286 replies to this topic

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Wintersdark, on 04 March 2016 - 08:32 AM, said:

They DO need to both be viable play styles.

Here is the problem, both are currently fairly viable. Could brawling be better, yes, because it is still not quite strong enough on some of the more mid-range dominant maps imo, but it is still very close to being viable on most maps. The reason you don't see it as much in PUGs is for that very reason, forcing the brawl requires coordination and sometimes a sacrifice.

[Wintersdark]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 04 March 2016 - 08:41 AM, said:

Here is the problem, both are currently fairly viable. Could brawling be better, yes, because it is still not quite strong enough on some of the more mid-range dominant maps imo, but it is still very close to being viable on most maps. The reason you don't see it as much in PUGs is for that very reason, forcing the brawl requires coordination and sometimes a sacrifice.

I didn't say they weren't. We aren't talking about now. We're talking about the dangers of nerfing SRM's.

Going back to where this started:

Ultimax, on 03 March 2016 - 08:44 PM, said:

What are you smoking man?

SRM-bomb builds are exceptionally strong right now.

If you think that this system is only to curb laser alphas you are deluding yourself.

El Bandito, on 03 March 2016 - 08:53 PM, said:

SRMs have 270 max range, and horrible accuracy at that range. To use them effectively, one has to get into brawl range, and I am 100% fine with more brawls happening in MWO. Better than peek-a-booing 700 meters away.

This system isn't just to curb laser alphas, it'll encompass everything. And that's ok, but it'll need scaling for SRM's(amoungst other things), because SRM's are a high damage weapon with severe disadvantages to make up for that.

While I do think the system needs to be based off damage (not yet another resource, that's terrible) each weapon needs a factor (as to how much one point of damage matters) - for example:
LPL: 1
SRM: .8

So an LPL contributes 11*1=11pts towards the limit, while an SRM6 contributes 12*0.8=9.6 towards the limit

Or something like that.

El Bandito's fear is that this system will severely impact brawling weapons, which rely on higher than normal damage due to very short range. So, his concern is that if they implement a system based solely off damage, it'll effectively nerf brawling weapons more than ranged weapons, shifting brawling:ranged balance further towards ranged.

As I've been saying in this discussion, if brawling:ranged damage shifts from a relatively balanced state (as we have now) to a more ranged oriented situation, brawling essentially vanishes from all levels of play.

On the other hand, if they're careful not to nerf brawling, even if they buff it a bit, ranged play still remains perfectly viable, even if it's not optimal.

[CDLord HHGD]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 03 March 2016 - 02:40 PM, said:

If that were true, it wouldn't have taken this long for ghost heat to change.

Well, it IS PGI....

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Wintersdark, on 04 March 2016 - 09:46 AM, said:

This system isn't just to curb laser alphas, it'll encompass everything.

I'm very aware of this, which is why if it wants to be worth anything, it can't be just accounting for damage, but how it does damage and possibly range.

[Gas Guzzler]

El Bandito, on 03 March 2016 - 08:53 PM, said:

SRMs have 270 max range, and horrible accuracy at that range. To use them effectively, one has to get into brawl range, and I am 100% fine with more brawls happening in MWO. Better than peek-a-booing 700 meters away.

Hmm subjective reasoning is subjective. TTK can be on the ground in brawl range, but astronomically long from long range weapons? Why would anyone take long range weapons.

You must not be aware of the SRM Oxide/Griffin/Timber/Atlas meta

[Tarl Cabot]

clownwarlord, on 03 March 2016 - 11:45 PM, said:

I would like to point out fixing the heat scale wouldn't do **** except break the game. Yes you would get rid of high alphas. But then you also couldn't brawl because you would heat up faster even if you where chain firing. Essential it would just turn this game into every one has 1 ERPPC or Gauss rifle and fires at range and never gets close.

How so, seriously?

