser, medium laser, small pulse, medium pulse) and machine guns as well. We don't need another, that doesn't bring anything to the game.

Not zero heat. It still generates heat, just not much. But those bursts also inflict only a small amount of heat.

You keep going off about something being "wrong" or a bandaid, or whatever - your argument keeps circling back to them being bad because of the scaling heat - but you don't really have a reason why scaling heat is bad outside of you just not liking it for some reason.

. . . AND you can still use them while generating ZERO heat for yourself, which is WRONG. That is the inherent flaw in this whole mechanical setup. I've made that clear several times. Dodging it and posing the same questions, on your end, doesn't make it so that I'm just running circles on my end. The current implementation of the Flamer is just flat out poorly executed.

Wintersdark, on 19 February 2016 - 03:34 PM, said:

You can't stun lock anyone here.

"Stun Lock" is grossly misleading. At the very most, you can prevent someone from firing a subset of weapons, or more than one at a time. They can still move freely, however, and it's virtually impossible to keep someone in that state unless you're 1v1, and then just killing them is a better plan. Scaling heat puts a hard cap on how long you can do it, too.

That's not "stun locking", not even close. Stun locks are bad in video games because it wrests control of the character from a players hands continually. That's bad. This doesn't do that. Simply being unable to fire much without risking shutdown/overheat damage is nothing like that. The "Flamed" player has LOTS of active options to pursue while being attacked be flamers.

I've killed three mechs now, while flaming me, simply by putting a heavy alpha in their face. Not so good for lasers, as they'll overheat/shut down before the full burn, but whatever. There are other weapons in the game than lasers.

Stun-locking comes in many forms throughout games. In this case the stun-lock prevents the target from being able to effectively return fire with weapon systems. As you've even stated, in 1v1 scenarios, then full stun-locking CAN be achieved. That's wrong. It shouldn't be the case. The whole reason that is possible is because of this scaling heat mechanic and the "heatless" burn that Flamers have before generating any heat for the wielder.

A properly balanced weapon system should have a cost for ANY usage, no matter how small. The Flamer, because it isn't ammo dependent, needs a cost of heat. The current implementation allows users to completely subvert that while still mitigating, or even eliminating, the ability of an opponent to return fire. How is that a "properly functioning weapon system?"

Wintersdark, on 19 February 2016 - 03:34 PM, said:

Or, we could just have another boring and ultimately useless variant of the small laser. Yay.

Or we could end up with a balanced weapon system that allows for some crowd control functionality while putting some damage on target. Or, if PGI is insistent that Flamers do no physical damage, we could end up with a weapon system that actually puts heat on target with an actual cost to the wielder (and an immediate cost . . . not a "well, if he holds down the trigger he'll eventually heat up" cost). Or we'll just be left with the horrible implementation of the weapon system that we've gotten.

Edited by Sereglach, 19 February 2016 - 04:11 PM.

[Wintersdark]

So, are you saying they're overpowered, underpowered, useful, useless? I get that you don't like the implementation, but honestly I don't really care about that.

Short form, with no "because its wrong", is your contention that they won't work? Or that they'll work too well?

I can't tell.

If it's just that you don't like HOW they work, well, whatever. We could probably fill a boat with things we'd rather work differently in the game.

But if they serve a purpose, add some flavor to gameplay and are not overpowered (flamer boats dominating matches) or useless (never get used at all, see: last four years) then that's good enough.

Could they be better? Sure. Add them to the list of missed opportunities if you must; its a long list.

Bit at least my experience thus far has been that they are situationally useful but haven't been dominant in a single match. Not one.

Maybe people haven't figured out how to really make them OP, that's a possibility.

But getting all worked up about something that works in the game, is useful and isn't OP? That's just silly.

But, that's just my opinion. I'm tired of ranting about things we think should be different, when they're not actually causing any harm.

Making a mountain out of a molehill.

