179 replies to this topic

[Master Maniac]

"You mean the light rushes from CW"

No, I wouldn't know. I despise CW and I dropped it after maybe two matches. I mean in the base game, mostly during Open Beta but not exclusively in that timeframe. Lag-shielded Lights would steamroll entire teams, and PGI talked at length for months about prioritizing hit registration because of it.

They haven't done a very good job. Lights are still nearly invulnerable to conventional beam weapons, even en masse, due to crappy hit detection. Whoever says "oh, lasers are point and click and take out lights so EZ" is blowing it out their wazoo, or has at some point been blessed by the god of good fortune, because that's not consistently the case. In the vast majority of cases, Lights are able to take an overabundance of damage - shots that should outright DESTROY a Light seem to glance for minimum damage or not even register at all, allowing Light pilots to run and gun like Mediums (or play even heavier, because their unintentionally high endurance outpaces that of Heavy 'mechs."

Case in point, just the other night I was up against a Spider that wasn't even a very good pilot: he was stuck up against a wall for a good few seconds, and had resorted to blazing away with ML's while completely stationary. Now, I just hit the guy with an LB-20 right in the CT at very close range. This left him with a yellow-orange CT, despite the near point-blank spread. This should have savaged him by itself, but then I hit him with ANOTHER near-point blank blast, on a stationary Light, right in the CT - this left him with red armor, despite the majority of the shot visibly striking the CT. It would have been hard to *miss* the CT. And he just turns and runs away... only to take double AC/20s from another player. 40 points of damage in the back, not sure to which torsi, but still. That's an AC40 to the back and the thing just runs away like nothing happened, and that's AFTER taking two point-blank shots from an LB-20 to the CT.

I wish my Heavy 'mechs were half that survivable. I didn't even mention the quad medium lasers I was spraying that Spider with, either. Who knows where that damage went.

Still, my argument isn't that lights should be useless. It's no fun to have to just sit and spot. They should be fun to run and gun with, too. At this point in time, though, the game favors Lights to the point of ridiculousness. We have Assaults who die in seconds to Lights, and run in terror from them on sight. And now the devs are commenting that they want even more to kick Assaults to the curb by putting an even greater emphasis on movement speed into the game than there already is (which is definitely a lot). I mean, there's a huge emphasis on speed over firepower, because the devs don't have the skill to prevent pixel-perfect damage sinking, but now that emphasis is going to extend even further to the game's very ruleset.

At this point, if you're an Assault or a non-speed Heavy, you're just not going to have much fun in Conquest at all, period. That's where I take umbrage. Well, honestly, I take umbrage with FAR more than that, but that's a start.

The devs need to stop being so concerned with cooking up new ways to get people to stand in a lighted circle for a timer to tick down, and badly, badly need to start focusing on how to make the combat more involved, more exciting, more varied, and more nuanced. We don't even have basic, working *collision* yet, and the big boss is railing about how king of the hill is the best thing ever. It just does not compute.

Edited by Master Maniac, 29 February 2016 - 07:18 PM.

[Sereglach]

Luscious Dan, on 29 February 2016 - 02:22 PM, said:

My "vision" for the Flamer gauge, based on my understanding of the mechanics, is this:

Something on the right side of the targeting reticule, similar (but not identical) to MASC. Or to the left of MASC. Doesn't really matter.

The level of the gauge represents the amount of additional heat generated by each flamer if you were to fire it at the current time. It takes 4.75s to fill the "safe" green portion of the gauge (regardless of how many flamers you're firing), and the level goes down when none are being fired. When you get into the red zone, you're triggering that rapidly increasing amount of heat generation if you fire.

Should be reasonably intuitive IMO.

There is a major issue with that. It doesn't match how the Flamer currently functions . . . at all.