Current Heat Scale - Base 30+ (Engine SHS/DHS+External SHS/DHS) to reach cap = approx min 40 (SHS) or min 50 (DHS) That is coming from the 10 engine heat sinks.

My revised Heat Scale version - Base 30+ # of heatsinks - same whether SHS or DHS Then PGI can adjust the dissipation rate from there.

Additional penalty thresholds 25/50/75 or 30/60/90 (Only heat override) and 100 being a hard scram/shutdown. Damage type determined if 1st override had been overridden or not.

The additional thresholds would be treated in same manner that a side torso loss of a cXL with movement penalty, which that part of the penalty would be removed from that component loss as it is linked to heat scale. If PGI deems it is still needed the value would be reduced. Starting values 15%/30%/45% movement/agility penalties.

[wanderer]

Quote

Apparently you could melt mechs in seconds in TT and that game had you roll each gun's hit location.

By comparison, I was a "comp" level TT player. You only got those insta-kills if you were lucky (big gun headshot) or your opponent was stupid (stepping into an entire lance's worth of fire with near zero target mods in a 4v4, and even then you'd probably just maim them).

I won tournament-level games with 'Mechs that didn't go down until reduced to the equivalent of a red CT, one red leg, and a head. On the other hand, I've opened up a match with a freak shot to the head that blew it clean off, but the latter is far rarer than the former- most 'Mechs take a serious pummeling in TT before dropping. The same tournament had a derp medium that decided not to move and we put a medium, two heavies and an assault's worth of firepower into it. It only lost an arm (given, most of it's guns were there) and most of a leg to the barrage and spent the rest of the match hiding, while our own medium took a similar amount of firepower and died on the spot, simply because RNGesus decided to put most of it into two torso locations, it took an ammo hit and exploded.

Damage spread always matters.

[Gas Guzzler]

wanderer, on 04 March 2016 - 12:14 PM, said:

You only got those insta-kills if you were lucky (big gun headshot) or your opponent was stupid (stepping into an entire lance's worth of fire with near zero target mods in a 4v4, and even then you'd probably just maim them).

So like MWO you mean?

[Nightmare1]

I'm leery of this. I see engine size as dictating your "power draw," so big engines will still be the way to go while smaller engines will just be penalized harder. I think it will also kill Lights and Mediums.

What about ballistics? Ballistics, aside from Gauss, don't draw power from the reactor, so they shouldn't have a "Power Draw." This will just penalize them needlessly.

[dwwolf]

Cant we just have a heatscale with proper heat penalties ?

Pretty please ?

Have the penalties kick in 5 seconds after reaching a threshold value and let em bleed off 5 secs after the heat is lower than a threshold value.

After that we can fix pin point damage.

[wanderer]

Quote

So like MWO you mean?

You'd have to be even stupider, because in TT you'd almost inevitably know they were there.

The "run around corner in enemy lance out of nowhere,BTFO" doesn't happen in tournament play. No hidden movement (which is a serious pain to run in TT for obvious reasons).

[Gas Guzzler]

wanderer, on 04 March 2016 - 02:12 PM, said:

You'd have to be even stupider, because in TT you'd almost inevitably know they were there.

The "run around corner in enemy lance out of nowhere,BTFO" doesn't happen in tournament play. No hidden movement (which is a serious pain to run in TT for obvious reasons).

That is a good point, and that is also why scouting in MWO, a role that is consistently de-valued by the vocal forum crowd, is so important.

Do we really want to make scouting less important?

Edited by Gas Guzzler, 04 March 2016 - 02:45 PM.

[cazidin]

clownwarlord, on 03 March 2016 - 11:45 PM, said:

I would like to point out fixing the heat scale wouldn't do **** except break the game. Yes you would get rid of high alphas. But then you also couldn't brawl because you would heat up faster even if you where chain firing. Essential it would just turn this game into every one has 1 ERPPC or Gauss rifle and fires at range and never gets close.

