23 replies to this topic

[ScarecrowES]

Often discussed as primary purposes behind the proposed energy draw system are to produce a less complex and more easy to understand system with fewer loopholes and less need to create a series of special rules for weapons, circumstances, etc that discourage the use of certain builds arbitrarily chosen to be undesirable while promoting others.

As many would agree, neither version of the energy draw system we've yet seen has lived up to the promise of what the system is intended to do. And likely - due to core mechanics of the system - it will never be able to.

Nothing demonstrates this more than the hilarious - and frankly appalling - second iteration where PGI has essentially worked ghost heat back into the system as a means to both balance specific weapons beyond the capability of ED alone and to drive player build choice to desired types.

We're at the point where we're modifying the draw values of specific weapons and adding penalties in specific circumstances to impose arbitrary limits on the amount and types of weapons used.

The PTS patch notes read like one long set of ghost heat rules. We've set SRM values so you can now use X-number of predefined "acceptable" launchers. But only in some cases. We've set PPC values so we punish exceeding X-number of "acceptable" shots. Want to mount a Gauss with your other similar weapons? Oh no you don't.

Look... if you need to implement a long series of special rules that require you to break out a calculator to build your mech - in a system designed to be simple and universal - that's a colossal failure. And if you need to add core design elements of Ghost Heat into the system that you intend to REPLACE Ghost Heat because your system proves incapable of producing the results you wanted on its own... well there couldn't BE a bigger failure of a system than that.

Your anti-ghost heat system doesn't function without ghost heat? Delicious, delicious irony.

Edited by ScarecrowES, 24 August 2016 - 08:34 AM.

[Navid A1]

They are already decided on ED.

This will be on live client shortly. Because they received positive feedback from only 3 players who were confusing 4v4 gamplay with ED improvements.

Oh, and I need to say that feedback was never received from the forums... it was from 1 youtube video and 2 tweets

[davoodoo]

Navid A1, on 24 August 2016 - 08:31 AM, said:

They are already decided on ED.

Ofc, not enough ppl said no, not enough ppl cancelled their preorders of mad2c.

Ppl are still deluded thinking changes will be drastic and can fix core problems with this concept... While in reality today patch xml changes is extent of what you will see.

You still have ppl claiming its easier to understand than ghost heat(and i must point that they do so after reading patch notes which explained everything about this system), despite seeing 0 explanation within game. If i havent read patch notes i would 0 idea on how much energy i have, what does going over this bar do, how much ghost heat i produce or exactly how fast it regens.

Then you have reactionary ppl who died to dual gauss and demand it take 30 energy to fire 1 without any regard to other stats.

And finally theres paul who ignores all negative feedback and thinks he knows better than players regardless of what they tell him.
Kind of person who would tell its rain while pissing on your face...

Edited by davoodoo, 24 August 2016 - 08:44 AM.

[Spleenslitta]

Navid A1, on 24 August 2016 - 08:31 AM, said:

They are already decided on ED.

This will be on live client shortly. Because they received positive feedback from only 3 players who were confusing 4v4 gamplay with ED improvements.

Oh, and I need to say that feedback was never received from the forums... it was from 1 youtube video and 2 tweets

1 youtube video and 2 tweets was all it took to convince Russ to keep going with ED?
Russ behaves like a 12 year old as far as wisdom goes.

I can allready see the potential ED has and it ain't much. It can bring TTK up but it will never make much sense nor encourage mixed builds.
Even if ED reaches perfection it cannot do much if anything at all to encourage mixed builds.

Scarecrow...Navid. I got something cooking based on Navid's idea of recoil.
It's actually not much more advanced than ED while giving players a reason to use the Flamer and CASE.
Would you mind if sent a PM to you once it's finished?

[Navid A1]

Post it in a thread.

I actually taking a break from MWO for a couple weeks... I gave my feedback. PGI went the opposite way.
They can do whatever they want. Its their game.
But I'm not going to waste my time writing stuff that are never read.

[Spleenslitta]

Navid A1, on 24 August 2016 - 09:17 AM, said:

Post it in a thread.

