3 replies to this topic

[OznerpaG]

i don't expect this to be bulletproof, but had the idea so might as well throw it out there. i'm not going to defend it since it is what it is and PGI will do what they want in the end. this is a refinement of Energy Draw, but Energy Draw might not be the way to go in the first place...


so from a new player perspective:

Ghost Heat - put any weapons you want in any firing group, fire the weapons whenever you want, then be confused as to why your heat is spiking.

Energy Draw - put any weapons you want in any firing group, fire the weapons whenever you want, then be confused as to why your heat is spiking.

so wait, anybody who wants to learn to play MWO has to do 'homework' to learn how heat penalties work before they can figure out how to configure weapons on mechs properly?



solution - get rid of ALL heat penalties. currently E-Draw is like a floating 'energy bank' you can overdraw from whenever and however much you want which is what makes it complicated and confusing.

how E-draw should work is like an 'energy salary' - you can only withdraw the energy you have in your energy bank account, but you may never over-draw.


when you add weapons to a weapons group in mechlab it should give a running tab on the E-Draw that weapons group. if that weapons group has an alpha E-Draw over 30, then it is an illegal weapons group and can't be saved. simple, and that way you can learn how E-Draw works when you configure your weapons groups.

in-game, the game will not allow you to fire a weapons group unless you have enough energy to draw. so if you alpha a 30 E-Draw weapons group, you can not alpha that weapons group again until the full 30 energy has regenerated even if the weapons are ready to fire again before then

if you had 4 weapons groups each with an alpha E-Draw of 10, then you could shoot off 3 of them fast which would take your E-Draw to zero, but you would have to wait until your E-draw meter regenerated to 10 before you could alpha the 4th weapons group


now to make it fair for different mech classes, each mech class should have different power E-Draws:
assault - 40
heavy - 35
medium - 30
lights - 25
so assaults can have weapons groups with an E-Draw of up to 40 and the E-Draw bar regenerates to 40, etc

so don't want anyone to be able to fire more than 1 gauss at once? give gauss an E-Draw of 25, so even an assault mech may not put more than 1 gauss in any weapons group. this will allow assaults to fire 2 gauss in relatively close succession but never simultaneously, and they will have to wait until the E-draw bar regenerates to 25 again to fire a 3rd gauss (likely not making it worthwhile to mount a 3rd gauss on any mech)

don't want to be able to fire more than 2 PPCs at once? give PPCs an E-Draw of 15 so med/heavy/assaults can fire 2 at 30 E-Draw, but nobody can fire 3 at 45 E-Draw

want to fire gauss/PPC? 1 gauss + 1 PPC adds up to 40 E-Draw so only assaults can do it

Edited by OznerpaG, 30 August 2016 - 11:03 AM.

[JC Daxion]

OznerpaG, on 30 August 2016 - 10:55 AM, said:

i don't expect this to be bulletproof, but had the idea so might as well throw it out there. i'm not going to defend it since it is what it is and PGI will do what they want in the end. this is a refinement of Energy Draw, but Energy Draw might not be the way to go in the first place...


so from a new player perspective:

Ghost Heat - put any weapons you want in any firing group, fire the weapons whenever you want, then be confused as to why your heat is spiking.

Energy Draw - put any weapons you want in any firing group, fire the weapons whenever you want, then be confused as to why your heat is spiking.

so wait, anybody who wants to learn to play MWO has to do 'homework' to learn how heat penalties work before they can figure out how to configure weapons on mechs properly?

Honestly, i would not call it homework.. All it needs is one of those "!" warning thingys that pop up at the top once you go over 30 points of energy. You know the ones like wrong ammo, no ammo, ext.. Then when you click on it just explain power draw.. Weapons have have no heat penalty when using up to 30 energy points to fire, when you go over that, you gain 1 point of additional heat penalty for every point over 30. If you can't add, then MWO might be to complicated for you


There already is the Energy thing on the lower right, and it is dynamic, (though i am not sure many people have even noticed this as many say, they can't even tell how much heat a weapon has with out checking patch notes. Just installing the wepaon and seeing how much it adds shows you in game. ) Basically you can see what your weapons add up to total, or just remove and swap around to find your energy use for weapon groups at this time. though in a future PTS, or Right before it goes live, they need to at least add power draw to the weapons for simplicity and it is a weapon stat so it should be there. (just like the heat, recharge, range, ect..)

It would also be nice to have a group selector, so you can group your weapons and see the total, but that might just end up being a Smurfy thing. It would be nice, but not needed.



the other stuff.. Interesting take..

Edited by JC Daxion, 30 August 2016 - 05:31 PM.

[ScarecrowES]

The methodology for balance in Battletech was never based around damage. It was based around heat. In order to work properly, any system designed to emulate Battletech, ultimately, MUST be designed around heat. ED is all out of whack because it uses a fundamentally meaningless stat in balance terms (damage) to put a check on the most important stat in balance terms (heat).

Any system that places hard limits on various numbers or doesn't focus solely on heat is designed to fail. We'd do well to get away from such systems. Truthfully, the base heat system of MWO is the closest we've come to the right answer. PGI just made a fundemental error in design... adding the 30pt penalty scale on top of a mech's heat capacity, and having all of that drain together at a higher base rate, no matter what the build is.

The TT system works mechanically different for good reason... lower heat cap for all mechs, slower effective dissipation rates, and actual penalties for carrying heat... even adapting the system to MWO's pacing. Weirdly, this is the one system that seems to do EXACTLY what every different person wants MWO's heat system to do, but so few people actually want to put it in. Frustrating.

[Reno Blade]

The whole point which requires GH and ED is that balancing weapons only on heat does not work if you have such cool weapons such as Gauss and ACs which not only deal the same(or more) dmg, but are also PPFLD compared to their hotter counterparts (e.g. laser).

How much heat would a Gauss need to be balanced vs other ACs or all other weapons? 10-15 ?

Would you put AC5 at 4 heat because a ML is at 4 heat?
No? Trading PPFLD, range and cooldown for ammo and weight would make the AC5 and ML equal with 4 heat and 5 damage?
I don't think we can make it this simple.