If PGI implemented a proper heat scale then they should also change dissipation and heat capacity to compensate. Brawlers would still run relatively cool.

oldradagast, on 04 March 2016 - 04:25 AM, said:

Agreed. This slow-motion, circular madness will only end when there is no longer any way to put a huge pile of damage on a single pixel at long ranges with casual ease. But all attempts to add a Cone of Fire or similar system have been shot down, many by vocal players who enjoy the current low-skill environment. Sadly, the lizard-brain satisfaction that comes from killing a "stupid noob who deserves it for daring to play this game" at long range with a "high skill" weapon set like dual Gauss or a pile of lasers outweighs interesting game play and reasonable time to kill. It's pathetic, but it is what the people want, apparently.

A cone of fire would be a terrible idea for any weapon system. Alpha Strikes are a thing because you can boat a large number of lasers and fire them simultaneously at one target. In theory, power draw would limit you to firing 3-6 lasers at a time. I don't know how it'll work in practice but I'm optimistic.

[MoonUnitBeta]

Gas Guzzler, on 04 March 2016 - 02:45 PM, said:

That is a good point, and that is also why scouting in MWO, a role that is consistently de-valued by the vocal forum crowd, is so important.

Do we really want to make scouting less important?

If there's someone out there who wants to make scouting less important or play it off as a non essential roll, I will place them inside the crease between my butt cheeks and clench down on their face as tightly as possible.

It would be nice if we get PASSIVE RADAR.
And a targeting module that can be used on lights that can target two mechs at a time. Targeting works as normal, it just cycles round robin style. Target one mech, target the next mech. Target a new mech and you'll lose lock on the first one you targeted. Etc.

[oldradagast]

cazidin, on 04 March 2016 - 02:56 PM, said:

A cone of fire would be a terrible idea for any weapon system. Alpha Strikes are a thing because you can boat a large number of lasers and fire them simultaneously at one target. In theory, power draw would limit you to firing 3-6 lasers at a time. I don't know how it'll work in practice but I'm optimistic.

You mean having a small, random damage scatter element at longer ranges would be "bad," even though it matches reality, nearly every other successful first-person shooter, AND table top Battletech, where there was no ability to pile your full alpha onto a single location of your choosing or otherwise? It's a wonder this game has lasted as long as it has WITHOUT a cone of fire, really. And we're only talking about a small cone, not turning every weapon into an LBX or something.

Ghost-power can replace ghost-heat, but nothing is really going to change. Whatever boatable, pinpoint, long-range weapon allows the player to get as close as possible to the "alpha damage threshold" without exceeding it will become the new meta. We don't know, exactly, what those weapons are, but the new meta will be defined and boring as hell within a day of this pointless new system being released. It's a lot of extra work that fails to address the actual problem.

Edited by oldradagast, 04 March 2016 - 04:56 PM.

[ScarecrowES]

oldradagast, on 04 March 2016 - 04:55 PM, said:

Ghost-power can replace ghost-heat, but nothing is really going to change. Whatever boatable, pinpoint, long-range weapon allows the player to get as close as possible to the "alpha damage threshold" without exceeding it will become the new meta. We don't know, exactly, what those weapons are, but the new meta will be defined and boring as hell within a day of this pointless new system being released. It's a lot of extra work that fails to address the actual problem.

This is exactly the point. You're not addressing the fact that there is a meta, or what results you can achieve from using a meta. You're merely shifting the meta to a point where you might feel more comfortable with it - but it's meta none the less.

You'll never get players to break away from whatever the meta currently is as long there is no incentive to do so. You provide incentive by rewarding players in a way that brings non-meta play into competition with meta on a case-by-case basis. The meta will still always be better across the entire spectrum, but there may be a better option for a specific variant of a specific chassis to a specific playstyle. Some of the mech behavior quirks sit along this line, but it's not a unified system. It doesn't get into the overarching behavior of mechs, or the very nature of gameplay. It too is a band-aid.

