19 replies to this topic

[Ruuki]

Greetings Mechwarriors,

Today I will be touching on the topic of PGI's upcoming power draw system. Upon first hearing about it, I thought it might have been a dream come true. But after reading around, I've come to the conclusion everyone else has: That it's Ghost Heat 2.0. Admittedly, I've had a vaguely similar thought to power draw before I read about what PGI had planned. However, my idea started with a not-so-similar game; Elite: Dangerous.

I will be breaking down my idea into two sections so it's easier to digest.

A. How I think the Power Draw update should work. Not necessarily how it's going to be implemented as PGI envisions it.
B. What it can do to balance the game while remaining razors-edge close to Lore.

On the topic of subject A, Power Draw should be implemented as a separate system to Heat. Ghost heat should be eliminated in it's entirety. Instead of referring to the heat scale of weapons, there should be a separate stat dictated by reactors. Reactors, in lore, were separate entities from the engine as a whole. There were mechs that struggled with their power outputs and weapons that put a strain on their reactors. By implementing one singular part, you could limit high alpha builds in their entirety and make Alpha Strike a thing to be used in desperation or strategy. Reactors would be based around an arbitrary number that would be the max power load they can sustain from firing weapons and furthermore, they would have weight to accompany them. By doing such, you could effectively make a pilot think about what they have installed. For instance, a bigger reactor means more capacity for weapons at the cost of greater weight, forcing them into a smaller engine. Alternatively, you could neglect reactor size for speed. As for the power draw, you'd have a set number that your weapons should not exceed. This would make smart grouping and weapon diversity vital for succeeding in combat, just as it does in Lore. For example, having a large laser with an arbitrary example limit of 10 on a medium mech who's reactor has a 15 limit means you cannot pair that large laser with another large laser or a weapon of similar number limit. Now, some will say "But you could just chain fire and get around that." No, the power draw of that weapon would be for the duration of that weapon and it's cooldown, meaning you would not be able to fire it again until that cooldown is reset. You, however, would be able to fire those two small lasers each with a power draw of arbitrary 2 as many times as you want during it's cooldown, as it would not exceed power capacity. In the event of exceed capacity, all weapons would shut down for a penalty period.The penalty period would likely be the respective cooldowns of each weapon equipped, so it would be as if you fired blanks. Not too restrictive. Some issues will arise with this method of balance on it's own due to AC's barely using any power. I've thought of that also. The method to continue balancing this mechanic would be to limit where ammo can be placed on a mech to the CT, RT, LT, RA, and LA. However, this isn't all that we'd have to do. A feed system would have to be implemented, forcing considerate placing of ammunition within those restrictions. For example, ammo that's placed in the left torso has a feed to the left arm, so it's ammo cannot be used by weapons on the right arm. The CT would provide feeds to both left and right, but the tradeoff is not being able to hold a lot of ammunition. This would limit AC's while retaining their usefulness and encourage smart building on the pilots part and give a reason to use C.A.S.E. I haven't decided how long range missiles would work, but it would affect their usefulness on an unimaginable scale, whether good or bad. Now I will point out how this might balance the game and make it the lore-friendly Battletech everyone loves.

It would, as I said, encourage build diversity.
Weapons of different ranges, types and deciding on how to group them would be key.
It would increase time to kill and thusly increase the need for a team to be more coordinated.
Most, if not all mechs would become viable in some format or another.
Quirks would not be needed after a rebalance such as this, I believe.


I would leave the arbitrary numbering up to either the community or PGI, as I'm not good with those, but I hope they at least CONSIDER this option. I am open to any feedback as long as it's constructive.

Edited by Ruuki, 10 August 2016 - 02:45 AM.

[Johnny Z]

Amazing wall of text, but with surprisingly good ideas.

Seperating the reactor and engine for the power draw feature is an idea. Its for sure power draw limits, what ever those may be, wont be purely engine based, so maybe this is a way to do it. It does add to the complexity of building a mech though..... not necessarily bad. Especially with future improvements to the mechbay.

Placing ammo in the appropriate sections of the mech is interesting. Sim ftw and all that.

Overall, easily the best ideas of how to do it I have seen yet. Looks good from here. It may be complicated but the feed system may even add some cool factor to the mechbay graphic. If it doesn't over complicate things.

Interesting to see what anyone else thinks about it in a serious way.

Edited by Johnny Z, 10 August 2016 - 03:21 AM.

[El Bandito]

Nice ideas. Even if PGI doesn't implement them, still nice ideas. Game is too arcadey for me as is.

Edited by El Bandito, 10 August 2016 - 06:09 AM.

