28 replies to this topic

[Brandarr Gunnarson]

@naterist:

At first I thought you were trolling!

Unfortunately, no one likes randomization on that level. People want to at least predict a probability of the outcome.

But, yeah, pilot death-by-heat is also a thing that is missing from MWO.

Leopardo, on 05 October 2016 - 10:52 PM, said:

interrsting and understandable - i was thinking about that - we have what we need the bar that limits - just add the penalies and make it clear to see when and what youll got after overheting - nerfing weapons and lowering output dmg..and nuber of weapons ....thats kind of - taking fun out of the game guys - in not power creep...in basicly light driver - spider 5k driver.....i dont need that power to kill....but i dont want ot game become less dangerous....less variatable - and with the ed nerfs we going to have a problems with assaults as i see

I think you might need to adjust some numbers on weapons, but not too many, actually. I think removing capacity and adding incremental penalties for heat really would help solve a lot of problems that our current heat capacity system has created.

Cold Darkness, on 06 October 2016 - 01:06 PM, said:

you never even bothered to try to understand the current heat mechanics, did you? its not hard to figure out either, i suggest you do so before you continue to suggest alternatives, because understanding where you started is kind of important.

Ok. I don't know what you think I don't understand. Also, if I don't understand it, I can't identify what it is I don't understand.

So, why don't you explain what you think I don't understand?

Bear in mind that I think our current heat system works like this:

• Heat capacity is a threshold at which a 'Mech with that much heat shuts down and beyond which it begins taking damage. That threshold has a base of 30 that is increased according to how many heatsinks a 'Mech is equipped with.
  
• Heat dissipation is the rate at which heat is removed from a 'Mech. That rate is increased according to how many heastinks a 'Mech is equipped with.

[Taxxian]

Brandarr Gunnarson, on 06 October 2016 - 07:48 PM, said:

So, why don't you explain what you think I don't understand?

Thats easy enough:

In TT you have 30 capacity:
1. you fire your weapons and get heat
2. then your heat sinks do their work
3. this all is supposed take 10 seconds
4. now your penalties due to overheat are calculated and you suffer them for the whole next 10 seconds

So basically your TT heat sinks do raise your capacity by effectively working for 10s before the penalty is calculated!

This is extremely close to what MWO heat sinks do, except that you dont need 10s to fire all your weapons so they are calculated for 5s... but thats not the heat sinks fault..

So everyone who argues that DHS in TT do not raise cap and therefore should not in MWO obviously did not understand the mechanics...

Easy example:
You have 20 TT-DHS and fire 4 TT IS ER PPC:

TT:
You start with 0 Heat -> you generate 60 Heat -> your DHS dissipate 40 Heat -> you get penalties for and start the next round with: 20 Heat

MWO without DHS capa:
You start with 0 Heat -> you generate 60 Heat -> you get penalties for 60 Heat -> you die (200% of Heat capa reached) -> you start the next game only using Gauss and ACs^^

MWO with Live Server DHS:
You start with 0 Heat -> you generate 60 Heat -> you get penalties for 60 Heat whilst having a capa of 60 so its 0 penalties -> 11,76s later you are at 20 Heat and may think about shooting again
So live Server DHS are not better that TT DHS, they are in fact worse...

Edited by Taxxian, 06 October 2016 - 11:20 PM.

[Cold Darkness]

Taxxian, on 06 October 2016 - 10:52 PM, said:

-snip-
So live Server DHS are not better that TT DHS, they are in fact worse...

tyvm, even though the last sentence isnt really related to his question and a whole different thing

@ brandarr: you are lucky this guy showed up to repeat that stuff for you, because i sure as heck wouldnt bother doing it for someone that just ignored it while not even realizing it.

Edited by Cold Darkness, 07 October 2016 - 12:24 AM.

[Brandarr Gunnarson]

@Cold Darkness:

Just to be clear, Taxxian's explanations of how TT and live MWO work are exactly how I understand them (and also exactly how I described them in different words.

I'm still not clear what you think I don't understand.

Taxxian, on 06 October 2016 - 10:52 PM, said:

Easy example:
You have 20 TT-DHS and fire 4 TT IS ER PPC:

TT:
You start with 0 Heat -> you generate 60 Heat -> your DHS dissipate 40 Heat -> you get penalties for and start the next round with: 20 Heat

True, but highly misleading.

You do realize you left out the important detail that carrying 20 heat is already past the point of potential shutdown, right? You do also realize that all that weapon firing, heat generation and dissipation occurred over a 10s timeframe, right?

Taxxian, on 06 October 2016 - 10:52 PM, said:

MWO with Live Server DHS:
You start with 0 Heat -> you generate 60 Heat -> you get penalties for 60 Heat whilst having a capa of 60 so its 0 penalties -> 11,76s later you are at 20 Heat and may think about shooting again
So live Server DHS are not better that TT DHS, they are in fact worse...

Pretty accurate.

