30 replies to this topic

[kapusta11]

Wintersdark, on 03 September 2016 - 09:53 AM, said:

You don't "link ML and LPL", ghost heat is designed with weapons being assigned to an existing weapon group, which may either be a big group (cERML) or one in which they are the only entry (see: IS MPL). They are not linked to other weapons at all, and are only a member of one group.

Now, before insulting people, open up the XML that defines this, it's the base weapon stats. Every weapon belongs to one and only one linked heat group. That's it. That's how the system works.

To link ML and LPL, you MUST assign ML to the Large Energy Group or assign LPL to the Small Energy Group. In either case, the weapon no longer belongs to its prior group.

As well, factor isn't the number of weapons fired, it's the heat penalty factor. So this isn't about how many you fire, it's about the penalties for exceeding the limits. The factor used is always the highest of the fired weapons, then multiplied by the sum of the heat generated by the fired weapons. This is fine when the weapons are similar, but breaks down when they're different.

You can change the system so that one weapon can belong to multiple groups. Just hire a programmer and add a few pages of code.

And when did I insult you? Was there some micro aggression in my post?

[Wintersdark]

kapusta11, on 03 September 2016 - 10:04 AM, said:

You can change the system so that one weapon can belong to multiple groups. Just hire a programmer and add a few pages of code.

And when did I insult you? Was there some micro aggression in my post?

It's a non trivial change is what I'm saying. You're building a wholly different system at that point and... Oh, there we go, ED.

See, this is my point. Once they start engineering a new system entirely, then they're looking to fix the problems they had from the start with Ghost Heat. And that's what they did.


Doing the above is possible, but non-trivial. They did it, in fact. You don't like the new system, and that's fine, but that was always a danger. In fact, it was a certainty; no matter what they did, some wouldn't like it.

But what they're NOT going to do now is scrap the system and try another one from scratch. No chance of that at all.

[Zionkan]

Well i cant understand why we need another system, it would be much easier to say max alpha heat = 30 if u go above your mech heat spreaders gets bottlenecked and have xx% reduced cooling efficency for the next x seconds (think what u want as xx, x).
It could even scale, if heat 31-40 xx reduced for x seconds if 41-50 xx+zz reduced for x+y seconds.
It would need a special mechanism 4 Gauss like u cant fire other weapons while shooting the gauss or the like but it woud be much easier to understand.

[Wintersdark]

Zionkan, on 03 September 2016 - 10:12 AM, said:

Well i cant understand why we need another system, it would be much easier to say max alpha heat = 30 if u go above your mech heat spreaders gets bottlenecked and have xx% reduced cooling efficency for the next x seconds (think what u want as xx, x).
It could even scale, if heat 31-40 xx reduced for x seconds if 41-50 xx+zz reduced for x+y seconds.
It would need a special mechanism 4 Gauss like u cant fire other weapons while shooting the gauss or the like but it woud be much easier to understand.

That doesn't work because not all damage is created equal. That's what ED doesn't have flat 1:1 heat:draw ratios for all weapons. SRM6's doing 12 damage are less dangerous than a PPC doing 10.

[kapusta11]

Wintersdark, on 03 September 2016 - 10:09 AM, said:

It's a non trivial change is what I'm saying. You're building a wholly different system at that point and... Oh, there we go, ED.

Now that's just a fallacy.

[Zionkan]

Wintersdark, on 03 September 2016 - 10:17 AM, said:

That doesn't work because not all damage is created equal. That's what ED doesn't have flat 1:1 heat:draw ratios for all weapons. SRM6's doing 12 damage are less dangerous than a PPC doing 10.

Thats why i do not base on damage but HEAT (with exception for gauss that needs another treatment).

Edited by Zionkan, 03 September 2016 - 10:37 AM.

[vocifer]

kapusta11, on 03 September 2016 - 10:26 AM, said:

Now that's just a fallacy.

That's called a "Stockholm syndrome".