I actually taking a break from MWO for a couple weeks... I gave my feedback. PGI went the opposite way.
They can do whatever they want. Its their game.
But I'm not going to waste my time writing stuff that are never read.

True enough. Probably won't be read.
I'm been on a break from MWO for about 2 years and i can't say i'll miss it much if things keep going this way.

[Reno Blade]

davoodoo, on 24 August 2016 - 08:39 AM, said:

Ofc, not enough ppl said no, not enough ppl cancelled their preorders of mad2c.

Ppl are still deluded thinking changes will be drastic and can fix core problems with this concept... While in reality today patch xml changes is extent of what you will see.

You still have ppl claiming its easier to understand than ghost heat(and i must point that they do so after reading patch notes which explained everything about this system), despite seeing 0 explanation within game. If i havent read patch notes i would 0 idea on how much energy i have, what does going over this bar do, how much ghost heat i produce or exactly how fast it regens.

Then you have reactionary ppl who died to dual gauss and demand it take 30 energy to fire 1 without any regard to other stats.

And finally theres paul who ignores all negative feedback and thinks he knows better than players regardless of what they tell him.
Kind of person who would tell its rain while pissing on your face...

If you had read nothing and see the blinking power bar and warning sound when you shot, would you still not understand that there is something happening when the bar is empty after only a few games?

I think this "complex" system seems so complex, BECAUSE we know the rules.
If you only see the bar in action (e.g. after 30 minutes of Training/Testing-Ground with different mechs, you will automatically understand the system.
How much you can do will come with experiencing it in action.

I still remember times where devs did not list everything and you had to guess or experiment to get what values actually changed. (especially before our beloved smurfy website).

[davoodoo]

Reno Blade, on 24 August 2016 - 09:32 AM, said:

If you had read nothing and see the blinking power bar and warning sound when you shot, would you still not understand that there is something happening when the bar is empty after only a few games?

I think this "complex" system seems so complex, BECAUSE we know the rules.
If you only see the bar in action (e.g. after 30 minutes of Training/Testing-Ground with different mechs, you will automatically understand the system.
How much you can do will come with experiencing it in action.

I still remember times where devs did not list everything and you had to guess or experiment to get what values actually changed. (especially before our beloved smurfy website).

I would notice that bar got something to do with weapon fire.

But weapons have dmg, heat, range, cooldown. Could be connected with either.

Im not sure if anyone here would figure out how much energy you got and how fast it regens within month especially now that values are adjusted for specific weapons...

Edited by davoodoo, 24 August 2016 - 09:36 AM.

[ScarecrowES]

Reno Blade, on 24 August 2016 - 09:32 AM, said:

If you had read nothing and see the blinking power bar and warning sound when you shot, would you still not understand that there is something happening when the bar is empty after only a few games?

I think this "complex" system seems so complex, BECAUSE we know the rules.
If you only see the bar in action (e.g. after 30 minutes of Training/Testing-Ground with different mechs, you will automatically understand the system.
How much you can do will come with experiencing it in action.

I still remember times where devs did not list everything and you had to guess or experiment to get what values actually changed. (especially before our beloved smurfy website).

Sure, you can figure out SOMETHING is happening, but at what depth? Think about v2 right now. Not only so you now have the different native stats for each weapon, but now you have different stats for each weapon under ED too. This one has this much damage but counts as this much when you exceed limit. This similar weapon in same category counts for totally different amount. So on.

Hard enough to figure out in the mechlab where I'm sure they'll provide more info than we have now. You'll literally need to break out a calculator to figure out your builds. But then controlling all of that in a match?

You think having to manage 3+ weapons groups, potentially with different damage profiles, cooldowns, ranges, and mechanics while also having to manage your heat on top of everything needed just to move around and engage the enemy is too difficult for some people NOW... add that little bar that rapidly fluctuates and makes it near impossible with much predictability to know if you're going to be penalized at any given moment and by how much...

Yeah. That's WAY too complex for a so-called simple system.

Edited by ScarecrowES, 24 August 2016 - 10:42 AM.

