31 replies to this topic

[Nightmare1]

Gas Guzzler, on 26 August 2016 - 09:58 AM, said:

Could have, but there is a discussion on reddit as well.

What's reddit?

Fiona Marshe, on 26 August 2016 - 09:50 PM, said:

Remember that things are working throuh an iterative testing process.

Once these inital passes are done, I would think that something like ED = Engine/10 may be brought in.

I like one of the suggestions that there be a small diffence between Std and XL engine of ~10%. This can logically be explained as more base load power being used to stabilise the XL reactor as a trade off to the size.

Now here's an optimist who hasn't been playing this game long enough to know about PGI!

Lol, it's refreshing to see someone who has not become cynical after experiencing so many of PGI's bumbling attempts at "balance."

That being said, it would be nice if PGI did use engine size as a means of balancing power draw, but such common sense solutions are beyond their ken.

Edited by Nightmare1, 27 August 2016 - 09:57 AM.

[Malcolm Vordermark]

Nightmare1, on 27 August 2016 - 09:56 AM, said:

That being said, it would be nice if PGI did use engine size as a means of balancing power draw, but such common sense solutions are beyond their ken.

So much is already tied to engine size, adding yet another benefit to taking bigger engines is a bad idea.

[Nightmare1]

Rouken Vordermark, on 27 August 2016 - 10:10 AM, said:

So much is already tied to engine size, adding yet another benefit to taking bigger engines is a bad idea.

Not really. The trade-offs are enough as they are; take a high weight standard to have health, or a low-weight XL for firepower. Take a big engine for speed, but sacrifice firepower in the process.

Lights and Mediums suffer the most from engine size since they can't get away with the tonnage to have both firepower and speed in many cases. This helps them more than it would Heavies. Assaults get a decent buff since they run hot anyways and move slow even with their big engines.

[ScarecrowES]

Steve Pryde, on 27 August 2016 - 02:17 AM, said:

At the beginning ED was simple to understand because there was a limit of 30 dmg but with the new pts build it got more complicated than ghost heat. I don't really understand it now, different weapons have now different energy draws? And what's with the dmg cap. Must I look at the dmg cap AND the energy draw for not overdrawing? I'm really confused.

Really, throw energy draw and ghost heat out of the window and make a heatscale with penaltys (hud flickering, getting slower etc.) like in table top or older Mechwarrior games and that's it. Every guy, even beginners, would understand that easily. Pilots can do a hot alpha strike but they barely can move into cover or aim properly their next shots.

http://mwomercs.com/...tt-heat-system/

You rang?

The one good thing that ED does is give us the mechanics we need to actually build the TT heat system. Battletech's system would require the 2-bar setup... one for your actual heat capacity (the current ED bar), and one for your penalty heat scale (standard heat bar). We have that now, so there's no reason not to try for a variation of the TT system, as I describe in the topic linked above.

Actual heat penalties included.

[Exard3k]

AnTi90d, on 26 August 2016 - 01:05 PM, said:

I strongly believe that what we have on the live server, Ghost Heat, is easier to understand.. easier to explain to new people and promotes more build diversity than any form of ED the developers could possibly come up with.

Easier to understand? players have to dig into tables from 3rd party websites and only got a warning triangle in the Mechlab essentially saying nothing and explaining even less. Ghost Heat (which is basically ED with 60 point energy regeneration and +30 energy each 0.5sec tick for a limited amount of weapon combinations) promotes no-facetime+maximum damage builds. ED with 20 point regeneration gets lower alphas, almost same dps and longer fights and gets MWO away from being a cover-shooter.

ED isn't built to promote mixed builds or boating, you can do both and be fine just as today. It just limits alphas and spreads the damage over a second or two. And it emphasises on high pinpoint weapons being powerful and spread weapons being less powerful and balance them with each other with the energy coefficient.

Energy Draw is better than Heatscaling we have today. It's not the perfect solution and there probably is none. There is further tweaking needed on ED, but I'm confident that ED will be an improvement in gameplay for the majority of the players and with a visible gauge for energy as well as a tooltip in module info this will be more comprehensible for all players.