[Sereglach]

Wintersdark, on 19 February 2016 - 05:06 PM, said:

*snip*

First off, I find it quaint that you're not refusing or rebutting the points I make about the convoluted mechanics and how it's not practical or intuitive for the average player to utilize. That, to start, makes for a broken weapon, period . . . regardless of any perceived usefulness or uselessness.

Now, to answer your remarks:

They have a use, but in a wrong way. The use presented has no cost to the wielder unless they're careless. However, that carelessness is very easy for the average player to fall into, because there's no intuitive interface on how the weapon functions. Therefore, more than likely, as time passes, the weapon is going to fall into uselessness as people skip over managing the poorly implemented and balanced system with its convoluted and unintuitive mechanics.

One outcome is that only the trolls or desperate Flamer "try-hards" will put the current implementation into use at its full potential, as time moves on. Those people will be raged at by those who are unaware that the weapon has a method of partially-to-fully stun-locking (with no cost to the wielder no less). Thusly, the weapon gets tossed back into a shallow grave, as a useless weapon for most and as a troll weapon for others.

On the other hand, there is another outcome. That outcome is that people will come to realize the ability to partially-to-fully stun-lock an opponent with zero cost to the wielder. The result in this situation is that every brawler will carry ~2 Flamers. They'll burn them at the beginning of the brawl, hoping to overcome their opponents heat capacity before theirs can be overcome. Then everyone will be annoyed over the fact that brawling is dead because closing within tight distances just ensures that your weapons will be rendered mostly, if not completely, useless.

Either way, it feeds to a weapon whose use is a terrible one; and the implementation has a direct impact on that use . . . whether you'd like to see it, or not. You can consider it "useful" or "useless" all you want. Who cares, right? The weapon "works" and that is all you care about, right? Doesn't matter if it's a bad use, that breaks the concept of the game, in that it has no cost to the user when put to its optimum potential, right?

The two concepts, the functionality and mechanics, are directly tied to each other in this case. A Large Laser that generates zero heat for the wielder, if fired every 5 seconds, would be immensely useful . . . but it doesn't make it any less broken. Of course, people would care about that one a whole lot more because it more directly impacts killing mechs.

[Wintersdark]

Sereglach, on 19 February 2016 - 05:33 PM, said:

First off, I find it quaint that you're not refusing or rebutting the points I make about the convoluted mechanics and how it's not practical or intuitive for the average player to utilize. That, to start, makes for a broken weapon, period . . . regardless of any perceived usefulness or uselessness.

I'm not rebutting those points because they are all subjective. You feel they're serious, I feel they're so minor as to be bordering on irrelevant. I don't find scaling heat to be particularly difficult to figure out: just firing a bunch of flamers shows what's happening pretty fast - the more you fire them, the hotter they get. Not rocket science.

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They have a use, but in a wrong way. The use presented has no cost to the wielder unless they're careless. However, that carelessness is very easy for the average player to fall into, because there's no intuitive interface on how the weapon functions. Therefore, more than likely, as time passes, the weapon is going to fall into uselessness as people skip over managing the poorly implemented and balanced system with its convoluted and unintuitive mechanics.

They have a definite cost:
1) They require 90m range.
2) If fired in a small burst with several seconds between to prevent firing mech heat buildup, they generate a chunk of heat on the opposing mech, but don't "stun lock" him (it's still a terrible way to phrase it - he can still move and even fire if he wants) as that heat will bleed off quickly enough, and firing bursts again will generate more heat. Protracted use like this is very difficult, as it requires 90m range.

That's enough cost. It doesn't need any more - if I'm wrong, and it does, that's directly because Flamers are in the current implementation, overpowered. Everything doesn't need a direct cost; sometimes, the opportunity cost/situational usage is sufficient.

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One outcome is that only the trolls or desperate Flamer "try-hards" will put the current implementation into use at its full potential, as time moves on. Those people will be raged at by those who are unaware that the weapon has a method of partially-to-fully stun-locking (with no cost to the wielder no less). Thusly, the weapon gets tossed back into a shallow grave, as a useless weapon for most and as a troll weapon for others.

