50 replies to this topic

[Khobai]

to me the definition of alphastriking is having at least 3 weapons and firing all those weapons simultaneously.

if you just have one weapon thats not alphastriking. even two weapons I dont think qualifies.

like if youre playing an fps and fire a pistol in each hand thats not alphastriking. but if youre firing a pistol in each hand while simultaneously firing a skull gun sticking out of your eye socket thats an alphastrike lol

so most fps games dont qualify as alphastriking. alphastriking mostly happens in sim games where you pilot mechs or ships with tons of weapons.

Edited by Khobai, 25 August 2016 - 08:10 AM.

[Davison]

I'd have to disagree entirely with the OP's definition of an alpha strike. In my experience, an alpha strike is the simultaneous firing of your entire available payload of ordnance, whatever it may be, for maximum instantaneous damage. A good example is a multi-gun artillery battery firing all tubes at once, then being saddled with reloading the entire battery thereafter, rather than alternating guns for a sustained barrage for lesser immediate effect, but far greater sustainability. As such, I would say that very few shooters qualify as having such a gameplay "feature". Even CoD's closest equivalent are high caliber sniper rifles, which are only arguably "alpha strike" weapons.

Firing multiple rounds in quick succession, however much shorter the TTK than in MWO, is still not maximum instantaneous damage. It's spread out over the burst duration, however brief that may be. As such, I find it hard to quantify the claim that alpha strikes are a primary gameplay feature in most shooters.

Just my two C-bills on the matter.

[Novakaine]

MMMMMMMM hyperbole, much tastier than salt.

[TLBFestus]

In Lore Alpha Strikes were a last ditch, desperation move to take out an opponent. They carried significant risk of self-harm when used.

That's not the case in the majority of shooters you referred to, nor is it the case (currently) in MWO.

Alpha-strikes are pretty much the goal every time you shoot at an opponent because they have the highest reward for minimal risk. Personally, while I would hope that the Energy Draw feature can be tweaked to take us away from this CoD in robots style of game play I don't think it will because its not the sole solution.

They need to implement not only a heat penalty the includes shutdown and possible explosion, but other negative effects like reticle blur, speed and torso twist slow down etc. Once there are sufficient penalties in place the Alpha Strike will become what it was meant to be, a high risk option with high rewards.

[Gyrok]

Random Carnage, on 24 August 2016 - 09:49 PM, said:

Flawed logic G.

Just because you can fit x amount of total fire power on a chassis does not mean that the chassis is optimised to fire them all at once.

Sure, it can do it, but it can't sustain it. That's exactly the way it should be.

By your thinking, total weapon capacity should be reduced to a level were it is sustainable to fire everything at once.

That is what the top tier min/maxing crowd does.

Why boat 12 ERMLs on a nova when you can fire 6-8 sustainably incredibly well...? To elaborate, 6 MPLs will hardly max the hardpoint count on most energy mechs, but it is a very popular edge of meta loadout.

I am not arguing about using all of the hardpoints. I am explaining why the top tier of players play the way they do.

El Bandito, on 24 August 2016 - 09:54 PM, said:

Gyrok is omitting one big part of why MWO is different than other CoD shooters. Damage vs. sustainability.

His thread is not worth looking unless he properly addresses that.

Ok.

So you want Game Design 201?

CoD, and most of the other similar shooters, have a recharging health bar to enable you to better expose yourself to limted fire.

TTK is typically 2-3 rounds to death per individual, and so the recharge gives a slight boost in sustainability versus the incoming damage.

MWO does not have such a system in place, and also offers no respawning versus the other titles. TTK is *much* higher in MWO comparatively. A noob standing still trying to aim with his mouse set to 5K dpi will die in 2-3 volleys, much like the same noob who hops over a hill top with a firing line setup on the opposite side of said hill.

Top tier players can take that same mech and loadout and make it soak 5 times more damage before dying. Why? Because MWO offers a much higher hitpoint pool, and ablative armor that absorbs incoming damage.

You only get 1 spawn, but MWO matches typically last much longer than a single spawn version of CoD would allow to happen.

