376 replies to this topic

[Funkin Disher]

At least if there is a PTS this week we have a solid month or more we can yell at PGI, silver lining compared to only getting it upon release.

[Gas Guzzler]

Funkin Disher, on 15 August 2016 - 08:31 PM, said:

At least if there is a PTS this week we have a solid month or more we can yell at PGI, silver lining compared to only getting it upon release.

I know, it just wounds me that people are so excited about it. Its not its fault it has a locked XL 380, 4 tons of MASC (admittedly is useful) and 8 tons of JJs. All it can do is boat lasers... it can't switch over to dakka spam to embrace the new meta. (not the only mech that gets the shaft by unilateral alpha limiting)

Edited by Gas Guzzler, 15 August 2016 - 08:34 PM.

[Wintersdark]

Gas Guzzler, on 15 August 2016 - 08:34 PM, said:

I know, it just wounds me that people are so excited about it. Its not its fault it has a locked XL 380, 4 tons of MASC (admittedly is useful) and 8 tons of JJs. All it can do is boat lasers... it can't switch over to dakka spam to embrace the new meta. (not the only mech that gets the shaft by unilateral alpha limiting)

nope... Just like many mechs got the shaft from Ghost Heat 1.0, and all sorts of other mechanics changes... There are always winners and losers when such things happen.

Mechwarrior Buddah, on 14 August 2016 - 08:13 PM, said:

They dont historically use the pts to actually test things in such a way where theyre willing to take suggestions to make it better. They preview it to the players willing to take part and historically, nothing changes from when it hits the pts to when it hits the live servers.

no discussion, other than testers to testers, so when it hits the live servers warts and all, ppl usually get kinda angry

That's not entirely fair. Theyve scrapped things that didn't test well in the past too.

[Gas Guzzler]

Wintersdark, on 15 August 2016 - 08:47 PM, said:

nope... Just like many mechs got the shaft from Ghost Heat 1.0, and all sorts of other mechanics changes... There are always winners and losers when such things happen.

Having trouble seeing the winners.

[Andi Nagasia]

Gas Guzzler, on 15 August 2016 - 08:34 PM, said:

I know, it just wounds me that people are so excited about it. Its not its fault it has a locked XL 380, 4 tons of MASC (admittedly is useful) and 8 tons of JJs. All it can do is boat lasers... it can't switch over to dakka spam to embrace the new meta. (not the only mech that gets the shaft by unilateral alpha limiting)

what about that one build with 6SPL 2UAC5(6.5ammo) and a shield side?

[Funkin Disher]

You'd have to drop one of those SPL based on the 30 damage guideline but otherwise I don't see a problem with it.

[Gas Guzzler]

Andi Nagasia, on 15 August 2016 - 09:05 PM, said:

what about that one build with 6SPL 2UAC5(6.5ammo) and a shield side?

That's a bad build that is bad now and will be bad then. And yeah, your 6 cSPLs are TOO MUCH for PGI's energy draw system. How dare you try to do 36 damage at 160 m.


......in a 95 ton mech

Edited by Gas Guzzler, 15 August 2016 - 09:23 PM.

[SQW]

Gas Guzzler, on 15 August 2016 - 09:19 PM, said:

That's a bad build that is bad now and will be bad then. And yeah, your 6 cSPLs are TOO MUCH for PGI's energy draw system. How dare you try to do 36 damage at 160 m.

......in a 95 ton mech

Chain fire?

Seriously, GH and GH2.0 are there to limit big alphas. There's nothing there that says you can't put 4 PPCs on your mech and chain fire that same torso section. I mean, we are all LEET pilots right? Heck, you can still fire 4PPC alphas if you are willing to suck extra heat for the high risk/reward action.

[Funkin Disher]

Try ML instead, gets you more range.

Oddly enough my Ebon Jag uses pretty much the same setup (4 ERML, 2 UAC/5). Works a charm.

[Khobai]

Russ: "no not really as energy draw is largely about dmg so AC's similar to energy"

okay then why would anyone ever use ACs since they weigh more tonnage and use ammo?

ACs need to be affected less by energy draw to offset their other downsides or the whole system will just heavily favor energy weapons

A PPC and AC10 should not draw the same energy just because both do 10 damage. Otherwise theres no reason to use the AC10 ever.

This new energy draw system doesnt seem very well thought out... damage is not the ONLY consideration for how much energy a weapon should draw.


I dont get why we cant just try the more reasonable approach of changing quickplay back to 8v8. 12v12 is whats causing all the problems with TTK in quickplay. TTK was fine in 8v8.