[Lehmund]

I like the idea in principle. I had similar thoughts, but as a game designer myself, I've thought up a much simpler way to get this all integrated, in a way that the average player would "get" quickly, and easy to implement to boot.

• Reactor provides you with a certain amount of power points based on both mech tonnage and either Clan or IS (clan possibly having more power points per ton, perhaps due to lore etc...).
  
• Each weapon has both a Heat value and a Power value. Ballistics, for example, would likely generate more HPS than equal damage Lasers but would use up less Power etc....
  
• Cranking the heat on your mech does what it does now, but without any ghost heat (not needed).
  
• Using up more Power than your mech can handle makes it slower, more sluggish and prevents firing (or reduced weapon damage). This would then require a second bar in the UI to show Available Power to manage.

Alternatively to point 4, you could avoid having a Power bar altogether by restricting the Power Points to weapons to the Mechlab, to keep it super simple. So you'd have say mechs with 20 power available and your med lasers would take 4 each, and your AC 5 take 2 power each. Assuming you can handle the tonnage of your weapons on your mech, you could do 2 AC 5, and 4 med lasers no problem. You could put 10 AC5s too, without straining the Power, but your tonnage couldn't handle it most likely etc...

Then you don't need any alpha restrictions or ghost heat or anything. You just need to tweak the Power of each weapon until things are nicely balanced and organized.

This sort of system would encourage mixed builds most likely, either with different weapon types or at least multiple sizes of the same type in order to min/max your efficiency regarding Heat, Power, and damage potential Re your own playstyle.

It would likely, if data is set correctly on weapons, limit the amount of reasonable Alpha damage a mech can take as well as encourage a bit more DPS type builds in general...

Edited by Lehmund, 10 August 2016 - 07:05 AM.

[Lostdragon]

Interesting post and ideas. I personally would rather see them use existing mechanics to achive what they are trying to do with the new system. Adding another layer with unintuitive mechanics like power not regenerating until the weapon cools down along with having another gauge or meter to keep track of seems unnecessary to me when you could simply create a baseline of DPH to which all weapons must adhere. Heat could easily be used to limit alphas but it would require killing a sacred cow and putting heat on the Gauss Rifle appropriate to its damage.

In this type of scenario if the devs wanted to limit alphas to 30 and the DPH ratio is 1:1 then you just make max heat 30 while increasing dissipation so that it is possible to use all an assault mech's weapons within the span of a cool down. Weapons with spread or other negative characteristics might get a slightly different baseline DPH to compensate for their relative innacuracy and weapon cooldowns would need to be adjusted appropriately.

I fully believe it is possible to bring the game to a much better state of balance by tweaking existing values and systems instead of adding another needless layer to an already relatively complicated game. This would require admitting that some TT rules like low heat Gauss Rifles dont translate well to a realtime video game and would not doubt anger some purists but in the end I think it woupd be much better for the game.

[Bud Crue]

Whatever. I applaud the ideas proposed by the OP, but all this hand wringing and supposition about "energy draw" is pointless.

First, despite much discussion we still don't KNOW for certain how the system is going to actually work. Be happy that at least it looks like we will get a test server to try it out first...then we can start worrying and proposing alternatives.

Second, we need to keep in mind that this is PGI, we are dealing with. In all likelihood they will give us a incredibly convoluted and counter-intuitive system that merely approaches doing what they want, but doesn't quite work as intended. There will also be obvious loopholes in the system that folks will almost immediately discover so as to avoid it or exploit it, and which PGI will insist are not an issue. Following the test server they will introduce the system untouched by suggestions of the community, with loopholes and all. They will then, finally, close those loopholes with a hot fix, to give the impression that they are responsive to the community; but will leave in place the overall system that doesn't quite work but is at least different.
At that point we will learn to live with whatever it is that we are left with. For the foreseeable future we will intermittently complain about it, all the while writing forum posts of "simple" fixes that would make the system work better, which PGI will dutifully ignore.

Sigh.

Still I like where the Op's head is at.

[WarHippy]

I think you are all nuts. Those ideas are not interesting or good for that matter. They sound terrible to me and I want no part in them or what PGI is preparing to implement either.

[Kirkland Langue]

Let's consider a Timberwolf and a Warhammer for a second.

One Timberwolf standard build is 2 LPL and 4 ML. All energy, but has many many many hardpoint options.
Warhammer 6D - Could also run 2LPL and 4 ML. Also all energy, but has no other hardpoint options.

Let's pretend for a moment that this build is the current optimal one for each mech.
How would you go about encouraging the Timberwolf player to diversify its weapon loadout - without nerfing the Warhammer?

EDIT - Don't distinguish between Clan and IS tech as a way of getting around the underlying question.