You can't "troll" - you're either winning battles, or not. If usage to reduce enemy effectiveness is successful (but not so much that every player is doing it) then that's Flamer's working. If it doesn't work, then they just fade into uselessness - no worse than what we had before the Flamer change.

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On the other hand, there is another outcome. That outcome is that people will come to realize the ability to partially-to-fully stun-lock an opponent with zero cost to the wielder. The result in this situation is that every brawler will carry ~2 Flamers. They'll burn them at the beginning of the brawl, hoping to overcome their opponents heat capacity before theirs can be overcome. Then everyone will be annoyed over the fact that brawling is dead because closing within tight distances just ensures that your weapons will be rendered mostly, if not completely, useless.

Maybe. Flamers don't render weapons completely useless, and 90m range is EXTREMELY close. It's not trivial to get to and maintain to keep someone hot.

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Either way, it feeds to a weapon whose use is a terrible one; and the implementation has a direct impact on that use . . . whether you'd like to see it, or not. You can consider it "useful" or "useless" all you want. Who cares, right? The weapon "works" and that is all you care about, right? Doesn't matter if it's a bad use, that breaks the concept of the game, in that it has no cost to the user when put to its optimum potential, right?

I don't feel it's a bad use, nor do I feel it "breaks the concept of the game" (what does that even mean?). "In that it has no cost to the user when put to its' optimum potential" - My jump jets have no cost to my mech when used to their optimal potential either. Neither does MASC - sure, if I use MASC too much, I can damage my legs, but that just means I don't use it that much and... oh look, no cost. Is MASC overpowered?

So, yeah, there's no heat cost if your flamers are used to their optimal potential, but that optimal potential is where it is because it's directly limited by the scaling heat. They're useful tools, but cannot be over-used as the heat generation means excessive usage is counterproductive, and taking them has opportunity costs (directly lowers your mech's offensive capability)

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The two concepts, the functionality and mechanics, are directly tied to each other in this case. A Large Laser that generates zero heat for the wielder, if fired every 5 seconds, would be immensely useful . . . but it doesn't make it any less broken. Of course, people would care about that one a whole lot more because it more directly impacts killing mechs.

A large laser that generates zero heat would be grossly overpowered, because it has no opportunity cost in choosing it (it kills) or situational usage preventing wanton use. Everyone would boat them. That's why it'd be a problem: Every single person would use them, and heat would become irrelevant instantly. And that is why your argument above is ridiculous and flat out stupid.

Flamers are NOT zero heat. If used anything more than very little bursts with a good delay between them, they quickly become very high heat. However, if used sparingly, they are useful tools that are self-limiting, like many other useful tools in our arsenal.

They cannot kill a mech, they cannot stun a mech (no shutdown; doesn't even prevent firing), all they can do is limit offensive ability. You can slow someones offensive ability temporarily, and that's it. That has utility; but it cannot kill anyone on it's own. You can't win a match with flamers, and the more flamers you take, the faster the heat generation becomes significant, so you don't ever want to boat flamers. We're not going to see people stacking on ever more flamers and them becoming a dominant force on the battlefield, because the scaling heat ensures that's not a viable path.

You present your two options above, two ways things can work out... And I don't disagree. Those ARE two potential futures. But there are many more, not excluding "Flamers remain useful tools for brawlers, but aren't over-used due to inherent weaknesses (extremely short range) and costs such as opportunity cost (weight, size, hardpoint usage)."

And that is what I'm hoping for. That's the ideal outcome, in my books. That they're simply useful tools, but not overpowered.

[Sereglach]

Wintersdark, on 19 February 2016 - 07:24 PM, said:

*snip*

At this point, you're white knighting way too hard over trying to justify things as they are.

You're not even disagreeing with pretty much everything I say, you're just trying to paint things into a light that justifies it for you, because -according to you- flamers "work"; and that's all that matters to you. The things you claim to disagree with are some of the most pertinent points, but either you just dodge them, refuse to acknowledge them, or act like they won't matter in the grand scheme of things.