By the same token, focused fire is drastically more prevalent in MWO. There is much less fluid movement for the most part, and a single mech against a group is much less threat to that group than a single person to a group of enemies in a game like CoD/BF.

The dynamics are different, but not for the reasons that I feel like you believe it to be.

Higher TTK promotes more deathballs, higher skill gap between fireteams focusing fire and PUGs.

If you want to level the playing field, then giving people, who can already squeeze significantly more time alive out of a mech, even more time to kill others is going to result in a greater imbalance between the top 10% and the other 90%.

[El Bandito]

When I mentioned about sustainability, I was specifically referring to heat management, something CoD or CS:GO does not have.

Gyrok, on 27 August 2016 - 06:36 PM, said:

If you want to level the playing field, then giving people, who can already squeeze significantly more time alive out of a mech, even more time to kill others is going to result in a greater imbalance between the top 10% and the other 90%.

And what's wrong with that? Let the 10% do their thing, as they have always done before, as long as this game feels more BT and less CoD.

Edited by El Bandito, 27 August 2016 - 06:40 PM.

[Gyrok]

Davison, on 25 August 2016 - 10:05 AM, said:

I'd have to disagree entirely with the OP's definition of an alpha strike. In my experience, an alpha strike is the simultaneous firing of your entire available payload of ordnance, whatever it may be, for maximum instantaneous damage. A good example is a multi-gun artillery battery firing all tubes at once, then being saddled with reloading the entire battery thereafter, rather than alternating guns for a sustained barrage for lesser immediate effect, but far greater sustainability. As such, I would say that very few shooters qualify as having such a gameplay "feature". Even CoD's closest equivalent are high caliber sniper rifles, which are only arguably "alpha strike" weapons.

Firing multiple rounds in quick succession, however much shorter the TTK than in MWO, is still not maximum instantaneous damage. It's spread out over the burst duration, however brief that may be. As such, I find it hard to quantify the claim that alpha strikes are a primary gameplay feature in most shooters.

Just my two C-bills on the matter.

A headshot from any weapon in CoD is typically a 1 shot kill.

Hence you are "alpha-striking".

[Gyrok]

El Bandito, on 27 August 2016 - 06:38 PM, said:

And what's wrong with that? Let the 10% do their thing, as they have always done before, as long as this game feels more BT and less CoD.

I said this a long time ago.

They need to just remove " A BATTLETECH GAME" from the title.

This is an arena shooter. It is mechwarrior. While mechwarrior is based on the BT IP...the 2 are mostly incongruous in terms of gameplay and skillsets, as well as the experience to the player.

A TT campaign is a huge overarching picture of a battlefield with no emphasis on a single mech, unless you are playing a mechwarrior RPG version.

MWO is an arena shooter, that left sim in the dust 4 years ago when repair and rearm was dropped among other things, to move on to capture the broader FPS audience. I think the issue here is that many are having a hard time reconciling that this is not a simulator, it is an arena shooter. There is not even a campaign...4 years later. So, if you want BattleTech, I will see you in the HBS BT game. If you want a first person arena shooter with robots, you need to come to grips with the fact that it is not a TT experience, nor will it ever, even remotely, resemble that.

EDIT: Furthermore...the reason that the top 10% matter, is because people have to play them in the PUG queue, and group queue, and FW/CW, and every other mode of the game. That is part of the reason of the incessant bitching about so many things..."this weapon is OP because the magician killed me with it on a KFX".

That is seriously the kind of crap that kills a game.

Edited by Gyrok, 27 August 2016 - 06:46 PM.

[El Bandito]

Gyrok, on 27 August 2016 - 06:44 PM, said:

I said this a long time ago.
MWO is an arena shooter, that left sim in the dust 4 years ago when repair and rearm was dropped among other things, to move on to capture the broader FPS audience. I think the issue here is that many are having a hard time reconciling that this is not a simulator, it is an arena shooter. There is not even a campaign...4 years later. So, if you want BattleTech, I will see you in the HBS BT game. If you want a first person arena shooter with robots, you need to come to grips with the fact that it is not a TT experience, nor will it ever, even remotely, resemble that.

