819 replies to this topic

[Mister Blastman]

AnTi90d, on 13 June 2016 - 06:25 PM, said:

So, I saw that this was just Tweeted:

..all the while I haven't heard a single positive thing about the incoming power draw mechanic from any player.. only negative.

So, does this community really want an Energy Draw system? Do you guys think it would be good for this game to have a system that prevents players from firing all of their weapons due to some invisible mechanic that has never existed in all of Battletech / Mechwarrior?

I do! I want to see what it is! I like to see players squirm. I'm not expecting much but I'm curiously interested.

[Novakaine]

Yes alpha laser noob warrior online has gotten stupid.
Hopefully PGI can fix stupid

[Deathlike]

Let's be clear about one thing...

What players want is totally different from what PGI implements.

That is all.

[BearFlag]

Actually we know enough to determine that an "energy draw" system is just a different ~form~ of ghost heat. Whereas current GH is predicated on an arbitrary number of the same weapon firing simultaneously, the new system will (likely) be founded on the damage potential of a group of weapons firing. It could be even more contorted - some energy draw number assigned to weapon types and then summed at firing, but it would still be indirectly based on damage potential. So the nickname "Ghost Heat Mk2" is going to be accurate.

Addressing a fairly straight-forward problem with a convoluted system is not the best approach, IMO. It also fails to address a secondary, but related, problem (damage over distance) that should be tackled at the same time.

Generally, all weapons but lasers have an inverse damage to range relationship. That is, damage diminishes by one mechanism or another. But not lasers, gauss and ERPPCs.

SRMs and LBXs spread.
LRMs do less damage at long ranges due to spread and ample target reaction time.
Gauss and PPC have range and damage but are offset somewhat by weight and heat respectively.

ACs follow the paradigm. Yes, they have an optimal range with full damage. But, AS A CLASS, to gain range you have to caliber down. There are no AC20 hits at 1000 meters. If you want an AC sniper, you'll take AC2's (and deliver less damage).

Lasers turn the paradigm on its head. The bigger the weapon, the longer the range and the more damage it does. That six ERLL Stalker can drop 54 points of damage at 1 meter and 700 meters. And this is due to the "optimal range" which allows lasers to pass through the magic non-attenuating medium for full damage and then enter the attenuating magic medium where linear decay occurs. To fit lasers more neatly into the game's damage profiles, they should have strictly linear dropoff of damage. "Optimal Range" becomes "half range" and half damage. The magic medium also seems a little less arbitrary. Lasers would still deal damage at ranges, but less of it. This would have an immediate impact on ranged alphas (even 200 meters would be lessened some). Up close alphas would be as lethal as now. Likely, the range on smalls and mediums would have to be increased so that they retain usefulness befitting their class.

If TTK needs to be increased even more, the easiest mechanism is armor.

If heat MUST be the answer to alphas, then heat sinks, heat generation, overheat horizons are already in-game parameters. Why specifically target the "alpha strike" when 1) there are other, related problems and 2) the means already exist ?

[Jman5]

Personally, I would rather they just power-creep mech hitpoints more instead of trying to reign damage back. IMO it's easier, less prone to creating a balance nightmare, and easier to sell to your community.

I'm not saying they can't make this energy draw system work. I'm saying this is the harder of the two options they have.

Edited by Jman5, 13 June 2016 - 08:34 PM.

[Mystere]

Novakaine, on 13 June 2016 - 08:09 PM, said:

Yes alpha laser noob warrior online has gotten stupid.
Hopefully PGI can fix stupid

What? You can never fix stupid ... unless of course you can time travel and prevent them from even being born.

[Andi Nagasia]

Jman5, on 13 June 2016 - 08:23 PM, said:

Personally, I would rather they just power-creep mech hitpoints more instead of trying to reign damage back. IMO it's easier and less prone to creating a balance nightmare.

Right now the Game is a High Alpha Arms Race, Mechs that Cant Pull off High Alphas cant Compete,
Mechs that are Hardpoint Starved, or dont have the Magic number of Hard Points have Problems,
increasing the Hp again will only Seperate the Haves and Have Nots even Farther,

right now its peak Alpha Hide Repeat,
Increasing Hp wont Change that, however Penalizing Alphas will,
forcing people to Use more than 1 Weapon Group,

and for all those people saying Alphas are apart of TT and BT Lore,
yes they are, but if you've played TT or Read any BT Lore you know Alphas are Rare,
and Alpha'ing is usually a last resort resulting in a Lot of heat and almost always Shutdown,

Guess what PGI is Penalizing Alphas so firing a Huge Alpha may very well result in Mech Shutdown,

[MW222]

Once again adding more chrome, how about sticking to the nuts and bolts and stop nerfing the heck out of everything. Tweak and tune don't slash and burn.

