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Why Not Simplify Things?


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#1 Brandarr Gunnarson

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Posted 27 September 2016 - 06:07 PM

First, I applaud PGI for putting this on the PTS to begin with. This is what they should do with every change, even those that are minor.

On to the topic at hand.

Watching the devolution of ED is painful. And I don't understand why we need the complexity of a secondary restrictive system when we have heat.

Also, why have a "soft cap" at all? What is the purpose of making 30 the "ideal number" for an alpha?

Why not just use heat like ED, start at 1 heat and put it on a curve? That is, do 1 heat and get no penalty, do progressively more and more heat and get progressively greater penalties. The penalties could be relatively flat at the low end and extreme on the high end.

Penalties could be on anything and everything from mobility to weapon performance to 'Mech damage. Maybe all, but at certain thresholds; maybe any, but randomly applied so we don't know what's going to go wrong with our 'Mech or when.

Then, use the internal weapon stats to balance the weapon internally. Where damage is the core stat of the weapon all the other stats are balancing factors.

That is, link damage to heat/duration/recycle and use ratios that are consistent across weapons to create relative equality while preserving unique functional characteristics.

It's much simpler. This complexity of systems and arbitrary benchmarking is tiresome and ineffective.

Edit:
Additionally, if you have no "soft cap" on heat you could discard the entire idea of heatsinks providing heat capacity and focus entirely on the dissipation. That would allow for a much greater clarity of distinction between SHS, CDHS, and DHS.

Edited by Brandarr Gunnarson, 27 September 2016 - 06:15 PM.


#2 Gen82

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Posted 27 September 2016 - 06:25 PM

Simple is goooood. For another thing, I don't want another HUD item to have to keep track of so I don't blow myself up.

Simple keeps the math easy, with small tweaks for balance.

#3 Livaria

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Posted 29 September 2016 - 02:34 PM

The objective of power draw is simply to tax alphas in a meaningful way. Our current heat system doesn't account for any of that. It just limits the amount of how much weapons a players can fire over a period of time.

Of course there are other ways to tax players for firing a large alpha strike besides heat such as weapon convergence. But heat was agreed on. This is because It was thought to be the easiest thing that inexperienced players could understand.

#4 Brandarr Gunnarson

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Posted 29 September 2016 - 06:17 PM

View PostLivaria, on 29 September 2016 - 02:34 PM, said:

The objective of power draw is simply to tax alphas in a meaningful way. Our current heat system doesn't account for any of that. It just limits the amount of how much weapons a players can fire over a period of time.

Of course there are other ways to tax players for firing a large alpha strike besides heat such as weapon convergence. But heat was agreed on. This is because It was thought to be the easiest thing that inexperienced players could understand.


I understand that.

I simply believe that it could be done within a single heat based system and that arbitrary numbers for a soft cap (like 30) for it to "kick in" seem forced and unnecessary.

Also, I'm thinking that heat capacity as a variable at all is also actually unnecessary. A progressively more penalizing heat curve that ultimately ends in your own destruction seems a simpler and more effective way to go.

I'm always amazed at propensity to seek complex solutions over simple ones. Complexity does not make a system better. Often, it makes it worse.

#5 Livaria

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Posted 29 September 2016 - 08:00 PM

Well I've already started a topic on other potential alternatives instead of heat. But no one seemed interested at the time. I gave them an opportunity to say anything on the matter. But alas, nothing. For better or for worse, it will be heat for now. If players want something besides heat; say it now.

Personally, I don't really have a strong opinion on what the penalty is. I just hope that people know what they are getting into before they complain. I'll point out that I'm not really won over by the whole simplicty/complexity speech. This is mainly because the solution that energy draw attempts to solve is a different matter from what the heat gauge solves. For each new issue, there has to be a new solution. Simplicity be damned if I have to use a wrench instead of a screwdriver.

Objectively; I think energy draw does it's job perfectly well.
Subjectively; I'm not sure if the heat penalty is what players really want.

Edited by Livaria, 29 September 2016 - 08:28 PM.


#6 Cold Darkness

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Posted 30 September 2016 - 12:34 PM

just pointing out that ED is a much simpler system then trying to think in heatcurves midbattle.

#7 Brandarr Gunnarson

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Posted 30 September 2016 - 08:45 PM

View PostCold Darkness, on 30 September 2016 - 12:34 PM, said:

just pointing out that ED is a much simpler system then trying to think in heatcurves midbattle.


Well, you wouldn't think or "see" the curve in the battle. You would just see the heat bar we have now, but maybe with different colors.

You would know when you are getting hot and then you would see the functional results of it and since that would affect the performance of the 'Mech you would know to cool down.