Edited by Kirkland Langue, 10 August 2016 - 06:44 AM.

[davoodoo]

Im against it, limiting alphas wont work, it will simply delay dmg by 0.5s.

Hardpoints so far was best attempt at limiting alphas and it still didnt work(without it i would for sure be rocking 20 mlas fatlas)
Ghost heat?? didnt work
Power draw, yeah well see, but like i said dmg will be delayed a bit and things like 2 uac10, 2 uac 5 kodiak will be absolutely unaffected
Your idea?? go for dakka since ballistics generate less power.

Limiting alphas wont work, spreading dmg over the mech would give higher lifetime for mechs. Look at srms, 4 srm6 deals 51 dmg, despite that it doesnt hurt that much unless its fired at point blank.

Edited by davoodoo, 10 August 2016 - 06:56 AM.

[Johnny Z]

Kirkland Langue, on 10 August 2016 - 06:43 AM, said:

Let's consider a Timberwolf and a Warhammer for a second.

One Timberwolf standard build is 2 LPL and 4 ML. All energy, but has many many many hardpoint options.
Warhammer 6D - Could also run 2LPL and 4 ML. Also all energy, but has no other hardpoint options.

Let's pretend for a moment that this build is the current optimal one for each mech.
How would you go about encouraging the Timberwolf player to diversify its weapon loadout - without nerfing the Warhammer?

EDIT - Don't distinguish between Clan and IS tech as a way of getting around the underlying question.

Well put. The answer is obvious. Cap damage.

The Timber Wolf still has a different shaped mech that performs differently and the ability to switch to more short range weapons in theory.

I always said this was the toughest game to balance. Even tougher while keeping every chassis unique with hundreds of load out options, which is what this game offers.

Balance is good now aside from the extreme alphas anyway. So the problem isn't as tough as it looks.

Nova being the best example of an energy boat that can pack tons of alpha. A damage cap still allows the Nova to carry different ranged weapons. So it has an alpha at short and medium range for example, not just a short range alpha as it is now, so its not so much a nerf as it is a pushing multiple ranges. An energy boat with less energy hard points cant play around as much.

A cap at 30 like proposed still allows the dual AC 20 Jagermech but he will be chain firing.

This leaves dual ERPPC clan mechs in a really good spot. Nothing new for Clan pilots.

Edited by Johnny Z, 10 August 2016 - 07:21 AM.

[Kirkland Langue]

The only reason that capping damage would affect diversification is because ballistics have range and "effect" bonuses over lasers - which means that the Warhammer gets nerfed while the timberwolf would have the opportunity to switch weapons for better range and impact effects, while doing the same damage.


There are actually many "real" answers to my puzzle. But you have to first think about the problem differently.
Here is one particular answer:

Give LPLs a quirk that says "-15% C-bill reward for each additional LPL equipped"

Boom, players are going to be far far far less likely to equip a bunch of LPLs. The laser itself is just as effective as it used to be, but for everyday play - players will be more likely to try and use different weapon systems to avoid penalties.

Is this a perfect answer? of course not. The worst thing about this particular answer is that it hits new players a lot harder than vets. heck, even justifying such an answer using some kind of "storymode logic" is difficult. BUT, if the goal is to get players to use different weapon systems, without actually nerfing the playability of mechs that lack a lot of loadout options - one answer is to impact things outside of the actual matches.

Do I suggest such an answer? NO. It's merely to show that a little thinking outside of the box might give an answer to a seemingly impossible question. MWO is very difficult to balance, which is why I've always suggested dynamic systems so that mech balance is automated through a system that adds/removes/modifies quirks based upon how frequently players use the particular mech.

[Ruuki]

Kirkland Langue, on 10 August 2016 - 06:43 AM, said:

Let's consider a Timberwolf and a Warhammer for a second.

One Timberwolf standard build is 2 LPL and 4 ML. All energy, but has many many many hardpoint options.
Warhammer 6D - Could also run 2LPL and 4 ML. Also all energy, but has no other hardpoint options.

Let's pretend for a moment that this build is the current optimal one for each mech.
How would you go about encouraging the Timberwolf player to diversify its weapon loadout - without nerfing the Warhammer?

EDIT - Don't distinguish between Clan and IS tech as a way of getting around the underlying question.

Clans would receive a similar treatment to IS in the fact that they will have a reactor. Yes, it will be locked to that mech(The Timberwolf in question), but it would have a reasonable limit on what it can carry as far as weapons go. Clan weapons would likely have a way higher power draw than IS, thus limiting the amount of high-damage weaponry the timberwolf could field. It would still encourage that player to mix his weapons to maximize damage output at all ranges. In theory, it would keep Clans on an even plane with IS while giving the illusion that they still have more power than an IS mech.