Realistically, we need a core system, not systems built on top of other systems to provide "special circumstance" adjustments.

I don't believe "cone of fire" is an answer here. I just don't like the system and some of its core precepts... and I don't think it digs deep enough into core gameplay to really differentiate mech builds and playstyle. It, too, is just a band-aid that will result in a universal meta shift.

[oldradagast]

ScarecrowES, on 04 March 2016 - 05:12 PM, said:

This is exactly the point. You're not addressing the fact that there is a meta, or what results you can achieve from using a meta. You're merely shifting the meta to a point where you might feel more comfortable with it - but it's meta none the less.

I don't believe "cone of fire" is an answer here. I just don't like the system and some of its core precepts... and I don't think it digs deep enough into core gameplay to really differentiate mech builds and playstyle. It, too, is just a band-aid that will result in a universal meta shift.

There will always be a meta, yes - I never said otherwise. But as long as the meta consists of basically a handful of weapons and a handful of builds (with a few exceptions thanks to hyper-quirks or very odd hardpoints), the game will stagnate quickly. Nearly every balance issue in the game, from ghost heat to Gauss charge up to mechs with poor hit-boxes being utterly worthless has its roots in the extreme ease with which certain weapons can land a large amount of damage at long ranges on a single pixel. Until THAT problem is address - that insanity of instant, perfect convergence that is so out of flavor with reality, every other FPS, and Battletech's lore - nothing will really be solved.

In the end, Ghost Power will just turn into "what combination of large lasers, Gauss Rifles, and maybe PPC's can I fit on this mech to stay under the Ghost Power limit." Or, if you're a light, "how many medium or small lasers can I fit to do the same thing." That's it - nothing else changes - because weapons that are short range and/or have damage scatter built-in have no place in a game where anyone can be a sniper, effectively.

[El Bandito]

Gas Guzzler, on 04 March 2016 - 10:17 AM, said:

Hmm subjective reasoning is subjective. TTK can be on the ground in brawl range, but astronomically long from long range weapons? Why would anyone take long range weapons.

You must not be aware of the SRM Oxide/Griffin/Timber/Atlas meta

That can be easily changed by nerfing some quirks and stats. Much simpler to do than another overhaul. Long range weapons will still stay due to the amount of utility and suppression it offers. Besides, you said this later on:

Gas Guzzler, on 04 March 2016 - 02:45 PM, said:

That is a good point, and that is also why scouting in MWO, a role that is consistently de-valued by the vocal forum crowd, is so important.

Do we really want to make scouting less important?

Reducing the potency of long range alphas helps the scouts, so my way is proven to be the correct one. Scouts are much less vulnerable to the super short ranged SRMs.

Edited by El Bandito, 04 March 2016 - 06:51 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

El Bandito, on 04 March 2016 - 06:46 PM, said:

Reducing the potency of long range alphas helps the scouts

It also removes their niche, since speed/agility isn't as much of a necessity to scout since other mechs don't have to worry about the potency of long range alphas, it is a double-edged sword.

[El Bandito]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 04 March 2016 - 07:24 PM, said:

It also removes their niche, since speed/agility isn't as much of a necessity to scout since other mechs don't have to worry about the potency of long range alphas, it is a double-edged sword.

Long range alphas will still hurt a lot, even if it is reduced to around 30 points alpha due to the new power draw system. One simply does not shrug off dual CLPL, dual Gauss, or triple ERLL hit at 600 meter range, especially when getting hit by multiple mechs. Not to mention one can simply fire large class lasers three by three within 0.5 second (the STK-4N does that and it is still very much potent). Then there are multiple autocannon builds that can shred even the largest of Assaults from 600 meter range. Only Lights can avoid those AC shells or full laser durations reliably, so scouting Light will still be very much useful.

Edited by El Bandito, 04 March 2016 - 08:23 PM.