51 replies to this topic

[Mechteric]

They could easily solve the Gauss "problem" by only allowing a single Gauss to be Charged up to fire at a time. That way they could focus more on making a single gauss good again (shorter charge up times, longer charge hold times, maybe even decreased reload time). Mechs with more than one gauss can still easily fire them in succession while the other gauss are reloading.

Edited by CapperDeluxe, 18 January 2017 - 06:21 AM.

[Sjorpha]

Permanently scrapped is my guess, and that's a good thing. It was moronic.

[Bud Crue]

What happened to energy draw?

Pgi happened.
They took a fairly straightforward idea of limiting alphas to 30 without extra consequences, and then over the course of 5 subsequent iterations on the PTS, decided to modify nearly every weapons characteristics in a cacaphony of variables making it impossible to know how any one change was impacting ED or how ED was impacting the weapons or the mechs and players using them. They created a testing environment wherein no matter the virtues of ED it was impossible to see them (if such virtues even existed) because they were guaranteed to be lost in all the noise of all the other changes that they threw on top of it.
Then they pulled it.
That's what happened to ED.

[Novakaine]

Clan Cry Baby and thier IS alt accounts tweeted it to death.
Sad.

[TLBFestus]

Tristan Winter, on 18 January 2017 - 03:58 AM, said:

Since 2012, there haven't really been too many ideas from PGI that were so bad that I rejected them outright and felt like there was no way to modify or salvage them so they could make it into the game. But ED is right at the top of that list. It's fundamentally a bad idea, no matter how you dress it up.

But BloodWolf says differently, so regardless of the fact that your posts tend to make sense and his are poorly conceived, presented and executed, I'm gonna have to say that you, Sir, are still "rightier" than he's ever been.

[cazidin]

Bud Crue, on 18 January 2017 - 06:49 AM, said:

What happened to energy draw?

Pgi happened.
They took a fairly straightforward idea of limiting alphas to 30 without extra consequences, and then over the course of 5 subsequent iterations on the PTS, decided to modify nearly every weapons characteristics in a cacaphony of variables making it impossible to know how any one change was impacting ED or how ED was impacting the weapons or the mechs and players using them. They created a testing environment wherein no matter the virtues of ED it was impossible to see them (if such virtues even existed) because they were guaranteed to be lost in all the noise of all the other changes that they threw on top of it.
Then they pulled it.
That's what happened to ED.

Basically, yeah. The core concept could've and probably would've worked and even shifted the meta around a bit. Instead we got a bloated monster that affected too many systems and was far too complex. If PGI takes anything from Energy Draw, it will probably be to tie Medium and Large Lasers into the same heat family, for ghost heat purposes.

[Gas Guzzler]

Its off the radar for now. Thank god...

Let's keep it that way.

[MechaBattler]

Basically people wanted to keep their high alphas. Simple as that.

People didn't even try it. They just poured their diapers onto the PTS board.

Edited by MechaBattler, 18 January 2017 - 01:57 PM.

[Mawai]

axe64, on 18 January 2017 - 01:56 AM, said:

i think most people ended up not liking it and it would have just changed form alpha meta to dakka ac2 meta and i member that meta way back in open beta no one liked that either

I think most people never even tried it.

Some subset of the community did participate in the PTS and the comments I read from those who did were split with some in favour and some against. There were some decent comments and criticisms made by the folks who tried it and there were a lot of complaints from folks who had not and were worried more about what it could be on the negative side and theory crafting rather than what it was ... there was also naturally some worry that the odds were good that PGI wouldn't get it right in the first place.

Add all that up and you get a pretty negative reaction.

On the other hand, you get a pretty negative reaction on these forums to ANY change ... even ones that some folks have argued in favour of for ages ... there are others who are against the change.

Just look at the whole question of clan vs IS balance. Many clan players will say it is fine. Many IS players will say that clans have an advantage. Vested interest. If the factions were actually balanced you would see equal numbers of posts from both the IS and clan side saying that they were weaker than the other, plus a few from both sides saying the other side was stronger, and there would be justification for both points of view.

