56 replies to this topic

[XX Sulla XX]

First a bit about my view of the current game. I think the balance is the best it has been since I started playing the game when open beta started. There is a wide variety of mechs, loadouts and play styles that work in solo and group drops. And while the quirk and ghost heat systems are a bit convoluted at this point they are mainly balanced. If you were going to keep this system I would just go through and make quirk passes on the mechs at the very very top and bottom. I would be fine with them just doing this.

Now for the current PTS 1 Energy Draw system. In its current form it is worse than the current live server system we have. Although with lots of changes it could probably be made to work to some degree. But that leads to one big big question that decides everything.

Is there ANY THING in the new system worth all of the cost, problems, disruption etc of changing over to it? The stated goal is to have players have to choose Alpha Strikes or Staggered Fire. This seems to be THE goal PGI has. So is this goal worth it? Can it be done better in the old system or do we have to have the new system to make it work.

1. Is goal of cutting alphas and encouraging staggered fire worth it. --- I am not sure it is. Currently except for a couple of exceptions the high alphas are either very short range or lasers doing damage over time. And it has worked out to a decent balance with front loaded damage vs lasers boats vs dakka vs brawling etc.

Also in the current system by and large it has encouraged a nice mix of short, mid and long range play.

So if the stated goal of cutting alphas and encouraging stagger fire is the only thing we get from this for all of the problem and cost of setting it up then no its probably not worth it.

2. Do we get anything besides a system that at some point in the future might be better at cutting alpha strikes. -- Not much. I think it could be a bit more clear to new players how it works. Maybe it could be more tunable in some situations but I am not 100% convinced of that.

So at the moment I am not sold on why the new system is better and worth the cost of moving to it. And I am agnostic when it comes to what system we use but it just has to make sense what ever one we end up with.

[Gas Guzzler]

XX Sulla XX, on 20 August 2016 - 03:16 PM, said:

1. Is goal of cutting alphas and encouraging staggered fire worth it. --- I am not sure it is. Currently except for a couple of exceptions the high alphas are either very short range or lasers doing damage over time. And it has worked out to a decent balance with front loaded damage vs lasers boats vs dakka vs brawling etc.

Also in the current system by and large it has encouraged a nice mix of short, mid and long range play.

So if the stated goal of cutting alphas and encouraging stagger fire is the only thing we get from this for all of the problem and cost of setting it up then no its probably not worth it.

QFT

[FannyBoss]

Yes it is worth it

[MechaBattler]

All the mech packs they put out. They can afford to develop a replacement for ghost heat.

[kapusta11]

Was about to post a thread asking "What's the point?" myself, cause I see none.

[davoodoo]

I see no worth in it as only thing it really affected is laservomit.

Dakka unaffected by this gauge
ppfld, you can put extra ppc on is
srms unaffected
lurms larger as bad as they always were, smaller got buffed(7 lrm5 under 30 energy...)
laservomit, oh god, cant mix large and mediums so this one got hurt badly, clan mechs out of which many relied on large number of energy hardpoints to be viable will nedd to shift to something else or die out.

And finally ghost heat is linear so go away and boat.

Kodiak which smashes through each and every leaderboard is unaffected by energy draw...so what was the point?? so timber, ebj and blr need to change builds to boat heavy energy??

Edited by davoodoo, 20 August 2016 - 03:55 PM.

[kapusta11]

davoodoo, on 20 August 2016 - 03:49 PM, said:

I see no worth in it as only thing it really affected is laservomit.

Dakka unaffected by this gauge
ppfld, you can put extra ppc on is
srms unaffected
lurms larger as bad as they always were, smaller got buffed(7 lrm5 under 30 energy...)
laservomit, oh god, cant mix large and mediums so this one got hurt badly, clan mechs out of which many relied on large number of energy hardpoints to be viable will nedd to shift to something else or die out.

And finally ghost heat is linear so go away and boat.

SRMs are affected. Have you played AS7-S? And laser vomit Battlemasters and Banshees still work pretty well.

Edited by kapusta11, 20 August 2016 - 03:54 PM.

[davoodoo]

kapusta11, on 20 August 2016 - 03:52 PM, said:

SRMs are affected. Have you played AS7-S? And laser vomit Battlemasters and Banshees still work pretty well.

