128 replies to this topic

[GreenHell]

Yosharian, on 28 February 2016 - 03:21 AM, said:

What's this new system?

That's the problem. We have no idea, and everyone is a bit anxious about not knowing.

[TexAce]

The comp tryhards on outreach hpg are already getting on Russ' nerves how it will totally destroy the game and how they all will leave if anything will be changed from current status. And Russ is already trying to calm them down, probably by ditching it all together.

Now THAT is sad. And their whole argument is everyone who wants something else than now is a bad player. Tz.

Edited by TexAce, 28 February 2016 - 03:45 AM.

[L3mming2]

Yosharian, on 28 February 2016 - 03:21 AM, said:

What's this new system?

noting is set in stone, but from what i could make of it in town hall,

-it will replace GH
-it will be a global system (so not on a amound of weapons of a sertain category) but on alpha damage (alphas over a sartain nbr will be penelized)
-this penalty will most likely be in the form of a increased CD (he said something along the lines of now you will be able to do that big alpha every 10s instead of every 4)

- the alpha penalty cap will most likely be in between 30-40 damage range (its meant to stop the 50+ alphas from being fired constantly)

all of the above is a (IMO prety accurate) summary of what he explaind the system to be, the system it self still has to be tested, and he made his explenation of it deliberatly vage so it might differ significant from the afformentiond..

still 1 thing is sertain it will be based on alpha damage size

[Yosharian]

L3mming2, on 28 February 2016 - 03:58 AM, said:

noting is set in stone, but from what i could make of it in town hall,

-it will replace GH
-it will be a global system (so not on a amound of weapons of a sertain category) but on alpha damage (alphas over a sartain nbr will be penelized)
-this penalty will most likely be in the form of a increased CD (he said something along the lines of now you will be able to do that big alpha every 10s instead of every 4)

- the alpha penalty cap will most likely be in between 30-40 damage range (its meant to stop the 50+ alphas from being fired constantly)

all of the above is a (IMO prety accurate) summary of what he explaind the system to be, the system it self still has to be tested, and he made his explenation of it deliberatly vage so it might differ significant from the afformentiond..

still 1 thing is sertain it will be based on alpha damage size

Well that's going to kill off my Executioner build completely sigh

[TexAce]

Yosharian, on 28 February 2016 - 04:06 AM, said:

Well that's going to kill off my Executioner build completely sigh

Why? Are you constantly alphaing bursts of 40dmg or more?

If so then yes, you will suffer and should.
And everyone else in the match will be equally screwed and will need to adapt. So you as a single pilot won't be less effective, everyone will, and that is not bad at all. It will raise TTK and punish high damage alphas.

[L3mming2]

TexAce, on 28 February 2016 - 04:26 AM, said:

Why? Are you constantly alphaing bursts of 40dmg or more?

If so then yes, you will suffer and should.
And everyone else in the match will be equally screwed and will need to adapt. So you as a single pilot won't be less effective, everyone will, and that is not bad at all. It will raise TTK and punish high damage alphas.

so it wont punish a AC40 boom jager but dont fire your 4SRM6 becouse you dirty alpha warior!
sr for dicish reply but i fear this system will create more problems then it solves..

SRM's for example would be srewed...

[Yosharian]

TexAce, on 28 February 2016 - 04:26 AM, said:

Why? Are you constantly alphaing bursts of 40dmg or more?

If so then yes, you will suffer and should.
And everyone else in the match will be equally screwed and will need to adapt. So you as a single pilot won't be less effective, everyone will, and that is not bad at all. It will raise TTK and punish high damage alphas.

2x36pt SPL alphas (0.5sec between them) plus my ERPPC firing off whenever its off cooldown

but it's 150m optimal range or so... that's the problem with having a system based purely off damage numbers, it doesn't take into account range (whereas the ghost heat system can)

30 pt alphas at 1km+ > 50 pt alphas at 150m or less

staring at your opponent for ~0.75s while waiting for the ghost heat timer to tick down feels like an eternity when you're facing off against an opponent in close combat, heh

Edited by Yosharian, 28 February 2016 - 04:40 AM.

[Gryphorim]

Supposedly the new mechanic is a "power draw" style mechanic, a game that uses a similar mechanic, albeit in a different context, is Elite: Dangerous. In that game, if you fire power-hungry weapons all at once, or in a way that exceeds power output, projectile weapons stagger-fire, and pulsed weapons drag out their pulses, increasing firing duration.