You wouldn't have to worry about hitting a "magic number" alpha. Since heat capacity would no longer exist, you'd only have to worry about having enough heatsinks to provide dissipation that makes you "heat neutral".

I think that's pretty simple, actually.

Edit:
It also addresses alpha's because there is no heat capacity at all. So again, no "magic number" to keep heat or damage under and no soft cap that increases with the number of heatsinks.

Edited by Brandarr Gunnarson, 30 September 2016 - 08:48 PM.


#8 Brandarr Gunnarson

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Posted 30 September 2016 - 09:08 PM

View PostLivaria, on 29 September 2016 - 08:00 PM, said:

Objectively; I think energy draw does it's job perfectly well.
Subjectively; I'm not sure if the heat penalty is what players really want.


^This.

Lots of systems, especially complex ones, often look good on paper. That's because they are nuanced, well presented and include using lots of data.

Unfortunately, those same reasons are why they don't work so well in the real world. People don't like to have to think about the details at every turn. They tend to be attracted to what looks good but unsatisfied with what is difficult to use. Collecting and collating lots of data is tedious, but without that detailed info, nuanced systems with complex processes can't work.

And thus, ED seems to be a fine example of how implementing complexity makes something unintuitive and difficult to use.

#9 Cold Darkness

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Posted 01 October 2016 - 02:45 AM

no heat capacity at all? you just wrote your mech blows up if you go to high in heat. thats what heat capacity is.

i dont want to be a party pooper or anything, but i do not think that this is simpler at all. ESPECIALLY because you do not see the curve. the static systems we have now give you more control over your mechs at all times. that does not mean that we do have a good system currently, it just means that even ED will give you more control over your mechs actions by setting clear limitations instead of curving penaltys, which makes it hard to impossible to recalculate your heatgains midcombat.

take note that my concern is entirely about the curved penalties. penalties for certain heat threshholds are a whole different story and i dont care about them, because implementing those is a straightforward thing.

#10 Brandarr Gunnarson

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Posted 01 October 2016 - 05:40 PM

View PostCold Darkness, on 01 October 2016 - 02:45 AM, said:

no heat capacity at all? you just wrote your mech blows up if you go to high in heat. thats what heat capacity is.

i dont want to be a party pooper or anything, but i do not think that this is simpler at all. ESPECIALLY because you do not see the curve. the static systems we have now give you more control over your mechs at all times. that does not mean that we do have a good system currently, it just means that even ED will give you more control over your mechs actions by setting clear limitations instead of curving penaltys, which makes it hard to impossible to recalculate your heatgains midcombat.

take note that my concern is entirely about the curved penalties. penalties for certain heat threshholds are a whole different story and i dont care about them, because implementing those is a straightforward thing.


By putting the penalties on a curve, I basically meant that heat goes up, progressively more severe penalties are applied. Of course you need thresholds! (A curve is still a line, you know?)

By no capacity, I meant that there is no "magic number" where heat magically starts applying (and anything under that number has no effect). That also means that heatsinks can't add to that magic number (since it doesn't exist).

Further, by no capacity I meant that heat could theoretically go infinitely high. In function it obviously couldn't because your 'Mech would blow up way before it got there.

As a note, heat capacity is the range of heat in which your 'Mech may operate and outside of which your 'Mech shuts down and/or begins taking damage. This range may be increased by adding heatsinks. My proposal is to eliminate this range and simply have greater heat have greater effect on the 'Mech.

Edit:
I think if you look at it this way, it may seem more reasonable to you.

Edited by Brandarr Gunnarson, 01 October 2016 - 05:47 PM.


#11 Chuck Jager

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Posted 03 October 2016 - 12:22 PM

If we lost 30% of the weapons and mechs plus got rid of asymmetrical tech, we could go with a more simple solution.

What is happening is we have a huge difference in output based on old tech/mechs and really bad builds versus the middle of the road and OP builds. There is a huge gap in an elited mech with a good to OP build especially with a full set of modules. Even top tier meta players love playing with builds.

ED is kinda like government. The more folks/options you have, there ends up with more way to exploit them. So there is a need to to add laws that become complex. It is a bad cycle. Just think of ED like modern day airport security. Everybody wants our skies to be safe and a lower chance of human flown bombs, until they have to arrive at the airport 1hr early and take of their shoes.

#12 Remover of Obstacles

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Posted 04 October 2016 - 03:12 PM

If only there was like one chart that covered all of the ED nerfs that was easy to understand and simple.


http://mwo.smurfy-ne...eapon_heatscale


View PostGen82, on 27 September 2016 - 06:25 PM, said:

Simple is goooood. For another thing, I don't want another HUD item to have to keep track of so I don't blow myself up.