There have been some great improvements and some face-plants.

Improve the maps, do something about tags and narcs 1 ton for a tag and 3 for a narc is just lame. Make the weapons hard points movable or just set the number and let the player put them where there are slots.

Bring back turrets, allow the option of selecting from all available game modes or give us back the option to select all or just the one we like.

Bring the fun back so it's not a grind half the time.

Do not ask who the patch NERFs -- it NERFs for thee.................

[BearFlag]

One fear I have is player reception. Limiting a player's ability to shoot in a FPS may not be well received. Sure, we have a heat dynamic and there has to be some limit. But ~lowering~ that limit from current may go over like a lead balloon.

[Andi Nagasia]

BearFlag, on 13 June 2016 - 08:41 PM, said:

One fear I have is player reception. Limiting a player's ability to shoot in a FPS may not be well received. Sure, we have a heat dynamic and there has to be some limit. But ~lowering~ that limit from current may go over like a lead balloon.

well telling a New Player just getting into MWO
(Hey Dont fire an Weapon set that does over 30Damage your Mech cant take it and will over heat)
is much easier to Explain so they know not to fire over 30,

as apposed to what we have now with Ghost Heat,
(Hey dont Fire more than 6ML or 6SL, but firing 6ML and 3LPL are ok, unless your Clan then its 2LPL)
its gets confusing really Quickly, as apposed to (No fire over 30 damage at a time!!!)
Edit-

Edited by Andi Nagasia, 13 June 2016 - 08:46 PM.

[Wintersdark]

Novakaine, on 13 June 2016 - 08:09 PM, said:

Yes alpha laser noob warrior online has gotten stupid.
Hopefully PGI can fix stupid

Yes... But... What's kind of funny is that we're right on the end of the Laser Vomit Meta.

Just an observation: look at McGral's PayForAdvantage complaints: Every single mech he's concerned about, every single hero he'll list? They're all missile/ballistic based mechs. All of them. None of them are Laser Vomit mechs.


The upside with this new system, though, is unlike Ghost Heat it's theoretically unable to be worked around, and should affect everything. (Qualifiers abound!) I'm interested to see how it'll play out. Where as while Ghost Heat prevented specific weapon combinations, it was applied randomly and inconsistently, and did nothing to actually curtail heavy alpha strikes.

But, just like Ghost Heat before it, this'll really shake up the meta again anyways.

It'll be interesting to see the difference, between Live servers and Tourny servers. First time we've been able to watch that play out in real time. Will be interesting indeed.

[Jman5]

Andi Nagasia, on 13 June 2016 - 08:32 PM, said:

Right now the Game is a High Alpha Arms Race, Mechs that Cant Pull off High Alphas cant Compete,
Mechs that are Hardpoint Starved, or dont have the Magic number of Hard Points have Problems,
increasing the Hp again will only Seperate the Haves and Have Nots even Farther,

right now its peak Alpha Hide Repeat,
Increasing Hp wont Change that, however Penalizing Alphas will,
forcing people to Use more than 1 Weapon Group,

and for all those people saying Alphas are apart of TT and BT Lore,
yes they are, but if you've played TT or Read any BT Lore you know Alphas are Rare,
and Alpha'ing is usually a last resort resulting in a Lot of heat and almost always Shutdown,

Guess what PGI is Penalizing Alphas so firing a Huge Alpha may very well result in Mech Shutdown,

I am always willing to see what they plan before I pass any sort of judgement. If they can create a really great and straight forward system, then I'll support them 100%. However in my experience with this game it's that these systems they create are often overly complicated, and fraught with work arounds. Ghost heat has a ton of loopholes and instead of plugging them, PGI eventually just stopped bothering. Quirks have been gigantic headache for PGI to balance and tweak resulting in massive inconsistencies. The infotech patch they released for PTR had huge problems and was eventually completely scrapped.

I'm not saying it's wrong to nerf alphas. I'm saying that PGI has a history of creating overly complicated solutions with deep flaws and then abandoning them only half-fixed. That's why I'm in favor of a much simpler method of increasing TTK.

[Wintersdark]

Jman5, on 13 June 2016 - 09:02 PM, said:

I am always willing to see what they plan before I pass any sort of judgement. If they can create a really great and straight forward system, then I'll support them 100%. However in my experience with this game it's that these systems they create are often overly complicated, and fraught with work arounds. Ghost heat has a ton of loopholes and instead of plugging them, PGI eventually just stopped bothering. Quirks have been gigantic headache for PGI to balance and tweak resulting in massive inconsistencies. The infotech patch they released for PTR had huge problems and was eventually completely scrapped.