It seems to me this would be the system PGI are going for.

High-alpha = Ghost-face-time?

[Widowmaker1981]

Remains to be seen, because it needs mechanics info, but on the face of it, yes. Energy boating assaults are pointless if they can't actually put out more firepower projection than a heavy. We will see, ill adapt regardless (likely to boating dakka - if KDK-1 is going to be useless, can we have the C-bill variant moved to KDK-3 please?)

I just hope Russ understands that the point of assault mechs is firepower projection. The extra armour doesnt make up for the lack of mobility and bigger hitboxes in terms of defense.

Edited by Widowmaker1981, 28 February 2016 - 04:50 AM.

[L3mming2]

Gryphorim, on 28 February 2016 - 04:40 AM, said:

Supposedly the new mechanic is a "power draw" style mechanic, a game that uses a similar mechanic, albeit in a different context, is Elite: Dangerous. In that game, if you fire power-hungry weapons all at once, or in a way that exceeds power output, projectile weapons stagger-fire, and pulsed weapons drag out their pulses, increasing firing duration.

It seems to me this would be the system PGI are going for.

High-alpha = Ghost-face-time?

lol i claim Ghost CD = (if a alpha makes your CD last longer )

[Karen Supreme]

Since ghost heat was implemented to avoid big alphas, but it doesn't work well, I hope the new system throws away that GH (never liked), but prevents 40-50+ alphas by letting the pilot fire only "small group" of weapon.
For instance if loadout is 2-3 LPL and 3-4ML, u can fire only the LPLs and after 1 second the MLs

[Malachy Karrde]

I don't ever alpha with my Dire wolf...or any other mech. I stagger my fire. I engage with missiles and ultra autocannons first, then go to continuous fire with the ultras as range decreases. Then I leave off missiles and start tapping my 6 er small lasers. Usually just need 1 shot with those to core something by the time range hits 200. I don't play anything lighter than 80 tons unless I'm in cw matches and then I save my lightest mech for last in the hopes we win early on and I don't have to use it. If you see me in an adder, we've probably lost the cw match lol

[Mystere]

GreenHell, on 28 February 2016 - 03:27 AM, said:

That's the problem. We have no idea, and everyone is a bit anxious about not knowing.

And already we have:

TexAce, on 28 February 2016 - 03:44 AM, said:

The comp tryhards on outreach hpg are already getting on Russ' nerves how it will totally destroy the game and how they all will leave if anything will be changed from current status. And Russ is already trying to calm them down, probably by ditching it all together.

Now THAT is sad. And their whole argument is everyone who wants something else than now is a bad player. Tz.

I think it's time for Reddit to experience another round of "technical difficulties".

[Lord Perversor]

L3mming2, on 28 February 2016 - 01:13 AM, said:

whats the point of heaving a kodiak, that can bring a (at the moment no gost heat) laser alpha of 74 and 33 DHS if u will limit the alpha's to 30-40..

and by extention what will be the point of taking a assault mech (whit the exeption of daka boats)
when they lose there main advantage, firepower...

IMO the core of this problem is energy weapons ==> light weight, high damage, and easy to use together... they enable smaller mechs to still bring 50+ alphas..

then again there are assaults with only energy hard points, so if u limit the amount of damage of energy weapons in a single A strike then they are screwd..

So i dont know a general way to limit the alpha strikes, and not obsolete most assaults..

a idea might be to make the alpha limit class dependand;

light, mediums, and heavys get 1 set of alpha rules, the assaults get a 2nd set of less restrictive alpha rules. (this will have the aditional benefit of making the heavys less of the go to class like they are now..)

what do you think?

On a nutshell the idea seems to be 74 alpha = penalty with extra CD maybe 2-3 extra secs

now that same mech fires HALF his weapons for a 37 *half-alpha* attack (no penalty) wait 0'5 -1 sec fire the other half weapons for another 37 points, It's not sending 74 focused points of damage but 37+37 still can fire way more damage than a light, and even a more increased chance to split damage.

Or just bringing an alternative to the origins of the Ghost alpha issues the 6 x PPC stalker.

60 pinpoint dmg is bad, but being forced to fire 20, then 20, then 20 (2+2+2) while on theory being the same ammount of damage is more hard to pull it off.