Edited by Khobai, 15 August 2016 - 10:14 PM.

[SQW]

Khobai, on 15 August 2016 - 10:10 PM, said:

Russ: "no not really as energy draw is largely about dmg so AC's similar to energy"

okay then why would anyone ever use ACs since they weigh more tonnage and use ammo?

ACs need to be affected less by energy draw to offset their other downsides or the whole system will just heavily favor energy weapons

A PPC and AC10 should not draw the same energy just because both do 10 damage. Otherwise theres no reason to use the AC10 ever.

This new energy draw system doesnt seem very well thought out... damage is not the ONLY consideration for how much energy a weapon should draw.


I dont get why we cant just try the more reasonable approach of changing quickplay back to 8v8. 12v12 is whats causing all the problems with TTK in quickplay. TTK was fine in 8v8.

Then no one will be playing 12v12 if the current system lowers TTK in a 8v8 and 4v4.

As for why use ACs instead of laser, lasers still generate more heat. You might be limited to 30dmg alpha before heat penalty but you still draw way more heat via the latter than the former. How many 30dmg alphas can you do with lasers before shutdown vs AC5s? In fact, I'd argue why anyone would use lasers instead of ACs since alpha being equal, ACs can shoot for a lot longer than lasers.

Because of AC's weight and ammo limitation of course! Wait a minute. This sounds familiar....

Edited by SQW, 15 August 2016 - 10:34 PM.

[Khobai]

Quote

Then no one will be playing 12v12 if the current system lowers TTK in a 8v8 and 4v4.

CW would still be 12v12. TTK is fine in CW because of respawns.

Its just quickplay that should be 8v8

Quote

As for why use ACs instead of laser, lasers still generate more heat.

lasers generate more heat now yet theyre preferred over ACs

so why would that change?

this energy drain thing is mostly an assault mech and AC nerf...

Edited by Khobai, 15 August 2016 - 11:28 PM.

[SQW]

Khobai, on 15 August 2016 - 11:26 PM, said:

CW would still be 12v12. TTK is fine in CW because of respawns.

Its just quickplay that should be 8v8



lasers generate more heat now yet theyre preferred over ACs

so why would that change?

this energy drain thing is mostly an assault mech and AC nerf...

Khobai, on 15 August 2016 - 11:26 PM, said:

CW would still be 12v12. TTK is fine in CW because of respawns.

Its just quickplay that should be 8v8



lasers generate more heat now yet theyre preferred over ACs

so why would that change?

this energy drain thing is mostly an assault mech and AC nerf...

Of course it's targeted at hvy/assaults. They are the only class that can boat enough weapon that PPFLD affects TTK. Without divergence like MWO originally planned, the whole dmg/armor balance that's been the core of table top BT got thrown out the window. On the other hand, you can also call it an assault buff since it's now that much harder to core one of those.

None of the GH, GH2.0 will solve the issue as long as location damage is the way it is but at least GH2.0 might slow things down a bit.

As for Dakka, it's only been a issue in the last few months and the main culprit is that UAC5/10 Kodiak - no other dakka mechs really Dominate in QP. I don't care about CW - that mode's so broken you can't balance MWO based on it. In fact, the other thread about ammo is full of CW warriors complaining about running out of ammo and want a buff to AC to balance out the lasers. *sigh*

If those meta warriors can load 4 AC20s with just 2 tons of ammo, they would AND complain they can only do 4 alphas because lasers are OP.

[Gas Guzzler]

Khobai, on 15 August 2016 - 11:26 PM, said:

lasers generate more heat now yet theyre preferred over ACs so why would that change? this energy drain thing is mostly an assault mech and AC nerf...

Khobai, you may need to be brought up to speed, but dakka mechs are the top mechs in the game right now, mixed in with some ER PPC/Gauss.

Laser vomit mechs have fallen out of favor at high levels of play, but can still lay it down in the solo queue because of the disorder.

SQW, on 15 August 2016 - 10:00 PM, said:

Chain fire?

Seriously, GH and GH2.0 are there to limit big alphas. There's nothing there that says you can't put 4 PPCs on your mech and chain fire that same torso section. I mean, we are all LEET pilots right? Heck, you can still fire 4PPC alphas if you are willing to suck extra heat for the high risk/reward action.

Having to spend more time staring is bad. Although two groups of PPCs wouldn't be too bad, especially if you have 5 of them, because then you are just firing 3 and 2, for 50 damage, over 0.5 seconds.