I'm not saying it's wrong to nerf alphas. I'm saying that PGI has a history of creating overly complicated solutions with deep flaws and then abandoning them only half-fixed. That's why I'm in favor of a much simpler method of increasing TTK.

I'm not looking at this as a way to increase TTK. Honestly, I just want to see Ghost Heat scrapped for something that's less complicated and easier to explain without needing tables and charts.

Maybe PGI will fail - hell, probably they will. But Ghost Heat is fscking horrible, and can die in a fire.

But maybe, just maybe, this will be better. One can hope.

[El Bandito]

AnTi90d, on 13 June 2016 - 06:25 PM, said:

So, I saw that this was just Tweeted:

..all the while I haven't heard a single positive thing about the incoming power draw mechanic from any player.. only negative.

So, does this community really want an Energy Draw system? Do you guys think it would be good for this game to have a system that prevents players from firing all of their weapons due to some invisible mechanic that has never existed in all of Battletech / Mechwarrior?

I want energy draw. Been advocating for it since 2013. Unlike current Ghost Heat, energy draw system can prevent low heat weapons such as Gauss to be fired with bunch of lasers/PPCs. Which means PGI can safely remove Gauss charge. Which means the "Macro is cheating" crowd will become less vocal and annoying.

Edited by El Bandito, 13 June 2016 - 09:21 PM.

[Wintersdark]

El Bandito, on 13 June 2016 - 09:17 PM, said:

I want energy draw. Been advocating for it since 2013. Unlike current Ghost Heat, energy draw system can prevent low heat weapons such as Gauss to be fired with bunch of lasers/PPCs. Which means PGI can safely remove Gauss charge.

Yup. That's the goal; no more working around it. Ghost heat is so easily worked around.

Quote

Which means the "Macro is cheating" crowd will become less vocal and annoying.

Lol!

When you have a crowd like that, no amount of reason is going to stop their hapless mewling.

Edited by Wintersdark, 13 June 2016 - 09:33 PM.

[Paitr aConn]

AnTi90d, on 13 June 2016 - 06:25 PM, said:

So, I saw that this was just Tweeted:



..all the while I haven't heard a single positive thing about the incoming power draw mechanic from any player.. only negative.

So, does this community really want an Energy Draw system? Do you guys think it would be good for this game to have a system that prevents players from firing all of their weapons due to some invisible mechanic that has never existed in all of Battletech / Mechwarrior?

I mean, Novas are historically known as a mech that carries more weapons that it can keep firing, but that's why alpha-strikes exist.. and Novas shutdown after they alpha-strike.

Now, we're going to have another invisible system that surely won't be explained one iota in-game that will alienate and frustrate new players and likely cause existing players to just say, "screw this, they changed the game too much and now it isn't something that I want to keep playing. All the mechs in my garage have been ruined."

Personally, I'd rather they got off of their sidetracked asses and rolled FP back to phase 2. They've already rolled out feature after feature that the playerbase didn't want, didn't ask for and didn't like.. and that has done possibly irreparable damage to the FP participation numbers.

This new feature sounds like a horrible pain in the *** and a generally terrible idea.. in a long line of pains in the asses and terrible ideas.

The only people who bother to come to the forums, for the most part, 99% of them, come to *****. and you wont see any positive stuff because LITERALLY anything said is pure speculation, as zero information has been released about it.

Dont sweat it, no one wanted ghost heat, everyone wanted to get rid of ghost heat, and now everyone hates what they came up with to replace ghost heat. You CANNOT make MWO players Forum Warriors happy.

[SuomiWarder]

Who knows. It might work. And it is not right to say there was never a mechanic to stop mega alpha strikes. The board game version of b tech had many mechs that would overheat severely if all the weapons were fired. That pretty much stopped most of that - shoot it all on an over gunned mech and you were not doing anything else for a turn or two. Assuming you didn't explode. Less desire to do it as the damage randomly spread rather than go all in one spot to give you a one shot kill.

[Gas Guzzler]

People who want energy draw:

1) Terribads
2) People who are perfectly fine with Long range PPFLD and ballistic boats (low alpha, high DPS) being the only viable loadouts

Literally the stupidest waste of time I have ever seen.

[DarthHias]

I hope that:

PGI:
Puts it on the test server.
Listens to input from players, possibly putting some factors up to vote.

The players:
Test it prior to complaining.
Only those discuss who tested it.
Be reasonable and put up arguments instead of "PGIthisiscrapwatchaeventhinking"

... sigh.

[JediPanther]

Meh the game is only about high alphas any more. Remove all quirks,weapon modules and then try and make the game playable. AC 40? meh Uac ac 10s meh. LRM 70 dive for cover.