[Ruuki]

davoodoo, on 10 August 2016 - 06:50 AM, said:

Im against it, limiting alphas wont work, it will simply delay dmg by 0.5s.

Hardpoints so far was best attempt at limiting alphas and it still didnt work(without it i would for sure be rocking 20 mlas fatlas)
Ghost heat?? didnt work
Power draw, yeah well see, but like i said dmg will be delayed a bit and things like 2 uac10, 2 uac 5 kodiak will be absolutely unaffected
Your idea?? go for dakka since ballistics generate less power.

Limiting alphas wont work, spreading dmg over the mech would give higher lifetime for mechs. Look at srms, 4 srm6 deals 51 dmg, despite that it doesnt hurt that much unless its fired at point blank.

In the case of my idea, Dakka would be quite limited. Having the ammo feed system would reasonably limit your ammo for carrying AC's and ultra AC's. Limiting the ammo slots to RA, RT, CT, LT, RA while having a feed system would discourage AC boating. The feed system would limit how much ammo is supplied to each AC and thus decrease overall damage output as opposed to nerfing the baseline damage. If you did indeed read, which I don't doubt you did, an AC in the right torso could not draw ammo stored in the left torso. The ammo on the right side could only be drawn for weapons on the right side of the mech.

[davoodoo]

Kirkland Langue, on 10 August 2016 - 09:11 AM, said:

Give LPLs a quirk that says "-15% C-bill reward for each additional LPL equipped"

You cant be serious, what this would do?? setups made for farming cbills and ppl who farm on those underarmed farm builds...

Biggers loser here?? new player who will either have no farming mech or will be farmed by serious mechs...

Ruuki, on 10 August 2016 - 11:43 AM, said:

In the case of my idea, Dakka would be quite limited. Having the ammo feed system would reasonably limit your ammo for carrying AC's and ultra AC's. Limiting the ammo slots to RA, RT, CT, LT, RA while having a feed system would discourage AC boating. The feed system would limit how much ammo is supplied to each AC and thus decrease overall damage output as opposed to nerfing the baseline damage. If you did indeed read, which I don't doubt you did, an AC in the right torso could not draw ammo stored in the left torso. The ammo on the right side could only be drawn for weapons on the right side of the mech.

Which by extension would mean that instead of putting ammo in the legs, ill put my ammo in side torso or arms.
Instead of placing my ammo like that
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...199e3b1da8e5f61

Ill do it like that
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...9783ec4c1580ce9
or that(because who would target arms of hunchback...)
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...f3a11e9bd4c31e4

Result?? even shorter lifespan for these mechs but hell they do dmg so theyll be played anyway and ammo limited?? idk how much ammo you put but i dont think any ac uses that much, if something its a nerf to lrms.

Edited by davoodoo, 10 August 2016 - 12:13 PM.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

@OP, using your topic designations:

A - No. Battlemech engines and reactors are the same thing. What's more, adding a separate reactor on top of the engine would break every single stock build, while adding unnecessary complexity and confusing not only newer players but everyone.

B - Forcing ammo to be mounted at or near the weapon using it would also break stock builds, and would screw over IS mechs especially (since cDHS can fit in the legs, while standard ones are too big). Not being able to use the legs for ammo would mean that IS mechs have what amounts to a 4-crit tax on internal space.

Now, since it's bad form to shoot down an idea without offering an alternative, here's my take on the whole issue:

1 - Wait for the PTS. See how the system works. Then, after testing, offer constructive feedback instead of blind QQ or forum raeg.

2 - PGI should rework the heat system, reducing max heat capacity, boosting heat dissipation rates, and adding real-time heat penalties. Accompany this with cooldown changes, or potentially even reworking weapon damage-per-shot entirely. I'd be happy to see many weapons changed half damage at half heat and half ammo, or other such proportional modifications to weapon behavior.

3 - Just to be thorough, throw in 120 missiles/ton for SRMs, 1.2 damage/pellet for LB-ACs, and 0.1 damage/shot for MGs.

4 - As icing on the cake, expedite the reworked skill system a deeper infotech system, as well as armor limits based on stock+ and a more intricate and individualized module distribution system.

[SilentWolff]

I hope this energy draw BS finally puts the nail in the coffin for this game. Then HBS can take over and give us a real MW game.

[Ruuki]

Levi Porphyrogenitus, on 10 August 2016 - 12:12 PM, said:

@OP, using your topic designations:

A - No. Battlemech engines and reactors are the same thing.