EDIT: Furthermore...the reason that the top 10% matter, is because people have to play them in the PUG queue, and group queue, and FW/CW, and every other mode of the game. That is part of the reason of the incessant bitching about so many things..."this weapon is OP because the magician killed me with it on a KFX".

That is seriously the kind of crap that kills a game.

1. Being an arena shooter doesn't have to mean it has to follow CoD formula. MWO uses heat system, something no CoD game has. Hence you needed to address damage vs. sustainability.

2. Bitching about queueing with people who has higher skill than you is the MM issue, not the game mechanics issue.

Edited by El Bandito, 27 August 2016 - 06:57 PM.

[Gyrok]

El Bandito, on 27 August 2016 - 06:56 PM, said:

1. Being an arena shooter doesn't have to mean it has to follow CoD formula. MWO uses heat system, something no CoD game has. Hence you needed to address damage vs. sustainability.

2. Bitching about queueing with people who has higher skill than you is the MM issue, not the game mechanics issue.

Heat and ammo are more or less the same thing. The primary difference is that energy weapons in MWO use an inverse mana bar because there is no ammo for them. Hence, the heatsinks you mount to them act like ammo because they allow you to fire more at a time, or more frequently.

There is no discussion to be had beyond that about ammo versus heat.

CoD is ammo limited, MWO has weapons that are ammo or heat limited. Very few instances have circumstances where both are the case (AC40 comes to mind, but barring that, nothing else is really heat limited when it has ammo).

[El Bandito]

Gyrok, on 27 August 2016 - 07:10 PM, said:

Heat and ammo are more or less the same thing. The primary difference is that energy weapons in MWO use an inverse mana bar because there is no ammo for them. Hence, the heatsinks you mount to them act like ammo because they allow you to fire more at a time, or more frequently.

There is no discussion to be had beyond that about ammo versus heat.

CoD is ammo limited, MWO has weapons that are ammo or heat limited. Very few instances have circumstances where both are the case (AC40 comes to mind, but barring that, nothing else is really heat limited when it has ammo).

Now I see where your simplistic view comes from. You think ammo and heat are the same thing! But they are not. As watered down as MWO's heat system and penalty system are, they offer very different experience from CoD's ammo system.

[Gyrok]

El Bandito, on 27 August 2016 - 07:25 PM, said:

Now I see where your simplistic view comes from. You think ammo and heat are the same thing! But they are not. As watered down as MWO's heat system and penalty system are, they offer very different experience from CoD's ammo system.

No...from the perspective of a systems designer...they are the same thing. Ammo is a finite resource that limits how much you can fire before finding more, while heat is an inverse mana bar that limits how much you can fire before waiting for it to dissipate.

They are merely systems in place to limit maximum damage output.

EDIT: The primary difference is that an ammo system encourages movement and action. A heat system discourages both.

Edited by Gyrok, 27 August 2016 - 07:33 PM.

[SamsungNinja]

I have to take exception with the OP. If you're talking Sniper Rifles, that's high alpha. If you're talking SMGs and ARs... that's chain-firing, son.

So no, not every shooter is balanced around high alpha. Most shooters are balanced around a diversity of damage outputs types that are balanced around effective DPS. A sniper rifle with a longer reload time is fine because it should average out to roughly similar DPS. SMGs have higher RoF because they do less damage per shot. High risk/high reward vs. low risk/low reward.

The problem isn't balancing alpha strikes, it's balancing DPS while keeping it interesting and varied across chassis types, weapon types, and tech without letting TTK drop too low.

A high alpha is fine, provided that you have a longer downtime. The issue C-UAC spam introduces is that it disrupts that balance tremendously. I say this as someone who actively abuses uses quack spam. That notwithstanding, I'm a fan of a flanker/striker gameplay, and tend to prefer builds where I can deliver my payload and gtfo before I take too much damage. Fast-moving and hard-hitting, but can't take many direct hits. That's my peanut butter and jelly, right there.