[Narcissistic Martyr]

I'd imagine longer cooldowns would mean that your assault is firing twice as often. Alternatively you can mount back up weapons for bracket firing.

[oldradagast]

The problem has never been the SIZE of the alphas, but rather that some weapons have pinpoint precision, even when boated, thanks to instant, perfect convergence.

Which is more competitive:
- A build with 1 AC20 and 4 SRM 6's for a total of a 68 point alpha (counting SRM's as 2 points each)
- A build with 1 Gauss rifle and 3 large lasers for a total of 42 point alpha

If this is all about "reducing the amount of damage dealt' with zero consideration given to range and damage scatter, the first build, which is less competitive and brawler-only, will be hit harder by the changes than the second build, which has been a mainstay of competitive play for a long time now.

I don't care if my enemy has a "huge alphas" if using it requires some actual skill, such as getting close to me or accounting for built-in damage scatter as seen from missiles, LBX's, etc. I DO care if they are able to casually sheer off components from outside of most mech's effective combat range - and builds like that usually have LOWER total alphas numbers than brawler builds. They simply work much better thanks to the insane range and perfect precision, which PGI apparently is still not going to address.

Edited by oldradagast, 28 February 2016 - 06:31 AM.

[oldradagast]

GreenHell, on 28 February 2016 - 02:09 AM, said:

"I have an idea to stop high point alphas in our game, and it's 90% through the 'idea' phase."

The last time Russ had a "great new idea" about fixing game balance, it nearly brought us "ghost range" where lasers - and just lasers - would magically deal less damage if you didn't have a target lock, even if the target was 10 meters away from you and you were drilling a hole through the cockpit. After that fiasco - and many others regarding game balance - I have zero faith that the right decision will be made.

To continue my previous post, which of the following is more competitive:
- A Mauler with 5 AC5's
- A Mauler with 2 AC20's and assorted backup energy weapons.

The penta-Mauler is a well-known competitive build with a tiny 25 point alpha. It works well thanks to the great range, rapid fire nature of the autocannons, and perfect convergence.

The second build, already bad by today's standards, has a much higher alpha, but requires the Mauler to get in close and is subject to ghost heat as well as generally running hotter. If we're going to nerf "scary high alphas," it'll be the SECOND, less competitive build that will be nerfed, which - as is par for the course at this point - makes no sense. Note that I'm not calling for a nerf to penta-Mauler's or boating small auto-cannons since, while competitive, they are one of the less ruthlessly effective good builds, but the point is that SIZE of alphas is not the problem - it is range, speed of damage delivery, and instant perfect convergence.

Edited by oldradagast, 28 February 2016 - 06:39 AM.

[Davers]

oldradagast, on 28 February 2016 - 06:26 AM, said:

The problem has never been the SIZE of the alphas, but rather that some weapons have pinpoint precision, even when boated, thanks to instant, perfect convergence.

Yeah, pretty much this. Whatever the new system is, whatever arbitrary numbers they decide to throw in, will not change the basic underlying problems. The big one is that lasers are just too good and reliable at all ranges and overshadow everything else that isn't called Gauss.

[SQW]

Davers, on 28 February 2016 - 06:50 AM, said:

Yeah, pretty much this. Whatever the new system is, whatever arbitrary numbers they decide to throw in, will not change the basic underlying problems. The big one is that lasers are just too good and reliable at all ranges and overshadow everything else that isn't called Gauss.

Not really. Even if you just increase the laser heat by 50%, you'll see much smaller alphas because even meta warriors will give up those LPLs if they have to hit override after every alpha.

Alpha is suppose to be a last ditch, hail Mary action. It is suppose to be used in a do-or-die situation! Currently, a laser boat Timberwolf can unload 2-3 alphas before threatening shut down so of course they use it as their default fire button.

ANY changes that threatens shut down on a current meta build after 1 alpha gets my vote.

Edited by SQW, 28 February 2016 - 07:20 AM.

[East Indy]

Quote

whats the point of heaving a kodiak, that can bring a (at the moment no gost heat) laser alpha of 74 and 33 DHS if u will limit the alpha's to 30-40

Remember, almost all "single-shot" weapons have cooldowns between 3 and 4 seconds. As a result, a 'Mech that can deal 74 points of damage in volleys 0.5 or 1 seconds apart over 3-4 seconds is still far more powerful than one limited in the same time period to 40.

This new system may encourage players to think in terms of volleys rather than instantaneous shots.