Most of the things you're highlighting as "opinion" are actually quite factual, because they're being derived straight from the game itself. You want to show me how Flamers have a heat cost when you burn them under that magical timer? You want to show me how that can't lead to bursts of removing one opponents ability to fight back, or even remove it entirely if optimized in usage? You want to show me how range is such a huge limiting factor when mobile mechs do 4-5 second strikes all the time within that range? You want to show me where the game displays how to use a Flamer and what all of its mechanics are?

Your "opinion" is that because you follow every little bit of everything going on in these forums, that everyone else should see it and grasp it the way you do. That's just not happening. You're, frankly, being rather pathetically dismissive of the average player because you feel the points are "so minor as to be bordering on irrelevant". That's disgusting, arrogant, and narcissistic.

The implementation creates a broken weapon, and that will eventually become the common perception of the weapon, in one way or another. "Useful" vs. "Useless" . . . it doesn't matter when the system is broken. There ARE ways to use the weapon with ZERO costs. The limitations that you outline I've already highlighted and pointed out how they're going to impact the game in the long run, if continued to be utilized in such a way.

EDIT: Oh, by the way, on stun-locking. 4 Flamers x 4 Seconds Burn = 72 points heat damage at 0 cost, according to the system. That'll max out the heat scale of just about any mech out there . . . not even including their exponential heat damage scaling. A mech with 10 true-dubs = 2 cooling per second (with diminishing returns on more heat sinks at either .14 or .16 dissipation). Guess what's not cooling off in 4.75 seconds before the Flamer wielder starts up again? That's right . . . that 72 points of heat damage. Tie that into a never-ending pattern and guess what you get, a stun-lock. Moving around or not, if the enemy can keep pace then that's a stun-lock./EDIT

At this point you're talking circles around yourself just to try to justify things. That's sad.

So, if you want to continue your points or have a magic "last word" then have at it. You've become a waste of time to deal with over this matter. It's not even a matter of how the weapon is perceived in game and how it functions. To you it "works" and that's all that matters, no matter what, and no matter how broken it is . . . so white-knight away.

Edited by Sereglach, 19 February 2016 - 07:55 PM.

[Wintersdark]

Sereglach, on 19 February 2016 - 07:43 PM, said:

At this point, you're white knighting way too hard over trying to justify things as they are.

Or I just don't see it as a problem.

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You're not even disagreeing with pretty much everything I say, you're just trying to paint things into a light that justifies it for you, because -according to you- flamers "work"; and that's all that matters to you.

Because them working, but not being overpowered, is all that's important to me. I'm happy with that. I'm trying to "paint things into a light that justifies it for me" in as much as you're doing the same.

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The things you claim to disagree with are some of the most pertinent points, but either you just dodge them, refuse to acknowledge them, or act like they won't matter in the grand scheme of things.

I don't dodge anything, I just don't see it as a problem. Maybe I'm wrong - I'm always willing to admit that's the case. And if so, it'll show: We'll see Flamers as either useless (possible, certainly, but unlikely IMHO) or we'll see them having a strong impact on the game. If the later; then either:

A) Flamers become a dominant tool used by everyone and deciding matches, with no real defense.
or
Flamers change the current meta, causing people to run different loadouts to be able to manage them.

"A" above is a huge problem. Absolutely. If that happens, I'll be front and center here apologizing about it, and saying I was objectively wrong. No problem.

"B"? No problem at all. Meta changes are awesome, gives people a chance to explore new strategies and changes which mechs are the darlings of the day.

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Most of the things you're highlighting as "opinion" are actually quite factual, because they're being derived straight from the game itself. You want to show me how Flamers have a heat cost when you burn them under that magical timer? You want to show me how that can't lead to bursts of removing one opponents ability to fight back, or even remove it entirely if optimized in usage? You want to show me how range is such a huge limiting factor when mobile mechs do 4-5 second strikes all the time within that range? You want to show me where the game displays how to use a Flamer and what all of its mechanics are?