Ok 4 x srm6 is affected.

And yeah, blr now goes with 5 lpl alpha... so not only it did jack to curb alphas but also killed mixed weapons.

Edited by davoodoo, 20 August 2016 - 03:59 PM.

[Reno Blade]

The penalties are a bit too low, but the system would be pretty decent if the penalty multiplyer would be higher and/or the limit would be lower.
Instead of adding 0.5x of damage as heat, it should be at least 1.0x or even 2.0x to even notice the penalty.
Maybe even make it exponential the higher you go over the limit.

Reduce the maximum Energy pool to 28 or 25, so the penalty kicks in earlier = no more 3x Large weapons ( 3x LP, 3x PPC, 2x Gauss, 3x UAC10...).
That way the system would bring the change we expect = Reduced boating and alpha strikes.

[davoodoo]

You do realise that ******* locust boats 30 dmg worth of mlas??
**** me hbk 4p with 6 mlas shoulder scattergun was designed to fire that shoulder without any heat buildup, but you cant have that... too big alpha...

You want to curb alpha of lightest mech in the game, this is madness... 50 ton huncback IIc with dual uac10 will reach peak of dps...

Edited by davoodoo, 21 August 2016 - 05:08 AM.

[FannyBoss]

davoodoo, on 21 August 2016 - 04:57 AM, said:

this is madness...

This
is
Mechwarrior!

Clan laser boats have really been hit hard, and will be hit even harder if the heat penalty is made to be non-linear.

[Wibble in a Clan can]

Yes the new system is worth it- because its more intuitive to use than ghost heat (GH is a real turn off for prospective players- and hence loses PGI money and game longevity).

Edited by WibbsScrapMerc, 21 August 2016 - 06:06 AM.

[Lunatic_Asylum]

The new system is not worth it: the older system has almost eliminated all of the imperfections and by far ahead of energy draw. Ghost heat, gauss charge, flamers, jump jets, and overall balance are almost perfect at the moment. As they say, why try to seek better after the best? Keep GH. Postpone ED and keep it on the test servers until it is as good at overheating 'Mechs and controlling their DPS. Keep the mechanics of Gauss as well.

[Kaptain]

WibbsScrapMerc, on 21 August 2016 - 06:05 AM, said:

Yes the new system is worth it- because its more intuitive to use than ghost heat (GH is a real turn off for prospective players- and hence loses PGI money and game longevity).

Agreed. It needs adjustments and tune but the exponential and somewhat arbitrary ghost heat system was a pita to memorize and explain to people. There are enough stats in this game without trying to memorize ghost heat charts.

[1453 R]

Reno Blade, on 21 August 2016 - 04:46 AM, said:

...
That way the system would bring the change we expect = Reduced boating and alpha strikes.

This is explicitly not the point of Energy Draw.

To quote:

MechWarrior Online said:

Does the Energy Draw system address the loopholes and issues inherent in the current Heat Scale system? Is the information presented in your Pilot HUD sufficient to understand the Energy Draw mechanic? Does the inclusion of Energy Draw help to increase TTK? These are some of the questions we are looking to answer through this PTS, based on your feedback.

The write-up indicates that the developers do not wish to utterly and completely eliminate all alpha strikes from MWO forever and ever and ever and ever and EVER, the way many people arguing for higher penalties are stating. Arguments claiming "This system is a waste of time because it doesn't do what it was supposed to do, which is STOP ALL ALPHAS FOREVER!" are incorrect because that's not what Energy Draw is supposed to do.

Energy Draw is meant to do the following:
A.) more uniformly address super-high mixed-weapon alphas that were previously laughing at Ghost F***mothering Heat due to non-Euclidian Max Alpha Math. All weapons now fall under the same umbrella, and you're no longer able to push 90 damage out of your mech with one configuration and generate less than 40% heat, while another 'mech configuration pushes the same 90 damage and goes thermonuclear for it because it got its math wrong.

This is the single greatest change Energy Draw needed to make, and it makes it very well.