There's currently a "magic" 4.75 second window that firing flamers generates no heat, which is shared by all flamers (that's just wrong and bad for mechanics to begin with . . . nothing should be cost free to any degree). It doesn't slowly bleed off when you're not firing. It stays frozen in place. After another "magic" 4.75 second window, all heat generation instantly and mystically goes away, and resets your first 4.75 second window of free flamer shooting . . . which imposes a pseudo cooldown on a weapon that's supposed to be a sustained stream-fire weapon based on PGI's initial implementation of the weapon system. Even one millisecond of shooting Flamers in that timeframe, and heat generation instantly picks up right where it left off . . . not heat damage, but just the heat generation.

Then we get back into all the problems that the current system has and what it'll create for the future.
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The whole system functions off of an exponentially scaling system. Thusly, it's impossible to have enough heat sinks to maintain the stream-fire of flamers that was the initial implementation of the weapon system. It's also impossible to have enough heat sinks to actually resist the fire of an enemy's flamers. Both facets of that are very poorly implemented functionality and bad for balance in the long run.

Now, get into the fact that Russ wants to redo the heat scale (which is frankly awesome in the basic facet of it) for the purposes of cutting down alpha strikes; and you open a whole new can of worms. If the heat cap decreases with little-to-no other changes, then the current implementation of Flamers could be so overwhelming -especially with the "free fire" window hidden in the convoluted mechanics- that you could lock down several mechs at once without consequence . . . and we have a "Flamergeddeon", akin to what required the first hot-fix, all over again. If the cooling system becomes more aggressive (quite likely with a lower heat cap . . . trading capacity and alphas for more sustained DSP), then Flamers won't even be able to inflict meaningful heat damage to enemies until the scaling has the shooter overheating themselves . . . and/or any heat damage done will be cooled off so fast that it was meaningless . . . and that'd just relegate them back into the scrap heap no matter what "magic-free-fire-windows" they have. So regardless, Flamers will need to be readdressed again . . . and we're back at square one, anyway.

However, if PGI takes the simple solution of giving the Flamer fixed, flat, and simple values, then not only can PGI more easily tune the weapon with any heat scale changes they make, it'll actually function as the stream-fire weapon it's intended to be, there'll be no "free fire" window, and there'll be no convoluted cooling mechanics or exponential scaling. It also won't require any special HUD elements and anyone would know exactly how the weapon functions just by looking at its mech-lab tooltip. Extremely heat efficient mechs could either fire Flamers longer or actually resist flamers being shot at them. Flamers would maintain crowd control through sustained fire and not near-instant lockdowns or stun-locks (of a form) in a short burst with no cost (for those who game the mechanics and the "magic windows").

What we got as a fix is a "mess" and it needs to be fixed, like was originally promised. Numbers tuning and then throwing a panic limit as a "hot fix" isn't an actual fix to the issues and inherent problems in the implementation.

[Ulris Ventis]

ilKhan_OrHan, on 25 February 2016 - 03:52 PM, said:

Battlefield 4 runs like a dream, make it run like that game. Battlefield 4 was soooooo unoptimized when it was first released, yet they fixed virtually every issue from netcode to hardware performance.

No, they've never fixed the netcode problems and they will never be able to do it.
Their game doesn't use the basic - server-sided netcode, like old shooters had that still work like a charm.
They hopefully don't have ugly P2P or client-sided (lol) system.
But they use client-side+server-side, that WILL always lead to problems. There is nothing better than Server-sided right now. Yes, it does benefit to players with lower pings, but BF4 net code allows high pingers to kill you after you killed them, or don't register your hits in them, since server accepts their packets as well as yours even if they've come a bit later. That leads to 1hp left problems, or 30hp problems, or death behind a wall or both players dead.

In MWO there is but one true problem - CW on US servers that leads to 200 pings and gives advantage to US players. To reduce wait times I've tried playing on US in quick (cause in other games it's 160-180 ping max), but had my parts cut off before I could know, or damage registered without me been notified by either sound or visual. It's unplayable and that is basically the only trouble I recall with net code in MWO. Some strange stuff occasionally happens with hitreg on fast lights but that's about it.