Wintersdark, on 03 September 2016 - 10:09 AM, said:

It's a non trivial change is what I'm saying. You're building a wholly different system at that point and... Oh, there we go, ED.

It's not about building a new system or not. It's about a 1 week vs 90 day development cost. Your money is being wasted!

[Wintersdark]

vocifer, on 03 September 2016 - 10:43 AM, said:

That's called a "Stockholm syndrome".



It's not about building a new system or not. It's about a 1 week vs 90 day development cost. Your money is being wasted!

I love when people just know exactly how many dev hours would go into their pet project vs some other project. It's funny.

But it doesn't matter either.

Because those dev hours are ALREADY SPENT on the project we have.

At no point have I said ED is the best option. I definitely do not think it is. But it doesn't matter now because that time and money is already spent. Maybe it was wasted, but it wasn't my money so I don't really care. PGI doesn't consult me for their budgets.

What they aren't going to do is throw it away and replace it with another new system that may end up not working well or exploitable in other strange ways, particularly when they feel ED is fulfilling the goals they set for it - whether you like those goals or not.

[Sable]

AnTi90d, on 03 September 2016 - 08:11 AM, said:

They can link weapons together in ghost heat, which would provide build diversity while also reducing boating.

A medium laser could count as 0.5 of a large laser.. an AC5 could count as 0.5 of an AC10.. The game is moderately balanced with ghost heat, and the only thing people complain about are "workarounds" that could be easily fixed with further weapon linking.. especially if it isn't 1:1.. and then further explained by writing better tooltips or providing more information in the mechlab.

I don't think you understand what a diverse build means or how it functions. Being able to fire all your lasers AND all your autocannons at the same time for a large alphastrike while usurping what ghost heat is not "diverse". Diverse means you have different weapons for different ranges or functions. Energy draw does very much encourage diverse builds. LRMs for long range harass and support weapons, ACs for direct fire heavy hitting weapons, lasers as follow up weapons and alternate weapons when out of ammo. Small and medium lasers for closer range to produce less heat, SRMs for up close fights where you need more punch, streaks for light mechs that are harder to track with larger weapons. Having combinations of these weapons helps make your mech "diverse" in it's possible effectiveness. Boating medium pulse, or large pulse, or ER large pigeon holes your mech into one useful role while eliminating all other uses. Now ED will help remedy that by how much you can use at once, as well as the increased cooldown means you're encouraged to have other weapons to fire.

[Wintersdark]

There's always this mentality that for some reason bringing 3 PPC's is bad, but 2 PPC's and an AC10 is fine. It's fundamentally the same thing.

Boating isn't a problem. But ED doesn't differentiate; you can run 3 PPC's, or 2PPC's and an AC10, it's exactly the same to ED. It doesn't penalize people for boating, but it doesn't penalize people for not boating either.

This is important, because not all mechs have real options.

Ghost Heat did penalize (some) boating, but not because it was boating. Ghost heat was trying to limit Alpha damage, that is all - the beginning and the end - PGI doesn't care about boating. It's just that the system wasn't good for anything else, and non-boated loadouts could get around GH. That wasn't by design, it was an accidental consequence.

[ScarecrowES]

I don't know about you guys, but I'm tired of band-aids... at this point, we're throwing everything at fixing the MWO heat system except for the system that was actually designed to do the job.

ED already currently incorporates GH on steroids. It still doesn't work. The very premise that ED is built on... that we somehow need to limit alphas was shown to be unworthy the second we started to make exceptions for certain types of damage, certain weapons, etc. It's not even a premise most people agree with... there aren't many people who support the idea of strict limits on pretty much anything in the game, let alone damage.

SO yeah... PGI already combined ED and GH when they set the draw of specific weapons at a level that allows a specific "acceptable" number of them to be fired simultaneously.

PGI has spent a lot of time and money trying to make broken systems workable and find some level of balance using them. Band-aids on band-aids on band-aids.

I'm more than a bit sick of band-aids.