128 replies to this topic

[sycocys]

If its not a heat scale system similar to the TT its probably going to work like crap anyhow and do little to nothing to stop the problem, just get more players to macro their fire.

[oldradagast]

SQW, on 28 February 2016 - 07:14 AM, said:

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.

And if they increase energy weapon heat by any meaningful number, the Light queue will empty completely since most of those mechs can only use medium or small lasers (or machines guns, which are nearly worthless.) Also, any energy-dependent heavies and assaults will vanish completely because they will be unable to put out enough firepower to be useful before overheating.

The problem isn't "lasers are too good" - the problem is that it is too easy to boat long-range, hit-scan weapons that do instant damage all to a single component.

[East Indy]

oldradagast, on 28 February 2016 - 06:37 AM, said:

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.

That's true. However, viewing weapons in terms of DPS, especially when boated, puts them on equal ground very quickly. With only minor modifiers (mostly for dakka), PGI should be able to set a reasonable limit with a lore fig leaf (reactor power, targeting computer) that increases TTK and decreases pinpoint — while preserving the value of heavy loadouts, as above, the 40-pointer will run out of weapons in cycle time before the 74-pointer.

[oldradagast]

East Indy, on 28 February 2016 - 07:26 AM, said:

That's true. However, viewing weapons in terms of DPS, especially when boated, puts them on equal ground very quickly. With only minor modifiers (mostly for dakka), PGI should be able to set a reasonable limit with a lore fig leaf (reactor power, targeting computer) that increases TTK and decreases pinpoint — while preserving the value of heavy loadouts, as above, the 40-pointer will run out of weapons in cycle time before the 74-pointer.

In theory, yes... but we're talking about a group that still refuses to address the actual problem - the instant, pinpoint, long range damage. Given past efforts on the matter, ranging from the silliness of Ghost Heat to the nearly implement insanity of Ghost Range, I have zero faith they will fix this.

I fully expect the end result to be that boating small auto-cannons and lasers + Gauss will be the "new" low to medium alpha pinpoint meta - same as we already have, but SRM's and AC20's will vanish completely because the total alpha they put out is "too high" - never mind the horrible range and damage scatter. Or, they'll just nerf energy weapons into the ground so hard that Lights and energy-dependent mechs will vanish from the game. I see no evidence they understand the actual problem, and it is not eating 4 SRM6's for a "big alpha" but having torso's sheered off with ease with precision weapons from long range.

Edited by oldradagast, 28 February 2016 - 07:31 AM.

[Khobai]

Quote

Your system just makes everyone play assaults

no it doesnt. everyone plays heavies the most in public queue. and assaults are always either 2nd or 3rd place depending on how many people are using mediums. lights are always last in public queue.

And in CW, clan assaults are used the least of any clan weight class. clan heavies are used more than all other clan weight classes COMBINED. IS heavies are used almost twice as much as any other IS weight class. Although IS assaults fare better than clan assaults in usage statistics because the stalker is so good.

get your facts straight before you open your mouth. assaults are in a bad place right now compared to heavies and its a legitimate concern that a new heat system will make that disparity worse.

and remember not all assaults can use ballistics. some assaults like the awesome are completely dependent on energy weapons. so a lower heat cap completely screws them. whats the point of playing an awesome if its heatcapped at the same level of firepower as a jenner?

heatcap is a really dumb idea and fixes nothing. it just forces people to migrate towards more heat efficient weapons like gauss. and mechs that cant use gauss become obsolete.

what PGI needs to fix is pinpoint aiming/convergence. thats always been the #1 balance problem. heat has nothing to do with it. Battletech has a lax heat system but doesnt have a problem with laser vomit because all those lasers roll up different hit locations. Im not saying MWO should have random hit locations but it should have more game mechanics that spread damage around more evenly.

Edited by Khobai, 28 February 2016 - 07:44 AM.

[L3mming2]

Lord Perversor, on 28 February 2016 - 06:14 AM, said:

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.

the only thing is that its not a few sec it will be a load... like 6s+ extra cd

[SQW]

oldradagast, on 28 February 2016 - 07:26 AM, said:

And if they increase energy weapon heat by any meaningful number, the Light queue will empty completely since most of those mechs can only use medium or small lasers (or machines guns, which are nearly worthless.) Also, any energy-dependent heavies and assaults will vanish completely because they will be unable to put out enough firepower to be useful before overheating.

The problem isn't "lasers are too good" - the problem is that it is too easy to boat long-range, hit-scan weapons that do instant damage all to a single component.