Edited by Ulris Ventis, 01 March 2016 - 12:18 AM.

[Rogue Jedi]

Master Maniac, on 29 February 2016 - 07:14 PM, said:

Case in point, just the other night I was up against a Spider that wasn't even a very good pilot: he was stuck up against a wall for a good few seconds, and had resorted to blazing away with ML's while completely stationary. Now, I just hit the guy with an LB-20 right in the CT at very close range. This left him with a yellow-orange CT, despite the near point-blank spread. This should have savaged him by itself, but then I hit him with ANOTHER near-point blank blast, on a stationary Light, right in the CT - this left him with red armor, despite the majority of the shot visibly striking the CT. It would have been hard to *miss* the CT. And he just turns and runs away... only to take double AC/20s from another player. 40 points of damage in the back, not sure to which torsi, but still. That's an AC40 to the back and the thing just runs away like nothing happened, and that's AFTER taking two point-blank shots from an LB-20 to the CT.

I wish my Heavy 'mechs were half that survivable.

you do realise that if an LB20X hits with all the pellets on the same component that is 20 damage and that the Spider can have 40 armor on the CT right?
a Spider should always survive 2 LB20 hits to front CT unless the pilot has it running at half armor or less almost everyone will run max CT armor but put a few points on the back so figure maybe 30-38 armor front CT, your LB20 hit should reduce to a bit below half armor which is exactly what you described.
About 1 game in 10 I go from full health to dead in an instant with a report of a single AC20 or Gauss causing damage, all I can assume is that there are some realy good shots out there and if multiple hit simultaneously it is only listed as 1 hit because I armor any 30+ ton Mech to survive an AC20 hit to any component, and I am almost always moving 100+ when that happens.

Heavies are far more durable than Lights, it is just that some people have trouble hitting Lights unless I am piloting them.

[mikerso]

Rogue Jedi, on 29 February 2016 - 03:30 PM, said:

if you know how to pilot a light then yes Lights can be hard to hit giving them the illusion of durability, but if you make a mistake you are dead, if you come up against a good shot you are dead because they cannot take a hit.

Lights are my favorite weight class, and Spiders are my favorite Mech but I do not get great damage in them, and feel a bit guilty taking them since the ECM range reduction on the 5D (I can no longer protect the team), I rarely use my absolute favorite Mech in the game the SDR-5V because of its limited damage potential, but in that I can make it dance in such a way that I can keep 4 Mechs distracted for 2-3 minutes of continuous hit and runs on a city map.


I know what I suggested was probably unworkable but as PGI will not fairly reward the "light Mech" roles like scout, spotting, capturing, distraction, and harassing, as well as providing ECM cover reward. something like that seems to be the only real option to get Lights played more, with the ECM range reduction I largely stopped playing Spiders, I could only justify the 5D as contributing as an ECM shield, now when I want to play Light I usualy go for the FS9-E or JR7-IIC(O) so I can contribute meaningful amounts of damage ^{(usualy 300-600 as opposed to 150-300 in a Spider)}.

Finally there will be something for someone who takes one for the team and uses the umbrella Kit Fox ^{(I am fine doing that in group queue but never use it in solo)}, with the new AMS rewards, if the reward looks good enough ^{(highly unlikely but you never know)} the savvy light pilot may start sacrificing 1 ton for AMS and ammo

This is one of the best explanations of the strengths and weaknesses of lights that I have seen recently. Lights have to sacrifice chassis space for speed and maneuverability. Light pilots can not pilot in a predictable way. Aside from a few lights too short to hit, most can't face tank. Then you add the weight lost to items like ecm and ams. This leaves a lot of lights lacking tonnage and space for weapons. Ams in itself has little use for a light, a really good light pilot always has cover in mind anyways. So bringing ams for a light is essentially burnt tonnage if the team is not taking advantage of it. Very few lights are actually able to carry a lot of heavy weapons, but those mechs lose out on the speed and therefore have to be even more elusive.