Edited by Exard3k, 27 August 2016 - 11:01 AM.

[Malcolm Vordermark]

Nightmare1, on 27 August 2016 - 10:15 AM, said:

Not really. The trade-offs are enough as they are; take a high weight standard to have health, or a low-weight XL for firepower. Take a big engine for speed, but sacrifice firepower in the process.

Movement speed, twist speed, turn speed, extra DHS slots (making more room for upgrades like endo and ferro). No, engines already influence plenty of a mechs offensive and defensive capabilities.

[Vincent Quatermain]

AnTi90d, on 26 August 2016 - 10:13 AM, said:

Every poll (I've seen two here and one on reddit.. buried a few pages back) of GHvsED has been 50/50 or 45/55.. I still say it's a terrible move to knowingly piss off roughly half of your paying playerbase.

The problem with those polls is that those opposed to ED are not particularly unified. Some of the opponents would like to see Ghost Heat kept (with or without a new UI). Some of them want some kind of Ghost Aim (of which there are at least a half dozen different versions). Some of them want a lower heat cap or intermediate heat effects (most of whom will vanish when a certain other BT game comes out). Some of them just don't trust PGI to do this right (understandable) and/or want PGI to spend resources elsewhere (despite the resources for ED largely being spent already). Those in favor of ED, like myself, are not necessarily full-on cheerleaders for it. Most see the effect as a marginal improvement over GH, and want it to just get done so that PGI can move on to other things that need attention, most notably Faction Play.

As much as I enjoy the snarky dust-ups in these forums of late, it's important to note that opinion is diverse and hyperbole is rife around here. The MWO community cannot, and will not, ever agree on the right way to balance the game. My take on the issue is simple. Scrubs will always ***** about the meta and blame it for their failures, regardless of what the meta is. Therefore, the opinion of scrubs about balance is irrelevant. Not that PGI should ever come out and say that, that's just what they should do. There are two factors that actually matter:

First, will the diversity of builds among competitive players increase? For PTS1, the answer was no. For PTS2, the answer is likely yes, and I expect that to get better in the next iteration.

Second, are the game mechanics intutitive for newer players? Here, ED wins hands down. It's a soft cap rather than a hard cap, and there's an in-game UI.

Thus, Energy Draw is a net positive. Let's do some more testing, send it live, and then PGI can go fix Faction Play, which needs serious attention.

Edited by Vincent Quatermain, 27 August 2016 - 11:57 AM.

[ScarecrowES]

Exard3k, on 27 August 2016 - 11:01 AM, said:

Easier to understand? players have to dig into tables from 3rd party websites and only got a warning triangle in the Mechlab essentially saying nothing and explaining even less. Ghost Heat (which is basically ED with 60 point energy regeneration and +30 energy each 0.5sec tick for a limited amount of weapon combinations) promotes no-facetime+maximum damage builds. ED with 20 point regeneration gets lower alphas, almost same dps and longer fights and gets MWO away from being a cover-shooter.

ED isn't built to promote mixed builds or boating, you can do both and be fine just as today. It just limits alphas and spreads the damage over a second or two. And it emphasises on high pinpoint weapons being powerful and spread weapons being less powerful and balance them with each other with the energy coefficient.

Energy Draw is better than Heatscaling we have today. It's not the perfect solution and there probably is none. There is further tweaking needed on ED, but I'm confident that ED will be an improvement in gameplay for the majority of the players and with a visible gauge for energy as well as a tooltip in module info this will be more comprehensible for all players.

Realizing that ED as it stands right now is just the base heat system WITH ghost heat AND an extra mechanic, and is still thoroughly worse than what's on the live servers right now. Just saying. You're adding tons more but aren't even getting back to what we already have. What's the point.

If we're going to use ED mechanics, then just use the TT heat system, which has similar functionality but was actually DESIGNED to control these weapons.

