The big problem I see about this is it potentially makes for way too much micro-management and that is likely to frustrate people rather than improve game play. I mean based on what I am readying your going to have a situation where if you fire 1 LPL and 2 ER MLs your fine but if you fire 1 LPL and 3 ER MLs your going to spike in heat exponentially and some how, some way in the middle of battle your going to have to remember this and not "accidently" press too many buttons at once and fire too many weapons on your mechs heat efficiency goes out the window.
Then there is the issue that most of us can only manage about 3-4 weapons groups so I might have a situation where I put my 2 LPL on mouse button 1 and 2, while putting my 4 ER MLs on my spacebar while my AC/10 is in mouse button 3 yet, if I fire one of my LPLs and more than 2 of my ER MLs I am going into powerdraw. So than how do I break my groups up so that I can keep my LPLs on two buttons to manage heat effectively and keep my other weapons to their assigned buttons when I will need to occasionally only fire 2 ER MLs instead of 4?
Basically it just doesn't seem to be straightforward enough and dummy proof while keeping the weapons controls simple enough that the average player is going to be able to keep up with it all.
Also it potentially cripples some mechs because they completely rely on a high sustained damage output to be competitive. The Direwolf is a prime example. It is a huge target with rather poor hit boxes and has the mobility and agility of a beached whale. The one thing that makes it dangerous on the battlefield is that if it can get you in its sights, it is going to punish you severely. Attach power draw to a mech like this that limits it alpha to around 35 damage and I got to ask what is the point of using a mech that can mount 50+ tons of weapons?
Also if the scale the power draw based on the chassis to account this, then you start potentially crippling smaller mechs. I have a Jenner that runs 6 MLs and it needs that firepower to be effective. Toss a Power Draw on that mech that keeps me from being able to keep up sustained fire from all those lasers and the mech can't compete. Also this would mean that smaller mechs that happen to be graced with alot of free tonnage for weapons and will be greatly penalized if scaling is added.
Also nothing changes in the end. What I mean by this is that even with power draw, there is going to some sort of efficient build that will become meta. For example, lets say they make it so that 40 damage you can alpha without generating the extra heat. All that will mean is that any mech that can be optimized to fire only 40 damage will become the new meta. All of a sudden the Centurion becomes the best mech because it can achieve maximum efficiency and then people are complaining about how it is unfair Assaults can't take advantage of the weapons they can mount or the locust can't achieve 40 damage alpha or how XL engines are obsolete because it doesn't make sense to free up weight for weapons you can't use effectively.
Finally I will say one last thing. The game has been out too long to change up the game mechanics that much. Alot of people have a crap ton invested into this game buying mechs that work well with the current meta. Change how these mechs work, ruin a few of the favorites and people are going to bail. All anyone has to do is look back to Star War Galaxies, to see just how quickly dramatically changing how the game works and plays will kill a game. People have invested 3-5 years into this game polishing skills, learning how to play, etc. Change it so all that time and effort is wasted and they WILL bail.
So all I can say is this is a really slippery slope for PGI.
Edited by Viktor Drake, 09 August 2016 - 04:09 PM.