Lights should be feared, but are easily beaten. A great light pilot though, that is a thing of beauty and a bag of crazy all wrapped up in a metal death trap.

[mikerso]

Master Maniac, on 29 February 2016 - 07:14 PM, said:

"You mean the light rushes from CW"

No, I wouldn't know. I despise CW and I dropped it after maybe two matches. I mean in the base game, mostly during Open Beta but not exclusively in that timeframe. Lag-shielded Lights would steamroll entire teams, and PGI talked at length for months about prioritizing hit registration because of it.

They haven't done a very good job. Lights are still nearly invulnerable to conventional beam weapons, even en masse, due to crappy hit detection. Whoever says "oh, lasers are point and click and take out lights so EZ" is blowing it out their wazoo, or has at some point been blessed by the god of good fortune, because that's not consistently the case. In the vast majority of cases, Lights are able to take an overabundance of damage - shots that should outright DESTROY a Light seem to glance for minimum damage or not even register at all, allowing Light pilots to run and gun like Mediums (or play even heavier, because their unintentionally high endurance outpaces that of Heavy 'mechs."

Case in point, just the other night I was up against a Spider that wasn't even a very good pilot: he was stuck up against a wall for a good few seconds, and had resorted to blazing away with ML's while completely stationary. Now, I just hit the guy with an LB-20 right in the CT at very close range. This left him with a yellow-orange CT, despite the near point-blank spread. This should have savaged him by itself, but then I hit him with ANOTHER near-point blank blast, on a stationary Light, right in the CT - this left him with red armor, despite the majority of the shot visibly striking the CT. It would have been hard to *miss* the CT. And he just turns and runs away... only to take double AC/20s from another player. 40 points of damage in the back, not sure to which torsi, but still. That's an AC40 to the back and the thing just runs away like nothing happened, and that's AFTER taking two point-blank shots from an LB-20 to the CT.

I wish my Heavy 'mechs were half that survivable. I didn't even mention the quad medium lasers I was spraying that Spider with, either. Who knows where that damage went.

Still, my argument isn't that lights should be useless. It's no fun to have to just sit and spot. They should be fun to run and gun with, too. At this point in time, though, the game favors Lights to the point of ridiculousness. We have Assaults who die in seconds to Lights, and run in terror from them on sight. And now the devs are commenting that they want even more to kick Assaults to the curb by putting an even greater emphasis on movement speed into the game than there already is (which is definitely a lot). I mean, there's a huge emphasis on speed over firepower, because the devs don't have the skill to prevent pixel-perfect damage sinking, but now that emphasis is going to extend even further to the game's very ruleset.

At this point, if you're an Assault or a non-speed Heavy, you're just not going to have much fun in Conquest at all, period. That's where I take umbrage. Well, honestly, I take umbrage with FAR more than that, but that's a start.

The devs need to stop being so concerned with cooking up new ways to get people to stand in a lighted circle for a timer to tick down, and badly, badly need to start focusing on how to make the combat more involved, more exciting, more varied, and more nuanced. We don't even have basic, working *collision* yet, and the big boss is railing about how king of the hill is the best thing ever. It just does not compute.

Rogue Jedi, on 01 March 2016 - 06:01 AM, said:

you do realise that if an LB20X hits with all the pellets on the same component that is 20 damage and that the Spider can have 40 armor on the CT right?
a Spider should always survive 2 LB20 hits to front CT unless the pilot has it running at half armor or less almost everyone will run max CT armor but put a few points on the back so figure maybe 30-38 armor front CT, your LB20 hit should reduce to a bit below half armor which is exactly what you described.
About 1 game in 10 I go from full health to dead in an instant with a report of a single AC20 or Gauss causing damage, all I can assume is that there are some realy good shots out there and if multiple hit simultaneously it is only listed as 1 hit because I armor any 30+ ton Mech to survive an AC20 hit to any component, and I am almost always moving 100+ when that happens.

Heavies are far more durable than Lights, it is just that some people have trouble hitting Lights unless I am piloting them.