Flamers have a very low heat cost when fired in short bursts. I agreed with that. I just don't see why you think that's a problem. No different than many other tools (MASC, Jump Jets, etc).

Range IS a huge limiting factor. You damn well know that: 90m is EXTREMELY close range, even in a brawl.

You don't remove someone's ability to fight back, but you do severely curtail it. Yes. But not continuously, thanks to scaling heat. Still not seeing this as a problem.

Yes, it's be nice if the game detailed the Flamer's mechanics in play. But then, I feel that about a hell of a lot of things in this game. But how flamers work is very damn simple. Less complex to figure out than a Gauss Rifle. Fire flamers a little bit, no heat. Keep firing them for a long time, lots of heat. Immediately obvious what happens. Not hard to figure out. But, this too! Maybe I'm wrong, maybe a lot of players are even slower than I think. Then they may not use flamers at all (just like many don't use Gauss Rifles), or they may come here on the forums and ask. Not ideal, no, but also not a reason to never have anything other than weapon generates x heat and does y damage.

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Your "opinion" is that because you follow every little bit of everything going on in these forums, that everyone else should see it and grasp it the way you do. That's just not happening. You're, frankly, being rather pathetically dismissive of the average player because you feel the points are "so minor as to be bordering on irrelevant". That's disgusting, arrogant, and narcissistic.

pathetically dismissive? No, I just think they're smart enough to understand what is immediately obvious when you fire a flamer. Just standing still and firing a few of them is quite clear in it's results. Again, I'd like tooltips to be more informative, and would TOTALLY support that being put in.

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The implementation creates a broken weapon, and that will eventually become the common perception of the weapon, in one way or another. "Useful" vs. "Useless" . . . it doesn't matter when the system is broken. There ARE ways to use the weapon with ZERO costs. The limitations that you outline I've already highlighted and pointed out how they're going to impact the game in the long run, if continued to be utilized in such a way.

There are ways to use the weapon with zero costs? With no tonnage spent, no hardpoints used? Opportunity costs are real costs. Again, how does this differ from MASC, from JJ's?

And yes, I'm aware of how it's used. I've made a bunch of testing videos, in McGral's thread.

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At this point you're talking circles around yourself just to try to justify things. That's sad.

So, if you want to continue your points or have a magic "last word" then have at it. You've become a waste of time to deal with over this matter. It's not even a matter of how the weapon is perceived in game and how it functions. To you it "works" and that's all that matters, no matter what, and no matter how broken it is . . . so white-knight away.

Again, with clarity:

All I care about is:

1) It works and is practically useful in gameplay, preferably adding to depth in gameplay with more creative choices in builds.
2) It is not overpowered and dominating gameplay.
3) It not underpowered (and thus failing at step 1).

"Sereglach thinks it's broken and too hard to understand" is not a consideration for me, no.

[SQW]

Flamer is still....underwhelming.

Bought 3 just to test it out. Not impressed.

Back to the drawing board PGI.

[NocturnalBeast]

SQW, on 20 February 2016 - 03:33 AM, said:

Flamer is still....underwhelming.

Bought 3 just to test it out. Not impressed.

Back to the drawing board PGI.

It is not supposed to be a primary anti-mech weapon, period.

[Kali Rinpoche]

It cracks me up that we have 4 pages of complaints about a weapon that was and is useless. Wasting resources that could be used in other areas of game development. PGI finally listened to "Flamer Gate" and made some changes. I'm fine with them, especially with the blinding nerf. We don't need another troll weapon.

[MrKvola]

Ppl just let it be. We have way more important weapons systems that need to be worked on or that are just broken than flamers. Frack flamers. They are a niche weapon, with the current setup they have a place and let's leave it at that. Let the devs do something useful.

Thank you for your attention.

Edited by MrKvola, 20 February 2016 - 07:21 PM.