[ScarecrowES]

Vincent Quatermain, on 27 August 2016 - 11:56 AM, said:

The problem with those polls is that those opposed to ED are not particularly unified. Some of the opponents would like to see Ghost Heat kept (with or without a new UI). Some of them want some kind of Ghost Aim (of which there are at least a half dozen different versions). Some of them want a lower heat cap or intermediate heat effects (most of whom will vanish when a certain other BT game comes out). Some of them just don't trust PGI to do this right (understandable) and/or want PGI to spend resources elsewhere (despite the resources for ED largely being spent already). Those in favor of ED, like myself, are not necessarily full-on cheerleaders for it. Most see the effect as a marginal improvement over GH, and want it to just get done so that PGI can move on to other things that need attention, most notably Faction Play.

As much as I enjoy the snarky dust-ups in these forums of late, it's important to note that opinion is diverse and hyperbole is rife around here. The MWO community cannot, and will not, ever agree on the right way to balance the game. My take on the issue is simple. Scrubs will always ***** about the meta and blame it for their failures, regardless of what the meta is. Therefore, the opinion of scrubs about balance is irrelevant. Not that PGI should ever come out and say that, that's just what they should do. There are two factors that actually matter:

First, will the diversity of builds among competitive players increase? For PTS1, the answer was no. For PTS2, the answer is likely yes, and I expect that to get better in the next iteration.

Second, are the game mechanics intutitive for newer players? Here, ED wins hands down. It's a soft cap rather than a hard cap, and there's an in-game UI.

Thus, Energy Draw is a net positive. Let's do some more testing, send it live, and then PGI can go fix Faction Play, which needs serious attention.

The answers to the two questions you posed are decidely wrong... to your first, competitive players have already demonstrated that vomit and splat builds on PTS2 are far and away better comparatively than they are on the live servers. There is no reason to diversify when what's already working is made much better

To your second, ED now has its base rule set, and now a completely new set of ghost rules that are nowhere near as clear as those on Ghost Heat. You literally need a calculator to figure out what your heat draw is. Soft cap or not, when you have to have a calculator handy to build a mech just to figure out if it's going to shut down every 2 seconds, you lose any claim to simplicity. It's decidedly LESS intuitive. Not even close.

[Vincent Quatermain]

ScarecrowES, on 27 August 2016 - 12:04 PM, said:

The answers to the two questions you posed are decidely wrong... to your first, competitive players have already demonstrated that vomit and splat builds on PTS2 are far and away better comparatively than they are on the live servers.

I'm not exactly clear on what you are saying here. I hope you aren't comparing relative viability across builds, because that is irrelevant. What is important is whether relative viability is the same within a particular build. Splat builds do seem to be better, but splat builds are presently very niche, so that would seem to increase diversity. Laser vomit might be an issue, and perhaps the ballistic nerf was too much. But lasers are inherently weaker per point of damage than ballistic (pinpoint vs. DOT), and they are hotter at base, so going over the draw limit with ballistic is more forgiving than doing so with lasers. I would say that PTS2 may have over-nerfed PPCs (which were ridiculously good in PTS1).

ScarecrowES, on 27 August 2016 - 12:04 PM, said:

To your second, ED now has its base rule set, and now a completely new set of ghost rules that are nowhere near as clear as those on Ghost Heat. You literally need a calculator to figure out what your heat draw is.

As opposed to under Ghost Heat where I can't even do it with a calculator since the penalties aren't even spelled out in the game? Or do you mean as opposed to GH where the game has no UI feedback about when penalties kick in?

Energy draw has no ghost anything. The values are going to be present in both the mechlab and the in-match UI. It does have extra heat, but both systems have that.

ScarecrowES, on 27 August 2016 - 12:04 PM, said:

Soft cap or not, when you have to have a calculator handy to build a mech just to figure out if it's going to shut down every 2 seconds, you lose any claim to simplicity. It's decidedly LESS intuitive. Not even close.

Right now, if I take weapons that break GH, I must go into the testing grounds to have an idea how hot that is going to be. If basic arithmetic using mostly integers is too much for you, then you will have to use the testing grounds just like you already have to do when you break GH. No big deal.