Taxxian, on 06 October 2016 - 10:52 PM, said:

MWO without DHS capa:
You start with 0 Heat -> you generate 60 Heat -> you get penalties for 60 Heat -> you die (200% of Heat capa reached) -> you start the next game only using Gauss and ACs^^

Or you could just not shoot all 4 ERPPCs in an alpha and instead shoot them successively, as they were intended.

Ultimately, these representations are only accurate to a point and largely misrepresented.

Edited by Brandarr Gunnarson, 09 October 2016 - 05:04 PM.

[Cold Darkness]

lets make this VERY simple:

to emulate a tabletop heatscale system a mwo heatsink MUST store heat equal to its dissipation rate. the deviations from those values exist for balancing and flavour reasons only.

if you where to add heat penaltys to mwo, youd need to add them for last 30 points of your total heatcapacity, not the overall heatcapacity. if this would be added, it would be the most true-to-TT-rules heatscale you could possibly achieve within a realtime battletech game. (while keeping it simple enough for people to understand)

Edited by Cold Darkness, 10 October 2016 - 09:26 AM.

[Taxxian]

Brandarr Gunnarson, on 09 October 2016 - 04:59 PM, said:

True, but highly misleading.

You do realize you left out the important detail that carrying 20 heat is already past the point of potential shutdown, right? You do also realize that all that weapon firing, heat generation and dissipation occurred over a 10s timeframe, right?

No it is not you can just use 3 ERPPC, that will give you minimal penalties in TT and still shut you down and probably kill you in your scenario.

Yes all weapons are basically fired individually over 10s in TT but do you really think it will be fun if we would have to fire all weapons one by one? Maybe with 1s cooldown in between? That would make all kinds of Medium and Small Lasers a complete joke... and I honestly dont think it would be fun... Further it may actually cause health problems with your hand in case of the 12 SPL Nova... :-)

If we would still be allowed to fire multiple weapons at once, no one would ever grab a PPC/Laser again, there would only be ACs all over the place and 80% of all Mechs would be useless because of not enough Ballistic-Hardpoints...

Reducing Heat Capacity a little may be ok, but 30 is not enough...

[Knighthawk26]

Two quick points then some encourgement for PGI.

1. Yep, keep it simple, please.
2. Listen to the feedback from us, the guys who buy mechs and play MWO

OK, let's all admit that we may not like quirks and ghost heat but MWO is pretty balanced overall. A good player can get kills, even KMDD's with any weight class. Some mechs are slightly better overall, but right now there is a good balance between laser vomits, dakka's, sniper builds, even LRM boats. Every role can be effective if the pilot plays his mech to its advantages.

MWO is not table top Battletech or Mechwarrior 4 (or 5). There are no story lines or scenarios to provide balance to the game. Many players miss this point and suggest that going back to something like MW4 or table top rules would work. Table top and single player mech games can use set scenarios, or some kind of limited puchasing system for balance, while such a system would likely be impossible for an online multi-player game like MWO. No, MWO must be balanced by the game mechanics.

And MWO is multi-player. You can't tweak the AI for play balance, there isn't one. So PGI had to get creative to find a way to make a great variety of mechs that can be viable, and prevent a single mech, loadout, or tactic from becoming overpowering. This is not easy to do in a multplayer, online game. And PGI has done it, even if we don't like their method.

And if there were no quirks or artificial limits to balance things, then a few mechs would dominate the game. If you want a game with a only a dozen mechs total (or a dozen that are actually useful) then PGI can remove quirks and ghost heat tomorrow. Quirks make different mechs and builds viable in the game.

So, congrats to PGI for the game we have. Your hard work is noticeable. But don't slack up on us now. Keep improving the game so there are enough happy players around to keep playing.

Knighthawk

[Livaria]

I wanted to reinforce the point that not only does the energy draw works. But there are a good amount of people that clearly want this as a system. Because of this, energy draw could turn out to be fine. I won't ignore that there is still the risk for the other people that don't like it, and It could turn them away from the game. This is why I really want more play-testers on the server. So that more players can develop stronger opinions.

I for one, am okay with the system as it is now. I can manage the system very well from my end. But I am an experienced player. So I really want to know how newer or less performing players see the system. That isn't happening unfortunately. The fate of energy draw is greatly dependent on others people perception. What matters most, is how many players will still like the game during the time that energy draw is active.

[Remover of Obstacles]

Nicely stated post.

I think your last line sums up the issue at hand.

PGI/Russ has completely ignored player perception time and time again. Look at Long Tom. It is primarily responsible for the decimation of the Faction Play population. But it is still in game. Throughout the Bukkit 'round table', Russ's ego about the greatness of Long Tom was scary. Thankfully Bombadil from NGNG brought up Long Tom or we may still be without a 'fixed' Long Tom.

Livaria, on 16 October 2016 - 01:59 AM, said:

The fate of energy draw is greatly dependent on others people perception. What matters most, is how many players will still like the game during the time that energy draw is active.