[Mystere]

ScarecrowES, on 24 August 2016 - 10:40 AM, said:

Hard enough to figure out in the mechlab where I'm sure they'll provide more info than we have now. You'll literally need to break out a calculator to figure out your builds. But then controlling all of that in a match.

Calculator? I'm already thinking of designing an ED simulator.

[davoodoo]

Mystere, on 24 August 2016 - 10:43 AM, said:

Calculator? I'm already thinking of designing an ED simulator.

Im thinking of prancing away to other games cause i seriously cant be bothered with this on top of all calculations im making just for dmg, heat and tonnage, or to put simply effective build.

Edited by davoodoo, 24 August 2016 - 10:47 AM.

[Dolph Hoskins]

ScarecrowES, on 24 August 2016 - 10:40 AM, said:

Yeah. That's WAY too complex for a so-called simple system.

You are not thinking meta.

You put any and every weapon you want into 1 group. Preferably the ones with the highest damage. Close into 275 meters since just about everything will start being effective at that range. Then alpha, alpha, chain fire. Or if you are really creative alpha, chain fire.

Thus ensues the big brawley death ball stare war with every weapon involved and much mech trashing.

[Cy Mitchell]

Ghost Heat was introduced to limit Alphas. It never succeeded in doing that. Players just learned how to circumvent the system. New players had to struggle with figuring out how to pair weapons to circumvent the system.

At least ED does limit Alphas. It also provides you with data in the MechLab that you can use to control ED and Heat when building and assigning weapon groups. It has a transparency that Ghost Heat does not have.

Too complex? Maybe. But at least it is doing what it was designed to do, somewhat, even at this early stage of testing.

Everyone hated Ghost Heat. Now, along comes Energy Draw and suddenly everyone love Ghost Heat because they do not want to change how they play the game.

[Dr Cara Carcass]

I wouldnt be suprised if the TTK went up by the same percentage the cooldowns wet up.

[Dr Cara Carcass]

Rampage, on 24 August 2016 - 12:15 PM, said:

Ghost Heat was introduced to limit Alphas. It never succeeded in doing that. Players just learned how to circumvent the system. New players had to struggle with figuring out how to pair weapons to circumvent the system.

At least ED does limit Alphas. It also provides you with data in the MechLab that you can use to control ED and Heat when building and assigning weapon groups. It has a transparency that Ghost Heat does not have.

Too complex? Maybe. But at least it is doing what it was designed to do, somewhat, even at this early stage of testing.

Everyone hated Ghost Heat. Now, along comes Energy Draw and suddenly everyone love Ghost Heat because they do not want to change how they play the game.

Not really true, i can still ahve my 60 dmg alpha without gettign into problems. ED doesnt limit alphas to 30 dmg. If anyhting at all its so unnoticeable that i have to say my builds perform the exact same - no matter if i play with GH or ED. TTK went up with higher cooldowns.

Edited by Cara Carcass, 24 August 2016 - 01:38 PM.

[East Indy]

By definition, weapons perform differently, so any ruleset that prevents blatant circumvention will need to be dynamic.

That said, the trend to PPC/Gauss/AC is uniform. It's essentially a 1.2x modifier, with only tiny disparities between individual weapons. I'm not sure what's confusing.

Reno Blade, on 24 August 2016 - 09:32 AM, said:

If you only see the bar in action (e.g. after 30 minutes of Training/Testing-Ground with different mechs, you will automatically understand the system.

Plus, the principle is obvious to a newcomer: "you generally can't safely fire a bunch of weapons at once."

[ScarecrowES]

East Indy, on 24 August 2016 - 02:16 PM, said:

By definition, weapons perform differently, so any ruleset that prevents blatant circumvention will need to be dynamic.

That said, the trend to PPC/Gauss/AC is uniform. It's essentially a 1.2x modifier, with only tiny disparities between individual weapons. I'm not sure what's confusing.


Plus, the principle is obvious to a newcomer: "you generally can't safely fire a bunch of weapons at once."

Yeah, no... there's almost nothing in this game that is obvious to a newcomer. I guarantee when the game outright tells you never to fire more than 6MLs at one time, that's a pretty clear indication of what not to do. Maybe if ED had stayed "you can't fire more than 30 pts of damage at a time" THAT might have been easier to explain to a newbie than GH. But once this goofy bar came in, and especially now that every damn weapon uses a different amount than what it's damage rating actually is, how exactly do you explain - to someone who has little to no experience in the game - exactly how many of a given weapon he can fire and how often?