Simple keeps the math easy, with small tweaks for balance.


#13 Reno Blade

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Posted 05 October 2016 - 08:38 AM

View PostRemover of Obstacles, on 04 October 2016 - 03:12 PM, said:

If only there was like one chart that covered all of the ED nerfs that was easy to understand and simple.


http://mwo.smurfy-ne...eapon_heatscale

You mean like these comparison graphs?

View PostReno Blade, on 27 September 2016 - 03:10 AM, said:

Update for PTS5

PTS5 base values:
-----------------------------------
Energy pool = 30
Multiplier Dmg/Draw = 1.0 and 0,75 for Spread (SRM, LRM, LBX), Lasers using 0.9 (except for LPulse, using 1.0)
Multiplier for penalty = 1.4 over the 30 limit for all weapons


Energy (including LP and cLP)
-----------------------------------
Posted Image

cERSL
Spoiler


ML
Spoiler


cERML
Spoiler


ERLL
Spoiler


PPC
Spoiler


cERPPC
Spoiler





Ballistics
-----------------------------------
Posted Image

AC5
Spoiler


AC10
Spoiler


cUAC10
Spoiler


AC20
Spoiler


cUAC20
Spoiler


Gauss
Spoiler




Missiles
-----------------------------------
Posted Image

SRM6
Spoiler


LRM10
Spoiler


LRM15
Spoiler


LRM20
Spoiler



#14 tokumboh

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Posted 05 October 2016 - 11:34 AM

I think heat should be the only determinant. I believe that heatsinks should adjust you heat capacity and that is all. If you want to stop high alphas and boating lower the heat sink capacity. ED adds but a system that allows 3 PPC to be fired on assaults which was deemed bad in live server. So it does not stop boating it hardly stop high alpha outputs in the sense that most people can control their mech well enough to have weapon group and fire in sequence indeed no there is no hard 0.5 second delay so you can fire earlier and have significantly less penalty.

The reality is that if we want longer games we need to reduce the heat capacity of heat sinks but nobody wants that so we layer system on system to fix a problem we are not in favour of fixing properly.

There will alwys be a meta somewhere I think we are trying to hard to squash it and indeed I fear that the PTS itself has just petered out without a decent conclusion it is now more complex and paradoxically now makes short range missiles the new vomit in many ways and seems to punish ballistics.

Lastly I think I would prefer a decent set of game modes, more maps (and no voting please I never see a hot map these days) and would prefer a subscription system rather than relying on us buy mechs all the time. it may push resources to other improvements

#15 Cold Darkness

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Posted 05 October 2016 - 01:34 PM

View Posttokumboh, on 05 October 2016 - 11:34 AM, said:

I think heat should be the only determinant. I believe that heatsinks should adjust you heat capacity and that is all. If you want to stop high alphas and boating lower the heat sink capacity. ED adds but a system that allows 3 PPC to be fired on assaults which was deemed bad in live server. So it does not stop boating it hardly stop high alpha outputs in the sense that most people can control their mech well enough to have weapon group and fire in sequence indeed no there is no hard 0.5 second delay so you can fire earlier and have significantly less penalty.

The reality is that if we want longer games we need to reduce the heat capacity of heat sinks but nobody wants that so we layer system on system to fix a problem we are not in favour of fixing properly.

There will alwys be a meta somewhere I think we are trying to hard to squash it and indeed I fear that the PTS itself has just petered out without a decent conclusion it is now more complex and paradoxically now makes short range missiles the new vomit in many ways and seems to punish ballistics.

Lastly I think I would prefer a decent set of game modes, more maps (and no voting please I never see a hot map these days) and would prefer a subscription system rather than relying on us buy mechs all the time. it may push resources to other improvements