2 points here. I agree with rogue jedi, why were you gunning for the ct? Take a leg or a side torso. They usually have way less armor, and can still cripple a light (except those clanner weirdos, then a side torso slightly gimps you).

A well placed shot can down a light in a heartbeat.

Here is my case and point. The other night while playing in my 4 erppc troll mad on canyon network. A locust was harassing our assaults. The first 2 erppc went into his face as a warning. He turned tail to run and exposed his rear torsos to me. All 4 erppc shots went into his side torso, tearing him to shreds.

Lights can be as easy as they are hard to kill.

Point number 2

Assaults and heavies not having fun in conquest modes is your personal opinion. I pilot all classes, and have fun on any map and mode.

The match I used as an example above was a conquest match.

Your dislike of conquest does not mean that everyone will hate or dislike it.

Again agreeing with rogue jedi don't go for the CT get the crippling blow to the legs or a side torso.

Edited by mikerso, 01 March 2016 - 12:09 PM.

[Liveish]

anfadern, on 25 February 2016 - 11:56 PM, said:

When? will we see that mechs are affected by collisions again?
When will the advanced zoom module be fixed?
LRM spamming is a bit too effective right now, any nerf coming?
Arctic cheetah is OP, any nerf coming?

collisions - Will be good
zoom module be fixed - What is wrong with it ??
LRM spamming is a bit too effective right now, any nerf coming? - Use cover or don't stand in the open, LRMS suck there is no problems with them.
Arctic cheetah is OP, any nerf coming - how are they OP and compared to what ?

[Asmosis]

Tvrdoglavi, on 29 February 2016 - 12:02 PM, said:

I like what Elite Dangerous does to cheaters. They call it a stealth ban. The send the cheaters to a spearate instance of the game without other players wihout any notification.
MWO could send them to a separate instance with other cheaters. I wonder how long it would take for them to figure it out.

That sounds like a really good system, except elite dangerous sends everyone to a system with no other players

live1991, on 01 March 2016 - 06:16 PM, said:

zoom module be fixed - What is wrong with it ??

I think its something to do with targeting boxes/things lining up on the wrong zoom plane

Edited by Asmosis, 02 March 2016 - 12:08 AM.

[mikerso]

Was hoping for some phoenix hawk love @ InnerSphereNews.

[KahnWongFuChung]

You mean the light rushes from CW"=BOOM YA lights with the speedhack suck now in solo MM or CW you spawn and 10-15 seconds later the hacking light player has cored you in the back and BOOM your dead.It was bad enough when you just could not kill them because of hit-reg or lag but now its even worse.

Heya Russ The big whales and groups using hacks have stabbed you in the back are you just going to let then ruin what's left of your game? Would like to help but you might be to far gone to listen to reason.

Edited by KahnWongFuChung, 02 March 2016 - 10:38 AM.

[Graugger]

Nothing like 12 6x SRM6 Jenners to stomp your day. -.- 48-3 thanks to the dropships.

[mikerso]

KahnWongFuChung, on 02 March 2016 - 10:38 AM, said:

You mean the light rushes from CW"=BOOM YA lights with the speedhack suck now in solo MM or CW you spawn and 10-15 seconds later the hacking light player has cored you in the back and BOOM your dead.It was bad enough when you just could not kill them because of hit-reg or lag but now its even worse.

Heya Russ The big whales and groups using hacks have stabbed you in the back are you just going to let then ruin what's left of your game? Would like to help but you might be to far gone to listen to reason.

Grab a video and submit it to support for the suspected cheats. A few questions though. Is your ping and load time usually high? When you load in is your team already on the move and gone? If so this may be an internet or computer issue. Yes there are fast lights, but killing them should not be an issue if you're with your team and aiming for the right parts of those lights. See the posts above concerning strengths and weaknesses of lights.

Graugg er, on 02 March 2016 - 11:09 AM, said:

Nothing like 12 6x SRM6 Jenners to stomp your day. -.- 48-3 thanks to the dropships.