As for energy draw, my impression was that the system was overly complex but that it could be successful in limiting the use of high damage alphas ... alphas could still be used but it would reduce overall dps by increasing the time between shots when you insisted on firing them all at the same time. However, the entire solution is predicated on the assumption that high damage alphas are a fundamental problem with MWO balance ... this may be true but I haven't seen any stats to support it.

[Gas Guzzler]

MechaBattler, on 18 January 2017 - 01:56 PM, said:

Basically people wanted to keep their high alphas. Simple as that.

People didn't even try it. They just poured their diapers onto the PTS board.

Since this statement has no evidence to support it I'm going to go ahead and call "BS". Way to try to discredit the argument. I'm sure there is an equal number of people that would support it that didn't even try it. They just see "Oh an alpha limiter? YES PLEASE SAVE ME PGI".

FYI: I tried it multiple times. Almost every single iteration of it.

Novakaine, on 18 January 2017 - 07:53 AM, said:

Clan Cry Baby and thier IS alt accounts tweeted it to death.
Sad.

LOL. Made up, baseless comment. Really grasping here.

Edited by Gas Guzzler, 18 January 2017 - 02:08 PM.

[QuantumButler]

Cion, on 18 January 2017 - 02:06 AM, said:

basically PGI explained what was on their minds for energy draw, the community went all bananas about it (in a bad way),

and PGI basically said: "F it, we put a lot of work into trying to fix Ghost Heat, and the community hated it, we're out of ideas and the community doesn't have a solution either" which translated to company PR lingo is "after further review we have decided to postpone this feature so we can focus our efforts on other endeavors like [insert other stuff to keep players happy]"

Don't try to blame the playerbase for hating a poorly thought out ******** mechanic that was even worse than the ****** mechanic it was already supposed to replace.

In a rare fit of sanity, PGI listened to the valid criticisim of their godawful ghost heat 2.0 system and canned it, the alarming part is just how far along it got before it got tossed out, energy draw was a completely idiotic idea that should have never even been considered for longer than a nanosecond.

Edited by QuantumButler, 18 January 2017 - 02:08 PM.

[MechaBattler]

I can't quote right now because the stupid browser at work doesn't allow it or some such nonsense.

But I DID have someone straight up tell me they didn't try the PTS and they felt they didn't have to. There was that element that simply didn't want the game to change.

[Gas Guzzler]

MechaBattler, on 18 January 2017 - 02:25 PM, said:

But I DID have someone straight up tell me they didn't try the PTS and they felt they didn't have to. There was that element that simply didn't want the game to change.

One person is not the same as implying that most ED opponents didn't try it though. I had someone over VOIP tell me that he didn't try it but "we really need it to take care of the alpha strike problem". Its the same ****, you can't discredit an argument though because someone is talking out of their ***. Many of us did try it, and shocklingly enough, most of my predictions that I made when the concept was discussed became a reality.

[MechaBattler]

The fact people would just throw out "Complex" or "Convoluted" and then say nothing in the face of further scrutiny seems like a sign people weren't even trying it. Everyday of the PTS we would get a new thread with the same thing. Or they'd just call it stupid and not bother with a why.

A new mechanic like that needed more work and fine tuning. But it stayed mostly the same with each test. It eventually became more low heat cap/high dissipation than ED test.

[Gas Guzzler]

MechaBattler, on 18 January 2017 - 02:39 PM, said:

The fact people would just throw out "Complex" or "Convoluted" and then say nothing in the face of further scrutiny seems like a sign people weren't even trying it. Everyday of the PTS we would get a new thread with the same thing. Or they'd just call it stupid and not bother with a why.

A new mechanic like that needed more work and fine tuning. But it stayed mostly the same with each test. It eventually became more low heat cap/high dissipation than ED test.

I had seen enough. The core concept was flawed. Fine tuning cannot correct what was wrong with ED. I have really grown tired of fighting this fight though. it sounds like PGI has moved on, and that's great.

[MechaBattler]

You can't just tease us with that and not give us your in depth treatise on why its flawed.