Funkin Disher, on 15 August 2016 - 10:06 PM, said:

Try ML instead, gets you more range.

Oddly enough my Ebon Jag uses pretty much the same setup (4 ERML, 2 UAC/5). Works a charm.

Its okay, but not really a great build.

Edited by Gas Guzzler, 16 August 2016 - 04:11 AM.

[invernomuto]

SQW, on 15 August 2016 - 10:00 PM, said:

Chain fire? Seriously, GH and GH2.0 are there to limit big alphas. There's nothing there that says you can't put 4 PPCs on your mech and chain fire that same torso section. I mean, we are all LEET pilots right? Heck, you can still fire 4PPC alphas if you are willing to suck extra heat for the high risk/reward action.

Exactly. It's better than the current system of GH, where you can have 50 dmg alpha without penalities but you cannot fire a 2 AC/20 simultaniously (40 pts dmg) without incurring in ghost heat.
With G.H. 2.0 you simply have to chain fire / chain group your weapons limiting alphas to particular occasions.
IMHO it's not bad at all.

[Gas Guzzler]

invernomuto, on 16 August 2016 - 04:18 AM, said:

With G.H. 2.0 you simply have to chain fire / chain group your weapons limiting alphas to particular occasions.
IMHO it's not bad at all.

Yeah I don't see how that could possibly have any implications on balance......

[invernomuto]

Gas Guzzler, on 16 August 2016 - 04:27 AM, said:

Yeah I don't see how that could possibly have any implications on balance......

There will be obviously some implications on balance and some mechs will be penalized more than others (Atlas...), but I think that the "damage based" system is easier to mantain than the actual GH, a system where you have to calculate an (arbitrary) "heat penality" for each weapon and where people will always find combinations of hardpoints / weapons that will prevent the GH to work efficiently (*). Let's also look in prospective, IMHO it will be easier to add and balance new weapons in the future with a ghost heat that is based on damage rather than with current system.
Again, why I have a penality if I fire a dual AC/20 or 6xSRM6 while I have no penality if I fire, e.g. 3xLLs and 4xSRM6?

(*) obviously, mech that have a lot of variety in hardpoints are those that perform better with current system because you can have big alphas without triggering penalities.

[Gas Guzzler]

invernomuto, on 16 August 2016 - 04:49 AM, said:

Again, why I have a penality if I fire a dual AC/20 or 6xSRM6 while I have no penality if I fire, e.g. 3xLLs and 4xSRM6?

Because those weapons don't sync well!

Why do you think 3 LLs + SRMs isn't even close to being a competitive build? Some people mix in SPLs with SRMs, but in many cases you are better off with just SRMs because the heat from the lasers isn't worth it.

People mix in MLs with larger lasers to get more of an alpha up close. The alternative is always to just boat the larger lasers and stagger fire for more range but less alpha. Its a tradeoff.

[invernomuto]

Gas Guzzler, on 16 August 2016 - 04:57 AM, said:

Because those weapons don't sync well! Why do you think 3 LLs + SRMs isn't even close to being a competitive build? Some people mix in SPLs with SRMs, but in many cases you are better off with just SRMs because the heat from the lasers isn't worth it. People mix in MLs with larger lasers to get more of an alpha up close. The alternative is always to just boat the larger lasers and stagger fire for more range but less alpha. Its a tradeoff.

Agreed, but you can mix weapons that sync well without triggering the heat penalities. See the 70+ points alpha Atlases. You can alpha with a Ac/20 + 4xASRM6 (71,6 dmg for 22 heat) but you cannot go with another mech with a 2 AC/20 + 2xASRM6 (65,8 damage for 31,52 heat due to heat penality on the dual AC/20). Ok, in the first case you have more spread on the damage, but still it's a system that creates this kind of issues. And it will be worse each time you add a new weapon (I do not know if in the future PGI want to add new weapons, but it's a possibility) because players will have more possibility to create builds that maximize alpha and sync the cooldowns, bypassing the penalities.
I agree that a more simple solution would be to lower the heat capacity of each mechs, but maybe PGI has some reasons not doing so. However, let's see how the new system will play on the PTS...

Edited by invernomuto, 16 August 2016 - 05:55 AM.

[Khobai]

Quote

Of course it's targeted at hvy/assaults.

why though? that makes no sense

the whole point of an assault is to put out more firepower than a light

capping both lights and assaults at 30 damage is stupid it defeats the purpose of an assault mech