Sorry... the system is obfuscated as **** right now.

And it's only likely to get worst the more PGI messes with it.

Like I said... it's probably a bad sign when the system PGI comes up with to replace ghost heat can't work unless it incorporates ghost heat - and even then, is still worst than just ghost heat alone.

Edited by ScarecrowES, 24 August 2016 - 03:08 PM.

[Cy Mitchell]

Cara Carcass, on 24 August 2016 - 01:38 PM, said:

Not really true, i can still ahve my 60 dmg alpha without gettign into problems. ED doesnt limit alphas to 30 dmg. If anyhting at all its so unnoticeable that i have to say my builds perform the exact same - no matter if i play with GH or ED. TTK went up with higher cooldowns.

Yes, you can fire a 60 point Alpha and you should be able to do that. But with GH if you chose the right work arounds you could fire it multiple time. You cannot do that in ED without shutting down. It was never in the plans to remove Alphas. They are part of lore and previous games. Repeatable Alphas are not and should have consequences. PGI choose ED as a means to that end. They could have added a heat scale to GH with various possible systems degrading due to excessive heat and riding the heat cap. I think they did ED instead because it was easier to pool all the weapons together so it would affect all and not just lasers. Otherwise another system such as reload would have had to been produced to control ballistic and missiles.

[Reno Blade]

ScarecrowES, on 24 August 2016 - 03:00 PM, said:

Yeah, no... there's almost nothing in this game that is obvious to a newcomer. I guarantee when the game outright tells you never to fire more than 6MLs at one time, that's a pretty clear indication of what not to do. Maybe if ED had stayed "you can't fire more than 30 pts of damage at a time" THAT might have been easier to explain to a newbie than GH. But once this goofy bar came in, and especially now that every damn weapon uses a different amount than what it's damage rating actually is, how exactly do you explain - to someone who has little to no experience in the game - exactly how many of a given weapon he can fire and how often?

Sorry... the system is obfuscated as **** right now.

And it's only likely to get worst the more PGI messes with it.

Like I said... it's probably a bad sign when the system PGI comes up with to replace ghost heat can't work unless it incorporates ghost heat - and even then, is still worst than just ghost heat alone.

It might be easier if you don't know (or don't care) that the system tries to be relative to the damage of the weapon.
Just check the stats of the weapon in mechlab and see that the PPC is 12 draw. Who cares that its 1.2x of DMG in the end?
The 1.0 per dmg is just the base line to make it easier to understand the approach in the PTS they are going with ED.

If they did just give us values (like the mechlab) we would not see it as "confusing", right?
This would be just: values per weapon and very fast refilling bar (30 max, 20/sec if you care for the numbers).
At least that is what newcommers would see.

Edit: ofc the weapons in mechlab should show the right power Draw value and the mech limit should show 30 as limit instead of 120.

Edited by Reno Blade, 25 August 2016 - 11:15 AM.

[1453 R]

ScarecrowES, on 24 August 2016 - 08:27 AM, said:

Your anti-ghost heat system doesn't function without ghost heat? Delicious, delicious irony.

Fine. Then we keep Ghost Heat, certain 80+-point combinations of weapons remain Perfectly A-OK(!), whilst firing 35 points of Sphere MLs causes you to spontaneously combust, Clans get both simultaneously More and Less pigf***ed than the Sphere at the same time, it still takes rookies six months to figure out why Ghost Heat says you can dump ninety laser damage on someone no problemo bruh but firing two autocannons together means you explode, Ghost Heat is still a completely U.I.-free 'feature', oh and also people will be right back to complaining about TTK, alphas, and all the garbage they've been complaining about for the last seventeen years this time tomorrow.

What's the solution, Scarecrow? If it isn't ED, what is it?

Here's a hint: if your answer, in any way, includes the word 'convergence', your answer is bad and you should feel bad. Just to head off the inevitable at the pass.