a) heatsinks add heatcapacity to emulate their use of the table top turns. a heatsink is supposed to store as much heat as it is dissipating in one turn
b ) due to this behaviour, and tabletops 30-heat-heatscale we do have 30 baseheat representing that heatscale on every mech.
c) the metagame can be changed but not "squashed" because the metagame is simply the most effective/popular things being played. you ALWAYS have a metagame in EVERY game. as game designer you simply aim to evolve your metagame into integrating ALL of your content. not just parts of it. this is what usualy fails and why "metagame" somehow became a synonym for all bad things in games (which is wrong.).
d) as stated multiple times, mech development is done by different people then map/mode development, hence the ressources wouldnt be used differently if the source of income changes, since its all different people working on different things simultanously - at least in theory
e) ppcs alphas got out of hand with the stalker which didnt fire 3 ppcs at once. it fired 6. major difference. current 2 ppc ghost heat is a joke compared to alot of other things ghost heat does allow.
f) if ballistics are somewhat punished in the new system, that would actually be a success. the only question is "how much" are they punished and if that is allready to much or maybe not enough. (ac5-class weapons didnt recieve nerfs without reasons.)
g) do you know why LPLs are so much scarier then LLs ? its burn time. do you know what makes LPLs alot less scary? adding .5 seconds penalty evading time into an alpha. why? because now you may as well have fired LLs instead. oh, wait, those suddenly would require more time now, too. in the end 0.5 seconds is enough time to give you as a player a big enough window of opportunity to react and make your play, unlike a single big slap in your face all at once. as one ****** once said: if they slap your left cheek, show em your right cheek to slap, too. maybe not with those words, but you get the point.

Edited by Cold Darkness, 05 October 2016 - 01:37 PM.


#16 Livaria

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Posted 05 October 2016 - 02:35 PM

How many people would be happier if it was just weapon convergence instead of heat? It makes more sense to me at least.

Edited by Livaria, 05 October 2016 - 02:36 PM.


#17 Brandarr Gunnarson

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Posted 05 October 2016 - 06:18 PM

@Reno Blade:

Thanks for the charts, they're great!

They also illustrate the added complexity of ED + heat. It's not intuitive. You can only understand it with study.

View PostCold Darkness, on 05 October 2016 - 01:34 PM, said:

a) heatsinks add heatcapacity to emulate their use of the table top turns. a heatsink is supposed to store as much heat as it is dissipating in one turn


But they don't. That is, they don't add heat capacity to emulate TT because in TT heatsinks functionally only provide dissipation (albeit instant dissipation)

View PostCold Darkness, on 05 October 2016 - 01:34 PM, said:

b ) due to this behaviour, and tabletops 30-heat-heatscale we do have 30 baseheat representing that heatscale on every mech.


But the 30 base heat we have now does not represent the TT 30-heat heatscale because the TT heatscale was an absolute range (where 30 really represents 100%) and MWO 30 base heat is a safe-zone range that can be increased by adding heatsinks.

Those are serious discrepancies and even though the number (30) looks similar the function is completely disparate.

@Livaria:
Maybe, but it seems that heat has always been a facet of Battletech. Besides, it's (supposed to be) an integral balancing factor, especially for energy weapons.

#18 naterist

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Posted 05 October 2016 - 08:03 PM

how about a system were if you cross a certain, unknowable heat level, your pilot dies screaming.

i say unknowable because if your heat goes over 100%, in the lore, a pilot was running a gamble of frying t death in his cockpit. in game we dont suffer this, so laser alpha builds only need to look at their CT's health before going way over the heat scale, because they have an idea of how many more alphas their CT can take. if you go over 100% heat in game, at a randomized number that could be anything from 1 percent over heat capacity to whatever the devs agree is a good upper limit number, your pilot will insta die from over heat. that means people may risk over heat occasionally for a kill, but the laser boats who depend on their alphas would be insanely woried about heat at all times, because one miscalculation could kill them, just by passing over the heat threshold once. lower heat builds wont have to worry as much because they have much less of a chance of overheating.

this would aply to all mechs (glares at laser storm ebon jag) so its not like its an unfare nerf to one specific mech.(though im open to nerfs, nerf away). its just a thing that you have to keep in mind, and gives a reason why popping up, alpha stiking, then cooling off in shutdown behind those buildings you just popped over isnt the best idea in the world, and it gives a serious incentive not to overheat, cause right now, there are tricks you can implement to avoid return fire in your shutdown, like prepositioning and what not. come to think of it, people are basically just doing the jump sniping i remember from mw4, without the jumpjets..... same concept, different technique.

#19 Leopardo

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Posted 05 October 2016 - 10:52 PM

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

#20 Cold Darkness

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Posted 06 October 2016 - 01:06 PM

View PostBrandarr Gunnarson, on 05 October 2016 - 06:18 PM, said:

But they don't. That is, they don't add heat capacity to emulate TT because in TT heatsinks functionally only provide dissipation (albeit instant dissipation)



But the 30 base heat we have now does not represent the TT 30-heat heatscale because the TT heatscale was an absolute range (where 30 really represents 100%) and MWO 30 base heat is a safe-zone range that can be increased by adding heatsinks.

Those are serious discrepancies and even though the number (30) looks similar the function is completely disparate.


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.

Edited by Cold Darkness, 06 October 2016 - 01:07 PM.






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