I digress. MWO introduces another factor into the equation with heat. Heat is important to bring potential DPS down to the intended level of sustained DPS. High-DPS builds should, in theory, generate heat at either A) a steady rate or in large spikes, depending on how those weapons are fired. In the case of alpha striking, it's the latter.

The issue with quack spam is that it's both high DPS and low heat. It's not difficult to put together a quack spam build with 30dps and at least 30ish seconds of sustain. That's, assuming you never jam or miss a shot (and hitreg doesn't booty-hole your prospects), a potential for 900dmg in 30 seconds. You can't get to that without quack spam. I've been the first 'mech to die, 3mins into a match and still wound up with ~400 damage before.

Granted, I'm ignoring factors like pinpoint vs. spread and things like beam, indirect fire, or lock-on weapon types. The fact that you almost never see C-ACs, and invariably see C-UACs pretty much says it all.

Edited by SamsungNinja, 27 August 2016 - 07:57 PM.

[Dirus Nigh]

I think the OP would look into playing Hawken or Mech Assault. These games seem to have what he is looking for.

[MechaBattler]

They're gonna nerf high alphas and that's really all there is to it. And I wholeheartedly agree with it.

[Novakaine]

MechaBattler, on 27 August 2016 - 08:26 PM, said:

They're gonna nerf high alphas and that's really all there is to it. And I wholeheartedly agree with it.

Good, Alpha strikes should be a last ditch attack and not every 3.5 one.

[xe N on]

Alpha strike in a FPS like e.g. Quake would like wielding the railgun in the left hand, the lightning gun in the right hand while using the rocket launcher as shoulder mounter weapon - firing them at once.

For good reason that is not possible.

Edited by xe N on, 27 August 2016 - 09:31 PM.

[XtremWarrior]

xe N on, on 27 August 2016 - 09:31 PM, said:

Alpha strike in a FPS like e.g. Quake would like wielding the railgun in the left hand, the lightning gun in the right hand while using the rocket launcher as shoulder mounter weapon - firing them at once.

For good reason that is not possible.

When OP said common FPS are all about alpha strikes, i pictured Gordon Freeman with his Gauss in one hand, rocket launcher in the other and his good'ol crowbar between his teeth.
OP nerver switched weapons in FPS it seems.

EDIT: (i found what i was looking for )
Alpha strike this!

Edited by XtremWarrior, 28 August 2016 - 01:55 AM.

[BigJim]

SamsungNinja, on 27 August 2016 - 07:55 PM, said:

I have to take exception with the OP. If you're talking Sniper Rifles, that's high alpha. If you're talking SMGs and ARs... that's chain-firing, son.

I've only quoted part of this post, not because I couldn't be bothered to read it (I did), but because it makes a point.

Personally, I don't know why quite so many people jumped up & down on Gyrok for his post... But similarly I don't know why the OP felt the need to post such a long tirade to make such a simple & obvious point.

Yes - The Alpha strike (or in other words; Doing as much damage possible in a single shot) is the most effective way to fight in any shooter. No way around it, and it's pretty much universal.

Sure, other games have SMGs, MGs, chainguns, etc... But they require facetime.


If you as a player in UT, Quake, CoD, whatever have the skill to bounce around using a high-damage, single-shot weapon (often but not always the sniper type weapons) and only exponse yourself to a moment of enemy fire then you're gonna do better than the guy who has to hold target & spray a DoT weapon, like the MGs or Chainguns or Pulse Gun, etc... who has to expose himself to significantly more enemy fire.

Ergo, the "Alpha" style of fighting is the most powerful. Simple. It's self-evidently true.

Now, it might be worth stating that this truism stretches across nearly all other shooters, such that it might be deemed to be a universal truth of shooters. But then again we're all aware of this already; Hence the natural affinity we have for front loaded damage weapons in MWO if we're trying to bring our A game.

Ok, MWO does have an additional mechanic in comparison to your traditional one-weapon-at-a-time-shooter; Weapon groups.
But at the end of the day it doesn't alter the dichotomy of "alpha" vs chain/DoT firing.