[AnTi90d]

Vincent Quatermain, on 27 August 2016 - 11:56 AM, said:

The problem with those polls is that those opposed to ED are not particularly unified. Some of the opponents would like to see Ghost Heat kept (with or without a new UI). Some of them want some kind of Ghost Aim (of which there are at least a half dozen different versions). Some of them want a lower heat cap or intermediate heat effects (most of whom will vanish when a certain other BT game comes out). Some of them just don't trust PGI to do this right (understandable) and/or want PGI to spend resources elsewhere (despite the resources for ED largely being spent already). Those in favor of ED, like myself, are not necessarily full-on cheerleaders for it. Most see the effect as a marginal improvement over GH, and want it to just get done so that PGI can move on to other things that need attention, most notably Faction Play.

While the people that don't want ED aren't unified in what system PGI should develop, if any, there are still roughly 45% of the game's population that is against ED. This whole PTS has shown that 45% didn't like ED1 or ED2.. so implementing some form of ED would directly be against the wishes of 45% of the playerbase.. It would be a poor business decision to implement ED in either form.

While on the topic, I'll link the polls for those that are interested.

1.) The reddit poll.
http://www.strawpoll.me/11037470
http://www.strawpoll.me/11037470/r
(The second link is a directl link to the results.. because the first link might not let you vote, today, as Google is under a large DDOS attack for this weekend because of something they did to Google maps in Israel/Palestine.)

2.) The first ED poll, here
http://mwomercs.com/...35126-gh-or-ed/

3.) The second ED poll, here
http://mwomercs.com/...y-draw-round-2/

4.) The third ED poll, here
http://mwomercs.com/...ference-survey/
(This is too young of a poll to draw conclusions from, currently.. give it a few days.)

There is a clear pattern of roughly 45% of the playerbase not wanting ED. Putting any form of ED into the live server is going to piss off four out of every ten players. MWO can't afford the potential loss of those people. Their best bet is to just say, "We tried," and move their development dollars on to other projects.

[ScarecrowES]

AnTi90d, on 27 August 2016 - 01:51 PM, said:

While the people that don't want ED aren't unified in what system PGI should develop, if any, there are still roughly 45% of the game's population that is against ED. This whole PTS has shown that 45% didn't like ED1 or ED2.. so implementing some form of ED would directly be against the wishes of 45% of the playerbase.. It would be a poor business decision to implement ED in either form.

While on the topic, I'll link the polls for those that are interested.

1.) The reddit poll.
http://www.strawpoll.me/11037470
http://www.strawpoll.me/11037470/r
(The second link is a directl link to the results.. because the first link might not let you vote, today, as Google is under a large DDOS attack for this weekend because of something they did to Google maps in Israel/Palestine.)

2.) The first ED poll, here
http://mwomercs.com/...35126-gh-or-ed/

3.) The second ED poll, here
http://mwomercs.com/...y-draw-round-2/

4.) The third ED poll, here
http://mwomercs.com/...ference-survey/
(This is too young of a poll to draw conclusions from, currently.. give it a few days.)

There is a clear pattern of roughly 45% of the playerbase not wanting ED. Putting any form of ED into the live server is going to piss off four out of every ten players. MWO can't afford the potential loss of those people. Their best bet is to just say, "We tried," and move their development dollars on to other projects.

The advantage of the poll I just put up is that it will determine not only favorability outright (which do you like better), but how, if at all, your investment in the game is likely to change under various heat systems. This helps to figure out just how strongly players feel about the various systems.

For the first poll you posted, the result of PTS1 is 91% unfavorable.

The second poll is deceptive, as it includes results that are not actually positive (the system needs work) as being a positive endorsement of the system. If a player acknowledges a system needs work, that is not a directly favorable result. Many players may not want a "system in development" to be implemented over a well-functioning existing system, even if it shows promise. Still, 45% fully against the system, even if improvements are made. THAT is decidedly negative.

Third poll has same flaw. Most players who show support for ED also note it needs a lot of work. That's very back-handed praise. There needs to be distinction between "I like it the way it is" vs "I like the direction it's heading but it needs work."

Edited by ScarecrowES, 27 August 2016 - 02:02 PM.