The same applies to other team too. Your lights might not be able to boat SPLs or alpha as much but the other side will find it even harder now to kill lights. Laser will be used but no longer dominant over other weapons so a more mixed loadout with lower TTK will be the norm.

Your objection stems from not being able to do what the current system allows you at the moment which is the whole point. We don't want laser boat heavies. We don't want ACHs that can take down an assault on its own.

[Pariah Devalis]

Bad on assault mechs? Na. Blessing in disguise. Won't be alphastruck when leading the charge by three mechs each spitting out 50 point alphas. Your survivability goes up. Meanwhile, you have several weapon groups at your finger tips, so, yeah, maybe you can't alpha for 80 damage. So what? You can fire two 40 alphas back to back. Still almost double what they're doing to you in a lighter mech.

[Khobai]

Quote

Won't be alphastruck when leading the charge by three mechs each spitting out 50 point alphas.

except you will still get alphastruck. everyone will be using dual gauss/laser and still spitting out 50 point alphas.

x2 Gauss + 3 CERML is a standard ebon jaguar loadout. It does 51 damage for only 20 heat.

derpa derp derp. thats why capping heat is idiotic.

again the problem is pinpoint aiming/convergence. it has NOTHING to do with heat. the problem is that damage gets concentrated too much on single hit locations and isnt spread out evenly across the hit locations of mechs.

And the energy draw idea is even worse. limiting how many weapons you can fire at once is completely unintuitive and will turn the game into hello kitty laser tag where you can only fire one or two weapons at a time. talk about castrating assault mechs...

The term ALPHASTRIKE became a colloquialism BECAUSE of battletech. Not allowing ALPHASTRIKES in battletech is ridiculous. Alphastrikes NEED to be in the game or its not battletech/mechwarrior. Alphastrikes just shouldnt be allowed to concentrate damage on one hit location. There needs to be more damage spreading mechanics to spread that damage out.

Edited by Khobai, 28 February 2016 - 07:56 AM.

[Pariah Devalis]

Khobai, on 28 February 2016 - 07:47 AM, said:

except you will still get alphastruck. everyone will be using dual gauss/laser and still spitting out 50 point alphas.

x2 Gauss + 3 CERML is a standard ebon jaguar loadout. It does 51 damage for only 20 heat.

derpa derp derp. thats why capping heat is idiotic.

again the problem is pinpoint aiming/convergence. it has NOTHING to do with heat. the problem is that damage gets concentrated too much on single hit locations and isnt spread out evenly across the hit locations of mechs.

He said it was replacing ghost heat. Not that the -mechanism- uses heat. He kept the details of how it functions pretty sketchy, except leading on that it seems to be damage based, not weapon based. The biggest flaw with GH is that it cannot address cold weapons like the Gauss Rifle being used in combination. I know PGI has done some whoppers in the past before, but do you honestly think the system they intend to replace a flawed system with won't directly address a major oversight in the old system?

Edited by Pariah Devalis, 28 February 2016 - 07:55 AM.

[Khobai]

Quote

but do you honestly think the system they intend to replace a flawed system with won't directly address a major oversight in the old system?

it is PGI were talking about here. I guarantee you any new system they implement will have loopholes that are exploited by players.

and Ive already explained why an energy draw system is bad. Even if there are no loopholes, I still dont want to play hello kitty laser tag where my assault mech can only fire 1-2 lasers at a time. thats a bad system that overly punishes assault mechs.

the whole point of an assault mech is to lay down a devastating barrage of firepower. limiting them to the same firepower as a light mech is not acceptable.

I already presented a better solution than heat cap/energy draw: game mechanics that spread damage more evenly across hit locations. That allows alphastrikes to remain in the game but curbs their lethality by limiting damage that can be done to a single hit location.

Edited by Khobai, 28 February 2016 - 08:05 AM.

[QuantumButler]

It's a typical PGI solution; overly complex and ineffective.

[Thunderbird Anthares]

well given that we still know nearly nothing...
it might be a bad solution, or good, we dont know....

but whatever gets rid of the dumb alpha laser vomit meta cant be all that bad

[oldradagast]

SQW, on 28 February 2016 - 07:42 AM, said:

The same applies to other team too. Your lights might not be able to boat SPLs or alpha as much but the other side will find it even harder now to kill lights. Laser will be used but no longer dominant over other weapons so a more mixed loadout with lower TTK will be the norm.

Your objection stems from not being able to do what the current system allows you at the moment which is the whole point. We don't want laser boat heavies. We don't want ACHs that can take down an assault on its own.