Drop with 12 firestarters. Should end up like Satan met his long lost twin. Sounds like a fun matchup.

[mikerso]

Not gonna lie, kind of underwhelmed by the premium phoenix mechs. Was hoping at least one of the hero/special variants would be an ecm variant. That is a bit of a loss in money for pgi imho.

[KahnWongFuChung]

Grab a video and submit it to support for the suspected cheats. A few questions though. Is your ping and load time usually high? When you load in is your team already on the move and gone? If so this may be an internet or computer issue. Yes there are fast lights, but killing them should not be an issue if you're with your team and aiming for the right parts of those lights. See the posts above concerning strengths and weaknesses of lights.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My ping to your server is 70-75 consistently every battle my load time is like 5 seconds AVG FPS=60 loaded

AMD 8 core 16gb ram Nvidia 900 series yadayada yada so no problems on my end.

Sending in reports is like throwing a paper in a waste basket never does any good never gets the problems fixed.

[Duvanor]

mikerso, on 02 March 2016 - 03:22 PM, said:

Not gonna lie, kind of underwhelmed by the premium phoenix mechs. Was hoping at least one of the hero/special variants would be an ecm variant. That is a bit of a loss in money for pgi imho.

True, but the reinforcement variants got ECM on the one (PXH-2) and MASC on the other (PXH-3S)

[mikerso]

Duvanor, on 02 March 2016 - 04:52 PM, said:

True, but the reinforcement variants got ECM on the one (PXH-2) and MASC on the other (PXH-3S)

I agree that putting one in the reinforcements helps, but an ecm hero/ s variant would be a huge addition too. I think you would see a lot more collector's packs if the ecm version had the s variant.

Edited by mikerso, 03 March 2016 - 03:43 AM.

[Asmosis]

KahnWongFuChung, on 02 March 2016 - 03:22 PM, said:

My ping to your server is 70-75 consistently every battle my load time is like 5 seconds AVG FPS=60 loaded

AMD 8 core 16gb ram Nvidia 900 series yadayada yada so no problems on my end.

Sending in reports is like throwing a paper in a waste basket never does any good never gets the problems fixed.

Sending in reports is like throwing paper in a trash can. that a cleaner eventually comes along and takes that trash(cheat/hack) away.

Not sending in reports is like leaving screwed up pieces of paper on your desk. which gather resentment and dust and rolled eyes from colleagues.

Edited by Asmosis, 03 March 2016 - 12:20 AM.

[KahnWongFuChung]

Sending in reports is like throwing paper in a trash can. that a cleaner eventually comes along and takes that trash(cheat/hack) away.
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We will see if your right by now every MOD/DEV has read this thread and knows exactly what I mean by Speed Hacking Lights.

So if I don't get cored in the back on even polar in 20-30 seconds I will know PGI fixed the speed-hack going around.

Edited by KahnWongFuChung, 03 March 2016 - 07:50 AM.

[avenger cannon]

Sereglach, on 28 February 2016 - 12:34 PM, said:

Well, for one, as stated in the patch and hot fix threads, it was a huge "I told you so" to PGI because they failed to actually fix the Flamers, and left a huge glaring exploit behind. Now, rather than fix the inherent problem, they decided to throw more invisible and convoluted mechanics onto the problem to call it a "fix". Numbers tuning followed by extra complexity isn't a fix, sadly.

I, among many others, advocated for fixed flat values that were straight forward. For example, if it did a flat out 2-3 Heat DPS and generated a flat 1.0 HPS for the wielder then it's straight forward. It'd be highly functional, there'd be no "magic heat neutrality" for the wielder, any shooting of the flamer would have a cost, it'd still be a stream weapon, and the exploit would have been fixed from the beginning. My "ideal" results would be something like 1.0 DPS, 1.0 Heat DPS, and .5 HPS per flamer at fixed values.