[Jack Shayu Walker]

Sereglach, on 19 February 2016 - 07:41 AM, said:

4. EDIT: Oh, and another huge and glaring issue is that this "fix" still creates a weapon that can be fired in bursts for zero heat, which is just WRONG.

From what standpoint is it wrong? It seems fair from a gameplay perspective, it's a time limited suppression method you can use while cooling down to fire your weapons that actually deal damage? and in lore flamers actually REDUCE your heat slightly.

Edited by Jack Shayu Walker, 21 February 2016 - 12:47 AM.

[Jack Shayu Walker]

Sereglach, on 19 February 2016 - 07:43 PM, said:

Your "opinion" is that because you follow every little bit of everything going on in these forums, that everyone else should see it and grasp it the way you do. That's just not happening. You're, frankly, being rather pathetically dismissive of the average player because you feel the points are "so minor as to be bordering on irrelevant". That's disgusting, arrogant, and narcissistic.

I think you've been severely mis-interpreting wintersdark's tone. From where I'm sitting, you're the one coming across as the one with a huge attitude problem.

Edited by Jack Shayu Walker, 21 February 2016 - 01:05 AM.

[Desintegrator]

Flamer nerf ! -> Great !

[Sereglach]

Jack Shayu Walker, on 21 February 2016 - 12:47 AM, said:

From what standpoint is it wrong? It seems fair from a gameplay perspective, it's a time limited suppression method you can use while cooling down to fire your weapons that actually deal damage? and in lore flamers actually REDUCE your heat slightly.

Flamers, in lore, generate 3 heat when fired, while doing 2 damage and 1d6 heat damage. That's not reducing your heat at all. They are, in fact, a pretty hot weapon to fire given what they accomplish, in both TT and Lore. I don't know where people are getting this notion that they somehow reduce the wielder's heat.

Seriously, people around here need to quit spreading the rumors and whatnot that they do and actually reread some rulebooks before they make comparisons.

Jack Shayu Walker, on 21 February 2016 - 01:02 AM, said:

I think you've been severely mis-interpreting wintersdark's tone. From where I'm sitting, you're the one coming across as the one with a huge attitude problem.

Being incredibly dismissive of the average player who isn't going to see the graphs PGI used to explain these convoluted mechanics, receives no tooltips in game on how the weapon functions or its scaling heat, and has zero indicators in game on how it's functioning (because, you know, they don't spend anywhere near as much time -if any- on the forums as someone like Wintersdark) isn't a bad attitude on the situation? I'm thoroughly confused there, considering the very self-centered approach he's had.

Also, can't forget the derogatory statements about "not understanding the situation and not liking it." I've seemed to have a better grasp on the problems with Flamers than most people, but was completely ignored. Just look at the original patch thread.

Then again, I was talked down to and dismissed when I called out that there was a huge, glaring exploit that PGI didn't fix and was going to become a problem when the patch came out; and now I'm being talked down to over pointing out the inherent flaws and problems with this current implementation. So, I guess I shouldn't be surprised and there's really nothing new here.

Edited by Sereglach, 21 February 2016 - 08:46 AM.

[Jack Shayu Walker]

Sereglach, on 21 February 2016 - 08:35 AM, said:

Flamers, in lore, generate 3 heat when fired, while doing 2 damage and 1d6 heat damage. That's not reducing your heat at all. They are, in fact, a pretty hot weapon to fire given what they accomplish, in both TT and Lore. I don't know where people are getting this notion that they somehow reduce the wielder's heat.

Seriously, people around here need to quit spreading the rumors and whatnot that they do and actually reread some rulebooks before they make comparisons.


Being incredibly dismissive of the average player who isn't going to see the graphs PGI used to explain these convoluted mechanics, receives no tooltips in game on how the weapon functions or its scaling heat, and has zero indicators in game on how it's functioning (because, you know, they don't spend anywhere near as much time -if any- on the forums as someone like Wintersdark) isn't a bad attitude on the situation? I'm thoroughly confused there, considering the very self-centered approach he's had.