If you read my posts, vs. simply ascribing assumed motives to me, you'd realize why I'm not a fan of an "alpha cap" system and that I'm also no fan of the current long-range, pinpoint meta. My problems with this proposed system have been clearly explained:

- High alphas in terms of damage dealt have never been the problem. An AC20 + a pile of SRM's is not an issue, while a pair of Gauss rifles is... but which one has the higher alpha strike by damage numbers? See, that's the problem - the meta is NOT about "doing the highest damage alpha" but about doing as much long-range, pinpoint, and ideally fast or hitscan damage as possible. So, crushing "high alphas" fixes nothing and instead kills missiles and brawler builds

- Secondly, making lasers super hot will kill light mechs complete. A good chunk of them lack the hardpoints or the tonnage to mount anything but a pile of medium or small lasers. I know there's a certain segment of the game's population who believes light mechs should be just target practice and should be so combat incapable that all they can do is cap and "scout," but that's a poor game mechanic since it's boring as heck to play.

The problem is long-range, pinpoint damage, not total alpha values, and not even heat.

Edited by oldradagast, 28 February 2016 - 08:17 AM.

[QuantumButler]

Thunderbird Anthares, on 28 February 2016 - 08:10 AM, said:

well given that we still know nearly nothing...
it might be a bad solution, or good, we dont know....

but whatever gets rid of the dumb alpha laser vomit meta cant be all that bad

if it's for damage amounts under 40 it won't do anything because most laser vomit alpha is around 33 or 36 damage.

[oldradagast]

QuantumButler, on 28 February 2016 - 08:16 AM, said:

if it's for damage amounts under 40 it won't do anything because most laser vomit alpha is around 33 or 36 damage.

Exactly. Slap on a Gauss Rifle + 3 large lasers or 2 large pulse lasers, and you're good to go. Or, just use 2 Gauss rifles, Meanwhile, the guy in his "broken" AC20 + 3 SRM 6 brawler loadout out is going to be hosed because of the "super high alpha" he can deliver... at only close range... with lots of damage scatter.

The fact that an "alpha damage cap" is even being considered as a fix for anything makes it painfully clear that PGI does not have any actual understanding of what the problem in the game is... and it's not brawler Atlases...

[QuantumButler]

oldradagast, on 28 February 2016 - 08:20 AM, said:

Exactly. Slap on a Gauss Rifle + 3 large lasers or 2 large pulse lasers, and you're good to go. Or, just use 2 Gauss rifles, Meanwhile, the guy in his "broken" AC20 + 3 SRM 6 brawler loadout out is going to be hosed because of the "super high alpha" he can deliver... at only close range... with lots of damage scatter.

The fact that an "alpha damage cap" is even being considered as a fix for anything makes it painfully clear that PGI does not have any actual understanding of what the problem in the game is... and it's not brawler Atlases...

They don't play their own game, what can you expect?

[Y E O N N E]

oldradagast, on 28 February 2016 - 06:37 AM, said:

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.

They had less range, but they retained their normal damage values. I wish people would quit saying "ghost damage" or "reduced damage" because that wasn't how it worked.

[Otto Cannon]

If it's based on total damage, they'll need to assign certain weapons a much lower score than the actual total damage they do. So SRMs and LBX would be rated as if they do maybe a quarter of their damage to make up for the spread. That could even work as the only reason to actually ever use LBX autocannons- the ability to fire more at the same time than regular autocannons.

I'm not convinced that any weight class would suffer more than others. An assault chainfiring massive cannons still has more firepower than a medium or light chainfiring smaller weapons.

Quite honestly though, I dread to think what mechanic we'll actually get based on past experience. I just hope Russ and Paul get it right this time and surprise the crap out of us all.

[Pathos]

I don't think it will make assaults useless at all. Of course, until we get more information it's hard to speculate. My thoughts?

It will make the single high damage weapons more useful. If it is a power draw, look at it as firing one AC/20 vs 3 Large Lasers. The AC20 will likely have less draw while doing 7 less points of damage vs the 3LL alpha. Naturally, your only weapon wouldnt be the AC/20. Follow the AC20 with something along the lines of 2 Medium lasers for another 10 damage. The Mediums being a smaller weapon will also have less draw than the 3 large lasers. It's possible that combo will turn out to have an equal draw, but you've now put out 3 more points of damage, although not quite PPFLD. The laser boat would likely need to stagger its weapons fire following that first alpha, reducing its effectiveness.