Taking a look at the SARNA repository and you're right. I might've remembered reading a battletech book somewhere that made me think otherwise. :X

[AztecD]

just add heat effects to the mech, i have been saying this for quite some time now.

the mech should handle slower and have adverse effects for running at high heat, ammo explosions, slow maneuverability, slow speed, i mean like a normal machine running hot.

i mean i see light mechs around 90+heat still doing 140+kph and running arround. in BTECH mechs with high heat could not do full speed, or the display would get fuzzy, or locks would take longer, something anything.

but now heat only seems to be for shutting a mech down, and that's it, that's the extent of PGI's simulation immersion

[Moonlight Grimoire]

I had come up with something like this, was roughly Mech tonnage/5 + engine rating/10 = power limit and solely focused on damage potential. This would mean a Locust with a 190 rating engine would have 4 + 19 = 23 damage potential. After that have penalties like tabletop heat penalties, but, only to mobility, so you slow down speed, torso movement, and arm movement. Leave heat as it is and give us true double heatsinks (or go to single heat sinks for everyone, no doubles, which is how weapons were balanced on tabletop).

For another example, timberwolf power would be 75/5+375/10= 15+37.5 = 52.5. Yes this means these mechs have a pretty high power cap, hence the numbers could be finagled with. Or maybe make each class have a different draw from the engine. So lights since they are so light are a engine rating/5, mediums are engine rating/10, heavies are engine rating/15, and assaults are engine rating/20. Again, all subject to adjustment. But, I doubt we will get anything more than what PGI is throwing out, sadly, we will at least get to test it once it goes on PTS.

The exact numbers for the formula could be messed with, and certain mechs could get bonuses to make their lore loadouts work, or more specifically quirks to adjust he powerdraw of their lore loadouts to make them work as they did in TT when stock.

[Angel of Annihilation]

I actually mentioned something like this in another thread. I basically said that the power draw feature should have nothing to do with heat just like you suggest but rather should have everything to do with your engine.

My suggestion was to assign a power draw value to every weapons in the game, then limit the amount of weapons you could effectively fire to engine rating. For example, an ER PPC might have a power draw of 125 which means the maximum amount you could effective fire on a 300 rating engine would be 2 and that would leave you with 50 power to use for supporting weapons like say maybe 2 medium lasers that draw 25 power each. Want to mount and effectively use 3 ER PPCs, you have to mount a 375 rating engine but now maybe you don't have enough weight left to actually mount the 3 ER PPCs.

Additionally you could actually mount 3 ER PPCs on your mech with a 300 rating engine but if you were to fire all three at once, you would suffer penalties to weapons recharge speed and maybe even movement and agility for maybe 5-10 seconds or until the power rating came back up. Heck you might even damage your engine if you continued to fire without waiting for a full recharge.

With this system you wouldn't run into having to micro manage your heat, instead you would have very cleverly balance your builds around multiple factors such as desired speed, engine weight, engine rating, weapons power draw while still having a heat system. What you couldn't do any longer would be to reduce your engine down to a very small size in order to cram in 4 UACs and use them effectively, because you would might need a minimum of a 350 engine rating to use them. You could also more effectively balance things like JJs as well by making them effect power draw and force people to choose between JJ mobility or firepower. This would actually allow them to make JJs feel like JJs again and give them decent high and range boosts. I mean if you mounted 6 JJs so that you could actually Jump high enough to pop-tart well, you wouldn't have enough power left on a 300 rating engine to actually fire more than 1 ER PPC. Of course you could easily fire all your weapons, if you hadn't jumped recently.

This is a balancing system I could get behind but the crap they are spouting about having exponential heat spikes for firing more that 30 points of damage at once is just ****. Sorry it is because it is going to totally cripple alot of mechs who are by their very nature designed to be able to mount excessive amounts of weaponry. I mean my Kodiak Spirit Bear bear build is by no means OP. It mounts a UAC-20, 2 LPLs and 2 SRM6s but since most of the time I am engaging targets beyond 300ms, I fire my UAC-20s and 2 LPLs simultaneously. This only outputs 36 damage and even then the fact the weapons are of different types means I am often not able to concentrate my damage even when I do fire them. However under this new system I am going to be punished because what I am firing exceeds 30 points of damage. Yeah that totally blows.

Then you have mechs like the Direwhale which is only competitive by the fact is can bring devastating fire to bear on its target. What happens to this mech when you can only fire 30 points of damage at a time without experiencing crippling heat? I mean what is the point of any mech that can mount 30+ tons of weapons and equipment when you can't use that 30+ tons without being crippled by heat?

Horrible idea the way they are thinking about doing it and god I hope they realize that and figure out a better method.