Also, can't forget the derogatory statements about "not understanding the situation and not liking it." I've seemed to have a better grasp on the problems with Flamers than most people, but was completely ignored. Just look at the original patch thread.

Then again, I was talked down to and dismissed when I called out that there was a huge, glaring exploit that PGI didn't fix and was going to become a problem when the patch came out; and now I'm being talked down to over pointing out the inherent flaws and problems with this current implementation. So, I guess I shouldn't be surprised and there's really nothing new here.

You're being talked down to for being rude. If you want to have a discussion, try and be more pleasant than the person your arguing with, rather than less so.

[Wintersdark]

Sereglach, on 21 February 2016 - 08:35 AM, said:

Flamers, in lore, generate 3 heat when fired, while doing 2 damage and 1d6 heat damage. That's not reducing your heat at all. They are, in fact, a pretty hot weapon to fire given what they accomplish, in both TT and Lore. I don't know where people are getting this notion that they somehow reduce the wielder's heat.

Dunno, and also don't care. I just care that Flamers are a useful an unique weapon in MWO. That is, as I've said before, all I care about. Tabletop mechanics are largely irrelevant because this is an entirely different game.

Quote

Being incredibly dismissive of the average player who isn't going to see the graphs PGI used to explain these convoluted mechanics, receives no tooltips in game on how the weapon functions or its scaling heat, and has zero indicators in game on how it's functioning (because, you know, they don't spend anywhere near as much time -if any- on the forums as someone like Wintersdark) isn't a bad attitude on the situation? I'm thoroughly confused there, considering the very self-centered approach he's had.

A bad attitude? Because I feel this particular thing, while unfortunately not adequately explained, as is a common problem of PGI's, is in fact pretty easy to figure out, at least compared to a lot of other mechanics? Shoot someone with a flamer, they get hot (you learn this as soon as someone shoots flamers at you). Shoot flamers at others, and you generate increasing heat the longer you fire them. It's REALLY not that complicated. But yes, it totally should be covered in the Flamer tooltip.

And those graphs? Totally unnecessary. They're only relevant in demonstrating how Flamers worked with the exploit/bug vs. how they work now. A player who doesn't know how flamers work also doesn't know about said exploit, and as such has no need for the graphs.

WAY easier to understand than Ghost Heat, even though Ghost Heat has tooltips. Easier than Gauss Rifles.


I said before, and will again: PGI absolutely needs to do better at providing educational tools. Absolutely. But PGI's poor interface/tooltips/training tools is no reason to have everything be as simple and boring as possible. The problem is the lack of good tooltips, not that Flamer works differently than a Medium Laser. Fix the problem.

Quote

Also, can't forget the derogatory statements about "not understanding the situation and not liking it." I've seemed to have a better grasp on the problems with Flamers than most people, but was completely ignored. Just look at the original patch thread.

Did I say you didn't understand the situation? I think, in fact, that I agreed with much of what you said, just with the qualification that I felt you where in many ways making a mountain out of a molehill.

Quote

Then again, I was talked down to and dismissed when I called out that there was a huge, glaring exploit that PGI didn't fix and was going to become a problem when the patch came out; and now I'm being talked down to over pointing out the inherent flaws and problems with this current implementation. So, I guess I shouldn't be surprised and there's really nothing new here.

Wait, was that me? Did I talk down to you and dismiss you when you pointed out an exploit? I don't recall doing that. I'm pretty sure it wasn't me; so what does that have to do with this discussion? You don't see me blaming you for stupid things others have said to me in the past.

[Willothius]

Wintersdark, on 21 February 2016 - 09:10 AM, said:

... while unfortunately not adequately explained, as is a common problem of PGI's,

It's great to see you guys (Wintersdark vs Sereglach) can keep on arguiing for so long while it seems you both basically complain about this ^ right? It's amusing
I do have to say, sereglach's tone reminds me a bit of that Trump guy that keeps appearing on the news..