B.) be more intuitive and obvious to the player than Ghost F***mothering heat. This is accomplished via the smoothed-out mechanics of energy usage rather than non-Euclidian Max Alpha Math under Ghost Heat's hard caps, and the presence of player-facing U.I. This goal has not yet been perfectly achieved as the U.I. is 1.) not fully implemented, and 2.) not quite there yet. But it's a goal, and they've made strides towards it.

C.) Increase Time To Kill. This is debatable, but frankly so is the need to increase TTK. Most people who hate all alphas the way a certain infamous historical madman hated people of the Book do so because they feel, very strongly, that TTK is too short. They feel this way, in general, for one of two reasons:

1.) they walked out in front of three Dire Whales, two Maulers, two King Crabs, and an UrbanMech and melted in a second under concentrated fire. They do this repeatedly because they are either unobservant, drunk, or just bad at MWO, and they don't like it. Tabletop lore has informed them that 'Mechs are supposed to be nigh-immortal juggernauts of the battlefield which do not get instagibbed under any circumstances (and never mind that walking out in the open in front of three Whales, two Maulers, two Krabs, and an UrbanMech in TT would result in a Long Tom-level instagib in TT), and so they want weapon convergence removed, alphas destroyed, weapons nerfed, Clans, nerfed - anything and everything required in order for them to walk out in front of as many assault 'Mechs as they want and survive the experience. Because That's How TT Works, Right?

These people, clearly, do not deserve an opinion on game balance systems.

2.) these are actual old tabletop players who are not dumb as a bag of hammers, but they're used to TT rules. They're used to 'Mechs with one AC/5, one LRM-10, one SRM-4, one Streak SRM-2, two medium lasers, a machine gun, and a flamer being good. That's the sort of thing TT players want because those 'Mechs are (theoretically) flexible, versatile, and at least a little bit useful in any mission their campaign can throw at them. MWO, of course, consists of short, one-shot, fully-supplied skirmishes between two forces comprised entirely of 'Mechs - TT "a gun for every mission" rules most thoroughly and emphatically do not apply here. The Solaris-ized hotrods MWO features offend every last sensibility old TT players have; they're looking for any possible conceivable way they can to try and force some BattleTech™ back into their A BattleTech Game™, which means forcing everyone to use 'proper' weapons loadouts. A.K.A. horrifyingly awful FrankenMech abominations.

'Solving' the boating issue and subsequent/derived "AlphaWarrior Online" problem is these players' top priority because they feel that if boating is a capital-B Bad Idea, then the only recourse is not boating. I.e. the "a gun for every mission" loadouts that is only right and proper.

These guys are playing the wrong game. The game they want is played in the den over the weekend with a crate of beer and a lot of dice. Alternatively, the game they want is currently being developed by Harebrained Schemes (and it's looking really good! Should be an excellent complement to MWO, the MechCommander we haven't had in for-sacking-ever). They play MWO because it's the only game in town, but it's not really the game they want to play.

Those folks will be out of here faster than your in-laws when it comes time to do the Thanksgiving dishes when HBS:BT releases. Given that, I don't particularly feel like giving their opinions primacy on a strictly MWO game systems/balancing issue.

TTK, right now, is actually pretty good. It's really low if you're stupid (or unlucky), but pretty high if you're not either of those things, and that is as it should be. I believe Energy Draw helps this out; not by Disabling All Alphasa Forever, but by smoothing out the overall spikeyness of the game to a much greater extent than Ghost F***mothering heat does. With the exception of Gauss Rifles (which need their charge cycle back really badly), Energy Draw encourages players to use what alpha damage they do have tactically rather than as a default mode of operation, or to alternatively build low-alpha, high-DPS builds which ignore the mechanic (and lose out a lot of pressure or killshot opportunity because of it).

While some previously-feared alpha builds are now more possible than they used to be - the oh-so-terrifying Three IS PPC builds, WHOOOO SCARED - damage in the PTS seems to come in smaller but more frequent packets. Gone are 80-damage laser strikes every six seconds - those 80-damage strikes are still here, but there's no way to build a 'Mech that can sustain them anymore. They've become a calculated measure taken by a pilot attempting to accomplish a specific tactical goal, not the pilot's default attack.