So again, I point out - The OP is generally correct in what he says, there's no need to try & stamp all over his post; Shooters are, and do have to be, balanced around the player's ability to do max damage in a single shot (as we've already conceded it's the most powerful way to engage, and it's the method we'll be naturally drawn to as soon as our skills and competitiveness allow). What was so controversial about it?


Was it (dare I ask) the fact that Gyrok is so skilled a pi**ing people off that caused folk to instantly jump up & down on his post?

Edited by BigJim, 28 August 2016 - 02:38 AM.

[Hotthedd]

SamsungNinja, on 27 August 2016 - 07:55 PM, said:

I have to take exception with the OP. If you're talking Sniper Rifles, that's high alpha. If you're talking SMGs and ARs... that's chain-firing, son.

Are you firing all of your equipped weapons at once? If so, it is by definition an Alpha strike.

SamsungNinja, on 27 August 2016 - 07:55 PM, said:

So no, not every shooter is balanced around high alpha. Most shooters are balanced around a diversity of damage outputs types that are balanced around effective DPS. A sniper rifle with a longer reload time is fine because it should average out to roughly similar DPS. SMGs have higher RoF because they do less damage per shot. High risk/high reward vs. low risk/low reward.

MW:O does not have that balance, for two reasons:
1. There is no heat scale. 0% heat is effectively the same as 99% heat.
2. Instant perfect precise accurate convergence allows multiple weapons of the same type to basically be used as one mega weapon.
So, there is literally no downside to Alpha/Group fire. Therefore, it is the only way to play most builds.

SamsungNinja, on 27 August 2016 - 07:55 PM, said:

The problem isn't balancing alpha strikes, it's balancing DPS while keeping it interesting and varied across chassis types, weapon types, and tech without letting TTK drop too low.

Balancing around DPS makes no sense when DPS is not the optimum play style. Alpha/Group fire is always better.

SamsungNinja, on 27 August 2016 - 07:55 PM, said:

A high alpha is fine, provided that you have a longer downtime.

A longer downtime is good, but as long as you can deliver all of that damage to one spot, and still move as if you were at 0% heat, it is not enough of a trade-off.

SamsungNinja, on 27 August 2016 - 07:55 PM, said:

The issue C-UAC spam introduces is that it disrupts that balance tremendously. I say this as someone who actively abuses uses quack spam. That notwithstanding, I'm a fan of a flanker/striker gameplay, and tend to prefer builds where I can deliver my payload and gtfo before I take too much damage. Fast-moving and hard-hitting, but can't take many direct hits. That's my peanut butter and jelly, right there.

Fast moving and Hard hitting and with zero adverse effects from heat or accuracy is a combination that renders every other play style ineffective.

SamsungNinja, on 27 August 2016 - 07:55 PM, said:

I digress. MWO introduces another factor into the equation with heat. Heat is important to bring potential DPS down to the intended level of sustained DPS. High-DPS builds should, in theory, generate heat at either A) a steady rate or in large spikes, depending on how those weapons are fired. In the case of alpha striking, it's the latter.

If spiking your heat does not also bring negative effects, then heat is really no longer a factor.

SamsungNinja, on 27 August 2016 - 07:55 PM, said:

The issue with quack spam is that it's both high DPS and low heat. It's not difficult to put together a quack spam build with 30dps and at least 30ish seconds of sustain. That's, assuming you never jam or miss a shot (and hitreg doesn't booty-hole your prospects), a potential for 900dmg in 30 seconds. You can't get to that without quack spam. I've been the first 'mech to die, 3mins into a match and still wound up with ~400 damage before.

And this is why group fire accuracy needs to be looked at.

SamsungNinja, on 27 August 2016 - 07:55 PM, said:

Granted, I'm ignoring factors like pinpoint vs. spread and things like beam, indirect fire, or lock-on weapon types. The fact that you almost never see C-ACs, and invariably see C-UACs pretty much says it all.

The cA/C vs. cUA/C issue isn't one because of any of those factors (which DO need to be looked at), it is because of raw damage, especially with group fire.