I have been known to have my mind changed. So far I've only caught bits and pieces from us going across several threads. Right now I feel like part of it is simply you wanting one style of gameplay and me wanting another.

Edited by MechaBattler, 18 January 2017 - 03:09 PM.

[NighthawK1337]

Personally I liked the idea, however I didn't like the implementation.

Every mech gets the same base energy capacity? No thanks.

They tied extra energy capacity to the number of heatsinks but I found that counter intuitive, heatsinks in lore are pumps installed to increase heat transfer, not batteries. Their idea was that engine provided heatsinks so it will indirectly increase energy capacity. They should've at least tied the whole thing to the Engine rating like an Energy Generator would in real life and common sense would dictate.
Smaller mechs get smaller alphas, bigger mechs get bigger alphas, really straightforward concept.

Also every weapon taking 1 energy per damage dealt? the whole point of firearms and missiles was that the energy is stored chemically in the propellant, the only energy required was to activate it, ie. ignite the missile or set off the primer electronically. It would made sense if only the energy based weapons did that or even the gauss rifle, not ACs and Missiles, maybe 1 energy per 3 or 4 damage dealt? This gave another edge to energy weapons besides being lighter and not needing ammo.

Another thing was adding heat when the cap is exceeded, they can argue the engine is stressed out but that is really stretching it. A better solution I think would be to cause a partial shutdown of the mech, like make the weapons offline for a bit until the energy bar is back to 100% from negative% like a forced chain fire, then maybe add the heat if the pilot chooses to override and exceed the cap. Adding a penalty like this would still allow high alphas but at a significant disadvantage since it will make the overall DPS a lot lower, they could also make it that it takes longer to recover if you exceed it by a big percentage. Just adding heat will also make it unbalanced for IS and Clans since Clans in general have a higher heatsink count and therefore could exceed the cap and still dissipate heat faster.

Edited by NighthawK1337, 18 January 2017 - 03:37 PM.

[Novakaine]

Gas Guzzler, on 18 January 2017 - 02:05 PM, said:

Since this statement has no evidence to support it I'm going to go ahead and call "BS". Way to try to discredit the argument. I'm sure there is an equal number of people that would support it that didn't even try it. They just see "Oh an alpha limiter? YES PLEASE SAVE ME PGI".

FYI: I tried it multiple times. Almost every single iteration of it.



LOL. Made up, baseless comment. Really grasping here.

Seriously the disingenuousness around here is literally astounding.
Grasping I think not.

[jjm1]

I never tested ED, but I was looking forward to dumping ghost heat.

Us long term players have just learned to live with GH and all its quirks. But for new players its a flimsy set of arbitrary laws that take longer to come to terms with than anything else in the game.

Hell, I still shut myself down from cold and end my game by accidentally miscalculating the fraction of a second you have to wait between double ER-PPC shots. Its anything but an elegant system.

A possible solution would be if your mech physically can not fire enough weapons at once to trigger GH. Then introduce an elegant UI system for making optimal staggered firing options for 2x2 PPC chains 6x6 laser chains etc so no one has to use a macro for it.

[Bud Crue]

Novakaine, on 18 January 2017 - 04:07 PM, said:

Seriously the disingenuousness around here is literally astounding.
Grasping I think not.

I tested all but one iteration. I freely admit to initially being indifferent to the original 30 point limit or suffer the consequences aspect. I felt that all this would do is make alpha warriors learn a new skill of splitting their alphas and placing more value on timing. No big deal. Most of my builds were lower alphas anyway.

But then over the next several versions it became impossible to determine if ED was a blessing or a curse regardless of how you played. From the charge, no charge, charge again gauss, the extra heat in some but not all SRMs, auto cannons that were now as hot as lasers, Atlases that could not longer alpha, but boating Battlemasters could, etc there was simply no way to determine -or even guess- how ED was a factor in your performance.

It didn't take "alts" spamming PGI saying they hated ED to kill it. All it took was the way PGI instituted and tested it to guarantee its failure.