That is Mission: Successful for Energy Draw. There are certainly still kinks to work out - the U.I. for ED, at the moment, is really not very helpful, certain weapons could probably use higher or lower ED values, and we still don't know how well varying things like energy pool, recharge rate, and other factors on a 'Mech by 'Mech basis works - but the core idea seems to be very sound.

Unless you're one of those people who just cannot tolerate someone firing in anything but chain fire at any time for any reason. In which case...well, HBS:BT comes out next year. I'll see you there.

[Wintersdark]

Reno Blade, on 21 August 2016 - 04:46 AM, said:

The penalties are a bit too low, but the system would be pretty decent if the penalty multiplyer would be higher and/or the limit would be lower.
Instead of adding 0.5x of damage as heat, it should be at least 1.0x or even 2.0x to even notice the penalty.
Maybe even make it exponential the higher you go over the limit.

Reduce the maximum Energy pool to 28 or 25, so the penalty kicks in earlier = no more 3x Large weapons ( 3x LP, 3x PPC, 2x Gauss, 3x UAC10...).
That way the system would bring the change we expect = Reduced boating and alpha strikes.

Easier, increase the penalty to 1:1. Leave the pool at 30. Higher penalties penalize large strikes more. Increase Gauss to 1.5:1 or 2:1 damage to energy, so combining it with anything is expensive.

Lower spread cost substantially, because SRM's should be a higher damage brawling alternative that doesn't cost a lot of energy, otherwise they're not worth using vs. say Medium Lasers.

[Mystere]

1453 R, on 21 August 2016 - 10:34 AM, said:

This is explicitly not the point of Energy Draw.

To quote:

Quote

Does the Energy Draw system address the loopholes and issues inherent in the current Heat Scale system? Is the information presented in your Pilot HUD sufficient to understand the Energy Draw mechanic? Does the inclusion of Energy Draw help to increase TTK? These are some of the questions we are looking to answer through this PTS, based on your feedback.

It can be reasonably argued that player propensity for alpha strikes is a loophole/issue in the current heat scale system.

Edited by Mystere, 21 August 2016 - 12:52 PM.

[Mystere]

Wintersdark, on 21 August 2016 - 10:38 AM, said:

Easier, increase the penalty to 1:1. Leave the pool at 30. Higher penalties penalize large strikes more. Increase Gauss to 1.5:1 or 2:1 damage to energy, so combining it with anything is expensive.

Lower spread cost substantially, because SRM's should be a higher damage brawling alternative that doesn't cost a lot of energy, otherwise they're not worth using vs. say Medium Lasers.

Yes, penalties need to be increased. They almost feel like just slaps on the wrist at the moment.

Yes also to lower energy costs for weapons that spread.

[1453 R]

Mystere, on 21 August 2016 - 12:48 PM, said:

It can be reasonably argued that player propensity for alpha strikes is a loophole/issue in the current heat scale system.

Yes. Propensity. I get that you hate anyone being able to hit their mark at all, but have you tried playing the PTS? The 4v4 thing is aggravating given the assault bias, but the actual in-the-moment gameplay is actually really great. I've done more thinking in my Thinking Man's Shooter on PTS than I have in the last few months, really. I want this to go live so I can experiment with it properly. It's got me thinking about playing MechWarrior again, for more than just a few tossed-off rounds with buddies.

I haven't been this motivated to run the game in quite a bit (so of course this is when I zonk myself and can play anything for long >_<). Gotta get a reaction/suggestion post together sometime - the U.I. elements really do need addressing - but this is one of the better ideas to come out of Piranha in a while. Even if they sabotaged their own tests with the frigblathering WotW event...

[Mystere]

1453 R, on 21 August 2016 - 07:12 PM, said:

Yes. Propensity.

Good. You finally see one of the problems people are trying to solve.

1453 R, on 21 August 2016 - 07:12 PM, said:

I get that you hate anyone being able to hit their mark at all ...

You could not be more wrong. But because you still seem to require to be reminded, start here and here.

1453 R, on 21 August 2016 - 07:12 PM, said:

I want this to go live so I can experiment with it properly. .

And this is a really bad idea. The whole point of testing is to get things right. That is when one should start experimenting, not in a live system.