Otherwise, while I'd prefer the weapon do actual damage (it does so in lore and TT rules) if PGI is obsessed with having it do zero physical damage (because .1 DPS is close enough to zero), then I'd at least want it to have the fixed, flat, and straightforward values. I want an actual fix to the weapon, and not what we got. Numbers tuning -which exposed the long known exploit on an "Armageddon" level- is not an actual fix. The old acceleration/exponential mechanics just need to go away.

I'm worried about Russ's statement regarding "new HUD elements" because that's trying to display a LOT for the hidden and convoluted mechanics of the weapon. We've got a 4.75 second "magic heat neutrality" before it generates any heat (which that is just wrong), and it's tied to ALL flamers, not individually. We've got a "magic pseudo-cooldown window" of 4.75 seconds where -if you fire the weapon for even a millisecond- then the timer is reset and your heat generation picks up right where it left off. Then, on top of it, we've got the exponential heat generation that constantly accelerates the heat gain and heat damage of the weapons, with unknown formulas (without code digging, at least).

I don't think all of that is going to be successfully shown with a simple new HUD element . . . let alone the fact that they're looking to redo the heat scale, so the weapon would need to be readdressed . . . again. If a new heat scale comes out and the Flamer's inherent problems aren't addressed, then we'll have this problem -akin to the hotfix- all over again.

PGI has the simple solution in front of them, they just need to reach out and take it. That's what myself, and others, have been trying to get them to acknowledge for a while now.

EDIT: Russ said there'd be "another conversation" over that functionality, and THAT is what I was hoping to hear about for the roadmap, or at least for PGI's considerations moving forward.

I liked Flamers in 3 & 4
Very short range and minimal damage with the benefit of shutting down a single mech if you spam your weapons on them, with the lack of core explosions in this game that tactic is far stronger in this game sadly so I guess it's unlikely to happen.

[Sereglach]

avenger cannon, on 12 March 2016 - 08:00 PM, said:

I liked Flamers in 3 & 4
Very short range and minimal damage with the benefit of shutting down a single mech if you spam your weapons on them, with the lack of core explosions in this game that tactic is far stronger in this game sadly so I guess it's unlikely to happen.

Agreed, I loved the Flamers of MechWarrior 3 & 4. They were also really nasty in 2 (both Clans and Mercs editions).

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Also, it is true that with no reactor explosions in this game Flamers that could force overheat death would be far too powerful in this game. However, that is why they should balance them out to function as both crowd control, via a constant stream at fixed and flat values, while also providing some modest damage. Really, Flamers alone -unless you're boating a lot of them- shouldn't easily get a mech to that 90% heat threshold unless the target is spamming their own weapons, as well as being hit with flamers. However, they should mitigate heat sink effectiveness entirely if a few are used in tandem and should be more than a nuisance if properly used. At the same time, the constant stream and fixed, flat values would ensure that eventually both mechs would need to break contact to cool off.

Even in the current system if Flamers did, for example, 1.0 DPS, 1.0 Heat DPS, and .5 HPS, then 2 flamers would mitigate up to 10 in-engine double heatsinks, but not generate heat for the target, while still doing mild damage (each barely competes with an IS small laser, but in a constant stream, not a short burst . . . so the damage is still technically worse, since it's not as pinpoint or front loaded). On the other hand, use 3-6 and you're an actual -serious- threat, but only in short bursts, because you'd still be generating quite a bit of heat for yourself, too.

That would be a quick, easy, and simple fix. It wouldn't require any special mechanics. It wouldn't require any special HUD elements. There wouldn't be any complex "free-fire" times or pseudo-imposed-cooldowns on a stream-fire weapon. It'd be straightforward, direct, and so simple you could actually properly display the weapon stats on the mechlab tooltip, and people would actually know what they're looking at (a major difference between the Flamer and nearly every other weapon in the game, currently). Sadly, however, for some reason PGI is all for throwing more convolution and complications on the matter rather than take the simple solution. It's mind boggling; and the March patch notes aren't encouraging, either.